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9
THE TEMPTATION OF VENUS.
A MONKISH LEGEND.
I
Broad in the tempered rays of the red sun,The Egyptian desert glittered leagues away,
Great clouds of floating dust, confused and dun,
Hung heavy on the haggard brow of Day,
And veiled the fiery light of that fierce clime,
As Centuries veil the land's mysterious prime.
II.
The parchèd palms stood motionless and mute,To plead the breezes' coming; the still sky
Looked heedless on the melancholy suit,
Nor sent the faintest wind to breathe reply;
Nature had sunk to dumbness; no sweet voice
Bade the dull soul of solitude rejoice.
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III.
And near the horizon, a broad band of beams,Dulled by the fog of sands, was bound upon
The forehead of the sickly Eve, the gleams
Of whose wild eyes, all desolate, and wan,
Glowed fitfully, and with that gloomy glare,
Which lights the looks of passionless despair.
IV.
No fleet bird flying to its nightly nest,Piped a low, homeward note of innocent glee,
But by the waning portals of the West,
As rising to some dim Eternity,
A single eagle towered in lonely state,
Fronting the lurid sunset's gorgeous gate.
V.
And placid through the silence and the waste,A haunted realm of immemorial years,
By solemn mysteries, and sad shades embraced,
Where phantom Fable her weird aspect rears,
And the dead Ages' ghosts in shadowy might,
And shrouded grandeur, wander into Night,
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VI.
Roll the still waters of the ‘breezeless’ Nile,Like an old dream through a dismantled brain,
That faintly brings the sunlight, and the smile,
And the far memories of its youth again;
A vision of the desert; a sublime
Memento mori of the eldest time.
VII.
A furlong from the stream's remotest edge,The rude walls of a convent rose from out
A mass of circumambient rocks, whose ledge,
By a thin belt of green was girt about;
A place of peaceful prayer and pious rest,
Whose sacred bounds a special saint had blest:
VIII.
That holy man of God, whose awful zealStruck pale the cheek of many an anchorite,
Who knew his own faith cold, and could but feel,
In the great blaze of Simeon's steadfast light
Of grand endurance, that the hope was dim,
Which promised Heaven to feeble souls, like him.
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IX.
This sombre evening, when the vesper-psalmHad fainted to an echo, sad and low,
There thrilled upon the passive season's calm,
A dreary, deathlike wail of sudden wo,
That left the shocked sense, quivering as it past
On the hot wings of the delirious blast.
X.
The startled monks looked forth in haste to seeWhat demon was abroad. Lo! the wide Heaven,
A moment since, expanded tranquilly,
Now seemed from its serene foundations riven,
And tossed in clouds of chaos; horrid loom
The ghastly eyeballs of the dread Simoom.
XI.
And folded in his arms' Titanic sweep,A hapless caravan of doomèd men,
Rent the red air from fiery deep to deep,
With frenzied cries, his breath soon stilled again;
And when his flaming fury vanished by,
There was no sign of life beneath the sky.
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XII.
Yet while the monks stood gazing with the aweOf speechless horror blazoned on each face,
From the spent outskirts of the storm, they saw
Two shapes emerge—reeling beyond the place
Of doom and desolation—hand in hand,
They staggered from the burning pall of sand.
XIII.
Then, the good Fathers' hospitable doorsWere backward dashed, and a loud shout of cheer,
Such as, perchance, those lone, lethargic shores
Had never roused before, rang silver-clear,
And, like some rescuing Angel's tender call,
Wedded with music from celestial hall,
XIV.
Smote on the Wanderers' hearing—a new strengthUpbraced the sinking limb, the glimmering sight
Grew lucid with fresh hope, until at length
Saved from the wingèd Pestilence, their flight
Was stayed, and Death's insatiate eyes
Were turned from those he falsely deemed his prize.
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XV.
The one, a graceful woman, the fine mouldOf whose pale beauty, pointed to the land
Of Helen, the divine—a cross of gold
Shone on her bosom, whence the winds had fanned
Her garment slightly, and revealed the snow
Of the rare loveliness that heaved below.
XVI.
Beside her clung a boy, whose tender ageScarce filled a lustrum—through the starting tear,
Gleamed his full, luminous eye—the terrible rage
Of the late storm had left a touch of fear
Upon his marble forehead, and the strife
Sent the warm blood back to the seat of life.
XVII.
A wounded rose and rose-bud linked together,Borne by a tempest from Arcadian vales,
And dropped within a realm of burning weather,
Where the bloom withers, and the music fails,
This gentle pair a kindly friendship wooed,
And Christian care made bright the solitude.
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XVIII.
But ere a single moon did wax and wane,The mother melted in the Peace above,
As stars melt from the morning's purple plain;
Ere lost in light, one pang her mortal love
Struck to the parting soul, and dimmed its way
A moment, to the Kingdom of the Day.
XIX.
I need not tell how, in that desolate home,The boy aspired to manhood, how the flowers
Of a most noble nature 'neath the dome
Of sheltering love, bloomed through the lonely hours,
White, fragrant, beautiful,—so, had he then
Translated been from this low sphere of men,
XX.
And borne among the Angels, even there,He might have stood on equal terms with them,
Undazzled, walked in Heaven's auroral air,
And worn unquestioned Heaven's high diadem,
For Faith's pure fires had made his heart their shrine,
And fused his human-life in God's divine.
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XXI.
But when was ever known, since Time began,A Paradise of soul that did not lie
Open to every desperate foe of man,
To curse with crime, or blast with treachery?
Philemon learned the mournful truth too late,
The spirit's weakness, and the serpent's hate.
XXII.
And so, it chanced, when eighteen summers showedTheir mellowing glory on his brow of peace,
One morn, when less intense the sunlight glowed,
And the still stream, in joyance of release
From its hot kisses, rippled to the strand,
With a low monotone, serene and bland;
XXIII.
Philemon, in a meditative mazeOf happy fancies wandering, reached a spot,
Beyond the bounds of his accustomed ways,
Where the grim desert Genius lingered not,
Whose bloom the lavish Spring dropped as she flew
Through the still aëther, deepening all the blue.
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XXIV.
A vale of greenery 'mid the sterile blight,Sheltered by two great hillocks, with a crown
Of palm-trees fronting northward; still and bright
Looked the oasis; a rill trickled down
Right through the heart of the sweet place, and made
A murmurous melody,—Philemon strayed
XXV.
Where the waves lured him, until suddenlyBeside a fountain, the glad rivulet's source,
Where every gentle thing was wont to flee
From the noon's sullen glare, or tempest's force,
Like a grey grandsire, by a prattling child,
A shadowy ruin rose from out the wild.
... Even if the supernatural element in the legend be not considered, it will scarcely be thought unwarrantable that the ruins of a Greek villa should be introduced on the borders of the desert, when we reflect that a large proportion of the inhabitants of Alexandria from its foundation were Greeks, and that nothing is more probable than that the wealthier classes among them should have indulged in the luxury of country retreats, accessible by a brief journey up the Nile.
XXVI.
Near it, there lay half-buried in the drift,Swathing the columns and the portico,
Statues of Grecian gods, that mutely lift
Their sad, discrownèd honors in the glow
Of mocking skies—each desecrated form,
The plaything of the alternate sun and storm.
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XXVII.
With trembling limbs, and a new sense of wrong,Philemon shrank by the strange idols nigh,
Entered the porch irresolute, and long
Doubted, if safe it were to feast the eye
More closely on this spectacle—at last,
Crushing a fear, the threshold-steps were past.
XXVIII.
He reached a room of model strictly Greek,Supported by Corinthian shafts, that rose
(Cast in the fairest form of the antique)
With that aërial lightness of repose,
Which crowns the perfect grace—th' ideal wrought
In the clear depths of true artistic Thought.
XXIX.
Around, the storied walls were thickly hungWith master-works of the Hellenic mind,
The embodied lays the ancient Poets sung,
Ere the gross world was stricken fancy-blind,
And men in elemental Nature saw
Glory and Love, not the cold gleam of Law.
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XXX.
But life-like and magnificent beyondAught else enshrined there, the Image starts
Of Her, the ever-young, the fair, the fond,
Whose empire is the universe of hearts,
Whose influence, all-pervading and all seeing,
Glows, like a golden joy, round Nature's being.
XXXI.
O! Venus Aphrodite! the sole birthOf perfect passion, and enduring love,
Vouchsafed to excommunicate from earth
All other creeds of beauty, and to prove
The rapturous homage at thy happy shrine,
The one, grand faith of men, all deem divine:
XXXII.
O! Venus Aphrodite! when the waveOf the becalmed Ægean brought the Day
A vision of that glory the Gods gave,
Humanity's rough edge to melt away,
The winds grew mute, the thrilled tides owned thy might,
Thou Incarnation of the world's delight.
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XXXIII.
The Sun, from his blue realm of air, looked downInto thine eyes' supreme beatitude,
And formed about thy shining hair, a crown
Of many rays; the Hours their haste subdued,
To robe thee in transparent vestments drawn
From the far woof of the ascending Dawn.
XXXIV.
See where she moves! the delegated QueenOf sunny shapes, sweet moods, and heavenly thought,
Filling the Air with halos,—a serene
Soul, from the great depths of being brought
To vitalize Creation, and to stir
The Heaven and Earth alike to worship her.
XXXV.
See where she moves! her white arms wreathed aroundThe daintiest of the Graces, her sweet glance
Most eloquent in meaning, though no sound
Of song or speech hath broken yet the trance
Of the lulled Ocean, and her rosy mouth
Breathes only the fine odors of the South.
This apostrophe to the higher qualities of Aphrodite, is purposely placed in opposition to the grosser idea of the legend. Indeed it was not until the identification of the Greek Goddess with the Roman Venus, that she became mostly a sensual Divinity. The Incarnation of love and beauty, and the representative of the eternal freshness and vivifying force of Nature, she appears the most exquisite and graceful conception in the marvellous Hellenic mythology; but the ‘earthiness’ of the Roman imagination was all-infecting, and under its transforming influence Aphrodite degenerated into a mere voluptuary. It was reserved for the Fathers to invest her with the additional honor of a Fiendship.
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XXXVI.
What wonder that Philemon oft repairsTo worship this new Deity; to steep
His spirit in enchantment, till the years
Of a full vigorous manhood rise, and leap
Full-armed upon him, powerful to succeed
In dragging Faith from canticle and creed.
XXXVII.
Thus, when the time was ripe, the legend saith,That wondrous picture's sweet original,
With honeyed words, and music-laden breath,
Came to complete Philemon's hapless fall;
Eager he sprung, subdued to her command,
And past with her, to Love's Elysian-land.
XXXVIII.
Two milk-white chargers bore them to the homeOf Faërie, on a lustrous night in June,
Glance the fleet steeds beneath the alternate dome
Of sky and forest, pallid with the moon,
Speeding with phantom swiftness on the wind,
Which, sometimes baffled, seemed to moan behind.
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XXXIX.
At length, they entered on a wildernessOf dusky foliage and a gloom severe,
Which, like the clinging horror of distress,
Hung round the trees,—a girding ghost of fear—
The tutelar Genius of a dismal realm,
No tide of rays from sun, or star, could whelm.
XL.
Yet sudden, 'mid the dimness of the wood,A radiance like the flush of vernal eves,
Stole warmly through the sombre solitude,
And played in purple on the glimmering leaves;
Slowly in lessening shadows, waned the night,
Pervaded by that rich, voluptuous light.
XLI.
How shall I picture the supreme amazeWith which—an open pathway having won—
Philemon rode into the mellowed blaze,
Like muffled beams of a thin-clouded sun—
That shone from a broad Palace, lifting there
Its unimagined wonders in the air—
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XLII.
Dome piled on dome continuous, filled the sky,With a crystalline lustre, whose clear hue,
As it receded heavenward, dreamily,
Like a far constellation gemmed the blue—
That drank a nebulous lustre from the spires,
Remotely raised, where pale the mystic fires.
XLIII.
In voiceless admiration gazed the youth,On such supernal beauty; not in dreams,
Or most fantastic mockeries of the truth,
Upreared by Fancy, had the feeblest gleams
Of a like splendor shone, presaging thence
This stately and serene magnificence.
XLIV.
They reached the court-yard, and dismounting, pastUp a grand marble stairway, flooded o'er
With a glad, golden glory from the vast
Interior chambers streaming evermore,
Like the Aurora, glittering to and fro,
Across a pallid solitude of snow—
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XLV.
When the last step was gained, a massive doorWith faint, melodious thunder rolled apart,
And, standing on a rare, mosaic floor,
Circled by dazzling plenitudes of art,
Philemon paused, o'erburdened with excess
Of novel and bewildering loveliness.
XLVI.
Soft in his ear a silvery accent sighs,‘Advance with me, and share my fond endeavor
To tread the mazes of this Paradise,
Which I have promised shall be yours forever;
That you may meet, blest mortal, face to face,
Th' entrancing secrets of this marvellous place.’
XLVII.
She seized his hand, and at that moment swelledA strain of thrilling music overhead,
Sweet as the supernatural lays that spelled
Earth's daughters, ere Time's early bloom was dead,
When Angels wooed them, and the 'rapt sky rung
Harmonious echoes to the heavenly tongue.
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XLVIII.
These notes dissolving in a genial shower,Fell from a cloud of ever-varying glow,
That where the temple's loftiest arches tower,
Had been upborne from incense shrines below,
And veiled within whose breast, some God of song,
Outpoured a soul whose love had suffered wrong.
XLIX.
It rose, a passionate sea of stormy sounds,And soared, till the vast area overflowed;
Then, bursting from the building's jealous bounds,
Too narrow for its frenzy, it bestowed
Its wild, tumultuous surges on the breeze,
That swept—a tempest thundering through the trees.
L.
And next, it sank, and sank, like ebbing tidesBy the still marge of Ocean, when the Moon
Hath lulled the rippling waste whereon she rides
Triumphant to the Night's unclouded noon,
And a scarce visible heaving stirs the deep,
Whose charmèd waves are dreaming in their sleep.
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LI.
Again it changes; and in frolic glee,The flowing of a soft and fairy measure,
Gushes upon the senses soothingly,
And steeps them in a dreamy mist of pleasure,
Recalling woodland bowers in vernal weather,
When you and Love first wandered forth together:
LII.
A silver rill of most mellifluous strain,Receding to a whisper, faint and far—
Lessened—then lost—as in the blue domain
Of distance quenched, the glory of a star—
Left a dead, desert silence, all athirst
To drink in life from a fresh music-burst.
LIII.
Soft in Philemon's ear the Temptress sighs,‘Advance with me, for thou hast only passed
The threshold of these pleasing mysteries,
And but a tithe of the sweet lore amassed,
With which I mean to charge thy earnest soul,
As clouds are charged with lightning, and control
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LIV.
The springs of subtler sympathies, than ereHave henceforth ruled thy being; a new sense,
The motion of a longing, sweet and rare,
Shall crownèd be with full intelligence,
Removing from thy life the desert ban,
To teach the power, and bring the bliss of man.’
LV.
And on through the tall colonnades they went,With linkèd hands, Philemon's eyes of fire,
Dashed with the dews of madness, strangely blent
With sense of sights bewildering,—the desire
Of further knowledge, and the looks that shine
In his Guide's glance, flushed as with fiery wine.
LVI.
And now they reached a fountain's marbled brink,And now they stood in rapture by the tide,
Where starry flowers were bending down to drink
Fresh beauty from the waters fair and wide,
Whose tremulous spray shot up as if in doubt,
Lest the grand rainbow dreams should struggle out.
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LVII.
While thus he paused, inhaling the fine mist,The balmy coolness of the great parterre,
Slowly the clouds of gold and amethyst
Unrolled their splendid vans along the air;
And burst another vision on his brain,
Whose very glory brought a touch of pain.
LVIII.
A vision of bright women—dancing girls,And sylphs of lightsome action and soft grace,
Enwreathèd with the whiteness of pure pearls,
Perfect in limb, and exquisite in face,
Poised, as if looking for a sign to mount
In rhythmic measures round that mystic fount.
LIX.
And the sign came!—a clash of cymbals grand,And the whole dazzling throng, with glancing feet,
Darted like shining arrows from the hand
Of a God-Archer, into circles fleet
Of matchless symmetry, and wanton art,
That snared the sense, to desecrate the heart.
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LX.
Philemon gazed till he could gaze no more,And fell, struck blind with passion; in his ears
There seemed to sound the liberated roar
Of the young blood, so stagnant kept for years
Of bald Egyptian solitude, and so
The stormier now in its unfettered flow.
LXI.
Soft in his ear a silvery accent sighs,‘Advance with me—diviner secrets yet
Await to crown the wonder in thine eyes,
Already on the sweet fruition set
Of this, our wild Elysium of all joy,
Which Time can never blight, nor Death destroy.’
LXII.
And the fond arm that now but touched his own,Stole like a zone of fire about his breast;
Uplifted from the purple-veinèd stone,
O'ermastered still by a supreme unrest,
He wandered with the dame down dim arcades,
And the mild gloom of immemorial shades:
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LXIII.
There, brooded Twilights of a hundred dyes,Caught from the sunsets of those lands of balm,
Where deathless Summer radiates through the skies
And spreads below her an immortal calm;
Through the dun shadows countless pinions plied,
And a Song-Spirit warbled by his side.
LXIV.
They reach a grotto, bowered about with vines,Whence gleam the luscious grapes thro' the dusk rays,
Like sapphire globes of a soft flame, that shrines
The subtle essence the wine-votaries praise,
And there, through bars of deepening verdure glows
A sensuous mystery of divine repose.
LXV.
The full-orbed Moon is setting in the West,Flooding the landscape with a Sea of splendor,
The wanton Wind faints on the rose's breast
In delicate dalliance, tremulous and tender,
And a serene and silvery haze is spread
Among the tranquil spaces overhead.
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LXVI.
O! most bewitching Hour of all the Hours,The rugged, common Time is not thy Sire,
Thou stealest forth from the voluptuous flowers,
Born of their passion, and the starry fire
Flushed o'er them, as a God's love bathed of old,
A mortal maid in a rich rain of gold.
LXVII.
‘Philemon! MY Philemon!’ how the toneThrilled through him with a tender power to thrall!
His scrupulous Fears, those guardian Saints, have flown,
And bared to the base Evil now, is all
His plastic nature;—the long strife is past,
And the mad victim blindly yields at last.
LXVIII.
So, on the dewy atmosphere, outgushedA world of sighs, whose amorous plenitude
Stole to the Nightingale's green home, where hushed,
And dreaming, drooped the Minstrel of the Wood,
And set the music, sleep had frozen, free,
In tropic tides of tender harmony.
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LXIX.
The mellowed plash of fountains—the low breeze,That fitful rose, and sank, and died away,
With scarce an answering whisper from the trees,
Awed by the passion of that wondrous lay,
Came, the first cloud of his soul's tempest spent,
With a strange sense of drowsy languishment:
LXX.
But ever, if perchance on the unrest,And rosy riot of his heart, there fell
The gleam of a pure thought, the Temptress guessed
Its presence and its purport, and too well
Plied the potential magic of that charm,
Whose fiery poison worked the deadly harm.
LXXI.
And thus, from day to day, from week to week,From shameless month to month, the potion fed
On blood of brain and body, till the cheek
Grew colorless, and the sapped soul was dead,
Through whose dried branches to Decay resigned,
Remorse rushed howling, like a hollow wind.
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LXXII.
The pestilential pool of Sensual Sin,Crept inch by inch upon him; to the core
Each nobler impulse withered, and within
The mind's waste garden, girded round of yore
By holy aspirations, a foul blight
Hung like the pall that circles Hell with night.
LXXIII.
The flowers no longer shed their sweets for him,For him, the winds no tender secret brought,
The very stars in Heaven looked wan and dim,
Seen through the tainted shadows of his thought;
He walked a hideous realm of phantasy,
Swayed by a sullen gloom, or desperate glee.
LXXIV.
Thus sunk, thus hopeless, this pale prodigalOf the soul's priceless treasure, on an Eve,
Whose breath came chill like Autumn's, and the fall
Of whose sad footsteps a low dirge did weave
With faint elegiac breezes, sat beside
His leman in the daylight's ebbing tide.
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LXXV.
To hers he would have pressed his feverish lips,Her willing breast was free to his embrace,
When the quick shadow of a sharp eclipse
Came o'er the purple passion of her face;
Her eyes were fixed with a wild, marble stare
On space, and some momentous vision there.
LXXVI.
Philemon with a sudden, shuddering thrill,Followed her palsied looks, till he could see,
Down dropping thro' the mist-wreaths, bright and still,
An Image of divine serenity;
Whose lucent, pitying, melancholy eyes,
Shone on him like reproachful memories.
LXXVII.
Between his Love and him the Presence stood,With tender glance, and mien of gentlest power;
The Evil Spirit cowered before the Good,
As Darkness cowers, when blooms the Morning Hour,
That rose from God's glad garden, that distils
Its living fragrance round a thousand hills.
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LXXVIII.
A sound like the far rush of wings uprose,O'ermastering Silence, gathering mightily,
As when great flocks of birds with measured blows
Of powerful vans sweep o'er the solemn sea:
Then came the thunder-peal, the fiery levin,
As if a star had burst its bounds in Heaven.
LXXIX.
And down from crystal battlement to base,The enchanted Palace crumbled into dust,
To blackness sank the beauty and the grace
With which the Goddess veiled the home of Lust;
Whence for an instant shot a deadly glare,
Flashed from the eyes of some demoniac Fear.
LXXX.
Philemon sought his Guide, from her to askFit consolation in this dread extreme,
But the fair Angel had performed her task,
And now, faint, fading upward as a dream,
Her white plumes shamed the clouds, whose dense array,
Closed into silvery splendors round her way.
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LXXXI.
But when the form receded to a pale,Impalpable shade, like ghosts of clouds that pass
Across the Moon, winged by a noiseless gale,
Or the weird mist that shrouds the Wizard's glass,
A solemn voice stole on him from afar,
Like music melting from some mournful Star.
LXXXII.
‘Poor Priest of Passion! thou hast fed the fireOn the fierce Altar builded in thy breast,
Consumed the wings of every grand Desire,
And scorned the Seraph whose sweet love had blest;
Thy soul hath lost its God-ward impulse long,
And thou art dead to Crown, and Palm, and Song.
LXXXIII.
‘Look back! O fallen man, and mark the wayThy pliant footsteps were not loth to tread,
While blushed the aureole of a perfect day,
And Christ's last word of grace was almost said,
Which, uttered once, the awful veil is riven,
That sways between our mortal sight and Heaven.
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LXXXIII.
‘Look back! O fallen man, and mark the bloomThat blossomed on thy childhood's golden sky,
Bent like a bow of promise o'er the boom
Of life's uncertain Sea—a melody
Most glorious sounded from those shining waves,
But now the tide seems moaning over—graves.
LXXXV.
‘The graves of all thy upright soul had borneWell pleasing to the Angels—desolate now
The brooding waters—stagnant, and forlorn
The sky, that laughed once, like a happy brow;
And ere thy noon, the sad years sin-oppressed,
Are rushing blackly downward to the West.
LXXXVI.
‘Go forth to find thy crime's just recompense,Go forth to meet the Sorrow and the Shame,
Which to the Souls who canonize the Sense,
Cling ever, like fierce Serpents born of flame,
Draw in earth's lowest Air thy laboring breath,
And learn the full significance of death.
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LXXXVII.
‘Yet from the ruin of thy low estate,A penitential patience hath sufficed
To plume the heart for the Empyreal gate,
And the serene benignity of Christ;
In humbleness and prayer work out thy doom,
Till Glory trembles from the depths of Gloom.
LXXXVIII.
‘Then may'st thou face the Beautiful, and bareThy willing spirit in the starry sea
Of still Beatitudes,—then may'st thou share
Our God's high Noon of Immortality,
And drink from His grand eyes that burn above,
The quenchless light and perfect peace of love.’
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