Thou twi-form deity, nurse at once and sire! Thou genitor that all things nourishest! The earth was suckled at thy shining breast, And in her veins is quick thy milky fire. Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet? Who queened her front with the enrondured moon? Who dug night's jewels from their vaulty mine To dower her, past an eastern wizard's dreams, When, hovering on him through his haschish-swoon, All the rained gems of the old Tartarian line Shiver in lustrous throbbings of tinged flame?-- Whereof a moiety in the Paolis' seams Statelily builded their Venetian name. Thou hast enwoofèd her An empress of the air, And all her births are propertied by thee: Her teeming centuries Drew being from thine eyes: Thou fatt'st the marrow of all quality. Who lit the furnace of the mammoth's heart? Who shagged him like Pilatus' ribbèd flanks? Who raised the columned ranks Of that old pre-diluvian forestry, Which like a continent torn oppressed the sea, When the ancient heavens did in rains depart, While the high-dancèd whirls Of the tossed scud made hiss thy drenchèd curls? Thou rear'dst the enormous brood; Who hast with life imbued The lion maned in tawny majesty, The tiger velvet-barred, The stealthy-stepping pard, And the lithe panther's flexuous symmetry. How came the entombèd tree a light-bearer, Though sunk in lightless lair? Friend of the forgers of earth, Mate of the earthquake and thunders volcanic, Clasped in the arms of the forces Titanic Which rock like a cradle the girth Of the ether-hung world; Swart son of the swarthy mine, When flame on the breath of his nostrils feeds How is his countenance half-divine, Like thee in thy sanguine weeds? Thou gavest him his light, Though sepulchred in night Beneath the dead bones of a perished world; Over his prostrate form Though cold, and heat, and storm, The mountainous wrack of a creation hurled.