The House of the Titans and other Poems

The day was dead, and in the titans' hall The darkness gathered like some monstrous beast Prowling from pillar unto pillar: yet The brazen dais and the golden throne Made a fierce twilight flickering with stars Far in the depths. And there the sky-born king, Nuada, now king of earth, sat motionless, A fading radiance round his regal brows, The sceptre of his waning rule unused, His heart darkened, because the god within, Slumbering or unremembering, was mute, And no more holy fires were litten there. Still as the king, and pale and beautiful, A slender shape of ivory and gold, One white hand on the throne, beside him stood Armid, the wise child of the healing god. The king sat bowed: but she with solemn eyes Questioned the gloom where vast and lumbering shades, A titan brood, the first born of the earth, Cried with harsh voices and made an uproar there In the king's dun oblivious of the king. While Armid gazed upon them came a pain That stirred the spirit stillness of her eyes, And darkened them with grief. Then came her words "Tell me our story, god-descended king, For we have dwindled down, and from ourselves Have passed away, and have forgotten all." And at her calling "God-descended king" His head sank lower as if the glorious words Had crowned his brow with a too burning flame Or mocked him with vain praise. He answered not, For memory to the sky-born king was but The mocking shadow of past magnificence, Of starry dynasties slow-fading out, The sorrow that bound him to the lord of light He was, ere he had sunken in red clay His deity. The immortal phantom had not yet Revealed to him the gentler face it wears, The tender shadow of long vanquished pain And brightening wisdom, unto him who nears The Land of Promise, who, in the eve of time, Can look upon his image at the dawn And falter not. And as King Nuada sat With closed eyes he saw the ancient heavens, The thrones of awe, the rainbow shining round The ever-living in their ageless youth, And myriads of calm immortal eyes That vexed him when he met the wild beast glare And sullen gloom of the dark nation he ruled, For whom self-exiled, irrevocably He was outcast among the gods. And then The words of Armid came more thronged with grief "O, you, our star of knowledge, unto you We look for light, to you alone. All these Fall in that ancient anarchy again When sorrowing you put the sceptre by. Would not your sorrow shared melt in our love? Or our confederate grief might grow to power, And shake the gods or demons who decreed This darkness for us? Or if the tale forbade All hope, there is a sorrowful delight In coming to the very end of all, The pain which is the utmost life can bear, Where dread is done, and only what we know Must be endured, and there is peace in pain. I would know all, O god-descended king!" That tribe of monstrous and misshapen folk Whose clamor overlaid her speech, and made Its music a low murmur, had grown still Far down the hall. And at the close her words Came clear and purely, mingling with a voice And harp that hushed the titans. Ah, that voice That made the giants' ponderous bulk to faint And bent the shaggy heads low on great hands, While over the dark crouching figures towered Angus the Young, the well-beloved god, With proud tossed golden hair that glittered o'er The beautiful bare arms that caught the harp, And the bright form went swaying as he played. And there were scarlet birds, a phantom throng That dashed against the strings, and fled away In misty flame amid the brooding crowd, And vanished; while the colored dusk grew warm To the imagination, and was dense With dark heart-melting eyes, alluring lips, With milk-white bosoms, and with glimmering arms That drew the soul unto their folding love. And the tormented giants groaned and lay Prone on the hall, or stretched out hairy arms With knotted fingers feeling for the feet Of him who played. But the enchanter laughed, The pride of the brute tamer in his eyes, And looked at Armid. She had hidden her face To shut the vision, for he seemed no more Before her, but a fleshless creature stalked With bony fingers clutching at the strings, And all the giant nation lust-consumed Were dwindling out. "Is there no hope," she cried, "For them, for us; or must we still forget, And have not even memory we were gods, And these drop to that lightless anarchy From which they rose." Her tears were falling fast, The gods had learned to weep, the earth's first gift. Her weeping roused at length that stony king, Whose face from its own shadow lifted up Was like the white uprising of the moon. "O" better that remembrance be no more, Than we whose feet are tied unto this world Should seek in phantasy to climb the thrones Where once we sat and ruled the stars, and all The solemn cyclic motion of these spheres. And will the younger gods who took our seats Call to us and descend to give us place, Us who are feeble, who have lost our brightness, Whom only these acknowledge; these alone When by our arts we change their hearts' desires, Masking their hideous shapes with airy forms, With sheeny silver, lustrous pearl, pale gold, Out of that glory still within us. No 'Twere better that all memory should die, " "Let it not die, " cried Armid, flinging up In fountainous motion her white hands and arms That wavered, then went downward, casting out Denial. "Let it not die. Let us still be Even in heart-torturing remembrance bound To what we were. For that ancestral self May wake from out this pitiful dream of ours If there should mingle with it gleam or tone Of its own natural majesty. I think That unremembered world where we were born Is not far from us, yearns for us. Sometimes The air grows fragile and a light breaks through, And the tall heaven leans down to touch our brows, And our high kinsmen see us, and they are saying Of us, 'Soon they will awaken, soon Will come to us again.' And for a moment We almost mix in their eternity." Then, kneeling on the dais nigh the throne, She cast her arms upon the high king's knees, And took his hands, her drooping loveliness All shaken with appeal. "Tell me, I fear To melt into the blackness of this world, To know naught else and yet to hate it still, To lose the heavens yet not to be of earth, Its natural happiness not mine. O that Would be the blackest torture of the soul. To forget ourselves, not to know, to hate, To grow at last like all we hate. To have No hope but that the darkness owns. I shall Go mad unless you speak and tell me all." And then the high king told her all the tale, Which he alone remembered but in myth And symbol. It was so very long ago It might be but a dream, and thus it ran. In the beginning was the boundless Lir Within whose being heaven and earth were lost, And Light and Dark cradled together lay, And all things were at peace within the fold. The hunter with the hunted lay, for each Had found the end of battle and of hate Was adoration. There fierce things made gentle, And timid things made bold, and small made great, Mingled together at the Feast of Age. And then the long night closed. The day began And out of the Immeasurable deep, The habitation of eternity, Flared the high legions of the Light and Dark. Driving their tributary powers to build Ethereal realms and dim underworlds. And in the overworld from rarest fire And starry substances, the builders reared Murias, Gorlas, Findias and Falias, That were like living creatures, and towered and glowed And changed with the imagination. In those First realms of immortal youth the gods Had everywhere their hearts' desire. For them Cities soared heavenward even at the thought, And life was beautiful as it was dreamed, For every thought broke into instant light Around the burning multitudes of heaven. And fluid nature, ever mirroring The gods within Its glowing glass, was slave To them, and held its tyranny far off. And there the sorceress writhing in her mists Shaped her fierce powers in hateful effigies Of heaven and of heaven's shining hosts. And there her children fought blind battles. There Her stony kings held awful court. And there The only ecstasy life knew was pain, And torture was the only sacrifice That could propitiate their demon gods. Long ages inarticulate with pain Passed by before their cry pierced up to heaven.