University of Virginia Library

I.

My goal is reached—homeward henceforth my way.
I have beheld Earth's glories. Had the eyes
Of those I love reposed on them with mine,
No future wish to roam beyond the range
Of one green pasture circling one clear lake
Itself by one soft woodland girt around,
Could touch this heart. My pilgrimage is made.

II.

I have seen Delphi: I no more shall see it:
I go contented, having seen it once;
Yet here awhile remain, prisoner well-pleased
Of reboant winds. Within this mountain cove
Their sound alone finds entrance. Lightly the waves,
Rolled from the outer to the inner bay,
Dance in blue silver o'er the silver sands;
While, like a chain-bound antelope by some child
Mocked oft with tempting hand and fruit upheld,
Our quick caique vaults up among the reeds,
The ripples that plunge past it upward sending
O'er the grey margin matted with sea-pink
Ripplings of light. The moon is veiled; a mile
Below the mountain's eastern range it hangs;
Yon gleam is but its reflex, from white clouds
Scattered along Parnassian peaks of snow.

III.

I see but waves and snows. Memory alone
Fruition hath of what this morn was mine:
O'er many a beauteous scene at once she broods,
And feeds on joys without confusion blent
Like mingling sounds or odours. Now she rests
On that serene expanse, the confluence
Of three long vales, in sweetness upward heaved,
Ample and rich as Juno's breast what time
The Thunderer's breath in sleep moves over it:
Bathes in those runnels now, that raced in light
This morn as at some festival of streams,
Through arbutus and ilex, wafting each
Upon its glassy track a several breeze,
Each with its tale of joy or playful sadness.
Fair nymphs, by great Apollo's fall untouched!
Sing, sing, for ever! When did golden Phœbus
Look sad one moment for a fair nymph's fall?

IV.

A still, black glen—below, a stream-like copse
Of hoary olives; rocks like walls beside,
Never by Centaur trod, though these fresh gales
Give man the Centaur's strength. Again I mount,
From cliff to cliff, from height to height ascend;
Glitters Castalia's Fount; I see, I touch it!
That Rift once more I reach, the Oracular seat,
Whose arching rocks half meet in air suspense;—
'Twixt them is one blue streak of heaven; hard by
Dim Temples hollowed in the stone, for rites
Mysterious shaped, or mansions of the dead:
Released, I turn, and see, far, far below,
A vale so rich in floral garniture,
And perfume from the orange and the sea,
So girt with white peaks flashing from sky chasms,
So lighted with the vast blue dome of Heaven,
So lulled with music from the winds and waves,
The guest of Phœbus claps his hand and shouts,
‘There is but one such spot; from Heaven Apollo
Beheld;—and chose it for his earthly shrine!’

V.

Phœbus Apollo! loftiest shape of all
That glorified the range of Grecian song,
By Poet hymned or Shepherd when the rocks
Confessed the first bright impress of thy feet;
By many an old man praised when Thracian blasts
Sang loud, and pine-wood stores began to fail;
Served by the sick man searching hill and plain
For herb assuasive; courted by sad maids
On whose pure lips thy fancied kiss descended
Softly as vernal beam on primrose cold:
By Fortune's troubled favourites ofttime sued
For dubious answer, then when Fate malign,
Ascending o'er the horizon of high Hopes,
Her long fell glance had cast on them—Apollo,
Who, what wert thou? Let those that read thy tale
In clouded chambers of the North, reply,
‘An empty dream!’—bid them fling far the scroll,
The dusty parchment cast aside for ever,
Or scan with light from thy Parnassian skies!
For Commentator's lamp give them thine orb
Flaming on high, transfixing cloud and wave
Or noon-tide laurel—(as the Zephyr strikes it
Daphnè once more shrinks trembling from thy beams)—
Were these but fancies? O'er the world they reared
The only empire verily universal
Founded by man—for Fancy heralds Thought;
Thought Act; and nations Are as they Believe.
Strong were such fancies; strong not less than fair!
The plant spontaneous of Society
In Greece, by them with stellar power was dewed,
And, nursed by their far influence, grew and flowered:
A state of order and fair fellowship,
Man with man walking, not in barbarous sort
His own prey finding, each, and his own God;
A state of freedom, not by outward force
Compressed, or ice-like knit by negatives;
A frank communion of deep thoughts with glad,
Light cares with grave; a changeful melody
Varying each moment, yet in soul the same;
A temple raised for beauty and defence;
An armed dance held for a festival;
A balanced scheme that gave each power a limit,
Each toil a crown, and every art her Muse!
Oh frank and graceful life of Grecian years!
Whence came thy model? From the Grecian heaven
The loves and wars of Gods, their works and ways,
Their several spheres distinct yet interwreathed,
By Greece were copied on a lesser stage.
Our thoughts soar high to light our paths on earth:
Terrestrial circles from celestial take
Their impress in man's science: Stars unreached
Our course o'er ocean guide: Orphean sounds
The walls of cities raised:—thus mythic bards
For all the legislators legislated!

VI.

Yet these were idols: such as worshipped these
Were worshippers of idols. Holy and True!
How many are there not idolaters?
Traditions, Systems, Passion, Interest, Power—
Are these not idols? Ay, of idols worst!
Not that men worship these; but that before them
Down-bent, the faculty that worship pays
Shrivels and dies. Man's spirit alone adores,
And can adore but Spirit. What is not God,
Howe'er our fears may crouch, or habit grovel,
Or sensuous fancy dote, we worship not:
Unless God looks on man, he cannot pray;
Such is Idolatry's masked Atheism!
—Yes, these were idols, for man made them such!
By a corrupt heart all things are corrupted,
God's works alike or products of the mind.
The Soul, insurgent 'gainst its Maker, lacks
The strength its vassal powers to rule. The Will
To blind Caprice grows subject: Reason, torn
From Faith, becomes the Understanding's slave;
And Passion's self in Appetite is lost.
Then Idols dominate—Despots by Self-Will
Set up, where Law and Faith alike are dead,
To awe the anarchy of godless souls.
Nought but a Worship, spiritual and pure,
Profound, habitual, strong through loving awe,
A true heart's tribute to the God of Truth,
From selfishness redeemed, and so from sense
Secured, though conversant with shapes of sense,
Nought but such Worship, with spontaneous force
From our whole Being equably ascending
As odour from a flower or fount's clear breath,
Redeems us from Idolatry. In vain
Are proudly wise appeals that deprecate
Rites superstitious; vain are words though shrill
With scorn—stark, pointed finger—forehead ridged
With blear-eyed Scepticism's myriad wrinkles:
Saintly we must be, or Idolatrous.
After his image Man creates him Gods,
Kneading the symbol (as a symbol, pure
And salutary) to a form compact
With servile soul and mean mechanic hand:
Thus to their native dust his Thoughts return,
Abashed, and of mortality convinced.

VII.

At Salem was the Law. The Holy Land
Its orient terrace by the ocean reared,
And thereon walked the Holy One, at cool
Of the world's morn: there visible state He kept.
At Salem was the Law on stone inscribed;
But over all the world, within man's heart
The unwritten Law abode, from earliest time
Upon our nature stampt, nor wholly lost.
Men saw it, loved it, praised—and disobeyed.
Therefore the Conscience, whose applausive voice
Their march triumphant should have led with joy
To all perfection, from a desert pealed
The Baptist's note alone; ‘Repent, repent;’
And men with song more flattering filled their ears.
Yet still the undersong was holy! long
(Though cast on days unblest, though sin-defiled)
The mind accepted, yea, the heart revered,
That which the Will lacked strength to follow. Conscience,
Her crown monarchal first, her fillet next
Snatched from her sacred brows, a minstrel's wreath
Assumed, and breathed in song her soul abroad:
On outcast Duty's grave she, with her tears,
Dropt flowers funereal of surpassing beauty;
With Reason walked; the right path indicated,
Though her imperative voice was heard no more.
Nor spake in vain. Man, fallen man, was great,
Remembering ancient greatness: Hymn and tale
Held, each, some portion of dismembered Truth,
Severely sung by Poets wise and brave.
They sang of Justice, God's great Attribute,
With tragic buskin, and a larger stride
Following the fated victim step by step:
They sang of Love crowning the toils of life:
Of Joy they sang; for Joy, that gift divine,
Primal and wingèd creature, with full breath
Through all the elastic limbs of Grecian fable
Poured her redundant life, the noble tongue
Strong as the brazen clang of ringing arms,
With resonance of liquid sounds enriching
Sweet as the music-laughter of the Gods:
Of heavenly Pity, Prophet-like they sang;
And, feeling after good though finding not,
Of Him, that Good not yet in Flesh revealed,
By ceaseless vigils, tears, and lifted palms,
And yearnings infinite and unrepressed,
A separate and authentic witness bore.
Thus was the end foreshown. Thus Error's ‘cloud
Turned forth its silver lining on the night.’
Thus too—for us at least a precious gift,
Dear for the lore it grasped, by all it lacked
Sternly made bold vain-glorious thoughts to chide,
Wisdom shone forth—but not for men unwise:
Her beams but taint the dead. Man's Guilt and Woe
She proved; and her own Helplessness confessed.
Such were her two great functions. Woe to those
Who live with Art for Faith, and Bards for Priests!
These are supplanted: Sense their loftiest hopes
Will sap; and Fiends usurp their oracles!

VIII.

Olympian dreams, farewell! your spell is past:
I turn from you away! From Eros' self,
From heavenly Beauty on thy crystal brow
Uranian Venus, starred in gentlest light,
From thee, Prometheus, chained on Caucasus,
Io, from thee, sad wanderer o'er the earth,
From thee, great Hercules, the son of Heaven
And of Humanity held long in pain;
Heroic among men; by labours tried;
Descending to the Shades, and leading thence
The Lost; while infant still, a Serpent-slayer;
In death a dread and mystic Sacrifice:
From thee, more high than all, from thee, Apollo!
Light of the world whose sacred beam, like words,
Illustrated the forehead of the earth;
Supreme of Harmonists, whose song flowed forth
Pure from that light; great slayer of the Serpent
That mocked thy Mother; master of that art
Helpful to anguished flesh; Oracular:
Secretly speaking wisdom to the just;
Openly to the lost from lips despised
Like thy Cassandra's flinging it to waste;
Phœbus Apollo! here at thy chief shrine
From thee I turn, and stern confession make
That not the vilest weed yon ripple casts
Here at my feet, but holds a loftier gift
Than all the Grecian Legends! Let them go—
Because the mind of man they lifted up.
But corruptible instincts grovelling left
On Nature's common plane—yea, and below it;
Because they slightly healed the People's wound,
And sought in genial fancy, finite hopes,
Proportioned life, and dialectic Art,
A substitute for Virtue; and because
They gave for nothing that which Faith should earn
Casting the pearls of Truth 'neath bestial feet:
Because they washed the outside of the cup,
And dropped a thin veil o'er the face of Death;
Because they neither brought man to his God,
Nor let him feel his weakness—let them go!
Wisdom that raises not her sons is Folly:
Truth in its unity alone is Truth.

IX.

What now is Delphi? Where that temple now
Dreadful to kings; with votive offerings stored,
Tripod, or golden throne from furthest lands,
Or ingot huge? Where now that tremulous stone,
Centre of all things deemed—Earth's beating heart?
What now is Delphi? yea, or Hellas' self,
With all her various States; epitome
Of Nations; stage whereon in little space
Forecasting Time rehearsed his thousand parts?
Sparta's one camp; the sacred plain of Thebes;
That plain, pious as rich, whence grateful Ceres
The band that blesses Earth upraised to Heaven;
The unboastful freedom of Arcadian vales;
Athens with Academic Arts, and ships
Far-seen from pillared headlands? Where, O where
Olympia's chariot-course that bent the eyes
Of Greece on one small ring shining like fire;
Or they, that sacred Council, at whose nod
King and Republic trembled? Gone for ever!
Vine on the wave diffused, budding with Isles;
Bower of young Earth, wherein the East and West,
Wedded, their beauteous progeny upreared;
Hellas, by Nature blest, by Freedom nursed,
By Providence led on through discipline
Of change, till that Philosophy was formed
Which made one City man's perpetual Teacher—
Hellas is past! A lamentable voice
Forth from the caverns of Antiquity
Issuing in mystery, answers, Where is Egypt?
Egypt of magic craft and starry lore,
Eternal brooder on the unknown Past
Through the long vista of her Kings and Priests
Descried, as setting Moon beyond the length
Of forest aisle, or desert colonnade;
Eldest of nations, and apart, like Night
Dark-veiled amid the synod of the Gods?
The sun and stars, above her circling, stare
At pyramids sand-drowned and long processions
Now petrified to lines of marble shapes
That lead to Sphinx-girt Cities of the Dead.
Where now is Babylon, mighty by peace
And gold, and men countless as forest leaves?
Persia, the Macedonian, Carthage, Tyre?
All gone—restored to earth! Great Rome herself.
Haughty with arcs of triumph, theatres
Sphered to embrace all Nations and their Gods;
Roads from one centre piercing lands remote;
Bridges, fit type of conquest's giant stride;
Great Rome herself, empire of War and Law,
Yoking far regions, harrowing those fields
Reserved for Christian seed—Great Rome herself
Was, and is not! The eternal edict stands:
The power from God which comes not, drops and dies.

X.

Hark, to that sound! yon ocean Eagle drives
The mist of morn before her, seaward launched
From her loved nest on Delphi. She though stern,
Can love—a divine instinct, that outlasts
Phœbus, thy fabulous honours! Far away
The storms are dying, and the night-bird pours,
Encouraged thus, her swift and rapturous song.
Ah! when that song is over, I depart!
Return, my wandering thoughts! the ascending Moon
Smiles on her Brother's peaks, and many a ridge
Her glance solicits; many a stirring wood
Exults in her strong radiance as she glides
On from the pine gulf to the gulf of clouds.
Return, my thoughts! the innumerous cedar cones
Of Lebanon must lull you now no more,
Nor fall of Empires with as soft a sound.
O'er famed Colonos stoop no more in trance,
Eyeing the city towers. No longer muse,
With mind divided, though a single heart,
On legend—true or erring! Earth can yield
No scene more fair than this—and Nature's beauty
Is ever irreproachable. Return!
A long breath take of this ambrosial clime
Ere lost the sweetness: sigh, yet be content:
Fill here your golden urns; be fresh for ever!

XI.

I have beheld Mont Blanc, in eminence,
Though seated, over all his standing sons,
Unearthly Ermite whose cell is Heaven;
His glacier beard forth-streaming to his feet
Beyond his cloudy raiment. I have gazed
On Rome; have watched it from the Alban hill;
Have marked that Dome supreme, its mitred crown,
Dilate at sunset o'er the Latian bounds.
Byzantium I have seen: first capital
That owned the Faith; whose rising up once more
Shall be as mighty gates their ‘heads uplifting’
O'er all the earth, for God to enter in.
These three have I beheld: to these henceforth
I add a fourth to stand with these for ever.
On rock or tree my name I dare not trace—
Delphi! stamp thou thine image on my heart.