University of Virginia Library

Women are curious, one and all, we know,—
Eve was, and so is every woman since.
All other virtues unto you are given
Except to close your eyes and curb your tongue.
Nor should I dare, dear Fatima, to you,
Best of your sex, to trust this single key,
Forbidding you to turn it in the lock;—
You pout, say no! and shake your pretty head—
Vainly—I know 'twould never let you rest.
Since mother Eve, a thing prohibited
Tortures your sex till it is known and tried.
Just try you? 'Tis a shame to say such words.
What have you ever done? When trust is gone,
Love follows soon—and are those really tears?
Tears? and we married only two short months—
Smile, dearest, once again, and take the key!

Take it! there's nothing better in the world
Than curiosity. It is the spur
Of knowledge. Pray, forgive me, Fatima!
Take it—I meant to leave you all the rest,
For these two months have slipped so swift away
(Joy flies so fast, 'tis only grief that halts)
In this our Spanish castle, that in truth
I had forgotten all the curious things
In the old cabinets;—but now, constrained
To leave you for a week, Annie and you
May hunt them through to while the hours away.

Here are the keys—each opes a cabinet
Where all of rare my ancestors have found,
Whether in travel through the broad domain
Of fact, or fancy, or romance, are ranged.
Each has its number. Enter! open all!
Stay! just to show how false is tongue of man,
Let me prohibit one! I will not say
What it contains. Thank you for that proud smile!
Think you I fear lest you should enter there;
No, by my love! You need not promise me.
I only say, This opes the door of death
Beyond the hall of dreams. You look surprised!
Curious, of course, you're not! There is the key!

These nine-and-ninety keys ope worlds enough
For one short week; and in the hall of death
Sooner or later all of us shall look.
Meanwhile, the others may suffice you. Stop!
Let me point out some curious cabinets
That will amuse you most, and mark the keys.

This, turned within its wards, will show you gems
Of wondrous beauty and strange rarity.
Red trees of branching coral, found beneath
The Elysian isles, and by the shining scales
Of mermaids polished, over-roof the hall;
And dragons, gleaming in enamelled mail,
With eyes of diamond, in the corners crouch.
In frieze of beaten gold, along the wall,
Struggle fierce centaurs clasped by Lapithæ.
And round the pavement whirls a chariot race,
With foaming steeds and naked outstretched arms
Mosaic'd on a band of marble black.
The ceiling's panels are in ivory carved,
Each with a lotus or magnolia spread,
And all the solid beams are massive gold.

Here, round the walls, in ebon cabinets
With ivory intarsia storied o'er,
And faced with flawless crystal, you may see
My stores of curious gems;—clear crystal balls,
Concealing in their depths a magic life,
Where steal the pale reflections of time's ghosts;
Cat eyes, whose iris circles glare and shift;
Opals, alive within with quivering fires;
Smooth globes of garnets like rich jelly-drops;
And mystic onyxes with figures strange
Carved on their facets by Egyptian priests;
Vases of jasper red and sardonyx,
Beryl and topaz, jacinth, amethyst,
And orient alabaster; and all stones
That sun-struck Africa, of dark and veined,
Blood-streaked and solemn, in her caves conceals;
The great carbuncle, sought for centuries,
Here blazes like a sun; and at its side
Note, too, a common stone, a pebble vile,
Hung near a pure and perfect chrysolite
(Smooth as a mirror, flawless as the sky);
It scarce would take your eye, it seems so vile,
Yet touched by it the filthiest dross grows gold,
And Europe for that stone would sell its soul.
Here is the pearl the Egyptian queen dissolved,
What time with Anthony in revels wild
She toyed and feasted; and beside it lies
The royal asp, her bracelet, where she kept
Her death, her freedom, in one poison-drop.
Pass not the Gracchi jewels, famed so long,
Two great cornelians, and beyond all price;
Nor the vast diamond Polyphemus wore
Fixed to his forehead, called by men his eye.

Here hangs a curtain; draw it back—it runs
On rings that from the field of Cannæ came—
Behind it other curious rings you'll find—
Morone's, whence a prisoned devil spoke;
Aboukir's, gifted with a lightning sword,
Which, when his hand waved, sheared his foeman's head;
Joudar's, which owned its black tremendous slave;
The Samian's lucky ring he could not lose;
And Pyrrhus's, whose figures nature carved;
And that which Gyges wore; and Solomon's,
Whose mystic stamp sealed in his sunken vase
The cloud-vast Afrite 'neath the Arabian lake;
There is the ring with which my ancestor
Married the Adriatic—one sea-green
Aqua marina, jutting forth in points
Of starry brilliants; and beside it lies
The poison-ring the gold-haired Borgia wore;
And that Elizabeth to Essex gave.

This iron key, with lines of silver veined,
Opens a cabinet more curious yet.
Ultramarine the roof, one mighty block,
Besprinkled with a thousand golden stars.
Panelled in Afric marbles are the walls,
All pictured o'er with wild and mystic shapes
Of every varying hue,—from purpling lakes
And crimson carmines unto Stygian black.
Two sombre columns carved with stories strange
Of Asian magic in the centre stand—
The capital's red gold a band of skulls.
As the vast door you push, a thunderous sound
Of mournful music groans along the vault,
And lightnings, flashing, cross their jagged swords.
Be undismayed and enter! On the floor
A charm is written; in the circle stand
And say “Geheimniss!” Music then will rain
Soft as a summer shower to soothe the sense,
And hands invisible will lead you round.

Here you will find the wondrous planisphere
Of Abdelsamad, in whose depths were seen
All regions of the earth—that smote with fire
The nations at its owner's wrathful nod.
Here I have ranged a thousand curious things
Found in my travels into distant lands;—
Among them is a hydra's snaky head;—
And (for I'm curious in hair) you'll find,
Bound in a single braid, and closely clasped
By a dried Harpy-claw, one Gorgon lock
From the Medusa's head, entwined with one
Torn from Megæra and Tisiphone,
And from Alecto one—while in and out
A golden tress that on the Borgia's brow
Meandered once, slips gleaming here and there.

Here are some relics which from over sea
The Flying Dutchman brought from classic lands.
Among them is Pandora's opened box,
The Attic cynic's lantern and his tub,
A shrieking branch from the Æneid grove,
Arion's harp and Hermes' wand; the bag
Of Eolus, Ulysses' wax, the flute
That Orpheus played; a soft half-melted plume
Dropped from the waxen wings of Icarus,
The sword suspended by a single hair. ...
And underneath this last a skull I've placed—
One that was brought to me from Golgotha.

Here from the vaguer regions of Romance
Are various objects, and beyond all price:
Such as the cap which Fortunatus wore,
The bowl in which the men of Gotham sailed,
The bodkin that Amina used to pick
Her grains of rice before her fouler feast,—
Agrippa's glass and that of Schemseddin,
The King of Thule's goblet, with a tinge
Of the red wine that wet his noble beard,
Poor Schlemihl's shadow, and the Roc's huge egg,
Aladdin's lamp, and Circe's magic cup.

Here in one corner of the room you'll find
A medley of all sorts of oddities:
There's a wise saw, that shows its teeth to fools,
An ancient augur (famous as a bore),
A modern screw, a rod in pickle kept,
A pair of ruined breaches made by Time,
And in them tares the enemy hath sown.

Here is the crystal luck of Eden hall,
In which some flowers of rhetoric are placed—
The snowy plume of Henry of Navarre,
With Conachar's white feather at its side—
Here is a tune that from Munchausen's horn
Was taken ere it thawed, and fragments rare
Of frozen music sent me by De Staël,—
Being choice bits of fluting round the drum
Of Kubla Khan's majestic pleasure dome—
You'll know the spot by looking on the floor,
Where I have caused a pattern to be worked
In coloured jewels, after a design
From the Mosaic dispensation drawn—
While from the ceiling o'er it like a lamp
Hangs the lost Pleiad, which the wandering Jew
Found on the topmost peak of Ararat.

This my menagerie will ope, and here
Along the walls are pictured various lands:
While columns with alternate ebon bands
Winding with ivory spirals stand between—
Here Asian deserts, idly vast, outstretch,
And black Nigritia scowls, and naked girls
Dance in the shade of Abyssinian palms—
Here shakes the tinkling life of the Chinese
'Neath Altai mountains in Mongolia;
While on the other side the slim canoe
Through Polynesian waters swiftly glides;
And the great banyan darkens down the shore.

Along the northern wall the iceberg sails,
Toppling and crashing through white fields of ice,
Where the bear souses in his Arctic bath.
Close by, beneath the Uralian avalanche,
Siberia spreads her dark platoons of pines.
All lands are here—all quarters of the earth—
Venetian splendours of her gorgeous days—
The savage life afar in western wilds—
The babbling glitter of the Boulevards—
The lonely Kaffir's hut—the middle sea,
With roaring billows plunging all alone.

Here range my wondrous animals, and here
The great white elephant of Siam walks
Beside the magic steed that swam the air,
And Pegasus with both his wings tied down.
Here is Androcles' lion; at his side
Chimæra and three-headed Cerberus;
And near the dragon with a hundred heads,
That watched the Hesperian gardens day and night,
Couches the sad Sphinx with her silent face.
Strange converse hold they in a wondrous tongue,
And many a tale of ancient days they tell,
Or Orpheus, Hercules, Bellerophon,
Growling a laugh the while from ruddy maws.
Rouse them from sleep! for now with habits changed
And wearied with the sleepless hours of eld
They slumber much.

But not to pause with these,
Look at my Attic hive. Hymettus' flowers
Are blooming round it. There is Rhaicus' bee,
And one that Sappho caught on Cupid's lips,
Which stung her to a luscious epigram.
Here in sheep's clothing wanders Æsop's wolf,
With Reineke the diplomatic fox,
And Monsieur Frog who burst with vanity.
Here too 's the cow that vaulted o'er the moon,
The famous clock the mouse ran up, the cat
That owned the fiddle, the small dog that laughed
When crafty dish with silly spoon eloped,
And mother Hubbard's still more famous dog.
Here is the goose that laid the golden egg,
The camel through the needle's eye that passed,
Quarles' friendly monkey, Beauty's gentle beast,
The tortoise with the hare that ran a race,
And that which crushed the skull of Æschylus.
Here in a pleasant group you may behold
The Austrian eagle with its double head,
The Scottish unicorn and Gallic cock,
Discussing politics and talking wise
Of European balances of power.
And here in pleasant conversation meet
Two long-eared friends, who hold a wise discourse
With longer-horned companions scarce so dull
As many a human party we have known.
There Balaam's social beast, and at his side
His crony, Apuleius' golden ass,
May yet be seen talking with Myron's cow,
Or the red cow that told such wondrous tales
Of her interior knowledge of Tom Thumb;
While standing near and listening, you may see
A group of bulls—among them he who pulled
Cock Robin's knell, and he whom Phaleris
Begat in brass, and one from Ireland sent,
And from the Vatican one Papal bull.
And here at last, to end my catalogue,
Which merely hints a creature here and there,
My rarest wonders from the East, you'll see
Two vampires and a red-lipped female Ghoule.

Tired of these, if you should wish to read,
Look in my library. This curious key—
A serpent issuing from an ivory skull
And twisting round its handle—opens it.
Here are dim alcoves framed in ebony
And lit by softly-blazoned diamond panes,
Where glow and move as if endowed with life
The painted history of glorious men.
Each pane is magic; at a simple sign
The life of him whose name is writ beneath
Will glide in mute procession o'er its face.
The room is deaf to sound; a moth-like veil
Like woven twilight o'er the ceiling floats,
And from the centre hangs a crystal globe:
Touch it but once, a Marid answers it,
And at your nod brings all your wish may shape.
Noiseless he moves, and comes and goes like air,
Waving Arabian odour from his wings.
Would you behold the furthest wildest spot
Hid in the secret'st corner of the earth,
Twirl the globe thrice and in its depths it lives.
Fixed in the wall a magic mirror shines
Oblong and veined with myriad wavering lines:
That's the time-table of the centuries—
Name but the number of a year, day, hour,
And then a place—the deed there done, and then,
Will start at once to picture in the glass
And move, as you request it, on in time.

Within these cabinets are curious books,
Among a myriad which I will not name,
Which now the world supposes to be lost—
The Sibyl's books are there, the two she burnt,
There Dante's rhyme, with Angelo's designs,
There Raffaelle's hundred sonnets fairly writ,
There Sappho's songs, complete, and Shakespeare's life,
And the lost tragedies of Æschylus.
The famous distich of Callicrates
Writ on a seed of sesamum is there,
With the whole Iliad in a nutshell closed.
There is the music of the Song of songs,
Great books of drawings by Philostrates,
And all the poems Coleridge meant to write.
In the far corner towering over all
Chryselephantine sits the Phidian Zeus,
And on the walls Da Vinci's great cartoon
Beside its rival hangs intact and fresh;
And there alone upon a sombre stand,
Tempting the touch to open its great leaves,
Where no one ever read but wept, is placed
The sad black-letter Book of Destiny.

This key my great conservatory opes,
Where you will find some rare and curious fruits—
There are the sour grapes—but within your reach—
Taste them if you desire! There too you'll see
The apple Paris to the fairest gave;
And that which tempted Eve, in it her teeth
You'll see imprinted; also that which grows
Upon the Dead Sea's margin, with the three
That from the Hesperian gardens Atlas stole.
There is the date-stone by the merchant thrown
Against the Afrite o'er the garden-wall;
The pear that caused the sleeper's nose to grow;
The Lotus fruit that brings oblivion;
A date-tree with the dates of everything;
And the unripening fruit of our desires.

This opes the silent cabinet of dreams—
'Tis vague and empty when you enter first!
A mystery floats around, like music dim
For which the ear keeps straining—sounds so fine
That all the soul must listen, leaning out
Upon the furthest verge of sense to hear.
Out of the dark emerge, by slow degrees,
Vague things that come and go—great ghostly shapes—
Like shadows on a curtain when it swings;
Dear smiles gleam there that made the joy of life,
And hopes burst forth to their consummate flower
That faded long ago to death and dust
In our young hearts. Ambition there holds up
Its splendid gifts, and in our hands we grasp
The prize we covet dearer than our life.
There, lips are kissed that drown the soul with love,
And voices whisper us to heavenly trance,
And wishes reach their goal. There you may find
The cabala on which is fairly writ
The squaring of the circle—the receipt
For alchemists to make the wondrous stone,
And to achieve perpetual motion. There
Are faultless pictures, statues, poems, songs,
That sternest critics strive in vain to blame.
One cabinet contains, placed side by side,
A pair of shabby, little, worn-out shoes,
A golden locket with an auburn curl,
A dry dead rose, the yellow page whereon
The drawing of a childish hand is seen,
And a love-letter stained with blots of tears—
Ah! touch them not, for they will make you weep!
There is a box crammed full of broken hopes
And childish joys we careless threw away
And never could recover, though lifelong
We prayed the truants to return again.

Here for a time, while sleep's dim door is shut,
What waking life denies, in dreams is given.
Here, sleeping, you may quaff the drink of gods,
And in a moment know perennial youth.
Nor this alone—but through the wilds of space,
Borne to the universe's verge, may rush
Up to the gates of heaven, and see below
In endless swarming all the fiery spheres
Flash through the solemn depths of silent night.

Pass through this room—'tis but a vestibule
That opens to a vaster drearier hall—
Where horrent dreams steal noiselessly about,
And opiate shapes of sick delirium swarm,
And nightmares wander. There the Marids dwell
And Ghouls, and Ginns, and Afrites huge and black,
And forms so faint that they elude the eye.
These, as you look upon them, shift and change,
Mow, mock, and threaten, and pursue your steps
As, wild with fear, you strive with leaden feet
To flee their presence. There, in awe and dread,
Vague horrors creep that have no name on earth,
Found in the fevered dreams of wicked souls,
And sent me from the East. There upward stretch,
Leading to nowhere, monstrous galleries,
Where slipping, sliding, goes the 'wildered thought
Up endless convolutions into heights
So vast we totter in a vague dismay
Or drop to blankness. There huge caverns gape,
Dripping with terrors, into which we slip
Despite our death-like graspings for support.
There whirl a million dizzy wheels of thought,
And spin to madness. With your waking steps
You need not fear them—they're unreal all.

Here stay your feet; nor curious seek to pass
The massive door that opens out beyond.
What lies behind, your eyes must never see—
Never without the charm to keep you safe,
For there lies death, unless the charm you own.
“Give it to me,” you cry—so curious, then?
If you insist, of course; and you'll admit
Eve is your mother. Never say again
That women have no curiosity.
Ah! now you frown, and with a look of pride
Reject my offer. So, love, let it be.
I'll keep the charm, and say 'tis just as sure
That you are curious as that I'm unkind.
Both false—and here's the key, dear Fatima;
And pray obey my warning—never look
Into the Cabinet of Death, for there
A step were fatal if without the charm.
So fare you well.—Ah! I forgot to say
The key's a fairy that will tell me all.
Don't shake your finger at me, and curl up
That pretty lip with scorn. Better a kiss!
Perhaps I'd better leave the charm—no! no!
Not one word more—only a kiss—farewell!