The life-long night they watched and laboured there,With fearful whispers pulsing on the ear,The trembling women gasping many a prayer,Wrung by a rustle, freighted up with fear,Till morning came, and with it came despair,So still she lay, so icy cold and sere;And silently and slow they crept away,With bated breath as though she slumb'ring lay.
They 'lumed pale torches at her moveless feet,That flung grey shadows round the ghostly room,And ofttimes misty clouds of incense sweetWent wreathing upward through the death-like gloom;There was no sound, not e'en a faint heart-beat,But all was silent as it were Death's tomb,And from without the breezes as they drave,Sigh'd low and sad like mourners o'er a grave.
The maiden lay there beautiful and pure,As one that slept and sunn'd her soul in heaven,From every chance of grief and pain secure,Sublimed from every taint of earthly leaven;Her placid bosom through white vestitureShone soft and holy, that poor breast so riven,And her small hands prest gently as in prayer,Breath'd from the Earth to Heaven, and ended there.
They came with stilly tread and panting breath,And softly laid her on the narrow bier,A lovely sleeper in the arms of death,Unruffled by a dream or chilly fear,As some fair child that sweetly slumberethUpon the bosom of her mother dear.They bore the dead forth over flowers to rest,Whose living feet on cruel thorns had prest.
He, crooked though in frame, in spirit more,Went by her now as erst he did in life,A slayer, watching whilst they slowly boreThe helpless victim of his unseen knife;And sorrow for a mask he broadly wore,To cloak the guilt that in his heart was rife.Woe to thee, base heart, from the lids that weep!Woe to thee, base heart, from the eyes that sleep!
There was a vault within whose stifling mawLay many a scion of Amieri's race,Crumbling to dust beneath Death's sapping thaw,That still melts down mortality apace;And round the fastness distillations rawMoulder'd the stones with damp and hideous trace;And here they laid her beautiful and pure,From every chance of grief and pain secure.
Close in their cold and narrow coffins pent,Around her lay ancestral ashes heaped,That through the dank and clammy darkness sentCurrents in foul and noxious vapours steeped;And loudly through the gloomy stillness wentThe oozy plashes from the roof that dripped,Marking the minutes as they slid away,With slimy tokens of the frame's decay.
The rank air slumber'd deep on midnight wings,Dead as the dead that fester'd 'neath its shade,Hush'd from those low and fearful whisperings,That make the living pallid and afraid,Till nigh amid its awful shadowings,The cerements silver'd round the hapless maid,As might a lucent gem with radiance glow,Caught from the brightness of the soul below.
Soh! 'tis a sigh—low drawn and very faint,A spirit stirring 'mid the slumb'ring dead,Bodiless, homeless, breathing forth its plaint,Nor yet from life and its sad memories fled.Soh! it comes swooning through the air so taintAcute and clear as ever arrow sped;Ah! miserere for the hapless soul,That from the shores of death thus wafts its dole.
Soh! the soft raising of a white clad arm—Are holy angels bearing her away?Ave Maria! shield thy child from harm,And guard her from this mansion of decay!Soh! how the lady trembles with alarm,How wildly round the cave her glances stray,Until amid the torpid gloom they dieOf space deep darken'd to immensity.
With frenzied strength from off her naked feet,She tore the linen fetters they had bound,And mantled closely in white winding sheet,The maiden slid upon the icy ground;With tottering steps that terror rendered fleet,And trembling hands she traced the vault around,Stumbling o'er rotten shells whose prison'd bonesRattled beneath her touch with hollow groans.
Her palm grew clammy with the slimy oozeThat fester'd on the walls in sick'ning streams,As on the pallid brow Death's icy dewsGather, the presage of corruption's seams;Pale horror every sound and motion glues,So corpse-like all around the dungeon seems;But on—and a low portal met her hand,By iron staunchions in quaint tracings spann'd.
And so escaping from her death-like swoon,Forth sped she to the clear and healthful air,Fearing her shadow which the orbëd moonFlung darkly on the moss-enwoven stair;And her white feet, used to the silken shoon,Chilled 'neath the stone so comfortless and bare,Falling unechoed as she sped away,Wing'd with the strength of wonder and dismay.
Amid her loosen'd hair the night-breeze play'd,And sent it waving wildly o'er her breast,Until the snowy lawn with golden braidIn soft and waving traceries seemed drest.And as she sped along a muffled shadeStill at her side o'er tombs and grasses prest,As though insatiate Death in discontentPursuing his escapëd victim went.
Ah! whither shall she flee, poor hapless thing,To find a rest more blissful than the grave,For what sweet haven spread her weary wing,To nestle from the foam of sorrow's wave?The midnight winds are sadly whispering,And coldly on her beating temples lave;Yes!—on—an iron law is in her soul,Peace! trembling heart, brave not its stern controul.
Weary and trembling tarried she at lastBefore her bridal home, with fitful cries,Till on the crooked Pietro limping pastThe buried voice in trembling accents sighs.The portal opens—but the wretch, aghast,Before that white-draped phantom, livid, fliesAs slayer 'fore his risen victim might,Smitten with guilty terror at the sight.
Woe to thee, coward, in thy secret places!Woe to thee in the daylight haunts of men!Cold terror wrap thee in his close embraces,And bear thee shrieking to his haunted den.Circle thy midnight couch with vengeful faces,And conscience torture beyond mortal ken;Ave Maria! blessings on the maidAll in the moonlight at thy portal laid.
Vainly she calls for help in fainting tones,Only the watchful echoes heed the sound,Respondless bearing on her hapless moans,Fainter and fainter o'er the moonlit ground—On—on—she hurries o'er the flinty stones,Like spirit on some dreadful mission bound;And from that guilty threshold as she stept,The grave clothes off her trembling footprints swept.
She sank nigh dead with weariness and fearBefore the dwelling of her early youth,Breathing forth saddest sighs which but to hearMight melt the heart with tenderness and ruth.She lay there like a bud which tempests drearNip in its spring time with remorseless tooth;Ah! sure a father's heart will tender be,Nor close its issues 'gainst her utterly.
Amieri wander'd through his gloomy hallsWith restless steps and vacant rolling eyne,Whilst from each wide spread casement down there fallsUpon his blanchëd locks the moon's pale sheen,As though a voice within him ever calls,And bids him follow some old form unseen;She lies upon your threshold, weak old man—Up! take her to your arms while yet you can!
Faint sighs come to him on the sleep-hush'd air,That swell to thunder in his timid breast,Rooted he gazes out with glazëd stareAt his poor murder'd child in grave clothes drest;"My Father!" cried she in her chill despair,With palms together in mute anguish prest—"Hence! hence! avenging spirit, haunt me not!"He cried, then totter'd from the fearful spot.
She rose and fled in terror through the night,All witless whither her weak steps might stray,As some freed bird first wings its rapid flightFrom its close prison to the realms of day;But on a sudden beam'd an inward lightUpon her troubled soul and bid her stay,With the warm blood sent swiftly to her cheeks,The trace that signals when the fond heart speaks.
She thought of Julian—he so kind and true,And how they gladden'd in the times gone by;She thought how he had stolen her love's young dew,And fused into her heart so tenderly,Until beneath affection's power, they grewTogether knit in one sweet unity;And now poor maid, by kith and kin forsaken,Untohisheart she felt she would be taken.
O blessed power of Love! that still can keepA quiet haven for the weary soul,When o'er the sea of life grief-tempests sweep,And surging billows o'er contentment roll;And thither though Affliction's cloud be deepThe heart steers true beneath its sweet controul!To him, the loved, the lost, thus basely spurned,She fled a prisoner from Death's chains return'd.
Sigh for the heart that follows to the graveThe perish'd idol of its summer dreams!Sigh for the heart that powerless all to save,Sees its sweet treasure gulph'd in sorrow's streams;And joys that ivy-like around it clave,Nipp'd of their blossoms, shorn of their warm beams!So Julian follow'd from afar her bier,With many a sigh, with many a bitter tear.
Within the stillness of his chamber, heOpen'd the flood-gates of his chill despair,Darkening the midnight with deep misery,Freighting the moments all with heavy care,Weeping for her he loved so utterly,Whose presence only made existence fair,His pallid face sunk in the outspread palms,Moist with the dew that her dear loss embalms.
Soft through the lattice steals a gentle voice,Breathing his name in accents faint and weak,Tones that in past days made his soul rejoice,And now send crimson currents to his cheek."Dear vision," said he, "of long cherish'd joys!"That now so sweetly in my soul dost speak,"Fade not away, but like a fixëd star,"Shine on my spirit from thy heavens afar.
"Oh! thou art lovely in thy radiant sphere,"As thou wert once, the day-star of my heart,"Revealing ever shadowless and clear"The blessed rays that in thy spirit start."O light! O life! O angels hovering near!"Pity us, sunder'd thus so far apart."Upon her love the maid imploring cries—Awaken, Julian, or thy loved one dies!
He rose, and to the lattice trancëd went,Where through the opened eaves the moonlight fell,And to his tearful glances downward bent,Show'd that dear form, loved and remember'd well.Gazed he in fond and loving wonderment,As one who slumbers under Fancy's spell,On his beloved in cerements snowy white,All in the moonrays pictured there so bright.
"Dream of my soul!" he said, "thus softly stealing"From thine empyrean o'er my aching sense,"Pouring thy balm on my pierced heart, and healing"Cold sorrow's wounds with ravishment intense;"Fold still thy wings, and thus in light revealing"Thine angel charms, flee ne'er away from hence."Still on his name she call'd with swooning sighs,And hands convulsive prest, and upturn'd eyes.
"It is my love," he said, "by death set free"From cruel bonds that sever'd our true vows,"Thus from the piteous tomb return'd to me,"In white array with blossoms on her brows."Ah! blessed is love's immortality,"That e'en the grave with softest charms endows;"And blessed thou, mine own, alive or dead,"That to this yearning heart once more hast fled.
Entrancëd still he wander'd to the gate,Where stood Alcesté in sad weary plight,Sore press'd with sentience of her hapless fate,Weeping, nigh hopeless, in the pale moonlight.Tarried he there in strange delicious strait,Lapt in the wonder of his dreaming sight;Then opening wide his arms in raptured prayer,Her gentle spirit swoon'd and nestled there.
O Paradise! to waken from a dream,A sleep-revealment of delights, and findThe rosy fancies, beauteous though they seem,Reality, and in our fond arms twined;Truth haloed by imagination's beam,And heaven and earth in one sweet birth combined.Thus Julian gazed upon her fainting form,Robed for the grave yet with existence warm.
He bore her as a mother bears a childWithin the cradle of her tender breast,His throbbing heart, 'twixt hope and fear nigh wild,With that dear lifeless form against it prest,Like some bright angel beautiful and mild,Sunk in the calmness of Elysian rest.Upon her lips he breath'd his soul away,Whilst she in stilly swoon Joy's prisoner lay.
Slowly she oped her silken-lidded eyes,As night steals from the virgin blue of morn,Gazing on him she loved, in sweet surprise,Thus tenderly within his bosom borne;Whilst clouded Memory through old time flies,Sinking where she from that dear breast was torn.Ah! blessed future never snatch her thence,But sun the visions of her innocence.
Report ran through the city that the maidRansom'd from Death's cold grasp had happily been,And, in the moonlight, no unhousell'd shadeThose fearful, conscience-stricken men had seen;Till they in day-born confidence array'd,Followed in quest, like blood-hounds swift and keen,Tracking love's footsteps out with cruel art,To its sweet resting place within the heart.
They came to Julian, and with honied guiseFlatter'd him to restore the risen maid;Seek ye to charm the eagle of his prize,Within his eyrie on the mountain laid;But Love, more strong, all sapping art defies,Nor ever from its fixëd trust is sway'd!They came with arms, they came with vengeful threats,Poor fluttering dove! what danger thee besets.
Before the Father of the Church they wentWith humble suit, with supplications strong,Revenge and lust confirming their intent,And like foul magic drawing them along.Ave Maria! save the innocent,Nor let firm judgment minister to wrong,Warping the tenor of the righteous laws,To aid oppression and a hollow cause.
It was decreed that she who thus had beenParted from all earth's cares and sympathies,Wafted by prayer into a fairer scene,As one who in pure penitency dies,Thence drew new birthright from that air sereneTo ransom her from antenatal ties.Rejoice, Alcesté, twice from Death thou'rt free!Rejoice, O Julian! life is brought to thee.
Sweet are the joys that follow on despair,Like sunrays kissing noontide mists away,Leaving the unveil'd summer skies more fairFor the deep shades that on their brightness lay.And love's sweet firmament dispell'd of care,Rivals the glories of its early day,Sunning their progress down life's troubled stream,Wrapt in each other, pillow'd in a dream.
In the blue Ægean is Cyprus,Set in the midst of the watersLike a starry isle in the ocean of heaven.The waters ripple around itWith soft and luminous motion,Strewing the silvery sandsWith shells amaranthine, and flowersBorne from amid the white coral stems,Like off'rings of peace from the ocean.Amid it riseth Olympus,[A]Stately and grand as the throne of the gods,And the island sleeps 'neath its shadowLike a fair babe 'neath the care of its father.Streams clear as the diamondEvermore wander around it,Like the vein'd tide through our members,Quick with the blessings of beauty,And health and verdurous pleasure,Filling with yellow sheavesAnd plenty the bosom of Ceres;Calling forth flowers from the slumbering Earth,Like thoughts from the dream of a Poet,Till the island throughout is a garden,The child and the plaything of summer.In luscious clusters the fruit hangsIn the sunshine, melting awayFrom sweetness to sweetness.The grapes clust'ring 'mid leaves,That give their bright hue to the eyeLike the setting of rubies.The nectarines and the pomegranatesGlowing with crimson ripeness,And the orange trees with their blossomsYielding sweet odour to every breeze,As the incense flows from the censer.The air is languid with pleasure and love,Lulling the sense to dreams Elysian,Making life seem a glorious trance,Full of bright visions of heaven,Safe from the touch of reality,Toil none—woe none—pain,Wild and illusive as sleep-revelations.Time to be poured like wine from a chaliceSparkling and joyous for aye,Drained amid mirth and music,The brows circled with ivy,And the goblet at last like a giftThrust in the bosom of slumber.Thus are the people of Cyprus;Young men and old making holiday,Decking them daintily forthIn robes of Sidonian purple:The maidens all beauteous but wanton,Foolishly flinging youth's gifts,Its jewels—its richest adornment,Like dross on the altar of pleasure;Letting the worm of mortalityEat out their hearts till they bearOnly the semblance of angels.Amongst them like a gaunt and gnarlëd oakWaving majestic o'er a pigmy race,Pygmalion was; for by the mete of soulMan ranges in the phalanx of his age.His heart was like an ocean, tremulousWith radiant aspirations and high thoughtsThat fretted ever on mortality,Wearing life out with passion and desire,Struggling against the limits of the flesh,The bonds and shackles of the Possible,That bound him, like Prometheus, to the dust,And clogg'd the upward winging of his soul.He walk'd 'mongst men like one who felt the strengthOf nobler nature swelling in his breast,Eternal breathings fanning the DivineWithin him into flame and utterance.He spake not much, for that his heaving thoughtsYearn'd vainly for the living fire of heavenTo burn them through the soul-core of the Time;But in the inner man the tumult spedIn burning currents, like the ruddy streamsFrom every pulse-beat of his o'er-fraught heart.His soul hung in an atmosphere of grace,And beauty, midway betwixt earth and heaven,Revolving, like the moon through azure space,Mid starry fancies and faint orbëd dreams,That made bright land-marks in the spirit's flight.Faint glimmerings of loveliness untoldFlash'd ever on him in his solitudes,Luring him on to search and far pursuitThrough empyrean altitudes of thought,Sped onward by the god-like thirst to graspThe spiritual, and with creative handMould it to corporal reality.Love was his guiding star—his bright idealShining above all visions and all dreams,As doth the Pole-star o'er the icy North;Love in its broad and fineless emperyRuling, directing all by right divine,Pressing its seal of vassalage on thought,And crushing passion with relentless heel;Love—the refiner, whose alchymic artTransmuteth very dross to purest gold,Passing emotion through the furnace heatThat scorcheth up its perishable frame,And yields the essence purified for Act.The soul that wanders like the mission'd doveAlong the chaos waste of boundless thought,Must have some ark to nestle in on Earth,And shelter from the endless Undefined.So to Eve's daughters would Pygmalion seek,Won by sweet hopes and promises of goodAnd beauty, such as emblem'd to him stillThe end accomplish'd of aspiring thirst—Essence and grace materialized. In themHe saw the sum of Nature's perfectness,The acmè of idealism reach'd:Fair forms, smooth with the ruddy glow of health,And ripening time, whose every motion seemedThe wak'ning of ethereal gracefulnessTo life, and on whose lineaments the lightOf a seraphic imagery play'd;Forms lithe and rounded by the art of youthTo be the shrines of spirit excellence,And hold the fusion of immortal graceUnblemish'd by corporeal defect.What found he then? Flower-wreathëd chalicesTinted with rosy dyes, bright eleganceOf shape and garniture, but brimming upDraughts bitter to the taste and nauseous.He gazed upon their beauty, which his soulIn thought had dower'd with purity and truth,As from the inward reflex of itself;But, gazing, all his visions pass'd away,And cold reality rose death-like upTo mow the aureate blossoms from his soul.In Amathus the chill grey morning dawn'dThat woke him to truth's ruggedness, and leftLife struggling, joyless, sunless, to its goal.Woman stood forth before him beautiful,But mocking heaven with a shameless brow,Wearing foul lewdness like a victor's crown,And dashing virtue's elixir away.From the deep fountains of her eyes there flow'dNo lucid streams of holiness and love,But lust and utter wantonness, that fill'dThe heart with loathing, fraught with death to Hope.Her crimson lips shed forth no silvery strainsOf gentleness and peace to hymn life's barkAcross the heaving waters of this Time,But folly and discordant revelrySounded around her evermore, and woo'dTo sin and shame with notes once toned for heaven.No Priestess she of lovely innocence,Stoled for the work with beauty nigh divine,But, warping all her natal destiny,Prostrate she lay before the shrine of vice,Yielding herself a living sacrificeTo the deep blasting of the idol's breath.The heart clings fondly to the last faint hopeThat bindeth still the once dear to its love,Rejecting credence whilst a doubt remains,And so Pygmalion. Thought he, 'tis a phaseThrough which her soul doth pass, like rippling streamsThat filter for a space through earth's deep pores,Emerging thence more pure and bright than erst,And set himself with patient love to watchThe giddy current of her blinded soul,For the subsidence of its troubled waves.It came not; till his spirit sick'ning o'er,Pour'd forth its bitterness and wounded sense."Oh! living lie! truth's outward counterfeit!Fair masquerade of virtue's unknown charms!Thou too hast perish'd from my trusting soul;Thy beauty yet endureth, the fair sweepOf limb and rounded form, such as my artCan yield the senseless marble; but the soulThat made the work of heaven stand forth alone,So peerless in its radiant loveliness,Hath perished 'neath mortality's cold grasp,And yielded up the patent of its charm.Henceforth I can compete with Heaven, and fillMy world with bright creations as its own,Unmarr'd by inner loathsomeness and sin,That rushing through its pulses like a blightMake beauty hideous. Thou, my soul, return,Sit on thy throne, and with creative mightPeople thy kingdom with a beauteous race,Fair form'd, and nobly featured, and the lifeSet undulating on the Parian,Whom viewing, thou may'st cry with lofty joy,'Behold the life without its baser part.'O Beauty! I have loved thee with full heart,Follow'd thy shadowy guidance as the cloudSails at the unseen steering of the wind;Sought thee in Heaven and Earth and Nature all,Led by supreme adorings and desires,Till by communion with thy perfect soul,Mine hath grown wise, in measure, to discern.Not now can I be satiate with graceThat gildeth but the superficial frameWith the false tissue of deep-seeming life;The searching knife must pierce into the heart,And shew a frame veined with the same warm streamThat melts in blushes on the downy cheek.My bright ideal, like the bow of heaven,Hath faded into nothingness, and madeA blank upon the clouded sky of life.Can my soul live and love not?"I will callArt my divinity, and bid her frameNew joys to cherish such as Earth hath notCreate by natural developement;Nature shall be my monitress, and teachThe chisel knowledge of all loveliness,That wrought upon the snowy Parian,Shall give investiture of life's pure part,Grace, ease, and motion's unexerted power.Better no soul than one debauched and foul,And shaming beauty with eternal blots;Therefore my creature shall be beautifulWith all that makes up woman's excellence;Youth's bloom imprinted on her gentle charms,And tenderness set playing on her lips,Whilst round her gracious presence for a robeShall float the vesture of pure modesty;A woman, she, save in the fallen soul,A spotless angel framed, but spiritless;This being shall I mould, and with my loveAnimate to ideal consciousness,Then let her sisterhood pass humbled on,Unheeded in the depth of my content."
In the blue Ægean is Cyprus,Set in the midst of the watersLike a starry isle in the ocean of heaven.The waters ripple around itWith soft and luminous motion,Strewing the silvery sandsWith shells amaranthine, and flowersBorne from amid the white coral stems,Like off'rings of peace from the ocean.
Amid it riseth Olympus,[A]Stately and grand as the throne of the gods,And the island sleeps 'neath its shadowLike a fair babe 'neath the care of its father.Streams clear as the diamondEvermore wander around it,Like the vein'd tide through our members,Quick with the blessings of beauty,And health and verdurous pleasure,Filling with yellow sheavesAnd plenty the bosom of Ceres;Calling forth flowers from the slumbering Earth,Like thoughts from the dream of a Poet,Till the island throughout is a garden,The child and the plaything of summer.
In luscious clusters the fruit hangsIn the sunshine, melting awayFrom sweetness to sweetness.The grapes clust'ring 'mid leaves,That give their bright hue to the eyeLike the setting of rubies.The nectarines and the pomegranatesGlowing with crimson ripeness,And the orange trees with their blossomsYielding sweet odour to every breeze,As the incense flows from the censer.
The air is languid with pleasure and love,Lulling the sense to dreams Elysian,Making life seem a glorious trance,Full of bright visions of heaven,Safe from the touch of reality,Toil none—woe none—pain,Wild and illusive as sleep-revelations.Time to be poured like wine from a chaliceSparkling and joyous for aye,Drained amid mirth and music,The brows circled with ivy,And the goblet at last like a giftThrust in the bosom of slumber.
Thus are the people of Cyprus;Young men and old making holiday,Decking them daintily forthIn robes of Sidonian purple:The maidens all beauteous but wanton,Foolishly flinging youth's gifts,Its jewels—its richest adornment,Like dross on the altar of pleasure;Letting the worm of mortalityEat out their hearts till they bearOnly the semblance of angels.
Amongst them like a gaunt and gnarlëd oakWaving majestic o'er a pigmy race,Pygmalion was; for by the mete of soulMan ranges in the phalanx of his age.His heart was like an ocean, tremulousWith radiant aspirations and high thoughtsThat fretted ever on mortality,Wearing life out with passion and desire,Struggling against the limits of the flesh,The bonds and shackles of the Possible,That bound him, like Prometheus, to the dust,And clogg'd the upward winging of his soul.He walk'd 'mongst men like one who felt the strengthOf nobler nature swelling in his breast,Eternal breathings fanning the DivineWithin him into flame and utterance.He spake not much, for that his heaving thoughtsYearn'd vainly for the living fire of heavenTo burn them through the soul-core of the Time;But in the inner man the tumult spedIn burning currents, like the ruddy streamsFrom every pulse-beat of his o'er-fraught heart.His soul hung in an atmosphere of grace,And beauty, midway betwixt earth and heaven,Revolving, like the moon through azure space,Mid starry fancies and faint orbëd dreams,That made bright land-marks in the spirit's flight.Faint glimmerings of loveliness untoldFlash'd ever on him in his solitudes,Luring him on to search and far pursuitThrough empyrean altitudes of thought,Sped onward by the god-like thirst to graspThe spiritual, and with creative handMould it to corporal reality.Love was his guiding star—his bright idealShining above all visions and all dreams,As doth the Pole-star o'er the icy North;Love in its broad and fineless emperyRuling, directing all by right divine,Pressing its seal of vassalage on thought,And crushing passion with relentless heel;Love—the refiner, whose alchymic artTransmuteth very dross to purest gold,Passing emotion through the furnace heatThat scorcheth up its perishable frame,And yields the essence purified for Act.The soul that wanders like the mission'd doveAlong the chaos waste of boundless thought,Must have some ark to nestle in on Earth,And shelter from the endless Undefined.So to Eve's daughters would Pygmalion seek,Won by sweet hopes and promises of goodAnd beauty, such as emblem'd to him stillThe end accomplish'd of aspiring thirst—Essence and grace materialized. In themHe saw the sum of Nature's perfectness,The acmè of idealism reach'd:Fair forms, smooth with the ruddy glow of health,And ripening time, whose every motion seemedThe wak'ning of ethereal gracefulnessTo life, and on whose lineaments the lightOf a seraphic imagery play'd;Forms lithe and rounded by the art of youthTo be the shrines of spirit excellence,And hold the fusion of immortal graceUnblemish'd by corporeal defect.What found he then? Flower-wreathëd chalicesTinted with rosy dyes, bright eleganceOf shape and garniture, but brimming upDraughts bitter to the taste and nauseous.He gazed upon their beauty, which his soulIn thought had dower'd with purity and truth,As from the inward reflex of itself;But, gazing, all his visions pass'd away,And cold reality rose death-like upTo mow the aureate blossoms from his soul.
In Amathus the chill grey morning dawn'dThat woke him to truth's ruggedness, and leftLife struggling, joyless, sunless, to its goal.Woman stood forth before him beautiful,But mocking heaven with a shameless brow,Wearing foul lewdness like a victor's crown,And dashing virtue's elixir away.From the deep fountains of her eyes there flow'dNo lucid streams of holiness and love,But lust and utter wantonness, that fill'dThe heart with loathing, fraught with death to Hope.Her crimson lips shed forth no silvery strainsOf gentleness and peace to hymn life's barkAcross the heaving waters of this Time,But folly and discordant revelrySounded around her evermore, and woo'dTo sin and shame with notes once toned for heaven.No Priestess she of lovely innocence,Stoled for the work with beauty nigh divine,But, warping all her natal destiny,Prostrate she lay before the shrine of vice,Yielding herself a living sacrificeTo the deep blasting of the idol's breath.
The heart clings fondly to the last faint hopeThat bindeth still the once dear to its love,Rejecting credence whilst a doubt remains,And so Pygmalion. Thought he, 'tis a phaseThrough which her soul doth pass, like rippling streamsThat filter for a space through earth's deep pores,Emerging thence more pure and bright than erst,And set himself with patient love to watchThe giddy current of her blinded soul,For the subsidence of its troubled waves.
It came not; till his spirit sick'ning o'er,Pour'd forth its bitterness and wounded sense."Oh! living lie! truth's outward counterfeit!Fair masquerade of virtue's unknown charms!Thou too hast perish'd from my trusting soul;Thy beauty yet endureth, the fair sweepOf limb and rounded form, such as my artCan yield the senseless marble; but the soulThat made the work of heaven stand forth alone,So peerless in its radiant loveliness,Hath perished 'neath mortality's cold grasp,And yielded up the patent of its charm.Henceforth I can compete with Heaven, and fillMy world with bright creations as its own,Unmarr'd by inner loathsomeness and sin,That rushing through its pulses like a blightMake beauty hideous. Thou, my soul, return,Sit on thy throne, and with creative mightPeople thy kingdom with a beauteous race,Fair form'd, and nobly featured, and the lifeSet undulating on the Parian,Whom viewing, thou may'st cry with lofty joy,'Behold the life without its baser part.'O Beauty! I have loved thee with full heart,Follow'd thy shadowy guidance as the cloudSails at the unseen steering of the wind;Sought thee in Heaven and Earth and Nature all,Led by supreme adorings and desires,Till by communion with thy perfect soul,Mine hath grown wise, in measure, to discern.Not now can I be satiate with graceThat gildeth but the superficial frameWith the false tissue of deep-seeming life;The searching knife must pierce into the heart,And shew a frame veined with the same warm streamThat melts in blushes on the downy cheek.My bright ideal, like the bow of heaven,Hath faded into nothingness, and madeA blank upon the clouded sky of life.Can my soul live and love not?
"I will callArt my divinity, and bid her frameNew joys to cherish such as Earth hath notCreate by natural developement;Nature shall be my monitress, and teachThe chisel knowledge of all loveliness,That wrought upon the snowy Parian,Shall give investiture of life's pure part,Grace, ease, and motion's unexerted power.Better no soul than one debauched and foul,And shaming beauty with eternal blots;Therefore my creature shall be beautifulWith all that makes up woman's excellence;Youth's bloom imprinted on her gentle charms,And tenderness set playing on her lips,Whilst round her gracious presence for a robeShall float the vesture of pure modesty;A woman, she, save in the fallen soul,A spotless angel framed, but spiritless;This being shall I mould, and with my loveAnimate to ideal consciousness,Then let her sisterhood pass humbled on,Unheeded in the depth of my content."
[A]The principal mountain of Cyprus was thus named.
[A]The principal mountain of Cyprus was thus named.
Forth went he from the ebb and flow of men,Whose busy vortex drowneth quiet thought,To hold communion with wise Nature's soulIn solitude. Amongst lone woods he roamed,Listing the murmurs of the swaying boughsThat quivered with the spirit of the breeze,Threading their archëd aisles with solemn heart,And hiving in his soul a myriad thoughtsThat fell unseen upon him. Oft he stoodOn mountain fronts, and gazed long hours away,Tracing the sweep of hill and dale, now veinedWith glistening waters, and now dark with groves,Still changing till sight lost identity,And the ideal and the real met.He saw the sun enter the golden gatesOf Night, that closed upon his radiant path,And left Earth wondering; and star by starUnlid their shining orbs, and o'er heaven's plainWheel their bright cars to greet him in the East.He saw the morn break beautiful and pure,Like virgin from her slumbers, and robe earthIn dewy brightness, cresting the far hillsWith glorious halos of oncoming day.All loveliness of earth and sky he sought,And pondered with a heart attent to learn,Knowing that Beauty, like a parent stream,Is nourished by each trickling rill that flowsInto it; and the soul that would be aptTo work its highest counsels out, must toilThrough long apprentice-ship to mastery,By units gath'ring fitness for the whole.Thus did he, till with spirit brimming upWith glorious inspiration, he returned,And set the god-like in him to create;His swelling soul grew patient to the work,Wise with the sense of innate potency,And on the shapeless marble still he wroughtWith faith and firm assurance.Many cameAmid their aimless wanderings, and stoodBeside that quiet worker, wonderingAt the majestic purpose on his brow,And vapouring forth their self-important views,That turned his course as little as the airSwerveth the eagle in his lightning flight.Many applauded with patronic warmthAnd empty commendation, and no scornCurled his proud lip, not one defiant wordEchoed their nothings into transient life.But as the marble grew beneath his handsTo shape and comeliness, his soul-deep eyesFlashed with the joy of high accomplishment,And scanned each valiant critic with a glanceThat sifted all his littleness away.Thus did he till his work stood perfected,A woman beautiful with youth and grace,But like a Vestal singled from her sexTo show the beauty of pure innocence.Her form was such as rapt EndymionSaw on the heights of Latmos when he sleptAnd dreamed Heaven down to him. A glorious shapeThat to the brightness of ethereal charmsJoin'd the familiar sweetness of a maid;A soft clear forehead circled by the lightThat heaven sets lambent on its imaged self;A face that beaming on the heart of manAs by a silent teaching in the senseMakes goodness natural. Upon each limbGrace laid its sweet commandment lovingly,Whilst the fair bosom glowed with tenderness,As from the fulness of a soul beneath,Woman's divinest attribute possessedUnsullied and entire; and through the frameAnd every feature radiating wentA lovely sense of gentleness and love.Bright is the summer of Cyprus,Undimm'd the skies and clear,Blue and clear as a maiden's eyesThat loves and hath never felt sadness.Then, Time is a sunlit riverFlowing 'mid flowers and green pasturesBrightly onward to heaven!There is music pervading the air,Music of voice and of instrument,And the silver toning of laughtersBlendeth in jubilant chorus;Bands of maidens and youthsWith flowing garments of purple,And zones jewelled and brightAs the mystic girdle of Venus,Wreathëd with myrtle and roses,And their beauty wantonly baredTo the swimming glances of passion,Evermore sweep o'er the pathways,Strewing sweet flowers as they goTo the sacred altars of Venus'Neath the feet of the snow-white kine,That must bleed at the shrine of the goddess;Care is forgotten, for lifeHath no aim and no mission but pleasure;Its cup is a foretaste of Paradise,Drain the sweet draught to the dregs,The fountain will flow on for ever!'Tis the feast day of Venus—Hail! Hail!Pygmalion stood beside his master-piece,Still with his mind devote to mighty thoughtsAnd busy inspiration, for through TimeThe worker must be constant to his toil,Heedless of pleasure and the idle toysFor which man bartereth eternity;Life is his seed-time, after life his rest.Had he not joyed to scan that lovely form,And mark each glorious lineament, that heldA model up to Nature of pure graceUnblemished by the shadow of a fault?Had he not loved with more than Artist soulThe beauteous creature of his heaven-drawn power,And oped again the flood-gates of his heartTo the full current of humanity?Had he not thanked the gods for victory,And gloried in his strength with conscious mightThat made e'en fame his fellow? Yet he stoodSilent and sad beside his finished work.What lacked he yet? Life! life! for his creation:"What have I wrought," he uttered, "what achieved?Naught! naught! my power hath wasted on a stone,Changed its rude seeming haply unto grace,But as it was, so is it now, mere stone;My beauteous image, emblem of my soul,Cast in the mould of thought's supremest good,Fairer than all of womankind on Earth,Is yet more worthless and more transientThan is the meanest wretch who feels the lifeThrob quenchlessly within him. Time may strewIts fragments blindly o'er the face of Earth,Scatter its spotless beauties, yet pass onAnd leave the world no poorer than it was.There is no beauty separate from soul;From it as from a spring flow all the streamsThat clothe this dust with living lovelinessElse doomed to deep aridity and death.O lovely daughter of my craving soul!Hope of my life! Divinest shape of Earth!Can I regard thy beauty thus and knowThou art the empty semblance of a worthless thing.Are those sweet charms where loveliness hath setThe limits of her potency, mere dustUnnobled by the passage of a soul,Rescued a moment from the senseless mass,That soon again shall have thee for its own?What hath my soul begotten? Death in life—A child of Earth unblessed, unstamped of heaven.First-fruit of Spirit love! is this thy fate?Gods! hear me from your thrones! Must it be so?"Forth sped he.Like a stream that is swayed in the sunlight,Breaking in flashes of brightness,The people of Cyprus were gatheredAround the temple of Venus;Mirth and music ascended.Amid the fumes of the incense,Loud as when pleasure hath knockedOn a heart that is hollow and empty.Maidens rejoiced in their shame,And fancied their lewdness devotion,Banishing thought from their bosoms,And making them giddy with passion.Men forgetting their birthright,And the glorious spirit of freedom,Made themselves slaves unto folly,And lust, and imbecile pleasure.Life was summed up in the Present,For foolishness knoweth no Future.Through the deluded mass Pygmalion prest,As each true soul must on its course to Fame,Blind to the follies that beset his path,The empty pleasures, and fictitious joys;Deaf to the jeers and mockings of the crowd,Their sottish laughters and unmeaning mirth,His senses all attent to his great aim,Fixed on the prize of immortality.Within the Temple separate he stoodFrom the base host of giddy worshippers,And prostrated his soul with strong desireAt the bright shrine of Cytherea's power."O Cypris! goddess! Light of heaven and Earth!That from the snow-crest of the waving sea,The endless worker—the unresting soul,Sprang'st in the glory of thy charms divine,And Beauty mad'st immortal! That dost holdThe sacred urn of everlasting love,Whose draught is life, strength, rapture to the soul,And pouring of its fulness o'er the Earth,Makest its drooping energies revive,To struggle onward through the fight of life!O thou divinest arbitress of fate!Stoop from thy starry throne, receive my prayer,And grant me life, breath, being for my work.Let not the love that glorifies a man,Sink 'neath the level of humanity,And take unto its Holiest a shapeOf woman's dust engraven on a stone;Grant that this first-fruit of my soul may beEndued with lovely immortality;That she may have the throbbing pulse of life,Quick'ning with every gracious influence,To work some sweet seraphic Purpose out,And walking 'mongst Earth's multitudes exaltMan's soul to worship Beauty, that when IThe Worker shall have gone unto my rest,A glorious witness may remain to tellThat such an one wrought, struggled and attained."Thus prayed he. And an answer stirred his soul,"That which is born of Truth dies never. TimeStill takes its sweet impression as it flies,And drops it seed-like into some wise heart,Where it may blossom and bear fruit anewTo make its good perpetual. Thy prayerIs heard. The fire shall go from Heaven. Thy workShall live."Homeward he sped, and by his work stood soon.O'er that sweet visage once so motionless,To his rapt gaze there stole the rays divineThat bear all high intelligence of heaven,And undulating o'er each graceful lineMade the cold stone angelic. Liquid eyes,Bright with all pure imaginings, and fullOf young emotion, love, and gentleness,Beamed softly on him in dim wonderment;Whilst from her lips that parted half for speech,Flowed the deep sweetness of a woman's smile,And o'er his perplex'd spirit shed the lightOf Hope and glad assurance. All her frameGlowed with the rosy hue of life and youth,And melting from the rigidness of stoneSank into attitudes of peerless grace.And when conviction strengthened in his soulAs the awak'ning beauties of his workExpanded 'neath the spirit influence,He clasp'd the maid unto his beating heart,As father might the daughter of his love,Rejoicing with blent pride and tendernessIn the supernal beauty of his child.Hearing within him murmurs of a voice—"I have accomplish'd, have not wrought in vain,Left no faint record written on the tideOf life, to perish with its setting wave;But my fair work shall live for evermore,And through the phalanx of advancing AgesSpeed like a herald sounding to the world,'Behold a man who crushed oblivion,'And girding up his soul in faith and love'Wrought like a God beyond the reach of Time!'"
Forth went he from the ebb and flow of men,Whose busy vortex drowneth quiet thought,To hold communion with wise Nature's soulIn solitude. Amongst lone woods he roamed,Listing the murmurs of the swaying boughsThat quivered with the spirit of the breeze,Threading their archëd aisles with solemn heart,And hiving in his soul a myriad thoughtsThat fell unseen upon him. Oft he stoodOn mountain fronts, and gazed long hours away,Tracing the sweep of hill and dale, now veinedWith glistening waters, and now dark with groves,Still changing till sight lost identity,And the ideal and the real met.He saw the sun enter the golden gatesOf Night, that closed upon his radiant path,And left Earth wondering; and star by starUnlid their shining orbs, and o'er heaven's plainWheel their bright cars to greet him in the East.He saw the morn break beautiful and pure,Like virgin from her slumbers, and robe earthIn dewy brightness, cresting the far hillsWith glorious halos of oncoming day.All loveliness of earth and sky he sought,And pondered with a heart attent to learn,Knowing that Beauty, like a parent stream,Is nourished by each trickling rill that flowsInto it; and the soul that would be aptTo work its highest counsels out, must toilThrough long apprentice-ship to mastery,By units gath'ring fitness for the whole.
Thus did he, till with spirit brimming upWith glorious inspiration, he returned,And set the god-like in him to create;His swelling soul grew patient to the work,Wise with the sense of innate potency,And on the shapeless marble still he wroughtWith faith and firm assurance.Many cameAmid their aimless wanderings, and stoodBeside that quiet worker, wonderingAt the majestic purpose on his brow,And vapouring forth their self-important views,That turned his course as little as the airSwerveth the eagle in his lightning flight.Many applauded with patronic warmthAnd empty commendation, and no scornCurled his proud lip, not one defiant wordEchoed their nothings into transient life.But as the marble grew beneath his handsTo shape and comeliness, his soul-deep eyesFlashed with the joy of high accomplishment,And scanned each valiant critic with a glanceThat sifted all his littleness away.
Thus did he till his work stood perfected,A woman beautiful with youth and grace,But like a Vestal singled from her sexTo show the beauty of pure innocence.Her form was such as rapt EndymionSaw on the heights of Latmos when he sleptAnd dreamed Heaven down to him. A glorious shapeThat to the brightness of ethereal charmsJoin'd the familiar sweetness of a maid;A soft clear forehead circled by the lightThat heaven sets lambent on its imaged self;A face that beaming on the heart of manAs by a silent teaching in the senseMakes goodness natural. Upon each limbGrace laid its sweet commandment lovingly,Whilst the fair bosom glowed with tenderness,As from the fulness of a soul beneath,Woman's divinest attribute possessedUnsullied and entire; and through the frameAnd every feature radiating wentA lovely sense of gentleness and love.
Bright is the summer of Cyprus,Undimm'd the skies and clear,Blue and clear as a maiden's eyesThat loves and hath never felt sadness.Then, Time is a sunlit riverFlowing 'mid flowers and green pasturesBrightly onward to heaven!There is music pervading the air,Music of voice and of instrument,And the silver toning of laughtersBlendeth in jubilant chorus;Bands of maidens and youthsWith flowing garments of purple,And zones jewelled and brightAs the mystic girdle of Venus,Wreathëd with myrtle and roses,And their beauty wantonly baredTo the swimming glances of passion,Evermore sweep o'er the pathways,Strewing sweet flowers as they goTo the sacred altars of Venus'Neath the feet of the snow-white kine,That must bleed at the shrine of the goddess;Care is forgotten, for lifeHath no aim and no mission but pleasure;Its cup is a foretaste of Paradise,Drain the sweet draught to the dregs,The fountain will flow on for ever!'Tis the feast day of Venus—Hail! Hail!
Pygmalion stood beside his master-piece,Still with his mind devote to mighty thoughtsAnd busy inspiration, for through TimeThe worker must be constant to his toil,Heedless of pleasure and the idle toysFor which man bartereth eternity;Life is his seed-time, after life his rest.Had he not joyed to scan that lovely form,And mark each glorious lineament, that heldA model up to Nature of pure graceUnblemished by the shadow of a fault?Had he not loved with more than Artist soulThe beauteous creature of his heaven-drawn power,And oped again the flood-gates of his heartTo the full current of humanity?Had he not thanked the gods for victory,And gloried in his strength with conscious mightThat made e'en fame his fellow? Yet he stoodSilent and sad beside his finished work.What lacked he yet? Life! life! for his creation:"What have I wrought," he uttered, "what achieved?Naught! naught! my power hath wasted on a stone,Changed its rude seeming haply unto grace,But as it was, so is it now, mere stone;My beauteous image, emblem of my soul,Cast in the mould of thought's supremest good,Fairer than all of womankind on Earth,Is yet more worthless and more transientThan is the meanest wretch who feels the lifeThrob quenchlessly within him. Time may strewIts fragments blindly o'er the face of Earth,Scatter its spotless beauties, yet pass onAnd leave the world no poorer than it was.There is no beauty separate from soul;From it as from a spring flow all the streamsThat clothe this dust with living lovelinessElse doomed to deep aridity and death.O lovely daughter of my craving soul!Hope of my life! Divinest shape of Earth!Can I regard thy beauty thus and knowThou art the empty semblance of a worthless thing.Are those sweet charms where loveliness hath setThe limits of her potency, mere dustUnnobled by the passage of a soul,Rescued a moment from the senseless mass,That soon again shall have thee for its own?What hath my soul begotten? Death in life—A child of Earth unblessed, unstamped of heaven.First-fruit of Spirit love! is this thy fate?Gods! hear me from your thrones! Must it be so?"Forth sped he.Like a stream that is swayed in the sunlight,Breaking in flashes of brightness,The people of Cyprus were gatheredAround the temple of Venus;Mirth and music ascended.Amid the fumes of the incense,Loud as when pleasure hath knockedOn a heart that is hollow and empty.Maidens rejoiced in their shame,And fancied their lewdness devotion,Banishing thought from their bosoms,And making them giddy with passion.Men forgetting their birthright,And the glorious spirit of freedom,Made themselves slaves unto folly,And lust, and imbecile pleasure.Life was summed up in the Present,For foolishness knoweth no Future.
Through the deluded mass Pygmalion prest,As each true soul must on its course to Fame,Blind to the follies that beset his path,The empty pleasures, and fictitious joys;Deaf to the jeers and mockings of the crowd,Their sottish laughters and unmeaning mirth,His senses all attent to his great aim,Fixed on the prize of immortality.Within the Temple separate he stoodFrom the base host of giddy worshippers,And prostrated his soul with strong desireAt the bright shrine of Cytherea's power.
"O Cypris! goddess! Light of heaven and Earth!That from the snow-crest of the waving sea,The endless worker—the unresting soul,Sprang'st in the glory of thy charms divine,And Beauty mad'st immortal! That dost holdThe sacred urn of everlasting love,Whose draught is life, strength, rapture to the soul,And pouring of its fulness o'er the Earth,Makest its drooping energies revive,To struggle onward through the fight of life!O thou divinest arbitress of fate!Stoop from thy starry throne, receive my prayer,And grant me life, breath, being for my work.Let not the love that glorifies a man,Sink 'neath the level of humanity,And take unto its Holiest a shapeOf woman's dust engraven on a stone;Grant that this first-fruit of my soul may beEndued with lovely immortality;That she may have the throbbing pulse of life,Quick'ning with every gracious influence,To work some sweet seraphic Purpose out,And walking 'mongst Earth's multitudes exaltMan's soul to worship Beauty, that when IThe Worker shall have gone unto my rest,A glorious witness may remain to tellThat such an one wrought, struggled and attained."
Thus prayed he. And an answer stirred his soul,"That which is born of Truth dies never. TimeStill takes its sweet impression as it flies,And drops it seed-like into some wise heart,Where it may blossom and bear fruit anewTo make its good perpetual. Thy prayerIs heard. The fire shall go from Heaven. Thy workShall live."
Homeward he sped, and by his work stood soon.O'er that sweet visage once so motionless,To his rapt gaze there stole the rays divineThat bear all high intelligence of heaven,And undulating o'er each graceful lineMade the cold stone angelic. Liquid eyes,Bright with all pure imaginings, and fullOf young emotion, love, and gentleness,Beamed softly on him in dim wonderment;Whilst from her lips that parted half for speech,Flowed the deep sweetness of a woman's smile,And o'er his perplex'd spirit shed the lightOf Hope and glad assurance. All her frameGlowed with the rosy hue of life and youth,And melting from the rigidness of stoneSank into attitudes of peerless grace.
And when conviction strengthened in his soulAs the awak'ning beauties of his workExpanded 'neath the spirit influence,He clasp'd the maid unto his beating heart,As father might the daughter of his love,Rejoicing with blent pride and tendernessIn the supernal beauty of his child.Hearing within him murmurs of a voice—"I have accomplish'd, have not wrought in vain,Left no faint record written on the tideOf life, to perish with its setting wave;But my fair work shall live for evermore,And through the phalanx of advancing AgesSpeed like a herald sounding to the world,'Behold a man who crushed oblivion,'And girding up his soul in faith and love'Wrought like a God beyond the reach of Time!'"