 | Poems by Sarah Helen Whitman |  |
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NOON.
“The mysterious silence of full noon.”
Bailey. Festus.
Bailey. Festus.
“Combien de fois dans le silence de minuit, et dans cet autre silence de midi, si accablant, si inquiet, si dévorant, n'ai-je pas senti mon cœur se précipiter vers un but inconnu, vers un onhbeur sans forme et sans nom, qui est au ciel, qui est dans l'air, qui est partout, comme l'amour! C'est l'aspiration sainte de la partie la plus éthérée de notre ame vers l'inconnu.”
George Sand
Dream followed dream; and still the day
Floated on golden wings away;
But in the hush of the high noon,
Touched by a sorrow without name,
Consumed by a slow fever-flame,
I loathed my life's mysterious boon,
Unconscious of its end or aim;
Floated on golden wings away;
But in the hush of the high noon,
Touched by a sorrow without name,
Consumed by a slow fever-flame,
I loathed my life's mysterious boon,
Unconscious of its end or aim;
Lost in a languor of repose,—
A luxury of gloom,—
As when the curved, voluptuous rose
Droops with its wealth of bloom.
A luxury of gloom,—
As when the curved, voluptuous rose
Droops with its wealth of bloom.
Decked as for a festival
Seemed the wide and lonely hall
Of Nature, but a mute despair
Filled the universal air;—
A sense of loneliness and void,—
A wealth of beauty unenjoyed,—
A sadness born mid the excess
Of life's unvalued loveliness.
Seemed the wide and lonely hall
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Filled the universal air;—
A sense of loneliness and void,—
A wealth of beauty unenjoyed,—
A sadness born mid the excess
Of life's unvalued loveliness.
Every pulse of being panting
With a bliss it fain would share,
Still there seemed a presence wanting,
Still some lost ideal haunting
All the lone and lustrous air.
With a bliss it fain would share,
Still there seemed a presence wanting,
Still some lost ideal haunting
All the lone and lustrous air.
Far off I heard the solemn chimes
Of life and Death,—
The rhythm of ancestral rhymes
Above,—beneath!
Of life and Death,—
The rhythm of ancestral rhymes
Above,—beneath!
“Light in shadow ever fading,—
Death on Life's bright realm invading,—
Pain with pleasure keeping measure,—
Wasting care with golden treasure.
So the ancient burden rang,
So the choral voices sang.
Death on Life's bright realm invading,—
Pain with pleasure keeping measure,—
Wasting care with golden treasure.
So the ancient burden rang,
So the choral voices sang.
Though beautiful on all the hills
The summer noonlight lay,
Far in the west a single cloud
Lay folded like a fleecy shroud,
Ready to veil its ray.
And over all a purple pall
Seemed waiting for the day.
The summer noonlight lay,
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Lay folded like a fleecy shroud,
Ready to veil its ray.
And over all a purple pall
Seemed waiting for the day.
I heard far, phantom voices calling
Over all the flowery wold,—
O'er the westering meadows falling
Into slopes of gleamy gold;—
Over all the flowery wold,—
O'er the westering meadows falling
Into slopes of gleamy gold;—
Still I heard them calling,—calling,—
Through the dim, entangled glooms,—
Far through sunless valleys falling
Downward to a place of tombs.
Through the dim, entangled glooms,—
Far through sunless valleys falling
Downward to a place of tombs.
Near me pressed a vassal throng,
Slaves to custom, serfs to wrong—
Hollow-hearted, vain and cold,
Minions of the earthly mold;
Holding in supreme derision
Memories of the life Elysian,
Reckless of the birthright lost,
Heedless of the heavenly host,
Traitors to the Holy Ghost!
Slaves to custom, serfs to wrong—
Hollow-hearted, vain and cold,
Minions of the earthly mold;
Holding in supreme derision
Memories of the life Elysian,
Reckless of the birthright lost,
Heedless of the heavenly host,
Traitors to the Holy Ghost!
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Haunted by a nameless terror,—
Thrilled by a foreboding breath,
As the aspen wildly trembles
When the winds are still as death,—
I sought amid the sadness drear
Some loved familiar face to cheer
The solitude,—some lingering tone
Of love ére love and hope had flown.
Thrilled by a foreboding breath,
As the aspen wildly trembles
When the winds are still as death,—
I sought amid the sadness drear
Some loved familiar face to cheer
The solitude,—some lingering tone
Of love ére love and hope had flown.
I heard a low voice breathe my name:
Was it the echo of my own,—
That weird and melancholy tone,—
That voice whose subtle sweetness came
Keen as the serpent's tongue of flame?
So near, its music seemed to me
The music of my heart to be.
Was it the echo of my own,—
That weird and melancholy tone,—
That voice whose subtle sweetness came
Keen as the serpent's tongue of flame?
So near, its music seemed to me
The music of my heart to be.
Still I heard it, nearer, clearer,
When all other songs had flown,
Floating round me till it bound me
In a wild world of its own.
When all other songs had flown,
Floating round me till it bound me
In a wild world of its own.
Suddenly a chill wind leapt
Through its woven harmonies;
All its silver chords were snapt
As a wind-harp's by the breeze.
A shudder through the silence crept
And death athwart the noonlight swept.
Through its woven harmonies;
All its silver chords were snapt
As a wind-harp's by the breeze.
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And death athwart the noonlight swept.
Then came the pall, the dirge, the knell,
As, dust to dust, the earth-clods fell,
Down crumbling on a coffin lid,
Within whose narrow casket hid,—
Shut from the cheerful light of day,—
Buried, yet quick, my own heart lay.
As, dust to dust, the earth-clods fell,
Down crumbling on a coffin lid,
Within whose narrow casket hid,—
Shut from the cheerful light of day,—
Buried, yet quick, my own heart lay.
Graves closed round my path of life,
The beautiful had fled;
Pale shadows wandered by my side,
And whispered of the dead.
The far off hollow of the sky
Seemed like an idle mockery.—
The vaulted hollow of the sky,
With its blue depths of mystery
But rounded Death's vast empery.
The beautiful had fled;
Pale shadows wandered by my side,
And whispered of the dead.
The far off hollow of the sky
Seemed like an idle mockery.—
The vaulted hollow of the sky,
With its blue depths of mystery
But rounded Death's vast empery.
O'erwearied with life's restless change
From ecstacy to agony,
Its fleeting pleasures born to die,
The mirage of its fantasy,
Its worn and melancholy range
Of hopes that could no more estrange
The married heart of memory,
Doomed, while we drain life's perfumed wine,
For the dull Lethean wave to pine,
And, for each thrill of joy, to know
Despair's slow pulse or sorrow's throe,—
I sought some central truth to span
These wide extremes of good and ill,—
I longed with one bold glance to scan
Life's perfect sphere, to rend at will
The gloom of Erebus,—dread zone,
Coiled like a serpent round the throne
Of Heaven,—the realm where Justice veils
Her heart and holds her even scales,—
Where awful Nemesis awaits
The doomed, by Pluto's iron gates.
From ecstacy to agony,
Its fleeting pleasures born to die,
The mirage of its fantasy,
Its worn and melancholy range
Of hopes that could no more estrange
The married heart of memory,
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For the dull Lethean wave to pine,
And, for each thrill of joy, to know
Despair's slow pulse or sorrow's throe,—
I sought some central truth to span
These wide extremes of good and ill,—
I longed with one bold glance to scan
Life's perfect sphere, to rend at will
The gloom of Erebus,—dread zone,
Coiled like a serpent round the throne
Of Heaven,—the realm where Justice veils
Her heart and holds her even scales,—
Where awful Nemesis awaits
The doomed, by Pluto's iron gates.
In the long noon-tide of my sorrow,
I questioned of the eternal morrow;
I gazed in sullen awe
Far through the illimitable gloom
Down-deepening like the swift maelstrom,
The doubting soul to draw
Into eternal solitudes,
Where unrelenting silence broods
Around the throne of Law.
I questioned of the eternal morrow;
I gazed in sullen awe
Far through the illimitable gloom
Down-deepening like the swift maelstrom,
The doubting soul to draw
Into eternal solitudes,
Where unrelenting silence broods
Around the throne of Law.
I questioned the dim chronicle
Of ages gone before,—
I listened for the triumph songs
That rang from shore to shore,
Where the heroes and the conquerors wrought
The mighty deeds of yore,—
Where the foot-prints of the martyrs
Had bathed the earth in gore,
And the war-horns of the warriors
Where heard from shore to shore.
Of ages gone before,—
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That rang from shore to shore,
Where the heroes and the conquerors wrought
The mighty deeds of yore,—
Where the foot-prints of the martyrs
Had bathed the earth in gore,
And the war-horns of the warriors
Where heard from shore to shore.
Their blood on desert plains was shed,—
Their voices on the wind had fled,—
They were the drear and shadowy Dead!
Their voices on the wind had fled,—
They were the drear and shadowy Dead!
Still, through the storied past, I sought
An answer to my sleepless thought;
In the cloisters old and hoary
Of the mediæval time—
In the rude ancestral story
Of the ancient Runic rhyme.
An answer to my sleepless thought;
In the cloisters old and hoary
Of the mediæval time—
In the rude ancestral story
Of the ancient Runic rhyme.
I paused on Grecian plains, to trace
Some remnant of a mightier race,
Serene in sorrow and in strife,
Calm conquerors of Death and Life,
Types of the god-like forms that shone
Upon the sculptured Parthenon.
Some remnant of a mightier race,
Serene in sorrow and in strife,
Calm conquerors of Death and Life,
Types of the god-like forms that shone
Upon the sculptured Parthenon.
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But still, as when Prometheus bare
From heaven the fiery dart,
I saw the “vulture passions” tear
The proud Caucasian heart, —
The war of destiny with will
Still conquered, yet conflicting still.
From heaven the fiery dart,
I saw the “vulture passions” tear
The proud Caucasian heart, —
The war of destiny with will
Still conquered, yet conflicting still.
I heard loud Hallelujahs
From Israel's golden lyre,
And I sought their great Jehovah
In the cloud and in the fire.
I lingered by the stream that flowed
“Fast by the oracle of God,”—
I bowed, its sacred wave to sip;—
Its waters fled my thirsting lip.
The serpent trail was over all
Its borders,—and its palms that threw
Aloft their waving coronal,
Were blistered by a poison dew.
From Israel's golden lyre,
And I sought their great Jehovah
In the cloud and in the fire.
I lingered by the stream that flowed
“Fast by the oracle of God,”—
I bowed, its sacred wave to sip;—
Its waters fled my thirsting lip.
The serpent trail was over all
Its borders,—and its palms that threw
Aloft their waving coronal,
Were blistered by a poison dew.
Serener elements I sought,
Sublimer altitudes of thought,
The truth Saint John and Plato saw,
The mystic light, the inward law;
The Logos ever found and lost,
The aureola of the Ghost.
Sublimer altitudes of thought,
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The mystic light, the inward law;
The Logos ever found and lost,
The aureola of the Ghost.
I hailed its faint auroral beam
In many a Poet's Delphic dream,—
On many a shrine where faith's pure flame
Through fable's gorgeous oriel came.
In many a Poet's Delphic dream,—
On many a shrine where faith's pure flame
Through fable's gorgeous oriel came.
Around the altars of the god,
In holy passion hushed, I trod,
Where once the mighty voice of Jove
Rang through Dodona's haunted grove.
No more the dove with sable plumes
Swept through the forest's gorgeous glooms;
The shrines were desolate and cold,
Their pæans hushed, their story told,
In long, inglorious silence lost,
Like fiery tongues of Pentecost.
In holy passion hushed, I trod,
Where once the mighty voice of Jove
Rang through Dodona's haunted grove.
No more the dove with sable plumes
Swept through the forest's gorgeous glooms;
The shrines were desolate and cold,
Their pæans hushed, their story told,
In long, inglorious silence lost,
Like fiery tongues of Pentecost.
No more did music's golden surge
The mortal in immortal merge:
High canticles of joy and praise
Died with the dream of other days;
I only heard the Mænad's wail,—
That shriek that made the orient pale:
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
The mystic burden of a woe
Whose dark enigma none may know;
The primal curse,—the primal throe.
The mortal in immortal merge:
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Died with the dream of other days;
I only heard the Mænad's wail,—
That shriek that made the orient pale:
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
The mystic burden of a woe
Whose dark enigma none may know;
The primal curse,—the primal throe.
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
Nature shuddered at the cry
Of that ancient agony!
Nature shuddered at the cry
Of that ancient agony!
Still the fabled Python bound me,—
Still the serpent coil inwound me,—
Still I heard the Mænad's cry,
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
Where the Nile pours his sullen wave
Through tombs and empires of the grave,
I sought, 'mid cenotaphs, to find
The earlier miracles of mind:
Alas, beside the funeral urn
How drearily the death-lights burn;
On dim Denderah's sculptured lore
How sad the noonlight falls,
How mournfully the west wind sighs
Through Karnak's moldering halls!
No tongue shall tell their wondrous tale,
No hand shall lift the Isis veil;
The mighty pyramids that rise
So drear along the morning skies,
Guard well the secrets of the dead,
Nor break the sleep of ages fled.
Still the serpent coil inwound me,—
Still I heard the Mænad's cry,
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
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Through tombs and empires of the grave,
I sought, 'mid cenotaphs, to find
The earlier miracles of mind:
Alas, beside the funeral urn
How drearily the death-lights burn;
On dim Denderah's sculptured lore
How sad the noonlight falls,
How mournfully the west wind sighs
Through Karnak's moldering halls!
No tongue shall tell their wondrous tale,
No hand shall lift the Isis veil;
The mighty pyramids that rise
So drear along the morning skies,
Guard well the secrets of the dead,
Nor break the sleep of ages fled.
Their awful shadow passed, I stood
On India's burning solitude;
Where, in the misty morning of the world,
Life lay as in a dream of beauty furled.
On India's burning solitude;
Where, in the misty morning of the world,
Life lay as in a dream of beauty furled.
I saw the mighty altars of the Sun,—
Before whose fires the star-gods, one by one,
Paled like thin ghosts,—in lurid splendors rife;
I heard the Persian hail him Lord of Life!
I saw his altar-flames rise wild and high,
Veiling the glory of the noon-day sky,
Hiding the holy heavens with their ensanguined dye.
Before whose fires the star-gods, one by one,
Paled like thin ghosts,—in lurid splendors rife;
I heard the Persian hail him Lord of Life!
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Veiling the glory of the noon-day sky,
Hiding the holy heavens with their ensanguined dye.
I turned, and from the Brahmin's milder law
I sought truth's mystic element to draw,
Pure as it sparkled in the cup of Heaven,—
The bright Amreeta to the immortals given,—
To bathe my soul in fontal springs, that lie
Veiled from the careless and incurious eye.
I sought truth's mystic element to draw,
Pure as it sparkled in the cup of Heaven,—
The bright Amreeta to the immortals given,—
To bathe my soul in fontal springs, that lie
Veiled from the careless and incurious eye.
Half wakened from the brooding sleep
Of Nature ere she felt the leap
Of sentient life, the Hindoo seemed
Sad as the faith his fathers dreamed;
Like his own rock-hewn temples, wrought
From some obscure and shadowy thought
Of ancient days,—some formless dread,
In the gray dawn of ages bred,—
Prone on his native earth reclined,
To endless reveries resigned,
His dull soul lapsing on the Lethean stream,
Lost in the dim world of a lotus dream.
Of Nature ere she felt the leap
Of sentient life, the Hindoo seemed
Sad as the faith his fathers dreamed;
Like his own rock-hewn temples, wrought
From some obscure and shadowy thought
Of ancient days,—some formless dread,
In the gray dawn of ages bred,—
Prone on his native earth reclined,
To endless reveries resigned,
His dull soul lapsing on the Lethean stream,
Lost in the dim world of a lotus dream.
Still, still the eternal mystery,
The shadow of the poison-tree
Of Good and Evil haunted me.
In Religion's holy name,
Furies fed her altar-flame,
Sophists gloried in her shame.
Still the ancient mythus bound me,
Still the serpent coil inwound me,
Still I heard the Mænad's cry,
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
The shadow of the poison-tree
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In Religion's holy name,
Furies fed her altar-flame,
Sophists gloried in her shame.
Still the ancient mythus bound me,
Still the serpent coil inwound me,
Still I heard the Mænad's cry,
Evohe!—ah—Evohe!
Wearied with man's discordant creed,
I sought on Nature's page to read
Life's history, ere yet she shrined
Her essence in the incarnate mind;
Intent her secret laws to trace
In primal solitudes of space,
From her first, faint atomic throes,
To where her orbèd splendor glows
In the vast, silent spheres that roll
Forever towards their unknown goal.
I sought on Nature's page to read
Life's history, ere yet she shrined
Her essence in the incarnate mind;
Intent her secret laws to trace
In primal solitudes of space,
From her first, faint atomic throes,
To where her orbèd splendor glows
In the vast, silent spheres that roll
Forever towards their unknown goal.
I turned from dull alchemic lore
With starry Chaldeans to soar,
And sought, on fancy's wing, to roam
That glorious galaxy of light
Where mingling stars, like drifting foam,
Melt on the solemn shores of night;
But still the surging glory chased
The dark through night's chaotic waste;
And still, within its deepening voids,
Crumbled the burning asteroids.
With starry Chaldeans to soar,
And sought, on fancy's wing, to roam
That glorious galaxy of light
Where mingling stars, like drifting foam,
Melt on the solemn shores of night;
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The dark through night's chaotic waste;
And still, within its deepening voids,
Crumbled the burning asteroids.
Long gloating on that hollow gloom,
Methought that in some vast maelstrom,
The stars were hurrying to their doom,—
Bubbles upon life's boundless sea,
Swift meteors of eternity,
Pale sparks of mystic fire, that fall
From God's unwaning coronal.
Methought that in some vast maelstrom,
The stars were hurrying to their doom,—
Bubbles upon life's boundless sea,
Swift meteors of eternity,
Pale sparks of mystic fire, that fall
From God's unwaning coronal.
Is there, I asked, a living woe
In all those burning orbs that glow
Through the blue ether?—do they share
Our dim world's anguish and despair?
In their vast orbits do they fly
From some avenging destiny,—
And shall their wild eyes pale beneath
The dread anathema of Death?—
Our own fair Earth,—shall she too drift,
Forever shrouded in a weft
Of stormy clouds, that surge and swirl
Around her in her dizzy whirl:—
Forever shall a shadow fall
Backward from her golden wall,
Its dark cone stretching, ghast and gray,
Into outer glooms away?—
In all those burning orbs that glow
Through the blue ether?—do they share
Our dim world's anguish and despair?
In their vast orbits do they fly
From some avenging destiny,—
And shall their wild eyes pale beneath
The dread anathema of Death?—
Our own fair Earth,—shall she too drift,
Forever shrouded in a weft
Of stormy clouds, that surge and swirl
Around her in her dizzy whirl:—
Forever shall a shadow fall
Backward from her golden wall,
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Into outer glooms away?—
From the sad, unsated quest
Of knowledge, how I longed to rest
On her green and silent breast!
Of knowledge, how I longed to rest
On her green and silent breast!
I languished for the dews of death
My fevered heart to steep,—
The heavy, honey-dews of death,
The calm and dreamless sleep.
My fevered heart to steep,—
The heavy, honey-dews of death,
The calm and dreamless sleep.
I left my fruitless lore apart,
And leaned my ear on Nature's heart,
To hear, far from life's busy throng,
The chime of her sweet undersong.
And leaned my ear on Nature's heart,
To hear, far from life's busy throng,
The chime of her sweet undersong.
She pressed her balmy lips to mine,
She bathed me in her sylvan springs;
And still, by many a rural shrine,
She taught me sweet and holy things.
I felt her breath my temples fan,
I learned her temperate laws to scan,
My soul, of hers, became a conscious part;
Her beauty melted through my inmost heart.
Still I languished for the word
Her sweet lips had never spoken,
Still, from the pale shadow-land,
There came nor voice nor token;
No accent of the Holy Ghost
Whispered of the loved and lost;
No bright wanderer came to tell
If, in worlds beyond the grave,
Life, love, and beauty dwell.
She bathed me in her sylvan springs;
And still, by many a rural shrine,
She taught me sweet and holy things.
I felt her breath my temples fan,
I learned her temperate laws to scan,
My soul, of hers, became a conscious part;
Her beauty melted through my inmost heart.
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Her sweet lips had never spoken,
Still, from the pale shadow-land,
There came nor voice nor token;
No accent of the Holy Ghost
Whispered of the loved and lost;
No bright wanderer came to tell
If, in worlds beyond the grave,
Life, love, and beauty dwell.
Gustav Klemm, in a work entitled Allgemeine Culturgeschichte der Menschheit, divides the human races into the active and passive: the former (embracing only the so-called Caucasian race) marked by restless activity and aspiration, progress and the spirit of doubt and inquiry; the latter (comprising all the remaining races), by an absence or inferiority of these characteristics.
“The priestesses of Dodona assert that two black pigeons flew from Thebes in Egypt; one of which settled in Lybia, the other among themselves: which latter, resting on a beech-tree, declared with a human voice that here was to be the oracle of Jove.”—
Herodotus, Book II. ch. 55.“The Mænads, in their wild incantations, carried serpents in their hands, and with frantic gestures cried out Eva! Eva! Epiphanius thinks that this invocation related to the mother of mankind; but I am inclined to believe that it was the word Epha or Opha, rendered by the Greeks, Ophis, a serpent. I take Abaddon to have been the name of the same ophite God whose worship has so long infected the world. The learned Heinsius makes Abaddon the same as the serpent Python.”—
Jacob Brayant's Analysis of Ancient Mythology. “While Mænads cry aloud Evoe, Evoe!That voice that is contagion to the world.”
Shelley's Prometheus.
| Poems by Sarah Helen Whitman | |