The dungeon-clefts of Tartarus
Are close beyond the mountains
That are bound like a giant's girdle
About the unstirred, unbreathing east.
Alike on mountain and plain
The night is as some iron dream
That closes the soul in a crypt of dread,
Apart from touch or sense of earth,
As in the space of eternity.
What unseen light perturbs the darkness ?
Behold ! it stirs and fluctuates
Between the mountains and the stars
That are set as guards above the prison
Of the captive Titan-god. I know
That in the depths beneath, Hyperion
Divides the pillared vault of dark
And briefly stands upon its ruin.
Then light is laid upon the peaks,
As the hand of one who climbs beyond;
And now, the sun ! The sentinel stars
Are dead with overpotent flame,
And in their place Hyperion stands.
The night is loosened from the land
As a dream from the mind of the dreamer;
A great wind blows across the dawn,
Like the wind of the movement of the world.