205Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.—
‘If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
A thousand beacons from the spark I bore.’—
‘And who are those chained to the car?’ ‘The Wise,
‘The great, the unforgotten, they who wore
210 Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreathes of light,
Signs of thought’s empire over thought; their lore
‘Taught them not this—to know themselves; their might
Could not repress the mutiny within,
And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night
215‘Caught them ere evening.’ ‘Who is he with chin
Upon his breast and hands crost on his chain?’
‘The Child of a fierce hour; He sought to win
‘The world, and lost all it did contain
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
220 Of fame and peace than Virtue’s self can gain
‘Without the opportunity which bore
Him on its eagle’s pinion to the peak
From which a thousand climbers have before
‘Fall’n as Napoleon fell.’—I felt my cheek
225Alter to see the great form pass away
Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak
That every pigmy kicked it as it lay—
And much I grieved to think how power and will
In opposition rule our mortal day—
230 And why God made irreconcilable
Good and the means of good; and for despair
I half disdained mine eye’s desire to fill
With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be … ‘Dost thou behold,’
235Said then my guide, ‘those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
‘Frederic and Kant, Catharine, and Leopold,
Chained hoary anarch, demagogue and sage
Whose name the fresh world thinks already old—
‘For in the battle Life and they did wage
240 She remained conqueror—I was overcome
By my own heart alone; which neither age
‘Nor tears nor infamy nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object.’ ‘Let them pass’—
I cried—‘the world and its mysterious doom
245‘Is not so much more glorious than it was
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false and fragile glass
‘As the old faded.’—‘Figures ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them how you may;
250 We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
‘Our shadows on it as it past away.
But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day—
‘All that is mortal of great Plato there
255Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not;
That star that ruled his doom was far too fair—
‘And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain
Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not.—
260 ‘And near walk the [ ] twain,
The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.—
‘The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
265Fame singled as her thunder-bearing minion;
‘The other long outlived both woes and wars
Throned in new thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous keys of truth’s eternal doors
‘If Bacon’s spirit [ ] had not leapt
270 Like lightning out of darkness; he compelled
The Proteus shape of Nature’s as it slept
‘To wake and to unbar the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign.—
See the great bards of old who inly quelled
275‘The passions which they sung, as by their strain
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein
‘Of those who are infected with it—I
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!—
280 ‘And so my words were seeds of misery—
Even as the deeds of others.’—‘Not as theirs,’
I said—he pointed to a company
In which I recognized amid the heirs
Of Caesar’s crime, from him to Constantine
285The Anarchs old whose force and murderous snares
Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line
And spread the plague of blood and gold abroad,
And Gregory and John and men divine
Who rose like shadows between Man and god
290 Till that eclipse, still hanging under Heaven,
Was worshipped by the world o’er which they strode
For the true Sun it quenched.—‘Their power was given
But to destroy,’ replied the leader—‘I
Am one of those who have created, even
295‘If it be but a world of agony.’—
‘Whence camest thou and whither goest thou?
How did thy course begin,’ I said, ‘and why?
‘Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
Of people, and my heart of one sad thought.—
300 Speak.’— ‘Whence I came, partly I seem to know,
‘And how and by what paths I have been brought
To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;
Why this should be my mind can compass not—
‘Whither the conqueror hurries me still less.
305But follow thou, and from spectator turn
Actor or victim in this wretchedness
‘And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
From thee.—Now listen … In the April prime
When all the forest tops began to burn
310 ‘With kindling green, touched by the azure clime
Of the young year, I found myself asleep
Under a mountain which from unknown time
‘Had yawned into a cavern high and deep,
And from it came a gentle rivulet
315Whose water like clear air in its calm sweep
‘Bent the soft grass and kept for ever wet
The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
With sound which all who hear must needs forget
‘All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,
320 Which they had known before that hour of rest:
A sleeping mother then would dream not of
‘The only child who died upon her breast
At eventide, a king would mourn no more
The crown of which his brow was dispossest
325‘When the sun lingered o’er the Ocean floor
To gild his rival’s new prosperity.—
Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
‘Ills, which if ills, can find no cure from thee,
The thought of which no other sleep will quell
330 Nor other music blot from memory—
‘So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell.—
Whether my life had been before that sleep
The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell
‘Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,
335I know not. I arose and for a space
The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,
‘Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
Of light diviner than the common Sun
Sheds on the common Earth, but all the place
340 ‘Was filled with many sounds woven into one
Oblivious melody, confusing sense
Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;
‘And as I looked the bright omnipresence
Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
345And the Sun’s image radiantly intense
‘Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze
With winding paths of emerald fire—there stood
‘Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
350 Of his own glory, on the vibrating
Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
‘A shape all light, which with one hand did fling
Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn
Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing
355‘A silver music on the mossy lawn,
And still before her on the dusky grass
Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn.—
‘In her right hand she bore a chrystal glass
Mantling with bright Nepenthe;—the fierce splendour
360 Fell from her as she moved under the mass
‘Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender
Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,
Glided along the river, and did bend her
‘Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
365Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
That whispered with delight to be their pillow.—
‘As one enamoured is upborne in dream
O’er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
370 ‘Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist
The dancing foam, partly to glide along
The airs that roughened the moist amethyst,
‘Or the slant morning beams that fell among
The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
375And her feet ever to the ceaseless song
‘Of leaves and winds and waves and birds and bees
And falling drops moved in a measure new
Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze
‘Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
380 Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,
Dances i’ the wind where eagle never flew.—
‘And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot
The thoughts of him who gazed on them, and soon
385‘All that was seemed as if it had been not—
As if the gazer’s mind was strewn beneath
Her feet like embers, and she, thought by thought,
‘Trampled its fires into the dust of death,
As Day upon the threshold of the east
390 Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath
‘Of darkness reillumine even the least
Of Heaven’s living eyes—like day she came,
Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
‘To move, as one between desire and shame
395Suspended, I said—“If, as it doth seem,
Thou comest from the realm without a name,
‘“Into this valley of perpetual dream,
Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why—
Pass not away upon the passing stream.”
400 ‘“Arise and quench thy thirst”, was her reply.
And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand
Of dewy morning’s vital alchemy,
‘I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
405And suddenly my brain became as sand
‘Where the first wave had more than half erased
The track of deer on desert Labrador,
Whilst the empty wolf from which they fled amazed
‘Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore
410 Until the second bursts—so on my sight
Burst a new Vision never seen before.—
‘And the fair shape waned in the coming light
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
415‘Of sunrise ere it strike the mountain tops—
And as the presence of that fairest planet,
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes
‘That his day’s path may end as he began it
In that star’s smile, whose light is like the scent
420 Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
‘Or the soft note in which his dear lament
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content—
‘So knew I in that light’s severe excess
425The presence of that shape which on the stream
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
‘More dimly than a day-appearing dream,
The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep,
A light from Heaven whose half-extinguished beam
430 ‘Through the sick day in which we wake to weep
Glimmers, forever sought, forever lost.—
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
‘Beside my path as silent as a ghost;
But the new Vision, and its cold bright car,
435With savage music, stunning music, crost
‘The forest, and as if from some dread war
Triumphantly returning, the loud million
Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.—
‘A moving arch of victory, the vermilion
440 And green and azure plumes of Iris had
Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
‘And underneath aetherial glory clad
The wilderness, and far before her flew
The tempest of the splendour which forbade
445‘Shadow to fall from leaf or stone;—the crew
Seemed in that light like atomies that dance
Within a sunbeam;—some upon the new
‘Embroidery of flowers that did enhance
The grassy vesture of the desert, played,
450 Forgetful of the chariot’s swift advance;
‘Others stood gazing till within the shade
Of the great mountain its light left them dim.—
Others outspeeded it, and others made
‘Circles around it like the clouds that swim
455Round the high moon in a bright sea of air,
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
‘The chariot and the captives fettered there,
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
Fell into the same track at last and were
460 ‘Borne onward.—I among the multitude
Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long,
Me not the shadow nor the solitude,
‘Me not the falling stream’s Lethean song,
Me, not the phantom of that early form
465Which moved upon its motion,—but among
‘The thickest billows of the living storm
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.—
‘Before the chariot had begun to climb
470 The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
‘Of him who from the lowest depths of Hell
Through every Paradise and through all glory
Love led serene, and who returned to tell
475‘In words of hate and awe the wondrous story
How all things are transfigured, except Love;
For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary
‘The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—
480 A wonder worthy of his rhyme—the grove
‘Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
The earth was grey with phantoms, and the air
Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
‘A flock of vampire-bats before the
glare
485Of the tropic sun, bringing ere evening
Strange night upon some Indian isle,—thus were
‘Phantoms diffused around, and some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing
490 ‘Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;
‘And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar hands, and over shoulders leapt.
495Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
‘Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played
Within the crown which girt with empire
‘A baby’s or an idiot’s brow, and made
500 Their nests in it; the old anatomies
Sate hatching their base brood under the shade
‘Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
To reassume the delegated power
Arrayed in which these worms did monarchize
505‘Who make this earth their charnel.—Others more
Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar,
‘Or like small gnats and flies as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Selected Poems and Prose Page 63