Page:Prometheus bound - Browning (1833).djvu/53

Vehement Typhon, who opposed the gods,
Out-hissing slaughter from his horrid jaws.
Forth from his eyes the fearful splendour glared,
As to annihilate the throne of Jove;
But him did Jove's unsleeping arrow find,
The headlong thunderbolt out-breathing fire,
And smote him from his boast majestical:
For stricken to the very soul, his strength
Was scorch'd and thunder-blasted from him. Now
A useless and immeasurable form,
Fie lies beside the oceanic strait,
Compressed underneath Mount Ætna's roots;
Upon whose highest summit Vulcan sits,
Beating his iron; and from whence erupt
Rivers of fire, that gnaw with savage jaws,
The fair wide plains of fruitful Sicily.
Such wrath doth Typhon bubble forth, with darts
Hot, unapproachable, of fiery storm,
Though turn'd to cinder by the bolt of Jove.