Of son against his sire. I saw him fall, I saw my first-born tumbled from his throne!

To me his arms were spread, to me his voice

Found way from forth the thunders round his head!

Pale wox I and in vapors hid my face. Art thou, too, near such doom? vague fear there is:

For I have seen my sons most unlike
Gods.

Divine ye were created, and divine
In sad demeanor, solemn, undisturb’d,
Unruffled, like high Gods, ye liv'd and

ruled:

upon,

Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled:

Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.

Coeus, and Gyges, and Briareüs,
Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,
With many more, the brawniest in as-
sault,

Were pent in regions of laborious breath;
Dungeon'd in opaque element, to keep
Their clenched teeth still clench'd, and
all their limbs

Lock'd up like veins of metal, crampt and screw'd;

Without a motion, save of their big hearts

Heaving in pain, and horribly convuls'd With sanguine feverous boiling gurge

of pulse.

Mnemosyne was straying in the world; Far from her moon had Phoebe wandered;

And many else were free to roam abroad, But for the main, here found they covert drear.

Scarce images of life, one here, one there, Lay vast and edgeways; like a dismal cirque

Of Druid stones, upon a forlorn moor, When the chill rain begins at shut of

As though in pain; for still upon the flint

He ground severe his skull, with open mouth

And eyes at horrid working. Nearest him

Asia, born of most enormous Caf,

Who cost her mother Tellus keener

pangs,

Though feminine, than any of her sons: More thought than woe was in her dusky face,

For she was prophesying of her glory;
And in her wide imagination stood
Palm-shaded temples, and high rival
fanes,

By Oxus or in Ganges' sacred isles.
Even as Hope upon her anchor leans,
So leant she, not so fair, upon a tusk
Shed from the broadest of her elephants.
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

Till on the level height their steps found

ease:

Then Thea spread abroad her trembling

arms

Upon the precincts of this nest of pain, And sidelong fix'd her eye on Saturn's face:

There saw she direst strife; the supreme
God

At war with all the frailty of grief,
Of rage, of fear, anxiety, revenge,
Remorse, spleen, hope, but most of all
despair.

Against these plagues he strove in vain; for Fate

Had pour'd a mortal oil upon his head, A disanointing poison: so that Thea, Affrighted, kept her still, and let him pass

First onwards in, among the fallen tribe.

Such noise is like the roar of bleakgrown pines;

Which, when it ceases in this mountain'd world,

No other sound succeeds; but ceasing here,

Among these fallen, Saturn's voice therefrom

Grew up like organ, that begins anew Its strain, when other harmonies, stopt short,

Leave the dinn'd air vibrating silverly. Thus grew it up-" Not in my own sad breast,

Which is its own great judge and

searcher out,

Can I find reason why ye should be thus: Not in the legends of the first of days, Studied from that old spirit-leaved book Which starry Uranus with finger bright Sav'd from the shores of darkness, when the waves

Low-ebb'd still hid it up in shallow gloom ;

And the which book ye know I ever kept For my firm-based footstool:—Ah, infirm!

Not there, nor in sign, symbol, or portent Of element, earth, water, air, and fire,— At war, at peace, or inter-quarrelling One against one, or two, or three, or all Each several one against the other three. As fire with air loud warring when rainfloods

Drown both, and press them both against

earth's face,

Where, finding sulphur, a quadruple wrath

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,

Verwhelm'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!

What can I! Tell me, all ye brethren Gods,

How we can war, how engine our great wrath!

O speak your counsel now, for Saturn's

ear

Is all a-hunger'd. Thou, Oceanus, Ponderest high and deep; and in thy face I see, astonied, that severe content Which comes of thought and musing; give us help!"

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-endeavoring 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

By noble winged creatures he hath made?

I saw him on the calmed waters scud, With such a glow of beauty in his eyes, That it enforc'd me to bid sad farewell To all my empire: farewell sad I took, And hither came, to see how dolorous

fate

Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best

Give consolation in this woe extreme. Receive the truth, and let it be your balm.'

Whether through poz'd conviction, or disdain,

They guarded silence, when Oceanus Left murmuring, what deepest thought can tell?

But so it was, none answer'd for a space,

Save one whom none regarded, Cly

mene;

And yet she answer'd not, only complain'd,

With hectic lips, and eyes up-looking mild,

Thus wording timidly among the fierce : "O Father, I am here the simplest voice,

And all my knowledge is that joy is gone, And this thing woe crept in among ou hearts,

There to remain for ever, as I fear:
I would not bode of evil, if I thought
So weak a creature could turn off the help
Which by just right should come of
mighty Gods;

Yet let me tell my sorrow, let me tell
Of what I heard, and how it made me