Without an heir shall not for ever be
The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car,
Whence it became a monster, then a prey;
For verily I see, and hence narrate it,
The stars already near to bring the time,
From every hindrance safe, and every bar,
Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five,
One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman
And that same giant who is sinning with her.
And peradventure my dark utterance,
Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee,
Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect;
But soon the facts shall be the Naiades
Who shall this difficult enigma solve,
Without destruction of the flocks and harvests.
Note thou; and even as by me are uttered
These words, so teach them unto those who live
That life which is a running unto death;
And bear in mind, whene’er thou writest them,
Not to conceal what thou hast seen the plant,
That twice already has been pillaged here.
Whoever pillages or shatters it,
With blasphemy of deed offendeth God,
Who made it holy for his use alone.
For biting that, in pain and in desire
Five thousand years and more the first-born soul
Craved Him, who punished in himself the bite.
Thy genius slumbers, if it deem it not
For special reason so pre-eminent
In height, and so inverted in its summit.