The last night of Pompeii a poem : and Lays and legends |
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THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII.
CANTO II. |
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 | The last night of Pompeii |  |
THE LAST NIGHT OF POMPEII.
CANTO II.
Vandal and violater, Time! thou art
The spirit's master—the heart's mocker! thou
Pourest the deluge of returnless years
Over the gasping bosom, and on thought,
That, in aurora streams of magic light,
Flung its deep glory o'er the heavens, dost heap
Clouds without flame or voice, cold, deep and dark,
Which are the shroud of the mind's sepulchre!
Far better not to be than thus to be!
Better to wander like the gossamer,
The baffled buffet of each aimless wind,
Than sink like dial shadows, all but breath
Leaving the wreck that trembles on the strand.
And why to man, feeble in youth's best hours
Of intellect and power, in all his hopes
The spirit's master—the heart's mocker! thou
Pourest the deluge of returnless years
Over the gasping bosom, and on thought,
That, in aurora streams of magic light,
Flung its deep glory o'er the heavens, dost heap
Clouds without flame or voice, cold, deep and dark,
Which are the shroud of the mind's sepulchre!
Far better not to be than thus to be!
Better to wander like the gossamer,
The baffled buffet of each aimless wind,
Than sink like dial shadows, all but breath
Leaving the wreck that trembles on the strand.
And why to man, feeble in youth's best hours
Of intellect and power, in all his hopes
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So false unto himself and his compeers,
Are strength and pride and potency assigned?
Why is his grandeur wedded to despair?
His love to grief? his heart to hopelessness?
His fame and his dominion to the dust?
Yet thou, Tyrant of Air! hast chronicles
Of darker import, and the world is filled
With thine unpitying ministers of woe.
Beneath the rush of thy dark pinions nought
Lives, or life lingers, breathing at its birth
The death that soon becomes an ecstacy.
Wan yet not hoary, broken at the goal
Of young ambition, myriads feel thy flight
In torture and desire in vain to sleep.
Earth's beauty, heaven's magnificence, the charms
Of zephyrs, verdure, azure, light, hills, streams,
And forests, castelled by eternal rocks,
Beheld long, fade upon the sated soul,
Exhaust by their sublimities, and shed
Their fragrance, music and romance on hearts
Inured and soiled—too weak to bear their bliss,
Too cold to feel their glories! And we roam
The paradise of all earth's pleasantries,
Amid the care, toil, phrenzy, want and strife
Are strength and pride and potency assigned?
Why is his grandeur wedded to despair?
His love to grief? his heart to hopelessness?
His fame and his dominion to the dust?
Yet thou, Tyrant of Air! hast chronicles
Of darker import, and the world is filled
With thine unpitying ministers of woe.
Beneath the rush of thy dark pinions nought
Lives, or life lingers, breathing at its birth
The death that soon becomes an ecstacy.
Wan yet not hoary, broken at the goal
Of young ambition, myriads feel thy flight
In torture and desire in vain to sleep.
Earth's beauty, heaven's magnificence, the charms
Of zephyrs, verdure, azure, light, hills, streams,
And forests, castelled by eternal rocks,
Beheld long, fade upon the sated soul,
Exhaust by their sublimities, and shed
Their fragrance, music and romance on hearts
Inured and soiled—too weak to bear their bliss,
Too cold to feel their glories! And we roam
The paradise of all earth's pleasantries,
Amid the care, toil, phrenzy, want and strife
69
Of the protracted agonies of breath,
Feeding on raptures, that, fulfilled, are woes!
But o'er thy ruins, Time! and the thick clouds
Of the heart's mysteries a sun shall burst,
As now Apollo's steeds, caparisoned
In mornbeam hues, rush up the Appenines,
Star-eyed Eous and wild Phlegon first,
Pouring the sungod's splendors o'er the domes
Of Pompeii waking from her last still sleep.
As from the violet pavilions stole
The dayspring's beautiful and blessed light,
Like rose-leaves floating, and the mountains bent
Their awful brows in worship at the fount
Of radiance, by all ages sacred held
As the peculiar home of deity,
Mythra or Bel or Elios—the name
Erred, but the spirit brooded o'er the heavens,
Up rose the vassals from their earth-beds, late
On yesternight pressed by the sinking limbs
And breaking hearts of bondage; no perfumes
Needed the stripe-gashed body or shorn head:
No lavers waited thraldom; on they flung
Rude garments soiled by servitude, and turned
To grind at the accursed mill, and lift
Feeding on raptures, that, fulfilled, are woes!
But o'er thy ruins, Time! and the thick clouds
Of the heart's mysteries a sun shall burst,
As now Apollo's steeds, caparisoned
In mornbeam hues, rush up the Appenines,
Star-eyed Eous and wild Phlegon first,
Pouring the sungod's splendors o'er the domes
Of Pompeii waking from her last still sleep.
As from the violet pavilions stole
The dayspring's beautiful and blessed light,
Like rose-leaves floating, and the mountains bent
Their awful brows in worship at the fount
Of radiance, by all ages sacred held
As the peculiar home of deity,
Mythra or Bel or Elios—the name
Erred, but the spirit brooded o'er the heavens,
Up rose the vassals from their earth-beds, late
On yesternight pressed by the sinking limbs
And breaking hearts of bondage; no perfumes
Needed the stripe-gashed body or shorn head:
No lavers waited thraldom; on they flung
Rude garments soiled by servitude, and turned
To grind at the accursed mill, and lift
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Their branded brows at the stern master's voice,
In silence passing o'er Mosaic floors
To bear the golden bowl or myrrhine cup,
Falernian or frankincense to their lords.
For them no statue bowed in majesty,
No consul framed a law, and none of all
The common deeds of earth had interest,
For they were stricken from the roll of men
And banished from humanity, [1] and Rome
Gazed from the temple of her trophies on
The hopeless captives—from her triumph hills,
Where armies shouted Liberty! upon
Her myriads of bondmen, with a smile,
That thanked her thrice ten thousand deities,
The o'ershadowing empire of the world was Free!
Waking to want from dreams of affluence,
Parting from splendor to meet toil and tears,
Then rose pale Indigence in shattered cells,
Dusky and damp and squalid, yet o'ertaxed
By the imperial rescript, to endure
The taunts of mimes, the old indignities
Of freedmen, merciless in novel power,
The insolence of taskers and the shame
Of slack dismissal with their pittance, when
The proud patrician deigned to bid his slave
In silence passing o'er Mosaic floors
To bear the golden bowl or myrrhine cup,
Falernian or frankincense to their lords.
For them no statue bowed in majesty,
No consul framed a law, and none of all
The common deeds of earth had interest,
For they were stricken from the roll of men
And banished from humanity, [1] and Rome
Gazed from the temple of her trophies on
The hopeless captives—from her triumph hills,
Where armies shouted Liberty! upon
Her myriads of bondmen, with a smile,
That thanked her thrice ten thousand deities,
The o'ershadowing empire of the world was Free!
Waking to want from dreams of affluence,
Parting from splendor to meet toil and tears,
Then rose pale Indigence in shattered cells,
Dusky and damp and squalid, yet o'ertaxed
By the imperial rescript, to endure
The taunts of mimes, the old indignities
Of freedmen, merciless in novel power,
The insolence of taskers and the shame
Of slack dismissal with their pittance, when
The proud patrician deigned to bid his slave
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Cast the base drachms at the plebeian's feet!
Ere melted the wreathed mists from isle or mount,
City or lake, while Pompeii's pinnacles
Ascended in uncertain grandeur yet,
The artizan went forth to build again
The fabrics earthquakes had late sported with;
Doomed, ere the dial rested shadowless,
To cease from toil for ever!—and the sounds
Of early servile labor multiplied
Through glimmering arcades and noisome courts
Thronged ever by the peasants pomp creates,
As the sun gathered up his streaming rays,
And his broad disk lanced light o'er all the earth.
Late, from their holy dreams in the profound
Of their proud temples, ne'er by foot profane
Invaded, waked the pagan oracles,
The ministers of mysteries all unrevealed,
Save to the forgers of the fictions,—gazed
Bewildered on the amphoræ that stood
Beneath their sacred stores [2]—and turned, once more,
To matin visions of deluding faith,
Processions and responses, gorgeous robes,
Banquets, and free bequests when they alone
Stood o'er the dying, and dominion bought
Ere melted the wreathed mists from isle or mount,
City or lake, while Pompeii's pinnacles
Ascended in uncertain grandeur yet,
The artizan went forth to build again
The fabrics earthquakes had late sported with;
Doomed, ere the dial rested shadowless,
To cease from toil for ever!—and the sounds
Of early servile labor multiplied
Through glimmering arcades and noisome courts
Thronged ever by the peasants pomp creates,
As the sun gathered up his streaming rays,
And his broad disk lanced light o'er all the earth.
Late, from their holy dreams in the profound
Of their proud temples, ne'er by foot profane
Invaded, waked the pagan oracles,
The ministers of mysteries all unrevealed,
Save to the forgers of the fictions,—gazed
Bewildered on the amphoræ that stood
Beneath their sacred stores [2]—and turned, once more,
To matin visions of deluding faith,
Processions and responses, gorgeous robes,
Banquets, and free bequests when they alone
Stood o'er the dying, and dominion bought
72
By endless cycles of hypocrisies.
All hierarchies, howsoe'er unlike
In ritual, are in earthly hope the same;
Pleasure, their idol, ease, their ecstacy,
Power, their ambition, and the will of God,
The blasphemed agency of their own lusts.
The virgin dew yet on the verdure hung,
When, one by one, the mourners of the lost
Stole to the street of sepulchres and sat
Beside the ashes of their ancestors,
Watching the beams that never more would greet
The perished, and, they thought not, never more
Light Pompeii to her loved festivities!
Few, on this mission of elysian love,
Left Tyrian couches and the bliss of sense;
Yet they were blessed in the seraphic gift
Of feeling, which, in solitude, is heaven!
Tombs were the earliest temples, the first prayers
Gushings of grief, the holiest offerings,
Tears of bereavement, and the loveliest hymns,
Sighs over the departed; worship, then,
Rose from the heart, that, mid these simple rites;
Felt no delusion or vain mystery:
Urns were the altars, and the incense, love.
All hierarchies, howsoe'er unlike
In ritual, are in earthly hope the same;
Pleasure, their idol, ease, their ecstacy,
Power, their ambition, and the will of God,
The blasphemed agency of their own lusts.
The virgin dew yet on the verdure hung,
When, one by one, the mourners of the lost
Stole to the street of sepulchres and sat
Beside the ashes of their ancestors,
Watching the beams that never more would greet
The perished, and, they thought not, never more
Light Pompeii to her loved festivities!
Few, on this mission of elysian love,
Left Tyrian couches and the bliss of sense;
Yet they were blessed in the seraphic gift
Of feeling, which, in solitude, is heaven!
Tombs were the earliest temples, the first prayers
Gushings of grief, the holiest offerings,
Tears of bereavement, and the loveliest hymns,
Sighs over the departed; worship, then,
Rose from the heart, that, mid these simple rites;
Felt no delusion or vain mystery:
Urns were the altars, and the incense, love.
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The sodden pulse, offered by humble faith,
Desiring not demanding, far outweighed
Oblations chosen from harbaric spoils;
And with a purer purpose, poverty
Knelt by the wayside image of the god
Than gorgeous pontiffs by Olympian shrines
When sin gains sanction and the heart is soiled
By unrebuked, ay, customary crime,
The tenderest yearnings of the bosom—love,
With its dependence and delight—its smile,
Like rifted rose-leaves, and its tear, like dew
Shook from the pinions of the seraphim,
Breathe unaccepted music; the caress
Of childhood hath no bliss—its early words
And looks of marvel find no fellowship—
For the evil usages of life, that dwells
But in the glare and heat of midnight pomp,
Corrode, anneal and desecrate all love.
Yet some preserve the vivid thoughts—the charms
Of household sanctities; and one such now
Rose from affection's spotless couch and bent
O'er the angel face of virgin infancy;
And thus her gentle and blest thoughts found words.
“Thou sleep'st in Love's own heaven, my child! that brow
Desiring not demanding, far outweighed
Oblations chosen from harbaric spoils;
And with a purer purpose, poverty
Knelt by the wayside image of the god
Than gorgeous pontiffs by Olympian shrines
When sin gains sanction and the heart is soiled
By unrebuked, ay, customary crime,
The tenderest yearnings of the bosom—love,
With its dependence and delight—its smile,
Like rifted rose-leaves, and its tear, like dew
Shook from the pinions of the seraphim,
Breathe unaccepted music; the caress
Of childhood hath no bliss—its early words
And looks of marvel find no fellowship—
For the evil usages of life, that dwells
But in the glare and heat of midnight pomp,
Corrode, anneal and desecrate all love.
Yet some preserve the vivid thoughts—the charms
Of household sanctities; and one such now
Rose from affection's spotless couch and bent
O'er the angel face of virgin infancy;
And thus her gentle and blest thoughts found words.
“Thou sleep'st in Love's own heaven, my child! that brow
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No guilt hath darkened and no sorrow trenched:
Those lips, which from thy fragrant breath receive
The incense hues of thy sweet heart, no gust
Of uttered passion hath defiled; thy cheek
Glows with elysian health and holiness:
And all thy little frame seems thrilling now
In the pure visions of a soul sky born.
The Lares be around thee, oh, my child!
For never yearned Cybele over Jove
With transport deeper than is mine o'er thee!”
Then o'er her babe she spread the drapery,
Kissing the shut lids and unsullied brow,
Where the mind dreamed, perchance, of bliss foregone,
And shading with her byssus robe and flowers
The sunbeams from the sleeper, with a step
Soft as the antelope's, she stole and knelt
In prayer for that loved one at Vesta's shrine.
Breathing their bliss in melodies of love,
Their pictured wings fanning the ether, flew
The song birds, and the groves were full of mirth
Too pure for any voice but music's, when,
Lifting their dim eyes to the blaze of day,
Campania's proud patricians deemed the hour
So far removed from common time of rest,
Those lips, which from thy fragrant breath receive
The incense hues of thy sweet heart, no gust
Of uttered passion hath defiled; thy cheek
Glows with elysian health and holiness:
And all thy little frame seems thrilling now
In the pure visions of a soul sky born.
The Lares be around thee, oh, my child!
For never yearned Cybele over Jove
With transport deeper than is mine o'er thee!”
Then o'er her babe she spread the drapery,
Kissing the shut lids and unsullied brow,
Where the mind dreamed, perchance, of bliss foregone,
And shading with her byssus robe and flowers
The sunbeams from the sleeper, with a step
Soft as the antelope's, she stole and knelt
In prayer for that loved one at Vesta's shrine.
Breathing their bliss in melodies of love,
Their pictured wings fanning the ether, flew
The song birds, and the groves were full of mirth
Too pure for any voice but music's, when,
Lifting their dim eyes to the blaze of day,
Campania's proud patricians deemed the hour
So far removed from common time of rest,
75
Without dishonor, they might breathe the breeze,
That o'er the dimpled waters and the flowers,
Since the first tints of dawn, had played like thought
Over the face of childhood—yet bore now
The vivid heat and dense effluviæ
Of culminating sun and marsh exhaled.
To mask the treacheries of eye and lip
Is pride's philosophy, the felon's skill,
The code of kings, the priesthood's mystic creed,
Unknown to accolytes; and none beheld,
Save the bronze lares, revel's quivering eye,
And dull brow bound with iron, or the face
Of matron guilt pallid with watch and waste,
And trembling in the faintness of a heart
Wrecked by excess of passion, yet again
Gasping for midnight poison! Untrimmed lamps,
Sculptured with shapes of ribaldry to lure [3]
Even satiety to sin's embrace,
To tempt the timid and inflame the inured,
Stood round the household altar, and upon
The silken couch of customary crime
Shed the pale, sickly light of vice o'erworn.
Oh that lascivious guilt at midnight wore
The lurid look, the loathing shame of morn!
Bracelets of gems, enchanted amulets,
That o'er the dimpled waters and the flowers,
Since the first tints of dawn, had played like thought
Over the face of childhood—yet bore now
The vivid heat and dense effluviæ
Of culminating sun and marsh exhaled.
To mask the treacheries of eye and lip
Is pride's philosophy, the felon's skill,
The code of kings, the priesthood's mystic creed,
Unknown to accolytes; and none beheld,
Save the bronze lares, revel's quivering eye,
And dull brow bound with iron, or the face
Of matron guilt pallid with watch and waste,
And trembling in the faintness of a heart
Wrecked by excess of passion, yet again
Gasping for midnight poison! Untrimmed lamps,
Sculptured with shapes of ribaldry to lure [3]
Even satiety to sin's embrace,
To tempt the timid and inflame the inured,
Stood round the household altar, and upon
The silken couch of customary crime
Shed the pale, sickly light of vice o'erworn.
Oh that lascivious guilt at midnight wore
The lurid look, the loathing shame of morn!
Bracelets of gems, enchanted amulets,
76
And vases wrought with wanton images,
And frescoes, picturing the satyr joys
Of Jove and Hermes and the Laurel God,
(For the old divinities were human crimes)
And fountains, with nude naiads twining round
The unveiled tritons, and fair pedestals,
With groups of Paphians, in the forest dim,
(Where gloating forms lifted the filmy robes
Of the bacchantes in voluptuous sleep,)
Holding their revelries with gods disguised,
And every portraiture of pleasure known
To them, whose whole religion was excess,—
All in the chaos of the morning, flung
Alluring raptures over sated sense
And sickened passion, uttering, without voice,
“Ye buy Repentance at the price of hell!”
Loathing the fiend they folded to their hearts,
The madness and the malady of life,
The languor and the listlessness, that spring
From the exhaustion of a maniac lust,
The masters of the throng, in marble baths
And Araby's perfumes and cordial cups
Sought renovation for renewed delights.
Odors and thermal waters may restore
And frescoes, picturing the satyr joys
Of Jove and Hermes and the Laurel God,
(For the old divinities were human crimes)
And fountains, with nude naiads twining round
The unveiled tritons, and fair pedestals,
With groups of Paphians, in the forest dim,
(Where gloating forms lifted the filmy robes
Of the bacchantes in voluptuous sleep,)
Holding their revelries with gods disguised,
And every portraiture of pleasure known
To them, whose whole religion was excess,—
All in the chaos of the morning, flung
Alluring raptures over sated sense
And sickened passion, uttering, without voice,
“Ye buy Repentance at the price of hell!”
Loathing the fiend they folded to their hearts,
The madness and the malady of life,
The languor and the listlessness, that spring
From the exhaustion of a maniac lust,
The masters of the throng, in marble baths
And Araby's perfumes and cordial cups
Sought renovation for renewed delights.
Odors and thermal waters may restore
77
The maddening fever of the flesh, but earth
Hath nought to hush the muttering lips of guilt,
Or quell Death's agonies which guilt inflicts.
The Sybarite from Salmacis arose [4]
To consummate his orgies with fresh bliss,
But Lethe had no power o'er memories
Of broken vows and imprecating oaths
Made by the River of the Dead, what time
Cocytus moaned and Phlegethon upcast
Its lurid gleams o'er chasms of torrent gloom,
Bidding the banished reveller, who dared
To mock the Styx, roam by its blackened shores
Through the dark endlessness of shame and woe!
It was the Harvest Festival; the corn
Of Ceres filled the garners, and the vine
Of the Mirth-Maker from the winepress poured
Divine Falernian; and the autumnal feast,
The gathering of the fruits, to all the gods,
(Through the Earth-Mother and the King of Cups)
Was dedicated with a soul of joy.
In every temple the proud priesthood put
Their purple vestures and tiaras on
For the solemnities they loved to hold,
And masked the haughtiness of peerless power
Hath nought to hush the muttering lips of guilt,
Or quell Death's agonies which guilt inflicts.
The Sybarite from Salmacis arose [4]
To consummate his orgies with fresh bliss,
But Lethe had no power o'er memories
Of broken vows and imprecating oaths
Made by the River of the Dead, what time
Cocytus moaned and Phlegethon upcast
Its lurid gleams o'er chasms of torrent gloom,
Bidding the banished reveller, who dared
To mock the Styx, roam by its blackened shores
Through the dark endlessness of shame and woe!
It was the Harvest Festival; the corn
Of Ceres filled the garners, and the vine
Of the Mirth-Maker from the winepress poured
Divine Falernian; and the autumnal feast,
The gathering of the fruits, to all the gods,
(Through the Earth-Mother and the King of Cups)
Was dedicated with a soul of joy.
In every temple the proud priesthood put
Their purple vestures and tiaras on
For the solemnities they loved to hold,
And masked the haughtiness of peerless power
78
Beneath an austere aspect and a faith
That spared no violater of their laws.
Forth with the swell of trumpet and the voice
Of mellow flute and cithern, came the pomp
In all its grandest pageantry; the god
Of light gleaming on banners wrought with forms
Picturing theogenies or bridal rites,
Or earthly deeds of the divinities.
First walked Jove's pontiff in his diadem,
His crowned and sceptred standard fleckered o'er
With lightning bolts and tempest gloom, upborne
By popæ, weaponed for the sacrifice.
Then in the mazes of a wanton dance,
Lifting the thyrsus crowned with ivy wreaths,
And muttering banquet hymns, the priests of mirth
With antic faces and wild steps leapt on.
Next, with a golden ensign, vales and hills
Along its borders, filled with flocks and herds,
And tall sheaves in the centre, slowly trod
The ministers of Saturn's Daughter blest.
But, dimming all by splendor only known
In Egypt's voiceless mysteries, above
The long array now towered the gonfalon
Of Isis, glowing with devices shame
Shrunk to behold, the shapes of earth's worst sins—[5]
That spared no violater of their laws.
Forth with the swell of trumpet and the voice
Of mellow flute and cithern, came the pomp
In all its grandest pageantry; the god
Of light gleaming on banners wrought with forms
Picturing theogenies or bridal rites,
Or earthly deeds of the divinities.
First walked Jove's pontiff in his diadem,
His crowned and sceptred standard fleckered o'er
With lightning bolts and tempest gloom, upborne
By popæ, weaponed for the sacrifice.
Then in the mazes of a wanton dance,
Lifting the thyrsus crowned with ivy wreaths,
And muttering banquet hymns, the priests of mirth
With antic faces and wild steps leapt on.
Next, with a golden ensign, vales and hills
Along its borders, filled with flocks and herds,
And tall sheaves in the centre, slowly trod
The ministers of Saturn's Daughter blest.
But, dimming all by splendor only known
In Egypt's voiceless mysteries, above
The long array now towered the gonfalon
Of Isis, glowing with devices shame
Shrunk to behold, the shapes of earth's worst sins—[5]
79
Deified fiends! and with the lozel's smiles,
Her crowned pastophori, proud of their shame,
Waved round the ribald picture as they passed
The mansions of their votaries, and maids
And matrons hailed it from their porticoes.
Apollo from his eyes of ecstacy
And lips of bloom filling the bosomed air
With oracles; and Hermes, in the embrace
Of Iris, winging the blue heavens of love,
With his enchanted rod pointing to earth;
Vesta mid her Penates welcoming;
The heavenly Venus, with her starlight eyes,
Veiled brow and girded cestus, looking up
To the pure azure, spotless as her soul,
Followed by the more worshipped Cyprian queen,
So shadowed by her draperies that guilt
Revelled in beauty mocked with robes to tempt;
The war-god with the ancilia and the plumes [6]
Of gory fight, whose triumph was despair;
Proud Pallas with stern lips, and stainless brow,
Surmounted by its olive wreath, and eyes
That never quailed in their calm chastity;
Cotytto—the earth-passion's idol—mid
The unclothed Baptæ painted with designs
To startle e'en sear'd sense into a blush;
Her crowned pastophori, proud of their shame,
Waved round the ribald picture as they passed
The mansions of their votaries, and maids
And matrons hailed it from their porticoes.
Apollo from his eyes of ecstacy
And lips of bloom filling the bosomed air
With oracles; and Hermes, in the embrace
Of Iris, winging the blue heavens of love,
With his enchanted rod pointing to earth;
Vesta mid her Penates welcoming;
The heavenly Venus, with her starlight eyes,
Veiled brow and girded cestus, looking up
To the pure azure, spotless as her soul,
Followed by the more worshipped Cyprian queen,
So shadowed by her draperies that guilt
Revelled in beauty mocked with robes to tempt;
The war-god with the ancilia and the plumes [6]
Of gory fight, whose triumph was despair;
Proud Pallas with stern lips, and stainless brow,
Surmounted by its olive wreath, and eyes
That never quailed in their calm chastity;
Cotytto—the earth-passion's idol—mid
The unclothed Baptæ painted with designs
To startle e'en sear'd sense into a blush;
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The sea-king with his trident; the castout
And shapeless forger of the lightning bolts;
The deity of Erebus with her
He bore from Enna, and his son, the god
Of gold; Diana, in her treble forms,
Magician, huntress, virgin of the skies;
Hirsute and pranksy Pan, amid his fauns;
Nymphs, dryads, oreads and tritons;—all
The beautiful or dread or uncouth thoughts
The imagination made divinities,
In gorgeous chaos, to the Pantheon
Through Pompeii's streets thronged in their riot hour.
Behind the glittering crowd, the hecatomb
Of victims, led by golden cords, moved on.
To every god the sacrifice was meet;
The dove to Venus, and the bull to Mars;
To Dian, the proud stag—the lawless goat,
that tears the vine-leaves, to the deity
Of the gay banquet; and their horns, o'erlaid
With gold, tossed haughtily amid the crowd,
As, rolling their undreading eyeballs round,
They glared defiance and amazement, mute
Yet merciless when fit occasion came.
“An evil omen! lo! the victims strive,
And shapeless forger of the lightning bolts;
The deity of Erebus with her
He bore from Enna, and his son, the god
Of gold; Diana, in her treble forms,
Magician, huntress, virgin of the skies;
Hirsute and pranksy Pan, amid his fauns;
Nymphs, dryads, oreads and tritons;—all
The beautiful or dread or uncouth thoughts
The imagination made divinities,
In gorgeous chaos, to the Pantheon
Through Pompeii's streets thronged in their riot hour.
Behind the glittering crowd, the hecatomb
Of victims, led by golden cords, moved on.
To every god the sacrifice was meet;
The dove to Venus, and the bull to Mars;
To Dian, the proud stag—the lawless goat,
that tears the vine-leaves, to the deity
Of the gay banquet; and their horns, o'erlaid
With gold, tossed haughtily amid the crowd,
As, rolling their undreading eyeballs round,
They glared defiance and amazement, mute
Yet merciless when fit occasion came.
“An evil omen! lo! the victims strive,
81
And we must drag them to the altar!” [7] said
The trembling augur—“what most dismal grief
And fatal destiny shall follow this?”
Yet onward surged the multitudes with boughs
Of olive in their hands and laurel crowns,
And Zeian barley spears folded in wreaths
By locks from richest fleeces, as they passed
The temple images, with practised skill,
Bending their foreheads on expanded palms.
And onward o'er the Appian Way the host
Of mitred, robed and bannered priests drew nigh
The fane of all the gods, and, at a word,
The music softened to a solemn strain,
The measured voices of the holy chiefs
Ascended in a song, and, as they ceased,
The people, like the ocean's myriad waves,
Raised their responses to the harvest prayer.
The trembling augur—“what most dismal grief
And fatal destiny shall follow this?”
Yet onward surged the multitudes with boughs
Of olive in their hands and laurel crowns,
And Zeian barley spears folded in wreaths
By locks from richest fleeces, as they passed
The temple images, with practised skill,
Bending their foreheads on expanded palms.
And onward o'er the Appian Way the host
Of mitred, robed and bannered priests drew nigh
The fane of all the gods, and, at a word,
The music softened to a solemn strain,
The measured voices of the holy chiefs
Ascended in a song, and, as they ceased,
The people, like the ocean's myriad waves,
Raised their responses to the harvest prayer.
THE PÆAN OF THE PANTHEON.
STROPHE.
Wielder of Worlds that round Elysium dance
Beneath the brightness of thy sleepless eye,
Who from the bosom of the flame dost glance.
And feelst our time in thine Eternity!
Beneath the brightness of thy sleepless eye,
Who from the bosom of the flame dost glance.
And feelst our time in thine Eternity!
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Thou deathless Jove!
Monarch of awe and Love!
Look from the radiant height of thy dominion
On thine adorers now,
And waft thy smile on Hermes' rainbow pinion,
And bend thine awful brow!
Immortal and supreme!
With vows and victims to thy shrine we come,
And hearts that breathe the incense of their praise,
And first fruits borne from each protected home,
To bless thee for the blessings of our days!
Have we not heard thy spirit in the dreams,
That glance o'er thought like morn's young light on streams?
In visions, watched thy bird of triumph near
The azure realms of thine ethereal sphere,
Waiting behests of victories and powers
And counsels from thy throne?
Hath not thy thunder voice, the summer showers,
The lightning spirit all thine own,
Bade strew the exulting earth with fruits and flowers?
Therefore, we render up
The spotless victim from the wood
And household field, and from libation cup
Pour the rich vine's unmingled blood.
Monarch of awe and Love!
Look from the radiant height of thy dominion
On thine adorers now,
And waft thy smile on Hermes' rainbow pinion,
And bend thine awful brow!
Immortal and supreme!
With vows and victims to thy shrine we come,
And hearts that breathe the incense of their praise,
And first fruits borne from each protected home,
To bless thee for the blessings of our days!
Have we not heard thy spirit in the dreams,
That glance o'er thought like morn's young light on streams?
In visions, watched thy bird of triumph near
The azure realms of thine ethereal sphere,
Waiting behests of victories and powers
And counsels from thy throne?
Hath not thy thunder voice, the summer showers,
The lightning spirit all thine own,
Bade strew the exulting earth with fruits and flowers?
Therefore, we render up
The spotless victim from the wood
And household field, and from libation cup
Pour the rich vine's unmingled blood.
83
Accept our praise and prayer,
Sceptred Immortal of the chainless Air!
Chorus.—King of Elysium! hear, oh hear
From thine Olympian scat!
To priest and people bow thy sovereign ear!
We dare not see thy face, but kiss thy sacred feet!
Sceptred Immortal of the chainless Air!
Chorus.—King of Elysium! hear, oh hear
From thine Olympian scat!
To priest and people bow thy sovereign ear!
We dare not see thy face, but kiss thy sacred feet!
ANTISTROPHE.
God of the mornlight, when the orient glows
With thy triumphant smile, and ether feels
The Hours and Seasons, mid their clouds of rose,
Swept o'er its bosom on the living wheels
Of thy proud car,
When through the abysses of the heaven each star
Before the splendor of thy spirit fades
Like insect glimmerings in the noontide glades!
Hail, radiant Phœbus! lord
Of love and life, of wisdom, music, mirth,
At whose resistless word
Being and bliss dance o'er the blossomed earth!
O Pythian Victor, hear!
Pæonian healer of our ills, behold!
Breather of oracles! thy sons draw near
To feel the music of thy lyre unfold,
As shadows change before the morn to gold,
With thy triumphant smile, and ether feels
The Hours and Seasons, mid their clouds of rose,
Swept o'er its bosom on the living wheels
Of thy proud car,
When through the abysses of the heaven each star
Before the splendor of thy spirit fades
Like insect glimmerings in the noontide glades!
Hail, radiant Phœbus! lord
Of love and life, of wisdom, music, mirth,
At whose resistless word
Being and bliss dance o'er the blossomed earth!
O Pythian Victor, hear!
Pæonian healer of our ills, behold!
Breather of oracles! thy sons draw near
To feel the music of thy lyre unfold,
As shadows change before the morn to gold,
84
The sealed-up volume of our darkened minds.
Breathe on Favonian winds,
And from the effluence of immortal light
Strew our dim thoughts with rays,
Till, sorrowing o'er this failing praise,
We know, with burning hearts, to sing thy deeds aright!
God of the harp and bow,
Whose thoughts are sunbeam arrows, hear!
Giver of flowers! dissolver of the snow!
Accept our gifts and let thy sons draw near!
Chorus.—Io Pæan! from thy sphere,
King of prophets, hear, oh hear!
From hallowed fount and hoary hill,
And haunt of song and sunlight near,
With inspirations come and every bosom fill!
Breathe on Favonian winds,
And from the effluence of immortal light
Strew our dim thoughts with rays,
Till, sorrowing o'er this failing praise,
We know, with burning hearts, to sing thy deeds aright!
God of the harp and bow,
Whose thoughts are sunbeam arrows, hear!
Giver of flowers! dissolver of the snow!
Accept our gifts and let thy sons draw near!
Chorus.—Io Pæan! from thy sphere,
King of prophets, hear, oh hear!
From hallowed fount and hoary hill,
And haunt of song and sunlight near,
With inspirations come and every bosom fill!
EPODE.
Reveal the shrine! wave ye the laurel boughs,
Dipped in the fount that purifies the heart!
Unsullied Dian! breathe our holiest vows!
Storm-crowned Poseidon! to the imperial mart
Thou bearst the Median gems,
And loftiest Asian diadems,
And o'er thy billowy world we pour our praise!
Uranian Venus! let the Vesper rays
Dipped in the fount that purifies the heart!
Unsullied Dian! breathe our holiest vows!
Storm-crowned Poseidon! to the imperial mart
Thou bearst the Median gems,
And loftiest Asian diadems,
And o'er thy billowy world we pour our praise!
Uranian Venus! let the Vesper rays
85
Of thy beatitude around us float and dwell,
Till thine ethereal loveliness o'ercomes
The stains and shadows of thy mocker here,
And high the vine-god's song may swell
Among the shrines of Vesta's hallowed home
Without a following tear;
And Isis' mystic rites may thrill
The soul with Plato's most celestial vision,
And Pallas in her grandeur fill
The heart of Ceres with her mind elysian!
Blesser with bounty, hail!
What but thy gifts can mortals offer thee?
Smile on the banquet and the song and tale
The Dionysius breathes to thy divinity!
Hail, all ye gods of air, earth, wave and wind!
Ye oceans from the streams of human mind!
With spotless garments and unsandalled feet.
Purified bodies and undaring souls,
We the Pantheon tread! oh, meet,
Meet your adorers! lo! the incense rolls
Along Corinthian columns and wrought roof,
Like Manes wandering o'er the fields of bliss!
Chill not our worship with a stern reproof!
Hail, all ye gods! we worship with a kiss!
Till thine ethereal loveliness o'ercomes
The stains and shadows of thy mocker here,
And high the vine-god's song may swell
Among the shrines of Vesta's hallowed home
Without a following tear;
And Isis' mystic rites may thrill
The soul with Plato's most celestial vision,
And Pallas in her grandeur fill
The heart of Ceres with her mind elysian!
Blesser with bounty, hail!
What but thy gifts can mortals offer thee?
Smile on the banquet and the song and tale
The Dionysius breathes to thy divinity!
Hail, all ye gods of air, earth, wave and wind!
Ye oceans from the streams of human mind!
With spotless garments and unsandalled feet.
Purified bodies and undaring souls,
We the Pantheon tread! oh, meet,
Meet your adorers! lo! the incense rolls
Along Corinthian columns and wrought roof,
Like Manes wandering o'er the fields of bliss!
Chill not our worship with a stern reproof!
Hail, all ye gods! we worship with a kiss!
86
Chorus —From shore and sea and vale and mountain,
Hail ye divinities of weal or woe!
Olympus, Ida, grotto, fountain,—
We in your Pantheon kneel—around your altars bow!
Thro' the bronze gates, sculptured with legends feigned
Of the theocrasies, the pageant swept,
A thousand feet dancing the song, and paused
Around the shrines they dragged the victims up.
Then bending from Jove's altar to the east,
The Pontiff raised the golden chalice, crowned
With wine unmingled, and, amid the shower [8]
Of green herbs, myrrh, obelia and vine leaves
Poured out the brimmed libation on the head
Of the awaiting sacrifice, from flocks
Chosen for beauty, and young quickening life.
Then with a laurel branch, he sprinkled all,
Circling the altar thrice; the heralds, then,
Cried, “Who is here?” and all the multitudes
Like billows answered deep, “Many and good!”
“Breathe not the words of omen!” “Lo! we stand
Like Harpocrates in the vestibule!”
The High Priest, mid the wreathing incense, raised
The prayer; the augur, with his wand, marked out
Hail ye divinities of weal or woe!
Olympus, Ida, grotto, fountain,—
We in your Pantheon kneel—around your altars bow!
Thro' the bronze gates, sculptured with legends feigned
Of the theocrasies, the pageant swept,
A thousand feet dancing the song, and paused
Around the shrines they dragged the victims up.
Then bending from Jove's altar to the east,
The Pontiff raised the golden chalice, crowned
With wine unmingled, and, amid the shower [8]
Of green herbs, myrrh, obelia and vine leaves
Poured out the brimmed libation on the head
Of the awaiting sacrifice, from flocks
Chosen for beauty, and young quickening life.
Then with a laurel branch, he sprinkled all,
Circling the altar thrice; the heralds, then,
Cried, “Who is here?” and all the multitudes
Like billows answered deep, “Many and good!”
“Breathe not the words of omen!” “Lo! we stand
Like Harpocrates in the vestibule!”
The High Priest, mid the wreathing incense, raised
The prayer; the augur, with his wand, marked out
87
The heavens; the aruspices, with eyes of awe
Behind the slayers of the sacrifice
Stood gazing on the victims. “Hath no spot,
No arrow from the Huntress' bow or dart
Of Pythius stained the offering?” said the priest.
“'Tis fair and perfect, and unblemished stands
To give its body to the Harvest Queen
And all the gods!—We pour into its ear
The holy water—yet it doth not nod!
We bend the neck—it struggles for the flight!
Dismal presages! omens of despair!”
The Pontiff quailed, not in the dread of gods,
(His sole divinity was his own power)
But fear of superstition's evil thought,
As from the fluctuating host arose
A smothered shriek of terror; and, in tones
Quick, stern, and deep as the exploded bolt,
Commanded “Strike! the wrath of Jove attends
The impious delay!” and, hushed as heaven
When broods the hurricane on cloudy deeps,
The worshippers stood trembling as they looked,—
The agonies and ecstasies of fear
And hope, in stormlike glimpses, shadowing o'er
The broken waves of faces—on the shrine,
And saw the axe of the cultrarius fall!
Behind the slayers of the sacrifice
Stood gazing on the victims. “Hath no spot,
No arrow from the Huntress' bow or dart
Of Pythius stained the offering?” said the priest.
“'Tis fair and perfect, and unblemished stands
To give its body to the Harvest Queen
And all the gods!—We pour into its ear
The holy water—yet it doth not nod!
We bend the neck—it struggles for the flight!
Dismal presages! omens of despair!”
The Pontiff quailed, not in the dread of gods,
(His sole divinity was his own power)
But fear of superstition's evil thought,
As from the fluctuating host arose
A smothered shriek of terror; and, in tones
Quick, stern, and deep as the exploded bolt,
Commanded “Strike! the wrath of Jove attends
The impious delay!” and, hushed as heaven
When broods the hurricane on cloudy deeps,
The worshippers stood trembling as they looked,—
The agonies and ecstasies of fear
And hope, in stormlike glimpses, shadowing o'er
The broken waves of faces—on the shrine,
And saw the axe of the cultrarius fall!
88
Maddened and bleeding, yet not slain, the ram
Flung back his twisted horns—sent up a sound
Of anguish, and in phrenzy on the air
Springing, in his fierce death throes, fell amidst
Dismayed adorers and gasped out his life.
Shrieks o'er the panting silence rose and filled
The temple, and in horror shrunk the throng,
As o'er the accursed rites pale Nemesis,
Leading the Destinies, had come to blast
The sacrifice with sacrilege; but now
The Pontiff's voice, bidding his lictors quell
The tumult, called another victim up,
And stillness brooded o'er the stricken crowd.
Cashing the lifted neck, the popæ held
The brazen ewers beneath the bubbling blood,
And white-robed flamens bade the people note
The happiest augury—without a sigh
Or tremor, seen or heard, the victim died.
Then flayed and opened they the offering,
Lifting the vitals on their weapons' points.
With writhing brows, pale lips and ashen cheeks,
And failing hearts, in horror's panic voice,
The aruspices proclaimed the prodigies.
“The entrails palpitate—the liver's lobes
Are withered, and the heart hath shrivelled up!”
Flung back his twisted horns—sent up a sound
Of anguish, and in phrenzy on the air
Springing, in his fierce death throes, fell amidst
Dismayed adorers and gasped out his life.
Shrieks o'er the panting silence rose and filled
The temple, and in horror shrunk the throng,
As o'er the accursed rites pale Nemesis,
Leading the Destinies, had come to blast
The sacrifice with sacrilege; but now
The Pontiff's voice, bidding his lictors quell
The tumult, called another victim up,
And stillness brooded o'er the stricken crowd.
Cashing the lifted neck, the popæ held
The brazen ewers beneath the bubbling blood,
And white-robed flamens bade the people note
The happiest augury—without a sigh
Or tremor, seen or heard, the victim died.
Then flayed and opened they the offering,
Lifting the vitals on their weapons' points.
With writhing brows, pale lips and ashen cheeks,
And failing hearts, in horror's panic voice,
The aruspices proclaimed the prodigies.
“The entrails palpitate—the liver's lobes
Are withered, and the heart hath shrivelled up!”
89
Groans rose from living surges round; yet loud
The High Priest uttered—“Lay them on the fire!”
'Twas done; and wine and oil poured amply o'er,
And still the sacrificer wildly cried—
“Woe unto all! the wandering fires hiss up
Through the black vapors—lapping o'er the flesh
They burn not, but abandon! ashes fill
The temple, whirled upon the wind that waves
The flame through smothering clouds, towards the Mount,
That, since first light, hath hurled its lava forth!
Hark! the wild thunder bursts upon the right!
Ravens and vultures past us on the left!
Fly, votaries! from the wrath of heaven, oh fly!
The Vestals shriek, the sacred fire is dead!
The gods deny our prayers! fly to your homes!”
From the Pantheon struggled the vast throng,
And rushed dismayed unto their household hearths,
While from Vesuvius swelled a pyramid
Of smoke streaked o'er with gory flame, and sounds,
Like voices howling curses deep in earth,
From its abysses rose, and ashes fell
Through the thick panting air in burning clouds.
All save the haughty Pontiff, mocking fear,
Had flown the gorgeous Pantheon, but he sate
On the high altar, mid the trophied pomp
The High Priest uttered—“Lay them on the fire!”
'Twas done; and wine and oil poured amply o'er,
And still the sacrificer wildly cried—
“Woe unto all! the wandering fires hiss up
Through the black vapors—lapping o'er the flesh
They burn not, but abandon! ashes fill
The temple, whirled upon the wind that waves
The flame through smothering clouds, towards the Mount,
That, since first light, hath hurled its lava forth!
Hark! the wild thunder bursts upon the right!
Ravens and vultures past us on the left!
Fly, votaries! from the wrath of heaven, oh fly!
The Vestals shriek, the sacred fire is dead!
The gods deny our prayers! fly to your homes!”
From the Pantheon struggled the vast throng,
And rushed dismayed unto their household hearths,
While from Vesuvius swelled a pyramid
Of smoke streaked o'er with gory flame, and sounds,
Like voices howling curses deep in earth,
From its abysses rose, and ashes fell
Through the thick panting air in burning clouds.
All save the haughty Pontiff, mocking fear,
Had flown the gorgeous Pantheon, but he sate
On the high altar, mid the trophied pomp
90
Of priceless consecrations to the gods,
Breathing his scorn and imprecations on
The dastard people and the blasted rites,
When, heaving as on billows, while a moan
Passed o'er the statues, the proud temple swayed
As 'twere an evening cloud, from side to side,
Rocking beneath the earthquake that convulsed
Sea, shore and mountain, at its hollow voice,
Hurled into ruin; and his lips yet glowed
With execrations on the sacrifice,
When from its pedestal, bending with brow
Of vengeance and fixed lips that almost spake,
Jove's giant image fell and crushed to earth
The Thunderer's mocker in his temple home!
Like an earth-shadowing cypress, o'er the skies
Lifting its labyrinth of leaves, the boughs
Of molten brass, the giant trunk of flame,
The breath of the volcano's Titan heart
Hung in the heavens; and every maddened pulse
Of the vast mountain's earthquake bosom hurled
Its vengeance on the earth that gasped beneath.
Yet mortals, then, as now, deemed deities
The essence of men's passions—swayed like leaves,
By orison or chanted hymn, from deeds,
Breathing his scorn and imprecations on
The dastard people and the blasted rites,
When, heaving as on billows, while a moan
Passed o'er the statues, the proud temple swayed
As 'twere an evening cloud, from side to side,
Rocking beneath the earthquake that convulsed
Sea, shore and mountain, at its hollow voice,
Hurled into ruin; and his lips yet glowed
With execrations on the sacrifice,
When from its pedestal, bending with brow
Of vengeance and fixed lips that almost spake,
Jove's giant image fell and crushed to earth
The Thunderer's mocker in his temple home!
Like an earth-shadowing cypress, o'er the skies
Lifting its labyrinth of leaves, the boughs
Of molten brass, the giant trunk of flame,
The breath of the volcano's Titan heart
Hung in the heavens; and every maddened pulse
Of the vast mountain's earthquake bosom hurled
Its vengeance on the earth that gasped beneath.
Yet mortals, then, as now, deemed deities
The essence of men's passions—swayed like leaves,
By orison or chanted hymn, from deeds,
91
Ere time had birth, appointed. So, within
Their secret chambers and the silent groves,
While Ruin's eye from the red living bolt
Glanced with a glare of scorn upon their rites,
The doomed idolaters, abashed yet fain
To win redemption from suspended wrath,
Round their Penates cowered, while magians came,
Sybils and sorcerers, to mock the mind
With mystic divinations, and reveal,
What prophets need not show, folly and guilt.
To avert the threated vengeance, Egypt's spells,
Muttered in sounds the utterer made not speech,
By magic incantations wrought, called up
Earth demons to unfold the future's deeds.
Their secret chambers and the silent groves,
While Ruin's eye from the red living bolt
Glanced with a glare of scorn upon their rites,
The doomed idolaters, abashed yet fain
To win redemption from suspended wrath,
Round their Penates cowered, while magians came,
Sybils and sorcerers, to mock the mind
With mystic divinations, and reveal,
What prophets need not show, folly and guilt.
To avert the threated vengeance, Egypt's spells,
Muttered in sounds the utterer made not speech,
By magic incantations wrought, called up
Earth demons to unfold the future's deeds.
THE SYBIL'S INVOCATION.
From the hill forest's gloom,
Where the lemures dwell;
From the depth of the tomb,
Whence the soul parts to hell;
From the dim caves of death
Where the coil'd serpent sleeps not,
And the lone deadly heath
Where the night spirit weeps not;
Where the lemures dwell;
From the depth of the tomb,
Whence the soul parts to hell;
From the dim caves of death
Where the coil'd serpent sleeps not,
And the lone deadly heath
Where the night spirit weeps not;
92
From the shore where the wreck lies,
And the surge o'er the dead;
From the heart of the dark skies,
Where the tempest is bred;
Ye Demigods, hear!
Ye pale shadows, ascend!
And ye demons, appear!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
From the ocean deeps come,
Where the coral groves glimmer,
In your trailed robes of gloom,
Making terror's face dimmer;
From the crag-pass of slaughter,
On the voiced air of death,
Come, shed o'er your daughter
Your oracle breath!
On the night vapor stealing
From the marsh o'er the mountain;
On the bland air revealing
No doom by the fountain;
Ye Demigods, come!
Ye pale shadows, ascend!
And ye demons, from gloom!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
And the surge o'er the dead;
From the heart of the dark skies,
Where the tempest is bred;
Ye Demigods, hear!
Ye pale shadows, ascend!
And ye demons, appear!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
From the ocean deeps come,
Where the coral groves glimmer,
In your trailed robes of gloom,
Making terror's face dimmer;
From the crag-pass of slaughter,
On the voiced air of death,
Come, shed o'er your daughter
Your oracle breath!
On the night vapor stealing
From the marsh o'er the mountain;
On the bland air revealing
No doom by the fountain;
Ye Demigods, come!
Ye pale shadows, ascend!
And ye demons, from gloom!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
93
Be ye blest or accursed,
Be ye famished or sated,
In pale Orcus the worst,
In Elysium the fated;
If ye roam by the shore
Which ye never may leave,
Or in nectar adore
Where ye never can grieve;
Be ye gross and malign
Or elysian as air—
Come forth and divine
What the future may bear!
Ye Demigods, come!
Ye pale shadows ascend!
And ye demons from gloom!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
Amid the darkened necromantic haunts
Of worse fiends than the evoked, no voice replied.
Then, moulding effigies to suit her hate,
And dropping venom in each pictured pore,
The Sybil, with dishevelled serpent locks,
And Lamian features, bade the fiend of fire
Open the ritual of hell, and read
Revealings of the Destinies—and then,
Be ye famished or sated,
In pale Orcus the worst,
In Elysium the fated;
If ye roam by the shore
Which ye never may leave,
Or in nectar adore
Where ye never can grieve;
Be ye gross and malign
Or elysian as air—
Come forth and divine
What the future may bear!
Ye Demigods, come!
Ye pale shadows ascend!
And ye demons from gloom!
To drink the bann'd cup ere the weird rites shall end!
Amid the darkened necromantic haunts
Of worse fiends than the evoked, no voice replied.
Then, moulding effigies to suit her hate,
And dropping venom in each pictured pore,
The Sybil, with dishevelled serpent locks,
And Lamian features, bade the fiend of fire
Open the ritual of hell, and read
Revealings of the Destinies—and then,
94
She drank from the bann'd skullcup poison draughts,
Pledging the damned! yet silence looked reply.
And each Promethean divination brought [9]
Nor shadow nor response; the mirrored glass
Returned no image; the drowned ring sent up
No echo; whirling gusts effaced the forms
Of letters writ in ashes; magic gems
No longer kept their power; the daphne burned
Without a sound; and every poison herb,
Though with unearthly skill distilled, no more,
Like Nessus' robe and wild Medea's gift,
Dispersed the agonies of maniac deaths.
Restless in doubt, the human mind hath sought
Knowledge in every hour of time, through tears,
Wasting and want and haggard solitude,
Anguish and madness; hovering o'er the verge
Of the cternal ocean, from whose depths
Earth's ghastly spectres rise to mock at hope,
The spirit follows through forbidden paths
The meteor of its own vain thought, till death
Shrouds, palls and sepulchres the throbbing dust.
Vain were petitions murmured to the gods
Priapus and Cunina to dissolve
Pledging the damned! yet silence looked reply.
And each Promethean divination brought [9]
Nor shadow nor response; the mirrored glass
Returned no image; the drowned ring sent up
No echo; whirling gusts effaced the forms
Of letters writ in ashes; magic gems
No longer kept their power; the daphne burned
Without a sound; and every poison herb,
Though with unearthly skill distilled, no more,
Like Nessus' robe and wild Medea's gift,
Dispersed the agonies of maniac deaths.
Restless in doubt, the human mind hath sought
Knowledge in every hour of time, through tears,
Wasting and want and haggard solitude,
Anguish and madness; hovering o'er the verge
Of the cternal ocean, from whose depths
Earth's ghastly spectres rise to mock at hope,
The spirit follows through forbidden paths
The meteor of its own vain thought, till death
Shrouds, palls and sepulchres the throbbing dust.
Vain were petitions murmured to the gods
Priapus and Cunina to dissolve
95
The spells of Fascinators; the evil eye
Of the Illyrian or Triballi sent
Its wonted glance into the trembling breast,
Possessing, as they feigned, the soul with fiends.
Vainly, they wore baccharis wreaths—in vain,
Their jasper, rhamn or laurel amulets
On brow or bosom hung! the magi dreamed.
Scorned thus by demon and by deity,
In guilt's delirium to Isis' shrine,
The multitude, beneath thick canopies,
As dreading the last hope of their despair,
Bear Pompeii's loveliest virgin [10]—in the bud
And perfume of her sinless being doomed
To perish in the vault of mysteries,
That evil men, by shedding guiltless blood,
May startle Fate to speak their doom! alas!
Must Death, from his pale realms of fear, so soon
Breathe on that beautiful and radiant brow
And leave it blasted? on the blossomed lips,
Whence music gushed in streams of rainbow thought,
And chill them into breathlessness and gloom?
That vermil cheek—those eyes, where thoughts repose,
Like clustered stars on the blue autumn skies,
That head of beauty and that heart of love—
Of the Illyrian or Triballi sent
Its wonted glance into the trembling breast,
Possessing, as they feigned, the soul with fiends.
Vainly, they wore baccharis wreaths—in vain,
Their jasper, rhamn or laurel amulets
On brow or bosom hung! the magi dreamed.
Scorned thus by demon and by deity,
In guilt's delirium to Isis' shrine,
The multitude, beneath thick canopies,
As dreading the last hope of their despair,
Bear Pompeii's loveliest virgin [10]—in the bud
And perfume of her sinless being doomed
To perish in the vault of mysteries,
That evil men, by shedding guiltless blood,
May startle Fate to speak their doom! alas!
Must Death, from his pale realms of fear, so soon
Breathe on that beautiful and radiant brow
And leave it blasted? on the blossomed lips,
Whence music gushed in streams of rainbow thought,
And chill them into breathlessness and gloom?
That vermil cheek—those eyes, where thoughts repose,
Like clustered stars on the blue autumn skies,
That head of beauty and that heart of love—
96
Oh, must they languish, moulder, and depart,
Without a sigh, from the sweet earth they loved?
When has the bigot, whatsoe'er his crown,[11]
Cidaris, mitre, oak or laurel wreath,
Spared, having power to torture? when, the slave
Of superstition slackened in his zeal
Of loving God by loathing humankind?
Weep with the crocodile—embrace the asp—
Doubt not the avalanche of ages—meet
The famished wolf's sardonic smile—and sleep
Beneath the upas—but believe not, man
E'er yet had mercy when his guilt feared hell!
With hurried footfalls o'er the lava walks [12]
And through the Forum's colonnades, unmarked
But by quick glances, to the Mount of Flame
Turning again, the worshippers passed on,
And the proud temple gates behind them closed.
Then from the altar of the idol came
The crowned hierophant, in robes o'erwrought
With mystic symbols, emblems of a power
Invisible, yet everywhere supreme,
As the air that shrouds the glaciers, and, like that,
Waked to annihilate, by one low voice.
Lifting his dusky hand, gleaming with gems,
Without a sigh, from the sweet earth they loved?
When has the bigot, whatsoe'er his crown,[11]
Cidaris, mitre, oak or laurel wreath,
Spared, having power to torture? when, the slave
Of superstition slackened in his zeal
Of loving God by loathing humankind?
Weep with the crocodile—embrace the asp—
Doubt not the avalanche of ages—meet
The famished wolf's sardonic smile—and sleep
Beneath the upas—but believe not, man
E'er yet had mercy when his guilt feared hell!
With hurried footfalls o'er the lava walks [12]
And through the Forum's colonnades, unmarked
But by quick glances, to the Mount of Flame
Turning again, the worshippers passed on,
And the proud temple gates behind them closed.
Then from the altar of the idol came
The crowned hierophant, in robes o'erwrought
With mystic symbols, emblems of a power
Invisible, yet everywhere supreme,
As the air that shrouds the glaciers, and, like that,
Waked to annihilate, by one low voice.
Lifting his dusky hand, gleaming with gems,
97
He waved the throng to worship, with hushed lips,
And, with a gesture, bidding neophytes
Come forth, and raise the victim, bound and stretched
On the Mosaic floor, in horror's arms,
With a hyæna step, through pillar'd aisles,
Dim, still and awful, to the vaulted crypt
Of gloom and most unhallowed sacrifice
He led the bearers of the victim maid.
One shuddering farewell—one shriek, that gave
A legion echoes, from her muffled lips
Gushed! then in gloom her hyacinthine hair
Vanished—and from the veiled recesses rose
The music of the sistrum, [13] and strange gleams
Of violet and crimson lights along
The shrine and statues flitted momently
And faded; and mysterious phantoms glanced
O'er the far skirting corridors, and left
The awed mind wildered with a doubting sense
Of silence broken by what was not sound,
Nor breathings of a living heart—nor tones
Of forest leaves nor lapses of the wind—
But a dread haunting of a sightless fear
Of unformed peril—a crushed thought, that through
The twilight dimness of the fane o'erhung
Gigantic beings of diluvian realms,
And, with a gesture, bidding neophytes
Come forth, and raise the victim, bound and stretched
On the Mosaic floor, in horror's arms,
With a hyæna step, through pillar'd aisles,
Dim, still and awful, to the vaulted crypt
Of gloom and most unhallowed sacrifice
He led the bearers of the victim maid.
One shuddering farewell—one shriek, that gave
A legion echoes, from her muffled lips
Gushed! then in gloom her hyacinthine hair
Vanished—and from the veiled recesses rose
The music of the sistrum, [13] and strange gleams
Of violet and crimson lights along
The shrine and statues flitted momently
And faded; and mysterious phantoms glanced
O'er the far skirting corridors, and left
The awed mind wildered with a doubting sense
Of silence broken by what was not sound,
Nor breathings of a living heart—nor tones
Of forest leaves nor lapses of the wind—
But a dread haunting of a sightless fear
Of unformed peril—a crushed thought, that through
The twilight dimness of the fane o'erhung
Gigantic beings of diluvian realms,
98
Voiceless and viewless, yet endowed with might
To rend the mortal breather of a sigh!
Down the chill, dusky granite steps the priest
Guided the virgin sacrifice; above,
The massy and barr'd vault door shut; and night,
Shown in its ghastly terrors by wild rays
Of many tinctured lights, fell on the heart
Of the devoted, desolated maid.
Through still descending labyrinths, where coiled
All loathsome creatures, and dark waters dripped
With a deep sullen sound like pulses heard
By captives dying in their dungeon tomb,
The Egyptian glided hurriedly and still.
Then o'er a green lagoon, whose festered flood
Flung back a deathsome glare as the lights sunk
Upon its sleeping surface stretching far
Into the floating masses of the gloom,
They, in a mouldered barque, went silently.
The plated crocodile, on the earth and pool
Suspended, ope'd his sluggish jaws and looked
Upon the priest with fawning earnestness;
He gazed upon the victim and passed by,
And the loathed reptile dreamed of coming feasts.
Rugged and spiral grew the pathway; bats,
Waving the spectre lights, winged through the vaults,
To rend the mortal breather of a sigh!
Down the chill, dusky granite steps the priest
Guided the virgin sacrifice; above,
The massy and barr'd vault door shut; and night,
Shown in its ghastly terrors by wild rays
Of many tinctured lights, fell on the heart
Of the devoted, desolated maid.
Through still descending labyrinths, where coiled
All loathsome creatures, and dark waters dripped
With a deep sullen sound like pulses heard
By captives dying in their dungeon tomb,
The Egyptian glided hurriedly and still.
Then o'er a green lagoon, whose festered flood
Flung back a deathsome glare as the lights sunk
Upon its sleeping surface stretching far
Into the floating masses of the gloom,
They, in a mouldered barque, went silently.
The plated crocodile, on the earth and pool
Suspended, ope'd his sluggish jaws and looked
Upon the priest with fawning earnestness;
He gazed upon the victim and passed by,
And the loathed reptile dreamed of coming feasts.
Rugged and spiral grew the pathway; bats,
Waving the spectre lights, winged through the vaults,
99
Startled yet welcoming; and serpents lanced
Their quivering tongues of venom forth and hissed
Their salutations; and the lizards crept
Along the cold, wet ridges of the caves;
And oft the maiden's agonizing eyes
Beheld in niches or sarcophagi
Mortality's abhorred resemblances,
With folded serpents sculptured overhead;
And oft the feet of the familiars struck
Strewn relics of the victims offered here!
Winding through tangled passages—her brain
O'erfraught with the still horror—for no sound
Lived through the endless caverns—thought and sense
Of being fled from the doomed maiden's heart,
Time, mystery and darkness and lone death
Passed from the trances of her brain, and earth
And agony and wrong and violence
Were but the shadows childhood sports withal!
She woke amid the gush and hymning voice
Of fountains and the living gleam of fires,
And swell of tenderest music; and beside
The purple couch of luxury, whereon,
Free from all bonds save chains of jewelled gold,
Their quivering tongues of venom forth and hissed
Their salutations; and the lizards crept
Along the cold, wet ridges of the caves;
And oft the maiden's agonizing eyes
Beheld in niches or sarcophagi
Mortality's abhorred resemblances,
With folded serpents sculptured overhead;
And oft the feet of the familiars struck
Strewn relics of the victims offered here!
Winding through tangled passages—her brain
O'erfraught with the still horror—for no sound
Lived through the endless caverns—thought and sense
Of being fled from the doomed maiden's heart,
Time, mystery and darkness and lone death
Passed from the trances of her brain, and earth
And agony and wrong and violence
Were but the shadows childhood sports withal!
She woke amid the gush and hymning voice
Of fountains and the living gleam of fires,
And swell of tenderest music; and beside
The purple couch of luxury, whereon,
Free from all bonds save chains of jewelled gold,
100
In a vast chamber, hung with flowers and gems,
She lay, the priest of Isis stood;—his eye
No longer stern and chill, his lips no more
Like sculptured cruelty, but bright and warm
And moist with mellowest wine; and o'er his face,
Late masked in mockeries, the burning light
Of Passion broke, as thus, with wanton smiles,
He breathed his heart upon his victim's ear.
“Thy path to pleasure, like the world's, my love!
Was through the empire of pale doubt and pain,
Where many visions of detested things
Will consummate in rapture deigned thee here.
And didst thou think, my queen of loveliness!
That by the dastard crowd of Pompeii
Thou wert borne hither that the sacred lips
Of Isis, parted by thy purest blood,
Might give responses to fiend-loving fools?
The goddess hath a voice—when I ordain,
And, when her mysteries have filled their hearts
With myriad terrors to which death is bliss,
They shall not lack an answer to their quest.
But this is Love's elysium; men may seek
Another by Jove's grace—but this for me!
Be their's eternities of prayer and hymn!
But Time and wine and Venus are my gods!”
She lay, the priest of Isis stood;—his eye
No longer stern and chill, his lips no more
Like sculptured cruelty, but bright and warm
And moist with mellowest wine; and o'er his face,
Late masked in mockeries, the burning light
Of Passion broke, as thus, with wanton smiles,
He breathed his heart upon his victim's ear.
“Thy path to pleasure, like the world's, my love!
Was through the empire of pale doubt and pain,
Where many visions of detested things
Will consummate in rapture deigned thee here.
And didst thou think, my queen of loveliness!
That by the dastard crowd of Pompeii
Thou wert borne hither that the sacred lips
Of Isis, parted by thy purest blood,
Might give responses to fiend-loving fools?
The goddess hath a voice—when I ordain,
And, when her mysteries have filled their hearts
With myriad terrors to which death is bliss,
They shall not lack an answer to their quest.
But this is Love's elysium; men may seek
Another by Jove's grace—but this for me!
Be their's eternities of prayer and hymn!
But Time and wine and Venus are my gods!”
101
“Holy Diana! hath thine Iris [14] come
To lead me through elysium's myrtle groves?
Thanks for the briefest pangs of death! my soul
Blends with the radiance, songs and incense here
In rapture, unforgetting earth's dark ills,
The victim bonds, gloom, terror, madness borne
Amid the vaulted corridors—deep thanks,
Chaste Dian! for the dart that winged me here!”
Thus she lay whispering faintly while the veins
Again like violets began to glow
And Thought from the elysian portals turned
To shed, once more, its starlight o'er her brow.
The lips, like rifted sunset clouds, burned o'er
With beauty, and the sloe-dark eyes, from lids
Of loveliness o'erarched like rainbows, flashed
Upon the luxuries of wantonness
With a delirious brightness; and she pressed
Her Peri hand upon her troubled brain
As dismal memories through all the pomp
Around her thronged. “Do visions o'er me rush
Through the ivory gate? or what is this? methinks
The limbs of Vesta pass not Charon's ward—
Yet bear I them! and I behold no forms
Like the supreme divinities who dwell
Beyond the azure curtains of the skies!”
To lead me through elysium's myrtle groves?
Thanks for the briefest pangs of death! my soul
Blends with the radiance, songs and incense here
In rapture, unforgetting earth's dark ills,
The victim bonds, gloom, terror, madness borne
Amid the vaulted corridors—deep thanks,
Chaste Dian! for the dart that winged me here!”
Thus she lay whispering faintly while the veins
Again like violets began to glow
And Thought from the elysian portals turned
To shed, once more, its starlight o'er her brow.
The lips, like rifted sunset clouds, burned o'er
With beauty, and the sloe-dark eyes, from lids
Of loveliness o'erarched like rainbows, flashed
Upon the luxuries of wantonness
With a delirious brightness; and she pressed
Her Peri hand upon her troubled brain
As dismal memories through all the pomp
Around her thronged. “Do visions o'er me rush
Through the ivory gate? or what is this? methinks
The limbs of Vesta pass not Charon's ward—
Yet bear I them! and I behold no forms
Like the supreme divinities who dwell
Beyond the azure curtains of the skies!”
102
“Look on thy suppliant worshipper, my love!
Thy Saturn, my Osiris, aptly feigned,
With Horus and the laughing boy-god, wreathed
With lotus and charm'd myrtle, must be now
The only Guardians of our paradise—
For thou art the voluptuous Paphian Queen,
And must with kisses be adored! thy breath
Is odor—on that fair full bosom sleep
A thousand loves—those lustrous eyes enchant—
And the limbs moulded by divinest skill”—
“Reveal thy speech! what import bear these words?
Dream I, or art thou the hierophant
Of Isis, who from Mizraim's pyramids
Broughtst new gods into Latium? I must err,
For thou wearst not the countenance that chilled
My soul, and tyrannized o'er Pompeii's crowd,
But rather, like earth's faun or satyr fiend,
Gloatest o'er some revenge for sin unknown!”
The maiden's lost mind came in all its strength
And purity, and in the dreadless might
Of thoughts unsoiled by evil, she resolved
To match unfriended virtue with the power
Of Passion in religion's mask beyond
The Law's arraignment or the avenger's wrath.
Thy Saturn, my Osiris, aptly feigned,
With Horus and the laughing boy-god, wreathed
With lotus and charm'd myrtle, must be now
The only Guardians of our paradise—
For thou art the voluptuous Paphian Queen,
And must with kisses be adored! thy breath
Is odor—on that fair full bosom sleep
A thousand loves—those lustrous eyes enchant—
And the limbs moulded by divinest skill”—
“Reveal thy speech! what import bear these words?
Dream I, or art thou the hierophant
Of Isis, who from Mizraim's pyramids
Broughtst new gods into Latium? I must err,
For thou wearst not the countenance that chilled
My soul, and tyrannized o'er Pompeii's crowd,
But rather, like earth's faun or satyr fiend,
Gloatest o'er some revenge for sin unknown!”
The maiden's lost mind came in all its strength
And purity, and in the dreadless might
Of thoughts unsoiled by evil, she resolved
To match unfriended virtue with the power
Of Passion in religion's mask beyond
The Law's arraignment or the avenger's wrath.
103
“Simple as Pyrrha when the shattered barque
Of hoar Deucalion landed from the foam!”
With blandishments, said Isis' haughty priest.
“Knowst thou not, loveliest! that holy men
Must never shame their gods by deeds unlike
Their sacred exploits? what were deathlessness
Without delight? eternity, without
The ecstasies of woman's winning smile?
Thy country's hoarest fathers, most for skill
In council, and unequalled virtue famed,
In canon and enactment of old law,
Did consecrate corruption and commit
Captives to bondage of their tyrant's will,
And build proud temples for the haunt of shame
Being but mimes of the Immortals, then,
As countless births, revered as prodigies,
And chained Prometheus, shunning their gift,
To meet their wrath, and mad Lycaon driven
Into the wild, can testify in tears.
Why, then, should the weak waiter on the rites
Of the Omnipotents refrain from joy?
Folly must feel his masterdom, when words,
Called oracles, are bought, but, in all else,
The priest was framed for pleasure—and thy smile,
Hebe of Beauty! from thy vassal here
Of hoar Deucalion landed from the foam!”
With blandishments, said Isis' haughty priest.
“Knowst thou not, loveliest! that holy men
Must never shame their gods by deeds unlike
Their sacred exploits? what were deathlessness
Without delight? eternity, without
The ecstasies of woman's winning smile?
Thy country's hoarest fathers, most for skill
In council, and unequalled virtue famed,
In canon and enactment of old law,
Did consecrate corruption and commit
Captives to bondage of their tyrant's will,
And build proud temples for the haunt of shame
Being but mimes of the Immortals, then,
As countless births, revered as prodigies,
And chained Prometheus, shunning their gift,
To meet their wrath, and mad Lycaon driven
Into the wild, can testify in tears.
Why, then, should the weak waiter on the rites
Of the Omnipotents refrain from joy?
Folly must feel his masterdom, when words,
Called oracles, are bought, but, in all else,
The priest was framed for pleasure—and thy smile,
Hebe of Beauty! from thy vassal here
104
Shall win a better augury than all
Campania's hecatombs!—time wastes, my bliss!
Speak thou the oracle I shall repeat
Through Isis' marble lips! the answer's thine!”
“Thus be the answer, then, “Ye seek my shrine
To know the Future and the will of heaven—
The Past reveals both!” or, if this suit not
The goddess who doth fold her tissued words
So Passion may unravel good or ill,
Thus let the mystic oracle declare:
“Ye shall pass o'er the Tyrrhene sea in ships
Laden with virgins, gems and gods, and spoils
Of a dismembered empire, and a cloud
Of light shall radiate your ocean path!”
Breathes not the soul of mystery in this? [15]
“Ay, love! and after his desire or hope
Each may interpret—veriest oracles
Must have a myriad meanings—and the voice
Of Memphian Isis shall, at once, respond
To the denied apostates; then, my life!
While dotards live on riddles and embrace
Shadows as did the Thunderer what time
The ox-eyed empress jealoused of his deeds.
Campania's hecatombs!—time wastes, my bliss!
Speak thou the oracle I shall repeat
Through Isis' marble lips! the answer's thine!”
“Thus be the answer, then, “Ye seek my shrine
To know the Future and the will of heaven—
The Past reveals both!” or, if this suit not
The goddess who doth fold her tissued words
So Passion may unravel good or ill,
Thus let the mystic oracle declare:
“Ye shall pass o'er the Tyrrhene sea in ships
Laden with virgins, gems and gods, and spoils
Of a dismembered empire, and a cloud
Of light shall radiate your ocean path!”
Breathes not the soul of mystery in this? [15]
“Ay, love! and after his desire or hope
Each may interpret—veriest oracles
Must have a myriad meanings—and the voice
Of Memphian Isis shall, at once, respond
To the denied apostates; then, my life!
While dotards live on riddles and embrace
Shadows as did the Thunderer what time
The ox-eyed empress jealoused of his deeds.
105
We at Love's heavenly banquet shall repose
And drink the ecstacies of mingled hearts!
--The sistrum sounds! the sculptured lips shall speak!”
Exulting thus, the idol minister,
Pressing the bosom of great Serapis,
Whose statue by a Doric pillar stood,
Disclosed a stairway guiding through the shaft
Unto the altar of the fane, and thence
Within the hollow image, from whose mouth
Responses breathed that fitted any deed
Or æra; fable was religion's name.
Up through the open bosom of the God,
Saying, [16] “The mocker Momus has his jest
And more, since e'en the Immortal's breast bears now
A mirror”—passed the priest--and soundlessly
The dædal portal, bossed with vine-wreaths, closed.
That moment, from the flowered and purple couch
The maiden sprung, through any caverned path,—
All peril and loathed sights and awful sounds,
To fly from pomp, pollution and despair.
Bounding along the tesselated floor,
She passed the beds of banquet, whose perfume
From sightless vases stole, and gained the verge
Of the vast gleaming hall—she met the waves
And drink the ecstacies of mingled hearts!
--The sistrum sounds! the sculptured lips shall speak!”
Exulting thus, the idol minister,
Pressing the bosom of great Serapis,
Whose statue by a Doric pillar stood,
Disclosed a stairway guiding through the shaft
Unto the altar of the fane, and thence
Within the hollow image, from whose mouth
Responses breathed that fitted any deed
Or æra; fable was religion's name.
Up through the open bosom of the God,
Saying, [16] “The mocker Momus has his jest
And more, since e'en the Immortal's breast bears now
A mirror”—passed the priest--and soundlessly
The dædal portal, bossed with vine-wreaths, closed.
That moment, from the flowered and purple couch
The maiden sprung, through any caverned path,—
All peril and loathed sights and awful sounds,
To fly from pomp, pollution and despair.
Bounding along the tesselated floor,
She passed the beds of banquet, whose perfume
From sightless vases stole, and gained the verge
Of the vast gleaming hall—she met the waves
106
Of black and silent depths that seemed to scowl
On her vain flight! to every side she flew
But to encounter granite battlements,
Coiled serpents, clustered sepulchres, cold cliffs,
Gigantic sphynxes, towering grim o'er lakes
Of sulphur, or the dreadful shapes of fiends.
The gorgeous lights grew shadowy, and stained clouds
Of vapor floated o'er the pillared roof,
Taking all forms of terror; and low sighs
And muttered dirges from the waters stole
Along the arches; and through all the vaults,
Into a thousand wailing echoes rent,
A shriek, loud, quick and full of agonies,
Burst from the deep foundations of the fane.
With steps like earliest childhood's, to her couch
The maiden faltered back, and there, with soul
Too overfraught for wished unconsciousness,
Gasping her breath, she listened! Sullen sounds
Wandered along the temple aisles above;
Then came the clang of cymbals and strange words
Uttered amid the far-off music's swell:
And the prostrated multitudes, like woods
Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell
A silence when the heart was heard—a pause—
When ardent hope became an agony;
On her vain flight! to every side she flew
But to encounter granite battlements,
Coiled serpents, clustered sepulchres, cold cliffs,
Gigantic sphynxes, towering grim o'er lakes
Of sulphur, or the dreadful shapes of fiends.
The gorgeous lights grew shadowy, and stained clouds
Of vapor floated o'er the pillared roof,
Taking all forms of terror; and low sighs
And muttered dirges from the waters stole
Along the arches; and through all the vaults,
Into a thousand wailing echoes rent,
A shriek, loud, quick and full of agonies,
Burst from the deep foundations of the fane.
With steps like earliest childhood's, to her couch
The maiden faltered back, and there, with soul
Too overfraught for wished unconsciousness,
Gasping her breath, she listened! Sullen sounds
Wandered along the temple aisles above;
Then came the clang of cymbals and strange words
Uttered amid the far-off music's swell:
And the prostrated multitudes, like woods
Hung with the leaves of autumn, stirred; then fell
A silence when the heart was heard—a pause—
When ardent hope became an agony;
107
And parted lips and panting pulses—eyes
Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews
Of expectation chilled and fevered—all
The shaken and half lifted frame—declared
The moment of the oracle had come!
A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt
And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest
Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall
Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd
Along the columned aisles and vestibule.
None deemed, the maiden in the earthquake's groan
And the volcano's thunder voice had heard
The hastening doom, and clothed it in dark words,
The blinded victims never could discern;
But to the bosom of their guilt again
They passed, dreaming of victories and spoils!
“Gone!” said the priest, descending—“Serapis!
Pardon and thanks I crave and give thee, God!
—Gone to their phantom banquet with glad hearts—
Such is the bliss of superstition's creed!
And they will glory o'er their fellows now,
Deeming themselves the temples of the gods!
Brimmed with revealings of divinity!
But Folly wafts us food, and we should laud
Wild with their watchings, brows with beaded dews
Of expectation chilled and fevered—all
The shaken and half lifted frame—declared
The moment of the oracle had come!
A sceptre to the hand of Isis leapt
And waved; and then the deep voice of the priest
Uttered the maiden's answer, and the fall
Of many quickened steps like whispers pass'd
Along the columned aisles and vestibule.
None deemed, the maiden in the earthquake's groan
And the volcano's thunder voice had heard
The hastening doom, and clothed it in dark words,
The blinded victims never could discern;
But to the bosom of their guilt again
They passed, dreaming of victories and spoils!
“Gone!” said the priest, descending—“Serapis!
Pardon and thanks I crave and give thee, God!
—Gone to their phantom banquet with glad hearts—
Such is the bliss of superstition's creed!
And they will glory o'er their fellows now,
Deeming themselves the temples of the gods!
Brimmed with revealings of divinity!
But Folly wafts us food, and we should laud
108
The victim of night visionries who parts
With virgin gold for fabled miracles!
But that thy loveliness might peril prayers
And change the rites to riots ill esteemed,
Thou shouldst have been a pythoness, my love!
What shadow veils thy vestal brow? thou art
My bride, and pleasure waits upon thee here—
Let the pure wine awake thy thoughts to mirth!”
“Mirth at the altar which thou mockst with jeers!
Mirth in thy holy ministries, proud priest!
It fits thee not—and less thine evil speech
To Lælius' child, who, while her father waits
On royal Titus in imperial Rome,
Betrayed, it seems, by thy fit parasites,
Was hither borne by Pompeii's maddened throng,
Whom thy vile minions goaded to the deed,
A victim, not to Isis, but to thee!
Beware, thou atheist pontiff! the shocked world
Hath had and shall, through uncreated time,
Have mitred scorners, who blaspheme the heavens,
Mocking the faith with which they manacle
The hearts that would deny yet dare not—like
Thee, mocker of the idol thou dost serve!
Yet doubt not—years are but the viewless path
With virgin gold for fabled miracles!
But that thy loveliness might peril prayers
And change the rites to riots ill esteemed,
Thou shouldst have been a pythoness, my love!
What shadow veils thy vestal brow? thou art
My bride, and pleasure waits upon thee here—
Let the pure wine awake thy thoughts to mirth!”
“Mirth at the altar which thou mockst with jeers!
Mirth in thy holy ministries, proud priest!
It fits thee not—and less thine evil speech
To Lælius' child, who, while her father waits
On royal Titus in imperial Rome,
Betrayed, it seems, by thy fit parasites,
Was hither borne by Pompeii's maddened throng,
Whom thy vile minions goaded to the deed,
A victim, not to Isis, but to thee!
Beware, thou atheist pontiff! the shocked world
Hath had and shall, through uncreated time,
Have mitred scorners, who blaspheme the heavens,
Mocking the faith with which they manacle
The hearts that would deny yet dare not—like
Thee, mocker of the idol thou dost serve!
Yet doubt not—years are but the viewless path
109
Of the avenging Deity! the earth,
Elysium, Orcus, the sweet pleiades,
The weeping stars, the depths of ocean swept
By typhon tossing billows to the heavens—
All live but in the breath of one Supreme,
Whose heart inspires the universe—whose soul
Is Immortality! and 'neath His throne
I kneel and wrap around my mortal fears
The robe of His immortal purity,
Bidding thee, Priest! e'en in thy purple home,
Tremble amid thy thoughts of sacrilege!”
“Io Athena! Pallas hath no gift
To rival thine, my loveliest! thy words,
Like pungent herbs before the banquet, give
A charm, a flavor, an Apician zest
To the deferred delight that dawns in tears.
Coy maidenhood! the sage in all his lore
Must learn the science of awaking bliss
From thee, supremely skilled in scorpion taunt
And torture, which prelude long lingering bliss.
But the wine blushes, Love! to meet thy lip—
Lo! how it kisses the crowned cup and smiles!
Thou wouldst not leave me—though thy free discourse
Argues but ill—for yon dim vaults, greened o'er
Elysium, Orcus, the sweet pleiades,
The weeping stars, the depths of ocean swept
By typhon tossing billows to the heavens—
All live but in the breath of one Supreme,
Whose heart inspires the universe—whose soul
Is Immortality! and 'neath His throne
I kneel and wrap around my mortal fears
The robe of His immortal purity,
Bidding thee, Priest! e'en in thy purple home,
Tremble amid thy thoughts of sacrilege!”
“Io Athena! Pallas hath no gift
To rival thine, my loveliest! thy words,
Like pungent herbs before the banquet, give
A charm, a flavor, an Apician zest
To the deferred delight that dawns in tears.
Coy maidenhood! the sage in all his lore
Must learn the science of awaking bliss
From thee, supremely skilled in scorpion taunt
And torture, which prelude long lingering bliss.
But the wine blushes, Love! to meet thy lip—
Lo! how it kisses the crowned cup and smiles!
Thou wouldst not leave me—though thy free discourse
Argues but ill—for yon dim vaults, greened o'er
110
111
A glad sound on mine ear—a triumph sound—
The deep earth-hymn of ruin! hark! it swirls
Along the abysses of the hills and seas,
Lifting the mountains with its breath—it comes!
Ye manes of mine ancestors! it comes!”
“What, scorner! dost thou think to cheat my skill
With thy Trophonian dreams, when I have clasped
Delusions to my bosom since my birth?
And juggled faith by all circean arts?
I woo no longer! thou art in my grasp—
And by the Immortals I contemn! thou shalt”—
“It comes! the temple reels and crashes—Jove!
I thank thee! Vesta! let me sleep with thee!”
And on the bosom of the earthquake rocked
The statues and the pillars, and her brain
Whirled with the earth's convulsions, as the maid
Fell by a trembling image and upraised
A prayer of gratitude; while through the vaults,
In fear and ghastly horror, fled the priest,
Breathing quick curses mid his warning cries
For succor; and the obscene birds their wings
Flapped o'er his pallid face, and reptiles twined
In folds of knotted venom round his feet.
The deep earth-hymn of ruin! hark! it swirls
Along the abysses of the hills and seas,
Lifting the mountains with its breath—it comes!
Ye manes of mine ancestors! it comes!”
“What, scorner! dost thou think to cheat my skill
With thy Trophonian dreams, when I have clasped
Delusions to my bosom since my birth?
And juggled faith by all circean arts?
I woo no longer! thou art in my grasp—
And by the Immortals I contemn! thou shalt”—
“It comes! the temple reels and crashes—Jove!
I thank thee! Vesta! let me sleep with thee!”
And on the bosom of the earthquake rocked
The statues and the pillars, and her brain
Whirled with the earth's convulsions, as the maid
Fell by a trembling image and upraised
A prayer of gratitude; while through the vaults,
In fear and ghastly horror, fled the priest,
Breathing quick curses mid his warning cries
For succor; and the obscene birds their wings
Flapped o'er his pallid face, and reptiles twined
In folds of knotted venom round his feet.
112
113
Through the felt darkness of the labyrinth.
On sculptured capitals and heads of gods
She passed the dismal waves, and trident tongues
Hissed after her amid the turbid foam.
She passed the beamless corridors and fled
Along a gorgeous banquet hall, o'erstrewn
With porphyry tables, alabaster lamps,
Half quenched, and shattered wine cups of gemm'd gold.
She grasped a flickering altar-light and on
Hurried, casting on dolesome objects round,
And nameless things of horror, glances wild
With terror and deep loathing; the death-dews
Upon the walls, green with the deadly moss,
Trailed in thick streams, and o'er her sinking heart
Breathed the cold midnight of the sepulchre;
And from the shapeless shadows growing up,
The startled spirit wrought the forms of fiends,
Or, worse, pursuers charged to hale her back.
The virgin flies along a corridor
Ampler, and living with the daylight air;
And far, upon its boundary, she discerns
An open portal, and a rosebeam gush
Of radiance streams upon the threshold stone.
Like Delphi's Pythia in her maniac mood,
On sculptured capitals and heads of gods
She passed the dismal waves, and trident tongues
Hissed after her amid the turbid foam.
She passed the beamless corridors and fled
Along a gorgeous banquet hall, o'erstrewn
With porphyry tables, alabaster lamps,
Half quenched, and shattered wine cups of gemm'd gold.
She grasped a flickering altar-light and on
Hurried, casting on dolesome objects round,
And nameless things of horror, glances wild
With terror and deep loathing; the death-dews
Upon the walls, green with the deadly moss,
Trailed in thick streams, and o'er her sinking heart
Breathed the cold midnight of the sepulchre;
And from the shapeless shadows growing up,
The startled spirit wrought the forms of fiends,
Or, worse, pursuers charged to hale her back.
The virgin flies along a corridor
Ampler, and living with the daylight air;
And far, upon its boundary, she discerns
An open portal, and a rosebeam gush
Of radiance streams upon the threshold stone.
Like Delphi's Pythia in her maniac mood,
114
115
And one with woman's weakness; as she gazed,
The vanished blood, grief, shame and failing power
Had driven to the fainting heart, came back,
And, with a quick renewal of lost hope,
Casting the other, who with palsied thought
Gazed on the fearful visitor, aside,
The feebler being rushed along the aisles,
With ashen face and raiment soiled and torn.
The maiden traced the fugitive, and ere
The blood, now at the heart, might reach the brow,
They stood together 'neath the open skies.
“The Savior for thy service bless thee, maid!”
'Twas Mariamne—from the loathed embrace
Of Diomede escaped—that quickly spake.
“I cannot ask nor answer now—but fly
With me, for peril's look proclaims thee pure!
Quick, maiden! Diomede will never spare—
Yet Mariamne once again is free!
It should be noontide; but a livid gloom
Palls all things, and a ghastliness, nor beam
Nor blackness, wraps our flight and bodes an eve
The workers of all evil, in their pride,
Nor dread nor dream of! Pansa! heaven in love
Keep thy unflatering thoughts beneath the wings
The vanished blood, grief, shame and failing power
Had driven to the fainting heart, came back,
And, with a quick renewal of lost hope,
Casting the other, who with palsied thought
Gazed on the fearful visitor, aside,
The feebler being rushed along the aisles,
With ashen face and raiment soiled and torn.
The maiden traced the fugitive, and ere
The blood, now at the heart, might reach the brow,
They stood together 'neath the open skies.
“The Savior for thy service bless thee, maid!”
'Twas Mariamne—from the loathed embrace
Of Diomede escaped—that quickly spake.
“I cannot ask nor answer now—but fly
With me, for peril's look proclaims thee pure!
Quick, maiden! Diomede will never spare—
Yet Mariamne once again is free!
It should be noontide; but a livid gloom
Palls all things, and a ghastliness, nor beam
Nor blackness, wraps our flight and bodes an eve
The workers of all evil, in their pride,
Nor dread nor dream of! Pansa! heaven in love
Keep thy unflatering thoughts beneath the wings
116
Of cherubim, and clothe thy heart with strength
To foil the fiend that dares or tempts to sin—
Where'er thou art!—we shall not fail to meet,
For all shall be abroad, and earth and skies
And waters shall commingle ere sun sinks.
Away! sweet maiden!—now the Cyprian's fane—
The equestrian Forum—the Prætorians' tower—
Are passed; and mid the crowded huts, that lie
Beneath the amphitheatre, we rest
Till the deep justice of Jehovah comes!”
“Art thou a Heretic?” the maiden said.
“I was a Hebrew and a princess—now
I am a Christian and a captive! come—
This garb and guise of thine declare, methinks,
Some mysteries of thy country's deities—
This day, thou shalt not fail to learn of mine!”
She breathed a strange word and a shrivelled hand
Unbarred a low dark postern, and a face,
Darkened and harrowed by the toils and thoughts
And changes of exceeding years, looked forth.
The melancholy shadow of a smile
And the sad echo of a broken voice
To foil the fiend that dares or tempts to sin—
Where'er thou art!—we shall not fail to meet,
For all shall be abroad, and earth and skies
And waters shall commingle ere sun sinks.
Away! sweet maiden!—now the Cyprian's fane—
The equestrian Forum—the Prætorians' tower—
Are passed; and mid the crowded huts, that lie
Beneath the amphitheatre, we rest
Till the deep justice of Jehovah comes!”
“Art thou a Heretic?” the maiden said.
“I was a Hebrew and a princess—now
I am a Christian and a captive! come—
This garb and guise of thine declare, methinks,
Some mysteries of thy country's deities—
This day, thou shalt not fail to learn of mine!”
She breathed a strange word and a shrivelled hand
Unbarred a low dark postern, and a face,
Darkened and harrowed by the toils and thoughts
And changes of exceeding years, looked forth.
The melancholy shadow of a smile
And the sad echo of a broken voice
117
Gave welcome to the wanderers; and amid
The solemn stillness of their refuge fell
From the pale lips of persecuted faith
Full many a history of the martyrdoms.
The games of life go on! Madness and mirth,
Triumph and tears, the holydays of youth,
The apathy of stricken age, the pride
Of intellect and prostrated purposes,
Rapture and anguish, poverty and pomp,
And glory and the tomb—like rivals, crowd
Along the isthmus of our being, doomed
To vanish momently in billowy gloom!
The dewlight of the morn in storm departs;
The moonbeams strewing rifted clouds, like smiles
Breathed from the bosom of Divinity,
Sink ere the daybeam in the tempest's rack;
Yet on o'er buried centuries—the dead dust
Of ages—once like the starred heavens inspired
By myriad passions, dreaming miracles,
And winged conceptions infinite as air—
Time, the triumpher, in his trophied car,
Moves sternly, trampling ardent hearts to earth.
Oh, diademed Hypocrisies! budding Bliss,
The mildew sears—sky-soaring Hope, that dies
The solemn stillness of their refuge fell
From the pale lips of persecuted faith
Full many a history of the martyrdoms.
The games of life go on! Madness and mirth,
Triumph and tears, the holydays of youth,
The apathy of stricken age, the pride
Of intellect and prostrated purposes,
Rapture and anguish, poverty and pomp,
And glory and the tomb—like rivals, crowd
Along the isthmus of our being, doomed
To vanish momently in billowy gloom!
The dewlight of the morn in storm departs;
The moonbeams strewing rifted clouds, like smiles
Breathed from the bosom of Divinity,
Sink ere the daybeam in the tempest's rack;
Yet on o'er buried centuries—the dead dust
Of ages—once like the starred heavens inspired
By myriad passions, dreaming miracles,
And winged conceptions infinite as air—
Time, the triumpher, in his trophied car,
Moves sternly, trampling ardent hearts to earth.
Oh, diademed Hypocrisies! budding Bliss,
The mildew sears—sky-soaring Hope, that dies
118
In its birth moment—Love, which on its shrine
Of incense perishes—and Fame, that drinks
The bane of human breath and falls alone!
The same arena, judges, wrestlers, crown—
The same brief transport and unsolaced doom—
First, madness, and then vanity—the world
Must be, till time is quenched, what it hath been,
The bounded circle of chained thought, trod down
By nations hastening into nothingness,
Echoing the groans of Pain's ten thousand years,
And drenched by tears that find no comforter!
With livid clouds of ashes, lava hail,
And furnace cinders all the air was filled;
And through the bosom of Vesuvius passed
Groans as of earth-gods in their endless death,
And giant writhings, crushing the earth's heart;
And through the tossing vapors, mingling flame
And cavern gloom, toward the Evening Isles
So loved by ancient sage and patriot bard,
From the passed zenith rolled the gory sun.
Like the ailanthus tree of old Cathay,
Whose boughs, hoar legends say, bloom in the stars,
The deep smoke of o'erhanging ruin whirled
From the volcano's pinnacle, and flung
Of incense perishes—and Fame, that drinks
The bane of human breath and falls alone!
The same arena, judges, wrestlers, crown—
The same brief transport and unsolaced doom—
First, madness, and then vanity—the world
Must be, till time is quenched, what it hath been,
The bounded circle of chained thought, trod down
By nations hastening into nothingness,
Echoing the groans of Pain's ten thousand years,
And drenched by tears that find no comforter!
With livid clouds of ashes, lava hail,
And furnace cinders all the air was filled;
And through the bosom of Vesuvius passed
Groans as of earth-gods in their endless death,
And giant writhings, crushing the earth's heart;
And through the tossing vapors, mingling flame
And cavern gloom, toward the Evening Isles
So loved by ancient sage and patriot bard,
From the passed zenith rolled the gory sun.
Like the ailanthus tree of old Cathay,
Whose boughs, hoar legends say, bloom in the stars,
The deep smoke of o'erhanging ruin whirled
From the volcano's pinnacle, and flung
119
Its branches over nations, scattering death.
The Appenines, looking the wild wrath and awe
Their woods and precipices took, upraised
Their brows of terror and magnificence,
On their eternal thrones watching the throes
Of the convulsed abysses; from the crags
The seared and shivering forests bent and moaned,
As o'er them flew the torrid blast of fate;
And, as the molten rocks and mines began
To pour their broad deep masses from the height,
Vast trunks of cypress and of cedar stood
Charred, stark and trembling, and the castelled cliffs
Burst like a myriad thunders, while the flood
Of desolation, o'er their crashing wrecks,
Tow'rd Herculaneum, gleaming horror, rolled.
Yet men repented not of foregone crime,
Denied them not their wonted festivals,
Their pomp of garniture and banquet mirth.
Tornado, pestilence, earthquake and war,
Awe not the criminal inured to guilt;
So the barbed poison arrow flies his heart,
His pageants and night orgies brighter glow—
Though death sighs float along the wine cups brimmed
With nectar mocking all calamities.
The Appenines, looking the wild wrath and awe
Their woods and precipices took, upraised
Their brows of terror and magnificence,
On their eternal thrones watching the throes
Of the convulsed abysses; from the crags
The seared and shivering forests bent and moaned,
As o'er them flew the torrid blast of fate;
And, as the molten rocks and mines began
To pour their broad deep masses from the height,
Vast trunks of cypress and of cedar stood
Charred, stark and trembling, and the castelled cliffs
Burst like a myriad thunders, while the flood
Of desolation, o'er their crashing wrecks,
Tow'rd Herculaneum, gleaming horror, rolled.
Yet men repented not of foregone crime,
Denied them not their wonted festivals,
Their pomp of garniture and banquet mirth.
Tornado, pestilence, earthquake and war,
Awe not the criminal inured to guilt;
So the barbed poison arrow flies his heart,
His pageants and night orgies brighter glow—
Though death sighs float along the wine cups brimmed
With nectar mocking all calamities.
120
From the Basilicæ the Prætor passed,
(Thither, when foiled in lust, to wreak his wrath
On guiltlessness and guilt alike, he went)
Leaving his tyrant judgments, in a voice
Of jeering merriment pronounced, to fall
On less offending breakers of the law.
Prostrate upon his path, a mother cried,
“Spare, O Proconsul! spare my guiltless child!
He walked not with conspirators—spake not
To leaders of sedition—spare him, judge!
He hath no father—and is all to me!”
“The hordes of Hæmus may learn wisdom, then,
And virtue and refinement from his speech—
For he is banished—I reverse no doom!”
The lictors' fasces o'er the supplicant
In haughty scorn went on. Another voice
Assailed the Prætor: “To a cruel lord
The quæstor sold my husband for the tax
Ye laid upon our thatched hut—and he groans
In bondage, while his famished children die!”
“Why am I thus benetted on my way?
I serve the senate and inflict their laws.
What is't to me who thralls or suffers thrall?
Let him atone! Why should he scorn to toil?'
(Thither, when foiled in lust, to wreak his wrath
On guiltlessness and guilt alike, he went)
Leaving his tyrant judgments, in a voice
Of jeering merriment pronounced, to fall
On less offending breakers of the law.
Prostrate upon his path, a mother cried,
“Spare, O Proconsul! spare my guiltless child!
He walked not with conspirators—spake not
To leaders of sedition—spare him, judge!
He hath no father—and is all to me!”
“The hordes of Hæmus may learn wisdom, then,
And virtue and refinement from his speech—
For he is banished—I reverse no doom!”
The lictors' fasces o'er the supplicant
In haughty scorn went on. Another voice
Assailed the Prætor: “To a cruel lord
The quæstor sold my husband for the tax
Ye laid upon our thatched hut—and he groans
In bondage, while his famished children die!”
“Why am I thus benetted on my way?
I serve the senate and inflict their laws.
What is't to me who thralls or suffers thrall?
Let him atone! Why should he scorn to toil?'
121
“Justice, Lord Governor!” a third implored.
“Thy favorite Vibius hath cast deep shame
Upon my household and my daughter's wrongs
Exact redress; not more than this from Rome
Banished the Tarquins and decemviri!”
“Ha! dost thou threat, Plebeian? Vibius hears
Thy fierce arraignment with a smile—no doubt,
Some twilight kisses in the summer glade—
Pressed palms—clasped bosoms—dewy lips—no more!
And thou wouldst mock the majesty of law,
And wed thy base condition with the blood
Of my Patrician friend! away with thee!
Methinks, Vesuvian fume hath filled the brains
Of all the city—and the boiling earth
Bubbled its yeast into your grovelling hearts.
On, Lictors! on—we tarry from the feast!”
In robes of white, festooned by mingled flowers,
And ivy wreaths or crowns of amethyst,
The Prætor's guests, on crimson couches, lay
Around the ivory tables, on which stood
A silver shrine and images of gods.
Pictures—the prodigies of perfect skill—
Hung round the hall of banquet, and to men.
“Thy favorite Vibius hath cast deep shame
Upon my household and my daughter's wrongs
Exact redress; not more than this from Rome
Banished the Tarquins and decemviri!”
“Ha! dost thou threat, Plebeian? Vibius hears
Thy fierce arraignment with a smile—no doubt,
Some twilight kisses in the summer glade—
Pressed palms—clasped bosoms—dewy lips—no more!
And thou wouldst mock the majesty of law,
And wed thy base condition with the blood
Of my Patrician friend! away with thee!
Methinks, Vesuvian fume hath filled the brains
Of all the city—and the boiling earth
Bubbled its yeast into your grovelling hearts.
On, Lictors! on—we tarry from the feast!”
In robes of white, festooned by mingled flowers,
And ivy wreaths or crowns of amethyst,
The Prætor's guests, on crimson couches, lay
Around the ivory tables, on which stood
A silver shrine and images of gods.
Pictures—the prodigies of perfect skill—
Hung round the hall of banquet, and to men.
122
The imitators of divinities,
Made venial every vice. In plenitude
Of power and treachery, their holiest Jove,
Masked to dishonor and betray, achieved
Shame's triumphs, and the wanton canvass lived
With Mycon's impure thought [17]; there Bacchus stood,
Gloating o'er lozelries and revel routs,
As Zeuxis drew the king of catamites;
Venus, the earth-born, mid voluptuous nymphs,
Reclined on myrtle beds with swimming eyes,
And sunbeam lips with morn dews moist, and swell
Of bosom far too beautiful, and limbs
Wantoning mid flowers, that veiled them not! and fame
For matchless charm of genius here had shrined
Parrhasius' name! and Passion's maddening heart
Burned o'er the walls, and rival statues stood
Beneath; and there the last wild feast was held
That e'er was bought by Pompeii's toil and tears.
The kneeling slaves in goblets wrought from gems
Served acrid wine—on gold plate, bitter herbs
To zest the appetite; and, glancing up
His haughty eyes, burning with hate and scorn,
Chafed Diomede upon his vassals flung
The venom of his darkly brooding mind.
Made venial every vice. In plenitude
Of power and treachery, their holiest Jove,
Masked to dishonor and betray, achieved
Shame's triumphs, and the wanton canvass lived
With Mycon's impure thought [17]; there Bacchus stood,
Gloating o'er lozelries and revel routs,
As Zeuxis drew the king of catamites;
Venus, the earth-born, mid voluptuous nymphs,
Reclined on myrtle beds with swimming eyes,
And sunbeam lips with morn dews moist, and swell
Of bosom far too beautiful, and limbs
Wantoning mid flowers, that veiled them not! and fame
For matchless charm of genius here had shrined
Parrhasius' name! and Passion's maddening heart
Burned o'er the walls, and rival statues stood
Beneath; and there the last wild feast was held
That e'er was bought by Pompeii's toil and tears.
The kneeling slaves in goblets wrought from gems
Served acrid wine—on gold plate, bitter herbs
To zest the appetite; and, glancing up
His haughty eyes, burning with hate and scorn,
Chafed Diomede upon his vassals flung
The venom of his darkly brooding mind.
123
“Be thy locks shorn as fits thine office, slave!
Or I may brand the theta on thy brow [18]
Less undefined, and make the dust thy food!
Campanian servitude, methinks, outgrows
All wantonness;—and, Midas! thou art skilled,
I hear in tintinnaculating verse,
And lispest snatches of philosophy!
Be master of thy safety! I may lose
A pampered slave ere long—or, at the best,
The tintinnaculus may shame thy clink! [19]
—Be merry, friends!—what tidings from the throne?
Ye have beheld the Temple of the Peace
Filled with the spoils of rebel Jews, where all
Treasure their gold and gems—a trophied fane!
The gorgeous fabric is a coffer! Rome,
The mistress of earth's glories and delights,
Hath few rings now e'en on patrician hands.
What think ye, then? a sackcloth skeleton
Wanders and mutters on the Palatine
That what he calls Jehovah's wrath will burst,
And in thick blackness bury all this pomp,—
Making Earth's Mistress a stark mendicant!”
Loud laughed the parasites, and wanton gibes
Were cast on Jew and Gentile; then the feast
Of rarest luxuries before them glowed,
Or I may brand the theta on thy brow [18]
Less undefined, and make the dust thy food!
Campanian servitude, methinks, outgrows
All wantonness;—and, Midas! thou art skilled,
I hear in tintinnaculating verse,
And lispest snatches of philosophy!
Be master of thy safety! I may lose
A pampered slave ere long—or, at the best,
The tintinnaculus may shame thy clink! [19]
—Be merry, friends!—what tidings from the throne?
Ye have beheld the Temple of the Peace
Filled with the spoils of rebel Jews, where all
Treasure their gold and gems—a trophied fane!
The gorgeous fabric is a coffer! Rome,
The mistress of earth's glories and delights,
Hath few rings now e'en on patrician hands.
What think ye, then? a sackcloth skeleton
Wanders and mutters on the Palatine
That what he calls Jehovah's wrath will burst,
And in thick blackness bury all this pomp,—
Making Earth's Mistress a stark mendicant!”
Loud laughed the parasites, and wanton gibes
Were cast on Jew and Gentile; then the feast
Of rarest luxuries before them glowed,
124
And, (bright libations poured to Vesta first)
The beaded wine was quaffed from goblets brimm'd.
“Oh, I forget!” said Diomede, the light
Of the delirious revel in his eyes,
As in the opal radiance of the cup
They glowed, and glanced, with an exulting pride,
Midst costliest viands from the mead and main—
“The fairest sport awaits us ere the games!
In the Campanian legion at the siege
Of that black Golgotha the traitors called
Jerusalem, a soldier served with skill
Whom Titus made decurion: him the plague
Of the new Heresy and Love, at once,
Infected; and, abandoning the host,
He sought elysium in the caverns here,
Till Thraso found his philosophic haunt,
Where with his Hebrew Paphian he was wont
In hermit guise to play the liberal.
He dies to-day; but for the present mirth
His tongue may vibrate.—Ho!—The Nazarene!”
The slaves led Pansa from the portico
Fettered yet fearless, for the time of dread
Had passed from him, and in his hopeless cell
The Paraclete had shadowed o'er his soul
The beaded wine was quaffed from goblets brimm'd.
“Oh, I forget!” said Diomede, the light
Of the delirious revel in his eyes,
As in the opal radiance of the cup
They glowed, and glanced, with an exulting pride,
Midst costliest viands from the mead and main—
“The fairest sport awaits us ere the games!
In the Campanian legion at the siege
Of that black Golgotha the traitors called
Jerusalem, a soldier served with skill
Whom Titus made decurion: him the plague
Of the new Heresy and Love, at once,
Infected; and, abandoning the host,
He sought elysium in the caverns here,
Till Thraso found his philosophic haunt,
Where with his Hebrew Paphian he was wont
In hermit guise to play the liberal.
He dies to-day; but for the present mirth
His tongue may vibrate.—Ho!—The Nazarene!”
The slaves led Pansa from the portico
Fettered yet fearless, for the time of dread
Had passed from him, and in his hopeless cell
The Paraclete had shadowed o'er his soul
125
And panoplied his heart to dare his doom.
Thus, as he entered, loud the Prætor spake.
“Hail, Gladiator! did thy felon god,
Thy scourged and crucified divinity
Instruct thee in the sabre's use against
The shaggy monarch of Numidian hills?
Art thou argute and apt to lunge and fence,
Adroit and firm of nerve to meet or shun
The tusked embrace of the heroic king?
Lucania and Calabria have poured out
Their thousands to behold thy feats to-day;
And, gay as bridal banquetters, they throng
The arcades and the vomitories now
To weep the Mauretanian's martyrdom—
For thou, no doubt, wilt triumph and receive
The twice ten thousand acclamations sent
To honor thy proud valor, as is meet.
Oh, thou shalt be anointed like thy Christ,
And not with vulgar nard by courtesans,
But ceroma and myron! owest thou not
Thanks to the Roman mercy for this care?”
“A Roman's Mercy! every spot of earth
Your banners have shed plagues on, can attest
With shrieks what mercy Rome has given earth.
Thus, as he entered, loud the Prætor spake.
“Hail, Gladiator! did thy felon god,
Thy scourged and crucified divinity
Instruct thee in the sabre's use against
The shaggy monarch of Numidian hills?
Art thou argute and apt to lunge and fence,
Adroit and firm of nerve to meet or shun
The tusked embrace of the heroic king?
Lucania and Calabria have poured out
Their thousands to behold thy feats to-day;
And, gay as bridal banquetters, they throng
The arcades and the vomitories now
To weep the Mauretanian's martyrdom—
For thou, no doubt, wilt triumph and receive
The twice ten thousand acclamations sent
To honor thy proud valor, as is meet.
Oh, thou shalt be anointed like thy Christ,
And not with vulgar nard by courtesans,
But ceroma and myron! owest thou not
Thanks to the Roman mercy for this care?”
“A Roman's Mercy! every spot of earth
Your banners have shed plagues on, can attest
With shrieks what mercy Rome has given earth.
126
Yet ye shall never feel the love ye boast
Until the slaves ye trample, rack and slay,
After the unanswered vengeance of your will,
Shall learn that they are human and awake
To imitate the mercy of their lords!
Perchance—'twas in thy native land—I know
Thee and thy fathers, Prætor! though thou sitst
In pride of judgment now—thine ancestors
Were suttlers of the Carthagenian camp,
When mine called freedom to the sacred Mount;
Thou mayst have heard the tale of Sicily,
Or read that Spartacus withstood the hosts—”
“Ay, traitor and apostate! ere an hour
To gnash thy perjured tongue!” said Diomede,
Dreading his victim's speech, for he had lived
In terror of the knowledge of his birth,
Yet foaming curses. “Ay, a million died
“In fit atonement of their rebel crime?”
“Crime? that the name of Liberty should be
The burning heart's perpetuated curse!
Oh, what can thrive in thraldom but revenge?
The thong, the goad, the brand of shame—the sense
Of ignominy, dreading to uplift
Until the slaves ye trample, rack and slay,
After the unanswered vengeance of your will,
Shall learn that they are human and awake
To imitate the mercy of their lords!
Perchance—'twas in thy native land—I know
Thee and thy fathers, Prætor! though thou sitst
In pride of judgment now—thine ancestors
Were suttlers of the Carthagenian camp,
When mine called freedom to the sacred Mount;
Thou mayst have heard the tale of Sicily,
Or read that Spartacus withstood the hosts—”
“Ay, traitor and apostate! ere an hour
To gnash thy perjured tongue!” said Diomede,
Dreading his victim's speech, for he had lived
In terror of the knowledge of his birth,
Yet foaming curses. “Ay, a million died
“In fit atonement of their rebel crime?”
“Crime? that the name of Liberty should be
The burning heart's perpetuated curse!
Oh, what can thrive in thraldom but revenge?
The thong, the goad, the brand of shame—the sense
Of ignominy, dreading to uplift
127
Its startled eye—what should they bring? and what
Must be the fruits of such a poison tree?
Condition is but chance, and none are born
With manacles upon their limbs! most crimes
Corrupted power makes such, and men submit
Because their vital veins have wrapt the chain.”
“Now by the sceptred Three who rule the shades!
Can his own heretics arraign his doom?
Such uttered doctrines would convulse the world,
And even here shall not be spoken—cease!
Thou cursed Christian! wouldst thou rouse my slaves?”
“No realm of earth is slavery's—I would bid
The dust be spirit, and the brute be man!
I came not hither by my will—I am
Thy victim, not thy vassal—and if Truth
Offends, command thy serfs to bear me hence!
But here—and in the arena—thought and speech
Are mine; and from my country and my faith
I have not failed to learn the rights of man!
From the far hour when vestal Ilia sinned
And suffered, and Rome's walls were laid in blood,
Have human hearts had peace, whether among
Helvetian icehills or the Lybian wastes?
Conquest was born of carnage and the spoil
Must be the fruits of such a poison tree?
Condition is but chance, and none are born
With manacles upon their limbs! most crimes
Corrupted power makes such, and men submit
Because their vital veins have wrapt the chain.”
“Now by the sceptred Three who rule the shades!
Can his own heretics arraign his doom?
Such uttered doctrines would convulse the world,
And even here shall not be spoken—cease!
Thou cursed Christian! wouldst thou rouse my slaves?”
“No realm of earth is slavery's—I would bid
The dust be spirit, and the brute be man!
I came not hither by my will—I am
Thy victim, not thy vassal—and if Truth
Offends, command thy serfs to bear me hence!
But here—and in the arena—thought and speech
Are mine; and from my country and my faith
I have not failed to learn the rights of man!
From the far hour when vestal Ilia sinned
And suffered, and Rome's walls were laid in blood,
Have human hearts had peace, whether among
Helvetian icehills or the Lybian wastes?
Conquest was born of carnage and the spoil
128
Of kingdoms to a hydra faction given,
While sybilline revealments—Numa's thoughts—
With old religion sanctified the deeds
Of desolaters of the shuddering earth.
Scarce e'en for hours through all Rome's centuries
Hath the caduceus met the eye of day, [20]
Or the ancilia idle in the fane
Of the fiend-god, whose herald is despair,
Hung: but far gleaming in the torrid sun
Mid standards floating to the winds of heaven,
On all the earth have cast the plagues of hell.
Boundless, perpetual and almighty Fear
Hath ever been your God of gods—rocks, caves,
Woods, grottoes, lakes and mountains are the realms
Of Dis of Jupiter's elysian fields.
And wisely named the sophist and the bard
The floods of fabled Erebus—for Rome
Baptized her sons in Phlegethons of blood,
Cheering war vigils with Cocyti songs.
Yon, by the Tyrrhene waters, on whose shores
The banished Scipio died in solitude;
The tyrant raised his hundred banquet halls, [21]
Tritoli's stews and Baiæ's palaces;
The cannibal patrician daily slew
Captives to feed the lampreys of his lake—:
While sybilline revealments—Numa's thoughts—
With old religion sanctified the deeds
Of desolaters of the shuddering earth.
Scarce e'en for hours through all Rome's centuries
Hath the caduceus met the eye of day, [20]
Or the ancilia idle in the fane
Of the fiend-god, whose herald is despair,
Hung: but far gleaming in the torrid sun
Mid standards floating to the winds of heaven,
On all the earth have cast the plagues of hell.
Boundless, perpetual and almighty Fear
Hath ever been your God of gods—rocks, caves,
Woods, grottoes, lakes and mountains are the realms
Of Dis of Jupiter's elysian fields.
And wisely named the sophist and the bard
The floods of fabled Erebus—for Rome
Baptized her sons in Phlegethons of blood,
Cheering war vigils with Cocyti songs.
Yon, by the Tyrrhene waters, on whose shores
The banished Scipio died in solitude;
The tyrant raised his hundred banquet halls, [21]
Tritoli's stews and Baiæ's palaces;
The cannibal patrician daily slew
Captives to feed the lampreys of his lake—:
129
And Rome's all-daring Orator, proscribed
By princely friendship in his peril, 'neath
Antony's vengeance fell, a martyr—; there,
The astute creators of your creed have feigned
Your mortal hell and heaven—in Comæ's caves,—
(Where dwelt Deiphobe, as in the wilds
That skirt the Erythraean, tasking faith,
Heirophila abode and muttered spells—)
And Puteoli's naptha mines—amid
The beautiful Pausylipo, whose waves
And woods in sweet airs and fair suns rejoice;
And maniac yells of gorgon sybils are
Elysium oracles, and Zephyr's voice
The music of the blest; and loftiest minds
Worship in show impostures they disdain,
The phantoms of the fashion, that their spoil
May be the richest booty.—What reck they,
The masters of men's minds, who guides the spheres?
A myriad gods or none to them are one,
For all are nothing but fear's phantasies.
Sinnis or Sciron less obeyed earth's laws
Than they the edicts of almighty Jove.
The proud Alóides taught the souls of such—
They would quench heaven to win the fame of earth.
The all-believing, as their priests ordain,
By princely friendship in his peril, 'neath
Antony's vengeance fell, a martyr—; there,
The astute creators of your creed have feigned
Your mortal hell and heaven—in Comæ's caves,—
(Where dwelt Deiphobe, as in the wilds
That skirt the Erythraean, tasking faith,
Heirophila abode and muttered spells—)
And Puteoli's naptha mines—amid
The beautiful Pausylipo, whose waves
And woods in sweet airs and fair suns rejoice;
And maniac yells of gorgon sybils are
Elysium oracles, and Zephyr's voice
The music of the blest; and loftiest minds
Worship in show impostures they disdain,
The phantoms of the fashion, that their spoil
May be the richest booty.—What reck they,
The masters of men's minds, who guides the spheres?
A myriad gods or none to them are one,
For all are nothing but fear's phantasies.
Sinnis or Sciron less obeyed earth's laws
Than they the edicts of almighty Jove.
The proud Alóides taught the souls of such—
They would quench heaven to win the fame of earth.
The all-believing, as their priests ordain,
130
Adore their fiend god through his daughter.—Sin.
Ye know not Truth in fealty or faith—
And seas of lustral waters could not cleanse
Your tear stained and blood sprinkled robes of guilt!”
“By Hercules, the earth-cleaver! thy bold speech,
Decurion once and devil caster now!
Forebodes disaster to my king of beasts!”
Said Diomede, beneath a mocking scorn
Veiling the wrath he could not quell nor speak.
“Am I the patron of thy sole renown?
And doth thy creed teach viper thanklessness?
I do immortalize thy robber skill
Learned in meet skirmishes with vulture flocks
And hordes of wolves to win the dead man's gold,
And in Apollo's image to the knights
Of Latium and Apulia thee present.
Thou art a lion-darer, and needst not
The famed Lanista's discipline to lift
The wood-king's heart upon thy sabre point,
For thou hast learned the sleight of fence, no fear,
From Galilean trainers, and hast wrought,
In thy maraudings, miracles of skill!
Rejoice in thine ovation, Nazarene!
Thou art the Sylla of the games to-day.
Ye know not Truth in fealty or faith—
And seas of lustral waters could not cleanse
Your tear stained and blood sprinkled robes of guilt!”
“By Hercules, the earth-cleaver! thy bold speech,
Decurion once and devil caster now!
Forebodes disaster to my king of beasts!”
Said Diomede, beneath a mocking scorn
Veiling the wrath he could not quell nor speak.
“Am I the patron of thy sole renown?
And doth thy creed teach viper thanklessness?
I do immortalize thy robber skill
Learned in meet skirmishes with vulture flocks
And hordes of wolves to win the dead man's gold,
And in Apollo's image to the knights
Of Latium and Apulia thee present.
Thou art a lion-darer, and needst not
The famed Lanista's discipline to lift
The wood-king's heart upon thy sabre point,
For thou hast learned the sleight of fence, no fear,
From Galilean trainers, and hast wrought,
In thy maraudings, miracles of skill!
Rejoice in thine ovation, Nazarene!
Thou art the Sylla of the games to-day.
131
The Samnite mock-fight and the chariot race,
Myrmillo and the Gaul, the net and mail—
All shall give place to thee and Nubia's beast.
And while thy glory soars, sweet Venus wraps
Her arms around thy love, and sunset melts
On the pavilion of her soft delight,
Where she doth wanton in Love's revelries,
And kisses from her roselight lips reward
My service in the honor of thy name,
And fair flowers fan the glowing cheek of bliss!”—
“Mock on, blood drinker! Mariamne mocks
Thee and thy wanton minions, whereso'er
Beneath the Orcus of your power she dwells.
Seek not through her dominion o'er my heart!
She hears a voice sweeter than Memnon's, feigned
To breathe daybreak farewells when o'er the blue
Of lustrous morn Aurora's gemlight fled;
She feels the viewless presence of her God—
Earth has no power upon her stainless soul!
Therefore, again, I tell thee Rome shall wail
For all her havocs, treasons, spoils and plagues.
Oh, every empire of her vast domains
Hath its aceldama, where voices howl
Anathemas the future shall fulfil.
Myrmillo and the Gaul, the net and mail—
All shall give place to thee and Nubia's beast.
And while thy glory soars, sweet Venus wraps
Her arms around thy love, and sunset melts
On the pavilion of her soft delight,
Where she doth wanton in Love's revelries,
And kisses from her roselight lips reward
My service in the honor of thy name,
And fair flowers fan the glowing cheek of bliss!”—
“Mock on, blood drinker! Mariamne mocks
Thee and thy wanton minions, whereso'er
Beneath the Orcus of your power she dwells.
Seek not through her dominion o'er my heart!
She hears a voice sweeter than Memnon's, feigned
To breathe daybreak farewells when o'er the blue
Of lustrous morn Aurora's gemlight fled;
She feels the viewless presence of her God—
Earth has no power upon her stainless soul!
Therefore, again, I tell thee Rome shall wail
For all her havocs, treasons, spoils and plagues.
Oh, every empire of her vast domains
Hath its aceldama, where voices howl
Anathemas the future shall fulfil.
132
All power is venal through her fated realms.
The rebel's Rubicon o'ersweeps the land,
And all its waves are blood! proscription's code.
Taught by the triumvir, is the only law
Left by unanswering Cæsar unannulled.
How many ages with their agonies
Have perished since the people had a choice
Of their oppressors? What's the ordeal, now,
Censors and consuls must endure? and where
The simple wreath that stories tested deeds?
All the sweet shadowings of old phantasie,
The enchantments of religion, false and vain,
But glowing, in its earliest dreams, with love—
Arion and the dolphin, Orpheus,
And hymning groves, and awful Dis defied
By passion in bereavement, daring death,
The Sungod's pæans o'er the Cyclades,
The charmed illusions of the Blessed Isles,
The mystery and rapture of high thought,
That from the sacred porticoes and banks
Of beautiful Ilissus poured its light
O'er Tyber and the haunts of Tusculum—
All, now, have vanished—and the powers of air,
Your fathers deemed their witnesses, receive
From atheist scoffers of the time defiled
The rebel's Rubicon o'ersweeps the land,
And all its waves are blood! proscription's code.
Taught by the triumvir, is the only law
Left by unanswering Cæsar unannulled.
How many ages with their agonies
Have perished since the people had a choice
Of their oppressors? What's the ordeal, now,
Censors and consuls must endure? and where
The simple wreath that stories tested deeds?
All the sweet shadowings of old phantasie,
The enchantments of religion, false and vain,
But glowing, in its earliest dreams, with love—
Arion and the dolphin, Orpheus,
And hymning groves, and awful Dis defied
By passion in bereavement, daring death,
The Sungod's pæans o'er the Cyclades,
The charmed illusions of the Blessed Isles,
The mystery and rapture of high thought,
That from the sacred porticoes and banks
Of beautiful Ilissus poured its light
O'er Tyber and the haunts of Tusculum—
All, now, have vanished—and the powers of air,
Your fathers deemed their witnesses, receive
From atheist scoffers of the time defiled
133
Derision; and emasculated vice
Gloats over memories e'en Pan might loathe.
—Breathe not a hope that vengeance will forget!
A darker doom, than his whose savage eyes
Glared from the marshes of Minturnæ [22]—comes;
A destiny more terrible than his
Who died blaspheming in corruption's arms,
Shameless in shame, at Puteoli—lours!
The voice of judgment hath pronounced on sin
Extinction—and the Avengers are abroad!
From the Ister and the Rha, the storm-lashed shores
Of the Codanus and Verginian sea—
From glacier steep and torrid crag—from vale
And wilderness—city and waste—shall rush
Devourers; and a thousand years shall weep
In darkness o'er her desolated pomp,
And thousand times ten thousand vassal hearts
Live without love and die without regret,
Boasting their bondage, and in titles won
By pandering to an earth-fiend's lust, exult,
And call their shame patrician privilege!
The Goth hath trod the citadel; the Gaul,
The Scythian and the Vandal and the Hun
Shall reap the harvest of her ruin! Time
Wafts on the terrible revenge—the doom
Gloats over memories e'en Pan might loathe.
—Breathe not a hope that vengeance will forget!
A darker doom, than his whose savage eyes
Glared from the marshes of Minturnæ [22]—comes;
A destiny more terrible than his
Who died blaspheming in corruption's arms,
Shameless in shame, at Puteoli—lours!
The voice of judgment hath pronounced on sin
Extinction—and the Avengers are abroad!
From the Ister and the Rha, the storm-lashed shores
Of the Codanus and Verginian sea—
From glacier steep and torrid crag—from vale
And wilderness—city and waste—shall rush
Devourers; and a thousand years shall weep
In darkness o'er her desolated pomp,
And thousand times ten thousand vassal hearts
Live without love and die without regret,
Boasting their bondage, and in titles won
By pandering to an earth-fiend's lust, exult,
And call their shame patrician privilege!
The Goth hath trod the citadel; the Gaul,
The Scythian and the Vandal and the Hun
Shall reap the harvest of her ruin! Time
Wafts on the terrible revenge—the doom
134
Challenged by centuries of guilt!—I hear
The tocsin and the gong—the clarion blast,
The roar of savage millions in their wrath—
Barbarian yells like billows broke by rocks—
And where the splendor of the imperial reign
Floats now—I see a hoary head o'ercrowned [23]
By the three diadems of earth, hell, heaven—
And the bright land of plenty trod by bands
Of bandits, famished peasants, coward chiefs—
All of Rome buried save the tyranny!”
“Oh, thou with the Cumæan prophetess
Hast hiddenly consorted and pored on
The almagest of Ptolemy till stars
And meteors have become the ministers
Of thy distempered fashionings of fate!”
Sardonic smiles o'er revel's swollen lips
Passed slowly, and the Prætor's jest had now
E'en from the venal sycophants small praise;
For crime in common natures, once unveiled,
Startles the practiser, and fear becomes
His hell, o'ermastering his daunted heart.
“And thou art thrilled by the sublime, and all
The grandeur of thy destiny o'ercomes
Thy sense with its vast radiance! yet shrink not,
The tocsin and the gong—the clarion blast,
The roar of savage millions in their wrath—
Barbarian yells like billows broke by rocks—
And where the splendor of the imperial reign
Floats now—I see a hoary head o'ercrowned [23]
By the three diadems of earth, hell, heaven—
And the bright land of plenty trod by bands
Of bandits, famished peasants, coward chiefs—
All of Rome buried save the tyranny!”
“Oh, thou with the Cumæan prophetess
Hast hiddenly consorted and pored on
The almagest of Ptolemy till stars
And meteors have become the ministers
Of thy distempered fashionings of fate!”
Sardonic smiles o'er revel's swollen lips
Passed slowly, and the Prætor's jest had now
E'en from the venal sycophants small praise;
For crime in common natures, once unveiled,
Startles the practiser, and fear becomes
His hell, o'ermastering his daunted heart.
“And thou art thrilled by the sublime, and all
The grandeur of thy destiny o'ercomes
Thy sense with its vast radiance! yet shrink not,
135
Though thou with Epaphroditus shalt live,
Empedocles and Barcochab, in fame, [24]
Drawn in a prophet's robes and mural crown!
My own embraces shall solace the grief
Of thy rare Hebrew Venus, though thou diest,
And, if in dungeon thou art yet reserved,
A conqueror now, to grace the future games,
To her I will rehearse the tale and laud
Thy victory—and 'tis hard but beauty sheds
A guerdon on my service!—Dost thou smile?”
“Ay, that thou talkst of future games, doomed lord!
And utterest thy revenge in mockeries!
Yon sun, mid brazen heavens and sulphur clouds,
Now hastening to the horizon, ne'er shall rise
On the volcano cities; palace and shrine,
The battlemented fortress, festive dome,
Palæstra, amphitheatre and hall
Of judgment wrested to the despot's ends—
The household hearth—the stores of merchandise—
And many a lofty impious heart shall lie,
Shrouded and sepulchred in seas of flame,
Ere morrow breaks, beneath the burning deep.
And ages shall depart—and meteors glare,
And constellations vanish in the void
Empedocles and Barcochab, in fame, [24]
Drawn in a prophet's robes and mural crown!
My own embraces shall solace the grief
Of thy rare Hebrew Venus, though thou diest,
And, if in dungeon thou art yet reserved,
A conqueror now, to grace the future games,
To her I will rehearse the tale and laud
Thy victory—and 'tis hard but beauty sheds
A guerdon on my service!—Dost thou smile?”
“Ay, that thou talkst of future games, doomed lord!
And utterest thy revenge in mockeries!
Yon sun, mid brazen heavens and sulphur clouds,
Now hastening to the horizon, ne'er shall rise
On the volcano cities; palace and shrine,
The battlemented fortress, festive dome,
Palæstra, amphitheatre and hall
Of judgment wrested to the despot's ends—
The household hearth—the stores of merchandise—
And many a lofty impious heart shall lie,
Shrouded and sepulchred in seas of flame,
Ere morrow breaks, beneath the burning deep.
And ages shall depart—and meteors glare,
And constellations vanish in the void
136
Of the pale azure—and a thousand times
Earth's generations perish—ere the beams
Of morn shall light the cities of the Dead!
Quaff, feast, sing, laugh, exult and mock! ye eat
The Lectisternian banquet [25]—to the dead
Pour out libations—gorge the appetite—
Madden the brain—let Phrygian flutes inspire
Your latest joys—be merry with the storm
That howls e'en now along the Fire-Mount's depths!
For me, the martyr trusts his martyred God!
And not for all your grandeur—nor for earth's,
Would he partake your banquet and your doom!”
“Away! away! slaves! drag the traitor hence!
And with the gladiators in the cells
Let him await the combat of the beast!
My spirit wearies of his raven croak.
—So, now for better mirth! and yet he shouts
Of hurrying multitudes unto the games
Invoke my presence and the dial shades
The hour of carnage—do ye cry for blood?
By Jove! ye shall not lack, for never gazed
Imperial Nero on the sea of flame,
That surged along the shrieking capitol,
With such a rapture as my soul shall feel
Earth's generations perish—ere the beams
Of morn shall light the cities of the Dead!
Quaff, feast, sing, laugh, exult and mock! ye eat
The Lectisternian banquet [25]—to the dead
Pour out libations—gorge the appetite—
Madden the brain—let Phrygian flutes inspire
Your latest joys—be merry with the storm
That howls e'en now along the Fire-Mount's depths!
For me, the martyr trusts his martyred God!
And not for all your grandeur—nor for earth's,
Would he partake your banquet and your doom!”
“Away! away! slaves! drag the traitor hence!
And with the gladiators in the cells
Let him await the combat of the beast!
My spirit wearies of his raven croak.
—So, now for better mirth! and yet he shouts
Of hurrying multitudes unto the games
Invoke my presence and the dial shades
The hour of carnage—do ye cry for blood?
By Jove! ye shall not lack, for never gazed
Imperial Nero on the sea of flame,
That surged along the shrieking capitol,
With such a rapture as my soul shall feel
137
To watch the lingering agonies and breathe
The last deep death sighs and slow muttered groans
Of that accursed despiser of my power!
Come, friends! the people shall be pampered now.
One cordial cup to vengeance—then away!
The chariot races wait my word—the shouts
Rise like the roar of ocean o'er the hills,
And in the ghastly hell light of the mount,
Beneath whose deeps the Titans groan, the steeds
Caparisoned upon the towers uprear
Their heads, struggling to spring upon their course;
And yon vast cloud of faces through the gloom
Looks with a ruthlessness that fits my mood.—
I mount the Tribune! let the games begin!”
The last deep death sighs and slow muttered groans
Of that accursed despiser of my power!
Come, friends! the people shall be pampered now.
One cordial cup to vengeance—then away!
The chariot races wait my word—the shouts
Rise like the roar of ocean o'er the hills,
And in the ghastly hell light of the mount,
Beneath whose deeps the Titans groan, the steeds
Caparisoned upon the towers uprear
Their heads, struggling to spring upon their course;
And yon vast cloud of faces through the gloom
Looks with a ruthlessness that fits my mood.—
I mount the Tribune! let the games begin!”
END OF CANTO II.
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[9]
Note 23, p. 94.—And each Promethean divination brought.
See Potter's Antiquities, Von Hammer &c. for the various superstitious
observances of the Greeks and Romans. In the scene
of the sacrifice I have introduced evil omens—such as the Romans
feared in their height of power—throughout the ceremonial.
[10]
Note 24, p. 95.—Bore Pompeii's loveliest virgin.
Human sacrifices were not uncommon during the earlier periods
of the Greek and Roman history; and I cast no additional
discredit upon the ancient character of heathenism by representing
the disappointed consulters of the gods putting in action their
cannibal ferocities. Iphigenia and Jeptha's daughter illustrate
Grecian mythology and Jewish vows.
[11]
Note 25, p. 96.—When has the bigot, whatsoe'er his crown.—
I appeal to all history, civil, sacred, ecclesiastical and profane.
Persecution is not exclusive; give preponderance to any sect or
faction and it will tyrannize; the faggot would be lighted, the
dungeon filled, the deathaxe red. The civil power would collude
with the church as it has always done, when the latter claimed
the prerogatives of heaven to exempt it from human accountability
—because superstitious ignorance fears more the anathemas of a
priesthood than the agonies and blood of a thousand victims.
Representations of eternal punishments due to those who indulge
humanity, by sparing the proscribed, the heretics, namely—have
influenced mankind far more than the view of nations banished
and provinces depopulated by the relentless malignity of some
Torquemada of paynimrie or Christendom. Factions and sects,
in politics and religion, never yet won any thing but ruin and
disgrace, yet they are perpetuated and multiplied as the world
wears to waste!
[12]
Note 26, p. 96.—O'er the lava walks.
The streets of Pompeii were paved with blocks of lava; and
the audacious apathy, which they manifested amidst the threatenings
of Vesuvius, may be ascribed to their familiarity with earthquakes
and volcanoes. The wretched inhabitants of Portici,
Torre del Greco and other exposed villages are, at this day, as
unapprehensive of the peril that has overhung them since their
birth, as were the Pompeiians at their death-hour. Cities buried
in lava or ashes, may lie beneath even Herculaneum and Pompeii.
[13]
Note 27, p. 97.—The music of the sistrum.
A stringed instrument peculiar to the mysterious rites of Isis,
which, like most other mysteries, concealed the most nefarious
practices.
[14]
Note 28, p. 101.—Holy Diana! hath thine Iris come.
The rainbow, in every mythology, has been beautifully personified.
Iris, its goddess, was the messenger of the ancient deities;
and though employed by jealous Juno to create “green eyed monsters,”
she was more happily occupied, in general, in separating
virtuous souls from feeble frames and escorting them to Elysium.
No one is ignorant of the Scandinavian bifrost, and the romantic
tales of the Eddas.
[15]
Note 29, p. 104.—Breathes not the soul of mystery in this?
The whole art of uttering oracles consisted in choosing terms
capable of any construction. The desires of the consulter determined
the meaning; and neither Delphi nor Dodona could
commit its credit by the failure of a prophecy which, it might allege,
was never properly understood. No one can have forgotten
the celebrated response (which illustrates the sophistries and
follies of the ancients) “Aio te, æacide, Romanos vincere
posse.”
The maiden now consents to give an Isean response, prefiguring
the ruin impending, from which all who escape, must fly
by sea, that the absence of the priest may afford her an opportunity
to shun his embraces.
[16]
Note 30, p. 105.—The mocker Momus has his jest.
Momus, the Jester of the gods, when Jupiter presented the
man whom he had created to his inspection, and asked him how,
characteristically, he could find fault with such workmanship, replied
with a sneer that the defect was both obvious and incurable
—that one so wise as the king of gods and men should have placed
a mirror over his heart that all might discern evil purposes in
307
aperture of the image, pleasantly deems himself the mirror that
reveals and directs the minds of men.
[17]
Note 31, p. 122.— - - The wanton canvass lived
With Mycon's impure thought.
All the ancient sculptors and painters, inimitable as they were
in the execution of their conceptions, faithfully followed, perhaps
led the blush-disowning taste of the times; and every banquet-hall
and chamber exhibited indubitable testimonials of their
uses.—Mycon, Xeuxis and Parrhasius, it is hardly necessary to
say, were gifted and celebrated artists.
[18]
Note 32, p. 123.—Or I may brand the theta on thy brow.
The Greek letter (theta) was burned upon the foreheads of
slaves as an indelible sign of proprietorship; hence they were
called literati—a term strictly applicable to some less ancient
and better conditioned persons than the captive barbarians of buried
times.
[19]
Note 33, p. 123.—The tintinnaculus may shame thy clink!
The Prætor may, perhaps, be allowed a pun. Tintinnaculus
may mean a public whipper—an inflicter of the bastinado—and
a jingling rhymer; lashes and verses both may be melodious.
[20]
Note 34, p. 127.—Hath the caduceus met the eye of day.
The wand of Mercury was the sign of peace; the caduceus
was, therefore, seldom out of the hand of the lord of larceny.
[21]
Note 35, p. 128.—The tyrant raised his hundred banquet halls,
Tritoli's stews and Baiae's palaces.
The Cento Camarelle of Nero and Piscina Mirabile (wonderful
fishpond) of Lucullus, even in ruins, are objects of amazement
to less abominable despots of modern times. Baiae was the
most voluptuous of all the voluptuous resorts of the Romans, and
the baths of Tritoli were necessary to restore the patricians after
Falernian excesses. Here Lucullus fed his fish on human flesh
—here Cicero perished—by the permission of his friend Octavius.
[22]
Note 36, p. 132.—A darker doom than his, &c.
Marius. Sylla died at Puteoli, as Herod afterwards perished,
of a most loathsome disease and in the midst of debaucheries.
[23]
Note 38, p. 134.—I see a hoary head o'ercrowned.
The Pope—whose tiara was the very meteor of ruin.
[24]
Note 39, p. 134.—Though thou with Epaphroditus shalt live,
Empedocles and Barcochab in fame.
Epaphroditus, to immortalize himself, set fire to the temple of
Ephesian Diana on the night Macedonian Alexander was born;
Empedocles, to persuade men he was a god, threw himself into
Mount ætna, but the volcano cast out his slipper and betrayed
him; Barcocnab, who called himself the Son of a Star, but whom
his countrymen named the Son of a Lie, was one of the innumerable
false prophets of that strange people—the Jews.
[25]
Note 40, p. 135.—The Lectisternian banquet.
The funeral festival—the last of earthly indulgencies.
[1]
Note 15, p. 70.—For they were stricken from the roll of men
And banished from humanity.
Probably among no people, not even the mercenary Africans
themselves, who are always more ready to sell than the Christian
trafficker is to buy, was the condition of slaves so utterly hopeless
and irreclaimable as in the republics of Greece and Rome.
Their vivid jealousy of personal privileges peculiarly fitted them
to tyrannize over every people not incorporated within their chartered
dominions. Nothing is so cruel as boasting philanthropy;
nothing, so unjust as a dominant hierarchy; nothing, so capricious
and despotic as an unrestrained democracy.
[2]
Note 16, p. 71.— - - - - - - - gazed,
Bewildered on the amphoræ—
The priests of Pompeii were no believers in a preshadowed
Mahommedan sobriety or the Genevan doctrine of total abstinence;
but, rather, devout apostles of good fellowship, bonhommie
and bienseance, whose credenda have lacked no devotees among the
administrators of a very different religion. Their amphoræ or
wine casks were always amply supplied by votaries who did not
doubt that their spiritual guides possessed the same prerogatives
in Tartarus which less remote exclusives in sanctity assume to exercise
in Hades. The skeletons of many priests, on the excavation
of Pompeii, were found amidst the relics of their revel.
Can we suppose that even the ministers of a degraded superstition
and a most lascivious mythology could trust in the protection of
Jove or Osiris? or must we rather conclude that criminal appetite
304
his last journey—“It is necessary that we should be gluttons and
revellers, but it is not necessary that we should live.”?
[3]
Note 17, p. 75.— - - - - - - Untrimmed lamps
Sculptured with shapes of ribaldry to lure.
The sensualities of Pompeii were not restricted by any deference
to decorum even in external dissembling; but the passions,
which burned in their bosoms, were too graphically represented
upon their customary utensils. The secret deposites of the Museum
Borbonico at Naples will illustrate this to any who are incredulous
of the noisome excess to which sin may be extended.
[4]
Note 18, p. 77.—The Sybarite from Salmacis arose.
Even in an age proverbial for its effeminacy and vice, the Sybarites
were quoted as the acme of examples; and the waters of
Salmacis, by some mysterious properties, were considered capable
of restoring the frame, exhausted by profligacy, to its original
vigor.
No one who had broken an oath made by the Styx (which not
even the gods dared to infringe) could be permitted to drink of
Lethe or oblivion of the evils and sufferings which he had been
doomed to bear for his crimes.
[5]
Note 19, p. 78.— - - - - Now towered the gonfalon
Of Isis, glowing with devices shame
Shrunk to behold, the shapes of earth's worst sins.
The pamylia and phallephoria. The character of the Romans
under the emperors renders it unnecessary for me to create any
reluctancy on their part to gaze upon objects, in public processions,
which in other communities, would have never been imagined.
Greece took her religion from Egypt—Rome her's from
Greece—and both had public temples dedicated to the Aspasias,
Galateas and Campaspes of the age. The pastophori or priests
of Isis, therefore, felt themselves much at home in Pompeii.
[6]
Note 20, p. 79.—The war god with the Ancilia.
The sacred shields of Rome—borne in the processions of Mars,
who of all the monstrous idols was the most worshipped because
the least merciful. Is it not a singular anomaly of the human
mind that in every creed the god of vengeance has always been
the most opulent and popular? “By what casuistry can infinite
punishments be reconciled with finite offence? or why should
men be instructed to fear an endlessness of torment for sins ephemeral
as their breath?”
[7]
Note 21, p. 80.—And we must drag them to the altar.
Nothing could be more ominous of evil than any resistance or
even reluctancy on the part of the victims to be sacrificed. That
the offering might be auspicious it was necessary that the animal
should seem to rejoice in its sacred death.
It was held unholy to offer up any maimed or imperfect creature,
and herein the Judean ecclesiastical enactments agreed with
those of the Greeks and Romans. All their animal sacrifices
were “chosen for beauty and young quickening life.”
Any blemish inflicted by the Huntress or Pythias, by Sun or
Moon namely, was deemed a particular offence to the deity.
| The last night of Pompeii | |