68
Orion.
[Book II.
What but a sword, since force must do me right,
And strength was given unto me with my birth,
In mine own hand, and by ascendancy
Over my giant brethren. Two remain,
Whom prayers to dark Hephæstos and my sire
Of ocean, shall awaken into life;
And we will tear up gates, and scatter towers,
Until I bear off Merope. Sing on!
Sing on, great tempest! in the darkness sing!
Thy madness is a music that brings calm
Into my central soul; and from its waves
That now with joy begin to heave and gush,
The burning image of all life's desire,
Like an absorbing fire-breathed phantom-god,
Rises and floats!—here touching on the foam,
There hovering over it; ascending swift
Star-ward, then swooping down the hemisphere
Upon the lengthening javelins of the blast!
Why paused I in the palace groves to dream
Of bliss, with all its substance in my reach?
Why not at once, with thee enfolded, whirl
Deep down the abyss of ecstasy, to melt
All brain and being where no reason is,
Or else the source of reason? But the roaring
And strength was given unto me with my birth,
In mine own hand, and by ascendancy
Over my giant brethren. Two remain,
Whom prayers to dark Hephæstos and my sire
Of ocean, shall awaken into life;
And we will tear up gates, and scatter towers,
Until I bear off Merope. Sing on!
Sing on, great tempest! in the darkness sing!
Thy madness is a music that brings calm
Into my central soul; and from its waves
That now with joy begin to heave and gush,
The burning image of all life's desire,
Like an absorbing fire-breathed phantom-god,
Rises and floats!—here touching on the foam,
There hovering over it; ascending swift
Star-ward, then swooping down the hemisphere
Upon the lengthening javelins of the blast!
Why paused I in the palace groves to dream
Of bliss, with all its substance in my reach?
Why not at once, with thee enfolded, whirl
Deep down the abyss of ecstasy, to melt
All brain and being where no reason is,
Or else the source of reason? But the roaring
