From out the web of former lives,The ancient catenated chainOf joy and sorrow, loss and gain,One certain truth my heart derives:—Though Beauty passes, this I know,From Change and Death, this verity:Her spirit lives eternally—'Tis but her forms that come and go.
From out the web of former lives,The ancient catenated chainOf joy and sorrow, loss and gain,One certain truth my heart derives:—
Though Beauty passes, this I know,From Change and Death, this verity:Her spirit lives eternally—'Tis but her forms that come and go.
Lo! I am Beauty's constant thrall,Must ever on her voice await,And follow through the maze of FateHer luring, strange and mystical.Obedient to her summonings,Forever must my soul aspire,And seek, on wings of lyric fire,To penetrate the Heart of Things,Wherein she sits, augustly throned,In loveliness that renders dumb—The Essence and the final Sum—With peril and with wonder zonedWhat though I fail, my duller senseBaffled as by a wall of stone?The high desire, the search aloneAre their own prize and recompense.
Lo! I am Beauty's constant thrall,Must ever on her voice await,And follow through the maze of FateHer luring, strange and mystical.
Obedient to her summonings,Forever must my soul aspire,And seek, on wings of lyric fire,To penetrate the Heart of Things,
Wherein she sits, augustly throned,In loveliness that renders dumb—The Essence and the final Sum—With peril and with wonder zoned
What though I fail, my duller senseBaffled as by a wall of stone?The high desire, the search aloneAre their own prize and recompense.
Behind each thing a shadow lies;Beauty hath e'er its cost:Within the moonlight-flooded skiesHow many stars are lost!
Behind each thing a shadow lies;Beauty hath e'er its cost:Within the moonlight-flooded skiesHow many stars are lost!
Alas! that we are deaf and blindTo meanings all about us hid!What secrets lurk the woods amid?What prophecies are on the wind?What tidings do the billows bringAnd cry in vain upon the strand?If we might only understandThe brooklet's cryptic murmuring!The tongues of earth and air are strange.And yet (who knows?) one little wordLearned from the language of the birdMight make us lords of Fate and Change!
Alas! that we are deaf and blindTo meanings all about us hid!What secrets lurk the woods amid?What prophecies are on the wind?
What tidings do the billows bringAnd cry in vain upon the strand?If we might only understandThe brooklet's cryptic murmuring!
The tongues of earth and air are strange.And yet (who knows?) one little wordLearned from the language of the birdMight make us lords of Fate and Change!
O woven fabric and bright web of sound,Whose threads are magical,And with swift weaving thrallAnd hold the spirit bound!We may not know whence thy strange sorceries fall—Whether they be Earth's voices wild and strong,Her high and perfect song.Or broken dreams of higher worlds unfound.For, lo, thou art as dreams.And to thy realm all hidden things belong—All fugitive and evanescent gleamsThe soul hath vainly sought;All mystic immanence;All visions of ungrasped magnificence,And great ideals pinnacled in thought;All paths with marvel fraughtThat lead to lands obscure:For, lo, upon thy road of sound we pass,Seeking thy magic lure,To vales mist-implicated and unsure,Where all seems strange as visions in a glass;And wonder-haunted hills,Where Beauty is an echo and a dreamIn sighing pines, and rillsClouded and deep with imaged tree and sky;And where bright rivers gleamPast cities towering high,Each wonderful as some cloud-fantasy.Thou loosenest the bondage of the years,Making the spirit freeOf all sublunar joys and fears.Who mounts on thine imperious wings shall seeThe ways of life as threads of day and night;Serene above their change,His eyes shall know but far transcendent things,His ears shall hark but voices free and strange;Vast seas of outer lightShall beat upon his sight,Eternal winds shall touch him with their wings;His heart shall thrillTo larger, purer joy, and grief more deepThan earth may know;And e'en as dews of morning fillThe opened flower, into his soul shall flowHigh melodies, like tears that angels weep.Then shall he penetrateThe veils and outer barriers of sound,And near the soul of melody,Where, rapt in aural splendors ultimate,His soul shall seeThe marvel and the glory that surroundEternal Beauty's shrine;And catch afar the glint divineOf her moon-colored robe, or haply hear,With world-oblivious ear,Some echo of her voice's mystery.Thou hast Love's power to findThe soul's most secret chords, that else were still,And stir'st them till they thrillDisclosed to least, faint movements of thy wind.Thine aural sorceryO'erwhelms the heart as sunset storms the sight,For thou art Beauty bodied forth in sound—Her colors brightAnd diverse forms expressed in harmony:Within thy bound,The flare of morning is become a song,And tree and flower a music sweet and long.And in thy speechThe power and majesty that swingPlanet and sun, and eachDim atom of the system manifest,Become articulate, expressedLike ocean in the brooklet's whispering.Beyond the woof of finite things,Thy threads of wonder deep-entangled lie—Time's intertexturingsWithin Eternity—With Song, mayhap, to be his memories;For Beauty borders nighThe ultimate, eternal Verities.
O woven fabric and bright web of sound,Whose threads are magical,And with swift weaving thrallAnd hold the spirit bound!We may not know whence thy strange sorceries fall—Whether they be Earth's voices wild and strong,Her high and perfect song.Or broken dreams of higher worlds unfound.For, lo, thou art as dreams.And to thy realm all hidden things belong—All fugitive and evanescent gleamsThe soul hath vainly sought;All mystic immanence;All visions of ungrasped magnificence,And great ideals pinnacled in thought;All paths with marvel fraughtThat lead to lands obscure:For, lo, upon thy road of sound we pass,Seeking thy magic lure,To vales mist-implicated and unsure,Where all seems strange as visions in a glass;And wonder-haunted hills,Where Beauty is an echo and a dreamIn sighing pines, and rillsClouded and deep with imaged tree and sky;And where bright rivers gleamPast cities towering high,Each wonderful as some cloud-fantasy.
Thou loosenest the bondage of the years,Making the spirit freeOf all sublunar joys and fears.Who mounts on thine imperious wings shall seeThe ways of life as threads of day and night;Serene above their change,His eyes shall know but far transcendent things,His ears shall hark but voices free and strange;Vast seas of outer lightShall beat upon his sight,Eternal winds shall touch him with their wings;His heart shall thrillTo larger, purer joy, and grief more deepThan earth may know;And e'en as dews of morning fillThe opened flower, into his soul shall flowHigh melodies, like tears that angels weep.Then shall he penetrateThe veils and outer barriers of sound,And near the soul of melody,Where, rapt in aural splendors ultimate,His soul shall seeThe marvel and the glory that surroundEternal Beauty's shrine;And catch afar the glint divineOf her moon-colored robe, or haply hear,With world-oblivious ear,Some echo of her voice's mystery.
Thou hast Love's power to findThe soul's most secret chords, that else were still,And stir'st them till they thrillDisclosed to least, faint movements of thy wind.Thine aural sorceryO'erwhelms the heart as sunset storms the sight,For thou art Beauty bodied forth in sound—Her colors brightAnd diverse forms expressed in harmony:Within thy bound,The flare of morning is become a song,And tree and flower a music sweet and long.And in thy speechThe power and majesty that swingPlanet and sun, and eachDim atom of the system manifest,Become articulate, expressedLike ocean in the brooklet's whispering.Beyond the woof of finite things,Thy threads of wonder deep-entangled lie—Time's intertexturingsWithin Eternity—With Song, mayhap, to be his memories;For Beauty borders nighThe ultimate, eternal Verities.
I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,A mountain's utmost eminence of snow,Whence I beheld the plain outstretched belowTo a far sea-horizon, dim and white.Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light,The dead world lay, phantasmally aglow;Its last fear-weighted voice, a wind, came low;The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.I watched, and lo! the pale and flickering sun,In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.Then Night, that grim, gigantic struggle won,Impended for a breath on wings of doom,And through the air fell like a falling sky.
I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,A mountain's utmost eminence of snow,Whence I beheld the plain outstretched belowTo a far sea-horizon, dim and white.Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light,The dead world lay, phantasmally aglow;Its last fear-weighted voice, a wind, came low;The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.
I watched, and lo! the pale and flickering sun,In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.Then Night, that grim, gigantic struggle won,Impended for a breath on wings of doom,And through the air fell like a falling sky.
Imagination's eyesOutreach and distance farThe vision of the greatest starThat measures instantaneously—Enisled therein as in a sea—Its cincture of the system-laden skies.Abysses closed about with nightA tribute yieldTo her retardless sight;And Matter's gates disclose the candent oresRock-held in furnaces of planet-cores.She penetrates the sun's transplendent shield,And through the obstruction of his vestment dire,Pierces the centermost sublimityOf his terrific heart, whose gurge of fireHeaves upward like a monstrous sea,And inly riven by Titanic throes,Fills all his frame with outward cataractOf separate and immingling torrent streams.Her eyes exactFrom the Moon-Sphinx that wanes and growsIn wastes celestial, alien dreamsBrought down on wings of fleetest beams.Adown the clefts of under-spaceShe rides, her steed a falling star,To seek, where void and vagueness are,Some mark or certainty of place.Upon their heavenly precipiceThe gathered suns shrink back aghastFrom that interminate abyss,And threat of sightless anarchs vast.She stands enduedWith supermundane crown, and vestituresOf emperies that includeAll under-worlds and over-worlds of dream—Kingdoms o'ercast, and eminent heights extremeWhere moon-transcending light endures.She wanders in fantastic lands, where growIn scarce-discernèd fields and closes blind,Vague blossoms stirred by wings of eidolons;Or roves in forests where all sound is low:Each voice that shunsThe noiseful day, and enters there to findTwilight that naught exalts nor grieves,Is quickly tuned to the susurrous leaves.Upon some supersensual eminenceShe hears the fragments of a thunder loud,Where lightnings of ulterior Truth intenseFlame through the walls of hollow cloud.But these she may not wholly graspWith incomplete terrestrial clasp.Her eyes inevitably see,'Neath rounds and changes of exterior things,The movements of Essentiality—Of ageless principles—that alter notTo temporal alterings—Unswerved by shattered worlds upbuilt once more.And stars no longer hot;Or broken constellations strewnLike coals about the heavenly floor,And rush of night upon the noonOf their lost worlds, unsphered restorelesslyIn icy deserts of the sky.From the beginning of the spheres,When systems nebulous out-thrownDrove back the brinksOf nullity with limitary marks,Till end of suns, and sunless death of years,To her are knownThe unevident inseparable linksThat bind all deeps, all suns, all days and darks.
Imagination's eyesOutreach and distance farThe vision of the greatest starThat measures instantaneously—Enisled therein as in a sea—Its cincture of the system-laden skies.Abysses closed about with nightA tribute yieldTo her retardless sight;And Matter's gates disclose the candent oresRock-held in furnaces of planet-cores.She penetrates the sun's transplendent shield,And through the obstruction of his vestment dire,Pierces the centermost sublimityOf his terrific heart, whose gurge of fireHeaves upward like a monstrous sea,And inly riven by Titanic throes,Fills all his frame with outward cataractOf separate and immingling torrent streams.Her eyes exactFrom the Moon-Sphinx that wanes and growsIn wastes celestial, alien dreamsBrought down on wings of fleetest beams.Adown the clefts of under-spaceShe rides, her steed a falling star,To seek, where void and vagueness are,Some mark or certainty of place.Upon their heavenly precipiceThe gathered suns shrink back aghastFrom that interminate abyss,And threat of sightless anarchs vast.
She stands enduedWith supermundane crown, and vestituresOf emperies that includeAll under-worlds and over-worlds of dream—Kingdoms o'ercast, and eminent heights extremeWhere moon-transcending light endures.She wanders in fantastic lands, where growIn scarce-discernèd fields and closes blind,Vague blossoms stirred by wings of eidolons;Or roves in forests where all sound is low:Each voice that shunsThe noiseful day, and enters there to findTwilight that naught exalts nor grieves,Is quickly tuned to the susurrous leaves.
Upon some supersensual eminenceShe hears the fragments of a thunder loud,Where lightnings of ulterior Truth intenseFlame through the walls of hollow cloud.But these she may not wholly graspWith incomplete terrestrial clasp.Her eyes inevitably see,'Neath rounds and changes of exterior things,The movements of Essentiality—Of ageless principles—that alter notTo temporal alterings—Unswerved by shattered worlds upbuilt once more.And stars no longer hot;Or broken constellations strewnLike coals about the heavenly floor,And rush of night upon the noonOf their lost worlds, unsphered restorelesslyIn icy deserts of the sky.From the beginning of the spheres,When systems nebulous out-thrownDrove back the brinksOf nullity with limitary marks,Till end of suns, and sunless death of years,To her are knownThe unevident inseparable linksThat bind all deeps, all suns, all days and darks.
Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark,How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest!Forever its voice is a voice of the dark,Forever its voice is a voice of unrest.Oh, list to the pines as they shiver and sway'Neath the ceaseless beat of its myriad wings—How they moan and they sob like living thingsThat cry in the darkness for light and day!Now bend they low as the wind mounts higher,And its eerie voice comes piercingly,Like the plaint of humanity's misery,And its burden of vain desire.Now to a sad, tense whisper it fails,Then wildly and madly it raves and it wails.Oh, the night is filled with its sob and its shriek,Its weird and its restless, yearning cry,As it races adown the darkened sky,With scurry of broken clouds that seek,Borne on the wings of the hastening wind,A place of rest that they never can find.And around the face of the moon they cling,Its fugitive face to veil they aspire;But ever and ever it peereth out,Rending the cloud-ranks that hem it about;And it seemeth a lost and phantom thing,Like a phantom of dead desire.
Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark,How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest!Forever its voice is a voice of the dark,Forever its voice is a voice of unrest.Oh, list to the pines as they shiver and sway'Neath the ceaseless beat of its myriad wings—How they moan and they sob like living thingsThat cry in the darkness for light and day!Now bend they low as the wind mounts higher,And its eerie voice comes piercingly,Like the plaint of humanity's misery,And its burden of vain desire.Now to a sad, tense whisper it fails,Then wildly and madly it raves and it wails.
Oh, the night is filled with its sob and its shriek,Its weird and its restless, yearning cry,As it races adown the darkened sky,With scurry of broken clouds that seek,Borne on the wings of the hastening wind,A place of rest that they never can find.And around the face of the moon they cling,Its fugitive face to veil they aspire;But ever and ever it peereth out,Rending the cloud-ranks that hem it about;And it seemeth a lost and phantom thing,Like a phantom of dead desire.
One tone is mute within the starry singing,The unison fulfilled, complete before;One chord within the music sounds no more,And from the stir of flames forever wingingThe pinions of our sister, motionlessIn pits of indefinable duress,Are fallen beyond all recoveryBy exultation of the flying dance,Or rhythms holding as with sleep or tranceThe maze of stars that only death may free—Flung through the void's expanse.In gulfs depressed nor in the gulfs exaltedShall shade nor lightening of her flame be found;In space that litten orbits gird around,Nor in the bottomless abyss unvaultedOf unenvironed, all-outlying night.Allotted gyre nor lawless comet-flightShall find, and with its venturous ray returnFrom gloom of undiscoverable scope,One ray of her to gladden into hopeThe doubtful eyes denied that truthward yearn,The faltering feet that grope.Beyond restrainless boundary-nights surpassingAll luminous horizons limited,The substance and the light of her have fedRuin and silence of the night's amassing:Abandoned worlds forever morningless;Suns without worlds, in frory beamlessnessGirt for the longer gyre funereal;Inviolate silence, earless, unawakingThat once was sound, and level calm unbreakingWhere motion's many ways in oneness fallOf sleep beyond forsaking.Circled with limitation unexceededOur eyes behold exterior mysteriesAnd gods unascertainable as these—Shadows and shapes irresolubly heeded;Phantoms that tower, and substance scarcely known.Our sister knows all mysteries one alone,One shape, one shadow, crowding out the skies;Whose eyeless head and lipless face debarAll others nameless or familiar,Filling with night all former lips and eyesOf god, and ghost, and star:For her all shapes have fed the shape of night;All darker forms, and dubious forms, or pallid,Are met and reconciled where none is valid.But unto us solution nor respiteOf mystery's multiform incessancyFrom unexplored or system-trodden skyShall come; but as a load importunate,Enigma past and mystery foreseenWeigh mightily upon us, and betweenOur sorrow deepens, and our songs abateIn cadences of threne.A gloom that gathers silence looms more closely,And quiet centering darkness at its heart;But from the certitude of night departUncertain god nor eidolon less ghostly;But stronger grown with strength obtained from lightThat failed, and power lent by the stronger night,Perplex us with new mystery, and doubtIf these our flames, that deathward toss and fallBe festal lights or lights funerealFor mightier gods within the gulfs without,Phantoms more cryptical.New shadows from the wings of Time unfoldingAcross the depth and eminence of years,Fall deeplier with the broadening gloom of fears.Prophetic-eyed, with planet-hosts beholdingThe night take form upon the face of suns,We see (thus grief's vaticination runs—Presageful sorrow for our sister slain)A night wherein all sorrow shall be past,One with night's single mystery at last;Nor vocal sun nor singing world remainAs Time's elegiast.
One tone is mute within the starry singing,The unison fulfilled, complete before;One chord within the music sounds no more,And from the stir of flames forever wingingThe pinions of our sister, motionlessIn pits of indefinable duress,Are fallen beyond all recoveryBy exultation of the flying dance,Or rhythms holding as with sleep or tranceThe maze of stars that only death may free—Flung through the void's expanse.
In gulfs depressed nor in the gulfs exaltedShall shade nor lightening of her flame be found;In space that litten orbits gird around,Nor in the bottomless abyss unvaultedOf unenvironed, all-outlying night.Allotted gyre nor lawless comet-flightShall find, and with its venturous ray returnFrom gloom of undiscoverable scope,One ray of her to gladden into hopeThe doubtful eyes denied that truthward yearn,The faltering feet that grope.
Beyond restrainless boundary-nights surpassingAll luminous horizons limited,The substance and the light of her have fedRuin and silence of the night's amassing:Abandoned worlds forever morningless;Suns without worlds, in frory beamlessnessGirt for the longer gyre funereal;Inviolate silence, earless, unawakingThat once was sound, and level calm unbreakingWhere motion's many ways in oneness fallOf sleep beyond forsaking.
Circled with limitation unexceededOur eyes behold exterior mysteriesAnd gods unascertainable as these—Shadows and shapes irresolubly heeded;Phantoms that tower, and substance scarcely known.Our sister knows all mysteries one alone,One shape, one shadow, crowding out the skies;Whose eyeless head and lipless face debarAll others nameless or familiar,Filling with night all former lips and eyesOf god, and ghost, and star:
For her all shapes have fed the shape of night;All darker forms, and dubious forms, or pallid,Are met and reconciled where none is valid.But unto us solution nor respiteOf mystery's multiform incessancyFrom unexplored or system-trodden skyShall come; but as a load importunate,Enigma past and mystery foreseenWeigh mightily upon us, and betweenOur sorrow deepens, and our songs abateIn cadences of threne.
A gloom that gathers silence looms more closely,And quiet centering darkness at its heart;But from the certitude of night departUncertain god nor eidolon less ghostly;But stronger grown with strength obtained from lightThat failed, and power lent by the stronger night,Perplex us with new mystery, and doubtIf these our flames, that deathward toss and fallBe festal lights or lights funerealFor mightier gods within the gulfs without,Phantoms more cryptical.
New shadows from the wings of Time unfoldingAcross the depth and eminence of years,Fall deeplier with the broadening gloom of fears.Prophetic-eyed, with planet-hosts beholdingThe night take form upon the face of suns,We see (thus grief's vaticination runs—Presageful sorrow for our sister slain)A night wherein all sorrow shall be past,One with night's single mystery at last;Nor vocal sun nor singing world remainAs Time's elegiast.
Sleep is a pathless labyrinth,Dark to the gaze of moons and suns,Through which the colored clue of dreams,A gossamer thread, obscurely runs.
Sleep is a pathless labyrinth,Dark to the gaze of moons and suns,Through which the colored clue of dreams,A gossamer thread, obscurely runs.
To me the winds that die and start,And strive in wars that never cease,Are dearer than the level peaceThat lies unstirred at summer's heart;More dear to me the shadowed wold,Where, with report of tempest rife,The air intensifies with life,Than quiet fields of summer's gold.I am the winds' admitted friend:They seal our linked fellowshipsWith speech of warm or icy lips,With touch of west and east that blend.And when my spirit listless stands,With folded wings that do not live,Their own assuageless wings they giveTo lift her from the stirless lands.* * * * * * *Within the place unmanifestWhere central Truth is immanent,Lies there a vast, entire contentOf sound and movement one in rest?I know not this. Yet in my heart,I feel that where all truths concur,The shrine is peaceless with the stirOf winds that enter and depart.
To me the winds that die and start,And strive in wars that never cease,Are dearer than the level peaceThat lies unstirred at summer's heart;
More dear to me the shadowed wold,Where, with report of tempest rife,The air intensifies with life,Than quiet fields of summer's gold.
I am the winds' admitted friend:They seal our linked fellowshipsWith speech of warm or icy lips,With touch of west and east that blend.
And when my spirit listless stands,With folded wings that do not live,Their own assuageless wings they giveTo lift her from the stirless lands.
* * * * * * *
Within the place unmanifestWhere central Truth is immanent,Lies there a vast, entire contentOf sound and movement one in rest?
I know not this. Yet in my heart,I feel that where all truths concur,The shrine is peaceless with the stirOf winds that enter and depart.
Scene:A moonlit glade on a summer midnight
What consummation of the toiling moonO'ercomes the midnight blue with violet,Wherein the stars turn grey! The summer's green,Edgèd and strong by day, is dull and faintBeneath the moon's all-dominating mood,That in this absence of the impassioned sun,Sways to a sleep of sound and calm of colorThe live and vivid aspect of the world—Subdued as with the great expectancyWhich blurs beginning features of a dream,Things and events lost 'neath an omeningOf central and oppressive bulk to come.Here were the theatre of a miracle,If such, within a world long alienateFrom its first dreams, and shut with skeptic years,Might now befall.
What consummation of the toiling moonO'ercomes the midnight blue with violet,Wherein the stars turn grey! The summer's green,Edgèd and strong by day, is dull and faintBeneath the moon's all-dominating mood,That in this absence of the impassioned sun,Sways to a sleep of sound and calm of colorThe live and vivid aspect of the world—Subdued as with the great expectancyWhich blurs beginning features of a dream,Things and events lost 'neath an omeningOf central and oppressive bulk to come.Here were the theatre of a miracle,If such, within a world long alienateFrom its first dreams, and shut with skeptic years,Might now befall.
The Huntress rides no moreAcross the upturned faces of the stars:'Tis but the dead shell of a frozen world,Glittering with desolation. Earth's old gods—The gods that haunt like dreams each planet's youth—Are fled from years incredulous, and tiredWith penetrating of successive masks,That give but emptiness they served to hide.Remains not faith enough to bring them back—Pan to his wood, Diana to her moon,And all the visions that made populousAn eager world where Time grows weary now.Yet Youth, that lives, might for a little claimThe pantheon of dream, on such a night,When 'neath the growing marvel of the moonThe films of time wear perilously thin,And thought looks backward to the simpler years,Till all the vision seems but just beyond.If one have faith, it may be that he shallBehold the gods—once only, and no more,Because of Time's inhospitality,For which they may not stay.
The Huntress rides no moreAcross the upturned faces of the stars:'Tis but the dead shell of a frozen world,Glittering with desolation. Earth's old gods—The gods that haunt like dreams each planet's youth—Are fled from years incredulous, and tiredWith penetrating of successive masks,That give but emptiness they served to hide.Remains not faith enough to bring them back—Pan to his wood, Diana to her moon,And all the visions that made populousAn eager world where Time grows weary now.Yet Youth, that lives, might for a little claimThe pantheon of dream, on such a night,When 'neath the growing marvel of the moonThe films of time wear perilously thin,And thought looks backward to the simpler years,Till all the vision seems but just beyond.If one have faith, it may be that he shallBehold the gods—once only, and no more,Because of Time's inhospitality,For which they may not stay.
Within the marvel of the light, what flowerOf active wonder from quiescence springs!Is it a throng of luminous white clouds,Phantoms of some old storm's death-driven Titans,That float beneath the moon, and speak with voicesLike the last echoes of a thunder spent?'Tis the forsaken gods, that win a footholdAbout the magic circle which the moonDraws like some old enchantress round the glade.
Within the marvel of the light, what flowerOf active wonder from quiescence springs!Is it a throng of luminous white clouds,Phantoms of some old storm's death-driven Titans,That float beneath the moon, and speak with voicesLike the last echoes of a thunder spent?'Tis the forsaken gods, that win a footholdAbout the magic circle which the moonDraws like some old enchantress round the glade.
I see them not: the vision is addressedOnly to thine acute and eager youth.
I see them not: the vision is addressedOnly to thine acute and eager youth.
All heaven and earth were once my throne;Now I have but the wind aloneFor shifting judgment-seat.The pillared world supported me:Yet man's old incredulityLeft nothing for my feet.
All heaven and earth were once my throne;Now I have but the wind aloneFor shifting judgment-seat.The pillared world supported me:Yet man's old incredulityLeft nothing for my feet.
Man hath forgotten me:Yet seems it that my memorySaddens the wistful voices of the wood;Within each erst-frequented spotEcho forgets my music not,Nor Earth my tread where trampling years have stood.
Man hath forgotten me:Yet seems it that my memorySaddens the wistful voices of the wood;Within each erst-frequented spotEcho forgets my music not,Nor Earth my tread where trampling years have stood.
Time hath grown coldToward beauty loved of old.The gods must quakeWhen dreams and hopes forsakeThe heart of man,And disillusion's banMore chill than stone,Rears till the former throneOf lovelinessIs dark and tenantless.Now must I weep—Homeless within the deepWhere once of oldMine orbèd chariot rolled,—And mourn in vainMan's immemorial painUncomfortedOf light and beauty fled.
Time hath grown coldToward beauty loved of old.The gods must quakeWhen dreams and hopes forsakeThe heart of man,And disillusion's banMore chill than stone,Rears till the former throneOf lovelinessIs dark and tenantless.Now must I weep—Homeless within the deepWhere once of oldMine orbèd chariot rolled,—And mourn in vainMan's immemorial painUncomfortedOf light and beauty fled.
Time wearied of my song—A satiate and capricious kingWho for his pleasure bade me sing,First of his minstrel throng.Till, cloyed with melody,His ear grew faint to voice and lyre;Forgotten then of Time's desire,His thought was void of me.
Time wearied of my song—A satiate and capricious kingWho for his pleasure bade me sing,First of his minstrel throng.Till, cloyed with melody,His ear grew faint to voice and lyre;Forgotten then of Time's desire,His thought was void of me.
I, born of sound and foam,Child of the sea and wind,Was fire upon mankind—Fuelled with Syria, and with Greece and Rome.Time fanned me with his breath;Love found new warmth in me,And Life its ecstasy,Till I grew deadly with the wind of death.
I, born of sound and foam,Child of the sea and wind,Was fire upon mankind—Fuelled with Syria, and with Greece and Rome.Time fanned me with his breath;Love found new warmth in me,And Life its ecstasy,Till I grew deadly with the wind of death.
How can the world be still so beautifulWhen beauty's self is fled? Tis like the muteAnd marble loveliness of some dead girl;And we that hover here, are as the spiritOf former voice and motion, and live colorIn that which shall not stir nor speak again.
How can the world be still so beautifulWhen beauty's self is fled? Tis like the muteAnd marble loveliness of some dead girl;And we that hover here, are as the spiritOf former voice and motion, and live colorIn that which shall not stir nor speak again.
Nay, rather say this lovely, lifeless worldIs but a rigid semblance, counterfeitingThe world which was. Nor have the gods retainedSuch power as once informed and rendered vitalThe cryptic irresponsiveness of stone,—That statue which Pygmalion made and loved.
Nay, rather say this lovely, lifeless worldIs but a rigid semblance, counterfeitingThe world which was. Nor have the gods retainedSuch power as once informed and rendered vitalThe cryptic irresponsiveness of stone,—That statue which Pygmalion made and loved.
I, who was discord among men,Alone of all Time's hierarchyFind that Time hath no need of me,No lack that I might fill again.
I, who was discord among men,Alone of all Time's hierarchyFind that Time hath no need of me,No lack that I might fill again.
Tell me, O gods, are ye forever doomedTo fall and flutter among spacial winds,Finding release nor foothold anywhere—Debarred from doors of all the suns, like spiritsWhose names are blotted from the lists of Time,Though they themselves yet wander undestroyed?
Tell me, O gods, are ye forever doomedTo fall and flutter among spacial winds,Finding release nor foothold anywhere—Debarred from doors of all the suns, like spiritsWhose names are blotted from the lists of Time,Though they themselves yet wander undestroyed?
Throneless, discrowned, and impotent,In man's sad disillusionment,We passed with Earth's returnless youth,Who were the semblances of truth,The veils that hid the vacantnessInfinite, naked, meaningless,The blank and universal SphinxEach world beholds at last—and sinks.New gods protect awhile the gazeOf man—each one a veil that stays—Till the new gods, discredited,Like mist that melts with noon, are fled—That power oppressive, limitless,The tyranny of nothingness.Our power is dead upon the earthWith the first dews and dawns of Time;But in the far and younger climeOf other worlds, it hath re-birth.Yea, though we find not entrance here—Astray like feathers on the wind,To neither earth nor heaven consigned—Fresh altars in a distant sphereAre keen with fragrance, bright with fire,New hearths to warm us from the night,Till, banished thence, we pass in flightWhile all the flames of dream expire.
Throneless, discrowned, and impotent,In man's sad disillusionment,We passed with Earth's returnless youth,Who were the semblances of truth,The veils that hid the vacantnessInfinite, naked, meaningless,The blank and universal SphinxEach world beholds at last—and sinks.New gods protect awhile the gazeOf man—each one a veil that stays—Till the new gods, discredited,Like mist that melts with noon, are fled—That power oppressive, limitless,The tyranny of nothingness.Our power is dead upon the earthWith the first dews and dawns of Time;But in the far and younger climeOf other worlds, it hath re-birth.Yea, though we find not entrance here—Astray like feathers on the wind,To neither earth nor heaven consigned—Fresh altars in a distant sphereAre keen with fragrance, bright with fire,New hearths to warm us from the night,Till, banished thence, we pass in flightWhile all the flames of dream expire.
As blood from some enormous hurtThe sanguine sunset leapt;Across it, like a dabbled skirt,The hurrying tempest swept.
As blood from some enormous hurtThe sanguine sunset leapt;Across it, like a dabbled skirt,The hurrying tempest swept.
What islands marvellous are these,That gem the sunset's tides of light—Opals aglow in saffron seas?How beautiful they lie, and bright,Like some new-found Hesperides!What varied, changing magic huesTint gorgeously each shore and hill!What blazing, vivid golds and bluesTheir seaward winding valleys fill!What amethysts their peaks suffuse!Close held by curving arms of landThat out within the ocean reach,I mark a faery city stand,Set high upon a sloping beachThat burns with fire of shimmering sand.Of sunset-light is formed each wall;Each dome a rainbow-bubble seems;And every spire that towers tallA ray of golden moonlight gleams;Of opal-flame is every hall.Alas! how quickly dims their glow!What veils their dreamy splendours mar!Like broken dreams the islands go,As down from strands of cloud and star,The sinking tides of daylight flow.
What islands marvellous are these,That gem the sunset's tides of light—Opals aglow in saffron seas?How beautiful they lie, and bright,Like some new-found Hesperides!
What varied, changing magic huesTint gorgeously each shore and hill!What blazing, vivid golds and bluesTheir seaward winding valleys fill!What amethysts their peaks suffuse!
Close held by curving arms of landThat out within the ocean reach,I mark a faery city stand,Set high upon a sloping beachThat burns with fire of shimmering sand.
Of sunset-light is formed each wall;Each dome a rainbow-bubble seems;And every spire that towers tallA ray of golden moonlight gleams;Of opal-flame is every hall.
Alas! how quickly dims their glow!What veils their dreamy splendours mar!Like broken dreams the islands go,As down from strands of cloud and star,The sinking tides of daylight flow.
But yestereve the winter treesReared leafless, blackly bare,Their twigs and branches poignant-markedUpon the sunset-flare.White-petaled, opens now the dawn,And in its pallid glow,Revealed, each leaf-lorn, barren treeStands white with flowers of snow.
But yestereve the winter treesReared leafless, blackly bare,Their twigs and branches poignant-markedUpon the sunset-flare.
White-petaled, opens now the dawn,And in its pallid glow,Revealed, each leaf-lorn, barren treeStands white with flowers of snow.
How is it, O moon, that melting,Unstintedly, prodigally,On the peaks' hard majesty,Till they seem diaphanousAnd fluctuant as a veil,And pouring thy rapturous lightThrough pine, and oak, and laurel,Till the summer-sharpened green,Softening and tremulous,Is a lustrous miracle—How is it that I find,When I turn again to thee,That thy lost and wasted lightIs regained in one magic breath?
How is it, O moon, that melting,Unstintedly, prodigally,On the peaks' hard majesty,Till they seem diaphanousAnd fluctuant as a veil,And pouring thy rapturous lightThrough pine, and oak, and laurel,Till the summer-sharpened green,Softening and tremulous,Is a lustrous miracle—How is it that I find,When I turn again to thee,That thy lost and wasted lightIs regained in one magic breath?
The dungeon-clefts of TartarusAre just beyond yon mountain-girdle,Whose mass is bound around the bulkOf the dark, unstirred, unmoving East.Alike on the mountains and the plain,The night is as some terrific dream,That closes the soul in a crypt of dreadApart from touch or sense of earth,As in the space of Eternity.What light unseen perturbs the darkness?Behold! it stirs and fluctuatesBetween the mountains and the starsThat are set as guards above the prisonOf the captive Titan-god. I knowThat in the deeps beneath, HyperionDivides the pillared vault of dark,And stands a space upon its ruin.Then light is laid upon the peaks,As the hand of one who climbs beyond;And, lo! the Sun! The sentinel starsAre dead with overpotent flame,And in their place Hyperion stands.The night is loosened from the land,As a dream from the mind of the dreamer.A great wind blows across the dawn,Like the wind of the motion of the world.
The dungeon-clefts of TartarusAre just beyond yon mountain-girdle,Whose mass is bound around the bulkOf the dark, unstirred, unmoving East.Alike on the mountains and the plain,The night is as some terrific dream,That closes the soul in a crypt of dreadApart from touch or sense of earth,As in the space of Eternity.
What light unseen perturbs the darkness?Behold! it stirs and fluctuatesBetween the mountains and the starsThat are set as guards above the prisonOf the captive Titan-god. I knowThat in the deeps beneath, HyperionDivides the pillared vault of dark,And stands a space upon its ruin.Then light is laid upon the peaks,As the hand of one who climbs beyond;And, lo! the Sun! The sentinel starsAre dead with overpotent flame,And in their place Hyperion stands.The night is loosened from the land,As a dream from the mind of the dreamer.A great wind blows across the dawn,Like the wind of the motion of the world.
I flow beneath the columns that upbearThe world, and all the tracts of heaven and hell;Foamless I sweep, where sounds nor glimmers tellMy motion nadir-ward; no moment's flareGives each to each the shapes that, unaware,Commingle at my verge, to test the spellOf waves intense with night, whose deeps compelOne face from pain, and rapture, and despair.The fruitless earth's denied and cheated sonsMeet here, where fruitful and unfruitful cease.And when their lords, the mightier, hidden Ones,Have drained all worlds till being's wine is low,Shall they not come, and from the oblivious flowDrink at one draught a universe of peace?
I flow beneath the columns that upbearThe world, and all the tracts of heaven and hell;Foamless I sweep, where sounds nor glimmers tellMy motion nadir-ward; no moment's flareGives each to each the shapes that, unaware,Commingle at my verge, to test the spellOf waves intense with night, whose deeps compelOne face from pain, and rapture, and despair.
The fruitless earth's denied and cheated sonsMeet here, where fruitful and unfruitful cease.And when their lords, the mightier, hidden Ones,Have drained all worlds till being's wine is low,Shall they not come, and from the oblivious flowDrink at one draught a universe of peace?
Above its domes the gulfs accumulateTo where the sea-winds trumpet forth their screed;But here the buried waters take no heed—Deaf, and with closèd lips from press of weightImposed by ocean. Dim, inanimate,On temples of an unremembered creedInvolved in long, slow tentacles of weed,The dead tide lies immovable as Fate.From out the ponderous-vaulted ocean-dome,A clouded light is questionably shedOn altars of a goddess garlandedWith blossoms of some weird and hueless vine;And wingèd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam,Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine.
Above its domes the gulfs accumulateTo where the sea-winds trumpet forth their screed;But here the buried waters take no heed—Deaf, and with closèd lips from press of weightImposed by ocean. Dim, inanimate,On temples of an unremembered creedInvolved in long, slow tentacles of weed,The dead tide lies immovable as Fate.
From out the ponderous-vaulted ocean-dome,A clouded light is questionably shedOn altars of a goddess garlandedWith blossoms of some weird and hueless vine;And wingèd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam,Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine.
How dense the glooms of Death, imperviousTo aught of old memorial light! How straitThe sunless road, suspended, separate,That leads to later birth! UntremulousWith any secret morn of stars, to usThe Past is closed as with division greatOf planet-girdling seas—unknown its gate,Beyond the mouths of shadows cavernous.Oh! may it be that Death in kindness stripsThe soul of memory's raiment, rendering blindOur vision, lest surmounted deeps appal,As when on mountain peaks a glance behindBetrays with knowledge, and the climber slipsDown gulfs of fear to some enormous fall?
How dense the glooms of Death, imperviousTo aught of old memorial light! How straitThe sunless road, suspended, separate,That leads to later birth! UntremulousWith any secret morn of stars, to usThe Past is closed as with division greatOf planet-girdling seas—unknown its gate,Beyond the mouths of shadows cavernous.
Oh! may it be that Death in kindness stripsThe soul of memory's raiment, rendering blindOur vision, lest surmounted deeps appal,As when on mountain peaks a glance behindBetrays with knowledge, and the climber slipsDown gulfs of fear to some enormous fall?
Now as the twilight's doubtful intervalCloses with night's accomplished certainty,A wizard wind goes crying eerily;And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl,Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fallAs with some dreadful witches' ecstasy,Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters freeThe crooked moon, impendent over all.Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrownAcross the movement and the sound of things,Make blank the night, till in the broken westThe moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....The night grows whole again.... The shadows rest,Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
Now as the twilight's doubtful intervalCloses with night's accomplished certainty,A wizard wind goes crying eerily;And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl,Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fallAs with some dreadful witches' ecstasy,Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters freeThe crooked moon, impendent over all.
Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrownAcross the movement and the sound of things,Make blank the night, till in the broken westThe moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....The night grows whole again.... The shadows rest,Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.
The cherry-snows are falling now;Down from the blossom-clouded skyOf zephyr-troubled twig and bough,In widely settling whirls they fly.The orchard earth, unclothed and brown,Is wintry-hued with petals bright;E'en as the snow they glimmer down;Brief as the snow's their stainless white.
The cherry-snows are falling now;Down from the blossom-clouded skyOf zephyr-troubled twig and bough,In widely settling whirls they fly.
The orchard earth, unclothed and brown,Is wintry-hued with petals bright;E'en as the snow they glimmer down;Brief as the snow's their stainless white.