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diff --git a/37452-8.txt b/37452-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c554b67 --- /dev/null +++ b/37452-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9076 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, Vol. I, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +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 Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. I + +Author: Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +Release Date: September 18, 2011 [EBook #37452] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Judith Wirawan, Henry Craig +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +THE POETICAL WORKS +OF +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING + +_IN SIX VOLUMES_ + +LONDON +SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE +1890 + + + + +ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING'S +POETICAL WORKS + +VOL. I. + + +[Illustration: _Elizabeth Barrett Moulton-Barrett._ +_at the age of nine._ +_Engraved by G. Cooke from a Drawing by Charles Hayter._ +London: Published by Smith, Elder & C^o. 15. Waterloo Place.] + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +In a recent "Memoir of Elizabeth Barrett Browning," by John H. Ingram, +it is observed that "such essays on her personal history as have +appeared, either in England or elsewhere, are replete with mistakes or +misstatements." For these he proposes to substitute "a correct if short +memoir:" but, kindly and appreciative as may be Mr. Ingram's +performance, there occur not a few passages in it equally "mistaken and +misstated." + +1. "Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward Moulton Barrett, was born +in London on the 4th of March, 1809." Elizabeth was born, March 6, 1806, +at Coxhoe Hall, county of Durham, the residence of her father.[A] +"Before she was eleven she composed an epic on 'Marathon.'" She was then +fourteen. + +2. "It is said that Mr. Barrett was a man of intellect and culture, and +therefore able to direct his daughter's education, but be that so or +not, he obtained for her the tutorial assistance of the well-known Greek +scholar Hugh Stuart Boyd ... who was also a writer of fluent verse: and +his influence and instruction doubtless confirmed Miss Barrett in her +poetical aspirations." Mr. Boyd, early deprived of sight from +over-study, resided at Malvern, and cared for little else than Greek +literature, especially that of the "Fathers." He was about or over +fifty, stooped a good deal, and was nearly bald. His daily habit was to +sit for hours before a table, treating it as a piano with his fingers, +and reciting Greek--his memory for which was such that, on a folio +column of his favourite St. Gregory being read to him, he would repeat +it without missing a syllable. Elizabeth, then residing in +Herefordshire, visited him frequently, partly from her own love of +Greek, and partly from a desire for the congenial society of one to whom +her attendance might be helpful. There was nothing in the least +"tutorial" in this relation--merely the natural feeling of a girl for a +blind and disabled scholar in whose pursuits she took interest. Her +knowledge of Greek was originally due to a preference for sharing with +her brother Edward in the instruction of his Scottish tutor Mr. M'Swiney +rather than in that of her own governess Mrs. Orme: and at such lessons +she constantly assisted until her brother's departure for the Charter +House--where he had Thackeray for a schoolfellow. In point of fact, she +was self-taught in almost every respect. Mr. Boyd was no writer of +"fluent verse," though he published an unimportant volume, and the +literary sympathies of the friends were exclusively bestowed on Greek. + +3. "Edward, the eldest of the family," was Elizabeth's younger by nearly +two years. He and his companions perished, not "just off Teignmouth," +but in Babbicombe Bay. The bodies drifted up channel, and were recovered +three days after. + +4. "Her father's fortune was considerably augmented by his accession to +the property of his only brother Richard, for many years Speaker of the +House of Assembly at Jamaica." Mr. Edward Moulton, by the will of his +grandfather, was directed to affix the name of Barrett to that of +Moulton, upon succeeding to the estates in Jamaica. Richard was his +cousin, and by his death Mr. Barrett did not acquire a shilling. His +only brother was Samuel, sometime M.P. for Richmond. He had also a +sister who died young, the full-length portrait of whom by Sir Thomas +Lawrence (the first exhibited by that painter) is in the possession of +Octavius Moulton-Barrett at Westover, near Calbourne, in the Isle of +Wight. With respect to the "semi-tropical taste" of Mr. Barrett, so +characterised in the "Memoir," it may be mentioned that, on the early +death of his father, he was brought from Jamaica to England when a very +young child, as a ward of the late Chief Baron Lord Abinger, then Mr. +Scarlett, whom he frequently accompanied in his post-chaise when on +Circuit. He was sent to Harrow, but received there so savage a +punishment for a supposed offence ("burning the toast") by the youth +whose "fag" he had become, that he was withdrawn from the school by his +mother, and the delinquent was expelled. At the age of sixteen he was +sent by Mr. Scarlett to Cambridge, and thence, for an early marriage, +went to Northumberland. After purchasing the estate in Herefordshire, he +gave himself up assiduously to the usual duties and occupations of a +country gentleman,--farmed largely, was an active magistrate, became for +a year High Sheriff, and in all county contests busied himself as a +Liberal. He had a fine taste for landscape-gardening, planted +considerably, loved trees--almost as much as his friend, the early +correspondent of his daughter, Sir Uvedale Price--and for their sake +discontinued keeping deer in the park. + +Many other particulars concerning other people, in other "Biographical +Memoirs which have appeared in England or elsewhere" for some years +past, are similarly "mistaken and misstated:" but they seem better left +without notice by anybody. + + R. B. + 29 DE VERE GARDENS, W. + _December 10, 1887._ + +FOOTNOTE: + +[A] The entry in the Parish Register of Kelloe Church is as follows:-- +Elizabeth Barrett Moulton Barrett, daughter and first child of Edward +Barrett Moulton Barrett, of Coxhoe Hall, native of St James's, Jamaica, +by Mary, late Clarke, native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was born, March +6th, 1806, and baptized 10th of February, 1808. + + +[Illustration: COXHOE HALL, COUNTY OF DURHAM. +THE BIRTHPLACE OF MRS. BROWNING.] + + + + +Dedication + +_TO MY FATHER_ + + +_When your eyes fall upon this page of dedication, and you start to see +to whom it is inscribed, your first thought will be of the time far off +when I was a child and wrote verses, and when I dedicated them to you +who were my public and my critic. Of all that such a recollection +implies of saddest and sweetest to both of us, it would become neither +of us to speak before the world, nor would it be possible for us to +speak of it to one another, with voices that did not falter. Enough, +that what is in my heart when I write thus, will be fully known to +yours._ + +_And my desire is that you, who are a witness how if this art of poetry +had been a less earnest object to me, it must have fallen from exhausted +hands before this day,--that you, who have shared with me in things +bitter and sweet, softening or enhancing them, every day,--that you, who +hold with me, over all sense of loss and transiency, one hope by one +Name,--may accept from me the inscription of these volumes, the +exponents of a few years of an existence which has been sustained and +comforted by you as well as given. Somewhat more faint-hearted than I +used to be, it is my fancy thus to seem to return to a visible personal +dependence on you, as if indeed I were a child again; to conjure your +beloved image between myself and the public, so as to be sure of one +smile,--and to satisfy my heart while I sanctify my ambition, by +associating with the great pursuit of my life, its tenderest and holiest +affection._ + + _Your_ + _E. B. B._ + LONDON: 50 WIMPOLE STREET, + 1844. + + + + +PREFACE + +TO THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF MRS. BROWNING'S POEMS. + + +The collection here offered to the public consists of Poems which have +been written in the interim between the period of the publication of my +"Seraphim" and the present; variously coloured, or perhaps shadowed, by +the life of which they are the natural expression,--and, with the +exception of a few contributions to English or American periodicals, are +printed now for the first time. + +As the first poem of this collection, the "Drama of Exile," is the +longest and most important work (to _me_!) which I ever trusted into the +current of publication, I may be pardoned for entreating the reader's +attention to the fact, that I decided on publishing it after +considerable hesitation and doubt. The subject of the Drama rather +fastened on me than was chosen; and the form, approaching the model of +the Greek tragedy, shaped itself under my hand, rather by force of +pleasure than of design. But when the excitement of composition had +subsided, I felt afraid of my position. My subject was the new and +strange experience of the fallen humanity, as it went forth from +Paradise into the wilderness; with a peculiar reference to Eve's +allotted grief, which, considering that self-sacrifice belonged to her +womanhood, and the consciousness of originating the Fall to her +offence,--appeared to me imperfectly apprehended hitherto, and more +expressible by a woman than a man. There was room, at least, for lyrical +emotion in those first steps into the wilderness,--in that first sense +of desolation after wrath,--in that first audible gathering of the +recriminating "groan of the whole creation,"--in that first darkening of +the hills from the recoiling feet of angels,--and in that first silence +of the voice of God. And I took pleasure in driving in, like a pile, +stroke upon stroke, the Idea of EXILE,--admitting Lucifer as an extreme +Adam, to represent the ultimate tendencies of sin and loss,--that it +might be strong to bear up the contrary idea of the Heavenly love and +purity. But when all was done, I felt afraid, as I said before, of my +position. I had promised my own prudence to shut close the gates of Eden +between Milton and myself, so that none might say I dared to walk in his +footsteps. He should be within, I thought, with his Adam and Eve +unfallen or falling,--and I, without, with my EXILES,--_I_ also an +exile! It would not do. The subject, and his glory covering it, swept +through the gates, and I stood full in it, against my will, and contrary +to my vow,--till I shrank back fearing, almost desponding; hesitating to +venture even a passing association with our great poet before the face +of the public. Whether at last I took courage for the venture, by a +sudden revival of that love of manuscript which should be classed by +moral philosophers among the natural affections, or by the encouraging +voice of a dear friend, it is not interesting to the reader to inquire. +Neither could the fact affect the question; since I bear, of course, my +own responsibilities. For the rest, Milton is too high, and I am too +low, to render it necessary for me to disavow any rash emulation of his +divine faculty on his own ground; while enough individuality will be +granted, I hope, to my poem, to rescue me from that imputation of +plagiarism which should be too servile a thing for every sincere +thinker. After all, and at the worst, I have only attempted, in respect +to Milton, what the Greek dramatists achieved lawfully in respect to +Homer. They constructed dramas on Trojan ground; they raised on the +buskin and even clasped with the sock, the feet of Homeric heroes; yet +they neither imitated their Homer nor emasculated him. The Agamemnon of +Æschylus, who died in the bath, did no harm to, nor suffered any harm +from, the Agamemnon of Homer who bearded Achilles. To this analogy--the +more favourable to me from the obvious exception in it, that Homer's +subject was his own possibly by creation,--whereas Milton's was his own +by illustration only,--I appeal. To this analogy--_not_ to this +comparison, be it understood--I appeal. For the analogy of the stronger +may apply to the weaker; and the reader may have patience with the +weakest while she suggests the application. + +On a graver point I must take leave to touch, in further reference to my +dramatic poem. The divine Saviour is represented in vision towards the +close, speaking and transfigured; and it has been hinted to me that the +introduction may give offence in quarters where I should be most +reluctant to give any. A reproach of the same class, relating to the +frequent recurrence of a Great Name in my pages, has already filled me +with regret. How shall I answer these things? Frankly, in any case. When +the old mysteries represented the Holiest Being in a rude familiar +fashion, and the people gazed on, with the faith of children in their +earnest eyes, the critics of a succeeding age, who rejoiced in Congreve, +cried out "Profane." Yet Andreini's mystery suggested Milton's epic; and +Milton, the most reverent of poets, doubting whether to throw his work +into the epic form or the dramatic, left, on the latter basis, a rough +ground-plan, in which his intention of introducing the "Heavenly Love" +among the persons of his drama is extant to the present day. But the +tendency of the present day is to sunder the daily life from the +spiritual creed,--to separate the worshipping from the acting man,--and +by no means to "live by faith." There is a feeling abroad which appears +to me (I say it with deference) nearer to superstition than to religion, +that there should be no touching of holy vessels except by consecrated +fingers, nor any naming of holy names except in consecrated places. As +if life were not a continual sacrament to man, since Christ brake the +daily bread of it in His hands! As if the name of God did not build a +church, by the very naming of it! As if the word God were not, +everywhere in His creation, and at every moment in His eternity, an +appropriate word! As if it could be uttered unfitly, if devoutly! I +appeal on these points, which I will not argue, from the conventions of +the Christian to his devout heart; and I beseech him generously to +believe of me that I have done that in reverence from which, through +reverence, he might have abstained; and that where he might have been +driven to silence by the principle of adoration, I, by the very same +principle, have been hurried into speech. + +It should have been observed in another place,--the fact, however, being +sufficiently obvious throughout the drama,--that the time is from the +evening into the night. If it should be objected that I have lengthened +my twilight too much for the East, I might hasten to answer that we know +nothing of the length of mornings or evenings before the Flood, and that +I cannot, for my own part, believe in an Eden without the longest of +purple twilights. The evening, =erev=, of Genesis signifies a +"mingling," and approaches the meaning of our "twilight" analytically. +Apart from which considerations, my "exiles" are surrounded, in the +scene described, by supernatural appearances; and the shadows that +approach them are not only of the night. + +The next longest poem to the "Drama of Exile," in the collection, is the +"Vision of Poets," in which I have endeavoured to indicate the necessary +relations of genius to suffering and self-sacrifice. In the eyes of the +living generation, the poet is at once a richer and poorer man than he +used to be; he wears better broadcloth, but speaks no more oracles: and +the evil of this social incrustation over a great idea is eating deeper +and more fatally into our literature than either readers or writers may +apprehend fully. I have attempted to express in this poem my view of the +mission of the poet, of the self-abnegation implied in it, of the great +work involved in it, of the duty and glory of what Balzac has +beautifully and truly called "la patience angélique du génie;" and of +the obvious truth, above all, that if knowledge is power, suffering +should be acceptable as a part of knowledge. It is enough to say of the +other poems, that scarcely one of them is unambitious of an object and a +significance. + +Since my "Seraphim" was received by the public with more kindness than +its writer had counted on, I dare not rely on having put away the faults +with which that volume abounded and was mildly reproached. Something +indeed I may hope to have retrieved, because some progress in mind and +in art every active thinker and honest writer must consciously or +unconsciously make, with the progress of existence and experience: and, +in some sort--since "we learn in suffering what we teach in song,"--my +songs may be fitter to teach. But if it were not presumptuous language +on the lips of one to whom life is more than usually uncertain, my +favourite wish for this work would be, that it be received by the public +as a step in the right track, towards a future indication of more value +and acceptability. I would fain do better,--and I feel as if I might do +better: I aspire to do better. It is no new form of the nympholepsy of +poetry, that my ideal should fly before me:--and if I cry out too +hopefully at sight of the white vesture receding between the cypresses, +let me be blamed gently if justly. In any case, while my poems are full +of faults,--as I go forward to my critics and confess,--they have my +heart and life in them,--they are not empty shells. If it must be said +of me that I have contributed immemorable verses to the many rejected by +the age, it cannot at least be said that I have done so in a light and +irresponsible spirit. Poetry has been as serious a thing to me as life +itself; and life has been a very serious thing: there has been no +playing at skittles for me in either. I never mistook pleasure for the +final cause of poetry; nor leisure, for the hour of the poet. I have +done my work, so far, as work,--not as mere hand and head work, apart +from the personal being,--but as the completest expression of that being +to which I could attain,--and as work I offer it to the public,--feeling +its shortcomings more deeply than any of my readers, because measured +from the height of my aspiration,--but feeling also that the reverence +and sincerity with which the work was done should give it some +protection with the reverent and sincere. + + LONDON: 50 WIMPOLE STREET, + 1844. + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT. + + +This edition, including my earlier and later writings, I have +endeavoured to render as little unworthy as possible of the indulgence +of the public. Several poems I would willingly have withdrawn, if it +were not almost impossible to extricate what has been once caught and +involved in the machinery of the press. The alternative is a request to +the generous reader that he may use the weakness of those earlier +verses, which no subsequent revision has succeeded in strengthening, +less as a reproach to the writer, than as a means of marking some +progress in her other attempts. + + E. B. B. + LONDON, 1856. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + A DRAMA OF EXILE. 1 + + THE SERAPHIM. + PART THE FIRST 107 + PART THE SECOND 121 + EPILOGUE 150 + + PROMETHEUS BOUND. FROM THE GREEK OR ÆSCHYLUS 153 + + A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. FROM THE GREEK OF BION 213 + + A VISION OF POETS 223 + + THE POET'S VOW. + PART THE FIRST 277 + PART THE SECOND 284 + PART THE THIRD 292 + PART THE FOURTH 295 + PART THE FIFTH 300 + + + + +A DRAMA OF EXILE + + +_PERSONS._ + + CHRIST, _in a Vision._ + + ADAM. + + EVE. + + GABRIEL. + + LUCIFER. + + _Angels, Eden Spirits, Earth Spirits, and Phantasms._ + + + + +A DRAMA OF EXILE. + + +SCENE--_The outer side of the gate of Eden shut fast with cloud, from +the depth of which revolves a sword of fire self-moved. ADAM and EVE are +seen, in the distance flying along the glare._ + + LUCIFER, _alone._ + + Rejoice in the clefts of Gehenna, + My exiled, my host! + Earth has exiles as hopeless as when a + Heaven's empire was lost. + Through the seams of her shaken foundations, + Smoke up in great joy! + With the smoke of your fierce exultations + Deform and destroy! + Smoke up with your lurid revenges, + And darken the face + Of the white heavens and taunt them with changes + From glory and grace. + We, in falling, while destiny strangles, + Pull down with us all. + Let them look to the rest of their angels! + Who's safe from a fall? + HE saves not. Where's Adam? Can pardon + Requicken that sod? + Unkinged is the King of the Garden, + The image of God. + Other exiles are cast out of Eden,-- + More curse has been hurled: + Come up, O my locusts, and feed in + The green of the world! + Come up! we have conquered by evil; + Good reigns not alone: + _I_ prevail now, and, angel or devil, + Inherit a throne. + +[_In sudden apparition a watch of innumerable Angels, rank above rank, +slopes up from around the gate to the zenith. The Angel GABRIEL +descends._ + + _Lucifer._ Hail, Gabriel, the keeper of the gate! + Now that the fruit is plucked, prince Gabriel, + I hold that Eden is impregnable + Under thy keeping. + + _Gabriel._ Angel of the sin, + Such as thou standest,--pale in the drear light + Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath + Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls, + A monumental melancholy gloom + Seen down all ages, whence to mark despair + And measure out the distances from good. + Go from us straightway! + + _Lucifer._ Wherefore? + + _Gabriel._ Lucifer, + Thy last step in this place trod sorrow up. + Recoil before that sorrow, if not this sword. + _Lucifer._ Angels are in the world--wherefore not I? + Exiles are in the world--wherefore not I? + The cursed are in the world--wherefore not I? + + _Gabriel._ Depart! + + _Lucifer._ And where's the logic of 'depart'? + Our lady Eve had half been satisfied + To obey her Maker, if I had not learnt + To fix my postulate better. Dost thou dream + Of guarding some monopoly in heaven + Instead of earth? Why, I can dream with thee + To the length of thy wings. + + _Gabriel._ I do not dream. + This is not heaven, even in a dream, nor earth, + As earth was once, first breathed among the stars, + Articulate glory from the mouth divine, + To which the myriad spheres thrilled audibly, + Touched like a lute-string, and the sons of God + Said AMEN, singing it. I know that this + Is earth not new created but new cursed-- + This, Eden's gate not opened but built up + With a final cloud of sunset. Do I dream? + Alas, not so! this is the Eden lost + By Lucifer the serpent; this the sword + (This sword alive with justice and with fire) + That smote, upon the forehead, Lucifer + The angel. Wherefore, angel, go--depart! + Enough is sinned and suffered. + + _Lucifer._ By no means. + Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on. + It holds fast still--it cracks not under curse; + It holds like mine immortal. Presently + We'll sow it thick enough with graves as green + Or greener certes, than its knowledge-tree. + We'll have the cypress for the tree of life, + More eminent for shadow: for the rest, + We'll build it dark with towns and pyramids, + And temples, if it please you:--we'll have feasts + And funerals also, merrymakes and wars, + Till blood and wine shall mix and run along + Right o'er the edges. And, good Gabriel + (Ye like that word in heaven), _I_ too have strength-- + Strength to behold Him and not worship Him, + Strength to fall from Him and not cry on Him, + Strength to be in the universe and yet + Neither God nor his servant. The red sign + Burnt on my forehead, which you taunt me with, + Is God's sign that it bows not unto God, + The potter's mark upon his work, to show + It rings well to the striker. I and the earth + Can bear more curse. + + _Gabriel._ O miserable earth, + O ruined angel! + + _Lucifer._ Well, and if it be! + I CHOSE this ruin, I elected it + Of my will, not of service. What I do, + I do volitient, not obedient, + And overtop thy crown with my despair + My sorrow crowns me. Get thee back to heaven, + And leave me to the earth, which is mine own + In virtue of her ruin, as I hers + In virtue of my revolt! Turn thou from both + That bright, impassive, passive angelhood, + And spare to read us backward any more + Of the spent hallelujahs! + + _Gabriel._ Spirit of scorn, + I might say, of unreason! I might say, + That who despairs, acts; that who acts, connives + With God's relations set in time and space; + That who elects, assumes a something good + Which God made possible; that who lives, obeys + The law of a Life-maker ... + + _Lucifer._ Let it pass! + No more, thou Gabriel! What if I stand up + And strike my brow against the crystalline + Roofing the creatures,--shall I say, for that, + My stature is too high for me to stand,-- + Henceforward I must sit? Sit _thou_! + + _Gabriel._ I kneel. + + _Lucifer._ A heavenly answer. Get thee to thy heaven, + And leave my earth to me! + + _Gabriel._ Through heaven and earth + God's will moves freely, and I follow it, + As colour follows light. He overflows + The firmamental walls with deity, + Therefore with love; his lightnings go abroad, + His pity may do so, his angels must, + Whene'er he gives them charges. + + _Lucifer._ Verily, + I and my demons, who are spirits of scorn, + Might hold this charge of standing with a sword + 'Twixt man and his inheritance, as well + As the benignest angel of you all. + + _Gabriel._ Thou speakest in the shadow of thy change. + If thou hadst gazed upon the face of God + This morning for a moment, thou hadst known + That only pity fitly can chastise: + Hate but avenges. + + _Lucifer._ As it is, I know + Something of pity. When I reeled in heaven, + And my sword grew too heavy for my grasp, + Stabbing through matter, which it could not pierce + So much as the first shell of,--toward the throne; + When I fell back, down,--staring up as I fell,-- + The lightnings holding open my scathed lids, + And that thought of the infinite of God, + Hurled after to precipitate descent; + When countless angel faces still and stern + Pressed out upon me from the level heavens + Adown the abysmal spaces, and I fell + Trampled down by your stillness, and struck blind + By the sight within your eyes,--'twas then I knew + How ye could pity, my kind angelhood! + + _Gabriel._ Alas, discrowned one, by the truth in me + Which God keeps in me, I would give away + All--save that truth and his love keeping it,-- + To lead thee home again into the light + And hear thy voice chant with the morning stars, + When their rays tremble round them with much song + Sung in more gladness! + + _Lucifer._ Sing, my Morning Star! + Last beautiful, last heavenly, that I loved! + If I could drench thy golden locks with tears, + What were it to this angel? + + _Gabriel._ What love is. + And now I have named God. + + _Lucifer._ Yet, Gabriel, + By the lie in me which I keep myself, + Thou'rt a false swearer. Were it otherwise, + What dost thou here, vouchsafing tender thoughts + To that earth-angel or earth-demon--which, + Thou and I have not solved the problem yet + Enough to argue,--that fallen Adam there,-- + That red-clay and a breath,--who must, forsooth, + Live in a new apocalypse of sense, + With beauty and music waving in his trees + And running in his rivers, to make glad + His soul made perfect?--is it not for hope, + A hope within thee deeper than thy truth, + Of finally conducting him and his + To fill the vacant thrones of me and mine, + Which affront heaven with their vacuity? + + _Gabriel._ Angel, there are no vacant thrones in heaven + To suit thy empty words. Glory and life + Fulfil their own depletions; and if God + Sighed you far from him, his next breath drew in + A compensative splendour up the vast, + Flushing the starry arteries. + + _Lucifer._ What a change! + So, let the vacant thrones and gardens too + Fill as may please you!--and be pitiful, + As ye translate that word, to the dethroned + And exiled, man or angel. The fact stands, + That I, the rebel, the cast out and down, + Am here and will not go; while there, along + The light to which ye flash the desert out, + Flies your adopted Adam, your red-clay + In two kinds, both being flawed. Why, what is this? + Whose work is this? Whose hand was in the work? + Against whose hand? In this last strife, methinks, + I am not a fallen angel! + + _Gabriel._ Dost thou know + Aught of those exiles? + + _Lucifer._ Ay: I know they have fled + Silent all day along the wilderness: + I know they wear, for burden on their backs, + The thought of a shut gate of Paradise, + And faces of the marshalled cherubim + Shining against, not for them; and I know + They dare not look in one another's face,-- + As if each were a cherub! + + _Gabriel._ Dost thou know + Aught of their future? + + _Lucifer._ Only as much as this: + That evil will increase and multiply + Without a benediction. + + _Gabriel._ Nothing more? + + _Lucifer._ Why so the angels taunt! What should be more? + + _Gabriel._ God is more. + + _Lucifer._ Proving what? + + _Gabriel._ That he is God, + And capable of saving. Lucifer, + I charge thee by the solitude he kept + Ere he created,--leave the earth to God! + + _Lucifer._ My foot is on the earth, firm as my sin. + + _Gabriel._ I charge thee by the memory of heaven + Ere any sin was done,--leave earth to God! + + _Lucifer._ My sin is on the earth, to reign thereon. + + _Gabriel._ I charge thee by the choral song we sang, + When up against the white shore of our feet + The depths of the creation swelled and brake,-- + And the new worlds, the beaded foam and flower + Of all that coil, roared outward into space + On thunder-edges,--leave the earth to God! + + _Lucifer._ My woe is on the earth, to curse thereby. + + _Gabriel._ I charge thee by that mournful Morning Star + Which trembles ... + + _Lucifer._ Enough spoken. As the pine + In norland forest drops its weight of snows + By a night's growth, so, growing toward my ends + I drop thy counsels. Farewell, Gabriel! + Watch out thy service; I achieve my will. + And peradventure in the after years, + When thoughtful men shall bend their spacious brows + Upon the storm and strife seen everywhere + To ruffle their smooth manhood and break up + With lurid lights of intermittent hope + Their human fear and wrong,--they may discern + The heart of a lost angel in the earth. + + +CHORUS OF EDEN SPIRITS + +(_chanting from Paradise, while ADAM and EVE fly across the +Sword-glare_). + + Hearken, oh hearken! let your souls behind you + Turn, gently moved! + Our voices feel along the Dread to find you, + O lost, beloved! + Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels, + They press and pierce: + Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,-- + Voice throbs in verse. + We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden + A time ago: + God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden + To feed you so. + But now our right hand hath no cup remaining, + No work to do, + The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining + The whole earth through. + Most ineradicable stains, for showing + (Not interfused!) + That brighter colours were the world's forgoing, + Than shall be used. + Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely + For years and years, + The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely, + Of spirits' tears. + The yearning to a beautiful denied you + Shall strain your powers; + Ideal sweetnesses shall overglide you, + Resumed from ours. + In all your music, our pathetic minor + Your ears shall cross; + And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner, + With sense of loss. + We shall be near you in your poet-languors + And wild extremes, + What time ye vex the desert with vain angers, + Or mock with dreams. + And when upon you, weary after roaming, + Death's seal is put, + By the foregone ye shall discern the coming, + Through eyelids shut. + + _Spirits of the Trees._ + Hark! the Eden trees are stirring, + Soft and solemn in your hearing! + Oak and linden, palm and fir, + Tamarisk and juniper, + Each still throbbing in vibration + Since that crowning of creation + When the God-breath spake abroad, + _Let us make man like to God!_ + And the pine stood quivering + As the awful word went by, + Like a vibrant music-string + Stretched from mountain-peak to sky; + And the platan did expand + Slow and gradual, branch and head; + And the cedar's strong black shade + Fluttered brokenly and grand: + Grove and wood were swept aslant + In emotion jubilant. + + _Voice of the same, but softer._ + Which divine impulsion cleaves + In dim movements to the leaves + Dropt and lifted, dropt and lifted, + In the sunlight greenly sifted,-- + In the sunlight and the moonlight + Greenly sifted through the trees. + Ever wave the Eden trees + In the nightlight and the noonlight, + With a ruffling of green branches + Shaded off to resonances, + Never stirred by rain or breeze. + Fare ye well, farewell! + The sylvan sounds, no longer audible, + Expire at Eden's door. + Each footstep of your treading + Treads out some murmur which ye heard before. + Farewell! the trees of Eden + Ye shall hear nevermore. + + _River Spirits._ + Hark! the flow of the four rivers-- + Hark the flow! + How the silence round you shivers, + While our voices through it go, + Cold and clear. + + _A softer Voice._ + Think a little, while ye hear, + Of the banks + Where the willows and the deer + Crowd in intermingled ranks, + As if all would drink at once + Where the living water runs!-- + Of the fishes' golden edges + Flashing in and out the sedges; + Of the swans on silver thrones, + Floating down the winding streams + With impassive eyes turned shoreward + And a chant of undertones,-- + And the lotos leaning forward + To help them into dreams! + Fare ye well, farewell! + The river-sounds, no longer audible, + Expire at Eden's door. + Each footstep of your treading + Treads out some murmur which ye heard before. + Farewell! the streams of Eden + Ye shall hear nevermore. + + _Bird Spirit._ + I am the nearest nightingale + That singeth in Eden after you; + And I am singing loud and true, + And sweet,--I do not fail. + I sit upon a cypress bough, + Close to the gate, and I fling my song + Over the gate and through the mail + Of the warden angels marshalled strong,-- + Over the gate and after you. + And the warden angels let it pass, + Because the poor brown bird, alas, + Sings in the garden, sweet and true. + And I build my song of high pure notes, + Note over note, height over height, + Till I strike the arch of the Infinite, + And I bridge abysmal agonies + With strong, clear calms of harmonies,-- + And something abides, and something floats, + In the song which I sing after you. + Fare ye well, farewell! + The creature-sounds, no longer audible, + Expire at Eden's door. + Each footstep of your treading + Treads out some cadence which ye heard before. + Farewell! the birds of Eden, + Ye shall hear nevermore. + + _Flower Spirits._ + We linger, we linger, + The last of the throng, + Like the tones of a singer + Who loves his own song. + We are spirit-aromas + Of blossom and bloom. + We call your thoughts home,--as + Ye breathe our perfume,-- + To the amaranth's splendour + Afire on the slopes; + To the lily-bells tender, + And grey heliotropes; + To the poppy-plains keeping + Such dream-breath and blee + That the angels there stepping + Grew whiter to see: + To the nook, set with moly, + Ye jested one day in, + Till your smile waxed too holy + And left your lips praying: + To the rose in the bower-place, + That dripped o'er you sleeping; + To the asphodel flower-place, + Ye walked ankle-deep in. + We pluck at your raiment, + We stroke down your hair, + We faint in our lament + And pine into air. + Fare ye well, farewell! + The Eden scents, no longer sensible, + Expire at Eden's door. + Each footstep of your treading + Treads out some fragrance which ye knew before. + Farewell! the flowers of Eden, + Ye shall smell nevermore. + +[_There is silence. ADAM and EVE fly on, and never look back. Only a +colossal shadow, as of the dark Angel passing quickly, is cast upon +the Sword-glare._ + + * * * * * + +SCENE.--_The extremity of the Sword-glare._ + + _Adam._ Pausing a moment on this outer edge + Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light + The dark exterior desert,--hast thou strength, + Beloved, to look behind us to the gate? + + _Eve._ Have I not strength to look up to thy face? + + _Adam._ We need be strong: yon spectacle of cloud + Which seals the gate up to the final doom, + Is God's seal manifest. There seem to lie + A hundred thunders in it, dark and dead; + The unmolten lightnings vein it motionless; + And, outward from its depth, the self-moved sword + Swings slow its awful gnomon of red fire + From side to side, in pendulous horror slow, + Across the stagnant ghastly glare thrown flat + On the intermediate ground from that to this. + The angelic hosts, the archangelic pomps, + Thrones, dominations, princedoms, rank on rank, + Rising sublimely to the feet of God, + On either side and overhead the gate, + Show like a glittering and sustainèd smoke + Drawn to an apex. That their faces shine + Betwixt the solemn clasping of their wings + Clasped high to a silver point above their heads,-- + We only guess from hence, and not discern. + + _Eve._ Though we were near enough to see them shine, + The shadow on thy face were awfuller, + To me, at least,--to me--than all their light. + + _Adam._ What is this, Eve? thou droppest heavily + In a heap earthward, and thy body heaves + Under the golden floodings of thine hair! + + _Eve._ O Adam, Adam! by that name of Eve-- + Thine Eve, thy life--which suits me little now, + Seeing that I now confess myself thy death + And thine undoer, as the snake was mine,-- + I do adjure thee, put me straight away, + Together with my name! Sweet, punish me! + O Love, be just! and, ere we pass beyond + The light cast outward by the fiery sword, + Into the dark which earth must be to us, + Bruise my head with thy foot,--as the curse said + My seed shall the first tempter's! strike with curse, + As God struck in the garden! and as HE, + Being satisfied with justice and with wrath, + Did roll his thunder gentler at the close,-- + Thou, peradventure, mayst at last recoil + To some soft need of mercy. Strike, my lord! + _I_, also, after tempting, writhe on the ground, + And I would feed on ashes from thine hand, + As suits me, O my tempted! + + _Adam._ My beloved, + Mine Eve and life--I have no other name + For thee or for the sun than what ye are, + My utter life and light! If we have fallen, + It is that we have sinned,--we: God is just; + And, since his curse doth comprehend us both, + It must be that his balance holds the weights + Of first and last sin on a level. What! + Shall I who had not virtue to stand straight + Among the hills of Eden, here assume + To mend the justice of the perfect God, + By piling up a curse upon his curse, + Against thee--thee? + + _Eve._ For so, perchance, thy God, + Might take thee into grace for scorning me; + Thy wrath against the sinner giving proof + Of inward abrogation of the sin: + And so, the blessed angels might come down + And walk with thee as erst,--I think they would,-- + Because I was not near to make them sad + Or soil the rustling of their innocence. + + _Adam._ They know me. I am deepest in the guilt, + If last in the transgression. + + _Eve._ Thou! + + _Adam._ If God, + Who gave the right and joyaunce of the world + Both unto thee and me,--gave thee to me, + The best gift last, the last sin was the worst, + Which sinned against more complement of gifts + And grace of giving. God! I render back + Strong benediction and perpetual praise + From mortal feeble lips (as incense-smoke, + Out of a little censer, may fill heaven), + That thou, in striking my benumbèd hands + And forcing them to drop all other boons + Of beauty and dominion and delight,-- + Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life + Within life, this best gift between their palms, + In gracious compensation! + + _Eve._ Is it thy voice? + Or some saluting angel's--calling home + My feet into the garden? + + _Adam._ O my God! + I, standing here between the glory and dark,-- + The glory of thy wrath projected forth + From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress + Which settles a step off in that drear world-- + Lift up to thee the hands from whence hath fallen + Only creation's sceptre,--thanking thee + That rather thou hast cast me out with _her_ + Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, + With angel looks and angel songs around + To show the absence of her eyes and voice, + And make society full desertness + Without her use in comfort! + + _Eve._ Where is loss? + Am I in Eden? can another speak + Mine own love's tongue? + + _Adam._ Because with _her_, I stand + Upright, as far as can be in this fall, + And look away from heaven which doth accuse, + And look away from earth which doth convict, + Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow + Out of her love, and put the thought of her + Around me, for an Eden full of birds, + And lift her body up--thus--to my heart, + And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,-- + Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath + Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides + But overtops this grief. + + _Eve._ I am renewed. + My eyes grow with the light which is in thine; + The silence of my heart is full of sound. + Hold me up--so! Because I comprehend + This human love, I shall not be afraid + Of any human death; and yet because + I know this strength of love, I seem to know + Death's strength by that same sign. Kiss on my lips, + To shut the door close on my rising soul,-- + Lest it pass outwards in astonishment + And leave thee lonely! + + _Adam._ Yet thou liest, Eve, + Bent heavily on thyself across mine arm, + Thy face flat to the sky. + + _Eve._ Ay, and the tears + Running, as it might seem, my life from me, + They run so fast and warm. Let me lie so, + And weep so, as if in a dream or prayer, + Unfastening, clasp by clasp, the hard tight thought + Which clipped my heart and showed me evermore + Loathed of thy justice as I loathe the snake, + And as the pure ones loathe our sin. To-day, + All day, beloved, as we fled across + This desolating radiance cast by swords + Not suns,--my lips prayed soundless to myself, + Striking against each other--"O Lord God!" + ('Twas so I prayed) "I ask Thee by my sin, + "And by thy curse, and by thy blameless heavens, + "Make dreadful haste to hide me from thy face + "And from the face of my beloved here + "For whom I am no helpmeet, quick away + "Into the new dark mystery of death! + "I will lie still there, I will make no plaint, + "I will not sigh, nor sob, nor speak a word, + "Nor struggle to come back beneath the sun + "Where peradventure I might sin anew + "Against thy mercy and his pleasure. Death, + "O death, whatever it be, is good enough + "For such as I am: while for Adam here, + "No voice shall say again, in heaven or earth, + "_It is not good for him to be alone_." + + _Adam._ And was it good for such a prayer to pass, + My unkind Eve, betwixt our mutual lives? + If I am exiled, must I be bereaved? + + _Eve._ 'Twas an ill prayer: it shall be prayed no more; + And God did use it like a foolishness, + Giving no answer. Now my heart has grown + Too high and strong for such a foolish prayer, + Love makes it strong and since I was the first + In the transgression, with a steady foot + I will be first to tread from this sword-glare + Into the outer darkness of the waste,-- + And thus I do it. + + _Adam._ Thus I follow thee, + As erewhile in the sin.--What sounds! what sounds! + I feel a music which comes straight from heaven, + As tender as a watering dew. + + _Eve._ I think + That angels--not those guarding Paradise,-- + But the love-angels, who came erst to us, + And when we said 'GOD,' fainted unawares + Back from our mortal presence unto God, + (As if he drew them inward in a breath) + His name being heard of them,--I think that they + With sliding voices lean from heavenly towers, + Invisible but gracious. Hark--how soft! + + +CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS. + +_Faint and tender._ + + Mortal man and woman, + Go upon your travel! + Heaven assist the human + Smoothly to unravel + All that web of pain + Wherein ye are holden. + Do ye know our voices + Chanting down the Golden? + Do ye guess our choice is, + Being unbeholden, + To be hearkened by you yet again? + + This pure door of opal + God hath shut between us,-- + Us, his shining people, + You, who once have seen us + And are blinded new! + Yet, across the doorway, + Past the silence reaching, + Farewells evermore may, + Blessing in the teaching, + Glide from us to you. + + _First Semichorus._ + Think how erst your Eden, + Day on day succeeding, + With our presence glowed. + We came as if the Heavens were bowed + To a milder music rare. + Ye saw us in our solemn treading, + Treading down the steps of cloud, + While our wings, outspreading + Double calms of whiteness, + Dropped superfluous brightness + Down from stair to stair. + + _Second Semichorus._ + Or oft, abrupt though tender, + While ye gazed on space, + We flashed our angel-splendour + In either human face. + With mystic lilies in our hands, + From the atmospheric bands + Breaking with a sudden grace, + We took you unaware! + While our feet struck glories + Outward, smooth and fair, + Which we stood on floorwise, + Platformed in mid-air. + + _First Semichorus._ + Or oft, when Heaven-descended, + Stood we in our wondering sight + In a mute apocalypse + With dumb vibrations on our lips + From hosannas ended, + And grand half-vanishings + Of the empyreal things + Within our eyes belated, + Till the heavenly Infinite + Falling off from the Created, + Left our inward contemplation + Opened into ministration. + + _Chorus._ + Then upon our axle turning + Of great joy to sympathy, + We sang out the morning + Broadening up the sky, + Or we drew + Our music through + The noontide's hush and heat and shine, + Informed with our intense Divine: + Interrupted vital notes + Palpitating hither, thither, + Burning out into the æther, + Sensible like fiery motes. + Or, whenever twilight drifted + Through the cedar masses, + The globèd sun we lifted, + Trailing purple, trailing gold + Out between the passes + Of the mountains manifold, + To anthems slowly sung: + While he,--aweary, half in swoon + For joy to hear our climbing tune + Transpierce the stars' concentric rings,-- + The burden of his glory flung + In broken lights upon our wings. + +[_The chant dies away confusedly, and LUCIFER appears._ + + _Lucifer._ Now may all fruits be pleasant to thy lips, + Beautiful Eve! The times have somewhat changed + Since thou and I had talk beneath a tree, + Albeit ye are not gods yet. + _Eve._ Adam! hold + My right hand strongly! It is Lucifer-- + And we have love to lose. + + _Adam._ I' the name of God, + Go apart from us, O thou Lucifer! + And leave us to the desert thou hast made + Out of thy treason. Bring no serpent-slime + Athwart this path kept holy to our tears! + Or we may curse thee with their bitterness. + + _Lucifer._ Curse freely! curses thicken. Why, this Eve + Who thought me once part worthy of her ear + And somewhat wiser than the other beasts,-- + Drawing together her large globes of eyes, + The light of which is throbbing in and out + Their steadfast continuity of gaze,-- + Knots her fair eyebrows in so hard a knot, + And down from her white heights of womanhood + Looks on me so amazed,--I scarce should fear + To wager such an apple as she plucked + Against one riper from the tree of life, + That she could curse too--as a woman may-- + Smooth in the vowels. + + _Eve._ So--speak wickedly! + I like it best so. Let thy words be wounds,-- + For, so, I shall not fear thy power to hurt. + Trench on the forms of good by open ill-- + For, so, I shall wax strong and grand with scorn, + Scorning myself for ever trusting thee + As far as thinking, ere a snake ate dust, + He could speak wisdom. + + _Lucifer._ Our new gods, it seems, + Deal more in thunders than in courtesies. + And, sooth, mine own Olympus, which anon + I shall build up to loud-voiced imagery + From all the wandering visions of the world, + May show worse railing than our lady Eve + Pours o'er the rounding of her argent arm. + But why should this be? Adam pardoned Eve. + + _Adam._ Adam loved Eve. Jehovah pardon both! + + _Eve._ Adam forgave Eve--because loving Eve. + + _Lucifer._ So, well. Yet Adam was undone of Eve, + As both were by the snake. Therefore forgive, + In like wise, fellow-temptress, the poor snake-- + Who stung there, not so poorly! + +[_Aside._ + + _Eve._ Hold thy wrath, + Beloved Adam! let me answer him; + For this time he speaks truth, which we should hear, + And asks for mercy, which I most should grant, + In like wise, as he tells us--in like wise! + And therefore I thee pardon, Lucifer, + As freely as the streams of Eden flowed + When we were happy by them. So, depart; + Leave us to walk the remnant of our time + Out mildly in the desert. Do not seek + To harm us any more or scoff at us, + Or ere the dust be laid upon our face, + To find there the communion of the dust + And issue of the dust,--Go! + + _Adam._ At once, go! + + _Lucifer._ Forgive! and go! Ye images of clay, + Shrunk somewhat in the mould,--what jest is this? + What words are these to use? By what a thought + Conceive ye of me? Yesterday--a snake! + To-day--what? + + _Adam._ A strong spirit. + + _Eve._ A sad spirit. + + _Adam._ Perhaps a fallen angel.--Who shall say! + + _Lucifer._ Who told thee, Adam? + + _Adam._ Thou! The prodigy + Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes + Which comprehend the heights of some great fall. + I think that thou hast one day worn a crown + Under the eyes of God. + + _Lucifer._ And why of God? + + _Adam._ It were no crown else. Verily, I think + Thou'rt fallen far. I had not yesterday + Said it so surely, but I know to-day + Grief by grief, sin by sin. + + _Lucifer._ A crown, by a crown. + + _Adam._ Ay, mock me! now I know more than I knew: + Now I know that thou art fallen below hope + Of final re-ascent. + + _Lucifer._ Because? + + _Adam._ Because + A spirit who expected to see God + Though at the last point of a million years, + Could dare no mockery of a ruined man + Such as this Adam. + + _Lucifer._ Who is high and bold-- + Be it said passing!--of a good red clay + Discovered on some top of Lebanon, + Or haply of Aornus, beyond sweep + Of the black eagle's wing! A furlong lower + Had made a meeker king for Eden. Soh! + Is it not possible, by sin and grief + (To give the things your names) that spirits should rise + Instead of falling? + + _Adam._ Most impossible. + The Highest being the Holy and the Glad, + Whoever rises must approach delight + And sanctity in the act. + + _Lucifer._ Ha, my clay-king! + Thou wilt not rule by wisdom very long + The after generations. Earth, methinks, + Will disinherit thy philosophy + For a new doctrine suited to thine heirs, + And class these present dogmas with the rest + Of the old-world traditions, Eden fruits + And Saurian fossils. + + _Eve._ Speak no more with him, + Beloved! it is not good to speak with him. + Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more! + We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, + Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, + Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, + We would be alone.--Go! + + _Lucifer._ Ah! ye talk the same, + All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart! + In Heaven they said so, and at Eden's gate, + And here, reiterant, in the wilderness. + None saith, Stay with me, for thy face is fair! + None saith, Stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! + And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. + Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful? + + _Eve._ Thou hast a glorious darkness. + + _Lucifer._ Nothing more? + + _Eve._ I think, no more. + + _Lucifer._ False Heart--thou thinkest more! + Thou canst not choose but think, as I praise God, + Unwillingly but fully, that I stand + Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves + Were fashioned very good at best, so _we_ + Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word + Which thrilled behind us, God himself being moved + When that august work of a perfect shape, + His dignities of sovran angel-hood, + Swept out into the universe,--divine + With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, + And silver-solemn clash of cymbal wings. + Whereof was I, in motion and in form, + A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, + This beauty which I speak of, is not here, + As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown-- + I do not know. What is this thought or thing + Which I call beauty? Is it thought, or thing? + Is it a thought accepted for a thing? + Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word? + Its meaning flutters in me like a flame + Under my own breath, my perceptions reel + For evermore around it, and fall off, + As if it too were holy. + + _Eve._ Which it is. + + _Adam._ The essence of all beauty, I call love. + The attribute, the evidence, and end, + The consummation to the inward sense, + Of beauty apprehended from without, + I still call love. As form, when colourless, + Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, + Without its black and green, being all a blank,-- + So, without love, is beauty undiscerned + In man or angel. Angel! rather ask + What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, + And what collateral love moves on with thee; + Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful. + + _Lucifer._ Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love + I darken to the image. Beauty--love! + +[_He fades away, while a low music sounds._ + + _Adam._ Thou art pale, Eve. + + _Eve._ The precipice of ill + Down this colossal nature, dizzies me: + And, hark! the starry harmony remote + Seems measuring the heights from whence he fell. + + _Adam._ Think that we have not fallen so! By the hope + And aspiration, by the love and faith, + We do exceed the stature of this angel. + + _Eve._ Happier we are than he is, by the death. + + _Adam._ Or rather, by the life of the Lord God! + How dim the angel grows, as if that blast + Of music swept him back into the dark. + +[_The music is stronger, gathering itself into uncertain articulation_ + + _Eve._ It throbs in on us like a plaintive heart, + Pressing, with slow pulsations, vibrative, + Its gradual sweetness through the yielding air, + To such expression as the stars may use, + Most starry-sweet and strange! With every note + That grows more loud, the angel grows more dim, + Receding in proportion to approach, + Until he stand afar,--a shade. + + _Adam._ Now, words. + + +SONG OF THE MORNING STAR TO LUCIFER. + +_He fades utterly away and vanishes, as it proceeds._ + + Mine orbèd image sinks + Back from thee, back from thee, + As thou art fallen, methinks, + Back from me, back from me. + O my light-bearer, + Could another fairer + Lack to thee, lack to thee? + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + I loved thee with the fiery love of stars + Who love by burning, and by loving move, + Too near the throned Jehovah not to love. + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + Their brows flash fast on me from gliding cars, + Pale-passioned for my loss. + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + + Mine orbèd heats drop cold + Down from thee, down from thee, + As fell thy grace of old + Down from me, down from me, + O my light-bearer, + Is another fairer + Won to thee, won to thee? + Ah, ah, Heosphoros, + Great love preceded loss, + Known to thee, known to thee. + Ah, ah! + Thou, breathing thy communicable grace + Of life into my light, + Mine astral faces, from thine angel face, + Hast inly fed, + And flooded me with radiance overmuch + From thy pure height. + Ah, ah! + Thou, with calm, floating pinions both ways spread, + Erect, irradiated, + Didst sting my wheel of glory + On, on before thee + Along the Godlight by a quickening touch! + Ha, ha! + Around, around the firmamental ocean + I swam expanding with delirious fire! + Around, around, around, in blind desire + To be drawn upward to the Infinite-- + Ha, ha! + + Until, the motion flinging out the motion + To a keen whirl of passion and avidity, + To a dim whirl of languor and delight, + I wound in gyrant orbits smooth and white + With that intense rapidity. + Around, around, + I wound and interwound, + While all the cyclic heavens about me spun. + Stars, planets, suns, and moons dilated broad, + Then flashed together into a single sun, + And wound, and wound in one: + And as they wound I wound,--around, around, + In a great fire I almost took for God. + Ha, ha, Heosphoros! + + Thine angel glory sinks + Down from me, down from me-- + My beauty falls, methinks, + Down from thee, down from thee! + O my light-bearer, + O my path-preparer, + Gone from me, gone from me! + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + I cannot kindle underneath the brow + Of this new angel here, who is not thou. + All things are altered since that time ago,-- + And if I shine at eve, I shall not know. + I am strange--I am slow. + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be + The only sweetest sight that I shall see, + With tears between the looks raised up to me. + Ah, ah! + When, having wept all night, at break of day + Above the folded hills they shall survey + My light, a little trembling, in the grey. + Ah, ah! + And gazing on me, such shall comprehend, + Through all my piteous pomp at morn or even + And melancholy leaning out of heaven, + That love, their own divine, may change or end, + That love may close in loss! + Ah, ah, Heosphoros! + + * * * * * + +SCENE.--_Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching +night._ + + _Adam._ How doth the wide and melancholy earth + Gather her hills around us, grey and ghast, + And stare with blank significance of loss + Right in our faces! Is the wind up? + + _Eve._ Nay. + + _Adam._ And yet the cedars and the junipers + Rock slowly through the mist, without a sound, + And shapes which have no certainty of shape + Drift duskly in and out between the pines, + And loom along the edges of the hills, + And lie flat, curdling in the open ground-- + Shadows without a body, which contract + And lengthen as we gaze on them. + + _Eve._ O life + Which is not man's nor angel's! What is this? + + _Adam._ No cause for fear. The circle of God's life + Contains all life beside. + + _Eve._ I think the earth + Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense + Of those first laws affixed to form and space + Or ever she knew sin. + + _Adam._ We will not fear; + We were brave sinning. + + _Eve._ Yea, I plucked the fruit + With eyes upturned to heaven and seeing there + Our god-thrones, as the tempter said,--not GOD. + My heart, which beat then, sinks. The sun hath sunk + Out of sight with our Eden. + + _Adam._ Night is near. + + _Eve._ And God's curse, nearest. Let us travel back + And stand within the sword-glare till we die, + Believing it is better to meet death + Than suffer desolation. + + _Adam._ Nay, beloved! + We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand, + As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait + Until he gives death as he gave us life, + Nor murmur faintly o'er the primal gift + Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin. + + _Eve._ Ah, ah! dost thou discern what I behold? + + _Adam._ I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes + From their dilated orbits bound before + To meet the spectral Dread! + + _Eve._ I am afraid-- + Ah, ah! the twilight bristles wild with shapes + Of intermittent motion, aspect vague + And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth, + Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood. + How near they reach ... and far! How grey they move-- + Treading upon the darkness without feet, + And fluttering on the darkness without wings! + Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground; + Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock like trees; + Some glide like a fallen leaf, and some flow on + Copious as rivers. + + _Adam._ Some spring up like fire; + And some coil ... + + _Eve._ Ah, ah! dost thou pause to say + Like what?--coil like the serpent, when he fell + From all the emerald splendour of his height + And writhed, and could not climb against the curse, + Not a ring's length. I am afraid--afraid-- + I think it is God's will to make me afraid,-- + Permitting THESE to haunt us in the place + Of his belovèd angels--gone from us + Because we are not pure. Dear Pity of God, + That didst permit the angels to go home + And live no more with us who are not pure, + Save _us_ too from a loathly company-- + Almost as loathly in our eyes, perhaps, + As _we_ are in the purest! Pity us-- + Us too! nor shut us in the dark, away + From verity and from stability, + Or what we name such through the precedence + Of earth's adjusted uses,--leave us not + To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls, + Which are the more distraught and full of pain + And weak of apprehension! + + _Adam._ Courage, Sweet! + The mystic shapes ebb back from us, and drop + With slow concentric movement, each on each,-- + Expressing wider spaces,--and collapsed + In lines more definite for imagery + And clearer for relation, till the throng + Of shapeless spectra merge into a few + Distinguishable phantasms vague and grand + Which sweep out and around us vastily + And hold us in a circle and a calm. + + _Eve._ Strange phantasms of pale shadow! there are twelve. + Thou who didst name all lives, hast names for these? + + _Adam._ Methinks this is the zodiac of the earth, + Which rounds us with a visionary dread, + Responding with twelve shadowy signs of earth, + In fantasque apposition and approach, + To those celestial, constellated twelve + Which palpitate adown the silent nights + Under the pressure of the hand of God + Stretched wide in benediction. At this hour, + Not a star pricketh the flat gloom of heaven: + But, girdling close our nether wilderness, + The zodiac-figures of the earth loom slow,-- + Drawn out, as suiteth with the place and time, + In twelve colossal shades instead of stars, + Through which the ecliptic line of mystery + Strikes bleakly with an unrelenting scope, + Foreshowing life and death. + + _Eve._ By dream or sense, + Do we see this? + + _Adam._ Our spirits have climbed high + By reason of the passion of our grief, + And, from the top of sense, looked over sense + To the significance and heart of things + Rather than things themselves. + + _Eve._ And the dim twelve.... + + _Adam._ Are dim exponents of the creature-life + As earth contains it. Gaze on them, beloved! + By stricter apprehension of the sight, + Suggestions of the creatures shall assuage + The terror of the shadows,--what is known + Subduing the unknown and taming it + From all prodigious dread. That phantasm, there, + Presents a lion, albeit twenty times + As large as any lion--with a roar + Set soundless in his vibratory jaws, + And a strange horror stirring in his mane. + And, there, a pendulous shadow seems to weigh-- + Good against ill, perchance; and there, a crab + Puts coldly out its gradual shadow-claws, + Like a slow blot that spreads,--till all the ground, + Crawled over by it, seems to crawl itself. + A bull stands hornèd here with gibbous glooms; + And a ram likewise: and a scorpion writhes + Its tail in ghastly slime and stings the dark. + This way a goat leaps with wild blank of beard; + And here, fantastic fishes duskly float, + Using the calm for waters, while their fins + Throb out quick rhythms along the shallow air. + While images more human---- + + _Eve._ How he stands, + That phantasm of a man--who is not _thou_! + Two phantasms of two men! + + _Adam._ One that sustains, + And one that strives,--resuming, so, the ends + Of manhood's curse of labour.[B] Dost thou see + That phantasm of a woman? + + _Eve._ I have seen; + But look off to those small humanities[C] + Which draw me tenderly across my fear,-- + Lesser and fainter than my womanhood, + Or yet thy manhood--with strange innocence + Set in the misty lines of head and hand. + They lean together! I would gaze on them + Longer and longer, till my watching eyes, + As the stars do in watching anything, + Should light them forward from their outline vague + To clear configuration. + +[_Two Spirits, of Organic and Inorganic Nature, arise from the +ground._ + + But what Shapes + Rise up between us in the open space, + And thrust me into horror, back from hope! + + _Adam._ Colossal Shapes--twin sovran images, + With a disconsolate, blank majesty + Set in their wondrous faces! with no look, + And yet an aspect--a significance + Of individual life and passionate ends, + Which overcomes us gazing. + O bleak sound, + O shadow of sound, O phantasm of thin sound! + How it comes, wheeling as the pale moth wheels, + Wheeling and wheeling in continuous wail + Around the cyclic zodiac, and gains force, + And gathers, settling coldly like a moth, + On the wan faces of these images + We see before us,--whereby modified, + It draws a straight line of articulate song + From out that spiral faintness of lament, + And, by one voice, expresses many griefs. + + _First Spirit._ + I am the spirit of the harmless earth. + God spake me softly out among the stars, + As softly as a blessing of much worth; + And then his smile did follow unawares, + That all things fashioned so for use and duty + Might shine anointed with his chrism of beauty-- + Yet I wail! + I drave on with the worlds exultingly, + Obliquely down the Godlight's gradual fall; + Individual aspect and complexity + Of gyratory orb and interval + Lost in the fluent motion of delight + Toward the high ends of Being beyond sight-- + Yet I wail! + + _Second Spirit._ + I am the spirit of the harmless beasts, + Of flying things, and creeping things, and swimming; + Of all the lives, erst set at silent feasts, + That found the love-kiss on the goblet brimming, + And tasted in each drop within the measure + The sweetest pleasure of their Lord's good pleasure-- + Yet I wail! + What a full hum of life around his lips + Bore witness to the fulness of creation! + How all the grand words were full-laden ships + Each sailing onward from enunciation + To separate existence,--and each bearing + The creature's power of joying, hoping, fearing! + Yet I wail! + + _Eve._ They wail, beloved! they speak of glory and God, + And they wail--wail. That burden of the song + Drops from it like its fruit, and heavily falls + Into the lap of silence. + + _Adam._ Hark, again! + + _First Spirit._ + I was so beautiful, so beautiful, + My joy stood up within me bold to add + A word to God's,--and, when His work was full, + To "very good" responded "very glad!" + Filtered through roses did the light enclose me, + And bunches of the grape swam blue across me-- + Yet I wail! + + _Second Spirit._ + I bounded with my panthers: I rejoiced + In my young tumbling lions rolled together: + My stag, the river at his fetlocks, poised + Then dipped his antlers through the golden weather + In the same ripple which the alligator + Left, in his joyous troubling of the water-- + Yet I wail! + + _First Spirit._ + O my deep waters, cataract and flood, + What wordless triumph did your voices render + O mountain-summits, where the angels stood + And shook from head and wing thick dews of splendour! + How, with a holy quiet, did your Earthy + Accept that Heavenly, knowing ye were worthy! + Yet I wail! + + _Second Spirit._ + O my wild wood-dogs, with your listening eyes! + My horses--my ground-eagles, for swift fleeing! + My birds, with viewless wings of harmonies, + My calm cold fishes of a silver being, + How happy were ye, living and possessing, + O fair half-souls capacious of full blessing! + Yet I wail! + + _First Spirit._ + I wail, I wail! Now hear my charge to-day, + Thou man, thou woman, marked as the misdoers + By God's sword at your backs! I lent my clay + To make your bodies, which had grown more flowers: + And now, in change for what I lent, ye give me + The thorn to vex, the tempest-fare to cleave me-- + And I wail! + + _Second Spirit._ + I wail, I wail! Behold ye that I fasten + My sorrow's fang upon your souls dishonoured? + Accursed transgressors! down the steep ye hasten,-- + Your crown's weight on the world, to drag it downward + Unto your ruin. Lo! my lions, scenting + The blood of wars, roar hoarse and unrelenting-- + And I wail! + + _First Spirit._ + I wail, I wail! Do you hear that I wail? + I had no part in your transgression--none. + My roses on the bough did bud not pale, + My rivers did not loiter in the sun; + _I_ was obedient. Wherefore in my centre + Do I thrill at this curse of death and winter?-- + Do I wail? + + _Second Spirit._ + I wail, I wail! I wail in the assault + Of undeserved perdition, sorely wounded! + My nightingale sang sweet without a fault, + My gentle leopards innocently bounded. + _We_ were obedient. What is this convulses + Our blameless life with pangs and fever pulses? + And I wail! + + _Eve._ I choose God's thunder and His angels' swords + To die by, Adam, rather than such words. + Let us pass out and flee. + + _Adam._ We cannot flee. + This zodiac of the creatures' cruelty + Curls round us, like a river cold and drear, + And shuts us in, constraining us to hear. + + _First Spirit._ + I feel your steps, O wandering sinners, strike + A sense of death to me, and undug graves! + The heart of earth, once calm, is trembling like + The ragged foam along the ocean-waves: + The restless earthquakes rock against each other; + The elements moan 'round me--"Mother, mother"-- + And I wail! + + _Second Spirit._ + Your melancholy looks do pierce me through; + Corruption swathes the paleness of your beauty. + Why have ye done this thing? What did we do + That we should fall from bliss as ye from duty? + Wild shriek the hawks, in waiting for their jesses, + Fierce howl the wolves along the wildernesses-- + And I wail! + + _Adam._ To thee, the Spirit of the harmless earth, + To thee, the Spirit of earth's harmless lives, + Inferior creatures but still innocent, + Be salutation from a guilty mouth + Yet worthy of some audience and respect + From you who are not guilty. If we have sinned, + God hath rebuked us, who is over us + To give rebuke or death, and if ye wail + Because of any suffering from our sin, + Ye who are under and not over us, + Be satisfied with God, if not with us, + And pass out from our presence in such peace + As we have left you, to enjoy revenge + Such as the heavens have made you. Verily, + There must be strife between us, large as sin. + + _Eve._ No strife, mine Adam! Let us not stand high + Upon the wrong we did to reach disdain, + Who rather should be humbler evermore + Since self-made sadder. Adam! shall I speak-- + I who spake once to such a bitter end-- + Shall I speak humbly now who once was proud? + I, schooled by sin to more humility + Than thou hast, O mine Adam, O my king-- + _My_ king, if not the world's? + + _Adam._ Speak as thou wilt. + + _Eve._ Thus, then--my hand in thine-- + ... Sweet, dreadful Spirits! + I pray you humbly in the name of God, + Not to say of these tears, which are impure-- + Grant me such pardoning grace as can go forth + From clean volitions toward a spotted will, + From the wronged to the wronger, this and no more! + I do not ask more. I am 'ware, indeed, + That absolute pardon is impossible + From you to me, by reason of my sin,-- + And that I cannot evermore, as once, + With worthy acceptation of pure joy, + Behold the trances of the holy hills + Beneath the leaning stars, or watch the vales + Dew-pallid with their morning ecstasy,-- + Or hear the winds make pastoral peace between + Two grassy uplands,--and the river-wells + Work out their bubbling mysteries underground,-- + And all the birds sing, till for joy of song + They lift their trembling wings as if to heave + The too-much weight of music from their heart + And float it up the æther. I am 'ware + That these things I can no more apprehend + With a pure organ into a full delight,-- + The sense of beauty and of melody + Being no more aided in me by the sense + Of personal adjustment to those heights + Of what I see well-formed or hear well-tuned, + But rather coupled darkly and made ashamed + By my percipiency of sin and fall + In melancholy of humiliant thoughts. + But, oh! fair, dreadful Spirits--albeit this + Your accusation must confront my soul, + And your pathetic utterance and full gaze + Must evermore subdue me,--be content! + Conquer me gently--as if pitying me, + Not to say loving! let my tears fall thick + As watering dews of Eden, unreproached; + And when your tongues reprove me, make me smooth, + Not ruffled--smooth and still with your reproof, + And peradventure better while more sad! + For look to it, sweet Spirits, look well to it, + It will not be amiss in you who kept + The law of your own righteousness, and keep + The right of your own griefs to mourn themselves,-- + To pity me twice fallen, from that, and this, + From joy of place, and also right of wail, + "I wail" being not for me--only "I sin." + Look to it, O sweet Spirits! + For was I not, + At that last sunset seen in Paradise, + When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs + Of sudden angel-faces, face by face, + All hushed and solemn, as a thought of God + Held them suspended,--was I not, that hour, + The lady of the world, princess of life, + Mistress of feast and favour? Could I touch + A rose with my white hand, but it became + Redder at once? Could I walk leisurely + Along our swarded garden, but the grass + Tracked me with greenness? Could I stand aside + A moment underneath a cornel-tree, + But all the leaves did tremble as alive + With songs of fifty birds who were made glad + Because I stood there? Could I turn to look + With these twain eyes of mine, now weeping fast, + Now good for only weeping,--upon man, + Angel, or beast, or bird, but each rejoiced + Because I looked on him? Alas, alas! + And is not this much woe, to cry "alas!" + Speaking of joy? And is not this more shame, + To have made the woe myself, from all that joy? + To have stretched my hand, and plucked it from the tree, + And chosen it for fruit? Nay, is not this + Still most despair,--to have halved that bitter fruit, + And ruined, so, the sweetest friend I have, + Turning the GREATEST to mine enemy? + + _Adam._ I will not hear thee speak so. Hearken, Spirits! + Our God, who is the enemy of none + But only of their sin, hath set your hope + And my hope, in a promise, on this Head. + Show reverence, then, and never bruise her more + With unpermitted and extreme reproach,-- + Lest, passionate in anguish, she fling down + Beneath your trampling feet, God's gift to us + Of sovranty by reason and freewill, + Sinning against the province of the Soul + To rule the soulless. Reverence her estate, + And pass out from her presence with no words! + + _Eve._ O dearest Heart, have patience with my heart! + O Spirits, have patience, 'stead of reverence, + And let me speak, for, not being innocent, + It little doth become me to be proud. + And I am prescient by the very hope + And promise set upon me, that henceforth + Only my gentleness shall make me great, + My humbleness exalt me. Awful Spirits, + Be witness that I stand in your reproof + But one sun's length off from my happiness-- + Happy, as I have said, to look around, + Clear to look up!--And now! I need not speak-- + Ye see me what I am; ye scorn me so, + Because ye see me what I have made myself + From God's best making! Alas,--peace forgone, + Love wronged, and virtue forfeit, and tears wept + Upon all, vainly! Alas, me! alas, + Who have undone myself, from all that best, + Fairest and sweetest, to this wretchedest + Saddest and most defiled--cast out, cast down-- + What word metes absolute loss? let absolute loss + Suffice you for revenge. For _I_, who lived + Beneath the wings of angels yesterday, + Wander to-day beneath the roofless world: + _I_, reigning the earth's empress yesterday, + Put off from me, to-day, your hate with prayers: + _I_, yesterday, who answered the Lord God, + Composed and glad as singing-birds the sun, + Might shriek now from our dismal desert, "God," + And hear him make reply, "What is thy need, + Thou whom I cursed to-day?" + + _Adam._ Eve! + + _Eve._ _I_, at last, + Who yesterday was helpmate and delight + Unto mine Adam, am to-day the grief + And curse-mete for him. And, so, pity us, + Ye gentle Spirits, and pardon him and me, + And let some tender peace, made of our pain, + Grow up betwixt us, as a tree might grow, + With boughs on both sides! In the shade of which, + When presently ye shall behold us dead,-- + For the poor sake of our humility, + Breathe out your pardon on our breathless lips, + And drop your twilight dews against our brows, + And stroking with mild airs our harmless hands + Left empty of all fruit, perceive your love + Distilling through your pity over us, + And suffer it, self-reconciled, to pass! + +_LUCIFER rises in the circle._ + + _Lucifer._ Who talks here of a complement of grief? + Of expiation wrought by loss and fall? + Of hate subduable to pity? Eve? + Take counsel from thy counsellor the snake, + And boast no more in grief, nor hope from pain, + My docile Eve! I teach you to despond + Who taught you disobedience. Look around:-- + Earth spirits and phantasms hear you talk unmoved, + As if ye were red clay again and talked! + What are your words to them--your grief to them-- + Your deaths, indeed, to them? Did the hand pause, + For _their_ sake, in the plucking of the fruit, + That they should pause for _you_, in hating you? + Or will your grief or death, as did your sin, + Bring change upon their final doom? Behold, + Your grief is but your sin in the rebound, + And cannot expiate for it. + + _Adam._ That is true. + + _Lucifer._ Ay, that is true. The clay-king testifies + To the snake's counsel,--hear him!--very true. + + _Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail! + + _Lucifer._ And certes, _that_ is true. + Ye wail, ye all wail. Peradventure I + Could wail among you. O thou universe, + That holdest sin and woe,--more room for wail! + + _Distant Starry Voice._ Ah, ah, Heosphoros! Heosphoros! + + _Adam._ Mark Lucifer! He changes awfully. + + _Eve._ It seems as if he looked from grief to God + And could not see him. Wretched Lucifer! + + _Adam._ How he stands--yet an angel! + + _Earth Spirits._ We all wail! + + _Lucifer (after a pause)._ Dost thou remember, Adam, when the curse + Took us in Eden? On a mountain-peak + Half-sheathed in primal woods and glittering + In spasms of awful sunshine at that hour, + A lion couched, part raised upon his paws, + With his calm massive face turned full on thine, + And his mane listening. When the ended curse + Left silence in the world, right suddenly + He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff, + As if the new reality of death + Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce, + (Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat + Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear) + And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills + Such fast keen echoes crumbling down the vales + Precipitately,--that the forest beasts, + One after one, did mutter a response + Of savage and of sorrowful complaint + Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once, + He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height + Into the dusk of pines. + + _Adam._ It might have been. + I heard the curse alone. + + _Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail! + + _Lucifer._ That lion is the type of what I am. + And as he fixed thee with his full-faced hate, + And roared, O Adam, comprehending doom, + So, gazing on the face of the Unseen, + I cry out here between the Heavens and Earth + My conscience of this sin, this woe, this wrath, + Which damn me to this depth. + + _Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail! + + _Eve._ I wail--O God! + + _Lucifer._ I scorn you that ye wail, + Who use your petty griefs for pedestals + To stand on, beckoning pity from without, + And deal in pathos of antithesis + Of what ye _were_ forsooth, and what ye are;-- + I scorn you like an angel! Yet, one cry + I, too, would drive up like a column erect, + Marble to marble, from my heart to heaven, + A monument of anguish to transpierce + And overtop your vapoury complaints + Expressed from feeble woes. + + _Earth Spirits._ I wail, I wail! + + _Lucifer._ For, O ye heavens, ye are my witnesses, + That _I_, struck out from nature in a blot, + The outcast and the mildew of things good, + The leper of angels, the excepted dust + Under the common rain of daily gifts,-- + I the snake, I the tempter, I the cursed,-- + To whom the highest and the lowest alike + Say, Go from us--we have no need of thee,-- + Was made by God like others. Good and fair, + He did create me!--ask him, if not fair! + Ask, if I caught not fair and silverly + His blessing for chief angels on my head + Until it grew there, a crown crystallized! + Ask, if he never called me by my name, + _Lucifer_--kindly said as "Gabriel"-- + _Lucifer_--soft as "Michael!" while serene + I, standing in the glory of the lamps, + Answered "my Father," innocent of shame + And of the sense of thunder. Ha! ye think, + White angels in your niches,--I repent, + And would tread down my own offences back + To service at the footstool? _that's_ read wrong! + I cry as the beast did, that I may cry-- + Expansive, not appealing! Fallen so deep, + Against the sides of this prodigious pit + I cry--cry--dashing out the hands of wail + On each side, to meet anguish everywhere, + And to attest it in the ecstasy + And exaltation of a woe sustained + Because provoked and chosen. + Pass along + Your wilderness, vain mortals! Puny griefs + In transitory shapes, be henceforth dwarfed + To your own conscience, by the dread extremes + Of what I am and have been. If ye have fallen, + It is but a step's fall,--the whole ground beneath + Strewn woolly soft with promise! if ye have sinned, + Your prayers tread high as angels! if ye have grieved, + Ye are too mortal to be pitiable, + The power to die disproves the right to grieve. + Go to! ye call this ruin? I half-scorn + The ill I did you! Were ye wronged by me, + Hated and tempted and undone of me,-- + Still, what's your hurt to mine of doing hurt, + Of hating, tempting, and so ruining? + This sword's _hilt_ is the sharpest, and cuts through + The hand that wields it. + Go! I curse you all. + Hate one another--feebly--as ye can! + I would not certes cut you short in hate, + Far be it from me! hate on as ye can! + I breathe into your faces, spirits of earth, + As wintry blast may breathe on wintry leaves + And lifting up their brownness show beneath + The branches bare. Beseech you, spirits, give + To Eve who beggarly entreats your love + For her and Adam when they shall be dead, + An answer rather fitting to the sin + Than to the sorrow--as the heavens, I trow, + For justice' sake gave theirs. + I curse you both, + Adam and Eve. Say grace as after meat, + After my curses! May your tears fall hot + On all the hissing scorns o' the creatures here,-- + And yet rejoice! Increase and multiply, + Ye in your generations, in all plagues, + Corruptions, melancholies, poverties, + And hideous forms of life and fears of death,-- + The thought of death being always imminent, + Immoveable and dreadful in your life, + And deafly and dumbly insignificant + Of any hope beyond,--as death itself, + Whichever of you lieth dead the first, + Shall seem to the survivor--yet rejoice! + My curse catch at you strongly, body and soul, + And HE find no redemption--nor the wing + Of seraph move your way; and yet rejoice! + Rejoice,--because ye have not, set in you, + This hate which shall pursue you--this fire-hate + Which glares without, because it burns within-- + Which kills from ashes--this potential hate, + Wherein I, angel, in antagonism + To God and his reflex beatitudes, + Moan ever, in the central universe, + With the great woe of striving against Love-- + And gasp for space amid the Infinite, + And toss for rest amid the Desertness, + Self-orphaned by my will, and self-elect + To kingship of resistant agony + Toward the Good round me--hating good and love, + And willing to hate good and to hate love, + And willing to will on so evermore, + Scorning the past and damning the to-come-- + Go and rejoice! I curse you. + +[_LUCIFER vanishes._ + + _Earth Spirits._ + And we scorn you! there's no pardon + Which can lean to you aright. + When your bodies take the guerdon + Of the death-curse in our sight, + Then the bee that hummeth lowest shall transcend you: + Then ye shall not move an eyelid + Though the stars look down your eyes; + And the earth which ye defilèd + Shall expose you to the skies,-- + "Lo! these kings of ours, who sought to comprehend you." + + _First Spirit._ + And the elements shall boldly + All your dust to dust constrain. + Unresistedly and coldly + I will smite you with my rain. + From the slowest of my frosts is no receding. + + _Second Spirit._ + And my little worm, appointed + To assume a royal part, + He shall reign, crowned and anointed, + O'er the noble human heart. + Give him counsel against losing of that Eden! + + _Adam._ Do ye scorn us? Back your scorn + Toward your faces grey and lorn, + As the wind drives back the rain, + Thus I drive with passion-strife, + I who stand beneath God's sun, + Made like God, and, though undone, + Not unmade for love and life. + Lo! ye utter threats in vain. + By my free will that chose sin, + By mine agony within + Round the passage of the fire, + By the pinings which disclose + That my native soul is higher + Than what it chose, + We are yet too high, O Spirits, for your disdain! + + _Eve._ Nay, beloved! If these be low, + We confront them from no height. + We have stooped down to their level + By infecting them with evil, + And their scorn that meets our blow Scathes aright. + Amen. Let it be so. + + _Earth Spirits._ + We shall triumph--triumph greatly + When ye lie beneath the sward. + There, our lily shall grow stately + Though ye answer not a word, + And her fragrance shall be scornful of your silence: + While your throne ascending calmly + We, in heirdom of your soul, + Flash the river, lift the palm-tree, + The dilated ocean roll, + By the thoughts that throbbed within you, round the islands. + + Alp and torrent shall inherit + Your significance of will, + And the grandeur of your spirit + Shall our broad savannahs fill; + In our winds, your exultations shall be springing! + Even your parlance which inveigles, + By our rudeness shall be won. + Hearts poetic in our eagles + Shall beat up against the sun + And strike downward in articulate clear singing. + + Your bold speeches our Behemoth + With his thunderous jaw shall wield. + Your high fancies shall our Mammoth + Breathe sublimely up the shield + Of Saint Michael at God's throne, who waits to speed him: + Till the heavens' smooth-groovèd thunder + Spinning back, shall leave them clear, + And the angels, smiling wonder, + With dropt looks from sphere to sphere, + Shall cry "Ho, ye heirs of Adam! ye exceed him." + + _Adam._ Root out thine eyes, Sweet, from the dreary ground! + Beloved, we may be overcome by God, + But not by these. + + _Eve._ By God, perhaps, in these. + + _Adam._ I think, not so. Had God foredoomed despair + He had not spoken hope. He may destroy + Certes, but not deceive. + + _Eve._ Behold this rose! + I plucked it in our bower of Paradise + This morning as I went forth, and my heart + Has beat against its petals all the day. + I thought it would be always red and full + As when I plucked it. _Is_ it?--ye may see! + I cast it down to you that ye may see, + All of you!--count the petals lost of it, + And note the colours fainted! ye may see! + And I am as it is, who yesterday + Grew in the same place. O ye spirits of earth, + I almost, from my miserable heart, + Could here upbraid you for your cruel heart, + Which will not let me, down the slope of death, + Draw any of your pity after me, + Or lie still in the quiet of your looks, + As my flower, there, in mine. + +[_A bleak wind, quickened with indistinct Human Voices, spins around the +Earth-zodiac, filling the circle with its presence; and then, wailing +off into the East, carries the rose away with it. EVE falls upon her +face. ADAM stands erect._ + + _Adam._ So, verily, + The last departs. + + _Eve._ So Memory follows Hope, + And Life both. Love said to me, "Do not die," + And I replied, "O Love, I will not die. + I exiled and I will not orphan Love." + But now it is no choice of mine to die: + My heart throbs from me. + + _Adam._ Call it straightway back! + Death's consummation crowns completed life, + Or comes too early. Hope being set on thee + For others, if for others then for thee,-- + For thee and me. + +[_The wind revolves from the East, and round again to the East, perfumed +by the Eden rose, and full of Voices which sweep out into articulation +as they pass._ + + Let thy soul shake its leaves + To feel the mystic wind--hark! + + _Eve._ I hear life. + + _Infant Voices passing in the wind._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we receive + Is a warm thing and a new, + Which we softly bud into + From the heart and from the brain,-- + Something strange that overmuch is + Of the sound and of the sight, + Flowing round in trickling touches, + With a sorrow and delight,-- + Yet is it all in vain? + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Youthful Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we achieve + Is a loud thing and a bold + Which with pulses manifold + Strikes the heart out full and fain-- + Active doer, noble liver, + Strong to struggle, sure to conquer, + Though the vessel's prow will quiver + At the lifting of the anchor: + Yet do we strive in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Poet Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we conceive + Is a clear thing and a fair, + Which we set in crystal air + That its beauty may be plain! + With a breathing and a flooding + Of the heaven-life on the whole, + While we hear the forests budding + To the music of the soul-- + Yet is it tuned in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Philosophic Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we perceive + Is a great thing and a grave + Which for others' use we have, + Duty-laden to remain. + We are helpers, fellow-creatures, + Of the right against the wrong; + We are earnest-hearted teachers + Of the truth which maketh strong-- + Yet do we teach in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Revel Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we reprieve + Is a low thing and a light, + Which is jested out of sight + And made worthy of disdain! + Strike with bold electric laughter + The high tops of things divine-- + Turn thy head, my brother, after, + Lest thy tears fall in my wine! + For is all laughed in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Eve._ I hear a sound of life--of life like ours-- + Of laughter and of wailing, of grave speech, + Of little plaintive voices innocent, + Of life in separate courses flowing out + Like our four rivers to some outward main. + I hear life--life! + + _Adam._ And, so, thy cheeks have snatched + Scarlet to paleness, and thine eyes drink fast + Of glory from full cups, and thy moist lips + Seem trembling, both of them, with earnest doubts + Whether to utter words or only smile. + + _Eve._ Shall I be mother of the coming life? + Hear the steep generations, how they fall + Adown the visionary stairs of Time + Like supernatural thunders--far, yet near,-- + Sowing their fiery echoes through the hills. + Am I a cloud to these--mother to these? + + _Earth Spirits._ And bringer of the curse upon all these. + +[_EVE sinks down again._ + + _Poet Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life that we conceive + Is a noble thing and high, + Which we climb up loftily + To view God without a stain; + Till, recoiling where the shade is, + We retread our steps again, + And descend the gloomy Hades + To resume man's mortal pain. + Shall it be climbed in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Lest it be all in vain. + + _Love Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life we would retrieve, + Is a faithful thing apart + Which we love in, heart to heart, + Until one heart fitteth twain. + "Wilt thou be one with me?" + "I will be one with thee." + "Ha, ha!--we love and live!" + Alas! ye love and die. + Shriek--who shall reply? + For is it not loved in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Though it be all in vain. + + _Aged Voices passing._ + O we live, O we live-- + And this life we would survive, + Is a gloomy thing and brief, + Which, consummated in grief, + Leaveth ashes for all gain. + Is it not _all_ in vain? + + _Infant Voices passing._ + Rock us softly, + Though it be _all_ in vain. + +[_Voices die away._ + + _Earth Spirits._ And bringer of the curse upon all these. + + _Eve._ The voices of foreshown Humanity + Die off;--so let me die. + + _Adam._ So let us die, + When God's will soundeth the right hour of death. + + _Earth Spirits._ And bringer of the curse upon all these. + + _Eve._ O Spirits! by the gentleness ye use + In winds at night, and floating clouds at noon, + In gliding waters under lily-leaves, + In chirp of crickets, and the settling hush + A bird makes in her nest with feet and wings,-- + Fulfil your natures now! + + _Earth Spirits._ Agreed, allowed! + We gather out our natures like a cloud, + And thus fulfil their lightnings! Thus, and thus! + Hearken, oh hearken to us! + + _First Spirit._ + As the storm-wind blows bleakly from the norland, + As the snow-wind beats blindly on the moorland, + As the simoom drives hot across the desert, + As the thunder roars deep in the Unmeasured. + As the torrent tears the ocean-world to atoms, + As the whirlpool grinds it fathoms below fathoms, + Thus,--and thus! + + _Second Spirit._ + As the yellow toad, that spits its poison chilly, + As the tiger, in the jungle crouching stilly, + As the wild boar, with ragged tusks of anger, + As the wolf-dog, with teeth of glittering clangour, + As the vultures, that scream against the thunder, + As the owlets, that sit and moan asunder, + Thus,--and thus! + + _Eve._ Adam! God! + + _Adam._ Cruel, unrelenting Spirits! + By the power in me of the sovran soul + Whose thoughts keep pace yet with the angel's march, + I charge you into silence--trample you + Down to obedience. I am king of you! + + _Earth Spirits._ + Ha, ha! thou art king! + With a sin for a crown, + And a soul undone! + Thou, the antagonized, + Tortured and agonized, + Held in the ring + Of the zodiac! + Now, king, beware! + We are many and strong + Whom thou standest among,-- + And we press on the air, + And we stifle thee back, + And we multiply where + Thou wouldst trample us down + From rights of our own + To an utter wrong-- + And, from under the feet of thy scorn, + O forlorn, + We shall spring up like corn, + And our stubble be strong. + _Adam._ God, there is power in thee! I make appeal + Unto thy kingship. + + _Eve._ There is pity in THEE, + O sinned against, great God!--My seed, my seed, + There is hope set on THEE--I cry to thee, + Thou mystic Seed that shalt be!--leave us not + In agony beyond what we can bear, + Fallen in debasement below thunder-mark, + A mark for scorning--taunted and perplext + By all these creatures we ruled yesterday, + Whom thou, Lord, rulest alway! O my Seed, + Through the tempestuous years that rain so thick + Betwixt my ghostly vision and thy face, + Let me have token! for my soul is bruised + Before the serpent's head is. + +[_A vision of CHRIST appears in the midst of the Zodiac, which pales +before the heavenly light. The Earth Spirits grow greyer and fainter._ + + CHRIST. I AM HERE! + + _Adam._ This is God!--Curse us not, God, any more! + + _Eve._ But gazing so--so--with omnific eyes, + Lift my soul upward till it touch thy feet! + Or lift it only,--not to seem too proud,-- + To the low height of some good angel's feet, + For such to tread on when he walketh straight + And thy lips praise him! + + CHRIST. Spirits of the earth, + I meet you with rebuke for the reproach + And cruel and unmitigated blame + Ye cast upon your masters. True, they have sinned; + And true their sin is reckoned into loss + For you the sinless. Yet, your innocence + Which of you praises? since God made your acts + Inherent in your lives, and bound your hands + With instincts and imperious sanctities + From self-defacement. Which of you disdains + These sinners who in falling proved their height + Above you by their liberty to fall? + And which of you complains of loss by them, + For whose delight and use ye have your life + And honour in creation? Ponder it! + This regent and sublime Humanity, + Though fallen, exceeds you! this shall film your sun, + Shall hunt your lightning to its lair of cloud, + Turn back your rivers, footpath all your seas, + Lay flat your forests, master with a look + Your lion at his fasting, and fetch down + Your eagle flying. Nay, without this law + Of mandom, ye would perish,--beast by beast + Devouring,--tree by tree, with strangling roots + And trunks set tuskwise. Ye would gaze on God + With imperceptive blankness up the stars, + And mutter, "Why, God, hast thou made us thus?" + And pining to a sallow idiocy + Stagger up blindly against the ends of life, + Then stagnate into rottenness and drop + Heavily--poor, dead matter--piecemeal down + The abysmal spaces--like a little stone + Let fall to chaos. Therefore over you + Receive man's sceptre!--therefore be content + To minister with voluntary grace + And melancholy pardon, every rite + And function in you, to the human hand! + Be ye to man as angels are to God, + Servants in pleasure, singers of delight, + Suggesters to his soul of higher things + Than any of your highest! So at last, + He shall look round on you with lids too straight + To hold the grateful tears, and thank you well, + And bless you when he prays his secret prayers, + And praise you when he sings his open songs + For the clear song-note he has learnt in you + Of purifying sweetness, and extend + Across your head his golden fantasies + Which glorify you into soul from sense. + Go, serve him for such price! That not in vain + Nor yet ignobly ye shall serve, I place + My word here for an oath, mine oath for act + To be hereafter. In the name of which + Perfect redemption and perpetual grace, + I bless you through the hope and through the peace + Which are mine,--to the Love, which is myself. + + _Eve._ Speak on still, Christ! Albeit thou bless me not + In set words, I am blessed in hearkening thee-- + Speak, Christ! + + CHRIST. Speak, Adam! Bless the woman, man! + It is thine office. + + _Adam._ Mother of the world, + Take heart before this Presence! Lo, my voice, + Which, naming erst the creatures, did express + (God breathing through my breath) the attributes + And instincts of each creature in its name, + Floats to the same afflatus,--floats and heaves + Like a water-weed that opens to a wave,-- + A full leaved prophecy affecting thee, + Out fairly and wide. Henceforward, arise, aspire + To all the calms and magnanimities, + The lofty uses and the noble ends, + The sanctified devotion and full work, + To which thou art elect for evermore, + First woman, wife, and mother! + + _Eve._ And first in sin. + + _Adam._ And also the sole bearer of the Seed + Whereby sin dieth. Raise the majesties + Of thy disconsolate brows, O well-beloved, + And front with level eyelids the To-come, + And all the dark o' the world! Rise, woman, rise + To thy peculiar and best altitudes + Of doing good and of enduring ill, + Of comforting for ill, and teaching good, + And reconciling all that ill and good + Unto the patience of a constant hope,-- + Rise with thy daughters! If sin came by thee, + And by sin, death,--the ransom-righteousness, + The heavenly life and compensative rest + Shall come by means of thee. If woe by thee + Had issue to the world, thou shalt go forth + An angel of the woe thou didst achieve, + Found acceptable to the world instead + Of others of that name, of whose bright steps + Thy deed stripped bare the hills. Be satisfied; + Something thou hast to bear through womanhood, + Peculiar suffering answering to the sin,-- + Some pang paid down for each new human life, + Some weariness in guarding such a life, + Some coldness from the guarded, some mistrust + From those thou hast too well served, from those beloved + Too loyally some treason; feebleness + Within thy heart, and cruelty without, + And pressures of an alien tyranny + With its dynastic reasons of larger bones + And stronger sinews. But, go to! thy love + Shall chant itself its own beatitudes + After its own life-working. A child's kiss + Set on thy sighing lips shall make thee glad; + A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; + A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; + Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense + Of service which thou renderest. Such a crown + I set upon thy head,--Christ witnessing + With looks of prompting love--to keep thee clear + Of all reproach against the sin forgone, + From all the generations which succeed. + Thy hand which plucked the apple I clasp close, + Thy lips which spake wrong counsel I kiss close, + I bless thee in the name of Paradise + And by the memory of Edenic joys + Forfeit and lost,--by that last cypress tree, + Green at the gate, which thrilled as we came out, + And by the blessed nightingale which threw + Its melancholy music after us,-- + And by the flowers, whose spirits full of smells + Did follow softly, plucking us behind + Back to the gradual banks and vernal bowers + And fourfold river-courses.--By all these, + I bless thee to the contraries of these, + I bless thee to the desert and the thorns, + To the elemental change and turbulence, + And to the roar of the estranged beasts, + And to the solemn dignities of grief,-- + To each one of these ends,--and to their END + Of Death and the hereafter. + + _Eve._ I accept + For me and for my daughters this high part + Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work + Shall hold me in the place of garden-rest, + And in the place of Eden's lost delight + Worthy endurance of permitted pain; + While on my longest patience there shall wait + Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east, + Whence cometh the cold wind. I bow myself + Humbly henceforward on the ill I did, + That humbleness may keep it in the shade. + Shall it be so? shall I smile, saying so? + O Seed! O King! O God, who _shalt_ be seed,-- + What shall I say? As Eden's fountains swelled + Brightly betwixt their banks, so swells my soul + Betwixt thy love and power! + And, sweetest thoughts + Of forgone Eden! now, for the first time + Since God said "Adam," walking through the trees, + I dare to pluck you as I plucked erewhile + The lily or pink, the rose or heliotrope + So pluck I you--so largely--with both hands, + And throw you forward on the outer earth, + Wherein we are cast out, to sweeten it. + + _Adam._ As thou, Christ, to illume it, holdest Heaven + Broadly over our heads. + +[_The CHRIST is gradually transfigured, during the following phrases of +dialogue, into humanity and suffering._ + + _Eve._ O Saviour Christ, + Thou standest mute in glory, like the sun! + + _Adam._ We worship in Thy silence, Saviour Christ! + + _Eve._ Thy brows grow grander with a forecast woe,-- + Diviner, with the possible of death. + We worship in Thy sorrow, Saviour Christ! + + _Adam._ How do Thy clear, still eyes transpierce our souls, + As gazing _through_ them toward the Father-throne + In a pathetical, full Deity, + Serenely as the stars gaze through the air + Straight on each other! + + _Eve._ O pathetic Christ, + Thou standest mute in glory, like the moon! + + CHRIST. Eternity stands alway fronting God; + A stern colossal image, with blind eyes + And grand dim lips that murmur evermore + God, God, God! while the rush of life and death, + The roar of act and thought, of evil and good, + The avalanches of the ruining worlds + Tolling down space,--the new worlds' genesis + Budding in fire,--the gradual humming growth + Of the ancient atoms and first forms of earth, + The slow procession of the swathing seas + And firmamental waters,--and the noise + Of the broad, fluent strata of pure airs,-- + All these flow onward in the intervals + Of that reiterated sound of--GOD! + Which WORD innumerous angels straightway lift + Wide on celestial altitudes of song + And choral adoration, and then drop + The burden softly, shutting the last notes + In silver wings. Howbeit in the noon of time + Eternity shall wax as dumb as Death, + While a new voice beneath the spheres shall cry, + "God! why hast thou forsaken me, my God?" + And not a voice in Heaven shall answer it. + +[_The transfiguration is complete in sadness._ + + _Adam._ Thy speech is of the Heavenlies, yet, O Christ, + Awfully human are thy voice and face! + + _Eve._ My nature overcomes me from thine eyes. + + CHRIST. In the set noon of time shall one from Heaven, + An angel fresh from looking upon God, + Descend before a woman, blessing her + With perfect benediction of pure love, + For all the world in all its elements, + For all the creatures of earth, air, and sea, + For all men in the body and in the soul, + Unto all ends of glory and sanctity. + + _Eve._ O pale, pathetic Christ--I worship thee! + I thank thee for that woman! + + CHRIST. Then, at last, + I, wrapping round me your humanity, + Which, being sustained, shall neither break nor burn + Beneath the fire of Godhead, will tread earth, + And ransom you and it, and set strong peace + Betwixt you and its creatures. With my pangs + I will confront your sins; and since those sins + Have sunken to all Nature's heart from yours, + The tears of my clean soul shall follow them + And set a holy passion to work clear + Absolute consecration. In my brow + Of kingly whiteness shall be crowned anew + Your discrowned human nature. Look on me! + As I shall be uplifted on a cross + In darkness of eclipse and anguish dread, + So shall I lift up in my piercèd hands, + Not into dark, but light--not unto death, + But life,--beyond the reach of guilt and grief, + The whole creation. Henceforth in my name + Take courage, O thou woman,--man, take hope! + Your grave shall be as smooth as Eden's sward, + Beneath the steps of your prospective thoughts, + And, one step past it, a new Eden-gate + Shall open on a hinge of harmony + And let you through to mercy. Ye shall fall + No more, within that Eden, nor pass out + Any more from it. In which hope, move on, + First sinners and first mourners! Live and love,-- + Doing both nobly because lowlily! + Live and work, strongly because patiently! + And, for the deed of death, trust it to God + That it be well done, unrepented of, + And not to loss! And thence, with constant prayers, + Fasten your souls so high, that constantly + The smile of your heroic cheer may float + Above all floods of earthly agonies, + Purification being the joy of pain! + +[_The vision of CHRIST vanishes. ADAM and EVE stand in an ecstasy. The +Earth-zodiac pales away shade by shade, as the stars, star by star, +shine out in the sky; and the following chant from the two Earth +Spirits (as they sweep back into the Zodiac and disappear with it) +accompanies the process of change._ + + _Earth Spirits._ + By the mighty word thus spoken + Both for living and for dying, + We our homage-oath, once broken, + Fasten back again in sighing, + And the creatures and the elements renew their covenanting. + + Here, forgive us all our scorning; + Here, we promise milder duty: + And the evening and the morning + Shall re-organize in beauty + A sabbath day of sabbath joy, for universal chanting. + + And if, still, this melancholy + May be strong to overcome us, + If this mortal and unholy + We still fail to cast out from us, + If we turn upon you, unaware, your own dark influences,-- + + If ye tremble when surrounded + By our forest pine and palm trees, + If we cannot cure the wounded + With our gum trees and our balm trees, + And if your souls all mournfully sit down among your senses,-- + + Yet, O mortals, do not fear us! + We are gentle in our languor; + Much more good ye shall have near us + Than any pain or anger, + And our God's refracted blessing in our blessing shall be given. + + By the desert's endless vigil + We will solemnize your passions, + By the wheel of the black eagle + We will teach you exaltations, + When he sails against the wind, to the white spot up in heaven. + + Ye shall find us tender nurses + To your weariness of nature, + And our hands shall stroke the curse's + Dreary furrows from the creature, + Till your bodies shall lie smooth in death and straight and slumberful. + + Then, a couch we will provide you + Where no summer heats shall dazzle, + Strewing on you and beside you + Thyme and rosemary and basil, + And the yew-tree shall grow overhead to keep all safe and cool. + + Till the Holy Blood awaited + Shall be chrism around us running, + Whereby, newly-consecrated, + We shall leap up in God's sunning, + To join the spheric company which purer worlds assemble: + + While, renewed by new evangels, + Soul-consummated, made glorious, + Ye shall brighten past the angels, + Ye shall kneel to Christ victorious, + And the rays around his feet beneath your sobbing lips shall tremble. + +[_The phantastic Vision has all passed; the Earth-zodiac has broken like +a belt, and is dissolved from the Desert. The Earth Spirits vanish, +and the stars shine out above._ + + +CHORUS OF INVISIBLE ANGELS, + +_while ADAM and EVE advance into the Desert, hand in hand._ + + Hear our heavenly promise + Through your mortal passion! + Love, ye shall have from us, + In a pure relation. + As a fish or bird + Swims or flies, if moving, + We unseen are heard + To live on by loving. + Far above the glances + Of your eager eyes, + Listen! we are loving. + Listen, through man's ignorances-- + Listen, through God's mysteries-- + Listen down the heart of things, + Ye shall hear our mystic wings + Murmurous with loving. + Through the opal door + Listen evermore + How we live by loving! + + _First Semichorus._ + When your bodies therefore + Reach the grave their goal, + Softly will we care for + Each enfranchised soul. + Softly and unlothly + Through the door of opal + Toward the heavenly people, + Floated on a minor fine + Into the full chant divine, + We will draw you smoothly,-- + While the human in the minor + Makes the harmony diviner. + Listen to our loving! + + _Second Semichorus._ + There, a sough of glory + Shall breathe on you as you come, + Ruffling round the doorway + All the light of angeldom. + From the empyrean centre + Heavenly voices shall repeat, + "Souls redeemed and pardoned, enter, + For the chrism on you is sweet!" + And every angel in the place + Lowlily shall bow his face, + Folded fair on softened sounds, + Because upon your hands and feet + He images his Master's wounds. + Listen to our loving! + + _First Semichorus._ + So, in the universe's + Consummated undoing, + Our seraphs of white mercies + Shall hover round the ruin. + Their wings shall stream upon the flame + As if incorporate of the same + In elemental fusion; + And calm their faces shall burn out + With a pale and mastering thought, + And a steadfast looking of desire + From out between the clefts of fire,-- + While they cry, in the Holy's name, + To the final Restitution. + Listen to our loving! + + _Second Semichorus._ + So, when the day of God is + To the thick graves accompted, + Awaking the dead bodies, + The angel of the trumpet + Shall split and shatter the earth + To the roots of the grave-- + Which never before were slackened-- + And quicken the charnel birth + With his blast so clear and brave + That the Dead shall start and stand erect, + And every face of the burial-place + Shall the awful, single look reflect + Wherewith he them awakened. + Listen to our loving! + + _First Semichorus._ + But wild is the horse of Death! + He will leap up wild at the clamour + Above and beneath. + And where is his Tamer + On that last day, + When he crieth Ha, ha! + To the trumpet's blare, + And paweth the earth's Aceldama? + When he tosseth his head, + The drear-white steed, + And ghastlily champeth the last moon-ray-- + What angel there + Can lead him away, + That the living may rule for the Dead? + + _Second Semichorus._ + Yet a TAMER shall be found! + One more bright than seraph crowned, + And more strong than cherub bold, + Elder, too, than angel old, + By his grey eternities. + He shall master and surprise + The steed of Death. + For He is strong, and He is fain. + He shall quell him with a breath, + And shall lead him where He will, + With a whisper in the ear, + Full of fear, + And a hand upon the mane, + Grand and still. + + _First Semichorus._ + Through the flats of Hades where the souls assemble + He will guide the Death-steed calm between their ranks, + While, like beaten dogs, they a little moan and tremble + To see the darkness curdle from the horse's glittering flanks. + Through the flats of Hades where the dreary shade is, + Up the steep of heaven will the Tamer guide the steed,-- + Up the spheric circles, circle above circle, + We who count the ages shall count the tolling tread-- + Every hoof-fall striking a blinder blanker sparkle + From the stony orbs, which shall show as they were dead. + + _Second Semichorus._ + All the way the Death-steed with tolling hoofs shall travel, + Ashen-grey the planets shall be motionless as stones, + Loosely shall the systems eject their parts coæval, + Stagnant in the spaces shall float the pallid moons: + Suns that touch their apogees, reeling from their level, + Shall run back on their axles, in wild low broken tunes. + + _Chorus._ + Up against the arches of the crystal ceiling, + From the horse's nostrils shall steam the blurting breath: + Up between the angels pale with silent feeling + Will the Tamer calmly lead the horse of Death. + + _Semichorus._ + Cleaving all that silence, cleaving all that glory, + Will the Tamer lead him straightway to the Throne: + "Look out, O Jehovah, to this I bring before Thee, + With a hand nail-piercèd, I who am thy Son." + Then the Eye Divinest, from the Deepest, flaming, + On the mystic courser shall look out in fire: + Blind the beast shall stagger where It overcame him, + Meek as lamb at pasture, bloodless in desire. + Down the beast shall shiver,--slain amid the taming,-- + And, by Life essential, the phantasm Death expire. + + _Chorus._ + Listen, man, through life and death, + Through the dust and through the breath, + Listen down the heart of things! + Ye shall hear our mystic wings + Murmurous with loving. + + _A Voice from below._ Gabriel, thou Gabriel! + + _A Voice from above._ What wouldst _thou_ with me? + + _First Voice._ I heard thy voice sound in the angels' song, + And I would give thee question. + + _Second Voice._ Question me! + + _First Voice._ Why have I called thrice to my Morning Star + And had no answer? All the stars are out, + And answer in their places. Only in vain + I cast my voice against the outer rays + Of _my_ Star shut in light behind the sun. + No more reply than from a breaking string, + Breaking when touched. Or is she _not_ my star? + Where _is_ my Star--my Star? Have ye cast down + Her glory like my glory? Has she waxed + Mortal, like Adam? Has she learnt to hate + Like any angel? + + _Second Voice._ She is sad for thee. + All things grow sadder to thee, one by one. + + _Angel Chorus._ + Live, work on, O Earthy! + By the Actual's tension, + Speed the arrow worthy + Of a pure ascension! + From the low earth round you, + Reach the heights above you: + From the stripes that wound you, + Seek the loves that love you! + God's divinest burneth plain + Through the crystal diaphane + Of our loves that love you. + + _First Voice._ Gabriel, O Gabriel! + + _Second Voice._ What wouldst _thou_ with me? + + _First Voice._ Is it true, O thou Gabriel, that the crown + Of sorrow which I claimed, another claims? + That HE claims THAT too? + + _Second Voice._ Lost one, it is true. + + _First Voice._ That HE will be an exile from his heaven, + To lead those exiles homeward? + + _Second Voice._ It is true. + + _First Voice._ That HE will be an exile by his will, + As I by mine election? + + _Second Voice._ It is true. + + _First Voice._ That _I_ shall stand sole exile finally,-- + Made desolate for fruition? + + _Second Voice._ It is true. + + _First Voice._ Gabriel! + + _Second Voice._ I hearken. + + _First Voice._ Is it true besides-- + Aright true--that mine orient Star will give + Her name of "Bright and Morning-Star" to HIM,-- + And take the fairness of his virtue back + To cover loss and sadness? + + _Second Voice._ It is true. + + _First Voice._ UNtrue, UNtrue! O Morning Star, O MINE, + Who sittest secret in a veil of light + Far up the starry spaces, say--_Untrue!_ + Speak but so loud as doth a wasted moon + To Tyrrhene waters. I am Lucifer. + +[_A pause. Silence in the stars._ + + All things grow sadder to me, one by one. + + _Angel Chorus._ + Exiled human creatures, + Let your hope grow larger! + Larger grows the vision + Of the new delight. + From this chain of Nature's + God is the Discharger, + And the Actual's prison + Opens to your sight. + + _Semichorus._ + Calm the stars and golden + In a light exceeding: + What their rays have measured + Let your feet fulfil! + These are stars beholden + By your eyes in Eden, + Yet, across the desert, + See them shining still! + + _Chorus._ + Future joy and far light + Working such relations, + Hear us singing gently + _Exiled is not lost!_ + God, above the starlight, + God, above the patience, + Shall at last present ye + Guerdons worth the cost. + Patiently enduring, + Painfully surrounded, + Listen how we love you, + Hope the uttermost! + Waiting for that curing + Which exalts the wounded, + Hear us sing above you-- + EXILED, BUT NOT LOST! + +[_The stars shine on brightly while ADAM and EVE pursue their way into +the far wilderness. There is a sound through the silence, as of the +falling tears of an angel._ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] Adam recognizes in _Aquarius_, the Water-bearer, and _Sagittarius_, +the Archer, distinct types of the man bearing and the man +combating,--the passive and active forms of human labour. I hope that +the preceding zodiacal signs--transferred to the earthly shadow and +representative purpose--of Aries, Taurus, Cancer, Leo, Libra, Scorpio, +Capricornus, and Pisces, are sufficiently obvious to the reader. + +[C] Her maternal instinct is excited by Gemini. + + + + +THE SERAPHIM + + +I look for Angels' songs, and hear Him cry. + + GILES FLETCHER. + + + + +THE SERAPHIM. + + +PART THE FIRST. + +[_It is the time of the Crucifixion; and the Angels of Heaven have +departed towards the Earth, except the two Seraphim, ADOR the Strong +and ZERAH the Bright One._ +_The place is the outer side of the shut Heavenly Gate._] + + _Ador._ O Seraph, pause no more! + Beside this gate of heaven we stand alone. + + _Zerah._ Of heaven! + + _Ador._ Our brother hosts are gone-- + + _Zerah._ Are gone before. + + _Ador._ And the golden harps the angels bore + To help the songs of their desire, + Still burning from their hands of fire, + Lie without touch or tone + Upon the glass-sea shore. + + _Zerah._ Silent upon the glass-sea shore! + + _Ador._ There the Shadow from the throne + Formless with infinity + Hovers o'er the crystal sea + Awfuller than light derived, + And red with those primeval heats + Whereby all life has lived. + + _Zerah._ Our visible God, our heavenly seats! + + _Ador._ Beneath us sinks the pomp angelical, + Cherub and seraph, powers and virtues, all,-- + The roar of whose descent has died + To a still sound, as thunder into rain. + Immeasurable space spreads magnified + With that thick life, along the plane + The worlds slid out on. What a fall + And eddy of wings innumerous, crossed + By trailing curls that have not lost + The glitter of the God-smile shed + On every prostrate angel's head! + What gleaming up of hands that fling + Their homage in retorted rays, + From high instinct of worshipping, + And habitude of praise! + + _Zerah._ Rapidly they drop below us: + Pointed palm and wing and hair + Indistinguishable show us + Only pulses in the air + Throbbing with a fiery beat, + As if a new creation heard + Some divine and plastic word, + And trembling at its new-found being, + Awakened at our feet. + + _Ador._ Zerah, do not wait for seeing! + HIS voice, his, that thrills us so + As we our harpstrings, uttered _Go_, + _Behold the Holy in his woe!_ + And all are gone, save thee and-- + + _Zerah._ Thee! + + _Ador._ I stood the nearest to the throne + In hierarchical degree, + What time the Voice said _Go_! + And whether I was moved alone + By the storm-pathos of the tone + Which swept through heaven the alien name of _woe_, + Or whether the subtle glory broke + Through my strong and shielding wings, + Bearing to my finite essence + Incapacious of their presence, + Infinite imaginings, + None knoweth save the Throned who spoke; + But I who at creation stood upright + And heard the God-breath move + Shaping the words that lightened, "Be there light, + Nor trembled but with love, + Now fell down shudderingly, + My face upon the pavement whence I had towered, + As if in mine immortal overpowered + By God's eternity. + + _Zerah._ Let me wait!--let me wait!-- + + _Ador._ Nay, gaze not backward through the gate! + God fills our heaven with God's own solitude + Till all the pavements glow: + His Godhead being no more subdued, + By itself, to glories low + Which seraphs can sustain. + What if thou, in gazing so, + Shouldst behold but only one + Attribute, the veil undone-- + Even that to which we dare to press + Nearest, for its gentleness-- + Ay, his love! + How the deep ecstatic pain + Thy being's strength would capture! + Without language for the rapture, + Without music strong to come + And set the adoration free, + For ever, ever, wouldst thou be + Amid the general chorus dumb, + God-stricken to seraphic agony. + Or, brother, what if on thine eyes + In vision bare should rise + The life-fount whence his hand did gather + With solitary force + Our immortalities! + Straightway how thine own would wither, + Falter like a human breath, + And shrink into a point like death, + By gazing on its source!-- + My words have imaged dread + Meekly hast thou bent thine head, + And dropt thy wings in languishment: + Overclouding foot and face, + As if God's throne were eminent + Before thee, in the place. + Yet not--not so, + O loving spirit and meek, dost thou fulfil + The supreme Will. + Not for obeisance but obedience, + Give motion to thy wings! Depart from hence! + The voice said "Go!" + + _Zerah._ Beloved, I depart, + His will is as a spirit within my spirit, + A portion of the being I inherit. + His will is mine obedience. I resemble + A flame all undefilèd though it tremble; + I go and tremble. Love me, O beloved! + O thou, who stronger art, + And standest ever near the Infinite, + Pale with the light of Light, + Love me, beloved! me, more newly made, + More feeble, more afraid; + And let me hear with mine thy pinions moved, + As close and gentle as the loving are, + That love being near, heaven may not seem so far. + + _Ador._ I am near thee and I love thee. + Were I loveless, from thee gone, + Love is round, beneath, above thee, + God, the omnipresent one. + Spread the wing and lift the brow! + Well-beloved, what fearest thou? + + _Zerah._ I fear, I fear-- + + _Ador._ What fear? + + _Zerah._ The fear of earth. + + _Ador._ Of earth, the God-created and God-praised + In the hour of birth? + Where every night the moon in light + Doth lead the waters silver-faced? + Where every day the sun doth lay + A rapture to the heart of all + The leafy and reeded pastoral, + As if the joyous shout which burst + From angel lips to see him first, + Had left a silent echo in his ray? + + _Zerah._ Of earth--the God-created and God-curst, + Where man is, and the thorn: + Where sun and moon have borne + No light to souls forlorn: + Where Eden's tree of life no more uprears + Its spiral leaves and fruitage, but instead + The yew-tree bows its melancholy head + And all the undergrasses kills and seres. + + _Ador._ Of earth the weak, + Made and unmade? + Where men, that faint, do strive for crowns that fade? + Where, having won the profit which they seek, + They lie beside the sceptre and the gold + With fleshless hands that cannot wield or hold, + And the stars shine in their unwinking eyes? + + _Zerah._ Of earth the bold, + Where the blind matter wrings + An awful potence out of impotence, + Bowing the spiritual things + To the things of sense. + Where the human will replies + With ay and no, + Because the human pulse is quick or slow. + Where Love succumbs to Change, + With only his own memories, for revenge. + And the fearful mystery-- + + _Ador._ called Death? + + _Zerah._ Nay, death is fearful,--but who saith + "To die," is comprehensible. + What's fearfuller, thou knowest well, + Though the utterance be not for thee, + Lest it blanch thy lips from glory-- + Ay! the cursed thing that moved + A shadow of ill, long time ago, + Across our heaven's own shining floor, + And when it vanished, some who were + On thrones of holy empire there, + Did reign--were seen--were--never more. + Come nearer, O beloved! + + _Ador._ I am near thee. Didst thou bear thee + Ever to this earth? + + _Zerah._ Before. + When thrilling from His hand along + Its lustrous path with spheric song + The earth was deathless, sorrowless. + Unfearing, then, pure feet might press + The grasses brightening with their feet, + For God's own voice did mix its sound + In a solemn confluence oft + With the rivers' flowing round, + And the life-tree's waving soft. + Beautiful new earth and strange! + + _Ador._ Hast thou seen it since--the change? + + _Zerah._ Nay, or wherefore should I fear + To look upon it now? + I have beheld the ruined things + Only in depicturings + Of angels from an earthly mission,-- + Strong one, even upon thy brow, + When, with task completed, given + Back to us in that transition, + I have beheld thee silent stand, + Abstracted in the seraph band, + Without a smile in heaven. + + _Ador._ Then thou wast not one of those + Whom the loving Father chose + In visionary pomp to sweep + O'er Judæa's grassy places, + O'er the shepherds and the sheep, + Though thou art so tender?--dimming + All the stars except one star + With their brighter kinder faces, + And using heaven's own tune in hymning, + While deep response from earth's own mountains ran, + "Peace upon earth, goodwill to man." + + _Zerah._ "Glory to God." I said amen afar. + And those who from that earthly mission are, + Within mine ears have told + That the seven everlasting Spirits did hold + With such a sweet and prodigal constraint + The meaning yet the mystery of the song + What time they sang it, on their natures strong, + That, gazing down on earth's dark steadfastness + And speaking the new peace in promises, + The love and pity made their voices faint + Into the low and tender music, keeping + The place in heaven of what on earth is weeping. + + _Ador._ "Peace upon earth." Come down to it. + + _Zerah._ Ah me! + I hear thereof uncomprehendingly. + Peace where the tempest, where the sighing is, + And worship of the idol, 'stead of His? + + _Ador._ Yea, peace, where He is. + + _Zerah._ He! + Say it again. + + _Ador._ Where He is. + + _Zerah._ Can it be + That earth retains a tree + Whose leaves, like Eden foliage, can be swayed + By the breathing of His voice, nor shrink and fade? + + _Ador._ There is a tree!--it hath no leaf nor root; + Upon it hangs a curse for all its fruit: + Its shadow on his head is laid. + For he, the crownèd Son, + Has left his crown and throne, + Walks earth in Adam's clay, + Eve's snake to bruise and slay-- + + _Zerah._ Walks earth in clay? + + _Ador._ And walking in the clay which he created, + He through it shall touch death. + What do I utter? what conceive? did breath + Of demon howl it in a blasphemy? + Or was it mine own voice, informed, dilated + By the seven confluent Spirits?--Speak--answer me! + + _Who_ said man's victim was his deity? + + _Zerah._ Beloved, beloved, the word came forth from thee. + Thine eyes are rolling a tempestuous light + Above, below, around, + As putting thunder-questions without cloud, + Reverberate without sound, + To universal nature's depth and height. + The tremor of an inexpressive thought + Too self-amazed to shape itself aloud, + O'erruns the awful curving of thy lips; + And while thine hands are stretched above, + As newly they had caught + Some lightning from the Throne, or showed the Lord + Some retributive sword, + Thy brows do alternate with wild eclipse + And radiance, with contrasted wrath and love, + As God had called thee to a seraph's part, + With a man's quailing heart. + + _Ador._ O heart--O heart of man! + O ta'en from human clay + To be no seraph's but Jehovah's own! + Made holy in the taking, + And yet unseparate + From death's perpetual ban, + And human feelings sad and passionate: + Still subject to the treacherous forsaking + Of other hearts, and its own steadfast pain. + O heart of man--of God! which God has ta'en + From out the dust, with its humanity + Mournful and weak yet innocent around it, + And bade its many pulses beating lie + Beside that incommunicable stir + Of Deity wherewith he interwound it. + O man! and is thy nature so defiled + That all that holy Heart's devout law-keeping, + And low pathetic beat in deserts wild, + And gushings pitiful of tender weeping + For traitors who consigned it to such woe-- + That all could cleanse thee not, without the flow + Of blood, the life-blood--_His_--and streaming _so_? + O earth the thundercleft, windshaken, where + The louder voice of "blood and blood" doth rise, + Hast thou an altar for this sacrifice? + O heaven! O vacant throne! + O crownèd hierarchies that wear your crown + When His is put away! + Are ye unshamèd that ye cannot dim + Your alien brightness to be liker him, + Assume a human passion, and down-lay + Your sweet secureness for congenial fears, + And teach your cloudless ever-burning eyes + The mystery of his tears? + + _Zerah._ I am strong, I am strong. + Were I never to see my heaven again, + I would wheel to earth like the tempest rain + Which sweeps there with an exultant sound + To lose its life as it reaches the ground. + I am strong, I am strong. + Away from mine inward vision swim + The shining seats of my heavenly birth, + I see but his, I see but him-- + The Maker's steps on his cruel earth. + Will the bitter herbs of earth grow sweet + To me, as trodden by his feet? + Will the vexed, accurst humanity, + As worn by him, begin to be + A blessed, yea, a sacred thing + For love and awe and ministering? + I am strong, I am strong. + By our angel ken shall we survey + His loving smile through his woeful clay? + I am swift, I am strong, + The love is bearing me along. + + _Ador._ One love is bearing us along. + + +PART THE SECOND. + +_Mid-air, above Judæa. ADOR and ZERAH are a little apart from the +visible Angelic Hosts._ + + _Ador._ Beloved! dost thou see?-- + + _Zerah._ Thee,--thee. + Thy burning eyes already are + Grown wild and mournful as a star + Whose occupation is for aye + To look upon the place of clay + Whereon thou lookest now. + The crown is fainting on thy brow + To the likeness of a cloud, + The forehead's self a little bowed + From its aspect high and holy, + As it would in meekness meet + Some seraphic melancholy: + Thy very wings that lately flung + An outline clear, do flicker here + And wear to each a shadow hung, + Dropped across thy feet. + In these strange contrasting glooms + Stagnant with the scent of tombs, + Seraph faces, O my brother, + Show awfully to one another. + + _Ador._ Dost thou see? + + _Zerah._ Even so; I see + Our empyreal company, + Alone the memory of their brightness + Left in them, as in thee. + The circle upon circle, tier on tier, + Piling earth's hemisphere + With heavenly infiniteness, + Above us and around, + Straining the whole horizon like a bow: + Their songful lips divorcèd from all sound, + A darkness gliding down their silvery glances,-- + Bowing their steadfast solemn countenances + As if they heard God speak, and could not glow. + + _Ador._ Look downward! dost thou see? + + _Zerah._ And wouldst thou press _that_ vision on my words? + Doth not earth speak enough + Of change and of undoing, + Without a seraph's witness? Oceans rough + With tempest, pastoral swards + Displaced by fiery deserts, mountains ruing + The bolt fallen yesterday, + That shake their piny heads, as who would say + "We are too beautiful for our decay"-- + Shall seraphs speak of these things? Let alone + Earth to her earthly moan! + + _Voice of all things._ Is there no moan but hers? + + _Ador._ Hearest thou the attestation + Of the rousèd universe + Like a desert-lion shaking + Dews of silence from its mane? + With an irrepressive passion + Uprising at once, + Rising up and forsaking + Its solemn state in the circle of suns, + To attest the pain + Of him who stands (O patience sweet!) + In his own hand-prints of creation, + With human feet? + + _Voice of all things._ Is there no moan but ours? + + _Zerah._ Forms, Spaces, Motions wide, + O meek, insensate things, + O congregated matters! who inherit, + Instead of vital powers, + Impulsions God-supplied; + Instead of influent spirit, + A clear informing beauty; + Instead of creature-duty, + Submission calm as rest. + Lights, without feet or wings, + In golden courses sliding! + Glooms, stagnantly subsiding, + Whose lustrous heart away was prest + Into the argent stars! + Ye crystal firmamental bars + That hold the skyey waters free + From tide or tempest's ecstasy! + Airs universal! thunders lorn + That wait your lightnings in cloud-cave + Hewn out by the winds! O brave + And subtle elements! the Holy + Hath charged me by your voice with folly.[D] + Enough, the mystic arrow leaves its wound. + Return ye to your silences inborn, + Or to your inarticulated sound! + + _Ador._ Zerah! + + _Zerah._ Wilt _thou_ rebuke? + God hath rebuked me, brother. I am weak. + + _Ador._ Zerah, my brother Zerah! could I speak + Of thee, 'twould be of love to thee. + + _Zerah._ Thy look + Is fixed on earth, as mine upon thy face. + Where shall I seek His? + I have thrown + One look upon earth, but one, + Over the blue mountain-lines, + Over the forests of palms and pines, + Over the harvest-lands golden, + Over the valleys that fold in + The gardens and vines-- + He is not there. + All these are unworthy + Those footsteps to bear, + Before which, bowing down + I would fain quench the stars of my crown + In the dark of the earthy. + Where shall I seek him? + No reply? + Hath language left thy lips, to place + Its vocal in thine eye? + Ador, Ador! are we come + To a double portent, that + Dumb matter grows articulate + And songful seraphs dumb? + Ador, Ador! + + _Ador._ I constrain + The passion of my silence. None + Of those places gazed upon + Are gloomy enow to fit his pain. + Unto Him, whose forming word + Gave to Nature flower and sward. + She hath given back again, + For the myrtle--the thorn, + For the sylvan calm--the human scorn. + Still, still, reluctant seraph, gaze beneath! + There is a city---- + + _Zerah._ Temple and tower, + Palace and purple would droop like a flower, + (Or a cloud at our breath) + If He neared in his state + The outermost gate. + + _Ador._ Ah me, not so + In the state of a king did the victim go! + And THOU who hangest mute of speech + 'Twixt heaven and earth, with forehead yet + Stainèd by the bloody sweat, + God! man! Thou hast forgone thy throne in each. + + _Zerah._ Thine eyes behold him? + + _Ador._ Yea, below. + Track the gazing of mine eyes, + Naming God within thine heart + That its weakness may depart + And the vision rise! + Seest thou yet, beloved? + + _Zerah._ I see + Beyond the city, crosses three + And mortals three that hang thereon + 'Ghast and silent to the sun. + Round them blacken and welter and press + Staring multitudes whose father + Adam was, whose brows are dark + With his Cain's corroded mark,-- + Who curse with looks. Nay--let me rather + Turn unto the wilderness! + + _Ador._ Turn not! God dwells with men. + + _Zerah._ Above + He dwells with angels, and they love. + Can these love? With the living's pride + They stare at those who die, who hang + In their sight and die. They bear the streak + Of the crosses' shadow, black not wide, + To fall on their heads, as it swerves aside + When the victims' pang + Makes the dry wood creak. + + _Ador._ The cross--the cross! + + _Zerah._ A woman kneels + The mid cross under, + With white lips asunder, + And motion on each. + They throb, as she feels, + With a spasm, not a speech; + And her lids, close as sleep, + Are less calm, for the eyes + Have made room there to weep + Drop on drop-- + + _Ador._ Weep? Weep blood, + All women, all men! + He sweated it, He, + For your pale womanhood + And base manhood. Agree + That these water-tears, then, + Are vain, mocking like laughter: + Weep blood! Shall the flood + Of salt curses, whose foam is the darkness, on roll + Forward, on from the strand of the storm-beaten years, + And back from the rocks of the horrid hereafter, + And up, in a coil, from the present's wrath-spring, + Yea, down from the windows of heaven opening, + Deep calling to deep as they meet on His soul-- + And men weep only tears? + + _Zerah._ Little drops in the lapse! + And yet, Ador, perhaps + It is all that they can. + Tears! the lovingest man + Has no better bestowed + Upon man. + + _Ador._ Nor on God. + + _Zerah._ Do all-givers need gifts? + If the Giver said "Give," the first motion would slay + Our Immortals, the echo would ruin away + The same worlds which he made. Why, what angel uplifts + Such a music, so clear, + It may seem in God's ear + Worth more than a woman's hoarse weeping? And thus, + Pity tender as tears, I above thee would speak, + Thou woman that weepest! weep unscorned of us! + I, the tearless and pure, am but loving and weak. + + _Ador._ Speak low, my brother, low,--and not of love + Or human or angelic! Rather stand + Before the throne of that Supreme above, + In whose infinitude the secrecies + Of thine own being lie hid, and lift thine hand + Exultant, saying, "Lord God, I am wise!"-- + Than utter _here_, "I love." + + _Zerah._ And yet thine eyes + Do utter it. They melt in tender light, + The tears of heaven. + + _Ador._ Of heaven. Ah me! + + _Zerah._ Ador! + + _Ador._ Say on! + + _Zerah._ The crucified are three. + Beloved, they are unlike. + + _Ador._ Unlike. + + _Zerah._ For one + Is as a man who has sinned and still + Doth wear the wicked will, + The hard malign life-energy, + Tossed outward, in the parting soul's disdain, + On brow and lip that cannot change again. + + _Ador._ And one-- + + _Zerah._ Has also sinned. + And yet (O marvel!) doth the Spirit-wind + Blow white those waters? Death upon his face + Is rather shine than shade, + A tender shine by looks beloved made: + He seemeth dying in a quiet place, + And less by iron wounds in hands and feet + Than heart-broke by new joy too sudden and sweet. + + _Ador._ And ONE!-- + + _Zerah._ And ONE!-- + + _Ador._ Why dost thou pause? + + _Zerah._ God! God! + Spirit of my spirit! who movest + Through seraph veins in burning deity + To light the quenchless pulses!-- + + _Ador._ But hast trod + The depths of love in thy peculiar nature, + And not in any thou hast made and lovest + In narrow seraph hearts!-- + + _Zerah._ Above, Creator! + Within, Upholder! + + _Ador._ And below, below, + The creature's and the upholden's sacrifice! + + _Zerah._ Why do I pause?-- + + _Ador._ There is a silentness + That answers thee enow, + That, like a brazen sound + Excluding others, doth ensheathe us round,-- + Hear it. It is not from the visible skies + Though they are still, + Unconscious that their own dropped dews express + The light of heaven on every earthly hill. + It is not from the hills, though calm and bare + They, since their first creation, + Through midnight cloud or morning's glittering air + Or the deep deluge blindness, toward the place + Whence thrilled the mystic word's creative grace, + And whence again shall come + The word that uncreates, + Have lift their brows in voiceless expectation. + It is not from the places that entomb + Man's dead, though common Silence there dilates + Her soul to grand proportions, worthily + To fill life's vacant room. + Not there: not there. + Not yet within those chambers lieth He, + A dead one in his living world; his south + And west winds blowing over earth and sea, + And not a breath on that creating mouth. + But now,--a silence keeps + (Not death's, nor sleep's) + The lips whose whispered word + Might roll the thunders round reverberated. + Silent art thou, O my Lord, + Bowing down thy stricken head! + Fearest thou, a groan of thine + Would make the pulse of thy creation fail + As thine own pulse?--would rend the veil + Of visible things and let the flood + Of the unseen Light, the essential God, + Rush in to whelm the undivine? + Thy silence, to my thinking, is as dread. + + _Zerah._ O silence! + + _Ador._ Doth it say to thee--the NAME, + Slow-learning seraph? + + _Zerah._ I have learnt. + + _Ador._ The flame + Perishes in thine eyes. + + _Zerah._ He opened his, + And looked. I cannot bear-- + + _Ador._ Their agony? + + _Zerah._ Their love. God's depth is in them. From his brows + White, terrible in meekness, didst thou see + The lifted eyes unclose? + He is God, seraph! Look no more on me, + O God--I am not God. + + _Ador._ The loving is + Sublimed within them by the sorrowful. + In heaven we could sustain them. + + _Zerah._ Heaven is dull, + Mine Ador, to man's earth. The light that burns + In fluent, refluent motion + Along the crystal ocean; + The springing of the golden harps between + The bowery wings, in fountains of sweet sound, + The winding, wandering music that returns + Upon itself, exultingly self-bound + In the great spheric round + Of everlasting praises; + The God-thoughts in our midst that intervene, + Visibly flashing from the supreme throne + Full in seraphic faces + Till each astonishes the other, grown + More beautiful with worship and delight-- + My heaven! my home of heaven! my infinite + Heaven-choirs! what are ye to this dust and death, + This cloud, this cold, these tears, this failing breath, + Where God's immortal love now issueth + In this MAN'S woe? + + _Ador._ His eyes are very deep yet calm. + + _Zerah._ No more + On _me_, Jehovah-man-- + + _Ador._ Calm-deep. They show + A passion which is tranquil. They are seeing + No earth, no heaven, no men that slay and curse, + No seraphs that adore; + Their gaze is on the invisible, the dread, + The things we cannot view or think or speak, + Because we are too happy, or too weak,-- + The sea of ill, for which the universe, + With all its pilèd space, can find no shore, + With all its life, no living foot to tread. + But he, accomplished in Jehovah-being, + Sustains the gaze adown, + Conceives the vast despair, + And feels the billowy griefs come up to drown, + Nor fears, nor faints, nor fails, till all be finished. + + _Zerah._ Thus, do I find Thee thus? My undiminished + And undiminishable God!--my God! + The echoes are still tremulous along + The heavenly mountains, of the latest song + Thy manifested glory swept abroad + In rushing past our lips: they echo aye + "Creator, thou art strong! + Creator, thou art blessed over all." + By what new utterance shall I now recall, + Unteaching the heaven-echoes? Dare I say, + "Creator, thou art feebler than thy work! + Creator, thou art sadder than thy creature! + A worm, and not a man, + Yea, no worm, but a curse?" + I dare not so mine heavenly phrase reverse. + Albeit the piercing thorn and thistle-fork + (Whose seed disordered ran + From Eve's hand trembling when the curse did reach her) + Be garnered darklier in thy soul, the rod + That smites thee never blossoming, and thou + Grief-bearer for thy world, with unkinged brow-- + I leave to men their song of Ichabod: + I have an angel-tongue--I know but praise. + + _Ador._ Hereafter shall the blood-bought captives raise + The passion-song of blood. + + _Zerah._ And _we_, extend + Our holy vacant hands towards the Throne, + Crying "We have no music." + + _Ador._ Rather, blend + Both musics into one. + The sanctities and sanctified above + Shall each to each, with lifted looks serene, + Their shining faces lean, + And mix the adoring breath + And breathe the full thanksgiving. + + _Zerah._ But the love-- + The love, mine Ador! + + _Ador._ Do we love not? + + _Zerah._ Yea, + But not as man shall! not with life for death, + New-throbbing through the startled being; not + With strange astonished smiles, that ever may + Gush passionate like tears and fill their place: + Nor yet with speechless memories of what + Earth's winters were, enverduring the green + Of every heavenly palm + Whose windless, shadeless calm + Moves only at the breath of the Unseen. + Oh, not with this blood on us--and this face,-- + Still, haply, pale with sorrow that it bore + In our behalf, and tender evermore + With nature all our own, upon us gazing-- + Nor yet with these forgiving hands upraising + Their unreproachful wounds, alone to bless! + Alas, Creator! shall we love thee less + Than mortals shall? + + _Ador._ Amen! so let it be. + We love in our proportion, to the bound + Thine infinite our finite set around, + And that is finitely,--thou, infinite + And worthy infinite love! And our delight + Is, watching the dear love poured out to thee + From ever fuller chalice. Blessed they, + Who love thee more than we do: blessed we, + Viewing that love which shall exceed even this, + And winning in the sight a double bliss + For all so lost in love's supremacy. + The bliss is better. Only on the sad + Cold earth there are who say + It seemeth better to be great than glad. + The bliss is better. Love him more, O man, + Than sinless seraphs can! + + _Zerah._ Yea, love him more! + + _Voices of the Angelic Multitude._ Yea, more! + + _Ador._ The loving word + Is caught by those from whom we stand apart. + For silence hath no deepness in her heart + Where love's low name low breathed would not be heard + By angels, clear as thunder. + + _Angelic Voices._ Love him more! + + _Ador._ Sweet voices, swooning o'er + The music which ye make! + Albeit to love there were not ever given + A mournful sound when uttered out of heaven, + That angel-sadness ye would fitly take. + Of love be silent now! we gaze adown + Upon the incarnate Love who wears no crown. + _Zerah._ No crown! the woe instead + Is heavy on his head, + Pressing inward on his brain + With a hot and clinging pain + Till all tears are prest away, + And clear and calm his vision may + Peruse the black abyss. + No rod, no sceptre is + Holden in his fingers pale; + They close instead upon the nail, + Concealing the sharp dole, + Never stirring to put by + The fair hair peaked with blood, + Drooping forward from the rood + Helplessly, heavily + On the cheek that waxeth colder, + Whiter ever, and the shoulder + Where the government was laid. + His glory made the heavens afraid; + Will he not unearth this cross from its hole? + His pity makes his piteous state; + Will he be uncompassionate + Alone to his proper soul? + Yea, will he not lift up + His lips from the bitter cup, + His brows from the dreary weight, + His hand from the clenching cross, + Crying, "My Father, give to me + Again the joy I had with thee + Or ere this earth was made for loss? + No stir no sound. + The love and woe being interwound + He cleaveth to the woe; + And putteth forth heaven's strength below, + To bear. + + _Ador._ And that creates his anguish now, + Which made his glory there. + + _Zerah._ Shall it need be so? + Awake, thou Earth! behold. + Thou, uttered forth of old + In all thy life-emotion, + In all thy vernal noises, + In the rollings of thine ocean, + Leaping founts, and rivers running,-- + In thy woods' prophetic heaving + Ere the rains a stroke have given, + In thy winds' exultant voices + When they feel the hills anear,-- + In the firmamental sunning, + And the tempest which rejoices + Thy full heart with an awful cheer. + Thou, uttered forth of old + And with all thy music rolled + In a breath abroad + By the breathing God,-- + Awake! He is here! behold! + Even _thou_-- + beseems it good + To thy vacant vision dim, + That the deadly ruin should, + For thy sake, encompass him? + That the Master-word should lie + A mere silence, while his own + Processive harmony, + The faintest echo of his lightest tone, + Is sweeping in a choral triumph by? + Awake! emit a cry! + And say, albeit used + From Adam's ancient years + To falls of acrid tears, + To frequent sighs unloosed, + Caught back to press again + On bosoms zoned with pain-- + To corses still and sullen + The shine and music dulling + With closèd eyes and ears + That nothing sweet can enter, + Commoving thee no less + With that forced quietness + Than the earthquake in thy centre-- + Thou hast not learnt to bear + This new divine despair! + These tears that sink into thee, + These dying eyes that view thee, + This dropping blood from lifted rood, + They darken and undo thee. + Thou canst not presently sustain this corse-- + Cry, cry, thou hast not force! + Cry, thou wouldst fainer keep + Thy hopeless charnels deep, + Thyself a general tomb + Where the first and the second Death + Sit gazing face to face + And mar each other's breath, + While silent bones through all the place + 'Neath sun and moon do faintly glisten + And seem to lie and listen + For the tramp of the coming Doom. + Is it not meet + That they who erst the Eden fruit did eat, + Should champ the ashes? + That they who wrap them in the thunder-cloud + Should wear it as a shroud, + Perishing by its flashes? + That they who vexed the lion should be rent? + Cry, cry "I will sustain my punishment, + The sin being mine; but take away from me + This visioned Dread--this man--this Deity!" + + _The Earth._ I have groaned; I have travailed: I am weary. + I am blind with my own grief, and cannot see, + As clear-eyed angels can, his agony, + And what I see I also can sustain, + Because his power protects me from his pain. + I have groaned; I have travailed: I am dreary, + Hearkening the thick sobs of my children's heart: + How can I say "Depart" + To that Atoner making calm and free? + Am I a God as he, + To lay down peace and power as willingly? + + _Ador._ He looked for some to pity. There is none. + All pity is within him and not for him. + His earth is iron under him, and o'er him + His skies are brass. + His seraphs cry "Alas!" + With hallelujah voice that cannot weep. + And man, for whom the dreadful work is done ... + + _Scornful Voices from the Earth_. If verily this _be_ the Eternal's son-- + + _Ador._ Thou hearest. Man is grateful. + + _Zerah._ Can I hear + Nor darken into man and cease for ever + My seraph-smile to wear? + Was it for such, + It pleased him to overleap + His glory with his love and sever + From the God-light and the throne + And all angels bowing down, + For whom his every look did touch + New notes of joy on the unworn string + Of an eternal worshipping? + For such, he left his heaven? + There, though never bought by blood + And tears, we gave him gratitude: + We loved him there, though unforgiven. + + _Ador._ The light is riven + Above, around, + And down in lurid fragments flung, + That catch the mountain-peak and stream + With momentary gleam, + Then perish in the water and the ground. + River and waterfall, + Forest and wilderness, + Mountain and city, are together wrung + Into one shape, and that is shapelessness; + The darkness stands for all. + + _Zerah._ The pathos hath the day undone: + The death-look of His eyes + Hath overcome the sun + And made it sicken in its narrow skies. + + _Ador._ Is it to death? He dieth. + + _Zerah._ Through the dark + He still, he only, is discernible-- + The naked hands and feet transfixèd stark, + The countenance of patient anguish white, + Do make themselves a light + More dreadful than the glooms which round them dwell, + And therein do they shine. + + _Ador._ God! Father-God! + Perpetual Radiance on the radiant throne! + Uplift the lids of inward deity, + Flashing abroad + Thy burning Infinite! + Light up this dark where there is nought to see + Except the unimagined agony + Upon the sinless forehead of the Son! + + _Zerah._ God, tarry not! Behold, enow + Hath he wandered as a stranger, + Sorrowed as a victim. Thou + Appear for him, O Father! + Appear for him, Avenger! + Appear for him, just One and holy One, + For he is holy and just! + At once the darkness and dishonour rather + To the ragged jaws of hungry chaos rake, + And hurl aback to ancient dust + These mortals that make blasphemies + With their made breath, this earth and skies + That only grow a little dim, + Seeing their curse on him. + But him, of all forsaken, + Of creature and of brother, + Never wilt thou forsake! + Thy living and thy loving cannot slacken + Their firm essential hold upon each other, + And well thou dost remember how his part + Was still to lie upon thy breast and be + Partaker of the light that dwelt in thee + Ere sun or seraph shone; + And how while silence trembled round the throne + Thou countedst by the beatings of his heart + The moments of thine own eternity. + Awaken, + O right hand with the lightnings! Again gather + His glory to thy glory! What estranger, + What ill supreme in evil, can be thrust + Between the faithful Father and the Son? + Appear for him, O Father! + Appear for him, Avenger! + Appear for him, just One and holy One, + For he is holy and just! + + _Ador._ Thy face upturned toward the throne is dark; + Thou hast no answer, Zerah. + + _Zerah._ No reply, + O unforsaking Father? + + _Ador._ Hark! + Instead of downward voice, a cry + Is uttered from beneath. + + _Zerah._ And by a sharper sound than death, + Mine immortality is riven. + The heavy darkness which doth tent the sky + Floats backward as by a sudden wind: + But I see no light behind, + But I feel the farthest stars are all + Stricken and shaken, + And I know a shadow sad and broad + Doth fall--doth fall + On our vacant thrones in heaven. + + _Voice from the Cross._ MY GOD, MY GOD, + WHY HAST THOU ME FORSAKEN? + + _The Earth._ Ah me, ah me, ah me! the dreadful Why! + My sin is on thee, sinless one! Thou art + God-orphaned, for my burden on thy head. + Dark sin, white innocence, endurance dread! + Be still, within your shrouds, my buried dead; + Nor work with this quick horror round mine heart. + + _Zerah._ _He_ hath forsaken _him_. I perish. + + _Ador._ Hold + Upon his name! we perish not. Of old + His will-- + + _Zerah._ I seek his will. Seek, seraphim! + My God, my God! where is it? Doth that curse + Reverberate spare us, seraph or universe? + _He_ hath forsaken _him_. + + _Ador._ He cannot fail. + + _Angel Voices._ We faint, we droop, + Our love doth tremble like fear. + + _Voices of Fallen Angels from the Earth._ Do we prevail? + Or are we lost? Hath not the ill we did + Been heretofore our good? + Is it not ill that one, all sinless, should + Hang heavy with all curses on a cross? + Nathless, that cry! With huddled faces hid + Within the empty graves which men did scoop + To hold more damnèd dead, we shudder through + What shall exalt us or undo, + Our triumph, or our loss. + + _Voice from the Cross._ IT IS FINISHED. + + _Zerah._ Hark, again! + Like a victor, speaks the slain. + + _Angel Voices._ Finished be the trembling vain! + + _Ador._ Upward, like a well-loved son, + Looketh he, the orphaned one. + + _Angel Voices._ Finished is the mystic pain. + + _Voices of Fallen Angels._ His deathly forehead at the word, + Gleameth like a seraph sword. + + _Angel Voices._ Finished is the demon reign. + + _Ador._ His breath, as living God, createth, + His breath, as dying man, completeth. + + _Angel Voices._ Finished work his hands sustain. + + _The Earth._ In mine ancient sepulchres + Where my kings and prophets freeze, + Adam dead four thousand years, + Unwakened by the universe's + Everlasting moan, + Aye his ghastly silence mocking-- + Unwakened by his children's knocking + At his old sepulchral stone, + "Adam, Adam, all this curse is + Thine and on us yet!"-- + Unwakened by the ceaseless tears + Wherewith they made his cerement wet, + "Adam, must thy curse remain?"-- + Starts with sudden life and hears + Through the slow dripping of the caverned caves,-- + + _Angel Voices._ Finished is his bane. + + _Voice from the Cross._ FATHER! MY SPIRIT TO THINE HANDS IS GIVEN. + + _Ador._ Hear the wailing winds that be + By wings of unclean spirits made! + They, in that last look, surveyed + The love they lost in losing heaven, + And passionately flee + With a desolate cry that cleaves + The natural storms--though _they_ are lifting + God's strong cedar-roots like leaves, + And the earthquake and the thunder, + Neither keeping either under, + Roar and hurtle through the glooms-- + And a few pale stars are drifting + Past the dark, to disappear, + What time, from the splitting tombs + Gleamingly the dead arise, + Viewing with their death-calmed eyes + The elemental strategies, + To witness, victory is the Lord's. + Hear the wail o' the spirits! hear! + + _Zerah._ I hear alone the memory of his words. + + +EPILOGUE. + + + I. + + My song is done. + My voice that long hath faltered shall be still. + The mystic darkness drops from Calvary's hill + Into the common light of this day's sun. + + + II. + + I see no more thy cross, O holy Slain! + I hear no more the horror and the coil + Of the great world's turmoil + Feeling thy countenance _too still_,--nor yell + Of demons sweeping past it to their prison. + The skies that turned to darkness with thy pain + Make now a summer's day; + And on my changèd ear that sabbath bell + Records how CHRIST IS RISEN. + + + III. + + And I--ah! what am I + To counterfeit, with faculty earth-darkened, + Seraphic brows of light + And seraph language never used nor hearkened? + Ah me! what word that seraphs say, could come + From mouth so used to sighs, so soon to lie + Sighless, because then breathless, in the tomb? + + + IV. + + Bright ministers of God and grace--of grace + Because of God! whether ye bow adown + In your own heaven, before the living face + Of him who died and deathless wears the crown, + Or whether at this hour ye haply are + Anear, around me, hiding in the night + Of this permitted ignorance your light, + This feebleness to spare,-- + Forgive me, that mine earthly heart should dare + Shape images of unincarnate spirits + And lay upon their burning lips a thought + Cold with the weeping which mine earth inherits. + And though ye find in such hoarse music, wrought + To copy yours, a cadence all the while + Of sin and sorrow--only pitying smile! + Ye know to pity, well. + + + V. + + _I_ too may haply smile another day + At the far recollection of this lay, + When God may call me in your midst to dwell, + To hear your most sweet music's miracle + And see your wondrous faces. May it be! + For his remembered sake, the Slain on rood, + Who rolled his earthly garment red in blood + (Treading the wine-press) that the weak, like me, + Before his heavenly throne should walk in white. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[D] "His angels he charged with folly."--_Job_ iv. 18. + + + + +PROMETHEUS BOUND + +FROM THE GREEK OF ÆSCHYLUS + + +_PERSONS._ + + PROMETHEUS. + + OCEANUS. + + HERMES. + + HEPHÆSTUS. + + IO, _daughter of_ Inachus. + + STRENGTH _and_ FORCE. + + _Chorus of Sea Nymphs._ + + + + +PROMETHEUS BOUND + + +SCENE.--_STRENGTH and FORCE, HEPHÆSTUS and PROMETHEUS, at the +Rocks._ + + _Strength._ We reach the utmost limit of the earth, + The Scythian track, the desert without man. + And now, Hephæstus, thou must needs fulfil + The mandate of our Father, and with links + Indissoluble of adamantine chains + Fasten against this beetling precipice + This guilty god. Because he filched away + Thine own bright flower, the glory of plastic fire, + And gifted mortals with it,--such a sin + It doth behove he expiate to the gods, + Learning to accept the empery of Zeus + And leave off his old trick of loving man. + + _Hephæstus._ O Strength and Force, for you, our Zeus's will + Presents a deed for doing, no more!--but _I_, + I lack your daring, up this storm-rent chasm + To fix with violent hands a kindred god, + Howbeit necessity compels me so + That I must dare it, and our Zeus commands + With a most inevitable word. Ho, thou! + High-thoughted son of Themis who is sage! + Thee loth, I loth must rivet fast in chains + Against this rocky height unclomb by man, + Where never human voice nor face shall find + Out thee who lov'st them, and thy beauty's flower, + Scorched in the sun's clear heat, shall fade away. + Night shall come up with garniture of stars + To comfort thee with shadow, and the sun + Disperse with retrickt beams the morning-frosts, + But through all changes sense of present woe + Shall vex thee sore, because with none of them + There comes a hand to free. Such fruit is plucked + From love of man! and in that thou, a god, + Didst brave the wrath of gods and give away + Undue respect to mortals, for that crime + Thou art adjudged to guard this joyless rock, + Erect, unslumbering, bending not the knee, + And many a cry and unavailing moan + To utter on the air. For Zeus is stern + And new-made kings are cruel. + + _Strength._ Be it so. + Why loiter in vain pity? Why not hate + A god the gods hate? one too who betrayed + Thy glory unto men? + + _Hephæstus._ An awful thing + Is kinship joined to friendship. + + _Strength._ Grant it be; + Is disobedience to the Father's word + A possible thing? Dost quail not more for that? + + _Hephæstus._ Thou, at least, art a stern one: ever bold. + + _Strength._ Why, if I wept, it were no remedy; + And do not _thou_ spend labour on the air + To bootless uses. + + _Hephæstus._ Cursed handicraft! + I curse and hate thee, O my craft! + + _Strength._ Why hate + Thy craft most plainly innocent of all + These pending ills? + + _Hephæstus._ I would some other hand + Were here to work it! + + _Strength._ All work hath its pain, + Except to rule the gods. There is none free + Except King Zeus. + + _Hephæstus._ I know it very well: + I argue not against it. + + _Strength._ Why not, then, + Make haste and lock the fetters over HIM + Lest Zeus behold thee lagging? + + _Hephæstus._ Here be chains. + Zeus may behold these. + + _Strength._ Seize him: strike amain: + Strike with the hammer on each side his hands-- + Rivet him to the rock. + + _Hephæstus._ The work is done, + And thoroughly done. + + _Strength._ Still faster grapple him; + Wedge him in deeper: leave no inch to stir. + He's terrible for finding a way out + From the irremediable. + + _Hephæstus._ Here's an arm, at least, + Grappled past freeing. + + _Strength._ Now then, buckle me + The other securely. Let this wise one learn + He's duller than our Zeus. + + _Hephæstus._ Oh, none but he + Accuse me justly. + + _Strength._ Now, straight through the chest, + Take him and bite him with the clenching tooth + Of the adamantine wedge, and rivet him. + + _Hephæstus._ Alas, Prometheus, what thou sufferest here + I sorrow over. + + _Strength._ Dost thou flinch again + And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus? + Beware lest thine own pity find thee out. + + _Hephæstus._ Thou dost behold a spectacle that turns + The sight o' the eyes to pity. + + _Strength._ I behold + A sinner suffer his sin's penalty. + But lash the thongs about his sides. + + _Hephæstus._ So much, + I must do. Urge no farther than I must. + + _Strength._ Ay, but I _will_ urge!--and, with shout on shout, + Will hound thee at this quarry. Get thee down + And ring amain the iron round his legs. + + _Hephæstus._ That work was not long doing. + + _Strength._ Heavily now + Let fall the strokes upon the perforant gyves: + For He who rates the work has a heavy hand. + + _Hephæstus._ Thy speech is savage as thy shape. + + _Strength._ Be thou + Gentle and tender! but revile not me + For the firm will and the untruckling hate. + + _Hephæstus._ Let us go. He is netted round with chains. + + _Strength._ Here, now, taunt on! and having spoiled the gods + Of honours, crown withal thy mortal men + Who live a whole day out. Why how could _they_ + Draw off from thee one single of thy griefs? + Methinks the Dæmons gave thee a wrong name, + "Prometheus," which means Providence,--because + Thou dost thyself need providence to see + Thy roll and ruin from the top of doom. + + _Prometheus (alone)._ O holy Æther, and swift-wingèd Winds, + And River-wells, and laughter innumerous + Of yon sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, + And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,-- + Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods! + Behold, with throe on throe, + How, wasted by this woe, + I wrestle down the myriad years of time! + Behold, how fast around me, + The new King of the happy ones sublime + Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! + Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's + I cover with one groan. And where is found me + A limit to these sorrows? + And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown + Clearly all things that should be; nothing done + Comes sudden to my soul; and I must bear + What is ordained with patience, being aware + Necessity doth front the universe + With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse + Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave + In silence or in speech. Because I gave + Honour to mortals, I have yoked my soul + To this compelling fate. Because I stole + The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went + Over the ferule's brim, and manward sent + Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment, + That sin I expiate in this agony, + Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky. + Ah, ah me! what a sound, + What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen + Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between, + Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, + To have sight of my pangs or some guerdon obtain. + Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! + The god, Zeus hateth sore + And his gods hate again, + As many as tread on his glorified floor, + Because I loved mortals too much evermore. + Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear, + As of birds flying near! + And the air undersings + The light stroke of their wings-- + And all life that approaches I wait for in fear. + + _Chorus of Sea Nymphs, 1st Strophe._ + Fear nothing! our troop + Floats lovingly up + With a quick-oaring stroke + Of wings steered to the rock, + Having softened the soul of our father below. + For the gales of swift-bearing have sent me a sound, + And the clank of the iron, the malleted blow, + Smote down the profound + Of my caverns of old, + And struck the red light in a blush from my brow,-- + Till I sprang up unsandaled, in haste to behold, + And rushed forth on my chariot of wings manifold. + + _Prometheus._ Alas me!--alas me! + Ye offspring of Tethys who bore at her breast + Many children, and eke of Oceanus, he + Coiling still around earth with perpetual unrest! + Behold me and see + How transfixed with the fang + Of a fetter I hang + On the high-jutting rocks of this fissure and keep + An uncoveted watch o'er the world and the deep. + + _Chorus, 1st Antistrophe._ + I behold thee, Prometheus; yet now, yet now, + A terrible cloud whose rain is tears + Sweeps over mine eyes that witness how + Thy body appears + Hung awaste on the rocks by infrangible chains: + For new is the Hand, new the rudder that steers + The ship of Olympus through surge and wind-- + And of old things passed, no track is behind. + + _Prometheus._ Under earth, under Hades + Where the home of the shade is, + All into the deep, deep Tartarus, + I would he had hurled me adown. + I would he had plunged me, fastened thus + In the knotted chain with the savage clang, + All into the dark where there should be none, + Neither god nor another, to laugh and see. + But now the winds sing through and shake + The hurtling chains wherein I hang, + And I, in my naked sorrows, make + Much mirth for my enemy. + + _Chorus, 2nd Strophe._ + Nay! who of the gods hath a heart so stern + As to use thy woe for a mock and mirth? + Who would not turn more mild to learn + Thy sorrows? who of the heaven and earth + Save Zeus? But he + Right wrathfully + Bears on his sceptral soul unbent + And rules thereby the heavenly seed, + Nor will he pause till he content + His thirsty heart in a finished deed; + Or till Another shall appear, + To win by fraud, to seize by fear + The hard-to-be-captured government. + + _Prometheus._ Yet even of _me_ he shall have need, + That monarch of the blessed seed, + Of me, of me, who now am cursed + By his fetters dire,-- + To wring my secret out withal + And learn by whom his sceptre shall + Be filched from him--as was, at first, + His heavenly fire. + But he never shall enchant me + With his honey-lipped persuasion; + Never, never shall he daunt me + With the oath and threat of passion + Into speaking as they want me, + Till he loose this savage chain, + And accept the expiation + Of my sorrow, in his pain. + + _Chorus, 2nd Antistrophe._ + Thou art, sooth, a brave god, + And, for all thou hast borne + From the stroke of the rod, + Nought relaxest from scorn. + But thou speakest unto me + Too free and unworn; + And a terror strikes through me + And festers my soul + And I fear, in the roll + Of the storm, for thy fate + In the ship far from shore: + Since the son of Saturnus is hard in his hate + And unmoved in his heart evermore. + + _Prometheus._ I know that Zeus is stern; + I know he metes his justice by his will; + And yet, his soul shall learn + More softness when once broken by this ill: + And curbing his unconquerable vaunt + He shall rush on in fear to meet with me + Who rush to meet with him in agony, + To issues of harmonious covenant. + + _Chorus._ Remove the veil from all things and relate + The story to us,--of what crime accused, + Zeus smites thee with dishonourable pangs. + Speak: if to teach us do not grieve thyself. + + _Prometheus._ The utterance of these things is torture to me, + But so, too, is their silence; each way lies + Woe strong as fate. + When gods began with wrath, + And war rose up between their starry brows, + Some choosing to cast Chronos from his throne + That Zeus might king it there, and some in haste + With opposite oaths that they would have no Zeus + To rule the gods for ever,--I, who brought + The counsel I thought meetest, could not move + The Titans, children of the Heaven and Earth, + What time, disdaining in their rugged souls + My subtle machinations, they assumed + It was an easy thing for force to take + The mastery of fate. My mother, then, + Who is called not only Themis but Earth too, + (Her single beauty joys in many names) + Did teach me with reiterant prophecy + What future should be, and how conquering gods + Should not prevail by strength and violence + But by guile only. When I told them so, + They would not deign to contemplate the truth + On all sides round; whereat I deemed it best + To lead my willing mother upwardly + And set my Themis face to face with Zeus + As willing to receive her. Tartarus, + With its abysmal cloister of the Dark, + Because I gave that counsel, covers up + The antique Chronos and his siding hosts, + And, by that counsel helped, the king of gods + Hath recompensed me with these bitter pangs: + For kingship wears a cancer at the heart,-- + Distrust in friendship. Do ye also ask + What crime it is for which he tortures me? + That shall be clear before you. When at first + He filled his father's throne, he instantly + Made various gifts of glory to the gods + And dealt the empire out. Alone of men, + Of miserable men, he took no count, + But yearned to sweep their track off from the world + And plant a newer race there. Not a god + Resisted such desire except myself. + _I_ dared it! _I_ drew mortals back to light, + From meditated ruin deep as hell! + For which wrong, I am bent down in these pangs + Dreadful to suffer, mournful to behold, + And I, who pitied man, am thought myself + Unworthy of pity; while I render out + Deep rhythms of anguish 'neath the harping hand + That strikes me thus--a sight to shame your Zeus! + + _Chorus._ Hard as thy chains and cold as all these rocks + Is he, Prometheus, who withholds his heart + + From joining in thy woe. I yearned before + To fly this sight; and, now I gaze on it, + I sicken inwards. + + _Prometheus._ To my friends, indeed, + I must be a sad sight. + + _Chorus._ And didst thou sin + No more than so? + + _Prometheus._ I did restrain besides + My mortals from premeditating death. + + _Chorus._ How didst thou medicine the plague-fear of death? + + _Prometheus._ I set blind Hopes to inhabit in their house. + + _Chorus._ By that gift thou didst help thy mortals well. + + _Prometheus._ I gave them also fire. + + _Chorus._ And have they now, + Those creatures of a day, the red-eyed fire? + + _Prometheus._ They have: and shall learn by it many arts. + + _Chorus._ And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee + And will remit no anguish? Is there set + No limit before thee to thine agony? + + _Prometheus._ No other: only what seems good to HIM. + + _Chorus._ And how will it seem good? what hope remains? + Seest thou not that thou hast sinned? But that thou hast sinned + It glads me not to speak of, and grieves thee: + Then let it pass from both, and seek thyself + Some outlet from distress. + + _Prometheus._ It is in truth + An easy thing to stand aloof from pain + And lavish exhortation and advice + On one vexed sorely by it. I have known + All in prevision. By my choice, my choice, + I freely sinned--I will confess my sin-- + And helping mortals, found my own despair. + I did not think indeed that I should pine + Beneath such pangs against such skyey rocks, + Doomed to this drear hill and no neighbouring + Of any life: but mourn not ye for griefs + I bear to-day: hear rather, dropping down + To the plain, how other woes creep on to me, + And learn the consummation of my doom. + Beseech you, nymphs, beseech you, grieve for me + Who now am grieving; for Grief walks the earth, + And sits down at the foot of each by turns. + + _Chorus._ We hear the deep clash of thy words, + Prometheus, and obey. + And I spring with a rapid foot away + From the rushing car and the holy air, + The track of birds; + And I drop to the rugged ground and there + Await the tale of thy despair. + +_OCEANUS enters._ + + _Oceanus._ I reach the bourn of my weary road + Where I may see and answer thee, + Prometheus, in thine agony. + On the back of the quick-winged bird I glode, + And I bridled him in + With the will of a god. + Behold, thy sorrow aches in me + Constrained by the force of kin. + Nay, though that tie were all undone, + For the life of none beneath the sun + Would I seek a larger benison + Than I seek for thine. + And thou shalt learn my words are truth,-- + That no fair parlance of the mouth + Grows falsely out of mine. + Now give me a deed to prove my faith; + For no faster friend is named in breath + Than I, Oceanus, am thine. + + _Prometheus._ Ha! what has brought thee? Hast thou also come + To look upon my woe? How hast thou dared + To leave the depths called after thee, the caves + Self-hewn and self-roofed with spontaneous rock, + To visit earth, the mother of my chain? + Hast come indeed to view my doom and mourn + That I should sorrow thus? Gaze on, and see + How I, the fast friend of your Zeus,--how I + The erector of the empire in his hand, + Am bent beneath that hand, in this despair. + + _Oceanus._ Prometheus, I behold: and I would fain + Exhort thee, though already subtle enough, + To a better wisdom. Titan, know thyself, + And take new softness to thy manners since + A new king rules the gods. If words like these, + Harsh words and trenchant, thou wilt fling abroad, + Zeus haply, though he sit so far and high, + May hear thee do it, and so, this wrath of his + Which now affects thee fiercely, shall appear + A mere child's sport at vengeance. Wretched god, + Rather dismiss the passion which thou hast, + And seek a change from grief. Perhaps I seem + To address thee with old saws and outworn sense,-- + Yet such a curse, Prometheus, surely waits + On lips that speak too proudly: thou, meantime, + Art none the meeker, nor dost yield a jot + To evil circumstance, preparing still + To swell the account of grief with other griefs + Than what are borne. Beseech thee, use me then + For counsel: do not spurn against the pricks,-- + Seeing that who reigns, reigns by cruelty + Instead of right. And now, I go from hence, + And will endeavour if a power of mine + Can break thy fetters through. For thee,--be calm, + And smooth thy words from passion. Knowest thou not + Of perfect knowledge, thou who knowest too much, + That where the tongue wags, ruin never lags? + + _Prometheus._ I gratulate thee who hast shared and dared + All things with me, except their penalty. + Enough so! leave these thoughts. It cannot be + That thou shouldst move HIM. HE may _not_ be moved; + And _thou_ beware of sorrow on this road. + + _Oceanus._ Ay! ever wiser for another's use + Than thine! the event, and not the prophecy, + Attests it to me. Yet where now I rush, + Thy wisdom hath no power to drag me back; + Because I glory, glory, to go hence + And win for thee deliverance from thy pangs, + As a free gift from Zeus. + + _Prometheus._ Why there, again, + I give thee gratulation and applause. + Thou lackest no goodwill. But, as for deeds, + Do nought! 'twere all done vainly; helping nought, + Whatever thou wouldst do. Rather take rest + And keep thyself from evil. If I grieve, + I do not therefore wish to multiply + The griefs of others. Verily, not so! + For still my brother's doom doth vex my soul,-- + My brother Atlas, standing in the west, + Shouldering the column of the heaven and earth, + A difficult burden! I have also seen, + And pitied as I saw, the earth-born one, + The inhabitant of old Cilician caves, + The great war-monster of the hundred heads, + (All taken and bowed beneath the violent Hand,) + Typhon the fierce, who did resist the gods, + And, hissing slaughter from his dreadful jaws, + Flash out ferocious glory from his eyes + As if to storm the throne of Zeus. Whereat, + The sleepless arrow of Zeus flew straight at him, + The headlong bolt of thunder breathing flame, + And struck him downward from his eminence + Of exultation; through the very soul, + It struck him, and his strength was withered up + To ashes, thunder-blasted. Now he lies + A helpless trunk supinely, at full length + Beside the strait of ocean, spurred into + By roots of Ætna; high upon whose tops + Hephæstus sits and strikes the flashing ore. + From thence the rivers of fire shall burst away + Hereafter, and devour with savage jaws + The equal plains of fruitful Sicily, + Such passion he shall boil back in hot darts + Of an insatiate fury and sough of flame, + Fallen Typhon,--howsoever struck and charred + By Zeus's bolted thunder. But for thee, + Thou art not so unlearned as to need + My teaching--let thy knowledge save thyself. + _I_ quaff the full cup of a present doom, + And wait till Zeus hath quenched his will in wrath. + + _Oceanus._ Prometheus, art thou ignorant of this, + That words do medicine anger? + + _Prometheus._ If the word + With seasonable softness touch the soul + And, where the parts are ulcerous, sear them not + By any rudeness. + + _Oceanus._ With a noble aim + To dare as nobly--is there harm in _that_? + Dost thou discern it? Teach me. + + _Prometheus._ I discern + Vain aspiration, unresultive work. + + _Oceanus._ Then suffer me to bear the brunt of this! + Since it is profitable that one who is wise + Should seem not wise at all. + + _Prometheus._ And such would seem + My very crime. + + _Oceanus._ In truth thine argument + Sends me back home. + + _Prometheus._ Lest any lament for me + Should cast thee down to hate. + + _Oceanus._ The hate of him + Who sits a new king on the absolute throne? + + _Prometheus._ Beware of him, lest thine heart grieve by him. + + _Oceanus._ Thy doom, Prometheus, be my teacher! + + _Prometheus._ Go. + Depart--beware--and keep the mind thou hast. + + _Oceanus._ Thy words drive after, as I rush before. + Lo! my four-footed bird sweeps smooth and wide + The flats of air with balanced pinions, glad + To bend his knee at home in the ocean-stall. + +[_OCEANUS departs._ + + _Chorus, 1st Strophe._ + I moan thy fate, I moan for thee, + Prometheus! From my eyes too tender, + Drop after drop incessantly + The tears of my heart's pity render + My cheeks wet from their fountains free; + Because that Zeus, the stern and cold, + Whose law is taken from his breast, + Uplifts his sceptre manifest + Over the gods of old. + + _1st Antistrophe._ + All the land is moaning + With a murmured plaint to-day; + All the mortal nations + Having habitations + In the holy Asia + Are a dirge entoning + For thine honour and thy brothers', + Once majestic beyond others + In the old belief,-- + Now are groaning in the groaning + Of thy deep-voiced grief. + + _2nd Strophe._ + Mourn the maids inhabitant + Of the Colchian land, + Who with white, calm bosoms stand + In the battle's roar: + Mourn the Scythian tribes that haunt + The verge of earth, Mæotis' shore. + + _2nd Antistrophe._ + Yea! Arabia's battle-crown, + And dwellers in the beetling town + Mount Caucasus sublimely nears,-- + An iron squadron, thundering down + With the sharp-prowed spears. + + But one other before, have I seen to remain + By invincible pain + Bound and vanquished,--one Titan! 'twas Atlas, who bears + In a curse from the gods, by that strength of his own + Which he evermore wears, + The weight of the heaven on his shoulder alone, + While he sighs up the stars; + And the tides of the ocean wail bursting their bars,-- + Murmurs still the profound, + And black Hades roars up through the chasm of the ground, + And the fountains of pure-running rivers moan low + In a pathos of woe. + + _Prometheus._ Beseech you, think not I am silent thus + Through pride or scorn. I only gnaw my heart + With meditation, seeing myself so wronged. + For see--their honours to these new-made gods, + What other gave but I, and dealt them out + With distribution? Ay--but here I am dumb! + For here, I should repeat your knowledge to you, + If I spake aught. List rather to the deeds + I did for mortals; how, being fools before, + I made them wise and true in aim of soul. + And let me tell you--not as taunting men, + But teaching you the intention of my gifts, + How, first beholding, they beheld in vain, + And hearing, heard not, but, like shapes in dreams, + Mixed all things wildly down the tedious time, + Nor knew to build a house against the sun + With wickered sides, nor any woodcraft knew, + But lived, like silly ants, beneath the ground + In hollow caves unsunned. There, came to them + No steadfast sign of winter, nor of spring + Flower-perfumed, nor of summer full of fruit, + But blindly and lawlessly they did all things, + Until I taught them how the stars do rise + And set in mystery, and devised for them + Number, the inducer of philosophies, + The synthesis of Letters, and, beside, + The artificer of all things, Memory, + That sweet Muse-mother. I was first to yoke + The servile beasts in couples, carrying + An heirdom of man's burdens on their backs. + I joined to chariots, steeds, that love the bit + They champ at--the chief pomp of golden ease. + And none but I originated ships, + The seaman's chariots, wandering on the brine + With linen wings. And I--oh, miserable!-- + Who did devise for mortals all these arts, + Have no device left now to save myself + From the woe I suffer. + + _Chorus._ Most unseemly woe + Thou sufferest, and dost stagger from the sense + Bewildered! like a bad leech falling sick + Thou art faint at soul, and canst not find the drugs + Required to save thyself. + + _Prometheus._ Hearken the rest, + And marvel further, what more arts and means + I did invent,--this, greatest: if a man + Fell sick, there was no cure, nor esculent + Nor chrism nor liquid, but for lack of drugs + Men pined and wasted, till I showed them all + Those mixtures of emollient remedies + Whereby they might be rescued from disease. + I fixed the various rules of mantic art, + Discerned the vision from the common dream, + Instructed them in vocal auguries + Hard to interpret, and defined as plain + The wayside omens,--flights of crook-clawed birds,-- + Showed which are, by their nature, fortunate, + And which not so, and what the food of each, + And what the hates, affections, social needs, + Of all to one another,--taught what sign + Of visceral lightness, coloured to a shade, + May charm the genial gods, and what fair spots + Commend the lung and liver. Burning so + The limbs encased in fat, and the long chine, + I led my mortals on to an art abstruse, + And cleared their eyes to the image in the fire, + Erst filmed in dark. Enough said now of this + For the other helps of man hid underground, + The iron and the brass, silver and gold, + Can any dare affirm he found them out + Before me? none, I know! unless he choose + To lie in his vaunt. In one word learn the whole,-- + That all arts came to mortals from Prometheus. + + _Chorus._ Give mortals now no inexpedient help, + Neglecting thine own sorrow. I have hope still + To see thee, breaking from the fetter here, + Stand up as strong as Zeus. + + _Prometheus._ This ends not thus, + The oracular fate ordains. I must be bowed + By infinite woes and pangs, to escape this chain + Necessity is stronger than mine art. + + _Chorus._ Who holds the helm of that Necessity? + + _Prometheus._ The threefold Fates and the unforgetting Furies. + + _Chorus._ Is Zeus less absolute than these are? + + _Prometheus._ Yea, + And therefore cannot fly what is ordained. + + _Chorus._ What is ordained for Zeus, except to be + A king for ever? + + _Prometheus._ 'Tis too early yet + For thee to learn it: ask no more. + + _Chorus._ Perhaps + Thy secret may be something holy? + + _Prometheus._ Turn + To another matter: this, it is not time + To speak abroad, but utterly to veil + In silence. For by that same secret kept, + I 'scape this chain's dishonour and its woe. + + _Chorus, 1st Strophe._ + Never, oh never + May Zeus, the all-giver, + Wrestle down from his throne + In that might of his own + To antagonize mine! + Nor let me delay + As I bend on my way + Toward the gods of the shrine + Where the altar is full + Of the blood of the bull, + Near the tossing brine + Of Ocean my father. + May no sin be sped in the word that is said, + But my vow be rather + Consummated, + Nor evermore fail, nor evermore pine. + + _1st Antistrophe._ + 'Tis sweet to have + Life lengthened out + With hopes proved brave + By the very doubt, + Till the spirit enfold + Those manifest joys which were foretold. + But I thrill to behold + Thee, victim doomed, + By the countless cares + And the drear despairs + Forever consumed,-- + And all because thou, who art fearless now + Of Zeus above, + Didst overflow for mankind below + With a free-souled, reverent love. + Ah friend, behold and see! + What's all the beauty of humanity? + Can it be fair? + What's all the strength? is it strong? + And what hope can they bear, + These dying livers--living one day long? + Ah, seest thou not, my friend, + How feeble and slow + And like a dream, doth go + This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end? + And how no mortal wranglings can confuse + The harmony of Zeus? + + Prometheus, I have learnt these things + From the sorrow in thy face. + Another song did fold its wings + Upon my lips in other days, + When round the bath and round the bed + The hymeneal chant instead + I sang for thee, and smiled,-- + And thou didst lead, with gifts and vows, + Hesione, my father's child, + To be thy wedded spouse. + +_IO enters_. + + _Io._ What land is this? what people is here? + And who is he that writhes, I see, + In the rock-hung chain? + Now what is the crime that hath brought thee to pain? + Now what is the land--make answer free-- + Which I wander through, in my wrong and fear? + Ah! ah! ah me! + The gad-fly strength to agony! + O Earth, keep off that phantasm pale + Of earth-born Argus!--ah!--I quail + When my soul descries + That herdsman with the myriad eyes + Which seem, as he comes, one crafty eye + Graves hide him not, though he should die, + But he doggeth me in my misery + From the roots of death, on high--on high-- + And along the sands of the siding deep, + All famine-worn, he follows me, + And his waxen reed doth undersound + The waters round + And giveth a measure that giveth sleep. + + Woe, woe, woe! + Where shall my weary course be done? + What wouldst thou with me, Saturn's son? + And in what have I sinned, that I should go + Thus yoked to grief by thine hand for ever? + Ah! ah! dost vex me so + That I madden and shiver + Stung through with dread? + Flash the fire down to burn me! + Heave the earth up to cover me! + Plunge me in the deep, with the salt waves over me, + That the sea-beasts may be fed! + O king, do not spurn me + In my prayer! + For this wandering everlonger, evermore, + Hath overworn me, + And I know not on what shore + I may rest from my despair. + + _Chorus._ Hearest thou what the ox-horned maiden saith? + + _Prometheus._ How could I choose but hearken what she saith, + The phrensied maiden?--Inachus's child?-- + Who love-warms Zeus's heart, and now is lashed + By Herè's hate along the unending ways? + + _Io._ Who taught thee to articulate that name,-- + My father's? Speak to his child + By grief and shame defiled! + Who art thou, victim, thou who dost acclaim + Mine anguish in true words on the wide air, + And callest too by name the curse that came + From Herè unaware, + To waste and pierce me with its maddening goad? + Ah--ah--I leap + With the pang of the hungry--I bound on the road-- + I am driven by my doom-- + I am overcome + By the wrath of an enemy strong and deep! + Are any of those who have tasted pain, + Alas! as wretched as I? + Now tell me plain, doth aught remain + For my soul to endure beneath the sky? + Is there any help to be holpen by? + If knowledge be in thee, let it be said! + Cry aloud--cry + To the wandering, woful maid! + + _Prometheus._ Whatever thou wouldst learn I will declare,-- + No riddle upon my lips, but such straight words + As friends should use to each other when they talk. + Thou seest Prometheus, who gave mortals fire. + + _Io._ O common Help of all men, known of all, + O miserable Prometheus,--for what cause + Dost thou endure thus? + + _Prometheus._ I have done with wail + For my own griefs, but lately. + + _Io._ Wilt thou not + Vouchsafe the boon to me? + + _Prometheus._ Say what thou wilt, + For I vouchsafe all. + + _Io._ Speak then, and reveal + Who shut thee in this chasm. + + _Prometheus._ The will of Zeus, + The hand of his Hephæstus. + + _Io._ And what crime + Dost expiate so? + + _Prometheus._ Enough for thee I have told + In so much only. + + _Io._ Nay, but show besides + The limit of my wandering, and the time + Which yet is lacking to fulfil my grief. + + _Prometheus._ Why, not to know were better than to know + For such as thou. + + _Io._ Beseech thee, blind me not + To that which I must suffer. + + _Prometheus._ If I do, + The reason is not that I grudge a boon. + + _Io._ What reason, then, prevents thy speaking out? + + _Prometheus._ No grudging; but a fear to break thine heart. + + _Io._ Less care for me, I pray thee. Certainty + I count for advantage. + + _Prometheus._ Thou wilt have it so, + And therefore I must speak. Now hear-- + + _Chorus._ Not yet. + Give half the guerdon my way. Let us learn + First, what the curse is that befell the maid,-- + Her own voice telling her own wasting woes: + The sequence of that anguish shall await + The teaching of thy lips. + + _Prometheus._ It doth behove + That thou, Maid Io, shouldst vouchsafe to these + The grace they pray,--the more, because they are called + Thy father's sisters: since to open out + And mourn out grief where it is possible + To draw a tear from the audience, is a work + That pays its own price well. + + _Io._ I cannot choose + But trust you, nymphs, and tell you all ye ask, + In clear words--though I sob amid my speech + In speaking of the storm-curse sent from Zeus, + And of my beauty, from what height it took + Its swoop on me, poor wretch! left thus deformed + And monstrous to your eyes. For evermore + Around my virgin-chamber, wandering went + The nightly visions which entreated me + With syllabled smooth sweetness.--"Blessed maid, + Why lengthen out thy maiden hours when fate + Permits the noblest spousal in the world? + When Zeus burns with the arrow of thy love + And fain would touch thy beauty?--Maiden, thou + Despise not Zeus! depart to Lerné's mead + That's green around thy father's flocks and stalls, + Until the passion of the heavenly Eye + Be quenched in sight." Such dreams did all night long + Constrain me--me, unhappy!--till I dared + To tell my father how they trod the dark + With visionary steps. Whereat he sent + His frequent heralds to the Pythian fane, + And also to Dodona, and inquired + How best, by act or speech, to please the gods. + The same returning brought back oracles + Of doubtful sense, indefinite response, + Dark to interpret; but at last there came + To Inachus an answer that was clear, + Thrown straight as any bolt, and spoken out-- + This--"he should drive me from my home and land + And bid me wander to the extreme verge + Of all the earth--or, if he willed it not, + Should have a thunder with a fiery eye + Leap straight from Zeus to burn up all his race + To the last root of it." By which Loxian word + Subdued, he drove me forth and shut me out, + He loth, me loth,--but Zeus's violent bit + Compelled him to the deed: when instantly + My body and soul were changèd and distraught, + And, hornèd as ye see, and spurred along + By the fanged insect, with a maniac leap + I rushed on to Cenchrea's limpid stream + And Lerné's fountain-water. There, the earth-born, + The herdsman Argus, most immitigable + Of wrath, did find me out, and track me out + With countless eyes set staring at my steps: + And though an unexpected sudden doom + Drew him from life, I, curse-tormented still, + Am driven from land to land before the scourge + The gods hold o'er me. So thou hast heard the past, + And if a bitter future thou canst tell, + Speak on. I charge thee, do not flatter me + Through pity, with false words; for, in my mind, + Deceiving works more shame than torturing doth. + + _Chorus._ + Ah! silence here! + Nevermore, nevermore + Would I languish for + The stranger's word + To thrill in mine ear-- + Nevermore for the wrong and the woe and the fear + So hard to behold, + So cruel to bear, + Piercing my soul with a double-edged sword + Of a sliding cold. + Ah Fate! ah me! + I shudder to see + This wandering maid in her agony. + + _Prometheus._ Grief is too quick in thee and fear too full: + Be patient till thou hast learnt the rest. + + _Chorus._ Speak: teach + To those who are sad already, it seems sweet, + By clear foreknowledge to make perfect, pain. + + _Prometheus._ The boon ye asked me first was lightly won,-- + For first ye asked the story of this maid's grief + As her own lips might tell it. Now remains + To list what other sorrows she so young + Must bear from Herè. Inachus's child, + O thou! drop down thy soul my weighty words, + And measure out the landmarks which are set + To end thy wandering. Toward the orient sun + First turn thy face from mine and journey on + Along the desert flats till thou shalt come + Where Scythia's shepherd peoples dwell aloft, + Perched in wheeled waggons under woven roofs, + And twang the rapid arrow past the bow-- + Approach them not; but siding in thy course + The rugged shore-rocks resonant to the sea, + Depart that country. On the left hand dwell + The iron-workers, called the Chalybes, + Of whom beware, for certes they are uncouth + And nowise bland to strangers. Reaching so + The stream Hybristes (well the _scorner_ called), + Attempt no passage,--it is hard to pass,-- + Or ere thou come to Caucasus itself, + That highest of mountains, where the river leaps + The precipice in his strength. Thou must toil up + Those mountain-tops that neighbour with the stars, + And tread the south way, and draw near, at last, + The Amazonian host that hateth man, + Inhabitants of Themiscyra, close + Upon Thermodon, where the sea's rough jaw + Doth gnash at Salmydessa and provide + A cruel host to seamen, and to ships + A stepdame. They with unreluctant hand + Shall lead thee on and on, till thou arrive + Just where the ocean-gates show narrowest + On the Cimmerian isthmus. Leaving which, + Behoves thee swim with fortitude of soul + The strait Mæotis. Ay, and evermore + That traverse shall be famous on men's lips, + That strait, called Bosphorus, the horned-one's road, + So named because of thee, who so wilt pass + From Europe's plain to Asia's continent. + How think ye, nymphs? the king of gods appears + Impartial in ferocious deeds? Behold! + The god desirous of this mortal's love + Hath cursed her with these wanderings. Ah, fair child, + Thou hast met a bitter groom for bridal troth! + For all thou yet hast heard can only prove + The incompleted prelude of thy doom. + + _Io._ Ah, ah! + + _Prometheus._ Is 't thy turn, now, to shriek and moan? + How wilt thou, when thou hast hearkened what remains? + + _Chorus._ Besides the grief thou hast told can aught remain? + + _Prometheus._ A sea--of foredoomed evil worked to storm. + + _Io._ What boots my life, then? why not cast myself + Down headlong from this miserable rock, + That, dashed against the flats, I may redeem + My soul from sorrow? Better once to die + Than day by day to suffer. + + _Prometheus._ Verily, + It would be hard for thee to bear my woe + For whom it is appointed not to die. + Death frees from woe: but I before me see + In all my far prevision not a bound + To all I suffer, ere that Zeus shall fall + From being a king. + + _Io._ And can it ever be + That Zeus shall fall from empire? + + _Prometheus._ _Thou_, methinks, + Wouldst take some joy to see it. + + _Io._ Could I choose? + _I_ who endure such pangs now, by that god! + + _Prometheus._ Learn from me, therefore, that the event shall be. + + _Io._ By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand + Be emptied so? + + _Prometheus._ Himself shall spoil himself, + Through his idiotic counsels. + + _Io._ How? declare: + Unless the word bring evil. + + _Prometheus._ He shall wed; + And in the marriage-bond be joined to grief. + + _Io._ A heavenly bride--or human? Speak it out + If it be utterable. + + _Prometheus._ Why should I say which? + It ought not to be uttered, verily. + + _Io._ Then + It is his wife shall tear him from his throne? + + _Prometheus._ It is his wife shall bear a son to him, + More mighty than the father. + + _Io._ From this doom + Hath he no refuge? + + _Prometheus._ None: or ere that I, + Loosed from these fetters-- + + _Io._ Yea--but who shall loose + While Zeus is adverse? + + _Prometheus._ One who is born of thee: + It is ordained so. + + _Io._ What is this thou sayest? + A son of mine shall liberate thee from woe? + + _Prometheus._ After ten generations, count three more, + And find him in the third. + + _Io._ The oracle + Remains obscure. + + _Prometheus._ And search it not, to learn + Thine own griefs from it. + + _Io._ Point me not to a good, + To leave me straight bereaved. + + _Prometheus._ I am prepared + To grant thee one of two things. + + _Io._ But which two? + Set them before me; grant me power to choose. + + _Prometheus._ I grant it, choose now: shall I name aloud + What griefs remain to wound thee, or what hand + Shall save me out of mine? + + _Chorus._ Vouchsafe, O god, + The one grace of the twain to her who prays; + The next to me; and turn back neither prayer + Dishonour'd by denial. To herself + Recount the future wandering of her feet; + Then point me to the looser of thy chain, + Because I yearn to know him. + + _Prometheus._ Since ye will, + Of absolute will, this knowledge, I will set + No contrary against it, nor keep back + A word of all ye ask for. Io, first + To thee I must relate thy wandering course + Far winding. As I tell it, write it down + In thy soul's book of memories. When thou hast past + The refluent bound that parts two continents, + Track on the footsteps of the orient sun + In his own fire, across the roar of seas,-- + Fly till thou hast reached the Gorgonæan flats + Beside Cisthené. There, the Phorcides, + Three ancient maidens, live, with shape of swan, + One tooth between them, and one common eye: + On whom the sun doth never look at all + With all his rays, nor evermore the moon + When she looks through the night. Anear to whom + Are the Gorgon sisters three, enclothed with wings, + With twisted snakes for ringlets, man-abhorred: + There is no mortal gazes in their face + And gazing can breathe on. I speak of such + To guard thee from their horror. Ay, and list + Another tale of a dreadful sight; beware + The Griffins, those unbarking dogs of Zeus, + Those sharp-mouthed dogs!--and the Arimaspian host + Of one-eyed horsemen, habiting beside + The river of Pluto that runs bright with gold: + Approach them not, beseech thee! Presently + Thou'lt come to a distant land, a dusky tribe + Of dwellers at the fountain of the Sun, + Whence flows the river Æthiops; wind along + Its banks and turn off at the cataracts, + Just as the Nile pours from the Bybline hills + His holy and sweet wave; his course shall guide + Thine own to that triangular Nile-ground + Where, Io, is ordained for thee and thine + A lengthened exile. Have I said in this + Aught darkly or incompletely?--now repeat + The question, make the knowledge fuller! Lo, + I have more leisure than I covet, here. + + _Chorus._ If thou canst tell us aught that's left untold, + Or loosely told, of her most dreary flight, + Declare it straight: but if thou hast uttered all, + Grant us that latter grace for which we prayed, + Remembering how we prayed it. + + _Prometheus._ She has heard + The uttermost of her wandering. There it ends. + But that she may be certain not to have heard + All vainly, I will speak what she endured + Ere coming hither, and invoke the past + To prove my prescience true. And so--to leave + A multitude of words and pass at once + To the subject of thy course--when thou hadst gone + To those Molossian plains which sweep around + Dodona shouldering Heaven, whereby the fane + Of Zeus Thesprotian keepeth oracle, + And, wonder past belief, where oaks do wave + Articulate adjurations--(ay, the same + Saluted thee in no perplexèd phrase + But clear with glory, noble wife of Zeus + That shouldst be,--there some sweetness took thy sense!) + Thou didst rush further onward, stung along + The ocean-shore, toward Rhea's mighty bay + And, tost back from it, wast tost to it again + In stormy evolution:--and, know well, + In coming time that hollow of the sea + Shall bear the name Ionian and present + A monument of Io's passage through + Unto all mortals. Be these words the signs + Of my soul's power to look beyond the veil + Of visible things. The rest, to you and her + I will declare in common audience, nymphs, + Returning thither where my speech brake off. + There is a town Canobus, built upon + The earth's fair margin at the mouth of Nile + And on the mound washed up by it; Io, there + Shall Zeus give back to thee thy perfect mind, + And only by the pressure and the touch + Of a hand not terrible; and thou to Zeus + Shalt bear a dusky son who shall be called + Thence, Epaphus, _Touched_. That son shall pluck the fruit + Of all that land wide-watered by the flow + Of Nile; but after him, when counting out + As far as the fifth full generation, then + Full fifty maidens, a fair woman-race, + Shall back to Argos turn reluctantly, + To fly the proffered nuptials of their kin, + Their father's brothers. These being passion struck, + Like falcons bearing hard on flying doves, + Shall follow, hunting at a quarry of love + They should not hunt; till envious Heaven maintain + A curse betwixt that beauty and their desire, + And Greece receive them, to be overcome + In murtherous woman-war, by fierce red hands + Kept savage by the night. For every wife + Shall slay a husband, dyeing deep in blood + The sword of a double edge--(I wish indeed + As fair a marriage-joy to all my foes!) + One bride alone shall fail to smite to death + The head upon her pillow, touched with love, + Made impotent of purpose and impelled + To choose the lesser evil,--shame on her cheeks, + Than blood-guilt on her hands: which bride shall bear + A royal race in Argos. Tedious speech + Were needed to relate particulars + Of these things; 'tis enough that from her seed + Shall spring the strong He, famous with the bow, + Whose arm shall break my fetters off. Behold, + My mother Themis, that old Titaness, + Delivered to me such an oracle,-- + But how and when, I should be long to speak, + And thou, in hearing, wouldst not gain at all. + + _Io._ Eleleu, eleleu! + How the spasm and the pain + And the fire on the brain + Strike, burning me through! + How the sting of the curse, all aflame as it flew, + Pricks me onward again! + How my heart in its terror is spurning my breast, + And my eyes, like the wheels of a chariot, roll round! + I am whirled from my course, to the east, to the west, + In the whirlwind of phrensy all madly inwound-- + And my mouth is unbridled for anguish and hate, + And my words beat in vain, in wild storms of unrest, + On the sea of my desolate fate. + +[_IO rushes out._ + + _Chorus.--Strophe._ + Oh, wise was he, oh, wise was he + Who first within his spirit knew + And with his tongue declared it true + That love comes best that comes unto + The equal of degree! + And that the poor and that the low + Should seek no love from those above, + Whose souls are fluttered with the flow + Of airs about their golden height, + Or proud because they see arow + Ancestral crowns of light. + + _Antistrophe._ + Oh, never, never may ye, Fates, + Behold me with your awful eyes + Lift mine too fondly up the skies + Where Zeus upon the purple waits! + Nor let me step too near--too near + To any suitor, bright from heaven: + Because I see, because I fear + This loveless maiden vexed and laden + By this fell curse of Heré, driven + On wanderings dread and drear. + + _Epode._ + Nay, grant an equal troth instead + Of nuptial love, to bind me by! + It will not hurt, I shall not dread + To meet it in reply. + But let not love from those above + Revert and fix me, as I said, + With that inevitable Eye! + I have no sword to fight that fight, + I have no strength to tread that path, + I know not if my nature hath + The power to bear, I cannot see + Whither from Zeus's infinite + I have the power to flee. + + _Prometheus._ Yet Zeus, albeit most absolute of will, + Shall turn to meekness,--such a marriage-rite + He holds in preparation, which anon + Shall thrust him headlong from his gerent seat + Adown the abysmal void, and so the curse + His father Chronos muttered in his fall, + As he fell from his ancient throne and cursed, + Shall be accomplished wholly. No escape + From all that ruin shall the filial Zeus + Find granted to him from any of his gods, + Unless I teach him. I the refuge know, + And I, the means. Now, therefore, let him sit + And brave the imminent doom, and fix his faith + On his supernal noises, hurtling on + With restless hand the bolt that breathes out fire; + For these things shall not help him, none of them, + Nor hinder his perdition when he falls + To shame, and lower than patience: such a foe + He doth himself prepare against himself, + A wonder of unconquerable hate, + An organizer of sublimer fire + Than glares in lightnings, and of grander sound + Than aught the thunder rolls, out-thundering it, + With power to shatter in Poseidon's fist + The trident-spear which, while it plagues the sea, + Doth shake the shores around it. Ay, and Zeus, + Precipitated thus, shall learn at length + The difference betwixt rule and servitude. + + _Chorus._ Thou makest threats for Zeus of thy desires. + + _Prometheus._ I tell you, all these things shall be fulfilled. + Even so as I desire them. + + _Chorus._ Must we then + Look out for one shall come to master Zeus? + + _Prometheus._ These chains weigh lighter than his sorrows shall. + + _Chorus._ How art thou not afraid to utter such words? + + _Prometheus._ What should _I_ fear who cannot die? + + _Chorus._ But _he_ + Can visit thee with dreader woe than death's. + + _Prometheus._ Why, let him do it! I am here, prepared + For all things and their pangs. + + _Chorus._ The wise are they + Who reverence Adrasteia. + + _Prometheus._ Reverence thou, + Adore thou, flatter thou, whomever reigns, + Whenever reigning! but for me, your Zeus + Is less than nothing. Let him act and reign + His brief hour out according to his will-- + He will not, therefore, rule the gods too long. + But lo! I see that courier-god of Zeus, + That new-made menial of the new-crowned king: + He doubtless comes to announce to us something new. + +_HERMES enters._ + + _Hermes._ I speak to thee, the sophist, the talker-down + Of scorn by scorn, the sinner against gods, + The reverencer of men, the thief of fire,-- + I speak to thee and adjure thee! Zeus requires + Thy declaration of what marriage-rite + Thus moves thy vaunt and shall hereafter cause + His fall from empire. Do not wrap thy speech + In riddles, but speak clearly! Never cast + Ambiguous paths, Prometheus, for my feet, + Since Zeus, thou mayst perceive, is scarcely won + To mercy by such means. + + _Prometheus._ A speech well-mouthed + In the utterance, and full-minded in the sense, + As doth befit a servant of the gods! + New gods, ye newly reign, and think forsooth + Ye dwell in towers too high for any dart + To carry a wound there!--have I not stood by + While two kings fell from thence? and shall I not + Behold the third, the same who rules you now, + Fall, shamed to sudden ruin?--Do I seem + To tremble and quail before your modern gods? + Far be it from me!--For thyself, depart, + Re-tread thy steps in haste. To all thou hast asked + I answer nothing. + + _Hermes._ Such a wind of pride + Impelled thee of yore full-sail upon these rocks. + + _Prometheus._ I would not barter---learn thou soothly that!-- + My suffering for thy service. I maintain + It is a nobler thing to serve these rocks + Than live a faithful slave to father Zeus. + Thus upon scorners I retort their scorn. + + _Hermes._ It seems that thou dost glory in thy despair. + + _Prometheus._ I glory? would my foes did glory so, + And I stood by to see them!--naming whom, + Thou art not unremembered. + + _Hermes._ Dost thou charge + Me also with the blame of thy mischance? + + _Prometheus._ I tell thee I loathe the universal gods, + Who for the good I gave them rendered back + The ill of their injustice. + + _Hermes._ Thou art mad-- + Thou art raving, Titan, at the fever-height. + + _Prometheus._ If it be madness to abhor my foes, + May I be mad! + + _Hermes._ If thou wert prosperous + Thou wouldst be unendurable. + + _Prometheus._ Alas! + + _Hermes._ Zeus knows not that word. + + _Prometheus._ But maturing Time + Teaches all things. + + _Hermes._ Howbeit, thou hast not learnt + The wisdom yet, thou needest. + + _Prometheus._ If I had, + I should not talk thus with a slave like thee. + + _Hermes._ No answer thou vouchsafest, I believe, + To the great Sire's requirement. + + _Prometheus._ Verily + I owe him grateful service,--and should pay it. + + _Hermes._ Why, thou dost mock me, Titan, as I stood + A child before thy face. + + _Prometheus._ No child, forsooth, + But yet more foolish than a foolish child, + If thou expect that I should answer aught + Thy Zeus can ask. No torture from his hand + Nor any machination in the world + Shall force mine utterance ere he loose, himself, + These cankerous fetters from me. For the rest, + Let him now hurl his blanching lightnings down, + And with his white-winged snows and mutterings deep + Of subterranean thunders mix all things, + Confound them in disorder. None of this + Shall bend my sturdy will and make me speak + The name of his dethroner who shall come. + + _Hermes._ Can this avail thee? Look to it! + + _Prometheus._ Long ago + It was looked forward to, precounselled of. + + _Hermes._ Vain god, take righteous courage! dare for once + To apprehend and front thine agonies + With a just prudence. + + _Prometheus._ Vainly dost thou chafe + My soul with exhortation, as yonder sea + Goes beating on the rock. Oh, think no more + That I, fear-struck by Zeus to a woman's mind, + Will supplicate him, loathèd as he is, + With feminine upliftings of my hands, + To break these chains. Far from me be the thought! + + _Hermes._ I have indeed, methinks, said much in vain, + For still thy heart beneath my showers of prayers + Lies dry and hard--nay, leaps like a young horse + Who bites against the new bit in his teeth, + And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein,-- + Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all, + Which sophism is; since absolute will disjoined + From perfect mind is worse than weak. Behold, + Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast + And whirlwind of inevitable woe + Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first + The Father will split up this jut of rock + With the great thunder and the bolted flame + And hide thy body where a hinge of stone + Shall catch it like an arm; and when thou hast passed + A long black time within, thou shalt come out + To front the sun while Zeus's winged hound, + The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down + To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast, + And set his fierce beak in thee and tear off + The long rags of thy flesh and batten deep + Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look + For any end moreover to this curse + Or ere some god appear, to accept thy pangs + On his own head vicarious, and descend + With unreluctant step the darks of hell + And gloomy abysses around Tartarus. + Then ponder this--this threat is not a growth + Of vain invention; it is spoken and meant; + King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, + Consummating the utterance by the act; + So, look to it, thou! take heed, and nevermore + Forget good counsel, to indulge self-will. + + _Chorus._ Our Hermes suits his reasons to the times; + At least I think so, since he bids thee drop + Self-will for prudent counsel. Yield to him! + When the wise err, their wisdom makes their shame. + + _Prometheus._ Unto me the foreknower, this mandate of power + He cries, to reveal it. + What's strange in my fate, if I suffer from hate + At the hour that I feel it? + Let the locks of the lightning, all bristling and whitening, + Flash, coiling me round, + While the æther goes surging 'neath thunder and scourging + Of wild winds unbound! + Let the blast of the firmament whirl from its place + The earth rooted below, + And the brine of the ocean, in rapid emotion, + Be driven in the face + Of the stars up in heaven, as they walk to and fro! + Let him hurl me anon into Tartarus--on-- + To the blackest degree, + With Necessity's vortices strangling me down; + But he cannot join death to a fate meant for _me_! + + _Hermes._ Why, the words that he speaks and the thoughts that he thinks + Are maniacal!--add, + If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links, + He were utterly mad. + Then depart ye who groan with him, + Leaving to moan with him,-- + Go in haste! lest the roar of the thunder anearing + Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing. + + _Chorus._ Change thy speech for another, thy thought for a new, + If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care! + For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true + That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. + How! couldst teach me to venture such vileness? behold! + I _choose_, with this victim, this anguish foretold! + I recoil from the traitor in hate and disdain, + And I know that the curse of the treason is worse + Than the pang of the chain. + + _Hermes._ Then remember, O nymphs, what I tell you before, + Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Até will throw you, + Cast blame on your fate and declare evermore + That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not foreshow you. + Nay, verily, nay! for ye perish anon + For your deed--by your choice. By no blindness of doubt, + No abruptness of doom, but by madness alone, + In the great net of Até, whence none cometh out, + Ye are wound and undone. + + _Prometheus._ Ay! in act now, in word now no more, + Earth is rocking in space. + And the thunders crash up with a roar upon roar, + And the eddying lightnings flash fire in my face, + And the whirlwinds are whirling the dust round and round, + And the blasts of the winds universal leap free + And blow each upon each with a passion of sound, + And æther goes mingling in storm with the sea. + Such a curse on my head, in a manifest dread, + From the hand of your Zeus has been hurtled along. + O my mother's fair glory! O Æther, enringing + All eyes with the sweet common light of thy bringing! + Dost see how I suffer this wrong? + + + + +A LAMENT FOR ADONIS + + +FROM THE GREEK OF BION + + + I. + + I mourn for Adonis--Adonis is dead, + Fair Adonis is dead and the Loves are lamenting. + Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed: + Arise, wretch stoled in black; beat thy breast unrelenting, + And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead!" + + + II. + + I mourn for Adonis--the Loves are lamenting. + He lies on the hills in his beauty and death; + The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white thigh. + Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath, + While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory, + And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his brows, + The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted + The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose, + Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her glad-hearted: + He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews. + + + III. + + I mourn for Adonis--the Loves are lamenting. + Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound, + But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting. + The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, + And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, + And the poor Aphrodité, with tresses unbound, + All dishevelled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrill + Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet, + Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, + Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeat + The sharp cry she utters and draw it out slowly. + She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him + Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, + The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb, + And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy. + + + IV. + + Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting. + She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile: + When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting, + Whose fairness is dead with him: woe worth the while! + All the mountains above and the oaklands below + Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflow + Aphrodité's deep wail; river-fountains in pity + Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow + Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go + With the song of her sadness through mountain and city. + + + V. + + Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead, + Fair Adonis is dead--Echo answers, Adonis: + Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head + She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies? + --When, ah, ah!--she saw how the blood ran away + And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out, + Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay, + Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about + With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss! + Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again, + For the last time, beloved,--and but so much of this + That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain! + --Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, + To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiving + May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth + That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living. + Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far, + My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,-- + To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar, + While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal, + And follow no step! O Persephoné, take him, + My husband!--thou'rt better and brighter than I, + So all beauty flows down to thee: _I_ cannot make him + Look up at my grief; there's despair in my cry, + Since I wail for Adonis who died to me--died to me-- + Then, I fear _thee_!--Art thou dead, my Adored? + Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me, + Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord + All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased + With thy clasp! O too bold in the hunt past preventing, + Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast!" + Thus the goddess wailed on--and the Loves are lamenting. + + + VI. + + Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead. + She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed, + And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close, + Her tears, to the windflower; his blood, to the rose. + + + VII. + + I mourn for Adonis--Adonis is dead. + Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover! + So, well: make a place for his corse in thy bed, + With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over + He's fair though a corse--a fair corse, like a sleeper. + Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold + When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper + Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold. + Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him together + The crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place, + Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither, + Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face. + Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining, + Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept. + Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining, + The Loves raised their voices around him and wept. + They have shorn their bright curls off to cast on Adonis; + One treads on his bow,--on his arrows, another,-- + One breaks up a well-feathered quiver, and one is + Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings, + And one carries the vases of gold from the springs, + While one washes the wound,--and behind them a brother + Fans down on the body sweet air with his wings. + + + VIII. + + Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting + Each torch at the door Hymenæus blew out; + And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repenting, + No more "Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about, + But the _ai ai_ instead--"Ai alas!" is begun + For Adonis, and then follows "Ai Hymenæus!" + The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son, + Sobbing low each to each, "His fair eyes cannot see us!" + Their wail strikes more shrill than the sadder Dioné's. + The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis, + Deep chanting; he hears not a word that they say: + He _would_ hear, but Persephoné has him in keeping. + --Cease moan, Cytherea! leave pomps for to-day, + And weep new when a new year refits thee for weeping. + + + + +A VISION OF POETS + + + O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour, + How may I lightly stile thy great power? + _Echo._ Power. + Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye? + Or liv'st in Heaven? saye. + _Echo._ In Heavens aye. + In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayne + By alms, by fasting, prayer,--by paine? + _Echo._ By paine + Show me the paine, it shall be undergone. + I to mine end will still go on. + _Echo._ Go on. + + _Britannia's Pastorals._ + + + + +A VISION OF POETS. + + + A poet could not sleep aright, + For his soul kept up too much light + Under his eyelids for the night. + + And thus he rose disquieted + With sweet rhymes ringing through his head, + And in the forest wanderèd + + Where, sloping up the darkest glades, + The moon had drawn long colonnades + Upon whose floor the verdure fades + + To a faint silver: pavement fair, + The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dare + To foot-print o'er, had such been there, + + And rather sit by breathlessly, + With fear in their large eyes, to see + The consecrated sight. But HE-- + + The poet who, with spirit-kiss + Familiar, had long claimed for his + Whatever earthly beauty is, + + Who also in his spirit bore + A beauty passing the earth's store,-- + Walked calmly onward evermore. + + His aimless thoughts in metre went, + Like a babe's hand without intent + Drawn down a seven-stringed instrument: + + Nor jarred it with his humour as, + With a faint stirring of the grass, + An apparition fair did pass. + + He might have feared another time, + But all things fair and strange did chime + With his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme. + + An angel had not startled him, + Alighted from heaven's burning rim + To breathe from glory in the Dim; + + Much less a lady riding slow + Upon a palfrey white as snow, + And smooth as a snow-cloud could go. + + Full upon his she turned her face, + "What ho, sir poet! dost thou pace + Our woods at night in ghostly chase + + "Of some fair Dryad of old tales + Who chants between the nightingales + And over sleep by song prevails?" + + She smiled; but he could see arise + Her soul from far adown her eyes, + Prepared as if for sacrifice. + + She looked a queen who seemeth gay + From royal grace alone. "Now, nay," + He answered, "slumber passed away, + + "Compelled by instincts in my head + That I should see to-night, instead + Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread." + + She looked up quickly to the sky + And spake: "The moon's regality + Will hear no praise; She is as I. + + "She is in heaven, and I on earth; + This is my kingdom: I come forth + To crown all poets to their worth." + + He brake in with a voice that mourned; + "To their worth, lady? They are scorned + By men they sing for, till inurned. + + "To their worth? Beauty in the mind + Leaves the hearth cold, and love-refined + Ambitions make the world unkind. + + "The boor who ploughs the daisy down, + The chief whose mortgage of renown, + Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown-- + + "Both these are happier, more approved + Than poets!--why should I be moved + In saying, both are more beloved?" + + "The south can judge not of the north," + She resumed calmly; "I come forth + To crown all poets to their worth. + + "Yea, verily, to anoint them all + With blessed oils which surely shall + Smell sweeter as the ages fall." + + "As sweet," the poet said, and rung + A low sad laugh, "as flowers are, sprung + Out of their graves when they die young; + + "As sweet as window-eglantine, + Some bough of which, as they decline, + The hired nurse gathers at their sign: + + "As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroud + Which the gay Roman maidens sewed + For English Keats, singing aloud." + + The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet! + The things thou namest being complete + In fragrance, as I measure it. + + "Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell + Of him who having lived, dies well; + And wholly sweet the asphodel + + "Stirred softly by that foot of his, + When he treads brave on all that is, + Into the world of souls, from this. + + "Since sweet the tears, dropped at the door + Of tearless Death, and even before: + Sweet, consecrated evermore. + + "What, dost thou judge it a strange thing + That poets, crowned for vanquishing, + Should bear some dust from out the ring? + + "Come on with me, come on with me, + And learn in coming: let me free + Thy spirit into verity." + + She ceased: her palfrey's paces sent + No separate noises as she went; + 'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent. + + And while the poet seemed to tread + Along the drowsy noise so made, + The forest heaved up overhead + + Its billowy foliage through the air, + And the calm stars did far and spare + O'erswim the masses everywhere + + Save when the overtopping pines + Did bar their tremulous light with lines + All fixed and black. Now the moon shines + + A broader glory. You may see + The trees grow rarer presently; + The air blows up more fresh and free: + + Until they come from dark to light, + And from the forest to the sight + Of the large heaven-heart, bare with night, + + A fiery throb in every star, + Those burning arteries that are + The conduits of God's life afar,-- + + A wild brown moorland underneath, + And four pools breaking up the heath + With white low gleamings, blank as death. + + Beside the first pool, near the wood, + A dead tree in set horror stood, + Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood; + + Since thunder-stricken, years ago, + Fixed in the spectral strain and throe + Wherewith it struggled from the blow: + + A monumental tree, alone, + That will not bend in storms, nor groan, + But break off sudden like a stone. + + Its lifeless shadow lies oblique + Upon the pool where, javelin-like, + The star-rays quiver while they strike. + + "Drink," said the lady, very still-- + "Be holy and cold." He did her will + And drank the starry water chill. + + The next pool they came near unto + Was bare of trees; there, only grew + Straight flags, and lilies just a few + + Which sullen on the water sate + And leant their faces on the flat, + As weary of the starlight-state. + + "Drink," said the lady, grave and slow-- + "_World's use_ behoveth thee to know." + He drank the bitter wave below. + + The third pool, girt with thorny bushes + And flaunting weeds and reeds and rushes + That winds sang through in mournful gushes, + + Was whitely smeared in many a round + By a slow slime; the starlight swound + Over the ghastly light it found. + + "Drink," said the lady, sad and slow-- + "_World's love_ behoveth thee to know." + He looked to her commanding so; + + Her brow was troubled, but her eye + Struck clear to his soul. For all reply + He drank the water suddenly,-- + + Then, with a deathly sickness, passed + Beside the fourth pool and the last, + Where weights of shadow were downcast + + From yew and alder and rank trails + Of nightshade clasping the trunk-scales + And flung across the intervals + + From yew to yew: who dares to stoop + Where those dank branches overdroop, + Into his heart the chill strikes up, + + He hears a silent gliding coil, + The snakes strain hard against the soil, + His foot slips in their slimy oil, + + And toads seem crawling on his hand, + And clinging bats but dimly scanned + Full in his face their wings expand. + + A paleness took the poet's cheek: + "Must I drink _here_?" he seemed to seek + The lady's will with utterance meek: + + "Ay, ay," she said, "it so must be;" + (And this time she spake cheerfully) + "Behoves thee know _World's cruelty_." + + He bowed his forehead till his mouth + Curved in the wave, and drank unloth + As if from rivers of the south; + + His lips sobbed through the water rank, + His heart paused in him while he drank, + His brain beat heart-like, rose and sank, + + And he swooned backward to a dream + Wherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam, + With Death and Life at each extreme: + + And spiritual thunders, born of soul + Not cloud, did leap from mystic pole + And o'er him roll and counter-roll, + + Crushing their echoes reboant + With their own wheels. Did Heaven so grant + His spirit a sign of covenant? + + At last came silence. A slow kiss + Did crown his forehead after this; + His eyelids flew back for the bliss-- + + The lady stood beside his head, + Smiling a thought, with hair dispread; + The moonshine seemed dishevellèd + + In her sleek tresses manifold + Like Danaë's in the rain of old + That dripped with melancholy gold: + + But SHE was holy, pale and high + As one who saw an ecstasy + Beyond a foretold agony. + + "Rise up!" said she with voice where song + Eddied through speech, "rise up; be strong: + And learn how right avenges wrong." + + The poet rose up on his feet: + He stood before an altar set + For sacrament with vessels meet + + And mystic altar-lights which shine + As if their flames were crystalline + Carved flames that would not shrink or pine. + + The altar filled the central place + Of a great church, and toward its face + Long aisles did shoot and interlace, + + And from it a continuous mist + Of incense (round the edges kissed + By a yellow light of amethyst) + + Wound upward slowly and throbbingly, + Cloud within cloud, right silverly, + Cloud above cloud, victoriously,-- + + Broke full against the archèd roof + And thence refracting eddied off + And floated through the marble woof + + Of many a fine-wrought architrave, + Then, poising its white masses brave, + Swept solemnly down aisle and nave + + Where, now in dark and now in light, + The countless columns, glimmering white, + Seemed leading out to the Infinite: + + Plunged halfway up the shaft, they showed + In that pale shifting incense-cloud + Which flowed them by and overflowed + + Till mist and marble seemed to blend + And the whole temple, at the end, + With its own incense to distend,-- + + The arches like a giant's bow + To bend and slacken,--and below, + The nichèd saints to come and go: + + Alone amid the shifting scene + That central altar stood serene + In its clear steadfast taper-sheen. + + Then first, the poet was aware + Of a chief angel standing there + Before that altar, in the glare. + + His eyes were dreadful, for you saw + That _they_ saw God; his lips and jaw + Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's law + + They could enunciate and refrain + From vibratory after-pain, + And his brow's height was sovereign: + + On the vast background of his wings + Rises his image, and he flings + From each plumed arc pale glitterings + + And fiery flakes (as beateth, more + Or less, the angel-heart) before + And round him upon roof and floor, + + Edging with fire the shifting fumes, + While at his side 'twixt lights and glooms + The phantasm of an organ booms. + + Extending from which instrument + And angel, right and left-way bent, + The poet's sight grew sentient + + Of a strange company around + And toward the altar, pale and bound + With bay above the eyes profound. + + Deathful their faces were, and yet + The power of life was in them set-- + Never forgot nor to forget: + + Sublime significance of mouth, + Dilated nostril full of youth, + And forehead royal with the truth. + + These faces were not multiplied + Beyond your count, but side by side + Did front the altar, glorified, + + Still as a vision, yet exprest + Full as an action--look and geste + Of buried saint in risen rest. + + The poet knew them. Faint and dim + His spirits seemed to sink in him-- + Then, like a dolphin, change and swim + + The current: these were poets true, + Who died for Beauty as martyrs do + For Truth--the ends being scarcely two. + + God's prophets of the Beautiful + These poets were; of iron rule, + The rugged cilix, serge of wool. + + Here Homer, with the broad suspense + Of thunderous brows, and lips intense + Of garrulous god-innocence. + + There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb + The crowns o' the world: O eyes sublime + With tears and laughters for all time! + + Here Æschylus, the women swooned + To see so awful when he frowned + As the gods did: he standeth crowned. + + Euripides, with close and mild + Scholastic lips, that could be wild + And laugh or sob out like a child + + Even in the classes. Sophocles, + With that king's-look which down the trees + Followed the dark effigies + + Of the lost Theban. Hesiod old, + Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold, + Cared most for gods and bulls. And bold + + Electric Pindar, quick as fear, + With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear + Slant startled eyes that seem to hear + + The chariot rounding the last goal, + To hurtle past it in his soul. + And Sappho, with that gloriole + + Of ebon hair on calmèd brows-- + O poet-woman! none forgoes + The leap, attaining the repose. + + Theocritus, with glittering locks + Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks + He watched the visionary flocks. + + And Aristophanes, who took + The world with mirth, and laughter-struck + The hollow caves of Thought and woke + + The infinite echoes hid in each. + And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beech + Did help the shade of bay to reach + + And knit around his forehead high: + For his gods wore less majesty + Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly. + + Lucretius, nobler than his mood, + Who dropped his plummet down the broad + Deep universe and said "No God--" + + Finding no bottom: he denied + Divinely the divine, and died + Chief poet on the Tiber-side + + By grace of God: his face is stern + As one compelled, in spite of scorn, + To teach a truth he would not learn. + + And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed; + Once counted greater than the rest, + When mountain-winds blew out his vest. + + And Spenser drooped his dreaming head + (With languid sleep-smile you had said + From his own verse engenderèd) + + On Ariosto's, till they ran + Their curls in one: the Italian + Shot nimbler heat of bolder man + + From his fine lids. And Dante stern + And sweet, whose spirit was an urn + For wine and milk poured out in turn. + + Hard-souled Alfieri; and fancy-willed + Boiardo, who with laughter filled + The pauses of the jostled shield. + + And Berni, with a hand stretched out + To sleek that storm. And, not without + The wreath he died in and the doubt + + He died by, Tasso, bard and lover, + Whose visions were too thin to cover + The face of a false woman over. + + And soft Racine; and grave Corneille, + The orator of rhymes, whose wail + Scarce shook his purple. And Petrarch pale, + + From whose brain-lighted heart were thrown + A thousand thoughts beneath the sun, + Each lucid with the name of One. + + And Camoens, with that look he had, + Compelling India's Genius sad + From the wave through the Lusiad,-- + + The murmurs of the storm-cape ocean + Indrawn in vibrative emotion + Along the verse. And, while devotion + + In his wild eyes fantastic shone + Under the tonsure blown upon + By airs celestial, Calderon. + + And bold De Vega, who breathed quick + Verse after verse, till death's old trick + Put pause to life and rhetoric. + + And Goethe, with that reaching eye + His soul reached out from, far and high, + And fell from inner entity. + + And Schiller, with heroic front + Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon 't, + Too large for wreath of modern wont. + + And Chaucer, with his infantine + Familiar clasp of things divine; + That mark upon his lip is wine. + + Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim: + The shapes of suns and stars did swim + Like clouds from them, and granted him + + God for sole vision. Cowley, there, + Whose active fancy debonair + Drew straws like amber--foul to fair. + + Drayton and Browne, with smiles they drew + From outward nature, still kept new + From their own inward nature true. + + And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben, + Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when + The world was worthy of such men. + + And Burns, with pungent passionings + Set in his eyes: deep lyric springs + Are of the fire-mount's issuings. + + And Shelley, in his white ideal, + All statue-blind. And Keats the real + Adonis with the hymeneal + + Fresh vernal buds half sunk between + His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen + In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen. + + And poor, proud Byron, sad as grave + And salt as life; forlornly brave, + And quivering with the dart he drave. + + And visionary Coleridge, who + Did sweep his thoughts as angels do + Their wings with cadence up the Blue. + + These poets faced (and many more) + The lighted altar looming o'er + The clouds of incense dim and hoar: + + And all their faces, in the lull + Of natural things, looked wonderful + With life and death and deathless rule. + + All, still as stone and yet intense; + As if by spirit's vehemence + That stone were carved and not by sense. + + But where the heart of each should beat, + There seemed a wound instead of it, + From whence the blood dropped to their feet + + Drop after drop--dropped heavily + As century follows century + Into the deep eternity. + + Then said the lady--and her word + Came distant, as wide waves were stirred + Between her and the ear that heard,-- + + "_World's use_ is cold, _world's love_ is vain, + _World's cruelty_ is bitter bane, + But pain is not the fruit of pain. + + "Hearken, O poet, whom I led + From the dark wood: dismissing dread, + Now hear this angel in my stead. + + "His organ's clavier strikes along + These poets' hearts, sonorous, strong, + They gave him without count of wrong,-- + + "A diapason whence to guide + Up to God's feet, from these who died, + An anthem fully glorified-- + + "Whereat God's blessing, IBARAK (=yivarech=) + Breathes back this music, folds it back + About the earth in vapoury rack, + + "And men walk in it, crying 'Lo + The world is wider, and we know + The very heavens look brighter so: + + "'The stars move statelier round the edge + Of the silver spheres, and give in pledge + Their light for nobler privilege: + + "'No little flower but joys or grieves, + Full life is rustling in the sheaves, + Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves.' + + "So works this music on the earth, + God so admits it, sends it forth + To add another worth to worth-- + + "A new creation-bloom that rounds + The old creation and expounds + His Beautiful in tuneful sounds. + + "Now hearken!" Then the poet gazed + Upon the angel glorious-faced + Whose hand, majestically raised, + + Floated across the organ-keys, + Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas, + With no touch but with influences: + + Then rose and fell (with swell and swound + Of shapeless noises wandering round + A concord which at last they found) + + Those mystic keys: the tones were mixed, + Dim, faint, and thrilled and throbbed betwixt + The incomplete and the unfixed: + + And therein mighty minds were heard + In mighty musings, inly stirred, + And struggling outward for a word: + + Until these surges, having run + This way and that, gave out as one + An Aphroditè of sweet tune, + + A Harmony that, finding vent, + Upward in grand ascension went, + Winged to a heavenly argument, + + Up, upward like a saint who strips + The shroud back from his eyes and lips, + And rises in apocalypse: + + A harmony sublime and plain, + Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,-- + Throwing the drops off with a strain + + Of her white wing) those undertones + Of perplext chords, and soared at once + And struck out from the starry thrones + + Their several silver octaves as + It passed to God. The music was + Of divine stature; strong to pass: + + And those who heard it, understood + Something of life in spirit and blood, + Something of nature's fair and good: + + And while it sounded, those great souls + Did thrill as racers at the goals + And burn in all their aureoles; + + But she the lady, as vapour-bound, + Stood calmly in the joy of sound, + Like Nature with the showers around: + + And when it ceased, the blood which fell + Again, alone grew audible, + Tolling the silence as a bell. + + The sovran angel lifted high + His hand, and spake out sovranly: + "Tried poets, hearken and reply! + + "Give me true answers. If we grant + That not to suffer, is to want + The conscience of the jubilant,-- + + "If ignorance of anguish is + _But_ ignorance, and mortals miss + Far prospects, by a level bliss,-- + + "If, as two colours must be viewed + In a visible image, mortals should + Need good and evil, to see good,-- + + "If to speak nobly, comprehends + To feel profoundly,--if the ends + Of power and suffering, Nature blends,-- + + "If poets on the tripod must + Writhe like the Pythian to make just + Their oracles and merit trust,-- + + "If every vatic word that sweeps + To change the world must pale their lips + And leave their own souls in eclipse,-- + + "If to search deep the universe + Must pierce the searcher with the curse, + Because that bolt (in man's reverse) + + "Was shot to the heart o' the wood and lies + Wedged deepest in the best,--if eyes + That look for visions and surprise + + "From influent angels, must shut down + Their eyelids first to sun and moon, + The head asleep upon a stone,-- + + "If ONE who did redeem you back, + By His own loss, from final wrack, + Did consecrate by touch and track + + "Those temporal sorrows till the taste + Of brackish waters of the waste + Is salt with tears He dropt too fast,-- + + "If all the crowns of earth must wound + With prickings of the thorns He found,-- + If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound,-- + + "What say ye unto this?--refuse + This baptism in salt water?--choose + Calm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose? + + "Or, O ye gifted givers! ye + Who give your liberal hearts to me + To make the world this harmony, + + "Are ye resigned that they be spent + To such world's help?" + The Spirits bent + Their awful brows and said "Content." + + Content! it sounded like _Amen_ + Said by a choir of mourning men; + An affirmation full of pain + + And patience,--ay, of glorying + And adoration, as a king + Might seal an oath for governing. + + Then said the angel--and his face + Lightened abroad until the place + Grew larger for a moment's space,-- + + The long aisles flashing out in light, + And nave and transept, columns white + And arches crossed, being clear to sight + + As if the roof were off and all + Stood in the noon-sun,--"Lo, I call + To other hearts as liberal. + + "This pedal strikes out in the air: + My instrument has room to bear + Still fuller strains and perfecter. + + "Herein is room, and shall be room + While Time lasts, for new hearts to come + Consummating while they consume. + + "What living man will bring a gift + Of his own heart and help to lift + The tune?--The race is to the swift." + + So asked the angel. Straight the while, + A company came up the aisle + With measured step and sorted smile; + + Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise, + With winking unaccustomed eyes + And love-locks smelling sweet of spice. + + One bore his head above the rest + As if the world were dispossessed, + And one did pillow chin on breast, + + Right languid, an as he should faint; + One shook his curls across his paint + And moralized on worldly taint; + + One, slanting up his face, did wink + The salt rheum to the eyelid's brink, + To think--O gods! or--not to think. + + Some trod out stealthily and slow, + As if the sun would fall in snow + If they walked to instead of fro; + + And some, with conscious ambling free, + Did shake their bells right daintily + On hand and foot, for harmony; + + And some, composing sudden sighs + In attitudes of point-device, + Rehearsed impromptu agonies. + + And when this company drew near + The spirits crowned, it might appear + Submitted to a ghastly fear; + + As a sane eye in master-passion + Constrains a maniac to the fashion + Of hideous maniac imitation + + In the least geste--the dropping low + O' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow, + Exaggerate with mock and mow,-- + + So mastered was that company + By the crowned vision utterly, + Swayed to a maniac mockery. + + One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached + With Homer's forehead, though he lacked + An inch of any; and one racked + + His lower lip with restless tooth, + As Pindar's rushing words forsooth + Were pent behind it; one his smooth + + Pink cheeks did rumple passionate + Like Æschylus, and tried to prate + On trolling tongue of fate and fate; + + One set her eyes like Sappho's--or + Any light woman's; one forbore + Like Dante, or any man as poor + + In mirth, to let a smile undo + His hard-shut lips; and one that drew + Sour humours from his mother, blew + + His sunken cheeks out to the size + Of most unnatural jollities, + Because Anacreon looked jest-wise; + + So with the rest: it was a sight + A great world-laughter would requite, + Or great world-wrath, with equal right + + Out came a speaker from that crowd + To speak for all, in sleek and proud + Exordial periods, while he bowed + + His knee before the angel--"Thus, + O angel who hast called for us, + We bring thee service emulous, + + "Fit service from sufficient soul, + Hand-service to receive world's dole, + Lip-service in world's ear to roll + + "Adjusted concords soft enow + To hear the wine-cups passing, through, + And not too grave to spoil the show: + + "Thou, certes, when thou askest more, + O sapient angel, leanest o'er + The window-sill of metaphor. + + "To give our hearts up? fie! that rage + Barbaric antedates the age; + It is not done on any stage. + + "Because your scald or gleeman went + With seven or nine-stringed instrument + Upon his back,--must ours be bent? + + "We are not pilgrims, by your leave; + No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve, + It is to rhyme to--summer eve: + + "And if we labour, it shall be + As suiteth best with our degree, + In after-dinner reverie." + + More yet that speaker would have said, + Poising between his smiles fair-fed + Each separate phrase till finishèd; + + But all the foreheads of those born + And dead true poets flashed with scorn + Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn, + + Ay, jetted such brave fire that they, + The new-come, shrank and paled away + Like leaden ashes when the day + + Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast, + A presence known by power, at last + Took them up mutely: they had passed. + + And he our pilgrim-poet saw + Only their places, in deep awe, + What time the angel's smile did draw + + His gazing upward. Smiling on, + The angel in the angel shone, + Revealing glory in benison; + + Till, ripened in the light which shut + The poet in, his spirit mute + Dropped sudden as a perfect fruit; + + He fell before the angel's feet, + Saying, "If what is true is sweet, + In something I may compass it: + + "For, where my worthiness is poor, + My will stands richly at the door + To pay shortcomings evermore. + + "Accept me therefore: not for price + And not for pride my sacrifice + Is tendered, for my soul is nice + + "And will beat down those dusty seeds + Of bearded corn if she succeeds + In soaring while the covey feeds. + + "I soar, I am drawn up like the lark + To its white cloud--so high my mark, + Albeit my wing is small and dark. + + "I ask no wages, seek no fame: + Sew me, for shroud round face and name, + God's banner of the oriflamme. + + "I only would have leave to loose + (In tears and blood if so He choose) + Mine inward music out to use: + + "I only would be spent--in pain + And loss, perchance, but not in vain-- + Upon the sweetness of that strain; + + "Only project beyond the bound + Of mine own life, so lost and found, + My voice, and live on in its sound; + + "Only embrace and be embraced + By fiery ends, whereby to waste, + And light God's future with my past." + + The angel's smile grew more divine, + The mortal speaking; ay, its shine + Swelled fuller, like a choir-note fine, + + Till the broad glory round his brow + Did vibrate with the light below; + But what he said I do not know. + + Nor know I if the man who prayed, + Rose up accepted, unforbade, + From the church-floor where he was laid,-- + + Nor if a listening life did run + Through the king-poets, one by one + Rejoicing in a worthy son: + + My soul, which might have seen, grew blind + By what it looked on: I can find + No certain count of things behind. + + I saw alone, dim, white and grand + As in a dream, the angel's hand + Stretched forth in gesture of command + + Straight through the haze. And so, as erst, + A strain more noble than the first + Mused in the organ, and outburst: + + With giant march from floor to roof + Rose the full notes, now parted off + In pauses massively aloof + + Like measured thunders, now rejoined + In concords of mysterious kind + Which fused together sense and mind, + + Now flashing sharp on sharp along + Exultant in a mounting throng, + Now dying off to a low song + + Fed upon minors, wavelike sounds + Re-eddying into silver rounds, + Enlarging liberty with bounds: + + And every rhythm that seemed to close + Survived in confluent underflows + Symphonious with the next that rose. + + Thus the whole strain being multiplied + And greatened, with its glorified + Wings shot abroad from side to side, + + Waved backward (as a wind might wave + A Brocken mist and with as brave + Wild roaring) arch and architrave, + + Aisle, transept, column, marble wall,-- + Then swelling outward, prodigal + Of aspiration beyond thrall, + + Soared, and drew up with it the whole + Of this said vision, as a soul + Is raised by a thought. And as a scroll + + Of bright devices is unrolled + Still upward with a gradual gold, + So rose the vision manifold, + + Angel and organ, and the round + Of spirits, solemnized and crowned; + While the freed clouds of incense wound + + Ascending, following in their track, + And glimmering faintly like the rack + O' the moon in her own light cast back. + + And as that solemn dream withdrew, + The lady's kiss did fall anew + Cold on the poet's brow as dew. + + And that same kiss which bound him first + Beyond the senses, now reversed + Its own law and most subtly pierced + + His spirit with the sense of things + Sensual and present. Vanishings + Of glory with Æolian wings + + Struck him and passed: the lady's face + Did melt back in the chrysopras + Of the orient morning sky that was + + Yet clear of lark and there and so + She melted as a star might do, + Still smiling as she melted slow: + + Smiling so slow, he seemed to see + Her smile the last thing, gloriously + Beyond her, far as memory. + + Then he looked round: he was alone. + He lay before the breaking sun, + As Jacob at the Bethel stone. + + And thought's entangled skein being wound, + He knew the moorland of his swound, + And the pale pools that smeared the ground; + + The far wood-pines like offing ships; + The fourth pool's yew anear him drips, + _World's cruelty_ attaints his lips, + + And still he tastes it, bitter still; + Through all that glorious possible + He had the sight of present ill. + + Yet rising calmly up and slowly + With such a cheer as scorneth folly, + A mild delightsome melancholy, + + He journeyed homeward through the wood + And prayed along the solitude + Betwixt the pines, "O God, my God!" + + The golden morning's open flowings + Did sway the trees to murmurous bowings, + In metric chant of blessed poems. + + And passing homeward through the wood, + He prayed along the solitude, + "THOU, Poet-God, art great and good! + + "And though we must have, and have had + Right reason to be earthly sad, + THOU, Poet-God, art great and glad!" + + +CONCLUSION. + + Life treads on life, and heart on heart; + We press too close in church and mart + To keep a dream or grave apart: + + And I was 'ware of walking down + That same green forest where had gone + The poet-pilgrim. One by one + + I traced his footsteps. From the east + A red and tender radiance pressed + Through the near trees, until I guessed + + The sun behind shone full and round; + While up the leafiness profound + A wind scarce old enough for sound + + Stood ready to blow on me when + I turned that way, and now and then + The birds sang and brake off again + + To shake their pretty feathers dry + Of the dew sliding droppingly + From the leaf-edges and apply + + Back to their song: 'twixt dew and bird + So sweet a silence ministered, + God seemed to use it for a word, + + Yet morning souls did leap and run + In all things, as the least had won + A joyous insight of the sun, + + And no one looking round the wood + Could help confessing as he stood, + _This Poet-God is glad and good._ + + But hark! a distant sound that grows, + A heaving, sinking of the boughs, + A rustling murmur, not of those, + + A breezy noise which is not breeze! + And white-clad children by degrees + Steal out in troops among the trees, + + Fair little children morning-bright, + With faces grave yet soft to sight, + Expressive of restrained delight. + + Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach, + And others leapt up high to catch + The upper boughs and shake from each + + A rain of dew till, wetted so, + The child who held the branch let go + And it swang backward with a flow + + Of faster drippings. Then I knew + The children laughed; but the laugh flew + From its own chirrup as might do + + A frightened song-bird; and a child + Who seemed the chief said very mild, + "Hush! keep this morning undefiled." + + His eyes rebuked them from calm spheres, + His soul upon his brow appears + In waiting for more holy years. + + I called the child to me, and said, + "What are your palms for?" "To be spread," + He answered, "on a poet dead. + + "The poet died last month, and now + The world which had been somewhat slow + In honouring his living brow, + + "Commands the palms; they must be strown + On his new marble very soon, + In a procession of the town." + + I sighed and said, "Did he foresee + Any such honour?" "Verily + I cannot tell you," answered he. + + "But this I know, I fain would lay + My own head down, another day, + As _he_ did,--with the fame away. + + "A lily, a friend's hand had plucked, + Lay by his death-bed, which he looked + As deep down as a bee had sucked, + + "Then, turning to the lattice, gazed + O'er hill and river and upraised + His eyes illumined and amazed + + "With the world's beauty, up to God, + Re-offering on their iris broad + The images of things bestowed + + "By the chief Poet. 'God!' he cried, + 'Be praised for anguish which has tried, + For beauty which has satisfied: + + "'For this world's presence half within + And half without me--thought and scene-- + This sense of Being and Having Been. + + "'I thank Thee that my soul hath room + For Thy grand world: both guests may come-- + Beauty, to soul--Body, to tomb. + + "'I am content to be so weak: + Put strength into the words I speak, + And I am strong in what I seek. + + "'I am content to be so bare + Before the archers, everywhere + My wounds being stroked by heavenly air. + + "'I laid my soul before Thy feet + That images of fair and sweet + Should walk to other men on it. + + "'I am content to feel the step + Of each pure image: let those keep + To mandragore who care to sleep. + + "'I am content to touch the brink + Of the other goblet and I think + My bitter drink a wholesome drink. + + "'Because my portion was assigned + Wholesome and bitter, Thou art kind, + And I am blessed to my mind. + + "'Gifted for giving, I receive + The maythorn and its scent outgive: + I grieve not that I once did grieve. + + "'In my large joy of sight and touch + Beyond what others count for such, + I am content to suffer much. + + "'_I know_--is all the mourner saith, + Knowledge by suffering entereth, + And Life is perfected by Death.'" + + The child spake nobly: strange to hear, + His infantine soft accents clear + Charged with high meanings, did appear; + + And fair to see, his form and face + Winged out with whiteness and pure grace + From the green darkness of the place. + + Behind his head a palm-tree grew; + An orient beam which pierced it through + Transversely on his forehead drew + + The figure of a palm-branch brown + Traced on its brightness up and down + In fine fair lines,--a shadow-crown: + + Guido might paint his angels so-- + A little angel, taught to go + With holy words to saints below-- + + Such innocence of action yet + Significance of object met + In his whole bearing strong and sweet. + + And all the children, the whole band, + Did round in rosy reverence stand, + Each with a palm-bough in his hand. + + "And so he died," I whispered. "Nay, + Not _so_," the childish voice did say, + "That poet turned him first to pray + + "In silence, and God heard the rest + 'Twixt the sun's footsteps down the west. + Then he called one who loved him best, + + "Yea, he called softly through the room + (His voice was weak yet tender)--'Come,' + He said, 'come nearer! Let the bloom + + "'Of Life grow over, undenied, + This bridge of Death, which is not wide-- + I shall be soon at the other side. + + "'Come, kiss me!' So the one in truth + Who loved him best,--in love, not ruth, + Bowed down and kissed him mouth to mouth: + + "And in that kiss of love was won + Life's manumission. All was done: + The mouth that kissed last, kissed _alone_. + + "But in the former, confluent kiss, + The same was sealed, I think, by His, + To words of truth and uprightness." + + The child's voice trembled, his lips shook + Like a rose leaning o'er a brook, + Which vibrates though it is not struck. + + "And who," I asked, a little moved + Yet curious-eyed, "was this that loved + And kissed him last, as it behoved?" + + "_I_," softly said the child; and then + "_I_," said he louder, once again: + "His son, my rank is among men: + + "And now that men exalt his name + I come to gather palms with them, + That holy love may hallow fame. + + "He did not die alone, nor should + His memory live so, 'mid these rude + World-praisers--a worse solitude. + + "Me, a voice calleth to that tomb + Where these are strewing branch and bloom + Saying, 'Come nearer:' and I come. + + "Glory to God!" resumèd he, + And his eyes smiled for victory + O'er their own tears which I could see + + Fallen on the palm, down cheek and chin-- + "That poet now has entered in + The place of rest which is not sin. + + "And while he rests, his songs in troops + Walk up and down our earthly slopes, + Companioned by diviner hopes." + + "But _thou_," I murmured to engage + The child's speech farther--"hast an age + Too tender for this orphanage." + + "Glory to God--to God!" he saith: + "KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH, + AND LIFE IS PERFECTED BY DEATH." + + + + +THE POET'S VOW + + + O be wiser thou, +Instructed that true knowledge leads to love. + + WORDSWORTH. + + + + +THE POET'S VOW. + + +PART THE FIRST. + +SHOWING WHEREFORE THE VOW WAS MADE. + + + I. + + Eve is a twofold mystery; + The stillness Earth doth keep, + The motion wherewith human hearts + Do each to either leap + As if all souls between the poles + Felt "Parting comes in sleep." + + + II. + + The rowers lift their oars to view + Each other in the sea; + The landsmen watch the rocking boats + In a pleasant company; + While up the hill go gladlier still + Dear friends by two and three. + + + III. + + The peasant's wife hath looked without + Her cottage door and smiled, + For there the peasant drops his spade + To clasp his youngest child + Which hath no speech, but its hand can reach + And stroke his forehead mild. + + + IV. + + A poet sate that eventide + Within his hall alone, + As silent as its ancient lords + In the coffined place of stone, + When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk, + And the praying monk is gone. + + + V. + + Nor wore the dead a stiller face + Beneath the cerement's roll: + His lips refusing out in words + Their mystic thoughts to dole, + His steadfast eye burnt inwardly, + As burning out his soul. + + + VI. + + You would not think that brow could e'er + Ungentle moods express, + Yet seemed it, in this troubled world, + Too calm for gentleness, + When the very star that shines from far + Shines trembling ne'ertheless. + + + VII. + + It lacked, all need, the softening light + Which other brows supply: + We should conjoin the scathèd trunks + Of our humanity, + That each leafless spray entwining may + Look softer 'gainst the sky. + + + VIII. + + None gazed within the poet's face, + The poet gazed in none; + He threw a lonely shadow straight + Before the moon and sun, + Affronting nature's heaven-dwelling creatures + With wrong to nature done: + + + IX. + + Because this poet daringly, + --The nature at his heart, + And that quick tune along his veins + He could not change by art,-- + Had vowed his blood of brotherhood + To a stagnant place apart. + + + X. + + He did not vow in fear, or wrath, + Or grief's fantastic whim, + But, weights and shows of sensual things + Too closely crossing him, + On his soul's eyelid the pressure slid + And made its vision dim. + + + XI. + + And darkening in the dark he strove + 'Twixt earth and sea and sky + To lose in shadow, wave and cloud, + His brother's haunting cry: + The winds were welcome as they swept, + God's five-day work he would accept, + But let the rest go by. + + + XII. + + He cried, "O touching, patient Earth + That weepest in thy glee, + Whom God created very good, + And very mournful, we! + Thy voice of moan doth reach His throne, + As Abel's rose from thee. + + + XIII. + + "Poor crystal sky with stars astray! + Mad winds that howling go + From east to west! perplexèd seas + That stagger from their blow! + O motion wild! O wave defiled! + Our curse hath made you so. + + + XIV. + + '_We!_ and _our_ curse! do _I_ partake + The desiccating sin? + Have _I_ the apple at my lips? + The money-lust within? + Do _I_ human stand with the wounding hand, + To the blasting heart akin? + + + XV. + + "Thou solemn pathos of all things + For solemn joy designed! + Behold, submissive to your cause, + A holy wrath I find + And, for your sake, the bondage break + That knits me to my kind. + + + XVI. + + "Hear me forswear man's sympathies, + His pleasant yea and no, + His riot on the piteous earth + Whereon his thistles grow, + His changing love--with stars above, + His pride--with graves below. + + + XVII. + + "Hear me forswear his roof by night, + His bread and salt by day, + His talkings at the wood-fire hearth, + His greetings by the way, + His answering looks, his systemed books, + All man, for aye and aye. + + + XVIII. + + "That so my purged, once human heart, + From all the human rent, + May gather strength to pledge and drink + Your wine of wonderment, + While you pardon me all blessingly + The woe mine Adam sent. + + + XIX. + + "And I shall feel your unseen looks + Innumerous, constant, deep + And soft as haunted Adam once, + Though sadder, round me creep,-- + As slumbering men have mystic ken + Of watchers on their sleep. + + + XX. + + "And ever, when I lift my brow + At evening to the sun, + No voice of woman or of child + Recording 'Day is done.' + Your silences shall a love express, + More deep than such an one." + + +PART THE SECOND. + +SHOWING TO WHOM THE VOW WAS DECLARED. + + + I. + + The poet's vow was inly sworn, + The poet's vow was told. + He shared among his crowding friends + The silver and the gold, + They clasping bland his gift,--his hand + In a somewhat slacker hold. + + + II. + + They wended forth, the crowding friends, + With farewells smooth and kind. + They wended forth, the solaced friends, + And left but twain behind: + One loved him true as brothers do, + And one was Rosalind. + + + III. + + He said, "My friends have wended forth + With farewells smooth and kind; + Mine oldest friend, my plighted bride, + Ye need not stay behind: + Friend, wed my fair bride for my sake, + And let my lands ancestral make + A dower for Rosalind. + + + IV. + + "And when beside your wassail board + Ye bless your social lot, + I charge you that the giver be + In all his gifts forgot, + Or alone of all his words recall + The last,--Lament me not." + + + V. + + She looked upon him silently + With her large, doubting eyes, + Like a child that never knew but love + Whom words of wrath surprise, + Till the rose did break from either cheek + And the sudden tears did rise. + + + VI. + + She looked upon him mournfully, + While her large eyes were grown + Yet larger with the steady tears, + Till, all his purpose known, + She turnèd slow, as she would go-- + The tears were shaken down. + + + VII. + + She turnèd slow, as she would go, + Then quickly turned again, + And gazing in his face to seek + Some little touch of pain, + "I thought," she said,--but shook her head,-- + She tried that speech in vain. + + + VIII. + + "I thought--but I am half a child + And very sage art thou-- + The teachings of the heaven and earth + Should keep us soft and low: + They have drawn _my_ tears in early years, + Or ere I wept--as now. + + + IX. + + "But now that in thy face I read + Their cruel homily, + Before their beauty I would fain + Untouched, unsoftened be,-- + If I indeed could look on even + The senseless, loveless earth and heaven + As thou canst look on me! + + + X. + + "And couldest thou as coldly view + Thy childhood's far abode, + Where little feet kept time with thine + Along the dewy sod, + And thy mother's look from holy book + Rose like a thought of God? + + + XI. + + "O brother,--called so, ere her last + Betrothing words were said! + O fellow-watcher in her room, + With hushèd voice and tread! + Rememberest thou how, hand in hand + O friend, O lover, we did stand, + And knew that she was dead? + + + XII. + + "I will not live Sir Roland's bride, + That dower I will not hold; + I tread below my feet that go, + These parchments bought and sold: + The tears I weep are mine to keep, + And worthier than thy gold." + + + XIII. + + The poet and Sir Roland stood + Alone, each turned to each, + Till Roland brake the silence left + By that soft-throbbing speech-- + "Poor heart!" he cried, "it vainly tried + The distant heart to reach. + + + XIV. + + "And thou, O distant, sinful heart + That climbest up so high + To wrap and blind thee with the snows + That cause to dream and die, + What blessing can, from lips of man, + Approach thee with his sigh? + + + XV. + + "Ay, what from earth--create for man + And moaning in his moan? + Ay, what from stars--revealed to man + And man-named one by one? + Ay, more! what blessing can be given + Where the Spirits seven do show in heaven + A MAN upon the throne? + + + XVI. + + "A man on earth HE wandered once, + All meek and undefiled, + And those who loved Him said 'He wept'-- + None ever said He smiled; + Yet there might have been a smile unseen, + When He bowed his holy face, I ween, + To bless that happy child. + + + XVII. + + "And now HE pleadeth up in heaven + For our humanities, + Till the ruddy light on seraphs' wings + In pale emotion dies. + They can better bear their Godhead's glare + Than the pathos of his eyes. + + + XVIII. + + "I will go pray our God to-day + To teach thee how to scan + His work divine, for human use + Since earth on axle ran,-- + To teach thee to discern as plain + His grief divine, the blood-drop's stain + He left there, MAN for man. + + + XIX. + + "So, for the blood's sake shed by Him + Whom angels God declare, + Tears like it, moist and warm with love, + Thy reverent eyes shall wear + To see i' the face of Adam's race + The nature God doth share." + + + XX. + + "I heard," the poet said, "thy voice + As dimly as thy breath: + The sound was like the noise of life + To one anear his death,-- + Or of waves that fail to stir the pale + Sere leaf they roll beneath. + + + XXI. + + "And still between the sound and me + White creatures like a mist + Did interfloat confusedly, + Mysterious shapes unwist: + Across my heart and across my brow + I felt them droop like wreaths of snow, + To still the pulse they kist. + + + XXII. + + "The castle and its lands are thine-- + The poor's--it shall be done. + Go, _man_, to love! I go to live + In Courland hall, alone: + The bats along the ceilings cling, + The lizards in the floors do run, + And storms and years have worn and reft + The stain by human builders left + In working at the stone." + + +PART THE THIRD. + +SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT. + + + I. + + He dwelt alone, and sun and moon + Were witness that he made + Rejection of his humanness + Until they seemed to fade; + His face did so, for he did grow + Of his own soul afraid. + + + II. + + The self-poised God may dwell alone + With inward glorying, + But God's chief angel waiteth for + A brother's voice, to sing; + And a lonely creature of sinful nature + It is an awful thing. + + + III. + + An awful thing that feared itself; + While many years did roll, + A lonely man, a feeble man, + A part beneath the whole, + He bore by day, he bore by night + That pressure of God's infinite + Upon his finite soul. + + + IV. + + The poet at his lattice sate, + And downward lookèd he. + Three Christians wended by to prayers, + With mute ones in their ee; + Each turned above a face of love + And called him to the far chapèlle + With voice more tuneful than its bell: + But still they wended three. + + + V. + + There journeyed by a bridal pomp, + A bridegroom and his dame; + He speaketh low for happiness, + She blusheth red for shame: + But never a tone of benison + From out the lattice came. + + + VI. + + A little child with inward song, + No louder noise to dare, + Stood near the wall to see at play + The lizards green and rare-- + Unblessed the while for his childish smile + Which cometh unaware. + + +PART THE FOURTH. + +SHOWING HOW ROSALIND FARED BY THE KEEPING OF THE VOW. + + + I. + + In death-sheets lieth Rosalind + As white and still as they; + And the old nurse that watched her bed + Rose up with "Well-a-day!" + And oped the casement to let in + The sun, and that sweet doubtful din + Which droppeth from the grass and bough + Sans wind and bird, none knoweth how-- + To cheer her as she lay. + + + II. + + The old nurse started when she saw + Her sudden look of woe: + But the quick wan tremblings round her mouth + In a meek smile did go, + And calm she said, "When I am dead, + Dear nurse it shall be so. + + + III. + + "Till then, shut out those sights and sounds, + And pray God pardon me + That I without this pain no more + His blessed works can see! + And lean beside me, loving nurse, + That thou mayst hear, ere I am worse, + What thy last love should be." + + + IV. + + The loving nurse leant over her, + As white she lay beneath; + The old eyes searching, dim with life, + The young ones dim with death, + To read their look if sound forsook + The trying, trembling breath. + + + V. + + "When all this feeble breath is done, + And I on bier am laid, + My tresses smoothed for never a feast, + My body in shroud arrayed, + Uplift each palm in a saintly calm, + As if that still I prayed. + + + VI. + + "And heap beneath mine head the flowers + You stoop so low to pull, + The little white flowers from the wood + Which grow there in the cool, + Which _he_ and I, in childhood's games, + Went plucking, knowing not their names, + And filled thine apron full. + + + VII. + + "Weep not! _I_ weep not. Death is strong, + The eyes of Death are dry! + But lay this scroll upon my breast + When hushed its heavings lie, + And wait awhile for the corpse's smile + Which shineth presently. + + + VIII. + + "And when it shineth, straightway call + Thy youngest children dear, + And bid them gently carry me + All barefaced on the bier; + But bid them pass my kirkyard grass + That waveth long anear. + + + IX. + + "And up the bank where I used to sit + And dream what life would be, + Along the brook with its sunny look + Akin to living glee,-- + O'er the windy hill, through the forest still, + Let them gently carry me. + + + X. + + "And through the piny forest still, + And down the open moorland + Round where the sea beats mistily + And blindly on the foreland; + And let them chant that hymn I know, + Bearing me soft, bearing me slow, + To the ancient hall of Courland. + + + XI. + + "And when withal they near the hall, + In silence let them lay + My bier before the bolted door, + And leave it for a day: + For I have vowed, though I am proud, + To go there as a guest in shroud, + And not be turned away." + + + XII. + + The old nurse looked within her eyes + Whose mutual look was gone; + The old nurse stooped upon her mouth, + Whose answering voice was done; + And nought she heard, till a little bird + Upon the casement's woodbine swinging + Broke out into a loud sweet singing + For joy o' the summer sun: + "Alack! alack!"--she watched no more, + With head on knee she wailèd sore, + And the little bird sang o'er and o'er + For joy o' the summer sun. + + +PART THE FIFTH. + +SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS BROKEN. + + + I. + + The poet oped his bolted door + The midnight sky to view; + A spirit-feel was in the air + Which seemed to touch his spirit bare + Whenever his breath he drew; + And the stars a liquid softness had, + As alone their holiness forbade + Their falling with the dew. + + + II. + + They shine upon the steadfast hills, + Upon the swinging tide, + Upon the narrow track of beach + And the murmuring pebbles pied: + They shine on every lovely place, + They shine upon the corpse's face, + As _it_ were fair beside. + + + III. + + It lay before him, humanlike, + Yet so unlike a thing! + More awful in its shrouded pomp + Than any crownèd king: + All calm and cold, as it did hold + Some secret, glorying. + + + IV. + + A heavier weight than of its clay + Clung to his heart and knee: + As if those folded palms could strike + He staggered groaningly, + And then o'erhung, without a groan, + The meek close mouth that smiled alone, + Whose speech the scroll must be. + + * * * * * + + + THE WORDS OF ROSALIND'S SCROLL. + + "I left thee last, a child at heart, + A woman scarce in years. + I come to thee, a solemn corpse + Which neither feels nor fears. + I have no breath to use in sighs; + They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes + To seal them safe from tears. + + "Look on me with thine own calm look: + I meet it calm as thou. + No look of thine can change _this_ smile, + Or break thy sinful vow: + I tell thee that my poor scorned heart + Is of thine earth--thine earth, a part: + It cannot vex thee now. + + "But out, alas! these words are writ + By a living, loving one, + Adown whose cheeks, the proofs of life + The warm quick tears do run: + Ah, let the unloving corpse control + Thy scorn back from the loving soul + Whose place of rest is won. + + "I have prayed for thee with bursting sob + When passion's course was free; + I have prayed for thee with silent lips, + In the anguish none could see: + They whispered oft, 'She sleepeth soft'-- + But I only prayed for thee. + + "Go to! I pray for thee no more: + The corpse's tongue is still, + Its folded fingers point to heaven, + But point there stiff and chill: + No farther wrong, no farther woe + Hath license from the sin below + Its tranquil heart to thrill. + + "I charge thee, by the living's prayer, + And the dead's silentness, + To wring from out thy soul a cry + Which God shall hear and bless! + Lest Heaven's own palm droop in my hand, + And pale among the saints I stand, + A saint companionless." + + * * * * * + + + V. + + Bow lower down before the throne, + Triumphant Rosalind! + He boweth on thy corpse his face, + And weepeth as the blind: + 'Twas a dread sight to see them so, + For the senseless corpse rocked to and fro + With the wail of his living mind. + + + VI. + + But dreader sight, could such be seen, + His inward mind did lie, + Whose long-subjected humanness + Gave out its lion-cry, + And fiercely rent its tenement + In a mortal agony. + + + VII. + + I tell you, friends, had you heard his wail, + 'Twould haunt you in court and mart, + And in merry feast until you set + Your cup down to depart-- + That weeping wild of a reckless child + From a proud man's broken heart. + + + VIII. + + O broken heart, O broken vow, + That wore so proud a feature! + God, grasping as a thunderbolt + The man's rejected nature, + Smote him therewith i' the presence high + Of his so worshipped earth and sky + That looked on all indifferently-- + A wailing human creature. + + + IX. + + A human creature found too weak + To bear his human pain-- + (May Heaven's dear grace have spoken peace + To his dying heart and brain!) + For when they came at dawn of day + To lift the lady's corpse away, + Her bier was holding twain. + + + X. + + They dug beneath the kirkyard grass, + For born one dwelling deep; + To which, when years had mossed the stone, + Sir Roland brought his little son + To watch the funeral heap: + And when the happy boy would rather + Turn upward his blithe eyes to see + The wood-doves nodding from the tree, + "Nay, boy, look downward," said his father, + "Upon this human dust asleep. + And hold it in thy constant ken + That God's own unity compresses + (One into one) the human many, + And that his everlastingness is + The bond which is not loosed by any: + That thou and I this law must keep, + If not in love, in sorrow then,-- + Though smiling not like other men, + Still, like them we must weep." + + +END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + +PRINTED BY +SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE +LONDON + + +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Notes: | + | | + | Words surrounded by _ are italicized. | + | | + | Words encased in = are in Hebrew. Due to the restriction of the | + | latin-1 font, they have been converted into latin characters. | + | | + | The author's punctuations have been kept, except on page 221, | + | a fullstop added to the end of the poem (thee for weeping.) | + | | + | On page xx (Contents), page number "155" for Epilogue corrected | + | to be "150." | + | | + | All apparent printer's errors and variable spellings retained. | + | This includes: | + | - The use of both modern and archaic spellings of the same | + | word, for example: | + | "corpse" and "corse" | + | "like" and "liker" | + | "obtain" and "obtayne" | + | - The variable use of accent in the same word, for example: | + | "Aphrodité" and "Aphroditè" | + | "Heré" and "Herè" | + | "wailèd" and "wailed" | + | - The use of phrases with and without hyphen, for example: | + | "full-length" and "full length" | + | "God-light" and "Godlight" | + | "red-clay" and "red clay" | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poetical Works of Elizabeth +Barrett Browning, Vol. I, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF *** + +***** This file should be named 37452-8.txt or 37452-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/4/5/37452/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Judith Wirawan, Henry Craig +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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