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diff --git a/38410-h/38410-h.htm b/38410-h/38410-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4650c12 --- /dev/null +++ b/38410-h/38410-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3342 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + +<head> + + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Star-treader And Other Poems, by Clark Ashton Smith. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + body { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + } + + .booktitle { + letter-spacing:3px; + } + + .border2 { + border-width:2px; + border-style:solid; + border-color:black; + } + + div.figure { + margin-left:10em; + } + + div.figure2 { + padding-left:15em; + clear:both; + } + + div.toc { + width:400px; + } + + .figcenter { + padding:1em; + text-align:center; + font-size:0.8em; + border:none; + margin:auto; + text-indent:1em; + } + + .h1 { + font-size:2em; + margin:.67em 0; + } + + .h1, .h3, .h4, .h5 { + font-weight:bolder; + text-align:center; + text-indent:0; + } + + h1, h4, h5 { + text-align:center; + } + + h2 { + text-align:left; + padding-left:7em; + } + + h3 { + text-align:left; + padding-left:12em; + } + + .h2 { + font-size:1.5em; + margin:.75em 0; + } + + .h3 { + font-size:1.17em; + margin:.83em 0; + } + + .h4 { + margin:1.12em 0 ; + } + + .h5 { + font-size:.83em; + margin:1.5em 0 ; + } + + h5 { + margin-bottom:1%; + margin-top:1%; + } + + hr.chap { + margin-top:6em; + margin-bottom:4em; + clear:both; + } + + p { + text-align:justify; + margin-top:.75em; + margin-bottom:.75em; + text-indent:0; + } + + p.caption { + text-indent:0; + text-align:center; + font-weight:bold; + margin-bottom:2em; + } + + span.right { + float:right; + } + + p.spacer { + margin-top:2em; + margin-bottom:3em; + } + + .pagenum { +/* visibility:hidden; remove comment out to hide page numbers */ + position:absolute; + right:2%; + font-size:75%; + color:gray; + background-color:inherit; + text-align:right; + text-indent:0; + font-style:normal; + font-weight:normal; + font-variant:normal; + } + + .poem { + margin-left:10em; + margin-right:10em; + margin-bottom:1em; + text-align:left; + } + + .poem .stanza { + margin:1em 0em 1em 0em; + } + + .poem p { + margin:0; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i0 { + display:block; + margin-left:0em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i2 { + display:block; + margin-left:2em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i4 { + display:block; + margin-left:4em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i6 { + display:block; + margin-left:6em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i8 { + display:block; + margin-left:8em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i10 { + display:block; + margin-left:10em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .smcap { + font-variant:small-caps; + } + + span.in3 { + margin-left:3em; + } + + </style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Star-Treader and other poems, by Clark Ashton Smith + +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 Star-Treader and other poems + +Author: Clark Ashton Smith + +Release Date: December 25, 2011 [EBook #38410] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="611" alt="" /> + +</div> + +<h1 class="booktitle">THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS</h1> + +<p class="h3">BY<br /><br /> + +CLARK ASHTON SMITH</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img class="border2" src="images/title.jpg" width="400" height="611" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="caption">THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS<br /> +BY<br /> +CLARK ASHTON SMITH<br /> +<br /> +A. M. ROBERTSON<br /> +STOCKTON STREET AT UNION SQUARE<br /> +SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA<br /> +<br /> +MCMXII</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h4">COPYRIGHT 1912<br /> +BY<br /> +A. M. ROBERTSON</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h5">Philopolis Press<br /> +San Francisco</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">TO MY MOTHER</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<div class="toc"> +<p> +<span class="right"><small>Page</small></span><br /> +<a href="#NERO">NERO</a> +<span class="right">1</span><br /> +<a href="#CHANT_TO_SIRIUS">CHANT TO SIRIUS</a> +<span class="right">5</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_STAR-TREADER">THE STAR-TREADER</a> +<span class="right">6</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MORNING_POOL">THE MORNING POOL</a> +<span class="right">11</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_NIGHT_FOREST">THE NIGHT FOREST</a> +<span class="right">12</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MAD_WIND">THE MAD WIND</a> +<span class="right">14</span><br /> +<a href="#SONG_TO_OBLIVION">SONG TO OBLIVION</a> +<span class="right">15</span><br /> +<a href="#MEDUSA">MEDUSA</a> +<span class="right">16</span><br /> +<a href="#ODE_TO_THE_ABYSS">ODE TO THE ABYSS</a> +<span class="right">18</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_SOUL_OF_THE_SEA">THE SOUL OF THE SEA</a> +<span class="right">21</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_BUTTERFLY">THE BUTTERFLY</a> +<span class="right">22</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_PRICE">THE PRICE</a> +<span class="right">26</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MYSTIC_MEANING">THE MYSTIC MEANING</a> +<span class="right">27</span><br /> +<a href="#ODE_TO_MUSIC">ODE TO MUSIC</a> +<span class="right">28</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_LAST_NIGHT">THE LAST NIGHT</a> +<span class="right">31</span><br /> +<a href="#ODE_ON_IMAGINATION">ODE ON IMAGINATION</a> +<span class="right">32</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_WIND_AND_THE_MOON">THE WIND AND THE MOON</a> +<span class="right">35</span><br /> +<a href="#LAMENT_OF_THE_STARS">LAMENT OF THE STARS</a> +<span class="right">36</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MAZE_OF_SLEEP">THE MAZE OF SLEEP</a> +<span class="right">39</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_WINDS">THE WINDS</a> +<span class="right">40</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MASQUE_OF_FORSAKEN_GODS">THE MASQUE OF FORSAKEN GODS</a> +<span class="right">42</span><br /> +<a href="#A_SUNSET">A SUNSET</a> +<span class="right">49</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_CLOUD-ISLANDS">THE CLOUD-ISLANDS</a> +<span class="right">50</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_SNOW-BLOSSOMS">THE SNOW-BLOSSOMS</a> +<span class="right">52</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_SUMMER_MOON">THE SUMMER MOON</a> +<span class="right">53</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_RETURN_OF_HYPERION">THE RETURN OF HYPERION</a> +<span class="right">54</span><br /> +<a href="#LETHE">LETHE</a> +<span class="right">55</span><br /> +<a href="#ATLANTIS">ATLANTIS</a> +<span class="right">56</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_UNREVEALED">THE UNREVEALED</a> +<span class="right">57</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_ELDRITCH_DARK">THE ELDRITCH DARK</a> +<span class="right">58</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_CHERRY-SNOWS">THE CHERRY-SNOWS</a> +<span class="right">59</span><br /> +<a href="#FAIRY_LANTERNS">FAIRY LANTERNS</a> +<span class="right">60</span><br /> +<a href="#NIRVANA">NIRVANA</a> +<span class="right">61</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_NEMESIS_OF_SUNS">THE NEMESIS OF SUNS</a> +<span class="right">62</span><br /> +<a href="#WHITE_DEATH">WHITE DEATH</a> +<span class="right">63</span><br /> +<a href="#RETROSPECT_AND_FORECAST">RETROSPECT AND FORECAST</a> +<span class="right">64</span><br /> +<a href="#SHADOW_OF_NIGHTMARE">SHADOW OF NIGHTMARE</a> +<span class="right">65</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_SONG_OF_A_COMET">THE SONG OF A COMET</a> +<span class="right">66</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_RETRIBUTION">THE RETRIBUTION</a> +<span class="right">69</span><br /> +<a href="#TO_THE_DARKNESS">TO THE DARKNESS</a> +<span class="right">70</span><br /> +<a href="#A_DREAM_OF_BEAUTY">A DREAM OF BEAUTY</a> +<span class="right">72</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_DREAM-BRIDGE">THE DREAM-BRIDGE</a> +<span class="right">73</span><br /> +<a href="#A_LIVE-OAK_LEAF">A LIVE-OAK LEAF</a> +<span class="right">74</span><br /> +<a href="#PINE_NEEDLES">PINE NEEDLES</a> +<span class="right">75</span><br /> +<a href="#TO_THE_SUN">TO THE SUN</a> +<span class="right">76</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_FUGITIVES">THE FUGITIVES</a> +<span class="right">78</span><br /> +<a href="#AVERTED_MALEFICE">AVERTED MALEFICE</a> +<span class="right">79</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_MEDUSA_OF_THE_SKIES">THE MEDUSA OF THE SKIES</a> +<span class="right">80</span><br /> +<a href="#A_DEAD_CITY">A DEAD CITY</a> +<span class="right">81</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_SONG_OF_THE_STARS">THE SONG OF THE STARS</a> +<span class="right">82</span><br /> +<a href="#COPAN">COPAN</a> +<span class="right">85</span><br /> +<a href="#A_SONG_OF_DREAMS">A SONG OF DREAMS</a> +<span class="right">86</span><br /> +<a href="#THE_BALANCE">THE BALANCE</a> +<span class="right">88</span><br /> +<a href="#SATURN">SATURN</a> +<span class="right">89</span><br /> +<a href="#FINIS">FINIS</a> +<span class="right">99</span> +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + +<div class="figure"> +<img src="images/ill1.jpg" width="300" height="112" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="NERO">NERO</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This Rome, that was the toil of many men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The consummation of laborious years—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fulfilment's crown to visions of the dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And image of the wide desire of kings—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is made my darkling dream's effulgency,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fuel of vision, brief embodiment<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wandering will, and wastage of the strong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fierce ecstacy of one tremendous hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When ages piled on ages were a flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To all the years behind, and years to be.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet any sunset were as much as this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save for the music forced by hands of fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From out the hard strait silences which bind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dull Matter's tongueless mouth—a music pierced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the tense voice of Life, more quick to cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its agony—and save that I believed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The radiance redder for the blood of men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Destruction hastens and intensifies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The process that is Beauty, manifests<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ranges of form unknown before, and gives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Motion and voice and hue where otherwise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bleak inexpressiveness had leveled all.<span class="pagenum">[2]</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If one create, there is the lengthy toil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The laboured years and days league tow'rd an end<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Less than the measure of desire, mayhap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After the sure consuming of all strength,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strain of faculties that otherwhere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were loosed upon enjoyment; and at last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remains to one capacity nor power<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For pleasure in the thing that he hath made.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But on destruction hangs but little use<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of time or faculty, but all is turned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the one purpose, unobstructed, pure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sensuous rapture and observant joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from the intensities of death and ruin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One draws a heightened and completer life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And both extends and vindicates himself.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would I were a god, with all the scope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of attributes that are the essential core<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of godhead, and its visibility.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am but emperor, and hold awhile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The power to hasten Death upon his way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cry a halt to worn and lagging Life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For others, but for mine own self may not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Delay the one, nor bid the other speed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There have been many kings, and they are dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And have no power in death save what the wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Confers upon their blown and brainless dust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To vex the eyeballs of posterity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But were I god, I would be overlord<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of many kings, and were as breath to guide<span class="pagenum">[3]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their dust of destiny. And were I god,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exempt from this mortality which clogs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perception, and clear exercise of will,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What rapture it would be, if but to watch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Destruction crouching at the back of Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tongueless dooms which dog the travelling suns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vampire Silence at the breast of worlds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire without light that gnaws the base of things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Lethe's mounting tide, that rots the stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of fundamental spheres. This were enough<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till such time as the dazzled wings of will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came up with power's accession, scarcely felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For very suddenness. Then would I urge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strong contention and conflicting might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of chaos and creation, matching them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those immemorial powers inimical,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all their stars and gulfs subservient—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dynasts of Time, and anarchs of the dark—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In closer war reverseless; and would set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New discord at the universal core,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A Samson-principle to bring it down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one magnificence of ruin. Yea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The monster Chaos were mine unleashed hound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all my power Destruction's own right arm!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would exult to mark the smouldering stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Renew beneath my breath their elder fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And feed upon themselves to nothingness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The might of suns, slow-paced with swinging weight<span class="pagenum">[4]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of myriad worlds, were made at my desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One long rapidity of roaring light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through which the voice of Life were audible,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And singing of the immemorial dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose dust is loosened into vaporous wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With soaring wrack of systems ruinous.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And were I weary of the glare of these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I would tear out the eyes of light, and stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above a chaos of extinguished suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That crowd, and grind, and shiver thunderously,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lending vast voice and motion, but no ray<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the stretched silence of the blinded gulfs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus would I give my godhead space and speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For its assertion, and thus pleasure it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hastening the feet of Time with casts of worlds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like careless pebbles, or with shattered suns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brightening the aspect of Eternity.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[5]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="CHANT_TO_SIRIUS">CHANT TO SIRIUS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What nights retard thee, O Sirius!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy light is as a spear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou penetratest them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a warrior that stabbeth his foe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even to the center of his life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy rays reach farther than the gulfs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They form a bridge thereover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That shall endure till the links of the universe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are unfastened, and drop apart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the gulfs are one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dissevered by suns no longer.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How strong art thou in thy place!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou stridest thine orbit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the darkness shakes beneath thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a road that is trodden by an army.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou art a god,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thy temple that is hollowed with light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the night of infinitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whose floor is the lower void;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy worlds are as priests and ministers therein.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou furrowest space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even as an husbandman,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sowest it with alien seed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It beareth alien fruits,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And these are thy testimony,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even as the crops of his fields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are the testimony of an husbandman.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[6]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_STAR-TREADER">THE STAR-TREADER</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A voice cried to me in a dawn of dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saying, "Make haste: the webs of death and birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are brushed away, and all the threads of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wear to the breaking; spaceward gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thine ancient pathway of the suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose flame is part of thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And deeps outreach immutably<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose largeness runs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through all thy spirit's mystery.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go forth, and tread unharmed the blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of stars where through thou camest in old days;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pierce without fear each vast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose hugeness crushed thee not within the past.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hand strikes off the chains of Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hand swings back the door of years;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now fall earth's bonds of gladness and of tears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And opens the strait dream to space sublime."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who rides a dream, what hand shall stay!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What eye shall note or measure mete<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His passage on a purpose fleet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The thread and weaving of his way!<span class="pagenum">[7]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">It caught me from the clasping world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And swept beyond the brink of Sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My soul was flung, and poised, and whirled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like to a planet chained and hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With solar lightning strong and tense.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swift as communicated rays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That leap from severed suns a gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within whose waste no suns illume,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wingèd dream fulfilled its ways.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through years reversed and lit again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I followed that unending chain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein the suns are links of light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Retraced through lineal, ordered spheres<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The twisting of the threads of years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In weavings wrought of noon and night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through stars and deeps I watched the dream unroll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those folds that form the raiment of the soul.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Enkindling dawns of memory,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each sun had radiance to relume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sealed, disused, and darkened room<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within the soul's immensity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their alien ciphers shown and lit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I understood what each had writ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon my spirit's scroll;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again I wore mine ancient lives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And knew the freedom and the gyves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That formed and marked my soul.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[8]</span></div></div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I delved in each forgotten mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The units that had builded me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose deepnesses before were blind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And formless as infinity—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knowing again each former world—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From planet unto planet whirled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through gulfs that mightily divide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like to an intervital sleep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One world I found, where souls abide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like winds that rest upon a rose;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thereto they creep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To loose all burden of old woes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one I knew, where warp of pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is woven in the soul's attire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one, where with new loveliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is strengthened Beauty's olden chain—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soft as a sound, and keen as fire—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In light no darkness may depress.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where no terrestrial dreams had trod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My vision entered undismayed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Life her hidden realms displayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To me as to a curious god.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where colored suns of systems triplicate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bestow on planets weird, ineffable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Green light that orbs them like an outer sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And large auroral noons that alternate<span class="pagenum">[9]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With skies like sunset held without abate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life's touch renewed incomprehensibly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strains of mirth and grief's harmonious spell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead passions like to stars relit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shone in the gloom of ways forgot;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where crownless gods in darkness sit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The day was full on altars hot.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I heard—once more a part of it—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The central music of the Pleiades,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to Alcyone my soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swayed with the stars that own her song's control.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unchallenged, glad I trod, a revenant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In worlds Edenic longly lost;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or walked in spheres that sing to these,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er space no light has crossed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Diverse as Hell's mad antiphone uptossed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To Heaven's angelic chant.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What vasts the dream went out to find!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I seemed beyond the world's recall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In gulfs where darkness is a wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To render strong Antares blind!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In unimagined spheres I found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sequence of my being's round—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some life where firstling meed of Song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The strange imperishable leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was placed on brows that starry Grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had crowned, and Pain anointed long;<span class="pagenum">[10]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some avatar where Love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sang like the last great star at morn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere Death filled all its sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some life in fresher years unworn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon a world whereof<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace was a robe like to the calms that lie<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On pools aglow with latter spring:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There Life's pellucid surface took<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear image of all things, nor shook<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till touch of Death's obscuring wing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some earlier awakening<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In pristine years, when giant strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of forces darkly whirled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First forged the thing called Life—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hot from the furnace of the suns—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the anvil of a world.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus knew I those anterior ones<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose lives in mine were blent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, lo! my dream, that held a night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Rigel sends no word of might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was emptied of the trodden stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dwindled to the sun's extent—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brain's familiar prison-bars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And raiment of the sorrow and the mirth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrought by the shuttles intricate of earth.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[11]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MORNING_POOL">THE MORNING POOL</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All night the pool held mysteries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Vague depths of night that lay in dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where phantoms of the pale-white stars<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wandered, with darkness-tangled gleam.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And now it holds the limpid light<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shadeless azure of the skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein, like some enclaspèd gem,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The morning's golden glamour lies.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[12]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_NIGHT_FOREST">THE NIGHT FOREST</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Incumbent seemingly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the jagged points of peaks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That end the visible west,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rounded moon yet floods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The valleys hitherward<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fall of torrential light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere from the overmost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aggressive mountain-cusp,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She slip to the lower dark.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But here, on an eastward slope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pointed and thick with its pine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The forest scarcely remembers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her light that is gone as a vision<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or ecstasy too poignant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And perilous for duration.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Withdrawn in what darker web<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or dimension of dream I know not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In silence pre-occupied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And solemnest rectitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pines uprear, and no sigh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the rapture of moonlight past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes from their bosom of boughs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far in their secrecy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I stand, and the burden of dusk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dull, but at times made keen<span class="pagenum">[13]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With tingle of fragrances,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Falls on me as a veil<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between my soul and the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What veil of trance, O pines,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divides you from my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I feel but enter not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your distances of dream?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah! strange, imperative sense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of world-deep mystery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That shakes from out your boughs—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fragrance yet more keen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pressing upon the mind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The wind shall question you<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the dream I may not gain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all its sombreness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And depth immeasurable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall tremble away in sound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of speech not understood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That my heart must break to hear.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[14]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MAD_WIND">THE MAD WIND</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What hast thou seen, O wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of beauty or of terror<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surpassing, denied to us,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That with precipitate wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mad and ecstatical,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou spurnest the hollows and trees<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That offer thee refuge of peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And findest within the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No safety nor respite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the memory of thy vision?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[15]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="SONG_TO_OBLIVION">SONG TO OBLIVION</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Art thou more fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all the beauty gathered up in thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As gold and gems within some lightless sea?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For light of flowers, and bloom of tinted air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Art thou more fair?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Art thou more strong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For powers that turn to thee as unto sleep?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For world and star that find thy ways more deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than light may tread, too wearisome for song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Art thou more strong?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nay! thou art bare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For power and beauty on thine impotence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bestowed by fruitful Time's magnificence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For fruit of all things strong, and bloom of fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou still art bare.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[16]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="MEDUSA">MEDUSA</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As drear and barren as the glooms of Death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It lies, a windless land of livid dawns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nude to a desolate firmament, with hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seem the fleshless earth's outjutting ribs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And plains whose face is crossed and rivelled deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With gullies twisting like a serpent's track.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leprous touch of Death is on its stones,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where for his token visible, the Head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is throned upon a heap of monstrous rocks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grotesque in everlasting ugliness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within a hill-ravine, that splits athwart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some old, hideous and unhealing scar.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her lethal beauty crowned with twining snakes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That mingle with her hair, the Gorgon reigns.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her eyes are clouds wherein Death's lightnings lurk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet, even as men that seek the glance of Life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gazers come, where, coiled and serpent-swift,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those levins wait. As 'round an altar-base<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her victims lie, distorted, blackened forms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of postured horror smitten into stone,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time caught in meshes of Eternity—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drawn back from dust and ruin of the years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And given to all the future of the world.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The land is claimed of Death: the daylight comes<span class="pagenum">[17]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half-strangled in the changing webs of cloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That unseen spiders of bewildered winds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weave and unweave across the lurid sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In upper air. Below, no zephyr comes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To break with life the circling spell of death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long vapor-serpents twist about the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the windy murkness of the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The guttering stars are wild as candle-flames<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That near the socket.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">Thus the land shall be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Death shall wait, throned in Medusa's eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, in the irremeable webs of night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun is snared, and the corroded moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dust upon the gulfs, and all the stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rotted and fall'n like rivets from the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Letting the darkness down upon all things.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[18]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="ODE_TO_THE_ABYSS">ODE TO THE ABYSS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O many-gulfed, unalterable one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose deep sustains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-drifting world and sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou wast ere ever star put out on thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou shalt be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When never world remains;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all the suns' triumphant strength and pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is sunk in voidness absolute,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And their majestic music wide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vaster silence rendered mute.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though God's will were night to dusk the blue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And law to cancel and disperse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tangled tissues of the universe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mould the suns anew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His might were impotent to conquer thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O invisible infinity!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy darks subdue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All light that treads thee down a space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exulting o'er thy deeps.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cycles die, and lo! thy darkness reaps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flame of mightiest stars;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In aeon-implicating wars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou tearest planets from their place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worlds granite-spined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thine erodents yield<span class="pagenum">[19]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their treasures centrally confined<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In crypts by continental pillars sealed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What suns and worlds have been thy prey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through unhorizoned stretches of the Past!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What spheres that now essay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time's undimensioned vast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall plunge forgotten to thy gloom at length,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With life that cried its query of the Night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To ears with silence filled!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What worlds unborn shall dare thy strength,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Girt by a sun's unwearied might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dip to darkness when the sun is stilled!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O incontestable Abyss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What light in thine embrace of darkness sleeps—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What blaze of a sidereal multitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No peopled world is left to miss!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What motion is at rest within thy deeps—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What gyres of planets long become thy food—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worlds unconstrainable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That plunged therein to peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like tempest-worn and crew-forsaken ships;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And suns that fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To huge and ultimate eclipse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lasting gyre-release!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What sound thy gulfs of silence hold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stupendous thunder of the meeting stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And crash of orbits that diverged,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Life's thin song are merged;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy quietudes enfold<span class="pagenum">[20]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Paean and threnody as one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And battle-blare of unremembered wars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With festal songs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sung in the Romes of ruined spheres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And music that belongs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To younger, undiscoverable years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With words of yesterday.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ah, who may stay<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy soundless world-devouring tide?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O thou whose hands pluck out the light of stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are worlds grown but as fruit for thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May no sufficient bars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor marks inveterate abide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To baffle thy persistency?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still and unstriving now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What plottest thou,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within thy universe-ulterior deeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dark as the final lull of suns?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What new advancement of the night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On citadels of stars around whose might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy slow encroachment runs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And crouching silence, thunder-potent, sleeps?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[21]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_SOUL_OF_THE_SEA">THE SOUL OF THE SEA</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A wind comes in from the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rolls through the hollow dark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like loud, tempestuous waters.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the swift recurrent tide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It pours adown the sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rears at the cliffs of night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uppiled against the vast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like the soul of the sea—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hungry, unsatisfied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With ravin of shores and of ships—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come forth on the land to seek<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New prey of tideless coasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It raves, made hoarse with desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sounds of the night are dumb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the sound of its passing.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[22]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_BUTTERFLY">THE BUTTERFLY</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O wonderful and wingèd flow'r,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That hoverest in the garden-close,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Finding in mazes of the rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The beauty of a Summer hour!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O symbol of Impermanence,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thou art a word of Beauty's tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A word that in her song is sung,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Appealing to the inner sense!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of that great mystic harmony,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All lovely things are notes and words—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The trees, the flow'rs, the songful birds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flame-white stars, the surging sea,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The aureate light of sudden dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sunset's crimson afterglow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The summer clouds, the dazzling snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brooks, the moonlight chaste and wan.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lacking (who knows?) a cloud, a tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A streamlet's purl, the ocean's roar<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From Nature's multitudinous store—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Imperfect were the melody!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[23]</span></div></div> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Beauty, why so sad my heart?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Why stirs in me a nameless pain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which seems like some remembered strain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As on this product of thine art<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Enraptured, marvelling I gaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And note how airily 'tis wrought—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A wingèd dream, a bodied thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spirit of the summer days?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thy beauty opes, O Butterfly,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The doors of being, with subtle sense<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Beauty's frail impermanence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And grief of knowing it must die.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Again I seem to know the tears<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of other lives, the woe and pain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of days that died; resurgent wane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moons of countless bygone years.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On other worlds, on other stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To us but tiny points of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or lost in distances of night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond our system's farthest bars,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A priest to Beauty's service sworn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I sought and served her all my days,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With music and with hymns of praise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sunset and the fires of morn,<span class="pagenum">[24]</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With thrilling heart her form I knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And in the stars she whitely gleamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And all the face of Nature seemed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Expression of her shape and hue.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I grieved to watch the summers pass<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With all their gorgeous shows of bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And sterner autumn months assume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their realm with withered leaves and grass.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mine was the grief of Change and Death,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of fair things gone beyond recall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The paling light of dawns, and all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flowers' vanished hues and breath.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From out the web of former lives,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The ancient catenated chain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of joy and sorrow, loss and gain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One certain truth my heart derives:—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Though Beauty passes, this I know,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">From Change and Death, this verity:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her spirit lives eternally—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis but her forms that come and go.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[25]</span></div></div> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo! I am Beauty's constant thrall,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Must ever on her voice await,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And follow through the maze of Fate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her luring, strange and mystical.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Obedient to her summonings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Forever must my soul aspire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And seek, on wings of lyric fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To penetrate the Heart of Things,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wherein she sits, augustly throned,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In loveliness that renders dumb—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Essence and the final Sum—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With peril and with wonder zoned<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What though I fail, my duller sense<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Baffled as by a wall of stone?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The high desire, the search alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are their own prize and recompense.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[26]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_PRICE">THE PRICE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Behind each thing a shadow lies;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beauty hath e'er its cost:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within the moonlight-flooded skies<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How many stars are lost!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[27]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MYSTIC_MEANING">THE MYSTIC MEANING</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Alas! that we are deaf and blind<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To meanings all about us hid!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What secrets lurk the woods amid?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What prophecies are on the wind?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What tidings do the billows bring<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And cry in vain upon the strand?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If we might only understand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The brooklet's cryptic murmuring!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The tongues of earth and air are strange.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And yet (who knows?) one little word<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Learned from the language of the bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might make us lords of Fate and Change!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[28]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="ODE_TO_MUSIC">ODE TO MUSIC</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O woven fabric and bright web of sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose threads are magical,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with swift weaving thrall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hold the spirit bound!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We may not know whence thy strange sorceries fall—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether they be Earth's voices wild and strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her high and perfect song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or broken dreams of higher worlds unfound.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, lo, thou art as dreams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to thy realm all hidden things belong—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All fugitive and evanescent gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul hath vainly sought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All mystic immanence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All visions of ungrasped magnificence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And great ideals pinnacled in thought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All paths with marvel fraught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That lead to lands obscure:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For, lo, upon thy road of sound we pass,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeking thy magic lure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To vales mist-implicated and unsure,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where all seems strange as visions in a glass;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wonder-haunted hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Beauty is an echo and a dream<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In sighing pines, and rills<span class="pagenum">[29]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clouded and deep with imaged tree and sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where bright rivers gleam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past cities towering high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each wonderful as some cloud-fantasy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou loosenest the bondage of the years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Making the spirit free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all sublunar joys and fears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who mounts on thine imperious wings shall see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ways of life as threads of day and night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Serene above their change,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His eyes shall know but far transcendent things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His ears shall hark but voices free and strange;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vast seas of outer light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall beat upon his sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternal winds shall touch him with their wings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His heart shall thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To larger, purer joy, and grief more deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than earth may know;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And e'en as dews of morning fill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The opened flower, into his soul shall flow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High melodies, like tears that angels weep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then shall he penetrate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The veils and outer barriers of sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And near the soul of melody,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, rapt in aural splendors ultimate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His soul shall see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The marvel and the glory that surround<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eternal Beauty's shrine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And catch afar the glint divine<span class="pagenum">[30]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of her moon-colored robe, or haply hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With world-oblivious ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some echo of her voice's mystery.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou hast Love's power to find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul's most secret chords, that else were still,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stir'st them till they thrill<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Disclosed to least, faint movements of thy wind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thine aural sorcery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'erwhelms the heart as sunset storms the sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thou art Beauty bodied forth in sound—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her colors bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And diverse forms expressed in harmony:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within thy bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The flare of morning is become a song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tree and flower a music sweet and long.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in thy speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The power and majesty that swing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Planet and sun, and each<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dim atom of the system manifest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Become articulate, expressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like ocean in the brooklet's whispering.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the woof of finite things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy threads of wonder deep-entangled lie—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time's intertexturings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within Eternity—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Song, mayhap, to be his memories;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Beauty borders nigh<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ultimate, eternal Verities.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[31]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_LAST_NIGHT">THE LAST NIGHT</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A mountain's utmost eminence of snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whence I beheld the plain outstretched below<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To a far sea-horizon, dim and white.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The dead world lay, phantasmally aglow;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its last fear-weighted voice, a wind, came low;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I watched, and lo! the pale and flickering sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In agony and fierce despair, flamed high,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then Night, that grim, gigantic struggle won,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Impended for a breath on wings of doom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And through the air fell like a falling sky.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[32]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="ODE_ON_IMAGINATION">ODE ON IMAGINATION</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Imagination's eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outreach and distance far<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vision of the greatest star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That measures instantaneously—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enisled therein as in a sea—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its cincture of the system-laden skies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abysses closed about with night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A tribute yield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To her retardless sight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Matter's gates disclose the candent ores<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rock-held in furnaces of planet-cores.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She penetrates the sun's transplendent shield,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through the obstruction of his vestment dire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pierces the centermost sublimity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his terrific heart, whose gurge of fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaves upward like a monstrous sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And inly riven by Titanic throes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fills all his frame with outward cataract<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of separate and immingling torrent streams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her eyes exact<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the Moon-Sphinx that wanes and grows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In wastes celestial, alien dreams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought down on wings of fleetest beams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adown the clefts of under-space<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She rides, her steed a falling star,<span class="pagenum">[33]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">To seek, where void and vagueness are,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some mark or certainty of place.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon their heavenly precipice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gathered suns shrink back aghast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From that interminate abyss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And threat of sightless anarchs vast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She stands endued<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With supermundane crown, and vestitures<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of emperies that include<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All under-worlds and over-worlds of dream—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kingdoms o'ercast, and eminent heights extreme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where moon-transcending light endures.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She wanders in fantastic lands, where grow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In scarce-discernèd fields and closes blind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vague blossoms stirred by wings of eidolons;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or roves in forests where all sound is low:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each voice that shuns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The noiseful day, and enters there to find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twilight that naught exalts nor grieves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is quickly tuned to the susurrous leaves.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Upon some supersensual eminence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She hears the fragments of a thunder loud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where lightnings of ulterior Truth intense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flame through the walls of hollow cloud.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But these she may not wholly grasp<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With incomplete terrestrial clasp.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her eyes inevitably see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Neath rounds and changes of exterior things,<span class="pagenum">[34]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">The movements of Essentiality—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ageless principles—that alter not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To temporal alterings—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unswerved by shattered worlds upbuilt once more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stars no longer hot;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or broken constellations strewn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like coals about the heavenly floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rush of night upon the noon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their lost worlds, unsphered restorelessly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In icy deserts of the sky.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the beginning of the spheres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When systems nebulous out-thrown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drove back the brinks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of nullity with limitary marks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till end of suns, and sunless death of years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To her are known<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unevident inseparable links<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bind all deeps, all suns, all days and darks.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[35]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_WIND_AND_THE_MOON">THE WIND AND THE MOON</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever its voice is a voice of the dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever its voice is a voice of unrest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, list to the pines as they shiver and sway<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Neath the ceaseless beat of its myriad wings—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How they moan and they sob like living things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That cry in the darkness for light and day!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now bend they low as the wind mounts higher,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And its eerie voice comes piercingly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the plaint of humanity's misery,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And its burden of vain desire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now to a sad, tense whisper it fails,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then wildly and madly it raves and it wails.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, the night is filled with its sob and its shriek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its weird and its restless, yearning cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it races adown the darkened sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With scurry of broken clouds that seek,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne on the wings of the hastening wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A place of rest that they never can find.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And around the face of the moon they cling,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its fugitive face to veil they aspire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But ever and ever it peereth out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rending the cloud-ranks that hem it about;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it seemeth a lost and phantom thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a phantom of dead desire.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[36]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="LAMENT_OF_THE_STARS">LAMENT OF THE STARS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">One tone is mute within the starry singing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unison fulfilled, complete before;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One chord within the music sounds no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from the stir of flames forever winging<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pinions of our sister, motionless<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In pits of indefinable duress,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are fallen beyond all recovery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By exultation of the flying dance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or rhythms holding as with sleep or trance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The maze of stars that only death may free—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flung through the void's expanse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In gulfs depressed nor in the gulfs exalted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall shade nor lightening of her flame be found;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In space that litten orbits gird around,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor in the bottomless abyss unvaulted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of unenvironed, all-outlying night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Allotted gyre nor lawless comet-flight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall find, and with its venturous ray return<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From gloom of undiscoverable scope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One ray of her to gladden into hope<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The doubtful eyes denied that truthward yearn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The faltering feet that grope.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[37]</span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beyond restrainless boundary-nights surpassing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All luminous horizons limited,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The substance and the light of her have fed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ruin and silence of the night's amassing:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abandoned worlds forever morningless;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suns without worlds, in frory beamlessness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Girt for the longer gyre funereal;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inviolate silence, earless, unawaking<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That once was sound, and level calm unbreaking<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where motion's many ways in oneness fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sleep beyond forsaking.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Circled with limitation unexceeded<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our eyes behold exterior mysteries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gods unascertainable as these—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shadows and shapes irresolubly heeded;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Phantoms that tower, and substance scarcely known.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our sister knows all mysteries one alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One shape, one shadow, crowding out the skies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose eyeless head and lipless face debar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All others nameless or familiar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filling with night all former lips and eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of god, and ghost, and star:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For her all shapes have fed the shape of night;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All darker forms, and dubious forms, or pallid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are met and reconciled where none is valid.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But unto us solution nor respite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mystery's multiform incessancy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From unexplored or system-trodden sky<span class="pagenum">[38]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall come; but as a load importunate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enigma past and mystery foreseen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weigh mightily upon us, and between<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our sorrow deepens, and our songs abate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In cadences of threne.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A gloom that gathers silence looms more closely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And quiet centering darkness at its heart;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But from the certitude of night depart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uncertain god nor eidolon less ghostly;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But stronger grown with strength obtained from light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That failed, and power lent by the stronger night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Perplex us with new mystery, and doubt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If these our flames, that deathward toss and fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be festal lights or lights funereal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For mightier gods within the gulfs without,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Phantoms more cryptical.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">New shadows from the wings of Time unfolding<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across the depth and eminence of years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fall deeplier with the broadening gloom of fears.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prophetic-eyed, with planet-hosts beholding<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night take form upon the face of suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We see (thus grief's vaticination runs—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Presageful sorrow for our sister slain)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A night wherein all sorrow shall be past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One with night's single mystery at last;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor vocal sun nor singing world remain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As Time's elegiast.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[39]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MAZE_OF_SLEEP">THE MAZE OF SLEEP</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sleep is a pathless labyrinth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Dark to the gaze of moons and suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through which the colored clue of dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A gossamer thread, obscurely runs.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[40]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_WINDS">THE WINDS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To me the winds that die and start,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And strive in wars that never cease,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are dearer than the level peace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That lies unstirred at summer's heart;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">More dear to me the shadowed wold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where, with report of tempest rife,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The air intensifies with life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than quiet fields of summer's gold.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I am the winds' admitted friend:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They seal our linked fellowships<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With speech of warm or icy lips,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With touch of west and east that blend.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And when my spirit listless stands,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With folded wings that do not live,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their own assuageless wings they give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To lift her from the stirless lands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> + * + * + * + * + * + * + * +<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within the place unmanifest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where central Truth is immanent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lies there a vast, entire content<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sound and movement one in rest?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[41]</span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I know not this. Yet in my heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I feel that where all truths concur,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The shrine is peaceless with the stir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of winds that enter and depart.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[42]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MASQUE_OF_FORSAKEN_GODS">THE MASQUE OF FORSAKEN GODS</h2> + +<p><span class="in3 smcap">Scene</span>: <i>A moonlit glade on a summer midnight</i></p> + +<h3>THE POET</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What consummation of the toiling moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'ercomes the midnight blue with violet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein the stars turn grey! The summer's green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Edgèd and strong by day, is dull and faint<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the moon's all-dominating mood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That in this absence of the impassioned sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sways to a sleep of sound and calm of color<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The live and vivid aspect of the world—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Subdued as with the great expectancy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which blurs beginning features of a dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Things and events lost 'neath an omening<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of central and oppressive bulk to come.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here were the theatre of a miracle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If such, within a world long alienate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From its first dreams, and shut with skeptic years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might now befall.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>THE PHILOSOPHER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The Huntress rides no more<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across the upturned faces of the stars:<span class="pagenum">[43]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis but the dead shell of a frozen world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glittering with desolation. Earth's old gods—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods that haunt like dreams each planet's youth—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are fled from years incredulous, and tired<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With penetrating of successive masks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That give but emptiness they served to hide.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remains not faith enough to bring them back—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pan to his wood, Diana to her moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the visions that made populous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An eager world where Time grows weary now.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet Youth, that lives, might for a little claim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pantheon of dream, on such a night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When 'neath the growing marvel of the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The films of time wear perilously thin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thought looks backward to the simpler years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till all the vision seems but just beyond.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If one have faith, it may be that he shall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold the gods—once only, and no more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of Time's inhospitality,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For which they may not stay.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>THE POET</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within the marvel of the light, what flower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of active wonder from quiescence springs!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is it a throng of luminous white clouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Phantoms of some old storm's death-driven Titans,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That float beneath the moon, and speak with voices<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the last echoes of a thunder spent?<span class="pagenum">[44]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis the forsaken gods, that win a foothold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">About the magic circle which the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Draws like some old enchantress round the glade.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>THE PHILOSOPHER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I see them not: the vision is addressed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only to thine acute and eager youth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>JOVE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All heaven and earth were once my throne;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now I have but the wind alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For shifting judgment-seat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pillared world supported me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet man's old incredulity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Left nothing for my feet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>PAN</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Man hath forgotten me:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet seems it that my memory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Saddens the wistful voices of the wood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within each erst-frequented spot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Echo forgets my music not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor Earth my tread where trampling years have stood.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[45]</span></div></div> + +<h3>ARTEMIS</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Time hath grown cold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toward beauty loved of old.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods must quake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When dreams and hopes forsake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heart of man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And disillusion's ban<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More chill than stone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rears till the former throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of loveliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is dark and tenantless.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now must I weep—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Homeless within the deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where once of old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mine orbèd chariot rolled,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mourn in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man's immemorial pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Uncomforted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of light and beauty fled.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>APOLLO</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Time wearied of my song—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A satiate and capricious king<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who for his pleasure bade me sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First of his minstrel throng.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, cloyed with melody,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His ear grew faint to voice and lyre;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgotten then of Time's desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His thought was void of me.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[46]</span></div></div> + +<h3>APHRODITE</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I, born of sound and foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Child of the sea and wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was fire upon mankind—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fuelled with Syria, and with Greece and Rome.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time fanned me with his breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love found new warmth in me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Life its ecstasy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till I grew deadly with the wind of death.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>A NYMPH</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How can the world be still so beautiful<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When beauty's self is fled? Tis like the mute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And marble loveliness of some dead girl;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And we that hover here, are as the spirit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of former voice and motion, and live color<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that which shall not stir nor speak again.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>ANOTHER NYMPH</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nay, rather say this lovely, lifeless world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is but a rigid semblance, counterfeiting<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world which was. Nor have the gods retained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such power as once informed and rendered vital<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cryptic irresponsiveness of stone,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That statue which Pygmalion made and loved.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[47]</span></div></div> + +<h3>ATÈ</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I, who was discord among men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone of all Time's hierarchy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Find that Time hath no need of me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No lack that I might fill again.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>THE POET</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tell me, O gods, are ye forever doomed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fall and flutter among spacial winds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finding release nor foothold anywhere—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Debarred from doors of all the suns, like spirits<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose names are blotted from the lists of Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though they themselves yet wander undestroyed?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<h3>THE GODS TOGETHER</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Throneless, discrowned, and impotent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In man's sad disillusionment,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We passed with Earth's returnless youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who were the semblances of truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The veils that hid the vacantness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Infinite, naked, meaningless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blank and universal Sphinx<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Each world beholds at last—and sinks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New gods protect awhile the gaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of man—each one a veil that stays—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the new gods, discredited,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like mist that melts with noon, are fled<span class="pagenum">[48]</span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That power oppressive, limitless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tyranny of nothingness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our power is dead upon the earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the first dews and dawns of Time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in the far and younger clime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of other worlds, it hath re-birth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, though we find not entrance here—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Astray like feathers on the wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To neither earth nor heaven consigned—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh altars in a distant sphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are keen with fragrance, bright with fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">New hearths to warm us from the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, banished thence, we pass in flight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While all the flames of dream expire.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[49]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="A_SUNSET">A SUNSET</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As blood from some enormous hurt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sanguine sunset leapt;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across it, like a dabbled skirt,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hurrying tempest swept.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[50]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_CLOUD-ISLANDS">THE CLOUD-ISLANDS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What islands marvellous are these,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That gem the sunset's tides of light—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Opals aglow in saffron seas?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How beautiful they lie, and bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some new-found Hesperides!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What varied, changing magic hues<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tint gorgeously each shore and hill!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What blazing, vivid golds and blues<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their seaward winding valleys fill!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What amethysts their peaks suffuse!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Close held by curving arms of land<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That out within the ocean reach,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I mark a faery city stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Set high upon a sloping beach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That burns with fire of shimmering sand.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Of sunset-light is formed each wall;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each dome a rainbow-bubble seems;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every spire that towers tall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A ray of golden moonlight gleams;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of opal-flame is every hall.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[51]</span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Alas! how quickly dims their glow!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What veils their dreamy splendours mar!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like broken dreams the islands go,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As down from strands of cloud and star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sinking tides of daylight flow.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[52]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_SNOW-BLOSSOMS">THE SNOW-BLOSSOMS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But yestereve the winter trees<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Reared leafless, blackly bare,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their twigs and branches poignant-marked<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Upon the sunset-flare.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">White-petaled, opens now the dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And in its pallid glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Revealed, each leaf-lorn, barren tree<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Stands white with flowers of snow.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[53]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_SUMMER_MOON">THE SUMMER MOON</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How is it, O moon, that melting,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unstintedly, prodigally,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the peaks' hard majesty,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till they seem diaphanous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fluctuant as a veil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pouring thy rapturous light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through pine, and oak, and laurel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the summer-sharpened green,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Softening and tremulous,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a lustrous miracle—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How is it that I find,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I turn again to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thy lost and wasted light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is regained in one magic breath?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[54]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_RETURN_OF_HYPERION">THE RETURN OF HYPERION</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The dungeon-clefts of Tartarus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are just beyond yon mountain-girdle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose mass is bound around the bulk<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the dark, unstirred, unmoving East.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alike on the mountains and the plain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night is as some terrific dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That closes the soul in a crypt of dread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apart from touch or sense of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in the space of Eternity.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What light unseen perturbs the darkness?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold! it stirs and fluctuates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the mountains and the stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That are set as guards above the prison<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the captive Titan-god. I know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That in the deeps beneath, Hyperion<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divides the pillared vault of dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stands a space upon its ruin.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then light is laid upon the peaks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the hand of one who climbs beyond;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, lo! the Sun! The sentinel stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are dead with overpotent flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in their place Hyperion stands.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night is loosened from the land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a dream from the mind of the dreamer.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A great wind blows across the dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the wind of the motion of the world.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[55]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="LETHE">LETHE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I flow beneath the columns that upbear<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The world, and all the tracts of heaven and hell;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Foamless I sweep, where sounds nor glimmers tell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My motion nadir-ward; no moment's flare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gives each to each the shapes that, unaware,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Commingle at my verge, to test the spell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of waves intense with night, whose deeps compel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One face from pain, and rapture, and despair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The fruitless earth's denied and cheated sons<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Meet here, where fruitful and unfruitful cease.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when their lords, the mightier, hidden Ones,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Have drained all worlds till being's wine is low,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall they not come, and from the oblivious flow<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drink at one draught a universe of peace?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[56]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="ATLANTIS">ATLANTIS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Above its domes the gulfs accumulate<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To where the sea-winds trumpet forth their screed;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But here the buried waters take no heed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deaf, and with closèd lips from press of weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Imposed by ocean. Dim, inanimate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On temples of an unremembered creed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Involved in long, slow tentacles of weed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dead tide lies immovable as Fate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From out the ponderous-vaulted ocean-dome,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A clouded light is questionably shed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On altars of a goddess garlanded<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With blossoms of some weird and hueless vine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wingèd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[57]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_UNREVEALED">THE UNREVEALED</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How dense the glooms of Death, impervious<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To aught of old memorial light! How strait<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sunless road, suspended, separate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That leads to later birth! Untremulous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With any secret morn of stars, to us<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Past is closed as with division great<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of planet-girdling seas—unknown its gate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the mouths of shadows cavernous.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh! may it be that Death in kindness strips<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The soul of memory's raiment, rendering blind<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As when on mountain peaks a glance behind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[58]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_ELDRITCH_DARK">THE ELDRITCH DARK</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now as the twilight's doubtful interval<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Closes with night's accomplished certainty,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A wizard wind goes crying eerily;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the glade unsteady shadows crawl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Timed to the trees, whose voices rear and fall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As with some dreadful witches' ecstasy,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flung upward to the dark, whence glitters free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The crooked moon, impendent over all.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Twin veils of covering cloud and silence thrown<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Across the movement and the sound of things,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Make blank the night, till in the broken west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moon's ensanguined blade awhile is shown....<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The night grows whole again.... The shadows rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gathered beneath a greater shadow's wings.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[59]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_CHERRY-SNOWS">THE CHERRY-SNOWS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The cherry-snows are falling now;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Down from the blossom-clouded sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of zephyr-troubled twig and bough,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In widely settling whirls they fly.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The orchard earth, unclothed and brown,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is wintry-hued with petals bright;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E'en as the snow they glimmer down;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Brief as the snow's their stainless white.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[60]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="FAIRY_LANTERNS">FAIRY LANTERNS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis said these blossom-lanterns light<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The elves upon their midnight way;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That fairy toil and elfin play<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Receive their beams of magic white.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I marvel not if it be true;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I know this flower has lighted me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nearer to Beauty's mystery,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And past the veils of secrets new.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[61]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="NIRVANA">NIRVANA</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Poised as a god whose lone, detachèd post,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of finite years, and those unvaried darks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That veil Eternity, I saw the host<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of worlds and suns, swept from the furthermost<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of night—confusion as of dust with sparks—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whirl tow'rd the opposing brink; as one who harks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some warning trumpet, Time, a withered ghost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fled with them; disunited orbs that late<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were atoms of the universal frame,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">They passed to some eternal fragment-heap.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, lo, the gods, from space discorporate,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who were its life and vital spirit, came,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Drawn outward by the vampire-lips of Sleep!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[62]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_NEMESIS_OF_SUNS">THE NEMESIS OF SUNS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo, what are these, the gyres of sun and world,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fulfilled with daylight by each toiling sun—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lo, what are these but webs of radiance spun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the roof of Night, and torn or furled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By Night at will? All opposite powers upwhirled<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are less than chaff to this imperious one—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">As wind-tossed chaff, until its sport be done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scattered, and lifted up, and downward hurled.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All gyres are held within the path unspanned<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Night's aeonian compass—loosely pent<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As with the embrace of lethal-tightening weight;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All suns are grasped within the hollow hand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Night, the godhead sole, omnipotent,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose other names are Nemesis and Fate.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[63]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="WHITE_DEATH">WHITE DEATH</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Methought the world was bound with final frost;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sun, made hueless as with fear and awe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Illumined yet the lands it could not thaw.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then on my road, with instant evening crost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death stood, and in its shadowy films enwound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Mine eyes forgot the light, until I came<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where poured the inseparate, unshadowed flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of phantom suns in self-irradiance drowned.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Death lay revealed in all its haggardness—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Immitigable wastes horizonless;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Profundities that held nor bar nor veil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All hues wherewith the suns and worlds were dyed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In light invariable nullified;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All darkness rendered shelterless and pale.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[64]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="RETROSPECT_AND_FORECAST">RETROSPECT AND FORECAST</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Turn round, O Life, and know with eyes aghast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The breast that fed thee—Death, disguiseless, stern;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Even now, within thy mouth, from tomb and urn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dust is sweet. All nurture that thou hast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was once as thou, and fed with lips made fast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On Death, whose sateless mouth it fed in turn.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Kingdoms debased, and thrones that starward yearn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All are but ghouls that batten on the past.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Monstrous and dread, must it fore'er abide,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">This unescapable alternity?<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Must loveliness find root within decay,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And night devour its flaming hues alway?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sickening, will Life not turn eventually,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or ravenous Death at last be satisfied?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[65]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="SHADOW_OF_NIGHTMARE">SHADOW OF NIGHTMARE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What hand is this, that unresisted grips<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My spirit as with chains, and from the sound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And light of dreams, compels me to the bound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where darkness waits with wide, expectant lips?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Albeit thereat my footing holds, nor slips,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The threats of that Omnipotence confound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All days and hours of gladness, girt around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sense of near, unswervable eclipse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So lies a land whose noon is plagued with whirr<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of bats, than their own shadows swarthier,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose flight is traced on roofs of white abodes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein from court to court, from room to room,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In hieroglyphics of abhorrent doom,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is slowly trailed the slime of crawling toads.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[66]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_SONG_OF_A_COMET">THE SONG OF A COMET</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A plummet of the changing universe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far-cast, I flare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through gulfs the sun's uncharted orbits bind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And spaces bare<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That intermediate darks immerse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By road of sun nor world confined.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon my star-undominated gyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I mark the systems vanish one by one;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the swarming worlds I lunge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sudden plunge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close to the zones of solar fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or 'mid the mighty wrack of stars undone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flash, and with momentary rays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compel the dark to yield<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their aimless forms, whose once far-potent blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In ashes chill is now inurned.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A space revealed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I see their planets turned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where holders of the heritage of breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exultant rose, and sank to barren death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the stars' unheeding eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Adown contiguous skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pass the thickening brume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of systems yet unshaped, that hang immense<span class="pagenum">[67]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along mysterious shores of gloom;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or see—unimplicated in their doom—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The final and disastrous gyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of blinded suns that meet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from their mingled heat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And battle-clouds intense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'erspread the deep with fire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through stellar labyrinths I thrid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mine orbit placed amid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The multiple and irised stars, or hid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsolved and intricate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In many a planet-swinging sun's estate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ofttimes I steal in solitary flight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along the rim of the exterior night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That grips the universe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then return,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Past outer footholds of sidereal light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To where the systems gather and disperse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dip again into the web of things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To watch it shift and burn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hearted with stars. On peaceless wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pierce, where deep-outstripping all surmise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nether heavens drop unsunned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By stars and planets shunned.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then I rise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through vaulting gloom, to watch the dark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snatch at the flame of failing suns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or mark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The heavy-dusked and silent skies,<span class="pagenum">[68]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strewn thick with wrecked and broken stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where many a fated orbit runs.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An arrow sped from some eternal bow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through change of firmaments and systems sent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And finding bourn nor bars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I flee, nor know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For what eternal mark my flight is meant.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[69]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_RETRIBUTION">THE RETRIBUTION</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Old Egypt's gods, Osiris, Ammon, Thoth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Came on my dream in thunder, and their feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Revealed, were as the levin's fire and heat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hosts of Rome, the Arab and the Goth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have left their altars dark, yet stern and wroth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In olden power they stood, whose wings were fleet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And mighty as with strength of storms that meet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In mingled foam of clouds and ocean-froth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Above my dream, with arch of dreaded wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In judgement and in sentence of what crime<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I knew not, sate the gods outcast of time.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">They passed, and lo, a plague of darkness fell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unsleeping, and accurst with nameless things,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And dreams that stood the ministers of Hell!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[70]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="TO_THE_DARKNESS">TO THE DARKNESS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou hast taken the light of many suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they are sealed in the prison-house of gloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even as candle-flames<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast thou taken the souls of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With winds from out a hollow place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are hid in the abyss as in a sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the gulfs are over them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the weight of many peaks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the depth of many seas;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy shields are between them and the light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are past its burden and bitterness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spears of the day shall not touch them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chains of the sun shall not hale them forth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Many men there were,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the days that are now of thy realm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou hast sealed with the seal of many deeps;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their feet were as eagles' wings in the quest of Truth—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aye, mightily they desired her face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hunting her through the lands of life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As men in the blankness of the waste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seek for a buried treasure-house of kings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But against them were the veils<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That hands may not rend nor sabers pierce;<span class="pagenum">[71]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Truth was withheld from them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a water that is seen afar at dawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at noon is lost in the sand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the feet of the traveller.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world was a barrenness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the gardens were as the waste.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they turned them to the adventure of the dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the travelling of the land without roads,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the sailing of the sea that hath no beacons.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why have they not returned?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their quest hath found end in thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or surely they had fared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once more to the place whence they came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As men that have travelled to a fruitless land.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have looked on thy face,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to them it is the countenance of Truth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy silence is sweeter to them than the voice of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thine embrace more dear than the clasp of the beloved.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are fed with the emptiness past the veil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And their hunger is filled;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have found the waters of peace,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And are athirst no more.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They know a rest that is deeper than the gulfs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whose seal is unbreakable as the seal of the void;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They sleep the sleep of the suns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the vast is a garment unto them.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[72]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="A_DREAM_OF_BEAUTY">A DREAM OF BEAUTY</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I dreamed that each most lovely, perfect thing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That Nature hath, of sound, and form, and hue—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The winds, the grass, the light-concentering dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gleam and swiftness of the sea-bird's wing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blueness of sea and sky, and gold of storm<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Transmuted by the sunset, and the flame<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of autumn-colored leaves, before me came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, meeting, merged to one diviner form.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Incarnate Beauty 'twas, whose spirit thrills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through glaucous ocean and the greener hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And in the cloud-bewildered peaks is pent.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like some descended star she hovered o'er,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But as I gazed, in doubt and wonderment,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mine eyes were dazzled, and I saw no more.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[73]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_DREAM-BRIDGE">THE DREAM-BRIDGE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All drear and barren seemed the hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That passed rain-swept and tempest-blown.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dead leaves fell like brownish notes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Within the rain's grey monotone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There came a lapse between the showers;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The clouds grew rich with sunset gleams;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then o'er the sky a rainbow sprang—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A bridge unto the Land of Dreams.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[74]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="A_LIVE-OAK_LEAF">A LIVE-OAK LEAF</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">How marvellous this bit of green<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I hold, and soon shall throw away!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its subtile veins, its vivid sheen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seem fragment of a god's array.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In all the hidden toil of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Which is the more laborious part—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To rear the oak's enormous girth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or shape its leaves with poignant art?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[75]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="PINE_NEEDLES">PINE NEEDLES</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O little lances, dipped in grey,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And set in order straight and clean,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">How delicately clear and keen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your points against the sapphire day!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Attesting Nature's perfect art<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ye fringe the limpid firmament,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O little lances, keenly sent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To pierce with beauty to the heart!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[76]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="TO_THE_SUN">TO THE SUN</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thy light is as an eminence unto thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thou are upheld by the pillars of thy strength.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy power is a foundation for the worlds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are builded thereon as upon a lofty rock<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereto no enemy hath access.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou puttest forth thy rays, and they hold the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in the hollow of an immense hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou erectest thy light as four walls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And a roof with many beams and pillars.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy flame is a stronghold based as a mountain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its bastions are tall, and firm like stone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The worlds are bound with the ropes of thy will;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like steeds are they stayed and contrained<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the reins of invisible lightnings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bands that are stouter than iron manifold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And stronger than the cords of the gulfs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou withholdest them from the brink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of outward and perilous deeps,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest they perish in the desolations of the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or be stricken of strange suns;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest they be caught in the pitfalls of the abyss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or fall into the furnace of Arcturus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy law is as a shore unto them,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they are restrained thereby as the sea.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[77]</span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou art food and drink to the worlds;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, by thy toil are they sustained,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That they fail not upon the road of space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose goal is Hercules.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thy pillars of force are withdrawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the walls of thy light fall inward,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne down by the sundering night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thy head is covered with the Shadow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The worlds shall wander as men bewildered<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the sterile and lifeless waste.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Athirst and unfed shall they be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the springs of thy strength are dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thy fields of light are black with dearth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They shall perish from the ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou showest no longer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And emptiness shall close above them.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[78]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_FUGITIVES">THE FUGITIVES</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O fugitive fragrances<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That tremble heavenward<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unceasing, or if ye linger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Halt but as memories<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the verge of forgetfulness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why must ye pass so fleetly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On wings that are less than wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To a death unknowable?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon ye are gone, and the air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forgets your faint unrest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the garden's breathlessness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where fall the snows of silence.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[79]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="AVERTED_MALEFICE">AVERTED MALEFICE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where mandrakes, crying from the moonless fen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Told how a witch, with gaze of owl or bat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Found, and each root malevolently fat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulled for her waiting cauldron, on my ken<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upstole, escaping to the world of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A vapor as of some infernal vat;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Against the stars it clomb, and caught thereat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if their bright regard to veil again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Despite the web, methought they saw, appalled,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The stealthier weft in which all sound was still ...<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Then sprang, as if the night found breath anew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wind whereby the stars were disenthralled ...<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Far off, I heard the cry of frustrate ill—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">A witch that wailed above her curdled brew.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[80]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_MEDUSA_OF_THE_SKIES">THE MEDUSA OF THE SKIES</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Haggard as if resurgent from a tomb,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The moon uprears her ghastly, shrunken head,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Crowned with such light as flares upon the dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From pallid skies more death-like than the gloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now fall her beams till slope and plain assume<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The whiteness of a land whence life is fled;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shadows that a sepulcher might shed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Move livid as the stealthy hands of doom.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O'er rigid hills and valleys locked and mute,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A pallor steals as of a world made still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Death, that erst had crept, stands absolute—<br /></span> +<span class="i4">An earth now frozen fast by power of eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That malefice and purposed silence fill,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The gaze of that Medusa of the skies.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[81]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="A_DEAD_CITY">A DEAD CITY</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The twilight reigns above the fallen noon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Within an ancient land, whose after-time<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like rising mist the night increases soon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round shattered palaces, ere yet the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On mute, unsentried walls and turrets climb,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And touch with whiteness of sepulchral rime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The desert where a city's bones are strewn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She comes at last; unburied, thick, they show<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In all the hoary nakedness of stone.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">From out a shadow like the lips of Death<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Issues a wind, that through the stillness blown,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Cries like a prophet's ghost with wailing breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The weirds of finished and forgotten woe.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[82]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_SONG_OF_THE_STARS">THE SONG OF THE STARS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From the final reach of the upper night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the nether darks where the comets die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the outmost bourn of the reigns of light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the central gloom of the midmost sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In our mazeful gyres we fly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And our flight is a choral chant of flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ceaseless fares to the outer void,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the undersong of the peopled spheres,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The voices of comet and asteroid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wail of the spheres destroyed.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever we sing to a god unseen—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dark shall our voices fail?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The void is his robe inviolate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night is his awful veil—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How our fires grow dim and pale!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From the ordered gyres goes ever afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our song of flame o'er the void unknown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall it die ere it reach His throne?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">On the shoreless deeps of the seas of gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sailing, we venture afar and wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where ever await the tempests of doom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the silent maelstroms lurk and hide,<span class="pagenum">[83]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the darkling reefs abide.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the change and ruin of stars is a song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rises and ebbs in a tide of fire—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A music whose notes are of dreadful flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose harmonies ever leap high'r<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the suns and the worlds expire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is such music not fit for a god?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet ever the deep is a dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ever the night is a void,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor brightens a word nor a mark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show if our God may hark.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From the gyres of change goes ever afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our flaming chant o'er the deep unknown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The song of the death of planet and star.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall it die ere it reach His throne?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In our shadows of light the planets sweep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And endure for the span of our prime—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Globed atoms that hazard the termless deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With races that bow to the law of Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet cherish a dream sublime.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they cry to the god behind the veil.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet how should their voices pass the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The silence that waits in the rayless void,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If he hear not our music of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the thundrous song of our might?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they strive in the gloom for truth<span class="pagenum">[84]</span>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet how should they pierce the veil,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When we, with our splendors of flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the darkness faint and fail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our fires how feeble and pale!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From the ordered gyres goes ever afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our song of flame o'er the void unknown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where circles nor world, nor comet, nor star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall it die ere it reach His throne?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[85]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="COPAN">COPAN</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Around its walls the forests of the west<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Gloom, as about some mystery's final pale<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Might lie its multifold exterior veil.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sculptured with signs and meanings unconfessed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its lordly fanes and palaces attest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A past before whose wall of darkness fail<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Reason and fancy, finding not the tale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Erased by time from history's palimpsest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Within this place, that from the gloom of Eld<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Still meets the light, a people came and went<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Like whirls of dust between its columns blown—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An alien race, whose record, shadow-held,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is sealed with those of others long forespent<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That died in sunless planets lost and lone.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[86]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="A_SONG_OF_DREAMS">A SONG OF DREAMS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A voice came to me from the night, and said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What profit hast thou in thy dreaming<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the years that are set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the years yet unrisen?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast thou found them tillable lands?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is there fruit that thou canst pluck therein,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or any harvest to be mown?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shalt thou dig aught of gold from the mines of the past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or trade for merchandise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the years where all is rotten?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are they a sea that will bring thee to any shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a desert that vergeth upon aught but the waste?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shalt thou drink from the springs that are emptied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or find sustenance in shadows?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What value hath the future given thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is there aught in the days yet dark<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou canst hold with thy hands?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are they a fortress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That will afford thee protection<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against the swords of the world?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is there justice in them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To balance the world's inequity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or benefit to outweigh its loss?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then spake I in answer, saying,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of my dreams I have made a road,<span class="pagenum">[87]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my soul goeth out thereon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To that unto which no eye hath opened,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor ear become keen to hearken—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the glories that are shut past all access<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the keys of sense;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose walls are hidden by the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And whose doors are concealed with clarity.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the road is travelled of secret things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Coming to me from far—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of bodiless powers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And beauties without colour or form<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holden by any loveliness seen of earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And of my dreams have I builded an inn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein these are as guests.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And unto it come the dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a little rest and refuge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the hollowness of the unharvestable wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the burden of too great space.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The fields of the past are not void to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who harvest with the scythe of thought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor the orchards of future years unfruitful<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the hands of visionings.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have retrieved from the darkness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The years and the things that were lost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they are held in the light of my dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the spirits of years unborn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And of things yet bodiless.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in an hospitable house,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They shall live while the dreams abide.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[88]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="THE_BALANCE">THE BALANCE</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The world upheld their pillars for awhile—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now, where imperial On and Memphis stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The hot wind sifts across the solitude<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sand that once was wall and peristyle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or furrows like the main each desert mile,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where ocean-deep above its ancient food<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the devouring earth, in ruin one<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With royal walls and palaces undone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sunk within the desolated past,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Immingle it with ashes of the sun.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[89]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="SATURN">SATURN</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now were the Titans gathered round their king,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a waste region slipping tow'rd the verge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of drear extremities that clasp the world—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A land half-moulded by the hasty gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And left beneath the bright scorn of the stars,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grotesque, misfeatured, blackly gnarled with stone;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or worn and marred from conflict with the deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Conterminate, of Chaos. Here they stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old Saturn midmost, like a central peak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the lesser hills that guard its base.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Defeat, that gloamed within each countenance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the first tinge of death, upon a sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gathering like some dusk vapor, found them cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clumsy of limb, and halting as with weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of threatened worlds and trembling firmaments.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A wind cried round them like a trumpet-voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of phantom hosts—hurried, importunate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And intermittent with a tightening fear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Far off the sunset leapt, and the hard clouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Molten among the peaks, seemed furnaces<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In which to make the fetters of the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Seared by the lightning of the younger gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They saw, beyond the grim and crouching hills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those levins thrust like spears into the heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of swollen clouds, or tearing through the sky<span class="pagenum">[90]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like severing swords. Then, as the Titans watched,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The night rose like a black, enormous mist<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around them, wherein naught was visible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save the sharp levin leaping in the north;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And no sound came, except of seas remote,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seemed like Chaos ravening past the verge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the world, fed with the crumbling coasts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Matter.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Till the moon, discovering<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That harsh swart wilderness of sand and stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tissued and twisted in chaotic weld,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lit with illusory fire each Titan's form,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They sate in silence, mute as stranded orbs—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wrack of Time, upcast on ruinous coasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the slow withdrawal of the tide<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Safe for awhile. Small solace did they take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From that frore radiance glistering on the dull<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black desert gripped in iron silences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a false triumph o'er contestless fates,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or a mirage of life in wastes of Death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet were they moved to speak, and Saturn's voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeming the soul of that tremendous land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set free in sound, startled the haughty stars.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O Titans, gods, sustainers of the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is this the end? Must Earth go down to Chaos,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lacking our strength, beneath the unpracticed sway<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of godlings vain, precipitate with youth,<span class="pagenum">[91]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who think, unrecking of disastrous chance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To bind their will as reins upon the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or stand as columns to the ponderous heavens?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must we behold, with eyes of impotence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That universal wrack, even though it whelm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These our usurpers in impartial doom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the shards and fragments of the world?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were it not preferable to return,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And meeting them in fight unswervable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drag down the earth, ourselves, and these our foes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One sacrifice unto the gods of Chaos?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why should we stay, and live the tragedy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of power that survives its use?"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Now spake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enceladus, when that the echoings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Saturn's voice had fled remote, and seemed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead thunders caught and flung from star to star;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Wouldst hurl thy kingdom down the nightward gulf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like to a stone a curious child might cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To test the fall of some dark precipice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Patience and caution should we take as mail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not rashness for a weapon—too keen sword<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That cuts the strainèd knot of destiny,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne'er to be tied again. Were it not best<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To watch the slow procedure of the days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That we may grasp a time more opportune,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When desperation is not all our strength,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor the foe newly filled with victory?<span class="pagenum">[92]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then may we hope to conquer back thy realm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thee, not for the gods of nothingness."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He ceased, and after him no lesser god<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gave voice upon the shaken silences,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None venturing to risk comparison,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inevitable then, of eloquence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With his; but silence like the ambiguousness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of signal and of lesser stars o'ercast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And merged in one confusion by the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Possessed that multitude, till Saturn rose.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around his form the light intensified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strengthened with addition wild and strange,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Investing him as with a phantom robe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gathering like a crown about his brow.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His sword, whereon the shadows lay like rust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He took, and dipping it within the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made clean its length of blade, and from it cast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swift flickerings at the stars. And then his voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came like a torrent, and from out his eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Streamed wilder power that mingled with the sound.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> + +* * * * * + +* * * * + +* * * + +* * * +<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And his resurgent power, in glance and word,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poured through the Titans' souls, and was become<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fountains of their own, and at his flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their fires were lit once more, whose restlessness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leapt and aspired against the steadfast stars.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now they turned, majestic with resolve,<span class="pagenum">[93]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, red upon the forefront of the north,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Arcturus was a beacon to the winds.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with the flickering winds, that lightly struck<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The desert dust, then sprang again in air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They passed athwart the foreland of the north.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Against their march they saw the shrunken waste,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A rivelled region like a world grown old<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose sterile breast knew not the lips of Life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all its epoch; or a world that was<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The nurse of infant Death, ere he became<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too large, too strong for its restraining arms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And towered athwart the suns.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">And there they crossed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Metallic slopes that rang like monstrous shields,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But gave not to their tread, and clanging plains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like body-mail of greater, vaster gods.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where hills made gibbous shadows in the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They heard the eldritch laughters of the wind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeming the mirth of death; and 'neath their gaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gaunt valleys deepened like an old despair.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet strode they on, through the moon's fantasies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bold with resolve, across a land like doubt.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And now they passed among huge mountain-bulks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Themselves like peaks detached, and moving slow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Mid fettered brethren, adding weight and gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To that mute conclave great against the stars.<span class="pagenum">[94]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Emerging thence, the Titans marched where still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their own portentous shadows went before<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like night that fled but shrunk not, dusking all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That desert way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">And thus they came where Sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sleep of weary victory, had seized<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The younger gods as captives, borne beyond<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All flight of mounting battle-ecstasies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that high triumph of forgetfulness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on that sleep the striding Titans broke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vague and immense at first like forming dreams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To those disturbèd gods, in mist of drowse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Purblind and doubtful yet, though soon they knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their erst-defeated foes, and rising stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In silent ranks expectant, that appeared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To move, with shaking of astonished fires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bristled forth, or were displayed like plumes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Late folded close, now trembling terribly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pending between the desert and the stars.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, sudden as the waking from a dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The battle leapt, where striving shapes of gods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved brightly through the whirled and stricken air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweeping it to a froth of fire; and all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ancient, deep-established desert rocked,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shaken as by an onset of the gulfs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gathered and impatient Chaos, while,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above the place where central battle burned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stars drew back in fright or dazzlement,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Paling to more secluded distances.<span class="pagenum">[95]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo, where the moon had wrought illusive dreams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That clothed the wild in doubt and fantasy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hiding its hideousness with bright mirage,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or deepening it with gulfs and glooms of Hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mightier confusion, chaos absolute<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upon the imperilled sky and trembling world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now made a certainty within itself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The one thing sure in shaken sky or world.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Maelstroms of battle caught in storms of fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Torn and involved by weaponry of gods—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crescented blades that met with rounds of shields;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grappling of shapes, seen through the riven blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An instant, then once more obscure, and known<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only by giant heavings of that war<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of furious gods and roused elements,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Divided, leagued, contending evermore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along the desert—these, augmentative<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round one thick center, stunned the faltering night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So huge that chaos, complicate within<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With movements of gigantic legionry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Antagonistic streams, impetuous-hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where Jove and Saturn thunder-crested, led<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fight unswervable—so wide the strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of differing impulse, that Decision found<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No foothold, till that first confusion should<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In ordered conflict re-arrange, and stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With its true forces known. This seemed remote,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With that wide struggle pending terribly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if all-various, colored Time had made<span class="pagenum">[96]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">A truce with white Eternity, and both<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stood watching from afar.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Through drifts of haze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The broadening moon, made ominous with red,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Glared from the westering night. And now that war<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Built for itself, far up, a cope of cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drew it down, far off, upon all sides,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Impervious to the moon and sworded stars.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And by their own wild light the gods fought on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Neath that stupendous concave like a sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filled and illumed with glare of bursting suns.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cast by their own light, upon that sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The gods' own shadows moved like shapen gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Phantasmagoric, changed and amplified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A shifting frieze that flickered dreadfully<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In spectral battle indecisive. Then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swift, as it had begun, the contest turned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the heaving Titans' massive front<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It seemed that all the motion and the strength<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-thwarting and confounded, of that strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was flung in centered impact terrible,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rush of all that fire, tempestuous-blown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if before some wind of further space,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Striking the earth. Lo, all the Titans' flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bent back upon themselves, and they were hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vaster disarray, with vanguard piled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On rear and center. Saturn could not stem<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The loosened torrents of long-pent defeat;<span class="pagenum">[97]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He, with his host, was but as drift thereon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne wildly down the whelmed and reeling world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hurling like slanted rain, the lurid levin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell o'er that flight of Titans, and behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In striding menace, all-victorious Jove<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Loomed like some craggy cloud with thunders crowned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And footed with the winds. In that defeat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With Jove's pursuit involved and manifold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Few found escape unscathed, and some went down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like senile suns that grapple with the dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And reel in flame tremendous, and are still.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ebbing, the battle left those elder gods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upcast once more on coasts of black defeat—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gripped in despair, a vaster Tartarus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The victor gods, their storms and thunders spent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Went dwindling northward like embattled clouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And where the lingering haze of fight dissolved,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pallor of the dawn began to spread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On darkness purple like the pain of Death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ringed with that desolation, Saturn stood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mute, and the Titans answered unto him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With brother silence. Motionless, they seemed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some peristyle or range of columns great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone enduring of a fallen fane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In deserts of some vaster world whence Life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Faith have vanished long, that vaguely slips<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To an immemoried end. And twilight slow<span class="pagenum">[98]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crept round those lofty shapes august, and seemed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as might be the faltering ghostly noon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mightier suns that totter down to death.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then turned they, passing from that dismal place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blasted anew with battle, ere the swift<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Striding of light athwart stupendous chasms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wasteful plains, should overtake them there,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bowed with too heavy a burden of defeat.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slowly they turned, and passed upon the west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where, like a weariness immovable<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In menace huge, the plain its monstrous bulk,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The peaks its hydra heads, the whole world crouched<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against their march with the diminished stars.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum">[99]</span></div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2 id="FINIS">FINIS</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">It seemed that from the west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The live red flame of sunset,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eating the dead blue sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cold insensate peaks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was loosened slowly, and fell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Above it, a few red stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burned down like low candle-flames<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the gaunt black sockets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the chill insensible mountains.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in the ascendant skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Cloudless, like some vast corpse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unfeatured, cerementless)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Succeeded nor star nor planet.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It may have been that black,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pulseless, dead stars arose<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And crossed as of old the heavens.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But came no living orb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor comet seeming the ghost,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Homeless, of an outcast world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeking its former place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is no more nor shall be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the Cosmos again.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Null, blank, and meaningless<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a burnt scroll that blackens<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the passing of the fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay the dead infinite sky.<span class="pagenum">[100]</span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo! in the halls of Time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I thought, the torches are out—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The revelry of the gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or lamentation of demons<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For which their flames were lit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over and quiet at last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the closing peace of night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose dumb, dead, passionless skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enfold the living world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the sea a sinking pebble.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="figure2"> +<img src="images/ill2.jpg" width="100" height="115" alt="" /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Star-Treader and other poems, by +Clark Ashton Smith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STAR-TREADER AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 38410-h.htm or 38410-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/1/38410/ + +Produced by David Starner, Matthew Wheaton and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +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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