University of Virginia Library

I.

The moonlight lay like hoar frost on the earth
Outside. But, all within, the marble hearth
Made from its dropping logs of scented wood
A rosy dimness of warm light, to flood
With fervid interchange of gloom and gleam
That gorgeous chamber,—from the mad moonbeam
Curtain'd secure. No other light was there.
The outer halls were silent everywhere.
Midnight. And in the bed where he was born,
I' the Porphyry Chamber at Byzance, outworn
By seventeen years of pleasure without joy,
Not yet a man, albeit no more a boy,
His flusht cheek heavy on the fragrant sheet,
Slept Constantine the Porphyrogenete;
When glided in his mother leonine,
Irene.

II.

She, reluctant to resign
To her own whelp that prey beneath her paw,
The bloody Empire, stealthily 'gan draw
The crimson curtain; with keen ear down-bent
To count the breathings, thick and indolent,
Of her recaptured cub: who, sleeping, smiled,
By visions lewd of folly and lust beguiled.
Anon, she beckon'd to the unshut door:
Whence, crafty-footed, down the glassy floor
Crept to her side (with wither'd features white
Bow'd o'er a trembling lamp) her parasite,
Storax, the lean-lipp'd, low-brow'd Logothete.

III.

“Set the lamp down,” the mother mutter'd. “Sweet
Must be his dreams. My son is smiling . . . see!
Wake him not, Storax!” Then, while softly she
Let fall the curtain, he from out its sheath
Slided his dagger, pusht the flame beneath
The weapon's point, and watch'd with moody eye
The heated metal reddening.
O'er the high
Bed-head (to safeguard sleeping Cæsars, slung
Slant from the golden sculptured cornice) hung
On dismal ebon cross limbs, carven keen
In livid ivory, of a stretch'd-out, lean,
And ever-dying Christ. . . .

IV.

(For, not long since,—
As rapturous Priests remember,—to evince
For God's Church Orthodox her filial zeal,
Irene's righteous regency,—with heel
Set on the heads heretical of all
Iconoclasts, had rescued from their fall
The Images of God—assaulted sore
Erewhile by Antichrist's mad Emperor,
That “hell-born dragon,” “the Old Serpent's grub,”
“Black-spotted panther of Beelzebub,”
Whom, being dead now, lodged, too, in hell's flame,
God-fearing folks no longer fear to name
Accurst Copronymus)

V.

. . . His white lips set
Fast with a formidable will, while yet
Storax, who turn'd and turn'd it slowly, scann'd
The reddening steel, Irene's rapid hand,
With restless finger o'er her pucker'd brow
Flitting, made airy crosses in a row.
Her eyes had settled sullenly upon
The superimpending image of God's Son:
And Habit,—that hard mock-bird of the mind,
Whose tongue, to chance-got utterance confined,
Memories by chance recaptured out of place
Set talking out of season,—to the Face
Mechanic response making, “If thine eye
Offend thee, pluck it out,” she mutter'd. “Ay,
That is sound Gospel,” Storax in her ear
Whisper'd. “The thing is white-hot now . . . See here!”
“And I am Empress” . . . hiss'd Irene . . “Smite!”

VI.

The arm'd Armenian on the guard that night
About the palace precincts somnolent,
Where, like a weary beetle, came and went
Across the flinty platform,—else dead-dumb—
The slumbrous city's desultory hum,
Heard, pacing drowsy-cold, (his watch nigh done)
Beneath the stars, thro' shrivelling silence run
A sudden scream, fierce, devilish, agonized,
Of quintessential pain; and all surprised
Started upon the watch,—waiting what sound
Should follow. But that dreadful cry, soon drown'd
In dreadful silence, response none uproused,
Save of an owlish echo half unhoused
Among the moody towers, that down again
With churlish mumblings in her mason'd den
Settled to slumber.
Then the soldier said,
Laughing at the discovery he had made
Of what, to him at least, that sound meant, “So!
To-morrow, and the amphoræ shall flow.
Increase of pay to all the Armenian Guard!”
Whereat he turn'd, and (while i' the east, black-barr'd
With lazy clouds, slow-oozed a watery light)
Waited, well pleased, the trump of dawn.

VII.

That night,
In league with Hell, ere morning streak'd the skies,
Left all its darkness in the misused eyes
Of Constantine the Porphyrogenete:
—The shadow of a shadow, forced to fleet
Out of the glare that gave him in men's sight
The semblance of a substance once.

VIII.

That night,
Irene, ere the Porphyry Chamber (pale
With strife wherein to triumph is to fail)
She left triumphant, glancing back,—her glance
Fell casual on the conscious countenance
Of that white Christ upon the black cross spread,
Whose eyes, into the now-close-curtain'd bed
Erewhile down-gazing, had beheld why those
Tight draperies round it had been twitch'd so close.
And lo! where late those witnesses had been,
Instead of eyes, two gory sockets, seen
Thro' the red firelight, stopp'd her, stagger'd her,
And to a Fear, wherefrom she dared not stir
Fasten'd and froze her.
For a while she stood
As one that, traversing a solitude
Where nothing dwells but Danger (all in haste
To reach the end, and, after peril faced
And pass'd, proclaim “The deed I dared is done!”)
Turns, by ill chance, midway, to gaze upon
Some hideous gulf in safety cross'd; and so,
Seeing how deep the death that yawns below,
By unanticipated terror, just
In the fresh moment of achievement, thrust
Into the suddenly-suggested jaws
Of an imaginary failure, draws
Breath faint and fainter; forced to keep in sight
His own success, which, seen, defeats him quite.
But, soon return'd, the exasperated will,
Still strong to scourge the rebel senses, still
Defiant tho' dismay'd, with effort fierce
Pluck'd up the keen-cold Fear that seem'd to pierce
Her feet, and fix them to the floor, beneath
That eyeless gaze. And at the sculptured wreath
Above the unblest bed wherefrom It hung
She, like a wounded cat o' the mountain, sprung,
And caught, and gripp'd, and tugg'd, and tore away,
And crouch'd with glaring face above, her prey,
—God's Image.
Still that dreadful dearth of eyes
In the dread Face!
With fierce and bitter cries
She dasht It sharp against the marble floor,
And bruised It with wild feet.
Still as before
The Eyeless Face implied . . . “Do what thou wilt
Henceforth, and hug thy gain, or hate thy guilt,
Never shalt thou behold God's eyes.”
She snatch'd
And hurl'd It on the smouldering hearth: and watch'd
The embers quicken round It: heap'd up wood,
And made the blaze leap high: and all night stood
Feeding the flame: till all was burn'd away
To ashes.
And ere this was done, the day
Began to dawn.

IX.

Afterwards, she became
One of the world's chief rulers. Her fair name
Was praised in all the churches. God's priests pray'd
God to safeguard the mighty throne she made
Illustrious.
Three times,—in the hippodrome
Once, in the palace once, once 'neath the dome
O' the high cathedral,—the Estates took oath
After this fashion . . . “Witness Christ! we both
Swear, on the Gospels Four, to guard the throne
Of our Liege Lady, Thine anointed one,
Irene, and swear also, bearing leal
Allegiance to her person, for her weal
And in her service, ever to oppose
Our lives against the persons of her foes.”
This on the wood of the True Cross they swore.
And their recorded oath, with many more,
Among the relics of the Saintly Dead,
On the main altar was deposited
In St. Sophia.
Four Patricians, proud
So to be seen of the applausive crowd,
Held in their hands the golden reins of four
White horses, pacing in high pomp before
Her festive chariot, when Irene pass'd
Along the loud streets, greeted by the vast
Vociferation of a land's applause.

X.

To all the Roman world she set wise laws.
Men praised her wisdom. Wealth was hers immense.
Men praised her splendour and munificence.
Alms to the poor her hand distributed.
Men praised her bounty. High she held her head
Amid the tempests of a turbulent time.
Men praised her courage. Cruelty and crime
She scourged with scorpions. Men her justice praised.
Gifts to the Church she gave, and altars raised.
Men praised her piety. She in the West
Treaties proposed and embassies addrest
To Charlemagne. She in the East maintain'd
On equal terms alliance undisdain'd
With great Haroun Alraschid. “For,” said she,
“We understand each other's worth, We Three.”
The world, when speaking of her, said “The Great.”

XI.

At last her fortune changed.
For 'twas her fate
To win a worthier title. So, one night,
The eunuchs of her palace,—slaves whose spite
Her power had scorn'd,—conspiring its downfall,
Pluck'd the throne from her: seized her treasures all:
And drave her forth from power and wealth, to be
An exile and a pauper.
Meekly she
Surrender'd what she had so proudly worn,
Rome's Purple. And, retiring from men's scorn
To Mitylene, lived there, lone and poor:
A careworn woman at a cottage door
Spinning for bread.
The world was sad to see
What it had done, then. Men remorsefully
Remember'd, not her many evil deeds,
But her few good ones. For who counts the weeds
In any garden where, tho' desolate,
One rose remains? And, much admiring fate
So bitter borne so blameless of complaint,
The world, when speaking of her said “The Saint.”

XII.

And after all these things, at the late end
Of a long life, she died.

XIII.

Then Priests to send
Pilgrims to deck her tomb made haste. They came
Bare-footed, chanting hymns unto her name,
And made a noise of praise above her bones,
Which waked her spirit in the grave.

XIV.

Old tones
Of some glad tune, first heard long years ago,
When to their music life went gladly too,
If heard once more when life, after long years,
Goes not at all, but rests, in him that hears
Awaken thus the wild unwonted spasm
Of life's long-buried old enthusiasm.
Earth under earth, the earthly instinct, raised
By earthly praises in the corpse thus praised,
Return'd to life.
She rose i' the tomb, and said
“Open! and let me forth. I am not dead.
For men yet praise me, and their praises give
My joy thereat assurance that I live.”
And the tomb answer'd, in its own dumb way,
“I neither know the living, nor obey
Their voice.”
The pious pilgrims above ground,
Their rites perform'd, departing now,—the sound
Of human praise about that tomb wax'd faint,
Then silent.
“Ay,” she mused, “a Saint? . . a Saint
Should seek, not men, but God.” She stood before
The creviced hinge of the tomb's granite door
And struck it with dead hands, and said again
“Door of the Tomb, since I have done with men,
Show me the way to God.”
The sullen door
Answer'd, “I am the Door o' the Tomb. No more.
Find thou the way.”

XV.

Even then, an awful light,
Not of this world, thro' chink and crevice (bright
With brightness as of burning fire that turns
Whatever thing the burning of it burns
Into its sifted elemental worth:
Substance to spirit, ashes unto earth)
Smote all the inner darkness where she stood.

XVI.

Whereby she saw, outstretch'd upon the rood
The Image of the Christ (by Human Faith
Placed there in token of life's trust in death),
And on her soul the sudden memory came
Like hope . . . “I am The Way!”
Who said the same
Was There i' the Tomb.
To Whom she, kneeling, said
“Teach me, O Christ (if I, indeed, be dead)
The way . . . Thou seest . . . .”
A Voice replied “To Me,
Woman, give back mine eyes that I may see!”
She dared not answer: dared not gaze upon
The Face Above.

XVII.

That moment's light was gone
Even as it came. Darkness return'd.
The rest,
Hid in that darkness, never shall be guess'd.