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diff --git a/old/1238.txt b/old/1238.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..810ca05 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1238.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1841 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The City of Dreadful Night, by James Thomson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The City of Dreadful Night + +Author: James Thomson + +Posting Date: August 16, 2008 [EBook #1238] +Release Date: March, 1998 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Michael C. Browning + + + + + +THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT + +By James Thomson + + + + Per me si va nella citta dolente. + + --Dante + + + Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti + D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa, + Girando senza posa, + Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse; + Uso alcuno, alcun frutto + Indovinar non so. + + Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve + Ogni creata cosa, + In te, morte, si posa + Nostra ignuda natura; + Lieta no, ma sicura + Dell' antico dolor . . . + Pero ch' esser beato + Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato. + + --Leopardi + + + + + +PROEM + + Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write + My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears." + Yet why evoke the spectres of black night + To blot the sunshine of exultant years? + Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden? 5 + Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden, + And wail life's discords into careless ears? + + Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles + To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth + Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles, 10 + False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth; + Because it gives some sense of power and passion + In helpless innocence to try to fashion + Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth. + + Surely I write not for the hopeful young, 15 + Or those who deem their happiness of worth, + Or such as pasture and grow fat among + The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth, + Or pious spirits with a God above them + To sanctify and glorify and love them, 20 + Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth. + + For none of these I write, and none of these + Could read the writing if they deigned to try; + So may they flourish in their due degrees, + On our sweet earth and in their unplaced sky. 25 + If any cares for the weak words here written, + It must be some one desolate, Fate-smitten, + Whose faith and hopes are dead, and who would die. + + Yes, here and there some weary wanderer + In that same city of tremendous night, 30 + Will understand the speech and feel a stir + Of fellowship in all-disastrous fight; + "I suffer mute and lonely, yet another + Uplifts his voice to let me know a brother + Travels the same wild paths though out of sight." 35 + + O sad Fraternity, do I unfold + Your dolorous mysteries shrouded from of yore? + Nay, be assured; no secret can be told + To any who divined it not before: 40 + None uninitiate by many a presage + Will comprehend the language of the message, + Although proclaimed aloud for evermore. + + + + I + + The City is of Night; perchance of Death + But certainly of Night; for never there + Can come the lucid morning's fragrant breath + After the dewy dawning's cold grey air: + The moon and stars may shine with scorn or pity 5 + The sun has never visited that city, + For it dissolveth in the daylight fair. + + Dissolveth like a dream of night away; + Though present in distempered gloom of thought + And deadly weariness of heart all day. 10 + But when a dream night after night is brought + Throughout a week, and such weeks few or many + Recur each year for several years, can any + Discern that dream from real life in aught? + + For life is but a dream whose shapes return, 15 + Some frequently, some seldom, some by night + And some by day, some night and day: we learn, + The while all change and many vanish quite, + In their recurrence with recurrent changes + A certain seeming order; where this ranges 20 + We count things real; such is memory's might. + + A river girds the city west and south, + The main north channel of a broad lagoon, + Regurging with the salt tides from the mouth; + Waste marshes shine and glister to the moon 25 + For leagues, then moorland black, then stony ridges; + Great piers and causeways, many noble bridges, + Connect the town and islet suburbs strewn. + + Upon an easy slope it lies at large + And scarcely overlaps the long curved crest 30 + Which swells out two leagues from the river marge. + A trackless wilderness rolls north and west, + Savannahs, savage woods, enormous mountains, + Bleak uplands, black ravines with torrent fountains; + And eastward rolls the shipless sea's unrest. 35 + + The city is not ruinous, although + Great ruins of an unremembered past, + With others of a few short years ago + More sad, are found within its precincts vast. + The street-lamps always burn; but scarce a casement 40 + In house or palace front from roof to basement + Doth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast. + + The street-lamps burn amid the baleful glooms, + Amidst the soundless solitudes immense + Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. 45 + The silence which benumbs or strains the sense + Fulfils with awe the soul's despair unweeping: + Myriads of habitants are ever sleeping, + Or dead, or fled from nameless pestilence! + + Yet as in some necropolis you find 50 + Perchance one mourner to a thousand dead, + So there: worn faces that look deaf and blind + Like tragic masks of stone. With weary tread, + Each wrapt in his own doom, they wander, wander, + Or sit foredone and desolately ponder 55 + Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head. + + Mature men chiefly, few in age or youth, + A woman rarely, now and then a child: + A child! If here the heart turns sick with ruth + To see a little one from birth defiled, 60 + Or lame or blind, as preordained to languish + Through youthless life, think how it bleeds with anguish + To meet one erring in that homeless wild. + + They often murmur to themselves, they speak + To one another seldom, for their woe 65 + Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak + Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow + To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour, + Unless there waits some victim of like glamour, + To rave in turn, who lends attentive show. 70 + + The City is of Night, but not of Sleep; + There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain; + The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, + A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strain + Of thought and consciousness which never ceases, 75 + Or which some moments' stupor but increases, + This, worse than woe, makes wretches there insane. + + They leave all hope behind who enter there: + One certitude while sane they cannot leave, + One anodyne for torture and despair; 80 + The certitude of Death, which no reprieve + Can put off long; and which, divinely tender, + But waits the outstretched hand to promptly render + That draught whose slumber nothing can bereave (1) + + (1) Though the Garden of thy Life be wholly waste, the sweet + flowers withered, the fruit-trees barren, over its wall hang + ever the rich dark clusters of the Vine of Death, within + easy reach of thy hand, which may pluck of them when it + will. + + + + II + + Because he seemed to walk with an intent + I followed him; who, shadowlike and frail, + Unswervingly though slowly onward went, + Regardless, wrapt in thought as in a veil: + Thus step for step with lonely sounding feet 5 + We travelled many a long dim silent street. + + At length he paused: a black mass in the gloom, + A tower that merged into the heavy sky; + Around, the huddled stones of grave and tomb: + Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty: 10 + He murmured to himself with dull despair, + Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air. + + Then turning to the right went on once more + And travelled weary roads without suspense; + And reached at last a low wall's open door, 15 + Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense: + He gazed, and muttered with a hard despair, + Here Love died, stabbed by its own worshipped pair. + + Then turning to the right resumed his march, + And travelled street and lanes with wondrous strength, 20 + Until on stooping through a narrow arch + We stood before a squalid house at length: + He gazed, and whispered with a cold despair, + Here Hope died, starved out in its utmost lair. + + When he had spoken thus, before he stirred, 25 + I spoke, perplexed by something in the signs + Of desolation I had seen and heard + In this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines: + Where Faith and Love and Hope are dead indeed, + Can Life still live? By what doth it proceed? 30 + + As whom his one intense thought overpowers, + He answered coldly, Take a watch, erase + The signs and figures of the circling hours, + Detach the hands, remove the dial-face; + The works proceed until run down; although 35 + Bereft of purpose, void of use, still go. + + Then turning to the right paced on again, + And traversed squares and travelled streets whose glooms + Seemed more and more familiar to my ken; + And reached that sullen temple of the tombs; 40 + And paused to murmur with the old despair, + Hear Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air. + + I ceased to follow, for the knot of doubt + Was severed sharply with a cruel knife: + He circled thus forever tracing out 45 + The series of the fraction left of Life; + Perpetual recurrence in the scope + Of but three terms, dead Faith, dead Love, dead Hope. (1) + + LXX + (1) Life divided by that persistent three = --- = .210. + 333 + + + + III + + Although lamps burn along the silent streets, + Even when moonlight silvers empty squares + The dark holds countless lanes and close retreats; + But when the night its sphereless mantle wears + The open spaces yawn with gloom abysmal, 5 + The sombre mansions loom immense and dismal, + The lanes are black as subterranean lairs. + + And soon the eye a strange new vision learns: + The night remains for it as dark and dense, + Yet clearly in this darkness it discerns 10 + As in the daylight with its natural sense; + Perceives a shade in shadow not obscurely, + Pursues a stir of black in blackness surely, + Sees spectres also in the gloom intense. + + The ear, too, with the silence vast and deep 15 + Becomes familiar though unreconciled; + Hears breathings as of hidden life asleep, + And muffled throbs as of pent passions wild, + Far murmurs, speech of pity or derision; + but all more dubious than the things of vision, 20 + So that it knows not when it is beguiled. + + No time abates the first despair and awe, + But wonder ceases soon; the weirdest thing + Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law + Where Death-in-Life is the eternal king; 25 + Crushed impotent beneath this reign of terror, + Dazed with mysteries of woe and error, + The soul is too outworn for wondering. + + + + IV + + He stood alone within the spacious square + Declaiming from the central grassy mound, + With head uncovered and with streaming hair, + As if large multitudes were gathered round: + A stalwart shape, the gestures full of might, 5 + The glances burning with unnatural light:-- + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: All was black, + In heaven no single star, on earth no track; + A brooding hush without a stir or note, 10 + The air so thick it clotted in my throat; + And thus for hours; then some enormous things + Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings: + But I strode on austere; + No hope could have no fear. 15 + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: Eyes of fire + Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire; + The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath + Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death; 20 + Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold + Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold: + But I strode on austere; + No hope could have no fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, 25 + As I came through the desert: Lo you, there, + That hillock burning with a brazen glare; + Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow + Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro; + A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell 30 + For Devil's roll-call and some fete of Hell: + Yet I strode on austere; + No hope could have no fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: Meteors ran 35 + And crossed their javelins on the black sky-span; + The zenith opened to a gulf of flame, + The dreadful thunderbolts jarred earth's fixed frame; + The ground all heaved in waves of fire that surged + And weltered round me sole there unsubmerged: 40 + Yet I strode on austere; + No hope could have no fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: Air once more, + And I was close upon a wild sea-shore; 45 + Enormous cliffs arose on either hand, + The deep tide thundered up a league-broad strand; + White foambelts seethed there, wan spray swept and flew; + The sky broke, moon and stars and clouds and blue: + Yet I strode on austere; 50 + No hope could have no fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: On the left + The sun arose and crowned a broad crag-cleft; + There stopped and burned out black, except a rim, 55 + A bleeding eyeless socket, red and dim; + Whereon the moon fell suddenly south-west, + And stood above the right-hand cliffs at rest: + Yet I strode on austere; + No hope could have no fear. 60 + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: From the right + A shape came slowly with a ruddy light; + A woman with a red lamp in her hand, + Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand; 65 + O desolation moving with such grace! + O anguish with such beauty in thy face! + I fell as on my bier, + Hope travailed with such fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, 70 + As I came through the desert: I was twain, + Two selves distinct that cannot join again; + One stood apart and knew but could not stir, + And watched the other stark in swoon and her; + And she came on, and never turned aside, 75 + Between such sun and moon and roaring tide: + And as she came more near + My soul grew mad with fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: Hell is mild 80 + And piteous matched with that accursed wild; + A large black sign was on her breast that bowed, + A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud; + That lamp she held was her own burning heart, + Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart: 85 + The mystery was clear; + Mad rage had swallowed fear. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: By the sea + She knelt and bent above that senseless me; 90 + Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there, + She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair; + She murmured words of pity, love, and woe, + Shee heeded not the level rushing flow: + And mad with rage and fear, 95 + I stood stonebound so near. + + As I came through the desert thus it was, + As I came through the desert: When the tide + Swept up to her there kneeling by my side, + She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne 100 + Away, and this vile me was left forlorn; + I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart, + Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart: + They love; their doom is drear, + Yet they nor hope nor fear; 105 + But I, what do I here? + + + + V + + How he arrives there none can clearly know; + Athwart the mountains and immense wild tracts, + Or flung a waif upon that vast sea-flow, + Or down the river's boiling cataracts: + To reach it is as dying fever-stricken 5 + To leave it, slow faint birth intense pangs quicken; + And memory swoons in both the tragic acts. + + But being there one feels a citizen; + Escape seems hopeless to the heart forlorn: + Can Death-in-Life be brought to life again? 10 + And yet release does come; there comes a morn + When he awakes from slumbering so sweetly + That all the world is changed for him completely, + And he is verily as if new-born. + + He scarcely can believe the blissful change, 15 + He weeps perchance who wept not while accurst; + Never again will he approach the range + Infected by that evil spell now burst: + Poor wretch! who once hath paced that dolent city + Shall pace it often, doomed beyond all pity, 20 + With horror ever deepening from the first. + + Though he possess sweet babes and loving wife, + A home of peace by loyal friendships cheered, + And love them more than death or happy life, + They shall avail not; he must dree his weird; 25 + Renounce all blessings for that imprecation, + Steal forth and haunt that builded desolation, + Of woe and terrors and thick darkness reared. + + + + VI + + I sat forlornly by the river-side, + And watched the bridge-lamps glow like golden stars + Above the blackness of the swelling tide, + Down which they struck rough gold in ruddier bars; + And heard the heave and plashing of the flow 5 + Against the wall a dozen feet below. + + Large elm-trees stood along that river-walk; + And under one, a few steps from my seat, + I heard strange voices join in stranger talk, + Although I had not heard approaching feet: 10 + These bodiless voices in my waking dream + Flowed dark words blending with sombre stream:-- + + And you have after all come back; come back. + I was about to follow on your track. + And you have failed: our spark of hope is black. 15 + + That I have failed is proved by my return: + The spark is quenched, nor ever more will burn, + But listen; and the story you shall learn. + + I reached the portal common spirits fear, + And read the words above it, dark yet clear, 20 + "Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here:" + + And would have passed in, gratified to gain + That positive eternity of pain + Instead of this insufferable inane. + + A demon warder clutched me, Not so fast; 25 + First leave your hopes behind!--But years have passed + Since I left all behind me, to the last: + + You cannot count for hope, with all your wit, + This bleak despair that drives me to the Pit: + How could I seek to enter void of it? 30 + + He snarled, What thing is this which apes a soul, + And would find entrance to our gulf of dole + Without the payment of the settled toll? + + Outside the gate he showed an open chest: + Here pay their entrance fees the souls unblest; 35 + Cast in some hope, you enter with the rest. + + This is Pandora's box; whose lid shall shut, + And Hell-gate too, when hopes have filled it; but + They are so thin that it will never glut. + + I stood a few steps backwards, desolate; 40 + And watched the spirits pass me to their fate, + And fling off hope, and enter at the gate. + + When one casts off a load he springs upright, + Squares back his shoulders, breathes will all his might, + And briskly paces forward strong and light: 45 + + But these, as if they took some burden, bowed; + The whole frame sank; however strong and proud + Before, they crept in quite infirm and cowed. + + And as they passed me, earnestly from each + A morsel of his hope I did beseech, 50 + To pay my entrance; but all mocked my speech. + + No one would cede a little of his store, + Though knowing that in instants three or four + He must resign the whole for evermore. + + So I returned. Our destiny is fell; 55 + For in this Limbo we must ever dwell, + Shut out alike from heaven and Earth and Hell. + + The other sighed back, Yea; but if we grope + With care through all this Limbo's dreary scope, + We yet may pick up some minute lost hope; 60 + + And sharing it between us, entrance win, + In spite of fiends so jealous for gross sin: + Let us without delay our search begin. + + + + VII + + Some say that phantoms haunt those shadowy streets, + And mingle freely there with sparse mankind; + And tell of ancient woes and black defeats, + And murmur mysteries in the grave enshrined: + But others think them visions of illusion, 5 + Or even men gone far in self-confusion; + No man there being wholly sane in mind. + + And yet a man who raves, however mad, + Who bares his heart and tells of his own fall, + Reserves some inmost secret good or bad: 10 + The phantoms have no reticence at all: + The nudity of flesh will blush though tameless + The extreme nudity of bone grins shameless, + The unsexed skeleton mocks shroud and pall. + + I have seen phantoms there that were as men 15 + And men that were as phantoms flit and roam; + Marked shapes that were not living to my ken, + Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam: + The City rests for man so weird and awful, + That his intrusion there might seem unlawful, 20 + And phantoms there may have their proper home. + + + + VIII + + While I still lingered on that river-walk, + And watched the tide as black as our black doom, + I heard another couple join in talk, + And saw them to the left hand in the gloom + Seated against an elm bole on the ground, 5 + Their eyes intent upon the stream profound. + + "I never knew another man on earth + But had some joy and solace in his life, + Some chance of triumph in the dreadful strife: + My doom has been unmitigated dearth." 10 + + "We gaze upon the river, and we note + The various vessels large and small that float, + Ignoring every wrecked and sunken boat." + + "And yet I asked no splendid dower, no spoil + Of sway or fame or rank or even wealth; 15 + But homely love with common food and health, + And nightly sleep to balance daily toil." + + "This all-too-humble soul would arrogate + Unto itself some signalising hate + From the supreme indifference of Fate!" 20 + + "Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? + I think myself; yet I would rather be + My miserable self than He, than He + Who formed such creatures to His own disgrace. + + "The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou 25 + From whom it had its being, God and Lord! + Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred + Malignant and implacable! I vow + + "That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, + For all the temples to Thy glory built, 30 + Would I assume the ignominious guilt + Of having made such men in such a world." + + "As if a Being, God or Fiend, could reign, + At once so wicked, foolish and insane, + As to produce men when He might refrain! 35 + + "The world rolls round for ever like a mill; + It grinds out death and life and good and ill; + It has no purpose, heart or mind or will. + + "While air of Space and Time's full river flow + The mill must blindly whirl unresting so: 40 + It may be wearing out, but who can know? + + "Man might know one thing were his sight less dim; + That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, + That it is quite indifferent to him. + + "Nay, does it treat him harshly as he saith? 45 + It grinds him some slow years of bitter breath, + Then grinds him back into eternal death." + + + + IX + + It is full strange to him who hears and feels, + When wandering there in some deserted street, + The booming and the jar of ponderous wheels, + The trampling clash of heavy ironshod feet: + Who in this Venice of the Black Sea rideth? 5 + Who in this city of the stars abideth + To buy or sell as those in daylight sweet? + + The rolling thunder seems to fill the sky + As it comes on; the horses snort and strain, + The harness jingles, as it passes by; 10 + The hugeness of an overburthened wain: + A man sits nodding on the shaft or trudges + Three parts asleep beside his fellow-drudges: + And so it rolls into the night again. + + What merchandise? whence, whither, and for whom? 15 + Perchance it is a Fate-appointed hearse, + Bearing away to some mysterious tomb + Or Limbo of the scornful universe + The joy, the peace, the life-hope, the abortions + Of all things good which should have been our portions, 20 + But have been strangled by that City's curse. + + + + X + + The mansion stood apart in its own ground; + In front thereof a fragrant garden-lawn, + High trees about it, and the whole walled round: + The massy iron gates were both withdrawn; + And every window of its front shed light, 5 + Portentous in that City of the Night. + + But though thus lighted it was deadly still + As all the countless bulks of solid gloom; + Perchance a congregation to fulfil + Solemnities of silence in this doom, 10 + Mysterious rites of dolour and despair + Permitting not a breath or chant of prayer? + + Broad steps ascended to a terrace broad + Whereon lay still light from the open door; + The hall was noble, and its aspect awed, 15 + Hung round with heavy black from dome to floor; + And ample stairways rose to left and right + Whose balustrades were also draped with night. + + I paced from room to room, from hall to hall, + Nor any life throughout the maze discerned; 20 + But each was hung with its funereal pall, + And held a shrine, around which tapers burned, + With picture or with statue or with bust, + all copied from the same fair form of dust: + + A woman very young and very fair; 25 + Beloved by bounteous life and joy and youth, + And loving these sweet lovers, so that care + And age and death seemed not for her in sooth: + Alike as stars, all beautiful and bright, + these shapes lit up that mausolean night. 30 + + At length I heard a murmur as of lips, + And reached an open oratory hung + With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse; + Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung; + And one lay there upon a low white bed, 35 + With tapers burning at the foot and head: + + The Lady of the images, supine, + Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay: + And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine + A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray: 40 + A crucifix of dim and ghostly white + Surmounted the large altar left in night:-- + + The chambers of the mansion of my heart, + In every one whereof thine image dwells, + Are black with grief eternal for thy sake. 45 + + The inmost oratory of my soul, + Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead, + Is black with grief eternal for thy sake. + + I kneel beside thee and I clasp the cross, + With eyes forever fixed upon that face, 50 + So beautiful and dreadful in its calm. + + I kneel here patient as thou liest there; + As patient as a statue carved in stone, + Of adoration and eternal grief. + + While thou dost not awake I cannot move; 55 + And something tells me thou wilt never wake, + And I alive feel turning into stone. + + Most beautiful were Death to end my grief, + Most hateful to destroy the sight of thee, + Dear vision better than all death or life. 60 + + But I renounce all choice of life or death, + For either shall be ever at thy side, + And thus in bliss or woe be ever well.-- + + He murmured thus and thus in monotone, + Intent upon that uncorrupted face, 65 + Entranced except his moving lips alone: + I glided with hushed footsteps from the place. + This was the festival that filled with light + That palace in the City of the Night. + + + + XI + + What men are they who haunt these fatal glooms, + And fill their living mouths with dust of death, + And make their habitations in the tombs, + And breathe eternal sighs with mortal breath, + And pierce life's pleasant veil of various error 5 + To reach that void of darkness and old terror + Wherein expire the lamps of hope and faith? + + They have much wisdom yet they are not wise, + They have much goodness yet they do not well, + (The fools we know have their own paradise, 10 + The wicked also have their proper Hell); + They have much strength but still their doom is stronger, + Much patience but their time endureth longer, + Much valour but life mocks it with some spell. + + They are most rational and yet insane: 15 + And outward madness not to be controlled; + A perfect reason in the central brain, + Which has no power, but sitteth wan and cold, + And sees the madness, and foresees as plainly + The ruin in its path, and trieth vainly 20 + To cheat itself refusing to behold. + + And some are great in rank and wealth and power, + And some renowned for genius and for worth; + And some are poor and mean, who brood and cower + And shrink from notice, and accept all dearth 25 + Of body, heart and soul, and leave to others + All boons of life: yet these and those are brothers, + The saddest and the weariest men on earth. + + + + XII + + Our isolated units could be brought + To act together for some common end? + For one by one, each silent with his thought, + I marked a long loose line approach and wend + Athwart the great cathedral's cloistered square, 5 + And slowly vanish from the moonlit air. + + Then I would follow in among the last: + And in the porch a shrouded figure stood, + Who challenged each one pausing ere he passed, + With deep eyes burning through a blank white hood: 10 + Whence come you in the world of life and light + To this our City of Tremendous Night?-- + + From pleading in a senate of rich lords + For some scant justice to our countless hordes + Who toil half-starved with scarce a human right: 15 + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From wandering through many a solemn scene + Of opium visions, with a heart serene + And intellect miraculously bright: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. 20 + + From making hundreds laugh and roar with glee + By my transcendent feats of mimicry, + And humour wanton as an elvish sprite: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From prayer and fasting in a lonely cell, 25 + Which brought an ecstasy ineffable + Of love and adoration and delight: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From ruling on a splendid kingly throne + A nation which beneath my rule has grown 30 + Year after year in wealth and arts and might: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From preaching to an audience fired with faith + The Lamb who died to save our souls from death, + Whose blood hath washed our scarlet sins wool-white: 35 + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From drinking fiery poison in a den + Crowded with tawdry girls and squalid men, + Who hoarsely laugh and curse and brawl and fight: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. 40 + + From picturing with all beauty and all grace + First Eden and the parents of our race, + A luminous rapture unto all men's sight: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From writing a great work with patient plan 45 + To justify the ways of God to man, + And show how ill must fade and perish quite: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + From desperate fighting with a little band + Against the powerful tyrants of our land, 50 + To free our brethren in their own despite: + I wake from daydreams to this real night. + + Thus, challenged by that warder sad and stern, + Each one responded with his countersign, + Then entered the cathedral; and in turn 55 + I entered also, having given mine; + But lingered near until I heard no more, + And marked the closing of the massive door. + + + + XIII + + Of all things human which are strange and wild + This is perchance the wildest and most strange, + And showeth man most utterly beguiled, + To those who haunt that sunless City's range; + That he bemoans himself for aye, repeating 5 + How Time is deadly swift, how life is fleeting, + How naught is constant on the earth but change. + + The hours are heavy on him and the days; + The burden of the months he scarce can bear; + And often in his secret soul he prays 10 + To sleep through barren periods unaware, + Arousing at some longed-for date of pleasure; + Which having passed and yielded him small treasure, + He would outsleep another term of care. + + Yet in his marvellous fancy he must make 15 + Quick wings for Time, and see it fly from us; + This Time which crawleth like a monstrous snake, + Wounded and slow and very venomous; + Which creeps blindwormlike round the earth and ocean, + Distilling poison at each painful motion, 20 + And seems condemned to circle ever thus. + + And since he cannot spend and use aright + The little time here given him in trust, + But wasteth it in weary undelight + Of foolish toil and trouble, strife and lust, 25 + He naturally claimeth to inherit + The everlasting Future, that his merit + May have full scope; as surely is most just. + + O length of the intolerable hours, + O nights that are as aeons of slow pain, 30 + O Time, too ample for our vital powers, + O Life, whose woeful vanities remain + Immutable for all of all our legions + Through all the centuries and in all the regions, + Not of your speed and variance WE complain. 35 + + WE do not ask a longer term of strife, + Weakness and weariness and nameless woes; + We do not claim renewed and endless life + When this which is our torment here shall close, + An everlasting conscious inanition! 40 + We yearn for speedy death in full fruition, + Dateless oblivion and divine repose. + + + + XIV + + Large glooms were gathered in the mighty fane, + With tinted moongleams slanting here and there; + And all was hush: no swelling organ-strain, + No chant, no voice or murmuring of prayer; + No priests came forth, no tinkling censers fumed, 5 + And the high altar space was unillumed. + + Around the pillars and against the walls + Leaned men and shadows; others seemed to brood + Bent or recumbent in secluded stalls. + Perchance they were not a great multitude 10 + Save in that city of so lonely streets + Where one may count up every face he meets. + + All patiently awaited the event + Without a stir or sound, as if no less + Self-occupied, doomstricken while attent. 15 + And then we heard a voice of solemn stress + From the dark pulpit, and our gaze there met + Two eyes which burned as never eyes burned yet: + + Two steadfast and intolerable eyes + Burning beneath a broad and rugged brow; 20 + The head behind it of enormous size. + And as black fir-groves in a large wind bow, + Our rooted congregation, gloom-arrayed, + By that great sad voice deep and full were swayed:-- + + O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark! 25 + O battling in black floods without an ark! + O spectral wanderers of unholy Night! + My soul hath bled for you these sunless years, + With bitter blood-drops running down like tears: + Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light! 30 + + My heart is sick with anguish for your bale; + Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail + And perish in your perishing unblest. + And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope + Of all our universe, with desperate hope 35 + To find some solace for your wild unrest. + + And now at last authentic word I bring, + Witnessed by every dead and living thing; + Good tidings of great joy for you, for all: + There is no God; no Fiend with names divine 40 + Made us and tortures us; if we must pine, + It is to satiate no Being's gall. + + It was the dark delusion of a dream, + That living Person conscious and supreme, + Whom we must curse for cursing us with life; 45 + Whom we must curse because the life he gave + Could not be buried in the quiet grave, + Could not be killed by poison or the knife. + + This little life is all we must endure, + The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, 50 + We fall asleep and never wake again; + Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh, + Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh + In earth, air, water, plants, and other men. + + We finish thus; and all our wretched race 55 + Shall finish with its cycle, and give place + To other beings with their own time-doom: + Infinite aeons ere our kind began; + Infinite aeons after the last man + Has joined the mammoth in earth's tomb and womb. 60 + + We bow down to the universal laws, + Which never had for man a special clause + Of cruelty or kindness, love or hate: + If toads and vultures are obscene to sight, + If tigers burn with beauty and with might, 65 + Is it by favour or by wrath of Fate? + + All substance lives and struggles evermore + Through countless shapes continually at war, + By countless interactions interknit: + If one is born a certain day on earth, 70 + All times and forces tended to that birth, + Not all the world could change or hinder it. + + I find no hint throughout the Universe + Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse; + I find alone Necessity Supreme; 75 + With infinite Mystery, abysmal, dark, + Unlighted ever by the faintest spark + For us the flitting shadows of a dream. + + O Brothers of sad lives! they are so brief; + A few short years must bring us all relief: 80 + Can we not bear these years of laboring breath? + But if you would not this poor life fulfil, + Lo, you are free to end it when you will, + Without the fear of waking after death.-- + + The organ-like vibrations of his voice 85 + Thrilled through the vaulted aisles and died away; + The yearning of the tones which bade rejoice + Was sad and tender as a requiem lay: + Our shadowy congregation rested still + As brooding on that "End it when you will." 90 + + + + XV + + Wherever men are gathered, all the air + Is charged with human feeling, human thought; + Each shout and cry and laugh, each curse and prayer, + Are into its vibrations surely wrought; + Unspoken passion, wordless meditation, 5 + Are breathed into it with our respiration + It is with our life fraught and overfraught. + + So that no man there breathes earth's simple breath, + As if alone on mountains or wide seas; + But nourishes warm life or hastens death 10 + With joys and sorrows, health and foul disease, + Wisdom and folly, good and evil labours, + Incessant of his multitudinous neighbors; + He in his turn affecting all of these. + + That City's atmosphere is dark and dense, 15 + Although not many exiles wander there, + With many a potent evil influence, + Each adding poison to the poisoned air; + Infections of unutterable sadness, + Infections of incalculable madness, 20 + Infections of incurable despair. + + + + XVI + + Our shadowy congregation rested still, + As musing on that message we had heard + And brooding on that "End it when you will;" + Perchance awaiting yet some other word; + When keen as lightning through a muffled sky 5 + Sprang forth a shrill and lamentable cry:-- + + The man speaks sooth, alas! the man speaks sooth: + We have no personal life beyond the grave; + There is no God; Fate knows nor wrath nor ruth: + Can I find here the comfort which I crave? 10 + + In all eternity I had one chance, + One few years' term of gracious human life: + The splendours of the intellect's advance, + The sweetness of the home with babes and wife; + + The social pleasures with their genial wit: 15 + The fascination of the worlds of art, + The glories of the worlds of nature, lit + By large imagination's glowing heart; + + The rapture of mere being, full of health; + The careless childhood and the ardent youth, 20 + The strenuous manhood winning various wealth, + The reverend age serene with life's long truth: + + All the sublime prerogatives of Man; + The storied memories of the times of old, + The patient tracking of the world's great plan 25 + Through sequences and changes myriadfold. + + This chance was never offered me before; + For me this infinite Past is blank and dumb: + This chance recurreth never, nevermore; + Blank, blank for me the infinite To-come. 30 + + And this sole chance was frustrate from my birth, + A mockery, a delusion; and my breath + Of noble human life upon this earth + So racks me that I sigh for senseless death. + + My wine of life is poison mixed with gall, 35 + My noonday passes in a nightmare dream, + I worse than lose the years which are my all: + What can console me for the loss supreme? + + Speak not of comfort where no comfort is, + Speak not at all: can words make foul things fair? 40 + Our life's a cheat, our death a black abyss: + Hush and be mute envisaging despair.-- + + This vehement voice came from the northern aisle + Rapid and shrill to its abrupt harsh close; + And none gave answer for a certain while, 45 + For words must shrink from these most wordless woes; + At last the pulpit speaker simply said, + With humid eyes and thoughtful drooping head:-- + + My Brother, my poor Brothers, it is thus; + This life itself holds nothing good for us, 50 + But ends soon and nevermore can be; + And we knew nothing of it ere our birth, + And shall know nothing when consigned to earth: + I ponder these thoughts and they comfort me. + + + + XVII + + How the moon triumphs through the endless nights! + How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel + Their thick processions of supernal lights + Around the blue vault obdurate as steel! + And men regard with passionate awe and yearning 5 + The mighty marching and the golden burning, + And think the heavens respond to what they feel. + + Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream + Are glorified from vision as they pass + The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream; 10 + Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass + To restless crystals; cornice dome and column + Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn; + Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass. + + With such a living light these dead eyes shine, 15 + These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze + We read a pity, tremulous, divine, + Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays: + Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender; + There is no heart or mind in all their splendour, 20 + They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze. + + If we could near them with the flight unflown, + We should but find them worlds as sad as this, + Or suns all self-consuming like our own + Enringed by planet worlds as much amiss: 25 + They wax and wane through fusion and confusion; + The spheres eternal are a grand illusion, + The empyrean is a void abyss. + + + + XVIII + + I wandered in a suburb of the north, + And reached a spot whence three close lanes led down, + Beneath thick trees and hedgerows winding forth + Like deep brook channels, deep and dark and lown: + The air above was wan with misty light, 5 + The dull grey south showed one vague blur of white. + + I took the left-hand path and slowly trod + Its earthen footpath, brushing as I went + The humid leafage; and my feet were shod + With heavy languor, and my frame downbent, 10 + With infinite sleepless weariness outworn, + So many nights I thus had paced forlorn. + + After a hundred steps I grew aware + Of something crawling in the lane below; + It seemed a wounded creature prostrate there 15 + That sobbed with pangs in making progress slow, + The hind limbs stretched to push, the fore limbs then + To drag; for it would die in its own den. + + But coming level with it I discerned + That it had been a man; for at my tread 20 + It stopped in its sore travail and half-turned, + Leaning upon its right, and raised its head, + And with the left hand twitched back as in ire + Long grey unreverend locks befouled with mire. + + A haggard filthy face with bloodshot eyes, 25 + An infamy for manhood to behold. + He gasped all trembling, What, you want my prize? + You leave, to rob me, wine and lust and gold + And all that men go mad upon, since you + Have traced my sacred secret of the clue? 30 + + You think that I am weak and must submit + Yet I but scratch you with this poisoned blade, + And you are dead as if I clove with it + That false fierce greedy heart. Betrayed! betrayed! + I fling this phial if you seek to pass, 35 + And you are forthwith shrivelled up like grass. + + And then with sudden change, Take thought! take thought! + Have pity on me! it is mine alone. + If you could find, it would avail you naught; + Seek elsewhere on the pathway of your own: 40 + For who of mortal or immortal race + The lifetrack of another can retrace? + + Did you but know my agony and toil! + Two lanes diverge up yonder from this lane; + My thin blood marks the long length of their soil; 45 + Such clue I left, who sought my clue in vain: + My hands and knees are worn both flesh and bone; + I cannot move but with continual moan. + + But I am in the very way at last + To find the long-lost broken golden thread 50 + Which unites my present with my past, + If you but go your own way. And I said, + I will retire as soon as you have told + Whereunto leadeth this lost thread of gold. + + And so you know it not! he hissed with scorn; 55 + I feared you, imbecile! It leads me back + From this accursed night without a morn, + And through the deserts which have else no track, + And through vast wastes of horror-haunted time, + To Eden innocence in Eden's clime: 60 + + And I become a nursling soft and pure, + An infant cradled on its mother's knee, + Without a past, love-cherished and secure; + Which if it saw this loathsome present Me, + Would plunge its face into the pillowing breast, 65 + And scream abhorrence hard to lull to rest. + + He turned to grope; and I retiring brushed + Thin shreds of gossamer from off my face, + And mused, His life would grow, the germ uncrushed; + He should to antenatal night retrace, 70 + And hide his elements in that large womb + Beyond the reach of man-evolving Doom. + + And even thus, what weary way were planned, + To seek oblivion through the far-off gate + Of birth, when that of death is close at hand! 75 + For this is law, if law there be in Fate: + What never has been, yet may have its when; + The thing which has been, never is again. + + + + XIX + + The mighty river flowing dark and deep, + With ebb and flood from the remote sea-tides + Vague-sounding through the City's sleepless sleep, + Is named the River of the Suicides; + For night by night some lorn wretch overweary, 5 + And shuddering from the future yet more dreary, + Within its cold secure oblivion hides. + + One plunges from a bridge's parapet, + As if by some blind and sudden frenzy hurled; + Another wades in slow with purpose set 10 + Until the waters are above him furled; + Another in a boat with dreamlike motion + Glides drifting down into the desert ocean, + To starve or sink from out the desert world. + + They perish from their suffering surely thus, 15 + For none beholding them attempts to save, + The while thinks how soon, solicitous, + He may seek refuge in the self-same wave; + Some hour when tired of ever-vain endurance + Impatience will forerun the sweet assurance 20 + Of perfect peace eventual in the grave. + + When this poor tragic-farce has palled us long, + Why actors and spectators do we stay?-- + To fill our so-short roles out right or wrong; + To see what shifts are yet in the dull play 25 + For our illusion; to refrain from grieving + Dear foolish friends by our untimely leaving: + But those asleep at home, how blest are they! + + Yet it is but for one night after all: + What matters one brief night of dreary pain? 30 + When after it the weary eyelids fall + Upon the weary eyes and wasted brain; + And all sad scenes and thoughts and feelings vanish + In that sweet sleep no power can ever banish, + That one best sleep which never wakes again. 35 + + + + XX + + I sat me weary on a pillar's base, + And leaned against the shaft; for broad moonlight + O'erflowed the peacefulness of cloistered space, + A shore of shadow slanting from the right: + The great cathedral's western front stood there, 5 + A wave-worn rock in that calm sea of air. + + Before it, opposite my place of rest, + Two figures faced each other, large, austere; + A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast, + An angel standing in the moonlight clear; 10 + So mighty by magnificence of form, + They were not dwarfed beneath that mass enorm. + + Upon the cross-hilt of the naked sword + The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held; + His vigilant intense regard was poured 15 + Upon the creature placidly unquelled, + Whose front was set at level gaze which took + No heed of aught, a solemn trance-like look. + + And as I pondered these opposed shapes + My eyelids sank in stupor, that dull swoon 20 + Which drugs and with a leaden mantle drapes + The outworn to worse weariness. But soon + A sharp and clashing noise the stillness broke, + And from the evil lethargy I woke. + + The angel's wings had fallen, stone on stone, 25 + And lay there shattered; hence the sudden sound: + A warrior leaning on his sword alone + Now watched the sphinx with that regard profound; + The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware + Of nothing in the vast abyss of air. 30 + + Again I sank in that repose unsweet, + Again a clashing noise my slumber rent; + The warrior's sword lay broken at his feet: + An unarmed man with raised hands impotent + Now stood before the sphinx, which ever kept 35 + Such mien as if open eyes it slept. + + My eyelids sank in spite of wonder grown; + A louder crash upstartled me in dread: + The man had fallen forward, stone on stone, + And lay there shattered, with his trunkless head 40 + Between the monster's large quiescent paws, + Beneath its grand front changeless as life's laws. + + The moon had circled westward full and bright, + And made the temple-front a mystic dream, + And bathed the whole enclosure with its light, 45 + The sworded angel's wrecks, the sphinx supreme: + I pondered long that cold majestic face + Whose vision seemed of infinite void space. + + + + XXI + + Anear the centre of that northern crest + Stands out a level upland bleak and bare, + From which the city east and south and west + Sinks gently in long waves; and throned there + An Image sits, stupendous, superhuman, 5 + The bronze colossus of a winged Woman, + Upon a graded granite base foursquare. + + Low-seated she leans forward massively, + With cheek on clenched left hand, the forearm's might + Erect, its elbow on her rounded knee; 10 + Across a clasped book in her lap the right + Upholds a pair of compasses; she gazes + With full set eyes, but wandering in thick mazes + Of sombre thought beholds no outward sight. + + Words cannot picture her; but all men know 15 + That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought + Three centuries and threescore years ago, + With phantasies of his peculiar thought: + The instruments of carpentry and science + Scattered about her feet, in strange alliance 20 + With the keen wolf-hound sleeping undistraught; + + Scales, hour-glass, bell, and magic-square above; + The grave and solid infant perched beside, + With open winglets that might bear a dove, + Intent upon its tablets, heavy-eyed; 25 + Her folded wings as of a mighty eagle, + But all too impotent to lift the regal + Robustness of her earth-born strength and pride; + + And with those wings, and that light wreath which seems + To mock her grand head and the knotted frown 30 + Of forehead charged with baleful thoughts and dreams, + The household bunch of keys, the housewife's gown + Voluminous, indented, and yet rigid + As if a shell of burnished metal frigid, + The feet thick-shod to tread all weakness down; 35 + + The comet hanging o'er the waste dark seas, + The massy rainbow curved in front of it + Beyond the village with the masts and trees; + The snaky imp, dog-headed, from the Pit, + Bearing upon its batlike leathern pinions 40 + Her name unfolded in the sun's dominions, + The "MELENCOLIA" that transcends all wit. + + Thus has the artist copied her, and thus + Surrounded to expound her form sublime, + Her fate heroic and calamitous; 45 + Fronting the dreadful mysteries of Time, + Unvanquished in defeat and desolation, + Undaunted in the hopeless conflagration + Of the day setting on her baffled prime. + + Baffled and beaten back she works on still, 50 + Weary and sick of soul she works the more, + Sustained by her indomitable will: + The hands shall fashion and the brain shall pore, + And all her sorrow shall be turned to labour, + Till Death the friend-foe piercing with his sabre 55 + That mighty heart of hearts ends bitter war. + + But as if blacker night could dawn on night, + With tenfold gloom on moonless night unstarred, + A sense more tragic than defeat and blight, + More desperate than strife with hope debarred, 60 + More fatal than the adamantine Never + Encompassing her passionate endeavour, + Dawns glooming in her tenebrous regard: + + To sense that every struggle brings defeat + Because Fate holds no prize to crown success; 65 + That all the oracles are dumb or cheat + Because they have no secret to express; + That none can pierce the vast black veil uncertain + Because there is no light beyond the curtain; + That all is vanity and nothingness. 70 + + Titanic from her high throne in the north, + That City's sombre Patroness and Queen, + In bronze sublimity she gazes forth + Over her Capital of teen and threne, + Over the river with its isles and bridges, 75 + The marsh and moorland, to the stern rock-bridges, + Confronting them with a coeval mien. + + The moving moon and stars from east to west + Circle before her in the sea of air; + Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest. 80 + Her subjects often gaze up to her there: + The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance, + The weak new terrors; all, renewed assurance + And confirmation of the old despair. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The City of Dreadful Night, by James Thomson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 1238.txt or 1238.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/3/1238/ + +Produced by Michael C. 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