Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/274

238 Where, rooft in by black rocks, they waste in pain

And darkness, for no hope.' And she spake on,

As ye may read who can unwearied pass

Onward from the antechamber of this dream,

Where, even at the open doors, awhile

I must delay, and glean my memory

Of her high phrase—perhaps no further dare.

'Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright,

I humanize my sayings to thine ear,

Making comparisons of earthly things;

Or thou might'st better listen to the wind,

Whose language is to thee a barren noise,

Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees.

In melancholy realms big tears are shed,

More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,

Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe.

The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound,

Groan for the old allegiance once more,

Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice.

But one of the whole eagle-brood still keeps

His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty:

Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire

Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up

From Man to the Sun's God—yet insecure.

For as upon the earth dire prodigies

Fright and perplex, so also shudders he;

Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech,

Or the familiar visiting of one

Upon the first toll of his passing bell,

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;

But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,

Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,

Bastion'd with pyramids of shining gold,

And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,

Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts,

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

Flash angerly; when he would taste the wreaths

Of incense breath'd aloft from sacred hills,

Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes

Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick;

Wherefore when habour'd in the sleepy West,

After the full completion of fair day,

For rest divine upon exalted couch,

And slumber in the arms of melody,

He paces through the pleasant hours of ease,

With strides colossal, on from hall to hall,

While far within each aisle and deep recess

His winged minions in close clusters stand

Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men,

Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,

When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

Even now where Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,

Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods,

Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

Is sloping to the threshold of the West.

Thither we tend.' Now in clear light I stood,

Reliev'd from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne

Was sitting on a square-edg'd polish'd stone,

That in its lucid depths reflected pure

Her priestess' garments. My quick eyes ran on

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light,

And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades.

Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion;

His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar as if of earthy fire,

That scar'd away the meek ethereal hours,

And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.

's the Poet? Show him! show him,

Muses nine! that I may know him!

'T is the man who with a man

Is an equal, be he King,

Or poorest of the beggar-clan,

Or any other wondrous thing

A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;

'T is the man who with a bird,

Wren, or Eagle, finds his way to

All its instincts; he hath heard

The Lion's roaring, and can tell

What his horny throat expresseth,

And to him the Tiger's yell

Comes articulate and presseth

On his ear like mother-tongue.

what is love? It is a doll dress'd up

For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;

A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

That silly youth doth think to make itself

Divine by loving, and so goes on

Yawning and doting a whole summer long,

Till Miss's comb is made a pearl tiara,