University of Virginia Library

We stood again on that bright mountain's brow:
The temple gates were clos'd, and all was still.
Then thus the Son of Ether. “I have said
This goodly fabric shall unfading stand
Till the great sun himself shall be extinguish'd.
Space hath such; orbs as bright as this, as vast,
Have perish'd from the sky, with all the worlds
Dependent on them. In the depths of space
So far remov'd they lie, that, were man's life,
From the first dawn of thought to the last hours
Of trembling age, employ'd in summing up,
Each minute adding millions of long leagues,
The vast extent were but an infant's span,
Compar'd to their remoteness! There we go.
But with a speed far fleeter must we pass
Than in our flight from earth. Fix now thine eye
Upon this blazing hill, and, as it shrinks
In distance, measure, if thou canst, our speed.
Now we ascend!”

Scarce had he ceas'd to speak
When, with rapidity to which the glance
Of lightning were a slow and creeping thing,
We darted upward,—and the enormous hill
Was viewless.—In an instant more the sun
Shrank to a star,—twinkled,—and died away!

The Spirit spake not yet: I could not speak.
Astonishment, and awe, and terror, crush'd
All faculties. I felt myself a thing
More powerless than the scarcely visible mote
That floats upon the sunbeam, toss'd about
By pettiest insect's wing. But I began,
Erelong, to kindle with supreme delight;
Forgetting fear, and in the majesty
Of all about me glorying. Still on!—
On still we flew! All constellations known
In earthly sky were far behind us now.
Nigh many a star, that soon became a sun,
We darted, leaving it again a star:
And many a streaming comet we glanced by
Those swiftest travellers of heaven's blue road:
Meeting or shunning us, it matter'd not,
We pass'd them still the same: now in full blaze
Of sunshine journeying—now in starry night.
On! on!—A thousand different firmaments
Had met, and pass'd us, floating on each hand
Like shining bubbles on a rapid stream.

“These are His works,” the radiant Spirit said.
“Each star of all this countless multitude,
Falling behind us in our rapid flight,
Even like a shower of sparks from some huge fire,
Kindled at midnight on a mountain's top,
When the wind rages—every petty star
Is a majestic sun,—like ours, the soul
And centre of revolving worlds. Where ends,
If it hath end, this universe of suns,
He only knoweth. As the adventurous man,
In search of unknown seas and lands, puts forth
In ships on the great deep; so, on the vast
Of space, ethereal natures oft have launch'd,
To explore the immensity of worlds unknown,
To find creation's limits. I have said,
A thousand years, as mortals measure time,
In flight as swift as now I have advanced,
And found no boundary. Ten thousand years,
And ten times multiplied, have others sped,
And that hath not suffic'd:—they have gone up,
Yet never reach'd its height; they have gone down,
Yet fathom'd not its depth:—before them still,
As at the first, illimitable space,—
Stars densely thronging still.”

The Spirit ceased,
And we went on in silence: a deep hush—
A long dead stillness, interrupted not,
Save, at wide intervals, by the deep moan,
And rush of some far comet hurrying on,
As 'twere the heaving of stupendous wings
Invisible, driving impetuously on through the night.

Oh! power of fancy, when the reason sleeps!
In few short hours, how seem'd an age's span
Compress'd! Less lengthen'd to my waking sense
Appears the lapse from first remember'd days
Of infancy till this, the noon of life,
Than to the free imagination seem'd,
In that short, pleasant dream, the stretch of time,
While through th' immeasurable vast of space
We urg'd our ceaseless flight. On,—on,—still on,—
For ever with unutterable speed
Away,—away!—and still the unnumber'd suns
And worlds behind us fell; and others still
Approach'd,—and grew;—and pass'd,—and wan'd,—and sank;—
Quench'd in the infinite.

At length again
The Beautiful Nature spake. “Behold!” he said,
“We enter in the realms of death and night!—
True night and death are here:—the night of earth
Is but a passing shadow; and its death
A change of being merely. Look! the stars
Are dwindling far behind us:—they are gone.—
Darkness impierceable is all around:—
Silence,—and death,—and undisturbed rest.

“Hither, when first I came, methought I found
Creation's end,—interminable night:
Yet I held on my dark and cheerless course,
Unbating, till amid the murky air
I spied a huge round mass of lurid light,
Towards which I sped, and found a darken'd sun,
Not yet quite dark; and there one airy shape,
The only one of its unnumber'd host
That haunted yet its dying majesty.
The rest to brighter suns were fled; but he
Linger'd awhile behind: for much he loved
The once-magnificent orb where he had pass'd
Almost eternal years of joy. He said,
From my first entrance in the fields of night,
I must have pass'd, unseen, a million such;
And that before me still a longer tract
Lay ere I could again behold the light
Of living suns:—‘That fearful chasm o'ergone,
New, glorious firmaments stretch on for aye.’

“And then he question'd me from whence I came;
To what part bent my way; and in what orb
I made abode. Thou wilt not marvel now,
Having beheld of the great universe
Though but an atom in compare of what
Even I erewhile have measur'd,—when I say
He knew not, of himself, or by report,
Our sun or system. Couldst thou on the shore
Of ocean number each particular sand,—
Give it a name,—and mark it from the rest?
As little on this ocean of all space,
Whose sands are suns, may even the wisest know,
Save only He, the interminable whole.
Then the lone dweller of the desolate sphere
Bade me behold how the majestic forms
Once living, had pass'd off like dreams; but these
Thyself erelong shalt see: and much he told
Of suns, by slow decay, or sudden blight,
Cut off:—together then we lifted up
Our voices, praising Him, the Eternal One—
Embrac'd and parted. On my homeward course
I found the solitary spirit still
Mourning the perish'd grandeur, with such grief
As spirits feel,—a calm and holy sorrow,
Not known to things of clay, nor to be told;
And, after a brief sojourn, when I turn'd,
Departing for our own more happy orb,
He journey'd by my side.

“Lo! even now
That awful wreck is nigh; nor yet quite dark.
Myriads of earthly years have pass'd away
Since I beheld it; yet it glimmers still.
Seest thou not, as we pause an instant here,
Right opposite, amid the depth of blackness,
That huge round of dark, drear, and crimson glow,
As 'twere a balefire for the fields of space
Burn'd to its last red embers? And behold!
Even here beside us, in the dusk, dark beam,
Dimly distinguish'd, a dependent world,
That with its ruler perish'd:—cold and dark,—
Lifeless and motionless,—a giant corpse
Slowly decaying in this vault of night.
Trees,—rivers,—oceans,—all have pass'd away,—
Dissolv'd into their primal elements
Imponderous,—invisible;—and float
Through the wide ether,—matter for new worlds.
The very earth hath melted off; and nought
Remains but the huge, mis-shap'd skeleton
Of rock, dissolving also. Men will dream
Of everlasting fame; and conquerors
Slay myriads to be glorious through the earth;—
Let them look here, and ask where lie the bones
Of this earth's great ones?—where their monuments
Of brass, or iron, or unmouldering granite?—
And let the proud worms know a time may come
When their world too shall sicken, and expire,
And dwindle to a skeleton,—and pass
Away like a thin vapour.

“But behold!
As slowly we approach, the huge dim wreck
Of a once brighter, vaster sun than ours,
Expands, and seems to occupy all space.
Look on it:—hence thou may'st descry its form;
Its shadowy hills and mountains,—all entire,
But faded; for corruption comes not here,
As in beginning of decaying earths;
Nor pass these purer elements away,
Wand'ring like theirs along the infinite,
Till lapse of ages inconceivable.

“Look where the eternal, gloomy forests stand.—
No branch hath wither'd,—not a leaf hath dropp'd;—
The rivers flow not;—the dusk ocean lies
Solid and motionless as rock;—the air
Still as an icy sea,—enveloping,
Like an imperishing tomb, the dark remains.
But view it nearer: on this mountain stand,
And look upon the city at its base—
Huge—dark—and silent. Not a stone hath fallen;
Pillars, and domes, and arches,—all firm-fix'd
As at the first; but their original lustre
Dimm'd by the darkness of a million years.
Where be the builders?—They are here. This, this
Is solitude!—a nation of thy earth
Hath not more habitants than here; and yet—
Hark! how among the drear, gigantic piles,
The echo of my low voice moans and sighs:
How temple talks to temple; tower to tower;
Dome mutters unto dome, that yet again
Whispers it onward. We descend, and lo!
The dim, huge forms of the departed race!
In them alone can I behold decay;
Yet not as clay decayeth: they are still
Perfect in shape and hue; nor taint of death
Is on them, such as makes the earthly corpse
Ghastly and loathsome: but their mighty forms
Have dwindled somewhat, and the solid hath
Become like vapour. Nor, like parting clay,
Suffer'd they fear or pain, but passed off
In long, sweet slumber; by the fountain side,—
In the cool bower,—upon the mountain's brow,—
Beside the ocean,—or upon the lake,—
Amid the woods,—or in the scented vales,—
In temples,—or in gardens. Wheresoe'er
That moment found them, there they fell asleep.
Here one who touch'd this shadowy harp, belike
To the sweet voice of her who on his breast
Finds her last slumber. Here they held the feast
Around the fountain;—see!—the colour'd fruits,
Just where they dropp'd from the relaxing hand,
Are fresh still; and the beautiful flowers, upheap'd
In ruby vases, by the graceful hands
Of these fair sleepers, seem perfumed yet.

“All in the same hour perish'd. Tenderly
The ethereal natures bade them to their rest.
For they perceiv'd the doom had passed forth:
The vast orb shook as with a mortal wound,
And year by year flagg'd heavily: the tints
Of the once pleasant, clear night hours grew deep,
And deeper,—and of dense and deepest blackness,—
And lengthen'd as they deepen'd: the bright noons
Wan'd slowly to a dim and sickly light;
Age after age more sickly, and more dim,
Till change of night and day was none,—but all
Subsided to one drear and lurid red:
And, year by year, the planets in their course
Loiter'd, and swerv'd, through feebleness, aside
From their appointed path; and darkness fell
Slowly upon them,—a long dreary night,—
A night of death,—a night that knew no morn,—
And all things perish'd in them. Yet awhile
They wander'd faintly through the murky air,
Frozen and dead,—huge sepulchres of dead;
Then, one by one, stood still:—the sun stood still:—
The system had expir'd.”

The Shape of Light
Here ceas'd. A long and solemn pause ensued,
And we stood gazing on the desolate orb:
Then took our way in silence,—and again
Voyaged along the melancholy vast—
The burial place of systems. Night—deep night—
Stillness—terrific solitude—dead rest!
Then thus, at length, after long silence, spake
The Ethereal One. “Such as thou hast beheld
Are in these regions numberless; but they
Perish'd not all by the same lingering course.
Even as a torch extinguish'd in the waters,
They have gone out. The mandate hath come forth,—
‘Be dark!’—and they are darken'd; and all life
Dies, and all motion ceaseth, and all sound:
The ocean hath no waves; the air no winds;
The streams no course; the blank orb, shuddering,
Stands still; the whirling planets, with a jar,
Shock—and are fix'd.

“In what far reach of time
These terrible extinctions first began,
Save He who all things knoweth, none can know.
Myriads of millions of long years must pass
Ere darkness blots them utterly from the sky:
With utter darkness first begins decay
Of their pure elements; decay so slow,
Through ages more than man can comprehend,
Our eldest Natures scarce have mark'd their wane:
Yet when we first had being such were here;
Suns blank as midnight,—totally extinct;
Their adamantine substance melted down
Almost to shadow; their dependent worlds
Gone—gone like dew-drops of thy earth's first morn.
We pause: thou dost not feel on what we tread;
Thou canst see nothing; yet beneath our feet
Is the thin shadow of an aged sun;
The waters of its oceans all dried up;
Its mountains wither'd; and its hardest rocks
Become impalpable as air.

“Where fleet
Their viewless atoms,—who can tell? Perchance,
Departing hence, they brighten other suns,
Or hinder their decay:—expanded wide
Through the vast ether, do they only wait
The fiat—‘Be ye light!’—to rush again,
And kindle to new glories?—or have these
Magnificent spheres, like the weak insect race,
Born in the morning, perishing at eve,
Their hour inevitable fix'd to shine,
And fall away in darkness?—Who shall say?

“Again we cleave the fathomless obscure:
From sun to perish'd sun we glance; and yet
Darkness is far before us. On!—yet on!—
Millions of blacken'd systems are behind!
Myriads of millions are before us still!

“But He who hath destroy'd can re-create.
In empty space and darkness, suddenly
We have beheld a cloud of pearly light;
And all about, to infinite extent,
The ether thickening like a radiant mist;
Working tumultuously,—and round, and round,
Rushing in endless circles,—wheel in wheel.
Anon the pearly cloud becomes a sphere;
Condenses—brightens—glows—revolves—expands—
Flashes—and burns—and darts excessive light,—
And grasps the kindled ether as it rolls,
Turning it all to fire; and round and round,
Swifter and faster vehemently whirls and burns,
And gathers prodigious bulk,—till lo!—it is a sun!

“Then gradually the blazing wheel stands still:
And the great mass of mingled light begins
To break into its primal elements.
Thou hast beheld the sky of earth at dawn,
Or close of summer's day, when like a sea
Of fiery waves it shows; a thousand hues
Mingling and tossing with incessant change:
Billows of ruby over golden billows
Flowing, and ebbing back; and crimson waves
'Gainst purple surges work'd to fiery froth:
Thus—but with glory beyond all compare—
The radiant elements of light ferment,
And break in clouds of inconceivable splendour.
Masses of purple, ruby, golden flame,
Condense, and grow to mountains of all gems.
Here the mild emerald rays unite,—and see!
Green valleys, forests, plains, and gentle hills;
Trees with ripe fruit, and blossoms,—flowers in bud
And bloom together springing. And lo! here
The sapphire clouds in mighty volume rolling,
Wave over wave; and, as the tumult stays,
See other waves,—a boundless ocean heaving,
Trying its strength 'gainst all its sounding shores.
Now from the hills the silver torrents pour,
And work their untried path along the plains:
Birds of all beauteous shape, and gorgeous hue,
Wing suddenly athwart the fragrant air:
Forth from the ground start up at once, full-form'd,
Majestic animals of immortal mould:
And last of all, and noblest, lo! the light
Thickens, and gathers in unnumber'd heaps,
Like clouds of brightest fire, that from their height
Descend with gentle motion to the ground;
There rest,—and from the solid element
Exhaling a pure portion, with it mix,
And give vitality. Anon, behold!
Even as we gaze, the beams condense, and take
Solidity and shape, though undefined
As yet, and dim with bright mist circumfused.
But more and more the growing forms appear:
By glimpses we discern a seeming limb
Of heavenly mould,—a gently waving flame
That images a flow of golden tresses;—
A momentary gleam, as of a face
Glowing with heavenly lustre:—yet again,—
And still again,—and brighter,—and more sure
With every look the forming shapes appear;
Till rapidly at length the misty veils
Dissolve,—and lo! in gentle sleep reclined,
A new creation,—pure and beautiful:
Forms like our own,—majestic and immortal.

“Not long they slumber: with one impulse rising,
Conscious of life,—and love,—and gratitude
To Him that hath created them, they lift
Their voices in instinctive harmony,
Adoring and thanksgiving. And with theirs
Join other voices, coming from afar:—
For, kindling up the ether as they fly,
Millions of new-created essences,—
Creatures of purest light,—ethereal shapes,—
All fresh and radiant from their Maker's hand,
Hasten exulting toward their destin'd sphere.

“The glorious orb is finish'd; but as yet
Hangs in the still air motionless:—as yet
Th' attendant worlds are not. Profoundest awe
Sinks in all hearts;—the voice of praise is hush'd;—
The mute adorer pauses in suspense:—
Midway the torrent stays his headlong stream:—
The winds are lock'd:—the rolling seas lie still:—
Thronging the ether, countless multitudes
Of airy shapes look on with holy joy.

“Then suddenly in the far air appear,
Illustrious in the light of their first morn,
The new-created planets; and by each
Its tributary orbs, like starry lamps
Suspended. Still the mighty system sleeps:—
The last great word is wanting. Lo! it comes!
The small still voice:—creation hears!—the sun
Starts forth, rejoicing in his strength, to run
His endless course through the majestic heaven:—
The planets know their orbits:—and with songs
Exultant,—and a million quiring harps
Of airy essences attended,—take their way,
Rolling in rapture on through the ethereal blue.
Then all the new-created race, and all
The innumerable host of spiritual shapes
Burst forth in chorus, praising and adoring
Him,—the Omnipotent,—All-wise,—All-good,—
Who was from everlasting,—and shall be
To everlasting:—the Invisible,—
The Unapproachable—the Great Unknown—
The One Pure Spirit.”—

The Beautiful Nature ceased: I heard no more
The music of his voice, to which all sounds
That earth has sweetest seem untuned and harsh.
Yet on methought we went through the immense
Of death and darkness,—a long flight of years:
But then confusion on my vision came;
One moment I seem'd lost, yet knew not how;
Speechless and motionless:—now toward me came
A multitude of mighty shapes, whose forms,
As earnestly I gazed, for ever changed,
As if to mock me. Now like things of light
And power they mov'd, treading on crimson clouds,
To songs of gladness striking golden harps;
And now they pass'd dejectedly away,
Gloomy and dim as the moon's darken'd orb.
Now through a firmament of brilliant suns
I seem'd to voyage with some heavenly thing,
Whom yet I could not see;—and then, anon,
Lo every fire was quenched, and all space
Was one illimitable flood of waters:
Above me, to eternity, all ocean:—
Beneath and round me ocean, shoreless—bottomless—
Heaving in utter night its measureless waves!
And then again methought I found myself
Circling the disk of some enormous sphere,
That now appear'd a sun,—and now a ball
Of fiercest fire, roaring outrageously;—
And now a cold,—dim,—dreary,—shapeless heap,
Mouldering away in night and solitude.

But then once more I travell'd the abyss
Of darken'd space with that celestial shape.
Away—away we went:—he spake no more;
But turn'd for ever his irradiate face
Upon me with a look of heavenly beauty,
Not to be told;—oh! never to be lost.
I gaz'd—and gaz'd,—it seem'd for years I gaz'd,—
And to eternity had wish'd to gaze
On that ineffable divinity:
But, as some bright star slowly fades away,
Melting to nothing in the beam of morning,
So gradually that heavenly vision fled
From my desiring eye. I look'd,—and look'd;—
'Twas faint,—and dim,—and dimmer;—and the hand.
That still grasp'd mine felt like the touch of air.

There came in the dark vast a milky spot:—
'Twas now a pearly cloud:—'twas now a mist
Of silvery light:—Oh! 'twas a firmament
Boundless,—and glowing with unnumber'd stars!

The Beautiful Spirit smil'd, and pointed up,—
Then melted into ether. Instantly
I seem'd to pass away, like a thin cloud
In the blue sky at noon, that leaves no trace
Where it hath been. All after was a blank,
A dead pause in the flight of time, as life
Had been for years suspended.

I awoke,
And knew not where, or what I was: but soon
The glorious vision I had seen return'd
Upon me; and I thought again to look
On the majestic Spirit that had led me
Through earth and heaven; and to behold once more
The glittering mountains, and the boundless plains
And oceans of the sun:—with that I turn'd,
And op'd my eyes:—and found myself on earth.

The sea was whispering quietly beneath;
The evening breeze was on the hills:—and lo!—
Just touching on the rim of the wide waters,—
The sun himself,—sinking in lonely grandeur.