The Polar Spring—The Boreal Lights and apparition of a double sun—The Rocky Isle—The Bears—The mysterious Shadow from the Crater of the extinct Volcano—The Bears scent the steps of Man: their movements described—Arthur's approach—The Bears emerge from their coverts—The Shadow takes form and life—The Demon Dwarf described—His parley with Arthur—The King follows the Dwarf into the interior of the volcanic rock—The Antediluvian Skeletons—The Troll-Fiends and their tasks—Arthur arrives at the Cave of Lok—The Corpses of the armed Giants—The Valkyrs at their loom—The Wars that they weave—The Dwarf addresses Arthur—The King's fear—He approaches the sleeping Fiend, and the curtains close around him—Meanwhile Gawaine and the Norwegians have tracked Arthur's steps on the snow, and arrive at the Isle—Are attacked by the Bears—The noises and eruption from the Volcano—The re-appearance of Arthur—The change in him—Freedom and its characteristics—Arthur and his band renew their way along the coast; ships are seen—How Arthur obtains a bark from the Rugen Chieftain; and how Gawaine stores it—The Dove now leads homeward—Arthur reaches England; and, sailing up a river, enters the Mercian territory—He follows the Dove through a forest to the ruins built by the earliest Cimmerians—The wisdom and civilization of the ancestral Druidical races, as compared with their idolatrous successors at the time of the Roman Conquerors, whose remains alone are left to our age—Arthur lies down to rest amidst the moonlit ruins—The Dove vanishes—The nameless horror that seizes the King.
The Polar Spring—The Boreal Lights and apparition of a double sun—The Rocky Isle—The Bears—The mysterious Shadow from the Crater of the extinct Volcano—The Bears scent the steps of Man: their movements described—Arthur's approach—The Bears emerge from their coverts—The Shadow takes form and life—The Demon Dwarf described—His parley with Arthur—The King follows the Dwarf into the interior of the volcanic rock—The Antediluvian Skeletons—The Troll-Fiends and their tasks—Arthur arrives at the Cave of Lok—The Corpses of the armed Giants—The Valkyrs at their loom—The Wars that they weave—The Dwarf addresses Arthur—The King's fear—He approaches the sleeping Fiend, and the curtains close around him—Meanwhile Gawaine and the Norwegians have tracked Arthur's steps on the snow, and arrive at the Isle—Are attacked by the Bears—The noises and eruption from the Volcano—The re-appearance of Arthur—The change in him—Freedom and its characteristics—Arthur and his band renew their way along the coast; ships are seen—How Arthur obtains a bark from the Rugen Chieftain; and how Gawaine stores it—The Dove now leads homeward—Arthur reaches England; and, sailing up a river, enters the Mercian territory—He follows the Dove through a forest to the ruins built by the earliest Cimmerians—The wisdom and civilization of the ancestral Druidical races, as compared with their idolatrous successors at the time of the Roman Conquerors, whose remains alone are left to our age—Arthur lies down to rest amidst the moonlit ruins—The Dove vanishes—The nameless horror that seizes the King.
Spring on the Polar Seas!—not violet-crown'd1By dewy Hours, nor to cerulean hallsMelodious hymn'd, yet Light itself aroundHer stately path, sheds starry coronals.Sublime she comes, as when, from Dis set free,Came, through the flash of Jove, Persephoné:She comes—that grand Aurora of the North!2By steeds of fire her glorious chariot borne,From Boreal courts the meteors flaming forth,Ope heav'n on heav'n, before the mighty Morn:And round the rebel giants of the nightOn earth's last confines bursts the storm of light.Wonder and awe! lo, where against the Sun3A second Sun[1]his lurid front uprears!As if the first-born lost Hyperion,Hurl'd down of old, from his Uranian spheres,Rose from the hell-rocks on his writhings pil'd,And glared defiance on his Titan child.Now life, the polar life, returns once more,4The reindeer roots his mosses from the snows;The whirring sea-gulls shriek along the shore;Through oozing rills the cygnet gleaming goes;And, where the ice some happier verdure frees,Laugh into light frank-eyed anemones.Out from the seas still solid, frown'd a lone5Chaos of chasm and precipice and rock,There, while the meteors on their revels shone,Growling hoarse glee, in many a grauly flock,With their huge young, the sea-bears sprawling play'dNear the charr'd crater some mute Hecla made.Sullen before that cavern's vast repose,6Like the lorn wrecks of a despairing raceChased to their last hold by triumphant foes,Darkness and Horror stood! But from the spaceWithin the cave, and o'er the ice-ground wan,Quivers a Shadow vaguely mocking man.Like man's the Shadow falls, yet falling loses7The shape it took, each moment changefully;As when the wind on Runic waves confusesThe weird boughs toss'd from some prophetic tree.Fantastic, goblin-like, and fitful thrown,Comes the strange Shadow from the drear Unknown.It isnotman's—for they, man's savage foes,8Whose sense ne'er fails them when the scent is blood,Sport in the shadow the Unseen One throws,Nor hush their young to sniff the human food;But, undisturbed as if their home were there,Pass to and fro the light-defying lair.So the bears gamboll'd, so the Shadow play'd,9When sudden halts the uncouth merriment.Now man, in truth, draws near, man's steps invadeThe men-devourers!—Snorting to the scent,Lo, where they stretch dread necks of shaggy snow,Grin with white fangs, and greed the blood to flow!Grotesquely undulating, moves the flock,10Low grumbling as the grisly ranks divide;Some heave their slow bulk peering up the rock,Some stand erect, and shift from side to sideThe keen quick ear, the red dilating eye,And steam the hard air with a hungry sigh.At length unquiet and amazed—as rings11On to their haunt direct, the dauntless stride,With the sharp instinct of all savage thingsThat doubt a prey by which they are defied,They send from each to each a troubled stare;And huddle close, suspicious of the snare.Then a huge leader, with concerted wile,12Creeps lumbering on, and, to his guidance slowThe shaggèd armies move, in cautious file;Till one by one, in ambush for the foe,Drops into chasm and cleft,—and vanishingWith stealthy murther girds the coming King!He comes,—the Conqueror in the Halls of Time,13Known by his silver herald in the Dove,By his imperial tread, and front sublimeWith power as tranquil as the lids of Jove,—All shapes of death the realms around afford:—From Fiends God guard him!—from all else his swordFor he, with spring the huts of ice had left14And the small People of the world of snows:Their food the seal, their camp, at night, the cleft,His bold Norwegians follow where he goes;Now in the rear afar, their chief they miss,And grudge the danger which they deem a bliss.Ere yet the meteors from the morning sky15Chased large Orion,—in the hour when sleepReflects its ghost-land stillest on the eye,Had stol'n the lonely King; and o'er the deepSought, by the clue the dwarfmen-legends yield,And the Dove's wing—the demon-guarded Shield.The Desert of the Desolate is won.16Still lurks, unseen, the ambush horrible—Nought stirs around beneath the twofold sunSave that strange Shadow, where before it fell,Still falling;—varying, quivering to and fro,From the black cavern on the glaring snow.Slow the devourers rise, and peer around:17Now crag and cliff move dire with savage life,And rolling downward,—all the dismal groundShakes with the roar and bristles with the strife:Not unprepared—(when ever are the brave?)Stands the firm King, and bares the diamond glaive.Distinct through all the meteors, streams the brand,18Light'ning along the air, the sea, the rock,Bright as the arrow in that heavenly handWhich slew the Python! Blinded halt the flock,And the great roar, but now so rough and high,Sinks into terror wailing timidly.Yet the fierce instinct and the rabid sting19Of famine goad again the check'd array;And close and closer in tumultuous ring,Reels on the death-mass crushing towards its prey.A dull groan tells where first the falchion sweeps—When into shape the cave-born Shadow leaps!Out from the dark it leapt—the awful form!20Manlike, but sure not human! on its hairThe ice-barbs bristled: like a coming stormThe breath smote lifeless every wind in air;Dread form deform'd, as ere the birth of Light,Some son of Chaos and the Antique Night!At once a dwarf and giant—trunk and limb21Knit in gnarl'd strength as by a monstrous chance,Never chimera more grotesque and grim,Paled Ægypt's priesthood with its own romance,When, from each dire delirium Fancy knows,Some Typhon-type of Powers destroying rose.At the dread presence, ice a double cold22Conceived; the meteors from their dazzling playPaused; and appall'd into their azure holdShrunk back with all their banners; not a rayBroke o'er the dead sea and the doleful shore,Winter's steel grasp lock'd the dumb world once more.Halted the war—as the wild multitude23Left the King scatheless, and their leaders slain;And round the giant dwarf the baleful broodCame with low howls of terror, wrath, and pain,As children round their father.Theydepart,But strife remains; Fear and the Human Heart;For Fear was on the bold! Then spoke aloud24The horrent Image: "Child of hateful Day,What madness snares thee to the glooms that shroudThe realms abandon'd to my secret sway?Why on mine air first breathes the human breath?Hath thy far world no fairer path to Death?""All ways to Death, but one to Glory leads,25That which alike through earth, or air, or wave,Bears a bold thought to goals in noble deeds,"Said the pale King. "And this, methinks, the caveWhich hides the Shield that rock'd the sleep of oneBy whom ev'n Fable shows what deeds were done!"I seek the talisman which guards the free,26And tread where erst the Sire of freemen trod."[2]"Ho!" laugh'd the dwarf, "Walhalla's child was He!Mangluts the fiend when he assumes the god."—"No god, Deceiver, though man's erring creedsMake gods of men when godlike are their deeds;"And if the Only and Eternal One27Hath, ere his last illuminate Word Reveal'd,Left some grand Memory on its airy throne,Nor smote the nations when to names they kneel'd—It is that each false god was some great truth!—To races Heroes are as Bards to youth!"Thus spoke the King, to whom the Enchanted Lake,28Where from all sources Wisdom ever springs,Had given unknown the subtle powers that wakeOur intuitions into cloudiest things,Won but by those, who, after passionate dreams,Taste the sharp herb and dare the solemn streams.The Demon heard; and as a moon that shines,29Rising behind Arcturus, cold and stillO'er Baltic headlands black with rigid pines,—So on his knit and ominous brows a chillAnd livid smile, revealed the gloomy night,To leave the terror sterner for the light.Thus spoke the Dwarf, "Thou wouldst survive to tell30Of trophies wrested from the halls of Lok,Yet wherefore singly face the hosts of Hell?Return, and lead thy comrades to the rock;Never to one, on earth's less dreadful field,The prize of chiefs do War's fierce Valkyrs yield.""War," said the King, "is waged on mortal life31By men with men;—that, dare I with the rest:In conflicts awful with no human strife,Mightiest methinks, that soul the loneliest!When starry charms from Afrite caves were won,No Judah march'd with dauntless Solomon!"Fell fangs the demon gnash'd, and o'er the crowd32Wild cumbering round his feet, with hungry stareGreeding the man, his drooping visage bow'd;"Go elsewhere, sons—your prey escapes the snare:Yours but the food which flesh to flesh supplies;Here not the mortal but the soul defies."Then striding to the cave, he plunged within;33"Follow," he cried, and like a prison'd blastAlong the darkness, the reverberate dinRoll'd from the rough sides of the viewless Vast;As goblin echoes, through the haunted hollow,'Twixt groan and laughter, chimed hoarse-gibbering, "Follow!"The King, recoiling, paused irresolute,34Till through the cave the white wing went its way;Then on his breast he sign'd the cross, and mute,With solemn prayer, he left the world of day.Thick stood the night, save where the falchion gaveIts clear sharp glimmer lengthening down the cave.Advancing; flashes rush'd irregular35Like subterranean lightning, fork'd and red:From warring matter—wandering shot the starOf poisonous gases; and the tortured bedOf the' old Volcano show'd in trailing fires,Where the numb'd serpent dragg'd its mangled spires.Broader and ruddier on the Dove's pale wings36Now glow'd the lava of the widening spaces;Grinn'd from the rook the jaws of giant things,The lurid skeletons of vanish'd races,They who, perchance, ere man himself had birth,Ruled the moist slime of uncompleted earth.Enormous couch'd fang'd Iguanodon,[3]37To which the monster-lizard of the NileWere prey too small,—whose dismal haunts were onThe swamps where now such golden harvests smileAs had sufficed those myriad hosts to feedWhen all the Orient march'd behind the Mede.There the foul, earliest reptile spectra lay,38Distinct as when the chaos was their home;Half plant, half serpent, some subside awayInto gnarl'd roots (now stone)—more hideous some,Half bird—half fish—seem struggling yet to spring,Shark-like the maw, and dragon-like the wing.But, life-like more, from later layers emerge39With their fell tusks deep-stricken in the stone,Herds,[4]that through all the thunders of the surge,Had to the Ark which swept relentless on(Denied to them)—knell'd the despairing roarOf sentenced races time shall know no more.Under the limbs of mammoths went the path,40Or through the arch immense of Dragon jaws,And ever on the King, in watchful wrath,Gazed the attendant Fiend, with artful pauseWhere dread was deadliest; had the mortal oneFalter'd or quail'd, the Fiend his prey had won,And rent it limb by limb; but on the Dove41Arthur look'd steadfast, and the Fiend was foil'd.Now, as along the skeleton world they move,Strange noises jar, and flit strange shadows. Toil'dThe Troll's[5]swart people, in their inmost homeAt work on ruin for the days to come.A baleful race, whose anvils forge the flash42Of iron murder for the limbs of war;Who ripen hostile embryos, for the crashOf earthquakes rolling slow to towers afar;Or train from Hecla's fount the lurid rills,To cities sleeping under shepherd hills;Or nurse the seeds, through patient ages rife43With the full harvest of that crowning fire,When for the sentenced Three—Time, Death, and Life—Our globe itself shall be the funeral pyre;And, awed, in orbs remote some race unknownShall miss one star, whose smile had lit their own!Through the Phlegræan glare, innumerous eyes,44Fierce with the murther-lust, scowl ravening,And forms on which had never look'd the skiesStalk near and nearer, swooping round the King,Till from the blazing sword the foul arrayShrink back, and wolf-like follow on the way.Now through waste mines of iron, whose black peaks45Frown o'er dull Phlegethons of fire below,While, vague as worlds unform'd, sulphureous reeksRoll on before them huge and dun,—they go.Abrupt the vapours vanish, and the lightBursts like a flood and rushes o'er the night.A mighty cirque with lustre belts the mine;46Its walls of iron glittering into steel;Wall upon wall reflected flings the shrineOf armour! Vizorless the Corpses kneel,Their glazed eyes fix'd upon a couch where, screen'dWith whispering curtains, sleeps the Kingly Fiend:Corpses of giants, who perchance had heard47The tromps of Tubal, and had leapt to strifeWhose guilt provoked the Deluge: sepulchredIn their world's ruins, still a frown like lifeHung o'er vast brows,—and spears like turrets shoneIn hands whose grasp had crush'd the Mastodon.Around the couch, a silent solemn ring,48They whom the Teuton call the Valkyrs sate.Shot through pale webs their spindles glistening;Dread tissues woven out of human hateFor heavenly ends!—for there is spun the woeOf every war that ever earth shall know.Below their feet a bottomless pit of gore49Yawn'd, where each web, when once the woof was done,Was scornful cast. Yet rising evermoreOut of the surface, wander'd airy on(Till lost in upper space), pale wingèd seeds,The future heaven-fruit of the hell-born deeds;For out of every evil born of time,50God shapes a good for his eternity.Lo where the spindles, weaving crime on crime,Form the world-work of Charlemains to be;—How in that hall of iron lengthen forthThe fates that ruin, to rebuild, the North!Here, one stern Sister smiling on the King,51Hurries the thread that twines his Nation's doom;And, farther down, the whirring spindles singAround the woof which from his Baltic homeShall charm the avenging Norman, to controlThe shatter'd races into one calm whole.Already here, the hueless lines along,52Grows the red creed of the Arabian horde;Already here, the arm'd Chivalric WrongWhich made the cross the symbol of the sword,Which thy worst idol, Rome, to Judah gave,And worshipp'd Mars upon the Saviour's grave!Already the wild Tartar in his tents,53Dreamless of thrones—and the fierce Visigoth[6]Who on Colombia's golden armamentsShall loose the hell-hounds,—nurse the age-long growthOf Desolation—as the noiseless skeinClasps in its web, thy far descendants, Cain!Already, in the hearts of sires remote54In their rude Isle, the spell ordains the germOf what shall be a Name of wonder, wroughtFrom that fell feast which Glory gives the worm,When Rome's dark bird shall shade with thunder wingsCalm brows that brood the doom of breathless kings![7]Already, though the sad unheeded eyes55Of Bards alone foresee, and none believe,The lightning boarded from the farthest skiesInto the mesh the race-destroyers weave,When o'er our marts shall graze a stranger's fold,And the new Tarshish rot, as rots the old.Yea, ever there, each spectre hand the birth56Weaves of a war—until the angel-blast(Peal'd from the tromp that knells the doom of earth)Shall start the livid legions from their last;And man, with arm uplifted still to slay,Reel on some Alp that rolls in smoke away!Fierce glared the dwarf upon the silent King,57"There is the prize thy visions would achieve!There, where the hush'd inexorable ringMurder the myriads in the webs they weave,Behind the curtains of Incarnate War,Whose lightest tremour topples thrones afar,—"Which ev'n the Valkyrs with their bloodless hands58Dare never draw aside,—go seek the Shield!Yet be what follows known!—yon kneeling bandsWhose camps were Andes, and whose battle-fieldLeft plains, now empires, rolling seas of gore,Shall near the clang and heap to life once more."Roused from their task, revengeful shall arise59The never-baffled 'Choosers of the Slain;'The Fiend thy hand shall wake, unclose the eyesThat flash'd on heavenly hosts their storms again,And thy soul wither in the mighty frownBefore whose night an earlier sun sunk down."The rocks shall close all path for flight save one,60Where now the Troll-fiends wait to rend their prey,And each malign and monster skeleton,Reclothed with life as in the giant dayWhen yonder seas were valleys, scent thy gore,And grin with fangs that gnash for food once more."Ho, dost thou shudder, pale one? Back and live."61Thrice strove the King for speech, and thrice in vain;For he was man, and till our souls surviveThe instincts born of flesh, shall Horror reignIn that Unknown beyond the realms of Sense,Where the soul's darkness seems the man's defence.Yet as when through uncertain troublous cloud62Breaks the sweet morning star, and from its homeSmiles lofty peace, so through the phantom crowdOf fears the Eos of the world to come,Faith, look'd—revealing how earth-nourish'd areThe clouds, and how beyond their reach the star!Mute on his knee, amidst the kneeling dead63He sank—the dead the dreaming fiend revered,And he, the living God! Then terror fled,And all the king illumed the front he rear'd.Firm to the couch on which the fiend reposedHe strode;—the curtains, murmuring, round him closed.Now while this chanced, without the tortured rock64Raged fierce the war between the rival mightOf beast and man; the dwarf king's ravenous flockAnd Norway's warriors led by Cymri's knight.For by the foot-prints through the snows explored,On to the rock the bands had track'd their lord.Repell'd, not conquer'd, back to crag and cave,65Sullen and watchful still, the monsters go;And solitude resettles on the wave,But silence not; around, aloft, alowRoar the couch'd beasts, and answering from the main,Shrieks the shrill gull and booms the dismal crane.And now the rock itself from every tomb66Of its dead world within, sends voices forth,Sounds direr far, than in its rayless gloomCrash on the midnight of the farthest North.From beasts our world hath lost, the strident yell,The shout of giants and the laugh of hell.Reels all the isle; and every ragged steep67Hurls down an avalanche;—all the crater-caveGlows into swarthy red, and fire-showers leapFrom rended summits, hissing to the waveThrough its hard ice; or in huge crags, wide-soundingSpring where they crash—on rushing and rebounding.Dizzy and blind, the staggering Northmen fall68On earth that rocks beneath them like a bark;Loud and more loud the tumult swells with allThe Acheron of the discord. Swift and darkFrom every cleft the smoke-clouds burst their way,Rush through the void, and sweep from heaven the day.Smitten beneath the pestilential blast69And the great terror, senseless lay the band,Till the arrested life, with throes at last,Gasp'd back: and holy over sea and landSilence and light reposed. They look'd aboveAnd calm in calmèd air beheld the Dove!And o'er their prostrate lord was poised the wing;70And when they rush'd and reach'd him, shouting joy,There came no answer from the corpse-like King;And when his true knight raised him, heavilyDroop'd his pale front upon the faithful breast,And the closed lids seem'd leaden in their rest.And all his mail was dinted, hewn, and crush'd,71And the bright falchion dim with foul dark gore;And the strong pulse of the strong hand was hush'd;Like a spent storm, that might, which seem'd beforeCharged with the bolts of Jove, now from the skyDrew breath more feeble than an infant's sigh.And there was solemn change on that fair face,72Nor, whatsoe'er the fear or scorn had been,Did the past passion leave its haggard trace;But on the rigid beauty awe was seen,As one who on the Gorgon's aspect fellHad gazed, and freezing, yet survived the spell!Not by the chasm in which he left the day,73But through a new-made gorge the fires had cleft,As if with fires themselves were forced the way,Had rush'd the King;—and sense and sinew leftThe form that struggled till the strife was o'er:So faints the swimmer when he gains the shore.But on his arm was clasp'd the wondrous prize:74Dimm'd, tarnish'd, grimed, and black with gore and smoke,Still the pure metal, through each foul disguise,Like starlight scatter'd on dark waters, broke;Through gore, through smoke it shone—the silver Shield,Clear as dawns Freedom from her battle-field!Days follow'd days, ere from that speechless trance75(Borne to green inlets isled amid the snowsWhere led the Dove), the King's reviving glanceLook'd languid round on watchful, joyful brows;Ev'n while he slept, new flowers the earth had given,And on his heart brooded the bird of heaven!But ne'er as voice and strength and sense return'd,76To his good knight the strife that won the ShieldDid Arthur tell; deep in his soul inurn'd(As in the grave its secret) nor reveal'dTo mortal ear that mystery which for everFlow'd through his thought, as through the cave a river;Whether to Love, how true soe'er its faith, 77.Whether to Wisdom, whatsoe'er its skill,Till his last hour the struggle and the scathRemain'd unutter'd and unutterable;But aye, in solitude, in crowds, in strife,In joy, that memory lived within his life:It made not sadness, though the calm, grave smile78Never regain'd the flash that youth had given,—But as some shadow from a sacred pileDarkens the earth from shrines that speak of heaven,That gloom the grandeur of religion wore,And seem'd to hallow all it rested o'er.Such Freedom is, O Slave, that would be free!79Never her real struggles into lifeHath History told! As it hath been shall beThe Apocalypse of Nations; nursed in strifeNot with the present, nor with living foes,But where the centuries shroud their long repose.Out from the graves of earth's primæval bones,80The shield of empire, patient Force must win:What made the Briton free? not crashing thronesNor parchment laws. The charter must beginIn Scythian tents, the steel of Nomad spears;To date the freedom, count three thousand years!Neither is Freedom mirth! Be free, O slave,81And dance no more beneath the lazy palm.Freedom's mild brow with noble care is grave,Her bliss is solemn as her strength is calm;And thought mature each childlike sport debarsThe forms erect whose look is on the stars.Now as the King revived, along the seas82Flow'd back, enlarged to life, the lapsing waters;Kiss'd from their slumber by the loving breeze,Glide, in light dance, the Ocean's silver daughters—And blithe and hopeful o'er the sunny strands,Listing the long-lost billow, rove the bands.At length, O sight of joy!—the gleam of sails83Bursts on the solitude! more near and nearCome the white playmates of the buxom gales.—The whistling cords, the sounds of man, they hear.Shout answers shout;—light sparkles round the oar—And from the barks the boat skims on to shore.It was a race from Rugen's friendly soil,84Leagued by old ties with Cymri's land and king,Who, with the spring-time, to their wonted spoilOf seals and furs had spread the canvas wingTo bournes their fathers never yet had known;—And found, amazed, hearts bolder than their own.Soon to the barks the Cymrian and their bands85Are borne: Bright-hair'd, above the gazing crews,Lone on the loftiest deck, the leader stands,To whom the King (his rank made known) renewsAll that his tale of mortal hope and fearVouchsafes from truth to thrill a mortal's ear;And from the barks whose sails the chief obey,86Craves one to waft where yet the fates may guide.—With rugged wonder in his large survey,That calm grand brow the son of Ægir[8]eyed,And seem'd in awe, as of a god, to scanHim who so moved his homage, yet was man.Smoothing his voice, rough with accustom'd swell87Above the storms, and the wild roar of war,The Northman answer'd, "Skalds in winter tellOf the dire dwarf who guards the Shield of Thor,For one whose race, with Odin's blent, shall be,Lords of the only realm which suits the Free,"Ocean!—I greet thee, and this strong right hand88Place in thine own to pledge myself thy man.Choose as thou wilt for thee and for thy band,Amongst the sea-steeds in the stalls of Ran.Need'st thou our arms against the Saxon foe?Our flag shall fly where'er thy trumpets blow!""Men to be free must free themselves," the King89Replied, proud-smiling. "Every father-landSpurns from its breast the recreant sons that clingFor hope to standards winds not theirs have fann'd.Thankful through thee our foe we reach;—and thenCymri hath steel eno' for Cymrian men!"While these converse, Sir Gawaine, with his hound,90Lured by a fragrant and delightsome smellFrom roasts—not meant for Freya,—makes his round,Shakes hands with all, and hopes their wives are well.From spit to spit with easy grace he walks,And chines astounded vanish while he talks.At earliest morn the bark to bear the King,91His sage discernment delicately stores,Rejects the blubber and disdains the lingFor hams of rein-deers and for heads of boars,Connives at seal, to satisfy his men,But childless leaves each loud-lamenting hen.And now the bark the Cymrian prince ascends,92The large oars chiming to the chanting crew,(His leal Norwegian band) the new-found friendsFrom brazen trumpets blare their loud adieu.Forth bounds the ship, and Gawaine, while it quickens,The wind propitiates—with three virgin chickens.Led by the Dove, more brightly day by day,93The vernal azure deepens in the sky;Far from the Polar threshold smiles the way—And lo, white Albion shimmers on the eye,Nurse of all nations, who to breasts severeTakes the rude children, the calm men to rear.Doubt and amaze with joy perplex the King:94Not yet the task achieved, the mission done,Why homeward steers the angel pilot's wing?Of the three labours rests the crowning one;Unreach'd the Iron Gates—Death's sullen hold—Where waits the Child-guide with the locks of gold.Yet still the Dove cleaves homeward through the air;95Glides o'er the entrance of an inland stream;And rests at last on bowers of foliage, whereThick forests close their ramparts on the beam,And clasp with dipping boughs a grassy creek,Whose marge slopes level with the brazen beak.Around his neck the shield the Adventurer slung;96And girt the enchanted sword. Then, kneeling, saidThe young Ulysses of the golden tongue,"Not now to phantom foes the dove hath led:For, if I err not, this a Mercian haven,And from the dove peeps forth at last the raven!"Not lone, nor reckless, in these glooms profound,97Tempt the sure ambush of some Saxon host;If out of sight, at least in reach of sound,Let our stout Northmen follow up the coast;Then if thou wilt, from each suspicious treeShake laurels down, but share them, Sire, with me!""Nay," answer'd Arthur, "ever, as before,98Alone the Pilgrim to his bourne must go;But range the men conceal'd along the shore;Set watch, from these green turrets, for the foe;Moor'd to the marge where broadest hangs the bough,Hide from the sun the glitter of the prow:—And so farewell!" He said; to land he leapt;99And with dull murmur from its verdant waves,O'er his high crest the billowy forest swept.As towards some fitful light the swimmer cleavesHis stalwart way,—so through the woven shadesWhere the pale wing now glimmers and now fades.With strong hand parting the tough branches, goes100Hour after hour the King; till light at lastFrom skies long hid, in ambient silver flowsThrough opening glades, the length of gloom is past,And the dark pines receding stand aroundA silent hill with antique ruins crown'd.Day had long closed; and from the mournful deeps101Of old volcanoes spent, the livid moonWhich through the life of planets lifeless creepsHer ghostly way, deaf to the choral tuneOf spheres rejoicing, on those ruins oldLook'd down, herself a ruin,—hush'd and cold.Mutely the granite wrecks the King survey'd,102And knew the work of hands Cimmerian,What time in starry robes, and awe array'd,Grey Druids spoke the oracles of man—Solving high riddles to Chaldean Mage,Or the young wonder of the Samian Sage.A date remounting far beyond the day103When Roman legions met the scythèd cars,When purer founts sublime had lapsed awayThrough the deep rents of unrecorded wars,And bloodstain'd altars cursed the mountain sod,[9]Where the first faith had hail'd the Only God.For all now left us of the parent Celt,104Is of that later and corrupter time,—Not in rude domeless fanes those Fathers knelt,Who lured the Brahman from his burning clime,Who charm'd lost science from each lone abyss,And wing'd the shaft of Scythian Abaris.[10]Yea, the grandsires of our primæval race105Saw angel tracks the earlier earth upon,And as a rising sun, the morning faceOf Truth more near the flush'd horizon shone;Filling ev'n clouds with many a golden light,Lost when the orb is at the noonday height.Through the large ruins (now no more), the last106Perchance on earth of those diviner sires,With noiseless step the lone descendant pass'd;Not there were seenBâl-huan'samber pyres;No circling shafts with barbarous fragments strewn,Spoke creeds of carnage to the spectral moon.But Art, vast, simple, and sublime, was there107Ev'n in its mournful wrecks,—such Art foregoneAs the first Builders, when their grand despairLeft Shinar's tower and city half undone,Taught where they wander'd o'er the newborn world.—Column, and vault, and roof, in ruin hurl'd,Still spoke of hands that founded Babylon!108So in the wrecks, the Lord of young RomanceBy fallen pillars laid him musing down.More large and large the moving shades advance,Blending in one dim silence sad and wanThe past, the present, ruin and the man.Now, o'er his lids life's gentlest influence stole,109Life's gentlest influence, yet the likest death!That nightly proof how little needs the soulLight from the sense, or being from the breath,When all life knows a life unknown supplies,And airy worlds around a Spirit rise.Still through the hazy mist of stealing sleep,110His eyes explore the watchful guardian's wing,There, where it broods upon the moss-grown heap,With plumes that all the stars are silvering.Slow close the lids—reopening with a startAs shoots a nameless terror through his heart.That strange wild awe which haunted Childhood thrills,111When waking at the dead of Dark, alone,A sense of sudden solitude which chillsThe blood;—a shrinking as from shapes unknown;An instinct both of some protection fled,And of the coming of some ghastly dread.He look'd, and lo, the Dove was seen no more,112Lone lay the lifeless wrecks beneath the moon,And the one loss gave all that seem'd beforeDesolate,—twofold desolation!How slight a thing, whose love our trust has been,Alters the world, when it no more is seen!He strove to speak, but voice was gone from him.113As in that loss new might the terror took,His veins congeal'd; and, interfused and dim,Shadow and moonlight swam before his look;Bristled his hair; and all the strong dismaySeized as an eagle when it grasps its prey.Senses and soul confused, and jarr'd, and blent,114Lay crush'd beneath the intolerable Power;Then over all, one flash, in lightning, rentThe veil between the Immortal and the Hour;Life heard the voice of unembodied breath,And Sleep stood trembling face to face with Death.
Spring on the Polar Seas!—not violet-crown'd1By dewy Hours, nor to cerulean hallsMelodious hymn'd, yet Light itself aroundHer stately path, sheds starry coronals.Sublime she comes, as when, from Dis set free,Came, through the flash of Jove, Persephoné:
She comes—that grand Aurora of the North!2By steeds of fire her glorious chariot borne,From Boreal courts the meteors flaming forth,Ope heav'n on heav'n, before the mighty Morn:And round the rebel giants of the nightOn earth's last confines bursts the storm of light.
Wonder and awe! lo, where against the Sun3A second Sun[1]his lurid front uprears!As if the first-born lost Hyperion,Hurl'd down of old, from his Uranian spheres,Rose from the hell-rocks on his writhings pil'd,And glared defiance on his Titan child.
Now life, the polar life, returns once more,4The reindeer roots his mosses from the snows;The whirring sea-gulls shriek along the shore;Through oozing rills the cygnet gleaming goes;And, where the ice some happier verdure frees,Laugh into light frank-eyed anemones.
Out from the seas still solid, frown'd a lone5Chaos of chasm and precipice and rock,There, while the meteors on their revels shone,Growling hoarse glee, in many a grauly flock,With their huge young, the sea-bears sprawling play'dNear the charr'd crater some mute Hecla made.
Sullen before that cavern's vast repose,6Like the lorn wrecks of a despairing raceChased to their last hold by triumphant foes,Darkness and Horror stood! But from the spaceWithin the cave, and o'er the ice-ground wan,Quivers a Shadow vaguely mocking man.
Like man's the Shadow falls, yet falling loses7The shape it took, each moment changefully;As when the wind on Runic waves confusesThe weird boughs toss'd from some prophetic tree.Fantastic, goblin-like, and fitful thrown,Comes the strange Shadow from the drear Unknown.
It isnotman's—for they, man's savage foes,8Whose sense ne'er fails them when the scent is blood,Sport in the shadow the Unseen One throws,Nor hush their young to sniff the human food;But, undisturbed as if their home were there,Pass to and fro the light-defying lair.
So the bears gamboll'd, so the Shadow play'd,9When sudden halts the uncouth merriment.Now man, in truth, draws near, man's steps invadeThe men-devourers!—Snorting to the scent,Lo, where they stretch dread necks of shaggy snow,Grin with white fangs, and greed the blood to flow!
Grotesquely undulating, moves the flock,10Low grumbling as the grisly ranks divide;Some heave their slow bulk peering up the rock,Some stand erect, and shift from side to sideThe keen quick ear, the red dilating eye,And steam the hard air with a hungry sigh.
At length unquiet and amazed—as rings11On to their haunt direct, the dauntless stride,With the sharp instinct of all savage thingsThat doubt a prey by which they are defied,They send from each to each a troubled stare;And huddle close, suspicious of the snare.
Then a huge leader, with concerted wile,12Creeps lumbering on, and, to his guidance slowThe shaggèd armies move, in cautious file;Till one by one, in ambush for the foe,Drops into chasm and cleft,—and vanishingWith stealthy murther girds the coming King!
He comes,—the Conqueror in the Halls of Time,13Known by his silver herald in the Dove,By his imperial tread, and front sublimeWith power as tranquil as the lids of Jove,—All shapes of death the realms around afford:—From Fiends God guard him!—from all else his sword
For he, with spring the huts of ice had left14And the small People of the world of snows:Their food the seal, their camp, at night, the cleft,His bold Norwegians follow where he goes;Now in the rear afar, their chief they miss,And grudge the danger which they deem a bliss.
Ere yet the meteors from the morning sky15Chased large Orion,—in the hour when sleepReflects its ghost-land stillest on the eye,Had stol'n the lonely King; and o'er the deepSought, by the clue the dwarfmen-legends yield,And the Dove's wing—the demon-guarded Shield.
The Desert of the Desolate is won.16Still lurks, unseen, the ambush horrible—Nought stirs around beneath the twofold sunSave that strange Shadow, where before it fell,Still falling;—varying, quivering to and fro,From the black cavern on the glaring snow.
Slow the devourers rise, and peer around:17Now crag and cliff move dire with savage life,And rolling downward,—all the dismal groundShakes with the roar and bristles with the strife:Not unprepared—(when ever are the brave?)Stands the firm King, and bares the diamond glaive.
Distinct through all the meteors, streams the brand,18Light'ning along the air, the sea, the rock,Bright as the arrow in that heavenly handWhich slew the Python! Blinded halt the flock,And the great roar, but now so rough and high,Sinks into terror wailing timidly.
Yet the fierce instinct and the rabid sting19Of famine goad again the check'd array;And close and closer in tumultuous ring,Reels on the death-mass crushing towards its prey.A dull groan tells where first the falchion sweeps—When into shape the cave-born Shadow leaps!
Out from the dark it leapt—the awful form!20Manlike, but sure not human! on its hairThe ice-barbs bristled: like a coming stormThe breath smote lifeless every wind in air;Dread form deform'd, as ere the birth of Light,Some son of Chaos and the Antique Night!
At once a dwarf and giant—trunk and limb21Knit in gnarl'd strength as by a monstrous chance,Never chimera more grotesque and grim,Paled Ægypt's priesthood with its own romance,When, from each dire delirium Fancy knows,Some Typhon-type of Powers destroying rose.
At the dread presence, ice a double cold22Conceived; the meteors from their dazzling playPaused; and appall'd into their azure holdShrunk back with all their banners; not a rayBroke o'er the dead sea and the doleful shore,Winter's steel grasp lock'd the dumb world once more.
Halted the war—as the wild multitude23Left the King scatheless, and their leaders slain;And round the giant dwarf the baleful broodCame with low howls of terror, wrath, and pain,As children round their father.Theydepart,But strife remains; Fear and the Human Heart;
For Fear was on the bold! Then spoke aloud24The horrent Image: "Child of hateful Day,What madness snares thee to the glooms that shroudThe realms abandon'd to my secret sway?Why on mine air first breathes the human breath?Hath thy far world no fairer path to Death?"
"All ways to Death, but one to Glory leads,25That which alike through earth, or air, or wave,Bears a bold thought to goals in noble deeds,"Said the pale King. "And this, methinks, the caveWhich hides the Shield that rock'd the sleep of oneBy whom ev'n Fable shows what deeds were done!
"I seek the talisman which guards the free,26And tread where erst the Sire of freemen trod."[2]"Ho!" laugh'd the dwarf, "Walhalla's child was He!Mangluts the fiend when he assumes the god."—"No god, Deceiver, though man's erring creedsMake gods of men when godlike are their deeds;
"And if the Only and Eternal One27Hath, ere his last illuminate Word Reveal'd,Left some grand Memory on its airy throne,Nor smote the nations when to names they kneel'd—It is that each false god was some great truth!—To races Heroes are as Bards to youth!"
Thus spoke the King, to whom the Enchanted Lake,28Where from all sources Wisdom ever springs,Had given unknown the subtle powers that wakeOur intuitions into cloudiest things,Won but by those, who, after passionate dreams,Taste the sharp herb and dare the solemn streams.
The Demon heard; and as a moon that shines,29Rising behind Arcturus, cold and stillO'er Baltic headlands black with rigid pines,—So on his knit and ominous brows a chillAnd livid smile, revealed the gloomy night,To leave the terror sterner for the light.
Thus spoke the Dwarf, "Thou wouldst survive to tell30Of trophies wrested from the halls of Lok,Yet wherefore singly face the hosts of Hell?Return, and lead thy comrades to the rock;Never to one, on earth's less dreadful field,The prize of chiefs do War's fierce Valkyrs yield."
"War," said the King, "is waged on mortal life31By men with men;—that, dare I with the rest:In conflicts awful with no human strife,Mightiest methinks, that soul the loneliest!When starry charms from Afrite caves were won,No Judah march'd with dauntless Solomon!"
Fell fangs the demon gnash'd, and o'er the crowd32Wild cumbering round his feet, with hungry stareGreeding the man, his drooping visage bow'd;"Go elsewhere, sons—your prey escapes the snare:Yours but the food which flesh to flesh supplies;Here not the mortal but the soul defies."
Then striding to the cave, he plunged within;33"Follow," he cried, and like a prison'd blastAlong the darkness, the reverberate dinRoll'd from the rough sides of the viewless Vast;As goblin echoes, through the haunted hollow,'Twixt groan and laughter, chimed hoarse-gibbering, "Follow!"
The King, recoiling, paused irresolute,34Till through the cave the white wing went its way;Then on his breast he sign'd the cross, and mute,With solemn prayer, he left the world of day.Thick stood the night, save where the falchion gaveIts clear sharp glimmer lengthening down the cave.
Advancing; flashes rush'd irregular35Like subterranean lightning, fork'd and red:From warring matter—wandering shot the starOf poisonous gases; and the tortured bedOf the' old Volcano show'd in trailing fires,Where the numb'd serpent dragg'd its mangled spires.
Broader and ruddier on the Dove's pale wings36Now glow'd the lava of the widening spaces;Grinn'd from the rook the jaws of giant things,The lurid skeletons of vanish'd races,They who, perchance, ere man himself had birth,Ruled the moist slime of uncompleted earth.
Enormous couch'd fang'd Iguanodon,[3]37To which the monster-lizard of the NileWere prey too small,—whose dismal haunts were onThe swamps where now such golden harvests smileAs had sufficed those myriad hosts to feedWhen all the Orient march'd behind the Mede.
There the foul, earliest reptile spectra lay,38Distinct as when the chaos was their home;Half plant, half serpent, some subside awayInto gnarl'd roots (now stone)—more hideous some,Half bird—half fish—seem struggling yet to spring,Shark-like the maw, and dragon-like the wing.
But, life-like more, from later layers emerge39With their fell tusks deep-stricken in the stone,Herds,[4]that through all the thunders of the surge,Had to the Ark which swept relentless on(Denied to them)—knell'd the despairing roarOf sentenced races time shall know no more.
Under the limbs of mammoths went the path,40Or through the arch immense of Dragon jaws,And ever on the King, in watchful wrath,Gazed the attendant Fiend, with artful pauseWhere dread was deadliest; had the mortal oneFalter'd or quail'd, the Fiend his prey had won,
And rent it limb by limb; but on the Dove41Arthur look'd steadfast, and the Fiend was foil'd.Now, as along the skeleton world they move,Strange noises jar, and flit strange shadows. Toil'dThe Troll's[5]swart people, in their inmost homeAt work on ruin for the days to come.
A baleful race, whose anvils forge the flash42Of iron murder for the limbs of war;Who ripen hostile embryos, for the crashOf earthquakes rolling slow to towers afar;Or train from Hecla's fount the lurid rills,To cities sleeping under shepherd hills;
Or nurse the seeds, through patient ages rife43With the full harvest of that crowning fire,When for the sentenced Three—Time, Death, and Life—Our globe itself shall be the funeral pyre;And, awed, in orbs remote some race unknownShall miss one star, whose smile had lit their own!
Through the Phlegræan glare, innumerous eyes,44Fierce with the murther-lust, scowl ravening,And forms on which had never look'd the skiesStalk near and nearer, swooping round the King,Till from the blazing sword the foul arrayShrink back, and wolf-like follow on the way.
Now through waste mines of iron, whose black peaks45Frown o'er dull Phlegethons of fire below,While, vague as worlds unform'd, sulphureous reeksRoll on before them huge and dun,—they go.Abrupt the vapours vanish, and the lightBursts like a flood and rushes o'er the night.
A mighty cirque with lustre belts the mine;46Its walls of iron glittering into steel;Wall upon wall reflected flings the shrineOf armour! Vizorless the Corpses kneel,Their glazed eyes fix'd upon a couch where, screen'dWith whispering curtains, sleeps the Kingly Fiend:
Corpses of giants, who perchance had heard47The tromps of Tubal, and had leapt to strifeWhose guilt provoked the Deluge: sepulchredIn their world's ruins, still a frown like lifeHung o'er vast brows,—and spears like turrets shoneIn hands whose grasp had crush'd the Mastodon.
Around the couch, a silent solemn ring,48They whom the Teuton call the Valkyrs sate.Shot through pale webs their spindles glistening;Dread tissues woven out of human hateFor heavenly ends!—for there is spun the woeOf every war that ever earth shall know.
Below their feet a bottomless pit of gore49Yawn'd, where each web, when once the woof was done,Was scornful cast. Yet rising evermoreOut of the surface, wander'd airy on(Till lost in upper space), pale wingèd seeds,The future heaven-fruit of the hell-born deeds;
For out of every evil born of time,50God shapes a good for his eternity.Lo where the spindles, weaving crime on crime,Form the world-work of Charlemains to be;—How in that hall of iron lengthen forthThe fates that ruin, to rebuild, the North!
Here, one stern Sister smiling on the King,51Hurries the thread that twines his Nation's doom;And, farther down, the whirring spindles singAround the woof which from his Baltic homeShall charm the avenging Norman, to controlThe shatter'd races into one calm whole.
Already here, the hueless lines along,52Grows the red creed of the Arabian horde;Already here, the arm'd Chivalric WrongWhich made the cross the symbol of the sword,Which thy worst idol, Rome, to Judah gave,And worshipp'd Mars upon the Saviour's grave!
Already the wild Tartar in his tents,53Dreamless of thrones—and the fierce Visigoth[6]Who on Colombia's golden armamentsShall loose the hell-hounds,—nurse the age-long growthOf Desolation—as the noiseless skeinClasps in its web, thy far descendants, Cain!
Already, in the hearts of sires remote54In their rude Isle, the spell ordains the germOf what shall be a Name of wonder, wroughtFrom that fell feast which Glory gives the worm,When Rome's dark bird shall shade with thunder wingsCalm brows that brood the doom of breathless kings![7]
Already, though the sad unheeded eyes55Of Bards alone foresee, and none believe,The lightning boarded from the farthest skiesInto the mesh the race-destroyers weave,When o'er our marts shall graze a stranger's fold,And the new Tarshish rot, as rots the old.
Yea, ever there, each spectre hand the birth56Weaves of a war—until the angel-blast(Peal'd from the tromp that knells the doom of earth)Shall start the livid legions from their last;And man, with arm uplifted still to slay,Reel on some Alp that rolls in smoke away!
Fierce glared the dwarf upon the silent King,57"There is the prize thy visions would achieve!There, where the hush'd inexorable ringMurder the myriads in the webs they weave,Behind the curtains of Incarnate War,Whose lightest tremour topples thrones afar,—
"Which ev'n the Valkyrs with their bloodless hands58Dare never draw aside,—go seek the Shield!Yet be what follows known!—yon kneeling bandsWhose camps were Andes, and whose battle-fieldLeft plains, now empires, rolling seas of gore,Shall near the clang and heap to life once more.
"Roused from their task, revengeful shall arise59The never-baffled 'Choosers of the Slain;'The Fiend thy hand shall wake, unclose the eyesThat flash'd on heavenly hosts their storms again,And thy soul wither in the mighty frownBefore whose night an earlier sun sunk down.
"The rocks shall close all path for flight save one,60Where now the Troll-fiends wait to rend their prey,And each malign and monster skeleton,Reclothed with life as in the giant dayWhen yonder seas were valleys, scent thy gore,And grin with fangs that gnash for food once more.
"Ho, dost thou shudder, pale one? Back and live."61Thrice strove the King for speech, and thrice in vain;For he was man, and till our souls surviveThe instincts born of flesh, shall Horror reignIn that Unknown beyond the realms of Sense,Where the soul's darkness seems the man's defence.
Yet as when through uncertain troublous cloud62Breaks the sweet morning star, and from its homeSmiles lofty peace, so through the phantom crowdOf fears the Eos of the world to come,Faith, look'd—revealing how earth-nourish'd areThe clouds, and how beyond their reach the star!
Mute on his knee, amidst the kneeling dead63He sank—the dead the dreaming fiend revered,And he, the living God! Then terror fled,And all the king illumed the front he rear'd.Firm to the couch on which the fiend reposedHe strode;—the curtains, murmuring, round him closed.
Now while this chanced, without the tortured rock64Raged fierce the war between the rival mightOf beast and man; the dwarf king's ravenous flockAnd Norway's warriors led by Cymri's knight.For by the foot-prints through the snows explored,On to the rock the bands had track'd their lord.
Repell'd, not conquer'd, back to crag and cave,65Sullen and watchful still, the monsters go;And solitude resettles on the wave,But silence not; around, aloft, alowRoar the couch'd beasts, and answering from the main,Shrieks the shrill gull and booms the dismal crane.
And now the rock itself from every tomb66Of its dead world within, sends voices forth,Sounds direr far, than in its rayless gloomCrash on the midnight of the farthest North.From beasts our world hath lost, the strident yell,The shout of giants and the laugh of hell.
Reels all the isle; and every ragged steep67Hurls down an avalanche;—all the crater-caveGlows into swarthy red, and fire-showers leapFrom rended summits, hissing to the waveThrough its hard ice; or in huge crags, wide-soundingSpring where they crash—on rushing and rebounding.
Dizzy and blind, the staggering Northmen fall68On earth that rocks beneath them like a bark;Loud and more loud the tumult swells with allThe Acheron of the discord. Swift and darkFrom every cleft the smoke-clouds burst their way,Rush through the void, and sweep from heaven the day.
Smitten beneath the pestilential blast69And the great terror, senseless lay the band,Till the arrested life, with throes at last,Gasp'd back: and holy over sea and landSilence and light reposed. They look'd aboveAnd calm in calmèd air beheld the Dove!
And o'er their prostrate lord was poised the wing;70And when they rush'd and reach'd him, shouting joy,There came no answer from the corpse-like King;And when his true knight raised him, heavilyDroop'd his pale front upon the faithful breast,And the closed lids seem'd leaden in their rest.
And all his mail was dinted, hewn, and crush'd,71And the bright falchion dim with foul dark gore;And the strong pulse of the strong hand was hush'd;Like a spent storm, that might, which seem'd beforeCharged with the bolts of Jove, now from the skyDrew breath more feeble than an infant's sigh.
And there was solemn change on that fair face,72Nor, whatsoe'er the fear or scorn had been,Did the past passion leave its haggard trace;But on the rigid beauty awe was seen,As one who on the Gorgon's aspect fellHad gazed, and freezing, yet survived the spell!
Not by the chasm in which he left the day,73But through a new-made gorge the fires had cleft,As if with fires themselves were forced the way,Had rush'd the King;—and sense and sinew leftThe form that struggled till the strife was o'er:So faints the swimmer when he gains the shore.
But on his arm was clasp'd the wondrous prize:74Dimm'd, tarnish'd, grimed, and black with gore and smoke,Still the pure metal, through each foul disguise,Like starlight scatter'd on dark waters, broke;Through gore, through smoke it shone—the silver Shield,Clear as dawns Freedom from her battle-field!
Days follow'd days, ere from that speechless trance75(Borne to green inlets isled amid the snowsWhere led the Dove), the King's reviving glanceLook'd languid round on watchful, joyful brows;Ev'n while he slept, new flowers the earth had given,And on his heart brooded the bird of heaven!
But ne'er as voice and strength and sense return'd,76To his good knight the strife that won the ShieldDid Arthur tell; deep in his soul inurn'd(As in the grave its secret) nor reveal'dTo mortal ear that mystery which for everFlow'd through his thought, as through the cave a river;
Whether to Love, how true soe'er its faith, 77.Whether to Wisdom, whatsoe'er its skill,Till his last hour the struggle and the scathRemain'd unutter'd and unutterable;But aye, in solitude, in crowds, in strife,In joy, that memory lived within his life:
It made not sadness, though the calm, grave smile78Never regain'd the flash that youth had given,—But as some shadow from a sacred pileDarkens the earth from shrines that speak of heaven,That gloom the grandeur of religion wore,And seem'd to hallow all it rested o'er.
Such Freedom is, O Slave, that would be free!79Never her real struggles into lifeHath History told! As it hath been shall beThe Apocalypse of Nations; nursed in strifeNot with the present, nor with living foes,But where the centuries shroud their long repose.
Out from the graves of earth's primæval bones,80The shield of empire, patient Force must win:What made the Briton free? not crashing thronesNor parchment laws. The charter must beginIn Scythian tents, the steel of Nomad spears;To date the freedom, count three thousand years!
Neither is Freedom mirth! Be free, O slave,81And dance no more beneath the lazy palm.Freedom's mild brow with noble care is grave,Her bliss is solemn as her strength is calm;And thought mature each childlike sport debarsThe forms erect whose look is on the stars.
Now as the King revived, along the seas82Flow'd back, enlarged to life, the lapsing waters;Kiss'd from their slumber by the loving breeze,Glide, in light dance, the Ocean's silver daughters—And blithe and hopeful o'er the sunny strands,Listing the long-lost billow, rove the bands.
At length, O sight of joy!—the gleam of sails83Bursts on the solitude! more near and nearCome the white playmates of the buxom gales.—The whistling cords, the sounds of man, they hear.Shout answers shout;—light sparkles round the oar—And from the barks the boat skims on to shore.
It was a race from Rugen's friendly soil,84Leagued by old ties with Cymri's land and king,Who, with the spring-time, to their wonted spoilOf seals and furs had spread the canvas wingTo bournes their fathers never yet had known;—And found, amazed, hearts bolder than their own.
Soon to the barks the Cymrian and their bands85Are borne: Bright-hair'd, above the gazing crews,Lone on the loftiest deck, the leader stands,To whom the King (his rank made known) renewsAll that his tale of mortal hope and fearVouchsafes from truth to thrill a mortal's ear;
And from the barks whose sails the chief obey,86Craves one to waft where yet the fates may guide.—With rugged wonder in his large survey,That calm grand brow the son of Ægir[8]eyed,And seem'd in awe, as of a god, to scanHim who so moved his homage, yet was man.
Smoothing his voice, rough with accustom'd swell87Above the storms, and the wild roar of war,The Northman answer'd, "Skalds in winter tellOf the dire dwarf who guards the Shield of Thor,For one whose race, with Odin's blent, shall be,Lords of the only realm which suits the Free,
"Ocean!—I greet thee, and this strong right hand88Place in thine own to pledge myself thy man.Choose as thou wilt for thee and for thy band,Amongst the sea-steeds in the stalls of Ran.Need'st thou our arms against the Saxon foe?Our flag shall fly where'er thy trumpets blow!"
"Men to be free must free themselves," the King89Replied, proud-smiling. "Every father-landSpurns from its breast the recreant sons that clingFor hope to standards winds not theirs have fann'd.Thankful through thee our foe we reach;—and thenCymri hath steel eno' for Cymrian men!"
While these converse, Sir Gawaine, with his hound,90Lured by a fragrant and delightsome smellFrom roasts—not meant for Freya,—makes his round,Shakes hands with all, and hopes their wives are well.From spit to spit with easy grace he walks,And chines astounded vanish while he talks.
At earliest morn the bark to bear the King,91His sage discernment delicately stores,Rejects the blubber and disdains the lingFor hams of rein-deers and for heads of boars,Connives at seal, to satisfy his men,But childless leaves each loud-lamenting hen.
And now the bark the Cymrian prince ascends,92The large oars chiming to the chanting crew,(His leal Norwegian band) the new-found friendsFrom brazen trumpets blare their loud adieu.Forth bounds the ship, and Gawaine, while it quickens,The wind propitiates—with three virgin chickens.
Led by the Dove, more brightly day by day,93The vernal azure deepens in the sky;Far from the Polar threshold smiles the way—And lo, white Albion shimmers on the eye,Nurse of all nations, who to breasts severeTakes the rude children, the calm men to rear.
Doubt and amaze with joy perplex the King:94Not yet the task achieved, the mission done,Why homeward steers the angel pilot's wing?Of the three labours rests the crowning one;Unreach'd the Iron Gates—Death's sullen hold—Where waits the Child-guide with the locks of gold.
Yet still the Dove cleaves homeward through the air;95Glides o'er the entrance of an inland stream;And rests at last on bowers of foliage, whereThick forests close their ramparts on the beam,And clasp with dipping boughs a grassy creek,Whose marge slopes level with the brazen beak.
Around his neck the shield the Adventurer slung;96And girt the enchanted sword. Then, kneeling, saidThe young Ulysses of the golden tongue,"Not now to phantom foes the dove hath led:For, if I err not, this a Mercian haven,And from the dove peeps forth at last the raven!
"Not lone, nor reckless, in these glooms profound,97Tempt the sure ambush of some Saxon host;If out of sight, at least in reach of sound,Let our stout Northmen follow up the coast;Then if thou wilt, from each suspicious treeShake laurels down, but share them, Sire, with me!"
"Nay," answer'd Arthur, "ever, as before,98Alone the Pilgrim to his bourne must go;But range the men conceal'd along the shore;Set watch, from these green turrets, for the foe;Moor'd to the marge where broadest hangs the bough,Hide from the sun the glitter of the prow:—
And so farewell!" He said; to land he leapt;99And with dull murmur from its verdant waves,O'er his high crest the billowy forest swept.As towards some fitful light the swimmer cleavesHis stalwart way,—so through the woven shadesWhere the pale wing now glimmers and now fades.
With strong hand parting the tough branches, goes100Hour after hour the King; till light at lastFrom skies long hid, in ambient silver flowsThrough opening glades, the length of gloom is past,And the dark pines receding stand aroundA silent hill with antique ruins crown'd.
Day had long closed; and from the mournful deeps101Of old volcanoes spent, the livid moonWhich through the life of planets lifeless creepsHer ghostly way, deaf to the choral tuneOf spheres rejoicing, on those ruins oldLook'd down, herself a ruin,—hush'd and cold.
Mutely the granite wrecks the King survey'd,102And knew the work of hands Cimmerian,What time in starry robes, and awe array'd,Grey Druids spoke the oracles of man—Solving high riddles to Chaldean Mage,Or the young wonder of the Samian Sage.
A date remounting far beyond the day103When Roman legions met the scythèd cars,When purer founts sublime had lapsed awayThrough the deep rents of unrecorded wars,And bloodstain'd altars cursed the mountain sod,[9]Where the first faith had hail'd the Only God.
For all now left us of the parent Celt,104Is of that later and corrupter time,—Not in rude domeless fanes those Fathers knelt,Who lured the Brahman from his burning clime,Who charm'd lost science from each lone abyss,And wing'd the shaft of Scythian Abaris.[10]
Yea, the grandsires of our primæval race105Saw angel tracks the earlier earth upon,And as a rising sun, the morning faceOf Truth more near the flush'd horizon shone;Filling ev'n clouds with many a golden light,Lost when the orb is at the noonday height.
Through the large ruins (now no more), the last106Perchance on earth of those diviner sires,With noiseless step the lone descendant pass'd;Not there were seenBâl-huan'samber pyres;No circling shafts with barbarous fragments strewn,Spoke creeds of carnage to the spectral moon.
But Art, vast, simple, and sublime, was there107Ev'n in its mournful wrecks,—such Art foregoneAs the first Builders, when their grand despairLeft Shinar's tower and city half undone,Taught where they wander'd o'er the newborn world.—Column, and vault, and roof, in ruin hurl'd,
Still spoke of hands that founded Babylon!108So in the wrecks, the Lord of young RomanceBy fallen pillars laid him musing down.More large and large the moving shades advance,Blending in one dim silence sad and wanThe past, the present, ruin and the man.
Now, o'er his lids life's gentlest influence stole,109Life's gentlest influence, yet the likest death!That nightly proof how little needs the soulLight from the sense, or being from the breath,When all life knows a life unknown supplies,And airy worlds around a Spirit rise.
Still through the hazy mist of stealing sleep,110His eyes explore the watchful guardian's wing,There, where it broods upon the moss-grown heap,With plumes that all the stars are silvering.Slow close the lids—reopening with a startAs shoots a nameless terror through his heart.
That strange wild awe which haunted Childhood thrills,111When waking at the dead of Dark, alone,A sense of sudden solitude which chillsThe blood;—a shrinking as from shapes unknown;An instinct both of some protection fled,And of the coming of some ghastly dread.
He look'd, and lo, the Dove was seen no more,112Lone lay the lifeless wrecks beneath the moon,And the one loss gave all that seem'd beforeDesolate,—twofold desolation!How slight a thing, whose love our trust has been,Alters the world, when it no more is seen!
He strove to speak, but voice was gone from him.113As in that loss new might the terror took,His veins congeal'd; and, interfused and dim,Shadow and moonlight swam before his look;Bristled his hair; and all the strong dismaySeized as an eagle when it grasps its prey.
Senses and soul confused, and jarr'd, and blent,114Lay crush'd beneath the intolerable Power;Then over all, one flash, in lightning, rentThe veil between the Immortal and the Hour;Life heard the voice of unembodied breath,And Sleep stood trembling face to face with Death.