ARGUMENT.
Preliminary Stanzas--Scene returns to Carduel--a day has passed since
the retreat of the Saxons into their encampment--The Cymrians take
advantage of the enemy's inactivity, to introduce supplies into the
famished city--Watch all that day, and far into the following night,
is kept round the corpse of Caradoc--Before dawn, the burial takes
place--The Prophet by the grave of the Bard--Merlin's address to the
Cymrians, whom he dismisses to the walls, in announcing the renewed
assault of the Saxons--Merlin then demands a sacrifice from
Lancelot--gives commissions to the two sons of Faul the Aleman, and
takes Faul himself (to whom an especial charge is destined) to the
city--The scene changes to the Temple Fortress of the Saxons--The
superstitious panic of the heathen hosts at their late defeat--The magic
divinations of the Runic priests--The magnetic trance of the chosen
Soothsayer--The Oracle he utters--He demands the blood of a Christian
maid--The pause of the priests and the pagan king--The abrupt entrance
of Genevieve--Crida's joy--The priests demand the Victim--Genevieve's
Christian faith is evinced by the Cross which the Nun had hung round her
neck--Crida's reply to the priests--They dismiss one of their number to
inflame the army, and so insure the sacrifice--The priests lead the
Victim to the Altar, and begin their hymn, as the Soothsayer wakes from
his trance--The interruption and the compact--Crida goes from the Temple
to the summit of the tower without--The invading march of the Saxon
troops under Harold described--The light from the Dragon Keep--The
Saxons scale the walls, and disappear within the town--The irruption
of flames from the fleet--The dismay of that part of the army that had
remained in the camp--The flames are seen by the rest of the heathen
army in the streets of Carduel--The approach of the Northmen under
Gawaine--The light on the Dragon Keep changes its hue into blood-red,
and the Prophet appears on the height of the tower--The retreat
of the Saxons from the city--The joy of the Chief Priest--The time
demanded by the compact has expired--He summons Crida to complete the
sacrifice--Crida's answer--The Priest rushes back into the Temple--The
offering is bound to the Altar--Faul! the gleam of the enchanted
glaive--The appearance of Arthur--The War takes its last stand within
the heathen temple--Crida and the Teuton kings--Arthur meets Crida hand
to hand--Meanwhile Harold saves the Gonfanon, and follows the bands
under his lead to the river-side--He addresses them, re-forms their
ranks, and leads them to the brow of the hill--His embassy to
Arthur--The various groups in the heathen temple described--Harold's
speech--Arthur's reply--Merlin's prophetic address to the chiefs of the
two races--The End.
Flow on, flow on, fair Fable's happy stream, 1
Vocal for aye with Eld's first music-chaunt,
Where, mirror'd far adown the chrystal, gleam
The golden domes of Carduel and Romaunt;
Still one last look on knighthood's peerless ring,
On mooned Dream-land and the Dragon King!--
Detain me yet amid the lovely throng, 2
Hold yet thy _Sabbat_, thou melodious spell!
Still to the circle of enchanted song
Charm the high Mage of Druid parable,
The Fairy, bard-led from her Caspian Sea,
And Genius, lured from caves in Araby!
Though me, less fair if less familiar ways, 3
Sought in the paths by earlier steps untrod,
Allure--yet ever, in the marvel-maze,
The flowers afar perfume the virgin sod;
The simplest leaf in fairy gardens cull,
And round thee opens all the Beautiful!
Alas! the sunsets of our Northern main 4
Soon lose the tints Hesperian Fancy weaves;
Soon the sweet river feels the icy chain,
And haunted forests shed their murmurous leaves;
The bough must wither, and the bird depart,
And winter clasp the world--as life the heart!
A day had pass'd since first the Saxons fled 5
Before the Christian, and their war lay still;
From morn to eve the Cymrian riders spread
Where flocks yet graze on some remoter hill,
Pale, on the walls, fast-sinking Famine waits,
When hark, the droves come lowing through the gates!
Yet still, the corpse of Caradoc around, 6
All day, and far into the watch of night,
The grateful victors guard the sacred ground;
But in that hour when all his race of light
Leave Eos lone in heaven,--earth's hollow breast
Oped to the dawn-star and the singer's rest.
Now, ere they lower'd the corpse, with noiseless tread 7
Still as a sudden shadow, Merlin came
Through the arm'd crowd; and paused before the dead,
And, looking on the face, thrice call'd the name.
Then, hush'd through all an awed compassion ran,
And all gave way to the old quiet man.
For Cymri knew that of her children none 8
Had, like the singer, loved the lonely sage;
All felt, that there a father call'd a son
Out from that dreariest void,--bereaved age;
Forgot the dread renown, the mystic art,
And saw but sacred there--the human heart!
And thrice the old man kiss'd the lips that smiled, 9
And thrice he call'd the name,--then to the grave,
Hush'd as the nurse that bears a sleeping child
To its still mother's breast,--the form he gave:
With tender hand composed the solemn rest,
And laid the harp upon the silent breast.
And then he sate him down, a little space 10
From the dark couch, and so of none took heed;
But lifting to the twilight skies his face,
That secret soul which never man could read,
Far as the soul it miss'd, from human breath,
Rose--where Thought rises when it follows Death!
And swells and falls in gusts the funeral dirge 11
As hollow falls the mould, or swells the mound;
And (Cymri's warlike wont) upon the verge
The orbed shields are placed in rows around;
Now o'er the dead, grass waves;--the rite is done;
And a new grave shall greet a rising sun.
Then slowly turn'd, and calmly moved the sage, 12
On the Bard's grave his stand the Prophet took.
High o'er the crowd in all his pomp of age
August, a glory brighten'd from his look;
Hope flash'd in eyes illumined from his own,
Bright, as if there some sure redemption shone.
Thus spoke the Seer: "Hosannah to the brave; 13
Lo, the eternal heir-looms of your land!
A realm's great treasure-house! The freeman's grave
The hero creed that to the swordless hand
Thought, when heroic, gives an army's might;--
And song to nations as to plants the light!
"Cymrians, the sun yon towers will scarcely gild, 14
Ere war will scale them! Here, your task is o'er.
Your walls your camp, your streets your battle-field;
Each house a fortress!--One strong effort more
For God, for Freedom--for your shrines and homes!
After the Martyr the Deliverer comes!"
He ceased; and such the reverence of the crowd, 15
No lip presumed to question. Wonder hush'd
Its curious guess, and only Hope aloud
Spoke in the dauntless shout: each cheek was flush'd:
Each eye was bright;--each heart beat high; and all
Ranged in due ranks, resought the shatter'd wall:
Save only four, whom to that holy spot 16
The Prophet's whisper stay'd:--of these, the one
Of knightly port and arms, was Lancelot;
But in the ruder three, with garments won
From the wild beast,--long hair'd, large limb'd, again
See Rhine's strong sons, the convert Alemen!
When these alone remain'd beside the mound, 17
The Prophet drew apart the Paladin,
And said, "What time, feud, worse than famine, found
The Cymrian race, like some lost child of sin
That courts, yet cowers from death;--serene through all
The jarring factions of the maddening hall,
"Thou didst in vain breathe high rebuke to pride, 18
With words sublimely proud. 'No post the man
Ennobles;--man the post! did He who died
To crown in death the end His birth began,
Assume the sceptre when the cross He braved?
Did He wear purple in the world He saved?
"'Ye clamour which is worthiest of command,-- 19
Place me, whose fathers led the hosts of Gaul,
Amongst the meanest children of your land;
Let me owe nothing to my fathers,--all
To such high deeds as raised, ere kings were known,
The boldest savage to the earliest throne!'
"But none did heed thee, and in scornful grief 20
Went thy still footsteps from the raging hall,
Where, by the altar of the bright Belief
That spans this cloud-world when its sun-showers fall,
Assured at least thy bride in heaven to be,
Genevra pray'd--not life but death with thee.
"There, by the altar, did ye join your hands, 21
And in your vow, scorning malignant Time,
Ye plighted two immortals! in those bands
Hope still wove flowers,--but earth was not their clime;
Then to the breach alone, resign'd, consoled,
Went Gaul's young hero.--Art thou now less bold?
"Thy smile replies! Know, while we speak, the King 22
Is on the march; each moment that delays
The foeman, speeds the conqueror on its wing;
If, till the hour is ripe, the Saxon stays
His rush, then idly wastes it on our wall,
Not ours the homes that burn, the shrines that fall!
"But that delay vouchsafed not--comes in vain 23
The bright achiever of enchanted powers;
He comes a king,--no people but the slain,
And round his throne will crash his blazing towers.
This is not all; for him, the morn is rife
With one dire curse that threatens more than life;--
"A curse, once launch'd, which withers every leaf 24
In victory's crown, chills youth itself to age!
Here magic fails--for over love and grief
There is no glamour in the brazen page
Born of the mind, o'er mind extends mine art;--
Beyond its circle beats the human heart!
"Delay the hour--save Carduel for thy king; 25
Avert the curse; from misery save thy brother!"
"Thrice welcome death," cried Lancelot, "could it bring
The bliss to bless mine Arthur! As the mother
Lives in her child, the planet in the sky,
Thought in the soul, in Arthur so live I."
"Prepare," the Seer replied, "be firm!--and yield 26
The maid thou lovest to her Saxon Sire."
Like a man lightning-stricken, Lancelot reel'd,
And as if blinded by the intolerant fire,
Cover'd his face with his convulsive hand,
And groan'd aloud, "What woe dost thou demand?
"Yield her! and wherefore? Cruel as thou art! 27
Can Cymri's king or Carduel's destiny
Need the lone offering of a loving heart,
Nothing to kings and states, but all to me?"
"Son," said the Prophet, "can the human eye
Trace by what wave light quivers from the sky;
"Explore some thought whose utterance shakes the earth 28
Along the airy galleries of the brain;
Or say, can human wisdom test the worth
Of the least link in Fate's harmonious chain?
All doubt is cowardice--all trust is brave--
Doubt, and desert thy king;--believe and save."
Then Lancelot fix'd his keen eyes on the sage, 29
And said, "Am I the sacrifice or she?
Risks she no danger from the heathen's rage,
She, the new Christian?"--"Danger more with thee!
Can blazing roofs and trampled altars yield
A shelter surer than her father's shield?
"If mortal schemes may foil the threatening hour, 30
Thy heart's reward shall crown thine honour's test;
And the same fates that crush the heathen power
Restore the Christian to the conqueror's breast;
Yea, the same lights that gild the nuptial shrine
Of Arthur, shed a beam as bless'd on thine!"
"I trust and I submit," said Lancelot, 31
With pale firm lip. "Go thou--I dare not--I!
Say, if I yield, that I abandon not!
Her form may leave a desert to my eye,
But here--but _here_!"--No more his lips could say,
He smote his bleeding heart, and went his way!
The Enchanter, thoughtful, turn'd, and on the grave 32
His look relaxing fell,--"Ah, child, lost child!
To thy young life no youth harmonious gave
Music;--no love thine exquisite griefs beguiled;
Thy soul's deep ocean hid its priceless pearl:--
And _he_ is loved and yet repines! O churl!"
And murmuring thus, he saw below the mound 33
The stoic brows of the stern Alemen,
Their gaunt limbs strewn supine along the ground,
Still as gorged lions couch'd before the den
After the feast; their life no medium knows,--
Here headlong conflict, there inert repose!
"Which of these feet could overtake the roe? 34
Which of these arms could grapple with the bear?"
"My first-born," answer'd Faul, "outstrips the roe;
My youngest crushes in his grasp the bear."
"Thou, then, the swift one, gird thy loins, and rise:
See o'er the lowland where the vapour lies,
"Far to the right, a mist from Sabra's wave; 35
Amidst that haze explore a creek rush-grown,
Screen'd from the waters less remote, which lave
The Saxon's anchor'd barks, and near a lone
Grey crag where bitterns boom; within that creek
Gleams through green boughs a galley's brazen peak;
This gain'd, demand the chief, a Christian knight, 36
The bear's rough mantle o'er his rusted mail;
Tell him from me, to tarry till a light
Burst from the Dragon keep;--then crowd his sail,
Fire his own ship--and, blazing to the bay,
Cleave through yon fleet his red destroying way;
"No arduous feat: the galleys are unmann'd, 37
Moor'd each to each; let fire consume them all!
Then, the shore won, lead hitherwards the band
Between the Saxon camp and Cymrian wall.
What next behoves, the time itself will show,
Here counsel ceases;--there ye find the foe!"
Heard the wild youth, and no reply made he, 38
But braced his belt and griped his spear, and straight
As the bird flies, he flew. "My son, to thee,"
Next said the Prophet, "a more urgent fate
And a more perilous duty are consign'd;
Mark, the strong arm requires the watchful mind.
"Thou hast to pass the Saxon sentinels; 39
Thou hast to thread the Saxon hosts alone;
Many are there whom thy far Rhine expels
His swarming war-hive,--and their tongue thine own;
Take from yon Teuton dead the mail'd disguise,
Thy speech their ears, thy garb shall dupe their eyes;
"The watch-pass 'Vingolf'[1] wins thee through the van, 40
The rest shall danger to thy sense inspire,
And that quick light in the hard sloth of man
Coil'd, till sharp need strike forth the sudden fire.
The encampment traversed, where the woods behind
Slope their green gloom, thy stealthy pathway wind;
"Keep to one leftward track, amidst the chase 41
Clear'd for the hunter's sport in happier days;
Till scarce a mile from the last tent, a space
Clasping grey crommell stones, will close the maze.
There, in the centre of that Druid ring,
Arm'd men will stand around the Cymrian King:--
"Tell him to set upon the tallest pine 42
Keen watch, and wait, until from Carduel's tower,
High o'er the wood a starry light shall shine;
Not _that_ the signal, though it nears the hour,
But when the light shall change its hues, and form
One orb, blood-dyed, as sunsets red with storm;
"Then, while the foe their camp unguarded leave, 43
And round our walls their tides tempestuous roll,
To yon wood pile, the Saxon fortress, cleave;
Be Odin's Idol the Deliverer's goal.
Say to the King, 'In that funereal fane
Complete thy mission, and thy guide regain!'"
While spoke the seer, the Teuton's garb of mail 44
The son of Faul had donn'd, and bending now,
He kiss'd his father's cheek.--"And if I fail,"
He murmur'd, "leave thy blessing on my brow,
My father!" Then the convert of the wild
Look'd up to Heaven, and mutely bless'd his child.
"Thou wend with me, proud sire of dauntless men," 45
Resumed the seer:--"On thine arm let my age
Lean, as shall thine upon _their_ children!"--Then
The loreless savage--the all-gifted sage,
By the strong bonds of will and heart allied;
Went towards the towers of Carduel side by side.
To Crida's camp the swift song rushing flies; 46
Round Odin's shrine wild Priests, rune muttering,
Task the weird omens hateful to the skies;
Pale by the idol stands the grey-hair'd king;
And, from without, the unquiet armament
Booms in hoarse surge, its chafing discontent.
For in defeat (when first that multitude 47
Shrunk from a foe, and fled the Cymrian sword)
The pride of man the wrath of gods had view'd;
Religious horror smote the palsied horde;
The field refused, till priest, and seid, and charm,
Explore the offence, and wrath divine disarm.
All day, all night, glared fires, dark-red and dull 48
With mystic gums, before the Teuton god,
And waved o'er runes which Mimer's trunkless skull
Had whisper'd Odin--the Diviner's rod,
And rank with herbs which baleful odours breathed,
The bubbling hell-juice in the cauldron seethed.
Now towards that hour when into coverts dank 49
Slinks back the wolf; when to her callow brood
Veers through still boughs, the owl; when from the bank
The glow-worm wanes; when heaviest droops the wood,
Ere the faint twitter of the earliest lark,--
Ere dawn creeps chill and timorous through the dark;
About that hour, of all the dreariest, 50
A flame leaps up from the dull fire's repose,
And shoots weird sparks along the runes, imprest
On stone and elm-bark, ranged in ninefold rows;
The vine's deep flush the purpling seid assumes,
And the strong venom coils in maddening fumes.
Pale grew the elect Diviner's alter'd brows; 51
Swell'd the large veins, and writhed the foaming lips;
And as some swart and fateful planet glows
Athwart the disc to which it brings eclipse;
So that strange Pythian madness, whose control
Seems half to light and half efface the soul,
Broke from the horror of his glazing look; 52
His breath that died in hollow gusts away,
Seized by the grasp of unseen tempests, shook
To its rack'd base the spirit-house of clay;
Till the dark Power made firm the crushing spell,
And from the man burst forth the voice of hell.
"The god--the god! lo, on his throne he reels! 53
Under his knit brows glow his wrathful eyes!
At his dread feet a spectral Valkyr kneels,
And shrouds her face! And cloud is in the skies,
And neither sun nor star, nor day nor night,
But in the cloud a steadfast Cross of Light!
"The god--the god! hide, hide me from his gaze! 54
Its awful anger burns into the brain!
Spare me, O spare me! Speak, thy child obeys!
What rites appease thee, Father of the Slain?[2]
What direful omen do these signs foreshow?
What victim ask'st thou? Speak, the blood shall flow!'
Sunk the Possest One--writhing with wild throes; 55
And one appalling silence dusk'd the place,
As with a demon's wing. Anon arose,
Calm as a ghost, the soothsayer: form and face
Rigid with iron sleep! and hollow fell
From stonelike lips the hateful oracle.
"A cloud, where Nornas nurse the thunder, lowers; 56
A curse is cleaving to the Teuton race;
Before the Cross the stricken Valkyr cowers;
The Herr-god trembles on his column'd base;
A virgin's loss aroused the Teuton strife;
A virgin's love hath charm'd the Avenger's life;
"A virgin's blood alone averts the doom; 57
Revives the Valkyr, and preserves the god.
Whet the quick steel--she comes, she comes, for whom
The runes glow'd blood-red to the soothsayer's rod!
O king, whose wrath the Odin-born array'd,
Regain the lost, and yield the Christian maid!"
As if that voice had quicken'd some dead thing 58
To give it utterance, so, when ceased the sound,
The dull eye fix'd, and the faint shuddering
Stirr'd all the frame; then sudden on the ground
Fell heavily the lumpish inert clay,
From which the demon noiseless rush'd away.
Then the grey priests and the grey king creep near 59
The corpselike man; and sit them mutely down
In the still fire's red vaporous atmosphere;
The bubbling caldron sings and simmers on;
And through the reeks that from the poison rise,
Looks the wolf's blood-lust from those cruel eyes.
So sat they, musing fell;--when hark, a shout 60
Rang loud from rank to rank, re-echoing deep;
Hark to the tramp of multitudes without!
Near and more near the thickening tumults sweep;
King Crida wrathful rose: "What steps profane
Thy secret thresholds, Father of the Slain?"
Frowning he strode along the lurid floors, 61
And loud, and loud the invading footsteps ring;
His hand impetuous flings apart the doors:--
"Who dare insult the god, and brave the king?"
Swift through the throng a bright-hair'd vision came;
Those stern lips falter with a daughter's name!
Those hands uplifted, or to curse or smite, 62
Fold o'er a daughter's head their tremulous joy!
Oh, to the natural worship of delight,
How came the monstrous dogma--"To destroy!"
Sure, Heaven foreshow'd its gospel to the wild
In earth's first bond--the father and the child!
While words yet fail'd the bliss of that embrace, 63
The muttering priests, unmoved, each other eyed;
Then to the threshold came their measured pace:--
"Depart, Profane," their Pagan pontiff cried,
"Depart, Profane, too near your steps have trod
To altars darken'd with an angry God.
"Dire are the omens! Skulda rides the clouds, 64
Her sisters tremble[3] at the Urdar spring;
The hour demands us--shun the veil that shrouds
The Priests, the God, the Victim, and the King."
Shuddering, the crowds retreat, and whispering low,
Spread the contagious terrors where they go.
Then the stern Elders came to Crida's side, 65
And from their lock'd embrace unclasp'd his hands:
"Lo," said their chieftain, "how the gods provide
Themselves the offering which the shrine demands!
By Odin's son be Odin's voice obey'd;
The lost is found--behold, and yield the maid!"
As when some hermit saint, in the old day 66
Of the soul's giant war with Solitude,
From some bright dream which rapt his life away
Amidst the spheres, unclosed his eyes and view'd,
'Twixt sleep and waking, vaguely horrible,
The grisly tempter of the gothic hell;
So on the father's bliss abruptly broke 67
The dreadful memory of his dismal god;
And, his eyes pleading ere his terrors spoke,
Look'd round the brows of that foul brotherhood.
Then his big voice came weak and strangely mild,
"What mean those words?--why glare ye on my child?
"Do ye not know her? Elders, she is mine,-- 68
My flesh, my blood, mine age's youngest-born!
Why are ye mute? Why point to yonder shrine?
Ay,"--and here haughty with the joy of scorn,
He raised his front.--"Ay, _be_ the voice obey'd!
Priests, ye forget,--it was a _Christian_ maid!"
He ceased and laugh'd aloud, as humbled fell 69
Those greedy looks, and mutteringly replied
Faint voices, "True, so said the Oracle!"
When the Arch-Elder, with an eager stride
Reach'd child and sire, and cried, "See Crida, there,
On the maid's breast the cross that Christians wear!"
Those looks, those voices, thrill'd through Genevieve, 70
With fears as yet vague, shapeless, undefined:
"Father," she murmur'd, "Father, let us leave
These dismal precincts; how those eyes unkind
Freeze to my soul; sweet father, let us go;
My heart to thine would speak! why frown'st thou so?"
"Tear from thy breast that sign, unhappy one! 71
Sign to thy country's wrathful gods accurst!
Back, priests of Odin, I am Odin's son,
And she my daughter; in my war-shield nurst,
Rear'd at your altars! Trample down the sign,
O child, and say--the Saxon's God is mine!"
Infant, who came to bid a war relent, 72
And rob ambition of its carnage-prize,
Is it on thee those sombre brows are bent?
For thee the death-greed in those ravening eyes?
Thy task undone, thy gentle prayer unspoken?
Ay, press the cross: it is the martyr's token!
She press'd the cross with one firm faithful hand, 73
While one--(_that_ trembled!)--clasp'd her father's knees;
As clings a wretch, that sinks in sight of land,
To reeds swept with him down the weltering seas,
And murmur'd, "Pardon; Him whose agony
Was earth's salvation, I may not deny!
"Him who gave God the name I give to thee, 74
'FATHER,'--in Him, in Christ, is my belief!"
Then Crida turn'd unto the priests,--"Ye see,"
Smiling, he said, "that I have done with grief:
Behold the victim! be the God obey'd!
The son of Odin dooms the Christian maid!"
He said, and from his robe he wrench'd the hand, 75
And, where the gloom was darkest, stalk'd away.
But whispering low, still pause the hellish band;
And dread lest Nature yet redeem the prey,
And deem it wise against such chance to arm
The priesthood's puissance with the host's alarm;
To bruit abroad the dark oracular threats, 76
From which the Virgin's blood alone can save;
Gird with infuriate fears the murtherous nets,
And plant an army to secure a grave;
The whispers cease--the doors one gleam of day
Give--and then close;--the blood-hound slinks away.
Around the victim--where with wandering hand, 77
Through her blind tears, she seems to search through space
For him who had forsaken--circling stand
The solemn butchers; calm in every face
And death in every heart; till from the belt
Stretch'd one lean hand and grasp'd her where she knelt.
And her wild shriek went forth and smote the shrine, 78
Which echo'd, shrilling back the sharp despair,
Through the waste gaps between the shafts of pine
To th' unseen father's ear. Before the glare
Of the weird fire, the sacrifice they chain
To stones impress'd with rune and shamble-stain.
Then wait (for so their formal rites compel) 79
Till from the trance that still his senses seals,
Awakes the soothsayer of the oracle;
At length with tortured spasms, and slowly, steals
Back the reluctant life--slow as it creeps
To one hard-rescued from the drowning deeps.
And when from dim, uncertain, swimming eyes 80
The gaunt long fingers put the shaggy hair,
And on the priests, the shrine, the sacrifice,
Dwelt the fix'd sternness of the glassy stare,
Before the god they led the demon-man,
And circling round the two their hymn began.
So rapt in their remorseless ecstasy, 81
They did not hear the quick steps at the door,
Nor that loud knock nor that impatient cry;
Till shook,--till crash'd, the portals on the floor,--
Crash'd to the strong hand of the fiery thane;
And Harold's stride came clanging up the fane.--
But from his side bounded a shape as light 82
As forms that glide through Elfheim's limber air;
Swift to the shrine--where on those robes of white
The gloomy hell fires scowl'd their sullen glare,
Through the death-chaunting choir,--she sprang,--she prest,
And bow'd her head upon the victim's breast;
And cried, "With thee, with thee, to live or die, 83
With thee, my Genevieve!" The Elders raised
Their hands in wrath, when from as stern an eye
And brow erect as theirs, they shrunk amazed--
And Harold spoke, "Ye priests of Odin, hear!
Your gods are mine, their voices I revere.
"Voices in winds, in groves, in hollow caves, 84
Oracular dream, or runic galdra sought;
But ages ere from Don's ancestral waves
Such wizard signs the Scythian Odin brought,
A voice that needs no priesthood's sacred art,
Some earlier God placed in the human heart.
"I bow to charms that doom embattled walls: 85
To dreams revealing no unworthy foe;
A warrior's god in Glory's clarion calls;
Where war-steeds snort, and hurtling standards flow;
But when weak women for strong men must die,
My Man's proud nature gives your Gods the lie!
"If--not yon seer by fumes and dreams beguiled, 86
But Odin's self stood where his image stands,
Against the god I would protect my child!
Ha, Crida!--come!--_thy_ child in chains!--those hands
Lifted to smite!--and thou, whose kingly bann
Arms nations,--wake, O statue, into man!"
For from his lair, and to his liegeman's side, 87
Had Crida listening strode: When ceased the Thane,
His voice, comprest and tremulous, replied,--
"The life thou plead'st for doth these shrines profane.
In Odin's son a father lives no more;
Yon maid adores the God our foes adore."
"And I--and I, stern king!"--Genevra cries, 88
"Her God is mine, and if that faith is crime,
Be just--and take a twofold sacrifice!"
"Cease," cried the Thane,--"is this, ye Powers, a time
For kings and chiefs to lean on idle blades,--
Our leaders dreamers, and our victims maids?
"Be varying gods by varying tribes addrest, 89
I scorn no gods that worthy foes adore;
Brave was the arm that humbled Harold's crest,
And large the heart that did his child restore.
To all the valiant Gladsheim's Halls unclose;[4]
In Heaven the comrades were on Earth the foes.
"And if our Gods are wrath, what wonder, when 90
Their traitor priests creep whispering coward fears;
Unnerve the arms and rot the hearts of men,
And filch the conquest from victorious spears?--
Yes, reverend elders, _one_ such priest I found,
And cheer'd my bandogs on the meaner hound!"
"Be dumb, blasphemer," cried the Pontiff seer, 91
"Depart, or dread the vengeance of the shrine;
Depart, or armies from these floors shall hear
How chiefs can mock what nations deem divine;
Then, let her Christian faith thy daughter boast,
And brave the answer of the Teuton host!"
A paler hue shot o'er the hardy face 92
Of the great Earl, as thus the Elder spoke;
But calm he answer'd, "Summon Odin's race;
On me and mine the Teuton's wrath invoke!
Let shuddering fathers learn what priests can dream,
And warriors judge if _I_ their Gods blaspheme!
"But peace and hearken.--To the king I speak:-- 93
With mine own lithsmen, and such willing aid
As Harold's tromps arouse,--yon walls I seek;
Be Cymri's throne the ransom of the maid.
On Carduel's wall if Saxon standards wave,
Let Odin's arms the needless victim save!
"Grant me till noon to prove what men are worth, 94
Who serve the War God by the warlike deed;
Refuse me this, King Crida, and henceforth
Let chiefs more prized the Mercian armies lead;
For I, blunt Harold, join no cause with those
Who, wolves for victims, are as hares to foes!"
Scornful he ceased, and lean'd upon his sword; 95
Whispering the Priests, and silent Crida, stood.
A living Thor to that barbarian horde
Was the bold Thane, and ev'n the men of blood
Felt Harold's loss amid the host's dismay
Would rend the clasp that link'd the wild array.
At length out spoke the priestly chief, "The gods 96
Endure the boasts, to bow the pride, of men;
The Well of Wisdom sinks in Hell's abode;
The Laeca shines beside the bautasten,[5]
And Truth too oft illumes the eyes that scorn'd,
By the death-flash from which in vain it warn'd.
"Be the delay the pride of man demands 97
Vouchsafed, the nothingness of man to show!
The gods unsoften'd, march thy futile bands:
Till noon, we spare the victim;--seek the foe!
But when with equal shadows rests the sun--
The altar reddens, or the walls are won!"
"So be it," the Thane replied, and sternly smiled; 98
Then towards the sister-twain, with pitying brow,
Whispering he came,--"Fair friend of Harold's child,
Let our own gods at least be with thee now;
Pray that the Asas bless the Teuton strife,
And guide the swords that strike for thy sweet life."
"Alas!" cried Genevieve, "Christ came to save, 99
Not slay: He taught the weakest how to die;
For me, for _me_, a nation glut the grave!
That nation Christ's, and--No, the victim _I_!
Not now for _life_, my father, see me kneel,
But one kind look,--and then, how blunt the steel!"
And Crida moved not! Moist were Harold's eyes; 100
Bending, he whisper'd in Genevra's ear,
"Thy presence is her safety! Time denies
All words but these;--hope in the brave; revere
The gods they serve;--by acts our faith we test;
The holiest gods are where the men are best."
"With this he turn'd, "Ye priests," he call'd aloud, 101
"On every head within these walls, I set
Dread weregeld for the compact; blood for blood!"
Then o'er his brows he closed his bassinet,
Shook the black death-pomp of his shadowy plume,
And his arm'd stride was lost amidst the gloom.--
And still poor Genevieve with mournful eyes 102
Gazed on the father, whose averted brows
Had more of darkness for her soul than lies
Under the lids of death. The murmurous
And lurid air buzzed with a ghostlike sound
From patient Murder's iron lip;--and round
The delicate form which, like a Psyche, seem'd 103
Beauty sublimed into the type of soul,
Fresh from such stars as ne'er on Paphos beam'd,
When first on Love the chastening vision stole,--
The sister virgin coil'd her clasp of woe;
Ev'n as that Sorrow which the Soul must know
Till Soul and Love meet never more to part. 104
At last, from under his wide mantle's fold,
The strain'd arms lock'd on his loud-beating heart
(As if the anguish which the king controll'd,
The man could stifle),--Crida toss'd on high;--
And nature conquer'd in the father's cry!
Over the kneeling form swept his grey hair; 105
On the soft upturn'd eyes prest his wild kiss;
And then recoiling, with a livid stare,
He faced the priests, and mutter'd, "Dotage this!
Crida is old,--come--come;" and from the ring
Beckon'd their chief, and went forth tottering.
Out of the fane, up where the stair of pine 106
Wound to the summit of the camp's rough tower,
King Crida pass'd. On moving armour shine
The healthful beams of the fresh morning hour;
He hears the barb's shrill neigh,--the clarion's swell,
And half his armies march to Carduel.
Far in the van, like Odin's fatal bird 107
Wing'd for its feast, sails Harold's raven plume.
Now from the city's heart a shout is heard,
Wall, bastion, tower, their steel-clad life resume;
Far shout! faint forms! yet seem they loud and clear
To that strain'd eyeball and that feverish ear.
But not on hosts that march by Harold's side, 108
Gazed the stern priest, who stood with Crida there;
On sullen gloomy groups--discatter'd wide,
Grudging the conflict they refused to share,
Or seated round rude tents and piled spears;
Circling the mutter of rebellious fears;
Or, near the temple fort, with folded arms 109
On their broad breasts, waiting the deed of blood;
On these he gazed--to gloat on the alarms
That made _him_ monarch of that multitude!
Not one man there had pity in his eye.
And the priest smiled,--then turn'd to watch the sky.
And the sky deepen'd, and the time rush'd on. 110
And Crida sees the ladders on the wall;
And dust-clouds gather round his gonfanon;
And through the dust-clouds glittering rise and fall
The meteor lights of helms, and shields, and glaives;
Up o'er the rampires mount the labouring waves;
And joyous rings the Saxon's battle shout; 111
And Cymri's angel cry wails like despair;
And from the Dragon Keep a light shines out,
Calm as a single star in tortured air,
To whose high peace, aloof from storms, in vain
Looks a lost navy from the violent main.
Now on the nearest wall the Pale Horse stands; 112
Now from the wall the Pale Horse lightens down;
And flash and vanish, file on file, the bands
Into the rent heart of the howling town;
And the Priest paling frown'd upon the sun,--
Though the sky deepen'd and the time rush'd on.
When from the camp around the fane, there rose 113
Ineffable cries of wonder, wrath, and fear;
With some strange light that scares the sunshine, glows
O'er Sabra's waves the crimson'd atmosphere;
And dun from out the widening, widening glare,
Like Hela's serpents, smoke-reeks wind through air.
Forth look'd the king, appall'd! and where his masts 114
Soar'd from the verge of the far forest-land,
He hears the crackling, as when vernal blasts
Shiver Groninga's pines--"Lo, the same hand,"
Cried the fierce priest, "which sway'd the soothsayer's rod,
Writes now the last runes of thine angry god!"
And here and there, and wirbelling to and fro, 115
Confused, distraught, pale thousands spread the plain;
Some snatch their arms in haste, and yelling go
Where the fleets burn; some creep around the fane
Like herds for shelter; prone on earth lie some
Shrieking, "The Twilight of the Gods hath come!"
And the great glare hath redden'd o'er the town, 116
And seems the strife it gildeth to appall;
Flock back dim straggling Saxons, gazing down
The lurid valleys from the jagged wall,
Still as on Cuthite towers Chaldean seers,
When some red portent flamed into the spheres.
And now from brake and copse--from combe and dell, 117
Gleams break;--steel flashes;--helms on helms arise;
Faint heard at first,--now near, now thunderous,--swell
The Cymrian mingled with the Baltic cries;
And, loud alike in each, exulting came
War's noblest music--a Deliverer's name.
"Arthur!--for Arthur!--Arthur is at hand! 118
Woe, Saxons, woe!" Then from the rampart height
Vanish'd each watcher; while the rescue-band
Sweep the clear slopes; and not a foe in sight!
And now the beacon on the Dragon Keep:
Springs from pale lustre into hues blood-deep:
And on that tower stood forth a lonely man; 119
Full on his form the beacon glory fell;
And joy revived each sinking Cymrian;
There, the still Prophet watch'd o'er Carduel!
Back o'er the walls, and back through gate and breach,
Now ebbs the war, like billows from the beach.
Along the battlements swift crests arise, 120
Swift follow'd by avenging, smiting brands,
And fear and flight are in the Saxon cries!
The portals vomit bands on hurtling bands;
And lo, wide streaming o'er the helms,--again
The Pale Horse flings on angry winds its mane!
And facing still the foe, but backward borne 121
By his own men, towers high one kingliest chief;
Deep through the distance roll his shout of scorn,
And the grand anguish of a hero's grief.
Bounded the Priest!--"The Gods are heard at last!--
Proud Harold flieth;--and the noon is past!
Come, Crida, come." Up as from heavy sleep 122
The grey-hair'd giant raised his awful head;
As, after calmest waters, the swift leap
Of the strong torrent rushes to its bed,--
So the new passion seized and changed the form,
As if the rest had braced it for the storm.
No grief was in the iron of that brow; 123
Age cramp'd no sinew in that mighty arm;
"Go," he said sternly, "where it fits thee, thou:
Thy post with Odin--mine with Managarm![6]
Let priests avert the dangers kings must dare;
My shrine yon Standard, and my Children--_there_!"
So from the height he swept--as doth a cloud 124
That brings a tempest when it sinks below;
Swift strides a chief amidst the jarring crowd;
Swift in stern ranks the rent disorders grow;
Swift, as in sails becalm'd swells forth the wind,
The wide mass quickens with the one strong mind.
Meanwhile the victim, to the Demon vow'd, 125
Knelt; every thought wing'd for the Angel goal,
And ev'n the terror which the form had bow'd
Search'd but new sweetness where it shook the soul.
Self was forgot, and to the Eternal Ear
Prayer but for others spoke the human fear.
And when at moments from that rapt communion 126
With the Invisible Holy, those young arms
Clasp'd round her neck, to childhood's happy union
In the old days recall'd her; such sweet charms
Did Comfort weave, that in the sister's breast
Grief like an infant sobb'd itself to rest.
Up leapt the solemn priests from dull repose: 127
The fires were fann'd as with a sudden wind;
While shrieking loud, "Hark, hark, the conquering foes!
Haste, haste, the victim to the altar bind!"
Rush'd to the shrine the haggard Slaughter-Chief.--
As the strong gusts that whirl the fallen leaf
I' the month when wolves descend, the barbarous hands 128
Plunge on the prey of their delirious wrath,
Wrench'd from Genevra's clasp;--Lo, where she stands,
On earth no anchor,--is she less like Faith?
The same smile firmly sad, the same calm eye,
The same meek strength;--strength to forgive and die!
"Hear us, O Odin, in this last despair! 129
Hear us, and save!" the Pontiff call'd aloud;
"By the Child's blood we shed, thy children spare!"
And the knife glitter'd o'er the breast that bow'd.
Dropp'd blade;--fell priest!--blood chokes a gurgling groan;
Blood,--blood _not Christian_, dyes the altar-stone!
Deep in the DOOMER'S breast it sank--the dart; 130
As if from Fate it came invisibly;
Where is the hand?--from what dark hush shall start
Foeman or fiend?--no shape appalls the eye,
No sound the ear!--ice-lock'd each coward breath;
The Power the Deathsman call'd, hath heard him--Death!
"While yet the stupor stuns the circle there, 131
Fierce shrieks--loud feet--come rushing through the doors:
Women with outstretch'd arms and tossing hair,
And flying warriors, shake the solemn floors;
Thick as the birds storm-driven on the decks
Of some lone ship--the last an ocean wrecks.
And where on tumult, tumult whirl'd and roar'd, 132
Shrill'd cries, "The fires around us and behind,
And the last Fire-God and the Flaming-Sword!"[7]
And from without, like that destroying wind
In which the world shall perish, grides and sweeps
VICTORY--swift-cleaving through the battle deeps!--
VICTORY, by shouts of terrible rapture known, 133
Through crashing ranks it drives in iron rain;
Borne on the wings of fire it blazes on;
It halts its storm before the fortress fane;
And through the doors, and through the chinks of pine,
Flames its red breath upon the paling shrine.
Roused to their demon courage by the dread 134
Of the wild hour, the priests a voice have found;
To pious horror show their sacred dead,
Invoke the vengeance, and explore the ground,
When, like the fiend in monkish legends known,
Sprang a grim image on the altar-stone!
The wolf's hide bristled on the shaggy breast 135
Over the brows, the forest buffalo
With horn impending arm'd the grisly crest,
From which the swart eye sent its savage glow:
Long shall the Saxon dreams that shape recall,
And ghastly legends teem with tales of FAUL![8]
Needs here to tell, that when, at Merlin's hest, 136
Faul led to Harold's tent the Saxon maid,
The wrathful Thane had chased the skulking priest
From the paled ranks, that evil Bode[9] dismay'd:--
And the grim tidings of the rite to come
Flew lip to lip through that awed Heathendom.
Foretaught by Merlin of her mission there, 137
Scarce to her father's heart Genevra sprung
Than (while most soften'd) her impassion'd prayer
Pierced to its human deeps; and, roused and stung
By that keen pity, keenest in the brave,--
Strength felt why strength is given, and rush'd to save:--
Amidst those quick emotions half forgot, 138
Follow'd the tutor'd furtive Aleman;
On, when the portals crash'd, still heeded not,
Stole his light step behind the striding Thane.
From coign to shaft the practised glider crept,
A shadow, lost where shadows darkest slept.
And safe and screen'd the idol god behind, 139
He who once lurk'd to slay, kept watch to save;--
Now _there_ he stood! And the same altar shrined
The wild man, the wild god! and up the nave
Flight flow'd on flight; and near and loud, the name
Of "ARTHUR" borne as on a whirlwind came.
Down from the altar to the victim's side, 140
While yet shrunk back the priests--the savage leapt,
And with quick steel gash'd the strong cords that tied;
When round them both the rallying vengeance swept;
Raised every arm;--O joy!--the enchanted glaive
Shines o'er the threshold! is there time to save?
A torch whirls hissing through the air--it falls 141
Into the centre of the murderous throng!
Dread herald of dread steps! the conscious halls
Quake where the falchion flames and flies along;
Though crowd on crowd behold the falchion cleave!--
The Silver Shield rests over Genevieve!
Bright as the shape that smote the Assyrian, 142
The fulgent splendour from the arms divine
Paled the hell-fires round God's elected Man,
And burst like Truth upon the demon-shrine.
Among the thousands stood the Conquering One,
Still, lone, and unresisted as a sun!
Now through the doors, commingling side by side, 143
Saxon and Cymrian struggle hand in hand;
For there the war, in its fast ebbing tide,
Flings its last prey--there, Crida takes his stand;
There his co-monarchs hail a funeral pyre
That opes Walhalla from the grave of fire.
And as a tiger swept adown a flood 144
With meaner beasts, that dyes the howling water
Which whirls it onward, with a waste of blood,
And gripes a stay with fangs that leave the slaughter,--
So where halts Crida, groans and falls a foe--
And deep in gore his steps receding go.
And his large sword has made in reeking air 145
Broad space (through which, around the golden ring
That crownlike clasps the sweep of his grey hair,)
Shine the tall helms of many a Teuton king;
Lord of the West--broad-breasted Chevaline;
And Ymrick's son of Hengist's giant line;
Fierce Sibert, throned by Britain's kingliest river, 146
And Elrid, honour'd in Northumbrian homes;
And many a sire whose stubborn soul for ever
Shadows the fields where England's thunder comes.
High o'er them all his front grey Crida rears,
As some old oak whose crest a forest clears.
High o'er them all, that front fierce Arthur sees, 147
And knows the arch-invader of the land;
Swift through the chiefs--swift path his falchion frees;
Corpse falls on corpse before the avenger's hand;
For fair-hair'd AElla, Cantia's maids shall wail;
Hurl'd o'er the dead, rings Elrid's crashing mail;
His follower's arms stunn'd Sibert's might receive, 148
And from the death-blow snatch their bleeding lord;
And now behold, O fearful Genevieve,
O'er thy doom'd father shines the charmed sword,
And shaking, as it shone, the glorious blade,
The hand for very wrath the death delay'd.
"At last, at last we meet, on Cymri's soil; 149
And foot to foot! Destroyer of my shrines,
And murderer of my people! Ay, recoil
Before the doom thy quailing soul divines!
Ay--turn thine eyes,--nor hosts nor flight can save!
Thy foe is Arthur--and these halls thy grave!"
"Flight," laugh'd the king, whose glance had wander'd round, 150
Where through the throng had pierced a woman's cry,
"Flight for a chief, by Saxon warriors crown'd,
And from a Walloon!--this is my reply!"
And, both hands heaving up the sword enorme,
Swept the swift orbit round the luminous form;
Full on the gem the iron drives its course, 151
And shattering clinks in splinters on the floor;
The foot unsteadied by the blow's spent force,
Slides on the smoothness of the soil of gore;
Gore, quench the blood-thirst! guard, O soil, the guest!
For Freedom's heel is on the Invader's breast!
When, swift beneath the flashing of the blade, 152
When, swift before the bosom of the foe,
She sprang, she came, she knelt,--the guardian maid!
And startling vengeance from the righteous blow,
Cried, "Spare, oh spare, this sacred life to me,
A father's life!--I would have died for thee!"
While thus within, the Christian God prevails, 153
Without the idol temple, fast and far,
Like rolling storm-wrecks, shatter'd by the gales,
Fly the dark fragments of the Heathen War,
Where, through the fires that flash from camp to wave,
Escape the land that locks them in its grave?
When by the Hecla of their burning fleet 154
Dismay'd amidst the marts of Carduel,
The Saxons rush'd without the walls to meet
The Vikings' swords, which their mad terrors swell
Into a host--assaulted, rear and van,
The foe scarce smote before the flight began.
In vain were Harold's voice, and name, and deeds, 155
Unnerved by omen, priest, and shapeless fear,
And less by man than their own barbarous creeds
Appall'd,--a God in every shout they hear,
And in their blazing barks behold unfurl'd,
The wings of Muspell[10] to consume the world.
Yet still awhile the heart of the great Thane, 156
And the stout few that gird the gonfanon,
Build a steel bulwark on the midmost plain,
That stems all Cymri,--so Despair fights on.
When from the camp the new volcanoes spring,
With sword and fire he comes,--the Dragon King!
Then all, save Harold, shriek to Hope farewell; 157
Melts the last barrier; through the clearing space,
On towards the camp the Cymrian chiefs compel
The ardent followers from the tempting chase;
Through Crida's ranks to Arthur's side they gain,
And blend two streams in one resistless main.
True to his charge as chief, 'mid all disdain 158
Of recreant lithsmen--Harold's iron soul
Sees the storm sweep beyond it o'er the plain;
And lofty duties, yet on earth, control
The yearnings for Walhalla:--Where the day
Paled to the burning ships--he tower'd away.
And with him, mournful, drooping, rent and torn, 159
But captive not--the Pale Horse dragg'd its mane.
Beside the fire-reflecting waves, forlorn,
As ghosts that gaze on Phlegethon--the Thane
Saw listless leaning o'er the silent coasts,
The spectre wrecks of what at morn were hosts.
Tears rush'd to burning eyes, and choked awhile 160
The trumpet music of his manly voice,
At length he spoke: "And are ye then so vile!
A death of straw! Is that the Teuton's choice?
By all our gods, I hail that reddening sky,
And bless the burning fleets which flight deny!
"Lo, yet the thunder clothes the charger's mane, 161
As when it crested Hengist's helmet crown!
What ye have lost--an hour can yet regain;
Life has no path so short as to renown!
Shrunk if your ranks,--when first from Albion's shore
Your sires carved kingdoms, were their numbers more?
"If not your valour, let your terrors speak. 162
Where fly?--what path can lead ye from the foes?
Where hide?--what cavern will not vengeance seek?
What shun ye? Death?--Death smites ye in repose!
Back to your king: from Hela snatch the brave--
We best escape, when most we scorn, the grave."
Roused by the words, though half reluctant still, 163
The listless ranks reform their slow array,
Sullen but stern they labour up the hill,
And gain the brow!--In smouldering embers lay
The castled camp, and slanting sunbeams shed
Light o'er the victors--quiet o'er the dead.
Hush'd was the roar of war--the conquer'd ground 164
Waved with the glitter of the Cymrian spears;
The temple fort the Dragon standard crown'd;
And Christian anthems peal'd on Pagan ears;
The Mercian halts his bands--their front surveys;
No fierce eye kindles to his fiery gaze.
One dull, dishearten'd, but not dastard gloom 165
Clouds every brow,--like men compell'd to die,
Who see no hope that can elude the doom,
Prepared to fall but powerless to defy.
Not those the ranks, yon ardent hosts to face!
The Hour had conquer'd earth's all-conquering race.
The leader paused, and into artful show, 166
Doubling the numbers with extended wing;
"Here halt," he said, "to yonder hosts I go
With terms of peace or war to Cymri's king."
He turn'd, and towards the Victor's bright array,
With tromp and herald, strode his bitter way.
Before the signs to war's sublime belief 167
Sacred, the host disparts its hushing wave.
Moved by the sight of that renowned chief,
Joy stills the shout that might insult the brave;
And princeliest guides the stately foeman bring,
Where Odin's temple shrines the Christian king.
The North's fierce idol, roll'd in pools of blood, 168
Lies crush'd before the Cross of Nazareth.
Crouch'd on the splinter'd fragments of their god,
Silent as clouds from which the tempest's breath
Has gone,--the butchers of the priesthood rest.--
Each heavy brow bent o'er each stony breast.
Apart, the guards of Cymri stand around 169
The haught repose of captive Teuton kings;
With eyes disdainful of the chains that bound,
And fronts superb--as if defeat but flings
A kinglier grandeur over fallen power:--
So suns shine larger in their setting hour.
From these remote, unchain'd, unguarded, leant 170
On the gnarl'd pillar of the fort of pine,
The Saturn of the Titan armament,
His looks averted from the alter'd shrine
Whence iron Doom the antique Faith has hurl'd,
For that new Jove who dawns upon the world!
And one broad hand conceal'd the monarch's face; 171
And one lay calm on the low-bended head
Of the forgiving child, whose young embrace
Clasp'd that grey wreck of Empire! All had fled
The heart of pride:--Thrones, hosts, the gods! yea all
That scaled the heaven, strew'd Hades with their fall!
But Natural Love, the household melody, 172
Steals through the dearth,--resettling on the breast;
The bird returning with the silenced sky,
Sings in the ruin, and rebuilds its nest;
Home came the Soother that the storm exiled,--
And Crida's hand lay calm upon his child!
Beside her sister saint, Genevra kneeleth, 173
Mourning her father's in her Country's woes;
And near her, hushing iron footsteps, stealeth
The noblest knight the wondrous Table knows--
Whispering low comfort into thrilling ears--
When Harold's plume floats up the flash of spears.
But the proud Earl, with warning hand and eye, 174
Repels the yearning arms, the eager start;
Man amidst men, his haughty thoughts deny
To foes the triumph o'er his father's heart;
Quickly he turn'd--where shone amidst his ring
Of subject planets, the Hyperion King.
There Tristan grateful--Agrafayn uncouth, 175
And Owaine comely with the battle-scar,
And Geraint's lofty age, to venturous youth
Glory and guide, as to proud ships a star,
And Gawaine sober'd to his gravest smile,--
Lean on the spears that lighten through the pile.
There stood the stoic Alemen sedate, 176
Blocks hewn from man, which love with life inspired;
There, by the Cross, from eyes serene with Fate,
Look'd into space the Mage! and carnage-tired,
On AEgis shields, like Jove's still thunders, lay
Thine ocean giants, Scandinavia!
But lo, the front, where conquest's auriole 177
Shone, as round Genius marching at the van
Of nations;--where the victories of the soul
Stamp'd Nature's masterpiece, perfected Man:
Fair as young Honour's vision of a king
Fit for bold hearts to serve, free lips to sing!
So stood the Christian Prince in Odin's hall, 178
Gathering in one, Renown's converging rays;
But, in the hour of triumph, turn, from all
War's victor pomp, his memory and his gaze;
Miss that last boon the mission should achieve,
And rest where droops the dove-like Genevieve.
Now at the sight of Mercia's haughty lord, 179
A loftier grandeur calms yet more his brow;
And leaning lightly on his sheathless sword,
Listening he stood, while spoke the Earl:--"I bow
Not to war's fortune, but the victor's fame;
Thine is so large, it shields thy foes from shame.
"Prepared for battle, proffering peace I come; 180
On yonder hills eno' of Saxon steel
Remains, to match the Cymrian Christendom;
Not slaves with masters, men with men would deal.
We cannot leave your land, our chiefs in gyves,--
While chains gall Saxons, Saxon war survives.
"Our kings, our women, and our priests release, 181
And in their name I pledge (no mean return)
A ransom worthy of both nations--Peace;
Peace with the Teuton! On your hills shall burn
No more the beacon; on your fields no more
The steed of Hengist plunge its hoofs in gore.
"Peace while this race remains--(our sons, alas, 182
We cannot bind!) Peace with the Mercian men:
This is the ransom. Take it, and we pass
Friends from a foeman's soil: reject it,--then
Firm to this land we cling, as if our own,
Till the last Saxon falls, or Cymri's throne!"
Abrupt upon the audience dies the voice, 183
And varying passions stir the murmurous groups;
Here, to the wiser; there, the haughtier choice:
Youth rears its crest; but age foreboding droops;
Chiefs yearn for fame; the crowds to safety cling;
The murmurs hush, and thus replies the King:--
"Foe, thy proud speech offends no manly ear. 184
So would I speak, could our conditions change.
Peace gives no shame, where war has brought no fear;
We fought for freedom,--we disdain revenge;
The freedom won, no cause for war remains,
And loyal Honour binds more fast than chains.
"The Peace thus proffer'd, with accustom'd rites, 185
Hostage and oath, confirm, ye Teuton kings,
And ye are free! Where we, the Christians, fight,
Our Valkyrs sail with healing on their wings;
We shed no blood but for our fatherland!--
And so, frank soldier, take this soldier's hand!"
Low o'er that conquering hand, the high-soul'd foe 186
Bow'd the war plumed upon his raven crest;
Caught from those kingly words, one generous glow
Chased Hate's last twilight from each Cymrian breast;
Humbled, the captives hear the fetters fall,
Power's tranquil shadow--mercy, awes them all!
Dark scowl the Priests;--with vengeance priestcraft dies! 187
Slow looks, where Pride yet struggles, Crida rears;
On Crida's child rest Arthur's soft'ning eyes,
And Crida's child is weeping happy tears;
And Lancelot, closer at Genevra's side,
Pales at the compact that may lose the bride.
When from the altar by the holy rood, 188
Come the deep accents of the Cymrian Mage,
Sublimely bending o'er the multitude
Thought's Atlas temples crown'd with Titan age,
O'er Druid robes the beard's broad silver streams,
As when the vision rose on virgin dreams.
"Hearken, ye Scythia's and Cimmeria's sons, 189
Whose sires alike by golden rivers dwelt,
When sate the Asas on their hunter thrones;
When Orient vales rejoiced the shepherd Celt;
While EVE'S young races towards each other drawn,
Roved lingering round the Eden gates of dawn.
"Still the old brother-bond in these new homes, 190
After long woes shall bind your kindred races;
Here, the same God shall find the sacred domes;
And the same landmarks bound your resting-places,
What time, o'er realms to Heus and Thor unknown,
Both Celt and Saxon rear their common throne.
"Meanwhile, revere the Word the viewless Hand 191
Writes on the leaves of kingdom-dooming stars;
Through Prydain's Isle of Pines, from sea to land,
Where yet Rome's eagle leaves the thunder scars,
The sceptre sword of Saxon kings shall reach,
And new-born nations speak the Teuton's speech;
"All save thy mountain empire, Dragon King! 192
All save the Cymrian's Ararat--Wild Wales![11]
Here Cymrian bards to fame and God shall sing--
Here Cymrian freemen breathe the hardy gales,
And the same race that Heus the Guardian led,
Rise from these graves--when God awakes the dead!"
The Prophet paused, and all that pomp of plumes 193
Bow'd as the harvest which the south wind heaves,
When, while the breeze disturbs, the beam illumes,
And blessings gladden in the trembling sheaves.
He paused, and thus renew'd: "Thrice happy, ye
Founders of shrines and sires of kings to be!
"Hear, Harold, type of the strong Saxon soul, 194
Supple to truth, untameable by force,
Thy dauntless blood through Gwynedd's chiefs shall roll,[12]
Through Scotland's monarchs take its fiery course,
And flow with Arthur's, in the later days,
Through Ocean-Caesars, either zone obeys.
"Man of the manly heart, reward the foe 195
Who braved thy sword, and yet forbore thy breast,
Who loved thy child, yet could the love forego
And give the sire;--thy looks supply the rest,
I read thine answer in thy generous glance!
Stand forth--bold child of Christian Chevisaunce!"
Then might ye see a sight for smiles and tears, 196
Young Lancelot's hand in Harold's cordial grasp,
While from his breast the frank-eyed father rears
The cheek that glows beneath the arms that clasp;
"Shrink'st thou," he said, "from bonds by fate reveal'd?--
Go--rock my grandson in the Cymrian's shield!"
"And ye," the solemn voice resumed, "O kings! 197
Hearken, Pendragon, son of Odin, hear!
There is a mystery in the heart of things,
Which Truth and Falsehood seek alike with fear,
To Truth from heaven, to Falsehood, breathed from hell,
Comes yet to both the unquiet oracle.
"Not vainly, Crida, priest, and rune, and dream, 198
Warn'd thee of fates commingling into one
The silver river and the mountain stream;
From Odin's daughter and Pendragon's son,
Shall rise the royalties of farthest years
Born to the birthright of the Saxon spears.
"The bright decree that seem'd a curse to hate, 199
Blesses both races when fulfill'd by love;
From Cymri's Dragon England's power shall date,
And peace be born to Cymri from the Dove.[13]
Eternal links let nuptial garlands weave,
And Cymri's queen be Saxon Genevieve!"
Perplex'd, reluctant with the pangs of pride, 200
And shadowy doubts from dark religion thrown,
Stern Crida, lingering, turn'd his face aside;
Then rise the elders from the idle stone;
From fallen chains the kindred Teutons spring,
Low murmurs rustle round the moody king;
On priest and warrior, while they whisper, dwells 201
The searching light of that imperious eye;
Warrior and priest, the prophet word compels;
And overmasters like a destiny--
When towards the maid the radiant conqueror drew,
And said, "Enslaver, it is mine to sue!"
To Crida, then, "Proud chief, I do confess 202
The loftier attribute 'tis thine to boast.
The pride of kings is in the power to bless,
The kingliest hand is that which gives the most;
Priceless the gift I ask thee to bestow,--
But doubly royal is a generous foe!"
Then forth--subdued, yet stately, Crida came, 203
And the last hold in that rude heart was won:
"Hero, thy conquest makes no more my shame,
He shares thy glory who can call thee 'Son!'
So may this love-knot bind and bless the lands!"
Faltering he spoke--and join'd the plighted hands.
There flock the hosts as to a holy ground, 204
There, where the dove at last may fold the wing!
His mission ended, and his labours crown'd,
Fair as in fable stands the Dragon King--
Below the Cross, and by his prophet's side,
With Carduel's knighthood kneeling round his bride.
What gallant deeds in gentle lists were done, 205
What lutes made joyaunce sweet in jasmine bowers,
Let others tell:--Slow sets the summer sun;
Slow fall the mists, and closing, droop the flowers;
Faint in the gloaming dies the vesper bell,--
And Dream-land sleeps round golden Carduel.
NOTES TO BOOK XII.
1.--Page 417, stanza xl.
_"The watch-pass 'Vingolf' wins thee thro' the van._
Vingolf. Literally, "The Abode of Friends;" the name for the place
in which the heavenly goddesses assemble.
2.--Page 419, stanza liv.
_What rites appease thee, Father of the Slain?_
Father of the Slain, Valfader.--Odin.
3.--Page 420, stanza lxiv.
_Her sisters tremble at the Urdar spring._
"Her sisters tremble," &c.,--that is, the other two Fates (the Present
and the Past) tremble at the Well of Life.
4.--Page 424, stanza lxxxix.
_To all the valiant Gladsheim's Halls unclose._
Gladsheim, Heaven: Walhalla ("the Hall of the Chosen") did not exclude
brave foes who fell in battle.
5.--Page 425, stanza xcvi.
_The Laeca shines beside the bautasten._
The SCIN LAECA, or shining corpse, that was seen before the bautasten,
or burial-stone of a dead hero, was supposed to possess prophetic
powers, and to guard the treasures of the grave.
6.--Page 429, stanza cxxiii.
_Thy post with Odin--mine with Managarm!_
Managarm, the Monster Wolf (symbolically, WAR). "He will be filled
with the blood of men who draw near their end," &c. (PROSE EDDA).
7.--Page 430, stanza cxxxii.
_And the last Fire-God and the Flaming Sword!_
"And the last Fire-God and the Flaming Sword," _i.e._, Surtur the
genius, who dwells in the region of fire (Muspelheim), whose flaming
sword shall vanquish the gods themselves in the last day. (PROSE
EDDA).
8.--Page 431, stanza cxxxv.
_And ghastly legends teem with tales of FAUL!_
Faul is indeed the name of one of the malignant Powers peculiarly
dreaded by the Saxons.
9.--Page 431, stanza cxxxvi.
_From the paled ranks, that evil Bode dismay'd._
"Bode," Saxon word for Messenger.
10.--Page 433, stanza clv.
_The wings of Muspell to consume the world._
Muspell, Fire; the final destroyer.
11.--Page 439, stanza cxcii.
_All save the Cymrian's Ararat--Wild Wales!_
"Their Lord they shall praise,
And their language they shall preserve;
Their land they shall lose,
Except Wild Wales!"
PROPHECY OF TALIESSIN.
12.--Page 439, stanza cxciv.
_Thy dauntless blood through Gwynedd's chiefs shall roll._
This prediction refers to the marriage of the daughter of Griffith ap
Llewellyn (Prince of Gwynedd, or North Wales, whose name and fate are
not unfamiliar to those who have read the romance of "Harold, the last
of the Saxon Kings") with Fleance. From that marriage descended the
Stuarts, and indeed the reigning family of Great Britain.
13.--Page 440, stanza cxcix.
_From Cymri's Dragon England's power shall date,
And peace be born to Cymri from the Dove._
According to Welch genealogists, Arthur left no son: and I must
therefore invite the believer in Merlin's prophecy to suppose that it
was by a daughter that Arthur's line was continued, and the royalty of
Britain restored to the Cymrian kings, through the House of Tudor;
from the accession of which House may indeed be dated both the final
and cordial amalgamation of the Welch with the English, and the rise
of that power over the destinies of the civilized world, which England
has since established. The reader will pardon me, by the way, if I
have somewhat perplexed him, now and then, by a similarity between the
names of "Genevieve" and "Genevra." Both are used by the writers of
the French Fabliaux as synonymous with Guenever; and the more shrewd
will perhaps perceive that the reason why the name of Lancelot's
mistress has been made almost identical with that of Arthur's, is to
vindicate the fidelity of the Cymrian Queen Guenever from that scandal
which the levity of French romance has most improperly cast upon it,
in connection with Lancelot. It is to be presumed that those ancient
slanderers were misled by the confusion of names, and that it was his
own Genevra, and not Arthur's Genevieve, who received Lancelot's
homage.--But indeed my Lancelot is altogether a different personage
from the Lancelot represented in the Fabliaux as Arthur's nephew.
* * * * *
CORN-FLOWERS.
A COLLECTION OF POEMS.
"The Corn-flower opens as the sheaves are rife;
Song is the twin of golden Contemplation,
The Harvest-flower of life."
NOTE.
Most of the Poems in this First Book have been recently composed, and
hitherto unpublished; and those which have appeared before, have been,
some materially altered, all carefully revised.
In the Second Book some Poems were written in early life, and have been
but little altered; others--chiefly of a more thoughtful character--are
of later date, and are now printed for the first time.
CORN-FLOWERS.
BOOK I.
THE FIRST VIOLETS.
Who that has loved knows not the tender tale
Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell?
Whose youth has paused not, dreaming, in the vale
Where the rath violets dwell?
Lo, where they shrink along the lonely brake,
Under the leafless melancholy tree;
Not yet the cuckoo sings, nor glides the snake,
Nor wild thyme lures the bee;
Yet at their sight and scent entranced and thrall'd,
All June seems golden in the April skies;
How sweet the days we yearn for,--_till fulfill'd_:
O distant Paradise,
Dear Land to which Desire for ever flees;
Time doth no present to our grasp allow,
Say in the fix'd Eternal shall we seize
At last the fleeting Now?
Dream not of days to come--of that Unknown
Whither Hope wanders--maze without a clue;
Give their true witchery to the flowers;--thine own
Youth in their youth renew.
Avarice, remember when the cowslip's gold
Lured and yet lost its glitter in thy grasp.
Do thy hoards glad thee more than those of old?
_Those_ wither'd in thy clasp,
From _these_ thy clasp falls palsied.--It was then
That thou wert rich--thy coffers are a lie;
Alas, poor fool, Joy is the wealth of men,
And Care their penury.
Come, foil'd Ambition, what hast thou desired?
Empire and power?--O, wanderer, tempest-tost!
These once were thine, when life's gay spring inspired
Thy soul with glories lost.
Let the flowers charm thee back to that rich time
When golden Dreamland lay within thy chart,
When Love bestow'd a realm indeed sublime--
The boundless human heart.
Hark, hark again, the tread of bashful feet!
Hark the boughs rustling round the trysting-place!
Let air again with one dear breath be sweet,
Earth fair with one dear face.
Brief-lived first flowers--first love! The hours steal on
To prank the world in summer's pomp of hue,
But what can flaunt beneath a fiercer sun
Worth what we lose in you?
Oft by a flower, a leaf, in some loved book
We mark the lines that charm us most;--Retrace
Thy life;--recall its loveliest passage;--Look,
Dead violets keep the place!
THE IMAGE ON THE TIDE.
Not a sound is heard
But my heart by thine,
Breathe not a word,
Lay thy hand in mine.
How trembling, yet still,
On the lake's clear tide,
Sleep the distant hill,
And the bank beside.
The near and the far,
Intermingled flow;
The herb and the star
Imaged both below.
So deep and so clear,
Through the shadowy light,
The far and the near
In my soul unite;
The future and past,
Like the bank and hill,
On the surface glass'd,
Though they tremble still;
Disturb not the dream
Of this double whole;
The heav'n in the stream
On my soul thy soul.
The sense cannot count
(As the waters glass
The forest and mount
And the clouds that pass)
The shadows and gleams
In that stilly deep,
Like the tranquil dreams
Of a hermit's sleep.
_One_ shadow alone
On my soul doth fall,--
And yet in the one
It reflects on All.
IS IT ALL VANITY?
Doubting of life, my spirit paused perplext
Let fall its fardell of laborious care,
And the sharp cry of my great trouble vext
Unsympathizing air.
Out on this choice of unrewarded toil,
This upward path into the realm of snow!
Oh for one glimpse of the old happy soil
Fragrant with flowers below!
For what false gold, like alchemists, we yearn,
Wasting the wealth we never can recall,
Joy and life's lavish prime;--and our return?
Ashes, cold ashes, all!
Could youth but dream what narrow burial-urns
Hopes that went forth to conquer worlds should hold,
How in a tomb the lamp Experience burns
Amidst the dust of old!--
Look back, how all the beautiful Ideal,
Sporting in doubtful moonlight, one by one
Fade from the rising of the hard-eyed Real,
Like Fairies from the sun.
Love render'd saintlike by its pure devotion;
Knowledge exulting lone by shoreless seas
And Feelings tremulous to each emotion,
As May leaves to the breeze.
And, oh, that grand Ambition, poet-nurst,
When boyhood's heart swells up to the Sublime,
And on the gaze the towers of Glory first
Flash from the peaks of Time!
Are they then wiser who but nurse the growth
Of joys in life's most common element,
Creeping from hour to hour in that calm sloth
Which Egoists call "Content?"
Who freight for storms no hopeful argosy,
Who watch no beacon wane on hilltops grey,
Who bound their all, where from the human eye
The horizon fades away?
Alas for Labour, if indeed more wise
To drink life's tide unwitting where it flows;
Renounce the arduous palm, and only prize
The Cnidian vine and rose!
Out from the Porch the Stoic cries "For shame!"
What hast thou left us, Stoic, in thy school?
"That pain or pleasure is but in the name?"
Go, prick thy finger, fool!
Never grave Pallas, never Muse severe
Charm'd this hard life like the free, zoneless Grace;
Pleasure is sweet, in spite of every sneer
On Zeno's wrinkled face.
What gain'd and left ye to this age of ours
Ye early priesthoods of the Isis, Truth,--
When light first glimmer'd from the Cuthite's towers;
When Thebes was in her youth?
When to the weird Chaldaean spoke the seer,
When Hades open'd at Heraclean spells,
When Fate made Nature her interpreter
In leaves and murmuring wells?
When the keen Greek chased flying Science on,
Upward and up the infinite abyss?--
Like perish'd stars your arts themselves have gone
Noiseless to nothingness!
And what is knowledge but the Wizard's ring,
Kindling a flame to circumscribe a ground?
The belt of light that lures the spirit's wing
Hems the invoker round.
Ponder and ask again "what boots our toil?"
Can we the Garden's wanton child gainsay,
When from kind lips he culls their rosy spoil
And lives life's holiday?
Life answers "No--if ended here be life,
Seize what the sense can give--it is thine all;
Disarm thee, Virtue, barren is thy strife;
Knowledge, thy torch let fall.
"Seek thy lost Psyche, yearning Love, no more!
Love is but lust, if soul be only breath;
Who would put forth one billow from the shore
If the great sea be--Death?"
But if the soul, that slow artificer
For ends its instinct rears _from_ life hath striven,
Feeling beneath its patient webwork stir
Wings only freed in Heaven,
_Then_ and but then to toil is to be wise;
Solved is the riddle of the grand desire
Which ever, ever, for the Distant sighs,
And must perforce aspire.
Rise, then, my soul, take comfort from thy sorrow;
Thou feel'st thy treasure when thou feel'st thy load;
Life without thought, the day without the morrow,
God on the brute bestow'd;
Longings obscure as for a native clime,
Flight from what is to live in what may be,
God gave the Soul.--Thy discontent with Time
Proves thine eternity.
THE TRUE JOY-GIVER.
Oh Oevoe, _liber Pater_,
Oh, the vintage feast divine,
When the God was in the bosom
And his rapture in the wine;
When the Faun laugh'd out at morning;
When the Maenad hymn'd the night;
And the Earth itself was drunken
With the worship of delight;
Oh Oevoe, _liber Pater_,
Whose orgies are upon
The hilltops of Parnassus,
The banks of Helicon;--
How often have I hail'd thee!
How often have I been
The bearer of the thyrsus,
When its wither'd leaves were green.
Then the boughs were purple gleaming
With the dewdrop and the star;
And chanting came the wood-nymph,
And flashing came the car.
Long faded are the garlands
Of the thyrsus that I bore,
When the wood-nymph chanted "Follow"
In the vintage-feast of yore.
My vineyards are the richest
Falernian slopes bestow;
Has the vineherd lost his cunning?
Has the summer lost its glow?
Oh, never on Falernium
The Care-Dispeller trod,
Its vine-leaves wreathe no thyrsus,
Its fruits allure no god.
For ever young, Lyaeus;
For ever young his priest;
The Boy-god of the Morning,
The conqueror of the East,
His wine is Nature's life-blood;
His vineyards bloom upon
The hilltops of Parnassus,
The banks of Helicon.
But the hilltops of Parnassus
Are free to every age;
I have trod them with the Poet,
I have mapp'd them with the Sage;
And I'll take my pert disciple
To see, with humble eyes,
How the Gladness-bringer honours
The worship of the wise.
Lo, the arching of the vine-leaves;
Lo, the sparkle of the fount;
Hark, the carol of the Maenads;
Lo, the car is on the Mount!
"Ho, room, ye thyrsus-bearers,
Your playmate I have been!"
"Go, madman," laughs Lyaeus,
"Thy thyrsus then was green."
And adown the gleaming alleys
The gladness-givers glide;
And the wood-nymph murmurs "Follow,"
To the young man by my side.
BELIEF; THE UNKNOWN LANGUAGE.
AN IDYLL.
By summer-reeds a music murmur'd low,
And straight the Shepherd-age came back to me;
When idylls breathed where Himera's waters flow,
Or on the Hoemus hill, or Rhodope;[A]
As when the swans, by Moschus heard at noon,
Mourn'd their lost Bion on the Thracian streams;[B]
Or when Simaethea murmur'd to the moon
Of Myndian Delphis,[C]--old Sicilian themes.
Then softly turning, on the margent-slope
Which back as clear translucent waters gave,
Behold, a Shape as beautiful as Hope,
And calm as Grief, bent, singing o'er the wave.
To the sweet lips, sweet music seem'd a thing
Natural as perfume to the violet.
All else was silent; not a zephyr's wing
Stirr'd from the magic of the charmer's net.
What was the sense beneath the silver tone?
What the fine chain that link'd the floating measure?
Not mine, to say,--the language was unknown,
And sense was lost in undistinguish'd pleasure.
Pleasure, dim-shadow'd with a gentle pain
As twilight Hesper with a twilight shroud;
Or like the balm of a delicious rain
Press'd from the fleeces of a summer cloud.
When the song ceased, I knelt before the singer
And raised my looks to soft and childlike eyes,
Sighing? "What fountain, O thou nectar-bringer
Feeds thy full urn with golden melodies?
"Interpret sounds, O Hebe of the soul,
Oft heard, methinks, in Ida's starry grove,
When to thy feet the charmed eagle stole,
And the dark thunder left the brows of Jove!"
Smiling, the Beautiful replied to me,
And still the language flow'd in words unknown;
Only in those pure eyes my sense could see
How calm the soul that so perplex'd my own.
And while she spoke, symphonious murmurs rose;
Dryads from trees, Nymphs murmur'd from the rills;
Murmur'd Maenalian Pan from dim repose
In the lush coverts of Pelasgic hills;
Murmur'd the voice of Chloris in the flower;
Bent, murmuring from his car, Hyperion;
Each thing regain'd the old Presiding Power,
And spoke,--and still the language was unknown.
Dull listener, placed amidst the harmonious Whole,
Hear'st thou no voice to sense divinely dark?
The sweetest sounds that wander to the soul
Are in the Unknown Language.--Pause, and hark!
[A] Theocrit. Id. 7.
[B] Mosch, Id. 3; Epitaph on Bion.
[C] Theocrit. Id. 2.
THE PILGRIM OF THE DESERT.
Wearily flaggeth my Soul in the Desert;
Wearily, wearily.
Sand, ever sand, not a gleam of the fountain;
Sun, ever sun, not a shade from the mountain;
Wave after wave flows the sea of the Desert,
Drearily, drearily.
Life dwelt with life in my far native valleys,
Nightly and daily;
Labour had brothers to aid and beguile;
A tear for my tear, and a smile for my smile;
And the sweet human voices rang out; and the valleys
Echoed them gaily.
Under the almond-tree, once in the spring-time,
Careless reclining;
The sigh of my Leila was hush'd on my breast,
As the note of the last bird had died in its nest;
Calm look'd the stars on the buds of the spring-time,
Calm--but how shining!
Below on the herbage there darken'd a shadow;
Stirr'd the boughs o'er me;
Dropp'd from the almond-tree, sighing, the blossom;
Trembling the maiden sprang up from my bosom;
Then the step of a stranger came mute through the shadow,
Pausing before me.
He stood grey with age in the robe of a Dervise,
As a king awe-compelling;
And the cold of his eye like the diamond was bright,
As if years from the hardness had fashion'd the light,
"A draught from thy spring for the way-weary Dervise,
And rest in thy dwelling."
And my herds gave the milk, and my tent gave the shelter;
And the stranger spell-bound me
With his tales, all the night, of the far world of wonder,
Of the ocean of Oman with pearls gleaming under;
And I thought, "O, how mean are the tents' simple shelter
And the valleys around me!"
I seized as I listen'd, in fancy, the treasures
By Afrites conceal'd;
Scared the serpents that watch in the ruins afar
O'er the hoards of the Persian in lost Chil-Menar;--
Alas! ill that night happy youth had more treasures
Than Ormus can yield.
Morn came, and I went with my guest through the gorges
In the rock hollow'd;
The flocks bleated low as I pass'd them ungrieving,
The almond-buds strew'd the sweet earth I was leaving;
Slowly went Age through the gloom of the gorges,
Lightly Youth follow'd.
We won through the Pass--the Unknown lay before me,
Sun-lighted and wide;
Then I turn'd to my guest, but how languid his tread,
And the awe I had felt in his presence was fled,
And I cried, "Can thy age in the journey before me
Still keep by my side?"
"Hope and Wisdom soon part; be it so," said the Dervise,
"My mission is done."
As he spoke, came the gleam of the crescent and spear,
Chimed the bells of the camel more sweet and more near;--
"Go, and march with the Caravan, youth," sigh'd the Dervise,
"Fare thee well!"--he was gone.
What profits to speak of the wastes I have traversed
Since that early time?
One by one the procession, replacing the guide,
Have dropp'd on the sands, or have stray'd from my side;
And I hear never more in the solitudes traversed
The camel-bell's chime.
How oft I have yearn'd for the old happy valley,
But the sands have no track;
He who scorn'd what was near must advance to the far,
Who forsaketh the landmark must march by the star,
And the steps that once part from the peace of the valley
Can never come back.
So on, ever on, spreads the path of the Desert,
Wearily, wearily;
Sand, ever sand--not a gleam of the fountain;
Sun, ever sun--not a shade from the mountain;
As a sea on a sea, flows the width of the Desert,
Drearily, drearily.
How narrow content, and how infinite knowledge!
Lost vale, and lost maiden!
Enclosed in the garden the mortal was blest:
A world with its wonders lay round him unguest;
That world was his own when he tasted of knowledge--
Was it worth Aden?
THE KING AND THE WRAITH.
KING.
Who art thou, who art thou, indistinct as the spray
Rising up from a torrent in vapour and cloud?
Ghastly Phantom, obscuring the splendour of day
And enveloped in awe, as a corpse with a shroud?
WRAITH.
King, my form is thy shade,
And my life is thy breath;
Lo, thy likeness display'd
In the mirror of Death!
KING.
My veins are as ice! 'Tis my voice that I hear!
'Tis my form coming forth from the cloud that I see!
My voice?--can its sound be so dread to my ear?
My form?--can myself be so loathly to me?
WRAITH.
Never Man comes in sight
Of himself till the last;
In the flicker of light
When the fuel is past!
KING.
Nay, avaunt, lying Spectre, my fears are dispell'd,
For the likeness that fool'd me is fading away,
And I see, where the shape of a king was beheld,
But the coil of an earthworm that creeps into clay.
WRAITH.
As thy shade I began;
As thyself I depart;
And thy last looks, O Man,
See the worm that thou art!
LOVE AND DEATH.
O Strong as the eagle,
O mild as the dove,
How like and how unlike
O Death and O Love!
Knitting earth to the heaven,
The near to the far,
With the step in the dust,
And the eye on the star.
Ever changing your symbols
Of light or of gloom;
Now the rue on the altar,
The rose on the tomb.
From Love, if the infant
Receiveth his breath,
The love that gave life
Yields a subject to Death.
When Death smites the aged,
Escaping above
Flies the soul re-deliver'd
By Death unto Love.
And therefore in wailing
We enter on life;
And therefore in smiling
Depart from its strife.
Thus Love is best known
By the tears it has shed;
And Death's surest sign
Is the smile of the dead.
The purer the spirit,
The clearer its view,
The more it confoundeth
The shapes of the two;
For, if thou lov'st truly,
Thou canst not dissever
The grave from the altar,
The Now from the Ever;
And if, nobly hoping,
Thou gazest above,
In Death thou beholdest
The aspect of LOVE.
THE POET TO THE DEAD.
PART I.
RETROSPECTION FROM THE HALTING-PLACE.
Let me pause, for I am weary,
Weary of the trodden ways;
And the landscape spreads more dreary
Where it stretches from my gaze.
Many a prize I deem'd a blessing
When I started for the goal,
Midway in the course possessing
Adds a burthen to the soul.
By the thorn that scantly shadeth
From the sloped sun reclin'd,
Let me look, before it fadeth
On the eastern hill behind;--
On the hill that life ascended,
While the dewy morn was young;
While the mist with light contended
And the early skylark sung.
Then, as when at first united,
Rose together Love and Day;
Nature with her sun was lighted,
And my soul with Viola!
O my young earth's lost Immortal!
Naiad vanish'd from the streams!
Eve, torn from me at the portal
Of my Paradise of Dreams!
On thy name, with lips that quiver,
With a voice that chokes, I call.--
Well! the cave may hide the river,
But the ocean merges all.
Yet, if but in self-deceiving,
Can no magic charm thy shade?
Come unto my human grieving,
Come, but as the human maid!
By the fount where love was plighted
Where the lone wave glass'd the skies;
By the hands that once united;
By the welcome of the eyes;
By the silence sweetly broken
When the full heart murmur'd low,
And with sighs the words were spoken
Ere the later tears did flow;
By the blush and soft confession;
By the wanderings side by side;
By the love-denied possession;
And the heavenlier, so denied;
By the faith yet undiverted;
By the worship sacred yet;
To the soul so long deserted,
Come, as when of old we met;
Blooming as my youth beheld thee
In the trysting-place of yore,--
Hark a footfall! I have spell'd thee,
Lo, thy living smile once more!
PART II.
THE MEETING-PLACE OF OLD.
Glides the brooklet through the rushes,
Now with dipping boughs at play,
Now with quicker music-gushes
Where the pebbles chafe the way.
Lonely from the lonely meadows
Slopes the undulating hill;
And the slowness of its shadows
But at sunset gains the rill:
Not a sign of man's existence,
Not a glimpse of man's abode,
Yet the church-spire in the distance
Links the solitude with God.
All so quiet, all so glowing,
In the golden hush of noon;
Nature's still heart overflowing
From the breathless lips of June.
Song itself the bird forsaketh,
Save from wooded deeps remote,
Mellowly and singly breaketh,
Mellowly, the cuckoo's note.
'Tis the scene where youth beheld thee;
'Tis the trysting-place of yore;
Yes, my mighty grief hath spell'd thee,
Blooming--living--mine once more!
PART III.
LOVE UNTO DEATH.
Hand in hand we stood confiding,
Boy and maiden, hand in hand,
Where the path, in twain dividing,
Reach'd the Undiscover'd Land.
Oh, the Hebe then beside me,
Oh, the embodied Dream of Youth,
With an angel's soul to guide me,
And a woman's heart to soothe!
Like the Morning in the gladness
Of the smile that lit the skies;
Liker Twilight in the sadness
Lurking deep in starry eyes!
Gaudier flowerets had effaced thee
In the formal garden set;
Nature in the shade had placed thee
With thy kindred violet;
As the violet to completeness
Coming even ere the day;
All thy life a silent sweetness
Waning with a warmer ray.
So, upon the verge of sorrow
Stood we, blindly, hand in hand,
Whispering of a happy morrow
In that undiscover'd land.
Thou, O meek one, fame foretelling,
Grown ambitious but for me;
While my heart, if proudly swelling,
Beat--ah, not for Fame, but thee!
In that summer-noon we parted,
Life redundant over all.
Once again--O broken-hearted--
When the autumn leaves did fall,
Meeting--life from life to sever!
Parting,--as depart the dead,
When the dark "Farewell for ever,"
Fades from marble lips, unsaid;
As upon a bark that slowly
Lessens lone adown the sea,
Looks abandon'd Melancholy--
Did thy still eyes follow me!
Wilful in thy self devotion,
Patient on the desert shore,
Gazing, gazing, till from ocean
Waned thy last hope evermore.
Gentle victim, they might bind thee,
But to fetter was to slay;
As a statue they enshrined thee,
At a sepulchre to pray;
Bade the bloodless lips not falter;
Bade the cold despair be brave;
Yes, the next morn at the altar!
But the next moon in the grave!
Little dream'd they when they bore thee
To the nuptial funeral shrine,
That to ME they did restore thee,
And release thy soul to mine!
Well thy noble heart might smother
Nature's agonizing cry,
What can perjure to another
Faith--if firm eno' to die!
Yet can ev'n the grave regain thee?
Gain as human love would see?
Darling--Pardon, I profane thee;
Angel, bend and comfort me!
PART IV.
LOVE AFTER DEATH.
Cold the loiterer who refuseth
At the well of life to drink,
Till the wave a sparkle loseth,
And the silver cord a link.
But the flagging of the forces
In the journey of the soul,
If the first draught waste the sources,
If the first touch break the bowl!--
On the surface bright with pleasure
Still thy distant shade was cast;
Ah! the heart was where the treasure,
And the Present with the Past.
If from Fame, the all-deceiver,
Toil contending garlands sought,
Oft our force if but our fever,
And our swiftness flight from Thought.
Hollow Pleasure, vain Ambition,
Give me back the impulse free--
Hope that seem'd its own fruition,
Life contented but to be,
When the earth with Heaven was haunted
In the shepherd age of gold,
And the Venus rose enchanted
From the sunny seas of old.
Cease, not mine the ignoble moral
Of an unresisted grief;
Can the lightning sear the laurel,
Or the winter fade its leaf?
Flowerless, fruitless, to the dying,
Green as when the sap began,
Bolt and winter both defying,--
So be manhood unto man.
Once I wander'd forth dejected
In the later times of gloom;
And the icy moon reflected
_One_ still shadow o'er thy tomb.
There, in desolation kneeling,
Snows around me, stars above,
Came that second world of feeling,
Came that second birth of Love,
When regret grows aspiration,
When o'er chaos moves the breath;
And a new-born dim creation
Rising, wid'ning, dawns from death.
Then methought my soul was lifted
From the anguish and the strife;
With a finer vision gifted
For the Spirituals of Life;
For the links that, while they thrall us,
Upward mount in just degree,
Knitting even, if they gall us,
Life to Immortality;
For the subtler glories blending
With the common air we know,
Ansel hosts to heaven ascending
Up the ladder based below.
Straight each harsher iron duty
Did the sudden light illume;
Oh, what streams of solemn beauty
Take their sources in the tomb!
PART V.
THE PANTHEISM OF LOVE PASSING INTO THE IDEAL.
Then I rose, at dawn departing,
Wan the dead earth, wan the snow,
Wan the frost-beam dimly darting
Where the corn-seed lurk'd below;
From that night, as streams dividing
At the fountain till the sea,
Wildly chafing, gently gliding,
Life has twofold lives for me;
One by mart and forum passing,
Vex'd reflection of the crowd;
One the hush of forests glassing,
Or the changes of the cloud.
By the calmer stream, for ever
Dwell the ghosts that haunt the heart,
And the phantoms and the river
Make the Poet-World of Art.
There in all that Fancy gildeth,
Still thy vanish'd smile I see;
And each airy hall it buildeth
Is a votive shrine to thee!
Do men praise the labour?--gladden'd
That the homage may endure;
Do they scorn it?--only sadden'd
That thine altar is so poor.
If the Beautiful be clearer
As the seeker's days decline,
Should the Ideal not be nearer
As my soul approaches thine?
Thus the single light bereft me
Fused through all creation flows;
Gazing where a sun had left me,
Lo, the myriad stars arose!
PART VI.
THE MEMORY OF LOVE ASSOCIATES ITS CONSOLATIONS WITH ITS HOPES.
Now the eastern hill-top fadeth
From the arid wastes forlorn,
And the only tree that shadeth
Has the scant leaves of the thorn.
Not a home to smile before me,
Not a voice to cheer is heard;
Hush! the thorn-leaves tremble o'er me,--
Hark, the carol of a bird!
Unto air what charm is given?
Angel, as a link to thee,
Midway between earth and heaven
Hangs the delicate melody!
How it teacheth while it chideth,
Is the pathway so forlorn?
Mercy over man presideth,
And--the bird sings from the thorn.
Floating on, the music leads me,
As the pausing-place I leave,
And the gentle wing precedes me
Through the lulled airs of eve.
Stay, O last of all the number,
Bathing happy plumes in light,
Till the deafness of the slumber,
Till the blindness of the night.
Only for the vault to leave thee,
Only with my life to lose;
Let my closing eyes perceive thee,
Fold thy wings amid the yews.
MIND AND SOUL.
Hark! the awe-whisperd'd prayer, "God spare my mind!"
Dust unto dust, the mortal to the clod;
But the high place, the altar that has shrined
Thine image,--spare, O God!
Thought, the grand link from human life to Thee,
The humble reed that by the Shadowy River
Responds in music to the melody
Of spheres that hymn for ever,--
The order of the mystic world within,
The airy girth of all things near and far;
Sense, though of sorrow,--memory, though of sin,--
Gleams through the dungeon bar,--
Vouchsafe me to the last!--Though none may mark
The solemn pang, nor soothe the parting breath,
Still let me seek for God amid the dark,
And face, unblinded, Death!
Whence is this fine distinction twixt the twain
Rays of the Maker in the lamp of clay
Spirit and Mind?--strike the material brain,
And soul seems hurl'd away.
Touch but a nerve, and Brutus is a slave;
A nerve, and Plato drivels! Was it mind,
Or soul, that taught the wise one in the cave,
The freeman in the wind?
If mind--O Soul! what is thy task on earth?
If soul! O wherefore can a touch destroy,
Or lock in Lethe's Acherontian dearth,
The Immortal's grief and joy?
Hark, how a child can babble of the cells
Wherein, beneath the perishable brow,
Fancy invents, and Memory chronicles,
And Reason asks--as now:
Mapp'd are the known dominions of the thought,
But who shall find the palace of the soul?
Along what channels shall the source be sought,
The well-spring of the whole?
Look round, vain questioner,--all space survey,
Where'er thou lookest, lo, how clear is Mind!
The laws that part the darkness from the day,
And the sweet Pleiads bind,
The thought, the will, the art, the elaborate power
Of the Great Cause from whence the All began,
Gaze on the star, or bend above the flower,
Still speak of Mind to man.
But the arch soul of soul--from which the law
Is but the shadow, who on earth can see?
What guess cleaves upward through the deeps of awe,
Unspeakable, to thee?
As in Creation lives the Father Soul,
So lives the soul He breathed amidst the clay;
Round it the thoughts on starry axles roll,
Life flows and ebbs away.
If chaos smote the universe again,
And new Chaldeans shudder'd to explore
Amidst the maddening elements in vain
The harmonious Mind of yore,
Would not God live the same?--the Unseen Spirit,
Whether that life or wills or wrecks Creation?--
So lives, distinct, the god-spark we inherit,
When Mind is desolation.
THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.
From Heaven what fancy stole
The dream of some good spirit, aye at hand,
The seraph whispering to the exile soul
Tales of its native land?
Who to the cradle gave
The unseen watcher by the mother's side,
Born with the birth, companion to the grave,
The holy angel-guide?
Is it a fable?--"No,"
I hear LOVE answer from the sunlit air,
"Still where _my_ presence gilds the darkness--know
Life's angel-guide is there?"
Is it a fable?--Hark,
FAITH hymns from deeps beyond the palest star,
"_I_ am the pilot to thy wandering bark,
Thy guide to shores afar."
Is it a fable?--sweet
From wave, from air, from every forest tree,
The murmur spoke, "Each thing thine eyes can greet
An angel-guide can be.
"From myriads take thy choice,
In all that lives a guide to God is given;
Ever thou hear'st some angel guardian's voice
When Nature speaks of Heaven!"
THE LOVE OF MATURER YEARS.
Nay, soother, do not dream thine art
Can altar Nature's stern decree;
Or give me back the younger heart,
Whose tablets had been clear to thee.
Why seek, fair child, to pierce the dark
That wraps the giant wrecks of old?
Thou wert not with me in the ark,
When o'er my life the deluge roll'd.
To thee, reclining by the verge,
The careless waves in music flow
To me the ripple sighs the dirge
Of my lost native world below.
Her tranquil arch as Iris builds
Above the Anio's torrent roar,
Thy life is in the life it gilds,
Born of the wave it trembles o'er.
For thee a glory leaves the skies
If from thy side a step depart;
Thy sunlight beams from human eyes,
Thy world is in one human heart.
And in the woman's simple creed
Since first the helpmate's task began,
Thou ask'st what more than love should need
The stern insatiate soul of Man.
No more, while youth with vernal gale
Breathes o'er the brief Arcadia still;--
But when the Wanderer quits the vale,
But when the footstep scales the hill,
But when with awe the wide expanse,
The Pilgrim's earnest eyes explore,
How shrinks the land of sweet Romance,
A speck--it was the world before!
And, hark, the Dorian fifes succeed
The pastoral reeds of Arcady:
Lo, where the Spartan meets the Mede,
Near Tempe lies--Thermopyle!
Each onward step in hardy life,
Each scene that memory halts to scan,
Demands the toil, records the strife,--
And love but once is all to man.
Weep'st thou, fair infant, wherefore weep?
Long ages since the Persian sung
"The zephyr to the rose should keep,
And youth should only love the young."
Ay, lift those chiding eyes of thine;
The trite, ungenerous moral scorn!
The diamond's home is in the mine,
The violet's birth beneath the thorn;
There, purer light the diamond gives
Than when to baubles shaped the ray;
There, safe at least the violet lives
From hands that clasp--to cast away.
Bloom still beside the mournful heart,
Light still the caves denied the star;
Oh Eve, with Eden pleased to part,
Since Eden needs no comforter!
My soft Arcadian, from thy bower
I hear thy music on the hill;
And bless the note for many an hour
When I too--am Arcadian still.
Whene'er the face of Heaven appears,
As kind as once it smiled on me,
I'll steal adown the mount of years,
And come--a youth once more, to thee.
From bitter grief and iron wrong
When Memory sets her captive free,
When joy is in the skylark's song,
My blithesome steps shall bound to thee;
When Thought, the storm-bird, shrinks before
The width of nature's clouded sea,
A voice shall charm it home on shore,
To share the halcyon's nest with thee:
Lo, how the faithful verse escapes
The varying chime that laws decree,
And, like my heart, attracted, shapes
Each wandering fancy back--to _thee_.
THE EVERLASTING GRAVE-DIGGER.
Methought I stood amidst a burial-place
And saw a phantom ply the sexton's trade,
Pale o'er the charnel bow'd the phantom's face,
Noiseless the phantom spade
Gleam'd in the stars.
Wondering I ask'd, "Whose grave dost thou prepare?"
The labouring ghost disdainful paused and said,
"To dig the grave is Death my father's care,
I disinter the dead
Under the stars."
Therewith he cast a skull before my feet,
A skull with worms encircled, and a crown,
And mouldering shreds of Beauty's winding-sheet.
Chilling and cheerless down
Shimmer'd the stars.
"And of the Past," I sigh'd, "are these alone
The things disburied? spare the dread repose,
Or bring once more the monarch to his throne,
To Beauty's cheek the rose."
Cloud wrapt the stars,
While the pale sexton answer'd, "Fool, away!
Thou ask'st of Memory that which Faith must give;
Mine is the task to disinter the clay,
Hers to bid life revive,"--
Cloud left the stars.
THE DISPUTE OE THE POETS.
An idyll scene of happy Sicily!
Out from its sacred grove on grassy slopes
Smiles a fair temple, vow'd to some sweet Power
Of Nature deified. In broad degrees
From flower-wreath'd porticos the shining stairs,
Through tiers of Myrtle in Corinthian urns,
Glide to the shimmer of an argent lake.
Calm rest the swans upon the glassy wave,
Save where the younger cygnets, newly-pair'd,
Through floating brakes of water-lilies, sail
Slowly in sunlight down to islets dim.
But farther on, the lake subsides away
Into the lapsing of a shadowy rill
Melodious with the chime of falls as sweet
As (heard by Pan in Arethusan glades)
The silvery talk of meeting Naiades.
Where cool the sunbeam slants through ilex-boughs,
The fane above them and the rill below,
Two forms recline; nor, e'er in Arcady
Did fairer Manhood win an Oread's love,
Or lift diviner brows to earliest stars.
The one of brighter hues, and darker curls
Clustering and purple as the fruit o' the vine,
Seem'd like that Summer-Idol of rich life
Whom sensuous Greece, inebriate with delight,
From Orient myth and symbol-worship brought
To blue Cithaeron blithe with bounding faun
And wood-nymph wild,--Nature's young Lord, Iacchus!
Bent o'er the sparkling brook, with careless hand
From sedge or sward, he pluck'd or reed or flower,
Casting away light wreaths on playful waves;
While,--as the curious ripple murmur'd round
Its odorous prey, and eddying whirl'd it on
O'er pebbles glancing sheen to sunny falls,--
He laugh'd, as childhood laughs, in such frank glee
The very leaves upon the ilex danced
Joyous, as at some mirthful wind in May.
The other, though the younger, more serene,
And to the casual gaze severer far,
To that bright comrade-shape; by contrast seem'd
As serious Morn, star-crown'd on Spartan hills,
To Noon, when hyacinths flush through Enna's vales,
Or murmurous winglets hum 'mid Indian palms.
Such beauty his as the first Dorian bore
From the far birthplace of Homeric men,
Beyond the steeps of Boreal Thessaly,
When to the swart Pelasgic Autocthon
The blue-eyed Pallas came with lifted spear,
And, her twin type of the fair-featured North.
Phoebus, the archer with the golden hair.
Bright was the one as Syrian Adon-ai,
Charming the goddess born from roseate seas;
And while the other, leaning on his lyre,
Lifted the azure light of earnest eyes
From flower and wave to the remotest hill
On which the soft horizon melted down,
Ev'n so methought had gazed Endymion,
With looks estranged from the luxuriant day,
To the far Latmos steep--where holy dreams
Nightly renew'd the kisses of the Moon.
Entranced I stood, and held my breath to hear
The words that seem'd to warm upon their lips,
As if such contest as two Nightingales
Wage, emulous in music, on the peace
That surely dwelt between them, had anon
Forced its mellifluous anger:--
Then I learn'd
That the fair Two were orphans, rear'd to youth
Song and the lyre, where ringdoves coo remote,
And loitering bees cull sweets in Hyblan dells:
And that their discord, as their union, grew
Out of their rivalry in lyre and song.
Therewith did each in the accustom'd war
Of pastoral singers in Sicilian noons
Strive for his Right--(O Memory aid me now!)
In the sweet quarrel of alternate hymns.
ANTHIOS.
As the sunlight that plays on a stream,
As the zephyr that rustles a leaf,
On my soul comes the joy of the beam,
And a zephyr can stir it to grief.
Whether pleasure or pain be decreed,
My voice but in music is heard;
By the sunny wave murmurs the reed;
From the sighing leaf carols the bird.--
LYKEGENES.
Unto her hierarch Nature's voices come
But through the labyrinthine cells of Thought,
Not at the Porch, doth Isis hold her home,
Not to the Tyro are her mysteries taught;
The secret dews of many a starry night
Feed the vast ocean's stately ebb and flow;
The leaf is restless where the branch is slight,
Still are the boughs whose shades stretch far below.
ANTHIOS.
As the skylark that mounts
With the dawn to the sun,
As the flash from the founts
Of the swift Helicon,
Song comes;--and I sing!
Wouldst thou question me more?
Ask the wave or the wing
Why it sparkle or soar!
LYKEGENES.
Full be the soul if swift the inspiration!
The corn-flower opens as the sheaves are rife;
Song is the twin of golden Contemplation
The harvest-flower of life.
The Cloud-compeller's bolt the eagle bears,
But when the wings the strength divine have won,
Full many a flight around the rock prepares
The Aspirer towards the Sun;
Progressive heights to gradual effort given,
Till, all the plumes in light supreme unfurl'd,
It halts;--and knits unto the dome of heaven
This pendant ball--the World.
ANTHIOS.
Hail, O hail, Pierides,
Free Harmonia's zoneless daughters,
Whom abrupt the Moenad sees
By the marge of moonlit waters,
Weaving joy in choral measure
To no law but your sweet pleasure;
Wanton winds in loosen'd hair
Lifting gold that gilds the air;
Say, beneath what starry skies
Lurk the herbs that purge the eyes?
On what hill-tops should we cull
The moly of the Beautiful?
What the charm the soul to capture
In the cestus-belt of rapture,
When the senses, trembling under,
Glass the Shadow-land of Wonder,
And no human hand is stealing
O'er the music-scale of Feeling?
As ceased the question rose delicious winds
Stirring the waves that kiss'd the tuneful reeds,
And all the wealth of sweets in bells of flowers;
So that, methought, out from all life, the Muse
Murmur'd responses low, and echo'd "FEELING!"
LYKEGENES.
Divine Corycides,
Whose chosen haunts are in mysterious cells,
And alleys dim through gleaming laurel-trees
Dusking the shrine of Delphian oracles,--
Under whose whispering shade
Sits the lone Pythian Maid,
Whose soul is as the glass of human things;
While up from bubbling streams
In mists arise the Dreams
Pale with the future of tiara'd kings--
Say, what the charm which from ambrosial domes
Draws the Immortal to Time's brazen towers,
When on the soul the gentle Thunderer comes--
Comes but in golden showers?
When, through the sealed portals of the sense,
Fluent as air the Glory glides unsought;
And the serene effulgent Influence
Rains all the wealth of heaven upon the thought?
And as the questions ceased, fell every wind.
The ilex-boughs droop'd heavy as the hush
In which the prophet Doves brood weird and calm
Amid Dodonian groves;--the broken light
On crisped waves grew smooth; on earth, in heaven,
The inexpressive majesty of Silence
Pass'd as some Orient sovereign to his throne,
When all the murmurs cease, and every brow
Bends down in awe, and not a breath is heard.
Yet spoke that stillness of the Eternal Mind
That thinks, and, thinking, evermore creates;
And Nature seem'd to answer Poesy
From her deep heart, in thought re-echoing "THOUGHT."
ANTHIOS.
Thou, whose silver lute contended
With the careless reed of Pan--
Thou whose wanton youth descended
To the vales Arcadian,
At whose coming heavenlier joy
Lighteth even Jove's abode,
Ever blooming as the boy
Through thine ages as the god;
Fair Apollo, if the singer
Be like thee the gladness-bringer;
If the nectar he distil
Make the worn earth useful still;
As thyself when thou wert driven
To the Tempe from the heaven,
As the infant over whom
Saturn bends his brows of gloom,
Roves he not the world a-maying,
From his Idan halls exiled;
Or with Time repose in playing
As with Saturn's looks the child.
Therewith from far, where unseen hamlets lay
In wooded valleys green, came mellowly
Laughter and infant voices, borne perchance
From the light hearts of happy Children, sporting
Round some meek Mother's knee;--ev'n so, methought
Did the familiar, human, innocent, gladness
Through golden Childhood answer Song, "THE CHILD."
LYKEGENES.
Lord of lustrating streams,
And altars pure, appalling secret Crime,
Eternal Splendour, whose all-searching beams
Illume with life the universe of Time,
All our own fates thy shrine reveals to us;
Thither comes Wisdom from the thrones of earth,
The unraveller of the sphinx--blind Oedipus,
Who knows not ev'n his birth!
On whom, Apollo, does thy presence shine
Through the clear daylight of translucent song?
Only to him who serveth at the shrine,
The priesthood can belong!
After due and deep probation,
Only dawns thy revelation
Unto the devout beseecher
Taught by thee to grow the teacher:
Shall the bearer of thy bow
Let the shafts at random go?
If the altar be divine,
Is the sacrifice a feast?
Should our hands the garland twine
For the reveller or the priest?
Therewith from out the temple on the hill
Broke the rich swell of fifes and choral lyres,
And the long melody of such large hymns,
As to the conquest of the Python-slayer,
Hallow'd thy lofty chant, Calliope!
Thus from the penetralian aisles divine
The solemn God replied to Song, "THE PRIEST."
ANTHIOS.