Round and around the Titan brood of Earth
Roll'd the hot vapour on its fiery surge;
The liquid heat air's pure expanse divine
Suffus'd the radiance keen of quivering flame
That shot from writhen lightnings, each dim orb
Strong though they were intolerable smote,
And scorch'd their blasted vision. Through the void
Of Erebus, the preternatural glare
Spread, mingling fire with darkness. But to see
With human eye and hear with ear of man,
Had been as if midway the spacious heaven,
Hartling with earth, shock'de'en as nether earth
Crash'd from the centre, and the wreck of heaven
Fell ruining from high. So vast the din,
When, Gods encountering Gods, the clang of arms
Commingled, and the tumult roar'd from heaven.
TARTARUS AND THE FALL OF THE TITANS.
[URL'D from their sinewy grasp: with missile storm
The Titan host o'ershadowing, them they drove
All-haughty as they were, with hands of strength
O'ercoming them, beneath th' expanse of earth,
And bound with galling chains; so far beneath
This earth, as earth is distant from the sky;
So deep the space to darksome Tartarus.
A brazen anvil rushing from the sky
Through thrice three days would toss in airy whirl,
Nor touch this earth till the tenth sun arose :>
Or down earth's chasm precipitate revolve,
Nor till the tenth sun rose attain the verge
Of Tartarus. A fence of massive brass
Is forg'd around: around the pass is roll'd
A night of triple darkness; and above
Impend the roots of earth and barren sea.
There the Titanic Gods in murkiest gloom
Lie hidden, such the cloud-assembler's will:
There in a place of darkness, where vast earth
Has end from thence no egress open lies:
Neptune's huge hand with brazen gates the mouth
Has clos'd; a wall environs every side.
There Gyges, Cottus, high-soul'd Briareus
Dwell vigilant, the faithful sentinels
Of aegis-bearer Jove. Successive there
The dusky Earth, and darksome Tartarus,
The sterile Ocean and the star-bright Heav'n
Arise and end, their source and boundary.
A drear and ghastly wilderness, abhorr'd
E'en by the Gods; a vast vacuity :
Might none the space of one slow-circling year
Touch the firm soil, that portal enter'd once,
But him the whirl of vexing hurricanes
Toss to and fro. E'en by immortals loath'd
This prodigy of horror. There of Night
Obscure the dismal dwellings rise, with mists
Of darkness overspread. Full in the front
Atlas upholding Heaven his forehead rears
And indefatigable hands. There Night
And Day near passing, mutual greeting still
Exchange, alternate as they glide athwart
The brazen threshold vast. This enters, that
Forth issues; nor the two can one abode
At once constrain. This passes forth, and roams
The round of earth; that in the mansion waits
Till the due season of her travel come.
Lo! from the one the far-discerning light
Beams upon earthly dwellers; but a cloud
Of pitchy blackness veils the other round,
Pernicious Night, aye leading in her hand
Sleep, Death's half-brother; sons of gloomy Night,
There hold they habitation, Death and Sleep,
Dread deities; nor them the shining Sun
E'er with his beam contemplates, when he climbs
The cope of heaven, nor when from heaven descends.
Of these the one glides o'er the gentle space
Of earth and broad expanse of ocean waves,
Placid to man: the other has a heart
Of iron; in his breast a brazen soul
Is bosom'd ruthless: whom of men he grasps
Stern he retains, e'en to immortal Gods
A foe.
The hollow-sounding palaces
Of subterraneous Gods there in the front
Ascend, of mighty Pluto and his queen
Awful Persephone. A grisly dog,
Implacable, holds watch before the gates;
Of guile malicious. Them who enter there,
With tail and bended ears he fawning soothes :
But suffers not that they with backward step
Repass: whoe'er would issue from the gates
Of Pluto strong and stern Persephone,
For them with marking eye he lurks; on them
Springs from his couch, and pitiless devours.
There, odious to immortals, dreadful Styx
Inbabits, refluent Ocean's eldest-born :
QUT thou, O Perses! heed the moral strain ;
To justice cleave, from injury refrain.
For heavy on the poor does injury press,
And e'en the wealthy bend to the distress,
And feel the weight of wrong; be this thy trust ;
The better path conducts thee to be just:
Still in the end shall justice wrong subdue :
This fools confess from sore experience true.
With crooked judgments, lo! the oath's dread god
Avenging runs, and tracts them where they trod:
Rough are the ways of justice as the sea,
When man perverted wills the false decree;
When to and fro the bribe-devourer draws,
As vile corruption sways, the wrested laws.
For them who trembling justice force to fly,
For them whose breath decrees iniquity;
Invisible their steps the virgin treads,
And mustering evils gather o'er their heads:
She with a veiling cloud her form arrays,
And walks in awful grief the city-ways;
Her cry ascends; her tear upbraiding falls;
O'er their stain'd manners, their devoted walls.
But they who never from the right have stray'd,
Who as the citizen the stranger aid,
They and their cities flourish; genial Peace
Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase :
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war.
Nor scathe nor famine on the righteous prey;
Earth foodful teems, and banquets crown the day:
Rich wave their mountain oaks; the topmost tree
The rustling acorn fills, its trunk the murmuring bee.
Burthen'd with fleece their panting flocks: the race
Of woman, soft reflects the father's face :
Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main :
The fruits of earth are pour'd from every plain.
But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong
The thought of evil and the deed of wrong,
Saturnian Jove, of wide-beholding eyes,
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise:
And oft the crimes of one destructive fall,
The crimes of one are visited on all.
The god sends down his angry plagues from high,
Famine and pestilence; in heaps they die.
He smites with barrenness the mariage bed,
And generations moulder with the dead.
Again in vengeance of his wrath he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls
Arrests their navies on the watery plain,
And whelms their strength with mountains of the main,
Revolve, Q kings! within your inmost thought
The retribution by his vengeance wrought:
Invisible the gods are ever nigh,
Pass though the midst, and bend th' all-seeing eye:
Who on each other prey, who wrest the right
Awless of heaven's revenge, are open to their sight.
For thrice ten thousand holy dæmons rove
The nurturing earth, the delegates of Jove:
Hovering they glide to earth's extremest bound,
A cloud aërial veils their forms around;
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine !
[By the Same, from the Same.]
THOU unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!
In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear.
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done ;
Thou know'st that Thou has formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do thou, All Good! for such thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.
[By the Same, from the Same.]
WHY am I loth to leave this earthly scene!
Have I so found it full of pleasing charms! Some drops of joy with draughts of ill-between : Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
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