his own person, which he does not do in the second version.

In his dream he approaches a temple, and such a numbness creeps over him that he seems near death. He drags himself with suffering to the lowest step near the shrine, but as he touches it new life is given to him, and he springs up joyously to where the veiled shadow is awaiting him.

'High Prophetess,' said I, 'purge off, 'Benign if so it please thee, my mind's film.' 'None can usurp this height,' returned that shade, 'But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest?

'Are there not thousands in the world,' said I,
'Who love their fellows even to the death,
Who feel the giant agony of the world,
And more, like slaves to poor humanity,
Labour for mortal good? I sure should see
Other men here, but I am here alone.'

And in her reply the shadow draws a distinction between those who can give practical help in the world, and those whose genius compels them only to see and to suffer: The shrine to which the poet has come is the shrine of genius, and genius is compelled to suffering

by reason of its union with the many it is the dreamer of dreams, the prophet and the scer.

'Those whom thou spakest of are no visionaries,'
Rejoin'd that voice; they are no dreamers weak,
They seek no wonder but the human face,
No music but a happy noted voice.'

Such are they who, with single hearts and loving, ready hands, can help their brother men; seeing but one object at a time, ready always for the duty which lies nearest to them, with limited vision which fulfils itself. These are 'the willing 'slaves to poor humanity,' and labour for mortal good; but they do not know the shrine to which genius has aspired. Genius has an element of weakness in it; it does not render its sons more happy or more helpful; on the contrary, it increases infinitely the capacity for suffering, and by its overwhelming scope of vision paralyses ready action. The happy, hopeful workers may be thankful that it is not their lot.

They come not here, they have no thought to come,
And thou art here, for thou art less than they.
What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,
To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,
A fever of thyself: think of the earth.

What bliss even in hope is there for thee?
What haven? Every creature hath its home,
Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,
Whether his labours be sublime or low,
The pain alone, the joy alone distinct.
Only the dreamer venoms all his days,
Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.

It is the poet's doom which he has found, the prophetic vision which cannot but be dimmed with tears for what is and shall be, the larger heart which suffers in proportion to its power of joy, the finer ear which is filled with the minor wail of a suffering world while it awaits the final harmony. She who speaks to the poct is Moneta, the sister of the deposed. Saturn, and the description given of her in the rejected version is full of beauty.

Then saw I a wan face

Not pined by human sorrows, but bright blanched
By an immortal sickness which kills not.

It works a constant change, which happy death
Can put no end to; deathward progressing
To no death was that visage; it had past
The lily and the snow: and beyond these
I must not think now, though I saw that face.

With the exception of these quotations, most of what was best in the first version of 'Hyperion' is merged in the second, which gained immea

surably by its reconstruction in condensation of language and expansion of thought.

How familiar the music of the opening lines of the second version has grown to us.

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,
Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,
Sat grey-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone,
Still as the silence round about his lair:
Forest on forest hung about his head,

Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there,
Not so much life as on a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still deaden'd more
By reason of his fallen divinity,

Spreading a shade: the Naïad 'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to her lips.
Along the margin sand large footmarks went
No further than to where his feet had stray'd,
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground
His old right hand lay, nerveless, listless, dead,
Unsceptred and his realmless eyes were closed,
While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the earth,
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

And to Saturn in his sorrowing sleep there comes his sister Thea, 'a goddess of the infant 'world,' and the 'tender spouse of gold Hy'perion.'

How beautiful if sorrow had not made

Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty's self;

for in her face there is a 'listening fear.' She seems to see the darkness of the time to come, with no light beyond it, and one hand is pressed

upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain.

But though she has no comfort she has the unlimited sympathy of a goddess to give, and she has brought it to the old king. Words of mourning and pity come from her parted lips ' in solemn tenor, and deep organ tonc.'

I have no comfort for thee, no, not one.
I cannot say O wherefore sleepest thou?
For heaven is parted from thee, and the earth
Knows thee not thus afflicted for a god.
And ocean too, with all its solemn noise,
Has from thy sceptre pass'd: and all the air
Is emptied of thine hoary majesty.

Thy thunder, conscious of the new command,
Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house,
And thy sharp lightning in unpractised hands
Scorches and burns our once serene domain.
O aching time! O moments big as years !
All as ye pass swell out the monstrous truth
And press it so upon our weary griefs,