University of Virginia Library

THE PRIESTESS'S VISION.

Priestess, priestess! like a rosy flower,
Planted in the gloom of Esmun's shrine!
Hiding deep as in a cypress bower,
All that glowing, grieving youth of thine!
Priestess, priestess! silently and slow,
Gliding from the cell of prophecies!
Speak—we tremble! What is this new woe?
Whence the trouble in those startled eyes?
Tell us what thou see'st—
Panting thus for breath?—
Far off in the East,
I am watching Death.
Rome's revengeful hand
Stretches o'er the land,
To the great betrayed
Exile, of long years,
Whilst I hoped and prayed,
With such useless tears!—
Gazing all the while,
Why that awful smile?—
Rome will never hold him!
Standing like a king,
To his lips behold him
Press the poisoned ring!
Oh, the mighty heart,
That I loved so well!—
Wherefore dost thou start?—
Like a god he fell.
And hast thou passed into the hopeless land at last?
Where is the awful purpose of thy soul,
Which on and on, through unknown paths had gone,
Pursuing still a still receding goal?
Through what a glowing change of marvels did it range!
What wailings, what rejoicings, shook the air!
What white alarms, what welcome of stretched arms!
What loss, what gain, what hate, what hope, and what despair!
Not more enchanted ground the daring traveller found,
Whose galleys followed, down the unknown West,
Along the azure shine, a lurid line—
Terrible beauty! Terrible unrest!
An incense, like the spice of a great sacrifice,
Perfumes, far out to sea, the burning air;
Through walls of verdure, gloomily built up to the blue sky,
Gleam the vast melancholy rivers there;
Like nightmares of the flood, a monster brood
Trample and rend rich nature, mile on mile;
Beneath the splendid water, hungry for the slaughter,
Gnashes fell jaws the ambushed crocodile;
Through the rich gloom, and spiced entanglement of bloom,
The lion glares, or grins the manlike ape;
Though day groans to have done with the tyrannic sun,
Yet cannot peace into dark night escape.
The mountains send forth cries, fire flaunts along the skies,
Fast to the revel the mad Ethiops come!
The midnight game of demon dancers to proclaim,
Storms out a din of cymbal, flute, and drum!
So, round the path thou mad'st for thee, upstarted suddenly
A world of horror, splendour, and uproar!
Thy heart marched sternly through, till fate left nought to do;
Then didst thou pause on the dark river's shore,
Didst beckon death across, and wert beheld no more!
How did hope betray thee,
Once thy promised bride?
Can the gods repay thee,
Thus unsatisfied?
What is lost on earth,
Can the gods restore?
Is thy great loss worth
Grief for evermore?
Will thine earthly story,
With the past oppress thee,
When the gods in glory
Meet to crown and bless thee?
Wilt thou walk apart,
Choosing thine own doom,
Eating thine own heart
In eternal gloom?
Wilt thou turn cold eyes
On thy past despair,
Wondering that the prize
Should have seemed so fair?
For that unpaid debt,
Wilt thou cease to wait?
Wilt thou quite forget
Home, and hope, and hate?
Should I bear to know
How thy heart was changed?
Should I know thee so,
From the past estranged?
Keep thy sacred sorrow
Yet one day for me,
So may I to-morrow
Come to comfort thee!
Now I fly to seek thee—shall I find thee?
Wouldst thou leave my breaking heart behind thee?
Shall impenetrable night divide thee,
Shall an unguessed transformation hide thee
From my pining soul for evermore beside thee?
Vanish not into the dark so far,
But that I may see thee like a star!
Can it be? Can this cold hand be thine,
Death, I feel so lightly clasping mine?
Dim and distant, like a wordless hum,
Now to me the world's great voices come.
Far away I see a light,
Far away I hear a sound;
But all round me is the night,
And a silence is all round!
Phantoms fill the light with harplike din,
Sweet aërial welcomings begin.
Now my heart is broken! Let me in.