taking bard, whose pen doth chronicle the days,
Receive my word with faithful ear, and sound it in thy lays.
When earth was young, primeval speech first call'd me Chaos; I
Am no birth of to-day--a name of hoar antiquity.
This lucid air, and the other three, which elements ye class,
Fire, water, earth, were then one rude and undigested mass;
But soon within the mingled heap a secret strife did brew,
And to self-chosen homes anon the hostile atoms flew.
First rose the flame sublime, the air assumed the middle berth,
And to the central base were bound strong ocean, and firm earth.
Then I, till then a mass confused, a huge and shapeless round,
New features worthy of a god, and worthy members found;
Still of my primal shapeless bulk remain'd the little trace,
That I alone have no true back, but show both ways a face.
One cause thou hast; another hear, and with my figure know,
My virtue and my power above, my office here below.
Whate'er thou see'st, the earth, the sea, the air, the fiery cope,
At my command they shut their gates, at my command they ope.
I of the vasty universe do hold the secret key,
The hinge of every thing that turns is turn'd alone by me.
Peace, when I please to send her forth from her secure retreats,
Walks freely o'er the unfenced fields, and treads free-gated streets;
The mighty globe would quake convulsed by blood and murderous din,
Did not my brazen bolt confine the store of strife within.
The gates of Heaven are mine; I watch there with the gentle Hours,
That Jove supreme must wait my time in the Olympian bowers.
Thence my name Janus;[13] thence the priest who on my altar places
The salted cake, the sacred meal, with strange-mouth'd titles graces
My hoary deity; thence you hear Patulcius now, and now
Clusius, crown the votive gift, and seal the mystic vow.[14]
Thus rude antiquity at first its simple creed confess'd,
And with twin words the functions twain of one same god express'd.
My power you know--the god of gates--now for my figure, why?
The cause is plain, and may be read by half a poet's eye.
There is no door but looks two ways; into the busy street
This way, and that way back towards the quiet Lar's retreat;[15]
And as the porter whom you place to keep watch at your gate,
Sees who goes out and who comes in at early hour and late,
Thus I, the warden of the sky, from heaven's wide-tented blue,
Look forth, and scan bo