Laurella and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

‘They are full of visions, dreams, revelations, trances, mountings, ecstasies. To hear them discourse is great wonder; for common things are to them mysteries. They will find whole macrocosms in the fall of a sparrow.’—History of the Mystics.

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A VISION OF DEATH.

On the white margin of a dim sea-beach
I stood. Behind me lay the mystery
Of an invisible ocean, roll'd in clouds
Upgather'd from its face in thunderous folds,
Whose volum'd hugeness, in grim Titan throes,
Contorted and convolv'd, yet seemed to hang.
On the still'd air like a volcano's smoke;
Majestical in ponderous self-restraint,
For all their dreadful working. Black as death,
Or the deep night of chaos, hung those clouds,
Unpierceable by the sweet morning beams
Of the new-risen sun, which scarce had power
To silver them a little on the edge.

But all along the fair line of the coast,
Foam-crested billows, full of lusty life,
Leap'd out beneath the columns of the cloud,
And broke upon the shore; and caught the sun
In the swift eddies of their gleeful surf:
And dash'd the polish'd pebbles to and fro,
With such a fresh and shingling noise, as made

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A gladness in my heart. Then, like a child
In a new wonder-world, I stoop'd and por'd
For hours on all the treasures of the beach—
On rainbow'd bubbles, winking quaintly out,
Left by the hissing spaces of the foam;
On strange sea-creatures, corallines, and shells,
And fragile weeds of hues the loveliest,
All smelling of the sea; whose ancient breath
Mov'd me to tears, and yearning, and deep love
Of that mysterious ocean. And all the while
The sound of its long thundering on the shore
Boom'd in mine ears. And suddenly a thought,
Delightful and yet dreadful, seiz'd on me
With shuddering of rapt awe: ‘How came I hither?
Across yon trackless ocean from what land?
Or was I flung from out the ocean's breast
Even as a weed?’ Whereat I stood and gaz'd
Into the clouds; but answer to my thought
Found nowhere none. Yet something in my heart
Whisper'd me that not many hours ago
I could have found an answer. Then those clouds
Smiled like familiar faces. Hours ago?
Hours—hours: Or was it years? And then I saw
My shadow, like a luminous belt upon
The blackness of the cloud.

But now the sun
Made pleasant all the air, and songs of birds

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From the unexplor'd recesses of the Isle,
Came with sweet inland odours on the breeze,
Luring me from the shore. Inward I mov'd
By slopes of delicate grass, which gradually
Broaden'd into a meadowy wilderness—
A paradise of flowers, where still the dew
Trembled in blissful tears upon the spray,
Diamonded blade and bud, and hung with pearls
The filméd gossamer. And everywhere
Was snow'd from lavish fruit trees in full bloom
A wealth of roseate petals,—blown about
On sunniest knolls where splendid cowslips grew,
And shadiest nooks belov'd of primroses;—
Sent eddying into nests of violets;
And shed beside soft crimson daisy-buds.
There the sweet air was loud with utter joy
Of birds, and bees, and grasshoppers that sang
Shrilly as birds. The very flies humm'd loud
Above the warmth of basking beds of thyme.
The butterflies were giddy with delight
And flutter'd up and down beneath the blue,
In wavering glimpses of pale colour. All
Was morning, and rathe Spring, and festal life!
But I rush'd on half-blindly, like a child
Drunk with the mere excitement of the Spring,—
On through the verdurous freshness of a wood;
Trampling the hyacinths with my careless feet,

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And the frail pasque-flower, ruthlessly, and scarce
Pausing to pluck a stray forget-me-not
From out a stream, before I left the wood,
And mounted blindly up a steep of rocks,
Clinging and clambering, till with wearied limbs,
Bruis'd in the toil, I found myself at last
Safe-landed on the summit.

Pantingly
I stood and gaz'd around. Before me lay
A region sloping to a mountain-side,
Like a rich valley lifted on the flank
Of some majestic Alp—the soft green grass
Undulant about the giant stems of oak,
Walnut, and beech, and chesnut, emerald gleam'd
Where the sun smote it. But beyond, the clouds
Hung low upon the forest, and conceal'd
The mountain from my view. A single peak
Volcanic sprang to assert itself above,
Cutting the blue with its pure crown of snow,
And stood there still and stern. Out of the clouds
Came ever and anon a sullen roll
Of thunder, like the voice of the Beyond;
And all around me I heard near and far
A noise of rushing torrents.

On the brink
Of that sheer wall of rock so rashly scal'd,
I lay to rest, couch'd upon springy heath,

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Among the myrtles that grew everywhere
About the upjutting crags, mingling their flowers
With rhododendrons and pale cistus blooms.
And now that sole spray of forget-me-not,
Flung from my careless hand upon the sod,
Seem'd to look up with blue upbraiding eyes—
Most homelike, sisterlike. I know not why
It fill'd me with such passion of regret
For all the Paradise left far behind,
For evermore behind—and weigh'd upon me
With fateful bodings of the drear To-come!

Soon, as I lay, the fragrance rich and dim
Breath'd from those myrtle's mystic chalices,
Wherein the Angel of Delight had once
Whisper'd the orient secret of the moon,
With blissful spells and ancient wizardry
Of love, was wafted o'er me, and combin'd
Lullingly with the cool and silverous sound
Of waters in mine ears. My soul was fill'd
With a voluptuous splendour of romance
And pomp of dreams chivalric, and my heart
Throbb'd high, as in its golden prime of love,
With secret and ineffable exstasy,
Serene and sweet—until there came again
The yearning of the sea. Swift to my feet
I sprang, and earnestly gaz'd back. I saw
Far off the mighty columns of the cloud

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Black as at first. But, all at once, behold!
Even as I gaz'd, terrible brightness shone
Through their abysses, blaz'd to heaven, and died
In tenfold darkness—silent and sublime,
As Autumn lightnings palpitant through all
The spaces of the night. Again, again,
And yet again, it leap'd against the sun
And dimm'd it. Like the brandish'd sword of God
It lighten'd through the abysses of the cloud—
Apocalyptic splendour! Yet withal
It was, methought, a pure and living light,
That hurt not for its excellent brightness. Prone
I flung myself when its last pulse had ceas'd,
And hid my eyes and peer'd into the dark
To see what I had seen. In second sight
I read the hidden vision. I beheld
The billows of the illimitable main—
The mystery of their eternal change.
And lo! a floating island mov'd upon them,
Full of dim shapes; and creatures like to Gods
Wander'd through lucid labyrinths in and out;
And semblance of angelic multitudes
Stream'd up and down amid the radiance
Upstreaming from the isle. And where the light
Fell on the waves I saw how all the sea
Was full of life. But evermore the peak
Of the volcano with its muffling clouds,

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Dwelt like a deepening shadow in mine eyes,
And blurr'd the vision.

But now the sun grew hot;
And the low-lying mists were lifted from
The shoulders of the mountain, where the pines
Hung sombre like a garment.

Only around
The central peak clung a mysterious veil,
Gathering and waning changefully in the wind,
Impenetrable ever. Then my heart
Was fill'd with irresistible desire
And fiery impulse toward the frozen fields
That slept in cloud. I hurried on my path
Upward, still upward, through the pleasant slopes;
Leaving the gracious chesnut shades—the oaks,
Great-hearted in their strength—the walnut trees,
Magnificent as oaks, which wav'd to me
From their dusk leaves a perfume as I pass'd;
Till, toiling up the heathy crags, I gain'd
The skirts of the pine-forest. A cool of awe
Fell on me as I enter'd, such as falls
Upon one entering from the sunny street
Some dim cathedral's vastness hush'd and still.
The mountain rose between me and the sun,
Impending o'er me its gigantic bulk,
Dreadful as death; and all the twilight gloom
Was full of strange forebodings. Fitfully

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There swept throughout the melancholy aisles
A soughing wind that rose, and sighing died
In solemn and sonorous cadences,
Mysteriously. A ghost of forest balm
Haunted the air, like incense shaken still
Day after day from the obsequious hands
Of mournful Dryads, in the sacred groves
Of their forgotten Pan. And all around
I saw the mighty stems of ancient pines
Shot stern and straight into the sky. No note
Of bird reliev'd the utter loneliness.
Wearily I clamber'd on from tree to tree,
From crag to crag, through the deep forest-dells
Where all the ground was hoar with knee-deep moss—
Wandering and lost, until there boom'd a sound
Of waters in mine ears. I was athirst,
And made toward its cool murmuring. Louder grew
The deep and sullen roar, and louder still;
And suddenly I came upon a gorge,
Where pent between the bleak precipitous rocks,
Below me far, I saw the torrent rush,
Boiling and bellowing in the drear abyss,
Its lurid surges raging into foam
Around the tumbled boulders. And above
Its highest cataract, where the gorge was cleft,
Between the parted pines I mark'd the gleam
Of a great glacier.

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Pushing boldly on,
I found a path which wound along the marge
Of the abyss, and lo! a crystal stream
Well'd up beside it, gushing out beneath
A giant rock, which sprang across the way
Threateningly. There I drank, and felt new life
In all my wearied limbs. Around the face
Of that huge rock I crept half-trembling—slow—
Clinging with feet and hands in dizzy fear.
Then, climbing on and leaping chamois-like
From block to block, and labouring upward still,
At length I stood upon the glacier's brink
And saw its frozen cataracts coil'd about
The broad base of the peak, whose lonely snows
Were lost in muffling cloud. I stood and view'd
The silent surging of yon flood of ice,
Which heav'd into ten thousand ridgy crests
And pinnacles grotesque—phantasmal shapes,
White formless forms, like Styx-bound multitudes
Of ghosts, down-thronging, eager through despair,
Rank after rank—the foremost urged along
Inexorably by the resistless weight
Of the still-crowding myriads. All between
The lucid rifts gleam'd with ethereal hues
Of purest azure. Silence awfully
Possess'd the clarid spaces of the air
Like a living spirit—unarous'd from sleep

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By the chill tinkling of the glacier-streams,
Or crack of ice, or moan of avalanche.
On the far shore an ancient lava-flood
Came sternly down to where the keen bright waves
Of the ice-river had cut their pauseless way
Through it and over it; till both huge tides,
Turning, flow'd down together to the vale,
Ice over lava. The swart lava-flood
Led up to the recesses of the peak,
Like a broad causeway: and on either hand
Was pour'd a loose shingle of stony waste—
Pumice and scoriæ, pil'd in pyramids
Against the bases of black barren cliff.
There on the brink I stood, and shudder'd, faint,
Dwarf'd into nothingness. I seem'd to look
Into the eyes of death. Was it despair,
Rapture of daring, madness, that prevail'd
To urge me on? For almost ere I knew
That will had grown to action, I was there,
Upon the glacier, battling with the ice,
Struggling from certain death to certain death,
From ridge to ridge; crevass upon crevass,
Yawning to gulf me, pass'd I knew not how,
Until I paused high on the farther shore,
Escap'd from all the the perils of the way.
Then, mounting on the mighty lava-blocks,
The first grim steps of that tremendous stair

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Which led I knew not whither, I stood still
And turn'd to gaze. There lay the mountain side
O'ergloom'd with pines; far off the verdurous glades
And breadths of sloping woodland; further yet
My wilderness of flowers; beyond, the clouds
Still brooding o'er the ocean. And behold!
The wide delight of mountain, glade, and plain
Slept in the sunset. Sweeter than a dream,
All rested silent in the sacred light!
Then, as the sun slow sank into the sea,
His golden face began to glow blood-red,
And the low clouds flush'd luridly. The gloom
Of gathering rain had roll'd upon the west
From mountain glens far inland. Fold on fold
Of sluggish nimbus sullenly seem'd to grow
Great-womb'd with blood and pregnant with despair
Like battle-smoke, lit by the flames of war
By night upon a field of slaughter. Soon
The conflagration paled as suddenly,
And ashen hues of death dwelt in the cloud,
And would not pass away. But through the rifts
And at the ragged skirts of rain, I saw
Glimpses of tenderest azure, vistas dim
Of spiritual ether, and far away
The spaces of the unstainéd hyaline.

Sighing, I turn'd again. The lava-flood
Grim in its terrible reality,

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Led up to the recesses of the mount,
Like a portentous flight of giant stairs,
Such as might give meet adit to the porch
Of some hypæthral temple—rear'd by hands
Of a Titanic race, ere wind of change
Had breath'd on the Saturnian dynasty.
Night fell; yet calm and passionless I stood,
With freezing limbs; my numb and palsied soul
Losing all certitude of self. I was not,
Only the vision was. Unterrified,
Listless of joy or grief, I stood. At last,
Rousing myself, I cried aloud; and straight
Scar'd at the human sound, over my head
Seven ravens started from a scaur, and flew
Screaming away. At that ill-boding scream
The livid lightnings blaz'd from out the peak—
Pale arrowy tongues of blue and sulphurous fire
Hissing from rock to rock. And awfully
The instantaneous thunder crash'd around,
Stunning the gloom with spasm and quake of air
At every detonation, and peal'd on
Reverberant through the mountain—seven times
Re-echoed and re-bellow'd—ere it died
In solemn and sonorous cadences.
And in the vivid-quivering flash, methought
I read the hieroglyph of some strange tongue,
Egyptian or Chaldee; and in the roll

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And metrical pause of the fierce thunder, heard
The dreadful scansion of some mighty line
Of unintelligible power.

The veil
Was rent before me, and on either hand,
And overhead, the massive clouds were pil'd,
Arching above the ascending lava-stair
Wondrously.

Then I saw no more the shape
Of anything distinctly, nor could feel
Motion of limb; nor know I if my soul
Were parted from the body, and borne on
Rushingly through the cloudy corridor.
For even as in a dream we feel ourselves
Wafted about in infinite ether, so
Mov'd without motion I was wafted on,
With a dim sense of mysteries seen and heard—
Gleaming of phantom fires that glar'd at me
With horrible features pale; and spectral limbs
Red with great gouts of blood; and ghastly eyes;
Voices, and shrieks, and thunderings of the mount.
Methought one cried: ‘Beware the second death!’
And one: ‘The Anguish! Let him enter in!
The kingdoms of the Anguish!’ And a third:
‘Igdrasil shall be blasted to the root!
Woe to the nations! Woe!’

But suddenly all

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Was as a thing long past. I saw the moon
Full in the sky, above the jagged rim
Of circling cliffs that wall'd with adamant
A vast and desolate crater, paven all
With tumbled crags, high pil'd, or toss'd about,
Like dismal billows on a frozen sea,
Or strewn in waste confusion. Fire, and frost,
And water, each had had its will of them.
And in the unsunn'd crannies lay the snow
Cold to the moon. Barren, and grim, and bleak,
That desert lay, unblest by touch of life.
Then, while my soul stood still, the central plain
Was toward me shifted slow. A charnel steam
Rose from the face of an unhallow'd mere,
Whose restless waves boil'd up with horrible gurge
And moan'd upon the shore. The stones around
Were stained with gory scurf. Anon there loom'd
Into my field of view the mighty mass
Of a tremendous castle, bas'd upon
The mere's marge. Nightmare-like it rose, and grew
Huger in its inevitable approach;
And as it came, damp horror worse than death
Fell on me, powerless even to move or shriek.
Slowly it drew nigh, and those abhorrèd doors
Gap'd for me like damnation. Over me
It swoop'd at last, extinguishing the stars;

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And I was ware how at the portal sat,
Muffled in gloomy garments of the night,
Abominable forms, unnamable
In any mortal tongue.

A sudden glare
Blinded me, and a sudden hateful din
Deafen'd my ears. The splendour of a dome
Shone overhead an inner temple court,
To whose vast brilliance and luxurious pomp
Of dreams unclean, a hundred brazen doors
Gave access. And a countless multitude
Of peoples, kindreds, tongues, and languages,
Throng'd in thereby unceasingly, and plung'd
Into the maelstrom of a devilish dance,
Surging around in ever-narrowing waves
Of filthier frenzy. Rang'd about the walls
The calm cold marble faces of the gods
Look'd down in scorn. I saw Apollo stand,
Beautiful as the dawn, instinct with light
And majesty of quenchless power,—the wrath
Of his victorious arrows yet unlaunch'd.
I saw the august Divinities of Nile,
Sphynx-like, from their eternal stillnesses
Gaze far beyond the Paphian revelry,
Away into the abysmal deeps of time,
With awful, earnest eyes—silent. They seem'd

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To wait the apparition of some orb
Of glory in the East.

Beneath the dome,
High in the midst, was rear'd an altar-throne
Of burnish'd gold, whereto a marble stair,
Seven-sided, easily led up. Thereon
I saw One sitting, with a jewell'd crown
And royal-seeming robe, dy'd as with blood
Of slaughter'd thousands, stiff with woven gold,
And all ablaze with gems: a monstrous form,
Gigantic, bestial, bloated. From his face,
Jaundic'd with sloth and coarse with cruelty,
The stony eyes dull glar'd in idiot pride
And deathful apathy of cold-blooded sin.
And on his lap sat, circled round with one
Luxurious arm, reclin'd against his breast,
The likeness of a woman, meteor-ey'd,
To blind with snakish fascination all
Who breath'd her baleful influence,—lithe of limb
And wanton as a tigress, and more fell.
There nestled she against the monster's breast
Her head thrown back, and all her lustrous hair
Shower'd down upon his shoulder as she lay,
Her splendid throat and bosom gleaming fair
As poisonous Datura-flowers; one arm
Flung round his neck, and one, uplifted high,
Holding a rubied chalice, whence she pour'd

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Upon the surging circles of the crowd
The blood of her accursed eucharist—
Her wine of fornication. Such a weird
And devilish beauty cloth'd her luridly,
As tempted once the father of mankind
In Lilith, and prevail'd, till his ill dreams
Peopled the world with demons. But between
Her Venus breasts, upon the flower-soft skin,
I saw a thing: and at the abhorred sight
My soul froze in despairful agony—
The brand of the unutterable woe!
The Anguish was reveal'd!

About the throne
Lay couch'd a hideous dragon, on whose crest,
Horribly ridg'd, the Anguish based a foot
For ease, as on a footstool.

From the dome
Incessant radiance stream'd, and I beheld
How all the vault was ceil'd with living snakes
Of gold, whose coils writhingly intertwin'd
In convolutions intricate, shook fire
From the attrition of their scales. Seven heads
Darted about the centre hissingly,
At venomous contention each with each—
A rain of death swift-dropping from their fangs
And vibrant tongues.

The reckless multitude

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Still reel'd around in the infernal chain
Of that unending can-can, to the sound
Of a demoniac orchestra—the shrill
Inciting scream of fifes libidinous,
And languid rapture-sighs of sensual strings,
And maddening clangour of blaspheming brass:
While evermore the whirling feet beat time
To the loud hell-drum and fierce clashing din
Of Bacchanal cymbals,—faster and more fast
As wax'd the rhythm more furious. Laughter dread,
And sharp accursed cries, and maniac yells
Burst forth appallingly—and songs obscene.
The air was hot with shame—sick with the reek
Of incense mingling with the sweats of hell.

Then I beheld how each successive whorl
Of frantic dancers, as they rag'd around,
Nearing the centre spirally, was fill'd
With keener cunning of impurity,
And huger ingenuity of lust,
And fiercer impetus of lecherous glee,
And inspiration of lasciviousness,
And epileptic fury, than the last.
There I saw eyes of unalloy'd despair,
And faces pale with anguish of desire,
And panting bosoms and contorted limbs,
And writhing arms—they whirl'd perpetually
In undistinguishable surf upon

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The billowing vortex. And on all there fell,
In horrible rain, great drops of poisonous blood,
The baptism of the Anguish; and on all
The fiery venom of the serpents fell.
And where these fell the leprosy of lust
Burst forth on scalp and limb; and bestial hearts
Were given them, and great wisdom to work out
Their own damnation. Ring by ring the leaven
Of hell wrought in them more and more, and chang'd
Their human frames to likeness of vile things
More brutal than the brutes, self-gender'd still
In hideous and unnatural mingling—down
Through lower forms and lower modes of death,
In retrograde progression. And at last,
With cursing and hyena-laughter, all
Were swallowed in the smoke of sacrifice
That rose around the throne.

Sickly I gaz'd
In shuddering fascination, half-compell'd
By some strong diabolic spell to plunge
Into the outmost eddies, loathing much
The felt tempation,—well-nigh swept away
By the swift whirlwind of the motion. So
I agoniz'd, resisting to the death;
My will, at dreadful tension, almost drows'd
By the persuasive atmosphere of sin.
Then in my agony I strove to call

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On God, if haply God were not a name:
But I was dumb. Yet on the moment came
A feeble sound of voices in the air,
Crying, as it seem'd: ‘How long, O Lord? How long?
Wilt thou not come and save us? When will dawn
The day of our deliverance?’ Then methought
I could have wept for very sympathy.

And lo! there fell from heaven a blessed cool
Of silence on my soul. The hellish din
Smote my ears faintly as from far away;
As one caught up from out a city's midst
A mile in air, might faintly hear the streets
Roar with a tidal murmur, so I heard
Sounding far off the surges of that crowd.
And in me, or around—I know not where,
I know not how—were born new sympathies
Outreaching in blind ecstasy of life
Toward some dim vast of Love. An inner sense
Woke with strange revelations of a world
New, yet familiar as a childhood's home
Long raz'd from face of earth, but evermore
Calm-standing in fresh fields of memory.

Then through the walls of adamant I saw
A dim gleaming of dawn. Silent it spread
Through their dissolving bulk as through a cloud,
Gradually, awfully, till all was lost
In ether of auroral distances;

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And the hot snake-light sickened in the pure
Of heaven. And holy breathings of the morn—
Wafture of dewy woods, impulses deep
From the rejoicing mountains, voices glad
Of cataracts leaping in their strength, and sighs
Of happy awaking from child-hearted flowers,
Came to me. And the sun's disc shone reveal'd
Over the misty meadows of the dawn,
A visible Shéchinah:—above that crowd
Which saw not how the Anguish pal'd for fear,
Nor all the empyreal mystery of the East
Far-flooded with the glory of the Lord.
Then, while in tremulous hope I marvell'd much
What this might harbinger, a burst of song
Shook in an instant earth and kindled sky,
And all the castle shudder'd, as the walls
Of Jericho at the victorious trump,
With its vibrating ecstasy. The bliss
Of inmost harmony wide-echoing rang
Through dumbest things, and made them orchestral.
‘Christ is arisen!’ I heard the antheming
Of the bright company of the morning stars;
I heard the voices of the Seraphim
Go forth sublime to the utmost ends of heaven,
Which seem'd to lighten music, and proclaim:
‘Christ is arisen!’ I heard the Cherubim
Cry to each other, golden-voiced, proclaiming:

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‘Christ is arisen! arisen!’ and veil'd my eyes
In the stupendous hush of deepest awe
That follow'd on that cry.

I look'd, and lo!
I saw One standing, like the Son of Man,
Strong as the dreadful firmament, and pure
As virginal crystal; and I saw his face
Glorious with infinite brightness, as of fire
Quickening the universe. Upon his head
The crown of thorns was budded marvellously,
For every thorn a flower of joy, snow-white,
And vermeil-ting'd, and ey'd with burning gold—
Sweeter than roses planted by still streams
In the blest fields of Sharon, holier
Than marriage lilies of St. Katharine:
The fragrance of them fill'd the abhorréd place
With sanctity. Snow-white his vesture shone;
But on his kingly shoulders glow'd the robe
Of supreme purple, and in his firm right-hand
The sceptral reed was grown an Aaron's rod,
And shepherded the nations. Out of him
Came majesty and might, and love divine,
And blessedness, and rest for evermore.
And all the gods bow'd down and worshipp'd him.

The sunshine of his terrible purity
Shone on the infernal revel like a curse,
And shrieks of fear and noise of cursing rose

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Against him from the multitude, and loud
Their orchestra bray'd forth its blasphemies,
Eager to drown the choiring of the stars;
And all the brutish drove of human swine
Rag'd in their maniac lusts before his face,
Gnashing their teeth and crying: ‘Let us alone,
Thou Christ! Torment us not; for what have we
To do with thee? Pass by and vex us not!’
And clouds of smoke went up to cover them,
With stench of incense.

And I saw no more
A human form; but a dread sea of death
Engulf'd them, capable no more of will,
Pleasure or pain: a frozen sea of ice
Mingled with lava.

Horror on me fell.
‘Is there no hope, O Lord!’ I cried; ‘no hope?’
And Christ look'd up to heaven with tearful eyes
Of infinite tenderness; but stern his voice
Rang like the judgment trumpet as he spake:
‘Who knows the mystery of iniquity?
God is Love.’

Lo, I stood beside the Seine
By night, and saw Parisian streets, ablaze
With splendours of Imperial festival,
And throng'd with moving thousands—eager all

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To sate their eyes on the spectacular pomp
Of gorgeous lights, gay lanterns, wildering spires
Of jetted flame, and lamps in labyrinths,
Which everywhere among the spectral trees
Glar'd on the heated gloom. Sheaf after sheaf
The dazzling rockets rush'd against the sky,
And shook their vivid jewels to the stars,
And pal'd and fell.

But far away the East
Was fill'd with glory. Silently, awfully
Titanic forms would half reveal themselves
An instant—huge on thrones of luminous cloud,
With Autumn lightnings palpitant through all
The spaces of the night. The crest of fire
That crown'd old Notre Dame wax'd pale thereat,
And the bright Pandemonian pomp of gas
Tawdry and sick in its intensity.
And my whole heart exulted. I beheld
How at his times God lets us gaze through Hell
Into the deeps of Heaven that lie beyond.

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A SONG OF EXPERIENCE.

I.—VITA NUOVA.

All a dismal winter's day
I wandered in a forest grey,
Whose branches made a sullen sound;
Where, weeping as I went, I found
A lily-bud divinely fair
Shivering in the frosted air.
I blessed and kissed the virgin bud,
And with three drops of my heart's blood,
I warmed her heart and made her mine:
And an awful joy did shine
Through the woodland mazes frore;
And where the scoffing wind before
Blasphemed among the naked boughs,
A gentle air flattered my brows
With whispers of some wondrous thing.
And suddenly meseemed that spring,
With her host of glad green leaves,
And fragrance dim of clustering threaves

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Of flowers among the pleasant grass,
Was come. And shadowy wings would pass
Of clouds over the tree-tops, stirr'd
With the voice of every bird
That makes the vernal branches loud.
I saw them in a gleeful crowd,
Mad with the rapture of the spring,
I heard the incessant jargoning
Forth-pour'd from each love-throbbing throat,
I felt the bliss of every note
Half-strangled of its amorous glee;
I felt the boundless ecstasy
Of every warm, fast-fluttering wing.—
God knows I blest each tender thing,
Blest them with tears from my full heart,
Where I was kneeling all apart
Beside my marvellous lily-bud,
Bought with three drops of my heart's blood;
Divinely sweet, divinely fair,
Sanctifying all the air
With her pureness and her love.
Did I not bless thee, God above,
Deep-nested in that blissful place?
Did I not thank thee for thy grace,
That thou hadst given me then to know
Such recompense of passed woe?

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II.—DEATH IN LIFE.

A long delightful summer's day
Amid deep forest-dells I lay,
Lulled with a far-off sound of flies;
The luminous haze of summer skies
Gleamed grey and sultry overhead,
Tall pines nodded and whispered
Still secrets in a gentle air.
Lazily from my pleasant lair
I marked their shadowy tops ashine
Sway through the dreamy azuline—
Lazily in my pleasant lair
I hugged my heart, forgetting care.

Whose was the fault? How entered in
The dream of sloth—the sleep of sin—
The lethargy of self? O Christ!
Could no mere anguish have sufficed?
No less tremendous doom than this
Death of the heart to pain or bliss?
What curse fell on me as I woke
When the accusing thunder broke,
With scourge of lightning and of hail
Making the shattered woods to quail?
What curse more than the curse of Cain,
When I found my lily slain—

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Withered and blasted on her stem,
Her angel-tended diadem
Pashed by the dint of pitiless hail?
O God, that then my heart should fail!
That I should rend my breast in vain!
That no sweet blood-drop should remain—
No wholesome drop in all my heart
That was not frozen!

Where's the art
That my blood can uncongeal?
Where is the pain can make me feel?
My tears are frozen at their source,
No drop of life renewed can course
Through all my numb and pulseless limbs;
The dull cloud of my breathing dims
The cruel firmament of ice
Moving between me and the skies,
Wherein my white reflected face
Scowls me from love, shuts me from grace,
From which my prayers rebound like hail;
Where'er I gaze nature turns pale,
Where'er I move there falls a blight
Of frost on all things. Day and night
My melancholy footsteps sound—
They clank upon the frozen ground;
They echo through the dismal glades,
Where, as I move, the charm invades;

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They ice with horror every tree,
The stark leaves tinkle shudderingly;
They freeze the joy in every throat,
They curdle every gleeful note;
Into the stiff and quaking grass
Down drop the birds—slain, as I pass,
Pacing this desolate wood.

How long,
O Lord! how long must I endure
This my sole hell? Is there no cure?
No keen Promethean flame of pain
That can make me live again?
Sometimes a blessed pang will start
Suddenly out from my heart,
Sometimes the firmament of ice
Between me and the sunny skies,
Leaving its horrible repose,
Will heave and stir with wondrous throes,
Wherein my figure seems to shine
Transfigured in a light divine
Of spiritual sunshine. O then,
Methinks I almost feel again
The pulse of Spring! I am not mad—
I ask no longer to be glad;
I crave to feel but human woe
Setting my blood and tears aflow,—
But blessed anguish of remorse,

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That I may be no more a corse
Walking the world. Grant Lord but this!
Let memories of lapséd bliss
With quickening sorrow thrill me through,
With flame of pain my soul endue
As with a garment; fuse my frost
With tingling shame for senses lost,
That stings like purgatorial fire:
This is the end of my desire.

Pass on your way, ye living men!
I wait some dawn of change. Till then
Pity me in your silent thought,
But with your comfort vex me not.

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LOST.

I wandered from my mother's side
In the fragrant paths of morn;
Naked, weary, and forlorn,
I fainted in the hot noon-tide.

For I had met a maiden wild,
Singing of love and love's delight;
And with her song she me beguiled,
And her soft arms and bosom white.

I followed fast, I followed far,
And ever her song flowed blithe and free;
‘Where Love's own flowery meadows are,
There shall our golden dwelling be!’

I followed far, I followed fast,
And oft she paused, and cried, ‘O here!’
But where I came no flower would last,
And Joy lay cold upon his bier.

I wandered on, I wandered wide,
Alas! she fleeted with the morn;
Weary, weeping, and forlorn,
She left me in the fierce noontide.

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FOUND.

Naked, bleeding, and forlorn,
I wandered on the mountain side;
To hide my wounds from shame and scorn,
I made a garment of my pride.

Till there came a tyrant grey,
He stript and chained me with disgrace,
He led me by the public way,
And sold me in the market-place.

To many masters was I bound,
And many a grievous load I bore;
But in the toil my flesh grew sound,
And from my limbs the chains I tore.

I ran to seek my mother's cot,
And I found Love singing there,
And round it many a pleasant plot,
And shadowy streams and gardens fair.

Like virgin gold the thatch I see,
Like virgin gold the doorway sweet;
And in the blissful noon each tree
A ladder for the angel's feet.

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A SONG OF REMORSE.

I had a friend of my own,
The truest that e'er was known;
But the spiders of secrecy
With jealousy wove the sky,
And poisoned the wings of trust
With a bloodless thrust.

The freezing of love untold
Made love in our bosoms cold,
And the cuckoo-wings of pride
Pushed its bashful brood aside.

The angels of pain and care
Made in his heart their lair,
And the demon of despair
Was my comrade everywhere.

Now the angels of remorse
Whip me away from his corse,
And one kiss I dare not crave
From the jealous grave.

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THE BOTTOMLESS PIT.

I floundered in a pit of sin,
Full of weakness, full of care,
And on the brink one sang, to win
My footsteps to his heavenly air.

I turned in wrath against his song,
And made a tempest of my rage,
And blew tempestuous notes along
The echoing iron of my cage.

He bade me find a golden door,
Opened by a golden key:
Iron roof, and walls, and floor,
Were all that ever I could see.

I turned in wrath against his song,
And made a tempest of my rage,
And rushed in burning zeal along
To the black bottom of my cage.

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But bottomless it was, in sooth,
And through the world it did extend;
Folded in my wings of truth,
I crept out at the further end.

And there again the sun I found,
And there I found a garden bright;
And while he deems me blindly bound
I weave the flowers of his delight.

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A SONG OF SUSTAINMENT.

I.

When the riddle of thy life darkest seems;
When no beams
Pierce thy soul, of heavenly light,
And thou dreamest in the night
Evil dreams:
Truly love the True, and truth shalt thou find;
Thy vext mind
Shall attain a golden shore
Which thou sawest not before,
Being blind.

II.

When the darkness as of Egypt round thee clings;
When the wings
Of vampyres foul flap near,
And fiend-voices in thine ear
Whisper things
Obscene and horror-fraught, to drag thee down;
When God's frown

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Seems in anger o'er thee bent,
Heaven shut, and Christ content
Thou shouldst drown:
Doubt all else, if in thine anguish doubt thou must,
Only trust
That, though thou be tempest-tost,
Rudder gone and compass lost,
God is just.

III.

Faint and weary, wait on God patiently:
It may be
He would have thee stand and wait,
Till He ope for thee a gate
Meet for thee.
Being strong, strive ever upward like a fire;
Still aspire
Toward the Perfect and the Pure—
God appoints thy life, be sure,
Never tire.
Trust that all things well-ordered from above
Rightly move.
God is just—hold fast that creed,
It will serve thee in thy need,
Till thou come to know indeed
God is love.

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THERE SHALL COME FALSE CHRISTS.

I dreamed of a phantom Christ
That fleeted athwart the sky,
Fleeted and flicker'd across, and enticed
After it, smiling, a smiling throng,
Whose hymns were loud as they hurried along,
Crowned with flowers and proudly elate,
Jauntily blowing the trump of fate
In the ears of the sorrow-stricken,
Leaving the fainting world to sicken
In the smoke of hell, and to die.

I dreamed of a spectre Christ
That wandered o'er all the earth;
On its altars were sacrificed
Sacred pledges and solemn vows;
Sin built temples, with shameless brows,
Virtue-whitewashed renewed her youth,
Lying her lies in the cause of truth,

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Handing tracts to the sinners around—
All that grace might the more abound.
She had experienced a true new-birth.

I dreamed of a demon Christ
That glared upon land and sea,
Throned like Juggernaut, coldly iced
In the frozen armour of creed;
Nerves must quiver and hearts must bleed
For its worship where'er it came,—
Fair limbs writhe in the scorching flame,
Torments, famine, and plague, and wars,
Made men made under sun and stars,
To prove its dreadful divinity.

I dreamed of a suffering Christ,
A sorrowful Son of Man,
Clad like a beggar—a stone sufficed
For his pillow, his home the street,
Rest was none for his lonely feet,
Faint he was, and none brought him wine:
But who gazed in those eyes divine
Straight grew wise in life-mysteries,
Wise in all human sympathies,
Read in the world its inner plan.

I dreamed of an awful Christ,
The terrible Son of God:

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Him, the blood of whose eucharist
Works, like leaven, in wine and bread,
Life in the living, death in the dead.
Where the gleam of his sun-crown fell,
Earth, self-judged, became heaven or hell;
Plunged in God, like a lake of fire,
Each drank deep of his heart's desire,
Love or hate—waxed or waned in God.

When things that be are as things that seem,
Then all the world will have dreamed this dream.

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PARADISE LOST.

In the woodlands wild
I was once a child,
Singing, free from care,
Wandering everywhere.

Angels went and came,
Like spires of blissful flame;
All among the flowers,
Fed with virgin showers,
Angels went and came,
Called me by my name.

But a serpent crept
On me as I slept,
Stung me on the eyes;
Woke with sick surprise.

And a demon came
With a face of shame,
Spoke my sudden doom,
Naked in the gloom.

204

Then a dreadful sound
Pealed through heaven's profound;
All my lonesome places
Were filled with dreadful faces
Everywhere a face
Full of my disgrace.

205

PARADISE FOUND.

Naked, in despair,
Ashes on my hair,
Menace everywhere,
I fled from pallid Care.

Weak as lamb new-yean'd,
Followed by the fiend,
With his whip of wires
Red with my desires.

Soon a sage drew near,
Clad my stripes in fear,
Bade me weep and wait,
At a temple gate.

But a maiden came
With tender hands of flame,
And by secret ways
She led me many days.

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In the woodlands wild,
Now no more a child,
Among seraphs bright
I clothe my limbs in light.

Where the children sleep,
Like a snake I creep;
Kiss them on the face
For their greater grace.

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A SONG OF SECRETS.

‘Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to lie i' the sun,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!’

I.

There is a land of woods and streams
I know alway in my dreams,
Full of sunshine and sweet air,
And wafted fragrance everywhere—
A land of birds, a land of bees,
A land of oaks and almond-trees,
Where nibbling lambs and children stray
All the livelong summer's day
Through flowery meadows of delight.
A land far seen in coolest light,
With its slumbrous woods and streams
Widening round the Mere of Dreams;
Of deep rest and happy shades,
Daisied lawns and solemn glades,
And twilight haunts for lovers' meet,

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Where the mystic meadow-sweet,
While Hesper cold sheds influence holy,
Breathes luxurious melancholy.
A land of infinite repose,
Girdled about with wizard snows
And fastnesses of ancient ice,
Where the enchanted mountains rise,
And far, sunlit glaciers shine
Through visionary glooms of pine.
There spirits of thunder make their home,
And cloud-wraiths brooding go and come,
And blithe winds renew their wings
To bring health to all fair things—
And mighty voices oft are heard
Uttering some mysterious word
Of potent tempting. Then, too fond!
Passion of the land beyond
With strange awe confounds my wits,
Shaking my soul with ague-fits—
Agonies—energies divine,
That chill like ice and warm like wine.
All the gladness of that land
Such wild spell cannot withstand;
I must leave its lawns behind
To wrestle with the eager wind,
Grip the rocks in stern embrace,
And meet the lightning face to face.

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O bitter doom! O trance of pain!
My gentle love, wandering in vain,
Forsaken, by the Mere of Dreams,
Through the land of woods and streams
Seeks me with solitary feet.
Then no more we twain may meet
In angel-guarded solitudes
Where no thing accurst intrudes,
But the seraphim aspire
Bearing their censers of sweet fire,
And the seraphim descend
In showers of blessing—each a friend,
Closer and secreter to keep
Holiest secrets than the deep
Nuptial darkness of the night
That hid her love from Psyche's sight.
O bitter doom! O trance of pain!
O love of lovers, loved in vain!
Beneath a blissful almond tree
My sad love sits and wails for me.

II.

Under the pleasant fields of sleep
There deepens down a sunless deep,
Under the placid Mere of Dreams,
Which floats with all its woods and streams
Above the abysses, where I know

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Every cavern of deep woe,
Each unfathomed pit of fear
That those dismal bounds insphere.

Many and many a time my soul
Has felt the clutch of him who stole
Sad Demeter's Zeus-born child,
Ravished to hell even while she smiled
Girlishly among her flowers;
Many a time his hideous powers
On a sudden have made quake
The glad waters of that lake—
Slain my birds and slain my bees,
Blasted my tender almond-trees
In youngest blooming, and low-laid
My oak's centuries of shade.
Many and many a time have I—
When my heart beat tranquilly,
In some green secluded dell
With my sweet love nested well;
Or leapt in a more lone delight,
Straining up some Alpine height—
Heard those demon steeds, hell-black,
Ramp up, snorting, at my back,
Felt the unhallowed might of Dis
Ravish me at a touch from bliss,
As darkness gulft me!

What strange doom

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Waits me in that fiery gloom?
How may I reveal the terror
Of the cavern's mazy error
Where I sink with gloomy Dis?

In my ears I hear the hiss
Of the snake-fiends, as they fold
My heart in Gorgon coilings cold.
Shudderingly I name each name,
Known too well: Despair and Shame,
Whispering madness at each ear,
Horror, and Jealousy, and Fear,
Remorse, and Envy, and Desire,
With clammy eyes of chilling fire,
Of the hell-brood nine there be,
And the last is Apathy.

Oft when in their ghastly chain,
Tired with struggling, I have lain,
Long-captive in the tangling toils,
Wound about with loathsome coils,
A dread voice, of melody
Keen as pain, hath cried to me:
‘Look on me, thou son of man!’
And lo! through the twilight wan
Of drear hell, mine eyes have seen
The still face of hell's pale Queen:
She, even she—Persephone—
With her glance hath set me free!

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Tremblingly before her throne
I have stood, and I have known
All the sadness of those eyes,
Sad with love's last mysteries.
In her caverns of deep woe
Where no tears of passion flow,
I have seen the germs of things,
Bathed me in the secret springs
That feed the tranquil Mere of Dreams;
I have watched the mystic streams
Of motherhood, like blood that run,
Warm with kisses of the sun.
All my oaks and almond-trees
Bathe their hidden roots in these;
Through every tender blade of grass
And every tiniest flow'ret pass
Their influent drops, like wine of blood,
Moulding featly every bud
And every leaf on every tree;
The fairy dews, refreshfully
Shed by night on every lawn,
From their cisterns deep are drawn.
This, the cavern of despair,
The dark grave of all things fair,
Joy's decay and beauty's tomb,
Is but Nature's teeming womb,
Where she fashions new things fair

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In their season meet; for there
The wind of change blows without end,
Into the abyss the hours descend—
Virgin shadows, casting down
Every one her fragrant crown:
The wind of change blows without end,
Out of the abyss the hours ascend,
Each one freighted matronly
With fruitage—to the minstrelsy
Of planetary spirits of love
In the crystal heaven above.

Lo! the secrets of my dream
Of that land of vale and stream,
And of that unfathomed den,
Dreadful to the sons of men.
How many happy days and nights
I dwell among those dear delights,
Ten times as many must I dwell
With pale Persephone in hell,
While beneath her almond-tree
My sad love sits and wails for me,
Sick, till Orpheus-like I bring
From the under world the Spring.