Look up, and let me see our doom in it; Of Saturn; tell me, if this wrinkling brow, Thea! Thea! Thea! where is Saturn?" This passion lifted him upon his feet, 135 And made his hands to struggle in the air, His Druid locks to shake and ooze with sweat, His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease. A little time, and then again he snatched To make me desolate? whence came the strength? How was it nurtured to such bursting Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth forth, Another world, another universe, While Fate seemed strangled in my To overbear and crumble this to nought? Where is another chaos? Where?"-That nervous grasp? 105 But it is so; and I am smothered up, And all those acts which Deity supreme word 145 115 I heart; know the covert, for thence came I hither." Thus brief; then with beseeching eyes she went With backward footing through the shade a space: He followed, and she turned to lead the Until he reached the great main cupola; There standing fierce beneath, he stamped his foot, Of incense, breathed aloft from sacred And from the basements deep to the high Which sages and keen-eyed astrologers Then living on the earth, with laboring thought Won from the gaze of many centuries: 280 Now lost, save what we find on remnants huge Of stone, or marble swart; their import gone, Their wisdom long since fled.-Two wings this orb Possessed for glory, two fair argent wings, Ever exalted at the God's approach: 285 And now, from forth the gloom their plumes immense Rose, one by one, till all outspreaded were; While still the dazzling globe maintained eclipse, Awaiting for Hyperion's command. Fain would he have commanded, fain took throne 290 Until it ceased; and still he kept them wide: And still they were the same bright, patient stars. Then with a slow incline of his broad breast, Like to a diver in the pearly seas, 355 Of these, thy brethren and the God- Forward he stooped over the airy shore, And plunged all noiseless into the deep night. 320 desses! There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion 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! 325 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. Now I behold in you fear, hope, and wrath; I see them, on the mortal world beneath, In men who die. This is the grief, O Son! 335 Sad sign of ruin, sudden dismay, and fall! Yet do thou strive; as thou art capable, As thou canst move about, an evident God; And canst oppose to each malignant hour Ethereal presence:-I am but a voice; 340 My life is but the life of winds and tides; No more than winds and tides can I avail: But thou canst.-Be thou therefore in the WHEN I HAVE FEARS THAT I MAY Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell 15 With thunders from her native oak 20 25 30 35 When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased to blow. THOMAS MOORE (1779-1852) 40 |