{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Orion_Book_I_Canto_I/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Orion_Book_I_Canto_I","id":"wikisource_Orion_Book_I_Canto_I","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Orion/Book_I/Canto_I","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"ORION.\n\nCanto the First.\n\nYe rocky heights of Chios, where the snow,\nLit by the far-off and receding moon,\nNow feels the soft dawn's purpling twilight creep\nOver your ridges, while the singing dews,\nLike creatures on a mission from the spheres,\nSwarm down, and wait to be instinct with gold\nAnd solar fire!\u2014ye mountains waving brown\nWith thick-winged woods, and blotted with deep caves\nIn secret places; and ye paths that stray\nE'en as ye list; what odours and what sighs\nTend your sweet silence through the star-showered night,\nLike memories breathing of the Goddess forms\nThat left your haunts, yet with the day return!\nThe shadow of a stag that fled across,\nFollowed by a Giant's shadow with a spear!\n\n\"Hunter of Shadows, thou thyself a Shade,\"\nBe comforted in this,\u2014that substance holds\nNo higher attributes; one sovran law\nAlike develops both, and each shall hunt\nIts proper object, each in turn commanding\nThe primal impulse, till gaunt Time become\nA shadow cast on space, to fluctuate,\nWaiting the breath of the Creative Power\nTo give new types for substance yet unknown:\nSo from faint nebul\u00e6 bright worlds are born;\nSo worlds return to vapour. Dreams design\nMost solid lasting things, and from the eye\nThat searches life, death evermore retreats.\n\nThe shadowy chase has vanished; round the swell\nOf the near mountain sweeps a bounding stag\u2014\nRound whirls a god-like Giant close behind\u2014\nO'er a fallen trunk the stag with slippery hoofs\nStumbles\u2014his sleek knees lightly touch the grass\u2014\nUpward he springs\u2014but in his forward leap,\nThe Giant's hand hath caught him fast beneath\nOne shoulder tuft, and lifted high in air,\nSustains! Now Phoibos' chariot rising bursts\nOver the summits with a circling blaze,\nGilding those frantic antlers, and the head\nOf that so glorious Giant in his youth,\nWho, as he turns, the form succinct beholds\nOf Artemis,\u2014her bow, with points drawn back,\nA golden hue on her white rounded breast\nReflecting, while the arrow's ample barb\nGleams o'er her hand, and at his heart is aimed.\n\nThe Giant lowered his arm\u2014away the stag\nBreast forward plunged into a thicket near;\nThe Goddess paused, and dropt her arrow's point\u2014\nRaised it again\u2014and then again relaxed\nHer tension, and while slow the shaft came gliding\nOver the centre of the bow, beside\nHer hand, and gently drooped, so did the knee\nOf that heroic shape do reverence\nBefore the Goddess. Their clear eyes had ceased\nTo flash, and gazed with earnest softening light.\n\nHis stature, though colossal, scarcely seemed\nBeyond the heroic mould, such symmetry\nHis form displayed; and in his countenance\nA noble honesty and ardour beamed,\nWith child-like faith, unconscious of themselves,\nAnd of the world, its vanities and guile.\nEyes of deep blue, large waves of chestnut locks,\nA forehead wide, and every feature strong,\nYet without heaviness or angry line,\nHad he; and as he knelt, a trustful smile\nThat dreads no consequence, and quite forgets\nAll danger, lightly played around his mouth.\nMeanwhile the Nymphs and all the sylvan troop,\nLike wave on wave when coloured by the clouds,\nPell-mell come rolling round the mountain side,\nAnd crowd around the Goddess, who commands\nThe hunt to pause. At once the music stops\u2014\nAnd all the hounds, with wistful looks, crouch down.\n\n\"Young Giant of the woods,\" said Artemis,\n\"The bow, that ne'er till now its glittering points\nBent back without recoil and whirring twang\u2014\nThat sound a shaft's flight, and that flight a death\u2014\nFor once to its quiescent shape returns\nUnsated. 'Midst these woodland vales and heights\nSeldom I rove, but from my train, have Nymphs\nPermission sought full oft to lead the chase\nAmong these echoes and these fleeting shades.\nThee have they seen, as now, bounding beyond\nTheir swiftest hounds to bear the stag away,\nAs thou once more hadst surely done this morn,\nBut for my presence. Say, then, whence thou spring'st;\nWhere dwell'st thou\u2014how art called\u2014and wherefore thus\nDar'st thou the sports of these my Wood-nymphs mar?\"\n\n\"Goddess!\" the Giant answered \"I am sprung\nFrom the great Trident-bearer, who sustains\nAnd rocks the floating earth, and from the nymph\u2014\nA huntress joying in the dreamy woods\u2014\nEuryale. Little I use to speak,\nSave to my kindred giants, who in caves\nAmid yon forest dwell, beyond the rocks,\nOr to my Cyclop friends; nor know I what words\nBest suit a Goddess' ear. I and the winds\nDo better hold our colloquies, when shadows,\nAfter long hunting, vanish from my sight\nInto some field of gloom. I am called 'Orion,'\u2014\nAnd for the sports I have so often marred,\n'T was for my own I did it, but without\nA thought of whose the Nymphs, or least design\nOf evil. Wherefore, Artemis, pardon me;\nOr if again thou'dst bend thy bow, first let me\nTo great Poseidon offer up a prayer,\nThat his divine waves with absorbing arms\nMay take my body rather than dull earth.\"\n\nWith attitude relaxed from queenly pride\nTo yet more queenly grace, the shaft she placed\nWithin her burnished quiver, and the bow\nA Nymph unstrung, while with averted face\u2014\nAs gazing down the woodland vista slopes,\nWhich oft her bright orb silvered through black shades\nWhen midnight throbbed to silence\u2014Artemis asked,\n\"And who are these thy brothers of the cave,\nAnd why dost with the Cyclops hold consort?\"\n\n\"My wood-friends, all of ancestry renowned,\nClaim for their sires heroes, or kings, or gods;\nAnd two of them have seen the ways of men;\"\nOrion answered, while with uplifted breast,\nLike a smooth wave o'ergilded by the morn,\nHigh heaving ere it cast itself ashore,\nBuoyant, elate, and massively erect,\nHe stood. \"They are my kindred thus descended,\nAnd, though not brothers, yet we recognize\nA sort of brotherhood in this decree\nOf fate, or Zeus,\u2014that nature filled our frames\nWith larger share of bodily elements\nThan others mortal born. Seven giants we,\nOf different minds, and destinies, and powers,\nYet glorified alike in corporal forms.\nFew are my years, O Artemis! few my needs,\nThough large my fancied wants, and small my knowledge,\nSave of one art. Earth's deep metallic veins\nHeph\u00e6stos taught me to refine and forge\nTo shapes that in my fancy I devised,\nFor use or ornament. To the lame God\nGrateful I felt, nor knew what thanks to give;\nBut, ere a shadow-hunter I became\u2014\nA dreamer of strange dreams by day and night\u2014\nFor him I built a palace underground,\nOf iron, black and rough as his own hands.\nDeep in the groaning disembowelled earth,\nThe tower-broad pillars and huge stanchions,\nAnd slant supporting wedges I set up,\nAided by the Cyclops who obeyed my voice\nWhich through the metal fabric rang and pealed\nIn orders echoing far, like thunder-dreams.\nWith arches, galleries, and domes all carved\u2014\nSo that great figures started from the roof\nAnd lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazed\nOn those who strode below and gazed above\u2014\nI filled it; in the centre framed a hall:\nCentral in that, a throne; and for the light,\nForged mighty hammers that should rise and fall\nOn slanted rocks of granite and of flint,\nWorked by a torrent, for whose passage down\nA chasm I hewed. And here the God could take,\nMidst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire,\nHis lone repose, lulled by the sounds he loved;\nOr, casting back the hammer-heads till they choked\nThe water's course, enjoy, if so he wished,\nMidnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep.\"\n\nThus in rough phrase, and with no other grace\nThan forthright truth, Orion told his tale;\nThen smiling looked around upon the Nymphs,\nTill all their bright eyes glowed and turned aside;\nAnd then he gazed down at the couchant hounds,\nWhose eyes and ears grew interrogative,\nFor well the fleet-heeled robber they all knew.\n\nNow spake an Ocean-nymph with sea-green eyes:\n\"Goddess, he hath not told thee all; his skill\nAnd strength, unaided\u2014singing as he wrought\u2014\nScooped out the bay of Zankle, framed its port;\nBanked up the rampire that forbids the surge\nTo break o'er Sicily; and a temple built\nTo the sea-deities.\" \"I had forgot;\"\nOrion said: \"These things, long since, were done.\"\n\n\"Hunter, I pardon thee, and from my Nymphs\nAll memory of thy late offence I take,\nAs though they ne'er had seen thee:\" Artemis said,\nWith a sweet voice and look. \"Retire awhile,\nYe sylvan troop, to yonder deep-mossed dell;\nAnd thou, Orion, henceforth in my train\nThy station take.\" More had the Goddess said,\nBut o'er the whiteness of a neck that ne'er\nOne tanned kiss from the ardent sun received,\nA soft suffusion came; and waiting not\nReply, her silver sandals glanced i' the rays,\nAs doth a lizard playing on a hill,\nAnd on the spot where she that instant stood\nNought but the bent and quivering grass was seen.\n\nAbove the isle of Chios, night by night,\nThe clear moon lingered ever on her course,\nCovering the forest foliage, where it swept\nIn its unbroken breadth along the slopes,\nWith placid silver; edging leaf and trunk\nWhere gloom clung deep around; but chiefly sought\nWith melancholy splendour to illume\nThe dark-mouthed caverns where Orion lay\nDreaming among his kinsmen. Ere the breath\nOf Phoibos' steeds rose from the wakening sea,\nAnd long before the immortal wheel-spokes cast\nTheir hazy apparition up the sky\nBehind the mountain peaks, pale Artemis left\nHer fainting orb, and touched the loftiest snows\nWith feet as pure, and white, and crystal cold,\nIn the sweet misty woodland to rejoin\nOrion with her Nymphs. And he was blest\nIn her divine smile, and his life began\nA new and higher period, nor the haunts\nOf those his giant brethren ever sought,\nBut shunned them and their ways, and slept alone\nUpon a verdant rock, while o'er him floated\nThe clear moon, causing music in his brain\nUntil the sky-lark rose. He felt 't was love.","title":"Orion/Book I/Canto I","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":1666}