Classic Poem

Back into Tartarus from that bright peak
Resting celestial feet, and made the immense
High pedestal of a god indeed, my muse
Compels the wing; intent to sing, and me,
Her earnest listener, teach the fiery war
Of those intractable despairing spirits,
Demoniac and human, blown into a heat
And sevenfold rage of fire, that made the hell
Which outward burned and flamed against the shore
Of their assaulted being, a septentrion sea
O'er-glassed with cold in winter's dark extreme.
Now like as day, struck with the mortal dint
Of cold and gloom, when rises from the earth
Black night, floods out his glorious life, and stains
With flaming or and gules the argent field
Wherein, upon his sinking orb, he leans
In haggard splendor, and, athwart the world,
Throws back his mighty image on the east,
And makes it seem two suns or set or rise,—
So with a sicklied glory from the blaze
Of martial pomp the region shone,—appeared
Like these the hosts opposed, as far apart,
In radiant gold and brass and pallid steel,
Glimmering athwart the intervening gloom
In either side of hell; but not like these
They faded, leaving night: in order set
For battle, and in thought prepared as erst
In will, at once with caution armed and rage,
Their mutual motions and swift steps o'ercame
The interval of darkness deep with space,
Till now into each other's gleam they fell,
Contiguous; though from each other still
So far remote in space as from the east
To the west cape, that shut the Atlantic gulf;
Then swifter rushed to meet, and swift, behind,
Wide-following darkness like a storm came down.
And high above them, in the air disturbed
By moving armaments, grim lightnings broke
In wavering lines, and seamed the opaque far dark
With rivers of fire, and hairy meteors streamed
Along the immense, or in the skyless height
Wheeled, and around them with swift motion wrapped
Vast lengths of sounding flame; or bursting shone
Like shattered suns, and either army dazed
And far-illumined; nor beneath their feet
Less glowed the iron path, and frequent flamed
The smouldering base under their dread advance.
So many warrior-shapes then moved beneath
As never on the surface roused at peal
Of clarion, or in cadence beat the ground
To the loud hand of war upon the drum,
Or pale lips pressed upon the thrilling reed,
When moving nations armed flashed back the sun:
Nor had it been a field so full, or vast,
Though of all fields and battles were made one,
So thick the clime-bronzed race of demons swarmed,
So numerous the fairer flock of men;
The field so spacious that they trod, who not
For burning sea, or torrent rolling fire
Under its cloud-white veil, or vacuous gulf,
Or marsh of pale-spread flames, made turn or stay.
So on they came, revealing and revealed,
And imminent with light, in what it showed,
More dreadful than the deep accustomed gloom
That partially concealed them each from each.
Nor were they undismayed, but high-enraged
Above a doubt of the event, they strode
With undiminished steps the lessening space:
Black and precipitous battle on each brow
Hung threatening; and each eye with victory blazed,
And saw the foe already by their feet
Down-trodden. First, and far-seen Baal loomed,
Swift-nearing, like the highest peak of lands
Half hid in mists, that moving seems to one
Whirled by it on the sea at morning-tide.
Asmod the right, and Ammon led the left,
The orient Jove though this usurped the name,
Nor less that Grecian god. To these opposed,
Towered adamantine Cain, both doomed and writ
Unconquered in his brow sedate and stern;
Naked as erst on earth, and yet than none
Less terrible, and armed with that dire plant,
Torn by the gnarled roots, whose stroke accursed
First burst the gates of war. Upon his right
Athenian Theseus marched, nor other seemed
Than when at Marathon his mighty shade
Paced giant-like before the patriot Greeks
Awe-thrilled and joyful, and his armèd foot
Broke through the Asian line. In look like Cain,
Alcides stalked upon the foremost left,
Thus naked and without armor, better armed
With strength and courage; the Nemean's hide
Thrown idly backward, showed his queller's hand
Laid on its knotty engine, with a mien
Lightly secure. On each part they appeared
As once in earth they did or ether; these
Like themselves,—those like the hero-gods,
They were or imitated there; but all,
Although in look still human and distinct,
Of spiritual stature, and with arms
Proportioned; like hill-crowning cedars waved
Their plumy helms, and, at each forward step,
Shook nodding ruin down and dark defeat.
The other side, supreme, as they who feel
Superior worth innate, or time-faced right,
Meet rebels, with superb presumption came,
And port omnipotent; by which dismayed
And awe-struck as it seemed, the adverse front,
When now so near the tread of each to each
Like echoes came, made halt, and through their lines,
Suddenly retrograde, disorder fell.
Then Baal, prompt to scoff, made hoarse the air
With triumphings like these: “Warriors in peace,
Peaceful in war! not overweeningly ye scorn
I see, and see in time for peace, wise thoughts
To entertain, though late; better resolved,
Doubt not, ye mockeries of our state, ye mimes
And shadows of our grandeur, pigmies swelled
And puffed beyond proportion—better willed
You seem in act to fly, than when, too bold,
You thought to meet the substance of your shade,
And try what strength might lie in real gods.
But thou, first parasite of hell, remain,
And fly not, as becomes their leader, first,—
That in the rear of rout this arm may reach
To drag thee by the false-crowned head reverse,
And strangle thy new godhead in my gripe.”
Wide-eyed retort with lightning filled the face
Of Cain, but thunder from Alcides broke.
“Weak head and arm, but warlike frown and sound,
And gesture dread, thee, and thy vaunting mates,
What dumb hierophant could doubt divine,
Since ye sustain so many dire defeats,
And live, yet only know defeat? And this
To us you threat, whose fame has made the stars
Still shine in our renown, and tell our deeds
To mortal eyes—such deeds as fill not heaven
Without faint glory even in this pit,—
To me!—who never knew defeat or shame,
But mean to add a labor to my twelve,
And from thy impious mouth tear out that tongue,
Engine of blasphemy and faction still,
And to this leonine trophy add the fell
From thy brute-browed and far less godlike head.”
Thus, pillared Hercules,—and Baal replied,
But more disturbed, as more like his own boast
The harsh refrain, shook like a tower, that sapped
By secret mine, though full of war and means
Against assault and siege, threats instant fall.
“Dismay of thieves and brutes! learn from a god
Defeat, honored too much should I say shame,
Who honor thee to chastise: but know, that loss
In such a warfare as we waged, I deem
More great and glorious, than such as thou
To quell with easy victory, as we shall.”
He ended, and no time for further vaunt,
Or deeds, when lo—the cause of the delay:
On right and left, between the open ranks
Of footmen in deep files withdrawn, afar,
Through the dispersed smoke, chariots and horse,
In size and action to the gods they bore
Not disproportioned, nor unwieldy, showed
Tremendous through the gloom: of all-pure fire
Their subtle essence, into shapes like these
By orient or Argive warriors wrought,
At the quick hint of ancient use afield.
For spirit from the bonds of matter freed
Over the baser substance has more power,
To mould it into shapes diverse, and life
Infuse, impulse, and energy divine,
With swiftest operation of a thought.
Ere word might fill the pause, upon the foe,
For such encounter unprepared with like
Or other means, rushed down the ethereous steeds,
Winged, swift, far-bounding, thunder-hoofed, and each
With lightning maned; and from their nostrils wide,
Breathed pestilence and flame. Themselves in look
And motion irresistible, 'neath the flight
They ran of spears and javelins, thrown behind,
Innumerous, from the chariots, that from far
Rained wounds and wide confusion on the foe,
Dismayed and broken; and the gulfing wheels
Trenched their deep way through ranks on ranks o'erthrown,
While in the swarth of their armed axles fell
Whole groves of legionary spears, like reeds
Cut by the sickle, but more quickly strowed
That living meadow by swift reapers mowed,
And iron harvest—stunned. But not by all
Was the fierce onset unwithstood: and chief,
And full of strength and stature, Baal stood,
As when in some great deluge, bearing trees,
Ships from their anchors loosed, and fabric huge
From its foundation raised, with clinging life
Upon the wreck, and all the human wealth
Of promontories from the mainland torn—
Or in the steep flood of Vesuvius poured
Adown its vine-clad sides—some hill untouched,
With its green top and plumy forest stands,
With promise to the world of future life,
And safety possible to men:—So stood
The Toparch strong: On whom drove Tubal-Cain,
Thence Vulcan 'clept, whose hands, upon the forge,
First shaped the warlike soil to sword and spear,
And chariots framed, and bade the trumpet neigh,
And gave a tongue to war. But in the field,
Too late, the fear of his great baron smote
The armed mechanic: by one impulse swayed,
The conscious coursers swerved, and where the head,
From the strong spine, stooped o'er his guiding hand,
A blow from Baal's sequent blade, reversed,
And sheer descending, fell; and into wreck
Sunk his wheeled pomp, together fiery horse
And chariot into smoking ruins fade.
But him Alcides met, as through the field
He sought whatever had withstood the shock
Of hippogriff, and centaur, and armed wheel,
With courage still for conflict: whom, unarmed,
Fierce Baal thought, with one sure stroke, to cleave
Miserably twain: a moment his huge sword,
Uplifted, adding terror to its sway,
Hung like a bladed comet in the air;
Then fell, unmeasured, dreadful, from its poise
Thrown forward with resistless force and weight.
Back swift Alcides leaped, nor fled too soon;
His right foot stained the adamantine point,
That trenched the rock beneath, as where a stream
Breaks fissured way. Ere Baal from the blow
Retrieved his height, the hydra-quelling mace
Fell through the air, with horrible descent:
The stroke roared like a wind, and on his casque
Struck thunder, and his linkèd armor burst
From his huge trunk, as lightning from an oak
Breaks shattered rind and limbs; crushed acres groaned
At his decay, and o'er the din of war
High rose the iron rumor of his fall.
Nor did less tumult swell the late defeat
Of monstrous Dagon, from whom, worse deformed
With hippodame and kraken, self-assumed,
So spirits can, turned infantry and steed,
Nor chose the ambush of his doubtful shape.
On him Orion clear, came undismayed,
And as a dusky dragon, in close shade
Of horrible thicket, sees, from his deep lair,
With sleepy orbs amazed, a silver knight
Shine toward him like the sun, with like blind look
He saw Orion; who, while thus he stood,
And unresolved to fight as god or brute,
Upon his many shapes discharged a stroke
More ruinous, than when, rising from the ark,
Angered Jehovah, in the secret night
Of his dark house, the biformed Triton struck
Invisibly, and both his shapes deformed.
And they no better fared at human hands,
Who, vain of human empire, chose to seem
Their own invented fictions, in the wild
And wasteful riot of imagining mind,
By high, angelic genius poesied
In vedas and puranas, full of gods,
By accident or penance, raised to heavens
That on the blue Sumeru's summits lie,
Above the sun, in the unmoving light
Of Brahm;—but their romancers pined beneath,
In the immovable darkness, by no day
Alternated: Who yet, this day, would be
The awaking of their dream, the living gods
Of their stone idols, and together marched—
Bi-headed, many-membered, monstrous shapes;
That more by their complexity of parts
Encumbered than assisted, fell and writhed
Beneath the single, flashing hand that held
One sword, directed by a dual eye,
And by swift motion multiplied to meet
Their many-weaponed, idly striking hands;
Too late, in the dread imminence, to change
Back to angelic shape and wieldy limbs.
Before all others terrible, advanced
Eight-handed Shiva, and, with insult stern,
Demanded Magog and great Madai old,
Whose filial nations peopled the world's east,
That to their children's deities they, too,
Should worship render; but the answer felt
On his crushed brain, so swift—more lion-like
Than like dead stone—the fragment of a rock
Leaped from gray Madai's hand; unstayed,
Huge Shiva's head sunk on his rear-ward breast;
Then, one by one, relaxed his threatening arms,
Hand after hand its clanging weapon dropped,
And clutched the air, or sought with outstretched palms
To upstay his reeling trunk: Then Vishnu forth
Sprang warrior-like, and stood in guise and shape
More human, but, in stature, vast as when
To Shiva and to Brahma, claiming each
To be the oldest of the gods, he said—
“He that ascending shall behold my head,
Or that descending shall descry my feet,
Is oldest:” Weary years swift Brahma climbed,
And Shiva dived, but neither what he sought
Discovered, although Brahma's lie prevailed.
All stood amazed, by wonder more than fear
Disabled, and no champion to assail
The armed and living mountain dared a thought;
Till Indian Dionysus, reckless, drove
His leaping chariot, whirled by tawny pards,
Toward the colossus; and a javelin hurled
High in the air where seemed to be his head,
But vainly, and another at his breast
As vainly threw; both through the phantasm passed
As through the air; then at his feet—where stood,
Beneath the mighty umbrage, the true form—
A third, and suddenly the towering shape
Fell into shadowy ruin, as a cloud,
By lightning rent, bursts, and descends in rain.
But there the greatest imminence of the field
Hung doubtful, and the noon of battle stood,
Where Cain met Asrael. He from heaven held
Commission still, executor of the word—
Fatal to all, in Adam—“Thou shalt die.”
Task to fulfil by no damned angel sought,
But, eagerly, by him; less through desire
Of the carnivorous glut, than from the strange,
Inventive pleasure that he took to try
Each different means of death, and power in each,
And task the last capacity of pain:
To men invisible, yet by many names,
White Leprosy, and pined Consumption, known,
Hot Fever, and immedicable Plague.
But now, in his own shape, more ghastly stood
The mighty Ethiop: from his caverned head,
With hiding basilisks terrible, and browed
With night, down to his noiseless feet
Two sable wings fell wide; on which he sails,
Each day, o'er all earth's region, and which oft,
When he o'er some full capital, forewrit
For desolation, hovers with the Night,
Rain pestilence. And thus spake the fiend
Polluted most and deadliest of all powers
In earth or hell. “First rival, and my first,
But too reluctant victim,—who this hand
Preventedst of its right to the first death,
Thyself to feel it first; and found'st the charm
Sought of thy God against my dreaded power,
Less potent; seek'st thou again to prove
The miserable hour, the fear, the pain?
Or wouldst thou, for my victim not again
Fate yields thee, as thou deem'st, become my slave
By second conquest, and with torpid chain
Lie fever-bound in hell, or, at my choice,
Sit leprous at my feet, or ague-struck,
Unnerved, and palsied in my presence live?”
To whom hell's premier answered, with close brows:
“Sick-haunting raven, pleased with carnal taste
Of carcasses, and stench of monuments;
Queller of babes, fierce troubler of the old
Bed-rid humanity, night-dismal kite
Earth's scavenger! dost thou thy service deck
With name of conquest?—for thy office erst
On me performed, of which thy boast is framed,
Take late requital now.” Swift, at the word,
The felon plant that armed his hand, propulsed,
Swung circling to its aim: down Asrael sunk,
Like a hurt vulture, on his ample wings
Recumbent; but immediate rose—as she,
Sick with the peaceful prospect and pure air,
Aloft, springs from her rock