 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
THE ICEBERG.
Where the keen wan peaks, in frigid pride unbending,
Jut up against the abysmal blue of night;
When the red aurora, at the world's wild ending,
Opens in heaven its awful fan of light,
A part of all the inviolate peace around him,
Calm amid mighty quietudes did he rest,
The fierce cold for a manacle that bound him,
The arctic stars to sparkle on his crest.
Jut up against the abysmal blue of night;
When the red aurora, at the world's wild ending,
Opens in heaven its awful fan of light,
A part of all the inviolate peace around him,
Calm amid mighty quietudes did he rest,
The fierce cold for a manacle that bound him,
The arctic stars to sparkle on his crest.
Here silence, like a monarch, reigned immensely,
The quintessence of cold was here, no less,
Each utter as before God spake intensely
And visible things leapt out from nothingness.
A land wherewith no living sign was blended,
A white monotony of weird device;
One towering boreal torpor, chaste and splendid,
One monstrous immobility of ice!
The quintessence of cold was here, no less,
Each utter as before God spake intensely
And visible things leapt out from nothingness.
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A white monotony of weird device;
One towering boreal torpor, chaste and splendid,
One monstrous immobility of ice!
But when light woke within that bleak heaven, grandly
To illume pale polar summits, range on range,
Then blindly through his glacial soul yet blandly
He felt the movement of mysterious change.
He seemed to have heard across vast ocean-reaches
A summoning voice from equatorial calms,
From languorous tropic bowers and lucid beaches,
From blossoming headlands and high plumes of palms!
To illume pale polar summits, range on range,
Then blindly through his glacial soul yet blandly
He felt the movement of mysterious change.
He seemed to have heard across vast ocean-reaches
A summoning voice from equatorial calms,
From languorous tropic bowers and lucid beaches,
From blossoming headlands and high plumes of palms!
A voice compelling and a voice commanding,
Yet sweet as flute-notes near still purple seas,
Strange beyond speech and strong beyond withstanding,
Yet soft withal as tremulous airs in trees.
A voice of such deep charm that while he wondered
Plungingly seaward his huge frame he bent,
And all its proud enormity was sundered
From all its fetters of encompassment.
Yet sweet as flute-notes near still purple seas,
Strange beyond speech and strong beyond withstanding,
Yet soft withal as tremulous airs in trees.
A voice of such deep charm that while he wondered
Plungingly seaward his huge frame he bent,
And all its proud enormity was sundered
From all its fetters of encompassment.
Then he went down superbly over distance
Of mad uproarious surges, height on height,
That hurled tempestuous onslaughts of resistance
Round his serene magnificence of might.
Then he went down across the unknown sea-spaces,
A spot of radiance on their billowy whirl,
Scintillant with the sun's most dazzling graces,
Or touched by moonbeams to phantasmal pearl!
Of mad uproarious surges, height on height,
That hurled tempestuous onslaughts of resistance
Round his serene magnificence of might.
Then he went down across the unknown sea-spaces,
A spot of radiance on their billowy whirl,
Scintillant with the sun's most dazzling graces,
Or touched by moonbeams to phantasmal pearl!
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One chill wind, like a breath of death, ran blowing
Incessantly along his path austere,
And far before the grandeur of his going,
Like birds the little vessels fled in fear.
Green flashed the glassy bastions whence transcendent
His frosted pinnacles blazed out above,
While in colossal crystal calm resplendent,
Superbly he went down to meet his love!
Incessantly along his path austere,
And far before the grandeur of his going,
Like birds the little vessels fled in fear.
Green flashed the glassy bastions whence transcendent
His frosted pinnacles blazed out above,
While in colossal crystal calm resplendent,
Superbly he went down to meet his love!
But journeying thus, too thrilled for all confusion
Of boisterous wave or bluff blast to annoy,
He had lessened with insidious diminution,
He had wasted and not known it in his joy.
For through him there had pulsed a fire of yearning
'Twas ruin although 'twas rapture to have known,
And love within his frozen life lay burning,
Like a ruby under fathoms of stern stone!
Of boisterous wave or bluff blast to annoy,
He had lessened with insidious diminution,
He had wasted and not known it in his joy.
For through him there had pulsed a fire of yearning
'Twas ruin although 'twas rapture to have known,
And love within his frozen life lay burning,
Like a ruby under fathoms of stern stone!
And so while passion in his dumb breast kindled
A lordlier larger impulse to adore,
The more his eminent glories waned and dwindled
As that ethereal voice allured the more.
And then with bitterest pangs he felt the fleeting
Of all his luminous loftiness and pride,
And shuddered with the dark thought of not meeting
That vague invisible love before he died!
A lordlier larger impulse to adore,
The more his eminent glories waned and dwindled
As that ethereal voice allured the more.
And then with bitterest pangs he felt the fleeting
Of all his luminous loftiness and pride,
And shuddered with the dark thought of not meeting
That vague invisible love before he died!
And still the summoning voice came sweet and eager,
Though touched with semitones of divine regret,
And hourly growing meagre and more meagre,
He journeyed on, desiring, yearning yet! ...
Till now he vanished utterly, and the tender
Lulled waves of tropic ocean smiled above
Him that in all the morning of his splendor
Superbly had gone down to meet his love!
Though touched with semitones of divine regret,
And hourly growing meagre and more meagre,
He journeyed on, desiring, yearning yet! ...
Till now he vanished utterly, and the tender
Lulled waves of tropic ocean smiled above
Him that in all the morning of his splendor
Superbly had gone down to meet his love!
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