University of Virginia Library

THE FLOOD OF THESSALY.

1. PART THE FIRST.

In Thessaly, while yet the world was young,—
Soon after Chaos, touched with light and form,
Lost its vague being, and sprung up alarm'd
To beautiful order,—in the pleasant vale
Of Tempé, where the meadows still are green,
The waters bright, the forests flourishing,
Lived Pyrrha and the young Deucalion.
—She was Pandora's child, who in gone days
Had for her dowry that most deadly gift
Which filled the world with pain: His sire was called
Prometheus, the great Titan, who lay stretch'd
Huge as a mammoth on the barren edge
Of Caucasus, where day by day, earth-lured,
Jove's bird, the ravenous vulture, like a cloud
Came sailing by the sun to feast on blood.
He was the Titan's son; yet did he bow
To Themis and before great Jove who reigned
Supreme upon the hills Olympian:
First God and reigning spirit was he who hurled
The scythed Saturn from his ancient throne,
And cast him with an arm unfilial
Headlong from out the skies, to walk the earth
Undeified, where as a man he taught
The Latian people many an useful art,
And shed the golden time o'er Italy.
Pyrrha and young Deucalion!—fair names
As ever shone in fable or old song,
Tradition or recording history:
In green youth were they lovers, tho' scarce known
The bud which after blossom'd into love;
Still lovers, tho' now wedded with consent
Of their own gentle hearts, before the face
Of all the stars that crowd the summer sky.
How beautiful they were may not be told;
Yet both were beautiful, and one so fair
That when her glossy ringlets downwards fell,
Serpenting o'er her shoulders smooth and white
As marble, (such the Parians wrought) she seemed
A happy Dryad from the woods escaped,
Or Naiad who had left her watery cave
Content to dwell with man:—Deucalion trod
The green earth as the feathered herald trod,
(Jove's son and starry Maia's,—always young)
And round about his temples the black curls
Hung thick, and clustering left his forehead bare.
His eye was like the eagle's, wild and keen,
And his mouth parted but to speak of love:
Not huge, yet giant-sprung, his towering youth
Rose into manhood, like a Titan born.
Careless of all the world save one sweet care,
And in each other lost they dreamt away
The hours, well pleased on fragrant lawns to stray
In balmy autumn, or thro' summer groves,
Or beside fountains where the noonday heat
Came never; gentlest Pyrrha silent then,
And listening to her lover's voice so low,
Which, while it languish'd or spoke soft reproach,
Hung like sweet music in her charmed ear.
At last they wed: No voice of parent spoke
Ungentle words which now too often mar
Life's first fair passion: then no gods of gold
Usurping swayed with bitter tyranny
That sad domain the heart. Love's rule was free,
(Ranging through boundless air and happy heaven,
And earth) when Pyrrha wed the Titan's son.
—The winds sang at their nuptial gentle tunes,
And roses opened, on whose crimson hearts
The colour of love is stamped; and odours rare
Came steaming from the morn-awakening flow'rs,
Which then forgot to close: Thessalian pipes
Were heard in vallies, and from thickets green
The Sylvans peeped delighted, then drew back
And shouted thro' the glades: Wood nymphs lay then
Beside the banks of running rivers, glad
For once to hear the shepherd's simple song;
And many a pleasant strife that night was had
On oaten reed and pastoral instrument,
Beneath the mild eye of the quiet moon.
“Joy to Pandora's child! Supreme delight
To the great Titan's son!”—all shouted forth.
“Joy!” and the words went through the far vales sounding,
And thro' the forests tall, and over hills
And dells, where slumberous melancholy streams
Awoke and gave an echo. In dark woods
The wild horse started from his midnight sleep,
And shook his mane and shrilly spoke aloud.
The Nightingale lay silent in the leaves,
For joy was grief to her: the timorous sheep
Were silent; and the backward-glancing hare
Lay close, and scarce the wild deer stirred the fern.
O happy amorous hours! O gentlest night!
When Pleasure left her home with winged Love:—
How often was that night in after times
Brought back! How often looks all light went forth,
And kisses pressed on lips glistening with dew,
And words more soft than zephyr ever breathed
In May, and sighs more soft than any word.
On the swift pinions of untired delight
Passed the bright year; and one fair infant, while
On the young mother's swelling breast it lay,—
Lay like a sleeping flower, blooming lone
In beauty, with no sweet companion nigh,
Drew heart to heart, and with unconscious power
Breathed pleasures new, pure, and ineffable.
—A lovely sight it was, when from his toil
Returning, or grave thought, or mountain sport,
Deucalion reached his home. By the rude door
Grew sycamore and limes whose branches hung
Like amorous tresses, and around whose trunks
The honey-suckle wound its fragrant arms;
And laurels always green and myrtle-flowers
Were there, which shook their white buds to the moon,
And there, long waiting his return, was she,
The gentlest Pyrrha, who each happy day
Gathered her fairest fruits to welcome him.
Thus did the God-descended Titan dwell
Thro' hours and months of joy; Pyrrha the while,
Meek handmaid, happy mother, fondest wife
And faithful, to her most harmonious thoughts
Gave voice, and uttered music to the morn;
And told how grateful was she to the skies,
To silence, and the air, which on its wings
Carried her sweet thanks past the farthest tops
Of Pelion, and grey Ossa, and beyond
Lone Athos, thro' the golden gates of Jove,—
Where on imperial cloud he singly sits,
Pavilioned by the rainbows, but uncrowned
Save by his hyacinthine locks which hang
Down like a cloud, and cast for ever out
Quick splendours, fiercer than are seen at noon
When bright Apollo wears his Syrian rays.
There sits he in his state, and there around
Stand all the Olympian gods and shapes, save one,
Juno his Queen, who near his feet reclines.
—From that high station Jove doth watch the world:
Its happiness and woe; its good and evil;
Its many hopes, and dumb unspoken doubts,
And the first births of error; lonely pain;
Madness, and mirth, and heart-corroding care;
And fears which plough the forehead with deep lines,
Like wisdom; and electric thought that springs
Like lightning from the inspired poet's brain.
Thus, bound in amorous chains, the lovers lived.—
Meantime, in Thessaly the times were rank:
Men grew degenerate; women sank abased;
And childhood lost its smile, and age its claim
To honour. Jove upon his skiey throne
Heard now no incense rise, no prayer, no thanks;
But, in their stead, commotions that shook towns,
Curses and vain defiance laughing loud:
And black abominations and foul thoughts
Were bred and nourished, till the heart became
Spotted as with a plague.—
Then Falsehood first was known, lean Avarice, Hate,
Hot Vengeance, and the virgin's ravishment,
Cunning, and Theft; and Murder stalked abroad,
Till sleep forsook the night and Fear was born.—
Such sin was never done nor stain beheld
Thro' wide creation since the world began,
Save when Jehovah shot his fiery rain
Down on Gomorrah, and that city razed
And ruined, and its tenants all destroyed.
Jove saw the sin, and o'er his forehead large
(Whereon, as on a map, the world is seen)
There passed the shadow of a storm.—‘Behold!’
He said; and as he spoke the vassal skies
Trembled, and white Olympus to its heart
Sickened and shook: then, stretching wide abroad
His sceptre which doth compass land and sea,
He pointed towards the ocean caverns, where
Upon his coral bed the sea-god lay
Reposing:—thro' the hollows of the deep
Where tempests come not, and thro' all the caves
Of that green world and watery palaces,
The word resounded:—from his bed uprose
The brother of Jove, and with a sign replied.
Then in a moment from their quartered homes
The winds came muttering,—West and blighting East,
And South; while Boreas prison-doomed and mad
Flew to the North, and shivering branch and trunk
Lifted the billows till their curling heads
Struck the pale stars.—At last the wet South hung
Brooding alone, down-weighed by cloud and shower,
And bound in black, mourning the coming doom,
And with his raven wings and misty breath
Allured the storms. Wide-stretching clouds around
(A dark confederacy) in silence met,
Hiding all Heaven. Towards the glooming shore
The tempest sailed direct, and on the top
Of Pelion burst and swept away its pines
By thousands:—Where it burst a way was made
Like that torn by the avalanche, when it falls
Louder than crashing thunder, amidst smoke
And ruin, bounding from the topmost Alps
O'er chasm and hill, and strips the forests bare.
Oh! woe, deep woe to fruitful Thessaly!
That tempest-shock sounded all o'er the land,
And men left their low dwellings, and came forth
And saw the sheeted cataracts gush from Heaven,
Like rivers that had burst their bonds, and fall
Darkening the day, until those ceaseless floods
Drowned and destroyed the herbs and bended corn,
Flowers and fruits, the wealth of all the year.—
For a time the earth drank in the mighty rains;
For a time,—but sated soon, morasses shone
Where plains had stretched, and ripling rivers left
Their channels old and wandered far away.
Upon a hilly slope lay Pyrrha's home
Still safe from the rising waters; yet she feared.
“Deucalion!”—(on their mossy bed they lay,
And heard without the hissing rain descend.)
“Deucalion! Ah! I fear, Deucalion,
The gods are angered; not with thee, dear friend,
For, tho' the Titan's son, thy vows have been
Constant, thine actions holy. Unto Jove
And Themis have we bowed and prayed—in vain:
For lo! the storms are out, and Heaven is dark
Perpetually. Apollo now no more
Rises at morning nor at evening fades;
And Dian, who when the year was wasting looked
But pale amidst the fighting elements,
Hath vanish'd quite: the stars are gone; the day
Hath died:—the earth itself passeth away.”—
Thus spoke that gentle woman and lay still,
Weeping and full of fears: Deucalion took
Her nearer to his heart:—“Themis is just,”
Sighing he said, “and kind, and tho' a frown
Hath hung upon the forehead of great Jove
Awhile, yet clearer light will come at last,
And he will smile and we rejoice again.
Believe it, love: and know, a dream—a thought
How thou may'st yet be saved hath come to me,
And I will labour long and shape a raft
Wherein upon the rough wave thou shalt pass
To happier shores, sweet Pyrrha.”—Still she sighed,
While he, still soothing, from her forehead pale
Parted the dark brown hair, and pressed thereon
His lips in silence. Thus, heart-folded close
She wept away her fears, and slumber fell
Like snow-down on her:—Quietly she slept
Without a dream until the morning came.
Morn came: but that broad light which hung so long
In heaven forsook the showering firmament.—
The clouds went floating on their fatal way.
Rivers had grown to seas: the great sea swol'n
Too mighty for his bound broke on the land,
Roaring and rushing, and each flat and plain
Devoured.—Upon the mountains now were seen
Gaunt men, and women hungering with their babes,
Eying each other, or with marble looks
Measuring the space beneath swift-lessening.
At times a swimmer from some distant rock
Less high, came struggling with the waves, but sank
Back from the slippery soil. Pale mothers then
Wept without hope, and aged heads struck cold
By agues trembled like red autumn leaves;
And infants moaned and young boys shrieked with fear.
Stout men grew white with famine. Beautiful girls
Whom once the day languished to look on, lay
On the wet earth and wrung their drenched hair;
And fathers saw them there, dying, and stole
Their scanty fare, and while they perished thrived.
Then Terror died, and Grief, and proud Despair,
Rage and Remorse, infinite Agony,
Love in its thousand shapes, weak and sublime,
Birth-strangled; and strong Passion perished.
The young, the old, weak, wise, the bad, the good
Fell on their faces, struck,—whilst over them
Washed the wild waters in their clamorous march.
Ne'er has such ruin been or such despair
Since, in records or tales of Thessaly.
Earth shook, great Mother, and from all her limbs
Sent signs of terror and unnatural pain:
The vallies trembled, and great lakes unlocked
Their dark foundations, and laid bare to day
Naiads with watery locks and elfish shapes,
Half sylvan, such as loved of old to haunt
On the fresh edge of forest-girded pools,
And shook the gladed echoes with their laugh.
Whole plains heaved up: meadows were torn and turn'd
Downwards, and ancient oaks whose crooked feet
Were riveted in rocks were wrenched away
And bared to the wild blast and sullen rain.
Wonder grew plain as truth. Etna, far off—
Terrible Etna, spuming, cast abroad
Her blazing rivers with loud groaning sounds
That tore the amazed heart of Sicily:—
Such noise was never bred on the great shores
Where Orinoco, huge sea-creature, comes
Rolling his shining train, o'er rapids and gulphs
Descending swift, and for a thousand leagues
Ravages wood and wild, and mad at last
Dashes his watery scorn against the breast
That fed him:—She, fond ocean-mother, still
Receives him to deep calm within her arms.
Still fell the flooding rains. Still the Earth shrank:
And Ruin held his strait terrific way.
Fierce lightnings burnt the sky, and the loud thunder
(Beast of the fiery air) howled from his cloud,
Exulting, towards the storm-eclipsed moon.
Below, the Ocean rose boiling and black,
And flung its monstrous billows far and wide
Crumbling the mountain joints and summit hills;
Then its dark throat it bared and rocky tusks,
Where, with enormous waves on their broad backs,
The demons of the deep were raging loud;
And racked to hideous mirth or bitter scorn
Hissed the Sea-angels; and earth-buried broods
Of Giants in their chains tossed to and fro,
And the sea-lion and the whale were swung
Like atoms round and round.—
Mankind was dead:
And birds whose active wings once cut the air,
And beasts that spurned the waters,—all were dead:
And every reptile of the woods had died
Which crawled or stung, and every curling worm:—
The untamed tiger in his den, the mole
In his dark home—were choaked: the darting ounce,
And the blind adder and the stork fell down
Dead, and the stifled mammoth, a vast bulk,
Was washed far out amongst the populous foam:
And there the serpent, which few hours ago
Could crack the panther in his scaly arms,
Lay lifeless, like a weed, beside his prey.
And now, all o'er the deeps corpses were strewn,
Wide-floating millions, like the rubbish flung
Forth when a plague prevails; the rest down-sucked,
Sank, buried in the world-destroying seas.—
Confusion raged and ruled. At last, up-grew
A mingling of Earth, Sea, and Heaven and Air;
All one they looked, impenetrable, black
As Chaos, when the salient atoms flew
Around the abyss and made all space a Hell.
Nature lay drowned and dead. Fens, moors, and bogs,
And pleasant vallies and aspiring hills,
Rivers and trees were lost, mountains and lakes:
Even Heaven eternal, whom no cloud before
Utterly barred, thro' its serene domain
Kept captive all the Gods and lucid stars,
Mercurius and Apollo and the rest;
And hid their beauty from the fainting world.
—A mass like the great ocean when all winds
Blow and lay bare its hollows, and shake forth
The century-sleeping sands, until the foam
Grows thick and dark, rolled over sea and land,—
A perilous mass of floods, fierce as the North
In March, when scything blasts strip all the bones,
And loud as when the riven air proclaims
Earthquakes at Hecla, or once bright Peru.
—It is a task beyond the Muse,—and yet
Sometimes she writeth with a golden pen,—
Witness those tales breathing of Paradise
And all that sinful mirth of Circe's son,
And where the mightiest poet open lays
Red Pandæmonium to eternal view,
And numbereth out the Peers of Satan, all
Tossed on the fiery waters, and bewailing
Their frightful fall; from Heaven's precipitous bounds
Cast like the refuse, to find out their way
Thro' depths and dark abysses, and the jar
Earlier than Order, till the mouths of Hell
Received them flaming,—a tremendous home.
It is a task beyond the Muse, too far,
To paint that leaden darkness which obscured
The world, or that wide horror which was born
When every element forsook its name
And nature, and all dumb and innocent things
Perished, because imperial man had erred.—
A dreariness there is which chills the heart,
When the sun dies on some ice-barren plain,
Cheerless and wintry-pale; and when the wind
Waileth in loud December, calling ghosts
To feed the sight of credulous age; and when
The hail-storm comes; and when the great sea chafes,
And the wild horses of the Atlantic shake
Their sounding manes and dash the foam to Heaven.
These sights are vanquished by the painter's toil:
But when the intolerable flood prevailed,—
That watery massacre, which quite destroyed
Thessaly, man and woman, and children frail,
Birds, beasts, the very worm, the tree, the flower,
When nothing was—but ruin, and nought seen
But one monotonous dreary waste of waves
Tumbling in monstrous eddies, and a light
Like an eclipse complete when day is hid,
The painter's pencil and the poet's pen
Must fail, confounded at a scene so dire.—
“Whither, ah! whither—to what happier shore
Steer'st thou thy way, Deucalion?” Pyrrha spoke.
He, glancing at the sky, just where the North
Is cut by the eastern light at early dawn,
(The mid-point of the compass) bade her gaze:
“What see'st thou—nought?—Poor girl, thine eye is dim:
For hope still lives.—Come! Bride of my despair,
(Now of my hope,) we'll live or die together.
Along the desarts of the deep we'll go,
Along the wide and wave-blown wilderness,
Undaunted and untiring. Some fair land
There is which Jove designs shall be our home:
Believe it. O Thessalian Pyrrha!—Thou,
Child of the ocean, canst thou fear its rage?”—
So spoke he, smiling thro' deep sorrow,—filled
With fear which yet he kept hid in his heart;
And with prevailing looks and voice all love
Cheered the sad Pyrrha on her watery way.
—Morn passed, and noon, and eve along; and night
Over their heads hung like a pall, through which
No minute star nor glimpse of faintest light
Could pierce; but all was dark,—dark like the grave.
—And so they floated on their fated track,
Borne onwards till the o'erwhelming rains had ceased,
And the wild winds were sleeping: and around
No noise was heard, save from their beating hearts,
And the lone dashings of the endless seas.

2. PART THE SECOND.

At last, she look'd—and lo! the East grew pale
With morning, and then flushing (like some bride
Whose ear expects yet fears each distant tread
To seek her chamber when the feast is done)
Threw out its fiery colours, and became
Crimson and burning red. Apollo's steeds,
Which wait his coming at the eastern gate,
Harness'd were there, and champed their chrystal bits,
And threw their flaming foam upon the air.
Then first, in all its radiant beauty shone
The Rainbow, shadowy arch, of every hue
Of light inwove, in Heaven's immortal loom;
Gay, rich, illustrious colours mingled there,
And shone and were involved each within each,
Atoms of loveliest light, orange and blue,
Yellow and glowing red and soothing green;
Lying across the sky, but vanishing
As the clear day came on, the arch was seen.
Over Parnassus far the vision hung;
And thither, borne along by tide or swell
Glided the raft, until a sound like waves
Breaking on some rough strand alarmed the air.
Then Pyrrha trembled, and Deucalion knew
Peril was near, and from his face the smile
Faded, and lowering care his eyes o'erspread.
No word he uttered, but with straining arms
Toiled,—but in vain: the loud and hurrying stream
Forced them along, till thro' the whitening waves
The horrid rocks peered up as black as death;
And the hoarse pebbles rattled on the strand
A stormy welcome; and the winds blew loud;
And the sea rose and sank, and round the raft
Curled with a hungry noise, 'till one huge wave
Dashed them along the shore.—
There wreck'd they lay;
The woman in her husband's guardian arms,
(Clasped like a jewel in its sterner case,)
But lost to life, and dumb, and motionless:
And then that husband, faithful to the grave,
Strung once more his worn nerves, and with deep sobs,
And staggering steps, and sighs, bore her beyond
The tyranny of the seas. “Roar on,” he said—
“The treasure of the world is saved at last.”
So, pressing those cold lips, her head he raised
Upon his knee:—‘She will revive’—he sighed,
And fell, half-swooning; and sleep, long-delayed,
Came like a cloud and wrapped his limbs in rest.
There, on the strand they lay,—Deucalion,
Father of this fam'd world, progenitor,
And Pyrrha the sad mother, goddess-born;
Both wreck'd, tho' saved, because their brothers did
Antediluvian sins,—because the wrath
Of the high God, great Jove, lay on the earth,
And was not to be quenched, unless by blood.
There lay they, long-time sleeping; while a Sea—
To which the Atlantic with its waste of waves
Is poor, tho' from its warring depths it flung
Alarums to the moon, and that broad belt
Of waters where the Baltic storms are bred
Is nought, nor where the Arabian snake is seen
Wasting the Nubian coast—A boundless Sea,
Paved like the dreamer's brain with livid looks,
Rolled far and near, and shook its hideous loads
At Heaven; and ever, as the billows bared
Their mountain backs and sank, worn with the toil,
Howled to the dreaming winds, and the winds sent
Fierce answers back and dashed the waves to snow.—
So, ere it slumbered in entire repose,
Antick'd the Ocean: then, by great degrees
Descending from its cloudy strife, tamed down
The plunging billows and impetuous depths,
Roaring for prey.—And now great Heaven had shut
Her windows, and the fountains of the world
Damm'd with a word;—and gentle calm came down,
And a power arose, which to the earth's deep heart
Sucked the vast floods, till vales and hills appeared.
—Recovered from their trance, and so refreshed
As the tired spirit is by food and sleep,
The wanderers looked around. On one fair side
Rose hills, and gentle waters murmured near,
And vernal meadows where the wild rose blew
Spread their fresh carpets. In the midst upsprung
A mountain, whose green head some ancient storm
Had struck in twain: rich forests deck'd its heights,
And laurel wildernesses clothed the sides,
And round it flew harmonious winds, whose wings
Bore inspiration and the sound of song.
Lower, and in the shade of that great hill,
A temple lay; untouched by storm or flood
It seemed, and white as when, just hewn, it caught
Ionian beauty from the carver's skill.
Thither they went, perhaps by some strong star
Drawn, or the spirit of the place unseen,
To ask their doom or own the ruling God:—
Thither they went, first parents, whom no child
Solaced, yet with hearts lighter than of yore;
The woman paler than when first she flung
Her curling arms around Deucalion's neck,
And he more gravely beautiful, less young,
But nearer heaven and like a dream of Jove.
They entered.—On a marble pedestal
A veiled figure sate, sybil or sage,
Or breathing oracle, whose inspired words
Were fate—immutable like Death or Love.
And near her, from an altar, whose soft flame
Was cedar-fed, fumed spice and frankincense,
Sandal-wood, aloes, and Arabian gums,
Warm odours yielding like the suns of May
When blooms are starting, and the fresh green grass
Laughs thro' its April tears and hums with life.
They knelt, the rough stones kissing, and with fear
Prayed; and each took bright leaves of the rich bay
There lying, and with low imploring sounds
Cast them upon the flame:—And then uprose
That figure, which was Justice, and the Queen
Of prophecy, and mother of the Hours,
Daughter of Earth and Heaven, and bride of Jove,
Great Themis. She, unveiling her bright eyes
And brow pale as the marble, with a voice
Sounding from awful distance, slowly spoke.
‘Children of Dust!’ she said, ‘Hear and revive:
The wrath of Heaven has passed, and ye are saved.
Go from my temple, and with garments loosed
And faces hidden, your great parent's bones
Gather, and cast them o'er your backs.’—They stood
Mute with amaze: each to the other looked
For help, bewildered; and when sense came back
The altar and the goddess were no more.
‘Themis immortal! O return, return!
Hear us, O vanish'd Themis!’ (so they moaned)
‘Hear us, and shed thy lustre on our minds,
Now dark. We see not, and are very sad.
We have endured much fortune, and, though spared,
We are alone:—no kin, no friends are ours,
None,—no companions save the senseless stones.’
The stones!—'Twas then the riddle of the skies
Dissolved. They left that temple, and obeyed
Its queen and prophetess:—Deucalion first
Plucking from out the earth (which sighed) a stone,
Threw it against the wind: It fell,—and lo!
Slowly as when the moon unclouds her face,
Swelled and grew human; yet not man at once,
But leaving like the worm its outer scale,
And shooting, as the flower puts forth its leaves,
Flexible arms (yet firm,) limbs apt for strength,
Muscles and sinuous shape, and streaming veins,
And last—the crowning head; which (cold at first,
And stiff like some pale mask,) relaxed to life,
Unclosing its bright eyes, and in warm cheeks
Receiving the first blush of living youth.
O wonder! Happiest Pyrrha, with what speed
She cast a stone, which like the first up-grew,
Yet fairer,—female, with such waving form
As Circe or Calypso, free from harm;—
Slowly the change went on, from limb to limb,
From waist to bosom, swelling like a cloud,
White-turning neck, and then the awakening face,
And last the eyes unclosed. ‘Immortal Heaven!’—
The mother spoke, and for a moment stood
Dumb, and with arms outspread then flew along
And clasped the new-born vision in her arms.
There hung she, and so gazed as mothers do
Who clasp pale children gathered from the grave,
And saved when hope had perished. ‘Oh!’ she spoke,
In low and hurrying tones, ‘Oh! leave me not
Again; Ione!—my sole child!—and yet
Art thou indeed, with all this skiey grace,
Mine own, made perfect without aid of time?
Thou stranger on the earth! Heaven's child (and mine)—
Oh! vision, die not until Pyrrha dies.’
In a moment straight before his eyes there thronged
Visions,—vast moving sights, Ocean and Land,
Palaces, towns, and temples,—sea-girt isles
Floating, and navies of a thousand ships,
Armies of steeled men, and shapes that wore
Their panther spoils, (nought else)—fierce savages,
Rivers and desart wastes, and grassy slopes
Crowned with the branching palm, and cedars such
As stood on Lebanon and kissed the wind
At morning,—and strange scenes and shapes beside.
—For a time he looked bewildered; but at last
His eye accustomed saw each shape distinct.—
First, on rich moving thrones, sceptred and crown'd
With oriental gold, dazzling as day,
And studded o'er with gems, passed slowly along
The kings of Thebes, and ocean-girded Tyre,
And Memphis old, and shrunken Babylon,—
Huge warrior men, upon whose lips, tho' sad,
Hung scorn, and pride in every wrinkled front.
Then came a bearded king more mild than they,
Father of many sons, all fair and brave,
And daughters, one a prophetess: This was
The Trojan Priam, at whose city gates
The Grecians watched for ten long bloody years,
And entered at the last old Ilium.
Near him sate one with laurels crown'd, but blind,
Who, pausing for a time, spoke forth at last
With a voice more solemn than the trumpet's tone
Calling armed men to battle: Terrible strife
In which the Gods once mingled filled his song,
Until descending unto gentler tones,
A gentler chord he pressed, and Love was made
His theme,—how on the Asian sands a dame
Loitered with him she loved and left her lord,
(Lacedemonian Helen)—how she stole
From Sparta then the sightless poet sung,
With the boy Paris, Priam's shepherd son,
And how Achilles angered, and the prince
Of barren Ithaca was led astray,
For ten long wretched years o'er land and wave
Wandering in grief and could not reach his home.
Following, and as the Magi walk, came two,
Hermes and Zoroaster, deemed sun-born,
Wise as the ever-watching stars, grave, pale,
And shrouded round by superstitious breath,
Which bade believe that each one was a God,
No less, and could dispense empire and death,
Riches, large joy, and charms from every ill.
These passed; when, like some picture where each shape
Looks so o'er-mastered that life stirs in all,
Athens from out a circular cloud up-sprang
Bravely, and shewed her temples all and streets,
Thro' which proud glorious men walked—one by one,
Else in bright throngs, as ages brought them forth
With exultation and no painful throes:
Kings, princes, and the soldiers of all states
(Not Athens alone, but Thebes and Macedon,
Corinth and Sparta and the rest) were seen
Conspicuous in their shining steel, but most
Great poets and grave-eyed philosophers
Shone thro' the dream like stars, and lit the land
With beauty and truth; for well sage Themis knew
Virtue is first and knowledge before arms,
Or power, or wealth, or strength in battle shewn.
—Cadmus, of that immortal throng the head
And leader, (for we pass all meaner tribes)
Stood with those wondrous letters in his hand
By which bright thought was in its quick flight stopped,
And saved from perishing. Amphion next
Came with his lute, and Linus fiercely slain,
And Orpheus, Thracian shepherd, who made stay
Swift rivers in their flow, until too cold
The lewd Bacchantes down the Hebrus' stream
Rolled his dissevered head, which uttered still
‘Eurydice!’—and then Alcæus passed,
Thales, and Sappho, whose so passionate song
Failed, tho' all fire, to stir the senseless boy
Phaon, and so the amorous Lesbian died.
Next came the Macedonian who bestrode
Bucephalus (whose spirit, till then untamed,
He broke by turning to the blinding sun)—
Yet not alone in steeds or in fierce arms
Delighted he, but much he loved rich song,
And fed his mind upon the tales of Troy:—
Then Plato, musing, whose most great delight
Was wisdom, which he taught by streams and groves,
Making Ilissus and its banks renowned;
And Socrates, whose earnest aim was truth,
And the star-blinded sage Pythagoras;
Praxiteles, and Phidias, and the rest
Whose Promethean touch awaken'd life
In the cold marble; and that king who died
Self-martyr'd in thy strait Thermopylæ!
And he who taught retreat o'er woods and plains
So well, and desarts strange, and hostile shores;
And Archimedes whose fierce art brought down
Ruin on cities; and that tragic Three,
Athenians, who the dream of life unveiled,
Winning men's wondering hearts by speech and verse,
And gave this world its best philosophy:—
Then passed Demosthenes; and he whom Fame
Slanders, sage Epicurus, on whom leaned
A youth well fitted for aught wise or good,—
Valiant, but wanton Lais bound him down
By amorous magic and enchanted toils;
And Pericles then, and then Aspasia came,
Whose midnight study by some eastern lamp
Had paled her cheek, but filled her eyes with thought.
Then followed countless endless throngs, like leaves
Crowning a woody wilderness,—unnamed,
Unknown, save some, on whom chance or the time
Fell with redoubled light and made distinct;—
Crowd after crowd,—enormous living trains,
Men, women, of every shape, and age, and mind
(Bright generations) passed along, some robed
Like seers, but most with spear or helmet armed,
Or in equestrian state, as still we see
Graven on gems or marble, and some wreathed
With Delphian laurel like Diana's maids,
Or roses Cytherean; some with bays
Apollo's gift and some the gift of Mars.—
Beyond all piercing of the sight they reached
Into the future, like a prophet's thought;
And still they passed, and still no end was seen,—
Heroes, and sages, and fair shapes unborn,
Vast towns and towers, temples and aqueducts,
Pillar and arch and trophy, all were seen;
And Bacchanalian mirth like that which stunned
Persepolis, when Philip's son, grown mad,
Fired the great city,—around which came sounding
Battles and triumphs, and the rage of war,
The rout, the riot, and the cloud of arms,
The conquest, and captivity,—and death.
Such throngs of old were never known to stream
From Babylon or Susa, nor when last
The Assyrian met the Mede, and marked the bounds
Of empire by the gates of Nineveh;
Nor when old Rome was highest; nor when more late
The Scythian through the Indian valleys broad
Swept like a storm.—
All that has been, and is, and is to come
Was there, made plain,—writ down clear as the stars;
A grand Array, beyond all which the grave
Could shew, though from its populous arms it threw
The treasures of past time, great, wise, and good,—
Beyond all thought, all guess or large belief,—
Beyond Imagination's widest dreams.—
—These things, so Themis bade, assumed brief life:—
But whither they fled, or when the Titan shook
That rich sleep off, and in the awakening light
Bathed his flushed forehead, still remains unsung
In story;—yet, before his sight, 'tis told,
Stood Pyrrha, fairest of earth's visions still,
Who on his tranced slumber long had looked,
Whispering the Gods for comfort. He awoke:—
And o'er him, gently bending, children hung,
(He their creator) and a new-born world
Opened upon his sense,—a Paradise
Of flowers and fruits, sweet winds and cloudless skies,
And azure waters winding to the main,
And forest walks, and (far off) sounds which break
The sun-set silence, and the songs of birds
Chanting melodious mirth:—Vernal delights
Haunted the air, and youth which knew no pang
Ran through all living veins, and touched all eyes
With beauty:—the tall branches waved their plumes;
The water trembled; and the amorous sun
Came darting from his orb: Eagles and doves,
Paired in the ether, and the branching stag
Fled from his shadow on the grass-green plain.—
O golden hours! O world! now stained with crime,
Immaculate then, methinks thy perfect fame
Should live in song! Methinks some bard, whose heart
Traces its courage to Promethean veins,
Should build in lasting verse, firmer than mine,
Deucalion's story,—(upon Delphi's steep
Saved from the watery waste,) and Pyrrha's woe.