Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/308

---

Was with its stored thunder laboring up,
One hand she press'd upon that aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain
The other upon Saturn's bended neck
She laid, and to the level of his ear
Leaning, with parted lips some words she spoke
In solemn tenor and deep organ-tone;
Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in this like accenting;^[1] how frail
To that large utterance of the early gods!

"Saturn, look up! and for what, poor lost king?^[2]
I have no comfort for thee; no, not one;
I cannot say, wherefore thus sleepest thou?^[3]
For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth
Knows thee not, so^[4] afflicted, for a god.
The Ocean, too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air
Is emptied of thy hoary majesty.
Thy thunder, captious^[5] at the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;
And thy sharp lightning, in unpractised hands,
Scourges and burns our once serene domain.

With such remorseless speed still come new woes,^[6]
That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

1. In these like accents.
2. Though wherefore, poor old king?
3. O! wherefore sleepest thou.
4. thus.
5. Conscious of the new command.

6. O aching time! moments big as years!
   All, as ye pass, swell out the monstrous truth,
   And press it so upon our weary griefs,
   That unbelief has not a space to breathe.