Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/272

236 Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found

A grain of gold upon a mountain's side,

And, twing'd with avarice, strain'd out my eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,

So, at the view of sad Moneta's brow,

I ask'd to see what things the hollow brow

Behind environ'd: what high tragedy

In the dark secret chambers of her skull

Was acting, that could give so dread a stress

To her cold lips, and fill with such a light

Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice

With such a sorrow? 'Shade of Memory!'

Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

'By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house,

By this last temple, by the golden age,

By great Apollo, thy dear foster-child,

And by thyself, forlorn divinity,

The pale Omega of a wither'd race,

Let me behold, according as thou saidst,

What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!'

No sooner had this conjuration past

My devout lips, than side by side we stood

(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star.

Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs,

And saw what first I thought an image huge,

Like to the image pedestall'd so high

In Saturn's temple; then Moneta's voice

Came brief upon mine ear. 'So Saturn sat

When he had lost his realms;' whereon there grew

A power within me of enormous ken

To see as a god sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme

Of those few words hung vast before my mind

With half-unravell'd web. I sat myself

Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see,

And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life

Was in this shrouded vale,—not so much air

As in the zoning of a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

A stream went noiseless by, still deaden'd more

By reason of the fallen divinity

Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her reeds

Prest her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went

No further than to where old Saturn's feet

Had rested, and there slept how long a sleep!

Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred, and his realmless eyes were closed;

While his bowed head seem'd listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;

But there came one who, with a kindred hand,

Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low

With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

Then came the griev'd voice Mnemosyne,

And griev'd I hearken'd. 'That divinity

Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest wood,

And with slow pace approach our fallen king,

Is Thea, softest-natured of our brood.'

I mark'd the Goddess, in fair statuary

Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,

And in her sorrow nearer woman's tears.

There was a list'ning fear in her regard,

As if calamity had but begun;

As if the venom'd cloud of evil days

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its stored thunder labouring up,

One hand she press'd upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;

The other upon Saturn's bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his ear

Leaning, with parted lips some words she spoke

In solemn tenour and deep organ-tone;

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

Would come in this like accenting; how frail

To that large utterance of the early gods!

'Saturn, look up! and for what, poor lost king?

I have no comfort for thee; no, not one;

I cannot say, wherefore thus sleepest thou?

For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth

Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a god.

The Ocean, too, with all its solemn noise,

Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air

Is emptied of thy hoary majesty.

Thy thunder, captious at the new command,

Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;

And thy sharp lightning, in unpractis'd hands,

Scourges and burns our once serene domain.

'With such remorseless speed still come new woes,

That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

Saturn! sleep on: me thoughtless, why should I