 | The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield |  |
Exulting thus, the Idol minister
Disclosed a stairway through the sculptured form
Of Serapis, whose giant head uprose
Beneath the altar of the fane, and thence
Through Isis' sphynxlike statue, from whose mouth
Responses breathed that fitted any deed
Or æra; fable was religion's name.
Up through the hollow bosom of the God,
Saying, “The mocker Momus hath his jest
And more, since e'en the Immortal's breast bears now
A mirror”—passed the priest—and soundlessly
The dædal portal, bossed with vine-wreaths, closed.
That moment, from the flowered and purple couch
The maiden sprung, through any caverned path,—
All peril and loathed sights and awful sounds,
To fly from pomp, pollution and despair.
Rushing along the tesselated floor,
She passed the beds of banquet, whose perfume
From sightless vases stole, and gained the verge
Of the vast gleaming hall—but now she met
Black, silent, unknown depths that seemed to scowl
On her vain flight! to every side she flew
But to encounter granite battlements,
Coiled serpents, mouldering sepulchres, cold cliffs,
Gigantic sphynxes, towering grim o'er lakes
Of sulphur, or the dreadful shapes of fiends.
The gorgeous lights grew shadowy, and stained clouds
Of vapour floated o'er the pillared roof,
Taking all forms of terror; and low sighs
And muttered dirges from the waters stole
Along the arches; and through all the vaults,
Into a thousand wailing echoes rent,
A shriek, loud, quick and full of agonies,
Burst from the deep foundations of the fane.
With steps like earliest childhood's, to her couch
The maiden faltered back, and there, with soul
Too overfraught for wished unconsciousness,
Gasping her breath, she listened!—Sullen sounds
Wandered along the temple aisles above;
Then came the clang of cymbals and strange words
Uttered amid the faroff music's swell:
And the prostrated multitudes, like woods
Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell
A silence when the heart was heard—a pause—
When ardent hope became an agony;
And parted lips and panting pulses—eyes
Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews
Of expectation chilled and fevered—all
The shaken and half-lifted frame—declared
The moment of the oracle had come!
A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt
And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest
Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall
Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd
Along the columned aisles and vestibule.
None deemed, the maiden in the earthquake's groan
And the volcano's thunder voice, had heard
The hastening doom, and clothed it in dark words
The blinded victims never could discern;
But to the bosom of their guilt again
They passed, dreaming of victories and spoils!
“Gone!” said the priest, descending—“Serapis!
Pardon and thanks I crave and give thee, god!
—Gone to their phantom banquet with glad hearts—
Such is the bliss of superstition's creed!
And they will glory o'er their fellows now,
Deeming themselves the temples of the gods!
Brimmed with revealings of divinity:
But Folly wafts us food, and we should laud
The victim of night visionries who parts
With virgin gold for fabled miracles!
But that thy loveliness might peril prayers
And change the rites to riots ill esteemed,
Thou shouldst have been a pythoness, my love!
What shadow veils thy vestal brow? thou art
My bride, and pleasure waits upon thee here—
Let the pure wine awake thy thoughts to mirth!”
Disclosed a stairway through the sculptured form
Of Serapis, whose giant head uprose
Beneath the altar of the fane, and thence
Through Isis' sphynxlike statue, from whose mouth
Responses breathed that fitted any deed
Or æra; fable was religion's name.
Up through the hollow bosom of the God,
Saying, “The mocker Momus hath his jest
And more, since e'en the Immortal's breast bears now
A mirror”—passed the priest—and soundlessly
The dædal portal, bossed with vine-wreaths, closed.
That moment, from the flowered and purple couch
The maiden sprung, through any caverned path,—
All peril and loathed sights and awful sounds,
108
Rushing along the tesselated floor,
She passed the beds of banquet, whose perfume
From sightless vases stole, and gained the verge
Of the vast gleaming hall—but now she met
Black, silent, unknown depths that seemed to scowl
On her vain flight! to every side she flew
But to encounter granite battlements,
Coiled serpents, mouldering sepulchres, cold cliffs,
Gigantic sphynxes, towering grim o'er lakes
Of sulphur, or the dreadful shapes of fiends.
The gorgeous lights grew shadowy, and stained clouds
Of vapour floated o'er the pillared roof,
Taking all forms of terror; and low sighs
And muttered dirges from the waters stole
Along the arches; and through all the vaults,
Into a thousand wailing echoes rent,
A shriek, loud, quick and full of agonies,
Burst from the deep foundations of the fane.
With steps like earliest childhood's, to her couch
The maiden faltered back, and there, with soul
Too overfraught for wished unconsciousness,
Gasping her breath, she listened!—Sullen sounds
Wandered along the temple aisles above;
Then came the clang of cymbals and strange words
Uttered amid the faroff music's swell:
And the prostrated multitudes, like woods
Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell
A silence when the heart was heard—a pause—
When ardent hope became an agony;
And parted lips and panting pulses—eyes
Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews
Of expectation chilled and fevered—all
The shaken and half-lifted frame—declared
The moment of the oracle had come!
A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt
And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest
Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall
Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd
Along the columned aisles and vestibule.
None deemed, the maiden in the earthquake's groan
109
The hastening doom, and clothed it in dark words
The blinded victims never could discern;
But to the bosom of their guilt again
They passed, dreaming of victories and spoils!
“Gone!” said the priest, descending—“Serapis!
Pardon and thanks I crave and give thee, god!
—Gone to their phantom banquet with glad hearts—
Such is the bliss of superstition's creed!
And they will glory o'er their fellows now,
Deeming themselves the temples of the gods!
Brimmed with revealings of divinity:
But Folly wafts us food, and we should laud
The victim of night visionries who parts
With virgin gold for fabled miracles!
But that thy loveliness might peril prayers
And change the rites to riots ill esteemed,
Thou shouldst have been a pythoness, my love!
What shadow veils thy vestal brow? thou art
My bride, and pleasure waits upon thee here—
Let the pure wine awake thy thoughts to mirth!”
Momus, the Jester of the gods, when Jupiter presented the man whom he had created to his inspection, and asked him how, characteristically, he could find fault with such workmanship, replied with a sneer that the defect was both obvious and incurable—that one so wise as the king of gods and men should have placed a mirror over his heart that all might discern evil purposes in their first conception. The priest, by filling with his person the aperture of the image, pleasantly deems himself the mirror that reveals and directs the minds of men.
| The poems and prose writings of Sumner Lincoln Fairfield | |