Part 4

Now I seek The meads of shining moly I had found In some remoter vision, by a stream No cloud hath ever tarnished; where the sun, A gold Narcissus, loiters evermore Above his golden image: But I find A corpse the ebbing water will not keep, With eyes like sapphires that have lain in hell, And felt the hissing embers; and the flow’rs About me turn to hooded serpents, swayed By flutes of devils in a hellish dance, Meet for the nod of Satan, when he reigns Above the raging Sabbath, and is wooed By sarabands of witches. But I turn To mountains guarding with their horns of snow The source of that befoulèd rill, and seek A pinnacle where none but eagles climb, And they with failing pennons. But in vain I flee, for on that pylon of the sky, Some curse hath turned the unprinted snow to flame— Red fires that curl and cluster to my tread, Trying the summit’s narrow cirque. And now, I see a silver python far beneath— Vast as a river that a fiend hath witched, And forced to flow remèant in its course To fountains whence it issued. Rapidly It winds from slope to crumbling slope, and fills Ravines and chasmal gorges, till the crags Totter with coil on coil incumbent. Soon It hath entwined the pinnacle I keep, And gapes with a fanged, unfathomable maw, Wherein great Typhon, and Enceladus, Were orts of daily glut. But I am gone, For at my call a hippogriff hath come, And firm between his thunder-beating wings, I mount the sheer cerulean walls of noon, And see the earth, a spurnèd pebble, fall Lost in the fields of nether stars—and seek A planet where the outwearied wings of time Might pause and furl for respite, or the plumes Of death be stayed, and loiter in reprieve Above some deathless lily: For therein, Beauty hath found an avatar of flow’rs— Blossoms that clothe it as a coloured flame, From peak to peak, from pole to sullen pole, And turn the skies to perfume. There I find A lonely castle, calm and unbeset, Save by the purple spears of amaranth, And tender-sworded iris. Walls upbuilt Of flushèd marble, wonderful with rose, And domes like golden bubbles, and minarets That take the clouds as coronal—these are mine, For voiceless looms the peaceful barbican, And the heavy-teethed portcullis hangs aloft As if to smile a welcome. So I leave My hippogriff to crop the magic meads, And pass into a court the lilies hold, And tread them to a fragrance that pursues To win the portico, whose columns, carved Of lazuli and amber, mock the palms Of bright, Aidennic forests—capitalled With fronds of stone fretted to airy lace, Enfolding drupes that seem as tawny clusters Of breasts of unknown houris; and convolved With vines of shut and shadowy-leavèd flow’rs, Like the dropt lids of women that endure Some loin-dissolving rapture. Through a door Enlaid with lilies twined luxuriously, I enter, dazed and blinded with the sun, And hear, in gloom that changing colours cloud, A chuckle sharp as crepitating ice, Upheaved and cloven by shoulders of the damned Who strive in Antenora. When my eyes Undazzle, and the cloud of colour fades, I find me in a monster-guarded room, Where marble apes with wings of griffins crowd On walls an evil sculptor wrought, and beasts Wherein the sloth and vampire-bat unite, Pendulous by their toes of tarnished bronze, Usurp the shadowy interval of lamps That hang from ebon arches. Like a ripple, Borne by the wind from pool to sluggish pool In fields where wide Cocytus flows his bound, A crackling smile around that circle runs, And all the stone-wrought gibbons stare at me With eyes that turn to glowing coals. A fear That found no name in Babel, flings me on, Breathless and faint with horror, to a hall Within whose weary, self-reverting round, The languid curtains, heavier than palls, Unnumerably depict a weary king, Who fain would cool his jewel-crusted hands In lakes of emerald evening, or the fields Of dreamless poppies pure with rain. I flee Onward, and all the shadowy curtains shake With tremors of a silken-sighing mirth, And whispers of the innumerable king, Breathing a tale of ancient pestilence, Whose very words are vile contagion. Then I reach a room where caryatids, Carved in the form of tall, voluptuous Titan women, Surround a throne of flowering ebony Where creeps a vine of crystal. On the throne, There lolls a wan, enormous Worm, whose bulk, Tumid with all the rottenness of kings, O’erflows its arms with fold on creasèd fold Of fat obscenely bloating. Open-mouthed He leans, and from his throat a score of tongues, Depending like to wreaths of torpid vipers, Drivel with phosphorescent slime, that runs Down all his length of soft and monstrous folds, And creeping among the flow’rs of ebony, Lends them the life of tiny serpents. Now, Ere the Horror ope those red and lashless slits Of eyes that draw the gnat and midge, I turn, And follow down a dusty hall, whose gloom, Lined by the statues with their mighty limbs, Ends in a golden-roofed balcony Sphering the flowered horizon. Ere my heart Hath hushed the panic tumult of its pulses, I listen, from beyond the horizon’s rim, A mutter faint as when the far simoon, Mounting from unknown deserts, opens forth, Wide as the waste, those wings of torrid night That fling the doom of cities from their folds, And musters in its van a thousand winds, That with disrooted palms for besoms, rise And sweep the sands to fury. As the storm, Approaching, mounts and loudens to the ears Of them that toil in fields of sesame, So grows the mutter, and a shadow creeps Above the gold horizon, like a dawn Of darkness climbing sunward. Now they come, A Sabbath of abominable shapes, Led by the fiends and lamiae of worlds That owned my sway aforetime! Cockatrice, Python, tragelaphus, leviathan, Chimera, martichoras, behemoth, Geryon and sphinx, and hydra, on my ken Arise as might some Afrite-builded city, Consummate in the lifting of a lash, With thundrous domes and sounding obelisks, And towers of night and fire alternate! Wings Of white-hot stone along the hissing wind, Bear up the huge and furnace-hearted beasts Of hells beyond Rutilicus; and things Whose lightless length would mete the gyre of moons— Born from the caverns of a dying sun, Uncoil to the very zenith, half disclosed From gulfs below the horizon; octopi Like blazing moons with countless arms of fire, Climb from the seas of ever-surging flame That roll and roar through planets unconsumed, Beating on coasts of unknown metals; beasts That range the mighty worlds of Alioth, rise, Aforesting the heavens with multitudinous horns, Within whose maze the winds are lost; and borne On cliff-like brows of plunging scolopendras, The shell-wrought tow’rs of ocean-witches loom, And griffin-mounted gods, and demons throned On sable dragons, and the cockodrills That bear the spleenful pygmies on their backs; And blue-faced wizards from the worlds of Saiph, On whom Titanic scorpions fawn; and armies That move with fronts reverted from the foe, And strike athwart their shoulders at the shapes Their shields reflect in crystal; and eidola Fashioned within unfathomable caves By hands of eyeless peoples; and the blind And worm-shaped monsters of a sunless world, With krakens from the ultimate abyss, And Demogorgons of the outer dark, Arising, shout with multitudinous thunders, And threatening me with dooms ineffable In words whereat the heavens leap to flame, Advance on the magic palace! Thrown before, For league on league, their blasting shadows blight And eat like fire the amaranthine meads, Leaving an ashen desert! In the palace, I hear the apes of marble shriek and howl. And all the women-shapen columns moan, Babbling with unknown terror. In my fear, A monstrous dread unnamed in any hell, I rise, and flee with the fleeing wind for wings, And in a trice the magic palace reels, And spiring to a single tow’r of flame, Goes out, and leaves nor shard nor ember! Flown Beyond the world, upon that fleeing wind, I reach the gulf’s irrespirable verge, Where fails the strongest storm for breath and fall, Supportless, through the nadir-plunged gloom, Beyond the scope and vision of the sun, To other skies and systems. In a world Deep-wooded with the multi-coloured fungi, That soar to semblance of fantastic palms, I fall as falls the meteor-stone, and break A score of trunks to powder. All unhurt, I rise, and through the illimitable woods, Among the trees of flimsy opal, roam, And see their tops that clamber, hour by hour, To touch the suns of iris. Things unseen, Whose charnel breath informs the tideless air With spreading pools of fetor, follow me Elusive past the ever-changing palms; And pittering moths, with wide and ashen wings, Flit on before, and insects ember-hued, Descending, hurtle through the gorgeous gloom, And quench themselves in crumbling thickets. Heard Far-off, the gong-like roar of beasts unknown Resounds at measured intervals of time, Shaking the riper trees to dust, that falls In clouds of acrid perfume, stifling me Beneath a pall of iris. Now the palms Grow far apart and lessen momently To shrubs a dwarf might topple. Over them I see an empty desert, all ablaze With amethysts and rubies, and the dust Of garnets or carnelians. On I roam, Treading the gorgeous grit, that dazzles me With leaping waves of endless rutilance, Whereby the air is turned to a crimson gloom, Through which I wander, blind as any Kobold; Till underfoot the griding sands give place To stone or metal, with a massive ring More welcome to mine ears than golden bells, Or tinkle of silver fountains. When the gloom Of crimson lifts, I stand upon the edge Of a broad black plain of adamant, that reaches, Level as a windless water, to the verge Of all the world; and through the sable plain, A hundred streams of shattered marble run, And streams of broken steel, and streams of bronze, Like to the ruin of all the wars of time, To plunge, with clangour of timeless cataracts, Adown the gulfs eternal. So I follow, Between a river of steel and a river of bronze, With ripples loud and tuneless as the clash Of a million lutes; and come to the precipice From which they fall, and make the mighty sound Of a million swords that meet a million shields, Or din of spears and armour in the wars Of all the worlds and aeons: Far beneath, They fall, through gulfs and cycles of the void, And vanish like a stream of broken stars, Into the nether darkness; nor the gods Of any sun, nor demons of the gulf, Will dare to know what everlasting sea Is fed thereby, and mounts forevermore With mighty tides unebbing. Lo, what cloud, Or night of sudden and supreme eclipse, Is on the suns of opal? At my side, The rivers rail with a wan and ghostly gleam, Through darkness falling as the night that falls From mighty spheres extinguished! Turning now, I see, betwixt the desert and the suns, The poised wings of all the dragon-rout, Far-flown in black occlusion thousand-fold Through stars, and deeps, and devastated worlds, Upon my trail of terror! Griffins, rocs, And sluggish, dark chimeras, heavy-winged After the ravin of dispeopled lands, With harpies, and the vulture-birds of hell— Hot from abominable feasts and fain To cool their beaks and talons in my blood— All, all have gathered, and the wingless rear, With rank on rank of foul, colossal Worms, Like pillars of embattled night and flame, Looms on the wide horizon! From the van, I hear the shriek of wyvers, loud and shrill As tempests in a broken fane, and roar Of sphinxes, like the unrelenting toll Of bells from tow’rs infernal. Cloud on cloud, They arch the zenith, and a dreadful wind Falls from them like the wind before the storm. And in the wind my cloven garment streams, And flutters in the face of all the void, Even as flows a flaffing spirit, lost On the Pit’s undying tempest! Louder grows The thunder of the streams of stone and bronze.— Redoubled with the roar of torrent wings, Inseparably mingled. Scarce I keep My footing, in the gulfward winds of fear, And mighty thunders, beating to the void In sea-like waves incessant; and would flee With them, and prove the nadir-founded night Where fall the streams of ruin; but when I reach The verge, and seek through sun-defeating gloom, To measure with my gaze the dread descent, I see a tiny star within the depths— A light that stays me, while the wings of doom Convene their thickening thousands: For the star Increases, taking to its hueless orb, With all the speed of horror-changèd dreams The light as of a million million moons; And floating up through gulfs and glooms eclipsed, It grows and grows, a huge white eyeless Face, That fills the void and fills the universe, And bloats against the limits of the world With lips of flame that open.****

THE SORROW OF THE WINDS

O winds that pass uncomforted Through all the peacefulness of spring, And tell the trees your sorrowing, That they must mourn till ye are fled!

Think ye the Tyrian distance holds The crystal of unquestioned sleep? That those forgetful purples keep No veiled, contentious greens and golds?

Half with communicated grief, Half that they are not free to pass With you across the flickering grass, Mourns each inclined bough and leaf.

And I, with soul disquieted, Shall find within the haunted spring No peace, till your strange sorrowing Is down the Tyrian distance fled.

ARTEMIS

In the green and flowerless garden I have dreamt, Lying beneath perennial moons apart, Whose cypress-builded bowr’s And ivy-plighted myrtles none shall part;

In the funereal maze of larch and laurel, Across white lawns, athwart the spectral mountains, Seen through the sighing haze Of all the high and moon-suspended fountains;

With feet enshaded by the fruitless green Of summer trees that bear no summer blossom; With wintry lusters laid Upon the mounded marble of thy bosom,

Thou dost await, O mournful, enigmatic Image of love-bewildered Artemis, Whose tender lips too late, Or all too soon, have sought the wounding kiss.

LOVE IS NOT YOURS, LOVE IS NOT MINE

Love is not yours, love is not mine: It is the tranquil twilight heaven Through which our pauseless feet are driven Into the vast and desert noon.

Love is not mine, love is not yours: It is a flying fire that passes, Perishing on the blind morasses, After the frail and perished moon.

THE CITY IN THE DESERT

In a lost land, that only dreams have known, Where flaming suns walk naked and alone; Among horizons bright as molten brass, And glowing heavens like furnaces of glass, It rears, with dome and tower manifold, Rich as a dawn of amarant and gold, Or gorgeous as the Phoenix, born of fire, And soaring from an opalescent pyre, Sheer to the zenith. Like some anademe Of Titan jewels turned to flame and dream, The city crowns the far horizon-light, Over the flowered meads of damassin.*** A desert isle of madreperl! wherein The thurifer and opal-fruited palm, And heaven-thronging minarets becalm The seas of azure wind.****

NOTE: These lines were remembered out of a dream, and are given verbatim.

THE MELANCHOLY POOL

Marked by that priesthood of the Night’s misrule, The shadow-cowled, imprecatory trees— Cypress that guarded woodland secrecies And graves that waited the delaying ghoul, Nathless I neared the melancholy pool, Chief care of all, but closelier sentinelled By those whose roots were deepest in dead Eld. Where the thwart-woven boughs were wet and cool, As with a mist of poison, I drew near, To mark the tired stars peer dimly down Through riven branches from the height of space, And shudder in those waters with quick fear, Where in black deeps the pale moon seemed to drown— A haggard girl, with dead, despairing face.

THE MIRRORS OF BEAUTY

Beauty hath many mirrors: multifold In ocean, or the foam, the gem, the dew, Or well and rivulet, her eyes renew With moon or sun their glories bright or cold,— Whether in nights the ruby planets hold, Or with the sombre light and icy hue Of skies Decembral, or the autumn’s blue, Or dawn or evening of the vernal gold.

Often, upon the solitary sea, She lieth, ere the wind shall gather breath— One with the reflex of infinity. In pools profounder for the twilight sky, Her vision dwells, or in the poet’s eye, Or the black crystal of the eyes of Death.

WINTER MOONLIGHT

The silence of the silver night Lies visibly upon the pines; In marble flame the moon declines Where spectral mountains dream in light.

And pale as with eternal sleep, The enchanted valleys, far and strange, Extend forever without change Beneath the veiling splendours deep.

Carven of steel or fretted stone, One stark and leafless autumn tree With shadows made of ebony, Leans on the moon-ward field alone.

TO THE BELOVED

Green suns, and suns of garnet I have known— Turning, with suns that mock the sapphire-gem, The constellated moons that mirror them To ever-changing opals. On the flown Horizons I have followed, all alone, To meadows of mirage the deserts hem, And sought to break the ghostly, golden stem Of roses of illusion, briefly blown By evanescent waters. One by one, The outward ways of wonder I have trod Through alien lives ineffable. But none Hath held the troublous marvel and surprise That gleams and trembles in thy slightest nod, Or sleeps between thy eyelids and thine eyes.

REQUIESCAT

What was Love’s worth, Who lived with the roses?— Love that is earth, And with earth reposes!

What was Love’s wonder?— Scent of the flow’rs After the thunder, Thunder, and show’rs!

What were the breathless Words that he said?— Love that was deathless, Love that is dead!

* * * * *

Echo hath taken The song, and flown; None shall awaken Music and moan.

Buds and the flower, All that Love found, Last but an hour Strewn on his mound.

MIRAGE

Deem ye the veiling vision will abide— The marvel, and the glamour, and the dream, Which lies in light upon the barren world?

* * * * *

The wings of Phoenix towering to the sun, Nor opals, nor the morning foam, may hold The hueful flame that as from faery moons Is mirrored on the sand; where many a time, From fields that hem with golden asphodel A river like a dragon coiled in light, Rise to the noon the hovering minarets And soaring walls of cities Ilion-like, Till the dim winds are hung with palaces Of orient madreperl. Forever lost— Like sunset on a land of old romance,— The splendour fails, and leaves the traveller In endless deserts flaming to the day.

INHERITANCE

On all the sovereignty thine eyes obtain, Thy grant of vision from the royal sun, And all thine appanage of lordly dream, The Dust, wherewith the worm is parcener, Waits with perennial claim, nor will resign Its right in thee: All glories and all gleams, The seven splendours that inform the light, And beauties immemorial as the moon, Robing the barren world—all which thine eyes Hold for inheritance, at length shall fill The blindness and oblivion of the grave, And leave it dark.****

With dustiness and night Upon thy mouth of starry proud desire, With slumber for thy dreams, thou wilt repose, Nor startle when the lazy, loitering Worm Is slow to leave the tavern of thy brain.

AUTUMNAL

In all the pleasances where Love was lord, Blossom the mournful immortelles alone; The fallen roses crumble, and are blown, A snow of red, about the barren sward.

The misty sun is grown a dimmer gold: Only the leaves, the leaves forever seem To tell and treasure, in a gorgeous dream, The aureate fervour of the dawns of old.

Only for us remains the memory Of sultry moons and summer suns that were; And we have found, where fallen roses stir, The immortelles that flower mournfully.

CHANT OF AUTUMN

Like the voice of a golden star, Heard from afar, Perishing beauty calls Out of the mist and rain; Like the song of a silver wind, When the night is blind, Murmuring music falls, Never to rise again.

Voice of the leaves that die, Whisper and sigh Of ruinous gardens waning Rose by ungathered rose! Dolour of pines immortal, That guard the portal Of a lonely mead retaining Blossoms that no man knows!

Voices of love and the autumn sun— In my heart ye are one! Fairer the petals that fall, Dearer the beauty that dies, And the pyres of autumn burning, Than a thousand springs returning.*** O, perishing loves that call In my heart and the hollow skies!

ECHO OF MEMNON

I wandered ere the dream was done Where over Nilus’ nenuphars, With all its ears of quivering stars, The darkness listened for the sun.

Ere shadows were, ere night was gone, I found the one whom suns had sought, And waiting at his feet, methought Had speech with Memnon in the dawn.****

Sad as the last, lamenting star, He sang, and clear as morning’s gold: Unto his voice I saw unfold The hesitant, pale nenuphar.

But dolorous like the peal of dooms, And proclamation of the night, The waste returned that voice of light With echo from its hollow tombs!

TWILIGHT ON THE SNOW

Before the hill’s high altar bowed The trees are Druids, weird and white, Facing the vision of the light With ancient lips to silence vowed.

No certain sound the woods aver, Nor motion save of formless wings— Filled with faint twilight flutterings, With thronging gloom, and shadow-stir.

And hidden in a hollow dell, Lie all the winds that magic trees Have lulled with crystal wizardries, And bound about with Merlin-spell.

IMAGE

Calm as a long-forgotten marble god who smiles, Colossal, in the grim serenity of stone, Upon the broken pillars lying all alone, Athwart the horizon’s infinite and yellow miles;

Whom neither desert darkness nor the desert noon, Nor dawns that render terrible the bare dead land, Nor winds that wrap his mighty form in palls of sand, Nor the Medusa of the dumb and stony moon,