No Asian poppy, nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading jealous Caliphat;

No poison gendered in close monkish cell,

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To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,

Could so have rapt unwilling life away.

Among the fragrant husks and berries crushed,

Upon the grass I struggled hard against

The domineering potion; but in vain –

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sunk,

Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumbered ’tis a chance to guess.

When sense of life returned, I started up

As if with wings; but the fair trees were gone,

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The mossy mound and arbour were no more.

I looked around upon the carved sides

Of an old sanctuary with roof august,

Builded so high, it seemed that filmed clouds

Might spread beneath, as o’er the stars of heaven.

So old the place was, I remembered none

The like upon the earth: what I had seen

Of grey cathedrals, buttressed walls, rent towers,

The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature’s rocks toiled hard in waves and winds,

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Seemed but the faulture of decrepit things

To that eternal domed monument.

Upon the marble at my feet there lay

Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

Which needs had been of dyed asbestos wove,

Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

So white the linen; so, in some, distinct

Ran imageries from a sombre loom.

All in a mingled heap confused there lay

Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing-dish,

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Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelleries –

Turning from these with awe, once more I raised

My eyes to fathom the space every way –

The embossèd roof, the silent massy range

Of columns north and south, ending in mist

Of nothing, then to eastward, where black gates

Were shut against the sunrise evermore.

Then to the west I looked, and saw far off

An Image, huge of feature as a cloud,

At level of whose feet an altar slept,

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To be approached on either side by steps,

And marble balustrade, and patient travail

To count with toil the innumerable degrees.

Towards the altar sober-paced I went,

Repressing haste, as too unholy there;

And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

One ministering; and there arose a flame.

When in mid-May the sickening East wind

Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain

Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers,

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And fills the air with so much pleasant health

That even the dying man forgets his shroud –

Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,

Sending forth Maian incense, spread around

Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,

And clouded all the altar with soft smoke,

From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard

Language pronounced: ‘If thou canst not ascend

These steps, die on that marble where thou art.

Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,

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Will parch for lack of nutriment – thy bones

Will wither in few years, and vanish so

That not the quickest eye could find a grain

Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.

The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,

And no hand in the universe can turn

Thy hourglass, if these gummèd leaves be burnt

Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps.’

I heard, I looked: two senses both at once,

So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

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Of that fierce threat, and the hard task proposed.

Prodigious seemed the toil; the leaves were yet

Burning – when suddenly a palsied chill

Struck from the pavèd level up my limbs,

And was ascending quick to put cold grasp

Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat.

I shrieked; and the sharp anguish of my shriek

Stung my own ears – I strove hard to escape

The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step.

Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold

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Grew stifling, suffocating, at the heart;

And when I clasped my hands I felt them not.

One minute before death, my iced foot touched

The lowest stair; and as it touched, life seemed

To pour in at the toes: I mounted up,

As once fair Angels on a ladder flew

From the green turf to Heaven. ‘Holy Power,’

Cried I, approaching near the hornèd shrine,

‘What am I that should so be saved from death?

What am I that another death come not

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To choke my utterance sacrilegious, here?’

Then said the veilèd shadow: ‘Thou hast felt

What ’tis to die and live again before

Thy fated hour. That thou hadst power to do so

Is thy own safety; thou hast dated on

Thy doom.’ ‘High Prophetess,’ said I, ‘purge off,

Benign, if so it please thee, my mind’s film.’

‘None can usurp this height,’ returned that shade,

But those to whom the miseries of the world

Are misery, and will not let them rest.

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All else who find a haven in the world,

Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,

If by a chance into this fane they come,

Rot on the pavement where thou rotted’st half.’

‘Are there not thousands in the world,’ said I,

Encouraged by the sooth voice of the shade,

‘Who love their fellows even to the death;

Who feel the giant agony of the world;

And more, like slaves to poor humanity,

Labour for mortal good? I sure should see

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Other men here: but I am here alone.’

‘They whom thou spak’st of are no visionaries,’

Rejoined that voice – ‘They are no dreamers weak,

They seek no wonder but the human face;

No music but a happy-noted voice –

They come not here, they have no thought to come –

And thou art here, for thou art less than they –

What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,

To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,

A fever of thyself. Think of the Earth;

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What bliss even in hope is there for thee?

What haven? Every creature hath its home;

Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,

Whether his labours be sublime or low –

The pain alone; the joy alone; distinct:

Only the dreamer venoms all his days,

Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.

Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shared,

Such things as thou art are admitted oft

Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,

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And suffered in these temples; for that cause

Thou standest safe beneath this statue’s knees.’

‘That I am favoured for unworthiness,

By such propitious parley medicined

In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice –

Ay, and could weep for love of such award.’

So answered I, continuing, ‘If it please,

Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not all

Those melodies sung into the world’s ear

Are useless: sure a poet is a sage,

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A humanist, physician to all men.

That I am none I feel, as vultures feel

They are no birds when eagles are abroad.

What am I then? Thou spakest of my tribe:

What tribe?’ – The tall shade veiled in drooping white

Then spake, so much more earnest, that the breath

Moved the thin linen folds that drooping hung

About a golden censer from the hand

Pendent. – ‘Art thou not of the dreamer tribe?

The poet and the dreamer are distinct,

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Diverse, sheer opposite, antipodes.

The one pours out a balm upon the world,

The other vexes it.’ Then shouted I,

Spite of myself, and with a Pythia’s spleen,

‘Apollo! faded, far-flown Apollo!

Where is thy misty pestilence to creep

Into the dwellings, through the door crannies,

Of all mock lyrists, large self-worshippers

And careless hectorers in proud bad verse.

Though I breathe death with them it will be life

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To see them sprawl before me into graves.

Majestic shadow, tell me where I am,

Whose altar this; for whom this incense curls;

What image this, whose face I cannot see,

For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,

Of accent feminine so courteous?’

Then the tall shade, in drooping linens veiled,

Spake out, so much more earnest, that her breath

Stirred the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

About a golden censer from her hand

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Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed

Long-treasured tears. ‘This temple, sad and lone,

Is all spared from the thunder of a war

Foughten long since by giant hierarchy

Against rebellion; this old image here,

Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,

Is Saturn’s; I Moneta, left supreme

Sole priestess of his desolation.’

I had no words to answer, for my tongue,

Useless, could find about its roofèd home

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No syllable of a fit majesty

To make rejoinder to Moneta’s mourn.

There was a silence, while the altar’s blaze

Was fainting for sweet food: I looked thereon,

And on the pavèd floor, where nigh were piled

Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps

Of other crispèd spice-wood – then again

I looked upon the altar, and its horns

Whitened with ashes, and its languorous flame,

And then upon the offerings again;

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And so by turns – till sad Moneta cried:

‘The sacrifice is done, but not the less

Will I be kind to thee for thy goodwill.

My power, which to me is still a curse,

Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes

Still swooning vivid through my globèd brain,

With an electral changing misery,

Thou shalt with those dull mortal eyes behold,

Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not.’

As near as an immortal’s sphered words

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Could to a mother’s soften, were these last:

But yet I had a terror of her robes,

And chiefly of the veils, that from her brow

Hung pale, and curtained her in mysteries

That made my heart too small to hold its blood.

This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand

Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face,

Not pined by human sorrows, but bright-blanched

By an immortal sickness which kills not;

It works a constant change, which happy death

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Can put no end to; deathwards progressing

To no death was that visage; it had passed

The lily and the snow; and beyond these

I must not think now, though I saw that face –

But for her eyes I should have fled away.

They held me back, with a benignant light,

Soft-mitigated by divinest lids

Half-closed, and visionless entire they seemed

Of all external things – they saw me not,

But in blank splendour beamed like the mild moon,

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Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found

A grain of gold upon a mountain’s side,

And twinged with avarice strained out my eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,

So at the view of sad Moneta’s brow

I ached to see what things the hollow brain

Behind enwombèd; what high tragedy

In the dark secret chambers of her skull

Was acting, that could give so dread a stress

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To her cold lips, and fill with such a light

Her planetary eyes; and touch her voice

With such a sorrow – ‘Shade of Memory!’

Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

‘By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house,

By this last temple, by the golden age,

By great Apollo, thy dear foster child,

And by thyself, forlorn divinity,

The pale Omega of a withered race,

Let me behold, according as thou said’st,

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What in thy brain so ferments to and fro.’

No sooner had this conjuration passed

My devout lips, than side by side we stood

(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale,

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve’s one star.

Onward I looked beneath the gloomy boughs,

And saw, what first I thought an image huge,

Like to the image pedestalled so high

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In Saturn’s temple. Then Moneta’s voice

Came brief upon mine ear: ‘So Saturn sat

When he had lost his realms.’ Whereon there grew

A power within me of enormous ken

To see as a God sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme

At those few words hung vast before my mind,

With half-unravelled web. I set myself

Upon an eagle’s watch, that I might see,

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And seeing ne’er forget. No stir of life

Was in this shrouded vale, not so much air

As in zoning of a summer’s day

Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass,

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more

By reason of the fallen divinity

Spreading more shade; the Naiad ’mid her reeds

Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large footmarks went

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No farther than to where old Saturn’s feet

Had rested, and there slept – how long a sleep!

Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes were closed,

While his bowed head seemed listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

It seemed no force could wake him from his place;

But there came one who, with a kindred hand

Touched his wide shoulders, after bending low

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With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

Then came the grieved voice of Mnemosyne,

And grieved I hearkened. ‘That divinity

Whom thou saw’st step from yon forlornest wood,

And with slow pace approach our fallen King,

Is Thea, softest-natured of our brood.’

I marked the goddess in fair statuary

Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,

And in her sorrow nearer woman’s tears.

There was a listening fear in her regard,

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As if calamity had but begun;

As if the vanward clouds of evil days

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its storèd thunder labouring up.

One hand she pressed upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;

The other upon Saturn’s bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his hollow ear

Leaning with parted lips, some words she spake

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In solemn tenor and deep organ tune,

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

Would come in this-like accenting – how frail

To that large utterance of the early Gods! –

‘Saturn! look up – and for what, poor lost King?

I have no comfort for thee, no – not one;

I cannot cry, Wherefore thus sleepest thou?

For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth

Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a God;

And Ocean too, with all its solemn noise,

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Has from thy sceptre passed, and all the air

Is emptied of thine hoary Majesty.

Thy thunder, captious at the new command,

Rumbles reluctant o’er our fallen house;

And thy sharp lightning, in unpractised hands,

Scorches and burns our once serene domain.

With such remorseless speed still come new woes

That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

Saturn! sleep on. Me thoughtless, why should I

Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?

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Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?

Saturn, sleep on, while at thy feet I weep.’

As when, upon a trancèd summer-night,

Forests, branch-charmèd by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a noise,

Save from one gradual solitary gust,

Swelling upon the silence; dying off;

As if the ebbing air had but one wave –

So came these words, and went; the while in tears

She pressed her fair large forehead to the earth,

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Just where her fallen hair might spread in curls,

A soft and silken mat for Saturn’s feet.

Long, long those two were postured motionless,

Like sculpture builded-up upon the grave

Of their own power. A long awful time

I looked upon them: still they were the same;

The frozen God still bending to the earth,

And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet;

Moneta silent. Without stay or prop,

But my own weak mortality, I bore

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The load of this eternal quietude,

The unchanging gloom, and the three fixèd shapes

Ponderous upon my senses a whole moon.

For by my burning brain I measured sure

Her silver seasons shedded on the night,

And every day by day methought I grew

More gaunt and ghostly. Oftentimes I prayed

Intense, that death would take me from the vale

And all its burthens. Gasping with despair

Of change, hour after hour I cursed myself –

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Until old Saturn raised his faded eyes,

And looked around and saw his kingdom gone,

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,

And that fair kneeling Goddess at his feet.

As the moist scent of flowers, and grass, and leaves,

Fills forest dells with a pervading air

Known to the woodland nostril, so the words

Of Saturn filled the mossy glooms around,

Even to the hollows of time-eaten oaks,

And to the windings in the foxes’ hole,

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With sad low tones, while thus he spake, and sent

Strange musings to the solitary Pan:

‘Moan, brethren, moan; for we are swallowed up

And buried from all godlike exercise

Of influence benign on planets pale,

And peaceful sway above man’s harvesting,

And all those acts which deity supreme

Doth ease its heart of love in. Moan and wail.

Moan, brethren, moan; for lo! the rebel spheres

Spin round, the stars their ancient courses keep,

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Clouds still with shadowy moisture haunt the earth,

Still suck their fill of light from sun and moon,

Still buds the tree, and still the sea-shores murmur.

There is no death in all the universe,

No smell of death – there shall be death – moan, moan,

Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes

Have changed a God into a shaking palsy.

Moan, brethren, moan, for I have no strength left,

Weak as the reed – weak – feeble as my voice –

O, O, the pain, the pain of feebleness.

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Moan, moan, for still I thaw – or give me help:

Throw down those imps, and give me victory.

Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown

Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival,

From the gold peaks of heaven’s high-pilèd clouds –

Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

Of strings in hollow shells; and let there be

Beautiful things made new for the surprise

Of the sky-children –’ So he feebly ceased,

With such a poor and sickly sounding pause,

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Methought I heard some old man of the earth

Bewailing earthly loss; nor could my eyes

And ears act with that pleasant unison of sense

Which marries sweet sound with the grace of form

And dolorous accent from a tragic harp

With large-limbed visions. More 1 scrutinized:

Still fixed he sat beneath the sable trees,

Whose arms spread straggling in wild serpent forms,

With leaves all hushed; his awful presence there

(Now all was silent) gave a deadly lie

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To what I erewhile heard – only his lips

Trembled amid the white curls of his beard.

They told the truth, though, round, the snowy locks

Hung nobly, as upon the face of heaven

A midday fleece of clouds. Thea arose,

And stretched her white arm through the hollow dark,

Pointing some whither; whereat he too rose

Like a vast giant, seen by men at sea

To grow pale from the waves at dull midnight.

They melted from my sight into the woods;

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Ere I could turn, Moneta cried: ‘These twain

Are speeding to the families of grief,

Where roofed in by black rocks they waste, in pain

And darkness, for no hope.’ – And she spake on,

As ye may read who can unwearied pass

Onward from the antechamber of this dream,

Where even at the open doors awhile

I must delay, and glean my memory

Of her high phrase – perhaps no further dare.

CANTO II

‘Mortal, that thou mayst understand aright,

I humanize my sayings to thine ear,

Making comparisons of earthly things;

Or thou mightst better listen to the wind,

Whose language is to thee a barren noise,

Though it blows legend-laden through the trees –

In melancholy realms big tears are shed,

More sorrow like to this, and such-like woe,

Too huge for mortal tongue, or pen of scribe.

10

The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound,

Groan for the old allegiance once more,

Listening in their doom for Saturn’s voice.

But one of our whole eagle-brood still keeps

His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty;

Blazing Hyperion on his orbèd fire

Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up

From man to the sun’s God – yet unsecure.

For as upon the earth dire prodigies

Fright and perplex, so also shudders he:

20

Nor at dog’s howl or gloom-bird’s even screech,

Or the familiar visitings of one

Upon the first toll of his passing-bell:

But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,

Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,

Bastioned with pyramids of glowing gold,

And touched with shade of bronzèd obelisks,

Glares a blood-red through all the thousand courts,

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

30

Flush angerly: when he would taste the wreaths

Of incense breathed aloft from sacred hills,

Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes

Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick.

Wherefore, when harboured in the sleepy West,

After the full completion of fair day,

For rest divine upon exalted couch

And slumber in the arms of melody,

He paces through the pleasant hours of ease

With strides colossal, on from hall to hall;

40

While far within each aisle and deep recess

His wingèd minions in close clusters stand

Amazed, and full of fear; like anxious men,

Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,

When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

Even now, while Saturn, roused from icy trance,

Goes, step for step, with Thea from yon woods,

Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

Is sloping to the threshold of the West –

Thither we tend.’ – Now in clear light I stood,

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Relieved from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne

Was sitting on a square-edged polished stone,

That in its lucid depth reflected pure

Her priestess-garments. My quick eyes ran on

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bowers of fragrant and enwreathèd light

And diamond-pavèd lustrous long arcades.

Anon rushed by the bright Hyperion;

His flaming robes streamed out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,

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That scared away the meek ethereal Hours,

And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared…

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

Warm breath light whisper tender semi-tone

Bright eyes, accomplished shape, and languorous waist!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,

Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,

Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,

Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise –

Vanished unseasonably at shut of eve,

10

When the dusk holiday – or holinight –

Of fragrant-curtained love begins to weave

The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight;

But, as I’ve read love’s missal through today,

He’ll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

What can I do to drive away

Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,

Ay, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,

What can I do to kill it and be free

In my old liberty?

When every fair one that I saw was fair,

Enough to catch me in but half a snare,

Not keep me there;

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When, howe’er poor or parti-coloured things,

My muse had wings,

And ever ready was to take her course

Whither I bent her force,

Unintellectual, yet divine to me –

Divine, I say! What sea-bird o’er the sea

Is a philosopher the while he goes

Winging along where the great water throes?

How shall I do

To get anew

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Those moulted feathers, and so mount once more

Above, above

The reach of fluttering Love,

And make him cower lowly while I soar?

Shall I gulp wine? No, that is vulgarism,

A heresy and schism,

Foisted into the canon law of love;

No – wine is only sweet to happy men;

More dismal cares

Seize on me unawares –

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Where shall I learn to get my peace again?

To banish thoughts of that most hateful land,

Dungeoner of my friends, that wicked strand

Where they were wrecked and live a wrecked life;

That monstrous region, whose dull rivers pour,

Ever from their sordid urns into the shore,

Unowned of any weedy-hairèd gods;

Whose winds, all zephyrless, hold scourging rods,

Iced in the great lakes, to afflict mankind;

Whose rank-grown forests, frosted, black, and blind,

40

Would fright a Dryad; whose harsh-herbaged meads

Make lean and lank the starved ox while he feeds;

There flowers have no scent, birds no sweet song,

And great unerring Nature once seems wrong.

O, for some sunny spell

To dissipate the shadows of this hell!

Say they are gone – with the new dawning light

Steps forth my lady bright!

O, let me once more rest

My soul upon that dazzling breast!

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Let once again these aching arms be placed,

The tender gaolers of thy waist!

And let me feel that warm breath here and there

To spread a rapture in my very hair –

O, the sweetness of the pain!

Give me those lips again!

Enough! Enough! It is enough for me

To dream of thee!

I cry your mercy, pity, love – ay, love!

Merciful love that tantalizes not,

One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Unmasked, and being seen – without a blot!

O! let me have thee whole, – all, all, be mine!

That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest

Of love, your kiss – those hands, those eyes divine,

That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast –

Yourself – your soul – in pity give me all,

10

Withhold no atom’s atom or I die;

Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,

Forget, in the mist of idle misery,

Life’s purposes – the palate of my mind

Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art –

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –

No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

10

Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

STEPHENIf shame can on a soldier’s vein-swollen front

Spread deeper crimson than the battle’s toil,

Blush in your casing helmets! for see, see!

Yonder my chivalry, my pride of war,

Wrenched with an iron hand from firm array,

Are routed loose about the plashy meads,

Of honour forfeit. O, that my known voice

Could reach your dastard ears, and fright you more!

Fly, cowards, fly! Gloucester is at your backs!

Throw your slack bridles o’er the flurried manes,

Ply well the rowel with faint trembling heels,

Scampering to death at last!

FIRST KNIGHTThe enemy

Bears his flaunt standard close upon their rear.

SECOND KNIGHTSure of a bloody prey, seeing the fens

Will swamp them girth-deep.

STEPHENOver head and ears,

No matter! ’Tis a gallant enemy;

How like a comet he goes streaming on.

But we must plague him in the flank – hey, friends.

We are well breathèd – follow!

[Enter EARL BALDWIN and Soldiers, as defeated]

STEPHENDe Redvers!

What is the monstrous bugbear that can fright Baldwin?

BALDWINNo scarecrow, but the fortunate star

Of boisterous Chester, whose fell truncheon now

Points level to the goal of victory.

This way he comes, and if you would maintain

Your person unaffronted by vile odds,

Take horse, my Lord.

STEPHENAnd which way spur for life?

Now I thank Heaven I am in the toils,

That soldiers may bear witness how my arm

Can burst the meshes. Not the eagle more

Loves to beat up against a tyrannous blast,

Than I to meet the torrent of my foes.

This is a brag – be’t so – but if I fall,

Carve it upon my ’scutcheon’d sepulchre.

On, fellow soldiers! Earl of Redvers, back!

Not twenty Earls of Chester shall browbeat

The diadem.