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After Paradise or Legends of Exile

With Other Poems: By Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,

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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

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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.

The wild wind swept them from my sight
Even as they spake, and all the heath was bare.
Sighingly the wind ceased. The night was still.

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The dead were gone. Only the moonlight there
Upon the empty heath lay clear and chill.
Then I remember'd long-forgotten things,
And all my loss. I could no farther fare
Along that haunted heath; for my heart's strings
Were aching, gnaw'd by an immense despair.
Flat on the spot where last they stood I fell,
And clutch'd the wither'd fern, as one that clings
Fast to a grave where all he loved lies dead,
And wept, and wept, and wept.
“Rise Uriel,”
The Voice I knew still call'd, “and follow me!”
But I could only weep, so vast a well
Of tears within me flow'd. At last I said
“What heart or hope have I to follow thee?
Are not the Legions lost, that at thy call
To mine own overthrow and theirs I led?
For I have seen again their faces all,
And death was all I saw there.” “Let them be!”

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The Voice replied. “The dead shall live again
When we have reach'd the goal whereto I go,
And there shalt thou rejoin them. Nor till then
Canst thou thyself return to life, for thou
Thyself art also fall'n among the slain.
But look upon me, faithless one, and know
That I am life in death, and joy in pain,
And light in darkness.”

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,

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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.

At last
We reach'd what seem'd the end of a dead world.

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Wall'd round it was by mountains bare and vast,
And thro' them one thin perilous pathway curl'd
Into an unknown land of ice and snow,
Where nothing lived, nor aught was left to freeze
But frost. There was a heap of bones below;
Above, a flock of vultures. Under these,
Hard by a stream that long had ceased to flow,
A miserable, squalid, lean old man,
Nursing a broken harp upon his knees,
Sat in the frozen pass. His eyes were wan,
But full of spiteful looks. She my soul loved,
Fair as a skyward Seraph on the wing,
Before me up that perilous pathway moved,
Calling me from above, and beckoning.
But he that sat before the pass began
To twang his harp, which had but one shrill string,
(Whose notes like icy needles thro' me ran)
And with a crack'd and creaking voice to sing

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“O fool, infatuated fool, forbear!
For yonder is the Land of Ice and Snow,
And She is dead that beckoneth to thee there,
And dead forever are the dead I know.”
Whilst thus that lean old man, with eyes aglare,
Sang to his broken harp's one string below,
The vultures scream'd above in the bleak air
“Dead are the dead forever!”

10.

“What art thou,
Malignant wretch?” I cried. The old man said
“I am the Ancient Porter of this Pass,
Beyond which lies the Land of Ice and Snow.
And all the dwellers in that land are dead,
And dead forever are the dead I know.
And this, my harp—I know not when, alas!
But all its strings were broken long ago,

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Save one, which time makes tough. The others were
Of sweeter tone, but this sounds more intense.
And, for my name, some say it is Despair,
And others say it is Experience.”
Thereat he laugh'd, and shook his sordid rags,
And his wan eyes with sullen malice gleam'd.
And loud again, upon the icy crags,
In that bleak air above, the vultures scream'd.