Sir Lancelot A Legend of The Middle Ages. By Frederick William Faber: Second edition |
 |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. |
| IV. |
| V. |
| VI. |
| VII. |
| VIII. | BOOK VIII.
THE CONFESSION. |
| IX. |
| X. |
 | Sir Lancelot |  |
227
BOOK VIII. THE CONFESSION.
229
Yet once again the rudder of my song
I turn, and seek, not easily found out,
Our Lady's ancient shrine in Frudernesse.
No stag that hears the hunting-horn from far
Lies closer in his lair than did that pile
Shrink from the roving eye of hungry Scot.
Wave after wave of treeless slopes, all blithe
With yellow corn, stretched like a swelling sea
From gulf to gulf across that tongue of land
In billows of red soil that eastward dipped,
Flowing towards Morecambe Bay; and keen the sight
That o'er those ridges looked nor overshot
That sunken trough, though by a tremulous vein
Of waving tree-tops partially betrayed.
There the Cistercian Abbey lies, embowered
In hanging groves, the view this way and that
Impeded by a folding screen of hills;
Only, where prayer must go, the eye might range
A tract of clear uninterrupted sky.
I turn, and seek, not easily found out,
Our Lady's ancient shrine in Frudernesse.
No stag that hears the hunting-horn from far
Lies closer in his lair than did that pile
Shrink from the roving eye of hungry Scot.
Wave after wave of treeless slopes, all blithe
With yellow corn, stretched like a swelling sea
From gulf to gulf across that tongue of land
In billows of red soil that eastward dipped,
Flowing towards Morecambe Bay; and keen the sight
That o'er those ridges looked nor overshot
That sunken trough, though by a tremulous vein
Of waving tree-tops partially betrayed.
There the Cistercian Abbey lies, embowered
In hanging groves, the view this way and that
Impeded by a folding screen of hills;
Only, where prayer must go, the eye might range
A tract of clear uninterrupted sky.
Once was that hollow dell a censer sweet
From which the sacrifice of faith and hope
And love, expressed in ritual acts divine,
In one continuous column rose to Heaven.
But now, a vulgar desolation left,
The weedy and dismantled ruin stands
A trophy, for there be who boast it so,
Round which the newly-fashioned faith may sing
Its proud idolatrous pæans, with such space
Of summer silence intervening there
As may suffice for sad and pensive hearts
To pray and weep within the broken choir,
And through devout regrets to learn the worth
Of ancient creeds, and so, by grace inspired
And with a blessing furthered, then assist
To overturn that worship which enthrones
The formal understanding in the room
Of faith profound and pure adoring love,
And with a well-contrived insertion slides
Between the sinner and the Cross a form
Of base will-worship; while in these our times
The native wants of humankind, the thirst
Of pining souls, the joyless solitude
Of craving conscience, and the painful cry
Of reason now collapsing on itself,—
All, by the grace of God, this creed outgrow,
This miserable pageant of untruth,
Feeble with three poor centuries of age.
From which the sacrifice of faith and hope
And love, expressed in ritual acts divine,
In one continuous column rose to Heaven.
But now, a vulgar desolation left,
The weedy and dismantled ruin stands
230
Round which the newly-fashioned faith may sing
Its proud idolatrous pæans, with such space
Of summer silence intervening there
As may suffice for sad and pensive hearts
To pray and weep within the broken choir,
And through devout regrets to learn the worth
Of ancient creeds, and so, by grace inspired
And with a blessing furthered, then assist
To overturn that worship which enthrones
The formal understanding in the room
Of faith profound and pure adoring love,
And with a well-contrived insertion slides
Between the sinner and the Cross a form
Of base will-worship; while in these our times
The native wants of humankind, the thirst
Of pining souls, the joyless solitude
Of craving conscience, and the painful cry
Of reason now collapsing on itself,—
All, by the grace of God, this creed outgrow,
This miserable pageant of untruth,
Feeble with three poor centuries of age.
The Vale of Nightshade was that hollow named,
The Bekansgill, amid whose poison-plants
The name of Mary, like the silent breath
From off the lily beds, imported there
Took sweet possession of the woody glen.
And in the frosty starlight, and the dawn
Of vernal days, and summer's lingering eve,
And when the storms were launched from Furness Fells
On the vast ocean, threatening as they went,
Or when the low depending sky wept tears,
Or clung in tearful mist upon the woods
Rank with the drowsy breath of hemlock flowers,
Still, in a tide of service mounting up
To Pentecost, and falling sweetly off,
Dispersed on unmemorial weeks and days,
Till Advent heads the pilgrim year once more,
There rose the sedulous voice of holy prayer,
The silent praise of contemplative faith,
And—man's best offering to the Eye of Heaven,
Sole evidence of spiritual growth,—
The secret course of meek self-sacrifice.
The Bekansgill, amid whose poison-plants
The name of Mary, like the silent breath
From off the lily beds, imported there
Took sweet possession of the woody glen.
And in the frosty starlight, and the dawn
Of vernal days, and summer's lingering eve,
And when the storms were launched from Furness Fells
On the vast ocean, threatening as they went,
Or when the low depending sky wept tears,
Or clung in tearful mist upon the woods
231
Still, in a tide of service mounting up
To Pentecost, and falling sweetly off,
Dispersed on unmemorial weeks and days,
Till Advent heads the pilgrim year once more,
There rose the sedulous voice of holy prayer,
The silent praise of contemplative faith,
And—man's best offering to the Eye of Heaven,
Sole evidence of spiritual growth,—
The secret course of meek self-sacrifice.
How gently summer hath possessed herself
Of all the quiet being of the place!
Here do I lie within the roofless nave,
With no self-blame, while joining humbler thoughts
And lesser recollections with regrets
That from a higher and holier source proceed,
And momentary humours of despair,
Which end by breathing more courageous hopes,
Inwardly felt, of better things to come,
And sweet retrievals won through perilous change,
The present hazarding in hope to find
Foundation for the future, and outdo,—
Faith brooks not fear—the whole magnificent Past!
Of all the quiet being of the place!
Here do I lie within the roofless nave,
With no self-blame, while joining humbler thoughts
And lesser recollections with regrets
That from a higher and holier source proceed,
And momentary humours of despair,
Which end by breathing more courageous hopes,
Inwardly felt, of better things to come,
And sweet retrievals won through perilous change,
The present hazarding in hope to find
Foundation for the future, and outdo,—
Faith brooks not fear—the whole magnificent Past!
Yon pelletery, that in silken tufts
Innumerous, with glossy leaf and flower
Of sanguine purple, from the chink protrudes,
And sucks medicinal virtue from the stones,
May school the meditative heart to find
Meet nutriment of moral import here,
Where nature with her placid beauty clothes
The sin of man, and time, while he unveils
His melancholy features to the light
In spots like these, yet smooths his lineaments
To grace, lest thought that came to learn should steal
Affrighted from the presence of the sage.
Innumerous, with glossy leaf and flower
Of sanguine purple, from the chink protrudes,
And sucks medicinal virtue from the stones,
May school the meditative heart to find
Meet nutriment of moral import here,
Where nature with her placid beauty clothes
The sin of man, and time, while he unveils
His melancholy features to the light
In spots like these, yet smooths his lineaments
To grace, lest thought that came to learn should steal
232
Mingled with such reflections, personal thoughts
From these memorial ruins spring, grave joys
Of friendship plighted here in dreamy youth,
Which is not surely changed nor passed away,
Though in affectionate sallies less delighting,
And in wild sport, by growing breadth of years
Discountenanced! Those alders by the rill,
Which, brother-like, incline their mossy trunks
Upon each other, and that orchard plot
With crippled ranks of old and leaning trees,
With chaste and waxen applebloom besprent,
The tall rank sward that grows beneath their boughs,
The subterraneous tinkling of the brook,
The dull dark tufts of flowerless daffodil
That with their green mosaic pave the door
Of the antique chapter-house,—all seem to me
But images transplanted from a dream,
Themselves scarce real even where they stand;—
Yea, from that dream transferred, when the outer world,
Its doing and its suffering, were as nought,
And our impassioned lives were proud to steer
A course apart, and friendship, like a fount
Cool-eyed and chaste, perennial sweetness gave
Without satiety; and, happiness
Being, without some want, insensible,
There rose for its completion in the soul
A hunger to be more and more beloved,
A famine that resolved to be unfilled,
Lest the bright plenty among which it dwelt
Should seem less bright, when satisfaction dulled
The sharpness of that exquisite desire.
From these memorial ruins spring, grave joys
Of friendship plighted here in dreamy youth,
Which is not surely changed nor passed away,
Though in affectionate sallies less delighting,
And in wild sport, by growing breadth of years
Discountenanced! Those alders by the rill,
Which, brother-like, incline their mossy trunks
Upon each other, and that orchard plot
With crippled ranks of old and leaning trees,
With chaste and waxen applebloom besprent,
The tall rank sward that grows beneath their boughs,
The subterraneous tinkling of the brook,
The dull dark tufts of flowerless daffodil
That with their green mosaic pave the door
Of the antique chapter-house,—all seem to me
But images transplanted from a dream,
Themselves scarce real even where they stand;—
Yea, from that dream transferred, when the outer world,
Its doing and its suffering, were as nought,
And our impassioned lives were proud to steer
A course apart, and friendship, like a fount
Cool-eyed and chaste, perennial sweetness gave
Without satiety; and, happiness
Being, without some want, insensible,
There rose for its completion in the soul
A hunger to be more and more beloved,
A famine that resolved to be unfilled,
Lest the bright plenty among which it dwelt
Should seem less bright, when satisfaction dulled
The sharpness of that exquisite desire.
There mid the peace and old familiar forms
Of that mute hollow, in whose weedy crypts
Time with a faltering purpose lingers now,
Enamoured of the beauty of his work,
Which more elaborate touch will only spoil,
Must I divert the channel of my song,
Even now too much arrested in its course,
While I have wandered up and down to cull
These pleasant recollections of my youth,
And from my purpose innocently strayed.
233
Time with a faltering purpose lingers now,
Enamoured of the beauty of his work,
Which more elaborate touch will only spoil,
Must I divert the channel of my song,
Even now too much arrested in its course,
While I have wandered up and down to cull
These pleasant recollections of my youth,
And from my purpose innocently strayed.
'Twas noonday on Black Combe; Sir Lancelot
Was praying on the summit of the hill:
And thither came a pious Bernardin
From out of Furness, by the Abbot sent
With message brief but full of peace and joy.
Within the glen, upon the mountain-top,
The Church with pleased solicitude had kept
Her eye upon the separated man;
And now the Legate had transmitted powers
By which the Penitent might be received
Once more within the pale of Holy Church.
Such were the tidings, by Sir Lancelot heard
With wonder and submissive thankfulness.
Was praying on the summit of the hill:
And thither came a pious Bernardin
From out of Furness, by the Abbot sent
With message brief but full of peace and joy.
Within the glen, upon the mountain-top,
The Church with pleased solicitude had kept
Her eye upon the separated man;
And now the Legate had transmitted powers
By which the Penitent might be received
Once more within the pale of Holy Church.
Such were the tidings, by Sir Lancelot heard
With wonder and submissive thankfulness.
Long time he prayed to God, long time he wept,
And kissed the earth of that lone mountain-top;
While, with contagious impulse sinking down,
The Bernardin both wept and prayed with him;
Till in that wild and solitary place,
Sweet foretaste of communion with his kind,
The Monk embraced the Penitent, and, love
Outrunning forms, bestowed the kiss of peace.
And kissed the earth of that lone mountain-top;
While, with contagious impulse sinking down,
The Bernardin both wept and prayed with him;
Till in that wild and solitary place,
Sweet foretaste of communion with his kind,
The Monk embraced the Penitent, and, love
Outrunning forms, bestowed the kiss of peace.
Within St. Mary's Chapter-house the Knight
Met with that famous Abbot, Hugh de Bron,
By him saluted with grave kindliness;
And at the feet of that most holy man,
Throughout the wide Cistercian world revered,
Kneeling in penitential guise, he told
With many a pause, and most circuitous speech,
As is the want of solitary men,
His sinful deeds, and his confession thus,
Half history and half confession, made.
Met with that famous Abbot, Hugh de Bron,
By him saluted with grave kindliness;
And at the feet of that most holy man,
234
Kneeling in penitential guise, he told
With many a pause, and most circuitous speech,
As is the want of solitary men,
His sinful deeds, and his confession thus,
Half history and half confession, made.
O Man of God! I pray thee, hearken now;
My tale can tell in what unthought-of ways,
And with what travail, Christ's Almighty Love
Goes out into the Babel of the world
All day and night in quest of erring souls.
Father! to me the cause of mortal sin
Was briefly this: I had been wronged in love,
A wrong which more than fathomed all the depths
Of natural forbearance, and might strain
The love, divinely tempered, of the Saints.
But what, in such a holy place as this,
Imports the mention of terrestrial love?
The injury was another's sin, not mine;
Therefore in my confession claims no place.
And, truth to say, so many years have past
Since from the depths of memory mortal love
Hath risen in tangible disguise of words
Upon my spirit, that I scarce could clothe
That early passion in a fitting style,
Or with accoutrement of current phrase.
Enough that I was wronged, that for that wrong,
Not for the love of Christ, I sought the East,
And through the recklessness I had of life
Was eminent in fight above my peers.
My tale can tell in what unthought-of ways,
And with what travail, Christ's Almighty Love
Goes out into the Babel of the world
All day and night in quest of erring souls.
Father! to me the cause of mortal sin
Was briefly this: I had been wronged in love,
A wrong which more than fathomed all the depths
Of natural forbearance, and might strain
The love, divinely tempered, of the Saints.
But what, in such a holy place as this,
Imports the mention of terrestrial love?
The injury was another's sin, not mine;
Therefore in my confession claims no place.
And, truth to say, so many years have past
Since from the depths of memory mortal love
Hath risen in tangible disguise of words
Upon my spirit, that I scarce could clothe
That early passion in a fitting style,
Or with accoutrement of current phrase.
Enough that I was wronged, that for that wrong,
Not for the love of Christ, I sought the East,
And through the recklessness I had of life
Was eminent in fight above my peers.
The storm of sacred war then lulled awhile,
I went in search of venturous enterprise,
Martial or politic, as chanced to come,
Among the Latin principalities
Which were as islands in the troubled East.
And in my lonely travel oft I nursed
My wrong, and diligently kept awake
The thought of vengeance; though in early years,
Earlier than youth, good Father! I had been
Touched with the sweetness of celestial grace,
And would have sought a cloister, had not love
Caused me to swerve from that design. Yet soon,
In lonely hazard and long journeys tried,
I felt as if that earlier stream of grace
Was being unsealed far down within my heart,—
Hopes which a sudden chance, or rather plot
Of evil powers allowed, too soon dispersed,
Temptation coming ere my soul was winged
For flight, and so was caught within the nest
Unfledged:—with that temptation will I now
Commence.
I went in search of venturous enterprise,
Martial or politic, as chanced to come,
Among the Latin principalities
235
And in my lonely travel oft I nursed
My wrong, and diligently kept awake
The thought of vengeance; though in early years,
Earlier than youth, good Father! I had been
Touched with the sweetness of celestial grace,
And would have sought a cloister, had not love
Caused me to swerve from that design. Yet soon,
In lonely hazard and long journeys tried,
I felt as if that earlier stream of grace
Was being unsealed far down within my heart,—
Hopes which a sudden chance, or rather plot
Of evil powers allowed, too soon dispersed,
Temptation coming ere my soul was winged
For flight, and so was caught within the nest
Unfledged:—with that temptation will I now
Commence.
From Tarsus round the lovely bay,
Up which the eastern horn of Cyprus points,
I journeyed slowly; every week and month
Deepened the love of nature in my heart,
Which seemed, like some angelic pioneer,
Preparing the fresh path of grace divine,
Softening the flinty rocks with gentleness
That sapped all stubborn thoughts, all base desires,
And bridging those dark chasms, which former sin,
Like a wild earthquake, rent within the soul,
By rainbows o'er whose braided arch new hopes
Went on their way, as if on solid ground.
Up which the eastern horn of Cyprus points,
I journeyed slowly; every week and month
Deepened the love of nature in my heart,
Which seemed, like some angelic pioneer,
Preparing the fresh path of grace divine,
Softening the flinty rocks with gentleness
That sapped all stubborn thoughts, all base desires,
And bridging those dark chasms, which former sin,
Like a wild earthquake, rent within the soul,
By rainbows o'er whose braided arch new hopes
Went on their way, as if on solid ground.
In truth there is a sad congruity
Between the landscape and the fate of those
Exhausted realms;—a wild and touching waste
Of sweetness, and a languid colouring.
A pensive air of pastoral loneliness,
With a monotony of change, through sun
And moon or by the infrequent shower conferred.
The pale green plains lie stretched in radiant mist,
Diversified, one knows not how, and cheered
By softness, almost mournful, of the lights
And shades which chronicle the morn and eve,
The summer and the winter, of those lands;—
Regions of dappled shadow far outspread,
Thrown from the mute procession of the clouds,
Or by the slanting sun from caps of hill
Projected, or historic barrows green,
Or our own horses, dimly magnified,
Reflected over many a rood of sward!
And, if we lie upon the ground to sleep,
How strangely o'er the surface of the earth
There comes a floating sound, a homeless voice,
Low as the creaking of a sullen moss,
From the crisp browsing of the countless herds
For a wide circuit round, by thrilling breeze
Or happy sound of labour undispersed!
Between the landscape and the fate of those
Exhausted realms;—a wild and touching waste
Of sweetness, and a languid colouring.
A pensive air of pastoral loneliness,
236
And moon or by the infrequent shower conferred.
The pale green plains lie stretched in radiant mist,
Diversified, one knows not how, and cheered
By softness, almost mournful, of the lights
And shades which chronicle the morn and eve,
The summer and the winter, of those lands;—
Regions of dappled shadow far outspread,
Thrown from the mute procession of the clouds,
Or by the slanting sun from caps of hill
Projected, or historic barrows green,
Or our own horses, dimly magnified,
Reflected over many a rood of sward!
And, if we lie upon the ground to sleep,
How strangely o'er the surface of the earth
There comes a floating sound, a homeless voice,
Low as the creaking of a sullen moss,
From the crisp browsing of the countless herds
For a wide circuit round, by thrilling breeze
Or happy sound of labour undispersed!
And yet not unrelieved these pallid wastes
By gentler or more stirring prospect: oft
A range of olive-spotted slope is seen,
Like tented camp of Arabs, and as black
As the cold sea beneath a thundercloud,
But now and then by momentary winds
Quickened and driven in silver-twinkling waves;—
Lone straggled palms with knotched and ruined stems
Leaning or straight, the poplars of the East,
So would I name them, giving to the view
Its salient points, and sky-ward shooting spires
Mosque-like, with slight o'erhanging cupolas,
Partitioning the landscape here and there,
Grateful relief unto the gazing eye,
Like our tall foliaged pillars of the West,
Most beautiful but shadow-grudging trees;—
A floating dome of flat-topped pines far off,
An underwood of shrubs that drop sweet gums,
A pool obscure within a formal blind
Of lentisk, or with crimson eyelids closed
Of oleander,—each for lack of change
Is noted as a feature in the scene,
And gives perchance a date unto the day.
And oft a fallen column freshens thought,
With flutings tightly clothed in yellow rust,
And tufts of thyme are sheltered by its bulk
And grow more tall than elsewhere, and the screen
Of its broad shaft the lazy tortoise loves,
And the green lizard with its throbbing pulse
Sleeps in the heated marble grooves all day.
By gentler or more stirring prospect: oft
A range of olive-spotted slope is seen,
Like tented camp of Arabs, and as black
As the cold sea beneath a thundercloud,
But now and then by momentary winds
Quickened and driven in silver-twinkling waves;—
Lone straggled palms with knotched and ruined stems
Leaning or straight, the poplars of the East,
So would I name them, giving to the view
Its salient points, and sky-ward shooting spires
Mosque-like, with slight o'erhanging cupolas,
Partitioning the landscape here and there,
Grateful relief unto the gazing eye,
237
Most beautiful but shadow-grudging trees;—
A floating dome of flat-topped pines far off,
An underwood of shrubs that drop sweet gums,
A pool obscure within a formal blind
Of lentisk, or with crimson eyelids closed
Of oleander,—each for lack of change
Is noted as a feature in the scene,
And gives perchance a date unto the day.
And oft a fallen column freshens thought,
With flutings tightly clothed in yellow rust,
And tufts of thyme are sheltered by its bulk
And grow more tall than elsewhere, and the screen
Of its broad shaft the lazy tortoise loves,
And the green lizard with its throbbing pulse
Sleeps in the heated marble grooves all day.
Marvel not, holy father, that I speak
In this calm way of nature's tranquil scenes,
And local adjuncts on my memory worn
By lapse of years, though now the narrative
Is trembling on the threshold of my crime.
My faltering tongue, reluctant to advance,
Like urchins who forget their tasks, repeats
And lingers on its words, as loath to leave
That Asiatic landscape, where it quits
The innocent sunshine of my life for ever.
The horror and amazement of fresh guilt
Have passed long since, and in the quiet depths
Of my collected conscience I discern
My sin tenfold more hateful than before.
Yet, through the usage of my thoughts, that act
Disturbs not now the adjacent memories.
In this calm way of nature's tranquil scenes,
And local adjuncts on my memory worn
By lapse of years, though now the narrative
Is trembling on the threshold of my crime.
My faltering tongue, reluctant to advance,
Like urchins who forget their tasks, repeats
And lingers on its words, as loath to leave
That Asiatic landscape, where it quits
The innocent sunshine of my life for ever.
The horror and amazement of fresh guilt
Have passed long since, and in the quiet depths
Of my collected conscience I discern
My sin tenfold more hateful than before.
Yet, through the usage of my thoughts, that act
Disturbs not now the adjacent memories.
O father, terrible are those fierce hours,
When our whole lives into one damning sin,
One palpable spot of blackness, are confused,
O'er-whelmed with a monotonous wretchedness,
Where sorrow, tears, and prayers, aye even remorse,
Are suffocated in the heart by blind
And general anguish; and our mortal hopes,
Those vitals of the soul, are by despair
Held under water till they perish. Oh
How oft would I have wooed those hours once more
With hearty choice, so much less terrible
Than the self-recollection which ensued!
Father! the fast and vigil, midnight prayer
And hymn at sunrise, which make up thy life,
Are mysteries far too pure to teach thee how
To fathom that abyss of mortal sin.
Penance for slighted fast, or ill-said Hours,
For broken silence, contumacious word
Against the holy Abbot ere thyself
Wert raised to that high office,—these can give
No gage to measure penance such as mine.
When our whole lives into one damning sin,
238
O'er-whelmed with a monotonous wretchedness,
Where sorrow, tears, and prayers, aye even remorse,
Are suffocated in the heart by blind
And general anguish; and our mortal hopes,
Those vitals of the soul, are by despair
Held under water till they perish. Oh
How oft would I have wooed those hours once more
With hearty choice, so much less terrible
Than the self-recollection which ensued!
Father! the fast and vigil, midnight prayer
And hymn at sunrise, which make up thy life,
Are mysteries far too pure to teach thee how
To fathom that abyss of mortal sin.
Penance for slighted fast, or ill-said Hours,
For broken silence, contumacious word
Against the holy Abbot ere thyself
Wert raised to that high office,—these can give
No gage to measure penance such as mine.
Fearful, I say, as were those desperate hours
When blood was wet upon me—Oh my God!
What infinite, insufferable curse
The purity of Thy dread Presence seemed,
When by degrees the vapours of my soul,
The exhalations of my conscience, grew,
Self-gathered, into one consistent orb,
One tangible and separate shade, from which
The speed of phrensied thought could never clear me,
Nor would it overshoot me if I lagged
Behind. Ah! then it was, and not till then
My sin became my persecutor. Monk!
My penance hath not been in loneliness,
In the abhorrence of my kind, in want
Of the best consolations of our faith,—
But in the singleness of all my thoughts,
The concentration of my harassed mind
Upon one frightful action, and the strain
Of an unshifting pressure so intense
It is a miracle, of purpose wrought
Perchance as penal, reason hath not cracked
Beneath the agonizing tension; this,
Yea, this hath been the intolerable curse,
To be from my own nature thus outlawed
Into the solitude of one dark thought.
The excommunication of the Church,
If this world only measured its results,
But feebly shadows forth the length and breadth
Of that abiding and familiar hell,
Which for some years of sojourn in the East
Was nourished like a loathsome bird of prey
Upon my life of lacerated thought.
When blood was wet upon me—Oh my God!
What infinite, insufferable curse
The purity of Thy dread Presence seemed,
When by degrees the vapours of my soul,
The exhalations of my conscience, grew,
Self-gathered, into one consistent orb,
One tangible and separate shade, from which
The speed of phrensied thought could never clear me,
Nor would it overshoot me if I lagged
Behind. Ah! then it was, and not till then
My sin became my persecutor. Monk!
My penance hath not been in loneliness,
In the abhorrence of my kind, in want
Of the best consolations of our faith,—
239
The concentration of my harassed mind
Upon one frightful action, and the strain
Of an unshifting pressure so intense
It is a miracle, of purpose wrought
Perchance as penal, reason hath not cracked
Beneath the agonizing tension; this,
Yea, this hath been the intolerable curse,
To be from my own nature thus outlawed
Into the solitude of one dark thought.
The excommunication of the Church,
If this world only measured its results,
But feebly shadows forth the length and breadth
Of that abiding and familiar hell,
Which for some years of sojourn in the East
Was nourished like a loathsome bird of prey
Upon my life of lacerated thought.
But pardon me—I wander from my tale,
And it behoves that thou shouldst hear the end.
Amid such scenes and after such a day
As those of which I spoke—ah! I remember—
A marble column prostrate, and encased
In pale discolouring of saffron rust,
And a green lizard sleeping in the grooves
With sensual enjoyment of the heat,
And with a little pulse that would outstrip
The notes of nightingales for speed—even that
Was the last image of serenity
Impressed upon my mind by earth and air,
Responded to by inward happiness.
And it behoves that thou shouldst hear the end.
Amid such scenes and after such a day
As those of which I spoke—ah! I remember—
A marble column prostrate, and encased
In pale discolouring of saffron rust,
And a green lizard sleeping in the grooves
With sensual enjoyment of the heat,
And with a little pulse that would outstrip
The notes of nightingales for speed—even that
Was the last image of serenity
Impressed upon my mind by earth and air,
Responded to by inward happiness.
I rode towards Antioch on that summer eve;
Nigh to the column with a sudden swerve
The road bore to the left; for half a league
Straight o'er an odorous level it was stretched
Like a blue thread, a level carpeted
With pink-eyed thyme and with a pale green turf,
All blent and intermingled in their hues,
Each muffling each, as though with sweet design.
Then o'er a hill, with golden cytisus
And brittle cactus overgrown, I passed,
And thence I could discern a glistering light
Far o'er the plain, which might or might not be
The domes of Antioch: now with steep descent
The hill dropped down into a cedarn glade,
With murmurs from an unseen river filled.
Nigh to the column with a sudden swerve
The road bore to the left; for half a league
Straight o'er an odorous level it was stretched
240
With pink-eyed thyme and with a pale green turf,
All blent and intermingled in their hues,
Each muffling each, as though with sweet design.
Then o'er a hill, with golden cytisus
And brittle cactus overgrown, I passed,
And thence I could discern a glistering light
Far o'er the plain, which might or might not be
The domes of Antioch: now with steep descent
The hill dropped down into a cedarn glade,
With murmurs from an unseen river filled.
Heaven is my witness not a single thought
Detached from that exciting prospect round
Rose in my heart, no bitterness of love,
No keen awakening of my ancient wrongs.
Amid the foliage, answering to the breeze
With dusky dipping fans, I watched with joy
Patches of sunset gold which wandered on
From stem to stem, like creatures made of light.
When, thus illuminated, I beheld,
Asleep, alone, among some knotted roots,
Ethilda's foster-brother, Athelstan,
The puny stripling whose effeminate grace
And most unknightly book-lore she preferred
To me whose brow was swart with martial toils,
And whose rough wisdom was acquired in camps,
In travel, in the falsehood of a court,
And masculine encounter with the world.
Detached from that exciting prospect round
Rose in my heart, no bitterness of love,
No keen awakening of my ancient wrongs.
Amid the foliage, answering to the breeze
With dusky dipping fans, I watched with joy
Patches of sunset gold which wandered on
From stem to stem, like creatures made of light.
When, thus illuminated, I beheld,
Asleep, alone, among some knotted roots,
Ethilda's foster-brother, Athelstan,
The puny stripling whose effeminate grace
And most unknightly book-lore she preferred
To me whose brow was swart with martial toils,
And whose rough wisdom was acquired in camps,
In travel, in the falsehood of a court,
And masculine encounter with the world.
To a snapped bough of cedar did I tie
My weary horse, and stole to where he slept.
I vow there was no thought of dark revenge
Inciting me—for he had wronged me not,
The wrong was hers;—but curious impulse, joined
With fascination, as I now perceive,
And a foul tempting motion, led me on.
And there he lay, a seeming boy in years,
With limbs by far too delicate to wear
Aught but a silken doublet and soft hose,
In lieu of steel accoutrements: his head
Was pillowed on the convex of his shield;
His flaxen hair was ruffled by the wind.
He looked a child who now was sleeping off
The weariness of play; and kindliness
Might move me rather to set forth to seek
His horse which strayed somewhere about the wood,
Lest I should see him weeping when he woke.
My weary horse, and stole to where he slept.
I vow there was no thought of dark revenge
Inciting me—for he had wronged me not,
The wrong was hers;—but curious impulse, joined
With fascination, as I now perceive,
241
And there he lay, a seeming boy in years,
With limbs by far too delicate to wear
Aught but a silken doublet and soft hose,
In lieu of steel accoutrements: his head
Was pillowed on the convex of his shield;
His flaxen hair was ruffled by the wind.
He looked a child who now was sleeping off
The weariness of play; and kindliness
Might move me rather to set forth to seek
His horse which strayed somewhere about the wood,
Lest I should see him weeping when he woke.
Then a chance sunbeam passed upon his face:
He stirred not, but he smiled as if the light
Wove itself in the texture of his dreams:
He must have had the conscience of a child!
I took my fill of gazing on the youth;
And then the forced confession which I made
Unto myself that he was beautiful,
And for his very beauty could have loved him
Even as a brother, goaded my hot heart
To bitterness and rage; it was a joy
Then to recall how I had hated him:
And memory, by some marvellous influence helped,
Some strange possession, did accumulate
The past so vehemently on that point
Of present time, so darkly magnified
The frightful opportunity, that I—
In sooth his beauty stirred me to it first—
Slew—murdered—butchered him, alone, asleep,
Unhelmed, and with his beauty pleading for him
O so eloquently!—caitiff that I was,
No knight, I slew him as I would not slay
A godless Saracen in open field.
He stirred not, but he smiled as if the light
Wove itself in the texture of his dreams:
He must have had the conscience of a child!
I took my fill of gazing on the youth;
And then the forced confession which I made
Unto myself that he was beautiful,
And for his very beauty could have loved him
Even as a brother, goaded my hot heart
To bitterness and rage; it was a joy
Then to recall how I had hated him:
And memory, by some marvellous influence helped,
Some strange possession, did accumulate
The past so vehemently on that point
Of present time, so darkly magnified
The frightful opportunity, that I—
In sooth his beauty stirred me to it first—
Slew—murdered—butchered him, alone, asleep,
Unhelmed, and with his beauty pleading for him
O so eloquently!—caitiff that I was,
No knight, I slew him as I would not slay
A godless Saracen in open field.
242
Father! his soul passed very easily,—
Like a young child's, who is but born to pay
His debt of death within an hour: so well
He made surrender of his innocence
Unto his Maker, passing from his sleep
Into the sweet tranquillity of death.
I saw him die—O can my guilty soul
Be disencumbered peacefully as his?—
A marvellous gentle passage! there I gazed;
My deed had utterly disarmed my heart.
He rolled once round and buried his pale face
In the soft earth, moaned once, and strove to clasp
His nerveless hands in attitude of prayer;
Then with an effort turned upon his back,
And crossed his hands upon his breast in sign
Of faith which persevered unto the last.
I watched him from behind a cedar trunk:
Whose hand it was that dealt the guilty blow
He never knew.
Like a young child's, who is but born to pay
His debt of death within an hour: so well
He made surrender of his innocence
Unto his Maker, passing from his sleep
Into the sweet tranquillity of death.
I saw him die—O can my guilty soul
Be disencumbered peacefully as his?—
A marvellous gentle passage! there I gazed;
My deed had utterly disarmed my heart.
He rolled once round and buried his pale face
In the soft earth, moaned once, and strove to clasp
His nerveless hands in attitude of prayer;
Then with an effort turned upon his back,
And crossed his hands upon his breast in sign
Of faith which persevered unto the last.
I watched him from behind a cedar trunk:
Whose hand it was that dealt the guilty blow
He never knew.
O father! human words
Here sink beneath the burden of my tale.
That hour—the horror of that hour—but list!
I will relate it as I can. I gazed
Upon my victim, dead, quite stark and dead,
But, save some stains upon his cheek acquired
When he convulsively embraced the earth,
His whole appearance was of one who slept,
His beauty pale, a smile upon his face,
As though, in the most calm solemnity
Of that last passage, there had come to him
A sweet glimpse onwards, an unearthly smile,
The attractive welcome upon dead men's lips
Greeting perchance some fair angelic sight
Then drawing near,—so mystical the smile!
Here sink beneath the burden of my tale.
That hour—the horror of that hour—but list!
I will relate it as I can. I gazed
Upon my victim, dead, quite stark and dead,
But, save some stains upon his cheek acquired
When he convulsively embraced the earth,
His whole appearance was of one who slept,
His beauty pale, a smile upon his face,
As though, in the most calm solemnity
Of that last passage, there had come to him
A sweet glimpse onwards, an unearthly smile,
The attractive welcome upon dead men's lips
Greeting perchance some fair angelic sight
Then drawing near,—so mystical the smile!
243
Father! what I shall say may seem too strange
By one of guileless ways to be believed.
There is a mental surge within the heart
Of one just fresh from some atrocious crime,
Inspiriting as sights of stormy sea,
And breeding in the hour of recent guilt,
If not a joy, yet a bewilderment
Not far from joy, wherewith the soul is flown
With sin, as men in search of reckless thought
Are flown with wine, and have some happiness
In mere oblivious stupor of the heart,
Or gaiety insane: and even the sound,
The strife, the passionate tumult of the mind
Can minister relief, and by the time
That the excitement of the sin cools down,
The fact hath grown familiar to our thoughts,
And therefore is less terrible by half.
By one of guileless ways to be believed.
There is a mental surge within the heart
Of one just fresh from some atrocious crime,
Inspiriting as sights of stormy sea,
And breeding in the hour of recent guilt,
If not a joy, yet a bewilderment
Not far from joy, wherewith the soul is flown
With sin, as men in search of reckless thought
Are flown with wine, and have some happiness
In mere oblivious stupor of the heart,
Or gaiety insane: and even the sound,
The strife, the passionate tumult of the mind
Can minister relief, and by the time
That the excitement of the sin cools down,
The fact hath grown familiar to our thoughts,
And therefore is less terrible by half.
But I had no such lot: my jealous hate,
Whose sudden impulse drove me to the crime,
Ebbed out from every harbour of my thoughts,
From every secret fold within my heart,
With force as sudden as the influx was
When I was gazing at him in his sleep.
I had no refuge in excitement, no
Self-justifying passion, no remains
Of sin's original heat: my being was
With an amazing magic dispossessed
Before that beautiful dead face. Good Monk!
I doubt not thou hast known how oft the world
Within the heart of man doth stand rebuked
Before the stately presence of a corpse,
The spiritual magnificence of death:
How it casts out all worldliness, the lust
Of life and animal spirits, and can woo
Unto the surface of our feelings, thoughts,
And acts, whate'er within us may be found
Of goodness; such constraining sanctity
Flows from the tranquil vision of the dead.
Whose sudden impulse drove me to the crime,
Ebbed out from every harbour of my thoughts,
From every secret fold within my heart,
With force as sudden as the influx was
When I was gazing at him in his sleep.
I had no refuge in excitement, no
Self-justifying passion, no remains
Of sin's original heat: my being was
With an amazing magic dispossessed
Before that beautiful dead face. Good Monk!
I doubt not thou hast known how oft the world
Within the heart of man doth stand rebuked
Before the stately presence of a corpse,
The spiritual magnificence of death:
How it casts out all worldliness, the lust
Of life and animal spirits, and can woo
244
And acts, whate'er within us may be found
Of goodness; such constraining sanctity
Flows from the tranquil vision of the dead.
I leaned against the cedar trunk, and gazed
On Athelstan: one little purple spot
Upon his bosom, where he had unbraced
His mail, was all the sign of violence.
And, as I gazed, my hatred was expelled
By love, yea, even by actual power of love
Exorcised,—love, not pity; for I glowed
With all the fervour of a living love.
But oh the agony of soul! the fire,
The scorching fire which that love was to me!
The worst enhancing of my wretchedness,
The last extremity of punishment,—
I loved him whom I murdered, and methinks
Cain's very burden were less hard to bear.
On Athelstan: one little purple spot
Upon his bosom, where he had unbraced
His mail, was all the sign of violence.
And, as I gazed, my hatred was expelled
By love, yea, even by actual power of love
Exorcised,—love, not pity; for I glowed
With all the fervour of a living love.
But oh the agony of soul! the fire,
The scorching fire which that love was to me!
The worst enhancing of my wretchedness,
The last extremity of punishment,—
I loved him whom I murdered, and methinks
Cain's very burden were less hard to bear.
O wondrous transmutations of the soul,
Wondrous as sudden, incident to those,
And those alone, who with heroic deeds
Or crimes of giant stature have conversed!
How oft by you have Martyrs at the stake
Been visibly transfigured to the form
And look of Angels, while to me that night
The transformation of my rage to love
So operated as to be the flail
Of some new passion, fiercer than remorse,
Now to its awful function summoned up,
A demon without name, to make a scourge
Of my own damning thoughts, severer far
Than if 'twere braided of the fires of hell,
Wherein the bodily suffering might be—
So seemed it then to my most foolish thoughts—
Faint mitigation of the pangs of soul.
Wondrous as sudden, incident to those,
And those alone, who with heroic deeds
Or crimes of giant stature have conversed!
How oft by you have Martyrs at the stake
Been visibly transfigured to the form
And look of Angels, while to me that night
The transformation of my rage to love
So operated as to be the flail
Of some new passion, fiercer than remorse,
Now to its awful function summoned up,
A demon without name, to make a scourge
Of my own damning thoughts, severer far
Than if 'twere braided of the fires of hell,
Wherein the bodily suffering might be—
So seemed it then to my most foolish thoughts—
245
The night that followed—oh! how placidly
The moon rose up above the wilderness,
The bold expanse of sylvan solitude,
While the dead features grew obscure, a spot
Of ghostly whiteness on the dull brown earth!
Upon a point projecting from the hill
Halfway in the descent, I stood; and thence
How beautiful the aspect of the night,
Looking towards Antioch, whose far-gleaming spires
Twinkled, like stars surmounting the pale line
Of the horizon, or about to sink
Beneath! The cedars in steep terraced lines
One o'er the other into contact came,
With foliage shelving like a skilful roof
Of close continuous green all down the slope.
And in and out with dusky-flashing wings
The white owls sallied from the branching eaves,
And, disappointed with the clear midnight,
Screamed, and forthwith immured themselves again
Within the vaults of umbrage: far and wide
Thereon the silver darkness of the moon
With an etherial paleness overspread
The silent sea of boughs, while at my feet,
Whither with momentary impulse fell
My fascinated eyes, young Athelstan
Lay stiffening in the dew, o'er canopied
By sable cedars, most funereal trees,
Whose fits of dirgelike music were evoked
By calls of breezy air throughout the night.
The moon rose up above the wilderness,
The bold expanse of sylvan solitude,
While the dead features grew obscure, a spot
Of ghostly whiteness on the dull brown earth!
Upon a point projecting from the hill
Halfway in the descent, I stood; and thence
How beautiful the aspect of the night,
Looking towards Antioch, whose far-gleaming spires
Twinkled, like stars surmounting the pale line
Of the horizon, or about to sink
Beneath! The cedars in steep terraced lines
One o'er the other into contact came,
With foliage shelving like a skilful roof
Of close continuous green all down the slope.
And in and out with dusky-flashing wings
The white owls sallied from the branching eaves,
And, disappointed with the clear midnight,
Screamed, and forthwith immured themselves again
Within the vaults of umbrage: far and wide
Thereon the silver darkness of the moon
With an etherial paleness overspread
The silent sea of boughs, while at my feet,
Whither with momentary impulse fell
My fascinated eyes, young Athelstan
Lay stiffening in the dew, o'er canopied
By sable cedars, most funereal trees,
Whose fits of dirgelike music were evoked
By calls of breezy air throughout the night.
Whether by sleep o'erpowered or gradual swoon
I know not, but the chill of dawning day
Aroused me lying by the rigid side
Of the pale corpse; and, slowly gathering thought,
I mustered one by one the horrid facts
Of the past night, till realizing all
I summed it up—I was a murderer,—
And the whole breadth of that tremendous word
Was then disclosed unto my dizzy sense,—
A dark blood-guilty spirit in the eye
Of the sweet sunrise,—on the odorous earth
Exiled from peace, another outcast Cain.
In the keen horror of my soul I shrieked,—
A long, loud, wailing scream of agony.
The unearthly sound, received into the wood,
Reverberated in the dim ravines,
And echoed wildly from the sun-touched crags,
While o'er the cedar tops at once there rose
A miserable murmur of cold wind,
Responsive, as it seemed, to the despair
Within my heart: so awfully it preached
That mercy was not, and all hope forsworn.
I know not, but the chill of dawning day
Aroused me lying by the rigid side
Of the pale corpse; and, slowly gathering thought,
246
Of the past night, till realizing all
I summed it up—I was a murderer,—
And the whole breadth of that tremendous word
Was then disclosed unto my dizzy sense,—
A dark blood-guilty spirit in the eye
Of the sweet sunrise,—on the odorous earth
Exiled from peace, another outcast Cain.
In the keen horror of my soul I shrieked,—
A long, loud, wailing scream of agony.
The unearthly sound, received into the wood,
Reverberated in the dim ravines,
And echoed wildly from the sun-touched crags,
While o'er the cedar tops at once there rose
A miserable murmur of cold wind,
Responsive, as it seemed, to the despair
Within my heart: so awfully it preached
That mercy was not, and all hope forsworn.
I rose and fled; the stricken antelope,
That from the arrow fixed within his side
Flies, as he deems, in blind direction urged
This way and that, scours not in worse dismay
The dewy woodland, or with wilder speed,
Than I now shot among the cedarn glades,
The sunny openings and the darksome groves,
With preternatural strength sustained, and spurred
By those intolerable thoughts which rung,
Like hunter's bugles in the affrighted ear
Of the poor beast, within my conscious soul,
A larum whose dread echo to this day,
By mercy somewhat muffled, vibrates still.
Yet was I destined never to outstrip
That vile intolerable self, from which
I ran: and yet the idle bodily act,
While it illustrated the inward mind,
No less relieved the agony; I ran,
How long I know not, but until my foot
Was caught amid some snaky roots which rose
In treacherous moss, and to the earth I fell
Senseless; my forehead dashed against a trunk
With scaly rind as hard as plates of mail,
And by my blood made ruddier than before.
That from the arrow fixed within his side
Flies, as he deems, in blind direction urged
This way and that, scours not in worse dismay
The dewy woodland, or with wilder speed,
Than I now shot among the cedarn glades,
The sunny openings and the darksome groves,
With preternatural strength sustained, and spurred
By those intolerable thoughts which rung,
Like hunter's bugles in the affrighted ear
Of the poor beast, within my conscious soul,
A larum whose dread echo to this day,
By mercy somewhat muffled, vibrates still.
Yet was I destined never to outstrip
That vile intolerable self, from which
I ran: and yet the idle bodily act,
247
No less relieved the agony; I ran,
How long I know not, but until my foot
Was caught amid some snaky roots which rose
In treacherous moss, and to the earth I fell
Senseless; my forehead dashed against a trunk
With scaly rind as hard as plates of mail,
And by my blood made ruddier than before.
When consciousness returned I found myself
Upon a pallet in an empty cave.
A screen of ancient cedars grew in front,
And pendulous before the entrance hung,—
A pleasant lattice, whose dusk umbrage threw
O'er all the spacious chambers of the rock
A tinted twilight of aerial green,
A gentle semi-lunar atmosphere;
And then, although the sun had barely set,
Were visible in trimly ordered spires
The enwoven dances of the sparkling flies,
Which there, when day hath hardly died without,
Their nightly feast of lanterns celebrate.
And to the cave, with resonance subdued,
Vanquished with climbing up the woody height,
The muffled thunder of a double fall
Of foamy waters reached, an undersong
Slowly surmounting every other sound
As the night deepened, and the tingling earth
With all her voices into slumber sunk,
All save the jackal's cries, which overhead
Like plaining infants wearied the still air.
Upon a pallet in an empty cave.
A screen of ancient cedars grew in front,
And pendulous before the entrance hung,—
A pleasant lattice, whose dusk umbrage threw
O'er all the spacious chambers of the rock
A tinted twilight of aerial green,
A gentle semi-lunar atmosphere;
And then, although the sun had barely set,
Were visible in trimly ordered spires
The enwoven dances of the sparkling flies,
Which there, when day hath hardly died without,
Their nightly feast of lanterns celebrate.
And to the cave, with resonance subdued,
Vanquished with climbing up the woody height,
The muffled thunder of a double fall
Of foamy waters reached, an undersong
Slowly surmounting every other sound
As the night deepened, and the tingling earth
With all her voices into slumber sunk,
All save the jackal's cries, which overhead
Like plaining infants wearied the still air.
Parting the cedar boughs, which at my touch
Swung lightly on one side, I left the cave.
The paradise of Daphne lay around.
In front there was a cirque of emerald lawn,
With cypress fringed, whose motionless black spires
Seemed molten in the scintillating gold
And throbbing saffron of the western sky;
And tortuous paths of ruddy gravel glowed
With a coarse gilding mid the luminous green
Of wide-spread myrtles and old towering bays;
While down below, above the panting falls,
The oily waters glistened mid the boughs,
Like a marsh meteor creeping through the grove.
And on a lower shelf in laurel trees
Embowered, that might from Julian count their years,
Stood the half-ruined shrine of Babylas,
The Decian Martyr who erewhile repelled,
Bold as the Saint of Milan, from the doors
Of Antioch Church, the master of the world;
Whose holy relics in Cremona now
Are honoured by the faithful of the West.
Swung lightly on one side, I left the cave.
The paradise of Daphne lay around.
In front there was a cirque of emerald lawn,
248
Seemed molten in the scintillating gold
And throbbing saffron of the western sky;
And tortuous paths of ruddy gravel glowed
With a coarse gilding mid the luminous green
Of wide-spread myrtles and old towering bays;
While down below, above the panting falls,
The oily waters glistened mid the boughs,
Like a marsh meteor creeping through the grove.
And on a lower shelf in laurel trees
Embowered, that might from Julian count their years,
Stood the half-ruined shrine of Babylas,
The Decian Martyr who erewhile repelled,
Bold as the Saint of Milan, from the doors
Of Antioch Church, the master of the world;
Whose holy relics in Cremona now
Are honoured by the faithful of the West.
O marvellous it was that night to see
The trickling moonlight sweetly overflow
Those hoary laurels, down from leaf to leaf
Dripping like noiseless rain, ascents and falls
And running tremours of fair light that seemed
Like pictured music, as when we behold
For hours, and wonder what defrauds the ear,
How Saint Cecilia's taper fingers sweep
With flying pressure the white twinkling keys,
Chanting her everlasting, silent psalm!
The trickling moonlight sweetly overflow
Those hoary laurels, down from leaf to leaf
Dripping like noiseless rain, ascents and falls
And running tremours of fair light that seemed
Like pictured music, as when we behold
For hours, and wonder what defrauds the ear,
How Saint Cecilia's taper fingers sweep
With flying pressure the white twinkling keys,
Chanting her everlasting, silent psalm!
The loud clear voices of the singing birds
That trilled down every rock and cedar stem,
Before the sunrise, woke me in the cave:
And with a slow return upon my ear,
The water-fall resumed its soothing sound.
I stepped beyond the screen of fanlike boughs;
And for a moment, O how beautiful,
And how divinely calm the place appeared,—
The smile of expectation dimpling there
On leaf and stone, as veins of pearly light,
The out-runners of the morning, blanched the skies.
But swift the recollection of my sin
Rushed like a torrent back upon my thoughts,
And dashed the gentle sense of joy away.
Ah sinful world, and I of sinners worst,
How have ye marred the primal bliss of earth,
Since happiness a mournful-visaged power
Appears, when loveliest; and the winning charm
Of innocence and chastity consists
In unavenging weakness, while the thought
Of wrong, which in our mind accompanies
The vision of a pure and guileless man,
Invests with pitiful pathetic light
That innocence, acknowledged and beheld
Strong as the sunrise in the world above,
As though wrong were the inseparable shade
Of virtue, helpless foreigner on earth!
That trilled down every rock and cedar stem,
Before the sunrise, woke me in the cave:
And with a slow return upon my ear,
The water-fall resumed its soothing sound.
I stepped beyond the screen of fanlike boughs;
And for a moment, O how beautiful,
249
The smile of expectation dimpling there
On leaf and stone, as veins of pearly light,
The out-runners of the morning, blanched the skies.
But swift the recollection of my sin
Rushed like a torrent back upon my thoughts,
And dashed the gentle sense of joy away.
Ah sinful world, and I of sinners worst,
How have ye marred the primal bliss of earth,
Since happiness a mournful-visaged power
Appears, when loveliest; and the winning charm
Of innocence and chastity consists
In unavenging weakness, while the thought
Of wrong, which in our mind accompanies
The vision of a pure and guileless man,
Invests with pitiful pathetic light
That innocence, acknowledged and beheld
Strong as the sunrise in the world above,
As though wrong were the inseparable shade
Of virtue, helpless foreigner on earth!
Now, from a cave hard by, an agèd man
Came forth, and greeted me with blunt address.
Stranger, said he, I saved thy life: thy steed,
Which from the cedar bough had broken loose,
By the west gate of Antioch foaming stood,
There recognized, and while debate was held
Among the guards, the jennet of the man
Thou slew'st came neighing to the self-same gate,
And riderless; the Latin knights who went
Into the forest on a mournful quest,
For so they deemed it, found thy bloody sword,
And knew it thine by graving on the hilt,
Near the cold corpse, dishonourably pierced
Where the cuirass had been unbraced for sleep.
And at this hour in Antioch's dungeons dark
Wouldst thou have been, abiding axe or wheel,
Had I not promptly brought thee to this cave,
Where jealously immured thou must remain
Awhile, though free of this sequestered lawn;
For a rich price is set upon thy head.
Came forth, and greeted me with blunt address.
Stranger, said he, I saved thy life: thy steed,
Which from the cedar bough had broken loose,
By the west gate of Antioch foaming stood,
There recognized, and while debate was held
Among the guards, the jennet of the man
Thou slew'st came neighing to the self-same gate,
And riderless; the Latin knights who went
Into the forest on a mournful quest,
For so they deemed it, found thy bloody sword,
And knew it thine by graving on the hilt,
Near the cold corpse, dishonourably pierced
Where the cuirass had been unbraced for sleep.
250
Wouldst thou have been, abiding axe or wheel,
Had I not promptly brought thee to this cave,
Where jealously immured thou must remain
Awhile, though free of this sequestered lawn;
For a rich price is set upon thy head.
I stood before him silent and dismayed
By those scant words, that bloodless summing up,
That frozen unimpassioned narrative,
With no reproach, no bitterness or scorn
Commingled; such commingling would have been
Relief, and fortified endurance more.
And by the aspect of the man was I
No less amazed, than by his frigid speech.
His long thin hair was all of silvery white,
His back was bent with age, his lean left-hand
Trembled with palsy, like a shivering leaf.
His brow and face were wrinkled o'er and o'er,
Dinted with lines of pain; his bloodless skin
With a strange olive whiteness was o'erspread,
Like leprosy; but on his sunken eyes
The power and brilliance of extremest youth
Were throned, in sleepless glances darting forth,
And with a fearful beauty, from their caves,
Deep in the head, o'er-ruling all the age
Of his wan lineaments; and from his mouth,
Toothless and fallen in, came forth a voice
Tuneful and clear, with intonation firm
Yet flexible, most like the tones of one
Out-growing fast the service of the choir,
And domineering in the boyish chant.
By those scant words, that bloodless summing up,
That frozen unimpassioned narrative,
With no reproach, no bitterness or scorn
Commingled; such commingling would have been
Relief, and fortified endurance more.
And by the aspect of the man was I
No less amazed, than by his frigid speech.
His long thin hair was all of silvery white,
His back was bent with age, his lean left-hand
Trembled with palsy, like a shivering leaf.
His brow and face were wrinkled o'er and o'er,
Dinted with lines of pain; his bloodless skin
With a strange olive whiteness was o'erspread,
Like leprosy; but on his sunken eyes
The power and brilliance of extremest youth
Were throned, in sleepless glances darting forth,
And with a fearful beauty, from their caves,
Deep in the head, o'er-ruling all the age
Of his wan lineaments; and from his mouth,
Toothless and fallen in, came forth a voice
Tuneful and clear, with intonation firm
Yet flexible, most like the tones of one
Out-growing fast the service of the choir,
And domineering in the boyish chant.
Dreadful it was to gaze upon his face
And hear that voice come forth, so young, so sweet;
As though a second spirit had possessed
That old and crippled frame, investing it
With double being,—a gaunt half-ruined cell,
From out whose fissures songlike oracles
With ringing clearness were for ever breathed.
And strange it was that those decrepid limbs,
That palsied hand, those numb and tottering feet.
Should have conveyed me thither in my swoon.
More like a dream-engendered shape he was
Than living man of mortal parentage;
As though we had in some hot starting sleep,
Or stupour by the healing poisons wrought,
Beheld in feverish vision Youth and Age,
Two disembodied spirits, dimly fight
For some pale corpse which they would fain possess,
And each, alternately victorious, fill
The passive thing with cognizable life,
Now young, now old, or old and young at once.
And hear that voice come forth, so young, so sweet;
As though a second spirit had possessed
251
With double being,—a gaunt half-ruined cell,
From out whose fissures songlike oracles
With ringing clearness were for ever breathed.
And strange it was that those decrepid limbs,
That palsied hand, those numb and tottering feet.
Should have conveyed me thither in my swoon.
More like a dream-engendered shape he was
Than living man of mortal parentage;
As though we had in some hot starting sleep,
Or stupour by the healing poisons wrought,
Beheld in feverish vision Youth and Age,
Two disembodied spirits, dimly fight
For some pale corpse which they would fain possess,
And each, alternately victorious, fill
The passive thing with cognizable life,
Now young, now old, or old and young at once.
I stood in awe and trembling, silence-bound,
While he, divining all my inward thought,
Answered my questioning eyes;—I am the Jew,
The Wandering Ancient, through all centuries known,
Reluctant Pilgrim, tarrying on the earth;
The startling shadow of whose life is cast
Across all generations of mankind;
And this the witness of my destiny.
So saying, from out his vest of serge he drew
His strong right hand, with roseate flesh of youth
Well furnished, and full veins and agile nerves,
Which ill accorded with his shrunken wrist;—
And for what cause, said he, my voice and eyes
And this bold hand with such immortal youth
And freshness bloom, I need not now recite;
Methinks thy first conjecture scarce could fail
To unriddle that wide-blazoned mystery.
While he, divining all my inward thought,
Answered my questioning eyes;—I am the Jew,
The Wandering Ancient, through all centuries known,
Reluctant Pilgrim, tarrying on the earth;
The startling shadow of whose life is cast
Across all generations of mankind;
And this the witness of my destiny.
So saying, from out his vest of serge he drew
His strong right hand, with roseate flesh of youth
Well furnished, and full veins and agile nerves,
Which ill accorded with his shrunken wrist;—
And for what cause, said he, my voice and eyes
And this bold hand with such immortal youth
And freshness bloom, I need not now recite;
Methinks thy first conjecture scarce could fail
To unriddle that wide-blazoned mystery.
252
I am a wandering planet that might seem,
Save to that all-discerning Eye above,
Without an orbit, free to roam the skies
In desultory pilgrimage, self-willed,—
But that I feel a silent light wells out
For ever from my presence, so that men
Instinctively retreat before me, abashed,
Making my road a transient solitude
In populous cities or the throng of camps.
And thus I know that some mysterious law
Is hung discernibly about my life.
And once in every age my lonesome thoughts
Are by the hateful presence scourged anew
Of Christian fallen into mortal sin,
Who tortures me with Signs that rend my flesh,
Like the hot beaks of vultures, and by woe,
By self-abasement, and repenting tears,
One drop of which were cheaply bought by me
For all the world contains of gold or gems:
And while my sufferings are enhanced, his soul
Beneath the infliction of my presence wins
A penance I reluctantly accord,
And through a broken spirit meets with grace.
Demas was first, and thou art doomed the twelfth.
Save to that all-discerning Eye above,
Without an orbit, free to roam the skies
In desultory pilgrimage, self-willed,—
But that I feel a silent light wells out
For ever from my presence, so that men
Instinctively retreat before me, abashed,
Making my road a transient solitude
In populous cities or the throng of camps.
And thus I know that some mysterious law
Is hung discernibly about my life.
And once in every age my lonesome thoughts
Are by the hateful presence scourged anew
Of Christian fallen into mortal sin,
Who tortures me with Signs that rend my flesh,
Like the hot beaks of vultures, and by woe,
By self-abasement, and repenting tears,
One drop of which were cheaply bought by me
For all the world contains of gold or gems:
And while my sufferings are enhanced, his soul
Beneath the infliction of my presence wins
A penance I reluctantly accord,
And through a broken spirit meets with grace.
Demas was first, and thou art doomed the twelfth.
Seven years I dwelt, seven years of length untold,
Unspeakable, of life precipitate,
Crowded experience, savage wanderings,
Successions of unnatural toils, compressed
In those few dismal moons,—seven mortal years
Of expiatory sojourn with the Jew.
Solemn it was to see the mystic lot
Of the dark homeless people gathered up
And hung upon that single living type.
Stirring or still, before his sleepless eyes,
Stood the most heavenly Vision of a Face,
Such as doth nightly haunt the troubled dreams,
Or desolate misgivings in the day,
Of the poor Hebrew nation, which even now
Floats like a buoyant wreck that cannot sink
Upon the surface of the awe-struck world,
Paynim or Christian: a dread Vision too,
The Guiltless whom they nailed upon the Cross,
Which they who gaze on, in deep love or hate,
Endure the one affection in their souls
Deathless; as on the Wanderer's eyes it forced
Constrained acceptance of a joyless youth.
And evermore the Personal Vision gained
Vivid similitude the more intense
As years were heaped upon him, till it grew
Like forms conglobed within the lurid heart
Of the black thunder-storm, the brazen orb
Of the red lightnings partly disengaged
From its restraining canopy of cloud.
Unspeakable, of life precipitate,
Crowded experience, savage wanderings,
Successions of unnatural toils, compressed
In those few dismal moons,—seven mortal years
Of expiatory sojourn with the Jew.
Solemn it was to see the mystic lot
Of the dark homeless people gathered up
And hung upon that single living type.
Stirring or still, before his sleepless eyes,
253
Such as doth nightly haunt the troubled dreams,
Or desolate misgivings in the day,
Of the poor Hebrew nation, which even now
Floats like a buoyant wreck that cannot sink
Upon the surface of the awe-struck world,
Paynim or Christian: a dread Vision too,
The Guiltless whom they nailed upon the Cross,
Which they who gaze on, in deep love or hate,
Endure the one affection in their souls
Deathless; as on the Wanderer's eyes it forced
Constrained acceptance of a joyless youth.
And evermore the Personal Vision gained
Vivid similitude the more intense
As years were heaped upon him, till it grew
Like forms conglobed within the lurid heart
Of the black thunder-storm, the brazen orb
Of the red lightnings partly disengaged
From its restraining canopy of cloud.
And, woful curse less tolerable still!
The Monarch of the loathsome Powers of Air,
Darkness, and Evil, seemed unto his eyes
(As unto others it may be, immersed
In long habitual sin, or unto bards
Profanely dreaming over songs instinct
With hatred of the Very Son of God,
Unholy men and reprobate) not foul,
Grossly deformed and hideously grotesque,
Monstrous, mis-shapen, a contorted growth
Of the foul limbs of unclean animals,
From which the Benediction was removed
Through some mysterious trespass, for even thus
The faithful generations of the Saints
And their wise art have taught us—but the Foe,
The Antagonist of Light, of perfect Good,
Of Wisdom, and Supreme Beneficence,
Seemed in the eyes of that accursèd man
A starry Form, a Satan beautiful,
Of visage marred, yet glory beaming through,
Wondrous, if not delectable,—of grand
And regal intellect, and equipage
Of archangelic faculties, still soaring
Up to the sunlight, still to be admired
Of mortal man, though haply recognized
Of lagging wing, celestial now no more:
Bidding the mind of sinners to discern
A majesty where God's own written curse
Hath vilified the Creature evermore,
And stooped to name him with His blessèd Lips,
In love, for our behoof, the Sire of Lies.
O never may the leprosy of song
Like this beguile the sons of God to deem,
That aught of true sublimity consists,
Where truth is not, where hate hath wedded fear,
And ambush is the sole permitted power;
As if there could be Greatness so divorced
From Goodness, Beauty where there was not Love,
Or Wisdom with a Disobedient Spirit!
The Monarch of the loathsome Powers of Air,
Darkness, and Evil, seemed unto his eyes
(As unto others it may be, immersed
In long habitual sin, or unto bards
Profanely dreaming over songs instinct
With hatred of the Very Son of God,
Unholy men and reprobate) not foul,
Grossly deformed and hideously grotesque,
Monstrous, mis-shapen, a contorted growth
Of the foul limbs of unclean animals,
From which the Benediction was removed
Through some mysterious trespass, for even thus
The faithful generations of the Saints
And their wise art have taught us—but the Foe,
254
Of Wisdom, and Supreme Beneficence,
Seemed in the eyes of that accursèd man
A starry Form, a Satan beautiful,
Of visage marred, yet glory beaming through,
Wondrous, if not delectable,—of grand
And regal intellect, and equipage
Of archangelic faculties, still soaring
Up to the sunlight, still to be admired
Of mortal man, though haply recognized
Of lagging wing, celestial now no more:
Bidding the mind of sinners to discern
A majesty where God's own written curse
Hath vilified the Creature evermore,
And stooped to name him with His blessèd Lips,
In love, for our behoof, the Sire of Lies.
O never may the leprosy of song
Like this beguile the sons of God to deem,
That aught of true sublimity consists,
Where truth is not, where hate hath wedded fear,
And ambush is the sole permitted power;
As if there could be Greatness so divorced
From Goodness, Beauty where there was not Love,
Or Wisdom with a Disobedient Spirit!
Now for the first four years our travel ranged
In narrow compass, mid the icy spears
Of Taurus, or of Antilibanus
That looks on moonlit Balbec, or beyond
Amid the quiet and conventual glades,
The pastured slopes and green declivities
Of Carmel, by the soft sea-murmurs filled,
As if by voices of innumerous bees,
And backward to the cedar mountains, where
The sunlit beacon of the Sannin flames
Toward Cyprus, still returning to our cave
From time to time in Daphne's laurel groves.
But ere we entered our fifth spring the Jew
Related that in every seventh year
He had a penal mission to fulfil
Far off amid the Helvetian Alps, a toil
For which he must ordeal journey make
First mid the horrors of the Caucasus,
Which dreadful pilgrimage I now must share.
In narrow compass, mid the icy spears
Of Taurus, or of Antilibanus
That looks on moonlit Balbec, or beyond
Amid the quiet and conventual glades,
The pastured slopes and green declivities
Of Carmel, by the soft sea-murmurs filled,
As if by voices of innumerous bees,
And backward to the cedar mountains, where
255
Toward Cyprus, still returning to our cave
From time to time in Daphne's laurel groves.
But ere we entered our fifth spring the Jew
Related that in every seventh year
He had a penal mission to fulfil
Far off amid the Helvetian Alps, a toil
For which he must ordeal journey make
First mid the horrors of the Caucasus,
Which dreadful pilgrimage I now must share.
Good Abbot! there are men alive on earth
With most o'erwhelming functions to perform,
And lives embraced by wizard destinies;
And solitudes where awful things are wrought,
And voices uttered in the dead of night,
And old wierd cities guarded by a curse,
And lakes and oceans, which the moon beholds,
Outside the confines of all natural laws,—
Marvels and apparitions, far and near,
Which men in quiet places reck not of,
Yet haply touch or see, all unawares.
Father! methinks our fears might worship earth,
And not unduly, for her regions have
Some fearful consecrations: and how small,
How poor a portion of her realms doth man
Inhabit! Yet within his city walls,
No less than o'er the howling wilderness,
What haughty Powers of Evil domineer,
In separate spots, from age to age, allowed
To make their flashing sceptres visible,
A moment visible; then in the gloom
Is their regalia folded up again,
Sparing the affrighted sense of mortal man.
The earth of maps and charts, of signs and names,
Veils of imaginary curves and spots,
Ill cover that uneasy earth below.
With most o'erwhelming functions to perform,
And lives embraced by wizard destinies;
And solitudes where awful things are wrought,
And voices uttered in the dead of night,
And old wierd cities guarded by a curse,
And lakes and oceans, which the moon beholds,
Outside the confines of all natural laws,—
Marvels and apparitions, far and near,
Which men in quiet places reck not of,
Yet haply touch or see, all unawares.
Father! methinks our fears might worship earth,
And not unduly, for her regions have
Some fearful consecrations: and how small,
How poor a portion of her realms doth man
Inhabit! Yet within his city walls,
No less than o'er the howling wilderness,
What haughty Powers of Evil domineer,
In separate spots, from age to age, allowed
To make their flashing sceptres visible,
A moment visible; then in the gloom
Is their regalia folded up again,
Sparing the affrighted sense of mortal man.
256
Veils of imaginary curves and spots,
Ill cover that uneasy earth below.
Such was the dread Ordeal of the Jew;—
Wafted—if such an uncouth errantry
Can mate so soft a word—above his kind,
Above the world of men and visible life,
And in suspension held above all joys,
All loves, and that variety of fears
Which peril life's enjoyment, and through hope
Enhance it tenfold,—and yet diving oft,
By fate constrained, into that nether world,
Which agitates the surface of our own,
And with a viewless interference breaks
The equable procession of its laws.
Thither, as if the ground beneath his feet
At destined times gave way, the Hebrew sinks;
And, thence emerging, floats above the earth
Once more, like some low-hanging cloud that clings
Above the tree-tops of a wooded plain,
As though it loved the earth, yet might not lie
Upon its household farms and fields, or like
The jealous waters of a virgin stream
Which with its crystal lance may pierce the lake,
And issue from it uncommingled,—so
The Jew, sinking and re-ascending, blends
With our sweet intervenient world no more.
Wafted—if such an uncouth errantry
Can mate so soft a word—above his kind,
Above the world of men and visible life,
And in suspension held above all joys,
All loves, and that variety of fears
Which peril life's enjoyment, and through hope
Enhance it tenfold,—and yet diving oft,
By fate constrained, into that nether world,
Which agitates the surface of our own,
And with a viewless interference breaks
The equable procession of its laws.
Thither, as if the ground beneath his feet
At destined times gave way, the Hebrew sinks;
And, thence emerging, floats above the earth
Once more, like some low-hanging cloud that clings
Above the tree-tops of a wooded plain,
As though it loved the earth, yet might not lie
Upon its household farms and fields, or like
The jealous waters of a virgin stream
Which with its crystal lance may pierce the lake,
And issue from it uncommingled,—so
The Jew, sinking and re-ascending, blends
With our sweet intervenient world no more.
Hear the strange legend which he told me: thou
Better than simple layman wilt discern,
If such a tale have warrant in the faith.
Better than simple layman wilt discern,
If such a tale have warrant in the faith.
There is a lake upon a western Alp,
A field of fenny waters, not a mere
Of crystal delicately lit by flowers,
That gaze into its mirror, and dilute
Their rainbow shadows in its liquid depths,
Nor by a marge of lucent sward enclosed;
But a broad swampy place, with toppling crags
Leaning across and barring the blue sky
From imaging itself upon the pool.
And there, imprisoned in the chilly ooze,
Lies the poor spirit of the faltering Judge,
The wicked wavering Pilate, who, consigned
By an itinerant exorcist there,
When he had troubled long the woods and cliffs
And shepherds' walks, doth issue once a year,
And he who meets him on the mountain side
Dies for a surety ere twelve moons have waned.
A field of fenny waters, not a mere
Of crystal delicately lit by flowers,
257
Their rainbow shadows in its liquid depths,
Nor by a marge of lucent sward enclosed;
But a broad swampy place, with toppling crags
Leaning across and barring the blue sky
From imaging itself upon the pool.
And there, imprisoned in the chilly ooze,
Lies the poor spirit of the faltering Judge,
The wicked wavering Pilate, who, consigned
By an itinerant exorcist there,
When he had troubled long the woods and cliffs
And shepherds' walks, doth issue once a year,
And he who meets him on the mountain side
Dies for a surety ere twelve moons have waned.
Goaded by keen remorse that Unjust Judge
Fled from his province to the capital,
But by a constant vision of the Cross
Pursued. If in the morning he would greet
The Cæsar rising with the sun to wait
The adulation of his subjects, there
Pilate beheld a Cross. In dreams by night,
In changing scenes of travel, in the clouds,
The scintillating centre of the sun,
The quiet freckled aspect of the moon,
The white phosphoric fields of summer sea
Heaving against the moles of Baiæ, still
In every time and place he saw the Cross,
The Cross on Calvary, and brooking not
This persecution of the sacred Sign,
He slew himself, as Judas did before.
Fled from his province to the capital,
But by a constant vision of the Cross
Pursued. If in the morning he would greet
The Cæsar rising with the sun to wait
The adulation of his subjects, there
Pilate beheld a Cross. In dreams by night,
In changing scenes of travel, in the clouds,
The scintillating centre of the sun,
The quiet freckled aspect of the moon,
The white phosphoric fields of summer sea
Heaving against the moles of Baiæ, still
In every time and place he saw the Cross,
The Cross on Calvary, and brooking not
This persecution of the sacred Sign,
He slew himself, as Judas did before.
But earth disdained and loathed his sepulture,
And with an effort panted forth his corpse.
Then, far into the yellow Tyber flung,
The stream was troubled with incessant storm,
Broke down the bridges, swamped the passage boats,
Until there was no ferry left in Rome.
Thence was the body taken, by command
Of Cæsar and the Senate, to a hill
Which overlooks the Rhone hard by Vienne.
There did they dig a monstrous uncouth pit
Upon the peak, and tumbled massive rocks
Upon the turbulent corpse; forthwith the storm
Burst on the mountain-top with fiery bolts,
And fulmined over Dauphiny, and far
To Languedoc, and summits of Auvergne;
Behind, the poor Savoyards heard or saw
The maddened echoes of their native hills
Shake the wild eagles from their thrilling nests,
And with the pulses of fierce beating sound
Unrivet there the rock-bound avalanche.
The body, disinterred once more, now gained
A sepulchre within the fretting Rhone:
Forth with the waters rose into the streets,
Stood cubits high within the temples, sucked
The statue of old Jove within their waves,
Tore up the mulberry groves, and, foaming, went,
A solid wall of crested waters, down
To Valence, and the swampy flat of Arles,
Spreading a sudden lake from thence to Nismes.
Thus did the river tyrannize from year
To year, until the days of Charlemagne,—
The greatest man of all the modern world,
Who in his day encountered marvellous things,
And, more than mortal, bore the Cross as none
Had borne it yet; he bade them drag the Judge
From out the noble river, and once more
Inter the body on a gloomy Alp
That overlooks a lake, a lucid Cross
(The Apparition constant to its post)
Of sunny waters glittering in the eye
Of that dark mountain, whose wild woods and cliffs,
As I have said, he troubled with his cries,
Until a holy monk, who chanced to pass
Among the wailing people of Lucerne,
Laid him beneath that dull and ruffled mere,
There visited and horribly evoked
In every seventh year by that lone Jew,
Who for the dread encounter doth anneal
His spirit mid the warring elements,
The furnace of mysterious sights and sounds
Within the Caucasus of Astracan.
And with an effort panted forth his corpse.
Then, far into the yellow Tyber flung,
The stream was troubled with incessant storm,
258
Until there was no ferry left in Rome.
Thence was the body taken, by command
Of Cæsar and the Senate, to a hill
Which overlooks the Rhone hard by Vienne.
There did they dig a monstrous uncouth pit
Upon the peak, and tumbled massive rocks
Upon the turbulent corpse; forthwith the storm
Burst on the mountain-top with fiery bolts,
And fulmined over Dauphiny, and far
To Languedoc, and summits of Auvergne;
Behind, the poor Savoyards heard or saw
The maddened echoes of their native hills
Shake the wild eagles from their thrilling nests,
And with the pulses of fierce beating sound
Unrivet there the rock-bound avalanche.
The body, disinterred once more, now gained
A sepulchre within the fretting Rhone:
Forth with the waters rose into the streets,
Stood cubits high within the temples, sucked
The statue of old Jove within their waves,
Tore up the mulberry groves, and, foaming, went,
A solid wall of crested waters, down
To Valence, and the swampy flat of Arles,
Spreading a sudden lake from thence to Nismes.
Thus did the river tyrannize from year
To year, until the days of Charlemagne,—
The greatest man of all the modern world,
Who in his day encountered marvellous things,
And, more than mortal, bore the Cross as none
Had borne it yet; he bade them drag the Judge
From out the noble river, and once more
Inter the body on a gloomy Alp
That overlooks a lake, a lucid Cross
259
Of sunny waters glittering in the eye
Of that dark mountain, whose wild woods and cliffs,
As I have said, he troubled with his cries,
Until a holy monk, who chanced to pass
Among the wailing people of Lucerne,
Laid him beneath that dull and ruffled mere,
There visited and horribly evoked
In every seventh year by that lone Jew,
Who for the dread encounter doth anneal
His spirit mid the warring elements,
The furnace of mysterious sights and sounds
Within the Caucasus of Astracan.
| Sir Lancelot | |