Polyphemus
Rude rocks o'erhung the shore: as rude as they
The mighty shepherd wandered round the bay
The tumbled uplands, all his mountain home,
In his distempered woe had seen him roam.
The single eye amid his forehead placed,
The cause of dread, that from him all things chased,
Suffused with fury now, and swollen with pain,
Shewed red, the fleck of madness in each vein
Alas for him! how monstrously did peer,
Crowning his front, that uncouth sign of fear!
His narrow forehead, splayed on either side,
To mould that middle feature high did ride;
And large the fleecy beard, beneath his face
Which spread, and seemed of that strange tower the base.
So, meteor-like, o'er combing waves hath stood
With turning lamp the tower that lights the flood;
The combing waves, far as the light had power,
Have spread, a tossing fleece, beneath the tower
Alas for him! never might he divine
That but one orb did in his forehead shine:
For when across his brow his hand he drew
The touch deceptive told that there were two:
So that he deemed himself like others made,
Although his form an ampler grace displayed:
Nor therefore knew the cause that everywhere,
Go where he might, he woke the excess of fear
First when mid fauns, dryads and satyrs strong
He would have danced, ere he could join their throng
Their ring they broke, and leaped into the glades,
And quaked long time beneath their closest shades.
Next with mankind he would consorted be:
But whether he drew near a company,
Or strode toward some lone shepherd on the hills,
The hardiest bosom shook with coward chills.
No man encountered once but feared again
To view that portent rising o'er the plain:
None turned the summits in those regions high,
But hung in doubt, and instantly would fly,
If in the opening valley he descried
That blick tremendous borne with rood-long stride
So that at length amid his flocks alone
He thought to live: and other friends had none
Than the mild host that to his pipes obeyed:
Which, mild as they, he tuned for them, and played.
Pleased with himself, he led them day by day
To the uncropt wilds that by high freshes lay;
Nor in his deep contentment felt despite
That gods and men fell from him: this the right
Which his vast force compelled he deemed to be,
And the due homage of his sovereignty.
And so he fared till lastly frustrate love
Did from the shepherd e'en his flock remove:
And of that fatal hour 'tis now to tell
When on his head the last amazement fell,
Adding such terrors to his visage grim,
That even the beasts the monster knew in him.
That day he led them far among the hills,
By folded gorges, the high birth of rills,
O'er shadowy wastes, pale quags, morasses grey,
Unto a level stretched, where herbage lay
Full green: they plucked with joyous snatch the grass;
He, leaving them, with peaceful pace did pass
To view what height beyond their field might be;
When lo, oh, lo!
A brake of reed and tree
Thickly enwrapped a tarn of water clear,
Which faint of colour seemed, and far, though near,
In the breathless highland air: beside whose pool
A nymph, new risen whence she had sought to cool
Her beauty, stood upon the further shore.
'twas she whom Doris to mild Nereus bore,
Whom not far-haunted Ocean would suffice
To bathe: but secret springs her beauty nice
Often beheld, earth's fountains and sweet springs,
Which she ascended from sea-openings.
'twas she who one fair youth loved secretly
Of all who roved through high-hilled Sicily,
The nymph-born Acis; whom she wont to meet
In shoreward caverns mossed for gentle feet.
Whom when he saw, the giant through the brake
Crashed, and cried loud along the shuddering lake,
" Ah, fairest! then these ready arms behold! "
But not more swiftly from the cloud's dark fold
The hissing bolt doth bending zodiacs smite:
Not shrieking swifts more sudden dash from sight
In autumn eves, then she, but seen, was gone.
Her shriek of fear rang on his ears alone,
Her white limbs mixed with leaping waves were seen:
Down sank her fount, and left the sallow green.
Astonishment the shepherd seized, who stood
Twixt the protesting trees and bubbling flood
And blankness, poured on expectation new,
Begat that rage which soon to madness grew
He started, peered, drew backward, laughed, and leapt
Into the ooze which late the waters swept
And as a worm, unearthed, that round and round
In anguish flings, but cannot quit the ground,
He searched the reedy fen: alas, no more
Beauty's perfection blessed the settling shore:
Nor aught remained of all the wonder there,
And wild fen rushes glanced in sunny air
Then lifted he his hands (it is love's cross
To make unadded gain seem perfect loss);
Fury! he raged (it is love's wont to give
All ills in this, one good to not receive):
And seeking thence his flock with footsteps fleet,
Ere he came nigh, the dams began to bleat;
Him come more near his sheep no longer knew,
But crowding eyed; and thence in terror flew
With countless rustling feet: he scarce pursued
Them lessening o'er the slopes, but in wild mood
One lamb he caught, the which in two he plucked
With mighty wrench, and the sweet bowels sucked:
Then, issuing shoreward from the mountain land,
At length amid the pumice rocks did stand
Alone, but more consoled, and softer now
He weeps: the tears drop from beneath his brow
Singly, but diversely their channels make,
Alas for him! and separate courses take:
Out of the fount suffused roll heavily,
And break in two, each half a flashing sea
So oft the arrived wave, that falters o'er
The cataract's verge, a double stream doth pour,
Split by some midway rock: still fall below
The jetted waters with divided flow
Anon he stints the flood: and, sorrow past,
Sets to a smile superb his features vast:
For other thoughts, restoring equal mind,
Return in wandering flaws, and entrance find.
He thinks upon his pipes, whose compact row
Of whistling sweetness part was broken now
Through his first rage: this marking not, he lays
The organ to his mighty mouth and plays
Then, in some way conceiving it not kind,
Into one hole alone he blows his wind,
Breath after breath, long time: until no more
Patient, he flings the tubes upon the shore
His voice alone could reach the tone of love,
And accents speak the mind that in him strove.
Sounds like to bleatings round the copses rang,
And thus the enamoured Polyphemus sang
" Oh fair and timid as the trembling lymph,
Soon shalt thou bid me soothe thee, sweetest nymph,
Whom wherefore should I pray? The fairest fair
Can with the strongest strong alone compare:
And I acknowledge thee. If others flee,
No cause hast thou, be sure, to shrink from me
When I am near, the boldest satyrs run;
The fairest dryads my approaches shun:
My force to try if still no satyr dare,
Yet thee I call beyond the dryads fair.
" Oh, what befel, when I thy form beheld,
By that fair fount that in the mountains welled?
Pale trees around the margin hung their screen,
And lovely lake-birds flew about, between
The reeds and tree tops: but my eyes were bent
On thee alone, thou dainty ravishment.
The Acidalian fountain, in whose wave
Their unimagined sweets the Graces lave,
Is not so fair as thy demure retreat:
Nor that, whereby the Muses have their seat:
And thou than they art fairer: it is said
That oft beside their sacred fountain's head
Mighty Apollo (I am mighty too)
Is wont to dance, to please those maidens due
To science most and wisdom: to his lyre
He dances, and his rapid feet do twire.
Oh, bid me dance, and half the rocks shall fall,
The trees bow down, my notes resound o'er all
Fairer art thou than the Pierian choir,
And I Apollo's rapid feet could tire.
" Whiter than wool, sweeter than milk, more mild
Than suckling lambs! I, swift as storms and wild,
Owning thy beauty, lo, will kiss thy feet
Wildness in thee with sweetness well may meet.
But fly not still, when thy fair eyes shall see
To answer thee not one like me to be
In all the land. Ah, if I ever thought
That by another thy embrace were sought,
These hands should rend the quaking wretch from thee,
And strew his empty body o'er the sea. "
Thus he began those cantilenes, which soon
More desperate grew, when moon succeeding moon
No answer brought from hill or grottoed shore,
Or billow falling white: and he no more
The perfect form beheld that caused his woe
Yet not unheard were they: and now, even now
Fair Galatea fled beneath the wave,
And Acis issued trembling from their cave
The mighty shepherd wandered round the bay
The tumbled uplands, all his mountain home,
In his distempered woe had seen him roam.
The single eye amid his forehead placed,
The cause of dread, that from him all things chased,
Suffused with fury now, and swollen with pain,
Shewed red, the fleck of madness in each vein
Alas for him! how monstrously did peer,
Crowning his front, that uncouth sign of fear!
His narrow forehead, splayed on either side,
To mould that middle feature high did ride;
And large the fleecy beard, beneath his face
Which spread, and seemed of that strange tower the base.
So, meteor-like, o'er combing waves hath stood
With turning lamp the tower that lights the flood;
The combing waves, far as the light had power,
Have spread, a tossing fleece, beneath the tower
Alas for him! never might he divine
That but one orb did in his forehead shine:
For when across his brow his hand he drew
The touch deceptive told that there were two:
So that he deemed himself like others made,
Although his form an ampler grace displayed:
Nor therefore knew the cause that everywhere,
Go where he might, he woke the excess of fear
First when mid fauns, dryads and satyrs strong
He would have danced, ere he could join their throng
Their ring they broke, and leaped into the glades,
And quaked long time beneath their closest shades.
Next with mankind he would consorted be:
But whether he drew near a company,
Or strode toward some lone shepherd on the hills,
The hardiest bosom shook with coward chills.
No man encountered once but feared again
To view that portent rising o'er the plain:
None turned the summits in those regions high,
But hung in doubt, and instantly would fly,
If in the opening valley he descried
That blick tremendous borne with rood-long stride
So that at length amid his flocks alone
He thought to live: and other friends had none
Than the mild host that to his pipes obeyed:
Which, mild as they, he tuned for them, and played.
Pleased with himself, he led them day by day
To the uncropt wilds that by high freshes lay;
Nor in his deep contentment felt despite
That gods and men fell from him: this the right
Which his vast force compelled he deemed to be,
And the due homage of his sovereignty.
And so he fared till lastly frustrate love
Did from the shepherd e'en his flock remove:
And of that fatal hour 'tis now to tell
When on his head the last amazement fell,
Adding such terrors to his visage grim,
That even the beasts the monster knew in him.
That day he led them far among the hills,
By folded gorges, the high birth of rills,
O'er shadowy wastes, pale quags, morasses grey,
Unto a level stretched, where herbage lay
Full green: they plucked with joyous snatch the grass;
He, leaving them, with peaceful pace did pass
To view what height beyond their field might be;
When lo, oh, lo!
A brake of reed and tree
Thickly enwrapped a tarn of water clear,
Which faint of colour seemed, and far, though near,
In the breathless highland air: beside whose pool
A nymph, new risen whence she had sought to cool
Her beauty, stood upon the further shore.
'twas she whom Doris to mild Nereus bore,
Whom not far-haunted Ocean would suffice
To bathe: but secret springs her beauty nice
Often beheld, earth's fountains and sweet springs,
Which she ascended from sea-openings.
'twas she who one fair youth loved secretly
Of all who roved through high-hilled Sicily,
The nymph-born Acis; whom she wont to meet
In shoreward caverns mossed for gentle feet.
Whom when he saw, the giant through the brake
Crashed, and cried loud along the shuddering lake,
" Ah, fairest! then these ready arms behold! "
But not more swiftly from the cloud's dark fold
The hissing bolt doth bending zodiacs smite:
Not shrieking swifts more sudden dash from sight
In autumn eves, then she, but seen, was gone.
Her shriek of fear rang on his ears alone,
Her white limbs mixed with leaping waves were seen:
Down sank her fount, and left the sallow green.
Astonishment the shepherd seized, who stood
Twixt the protesting trees and bubbling flood
And blankness, poured on expectation new,
Begat that rage which soon to madness grew
He started, peered, drew backward, laughed, and leapt
Into the ooze which late the waters swept
And as a worm, unearthed, that round and round
In anguish flings, but cannot quit the ground,
He searched the reedy fen: alas, no more
Beauty's perfection blessed the settling shore:
Nor aught remained of all the wonder there,
And wild fen rushes glanced in sunny air
Then lifted he his hands (it is love's cross
To make unadded gain seem perfect loss);
Fury! he raged (it is love's wont to give
All ills in this, one good to not receive):
And seeking thence his flock with footsteps fleet,
Ere he came nigh, the dams began to bleat;
Him come more near his sheep no longer knew,
But crowding eyed; and thence in terror flew
With countless rustling feet: he scarce pursued
Them lessening o'er the slopes, but in wild mood
One lamb he caught, the which in two he plucked
With mighty wrench, and the sweet bowels sucked:
Then, issuing shoreward from the mountain land,
At length amid the pumice rocks did stand
Alone, but more consoled, and softer now
He weeps: the tears drop from beneath his brow
Singly, but diversely their channels make,
Alas for him! and separate courses take:
Out of the fount suffused roll heavily,
And break in two, each half a flashing sea
So oft the arrived wave, that falters o'er
The cataract's verge, a double stream doth pour,
Split by some midway rock: still fall below
The jetted waters with divided flow
Anon he stints the flood: and, sorrow past,
Sets to a smile superb his features vast:
For other thoughts, restoring equal mind,
Return in wandering flaws, and entrance find.
He thinks upon his pipes, whose compact row
Of whistling sweetness part was broken now
Through his first rage: this marking not, he lays
The organ to his mighty mouth and plays
Then, in some way conceiving it not kind,
Into one hole alone he blows his wind,
Breath after breath, long time: until no more
Patient, he flings the tubes upon the shore
His voice alone could reach the tone of love,
And accents speak the mind that in him strove.
Sounds like to bleatings round the copses rang,
And thus the enamoured Polyphemus sang
" Oh fair and timid as the trembling lymph,
Soon shalt thou bid me soothe thee, sweetest nymph,
Whom wherefore should I pray? The fairest fair
Can with the strongest strong alone compare:
And I acknowledge thee. If others flee,
No cause hast thou, be sure, to shrink from me
When I am near, the boldest satyrs run;
The fairest dryads my approaches shun:
My force to try if still no satyr dare,
Yet thee I call beyond the dryads fair.
" Oh, what befel, when I thy form beheld,
By that fair fount that in the mountains welled?
Pale trees around the margin hung their screen,
And lovely lake-birds flew about, between
The reeds and tree tops: but my eyes were bent
On thee alone, thou dainty ravishment.
The Acidalian fountain, in whose wave
Their unimagined sweets the Graces lave,
Is not so fair as thy demure retreat:
Nor that, whereby the Muses have their seat:
And thou than they art fairer: it is said
That oft beside their sacred fountain's head
Mighty Apollo (I am mighty too)
Is wont to dance, to please those maidens due
To science most and wisdom: to his lyre
He dances, and his rapid feet do twire.
Oh, bid me dance, and half the rocks shall fall,
The trees bow down, my notes resound o'er all
Fairer art thou than the Pierian choir,
And I Apollo's rapid feet could tire.
" Whiter than wool, sweeter than milk, more mild
Than suckling lambs! I, swift as storms and wild,
Owning thy beauty, lo, will kiss thy feet
Wildness in thee with sweetness well may meet.
But fly not still, when thy fair eyes shall see
To answer thee not one like me to be
In all the land. Ah, if I ever thought
That by another thy embrace were sought,
These hands should rend the quaking wretch from thee,
And strew his empty body o'er the sea. "
Thus he began those cantilenes, which soon
More desperate grew, when moon succeeding moon
No answer brought from hill or grottoed shore,
Or billow falling white: and he no more
The perfect form beheld that caused his woe
Yet not unheard were they: and now, even now
Fair Galatea fled beneath the wave,
And Acis issued trembling from their cave
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