by Thomas Moore
There seemed a glory in his light,
Newly put on — as if for pride.
Of the high homage paid this night
To his own Isis, his young bride.,
Now fading feminine away
In her proud Lord’s superior ray.
My mind’s first impulse was to fly
At once from this entangling net —
New scenes to range, new loves to try,
Or in mirth, wine and luxury
Of every sense that might forget.
But vain the effort — spell-bound still,
I lingered, without power or will
To turn my eyes from that dark door,
Which now enclosed her ‘mong the dead;
Oft fancying, thro’ the boughs that o’er
The sunny pile their flickering shed.
’Twas her light form again I saw
Starting to earth — still pure and bright,
But wakening, as I hoped, less awe,
Thus seen by morning’s natural light,
Than in that strange, dim cell at night.
But no, alas — she ne’er returned:
Nor yet — tho’ still I watch — nor yet,
Tho’ the red sun for hours hath burned,
And now in his mid course hath met
The peak of that eternal pile
He pauses still at noon to bless,
Standing beneath his downward smile,
Like a great Spirit shadowless! —
Nor yet she comes — while here, alone,
Sauntering thro’ this death-peopled place,
Where no heart beats except my own,
Or ‘neath a palm-tree’s shelter thrown,
By turns I watch and rest and trace
These lines that are to waft to thee
My last night’s wondrous history.
Dost thou remember, in that Isle
Of our own Sea where thou and I
Lingered so long, so happy a while,
Till all the summer flowers went by —
How gay it was when sunset brought
To the cool Well our favorite maids —
Some we had won, and some we sought —
To dance within the fragrant shades,
And till the stars went down attune
Their Fountain Hymns3 to the young moon?
That time, too — oh, ’tis like a dream —
When from Scamander’s holy tide
I sprung as Genius of the Stream,
And bore away that blooming bride,
Who thither came, to yield her charms
(As Phrygian maids are wont ere wed)
Into the cold Scamander’s arms,
But met and welcomed mine, instead —
Wondering as on my neck she fell,
How river-gods could love so well!
Who would have thought that he who roved
Like the first bees of summer then,
Rifling each sweet nor ever loved
But the free hearts that loved again,
Readily as the reed replies
To the least breath that round it sighs —
Is the same dreamer who last night
Stood awed and breathless at the sight
Of one Egyptian girl; and now
Wanders among these tombs with brow
Pale, watchful, sad, as tho’ he just,
Himself, had risen from out their dust!
Yet so it is — and the same thirst
For something high and pure, above
This withering world, which from the first
Made me drink deep of woman’s love —
As the one joy, to heaven most near
Of all our hearts can meet with here —
Still burns me up, still keeps awake
A fever naught but death can slake.
Farewell; whatever may befall —
Or bright, or dark — thou’lt know it all.
1 The Ibis.
2 Necropolis, or the City of the Dead, to the south of Memphis.
3 These Songs of the Well, as they were called by the ancients, are still common in the Greek isles.
LETTER IV.
FROM ORCUS, HIGH PRIEST OF MEMPHIS, TO DECIUS, THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT.
Rejoice, my friend, rejoice; — the youthful Chief
Of that light Sect which mocks at all belief,
And gay and godless makes the present hour
Its only heaven, is now within our power.
Smooth, impious school! — not all the weapons aimed,
At priestly creeds, since first a creed was framed,
E’er struck so deep as that sly dart they wield,
The Bacchant’s pointed spear in laughing flowers concealed.
And oh, ‘twere victory to this heart, as sweet
As any thou canst boast — even when the feet
Of thy proud war-steed wade thro’ Christian blood,
To wrap this scoffer in Faith’s blinding hood,
And bring him tamed and prostrate to implore
The vilest gods even Egypt’s saints adore.
What! — do these sages think, to them alone
The key of this world’s happiness is known?
That none but they who make such proud parade
Of Pleasure’s smiling favors win the maid,
Or that Religion keeps no secret place,
No niche in her dark fanes for Love to grace?
Fools! — did they know how keen the zest that’s given
To earthly joy when seasoned well with heaven;
How Piety’s grave mask improves the hue
Of Pleasure’s laughing features, half seen thro’,
And how the Priest set aptly within reach
Of two rich worlds, traffics for bliss with each,
Would they not, Decius — thou, whom the ancient tie
‘Twixt Sword and Altar makes our best ally —
Would they not change their creed, their craft, for ours?
Leave the gross daylight joys that in their bowers
Languish with too much sun, like o’er-blown flowers,
For the veiled loves, the blisses undisplayed
That slyly lurk within the Temple’s shade?
And, ‘stead of haunting the trim Garden’s school —
Where cold Philosophy usurps a rule,
Like the pale moon’s, o’er passion’s heaving tide,
Till Pleasure’s self is chilled by Wisdom’s pride —
Be taught by us, quit shadows for the true,
Substantial joys we sager Priests pursue,
Who far too wise to theorize on bliss
Or pleasure’s substance for its shade to miss.
Preach other worlds but live for only this:-
Thanks to the well-paid Mystery round us flung,
Which, like its type the golden cloud that hung
O’er Jupiter’s love-couch its shade benign,
Round human frailty wraps a veil divine.
Still less should they presume, weak wits, that they
Alone despise the craft of us who pray; —
Still less their creedless vanity deceive
With the fond thought that we who pray believe.
Believe! — Apis forbid — forbid it, all
Ye monster Gods before whose shrines we fall —
Deities framed in jest as if to try
How far gross Man can vulgarize the sky;
How far the same low fancy that combines
Into a drove of brutes yon zodiac’s signs,
And turns that Heaven itself into a place
Of sainted sin and deified disgrace,
Can bring Olympus even to shame more deep,
Stock it with things that earth itself holds cheap.
Fish, flesh, and fowl, the kitchen’s sacred brood,
Which Egypt keeps for worship, not for food —
All, worthy idols of a Faith that sees
In dogs, cats, owls, and apes, divinities!
Believe! — oh, Decius, thou, who feel’st no care
For things divine beyond the soldier’s share,
Who takes on trust the faith for which he bleeds,
A good, fierce God to swear by, all he needs —
Little canst thou, whose creed around thee hangs
Loose as thy summer war-cloak guess the pangs
Of loathing and self-scorn with which a heart
Stubborn as mine is acts the zealot’s part —
The deep and dire disgust with which I wade
Thro’ the foul juggling of this holy trade —
This mud profound of mystery where the feet
At every step sink deeper in deceit.
Oh! many a time, when, mid the Temple’s blaze,
O’er prostrate fools the sacred cist I raise,
Did I not keep still proudly in my mind
The power this priestcraft gives me o’er mankind —
A lever, of more might, in skilful hand,
To move this world, than Archimede e’er planned —
I should in vengeance of the shame I feel
At my own mockery crush the slaves that kneel
Besotted round; and — like that kindred breed
Of reverend, well-drest crocodiles they feed,
At famed Arsinoë1 — make my keepers bless,
With their last throb, my sharp-fanged Holiness.
Say, is it to be borne, that scoffers, vain
Of their own freedom from the altar’s chain,
Should mock thus all that thou thy blood hast sold.
And I my truth, pride, freedom, to uphold?
It must not be: — think’st thou that Christian sect,
Whose followers quick as broken waves, erect
Their crests anew and swell into a tide,
That threats to sweep away our shrines of pride —
Think’st thou with all their wondrous spells even they
Would triumph thus, had not the constant play
Of Wit’s resistless archery cleared their way? —
That mocking spirit, worst of all the foes,
Our solemn fraud, our mystic mummery knows,
Whose wounding flash thus ever ‘mong the signs
Of a fast-falling creed, prelusive shines,
Threatening such change as do the awful freaks
Of summer lightning ere the tempest breaks.
But, to my point — a youth of this vain school,
But one, whom Doubt itself hath failed to cool
Down to that freezing point where Priests despair
Of any spark from the altar catching there —
Hath, some nights since — it was, me thinks, the night
That followed the full Moon’s great annual rite —
Thro’ the dark, winding ducts that downward stray
To these earth — hidden temples, tracked his way,
Just at that hour when, round the Shrine, and me,
The choir of blooming nymphs thou long’st to see,
Sing their last night-hymn in the Sanctuary.
The clangor of the marvellous Gate that stands
At the Well’s lowest depth — which none but hands
Of new, untaught adventurers, from above,
Who know not the safe path, e’er dare to move —
Gave signal that a foot profane was nigh: —
’Twas the Greek youth, who, by that morning’s sky,
Had been observed, curiously wandering round
The mighty fanes of our sepulchral ground.
Instant, the Initiate’s Trials were prepared, —
The Fire, Air, Water; all that Orpheus dared,
That Plato, that the bright-haired Samian2 past,
With trembling hope, to come to — what, at last?
Go, ask the dupes of Priestcraft; question him
Who mid terrific sounds and spectres dim
Walks at Eleusis; ask of those who brave
The dazzling miracles of Mithra’s Cave
With its seven starry gates; ask all who keep
Those terrible night-mysteries where they weep
And howl sad dirges to the answering breeze.
O’er their dead Gods, their mortal Deities —
Amphibious, hybrid things that died as men,
Drowned, hanged, empaled, to rise as gods again; —
Ask them, what mighty secret lurks below
This seven-fold mystery — can they tell thee? No;
Gravely they keep that only secret, well
And fairly kept — that they have none to tell;
And duped themselves console their humbled pride
By duping thenceforth all mankind beside.
And such the advance in fraud since Orpheus’ time —
That earliest master of our craft sublime —
So many minor Mysteries, imps of fraud,
From the great Orphic Egg have winged abroad,
That, still to uphold our Temple’s ancient boast,
And seem most holy, we must cheat the most;
Work the best miracles, wrap nonsense round
In pomp and darkness till it seems profound;
Play on the hopes, the terrors of mankind,
With changeful skill; and make the human mind
Like our own Sanctuary, where no ray
But by the Priest’s permission wins its way —
Where thro’ the gloom as wave our wizard rods.
Monsters at will are conjured into Gods;
While Reason like a grave-faced mummy stands
With her arms swathed in hieroglyphic bands.
But chiefly in that skill with which we use
Man’s wildest passions for Religion’s views,
Yoking them to her car like fiery steeds,
Lies the main art in which our craft succeeds.
And oh be blest, ye men of yore, whose toil
Hath, for our use, scooped out from Egypt’s soil
This hidden Paradise, this mine of fanes,
Gardens and palaces where Pleasure reigns
In a rich, sunless empire of her own,
With all earth’s luxuries lighting up her throne: —
A realm for mystery made, which undermines
The Nile itself and, ‘neath the Twelve Great Shrines
That keep Initiation’s holy rite,
Spreads its long labyrinths of unearthly light.
A light that knows no change — its brooks that run
Too deep for day, its gardens without sun,
Where soul and sense, by turns, are charmed, surprised.
And all that bard or prophet e’er devised
For man’s Elysium, priests have realized.
Here, at this moment — all his trials past.
And heart and nerve unshrinking to the last —
Our new Initiate roves — as yet left free
To wander thro’ this realm of mystery;
Feeding on such illusions as prepare
The soul, like mist o’er waterfalls, to wear
All shapes and lines at Fancy’s varying will,
Thro’ every shifting aspect, vapor still; —
Vague glimpses of the Future, vistas shown.
By scenic skill, into that world unknown.
Which saints and sinners claim alike their own;
And all those other witching, wildering arts,
Illusions, terrors, that make human hearts,
Ay, even the wisest and the hardiest quail
To any goblin throned behind a veil.
Yes — such the spells shall haunt his eye, his ear,
Mix wild his night-dreams, form his atmosphere;
Till, if our Sage be not tamed down, at length,
His wit, his wisdom, shorn of all their strength,
Like Phrygian priests, in honor of the shrine —
If he become not absolutely mine,
; Body and soul and like the tame decoy
Which wary hunters of wild doves employ
Draw converts also, lure his brother wits
To the dark cage where his own spirit flits.
And give us if not saints good hypocrites —
If I effect not this then be it said
The ancient spirit of our craft hath fled,
Gone with that serpent-god the Cross hath chased
To hiss its soul out in the Theban waste.
1 For the trinkets with which the sacred Crocodiles were ornamented see the “Epicurean” chap x.
2 Pythagoras.
LALLA ROOKH
TO
SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
THIS EASTERN ROMANCE
IS INSCRIBED
BY
HIS VERY GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, THOMAS MOORE.
LALLA ROOKH
In the eleventh year of the reign of Aurungzebe, Abdalla, King of the Lesser Bucharia, a lineal descendant from the Great Zingis, having abdicated the throne in favor of his son, set out on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Prophet; and, passing into India through the delightful valley of Cashmere, rested for a short time at Delhi on his way. He was entertained by Aurungzebe in a style of magnificent hospitality, worthy alike of the visitor and the host, and was afterwards escorted with the same splendor to Surat, where he embarked for Arabia.1 During the stay of the Royal Pilgrim at Delhi, a marriage was agreed upon between the Prince, his son, and the youngest daughter of the Emperor, LALLA ROOKH; 2 — a Princess described by the poets of her time as more beautiful than Leila,3 Shirine,4 Dewildé,5 or any of those heroines whose names and loves embellish the songs of Persia and Hindostan. It was intended that the nuptials should be celebrated at Cashmere; where the young King, as soon as the cares of the empire would permit, was to meet, for the first time, his lovely bride, and, after a few months’ repose in that enchanting valley, conduct her over the snowy hills into Bucharia.
The day of LALLA ROOKH’S departure from Delhi was as splendid as sunshine and pageantry could make it. The bazaars and baths were all covered with the richest tapestry; hundreds of gilded barges upon the Jumna floated with their banners shining in the water; while through the streets groups of beautiful children went strewing the most delicious flowers around, as in that Persian festival called the Scattering of the Roses;6 till every part of the city was as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed through it. The Princess, having taken leave of her kind father, who at parting hung a cornelian of Yemen round her neck, on which was inscribed a verse from the Koran, and having sent a considerable present to the Fakirs, who kept up the Perpetual Lamp in her sister’s tomb, meekly ascended the palankeen prepared for her; and while Aurungzebe stood to take a last look from his balcony, the procession moved slowly on the road to Lahore.