So ended Saturn; and the God of the Sea,

      Sophist and sage, from no Athenian grove,

      But cogitation in his watery shades,

      Arose, with locks not oozy, and began,

      In murmurs, which his first-endeavouring tongue

      Caught infant-like from the far-foamed sands.

      “O ye, whom wrath consumes! who, passion-stung,

      Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!

      Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,

      My voice is not a bellows unto ire.

      Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof

      How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop:

      And in the proof much comfort will I give,

      If ye will take that comfort in its truth.

      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. The ripe hour came,

      And with it light, and light, engendering

      Upon its own producer, forthwith touch’d

      The whole enormous matter into life.

      Upon that very hour, our parentage,

      The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest:

      Then thou first-born, and we the giant-race,

      Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms.

      Now comes the pain of truth, to whom ’tis pain;

      O folly! for to bear all naked truths,

      And to envisage circumstance, all calm,

      That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well!

      As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far

      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. Say, doth the dull soil

      Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed,

      And feedeth still, more comely than itself?

      Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves?

      Or shall the tree be envious of the dove

      Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings

      To wander wherewithal and find its joys?

      We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs

      Have bred forth, not pale solitary doves,

      But eagles golden-feather’d, who do tower

      Above us in their beauty, and must reign

      In right thereof; for ’tis the eternal law

      That first in beauty should be first in might:

      Yea, by that law, another race may drive

      Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.

      Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas,

      My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?

      Have ye beheld his chariot, foam’d along

      By noble winged creatures he hath made?

      I saw him on the calmed waters scud,

      With