 | The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien |  |
THE ENCHANTED TITAN.
I.
Curse you! O, a hundred thousand cursesWeigh upon your soul, you black enchanter!
Could I pour them like the coins from purses,
I would utter such a pile instanter
As would crush you to a bloody pulp.
But my rage I fain am forced to gulp;
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Nor can I swear this magic box asunder,
Where I 've been stifling since the days of Chiron,
Fretting on tempered bolts, and hurling muffled thunder.
II.
Through the chinks I see the dim green watersFilled with sunshine, or with moonlight hazy;
Through them swim the oceanic daughters,
Beautiful enough to drive me crazy.
The fishes gaze at me with sphery eyes,
And seem to say, with cold-blooded surprise,
What Titan is it, that 's so barred and bolted,
Caged like a rat in some infernal cellar?
Why even Enceladus, when the dog revolted,
Was not so hardly treated by the Cloud-Compeller!
III.
And all, forsooth, because I loved his daughter!Loved that child of spells and incantation;
Love her now, beneath this dreary water,
Love her through eternal tribulation!
I wonder if her lips lament me still,
In her enchanted castle on the hill?
Or has she yielded to that damned magician,
And with my pygmy rival weakly wedded?
O Jove! the torment of this bare suspicion
Preying forever on my heart, and like the Hydra headed!
IV.
O bitter day, when spells, like snakes uprearing,Enwrapped my limbs, and, muscular as pliant,
Pinioned my struggling arms, until despairing
I lay upon the earth, a captured giant!
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The closing of its huge enchanted locks;
Then the cursed wizard to the windy summit
Of the tall cape a coffered prisoner bore me,
And flung me off, until, like seaman's plummet,
I sank, and the drear ocean closed forever o'er me!
| The poems and stories of Fitz-James O'Brien | |