Distinct through all the meteors, streams the brand,18
Light'ning along the air, the sea, the rock,
Bright as the arrow in that heavenly hand
Which slew the Python! Blinded halt the flock,
And the great roar, but now so rough and high,
Sinks into terror wailing timidly.
Yet the fierce instinct and the rabid sting19
Of famine goad again the check'd array;
And close and closer in tumultuous ring,
Reels on the death-mass crushing towards its prey.
A dull groan tells where first the falchion sweeps—
When into shape the cave-born Shadow leaps!
Out from the dark it leapt—the awful form!20
Manlike, but sure not human! on its hair
The ice-barbs bristled: like a coming storm
The breath smote lifeless every wind in air;
Dread form deform'd, as ere the birth of Light,
Some son of Chaos and the Antique Night!
At once a dwarf and giant—trunk and limb21
Knit in gnarl'd strength as by a monstrous chance,
Never chimera more grotesque and grim,
Paled Ægypt's priesthood with its own romance,
When, from each dire delirium Fancy knows,
Some Typhon-type of Powers destroying rose.
At the dread presence, ice a double cold22
Conceived; the meteors from their dazzling play
Paused; and appall'd into their azure hold
Shrunk back with all their banners; not a ray
Broke o'er the dead sea and the doleful shore,
Winter's steel grasp lock'd the dumb world once more.
Halted the war—as the wild multitude23
Left the King scatheless, and their leaders slain;
And round the giant dwarf the baleful brood
Came with low howls of terror, wrath, and pain,
As children round their father. They depart,
But strife remains; Fear and the Human Heart;
For Fear was on the bold! Then spoke aloud24
The horrent Image: "Child of hateful Day,
What madness snares thee to the glooms that shroud
The realms abandon'd to my secret sway?
Why on mine air first breathes the human breath?
Hath thy far world no fairer path to Death?"
"All ways to Death, but one to Glory leads,25
That which alike through earth, or air, or wave,
Bears a bold thought to goals in noble deeds,"
Said the pale King. "And this, methinks, the cave
Which hides the Shield that rock'd the sleep of one
By whom ev'n Fable shows what deeds were done!
"I seek the talisman which guards the free,26
And tread where erst the Sire of freemen trod."[2]
"Ho!" laugh'd the dwarf, "Walhalla's child was He!
Man gluts the fiend when he assumes the god."—
"No god, Deceiver, though man's erring creeds
Make gods of men when godlike are their deeds;
"And if the Only and Eternal One27
Hath, ere his last illuminate Word Reveal'd,
Left some grand Memory on its airy throne,
Nor smote the nations when to names they kneel'd—
It is that each false god was some great truth!—
To races Heroes are as Bards to youth!"