University of Virginia Library

ACT I.

PIROMIS.
Yon star, the oldest prophet of the dawn,
Fulfils its task and quits a gloomy world.
Deep strikes the chill into the dusky morn,
As now she draws her twilight mantle round,
And hails yon streaks of feeble light which burst
The eastern sky and scatter roseate tints
Along the tract of day. And indistinct
This crowded pile of dome and column frowns,
As if lugubrious night still clung around
Enamour'd of the grandeur. Dreadful fane,
Which hides so vast a portion of the heaven
Encentering grace in the surrounding æther,
And thou unsleeping Isis, still within
Fix'd in eternal presence, how my years
'Neath ye have glided into latest age!
Tho' it be pride in me to haunt thy shrine,
O grant this intellect may not decay;
O grant my prayer that I may breathe my last
Within thy sanctuary!

PIROMIS, INAROS.
INAROS.
Name an hour
When shall commence the sacrifice.

PIROMIS.
The sun
Not yet along the gilded avenue
Unfolding now before his car, appears:
Let sunrise be the signal to commence.
Thou to the daughter of our monarch hie,
And learn the latest news. The virgin loves
Thy presence, and may render to thine ear
What she hath gather'd from th'ensanguin'd field.
She hath the earliest speech of messenger.
Besides 'tis said that with prophetic sight
She gazes at the future: this perchance,
Though but the tale of ignorance, may draw
For its foundation on a watchful mind,
And prove her fit to hold her sire's command.
Should King Cambyses conquer, soon his threats
Would be fulfilled to desecrate our fane.
Chiefly for this Nitetis lures him hither
Gall'd at the loss of empire, and convinced
That I dictated her long banishment.
And yet at large is left the early cause
Of all our fears, all Egypt's miseries,
Even Horos, whose impiety hath call'd
These pending sorrows o'er our fated heads.
The priests enter and prepare the sacrifice in the presence of a large concourse of people, and during the ceremony the choruses are chaunted.
Before the column'd glory of thy fane
Our voices sink, humbled by conscious woe.
O Isis, save our thoughts from wandering!
In inspiration pour on every heart
A knowledge of thy attributes divine;
Impress deep awe of that beneath the veil.
O Isis! horned queen, earth's mystery!
Suppliant we raise the choral hymn on high.
Our king and all his host, thy worshippers,
Now meet the Persian armies in the field:
Award the victory to thy righteous land.

CHORUS.

PIROMIS.
We were the first to honour thee below,
And temples o'er thine earthly presence throw,
Where pious natures find a solitude,
And the aspiring soul becomes imbued
With watchful hope for hidden things on high;
By us first taught itself can never die.

CHORUS.

PIROMIS.
As calm as thou, in form as vast,
Three hundred fathers of our line,
Deathless escape th'absorbing past
And stand about thy mighty shrine;
While on the earth beneath they cast
Eyes ever mindful of the past.
The dread Piromides look on
In dread of Isis Buceron.

CHORUS.
Isis, horned Isis, hail!
Let twilight gleam beneath the veil
And shed a momentary ray along
The choral throng,
To shew the penetrating thrill of love
Is heard above.

PIROMIS.
And now, O people! in the pious hope
That Egypt's trouble touches the Most High,
In joy depart; our sacrifice and prayers
Have found acceptance at the gates of Heaven.
This hour expels the stranger from our shores.

PIROMIS, INAROS.
PIROMIS.
These antique usages thy sires began
When from the pristine government of Nile
The gods retired; and we observe them still
In fullest purity: the time of fast,
The sacrifice, the holy form of prayer.
So was it long before this structure rose
Into majestic state. Soon shalt thou learn
What in these sacred walls is kept conceal'd
From vulgar view; with what a zealous care
The unpolluted secrets of the earth
Ensculptur'd deep in waste-defying stone,
Are here preserved. A thoughtful monument,
Illegible as nature to the gaze,
And to supremest reason not less hard
To be decipher'd than the vault of heaven.
In this colossal treasure-house of fame
Dread Isis on her orbed throne accepts
The offerings of the holy, and unites
On the imposing tablets of her fane
The thoughtful forms of things in solemn sign.
Here is the meaning of the universe;
Here time's exhaustless circles hold the doom
Of Fate herself. But living who can scan
These so miraculous deeds of elder mind?
Pure as the fountain whence creation flowed,
They by first thought, as soon as reason came,
Found record in this mind-protecting soil.
And to what end? Insatiate of life,
Transfixed by vision's inward gaze, I stand
In statued meditation, and revolve
Th'œnigmas of the voiceless infinite;
But search each token only to endure
The chilling silence of eternity.
Still I advance, lest in my sadness 'spoil'd
Of truth's fair meaning, for a phrenzied dream
I read her portents.

INAROS.
Would the day were come
When I may study to discern the light
Which burns for ever in this tomb of truth!
Could I deceive the slowly passing years
And scathe my youthful countenance to age
How joyous were I; for the aged live—
Live on with youth, altho' the first to drop.

PIROMIS.
Thy day will come too soon.

INAROS.
Great sire, too soon?

PIROMIS.
O be contented in thine innocence.
Thus saith the goddess in a prophecy
She once deliver'd to the human race:
“No son of man shall ever raise my veil.”
That sad aspiring look which clings to hope,
Thou may'st prolong, but never let it urge
Thy love of wisdom to impiety,
Lest the vain struggle end in sullen death
Thy disappointed years. Thou dost not long
For intellectual sorrow?

INAROS.
Mighty priest,
Can so much love of wisdom end in woe?

PIROMIS.
Not where humility adorns the way.
But who accustom'd to the bright excess
Of pensive revelry can be content
To feed on simple vision? Men there are
Who pause before the midway paths of thought,
And in the comeliness of earth and heaven
Seem fully bless'd; they never seek a cause,
But with their utmost instinct truth revere.
Beyond, where legislative nature acts
From day apart in solid darkness veil'd,
The constant watch is ever made in vain.
The tortur'd sight reads ill; the gloom absorbs
The feeble spirit's rays, that what appears
Is in eclipse, and twilight chills the soul.
These ills are mingled in the universe,
Else beauteous to the thinker: he may scan
Its aptitudes, and that necessity
Which all controls and keeps the gods in place;
The placid aristocracy of time,
Its swift mutations thro' the star-pav'd space
Which leads to the unbeing infinite;
Tho' but to find the love is his alone.
He walks the golden city of the sky
With pious step, its solemn domes admires,
And rising spires of never fading light,
To feel how blest it were to be divine.
Seest thou those signals of supernal ire?
Heaven speaks by signs! I know the warning power
That guides the course of yonder meteor
Which bathes the palaces in floods of light
And leaves a deepening gloom. Declare my son
What thou hast learn'd of the philosophy
Which boasts the moral nature of the world
Above this intellect, man's only law?
Horos the sage propounds these daring views,
A man whose foil'd ambition is the foe
Of public order. He was once thy friend.
Enrapt in self he leads a life retir'd;
Not one of solitude! his gorgeous mind
In commune ever with colossal thought,
But the sad aspect of it daring hate
To hallow'd fanes.

INAROS.
In nature rests his hope.
He meekly worships her as saddest smiles
Dispart his lips and show how little joy
His faith provides. But his philosophy
Wins on the feelings of the multitude.
Those eyes, of youth so gently eloquent,
That brow which wears the honours of old age
Without the wither'd aspect, must command
A pause ere we condemn.

PIROMIS.
As he stands forth
Are many hearers gather'd?

INAROS.
Thousands flock
Eager to catch his words as if his lips
Shap'd deathless maxims: thus his eloquence
Gains strong possession of the people's sense.
His life so blameless and his passing skill
In utt'ring sounds of liberty, have drawn
An auditory round him. As a sage,
Amid shade-pointing statues doth his speech
Move the broad flood of passion 'yond its bounds
To laughter or to tears.

PIROMIS.
I have heard say
He is a miser of the golden hours?

INAROS.
He treasures well his time. At earliest morn
He meets the restless converts of his faith
And human nature flatters with the hope
Of self-advancement, painting scenes so grand
To mortal ken, that all desire to seize
The distant view and quit their present lot.
He then retires, and 'till the twilight hour
Ponders the chance of happiness for man.
But with the daily coming of the eve
Some silent, deep and secret grief invades,
That, as the sun in liquid brilliancy
Seeks tremblingly the west, his longing eyes
Pursue its last decline and envious watch
In saddest gaze the orb's approaching rest,
As tho' it were eternal.

PIROMIS.
Say what wound,
So deep it cannot heal, torments his flesh?

INAROS.
He lov'd Nitetis: she his love return'd.
Lov'd her in that too constant agony
Of faithful hope which never leaves the heart.
Believe his nature harmless tho' his deeds
Are mark'd by scorn, and by a calm revenge
Against presiding orders. For his love
Predominates with a so lofty care,
That all his acts are centred in its shade
And soften'd by its sorrows.

PIROMIS.
Such a cause
Could never sour his thoughtful character,
In such strange earnest; turn from its straight course
The eye's regard, the spirit's tendency;
Inflate the breast with sudden zeal to aid
His fellow men? It was by my advice
Nitetis went to Susa and became
The consort of Cambyses. Seek the sage,
And once his hearing gain'd, thou cans't revert
To childish times and entertain his ear
With pure remembrances of holy days,
Until the present ebbs into the past
And he is as a child. Then will he touch,
As one returning to his native land
After protracted absence passed in cares,
On magic memory of former hopes
The solemn pleasures and eventful rites
Of Isis light-encircled! Lo! the gods
In anger that his tenets spread, afflict
A numerous people; omens threaten us;
A haughty conqueror from the rising sun
With hosts unnumber'd sounds the trump of war.
But to the palace hasten for what news
Thou may'st collect; then Horos be thy care.
Should he resist thy wishes, lead him here
Before the assembl'd conclave.

INAROS.
Is the power
Which emanates from this celestial fane
Endanger'd by his rashness? Are the laws
Which thro' the ancient centuries descend
Thro' him at stake?

PIROMIS.
They are.

INAROS.
Thou know'st my faith.
Would'st thou that I should wrestle dagger-armed
With this rebellious thinker, and a grave
For our past friendship sink within his heart?

PIROMIS.
Banish the thought to endless penitence,
Nor in its exile let it cease to mourn.
Leave me, disciple, to my lonely prayers.
The folding doors of the temple are thrown open and the statue of Isis is discovered. The Piromis kneels before the goddess.
Ah! what am I! Pervading Destiny
Who dost create, destroy, and still survive
The beings who in reason thee adore
And wonder, as in feeling they lament;
Who dost thy nature find immutable
Midst changing worlds and knowest why they change;
Reveal! The stillness of thy attitude
Strikes awe, and thy silential gaze condemns.
O say! is mind not ever living? Thou
Hast shar'd thy lasting glory with the spheres
Which are ordained to shine eternally:
Is then the human spirit's watchfulness
Unhonor'd; and, while pensive as thyself,
Forc'd to submit to its creator's doom?
Or rather say is not this love of self
So after thine own image, that alone
Of all that is thou would'st persist to be?
I daily change, and soon my star of life
Must set beneath the shadows of the tombs
To see thy face no more. But thou wilt reign,
Imparting rapture in my dying hour,
Unmov'd, serene, thron'd on thy mystic orb,
Too confident of life to have an end,
Still burning in self-glory. And thy light
Casts only a reflection on the dust
Whence came, and whereunto this shape returns.
If but the cup of knowledge could have quench'd
This thirst which is unsated, I had cast
My reckless soul with all its weight of truth
In that abyss where essence perishes,
The deep, the tranquil, the unoccupied,
And gloried in the vast non-entity
My fate entail'd; no more unrecompens'd
From early dawn unto the vesper hour
To ponder thee; nor to remorseless Sleep
A prey, who nightly shadows in my mind
A chaos of reflection. O my soul!
Can'st tell without thy wonted flattery,
For thou alone can'st answer thine own thoughts,
What spirit dares inhabit this worn breast
In torture, thinking but to dread itself?
I ponder thus my themes, and spite of gloom
In their majestic movement thro' the soul
Do they light up the mental firmament
And shed a pensive joy; but this dissolves:
'Twas but a meteor in the bosom's waste
Had charm'd the desolation. Was it just
O Isis, to create thy peer in will
And not in wisdom? one who told, could grasp
Thy dreadful meaning! So the rebel heart
Within its dungeon struggles: neither night
Nor day can compensate the weight of life.
Enter a Priest.
What wilt thou, man?

PRIEST.
With reverence I announce
The holy conclave of Piromides
Awaits its pious president.

PIROMIS.
I come.