University of Virginia Library

URIEL.

(A MYSTERY.)

DEDICATION.

To you, the dead and gone, bright-eyed Desires
Whose beauty lights no more my dwindled day,
Here, sitting lone beside forsaken fires,
I dedicate this lay.

1.

I heard a Voice by night, that call'd to me “Uriel! Uriel!”
The night was dark, and nothing could I see,
Yet knew I by the Voice that it was She
Whom my soul loves so well
That when She calls Her follower I must be,
Whether She call from Heaven or from Hell.

2.

Then to the Voice “What is thy will?” said I.
But for sole response thro' the darkness fell,
Repeated with the same importunate cry,
Mine own name only, “Uriel! Uriel!”
I could not sleep nor rest upon my bed,
So I rose up, and thro' the husht house pass'd
With steps unlighted (for my lamp was dead)
Out on the heath.

3.

That Voice flew onward fast,
Still calling, and still onward after it
I follow'd, far outsped: for there, beneath
The moonless heaven, not even a marsh-fire lit
Night's fearful sameness; and athwart the heath,
Not fast and free as flew the Voice that led,
But halting oft, my steps went stumblingly.
Each footstep, as it fell, recoil'd with dread
From what it toucht; and, tho' I could not see,
I felt that, where I trod, the plain was spread
With corpses. Heap'd so thick they seem'd to be,
That I, at every moment, fear'd to tread
Upon a dead man's face. Yet, undeterr'd,
My feet obey'd a will not mine, whose spell
Their course constrain'd. For still that Voice I heard,
And still the Voice call'd “Uriel! Uriel!”

4.

At last a livid light began to grow
Low down in heaven. It was the moon that, pent
Behind a slowly crumbling cloud till now,
Athwart thin flakes of worn-out vapour sent
A filmy gleam. And I could see thereby
The corpses that lay litter'd on the heath.
Each white up-slanted face and unshut eye
Was staring at me with the stare of death:
Harness'd in rusty mail from head to heel
Was each dead body: and each dead right hand
Grasp'd by the hilt a blade of bloodstain'd steel,
But broken was each blade. And, while I scann'd
Those dead men's faces, I began to feel
A sadness which I could not understand:
But unto me it seem'd that I had seen,
And known, and loved them, somewhere, long ago:
Tho' when, or where, and all that was between
That time and this (if what perplex'd me so
With mimic memories had indeed once been)
I knew no longer. On this fatal plain
Vast battle must have once been waged, so keen
That none was spared by the relentless foe
For unmolested burial of the slain.

5.

And, as I gazed upon them, wondering why
These unrememberable faces seem'd
Mysteriously familiar to mine eye,
The cloudy light that on their corselets gleam'd
Grew clearer, and a sound began to swell
Moaning along the heath: the swarthy sky
Was scourged by a strong wind: the moonlight stream'd,
Flooding the land: and on the dead men fell
Its frigid splendour. Then stark upright rose
Each dead man, shouting “Uriel! Uriel!”
And in the windy air aloft all those
Arm'd corpses waved their shatter'd swords.

6.

I cried,
“What are ye? and what name is it you bear?
Corpses or ghosts? Is Life with Death allied,
To breed new horrors in this hideous lair
Of Desolation?” And they all replied
“Thine is our name, for thine our Legions were,
And thine would still be, if thou hadst not died.
But corpse or ghost thou art thyself, and how
Should we thy death survive? It is not well
When the dead do not know the dead, nor know
The date of their own death-day, Uriel!
Our leader bold in many a fight wast thou,
And we fought bravely. But thy foes and ours
Were strongest. And the strife is over now,
And we be all dead men. And those tall towers
We built are fallen, all our banners torn,
All our swords broken, all our strong watch fires
Quencht, and in death have we been left forlorn
Of sepulture, tho' sons of princely sires,
Born to find burial fair with saints and kings,
Where, over trophied tombs, the taper shines
On tablets rich with votive offerings,
And priestly perfumes soothe memorial shrines.
And that is why we cannot find repose
In the bare quiet of unburied death;
But ever, when at night the wild wind blows
Upon the barren bosom of this heath,
Our dead flesh tingles, and revives, and glows
With the brief passion of a borrow'd breath,
Breathed by the wind: and on as the wind goes
Go with the wind we must, where'er that be,
A lonesome pilgrimage along the night,
Till the wind falls again, and with it we.
Farewell!”

7.

8

I look'd up, and saw,
In glory that was not of mere moon light,
(Glory that fill'd me with a great glad awe)
Shining above me, Her my soul loves well,
Like a white Angel, And along the night
Her voice still call'd me “Uriel! Uriel!”
Again I follow'd. And it seem'd that days
And nights, and weeks, and months, and years went by,
As on we went by never-ending ways
Thro' worlds and worlds. And ever was mine eye
Fixt on that beckoning Form with faithful gaze.
And seasons little cared for—shine or shade,
Or heat or cold—pursued us. Many a Spring,
And many a Summer, many an Autumn, stay'd
My panting path, and round me strove to fling
Their fervid arms, and many a Winter made
His frozen fingers meet and fiercely cling
In lean embrace that long my course delay'd,
And Pain and Pleasure both essay'd to wring
My purpose from me. But still, sore afraid
Lest I should lose my Guide by tarrying,
Forward I press'd whenever the Voice said
“Uriel! Uriel! linger not!”

9.

10.