University of Virginia Library

Thou petrified enigma! Question cold,
By Answer unespoused, though ask'd of old!
Hoary perplexity! Deep mystery, done
Ages innumerable ago in stone!
When cam'st thou here? What monstrous means convey'd
Thee to this station? What convulsion made
Thy red neck rear itself thus haughtily
Above the field? What tempests sculptured thee?
What ice-float brought thee here, a lonely rock?
What wind-wolves howling after fleecy flock
Of clouds that 'fore them flee like frighten'd sheep,
And press, and crush, and on each other leap,
And in fast tears of rain, shed in their terror, weep,—
What packs of winds through earth and heaven that range,
Gnaw'd thy old bulk into these features strange?
Or was 't some insane flood that swept away
Thy womb of earth, and bared thee to the day?
Or, in its waste and wildness, plough'd and surged,
And urged thee on, groaning to be so urged,
And set thee up, on this hill-side to stand,
By strongest of all hands—a liquid hand?—
'Tis thine a dark enigma to remain;
'Tis mine to guess thee, and to guess in vain.

Well might the druid old bow down with awe,
And deem thee, when thy uncouth form he saw,
An altar cut by Nature's hand in stone,
That her God might be worshipp'd thereupon
More largely and in more majestic ways
Than on those lesser ones which mortals raise:
Well might he kindle on thine agëd head
The mystic fire, and with lean arms outspread,—
His old hair feebly wandering out behind
Like tatter'd white flag shivering in the wind,—
Invoke the sanction of the gods to fall
Upon the solemn ceremonial,
While through his eyes wild liquid fire did flow,
And the harp trembled and the mistletoe;
For to this hour, suggesting incense, thou
Still steadiest up a sacrificial brow;
And although thou who wast, ages agone,
An awful altar, now art but a stone,
Yet let my song to God our Maker be
As solemn fire to rise once more from thee.
What eyes innumerable, O agëd stone,
Have gazed, and gazed, thine antique form upon!
The woad-dyed savage with his hunting spear
Has leapt and stared and wonder'd even here:
Haply the Roman soldier here has stood,
Stray'd from his camp far into the wild wood:
The monk, at least, on palfrey ambling past,
Shaken by the rough bridle-road, has cast
A hot glance on thee: the knight, steel-array'd,
A breathing moment near thy bulk has stay'd
To bid his squire behold: gay Cavalier
And solemn stern old Roundhead have been here:
Lovers and maidens: lords, and squires, and pages:
Serf, farmer, village-fool. Ages on ages
Of human life hast thou seen onward glide.
At last I stand upon thy wither'd side,
Another drop of that still-flowing tide.

Yes; man in intermittent stream hath flow'd
By thee for ages on the neighbouring road;
And mortal hearts successive here have beat
That now beat nowhere. On thy velvet seat
Still stand'st thou solemn: that long multitude
Away hath faded, whilst thou, unsubdued
By all those ages, hast made good thy claim
To hold this station, and art still the same.
We change; we vanish; thou, defying fate,
Stand'st in thy antique sameness obstinate;
Like the huge head, sore battered and time-ridden,
Of sphinx whose body 'neath the earth is hidden;
Or like a statue of drear Desolation,
Rock-carven by some old, mad, plague-smit nation,
Dying by hundreds; or, like ancient Lear,
With wither'd weed on thine old head for hair;
But dead, stone-stiffen'd, not of any daughters
Raving, drown'd, ages since, in ravenous waters;—
Alas, thou canst not rave, nor speak, nor see;
Thou canst but stand in giant idiocy.

Now speaks one tongue for both; few years shall run
Their course, and it will lack words even for one;
And here, where now my flesh speaks, on this sod,—
A clod that moves, to an unmoving clod,—
Others shall muse, in ages yet to come,
And thou be spoken to, when it is dumb;
And thine old bulk be gazed at, even as now,
When it is cold,—as dull a thing as thou!

And thou shalt stand, beautiful times among?
Ah hadst thou any to-be-trusted tongue,
I might perchance entreat thee to convey
Some message down to that high-favour'd day,
To say that even in hours so stormy-sad
Were some whose eyes saw their day and were glad,
And from these deeps of ancient woe and crime
Help'd to achieve for them that better time.

Lo! how it rises, rises on mine ears,—
The mighty music of those unborn years!
The billows of that song-sea, how they roll
Extravagantly on into my soul!
He comes, by all God's royal bards foresung,
By pining ages waited for so long!
The Christ in man received, for whom her brow
The world hath knit in pain, and groan'd till now!
He comes for you, ye poor; ye weak, pursue
Your glad hosannas, for He comes for you;
For poor, for rich, for weak, for strong, He's given,
To make of earth a fitting floor for heaven.