Keats: Poems Published in 1820 by John Keats

Author:John Keats [Keats, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: English poetry
Publisher: Project Gutenberg
Published: 2007-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

[166]

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[167]

BOOK II.

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings

Hyperion slid into the rustled air,

And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place

Where Cybele and the bruised Titans mourn'd.

It was a den where no insulting light

Could glimmer on their tears; where their own groans

They felt, but heard not, for the solid roar

Of thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse,

Pouring a constant bulk, uncertain where.

Crag jutting forth to crag, and rocks that seem'd10

[168]Ever as if just rising from a sleep,

Forehead to forehead held their monstrous horns;

And thus in thousand hugest phantasies

Made a fit roofing to this nest of woe.

Instead of thrones, hard flint they sat upon,

Couches of rugged stone, and slaty ridge

Stubborn'd with iron. All were not assembled:

Some chain'd in torture, and some wandering.

Cœus, and Gyges, and Briareüs,

Typhon, and Dolor, and Porphyrion,20

With many more, the brawniest in assault,

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.

[169]Mnemosyne was straying in the world;

Far from her moon had Phœbe wandered;30

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 eve,

In dull November, and their chancel vault,

The Heaven itself, is blinded throughout night.

Each one kept shroud, nor to his neighbour gave

Or word, or look, or action of despair.40

Creüs was one; his ponderous iron mace

Lay by him, and a shatter'd rib of rock

Told of his rage, ere he thus sank and pined.

Iäpetus another; in his grasp,

A serpent's plashy neck; its barbed tongue

Squeez'd from the gorge, and all its uncurl'd length

[170]Dead; and because the creature could not spit

Its poison in the eyes of conquering Jove.

Next Cottus: prone he lay, chin uppermost,

As though in pain; for still upon the flint50

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.60

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,

[171]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,70

Not long delay'd, that scar'd the younger Gods

To hide themselves in forms of beast and bird.

Not far hence Atlas; and beside him prone

Phorcus, the sire of Gorgons. Neighbour'd close

Oceanus, and Tethys, in whose lap

Sobb'd Clymene among her tangled hair.

In midst of all lay Themis, at the feet

Of Ops the queen all clouded round

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