by Thomas Hood
With hair, and blood-stain’d of the breasts they had mangled, —
Though they call’d — and perchance but to ask, had I seen
Their loves, or to tell the vile wrongs that had been:
But I stayed not to hear, lest the story should hold
Some hell-form of words, some enchantment, once told,
Might translate me in flesh to a brute; and I dreaded
To gaze on their charms, lest my faith should be wedded
With some pity, — and love in that pity perchance —
To a thing not all lovely; for once at glance,
Methought, where one sat, I descried a bright wonder
That flow’d like a long silver rivulet under
The long fenny grass, — with so lovely a breast,
Could it be a snake-tail made the charm of the rest?
So I roamed in that circle of horrors, and Fear
Walk’d with me, by hills, and in valleys, and near
Cluster’d trees for their gloom — not to shelter from heat —
But lest a brute-shadow should grow at my feet;
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face,
In the horrible likeness of demons (that none
Could see, like invisible flames in the sun);
But grew to one monster that seized on the light,
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night;
Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south;
Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest,
Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West,
Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin,
Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight
Like a Titan, and threatfully warr’d with the light;
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close,
When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes,
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws,
With flappings of wings, and fierce grasping of claws,
And whirls of long tails: — I have seen the quick flutter
Of fragments dissevered, — and necks stretch’d to utter
Long screamings of pain, — the swift motion of blows,
And wrestling of arms — to the flight at the close,
When the dust of the earth startled upward in rings,
And flew on the whirlwind that follow’d their wings.
Thus they fled — not forgotten — but often to grow
Like fears in my eyes, when I walk’d to and fro
In the shadows, and felt from some beings unseen
The warm touch of kisses, but clean or unclean
I knew not, nor whether the love I had won
Was of heaven or hell — till one day in the sun,
In its very noon-blaze, I could fancy a thing
Of beauty, but faint as the cloud-mirrors fling
On the gaze of the shepherd that watches the sky,
Half-seen and half-dream’d in the soul of his eye.
And when in my musings I gazed on the stream,
In motionless trances of thought, there would seem
A face like that face, looking upward through mine:
With his eyes full of love, and the dim-drownd shine
Of limbs and fair garments, like clouds in that blue
Serene: — there I stood for long hours but to view
Those fond earnest eyes that were ever uplifted
Towards me, and wink’d as the water-weed drifted
Between; but the fish knew that presence, and plied
Their long curvy tails, and swift darted aside.
There I gazed for lost time, and forgot all the things
That once had been wonders — the fishes with wings,
And the glimmer of magnified eyes that look’d up
From the glooms of the bottom like pearls in a cup,
And the huge endless serpent of silvery gleam,
Slow winding along like a tide in the stream.
Some maid of the waters, some Naiad, methought
Held me dear in the pearl of her eye — and I brought
My wish to that fancy; and often I dash’d
My limbs in the water, and suddenly splash’d
The cool drops around me, yet clung to the brink,
Chill’d by watery fears, how that beauty might sink
With my life in her arms to her garden, and bind me
With its long tangled grasses, or cruelly wind me
In some eddy to hum out my life in her ear,
Like a spider-caught bee, — and in aid of that fear
Came the tardy remembrance — Oh falsest of men!
Why was not that beauty remember’d till then?
My love, my safe love, whose glad life would have run
Into mine — like a drop — that our fate might be one,
That now, even now, — may-be, — clasp’d in a dream,
That form which I gave to some jilt of the stream,
And gazed with fond eyes that her tears tried to smother
On a mock of those eyes that I gave to another!
Then I rose from the stream, but the eyes of my mind,
Still full of the tempter, kept gazing behind
On her crystalline face, while I painfully leapt
To the bank, and shook off the curst waters, and wept
With my brow in the reeds; and the reeds to my ear
Bow’d, bent by no wind, and in whispers of fear,
Growing small with large secrets, foretold me of one
That loved me, — but oh to fly from her, and shun
Her love like a pest — though her love was as true
To mine as her stream to the heavenly blue;
For why should I love her with love that would bring
All misfortune, like hate, on so joyous a thing?
Because of her rival, — even Her whose witch-face
I had slighted, and therefore was doom’d in that place
To roam, and had roam’d, where all horrors grew rank,
Nine days ere I wept with my brow on that bank;
Her name be not named, but her spite would not fail
To our love like a blight; and they told me the tale
Of Scylla, — and Picus, imprison’d to speak
His shrill-screaming woe through a woodpecker’s beak.
Then they ceased — I had heard as the voice of my star
That told me the truth of my fortunes — thus far
I had read of my sorrow, and lay in the hush
Of deep meditation, — when lo! a light crush
Of the reeds, and I turn’d and look’d round in the night
Of new sunshine, and saw, as I sipp’d of the light
Narrow-winking, the realized nymph of the stream,
Rising up from the wave with the bend and the gleam
Of a fountain, and o’er her white arms she kept throwing
Bright torrents of hair, that went flowing and flowing
In falls to her feet, and the blue waters roll’d
Down her limbs like a garment, in many a fold,
Sun-spangled, gold-broider’d, and fled far behind,
Like an infinite train. So she came and reclined
In the reeds, and I hunger’d to see her unseal
The buds of her eyes that would ope and reveal
The blue that was in them; — they oped and she raised
Two orbs of pure crystal, and timidly gazed
With her eyes on my eyes; but their color and shine
Was of that which they look’d on, and mostly of mine —
For she loved me, — except when she blush’d, and they sank,
Shame-humbled, to number the stones on the bank,
Or her
play-idle fingers, while lisping she told me
How she put on her veil, and in love to behold me
Would wing through the sun till she fainted away
Like a mist, and then flew to her waters and lay
In love-patience long hours, and sore dazzled her eyes
In watching for mine ‘gainst the midsummer skies.
But now they were heal’d, — O my heart, it still dances
When I think of the charm of her changeable glances,
And my image how small when it sank in the deep
Of her eyes where her soul was, — Alas! now they weep,
And none knoweth where. In what stream do her eyes
Shed invisible tears? Who beholds where her sighs
Flow in eddies, or sees the ascent of the leaf
She has pluck’d with her tresses? Who listens her grief
Like a far fall of waters, or hears where her feet
Grow emphatic among the loose pebbles, and beat
Them together? Ah! surely her flowers float adown
To the sea unaccepted, and little ones drown
For need of her mercy, — even he whose twin-brother
Will miss him forever; and the sorrowful mother
Imploreth in vain for his body to kiss
And cling to, all dripping and cold as it is,
Because that soft pity is lost in hard pain
We loved, — how we loved! — for I thought not again
Of the woes that were whisper’d like fears in that place
If I gave me to beauty. Her face was the face,
Far away, and her eyes were the eyes that were drown’d
For my absence, — her arms were the arms that sought round
And claspt me to nought; for I gazed and became
Only true to my falsehood, and had but one name
For two loves, and call’d ever on Ægle, sweet maid
Of the sky-loving waters, — and was not afraid
Of the sight of her skin; — for it never could be;
Her beauty and love were misfortunes to me!
Thus our bliss had endured for a time-shorten’d space,
Like a day made of three, and the smile of her face
Had been with me for joy, — when she told me indeed
Her love was self-task’d with a work that would need
Some short hours, for in truth ’twas the veriest pity
Our love should not last, and then sang me a ditty,
Of one with warm lips that should love her, and love her
When suns were burnt dim and long ages past over.
So she fled with her voice, and I patiently nested
My limbs in the reeds, in still quiet, and rested
Till my thoughts grew extinct, and I sank in a sleep
Of dreams, — but their meaning was hidden too deep
To be read what their woe was; — but still it was woe
That was writ on all faces that swam to and fro
In that river of night; — and the gaze of their eyes
Was sad, — and the bend of their brows, — and their cries
Were seen, but I heard not. The warm touch of tears
Travell’d down my cold cheeks, and I shook till my fears
Awaked me, and lo! I was couch’d in a bower,
The growth of long summers rear’d up in an hour!
Then I said, in the fear of my dream, I will fly
From this magic, but could not, because that my eye
Grew love-idle among the rich blooms; and the earth
Held me down with its coolness of touch, and the mirth
Of some bird was above me, — who, even in fear,
Would startle the thrush? and methought there drew near
A form as of Ægle, — but it was not the face
Hope made, and I knew the witch-Queen of that place,
Even Circe the Cruel, that came like a Death,
Which I fear’d, and yet fled not, for want of my breath.
There was thought in her face, and her eyes were not raised
From the grass at her foot, but I saw, as I gazed,
Her spite — and her countenance changed with her mind
As she plann’d how to thrall me with beauty, and bind
My soul to her charms, — and her long tresses play’d
From shade into shine and from shine into shade,
Like a day in mid-autumn, — first fair, O how fair!
With long snaky locks of the adder-black hair
That clung round her neck, — those dark locks that I prize,
For the sake of a maid that once loved me with eyes
Of that fathomless hue, — but they changed as they roll’d,
And brighten’d, and suddenly blazed into gold
That she comb’d into flames, and the locks that fell down
Turn’d dark as they fell, but I slighted their brown,
Nor loved, till I saw the light ringlets shed wild,
That innocence wears when she is but a child;
And her eyes, — Oh I ne’er had been witched with their shine,
Had they been any other, my Ægle, than thine!
Then I gave me to magic, and gazed till I madden’d
In the full of their light, — but I sadden’d and sadden’d
The deeper I look’d, — till I sank on the snow
Of her bosom, a thing made of terror and woe,
And answer’d its throb with the shudder of fears,
And hid my cold eyes from her eyes with my tears,
And strain’d her white arms with the still languid weight
Of a fainting distress. There she sat like the Fate
That is nurse unto Death, and bent over in shame
To hide me from her the true Ægle — that came
With the words on her lips the false witch had fore-given
To make me immortal — for now I was even
At the portals of Death, who but waited the hush
Of world-sounds in my ears to cry welcome, and rush
With my soul to the banks of his black-flowing river.
Oh, would it had flown from my body forever,
Ere I listen’d those words, when I felt with a start,
The life-blood rush back in one throb to my heart,
And saw the pale lips where the rest of that spell
Had perished in horror — and heard the farewell
Of that voice that was drown’d in the dash of the stream!
How fain had I follow’d, and plunged with that scream
Into death, but my being indignantly lagg’d
Through the brutalized flesh that I painfully dragg’d
Behind me: — O Circe! O mother of spite!
Speak the last of that curse! and imprison me quite
In the husk of a brute, — that no pity may name
The man that I was, — that no kindred may claim —
“The monster I am! Let me utterly be
Brute-buried, and Nature’s dishonor with me
Uninscribed!” — But she listen’d my prayer, that was praise
To her malice, with smiles, and advised me to gaze
On the river for love, — and perchance she would make
In pity a maid without eyes for my sake,
And she left me like Scorn. Then I ask’d of the wave,
What monster I was, and it trembled and gave
The true shape of my grief, and I turn’d with my face
From all waters forever, and fled through that place,
Till with horror more strong than all magic I pass’d
Its bounds, and the world was before me at last.
There I wander’d in sorrow, and shunned the abodes
Of men, that stood up in the likeness of Gods,
But I saw from afar the warm shine of the sun
On the cities, where man was a million, not one;
And I saw the white smoke of their altars ascend
ing,
That show’d where the hearts of many were blending,
And the wind in my face brought shrill voices that came
From the trumpets that gather’d whole bands in one fame
As a chorus of man, — and they stream’d from the gates
Like a dusky libation poured out to the Fates.
But at times there were gentler processions of peace
That I watch’d with my soul in my eyes till their cease,
There were women! there men! but to me a third sex
I saw them all dots — yet I loved them as specks:
And oft to assuage a sad yearning of eyes
I stole near the city, but stole covert-wise
Like a wild beast of love, and perchance to be smitten
By some hand that I rather had wept on than bitten!
Oh, I once had a haunt near a cot where a mother
Daily sat in the shade with her child, and would smother
Its eyelids in kisses, and then in its sleep
Sang dreams in its ear of its manhood, while deep
In a thicket of willows I gazed o’er the brooks
That murmur’d between us and kiss’d them with looks;
But the willows unbosom’d their secret, and never
I return’d to a spot I had startled forever,
Though I oft long’d to know, but could ask it of none,
Was the mother still fair, and how big was her son?
For the haunters of fields they all shunn’d me by flight;
The men in their horror, the women in fright;
None ever remain’d save a child once that sported
Among the wild bluebells, and playfully courted
The breeze; and beside him a speckled snake lay
Tight strangled, because it had hiss’d him away
From the flower at his finger; he rose and drew near
Like a Son of Immortals, one born to no fear,
But with strength of black locks and with eyes azure bright
To grow to large manhood of merciful might.
He came, with his face of bold wonder, to feel,
The hair of my side, and to lift up my heel,
And question’d my face with wide eyes; but when under
My lids he saw tears, — for I wept at his wonder,
He stroked me, and utter’d such kindliness then,
That the once love of women, the friendship of men
In past sorrow, no kindness e’er came like a kiss
On my heart in its desolate day such as this!
And I yearn’d at his cheeks in my love, and down bent,
And lifted him up in my arms with intent