Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/314

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MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

[Fright and perplex, so also shudders he;
Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech,
Or the familiar visiting of one
Upon the first toll of his passing bell,
Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;
But horrors, portioned to a giant Merve,
Make great Hyperion ache,[1] His palace bright,
Bastioned with pyramids of shining gold,
And touched with a shade of bronzed obelisks,
Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts,
Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;
And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds
Flash angerly;] when he would taste the wreaths
[Of incense breathed aloft from sacred hills
Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes
Savor of poisonous brass and metals sick;]
Wherefore [when harbor'd in the sleepy West,
After the full completion of fair day,
For rest divine upon exalted couch,
And slumber in the arms of melody,
He paces through[2] the pleasant hours of ease,
With strides colossal, on from hall to hall,
While far within each deep aisle and deep recess
His winged minions in close clusters stand
Amazed and full of fear; like anxious men,
Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,[3]
When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.
Even now when Saturn, roused from icy trance,
Goes step for step, with Thea from yon[4] woods,

  1. Oft made Hyperion ache.
  2. Paced away.
  3. Who on wide plains gather in panting troops.
  4. The. Through the.