Typho
By Matthew Arnold
He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke and fire break forth with a loud noise, and CALLICLES is heard below singing:
The lyres voice is lovely everywhere!
In the court of Gods, in the city of men,
And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain glen.
In the still mountain air.
Only to Typho it sounds hatefully!
To Typho only, the rebel oerthrown,
Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stone,
To imbed them in the sea.
Wherefore dost thou groan so loud?
Wherefore do thy nostrils flash,
Through the dark night, suddenly,
Typho, such red jets of flame?
Is thy torturd heart still proud?
Is thy fire-scathd arm still rash?
Still alert thy stone-crushd frame?
Doth thy fierce soul still deplore
The ancient rout by the Cilician hills,
And that curst treachery on the Mount of Gore?
Do thy bloodshot eyes still see
The fight that crownd thy ills,
Thy last defeat in this Sicilian sea?
Hast thou sworn, in thy sad lair,
Where east the strong sea-currents suckd thee down,
Never to cease to writhe, and try to sleep,
Letting the sea-stream wander through thy hair?
That thy groans, like thunder deep,
Begin to roll, and almost drown
The sweet notes, whose lulling spell
Gods and the race of mortals love so well,
When through thy eaves thou hearest music swell?
But an awful pleasure bland
Spreading oer the Thunderers face,
When the sound climbs near his seat,
The Olympian council sees;
As he lets his lax right hand,
Which the lightnings doth embrace,
Sink upon his mighty knees.
And the eagle, at the beck
Of the appeasing gracious harmony,
Droops all his sheeny, brown, deep-featherd neck,
Nestling nearer to Joves feet;
While oer his sovereign eye
The curtains of the blue films slowly meet,
And the white Olympus peaks
Rosily brighten, and the soothd Gods smile
At one another from their golden chairs,
And no one round the charmd circle speaks.
Only the loved Hebe bears
The cup about, whose draughts beguile
Pain and care, with a dark store
Of fresh-pulld violets wreathd and nodding oer;
And her flushd feet glow on the marble floor.