Classic Poem

O Spirit of sweet Song, and child of Heaven,
Miraculous Music! who upon thy string
Hast caught, and, more subliming, poured the noise
Of bursting thunder, and the ocean's wild,
Vast monotone, and the shriek of hovering winds;
And, of slight instrument dost with a touch
Give to our ears the sempiternal chime
Of heavens through heavens revolving, I full oft
Have heard thee and rejoiced. But thou, stern harp,
Æolian, golden, of heroic fame,
Through which the airy spirits of the dead
Move viewless, and for ever breathe like winds
The Manes of the great! for other sound,
Who, with profaner hand, shall tune thy strings,
Tense with the touch of Homer, and to fame
Revived, his haply listening heroes bid,
Though in a darker state, appear in arms?
Yet thou, deemed dead, immortal-young and fair,
Divine Calliope—where in some cave
By old Scamander, or the yellow wave
Of Tiber, sitting, hushed in marble trance
Of statue pale, or thy own shadow hid—
Shalt hear my early strain, and lest the attempt
Jar on thy golden dream, thyself with touch
Of many-memoried fingers aid the song.
Might creatures be called happy, the dark stream
Of whose existence from the only source
Of happiness is cut off, such might be deemed
The earth-sprung powers in hell's begun campaign,
Plumed with such desperate fortune, and their state
Of sullen passion into action changed,
And busy hope and fear; the tideless bay,
Their solitary port, that to the main
Of being heaved no wave, uproused once more,
And swelling with the self-same tides of power
And sympathy, that move both earth and heaven.
They all who toiled, or idled in the camp,
Drew from the fresh and glowing breeze of life
A seeming health, and to their aspect pale
Apparent bloom in cheek and lip, and fire
And sparkle in the eye. Some their new powers
Tried on the elements, to invent strange arms,
Missiles that on their object should beget
New weapons, wounding wide, or in the air
Burst horrible, and fall with showers of fire.
Yet here but little used, nigh useless made,
Where swifter means and motion stead, and weights
Thrown irresistible by a living arm.
Others defensive armor wrought, to fit
All movements, welted firm, and closed to search
Of tempered weapons, or the subtle wound
And venom of insinuating fire.
And beings now of female form appeared,
But haggard beauty, to their former selves
Such as the day-paled moon, by early men
Distinguished from a cloud: and still their eyes
Gave light to their wan beauties, and seemed stars
Wandered from heaven, or such as hear the knell
Of fading night, with twofold service loud,
Rung by the shrilly summoner of morn:
Nor did their womanhood make hell more fair,
Nor its harsh gloom might mitigate for man:
Their sole employ, before this warlike stir,
Seated apart, to mourn, and like unseen,
Transfigured Progne, grieve out all their night
With tales of treacherous love in life long past,
And go through all the story of the world,
And all their scorns and loves, here turned to hate
If lust, indifference if love. But now
Familiar war with pleasing dread subdued,
And glorious lure of famed heroic strength
Attracted these stern dames again to mix
With hated men. Nor did they want some sense
Of old association in their sex
With warlike feats on earth, by them admired,
For them achieved. Mycæna's rugged queen,
Frowned back by stern Ægisthus, turned
To Agamemnon, who turned not, nor met
Her eyes, but with his own, amidst the crowd,
Sought Iphigenia. Helen armed the pale
Priamides, to whom the presence there
Of great Achilles was more sad than hell.
Electra to Orestes half gave heed,
Half to Pylades, and the manly queen
Penthesilea on Achilles gazed,
And marked the hand that wounded, and the eye
That other wounds might make and heal: and midst,
Sat, in a hushed and unintruded space,
Eternal Homer, and his thousand-toned
Continuous harp, to that immortal tale
Of Troy subverted, and the adventured way
Of gray Ulysses, rung with sounds that awed
More than Dictæan thunder; and which drew
To that dim deep the all-illumined shape
Of glory down from heaven: Achilles smiled,
The Atridæ, and grand Ajax, his self-judge
And executioner, smiled each to see
His virtues and the faults, his virtue's best
And best loved flatterers, distinct alike,
In the just mirror of his Jove-like thought
Reflected; and more wondered to perceive
Himself made greater to himself, and deeds
Heroic, and armed fortitude admired
More in rehearsal than in conscious act.
Which to repeat, indeed, full soon they met
An unexpected summons. For the Northern powers,
Advanced far as to the aspect of armed men,
Reckless, and blinded to the swift affront
Of their bright leader, and remonstrance loud
To their mistaken fury, with unchecked,
Headlong proclivity to whatever seemed
To promise their sole joy, upon them fell,
Unsignalled, as a self-loosed weight of snow
Tears down some Alpine summit to the vale.
But like a torrent they, or like a sea,
Received it, and up-foamed, with wasteful roar
Swallowing its ingulfed wrath, and melted soon
The fractured and dissevered mass of power.
Perseus first himself, withstanding, met
The immediate onset, overborne by Thor,
And backward thrown upon his empty hands,
With head and feet bent under, and each link
Of his Hephestian armor rent from each;
That anvil for his stroke he seemed, whose sledge
Stayed not ascent with gain of gathered force;
But ere contrary hurled, it hung in poise,
While Thor glared up and down and saw but air,
So swift his foe escaped. But better matched,
Achilles of the sworded Odin stood
The fierce encounter. Yet they lingered both
Awhile, and gazed, and each admired and praised
The other for a god. So when a bull
That through the wild his vanquished kind pursues,
Or hunts the wide-mouthed bay of wounded dogs,
His hunters erst, by chance a lion sees,
With lowered horn he stares; the bestial king
Struck with his aspect, imitating, glares
With large recumbent head and glowing eyes,
His shaggy strength reposed upon his loins,
Thrown back and bent to spring. And soon uproused
The Achæan lion, but at distance first
Put forth his strength; and from his hand a spear
Sprang effortless, like lightning from the arm
Of alway-tranquil Jove—with aim as sure,—
But from the tempered barrier which the arm
Of Odin raised, glanced downward and struck through
Where joined the ankle his supporting foot;
Who forward fell, but with directed force
Threw all his height into one blow, heaved high,
And far descending, and the steely hand
Cleft from the wielding arm of Thetis' son,
Deemed woundless, but in vain baptized in Styx.
Amazed Achilles stood with doubt and pain,
While Odin to his Vulcan-mated feet
Restored his stature. But, soon reproduced,
The living from the severed member snatched
The fallen sword; and now his two-edged grasp
Each plies, nor in the dazzled space between
Leaves interval; and shrilling winds rush forth,
With momentary swiftness, from the sway
Of their immense, wide-sweeping falchions, oft
With dreadful shock colliding, and forced light,
That kissed the gloom at every touch of steel.
And what would be the end might almost seem
Doubtful to Fate, where each with so great fame
Stood forth, and ancient laurels now refreshed,
Or withered more and rent, and strength so great
As if the embodied West and glorious East
Full-armed, in single duel met, should try
Their past and future quarrel for the world.
But, on the instant, now above their heads
The darkness darkened more, and through the hosts
The tongues of wide-loosed fury ceased, at sounds
That ruined ruin, with the horrid stun
Of falling rocks, and swift projectiles hurled,
Resistless, from the height; so, ere the earth,
Their solid roof, unpillared by deep mines,
Down thunders, where, beneath the surface, delve
Gain's swarthy slaves—a shower of loosened ore
Foretells destruction: but still dreadlier fell
War's deadly forgery, spears and darts that rung
Like iron on iron shivered, where they struck
The adamant field, rebounding, or pierced through
Armor and armed, pinned to the fissured rock,
Inextricably, or where crushed between
Nether and upper flint, shield worse than wounds,
They lay afflicted with the dint that fell
Thick as falls hail, when, in the dropping year,
To rocky Sipylus bearded Winter climbs,
And marbles with his look the ceaseless tears
Of the invisible Niobe of the air.

As when a wind upon the sea descends,
And hurls himself along, and holds his foe
Beneath, who leaps against him in mad waves,
If rain pours down with thunder, they their strife
Both cease with mingled moan and dash, and flood
Drowns flood and wind—these in mid-tempest stood
Becalmed, and suffered storm. But impious Cain
From where he lay, with hands and feet transfixed,
Crucified on a rock, supine, thus loud
Blasphemed. “Jehovah, or whatever power,
Hidden in gloom, exhausts his store of ills—
Armed coward, great in accidents! who vaunts
Of goodness, and the original pretends
Himself of soul and spirit, with discourse
Of holiness and justice, but brute strength
Employs against us still; think not defeat
Follows assault though unresisted found.
Pile earth and heaven upon these fettered limbs,
And me to ruin, thy creation make
One ruin, and thyself thereon sit throned,
And I stretched under; I am still as far
Above thee, and my unimprisoned soul,
Untouched, and free from chains, on all sides space
Smiles out upon thee in disdain. In arms
Strong I believe thee: author of a strength
Greater than found in thee, the will and power
That in himself he finds to be unpraised
Yet just,—good, yet not hourly kneed and sung
By angels, nor reflected in their smiles,
Who, though thus crushed, can deem? or who believe
Thy nature could produce aught to oppose
And hate it, foreign to itself, and doomed
Therefore to punishment? Or, if thy pride
Must claim our origin,—as misbegot
Unnatural offspring, why not then destroy
Thy alien creatures, and the ill-tuned harp
New string, harmonious with perfect praise?
They nought so much desire; and to unmake
At least might prove thee maker, which till then
Whate'er thy power contingent, or by fate,
Or elder birth bestowed, and kept, once gained,
By cunning, and made sacred with the awe
Of forged religion, I shall dare to doubt;
Though with more waste of thunder urged and noise,
Thine ancient dialectics, or enforced
With arguments like these, so apt at hand,
And potent to convince those formed for pain.”
To whom thus scoffing, from the gloom a voice
Responded in like vein: “Great Cain, our foe
And signal dread, but dangerous most to Heaven!
We own the honor great, and not unfelt,
To be mistaken for all-swaying Jove;
Nor does our power proved on thee warrant less,
Nor the deep pain thy speech betrays; but yet,
Sooth to confess, we only use, like Him,
The just prerogative of superior force
To afflict inferior natures, without grant
Of privilege to retort. Of old indeed,
We little thought, at variance ourselves,
His rebels to have punished, and much less
Reasoned his cause: which now I do to show
Thee imbecile in intellect, thy sole boast,
As body, though more obstinate in will,
'Tis granted, than are some; yet less by far
Than many a brute, whose ignorance, the cause
Of his low fortitude, had been also less
Perhaps, had he, like thee, for ages been
Academist in this unfettered school
Of intricate and dark theology.
Learn, sophist, that Jehovah's right obtains
Not from his being this or that, but is,
Because it seems, and has the power
To enforce what it pretends, and punish those
Its claim withstanding. Higher proof who needs?
Or what superior sanction could the fact
(Though proved) of our creation to his deeds
Afford? or what thy arrogated proof
Of genesis by our destruction shown?
Vain argument! for we ourselves unmake
Both what we neither make, nor yet restore.
Or what propounds the imprecated bolt
Annihilating—that but itself leaves nought—
To the annihilated, and of proof
Made unintelligent; or if restored,
After what lapse of time, yet who shall know
Whether by power extrinsic or innate?”
Thus, to the atheist, the libertine,
Dark Asmod, subtlest litigant for ill
In the infernal forum; who his foe
Reviled, and with injurious defence,
Alike derided Heaven. But now in him,
And in the angel-host, and those oppressed
Beneath the advantage that their station gave,
Hearing took sudden captive tongue and hand
And every power, as all a coming sound
Discerned, yet distant, indescribable,
Nor to be told if it was tread or flight,
Or under ground, or both in earth and air;
As when an earthquake, on its march along
The Mediterranean shore, or o'er the sea
Submerged and sunk beneath its bottom, comes
By whirlwinds trumpeted. Nor did they doubt,
Who heard the sound, that, for these atheist scoffs,
God, as not seldom in their impious den,
Had bared his terrible and still lurking hand.
At once for flight, the ethereous army formed
Their hovering ranks, and on delayless wing
Sought a near mount; and on its farther side
Descending, perched, as on a leeward cliff
The ominous flocks of ocean wait the storm.