Pallas

I.
I once dreamt, and dreamt a horror:
Low beneath the clouds and lower
        For the dreadful frown thereof,
There were men, whose crowded howling
‘Mid the shipwreck and the drowning
        Vow’d in unison to Jove;
Who for life, for joint exemption,
Who for death, who for redemption—
        All declar’d their human love;

II.
Nor was there cessation given:
For a wave He sendeth seven,
        Wrath the toil and store of all;
Pallas only, plaintive-robèd,
Hov’reth in the motion turbid,
        Sensitive to fatèd gall:
As a ghost among the rigging,
As a ghost for ever begging,
        Pallid, immaterial.


III.
No short cries within her hearing,
Every briny wave appearing
        Taking both of hull and heart;
Awfuller than fire and slaughter,
Crueller than man, and colder
        Than the marble of his art—
Such the scene and the contention:
Human woe ‘f unknown intention
        Kept of every pow’r apart.


IV.
Nought aside as acrid water
As a nightmare wrought all over,
        Caveth to a Jovian wind;
Aye the ghost of Pallas, livid
With a shame as equal vivid
        As is pity on her mind,
From th’ unalterable portal
Rend’reth over every mortal
        Tears wherewith her eyes are blind:


V.
What the grave and high alignment
Of the pow’r unto revilement
        Neptune hath conven’d to bear,
Knoweth she ‘neath teary lashes,
Knoweth—burneth unto ashes
        In her all too human care;
Moveless, yet she moveless giveth,
From each hair her sorrow seepeth,
        Seepeth into th’ acrid air:


VI.
For prophecies untold in Heaven,
Further that no man be given
        Equal portion with the Gods,
All must weep, and all must anguish,
Rumour with themselves, and languish
        At their joint unhappy odds;
Heedless rage to noble weeping—
Eye to eye, with fire leaping—
        Greyness over sable lots.


VII.
For the howls of man and nature,
For the red of early azure
        Spilt in some bloodguilty hour,
Watcheth counselless Minerva,
Watcheth, and upbuildeth further
        Her cold sides; and tears that bow her
Dry again, but in their trace,
Leave upon her royal face
        More than can be hid with power,


VIII.
Till the break of wave on boiling,
High’r than heave of human toiling,
        Should respond unto the storm:
Back therefrom—and back again,
Jove, unviewed upon the main,
        Will raise Heaven for His arm;
Then Minerva’s noble bosom,
As aware she cannot cause Him
        To divest His shaft of harm,


IX.
Shall again shake on the horror
Low beneath the clouds and lower
        For the awful frown of fate,
And with hopeful sacred sighing,
Quiet, much as it were dying,
        Ebb aneath her mournful plait
For device of human sorrow,
For the ease of bleak to-morrow,
        And th’ inconstancy of hate.