2. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth: The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: _20 But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, _25 And there was war among them, and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. _30 3. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied His generations under the pavilion Of the Sun's throne: palace and pyramid, Temple and prison, to many a swarming million Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. _35 This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified _40 The sister-pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide Anarchs and priests, who feed on gold and blood Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. _45 4. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring Heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. _50 On the unapprehensive wild The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, _55 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Aegean main _60 5. Athens arose: a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; _65 Its portals are inhabited By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,-- A divine work! Athens, diviner yet, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will _70 Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. _75