Hyperion (poem) - Definition and Overview

"Hyperion" is an uncompleted epic poem by 19th-century English Romantic poet John Keats. It is based on the Titanomachia, and tells of the despair of the Titans after their fall to the Olympians. (There is an epistolary novel of the same name by the German poet Friedrich Hölderlin.)

From Book I, lines spoken by the Titan Hyperion:

"Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?

Am I to leave this haven of my rest,

This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,

This calm luxuriance of blissful light,

These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,

Of all my lucent empire? It is left

Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.

The blaze, the splendor, and the symmetry,

I cannot see – but darkness, death and darkness.

Even here, into my centre of repose,

The shady visions come to domineer,

Insult, and blind, and stifle up my pomp. –

Fall! – No, by Tellus and her briny robes!

Over the fiery frontier of my realms

I will advance a terrible right arm

Shall scare that infant thunderer, rebel Jove,

And bid old Saturn take his throne again."

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Hyperion