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149
THE VOICE OF THE PESTILENCE.
BY A YOUNG FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR.
Αιλινον, αιλινον ειπε: το δ'ευ νικατω:
Æsch. Agam.
Æsch. Agam.
I.
Breathless the course of the pale white horse,
Bearing the ghastly Form—
Rapid and dark the spectre bark
When it sweeps before the storm!
Balefully bright, through the torrid night
Ensanguined meteors glare—
Fiercely the spires of volcanic fires
Stream on the sulphurous air!
Bearing the ghastly Form—
Rapid and dark the spectre bark
When it sweeps before the storm!
Balefully bright, through the torrid night
Ensanguined meteors glare—
Fiercely the spires of volcanic fires
Stream on the sulphurous air!
Shades of the slain through the Murderer's brain
Flit terrible and drear—
Shadowy and swift the black storm-drift
Doth trample the atmosphere!
But swifter than all, with a darker pall
Of Terror around my path,
I have arisen from my lampless prison—
Slave of the high God's wrath!
Flit terrible and drear—
Shadowy and swift the black storm-drift
Doth trample the atmosphere!
But swifter than all, with a darker pall
Of Terror around my path,
I have arisen from my lampless prison—
Slave of the high God's wrath!
150
II.
A deep Voice went from the FirmamentAnd it pierced the caves of Earth—
Therefore I came on my wings of flame
From the dark place of my birth!
And it said: “Go forth from the South to the North
Over yon wandering ball—
Sin is the King of that doomëd Thing,
And the sin-beguiled must fall!”
III.
Forth from the Gate of the Uncreate,From the portals of the Abyss—
From the caverns dim where vague Forms swim,
And shapeless Chaos is!
From Hades' womb—from the joyless Tomb
Of Erebus and Old Night—
From the unseen deep where Death and Sleep
Brood in their mystic might—
I come—I come !—before me are dumb
The nations, aghast for dread—
Lo! I have past, as the desert-blast—
And the millions of Earth lie dead!
151
IV.
A voice of fear from the HemisphereTracketh me where I fly—
Earth weeping aloud for her widowhood—
A wild and desolate cry!
Thrones and Dominions, beneath my pinions
Cower like meanest Things—
Melt from my presence, the pride and the pleasaunce
Of pallor-stricken Kings!
Sorrow and mourning supremely scorning,
My throne is the boundless Air—
My chosen shroud is the dark-plumed cloud
Which the whirling breezes bear!
V.
Was I not borne on the wings of the MornFrom the jungles of Jessore,
Over the plain of the purple main
To the far Mauritian shore?
To the isles which sleep on the sunbright deep
Of a coral-pavëd sea,
Where the blue waves welter beneath the shelter
Of Heaven's serenity?
From the womb of the waters, athirst for slaughters
I rose that thirst to sate—
Those green isles are graves in the waste of the waves,
Their beauty is desolate!
152
Rolled on the Southern blast—
Eternal Taurus made answering chorus,
From his glaciers lone and vast!
Did I not pass his granite mass,
And the ridged Caucasian hill—
Over burning sands—over frost-chained lands,
Borne at my own wild will?
VI.
Then hark to the beat of my hastening feet,Thou shrinëd in the Sea—
Where are thy dreams that the Ocean-streams
Would be safety unto thee?
Awaken! awaken! my wings are shaken
Athwart the troubled sky—
Streams the red glance of my meteor lance,
And the glare of mine eager eye!
Hearken, oh hearken! my coming shall darken
The light of thy festal cheer—
In thy storm-rocked home, on the Northern foam—
Nursling of Ocean—hear!
1831.
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