The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere

The Legend of the last of Grecian dreams—
A wandering Bard's. As silver stream that bounds
Singing, from rock to rock, when through dark pines
The moonbeams break their javelins on its mail,
Gloom-loving splendour fairer for that gloom,
So bright so sweet his Pagan songs, poured forth
Full oft at rural festival: but Grace
Came to him, that he scorned his country's Gods
And lived, though late, true bondsman of the Cross,
Spurning those beauteous Fables fair but false,
All that in youth the mythic Seers had taught him,
For Beauty deathless, sacred and eterne.
On Asian shores he strayed while Polycarp
Ruled yet at Smyrna; from that Martyr old
First heard of Christ. 'Twas there his lyre he brake:
This was the last of all the songs he sang.

Of Love, whose golden chain makes all things one;
Of Zeal, that keeps earth pure; of Majesty,
Which, like a crown, steadies the world's great head;
Of Wisdom, which all these tempers and guides,
Of Love, and Zeal, and Majesty, and Wisdom,
Which light as stars our mortal night, and give
Limits to Empire, and free space to Good,

238

Had been my thoughts. Within a bark I lay
And in a book was reading of the Gods.
Reading, I marvelled how that record old
Fabled of Truth: how Song, not yet corupt
Like a great wave lifted the mind of man,
And gave him ampler prospect. While I mused
The setting sun flamed on the deep, the bells
Pealed from a Church hardby and songs went forth:
Then waned that radiance and the anthem died;
My brow dropped on the volume; and I dreamed.

Methought it was the vigil of the day
Of Resurrection; when the kings alone
Shall throng as nations. In a murmuring field
Of harvests by autumnal suns embrowned,
Declining softly to the Western sea
I lay; then night fell, cloud-like, o'er the deep.

An Angel caught me by the hands, and bore me
Far up, and on. Ere long I stood alone
Upon the point of a great promontory:
A Cross was on the edge: from thence a bay
Went back oblique into the heart of Heaven:
Heaven's phantom mountains girt it marble-black,
Though streaked with flying heralds of the dawn.

I on that Cross had leaned methought an hour,
When from the bosom of that darkness old
A glorious semblance momently more large,
Emerged with speed divine: beneath his feet,
Which scarcely touched it, was a Planet bent;
I marked it not at first, but deemed him flying,
Such joy was from his lustrous forehead poured
While his bright hair streamed back, both hands upheld

239

As though expectant of some heavenly crown!
Like homeward bark he wound into that bay.
A milder Star came next; and he thereon
Was like a youthful god: high as his lips
He held a golden Shell; calm-faced as one
Who late hath sung, and for the echo waits.
Into that haven wound he. Next I saw
A lovely Virgin standing in white robes
That shone like silver on the Morning Star.
She, with one hand into her bosom pressed
A dove: the other more than lily white
Was ever smoothing down its snowy wings,
And yet on it she gazed not but on Heaven.
I turned—in minstrel's garb beside me stood
That Youth who last had vanished; ‘Well,’ he sang,
‘Doth Love, without the aid of eyes assure
His heart; upon some other heart reposing
With beatings undistinguished from his own.’
She too had passed, when loud I cried, ‘Declare
The Vision!’ ‘She loved much,’ the youth replied,
‘Therefore to her the star of Love is given.
But see’—and Mars towards us moved—the fourth!
A shield was on his breast; and, raised to Heaven,
Both hands held high a Sword of God that beamed
From hilt to point with blood incarnadine,
The Cross upon his heart. His helm thrown back
The warrior's eyes were fixed on that Sword's point,
Which from pure ether drew a stream of fire,
And, blazing like an amethystine star
Poured beatific splendour on his face.
‘No other Spirit with a deeper joy,’
Thus spake the Youth, ‘from out those crimson urns
That stand beside the everlasting Altar
Shall drink the sacramental wine of Life.’

240

Thus while he spake the Planet disappeared;
And instant o'er his track great Jove advanced
A kingly shape, and crowned with diamond:
All round his loins a jewelled zone, inwrought
With many symbols, like the zodiac clung;
The brightest sphere of Heaven beneath his feet:
And He was sceptred. ‘Lo! how soon,’ thus sang
That joyous Youth, ‘doth Empire, crowned by Death,
Tread in the bloody steps of Martyrdom!
Go forth, great King!’ and Jupiter passed by.
Then all was hushed: till slowly like a sound
So faint we know not when began its tremor
Forth from the darkness the Saturnian star
Began to move. An old man knelt thereon
With prophet robes and face depressed and pale
In hue like that which vaporous Autumn breathes
On the dim gold of her discoloured woods.
He bent his plaited brow and tawny beard
O'er a short bar clasped tight in both his hands—
‘Lo,’ cried that youth, ‘the hoary might of Time!
The Linker of the End to the Beginning!
Ever his iron sceptre thus he bends
Into a cirque, type of Eternity,
And crown for the most worthy: when 'tis wrought,
Time's hard and iron sway is gone for ever,
His boast to crown a mightier than himself.’
As Saturn passed, methought a smile there lay
Hid in his sallow cheek.

‘Declare,’ I cried,
‘The mystery—what these are, and what art thou?’
‘These are the Planets,’ spake the Youth, ‘and they
Who ride them are the loftiest Soul of each,
By Virtue raised to rule those glittering orbs.
The first that passed was Earth, thine ancient home.

241

The third was Venus, in the solar beam
That bathes as water-lily in clear lake;
Her children are a choir of loving Spirits
Lying on violet banks by tuneful streams;
There on the plume-like trees the wind blows gently
For ever gently: not a mother there
Would fear to rock her new-born infant's cot
Upon the topmost bough. Of these but few
Have sojourned on the earth and striven to lure
By gentleness your race to gentleness;
Oftenest not long their exile—by the sword
Hewn down, or trampled under foot of men.
The fourth was Mars: there dwell a hero race
Warring on evil. Ofttimes to the earth
Oppressed by tyrants, one of these was sent
Breaker of chains. The Star of Jupiter
Unto imperial Spirits doth belong:
There, o'er its sea-like levels rise their thrones
Like pyramids o'er Nilus kenned: on earth
Men stare in wonder at their haughty feet,
That tread your Planet like a thing foredoomed.
In Saturn dwell the Prophets, far apart,
'Mid groves, and caves in sequence hollowed out
Within the walls of the precipitous mountains.
Before them, like a veil, from heights unknown
The noiseless torrents stream scarce pierced by beams
From seven broad moons: their wrinkled foreheads old
They bend o'er emblemed scrolls and books of Fate.
Of these but few have ever dwelt on earth.
Mortal! in Heaven was concord thus with men!
Love, Zeal heroic, Majesty, and Wisdom,
There where ye guessed not lived and wrought and reigned:

242

In seats by Pagan fancies long usurped
They wound their choral dances thus round earth:
Men their own greatness knew not, but exchanged
For dust, celestial sympathy.’ He spake,
And light flashed from him making all things plain!
‘Tell me thy name.’ ‘I am,’ the Youth replied
‘The Shaping Instinct of the universe
By bards of old named Hermes. I bestow
Voice on all being; I of every Art
Am father; earlier, in lone wastes I cry
Scaring those demons which in dance obscene
Trample to mire of clay the heart of man
Which should be singing ever, like this Shell
Whose warbling but the echo is of strains
Yon vanished Planets ever sang. Henceforth
They rest:—but hark their sabbath song!’ He raised
That Shell, and straight a harmony so rich
It seemed the blending of all lovely voices,
Moved o'er us like one wave that fills a bay:
And 'mid that Pæan murmuring I could hear
A low deep music tremulent though sweet
With that Eolian anthem sink and rise.
‘My task is done,’ it said;
‘My wrinkled hands have rest; the Crown is made:
But who of earth can wear it?
Whose brows are strong and broad enough to bear it?
Let him speak, let him speak,
For my veins are waxing weak;
These eyes no longer can their vigil keep,
My lids are growing heavy—I must sleep.’

A sound that quelled all other sounds, as stars
At sunrise, shook my heart; and I beheld
Upon another and a larger sphere

243

Than all which yet had passed—a sphere unguessed
By them of Pagan times—an Old Man standing:
Older than all the Prophets seemed that Man,
Older, methought than Time himself; sea-sands
Had numbered not his childhood's years. His hair
And beard rolled down athwart his breast, more white
Than snows when Boreal lights from polar skies
Shine keen on icy streams, or lies the Moon
Dead on the glacier's lap—
O'er his calm face bright thoughts went sweeping ever
Like gleams from rippling waters heaved o'er rocks:
His eyes seemed yet to hold those vanished stars.
I closed my own; and when I dared to look
He had not wound into that bay but passed
Far to the North. That Youth beside me still
Fixed on him eyes with awe distent, as though
In garden-haunt long-loved a man at ease
Up glancing o'er the lily and the rose,
Confronted stood by some white mountain range
Marvel till then unkenned, though ever there,
Dwarfing a subject world. At last he spake;
‘Him knew I not of old: Him, knowing now,
I fear to name: Old Bard of Grecian Race
The time of Finite Beauty is gone by:
The time of all the Infinitudes is come
And Beauty throned mid all. Lay down thine ear
Down to this Shell, and hear Him what He speaks
With that crystalline bass which like a sea
Ingulfs all other sounds or lets them float
As bubbles on the surface.’ I replied,
‘Not so! I will not hear Him lest I die;’
And in that terror woke.

University of Virginia Library

THE PLANETS;

OR, OLD AND NEW.