John Keats

“ Above her, on a crag’s uneasy shelve,
Upon his elbow rais’d, all prostrate else,
Shadow’d Enceladus; once tame and mild
As grazing ox unworried in the meads;
Now tiger-passion’d, lion-thoughted, wroth,
He meditated, plotted, and even now
Was hurling mountains in that second war,
Not long delay’d, that scar’d the younger Gods
To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird. ”

“ A disanointing poison: so that Thea,
Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass
First onwards in, among the fallen tribe.
As with us mortal men, the laden heart
Is persecuted more, and fever’d more,
When it is nighing to the mournful house
Where other hearts are sick of the same bruise;
So Saturn, as he walk’d into the midst,
Felt faint, and would have sunk among the rest,
But that he met Enceladus’s eye,
Whose mightiness, and awe of him, at once
Came like an inspiration; and he shouted,
“Titans, behold your God!” at which some groan’d;
Some started on their feet; some also shouted ”

“ She was a Goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
Had stood a pigmy’s height: she would have ta’en
Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;
Or with a finger stay’d Ixion’s wheel.
Her face was large as that of Memphian sphinx,
Pedestal’d haply in a palace court,
When sages look’d to Egypt for their lore.
But oh! how unlike marble was that face:
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made
Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self. ”

“ And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense
Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were;
While still the dazzling globe maintain’d eclipse,
Awaiting for Hyperion’s command.
Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne
And bid the day begin, if but for change.
He might not:—No, though a primeval God:
The sacred seasons might not be disturb’d.
Therefore the operations of the dawn
Stay’d in their birth, even as here ’tis told.
Those silver wings expanded sisterly,
Eager to sail their orb; the porches wide
Open’d upon the dusk demesnes of night ”

“ O spectres busy in a cold, cold gloom!
“O lank-ear’d Phantoms of black-weeded pools!
“Why do I know ye? why have I seen ye? why
“Is my eternal essence thus distraught
“To see and to behold these horrors new?
“Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall? ”

“ We fall by course of Nature’s law, not force
“Of thunder, or of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
“Hast sifted well the atom-universe;
“But for this reason, that thou art the King,
“And only blind from sheer supremacy,
“One avenue was shaded from thine eyes,
“Through which I wandered to eternal truth.
“And first, as thou wast not the first of powers,
“So art thou not the last; it cannot be:
“Thou art not the beginning nor the end.
“From chaos and parental darkness came
“Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil,
“That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends
“Was ripening in itself. ”

“ Unhinges the poor world;—not in that strife,
“Wherefrom I take strange lore, and read it deep,
“Can I find reason why ye should be thus:
“No, no-where can unriddle, though I search,
“And pore on Nature’s universal scroll
“Even to swooning, why ye, Divinities,
“The first-born of all shap’d and palpable Gods,
“Should cower beneath what, in comparison,
“Is untremendous might. Yet ye are here,
“O’erwhelm’d, and spurn’d, and batter’d, ye are here!
“O Titans, shall I say ‘Arise!’—Ye groan:
“Shall I say ‘Crouch!’—Ye groan. What can I then?
“O Heaven wide! O unseen parent dear! ”

“ As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
Those green-rob’d senators of mighty woods,
Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night without a stir,
Save from one gradual solitary gust
Which comes upon the silence, and dies off,
As if the ebbing air had but one wave; ”

“ 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 ”

“ Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs;
“And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth
“In form and shape compact and beautiful,
“In will, in action free, companionship,
“And thousand other signs of purer life;
“So on our heels a fresh perfection treads,
“A power more strong in beauty, born of us
“And fated to excel us, as we pass
“In glory that old Darkness: nor are we
“Thereby more conquer’d, than by us the rule
“Of shapeless Chaos. ”

“ Hyperion from the peak loud answered, “Saturn!
Saturn sat near the Mother of the Gods,
In whose face was no joy, though all the Gods
Gave from their hollow throats the name of “Saturn!”
====Book III====
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
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. ”

“ Unwearied ear of the whole universe
“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
“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. ”

“ The rebel three.—Thea was startled up,
And in her bearing was a sort of hope,
As thus she quick-voic’d spake, yet full of awe.
“This cheers our fallen house: come to our friends,
“O Saturn! come away, and give them heart ”

“ A certain shape or shadow, making way
“With wings or chariot fierce to repossess
“A heaven he lost erewhile: it must—it must
“Be of ripe progress—Saturn must be King.
“Yes, there must be a golden victory ”

“ His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed; ”

“ To that large utterance of the early Gods! ”