| |
| THUS in alternate uproar and sad peace, | |
| Amazed were those Titans utterly. | |
| O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes; | |
| For thou art weak to sing such tumults dire: | |
| A solitary sorrow best befits | 5 |
| Thy lips, and antheming a lonely grief. | |
| Leave them, O Muse! for thou anon wilt find | |
| Many a fallen old Divinity | |
| Wandering in vain about bewildered shores. | |
| Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, | 10 |
| And not a wind of heaven but will breathe | |
| In aid soft warble from the Dorian flute; | |
| For lo! ’tis for the Father of all verse. | |
| Flush every thing that hath a vermeil hue, | |
| Let the rose glow intense and warm the air, | 15 |
| And let the clouds of even and of morn | |
| Float in voluptuous fleeces o’er the hills; | |
| Let the red wine within the goblet boil, | |
| Cold as a bubbling well; let faint-lipp’d shells, | |
| On sands, or in great deeps, vermilion turn | 20 |
| Through all their labyrinths; and let the maid | |
| Blush keenly, as with some warm kiss surpris’d. | |
| Chief isle of the embowered Cyclades, | |
| Rejoice, O Delos, with thine olives green, | |
| And poplars, and lawn-shading palms, and beech, | 25 |
| In which the Zephyr breathes the loudest song, | |
| And hazels thick, dark-stemm’d beneath the shade: | |
| Apollo is once more the golden theme! | |
| Where was he, when the Giant of the Sun | |
| Stood bright, amid the sorrow of his peers? | 30 |
| Together had he left his mother fair | |
| And his twin-sister sleeping in their bower, | |
| And in the morning twilight wandered forth | |
| Beside the osiers of a rivulet, | |
| Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale. | 35 |
| The nightingale had ceas’d, and a few stars | |
| Were lingering in the heavens, while the thrush | |
| Began calm-throated. Throughout all the isle | |
| There was no covert, no retired cave | |
| Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, | 40 |
| Though scarcely heard in many a green recess. | |
| He listen’d, and he wept, and his bright tears | |
| Went trickling down the golden bow he held. | |
| Thus with half-shut suffused eyes he stood, | |
| While from beneath some cumbrous boughs hard by | 45 |
| With solemn step an awful Goddess came, | |
| And there was purport in her looks for him, | |
| Which he with eager guess began to read | |
| Perplex’d, the while melodiously he said: | |
| “How cam’st thou over the unfooted sea? | 50 |
| “Or hath that antique mien and robed form | |
| “Mov’d in these vales invisible till now? | |
| “Sure I have heard those vestments sweeping o’er | |
| “The fallen leaves, when I have sat alone | |
| “In cool mid-forest. Surely I have traced | 55 |
| “The rustle of those ample skirts about | |
| “These grassy solitudes, and seen the flowers | |
| “Lift up their heads, as still the whisper pass’d. | |
| “Goddess! I have beheld those eyes before, | |
| “And their eternal calm, and all that face, | 60 |
| “Or I have dream’d.”—“Yes,” said the supreme shape, | |
| “Thou hast dream’d of me; and awaking up | |
| “Didst find a lyre all golden by thy side, | |
| “Whose strings touch’d by thy fingers, all the vast | |
| “Unwearied ear of the whole universe | 65 |
| “Listen’d in pain and pleasure at the birth | |
| “Of such new tuneful wonder. Is’t not strange | |
| “That thou shouldst weep, so gifted? Tell me, youth, | |
| “What sorrow thou canst feel; for I am sad | |
| “When thou dost shed a tear: explain thy griefs | 70 |
| “To one who in this lonely isle hath been | |
| “The watcher of thy sleep and hours of life, | |
| “From the young day when first thy infant hand | |
| “Pluck’d witless the weak flowers, till thine arm | |
| “Could bend that bow heroic to all times. | 75 |
| “Show thy heart’s secret to an ancient Power | |
| “Who hath forsaken old and sacred thrones | |
| “For prophecies of thee, and for the sake | |
| “Of loveliness new born.”—Apollo then, | |
| With sudden scrutiny and gloomless eyes, | 80 |
| Thus answer’d, while his white melodious throat | |
| Throbb’d with the syllables.—“Mnemosyne! | |
| “Thy name is on my tongue, I know not how; | |
| “Why should I tell thee what thou so well seest? | |
| “Why should I strive to show what from thy lips | 85 |
| “Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark, | |
| “And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes: | |
| “I strive to search wherefore I am so sad, | |
| “Until a melancholy numbs my limbs; | |
| “And then upon the grass I sit, and moan, | 90 |
| “Like one who once had wings.—O why should I | |
| “Feel curs’d and thwarted, when the liegeless air | |
| “Yields to my step aspirant? why should I | |
| “Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet? | |
| “Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing: | 95 |
| “Are there not other regions than this isle? | |
| “What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun! | |
| “And the most patient brilliance of the moon! | |
| “And stars by thousands! Point me out the way | |
| “To any one particular beauteous star, | 100 |
| “And I will flit into it with my lyre, | |
| “And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss. | |
| “I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power? | |
| “Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity | |
| “Makes this alarum in the elements, | 105 |
| “While I here idle listen on the shores | |
| “In fearless yet in aching ignorance? | |
| “O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp, | |
| “That waileth every morn and eventide, | |
| “Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves! | 110 |
| “Mute thou remainest—Mute! yet I can read | |
| “A wondrous lesson in thy silent face: | |
| “Knowledge enormous makes a God of me. | |
| “Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions, | |
| “Majesties, sovran voices, agonies, | 115 |
| “Creations and destroyings, all at once | |
| “Pour into the wide hollows of my brain, | |
| “And deify me, as if some blithe wine | |
| “Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk, | |
| “And so become immortal.”—Thus the God, | 120 |
| While his enkindled eyes, with level glance | |
| Beneath his white soft temples, stedfast kept | |
| Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne. | |
| Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush | |
| All the immortal fairness of his limbs; | 125 |
| Most like the struggle at the gate of death; | |
| Or liker still to one who should take leave | |
| Of pale immortal death, and with a pang | |
| As hot as death’s is chill, with fierce convulse | |
| Die into life: so young Apollo anguish’d; | 130 |
| His very hair, his golden tresses famed | |
| Kept undulation round his eager neck. | |
| During the pain Mnemosyne upheld | |
| Her arms as one who prophesied.—At length | |
| Apollo shriek’d;—and lo! from all his limbs | 135 |
Celestial * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
THE END. | |
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