The Titans :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Titans

by Charles M. Doughty

Doughty, Charles Montagu (1843-1926)

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

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THE TITANS

BOOK I

ARGUMENT

Creation of Earth-mass, and of celestial, etherial and terrestrial Spirits.

In a Womb-gulf of Earth, Titan-bulks bud forth. Certain presumptuous dœmon-spirits invade those cragged statures, and them possess; and make alive. Earths Sea is formed; and there-amidst is raised up a dry land. Lifes beginning upon the Earth.

Titans issue from that Womb of rock. They wayfare. Being come to Worlds mountain, which lies athwart their path, they lean-up, as wearied, unto those first cliffs. Agelong they drowse thus, and therein revert to stone; being their possessing dœmons parted forth. Glad Spring-tide, in a yet unpeopled Earth.

Neath Heavens high stars, whereof we some see cease,
To shed their light, whilst other some increase;
There nothing is at any stay. This House
Of Middle-Earth, which Time brought lately forth;
Our Inn, in Bosom of Gods Universe;
Is full of variance, tiding ever forth.
Alone the everlasting Throne stands stedfast.

Winged Æon, One whóse etérnal dwelling-place,
With Divine Wisdom, at the Thrones Right Hand,
Is; went from Presence forth of the All-Highest;
Bearing the Word of His creating Breath.

Clothed with immortal Light; from Gates, he stooped,
Of Heaven: and mighty Prince of Angel-host,
Under vast spénded fírmament, passed. And midst
Of infinite stars of that divine Abýss;
And borneless Temple of the Universe;

Which Garden of Gód is, fór its glory, named:
He said Be! and Earth was; shaped and in substance
Conformable to that Pattern; which prepared,
From everlasting, had Almighty Thought.

And called it the Throne, Earth! poised glowing Clot:
Heaped namely of motes, of fiery elements;
(From whence the metal of all things derived;)
Assembled to one place: of motes, whereof;
As Seekers after heavenly Wisdom, tell us;
Is full the illimitable Universe.

It pleased the Thróne, to órdain Earth-Mould thus;
Last of those mighty Works, which called God forth,
Of naught, and founded in the midst: one least,
Amidst Her infinite Sister-stars, on height;
Which pass mans télling: more than, ín thick mist,
Hang water-dróps. And breathed God, on Earth-mass;
His Almighty, All-creating Púlse, launched forth;
(And ínformed with Her elemental Powers);
The Burden of all Worlds Ages, which should pass.
And It became the footstool of His feet.

Once móre that holy Æon, on whóm the Highest
Had laid, to bear the Message of God forth;

Stóoped. And in whát wise unto Seers, which gaze
From Earths dim Shadow, a stár seems sparkles shed:
From the Æons vast rádious wings, springs ínfinite brood;
In depth and height, whereby that Seraph passed;
Of Spirits Intélligéncies. Of whom some;
Squadrons of light, above the firmament;
Immortal bright, rule courses of clear stars;
Some sway henceforth heavens ever-rolling spheres.

Other, of lesser might, in lower steeps,
Divide Earths day and night. Who tangled were,
In Earths thick brow of air; which clave unto Her:
Have men called dœmons, whether good or ill.
For some, from erst estate, through malice, fell.

Nor yet were named, whom late-born men call Gods:
Which spirits, remained in heavens height; there, of
A dívine Émanation still partake.
Clothed-on by prayers, which vapoured sith from Earth;
(Yearning in fleshly darkness, of mens souls;
Ascending with sweet breath of sacrifices:)
Those, in Earths later days, become mens Gods.

Amidst Earths seething bowels; ferment of molten
Métals' ínward wallowing ore beneath:
Abysmal Void there, óne of many, was.
That búbblewise soaring upward, by degrees;
To terrace of Earths face, immáne there búrst!

And that embáyed Gulf hath of Mother Earth,
Conceived: wherein there cragged bulks bud forth;
Begotten without Sire. But other hold;
(Which say, of flame and fume of former stars,
This World was made;) that elemental Force
Their Father was, which now are Titans named:
Whom the antique Night long fostered at her dugs.

Mongst dœmon-spirits presumptuous of Earths Face;
There certain háving then thóse rock-statures found,
Fruit of Earths Womb, their brutish blocks invade:
(Not yet dissevered from the Mother-mass,
Their stóny unlimmed bulks' néther parts; nor éach
From each, their fellowed feet; nor sundered yet
The fingers of their hands:) and them possess.

Being quickened thús, (their marble inward substance
Yet wanting breath;) those members, they put forth.
And little and little, become as living wights:
Tempered their stony being; and is their feature

Conformable made to creatures of Earths life:
Fleshlings, that shall be; and namely in time more ripe;
Which breath both have and motion on Earths Face.
Each Titan form puts on; as he, by vírtue
Is fashioned of indwelling dœmon-spirit.

What-though Earths field was desolate, without life:
Yet were there sounds and motions of wild winds,
Rain, rushing streams, waves driven on îron cliffs;
Blind strivings of inconstant Elements:
And falling craigs, and roar of that abyss
Of fire beneath; as oft as it brast forth:
Kindling again rent bosom of rock-mass.

Measured by Revolutions of heavens stars;
Long Ages pass: wherein possessing Spirits
Have, in those stony Titans, sinews wrought,
And joints, with íron tendons. And amídst
Their fronts, made seeing, shield-great now eyepit shines.

But Titans transformed thus, wakes in their being,
Of so gross parts, dim sense of Earths unrest.
Some ones their marble limbs unfold: some stretch,
And lift their stony flanks, from Mother Earth.

One bellows mongst them! wakes in whose huge chest,
Tumultuous breath and voice: which splits that conch
Of mother-rock, embowed above their heads;
In what wise pent-in bird his egg-shell doth,
Impatient to break forth. And heavens hid twilight;
Whiles he, amongst his fellows, mainly brayed;
Which shed thé everlásting stars of God:
Hath entered, in that Womb-cave, their abode.

Was yet a glowing shard of îron rocks,
Foaming out waves of stoney molten dross,
Face of this Terrene Mass; which shaken by strife
Is without cease, of jarring elements:
Whereo'er continually hoved thick vapouring mist;
Raining down reeking waters' mighty flood:
(Vast liquid Plain, coucht fuming Deep, waste brine;)
That wild winds reaved, in mountainous wallowing heaps.
No flesh beheld that Morning of Earth-World!

Nor breathed as yet Lifes Spirit, on Middle Earths
O'erflowed wide Face. An Angels Breath it was,
Upon Earths Deep, (that blurred vast mirror of
Heavens Sun and stars!) which kindled therein life.

But other hold; a seed of life, begot

Of starry influence, from high Heaven; descended,
Like as a jelly-dew, upon Earths ground.
Óther; in a sea-slíme, that Lífe erst was;
Which hollow surges cast tempestuous out,
Endlong World-mountains flanks: where sprung is sith,
Thicket of windy sedge and fenny reeds;
Rooted in ooze, offscouring of waves' coast:
Whereas breed manifold kinds of living things.

Now óf those Titans Óne, and he the mightiest,
Spurning with huge-rock heel, hath opened breach
Forth, from that cragged hold, to Earths dry land.
And Titans dimly thenceforth gazing; (come
Is on them power of a derne seeing,) behold
High everlasting twilight, óf heavens stars!
Sith, seen heavens Sun in His ascending course;
Those marvelling stumble to their stony knees:
The eye-balls, in their eyepits, gather light.
They gaze out-o'er Earths folde, from cragged cleft!

And when day-bringing Sun new shines; begin
Titans stiff-kneed upon their feet, to trace;
With unaccustomed huge alternate stride:
Whereunder quakes floor of this centered Earth.
Then óne by one, they midst Earth-Wórld pass forth.

Mongst newly upraísed sky-shóuldering naked rocks;
Through crooked cliffs, upleaning to heavens stars;
And cumbered in their midst, with fallen craigs;
Training unweldy members, fleshly flint:
They, as their dœmons in them breathe and guide;
All louting, as they wend, in halting wise;
(Their rocking shoulders, cloud-height seem'd to pass!)
With mighty rumour move. Nor cold, nor heat,
Can grieve their marble sense. From thence, descended:
Through forest pines they march, as woods were grass.

Last, where three-headed mount, of steepling craigs
Embayed, large circuit made beside their path:
Those stay their steps. Leaned to time-fretted cliffs;
Is entered weariness, in each marble corse:
Being their possessing dœmons parted forth.
But to what desolate bournes of Air and Earth;
Is not recorded, in the golden leaves
Of divine Muse.

Titans, to those hill-tops,
Uplean'd thus; stand, as statures without life:
Their eyes lose light; they stiffen into stone.

Pass untold generations of Earths face:
Whiles ivy-twine their marble knees hath knit;
And clambering briars have wrapped about their feet:
And stains their loins thick scab of creeping moss.
Have swallows, in their nose-thrills, builded nests;
And in their ear-holes, mice, ten thousand sithes.

But aye the more, transfused hath Mother Earth,
In them, Her first-born offspring, that stand thus;
Leaned, stone to stone, insensate as the rocks;
Of Her hid natures Elemental Powers.
Like as in suckling herb, that springs, and grows,
Out of Her divine Breast.

Last, when those Spirits,
Which are their souls, to them their former seats,
Revert, from places waste: those living rocks,
Revive: that hoary stand, long thrilled by frost;
Since faded of óld time their stony sense.
The pupils, in their eye-pits, gather light;
(Wherein yet hardly is age-long night discusst:)
Each seemeth a wéll-spring, whéreon the Sun shineth.

Titans, returned to conscience of themselves;
Long breathless stones again informed with life;
As after a long night: renewed is sense

In them of a dim seeing, and mind therewith.
And their unstopped ears hear then mingled voice;
Of things, that both have motion and lives breath.

Fresh Season of new-springing year then is;
When Sun increaseth daily in His strength.
Break stillness of first Dawn, birds' living notes.
On topmost naked spray, blithe ousel-cock
Utters impassionate ditties of loves smart.

On bowering bough, with throbbing speckled breast,
Loud throstle warbles nigh. Is that to wake
His mate: and wake all birds that sing in the morn!
Mild is the air: these days dominion hath
Love-longing, in all gentle feathered breasts.

All fowls are fain, of days returning light.
This joyeth in his pride; that in his trance,
Gurgles; he thretes, he exults. Is mingled sweet
Consent of wingéd kinds, before they flit.
The siskin, linnet and the wren; that inn,
With other more, in the sheen-flickering leaves;
Chant forth, all singing blithe, as Dawn doth rise;
Their sundry mingled lays. Now on every part,
Birds cheerful pipe. Day cometh apace: the air seemeth

Then tingling tangled web of subtle sounds.

From field, on flittering wings, glad lavrock mounts;
To meet the days new birth; whose glistering streams
Spring merry alréady, fróm wide brow of Earth,
Wet with night-drops; with lárge returning warmth.
Climbing age heavenward, circling higher and higher;
He in skies pours forth shrill transports of birds breast.
Last, spent his spirits, still singing, faltering lights;
Whereas he left his nest, in lowly grass.

Full the large pathways be of empty loft,
Of wafting wings. Over the aery sound,
Crows ferry, on twinned swart pens: part culvers forth,
To breathing hills. Fowls, in their several kinds,
Day risen, all seek lifes need, their kindly food.

Quarters the quiddering swallow, each flowery mead;
Stoops, turns, returns. Scuds then, her tender brood,
In covert eaves to feed, of the wild cliff.

All that hath maiden lap of Mother Earth,
Of timely showers conceived, in days forepast;
Her teeming foster-bosom, She lays forth;
Now an infinite mingled Nation daily beareth.
Utters the herb, and bud all thicket woods,

With a sweet breath. Neath heavens sheen smiling face;
A day is this, of all lives-creatures feast.

Once more the gracious blossom of the thorn,
Is in Earths thicket-strewed wild upland seen;
Where blows the bee-suckt thyme and honey-whin;
And withwind pale wreathes her lithe arms among:
With primrose under briar, and the key-flower.
In each fresh mead, the purple flowers unfold.
In dewy valleys, warm with Summer breath;
Sweet violet, with the peerless lily, appeareth;
Which like to a bride, among the flowers of God:
And seemeth some silent music of Earths field.

Earths hills be pastures of unherded flocks;
Whose green bents stóop down to unpeopled Plain:
Where tofts and marish pools, with tussock grass
Beset: whereas be glistering water-brooks.
Gods Hand hath forged Earth-clot; Valleys and hills,
His Fingers grave, in visage sith thereof.

Chief of all salvage cattle in wild field;
Which Suns warm Eye beholds, grown green again;
With wide embowéd horns, the great ox goeth.
Gainst midday, his fill already he hath; and lays

Him down, in flowery grass, up to the ears.

Slow-footed, troop down other rother beasts,
Bellowing to water; by well-trodden paths,
Of horny hooves; over bruised daisy grass.
They drink, they stand in shallow sliding ford,
Of willow-bórdered brook. They wait amídst;
Lowing, with outstretcht necks, into the wind;
Long hour, to cool them in streams freshing flood;
Heifers and steers and kine. They stamp, they smite,
With wafting tails, the briese from their dun flanks.

O'er flood and field, the noyous Summer flies;
Which were not in long months of Winter waste;
Teem, garish brood, now infinite in their kinds.
Tyrant, in plate of azure and bright gold;
Flit drágon-fly, ón stiff-paired clear rústling wings,
The air híther thither cléaves. At river brinks;
Quaint héydegúyes dance óther, with dry feet;
That wingless are, on sliding waters face.

In sunbeams, sounds sweet murmur, o'er the heath;
The boom of bees, with wings as sheen as glass.
From cup to cup, the flowery mead they sip;
Which heaven prepares in each, for their repast.

Fairest, mongst daughters of the lucid air;
The wandering butterfly, that lights on briar;

His pictured vans the while displays, wherein
The blotted hews be set of every flower:
Or folding them, some blossom himself seems.

Where fallen soft showers; there minute hubbubs rise,
Of midges rife. Some hang, in dank wood side,
A silver cloud; some thorny thickets haunt;
Whose dim still light, their irist wings divide:
And mazy pulse, (her little hour of life;)
Those keep, with thin small voice.

BOOK II

ARGUMENT

Earth long remains unpeopled wilderness. After birds', beasts' and fishes' kinds, in the end of Time; is Man formed naked in an Isle: and is founden dwelling, in dread of salvage beasts.

When then the bow is found, Man becomes an hunter. His tongue also is loost to utterance, and human speech is perfected. Bread-corn is found. Men learn to till Earths ground, and to keep cattle: women to spin and weave. The Gods reveal their will to Man, and a path of rightwiseness.

Titans waken from long stony trance. Dark Fate is manifested in bodily form on lowly Earth: and revealeth the foredetermined Counsel of the heavens. Titans bind themselves, notwithstanding Fates warning Voice; to fight against men and Gods. Earth-Mother raiseth up from Sea-Deep, a brow of rocks, for their passage forth; betwixt Manholm and the Main.

Titan-dœmons send Spirit-messengers, to the four Winds; which consent to fly, to view mens ways and works. Only South Wind favours human kin. Other their messengers, seek to the Lord of Seas, to elemental Fire, the Sun, to Night and to the Clouds.

Shudders the Earth and gapes: and her chinks bring forth a monstrous brood of grievous creeping things, upon the Worlds clay-ground.

Among the infinite stars of firmament:
Hath many sythes; sith Gods Hand launcht it forth;
Bowed down slow-reeling axe-tree of Earth-clot,
Before the Throne! Each Reverence, stars'-priests tell us,
As thirty thousand Suns revolving years,
Endures.

Earth lies unpeopled wilderness:
Wherein not yet is found the human Nation;
To till it and subdue Her salvage mould.

Mongst all the kinds of flesh, beasts, fowls and fish;
Which now have therein long time had their being;
None eye beholds, which understanding hath.
Nor wight what méaneth that manifold spectacle of
Earths Face, requireth; nor what heavens stars on loft!

Where border Sea and Land; Seas wind-hurled flood;
Spurning Earth-mountains coast, with infinite foot;

Still travails, with sharp teeth of sand, to waste.
Gainst which, there counter elemental force,
Of swelling îron tide, beneath the Earth;
Labours supplant Seas boiling Deep; and raise
Her baked clay-ground, in moles of smoking rocks.
Those for the mastery eternally contend thus.

Were woodshaws harbours, ere yet Time named was,
Upon the antique Earth, of manifold beasts.
Mongst whom, whose leafy hold is in high trees;
Lurked that misshape of Nature, which loath most
Is in Man's seeing, an hairy speechless beast;
As semblable being to his selfs outward part;
The woodwight vile and ape ridiculous:
Which hath a bough to house; and harrish hips,
Maggots and mast, for his lips' sustenance.

Times pass: is that a moment of Gods Universe!
But wherein hoary old rivelled is Earths Face
Waxed; when late offspring, (seed of heavenly stars
His spirit is,) lord of Her salvage kinds;
Earths Lap, amidst vast circle of the Deep;
(A sea-holm newly uplifted is the Place;)
Hath, like a Portent, Man mongst beasts, brought forth.

There, founden in a valley of Earths dust:
Two-footed long loose-lockt, with wildered looks;
Training his feeble limbs, that first man goeth:
Gathering, gainst ebb, as his wont is, longs strand;
(Where Seas eternal Flood against herself;
Hath heaped long sliding shelves of pebble-stones;)
What-so wild meat his indigent hand might find;
Whelks, cockles, wrack. But Fire (Companion Element
Which sithen of Mans life,) he not yet knoweth,
To wake. In later days have learned Mans sons,
To ascend, when Season is, from shore, upland;
To gather-in field fruits and delve wild roots.

Sith men have found, to arm their feeble hands;
Gainst the crude forest beasts, that hunt for flesh;
With slings and bats and stones. Some, wattled trees'
Boughs, cradle thus their babes: they climb themselves
Thereto likewise, after the Sun is set;
To sleep in surety: oft but, in dim wood-light;
Thing cróoked bough séemeth, at éye, fell serpent is.
And Man oft-whiles, in fear to fall; all night,
Must, in faint arms, some rinded trunk embrace.

In caves, neath hollow roots, and eaves of rocks;
They fenced with pales and wall-up with wild stones;

(Wherein might they bestow their Summer fruits;)
Men shelter them, from claws and cruel teeth,
Of salvage beasts; and from the Sunless cold.

Being all yet, in that antique human fellowship;
(Whereás they alréady pair them, man and wife;)
Dumb wights: is each a solitude by himself;
Child of the Sky and Earth, and featured thus:
Lacking, through défect of artículate speech;
Communion of his spirit, with other wights.

The sinewed bow, flit shaft and flint-head javelin,
Be nathless found: wherewith mens hardy hands
Being armed; they no more fear fell forest beasts:
But hunt them: and besides in snares, in pits,
Take them. His naked flesh Man clothes then with
Beasts' hairy hides, in Winters long disease.
Some lime birds; some have fishes learned, in nets
To take: some gather honey in wild woods.

Men hunters, bearing bows of mighty draught;
To thickets and wild holts resort; to seek
Some prey amongst the hairy spotted kinds.
Such wait, where the great hart wont have his flight:
Or him, where tosseth he his horns, they rouse
In the dun brakes; and pierce with thrilling shafts.

Or sleuth men fóllow, in valley, in wold and brake;
Whereon they light, of other beast of chace.
Or founden slough, where newly wallowed hath
Some bristled boar: come nigh his covert lair,
In forest side; lie grimly under briar,
With lamping eyes, a great túsked swine they see.
Who boldest then hím unhárbour; they him gore:
That their hounds gores and throweth. And him they slay;
That rusheth felly, upon their flint-head spears.

Each hunte now follows his familiar hound;
Ere wolf-whelp, that had taken his hand and tamed.
Serves the beasts grovelling sense; that drinketh up
The reek in wind, where any prey hath passed;
His masters need.

An hollow roving reed,
Was Mans first arrow. A child, opinion is;
Mongst his fond pastimes at the Winter-hearth,
The bow first found; and even to fledge his shaft.

Mans bow-stave, a well-chosen ashen bough;
Or elm, or else, (to be of pith,) of yew;
To measure of Mans height, is featly wrought.
When he would shoot, he it spans, with steady pulse,
Before his breast: casting up tufted grass,

He marks how stands the wind. He, his quarry seen,
The spended nerve draws úp to his páps, with force:
And loost, his well nockt shaft flees wingéd forth.

Man wont then bear in hand a polished spear,
At home; or else two well-poised nimble javelins;
Headed with flint, or hardened with flames' breath:
(Lies all without yet salvage wilderness!)
And some years happeth, when snow, in Winter waste,
Is drifted deep; his door-sill is beset,
Of wolves, that howl down from bleak frozen hills.

Sith, for more surety, and being his kind increased;
Man dwells, by kinships, in Earths open field:
Whereof cause is an heavenly gift Man hath;
That hath none other creature which bears life.
Voice those have without speech: but Man hath learned
Words, twixt his throat ánd quivering tongue, to frame;
Tokening the senses of his inward mind;
(What-though was erst his utterance weak and rude:)
Which, as to face, face answereth in a glass;
Of man his semblable, should be understood.
Whence can now mány unite to óne intent,
Their common force.

And supple hand Man hath,
Moreover; for instrument of his quickening thought.
Man o'er all fallow creatures prevails thus;
And one by one subdues them to his service.

Housewives, in those days, find; of diverse kinds
Of grain, which ripens in Earths field, to glean:
And bray, and to bake cakes upon their hearths:
Or else in clayen pots, (then lately found,
Fired in the bronds;) they seethe and stir this victual.
Mens households eat thereof, with their broiled flesh:
And dwell sith, without fear of Winter-want.

In a new Age, the human kin have learned,
To hew, with mattock, Earth-moulds wilderness ground;
Lies stony untilled, and drinks the rain of heaven:
And seed cast on that broken clod; and reap
The corn which springeth thereof, in Summer season.

Now and such already as hunters were, begin
To keepers be of cattle in wild field:
Herding grown calves of kine, their shafts have slain
Before; and kids and lambs of wild hill-flocks.
Lo, where one drives to pasture an horned troop!
And lately an herdwife skill hath found at eve;
To draw their milky udders, with meek hands.

Yonder, of shepherds' crew, a young man leads,
Out o'er hill-bent, shrill playing on his pipe,
Of fenny reeds, (which music the lad found;)
And follow browsing forth, his fleecy flock.

Go shepherds' daughters, spinning as they wend;
Drawing out yarn, of their sheeps carded fleece;
Wool gathered wide, caught in the thorns and briars:
Which they, come home, will stretch on new found loom;
And sit with shuttle, to weave blanket-cloth.
A housewife was, considered well the weft
Of leaves and warp of bast, found websters' art.
Man hath thus Winter coats and Summer sarks.

Of Man, born naked, on Step-Mother lap,
This mould of Earth; were such first witty arts.
Guest of a day of Eternity, grown more ripe;
He now towards heaven uplifts his feeble spirits.
Mans soul enquires, in his amazed blind thought;
Ben not there Gods on loft, that help or hurt?
Of souls health, and how might he approach the Gods?

A Priest-King those days was, of human flock,
Father of counsel, meek, of lofty thought:
Whose spirit athirst, Will of the Gods enquires;
Ensearcheth, in Worlds darkness, righteous laws.

With prayer his soul he chastens and with fast,
His flesh. Whence, well accepted of high Gods;
They, in heavenly vision, lead him by the hand:
And show him, how hath Heaven engendered laws;
Whereby hangs bound the regiment of the World,
And to hím they impárt a sacred Discipline;
With charge, to teach it to the sons of men.

And Time was now grown old upon Earths face;
When Titans quicken, from long marble trance.
Returned; their dœmons rouse those frozen trunks:
They chace long torpor from their marble breasts.

Leaned to World-mountains flanks, those immane chide:
That gaze, with sidelong looks, out o'er Earth-plot;
Bending their whinstone brows, in froward mood.
And their tremendous elemental voice;
Like roaring cataracts, seemed to shake the World.

Was then, from under that World-mountains flanks,
Hid from bright Eye of heaven, One issues forth:
Whose ravelled long white hair-locks blowing loost;
Not human, though conformable were Her feature
Unto mans shape, yet being of Titan-stature.
Such, of blanched solemn looks; whose nether parts

Murk clóud shrouds, stands lo immútable antique Fate:
Stands under Sun and stars, lo, on Worlds coast!

Fate, unborn Daughter of Eternity: of Her,
Is told, in the priests' mystic Temple-chants:
She lapsed like Voice, from everlasting height;
What day Mid-Earth was founded, and laid floor,
Neath stars; this mould, whereon we mortals tread.
Priests further réad; how ón World-mountains brinks;
Fate, ín a divine vortex, storm-cast was.

Neath those derne rocks sequestered, Her abode
Hath Fate henceforth: where bodily substance clothed
Vapours of Earth, on Her immortal part.

Eternal Doom, before the Gods She was.
What though be here Her Oracle, on Earths shore:
Whence Her Word sways, (which a cold Breath of stars;)
Tides and occasions, good and evil hap;
Yet everywhere Fate is. The vaulted skies,
The air, the desolate wastes of Earth-Worlds Face;
And watery fields of sea-deeps wilderness:
Be subject unto Her. All full they are
Of Fates august Aspect, and infinite Voice.

The dread wolf-riding Norns, from Her proceed;
Whose hoary daughters be ten thousand Weirds.
A Weird awaits, on every human birth;

Which unto each, with smiles or crooked looks;
Allots, which men call Hap, his several part.

Howbeit, her hand strains javelin; with intent
To slay him in the end: dart aye stretcht forth!
He feels already her chill pursuing breath,
Upon his neck, in strife of his mid-course.
Aye, and if one hasten her, hím She will abet.

Fate, upon whom is fallen prophetic spirit;
Lifting íron pálms, dark and dread things proclaims.
Her Voice thrills Titans' ears. Fates utterance is
A manner elemental speech; whose sound,
Likens Seas wandering bruit, on wave-scourged rocks.

Dark-browed, inscrútable; óf mens Gods, she warns:
Gainst Whom may not prevail might of Earths sons.
And that new Nation, amongst fleshborn kinds:
The human flock; which hath already obtained
Dominion, over beasts of valley and hill.
Moreo'er is Destiny; should be vast Earth-mould,
By Man subdued.

Are men of upright shape,
Like to themselves: though fading as a leaf,
Of few days' life; yet nurselings of the Gods.
Let them alone! for whom, heavens Gods will fight.

Wherethrough, quoth Fate, should bounden at the last;
Be subject made to Man, their Father Force.

Being Titans come to conscience of themselves;
Brute fury invades them, líke a búrning torch!
Bellowing loud confuse cries; in manner of
Monstrous complaint, (which hath not heretofore
Heard Earth nor Air:) they roll in 'sdainful mood,
In rocky bosoms; how, for aught Fate saith:
(Can none of all those things, Fate testifieth,
Them rightly move; for bowels have they of stone:)
Might Titans tread men groundlings, underfoot;
And Sea-gulf, which betwixt them lies, o'erpass.
The kindred of Man first must be destroyed:
Since can his prayers bring Gods down from their spheres.

All bind them then, with a tremendous curse:
By Sky above; great Mother, Middle-Earth;
Hell-Deep beneath, and Eagors Ocean-flood!
Together to contend, with men and Gods:
Which, from on-high, the kind of men defend.

Earth-Mother heard Her first-born Childrens voice:
And swelling in Her pride Her Gulf beneath,
As with new birth-pang were; She shook from off
Her constrained Breast, which with their needs partakes,

Much burden of main Sea-deeps wide waters' flood;
And shed to either part. And, in that place,
Dry cragged brow appeared and floor of rocks;
Like as vast causeway wild, twixt Mainland were,
And Manholms shore; which Isle thenceforth no more.

Quickens their marble joints, whiles Titans gaze,
Immortal pulse: some grúdge in their hoarse throats;
(As their indwelling dœmons them inspire,)
To the elemental wayward Winds; in part,
(Which blow out o'er wide compass of Earths dust;)
Of Titan-kin.

Poised those from aery loft;
Grant thitherward to fly forth, for their behoof:
And knowledge take of mortal ways and works.

Have Winds Wind-home, large crystal shelf, above
The cloudy rack, for their abiding-place;
Whither, from time to time, those wont resort:
And where they assémble, each thírd Móon, unto Feast.

Who hawk-winged, his stiff feathers erst displays;
Is the North Wind, shrill piercing as a dart.
And so he hastily, o'er Earths green breast and seas,
Him speeds; that he anon raught Manholms craigs:
Where blasts his rime-cold breath all tender buds;

And hangs the forest boughs, with bearded frost,
And ícícles. The herb and Worlds tilled field,
He mars; and seals all brooks, with scab of ice:
And mourn in frozen pastures, herds and flocks.

Men shut-to their cote-doors. Who found without;
Unwont to Winters spite, look now for death.
All crooked in the blast, with withered looks;
Trembling in their poor weed, they haste to house.

Outblown the North Winds wrath: surged, heavy as swan,
Murk wild West Wind, storm-footed from Seas flood;
With drift of mighty vans, weaving waves' Breast.
And to him gathering his spersed headlong gusts,
From under heaven; wherein ride Spirits of Tempest:
He in fury out-blustering hurls. Blots his foul breath
All cheerful brightness of the day aloft.

He rúins on fórest brink of Manholms cliff;
And roaring bears, with burden of salvage blasts,
Down, rinded pines, oaks staggering, rooted ash,
And antique elms, outrageous; to dimmed Earths
Dust. Nothing can, wherein is life, resist
His madding force. Their footing cattle keep,
In field, uneath: mens cabans stand unroofed!

Flood then his troubled skies of water-drops,
Outpour; and seems the World distempered fen,
The while. Then, as he rose, decays his force.
He droops; and presently failing, dies dispersed.
But when the Sun is up; a mildew springeth,
And blast, on all green thing, where passed his Breath.

In swift career, scours homicide tarte East Wind,
Keen soughing forth. The cloud-stained Element
Sweeps bare: seemed then of steel the firmament!
So soar his hissing wings, o'er hills, o'er seas;
He seemeth a shaft, as hastily forth he flies.

Nów amongst Mánholms forest cliffs, he whines,
Malignant spirit; with whom Contagion rides.
Eftsoon, on wild woods' creaking arms, he plays,
As on some many-stringéd mighty harp.
Before him scud burst boughs' sere rustling leaves.

With eager onset, on mens World, he rushed!
Where wights go lean and wan and blow their nails.
Fall from his feathers stony water-drops.
He all human paths, in cankered mood, surveys.
Within their doors, he made to faint mens hearts:
So passed; and World left wrapped in wretchedness.

From swart three-headed mount, wafts smooth South Wind
Her gentle pens, in semblant of a dove.
And crown from those high towers, of sacred snows,
Loost her warm tempered breath. Gurgle afresh
Long-silent brooks, late cloyed with Winter frost;
And leap down rumbling, to World-mountains foot.

Her gracious feathers, whence flows fostering Breath;
Her bear, with easy flight, out o'er green Earth.
Eachwhere She glides, the Sunborn flowers unfold:
Fair daisy, diadem'd with a silver fret;
The nodding windflower, party white and red:
And twinkling goldilócks uplift their heads.

Eachwhere she blissful stoops; do manifold kiss
Her feathers, all green spires of springing grass:
They clip about Her running vermeil feet;
Where she alights. Her kindly Breath it is,
That weaves the woods, and makes all boughs to bud;
Which stoop to Her caress.

Men wend again
Glad-eyed forth from their doors, in the Worlds paths.
Man greets well man, in solace of their hearts;
Whiles even the agéd feel revive their force.

In happy hour, in their best garments trim;

All issue to the fields, (bright shines the Sun!)
Where rime-white blows the thorn, and eglantine
Breathes. There in mirth and gladness, children sing,
Gathering sweet posies, Spring is comen in!

Green plot amidst is place of most resort,
Where lads and lasses dance before the gods;
Adorned with lilies' pride, their sunbright locks:
Which mingles on their shoulders the Winds' spirit.

Returned from their career, the former Winds;
Sitting on pens of that three-headed mount;
Their whistling wings fold, as they weary were;
Whence now had ebbed forth their World-wasting breath:
And three swart ravens seemed, that hold discourse,
With impious voice.

Say those, of human kin;
They love them not. All flesh-born wights them cursed,
Whiles that they passed. Mantling his swart wet pens,
West Wind, who chides and snores, as in thick woods;
Last spake, from his high see, in scowling sort.
He had shrieking dœmons heard say, above the blast:
(Their voices filled vast region of the loft;)
Through Mans kin, should confounded be the Earth.

All hearken, whiles with fell and crabbed breath,
He gave his Counsel thus. Ye Winds! I read,
We our weathers league, great well-affied Wind-flood;
(As Brothers ere, in Earths beginning, was:)
Whose whirling ruin nothing can resist.
So may we rend the skies, wherein mens Gods
Harbour; and stooped from thence, o'erthrow the World.

Thereunto those consent, but contrarywise,
Sitting apart, cries South Wind, of mild mood;
(Which towards the Family of man, a kindness hath;)
Preening the while Her gracious feathered breast,
Sáying; áll wights had blessed Her, where She passed.

The green herb, mantle of Earths mould; She joys
To surview daily; and smell this, from on loft,
New Spring-tide sweetness of the flowery field;
Whose daisies' pride, now manifold as the stars.
Whose trees not less, (and blossomed is the bough
She there beholds;) She cherisheth with Her breath:
That to Her incline their tufted leafy locks.
But most; She all little ones, of Earths birds and beasts:
And now of Mans kin likewise, inly loveth.

Winds' Voice, fallen from cloud-cliffs, to Titans' ears;
More vehement purpose wakes, in their numb breasts.

Indwelling dœmons, speaking through their mouths:
Call then by name, from confines of the Element;
Unto them, certain lesser hoving spirits:
To whom they give in charge, to seek farforth
The Father of Highseas' wide wandering wilderness;
And aid of Him enquire, in their Emprise.

Eagor have our eld-fathers named Floods God:
Whose currents hoary all Middle-Earth enfold.
Whose brim, which His tempestuous salt-tide hems,
Whereon He leans, (weak bars to shut Him in;)
Waste strand is, that his surges heapt before;
Of his own pébble-stones and small grinded sand.

Eagor (A. Sax.), the Ocean-God. The word is akin to A. Sax. êge, awe.

Passed forth, those Messengers sought, longst creeky shores;
In sounding watery caves, through each blue gulf;
(Whereas from time to time, Seas Sire wont sleep;
And rise, all-bearded with brown tangle-wrack,
At midday.) And thence, through paths of Main-sea Deep,
Still those seek forth: but find him not. They last;
Then in deep wick, twixt billow-buffeted cliffs,
Which seem to fleet, found rising the Sea-God.

Eagor, in Whirlpit, mighty waters' fret;
Lo! amidst hoarse retinue of windy tumbling billows;
And barking sealhounds' stinking herd; and bleak-
Winged cleping aery seamews' multitude.

Those beckon! (cannot Eagor hear their voices!)
Blowing his whelky conch then, the Sea-God
Stilled wild waste watery tumult of salt flood.
Sith, full of blustering guile, he boisterous asks;
What mean they? And shook much drizzling brine from off
His sidelong beard and watchet locks.

His cheer,
On Bosom lifted of salt streaming Tide;
Such seemed as rising Moon, which filled Her horns;
On border leans, a moment, of Earths land.

In salvage mood, great Eagor gazed around!
And the much-knowing Father of Seas flood,
About the World that runs: (those craggéd cliffs
Rebellow His main voice!) requires of each;
What would they?

And they outcry, amidst the tumult,
Of wind and waves; we are Titans' Messengers,
Sent hither! Wilt Thou leagued with them, with whom
Joined Tempest of three Winds, gainst men and Gods;

(Gods that usurp dominion of dry land!)
Contend, in day of battle-strife that cometh?
If thus, tide forth: and whelm now Thy waves' Breast,
O'er Manholms coast.

Disdaining, Seas God spake;
Smirch my fair streams with ooze, and mirey warp!
What reck I of Man, more than of other kinds,
Offspring of Earths dry land; or of Heavens Powers!
Or yonder crystal Firmament was spended,
And Heaven framed, habitation of new Gods;
And on seven adamant pillars, leaned upstayed;
I Eagor was.

It is not they uplifted
Have lately Sea-deeps floor, in my despite,
From Hells abyss; whereby sharp wounding craigs
My sides have pierced. Yet, for my hoist sea-ground,
I reck not, though sink Manholm in its stead.
But what be ye? I will not hear your voice.

He said, with great tumultuous headlong looks:
And, midst wild wave-rows, Eagor stoopt; which o'er
Seas God, close! Gone he is to glistering Hall,
Of Ran; whither fare souls of all drowned men.

Ran is named Eagors wife. And She it is, who in a divine net, ravisheth unto Her all souls of drownéd men.

Those Spirits, which sit in likeness of sea-cobs,
On squalid foreland, fringed with slimy wrack;
With taunting tongues, revile Deeps parting God.
They cry, Thou fleest, for all Thy blustering boast!
Who hath nót heard tell, amongst terrestrial Spirits;
How poured out liest Thou, in Thy Mother's Lap!
(Seeing Earth Thy Mother is, Dotard!) of Thy wantonness.

Moon-led, wind-ridden, Flood trembling at each breath!
In all Thy vague illimitable wilderness;
Streams wandering ever and arriving never!
Brine that Thou art, false sands, base filthy slime!
(Aye and Serpent art Thou named and the World-worm!)
There none, with Thee, would willingly consort.

Sought other dœmon-sent swift Messenger-Spirits;
To the elemental Fire, whom Master-smith
Men call: but Gods name Spirit of Earths-abyss.
Midst flaming caverns, of Hell-Deep beneath;
Where, semblable to a subtle Wind, they passed:
Those Surtur, divine smith, found whom they sought:

Find, standing in much thick uprolling smoke;

A chapelet on his head of fiery light;
In iron abysmal Pit, whereas he wrought.
Great stang of steel, his right hand wields, red-hot,
In part; His left holds rake, that seemeth of brass.
He a mighty bellows labours with His feet.

Deposed those tools, he anon a sledge uptakes:
Whose great strokes fall, with measured mighty dint,
On well-tuned anvil. His left, iron bar, pluckt
Forth from the coals, under his hammer wrests;
Wherefrom he a shower of fiery flakes beats forth.
Surtur new lever forges; to uplift
Hills by the roots: and at their times prefixt,
Again o'erthrow.

His Travail, the God stints;
Viewed those strange Messengers! and attends their speech.
Which understood, brief answer Surtur makes:
Would not he fail them, come that day of strife.
He, of Titan kin, would burn with fire the World:
Whence His flames, mounting higher, should consume,
In the heavens; the habitacles of mens Gods.

Surtur, (the swart One,) is named Lord of the Flame-World.

Were other Messengers to the Sun-Sire sent.
Light of the Earth, they found Him issuing forth,

Midst glad consent of birds, and melody on height;
(Seemed some celestial Music of the Spheres!)
Upon that sovereign Majesty of the Gods face,
Durst not those look.

Unto their halting speech,
Answered, but not with words of wights, Suns Spirit;
From His ascending fulgent fire-wheeled chariot:
(And seemed an hymn of heaven, Suns arcane voice!)

It liketh me well, eách day Mans World to view:
Kin only, of all Lifes breath, which on round Earth;
Their reverent palms, towards mine uprising lift:
And worship, towards mine high meridian warmth,
What hour I pause. And yet, when even is,
Hour of my going-down, to rest beneath.

By heavens high Throne, above all that is named;
Committed, to my Godhed, was this path.
With Titans of Earth-clot, hath Sun no part.
With Gods on loft, Sun sooner kinship hath.
Thus saying, Sun swiftly ascending, from them passed.

Came other Messengers, to husht covert Night.
They in lofty sliding shadow, of dew-steeped Earth;
Where She holds sway o'er múrk-winged ínfinite ghosts,
(Her phantom host,) Night sullen shrouded found:

(Might, in Her zone, the heavenly sígns be read!)

They stood for fear far off, and Night beheld!
Who, Mother boasts Her of the former Gods:
Séeing Nights Womb-Gulf wás, ere stars were named;
That lofty Bosom of the Universe.

Cloud-helmed; in stature, She the skies transcends.
Hell-browed, of heinous dreadful countenance,
Is Night unhold; which waxeth, whiles day wanes:
And whelms deceitful dread, on an husht World.
She, in bleak silent watches, felon walks;
And meditating crimes, is no mans friend.
Might Night not half: yet seemed She, Her shoulder turning;
To assent in part, with dark dissembling nod.

Sought other to vain kingdom of moist clouds;
Skys unstaied flocks, without continuance:
Whereof there hang some, on World-mountains flanks;
In guise of flocs of wool, caught in the thorns.

Some, (which pavilions of air-riding spirits;)
Are listed, as with gold, and dyed in blood.
Other swart-hewed, fleet, big with tempests' wreak.
Udders of heaven some are. Wind-driven the most

Fleet, changeful daughters of the liquid loft;
With tawny outblown locks. Some reared on height,
Seem steepy uprolling hills of snow: but hardly
Endure till morrows day.

Much stormy rack
Gathers those Messengers round. Clouds have no mouth,
Wherein is speech: but loudly rumbling! riven
With lightning tongues; seemed they to grant their asking.

Tumble, léven-split, with fár resounding ruin!
Of that three-headed mount, pinnacles to Earths Plain.
Brake sudden then ímpious shout, from Titans' throats;
Blaspheming Heaven!

Even Surtur, át his hearth,
Startled deep under Earth; and sledge and tongs,
Flung; which fell far forth clattering from his hands.

In that the Smith-God leapt aside; brúnt burst
Of his courbe shoulder, Eárths wide floor above,
Of living rock; and hoist Her infirm mould:
Whose infinite chinks let forth then diverse kinds,
Of creeping vermin strange.

As when mans hand
Haps, labouring in his field, uplift some stone;
Whereunder hundred living loathly shapes,
Lie writhing, in dank bed, revealed to view.
So, in thousand clefts, Earths field discloses now;
Rife brood of griesly creatures; which had lurked
Therein, since Times beginning: where was dust
Their meat, and mire their sorry dwelling-place.
They útter thick, from ground; all haste scape forth!
Nor breathed they vital air, till this new birth.

Some scurry on hundred pairéd horny feet:
On crooked crippling shanks, some sidelong trace.
Rise multitude, more than they, in wild wide waste.
From mould, climb those confusedly, on living heaps;
Riding each other, many as the stalks of grass.

With three-split tongues, wind hissing basilisks,
Whose only aspect slays. Glide burnisht asps;
With checquered flánks and rólling wreathéd pace.
Most rife, mount scorpions, mongst that hideous press:
That as they sharded run, with lifted croups,
Still threaten baleful stings.

That monstrous rout,
Have sorted them in swarms, in trains, in troops;

Like unto like! Whilst flow those further forth;
There fell Impúlsion on them, of Earth Powers!

Long creeping swarms, they ghastful hubbub keep;
Champing of venemous jaws, rattling of scales.
And aye they increase in státure, whíles they march.
Gross-swelled, such as were scorpions, grow sheep-great;
And so of all the remnant, in their kinds.

BOOK III

ARGUMENT

Upon that raised causeway of land, now Titans march. Come under Manholms craigs, they one night rest; which unto Mankind long Winter-season is. Mens Winter Feast: wherein the Gods descend, to view Mans state. Twain enter, in visible shape, into the hall of mens Priest-King. They warn, of Titans nigh approach. Earthquake and an heavenly Voice. herdfolk with their cattle come in.

Spring-tide in the Earth. Titans revive and renew their march. That monstrous swarm of creeping things issue from the Winter woods. Titans meet with giant companies. And accord and league is betwixt them made, against mens sky-dwelling Saviour Gods.

The Gods, assembled in heaven, impose a three days' stupor on mens World. They gather then armed unto their heavenly rampire. Aerial Spirits station them in fleeting clouds. Titans advance. The heavens are darkened. A comet-star is seen. Giants assay from up-heaped hills, to scale the heavenly fastness of the Gods. They are smitten by divine lightnings.

Another battle is seen of giants in Earth-Worlds Plain. They turn to fight among themselves, and being likewise sore smitten by divine lightnings, they founder; and are buried by loost raging Winds, under much duned sand.

The multitude of creeping monsters perish, by fire and flood.

Titans in Earths Battle-Plain are seen, vainly pursuing fantastic images both of Gods and men. They too, lightning-smitten, fall one by one; and fierce Winds mound, o'er their living corses, long hill-rows, in wilderness, of sliding sand.

Surtur, in that he uprose, partly overthrows World-mountains flanks; which ruin upon Titans, in Earths plainfield beneath. Few Titans and giants last remained alive, fall down through an hollow floor of rock, to the infernal Pit. Malignant Spirits, flitting in the Element, are taken in a divine net.

New vital warmth is kindled the same tide,
In Titans' breasts; beats in their marble being,
Unwonted pulse, desire to sally forth.

Then Titans issue, vehement; in their gait,
Oft stumbling, shuffle-footed; that, as yet,
Uneath bend their stiff members. Mighty impress
Remains to this day, in the living rock,
Of their huge steps.

Towards bridge of craggéd rocks,
That Surtur raised, twixt Manholm and the Main;
Instincted of their dœmons, which them guide;
They hold then course. With hill-high Titan-statures,
Might loftiest beams of poplars not compare.

Forwandered long therein, vast dry clay-ground,
All cumbered with sharp rocks, where Sea erst was:
With immane rumour, making weary speed;
Titans, that their unsupple joints uneath,
Rule; (had whose march dured now an human age;)
Approach at length to Manholm, World of men.

Draw nigh to shore their mighty uneven steps:
And soon benéath the Isles fórest cliffs, they pass.
There Titans one night rest.

Stiff, with long frost;
That night, to mens sons, tardy Winter is:
When daily shrinks the arc of the Suns path;
And drooping-headed, seems the drowsy God;
To look askance, from his short midday rest;
And with bleak beams: and that engenders frost.

Fades rusty tappet of Earths weary ground.
Uncheerful skies, whence blow out churlish blasts;
O'erhang wide field: and fall sere shivering leaves,
In the dank woods. In pastures fogged and rough,
Go the lean beasts. Soon on Earths widowed lap,
New fallen snow lies: and nippeth an îron frost
All living blood. The year all comfortless
Distempered is: and seemeth then Earths mould laid,
Like as the dead, in Her eternal shroud.
(Brief is to immane Titans, of the Sun,
Mine Author saith, the ever-circling year;
As is the gait of mortals, to a man;
Who gazeth out on them, whiles they pass his door!)

One Winters Moon, as that Times custom was;

Mens toilful hands, from daily swink, have pause.
All sit, with holiday looks, in their new weed,
At home; and eat and drink the new-found mead.
And is mens feast, the whiles rejoice their hearts,
That call upon the Gods; (though brickle is
They hold, the human state; nor lifes day long
Endures,) without excess.

Men worship thus
The Gods: that hear, up-echoing to high stars;
Titans' dread voice! and fear their froward march.
Gods come, to heavens high brínks; look thénce down-forth!

Sith, lest men utterly perish from the Earth:
Assembled them in haste, Gods Council hold;
How might the Worlds defense they on them take.

Lo on a day, be Gods themselves descended!
To view the whole estate of mortal wights;
Upon Worlds ground. Nor visible be their shapes
As yet to human sight. Gods enter oft
Time, o'er some pious threshold, to an hearth;
Which, with their divine Presence, they would bless.

Men in their cabans sit, in diverse state
Of weal or woe and wedded parentage.

From one, sounds merry note of herdsmans pipe:
Where throbs the floor, with nimble shifting feet.
Here sickness and there want. From yonder porch;
Corse of some long-aged father, lo borne forth!
Nigh-hand, sound puling cries of some new birth.

Passed by, Gods issue to Mantowns outfield;
To herdfolks' shealings, pinfolds, poor clay cotes;
Where hinds, lapt in rough saies, now time of night;
Neath stars, keep watch, and hounds abay the wolf.

Of all thus taken knowledge, on Worlds ground;
The Saviour Gods, to their divine abodes,
Returned up: leaving in blind human hearts,
Cold dark forboding, as of toward ill.

Howbeit there twain rest of those heavenly ones:
Whose feet divine, at door now enter in,
Of the Priest-King, high father of mens nation.

Who on benches sít, róound about the house-walls,
At the Kings either hand, hoar-headed Sire;
Are Ancients of the Town: which wont with him
Commune. Is their discourse, of the Lands weal.

And Wisdom is the staff, whereon he leans;
And Counsel is the breath of the Kings lips.
Grave is his speech: mild reverend countenance hath

He, unto every wight. In the floors midst,
Burns the Towns sacred Hearth. From time to time;
A childs hand casts thereon sweet-smelling pine.

That heavenly Twain; which, through their midst, pass forth,
Unséen; take stóols, left empty by late deaths,
Of Seer, who taught Mans nation the Gods hests;
And Bard, whom had the Gods themselves raised up;
To sing as the small fowl, with hardy flight,
And pleasing heavenly note, above the World.
And weave, with words of light, undying verse:
Whereof the People named him, Lips-of-Gold.

Become their divine visages, by degrees,
Visible únto mortal sense: with minds suspent,
Astonished as in trance, all on them gaze!
Expecting of them aught; they wiss not what.
Men ween, they view strange Vision of the dead;
Their form and very bodily hew and substance!

Likewise, though hour is this of night; they see,
To shine from their both fronts forth, lightsome ray.
But when the proffered cup those Twain divine
Waive with their hands; a frost creeps in mens hearts.
The hair, upon their foreheads, is raised up:

Chill sweat breaks forth. Durst none among them ask:
How those they laid in grave, revert from death!

The God, who in mans likeness, opens erst
His lips, continues chant of bard deceased;
When of the twilight of the stars, he spake:
And Songsmith prayed; Might teem glad light and warmth
New Dawn unto the World.

Well that bard couth;
Whom Gods, in recompense had of pious life;
With high insight endued and numbers sweet,
As crystal waves'-sway on some Summer strand;
Devise of things, exceeding mortal scope.

Filled with stars' influence, flitting heavenly light;
Which, like to a vision, springs in fleshly thought;
And in that moment fades: with lofty note,
He to mens listening ears, could body forth.

A breathing slough, seed of mans mortal flesh;
I look, with eye, soon to be dust, he quoth;
As from an housetop, shortly to be heaps;
Betwixt a setting and a rising Sun;
To be soon unremembered of days past.

In valley dim, I murmur of Worlds dust:

But cometh wide Dawn, clad all in saffron weed;
The new-born day unfoldeth as a bud.
Pure as the dew, which fallen in the night;
Waketh fresh morrows breath. For, Lord-of-life;
Lo Eye divine of heaven, Sun glistering soars!

That virgin spark, men daily hew of flint;
And pious hands tine on this sacred hearth;
We a shadow of Thee, Lord, daily dedicate;
To Thy great glory, All-seeing, sustaining God.
He ceased; and silent sate that human fellowship.

Tongue mutters, murmuring darkly in his throat,
Of that man-seeming Seer. Then he spake forth:
Yet shines Nights everlasting burning frost.
Clear stars, like cattle, wend above our heads;
That pasture forth, in yond celestial plains.

I a day behold of trouble nigh approach;
Namely in yond stars, which thwart this louver pass:
Trouble, through them of whom have men not heard
Before: not flesh, but offspring of Earth Powers.

Man-shaped dismeasurate bulks, of jointed stones;
I hitherward see them nighing, of cloud-height!
That threaten to tread Manholm underfoot;
And battle wage against immortal Powers.

Wherefore I read; to heavens All-Fatherhood,
Breathe devout prayers. That echo to yond stars;
Might one ascending cry, of all mens souls;
To Saviour Gods: that they vouchsafe to shield us,
In so sore peril!

On that sacred hearth,
(Where newly cast were odours, cedar-sprays,
Whence perfumed cloud ascends;) all stare. When men
Look up; were those Twain passed, from mortals' seeing!

In his high settle, rose the King of men:
And washed devout his palms, in water pure;
Worships towards Níghts age-shíning heavenly Steep:
Whence floweth all bounty and help to mortal wights.
And, bowing thé hoar head, forgiveness asks:
And prays, might lowings of this Peoples hearts,
Mens thousand households, enter in Gods' ears.
Sith risen, for come is hour of mortals' heaviness:
Gone forth, all sperse them homeward to their rests.

Now mens loost limbs, on Mother Earth displayed;
Forgetful slumber steeps. Wolves howl; and else
Dead-seeming, in bleak moonlight, swoons the World.
The forms be those of men, that reason boast;

Which lie, as the unborn, in womb of sleep!
And none, whiles sleeps fit lasts, can help himself,
Though were aflame his house. Bound their clay lies,
And holden is their sense.

Their enlarged spirits
Be flítting nigh lifes brínks; where thousand shows,
To their shut eyes, in false fantastic light,
Appear; Mans inarticulate inner thought
Breeds, in sleeps dream, as such substantial were.

To this one seemeth, in field or street he were:
Or sole, or walks in converse with his friends.
Some, as conveyed far-off, sees Countries strange:
Another only swevens meets of dread.
Mare-rídden, he groans; as mountain weight of Fate,
His straitened chest oppressed.

Already, is hum,
At cock-crow, of people gathered in their street,
Like clustering bees: mongst whom new rumour runs;
That have to-night their ancients seen the Gods!

Sounds and resoundéth, móre than mortal Voice,
From heavens cloud-steep! whence mighty radiance pores,
Of Suns uprisen wide-fathoming beams; that seem,

From window of heaven supreme, to span the World:
Voice, smote all ears and pierced all mortal breasts!

Rumbles then fearful din of Earth beneath!
Worlds ground seems rock, and totters their long street:
Founder rent walls; rush many timbered roofs.
Arose great crying! many are hurt at once.

Creep pale, from ruinous thresholds, trembling wights!
Mothers their little ones strain, to panting breasts.
Hoar fathers feel their aged knees to sink,
In this astonishment. Séemed them arrow of death,
Then, through their aged reins, to suddenly glide!
Whiles even the stout young men, their sons, lose breath.

Leading, now in from open field, their flocks;
Herdfolk, whom messengers overnight have warned,
Be come to town. They, their beasts' couching place,
Heard, should have been this part now fallen-down street!

Come neatherds driving-in their great-horned beasts;
And goatherds, with their bearded neezing troops:
That in hill-sides, wont, reared on their hind shanks,
Mongst thymy rocks; to browse the tender stalks.

Baked in the Sun, their hardy looks to bronze;
Bear bats that herdfolk, in their sinewed hands;
And slings and bows and flint-head javelins:

Their many-footed stock, in field, to ward.
Full all of cattle is soon mens ruinous town.
And sounds their long street-row, with mingled voice;
Of herds and flocks, and lambs which push the teat.

Barefooted, coy; come, supple as willow-wands,
In shepherds' daughters, fresh as primroses.
Whose cheeks hewed as the foxglove; whose sheen locks,
Like flower of wáter-flags; dríving from the cotes,
Their líttle troops of weanling kids and lambs;
With sober cheer.

And herd-wife-folk arrive:
Leading some in young children, by the hand.
Some ones, with looks of goodly womanhed;
Bearing at bosom tender suckling babes.
And household stuff, with victual for days need,
They, on their painful necks, have likewise laid.

Come elder children leaping them beside:
Unwitting their young years, of thís days dread.
Whose fingers rush-rings knit, dight daisy chains:
Whiles blossoms laughter, on their twin-wreathed lips.
Some blow up stalks of green corn, as they run;
In thicket wild, queen-apples ripe to pluck;
And cherries red, and purple bramble-berries.

Come last in hinds; men staggering under cords

Of stover, they have gathered in wide field;
For their beasts' provender, stalled now in the town.
Herdfolk, which chát at córners of the street,
In their hill-speech, be wights of worthy parts:
As who learned nurture, under Sun and stars.
(Men clothed are they, most-what in pilches rough,
Against the cold; as wont most nights to wake,
Where ravening wolves are rife, under clear stars.)

Past is chill Winter passion of the Earth,
The Sun returns: and in His lively warmth,
Titans revive; which slumbered long, beneath
The hollow hanging of Isle Manholms cliffs.
And in the same refine possessing Spirits
Their stony bulks; (that seem now more conformed,
To human mould:) seeing, with sky-dwelling Gods,
Must presently those contend: and semblable make,
To lively flesh. Moreo'er they speech, in measure
Impart; as those were able to receive:
And understanding mind therewith.

With voíce,
Like roar of tumbling mighty cataracts;
Titans their swelling mood gainst heavens Gods,
Declare. One, who stands forth before the rest;

Beckoning, with immane hand of stony flesh;
What déem they? húge three-throated monster asks
Then, thunder-voiced!

What time, took form the Earth;
We it possessed, or ever were the Gods.
What-though Earths Field were void, was not it ours?
Or Earths rock-sill was rusted into dust.
Whereon then sprang green thing, and beasts crept forth.

Ben not we Brethren, born of one Earth-Womb!
Behoves us all together, to stand stedfast.
Son-of-a-worm, malgré our might, shall Man,
That clay-born deathling thing; (in an eye-glance
They fade away as grass!) us dispossess?
Shall Man be heir of all? lord over us!

Him answer those, with one tempestuous throat;
Their Will is to go up, gainst men and Gods;
If haply might they with them meet. And Mire
Destroy; (Titans thus name Mans dwelling-place:)
Tread down mens works; bring in the same, to naught,
All slime of flesh, wherein is living breath.

Bellowing among them then, as thousand steers;
Titans smite palms, in token of covenant:
And séemed the héavens to rûin for the noise!
Titans, with one accord; bearing for staves,

To stay on; pines and ash-beams in dread hands;
Full all of grame with dread alternate stride;
Begin their march, against sky-dwelling Gods.

Towards lánd beyond, exúlting in their force;
They go up míghtily. Oft sínks their lourdain tread,
Unto the stony knees, in mould unsound.
Pulse of their feet shakes térribly the Éarth.
As poplars, wallowing in the wind, they pass,
With shoveling soles. (Two bullocks' hides, for brogues,
Had not sufficed; that one of them were shod,
Mine Author saith!)

Eachwhere flee forest beasts:
All voice is whisht of birds, whiles Titans pass.
They o'erfáre, come thíther, flood; as brook it were.
Hill-rows, which thwart their path, they overstride.

Where first they reached tilled lands; Titans behold:
(Foreheads have they of flint, breasts like wild bulls;)
That little folde beyond, which Mans green World
Is named: the fairest field which looketh upon
The Sun; field which defend mens Saviour Gods.

As for that creeping hideous horny brood:
Together, all they, under Autumn leaves;

In woodshaws wild have lurked, in Winter-sleep.
Murkwood, that forest of the World, of old,
The fathers named; full of blind paths. But raised,
Where Titans' tread shakes mould; those shoaling forth,
All follow on Titans' trace.

That monstrous multitude,
Descended thence; to strand of streaming ford,
Arrived: upheap them, living twining mass;
(As thorns, which scud before the lenten blast:)
That hissing, seem blaspheme the very Gods.

Who foremost, swerve from currents cold, apart;
Them numbs. But who next after hideous press,
Heapmeal o'erride them. Throngs neath throngs drench thus:
Till who last reach, of those claw-footed trains;
On fleeting crapled corses of the rest,
O'erwaft, as on a bridge.

Titans huge stumbling;
(Unweldy, of so huge port, those fare uneath:)
Be come down to Earths Plain. The morning mist
Lifting somewhat; they meet with giants, there journeying;
(Had gíants been called, by currents of three Winds;)

To join them to their part: are giants two bands.

Of whom I, in mine Author, read recorded:
One kin, of rime-cold vapours of Earths face,
Spring, neath heavens seven stars. In chambered cliffs,
Of forest mountain rocks, their harbour was:
With Cold and Darkness, daughters of Night-Murk.
Nor fire to them is known, nor use of bread.

An Offspring of the Earth, in Her first strength;
From Mist-World they arrive: (that is far-off,
As eagle in a Summers light might glide.)
Nation, whom naprons only clothe of moss.
Strong mighty indeed, but doting in their force;
Durst, in their brutishness, those defy heavens Gods.
Them One, Asperian, leads; (which sounds Bear-Lord.)

And being of so rude parts, some bear in hand,
A glaive of stone. Of horrible aspect;
Who least of them a stones-cast stands on height.
Unkempt, their locks be full of frosty leaves;
Their beards of ícicles: whéreof them Rime-Giants,
The fathers named.

As for that other band,
Eotens hight, dread hundred-handed brood:
They, in fár East-wílderness dwell, called the Suns Hearth;

Where hath the Dawn an House. And membered huge,
Unmatchable of might, with violent looks:
Dúrst those contémn Mantowns defending Gods!
And therein fleshling wights. To fight desirous;
They march, with those manquelling hundred arms
Of theirs. Them One great Awehelm leads.

And was,
Early in the dawning of this morrow; when
Those giant compánies, éach to each approached;
Their squadrons, on both parts, loud sálvage brayed;
And lifted ímmane hands.

But Spirits aloft,
Of Titans' part; causing those three-Winds' breath,
To murmur, pláying on craggéd mountain rocks,
An hoarse consent, allayed their stormy mood.
Whereafter, twíxt giants íssued from pine wolds;
And giants of flaming Eastward march, is made
A grim accord gainst high immortal Gods;
On this wise: Should their bands, with Titans leagued;
Conténd with heavens, come morrow, for the World.

In Star-Hall, (that of crystal aspect, is
Gold-shining, azure-ceiled, midst storied skies:)
Mens Gods sit down in Council, hastily assembled;

Concerning the defense of human nation.

Seen the fragility of mans fleshling state:
Their sentence is; Can mans kin béar no part,
In battle-hazard, twixt immortal Powers.
But will the gods go armed forth. They mislead
Will Titans' and the giant-bands' onward march.
Titans immáne, purblínd, will Góds delude;
Forming deceivable images of themselves,
Both; and Worlds City and of human kin,
On mould.

Her horns hath filled this wandering Moon:
By whose broad cresset gleam, have Titans gone,
All night. Now seems them, the new day should break.
But Earths wide groundsill of the starry sky,
Crowned with green woods; whereto they hasting march,
Since hour long past: is night-derne, twilight-dark!

Lo giants' and Titans' battailous dread array,
Which now be joined, draws nigh! Those stony eyes,
Midst Titans' fronts of marble, which made seeing,
When Time was young, that now is hoary! (Affraying,
Be their huge looks;) to mans confusion bent!

Earths high Plain passed; in squadrons now they tread,

Dim Valley of the World: where seems them see
They plotted fields; wherein lies City-of-men:
And thereo'er hang Celestial Shield suspended!
(Made of some metal, clear as crystal glass:
Shield of mens ever-living Saviour Gods.)

Dimly they march and heavily forth they tread,
On Earths green Breast; mould, which continually bears
New infinite generations of the herb;
And things which move. That is again, eftsoon;
Their infinite tomb: where even the stones beneath
Lifes feet, have lived.

But héavens Eye, dísdaining,
His beams to shed, which impious Strife should lighten:
The Sun withholds henceforth His sacred ray;
Whilst Battle dures, twixt dœmons and mens Gods.

The all-bríght surpássing glory of His great looks,
In frowning mist, Sun shrouds then three-days' space.
The gracious Dawn, in hour when She should lighten;
Her cheerful aspect likewise veils displeased.

Cumbered lo all along, with herds and flocks;
In mens long street, another night is past:
Whose households rise up pale from troubled rest.
Hath many a man, in dream of sleep this night;

Statures as hills, in human form, approach,
Beheld: as would o'erthrow those human State!
Dismayed men, to small purpose, set a watch.
Earth lies as in eclipse, day cometh not yet!

Men cluster round an ancient wight; who tells,
How, in hís sires days, cértain clear-sighted men;
Such statures standing beyond seas, had seen;
Loom, líke white-ríbbed cliffs!

Some grip spears, up-leaned
Within doors: some bows, hanged on crazy walls.
(Vain vaunt, as gainst insúperable force!)
Who first of men, then Titans' dread approach,
Discern; be some which gaze forth in vast gloom.

Cry, echoing from low Earth, of human hearts,
Tingles in the Gods' ears in heavens loft.
Then Gods, (determined thus have divine breasts;)
Impose a three-days' stupor on Earth-World.

The human kin, whether they stand or sit,
Swoon and lose sense. The herdsman in the street,
Among his beasts: on stool, the aged wight.
Still is each rumbling quern-stone: slumbers fast
The mother of the house. Sleeps the wool-wife,
Her loom beside. Fail; and their daily tasks,

Forget the diligent fingers of them both.
All voices, even of little ones, be then husht.
Knees sink: chins all, ben folded on all breasts:
Like unto flowers, that slumber in the night.
Die even the embers, of mens smouldering hearths.
On cattle, that stretch their necks forth, in mens street;
Like languor falls.

These things viewed, on Earths ground:
Gather to heavens high battlements, the Gods armed.
(That is in lowest of heavens crystal brinks:)
Their quivers full of lightning battle-shafts;
Which nothing can resist.

Twixt Earth and the Element,
Forth-flitting, without sound, be infinite spirits.
Eaves-dropping multitude, they them speed, to station;
In the moist hanging skies, above the World:
From whence might those behold, upon Earths mould;
Immortal Strife, twixt Titans and mens Gods.

Though full steep région of the Airy loft,
Be óf, (false dœmon-kin!) their whispered breaths;
Those impotent be alike, to help or hurt.

Come Titans hurling, in Worlds twilight Plain!
Towards part, them seemed, they City had seen of men.

Behold those vainly, in compass round, pursuing
Fantastic images; cloud-men and cloud-Gods!

Had early immortal Gods, which war above;
Breathing an heavenly mist, departed Titans;
With wall-like veil of rack, from squadroned giants:
Whence those, to other part, convert their powers.

Then lo, o'er Earths wan field of strife, shines forth;
Hanging, thwart heavens vast crystal firmament;
Like to dread unsheathed glaive (unseen before;)
Faxed star!

Assay, to scale World-mountains flanks,
A mingled battle of giants. Won whose foreshore;
Their fell intent, which strong forefighters are;
(So a sting of envy thrills their salvage breasts;
So an ireful swelling flame their veins ransacks:)
Ascending thence, is; pluck from heavens high towers,
Mens Gods! and occupy themselves their rooms!

Lord of swart giants, huge Esterling Fasolt leads:
Of whom, is told; with heart of stone, exceed
His days already, an hundred human ages.
To timber hills on hills, as stairs, as steps;
From the mounts knees, up to his frozen breast;
Eotens and rime-gíants strive mainly and sweat.

Hurlers from hundred hands of huge craig-stones,
Eotens foremost mount. Have now those raught,
Bleak height of sacred snow; whose misty bergs,
Stern solemn downfalls, fretted silent cliffs;
Are fearful to Mans sense. With îron mauls,
Some giants' hands, whínstone rocks bray: sóme lay hold
(Like cuttle, with his clinging manifold arms;)
With horrid shouts then, on World-mountains horns;
Meaning to disrock those same flinty spires!
Lo, and óther hands tówards héaven, hurl huge craigstones!
Suffer thus far the Gods! From heavens rampire;
A quiver-full then they outpour, of lightning darts,
On Earth-born gíants: that seemeth the hissing air
Aflame. In vain rend giants hard rocks; and lift,
Great marble flags, for shield, above their heads.
The stones be split; and topple, as pierced to death,
Giant after gíant, down to the mountains foot.
From shelf to sill, drizzles their impious gore!

Another battle of giants nighs on the Plain.
With elf-smithed stangs of steel, be armed whose hands:
And some bear flint-head poplar-stems, for javelins.

First grim Asperian hurled his polisht beam;
(Great as the lofty pine of some tall keel,
That sails to-day high seas;) presumptuous towards
Clear stars of heaven!

But he, being smitten down,
By lightning blast: great Awehelm him succeeds;
Threatning Gods' seats, with hundred strong fore-arms:
(An hatchet, bat or bill, wields each high hand.)
But so their minds have troubled Saviour Gods:
That now those turn, to fight among themselves.
As Thresher smites his corn-stalks in a barn;
They in fury each heap on other; in Earths twilight,
Strokes, such as éach had felled great root-fast oak!

Mainweather, (weight then of three conjoined winds,)
Fell buffeting on Worlds field. Those raging, grave
Earths sand; and wallowing heap on crooked rows;
And ravening hollow, in bays, blind pits, again.

Dim bloody-eyed; since divine lightning sered
Their brows; which Gods in heaven rained from their hands;
Giants, thát as in a maze, thus darksome tread;
Founder: and lightning-pierced, fall one by one.

Where fallen those, as the dead, in Battle-Plain;

They living corses lie: (since cannot giants'
Kin pass from life;) numbed as in Winter-sleep:
Wild shrieking blasts, eddying from every part;
Mound hows o'er them, that till this day remain!

Being hardly issued, from hills' burning wolds;
Which on that half had kindled heavens lightning:
Swart trains which rest, press forth of monsters' brood;
For perished many, whiles they passed the flood.
And yet are they an horn-backed hideous multitude;
Seeing thát those rise, from lap of wíde wild mould.
So that much field they blacken, where they pass.

Puffed-up their thorny bodies were before.
Horrible of griesly hew; their statures now
Field beasts exceed; whom they in force surpass.
Foremost amongst that heinous crippling press,
Troop grievous creatures, ox-great, chafer-like.
Next unto whom, on bristling stilted shanks,
Pass other sharded routs; with a great sort
Of cankered édder-cops, cráwling on Earths dust.

Speed some with manifold joints: some sidelong 'space,
Some gross toad-spotted bellies train on mould.

In manner many, of wreathing serpents, trace.
Insuperable, noisome, creaking, pestilent press:
All join their powers, to fight, gainst men and Gods.

Come all, where they, in hollow place, descend.
Is that salt miry bosom of Earths ground,
White-shining under stars: where Summer Sun
Wide mere of Winter rain, hath lately wasted.

Thunders the Empyrœum! Rumble bowels beneath
Of Earth. Travails vast seething metal-mass;
Whose swelling vapours cán, with throbbing fret,
Earths rocky rind uplift!

Vast dinning noise!
(Tremendous answering Voice of Hells Abyss.)
Opened her scornful nostrils hath the Earth.
Flame-breathing hills, (as blains in a mans flesh,)
Uprise and burst; wherein lie bellowing pits,
Of molten iron: whence storm is slung on loft,
Contínually, of wríthen clottered îron dross.
And tempest hails around, of fiery flakes.

From each gulf rusheth roaring sheaf of flame;
Red vapours of Hells long-pent flaming Womb.
Whereof night of Hell-reek, uprolls to heaven:
Corroding flame; whence stars are blotted out:
Whose under-glow part lightens a dimmed World.

Earth-shuddering hubbub, Hell-Deeps dinning noise;
Be such, they overgo heavens oft thunder-voice.

Anon Earths Womb, with fiery throes, outwells
Hell-tide; slow-rolling glowing cataracts,
Of flowing stone; fearful to fleshly sense:
Whose whelming rusty inevitable foot,
Consumes all utterly; where, on living ground,
It marcheth; fiery iron flood, with cinders' crest;
Like fly in amber, ever to enclose.

Surturs intent; ('t is He which shakes Earth-mould!)
As said whylere, is waste by fire the World:
Inflame the skies, and burn heaven of mens Gods.

As for that monstrous crippling multitude:
Towards Mantown, Earth-grounds Spirits egg them on;
Where compassed-in, might perish human kin!
Slain by their stings, their baleful eyes, their breath.
Those follow-on, bristling scaley bands, flocks, troops;
Trains, squadroned routs.

Nigh now to human coast,
Be all those seen! that lieth, for dread of them;
Untilled unherded wasteful wilderness.

But Wildfire, scaped from Surturs stith, outrushing;
(Which new-born insane Daughter of Earths bowels,

Still grows, infolding flame, with that She feeds on;
And whose tongues never saith, It is enough!
Nor She doth any living creature breed;
But with their deaths, whereon She glutton pastures,
Till naught remaineth, Her cruel life is ended;)
Pursues fast after: now-now, She o'ertakes
The shrinking flanks of that fell thronging press!

The path moreo'er, of those swart squalid trains,
Wherein they march; down-rolling metal-dross,
(Hell-flood,) cuts off: which parted in two streams,
Above; by great there éarthfast mountain-rock:
Round-streaming, áll them fearfully then inhéms.

And o'er all this, ascends dread fiery mist,
(Great Surturs breath!) resolves, late bound by frost,
World-mountains snows, on height. With raging foot,
Down-rusheth scalding giddy waters' race!
Whence riseth torment great, of jarring elements:
Where striding flames, with fleeting waters meet.

Currents of flowing stone, be round them rising!
Now seizeth on them wild wide eddying flame,
With glutton throat; and boiling waves invade them.
These all at once! Whence can that pestilent rout,
No more astart. They seethe, they fry, they burn;
With bitter anguish of their mortal part.

With direful sound of crackling thickets, flaming;
And noisome stink: that hideous rabblement perish!

Howbeit, were some found, mongst that crippling host;
Part vénimous nédders, part foul paddocks cold;
Fell writhing brood, with claws of shining brass;
Grating iron teeth, winged dragon-kind; which sought,
Enhancing them, with mighty drift aloft,
Of leathern vans, a way; thence to scape forth.

But Gods them change, in the air, to stinging flies:
That glancing after kind, to surging flame,
Up from Earth-mould; singed, burned-up, therein perish.
The remnant, lapsed on height, in Surturs mist,
Fell withered, without life!

The welkéd Moon,
Mongst heavens dimmed stárs, returned hath thrice; to light
Derne World. Bleak-faced She is; which when through mist,
She shineth, seems turned to blood.

Yet hurling seen
Be stone-old Titans, in dark battle-plain;
As angry affections sway them of Earth-elements:

Titans! the húge hórror and felness of whose looks,
Sons-of-the-Eárth, would áffray mortal sense.
Fantastic images those be still pursuing!
Of human kin and of sky-dwelling Gods:
Whither, them seems, to lie that City-of-men.

To view them purblind trace and traverse thus:
Which pass a bowshots pitch, (mine Author saith,)
In height; and turn, and on their former trace,
Return: to see them headlong rush, and pash,
With battle-prancings of huge marble-joints,
Their one-eyed brows; and stony breasts, as oft,
Dash on World-mountains flanks! Matter of mirth;
Nay, of inextinguishable laughter, is
That jocund spéctacle, unto áll heavens Gods.

In their derision fling from burg of heaven;
From time to time Gods, from their hands divine,
Down lightnings on them; whence be those sore wounded,
But not to death; since cannot Titans pass.

Like storm-cast logs on ground; fallen here and there,
Those lie flat-long. Measured, is told, some one
A furlong. (Elsewhere found is writ; one strétched
Four-score reeds, from terrific head to feet:
Whose outspread corse covered an hide of land!)

This Destiny lay on them from their first birth;
Or ever were Earths naked hills brought forth:
When yet the World was waste, nor Mans kin was.
It flowed from the commixture of their parts;
Sundered from eddying metal of Earths mass.
O'er their numbed living corses, wild Wind-flood,
Heaped long hill-rows; which till our days, remain.

Much labouring swart-browed Surtur, Earth beneath;
With might of toil-stained arms, and dedale hands,
Divine: to forge, amidst much smoky murk;
(Where light shines only of his own flaming breath;
And of that fiery chaplet on his head;)
Of new, seven stages of dim Underworld:
He perceived suddenly, on height, an opened cleft;
Wherethrough drips brine down, on his glowing hearth!
From sea-deeps floor above. Great Master-smith;
He angry leapt, to shoulder that craig up:
And leak stop, hínders his great hándiwórk.

He, in hís
Blind mood; heaved on his nape, World-mountains roots!

Whose steepling flanks upleaning from Earths Plain,
Pierce heaven: wherethrough those cragged coasts part forth.
Tumble, towers, pinnacles, headlands, spires, craigs, cliffs,
In headlong ruin, out on Earths Face, vast heaps!
And whelm on Titans, in Worlds field beneath.

On those immortal breasts; whom quarters huge
Of craigs have quelled: poise hill-high banks of rocks
Henceforth. Thus lie they eternally, and cannot rise;
Howbeit they well no blood, in living death!
For are those stone.

Titans, few now afoot,
With giants remained; holding each-others hands;
Since divine lightnings sered their one-eyed brows;
Stúmble-on, stár-blind. Flee their stony steps;
Before that scornful ímplacable ire;
Of heavens offended everliving Gods.

Driven by the Will, which cannot be reversed,
From point to point, their feet last reach to place;
Craig-roof, from whence welled Surturs Hell-born flood.
Herded together there, all on flint floor
They tread, that hóllow is, like to pán of ice;

Wherefrom the water is outrun beneath.

Unable that shard, to sustain so huge weight,
(Great as a city!) all suddenly, in a moment,
Splits wideforth: sinks, ah! neath their immane feet!
And hurl they all groaning down, to Hells Abyss.

Further, I read of snare, let down from heaven;
Whose crystal mails, much like to beams of light.
So subtle the weft was; that that sheen net
Invisible is even unto dœmons' sight.
And Gods in void vast Bosom of the Element,
Infrangible it have, spended.

Taken therein
Then were malignant Spirits, of fire, flood, frost;
And lesser dœmons, (more than I can name:
'Tis writ, were those an infinite multitude.)
Whom, for a Season, left Gods therein bound.

BOOK IV

ARGUMENT

A calm divine descends upon Earth-World. The Sun anew outshines: and wakens human kin. Again, quakes the Earth. And a Voice from skies, warneth that men 'scape forth. The People come without; is much thronging unto their wells. The thousand households march, with their cattle: but pasture is thenceforth daily less and waters hard to find in wilderness. The People reach to a lynn of sweet water, and there rest.

They journey thence, by a sun-stricken desolate waste; wherein they and their beasts begin to faint. Their cattle, which have smelled a far-off breath of water, break from them.

A few men, in whom yet remains strength, follow with water-skins, on their cattles trace. They come unto a flowing river and fruitful palms. They drink and eat: and bear back of that sustenance to their fainting families. And being that victual divinely multiplied, all the camp doth both drink and eat, and is refreshed. The People remove and reach unto the river-side.

In that place is gleaned wild grain; and the People again eat bread. Certain, which have passed over, find a plenteous pleasant soil beyond. The King, with all the People at dawn, pass the rivers ford. They call that good new Land, Eden: and possess it, giving thanks. Gods, well-pleased, manifest themselves, in the skies; in all their sight. Men sow: and sith they reap abundantly; and build them cabans there, ere Winter falls.

Now in the returning year; that good Soil is departed amongst them, by equal lot. A new town riseth. Mens priest-king beholdeth in Vision a sacred Fane. The People found a Temple there; to the likeness of that which their King, in his dream, hath seen.

Seven years it is in building. Their final joyful dedication of the sacred Work. The Gods from heaven, send down their best gifts unto men: Ishtar, the Bright; and hand-in-hand with Her, lo thrice-blessed Peace. Thenceforth Mans kin increaseth. And Mans-Way is called, after mens own name, The World.

Divine dark Battle is ended! Three nights had
That dreadful conflict now endured. With giants,
Huge Titans lie o'erthrown; vague spirits were bound.
Repair from crystal Rampire then of heaven;
Unto their rests, the everliving Gods:
And calm divine descends upon Earth-mould.

Thick clouds discusst, which long time hid the Sun;
Lifted on wings of light, His Glory again
Outshineth on a dimmed World. That sovereign ray,
Wakens from dream of sleep, the human kin.

Men fasting faint, gone up on their housetops,

(Of few that yet remain;) Who looketh West-forth,
Whence flows this bitter reek, which chokes mens breath;
Behold vast climbing smoke! Lingers dread sound,
Of divine battle and blaspheming cries,
In the air, not fully yet dispersed! Their long
Cold hearths; kindle goodwives, with careful hearts.

Men somewhat eat: whereof refreshed their spirits;
Neighbours seek neighbours, friends each other greet.
Whiles men with men, of their afflicted case,
Question; anew quakes the Earth!

Men giddy are,
Then on their street to stare! stagger seems, more
Than ére: the Earth fóunder, and seem nód the stars.
Fáulter their rént house-walls. Men wiss not where
Betake them; where to shield their wives and babes.
Then stout hearts blench, that never quailed before.
Fling hither-thither, startling cattle; and beat
Together their horned fronts.

And yet once more,
Sounded from heaven, and resounded! Voice
Divine, Flee from this death! Throb thick all hearts:
And feel men under them, fugitive, slide their feet.

Like as when foot of hasting beast, or heel
Unwares of man, seed-gathering emmots' hill,
Hath razed: a tróubled army of pismire citizens,
And minute workfolk íssue of theír rent State:
Such busy turmoil grows now, in mens street.

Entered their doors in haste: housewives reach forth
Snatcht corn, meal, stuff, from thresholds; men as fast,

On chines bind of their hastily assembled beasts,
Of charge; (which that time were wild asses' colts,
That, taken in field, had hunters fostered up.)

Men groan, wives rue, and with their children weep;
To sever thém, from thóse their ruinous hearths.
Already are herdfolk driving forth their stock.
Part the first households: press is soon, to pass!

The péople come abroad, is thronging then,
To wells; which partly fail, since quaked the Earth!
To drench the beasts and fill their water-skins.
Toil there young men, with all their might, and sweat;
To draw up, for their households, herds and flocks.

This dures long forth: Sun droops now, from midheight;
When human nation, fugitive, sorrowing march;
With cattle lowing, and with bleating flocks.

Their face, towards wide West wilderness, is set.
Men wot not whither will them lead the Gods;
Which see even rocks removed out of their place!
With pensive hearts, all follow on their Kings trace.

After the Sun, men stay their wandering steps,
Where he alights. Kindled their supper-fires
Then, of few sticks; all comfort them with food.

Yet shóuted ére men sleep, (that all the camp
Might hear,) is the Kings wórd, by one great-voiced;
Be ready, at morrows star-rise, to remove!

The Péople upstood ere dáys-red, at new shout
Of the Kings Crier, begin, with confused voice,
To journey. And was, who look back, in that march;
Feel their knees faint: who look before their face,
Increase of strength. Who, fróm hill-brów, gaze forth;
Tempest of whirling flame see, the Red Wind!
(Thus fire our fathers named;) of Gods unchained,
To purge the air: (fíre that ere Gods had bound;)
Reached thereunto, doth burn the former World!
And lay beyónd, much thíck reek, o'er wide ground.

After midday, they come again to wells:
And drench their cattle, and fill their water-skins;
A toilful travail of the herdsmens hands;
Enforcing them with chant. Is that, the last
Known watering to men herdfolk, on this half!

Where lodgeth the Priest-King, under night-stars;
The ancients round his consecrated hearth,
Be gathered to him. Of their forward march;
And of what waters, they might reach henceforth;

They cómmune. And determined is to follow,
Whither their browsing cattle should breast forth.

From day to day, men at adventure thus,
Wander; where feed scants, and is daily less:
A sunbeat soil of sand, thorns, thistles, rocks.
And hárdly find they water, whére they pass.

For such cause, hunters of wild roes; men wont
To sójourn; ánd, men-of-the-field, expert,
To find their lifelode, in waste wilderness:
Do daily seek, for water-springs, wide-where forth;
And are the Peoples eyes, in that waste coast,
Wherein they move; before their starless march.

Gods stand on an high mountain, to behold,
Mens thousand families and their thirsting flocks;
Lean now, with evil fare. And they mens hearts
To journey incline; where they discern large mere,
Before the Peoples face. Themselves revert
Then, to heavenly seats; that battle-weary are.

In the evening cool, arrive that wayworn folk,
Thither, with their dry beasts. A gentle breath,
After days heat, moves on that waters face;
Whose liquid foot rimples to friendly strand;
With daphne hemmed. Their cattle, at the shole brinks,

Men in the midst; all drink their fill of it.
Is water sweet.

In that so pleasant place,
Men three days rest: till pásture ginneth to scant.
Hark, in the next, is shouted the Kings word;
Remóve! Is the hérb there-round, well-night consumed.
Men lift and bind their bundles, on the backs,
Of asses; whiles their cattle forward pace.

Murmur the People: They wander in void waste;
Beyond the foster-World! where no tree is;
Nor shadow, in midday heat, of any cloud.
Nor freshing dew stills on the herb, by night.
But burning winds drive daily a flinty dust:
That drizzling, blinds mens eyes; or else brings sleet
Of locusts, flattering-winged, up from the East:
That fall on all green thing, their cattles meat.

Vast sunbaked solitude: where though Suns eye stare,
Yet seemeth it Night by day! Strand in death-sleep,
Of soundless heavens illimitable Deep.
Their fainting cattle, in that inhuman sand;
Now brackish bitter bushes only find,

Whereon to browse. No trace of other life
Is there, save checquered prints of serpents' trains.

Made divination, the Kings Seer, bade men;
Watch for a flight of cranes. Let them mark whither
Those tend: and else of doves, mongst feathered kinds,
Impatient most of thirst: and towards that part,
Journey: none other Words-of-Power, he hath.

Covering their mouths for bitter drought; (for naught
Remaineth now over, in mens water-skins:)
Stretcht on lean bosom of that Mother-Earth;
Wild desolate march, unkindly grain of flint;
After the Sun, neath heavens still sliding stars;
A Sun-beat People, lacking meat and drink,
Lie without succour, waiting on their Gods.

Hark wailing cries, of anguished wives, beside
Their minds! whose sucklings perish at the breasts.
Dry are, which might have helped, their cattles dugs.
Gods! look on this: for fail now human hearts.

Waked Gods in heavenly Light: their eyes beheld
Mans thousand households, ín Earths wasteful field,
Languish forspent! and beasts lie nigh to death.

Bending their deathless brows: then emanate Gods

Forth virtue and strength! (like as Sun streameth light
Down, on Earths mould;) and in mens reins infuse.
And send upon mens camp, an healing Wind.

The Moon hangs fair, with visage mild, in heaven.
Mens households rise by night. In Hér large gleam;
Shepherds drive forth their flocks: chíll the áspect is
Of wilderness waste, in bleak uncheerful light!

They journey an hour: then happeth unlooked-for case!
Their cattle break lowing, from before mens steps.
Beasts, snuffing up the Wind, have smelled far-off
A breath of Wáter!

Féw wights; (áre the most
Herdfólk), in whóm there yet remaíneth strength;
Follow, on jaded feet: parched water-skins,
Bearing in their faint hands.

Gone all that níght;
Gainst midday next, come those to streaming strand;
Which bordered all along with fruitful palms:
(Kind, that Mans thankful nation, Tree-of-life
Sith named; and planted in their temple-courts!)
They drink full, and of those food-branches eat.

So laid them down; some little throw, they sleep,
For weariness.

But raised eftsoon, they climb;
And plenteous store of dulcet fruit pluck down,
Of the trees' foster-mammels, in their cloaks.
And stive them; and do lade on what few beasts
Of charge, of theirs, they find there and might take:
So drive back to their fainting families.

In cool now of the day, so speed them Gods;
And when light fades, from heaven renew their force:
And guide neath stars, and still their faltering knees
Uphold: that those be come, ere mid of night;
With water home agáin, and sústenance.

To their then wakened faínting families, first;
Those pour to drink, and that meat mongst them part.
They call their neighbours sith, and those partake.
And so their victual multiply Saviour Gods:
That all both drink and eat, which in the camp,
To-night; and have enough, and receive strength.

And yet was within night, when all that folk
Remove anew, with slow and faltering steps.
They journey in chill moonlight. Sith wayworn, spent;
Come morrows heat, they can no more and rest.

Who first then, to that streaming waters' brink,
All failing faint arrive; they drink, at length:
So lay them deadly down. From hour to hour,
The rest come drooping in. Reach thereto last;
Théy, (whom mén help forth,) which síck and feeble are.
Those drínk, they fruit eat of the tree-of-life:
They swoon, they sleep!

Till morrows afternoon,
Slumbers the camp: the hinds are busy alone;
Seeking widewhere, with pain, still gathering in;
Each their strayed stock: but not few beasts went lost.

When all their fills have eaten, and risen refreshed;
Men cut green boughs down, in the river groves:
And sheltering booths, where each his hearth-stead hath;
They build, for covert of their families.
To gather firing, housewives, wander forth:
Go some ones, seeking herbs, for their sick ones.

The same day, in the field, find those wild grain;
Both barley and wheat; whereof the awns they crop,
Which stand now ripe; and bind them in their skirts.
And those returned, with joy, home to their hearths;
Some singe, some seethe, some parch; and some they bray,
Twixt two flat stones. And kneed and bake thereof

Cakes, on the kindled coals, and hasty bread.

At all their evening fires, then; grows discourse.
Herdmen have found to-day wild cattle-paths;
To ford, down-leading, o'er the rivers strand.
And some, which passed, found fruitful soil beyond,
A pleasant field; and nóthing like to that,
Wherethrough their thirsting households lately marched.

The King and elders, which after the Sun;
Assembled to him, at the sacred hearth,
Sate down: long hour entreat thereof. And certain,
(Come dawn,) send herds and husbandmen of their trust;
To view that land and tidings bring thereof.

Those lo returned to them, at afternoon:
And words of all their mouths agree in one.
That field, say they, men yond the flood, have seen;
Unhusbanded, goodly plenteous soil indeed
Is: bringing forth, bóth for cáttle, the green herb,
And bread-corn of itself; whose undressed bushes,
(Saw they), hang full of clusters of sweet grapes.
And melons ripe, in riotous abundance;
There saw they: and cucumbers so o'erspread wild ground,

As though had some wight poured them from his maund!
For proof thereof; they have brought of every kind.

The King and Ancients, thereon look: and lift,
For light, in human blindness, up their hearts;
To Throne of Heaven, unto Whom is nothing hid:
Expecting thence some sign: If should mens Nation,
Thereover pass? Likewise, the People entreat;
And of this quéstion, till far-spent the night;
At thousand hearths.

Again the new day dawns.
Whilst cometh the Sun, hark shouted the Kings word,
Remove! the King himsélf will first o'erpass.
All follow: and Gods withhold the upper streams;
Whiles men, with cattle and flocks; and wives with babes,
And little ones borne aloft; yet overwade.

Now when that day is wasted from the sky;
Being all the thousand families safely o'erfared,
To Edens field, they kindle supper-fires:
(For men name Eden, that good soil beyond,
Of corn and vines, which hath prepared the Gods.)

(Heb., ‘Delight.’)

The People a sennight rest, with joyful hearts.
They sacrifice, and do eat of the Lands good:
And recreates their faint spirits, warm Summer-breath.

And Gods well-pleased, hear mens thanksgiving voice;
Appearing seated in a silver cloud;
Under night-stars in all the Nations sight!
Whereof that field is named, The-gate-of-God.

Are Gods with men: which till now Edens Plain,
And scatter seed-corn, on the broken clod.
Their power divine doth lengthen out the Season;
(Two harvests Eden bears,) until it ripen.
Mens thousand households reap then hundred-fold:
And all have milk enough. Their ewes have eaned,
And brought forth twins: the kine have likewise calved,
Ere Winter falls.

Is latter harvest ended:
And russet boughs, which shiver in the blast;
Shed their sere leaves, that feel first bit of frost:
Cumbered with clouds, now towards the latter rain,
Be the heavens aloft.

Mens hands are busy then,
To build them cabans: that, in the cold moons,
Their fámilies might shélter, under roofs;

With comfort, as in Mantown, of warm hearths.
(Those cabans were but clay-cast wattle-work;
On ground-walls of green sods, then, at flood-side.)

In year succeeding this, the Lord of Heaven,
Pút in the héart of the King-priest of men;
To part that plenteous soil, the Field of Eden.
Unto every hóusehold, should by lót assigned,
For an inhéritance, be an híde of land.

The Kings divíners, íncantation made;
Casting their magic figures, some in sand;
Some ones, in ashes of the sacred hearth:
Other wreathed signs beholding, (occult words
Recited,) in the fume of certain herbs:
Some, (stár-seers,) réading heavens swift móvement:
All these renounce; the Will to be of Heaven;
That builded new Mantown were, in this place.

Then wend, with river-reeds forth, faithful men;
Which mete out equal plots of Edens soil;
Like unto suburbs of their former State;
To number of the thousand human hearths.

Cóme is the day, the Néw Moon after this;
When in the Assembly, all the households' heads;
The lot receive of their Inheritance:

That parcel of lánd, which fálleth to every house.
Departed likewise is round-lying wilderness:
Wherein assigned is a wide grazing-ground,
Unto eách one of their several lineages.

In those new dáys, men gáther-in, for mére stones,
Craigs of the field: and set them up, to mark
Their several plots; and open water-courses,
In their new ténements; whereas éach one seemeth:
That might he his seed-beds water with his foot.

The herdfolk likewise, in their borders, delve
Them water-pits, with their staves and with their hands;
For their flocks' néed: and cáll them by their names.

Instead of bówers, of cláy-daubed wattle-work,
Bent boughs, reeds, studs; men timber now housesteads,
With walls: that rise, beside all trodden paths;
Cote beside cote, and in the midst long street.

And the heavens those days, to human kin, enlarge
Increase of strength, with new deviseful mind;
And divine semblant graft, on human flesh.
Then men were fair, to look on, as the Gods.

In time sith, that a child; born in days when
Mens thousand fugitive families passed the ford;

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Is come to knowledge, in new Land of Eden,
(Which Gods have blessed:) behold the human nation,
Established in those seats!

Now in Summer month
Hark, published in the Peoples audience!
Bý the Kings Críer: Thé King-priest of men
Their long-aged Sire, falling in trance, hath seen;
Gold-shining Fane, a Temple-tower, ascending
Up, by degrees on height, to Gate of Heaven!

Dream-readers, in whom dwells, gift of the Gods,
A sacred light, which see in inward sort:
The Interpretation could not show thereof.
Last found was one poor man, which could discern
The royal dream: and it, before the King,
Unfold; and councillors, and his priests

He was not of priests' kin; but one wont muse,
Neath whispeling palms, beside the sliding flood:
And footsteps hear and voices of the Gods;
With ear of chastened flesh, in his rapt mood;
Which soars to stars, and opens her eyes there:
Whence swells his soul, with high presaging thought.
(And is not given, to wandering wings of bírds;
To mánifest heavens hígh secret purposes.)

He, according unto that the Sire hath seen;

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Bade that rear men a Temples stately Fane,
From Earths low brów, up tówards Gods' séats in heaven.
And that should perfected be in seven stairs;
To number of the seven celestial spheres:
Whereby might Gods descend into the World.

The People, in solemn Assembly, heard his words;
Them rátifý, as Méssage, from the Gods!
Their princes, with the ancients; separate then
Wise-hearted men, expert in handicrafts;
To be o'erseers of that sacred Work.

The nation lo divided into courses.
Shall, save plough-month and harvest-month; every course
Travail one Moon, in service of high Gods.
Which things determined, holden is seven days' feast.
Which past, him séparates éach, whose Moon it is,
Unto his pious several handiwork.

Hewers of stone and timber, with draught-beasts;
To distant hills outwend. But the more part,
Delve daily at home, and knead in the marle-pits,
Malm with their feet, and sever into bricks;
That the Sun bakes.

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Have geomancers found,
The sacred Site, fast by the rivers ford.
And Seers, which read by night, heavens arcane signs;
Find, towards which star, their Temple-front mote face,
Shire Íshtar, brightest midst the starry flock:
Whose benign influence causeth men to dwell,
In welfare in the World.

By master-wrights,
With plummet, reed and line, proportioned fair;
The Fanes foundations, with wrought corner-stones;
Be truly layed: on sand, (that sea-ground was,
Seers hold, of former worlds!) And in that month;
As sung, in winged ascending antique chant;
Wherein All-father Sun in heaven, sets forth
His plough, who build, begin the sacred work.

Already, at rising of the Pleiades,
Be ladders reared on height and scaffolds set;
Of beams and boards, with ramps of carpenters' work.
Labour then thousand hands, with willing heart;
Under their master-builders, to lay-up
The burdens of bricks; fast as can those be brought.
Lighten men, players upon shríll reed-pipes;
That devout daily toil of Temple-labourers.

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Seven years in building is that sacred mole,
From the ground walls. It stánds lo in séven steps:
To measure each one of a divine pace,
As of that Seer was taught. Where, so much doth
Increase on height, as lose, each bricky mass,
In breadth.

Behold that Fane uplayed, at length,
Of hundred-fold ten-thousand-thousand bricks.
Hill-high, far-seen, is that heaped human work!
Whereunto a lofty porch of dédale work,
Join artifícers; and there-round paved court,
With cloister. And without the Temple-precinct;
Plant priests, of cedars sweet, a sacred grove.

On a set day, lo the King-priest of men;
Borne in a litter; (that may go no more
Upon his feet,) and People it dedicate;
With guirlands on their brows and sacred choirs.

All in their best array, singing glad hymns,
With joyful lauds, and blowing priests before
Loud shawms; seven times wend round those hallowed walls.

Whiles then, with devout heart, the People halt;
And prayer is, with great voice of multitude;
After the King-priests words, made to the Gods:

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To topmost terrace, chief priests lo upmount;
That shines on height o'erlaid, with plate of gold:
Which daily radiance crowns of the Sun-god.
Those kindle, on golden altar, incense there;
And offer gifts.

Upon Worlds Fane, look Gods
Down, and on devout worshipping human multitude:
And smell the sweetness of mens sacrifices!

Gladdening the World, they smile. And, midst mens Feast,
Have sent high Gods from heaven down their best gifts!
Ishtar bright Goddess of the sacred hearth:
And hand-in-hand, with Her, lo, white-winged Peace.

Behold new birth and morning of the World!
Is Spring-time sweet; the hour twixt mid of night,
And dawning ray; when mingled cheerful voice
Wont spring of birds, which inn in the sheen leaves.
Then eyewasht priests, that gaze into the night;
See súdden shoot cléarest star, in skíes high twilight:
And earthward stoop!

And in the same; amidst
Soul-ravishing harmony; súch as hear, by moments,

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Men, in sleeps dream: and whereby móve, (Seers téll us;)
The starry sphéres, and háng heavens infinite signs:
She, Góddess héavenly-bright, descends; and lights
On Temple-head. Fólding Her august wings,
Divíne; She seemed some néw glance of the Sun!

Ishtar, joined palm to palm, with the days Dawn;
By seven degrees then, to Earths mould, stepped down:
Which She, from Worlds beginning, had adorned;
Wherein is She hight Móther-of-all-Grace.

What untold generations went before:
(Once living worlds; which numbered with the dead,
Remembered be no móre:) engendered were,
Of Her immortal Smile. Even comprehended
The Gods be, in Íshtar's ínfinite Motherhood.

That crystal Smile! Her divine lips unfolds;
(Still breathing grace and beckoning chaste delights;)
Compels all hearts. Her favour solace is,
To mortal breasts, in midst of worldly smarts.

She passeth forth wíth the Hóurs! Where Ishtar spaceth,
With footstep not of flesh; the purple flowers,
Bright daughters of fresh mead, to Her uphold,

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(Her blissful feet to kiss,) their gentle faces.
And, in that day, is seen the Sun-wooed mould;
Like únto a tréasury of sweet golden buds!

In vision ónly óf their chastened flesh;
Few pious spirits, Her Presence may perceive;
Which filleth Earths folde, with breath of heavenly places.
But cannot sín-smircht souls, of Íshtars countenance,
As súnbeams héavenly bright; whence floweth hearts gladness,
Joys not to be repented-of, conceive.

Not that deceivable sweetness of gross sense;
Base ferment of the veins, fell scalding waves;
Which fret at ingates of mans fleshly dross:
Divine love living ínward wórship is;
Deign transport of true souls: till when we pass.

Unto Her high Presence, like to hurtless dove;
Alights then, from on height, on running feet;
Daughter of Heaven, adórable hóly Peace;
Bearing in bósom méssage from the Gods.

Love then, which Soul divine is of the World;
With Peace, forthpassed, to cedars' párfumed grove:
Mongst whose sweet-smelling boughs, be sacred doves

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Lo, flittering.

Thére, besíde a well-spring, sweet
As milk, She sits; and combs, whiles She looks forth,
Her sunbright locks, down-blissful hanging loost:
Bared Lady-of-life, All-Foster of green Earth;
The divine manifold mammels of Her breast.

Peace, fairest, mongst the Daughters of Gods Throne;
In that Place dwells with Her. But their discourse,
Exceedeth speech, which mortal tongue can frame;
And inénarrábile is, (mine Author saith,)
To flesh-born wights. Yet semblable Her mild voice
Is, to that blissful sound, in Summer drought;
Of pettering raín, on léaves of párched Earths dust.

Now and lately had quieted Péace, in thát She passed,
Twixt Sky and Earth, the windy Element:
And hanged therein Her sheen celestial arc.

Her Voice it is, which stilleth all Worlds unrest:
Strife suáging in the spring, ere it break forth.
And Envy and raging Wráth, She layeth to sleep;
Whereas She walketh, in a Path of Light.

And whiles, in Temple-grove, those twain divine,
Vouchsafe to sojourn, in this World of men;
None practiseth against other, none misdoeth.

(The same as Astarte, the venerable Goddess of beauty and chaste love.)

(A. Sax. Wer man, and yldo age.)

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BOOK V

110

ARGUMENT

Herdsmens Shearing-feast. A Shepherd, by divine inspiration, findeth an Art of Scripture. He then, by the Kings appointment, teacheth to priests that new sacred skill, in the Temple precincts. His honoured life and death.

In later Age, the Earth is darkened. Malice abounds. War riseth impious from Hell, and rageth in the World. Gods send down Pestilence, the Sword-of-Heaven; to punish a sinful human generation. The Land then is full of mens dead corses.

Into the ears of the All-Highest, ascend the groans of human nation: and GOD commandeth dread Pestilence, to cease.

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Mongst creatures which have motion and lives breath,
Upon Worlds Face, all being one slough of flesh;
Though diverse in their kinds and outward feature:
The human kin, mongst fell and mighty beasts;
Though feeble, are greatly in those late days, increased.
(Shall, mány as stárs in fírmament, be Mans hearths!)

Mens streets be full of traffic, tumult, wares:
Worlds confines be continually enlarged.
Where granges stood, ere sheals and stalls for flocks;
Are hamlets founded, towards waste wilderness.
Some even be grown to towns, in a new Age.
Whence Mans-way, and namely that large Field of Eden;
Men, áfter their own náme, have cálled the World.

But to mens Temple-city and Mother State,
Is ever most resort. Each towns eared lands,
Without, and bordering on high wilderness;
Hath cotes of herdfolk, dwellers in the Waste.
And shepherds wont, come Season of most heat;
To lead, for summering of their ruckling flocks,

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To the hill-sides.

Hark singing, as they wend,
The careless herdgrooms, with their pasturing stock!
Some with crisp lip, the whiles his ewes graze forth,
Sounding shrill pipes, (stems in due order set,
Of fenny reeds;) doth merry music make.

Is noonday now: with roundelays, one drives
The loitering hours, under some thicket shade;
Whiles his beasts couch. Some, change of idleness,
There tosseth pebble-stones, in his horny fist.
One, with nice hand, doth poise stone upon stone.

Another, leaned up to tall ashen stud;
Whilst his hound wards the flock, quaint poesies maketh:
Or laid along, all on fresh springing grass;
Doth meditate of Lifes bitter-sweet, Loves smart;
Immortal flame, which breathed in mortal breasts.

A goat-herd yonder, which hath honey found,
In eaves of the wild cliff; from cragged rocks,
Where tickle is the tread, descénds now sáfe:
Bees' angry buzzing swarm about his head.

But ín days, when laps vapouring mist hill-coast:
With shining flint-stone, hérdgroom deftly smites;
He kindles the flames breath: and comfort hath,
To his chill pálms spread, ó'er live embers' warmth:

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(Sith, come Noon-heat, shall serve that bitter reek;
To drive the noyous flies and midges forth.)

And custom was, mongst that Times herding folk;
Keeping their flocks in Summer wilderness;
To watch, towards setting Sun, for each new Moon:
Which seen, they it cheerful greet; and pray, that it
Increased, might leave them, in no worse estate!

This bént-Moons mórrow, is mongst them Shearingfeast:
When shepherds wont repair, with holiday looks;
In their best garments trim, to merry-make.

Lo this years tryst; where midst, an antique oak
Spreads his large arms, o'er lay of sappy grass:
A covert from Suns high meridian heat.

Thereunto is early assembling from nigh cotes.
A company of careless herdfolk, singing blithe,
Is nighing from the folds: they left their stock,
This one day, have with hinds in wildern

Soon other more, by twos, by threes, come in.
Bands then approach, to this assembling-place,
From neighbour steads. Come with them wives and maids:
Whose kirtles neat, are serge, of their flocks' fleece.

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With sober cheer they come. Full is dawns grass,
Of liquid gems; and oftsith some maid stoops,
In that fresh mead; to gather in her lap,
Wind-kissed field flowers. Last come there borel wights,
With tawny glibs; baked in the Sun, to bronze:
All in their best array, girt in frieze coats,
(Are neatherd folk: from nigh uplandish croft.)

Under trees' ruffling boughs, friends greet well friends,
And enquire tidings: neighbours cheerful chat.
Sith sitting round, all of the brown mead sup:
And with oft pleasant jest, men light their hearts.
And Care with interchange of kindly mirth;
Bold herdfolk slay.

Goodwives, some in their basket,
Bring old years apples; other manchet, cheese
And wastel bread. Some ones, of the fresh Season,
Wildings and strawberries ripe, in leaps of sedge;
Cool junkets some, to make good cheer: where sit
All róund in companies, on green sprínging grass.

Some tellen tales, of herding haps; their makes
Among. And whiles men eat yet their noon-meat;
Hark síngeth one amidst, loud mádrigals!
Which he himself hath made; wherein, he all

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His shepherd-feres excels. And is his voice,
(Whereunto another warbles, on sheen pipe,
Of shrilling reeds, with skill of blowing cheeks;)
Round, jocund, blithe, and clear as throstles throat.

But when men mark, Suns Eye beginneth to stoop,
From midday height: of shepherds' crew, all whom
Moves lively pith, in heyday of their blood;
And lightness of whose knee-bows pricks them forth,
With nimble shifting shanks, to trimly tread;
Uprise, with frolic foot, to beat green sod.

Shall not their meed be, wooing like eye-glances,
Full of mild líving light, of lovéd lasses?
With maiden fillets bound, whose wounden locks.
What well-thewed lad not covets her for his;
Whom his glad heart, above the rest, doth choose!

Upstand those shepherds' daughters, on their part;
Full likewise of glad aspect. Simple and coy,
Be they among the maidens, as May-flowers;
Which spring this day, amongst the thicket grass:
Wherewith they deck, (sheen as the gleaners sheaf,
In sunny harvest-field,) their gracious locks;
The virginal dignity of those stedfast looks:
Wherein both comely mood and blameless mirth,

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Together meet.

And joy, in glad await,
Their gentle hearts: till, ranged on this fresh grass;
They, to well-liking young men, that tread forth;
Dance counter, with deft foot; and carols tress.

The elder grooms, whose lighter years ben past,
And striplings, gather round. Stand herdwives fain;
To watch, with mothers' eyes, their cheer, among.
Those look on goodly: and beating palm to palm,
Still measure kéep, midst múch round murmured mirth;
Whilst trip, aftér those twínkling feet, their hearts.

Alréady have herdlads lóst that their first breath!
He stays, who lately piped so pleasant fit.
Again he pipes; then all new roundel chant:
Whíles the lads' dánce-row, weaving quaint new casts
Of shifting feet, like skipping lambs, advance.

Sith, taking up the burden of their verse;
As those recoil, dance-maidens carol forth.
Rank counters rank: nor turning once their necks;
Each sways arear, like to some surging billow,
On Summer shore: which spent his forward force,
Withdraws to his great source, and vast sea-rest.

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This dures awhile; till when, left their first ranks;
Those maidens, with the herdgrooms, taking hands:
In joyous ring, tread all; around, around!

And some have measured lists, on other part;
Where, in the pride and strength, of their young years;
Stout lads, to win a name, will try a fall.

Like two wild boars, twain wrestle, to and forth:
With stiff arms, chest to chest, they strive and sweat.
Great brawns have those and breasts; well-sinewed thighs,
And stedfast loins. They heave, each using sleight:
But neither can, well-matched; (though quickened be,
As in the sight of their loved lasses' eyes;
Their spírits, unto néw force,) the óther o'erthrow.

Sith made is proof; who best, with bow and shaft,
Can manly shoot; who levelled javelin cast.
Is told; was found, some one so fleet of foot;
That he the wild roe-fawns, could overrun.
And whoso win those heats; in all mens view,
Crown maidens' hands with flowers.

The same day, I read:
Keeping in field of wilderness, an hind; clad,

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(Defense from Sun and wind,) in a rough say;
Betimes had led his many-footed flock;
Committed him to keep, to hollow place;
Whereas strong well-head issues under craig.

He, when Suns eye had warmed that desolate coast;
Them waters there, calling each sheep by name:
Which, his voice hearing, severally do look up!
Who numbers them, whiles they drink out of his troughs:
Which, after shepherds' wont, in wilderness, are
Goat-fells, stretcht on looped frames of osier.

Whilst shadowing sith to rest, stand his drenched flock;
Ewe behind ewe, and hang their hornéd heads;
Under Suns midday heat: his travail past,
That herdgroom sate, to recreate his faint spirits;
Leaned to insensate craigs immutable mass:
Such as to our sense, eternally seem to mock;
All transitory feeble life, of herb and flesh!

As leaned he thus, neath a wild fig-trees shade,
And mused: that hind bethought him of nights watch;
Wherein he stars marked, sliding in their courses.
The inscrutable spectacle of heavens Gulf on loft!
So cast to figure them, with his herding-staff;
In the idle sánd there, óf waste wilderness.

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Whilst thus he graved, with dim insight and wrought,
Thing his soul seeth: shone, in his inward being,
Celestial light! The herding lad hath found;
In fúrrows, which traceth his uncunning hand;
Figuring the signs of héavens dark firmament:
(The Wain, Orion and the Pleiades,
And other mô, amongst Nights starry flock;)
Sounds, fading in the air, to pícture forth:
Pourtráy our hearing, to our seeing sense!

Baa, his lambs' bleat, is told, that shepherd hind
Erst tokened thus; and kraa, swart ravens voice.
Sith, in a month of days, wherein he sought;
He found more staves and caracts; whereby might
Be utterance signified, even of human breath!

Whereof, in all that wilderness-side, springs voice;
How words once spóken, thus límned in idle dust,
Might remain, stablisht, stedfast; though they perish,
Which writ them!

Such being noised, from herdsmens cotes,
To town; is presently told in the Kings ears,
Which that tide was: who sends for the herdgroom.

And he being from the pinfolds come anon;
Before the King and Council is led in.

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Where questioned: he, with well-thewed words and wise,
In herdmens speech, in all their marvelling ears;
Expounds, unto the King-priest, his device;
That chains mans flitting, thought: which else, should mount
As bird, again up to his native source.

The King and Ancients put him to the proof;
Causing him grave, in ashes of the hearth,
And bricks of clay; words out of order set!
Such they lay up. And when were seven days past,
Recalled that hind; the King him bade read forth,
His writ. This he performs, in all their ears,
From point to point: could none him controvert.

And when the King and Council have conferred,
Of this new skill: and well perceive their hearts;
How might the sacred laws and ordinances,
Revealed unto the fathers, by the Gods;
Be in tables thus preserved, to future ages:
The King himself, in his high stall, uprose.
And táking, bý his horny palm, that groom;
He, with great voice, gave glory to the Gods!

He dight a chain of gold, (Priest of his folk,)
With his high hands, on that hinds neck: and loud,
Then to his servants, hath the King commanded;

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An honourable appárel, to be brought.
Which put upon him, further the King charged;
Should eat that Shepherd, mongst the priests, his bread:
And henceforth be Remembrancer of the State.
And in the Temple-adit, should he sit;
To teach this Scripture to the learnéd sort.

And the hind behaves him so, in his high office,
In all well-doing; still seeking heavenly light;
With comely gravity and gentle countenance:
That love him all, which look in his hend face.

His School a Temple-chamber, a recess;
Being one of those the master-builders left,
Ín the Fanes massy wálls. Full were the rest,
Of hallowed treasures, of mens handiwork:
But none is full of riches more than this.

Some of the Temple-priests, become then scribes;
Being throughly taught, in all that discipline;
Which the heavens revéaled once, to an herding lad;
Whose shépherds staff, it erst engrossed in dust.

Some grave in clay, some character in wood-breadths:
Some paint on fells; some score on rolls of bark,
As to each one seemeth; traditions, temple-chants,
Proverbs, wise saws: and hang those Scriptures up,

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The Cloister-walls around, in common view.

Grown old, hoar, impotent: furrowed with high thought;
Is still his soothfast front to skies uplifted!
Men reverence him: priests lay up, at his death;
And dedicate in the Temple, that rune-staff,
Of his; which ciphered erst, in sliding dust.

A long Procession of mens ages passeth.
Stars hold their courses: but, in World beneath,
Misdeed is rife, which severs souls from God:
Whether, as frúits being rípe, incline to rottenness;
Or cause were, snare-bound Spirits, lóost of late;
Which seeds of malice sowed in human hearts:
Or, weary of human converse, hallowed Peace
Forsaken had, for an heavenly, Her Worlds Seat.

Earth mourns: hath fallen no rain on Her wide glebe;
(Where stiffened is the weary clod, to bronze:
And turns to flint, the labour of the ground.)
Nor stills there dew by night, on herb or bush.
All cattle languish, lacking sustenance:
Whence herds and flocks, their young untimely cast.
Mans thrift is turned to want; wax lean all hearts.

Herdfolk with herdfolk strive, for old digged wells,

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And wáter-springs: ánd is controversy of flócks;
Which faint, in Earths ere áll-green hills, and perish.
For removed landmarks, husbandmen contend.
Merchant-folk fall at variance in mens street.
Is everywhere debate. Neighbours go armed
Abroad, as against beasts, with bows and darts.
Orphans, in their inheritance, sigh oppressed.

The World being full of wickedness; on Earths coast,
From Hell, rose fearful semblant, felon War!
And waxed like smóke anon, towards heavens vast heíght.

Of whom, in antique chant, I read recorded:
That óf the eleméntal Powers beneath,
(Which, for the mastery, eternally there contend;)
Took impious War his being: with whom joined was,
(That, bred in Hellish Den; had long there lurked;)
Another War-fiend, Scáthe: whom fostered sith,
Malice; base human offspring, of hearts fret:
And Envy, Ire, Guile, (scaped out of the Gods' net;)
Had suckled him at their paps. Is writ, in story;
That such were fruit of Mans self-loving thought.

Other Opinion hold: Was War, before
One óf heavens Gods: who fállen in fury, and bound;

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Was from their divine Presence, thence exiled,
To Hell; whence He, from time to time, breaks forth;
Athirst for human gore, upon Earths mould;
All-strong man-quelling Fiend! War madding there,
Incites mens sons, to shed their brothers' blood.

Eachwhere walks War, men warry and make road.
Before War, falls a slaughtered human multitude!
Behínd him, fétor horrible, hopping fowl;
On Warriors' carcases and swart blood-stained herb:
Where wife-men beat their paps. A field; like laund,
With forest leaves strewed, after tempests wrath.
Seems fíre alone from heaven, can purge Worlds mould,
Contáminate; and War fóllows Pestilence.

But to speak, of Wars felon Countenance:
By who the lively hews can counterfeit best,
And shadow forth; (and waits this gentle Art,
As handmaid, on the never-dying Muse.)
He is seen in picture, girt-through with a dart,
His belly: his entrails poured on ground out part:
And part contains the Fiend, with his iron hand.
Is full His body, of thousand rankling wounds;
Through tooth of flint, barbed steel or whetted bronze;
Whence festering sores, whereto none herb, nor salve,

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Is found.

To look upon that hellish Face;
Wasted with hunger, thirst, wounds, nakedness;
Foul-weathers, Péstilénce; (Ay me!) an human breast,
It would affray. Full of manquelling thought;
Lo a sharp-set jowl, with leer of outlawed wolf:
(Which every hand might slay, and have a thank!)

Those wildered looks of his, with madness fraught!
Those eyes, wherein springs lecher gleam, unglad;
He rolls, breathes thick, and slavers in his beard.
And when his heart flames, in his oft access;
In frenzied feral laughter! War breaks forth.

Therein, (hard to pourtray all such at once!)
A firebrand, in the painted table, wields
The fiends iron other hand: wherewith, from part
To part, is shown, would War inflame the World:
Who blows each kindled spark, with carrion breath.

What furthermore, I of the Muse received;
I will declare. The deathless Gods descended
Themselves, in haste; and once more War repressed.
They Him drave, with quivering lightnings, from Worlds face,
Forth, past Earths brinks, whereas no footing was:

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Whence fell, to nethermost Pit, the homicide Fiend.
And shut Her Mouth Hell on him, for a Season.

Me later showed the Muse; men hardily march,
Girt in war-weed, with measured battle-tread:
Neath shields, with bows of steel and shivering spears;
Whereon the Sun gleamed, like a burning wood.

Manslaying ranks are met then, front to front!
Thick push of pikes; dim infinite whissing flight,
Of shafts aloft and darts: gore-blotted mould,
With lukewarm blood embrued; swart trampled sod.
Lie corses strewn, like wind-cast sheaves, in field:
That shining steel hath reaped, in battle-rage.

More wórthy, aye, hundred times, were to be slain,
Who set them on. May they be made, High Héaven!
An execrátion! and their house a rúin;
Which, with that Múrderer, (as lute-string to string,
Responds,) partake; to compass others' deaths!

That seen; me showed the Muse, a Prince apart,
With haughty upstraught neck; call hastily forth
An hosting of his stout young men of service:
Being come new teeming Spring. Month now was in,
When grown is, for their horses, the Lands herb;

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Both sappy corn and grass. And thóse war-gírt,
With glaive and lance, assemble to their ensigns.
In the heat of their young blood, will they make road.

Lo, and hardily, from the gates, thóse bands pass forth.
With tambour and war-chant; hasting to death!
For wait them ambusht enemies, in their path.
Where being assailed; they, unáble to sustain
Unlooked-for brunt, give ground. Put to the wórse:
There, with the Prince which led them, fall the most;
Bereaved of their young lives! In desert place;
Those fallen, unburied lie!

Yet in far field,
Saw I embattled hosts: I hear dread shouts,
Of multitude armed; and trumpets brazen throat!
See wavering shíeld-ranks; like a wállowing wood,
In Winds wide wayward breath. Men in buffcoats,
With woven mails of iron, and scales of bronze:
And targe on prowd forearms, inclined to targe;
And helm to helm advanced.

Then hápped new case!
Behold forefighters, óne upon each part;
(Were wont both those great battle-deeds show forth!)

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Men of renown: (is whose immortal part,
Of heavenly seed, descended from the gods;)
Proceed to the mid-space, betwixt their armies.

Is This, of lofty looks, as a tall ash:
Ready of his hand, a Pillar of his folk;
Long-haired, deep-voiced; of dreadful countenance.

Whose foe is One, less statured by an head:
His shoulders square and mightily stiff-pight.
He, of passing strength, is named, his Nations Rock.
On him, the armed People gaze. Smooth-shining, as
An acorn, seemed the fashion of his face.

Lifting his prowd right hánd, each war-smith; (hath
He alréady it stained with púrple gore, in fight;)
Defíes this day his fóe, to mortal strife!

Being surety gíven; then héralds measure lists:
Whilst both the hosts sit down, then on green bent.
Each hope, each fear, as had they never ere.
Áll on the Gods cáll: ánd pray, They their cause
To-day detérmine; that there míght be peace!

Like brimming rams, for lordship of the flock;
That dash in field their horny ópposed heads:
Those cope together, with such hideous strokes;

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(With new found glaive, which in their hands; whose mouth,
Of whetted steel, devours men;) as each might
Have split a rock. They hew, they foin therewith!
They bleed, they pause a moment, to fetch breath.

Each champion then, assembling all his force;
(With huge avenging ire, as for his folk:)
His enemy smote! And leaving this Worlds light;
They fell down both together, in swart death!

With new war-fury, uprisen, enranged; those hosts
Restore the homicide fight! shoutings and din
To heaven, of smitten shields: broad gleam of iron;
Thickets of warriors' spears! Much battle-dust;
Confused dread mortal cries. On shrieking axe-trees,
Cartmén on the ópposed wings, húrl their poised javelins.
Archers, which swiftly advanced, loose sleet of shafts.
Their feathered shot fall thick, as swarming bees:
Where men with men strive in the midst; for life,
And to give death: as hive with hive, and bleed:

When, as the Muse me báde, I agáin beheld:
That field, a blackened shambles of men dead!

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(Hewed and pierced corses; where seemed Mother Earth
Herself, weep gore! rolled in their rotten blood:)
Lay bruised, neath íron wheels ánd steeds' brázen hoofs.
Full all of creeping loathsome carrion flies;
Is, where wont wild bees suck the thymy sweet;
And conies play, in thicket dewy grass.
Gather birds of the slain, from far on-loft!

Of this enough! since wars, (till heavens shall burn;
To purge this World-of-men!) shall never cease.
The more 's the Pity: (and everywhere War is,
This day, alas!) Gods, ángry sent then forth;
On men, perverse indwellers in mid-Earth;
The Sword-of-beaven, Hell-breathing Pestilence.

Are cómmon ways strewed, with festering carcases;
Where Péstilence, with dread síckle in Her hand;
In town and field, hell-footed, lurid hoves.
Are none to bury, and none which carry forth.
Seems all the Earth, great laystall of Her dead!

Who linger yet in life, discoloured wan,
Tremble. Bleak even be the young childrens looks.
Are fewer they, mongst all those which survive,

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Than old outworn wights, and than mourning wives;
Shut-up, past age, which can no more bring forth.

Groans of mens mourning multitude; ascended,
To star-bright mansions of thrice-blessed Gods:
Forth-echoing, enter in His infinite Ear;
Who, All-Highest, sitteth on Throne, in the heaven of heavens:
Whose Náme unútterable ís, of lips!

He Áll-Might is, Áll-Being, and Áll-Breath!
He loveth ús! And, ín this Hope, we rest.
He, All-pitying Father, sent swift Messenger Spirit:
Commanding swart-winged Pestilence: Surcease!

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BOOK VI

134

ARGUMENT

Certain hunters in further wilderness, have found the site of old Mantown; and there beyond, of that subverted Plain of Divine Battle: wherein remain antique grave-hows of Titans and of Giants.

A Prophet, in Age succeeding; persuades men, to fetch from thence home, a Giants numbed living corse: fortelling, that were such able alone to perform all the travail of their town.

A mighty Wain is timbered. A young mens company, go forth on this quest, therewith; driving ox-teams and, for their provision, sheep-flocks. Their painful Winters march. The heavens lately offended, are entreated of them; and refresh their spirits.

Those delve then: and with great endeavour; do lastly raise, upon that great carroch, a Giants numbed living corse; and begin their homeward march. But there amidst; the jaded cattle-teams, fail them: and they send back messengers, for aid, unto Eden.

A Company of young men of the town, sally in haste, to their succour; with new ox-teams and victual. Who having found their fellows in far wilderness; they all thence return together, with that great Wain; whereupon is laid the Giants corse. They then, after long extreme endeavour, of beasts and men, arrive home.

Townsfolk and artificers, labouring day and night-long; dig down that great Eoten-stature to his loins, and bind amidst their Market-place. And was, when the Sun is up, that Giant revives. Thenceforth, yoked mighty Labourer, but without understanding, he travails for men: whereby they thrive the more; and that, above their neighbour towns.

Which seen, in time succeeding; those do likewise send forth their bands of young men. And each of such companies raise then, and with pain hale home, a Giants numbed mighty corse.

Last of all, sends thither, the great Temple-city of the Plain, a convoy of many labourers. And those with long years' travail, and exceeding pain: last raise; and from thence, they erst, hale home, a Titan-corse. And hath, the Mother City of men obtained thus; a first Dominion over the whole Earth.

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Have high abiding Spirits, whom men call Gods;
Restored Her former fruitfulness to Worlds field.
And in that new age, of their only grace;
In Man, infused new understanding mind;
To guide the manifold purposes of his hands.

Speech perfected is, in utterance of Mans breath;
Gift of the heavens, which hath none other beast.
Wherethrough can Man, as his minds instrument;
(Who a Ríddle is, nay an Astónishment! to himself;)
Girt round with fléshly darkness, cógitate,
Of things invísible: and, laid thóught to thought;
Commune of Worlds, and times and enterprises.

His mind a measure is, of all he seeth.
Man parleys with himself; and a souls voice,
Within him speaks: instinction of the Gods!
Fall beams of light, in mans deviseful mood:
Thoughts cry aloud, within his whispering breast.
Some fruitful are; more flit again and fade.

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Man liveth, wíth his támed beasts, now of days work,
And eats bread of the field: which is increased;
Being found the yoke, the plough-beam and ploughtilth.
And daily he finds new masteries: in his hands,
Be iron and bronze; whose veinstones one, by hap,
Found, which flowed molten, in his Winter-hearth;
Which now a forge. Today, he Worlds first smith;
There beats-out tools and weapons with his sledge:
Whence spring already Worlds mechanic arts.

Walking with lamp of knowledge, in his hand;
Kindled in heaven: Man searcheth out hid things,
He dernely sees, which become manifest thus:
And much, with new endeavour, he bringeth to pass.
Beginneth man even Earths Elemental Powers,
Unto his Will, to bend.

Of wríghts in wood;
The wheel, (hewed rundle of a tree,) is found:
At erst a reel, that served men, draw with cords,
Their deeper wells. And one devísed hath sith,
Paired wheels to únderset, to framéd boards;
And found might force, of one mans arms therewith;
Suffice to wield, the búrden of beast of charge.

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Is this the Earth, which called God forth, of naught.
Who formed the formless and it fashioned thus.
In Bosom of Eternity, HE Earth founded;
(One more, midst that His starry infinite host.)

Was Earth at first, a stony nakedness:
And boiling Deep, Her smoking ribs of rocks,
Flowed round. Thereon breathed Heaven thén Lifes breath.

Ten thousand Ages had endured the Earth:
(And yet there must ten-thousand Ages pass,
Star-prophets tell us, ere this World is cold;)
When, midst the generations of Earths lap;
(That wondrous groundwork, eye now seeth displayed!
Broidered with manifold hews,) was Man brought forth:
And only, among all creatures of Earths life,
Which motion have and breath, he reason hath.

And here mine Authors leaves find I corrupted,
Through rust of Time; and part by canker worm,
Consumed: nor many more remain. Wherein
Is read: From Eden, sallied certain men,
Hunters; which passed the flood, found Mantowns walls,
Beyond, where landbreadth wild; in much duned sand.

And there among, were serpents' dens, and holes

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Of doleful creatures. Full were the night hours,
After the Sun, of shrieks and yelling cries;
So that, for ghostly dread, had died their hearts.
Till dawn they waked. As ever day was made;
Towards an high mountain coast, which showed far-off,
They bent their steps: meaning with bow and shaft;
Therein the great-horned buck to hunt.

But was,
Past Noon, when nighed they those ranged salvage cliffs:
Amidst dread solitúde! began to faint
Their fearful hearts. Them seemed, see battle-ground,
(Whereof remembrance made, in Temple-chants;)
Wherein Earth-sons had once, with Gods, contended.

Further, in Earths Breast, saw they abysmal clefts;
Whence breathed infernal reek. Which passed uneath:
Lay overthrown beyond, World-mountains flanks,
In confuse heaps; whence corpse-field stench proceeded;
And ghostly groans, as lowing oxens' throats.
For fear, rose up the hair, upon their pates.
Amazed, durst not they lift up to the Gods
In heaven, their palms, from that abysmal place!

Then swart brent field, vast sea of stony íron,
That seemed; whose lófty émbowed billows stood
Congealed, in echoing vaults, above their heads:

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With pain, in part, they passed. Had journeying thence,
Their passage barred great wave-rows of wild sand;
That heaped, of óld time, had tempéstuous winds;
And hollowed them, in thousand bays, again.

From some, saw they giant-limbs protruding: even
Now a substance clothed them, like to stony flesh!
Here gazed they on knuckle-row, of some wain-great hand.
There showed a knee-bow; greater than were chine,
Of an ureox: giants heel them seemed rock-mass!
Some sithes, them seemed then thóse sand hills, to heave;
As ó'er giants' living breasts! (No more Those thwart
The Plain, with dreadful shout!)

Wide-round strewed craigs,
Stones seemed them, whérewith had been armed giants' hands.
Such to the King and Council those related,
With ádawed looks!

Past is another Age,
Of Suns revolving years. Unto their sires,
Descended: have those hunters with them made
Their beds beneath, in íron House of Death.

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Where none may ask them of their earthly course.
And few rest of their years, on living ground;
Like Autumn leaves, now ready to be shed.
Treads a new human Spring, Worlds perplext paths.

Amongst who Seers, diviners of those days,
See the héavens ópened, in their trance; which hear
Things hid from fleshly sense: whose saws unfold
The fordetermined counsel of high Gods,
Was One, who charge laid, in fatídic chant,
Upon his citizens, in new town of Eden:
From that divine burned field, which húnters found,
Beyónd the flood, in wilderness; to hale home,
A gíants there móund-laid corse.

Of whom, he spake,
Thus: Should such giant, not fully dead, revive!
Whose nether parts made fast, with gyves of brass;
To Earth-Mother-máss, from whénce his power derives;
One námely of thát huge húndred-handed brood;
Eotens named, and whose each arm hath force,
All human might above, of an yoked ox:
Such giant for mén were able, himsélf alóne;
To pérform the main trávail of a town!

Words, whích when thát towns Ruler understood;
(Ere léader of their héady adventurous youth:)

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And súch should gíve him a pre-eminence,
Abóve all neighbour towns, in Edens Plain:
He of carpenters' craft requires, that they some mean
Devise, unto this end.

Debate then, was
In the artificers' stréet; áfter that each
Wight deems: how might this be accomplished; such
Vast bulk, so great a poise! from wilderness, past
That rívers flood, bé brought home!

Amongst them, then
Is last determined, to compile a frame,
Rolling on wheels; of mighty timber-work!

With twibills, men hew beams: which bored with augurs;
Join carpenters, to a floor of boards, on rows;
Thwart-laid, with hard tree-nails. Lifted with cranes,
That frame: smiths forged iron axetrees underfasten.
Wheelwrights, ell-wide stiff stubborn wheels, manhigh,
Thereto of well-coucht work apply; and shod
With strakes of bronze, against the offense of stones.

Lo, an huge carróch, stands pérfected, at years end!
Like that star-wáin, the Seer in skíes had seen;

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(Which hight, of old time, Waggon-of-the-Gods.)
Whereón opinion ís, might be drawn home,
A giants numbed líving corse, to Cíty of men.

To thát great Énterprise: being now harvest ended;
And all, (come day appointed,) ready made:
Hundred stout young men, with five hundred beves;
And flocks, for their provision in the path;
Assemble overnight, without the gates.

Day breaks: they wayfare, with huge creaking wain-
Machine; whereon laid tools, bread-corn and stuff:
And many friends, a leagues way, bring them forth:
That bidding them Godspeed, take there their leave.

In the next march, they Edens flood o'erwade;
Footgoers, teams, flocks. Some say, on floats, those passed.
From thence, they journey-ón, towards sétting Sun.
But went not Gods out with them, in that march!
Unto whóm those neíther sacrificed, nor had prayed;
Nor had they enquired of heaven, at setting forth:
Nor have they who guide them, in Land lóng untrod.

Those slowly wáyfare, máking weary speed.
Suns Eye, heavens thicket-skies, doth séldom pierce:
Nor lode-star shínes, in dýing of the year;

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Out of the covert Nights moist hollow Deep;
When falls the latter rain: whereby men might
Maintain an even course.

Now Season is,
When Sun draws in contínually his dáily arc:
And looks askance down, on derne mourning Earth,
Sered with first frost. Leaves hóbble in crude blast:
All southing fowl, far-fleeing to their place;
(Beyond, men say, the seas,) have lately o'erpassed.

Men journey astray: in giddy round their feet,
Return forwandered, on their former trace!
Soon oversnowed lies Earths vast empty Face:
There cumbered wide with quarters of wild rocks.

Might fifty yoke, únder their drivers' whips;
Of stéers, which féeble are with evil fare;
That creaking waggon-work tract forth unéath.

Training now lustless limbs and hollow eyed;
Outworn the shoes, upon their sore-bruised feet:
Follow mens companies; till them seems, come nigh
They to Worlds brinks! and hearts begin to faint.

Those trains of men and cattle, in wíldernéss;
Have réached at length: whereás, by manifest signs,
Which round them seen, lies forth that Battle-plain;

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Wherein Earths sons and giants had once contended,
In divine strife. In those same dread confines,
Men marching, halt: and walling snow and earth;
Them shield, (which nips the blood), from wicked blast.

Night fallen, strange ghostly terrors there, oppress
Mens souls: seen corpse-lights, o'er the giants' hows.
And in bleak moonlight, swart-winged spectres glide.
At morning ray, rise dreadful phantom-shapes,
As óut of a dim míst; spirits, of once shed
There báttle-blood.

Men three days rest; so máte
They are, so ache with rheums, their stiffened joints.
Couched round great fires, the flesh of beves they roast,
And slaughtered sheep; and comfort them with food.

Men, in this mischief, seek with cast-down looks,
Unto heavens offended. Hear on high the Gods,
Mens voice: and they, beheld their hapless case;
Entreated are. (Compassion eftsoon wakeneth,
In divine breasts!) And, once more, Gods refresh
Their travailed spírits.

With íron-headed spades,
And mattocks, taking thought; begin then delve
Men, in duned bosom of that frozen sand;

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Where dimly, a gíants huge únderlying shape,
Might eye discern!

Continue at their task,
Men labouring in that stead, in wind and wet:
That parted have the Winters day, in watches.

Early in the fóurth Moon fróm their setting forth;
Is shout heard fróm among them, ín that fosse;
Which lóng there painfully wrought: Hít their pickaxes!
On grím Eotens antique frozen corse.

This lay they bare, in all his length and breadth;
Fearful to look on! jowl, knees, feet, large breast;
Great as a city-gátes! whereunto, in wóndrous
Wise, joined hundred ímmane arms. Long weeks,
Men travailling, open hollow trench beside;
In whose steep clíne, they líttle and little, ease dówn;
That mány-wained carroch, of míghty draught:
Lóosing, in their stout hánds out, great twined warps.
Other, with húrdles, fence the inslíding sand.

Thus far, attained to their intent; with last
Long vehement éffort, stríving of all loins:
Using strong beams, for levers; put-to force,
Which Góds in them infuse! men heave now and hoise;
And thereon grádewise whélve the giants corse!

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Nor for all such, that ímmane stature wákens!

Thereto, knit fifty yoke of stooping steers;
Straining in teams, to drivers' hallowing throats;
And by sharp góads prickt forth: they hálting oft,
Some breathing space, wrest lóose now! and sith, by handbreadths:
They heave, they sweat; they uphálo, ho! And lást lo, have wróught,
Óut of pit-deep! that burdened main carróch:
(In men and beasts, the Gods' sustaining force!)
With huge Eotens corse.

Midwinter Feast,
(An empty name sounds, in that desert heath!
Where ónly flows the wind, with rîme-cold breath;
And twilight glooming, is Suns daily path;
And wild ground deadly sleeps;) was hardly past:
When set all faces homeward are to fare,
To Edens Field: whither, rísing befóre
Them; Ishtar beckons bright, now morning star!

Is their return, not as their going forth.
Gaunt, full of sores, be now their painful teams;
Which draw an hour or twain, and so mote rest.

Chill murk skies shadow o'er Earths midday face;

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Yet winds blow out, of Winters long disease.
Pass footsore men, training dull pithless limbs,
In scattered wise; teamsters and toiling beves,
Under the yokes: and lowing, as they wend,
Forspent; lo win forth tardily, league by league.

But midway come, to place where needs they must
Hills pass: and can no more their jaded teams,
Amídst wild válley-maze of fallen craigs:
Men counsel take. They messengers thence with tidings,
Send forth; requiring instant aid, to Eden.

Those twain then, after days, with faltering knees;
Like old bent wights, arrive, at their town gates.
The City ancients, honourable men;
Which sit thereat, to hear the Peoples causes;
Uprise to meet them, marvelling.

Whoso pass
By in the street, gather to hear their talk.
Then presently is stir: young men, in the towns midst
Them proffer, of their eager hardihood:
To speed this sáme day; ere sét of this high Sun;
To succour of their fellows, in far waste,

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Beyond the river. Óf whom, three-score chosen;
Be charged to assemble ready, at morning ray;
With great-horned teams, and new supply of victual.

The Sun is rising, lo; when fare those forth,
With zealous foot. Gainst eve, the ford, they pass.
But come beyond, in field, where no way lies:
Those each day view, before their hasting steps:
How dieth now Winters spite; and the new blade
Appeareth: how even, in wasteful wilderness,
The pasture bushes, sucklings of the Earth,
Revive. Already bosom of wild ground
Teems new, neath Suns life-giving foster radiance!
Which warms, enlarging now his daily arc,
Continually more and more, that weary coast.

Still faring those in haste; who waywont, light
Now on those waggoners' trace; which have they sought.
Following on their wheels' print; they find them lodged,
In poor estate; couched róund that great carróch;
Whereon laid burden of húge Eotens corse!

But how, attáched new teams, those hills they passed,

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To Edens flood: and in what sort they wrought,
Come to the brinks; where craftsmen, on both parts;
Heaving on staples, in floods cliff made fast:
With winches, reels, and tackles, thousand hands;
Whereas ford found: procured thereo'er to warp,
Their mighty cárroch, burdened with giants corse;
I find not in mine Authors leaves recorded.

Come up that convoy, from long pathless wilderness;
Great multitudes follow, from each peopled place,
Whereas they pass. How trémble now áll those marvelling;
The whiles they stare, on dread Eotens corse!

Behold them reached to their home-city walls;
Whence issue citizens' companies, with the Prince:
With whom priests, bearing censers, chant before
Them, hymns, of loud thanksgiving to their Gods.
Wives sue, with maiden-choirs. As lilies, white;
With chaplets on their brows of sweet Spring flowers:
Be these, that carol forth, with tinkling feet;
And timbrels beat!

Too strait their City gates,
Moulded of clay; mote those be broken down:
That might great gíant-inbéaring cárroch pass;

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Which enters úneath, ín their hollow street.

They come forth, tó their towns wide market-place.
Where last, the fordone toilful teams be loost.
And men; which, in their springing youth, went forth;
Return sore-bruised and spent, to their own hearths.

The People amázed, throng róund that huge carróch:
And ón the Eotens dúmb disméasurate corse!
Above what heart might think: wherein they hear,
Yet dwelleth a lifeful heat! all ghastful stare.

But who erst mattock takes and spade in hand;
Is the young Prince, that giant to underdelve.
Toil, day and night-long all, in hourly watches,
Then; whoso are fóunden áble in the town,
Theretó; come on them fúry, from the Gods.

Labour smiths them beside; their bellows roaring
Out vehement heat upon the coals: with sway
Of sledge and hammers' stroke, on ringing anvils;
Iron links to forge, and fashion brazen bands.
Those rívet they the gíants nape aróund;
And chains insoluble fásten.

Ás in peril!
All wrought with vehement heat; to be despatched,
Ere dáy-dawn, and or éver the giant waken.

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Who dig and delve, under that many-wained
Huge wheeled carróch; they travail mainly and sweat;
Enforcing them, deep downward trench, to open.

And líke as men see séa-folk stép tall mast;
Using thereto sheers, cables, throbbing engines:
With winches, thereto bending their most force;
Enabling them the téamed loins of strong steers:
(Lighten their toil, the everlasting Gods!)
That soulless búlk, on fráme of the carróch;
Those crooked knees, stone belly and flinty flanks;
They of lóng numbed giant, heaved; éase down, as he was,
In steep graved pit which digged men had all night;
Great Irminsul : (name which now almost perished,
From mémory of men,) even tó his frozen breast.
Other chain his both féet, to transoms, traves;
Thwart-laid there: and to Mother Earths rock-mass.
All hásten then fill, and ram agáin that ground.

But come days dawn, when Summer-Suns warm beams
Begin again to smíle upon Earths face:
The gíant, (as that Soothsayer had foretóld,)
Who sunken is upright to his girdlestead;

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And hundred-ármed sits, ánd who star-blind is;
(Since his one eye sered lightning from the Gods:)
A living rock, whose stone-embodied Spirit,
Late numbed was by long frost; wakens in part!
Grown hoary-óld, that immane stature is:
(Which liveth; but not by bread, as máns kin doth;)
In years unnumbered, of Worlds ages past;
Under duned sand, in long forsaken coast;
Whereto none understanding more he hath!
Children of men him mock and brave around!

Irminsul was a great pillar or Idol-Colossus of the ancient Saxons.

By cunning new device of wheel-work, cranks;
Men, fifty his hands have knit to fifty mills:
(As taught them Gods,) to grind their daily bread.
And fifty draw up water, from mens wells:
Whence fruitful streams gush on their seeded fields.

He drudges for them; whence, in Edens Plain,
They thrive the more, above their neighbour towns:
Which seen, in age succeeding, other towns;
Do likewise send forth, their young strenuous bands,
To that divine burned field. Each such crew raise;
When have they lóng delved, ín the Eotens hows:
And paínfully, on sóme well-timbered wain-machine;
A giants corse thence hale home.

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Thus, more and more;
Blind mighty lawless elemental Powers,
Which in those gíants flow; men, to their behóof,
Bínd from henceforth; as they themsélves increase,
Contínually, ín all únderstanding heart.
Man lightens thus his burden of this Worlds smart.

Town emulates town; and in Worlds later ages,
Stand bound Eotens, midst most market-places;
Which lay out, to mens service, their huge force;
More than had each man manifold witty hands,
Might they themselves achieve.

Giant Labourers, those
Behold now are mány, whích in Edens towns;
Drudge, numbed, inhuman Wights, immane of force.
Not all be sunken in pits: in brazen vaults,
Some sit, in dungeons dark; in living caves
And dens of hollow rocks: pent, shackled, fast-
Bound, with insóluble adamántine chains:
To obey mans hésts!

Nor áll be of like substance.
Seeing, whiles they móund-laid, áge-long, deadly slept:
Earth Powers, their márble members, in the dark,
Sóme mollified; some to métal even had wrought.

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Lastly, I in mine Author, read recorded;
How in Temple-City, called the Gate-of-God,
And Mother-of-the-World; Decree is made:
To raise; and fetch from dune-row, their gravestead,
In that far wilderness-sand, some Titans Corse.
For Fame, (a spurious Son is Fame of heaven!)
Had lately visited, that chief human State:
And new ambitions, in mens minds, had waked.

Like mankinds former City; grown is that,
Now in mány generátions, véry great;
With market-places and long storied streets.

Was then, that a great Company issued forth;
Five armed bands, éach one namely of thousand men:
With teams of béves and mány-footed flocks;
And furniture, súch as that new Age afforded,
Of the mechanic arts.

Those, heaped-craigs, erst
Uplift: sith travailling, with exceeding pain,
And long years labouring; they have raised at length:
And hale now, on míghty rollers, ón towards home;

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Són-of-the Earth, disméasured Titans corse:
(Though One the léast, of áll there fallen, he was.)

Who being set-up, within their City walls:
(Exceeding ímmane giants', his Títan force;
An hundred, and an húndred fold;) hencefórth
Sérves theír new, mány and míghty énterprises.

Obtained hath thus, mens Temple-City, a first
Dominion, o'er Earths Dust.

In last loose leaves then of mine Authors Story;
(Squalid with rusty Eld; with canker-holes,
Deformed, distained, uneasy to be read;
Oft blurred, and thereto rent;) find I writ thus:
[That Writ is semblably by another hand,
Of later Age; the Old Worlds sinewed Speech,
Therein declining from its ancient worth:
As nigher to a Time, when made to liken
Old honest wares, brazed metal-dross wont pass;
From hand to hand of blent wights, as gold-worth.]

Now, ás erewhíle had human wit subdued;
(With those twin impotent fingered palms of his;
Which yet, through Art, can frame immortal works!)

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Strong dumb four-footed creatures of Earths field:
That serve him sith, obedient to his hests;
With their brute force. Even so, Mans puissant thought;
(Which aye to his advancement bent,) hath cast,
In spirit, his brídle upon the lips; and bit
Put in the mighty jaws already, in part;
Of Sovereign Natures elemental Powers:
Thus, stepwise, mastering their eternal force;
(Both giants and Titans thus, become mens thralls!)
Which that inevitable Course of Hers;
From day to day, before Mans soul unfolds.

As when One, of bold reach, above his feres;
A mill-race draws, from rivers rushing source;
Or, of wild winds' inconstant breath, his part:
His Will impósing on them; whóse blind drift,
Should hurl continually his heavy quern-stones.

But then much more, when some hath found, how Fire;
Which giveth both light and heat, and is Mans Friend;
(Though only, of Eárth-powers cannot Flame be tamed;)
Being underput, to water in his pot:
Tormenteth so it; that yieldeth thé eddying Element
Úp, of moist íntimate bosom, a supreme effort:

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Much like, though soulless, unto vehement strife
Of untamed beast; to wrest him, to astart
From snare! from his pursuers, to fling forth!

Such yoked, translated to machinal quaint
Device, (fruit of Mans busy working thought;)
Complex of cranks and swiftly running wheelwork;
Which rattles to heaven, with noise of rushing chariots:
Man those, his former gotten giant-powers;
An hundred-fold, hath furthermore enlarged!

Moreo'er, remembered is, in antique Story;
(That mány-tongued múrmur of Mans troubled Past;
Which stinks of blood and sweat:) how stolen once was,
By a Seers Familiar Spirit, high heavens levin;
(Poets feign, even from the hands of sleeping Gods,
In Bliss,) and brought down from celestial Seats.

And how then, from Hells deep-digged lowest Pit,
(Consenting griesly eternal Fiends of Death;)
The same Spirit, salt fetched of infernal Rock:
Which kindled, can dissolve, with fearful threat!
Mans living World.

Were Tyrants then of States:
Who men of violence, hating human breath;

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Loving themselves: and, (through guile,) armed their hands,
Hasting, to shed the innocent blood; therewith:
Durst, with War-Fiend, (Hell-risen; from horrid Gulf
Of damned ghosts, in everlasting pine;
Who Lord is named of spears, King-of-the-slain;)
Allied their souls: in few rank days of theirs,
Be found; speaking proud words, upon Worlds Face:
In fond Revolt, gainst everliving Gods.
Now, in lást leaf, (hángs but by a páck-thread, sticht
Unto those former quires,) I read uneath,
Moth-fretted clause; wherein be Times toward,
Presaged. As, hów divided into States,
Should be this Later-World: When every State,
Some hundred-membered Titans power should serve.
And thereabove, should teach mens sons the Gods;
Beyond all human precedent, to draw forth,
Hid powers and virtues of Earths Mother-mass.

And, as well-sinkers, labouring long in dark,
Wont light on living waters, at the last:
Even so, who Seers are named, should in their Ages;
Still seeking, find some secret of the Gods;

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At each new depth.

With mighty engines strange;
The eternal hills, mens lateward sons should pierce;
And lay o'er floods, a causeway, for their chariots.
To the Isles, their keels should safely overpass
The illimitable Deep.

Nay, on their large Breast,
Even the light airs should bear men proudly forth!
Shall Man, amidst the misty skies, usurp
A new highway, above the hills; and ride,
(More swiftly, than can wingborne fowl, in flight!)
Therein; as doth the dragon-fly, to and forth:
Where former generations knew no path.

Should Seers among men rise then; which interpret
Shall starry motions of vast Universe:
And weigh the lofty air, in balances;
And poise those shining stars, (Worlds old-time Gods:)
And mete the beam of Light; that sped, time was,
To Earth; from spheres celestial, now arrives:
And it resolve.

The adamantine Elements;
Couched indivisible particles; motes, which cannot
Mans sense devise, whereof all things consist:
Shall his mathêsis, through unerring thought,

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Discern; see in intimate working, his souls vision:
Ferment, a ceaseless tempest, infinite fret!
Attractions and repulsions. At his list;
He unbinds them, and anew upknits.

Earths trode
Beneath our feet outstretcht; clay, rocky depths:
To twice the height of greatest mountain tops:
He ensearcheth; and reads Story therein graven,
With imagery; of thousand Worlds forepast.
(Whose Sun and Stars, were those we see in heaven;
And waves were these, which beat our shores and waste.)

Eternal Ocean-stream, that the whole Earth
Girds, with long crooked arms; and those green Isles,
Wherein Man dwelleth! Mans hand, out of his ship;
Shall each Gulf sound, and tell the depth thereof.

As for green grassy mantle and wood-locks,
Of Mother-Earth; and all that Flesh, which moveth;
Beasts, fowl, and fry of fishes: all lifes breath;
In endless generations, on Her Face:
Mans understanding orders them in ranks;
And calleth each kind by name.

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Mans pensive spirit
Shall, in his contemplation, ponder thus:
Time present, and long memory of ages past.

Howbeit still, in much ignorance, wanting Light;
With clouded countenance, shall Man walk Earths dust;
Shut up, in darkness of frail womb-born flesh:
(This mortal, yet unweaned, untaught, unworth.)