Hyperion Book III

       Table of Contents

      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.

       Meantime touch piously the Delphic harp, 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,

       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 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,

       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? 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.

       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, 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

       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? 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

       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, 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

       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.

       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, 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

       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, 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:

       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, 0 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,

       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! Mute thou