Latona

There was a sudden stir,
Ages ago, on the Ӕgean Sea.
With a loud cry, as of great agony,
The blue deep parted, and the angry roar
Of a great earthquake echoed round the shore;
The tortured waters, trembling, stood aghast;
Delos emerged, and anchored firm and fast
Among the Cyclades, lay calm and still.
In one brief moment, valley, plain, and hill
Were carpeted with verdure, and great trees
Sprung to full stature, shaking in the breeze
Their limbs and leaves; and fruits, and buds, and flowers
Longed for the sunshine and the summer showers.
Pursued by Here, poor Latona had
Till then been wandering, terrified and sad,
Round the great earth, and through the weltering seas,
Praying for mercy on long-bended knees,
But still denied. Many a weary day,
Above the shaggy hills, where, groaning, lay
Enceladus and Typhon, she had roamed,
And over valcanoes where lava foamed;
And sometimes in dark forests she had hid,
Where the lithe serpent through the long grass slid,
Over gray weeds and tiger-trampled flowers;
Where the grim lion couched in tangled bowers,
And the fierce pauther, proud of his dappled skin,
Startled the woods with his deep, moaning din.
All things were there to terrify the soul;—
The hedgehog that across her path did roll,
Gray eagles, fanged like pards, old vultures bald,
Fierce hawks, and restless owls, whose hoot appalled;
Ked scorpions, lurking under mossy stones,
And here and there great piles of rotting bones
Of the first men who won renown in wars;
Brass heads of arrows, javalins, scimitars,
Old crescent shield, and edgeless battle-axe;
Large yellow skulls, with wide and gaping cracks,
Too old and dry for worms to harbor in,—
Only the useless spider there did spin
His treacherous web.
Then would she stop, and lay
Her weary head among dead leaves, and pray
That she might die,—and fainting thus remain,
Pulseless, till thou, O Zeus! wouldest rise, and rain
Thy light upon her eyelids. Then the tide
Of life once more through her cold heart would glide,
Her soul grow strong, and once more fit to cope
With all her fate, and many a cheerful hope
Glow in her heart; then, O King Zeus! wouldst thou
With the bright terrors of thy frowning brow,
Scare every hateful creature far away.
Then would she rise, fairer than rosy Day,
And through the tiger-peopled solitudes,
And oderous brakes, and panther-guarded woods
Journey, until she reached the curving edge
Of the blue sea; and there, on some high ledge
Of porphyritic rock, sit long, and look
Into thine eye, nor fear that from some nook
The hideous shapes that haunted her would meet
Her startled eyes.
One day she cooled her feet
On a long, narrow beach. The encroaching brine
Had marked, as with an endless serpent-spine,
The hard, smooth sand with a long line of shells,
Like those the Nereids gather, in deep cells
Of the sea, for Thetis: such they pile around
The feet of cross old Nereus, having found
That this propitiates him; such they bring
To slippery Proteus as an offering,
When they would have him tell their destiny,
And what young God their first love is to be.
And there Latona paced along the sands,
Dreaming of journeys into unknown lands,
And persecutions to be suffered yet:
And when some wave, less shy than others, wet
Her rosy feet, she tingled as when Thou
Didst first thy lips press on her blushing brow.
Still she paced on over the firm, cool sand,
And the heaped shells, and, once or twice, would stand
And let her long, bright, golden tresses float
Over the waters. Lo! the threatening note
Of the fierce, hissing Dragon strikes her ear!
Startled, she shivers with a horrid fear,
And, mad with terror and insane despair,
Flees to the sea, and seeks destruction there.
But thy great Brother met her as she fell
Into the waves, and gave her power to dwell
Beneath the waters, like a Naiad, born
Within the sound of Triton's mellow shell,
That stills the waves. Then wandered she forlorn
Through many wonders:—coral-raftered caves,
Sunk far below the roar of clamorous waves;
Sea-flowers like masses of soft golden hair
Or misty silk; great shells, and fleshless spine
Of old Behemoth; flasks of hoarded wine,
Among the timbers of old, shattered ships;
Goblets of gold, that had not touched the lips
Of men a thousand years.
At length she lay,
Despairing, down, to weep her life away
On the sea's floor, alone;—and then it was
Thy mighty voice, the Deities that awes,
Lifted to light under fair Grecian skies
That lovely Cycladean Paradise,
And placed Latona there, when fast asleep,
With parted lips, and respiration deep,
And all unconscious. When, refreshed, she woke,
She lay beneath a tall, wide-branching oak,
Majestic, king-like,—from whose depths peeped out
All those shy birds whose instinct is to doubt
And fear mankind. Doves, with soft, patient eyes,
Did earnestly artistic nests devise,
Busy as bees under the sheltering leaves;
Thrushes that love to house beneath mossed eaves;
Merles, brought from the far Azores, with their clear,
Mellow, and fluty note;—the chaffinch, dear
To the rude Thuringian, for its mazy trills;
The mountain-finch, from Shetland's rugged hills,
With its brown eyes, and neck of velvet-black;
The sweet canary, yearning to flit back
To his own isles;—the small gold-crested wren,
Uttering its hurried trill of terror, when
Aught hostile came anear its elegant nest,
And pale-brown eggs;—the skylark, with his breast
Wet with the morning clews, who never sings
Upon the ground, but whose fine music rings
High in the heavens;—the golden oriole,
That mimics the rude flourishes which roll
From braying trumpets, with his flute-like notes;
Affectionate redstarts, who, with mellow throats,
First hail the dawn;—song-throstles, bold and fond
From Smyrna and from ancient Trebizond,
That sing in lofty tree-tops, at still noon,
A musical and melancholy tune;
The happy bulfinch, with his modest song,
Low, soft, and sweet,—rose-ouzels, and a throng
Of mountain linnets from the Orkney Isles,
And warbling ortolons, from where the smiles
Of the warm sun ripen the grapes of France;
The frisking white-throat, with his antic dance,
That sings at sultry summer-noon, and chases
The small aphides through the tangled mazes
Of rose and honeysuckle;—black-caps, nesting
In the white thorn; who, while the world is resting,
At midnight, wake with full, sweet melodies,
Wild, deep, and loud, the sleep-enchanted bees;
Blue-throated robins, bred near northern seas;
And pied fly-catchers, nesting in old trees;
And, last of all, the peerless nightingale.—
Cicadas sang, hid in the velvet grass;
Bees all around did their rich store amass,
Or clung together on a swinging bow,
In tangled swarms;—above her pale, fair brow
Hung nests of callow songsters; and so nigh
That she could touch it, lay, with lively eye,
A small, gray lizard; such do notice give
When serpents glide; and in all lands they live,
Even by the good-will of the rudest hind.
Close to her feet, an antelope reclined,
Graceful, large-eyed, white as the stainless fleece
Of snow upon the topmost Pyrenees,
And cropped the young buds of the sheltering trees
From the drooping limbs. In the deep, sombre woods
No voice stirred; nor in these sweet solitudes
Did aught disturb the birds, except the hymn
Sung by the fountain, from whose grassy brim
Its liquid light, in thin, clear, sparkling jets,
Rained ever on the thirsty violets;
The hum of leaves that whispered overhead,
The brook that sang along its pebbly bed,
The water-fall deep in the forest hid,
And the slight murmur of the waves, that slid
As softly up the firm, unyielding sand,
As gentle children, clasping hand and hand,
In the sick chamber of a mother grieve,
And glide on tiptoe.—
Here, O Zerus, one eve,
When thou didst shine high in the darkling west,
And bathe Night's glossy hair and ebon breast,
And gentle eyes with brightness,—while the Earth
Sent up soft mists to thee, thy maid gave birth
To bright Apollo, and his sister fair,
The ivory-footed Huntress;—such a pair,
Tall-statured, beautiful, as now they sit
On golden thrones, where, on Olympus met,
The austere Senate of the immortal Gods
Obeys and trembles if the Thunderer nods.—
And when the radiant wings of morning stirred
The darkness in the East, Latona heard,
Faint and far off, the well-remembered hiss
Of the great dragon. Bitter agonies
Shot through her soul, and she had swiftly fled,
And tried again old Ocean's friendly bed,
Had not Apollo, young, sun-bright Apollo,
Restrained her from the dark and perilous hollow,
And asked what meant the noise.
"It is," she said,
'The monster Python, a great dragon, bred
After the Deluge, in the stagnant mud,
And thirsting for thy mother's innocent blood,
Sent by great Here, Heaven's vindictive Queen,
To slay us all."
Upon the dewy green
Lay ready to the hand a nervous bow
And heavy arrows, eagle-winged, which thou,
Oh, Zeus! hadst placed within Apollo's reach.
These grasping, the young God stood in the breach
Of circling trees, with eye that fiercely glanced,
Nostril expanded, lip pressed, foot advanced,
And arrow at the string; when, lo! the coil
Of the great dragon came, with sinuous toil,
And vast gyrations, crushing down the branches,
With noise as when a hungry tiger cranches
Huge bones; and then Apollo drew the bow
Full at the eye, nor ended with one blow;
Dart after dart sped from the twanging string,
All at the eye: until, a lifeless thing,
The dragon lay.—
Thus the young Sun-God slew
The scaly monster; and then dragged and threw,
(So strong he was), the carcass in the sea,
Where the great sharks feasted voraciously,
Lashing the water into bloody foam
In their fierce fights.
Latona thence could roam,
With her brave children and defenders near,
In earth, air, sea, or heaven, free of fear;
Here forgave, and Zeus the twins did set,
To guide the sun and moon, as they do yet.