Newdigate Prize Poem The Isthmus of Suez: Recited In the Theatre, Oxford, June 14, 1871, by William Hurrell Mallock |
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 | Newdigate Prize Poem |  |
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“Consider the Sea's listless chime!
Time's self it is, made audible.”
Time's self it is, made audible.”
“The Arabians do affirme that in this Isthmus are, certain
places, where, when the night is quiet, may be heard the sound
of both the seas, one upon either hand; the which (knowing
not at that time the true distance betwixt them, which is, as I
learn since, upward of three score miles) I certainly did believe
myself to have heard, having strayed toward midnight a good
distance alone from where our camels and their keepers had
made halt. But whence cometh that noise which I took to be
the voice of the sea, I cannot answer, nor have I yet met with
one (though I have enquired of many) who with any shew of
reason could.”—George Daymond, 1635.
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THE ISTHMUS OF SUEZ.
It is but one low bar of dreary sand
Reaching between them; and on either hand
Through untold years hath moaned perpetually
An unknown sea unto an unknown sea—
The estranged waves of both the hemispheres;
Breaking so near that each one well-nigh hears
The other's sounding shingle, and hoarse stir
Of pebbles in the grating surf-water.
Yea, and when winds are low, and stars are bright,
Betwixt the desert and the cloudless night,
'Tis told the eternal murmurings of the twain
Have mixed at seasons on the lone mid plain,
In one faint foamy whisper, east and west;
And long ago, upon the loneliest
Heart of the desert, murmured in the ear
Of a lone eastward English wanderer.
Reaching between them; and on either hand
Through untold years hath moaned perpetually
An unknown sea unto an unknown sea—
The estranged waves of both the hemispheres;
Breaking so near that each one well-nigh hears
The other's sounding shingle, and hoarse stir
Of pebbles in the grating surf-water.
Yea, and when winds are low, and stars are bright,
Betwixt the desert and the cloudless night,
'Tis told the eternal murmurings of the twain
Have mixed at seasons on the lone mid plain,
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And long ago, upon the loneliest
Heart of the desert, murmured in the ear
Of a lone eastward English wanderer.
The hollow moonless midnight's naked height
Towered there above the awe-struck eremite;
And dark about him, fading far away,
The strange plain's gloom and level stillness lay.
The scene, the season smote into his blood—
The night, the silence, and the solitude,—
And all his pulses throbbed. His steadfast eyes
Were turned towards the stars and foreign skies;
Yet, still the same, he felt surrounding him
The haunting presence of the desert dim;
Whilst, o'er his soul's hushed lake, by slow degrees,
Visions uncalled, and shifting images
Rose like an evening mist. For all around
Were ruinous kingdoms, and memorial ground,
Places of gods and nations dead. He stood
Neighboured by Pharoah's land, and Nilus' flood,
And hallowèd Palestine and Araby,
And by the matin and the evening sea—
Stood with his feet upon the very plain
O'er which had creaked the wheels of Israel's wain
Of old towards Ægypt; and, on a later day—
O'er which towards Ægypt three had made their way
In flight, an agéd sire, an infant son,
And a pure virgin. So the wanderer lone,
Enisled amidst a waste of storied sand;
Mused there,—a continent on either hand,—
Whilst on those upturned English eyes of his,
High o'er him in the unfathomable abyss,
Unhomely Lybian stars shook quick and clear.
And he, with fancy wandering far and near
On random wing, through unconnected ways
Went straying backward to the extreme days
Whose monarchs and great deeds lie lost and hid
In hieroglyph unknown, and pyramid;
When the stupendous temples boomed with prayer
And the clear darkness of the midnight air
Grew gold with torch-light o'er Arsinöe;
And singing choirs, and cymballed revelry
Rang, where the spurted fountain-spray made shake
The moon and stars asleep in Moeris' lake,
And far through many a labyrinthine hall
Echoed the wild Osirian festival.
Towered there above the awe-struck eremite;
And dark about him, fading far away,
The strange plain's gloom and level stillness lay.
The scene, the season smote into his blood—
The night, the silence, and the solitude,—
And all his pulses throbbed. His steadfast eyes
Were turned towards the stars and foreign skies;
Yet, still the same, he felt surrounding him
The haunting presence of the desert dim;
Whilst, o'er his soul's hushed lake, by slow degrees,
Visions uncalled, and shifting images
Rose like an evening mist. For all around
Were ruinous kingdoms, and memorial ground,
Places of gods and nations dead. He stood
Neighboured by Pharoah's land, and Nilus' flood,
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And by the matin and the evening sea—
Stood with his feet upon the very plain
O'er which had creaked the wheels of Israel's wain
Of old towards Ægypt; and, on a later day—
O'er which towards Ægypt three had made their way
In flight, an agéd sire, an infant son,
And a pure virgin. So the wanderer lone,
Enisled amidst a waste of storied sand;
Mused there,—a continent on either hand,—
Whilst on those upturned English eyes of his,
High o'er him in the unfathomable abyss,
Unhomely Lybian stars shook quick and clear.
And he, with fancy wandering far and near
On random wing, through unconnected ways
Went straying backward to the extreme days
Whose monarchs and great deeds lie lost and hid
In hieroglyph unknown, and pyramid;
When the stupendous temples boomed with prayer
And the clear darkness of the midnight air
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And singing choirs, and cymballed revelry
Rang, where the spurted fountain-spray made shake
The moon and stars asleep in Moeris' lake,
And far through many a labyrinthine hall
Echoed the wild Osirian festival.
Thus while in these quaint visions rapt he dreamed,
Within his ears, he knew not whence, it seemed
He heard a dreamy distant murmur swell,
Like that sea's voice which haunts a whispering shell,
Invading his soul's vague imaginings
Of remote days and those unknown old kings
Royal in times which time remembereth not,
From oft whose crumbling cheeks the cere-cloths rot
In silence 'neath the runed sarcophagus.
Then as the new sound blurred his fancies thus,
Starting he woke, and knew that this must be
The two strange waters calling, sea to sea.
And “What!” he cried, “amidst these sterile ways
Have I then found your voices' trysting-place,
Ye two sad sundered oceans, just in reach
Of either's weary inland-wandering speech,
Where each spent voice arrives just audible?
Of what hid things do ye meet here to tell?
Mourn ye for that old kiss your waters gave
Long, long ago, when mingling wave and wave
Knew one another; and the desert air
Turned cool with babble of sudden sea-water,
As into that deep tideless blue of thine
The Nile ran brackish with sweet Asian brine,
O midland sea? Or do ye talk of when
One like Sesostris shall arise again,
Some lord of lords, some calm arch-conqueror,
Some shackler of yoked monarchs to his car,
To bid his ductile myriads of sad slaves
Toil their hard lives away to join your waves,
Gashing the desert through from shore to shore,
As once of old, and make you one once more?
Ah! do ye watch and wait for one like this—
Some son of Ægypt's mummied dynasties,
A splendid despot meet for Pharoah's throne?
Alas! but these are all past over and gone—
They and their glories all clean gone from us,
Their cities and their shrines are ruinous,
Their lichened gods forget the sound of prayer;
And they in many a citied sepulchre—
Forgotten, marvellous places underground,
Where never sunlight comes, nor any sound,
Sleep kingly slumbers, whilst the years roll on,
Embalmèd in superb oblivion.
Nay—these shall never more awake, arise,
With pride or sunlight in their dusty eyes,
To bid you mingle again, ye alien seas.
And whence, then, shall help come, since not from these?
Must ye be strangers, strangers evermore?
And turning here, as I, toward either shore,
Shall men for ever after turn their eyes
On unblent waves, and different destinies?
Shall half the world be dark, and half still light,
Divided into changeless day and night?
And ah! ye eöan oceans turned towards you
That wash the shafted sunrise, and whose blue
Billows are stained red with the fire of day,
Even as I, must after ages say
Ye—ye, along your golden fabulous lands
Mourn over beds of pearls, or coral strands,
Round slaves and slaveries? Whilst, O west waves, ye
Have dashed your brine on headlands of the free,
And leapt in foam about their plunging prows,
From those first days of Greece adventurous,
When lonely Argo took the untried gale,
Or, with long oars, and each a single sail,
The carven galleys rode round Salamis;
Even to our times of later memories,
And skyey masts, when Albion's thunders broke
Roll upon roll, and our gray battle-smoke
Blent with the vapours of the shifting main,
And veiled from sight the ruinous waifs of Spain.
But ah, ye waves of freedom, never more
Shall those waves reach you from the further shore?
And breaths of freedom in the western breeze
Wander far off to purple Asian seas?
When, once more, will ye meet and mix?”
Within his ears, he knew not whence, it seemed
He heard a dreamy distant murmur swell,
Like that sea's voice which haunts a whispering shell,
Invading his soul's vague imaginings
Of remote days and those unknown old kings
Royal in times which time remembereth not,
From oft whose crumbling cheeks the cere-cloths rot
In silence 'neath the runed sarcophagus.
Then as the new sound blurred his fancies thus,
9
The two strange waters calling, sea to sea.
And “What!” he cried, “amidst these sterile ways
Have I then found your voices' trysting-place,
Ye two sad sundered oceans, just in reach
Of either's weary inland-wandering speech,
Where each spent voice arrives just audible?
Of what hid things do ye meet here to tell?
Mourn ye for that old kiss your waters gave
Long, long ago, when mingling wave and wave
Knew one another; and the desert air
Turned cool with babble of sudden sea-water,
As into that deep tideless blue of thine
The Nile ran brackish with sweet Asian brine,
O midland sea? Or do ye talk of when
One like Sesostris shall arise again,
Some lord of lords, some calm arch-conqueror,
Some shackler of yoked monarchs to his car,
To bid his ductile myriads of sad slaves
Toil their hard lives away to join your waves,
Gashing the desert through from shore to shore,
As once of old, and make you one once more?
10
Some son of Ægypt's mummied dynasties,
A splendid despot meet for Pharoah's throne?
Alas! but these are all past over and gone—
They and their glories all clean gone from us,
Their cities and their shrines are ruinous,
Their lichened gods forget the sound of prayer;
And they in many a citied sepulchre—
Forgotten, marvellous places underground,
Where never sunlight comes, nor any sound,
Sleep kingly slumbers, whilst the years roll on,
Embalmèd in superb oblivion.
Nay—these shall never more awake, arise,
With pride or sunlight in their dusty eyes,
To bid you mingle again, ye alien seas.
And whence, then, shall help come, since not from these?
Must ye be strangers, strangers evermore?
And turning here, as I, toward either shore,
Shall men for ever after turn their eyes
On unblent waves, and different destinies?
11
Divided into changeless day and night?
And ah! ye eöan oceans turned towards you
That wash the shafted sunrise, and whose blue
Billows are stained red with the fire of day,
Even as I, must after ages say
Ye—ye, along your golden fabulous lands
Mourn over beds of pearls, or coral strands,
Round slaves and slaveries? Whilst, O west waves, ye
Have dashed your brine on headlands of the free,
And leapt in foam about their plunging prows,
From those first days of Greece adventurous,
When lonely Argo took the untried gale,
Or, with long oars, and each a single sail,
The carven galleys rode round Salamis;
Even to our times of later memories,
And skyey masts, when Albion's thunders broke
Roll upon roll, and our gray battle-smoke
Blent with the vapours of the shifting main,
And veiled from sight the ruinous waifs of Spain.
12
Shall those waves reach you from the further shore?
And breaths of freedom in the western breeze
Wander far off to purple Asian seas?
When, once more, will ye meet and mix?”
Since then
The sundered twain have met and mixed again;
Yea, they have kissed and met. But when will ye,
Ye warring spirits of the bond and free?
What power or knowledge is there, to unite
The never-mingled seas of faith and sight?
When shall such come? Or must we evermore,
Standing midway, on either desolate shore
Hear the deploring waters of each flood
Mourn to themselves in alien neighbourhood,
Nor ever mingle in silence till the day
When all faiths fail, and knowledge fades away?
The sundered twain have met and mixed again;
Yea, they have kissed and met. But when will ye,
Ye warring spirits of the bond and free?
What power or knowledge is there, to unite
The never-mingled seas of faith and sight?
When shall such come? Or must we evermore,
Standing midway, on either desolate shore
Hear the deploring waters of each flood
Mourn to themselves in alien neighbourhood,
Nor ever mingle in silence till the day
When all faiths fail, and knowledge fades away?
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