University of Virginia Library

I was a block of marble, white and cold,
Hidden in flowers upon the sunward side
Of high Olympus. 'Twas a little dell,
Mossy and silent, shut on every side
By wildest tanglery of root and stem,
Close-mantling leaves and intertwining trails
Of downward blossoms, from the stir of wind
Or pry of man; only o'erhead the blue,
The deep blue Cyprian heaven divine looked down,
By sunshine and by starlight, through the boughs
On my green sanctuary. A tiny stream,
Fed from the breezy summits high aloof,
Near, though unseen, within its hollow grot
For ever sang its drowsy monotone;
And close beside me (where a fairy beach
With glimmering jaspers paved and golden sand,
Curved like the young moon between twilight leaves,
Three lilies' length into the thymy marge
Lay gleaming,—overhung by ancient roots
Of olive, lichen-tinct of many a hue,
And formless as Chimæra), silently
Stole in beneath the boscage, scattering
A thousand tremulous lunes along my side,
And up athwart the o'erarching greenery—
Stole silent in, and silent stole away.
And here through unremembered eons, lulled
On the Great Mother's bosom, like a babe
Unborn, and all unconscious of itself:
Of all unconscious, save the tender pulse
Beating in mystic cadence with its own
Of the warm mother-heart—I lay asleep;
Nor dreamed; while round the venerable earth
The seasons led their dance from year to year;
On high the old dominion of the gods
Was shaken; and beneath, the turbulent race
Of men, like billows on the windy shore,
Came, broke, and vanished;—but I lay asleep.
Till on a day—ah, beating heart, be still!
A bright warm day of spring it was, what time,
Responsive to the wooing of the sun,
Earth deckt herself with garlands like a bride
Upon her marriage morn—I was aware
That near me was a Presence, and a voice—
A lonely voice, tender and deep and low,
Such as nor bird nor bee among the blooms,
Streamlet, nor vernal breezes in the boughs
Had ever wakened,—singing to itself
Of love and beauty: how that beauty lay
At heart of all things, was the forming soul
Of universal being: root at once
And flower of the great Cosmos: the divine
Forthshadowing of the inmost thought of God—
And that was love! eternal love! first—last
Of things: the primal want, the thirst supreme,
That craves and draws all beauty to itself—
Drinks and still thirsts—centre alike and bourne
Of all we know, or feel, or dream of good!
O joy! O marvel! waking thus to sense
Of outward and of inward life! as one
Slowly from death-cold lethargy awakes
To loving voices and dear sounds of home,
But opens not his eyelids, loath to lose
The first sweet doubt even in the sweeter joy
Of certainty. Thus in my stony trance
Listening I lay; whileas the wondrous voice
Came nearer, nearer, and aside my veil
Of clinging flowers was drawn, and then a touch
As of a sunbeam on my surface fell;
And still the stream of melody flowed on
In golden undulations of low sound;
And this its burthen: “Here, with folded wings
And pulseless bosom, my soul's Psyche lies,
Locked in enchanted slumber—heaven and earth—
The universal heart of nature void,
Because she is not!—but the hand of Love
Shall set her free!” Love! love! The very word
Thrilled my cold veins—like the portentous flame
That flashes when the Immortals in their ire
Make the crags tremble and the forests groan—
One instant, and then ceased; and once again
Around my loneliness the desolate waves
Of silence closed. But I—I slept no more!
For evermore the deep majestic tones
Of the lost voice would haunt me,—with the sound
Of waters and of leaves, the midnight plaint
Of nightingales low in the myrtle woods,
The noontide hum of bees about the comb,
And whir of insects in the setting sun,
The wind among the cedars overhead,
And the far ocean's mighty diapase
Commingling, in one web of melody—
One many-chorded web of magic song—
That ever closer wound me; echoing still
The mystic promise, “Love shall set her free!”
How long I wist not—time, like life, for me
As yet was tideless: hours, nor days, nor years
Rippling the depths of immemorial calm
That wrapt me—but unrestingly it stirred
Within me, this new sense, so sweet, so strange!
Stirred, as the life upfolden in a seed,
Within the sacred bosom of the earth,
Stirs at the first warm presage of the spring,
And slowly wakens from Lethean sleep
To the glad sense of being—root and stem,
Sun-lighted leaf, and flower, and fruit to come,
Foreshadowed in its dim delicious dreams.
How long I knew not—but the blossoming woods
Yet rang with love-songs of the happy birds,
And from the folded valleys faintly came
The bleat of yeanling kids—when once again,
Around me—through me, the sweet agony crept:
The wonder and the fear, divinely strange!
A balmier zephyr sighed among the boughs;
The streamlet with a silv'rier cadence fell;
The flowers breathed sweeter perfume—'twas the time
Of lilies!—Philomel within the brake
Poured with a wilder ecstasy her song
Of passionate yearning; and above her brood
The nestling stockdove cooed with holier joy;
The wavering flecks of light and emerald shade
Danced round me with new gladness; the warm air
That laved me, the cool earth on which I lay,
Glowed with strange rapture; all my being throbbed
And flushed, as at the coming of a god—
And then I knew that He would come!

He came!
And with him—as with morning warmth and light—
Came life! with all life's infinite desires;
Warm sympathies with earth, and heavenward thoughts
On whose rare plumes it soars beyond the earth
To bask in purer ether—godlike joys
And godlike woes, that knit the universe
Of being in one sacred brotherhood
Of hope and love! But words, alas! are vain:—
Such words as ye of mortal lineage strive
To clothe the ethereal nurslings of the soul
Withal, that haply for a little while
They may abide with you, nor wholly die,
Leaving you desolate—ay, words are vain
To tell how, slowly, sweetly, day by day,
The marvel of my individual life
Grew up within me, through mysterious gyres
Of consciousness; and from within, without,
Gathered completeness, as in the breath of spring
A bud grows—gathering from the dews of heaven
And gentle nurture of all-loving earth
Loveliness, sweetness, to the perfect flower.
As tenderly he cleft the stony rind
That prisoned me, with impact of keen steel,
Through which I felt the thoughts that in his breast
Were burning, permeate my own like fire.
Morn after morn, ere yet the awakening birds
Began to twitter in their dreams, or paled
The torch of Phosphor in the kindling dawn,
I heard his voice, far-echoing as he came
Up the steep flowery paths; and hearing, thrilled
Through all my marble bulk; for still his song
Was “Love shall set her free—shall set her free!”
White morn would brighten into noon, blue noon
Fade into golden eve, the golden eve
Deepen to night, and still, in that lone dell,
The rapt artificer toiled on, nor tired:
For Love—in whom and by whom all things are—
Was there to aid. . . . Until at last I lay,
Between the sunset and the crescent moon:—
Half in the roseate flush of evening bathed,
Half in the moonshine white and virginal—
A naked miracle of loveliness,
Beneath his gaze; rose-tinct, but icy cold
As yon far peaks of inaccessible snow
That gleam like flame towards the gleaming west;
Fair as his fondest dreams—the faultless child
Of his soul's passionate travail; but, alas!
Soulless to him and passionless! Awhile,
With impotent locked fingers—even as one
Who feels the deck that bears him to his home
After long weary years of wandering,
Sink from beneath his feet in sight of land—
He stood in silent anguish, gazing down
On the fair, futile creature he had made,
Couched there amid the flowers.

At length a bird
Far in the odorous cedar-gloom burst forth
In sudden song, that through the aching hush
Pulsed for two troubled heart-beats, and then died,
Leaving its echoes all about the dells.
He wept! I felt the great tears' fiery fall
Upon the crispèd volutes of my hair,
Upon my cheeks, my eyelids and my brow,
As, kneeling by my side, he raised his face
Towards the Hesperian star, and stretched his arms
Into the deepening twilight, with the fierce
Imperious gesture of a drowning man,
Who, hopeless of escape, with frantic hands
Yet clutches at the wave that whelms him; so,
Clutching the impassible air, he called aloud,
Hoarse with despairing passion, “Give her life,
Astartè! Give her life, or let me die!”
Then sank upon my bosom; his hot lips
Upon my lips, that burnt beneath their touch,
And strove—ah me! how vainly!—to give back
Their clinging kisses. But as yon grey cloud
That coldly floats towards the sinking sun,
Caught in his splendour, grows a cloud of flame,
So the chill Shape, that yet was all of me,
Drew from His warm embrace the ethereal fire
Of love, and so became a Living Soul!
For she, divine Astartè, from afar
Heard and fulfilled his prayer! . . .

A low, warm wind
Fluttered the sleeping roses overhead—
It was the time of roses—shaking down
A shower of dew and dewy petals, bright
As the flame-flowers young Eos from her hair
Down the steep orient scattered in the path
Of coming Day. It passed; and lo, on high
In the flusht ether shone the morning star;
And over all the shadowy mountain slopes,
And the far purple of the slumbering sea,
Brooded a breathless calm; and in our hearts
A peace ineffable! And, lying there,
Under the silent dome of heaven, we knew
That we were One!—ever, for ever One!
We spoke not: for unutterable joy
In rapture of apocalyptic dream
Held us entranced.—Till softly, from the pines
That crowned with solemn shade the sunward crags,
A stockdove cooed; from the thick underwood
The small birds 'gan to jargle; and afar
The sea-mews shrilly babbled of the dawn. . . .
Slowly, with fond delaying, we unwound
Our plighted arms. But ere, with reverent hands,
He raised me (for, I knew not why, released,
I turned from him, in the crushed moss and flowers
Hiding my face that burnt beneath his gaze,
And almost prayed that to unconscious stone
I might return), unclasping from his neck
The kingly mantle, round my form, that glowed
With shame of its own loveliness, he drew
The veiling purple. Then erect I stood,
And looked him in the face with fearless eyes—
A perfect Woman! from the mystic font
Of sacramental rapture, pure and calm! . . .

And here, within our palace-home, afar
From the lewd city's hideous revelry,
Where an insensate race with rites impure
Worship the Holy Ones unholily,
We dwell in peace from golden year to year;
Upon the sacred altars of the gods
Offering with grateful heart and innocent hands
The gift most dear to heaven—a blameless life.