University of Virginia Library

'Neath an Acacia's overhanging branches,
That venture not to touch it; where the ground
Is carpeted richly with the sumptuous greenness
Of soft moss clustering;—tall, in graceful youth,
With gentleness about its countenance,
And mild reserve, as though itself it lifted,
To find retirement from intrusive herbs
Around it sprawling in indelicate joy,—
The alone star of a large ancient garden,
A spotlessly white lily gleamed: at morn,
Leading the orisons of all the flowers,
Soft its voice rose; when the hot noonday sun
Was troubling every leaf to pleasant pain,
Often o'erwearied spirits of the breeze
Lapsed towards its sphere, and, softly bending forward,
It seemed to tremble joyfully, the while
They sank beside its fragrance; and at even,
When the gently pressing dusk awoke to revel,
Those not-perceived beautiful ones, who frolic
In old umbrageous woods, whence swift they rush
Out on fields moonlight bathed, to startle back
In pleasing fear, who know the thoughts of flowers,
Loving them more than man does,—there did visit it
Troops of these gentle creatures, and they stay
Each other to admire it, some entreat
The wind to wave back the acacia boughs
That screen it from the moonlight, others around it
Press the elastic turf in lightsome dance,
Or rest reclining, whilst all night it smiled
The same mild smile: but neither morning's flowers,
Who ceased their hymns to listen to its music
So soft and full; nor spirits of the breeze,
Who, fainting in its shadow, gained fresh strength
Contemplating its grace; nor woodland nymphs,
Who for its gentle smile selected it
The witness of their loves and revelry;
Dreamed—that within the centre of its roots,
Ravaged a fierce and unopposed destroyer,
Gnawing with venomous teeth its shuddering core,
Sleeplessly raging.

Distant a moth-flight from this suffering lily,
Centred amidst vast interbranching treen,
A temple of pleasure glowed with the light
Dazzlingly undulating it within
Ever with varying hue,—now azure, now roseate,
Now yellow as amber; like one gorgeous opal
It glowed, and in its vast capaciousness
Exquisitely nerved life sought all sensations,
Crises, and tides of pleasures. Festival
Had summoned there beauty and youthfulness,
The gentle and the gallant: its broad mirrors
The company multiplies, the space disbounds,
And its music strangely wantoneth, and aye changeth
The hue of its light,—till pleasingly bewildered
Its revellers doubt the earthliness of the scene,
All precedent circumstance dazzled from their thought,
All future. Suddenly the music sinks;
Each knight prays to some lady, and with smiles,
And downcast eyelashes, and fluttering body,
Each lady grants the prayer; and gently laughing
Low, tumbling, laughter, gives her beautiful self
To his disposal, till the murmuring temple
Holds only happily paired ladies with knights.
Tinkle, tinkle the bells, the music riseth,
To its voluptuous onwardings all move;
The pairs commingling not; yet all together
Beneath the golden roof, around the altar,
Around the ivy crowned illuminate statues
Of leaping bacchanals,—they move, they dance.
Longer, and louder, the arising music
Utters its challenges; in dizzy pleasure
Each lady smiles divine, with swimming eye,
And head fallen backward, whilst her partner gazing
Down in her flushing countenance, whirls her on.
They pause; the ladies on their worshipping knights
Lean kind. Now float amongst them gentlest sounds,
Confusing, folding them; with liquid light
O'er filling their eyes; and teaching every voice
Yet gentler lingering; wreathing round each pair
Deliberate 'prisoning strains, resistlessly,
Yet fondly binding them:—the music dies;
Silence possesses the temple; amber dusk
Fills it from roof to pavement, and therein
The revellers rest. Anon the wilful queens
Feign weariness of love toying, and again
Entreat to dance. Now how the minstrels bend
And riot in their task; the merciless music
Sweeps eddying on, and on each lady whirls,
And whirling aloft her draperies, her limbs
Startle the hall with symmetry, like sea surge
The light lace heaped above each shelterless knee.
The merciless music gives no moment's respite,
Urging all action it sweeps out all thought,
Its secret hurrying notes bewilder sense,
Utterly falleth on her lover's bosom
Each eye-closed lady; with a cry of joy,
Her lover takes her.

From the temple's altar,
Now steps the Empress of this festival;
The peerless maiden, round whose crowned beauty
Delayed the dancing, while the dancers worshipped
The inscrutable splendour of her lofty brow
As over all she smiled; she steps unnoticed,
And all smile vanishes from ner downcast face:
Hastily she quits her kingdom, and alone
Threads with impatient steps the winding paths
Of many gardens, till she reach the place
Of an acacia, 'neath whose pendant branches
That suffering lily smiles.
Why is thy lifted gaze so discontent,
Beautiful maiden? yon majestic moon,
Proud bursting through the gathering clouds of night,
As a frigate through a storm-tossed sea! yon stars,
Happy resplendently! yon caves of azure,
Nor storm, nor wind, can near!—have these no power
To calm the trouble of thy countenance
To fearless reverence; to assure thy soul
To comforting love? Wherefore, oh gentlest one!
Dost throw thyself in passionate disquiet
Wild to the ground, scaring the woodland nymphs?
Oh! why repulse yon sky? The moonlight pains her;—
Uprising, close unto the tree she shrinks,—
Its trunk supports her; whitely droops her face:
The universe is the millstone round her neck;
And she cannot lift her eyes. Anon, her voice,—
Now scarcely heard, as from an outspent struggler,
Now loud with passionate protest, now broken
With powerless pity, utters—
“Eldest of Deities! beneath whose reign
Trembled no sense; when motionless, and calm,
All worlds were still, unquivering with pain
Of central fire; when no ocean rolled,
Her serpent form in continent-strangling folds
Around the struggling earth, thus torture claspt,
Compelled to toil its endless orbit round,
The jaws of its still tightening enemy
Plunged deep into its heart; when no false spring
Summoned out flowers to feel the sunshine sweet,
And then with freezing rains and venomous blights,
Mocking their joy,—over the delicate petals
Of azure and pink blossoms, over leaves
Shrinkingly sensitive and verdant, sending
Filthily crawling insects endlessly,
As a loathsome slow-dragged sheet; when human things
Existed not, by momentary stops
In their monotonous suffering, almost cheated
To acknowledge life not torture, not a rack,
Relaxing now and then its furious tension
To hold alive its victims; when did never,
Love—by his voice whose passionate affection
Doth wondrously caress, and by the joy
Serene and serious, in his face and eye
Apparently enfeatured,—win swift entrance
To each deluded heart, where, once received,
He gradually withdraws his beauteous veil,
In base and hideous buffoonery,
To laugh, to rage, to soil; when cruellest Hope,
Never did rouse and aggravate Desire,
By promising displays, and amorous movements,
In rapturous happiness to pursue him even
To a bridal couch, that there he close may bind her,
And unpossessed, spring from her pinioned limbs,
Mocking her burning agony; when, never,
Was trampling passion, or unresting torpor,
Or conflict, or decay:—
By thy remissness in permitting life
To violate this deep tranquillity;
Creating lidless eyes, to roll, but close not,
'Neath skies of fiery brightness; forming hearts
As delicate as spring's youngest flower cup
That thirsteth for the purest dew, to fill them
Up to the very brim with leprous filth;
By all that I have suffered, agonies
Which in the cells of memory are not dead,
But whom I dare not summon, even to witness
In this great need;—Oh! by this very fear,—
I dare not look behind, and all before
Makes my soul sick, the present tramples me,
I cannot stay, I cannot on, nor back—
By all this horror, save me:—Hear! oh Death!
Rouse from thy rest, and hear me, save me, save me,
Mightiest of gods! Oh! save!
I plead not ignorant, I not thee deem
The portal guardian of some paradise,
I seek no paradise, I seek no heaven,
I want forgetfulness, I want but rest,
I want but not to be. Shall I endure
Resistless years of slavery to life,
And when too torture-spent to feel his malice,
Then cease! Oh! let me in my tyrant's presence
Now tell him he is baffled, bare my limbs
To his vile gaze, and scorn him with this glory,
‘Thine never more.’ God thou dost hear me! Ha!
I shall feel my limbs, as I forsake my couch,
Weakening, and weakening; up against the sun
I shall hold my trembling fingers, and perceive
Increasing thinness; when men talk to me
About the future, shall I be very silent
And inwardly smile. Oh! could one die for all!
Or I be alone life-tortured! millions live;
I am released, the rack remains, the tyrant
Smileth immortal;—over those I have loved
His cold eye rolleth. Heard I now, a noise,
Not from the sea, and not from cloud, and not
From centre or surface of the earth, but far,
Farther than science telleth, gather, and roll,
Of evident destruction;—saw I now
Blackness sweep out the stars; and yonder moon,
Shake like a vessel struck by opposite seas,
Drop down precipitately, and suddenly stayed,
Turn a dead face amidst the scurrying clouds
As a drowned man on the waves:—oh, then! oh, then!
While this tight globe did split; the maddened ocean
Like a great white steed upleaping into heaven
Its death leap; as mown grass the forests falling;
The voice of an universal cry proclaiming
All life at once withdrawn;—
Suddenly would my soul befit its death time
By wonderful growth, and suffer mightiest thoughts
Of the glory of its storm;—the stricken world
Grinding its atmosphere to thundering surf
As wild it plunges:—with enormous joy,
Feeling myself last-life, I'd hear all cease;
And when the air grew icy, when the darkness
Abolished vision, into the deepening silence
Would I expire.”

From her whitening face
Now starts its lustre; closed, her quivering lips;
Fallen to the ground by passion, she lies paler
Than the lily at her side! Now, suddenly,
Trembled the moonlight from the gardens; swiftly,
Clouds swept before the moon; a swift cold wind
Came, bending all the trees;—she shuddered, dead:—
In her dark scattered hair, the wind snapt lily
Lay with its lifeless leaves; from its bare roots
Fierce sneaked their worm. Oh, friends! what secret woe
Had blooded the vision of this pagan lady,
That she saw nought but wounded suffering
In our glad world! Children of earth! believe,
Though but a moth flight distant yonder temple,
It was no chance that led the lady suffering,
To impart her fate to a like suffering flower;
For it may make sacred every nook in space,
May annihilate despair, alleviate sorrow
To believe in a rule unseen.