I.I mourn for Adonis—Adonis is dead,Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting.Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed:Arise, wretch stoled in black; beat thy breast unrelenting,And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead!"II.I mourn for Adonis—the Loves are lamenting.He lies on the hills in his beauty and death;The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh.Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath,While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory,And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows,The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just partedThe kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose,Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted:He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.III.I mourn for Adonis—the Loves are lamenting.Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound,But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting.The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around,And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill,And the poor Aphrodité, with tresses unbound,All dishevelled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrillThrough the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy,Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeatThe sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly.She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on himHer own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body,The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb,And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.IV.Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting.She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile:When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting,Whose fairness is dead with him: woe worth the while!All the mountains above and the oaklands belowMurmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflowAphrodité's deep wail; river-fountains in pityWeep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blowRedden outward with sorrow, while all hear her goWith the song of her sadness through mountain and city.V.Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead,Fair Adonis is dead—Echo answers, Adonis:Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her headShe stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies?—When, ah, ah!—she saw how the blood ran awayAnd empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out,Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay,Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee aboutWith the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss!Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,For the last time, beloved,—and but so much of thisThat the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain!—Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth,To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receivingMay drink thy love in it and keep of a truthThat one kiss in the place of Adonis the living.Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far,My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,—To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar,While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal,And follow no step! O Persephoné, take him,My husband!—thou'rt better and brighter than I,So all beauty flows down to thee:Icannot make himLook up at my grief; there's despair in my cry,Since I wail for Adonis who died to me—died to me—Then, I fearthee!—Art thou dead, my Adored?Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me,Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lordAll the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceasedWith thy clasp! O too bold in the hunt past preventing,Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast!"Thus the goddess wailed on—and the Loves are lamenting.VI.Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed,And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close,Her tears, to the windflower; his blood, to the rose.VII.I mourn for Adonis—Adonis is dead.Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover!So, well: make a place for his corse in thy bed,With the purples thou sleepest in, under and overHe's fair though a corse—a fair corse, like a sleeper.Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to foldWhen, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeperEnclosed his young life on the couch made of gold.Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him togetherThe crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place,Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither,Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face.Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining,Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept.Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining,The Loves raised their voices around him and wept.They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis;One treads on his bow,—on his arrows, another,—One breaks up a well-feathered quiver, and one isBent low at a sandal, untying the strings,And one carries the vases of gold from the springs,While one washes the wound,—and behind them a brotherFans down on the body sweet air with his wings.VIII.Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamentingEach torch at the door Hymenæus blew out;And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting,No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about,But theai aiinstead—"Ai alas!" is begunFor Adonis, and then follows "Ai Hymenæus!"The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son,Sobbing low each to each, "His fair eyes cannot see us!"Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dioné's.The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis,Deep chanting; he hears not a word that they say:Hewouldhear, but Persephoné has him in keeping.—Cease moan, Cytherea! leave pomps for to-day,And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping.
I.
I mourn for Adonis—Adonis is dead,Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting.Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed:Arise, wretch stoled in black; beat thy breast unrelenting,And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead!"
II.
I mourn for Adonis—the Loves are lamenting.He lies on the hills in his beauty and death;The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh.Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath,While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory,And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows,The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just partedThe kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose,Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted:He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews.
III.
I mourn for Adonis—the Loves are lamenting.Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound,But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting.The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around,And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill,And the poor Aphrodité, with tresses unbound,All dishevelled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrillThrough the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy,Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeatThe sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly.She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on himHer own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body,The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb,And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy.
IV.
Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting.She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile:When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting,Whose fairness is dead with him: woe worth the while!All the mountains above and the oaklands belowMurmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflowAphrodité's deep wail; river-fountains in pityWeep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blowRedden outward with sorrow, while all hear her goWith the song of her sadness through mountain and city.
V.
Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead,Fair Adonis is dead—Echo answers, Adonis:Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her headShe stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies?—When, ah, ah!—she saw how the blood ran awayAnd empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out,Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay,Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee aboutWith the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss!Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,For the last time, beloved,—and but so much of thisThat the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain!—Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth,To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receivingMay drink thy love in it and keep of a truthThat one kiss in the place of Adonis the living.Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far,My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,—To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar,While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal,And follow no step! O Persephoné, take him,My husband!—thou'rt better and brighter than I,So all beauty flows down to thee:Icannot make himLook up at my grief; there's despair in my cry,Since I wail for Adonis who died to me—died to me—Then, I fearthee!—Art thou dead, my Adored?Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me,Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lordAll the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceasedWith thy clasp! O too bold in the hunt past preventing,Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast!"Thus the goddess wailed on—and the Loves are lamenting.
VI.
Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed,And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close,Her tears, to the windflower; his blood, to the rose.
VII.
I mourn for Adonis—Adonis is dead.Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover!So, well: make a place for his corse in thy bed,With the purples thou sleepest in, under and overHe's fair though a corse—a fair corse, like a sleeper.Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to foldWhen, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeperEnclosed his young life on the couch made of gold.Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him togetherThe crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place,Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither,Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face.Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining,Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept.Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining,The Loves raised their voices around him and wept.They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis;One treads on his bow,—on his arrows, another,—One breaks up a well-feathered quiver, and one isBent low at a sandal, untying the strings,And one carries the vases of gold from the springs,While one washes the wound,—and behind them a brotherFans down on the body sweet air with his wings.
VIII.
Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamentingEach torch at the door Hymenæus blew out;And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting,No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about,But theai aiinstead—"Ai alas!" is begunFor Adonis, and then follows "Ai Hymenæus!"The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son,Sobbing low each to each, "His fair eyes cannot see us!"Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dioné's.The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis,Deep chanting; he hears not a word that they say:Hewouldhear, but Persephoné has him in keeping.—Cease moan, Cytherea! leave pomps for to-day,And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping.
O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour,How may I lightly stile thy great power?Echo.Power.Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye?Or liv'st in Heaven? saye.Echo.In Heavens aye.In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayneBy alms, by fasting, prayer,—by paine?Echo.By paineShow me the paine, it shall be undergone.I to mine end will still go on.Echo.Go on.Britannia's Pastorals.
O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour,How may I lightly stile thy great power?Echo.Power.Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye?Or liv'st in Heaven? saye.Echo.In Heavens aye.In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayneBy alms, by fasting, prayer,—by paine?Echo.By paineShow me the paine, it shall be undergone.I to mine end will still go on.Echo.Go on.
Britannia's Pastorals.
A poet could not sleep aright,For his soul kept up too much lightUnder his eyelids for the night.And thus he rose disquietedWith sweet rhymes ringing through his head,And in the forest wanderèdWhere, sloping up the darkest glades,The moon had drawn long colonnadesUpon whose floor the verdure fadesTo a faint silver: pavement fair,The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dareTo foot-print o'er, had such been there,And rather sit by breathlessly,With fear in their large eyes, to seeThe consecrated sight. Buthe—The poet who, with spirit-kissFamiliar, had long claimed for hisWhatever earthly beauty is,Who also in his spirit boreA beauty passing the earth's store,—Walked calmly onward evermore.His aimless thoughts in metre went,Like a babe's hand without intentDrawn down a seven-stringed instrument:Nor jarred it with his humour as,With a faint stirring of the grass,An apparition fair did pass.He might have feared another time,But all things fair and strange did chimeWith his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme.An angel had not startled him,Alighted from heaven's burning rimTo breathe from glory in the Dim;Much less a lady riding slowUpon a palfrey white as snow,And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.Full upon his she turned her face,"What ho, sir poet! dost thou paceOur woods at night in ghostly chase"Of some fair Dryad of old talesWho chants between the nightingalesAnd over sleep by song prevails?"She smiled; but he could see ariseHer soul from far adown her eyes,Prepared as if for sacrifice.She looked a queen who seemeth gayFrom royal grace alone. "Now, nay,"He answered, "slumber passed away,"Compelled by instincts in my headThat I should see to-night, insteadOf a fair nymph, some fairer Dread."She looked up quickly to the skyAnd spake: "The moon's regalityWill hear no praise; She is as I."She is in heaven, and I on earth;This is my kingdom: I come forthTo crown all poets to their worth."He brake in with a voice that mourned;"To their worth, lady? They are scornedBy men they sing for, till inurned."To their worth? Beauty in the mindLeaves the hearth cold, and love-refinedAmbitions make the world unkind."The boor who ploughs the daisy down,The chief whose mortgage of renown,Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown—"Both these are happier, more approvedThan poets!—why should I be movedIn saying, both are more beloved?""The south can judge not of the north,"She resumed calmly; "I come forthTo crown all poets to their worth."Yea, verily, to anoint them allWith blessed oils which surely shallSmell sweeter as the ages fall.""As sweet," the poet said, and rungA low sad laugh, "as flowers are, sprungOut of their graves when they die young;"As sweet as window-eglantine,Some bough of which, as they decline,The hired nurse gathers at their sign:"As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroudWhich the gay Roman maidens sewedFor English Keats, singing aloud."The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet!The things thou namest being completeIn fragrance, as I measure it."Since sweet the death-clothes and the knellOf him who having lived, dies well;And wholly sweet the asphodel"Stirred softly by that foot of his,When he treads brave on all that is,Into the world of souls, from this."Since sweet the tears, dropped at the doorOf tearless Death, and even before:Sweet, consecrated evermore."What, dost thou judge it a strange thingThat poets, crowned for vanquishing,Should bear some dust from out the ring?"Come on with me, come on with me,And learn in coming: let me freeThy spirit into verity."She ceased: her palfrey's paces sentNo separate noises as she went;'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent.And while the poet seemed to treadAlong the drowsy noise so made,The forest heaved up overheadIts billowy foliage through the air,And the calm stars did far and spareO'erswim the masses everywhereSave when the overtopping pinesDid bar their tremulous light with linesAll fixed and black. Now the moon shinesA broader glory. You may seeThe trees grow rarer presently;The air blows up more fresh and free:Until they come from dark to light,And from the forest to the sightOf the large heaven-heart, bare with night,A fiery throb in every star,Those burning arteries that areThe conduits of God's life afar,—A wild brown moorland underneath,And four pools breaking up the heathWith white low gleamings, blank as death.Beside the first pool, near the wood,A dead tree in set horror stood,Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood;Since thunder-stricken, years ago,Fixed in the spectral strain and throeWherewith it struggled from the blow:A monumental tree, alone,That will not bend in storms, nor groan,But break off sudden like a stone.Its lifeless shadow lies obliqueUpon the pool where, javelin-like,The star-rays quiver while they strike."Drink," said the lady, very still—"Be holy and cold." He did her willAnd drank the starry water chill.The next pool they came near untoWas bare of trees; there, only grewStraight flags, and lilies just a fewWhich sullen on the water sateAnd leant their faces on the flat,As weary of the starlight-state."Drink," said the lady, grave and slow—"World's usebehoveth thee to know."He drank the bitter wave below.The third pool, girt with thorny bushesAnd flaunting weeds and reeds and rushesThat winds sang through in mournful gushes,Was whitely smeared in many a roundBy a slow slime; the starlight swoundOver the ghastly light it found."Drink," said the lady, sad and slow—"World's lovebehoveth thee to know."He looked to her commanding so;Her brow was troubled, but her eyeStruck clear to his soul. For all replyHe drank the water suddenly,—Then, with a deathly sickness, passedBeside the fourth pool and the last,Where weights of shadow were downcastFrom yew and alder and rank trailsOf nightshade clasping the trunk-scalesAnd flung across the intervalsFrom yew to yew: who dares to stoopWhere those dank branches overdroop,Into his heart the chill strikes up,He hears a silent gliding coil,The snakes strain hard against the soil,His foot slips in their slimy oil,And toads seem crawling on his hand,And clinging bats but dimly scannedFull in his face their wings expand.A paleness took the poet's cheek:"Must I drinkhere?" he seemed to seekThe lady's will with utterance meek:"Ay, ay," she said, "it so must be;"(And this time she spake cheerfully)"Behoves thee knowWorld's cruelty."He bowed his forehead till his mouthCurved in the wave, and drank unlothAs if from rivers of the south;His lips sobbed through the water rank,His heart paused in him while he drank,His brain beat heart-like, rose and sank,And he swooned backward to a dreamWherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam,With Death and Life at each extreme:And spiritual thunders, born of soulNot cloud, did leap from mystic poleAnd o'er him roll and counter-roll,Crushing their echoes reboantWith their own wheels. Did Heaven so grantHis spirit a sign of covenant?At last came silence. A slow kissDid crown his forehead after this;His eyelids flew back for the bliss—The lady stood beside his head,Smiling a thought, with hair dispread;The moonshine seemed dishevellèdIn her sleek tresses manifoldLike Danaë's in the rain of oldThat dripped with melancholy gold:Butshewas holy, pale and highAs one who saw an ecstasyBeyond a foretold agony."Rise up!" said she with voice where songEddied through speech, "rise up; be strong:And learn how right avenges wrong."The poet rose up on his feet:He stood before an altar setFor sacrament with vessels meetAnd mystic altar-lights which shineAs if their flames were crystallineCarved flames that would not shrink or pine.The altar filled the central placeOf a great church, and toward its faceLong aisles did shoot and interlace,And from it a continuous mistOf incense (round the edges kissedBy a yellow light of amethyst)Wound upward slowly and throbbingly,Cloud within cloud, right silverly,Cloud above cloud, victoriously,—Broke full against the archèd roofAnd thence refracting eddied offAnd floated through the marble woofOf many a fine-wrought architrave,Then, poising its white masses brave,Swept solemnly down aisle and naveWhere, now in dark and now in light,The countless columns, glimmering white,Seemed leading out to the Infinite:Plunged halfway up the shaft, they showedIn that pale shifting incense-cloudWhich flowed them by and overflowedTill mist and marble seemed to blendAnd the whole temple, at the end,With its own incense to distend,—The arches like a giant's bowTo bend and slacken,—and below,The nichèd saints to come and go:Alone amid the shifting sceneThat central altar stood sereneIn its clear steadfast taper-sheen.Then first, the poet was awareOf a chief angel standing thereBefore that altar, in the glare.His eyes were dreadful, for you sawThattheysaw God; his lips and jawGrand-made and strong, as Sinai's lawThey could enunciate and refrainFrom vibratory after-pain,And his brow's height was sovereign:On the vast background of his wingsRises his image, and he flingsFrom each plumed arc pale glitteringsAnd fiery flakes (as beateth, moreOr less, the angel-heart) beforeAnd round him upon roof and floor,Edging with fire the shifting fumes,While at his side 'twixt lights and gloomsThe phantasm of an organ booms.Extending from which instrumentAnd angel, right and left-way bent,The poet's sight grew sentientOf a strange company aroundAnd toward the altar, pale and boundWith bay above the eyes profound.Deathful their faces were, and yetThe power of life was in them set—Never forgot nor to forget:Sublime significance of mouth,Dilated nostril full of youth,And forehead royal with the truth.These faces were not multipliedBeyond your count, but side by sideDid front the altar, glorified,Still as a vision, yet exprestFull as an action—look and gesteOf buried saint in risen rest.The poet knew them. Faint and dimHis spirits seemed to sink in him—Then, like a dolphin, change and swimThe current: these were poets true,Who died for Beauty as martyrs doFor Truth—the ends being scarcely two.God's prophets of the BeautifulThese poets were; of iron rule,The rugged cilix, serge of wool.Here Homer, with the broad suspenseOf thunderous brows, and lips intenseOf garrulous god-innocence.There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climbThe crowns o' the world: O eyes sublimeWith tears and laughters for all time!Here Æschylus, the women swoonedTo see so awful when he frownedAs the gods did: he standeth crowned.Euripides, with close and mildScholastic lips, that could be wildAnd laugh or sob out like a childEven in the classes. Sophocles,With that king's-look which down the treesFollowed the dark effigiesOf the lost Theban. Hesiod old,Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold,Cared most for gods and bulls. And boldElectric Pindar, quick as fear,With race-dust on his cheeks, and clearSlant startled eyes that seem to hearThe chariot rounding the last goal,To hurtle past it in his soul.And Sappho, with that glorioleOf ebon hair on calmèd brows—O poet-woman! none forgoesThe leap, attaining the repose.Theocritus, with glittering locksDropt sideway, as betwixt the rocksHe watched the visionary flocks.And Aristophanes, who tookThe world with mirth, and laughter-struckThe hollow caves of Thought and wokeThe infinite echoes hid in each.And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beechDid help the shade of bay to reachAnd knit around his forehead high:For his gods wore less majestyThan his brown bees hummed deathlessly.Lucretius, nobler than his mood,Who dropped his plummet down the broadDeep universe and said "No God—"Finding no bottom: he deniedDivinely the divine, and diedChief poet on the Tiber-sideBy grace of God: his face is sternAs one compelled, in spite of scorn,To teach a truth he would not learn.And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed;Once counted greater than the rest,When mountain-winds blew out his vest.And Spenser drooped his dreaming head(With languid sleep-smile you had saidFrom his own verse engenderèd)On Ariosto's, till they ranTheir curls in one: the ItalianShot nimbler heat of bolder manFrom his fine lids. And Dante sternAnd sweet, whose spirit was an urnFor wine and milk poured out in turn.Hard-souled Alfieri; and fancy-willedBoiardo, who with laughter filledThe pauses of the jostled shield.And Berni, with a hand stretched outTo sleek that storm. And, not withoutThe wreath he died in and the doubtHe died by, Tasso, bard and lover,Whose visions were too thin to coverThe face of a false woman over.And soft Racine; and grave Corneille,The orator of rhymes, whose wailScarce shook his purple. And Petrarch pale,From whose brain-lighted heart were thrownA thousand thoughts beneath the sun,Each lucid with the name of One.And Camoens, with that look he had,Compelling India's Genius sadFrom the wave through the Lusiad,—The murmurs of the storm-cape oceanIndrawn in vibrative emotionAlong the verse. And, while devotionIn his wild eyes fantastic shoneUnder the tonsure blown uponBy airs celestial, Calderon.And bold De Vega, who breathed quickVerse after verse, till death's old trickPut pause to life and rhetoric.And Goethe, with that reaching eyeHis soul reached out from, far and high,And fell from inner entity.And Schiller, with heroic frontWorthy of Plutarch's kiss upon 't,Too large for wreath of modern wont.And Chaucer, with his infantineFamiliar clasp of things divine;That mark upon his lip is wine.Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim:The shapes of suns and stars did swimLike clouds from them, and granted himGod for sole vision. Cowley, there,Whose active fancy debonairDrew straws like amber—foul to fair.Drayton and Browne, with smiles they drewFrom outward nature, still kept newFrom their own inward nature true.And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows whenThe world was worthy of such men.And Burns, with pungent passioningsSet in his eyes: deep lyric springsAre of the fire-mount's issuings.And Shelley, in his white ideal,All statue-blind. And Keats the realAdonis with the hymenealFresh vernal buds half sunk betweenHis youthful curls, kissed straight and sheenIn his Rome-grave, by Venus queen.And poor, proud Byron, sad as graveAnd salt as life; forlornly brave,And quivering with the dart he drave.And visionary Coleridge, whoDid sweep his thoughts as angels doTheir wings with cadence up the Blue.These poets faced (and many more)The lighted altar looming o'erThe clouds of incense dim and hoar:And all their faces, in the lullOf natural things, looked wonderfulWith life and death and deathless rule.All, still as stone and yet intense;As if by spirit's vehemenceThat stone were carved and not by sense.But where the heart of each should beat,There seemed a wound instead of it,From whence the blood dropped to their feetDrop after drop—dropped heavilyAs century follows centuryInto the deep eternity.Then said the lady—and her wordCame distant, as wide waves were stirredBetween her and the ear that heard,—"World's useis cold,world's loveis vain,World's crueltyis bitter bane,But pain is not the fruit of pain."Hearken, O poet, whom I ledFrom the dark wood: dismissing dread,Now hear this angel in my stead."His organ's clavier strikes alongThese poets' hearts, sonorous, strong,They gave him without count of wrong,—"A diapason whence to guideUp to God's feet, from these who died,An anthem fully glorified—"Whereat God's blessing,Ibarak(=yivarech=)Breathes back this music, folds it backAbout the earth in vapoury rack,"And men walk in it, crying 'LoThe world is wider, and we knowThe very heavens look brighter so:"'The stars move statelier round the edgeOf the silver spheres, and give in pledgeTheir light for nobler privilege:"'No little flower but joys or grieves,Full life is rustling in the sheaves,Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.'"So works this music on the earth,God so admits it, sends it forthTo add another worth to worth—"A new creation-bloom that roundsThe old creation and expoundsHis Beautiful in tuneful sounds."Now hearken!" Then the poet gazedUpon the angel glorious-facedWhose hand, majestically raised,Floated across the organ-keys,Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas,With no touch but with influences:Then rose and fell (with swell and swoundOf shapeless noises wandering roundA concord which at last they found)Those mystic keys: the tones were mixed,Dim, faint, and thrilled and throbbed betwixtThe incomplete and the unfixed:And therein mighty minds were heardIn mighty musings, inly stirred,And struggling outward for a word:Until these surges, having runThis way and that, gave out as oneAn Aphroditè of sweet tune,A Harmony that, finding vent,Upward in grand ascension went,Winged to a heavenly argument,Up, upward like a saint who stripsThe shroud back from his eyes and lips,And rises in apocalypse:A harmony sublime and plain,Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,—Throwing the drops off with a strainOf her white wing) those undertonesOf perplext chords, and soared at onceAnd struck out from the starry thronesTheir several silver octaves asIt passed to God. The music wasOf divine stature; strong to pass:And those who heard it, understoodSomething of life in spirit and blood,Something of nature's fair and good:And while it sounded, those great soulsDid thrill as racers at the goalsAnd burn in all their aureoles;But she the lady, as vapour-bound,Stood calmly in the joy of sound,Like Nature with the showers around:And when it ceased, the blood which fellAgain, alone grew audible,Tolling the silence as a bell.The sovran angel lifted highHis hand, and spake out sovranly:"Tried poets, hearken and reply!"Give me true answers. If we grantThat not to suffer, is to wantThe conscience of the jubilant,—"If ignorance of anguish isButignorance, and mortals missFar prospects, by a level bliss,—"If, as two colours must be viewedIn a visible image, mortals shouldNeed good and evil, to see good,—"If to speak nobly, comprehendsTo feel profoundly,—if the endsOf power and suffering, Nature blends,—"If poets on the tripod mustWrithe like the Pythian to make justTheir oracles and merit trust,—"If every vatic word that sweepsTo change the world must pale their lipsAnd leave their own souls in eclipse,—"If to search deep the universeMust pierce the searcher with the curse,Because that bolt (in man's reverse)"Was shot to the heart o' the wood and liesWedged deepest in the best,—if eyesThat look for visions and surprise"From influent angels, must shut downTheir eyelids first to sun and moon,The head asleep upon a stone,—"IfOnewho did redeem you back,By His own loss, from final wrack,Did consecrate by touch and track"Those temporal sorrows till the tasteOf brackish waters of the wasteIs salt with tears He dropt too fast,—"If all the crowns of earth must woundWith prickings of the thorns He found,—If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound,—"What say ye unto this?—refuseThis baptism in salt water?—chooseCalm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose?"Or, O ye gifted givers! yeWho give your liberal hearts to meTo make the world this harmony,"Are ye resigned that they be spentTo such world's help?"The Spirits bentTheir awful brows and said "Content."Content! it sounded likeAmenSaid by a choir of mourning men;An affirmation full of painAnd patience,—ay, of gloryingAnd adoration, as a kingMight seal an oath for governing.Then said the angel—and his faceLightened abroad until the placeGrew larger for a moment's space,—The long aisles flashing out in light,And nave and transept, columns whiteAnd arches crossed, being clear to sightAs if the roof were off and allStood in the noon-sun,—"Lo, I callTo other hearts as liberal."This pedal strikes out in the air:My instrument has room to bearStill fuller strains and perfecter."Herein is room, and shall be roomWhile Time lasts, for new hearts to comeConsummating while they consume."What living man will bring a giftOf his own heart and help to liftThe tune?—The race is to the swift."So asked the angel. Straight the while,A company came up the aisleWith measured step and sorted smile;Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise,With winking unaccustomed eyesAnd love-locks smelling sweet of spice.One bore his head above the restAs if the world were dispossessed,And one did pillow chin on breast,Right languid, an as he should faint;One shook his curls across his paintAnd moralized on worldly taint;One, slanting up his face, did winkThe salt rheum to the eyelid's brink,To think—O gods! or—not to think.Some trod out stealthily and slow,As if the sun would fall in snowIf they walked to instead of fro;And some, with conscious ambling free,Did shake their bells right daintilyOn hand and foot, for harmony;And some, composing sudden sighsIn attitudes of point-device,Rehearsed impromptu agonies.And when this company drew nearThe spirits crowned, it might appearSubmitted to a ghastly fear;As a sane eye in master-passionConstrains a maniac to the fashionOf hideous maniac imitationIn the least geste—the dropping lowO' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow,Exaggerate with mock and mow,—So mastered was that companyBy the crowned vision utterly,Swayed to a maniac mockery.One dulled his eyeballs, as they achedWith Homer's forehead, though he lackedAn inch of any; and one rackedHis lower lip with restless tooth,As Pindar's rushing words forsoothWere pent behind it; one his smoothPink cheeks did rumple passionateLike Æschylus, and tried to prateOn trolling tongue of fate and fate;One set her eyes like Sappho's—orAny light woman's; one forboreLike Dante, or any man as poorIn mirth, to let a smile undoHis hard-shut lips; and one that drewSour humours from his mother, blewHis sunken cheeks out to the sizeOf most unnatural jollities,Because Anacreon looked jest-wise;So with the rest: it was a sightA great world-laughter would requite,Or great world-wrath, with equal rightOut came a speaker from that crowdTo speak for all, in sleek and proudExordial periods, while he bowedHis knee before the angel—"Thus,O angel who hast called for us,We bring thee service emulous,"Fit service from sufficient soul,Hand-service to receive world's dole,Lip-service in world's ear to roll"Adjusted concords soft enowTo hear the wine-cups passing, through,And not too grave to spoil the show:"Thou, certes, when thou askest more,O sapient angel, leanest o'erThe window-sill of metaphor."To give our hearts up? fie! that rageBarbaric antedates the age;It is not done on any stage."Because your scald or gleeman wentWith seven or nine-stringed instrumentUpon his back,—must ours be bent?"We are not pilgrims, by your leave;No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve,It is to rhyme to—summer eve:"And if we labour, it shall beAs suiteth best with our degree,In after-dinner reverie."More yet that speaker would have said,Poising between his smiles fair-fedEach separate phrase till finishèd;But all the foreheads of those bornAnd dead true poets flashed with scornBetwixt the bay leaves round them worn,Ay, jetted such brave fire that they,The new-come, shrank and paled awayLike leaden ashes when the dayStrikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast,A presence known by power, at lastTook them up mutely: they had passed.And he our pilgrim-poet sawOnly their places, in deep awe,What time the angel's smile did drawHis gazing upward. Smiling on,The angel in the angel shone,Revealing glory in benison;Till, ripened in the light which shutThe poet in, his spirit muteDropped sudden as a perfect fruit;He fell before the angel's feet,Saying, "If what is true is sweet,In something I may compass it:"For, where my worthiness is poor,My will stands richly at the doorTo pay shortcomings evermore."Accept me therefore: not for priceAnd not for pride my sacrificeIs tendered, for my soul is nice"And will beat down those dusty seedsOf bearded corn if she succeedsIn soaring while the covey feeds."I soar, I am drawn up like the larkTo its white cloud—so high my mark,Albeit my wing is small and dark."I ask no wages, seek no fame:Sew me, for shroud round face and name,God's banner of the oriflamme."I only would have leave to loose(In tears and blood if so He choose)Mine inward music out to use:"I only would be spent—in painAnd loss, perchance, but not in vain—Upon the sweetness of that strain;"Only project beyond the boundOf mine own life, so lost and found,My voice, and live on in its sound;"Only embrace and be embracedBy fiery ends, whereby to waste,And light God's future with my past."The angel's smile grew more divine,The mortal speaking; ay, its shineSwelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,Till the broad glory round his browDid vibrate with the light below;But what he said I do not know.Nor know I if the man who prayed,Rose up accepted, unforbade,From the church-floor where he was laid,—Nor if a listening life did runThrough the king-poets, one by oneRejoicing in a worthy son:My soul, which might have seen, grew blindBy what it looked on: I can findNo certain count of things behind.I saw alone, dim, white and grandAs in a dream, the angel's handStretched forth in gesture of commandStraight through the haze. And so, as erst,A strain more noble than the firstMused in the organ, and outburst:With giant march from floor to roofRose the full notes, now parted offIn pauses massively aloofLike measured thunders, now rejoinedIn concords of mysterious kindWhich fused together sense and mind,Now flashing sharp on sharp alongExultant in a mounting throng,Now dying off to a low songFed upon minors, wavelike soundsRe-eddying into silver rounds,Enlarging liberty with bounds:And every rhythm that seemed to closeSurvived in confluent underflowsSymphonious with the next that rose.Thus the whole strain being multipliedAnd greatened, with its glorifiedWings shot abroad from side to side,Waved backward (as a wind might waveA Brocken mist and with as braveWild roaring) arch and architrave,Aisle, transept, column, marble wall,—Then swelling outward, prodigalOf aspiration beyond thrall,Soared, and drew up with it the wholeOf this said vision, as a soulIs raised by a thought. And as a scrollOf bright devices is unrolledStill upward with a gradual gold,So rose the vision manifold,Angel and organ, and the roundOf spirits, solemnized and crowned;While the freed clouds of incense woundAscending, following in their track,And glimmering faintly like the rackO' the moon in her own light cast back.And as that solemn dream withdrew,The lady's kiss did fall anewCold on the poet's brow as dew.And that same kiss which bound him firstBeyond the senses, now reversedIts own law and most subtly piercedHis spirit with the sense of thingsSensual and present. VanishingsOf glory with Æolian wingsStruck him and passed: the lady's faceDid melt back in the chrysoprasOf the orient morning sky that wasYet clear of lark and there and soShe melted as a star might do,Still smiling as she melted slow:Smiling so slow, he seemed to seeHer smile the last thing, gloriouslyBeyond her, far as memory.Then he looked round: he was alone.He lay before the breaking sun,As Jacob at the Bethel stone.And thought's entangled skein being wound,He knew the moorland of his swound,And the pale pools that smeared the ground;The far wood-pines like offing ships;The fourth pool's yew anear him drips,World's crueltyattaints his lips,And still he tastes it, bitter still;Through all that glorious possibleHe had the sight of present ill.Yet rising calmly up and slowlyWith such a cheer as scorneth folly,A mild delightsome melancholy,He journeyed homeward through the woodAnd prayed along the solitudeBetwixt the pines, "O God, my God!"The golden morning's open flowingsDid sway the trees to murmurous bowings,In metric chant of blessed poems.And passing homeward through the wood,He prayed along the solitude,"Thou, Poet-God, art great and good!"And though we must have, and have hadRight reason to be earthly sad,Thou, Poet-God, art great and glad!"
A poet could not sleep aright,For his soul kept up too much lightUnder his eyelids for the night.
And thus he rose disquietedWith sweet rhymes ringing through his head,And in the forest wanderèd
Where, sloping up the darkest glades,The moon had drawn long colonnadesUpon whose floor the verdure fades
To a faint silver: pavement fair,The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dareTo foot-print o'er, had such been there,
And rather sit by breathlessly,With fear in their large eyes, to seeThe consecrated sight. Buthe—
The poet who, with spirit-kissFamiliar, had long claimed for hisWhatever earthly beauty is,
Who also in his spirit boreA beauty passing the earth's store,—Walked calmly onward evermore.
His aimless thoughts in metre went,Like a babe's hand without intentDrawn down a seven-stringed instrument:
Nor jarred it with his humour as,With a faint stirring of the grass,An apparition fair did pass.
He might have feared another time,But all things fair and strange did chimeWith his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme.
An angel had not startled him,Alighted from heaven's burning rimTo breathe from glory in the Dim;
Much less a lady riding slowUpon a palfrey white as snow,And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.
Full upon his she turned her face,"What ho, sir poet! dost thou paceOur woods at night in ghostly chase
"Of some fair Dryad of old talesWho chants between the nightingalesAnd over sleep by song prevails?"
She smiled; but he could see ariseHer soul from far adown her eyes,Prepared as if for sacrifice.
She looked a queen who seemeth gayFrom royal grace alone. "Now, nay,"He answered, "slumber passed away,
"Compelled by instincts in my headThat I should see to-night, insteadOf a fair nymph, some fairer Dread."
She looked up quickly to the skyAnd spake: "The moon's regalityWill hear no praise; She is as I.
"She is in heaven, and I on earth;This is my kingdom: I come forthTo crown all poets to their worth."
He brake in with a voice that mourned;"To their worth, lady? They are scornedBy men they sing for, till inurned.
"To their worth? Beauty in the mindLeaves the hearth cold, and love-refinedAmbitions make the world unkind.
"The boor who ploughs the daisy down,The chief whose mortgage of renown,Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown—
"Both these are happier, more approvedThan poets!—why should I be movedIn saying, both are more beloved?"
"The south can judge not of the north,"She resumed calmly; "I come forthTo crown all poets to their worth.
"Yea, verily, to anoint them allWith blessed oils which surely shallSmell sweeter as the ages fall."
"As sweet," the poet said, and rungA low sad laugh, "as flowers are, sprungOut of their graves when they die young;
"As sweet as window-eglantine,Some bough of which, as they decline,The hired nurse gathers at their sign:
"As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroudWhich the gay Roman maidens sewedFor English Keats, singing aloud."
The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet!The things thou namest being completeIn fragrance, as I measure it.
"Since sweet the death-clothes and the knellOf him who having lived, dies well;And wholly sweet the asphodel
"Stirred softly by that foot of his,When he treads brave on all that is,Into the world of souls, from this.
"Since sweet the tears, dropped at the doorOf tearless Death, and even before:Sweet, consecrated evermore.
"What, dost thou judge it a strange thingThat poets, crowned for vanquishing,Should bear some dust from out the ring?
"Come on with me, come on with me,And learn in coming: let me freeThy spirit into verity."
She ceased: her palfrey's paces sentNo separate noises as she went;'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent.
And while the poet seemed to treadAlong the drowsy noise so made,The forest heaved up overhead
Its billowy foliage through the air,And the calm stars did far and spareO'erswim the masses everywhere
Save when the overtopping pinesDid bar their tremulous light with linesAll fixed and black. Now the moon shines
A broader glory. You may seeThe trees grow rarer presently;The air blows up more fresh and free:
Until they come from dark to light,And from the forest to the sightOf the large heaven-heart, bare with night,
A fiery throb in every star,Those burning arteries that areThe conduits of God's life afar,—
A wild brown moorland underneath,And four pools breaking up the heathWith white low gleamings, blank as death.
Beside the first pool, near the wood,A dead tree in set horror stood,Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood;
Since thunder-stricken, years ago,Fixed in the spectral strain and throeWherewith it struggled from the blow:
A monumental tree, alone,That will not bend in storms, nor groan,But break off sudden like a stone.
Its lifeless shadow lies obliqueUpon the pool where, javelin-like,The star-rays quiver while they strike.
"Drink," said the lady, very still—"Be holy and cold." He did her willAnd drank the starry water chill.
The next pool they came near untoWas bare of trees; there, only grewStraight flags, and lilies just a few
Which sullen on the water sateAnd leant their faces on the flat,As weary of the starlight-state.
"Drink," said the lady, grave and slow—"World's usebehoveth thee to know."He drank the bitter wave below.
The third pool, girt with thorny bushesAnd flaunting weeds and reeds and rushesThat winds sang through in mournful gushes,
Was whitely smeared in many a roundBy a slow slime; the starlight swoundOver the ghastly light it found.
"Drink," said the lady, sad and slow—"World's lovebehoveth thee to know."He looked to her commanding so;
Her brow was troubled, but her eyeStruck clear to his soul. For all replyHe drank the water suddenly,—
Then, with a deathly sickness, passedBeside the fourth pool and the last,Where weights of shadow were downcast
From yew and alder and rank trailsOf nightshade clasping the trunk-scalesAnd flung across the intervals
From yew to yew: who dares to stoopWhere those dank branches overdroop,Into his heart the chill strikes up,
He hears a silent gliding coil,The snakes strain hard against the soil,His foot slips in their slimy oil,
And toads seem crawling on his hand,And clinging bats but dimly scannedFull in his face their wings expand.
A paleness took the poet's cheek:"Must I drinkhere?" he seemed to seekThe lady's will with utterance meek:
"Ay, ay," she said, "it so must be;"(And this time she spake cheerfully)"Behoves thee knowWorld's cruelty."
He bowed his forehead till his mouthCurved in the wave, and drank unlothAs if from rivers of the south;
His lips sobbed through the water rank,His heart paused in him while he drank,His brain beat heart-like, rose and sank,
And he swooned backward to a dreamWherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam,With Death and Life at each extreme:
And spiritual thunders, born of soulNot cloud, did leap from mystic poleAnd o'er him roll and counter-roll,
Crushing their echoes reboantWith their own wheels. Did Heaven so grantHis spirit a sign of covenant?
At last came silence. A slow kissDid crown his forehead after this;His eyelids flew back for the bliss—
The lady stood beside his head,Smiling a thought, with hair dispread;The moonshine seemed dishevellèd
In her sleek tresses manifoldLike Danaë's in the rain of oldThat dripped with melancholy gold:
Butshewas holy, pale and highAs one who saw an ecstasyBeyond a foretold agony.
"Rise up!" said she with voice where songEddied through speech, "rise up; be strong:And learn how right avenges wrong."
The poet rose up on his feet:He stood before an altar setFor sacrament with vessels meet
And mystic altar-lights which shineAs if their flames were crystallineCarved flames that would not shrink or pine.
The altar filled the central placeOf a great church, and toward its faceLong aisles did shoot and interlace,
And from it a continuous mistOf incense (round the edges kissedBy a yellow light of amethyst)
Wound upward slowly and throbbingly,Cloud within cloud, right silverly,Cloud above cloud, victoriously,—
Broke full against the archèd roofAnd thence refracting eddied offAnd floated through the marble woof
Of many a fine-wrought architrave,Then, poising its white masses brave,Swept solemnly down aisle and nave
Where, now in dark and now in light,The countless columns, glimmering white,Seemed leading out to the Infinite:
Plunged halfway up the shaft, they showedIn that pale shifting incense-cloudWhich flowed them by and overflowed
Till mist and marble seemed to blendAnd the whole temple, at the end,With its own incense to distend,—
The arches like a giant's bowTo bend and slacken,—and below,The nichèd saints to come and go:
Alone amid the shifting sceneThat central altar stood sereneIn its clear steadfast taper-sheen.
Then first, the poet was awareOf a chief angel standing thereBefore that altar, in the glare.
His eyes were dreadful, for you sawThattheysaw God; his lips and jawGrand-made and strong, as Sinai's law
They could enunciate and refrainFrom vibratory after-pain,And his brow's height was sovereign:
On the vast background of his wingsRises his image, and he flingsFrom each plumed arc pale glitterings
And fiery flakes (as beateth, moreOr less, the angel-heart) beforeAnd round him upon roof and floor,
Edging with fire the shifting fumes,While at his side 'twixt lights and gloomsThe phantasm of an organ booms.
Extending from which instrumentAnd angel, right and left-way bent,The poet's sight grew sentient
Of a strange company aroundAnd toward the altar, pale and boundWith bay above the eyes profound.
Deathful their faces were, and yetThe power of life was in them set—Never forgot nor to forget:
Sublime significance of mouth,Dilated nostril full of youth,And forehead royal with the truth.
These faces were not multipliedBeyond your count, but side by sideDid front the altar, glorified,
Still as a vision, yet exprestFull as an action—look and gesteOf buried saint in risen rest.
The poet knew them. Faint and dimHis spirits seemed to sink in him—Then, like a dolphin, change and swim
The current: these were poets true,Who died for Beauty as martyrs doFor Truth—the ends being scarcely two.
God's prophets of the BeautifulThese poets were; of iron rule,The rugged cilix, serge of wool.
Here Homer, with the broad suspenseOf thunderous brows, and lips intenseOf garrulous god-innocence.
There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climbThe crowns o' the world: O eyes sublimeWith tears and laughters for all time!
Here Æschylus, the women swoonedTo see so awful when he frownedAs the gods did: he standeth crowned.
Euripides, with close and mildScholastic lips, that could be wildAnd laugh or sob out like a child
Even in the classes. Sophocles,With that king's-look which down the treesFollowed the dark effigies
Of the lost Theban. Hesiod old,Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold,Cared most for gods and bulls. And bold
Electric Pindar, quick as fear,With race-dust on his cheeks, and clearSlant startled eyes that seem to hear
The chariot rounding the last goal,To hurtle past it in his soul.And Sappho, with that gloriole
Of ebon hair on calmèd brows—O poet-woman! none forgoesThe leap, attaining the repose.
Theocritus, with glittering locksDropt sideway, as betwixt the rocksHe watched the visionary flocks.
And Aristophanes, who tookThe world with mirth, and laughter-struckThe hollow caves of Thought and woke
The infinite echoes hid in each.And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beechDid help the shade of bay to reach
And knit around his forehead high:For his gods wore less majestyThan his brown bees hummed deathlessly.
Lucretius, nobler than his mood,Who dropped his plummet down the broadDeep universe and said "No God—"
Finding no bottom: he deniedDivinely the divine, and diedChief poet on the Tiber-side
By grace of God: his face is sternAs one compelled, in spite of scorn,To teach a truth he would not learn.
And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed;Once counted greater than the rest,When mountain-winds blew out his vest.
And Spenser drooped his dreaming head(With languid sleep-smile you had saidFrom his own verse engenderèd)
On Ariosto's, till they ranTheir curls in one: the ItalianShot nimbler heat of bolder man
From his fine lids. And Dante sternAnd sweet, whose spirit was an urnFor wine and milk poured out in turn.
Hard-souled Alfieri; and fancy-willedBoiardo, who with laughter filledThe pauses of the jostled shield.
And Berni, with a hand stretched outTo sleek that storm. And, not withoutThe wreath he died in and the doubt
He died by, Tasso, bard and lover,Whose visions were too thin to coverThe face of a false woman over.
And soft Racine; and grave Corneille,The orator of rhymes, whose wailScarce shook his purple. And Petrarch pale,
From whose brain-lighted heart were thrownA thousand thoughts beneath the sun,Each lucid with the name of One.
And Camoens, with that look he had,Compelling India's Genius sadFrom the wave through the Lusiad,—
The murmurs of the storm-cape oceanIndrawn in vibrative emotionAlong the verse. And, while devotion
In his wild eyes fantastic shoneUnder the tonsure blown uponBy airs celestial, Calderon.
And bold De Vega, who breathed quickVerse after verse, till death's old trickPut pause to life and rhetoric.
And Goethe, with that reaching eyeHis soul reached out from, far and high,And fell from inner entity.
And Schiller, with heroic frontWorthy of Plutarch's kiss upon 't,Too large for wreath of modern wont.
And Chaucer, with his infantineFamiliar clasp of things divine;That mark upon his lip is wine.
Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim:The shapes of suns and stars did swimLike clouds from them, and granted him
God for sole vision. Cowley, there,Whose active fancy debonairDrew straws like amber—foul to fair.
Drayton and Browne, with smiles they drewFrom outward nature, still kept newFrom their own inward nature true.
And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows whenThe world was worthy of such men.
And Burns, with pungent passioningsSet in his eyes: deep lyric springsAre of the fire-mount's issuings.
And Shelley, in his white ideal,All statue-blind. And Keats the realAdonis with the hymeneal
Fresh vernal buds half sunk betweenHis youthful curls, kissed straight and sheenIn his Rome-grave, by Venus queen.
And poor, proud Byron, sad as graveAnd salt as life; forlornly brave,And quivering with the dart he drave.
And visionary Coleridge, whoDid sweep his thoughts as angels doTheir wings with cadence up the Blue.
These poets faced (and many more)The lighted altar looming o'erThe clouds of incense dim and hoar:
And all their faces, in the lullOf natural things, looked wonderfulWith life and death and deathless rule.
All, still as stone and yet intense;As if by spirit's vehemenceThat stone were carved and not by sense.
But where the heart of each should beat,There seemed a wound instead of it,From whence the blood dropped to their feet
Drop after drop—dropped heavilyAs century follows centuryInto the deep eternity.
Then said the lady—and her wordCame distant, as wide waves were stirredBetween her and the ear that heard,—
"World's useis cold,world's loveis vain,World's crueltyis bitter bane,But pain is not the fruit of pain.
"Hearken, O poet, whom I ledFrom the dark wood: dismissing dread,Now hear this angel in my stead.
"His organ's clavier strikes alongThese poets' hearts, sonorous, strong,They gave him without count of wrong,—
"A diapason whence to guideUp to God's feet, from these who died,An anthem fully glorified—
"Whereat God's blessing,Ibarak(=yivarech=)Breathes back this music, folds it backAbout the earth in vapoury rack,
"And men walk in it, crying 'LoThe world is wider, and we knowThe very heavens look brighter so:
"'The stars move statelier round the edgeOf the silver spheres, and give in pledgeTheir light for nobler privilege:
"'No little flower but joys or grieves,Full life is rustling in the sheaves,Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.'
"So works this music on the earth,God so admits it, sends it forthTo add another worth to worth—
"A new creation-bloom that roundsThe old creation and expoundsHis Beautiful in tuneful sounds.
"Now hearken!" Then the poet gazedUpon the angel glorious-facedWhose hand, majestically raised,
Floated across the organ-keys,Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas,With no touch but with influences:
Then rose and fell (with swell and swoundOf shapeless noises wandering roundA concord which at last they found)
Those mystic keys: the tones were mixed,Dim, faint, and thrilled and throbbed betwixtThe incomplete and the unfixed:
And therein mighty minds were heardIn mighty musings, inly stirred,And struggling outward for a word:
Until these surges, having runThis way and that, gave out as oneAn Aphroditè of sweet tune,
A Harmony that, finding vent,Upward in grand ascension went,Winged to a heavenly argument,
Up, upward like a saint who stripsThe shroud back from his eyes and lips,And rises in apocalypse:
A harmony sublime and plain,Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,—Throwing the drops off with a strain
Of her white wing) those undertonesOf perplext chords, and soared at onceAnd struck out from the starry thrones
Their several silver octaves asIt passed to God. The music wasOf divine stature; strong to pass:
And those who heard it, understoodSomething of life in spirit and blood,Something of nature's fair and good:
And while it sounded, those great soulsDid thrill as racers at the goalsAnd burn in all their aureoles;
But she the lady, as vapour-bound,Stood calmly in the joy of sound,Like Nature with the showers around:
And when it ceased, the blood which fellAgain, alone grew audible,Tolling the silence as a bell.
The sovran angel lifted highHis hand, and spake out sovranly:"Tried poets, hearken and reply!
"Give me true answers. If we grantThat not to suffer, is to wantThe conscience of the jubilant,—
"If ignorance of anguish isButignorance, and mortals missFar prospects, by a level bliss,—
"If, as two colours must be viewedIn a visible image, mortals shouldNeed good and evil, to see good,—
"If to speak nobly, comprehendsTo feel profoundly,—if the endsOf power and suffering, Nature blends,—
"If poets on the tripod mustWrithe like the Pythian to make justTheir oracles and merit trust,—
"If every vatic word that sweepsTo change the world must pale their lipsAnd leave their own souls in eclipse,—
"If to search deep the universeMust pierce the searcher with the curse,Because that bolt (in man's reverse)
"Was shot to the heart o' the wood and liesWedged deepest in the best,—if eyesThat look for visions and surprise
"From influent angels, must shut downTheir eyelids first to sun and moon,The head asleep upon a stone,—
"IfOnewho did redeem you back,By His own loss, from final wrack,Did consecrate by touch and track
"Those temporal sorrows till the tasteOf brackish waters of the wasteIs salt with tears He dropt too fast,—
"If all the crowns of earth must woundWith prickings of the thorns He found,—If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound,—
"What say ye unto this?—refuseThis baptism in salt water?—chooseCalm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose?
"Or, O ye gifted givers! yeWho give your liberal hearts to meTo make the world this harmony,
"Are ye resigned that they be spentTo such world's help?"The Spirits bentTheir awful brows and said "Content."
Content! it sounded likeAmenSaid by a choir of mourning men;An affirmation full of pain
And patience,—ay, of gloryingAnd adoration, as a kingMight seal an oath for governing.
Then said the angel—and his faceLightened abroad until the placeGrew larger for a moment's space,—
The long aisles flashing out in light,And nave and transept, columns whiteAnd arches crossed, being clear to sight
As if the roof were off and allStood in the noon-sun,—"Lo, I callTo other hearts as liberal.
"This pedal strikes out in the air:My instrument has room to bearStill fuller strains and perfecter.
"Herein is room, and shall be roomWhile Time lasts, for new hearts to comeConsummating while they consume.
"What living man will bring a giftOf his own heart and help to liftThe tune?—The race is to the swift."
So asked the angel. Straight the while,A company came up the aisleWith measured step and sorted smile;
Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise,With winking unaccustomed eyesAnd love-locks smelling sweet of spice.
One bore his head above the restAs if the world were dispossessed,And one did pillow chin on breast,
Right languid, an as he should faint;One shook his curls across his paintAnd moralized on worldly taint;
One, slanting up his face, did winkThe salt rheum to the eyelid's brink,To think—O gods! or—not to think.
Some trod out stealthily and slow,As if the sun would fall in snowIf they walked to instead of fro;
And some, with conscious ambling free,Did shake their bells right daintilyOn hand and foot, for harmony;
And some, composing sudden sighsIn attitudes of point-device,Rehearsed impromptu agonies.
And when this company drew nearThe spirits crowned, it might appearSubmitted to a ghastly fear;
As a sane eye in master-passionConstrains a maniac to the fashionOf hideous maniac imitation
In the least geste—the dropping lowO' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow,Exaggerate with mock and mow,—
So mastered was that companyBy the crowned vision utterly,Swayed to a maniac mockery.
One dulled his eyeballs, as they achedWith Homer's forehead, though he lackedAn inch of any; and one racked
His lower lip with restless tooth,As Pindar's rushing words forsoothWere pent behind it; one his smooth
Pink cheeks did rumple passionateLike Æschylus, and tried to prateOn trolling tongue of fate and fate;
One set her eyes like Sappho's—orAny light woman's; one forboreLike Dante, or any man as poor
In mirth, to let a smile undoHis hard-shut lips; and one that drewSour humours from his mother, blew
His sunken cheeks out to the sizeOf most unnatural jollities,Because Anacreon looked jest-wise;
So with the rest: it was a sightA great world-laughter would requite,Or great world-wrath, with equal right
Out came a speaker from that crowdTo speak for all, in sleek and proudExordial periods, while he bowed
His knee before the angel—"Thus,O angel who hast called for us,We bring thee service emulous,
"Fit service from sufficient soul,Hand-service to receive world's dole,Lip-service in world's ear to roll
"Adjusted concords soft enowTo hear the wine-cups passing, through,And not too grave to spoil the show:
"Thou, certes, when thou askest more,O sapient angel, leanest o'erThe window-sill of metaphor.
"To give our hearts up? fie! that rageBarbaric antedates the age;It is not done on any stage.
"Because your scald or gleeman wentWith seven or nine-stringed instrumentUpon his back,—must ours be bent?
"We are not pilgrims, by your leave;No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve,It is to rhyme to—summer eve:
"And if we labour, it shall beAs suiteth best with our degree,In after-dinner reverie."
More yet that speaker would have said,Poising between his smiles fair-fedEach separate phrase till finishèd;
But all the foreheads of those bornAnd dead true poets flashed with scornBetwixt the bay leaves round them worn,
Ay, jetted such brave fire that they,The new-come, shrank and paled awayLike leaden ashes when the day
Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast,A presence known by power, at lastTook them up mutely: they had passed.
And he our pilgrim-poet sawOnly their places, in deep awe,What time the angel's smile did draw
His gazing upward. Smiling on,The angel in the angel shone,Revealing glory in benison;
Till, ripened in the light which shutThe poet in, his spirit muteDropped sudden as a perfect fruit;
He fell before the angel's feet,Saying, "If what is true is sweet,In something I may compass it:
"For, where my worthiness is poor,My will stands richly at the doorTo pay shortcomings evermore.
"Accept me therefore: not for priceAnd not for pride my sacrificeIs tendered, for my soul is nice
"And will beat down those dusty seedsOf bearded corn if she succeedsIn soaring while the covey feeds.
"I soar, I am drawn up like the larkTo its white cloud—so high my mark,Albeit my wing is small and dark.
"I ask no wages, seek no fame:Sew me, for shroud round face and name,God's banner of the oriflamme.
"I only would have leave to loose(In tears and blood if so He choose)Mine inward music out to use:
"I only would be spent—in painAnd loss, perchance, but not in vain—Upon the sweetness of that strain;
"Only project beyond the boundOf mine own life, so lost and found,My voice, and live on in its sound;
"Only embrace and be embracedBy fiery ends, whereby to waste,And light God's future with my past."
The angel's smile grew more divine,The mortal speaking; ay, its shineSwelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,
Till the broad glory round his browDid vibrate with the light below;But what he said I do not know.
Nor know I if the man who prayed,Rose up accepted, unforbade,From the church-floor where he was laid,—
Nor if a listening life did runThrough the king-poets, one by oneRejoicing in a worthy son:
My soul, which might have seen, grew blindBy what it looked on: I can findNo certain count of things behind.
I saw alone, dim, white and grandAs in a dream, the angel's handStretched forth in gesture of command
Straight through the haze. And so, as erst,A strain more noble than the firstMused in the organ, and outburst:
With giant march from floor to roofRose the full notes, now parted offIn pauses massively aloof
Like measured thunders, now rejoinedIn concords of mysterious kindWhich fused together sense and mind,
Now flashing sharp on sharp alongExultant in a mounting throng,Now dying off to a low song
Fed upon minors, wavelike soundsRe-eddying into silver rounds,Enlarging liberty with bounds:
And every rhythm that seemed to closeSurvived in confluent underflowsSymphonious with the next that rose.
Thus the whole strain being multipliedAnd greatened, with its glorifiedWings shot abroad from side to side,
Waved backward (as a wind might waveA Brocken mist and with as braveWild roaring) arch and architrave,
Aisle, transept, column, marble wall,—Then swelling outward, prodigalOf aspiration beyond thrall,
Soared, and drew up with it the wholeOf this said vision, as a soulIs raised by a thought. And as a scroll
Of bright devices is unrolledStill upward with a gradual gold,So rose the vision manifold,
Angel and organ, and the roundOf spirits, solemnized and crowned;While the freed clouds of incense wound
Ascending, following in their track,And glimmering faintly like the rackO' the moon in her own light cast back.
And as that solemn dream withdrew,The lady's kiss did fall anewCold on the poet's brow as dew.
And that same kiss which bound him firstBeyond the senses, now reversedIts own law and most subtly pierced
His spirit with the sense of thingsSensual and present. VanishingsOf glory with Æolian wings
Struck him and passed: the lady's faceDid melt back in the chrysoprasOf the orient morning sky that was
Yet clear of lark and there and soShe melted as a star might do,Still smiling as she melted slow:
Smiling so slow, he seemed to seeHer smile the last thing, gloriouslyBeyond her, far as memory.
Then he looked round: he was alone.He lay before the breaking sun,As Jacob at the Bethel stone.
And thought's entangled skein being wound,He knew the moorland of his swound,And the pale pools that smeared the ground;
The far wood-pines like offing ships;The fourth pool's yew anear him drips,World's crueltyattaints his lips,
And still he tastes it, bitter still;Through all that glorious possibleHe had the sight of present ill.
Yet rising calmly up and slowlyWith such a cheer as scorneth folly,A mild delightsome melancholy,
He journeyed homeward through the woodAnd prayed along the solitudeBetwixt the pines, "O God, my God!"
The golden morning's open flowingsDid sway the trees to murmurous bowings,In metric chant of blessed poems.
And passing homeward through the wood,He prayed along the solitude,"Thou, Poet-God, art great and good!
"And though we must have, and have hadRight reason to be earthly sad,Thou, Poet-God, art great and glad!"