University of Virginia Library

The Titan quiver'd. Strenuous tremours ran
Thro' his huge limbs, rocking their heaviness
Like wind-rack'd oaks; and his deep eyes began
To glow with a prophetic passion. “Yes!
And then,” he murmur'd, “then the Race of Man
(Taught by that wingèd voice) perchance may guess
The giant purpose, the stupendous plan
That, brooding o'er its cloudy cradle, I
Have for the infant fashion'd. Changeless Gods,
What profits you your immortality?
Thro' endless self-repeating periods
To be the same for ever, is to be
For ever lacking life's divinest gift,
The faculty of growth. No inch can ye
Your future o'er your present selves uplift.
What good in such prolong'd ineptitude?
But to be ever growing young again,
From age to age eternally renew'd
With breath new-born, and ardour to attain
Goals ever new, by courses never done,
—This gift, to gods ungiven, or given in vain,
My forethought hath reserved for man alone!
Death was the blind condition jealous Zeus,
To balk my purpose, on mankind imposed,
But Death my purpose serves: for Death renews
Man's youth, whose course old age might else have closed.
Unprescient God, 'tis well thou couldst not guess
That to these hands the fetter forged by thee
Gave all required by their inventiveness
To shape the sword that cuts each fetter free!
Mankind must die! The fiat forth is gone.
Die? When I heard that word of doom proclaim'd,
More self-restraint I needed to suppress
A shout of joy, than when my strangled groan
Burst not the bitten lips its anguish shamed,
And not a cry revealed the dumb distress
Of my Caucasian martyrdom. By Death
The Race of Man shall be from age to age
Replenisht with the perdurable breath
Of endless birth, and vigour to engage
In ventures new. Death's sickle, as it reaps
The old grain, to the young the soil restores,
And still the harvest springs, and the soil keeps
Still fresh for growth its disencumber'd pores.
A man is dead, long live Mankind! From soul
To soul each life's acquest triumphantly
Passes in sure succession. Ages roll,
And in a hundred ages (what care I
How many births as many deaths succeed?)
Man's Race, enrich'd a hundredfold thereby,
Remains as young as ever. Oft with heed
Have I the Ocean watch'd, and watch'd the shore.
The sand, rejected by the wave's wild shock,
Gathers in heaps and, growing more and more,
And high and higher, hardens till at last
The wave returning breaks upon a rock,
And is itself rejected. Tost and cast
By Time's recurrent waves, son after sire,
From death to death, like that sea-driven sand,
Grains of Humanity, with past on past
Your greatening future pile, and high and higher,
Based on each others' buried shoulders, stand!”

“What art thou muttering?” Aphroditè said.
“Mysterious dreamer, dost thou meditate
The Gods' destruction?” High his shaggy head
The Titan lifted, and replied elate,
“Not thine, Anadyomenè, not thine!
Passion's imperishable autocrat,
Thee only of the Gods I deem divine,
And permanent is thy sweet power as Fate.
Receive mine oath, and aid me!”

“How? In what?”
“Inspire in Zeus the wish to be a bird
That he may woo a mortal.”

Letting fall
Sweet lids o'er sunny eyes as this she heard,
The Goddess smiled, and answer'd “Is that all?”