The Works of Thomas Love Peacock

In silver eddies glittering to the moon,
Araxes rolls his many-sounding tide.
Fair as the dreams of hope, and past as soon,
But in succession infinite supplied,
The rapid waters musically glide.
Now, where the cliff's phantastic shadow laves,
Silent and dark, they roll their volumed pride:
Now, by embowering woods and solemn caves,
Around some jutting rock the struggling torrent raves.

266

II

Darassah stands beside the lonely shore,
Intently gazing on the imaged beam,
As one whose steps each lonely haunt explore
Of nymph or naiad,—grove, or rock, or stream—
Nature his guide, his object, and his theme.
Ah no—Darassah's eyes these forms survey
As phantoms of a half-remembered dream:
His eyes are on the water's glittering play:
Their mental sense is closed—his thoughts are far away.

III

But central in the flood of liquid light,
A sudden spot its widening orb revealed,
Jet-black amid the mirrored beams of night,
Jet-black, and round as Celtic warrior's shield,
A sable circle in a silver field.
With sense recalled and motionless surprise,
Deeming some fearful mystery there concealed,
He marked that shadowy orb's expanding size,
Till slowly from its breast a form began to rise—

IV

A female form: and even as marble pale
Her cheeks: her eyes unearthly fire illumed:
Far o'er her shoulders streamed a sable veil,
Where flowers of living flame inwoven bloomed;
No mortal robe might bear them unconsumed:
A crown her temples bound: on such ne'er gazed
Eyes that had seen primeval kings entombed:

267

Twelve points it bore: on every point upraised
A star—a heavenly star—with dazzling radiance blazed.

V

Lovely she was—not loveliness that might
In mortal heart enkindle light desire—
But such as decked the form of youthful Night,
When, on the bosom of her anarch sire,
With gentler passion she did first inspire
The gloomy soul of Erebus severe;
Ere from her breast, on wings of golden fire,
Primordial love sprang o'er the infant sphere,
And bade young Time arise and lead the vernal year.

VI

Her right hand held a wand, whose potent sway
Her liquid path, the buoyant waves, obeyed.
Still as she moved, the moon-beams died away,
And shade around her fell—a circling shade—
That gave no outline of the wondrous maid.
Her form—soft-gliding as the summer gale—
In that portentous darkness shone arrayed,
Shone by her starry crown, her fiery veil,
And those refulgent eyes that made their radiance pale.

VII

“Why—simple dweller of the Araxian isle—”
Thus, as she pressed the shore, the genius said—
“Seek'st thou this spot, to muse and mourn the while,

268

Beside this river's ever-murmuring bed,
When gentle sleep has her dominion spread
On every living thing around, but thee?
The silent stars, that twinkle o'er thy head,
Shed rest and peace on hill, and flower, and tree;
All but the eternal stream, that flows melodiously.”

VIII

Solemn her voice, as music's vesper peal
From distant choir to cloistered echo borne,
Where the deep notes through pillared twilight steal,
Breathing tranquillity to souls that mourn.
The awe-struck youth replied: “Of one so lorn
Canst thou, empyreal spirit, deign require
The secret woes by which his soul is torn?
Sure from the fountain of eternal fire
Thy wondrous birth began, great Mithra's self thy sire.

IX

“Through many an age amid these island-bowers
The simple fathers of our race have dwelt:
To them spontaneous nature fruits and flowers,
By toil unsought, with partial bounty dealt:
At Oromazes' sylvan shrine they knelt:
And morn and eve did choral suppliance flow
From hearts that love and mingled reverence felt,
To him who gave them every bliss to know
That simple hearts can wish, or heavenly love bestow.

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X

“But years passed on, and strange perversion ran
Among the dwellers of the peaceful isle:
And one, more daring than the rest, began
To fell the grove, and point the massy pile;
And raised the circling fence, with evil wile,
And to his brethren said: These bounds are mine:
And did with living victims first defile
The verdant turf of Oromazes' shrine;
Sad offering sure, and strange, to mercy's source divine.

XI

“And ill example evil followers drew;
Till common good and common right were made
The fraudful tenure of a powerful few:
The many murmured, trembled, and obeyed.
Then peace and freedom fled the sylvan shade,
And care arose, and toil, unknown before:
And some the hallowed alder's trunk essayed,
And left, with tearful eyes, their natal shore.
Swift down the stream they went, and they returned no more.

XII

“And I too, oft, beyond that barrier rock,
That hides from view the river's onward way—
Where, eddying round its base with ceaseless shock,
The waves, that flash, and disappear for aye,
Their parting murmurs to my ear convey—

270

In fancy turn my meditative gaze,
And trace, encircled by their powerful sway,
Some blooming isle, where love unfettered strays,
And peace and freedom dwell, as here in earlier days.

XIII

“But one there is, for whom my tears are shed;
A maid of wealthier lot and prouder line:
With her my happy infant hours I led;
And sweet our mutual task, at morn to twine
The votive wreath round Oromazes' shrine.—
She mourns, a captive in her father's home—
Alone I rove, to murmur and repine—
Alone, where sparkling waves symphonious foam,
I breathe my secret pangs to heaven's empyreal dome.—”

XIV

“Leave tears to slaves”—the genius answering said—
“Adventurous deed the noble mind beseems.
Oh shame to manhood! thus, with listless tread,
In tears and sighs and inconclusive dreams
To waste thy hours by groves and murmuring streams.
I bring thee power for weakness, joy for woe,
And certain bliss for hope's fallacious schemes,
Unless thou lightly thy own weal forego,
And scorn the splendid lot thy bounteous fates bestow.

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XV

“This gifted ring shall every barrier break:
The maid thou lovest thy wandering steps shall share:
When night returns, with her this isle forsake,
From this my favored haunt: my guardian care
To waft ye hence, the vessel shall prepare.
The monarch of the world hath chosen thee
High trust, and power, and dignity to bear.
I come, obedient to his high decree,
To set from error's spell thy captive senses free.

XVI

“Deem'st thou, when blood of living victims flows,
Mid incense smoke, in denser volumes curled,
That Oromazes there a glance bestows,
A glance of joy, to see the death-blow hurled?
No—far remote, in orient clouds enfurled,
Nor prayer nor sacrificial rite he heeds.
His reign is past: his rival rules the world.
From Ahrimanes now all power proceeds:
For him the altar burns: for him the victim bleeds.

XVII

“Parent of being, mistress of the spheres,
Supreme Necessity o'er all doth reign:
She guides the course of the revolving years,
With power no prayers can change, no force restrain;
Binding all nature in her golden chain,
Whose infinite connection links afar
The smallest atom of the sandy plain

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And the last ray of heaven's remotest star,
That round the verge of space wheels its refulgent car.

XVIII

“She to two gods, sole agents of her will,
By turns has given her delegated sway:
Her sovereign laws obedient they fulfil:
Inferior powers their high behests obey.
First Oromazes—lord of peace and day—
Dominion held o'er nature and mankind.
Now Ahrimanes rules, and holds his way
In storms: for such his task by her assigned,
To shake the world with war, and rouse the powers of mind.

XIX

“She first on chaos poured the streams of light,
And bade from that mysterious union rise
Primordial love: the heavenly lion's might
Bore him rejoicing through the new-born skies.
Then glowed the infant world with countless dyes
Of fruits and flowers; and virgin nature smiled,
Emerging first from ancient night's disguise
And elemental discord, vast and wild,
Which primogenial love had charmed and reconciled.

XX

“Then man arose: to him the world was given,
Unknowing then disease, or storm, or dearth:
The eternal balance, in the central heaven,
Marked the free tenure of his equal birth,

273

And equal right to all the bounteous earth
Of fruit or flower, his pristine food, might yield.
Nor private roof he knew, nor blazing hearth,
Nor marked with barrier-lines the fruitful field,
Nor learned in martial strife the uprooted oak to wield.

XXI

“Then Oromazes reigned.—Profoundly calm
His empire, as the lake's unruffled breast,
When evening twilight melts in dews of balm,
And rocks and woods in calm reflection rest,
As if for aye indelibly imprest
Were those fair forms, in waveless light arrayed.—
No sigh, no wish, the peaceful heart confest;
Save when the youth, beneath the myrtle shade,
Wooed to his fond embrace the easy-yielding maid.

XXII

“No pillared fanes to Oromazes rose:
For him no priest the destined victim led.
The choral hymn, in swelling sound that flows,
Where round the marble altar streaming red
The slow procession moves with solemn tread,
His empire owned not:—but his bounty grew,
By prayer or hymn nor sought nor merited:
No altar but the peaceful heart he knew—
His only temple-vault, the heaven's ethereal blue.

XXIII

“Such was the infant world, and such the reign
Of cloudless sunshine and oblivious joy;

274

Till rose the scorpion in the empyreal plain,
In fated hour, their empire to destroy,
And with unwonted cares the course alloy
Of mortal being and terrestrial time;
That man might all his god-like powers employ
The toilsome steep of wealth and fame to climb,
To rugged labor trained and glory's thirst sublime.

XXIV

“To Ahrimanes thus devolved the power,
Which still he holds through all the realms of space.
He bade the sea to swell—the storm to lower—
And taught mankind the pliant bow to brace,
And point the shaft, and urge the sounding chace,
And force from veins of flint the seeds of fire;
Till, as more daring thought found gradual place,
He bade the mind to nobler prey aspire,
Of war and martial fame kindling the high desire.

XXV

“For him on earth unnumbered temples rise,
And altars burn, and bleeding victims die:
Albeit the sons of men his name disguise
In other names, that choice or chance supply,
To him alone their incense soars on high.
The god of armies—the avenging god—
Seeva or Allah—Jove or Mars—they cry:
'Tis Ahrimanes still that wields the rod;
To him all nature bends, and trembles at his nod.

275

XXVI

“Yea, even on Oromazes' self they call,
But Ahrimanes hears their secret prayer.
Not in the name that from the lips may fall,
But in the thought the heart's recesses bear,
The sons of earth the power they serve declare.
Wherever priests awake the battle-strain,
And bid the torch of persecution glare,
And curses ring along the vaulted fane—
Call on what name they may—their god is Ahrimane.

XXVII

“Favor to few, to many wrath he shews:
None with impunity his power may brave.
Two classes only of mankind he knows,
The lord and serf—the tyrant and the slave.
Some hermit-sage, where lonely torrents rave,
May muse and dream of Oromazes still:
Despised he lives, and finds a nameless grave.
The chiefs and monarchs of the world fulfil
Great Ahrimane's behests—the creatures of his will.

XXVIII

“Say—hadst thou rather grovel with the crowd,
The wretched thing and tool of lordly might,
Or, where the battle-clarion brays aloud,
Blaze forth conspicuous in the fields of fight,
And bind thy brow with victory's chaplet bright,
And be the king of men?—Thy choice is free.—
Receive this ring.—Observe the coming night.—

276

The monarch of the world hath chosen thee
To spread his name on earth, in power and majesty.—”

XXIX

She said, and gave the ring. The youth received
The glittering spell, in awe and mute amaze;
Standing like one almost of sense bereaved,
That fixes on the vacant air his gaze,
Where wildered fancy's troubled eye surveys
Dim-flitting forms, obscure and undefined,
That doubtful thoughts and shadowy feelings raise,
Leaving no settled image on the mind:
Like cloud-built rocks and towers, dissolved ere half-combined.

XXX

Nor stayed she longer parle: but round her form
A sable vapor, thickly-mantling, drew
Its volumed folds, dark as the summer storm.
It wrapped her round, and in an instant flew,
Scattered like mist, though not a zephyr blew,
And left no vestige that she there had been.
The river rolled in light. The moonbeams threw
Their purest radiance on the lonely scene;
And hill, and grove, and rock, slept in the ray serene.

University of Virginia Library

Canto the First The devil is come upon the earth with great power.

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