Canto II (The Sun-god's tresses o'er the whirling…)

The Sun-god's tresses o'er the whirling reins That scarcely ruled the swift-ascending steeds, Fell, like a golden, torrent, while his head, Answering his goddess sister's brief request, Smiling he bowed,—and the clouds closed behind His blazing wheels. Four of those giant's sires Were gods, who with their earth-born sons might hold Communion; wherefore Artemis, alone, Deemed not her power sufficed for safe revenge; Of which now sure, her course to earth she bent.

The night-work done, his friends Orion left Their further preparations to complete, And to the caves returned, hopeful that now The others would assist. There sat the three, Listening the slow speech of Encolyon, Who with change-hating eyes, fixed on the earth, Discoursed, and to Orion's anxious looks Thus made reply. "We have resolved to give Our utmost aid—or aid that may suffice,— In furtherance of thy task, which many days Rightly requires." "Six days," Orion said, And turned to go; when Harpax interposed: "Be it then six, but our conditions hear. Take Merope, thy prize; the rest be ours. Œnopion's kingdom we shall duly share, And make Encolyon king, as fitted best For cares of state and governance of men." "Not altogether King," Encolyon said With meekness—"but, in sooth, I would return Among mankind, and dictate to small towns."

2Orion answered, "This were breach of faith In me; the King and all his subjects, still Must as I found them rest, until he die; Then, as ye will, among ye take the crown, Which, having Merope, I ne'er shall claim. Away now to our work." Autarces rose. "This we accept," he said, "for brief is life Of man—and insecure. But further thought Should prompt us rather choose Encolyon As guiding minister and staid high priest, While Akinetos rule as Chios' king."

2At mention of the name so reverenced, Silently all assented. "See, the light Of day spreads warmly down the valley slopes!" Orion cried. Now Phoibos through the cave Sent a broad ray! Harpax arose, and then,— Pondering on rules for safest monarchy,— Encolyon heavily. The solar beam Filled the great cave with radiance equable, And not a cranny held one speck of shade. A moony halo round Orion came, As of some pure protecting influence, While with intense light glared the walls and roof, The heat increasing. The three giants stood With glazing eyes, fixed. Terribly the light Beat on the dazzled stone, and the cave hummed With reddening heat, till the red hair and beard Of Harpax shewed no difference from the rest, Which once were iron-black. The sullen walls Then smouldered down to steady oven-heat, Like that with care attained when bread has ceased Its steaming, and displays an angry tan. The appalled faces of the giants shewed Full consciousness of their immediate doom. And soon the cave a potter's furnace glowed, Or kiln for largest bricks, and thus remained The while Orion, in his halo clasped By some invisible power, beheld the clay, Of these his early friends, change. Life was gone!

2Now sank the heat—the cave-walls lost their glare— The red lights faded, and the halo pale Around him, into chilly air expanded. There stood the three great images, in hue Of chalky white and red, like those strange shapes In Egypt's ancient tombs; but presently Each visage and each form with cracks and flaws Was seamed, and the lost countenance brake up, As, with brief toppling, forward prone they fell,— And in dismay uttering a sudden cry, Orion headlong from the cavern fled.

2Fierce Harpax, and wind-steered Autarces, smitten From life thus early, may by few be wept; But long laments by the chief rulers made, Of Chios, for the sage Encolyon, Far echoed, and still echo, through the world— Which feels, e'en now, for his great principle A secret reverence. "Chainer of the wheel! Hater of all new things!—to whom the acts Of men seemed erring ever in each hope And effort to advance, save in a round, Taught by the high example of the spheres!— Oh champion grave, who with a boundary stone Stood'st in improvement's door-way like a god, Ready by wholesome chastisement to grant Crushing protection; regulator old Of science, scorning genius and its dreams, And all the first ideas and germs of things, Time and his broods of children shall prolong Thy fame, thy maxims, and thy practise staid, Fraught with experience turning on itself."

2O'er the far rocks, midst gorge and glen profound; Now from close thickets, now from grassy plains; The sounds of raging contest, flight and death, Told where Rhexergon and Biastor wrought Their well-directed work. Them, quickly joined Their head in this destruction, and ere night, Huge forms, ferocious, mighty in the dawn, When hoar rime glistened on each hairy shape, Nought fearing, swift, brimfull of raging life, Lay stiffening in black pools of jellied gore. Nor with the day ceased their tremendous task, But all night long Orion led the way Through moonless passes to most secret lairs, Where in their deep abodes fierce monsters crouched,— Dragons, and sea-beasts, and compounded forms,— And in the pitchy blackness madly huddling, Midst deafening yells and hisses they were slain.

2Next day the unabated toil displayed Like prowess and result; but with the eve Fatigue o'ercame the giants, and they slept. Dense were the rolling clouds, starless the glooms, But o'er a narrow rift, once drawn apart, Shewing a field remote of violet hue, The high Moon floated, and her downward gleam Shone on the upturned giant faces. Rigid Each upper feature, loose the nether jaw; Their arms cast wide with open palms; their chests Heaving like some large engine. Near them lay Their bloody clubs with dust and hair begrimed, Their spears and girdles, and the long-noosed thongs. Artemis vanished; all again was dark.

2With day's first streak Orion rose, and loudly To his companions called. But still they slept. Again he shouted; yet no limb they stirred, Though scarcely seven strides distant. He approached, And found the spot, so sweet with clover flower When they had cast them down, was now arrayed With many-headed poppies, like a crowd Of dusky Ethiops in a magic cirque, Which had sprung up beneath them in the night, And all entranced the air. Orion paced Around their listless bodies thoughtfully. "Three giants slain outright by Phoibos' beams,— Now hath a dead sleep fallen on my friends. 'T was wise in Akinetos not to move." An earthquake would not wake them. Artemis Rejoices, and the hopes of Merope, To whom the news a breathless shepherd bore, Throbbed fearfully suspended o'er the brink Of this event. Not long Orion paused: "Though all may fail, the utmost shall be tried: Secure is he who on himself relies." This, hastening to his work, was all he said.

2Four days remain. Fresh trees he felled, and wove More barriers and fences; inaccessible To fiercest charge of droves, and to o'erleap Impossible. These walls he so arranged, That to a common centre each should force The flight of those pursued; and from that centre Diverged three outlets. One, the wide expanse, Which from the rocks and inland forests led; One, was the clear-skied windy gap above A precipice; the third, a long ravine Which, through steep slopes, down to the sea shore ran Winding, and then direct into the sea.

2Two days remain. Orion, in each hand Waving a torch, his course at night began, Through wildest haunts and lairs of savage beasts. With long-drawn howl, before him trooped the wolves,— The panthers, terror-stricken,—and the bears With wonder and gruff rage; from desolate crags, Leering hyænas, griffin, hippogrif, Skulked, or sprang madly, as the tossing brands Flashed through the midnight nooks and hollows cold, Sudden as fire from flint; o'er crashing thickets, With crouched head and curled fangs, dashed the wild boar, Gnashing forth on with reckless impulses, While the clear-purposed fox crept closely down Into the underwood, to let the storm, Whate'er its cause, pass over. Through dark fens, Marshes, green rushy swamps, and margins reedy, Orion held his way,—and rolling shapes Of serpent and of dragon moved before him With high-reared crests, swan-like yet terrible, And often looking back with gem-like eyes. All night Orion urged his rapid course In the vexed rear of the swift-droving din, And when the dawn had peered, the monsters all Were hemmed in barriers. These he now o'erheaped With fuel through the day, and when again Night darkened, and the sea a gulf-like voice Sent forth, the barriers at all points he fired, Midst prayers to Hephæstos and his Ocean-sire.

2Soon as the flames had eaten out a gap In the great barrier fronting the ravine That ran down to the sea, Orion grasped Two blazing boughs; one high in air he raised, The other with its roaring foliage trailed Behind him as he sped. Onward the droves Of frantic creatures with one impulse rolled Before this night-devouring thing of flames, With multitudinous voice and downward sweep Into the sea, which now first knew a tide, And, ere they made one effort to regain The shore, had caught them in its flowing arms, And bore them past all hope. The living mass, Dark heaving o'er the waves resistlessly, At length, in distance, seemed a circle small, Midst which, one creature in the centre rose, Conspicuous in the long red quivering gleams That from the dying brands streamed o'er the waves. It was the oldest dragon of the fens, Whose forky flag-wings and horn-crested head O'er crags and marshes regal sway had held; And now he rose up, like an embodied curse From all the doomed, fast sinking—some just sunk— Looked land-ward o'er the sea, and flapped his vans, Until Poseidon drew them swirling down.

2Along the courts and lofty terraces, Within Œnopion's palace echoing, The choral voices and triumphal clang Of music, ordered by the royal maid, Advanced to greet Orion. She with flushed neck And arms; large eyes of flashing jet and fire, And raven tresses fallen from their bands, The loud procession led. But soon they met A phalanx armed with mandate from the king, And all the triumph ceased. Œnopion Gnawed on his lip, and gathered up his robe In one large knot. Forthwith the whispering guards His daughter to the strongest tower convey; Then silently return. Orion comes: "The work is done, O king! and Merope My bride, I claim—my second father thou!" This said, he bent his knee. With wandering eye,— Like one who seems to seek within the air An object, while his thoughts would gather time For guile—and with averted face, the king Answered "Thou claim'st too soon!"—and inwardly Œnopion said—"Three of his giant band Are dead; the others spell-bound sleep." The voice Of wronged Orion rose within the hall, Demanding Merope; but image-like, Hard as if hewn out from a flinty cliff, And stately stood the king, as he replied, "She waits the voice of our mute oracles."

2In a deep forest where the night-black spires Of pines begin to swing, and breathe a dirge Whose pauses are filled up with yearning tones Of oaks that few external throes display Midst their robust unyielding boughs—the winds Are flying now in gusts, and soon a storm Bursts howling through them, like a Fury sent In quest of one who hath outstripped his fate And been caught up to heaven. But no escape Or premature release his course attends Whose passions boil above mortality; Nor till those mortal struggles have transpired Can satisfaction or repose be found. Vainly shall he with self-deluding pride Of weakness, masked with power, seek solitude And high remoteness from his fellow men, In all their bitter littleness and strife; Their noble efforts, suffering, martyrdom. He conquers not who flies, except he bear Conquest within; nor flies he who believes The object of his passion he can grasp, Save for design to consummate the end.

2"Oh, raging forest, do I seek once more Your solitude for my secure abode?" Orion cried, with wild arms cast abroad, Fronting a tree whose branches lashed the air, While its leaves showered around;—"And shall I not In your direct communion with the earth And heavens, find sympathy with this branched frame I bear, thus shaken; yet unlike your storm Which may be wholesome, coming from without, And from the operative round of things, While mine is centred in myself, and rends But does not remedy. Let me then shun The baleful haunts of men—worse than the beasts Whom I have exiled, and to shadows changed— Savage as beasts with less of open force; As wily, with less skill and promptitude; As little reasoning, save for selfish ends; Less faithful, true, and honest, than the dog; But hypocritical, which beasts are not, Save in the fables which men make for them! Into myself will I henceforth retire, And find the world I dreamed of when a child. Nor this alone; but worlds of higher mould And loftier attributes shall roll before My constant contemplation, in the cave Of Akinetos, whom at times I'll seek, And emulate his wisdom; ever right In never moving, more than absolute need. Thus shall I find my solace in disdain Of earth's inhabitants, whom through city and field I've found sheer clay, save in the visions bright, Of Goddess, and of Nymph,——O Merope! And where art thou, while idly thus I rave? Runs there no hope—no fever through thy veins, Like that which leaps and courses round my heart? Shall I resign thee, passion-perfect maid, Who in mortality's most finished work Rank'st highest—and lov'st me, even as I love? Rather possess thee with a ten-fold stress Of love ungovernable, being denied? 'Gainst fraud what should I cast down in reply?— 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 Of Time's great wings which ne'er had driven me, By dread events nor broken-down old age, Back on myself, the close experience Of false mankind, with whispers cold and dry As snake-songs midst stone hollows, thus has taught me— The giant hunter, laughed at by the world,— Not to forget the substance in the dream Which breeds it. Both must merge in one. Now shall I overcome thee, body and soul, And like a new-made element brood o'er thee With all-devouring murmurs! Come, thou storm, And clasp the rigid pine—this mortal frame Wrap with thy whirlwinds, rend and wrestle down, And let my being solve its destiny, Defying, seeking, thine extremest power, Famished and thirsty for the absorbing doom Of that immortal death which leads to life, And gives a glimpse of heaven's parental scheme."