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children :::
branches ::: Hedge Maze, Maze

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object:Maze
class:Place


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now begins generated list of local instances, definitions, quotes, instances in chapters, wordnet info if available and instances among weblinks


OBJECT INSTANCES [0] - TOPICS - AUTHORS - BOOKS - CHAPTERS - CLASSES - SEE ALSO - SIMILAR TITLES

TOPICS
SEE ALSO


AUTH

BOOKS
DND_DM_Guide_5E
Evolution_II
Full_Circle
General_Principles_of_Kabbalah
Heart_of_Matter
Modern_Man_in_Search_of_a_Soul
Plotinus_-_Complete_Works_Vol_01
the_Book
The_Seals_of_Wisdom
The_Use_and_Abuse_of_History
The_Way_of_Perfection

IN CHAPTERS TITLE
1.rt_-_And_In_Wonder_And_Amazement_I_Sing
1.whitman_-_A_Childs_Amaze
2.21_-_The_Three_Heads,_The_Beard_and_The_Mazela

IN CHAPTERS CLASSNAME

IN CHAPTERS TEXT
0.00a_-_Introduction
0.00_-_INTRODUCTION
0_1961-04-12
0_1961-05-19
0_1961-12-20
0_1964-10-10
0_1965-11-23
0_1967-09-03
0_1972-11-25
02.02_-_The_Kingdom_of_Subtle_Matter
02.05_-_The_Godheads_of_the_Little_Life
02.06_-_The_Kingdoms_and_Godheads_of_the_Greater_Life
02.07_-_George_Seftris
03.02_-_The_Adoration_of_the_Divine_Mother
03.14_-_From_the_Known_to_the_Unknown?
04.02_-_The_Growth_of_the_Flame
05.01_-_Man_and_the_Gods
05.02_-_Satyavan
05.03_-_Satyavan_and_Savitri
07.03_-_The_Entry_into_the_Inner_Countries
10.03_-_The_Debate_of_Love_and_Death
10.04_-_The_Dream_Twilight_of_the_Earthly_Real
1.00e_-_DIVISION_E_-_MOTION_ON_THE_PHYSICAL_AND_ASTRAL_PLANES
1.00_-_PREFACE_-_DESCENSUS_AD_INFERNOS
1.00_-_PRELUDE_AT_THE_THEATRE
1.01_-_Adam_Kadmon_and_the_Evolution
1.01_-_MASTER_AND_DISCIPLE
1.01_-_The_Rape_of_the_Lock
1.01_-_The_Science_of_Living
1.01_-_THE_STUFF_OF_THE_UNIVERSE
1.02_-_BOOK_THE_SECOND
1.02_-_MAPS_OF_MEANING_-_THREE_LEVELS_OF_ANALYSIS
1.03_-_BOOK_THE_THIRD
1.03_-_On_exile_or_pilgrimage
1.03_-_The_Sephiros
1.04_-_On_blessed_and_ever-memorable_obedience
1.04_-_The_Divine_Mother_-_This_Is_She
1.05_-_AUERBACHS_CELLAR
1.05_-_Computing_Machines_and_the_Nervous_System
1.05_-_On_painstaking_and_true_repentance_which_constitute_the_life_of_the_holy_convicts;_and_about_the_prison.
1.05_-_The_Magical_Control_of_the_Weather
1.05_-_The_New_Consciousness
1.06_-_LIFE_AND_THE_PLANETS
1.06_-_On_remembrance_of_death.
1.06_-_The_Ascent_of_the_Sacrifice_2_The_Works_of_Love_-_The_Works_of_Life
1.06_-_The_Four_Powers_of_the_Mother
1.07_-_BOOK_THE_SEVENTH
1.07_-_Bridge_across_the_Afterlife
1.07_-_On_mourning_which_causes_joy.
1.07_-_Savitri
1.07_-_THE_MASTER_AND_VIJAY_GOSWAMI
1.08_-_BOOK_THE_EIGHTH
1.08_-_Independence_from_the_Physical
1.08_-_Information,_Language,_and_Society
1.08_-_The_Depths_of_the_Divine
1.09_-_ADVICE_TO_THE_BRAHMOS
1.09_-_Equality_and_the_Annihilation_of_Ego
1.09_-_SELF-KNOWLEDGE
1.09_-_The_Greater_Self
11.01_-_The_Eternal_Day__The_Souls_Choice_and_the_Supreme_Consummation
1.10_-_BOOK_THE_TENTH
1.11_-_Correspondence_and_Interviews
1.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.12_-_Delight_of_Existence_-_The_Solution
1.12_-_THE_FESTIVAL_AT_PNIHTI
1.12_-_TIME_AND_ETERNITY
1.13_-_A_GARDEN-ARBOR
1.13_-_BOOK_THE_THIRTEENTH
1.14_-_FOREST_AND_CAVERN
1.14_-_INSTRUCTION_TO_VAISHNAVS_AND_BRHMOS
1.14_-_The_Sand_Waste_and_the_Rain_of_Fire._The_Violent_against_God._Capaneus._The_Statue_of_Time,_and_the_Four_Infernal_Rivers.
1.14_-_TURMOIL_OR_GENESIS?
1.15_-_LAST_VISIT_TO_KESHAB
1.15_-_MARGARETS_ROOM
1.15_-_On_incorruptible_purity_and_chastity_to_which_the_corruptible_attain_by_toil_and_sweat.
1.15_-_ON_THE_THOUSAND_AND_ONE_GOALS
1.17_-_M._AT_DAKSHINEWAR
1.18_-_M._AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.18_-_On_insensibility,_that_is,_deadening_of_the_soul_and_the_death_of_the_mind_before_the_death_of_the_body.
1.200-1.224_Talks
1.20_-_RULES_FOR_HOUSEHOLDERS_AND_MONKS
1.21_-_WALPURGIS-NIGHT
1.23_-_Our_Debt_to_the_Savage
1.240_-_Talks_2
1.24_-_PUNDIT_SHASHADHAR
1.25_-_On_the_destroyer_of_the_passions,_most_sublime_humility,_which_is_rooted_in_spiritual_feeling.
1.27_-_AT_DAKSHINESWAR
1.27_-_On_holy_solitude_of_body_and_soul.
1.300_-_1.400_Talks
1.33_-_Treats_of_our_great_need_that_the_Lord_should_give_us_what_we_ask_in_these_words_of_the_Paternoster__Panem_nostrum_quotidianum_da_nobis_hodie.
1.36_-_Treats_of_these_words_in_the_Paternoster__Dimitte_nobis_debita_nostra.
1.39_-_Continues_the_same_subject_and_gives_counsels_concerning_different_kinds_of_temptation._Suggests_two_remedies_by_which_we_may_be_freed_from_temptations.135
1.51_-_How_to_Recognise_Masters,_Angels,_etc.,_and_how_they_Work
1.52_-_Family_-_Public_Enemy_No._1
1.57_-_Beings_I_have_Seen_with_my_Physical_Eye
18.04_-_Modern_Poems
18.05_-_Ashram_Poets
1957-12-04_-_The_method_of_The_Life_Divine_-_Problem_of_emergence_of_a_new_species
1958-06-25_-_Sadhana_in_the_body
1958-07-09_-_Faith_and_personal_effort
1.ac_-_Adela
1.ac_-_The_Hawk_and_the_Babe
1.ami_-_To_the_Saqi_(from_Baal-i-Jibreel)
1f.lovecraft_-_At_the_Mountains_of_Madness
1f.lovecraft_-_Beyond_the_Wall_of_Sleep
1f.lovecraft_-_He
1f.lovecraft_-_In_the_Walls_of_Eryx
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Beast_in_the_Cave
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dream-Quest_of_Unknown_Kadath
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Dunwich_Horror
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Festival
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Haunter_of_the_Dark
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Horror_at_Red_Hook
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Mound
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Nameless_City
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Shadow_out_of_Time
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Shunned_House
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Silver_Key
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Temple
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Tomb
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Tree_on_the_Hill
1f.lovecraft_-_The_Unnamable
1.fs_-_The_Dance
1.fs_-_The_Hostage
1.fs_-_The_Lay_Of_The_Mountain
1.jk_-_A_Draught_Of_Sunshine
1.jk_-_A_Prophecy_-_To_George_Keats_In_America
1.jk_-_A_Thing_Of_Beauty_(Endymion)
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_I
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_II
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_III
1.jk_-_Endymion_-_Book_IV
1.jk_-_Epistle_To_My_Brother_George
1.jk_-_Hyperion._Book_III
1.jk_-_King_Stephen
1.jk_-_Lamia._Part_I
1.jk_-_Ode_To_Fanny
1.jk_-_Otho_The_Great_-_Act_II
1.jk_-_Otho_The_Great_-_Act_III
1.jk_-_Otho_The_Great_-_Act_IV
1.jk_-_The_Cap_And_Bells;_Or,_The_Jealousies_-_A_Faery_Tale_.._Unfinished
1.jk_-_The_Eve_Of_St._Agnes
1.jlb_-_Daybreak
1.jlb_-_Everness
1.lb_-_His_Dream_Of_Skyland
1.lovecraft_-_Fungi_From_Yuggoth
1.mm_-_Three_Golden_Apples_from_the_Hesperian_grove_(from_Atalanta_Fugiens)
1.pbs_-_Peter_Bell_The_Third
1.pbs_-_Prometheus_Unbound
1.pbs_-_Rosalind_and_Helen_-_a_Modern_Eclogue
1.pbs_-_Saint_Edmonds_Eve
1.pbs_-_The_Cenci_-_A_Tragedy_In_Five_Acts
1.pbs_-_The_Revolt_Of_Islam_-_Canto_I-XII
1.pbs_-_The_Triumph_Of_Life
1.rajh_-_God_Pursues_Me_Everywhere
1.rb_-_Fra_Lippo_Lippi
1.rb_-_In_A_Gondola
1.rb_-_Mesmerism
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_III_-_Paracelsus
1.rb_-_Paracelsus_-_Part_IV_-_Paracelsus_Aspires
1.rb_-_Rhyme_for_a_Child_Viewing_a_Naked_Venus_in_a_Painting_of_'The_Judgement_of_Paris'
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Fifth
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_First
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Second
1.rb_-_Sordello_-_Book_the_Third
1.rb_-_The_Flight_Of_The_Duchess
1.rb_-_The_Glove
1.rt_-_Akash_Bhara_Surya_Tara_Biswabhara_Pran_(Translation)
1.rt_-_And_In_Wonder_And_Amazement_I_Sing
1.rt_-_Broken_Song
1.rt_-_Fireflies
1.rt_-_Gitanjali
1.rt_-_The_Hero
1.rt_-_The_Hero(2)
1.rt_-_The_Journey
1.tm_-_A_Messenger_from_the_Horizon
1.whitman_-_A_Childs_Amaze
1.whitman_-_Song_At_Sunset
1.whitman_-_Song_of_Myself
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_Myself-_X
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_The_Exposition
1.whitman_-_Song_Of_The_Open_Road
1.whitman_-_Starting_From_Paumanok
1.whitman_-_The_Sleepers
1.ww_-_10_-_Alone_far_in_the_wilds_and_mountains_I_hunt
1.ww_-_Artegal_And_Elidure
1.ww_-_A_Whirl-Blast_From_Behind_The_Hill
1.ww_-_Book_Seventh_[Residence_in_London]
1.ww_-_Guilt_And_Sorrow,_Or,_Incidents_Upon_Salisbury_Plain
1.ww_-_Hint_From_The_Mountains_For_Certain_Political_Pretenders
1.ww_-_The_Excursion-_V-_Book_Fouth-_Despondency_Corrected
1.ww_-_To--_On_Her_First_Ascent_To_The_Summit_Of_Helvellyn
1.ww_-_Written_In_Germany_On_One_Of_The_Coldest_Days_Of_The_Century
1.ww_-_Written_Upon_A_Blank_Leaf_In_The_Complete_Angler.
20.01_-_Charyapada_-_Old_Bengali_Mystic_Poems
2.01_-_AT_THE_STAR_THEATRE
2.01_-_THE_CHILD_WITH_THE_MIRROR
2.02_-_Habit_2__Begin_with_the_End_in_Mind
2.03_-_Karmayogin__A_Commentary_on_the_Isha_Upanishad
2.03_-_THE_MASTER_IN_VARIOUS_MOODS
2.04_-_ADVICE_TO_ISHAN
2.04_-_Positive_Aspects_of_the_Mother-Complex
2.07_-_BANKIM_CHANDRA
2.07_-_I_Also_Try_to_Tell_My_Tale
2.1.02_-_Love_and_Death
2.10_-_THE_MASTER_AND_NARENDRA
2.10_-_The_Vision_of_the_World-Spirit_-_Time_the_Destroyer
2.11_-_WITH_THE_DEVOTEES_IN_CALCUTTA
2.13_-_THE_MASTER_AT_THE_HOUSES_OF_BALARM_AND_GIRISH
2.14_-_AT_RAMS_HOUSE
2.14_-_ON_THE_LAND_OF_EDUCATION
2.15_-_CAR_FESTIVAL_AT_BALARMS_HOUSE
2.15_-_Reality_and_the_Integral_Knowledge
2.16_-_VISIT_TO_NANDA_BOSES_HOUSE
2.17_-_THE_MASTER_ON_HIMSELF_AND_HIS_EXPERIENCES
2.18_-_SRI_RAMAKRISHNA_AT_SYAMPUKUR
2.19_-_THE_MASTER_AND_DR._SARKAR
2.21_-_The_Three_Heads,_The_Beard_and_The_Mazela
2.22_-_THE_MASTER_AT_COSSIPORE
2.23_-_THE_MASTER_AND_BUDDHA
2.24_-_The_Evolution_of_the_Spiritual_Man
2.24_-_THE_MASTERS_LOVE_FOR_HIS_DEVOTEES
2.25_-_AFTER_THE_PASSING_AWAY
2.30_-_The_Uniting_of_the_Names_45_and_52
29.07_-_A_Small_Talk
3.00_-_The_Magical_Theory_of_the_Universe
3.01_-_Towards_the_Future
3.05_-_ON_VIRTUE_THAT_MAKES_SMALL
3.1.05_-_A_Vision_of_Science
3.1.23_-_The_Rishi
3.3.2_-_Doctors_and_Medicines
36.07_-_An_Introduction_To_The_Vedas
3.7.1.05_-_The_Significance_of_Rebirth
3.7.2.05_-_Appendix_I_-_The_Tangle_of_Karma
4.04_-_THE_REGENERATION_OF_THE_KING
4.08_-_THE_VOLUNTARY_BEGGAR
4.11_-_THE_WELCOME
4.12_-_THE_LAST_SUPPER
4.17_-_THE_AWAKENING
4.18_-_THE_ASS_FESTIVAL
4.19_-_THE_DRUNKEN_SONG
4.20_-_THE_SIGN
4.2.1_-_The_Right_Attitude_towards_Difficulties
5.05_-_Supermind_and_Humanity
5.06_-_THE_TRANSFORMATION
5.1.01.1_-_The_Book_of_the_Herald
5.1.01.4_-_The_Book_of_Partings
5.1.01.9_-_Book_IX
5.1.02_-_Ahana
5_-_The_Phenomenology_of_the_Spirit_in_Fairytales
6.0_-_Conscious,_Unconscious,_and_Individuation
7.08_-_Sincerity
7.14_-_Modesty
Aeneid
Apology
Appendix_4_-_Priest_Spells
Book_1_-_The_Council_of_the_Gods
BOOK_II._--_PART_I._ANTHROPOGENESIS.
BOOK_I._--_PART_III._SCIENCE_AND_THE_SECRET_DOCTRINE_CONTRASTED
BOOK_IV._-_That_empire_was_given_to_Rome_not_by_the_gods,_but_by_the_One_True_God
Book_of_Exodus
Book_of_Imaginary_Beings_(text)
BOOK_XVIII._-_A_parallel_history_of_the_earthly_and_heavenly_cities_from_the_time_of_Abraham_to_the_end_of_the_world
BOOK_XXII._-_Of_the_eternal_happiness_of_the_saints,_the_resurrection_of_the_body,_and_the_miracles_of_the_early_Church
BOOK_XXI._-_Of_the_eternal_punishment_of_the_wicked_in_hell,_and_of_the_various_objections_urged_against_it
COSA_-_BOOK_IV
COSA_-_BOOK_IX
COSA_-_BOOK_VI
COSA_-_BOOK_VIII
COSA_-_BOOK_X
Deutsches_Requiem
Emma_Zunz
ENNEAD_05.05_-_That_Intelligible_Entities_Are_Not_External_to_the_Intelligence_of_the_Good.
Euthyphro
Gorgias
Guru_Granth_Sahib_first_part
Liber_111_-_The_Book_of_Wisdom_-_LIBER_ALEPH_VEL_CXI
Liber_46_-_The_Key_of_the_Mysteries
LUX.05_-_AUGOEIDES
Medea_-_A_Vergillian_Cento
Sayings_of_Sri_Ramakrishna_(text)
Sophist
Symposium_translated_by_B_Jowett
Tablets_of_Baha_u_llah_text
Talks_001-025
Talks_With_Sri_Aurobindo_1
The_Act_of_Creation_text
Theaetetus
The_Aleph
The_Book_of_Certitude_-_P2
The_Book_of_Job
The_Book_of_Sand
The_Book_of_the_Prophet_Isaiah
The_Dwellings_of_the_Philosophers
The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths_1
The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths_2
The_Gold_Bug
The_Gospel_According_to_Luke
The_Gospel_According_to_Mark
The_Gospel_According_to_Matthew
The_Gospel_of_Thomas
The_Immortal
The_Logomachy_of_Zos
The_Pilgrims_Progress
The_Riddle_of_this_World
The_Shadow_Out_Of_Time
Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra_text

PRIMARY CLASS

Place
SIMILAR TITLES
Hedge Maze
Maze
The Maze of Nightmares
the Maze of Nightmares

DEFINITIONS


TERMS STARTING WITH

maze ::: an intricate, usually confusing network of interconnecting pathways, as in a garden; a labyrinth. mazes.

mazed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Maze

mazedness ::: n. --> The condition of being mazed; confusion; astonishment.

mazeful ::: a. --> Mazy.

maze ::: n. --> A wild fancy; a confused notion.
Confusion of thought; perplexity; uncertainty; state of bewilderment.
A confusing and baffling network, as of paths or passages; an intricacy; a labyrinth. ::: v. t.


mazer ::: n. --> A large drinking bowl; -- originally made of maple.


TERMS ANYWHERE

Abu Mazen-Beilin Plan ::: An agreement drawn up by Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas)of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin. The plan proposed Israel's annexation of 4-5% of the West Bank in exchange of an equal amount of Israeli territory to form a Palestinian state. The plan also called for the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu-Dis to be the capital of the new Palestinian state.

ADVENT ::: (games) /ad'vent/ The prototypical computer Adventure game, first implemented by Will Crowther for a CDC computer (probably the 6600?) as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming.ADVENT was ported to the PDP-10, and expanded to the 350-point Classic puzzle-oriented version, by Don Woods of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence operating system permitted only six-letter filenames. All the versions since are based on the SAIL port.David Long of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Computing Facility (which had two of the four DEC20s on campus in the late 1970s and early the point count up to 500, then 501 points. Most of his work was in the data files, but he made some changes to the parser as well.This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in text adventure games, and popularised several tag lines that have become fixtures of in a little maze of twisty passages, all different. The magic words xyzzy and plugh also derive from this game.Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a Colossal Cave and a Bedquilt as in the game, and the Y2 that also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary entrance.See also vadding.[Was the original written in Fortran?][Jargon File] (1996-04-01)

ADVENT "games" /ad'vent/ The prototypical computer {adventure} game, first implemented by Will Crowther for a {CDC} computer (probably the {CDC 6600}?) as an attempt at computer-refereed fantasy gaming. ADVENT was ported to the {PDP-10}, and expanded to the 350-point {Classic} puzzle-oriented version, by Don Woods of the {Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory} (SAIL). The game is now better known as Adventure, but the {TOPS-10} {operating system} permitted only six-letter filenames. All the versions since are based on the SAIL port. David Long of the {University of Chicago} Graduate School of Business Computing Facility (which had two of the four {DEC20s} on campus in the late 1970s and early 1980s) was responsible for expanding the cave in a number of ways, and pushing the point count up to 500, then 501 points. Most of his work was in the data files, but he made some changes to the {parser} as well. This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in text adventure games, and popularised several tag lines that have become fixtures of hacker-speak: "A huge green fierce snake bars the way!" "I see no X here" (for some noun X). "You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike." "You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different." The "magic words" {xyzzy} and {plugh} also derive from this game. Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a "Colossal Cave" and a "Bedquilt" as in the game, and the "Y2" that also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary entrance. See also {vadding}. [Was the original written in Fortran?] [{Jargon File}] (1996-04-01)

agazed ::: p. p. --> Gazing with astonishment; amazed.

aghast ::: v. t. --> To affright; to terrify.
See Agast, v. t. ::: a & p. p. --> Terrified; struck with amazement; showing signs of terror or horror.


Also pathing. ::: The plotting, by a computer application, of the shortest route between two points. It is a more practical variant on solving mazes. This field of research is based heavily on Dijkstra's algorithm for finding a shortest path on a weighted graph.

Amarapura NikAya. One of three major monastic fraternities (NIKAYA) within the modern Sinhalese THERAVADA sangha (S. SAMGHA), the others being the majority SIYAM NIKAYA and the RAMANNA NIKAYA. The Amarapura NikAya was founded in the early nineteenth century in opposition to the Siyam NikAya's policy of restricting higher ordination (UPASAMPADA) to the highest Goyigama caste. The Goyigama was concentrated in the interior highlands of Sri Lanka, which were governed by the Kandyan king. The lower castes-comprised of toddy tappers and cinnamon pickers, who formed the majority population in the British controlled coastal lowlands-were at most given lower ordination (PRAVRAJYA) as novices (sRAMAnERA). In protest, five low-caste Sinhalese novices journeyed to the Burmese capital of Amarapura in 1800 to receive higher ordination from the Burmese patriarch, NAnabhivaMsa. In 1803, they were ordained as monks (BHIKsU) and, together with three Burmese elders (P. thera), returned to Sri Lanka to establish the reformist Amarapura NikAya. The Amarapura NikAya takes as its charter the KALYAnĪ INSCRIPTIONS of the Mon king Dhammazedi erected at Pegu in 1479, a recension of which it preserves in its monasteries as the KalyAnipakarana. Following its establishment, the Amarapura NikAya itself divided along caste lines into numerous subgroups, each group maintaining its own lineage of teachers that are traced back to the original founders of the Amarapura NikAya. Continued sectarianism, along with doctrinal disagreements over the role of meditation, led to the formation of another reformist monastic order with Burmese roots, the RAmaNNa NikAya, in 1862.

amazed ::: greatly surprised; astounded; suddenly filled with wonder; astonished. amazing, amazement.

amazed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Amaze

amazedly ::: adv. --> In amazement; with confusion or astonishment.

amazedness ::: n. --> The state of being amazed, or confounded with fear, surprise, or wonder.

amazeful ::: a. --> Full of amazement.

amazement ::: n. --> The condition of being amazed; bewilderment [Obs.]; overwhelming wonder, as from surprise, sudden fear, horror, or admiration.
Frenzy; madness.


amaze ::: v. t. --> To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze.
To confound, as by fear, wonder, extreme surprise; to overwhelm with wonder; to astound; to astonish greatly.
Bewilderment, arising from fear, surprise, or wonder; amazement. ::: v. i.


amazing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Amaze ::: a. --> Causing amazement; very wonderful; as, amazing grace.

astonished ::: 1. Amazed, filled with sudden and overpowering surprise or wonder. 2. Filled with consternation; dismayed. astonishing.

astonishment ::: n. --> The condition of one who is stunned. Hence: Numbness; loss of sensation; stupor; loss of sense.
Dismay; consternation.
The overpowering emotion excited when something unaccountable, wonderful, or dreadful is presented to the mind; an intense degree of surprise; amazement.
The object causing such an emotion.


astonish ::: v. t. --> To stun; to render senseless, as by a blow.
To strike with sudden fear, terror, or wonder; to amaze; to surprise greatly, as with something unaccountable; to confound with some sudden emotion or passion.


astoundment ::: n. --> Amazement.

astound ::: --> of Astone
of Astound ::: a. --> Stunned; astounded; astonished.
To stun; to stupefy.
To astonish; to strike with amazement; to confound with


awhape ::: v. t. --> To confound; to terrify; to amaze.

Beilin-Abu Mazen Plan ::: On October 31, 1995, Israeli deputy foreign minister Yossi Beilin and Chairman Yasser Arafat’s deputy and future prime minister Mahmoud Abbas proposed a plan that Israel annex 4-5% of the West Bank and transfer the remaining areas to a Palestinian state. Jerusalem would be the capital of Israel while Abu Dis would be the capital of Palestine. An international commission would be formed to settle the issue of the refugees.

bemaze ::: v. t. --> To bewilder.

bewilder ::: v. t. --> To lead into perplexity or confusion, as for want of a plain path; to perplex with mazes; or in general, to perplex or confuse greatly.

B’shaah Tova ::: (Heb. at a good hour) Congratulations to an expectant mother Also the correct response to the announcement of a marriage engagement. In both cases, it is in anticipation of a “mazel tov” for something hoped for, that has not yet occurred.

confound ::: v. t. --> To mingle and blend, so that different elements can not be distinguished; to confuse.
To mistake for another; to identify falsely.
To throw into confusion or disorder; to perplex; to strike with amazement; to dismay.
To destroy; to ruin; to waste.


consternation ::: n. --> Amazement or horror that confounds the faculties, and incapacitates for reflection; terror, combined with amazement; dismay.

DPer /dee-pee-er/ Data Processor. Hackers are absolutely amazed that {suits} use this term self-referentially. *Computers* process data, not people! See {DP}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-07)

DPer ::: /dee-pee-er/ Data Processor. Hackers are absolutely amazed that suits use this term self-referentially. *Computers* process data, not people!See DP.[Jargon File] (1994-12-07)

Farsi hairat ::: amazement, astonishment; bewilderment, confusion, perplexity; wavering (between two things).

Hunt the Wumpus "games, history" (Or "Wumpus") /wuhm'p*s/ A famous fantasy computer game, created by {Gregory Yob} in about 1973. Hunt the Wumpus appeared in Creative Computing, Vol 1, No 5, Sep - Oct 1975, where Yob says he had come up with the game two years previously, after seeing the grid-based games Hurkle, Snark and Mugwump at {People's Computing Company} (PCC). He later delivered Wumpus to PCC who published it in their newsletter. ESR says he saw a version including termites running on the {Dartmouth Time-Sharing System} in 1972-3. Magnus Olsson, in his 1992-07-07 {USENET} article "9207071854.AA21847@thep.lu.se", posted the {BASIC} {source code} of what he believed was pretty much the version that was published in 1973 in David Ahl's "101 Basic Computer Games", by {Digital Equipment Corporation}. The wumpus lived somewhere in a cave with the topology of an dodecahedron's edge/vertex graph (later versions supported other topologies, including an icosahedron and M"obius strip). The player started somewhere at random in the cave with five "crooked arrows"; these could be shot through up to three connected rooms, and would kill the wumpus on a hit (later versions introduced the wounded wumpus, which got very angry). Unfortunately for players, the movement necessary to map the maze was made hazardous not merely by the wumpus (which would eat you if you stepped on him) but also by bottomless pits and colonies of super bats that would pick you up and drop you at a random location (later versions added "anaerobic termites" that ate arrows, bat migrations and earthquakes that randomly changed pit locations). This game appears to have been the first to use a non-random graph-structured map (as opposed to a rectangular grid like the even older Star Trek games). In this respect, as in the dungeon-like setting and its terse, amusing messages, it prefigured {ADVENT} and {Zork} and was directly ancestral to both (Zork acknowledged this heritage by including a super-bat colony). There have been many {ports} including one distributed with {SunOS}, a {freeware} one for the {Macintosh} and a {C} emulation by {ESR}. [Does "101 Basic Computer Games" give any history?] (2004-10-04)

Hwaom ilsŭng popkye to. (C. Huayan yisheng fajie tu; J. Kegon ichijo hokkaizu 華嚴一乘法界圖). In Korean, "Diagram of the DHARMADHĀTU according to the One Vehicle of Hwaom (C. HUAYAN)," composed by ŬISANG in 670 and presented to his Chinese teacher, ZHIYAN. Ŭisang first provides a wavelike diagram of the dharmadhātu (also sometimes referred to as the Haein to, or "Oceanic-Reflection Diagram"), which contains a verse in two hundred and ten Chinese characters summarizing the gist of the Huayan school's interpretation of the AVATAMSAKASuTRA. The diagram and its subsumed verse are then followed by Ŭisang's own (auto)commentary, itself divided into two major sections: the fundamental purport of the diagram and the detailed interpretation of the verse. In the diagram itself, the path meanders along a single line in order to show that all phenomena are interconnected through the single principle of the dharma nature. The diagram begins and ends at the same place in the center of the maze, to suggest that the inception of practice in the generation of the thought of enlightenment (BODHICITTOTPĀDA) and its consummation through enlightenment are identical. The diagram is broadly divided into four equal sections to demonstrate that the dharma nature is perfected through the four means of conversion (SAMGRAHAVASTU: viz., giving, kind words, helpfulness, and cooperation). The single path that meanders through the diagram includes fifty-four curves to indicate the teachers that the pilgrim SUDHANA in the GAndAVYuHA section of the AvataMsakasutra consulted in the course of his training-and thus by extension the stages of the BODHISATTVA path. The "Hwaom ilsŭng popkye to" served as the foundation of Hwaom thought in Korea. There is some controversy over whether the verse itself may have in fact been composed by Zhiyan, with Ŭisang's contribution being to create the diagram for the verse and write the commentary, but there is not currently a scholarly consensus concerning this issue.

IGNORANCE. ::: Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life.

This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth.

Sevenfold Ignorance ::: If we look at this Ignorance in which ordinarily we live by the very circumstance of our separative existence in a material, ip a spatial and temporal universe, wc see that on its obscurer side it reduces itself, from whatever direction we look at or approach it, into the fact of a many- sided self-ignorance. We are Ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming ; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence — that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self ; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becom- ing in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence — that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming ; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-sclf — that is the tViTid, \Vie egoistic ignorance. V/c aie ignorant of oat eteinai becoming in Time ; we take this Uttle life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space for our beginning, our middle and our end, — that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is super-conscient, sub- conscient, intraconscient, circumcooscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence — that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming ; we take the mind or life or body or any two or all three tor our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to deter- mine sovereignly by its emergence from their operations, — that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoy- ment of our life in the world ; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal, — that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.


ignorance ::: the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information. Ignorance, ignorance"s, Ignorance"s, ignorance", world-ignorance, World-Ignorance.

Sri Aurobindo: "Ignorance is the absence of the divine eye of perception which gives us the sight of the supramental Truth; it is the non-perceiving principle in our consciousness as opposed to the truth-perceiving conscious vision and knowledge.” *The Life Divine

"Ignorance is the consciousness of being in the successions of Time, divided in its knowledge by dwelling in the moment, divided in its conception of self-being by dwelling in the divisions of Space and the relations of circumstance, self-prisoned in the multiple working of the unity. It is called the Ignorance because it has put behind it the knowledge of unity and by that very fact is unable to know truly or completely either itself or the world, either the transcendent or the universal reality.” The Life Divine

"Ignorance means Avidya, the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life that flow from it and all that is natural to the separative consciousness and the egoistic mind and life. This Ignorance is the result of a movement by which the cosmic Intelligence separated itself from the light of the Supermind (the divine Gnosis) and lost the Truth, — truth of being, truth of divine consciousness, truth of force and action, truth of Ananda. As a result, instead of a world of integral truth and divine harmony created in the light of the divine Gnosis, we have a world founded on the part truths of an inferior cosmic Intelligence in which all is half-truth, half-error. . . . All in the consciousness of this creation is either limited or else perverted by separation from the integral Light; even the Truth it perceives is only a half-knowledge. Therefore it is called the Ignorance.” The Mother

". . . all ignorance is a penumbra which environs an orb of knowledge . . . .”The Life Divine

"This world is not really created by a blind force of Nature: even in the Inconscient the presence of the supreme Truth is at work; there is a seeing Power behind it which acts infallibly and the steps of the Ignorance itself are guided even when they seem to stumble; for what we call the Ignorance is a cloaked Knowledge, a Knowledge at work in a body not its own but moving towards its own supreme self-discovery.” Essays in Philosophy and Yoga

"Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: . . . .” The Life Divine*


intrigue ::: a complicated maze; a puzzle; a labyrinth.

“Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood maze of becomings: …” The Life Divine

labyrinth ::: An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze. (Sri Aurobindo employs the word as an adj.)

labyrinth ::: an intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one"s way; a maze. (Sri Aurobindo employs the word as an adj.)

Labyrinth [from Greek labyrinthos probably from laura crypt] The complex prison built for King Minos of Crete by Daedalus to house the Minotaur. Theseus succeeded in finding his way out with the aid of the thread given him by the king’s daughter, Ariadne. Symbolically, it may be the celestial labyrinth, into which the souls of the departed plunge, and also its earthly counterpart, as shown in the tortuous subterranean chambers in ancient Egypt, or similar constructions under temples in various ancient lands. These labyrinths also symbolized the races of mankind, and the succession of gods, demigods, and heroes who preceded mortal kings. These underground chambers in general were used as initiation chambers in the Mysteries, where candidates were taught by actual experience various truths regarding human destiny after death; hence there was an exact analogy between the physical construction of these chambers and the truths thus symbolized. The labyrinth therefore refers both to an inner and outer mystery. One of the coins unearthed at Knossos in Crete showed a diagram of such a maze, and this identical pattern, exact to the last important detail, has been found among the Pima Indians of Arizona (cf Theosophical Path, April 1925). Clearly its real significance was common knowledge to initiates in all parts of the world.

labyrinth ::: n. --> An edifice or place full of intricate passageways which render it difficult to find the way from the interior to the entrance; as, the Egyptian and Cretan labyrinths.
Any intricate or involved inclosure; especially, an ornamental maze or inclosure in a park or garden.
Any object or arrangement of an intricate or involved form, or having a very complicated nature.
An inextricable or bewildering difficulty.


Magic Switch Story Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the {MIT AI Lab}'s {PDP-10}, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of one cabinet. It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's hardware hackers (no-one knows who). You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it does, because you might crash the computer. The switch was labelled in a most unhelpful way. It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the metal switch body were the words "magic" and "more magic". The switch was in the "more magic" position. I called another hacker over to look at it. He had never seen the switch before either. Closer examination revealed that the switch had only one wire running to it! The other end of the wire did disappear into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires connected to it. This switch had a wire connected on one side and no wire on its other side. It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke. Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped it. The computer instantly crashed. Imagine our utter astonishment. We wrote it off as coincidence, but nevertheless restored the switch to the "more magic" position before reviving the computer. A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, {David Moon} as I recall. He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him with a bogus saga. To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch, still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it, still in the "more magic" position. We scrutinized the switch and its lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin. That clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect anything anyway. So we flipped the switch. The computer promptly crashed. This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time {MIT} hacker, who was close at hand. He had never noticed the switch before, either. He inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and {dike}d it out. We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever since. We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine. There is a theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it. But we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch was {magic}. I still have that switch in my basement. Maybe I'm silly, but I usually keep it set on "more magic". {GLS} (1995-02-22)

mase ::: n. & v. --> See Maze.

maser ::: n. --> Same as Mazer.

Mayim ::: (Heb. water) ::: Mazel Tov ::: Congratulations and good luck.

maze ::: an intricate, usually confusing network of interconnecting pathways, as in a garden; a labyrinth. mazes.

mazed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Maze

mazedness ::: n. --> The condition of being mazed; confusion; astonishment.

mazeful ::: a. --> Mazy.

maze ::: n. --> A wild fancy; a confused notion.
Confusion of thought; perplexity; uncertainty; state of bewilderment.
A confusing and baffling network, as of paths or passages; an intricacy; a labyrinth. ::: v. t.


mazer ::: n. --> A large drinking bowl; -- originally made of maple.

mazing ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Maze

mizmaze ::: n. --> A maze or labyrinth.

munching squares A {display hack} dating back to the {PDP-1} (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for successive values of T - see {HAKMEM} items 146--148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the {LISP Machine}, have been christened "munching triangles" (try AND for XOR and toggling points instead of plotting them), "munching w's", and "munching mazes". More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, foo, on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be referred to as "munching foos". [This is a good example of the use of the word {foo} as a {metasyntactic variable}.]

Padma gling pa. (Pema Lingpa) (1450-1521). An esteemed Bhutanese treasure revealer (GTER STON), famous for unearthing treasure in public and responsible for promulgating numerous important religious traditions, including forms of ritual monastic dance ('CHAM). He is counted as the fourth of the so-called five kingly treasure revealers (GTER STON RGYAL PO LNGA) and the last of the five pure incarnations of the royal princess PADMA GSAL. He is also regarded as the mind incarnation of the translator VAIROCANA and an incarnation of KLONG CHEN RAB 'BYAMS. Padma gling pa was born into a humble family of blacksmiths in the Bum thang region of Bhutan and studied the craft from the age of nine. Many examples of Padma gling pa's craftsmanship, in the form of swords and chain mail, still exist. Padma gling pa's life is somewhat unusual in that he did not undertake a traditional course of study with a spiritual master; it is recorded that he once declared, "I have no master and I am not a disciple." Rather, his religious training was achieved almost entirely through visionary revelation. At the age of twenty-six, he had a vision of PADMASAMBHAVA, who bestowed on him a roster of 108 treasure texts that he would unearth in the future. The next year, amid a large public gathering, he made his first treasure discovery at ME 'BAR MTSHO, a wide pool of water in a nearby river. Surrounded by a multitude of people gathered along the riverside, Padma gling pa dove in the waters holding a burning butter lamp in his hand. When he reemerged, he held a great treasure chest under his arm, and, to the crowd's amazement, the lamp in his hand was unextinguished; from that point on the pool was called "Burning Flame Lake." This feat marked the beginning of Padma gling pa's prolific career as treasure revealer and teacher. Between the years 1501 and 1505, he founded his seat at GTAM ZHING monastery in Bum thang. Padma gling pa composed a lengthy autobiography recording many of his activities in great detail. He was a controversial figure in his time (some of the treasure texts he discovered contain condemnations of those who doubted their authenticity), and the historicity of his deeds has been the subject of scholarly critique. However, Padma gling pa remains an important figure in the religious and cultural life of Bhutan, where he is considered both a saint and a national hero. He never received monastic ordination and fathered several sons who continued to transmit Padma gling pa's spiritual lineage, especially at SGANG STENG monastery in central Bhutan. Several incarnation lineages of Padma gling pa were also recognized, such as the gsung sprul ("speech incarnation") based at LHA LUNG Monastery in southern Tibet. Both the sixth DALAI LAMA TSHANGS DBYANGS RGYA MTSHO and the Bhutanese royal family are said to be descendants of Padma gling pa's familial lineage.

Polytheism The doctrine of and belief in a plurality of gods, cosmic spirits, or celestial entities under whatever name they may be described. The word came into use as a correlative of monotheism — the doctrine as of the Jews, Christians, and Moslems, of one and only one God. The unphilosophical nature of monotheism, which in the Occident is quite different from the significance of divine unity, is shown by the subterfuges resorted to in order to supply its deficiencies. As divinity cannot be successfully imagined as individually concerned with every operation in the universe, the general term nature is used to denote a kind of secondary god; while the progress of science has analyzed this into various laws and forces, which paradoxically enough perform somewhat the same functions as the gods of polytheism, except in their wrongly supposed lack of intelligence. Less sophisticated and more profound intellects have never ceased to believe in a whole range of cosmic hierarchies, running from divinity down to the so-called nature spirits, and traditional peoples have always looked upon these as powers which are often dreaded and can be propitiated. Even Christianity has its saints, and its theology speaks of Angels and Archangels, of Dominions and Thrones, etc. As soon as we depart from the simple primeval idea of a universe filled with intelligent beings — and indeed formed of these beings themselves — of numerous hierarchies, grades, and kinds, we land in a maze of abstractions and contradictions.

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal ::: (humour) Back in the good old days - the Golden Era of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called Real Men and out that Real Men don't relate to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.)But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids can blow danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with TRASH-80s.There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings).LANGUAGESThe easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use Fortran. Quiche Eaters use need all these abstract concepts to get their jobs done - they are perfectly happy with a keypunch, a Fortran IV compiler, and a beer.Real Programmers do List Processing in Fortran.Real Programmers do String Manipulation in Fortran.Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in Fortran.Real Programmers do Artificial Intelligence programs in Fortran.If you can't do it in Fortran, do it in assembly language. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing.STRUCTURED PROGRAMMINGThe academics in computer science have gotten into the structured programming rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily in the world won't help you solve a problem like that - it takes actual talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured Programming:Real Programmers aren't afraid to use GOTOs.Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting confused.Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements - they make the code more interesting.Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle of a tight loop.Real Programmers don't need comments - the code is obvious.Since Fortran doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using assigned GOTOs.Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain circles. Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based on the first letter of the (six character) variable name.OPERATING SYSTEMSWhat kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God forbid - CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little old ladies and grade school students can understand and use CP/M.Unix is a lot more complicated of course - the typical Unix hacker never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week - but when it gets right systems: they send jokes around the world on UUCP-net and write adventure games and research papers.No, your Real Programmer uses OS 370. A good programmer can find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual. A great outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.)OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff is people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS 370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken.PROGRAMMING TOOLSWhat kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the computer. Back the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Seymore, needless to say, is a Real Programmer.One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a user whose system had includes a keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies.In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in doesn't contain a system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse.Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems - Emacs and VI being two. The the Real Programmer wants a you asked for it, you got it text editor - complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise.It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the more entertaining will probably destroy your program, or even worse - introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine.For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just patch the binary object Programmer to do the job - no Quiche Eating structured programmer would even know where to start. This is called job security.Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers:Fortran preprocessors like MORTRAN and RATFOR. The Cuisinarts of programming - great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured programming.Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps.Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity, destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient.Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot leave his important programs unguarded [5].THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORKWhere does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no Real or sorting mailing lists for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!).Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers.Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions.It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the Russkies.Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating systems for cruise missiles.Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter.The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program (or a Pascal programmer) for navigation to these tolerances.As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S. Government - mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be. Recently, programmers and Quiche Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we know it, providing Fortran, so there are a fair number of people doing graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs.THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAYGenerally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works - with computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do what he would be breath of fresh air and a beer or two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the computer room:At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking about operating system security and how to get around it.At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper.At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand.At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying Poor George, he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary.In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time.THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITATWhat sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he can get his work done.The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal. Surrounding this terminal are:Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office.Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush.Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages.Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969.Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars - the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine.Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions.Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.)The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad response time project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation. In general:No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night).Real Programmers don't wear neckties.Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes.Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9].A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC) code table.Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee.THE FUTUREWhat of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up with the same ever learning Fortran! Are we destined to become an industry of Unix hackers and Pascal programmers?From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS 370 nor Fortran show any signs of dying out, one of them has a way of converting itself back into a Fortran 66 compiler at the drop of an option card - to compile DO loops like God meant them to be.Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any Real in - like having the best parts of Fortran and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal "humour" Back in the good old days - the "Golden Era" of computers, it was easy to separate the men from the boys (sometimes called "Real Men" and "Quiche Eaters" in the literature). During this period, the Real Men were the ones that understood computer programming, and the Quiche Eaters were the ones that didn't. A real computer programmer said things like "DO 10 I=1,10" and "ABEND" (they actually talked in capital letters, you understand), and the rest of the world said things like "computers are too complicated for me" and "I can't relate to computers - they're so impersonal". (A previous work [1] points out that Real Men don't "relate" to anything, and aren't afraid of being impersonal.) But, as usual, times change. We are faced today with a world in which little old ladies can get computers in their microwave ovens, 12-year-old kids can blow Real Men out of the water playing Asteroids and Pac-Man, and anyone can buy and even understand their very own Personal Computer. The Real Programmer is in danger of becoming extinct, of being replaced by high-school students with {TRASH-80s}. There is a clear need to point out the differences between the typical high-school junior Pac-Man player and a Real Programmer. If this difference is made clear, it will give these kids something to aspire to -- a role model, a Father Figure. It will also help explain to the employers of Real Programmers why it would be a mistake to replace the Real Programmers on their staff with 12-year-old Pac-Man players (at a considerable salary savings). LANGUAGES The easiest way to tell a Real Programmer from the crowd is by the programming language he (or she) uses. Real Programmers use {Fortran}. Quiche Eaters use {Pascal}. Nicklaus Wirth, the designer of Pascal, gave a talk once at which he was asked how to pronounce his name. He replied, "You can either call me by name, pronouncing it 'Veert', or call me by value, 'Worth'." One can tell immediately from this comment that Nicklaus Wirth is a Quiche Eater. The only parameter passing mechanism endorsed by Real Programmers is call-by-value-return, as implemented in the {IBM 370} {Fortran-G} and H compilers. Real programmers don't need all these abstract concepts to get their jobs done - they are perfectly happy with a {keypunch}, a {Fortran IV} {compiler}, and a beer. Real Programmers do List Processing in Fortran. Real Programmers do String Manipulation in Fortran. Real Programmers do Accounting (if they do it at all) in Fortran. Real Programmers do {Artificial Intelligence} programs in Fortran. If you can't do it in Fortran, do it in {assembly language}. If you can't do it in assembly language, it isn't worth doing. STRUCTURED PROGRAMMING The academics in computer science have gotten into the "structured programming" rut over the past several years. They claim that programs are more easily understood if the programmer uses some special language constructs and techniques. They don't all agree on exactly which constructs, of course, and the examples they use to show their particular point of view invariably fit on a single page of some obscure journal or another - clearly not enough of an example to convince anyone. When I got out of school, I thought I was the best programmer in the world. I could write an unbeatable tic-tac-toe program, use five different computer languages, and create 1000-line programs that WORKED. (Really!) Then I got out into the Real World. My first task in the Real World was to read and understand a 200,000-line Fortran program, then speed it up by a factor of two. Any Real Programmer will tell you that all the Structured Coding in the world won't help you solve a problem like that - it takes actual talent. Some quick observations on Real Programmers and Structured Programming: Real Programmers aren't afraid to use {GOTOs}. Real Programmers can write five-page-long DO loops without getting confused. Real Programmers like Arithmetic IF statements - they make the code more interesting. Real Programmers write self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 {nanoseconds} in the middle of a tight loop. Real Programmers don't need comments - the code is obvious. Since Fortran doesn't have a structured IF, REPEAT ... UNTIL, or CASE statement, Real Programmers don't have to worry about not using them. Besides, they can be simulated when necessary using {assigned GOTOs}. Data Structures have also gotten a lot of press lately. Abstract Data Types, Structures, Pointers, Lists, and Strings have become popular in certain circles. Wirth (the above-mentioned Quiche Eater) actually wrote an entire book [2] contending that you could write a program based on data structures, instead of the other way around. As all Real Programmers know, the only useful data structure is the Array. Strings, lists, structures, sets - these are all special cases of arrays and can be treated that way just as easily without messing up your programing language with all sorts of complications. The worst thing about fancy data types is that you have to declare them, and Real Programming Languages, as we all know, have implicit typing based on the first letter of the (six character) variable name. OPERATING SYSTEMS What kind of operating system is used by a Real Programmer? CP/M? God forbid - CP/M, after all, is basically a toy operating system. Even little old ladies and grade school students can understand and use CP/M. Unix is a lot more complicated of course - the typical Unix hacker never can remember what the PRINT command is called this week - but when it gets right down to it, Unix is a glorified video game. People don't do Serious Work on Unix systems: they send jokes around the world on {UUCP}-net and write adventure games and research papers. No, your Real Programmer uses OS 370. A good programmer can find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte {core dump} without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.) OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS 370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken. PROGRAMMING TOOLS What kind of tools does a Real Programmer use? In theory, a Real Programmer could run his programs by keying them into the front panel of the computer. Back in the days when computers had front panels, this was actually done occasionally. Your typical Real Programmer knew the entire bootstrap loader by memory in hex, and toggled it in whenever it got destroyed by his program. (Back then, memory was memory - it didn't go away when the power went off. Today, memory either forgets things when you don't want it to, or remembers things long after they're better forgotten.) Legend has it that {Seymore Cray}, inventor of the Cray I supercomputer and most of Control Data's computers, actually toggled the first operating system for the CDC7600 in on the front panel from memory when it was first powered on. Seymore, needless to say, is a Real Programmer. One of my favorite Real Programmers was a systems programmer for Texas Instruments. One day he got a long distance call from a user whose system had crashed in the middle of saving some important work. Jim was able to repair the damage over the phone, getting the user to toggle in disk I/O instructions at the front panel, repairing system tables in hex, reading register contents back over the phone. The moral of this story: while a Real Programmer usually includes a keypunch and lineprinter in his toolkit, he can get along with just a front panel and a telephone in emergencies. In some companies, text editing no longer consists of ten engineers standing in line to use an 029 keypunch. In fact, the building I work in doesn't contain a single keypunch. The Real Programmer in this situation has to do his work with a "text editor" program. Most systems supply several text editors to select from, and the Real Programmer must be careful to pick one that reflects his personal style. Many people believe that the best text editors in the world were written at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center for use on their Alto and Dorado computers [3]. Unfortunately, no Real Programmer would ever use a computer whose operating system is called SmallTalk, and would certainly not talk to the computer with a mouse. Some of the concepts in these Xerox editors have been incorporated into editors running on more reasonably named operating systems - {Emacs} and {VI} being two. The problem with these editors is that Real Programmers consider "what you see is what you get" to be just as bad a concept in Text Editors as it is in women. No the Real Programmer wants a "you asked for it, you got it" text editor - complicated, cryptic, powerful, unforgiving, dangerous. TECO, to be precise. It has been observed that a TECO command sequence more closely resembles transmission line noise than readable text [4]. One of the more entertaining games to play with TECO is to type your name in as a command line and try to guess what it does. Just about any possible typing error while talking with TECO will probably destroy your program, or even worse - introduce subtle and mysterious bugs in a once working subroutine. For this reason, Real Programmers are reluctant to actually edit a program that is close to working. They find it much easier to just patch the binary {object code} directly, using a wonderful program called SUPERZAP (or its equivalent on non-IBM machines). This works so well that many working programs on IBM systems bear no relation to the original Fortran code. In many cases, the original source code is no longer available. When it comes time to fix a program like this, no manager would even think of sending anything less than a Real Programmer to do the job - no Quiche Eating structured programmer would even know where to start. This is called "job security". Some programming tools NOT used by Real Programmers: Fortran preprocessors like {MORTRAN} and {RATFOR}. The Cuisinarts of programming - great for making Quiche. See comments above on structured programming. Source language debuggers. Real Programmers can read core dumps. Compilers with array bounds checking. They stifle creativity, destroy most of the interesting uses for EQUIVALENCE, and make it impossible to modify the operating system code with negative subscripts. Worst of all, bounds checking is inefficient. Source code maintenance systems. A Real Programmer keeps his code locked up in a card file, because it implies that its owner cannot leave his important programs unguarded [5]. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT WORK Where does the typical Real Programmer work? What kind of programs are worthy of the efforts of so talented an individual? You can be sure that no Real Programmer would be caught dead writing accounts-receivable programs in {COBOL}, or sorting {mailing lists} for People magazine. A Real Programmer wants tasks of earth-shaking importance (literally!). Real Programmers work for Los Alamos National Laboratory, writing atomic bomb simulations to run on Cray I supercomputers. Real Programmers work for the National Security Agency, decoding Russian transmissions. It was largely due to the efforts of thousands of Real Programmers working for NASA that our boys got to the moon and back before the Russkies. Real Programmers are at work for Boeing designing the operating systems for cruise missiles. Some of the most awesome Real Programmers of all work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. Many of them know the entire operating system of the Pioneer and Voyager spacecraft by heart. With a combination of large ground-based Fortran programs and small spacecraft-based assembly language programs, they are able to do incredible feats of navigation and improvisation - hitting ten-kilometer wide windows at Saturn after six years in space, repairing or bypassing damaged sensor platforms, radios, and batteries. Allegedly, one Real Programmer managed to tuck a pattern-matching program into a few hundred bytes of unused memory in a Voyager spacecraft that searched for, located, and photographed a new moon of Jupiter. The current plan for the Galileo spacecraft is to use a gravity assist trajectory past Mars on the way to Jupiter. This trajectory passes within 80 +/-3 kilometers of the surface of Mars. Nobody is going to trust a Pascal program (or a Pascal programmer) for navigation to these tolerances. As you can tell, many of the world's Real Programmers work for the U.S. Government - mainly the Defense Department. This is as it should be. Recently, however, a black cloud has formed on the Real Programmer horizon. It seems that some highly placed Quiche Eaters at the Defense Department decided that all Defense programs should be written in some grand unified language called "ADA" ((C), DoD). For a while, it seemed that ADA was destined to become a language that went against all the precepts of Real Programming - a language with structure, a language with data types, {strong typing}, and semicolons. In short, a language designed to cripple the creativity of the typical Real Programmer. Fortunately, the language adopted by DoD has enough interesting features to make it approachable -- it's incredibly complex, includes methods for messing with the operating system and rearranging memory, and Edsgar Dijkstra doesn't like it [6]. (Dijkstra, as I'm sure you know, was the author of "GoTos Considered Harmful" - a landmark work in programming methodology, applauded by Pascal programmers and Quiche Eaters alike.) Besides, the determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language. The Real Programmer might compromise his principles and work on something slightly more trivial than the destruction of life as we know it, providing there's enough money in it. There are several Real Programmers building video games at Atari, for example. (But not playing them - a Real Programmer knows how to beat the machine every time: no challenge in that.) Everyone working at LucasFilm is a Real Programmer. (It would be crazy to turn down the money of fifty million Star Trek fans.) The proportion of Real Programmers in Computer Graphics is somewhat lower than the norm, mostly because nobody has found a use for computer graphics yet. On the other hand, all computer graphics is done in Fortran, so there are a fair number of people doing graphics in order to avoid having to write COBOL programs. THE REAL PROGRAMMER AT PLAY Generally, the Real Programmer plays the same way he works - with computers. He is constantly amazed that his employer actually pays him to do what he would be doing for fun anyway (although he is careful not to express this opinion out loud). Occasionally, the Real Programmer does step out of the office for a breath of fresh air and a beer or two. Some tips on recognizing Real Programmers away from the computer room: At a party, the Real Programmers are the ones in the corner talking about operating system security and how to get around it. At a football game, the Real Programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations printed on 11 by 14 fanfold paper. At the beach, the Real Programmer is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand. At a funeral, the Real Programmer is the one saying "Poor George, he almost had the sort routine working before the coronary." In a grocery store, the Real Programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators to get it right the first time. THE REAL PROGRAMMER'S NATURAL HABITAT What sort of environment does the Real Programmer function best in? This is an important question for the managers of Real Programmers. Considering the amount of money it costs to keep one on the staff, it's best to put him (or her) in an environment where he can get his work done. The typical Real Programmer lives in front of a computer terminal. Surrounding this terminal are: Listings of all programs the Real Programmer has ever worked on, piled in roughly chronological order on every flat surface in the office. Some half-dozen or so partly filled cups of cold coffee. Occasionally, there will be cigarette butts floating in the coffee. In some cases, the cups will contain Orange Crush. Unless he is very good, there will be copies of the OS JCL manual and the Principles of Operation open to some particularly interesting pages. Taped to the wall is a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969. Strewn about the floor are several wrappers for peanut butter filled cheese bars - the type that are made pre-stale at the bakery so they can't get any worse while waiting in the vending machine. Hiding in the top left-hand drawer of the desk is a stash of double-stuff Oreos for special occasions. Underneath the Oreos is a flowcharting template, left there by the previous occupant of the office. (Real Programmers write programs, not documentation. Leave that to the maintenance people.) The Real Programmer is capable of working 30, 40, even 50 hours at a stretch, under intense pressure. In fact, he prefers it that way. Bad response time doesn't bother the Real Programmer - it gives him a chance to catch a little sleep between compiles. If there is not enough schedule pressure on the Real Programmer, he tends to make things more challenging by working on some small but interesting part of the problem for the first nine weeks, then finishing the rest in the last week, in two or three 50-hour marathons. This not only impresses the hell out of his manager, who was despairing of ever getting the project done on time, but creates a convenient excuse for not doing the documentation. In general: No Real Programmer works 9 to 5 (unless it's the ones at night). Real Programmers don't wear neckties. Real Programmers don't wear high-heeled shoes. Real Programmers arrive at work in time for lunch [9]. A Real Programmer might or might not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire {ASCII} (or EBCDIC) code table. Real Programmers don't know how to cook. Grocery stores aren't open at three in the morning. Real Programmers survive on Twinkies and coffee. THE FUTURE What of the future? It is a matter of some concern to Real Programmers that the latest generation of computer programmers are not being brought up with the same outlook on life as their elders. Many of them have never seen a computer with a front panel. Hardly anyone graduating from school these days can do hex arithmetic without a calculator. College graduates these days are soft - protected from the realities of programming by source level debuggers, text editors that count parentheses, and "user friendly" operating systems. Worst of all, some of these alleged "computer scientists" manage to get degrees without ever learning Fortran! Are we destined to become an industry of Unix hackers and Pascal programmers? From my experience, I can only report that the future is bright for Real Programmers everywhere. Neither OS 370 nor Fortran show any signs of dying out, despite all the efforts of Pascal programmers the world over. Even more subtle tricks, like adding structured coding constructs to Fortran have failed. Oh sure, some computer vendors have come out with Fortran 77 compilers, but every one of them has a way of converting itself back into a Fortran 66 compiler at the drop of an option card - to compile DO loops like God meant them to be. Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any Real Programmer - two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's "structured", even 'C' programming can be appreciated by the Real Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in - like having the best parts of Fortran and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for

stound ::: v. i. --> To be in pain or sorrow.
Stunned. ::: n. --> A sudden, severe pain or grief; peril; alarm.
Astonishment; amazement.
Hour; time; season.


"The Eternal is our refuge; all the rest are false values, the Ignorance and its mazes, a self-bewilderment of the soul in phenomenal Nature.” The Life Divine*

“The Eternal is our refuge; all the rest are false values, the Ignorance and its mazes, a self-bewilderment of the soul in phenomenal Nature.” The Life Divine

Tolman (1886 ?1959): an American psychologist who concentrated on learning (escape, latent, avoidance, approach and choice-point learning) in rats, most commonly in mazes.

wall follower "robotics" A person or {algorithm} that compensates for lack of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past. Used of an algorithm, this is not necessarily pejorative; it recalls "Harvey Wallbanger", the winning robot in an early AI contest (named, of course, after the cocktail). Harvey successfully solved mazes by keeping a "finger" on one wall and running till it came out the other end. This was inelegant, but it was mathematically guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes - and, in fact, Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to "learn" each maze by building an internal representation of it. Used of humans, the term *is* pejorative and implies an uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality. See also {code grinder}. [{Jargon File}] (2003-02-03)

way through the maze of changes in nomenclature and orthography that angels passed through

with the ego or being a big Yogi or becoming a superman than with meeting the Divine or getting the Divine consciousness which enables one to live in or with the Divine, then a flood of pscudos or mixtures come in, one is led into the mazes of the intermediate zone or spins in the grooves of one’s own forma- tions.

wonder ::: n. 1. An event inexplicable by the laws of nature; a miracle; something strange and surprising brought about by a supernatural force. 2. A miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon. 3. The emotion excited by what is strange and surprising; a feeling of surprised or puzzled interest, sometimes tinged with admiration. 4. Something strange, unexpected, or extraordinary. Wonder, wonder"s, Wonder"s, wonders, wonder-book, wonder-couch, wonder-dance, wonder-flecks, wonder-flowers, wonder-hues, wonder-plastics, wonder-rounds, wonder-rush, wonder-tree, wonder-web, wonder-weft, Wonder-worker, Wonder-worker"s, wonder-works, wonder-world, wonder-worlds. *adj. 5. Arousing awe or admiration; wonderful. v. 6. To be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; marvel (often followed by at); to think or speculate curiously (at or about); be curious to know. *wonders, wondered, wondering.

wonder ::: n. --> That emotion which is excited by novelty, or the presentation to the sight or mind of something new, unusual, strange, great, extraordinary, or not well understood; surprise; astonishment; admiration; amazement.
A cause of wonder; that which excites surprise; a strange thing; a prodigy; a miracle. ::: v. i.




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1:We cannot afford to take ourselves or other persons so seriously. It is wise to realize that we are not actually qualified to sit in judgment on each other. ~ Manly P Hall, The Mystic Maze of Thought 1970, p.8),
2:Poured its maze of tangled charm
And heady draught of Nature's primitive joy
And the fire and mystery of forbidden delight
Drunk from the world-libido's bottomless well. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries,
3:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
   ~ Marijn Haverbeke,
4:Ts'ui Pe must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing." ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden Of Forking Paths,
5:One must have a very clear memory for ideas to really understand what he says.

I am emphasising this because, unless you proceed systematically, you won't derive much benefit from this reading; it will appear to you like a maze where it is very difficult to find one's way.... All the ideas are joined at the centre, and at the circumference they go in altogether different directions. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
6:The Maze is an old Native myth. The Maze itself is the sum of a man's life. The choices he makes, the dreams he hangs onto. And there at the center there's a legendary man who had been killed over and over again countless times. But always clawed his way back to life. The man returned for a last time to vanquish all his oppressors in a tireless fury. Built a house and around that house he built a maze so complicated only he could navigate through it. I reckon he's seen enough fighting.
   ~ Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy, Westworld, Teddy to the Man in Black,
7:See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
   And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
   Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
   Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
   As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
   As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
   So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
   As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
   Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
   From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
   The path they leave behind them lost--wide open the path beyond,
   The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
   See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
   All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
   No!--disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges--
   The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
   For ay destroyed--for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
   And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
   And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
   And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
   That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
   Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
   What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
   A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
   That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
   Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
   And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
   The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
   And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
   The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
   The suns that wheel in varying maze?--That music thou discernest?
   No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.
   ~ Friedrich Schiller,
8:AUGOEIDES:
   The magicians most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
   The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison detre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of ones true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
   The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed. A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally.
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
   The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
9:[the sevenfold ignorance and the integral knowledge:]

   We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence,-that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, -that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self,-that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end,-that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence,-that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations,-that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal,-that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.

   Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean [1] the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; [2] the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; [3] the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; [4] the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; [5] the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; [6] the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; [7] the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.

   But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 680-683 [T1],

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:Those who search for truth are too conscious of the maze to be hard on others... ~ e-m-forster, @wisdomtrove
2:Most of us make unconscious choices in the words that we use; we sleep-walk through the maze of possibilities available to us. ~ tony-robbins, @wisdomtrove
3:I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze. ~ john-dryden, @wisdomtrove
4:Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore. ~ oliver-goldsmith, @wisdomtrove
5:... virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. ~ buddha, @wisdomtrove
6:. . . hummings and clickings could be heard-the sounds attendant to the flow of electrons, now augmenting one maze of electromagnetic crises to a condition that was translatable from electrical qualities and quantities to a high grade of truth. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove
7:When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of opportunities and talents - I sometimes feel as though we are all mice in a giant experimental maze, scurrying around frantically, trying to find our way through. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove
8:False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes. ~ rabindranath-tagore, @wisdomtrove
9:The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove
10:And to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach - why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time. ~ theodore-roosevelt, @wisdomtrove
11:The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove
12:Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you. ~ haruki-murakami, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:My mind is a maze of impossibility. ~ Tahereh Mafi,
2:I am the Walker and the Maze. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
3:I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
4:A mighty maze! But not without a plan. ~ Alexander Pope,
5:Belive you me, this maze is a labrinth! ~ Cornelia Funke,
6:I have thrust myself into this maze, ~ William Shakespeare,
7:And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze ~ Ted Hughes,
8:Like the vain curlings of the watery maze, ~ Andrew Marvell,
9:Before language was a trap, when it was a maze. ~ Max Porter,
10:A man's dreams are a maze even he cannot know. ~ Robert Jordan,
11:We are all going. Find your way out of that maze. ~ John Green,
12:lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought. ~ Anonymous,
13:What we all dread most is a maze with no centre. ~ G K Chesterton,
14:It's a lot easier to complete a maze if you start at the end. ~ Dale Watson,
15:At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze. ~ John Green,
16:Folly is an endless maze;
Tangled roots perplex her ways; ~ William Blake,
17:Love is a maze.Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. ~ Tayari Jones,
18:Civilization is a network and a maze of precedences and custom. ~ Robert E Howard,
19:I was in a maze. No matter which way I turned, it was the wrong way. ~ Umberto Eco,
20:I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze I cannot get out, said the starling ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
21:It is safer to search in the maze than to remain in a cheeseless situation ~ Spencer Johnson,
22:I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
23:The place I live in is a kind of maze and I keep seeking the exit or the home. ~ Anne Sexton,
24:A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze. ~ Margaret Atwood,
25:Those who search for truth are too conscious of the maze to be hard on others... ~ E M Forster,
26:...you became lost in the maze of me - forgive me Love, for keeping you close... ~ John Geddes,
27:You’re building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it. ~ Marijn Haverbeke,
28:I know the plans I have for you, and they're all about me. (Rufus says to Chloe) ~ Ellen C Maze,
29:The Olympic Games are always in the head of every sports athlete. We work for that. ~ Tina Maze,
30:The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present ~ Terry Brooks,
31:Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk. ~ Cyril Connolly,
32:There's your labyrinth of suffering. We are all going. Find your way out of that maze. ~ John Green,
33:The point of a maze is to find its center. The point of a labyrinth is to find your center. ~ Anonymous,
34:I came to the center of the maze following him. Now I must find my way back out alone. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
35:You're this rat in the American maze, working your way towards the cheese, which is a job. ~ Kevin Costner,
36:Some are bewildered in the maze of schools, And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools. ~ Alexander Pope,
37:Society bristles with enigmas which look hard to solve. It is a perfect maze of intrigue. ~ Honore de Balzac,
38:Real obstacles don't take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze. ~ Barbara Sher,
39:There is no route out of the maze. The maze shifts as you move through it, because it is alive. ~ Philip K Dick,
40:Who Is It” is a maze. It’s the sound of being stuck in one. It’s the pursuer feeling pursued. ~ Durga Chew Bose,
41:As an atheist, I was predisposed to not enjoy the MAZE performance. I am happy to report the opposite ~ Luke Jermay,
42:Relying on a rat to guide me through a magic maze pretty much summed up my last twenty-four hours. ~ Danielle Paige,
43:There *is* no mortal sin. There are only *souls*, lost in a maze that someone *else* has made for them. ~ Mike Carey,
44:You see, Max, the problem is not that the mouse is in the maze, but that the maze is in the mouse. ~ Deepak Malhotra,
45:Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. ~ Rich Hall,
46:Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze, who seek for goods before they seek for God. ~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,
47:But there's got to be an opening somewhere here in front of me. Through this maze of ugliness and greed. ~ Jakob Dylan,
48:You can't wait around for someone else to make you happy. Make joy in your own heart and go from there. ~ Ellen C Maze,
49:Clarisse demolished a whole building with a wrecking ball, and the maze entrance just shifted a few feet. ~ Rick Riordan,
50:To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. ~ Gautama Buddha,
51:food-deprived chickens that were not particularly good at noticing the finer distinctions of a maze task.5 ~ Frans de Waal,
52:Frauds master our minds; magicians, like poets and lovers, engage them in a permanent maze of possibilities. ~ Adam Gopnik,
53:some time until they finally went into an area of the Maze where they had never been before: Cheese Station ~ Spencer Johnson,
54:Exploring the mind of the psychotic is impossible - the shortest distance between two points becomes a maze. ~ William Manchester,
55:I want to support the view that the foundation of reality itself is a unified, indeterminate maze of possibilities. ~ Danah Zohar,
56:And I have thrust myself into this maze,

Haply to wive and thrive as best I may.

- Petruchio ~ William Shakespeare,
57:We’ll open the maze for you. You’ll want to go right. Right is always right. Except when left is right, naturally. ~ Marissa Meyer,
58:I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being— ~ Daniel Keyes,
59:Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes? ~ Agatha Christie,
60:If you go the way of your thoughts you will be carried away by them and you will find yourself in an endless maze. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi,
61:Her forehead was a maze of anxious little grooves, from a lifetime of wondering about whether everyone within range was OK. ~ Tana French,
62:I wasn’t living. I was merely surviving. Scared of what might happen if I couldn’t find a way out of this maze of misery, ~ Crystal Paine,
63:I'm sort of like a rat in a maze - I'm moving forward, and any choice I make at the time seems like the only one I can make. ~ Emile Hirsch,
64:This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod:
And there is in this business more than nature
Was ever conduct of ~ William Shakespeare,
65:Alright, then, where do the lost names go? The probability of their surviving in the maze of a city must be extremely low. ~ Haruki Murakami,
66:She is a maze where I got lost years ago, and now find the way out. She is the missing map. She is the place that I am. ~ Jeanette Winterson,
67:Most of us make unconscious choices in the words that we use; we sleep-walk through the maze of possibilities available to us. ~ Tony Robbins,
68:What we all dread most,” said the priest in a low voice, “is a maze with no centre. That is why atheism is only a nightmare. ~ G K Chesterton,
69:I guess they needed a maze in Japan, where everything's neat and tidy. In America everybody's already wandering around lost. ~ Jonathan Lethem,
70:no reason to mention my peculiarities, my wandering in the maze these many years, shut away from sight. and from love, too. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides,
71:He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again. ~ William Golding,
72:If somebody is strong and showing good performances and perfect in the thing you are doing, there are people who want to disturb you. ~ Tina Maze,
73:I love to read (du) okay i love to read about alpha males and gods shadowhunter maze runner half bloods divergent a good romance ~ Gena Showalter,
74:I was Pac-Man. It was the worst costume ever. You would expect a big round suit, but it was just a mask and a smock with a maze on it. ~ Ray Toro,
75:I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words. ~ Lewis H Lapham,
76:That,’ I conceded, ‘and also because these tunnels look like five fingers. It makes sense the maze would give me the middle finger. ~ Rick Riordan,
77:I watched her carve her mistakes in stone, and they arranged themselves around her. They became a maze with walls that reached the sky. ~ Amy Zhang,
78:It is not that we propose a theory and Nature may shout NO; rather, we propose a maze of theories, and Nature may shout INCONSISTENT. ~ Imre Lakatos,
79:History, the way the teachers liked it, was a racetrack, a straight shot from start to finish line; life itself was more of a maze. ~ Cassandra Clare,
80:Instead, realizing that there is only so much that a mouse in the maze can know and understand … I resolved to get out of the maze. ~ Deepak Malhotra,
81:Lily just stared down in horror at Jack and Alby as they took off for the maze, fleeing from the advancing snake-headed warrior. THE ~ Matthew Reilly,
82:She and Thomas had helped construct the Maze; at the same time she’d exerted a lot of effort to build a wall holding back her emotions. ~ James Dashner,
83:figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed ~ Sean Patrick,
84:tall buildings and clustered streets of the city had her trapped like a mouse in a maze, without even the possible reward of cheese. ~ Charlie N Holmberg,
85:It has been a messy week, and I blame myself as much as anyone else. I feel like a behaviourist who has designed her rat’s maze poorly. ~ Richard K Morgan,
86:Love is a maze. Once you get in it, you're pretty much trapped. Maybe you manage to claw your way out, but then what have you accomplished? ~ Tayari Jones,
87:Lo! I am Beauty's constant thrall, Must ever on her voice await, And follow through the maze of Fate Her luring, strange and mystical. ~ Clark Ashton Smith,
88:Mickey Cohen: New York, its like being a rat in a maze, everyone living on top of each other, but out here, I can breathe. I love Los Angeles. ~ Mickey Cohen,
89:Instead, he was an empathic and patient listener, coaxing each of us through the maze of our feelings, separating our weapons from our wounds. ~ Michelle Obama,
90:Oddly enough, MS has made my life so much better than it was before. I now appreciate what I have and I am not running around like a rat in a maze. ~ Teri Garr,
91:One day I get to that spot where I've discovered the secret to the maze, and then I've got free running the rest of the way. It's a great feeling. ~ Will Hobbs,
92:Whatever parts of us we choose to use, we all share something in common: a need to find our way in the Maze and succeed in changing times. The ~ Spencer Johnson,
93:The subterranean lair of the wily human relationship: a dark maze of pop-up demons, fun house mirrors, spooky dead ends, multiple false bottoms. ~ Stephen Wright,
94:where there's a labyrinth, there's a minotaur, and vice versa! I can't imagine a decent maze that would be caught dead without a minotaur. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
95:We are all going,” McKinley said to his wife, and we sure are. There’s your labyrinth of suffering. We are all going. Find your way out of that maze. ~ John Green,
96:Far away, in the meadow, shadows flickered in the Mirror's Maze, as if parts of someone's life, yet unborn, were trapped there, waiting to be lived. ~ Ray Bradbury,
97:figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed oxen, trick ~ Sean Patrick,
98:I firmly believe in Divine Providence. Without belief in Providence I think I should go crazy. Without God the world would be a maze without a clue. ~ Woodrow Wilson,
99:The lives in this dimension cannot see the lives in other dimensions or the truth of the universe. Thus, these human beings are actually lost in a maze. ~ Li Hongzhi,
100:The rat race is run by rats. But sometimes the rat inside us takes charge, and we find ourselves running the maze, looking for a bigger piece of cheese. ~ Russ Roberts,
101:There are those who claim that Time is a ring. I have found it to be a maze, and my own role that of the Minotaur. Rabbit, O rabbit. Welcome to the maze. ~ Laird Barron,
102:I use the word love loosely, and only because my vocabulary is unequal to the task of describing the precise nature of that maze, that forest of feelings ~ Arundhati Roy,
103:I HAVE, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a sort of maze. ~ Ford Madox Ford,
104:The true detective [...] starts in the center of the maze. Crimes make their way through to him. Never forget: you uncover your heart at the heart of it. ~ M John Harrison,
105:Honey, if you’re telling me David Bowie is somewhere in this maze, I may forget that I’m a married man,” said Andy, and followed Carlos into the wall. That ~ Seanan McGuire,
106:I strongly wish for what I faintly hope; like the daydreams of melancholy men, I think and think in things impossible, yet love to wander in that golden maze. ~ John Dryden,
107:The world was a maze of mysteries and puzzles, but it was a world of rational design that did not present puzzles without answers. There was always an answer. ~ Dean Koontz,
108:And what would I do ? Part of me was immobile, stunned with despair, like those rats that lose hope in laboratory experiments and lie down in the maze to starve. ~ Donna Tartt,
109:Life is a maze of doors and they all open from the side you're on. Just keep on pushing hard boy, try as you may, you're going to wind up where you started from. ~ Cat Stevens,
110:I sighed. I hated the maze of bureaucracy with a passion, but I've found the best way to deal with it is to smile and act stupid. That way, no one gets confused. ~ Kim Harrison,
111:Rain poured over its roofs and gurgled out of its gargoyles, although one or two of the more cunning ones had scuttled off to shelter among the maze of tiles. ~ Terry Pratchett,
112:religion, like all things of a civilized, long-settled people, was intricate and complex and had lost most of the pristine essence in a maze of formulas and rituals. ~ Anonymous,
113:He looks like somebody wandering in a dark maze, clutching his little bit of goodness, knowing it’s all he’s got but not remembering what it is or how to use it. ~ Mary Gaitskill,
114:If certain women walk straight into adultery, there are many others who cling to numerous hopes, and commit sin only after wandering through a maze of sorrows. ~ Honore de Balzac,
115:Life is like a maze of doors and then all open on the side you're on.
Just keep on pushing hard, boy, try as you may...you're going to wind up where you started from. ~ Yusuf Islam,
116:There are a dozen St. George soldiers hiding in that maze,” my trainer said. “All hunting you. All looking to kill you. Welcome to Phase Two of your training, hatchling. ~ Julie Kagawa,
117:There are a dozen St. George soldiers hiding in that maze,” my trainer said. “All hunting you. All looking to kill you. Welcone to Phase Two of your training, hatchling. ~ Julie Kagawa,
118:Life is a maze from which we never escape. Every decision takes us in a different direction and every time we turn one way we could just as easily have turned the other. ~ Chloe Thurlow,
119:Where everyone else sees a straight line, you see a maze, and when I'm done talking to you, the maze starts to make more sense
--Reply by Dove to Aly's silent inquiry ~ Tamora Pierce,
120:If then, your world be such a baffling riddle, it is because you are that baffling riddle. And if your speech be such a woeful maze, it is because you are that woeful maze. ~ Mikhail Naimy,
121:When I was in New York it was like a maze, a rat maze, going from one little box to another little box and passing through passageways to get from one safe haven to another. ~ Bruce Conner,
122:I let my eyes drift into the maze of leaves that only trees understand. Hatred has its gravitational web, locking stray specks of confusion into spirals of violence. ~ Gregory David Roberts,
123:In the old days, Ariadne’s string guided Theseus out of the maze. It was a navigation instrument of some kind, invented by Daedalus. And Chris Rodriguez was mumbling about string. ~ Rick Riordan,
124:Sometimes the noes are just as important as the yeses because they represent cul-de-sacs, allowing you to narrow your field of inquiry until you stumble into the heart of the maze. ~ Sue Grafton,
125:Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled with unique opportunities. ~ Frank Herbert,
126:The riders, clad in crimson and black, stopped to scan the maze. Blaise shrank into the hedge, but one keen-eyed hunter spied him. He raised his crossbow, took careful aim and fired. ~ Teresa Flavin,
127:Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore. ~ Oliver Goldsmith,
128:Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. ~ Lord Chesterfield,
129:The bars on his windows were his old thoughts, thoughts he trusted were true, but which actually prevented him from venturing out into the Maze. His beliefs were holding him prisoner! ~ Spencer Johnson,
130:I am the creator of my world and so are you. We can widen our world by breaking free from the maze of expectations. We can shrink our world by entrapping ourselves with expectations. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,
131:You're a maze, filled with twists and turns and no entrance signs begging to be cut down." He drinks some wine, his eyes never leaving my face. "And I hope you know I'm up for the task. ~ Riley Edgewood,
132:As Haw prepared to leave, he started to feel more alive, knowing that he was finally able to laugh at himself, let go and move on. Haw laughed and announced, “It’s ... Maze ... time!” Hem ~ Spencer Johnson,
133:Computers might not find the solutions to our problems, but they would be able to do the bulk of the legwork required, assist our human minds in intuitively finding ways through the maze. ~ Tim Berners Lee,
134:We get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating - lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. Nature can show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. ~ Eckhart Tolle,
135:Another metaphorical moral seems built into these two structures, for the maze offers the confusions of free will without a clear destination, the labyrinth an inflexible route to salvation. ~ Rebecca Solnit,
136:any for some time until they finally went into an area of the Maze where they had never been before: Cheese Station N. They squealed with delight. They found what they had been looking for: ~ Spencer Johnson,
137:I shuffle along, letting the current pull me, and i have the sense that I am like a rat caught in a maze of tunnels, moving endlessly toward some promise of...of what? Light? Life? Cheese? ~ Lisa Ann Sandell,
138:They only asked for punishments that fitted their crimes. Not ones that came like cupboards with built-in bedrooms. Not ones you spent your whole life in, wandering through its maze of shelves. ~ Arundhati Roy,
139:The Maze, that labyrinth of alleys called ginnels and snickets locally—tiny squares, courtyards, nooks and crannies and small warehouses that had remained unchanged since the eighteenth century. ~ Peter Robinson,
140:We cannot afford to take ourselves or other persons so seriously. It is wise to realize that we are not actually qualified to sit in judgment on each other. ~ Manly P Hall, The Mystic Maze of Thought 1970, p.8),
141:Delicate footprints circled around and around in a softly traced maze. I breathed in the scent of the deep crimson rose petals before me, and a glimpse of a thought suddenly surrounded them. ~ Gina Marinello Sweeney,
142:Sometimes they did well, but at other times their powerful human beliefs and emotions took over and clouded the way they looked at things. It made life in the Maze more complicated and challenging. ~ Spencer Johnson,
143:Well I am here, I am at the heart, I have come through the maze--where is the secret I am to learn from my many agonies? Here I am, here I am, where is my reward? What have I earned, learned, spurned? ~ Shirley Jackson,
144:What worried me most was that she no longer seemed to be trying to find a way out of the maze of her depression. She had simply lain down and gone to sleep inside one of anxiety’s winding tentacle arms. I ~ Rufi Thorpe,
145:After the advent of laser surgery but before puberty, before self-consciousness, before secondary school, before money, time or gender got their teeth in. Before language was a trap, when it was a maze. Before ~ Max Porter,
146:You enter a novel as you enter a house of strangers not knowing who you may meet or what might happen. Like a mirror maze, you must follow the reflections and distortions to the secrets veiled by the words. ~ Chloe Thurlow,
147:... when one begins to search for the crucial, the definitive moment, the moment which changed all others, one finds oneself pressing, in great pain, through a maze of false signals and abruptly locking doors. ~ James Baldwin,
148:Have you ever felt like you were caught in a maze in which nothing made sense? In which you saw Superman and the Green Goblin in the same comic strip when they really belonged in two different stories? ~ Gina Marinello Sweeney,
149:I navigated the world as a hedge maze of constant fear and worry in which I might take the wrong turn and jeopardize the love of everyone around me and everyone on Earth. That's what I needed in order to survive. ~ John Hodgman,
150:My life had become weariness. It had wandered in a maze of unhappiness that led to renunciation and nothingness; it was bitter with the salt of all human things; yet it had laid up riches, riches to be proud of. ~ Hermann Hesse,
151:An individual ant, even though it has a brain about a millionth of a size of a human being's, can learn a maze; the kind we use is a simple rat maze in a laboratory. They can learn it about one-half as fast as a rat. ~ E O Wilson,
152:We [fiction writers] are much more of a maze than we are a motorway. Things are always in flux, they're always in movement, they're always twisting back on each other. I think the straight line is such a lie. ~ Jeanette Winterson,
153:And yet - when one begins to search for the crucial, the definitive moment, the moment which changed all others, one finds one-self pressing, in great pain, through a maze of false signals and abruptly locking doors. ~ James Baldwin,
154:The whole world seemed a maze of shifting mirrors in which I wandered alone, looking always and frenziedly for the exit back into my real life, where people had substance, did as they said they would, and were whole. ~ Claire Messud,
155:I suppose it’s easier to see the way out of anything when you’ve found your way out of that maze. When you’re stuck in the middle, in a series of dead-ends making circles, it’s difficult to make any sense of anything. ~ Cecelia Ahern,
156:I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. ~ John Green,
157:The point is that getting married for lust or money or social status or even love is usually trouble. The point is that marriage is a maze into which we wander - a maze that is best got through with a great companion. ~ Robert Fulghum,
158:Do you not know, my friend, that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desires and aptitudes? Mais oui, c’est vrai. One makes one’s little judgments—but nine times out of ten one is wrong. ~ Agatha Christie,
159:He felt full of a dense and sour substance that was blocking his chest, and it wasn't grief. After all those years, life now seemed like no more than a trap, a maze, not even a maze, just a room that was all walls, no door. ~ Etgar Keret,
160:She couldn’t stop watching his eyes. They were bright black, surrounded by an incredible network of lines, like a laboratory maze for studying intelligence in tears. They seemed to know what she wanted, even if she didn’t. ~ Thomas Pynchon,
161:Poured its maze of tangled charm
And heady draught of Nature’s primitive joy
And the fire and mystery of forbidden delight
Drunk from the world-libido’s bottomless well. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Entry into the Inner Countries,
162:They are each a maze,” he said thoughtfully. “Each of them—both the rose and the shell—go around and around in their own way, yet each of them has—”

“A center,” the old sea captain finished, watching Antonio. ~ Gina Marinello Sweeney,
163:Sometimes your friends and family change. Instead of talking to someone who is labeled a “friend”, talk to someone you “like”. Even when I’m depressed, someone I like can sometimes find their way through the maze and make me laugh. ~ Anonymous,
164:I’m not sure why the universe doesn’t hand out gold medals just for being a woman and deciphering the maze of feelings, emotions, hormones, mirrors and shouldacoulda-wouldas of everyday life – but it should start.We deserve it. ~ Keltie Colleen,
165:The spiritual man is trying to free himself from the materiality that is the cause of his prodigal wandering in the maze of incarnations, but the ordinary man does not want more than a betterment of his earthly existence. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,
166:The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships. ~ Vannevar Bush,
167:I can't imagine a decent maze that would be caught dead without a minotaur. It's not done! You don't go out of your house without any clothes on, and a minotaur doesn't go into the world without a labyrinth to keep him warm. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
168:I can’t imagine a decent maze that would be caught dead without a minotaur. It’s not done! You don’t go out of your house without any clothes on, and a minotaur doesn’t go into the world without a labyrinth to keep him warm. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
169:Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future. ~ Charles Mackay,
170:Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and the ignorance of the future.. ~ Charles Mackay,
171:Its main purpose is to help me to find my way through the maze of possibilities contained in this young and beautiful art form—still, in essence, so little explored— in order to be able to find myself, fully and independently, within it. ~ Anonymous,
172:As I luxuriate in the discovery that I am no special sponge for sorrow, but merely another fallible animal in this stone maze of a city, I come simultaneously to see that I am the focus of some vast device fueled by an obscure desire. ~ William Gibson,
173:Moving like a rat in its maze. Programmed. Performing a function that it was not capable of understanding, on behalf of people whose entire existence was outside its knowledge, detected only as feet occasionally planted in its way. ~ Walter Jon Williams,
174:My only hope for my future is I learn to dot the landscape of my life once more with question marks instead of periods. To turn judgments into queries. To turn “this” into “that?” To make every problem a maze. To be like a six-year-old. ~ James Altucher,
175:Ts'ui Pe must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,
176:Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. ~ John Green,
177:Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. ~ Gautama Buddha,
178:He was not his own master when he left Russia,’ Sybilla said. ‘Nor was he his own master when you brought him to France. He is like a river forced into glass and driven from stem to stem of a conjurer’s maze without ever reaching the sea. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,
179:I see now that the path I choose through the maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being—one of many ways—and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming. ~ Daniel Keyes,
180:So much of writing is discovery. Sometimes I feel like a rat in a maze, trying to discover the way out. My little heart is beating, and I'm racing down a path thinking, this is the route, it will get me there, as I turn this way and then that. ~ Will Hobbs,
181:Our house was a temple to The Book. We owned thousands, nay millions of books. They lined the walls, filled the cupboards, and turned the floor into a maze far more complex than Hampton Court's. Books ruled out lives. They were our demi-gods. ~ Nick Bantock,
182:Our house was a temple to The Book. We owned thousands, nay millions of books. They lined the walls, filled the cupboards, and turned the floor into a maze far more complex than Hampton Court’s. Books ruled out lives. They were our demi-gods. ~ Nick Bantock,
183:Sometimes it takes a partner to say, "What is it you want?" because I think we operate in life and sometimes we don't know. We're all in some kind of maze going after the cheese at the end, and we get it and we go, "What is it that we want?" ~ Kevin Costner,
184:The ant continued its climb, threading the maze of Ye Wenjie’s name on her gravestone. Its species had been living on the Earth a hundred million years before the emergence of this gambler who now leaned on the stone. Even though it had no care for ~ Liu Cixin,
185:Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven's adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood. ~ Friedrich Schiller,
186:I found myself in a maze where I'd taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn't doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God. ~ Barbara Brown Taylor,
187:Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things To low ambition and the pride of kings. Let us (since life can little more supply Than just to look about us, and to die) Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man; A mighty maze! but not without a plan. ~ Alexander Pope,
188:We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks and groans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together as tunnels changed, grew, and expanded. The dark made me think about the visions I’d seen of Nico di Angelo, and suddenly I realized something. ~ Rick Riordan,
189:While running simple errands I often became hopelessly confused in the maze of crowded, filthy streets that began twenty paces beyond the north gate of the bridge, and as I limped back to my shelves of books I would feel as if I were returning from exile. ~ Ross King,
190:There are so many things hinted at that will be fun to reveal in depth. For years, fans have made it abundantly and enthusiastically clear that they want the same thing, so now seems like the perfect time to give readers the story of how the Maze began. ~ James Dashner,
191:What you thought was a maze of choices, all the possibilities of what your life might become, was, in fact, a series of steps you took along a road, and when you reached your destination and looked back, only one path—the one chosen for you—was visible. ~ Justin Cronin,
192:While Haw still had a great supply of Cheese, he often went out into the Maze and explored new areas to stay in touch with what was happening around him. He knew it was safer to be aware of his real choices than to isolate himself in his comfort zone. ~ Spencer Johnson,
193:For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to be ordinary. As we run through the changing paths of this maze, I realize I was never ordinary to begin with. We are built a certain way, and the only thing I regret is that it took me so long to see that. ~ Zoraida C rdova,
194:We were great builders, but one day we decided to play a game. We did it voluntarily; were we such good builders that we could build a maze with a way out but which constantly changed so that, despite the way out, in effect there was no way out for us... ~ Philip K Dick,
195:My parents, last time we went to Ikea, got into a huge fight, almost got divorced. My dad accidentally put his fist through the wood. I don't know what it was made of. Just going there it's like a maze. My mom makes me go. I get lost. It's very stressful. ~ Jedediah Bila,
196:I think its a terrible invention. Nobody knows how to read a map anymore. You chase down a blue line but you have no idea where you are in the world. Like a rat in a maze. How do I ever know where I am in relation to Pikes Peak, or the South Platte? Or God? ~ Peter Heller,
197:We follow a certain pattern, a maze, if you will, every day, tracing our steps into certain districts and neighborhoods and back home. So it's easy for people to relate to clichés. That's why comedy routines are based on mutual experiences of clichés. ~ Sylvester Stallone,
198:Language, at least, may give up the secrets of life and death, leading us through the maze to the original Word as monster or angel, to the mournful place where we may meet Job and hear his cry, 'How long will you vex my soul and break me in pieces with words? ~ Janet Frame,
199:Argonauts—and builds the largest ship ever constructed. He then figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed oxen, trick a mighty army guarding the Fleece into ravaging ~ Sean Patrick,
200:Men, they were able to conjure it up immediately, that was one of their powers, that thunderous splashing as they stood lordly above the bowl. Everything about them was more direct, their insides weren’t the maze women’s were, for the pee to find its way through. ~ John Updike,
201:It is not just that science and technology are possible means of great human satisfaction, as well as a matrix of complex dominations. Cyborg imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of dualisms in which we have explained our bodies and our tools to ourselves. ~ Donna J Haraway,
202:The child is born speaking the languages of birds; the child has horns and scales and wings; it has a beak; it has a cloven hoof. He is the sum of all creatures: the ones that swim, the ones that soar, the ones that leap, the ones that maze the earth with burrows. ~ Rikki Ducornet,
203:When I look at my life and the lives of my female friends these days - with our dizzying number of opportunities and talents - I sometimes feel as though we are all mice in a giant experimental maze, scurrying around frantically, trying to find our way through. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,
204:Haunt an old house.
Ask for a treat.
Laugh like a witch.
Lick something sweet.
Offer a trick.
Wander a maze.
Echo a boo.
Exclaim the phrase—
Normal's unnatural on Halloween! ~ Richelle E Goodrich,
205:To remind us of the existence of others when we have fallen into the maze of interior, subjective life is one large part of the work of literature’s windows. They keep us from stifling solipsism, by returning the personal self to connection with what is beyond it. ~ Jane Hirshfield,
206:Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit. ~ Louis L Amour,
207:Look up at the miracle of the falling snow,—the air a dizzy maze of whirling, eddying flakes, noiselessly transforming the world, the exquisite crystals dropping in ditch and gutter, and disguising in the same suit of spotless livery all objects upon which they fall. ~ John Burroughs,
208:Inside the settlement was a world of warmth, family, and familiar custom. But the world outside, as Thomas put it, was "a maze of confusing actions and individuals fighting to maintain an existence in the shadow of change." And that was before the Europeans showed up. ~ Charles C Mann,
209:Woman, your heart is a mapless maze. Could I bottle confusion and drink it a thousand years, I could not confound myself so much as you do between waking and breakfast. You are grown so devious that serpents would applaud your passage, would the gods but give them hands. ~ Scott Lynch,
210:Writing 'Book 1: The Maze of Bones' didn't feel much different than writing one of my other novels, but I thought it was very innovative to offer the website and trading card components as well for those readers who wanted to go more in depth with the Cahill experience. ~ Rick Riordan,
211:Can we really conquer chaos so easily? If that were so, I should be able to prune the pandemonium of my own soul into something neat and tidy rather than this maze of wants and needs and misgivings that has me forever feeling as if I cannot fit into the landscape of things. ~ Libba Bray,
212:I can't describe anything that happened during those days. It hurt, all the time, in a way language could not touch. It was boring. It was predictable. Like walking a maze you know has no solution. It's easy enough to say what it was like, but impossible to say what it was. ~ John Green,
213:His first two months at Brakebills spun by, and soon red and gold leaves were scattering across the Sea, as if they were being pushed by invisible brooms—which possibly they were?—and the flanks of the slow-moving topiary beasts in the Maze showed streaks of color. Quentin ~ Lev Grossman,
214:And Quentin had never known how the Maze was redrawn over the summer, but apparently every year in June the groundskeeper goaded the topiary animals into such a feeding frenzy that they fell upon and devoured each other in a kind of ghastly slow-motion vegetarian holocaust. ~ Lev Grossman,
215:She’s a maze with no escape. An ethereal, steady pulse. She’s there, but just barely. I love her so much I sometimes hate her. And it terrifies me, because deep down, I know what she is. An unsolvable puzzle. And I know who I am. The idiot who would try to fix her. At any cost. ~ L J Shen,
216:I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you. ~ Haruki Murakami,
217:Life's Perplexing Maze
A thousand shapes our varying Fates assume,
The Gods perform what we could least expect,
And oft' the things for which we fondly hop'd
Come not to pass: but Heaven still finds a clue
To guide our steps through life's perplexing maze.
~ Euripides,
218:Ts'ui Pe must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing." ~ Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden Of Forking Paths, #index,
219:We are born into a world in which sexual possibilities are narrowly circumscribed. . . . We are programmed by the culture as surely as rats are programmed to make the arduous way through the scientist's maze, and that programming operates on every level of choice and action. ~ Andrea Dworkin,
220:Oh, why had the Labyrinth brought me here?

As soon as I thought this, I chided myself: Of course it would bring me where I least wanted to be. Austin had been wrong about the maze. It was still evil, designed to kill. It was just a little subtler about its homicides now. ~ Rick Riordan,
221:Harvard Square could feel like a party on a warm night, full of energy and privilege and promise. Or it could seem like one of the bleakest places on earth--an icy, windswept rat maze where kids wasted their youth clawing over one another in a fatuous contest for credentials. ~ Geraldine Brooks,
222:Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close. ~ Andrew Marvell,
223:The difficulty in dealing with a maze or labyrinth lies not so much in navigating the convolutions to find the exit but in not entering the damn thing in the first place.

Or, at least not yet again.

As a creature of free will, do not be tempted into futility. ~ Vera Nazarian,
224:Maze: “I’m alerting HQ. Stand by.”
*on the private comlink*
Corr: “How are you Omega? Can we help? We’re really concerned that you’re stranded on a shabla rock surrounded by an infinite number of natives who’ll cut your gett’se off when they haul you screaming from the summit. ~ Karen Traviss,
225:In Brazil it would have been easy, in Brazil we have these people, we call them despachantes, facilitators: they have contacts in the government offices, they know how to steer your papers through the maze, you pay them a fee and they do all the unpleasant business for you one-two-three. ~ Anonymous,
226:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and clear. But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You’re building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it. ~ Marijn Haverbeke,
227:Too large a proportion of recent "mathematical" economics are mere concoctions, as imprecise as the initial assumptions they rest on, which allow the author to lose sight of the complexities and interdependencies of the real world in a maze of pretentious and unhelpful symbols. ~ John Maynard Keynes,
228:False hope is clung to with all one's might and main, till a day comes when it has sucked the heart dry and it forcibly breaks through its bonds and departs. After that comes the misery of awakening, and then once again the longing to get back into the maze of the same mistakes. ~ Rabindranath Tagore,
229:What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isn’t a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere. ~ Mariana Zapata,
230:Hitler always said there were too many people on earth. Too many people in Germany – such a small country, so many people … But then of course it turned out his answer to this was not a solution, but a symptom of the disease. He was the rat in the maze that begins to eat the others. ~ Jessica Shattuck,
231:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
   ~ Marijn Haverbeke,
232:We are in a maze which we built, and then we fell into, now can't get out. To make the game into something real, something more than merely an intellectual exercise, we elected to lose our exceptional faculties, to reduce us an entire level. This unfortunately, includes a loss of memory. ~ Philip K Dick,
233:Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.   But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves ~ Spencer Johnson,
234:They hold a secret smile and a certain amused resignation. As if he has watched humanity’s idiocies play out in front of him so many times that they have begun to … not pain but perhaps perturb him. As if he wearies of watching the rats in the maze run into the same walls over and over. ~ Karen Marie Moning,
235:He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan,
carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life.
But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered
merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign ~ Victor Hugo,
236:Think of lab rats racing through a maze, when you watch the sub-intelligent, dual-panel 'dialogue' conducted on the teli. Each rat runs with a designated, neatly bifurcated (Republican or Democratic) political orthodoxy. Each is a 'maze-bright' rat, and not the possessor and giver of any truth. ~ Ilana Mercer,
237:The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present. The future I have shown you tonight is not yet fixed. But it is more likely to become so with the passing of every day because nothing is being done to turn it aside. If you would change it, do as I have told you. ~ Terry Brooks,
238:Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet".

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze,
I cannot get out, said the starling). ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
239:The first time she had tried to kill herself, she had intuited that there was no escape. She had seen, with sudden clarity, that her life was a series of boxes, a maze that she would run and run through and never find an exit, and she thought, almost peacefully, I don't want it. I don't want my life. ~ Dan Chaon,
240:a real danger by giving it an absurd name, the designations were often facetious: the Godel Gremlin, the Mandelbrot Maze, the Combinatorial Catastrophe, the Transfinite Trap, the Conway Conundrum, the Turing Torpedo, the Lorenz Labyrinth, the Boolean Bomb, the Shannon Snare, the Cantor Cataclysm… ~ Arthur C Clarke,
241:It was still pretty dark down here, so I took out my flashlight and headed east, weaving my way through the dark maze, doing my best to remain unseen while being careful to avoid tripping over a shopping cart, engine block, or one of the other pieces of junk littering the narrow alleys between the stacks. ~ Ernest Cline,
242:And when people stop focusing on their dreams they become lost in the maze of their minds, wandering around in endlessly repeating circles. Then the colours of life start to dull, and excitement starts to die. Until you’re trapped in a prison of your own making, looking out at life instead of living it. ~ Menna van Praag,
243:The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out. ~ Henry St John 1st Viscount Bolingbroke,
244:The man’s face grew unrecognizable, shapeless, and still Jackson beat him. I wasn’t witnessing a fight, or a rescue. I was beholding punishment.

A sentence...

I realized he was seeing a maze of present and future, a web of occurrences visible only to him.

As if he were fate itself. . . . ~ Kresley Cole,
245:What no one tells you is that the road to accomplishing your goals isn’t a straight line; it looks more like a corn maze. You stopped, you went, you backed up, and took a few wrong turns along the way, but the important thing you had to remember was that there was an exit. Somewhere. You just couldn’t give ~ Mariana Zapata,
246:Ever since I’d started riding the train by myself I’d loved to go there alone and roam around until I got lost, wandering deeper and deeper in the maze of galleries until sometimes I found myself in forgotten halls of armor and porcelain that I’d never seen before (and, occasionally, was unable to find again). ~ Donna Tartt,
247:I thought for a long time that they way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the already-dead. ~ John Green,
248:He's changing. Every day more remote, protected, distant. He builds fests now for the soulmate he hasn't found, bricking wall and maze and mountain fortress, dares her to find him at the hidden center of them all Here's an A in self-protection from the one in the world he might love and who might someday love him. ~ Richard Bach,
249:But the best part," Zeb says between drinks, "the best part was when Ace jumped out of the shadows and landed next to us. He asks you where have you been all day, and you say 'stuck in the maze' and he says, 'well why didn't you just fly out?' Then the cheeky bastard hops into the sky and leaves us idiots behind. ~ Karpov Kinrade,
250:Medical training taught me the art of breaking down the complex maze of stories, symbols and rituals into clear systems. You could say that it helped me figure out the anatomy and physiology of mythology and its relevance in a society more incisively. How is it that no society can, or does, exist without them? ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,
251:To me, the most interesting approach to film noir is subjective. The genre is really all about not knowing what's going on around you, and that fear of the unknown. The only way to do that effectively is to really get into the maze, rather than look at the maze from above, so that's where I sort of come at it. ~ Christopher Nolan,
252:Who the fuck has a hedge maze in a residential neighborhood?” “This woman’s parents,” said Piotr. “Aside from that . . . serial killers, presumably. People who enjoy Stephen King novels a bit too much. And people who are hoping that one night, they’ll wake up to find David Bowie standing at their window.” “Right, ~ Seanan McGuire,
253:Redd laughed. "The lovely thing about being here," she said, gesturing at the maze, "is that I'm able to immagine your imagination powerless. Ah, if only that were the case on the outside. But enough chitchat. If you're going to die--which you are--I'm sure you'd like to get it over with."
--The Looking Glass Wars ~ Frank Beddor,
254:Of course if a person looked at his life from above, he could see the whole thing for what it was; he'd only feel lost while he was living it, when he still hadn't figured out that it was in fact a maze and that both the way in and the way out led to the same enormous empty place surrounding it. (From The Thin Place) ~ Kathryn Davis,
255:Youth is the season of tragedy and despair. Youth is the time when one's whole life is entangled in a web of identity, in a perpetual maze of seeking and of finding, of passion and of disillusion, of vague longings and of nameless griefs, of pity that is a blade in the heart, and of 'all the little emptiness of love. ~ Ellen Glasgow,
256:A promise is a direction taken, a self-limitation of choice. As Odo pointed out, if no direction is taken, if one goes nowhere, no change will occur. One's freedom to choose and to change will be unused, exactly as if one were in jail, a jail of one's own building, a maze in which no one way is better than any other. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
257:a single hour that all the days since your birth pointed you toward. What you thought was a maze of choices, all the possibilities of what your life might become, was, in fact, a series of steps you took along a road, and when you reached your destination and looked back, only one path—the one chosen for you—was visible. ~ Justin Cronin,
258:In this maze of antiques, she says, are the ghosts of everyone who has ever owned this furniture. Everyone rich and successful enough to prove it. All of their talent and intelligence and beauty outlived by decorative junk. All the success and accomplishments this furniture was supposed to represent, it's all vanished. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,
259:If I were to make a list of shit that is so clearly a terrible idea that I shouldn't have to explain to people why I'm not going to do it, walking into the hedge maze behind a mansion full of dead bodies would have been right up there. Not top 5 maybe, but high enough that I wouldn't have expected people to make me do it. ~ Seanan McGuire,
260:This whole electric universe is a complex maze of similar tensions. Every particle of matter in the universe is separated from its condition of oneness, just as the return ball is separated from the hand, and each is connected with the other one by an electric thread of light which measures the tension of that separateness. ~ Walter Russell,
261:From the starch-heavy 'food pyramid' to ethanol fuel, the government adopts programs not because they are right but because they gains votes, money or political power or solve problems that politics has already created, such as silos full of subsidized wheat or a shortage of gasoline due to the maze of controls on refining. ~ Robert Prechter,
262:I thought of our family, sometimes, as a tapestry: a perfect blending and weaving of colored threads that produced an enviable picture on our surface, while underneath we were a tangled maze of knots and stitches, colliding and separating in our own directions, united only in the mandate to keep the outward appearances lovely. ~ Camille Di Maio,
263:But men in their role of taxpayers will be subsidizing themselves in their role of consumers. It becomes a little difficult to trace in this maze precisely who is subsidizing whom. What is forgotten is that subsidies are paid for by someone, and that no method has been discovered by which the community gets something for nothing. ~ Henry Hazlitt,
264:What sound was that?

I turn away, into the shaking room.
What was that sound that came in on the dark?
What is this maze of light it leaves us in?
What is this stance we take,
To turn away and then turn back?
What did we hear?

It was the breath we took when we first met.

Listen. It is here. ~ Harold Pinter,
265:One could know a thousand women, Gascoigne thought; one could take a different girl every night for years and years—but sooner or later, the new lovers would do little more than call to mind the old, and one would be forced to wander, lost, in that reflective maze of endless comparison, forever disappointed, forever turning back. ~ Eleanor Catton,
266:and Scurry, and wondered if they had found any cheese yet. He believed they might be having a hard time, as running through the Maze usually involved some uncertainty. But he also knew that it was likely to only last for a while. Sometimes, Haw would imagine Sniff and Scurry finding New Cheese and enjoying it. He thought about how ~ Spencer Johnson,
267:The diabolical thing about melancholy is not that it makes you ill but that it makes you conceited and shortsighted; yes almost arrogant. You lapse into bad taste, thinking of yourself as Heine's Atlas, whose shoulders support all the world's puzzles and agonies, as if thousands, lost in the same maze, did not endure the same agonies. ~ Hermann Hesse,
268:there is no gateway to maturity; there is no line that is crossed. Maturity is like a maze, one path leading to another; it is like a great building full of corridors, one turning into another. Did anybody ever reach the end, so there was a clear way ahead, so he could say, now I am rich with knowledge, now I know all the answers? ~ Mignon G Eberhart,
269:Your terrain is the tortuous maze of truth-avoidance paths worn out by the “be somebody” types, and paved by the medal-awarding priests. Your mission is to tackle head-on, the truths that they work hard to avoid. Your own twists and turns are about avoiding or outmaneuvering those who want to deny truths and defend obvious falsehoods. ~ Venkatesh G Rao,
270:Imagine waking up in the middle of a maze. The walls are too high to climb and the floor is too tough to dig through. You have no idea how you got there, or which way is out. No one answers when you scream, and you’re burdened by a sense of impending loss. You don’t know what it is that you’re afraid of losing, but the feeling is inescapable. ~ A R Wise,
271:Problem solving and troubleshooting were a source of pleasure for both of them, and narrating the process was the next best thing to doing it. The same neural pathways lit up when you talked your way through the maze as when you actually solved it. Except this time, you were bathed in the glow of having already unraveled the thing. ~ Charlie Jane Anders,
272:The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things; Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax, And cabbages and kings.” the walrus and the carpenter The Proem: by the Carpenter [taken from “Money Maze,” Ainslee’s, May 1901] They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast ~ mile Zola,
273:money. Rather than simply directing the funds through the maze of secretive nonprofit charities and social welfare groups that they had used during the 2010 campaign, they now established a more efficient method. They pooled much of the cash first in a form of nonprofit corporation that the tax code defined as a 501(c)(6), or a “business league. ~ Jane Mayer,
274:Redd stared at the bald head bent down before her. How refreshing Vollrath's sacrifice was. He didn't beg for his life. He didn't embarrasss himself with groveling or sniveling, or appeals to her nomexistent mercy. Thinking that he might still be helpful in finding her Looking Glass Maze, she said, "I'm feeling generous today. You get to live. ~ Frank Beddor,
275:As Aristotle put it, the beginning of philosophy is wonder. I am simply amazed to find myself living on a ball of rock that swings around an immense spherical fire. I am more amazed that I am a maze—a complex wiggliness, an arabesque of tubes, filaments, cells, fibers, and films that are various kinds of palpitation in this stream of liquid energy. ~ Alan W Watts,
276:It’s time to find New Cheese.” Hem argued, “But what if there is no Cheese out there? Or even if there is, what if you don’t find it?” “I don’t know,” Haw said. He had asked himself those same questions too many times and felt the fears again that kept him where he was. He asked himself, “Where am I more likely to find Cheese—here or in the Maze? ~ Spencer Johnson,
277:There was, Alicia realized, a single hour that all the days since your birth pointed you toward. What you thought was a maze of choices, all the possibilities of what your life might become, was, in fact, a series of steps you took along a road, and when you reached your destination and looked back, only one path—the one chosen for you—was visible. ~ Justin Cronin,
278:...she merely wished to find a way out of the maze. She knew that she had become a burden to him: she took things too seriously, turning everything into a tragedy, and failed to grasp the lightness and amusing insignificance of physical love. How she wished she could learn lightness! She yearned for someone to help her out of her anachronistic shell. ~ Milan Kundera,
279:There was, Alicia realized, a single hour that all the days since your birth pointed you toward. What you thought was a maze of choices, all the possibilities of what your life might become, was, in fact, a series of steps you took along a road, and when you reached your destination and looked back, only one path—the one chosen for you—was visible. She ~ Justin Cronin,
280:I had wanted to escape the maze with its disorienting switchbacks, its ever-modulating pathways, to find the precious thing. But now I understood: the precious thing, that was the maze. That’s all that was left of the life I’d had here: a puzzle whose rules I would never understand, because they were not rules at all but a kind of cage meant to enclose me. ~ Tara Westover,
281:I stood in a maze line formed by crushed-velvet ropes and waited my turn. It reminded me of visiting a bank in the days before ATMs. The woman in front of me sported a business suit—at midnight—and big enough bags under her eyes to be mistaken for a bellhop. Behind me, a man with curly hair and dark sweats whipped out a cell phone and started pressing buttons. ~ Harlan Coben,
282:The Maze is a painting of the inside of my skull, which I painted when I was in England as a patient in Maudsley and Netherne psychiatric hospitals. It is a story of my life, well in the sense that people tell stories by the fireplace to entertain their guests, trying to make them accept you. In this case I wanted to be accepted, as an interesting specimen. ~ William Kurelek,
283:Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.
But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us ~ A J Cronin,
284:They headed back into the maze of gardens. The shrubberies seemed to crawl. Victoria ignored them, pushing past thorns and brambles and suspiciously roachlike leaves, concentrating not on them but on the pinching grip of Lawrence's fingers. Hmm, she thought. I suppose this is actually somewhat useful. She didn't so much mind holding his hand from that moment on. ~ Claire Legrand,
285:Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley. But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us. ~ Spencer Johnson,
286:I think it’s because we’re so entrenched by our problems that we often can’t see our way out of the maze we find ourselves in. Or we close our eyes and walk blindly because we’re too scared to acknowledge the mess we’re in. The darkness we create ourselves is better than the darkness waiting for us with our eyes open, because we’re in control of it that way at least. ~ Callie Hart,
287:I guess we all can't help peeking at our own imperfections, just like we can't help scratching a scab that keeps itching. When those imperfections are pasted across your face like that, exaggerated and magnified, it's hard to find all those good thoughts you have about yourself. If you believe those distorted reflections too deeply, you'll never get out of the maze. ~ Neal Shusterman,
288:To AMAZE  (AMA'ZE)   v.a.[from a and maze, perplexity.]1. To confuse with terrour. Yea, I will make many people amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when I shall brandish my sword before them, and they shall tremble at every moment; every man for his own life in the day of the fall.BibleEzek.xxxii. 10.2. To put into confusion with wonder. ~ Samuel Johnson,
289:On the morning of April 18, a group of Sherpas and other Nepali climbers started out across the Khumbu Icefall, an unstable maze of frozen towers and crevasses that is the deadliest stretch between the base of Mount Everest and its summit. One thousand feet above them, a glacier estimated to weigh as much as 30 million pounds groaned, shifted, and crashed down the mountain. ~ Anonymous,
290:This maze is laid out such that should you step through the correct path, by its end you will have learned the most extraordinary dance, such that any coronation would be proud to see you at the height of its feast, such that any holy dervish would weep and call you his devotion."
"I think that is very strange—"
"All things are strange which are worth knowing. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
291:And to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach -- why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time. ~ Theodore Roosevelt,
292:I knew you would come,” he said, “in the end. I have been waiting a long, long time.”
Time seemed to change as he spoke its name, bending out of shape, out of rhythm, curving round to encapsulate them in their own miniature cosmos. The past was coiled around the future: the present was an isolated moment, belonging nowhere, trapped at random in a maze of inverse reflections. ~ Jan Siegel,
293:Gradually the earliness of the morning and the cozy warmth of my bedroom got the better of us, and before we knew it we’d sunk into the irresistible softness of my bed, our arms and legs caught in a tangled maze.
“I think I love you,” his raspy voice whispered, his lips nearly touching my ear. His arms wrapped even more tightly around my body, swallowing me almost completely. ~ Ree Drummond,
294:I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting...I quite like to be in that maze. ~ Christopher Nolan,
295:I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting...I quite like to be in that maze. ~ Christopher J Nolan,
296:Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.   But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.”   A.J. Cronin ~ Spencer Johnson,
297:Imagine: You've spent all day trapping around, lost in a maze of chaos,
trying to fine a hidden illusion: You've been looking for hope, ignoring realty, fueled only but feelings you don't understand. Your've been looking for a dream, never truly believing you'll find it, but now- incredibly- you have. It's right there in front of you- just behind that off-white door. It's there…. ~ Kevin Brooks,
298:It is a natural stronghold for them—they can infest this maze of iron and water like a horde of starving cockroaches, and they’ll be just as hard to anticipate and to kill in such close quarters.”
“Wow,” Shane said. “You really know how to drum up team spirit. Did you print up Team Total Fail jerseys, too?” Myrnin gave him an entirely crazy smile. “Would you be surprised if I had? ~ Rachel Caine,
299:Leo remembered their trip together through the House of Hades. Hazel had led him through that creepy maze of illusions. She’d made the sorceress Pasiphaë disappear through an imaginary hole in the floor. She’d battled the giant Clytius while Leo choked in the giant’s cloud of darkness. She’d cut the chains binding the Doors of Death. Meanwhile Leo had done...well, pretty much nothing. ~ Rick Riordan,
300:You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze . . .” We waited. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.” Grover perked up. “The lost one! That must mean Pan! That’s great!” “With the dead and the traitor,” I added. “Not so great.” “And?” Chiron asked. “What is the rest?” “You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” Annabeth said, “the child of Athena’s final stand. ~ Rick Riordan,
301:Before we start, you have to understand one very key thing about Amy: She is fucking brilliant. Her brain is so busy, it never works on just one level. She’s like this endless archaeological dig: You think you’ve reached the final layer, and then you bring down your pick one more time, and you break through to a whole new mine shaft beneath. With a maze of tunnels and bottomless pits. ~ Gillian Flynn,
302:Imagine: You've spent all day traipsing around London, lost in a maze of chaos, trying to find a hidden illusion; you've been living on hope, ignoring reality, fueled only by feelings you don't understand. You've been looking for a dream, never truly believing you'd find it, but now - incredibly - you have. It's right there in front of you - just behind that off-white door. It's there... ~ Kevin Brooks,
303:It was as if we were at the heart of a maze. We were overwhelmed by the enormity of the tasks ahead. Mary had given us a bottle of milk and a spoonful of loose tea, and so, unable to decide what to do, we did what all Irish men and women do: we had tea. Suddenly the sun appeared and not for the first or last time we felt it uplifting us and changing everything. It seemed like a holiday. ~ Niall Williams,
304:For God's sake, Stiff," he says. "You don't have to follow me," I say staring at the maze of bars above me. I shove my foot onto the place where two bars cross and push myself up, grabbing another bar in the process. I sway for a second, my heart beating so hard I can't feel anything else. Every thought I have condenses into that heartbeat, moving at the same rhythm. "Yes, I do," he says. ~ Veronica Roth,
305:The Windows
In these dark chambers here what weary days
I spend, walk up and down as in a maze
To find the windows.----Only to unclose
One of these windows will be some relief.--But somehow windows this room hasn’t got,
Or I can’t find them. Perhaps I’ better not.
Perhaps the light would be another grief.
What fresh surprises ther might be, who knows?
~ Constantine P. Cavafy,
306:Before I got here, I thought that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it didn't exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in the back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied by the last words of the already dead, so I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life. ~ John Green,
307:To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles. ~ Samuel Johnson,
308:In the back, there was a maze of used books. The shelves wound around and were full of other bargain hunters. I searched for the children’s section. Not only were these books generally less expensive, but most of the time, the words that adults need to hear the most are hidden in children’s books. The beauty of that is that most children need to have the words read to them. It works out for everyone. ~ Kiera Cass,
309:Who subsidizes the consumers will depend upon the incidence of taxation. But men in their role of taxpayers will be subsidizing themselves in their role of consumers. It becomes a little difficult to trace in this maze precisely who is subsidizing whom. What is forgotten is that subsidies are paid for by someone, and that no method has been discovered by which the community gets something for nothing. ~ Henry Hazlitt,
310:Dizain
As, to the pipe, with rhythmic feet
In windings of some old-world dance,
The smiling couples cross and meet,
Join hands, and then in line advance,
So, to these fair old tunes of France,
Through all their maze of to-and-fro,
The light-heeled numbers laughing go,
Retreat, return, and ere they flee,
One moment pause in panting row,
And seem to say--Vos plaudite!
~ Andrew Lang,
311:Naif hugged herself as she watched the damp stealing in. The island’s ready mists were like the ghosts of the young dead roaming the slopes. Below ground was a maze of tunnels and caves. Some led to the mountain top, while a different set ran along the beach. In one of the latter Ruzalia moored her sleek stingray-styled boat. At this time of day she would be down there, preparing it for her next raid. ~ Marianne de Pierres,
312:Theres a metaphor beyond the fallen paradise in the circumstance most intellectuals find themselves in the maze they tried every waking second trying to escape. For a poet, deranged and in love with plants and planets, there is no time for thinking so let us scream truth beyond the fall all over again. Internally rising if impossible to have full faith in, the flow could crash us back into disappearance. ~ Brandon Villasenor,
313:My clue is that you're supposed to keep going once you've found me."
His eyes narrowed. Thoughtfully, as though he were looking for the words she wanted to say instead. "Keep going in the maze?" he said slowly. "Or keep going somewhere else?"
The man had an evil streak. "The maze," she said firmly.
Helpfully. Like a dutiful daughter of Bliss.
"Because there are a few places I'd like to go with you. ~ Jamie Farrell,
314:Then she told George that the story of the minotaur was one about facing what mazes you. She made it very clear that she was using the word maze, not amaze. Then, when you’d faced it, she said, the thing to do to get out of the labyrinth was to go back the way you’d come, follow your own thread, the thread you’d left behind you, and that this had a lot to do with knowing where we come from and what our roots are – ~ Ali Smith,
315:Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the already-dead, so I came here looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends and a more-than-minor life. ~ John Green,
316:There's a great maze of tunnels, a Labyrinth. It's like a great dark city, under the hill. Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes, and old crowns, and bones, and years, and silence.'
She spoke if in trance, rapture. Manan watched her. His slabby face never expressed much but stolid, careful sadness; it was sadder than usual now. 'Well, and you're mistress of all that,' he said. 'The silence, and the dark. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
317:I watched her carve her mistakes in stone, and they arranged themselves around her. They became a maze with walls that reached the sky. Because she learned from so few of them, she was lost. Because she didn’t have faith in anything, she didn’t try to find a way out. I watched her try to face her fears alone, too proud to ask for help, too stubborn to admit she was afraid, too small to fight them, too tired to fly away. ~ Amy Zhang,
318:The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don't know what to do with it. ~ Edward Weston,
319:Ever since learning about neurotransmitters from David, she had imagined her brain as a water park, a maze of waterslides down which various chemicals were released. Charcoal and smoke and fresh-cut grass usually sent rivers of serotonin down the slides in Ada’s head, as she pictured them. But that night the scents only served to remind her of David’s absence. Warm summer evenings, he always said, were his favorites, too. ~ Liz Moore,
320:Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known--not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people), I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being--one of many ways--and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming. ~ Daniel Keyes,
321:my father’s fears and paranoias, his scriptures and prophecies. I had wanted to escape the maze with its disorienting switchbacks, its ever-modulating pathways, to find the precious thing. But now I understood: the precious thing, that was the maze. That’s all that was left of the life I’d had here: a puzzle whose rules I would never understand, because they were not rules at all but a kind of cage meant to enclose me. ~ Tara Westover,
322:...that language may be a compound code, and that the discovery of an enormous complexity beneath a simple surface may well be more dismaying than delightful. E.g.: the maze of termite tunnels in your joist, the intricate cancer in her perfect breast, the psychopathology of everyday life, the Auschwitz in an anthill casually DDT'd by a child, the rage of atoms in a drop of ink - in short, anything examined curiously enough. ~ John Barth,
323:One must have a very clear memory for ideas to really understand what he says.

I am emphasising this because, unless you proceed systematically, you won’t derive much benefit from this reading; it will appear to you like a maze where it is very difficult to find one’s way.... All the ideas are joined at the centre, and at the circumference they go in altogether different directions. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1957-1958,
324:The Precarious Life Of Man
When I reflect on Heaven's just sway,
Each anxious thought is driven away;
But, ah! too soon, hope's flattering prospect ends,
And in this harass'd soul despair succeeds;
When I compare with human deeds,
What fate those deeds attends.
At each various period changing,
Form'd upon no settled plan,
In a maze of errors ranging,
Veers the precarious life of man.
~ Euripides,
325:Asterion!” Theseus cried. The Minotaur froze as if he’d been punched in the snout. That name…He knew that name. His earliest memories…gentle voices. A woman, maybe his mother? A comfortable nursery with actual baby food, warm blankets, a fire in the hearth. The Minotaur remembered a life outside the maze. He had a fleeting, warm sense of being human. And in that moment, Theseus stabbed him in the gut with his own broken horn. ~ Rick Riordan,
326:All of it dust now, all of their precious humanoid civilization ground to junk under glaciers or weathered away by wind and spray and rain and frozen ice - all of it. Only this pathetic maze-tomb left.
So much for their humanity, or whatever they chose to call it, thought Unaha-Closp. Only their machines remained. But would any of the others learn? Would they see this for what it was, this frozen rockball? Would they, indeed! ~ Iain Banks,
327:When I touch her, my fingers don’t question what she is. My body knows who she is. The strange thing about strangers is that they are unknown and known. There is a pattern to her, a shape I understand, a private geometry that numbers mine. She is a maze where I got lost years ago, and now find the way out. She is the missing map. She is the place that I am. She is a stranger. She is the strange that I am beginning to love. ~ Jeanette Winterson,
328:Walk with me.” Abban held up his crutch.
“It is a long way to the palace, Par’chin,” he said.
“I’ll walk slowly,” Arlen said, knowing the crutch had nothing to do with the refusal.
“You don’t want to be seen with me outside the market, my friend,” Abban warned. “That alone may cost you the respect you’ve earned in the Maze.”
“Then I’ll earn more,” Arlen said. “What good is respect, if I can’t walk with my friend? ~ Peter V Brett,
329:Both the Sublime and the Beautiful induce a state of submission that is often combined with the possibility of getting lost. They disorientate and undermine purpose. In one of several erotic sections in the Enquiry Burke describes the experience of looking at a beautiful woman’s body: it is, he writes, like a ‘deceitful maze, through which the unsteady eye glides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried’. It ~ Edmund Burke,
330:The Christian church has preached a powerless gospel that has led countless people into a religious maze that goes nowhere. They have handcuffed the masses to a false God. The Bible has been misinterpreted and misused by religious leaders who claim to have spiritual authority, giving this bankrupt system a false air of legitimacy and credibility. I’m not pointing the finger; I was one of them. I was sincere, but I was sincerely wrong. ~ Jim Palmer,
331:There is law enough all about us
in almanack and season, anniversary

days come round, the round earth's carnivale
of chimes and recessionals.
Good to be included

there. Good also what is not
fixed or sure even,
the second breath of being

here when the May-bush
snows in mid-September, as giddy
happenstance leads us

this way into
a lost one's arms, or that way
deeper into the maze. ~ David Malouf,
332:I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
But she's just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I've done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I'm starting to see
Maybe it's got nothing to do with me
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too ~ John Mayer,
333:In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped. ~ John Edensor Littlewood,
334:The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. ~ Charles Dickens,
335:Just as the sun disappeared behind a large gray cloud, a white sedan crept slowly along the long twisted road. A wall of trees on either side of the road gave the appearance that the only way out was to forge ahead. The black pavement weaved, rounding bends, up and down small rolling hills. If someone were to look at the scene from above, it would appear similar to a white rat running through a large maze, no doubt on its way to find the cheese. ~ Jill Sanders,
336:But in fact, the restaurant, with all its glitter, wasn’t nearly as grand as her favorite picnic. When she was fifteen, Tate had boated to her shack one dawn, and, after he’d wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, they cruised inland through a maze of waterways to a forest she’d never seen. They hiked a mile to the edge of a waterlogged meadow where fresh grass sprouted through mud, and there he laid the blanket under ferns as large as umbrellas. ~ Delia Owens,
337:He had been relfecting, while staring at the fringed blue petals, about love, about the long steady way his imperfect parents managed to love each other, and about his own deficient love for Dorrie, how it came and went, how he kept finding it and losing it again.

And now, here in this garden maze, getting lost, and then found, seemed the whole point, that and the moment of willed abandonment, the unexpected rapture of being blindly led. ~ Carol Shields,
338:I tap my foot anxiously on the floor. Do I want to sit here and listen to more of his story? Or try to run? I feel like I’m in a maze where almost every end is a dead end or a trap and it’s hard to figure out which path will get me to wherever I need to go. Also, my emotions are confusing, combine them with the electricity; I feel like I’m being pushed toward Alex and then pulled back. Pushed and pulled. Pretty soon I’m going to tear in half. ~ Jessica Sorensen,
339:Whilst in the process of losing all his money, Cardano noticed that his opponent had marked the cards. Whereupon he leapt up, slashed his opponent across the face with his dagger and grabbed the money. Outwitting his host's spear-wielding servants, he fled into the night-shrouded maze of the streets, eventually falling into a canal. [Footnote: It is interesting to note that Cardano may well have been rector of the University of Padua at the time.] ~ Paul Strathern,
340:He had been just another servant in the maze of the university, but now he was a friend of Nutt, and Nutt was important. He was also wrong. He had no place in the world, but he was in it, and the world was becoming aware of him soon enough. The Librarian knew all about this sort of thing. There had been no space in the fabric of reality marked ‘simian librarian’ until he’d been dropped into one, and the ripples had made his life a very strange one. ~ Terry Pratchett,
341:...I’d felt drowned and extinguished by vastness—not just the predictable vastness of time, and space, but the impassable distances between people even when they were within arm’s reach of each other, and with a swell of vertigo I thought of all the places I’d been and all the places I hadn’t, a world lost and vast and unknowable, dingy maze of cities and alleyways, far-drifting ash and hostile immensities, connections missed, things lost and never found… ~ Donna Tartt,
342:The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature, struggling in the bonds of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. ~ George Eliot,
343:Cat And Mouse
Her green eyes change to yellow. This
Is open season. In a glass maze
Lovers play a cat and mouse.
Good cat! He coaxes sparks from her fur.
Scalpel-fine claws
Furrow his forehead.
His tears drop like red pears.
She scratches the tree bole and purrs.
Her tongue rasps the wrong way.
He sorts through his mind like an attic.
Wherever?-A meadow mouse
Peers from her compact.
Take that thought away!
~ David Campbell,
344:Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you. ~ Haruki Murakami,
345:I had wanted to escape the maze with its disorienting switchbacks, its ever-modulating pathways, to find the precious thing. But now I understood: the precious thing, that was the maze. That's all that was left of the life I'd had here: a puzzle whose rules I would never understand, because they were not rules at all but a kind of cage meant to enclose me. I could stay, and search for what had been home, or I could go, now, before the walls shifted and the way out was shut. ~ Tara Westover,
346:I see. So you playacted the role of a rake who was only pretending to be in earnest, knowing you would come across as though you had the lowest of motives, when in fact, you were sincere?”
“Precisely.”
She gave a short, wry laugh and shook her head at him. “Convoluted sir! You are a maze.”
He shot her a sulky glance. “I thought you were going to say I was amazing.”
“That, too,” she admitted with a rueful smile, capturing his square chin between her fingertips. ~ Gaelen Foley,
347:In mathematics ... we find two tendencies present. On the one hand, the tendency towards abstraction seeks to crystallise the logical relations inherent in the maze of materials ... being studied, and to correlate the material in a systematic and orderly manner. On the other hand, the tendency towards intuitive understanding fosters a more immediate grasp of the objects one studies, a live rapport with them, so to speak, which stresses the concrete meaning of their relations. ~ David Hilbert,
348:Has the dark shadow really disappeared?
Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear?
Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you. ~ Haruki Murakami,
349:The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man’s mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others. ~ Cormac McCarthy,
350:Although it was over 50 years ago, I have not forgotten the moment when, after exploring the maze of Indian metaphysics, I reached its central Thought. I read that if we go deeper and deeper into the self we can arrive at last at the recognition of Atman, the essential self; and that if we go deeper into the not-self, the world that seems so solid and real, pulling aside veil after veil of illusion, we shall find Brahman, the ultimate reality; and that Atman and Brahman are identical. ~ J B Priestley,
351:Thomas swallowed, wondering how he could ever go out there. His desire to become a Runner had taken a major blow. But he had to do it. Somehow he KNEW he had to do it. It was such an odd thing to feel, especially after what he'd just seen... Thomas knew he was a smart kid- he somehow felt it in his bones. But nothing about this place made any sense. Except for one thing. He was supposed to be a Runner. Why did he feel that so strongly? And even now, after seeing what lived in the maze? ~ James Dashner,
352:...the program of scientific experimentation that leads you to conclude that animals are imbeciles is profoundly anthropocentric. It values being able to find your way out of a sterile maze, ignoring the fact that if the researcher who designed the maze were to be parachuted into the jungles of Borneo, he or she would be dead of starvation in a week...If I as a human being were told that the standards by which animals are being measured in these experiments are human standards, I would be insulted. ~ J M Coetzee,
353:Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I dont want us to forget Alaska, and I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to und3erstand how people answered that question and the question each of you posed in your papers--how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called 'people's rotten lots in life. ~ John Green,
354:So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve
Addressed his way: not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds, that towered
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind
Lovelier… ~ John Milton,
355:One of the most dangerous classes in the world," said he, "is the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions and boardinghouses. She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes. When she is gobbled up she is hardly missed. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,
356:Then someone within closed the door, shutting Norah out into the howling dust of the night. The clouds parted briefly to reveal the full moon's cold eye, then closed again. Wind seared over the pavilion's double roof, its voice rising to a shriek. Distantly, among the maze of walls, came the frenzied barking of hundreds of tiny dogs. As she drifted towards wakefulness, Norah could not tell whether it was the wind that she heard just at the end, or whether, within the dark hall, the girl had begun to scream. ~ Barbara Hambly,
357:I wanted to go higher than Rockefeller Center, which was being erected across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue and was going to cut off my view of the sky. . . . Flying got into my soul instantly but the answer as to why must be found somewhere back in the mystic maze of my birth and childhood and the circumstances of my earlier life. Whatever I am is elemental and the beginnings of it all have their roots in Sawdust Road. I might have been born in a hovel, but I determined to travel with the wind and stars. ~ Jacqueline Cochran,
358:This place might have been paradise, a treasure trove far greater than any to be found in a pirate yarn.

Everywhere he looked there were books.

They rose into the air in majestic columns, stacks and stacks of them forming a maze that seemed to stretch to forever; the stacks rose high into the air and disappeared towards the unseen ceiling. The air had the overwhelming smell of old books, of polished leather, and yellowing leaves, like the smell of a bookshop or a public library magnified a thousand-fold. ~ Lavie Tidhar,
359:was someone with her to hold her hand. The master of the house in which she had been forced to take refuge because her younger brothers and sister had the measles or would have soon and she was too young to be left in the London house alone. It was a little humiliating. “Thank you,” she said to the butler. And then she leaned forward to speak to her host and hostess. “I must have taken a wrong turning. I found myself in a maze of narrow and winding corridors. I felt as if there were someone around each corner, but there ~ Mary Balogh,
360:From authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words. ~ Lewis H Lapham,
361:I imagined a labyrinth of labyrinths, a maze of mazes, a twisting, turning, ever-widening labyrinth that contained both past and future and somehow implied the stars. Absorbed in those illusory imaginings, I forgot that I was a pursued man; I felt myself, for an indefinite while, the abstract perceiver of the world. The vague, living countryside, the moon, the remains of the day did their work in me; so did the gently downward road, which forestalled all possibility of weariness. The evening was near, yet infinite. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,
362:I feel with writing, so much of the time, I don't know how to tap in and be spontaneous and alive on a daily basis. So I don't write every day. I'm just not disciplined, and I can't be in the groove most of the time. I feel like I'm in the groove ten days a year or something. But with reading and research, I feel like I have this incredibly instinctive pleasure-driven process that ends up working out for me and inspiring me. It's almost like a maze, like I know eventually I'll hit the heart of my play if I read enough books. ~ Annie Baker,
363:Language is virtually always pathological; hence the solution is to move as fast and far as possible from language to experience, from linguistic to experimental or psychological philosophy. In order to know that we are not in the linguistic maze, we need to determine, according to Berkeley, whether the things we are talking about exist; hence we need to look for the relevant perceptions. For him, this usually means retiring into himself and trying to imagine whether x exists, having formed the best definition possible of x. ~ David Berman,
364:Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life. ~ Cormac McCarthy,
365:Living in a delusion, we endlessly re-create its landscape; we repeatedly enact its roles and manufacture its dramas, racing along the same old paths of the maze. Even if we achieve temporary victory against the bad guys, the overall situation doesn't seem to change. We never get closer to the exit. What we normally achieve is, instead of victory, a strengthened conviction that we are in fact the good guys. That polarized view is one of the things we will have to give up if we are to launch the era of ecological healing. ~ Charles Eisenstein,
366:A huge maze of tents and mud huts and homes built from plastic and aluminum siding in a labyrinth of narrow passageways littered with dirt and shit. It was a city in the belly of a yet greater city. He had lived in a small mud house there with his brothers… In its alleyways, he and his brothers had learned to walk and talk. They had gone to school there. He had played with sticks and rusty old bicycle wheels on its dirty streets, running around with other refugee kids, until the sun dipped and his grandmother called him home. ~ Khaled Hosseini,
367:First of all, let's get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It's alluring, but complicated. It's the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis. ~ Beppe Severgnini,
368:Nobody else in Special Operations knows about this, and I really don’t want Skirata to know, because … fine man though he might be, he does have an issue with Kaminoans. Any man who refers to them as tatsushi and actually boasts of recipes is probably best kept out of the loop. Dismissed.” Scorch chuckled approvingly as they clunked their way down the corridor toward the mess with Maze at their heels. “You think Skirata would really eat a Kaminoan?” Fixer managed a sentence, which was good going for him. “Only if he had hot sauce. ~ Karen Traviss,
369:Directly below her window, the dark waters of a pond reflected the bruised clouds scuttling across the clearing sky. Next to it crouched a pair of willow trees, their melancholy branches hanging low as if daring to disturb its placid, glass-like beauty.
Beyond the pond sprawled an expansive garden maze with walls of towering yew bushes, expertly clipped. From her vantage point, the maze appeared quite simple to solve, though she suspected that once one was surrounded by the labyrinth of hedges, all sense of direction would contort. ~ Olivia Parker,
370:I think people need to see on both sides. Seeing how the people in the Palestinian Territories can't move around - it's a maze now, with the wall, the road blocks and everything else. It takes you hours to get from one person's house to your job or to a friend or even to the hospital if someone's hurt. Then you go into Israel and see in Tel Aviv, where they have 12-18 bomb threats a day, which are real. It completely disrupts their life. Or Sderot where bombs are falling daily from the sky fired by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. ~ Morgan Spurlock,
371:The Maze is an old Native myth. The Maze itself is the sum of a man's life. The choices he makes, the dreams he hangs onto. And there at the center there's a legendary man who had been killed over and over again countless times. But always clawed his way back to life. The man returned for a last time to vanquish all his oppressors in a tireless fury. Built a house and around that house he built a maze so complicated only he could navigate through it. I reckon he's seen enough fighting.
   ~ Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy, Westworld, Teddy to the Man in Black,
372:but in our world, even if you express your true thoughts, you must do so in an appropriately euphemistic way. For example, although what you just said is in accord with the ideals of ETO, its overly direct formulation might repel some of our members and cause unanticipated consequences. Of course, it may be that you’ll never be able to learn to express yourself appropriately.” It is precisely the expression of deformed thoughts that makes the exchange of information in human society, particularly in human literature, so much like a twisted maze. ~ Liu Cixin,
373:[What a great way to describe how a city takes its unique "shape"...beautiful turn-of-phrase by Kieran Shields(!)]:

"It was a city of slopes, curves, and dips carved by glaciers and now criss-crossed by a network of angled streets and blocks, unfettered by any sense of regularity and uniformity. Portland's maze of cobbled roads was the result of two and a half centuries of fisherman and merchants driven by immediate necessity and that economy of steps that occurs naturally in a place where winters often lasted five months out of the year. ~ Kieran Shields,
374:A little rain, a little blood. Black fingernails in August; and going berserk, going bananas. As if entrapped in a tropical heatwave, with dozens of whirlwinds swirling in one’s mind, one thinks of a way out, or a way in: out of the scorching bosom of a volcano, and in – into the centre of a raging hurricane. And tracing the labyrinthine ways of your mind, the haphazard vagaries of your thoughts at ease, the odds and ends of your mental surplus you carelessly throw at the world, one wants to be at a loss, in a maze; amazed, and amazingly unabashed. ~ Adam Zagajewski,
375:These bright roofs, these steep towers, these jewel-lakes, these skeins of railroad line - all spoke to her and she answered. She was glad they were there. She belonged to them and they to her. . . . She had not lost it. She was touching it with her fingertips. This was flying: to go swiftly over the earth you loved, touching it lightly with your fingertips, holding the railroads lines in your hand to guide you, like a skein of wool in a spider-web game - like following Ariadne's thread through the Minotaur's maze, Where would it lead, where? ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
376:I am coming through the barriers you have erected in this mind. I am coming, though the way be ardous and strange. Nothing will stop me. As I travel, I admire the craftsmanship in the construction of this maze, admire the traps and pitfalls they have wrought. You have learned well, my servants. To force the child to construct these barriers insides its mind, in its effort to escape the physical world; to build an island of dream alone and untouched by the true Dreaming... This takes skill. My admiration does not lessen my anger. I am dream. I am coming. ~ Neil Gaiman,
377:Everything in a movie completed. Relationships began, they developed and they ended or went on happily forever. All in less than two hours. Life, though, was not like a movie, it was ragged, an outdated map with new streets added whose direction you could never quite discern, or a maze filled with suddenly appearing walls and aimless corridors. Even when a movie didn't have a happy ending, it had a logical ending that you could live with. Life had endings that you didn't know were endings, or endings that thought were endings and then they weren't. ~ Marshall Thornton,
378:Not a hunch. A fact. Some small, trivial fact. What was it? Could it be the answer? Something was bothering me terrifically. I tried some more beer. No. No. No ... no ... no ... no ... no. The answer wouldn’t come. How must our minds be made? So complicated that a detail gets lost in the maze of knowledge. Why? That damn ever-present WHY. There’s a why to everything. It was there, but how to bring it out? I tried thinking around the issue, I tried to think through it. I even tried to forget it, but the greater the effort, the more intense the failure. ~ Mickey Spillane,
379:FORTUNE COOKIE THE BLACK WIDOW SPIDER MYSTERY THE RADIO MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE RUNAWAY GHOST THE FINDERS KEEPERS MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED BOXCAR THE CLUE IN THE CORN MAZE THE GHOST OF THE CHATTERING BONES THE SWORD OF THE SILVER KNIGHT THE GAME STORE MYSTERY THE MYSTERY OF THE ORPHAN TRAIN THE VANISHING PASSENGER THE GIANT YO-YO MYSTERY THE CREATURE IN OGOPOGO LAKE THE ROCK ’N’ ROLL MYSTERY THE SECRET OF THE MASK THE SEATTLE PUZZLE THE GHOST IN THE FIRST ROW THE BOX THAT WATCH FOUND A HORSE NAMED DRAGON THE GREAT DETECTIVE RACE T ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner,
380:I had walked over to the window and was looking down at the rails of the Montmartre funicular, the gardens of the Sacré Cœur and, further off, the whole of Paris, with its lights, its roofs, its shadows. Denise Coudreuse and I had met one day in this maze of roads and boulevards. Paths that cross, among those of thousands and thousands of people all over Paris, like countless little balls on a gigantic, electric billiard table, which occasionally bump into each other. And nothing remained of this, not even the luminous trail a firefly leaves behind it. ~ Patrick Modiano,
381:Quincy ducked through a small alleyway between buildings and worked her confident way through the backstreets. The route was abundantly full of refuse bins, forgotten crates, and various laundry, hanging from back windows. Several cats, the local monarchy that Qunicy had long been acquainted with, were granting them passage while sitting atop the maze of half-broken fences. Quincy saluted a black female—the reigning queen—and passed through a slender passage between two buildings, leading them out onto Fair Street and its adjoining park in a manner of minutes. ~ Beth Brower,
382:As I followed Margo's directions through the maze of one-way streets, we saw a few people sleeping on the sidewalk or sitting on benches, but nobody was moving. Margo rolled down the window, and I felt the thick air blow across my face, warmer than night ought to be. I glanced over and saw strands of her hair blowing all around her face. Even though I could see her there, I felt entirely alone among these big and empty buildings, like I'd survived the apocalypse and the world had been given to me, this whole and amazing and endless world, mine for the exploring. ~ John Green,
383:London In July
What ails my senses thus to cheat?
What is it ails the place,
That all the people in the street
Should wear one woman's face?
The London trees are dusty-brown
Beneath the summer sky;
My love, she dwells in London town,
Nor leaves it in July.
O various and intricate maze,
Wide waste of square and street;
Where, missing through unnumbered days,
We twain at last may meet!
And who cries out on crowd and mart?
Who prates of stream and sea?
The summer in the city's heart-That is enough for me.
~ Amy Levy,
384:Indestructible and abiding as the stars, these experiences, though forgotten, could never be erased. Their series was the story of my life, their starry light the undying value of my being. My life had become weariness. It had wandered in a maze of unhappiness that led to renunciation and nothingness; yet it had laid up riches, riches to be proud of. It had been for all its wretchedness a princely life. Let the little way to death be as it might, the kernel of this life of mine was noble. It had purpose and character and turned not on trifles, but on the stars. ~ Hermann Hesse,
385:Ask yourself whether our language is complete--whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein,
386:From authors whom I read more than once I learn to value the weight of words and to delight in their meter and cadence -- in Gibbon's polyphonic counterpoint and Guedalla's command of the subjunctive, in Mailer's hyperbole and Dillard's similes, in Twain's invectives and burlesques with which he set the torch of his ferocious wit to the hospitality tents of the world's colossal humbug . . . I know no other way out of what is both the maze of the eternal present and the prison of the self except with a string of words."
- from Harper's Notebook, November 2010 ~ Lewis H Lapham,
387:I knew that place should be my home, but after my night in Noer's mind it seemed a peculiar pile, its streets a maze, needlessly crowded, where we slender people, so naked of fur we must make extra skins for ourselves, muddled and ambled and skipped in our dance of alliances and enmities, offenses and fancies. We thought too much; we calculated too hard. I would rather have wandered among trees, with their more meaningful conversation. I would rather have been solitary and unharried, never required to speak nor account for myself to do anything else but what come natural. ~ Margo Lanagan,
388:But as Van casually directed the searchlight of backthought into that maze of the past where the mirror-lined narrow paths not only took different turns, but used different levels (as a mule-drawn cart passes under the arch of a viaduct along which a motor skims by), he found himself tackling, in still vague and idle fashion, the science that was to obsess his mature years - problems of space and time, space versus time, time-twisted space, space as time, time as space - and space breaking away from time, in the final tragic triumph of human cogitation: I am because I die. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
389:If Snow kept weaving around the corners, she would reach the center of the maze and her mother's beloved aviary. The two-story wrought iron dome looked like a giant birdcage. It was her mother's pride and joy and the first thing she had commissioned when she became queen. She'd always had a love of birds. Snow's mother kept several species inside the netted walls, and she patiently explained each bird's nature to Snow in detail. The two had spent countless hours watching the aviary, with Snow naming all of the creatures inside it. Her favorite was Snowball, a small white canary. ~ Jen Calonita,
390:The deep-read is when you get gut-hooked and dragged overboard down and down through the maze of print and find, to your amazement, you can breathe down there after all and there’s a whole other world. I’m talking about the kind of reading when you realize that books are indeed interactive. . . . I’m talking about the kind of deep-read where it isn’t just the plot or the characters that matter, but the words and the way they fit together and the meandering evanescent thoughts you think between the lines: the kind of reading where you are fleetingly aware of your own mind at work. ~ Tim Wynne Jones,
391:The rails intersect and combine in complex and convoluted ways. There are sixteen platforms in total. In addition, there are two private rail lines, the Odakyu line and the Keio line, and three subway lines plugged in, as it were, from the side. It is a total maze. During rush hour, that maze transforms into a sea of humanity, a sea that foams up, rages, and roars as it surges toward the entrances and exits. Streams of people changing trains become entangled, giving rise to dangerous, swirling whirlpools. No prophet, no matter how righteous, could part that fierce, turbulent sea. ~ Haruki Murakami,
392:    So spake the Enemie of Mankind, enclos'd   In Serpent, Inmate bad, and toward EVE   Address'd his way, not with indented wave,   Prone on the ground, as since, but on his reare,   Circular base of rising foulds, that tour'd   Fould above fould a surging Maze, his Head   Crested aloft, and Carbuncle his Eyes;   With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold, erect   Amidst his circling Spires, that on the grass   Floted redundant: pleasing was his shape,   And lovely, never since of Serpent kind   Lovelier, not those that in ILLYRIA chang'd   HERMIONE and CADMUS, or the God   In EPIDAURUS; nor ~ John Milton,
393:finding out who I really am—the meaning of my total existence involves knowing the possibilities of my future as well as my past, where I’m going as well as where I’ve been. Although we know the end of the maze holds death (and it is something I have not always known—not long ago the adolescent in me thought death could happen only to other people), I see now that the path I choose through that maze makes me what I am. I am not only a thing, but also a way of being—one of many ways—and knowing the paths I have followed and the ones left to take will help me understand what I am becoming. ~ Daniel Keyes,
394:experiences, though forgotten, could never be erased. Their series was the story of my life, their starry light the undying value of my being. My life had become weariness. It had wandered in a maze of unhappiness that led to renunciation and nothingness; it was bitter with the salt of all human things; yet it had laid up riches, riches to be proud of. It had been for all its wretchedness a princely life. Let the little way to death be as it might, the kernel of this life of mine was noble. It had purpose and character and turned not on trifles, but on the stars. Time has passed and much ~ Hermann Hesse,
395:It has become cliche to talk about faith as a journey, and yet the metaphor holds. Scripture doesn't speak of people who found God. Scripture speaks of people who walked with God. This is a keep-moving, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, who-knows-what's-next deal, and you never exactly arrive. I don't know if the path's all drawn out ahead of time, or if it corkscrews with each step like Alice's Wonderland, or if, as some like to say, we make the road by walking, but I believe the journey is more labyrinth than maze. No step taken in faith is wasted, not by a God who makes all things new. ~ Rachel Held Evans,
396:what did you think you were doing, then, when you went up through one door and down through another, turning this way and that, through the pages of a book and a deep mine and an entire ocean and the hideout of a wise old woman? My dear, labyrinths ensnare and entangle; they draw one inexorably inward-but it wouldn't be much of a labyrinth if you waited in line with a ticket to get it and the door was clearly marked, like some country-harvest hay maze. All underworlds are labyrinths, in the end. Perhaps all the sunlit lands, too. A labyrinth, when it is big enough, is just the world. ~ Catherynne M Valente,
397:I’ve always had the ability to memorize complicated things and remember them. I mastered the Rubik’s Cube by reading a book on it and memorizing the patterns and methods of aligning the colors quickly. I entered a contest at Magic Mountain theme park with a hundred other kids. I did it in 60 seconds, but the kid who won did it in 23. Same for the video games I played. I read a book on how to master Pac-Man. The book had drawings of the patterns he could take in the maze. There were dozens of boards to memorize, but once I did, I could play the game for hours on a single quarter at Chuck E. Cheese. ~ Kirk Cameron,
398:PAVLOVIA (BEGUINE)   It was spring in Pavlovia-a-a, I was lost, in a maze . . . Lysol breezes perfumed the air, I’d been searching for days. I found you, in a cul-de-sac, As bewildered as I— We touched noses, and suddenly My heart learned how to fly!   So, together, we found our way, Shared a pellet, or two . . . Like an evening in some café, Wanting nothing, but you . . . Autumn’s come, to Pavlovia-a-a, Once again, I’m alone— Finding sorrow by millivolts, Back to neurons and bone. And I think of our moments then, Never knowing your name— Nothing’s left in Pavlovia, But the maze, and the game. . . . ~ Thomas Pynchon,
399:They walked on in silence, unsure about what had happened and what would happen next. Two more turnings brought them once again to the exit of the maze, and back to the party. Emma was about to open the heavy oak door when he took her hand.
‘Em?’
‘Dex?’
He wanted to take hold of her hand and walk back into the maze. He would turn his phone off, and they would just stay in there until the party was over, get lost and talk about all that had happened.
‘Friends again?’ he said eventually.
‘Friends again.’ She let go of his hand. ‘Now, let’s go and find your fiancée. I want to congratulate her. ~ David Nicholls,
400:All children, as long as they still live in the mystery, are continuously occupied in their souls with the only thing that is important, which is themselves and their enigmatic relationship to the world around them. Seekers and wise people return to these preoccupations as they mature. Most people, however, forget and leave forever this inner world of the truly significant very early in their lives. Like lost souls they wander about for their entire lives in the multicoloured maze of worries, wishes, and goals, none of which dwells in their innermost being and none of which leads them to their innermost core ~ Hermann Hesse,
401:But these things now belonged to the past, and he was flying toward the future. As they banked, Dr. Floyd could see below him a maze of buildings, then a great airstrip, then a broad, dead-straight scar across the flat Florida landscape—the multiple rails of a giant launching track. At its end, surrounded by vehicles and gantries, a spaceplane lay gleaming in a pool of light, being prepared for its leap to the stars. In a sudden failure of perspective, brought on by his swift changes of speed and height, it seemed to Floyd that he was looking down on a small silver moth, caught in the beam of a flashlight. ~ Arthur C Clarke,
402:Night In The City
The sluggish clouds hang low upon the town,
And from yon lamp in chilled and sodden rays
The feeble light gropes through the heavy mist
And dies, extinguished in the stagnant maze.
From moisty eaves the drops fall slowly down
To strike with leaden sound the walk below,
And in dark, murky pools upon the street
The water stands, as lacking life to flow.
With hopeless brain, oppressed and sad at heart,
Toil's careworn slave turns out his flickering light
And treads in dreams his dulling round again,
Where weary day succeeds to dismal night.
~ Ellis Parker Butler,
403:All children, as long as they still live in the mystery, are continuously occupied in their souls with the only thing that is important, which is themselves and their enigmatic relationship with the world around them. Seekers and wise people return to these preoccupations as they mature. Most people, however, forget and leave forever this inner world of the truly significant very early in their lives. Like lost souls they wander about for their entire lives in the multicolored maze of worries, wishes, and goals, none of which dwells in their innermost being and none of which leads them to their innermost core and home. ~ Hermann Hesse,
404:Each of us, in our own personal Factory, may believe we have stumbled down one corridor, and that our fate is sealed and certain (dream or nightmare, humdrum or bizarre, good or bad), but a word, a glance, a slip - anything can change that, alter it entirely, and our marble hall becomes a gutter, or our rat-maze a golden path. Our
destination is the same in the end, but our journey - part chosen, part determined- is
different for us all, and changes even as we live and grow. I thought one door had snicked shut behind me years ago; in fact I was still crawling about the face. Now the door closes, and my journey begins. ~ Iain Banks,
405:Martin shampooed his hair and wished his life was more like a movie. Everything in a movie completed. Relationships began, they developed and they ended or went on happily forever. All in less than two hours. Life, though was not like a movie, it was ragged, an outdated map with new streets added whose direction you could never quite discern, or a maze filled with suddenly appearing walls and aimless corridors. Even when a movie didn’t have a happy ending, it had a logical ending that you could live with. Life had endings that you didn’t know were endings, or endings that you thought were endings and then they weren’t. ~ Marshall Thornton,
406:Corus lay on the southern bank of the Oloron River, towers glinting in the sun. The homes of wealthy men lined the river to the north; tanners, smiths, wainwrights, carpenters, and the poor clustered on the bank to the south. The city was a richly colored tapestry: the Great Gate on Kings-bridge, the maze of the Lower City, the marketplace, the tall houses in the Merchants' and the Gentry's quarters, the gardens of the Temple district, the palace. This last was the city's crown and southern border. Beyond it, the royal forest stretched for leagues. It was not as lovely as Berat nor as colorful as Udayapur, but it was Alanna's place. ~ Tamora Pierce,
407:The Coin Behind Your Ear
Before you knew you owned it
it was gone, stolen, and you were a fool.
How you never felt it is the wonder,
heavy and thick,
lodged deep in your hair like a burr.
You still see the smile of the magician
as he turned the coin in his long fingers,
which had so disturbed your ear
with their caress. You watched him
lift it into the light, bright as frost,
and slip it into his maze of pockets.
You felt vainly behind your ear
but there was no second coin,
nothing to tempt him back.
No one cared to know why he did it,
only how.
Submitted by Venus
~ Connie Wanek,
408:But the same day, as I was in the midst of a game of Cat, and having struck it one blow from the hole, just as I was about to strike it the second time, a voice did suddenly dart from heaven into my soul, which said, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell?  At this I was put to an exceeding maze; wherefore leaving my cat upon the ground, I looked up to heaven, and was, as if I had, with the eyes of my understanding, seen the Lord Jesus looking down upon me, as being very hotly displeased with me, and as if He did severely threaten me with some grievous punishment for these and other ungodly practices. ~ John Bunyan,
409:The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here. ~ Wendell Berry,
410:Every time a seismic shift takes place in our economy, there are people who feel the vibrations long before the rest of us do, vibrations so strong they demand action—action that can seem rash, even stupid. Ferry owner Cornelius Vanderbilt jumped ship when he saw the railroads coming. Thomas Watson Jr., overwhelmed by his sense that computers would be everywhere even when they were nowhere, bet his father’s office-machine company on it: IBM. Jeffrey Preston Bezos had that same experience when he first peered into the maze of connected computers called the World Wide Web and realized that the future of retailing was glowing back at him. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk,
411:A conversation between a person of my age and one of hers is like a map of a maze: There are things that each of us knows, and that each of us knows the other knows, that can be talked about. But there are things that each of us knows that the other doesn't know we know, which must not be spoken of, no matter what. Because of our ages, and for reasons of decency, there are what Daffy would refer to as taboos: forbidden topics which we may stroll among like islands of horse dung in the road that, although perfectly evident to both of us, must not be mentioned or kicked at any cost.

It's a strange world when you come right down to it. ~ Alan Bradley,
412:Eliza had split each day between her two favorite places on the estate: the black rock down in the cove, on top of which millennia of tides had washed smooth a seat-sized platform; and the hidden garden, her garden, at the end of the maze. What a delight it was to have a place of one's own, an entire garden in which to Be. Sometimes Eliza liked to sit on the iron seat, perfectly still, and just listen. To the windblown leaves tapping against the walls, the muffled ocean breathing in and out, and the birds singing their stories. Sometimes, if she sat still enough, she almost fancied she could hear the flowers sighing in gratitude to the sun. ~ Kate Morton,
413:Overall, it seems now possible to draw a reasonably good explanation of why the human condition is a singularity, why the likes of it has occurred only once and took so long in coming. The reason is simply the extreme improbability of the preadaptations necessary for it to occur at all. Each of the evolutionary steps has been a full-blown adaptation in its own right. Each has required a particular sequence of one or more preadaptations that occurred previously. Homo sapiens is the only species of large mammal – thus large enough to evolve a human-sized brain – to have made every one of the required lucky turns in the evolutionary maze. (45) ~ Edward O Wilson,
414:The Magic Flower
THROUGH many days and many days
The seed of love lay hidden close;
We walked the dusty tiresome ways
Where never a leaf or blossom grows.
And in the darkness, all the while,
The little seed its heart uncurled,
And we by many a weary mile
Travelled towards it, round the world.
To the hid centre of the maze
At last we came, and there we found-O happy day, O day of days!
--Twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground.
We dropped life's joys, a garnered sheaf,
And spell-bound watched, still hour by hour,
Magic on magic, leaf by leaf,
The unfolding of our love's white flower.
~ Edith Nesbit,
415:A maze is a puzzle to be solved, with twists and turns and dead ends. It requires logical, analytical thinking and usually has a different way out than the way in. The maze could be a metaphor of struggling through life, going one way and then another until the exit takes your by surprise.

A maze signifies entrapment, while the labyrinth, with its unicursal path leading into the center and out again the same way, provides enlightenment. It's the process, the journey into your deepest self, your soul, the part where God abides. It's a passive path, a surrender even, to an order and design repeated through creation. A sacred geometry. ~ Kristen Heitzmann,
416:Tree
It takes a certain cussedness
to be a tree in this city,
a certain inflexible woodenness
to dig in your heels
and hold your own
amid lamp-posts sleek as mannequins
and buildings that hold sun and glass together
with more will-power than cement,
to continue that dated ritual,
re-issuing a tireless
maze of phalange and webbing,
perpetuating that third world profusion
of outstretched hand,
each with its blaze of finger
and more finger so many ways of tasting neon,
so many ways of latticing a wind,
so many ways of being ancillary to the self
without resenting it.
~ Arundhathi Subramaniam,
417:I watched her cry. There had been silent tears and ones that barely leaked out. There were tears that heaved from her in great sobs. They all slipped through my fingers when I tried to catch them, and they fell around her in oceans.
I watched her carve her mistakes in stone, and they arranged themselves around her. They became a maze with walls that reached the sky. Because she learned from so few of them, she was lost. Because she didn't have faith in anything, she didn't try to find a way out.
I watched her try to face her fears alone, too proud to ask for help, too stubborn to admit she was afraid, too small to fight them, too tired to fly away. ~ Amy Zhang,
418:Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.

And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly.

Does that thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?

We live for such miracles. ~ Ken Liu,
419:She stood still a moment, watching him, and he had no idea at all what she was thinking. Finally she laughed quietly, gesturing with her free hand at the marble figure. “It’s a minotaur. I suppose that’s appropriate.” He looked at the figure, all horns and massive shoulders. “The monster in the maze?” “Yes.” She turned in the dark to face him, and all he could see was the limned starlight on her cheek, the glimmer of the reflected moon in her eyes. “Indio thought you were a monster at first. Did I ever tell you?” He shook his head slowly. “Am I still a monster to you?” “No.” She reached up to trace his eyebrow. “You’re not… that. You never were, really. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,
420:Eating Out Alone"

The loneliness inside me is a place,
Harvard where no one might always be someone.
When we're alone people we run from change
to the mysterious and beautiful--
I am eating alone at a small white table,
visible, ignored...the moment that tries the soul,
an explorer going blind in polar whiteness.
Yet everyone who is seated is a lay,,
or Paul Claudel, at the next table declaiming:
"L'Academie Groton, eh, c'est une ecole des cochons."
He soars from murdered English to killing French,
no word unheard, no sentence understood--
a vocabulary to mortify Racine...
the minotaur steaming in a maze of eloquence ~ Robert Lowell,
421:My Dolphin, you only guide me by surprise,
a captive as Racine, the man of craft,
drawn through his maze of iron composition
by the incomparable wandering voice of Phèdre.
When I was troubled in mind, you made for my body
caught in its hangman's-knot of sinking lines,
the glassy bowing and scraping of my will. . . .
I have sat and listened to too many
words of the collaborating muse,
and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,
not avoiding injury to others,
not avoiding injury to myself--
to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction,
an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting

my eyes have seen what my hand did. ~ Robert Lowell,
422:Maze also recalled how the sight of the Germans had an immediate effect on the villagers. ‘Women started to wail, and rushed for home, followed by the men, while the children, torn by curiosity, lagged behind turning to see.’ Then the Germans came nearer and firing broke out. ‘At once the atmosphere changed—in a few seconds all these civilians were fleeing along the roads while the invasion, creeping up like a tide, steadily gained ground. In their Sunday clothes, carrying in their hands their feathered hats which they had not stopped to put on, they wheeled perambulators, wheelbarrows, bicycles and anything on wheels, and fled with their babies and terrified men. ~ Martin Gilbert,
423:J.F.B.
How well this man unfolded to our view
The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and Hell
This man whose own convictions none could tell,
Nor if his maze of reason had a clew.
Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew
The fair philosophies of doubt so well
That while we listened to his words there fell
Some that were strangely comforting, though true.
Marking how wise we grew upon his doubt,
We said: 'If so, by groping in the night,
He can proclaim some certain paths of trust,
How great our profit if he saw about
His feet the highways leading to the light.'
Now he sees all. Ah, Christ! his mouth is dust!
~ Ambrose Bierce,
424:FRESH GRIEF FEELS LIKE THIS: Your mind is a maze and every pathway leads to a bricked-up wall, the one where you can see the real world just on the other side, but you can’t reach it. It’s a feeling like someone’s scooped out your insides with a spoon and all that’s left is a shell that walks like you and talks like you, but your body and soul have parted ways for a time. Your senses don’t fire and you can’t connect with another human being because to string all that grief together like a strand of paper dolls would create something as powerful as an atom bomb—you’d implode. So you’re all alone. And, for a short while, at least until it sinks in, you can fake anything. ~ Vikki Wakefield,
425:Sonnet V
A tide of beauty with returning May
Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume
Odors endeared; down avenues in bloom
The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay.
Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe;
The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound;
And through the streets, like veins when they abound,
The lust for pleasure throbs itself away.
Here let me live, here let me still pursue
Phantoms of bliss that beckon and recede, -Thy strange allurements, City that I love,
Maze of romance, where I have followed too
The dream Youth treasures of its dearest need
And stars beyond thy towers bring tidings of.
~ Alan Seeger,
426:The soles of Cynthia Sawyer's shoes squeaked on the damp flagstone walkway that meandered through Hawthorne Manor's formal gardens. Hazy rays of sun kissed the sprint morning dew, glistening on the early-blooming flowers and foliage soon to blossom into a Southern Living-worthy wonderland. Perfect for tiny Maple Creek, Maryland's annual garden party - the most exciting event of the season, especially for the quirky retirees. Last year, crazy old Mrs. Osworth got lost in the winding boxwood maze and called 911 to get "one of those strong young firemen" to come rescue her. She'd said she felt faint, and claimed she'd need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation the moment they showed up. ~ Tracy March,
427:To Rosamund
AND it is fair and very fair
This maze of blossom and sweet air,
This drift of orchard snows,
This royal promise of the rose
Wherein your young eyes see
Such buds of scented joys to be.
A gay green garden, softly fanned
By the blythe breeze that blows
To speed your ship of dreams to the enchanted land.
But I--beyond the budding screen
Of green and red and white and green,
Behind the radiant show
Of things that cling and grow and glow
I see the plains where lie
The hopes of days gone by:
Gray breadths of melancholy, crossed
By winds that coldly blow
From that cold sea wherein my argosy is lost.
~ Edith Nesbit,
428:You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,” I remembered. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise. We raised a lot of the dead. We saved Ethan Nakamura, who turned out to be a traitor. We raised the spirit of Pan, the lost one.” Annabeth shook her head like she wanted me to stop. “You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” I pressed on. “That wasn’t Minos, like I’d thought. It was Nico. By choosing to be on our side, he saved us. And the child of Athena’s final stand—that was Daedalus.” “Percy—” “Destroy with a hero’s final breath. That makes sense now. Daedalus died to destroy the Labyrinth. But what was the last—” “And lose a love to worse than death.” Annabeth ~ Rick Riordan,
429:The alternative, should you, or any writer of English, choose to employ it (and who is to stop you?) is, by use of subordinate clause upon subordinate clause, which itself may be subordinated to those clauses that have gone before or after, to construct a sentence of such labyrinthine grammatical complexity that, like Theseus before you when he searched the dark Minoan mazes for that monstrous monster, half bull and half man, or rather half woman for it had been conceived from, or in, Pasiphae, herself within a Daedalian contraption of perverted invention, you must unravel a ball of grammatical yarn lest you wander for ever, amazed in the maze, searching through dark eternity for a full stop. ~ Mark Forsyth,
430:The solid lines will be new plantings. The maze will be the centerpiece of the new garden. The pond on one side, the theater on another, so that from the theater one will look across the maze to the pond. There may be viewing places in the theater itself so that visitors may see the maze and those within it. It will be— The pencil finally broke through the paper at this point. He balled his fist, frustrated, the words bottled up inside him. Slim fingers covered his fist, cool and comforting. He looked up. “Beautiful,” she said. “It will be beautiful.” His breath seemed to stop in his lungs. Her eyes were so big, so earnest, so completely captivated by his trifling drawings, his esoteric work. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,
431:That was on the pillar stone on Ynys Bainail," I said, indicating the carving. "What does it mean?"
"It is Mor Cylch, the maze of life," Tegid told me. "It is trodden with just enough light to see the next step or two ahead, but not more. At each turn the soul must decide whether to journey on or whether to go back the way it came."
"What if the soul does not journey on? What if it chooses to go back the way it came?"
"Stagnation and death," replied Tegid with mild vehemence. He seemed irritated that anyone would consider retreating.
"And if the soul travels on?"
"It draws nearer its destination," the bard answered. "The ultimate destination of all souls is the Heart of the Heart. ~ Stephen R Lawhead,
432:Knowledge is awareness, and to it there are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt in the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit.
To receive the message, the mental pores must be open. And we white men in striving for our success, in seeking to build a new world from what lies around us, sometimes forget that there are other ways, sometimes forget the Lonesome Gods of the far places, the gods who live on the empty sea, who dance with the dust devils and who wait quietly in the shadows under the cliffs where ancient men once marked their passing with hands. ~ Louis L Amour,
433:Sonnet Lxv: Known In Vain
As two whose love, first foolish, widening scope,
Knows suddenly, to music high and soft,
The Holy of holies; who because they scoff'd
Are now amazed with shame, nor dare to cope
With the whole truth aloud, lest heaven should ope;
Yet, at their meetings, laugh not as they laugh'd
In speech; nor speak, at length; but sitting oft
Together, within hopeless sight of hope
For hours are silent:—So it happeneth
When Work and Will awake too late, to gaze
After their life sailed by, and hold their breath.
Ah! who shall dare to search through what sad maze
Thenceforth their incommunicable ways
Follow the desultory feet of Death?
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
434:Content Written Off Ithaca
I could not find the little maid Content,
So out I rushed, and sought her far and wide;
But not where Pleasure each new fancy tried,
Heading the maze of reeling merriment,
Nor where, with restless eyes and bow half bent,
Love in a brake of sweetbrier smiled and sighed,
Nor yet where Fame towered crowned and glorified,
Found I her face, nor wheresoe'er I went.
So homeward back I crawled like wounded bird,
When lo! Content sate spinning at my door:
And when I asked her where she was before``Here all the time,'' she said; ``I never stirred;
Too eager in your search, you passed me o'er,
And, though I called, you neither saw nor heard.''
~ Alfred Austin,
435:She'd first seen Covent Garden after a heavy snow, walking with her hand in Win's, and she remembers the secret silence of London then, the amazing hush of it, slush crunching beneath her feet and the sound made by trapezoidal sections of melting snow falling from wires overhead. Win had told her that she was seeing London as it had looked long ago, the cars mostly put away and the modern bits shrouded in white, allowing the outlines of something older to emerge. And what she had seen, that childhood day, was that it was not a place that consisted of buildings, side by side, as she thought of cities in America, but a literal and continuous maze, a single living structure (because still it grew) of brick and stone. ~ William Gibson,
436:The only way that Jason can claim his rightful place as ruler of Iolcus, Greece, is by retrieving the fabled Golden Fleece from distant lands. The problem? Everyone considers the task impossible, fraught with terrifying perils certain to kill any man. Jason isn’t so sure. He assembles a mighty team of warriors—the Argonauts—and builds the largest ship ever constructed. He then figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed oxen, trick a mighty army guarding the Fleece into ravaging itself to pieces, and drug a sleepless dragon into its first slumber. Four months after departing, Jason returns with the Fleece to take his throne. ~ Sean Patrick,
437:A writer's will is the winds of dead calm in the Western Lands. Point way out he can start stirring of the sail. Writer, where are you going? To write. Here we are in texts already written on the sky. Where he doesn't need to write anymore. A slight seismic with the cat book. Always remember, the work is the mainsail to reach the Western Lands. The texts sing. Everything is grass and bushes, a desert or a maze of texts. Here you are ... never use the same door twice. Sky in all directions ... on the word for word. The word for word is word. The western sail stirs candles on 1920 country club table. Each page is a door to everything is permitted. The fragile lifeboat between this and that. Your words are the sails. ~ William S Burroughs,
438:Okay, just so we're clear," Piper said, "I'll show you where Jason and I entered the maze, but I'm not doing the stereotypical Native American tracker thing. I don't know tracking. I'm not your guide."
We all readily agreed, as one does when delivered an ultimatum by a friend with strong opinions and poison darts.
"Also," she continued, "if any of you find the need for spiritual guidance on this quest, I am not here to provide that service. I'm not going to dispense bits of ancient Cherokee wisdom."
"Very well," I aid. "Though as a former prophecy god, I enjoy bits of spiritual wisdom."
"Then you'll have to ask the satyr," Piper said.
Grover cleared his throat. "Um, recycling is good karma?"
"There you go," Piper said. ~ Rick Riordan,
439:Neuroscience may one day resolve how planning takes place. The first hints are coming from the hippocampus, which has long been known to be vital both for memory and for future orientation. The devastating effects of Alzheimer’s typically begin with degeneration of this part of the brain. As with all major brain areas, however, the human hippocampus is far from unique. Rats have a similar structure, which has been intensely studied. After a maze task, these rodents keep replaying their experiences in this brain region, either during sleep or sitting still while awake. Using brain waves to detect what kind of maze paths the rats are rehearsing in their heads, scientists found that more is going on than a consolidation of past experiences. ~ Frans de Waal,
440:In 1948, while working for Bell Telephone Laboratories, he published a paper in the Bell System Technical Journal entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" that not only introduced the word bit in print but established a field of study today known as information theory. Information theory is concerned with transmitting digital information in the presence of noise (which usually prevents all the information from getting through) and how to compensate for that. In 1949, he wrote the first article about programming a computer to play chess, and in 1952 he designed a mechanical mouse controlled by relays that could learn its way around a maze. Shannon was also well known at Bell Labs for riding a unicycle and juggling simultaneously. ~ Charles Petzold,
441:With a sigh, he grabbed hold of his chair and lifted himself out of it, then wrote on the blackboard: How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering? - A.Y.
'I'm going to leave that up for the rest of the semester,' he said.
'Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I don't want us to forget Alaska, and I don't want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we're trying to understand how people have answered that question and the questions each of you posed in your papers--how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called 'people's rotten lots in life. ~ John Green,
442:Oh, you knew that your deed would be preserved in books, would reach tghe depths of the ages and the utmost limits of the earth, and you hoped that, following you, man, too, would remain with God, having no need of miracles. But you did not know that as soon as man rejects miracles, he will at once reject God as well, for man seeks not so much God as miracles. And since man cannot bear to be left without miracles, he will go and create new miracles for himself... Oh, there will be centuries of free reason, of their science and anthropophagy... Freedom, free reason, and science willl lead them into such a maze, and confront them with such miracles and insoluble mysteries, that some of them, unruly and ferocious, will exterminate themselves. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
443:That was impressive," Ash said quietly as we walked through the maze of tents. Summer fey parted for us, scurrying out of sight as we headed deeper into camp. "Oberon was throwing all the mind-altering glamour he could at you, trying to get you to agree to his terms quickly and not question him. Not only did you resist, you turned the contract to your advantage. Not many could have done that."
"Really?" I thought back to the thick, sluggish feeling in the Erlking's tent. "So that was Oberon trying to manipulate me again, huh? Maybe I could resist since I'm family. Half Oberon's blood and all that."
"Or you're just incredibly stubborn," Ash added, and I smacked his arm. He chuckled, taking my hand and we continued on to the Winter's territory. ~ Julie Kagawa,
444:The criers of the Mysteries speak again, bidding all men welcome to the House of Light. The great institution of materiality has failed. The false civilization built by man has turned, and like the monster of Frankenstein, is destroying its creator. Religion wanders aimlessly in the maze of theological speculation. Science batters itself impotently against the barriers of the unknown. Only transcendental philosophy knows the path. Only the illumined reason can carry the understanding part of man upward to the light. Only philosophy can teach man to be born well, to live well, to die well, and in perfect measure be born again. Into this band of the elect--those who have chosen the life of knowledge, of virtue, and of utility--the philosophers of the ages invite YOU. ~ Manly P Hall,
445:The Father of Winter says tells Ista,
"...For my great-souled child is very late, and lost upon his road. My calling voice cannot reach him. He cannot see the light in my window, for he is sundered from me, blind and deaf and stumbling, with none to take his hand and guide him. Yet you may touch him, in his darkness. And I may touch you, in yours. Then take you this thread to draw him through the maze, where I cannot go."

Later, Ista delivers the message,

"Your Father calls you to His Court. You need not pack; you go garbed in glory as you stand. He waits eagerly by His palace doors to welcome you, and has prepared a place at His high table by His side, in the company of the great-souled, honored, and best-beloved. In this I speak true. Bend your head. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,
446:Jaenelle tried to smile. “They won’t find their way through the maze. Not this maze, anyway.” Then she looked sadly at Daemon’s gaunt, bruised body and gently brushed the long, dirty, tangled black hair off his forehead. “Ah, Daemon. I had gotten used to thinking of my body as a weapon that was used against me. I’d forgotten that it’s also a gift. If it’s not too late, I’ll do better. I promise.” Jaenelle placed her transparent hands on either side of Daemon’s head. She closed her eyes. The Black Jewel glowed. Listening to the Hayllian guards thrashing around somewhere in the maze, Surreal sank to the ground and settled down to wait. *Daemon.* The island slowly sank into the sea of blood. He curled up in the center of the pulpy ground while the word sharks circled, waiting for him. *Daemon. ~ Anne Bishop,
447:[W]hen food is placed at the start and end points of the maze, the slime mold withdraws from the dead-end corridors and shrinks its body to a tube spanning the shortest path between food sources. The single-celled slime solves the maze in this way each time it is tested.”23 Toshiyuki Nakagaki, the researcher conducting the study, commented that Even for humans it is not easy to solve a maze. But the plasmodium of true slime mold, an amoeba-like organism, has shown an amazing ability to do so. This implies that an algorithm and a high computing capacity are included in the unicellular organism.24 This capacity for mathematical differentiation and computation is wide spread. All self-organized biological systems possess it. One of the more amazing examples is the Clark’s Nutcracker. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner,
448:After we had turned from the Muski into the narrower ways of the bazaar, the starlight was cut off by the houses looming high on either hand, and the farther we penetrated into the heart of the maze, the darker it became. The protruding balconies with their latticed wooden shutters jutted into the street, almost meeting overhead. Occasionally a lighted window spilled a golden glimmer onto the pathway, but most of the windows were dark. Parallel slits of light marked closed shutters. The darkness teemed with foul movement; rats glided behind heaps of refuse; lean, vicious stray dogs slunk into even narrower passageways as we approached. The rank stench of rotting fruit, human waste and infected air filled the tunnel-like street like a palpable liquid, clogging the nostrils and the lungs. ~ Elizabeth Peters,
449:Making decisions is exhausting. Anyone who has ever configured a laptop online or researched a long trip – flight, hotels, activities, restaurants, weather – knows this well: after all the comparing, considering and choosing, you are exhausted. Science calls this decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is perilous: as a consumer, you become more susceptible to advertising messages and impulse buys. As a decision-maker, you are more prone to erotic seduction. Willpower is like a battery. After a while it runs out and needs to be recharged. How do you do this? By taking a break, relaxing and eating something. Willpower plummets to zero if your blood sugar falls too low. IKEA knows this only too well. On the trek through its maze-like display areas and towering warehouse shelves, decision fatigue sets in. ~ Rolf Dobelli,
450:Think of music as being a great snarl of a city [...]. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning an clever.
Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free. ~ Patrick Rothfuss,
451:Cxv: Spring
Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drowned in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail,
On winding stream or distant sea;
Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives
From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too: and my regret
Become an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
452:To understand the world at all, sometimes you could only focus on a tiny bit of it, look very hard at what was close to hand and make it stand in for the whole; but ever since the painting had vanished from under me I’d felt drowned and extinguished by vastness—not just the predictable vastness of time, and space, but the impassable distances between people even when they were within arm’s reach of each other, and with a swell of vertigo I thought of all the places I’d been and all the places I hadn’t, a world lost and vast and unknowable, dingy maze of cities and alleyways, far-drifting ash and hostile immensities, connections missed, things lost and never found, and my painting swept away on that powerful current and drifting out there somewhere: a tiny fragment of spirit, faint spark bobbing on a dark sea. ~ Donna Tartt,
453:Come on, buddy. The maze is fun." I tug at the leash. "I did unholy things to your future mom there more times than I can count."

"Jesse!" I call out to her, which prompts her breathless giggles, the ones that float straight to my dick. I know where to find her. In the center of the snowflake. "Stay where you are. I'm coming to get you."

I'm praying the Labrador puppy behind me won't bark and shit all over my surprise. Especially literally.

"Are you panting?" She laughs harder, and I shoot the pup a you're-making-me-look-bad frown, trying hard not to crack up. Dude is killing my swag. For a cute thing, he sure sounds like a chain-smoking swine.

"Yeah." I crack my gum. "Gotta work on my cardio. I could use some help."

"You're getting help twice a day, sometimes three on weekends. ~ L J Shen,
454:In Sanctuary
THE young Spring air was strong like wine,
The sky reflected in your eyes
Was of a blue as deep-divine
As ever glowed in southern skies.
We passed from out the sunny lane
Into the green wood's shadowing;
And, sudden, all Love's words seemed vain
In that calm temple of the Spring.
Our god hears fair and tuneful words,
And splendid flowers his altars bear;
With choric song of leaves and birds,
Another god was worshipped there.
Silent, we passed the woodland, through
The coloured maze that Springtime weaves-The light leaves dancing to the blue,
The sunlight dancing to the leaves;
I could not speak. I touched your hand
At the green arch that ends the wood:
'Ah--if she should not understand!'
Ah--if you had not understood!
~ Edith Nesbit,
455:Spring Mcmxl
London Bridge is falling down, Rome's burnt and Babylon
The Great is now but dust; yet still Spring must
Swing back through Time's continual arc to earth.
Though every land become as a black field
Dunged with the dead, drenched by the dying's blood,
Still must a punctual goddess waken and ascend
The rocky stairs, up into earth's chilled air,
And pass upon her mission through those carrion ranks,
Picking her way among a maze of broken brick
To quicken with her footsteps the short sooty grass between;
While now once more their futile matchwood empires flare and blaze
And through the smoke men gaze with bloodshot eyes
At the translucent apparition, clad in trembling nascent green
Of one they still can recognize, though scarcely understand.
~ David Gascoyne,
456:Would anyone test the memory of human children by throwing them into a swimming pool to see if they remember where to get out? Yet the Morris Water Maze is a standard memory test used every day in hundreds of laboratories that make rats frantically swim in a water tank with high walls until they come upon a submerged platform that saves them. In subsequent trials, the rats need to remember the platform’s location. There is also the Columbia Obstruction Method, in which animals have to cross an electrified grid after varying periods of deprivation, so researchers can see if their drive to reach food or a mate (or for mother rats, their pups) exceeds the fear of a painful shock. Stress is, in fact, a major testing tool. Many labs keep their animals at 85 percent of typical body weight to ensure food motivation. ~ Frans de Waal,
457:Man cuts out for himself a manageable world: he throws himself into action uncritically, unthinkingly. He accepts the cultural programming that turns his nose where he is supposed to look; he doesn’t bite the world off in one piece as a giant would, but in small manageable pieces, as a beaver does. He uses all kinds of techniques, which we call the “character defenses”: he learns not to expose himself, not to stand out; he learns to embed himself in other-power, both of concrete persons and of things and cultural commands; the result is that he comes to exist in the imagined infallibility of the world around him. He doesn’t have to have fears when his feet are solidly mired and his life mapped out in a ready-made maze. All he has to do is to plunge ahead in a compulsive style of drivenness in the “ways of the world. ~ Ernest Becker,
458:The best laid schemes o’ mice and men often go astray.   Robert Burns 1759 -1796         “Life is no straight and easy corridor along which we travel free and unhampered, but a maze of passages, through which we must seek our way, lost and confused, now and again checked in a blind alley.   But always, if we have faith, a door will open for us, not perhaps one that we ourselves would ever have thought of, but one that will ultimately prove good for us.”   A.J. Cronin Parts of All of Us The Simple and The Complex   The four imaginary characters depicted in this story— the mice: “Sniff” and “Scurry,” and the Littlepeople: “Hem” and “Haw”— are intended to represent the simple and the complex parts of ourselves, regardless of our age, gender, race or nationality.   Sometimes we may act like Sniff Who sniffs out change ~ Spencer Johnson,
459:I don’t know where to start. How to start. It’s like trying to navigate a maze in the dark, and . . .” Then the cat sprawled weightily over her feet. And that was it, the start. “I miss home. Roarke had you bring the cat, because the cat’s home. I never had anything, didn’t want anything until that cat. I don’t even know why I took him, exactly, but I made him mine.”
She took a long, slow drink of wine. “I missed him. I miss Peabody and her smart mouth and steady ways. I miss Feeney and Mavis and my bullpen. Hell, it’s so bad I even miss Summerset.”
When Roarke made some sound, she turned narrowed eyes on him. “If you ever tell him I said that, I’ll shave you bald in your sleep, dress you in frilly pink panties, and take a vid that I’ll auction and sell for huge amounts of money.”
“So noted,” he said, and thought: There’s Eve. There she is. ~ J D Robb,
460:I have, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it may be difficult for anyone to find his path through what may be a sort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a country cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the wind and amidst the noises of the distant sea the story as it comes. And, when one discusses an affair - a long, sad affair - one goes back, one goes forward. One remembers points that one has forgotten and one explains them all the more minutely since one recognizes that one has forgotten to mention them in their proper places and that one may have given, by omitting them, a false impression. I console myself with thinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories are probably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them. They will then seem most real. ~ Ford Madox Ford,
461:As is jalapeño—though according to psychologist Paul Rozin, Mexican dogs, unlike American dogs, enjoy a little heat. Rozin’s work suggests animals have cultural food preferences too. Rozin was not the first academic to feed ethnic cuisine to research animals. In “The Effect of a Native Mexican Diet on Learning and Reasoning in White Rats,” subjects were served chili con carne, boiled pinto beans, and black coffee. Their scores at maze-solving remained high, possibly because of an added impetus to find their way to a bathroom. In 1926, the Indian Research Fund Association compared rats who lived on chapatis and vegetables with rats fed a Western diet of tinned meat, white bread, jam, and tea. So repellent was the Western fare that the latter group preferred to eat their cage mates, three of them so completely that “little or nothing remained for post-mortem examination. ~ Mary Roach,
462:It was under English trees that I meditated on that lost labyrinth: I pictured it perfect and inviolate on the secret summit of a mountain; I pictured its outlines blurred by rice paddies, or underwater; I pictured it as infinite—a labyrinth not of octagonal pavillions and paths that turn back upon themselves, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms....I imagined a labyrinth of labyrinths, a maze of mazes, a twisting, turning, ever-widening labyrinth that contained both past and future and somehow implied the stars. Absorbed in those illusory imaginings, I forgot that I was a pursued man; I felt myself, for an indefinite while, the abstract perceiver of the world. The vague, living countryside, the moon, the remains of the day did their work in me; so did the gently downward road, which forestalled all possibility of weariness. The evening was near, yet infinite. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,
463:The hill between the manor and forest displayed layers of Lady Croft's prized gardens. Paved pathways wove through a formal Italian garden, rose garden, water garden, lily pond, and a tulip garden built around Roman ruins.
Maggie stood beside a statue of the goddess Hemera and a row of yew bushes that had been neatly pruned into a wall to form the perimeter of the Croft family maze. Walter sat nearby on a picnic blanket as she scanned the hillside above the maze to see if she could find Libby's copper-streaked hair among the immaculate gardens and all the people dressed in their finest for this entree into Ladenbrooke's gardens.
The Croft family opened the front gate to the public once each summer. Hundreds of people from around the Cotswolds came to peruse Lady Croft's magnificent displays- the golden heather, purple dahlias, peach lilies floating on the pond. ~ Melanie Dobson,
464:I have always been tormented by the image of multiplicity of selves. Some days I call it richness, and other days I see it as a disease, a proliferation as dangerous as cancer. My first concept about people around me was that all of them were coordinated into a WHOLE, whereas I was made up of multiple selves, of fragments. I know that I was upset as a child to discover that we had only one life. It seems to me that I wanted to compensate for this by multiplying experience. Or perhaps it always seems like this when you follow all your impulses and they take you in different directions. In any case, when I was happy, always at the beginning of a love, euphoric, I felt I was gifted for living many lives fully. It was only when I was in trouble, lost in a maze, stifled by complications and paradoxes that I was haunted or that I spoke of my "madness," but I meant the madness of the poets. ~ Ana s Nin,
465:IN ONE IMPORTANT WAY, an abusive man works like a magician: His tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is. He draws you into focusing on the turbulent world of his feelings to keep your eyes turned away from the true cause of his abusiveness, which lies in how he thinks. He leads you into a convoluted maze, making your relationship with him a labyrinth of twists and turns. He wants you to puzzle over him, to try to figure him out, as though he were a wonderful but broken machine for which you need only to find and fix the malfunctioning parts to bring it roaring to its full potential. His desire, though he may not admit it even to himself, is that you wrack your brain in this way so that you won’t notice the patterns and logic of his behavior, the consciousness behind the craziness. ~ Lundy Bancroft,
466:One of the two owners, the man who had been sitting in the front room, was stretched out in there asleep, stockinged-toes pointed at the ceiling, one hand backed defensively against his eyes to ward off the light. He'd taken off his vest and shoes, and that strap that wasn't straight enough to be a suspender-strap was dangling now around one of the knobs at the foot of the bed. It ended in a holster, with a black, cross-grained slab of metal protruding from it. Turner couldn't take his eyes off it, while the long seconds that to him were minutes toiled by.

That meant out, that black slab, more surely than any door. He had to have it. More than that, it meant a continuance of out, for so long as he had it. And he wanted out with all the desperate longing of all trapped things, blindly scratching, clawing their way through a maze to the open. To the open where the equal chance is. ~ Cornell Woolrich,
467:The intensity of her religious disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide who would take her along the grandest path. ~ George Eliot,
468:He was walking one wet night through a desolate region of the City. A wagon trundled by, drenching his legs with a fine spray. He turned aside, and a maze of dingy streets opened before him. The sky between the slanting rooftops hung black as a slab of jet. Then a waning moon rode clear of the storm clouds.

He had penetrated an old commercial sector of the City where winding lanes lay lampless, flanked by dilapidated warehouses. Every window was boarded up or shattered; too many doorways opened onto musty darkness. With every turn of the black road the same scene lay revealed: row upon row of grey, sagging eaves; scarred and battered gates; rusting fences; sickle moons in every shallow remnant of the rain. He seemed to be shedding the present with every step, moving backwards through time. It seemed that he was acting out some part prearranged, utterly without will.

"The White Road ~ Ron Weighell,
469:And the bubbles of light again rose and fell, and in their disordered, irregular, turbulent maze, mingled with the wan moonlight. And now from these globules themselves as from the shell of an egg, monstrous things burst out; the air grew filled with them; larvae so bloodless and so hideous that I can in no way describe them except to remind the reader of the swarming life which the solar microscope brings before his eyes in a drop of water - things transparent, supple, agile, chasing each other, devouring each other - forms like nought ever beheld by the naked eye. As the shapes were without symmetry, so their movements were without order. In their very vagrancies there was no sport; they came round me and round, thicker and faster and swifter, swarming over my head, crawling over my right arm, which was outstretched in involuntary command against all evil beings. ("The House And The Brain") ~ Edward Bulwer Lytton,
470:Many calls to adventure are puzzles waiting to be solved. Anyone can apply, but the price of admission is paid in imagination. As journeys unfold, new challenges arise and pressures mount. These successive tolls must too be paid in creativity and ingenuity, as they were by history’s most imaginative minds. The only way that Jason can claim his rightful place as ruler of Iolcus, Greece, is by retrieving the fabled Golden Fleece from distant lands. The problem? Everyone considers the task impossible, fraught with terrifying perils certain to kill any man. Jason isn’t so sure. He assembles a mighty team of warriors—the Argonauts—and builds the largest ship ever constructed. He then figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed oxen, trick a mighty army guarding the Fleece into ravaging itself to pieces, and drug a sleepless ~ Sean Patrick,
471:Kit feels a kink in his heart. His girl is in the shower, soaping her every inch of skin. He cannot see the maze of tubes and cavities inside her body. He cannot know what is pumping right and what is pumping wrong, how each of those slippery organs is tucked against its neighbor and whether something bad is truly blooming there. Whether, even if her body is perfect, a truck will lose its brakes, tumble off the road where Summer is walking. There are storms beginning to twist in the warm oceans to the south, and maybe they will whip this way, tearing the houses like paper. The ferry could sink beneath them; poisoned gases could leak into the air at any time. The melted ice caps are washing toward them. They’re both dying- everyone is. The schedule of death is not made public. Love’s job is to make a safe place. Not to deny that the spiny forest exists, but to live hidden inside it, tunneled into the soft undergrass ~ Ramona Ausubel,
472:Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood. How shall I say   what wood that was! I never saw so drear, so rank, so arduous a wilderness! Its very memory gives a shape to fear.   Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by God’s grace.   How I came to it I cannot rightly say, so drugged and loose with sleep had I become when I first wandered there from the True Way.   But at the far end of that valley of evil whose maze had sapped my very heart with fear! I found myself before a little hill (15)   and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders glowed already with the sweet rays of that planet whose virtue leads men straight on every road,   and the shining strengthened me against the fright whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart through all the terrors of that piteous night. ~ Dante Alighieri,
473:I consider Anarchism the most beautiful and practical philosophy that has yet been thought of in its application to individual expression and the relation it establishes between the individual and society. Moreover, I am certain that Anarchism is too vital and too close to human nature ever to die. It is my conviction that dictatorship, whether to the right or to the left, can never work--that it never has worked, and that time will prove this again, as it has been proved before. When the failure of modern dictatorship and authoritarian philosophies becomes more apparent and the realization of failure more general, Anarchism will be vindicated. Considered from this point, a recrudescence of Anarchist ideas in the near future is very probable. When this occurs and takes effect, I believe that humanity will at last leave the maze in which it is now lost and will start on the path to sane living and regeneration through freedom. ~ Emma Goldman,
474:Let Observation with extensive View,
Survey Mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious Toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy Scenes of crowded Life;
Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate,
O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate,
Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride,
To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide;
As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude,
Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.
How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice,
Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice,
How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd,
When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request.
Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th' afflictive Dart,
Each Gift of Nature, each Grace of Art,
With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows,
With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath,
And restless Fire precipitates on Death. ~ Samuel Johnson,
475:structure, Banks noticed, high cheekbones and a strong jaw, with pale, freckled skin. She sat with her legs curled under her and her hands resting on the arms of the chair. ‘Coffee?’ asked Dr Wong. Chelsea declined the offer, but Banks and Winsome said yes. ‘I’m not fetching it for you myself, you understand,’ Dr Wong said. ‘I wouldn’t stoop that low.’ ‘I don’t care who gets it,’ said Banks, ‘as long as it’s black and strong.’ Dr Wong smiled. ‘I just wanted you to know.’ Then she left the room. Banks smiled at Chelsea, who seemed wary of him. ‘Doctors,’ he said, with a shrug. She nodded, and a hint of a smile flitted at the corners of her lips. ‘I know this is tough for you,’ Banks went on, ‘but I’d like you to tell me in your own words, and in your own time, exactly what happened in the Maze tonight, and my friend Winsome over there will write it down. You can start with why you were there.’ Chelsea glanced at Winsome, then at ~ Peter Robinson,
476:As time went on, Sniff and Scurry continued their routine. They arrived early each morning and sniffed and scratched and scurried around Cheese Station C, inspecting the area to see if there had been any changes from the day before. Then they would sit down to nibble on the cheese. One morning they arrived at Cheese Station C and discovered there was no cheese. They weren’t surprised. Since Sniff and Scurry had noticed the supply of cheese had been getting smaller every day, they were prepared for the inevitable and knew instinctively what to do. They looked at each other, removed the running shoes they had tied together and hung conveniently around their necks, put them on their feet and laced them up. The mice did not overanalyze things. To the mice, the problem and the answer were both simple. The situation at Cheese Station C had changed. So, Sniff and Scurry decided to change. They both looked out into the Maze. Then Sniff ~ Spencer Johnson,
477:Anxiety

I struggle with things that are as easy to others as breathing.

Like breathing. Like answering the phone. Or sending that email I have been meaning to for weeks.

I panic when I am asked out to dinner, even if it’s with someone I really want to see.

It’s hard for me to commit to anything, and when I do, I overthink it until my brain tells me I have made a mistake, like a rat caught in a maze, trying to claw its way out.

I don’t know why I am like this. People ask me why I can’t do anything without jumping through a thousand thoughts, like hoops. But sometimes I wonder if my inability to function in the real world is really such a bad thing. I wonder if that’s why I’ve spent so much time sheltered in my imagination.

And because I can’t live in the real world, I create worlds to belong to. And I wonder if the very thing I’ve always been told is my weakness, has all along, been my strength. ~ Lang Leav,
478:The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible. Had you not seen it all from birth and thereby bled it of its strangeness it would appear to you for what it is, a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning.

The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others. ~ Cormac McCarthy,
479:Come My Love
Come my love take care of me,
I am in great agony.
Ever separated, my dreams are dreary,
Looking for you, my eyes are weary.
All alone I am robbed in a desert,
Waylaid by a bunch of way words.
The Mullah and Qazi show me the way,
Their maze of Dharma that is in sway.
They are the confirmed thieves of time,
they spread their net saintly crime.
Their time-worn norms are seldom right,
With these they chain my feet so toght.
My love cares not for caste or creed,
To the rituals faith I pay no heed.
My Master lives on yonder bank,
While I am caught in the gale of greed.
With boat of anchor, He stands in wait,
I must hasten, I can't be late.
~ Bulleh Shah



must find his love,
He needn't have the last fright.
His love is around, yet he looks for Him,
Misled in the broad daylight.
Come my love take care of me,
I am in great agony.
~ Bulleh Shah,
480:And speaking of this wonderful machine:
[840] I’m puzzled by the difference between
Two methods of composing: A, the kind Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind,
A testing of performing words, while he
Is soaping a third time one leg, and B,
The other kind, much more decorous, when
He’s in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought,
The abstract battle is concretely fought.
The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar
[850] A canceled sunset or restore a star,
And thus it physically guides the phrase
Toward faint daylight through the inky maze.
But method A is agony! The brain
Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain.
A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the will
Can interrupt, while the automaton
Is taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store [860] To buy the paper he has read before. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
481:I have here Alaska’s final. You’ll recall that you were asked what the most important question facing people is, and how the three traditions we’re studying this year address that question. This was Alaska’s question.” With a sigh, he grabbed hold of his chair and lifted himself out of it, then wrote on the blackboard: How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering? —A. Y. “I’m going to leave that up for the rest of the semester,” he said. “Because everybody who has ever lost their way in life has felt the nagging insistence of that question. At some point we all look up and realize we are lost in a maze, and I don’t want us to forget Alaska, and I don’t want to forget that even when the material we study seems boring, we’re trying to understand how people have answered that question and the questions each of you posed in your papers—how different traditions have come to terms with what Chip, in his final, called ‘people’s rotten lots in life. ~ John Green,
482:Few of us realize that we shoppers are mice in a complex retail maze. Supermarkets spend a vast amount of money to figure out how shoppers behave. Every detail is purposeful, from the music they play to the size of the font declaring sales. For instance, you probably notice that it's chilly in a supermarket. I used to think that was because the chill helped to preserve the food. In fact, cold triggers hunger. If you are hungry, you'll buy more. The first thing that you run into in a supermarket is the produce section. The tactile experience of touching food and the bright colors get you in the mood for shopping. The milk, flour and cereal are invariably spaced far apart. Why? Supermarkets are designed to slow you down. The longer you spend in the maze of a store trying to find staples, the more likely you'll buy something on impulse. Food manufacturers pay for premium shelf placement at eye level, or, in the cereal aisle, at the eye level of children. ~ Kathleen Flinn,
483:Non Dolet!
Age after age the fruit of knowledge falls
To ashes on men’s lips;
Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree
Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls;
The longed-for ships
Come empty home or founder on the deep,
And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.
So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day,
And yet not wholly dark,
Since evermore some soul that missed the mark
Calls back to those agrope
In the mad maze of hope,
“Courage, my brothers—I have found the way!”
The day is lost? What then?
What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight
Be whelmed in fear and night,
And the flying scouts proclaim
That death has gripped the van—
Ever the heart of man
Cheers on the hearts of men!
“It hurts not!” dying cried the Roman wife;
And one by one
The leaders in the strife
Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim:
“The day is won!”
~ Edith Wharton,
484:The ideas of justice of Europe and Africa are not the same and those of the one world are unbearable to the other. To the African there is but one way of counter-balancing the catastrophes of existence, it shall be done by replacement; he does not look for the motive of an action. Whether you lie in wait for your enemy and cut his throat in the dark; or you fell a tree, and a thoughtless stranger passes by and is killed; so far as punishment goes, to the Native mind, it is the same thing. A loss has been brought upon the community and must be made up for, somewhere, by somebody. The Native will not give time or thought to the weighing of guilt or desert; either he fears that this may lead him too far, or he reasons that such things are no concerns of his. But he will devote himself, in endless speculations, to the method by which crime or disaster shall be weighed up in sheep and goats - time does not count to him; he leads you solemnly into a sacred maze of sophistry. ~ Karen Blixen,
485:calls to adventure are puzzles waiting to be solved. Anyone can apply, but the price of admission is paid in imagination. As journeys unfold, new challenges arise and pressures mount. These successive tolls must too be paid in creativity and ingenuity, as they were by history’s most imaginative minds. The only way that Jason can claim his rightful place as ruler of Iolcus, Greece, is by retrieving the fabled Golden Fleece from distant lands. The problem? Everyone considers the task impossible, fraught with terrifying perils certain to kill any man. Jason isn’t so sure. He assembles a mighty team of warriors—the Argonauts—and builds the largest ship ever constructed. He then figures out how to successfully navigate the legendary maze of crushing rocks known as the Symplegades, yoke fire-breathing, bronze-hoofed oxen, trick a mighty army guarding the Fleece into ravaging itself to pieces, and drug a sleepless dragon into its first slumber. Four months after departing, Jason ~ Sean Patrick,
486:Did I really write to them from a fake e-mail account, posing as my mother to get out of it?
My face flames and sweat dots my hairline. It itches, but my arms refuse to let me do anything about it. The crowd blurs into a dull shifting mass, pressing in on me. I look back up at the ceiling for stability, but it only makes me dizzier. Colors swirl together. God shifts his eyes from Adam to me.
Murmurs and whispers amplify, joining my accelerating pulse until there’s a stampede in my ears. My heart might explode.
What have I done?
Chiara grabs my hand and supports my weakened body through a maze of people and doorways until we’re outside. The brightness burns my eyes, but I welcome the awakening.
“What happened? You looked as if you might fall over.”
I avoid her question and instead gaze up at the weathered, bluish dome of St. Peter’s Basilica looming over us from high above all the other buildings in the city. Is the pope in there praying for liars like me? ~ Kristin Rae,
487:She was very careful after that, keeping a proper lookout, but nothing could quite quell her delight in the beauty she saw about her. It was as though she was taking the journey she had imagined on top of the library ladder the day she heard about her new
life.
Then the stream became wider, the current stronger, and she caught a glimpse of low, color-washed houses and heard a dog bark.
“Manaus,” he said. He drew up to the bank and helped her out. She took out her purse, but he wouldn’t take her money, nor would he listen to her thanks. “Teatra Amazonas,” he said, pointing straight ahead.
He would go no farther toward civilization.
The boy watched her as she ran off. She looked back once and waved, but he had already turned the boat.
He poled swiftly back through the maze of waterways. When he reached the place where he had found Maia, he smiled and half shook his head. Then he set the canoe hard at the curtain of green and vanished into his secret world. ~ Eva Ibbotson,
488:A man in a topiary maze cannot judge of the twistings and turnings, and which avenue might lead him to the heart; while one who stands above, on some pleasant prospect, looking down upon the labyrinth, is reduced to watching the bewildered circumnavigations of the tiny victim through obvious coils - as the gods, perhaps, looked down on besieged and blood-sprayed Troy from the safety of their couches, and thought mortals weak and foolish while they themselves reclined in comfort, and had only to snap to call Ganymade to theeir side with nectar decanted.
So I, now, with the vantage of my years, am sensible of my foolishness, my blindness, as a child. I cannot think of my blunders without a shriveling of the inward parts - not merely the disiccation attendant on shame, but also the aggravation of remorse that I did not demand explanation, that I did not sooner take my mother by the hand, and-
I do not know what I regret. I sit with my pen, and cannot find an end to that sentence. ~ M T Anderson,
489:Adults, in their dealing with children, are insane," he [Ed Ricketts] said. "And children know it too. Adults lay down rules they would not think of following, speak truths they do not believe. And yet they expect children to obey the rules, believe the truths, and admire and respect their parents for this nonsense. Children must be very wise and secret to tolerate adults at all. And the greatest nonsense of all that adults expect children to believe is that people learn by experience. No greater lie was ever revered. And its falseness is immediately discerned by children since their parents obviously have not learned anything by experience. Far from learning, adults simply become set in a maze of prejudices and dreams and sets of rules whose origins they do not know and would not dare inspect for fear the whole structure might topple over on them. I think children instinctively know this," Ed said. "Intelligent children learn to conceal their knowledge and keep free of this howling mania. ~ John Steinbeck,
490:In The Tombs of Atuan, the Old Powers, the Nameless Ones, appear as mysterious, ominous, and yet inactive. Arha/Tenar is their priestess, the greatest of all priestesses, whom the Godking himself is supposed to obey: But what is her realm? A prison in the desert. Women guarded by eunuchs. Ancient tombstones, a half-ruined temple, an empty throne. A fearful underground labyrinth where prisoners are left to die of starvation and thirst, where only she can walk the maze, where light must never come. She rules a dark, empty, useless realm. Her power imprisons her. This isn’t the rosy reassurance many novels at the time offered adolescents. It’s a very bleak picture of what a girl may expect. Arha’s life is dreary, unchanging, with almost no experience of kindness except from Manan the eunuch. The third chapter may be the cruelest, most hopeless passage in all the Earthsea books. By consenting to the death of “her” prisoners, Arha locks the prison door upon herself. Her whole life will be lived in a trap. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,
491:As we have repeatedly seen, domination ultimately deprives both subjugator and subjugated of recognition. Gender polarity deprives women of their subjectivity and men of an other to recognize them. But the loss of recognition between men and women as equal subjects is only one consequence of gender domination. The ascendancy of male rationality results finally in the loss and distortion of recognition in society as a whole. It not only eliminates the maternal aspects of recognition (nurturance and empathy) from our collective values, actions, and institutions. It also restricts the exercise of assertion, making social authorship, and agency a matter of performance, control and impersonality - and thus vitiates subjectivity itself. In creating an increasingly objectified world, it deprives us of the intersubjective context in which assertion receives a recognizing response. We must face the enormity of this loss if we are ever to find our way back through the maze of domination to the heart of recognition. ~ Jessica Benjamin,
492:How the moon triumphs through the endless nights!
How the stars throb and glitter as they wheel
Their thick processions of supernal lights
Around the blue vault obdurate as steel!
And men regard with passionate awe and yearning
The mighty marching and the golden burning,
And think the heavens respond to what they feel.

Boats gliding like dark shadows of a dream
Are glorified from vision as they pass
The quivering moonbridge on the deep black stream;
Cold windows kindle their dead glooms of glass
To restless crystals; cornice dome and column
Emerge from chaos in the splendour solemn;
Like faery lakes gleam lawns of dewy grass.

With such a living light these dead eyes shine,
These eyes of sightless heaven, that as we gaze
We read a pity, tremulous, divine,
Or cold majestic scorn in their pure rays:
Fond man! they are not haughty, are not tender;
There is no heart or mind in all their splendour,
They thread mere puppets all their marvellous maze. ~ James Thomson,
493:Today when I was walking down an endless maze of white picket fences back to the train station, a little boy playing in his front yard runs up to the fence and looks at me...looks at me with eyes that take it all in...maybe he will say,

'Start writing. On the train. Tonight. In that gay little journal you carry around with you. It's what you naturally do, ever since the sixth grade, except this time it will be notes for this book. You'll be like a huge 33 year old goony sixth grader with a book deal writing on some lame ass commuter train. Now Go! Go on!'

Whatever he says, he will deliver the message that all of us have lost the ability to say in our jaded adult lives. Maybe how our lives finally change but only when it is right for our lives to change. That we are not in control of this thing. I look back at him just before making my turn on the last part of my walk toward the train. It feels like slow motion as he sizes me up that one last time. He opens his mouth and the words come out: 'Hey mister, why dont you have a car?'
Oh, man. ~ Dan Kennedy,
494:When You Stop
Being Afraid,
You Feel Good! Haw realized he had been held captive by his own fear. Moving in a new direction had freed him. Now he felt the cool breeze that was blowing in this part of the Maze and it was refreshing. He took in some deep breaths and felt invigorated by the movement. Once he had gotten past his fear, it turned out to be more enjoyable than he once believed it could be. Haw hadn’t felt this way for a long time. He had almost forgotten how much fun it was to go for it. To make things even better, Haw started to paint a picture in his mind again. He saw himself in great realistic detail, sitting in the middle of a pile of all his favorite cheeses-from Cheddar to Brie! He saw himself eating the many cheeses he liked, and he enjoyed what he saw. Then he imagined how much he would enjoy all their great tastes. The more clearly he saw the image of himself enjoying New Cheese, the more real and believable it became. He could sense that he was going to find it. He wrote: Imagining Yourself
Enjoying Your
New Cheese
Leads You To It. ~ Spencer Johnson,
495:They walked in silence through the little streets of Chinatown. Women from all over the world smiled at them from open windows, stood on the doorsteps inviting them in. Some of the rooms were exposed to the street. Only a curtain concealed the beds. One could see couples embracing. There were Syrian women wearing their native costume, Arabian women with jewelry covering their half-naked bodies, Japanese and Chinese women beckoning slyly, big African women squatting in circles, chatting together. One house was filled with French whores wearing short pink chemises and knitting and sewing as if they were at home. They always hailed the passers-by with promises of specialities. The houses were small, dimly lit, dusty, foggy with smoke, filled with dusky voices, the murmurs of drunkards, of lovemaking. The Chinese adorned the setting and made it more confused with screens and curtains, lanterns, burning incense, Buddhas of gold. It was a maze of jewels, paper flowers, silk hangings, and rugs, with women as varied as the designs and colors, inviting men who passed by to sleep with them. ~ Ana s Nin,
496:Three causes especially have excited the discontent of mankind; and, by impelling us to seek for remedies for the irremediable, have bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. These are death, toil, and ignorance of the future—the doom of man upon this sphere, and for which he shews his antipathy by his love of life, his longing for abundance, and his craving curiosity to pierce the secrets of the days to come. The first has led many to imagine that they might find means to avoid death, or, failing in this, that they might, nevertheless, so prolong existence as to reckon it by centuries instead of units. From this sprang the search, so long continued and still pursued, for the elixir vitæ, or water of life, which has led thousands to pretend to it and millions to believe in it. From the second sprang the absurd search for the philosopher's stone, which was to create plenty by changing all metals into gold; and from the third, the false sciences of astrology, divination, and their divisions of necromancy, chiromancy, augury, with all their train of signs, portents, and omens. ~ Charles Mackay,
497:Humans have always exalted dreams. Pindar of Thebes, the Greek lyric poet, suggested that the soul is more active while dreaming than while awake. He believed that during a dream, the awakened soul may see the future, “an award of joy or sorrow drawing near.” So it’s no wonder that humans were quick to reserve dreams for people alone; researchers for many years claimed dreams were a property of “higher” minds. But any pet owner who has heard her dog woof or seen his cat twitch during sleep knows that is not true. MIT researchers now know not only that rats dream, but what they dream about. Neurons in the brain fire in distinctive patterns while a rat in a maze performs particular tasks. The researchers repeatedly saw the exact same patterns reproduced while the rats slept—so clearly that they could tell what point in the maze the rat was dreaming about, and whether the animal was running or walking in the dream. The rats’ dreams took place in an area of the brain known to be involved with memory, further supporting a notion that one function of dreams is to help an animal remember what it has learned. ~ Sy Montgomery,
498:Ah no,” he said, “I see the source of the misunderstanding now. No, look, you see what happened was that we used to do experiments on them. They were often used in behavioral research, Pavlov and all that sort of stuff. So what happened was that the mice would be set all sorts of tests, learning to ring bells, run round mazes and things so that the whole nature of the learning process could be examined. From our observations of their behavior we were able to learn all sorts of things about our own …” Arthur’s voice trailed off. “Such subtlety …” said Slartibartfast, “one has to admire it.” “What?” said Arthur. “How better to disguise their real natures, and how better to guide your thinking. Suddenly running down a maze the wrong way, eating the wrong bit of cheese, unexpectedly dropping dead of myxomatosis. If it’s finely calculated the cumulative effect is enormous.” He paused for effect. “You see, Earthman, they really are particularly clever hyper-intelligent pandimensional beings. Your planet and people have formed the matrix of an organic computer running a ten-million-year research program…. Let me tell you the whole story. ~ Douglas Adams,
499:three tiers to the heart: physical, ethereal, Eternal
with each one being more spiritual and subtle
the physical heart a little brain with over 40,000 neurons
it sends and receives by electromagnetic field operations
it's got its own nervous system that senses and remembers
making decisions and giving directions to other centers
emitting enfolded energetic organizational patterns
information, that is—communicative interactions
detected outside the body by magnetometers and other people
for heart coherence listen to Pärt's “Spiegel im Spiegel”
valid are chakras and acupuncture meridians
meditate on the heart chakra to see what this means
energy meridians are strings of polarized crystalline water
bioelectric signals transmitted in connective tissue matter
information is sent along these lengths of collagen proteins
molecules of structured water allowing the transfer of protons
crystal water wires inside protein pathways
with acupuncture points being junctures in the maze
the protons, then, are what have been referred to as “chi”
a current flowing, much like electrical circuitry ~ Jarett Sabirsh,
500:Believing in my great hurt, my literal cutting off from society's mainland, it seems to me that I took life in a sense too seriously, and the lives of others, for the same reason, too lightly. The murders were my own conception; my sex. The Factory was my attempt to construct life, to replace the involvement which otherwise I did not want.

Well, it is always easier to succeed at death.

Inside this greater machine, things are not quite so cut and dried (or cut and pickled) as they have appeared in my experience. Each of us, in our own personal Factory, may believe we have stumbled down one corridor, and that our fate is sealed and certain (dream or nightmare, humdrum or bizarre, good or bad), but a word, a glance, a slip - anything can change that, alter it entirely, and our marble hall becomes a gutter, or our rat-maze a golden path. Our destination is the same in the end, but our journey - part chosen, part determined- is different for us all, and changes even as we live and grow. I thought one door had snicked shut behind me years ago; in fact I was still crawling about the face. Now the door closes, and my journey begins. ~ Iain Banks,
501:Sabbaths, 1982—IV  
(“A gardener rises out of the ground”)


Thrush song, stream song, holy love
That flows through earthly forms and folds,
The song of Heaven’s Sabbath fleshed
In throat and ear, in stream and stone,
A grace living here as we live,
Move my mind now to that which holds
Things as they change.
The warmth has come.
The doors have opened. Flower and song
Embroider ground and air, lead me
Beside the healing field that waits;
Growth, death, and a restoring form
Of human use will make it well.
But I go on, beyond, higher
In the hill’s fold, forget the time
I come from and go to, recall
This grove left out of all account,
A place enclosed in song.
Design
Now falls from thought. I go amazed
Into the maze of a design
That mind can follow but not know,
Apparent, plain, and yet unknown,
The outline lost in earth and sky.
What form wakens and rumples this?
Be still. A man who seems to be
A gardener rises out of the ground,
Stands like a tree, shakes off the dark,
The bluebells opening at his feet,
The light a figured cloth of song. ~ Wendell Berry,
502:A silver hairbrush, old and surely precious, with a little leopard's head for London stamped near the bristles. A white dress, small and pretty, the sort of old-fashioned dress Cassandra had never seen, let alone owned- the girls at school would laugh if she wore such a thing. A bundle of papers tied together with a pale blue ribbon. Cassandra let the bow slip loose between her fingertips and brushed the ends aside to see what lay beneath.
A picture, a black-and-white sketch. The most beautiful woman Cassandra had ever seen, standing beneath a garden arch. No, not an arch, a leafy doorway, the entrance to a tunnel of trees. A maze, she thought suddenly. The strange word came into her mind fully formed.
Scores of little black lines combined like magic to form the picture, and Cassandra wondered what it would feel like to create such a thing. The image was oddly familiar and at first she couldn't think how that could be. Then she realized- the woman looked like someone from a children's book. Like an illustration from an olden-days fairy tale, the maiden who turns into a princess when the handsome prince sees beyond her ratty clothing. ~ Kate Morton,
503:We said our goodbyes to Eurytion, Tyson pulled the cattle grid off the hole and we dropped back into the maze. I wish I could’ve put the mechanical spider on a leash. It scuttled along the tunnels so fast that most of time I couldn’t even see it. If it hadn’t been for Tyson’s and Grover’s excellent hearing, we never would’ve known which way it was going. We ran down a marble tunnel, then dashed to the left and almost fell into an abyss. Tyson grabbed me and hauled me back before I could fall. The tunnel continued in front of us, but there was no floor for about thirty metres, just gaping darkness and a series of iron rungs in the ceiling. The mechanical spider was about halfway across, swinging from bar to bar by shooting out metal web fibre. ‘Monkey bars,’ Annabeth said. ‘I’m great at these.’ She leaped onto the first rung and started swinging her way across. She was scared of tiny spiders, but not of plummeting to her death from a set of monkey bars. Go figure. Annabeth got to the opposite side and ran after the spider. I followed. When I got across, I looked back and saw Tyson giving Grover a piggyback ride (or was it a goatyback ride?). ~ Rick Riordan,
504:We live in an unbelieving age but one which is markedly and lopsidedly spiritual. There is one type of modern man who recognizes spirit in himself but who fails to recognize a being outside himself whom he can adore as Creator and Lord; consequently he has become his own ultimate concern. He says with Swinburne, "Glory to man in the highest, for he is the master of things," or with Steinbeck, "In the end was the word and the word was with men." For him, man has his own natural spirit of courage and dignity and pride and must consider it a point of honor to be satisfied with this.

There is another type of modern man who recognizes a divine being not himself, but who does not believe that this being can be known anagogically or defined dogmatically or received sacramentally. Spirit and matter are separated for him. Man wanders about, caught in a maze of guilt he can't identify, trying to reach a God he can't approach, a God powerless to approach him.

And there is another type of modern man who can neither believe nor contain himself in unbelief and who searches desperately, feeling about in all experience for the lost God. ~ Flannery O Connor,
505:Annabeth took a deep breath. “I, ah . . . well, it said, You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze . . .” We waited. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise.” Grover perked up. “The lost one! That must mean Pan! That’s great!” “With the dead and the traitor,” I added. “Not so great.” “And?” Chiron asked. “What is the rest?” “You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” Annabeth said, “the child of Athena’s final stand.” Everyone looked around uncomfortably. Annabeth was a daughter of Athena, and a final stand didn’t sound good. “Hey . . . we shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Silena said. “Annabeth isn’t the only child of Athena, right?” “But who’s this ghost king?” Beckendorf asked. No one answered. I thought about the Iris-message I’d seen of Nico summoning spirits. I had a bad feeling the prophecy was connected to that. “Are there more lines?” Chiron asked. “The prophecy does not sound complete.” Annabeth hesitated. “I don’t remember exactly.” Chiron raised an eyebrow. Annabeth was known for her memory. She never forgot something she heard. Annabeth shifted on her bench. “Something about . . . Destroy with a hero’s final breath. ~ Rick Riordan,
506:He Should Meet A Mother There
If he should meet a mother there
Along some winding Flanders road,
No extra touch of grief or care
He'll add unto her heavy load.
But he will kindly take her arm
And tender as her son will be;
He'll lead her from the path of harm
Because of me.
Be she the mother of his foe,
He will not speak to her in hate;
My boy will never stoop so low
As motherhood to desecrate.
But she shall know what once I knewEyes that are glorious to see,
The light of manhood shining throughBecause of me.
He will salute her as they meet,
And stand before her bare of head;
If she be hungry, she may eat
His last remaining bit of bread.
She'll find those splendid arms and strong
Quick to assist her, tenderly,
And they will guard her from all wrong
Because of me.
I miss his thoughtful, loving care;
I miss his smile these dreary days;
But should he meet a mother there,
Helpless and lost in war's grim maze,
She need not fear to take his arm,
As though she'd reared him at her knee;
My son will shield her from all harm
Because of me.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,
507:The Castle
All through that summer at ease we lay,
And daily from the turret wall
We watched the mowers in the hay
And the enemy half a mile away
They seemed no threat to us at all.
For what, we thought, had we to fear
With our arms and provender, load on load,
Our towering battlements, tier on tier,
And friendly allies drawing near
On every leafy summer road.
Our gates were strong, our walls were thick,
So smooth and high, no man could win
A foothold there, no clever trick
Could take us, have us dead or quick.
Only a bird could have got in.
What could they offer us for bait?
Our captain was brave and we were true....
There was a little private gate,
A little wicked wicket gate.
The wizened warder let them through.
Oh then our maze of tunneled stone
Grew thin and treacherous as air.
The cause was lost without a groan,
The famous citadel overthrown,
And all its secret galleries bare.
How can this shameful tale be told?
I will maintain until my death
We could do nothing, being sold;
Our only enemy was gold,
And we had no arms to fight it with.
~ Edwin Muir,
508:I found it after the soldiers came and I kept it. I don’t know why because at that point I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. But then when I uncovered it this morning, I knew… that is…” She reached out and flipped the pages of the notebook until the last page lay open in his hands. She’d written something there. He bent and read. I love you, Beast. I love you, Caliban. I love you, Apollo. I love you, Romeo. I love you, Smith. I love you, Gardener. I love you, Aristocrat. I love you, Lover. I love you, Husband. I love you, Friend. I love you, You. He inhaled and looked up. She was twisting her hands together. “For a writer, I’m awfully ineloquent. I don’t know—” He dropped the notebook and pulled her into his arms, kissing her passionately. He held her sweet face between his palms and caressed her temples with his thumbs as he opened his mouth over hers, inhaling her gasp. When at last he drew back, he whispered against her lips, “Do you know where we are?” “Yes,” she murmured, her eyes closed. “At the heart of the maze.” And when she opened her lichen-green eyes he saw all the love he’d ever hoped for shining in her eyes just for him. “At your heart—and mine. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,
509:Sam scanned the orchards. U-Pickers laughed and posed for photos with apples on their heads, babies in the baskets, hugging trees. She lifted her head to study the sky, blue as her eyes. The clouds moved across the sun, blocking it out for long distances at a time, causing the landscape in front of her to become illuminated one patchwork piece at a time: the rolling hills lined with grass and endless rows of trees, peach, tart cherry, apples of every variety; blueberry bushes sitting at the bottom of the hill where the rain pooled; the old red barn where high school kids doled out baskets for fruit, which Sam's father weighed when they returned; the old shed where more high schoolers handed out free donut samples and sips of apple cider to arriving cars; the farmhouse with shutters- designed with apple cutouts- where her grandparents, Willo and Gordon, lived; the blue-green waters of Suttons Bay stretching out beyond the trees, the Old Mission Peninsula jutting into it; the family cornfields that sat across M-22 and would soon be cut into an intricate corn maze filled with spooks and goblins to scare fall visitors.
This slice of northern Michigan was Sam's home, her whole world. ~ Viola Shipman,
510:…Just walking one short path could make you feel hopeful, frustrated, bored, excited, or even nothing at all. And that this could change from one step to the next. You’re aware that you want to reach the center, and also aware that the labyrinth keeps taking you away from it. Just as you seem to be getting close, you turn and end up walking almost around its outer limits.... You love the labyrinth and you hate it at different moments, but you never feel like you’ve conquered it, because that would be ridiculous.... This is a path that is determined for you in advance, but no one can tell you what to think while you’re walking it. It’s not like a maze, you can’t get lost. No one’s playing any tricks on you. There aren’t any monsters lurking around any corners. You can see the end and yet, you walk calmly towards it, following perhaps the least logical route (in mathematical terms at least). Perhaps the labyrinth tells us why we don’t simply read the last pages of books. Why we don’t hurry through life looking for outcomes all the time, however many times we’re told that we should, and that we should be overtaking people and overcoming things as we go. The labyrinth doesn’t tell us how to live. It shows us how we do live. ~ Scarlett Thomas,
511:The Voice And The Dusk
THE slender moon and one pale star,
A rose leaf and a silver bee
From some god's garden blown afar,
Go down the gold deep tranquilly.
Within the south there rolls and grows
A mighty town with tower and spire,
From a cloud bastion masked with rose
The lightning flashes diamond fire.
The purple martin darts about
The purlieus of the iris fen;
The king-bird rushes up and out,
He screams and whirls and screams again.
A thrush is hidden in a maze
Of cedar buds and tamarac bloom,
He throws his rapid flexile phrase,
A flash of emeralds in the gloom.
A voice is singing from the hill
A happy love of long ago;
Ah! tender voice, be still, be still,
''Tis sometimes better not to know.'
The rapture from the amber height
Floats tremblingly along the plain,
Where in the reeds with fairy light
The lingering fireflies gleam again.
Buried in dingles more remote,
Or drifted from some ferny rise,
The swooning of the golden throat
Drops in the mellow dusk and dies.
A soft wind passes lightly drawn,
A wave leaps silverly and stirs
The rustling sedge, and then is gone
Down the black cavern in the firs.
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~ Duncan Campbell Scott,
512:Medicine, and Law, and Philosophy -
You've worked your way through every school,
Even, God help you, Theology,
And sweated at it like a fool.
Why labour at it any more?
You're no wiser now than you were before.
You're Master of Arts, and Doctor too,
And for ten years all you've been able to do
Is lead your students a fearful dance
Through a maze of error and ignorance.
And all this misery goes to show
There's nothing we can ever know.
Oh yes you're brighter than all those relics,
Professors and Doctors, scribblers and clerics,
No doubts or scruples to trouble you,
Defying hell, and the Devil too.
But there's no joy in self-delusion;
Your search for truth ends in confusion.
Don't imagine your teaching will ever raise
The minds of men or change their ways.
And as for worldly wealth, you have none -
What honour or glory have you won?
A dog could stand this life no more.
And so I've turned to magic lore;
The spirit message of this art
Some secret knowledge might impart.
No longer shall I sweat to teach
What always lay beyond my reach;
I'll know what makes the world revolve,
Its mysteries resolve,
No more in empty words I'll deal -
Creation's wellsprings I'll reveal! ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
513:Ballade Of Blind Love
Who have loved and ceased to love, forget
That ever they loved in their lives, they say;
Only remember the fever and fret,
And the pain of Love, that was all his pay;
All the delight of him passes away
From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met Too late did I love you, my love, and yet
I shall never forget till my dying day.
Too late were we 'ware of the secret net
That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray;
There were we taken and snared, Lisette,
In the dungeon of La Fausse Amistie;
Help was there none in the wide world's fray,
Joy was there none in the gift and the debt;
Too late we knew it, too long regret I shall never forget till my dying day!
We must live our lives, though the sun be set,
Must meet in the masque where parts we play,
Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet;
Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay:
But while snows of winter or flowers of May
Are the sad year's shroud or coronet,
In the season of rose or of violet,
I shall never forget till my dying day!
ENVOY.
Queen, when the clay is my coverlet,
When I am dead, and when you are grey,
Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet,
'I shall never forget till my dying day!'
~ Andrew Lang,
514:She was just passing through when a long male arm emerged seemingly from out of nowhere, coiling like steel around her waist.
She squealed, the sound reverberating in the air, as she twisted for a moment in Lord Jack's grasp.
"Got you!" he exclaimed, triumph plain in his voice.
"Oh, you scared me!" she said, breathless as she met his gaze. "You're as silent as a breeze."
"And you are as lithe as a gazelle, slipping from row to row as though you were made of fog. For a few moments, I thought I'd lost track of you."
"This is a tricky maze. The center is nearby, though. Shall we both dash to find it?"
A gleam came into his eyes, along with an expression she'd never seen him wear before. He shook his head, his gaze roaming over her face before lowering to her lips.
"No," he murmured in a tone as rough as gravel. "I have what I came to find."
She trembled, abruptly aware that he was still holding her against him. Her heart leapt when he reached up and began untying the bow that anchored her bonnet in place.
"What are you doing, my lord?"
He smiled. "Claiming a forfeit. I caught you. I believe I deserve a reward."
"B-but the game isn't finished."
"You're right about that," he mused aloud, lifting her hat from her head. "The game has only just begun. ~ Tracy Anne Warren,
515:Judging Pius by what he did not say, one could only damn him. With images of piles of skeletal corpses before his eyes; with women and young children compelled, by torture, to kill each other; with millions of innocents caged like criminals, butchered like cattle, and burned like trash—he should have spoken out. He had this duty, not only as pontiff, but as a person. After his first encyclical, he did reissue general distinctions between race-hatred and Christian love. Yet with the ethical coin of the Church, Pius proved frugal; toward what he privately termed “Satanic forces,” he showed public moderation; where no conscience could stay neutral, the Church seemed to be. During the world’s greatest moral crisis, its greatest moral leader seemed at a loss for words.

But the Vatican did not work by words alone. By 20 October, when Pius put his name to Summi Pontficatus, he was enmeshed in a war behind the war. Those who later explored the maze of his policies, without a clue to his secret actions, wondered why he seemed so hostile toward Nazism, and then fell so silent. But when his secret acts are mapped, and made to overlay his public words, a stark correlation emerges. The last day during the war when Pius publicly said the word “Jew” is also, in fact, the first day history can document his choice to help kill Adolf Hitler. ~ Mark Riebling,
516:You did not do my homework assignment for me,” he said, grabbing the collage again and looking it over.
“I had insomnia,” I said. “I needed a creative activity.” Marlboro Man looked at me, seemingly unsure of whether to kiss me, thank me…or just tickle me some more.
I didn’t give him a chance. Instead I picked up the collage and took Marlboro Man on a tour so he’d be prepared for our appointment.
“Here’s a pack of cigarettes,” I said. “Because I used to smoke in college.”
“Uh-huh,” he answered. “I knew that.”
“And here’s a glass of white wine,” I continued. “Because…I love white wine.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” Marlboro Man answered. “But…won’t Father Johnson have a problem with that being on there?”
“Nah…,” I said. “He’s Episcopalian.”
“Got it,” he said.
I continued with my collage orientation, pointing out the swatch of my favorite shade of turquoise…the pug…the ballet shoe…the Hershey’s Kiss. He watched and listened intently, prepping himself for Father Johnson’s upcoming grilling. Gradually the earliness of the morning and the cozy warmth of my bedroom got the better of us, and before we knew it we’d sunk into the irresistible softness of my bed, our arms and legs caught in a tangled maze.
“I think I love you,” his raspy voice whispered, his lips nearly touching my ear. His arms wrapped even more tightly around my body, swallowing me almost completely. ~ Ree Drummond,
517:Jane, may I introduce our house guest Miss Elizabeth Charming of Hertfordshire?”
“How do you do, Miss Erstwhile, what-what?” said Miss Charming, her tightened lips trembling with the effort of approximating a British accent. “Spit spot I hope, rather.”
“How do you do?”
They both curtsied and Miss Charming made a silent “shh” with her lips, as though Jane would out her for the stairway meeting. Jane had a burst of maternal instinct that made her want to cuddle Miss Charming and help her through this crazy Austenland maze. If she only knew the way herself.
“Miss Charming is about your age, I believe,” Aunt Saffronia said.
“Oh no, Aunt, I’m quite certain that Miss Charming, still in the bloom of her youth, is several years my junior.”
Miss Charming giggled. Aunt Saffronia smiled graciously as she took Jane’s arm, and the three walked into the drawing room. At their entrance, two gentlemen stood.
Ah, the gentlemen.
They wore the high-collared vests, cravats, buttoned coats with long tails, and tight little breeches that had driven Jane’s imagination mad on many an uneventful Tuesday night. Her heart bumped around in her chest like a bee at a window, and everything seemed to move in closer, the world pressing against her, insisting that all was real and there for the touching. She was really here. Jane held her hands behind her back in case they trembled with eagerness. ~ Shannon Hale,
518:tattered dress, or collided with her again. “Watch yerself!” scolded a worker angrily. She retreated from him, lest he take a swing at her. Even so, as soon as she was a good distance from him, her gaze found the zephyr again. It was one of her dreams to steal aboard a sky ship and be taken to one of the floating manors. Though none of them were located directly above the Fells, she’d heard people from the City speak about what it was like to live underneath the upper class’s hulking sky manors. They hovered over the City in an interconnected maze, leaving the area below in shadow come noonday. There was a risk that whatever magic upheld the manors might fail and those living below would be crushed, yet people still swarmed to live in the City, willing to take that risk in the hopes of a better life. Cettie had never set foot outside of the Fells, but she dreamed of leaving. If she proved herself capable and useful and a hard worker, she hoped to one day qualify for the lottery and earn a position at one of the floating manors. The slant of the sun on the street warned her that time was running out. Maybe Joses was already back at Miss Charlotte’s? Could they have missed each other? Cettie hated being away from the younger children for so long. No doubt some of the littlest ones were already crying for want of food, and if their guardian awoke from her drunken stupor, there would be beatings. ~ Jeff Wheeler,
519:The Eavesdropper
In a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With tiny multitudinou
s sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.
The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with their shadows on the floor;
And the lost children of the wind
Went straying homeward by our door.
And all the swarthy afternoon
We watched the great deliberate sun
Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
Counting his hilltops one by one.
Then as the purple twilight came
And touched the vines along our eaves,
Another Shadow stood without
And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.
The silence fell on my Love's lips;
Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
With pondering some maze of dream,
Through all the splendid year was glad.
Restless and vague as a gray wind
Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
But hurrying to the open door,
Against the verge of western sky
158
I saw retreating on the hills,
Looming and sinister and black,
The stealthy figure swift and huge
Of One who strode and looked not back.
~ Bliss William Carman,
520:The Garden-Chair
TWO PORTRAITS.
A PLEASANT picture, full of meanings deep,
Old age, calm sitting in the July sun,
On withered hands half-leaning--feeble hands,
That after their life-labors, light or hard,
Their girlish broideries, their marriage-ringed
Domestic duties, their sweet cradle cares,
Have dropped into the quiet-folded ease
Of fourscore years. How peacefully the eyes
Face us! Contented, unregretful eyes,
That carry in them the whole tale of life
With its one moral--'Thus all was--thus best.'
Eyes now so near unto their closing mild
They seem to pierce direct through all that maze,
As eyes immortal do.
Here--Youth. She stands
Under the roses, with elastic foot
Poised to step forward; eager-eyed, yet grave
Beneath the mystery of the unknown To-come,
Though longing for its coming. Firm prepared
(So say the lifted head and close, sweet mouth)
For any future: though the dreamy hope
Throned on her girlish forehead, whispers fond,
'Surely they err who say that life is hard;
Surely it shall not be with me as these.'
God knows: He only. And so best, dear child,
Thou woman-statured, sixteen-year-old child,
Meet bravely the impenetrable Dark
Under thy roses. Bud and blossom thou
Fearless as they--if thou art planted safe,
Whether for gathering or for withering, safe
In the King's garden.
~ Dinah Maria Mulock Craik,
521:Without friction a simple linear equation expresses the amount of energy you need to accelerate a hockey puck. With friction the relationship gets complicated, because the amount of energy changes depending on how fast the puck is already moving.
Nonlinearity means that the act of playing the game has a way of changing the rules. You cannot assign a constant importance to
friction, because its importance depends on speed. Speed, in turn, depends on friction. That twisted changeability makes nonlinearity hard to calculate, but it also creates rich kinds of behavior
that never occur in linear systems. In fluid dynamics, everything
boils down to one canonical equation, the Navier-Stokes equation.
It is a miracle of brevity, relating a fluid's velocity, pressure, density, and viscosity, but it happens to be nonlinear. So the nature
of those relationships often becomes impossible to pin down. Analyzing the behavior of a nonlinear equation like the Navier-Stokes equation is like walking through a maze whose walls rearrange
themselves with each step you take. As Von Neumann himself
put it: "The character of the equation ... changes simultaneously
in all relevant respects: Both order and degree change. Hence, bad
mathematical difficulties must be expected." The world would be
a different place—and science would not need chaos—if only the
Navier-Stokes equation did not contain the demon of nonlinearity. ~ James Gleick,
522:There remained a main melody, or a path through a maze—a maze that was like the delta of the Po. He seemed to look down on it as he sang it. A great number of channels were weaving down a slightly tilted plain. Each channel was a mathematical specialty—some of them shallow and disappearing into the sand, but most making their loop and reconnecting to other flows. A few were the kind of deep channels that ships would use. Upstream they coalesced until there were fewer, scattered streams. Fewer tributaries rather than more, leading up in different directions to sources, often at springs. Water out of the rock. This was, he saw, an image of mathematics in time. Or maybe it was all time, or humanity in time; but it was the mathematics that sprang out at him. The fewer channels upstream, in the distant past, well before his time, were where Aurora’s tutorial now led him. Then he was flying over the time stream, or in it, sometimes returning upstream to view a contemporaneous discipline. Mainly he had a general sense of flying downstream, over or occasionally inside some eternal landscape, the nature of which could not be discerned. He inhabited an image he had heard some time before, of history as a river, in which people were water, eroding the banks and depositing soil elsewhere downstream, so that the banks slowly changed and the river ran otherwise than it had, without the water ever noticing the changed courses of the braiding stream. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson,
523:One of my earliest memories was of a maze of pale green walls. The corridors never ended, no matter which way I turned. I was running, my feet bare, my paper-thin gown flapping around skinny foal-like legs, and the demons kept on coming. I’d run the maze before, because I always knew which way to turn to find the little clear plastic box. I’d run, and run. Lungs aching, throat burning, my feet slapping against the smooth floor, and the sound of scrabbling claws chased me down. I made it to the box, every time (I’d learned later, there were others who hadn’t) and once inside, I’d yank the clear door closed. The demons didn’t see the box. They saw only me, the wraith-like little half-blood girl. They would launch themselves—claws extended, jaws wide, eyes ablaze—and slam into my box, sending shudders rattling through my bones. They’d snap and snarl, hook their teeth into the box and gnaw at its edges, desperate to get to the feast huddling a few millimeters away.
Flooding, the Institute had called it.
At first I was afraid, and I learned how to run. Then I was angry, and I learned how to fight with my fists and my element. Then, I got even. I lured those demons into a corner and ambushed them, killing every last one. After countless visits to the maze, after weeks, years, I’d started liking it, and killing became as natural as breathing. It was what I was good at. What I was made for.
What I lived for.
© Copyright Pippa DaCosta 2016. ~ Pippa DaCosta,
524:The Road Through Chaos
I.
There is one road, one only, to the Light:
A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.
It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
Of eager questions, hear a child reply.
_Truth? What is Truth?_ Come, look upon my tables.
Begin at your beginnings once again.
_Twice one is two!_ Though all the rest be fables,
Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.
For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,
Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.
II.
Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,
Build to the Lord your temples and your song;
The curves of beauty, music's wedded chords
Resolving into heaven all hate and wrong.
Let harmonies of colour marry and follow
And breaking waves in a rhythmic dance ensue;
And all your thought fly free as the wings of the swallow,
Whose arrowy curves obey their measure, too.
Then shall the marching stars and tides befriend you,
And your own heart, and the world's heart, pulse in rhyme;
Then shall the mob of the passions that would rend you
Crown you their Captain and march on in time.
So shall you repossess your struggling soul,
160
Conquer your world, and find the eternal goal.
~ Alfred Noyes,
525:The Children
The children are all crying in their pens
and the surf carries their cries away.
They are old men who have seen too much,
their mouths are full of dirty clothes,
the tongues poverty, tears like puss.
The surf pushes their cries back.
Listen.
They are bewitched.
They are writing down their life
on the wings of an elf
who then dissolves.
They are writing down their life
on a century fallen to ruin.
They are writing down their life
on the bomb of an alien God.
I am too.
We must get help.
The children are dying in their pens.
Their bodies are crumbling.
Their tongues are twisting backwards.
There is a certain ritual to it.
There is a dance they do in their pens.
Their mouths are immense.
They are swallowing monster hearts.
So is my mouth.
Listen.
We must all stop dying in the little ways,
in the craters of hate,
in the potholes of indifferencea murder in the temple.
The place I live in
is a maze
and I keep seeking
the exit or the home.
Yet if I could listen
to the bulldog courage of those children
and turn inward into the plague of my soul
with more eyes than the stars
222
I could melt the darknessas suddenly as that time
when an awful headache goes away
or someone puts out the fireand stop the darkness and its amputations
and find the real McCoy
in the private holiness
of my hands.
~ Anne Sexton,
526:Every act of communication is a miracle of translation.
At this moment, in this place, the shifting action potentials in my neurons cascade into certain arrangements, patterns, thoughts; they flow down my spine, branch into my arms, my fingers, until muscles twitch and thought is translated into motion; mechanical levers are pressed; electrons are rearranged; marks are made on paper.
At another time, in another place, light strikes the marks, reflects into a pair of high precision optical instruments sculpted by nature after billions of years of random mutations; upside-down images are formed against two screens made up of millions of light-sensitive cells, which translate light into electrical pulses that go up optic nerves, cross the chasm, down the optic tracts, and into the visual cortex, where the pulses are reassembled into letters, punctuation marks, words, sentences, vehicles, tenors, thoughts.
The entire system seems fragile, preposterous, science fictional.
Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you and I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.
And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me, and you think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly and imperfectly. ~ Ken Liu,
527:However, I have a stronger hunch that the greatest part of the important biomedical research waiting to be done is in the class of basic science. There is an abundance of interesting fact relating to all our major diseases, and more items of information are coming in steadily from all quarters in biology. The new mass of knowledge is still formless, in complete, lacking the essential threads of connection, displaying misleading signals at every turn, riddled with blind alleys. There are fascinating ideas all over the place, irresistible experiments beyond numbering, all sorts of new ways into the maze of problems. But every next move is unpredictable, every outcome uncertain. It is a puzzling time, but a very good time.
I do not know how you lay out orderly plans for this kind of activity, but I suppose you could find out by looking through the disorderly records of the past hundred years. Somehow, the atmosphere has to be set so that a disquieting sense of being wrong is the normal attitude of the investigators. It has to be taken for granted that the only way in is by riding the unencumbered human imagination, with the special rigor required for recognizing that something can be highly improbable, maybe almost impossible, and at the same time true.
Locally, a good way to tell how the work is going is to listen in the corridors. If you hear the word, "Impossible!" spoken as an expletive, followed by laughter, you will know that someone's orderly research plan is coming along nicely. ~ Lewis Thomas,
528:Erienne had avoided the final pat of Lord Talbot and left the flushed and overexcited elder stewing in frustration. She was most happy to welcome the return of her appointed escort and to entrust her virtue to their truce. They met in the maze of guests, and from then on Christopher kept the larger part of the dance floor between them and their host while Talbot stood at the sidelines and, like an anxious stork, craned his neck for a sight of the one who eluded him.
“You’re being obvious,” Erienne cautioned her partner.
“So is he,” Christopher replied, “and if he persists, he’ll be lucky if I don’t lengthen his stride by a boot in the rear.”
“Why are you so determined to harass Lord Talbot?”
“You know my reasons for disliking the man.”
“Me?” she asked incredulously.
“What little time I have with you, I am loath to share with him.”
“Why, Christopher,” the blue-violet eyes flashed with puckish humor, and the barest hint of a smile curved her lips to mock him. “Methinks thou dost protest the man overmuch.”
He went mechanically through the steps of the dance while his mind plunged to a depth beyond her insight. When his attention returned to her, he nodded and agreed. “Aye, the man! Him, I do protest. I protest his arrogance, his careless flaunting of his power. I protest the wealth he wallows in while his tenants grub for a meager subsistence. Aye, I protest the man, and I decry the possibility that anything entrusted to my care should fall to him.”

-Erienne & Christopher ~ Kathleen E Woodiwiss,
529:Dionysus
I bring ye wine from above,
From the vats of the storied sun;
For every one of yer love,
And life for every one.
Ye shall dance on hill and level;
Ye shall sing in hollow and height
In the festal mystical revel,
The rapurous Bacchanal rite!
The rocks and trees are yours,
And the waters under the hill,
By the might of that which endures,
The holy heaven of will!
I kindle a flame like a torrent
To rush from star to star;
Your hair as a comet’s horrent,
Ye shall see things as they are!
I lift the mask of matter;
I open the heart of man;
For I am of force to shatter
The cast that hideth -Pan!
Your loves shall lap up slaughter,
And dabbled with roses of blood
Each desperate darling daughter
Shall swim in the fervid flood.
I bring ye laughter and tears,
The kisses that foam and bleed,
The joys of a million years,
The flowers that bear no seed.
My life is bitter and sterile,
Its flame is a wandering star.
Ye shall pass in pleasure and peril
Across the mystic bar
That is set for wrath and weeping
Against the children of earth;
But ye in singing and sleeping
Shall pass in measure and mirth!
I lift my wand and wave you
Through hill to hill of delight :
My rosy rivers lave you
27
In innermost lustral light..
I lead you, lord of the maze,
In the darkness free of the sun;
In spite of the spite that is day’s
We are wed, we are wild, we are one.
At Shigar Baltistan.
~ Aleister Crowley,
530:Bermudas
Where the remote Bermudas ride
In th' Oceans bosome unespy'd,
From a small Boat, that row'd along,
The listning Winds receiv'd this Song.
What should we do but sing his Praise
That led us through the watry Maze,
Unto an Isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
Where he the huge Sea-Monsters wracks,
That lift the Deep upon their Backs.
He lands us on a grassy stage;
Safe from the Storms, and Prelat's rage.
He gave us this eternal Spring,
Which here enamells every thing;
And sends the Fowl's to us in care,
On daily Visits through the Air,
He hangs in shades the Orange bright,
Like golden Lamps in a green Night.
And does in the Pomgranates close,
Jewels more rich than Ormus show's.
He makes the Figs our mouths to meet;
And throws the Melons at our feet.
But Apples plants of such a price,
No Tree could ever bear them twice.
With Cedars, chosen by his hand,
From Lebanon, he stores the Land.
And makes the hollow Seas, that roar,
Proclaime the Ambergris on shoar.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospels Pearl upon our coast.
And in these Rocks for us did frame
A Temple, where to sound his Name.
Oh let our Voice his Praise exalt,
Till it arrive at Heavens Vault:
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Eccho beyond the Mexique Bay.
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
An holy and a chearful Note,
And all the way, to guide their Chime,
30
With falling Oars they kept the time.
~ Andrew Marvell,
531:Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one feels that one is at one with one who once ...

The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells.

He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? Seems not. ~ James Joyce,
532:Did you know this is how other families are?...What a peaceful existence. What a joy their lives must be. They open a door and all they've got behind it is a bathroom or living room. Just neutral spaces. And not this endless maze of present rooms and past rooms and the things said in them years ago and everybody's old historical shit all over the place. They're not constantly making the same old mistakes. They're not always hearing the same old shit. They don't do public performances of angst on public transport. Really, these people exist. I'm telling you. The biggest traumas of their lives are things like recarpeting. Bill-paying. Gate-fixing. They don't mind what their kids do in life as long as they're reasonably, you know, healthy. Happy. And every single fucking day is not this huge battle between who they are and who they should be, what they were and what they will be. Go on, ask them. And they'll tell you. No mosque. Maybe a little church. Hardly any sin. Plenty of forgiveness. No attics. No shit in attics. No skeletons in cupboards. No great-grandfathers. I will put twenty quid down now that Samad is the only person in here who knows the inside bloody leg measurement of his great-grandfather. And you know why they don't know? Because it doesn't fucking matter. As far as they're concerned, it's the past. This is what it's like in other families. They're not self-indulgent. They don't run around relishing, relishing the fact that they are utterly dysfunctional. They don't spend their time trying to find ways to make their lives more complicated. They just get on with it. ~ Zadie Smith,
533:I remember a vivid talk by the Japanese Zen philosopher Dr. Daisetz T. Suzuki that opened with an unforgettable contrast of the Occidental and Oriental understandings of the God-man-nature mystery. Commenting first on the Biblical view of the state of man following the Fall in Eden, “Man,” he observed, “is against God, Nature is against God, and Man and Nature are against each other. God’s own likeness (Man), God’s own creation (Nature) and God himself - all three are at war.” Then, expounding the Oriental view, “Nature,” he said, “is the bosom whence we come and whither we go.” “Nature produces Man out of itself; Man cannot be outside of Nature.” “I am in Nature and Nature is in me.” The Godhead as highest Being is to be comprehended, he continued, as prior to creation, “in whom there was yet neither Man nor Nature.” “As soon as a name is given, the Godhead ceases to be Godhead. Man and Nature spring up and we get caught in the maze of abstract conceptual vocabulary.”

We in the West have named our God; or rather, we have had the Godhead named for us in a book from a time and place that are not our own. And we have been taught to have faith not only in the absolute existence of this metaphysical fiction, but also in its relevance to the shaping of our lives. In the great East, on the other hand, the accent is on experience: on one’s own experience, furthermore, not a faith in someone else’s. And the various disciplines taught are of ways to the attainment of unmistakable experiences - ever deeper, ever greater - of one’s own identity with whatever one knows as “divine”: identity, and beyond that, then, transcendence. ~ Joseph Campbell,
534:I stay out of sight and only whisper to you.
Words I can’t say. Words you don’t need to hear. Words I can’t keep from tangling my way.
Now, I can’t stand alone. I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows.
I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms.
You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.
You stand wanting more than you could ever understand.
I stand helpless, needing to give in to your every command. Wanting to see you smile has consumed me and tied both my hands.
Nothing I offer could ever be worthy of your love.
It’s a miracle that you saw me and never ran.
I will spend my whole life trying to be the man you think I am.
Now, I can’t stand-alone. Now, I am under your influence. I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows.
I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms. You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.”
“You hold fire within your gaze.
It mesmerizes everyone you allow into your maze. I know nothing of your thoughts but I need to bask within the warmth of your rays. Nothing you do could ever be wrong. You’re forever perfect in every way.
Now, I can’t stand-alone. Now, I am under your influence.
You’ve taken over me and now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows. You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows. I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms.
You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.”
~ Abbi Glines Dank Walker ~ Abbi Glines,
535:Paper Cuts
Endless duplication of lives and objects....
-Theodore Roethke
I have known the imperial power of secretaries,
the awesome indifference of receptionists,
I have been intimidated by desk & typewriter,
by the silver jaws of the stapler
& the lecherous kiss of the mucilage,
& the unctuousness of rubber cement
before it dries.
I have been afraid of telephones,
have put my mouth to their stale tobacco breath,
have been jarred to terror
by their jangling midnight music,
& their sudden blackness
even when they are white.
I have been afraid in elevators
amid the satin hiss of cables
& the silky lisping of air conditioners
& the helicopter blades of fans.
I have seen time killed in the office jungles
of undeclared war.
My fear has crept into the paper guillotine
& voyaged to the Arctic Circle of the water cooler.
My fear has followed me into the locked Ladies Room,
& down the iron fire stairs
to the postage meter.
I have seen the mailroom women like lost letters
frayed around the edges.
I have seen the Xerox room men
shuffling in & out among each other
like cards in identical decks.
I have come to tell you I have survived.
I bring you chains of paperclips instead of emeralds.
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I bring you lottery tickets instead of poems.
I bring you mucilage instead of love.
I lay my body out before you on the desk.
I spread my hair amid a maze of rubber stamps.
RUSH. SPECIAL DELIVERY. DO NOT BEND.
I am open-will you lick me like an envelope?
I am bleeding-will you kiss my paper cuts?
~ Erica Jong,
536:To A Gitana Dancing
Because you are fair as souls of the lost are fair,
And your eyelids laugh with desire, and your laughing feet
Are winged with desire, and your hands are wanton, and sweet
Is the promise of love in your lips, and the rose in your hair
Sweet, unfaded, a promise sweet to be sought,
And the maze you tread is as old as the world is old,
Therefore you hold me, body and soul, in your hold,
And time, as you dance, is not, and the world is as nought.
You dance, and I know the desire of all flesh, and the pain
Of all longing of body for body; you beckon, repel,
Entreat, and entice, and bewilder, and build up the spell,
Link by link, with deliberate steps, of a flower-soft chain.
You laugh, and I know the despair, and you smile, and I know
The delight of your love, and the flower in your hair is a star.
It brightens, I follow; it fades, and I see it afar;
You pause: I awake; have I dreamt? was it longer ago
Than a dream that I saw you smile? for you turn, you turn,
As a startled beast in the toils: it is you that entreat,
Desperate, hating the coils that have fastened your feet,
The desire you desired that has come; and your lips now yearn,
And your hands now ache, and your feet faint for love.
Longing has taken hold even on you,
You, the witch of desire; and you pause, and anew
Your stillness moves, and you pause, and your hands move.
Time, as you dance, is as nought, and the moments seem
Swift as eternity; time is at end, for you close
Eyes and lips and hands in sudden repose;
You smile: was it all no longer ago than a dream?
~ Arthur Symons,
537:have always been fascinated by relationships. I grew up in Britain, where my dad ran a pub, and I spent a lot of time watching people meeting, talking, drinking, brawling, dancing, flirting. But the focal point of my young life was my parents’ marriage. I watched helplessly as they destroyed their marriage and themselves. Still, I knew they loved each other deeply. In my father’s last days, he wept raw tears for my mother although they had been separated for more than twenty years. My response to my parents’ pain was to vow never to get married. Romantic love was, I decided, an illusion and a trap. I was better off on my own, free and unfettered. But then, of course, I fell in love and married. Love pulled me in even as I pushed it away. What was this mysterious and powerful emotion that defeated my parents, complicated my own life, and seemed to be the central source of joy and suffering for so many of us? Was there a way through the maze to enduring love? I followed my fascination with love and connection into counseling and psychology. As part of my training, I studied this drama as described by poets and scientists. I taught disturbed children who had been denied love. I counseled adults who struggled with the loss of love. I worked with families where family members loved each other, but could not come together and could not live apart. Love remained a mystery. Then, in the final phase of getting my doctorate in counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, I started to work with couples. I was instantly mesmerized by the intensity of their struggles and the way they often spoke of their relationships in terms of life and death. ~ Sue Johnson,
538:The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs;
and the flowers were all merry by the roadside;
and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds
while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played;
we went not to the village for barter;
we spoke not a word nor smiled;
we lingered not on the way.
We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by.

The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade.
Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon.
The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree,
and I laid myself down by the water
and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.

My companions laughed at me in scorn;
they held their heads high and hurried on;
they never looked back nor rested;
they vanished in the distant blue haze.

They crossed many meadows and hills,
and passed through strange, far-away countries.
All honor to you, heroic host of the interminable path!
Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise,
but found no response in me.

I gave myself up for lost
in the depth of a glad humiliation
-in the shadow of a dim delight.

The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom
slowly spread over my heart.
I forgot for what I had traveled,
and I surrendered my mind without struggle
to the maze of shadows and songs.

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes,
I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile.
How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome,
and the struggle to reach thee was hard!

~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Journey
,
539:The Valley Of Fear
In the journey of life, as we travel along
To the mystical goal that is hidden from sight,
You may stumble at times into Roadways of Wrong,
Not seeing the sign-board that points to the right.
Through caverns of sorrow your feet may be led,
Where the noon of the day will like midnight appear.
But no matter whither you wander or tread,
Keep out of the Valley of Fear.
The Roadways of Wrong will wind out into light
If you sit in the silence and ask for a Guide;
In the caverns of sorrow your soul gains its sight
Of beautiful vistas, ascending and wide.
In by-paths of worry and trouble and strife
Full many a bloom grows bedewed by a tear,
But wretched and arid and void of all life
Is the desolate Valley of Fear.
The Valley of Fear is a maddening maze
Of paths that wind on without exit or end,
From nowhere to nowhere lead all of its ways,
And shadows with shadows in more shadows blend.
Each guide-post is lettered, 'This way to Despair,'
And the River of Death in the darkness flows near,
But there is a beautiful Roadway of Prayer
This side of the Valley of Fear.
This beautiful Roadway is narrow and steep,
And it runs up the side of the Mountain of Faith.
You may not perceive it at first if you weep,
But it rises high over the River of Death.
Though the Roadway is narrow and dark at the base,
It widens ascending, and ever grows clear,
Till it shines at the top with the Light of God's face,
Far, far from the Valley of Fear.
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When close to that Valley your footsteps shall fare,
Turn, turn to the Roadway of PrayerThe beautiful Roadway of Prayer.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
540:The purpose of this review is to evaluate the effects of chronic stress on hippocampal-dependent function, based primarily upon studies using young, adult male rodents and spatial navigation tasks. Despite this restriction, variability amongst the findings was evident and how or even whether chronic stress influenced spatial ability depended upon the type of task, the dependent variable measured and how the task was implemented, the type and duration of the stressors, housing conditions of the animals that include accessibility to food and cage mates, and duration from the end of the stress to the start of behavioral assessment. Nonetheless, patterns emerged as follows: For spatial memory, chronic stress impairs spatial reference memory and has transient effects on spatial working memory. For spatial learning, however, chronic stress effects appear to be task-specific: chronic stress impairs spatial learning on appetitively motivated tasks, such as the radial arm maze or holeboard, tasks that evoke relatively mild to low arousal components from fear. But under testing conditions that evoke moderate to strong arousal components from fear, such as during radial arm water maze testing, chronic stress appears to have minimal impairing effects or may even facilitate spatial learning. Chronic stress clearly impacts nearly every brain region and thus, how chronic stress alters hippocampal spatial ability likely depends upon the engagement of other brain structures during behavioral training and testing. ~ Conrad C.D. (2010). "A critical review of chronic stress effects on spatial learning and memory". Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry. 34 (5): 742–755. doi:10.1016/j.pnpbp.2009.11.003. PMID 19903505.,
541:At last I came upon the hedge maze. Far from the warm circles of light cast by torch and lamp, the leaves and twigs here were wedged in a silver lacework of starlight and shadow. The entrance was framed by two large trees, their branches still bare of any new growth. In the darkness, they seemed less like garden posts marking the way into the labyrinth than two silent sentinels guarding the doorway to the underworld. Shapes writhed in the shadows beyond the archway of bramble and vine, both inviting and intimidating.
Yet I was not frightened. The hedge maze smelled like the forest outside the inn, a deep green scent of growth and decay, where life and death were intermingled. A familiar scent. A welcoming scent.
The scent of home. Removing my mask, I crossed the threshold, letting darkness swallow me whole.
There were no torches or candles lit upon the paths, and neither moonlight nor starlight penetrated the dense bramble. Yet my footing along these paths was sure, every part of me attuned to the wildness around me. Unlike the maze of Schönbrunn Palace, a meticulously manicured and man-made construction, this labyrinth breathed. Nature creeped in along the edges, reclaiming groomed, orderly, and civilized corridors into a twisting tangle of tunnels and tracks, weeds and wildflowers. Paths grew vague, roots unruly, branches untamed. Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, I could hear the giggles and gasps of illicit encounters in the shrubbery. I was careful of my step, lest I trip over a pair of trysting lovers, but when I came upon no one else, I let myself fall into a meditative state of mind. I wandered the recursive spirals of the hedge maze, turn after turn after turn, feeling a measure of calm for the first time in a long time. ~ S Jae Jones,
542:We are like a man lost in a maze. He runs around frantically, hitting the same dead ends again and again, repeatedly circling back to his starting point. Finally he pauses to rest, to breath, to ponder. Then in a flash he understands the logic of the maze. Now it is time to begin walking. Imagine if instead he says, “No, I cannot pause to rest. Only by moving my feet will I ever get anywhere. So I must not stop moving my feet.” We tend to devalue those periods of pause, emptiness, silence, and integration. How to get out of a maze? Yes, it does help to wander around and explore, but at some point one must stop and reflect. Is there a pattern to my wanderings? What do I remember about how I got lost here in the first place? What is this maze for, anyway? Perhaps the earlier stage of panicked, frantic running around, or of increasingly futile action, is necessary, but many of us are now ready to try another way. The situation on Earth today is too dire for us to act from habit—to reenact again and again the same kinds of solutions that brought us to our present extremity. Where does the wisdom to act in entirely new ways come from? It comes from nowhere, from the void; it comes from inaction. When we see it, we realize it was right in front of us all along. It is never far away; yet at the same time it is in a different universe—a different Story of the World. A Chinese saying describes it well: “As far away as the horizon, and right in front of your face.” You can run toward it forever, run faster and faster, and never get any closer. Only when you stop do you realize you are already there. That is exactly our collective situation right now. All of the solutions to the global crisis are sitting right in front of us, but they are invisible to our collective seeing, existing, as it were, in a different universe. ~ Anonymous,
543:People walk the paths of the gardens below, and the wind sings anthems in the hedges, and the big old cedars at the entrance to the maze creak. Marie-Laure imagines the electromagnetic waves traveling into and out of Michel’s machine, bending around them, just as Etienne used to describe, except now a thousand times more crisscross the air than when he lived—maybe a million times more. Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of television programs, of e-mail, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I’m going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscapes we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. ~ Anthony Doerr,
544:To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path,
The life and death winding dizzy between;
In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath,
To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen;
That thou wake not the wild one, all silently tread
Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway of dread!

High over the marge of the horrible deep
Hangs and hovers a bridge with its phantom-like span,
Not by man was it built, o'er the vastness to sweep;
Such thought never came to the daring of man!
The stream roars beneathlate and early it raves
But the bridge, which it threatens, is safe from the waves.

Black-yawning a portal, thy soul to affright,
Like the gate to the kingdom, the fiend for the king
Yet beyond it there smiles but a land of delight,
Where the autumn in marriage is met with the spring.
From a lot which the care and the trouble assail,
Could I fly to the bliss of that balm-breathing vale!

Through that field, from a fount ever hidden their birth,
Four rivers in tumult rush roaringly forth;
They fly to the fourfold divisions of earth
The sunrise, the sunset, the south, and the north.
And, true to the mystical mother that bore,
Forth they rush to their goal, and are lost evermore.

High over the races of men in the blue
Of the ether, the mount in twin summits is riven;
There, veiled in the gold-woven webs of the dew,
Moves the dance of the cloudsthe pale daughters of heaven!
There, in solitude, circles their mystical maze,
Where no witness can hearken, no earthborn surveys.

August on a throne which no ages can move,
Sits a queen, in her beauty serene and sublime,
The diadem blazing with diamonds above
The glory of brows, never darkened by time,
His arrows of light on that form shoots the sun
And he gilds them with all, but he warms them with none!
~ Friedrich Schiller, The Lay Of The Mountain
,
545:Far, far better to die. One by one the rest of the Zavaedis came to cast their stones for either exoneration, exile, or death. Some spoke to the assembly of their reasons why, others simply placed the stone according to their choice. Unfortunately, his mother’s plea moved many people to pity him. When all the rocks had piled up, the orange mat held the most stones. Exile. Kavio swallowed hard to conceal his reaction. You have murdered me all the same. Father pounded the rain stick. “Kavio, you have been found guilty of the most heinous of crimes—hexcraft. Though you remain a member of the secret societies that initiated you and are therefore spared death, nonetheless you are forbidden to enter the Labyrinth, to take with you anything from the Labyrinth, or to study with any dancing society of the Labyrinth. Do you understand and acknowledge your punishment?” “I understand it all too well,” Kavio said through gritted teeth. “But I will never acknowledge it as just.” “So be it,” Father said tonelessly. “Bring the pot of ashes.” Two warriors hefted a ceramic pot from where it had rested in the shadow of the tall platform. They forced Kavio to lean back while still on his knees. They smeared him with a paste and rubbed in the gray-black powder. His bare chest and clean shaven face disappeared under a scum of grey crud. Humiliation itched, but like poison ivy, he knew it would be worse if he scratched it. He forced himself still as stone while the warriors slapped on more mud. “You must wear mud and ash for the rest of your days,” the Maze Zavaedi concluded. His voice broke. “I am ashamed to call you my son.” Kavio struggled to his feet. The warriors escorting him surrounded him with a hedge of spears. Did they fear him, even now? “You never could just trust me, could you, Father?” Kavio asked. Father’s jaw jutted forward. A muscle moved in his neck. Otherwise, he might have been rock. “Escort my son out of the Labyrinth. ~ Tara Maya,
546:A Prisoner In A Dungeon Deep
A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee.
Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?
No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.
He pines not for the light of day
Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
To rack his burning brow.
Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
The stupor of despair.
Yet not for ever did that mood
Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
That told another tale.
It did not speak of reason gone,
It was not madness quite;
It was a fitful flickering fire,
A strange uncertain light.
And sooth to say, these latter years
Strange fancies now and then
Had filled his cell with scenes of life
And forms of living men.
18
A mind that cannot cease to think
Why needs he cherish there?
Torpor may bring relief to pain
And madness to despair.
Such wildering scenes, such flitting shapes
As feverish dreams display:
What if those fancies still increase
And reason quite decay?
But hark, what sounds have struck his ear;
Voices of men they seem;
And two have entered now his cell;
Can this too be a dream?
'Orlando, hear our joyful news:
Revenge and liberty!
Your foes are dead, and we are come
At last to set you free.'
So spoke the elder of the two,
And in the captive's eyes
He looked for gleaming ecstasy
But only found surprise.
'My foes are dead! It must be then
That all mankind are gone.
For they were all my deadly foes
And friends I had not one.'
~ Anne Brontë,
547:Daylight fades away as I watch you.
Darkness claims the sky and I wish you knew
that nothing you can do can keep me from you.
But I stay out of sight and only whisper to you.
Words I can’t say. Words you don’t need to hear.
Words I can’t keep from tangling my way.
Now, I can’t stand alone.
Now, I am under your influence.
You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows.
I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms.
You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.”


“You stand wanting more than you could ever understand.
I stand helpless needing to give in to your every command.
Wanting to see you smile has consumed me and tied both my hands.
Nothing I offer could ever be worthy of your love.
It’s a miracle that you saw me and never ran.
I will spend my whole life trying to be the man you think I am.
 

Now, I can’t stand alone. Now, I am under your influence.
You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows.
I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms.
You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.”


“You hold fire within your gaze.
It mesmerizes everyone you allow into your maze.
I know nothing of your thoughts
but I need to bask within the warmth of your rays.
Nothing you do could ever be wrong.
You’re forever perfect in every way.
 

Now, I can’t stand alone. Now, I am under your influence.
You’ve taken over me and Now, I can’t ignore what I’ve been shown.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care who knows.
You’ve claimed me and I don’t care if it shows.
I’m weakened and I’m strengthened in your arms.
You’ve claimed me and I need to feel you close.”
~ Abbi Glines Dank ~ Abbi Glines,
548:Diamond Hill—what a glorious name for a place. No one outside of Hong Kong would have guessed it was the moniker of a squatter village in Kowloon East. In the fifties and sixties, it was a ghetto with its share of grime and crime, and sleaze oozing from brothels, opium dens, and underground gambling houses. There and then, you found no diamonds but plenty of poor people residing on its muddy slopes. Most refugees from mainland China settled in dumps like this because the rent was dirt cheap. Hong Kong began prospering in the seventies and eighties, and its population exploded, partly due to the continued influx of refugees. Large-scale urbanization and infrastructure development moved at breakneck speed. There was no longer any room for squatter villages or shantytowns. By the late eighties, Diamond Hill was chopped into pieces and demolished bit by bit with the construction of the six-lane Lung Cheung Road in its north, the Tate’s Cairn Tunnel in its northwest, and its namesake subway station in its south. Only its southern tip had survived. More than two hundred families and businesses crammed together in this remnant of Diamond Hill, where the old village’s flavor lingered. Its buildings remained a mishmash of shoddy low-rise brick houses and bungalows, shanties, tin huts, and illegal shelters made of planks and tar paper occupying every nook and cranny. There was not a single thoroughfare wide enough for cars. The only access was by foot using narrow lanes flanked by gutters. The lanes branched out and merged, twisted and turned, and dead-ended at tall fences built to separate the village from the outside world. The village was like a maze. The last of Diamond Hill’s residents were on borrowed time and borrowed land. They had already received eviction notices from the Hong Kong government, and all had made plans for the future. The government promised to compensate longtime residents for vacating the land, but not the new arrivals. ~ Jason Y Ng,
549:Silence. Ah (...) Isn't that something? Did you know this is how other families are? They're quiet. Ask one of these people sitting here. They'll tell you. They've got famillies. This is how some families are all the time. And some people like to call these families repressed, or emotionally stunted or whatever, but do you know what I say? (...) I say, lucky fuckers. Lucky, lucky fuckers. (...) What a peaceful existence. What a joy their lives must be. They open a door and all they've got behind it is a bathroom or a lounge. Just neutral spaces. And not this endless maze of present rooms and past rooms and the things said in them years ago and everybody's old historical shit all over the place. They're not constantly making the same old mistakes. They're not always hearing the same old shit. They don't do public performances of angst on public transport. Really, these people exist. I'm telling you. The biggest traumas of their lives are things like recarpeting. Bill-paying. Gate-fixing. They don't mind what their kids do in life as long as they're reasonably, you know, healthy. Happy. And every single fucking day is not this huge battle between who they are and who they should be, what they were and what they will be. Go on, ask them. And they'll tell you. No mosque. Maybe a little church. Hardly any sin. Plenty of forgiveness. No attics. No shit in attics. No skeletons in cupboards. No great-grandfathers. I will put twenty quid down now that Samad is the only person in here who knows the inside bloody leg measurement of his great-grandfather. And you know why they don't know? Because it doesn't fucking matter. As far as they're concerned, it's the past. This is what it's like in other families. They're not self-indulgent. They don't run around, relishing, relishing the fact that they are utterly dysfunctional. They don't spend their time trying to find ways to make their lives more complex. They just get on with it. Lucky bastards. Lucky motherfuckers. ~ Zadie Smith,
550:Light shone through a large crack in the wall of the maze ahead of us. A slim, slender silhouette cast a shadow against the passage floors. Der Erlkönig. I did not marvel then that I knew the shape of his body as well as my own reflection.
I watched the Goblin King's shadow play his violin, his right arm moving in a smooth, practiced bowing motion. Käthe tried to pull me away, but I did not go with her. I moved closer to the light, and pressed my face to the crack. I had to look, I had to see. I had to watch him play.
The Goblin King's back was turned to me. He wore no fancy coat, no embroidered dressing gown. He was simply dressed in trousers and a fine cambric shirt, so fine I could see the play of muscles in his back.
He played with precision and with considerable skill. The Goblin King was not Josef; he did not have my brother's clarity of emotion or my brother's transcendence. But the Goblin King had his own voice, full of passion, longing, and reverence, and it was unexpectedly... vibrant. Alive.
I could hear the slight fumblings, the stutters and starts in tempo, the accidental jarring note that marked his playing as human, oh so human. This was a man- a young man?- playing a song he liked on the violin. Playing it until it sounded perfect to his imperfect ears. I had stumbled upon something private, something intimate. My cheeks reddened.
"Liesl."
My sister's voice sliced through the sound of the Goblin King's playing like a guillotine, stopping the music mid-phrase. He glanced over his shoulder, and our eyes met.
His mismatched gaze was unguarded, and I felt both ashamed and emboldened. I had seen him unclothed in his bedchamber, but he was even more naked now. Propriety told me I should look away, but I could not, arrested by the sight of his soul bared to me.
We stared at each other through the crack in the wall, unable to move. The air between us changed, like a world before a storm: hushed, quiet, waiting, expectant. ~ S Jae Jones,
551:Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Hair: brown. Lips: scarlet.
Age: five thousand three hundred days.
Profession: none, or "starlet"

Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I Talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling).

Where are you riding, Dolores Haze?
What make is the magic carpet?
Is a Cream Cougar the present craze?
And where are you parked, my car pet?

Who is your hero, Dolores Haze?
Still one of those blue-capped star-men?
Oh the balmy days and the palmy bays,
And the cars, and the bars, my Carmen!

Oh Dolores, that juke-box hurts!
Are you still dancin', darlin'?
(Both in worn levis, both in torn T-shirts,
And I, in my corner, snarlin').

Happy, happy is gnarled McFate
Touring the States with a child wife,
Plowing his Molly in every State
Among the protected wild life.

My Dolly, my folly! Her eyes were vair,
And never closed when I kissed her.
Know an old perfume called Soliel Vert?
Are you from Paris, mister?

L'autre soir un air froid d'opera m'alita;
Son fele -- bien fol est qui s'y fie!
Il neige, le decor s'ecroule, Lolita!
Lolita, qu'ai-je fait de ta vie?

Dying, dying, Lolita Haze,
Of hate and remorse, I'm dying.
And again my hairy fist I raise,
And again I hear you crying.

Officer, officer, there they go--
In the rain, where that lighted store is!
And her socks are white, and I love her so,
And her name is Haze, Dolores.

Officer, officer, there they are--
Dolores Haze and her lover!
Whip out your gun and follow that car.
Now tumble out and take cover.

Wanted, wanted: Dolores Haze.
Her dream-gray gaze never flinches.
Ninety pounds is all she weighs
With a height of sixty inches.

My car is limping, Dolores Haze,
And the last long lap is the hardest,
And I shall be dumped where the weed decays,
And the rest is rust and stardust. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,
552:See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
   And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
   Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
   Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
   As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
   As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
   So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
   As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
   Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
   From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
   The path they leave behind them lost--wide open the path beyond,
   The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
   See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
   All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
   No!--disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges--
   The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
   For ay destroyed--for ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
   And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
   And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
   And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
   That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
   Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
   What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
   A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
   That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
   Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
   And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
   The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
   And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
   The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
   The suns that wheel in varying maze?--That music thou discernest?
   No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.
   ~ Friedrich Schiller,
553:People walk the paths of the gardens below, and the wind sings anthems in the hedges, and the big old cedars at the entrance to the maze creak. Marie-Laure imagines the electromagnetic waves traveling into and out of Michel’s machine, bending around them, just as Etienne used to describe, except now a thousand times more crisscross the air than when he lived - maybe a million times more. Torrents of text conversations, tides of cell conversations, of televisions programs, of e-mails, vast networks of fiber and wire interlaced above and beneath the city, passing through buildings, arcing between transmitters in Metro tunnels, between antennas atop buildings, from lampposts with cellular transmitters in them, commercials for Carrefour and Evian and prebaked toaster pastries flashing into space and back to earth again, I am going to be late and Maybe we should get reservations? and Pick up avocados and What did he say? and ten thousand I miss yous, fifty thousand I love yous, hate mail and appointment reminders and market updates, jewelry ads, coffee ads, furniture ads flying invisibly over the warrens of Paris, over the battlefields and tombs, over the Ardennes, over the Rhine, over Belgium and Denmark, over the scarred and ever-shifting landscape we call nations. And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might harry the sky in flocks, like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about, faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs, and pass out through the other side, the air a library and the record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it.

Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world.

We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs. ~ Anthony Doerr,
554:The corporate czars we celebrate—with some exceptions—are second or third-generation tycoons who run huge empires comprising dozens of unrelated businesses. Traditional management theory will wonder how a company can be in food, telecom, power, construction and financial sectors all at the same time. However, in India, such conglomerates thrive. The promoters of these companies have the required skill—navigating the Indian government maze. Whether it is obtaining permission to set up a power plant, or to use agricultural land for commercial purposes, or to obtain licences to open a bank or sell liquor—our top business promoters can get all this done, something ordinary Indians would never be able to. This is why they are able to make billions. We then load them with awards, rank them on lists and treat them as role models for the young.

In reality, they are hardly icons. They have milked an unfair system for their personal benefit, taking opportunities that would have belonged to the young on a level playing field.

Indian companies make money from rent-seeking behaviour, creating artificial barriers of access to regulators, thereby depriving our start-ups of wealth-generating opportunities. None of the recent technologies that have changed the world and created wealth—telecom, computers, aviation—have come out of India. Yet, our promoters have figured out a way to make money from them by bulldozing their way into their share of the pie, rationing out the technology to Indians and setting themselves up as modern-day heroes. In reality, they are no heroes. They are the opposite of cool and, despite their billions, they are what young people call 'losers'.

For if they are not losers, why have they never raised their voices against governmental corruption? Our corporate honchos don't think twice before creating a cartel to fleece customers. Yet they have never even thought about creating a cartel to take a stand against corrupt politicians.

The Great Indian Social Network, page 16 and 17 ~ Chetan Bhagat,
555:See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lostwide open the path beyond,
The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blended;
All, in sweet chaos whirled again, that gentle world is ended!
No!disentangled glides the knot, the gay disorder ranges
The only system ruling here, a grace that ever changes.
For ay destroyedfor ay renewed, whirls on that fair creation;
And yet one peaceful law can still pervade in each mutation.
And what can to the reeling maze breathe harmony and vigor,
And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
That each a ruler to himself doth but himself obey,
Yet through the hurrying course still keeps his own appointed way.
What, would'st thou know? It is in truth the mighty power of tune,
A power that every step obeys, as tides obey the moon;
That threadeth with a golden clue the intricate employment,
Curbs bounding strength to tranquil grace, and tames the wild enjoyment.
And comes the world's wide harmony in vain upon thine ears?
The stream of music borne aloft from yonder choral spheres?
And feel'st thou not the measure which eternal Nature keeps?
The whirling dance forever held in yonder azure deeps?
The suns that wheel in varying maze?That music thou discernest?
No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.
~ Friedrich Schiller, The Dance
,
556:To Mr. S. T. Coleridge
Midway the hill of science, after steep
And rugged paths that tire the' unpractised feet,
A grove extends; in tangled mazes wrought,
And filled with strange enchantment:—dubious shapes
Flit through dim glades, and lure the eager foot
Of youthful ardour to eternal chase.
Dreams hang on every leaf: unearthly forms
Glide through the gloom; and mystic visions swim
Before the cheated sense. Athwart the mists,
Far into vacant space, huge shadows stretch,
And seem realities; while things of life,
Obvious to sight and touch, all glowing round,
Fade to the hue of shadows—Scruples here,
With filmy net, most like the autumnal webs
Of floating gossamer, arrest the foot
Of generous enterprise; and palsy hope
And fair ambition with the chilling touch
Of sickly hesitation and blank fear.
Nor seldom Indolence these lawns among
Fixes her turf-built seat; and wears the garb
Of deep philosophy, and museful sits,
In dreamy twilight of the vacant mind,
Soothed by the whispering shade; for soothing soft
The shades; and vistas lengthening into air,
With moonbeam rainbows tinted.—Here each mind
Of finer mould, acute and delicate,
In its high progress to eternal truth
Rests for a space, in fairy bowers entranced;
And loves the softened light and tender gloom;
And, pampered with most unsubstantial food,
Looks down indignant on the grosser world,
And matter's cumbrous shapings. Youth beloved
Of Science—of the Muse beloved,—not here,
Not in the maze of metaphysic lore,
Build thou thy place of resting! lightly tread
The dangerous ground, on noble aims intent;
And be this Circe of the studious cell
Enjoyed, but still subservient. Active scenes
Shall soon with healthful spirit brace thy mind;
170
And fair exertion, for bright fame sustained,
For friends, for country, chase each spleen-fed fog
That blots the wide creation.—
Now Heaven conduct thee with a parent's love!
~ Anna Laetitia Barbauld,
557:Jupiter Mars P Moon
VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.
Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon.
Life is absorbed in its beatitude,
A meditative mage beneath the moon
Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude,
To Campo Santo that, this night of June,
Heals for awhile the immitigable feud?
Adela!
Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola!

Through maze on maze of silent waterways,
Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,
We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways
Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas
Swoon in the bosom of Pacific bays!
We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies,
Adela!
Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!

They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres
That guard such ghostly life. They tower above
Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs
No angel from the pinnacles thereof.
All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers
That reigns is this most silent crown of love
Adela
That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.

They twist, they twine, these white and black canals,
Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx.
Even as out love - raging wild animals
Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix
To radiate seraphic coronals,
Flowers, flowers - O let our light and darkness mix,
Adela,
Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!

Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire,
Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash,
Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre,
Your eyes His stars - come, let our Venus lash
Our bodies with the whips of Her desire.
Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash,
Adela!
Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?

~ Aleister Crowley, Adela
,
558:Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port,
Away with old Hock and madeira,
Too earthly ye are for my sport;
There's a beverage brighter and clearer.
Instead of a piriful rummer,
My wine overbrims a whole summer;
My bowl is the sky,
And I drink at my eye,
Till I feel in the brain
A Delphian pain -
Then follow, my Caius! then follow:
On the green of the hill
We will drink our fill
Of golden sunshine,
Till our brains intertwine
With the glory and grace of Apollo!
God of the Meridian,
And of the East and West,
To thee my soul is flown,
And my body is earthward press'd. -
It is an awful mission,
A terrible division;
And leaves a gulph austere
To be fill'd with worldly fear.
Aye, when the soul is fled
To high above our head,
Affrighted do we gaze
After its airy maze,
As doth a mother wild,
When her young infant child
Is in an eagle's claws -
And is not this the cause
Of madness? - God of Song,
Thou bearest me along
Through sights I scarce can bear:
O let me, let me share
With the hot lyre and thee,
The staid Philosophy.
Temper my lonely hours,
And let me see thy bowers
More unalarm'd!
'These lines are part of an extract from a letter to Reynolds dated "Hampstead, Jan. 31st, 1818," published in Volume I of the Life, Letters &c. (1848), but omitted from the first Life and Letters of 1867 as "a page of doggerel not worth transcription." The time has now come when students will feel entitled to have even Keats's doggerel, some of which, by the bye, has far less reason (and rhyme too) than the present effusion -- to my mind rather a bright and happy specimen, notwithstanding Keats's own plea to his correspondent, "you must forgive all this ranting; but the fact is, I cannot write sense this morning." With the view of giving Reynolds "some sense" nevertheless, he proceeds to copy out his latest sonnet, "When I have fears" &c.'
~ Poetical Works of John Keats, ed. H. Buxton Forman, Crowell publ. 1895. by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~ John Keats, A Draught Of Sunshine
,
559:Adela
Jupiter Mars P Moon
VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.
Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon.
Life is absorbed in its beatitude,
A meditative mage beneath the moon
Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude,
To Campo Santo that, this night of June,
Heals for awhile the immitigable feud?
Adela!
Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola!
Through maze on maze of silent waterways,
Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,
We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways
Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas
Swoon in the bosom of Pacific bays!
We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies,
Adela!
Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!
They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres
That guard such ghostly life. They tower above
Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs
No angel from the pinnacles thereof.
All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers
That reigns is this most silent crown of love
Adela
12
That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.
They twist, they twine, these white and black canals,
Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx.
Even as out love - raging wild animals
Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix
To radiate seraphic coronals,
Flowers, flowers - O let our light and darkness mix,
Adela,
Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!
Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire,
Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash,
Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre,
Your eyes His stars - come, let our Venus lash
Our bodies with the whips of Her desire.
Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash,
Adela!
Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?
~ Aleister Crowley,
560:The Killing
That was the day they killed the Son of God
On a squat hill-top by Jerusalem.
Zion was bare, her children from their maze
Sucked by the dream of curiosity
Clean through the gates. The very halt and blind
Had somehow got themselves up to the hill.
After the ceremonial preparation,
The scourging, nailing, nailing against the wood,
Erection of the main-trees with their burden,
While from the hill rose an orchestral wailing,
They were there at last, high up in the soft spring day.
We watched the writhings, heard the moanings, saw
The three heads turning on their separate axles
Like broken wheels left spinning. Round his head
Was loosely bound a crown of plaited thorn
That hurt at random, stinging temple and brow
As the pain swung into its envious circle.
In front the wreath was gathered in a knot
That as he gazed looked like the last stump left
Of a death-wounded deer's great antlers. Some
Who came to stare grew silent as they looked,
Indignant or sorry. But the hardened old
And the hard-hearted young, although at odds
From the first morning, cursed him with one curse,
Having prayed for a Rabbi or an armed Messiah
And found the Son of God. What use to them
Was a God or a Son of God? Of what avail
For purposes such as theirs? Beside the cross-foot,
Alone, four women stood and did not move
All day. The sun revolved, the shadows wheeled,
The evening fell. His head lay on his breast,
But in his breast they watched his heart move on
By itself alone, accomplishing its journey.
Their taunts grew louder, sharpened by the knowledge
That he was walking in the park of death,
Far from their rage. Yet all grew stale at last,
Spite, curiosity, envy, hate itself.
They waited only for death and death was slow
And came so quietly they scarce could mark it.
31
They were angry then with death and death's deceit.
I was a stranger, could not read these people
Or this outlandish deity. Did a God
Indeed in dying cross my life that day
By chance, he on his road and I on mine?
~ Edwin Muir,
561:Spring Star
I.
Over the lamp-lit street,
Trodden by hurrying feet,
Where mostly pulse and beat
Life's throbbing veins,
See where the April star,
Blue-bright as sapphires are,
Hangs in deep heavens far,
Waxes and wanes.
Strangely alive it seems,
Darting keen, dazzling gleams,
Veiling anon its beams,
Large, clear, and pure.
In the broad western sky
No orb may shine anigh,
No lesser radiancy
May there endure.
Spring airs are blowing sweet:
Low in the dusky street
Star-beams and eye-beams meet.
Rapt in his dreams,
All through the crowded mart
Poet with swift-stirred heart,
Passing beneath, must start,
Thrilled by those gleams.
Naught doth he note anear,
Fain through Night's veil to peer,
Reach that resplendent sphere,
Reading her sign.
Where point those sharp, thin rays,
Guiding his weary maze,
Blesseth she or betrays,
Who may divine?
'Guard me, celestial light,
194
Lofty, serenely bright:
Lead my halt feet aright,'
Prayerful he speaks.
'For a new ray hath shone
Over my spirit lone.
Be this new soul the one
whom my soul seeks.'
II.
Beside her casement oped the maiden sits,
Where the mild evening spirit of the Spring
Gently between the city's homesteads flits
To kiss her brows, and floats on languid wing,
Vague longings in her breast awakening.
While her heart trembles 'neath those dim, deep skies,
As the quick sea that 'neath the globed moon lies.
Where her eyes rest the full-orbed evening star
Burns with white flame: it beckons, shrinks, dilates.
She, dazzled by that shining world afar,
May not withdraw her gaze: breathless she waits.
Some promised joy from Heaven's very gates
Unto her soul seems proffered. When shall be
The bright fulfilment of that star's decree?
Nor glad nor sad is she: she doth not know
That through the city's throng one threads his way,
Thrilled likewise by that planet's mystic glow,
And hastes to seek her. What sweet change shall sway
Her spirit at his coming? What new ray
Upon his shadowy life from her shall fall?
The silent star burns on, and knoweth all.
~ Emma Lazarus,
562:At The Door
All actors look for them-the defining moments
When what a character does is what he is.
The script may say, He goes to the door
And exits or She goes out the door stage left.
But you see your fingers touching the doorknob,
Closing around it, turning it
As if by themselves. The latch slides
Out of the strike-plate, the door swings on its hinges,
And you're about to take that step
Over the threshold into a different light.
For the audience, you may simply be
Disappearing from the scene, yet in those few seconds
You can reach for the knob as the last object on earth
You wanted to touch. Or you can take it
Warmly like the hand your father offered
Once in forgiveness and afterward
Kept to himself.
Or you can stand there briefly, as bewildered
As by the door of a walk-in time-lock safe,
Stand there and stare
At the whole concept of shutness, like a rat
Whose maze has been rebaffled overnight,
Stand still and quiver, unable to turn
Around or go left or right.
Or you can grasp it with a sly, soundless discretion,
Open it inch by inch, testing each fraction
Of torque on the spindles, on tiptoe
Slip yourself through the upright slot
And press the lock-stile silently
Back into its frame.
Or you can use your shoulder
Or the hard heel of your shoe
And a leg-thrust to break it open.
Or you can approach the door as if accustomed
To having all barriers open by themselves.
You can wrench aside
This unauthorized interruption of your progress
And then leave it ajar
For others to do with as they may see fit.
Or you can stand at ease
And give the impression you can see through
This door or any door and have no need
To take your physical self to the other side.
Or you can turn the knob as if at last
Nothing could please you more, your body language
Filled with expectations of joy at where you're going,
Holding yourself momentarily in the posture
Of an awestruck pilgrim at the gate-though you know
You'll only be stepping out against the scrim
Or a wobbly flat daubed with a landscape,
A scribble of leaves, a hint of flowers,
The bare suggestion of a garden.
~ David Wagoner,
563:In Imitation Of E. Of Rochester : On Silence
I.
Silence! coeval with Eternity;
Thou wert, ere Nature's-self began to be,
'Twas one vast Nothing, all, and all slept fast in thee.
II.
Thine was the sway, ere heav'n was form'd, or earth,
Ere fruitful Thought conceiv'd creation's birth,
Or midwife Word gave aid, and spoke the infant forth.
III.
Then various elements, against thee join'd,
In one more various animal combin'd,
And fam'd the clam'rous race of busy Human-kind.
IV.
The tongue mov'd gently first, and speech was low,
'Till wrangling Science taught it noise and show,
And wicked Wit arose, thy most abusive foe.
V.
But rebel Wit deserts thee oft' in vain;
Lost in the maze of words he turns again,
And seeks a surer state, and courts thy gentle reign.
VI.
Afflicted Sense thou kindly dost set free,
Oppress'd with argumental tyranny,
And routed Reason finds a safe retreat in thee.
VII.
With thee in private modest Dulness lies,
And in thy bosom lurks in Thought's disguise;
Thou varnisher of Fools, and cheat of all the Wise!
VIII.
Yet thy indulgence is by both confest;
Folly by thee lies sleeping in the breast,
And 'tis in thee at last that Wisdom seeks for rest.
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IX.
Silence the knave's repute, the whore's good name,
The only honour of the wishing dame;
Thy very want of tongue makes thee a kind of Fame.
X.
But could'st thou seize some tongues that now are free,
How Church and State should be oblig'd to thee!
At Senate, and at Bar, how welcome would'st thou be!
XI.
Yet speech ev'n there, submissively withdraws,
From rights of subjects, and the poor man's cause:
Then pompous Silence reigns, and stills the noisy Laws.
XII.
Past services of friends, good deeds of foes,
What Fav'rites gain, and what the Nation owes,
Fly the forgetful world, and in thy arms repose.
XIII.
The country wit, religion of the town,
The courtier's learning, policy o' th' gown,
Are best by thee express'd; and shine in thee alone.
XIV.
The parson's cant, the lawyer's sophistry,
Lord's quibble, critic's jest; all end in thee,
All rest in peace at last, and sleep eternally.
~ Alexander Pope,
564:Where are you?” she shouted. “Don’t you see us?” taunted the woman’s voice. “I thought Hecate chose you for your skill.” Another bout of queasiness churned through Hazel’s gut. On her shoulder, Gale barked and passed gas, which didn’t help. Dark spots floated in Hazel’s eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they only turned darker. The spots consolidated into a twenty-foot-tall shadowy figure looming next to the Doors. The giant Clytius was shrouded in the black smoke, just as she’d seen in her vision at the crossroads, but now Hazel could dimly make out his form—dragon-like legs with ash-colored scales; a massive humanoid upper body encased in Stygian armor; long, braided hair that seemed to be made from smoke. His complexion was as dark as Death’s (Hazel should know, since she had met Death personally). His eyes glinted cold as diamonds. He carried no weapon, but that didn’t make him any less terrifying. Leo whistled. “You know, Clytius…for such a big dude, you’ve got a beautiful voice.” “Idiot,” hissed the woman. Halfway between Hazel and the giant, the air shimmered. The sorceress appeared. She wore an elegant sleeveless dress of woven gold, her dark hair piled into a cone, encircled with diamonds and emeralds. Around her neck hung a pendant like a miniature maze, on a cord set with rubies that made Hazel think of crystallized blood drops. The woman was beautiful in a timeless, regal way—like a statue you might admire but could never love. Her eyes sparkled with malice. “Pasiphaë,” Hazel said. The woman inclined her head. “My dear Hazel Levesque.” Leo coughed. “You two know each other? Like Underworld chums, or—” “Silence, fool.” Pasiphaë’s voice was soft, but full of venom. “I have no use for demigod boys—always so full of themselves, so brash and destructive.” “Hey, lady,” Leo protested. “I don’t destroy things much. I’m a son of Hephaestus.” “A tinkerer,” snapped Pasiphaë. “Even worse. I knew Daedalus. His inventions brought me nothing but trouble.” Leo blinked. “Daedalus…like, the Daedalus? Well, then, you should know all about us tinkerers. We’re more into fixing, building, occasionally sticking wads of oilcloth in the mouths of rude ladies—” “Leo.” Hazel put her arm across his chest. She had a feeling the sorceress was about to turn him into something unpleasant if he didn’t shut up. “Let me take this, okay? ~ Rick Riordan,
565:So shut it. Go on. Try it. Silence. Ah.’ She reached into the air as if trying to touch the quiet she had created. ‘Isn’t that something? Did you know this is how other families are? They’re quiet. Ask one of these people sitting here. They’ll tell you. They’ve got families. This is how some families are all the time. And some people like to call these families repressed, or emotionally stunted or whatever, but do you know what I say?’

The Iqbals and the Joneses, astonished into silence along with the rest of the bus (even the loud-mouthed Ragga girls on their way to a Brixton dance hall New Year ting), had no answer.

‘I say, lucky fuckers. Lucky, lucky fuckers.’

‘Irie Jones!’ cried Clara. ‘Watch your mouth!’ But Irie couldn’t be stopped.

‘What a peaceful existence. What a joy their lives must be. They open a door and all they’ve got behind it is a bathroom or a lounge. Just neutral spaces. And not this endless maze of present rooms and past rooms and the things said in them years ago and everybody’s old historical shit all over the place. They’re not constantly making the same old mistakes. They’re not always hearing the same old shit. They don’t do public performances of angst on public transport. Really, these people exist. I’m telling you. The biggest traumas of their lives are things like recarpeting. Bill-paying. Gate-fixing. They don’t mind what their kids do in life as long as they’re reasonably, you know, healthy. Happy. And every single fucking day is not this huge battle between who they are and who they should be, what they were and what they will be. Go on, ask them. And they’ll tell you. No mosque. Maybe a little church. Hardly any sin. Plenty of forgiveness. No attics. No shit in attics. No skeletons in cupboards. No great-grandfathers. I will put twenty quid down now that Samad is the only person in here who knows the inside bloody leg measurement of his great-grandfather. And you know why they don’t know? Because it doesn’t fucking matter. As far as they’re concerned, it’s the past. This is what it’s like in other families. They’re not self-indulgent. They don’t run around, relishing, relishing the fact that they are utterly dysfunctional. They don’t spend their time trying to find ways to make their lives more complex. They just get on with it. Lucky bastards. Lucky motherfuckers. ~ Zadie Smith,
566:The Old Camp-Oven
WE DON’T keep a grand piano in our hut beside the creek,
And I’m pretty certain Hannah couldn’t bang it, anyhow,
But we’ve got one box of music, and I’d rather hear its squeak
Than the daisiest cantata that’s been fashioned up to now.
It’s an old camp-oven merely, with a handle made of wire,
But no organ built could nearly compensate to me for it
When I come off graft and find it playing tunes before the fire,
And I’m feeling sort of vacant, but just wonder fully fit.
In its sizzle, sizzle, sizzle,
There’s a thousand little airs,
And no man can sit and grizzle
’Bout his troubles and his cares
While the flames are gaily winding,
And the tea is down to brew,
And the old camp-oven’s grinding
All the reels he ever knew.
When the wet winds meet and whip me in the early winter nights,
And the hissing hailstones clip me all the way across the flat,
As I battle for’ards, water-logged, toward the beckoning lights,
There is always there a welcome to console a chap for that.
For my little wife is beaming brisk and bright beside the lamp,
And the old camp-oven’s going. Gosh! I feel just like a kid
As I peel and sluice so slippy, and I hear the storm winds vamp
To the singing of the oven when the missus lifts the lid.
There’s a sizzle and a splutter
And a whirr of many harps;
Where’s the instrument can utter
Such a maze of flats and sharps?
Not for me the great creations
When the old camp-oven plays
‘Home Sweet Home,’ with variations,
At the end of working days.
In the evenings dim and hazy, stretched outside along a butt,
Feeling reasonably lazy, blowing clouds that curl and climb,
I can hear the old camp-oven on the logs before the hut
142
Ripping out a mellow chorus that just suits the place and time.
If we strike it in the ranges, or The Windmill turns out well,
I suppose there’ll be some changes, and I’ll want to make things gee;
But the time will never happen when I’ll be so steep a swell
That the old camp-oven’s measure won’t be melody to me.
’Neath its bubble, bubble, bubble,
There’s the lilt of jigs and reels;
All the common kind of trouble
That the horney-handed feels
Is wiped out in half a minute
By the restfulness it brings,
And the peaceful rapture in it
When the old camp-oven sings.
~ Edward George Dyson,
567:The Origin Of The Sail
"Sweet maid! on whom my wishes rest,
My morning thought, my midnight dream,
O grant Lysander's fond request,
And let those eyes with mercy beam!
"Thy coy delays at length give o'er,
And let me claim thy nuptial vow!
Bid that cold bosom, cold no more,
With mutual passion's ardour glow.
"To yonder isle amidst the sea,
Which sportive laves those mountains' feet,
Beloved Euphrasia, haste with me,
And there the priest of Hymen meet.
"There, spicy groves thick foliage spread
The timid virgin's blush to hide;
There, gales which tender languors shed
Diffuse the richest perfumes wide.
"O! blest retreat for happy love!
And see the sun's descending beams
Now richly gild each distant grove,
And shed around soft roseate gleams.
"Then let this bark for thee designed,
For thee by anxious fondness drest,
Yon beauteous island strive to find,
And bear us o'er the ocean's breast."
Here paused the youth, and round her waist
His arm with timid boldness threw;
While from his grasp, with blushing haste,
The pleased yet frowning fair withdrew.
"And wilt thou scorn my suit?" he said,
While in despair his hands he wrung....
"Behold!" replied the yielding maid,
And to the bark she, sighing, sprung.
63
There, fondly seated by her side,
The youth her fluttered spirits cheered,
And o'er the eve-empurpled tide
To find the priest of Hymen steered.
But too, too slow for lovers' haste
The sluggish bark appeared to move;
Still lengthening seemed the watry waste,
To thy fond glances, eager love!
At length with fruitless wishes tired,
The fretful youth to Cupid prayed;
Who, pitying power! a thought inspired
The ardent suppliant's will to aid.
To hide her face from Love's keen gaze,
O'er which Consent's soft languor spread,
Within her veil's luxuriant maze
Euphrasia wrapt her beauteous head.
But now that veil the youth unbinds,
Then to the bark with ardour ties....
See! its folds catch the passing winds,
And lo, to land the vessel flies!
But not alone, youth loved of heaven!
Thy glowing bosom blessed that hour;
The thought, to crown thy wishes given,
Still charms with never-ending power:
And grateful ages yet unborn
Shall bless Euphrasia's floating veil;
Thence dawned on Art a brighter morn,
For thence she framed the swelling sail.
~ Amelia Opie,
568:Old Australian Ways
The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind,
The good old land of 'never mind',
And old Australian ways.
The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.
The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and sweet
Of wild birds making melodies,
Nor catch the little laughing breeze
That whispers in the wheat.
Our fathers came of roving stock
That could not fixed abide:
And we have followed field and flock
Since e'er we learnt to ride;
By miner's camp and shearing shed,
In land of heat and drought,
We followed where our fortunes led,
With fortune always on ahead
And always further out.
188
The wind is in the barley-grass,
The wattles are in bloom;
The breezes greet us as they pass
With honey-sweet perfume;
The parakeets go screaming by
With flash of golden wing,
And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry
Their long-drawn note of revelry,
Rejoicing at the Spring.
So throw the weary pen aside
And let the papers rest,
For we must saddle up and ride
Towards the blue hill's breast;
And we must travel far and fast
Across their rugged maze,
To find the Spring of Youth at last,
And call back from the buried past
The old Australian ways.
When Clancy took the drover's track
In years of long ago,
He drifted to the outer back
Beyond the Overflow;
By rolling plain and rocky shelf,
With stockwhip in his hand,
He reached at last (oh lucky elf!)
The Town of Come-and-help-yourself
In Rough-and-ready Land.
And if it be that you would know
The tracks he used to ride,
Then you must saddle up and go
Beyond the Queensland side,
Beyond the reach of rule or law,
To ride the long day through,
In Nature's homestead, filled with awe
You then might see what Clancy saw
And know what Clancy knew.
189
~ Banjo Paterson,
569:The Old Australian Ways
The London lights are far abeam
Behind a bank of cloud,
Along the shore the gaslights gleam,
The gale is piping loud;
And down the Channel, groping blind,
We drive her through the haze
Towards the land we left behind -The good old land of `never mind',
And old Australian ways.
The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.
The city folk go to and fro
Behind a prison's bars,
They never feel the breezes blow
And never see the stars;
They never hear in blossomed trees
The music low and sweet
Of wild birds making melodies,
Nor catch the little laughing breeze
That whispers in the wheat.
Our fathers came of roving stock
That could not fixed abide:
And we have followed field and flock
Since e'er we learnt to ride;
By miner's camp and shearing shed,
In land of heat and drought,
We followed where our fortunes led,
With fortune always on ahead
And always further out.
405
The wind is in the barley-grass,
The wattles are in bloom;
The breezes greet us as they pass
With honey-sweet perfume;
The parakeets go screaming by
With flash of golden wing,
And from the swamp the wild-ducks cry
Their long-drawn note of revelry,
Rejoicing at the Spring.
So throw the weary pen aside
And let the papers rest,
For we must saddle up and ride
Towards the blue hill's breast;
And we must travel far and fast
Across their rugged maze,
To find the Spring of Youth at last,
And call back from the buried past
The old Australian ways.
When Clancy took the drover's track
In years of long ago,
He drifted to the outer back
Beyond the Overflow;
By rolling plain and rocky shelf,
With stockwhip in his hand,
He reached at last, oh lucky elf,
The Town of Come-and-help-yourself
In Rough-and-ready Land.
And if it be that you would know
The tracks he used to ride,
Then you must saddle up and go
Beyond the Queensland side -Beyond the reach of rule or law,
To ride the long day through,
In Nature's homestead -- filled with awe
You then might see what Clancy saw
And know what Clancy knew.
A.B. (Banjo) Paterson
406
~ Banjo Paterson,
570:Then And Now
A little time agone, a few brief years,
And there was peace within our beauteous borders;
Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears
Of war and its disorders.
Pleasure was ruling goddess of our land; with her attendant Mirth
She led a jubilant, joy-seeking band about the riant earth.
Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,
And those long nights that trespassed on the dawn?
Those throngs of idle dancing maids and mothers
Who lilted on and onCard mad, wine flushed, bejewelled and half stripped,
Yet women whose sweet mouth had never sipped
From sin's black chalice-women good at heart
Who, in the winding maze of pleasure's mart,
Had lost the sun-kissed way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.
Oh! You remember them! You filled their glasses;
You 'cut in' at their games of bridge; you left
Your work to drop in on their dancing-classes
Before the day was cleft
In twain by noontide. When the night waxed late
You led your partner forth to demonstrate
The newest steps before a cheering throng,
And Time and Peace danced by your side along.
Peace is a lovely word, and we abhor that red word 'War';
But look ye, Brothers, what this war has done for daughters and for son,
For manhood and for womanhood, whose trend
Seemed year on year toward weakness to descend.
Upon this woof of darkness and of terror, woven by human error,
Behold the pattern of a new race-soul,
And it shall last while countless ages roll.
At the loud call of drums, out of the idler and the weakling comes
736
The hero valiant with self-sacrifice, ready to pay the price
War asks of men, to help a suffering world.
And out of the arms of pleasure, where they whirled
In wild unreasoning mirth, behold the splendid women of the earth
Living new selfless lives-the toiling mothers, sister, daughters, wives
Of men gone forth as target for the foe.
Ah, now we know
Man is divine; we see the heavenly spark
Shining above the smoke and gloom and dark
Which was not visible in peaceful days.
God! wondrous are Thy ways,
For out of chaos comes construction; out of darkness and of doubt
And the black pit of death comes glorious faith;
From want and waste comes thrift, from weakness strength and power,
And to the summits men and women lift
Their souls from self-indulgence in this hour,
This crucial hour of life:
So shines the golden side of this black shield of strife.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,
571:Molech had the advantage. This was his turf and his dwelling. He had spent much of his time over the millennia below the surface, which made his skin pale white and his eyes unable to see well when up above on the surface. But down below, he was the god of the underworld. He could see better than even Mikael’s preternatural night vision. Mikael didn’t know what he was running into down here. He arrived at a fork in the small tunnel. He looked at the dirt and could see that his adversary had gone to the right. Mikael followed. The tunnels were quite small, only big enough for the bulky eight foot deity to move, with little leeway. For Mikael, there was more room because he was smaller, but not by much. He stopped again. Another split. But this time, three options. He took the middle way. Mikael figured that by now, his comrade archangels would have moved the stone away and were on their way to join him. He felt his pathway was circling back. When he saw another crossroads, he realized what he was now inside: a maze. The mole god had burrowed out a complex labyrinth of tunnels that seemed to Mikael a web of confusion. The rock was harder and the dust sparser, making it even more difficult for Mikael to follow his prey’s foot prints. About the only thing he could follow now was the creature’s stench. He heard the sound of footsteps in the dark, not far from him. He picked up his pace, trying not to make as much noise as the clumsy brute was making. He turned a corner and saw the deity jump down into an opening in the rocky floor. When he reached it, he saw it was an opening that led deeper still, to a lower level. He heard the voices of his comrades in the distance, shouting for him. He decided he would take this one time to give some direction, even though it would also warn Molech. But he needed his comrades. He shouted, “Down here, Angels! There’s an opening to a deeper level!” Then he jumped. He landed twenty feet below. Before him, a new opening to a new maze of tunnels. He thought, This has been one busy little worm. He followed the smell. His opponent now knew how close he was. Mikael turned another corner and saw the god waiting for him, before bolting down a pathway. Mikael responded instinctively to the sight of the fleeing divinity. It wasn’t until he was almost upon the pathway that it registered in his mind that he was being led into a trap. He slid to a stop. It was too late. He heard the sound of a release being tripped and rocks shifting. Above him. A triggered cave-in crushed him beneath a ton of rock. He was completely immobilized. He could not get to his weapons. He could only see through a thin crevice of some rocks as Molech walked up to him, laughed and spit at him, before disappearing deeper into the network of twisting tunnels. ~ Brian Godawa,
572:Adelia began to get cross. Why was it women who were to blame for everything—everything, from the Fall of Man to these blasted hedges?

“We are not in a labyrinth, my lord,” she said clearly.

“Where are we, then?”

“It’s a maze.”

“Same difference.” Puffing at the horse: “Get back, you great cow.”

“No, it isn’t. A labyrinth has only one path and you merely have to follow it. It’s a symbol of life or, rather, of life and death. Labyrinths twist and turn, but they have a beginning and an end, through darkness into light.”

Softening, and hoping that he would, too, she added, “Like Ariadne’s. Rather beautiful, really.”

“I don’t want mythology, mistress, beautiful or not, I want to get to that sodding tower. What’s a maze when it’s at home?”

“It’s a trick. A trick to confuse. To amaze.”

“And I suppose Mistress Clever-boots knows how to get us out?”

“I do, actually.” God’s rib, he was sneering at her, sneering. She’d a mind to stay where she was and let him sweat.

“Then in the name of Christ, do it.”

“Stop bellowing at me,” she yelled at him. “You’re bellowing.”

She saw his teeth grit in the pretense of a placatory smile; he always had good teeth. Still did. Between them, he said, “The Bishop of Saint Albans presents his compliments to Mistress Adelia and please to escort him out of this hag’s hole, for the love of God. How will you do it?”

“My business.” Be damned if she’d tell him. Women were defenseless enough without revealing their secrets. “I’ll have to take the lead.”

She stumped along in front, holding Walt’s mount’s reins in her right hand. In the other was her riding crop, which she trailed with apparent casualness so that it brushed against the hedge on her left.

As she went, she chuntered to herself. Lord, how disregarded I am in this damned country. How disregarded all women are.

...

Ironically, the lower down the social scale women were, the greater freedom they had; the wives of laborers and craftsmen could work alongside their men—even, sometimes, when they were widowed, take over their husband’s trade.

Adelia trudged on. Hag’s hole. Grendel’s mother’s entrails. Why was this dreadful place feminine to the men lost in it? Because it was tunneled? Womb-like? Is this woman’s magic? The great womb?

Is that why the Church hates me, hates all women? Because we are the source of all true power? Of life?

She supposed that by leading them out of it, she was only confirming that a woman knew its secrets and they did not.

Great God, she thought, it isn't a question of hatred. It’s fear. They are frightened of us.

And Adelia laughed quietly, sending a suggestion of sound reverberating backward along the tunnel, as if a small pebble was skipping on water, making each man start when it passed him.

“What in hell was that?”

Walt called back stolidly, “Reckon someone’s laughing at us, master.”

“Dear God. ~ Ariana Franklin,
573:My Everest story would be incomplete if I didn’t give final credit to the Sherpas who had risked their lives alongside us every day.
Pasang and Ang-Sering still climb together as best friends, under the direction of their Sirdar boss--Kami. The Khumba Icefall specialist, Nima, still carries out his brave task in the jumbled ice maze at the foot of the mountain: repairing and fixing the route through.
Babu Chiri, who so bravely helped Mick when he ran out of oxygen under the South Summit, was tragically killed in a crevasse in the Western Cwm several years later. He was a Sherpa of many years’ Everest experience, and was truly one of the mountain’s greats. It was a huge loss to the mountaineering fraternity.
But if you play the odds long enough you will eventually lose. That is the harsh reality of high-altitude mountaineering.
You can’t keep on top of the world forever.
Geoffrey returned to the army, and Neil to his business. His toes never regained their feeling, but he avoided having them amputated. But as they say, Everest always charges some sort of a price, and in his own words--he got lucky.
As for Mick, he describes his time on Everest well: “In the three months I was away, I was both happier than ever before, and more scared than I ever hope to be again.”
Ha. That’s also high-altitude mountaineering for you.
Thengba, my friend, with whom I spent so much time alone at camp two, was finally given a hearing aid by Henry. Now, for the first time, he can hear properly.
Despite our different worlds, we shared a common bond with these wonderful Sherpa men--a friendship that was forged by an extraordinary mountain.
Once, when the climber Julius Kugy was asked what sort of person a mountaineer should be, he replied: “Truthful, distinguished, and modest.”
All these Sherpas epitomize this. I made the top with them, and because of their help, I owe them more than I can say.
The great Everest writer Walt Unsworth, in his book Everest: The Mountaineering History, gives a vivid description of the characters of the men and women who pit their all on the mountain.
I think it is bang on the money:

But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction.
Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have.
Determination and faith are their strongest weapons.
At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad…
Three things they all had in common: faith in themselves, great determination, and endurance.

If I had to sum up what happened on that journey for me, from the hospital bed to the summit of the world, I tend to think of it as a stumbling journey.
Of losing my confidence and my strength--then refinding it. Of seeing my hope and my faith slip away--and then having them rekindled.
Ultimately, if I had to pass on one message to my children it would be this: Fortune favors the brave.
Most of the time. ~ Bear Grylls,
574:an empathic and patient listener, coaxing each of us through the maze of our feelings, separating out our weapons from our wounds. He cautioned us when we got too lawyerly and posited careful questions intended to get us to think hard about why we felt the way we felt. Slowly, over hours of talking, the knot began to loosen. Each time Barack and I left his office, we felt a bit more connected. I began to see that there were ways I could be happier and that they didn’t necessarily need to come from Barack’s quitting politics in order to take some nine-to-six foundation job. (If anything, our counseling sessions had shown me that this was an unrealistic expectation.) I began to see how I’d been stoking the most negative parts of myself, caught up in the notion that everything was unfair and then assiduously, like a Harvard-trained lawyer, collecting evidence to feed that hypothesis. I now tried out a new hypothesis: It was possible that I was more in charge of my happiness than I was allowing myself to be. I was too busy resenting Barack for managing to fit workouts into his schedule, for example, to even begin figuring out how to exercise regularly myself. I spent so much energy stewing over whether or not he’d make it home for dinner that dinners, with or without him, were no longer fun. This was my pivot point, my moment of self-arrest. Like a climber about to slip off an icy peak, I drove my ax into the ground. That isn’t to say that Barack didn’t make his own adjustments—counseling helped him to see the gaps in how we communicated, and he worked to be better at it—but I made mine, and they helped me, which then helped us. For starters, I recommitted myself to being healthy. Barack and I belonged to the same gym, run by a jovial and motivating athletic trainer named Cornell McClellan. I’d worked out with Cornell for a couple of years, but having children had changed my regular routine. My fix for this came in the form of my ever-giving mother, who still worked full-time but volunteered to start coming over to our house at 4:45 in the morning several days a week so that I could run out to Cornell’s and join a girlfriend for a 5:00 a.m. workout and then be home by 6:30 to get the girls up and ready for their days. This new regimen changed everything: Calmness and strength, two things I feared I was losing, were now back. When it came to the home-for-dinner dilemma, I installed new boundaries, ones that worked better for me and the girls. We made our schedule and stuck to it. Dinner each night was at 6:30. Baths were at 7:00, followed by books, cuddling, and lights-out at 8:00 sharp. The routine was ironclad, which put the weight of responsibility on Barack to either make it on time or not. For me, this made so much more sense than holding off dinner or having the girls wait up sleepily for a hug. It went back to my wishes for them to grow up strong and centered and also unaccommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy: I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with ~ Michelle Obama,
575:Black Swans
As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done.
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the darkness dying,
Where the stars are mustering one by one.
O ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder
For a while to join in your westward flight,
With the stars above and the dim earth under,
Trough the cooling air of the glorious night.
As we swept along on our pinions winging,
We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,
Or the distant note of a torrent singing,
Or the far-off flash of a station light.
From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,
Where the hills are clothed with a purple haze,
Where the bell-birds chime and the songs of thrushes
Make music sweet in the jungle maze,
They will hold their course to the westward ever,
Till they reach the banks of the old grey river,
Where the waters wash, and the reed-beds quiver
In the burning heat of the summer days.
O ye strange wild birds, will ye bear a greeting
To the folk that live in that western land?
Then for every sweep of your pinions beating
Ye shall bear a wish to the sunburnt band,
To the stalwart men who are stoutly fighting
With the heat and drought and the dust-storm smiting,
Yet whose life somehow has a strong inviting,
When once to the work they have put their hand.
Facing it yet! O my friend stout-hearted,
What does it matter for rain or shine,
For the hopes deferred and the grain departed?
Nothing could conquer that heart of thine.
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And thy health and strength are beyond confessing
As the only joys that are worth possessing.
May the days to come be as rich in blessing
As the days we spent in the auld lang syne.
I would fain go back to the old grey river,
To the old bush days when our hearts were light;
But, alas! those days they have fled for ever,
They are like the swans that have swept from sight.
And I know full well that the strangers' faces
Would meet us now is our dearest places;
For our day is dead and has left no traces
But the thoughts that live in my mind to-night.
There are folk long dead, and our hearts would sicken-We should grieve for them with a bitter pain;
If the past could live and the dead could quicken,
We then might turn to that life again.
But on lonely nights we should hear them calling,
We should hear their steps on the pathways falling,
We should loathe the life with a hate appalling
In our lonely rides by the ridge and plain
In the silent park a scent of clover,
And the distant roar of the town is dead,
And I hear once more, as the swans fly over,
Their far-off clamour from overhead.
They are flying west, by their instinct guided,
And for man likewise is his rate decided,
And griefs apportioned and joys divided
By a mightly power with a purpose dread.
~ Banjo Paterson,
576:Mdcccxciii: A Prelude
Sweet days of breaking light,
or yet the shadowy might
and blaze of starry strife
possess’d my life;
sweet dawn of Beauty’s day,
first hint and smiling play
of the compulsive force
that since my course
across the years obeys;
not tho’ all earlier days
in me were buried, not
were ye forgot. –The northern kingdom’s dream,
prison’d in crystal gleam,
heard the pale flutes of spring,
her thin bells ring;
the tranced maiden’s eyes
open’d a far surmise,
and heavens and meadows grew
a tender blue
of petal-hearts that keep
thro’ their dark winter-sleep
true memory of delight,
a hidden light.
Then by her well Romance
waiting the fabled chance
dream’d all the forest-scene
in shifting green;
and Melusina’s gaze
lurk’d in the shadow’d glaze
of waters gliding still,
a witching ill;
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or lost Undine wept
where the hid streamlet crept,
to the dusk murmuring low
her silvery woe.
Dim breaths in the dim shade
of the romantic glade
told of the timid pain
that hearken’d, fain,
how Beauty came to save
the prison’d life and wave
above the famish’d lands
her healing hands
(Beauty, in hidden ways
walking, a leafy maze
with magic odour dim,
far on life’s rim;
Beauty, sweet pain to kiss,
Beauty, sharp pain to miss,
in sorrow or in joy
a dear annoy;
Beauty, with waiting years
that bind the fount of tears
well-won if once her light
shine, before night).
Then the shy heart of youth
dared know its weening sooth,
then first thy godhead, Sun,
it’s life’s light one,
what time the hour outroll’d
its banner blazon’d gold
and all the honey’d time
rang rich with rhyme—rhyme, and the liquid laugh
49
of girlish spring, to quaff
granted each heart, and shed
about each head
a sound of harping blown
and airs of elfin tone
and gipsy waifs of song,
a dancing throng.
The yellow meads of May
acclaim’d the louder lay,
more rapturously athirst
for that fierce burst
of Summer’s clarioning,
what time his fulgent wing
should cleave the crystal spell
his hot eyes tell
each charm beneath the veil
his eager hands assail
and his red lips be prest
against her breast,
filling her every vein
with the diviner pain
of life beyond all dream
burning, supreme—(O natural ecstasy!
O highest grace, to be,
in every pulse to know
the Sungod’s glow!)
Thence the exulting strain
sped onward as a rain
of gold-linked notes
from unseen throats,
till the mad heart, adust,
of August’s aching lust
to do her beauty wrong
50
broke, and the song;
and in her poppied fate
ken life, grown all too great,
illumed with grateful breath
the lips of death. –But those deep fibres hold
the season’s mortal gold,
by silent alchemy
of soul set free,
and woven in vision’d shower
as each most secret hour
sheds the continuing bliss
in song or kiss. –O poets I have loved
when in my soul first moved
desire to breathe in one
love, song and sun,
your pages that I turn,
your jewelled phrases burn
richly behind a haze
of golden days. –And, O ye golden days,
tho’ since on stranger ways
to some undying war
the fatal star
of unseen Beauty draw
this soul, to occult law
obedient ever, not
are ye forgot.
~ Christopher John Brennan,
577:The music had started, the couples had begun a promenade, but Mr. Nobley paused to hold Jane’s arm and whisper, “Jane Erstwhile, if I never had to speak with another human being but you, I would die a happy man. I would that these people, the music, the food and foolishness all disappeared and left us alone. I would never tire of looking at you or listening to you.” He took a breath. “There. That compliment was on purpose. I swear I will never idly compliment you again.”
Jane’s mouth was dry. All she could think to say was, “But…but surely you wouldn’t banish all the food.”
He considered, then nodded once. “Right. We will keep the food. We will have a picnic.”
And he spun her into the middle of the dance. While the music played, they didn’t speak again. All his attention was on her, leading her through the motions, watching her with admiration. He danced with her as though they were evenly matched, no indication that she was the lone rider of the Precedence Caboose. She had never before felt so keenly that Mr. Nobley and Miss Erstwhile were a couple.
But I’m not really Miss Erstwhile, thought Jane.
Her heart was pinching her. She needed to get away, she was dizzy, she was hot, his eyes were arresting, he was too much to take in.
What am I supposed to do, Aunt Caroline? she asked the ceiling. Everything’s headed for Worse Than Before. How do I get out of this alive?
She spun and saw Martin, and kept her eyes on him as though he were the lone landmark in a complicated maze. Mr. Nobley noticed her attention skidding. His eyes were dark when he saw Martin. His recent smile turned down, his look became more intense.
As soon as the second number ended, Jane curtsied, thanked her partner, and began to depart, anxious for a breath of cold November air.
“A moment, Miss Erstwhile,” Mr. Nobley said. “I have already taken your hand for the last half hour, but now I would beg your ear. Might we…”
“Mr. Nobley!” A woman with curls shaking around her face flurried his way. Had Mr. Nobley been making visits to other estates while he was supposed to be hunting? Or was this a repeat client who might’ve known the man from a past cast? “I’m so happy to find you! I insist on dancing every dance.”
“Just now is not…”
Jane took advantage of the interruption to slip away, searching above the tops of heads for Martin. He’d been just over there…a hand grabbed her arm.
She turned right into Mr. Nobley, their faces close, and she was startled by the wildness in him now, a touch of Heathcliff in his eyes. “Miss Erstwhile, I beg you.”
“Oh, Mr. Nobley!” said another lady behind him.
He glanced back with a harried look and gripped Jane’s arm tighter. He walked her out of the ballroom and into the darkened library, only then releasing her arm, though he had the good grace to look embarrassed.
“I apologize,” he said.
“I guess you would.”
He was blocking the escape, so she gave in and took a chair. He began to pace, rubbing his chin and occasionally daring to look at her. The candlelight form the hallway made of him a silhouette, the starlight from the window just touching his eyes, his mouth. It was as dark as a bedroom.
“You see how agitated I am,” he said.
She waited, and her heart set to thumping without her permission.
He wildly combed his hair with his fingers. “I can’t bear to be out there with you right now, all those indifferent people watching you, admiring you, but not really caring. Not as I do.”
Jane: (hopeful) Really?
Jane: (practical) Oh, stop that.
Mr. Nobley sat in the chair beside her and gripped its arm.
Jane: (observant) This man is all about arm gripping. ~ Shannon Hale,
578:Patterns
I walk down the garden-paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jeweled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden-paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
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Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the
buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover.
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he
clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon-I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the
Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
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I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?
~ Amy Lowell,
579:Before I got here, I thought for a long time that the way out of the labyrinth was to pretend that it did not exist, to build a small, self-sufficient world in a back corner of, the endless maze and to pretend that I was not lost, but home. But that only led to a lonely life accompanied only by the last words of the looking for a Great Perhaps, for real friends, and a more-than minor life.

And then i screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. And there's no sugar-coating it: She deserved better friends.

When she fucked up, all those years ago, just a little girl terrified. into paralysis, she collapsed into the enigma of herself. And I could have done that, but I saw where it led for her. So I still believe in the Great Perhaps, and I can believe in it spite of having lost her.

Beacause I will forget her, yes. That which came together will fall apart imperceptibly slowly, and I will forget, but she will forgive my forgetting, just as I forgive her for forgetting me and the Colonel and everyone but herself and her mom in those last moments she spent as a person. I know that she forgives me for being dumb and sacred and doing the dumb and scared thing. I know she forgives me, just as her mother forgives her. And here's how I know:

I thought at first she was just dead. Just darkness. Just a body being eaten by bugs. I thought about her a lot like that, as something's meal. What was her-green eyes, half a smirk, the soft curves of her legs-would soon be nothing, just the bones I never saw. I thought about the slow process of becoming bone and then fossil and then coal that will, in millions of years, be mined by humans of the future, and how they would their homes with her, and then she would be smoke billowing out of a smokestack, coating the atmosphere.

I still think that, sometimes. I still think that, sometimes, think that maybe "the afterlife" is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable. Maybe she was just a matter, and matter gets recycled.

But ultimately I do not believe that she was only matter. The rest of her must be recycled, too. I believe now that we are greater than the sum of our parts. If you take Alaska's genetic code and you add her life experiences and the relationships she had with people, and then you take the size and shape of her body, you do not get her. There is something else entirety. There is a part of her knowable parts. And that parts has to go somewhere, because it cannot be destroyed. Although no one will ever accuse me of being much of a science student, One thing I learned from science classes is that energy is never created and never destroyed.

And if Alaska took her own life, that is the hope I wish I could have given her. Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself -those are awful things, but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable because we are as indestructible as we believe ourselves to be.

When adults say "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are.

We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.

So I know she forgives me, just as I forgive her. Thomas Eidson's last words were: "It's very beautiful over there." I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful. ~ John Green,
580:joke around—nothing serious—as I work to get my leg back to where it was. Two weeks later, I’m in an ankle-to-hip leg brace and hobbling around on crutches. The brace can’t come off for another six weeks, so my parents lend me their townhouse in New York City and Lucien hires me an assistant to help me out around the house. Some guy named Trevor. He’s okay, but I don’t give him much to do. I want to regain my independence as fast as I can and get back out there for Planet X. Yuri, my editor, is griping that he needs me back and I’m more than happy to oblige. But I still need to recuperate, and I’m bored as hell cooped up in the townhouse. Some buddies of mine from PX stop by and we head out to a brunch place on Amsterdam Street my assistant sometimes orders from. Deacon, Logan, Polly, Jonesy and I take a table in Annabelle’s Bistro, and settle in for a good two hours, running our waitress ragged. She’s a cute little brunette doing her best to stay cheerful for us while we give her a hard time with endless coffee refills, loud laughter, swearing, and general obnoxiousness. Her nametag says Charlotte, and Deacon calls her “Sweet Charlotte” and ogles and teases her, sometimes inappropriately. She has pretty eyes, I muse, but otherwise pay her no mind. I have my leg up on a chair in the corner, leaning back, as if I haven’t a care in the world. And I don’t. I’m going to make a full recovery and pick up my life right where I left off. Finally, a manager with a severe hairdo and too much makeup, politely, yet pointedly, inquires if there’s anything else we need, and we take the hint. We gather our shit and Deacon picks up the tab. We file out, through the maze of tables, and I’m last, hobbling slowly on crutches. I’m halfway out when I realize I left my Yankees baseball cap on the table. I return to get it and find the waitress staring at the check with tears in her eyes. She snaps the black leather book shut when she sees me and hurriedly turns away. “Forget something?” she asks with false cheer and a shaky smile. “My hat,” I say. She’s short and I’m tall. I tower over her. “Did Deacon leave a shitty tip? He does that.” “Oh no, no, I mean…it’s fine,” she says, turning away to wipe her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I just…um, kind of a rough month. You know how it is.” She glances me up and down in my expensive jeans and designer shirt. “Or maybe you don’t.” The waitress realizes what she said, and another round of apologies bursts out of her as she begins stacking our dirty dishes. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. Really. I have this bad habit…blurting. I don’t know why I said that. Anyway, um…” I laugh, and fish into my back pocket for my wallet. “Don’t worry about it. And take this. For your trouble.” I offer her forty dollars and her eyes widen. Up close, her eyes are even prettier—large and luminous, but sad too. A blush turns her skin scarlet “Oh, no, I couldn’t. No, please. It’s fine, really.” She bustles even faster now, not looking at me. I shrug and drop the twenties on the table. “I hope your month improves.” She stops and stares at the money, at war with herself. “Okay. Thank you,” she says finally, her voice cracking. She takes the money and stuffs it into her apron. I feel sorta bad, poor girl. “Have a nice day, Charlotte,” I say, and start to hobble away. She calls after me, “I hope your leg gets better soon.” That was big of her, considering what ginormous bastards we’d been to her all morning. Or maybe she’s just doing her job. I wave a hand to her without looking back, and leave Annabelle’s. Time heals me. I go back to work. To Planet X. To the world and all its thrills and beauty. I don’t go back to my parents’ townhouse; hell I’m hardly in NYC anymore. I don’t go back to Annabelle’s and I never see—or think about—that cute waitress with the sad eyes ever again. “Fucking hell,” I whisper as the machine reads the last line of ~ Emma Scott,
581:author class:Sri Aurobindo
A Vision of Science
I dreamed that in myself the world I saw,
Wherein three Angels strove for mastery. Law
Was one, clear vision and denial cold,
Yet in her limits strong, presumptuous, bold;
The second with enthusiasm bright,
Flame in her heart but round her brows the night,
Faded as this advanced. She could not bear
That searching gaze, nor the strong chilling air
These thoughts created, nourishing our parts
Of mind, but petrifying human hearts.
Science was one, the other gave her name,
Religion. But a third behind them came,
Veiled, vague, remote, and had as yet no right
Upon the world, but lived in her own light.
Wide were the victories of the Angel proud
Who conquered now and in her praise were loud
The nations. Few even yet to the other clove, -
And some were souls of night and some were souls of love.
But this was confident and throned. Her heralds ranged
Claiming that night was dead and all things changed;
For all things opened, all seemed clear, seemed bright -
Save the vast ranges that they left in night.
However, the light they shed upon the earth
Was great indeed, a firm and mighty birth.
A century's progress lived before my eyes.
Delivered from amazement and surprise,
Man's spirit measuring his worlds around
The laws of sight divined and laws of sound.
Light was not hidden from her searching gaze,
Nor matter could deny its myriad maze
To the cold enquiry; for the far came near,
The small loomed large, the intricate grew clear.
Measuring and probing the strong Angel strode,
Dissolving and combining, till she trod
Firmly among the stars, could weigh their forms,
Foretold the earthquakes, analysed the storms.
Doubt seemed to end and wonder's reign was closed.
The stony pages of the earth disclosed
Their unremembered secrets. Horses of steam
Were bitted and the lightnings made a team
To draw our chariots. Heaven was scaled at last
And the loud seas subdued. Distance resigned
Its strong obstructions to the mastering mind.
So moved that spirit trampling; then it laid
Its hand at last upon itself, how this was made
Wondering, and sought to class and sought to trace
Mind by its forms, the wearer by the dress.
Then the other arose and met that spirit robust,
Who laboured; she now grew a shade who must
Fade wholly away, yet to her fellow cried,
"I pass, for thou hast laboured well and wide.
Thou thinkest term and end for thee are not;
But though thy pride is great, thou hast forgot
The Sphinx that waits for man beside the way.
All questions thou mayst answer, but one day
Her question shall await thee. That reply,
As all we must; for they who cannot, die.
She slays them and their mangled bodies lie
Upon the highways of eternity.
Therefore, if thou wouldst live, know first this thing,
Who thou art in this dungeon labouring."
And Science confidently, "Nothing am I but earth,
Tissue and nerve and from the seed a birth,
A mould, a plasm, a gas, a little that is much.
In these grey cells that quiver to each touch
The secret lies of man; they are the thing called I.
Matter insists and matter makes reply.
Shakespeare was this; this force in Jesus yearned
And conquered by the cross; this only learned
The secret of the suns that blaze afar;
This was Napoleon's giant mind of war."
I heard and marvelled in myself to see
The infinite deny infinity.
Yet the weird paradox seemed justified;
Even mysticism shrank out-mystified.
But the third Angel came and touched my eyes;
I saw the mornings of the future rise,
I heard the voices of an age unborn
That comes behind us and our pallid morn,
And from the heart of an approaching light
One said to man, "Know thyself infinite,
Who shalt do mightier miracles than these,
Infinite, moving mid infinities."
Then from our hills the ancient answer pealed,
"For Thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed,
And the grey cell contains me not, the star
I outmeasure and am older than the elements are.
Whether on earth or far beyond the sun,
I, stumbling, clouded, am the Eternal One."
~ Sri Aurobindo, - A Vision of Science
,
582:King Cophetua And The Beggar-Maid
I read that once in Affrica
A princely wight did raine,
Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did faine.
From natures lawes he did decline,
For sure he was not of my minde,
He cared not for women-kind,
But did them all disdaine.
But marke what hapned on a day;
As he out of his window lay,
He saw a beggar all in gray,
The which did cause his paine.
The blinded boy that shootes so trim
From heaven downe did hie,
He drew a dart and shot at him,
In place where he did lye:
Which soone did pierse him to the quicke,
And when he felt the arrow pricke,
Which in his tender heart did sticke,
He looketh as he would dye.
'What suden chance is this,' quoth he,
'That I to love must subject be,
Which never thereto would agree,
But still did it defie?'
Then from the window he did come,
And laid him on his bed;
A thousand heapes of care did runne
Without his troubled head.
For now he meanes to crave her love,
And now he seekes which way to proove
How he his fancie might remoove,
And not this beggar wed.
But Cupid had him so in snare,
That this poor beggar must prepare
A salve to cure him of his care,
Or els he would be dead.
331
And as he musing thus did lye,
He thought for to devise
How he might have her companye,
That so did 'maze his eyes.
'In thee,' quoth he, 'doth rest my life;
For surely thou shalt be my wife,
Or else this hand with bloody knife,
The Gods shall sure suffice.'
Then from his bed he soon arose,
And to his pallace gate he goes;
Full little then this begger knowes
When she the king espies.
'The gods preserve your majesty,'
The beggers all gan cry;
'Vouchsafe to give your charity,
Our childrens food to buy.'
The king to them his purse did cast,
And they to part it made great haste;
This silly woman was the last
That after them did hye.
The king he cal'd her back againe,
And unto her he gave his chaine;
And said, 'With us you shal remaine
Till such time as we dye.
'For thou,' quoth he, 'shalt be my wife,
And honoured for my queene;
With thee I meane to lead my life,
As shortly shall be seene:
Our wedding shall appointed be,
And every thing in its degree;
Come on,' quoth he, 'and follow me,
Thou shalt go shift thee cleane.
What is thy name, faire maid?' quoth he.
'Penelophon, O King,' quoth she;
With that she made a lowe courtsey;
A trim one as I weene.
Thus hand in hand along they walke
Unto the king's pallace:
The king with courteous, comly talke
332
This begger doth embrace.
The begger blusheth scarlet red,
And straight againe as pale as lead,
But not a word at all she said,
She was in such amaze.
As last she spake with trembling voyce,
And said, 'O King, I doe rejoyce
That you wil take me for your choyce,
And my degree so base.'
And when the wedding day was come,
The king commanded straight
The noblemen, both all and some,
Upon the queene to wait.
And she behaved herself that day
As if she had never walkt the way;
She had forgot her gowne of gray,
Which she did weare of late.
The proverbe old is come to passe,
The priest, when he begins his masse,
Forgets that ever clerke he was;
He knoweth not his estate.
Here you may read Cophetua,
Through long time fancie-fed,
Compelled by the blinded boy
The begger for to wed:
He that did lovers lookes disdaine,
To do the same was glad and faine,
Or else he would himselfe have slaine,
In storie, as we read.
Disdaine no whit, O lady deere,
But pitty now thy servant heere,
Least that it hap to thee this yeare,
As to that king it did.
And thus they led a quiet life
During their princely raine,
And in a tombe were buried both,
As writers sheweth plaine.
The lords they tooke it grievously,
The ladies tooke it heavily,
333
The commons cryed pitiously,
Their death to them was paine.
Their fame did sound so passingly,
That it did pierce the starry sky,
And throughout all the world did flye
To every princes realme.
~ Anonymous Olde English,
583:I.

All I believed is true!
I am able yet
All I want, to get
By a method as strange as new:
Dare I trust the same to you?

II.

If at night, when doors are shut,
And the wood-worm picks,
And the death-watch ticks,
And the bar has a flag of smut,
And a cat's in the water-butt-

III.

And the socket floats and flares,
And the house-beams groan,
And a foot unknown
Is surmised on the garret-stairs,
And the locks slip unawares-

IV.

And the spider, to serve his ends,
By a sudden thread,
Arms and legs outspread,
On the table's midst descends,
Comes to find, God knows what friends!-

V.

If since eve drew in, I say,
I have sat and brought
(So to speak) my thought
To bear on the woman away,
Till I felt my hair turn grey-

VI.

Till I seemed to have and hold,
In the vacancy
'Twixt the wall and me,
From the hair-plait's chestnut gold
To the foot in its muslin fold-

VII.

Have and hold, then and there,
Her, from head to foot,
Breathing and mute,
Passive and yet aware,
In the grasp of my steady stare-

VIII.

Hold and have, there and then,
All her body and soul
That completes my whole,
All that women add to men,
In the clutch of my steady ken-

IX.

Having and holding, till
I imprint her fast
On the void at last
As the sun does whom he will
By the calotypist's skill-

X.

Then,-if my heart's strength serve,
And through all and each
Of the veils I reach
To her soul and never swerve,
Knitting an iron nerve-

XI.

Command her soul to advance
And inform the shape
Which has made escape
And before my countenance
Answers me glance for glance-

XII.

I, still with a gesture fit
Of my hands that best
Do my soul's behest,
Pointing the power from it,
While myself do steadfast sit-

XIII.

Steadfast and still the same
On my object bent,
While the hands give vent
To my ardour and my aim
And break into very flame-

XIV.

Then I reach, I must believe,
Not her soul in vain,
For to me again
It reaches, and past retrieve
Is wound in the toils I weave;

XV.

And must follow as I require,
As befits a thrall,
Bringing flesh and all,
Essence and earth-attire,
To the source of the tractile fire:

XVI.

Till the house called hers, not mine,
With a growing weight
Seems to suffocate
If she break not its leaden line
And escape from its close confine.

XVII.

Out of doors into the night!
On to the maze
Of the wild wood-ways,
Not turning to left nor right
From the pathway, blind with sight-

XVIII.

Making thro' rain and wind
O'er the broken shrubs,
'Twixt the stems and stubs,
With a still, composed, strong mind,
Nor a care for the world behind-

XIX.

Swifter and still more swift,
As the crowding peace
Doth to joy increase
In the wide blind eyes uplift
Thro' the darkness and the drift!

XX.

While I-to the shape, I too
Feel my soul dilate
Nor a whit abate,
And relax not a gesture due,
As I see my belief come true.

XXI.

For, there! have I drawn or no
Life to that lip?
Do my fingers dip
In a flame which again they throw
On the cheek that breaks a-glow?

XXII.

Ha! was the hair so first?
What, unfilleted,
Made alive, and spread
Through the void with a rich outburst,
Chestnut gold-interspersed?

XXTII.

Like the doors of a casket-shrine,
See, on either side,
Her two arms divide
Till the heart betwixt makes sign,
Take me, for I am thine!

XXIV.

``Now-now''-the door is heard!
Hark, the stairs! and near-
Nearer-and here-
``Now!'' and at call the third
She enters without a word.

XXV.

On doth she march and on
To the fancied shape;
It is, past escape,
Herself, now: the dream is done
And the shadow and she are one.

XXVI.

First I will pray. Do Thou
That ownest the soul,
Yet wilt grant control
To another, nor disallow
For a time, restrain me now!

XXVII.

I admonish me while I may,
Not to squander guilt,
Since require Thou wilt
At my hand its price one day
What the price is, who can say?


~ Robert Browning, Mesmerism
,
584:L'Irrémédiable (The Irremediable)
Une Idée, une Forme, un Etre
Parti de l'azur et tombé
Dans un Styx bourbeux et plombé
Où nul oeil du Ciel ne pénètre;
Un Ange, imprudent voyageur
Qu'a tenté l'amour du difforme,
Au fond d'un cauchemar énorme
Se débattant comme un nageur,
Et luttant, angoisses funèbres!
Contre un gigantesque remous
Qui va chantant comme les fous
Et pirouettant dans les ténèbres;
Un malheureux ensorcelé
Dans ses tâtonnements futiles
Pour fuir d'un lieu plein de reptiles,
Cherchant la lumière et la clé;
Un damné descendant sans lampe
Au bord d'un gouffre dont l'odeur
Trahit l'humide profondeur
D'éternels escaliers sans rampe,
Où veillent des monstres visqueux
Dont les larges yeux de phosphore
Font une nuit plus noire encore
Et ne rendent visibles qu'eux;
Un navire pris dans le pôle
Comme en un piège de cristal,
Cherchant par quel détroit fatal
Il est tombé dans cette geôle;
— Emblèmes nets, tableau parfait
D'une fortune irrémédiable
374
Qui donne à penser que le Diable
Fait toujours bien tout ce qu'il fait!
II
Tête-à-tête sombre et limpide
Qu'un coeur devenu son miroir!
Puits de Vérité, clair et noir
Où tremble une étoile livide,
Un phare ironique, infernal
Flambeau des grâces sataniques,
Soulagement et gloire uniques,
— La conscience dans le Mal!
Beyond Redemption
An Idea, a Form, a Being
Which left the azure sky and fell
Into a leaden, miry Styx
That no eye in Heaven can pierce;
An Angel, imprudent voyager
Tempted by love of the deformed,
In the depths of a vast nightmare
Flailing his arms like a swimmer,
And struggling, mortal agony!
Against a gigantic whirlpool
That sings constantly like madmen
And pirouettes in the darkness;
An unfortunate, enchanted,
Outstretched hands groping futilely,
Looking for the light and the key,
To flee a place filled with reptiles;
A damned soul descending endless stairs
Without banisters, without light,
375
On the edge of a gulf of which
The odor reveals the humid depth,
Where slimy monsters are watching,
Whose eyes, wide and phosphorescent,
Make the darkness darker still
And make visible naught but themselves;
A ship caught in the polar sea
As though in a snare of crystal,
Seeking the fatal strait through which
It came into that prison;
— Patent symbols, perfect picture
Of an irremediable fate
Which makes one think that the Devil
Always does well whatever he does!
II
Somber and limpid tête-à-tête —
A heart become its own mirror!
Well of Truth, clear and black,
Where a pale star flickers,
A hellish, ironic beacon,
Torch of satanical blessings,
Sole glory and only solace
— The consciousness of doing evil.
— Translated by William Aggeler
The Irremediable
A Form, Idea, or Essence, chased
Out of the azure sky, and shot
Into a leaden Styx where not
A star can pierce the muddy waste:
376
An angel, rash explorer, who,
Tempted by love of strange deformity,
Caught in a nightmare of enormity,
Fights like a swimmer, wrestling through
A monstrous whorl of eddying spume,
In deathly anguish, from him flinging
The wave that, like an idiot singing,
Goes pirouetting through the gloom:
A wretch enchanted, who, to flee
A den of serpents, gropes about
In desperation vain, without
Discovering a match or key:
A damned soul, who, with no lamp,
Stands by a gulf, whose humid scent
Betrays the depth of the descent
Of endless stairs without a ramp,
Where slimy monsters watch the track
Whose eyeballs phosphoresce and glow
Only to make the night more black
And nought except themselves to show:
A vessel that the pole betrays,
Caught in a crystal trap all round,
And seeking by what fatal sound
It ever entered such a maze: —
Clear emblems! measuring the level
Of irremediable dooms,
Which make us see bow well the Devil
Performs whatever he presumes!
II
Strange tête-à-tête! the heart, its own
Mirror, its own confession hears!
Deep well where Truth is trembling shown
377
And like a livid star appears,
Ironic beacon and infernal
Torch of satanic grace, but still
Sole glory and relief eternal,
— Conscience that operates in Ill!
— Translated by Roy Campbell
~ Charles Baudelaire,
585:Theseus
Blue shadows wreathed the galley's prow that bore
Twice seven Attic youth, a glorious train
For Theseus, captain of the brunt of war,
Over the Cretan main.
The North wind filled the shining sails above,
Thanks to the bucklered Goddess of the Fight;
But Minos' heart was sore with pains of Love,
Love brow-bound with delight.
Sweet Eriboea! he refrained no more
His hands, he touched her cheek of virgin white:
'Son of Pandion, save!' Her cries implore
The brazen-armoured knight.
Theseus had seen; beneath his frowning brow
Dark rolls the sudden anger of his eyes;
Hard in his heart the stab of grief: 'How now!
Son of great Zeus,' he cries,
'No more thine unpermitted humour's course
Within thyself thou governest aright;
Hold, Prince, I charge thee, thy presuming force!
Not against Fate we fight:
'All that the God's appointment and decree,
All that the scales of Justice shall require,
We will fulfil whene'er the hour may be;
Stay but thy fell desire.
'What thought the princess of the lovely name
Bedded to Zeus in Ida gave thee birth,
To be the first of all the world in fame?
Am I as nothing worth?
'-I whom the child of treasured Pittheus bare
To one whose reign doth all the seas enfold?
Nymphs of the deep with violet-coloured hair
Gave her a veil of gold.
10
'Therefore, great Captain of the Cnosian men,
Forfend the grievous quarrel! Yon dear light
Of day I would not choose to see again,
Should'st thou do rude despite
'To one of these:-Oh, better combat's chanceA challenge!-God shall judge the issue true!'
So said the valiant master of the lance:
Fear fell on all the crew,
Fear for the overboldness of the man.
Then in his soul the son-in-law of the Sun
Was angry, and he schemed an evil plan,
And prayed, 'Most Mighty One,
'Hear, Father Zeus! If thou'rt my sire indeed,
Of the white-wristed Tyrian's child true sire,
Give me a visible sign! Send down with speed
The lightning's tress of fire!
'Prince, if Troezenian Aethra mothered thee
Got by Poseidon, Shaker of the Earth,
Cast thyself boldly down into the sea,
His home who gave thee birth!
'Fetch me this golden jewel from my hand
Out of the deep! Soon shalt thou be aware
Whether the Lord of Thunder, whose command
Rules all, will hear my prayer.'
Zeus to that high
And with peculiar
His son, and give
Did lighten in the
request his ear inclined,
praise to magnify
a sign to all mankind,
sky.
Then at the welcome sign the Warrior-King
Spreading his palms to hallowed heaven-wide,
'Theseus, the grace of God is in this thing
'Made manifest,' he cried.
'Go, get thee down into the sounding swell!
11
Surely the God thy father shall upraise
In all the wooded earth for thee as well
Exceeding glory and praise.'
But Theseus at the word, no whit unmanned,
Turnèd not back in spirit: on deck he stood
Poised for a leap, and passed within the bland
Sanctuary of the flood.
The son of Zeus was merry in his mind;
The tight ship to the breeze he bade them lay;
Fast flew the keel, the strong North drove behind:
But Fate ruled not the way.
All the Athenians trembled when the first
Knight of their number seaward sprang, the tear
Ran down smooth faces, waiting for the worst
In heavy hopeless fear.
But quick the dolphin-people of the deep
Down to his father's vasty dwelling steered;
He saw the state the Gods of Ocean keep,
And at the sight he feared:
The daughters of the blessed Nereus there
Beamed from their radiant limbs a fiery blaze,
Ribbons of golden web reeled round their hair,
All dancing in a maze
Of fluent feet for pleasure; and he saw
His father's wife the Lady Amphitrite,
Eyed like an ox-a Goddess throned for awe
In chambers of delight.
She flung about him purple raiment brave,
Over his curls a perfect wreath she laid,
The wedding-gift that cozening Venus gave,
Thick roses in a braid.
The thing God wills, the wise man never deems
Beyond belief. Close by the slender stern
The Prince appeared, and O the world of schemes
12
He slit by that return,
Miraculous from the deep! Bright maids arow
Sang for surprise and joy-Upon his limbs
Shone gifts of Gods!-laud sang the lads also
The sea was loud with hymns.
We came from Ceos with a song and dance:
Lord God of Delos be well pleased this day,
Send us the conduct of thy lucky chance
To help us on our way.
~ Bacchylides,
586:AUGOEIDES:
   The magicians most important invocation is that of his Genius, Daemon, True Will, or Augoeides. This operation is traditionally known as attaining the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. It is sometimes known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work.
   The Augoeides may be defined as the most perfect vehicle of Kia on the plane of duality. As the avatar of Kia on earth, the Augoeides represents the true will, the raison detre of the magician, his purpose in existing. The discovery of ones true will or real nature may be difficult and fraught with danger, since a false identification leads to obsession and madness. The operation of obtaining the knowledge and conversation is usually a lengthy one. The magician is attempting a progressive metamorphosis, a complete overhaul of his entire existence. Yet he has to seek the blueprint for his reborn self as he goes along. Life is less the meaningless accident it seems. Kia has incarnated in these particular conditions of duality for some purpose. The inertia of previous existences propels Kia into new forms of manifestation. Each incarnation represents a task, or a puzzle to be solved, on the way to some greater form of completion.
   The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed. A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally.
   To do this is to enter the magical world view in its totality. He takes complete responsibility for his present incarnation and must consider every experience, thing, or piece of information which assails him from any source, as a reflection of the way he is conducting his existence. The idea that things happen to one that may or may not be related to the way one acts is an illusion created by our shallow awareness.
   Keeping a close eye on the walls of the labyrinth, the conditions of his existence, the magician may then begin his invocation. The genius is not something added to oneself. Rather it is a stripping away of excess to reveal the god within.
   Directly on awakening, preferably at dawn, the initiate goes to the place of invocation. Figuring to himself as he goes that being born anew each day brings with it the chance of greater rebirth, first he banishes the temple of his mind by ritual or by some magical trance. Then he unveils some token or symbol or sigil which represents to him the Holy Guardian Angel. This symbol he will likely have to change during the great work as the inspiration begins to move him. Next he invokes an image of the Angel into his minds eye. It may be considered as a luminous duplicate of ones own form standing in front of or behind one, or simply as a ball of brilliant light above ones head. Then he formulates his aspirations in what manner he will, humbling himself in prayer or exalting himself in loud proclamation as his need be. The best form of this invocation is spoken spontaneously from the heart, and if halting at first, will prove itself in time. He is aiming to establish a set of ideas and images which correspond to the nature of his genius, and at the same time receive inspiration from that source. As the magician begins to manifest more of his true will, the Augoeides will reveal images, names, and spiritual principles by which it can be drawn into greater manifestation. Having communicated with the invoked form, the magician should draw it into himself and go forth to live in the way he hath willed.
   The ritual may be concluded with an aspiration to the wisdom of silence by a brief concentration on the sigil of the Augoeides, but never by banishing. Periodically more elaborate forms of ritual, using more powerful forms of gnosis, may be employed. At the end of the day, there should be an accounting and fresh resolution made. Though every day be a catalog of failure, there should be no sense of sin or guilt. Magic is the raising of the whole individual in perfect balance to the power of Infinity, and such feelings are symptomatic of imbalance. If any unnecessary or imbalanced scraps of ego become identified with the genius by mistake, then disaster awaits. The life force flows directly into these complexes and bloats them into grotesque monsters variously known as the demon Choronzon. Some magicians attempting to go too fast with this invocation have failed to banish this demon, and have gone spectacularly insane as a result.
   ~ Peter J Carroll, Liber Null,
587:[the sevenfold ignorance and the integral knowledge:]

   We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence,-that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, -that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self,-that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end,-that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence,-that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations,-that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal,-that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.

   Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness:- it will mean [1] the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; [2] the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; [3] the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; [4] the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; [5] the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; [6] the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; [7] the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.

   But this is not an intellectual knowledge which can be learned and completed in our present mould of consciousness; it must be an experience, a becoming, a change of consciousness, a change of being. This brings in the evolutionary character of the Becoming and the fact that our mental ignorance is only a stage in our evolution. The integral knowledge, then, can only come by an evolution of our being and our nature, and that would seem to signify a slow process in Time such as has accompanied the other evolutionary transformations. But as against that inference there is the fact that the evolution has now become conscious and its method and steps need not be altogether of the same character as when it was subconscious in its process. The integral knowledge, since it must result from a change of consciousness, can be gained by a process in which our will and endeavour have a part, in which they can discover and apply their own steps and method: its growth in us can proceed by a conscious self-transformation. It is necessary then to see what is likely to be the principle of this new process of evolution and what are the movements of the integral knowledge that must necessarily emerge in it,-or, in other words, what is the nature of the consciousness that must be the base of the life divine and how that life may be expected to be formed or to form itself, to materialise or, as one might say, to realise.
   ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, pg 680-683 [T1],
588:The Wood
BUT two miles more, and then we rest !
Well, there is still an hour of day,
And long the brightness of the West
Will light us on our devious way;
Sit then, awhile, here in this wood­
So total is the solitude,
We safely may delay.
These massive roots afford a seat,
Which seems for weary travellers made.
There rest. The air is soft and sweet
In this sequestered forest glade,
And there are scents of flowers around,
The evening dew draws from the ground;
How soothingly they spread !
Yes; I was tired, but not at heart;
No­that beats full of sweet content,
For now I have my natural part
Of action with adventure blent;
Cast forth on the wide vorld with thee,
And all my once waste energy
To weighty purpose bent.
Yet­say'st thou, spies around us roam,
Our aims are termed conspiracy ?
Haply, no more our English home
An anchorage for us may be ?
That there is risk our mutual blood
May redden in some lonely wood
The knife of treachery ?
Say'st thou­that where we lodge each night,
In each lone farm, or lonelier hall
Of Norman Peer­ere morning light
Suspicion must as duly fall,
As day returns­such vigilance
Presides and watches over France,
Such rigour governs all ?
74
I fear not, William; dost thou fear ?
So that the knife does not divide,
It may be ever hovering near:
I could not tremble at thy side,
And strenuous love­like mine for thee­
Is buckler strong, 'gainst treachery,
And turns its stab aside.
I am resolved that thou shalt learn
To trust my strength as I trust thine;
I am resolved our souls shall burn,
With equal, steady, mingling shine;
Part of the field is conquered now,
Our lives in the same channel flow,
Along the self-same line;
And while no groaning storm is heard,
Thou seem'st content it should be so,
But soon as comes a warning word
Of danger­straight thine anxious brow
Bends over me a mournful shade,
As doubting if my powers are made
To ford the floods of woe.
Know, then it is my spirit swells,
And drinks, with eager joy, the air
Of freedom­where at last it dwells,
Chartered, a common task to share
With thee, and then it stirs alert,
And pants to learn what menaced hurt
Demands for thee its care.
Remember, I have crossed the deep,
And stood with thee on deck, to gaze
On waves that rose in threatening heap,
While stagnant lay a heavy haze,
Dimly confusing sea with sky,
And baffling, even, the pilot's eye,
Intent to thread the maze­
Of rocks, on Bretagne's dangerous coast,
75
And find a way to steer our band
To the one point obscure, which lost,
Flung us, as victims, on the strand;­
All, elsewhere, gleamed the Gallic sword,
And not a wherry could be moored
Along the guarded land.
I feared not then­I fear not now;
The interest of each stirring scene
Wakes a new sense, a welcome glow,
In every nerve and bounding vein;
Alike on turbid Channel sea,
Or in still wood of Normandy,
I feel as born again.
The rain descended that wild morn
When, anchoring in the cove at last,
Our band, all weary and forlorn,
Ashore, like wave-worn sailors, cast­
Sought for a sheltering roof in vain,
And scarce could scanty food obtain
To break their morning fast.
Thou didst thy crust with me divide,
Thou didst thy cloak around me fold;
And, sitting silent by thy side,
I ate the bread in peace untold:
Given kindly from thy hand, 'twas sweet
As costly fare or princely treat
On royal plate of gold.
Sharp blew the sleet upon my face,
And, rising wild, the gusty wind
Drove on those thundering waves apace,
Our crew so late had left behind;
But, spite of frozen shower and storm,
So close to thee, my heart beat warm,
And tranquil slept my mind.
So now­nor foot-sore nor opprest
With walking all this August day,
I taste a heaven in this brief rest,
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This gipsy-halt beside the way.
England's wild flowers are fair to view,
Like balm is England's summer dew,
Like gold her sunset ray.
But the white violets, growing here,
Are sweeter than I yet have seen,
And ne'er did dew so pure and clear
Distil on forest mosses green,
As now, called forth by summer heat,
Perfumes our cool and fresh retreat­
These fragrant limes between.
That sunset ! Look beneath the boughs,
Over the copse­beyond the hills;
How soft, yet deep and warm it glows,
And heaven with rich suffusion fills;
With hues where still the opal's tint,
Its gleam of poisoned fire is blent,
Where flame through azure thrills !
Depart we now­for fast will fade
That solemn splendour of decline,
And deep must be the after-shade
As stars alone to-night will shine;
No moon is destined­pale­to gaze
On such a day's vast Phoenix blaze,
A day in fires decayed !
There­hand-in-hand we tread again
The mazes of this varying wood,
And soon, amid a cultured plain,
Girt in with fertile solitude,
We shall our resting-place descry,
Marked by one roof-tree, towering high
Above a farm-stead rude.
Refreshed, erelong, with rustic fare,
We'll seek a couch of dreamless ease;
Courage will guard thy heart from fear,
And Love give mine divinest peace:
To-morrow brings more dangerous toil,
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And through its conflict and turmoil
We'll pass, as God shall please.
~ Charlotte Brontë,
589:Xiii: Epistle: To Katherine, Lady Aubigny
'Tis growne almost a danger to speake true
Of any good minde, now: There are so few.
The bad, by number, are so fortified,
As what th'have lost t'expect, they dare deride.
So both the prais'd, and praisers suffer: Yet,
For others ill, ought none their good forget.
I, therefore, who professe my selfe in love
With every vertue, wheresoere it move,
And howsoever; as I am at fewd
With sinne and vice, though with a throne endew'd;
And, in this name, am given out dangerous
By arts, and practise of the vicious,
Such as suspect themselves, and think it fit
For their owne cap'tall crimes, t'indite my wit;
I, that have suffer'd this; and, though forsooke
Of Fortune, have not alter'd yet my looke,
Or so my selfe abandon'd, as because
Men are not just, or keepe no holy lawes
Of nature, and societie, I should faint;
Or feare to draw true lines, 'cause others paint:
I, Madame, am become your praiser. Where,
If it may stand with your soft blush to heare,
Your selfe but told unto your selfe, and see
In my character, what your features bee,
You will not from the paper slightly passe:
No Lady, but, at sometime loves her glasse.
And this shall be no false one, but as much
Remov'd, as you from need to have it such.
Looke then, and see your selfe. I will not say
Your beautie; for you see that every day:
And so doe many more. All which can call
It perfect, proper, pure, and naturall,
Not taken up o' th'Doctors, but as well
As I, can say, and see it doth excell.
That askes but to be censur'd by the eyes:
And, in those outward formes, all fooles are wise.
Nor that your beautie wanted not a dower,
Doe I reflect. Some Alderman has power,
Or cos'ning Farmer of the customes so,
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T'advance his doubtfull issue, and ore-flow
A Princes fortune: These are gifts of chance,
And raise not vertue; they may vice enhance.
My mirror is more subtill, cleare, refin'd,
And takes, and gives the beauties of the mind.
Though it reject not those of Fortune: such
As Blood, and Match. Wherein, how more than much
Are you engaged to your happie fate,
For such a lot! that mixt you with a State
Of so great title, birth, but vertue most,
Without which, all the rest were sounds, or lost.
'Tis onely that can time, and chance defeat:
For he, that once is good, is ever great.
Wherewith, then, Madame, can you better pay
This blessing of your starres, than by that way
Of vertue, which you tread? what if alone?
Without companions? 'Tis safe to have none.
In single paths, dangers with ease are watch'd:
Contagion in the prease is soonest catch'd.
This makes, that wisely you decline your life,
Farre from the maze of custome, error, strife,
And keepe an even, and unalter'd gaite;
Not looking by, or back (like those, that waite
Times, and occasions, to start forth, and seeme)
Which though the turning world may dis-esteeme,
Because that studies spectacles, and showes,
And after varied, as fresh objects goes,
Giddie with change, and therefore cannot see
Right, the right way: yet must your comfort bee
Your conscience, and not wonder, if none askes
For Truths complexion, where they all weare maskes.
Let who will follow fashions, and attyres,
Maintaine their liedgers forth, for forrain wyres,
Melt downe their husbands land, to powre away
On the close groome, and page, on new-yeares day,
And almost, all dayes after, while they live;
(They finde it both so wittie, and safe to give)
Let 'hem on poulders, oyles, and paintings, spend,
Till that no usurer, nor his bawds dare lend
Them, or their officers: and no man know,
Whether it be a face they weare, or no.
Let 'hem waste body, and state; and after all,
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When their owne Parasites laugh at their fall,
May they have nothing left, whereof they can
Boast, but how oft they have gone wrong to man:
And call it their brave sinne. For such there be
That doe sinne onely for the infamie:
And never think, how vice doth every houre,
Eat on her clients, and some one devoure.
You, Madam, yong have learn'd to shun these shelves,
Whereon the most of mankind wracke themselves,
And, keeping a just course, have early put
Into your harbour, and all passage shut
'Gainst stormes, or pyrats, that might charge your peace;
For which you worthy are the glad increase
Of your blest wombe, made fruitfull from above
To pay your lord the pledges of chaste love:
And raise a noble stemme, to give the fame,
To Cliftons blood, that is deny'd their name.
Grow, grow, faire tree, and as thy branches shoote,
Heare, what the Muses sing above thy root,
By me, their Priest (if they can ought divine)
Before the moones have fill'd their tripple trine,
To crowne the burthen which you go withall,
It shall a ripe and timely issue fall,
T'expect the honors of great 'Avbigny:
And greater rites, yet writ in mystery,
But which the Fates forbid me to reveale.
Only, thus much, out of a ravish'd zeale,
Unto your name, and goodnesse of your life,
They speake; since you are truly that rare wife,
Other great wives may blush at: when they see
What your try'd manners are, what theirs should be.
How you love one, and him you should; how still
You are depending on his word, and will;
Not fashion'd for the Court, or strangers eyes;
But to prease him, who is the dearer prise
Unto himselfe, by being so deare to you.
This makes, that your affections still be new,
And that your soules conspire, as they were gone
Each into other, and had now made one.
Live that one, still; and as long yeares do passe,
Madame, be bold to use this truest glasse:
Wherein, your forme, you still the same shall find;
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Because nor it can change, nor such a mind.
~ Ben Jonson,
590:Red Riding Hood
Many are the deceivers:
The suburban matron,
proper in the supermarket,
list in hand so she won't suddenly fly,
buying her Duz and Chuck Wagon dog food,
meanwhile ascending from earth,
letting her stomach fill up with helium,
letting her arms go loose as kite tails,
getting ready to meet her lover
a mile down Apple Crest Road
in the Congregational Church parking lot.
Two seemingly respectable women
come up to an old Jenny
and show her an envelope
full of money
and promise to share the booty
if she'll give them ten thou
as an act of faith.
Her life savings are under the mattress
covered with rust stains
and counting.
They are as wrinkled as prunes
but negotiable.
The two women take the money and disappear.
Where is the moral?
Not all knives are for
stabbing the exposed belly.
Rock climbs on rock
and it only makes a seashore.
Old Jenny has lost her belief in mattresses
and now she has no wastebasket in which
to keep her youth.
The standup comic
on the 'Tonight' show
who imitates the Vice President
and cracks up Johnny Carson
and delays sleep for millions
of bedfellows watching between their feet,
slits his wrist the next morning
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in the Algonquin's old-fashioned bathroom,
the razor in his hand like a toothbrush,
wall as anonymous as a urinal,
the shower curtain his slack rubberman audience,
and then the slash
as simple as opening as a letter
and the warm blood breaking out like a rose
upon the bathtub with its claw and ball feet.
And I. I too.
Quite collected at cocktail parties,
meanwhile in my head
I'm undergoing open-heart surgery.
The heart, poor fellow,
pounding on his little tin drum
with a faint death beat,
The heart, that eyeless beetle,
running panicked through his maze,
never stopping one foot after the other
one hour after the other
until he gags on an apple
and it's all over.
And I. I too again.
I built a summer house on Cape Ann.
A simple A-frame and this too was
a deception - nothing haunts a new house.
When I moved in with a bathing suit and tea bags
the ocean rumbled like a train backing up
and at each window secrets came in
like gas. My mother, that departed soul,
sat in my Eames chair and reproached me
for losing her keys to the old cottage.
Even in the electric kitchen there was
the smell of a journey. The ocean
was seeping through its frontiers
and laying me out on its wet rails.
The bed was stale with my childhood
and I could not move to another city
where the worthy make a new life.
Long ago
there was a strange deception:
a wolf dressed in frills,
a kind of transvestite.
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But I get ahead of my story.
In the beginning
there was just little Red Riding Hood,
so called because her grandmother
made her a red cape and she was never without it.
It was her Linus blanket, besides
it was red, as red as the Swiss flag,
yes it was red, as red as chicken blood,
But more than she loved her riding hood
she loved her grandmother who lived
far from the city in the big wood.
This one day her mother gave her
a basket of wine and cake
to take to her grandmother
because she was ill.
Wine and cake?
Where's the aspirin? The penicillin?
Where's the fruit juice?
Peter Rabbit got chamomile tea.
But wine and cake it was.
On her way in the big wood
Red Riding Hood met the wolf.
Good day, Mr. Wolf, she said,
thinking him no more dangerous
than a streetcar or a panhandler.
He asked where she was going
and she obligingly told him
There among the roots and trunks
with the mushrooms pulsing inside the moss
he planned how to eat them both,
the grandmother an old carrot
and the child a shy budkin
in a red red hood.
He bade her to look at the bloodroot,
the small bunchberry and the dogtooth
and pick some for her grandmother.
And this she did.
Meanwhile he scampered off
to Grandmother's house and ate her up
as quick as a slap.
Then he put on her nightdress and cap
and snuggled down in to bed.
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A deceptive fellow.
Red Riding hood
knocked on the door and entered
with her flowers, her cake, her wine.
Grandmother looked strange,
a dark and hairy disease it seemed.
Oh Grandmother, what big ears you have,
ears, eyes, hands and then the teeth.
The better to eat you with my dear.
So the wolf gobbled Red Riding Hood down
like a gumdrop. Now he was fat.
He appeared to be in his ninth month
and Red Riding Hood and her grandmother
rode like two Jonahs up and down with
his every breath. One pigeon. One partridge.
He was fast asleep,
dreaming in his cap and gown,
wolfless.
Along came a huntsman who heard
the loud contented snores
and knew that was no grandmother.
He opened the door and said,
So it's you, old sinner.
He raised his gun to shoot him
when it occurred to him that maybe
the wolf had eaten up the old lady.
So he took a knife and began cutting open
the sleeping wolf, a kind of caesarian section.
It was a carnal knife that let
Red Riding Hood out like a poppy,
quite alive from the kingdom of the belly.
And grandmother too
still waiting for cakes and wine.
The wolf, they decided, was too mean
to be simply shot so they filled his belly
with large stones and sewed him up.
He was as heavy as a cemetery
and when he woke up and tried to run off
he fell over dead. Killed by his own weight.
Many a deception ends on such a note.
The huntsman and the grandmother and Red Riding Hood
sat down by his corpse and had a meal of wine and cake.
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Those two remembering
nothing naked and brutal
from that little death,
that little birth,
from their going down
and their lifting up.
~ Anne Sexton,
591:The Paper Windmill
The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane and looked out
at the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of the square
glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and pranced,
and shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown water
of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long string of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses. The little boy thought they looked as if
they were roc's eggs, blocks of big ruby eggs. He said, 'Oh!' with delight,
and pressed against the window with all his might.
The golden cock on the top of the `Stadhuis' gleamed. His beak was open
like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of blue sky was wedged in it.
'Cock-a-doodle-do,' cried the little boy. 'Can't you hear me
through the window, Gold Cocky? Cock-a-doodle-do! You should crow
when you see the eggs of your cousin, the great roc.' But the golden cock
stood stock still, with his fine tail blowing in the wind.
He could not understand the little boy, for he said 'Cocorico'
when he said anything. But he was hung in the air to swing, not to sing.
His eyes glittered to the bright West wind, and the crimson cheeses
drifted away down the canal.
It was very dull there in the big room. Outside in the square, the wind
was playing tag with some fallen leaves. A man passed, with a dogcart
beside him full of smart, new milkcans. They rattled out a gay tune:
'Tiddity-tum-ti-ti. Have some milk for your tea. Cream for your coffee
to drink to-night, thick, and smooth, and sweet, and white,'
and the man's sabots beat an accompaniment: 'Plop! trop! milk for your tea.
Plop! trop! drink it to-night.' It was very pleasant out there,
but it was lonely here in the big room. The little boy gulped at a tear.
It was queer how dull all his toys were. They were so still.
Nothing was still in the square. If he took his eyes away a moment
it had changed. The milkman had disappeared round the corner,
there was only an old woman with a basket of green stuff on her head,
picking her way over the shiny stones. But the wind pulled the leaves
in the basket this way and that, and displayed them to beautiful advantage.
The sun patted them condescendingly on their flat surfaces, and they seemed
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sprinkled with silver. The little boy sighed as he looked at his disordered
toys on the floor. They were motionless, and their colours were dull.
The dark wainscoting absorbed the sun. There was none left for toys.
The square was quite empty now. Only the wind ran round and round it,
spinning. Away over in the corner where a street opened into the square,
the wind had stopped. Stopped running, that is, for it never
stopped spinning. It whirred, and whirled, and gyrated, and turned.
It burned like a great coloured sun. It hummed, and buzzed, and sparked,
and darted. There were flashes of blue, and long smearing lines of saffron,
and quick jabs of green. And over it all was a sheen like a myriad
cut diamonds. Round and round it went, the huge wind-wheel,
and the little boy's head reeled with watching it. The whole square
was filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round after one another,
faster and faster. The little boy could not speak, he could only gaze,
staring in amaze.
The wind-wheel was coming down the square. Nearer and nearer it came,
a great disk of spinning flame. It was opposite the window now,
and the little boy could see it plainly, but it was something more
than the wind which he saw. A man was carrying a huge fan-shaped frame
on his shoulder, and stuck in it were many little painted paper windmills,
each one scurrying round in the breeze. They were bright and beautiful,
and the sight was one to please anybody, and how much more a little boy
who had only stupid, motionless toys to enjoy.
The little boy clapped his hands, and his eyes danced and whizzed,
for the circling windmills made him dizzy. Closer and closer
came the windmill man, and held up his big fan to the little boy
in the window of the Ambassador's house. Only a pane of glass
between the boy and the windmills. They slid round before his eyes
in rapidly revolving splendour. There were wheels and wheels of colours big, little, thick, thin - all one clear, perfect spin. The windmill vendor
dipped and raised them again, and the little boy's face was glued
to the window-pane. Oh! What a glorious, wonderful plaything!
Rings and rings of windy colour always moving! How had any one ever preferred
those other toys which never stirred. 'Nursie, come quickly. Look!
I want a windmill. See! It is never still. You will buy me one, won't you?
I want that silver one, with the big ring of blue.'
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So a servant was sent to buy that one: silver, ringed with blue,
and smartly it twirled about in the servant's hands as he stood a moment
to pay the vendor. Then he entered the house, and in another minute
he was standing in the nursery door, with some crumpled paper on the end
of a stick which he held out to the little boy. 'But I wanted a windmill
which went round,' cried the little boy. 'That is the one you asked for,
Master Charles,' Nursie was a bit impatient, she had mending to do.
'See, it is silver, and here is the blue.' 'But it is only a blue streak,'
sobbed the little boy. 'I wanted a blue ring, and this silver
doesn't sparkle.' 'Well, Master Charles, that is what you wanted,
now run away and play with it, for I am very busy.'
The little boy hid his tears against the friendly window-pane. On the floor
lay the motionless, crumpled bit of paper on the end of its stick.
But far away across the square was the windmill vendor, with his big wheel
of whirring splendour. It spun round in a blaze like a whirling rainbow,
and the sun gleamed upon it, and the wind whipped it, until it seemed
a maze of spattering diamonds. 'Cocorico!' crowed the golden cock
on the top of the `Stadhuis'. 'That is something worth crowing for.'
But the little boy did not hear him, he was sobbing over the crumpled
bit of paper on the floor.
~ Amy Lowell,
592:Spring On Mattagmi
Far in the east the rain-clouds sweep and harry,
Down the long haggard hills, formless and low,
Far in the west the shell-tints meet and marry,
Piled gray and tender blue and roseate snow;
East--like a fiend, the bolt-breasted, streaming
Storm strikes the world with lightning and with hail;
West--like the thought of a seraph that is dreaming,
Venus leads the young moon down the vale.
Through the lake furrow between the gloom and bright'ning
Firm runs our long canoe with a whistling rush,
While Potàn the wise and the cunning Silver Lightning
Break with their slender blades the long clear hush;
Soon shall I pitch my tent amid the birches,
Wise Potàn shall gather boughs of balsam fir,
While for bark and dry wood Silver Lightning searches;
Soon the smoke shall hang and lapse in the moist air.
Soon shall I sleep--if I may not remember
One who lives far away where the storm-cloud went;
May it part and starshine burn in many a quiet ember,
Over her towered city crowned with large content;
Dear God, let me sleep, here where deep peace is,
Let me own a dreamless sleep once for all the years,
Let me know a quiet mind and what heart ease is,
Lost to light and life and hope, to longing and to tears.
Here in the solitude less her memory presses,
Yet I see her lingering where the birches shine,
All the dark cedars are sleep-laden like her tresses,
The gold-moted wood-pools pellucid as her eyen;
Memories and ghost-forms of the days departed
People all the forest lone in the dead of night;
While Potàn and Silver Lightning sleep, the happy-hearted,
Troop they from their fastnesses upon my sight.
Once when the tide came straining from the Lido,
In a sea of flame our gondola flickered like a sword,
Venice lay abroad builded like beauty's credo,
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Smouldering like a gorget on the breast of the Lord:
Did she mourn for fame foredoomed or passion shattered
That with a sudden impulse she gathered at my side?
But when I spoke the ancient fates were flattered,
Chill there crept between us the imperceptible tide.
Once I well remember in her twilight garden,
She pulled a half-blown rose, I thought it meant for me,
But poising in the act, and with half a sigh for pardon,
She hid it in her bosom where none may dare to see:
Had she a subtle meaning?--would to God I knew it,
Where'er I am I always feel the rose leaves nestling there,
If I might know her mind and the thought which then flashed through it,
My soul might look to heaven not commissioned to despair.
Though she denied at parting the gift that I besought her,
Just a bit of ribbon or a strand of her hair;
Though she would not keep the token that I brought her,
Proud she stood and calm and marvellously fair;
Yet I saw her spirit--truth cannot dissemble-Saw her pure as gold, staunch and keen and brave,
For she knows my worth and her heart was all atremble,
Lest her will should weaken and make her heart a slave.
If she could be here where all the world is eager
For dear love with the primal Eden sway,
Where the blood is fire and no pulse is thin or meagre,
All the heart of all the world beats one way!
There is the land of fraud and fame and fashion,
Joy is but a gaud and withers in an hour,
Here is the land of quintessential passion,
Where in a wild throb Spring wells up with power.
She would hear the partridge drumming in the distance,
Rolling out his mimic thunder in the sultry noons;
Hear beyond the silver reach in ringing wild persistence
Reel remote the ululating laughter of the loons;
See the shy moose fawn nestling by its mother,
In a cool marsh pool where the sedges meet;
Rest by a moss-mound where the twin-flowers smother
With a drowse of orient perfume drenched in light and heat:
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She would see the dawn rise behind the smoky mountain,
In a jet of colour curving up to break,
While like spray from the iridescent fountain,
Opal fires weave over all the oval of the lake:
She would see like fireflies the stars alight and spangle
All the heaven meadows thick with growing dusk,
Feel the gipsy airs that gather up and tangle
The woodsy odours in a maze of myrrh and musk:
There in the forest all the birds are nesting,
Tells the hermit thrush the song he cannot tell,
While the white-throat sparrow never resting,
Even in the deepest night rings his crystal bell:
O, she would love me then with a wild elation,
Then she must love me and leave her lonely state,
Give me love yet keep her soul's imperial reservation,
Large as her deep nature and fathomless as fate:
Then, if she would lie beside me in the even,
On my deep couch heaped of balsam fir,
Fragrant with sleep as nothing under heaven,
Let the past and future mingle in one blur;
While all the stars were watchful and thereunder
Earth breathed not but took their silent light,
All life withdrew and wrapt in a wild wonder
Peace fell tranquil on the odorous night:
She would let me steal,--not consenting or denying-One strong arm beneath her dusky hair,
She would let me bare, not resisting or complying,
One sweet breast so sweet and firm and fair;
Then with the quick sob of passion's shy endeavour,
She would gather close and shudder and swoon away,
She would be mine for ever and for ever,
Mine for all time and beyond the judgment day.
Vain is the dream, and deep with all derision-Fate is stern and hard--fair and false and vain-But what would life be worth without the vision,
Dark with sordid passion, pale with wringing pain?
What I dream is mine, mine beyond all cavil,
Pure and fair and sweet, and mine for evermore,
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And when I will my life I may unravel,
And find my passion dream deep at the red core.
Venus sinks first lost in ruby splendour,
Stars like wood-daffodils grow golden in the night,
Far, far above, in a space entranced and tender,
Floats the growing moon pale with virgin light.
Vaster than the world or life or death my trust is
Based in the unseen and towering far above;
Hold me, O Law, that deeper lies than Justice,
Guide me, O Light, that stronger burns than Love.
~ Duncan Campbell Scott,
593:Look! What wonders the spring has wrought! The river bank is a paradise! Rose-embowered glades, Blossoming jasmine and hyacinth, And violets, the envy of the skies!. Rainbow colours transformed Into a chorus of rapturous sounds, And the harmony of flowers The hillside is carnation-red; In the languid haze, the air Seems drunk with the beauty of life! The brook, on the heights of the hill, Dances to its own music. The world is dizzy in a pageant of colour! My rosy-cheeked Cup-bearer! The voice of spring is the voice of life! But the spring lasts not for ever; So bring me the cup that tears all veils -- The wine that brightens life -- The wine that intoxicates the world -- The wine in which flows The music of everlasting life, The wine that reveals eternity's secret. Unveil the secrets, O Saqi. Look! The world has changed apace! New are the songs, and new is the music; The West's magic has dissolved; The West's magicians are bewildered; Old politics has lost its game; The world is tired of kings; Gone are the days of the rich; Gone is the jugglery of old; Awake is China's sleeping giant; The Himalayas' torrents are unleashed; Sinai is riven; Moses awaits the light divine. The Muslim says that God is One But his heart is Still a heathen: Culture, sufism, rites and rthetoric, All adore non- Arab idols; The truth was lost in trifles, And the nation was lost in conventions. The speaker's rhetoric is enchanting, But is devoid of passion; It is clothed in logic neat, But lost in a maze of words; The sufi, unique in the love of truth, Unique in the love of God, Was lost in un-Islamic thought; Was lost in the hierarchic quest; The fire of love is extinguished, And a Muslim is a heap of ashes, O Saqi! Give me the old wine again! Let the potent cup go round! Let me soar on the wings of love; Make my dust bright-pinioned; Make wisdom free; And make the young guide the old; Thou it is that nourishest. this nation; Thou it is that canst sustain it; Urge them to move, to stir; Give them Ali's heart; give them Siddiq's passion; Let the same old love pierce their hearts; Awaken in them a burning zeal; Let the stars throw down their spears, And let the earth's dwellers tremble Give the young a passion that consumes; Give them my vision, my love of God; Free my boat from the whirlpool's grip, And make it move forward-, Reveal to me the secrets of life, For thou knowest them all; The treasures of a fakir like me Are suffused, unsleeping eyes, And secret yearnings of the heart-, My anguished sighs at night, My solitude in the world of men, My hopes and my fears, My quest untiring, My nature an arena of thought A mirror of the world. My heart a battlefield of life, With armies of suspicion, And bastions of certitude; With these treasures I am More rich than the richest of all. Let the young join my throng, And let them find an anchor of hope. The sea of life has its ebb and flow-, In every atom's heart is the pulse of life; It manifests itself in the body, As a flame conceals a wave of smoke; Contact with the earth was harsh for it, But it liked the labour; It is in motion, and not in motion; Tired of the elements' shackles; A unity, imprisoned by plurality; But always unique, unequalled. It has made this dome of myriad glass; It has carved this pantheon. It does not repeat its craft For thou art not me, and I am not thou; It has created the world of men, And remains in solitude, Its brightness is seen in the stars, And in the lustre of pearls-, To it belong the wildernesses, The flowers and the thorns; Mountains sometimes are shaken by its might; It captures angels and nymphs; It makes the eagle pounce on a prey, And leave a blood-stained body. Every atom throbs with life; Rest is an illusion; Life's journey pauses not, For every moment is a new glory; Life, thou thinkest, is a mystery; Life is a delight in eternal flight; Life has seen many ups and downs; It loves a journey, not a goal. Movement is life's being; Movement is truth, pause is a mirage. Life's enjoyment is in perils, In facing ups and downs; In the world beyond Life stalked for death, But the impulse to procreate Peopled the world of man and beast. Flowers blossomed and dropped From this tree of life. Fools think life is ephemeral; Life renews itself for ever -- Moving fast as a flash, Moving to eternity in a breath; Time, a chain of days and nights, Is the ebb and flow of breath. This flow of breath is like a sword, Selfhood is its sharpness; Selfhood is the secret of life; It is the world's awakening, Selfhood is solitary, absorbed, An ocean enclosed in a drop; It shines in light and in darkness, Existent in, but away from, thee and me. The dawn of life behind it, eternity before, It has no frontiers before, no frontiers behind. Afloat on the river of time, Bearing the buffets of the waves, Changing the course of its quest, Shifting its glance from time to time; For it a hill is a grain of sand, Mountains are shattered by its blows; A journey is its beginning and end, And this is the secret of its being. It is the moon's beam, the spark in the flint, Colourless itself, though infused with colours, No concern has it with the calculus of space, With linear time's limits, with the finitude of life. It manifested itself in man's essence of dust, After an eternity of a strife to be born. It is in thy heart that Selfhood has an abode, As heaven has its abode in the cornea of thy eye. To one who guards his Selfhood, The living that demeans it, is poison; He accepts only a living, That keeps his self- esteem; Keep away from royal pomp, Keep thy Selfhood free; Thou shouldst bow in prayer, Not bow to a human being. This myriad-coloured world, Under the sentence of death, This world of sight and sound, I Where life means eating and drinking, Is Selfhood's initial stage; It is not thy abode, O traveller! This dust-bowl is not the source of thy fire; The world is for thee, not thou for the world. Demolish this illusion of' time and space; Selfhood is the Tiger of God, the world is its prey; The earth is its prey, the heavens are its prey; Other worlds there are, still awaiting birth, The earth-born are not the centre of all life; They all await thy assault, Thy cataclysmic thought and deed; Days and nights revolve, To reveal thy Selfhood to thee; Thou art the architect of the world. Words fail to convey the truth; Truth is the mirror, words its shade; Though the breath is a burning flame, The flame has limited bounds. 'If now I soar any farther, The vision will sear my wings.'

~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal, To the Saqi (from Baal-i-Jibreel)
,
594:Hymn To Death
What is it haunts the summer air?
A sense of something lately passed away;
Something pleasant, something fair,
That was with us yesterday,
And is no longer there.
Now from the pasture comes no baby bleat,
Nor the frisk of frolic feet
There is seen.
Blossom and bloom have spread their wings, and flown,
And the bosks and orchards green
The rosy flush of childhood have outgrown.
Lapwing and linnet and lark have fledged their brood;
Mavis and merle have gotten their desire;
The nightingale begins to tire;
Even the cuckoo's note hath fitful grown;
And in the closing leafage of the wood
The ringdove now is left to coo alone.
II
Then revel in your roses, reckless June!
Revel and ripen swift to your decay.
But your turn will follow soon,
And the rounding harvest-moon
Avenge the too brief innocence of May.
Yet once again there scents the morning air
The soul of something passed away;
Something precious, something fair,
That was breathing yesterday,
And is no longer there.
It is Autumn, dying, dying,
With her leaves around her lying,
And Winter, beggared heir, unprofitably sighing.
Let her die.
Unto us as unto her
Earth is but a sepulchre,
And the over-arching sky
Neither asks nor wonders why
Those who here are left behind
262
Season sweet and spacious mind
Fain would save;
Yet with pale visages and streaming tears
Must watch the harvest of the ripened years
Locked in the bootless granary of the grave.
III
Why do you call me hence?
To purge what fault, to punish what offence?
Had I maligned my lot,
Or ever once the privilege forgot
Of being, though the spirit's inward sense,
Mirror and measure of all things that are,
Then it were right, were just,
That, like a falling leaf or failing star,
The winds of Heaven should blow about my dust.
Or had I used the years as waifs and strays,
To build myself a comfortable nest,
Groped life for golden garbage, like the rest,
And, as a lacquey, on the public ways
For private profit hired out my tongue,
Then against death 'twere vain to plead,
Then, then 'twere meet indeed
I should grow silenced, like a bell unrung.
But bear me witness, every Spring that came
Since first with trembling furtive frame
Out of my little crib I crept
While others slept,
Because to me the rising moon
Was more than sleep, or toy, or boon,
That never yet the thrush resumed to sing,
But straight my heart did build, my voice was on the wing;
Found the first primrose gazing frank
From its cradle in the bank,
Harked for the cuckoo days before he called,
Then halted, at his note enthralled.
IV
Why do you beckon to another sphere?
Here was I born,
Am deeply rooted here,
And would not be uptorn.
263
I want no other fields than these,
No other skies,
No redder dawn to break on bluer seas,
No brighter stars to rise.
Neither do I crave to know
The origin of joy and woe.
I love the doubt, the dark, the fear,
That still surroundeth all things here.
I love the mystery, nor seek to solve;
Content to let the stars revolve,
Nor ask to have their meaning clear.
Enough for me, enough to feel;
To let the mystic shadows steal
Into a land whither I cannot follow;
To see the stealthy sunlight leave
Dewy dingle, dappled hollow;
To watch, when falls the hour of eve,
Quiet shadows on a quiet hill;
To watch, to wonder, and be still.
And can it be,
That there will break the day,
For me, for me,
When I no more shall hear the throstle flute;
Not because his voice is mute,
But that my soul sleeps stupefied in clay?
Never! what, never again!
Deep within some silent glen
To make a couch with peace, far from surmise of men?
Never, never more to stand,
Spell-bound in a leafy land,
Lie among the grasses tall,
Hear the yaffel call, and call,
And lazily watch the lazy clouds slow floating over all?
That time and life will be, but I shall ne'er
Find little feet upon the stair,
Feel little arms about my throat,
Hear little gleeful voices float
Upon the wavelets of the summer air.
That I again shall never share
The peace that lies upon an English lawn,
264
Watch the last lingering planet shining fair
Upon the unwrinkled forehead of the dawn?
Never, never, never more,
When fate or fancy bids me roam,
Lessen with loving thoughts the last long mile
That leads unto my home,
Descry the roses down the casement falling,
Hear the garden thrushes calling,
Behold my dear ones standing at the door,
Void of fear, void of guile,
And hail, as I so oft have hailed before,
The broadening salutation of their smile?
VI
Who will salute me There?
Who, who come forth to greet?
Will Virgil stand upon the golden stair?
Shall I see Spenser's face, and sit at Shakespeare's feet?
Will Galileo with unshrouded gaze
Guide me through the starry maze,
Upon wings that never tire,
Up to the Heaven of Heavens, and higher and ever higher?
If this be so,
Quick let me go!
But ah! pale spectre, paler still you grow.
You would but lure me to the other bank,
To find it blank!
Of all we loved, not one hath e'er come back
To beckon us along the track,
To point the way, to indicate the goal,
And stretch out steadying arms to help the tottering soul.
VII
But wilt thou make this compact with me, Death,
And keep thy bond?
That even if mine be but borrowed breath,
Lent here awhile, to be reclaimed beyond,
And its poor husk be dug into the ground;
Then, though the Future may not find my face,
Nor arms that love me round my neck be wound,
Fair lips that lisp not yet my name shall sound,
And hearts that beat not yet be my warm dwellingplace;
265
That under trees which have no rootlets now,
But will then be trunk and bough
And dome of sheltering leaves, sometimes
A tender tear shall fall upon my rhymes;
And hearts at secret war with life,
Or dreaming maid or disillusioned wife,
Shall my persuasive music bless,
Shall call me comforter in their distress,
And make me live again in sorrowing loveliness?
VIII
So unto Death I do commend my Spirit,
And Time which is in league with Death, that they
May hold in trust, and see my kin inherit,
All of me that is not clay;
Embalm my voice and keep it from decay.
Then I will not ask to stay;Nay, rather start at once upon the way:
Cheered by the faith that, at our mortal birth,
For some high reason beyond Reason's ken,
We are put out to nurse on this strange earth,
Until Death comes to take us home again.
~ Alfred Austin,
595:The Singing Of The Magnificat
A LEGEND
IN midst of wide green pasture-lands, cut through
By lines of alders bordering deep-banked streams,
Where bulrushes and yellow iris grew,
And rest and peace, and all the flowers of dreams,
The Abbey stood--so still, it seemed a part
Of the marsh-country's almost pulseless heart.
Where grey-green willows fringed the stream and pool,
The lazy meek-faced cattle strayed to graze,
Sheep in the meadows cropped the grasses cool,
And silver fish shone through the watery ways,
And many a load of fruit and load of corn
Into the Abbey storehouses was borne.
Yet though so much they had of life's good things,
The monks but held them as a sacred trust,
Lent from the storehouse of the King of kings
Till they, His stewards, should crumble back to dust.
'Not as our own,' they said, 'but as the Lord's,
All that the stream yields, or the land affords.'
And all the villages and hamlets near
Knew the monks' wealth, and how their wealth was spent.
In tribulation, sickness, want, or fear,
First to the Abbey all the peasants went,
Certain to find a welcome, and to be
Helped in the hour of their extremity.
When plague or sickness smote the people sore,
The Brothers prayed beside the dying bed,
And nursed the sick back into health once more,
And through the horror and the danger said:
'How good is God, Who has such love for us,
379
He lets us tend His suffering children thus!'
They in their simple ways and works were glad:
Yet all men must have sorrows of their own.
And so a bitter grief the Brothers had,
Nor mourned for others' heaviness alone.
This was the secret of their sorrowing,
That not a monk in all the house could sing!
Was it the damp air from the lovely marsh,
Or strain of scarcely intermitted prayer,
That made their voices, when they sang, as harsh
As any frog's that croaks in evening air-That made less music in their hymns to lie
Than in the hoarsest wild-fowl's hoarsest cry?
If love could sweeten voice to sing a song,
Theirs had been sweetest song was ever sung:
But their hearts' music reached their lips all wrong,
The soul's intent foiled by the traitorous tongue
That marred the chapel's peace, and seemed to scare
The rapt devotion lingering in the air.
The birds that in the chapel built their nests,
And in the stone-work found their small lives fair,
Flew thence with hurled wings and fluttering breasts
When rang the bell to call the monks to prayer.
'Why will they sing,' they twittered, 'why at all?
In heaven their silence must be festival!'
The brothers prayed with penance and with tears
That God would let them give some little part
Out for the solace of their own sad ears
Of all the music crowded in their heart.
Their nature and the marsh-air had their way,
And still they sang more vilely every day.
380
And all their prayers and fasts availing not
To give them voices sweet, their souls' desire,
The Abbot said, 'Gifts He did not allot
God at our hands will not again require;
The love He gives us He will ask again
In love to Him and to our fellow-men.
'Praise Him we must, and since we cannot praise
As we would choose, we praise Him as we can.
In heaven we shall be taught the angels' ways
Of singing--we afford to wait a span.
In singing, as in toil, do ye your best;
God will adjust the balance--do the rest!'
But one good Brother, anxious to remove
This, the reproach now laid on them so long,
Rejected counsel, and for very love
Besought a Brother, skilled in art of song,
To come to them--his cloister far to leave-And sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve.
So when each brown monk duly sought his place,
By two and two, slow pacing to the choir,
Shrined in his dark oak stall, the strange monk's face
Shone with a light as of devotion's fire,
Good, young and fair, his seemed a form wherein
Pure beauty left no room at all for sin.
And when the time for singing it had come,
'Magnificat,' face raised, and voice, he sang:
Each in his stall the monks stood glad and dumb,
As through the chancel's dusk his voice outrang,
Pure, clear, and perfect--as the thrushes sing
Their first impulsive welcome of the spring.
At the first notes the Abbot's heart spoke low:
381
'Oh God, accept this singing, seeing we,
Had we the power, would ever praise Thee so-Would ever, Lord, Thou know'st, sing thus for Thee;
Thus in our hearts Thy hymns are ever sung,
As he Thou blessest sings them with his tongue.'
But as the voice rose higher, and more sweet,
The Abbot's heart said, 'Thou hast heard us grieve,
And sent an angel from beside Thy feet,
To sing Magnificat on Christmas Eve;
To ease our ache of soul, and let us see
How we some day in heaven shall sing to Thee.'
Through the cold Christmas night the hymn rang out,
In perfect cadence, clear as sunlit rain-Such heavenly music that the birds without
Beat their warm wings against the window pane,
Scattering the frosted crystal snow outspread
Upon the stone-lace and the window-lead.
The white moon through the window seemed to gaze
On the pure face and eyes the singer raised;
The storm-wind hushed the clamour of its ways,
God seemed to stoop to hear Himself thus praised,
And breathless all the Brothers stood, and still
Reached longing souls out to the music's thrill.
Old years came back, and half-remembered hours,
Dreams of delight that never was to be,
Mothers' remembered kiss, the funeral flowers
Laid on the grave of life's felicity;
An infinite dear passion of regret
Swept through their hearts, and left their eyelids wet.
The birds beat ever at the window, till
They broke the pane, and so could entrance win;
Their slender feet clung to the window-sill,
382
And though with them the bitter air came in,
The monks were glad that the birds too should hear,
Since to God's creatures all, His praise is dear.
The lovely music waxed and waned, and sank,
And brought less conscious sadness in its train,
Unrecognised despair that thinks to thank
God for a joy renounced, a chosen pain-And deems that peace which is but stifled life
Dulled by a too-prolonged unfruitful strife.
When, service done, the Brothers gathered round
To thank the singer--modest-eyed, said he:
'Not mine the grace, if grace indeed abound;
God gave the power, if any power there be;
If I in hymn or psalm clear voice can raise,
As His the gift, so His be all the praise!'
That night--the Abbot lying on his bed-A sudden flood of radiance on him fell,
Poured from the crucifix above his head,
And cast a stream of light across his cell-And in the fullest fervour of the light
An Angel stood, glittering, and great, and white.
His wings of thousand rainbow clouds seemed made,
A thousand lamps of love shone in his eyes,
The light of dawn upon his brows was laid,
Odours of thousand flowers of Paradise
Filled all the cell, and through the heart there stirred
A sense of music that could not be heard.
The Angel spoke--his voice was low and sweet
As the sea's murmur on low-lying shore-Or whisper of the wind in ripened wheat:
'Brother,' he said, 'the God we both adore
Has sent me down to ask, is all not right?--
383
Why was Magnificat not sung to-night?'
Tranced in the joy the Angel's presence brought,
The Abbot answered: 'All these weary years
We have sung our best--but always have we thought
Our voices were unworthy heavenly ears;
And so to-night we found a clearer tongue,
And by it the Magnificat was sung.'
The Angel answered, 'All these happy years
In heaven has your Magnificat been heard;
This night alone, the angels' listening ears
Of all its music caught no single word.
Say, who is he whose goodness is not strong
Enough to bear the burden of his song?'
The Abbot named his name. 'Ah, why,' he cried,
'Have angels heard not what we found so dear?'
'Only pure hearts,' the Angel's voice replied,
'Can carry human songs up to God's ear;
To-night in heaven was missed the sweetest praise
That ever rises from earth's mud-stained maze.
'The monk who sang Magnificat is filled
With lust of praise, and with hypocrisy;
He sings for earth--in heaven his notes are stilled
By muffling weight of deadening vanity;
His heart is chained to earth, and cannot bear
His singing higher than the listening air!
'From purest hearts most perfect music springs,
And while you mourned your voices were not sweet,
Marred by the accident of earthly things,-In heaven, God, listening, judged your song complete.
The sweetest of earth's music came from you,
The music of a noble life and true!'
384
~ Edith Nesbit,
596:He sings.

I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing.
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice' streets to leave one space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.

She speaks.

Say after me, and try to say
My very words, as if each word
Came from you of your own accord,
In your own voice, in your own way:
``This woman's heart and soul and brain
``Are mine as much as this gold chain
``She bids me wear; which'' (say again)
``I choose to make by cherishing
``A precious thing, or choose to fling
``Over the boat-side, ring by ring.''
And yet once more say no word more!
Since words are only words. Give o'er!

Unless you call me, all the same,
Familiarly by my pet name,
Which if the Three should hear you call,
And me reply to, would proclaim
At once our secret to them all.
Ask of me, too, command me, blame-
Do, break down the partition-wall
'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds
Curtained in dusk and splendid folds!
What's left but-all of me to take?
I am the Three's: prevent them, slake
Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage,
In practising with gems, can loose
Their subtle spirit in his cruce
And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,
Leave them my ashes when thy use
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!

He sings.

I.

Past we glide, and past, and past!
What's that poor Agnese doing
Where they make the shutters fast?
Grey Zanobi's just a-wooing
To his couch the purchased bride:
Past we glide!

II.

Past we glide, and past, and past!
Why's the Pucci Palace flaring
Like a beacon to the blast?
Guests by hundreds, not one caring
If the dear host's neck were wried:
Past we glide!

She sings.

I.

The moth's kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst.

II.

The bee's kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.

He sings.

I.

What are we two?
I am a Jew,
And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,
To a feast of our tribe;
Where they need thee to bribe
The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe
Thy Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

II.

Say again, what we are?
The sprite of a star,
I lure thee above where the destinies bar
My plumes their full play
Till a ruddier ray
Than my pale one announce there is withering away
Some Scatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, thou art thou!

He muses.

Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land's lap or the water's breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows just
Eluding water-lily leaves,
An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?

He speaks, musing.

Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?
From this shoulder let there spring
A wing; from this, another wing;
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend
They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet
To o'er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!

Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!

Still he muses.

I.

What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there's cast
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, himself has past
His stylet thro' my back; I reel;
And is it thou I feel?

II.

They trail me, these three godless knaves,
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido's wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And on thy breast I sink

She replies, musing.

Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep,
Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame or steel,
Or poison doubtless; but from water-feel!

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair,
'Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.

He speaks.

Row home? must we row home? Too surely
Know I where its front's demurely
Over the Giudecca piled;
Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,
All's the set face of a child:
But behind it, where's a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child's playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O'er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then a sweet cry, and last came you-
To catch your lory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.
I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o'er the balcony
To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach
That quick the round smooth cord of gold,
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness' sake
To let lie curling o'er their bosoms.
Dear lory,*
may his beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!

Stay longer yet, for others' sake
Than mine! What should your chamber do?
-With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you
Who brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
Which dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumberously, as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune be knows so well.
And how your statues' hearts must swell!
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You'd find Schidone's eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke!
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen
You'd find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser-
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed must make
More stay with me, for others' sake.

She speaks.

I.

To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon's black,
The Three are watching: keep away!

II.

Your gondola-let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair!
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath.

There's Zanze's vigilant taper; safe are we.
Only one minute more to-night with me?
Resume your past self of a month ago!
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow.
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, ``All thanks, Siora!''-
Heart to heart
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!
[He is surprised, and stabbed.
It was ordained to be so, sweet!-and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so-(yet one more kiss)-can die!


~ Robert Browning, In A Gondola
,
597:Phantasies
I. Evening.
Rest, beauty, stillness: not a waif of a cloud
From gray-blue east sheer to the yellow westNo film of mist the utmost slopes to shroud.
The earth lies grace, by quiet airs caressed,
And shepherdeth her shadows, but each stream,
Free to the sky, is by that glow possessed,
And traileth with the splendors of a dream
Athwart the dusky land. Uplift thine eyes!
Unbroken by a vapor or a gleam,
The vast clear reach of mild, wan twilight skies.
But look again, and lo, the evening star!
Against the pale tints black the slim elms rise,
The earth exhales sweet odors nigh and far,
And from the heavens fine influences fall.
Familiar things stand not for what they are:
What they suggest, foreshadow, or recall
The spirit is alert to apprehend,
Imparting somewhat of herself to all.
Labor and thought and care are at an end:
The soul is filled with gracious reveries,
And with her mood soft sounds and colors blend;
For simplest sounds ring forth like melodies
In this weird-lighted air-the monotone
Of some far bell, the distant farmyard cries,
A barking dog, the thin, persistent drone
Of crickets, and the lessening call of birds.
The apparition of yon star alone
Breaks on the sense like music. Beyond word
The peace that floods the soul, for night is here,
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And Beauty still is guide and harbinger.
II. Aspiration.
Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.
Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
Our spirit with its strange strong influence,
And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.
What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
Unto that point of shining prominence,
Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,
Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er
Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
And earthly joy and trouble. In this hour
Of waning light and sound, of mystery,
Of shadowed love and beauty-veiled power,
She feels her wings: she yearns to grasp her own,
Knowing the utmost good to be her dower.
A dream! a dream! for at a touch 't is gone.
O mocking spirit! thy mere fools are we,
Unto the depths from heights celestial thrown.
From these blind gropings toward reality,
This thirst for truth, this most pathetic need
Of something to uplift, to justify,
To help and comfort while we faint and bleed,
May we not draw, wrung from the last despair,
Some argument of hope, some blessed creed,
That we can trust the faith which whispers prayer,
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The vanishings, the ecstasy, the gleam,
The nameless aspiration, and the dream?
III. Wherefore?
Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,
The overstrained spirit doth possess.
She sinks with drooping wing-poor unfledged bird,
That fain had flown!-in fluttering breathlessness.
To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
The beating heart with aspirations vain?
Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard
To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,
Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?
This little resting-place 'twixt death and birth,
Why is it fretted with the ceaseless flow
Of flood and ebb, with overgrowth and dearth,
And vext with dreams, and clouded with strange woe?
Ah! she is tired of thought, she yearns for peace,
Seeing all things one equal end must know.
Wherefore this tangle of perplexities,
The trouble or the joy? the weary maze
Of narrow fears and hopes that may not cease?
A chill falls on her from the skyey ways,
Black with the night-tide, where is none to hear
The ancient cry, the Wherefore of our days.
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IV. Fancies.
The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear
From underneath each hedge and bush and tree,
Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.
The simple sound dispels the fantasy
Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind.
It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,
To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind
Lisp through the dark thick leafage overheadTo see the rosy half-moon soar behind
The black slim-branching elms. Sad thoughts have fled,
Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries
And odd caprices fill us in their stead.
From yonder broken disk the redness dies,
Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,
Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,
Blanched ever more and more, until it beams
Whiter than crystal. Like a scroll unfurled,
And shadowy as a landscape seen in dreams,
Reveals itself the sleeping, quiet world,
Painted in tender grays and whites subduedThe speckled stream with flakes of light impearled,
The wide, soft meadow and the massive wood.
Naught is too wild for our credulity
In this weird hour: our finest dreams hold good.
Quaint elves and frolic flower-sprites we see,
And fairies weaving rings of gossamer,
And angels floating through the filmy air.
V. In the Night.
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Let us go in: the air is dank and chill
With dewy midnight, and the moon rides high
O'er ghostly fields, pale stream, and spectral hill.
This hour the dawn seems farthest from the sky
So weary long the space that lies between
That sacred joy and this dark mystery
Of earth and heaven: no glimmering is seen,
In the star-sprinkled east, of coming day,
Nor, westward, of the splendor that hath been.
Strange fears beset us, nameless terrors sway
The brooding soul, that hungers for her rest,
Out worn with changing moods, vain hopes' delay,
With conscious thought o'erburdened and oppressed.
The mystery and the shadow wax too deep;
She longs to merge both sense and thought in sleep.
VI. Faerie.
From the oped lattice glance once more abroad
While the ethereal moontide bathes with light
Hill, stream, and garden, and white-winding road.
All gracious myths born of the shadowy night
Recur, and hover in fantastic guise,
Airy and vague, before the drowsy sight.
On yonder soft gray hill Endymion lies
In rosy slumber, and the moonlit air
Breathes kisses on his cheeks and lips and eyes.
'Twixt bush and bush gleam flower-white limbs, left bare,
Of huntress-nymphs, and flying raiment thin,
Vanishing faces, and bright floating hair.
The quaint midsummer fairies and their kin,
Gnomes, elves, and trolls, on blossom, branch, and grass
Gambol and dance, and winding out and in
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Leave circles of spun dew where'er they pass.
Through the blue ether the freed Ariel flies;
Enchantment holds the air; a swarming mass
Of myriad dusky, gold-winged dreams arise,
Throng toward the gates of sense, and so possess
The soul, and lull it to forgetfulness.
VII. Confused Dreams.
O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
Beginning there where ends reality,
Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous
With souls from either sphere! now enter we
Thy twisted paths. Barred is the silver gate,
But the wild-carven doors of ivory
Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,
Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.
All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
And fright us with our own imaginings.
A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
From this unnatural region can there be.
Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,
Familiar faces out of reach we see.
Fain would we scream, to shatter with a cry
The tangled woof of hideous fantasy,
When, lo! the air grows clear, a soft fair sky
Shines over head: sharp pain dissolves in peace;
Beneath the silver archway quietly
We float away: all troublous visions cease.
By a strange sense of joy we are possessed,
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Body and spirit soothed in perfect rest.
VIII. The End of the Song.
What dainty note of long-drawn melody
Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,
Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,
And with awakened consciousness we hear
The pipe of birds? Look forth! The sane, white day
Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.
All misty phantoms slowly roll away
With the night's vapors toward the western sky.
The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay
Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie,
Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;
The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary
Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness
Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;
Night's fancies melt like dew. So ends the song!
~ Emma Lazarus,
598:The Stream's Secret
What thing unto mine ear
Wouldst thou convey,--what secret thing,
O wandering water ever whispering?
Surely thy speech shall be of her.
Thou water, O thou whispering wanderer,
What message dost thou bring?
Say, hath not Love leaned low
This hour beside thy far well-head,
And there through jealous hollowed fingers said
The thing that most I long to know-Murmuring with curls all dabbled in thy flow
And washed lips rosy red?
He told it to thee there
Where thy voice hath a louder tone;
But where it welters to this little moan
His will decrees that I should hear.
Now speak: for with the silence is no fear,
And I am all alone.
Shall Time not still endow
One hour with life, and I and she
Slake in one kiss the thirst of memory?
Say, streams, lest Love should disavow
Thy service, and the bird upon the bough
Sing first to tell it me.
What whisperest thou? Nay, why
Name the dead hours? I mind them well.
Their ghosts in many darkened doorways dwell
With desolate eyes to know them by.
That hour must still be born ere it can die
Of that I'd have thee tell.
But hear, before thou speak!
Withhold, I pray, the vain behest
That while the maze hath still its bower for quest
My burning heart should cease to seek.
473
Be sure that Love ordained for souls more meek
His roadside dells of rest.
Stream, when this silver thread
In flood-time is a torrent brown,
May any bulwark bind thy foaming crown?
Shall not the waters surge and spread
And to the crannied boulders of their bed
Still shoot the dead drift down
Let no rebuke find place
In speech of thine: or it shall prove
That thou dost ill expound the words of Love.
Even as thine eddy's rippling race
Would blur the perfect image of his face
I will have none thereof.
O learn and understand
That 'gainst the wrongs himself did wreak
Love sought her aid; until her shadowy cheek
And eyes beseeching gave command;
And compassed in her close compassionate hand
My heart must burn and speak.
For then at last we spoke
What eyes so oft had told to eyes
Through that long-lingering silence whose half-sighs
Alone the buried secret broke,
Which with snatched hands and lips' reverberate stroke
Then from the heart did rise.
But she is far away
Now; nor the hours of night grown hoar
Bring yet to me, long gazing from the door,
The wind-stirred robe of roseate gray
And rose-crown of the hour that leads the day
When we shall meet once more.
Dark as thy blinded wave
When brimming midnight floods the glen,-Bright as the laughter of thy runnels when
The dawn yields all the light they crave;
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Even so these hours to wound and that to save
Are sisters in Love's ken.
Oh sweet her bending grace
Then when I kneel beside her feet;
And sweet her eyes' o'erhanging heaven; and sweet
The gathering folds of her embrace;
And her fall'n hair at last shed round my face
When breaths and tears shall meet.
Beneath her sheltering hair,
In the warm silence near her breast,
Our kisses and our sobs shall sink to rest;
As in some still trance made aware
That day and night have wrought to fulness there
And Love has built our nest.
And as in the dim grove,
When the rains cease that hushed them long,
'Mid glistening boughs the song-birds wake to song,-So from our hearts deep-shrined in love,
While the leaves throb beneath, around, above,
The quivering notes shall throng.
Till tenderest words found vain
Draw back to wonder mute and deep,
And closed lips in closed arms a silence keep,
Subdued by memory's circling strain,-The wind-rapt sound that the wind brings again
While all the willows weep.
Then by her summoning art
Shall memory conjure back the sere
Autumnal Springs, from many a dying year
Born dead; and, bitter to the heart,
The very ways where now we walk apart
Who then shall cling so near.
And with each thought new-grown,
Some sweet caress or some sweet name
Low-breathed shall let me know her thought the same:
Making me rich with every tone
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And touch of the dear heaven so long unknown
That filled my dreams with flame.
Pity and love shall burn
In her pressed cheek and cherishing hands;
And from the living spirit of love that stands
Between her lips to soothe and yearn,
Each separate breath shall clasp me round in turn
And loose my spirit's bands.
Oh passing sweet and dear,
Then when the worshipped form and face
Are felt at length in darkling close embrace;
Round which so oft the sun shone clear,
With mocking light and pitiless atmosphere,
In many an hour and place.
Ah me! with what proud growth
Shall that hour's thirsting race be run;
While, for each several sweetness still begun
Afresh, endures love's endless drouth;
Sweet hands, sweet hair, sweet cheeks, sweet eyes, sweet mouth,
Each singly wooed and won.
Yet most with the sweet soul
Shall love's espousals then be knit;
What time the governing cloud sheds peace from it
O'er tremulous wings that touch the goal,
And on the unmeasured height of Love's control
The lustral fires are lit.
Therefore, when breast and cheek
Now part, from long embraces free,-Each on the other gazing shall but see
A self that has no need to speak:
All things unsought, yet nothing more to seek,-One love in unity.
O water wandering past,-Albeit to thee I speak this thing,
O water, thou that wanderest whispering,
Thou keep'st thy counsel to the last.
476
What spell upon thy bosom should Love cast,
Its secret thence to wring?
Nay, must thou hear the tale
Of the past days,--the heavy debt
Of life that obdurate time withholds,--ere yet
To win thine ear these prayers prevail,
And by thy voice Love's self with high All-hail
Yield up the amulet?
How should all this be told?-All the sad sum of wayworn days,-Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;
And on the waste uncoloured wold
The visible burthen of the sun grown cold
And the moon's labouring gaze?
Alas! shall hope be nurs'd
On life's all-succouring breast in vain,
And made so perfect only to be slain?
Or shall not rather the sweet thirst
Even yet rejoice the heart with warmth dispers'd
And strength grown fair again?
Stands it not by the door!-Love's Hour--Till she and I shall meet
With bodiless form and unapparent feet
That cast no shadow yet before,
Though round its head the dawn begins to pour
The breath that makes day sweet?
Its eyes invisible
Watch till the dial's thin-thrown shade
Be born,--yea, till the journeying line be laid
Upon the point that wakes the spell,
And there in lovelier light than tongue can tell
Its presence stands array'd.
Its soul remembers yet
Those sunless hours that passed it by;
And still it hears the night's disconsolate cry,
And feels the branches wringing wet
477
Cast on its brow, that may not once forget,
Dumb tears from the blind sky.
But oh! when now her foot
Draws near, for whose sake night and day
Were long in weary longing sighed away,-The hour of Love, 'mid airs grown mute,
Shall sing beside the door, and Love's own lute
Thrill to the passionate lay.
Thou know'st, for Love has told
Within thine ear, O stream, how soon
That song shall lift its sweet appointed tune.
O tell me, for my lips are cold,
And in my veins the blood is waxing old
Even while I beg the boon.
So, in that hour of sighs
Assuaged, shall we beside this stone
Yield thanks for grace; while in thy mirror shown
The twofold image softly lies,
Until we kiss, and each in other's eyes
Is imaged all alone.
Still silent? Can no art
Of Love's then move thy pity? Nay,
To thee let nothing come that owns his sway:
Let happy lovers have no part
With thee; nor even so sad and poor a heart
As thou hast spurned to-day.
To-day? Lo! night is here.
The glen grows heavy with some veil
Risen from the earth or fall'n to make earth pale;
And all stands hushed to eye and ear,
Until the night-wind shake the shade like fear
And every covert quail.
Ah! by another wave
On other airs the hour must come
Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
Between the lips of the low cave
478
Against that night the lapping waters lave,
And the dark lips are dumb.
But there Love's self doth stand,
And with Life's weary wings far flown,
And with Death's eyes that make the water moan,
Gathers the water in his hand:
And they that drink know nought of sky or land
But only love alone.
O soul-sequestered face
Far off,--O were that night but now!
So even beside that stream even I and thou
Through thirsting lips should draw Love's grace,
And in the zone of that supreme embrace
Bind aching breast and brow.
O water whispering
Still through the dark into mine ears,-As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers?-Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
Wan water, wandering water weltering,
This hidden tide of tears.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
599:Paris
First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .
Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays
Than, having beauty and your twenty years,
You have the means to conquer and the ways,
And coming where the crossroads separate
And down each vista glories and wonders wait,
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair
You know not which to choose, and hesitate --
Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom
Of some old quarter take a little room
That looks off over Paris and its towers
From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, --
So high that you can hear a mating dove
Croon down the chimney from the roof above,
See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is
To wake between Our Lady and our love.
And have a little balcony to bring
Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming,
That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands,
And swallows circle over in the Spring.
There of an evening you shall sit at ease
In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees,
There with your little darling in your arms,
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Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.
And looking out over the domes and towers
That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours,
While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them
Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,
You cannot fail to think, as I have done,
Some of life's ends attained, so you be one
Who measures life's attainment by the hours
That Joy has rescued from oblivion.
II
Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west.
The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats.
The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves:
Come out under the lights and leaves
to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . .
Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant.
Shrill voices cry "L'Intransigeant," and corners echo "Paris-Sport."
Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay,
The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat.
And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine
On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . .
But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along
And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel.
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Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic:
Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport;
Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads,
and courtezans like powdered moths,
And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths
bright-hued and stitched with golden threads;
And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes
In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;
And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press,
And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:
All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what
Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.
"Comment ca va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon cher!"
Friends greet and banter as they pass.
'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere,
A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood
Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . .
The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer,
And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.
And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls,
And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war.
But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet,
Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights.
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Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere
So many happy heads and fair assembled in one time and place.
Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,
Smokers, with covered heads, and girls dressed in the costume of the street.
From tables packed around the wall the crowds that drink and frolic there
Spin serpentines into the air far out over the reeking hall,
That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink and green and blue
The crowds that rag to "Hitchy-koo" and boston to the "Barcarole". . . .
Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance,
And join her sisters in the dance and see the life that they have seen.
Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the narrow brim,
Docked, in the model's present whim, `frise' and banged above the brows.
Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays,
In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness,
As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them
In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal.
Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete,
Along the maze of whirling feet the grave-eyed little wanton goes,
And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks and nubile waist,
She passes, charmingly unchaste, illumining ignoble eyes. . . .
But now the blood from every heart leaps madder through abounding veins
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As first the fascinating strains of "El Irresistible" start.
Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows lift and yield
The scented softnesses they shield to arms that catch and close them round,
Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath
To all the bliss the measures breathe and all the madness they suggest.
Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they stand and strain to see
The tango in its ecstasy of glowing lives that clasp and cling.
Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem
To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise,
Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled and subdued,
In a luxurious lassitude of rhythm and sensual delight.
And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance
They waken from their magic trance and join the cries that clamor "Bis!" . . .
Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb the crowded stair,
And out into the warm night air go singing fragments of the ball.
Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and talk awhile
In the cafes along the mile from Bullier's back to Montparnasse:
The "Closerie" or "La Rotonde", where smoking, under lamplit trees,
Sit Art's enamored devotees, chatting across their `brune' and `blonde'. . . .
Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris -- not as many do,
Seeing but the folly of the few, the froth, the tinsel, and the show --
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But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's barren every day
Can lead you by the shortest way into Love's florid fairyland.
And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's common guise -That city of romance that lies within the City's toil and strife --
Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its golden key,
And one's name murmured tenderly the only magic it demands.
And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory,
Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed:
When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors you stood,
And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice,
At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled,
The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand.
III
Choral Song
Have ye gazed on its grandeur
Or stood where it stands
With opal and amber
Adorning the lands,
And orcharded domes
Of the hue of all flowers?
Sweet melody roams
Through its blossoming bowers,
Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour.
A city resplendent,
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Fulfilled of good things,
On its ramparts are pendent
The bucklers of kings.
Broad banners unfurled
Are afloat in its air.
The lords of the world
Look for harborage there.
None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair.
'Tis the city of Lovers,
There many paths meet.
Blessed he above others,
With faltering feet,
Who past its proud spires
Intends not nor hears
The noise of its lyres
Grow faint in his ears!
Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears.
It was thither, ambitious,
We came for Youth's right,
When our lips yearned for kisses
As moths for the light,
When our souls cried for Love
As for life-giving rain
Wan leaves of the grove,
Withered grass of the plain,
And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain.
Under arbor and trellis,
Full of flutes, full of flowers,
What mad fortunes befell us,
What glad orgies were ours!
In the days of our youth,
In our festal attire,
When the sweet flesh was smooth,
When the swift blood was fire,
And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!
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~ Alan Seeger,
600:Grandmother’s Teaching
``Grandmother dear, you do not know; you have lived the old-world life,
Under the twittering eaves of home, sheltered from storm and strife;
Rocking cradles, and covering jams, knitting socks for baby feet,
Or piecing together lavender bags for keeping the linen sweet:
Daughter, wife, and mother in turn, and each with a blameless breast,
Then saying your prayers when the nightfall came, and quietly dropping to rest.
``You must not think, Granny, I speak in scorn, for yours have been well-spent
days,
And none ever paced with more faithful feet the dutiful ancient ways.
Grandfather's gone, but while he lived you clung to him close and true,
And mother's heart, like her eyes, I know, came to her straight from you.
If the good old times, at the good old pace, in the good old grooves would run,
One could not do better, I'm sure of that, than do as you all have done.
``But the world has wondrously changed, Granny, since the days when you were
young;
It thinks quite different thoughts from then, and speaks with a different tongue.
The fences are broken, the cords are snapped, that tethered man's heart to
home;
He ranges free as the wind or the wave, and changes his shore like the foam.
He drives his furrows through fallow seas, he reaps what the breakers sow,
And the flash of his iron flail is seen mid the barns of the barren snow.
``He has lassoed the lightning and led it home, he has yoked it unto his need,
And made it answer the rein and trudge as straight as the steer or steed.
He has bridled the torrents and made them tame, he has bitted the champing
tide,
It toils as his drudge and turns the wheels that spin for his use and pride.
He handles the planets and weighs their dust, he mounts on the comet's car,
And he lifts the veil of the sun, and stares in the eyes of the uttermost star.
``'Tis not the same world you knew, Granny; its fetters have fallen off;
The lowliest now may rise and rule where the proud used to sit and scoff.
No need to boast of a scutcheoned stock, claim rights from an ancient wrong;
All are born with a silver spoon in their mouths whose gums are sound and
strong.
And I mean to be rich and great, Granny; I mean it with heart and soul:
At my feet is the ball, I will roll it on, till it spins through the golden goal.
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``Out on the thought that my copious life should trickle through trivial days,
Myself but a lonelier sort of beast, watching the cattle graze,
Scanning the year's monotonous change, gaping at wind and rain,
Or hanging with meek solicitous eyes on the whims of a creaking vane;
Wretched if ewes drop single lambs, blest so is oilcake cheap,
And growing old in a tedious round of worry, surfeit, and sleep.
``You dear old Granny, how sweet your smile, and how soft your silvery hari!
But all has moved on while you sate still in your cap and easy-chair.
The torch of knowledge is lit for all, it flashes from hand to hand;
The alien tongues of the earth converse, and whisper from strand to strand.
The very churches are changed and boast new hymns, new rites, new truth;
Men worship a wiser and greater God than the halfknown God of your youth.
``What! marry Connie and set up house, and dwell where my fathers dwelt,
Giving the homely feasts they gave and kneeling where they knelt?
She is pretty, and good, and void I am sure of vanity, greed, or guile;
But she has not travelled nor seen the world, and is lacking in air and style.
Women now are as wise and strong as men, and vie with men in renown;
The wife that will help to build my fame was not bred near a country town.
``What a notion! to figure at parish boards, and wrangle o'er cess and rate,
I, who mean to sit for the county yet, and vote on an Empire's fate;
To take the chair at the Farmers' Feast, and tickle their bumpkin ears,
Who must shake a senate before I die, and waken a people's cheers!
In the olden days was no choice, so sons to the roof of their fathers clave:
But now! 'twere to perish before one's time, and to sleep in a living grave.
``I see that you do not understand. How should you? Your memory clings
To the simple music of silenced days and the skirts of vanishing things.
Your fancy wanders round ruined haunts, and dwells upon oft-told tales;
Your eyes discern not the widening dawn, nor your ears catch the rising gales.
But live on, Granny, till I come back, and then perhaps you will own
The dear old Past is an empty nest, and the Present the brood that is flown.''
``And so, my dear, you've come back at last? I always fancied you would.
Well, you see the old home of your childhood's days is standing where it stood.
The roses still clamber from porch to roof, the elder is white at the gate,
And over the long smooth gravel path the peacock still struts in state.
On the gabled lodge, as of old, in the sun, the pigeons sit and coo,
And our hearts, my dear, are no whit more changed, but have kept still warm for
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you.
``You'll find little altered, unless it be me, and that since my last attack;
But so that you only give me time, I can walk to the church and back.
You bade me not die till you returned, and so you see I lived on:
I'm glad that I did now you've really come, but it's almost time I was gone.
I suppose that there isn't room for us all, and the old should depart the first.
That's as it should be. What is sad, is to bury the dead you've nursed.
``Won't you have bit nor sup, my dear? Not even a glass of whey?
The dappled Alderney calved last week, and the baking is fresh to-day.
Have you lost your appetite too in town, or is it you've grown over-nice?
If you'd rather have biscuits and cowslip wine, they'll bring them up in a trice.
But what am I saying? Your coming down has set me all in a maze:
I forgot that you travelled here by train; I was thinking of coaching days.
``There, sit you down, and give me your hand, and tell me about it all,
From the day that you left us, keen to go, to the pride that had a fall.
And all went well at the first? So it does, when we're young and puffed with
hope;
But the foot of the hill is quicker reached the easier seems the slope.
And men thronged round you, and women too! Yes, that I can understand.
When there's gold in the palm, the greedy world is eager to grasp the hand.
``I heard them tell of your smart town house, but I always shook my head.
One doesn't grow rich in a year and a day, in the time of my youth 'twas said.
Men do not reap in the spring, my dear, nor are granaries filled in May,
Save it be with the harvest of former years, stored up for a rainy day.
The seasons will keep their own true time, you can hurry nor furrow nor sod:
It's honest labour and steadfast thrift that alone are blest by God.
``You say you were honest. I trust you were, nor do I judge you, my dear:
I have old-fashioned ways, and it's quite enough to keep one's own conscience
clear.
But still the commandment, ``Thou shalt not steal,'' though a simple and ancient
rule,
Was not made for modern cunning to baulk, nor for any new age to befool;
And if my growing rich unto others brought but penury, chill, and grief,
I should feel, though I never had filched with my hands, I was only a craftier
thief.
``That isn't the way they look at it there? All worshipped the rising sun?
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Most of all the fine lady, in pride of purse you fancied your heart had won.
I don't want to hear of her beauty or birth: I reckon her foul and low;
Far better a steadfast cottage wench than grand loves that come and go.
To cleave to their husbands, through weal, through woe, is all women have to
do:
In growing as clever as men they seem to have matched them in fickleness too.
``But there's one in whose heart has your image still dwelt through many an
absent day,
As the scent of a flower will haunt a closed room, though the flower be taken
away.
Connie's not quite so young as she was, no doubt, but faithfulness never grows
old;
And were beauty the only fuel of love, the warmest hearth soon would grow cold.
Once you thought that she had not travelled, and knew neither the world nor life:
Not to roam, but to deem her own hearth the whole world, that's what a man
wants in a wife.
``I'm sure you'd be happy with Connie, at least if your own heart's in the right
place.
She will bring you nor power, nor station, nor wealth, but she never will bring
you disgrace.
They say that the moon, though she moves round the earth, never turns to him
morning or night
But one face of her sphere, and it must be because she's so true a satellite;
And Connie, if into your orbit once drawn by the sacrament sanctioned above,
Would revolve round you constantly, only to show the one-sided aspect of love.
``You will never grow rich by the land, I own; but if Connie and you should wed,
It will feed your children and household too, as it you and your fathers fed.
The seasons have been unkindly of late; there's a wonderful cut of hay,
But the showers have washed all the goodness out, till it's scarcely worth carting
away.
There's a fairish promise of barley straw, but the ears look rusty and slim:
I suppose God intends to remind us thus that something depends on Him.
``God neither progresses nor changes, dear, as I once heard you rashly say:
Man's schools and philosophies come and go, but His word doth not pass away.
We worship Him here as we did of old, with simple and reverent rite:
In the morning we pray Him to bless our work, to forgive our transgressions at
night.
To keep His commandments, to fear His name, and what should be done, to do,-
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That's the beginning of wisdom still; I suspect 'tis the end of it too.
``You must see the new-fangled machines at work, that harrow, and thresh, and
reap;
They're wonderful quick, there's no mistake, and they say in the end they're
cheap.
But they make such a clatter, and seem to bring the rule of the town to the
fields:
There's something more precious in country life than the balance of wealth it
yields.
But that seems going; I'm sure I hope that I shall be gone before:
Better poor sweet silence of rural toil than the factory's opulent roar.
``They're a mighty saving of labour, though; so at least I hear them tell,
Making fewer hands and fewer mouths, but fewer hearts as well:
They sweep up so close that there's nothing left for widows and bairns to glean;
If machines are growing like men, man seems to be growing a half machine.
There's no friendliness left; the only tie is the wage upon Saturday nights:
Right used to mean duty; you'll find that now there's no duty, but only rights.
``Still stick to your duty, my dear, and then things cannot go much amiss.
What made folks happy in bygone times, will make them happy in this.
There's little that's called amusement, here; but why should the old joys pall?
Has the blackbird ceased to sing loud in spring? Has the cuckoo forgotten to call?
Are bleating voices no longer heard when the cherryblossoms swarm?
And have home, and children, and fireside lost one gleam of their ancient charm?
``Come, let us go round; to the farmyard first, with its litter of fresh-strewn
straw,
Past the ash-tree dell, round whose branching tops the young rooks wheel and
caw;
Through the ten-acre mead that was mown the first, and looks well for
aftermath,
Then round by the beans-I shall tire by then,-and home up the garden-path,
Where the peonies hang their blushing heads, where the larkspur laughs from its
stalkWith my stick and your arm I can manage. But see! There, Connie comes up the
walk.''
~ Alfred Austin,
601:The Happy Harvester
I.
Autumn, like an old poet in a haze
Of golden visions, dreams away his days,
So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear
The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere;
Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales
Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales,
Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood
That haunt the forest's social solitude.
His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife
With the calm wisdom of that inner life
That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown,
All space his empire, and the sun his throne.
As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers,
So into autumn's variegated hours
Is hived the Hybla richness of the year;
Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer,
As autumn, seated on the highest hills,
Gleans honied secrets from the passing rills;
While from below, the harvest canzonas
Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.
Foremost among the honoured sons of toil
Are they who overcome the stubborn soil;
Brave Cincinnatus in his country home
Was even greater than when lord of Rome.
Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines
That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines
Of Ceres' army looking from the height
On the dim lowlands deepening into night;
Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze,
Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze;
Through all the vales the vespers of the birds
Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds;
And the stout axles of the heavy wain
Creak 'neath the fulness of the ripened grain,
As the swarth builders of the precious load,
Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.
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AUTUMN ODE.
God of the Harvest! Thou, whose sun
Has ripened all the golden grain,
We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store,
The cup of Plenty running o'er,
The sunshine and the rain.
The year laughs out for very joy,
Its silver treble echoing
Like a sweet anthem through the woods,
Till mellowed by the solitudes
It folds its glossy wing.
But our united voices blend
From day to day unweariedly;
Sure as the sun rolls up the morn,
Or twilight from the eve is born,
Our song ascends to Thee.
Where'er the various-tinted woods,
In all their autumn splendour dressed,
Impart their gold and purple dyes
To distant hills and farthest skies
Along the crimson west:
Across the smooth, extended plain,
By rushing stream and broad lagoon,
On shady height and sunny dale,
Wherever scuds the balmy gale,
Or gleams the autumn moon:
From inland seas of yellow grain,
Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest,
With willing hands and keen-edged scythe,
And accents musically blythe,
Reveals its lordly crest:
From clover-fields and meadows wide,
Where moves the richly-laden wain
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To barns well-stored with new-made hay,
Or where the flail at early day
Rolls out the ripened grain:
From meads and pastures on the hills,
And in the mountain valleys deep,
Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine
Of famous Ayr or Devon's line,
And shepherd-guarded sheep:
The spirits of the golden year,
From crystal caves and grottoes dim,
From forest depths and mossy sward,
Myriad-tongued, with one accord
Peal forth their harvest hymn.
II.
Their daily labour in the happy fields
A two-fold crop of grain and pleasure yields,
While round their hearths, before their evening fires,
Whore comfort reigns, whence weariness retires,
The level tracts, denuded of their grain,
In calm dispute are bravely shorn again,
Till some rough reaper, on a tide of song,
Like a bold pirate, captivates the throng:
A SONG FOR THE FLAIL.
A song, a song for the good old Flail,
And the brawny arms that wield it,
Hearty and hale, in our yeoman mail,
Like intrepid knights we'll shield it.
We are old nature's peers,
Right royal cavaliers!
Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
We're Princes in our own right-our sceptre is the Flail.
A song, a song for the golden grain,
As it wooes the flail's embraces,
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In wavy sheaves like a golden main,
With its bright spray in our faces.
Mirth hastens at our call,
Jovial hearts have we all!
Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
We're Princes in our own right-our sceptre is the Flail.
A song, a song for the good old Flail,
That our fathers used before us;
A song for the Flail, and the faces hale
Of the queenly dames that bore us!
We are old nature's peers,
Right royal cavaliers!
Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail,
We're Princes in our own right-our sceptre is the Flail.
III.
Fair was the maid, and lovely as the morn
From starry Night and rosy Twilight born,
Within whose mind a rivulet of song
Rehearsed the strains that from her lips ere long
Welled free and sparkling, as the vocal woods
Repeat the day-spring's sweetest interludes.
Her gentle eyes' serenest depths of blue
Shrined love and truth, and all their retinue;
The health and beauty of her youthful face
Made it the Harem of each maiden grace;
And such perfection blended with her air,
She seemed some stately Goddess moving there:
Beholding her, you thought she might have been
The long-lost, flower-loving Proserpine:
AN AUTUMN CHANGE.
'Oh, dreamy autumn days!
I seek your faded ways,
As one who calmly strays
Through visions of the past;
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I walk the golden hours,
And where I gathered flowers
The stricken leaves in showers
Are hurled upon the blast.'
Thus mused the lonely maid,
As through the autumn glade,
With pensive heart, she strayed,
Regretting Love's delay;
In vain the traitor flies!
To pleading lips and eyes,
Sweet looks, and tender sighs,
He falls an easy prey.
'Oh, dreamy autumn days!
I tread your bridal ways,
As one who homeward strays,
Through realms divinely fair;
I walk Love's radiant hours,
Fragrant with passion flowers,
And blessings fall like dowers
Down the elysian air.'
Thus mused the maiden now,
With sunny heart and brow,
For Love had turned his prow
Towards the Golden Isles,
Where from Pierean springs
The soul of Music sings
Its sweet imaginings,
Through all the Land of Smiles.
IV.
Up the wide chimney rolls the social fire,
Warming the hearts of matron, youth, and sire;
Painting such grotesque shadows on the wall,
The stripling looms a giant stout and tall,
While they whose statures reach the common height
Seem spectres mocking the hilarious night.
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From hand to hand the ripened fruit went round,
And rural sports a pleased acceptance found;
The youthful fiddler on his three-legged stool,
Fancied himself at least an Ole Bull;
Some easy bumpkin, seated on the floor,
Hunted the slipper till his ribs were sore;
Some chose the graceful waltz or lively reel,
While deeper heads the chess battalions wheel
Till some old veteran, compelled to yield,
More brave than skilful, vanquished, quits the field.
As a flushed harper, when the doubtful fight
Favors the prowess of some stately knight,
In stirring numbers of triumphal song
Upholds the spirits of the victor throng,
A sturdy ploughboy, wedded to the soil,
Thus sung the praises of the partner of his toil:
THE SOLDIERS OF THE PLOUGH.
No maiden dream, nor fancy theme,
Brown Labour's muse would sing;
Her stately mien and russet sheen
Demand a stronger wing,
Long ages since, the sage, the prince,
The man of lordly brow,
All honour gave that army brave,
The Soldiers of the Plough.
Kind heaven speed the Plough!
And bless the hands that guide it;
God gives the seedThe bread we need,
Man's labour must provide it.
In every land, the toiling hand
Is blest as it deserves;
Not so the race who, in disgrace,
From honest labour swerves.
From fairest bowers bring rarest flowers,
To deck the swarthy brow
Of those whose toil improves the soil,
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The Soldiers of the Plough.
Kind heaven speed the Plough!
And bless the hands that guide it;
God gives the seedThe bread we need,
Man's labour must provide it.
Blest is his lot, in hall or cot,
Who lives as nature wills,
Who pours his corn from Ceres' horn,
And quaffs his native rills!
No breeze that sweeps trade's stormy deeps,
Can touch his golden prow;
Their foes are few, their lives are true,
The Soldiers of the Plough.
Kind heaven speed the Plough!
And bless the hands that guide it;
God gives the seedThe bread we need,
Man's labour must provide it.
V.
Fast sped the rushing chariot of the Hours.
Without, the Harvest Moon, through fleecy bowers
Of hazy cloudlets, swept her graceful way,
Proud as an empress on her marriage-day;
The admiring planets lit her stately march
With smiles that gleamed along the silent arch,
And all the starry midnight blazed with light,
As if 'twere earth and heaven's nuptial-night;
The cock crowed, certain that the day had broke,
The aged house-dog suddenly awoke,
And bayed so loud a challenge to the moon,
From the old orchard fled the thievish 'coon;
Within, the lightest hearts that ever beat
Still found their harmless pleasures pure and sweet;
The fire still burned on the capacious hearth,
In sympathy with the redundant mirth;
Old graybeards felt the glow of youth revive,
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Old matrons smiled upon the human hive,
Where life's rare nectar, fit for gods to sip,
In forfeit kisses passed from lip to lip.
Be hushed rude Mirth! as merry as the May
Is she who comes to sing her roundelay:
CLAIRE.
Whither now, blushing Claire?
Maid of the sylph-like air,
Blooming and debonair,
Whither so early?
Chasing the merry morn,
Down through the golden corn?
List'ning the hunter's horn
Ring through the barley?
'Flowerets fresh and fair,'
Answered the blushing Claire,
'Fit for my bridal hair,
Bloom 'mongst the barley;
Hark! 'tis the hunter's horn,
Waking the sylvan morn,
And through the yellow corn
Comes my brave Charlie.'
Through the dew-dripping grain
Pressed the heart-stricken swain,
Crushed with a weight of pain,
Drooped like the barley;
Ah! timid shepherd boy!
Man's love should ne'er be coy,
Sweet is Claire's maiden joy,
Kissing her Charlie!
VI.
A pleasant soul as ever trilled a song
Was hers who warbled 'Claire.' All the day long
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Her voice was ringing like a bridal bell;
Gladness and joy leaped up at every swell;
And love was deeper, warmer, for the tone
That clasped the heart like an enchanted zone.
A youth was there more comely than the rest,
One who could turn a furrow with the best,
Compete for manly strength and portly air,
Or wield a scythe with any reaper there.
The spirit of her voice had moved above
The waters of his soul, and waked his song to Love:
BALLAD.
'Come tell me, merry Brooklet, of a gentle Maid I seek,
Thou'lt know her by the freshness of the rose upon her cheek;
Her eyes are chaste and tender, and so serenely bright,
You can read her heart's pure secrets by their warm religious light.'
'The Maid has not come hither,' said the Brooklet in reply;
'I've listened for her footfall ere the stars were in the sky;
The Fountain has been singing of a Maid, with eyes so bright
You may read the cherished secrets of her bosom by their light.'
'Pray tell me, merry Brooklet, what saith her thoughts of one
Who wronged her loving nature ere the setting of the sun?
What say they of yon autumn moon that smiles so mournfully
On the slowly-dying season, and the blasted moorland tree?'
'She sitteth by the Fountain,' the Brook replied again,
'Her heart as pure as heaven, and her thoughts without a stain;
'Oh, fickle moon, and changeful man!' she saith, 'a year ago
All the paths were true-love-lighted where I'm groping now in woe.'
'She sitteth by the Fountain, the gentle mists arise,
And kiss away the tear-pearls that tremble in her eyes,
The Fountain singeth to me that the Maiden in her dream
Shrinks as the vapours claim her as the Oread of the stream.'
Off sped the merry Streamlet adown the sloping vale;
The Shepherd seeks the Fountain, where sits the Maiden pale;
And to the wandering Brooklet, through many a lonely wild,
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The burden of the Fountain was, that Love was reconciled.
VII.
But soon the Morn, on many a distant height,
Fingers the raven locks of lingering Night;
The last dark shadows that precede the day
Have stripped the splendour from the Milky Way;
And Nature seems disturbed by fitful dreams,
As one who shudders when the owlet screams;
The painful burden of the Whippoorwill,
Like a vague Sorrow, floats from hill to hill;
Along the vales the doleful accents run,
Where the white vapours dread the burning sun;
While human voices stir the haunted air,
One sings 'the Plough,' another warbles 'Claire:'
The Happy Harvesters, a lightsome throng,
Dispersing homewards, prove the excellence of Song.
~ Charles Sangster,
602:An Essay On Man In Four Epistles: Epistle 1
To Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot;
Or garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot folly as it flies,
And catch the manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate the ways of God to man.I.
Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?II.
Presumptuous man! the reason wouldst thou find,
27
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less?
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields above,
Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?
Of systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be somewhere, such a rank as man:
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
When the proud steed shall know why man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains:
When the dull ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:
Then shall man's pride and dulness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought:
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place;
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
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What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest today is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.III.
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul, proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud topp'd hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the wat'ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.IV.
29
Go, wiser thou! and, in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his justice, be the God of God.
In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be angels, angels would be gods.
Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell,
Aspiring to be angels, men rebel:
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of order, sins against th' Eternal Cause.V.
Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, " 'Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew,
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No, ('tis replied) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began:
And what created perfect?"--Why then man?
30
If the great end be human happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sunshine, as of man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia, or a Catiline?
Who knows but he, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms;
Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind,
Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral, as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind.
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
And passions are the elements of life.
The gen'ral order, since the whole began,
Is kept in nature, and is kept in man.VI.
What would this man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than angel, would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion, kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own:
Is Heav'n unkind to man, and man alone?
31
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The bliss of man (could pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, man is not a fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite, not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia darting through the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring zephyr, and the purling rill?
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?VII.
Far as creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the peopled grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious on the tainted green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,
To that which warbles through the vernal wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew?
How instinct varies in the grov'lling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine!
'Twixt that, and reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
32
Remembrance and reflection how allied;
What thin partitions sense from thought divide:
And middle natures, how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected, these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy reason all these pow'rs in one?VIII.
See, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing!--On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroy'd:
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each system in gradation roll
Alike essential to th' amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature trembles to the throne of God.
All this dread order break--for whom? for thee?
Vile worm!--Oh madness, pride, impiety!IX.
What if the foot ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand, to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
33
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this gen'ral frame:
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.X.
Cease then, nor order imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit.--In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.
~ Alexander Pope,
603:Essay On Man
The First Epistle
Awake, my ST. JOHN!(1) leave all meaner things
To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.
Let us (since Life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die)
Expatiate(2) free o'er all this scene of Man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and flow'rs promiscuous shoot,
Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit.
Together let us beat this ample field,
Try what the open, what the covert yield;
The latent tracts(3), the giddy heights explore
Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar;
Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies,
And catch the Manners living as they rise;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can;
But vindicate(4) the ways of God to Man.
1. Say first, of God above, or Man below,
What can we reason, but from what we know?
Of Man what see we, but his station here,
From which to reason, or to which refer?
Thro' worlds unnumber'd tho' the God be known,
'Tis ours to trace him only in our own.
He, who thro' vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe,
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns,
What vary'd being peoples ev'ry star,
May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame the bearings, and the ties,
The strong connections, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading soul
Look'd thro'? or can a part contain the whole?
Is the great chain, that draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous Man! the reason wouldst thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind!
92
First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less!
Ask of thy mother earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent fields(5) above,
Why JOVE'S Satellites are less than JOVE?(6)
Of Systems possible, if 'tis confest
That Wisdom infinite must form the best,
Where all must full or not coherent be,
And all that rises, rise in due degree;
Then, in the scale of reas'ning life, 'tis plain
There must be, somewhere, such rank as Man;
And all the question (wrangle e'er so long)
Is only this, if God has plac'd him wrong?
Respecting Man, whatever wrong we call,
Nay, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So Man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second to some sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges to some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
When the proud steed shall know why Man restrains
His fiery course, or drives him o'er the plains;
When the dull Ox, why now he breaks the clod,
Is now a victim, and now Egypt's God:(7)
Then shall Man's pride and dullness comprehend
His actions', passions', being's, use and end;
Why doing, suff'ring, check'd, impell'd; and why
This hour a slave, the next a deity.
Then say not Man's imperfect, Heav'n in fault;
Say rather, Man's as perfect as he ought;
His knowledge measur'd to his state and place,
His time a moment, and a point his space.
If to be perfect in a certain sphere,
What matter, soon or late, or here or there?
The blest today is as completely so,
As who began a thousand years ago.
III. Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
93
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state;
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer Being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy Reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore!
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never Is, but always To be blest:
The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His soul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk, or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv'n,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To Be, contents his natural desire,
He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's(8) fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
IV. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence;
Call Imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,(9)
Yet cry, If Man's unhappy, God's unjust;
94
If Man alone ingross not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance(10) and the rod,
Re-judge his justice, be the GOD of GOD!
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes,
Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.
Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel;
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, sins against th' Eternal Cause.
V. Ask for what end the heav'nly bodies shine,
Earth for whose use? Pride answers, "Tis for mine:
For me kind Nature wakes her genial pow'r,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out ev'ry flow'r;
Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs;
Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise;
My foot-stool earth, my canopy the skies."
But errs not Nature from this gracious end,
From burning suns when livid deaths descend,
When earthquakes swallow, or when tempests sweep
Towns to one grave, whole nations to the deep?
"No ('tis reply'd) the first Almighty Cause
Acts not by partial, but by gen'ral laws;
Th' exceptions few; some change since all began,
And what created perfect?" -- Why then Man?
If the great end be human Happiness,
Then Nature deviates; and can Man do less?
As much that end a constant course requires
Of show'rs and sun-shine, as of Man's desires;
As much eternal springs and cloudless skies,
As Men for ever temp'rate, calm, and wise.
If plagues or earthquakes break not Heav'n's design,
Why then a Borgia,(11) or a Catiline?(12)
Who knows but he, whose hand the light'ning forms,
Who heaves old Ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce Ambition in a Caesar's(13) mind,
95
Or turns young Ammon(14) loose to scourge mankind?
From pride, from pride, our very reas'ning springs;
Account for moral as for nat'ral things:
Why charge we Heav'n in those, in these acquit?
In both, to reason right is to submit.
Better for Us, perhaps, it might appear,
Were there all harmony, all virtue here;
That never air or ocean felt the wind;
That never passion discompos'd the mind:
But ALL subsists by elemental strife;
and Passions are the elements of Life.
The gen'ral ORDER, since the whole began,
Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man.
VI. What would this Man? Now upward will he soar,
And little less than Angel,(15) would be more;
Now looking downwards, just as griev'd appears
To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears.
Made for his use all creatures if he call,
Say what their use, had he the pow'rs of all?
Nature to these, without profusion kind,
The proper organs, proper pow'rs assign'd;
Each seeming want compensated of course,
Here with degrees of swiftness, there of force;
All in exact proportion to the state;
Nothing to add, and nothing to abate.
Each beast, each insect, happy in its own;
Is Heav'n unkind to Man, and Man alone?
Shall he alone, whom rational we call,
Be pleas'd with nothing, if not bless'd with all?
The bliss of Man (could Pride that blessing find)
Is not to act or think beyond mankind;
No pow'rs of body or of soul to share,
But what his nature and his state can bear.
Why has not Man a microscopic eye?
For this plain reason, Man is not a Fly.
Say what the use, were finer optics giv'n,
T' inspect a mite,(16) not comprehend the heav'n?
Or touch, if tremblingly alive all o'er,
To smart and agonize at ev'ry pore?
Or quick effluvia(17) darting thro' the brain,
Die of a rose in aromatic pain?
96
If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears,
And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres,
How would he wish that Heav'n had left him still
The whisp'ring Zephyr,(18) and the purling rill?(19)
Who finds not Providence all good and wise,
Alike in what it gives, and what denies?
VII. Far as Creation's ample range extends,
The scale of sensual, mental pow'rs ascends:
Mark how it mounts, to Man's imperial race,
From the green myriads in the people grass:
What modes of sight betwixt each wide extreme,
The mole's dim curtain, and the lynx's beam:
Of smell, the headlong lioness between,
And hound sagacious(20) on the tainted(21) green:
Of hearing, from the life that fills the flood,(22)
To that which warbles thro' the vernal(23) wood:
The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line:
In the nice bee, what sense so subtly true
From pois'nous herbs extracts the healing dew:(24)
How Instinct varies in the grov'ling swine,
Compar'd, half-reas'ning elephant, with thine:
'Twixt that, and Reason, what a nice barrier;
For ever sep'rate, yet for ever near!
Remembrance and Reflection how ally'd;
What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide:
And Middle natures,(25) how they long to join,
Yet never pass th' insuperable line!
Without this just gradation, could they be
Subjected these to those, or all to thee?
The pow'rs of all subdu'd by thee alone,
Is not thy Reason all these pow'rs in one?
VIII. See, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal,(26) human, angel, man
Beast, bird, fish, insect! what no eye can see,
No glass can reach! from Infinite to thee,
97
From thee to Nothing! -- On superior pow'rs
Were we to press, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,
Where, one step broken, the great scale's destoy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to th' amazing whole;
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole must fall.
Let Earth unbalanc'd from her orbit fly,
Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky,
Let ruling Angels from their spheres be hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world,
Heav'n's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature tremble to the throne of God:
All this dread ORDER break -- for whom? for thee?
Vile worm! -- oh, Madness, Pride, Impiety!
IX. What if the foot, ordain'd the dust to tread,
Or hand to toil, aspir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd(27)
To serve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body, Nature is, and God the soul;
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal parts,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns;
To him no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
X. Cease then, nor ORDER Imperfection name:
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.
98
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.
Submit -- In this, or any other sphere,
Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:
Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,
Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,
One truth is clear, "Whatever IS, is RIGHT."
Argument of the Second Epistle:
Of the Nature and State of Man, with respect to Himself, as an Individual. The
business of Man not to pry into God, but
to study himself.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,(28)
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
ENDNOTES:
99
1[His friend, Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke]
2[to wander]
3[hidden areas]
4[explain or defend]
5[silvery fields, i.e., the heavens]
6[the planet Jupiter]
7[ancient Egyptians sometimes worshipped oxen]
8[the highest level of angels]
9[pleasure]
10[the balance used to weigh justice]
11[Caesar Borgia (1476-1507) who used any cruelty to achieve his ends]
12[Lucious Sergius Catilina (108-62 B.C.) who was a traitor to Rome]
13[Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.) who was thought to be overly ambitious Roman]
14[Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)]
15[Psalm 8:5--"Thou hast made him [man] a little lower than the angels...."]
16[small insect]
17[vapors which were believed to pass odors to the brain]
18[the West Wind]
19[stream]
20[able to pick up a scent]
21[having the odor of an animal]
22[ocean]
23[green]
24[honey was thought to have medicinal properties]
25[Animals slightly below humans on the chain of being]
26[heavenly]
27[complained]
28[i.e., on the chain of being between angels and animals]
~ Alexander Pope,
604: The Rishi
King Manu in the former ages of the world, when the
Arctic continent still subsisted, seeks knowledge from the Rishi of the Pole, who after long baffling him with conflicting side-lights of the knowledge, reveals to him what it chiefly concerns man to know.

MANU
Rishi who trance-held on the mountains old
Art slumbering, void
Of sense or motion, for in the spirit's hold
Of unalloyed
Immortal bliss thou dreamst protected! Deep
Let my voice glide
Into thy dumb retreat and break thy sleep
Abysmal. Hear!
The frozen snows that heap thy giant bed
Ice-cold and clear,
The chill and desert heavens above thee spread
Vast, austere,
Are not so sharp but that thy warm limbs brook
Their bitter breath,
Are not so wide as thy immense outlook
On life and death:
Their vacancy thy silent mind and bright
Outmeasureth.

But ours are blindly active and thy light
We have forgone.

RISHI
Who art thou, warrior armed gloriously
Like the sun?
Thy gait is as an empire and thine eye
Dominion.
Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
MANU
King Manu, of the Aryan peoples lord,
Greets thee, Sage.

RISHI
I know thee, King, earth to whose sleepless sword
Was heritage.

The high Sun's distant glories gave thee forth
On being's edge:
Where the slow skies of the auroral North
Lead in the morn
And flaming dawns for ever on heaven's verge
Wheel and turn,
Thundering remote the clamorous Arctic surge
Saw thee born.

There 'twas thy lot these later Fates to build,
This race of man
New-fashion. O watcher with the mountains wild,
The icy plain,
Thee I too, asleep, have watched, both when the Pole
Was brightening wan
And when like a wild beast the darkness stole
Prowling and slow
Alarming with its silent march the soul.

O King, I know
Thy purpose; for the vacant ages roll
Since man below
Conversed with God in friendship. Thou, reborn
For men perplexed,
Seekest in this dim aeon and forlorn
With evils vexed
The vanished light. For like this Arctic land
Death has annexed
To sleep, our being's summits cold and grand
Where God abides,
Repel the tread of thought. I too, O King,

221

222

Baroda and Bengal, c. 1900 - 1909
In winds and tides
Have sought Him, and in armies thundering,
And where Death strides
Over whole nations. Action, thought and peace
Were questioned, sleep,
And waking, but I had no joy of these,
Nor ponderings deep,
And pity was not sweet enough, nor good
My will could keep.

Often I found Him for a moment, stood
Astonished, then
It fell from me. I could not hold the bliss,
The force for men,
My brothers. Beauty ceased my heart to please,
Brightness in vain
Recalled the vision of the light that glows
Suns behind:
I hated the rich fragrance of the rose;
Weary and blind,
I tired of the suns and stars; then came
With broken mind
To heal me of the rash devouring flame,
The dull disease,
And sojourned with this mountain's summits bleak,
These frozen seas.

King, the blind dazzling snows have made me meek,
Cooled my unease.

Pride could not follow, nor the restless will
Come and go;
My mind within grew holy, calm and still
Like the snow.

MANU
O thou who wast with chariots formidable
And with the bow!
Voiceless and white the cold unchanging hill,

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
Has it then
A mightier presence, deeper mysteries
Than human men?
The warm low hum of crowds, towns, villages,
The sun and rain,
The village maidens to the water bound,
The happy herds,
The fluting of the shepherd lads, the sound
Myriad of birds,
Speak these not clearer to the heart, convey
More subtle words?
Here is but great dumb night, an awful day
Inert and dead.

RISHI
The many's voices fill the listening ear,
Distract the head:
The One is silence; on the snows we hear
Silence tread.

MANU
What hast thou garnered from the crags that lour,
The icy field?
RISHI
O King, I spurned this body's death; a Power
There was, concealed,
That raised me. Rescued from the pleasant bars
Our longings build,
My winged soul went up above the stars
Questing for God.
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MANU
Oh, didst thou meet Him then? in what bright field
Upon thy road?
RISHI
I asked the heavenly wanderers as they wheeled
For His abode.

MANU
Could glorious Saturn and his rings of hue
Direct thy flight?
RISHI
Sun could not tell, nor any planet knew
Its source of light,
Nor could I glean that knowledge though I paced
The world's beyond
And into outer nothingness have gazed.

Time's narrow sound
I crossed, the termless flood where on the Snake
One slumbers throned,
Attempted. But the ages from Him break
Blindly and Space
Forgets its origin. Then I returned
Where luminous blaze
Deathless and ageless in their ease unearned
The ethereal race.

MANU
Did the gods tell thee? Has Varuna seen
The high God's face?

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
RISHI
How shall they tell of Him who marvel at sin
And smile at grief?
MANU
Did He not send His blissful Angels down
For thy relief?
RISHI
The Angels know Him not, who fear His frown,
Have fixed belief.

MANU
Is there no heaven of eternal light
Where He is found?
RISHI
The heavens of the Three have beings bright
Their portals round,
And I have journeyed to those regions blest,
Those hills renowned.

In Vishnu's house where wide Love builds his nest,
My feet have stood.

MANU
Is he not That, the blue-winged Dove of peace,
Father of Good?
RISHI
Nor Brahma, though the suns and hills and seas
Are called his brood.
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MANU
Is God a dream then? are the heavenly coasts
Visions vain?
RISHI
I came to Shiva's roof; the flitting ghosts
Compelled me in.

MANU ls He then God whom the forsaken seek,
Things of sin?
RISHI
He sat on being's summit grand, a peak
Immense of fire.

MANU
Knows He the secret of release from tears
And from desire?
RISHI
His voice is the last murmur silence hears,
Tranquil and dire.

MANU
The silence calls us then and shall enclose?
RISHI
Our true abode
Is here and in the pleasant house He chose
To harbour God.
Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
MANU
In vain thou hast travelled the unwonted stars
And the void hast trod!
RISHI
King, not in vain. I knew the tedious bars
That I had fled,
To be His arms whom I have sought; I saw
How earth was made
Out of His being; I perceived the Law,
The Truth, the Vast,
From which we came and which we are; I heard
The ages past
Whisper their history, and I knew the Word
That forth was cast
Into the unformed potency of things
To build the suns.

Through endless Space and on Time's iron wings
A rhythm runs
Our lives pursue, and till the strain's complete
That now so moans
And falters, we upon this greenness meet,
That measure tread.

MANU
Is earth His seat? this body His poor hold
Infirmly made?
RISHI
I flung off matter like a robe grown old;
Matter was dead.
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MANU
Sages have told of vital force behind:
It is God then?
RISHI
The vital spirits move but as a wind
Within men.

MANU
Mind then is lord that like a sovereign sways
Delight and pain?
RISHI
Mind is His wax to write and, written, rase
Form and name.

MANU
Is Thought not He who has immortal eyes
Time cannot dim?
RISHI
Higher, O King, the still voice bade me rise
Than thought's clear dream.

Deep in the luminous secrecy, the mute
Profound of things,
Where murmurs never sound of harp or lute
And no voice sings,
Light is not, nor our darkness, nor these bright
Thunderings,
In the deep steady voiceless core of white
And burning bliss,
The sweet vast centre and the cave divine
Called Paradise,

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
He dwells within us all who dwells not in
Aught that is.

MANU
Rishi, thy thoughts are like the blazing sun
Eye cannot face.

How shall our souls on that bright awful One
Hope even to gaze
Who lights the world from His eternity
With a few rays?
RISHI
Dare on thyself to look, thyself art He,
O Aryan, then.

There is no thou nor I, beasts of the field,
Nor birds, nor men,
But flickerings on a many-sided shield
Pass, or remain,
And this is winged and that with poisonous tongue
Hissing coils.

We love ourselves and hate ourselves, are wrung
With woes and toils
To slay ourselves or from ourselves to win
Shadowy spoils.

And through it all, the rumour and the din,
Voices roam,
Voices of harps, voices of rolling seas,
That rarely come
And to our inborn old affinities
Call us home.

Shadows upon the many-sided Mind
Arrive and go,
Shadows that shadows see; the vain pomps wind
Above, below,
While in their hearts the single mighty God
Whom none can know,

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Guiding the mimic squadrons with His nod
Watches it all -
Like transient shapes that sweep with half-guessed truth
A luminous wall.

MANU
Alas! is life then vain? Our gorgeous youth
Li the and tall,
Our sweet fair women with their tender eyes
Outshining stars,
The mighty meditations of the wise,
The grandiose wars,
The blood, the fiery strife, the clenched dead hands,
The circle sparse,
The various labour in a hundred lands,
Are all these shows
To please some audience cold? as in a vase
Lily and rose,
Mixed snow and crimson, for a moment blaze
Till someone throws
The withered petals in some outer dust,
Heeding not, -
The virtuous man made one with the unjust,
Is this our lot?
RISHI
O King, sight is not vain, nor any sound.

Weeds that float
Upon a puddle and the majestic round
Of the suns
Are thoughts eternal, - what man loves to laud
And what he shuns;
Through glorious things and base the wheel of God
For ever runs.

O King, no thought is vain; our very dreams
Substantial are;

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
The light we see in fancy, yonder gleams
In the star.

MANU
Rishi, are we both dreams and real? the near
Even as the far?
RISHI
Dreams are we not, O King, but see dreams, fear
Therefore and strive.

Like poets in a wondrous world of thought
Always we live,
Whose shapes from out ourselves to being brought
Abide and thrive.

The poet from his vast and labouring mind
Brings brilliant out
A living world; forth into space they wind,
The shining rout,
And hate and love, and laugh and weep, enjoy,
Fight and shout,
King, lord and beggar, tender girl and boy,
Foemen, friends;
So to His creatures God's poetic mind
A substance lends.

The Poet with dazzling inspiration blind,
Until it ends,
Forgets Himself and lives in what He forms;
For ever His soul
Through chaos like a wind creating storms,
Till the stars roll
Through ordered space and the green lands arise,
The snowy Pole,
Ocean and this great heaven full of eyes,
And sweet sounds heard,
Man with his wondrous soul of hate and love,
And beast and bird, -

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Yes, He creates the worlds and heaven above
With a single word;
And these things being Himself are real, yet
Are they like dreams,
For He awakes to self He could forget
In what He seems.

Yet, King, deem nothing vain: through many veils
This Spirit gleams.

The dreams of God are truths and He prevails.

Then all His time
Cherish thyself, O King, and cherish men,
Anchored in Him.

MANU
Upon the silence of the sapphire main
Waves that sublime
Rise at His word and when that fiat's stilled
Are hushed again,
So is it, Rishi, with the Spirit concealed,
Things and men?
RISHI
Hear then the truth. Behind this visible world
The eyes see plain,
Another stands, and in its folds are curled
Our waking dreams.

Dream is more real, which, while here we wake,
Unreal seems.

From that our mortal life and thoughts we take.

Its fugitive gleams
Are here made firm and solid; there they float
In a magic haze,
Melody swelling note on absolute note,
A lyric maze,
Beauty on beauty heaped pell-mell to chain
The enchanted gaze,

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
Thought upon mighty thought with grandiose strain
Weaving the stars.

This is that world of dream from which our race
Came; by these bars
Of body now enchained, with laggard pace,
Borne down with cares,
A little of that rapture to express
We labour hard,
A little of that beauty, music, thought
With toil prepared;
And if a single strain is clearly caught,
Then our reward
Is great on earth, and in the world that floats
Lingering awhile
We hear the fullness and the jarring notes
Reconcile, -
Then travel forwards. So we slowly rise,
And every mile
Of our long journey mark with eager eyes;
So we progress
With gurge of revolution and recoil,
Slaughter and stress
Of anguish because without fruit we toil,
Without success;
Even as a ship upon the stormy flood
With fluttering sails
Labours towards the shore; the angry mood
Of Ocean swells,
Calms come and favouring winds, but yet afar
The harbour pales
In evening mists and Ocean threatens war:
Such is our life.

Of this be sure, the mighty game goes on,
The glorious strife,
Until the goal predestined has been won.

Not on the cliff
To be shattered has our ship set forth of old,

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Nor in the surge
To founder. Therefore, King, be royal, bold,
And through the urge
Of winds, the reboant thunders and the close
Tempestuous gurge
Press on for ever laughing at the blows
Of wind and wave.

The haven must be reached; we rise from pyre,
We rise from grave,
We mould our future by our past desire,
We break, we save,
We find the music that we could not find,
The thought think out
We could not then perfect, and from the mind
That brilliant rout
Of wonders marshal into living forms.

End then thy doubt;
Grieve not for wounds, nor fear the violent storms,
For grief and pain
Are errors of the clouded soul; behind
They do not stain
The living spirit who to these is blind.

Torture, disdain,
Defeat and sorrow give him strength and joy:
'Twas for delight
He sought existence, and if pains alloy,
'Tis here in night
Which we call day. The Yogin knows, O King,
Who in his might
Travels beyond the mind's imagining,
The worlds of dream.

For even they are shadows, even they
Are not, - they seem.

Behind them is a mighty blissful day
From which they stream.

The heavens of a million creeds are these:
Peopled they teem

Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
By creatures full of joy and radiant ease.

There is the mint
From which we are the final issue, types
Which here we print
In dual letters. There no torture grips,
Joy cannot stint
Her streams, - beneath a more than mortal sun
Through golden air
The spirits of the deathless regions run.

But we must dare
To still the mind into a perfect sleep
And leave this lair
Of gross material flesh which we would keep
Always, before
The guardians of felicity will ope
The golden door.

That is our home and that the secret hope
Our hearts explore.

To bring those heavens down upon the earth
We all descend,
And fragments of it in the human birth
We can command.

Perfect millenniums are sometimes, until
In the sweet end
All secret heaven upon earth we spill,
Then rise above
Taking mankind with us to the abode
Of rapturous Love,
The bright epiphany whom we name God,
Towards whom we drove
In spite of weakness, evil, grief and pain.

He stands behind
The worlds of Sleep; He is and shall remain
When they grow blind
To individual joys; for even these
Are shadows, King,
And gloriously into that lustre cease

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From which they spring.

We are but sparks of that most perfect fire,
Waves of that sea:
From Him we come, to Him we go, desire
Eternally,
And so long as He wills, our separate birth
Is and shall be.

Shrink not from life, O Aryan, but with mirth
And joy receive
His good and evil, sin and virtue, till
He bids thee leave.

But while thou livest, perfectly fulfil
Thy part, conceive
Earth as thy stage, thyself the actor strong,
The drama His.

Work, but the fruits to God alone belong,
Who only is.

Work, love and know, - so shall thy spirit win
Immortal bliss.

Love men, love God. Fear not to love, O King,
Fear not to enjoy;
For Death's a passage, grief a fancied thing
Fools to annoy.

From self escape and find in love alone
A higher joy.

MANU
O Rishi, I have wide dominion,
The earth obeys
And heaven opens far beyond the sun
Her golden gaze.

But Him I seek, the still and perfect One, -
The Sun, not rays.
Poems from Ahana and Other Poems
RISHI
Seek Him upon the earth. For thee He set
In the huge press
Of many worlds to build a mighty state
For man's success,
Who seeks his goal. Perfect thy human might,
Perfect the race.

For thou art He, O King. Only the night
Is on thy soul
By thy own will. Remove it and recover
The serene whole
Thou art indeed, then raise up man the lover
To God the goal.
~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Rishi
,
605:The Duellist - Book Iii
Ah me! what mighty perils wait
The man who meddles with a state,
Whether to strengthen, or oppose!
False are his friends, and firm his foes:
How must his soul, once ventured in,
Plunge blindly on from sin to sin!
What toils he suffers, what disgrace,
To get, and then to keep, a place!
How often, whether wrong or right,
Must he in jest or earnest fight,
Risking for those both life and limb
Who would not risk one groat for him!
Under the Temple lay a Cave,
Made by some guilty, coward slave,
Whose actions fear'd rebuke: a maze
Of intricate and winding ways,
Not to be found without a clue;
One passage only, known to few,
In paths direct led to a cell,
Where Fraud in secret loved to dwell,
With all her tools and slaves about her,
Nor fear'd lest Honesty should rout her.
In a dark corner, shunning sight
Of man, and shrinking from the light,
One dull, dim taper through the cell
Glimmering, to make more horrible
The face of darkness, she prepares,
Working unseen, all kinds of snares,
With curious, but destructive art:
Here, through the eye to catch the heart,
Gay stars their tinsel beams afford,
Neat artifice to trap a lord;
There, fit for all whom Folly bred,
Wave plumes of feathers for the head;
Garters the hag contrives to make,
Which, as it seems, a babe might break,
But which ambitious madmen feel
More firm and sure than chains of steel;
Which, slipp'd just underneath the knee,
153
Forbid a freeman to be free.
Purses she knew, (did ever curse
Travel more sure than in a purse?)
Which, by some strange and magic bands,
Enslave the soul, and tie the hands.
Here Flattery, eldest-born of Guile,
Weaves with rare skill the silken smile,
The courtly cringe, the supple bow,
The private squeeze, the levee vow,
With which--no strange or recent case-Fools in, deceive fools out of place.
Corruption, (who, in former times,
Through fear or shame conceal'd her crimes,
And what she did, contrived to do it
So that the public might not view it)
Presumptuous grown, unfit was held
For their dark councils, and expell'd,
Since in the day her business might
Be done as safe as in the night.
Her eye down-bending to the ground,
Planning some dark and deadly wound,
Holding a dagger, on which stood,
All fresh and reeking, drops of blood,
Bearing a lantern, which of yore,
By Treason borrow'd, Guy Fawkes bore,
By which, since they improved in trade,
Excisemen have their lanterns made,
Assassination, her whole mind
Blood-thirsting, on her arm reclined;
Death, grinning, at her elbow stood,
And held forth instruments of blood,-Vile instruments, which cowards choose,
But men of honour dare not use;
Around, his Lordship and his Grace,
Both qualified for such a place,
With many a Forbes, and many a Dun,
Each a resolved, and pious son,
Wait her high bidding; each prepared,
As she around her orders shared,
Proof 'gainst remorse, to run, to fly,
And bid the destined victim die,
Posting on Villany's black wing,
154
Whether he patriot is, or king.
Oppression,--willing to appear
An object of our love, not fear,
Or, at the most, a reverend awe
To breed, usurp'd the garb of Law.
A book she held, on which her eyes
Were deeply fix'd, whence seem'd to rise
Joy in her breast; a book, of might
Most wonderful, which black to white
Could turn, and without help of laws,
Could make the worse the better cause.
She read, by flattering hopes deceived;
She wish'd, and what she wish'd, believed,
To make that book for ever stand
The rule of wrong through all the land;
On the back, fair and worthy note,
At large was Magna Charta wrote;
But turn your eye within, and read,
A bitter lesson, Norton's Creed.
Ready, e'en with a look, to run,
Fast as the coursers of the sun,
To worry Virtue, at her hand
Two half-starved greyhounds took their stand.
A curious model, cut in wood,
Of a most ancient castle stood
Full in her view; the gates were barr'd,
And soldiers on the watch kept guard;
In the front, openly, in black
Was wrote, The Tower: but on the back,
Mark'd with a secretary's seal,
In bloody letters, The Bastile.
Around a table, fully bent
On mischief of most black intent,
Deeply determined that their reign
Might longer last, to work the bane
Of one firm patriot, whose heart, tied
To Honour, all their power defied,
And brought those actions into light
They wish'd to have conceal'd in night,
Begot, born, bred to infamy,
A privy-council sat of three:
Great were their names, of high repute
155
And favour through the land of Bute.
The first (entitled to the place
Of Honour both by gown and grace,
Who never let occasion slip
To take right-hand of fellowship,
And was so proud, that should he meet
The twelve apostles in the street,
He'd turn his nose up at them all,
And shove his Saviour from the wall!
Who was so mean (Meanness and Pride
Still go together side by side)
That he would cringe, and creep, be civil,
And hold a stirrup for the Devil;
If in a journey to his mind,
He'd let him mount and ride behind;
Who basely fawn'd through all his life,
For patrons first, then for a wife:
Wrote Dedications which must make
The heart of every Christian quake;
Made one man equal to, or more
Than God, then left him, as before
His God he left, and, drawn by pride,
Shifted about to t' other side)
Was by his sire a parson made,
Merely to give the boy a trade;
But he himself was thereto drawn
By some faint omens of the lawn,
And on the truly Christian plan
To make himself a gentleman,-A title in which Form array'd him,
Though Fate ne'er thought on 't when she made him.
The oaths he took, 'tis very true,
But took them as all wise men do,
With an intent, if things should turn,
Rather to temporise, than burn;
Gospel and loyalty were made
To serve the purposes of trade;
Religions are but paper ties,
Which bind the fool, but which the wise,
Such idle notions far above,
Draw on and off, just like a glove;
All gods, all kings (let his great aim
156
Be answer'd) were to him the same.
A curate first, he read and read,
And laid in, whilst he should have fed
The souls of his neglected flock,
Of reading such a mighty stock,
That he o'ercharged the weary brain
With more than she could well contain;
More than she was with spirits fraught
To turn and methodise to thought,
And which, like ill-digested food,
To humours turn'd, and not to blood.
Brought up to London, from the plough
And pulpit, how to make a bow
He tried to learn; he grew polite,
And was the poet's parasite.
With wits conversing, (and wits then
Were to be found 'mongst noblemen)
He caught, or would have caught, the flame,
And would be nothing, or the same.
He drank with drunkards, lived with sinners,
Herded with infidels for dinners;
With such an emphasis and grace
Blasphemed, that Potter kept not pace:
He, in the highest reign of noon,
Bawled bawdy songs to a psalm tune;
Lived with men infamous and vile,
Truck'd his salvation for a smile;
To catch their humour caught their plan,
And laugh'd at God to laugh with man;
Praised them, when living, in each breath,
And damn'd their memories after death.
To prove his faith, which all admit
Is at least equal to his wit,
And make himself a man of note,
He in defence of Scripture wrote:
So long he wrote, and long about it,
That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it:
He wrote, too, of the inward light,
Though no one knew how he came by 't,
And of that influencing grace
Which in his life ne'er found a place:
He wrote, too, of the Holy Ghost,
157
Of whom no more than doth a post
He knew; nor, should an angel show him,
Would he, or know, or choose to know him.
Next (for he knew 'twixt every science
There was a natural alliance)
He wrote, to advance his Maker's praise,
Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays,
And with an all-sufficient air
Placed himself in the critic's chair;
Usurp'd o'er Reason full dominion,
And govern'd merely by Opinion.
At length dethroned, and kept in awe
By one plain simple man of law,
He arm'd dead friends, to vengeance true,
To abuse the man they never knew.
Examine strictly all mankind,
Most characters are mix'd, we find;
And Vice and Virtue take their turn
In the same breast to beat and burn.
Our priest was an exception here,
Nor did one spark of grace appear,
Not one dull, dim spark in his soul;
Vice, glorious Vice, possess'd the whole,
And, in her service truly warm,
He was in sin most uniform.
Injurious Satire! own at least
One snivelling virtue in the priest,
One snivelling virtue, which is placed,
They say, in or about the waist,
Call'd Chastity; the prudish dame
Knows it at large by Virtue's name.
To this his wife (and in these days
Wives seldom without reason praise)
Bears evidence--then calls her child,
And swears that Tom was vastly wild.
Ripen'd by a long course of years,
He great and perfect now appears.
In shape scarce of the human kind,
A man, without a manly mind;
No husband, though he's truly wed;
Though on his knees a child is bred,
No father; injured, without end
158
A foe; and though obliged, no friend;
A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced;
A head, where learning runs to waste;
A gentleman well-bred, if breeding
Rests in the article of reading;
A man of this world, for the next
Was ne'er included in his text;
A judge of genius, though confess'd
With not one spark of genius bless'd;
Amongst the first of critics placed,
Though free from every taint of taste;
A Christian without faith or works,
As he would be a Turk 'mongst Turks;
A great divine, as lords agree,
Without the least divinity;
To crown all, in declining age,
Inflamed with church and party rage,
Behold him, full and perfect quite,
A false saint, and true hypocrite.
Next sat a lawyer, often tried
In perilous extremes; when Pride
And Power, all wild and trembling, stood,
Nor dared to tempt the raging flood;
This bold, bad man arose to view,
And gave his hand to help them through:
Steel'd 'gainst compassion, as they pass'd
He saw poor Freedom breathe her last;
He saw her struggle, heard her groan;
He saw her helpless and alone,
Whelm'd in that storm, which, fear'd and praised
By slaves less bold, himself had raised.
Bred to the law, he from the first
Of all bad lawyers was the worst.
Perfection (for bad men maintain
In ill we may perfection gain)
In others is a work of time,
And they creep on from crime to crime;
He, for a prodigy design'd,
To spread amazement o'er mankind,
Started full ripen'd all at once
A perfect knave, and perfect dunce.
Who will, for him, may boast of sense,
159
His better guard is impudence;
His front, with tenfold plates of brass
Secured, Shame never yet could pass,
Nor on the surface of his skin
Blush for that guilt which dwelt within.
How often, in contempt of laws,
To sound the bottom of a cause,
To search out every rotten part,
And worm into its very heart,
Hath he ta'en briefs on false pretence,
And undertaken the defence
Of trusting fools, whom in the end
He meant to ruin, not defend!
How often, e'en in open court,
Hath the wretch made his shame his sport,
And laugh'd off, with a villain's ease,
Throwing up briefs, and keeping fees!
Such things as, though to roguery bred,
Had struck a little villain dead!
Causes, whatever their import,
He undertakes, to serve a court;
For he by art this rule had got,
Power can effect what Law cannot.
Fools he forgives, but rogues he fears;
If Genius, yoked with Worth, appears,
His weak soul sickens at the sight,
And strives to plunge them down in night.
So loud he talks, so very loud,
He is an angel with the crowd;
Whilst he makes Justice hang her head,
And judges turn from pale to red.
Bid all that Nature, on a plan
Most intimate, makes dear to man,
All that with grand and general ties
Binds good and bad, the fool and wise,
Knock at his heart; they knock in vain;
No entrance there such suitors gain;
Bid kneeling kings forsake the throne,
Bid at his feet his country groan;
Bid Liberty stretch out her hands,
Religion plead her stronger bands;
Bid parents, children, wife, and friends,
160
If they come 'thwart his private ends-Unmoved he hears the general call,
And bravely tramples on them all.
Who will, for him, may cant and whine,
And let weak Conscience with her line
Chalk out their ways; such starving rules
Are only fit for coward fools;
Fellows who credit what priests tell,
And tremble at the thoughts of Hell;
His spirit dares contend with Grace,
And meets Damnation face to face.
Such was our lawyer; by his side,
In all bad qualities allied,
In all bad counsels, sat a third,
By birth a lord. Oh, sacred word!
Oh, word most sacred! whence men get
A privilege to run in debt;
Whence they at large exemption claim
From Satire, and her servant Shame;
Whence they, deprived of all her force,
Forbid bold Truth to hold her course.
Consult his person, dress, and air,
He seems, which strangers well might swear,
The master, or, by courtesy,
The captain of a colliery.
Look at his visage, and agree
Half-hang'd he seems, just from the tree
Escaped; a rope may sometimes break,
Or men be cut down by mistake.
He hath not virtue (in the school
Of Vice bred up) to live by rule,
Nor hath he sense (which none can doubt
Who know the man) to live without.
His life is a continued scene
Of all that's infamous and mean;
He knows not change, unless, grown nice
And delicate, from vice to vice;
Nature design'd him, in a rage,
To be the Wharton of his age;
But, having given all the sin,
Forgot to put the virtues in.
To run a horse, to make a match,
161
To revel deep, to roar a catch,
To knock a tottering watchman down,
To sweat a woman of the town;
By fits to keep the peace, or break it,
In turn to give a pox, or take it;
He is, in faith, most excellent,
And, in the word's most full intent,
A true choice spirit, we admit;
With wits a fool, with fools a wit:
Hear him but talk, and you would swear
Obscenity herself was there,
And that Profaneness had made choice,
By way of trump, to use his voice;
That, in all mean and low things great,
He had been bred at Billingsgate;
And that, ascending to the earth
Before the season of his birth,
Blasphemy, making way and room,
Had mark'd him in his mother's womb.
Too honest (for the worst of men
In forms are honest, now and then)
Not to have, in the usual way,
His bills sent in; too great to pay:
Too proud to speak to, if he meets
The honest tradesman whom he cheats:
Too infamous to have a friend;
Too bad for bad men to commend,
Or good to name; beneath whose weight
Earth groans; who hath been spared by Fate
Only to show, on Mercy's plan,
How far and long God bears with man.
Such were the three, who, mocking sleep,
At midnight sat, in counsel deep,
Plotting destruction 'gainst a head
Whose wisdom could not be misled;
Plotting destruction 'gainst a heart
Which ne'er from honour would depart.
'Is he not rank'd amongst our foes?
Hath not his spirit dared oppose
Our dearest measures, made our name
Stand forward on the roll of Shame
Hath he not won the vulgar tribes,
162
By scorning menaces and bribes,
And proving that his darling cause
Is, of their liberties and laws
To stand the champion? In a word,
Nor need one argument be heard
Beyond this to awake our zeal,
To quicken our resolves, and steel
Our steady souls to bloody bent,
(Sure ruin to each dear intent,
Each flattering hope) he, without fear,
Hath dared to make the truth appear.'
They said, and, by resentment taught,
Each on revenge employ'd his thought;
Each, bent on mischief, rack'd his brain
To her full stretch, but rack'd in vain;
Scheme after scheme they brought to view;
All were examined; none would do:
When Fraud, with pleasure in her face,
Forth issued from her hiding-place,
And at the table where they meet,
First having bless'd them, took her seat.
'No trifling cause, my darling boys,
Your present thoughts and cares employs;
No common snare, no random blow,
Can work the bane of such a foe:
By nature cautious as he's brave,
To Honour only he's a slave;
In that weak part without defence,
We must to honour make pretence;
That lure shall to his ruin draw
The wretch, who stands secure in law.
Nor think that I have idly plann'd
This full-ripe scheme; behold at hand,
With three months' training on his head,
An instrument, whom I have bred,
Born of these bowels, far from sight
Of Virtue's false but glaring light,
My youngest-born, my dearest joy,
Most like myself, my darling boy!
He, never touch'd with vile remorse,
Resolved and crafty in his course,
Shall work our ends, complete our schemes,
163
Most mine, when most he Honour's seems;
Nor can be found, at home, abroad,
So firm and full a slave of Fraud.'
She said, and from each envious son
A discontented murmur run
Around the table; all in place
Thought his full praise their own disgrace,
Wondering what stranger she had got,
Who had one vice that they had not;
When straight the portals open flew,
And, clad in armour, to their view
Martin, the Duellist, came forth.
All knew, and all confess'd his worth;
All justified, with smiles array'd,
The happy choice their dam had made.
~ Charles Churchill,
606:Beauty And The Beast
A Merchant, who by generous pains
Prospered in honourable gains,
Could boast, his wealth and fame to share,
Three manly Sons, three Daughters fair;
With these he felt supremely blest.His latest born surpass'd the rest:
She was so gentle, good and kind,
So fair in feature, form, and mind,
So constant too in filial duty,
The neighbours called her Little Beauty!
And when fair childhood's days were run,
That title still she wore and won;
Lovelier as older still she grew,
Improv'd in grace and goodness too.Her elder Sisters, gay and vain,
View'd her with envy and disdain,
Toss'd up their heads with haughty air;
Dress, Fashion, Pleasure, all their care.
'Twas thus, improving and improv'd;
Loving, and worthy to be lov'd,
Sprightly, yet grave, each circling day
Saw Beauty innocently gay.
Thus smooth the May-like moments past;
Blest times! but soon by clouds o'ercast!
Sudden as winds that madd'ning sweep
The foaming surface of the deep,
Vast treasures, trusted to the wave,
Were buried in the billowy grave!
Our Merchant, late of boundless store,
Saw Famine hasting to his door.
With willing hand and ready grace,
Mild Beauty takes the Servant's place;
Rose with the sun to household cares,
22
And morn's repast with zeal prepares,
The wholesome meal, the cheerful fire:
What cannot filial love inspire?
And when the task of day was done,
Suspended till the rising sun,
Music and song the hours employ'd,
As more deserv'd, the more enjoy'd;
Till Industry, with Pastime join'd,
Refresh'd the body and the mind;
And when the groupe retir'd to rest,
Father and Brothers Beauty blest.
Not so the Sisters; as before
'Twas rich and idle, now 'twas poor.
In shabby finery array'd,
They still affected a parade:
While both insulted gentle Beauty,
Unwearied in the housewife's duty;
They mock'd her robe of modest brown,
And view'd her with a taunting frown;
Yet scarce could hold their rage to see
The blithe effects of Industry.
In this retreat a year had past,
When happier tidings came at last,
And in the Merchant's smile appear'd
Prospects that all the Cotters cheer'd:
A letter came; its purport good;
Part of his ventures brav'd the flood:
'With speed,' said he, 'I must to town,
'And what, my girls, must I bring down?'
The envious Sisters, all confusion,
Commissions gave in wild profusion;
Caps, hats, and bonnets, bracelets, broaches,
To cram the pockets of the coaches,
With laces, linens, to complete
The order, and to fill the seat.
Such wants and wishes now appear'd,
23
To make them larger Beauty fear'd;
Yet lest her silence might produce
From jealous Sisters more abuse,
Considerately good, she chose,
The emblem of herself,-a Rose.
The good man on his journey went,
His thoughts on generous Beauty bent.
'If Heav'n,' he said, and breath'd a prayer,
'If Heav'n that tender child should spare,
'Whate'er my lot, I must be bless'd,
'I must be rich:'-he wept the rest.
Timely such feelings!-Fortune still,
Unkind and niggard, crost his will.
Of all his hopes, alas, the gains
Were far o'erbalanc'd by the pains;
For after a long tedious round,
He had to measure back his ground.
A short day's travel from his Cot,
New misadventures were his lot;
Dark grew the air, the wind blew high,
And spoke the gathering tempest nigh;
Hail, snow, and night-fog join'd their force,
Bewildering rider and his horse.
Dismay'd, perplext, the road they crost,
And in the dubious maze were lost.
When glimmering through the vapours drear,
A taper shew'd a dwelling near.
And guess our Merchant's glad surprise,
When a rich palace seemed to rise
As on he mov'd! The knee be bent,
Thankful to Heaven; then nearer went.
But, O! how much his wonder grew,
When nothing living met his view!Entering a splendid hall, he found,
24
With every luxury around,
A blazing fire, a plenteous board,
A costly cellaret, well stor'd,
All open'd wide, as if to say,
'Stranger, refresh thee on thy way!'
The Merchant to the fire drew near,
Deeming the owner would appear,
And pardon one who, drench'd in rain,
Unask'd, had ventured to remain.
The court-yard clock had number'd seven,
When first he came; but when eleven
Struck on his ear as mute he sate,
It sounded like the knoll of Fate.
And yet so hungry was he grown,
He pick'd a capon to the bone;
And as choice wines before him stood,
He needs must taste if they were good:
So much he felt his spirits cheer'dThe more he drank, the less he fear'd.
Now bolder grown, he pac'd along,
(Still hoping he might do no wrong),
When, entering at a gilded door,
High-rais'd upon a sumptuous floor,
A sofa shew'd all Persia's pride,
And each magnificence beside:
So down at once the Merchant lay,
Tir'd with the wonders of the day.
But had it been a rushy bed,
Tuck'd in the corner of a shed,
With no less joy had it been press'd:
The good man pray'd, and sank to rest.
Nor woke he till the noon of day;
And as he thus enchanted lay,
'Now for my storm-sopp'd clothes,' he cries:
25
When lo! a suit complete he spies;
'Yes, 'tis all fairy-work, no doubt,
'By gentle Pity brought about!'
Tenfold, when risen, amazement grew;
For bursting on his gazing view,
Instead of snow, he saw fair bowers
In all the pride of summer flowers.
Entering again the hall, behold,
Serv'd up in silver, pearl, and gold,
A breakfast, form'd of all things rare,
As if Queen Mab herself were there.
As now he past, with spirits gay,
A shower of Roses strew'd the way,
E'en to his hand the branches bent:
'One of these boughs-I go content!
'Beauty, dear Beauty-thy request
'If I may bear away, I'm blest.'
The Merchant pull'd-the branches broke!A hideous growling while he spoke,
Assail'd his startled ears; and then
A frightful Beast, as from a den,
Rushing to view, exclaimed, 'Ingrate!
'That stolen branch has seal'd thy fate.
'All that my castle own'd was thine,
'My food, my fire, my bed, my wine:
'Thou robb'st my Rose-trees in return,
'For this, base Plunderer, thou shalt mourn!'
'My Lord, I swear upon my knees,
'I did not mean to harm your trees;
'But a lov'd Daughter, fair as spring,
'Intreated me a Rose to bring;
'O didst thou know, my lord, the Maid!'-
'I am no Lord,' Beast angry said,
'And so no flattery!-but know,
'If, on your oath before you go,
'Within three wasted Moons you here
26
'Cause that lov'd Daughter to appear,
'And visit Beast a volunteer
'To suffer for thee, thou mayest live:'Speak not!-do this!-and I forgive.'
Mute and deprest the Merchant fled,
Unhappy traveller, evil sped!
Beauty was first her sire to meet,
Springing impatient from her seat;
Her Brothers next assembled round;
Her straying Sisters soon were found.
While yet the Father fondly press'd
The Child of Duty to his Breast,'Accept these Roses, ill-starr'd Maid!
'For thee thy Father's life is paid.'
The Merchant told the tale of Beast;
And loud lamentings, when he ceas'd,
From both the jealous Sisters broke,
As thus with taunting rage they spoke:
'And so thou kill'st thy Father, Miss,
'Proud, sinful creature, heardst thou this?
'We only wish'd a few new clothes;
'Beauty, forsooth, must have her Rose!
'Yet, harden'd Wretch, her eyes are dry,
'Tho' for her Pride our Sire must die!'
'Die! Not for worlds!' exclaim'd the Maid;
'Beast kindly will take me instead:
'And O, a thousand deaths I'd prove
'To shew my Father how I love!'
The Brothers cried, 'Let us away,
'We'll perish, or the Monster slay.'
'Vain hope, my gen'rous Sons, his power
'Can troops of men and horse devour:
'Your offer, Beauty, moves my soul;
'But no man can his fate controul:
27
'Mine was the fault; you, Love, are free;
'And mine the punishment shall be.'
Beauty was firm! the Sire caress'd
Again his Darling to his breast;
With blended love and awe survey'd,
And each good Brother blest the Maid!
Three months elaps'd, her Father's heart
Heav'd high, as she prepar'd to part;
The Sisters try'd a tear to force,
While Beauty smil'd as she took horse;
Yet smil'd thro' many a generous tear,
To find the parting moment near!
And just as evening's shades came on,
The splendid Palace court they won.
Beauty, now lost in wonder all,
Gain'd with her Sire the spacious hall;
Where, of the costliest viands made,
Behold, a sumptuous table laid!
The Merchant, sickening at the sight,
Sat down with looks of dire affright,
But nothing touch'd; tho' Beauty prest,
And strove to lull his fears to rest.
Just as she spoke, a hideous noise
Announc'd the growling monster's voice.
And now Beast suddenly stalk'd forth,
While Beauty well nigh sank to earth:
Scarce could she conquer her alarms,
Tho' folded in a father's arms.
Grim Beast first question'd fierce, if she
Had hither journey'd willingly?
'Yes,' Beauty cried-in trembling tone:
'That's kind,' said Beast, and thus went on'Good Merchant, at to-morrow's dawn,
'I charge and warn you to be gone!
'And further, on life's penalty,
'Dare not again to visit me.
'Beauty, farewell!' he now withdrew,
As she return'd the dread adieu.
28
Each then their separate pillow prest,
And slumber clos'd their eyes in rest.
As zephyr light, from magic sleep,
Soon as the sun began to peep,
Sprang Beauty; and now took her way
To where her anguish'd father lay,But envious time stole swiftly on;
'Begone! lov'd Father! ah! begone!
'The early dew now gems the thorn,
'The sun-beams gain upon the morn.
'Haste, Father, haste! Heaven guards the good!'
In wonder rapt the Merchant stood;
And while dread fears his thoughts employ,
A child so generous still was joy.
'My Father's safe!' she cried, 'blest Heaven!
'The rest is light, this bounty given.'
She now survey'd th' enchanting scene,
Sweet gardens of eternal green;
Mirrors, and chandeliers of glass,
And diamonds bright which those surpass;
All these her admiration gain'd;
But how was her attention chain'd,
When she in golden letters trac'd,
High o'er an arch of emeralds plac'd,
'Beauty's apartment! Enter, blest!
'This, but an earnest of the rest!'
The fair one was rejoic'd to find,
Beast studied less her eye, than mind.
But, wishing still a nearer view,
Forth from the shelves a book she drew,
In whose first page, in lines of gold,
She might heart-easing words behold:
'Welcome Beauty, banish fear!
'You are Queen, and Mistress here:
29
'Speak your wishes, speak your will,
'Swift obedience meets them still.'
'Alas!' said she, with heartfelt sighs,
The daughter rushing to her eyes,
'There's nothing I so much desire,
'As to behold my tender Sire.'
Beauty had scarce her wish express'd,
When it was granted by the Beast:
A wond'rous mirror to her eye,
Brought all her cottage family.
Here her good Brothers at their toil,
For still they dress'd the grateful soil;
And there with pity she perceiv'd,
How much for her the Merchant griev'd;
How much her Sisters felt delight
To know her banish'd from their sight,
Altho' with voice and looks of guile,
Their bosoms full of joy the while,
They labour'd hard to force a tear,
And imitate a grief sincere.
At noon's repast, she heard a sound
Breathing unseen sweet music round;
But when the evening board was spread,
The voice of Beast recall'd her dread:
'May I observe you sup?' he said;
'Ah, tremble not; your will is law;
'One question answer'd, I withdraw.'Am I not hideous to your eyes?'
'Your temper's sweet,' she mild replies.
'Yes, but I'm ugly, have no sense:''That's better far, than vain pretence.''Try to be happy, and at ease,'
Sigh'd Beast, 'as I will try to please.''Your outward form is scarcely seen
'Since I arriv'd, so kind you've been.'
30
One quarter of the rolling year,
No other living creature near,
Beauty with Beast had past serene,
Save some sad hours that stole between.
That she her Father's life had sav'd,
Upon her heart of hearts was grav'd:
While yet she view'd the Beast with dread,
This was the balm that conscience shed.
But now a second solace grew,
Whose cause e'en conscience scarcely knew.
Here on a Monster's mercy cast,Yet, when her first dire fears were past,
She found that Monster, timid, mild,
Led like the lion by the child.
Custom and kindness banish'd fear;
Beauty oft wish'd that Beast were near.
Nine was the chosen hour that Beast
Constant attended Beauty's feast,
Yet ne'er presum'd to touch the food,
Sat humble, or submissive stood,
Or, audience crav'd, respectful spoke,
Nor aim'd at wit, or ribald joke,
But oftner bent the raptur'd ear
Or ravish'd eye, to see or hear.
And if th' appointed hour pass'd by,
'Twas marked by Beauty with a sigh.
'Swear not to leave me,' sigh'd the Beast:
'I swear'-for now her fears were ceas'd,
'And willing swear,-so now and then
'I might my Father see again'One little week-he's now alone.'
'Granted!' quoth Beast: your will be done!'
'Your Ring upon the table lay
'At night,-you're there at peep of day:
'But oh,-remember, or I die!'
He gaz'd, and went without reply.
At early morn, she rang to rise;
31
The Maid beholds with glad surprise:
Summons her Father to her side,
Who, kneeling and embracing, cried,
With rapture and devotion wild,
'O bless'd be Heaven, and blest my Child!'
Beauty the Father now address'd,
And strait to see her Sisters press'd.
They both were married, and both prov'd
Neither was happy or belov'd.
And when she told them she was blest
With days of ease, and nights of rest;
To hide the malice of the soul,
Into the garden sly they stole,
And there in floods of tears they vent
Their hate, and feel its punishment.
'If,' said the eldest, 'you agree,
'We'll make that wench more curs'd than we!
'I have a plot, my sister dear:
'More than her week let's keep her here.
'No more with Monster shall she sup,
'Who, in his rage, shall eat her up.'
And now such art they both employ'd,
While Beauty wept, yet was o'erjoy'd;
And when the stated hour was come,'Ah! can you quit so soon your home?'
Eager they question'd-tore their hairAnd look'd the Pictures of Despair.
Beauty, tho' blushing at delay,
Promis'd another week to stay.
Meantime, altho' she err'd from love,
Her conscious heart could ill approve'Thy vow was giv'n, thy vow was broke!'
Thus Conscience to her bosom spoke.
Thoughts such as these assail'd her breast,
32
And a sad vision broke her rest!
The palace-garden was the place,
Which her imaginations trace:
There, on a lawn, as if to die,
She saw poor Beast extended lie,
Reproaching with his latest breath
Beauty's ingratitude in death.
Rous'd from her sleep, the contrite Maid
The Ring upon her toilette laid,
And Conscience gave a sound repose:
Balmy her rest; and when she rose,
The palace of poor Beast she found,
Groves, gardens, arbours, blooming round:
The morning shone in summer's pride,
Beauty for fairer evening sigh'dSigh'd for the object once so fear'd,
By worth, by kindness now endear'd.
But when had past the wonted hour,
And no wish'd footstep pass'd the door;When yet another hour lagg'd on,Then to the wide canal she ran:
'For there in vision,' said the fair,
'Was stretch'd the object of my care!'
And there, alas! he now was found,
Extended on the flowery ground.
'Ah! fond and faithful Beast,' she cried,
'Hast thou for me perfidious died?
'O! could'st thou hear my fervid prayer,
''Twould ease the anguish of despair.'
Beast open'd now his long-clos'd eyes,
And saw the fair with glad surprise.
'In my last moments you are sent;
'You pity, and I die content.'
'Thou shalt not die,' rejoin'd the Maid;
'O rather live to hate, upbraid'But no! my grievous fault forgive!
'I feel I can't without thee live.'
33
Beauty had scarce pronounc'd the word,
When magic sounds of sweet accord,
The music of celestial spheres
As if from seraph harps she hears;
Amaz'd she stood,-new wonders grew;
For Beast now vanish'd from her view;
And, lo! a Prince, with every grace
Of figure, fashion, feature, face,
In whom all charms of Nature meet,
Was kneeling at fair Beauty's feet.
'But where is Beast?' still Beauty cried:
'Behold him here!' the Prince replied.
'Orasmyn, lady, is my name,
'In Persia not unknown to fame;
'Till this re-humanizing hour,
'The victim of a Fairy's pow'r;'Till a deliverer could be found,
'Who, while the accursed spell still bound,
'Could first endure, tho' with alarm,
'And break at last by love the charm!'
Beauty delighted gave her hand,
And bade the Prince her fate command;
The Prince now led through rooms of state,
Where Beauty's family await,
In bridal vestments all array'd,
By some superior power convey'd.
'Beauty,' pronounc'd a heavenly voice,
'Now take from me your princely choice.
'Virtue, to every good beside
'While wit and beauty were denied,
'Fix'd your pure heart! for which, unseen,
'I led your steps; and now a Queen,
'Seated on Persia's glittering throne,
''Tis mine and Virtue's task to crown!
'But as for you, ye Sisters vain,
34
'Still first and last in envy's train,
'Before fair Beauty's Palace-gate,
'Such Justice has decreed your fate,
'Transform'd to statues you must dwell,
'Curs'd with the single power, to feel'Unless by penitence and prayer'But this will ask long years of care,
'Of promise and performance too,
'A change of mind from false to true'A change I scarce can hope from you.'
Instant the Power stretch'd forth her wand,
Her sceptre of supreme command,
When lo! at her resistless call,
Gay crowds came thronging through the hall,
The blissful hour to celebrate
When Persia's Prince resum'd his state:
At once the dome with music rang,
And virgins danc'd, and minstrels sang;
It was the Jubilee of Youth,
Led on by Virtue and by Truth;
The pride of Persia fill'd the scene,
To hail Orasmyn and his Queen!
THE END
~ Charles Lamb,
607:First Anniversary
Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns:
And still the day which he doth next restore,
Is the just wonder of the day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.
'Tis he the force of scattered time contracts,
And in one year the work of ages acts:
While heavy monarchs make a wide return,
Longer, and more malignant than Saturn:
And though they all Platonic years should reign,
In the same posture would be found again.
Their earthy projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle than the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their son,
For one thing never was by one king done.
Yet some more active for a frontier town,
Taken by proxy, beg a false renown;
Another triumphs at the public cost,
And will have won, if he no more have lost;
They fight by others, but in person wrong,
And only are against their subjects strong;
Their other wars seem but a feigned contèst,
This common enemy is still oppressed;
If conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If conquered, on them they wreak their spite:
They neither build the temple in their days,
Nor matter for succeeding founders raise;
Nor sacred prophecies consult within,
Much less themself to pèfect them begin;
No other care they bear of things above,
57
But with astrologers divine of Jove
To know how long their planet yet reprieves
From the deservéd fate their guilty lives:
Thus (image-like) an useless time they tell,
And with vain sceptre strike the hourly bell,
Nor more contribute to the state of things,
Than wooden heads unto the viol's strings.
While indefatigable Cromwell hies,
And cuts his way still nearer to the skies,
Learning a music in the region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher sphere.
So when Amphion did the lute command,
Which the god gave him, with his gentle hand,
The rougher stones, unto his measures hewed,
Danced up in order from the quarries rude;
This took a lower, that an higher place,
As he the treble altered, or the bass:
No note he struck, but a new stone was laid,
And the great work ascended while he played.
The listening structures he with wonder eyed,
And still new stops to various time applied:
Now through the strings a martial rage he throws,
And joining straight the Theban tower arose;
Then as he strokes them with a touch more sweet,
The flocking marbles in a palace meet;
But for the most the graver notes did try,
Therefore the temples reared their columns high:
Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred lute creates
Th' harmonious city of the seven gates.
Such was that wondrous order and consent,
When Cromwell tuned the ruling Instrument,
While tedious statesmen many years did hack,
Framing a liberty that still went back,
Whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour
That island, which the sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issued out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the powerful strings.
58
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one entered in the willing frame;
All other matter yields, and may be ruled;
But who the minds of stubborn men can build?
No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its centre brought;
None to be sunk in the foundation bends,
Each in the house the highest place contends,
And each the hand that lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon the architect;
Yet all composed by his attractive song,
Into the animated city throng.
The Commonwealth does through their centres all
Draw the circumference of the public wall;
The crossest spirits here do take their part,
Fastening the contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose nature leads them to divide,
Uphold this one, and that the other side;
But the most equal still sustain the height,
And they as pillars keep the work upright,
While the resistance of opposèd minds,
The fabric (as with arches) stronger binds,
Which on the basis of a senate free,
Knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurls e'er since the world about him round,
And in his several aspects, like a star,
Here shines in peace, and thither shoots in war,
While by his beams observing princes steer,
And wisely court the influence they fear.
O would they rather by his pattern won
Kiss the approaching, not yet angry Son;
And in their numbered footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy oracles do lead;
How might they under such a captain raise
The great designs kept for the latter days!
But mad with reason (so miscalled) of state
They know them not, and what they know not, hate.
Hence still they sing hosanna to the whore,
And her, whom they should massacre, adore:
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But Indians, whom they would convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffic with, or burn the Jew.
Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred,
By malice some, by error more misled,
If gracious heaven to my life give length,
Leisure to time, and to my weaknes strength,
Then shall I once with graver accents shake
Your regal sloth, and your long slumbers wake:
Like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east,
Winding his horn to kings that chase the beast.
Till then my muse shall hollo far behind
Angelic Cromwell who outwings the wind,
And in dark nights, and in cold days alone
Pursues the monster through every throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman den impure,
Gnashes her gory teeth; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think if in some happy hour
High grace should meet in one with highest power,
And then a seasonable people still
Should bend to his, as he to heaven's will,
What we might hope, what wonderful effect
From such a wished conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a hand:
Foreshortened time its useless course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest day.
But a thick cloud about that morning lies,
And intercepts the beams of mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we determine can,
If these the times, then this must be the man.
And well he therefore does, and well has guessed,
Who in his age has always forward pressed:
And knowing not where heaven's choice may light,
Girds yet his sword, and ready stand to fight;
But men, alas, as if they nothing cared,
Look on, all unconcerned, or unprepared;
And stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail
Swinges the volumes of its horrid flail.
For the great justice that did first suspend
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The world by sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest day still counterposèd wastes,
The ill delaying what the elected hastes;
Hence landing nature to new seas is tossed,
And good designs still with their authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A mould was chosen out of better earth;
Whose saint-like mother we did lately see
Live out an age, long as a pedigree;
That she might seem (could we the Fall dispute),
T' have smelled the blossom, and not eat the fruit;
Though none does of more lasting parents grow,
Yet never any did them honour so,
Though thou thine heart from evil still unstained,
And always hast thy tongue from fraud refrained;
Thou, who so oft through storms of thundering lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted head,
Thy breast through poniarding conspiracies,
Drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies;
Thee proof behond all other force or skill,
Our sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How near they failed, and in thy sudden fall
At once assayed to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury struggling to be free,
Hurried thy horses while they hurried thee,
When thou hadst almost quit thy mortal cares,
And soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs.
Let this one sorrow interweave among
The other glories of our yearly song.
Like skilful looms, which through the costly thread
Of purling ore, a shining wave do shed:
So shall the tears we on past grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our joy.
So with more modesty we may be true,
And speak, as of the dead, the praises due:
While impious men deceived with pleasure short,
On their own hopes shall find the fall retort.
But the poor beasts, wanting their noble guide,
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(What could they more?) shrunk guiltily aside.
First wingèd fear transports them far away,
And leaden sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they each his towering crest abate,
And the green grass, and their known mangers hate,
Nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air,
Nor their round hoofs, or curlèd manes compare;
With wandering eyes, and restless ears they stood,
And with shrill neighings asked him of the wood.
Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree,
Or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee:
And all about was heard a panic groan,
As if that Nature's self were overthrown.
It seemed the earth did from the centre tear;
It seemed the sun was fall'n out of the sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled;
Courage disheartened, and religion cooled.
A dismal silence through the palace went,
And then loud shrieks the vaulted marbles rent,
Such as the dying chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf seas, and ruthless tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the plundering streams
Break up each deck, and rip the oaken seams.
But thee triumphant hence the fiery car,
And fiery steeds had borne out of the war,
From the low world, and thankless men above,
Unto the kingdom blest of peace and love:
We only mourned ourselves, in thine ascent,
Whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent.
For all delight of life thou then didst lose,
When to command, thou didst thyself dispose;
Resigning up thy privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong people's charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a king:
Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress,
Yielding to rule, because it made thee less.
For neither didst thou from the first apply
62
Thy sober spirit unto things too high,
But in thine own fields exercised'st long,
An healthful mind within a body strong;
Till at the seventh time thou in the skies,
As a small cloud, like a man's hand, didst rise;
Then did thick mists and winds the air deform,
And down at last thou poured'st the fertile storm,
Which to the thirsty land did plenty bring,
But, though forewarned, o'ertook and wet the King.
What since he did, an higher force him pushed
Still from behind, and yet before him rushed,
Though undiscerned among the tumult blind,
Who think those high decrees by man designed.
'Twas heaven would not that his power should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt war and peace:
Choosing each stone, and poising every weight,
Trying the measures of the breadth and height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting new,
Founding a firm state by proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the war retreat,
Yet by the conquest of two kings grown great,
He on the peace extends a warlike power,
And Israel silent saw him raze the tower;
And how he Succorth's Elders durst suppress,
With thorns and briars of the wilderness.
No king might ever such a force have done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his son.
Thou with the same strength, and an heart as plain,
Didst (like thine olive) still refuse to reign,
Though why should others all thy labour spoil,
And brambles be anointed with thine oil,
Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly levelled every cedar's top?
Therefore first growing to thyself a law,
Th' ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe.
So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds,
Hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds,
Who with mistaken course salute the sand,
63
And threatening rocks misapprehend for land,
While baleful Tritons to the shipwreck guide,
And corposants along the tackling slide,
The passengers all wearied out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore,
Some lusty mate, who with more careful eye
Counted the hours, and every star did spy,
The help does from the artless steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself, he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a freedom, that where all command;
Nor tyranny, where one does them withstand:
But who of both the bounder knows to lay
Him as their father must the state obey.
Thou, and thine house (like Noah's eight) did rest,
Left by the wars' flood on the mountains' crest:
And the large vale lay subject to thy will
Which thou but as an husbandman wouldst till:
And only didst for others plant the vine
Of liberty, not drunken with its wine.
That sober liberty which men may have,
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave:
And such as to their parents' tents do press,
May show their own, not see his nakedness.
Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage,
The shame and plague both of the land and age,
Who watched thy halting, and thy fall deride,
Rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside,
That their new king might the fifth sceptre shake,
And make the world, by his example, quake:
Whose frantic army should they want for men
Might muster heresies, so one were ten.
What thy misfortune, they the spirit call,
And their religion only is to fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy falling-sickness should have made thee reign,
While Feake and Simpson would in many a tome,
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Have writ the comments of thy sacred foam:
For soon thou mightst have passed among their rant
Were't but for thine unmovèd tulipant;
As thou must needs have owned them of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcoraned.
Accursèd locusts, whom your king does spit
Out of the centre of the unbottomed pit;
Wanderers, adulterers, liars, Munster's rest,
Sorcerers, athiests, jesuits possessed;
You who the scriptures and the laws deface
With the same liberty as points and lace;
Oh race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve;
Ay, and the serpent too that did deceive.
But the great captain, now the danger's o'er,
Makes you for his sake tremble one fit more;
And, to your spite, returning yet alive
Does with himself all that is good revive.
So when first man did through the morning new
See the bright sun his shining race pursue,
All day he followed with unwearied sight,
Pleased with that other world of moving light;
But thought him when he missed his setting beams,
Sunk in the hills, or plunged below the streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the universe,
And stars (like tapers) burned upon his hearse:
And owls and ravens with their screeching noise
Did make the funerals sadder by their joys.
His weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep,
Not knowing yet the night was made for sleep;
Still to the west, where he him lost, he turned,
And with such accents as despairing mourned:
`Why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray;
Or why day last no longer than a day?'
When straight the sun behind him he descried,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our star that gives us light and heat,
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Seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat,
Up from the other world his flame he darts,
And princes (shining through their windows) starts,
Who their suspected counsellors refuse,
And credulous ambassadors accuse.
`Is this', saith one, `the nation that we read
Spent with both wars, under a captain dead,
Yet rig a navy while we dress us late,
And ere we dine, raze and rebuild their state?
What oaken forests, and what golden mines!
What mints of men, what union of designs!
(Unless their ships, do, as their fowl proceed
Of shedding leaves, that with their ocean breed).
Theirs are not ships, but rather arks of war
And beakèd promontories sailed from far;
Of floating islands a new hatchèd nest;
A fleet of worlds, of other worlds in quest;
An hideous shoal of wood-leviathans,
Armed with three tier of brazen hurricanes,
That through the centre shoot their thundering side
And sink the earth that does at anchor ride.
What refuge to escape them can be found,
Whose watery leaguers all the world surround?
Needs must we all their tributaries be,
Whose navies hold the sluices of the sea.
The ocean is the fountain of command,
But that once took, we captives are on land.
And those that have the waters for their share,
Can quickly leave us neither earth nor air.
Yet if through these our fears could find a pass,
Through double oak, and lined with treble brass,
That one man still, although but named, alarms
More than all men, all navies, and all arms.
Him, in the day, him, in late night I dread,
And still his sword seems hanging o'er my head.
The nation had been ours, but his one soul
Moves the great bulk, and animates the whole.
He secrecy with number hath enchased,
Courage with age, maturity with haste:
The valiant's terror, riddle of the wise,
And still his falchion all our knots unties.
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Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear?
Where below earth, or where above the sphere?
He seems a king by long succession born,
And yet the same to be a king does scorn.
Abroad a king he seems, and something more,
At home a subject on the equal floor.
O could I once him with our title see,
So should I hope that he might die as we.
But let them write is praise that love him best,
It grieves me sore to have thus much confessed.'
Pardon, great Prince, if thus their fear of spite
More than our love and duty do thee right.
I yield, nor further will the prize contend,
So that we both alike may miss our end:
While thou thy venerable head dost raise
As far above their malice as my praise,
And as the Angel of our commonweal,
Troubling the waters, yearly mak'st them heal.
~ Andrew Marvell,
608:The First Anniversary Of The Government Under O.C.
Like the vain Curlings of the Watry maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking Weight does raise;
So Man, declining alwayes, disappears.
In the Weak Circles of increasing Years;
And his short Tumults of themselves Compose,
While flowing Time above his Head does close.
Cromwell alone with greater Vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the Stages of succeeding Suns:
And still the Day which he doth next restore,
Is the just Wonder of the Day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new Lustre spring,
And shines the Jewel of the yearly Ring.
'Tis he the force of scatter'd Time contracts,
And in one Year the Work of Ages acts:
While heavy Monarchs make a wide Return,
Longer, and more Malignant then Saturn:
And though they all Platonique years should raign,
In the same Posture would be found again.
Their earthly Projects under ground they lay,
More slow and brittle then the China clay:
Well may they strive to leave them to their Son,
For one Thing never was by one King don.
Yet some more active for a Frontier Town
Took in by Proxie, beggs a false Renown;
Another triumphs at the publick Cost,
And will have Wonn, if he no more have Lost;
They fight by Others, but in Person wrong,
And only are against their Subjects strong;
Their other Wars seem but a feign'd contest,
This Common Enemy is still opprest;
If Conquerors, on them they turn their might;
If Conquered, on them they wreak their Spight:
They neither build the Temple in their dayes,
Nor Matter for succeeding Founders raise;
Nor Sacred Prophecies consult within,
Much less themselves to perfect them begin,
No other care they bear of things above,
But with Astrologers divine, and Jove,
To know how long their Planet yet Reprives
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From the deserved Fate their guilty lives:
Thus (Image-like) and useless time they tell,
And with vain Scepter strike the hourly Bell;
Nor more contribute to the state of Things,
Then wooden Heads unto the Viols strings,
While indefatigable Cromwell hyes,
And cuts his way still nearer to the Skyes,
Learning a Musique in the Region clear,
To tune this lower to that higher Sphere.
So when Amphion did the Lute command,
Which the God gave him, with his gentle hand,
The rougher Stones, unto his Measures hew'd,
Dans'd up in order from the Quarreys rude;
This took a Lower, that an Higher place,
As he the Treble alter'd, or the Base:
No Note he struck, but a new Story lay'd,
And the great Work ascended while he play'd.
The listning Structures he with Wonder ey'd,
And still new Stopps to various Time apply'd:
Now through the Strings a Martial rage he throws,
And joyng streight the Theban Tow'r arose;
Then as he strokes them with a Touch more sweet,
The flocking Marbles in a Palace meet;
But, for he most the graver Notes did try,
Therefore the Temples rear'd their Columns high:
Thus, ere he ceas'd, his sacred Lute creates
Th'harmonious City of the seven Gates.
Such was that wondrous Order and Consent,
When Cromwell tun'd the ruling Instrument;
While tedious Statesmen many years did hack,
Framing a Liberty that still went back;
Whose num'rous Gorge could swallow in an hour
That Island, which the Sea cannot devour:
Then our Amphion issues out and sings,
And once he struck, and twice, the pow'rful Strings.
The Commonwealth then first together came,
And each one enter'd in the willing Frame;
All other Matter yields, and may be rul'd;
But who the Minds of stubborn Men can build?
No Quarry bears a Stone so hardly wrought,
Nor with such labour from its Center brought;
None to be sunk in the Foundation bends,
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Each in the House the highest Place contends,
And each the Hand that lays him will direct,
And some fall back upon the Architect;
Yet all compos'd by his attractive Song,
Into the Animated City throng.
The Common-wealth does through their Centers all
Draw the Circumf'rence of the publique Wall;
The crossest Spirits here do take their part,
Fast'ning the Contignation which they thwart;
And they, whose Nature leads them to divide,
Uphold, this one, and that the other Side;
But the most Equal still sustein the Height,
And they as Pillars keep the Work upright;
While the resistance of opposed Minds,
The Fabrick as with Arches stronger binds,
Which on the Basis of a Senate free,
Knit by the Roofs Protecting weight agree.
When for his foot he thus a place had found,
He hurles e'r since the World about him round,
And in his sev'ral Aspects, like a Star,
Here shines in Peace, and thither shoots a War.
While by his Beams observing Princes steer,
And wisely court the Influence they fear,
O would they rather by his Pattern won.
Kiss the approaching, nor yet angry Son;
And in their numbred Footsteps humbly tread
The path where holy Oracles do lead;
How might they under such a Captain raise
The great Designs kept for the latter Dayes!
But mad with reason, so miscall'd, of State
They know them not, and what they know not, hate
Hence still they sing Hosanna to the Whore,
And her whom they should Massacre adore:
But Indians whom they should convert, subdue;
Nor teach, but traffique with, or burn the Jew.
Unhappy Princes, ignorantly bred,
By Malice some, by Errour more misled;
If gracious Heaven to my Life give length,
Leisure to Times, and to my Weakness Strength,
Then shall I once with graver Accents shake
Your Regal sloth, and your long Slumbers wake:
Like the shrill Huntsman that prevents the East,
139
Winding his Horn to Kings that chase the Beast.
Till then my Muse shall hollow far behind
Angelique Cromwell who outwings the wind;
And in dark Nights, and in cold Dayes alone
Pursues the Monster thorough every Throne:
Which shrinking to her Roman Den impure,
Gnashes her Goary teeth; nor there secure.
Hence oft I think, if in some happy Hour
High Grace should meet in one with highest Pow'r,
And then a seasonable People still
Should bend to his, as he to Heavens will,
What we might hope, what wonderful Effect
From such a wish'd Conjuncture might reflect.
Sure, the mysterious Work, where none withstand,
Would forthwith finish under such a Hand:
Fore-shortned Time its useless Course would stay,
And soon precipitate the latest Day.
But a thick Cloud about that Morning lyes,
And intercepts the Beams of Mortal eyes,
That 'tis the most which we deteremine can,
If these the Times, then this must be the Man.
And well he therefore does, and well has guest,
Who in his Age has always forward prest:
And knowing not where Heavens choice may light,
Girds yet his Sword, and ready stands to fight;
But Men alas, as if they nothing car'd,
Look on, all unconcern'd, or unprepar'd;
And Stars still fall, and still the Dragons Tail
Swinges the Volumes of its horrid Flail.
For the great Justice that did first suspend
The World by Sin, does by the same extend.
Hence that blest Day still counterpoysed wastes,
The ill delaying, what th'Elected hastes;
Hence landing Nature to new Seas it tost,
And good Designes still with their Authors lost.
And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth
A Mold was chosen out of better Earth;
Whose Saint-like Mother we did lately see
Live out an Age, long as a Pedigree;
That she might seem, could we the Fall dispute,
T'have smelt the Blossome, and not eat the Fruit;
Though none does of more lasting Parents grow,
140
But never any did them Honor so;
Though thou thine Heart from Evil still unstain'd,
And always hast thy Tongue from fraud refrain'd,
Thou, who so oft through Storms of thundring Lead
Hast born securely thine undaunted Head,
Thy Brest through ponyarding Conspiracies,
Drawn from the Sheath of lying Prophecies;
Thee proof beyond all other Force or Skill,
Our Sins endanger, and shall one day kill.
How near they fail'd, and in thy sudden Fall
At once assay'd to overturn us all.
Our brutish fury strugling to be Free,
Hurry'd thy Horses while they hurry'd thee.
When thou hadst almost quit thy Mortal cares,
And soyl'd in Dust thy Crown of silver Hairs.
Let this one Sorrow interweave among
The other Glories of our yearly Song.
Like skilful Looms which through the costly threed
Of purling Ore, a shining wave do shed:
So shall the Tears we on past Grief employ,
Still as they trickle, glitter in our Joy.
So with more Modesty we may be True,
And speak as of the Dead the Praises due:
While impious Men deceiv'd with pleasure short,
On their own Hopes shall find the Fall retort.
But the poor Beasts wanting their noble Guide,
What could they move? shrunk guiltily aside.
First winged Fear transports them far away,
And leaden Sorrow then their flight did stay.
See how they each his towring Crest abate,
And the green Grass, and their known Mangers hate,
Nor through wide Nostrils snuffe the wanton air,
Nor their round Hoofs, or curled Mane'scompare;
With wandring Eyes, and restless Ears theystood,
And with shrill Neighings ask'd him of the Wood.
Thou Cromwell falling, not a stupid Tree,
Or Rock so savage, but it mourn'd for thee:
And all about was heard a Panique groan,
As if that Natures self were overthrown.
It seem'd the Earth did from the Center tear;
It seem'd the Sun was faln out of the Sphere:
Justice obstructed lay, and Reason fool'd;
141
Courage disheartned, and Religion cool'd.
A dismal Silence through the Palace went,
And then loud Shreeks the vaulted Marbles rent.
Such as the dying Chorus sings by turns,
And to deaf Seas, and ruthless Tempests mourns,
When now they sink, and now the plundring Streams
Break up each Deck, and rip the Oaken seams.
But thee triumphant hence the firy Carr,
And firy Steeds had born out of the Warr,
From the low World, and thankless Men above,
Unto the Kingdom blest of Peace and Love:
We only mourn'd our selves, in thine Ascent,
Whom thou hadst lest beneath with Mantle rent.
For all delight of Life thou then didst lose,
When to Command, thou didst thy self Depose;
Resigning up thy Privacy so dear,
To turn the headstrong Peoples Charioteer;
For to be Cromwell was a greater thing,
Then ought below, or yet above a King:
Therefore thou rather didst thy Self depress,
Yielding to Rule, because it made thee Less.
For, neither didst thou from the first apply
Thy sober Spirit unto things too High,
But in thine own Fields exercisedst long,
An Healthful Mind within a Body strong;
Till at the Seventh time thou in the Skyes,
As a small Cloud, like a Mans hand didst rise;
Then did thick Mists and Winds the air deform,
And down at last thou pow'rdst the fertile Storm;
Which to the thirsty Land did plenty bring,
But though forewarn'd, o'r-took and wet the King.
What since he did, an higher Force him push'd
Still from behind, and it before him rush'd,
Though undiscern'd among the tumult blind,
Who think those high Decrees by Man design'd.
'Twas Heav'n would not that his Pow'r should cease,
But walk still middle betwixt War and Peace;
Choosing each Stone, and poysing every weight,
Trying the Measures of the Bredth and Height;
Here pulling down, and there erecting New,
Founding a firm State by Proportions true.
When Gideon so did from the War retreat,
142
Yet by Conquest of two Kings grown great,
He on the Peace extends a Warlike power,
And Is'rel silent saw him rase the Tow'r;
And how he Succoths Elders durst suppress,
With Thorns and Briars of the Wilderness.
No King might ever such a Force have done;
Yet would not he be Lord, nor yet his Son.
Thou with the same strength, and an Heart as plain,
Didst (like thine Olive) still refuse to Reign;
Though why should others all thy Labor spoil,
And Brambles be anointed with thine Oyl,
Whose climbing Flame, without a timely stop,
Had quickly Levell'd every Cedar's top.
Therefore first growing to thy self a Law,
Th'ambitious Shrubs thou in just time didst aw.
So have I seen at Sea, when whirling Winds,
Hurry the Bark, but more the Seamens minds,
Who with mistaken Course salute the Sand,
And threat'ning Rocks misapprehend for Land;
While baleful Tritons to the shipwrack guide.
And Corposants along the Tacklings slide.
The Passengers all wearyed out before,
Giddy, and wishing for the fatal Shore;
Some lusty Mate, who with more careful Eye
Counted the Hours, and ev'ry Star did spy,
The Helm does from the artless Steersman strain,
And doubles back unto the safer Main.
What though a while they grumble discontent,
Saving himself he does their loss prevent.
'Tis not a Freedome, that where All command;
Nor Tyranny, where One does them withstand:
But who of both the Bounders knows to lay
Him as their Father must the State obey.
Thou, and thine House, like Noah's Eight did rest,
Left by the Wars Flood on the Mountains crest:
And the large Vale lay subject to thy Will,
Which thou but as an Husbandman would Till:
And only didst for others plant the Vine
Of Liberty, not drunken with its Wine.
That sober Liberty which men may have,
That they enjoy, but more they vainly crave:
And such as to their Parents Tents do press,
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May shew their own, not see his Nakedness.
Yet such a Chammish issue still does rage,
The Shame and Plague both of the Land and Age,
Who watch'd thy halting, and thy Fall deride,
Rejoycing when thy Foot had slipt aside;
that their new King might the fifth Scepter shake,
And make the World, by his Example, Quake:
Whose frantique Army should they want for Men
Might muster Heresies, so one were ten.
What thy Misfortune, they the Spirit call,
And their Religion only is to Fall.
Oh Mahomet! now couldst thou rise again,
Thy Falling-sickness should have made thee Reign,
While Feake and Simpson would in many a Tome,
Have writ the Comments of thy sacred Foame:
For soon thou mightst have past among their Rant
Wer't but for thine unmoved Tulipant;
As thou must needs have own'd them of thy band
For prophecies fit to be Alcorand.
Accursed Locusts, whom your King does spit
Out of the Center of th'unbottom'd Pit;
Wand'rers, Adult'rers, Lyers, Munser's rest,
Sorcerers, Atheists, Jesuites, Possest;
You who the Scriptures and the Laws deface
With the same liberty as Points and Lace;
Oh Race most hypocritically strict!
Bent to reduce us to the ancient Pict;
Well may you act the Adam and the Eve;
Ay, and the Serpent too that did deceive.
But the great Captain, now the danger's ore,
Makes you for his sake Tremble one fit more;
And, to your spight, returning yet alive
Does with himself all that is good revive.
So when first Man did through the Morning new
See the bright Sun his shining Race pursue,
All day he follow'd with unwearied sight,
Pleas'd with that other World of moving Light;
But thought him when he miss'd his setting beams,
Sunk in the Hills, or plung'd below the Streams.
While dismal blacks hung round the Universe,
And Stars (like Tapers) burn'd upon his Herse:
And Owls and Ravens with their screeching noyse
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Did make the Fun'rals sadder by their Joyes.
His weeping Eyes the doleful Vigils keep,
Not knowing yet the Night was made for sleep:
Still to the West, where he him lost, he turn'd,
And with such accents, as Despairing, mourn'd:
Why did mine Eyes once see so bright a Ray;
Or why Day last no longer than a Day?
When streight the Sun behind him he descry'd,
Smiling serenely from the further side.
So while our Star that gives us Light and Heat,
Seem'd now a long and gloomy Night to threat,
Up from the other World his Flame he darts,
And Princes shining through their windows starts;
Who their suspected Counsellors refuse,
And credulous Ambassadors accuse.
"Is this, saith one, the Nation that we read
"Spent with both Wars, under a Captain dead?
"Yet rig a Navy while we dress us late;
"And ere we Dine, rase and rebuild our State.
"What Oaken Forrests, and what golden Mines!
"What Mints of Men, what Union of Designes!
"Unless their Ships, do, as their Fowle proceed
"Of shedding Leaves, that with their Ocean breed.
"Theirs are not Ships, but rather Arks of War,
"And beaked Promontories sail'd from far;
"Of floting Islands a new Hatched Nest;
"A Fleet of Worlds, of other Worlds in quest;
"An hideous shole of wood Leviathans,
"Arm'd with three Tire of brazen Hurricans;
"That through the Center shoot their thundring side
"And sink the Earth that does at Anchor ride.
'What refuge to escape them can be found,
"Whose watry Leaguers all the world surround?
"Needs must we all their Tributaries be,
"Whose Navies hold the Sluces of the Sea.
"The Ocean is the Fountain of Command,
"But that once took, we Captives are on Land:
"And those that have the Waters for their share,
"Can quickly leave us neither Earth nor Air.
"Yet if through these our Fears could find a pass;
"Through double Oak, & lin'd with treble Brass;
"That one Man still, although but nam'd, alarms
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"More then all Men, all Navies, and all Arms.
"Him, all the Day, Him, in late Nights I dread,
"And still his Sword seems hanging o're my head.
"The Nation had been ours, but his one Soul
"Moves the great Bulk, and animates the whole.
"He Secrecy with Number hath inchas'd,
"Courage with Age, Maturity with Hast:
"The Valiants Terror, Riddle of the Wise;
"And still his Fauchion all our Knots unties.
"Where did he learn those Arts that cost us dear?
"Where below Earth, or where above the Sphere?
"He seems a King by long Succession born,
"And yet the same to be a King does scorn.
"Abroad a King he seems, and something more,
"At Home a Subject on the equal Floor.
"O could I once him with our Title see,
"So should I hope yet he might Dye as wee.
"But let them write his Praise that love him best,
"It grieves me sore to have thus much confest.
"Pardon, great Prince, if thus their Fear or Spight
"More then our Love and Duty do thee Right.
"I yield, nor further will the Prize contend;
"So that we both alike may miss our End:
"While thou thy venerable Head dost raise
"As far above their Malice as my Praise.
"And as the Angel of our Commonweal,
"Troubling the Waters, yearly mak'st them Heal.
~ Andrew Marvell,
609:The Deserted Garden
I know a village in a far-off land
Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain
With tinted walls a space on either hand
And fed by many an olive-darkened lane
The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band
Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,
Winds off to that dim corner of the skies
Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.
Here, among trees whose overhanging shade
Strews petals on the little droves below,
Pattering townward in the morning weighed
With greens from many an upland garden-row,
Runs an old wall; long centuries have frayed
Its scalloped edge, and passers to and fro
Heard never from beyond its crumbling height
Sweet laughter ring at noon or plaintive song at night.
But here where little lizards bask and blink
The tendrils of the trumpet-vine have run,
At whose red bells the humming bird to drink
Stops oft before his garden feast is done;
And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink
That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun,
Have covered part of this old wall, entwined
With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.
And crowning other parts the wild white rose
Rivals the honey-suckle with the bees.
Above the old abandoned orchard shows
And all within beneath the dense-set trees,
Tall and luxuriant the rank grass grows,
That settled in its wavy depth one sees
Grass melt in leaves, the mossy trunks between,
Down fading avenues of implicated green;
Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night
With stars and pearly nebula o'erlay;
Azalea-boughs half rosy and half white
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Shine through the green and clustering apple-spray,
Such as the fairy-queen before her knight
Waved in old story, luring him away
Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break
Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;
And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,
And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,
Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,
Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,
Now blossom through the brake on either side,
Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,
With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,
Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,
That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave
In some blue rampart of the curving West,
Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave,
Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest,
Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave
Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest,
He steals across this plot of pleasant ground,
Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.
Here many a day right gladly have I sped,
Content amid the wavy plumes to lie,
And through the woven branches overhead
Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,
And soaring birds make their dissolving bed
Far in the azure depths of summer sky,
Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,
The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;
Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune
Of mating warblers in the boughs above
And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon
Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove
Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon
That like the voice of visionary love
Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze
(Even as my feet thread now the great world's garden-ways);
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And, parting tangled bushes as I passed
Down beechen allies beautiful and dim,
Perhaps by some deep-shaded pool at last
My feet would pause, where goldfish poise and swim,
And snowy callas' velvet cups are massed
Around the mossy, fern-encircled brim.
Here, then, that magic summoning would cease,
Or sound far off again among the orchard trees.
And here where the blanched lilies of the vale
And violets and yellow star-flowers teem,
And pink and purple hyacinths exhale
Their heavy fume, once more to drowse and dream
My head would sink, from many an olden tale
Drawing imagination's fervid theme,
Or haply peopling this enchanting spot
Only with fair creations of fantastic thought.
For oft I think, in years long since gone by,
That gentle hearts dwelt here and gentle hands
Stored all this bowery bliss to beautify
The paradise of some unsung romance;
Here, safe from all except the loved one's eye,
'Tis sweet to think white limbs were wont to glance,
Well pleased to wanton like the flowers and share
Their simple loveliness with the enamored air.
Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked
The altars of First Love were these green ways,
These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked
With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;
Oft where the long straight allies intersect
And marble seats surround the open space,
Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,
Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.
When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade
Beneath that old titanic cypress row,
Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade
Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,
Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,
Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow
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Grew less and patterning the garden floor
Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.
And the strange tempest that a touch imparts
Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,
When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts
Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,
Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts
Welled the soft word, and many a tender name
Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained
And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.
Love's soul that is the depth of starry skies
Set in the splendor of one upturned face
To beam adorably through half-closed eyes;
Love's body where the breadth of summer days
And all the beauty earth and air comprise
Come to the compass of an arm's embrace,
To burn a moment on impassioned lips
And yield intemperate joy to quivering finger-tips,
They knew; and here where morning-glories cling
Round carven forms of carefullest artifice,
They made a bower where every outward thing
Should comment on the cause of their own bliss;
With flowers of liveliest hue encompassing
That flower that the beloved body is
That rose that for the banquet of Love's bee
Has budded all the æons of past eternity.
But their choice seat was where the garden wall,
Crowning a little summit, far and near,
Looks over tufted treetops onto all
The pleasant outer country; rising here
From rustling foliage where cuckoos call
On summer evenings, stands a belvedere,
Buff-hued, of antique plaster, overrun
With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.
Still round the turrets of this antique tower
The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,
Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,
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Wreathing the lower surface further down,
Hide the old plaster in a very shower
Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.
Outside, ascending from the garden grove,
A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.
And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair
Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,
Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare
Ringed all about with a twofold arcade.
Backward dense branches intercept the glare
Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;
Eastward the level valley-plains expand,
Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.
For through that frame the ivied arches make,
Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,
Frequent with hamlet grove, and lucent lake
Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;
Far to the east where billowy mountains break
In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,
Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,
Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;
And over plain and far sierra spread
The fulgent rays of fading afternoon,
Showing each utmost peak and watershed
All clarified, each tassel and festoon
Of floating cloud embroidered overhead,
Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,
Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free
In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.
Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;
Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong
Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,
Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song,
Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there
Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along,
With purple sail and steered by seraph hands
To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.
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And out of this old house a flowery fane,
A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome,
They built, and furnished it with gold and grain,
And bade all spirits of beauty hither come,
And wingéd Love to enter with his train
And bless their pillow, and in this his home
Make them his priests as Hero was of yore
In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore.
Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought,
Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,
Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought
With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;
Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,
And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed
To light the lounger on some low divan,
Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.
And there was spread, upon the ample floors,
Work of the Levantine's laborious loom,
Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores
Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom.
Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores
Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom,
And little birds through wicker doors left wide
Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside.
And there was many a dainty attitude,
Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed,
Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood
Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid
Lest aught in that palatial solitude
Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.
Therefore forever faltering she stands,
Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.
Close by upon a beryl column, clad
In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,
They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,
The nude Antinous. That gentle face,
Forever beautiful, forever sad,
Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,
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Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile
At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.
And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,
Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,
Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore
Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,
Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore
Or Venus' bed in her enchanted mound,
While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,
All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.
'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,
Thither with one fair spirit to retire,
Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love
And feast on kisses to the heart's desire;
Where by a casement opening on a grove,
Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir,
A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,
Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.
Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,
Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,
She lies and dreams eternity away,
Above the treetops in Broceliande,
Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray
And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,
Waking to love, while up behind the trees
The large midsummer moon lifts-even so loved these.
For here, their pleasure was to come and sit
Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,
Watching with sweet enjoyment interknit
The long light slant across the green earth's breast,
And clouds upon the ranges opposite,
Rolled up into a gleaming thundercrest,
Topple and break and fall in purple rain,
And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.
Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung
Across the luminous azure overhead,
Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung
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The fragmentary rainbow's green and red.
Joy it was here to love and to be young,
To watch the sun sink to his western bed,
And streaming back out of their flaming core
The vesperal aurora's glorious banners soar.
Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn,
Those fiery rays would sweep. The cumuli
That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn
Carmine a space; the cirrus-whorls on high,
More delicate than sprays of maiden fern,
Streak with pale rose the peacock-breasted sky,
Then blanch. As water-lilies fold at night,
Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.
And they would watch the first faint stars appear,
The blue East blend with the blue hills below,
As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near
Into one pulse of fluid rapture grow.
New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere
Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow
Draw deeper down into the wondrous west
Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.
So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore,
The snow-peaks fade to frosty, opaline,
To pearl the doméd clouds the mountains bore,
Where late the sun's effulgent fire had been
Showing as darkness deepened more and more
The incandescent lightnings flare within,
And Night that furls the lily in the glen
And twines impatient arms would fall, and then---and then . . .
Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town
With empty panniers on his little drove
Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown
Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove,
Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down
And voices singing through the leaves above
Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos
At balconies in Merida or Vera Cruz.
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And he would pause under the garden wall,
Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain,
With all the sultry South in it, and all
Its importunity of love and pain;
And he would wait till the last passionate fall
Died on the night, and all was still again.
Then to his upland village wander home,
Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.
O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress,
Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays
Sweet opportunity for happiness
So brief, so passing beautiful---O days,
When to the heart's divine indulgences
All earth in smiling ministration pays
Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,
What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!
The wake of color that follows her when May
Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned,
The deep horizons of a summer's day,
Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound
Where music calls, and crowds in bright array
Gather by night to find and to be found;
What were these worth or all delightful things
Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!
For thee the mountains open glorious gates,
To thee white arms put out from orient skies,
Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits,
Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,
Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fêtes
Eternity has travailed to devise;
Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!
Another's turn prepares, another follows fast.
Yet not without one fond memorial
Let my sun set who found the world so fair!
Frail verse, when Time the singer's coronal
Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair,
Be thou my tablet on the temple wall!
Among the pious testimonials there,
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Witness how sweetly on my heart as well
The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!
Speak of one then who had the lust to feel,
And, from the hues that far horizons take,
And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,
Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake,
Whose only motive was the will to kneel
Where Beauty's purest benediction spake,
Who only coveted what grove and field
And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield--A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear
Seeking his faultless adolescent dream,
A pilgrim down the paths that disappear
In mist and rainbows on the world's extreme,
A helpless voyager who all too near
The mouth of Life's fair flower-bordered stream,
Clutched at Love's single respite in his need
More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed--That coming one whose feet in other days
Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more
Than any purpose, felt the need to praise
And seek the angelic image to adore,
In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways
Counting what most makes life worth living for,
That so some relic may be his to see
How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.
I sometimes think a conscious happiness
Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine
When summer winds with myriad calyces
Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;
I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,
And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine
Are nerves through which that being drinks delight,
Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.
And such were theirs: the traveller without,
Pausing at night under the orchard trees,
Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt,
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For through their song and in the murmuring breeze
It seemed angelic choirs were all about
Mingling in universal harmonies,
As though, responsive to the chords they woke,
All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.
And still they think a spirit haunts the place:
'Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall
And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace
Their mimic constellations, if it fall
That one should see the moon rise through the lace
Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,
That surely would he take great ill thereof
And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.
But this I know not, for what time the wain
Was loosened and the lily's petal furled,
Then I would rise, climb the old wall again,
And pausing look forth on the sundown world,
Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain,
The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled,
The poplar-bordered roads, and far away
Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray.
Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar
Faint song and preludes of the summer night;
Deep in the cloudless west the evening star
Hung 'twixt the orange and the emerald light;
From the dark vale where shades crepuscular
Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white,
Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell,
Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell.
~ Alan Seeger,
610:Epistle To Dr. Arbuthnot
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free;
Ev'n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me just at dinner-time.
Is there a parson, much bemus'd in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoom'd his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?
Is there, who, lock'd from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp'rate charcoal round his darken'd walls?
All fly to Twit'nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn'd works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Friend to my life! (which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song)
What drop or nostrum can this plague remove?
Or which must end me, a fool's wrath or love?
A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped,
If foes, they write, if friends, they read me dead.
Seiz'd and tied down to judge, how wretched I!
Who can't be silent, and who will not lie;
To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace,
And to be grave, exceeds all pow'r of face.
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I sit with sad civility, I read
With honest anguish, and an aching head;
And drop at last, but in unwilling ears,
This saving counsel, 'Keep your piece nine years.'
'Nine years! ' cries he, who high in Drury-lane
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before Term ends,
Oblig'd by hunger, and request of friends:
'The piece, you think, is incorrect: why, take it,
I'm all submission, what you'd have it, make it.'
Three things another's modest wishes bound,
My friendship, and a prologue, and ten pound.
Pitholeon sends to me: 'You know his Grace,
I want a patron; ask him for a place.'
Pitholeon libell'd me- 'but here's a letter
Informs you, sir, 'twas when he knew no better.
Dare you refuse him? Curll invites to dine,
He'll write a Journal, or he'll turn Divine.'
Bless me! a packet- ''Tis a stranger sues,
A virgin tragedy, an orphan muse.'
If I dislike it, 'Furies, death and rage! '
If I approve, 'Commend it to the stage.'
There (thank my stars) my whole commission ends,
The play'rs and I are, luckily, no friends.
Fir'd that the house reject him, ''Sdeath I'll print it,
And shame the fools- your int'rest, sir, with Lintot! '
'Lintot, dull rogue! will think your price too much.'
'Not, sir, if you revise it, and retouch.'
All my demurs but double his attacks;
At last he whispers, 'Do; and we go snacks.'
Glad of a quarrel, straight I clap the door,
'Sir, let me see your works and you no more.'
'Tis sung, when Midas' ears began to spring,
(Midas, a sacred person and a king)
His very minister who spied them first,
(Some say his queen) was forc'd to speak, or burst.
And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,
74
When ev'ry coxcomb perks them in my face?
'Good friend, forbear! you deal in dang'rous things.
I'd never name queens, ministers, or kings;
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick;
'Tis nothing'- Nothing? if they bite and kick?
Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he's an ass:
The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)
The queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcern'd canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gall'ry in convulsions hurl'd,
Thou stand'st unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew;
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature's at his dirty work again;
Thron'd in the centre of his thin designs;
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arch'd eye-brow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colley still his lord, and whore?
His butchers Henley, his Free-masons Moore?
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?
Still Sappho- 'Hold! for God-sake- you'll offend:
No names! - be calm! - learn prudence of a friend!
I too could write, and I am twice as tall;
But foes like these! ' One flatt'rer's worse than all.
Of all mad creatures, if the learn'd are right,
It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.
A fool quite angry is quite innocent;
Alas! 'tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes;
One from all Grub Street will my fame defend,
And, more abusive, calls himself my friend.
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This prints my Letters, that expects a bribe,
And others roar aloud, 'Subscribe, subscribe.'
There are, who to my person pay their court:
I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short,
Ammon's great son one shoulder had too high,
Such Ovid's nose, and 'Sir! you have an eye'Go on, obliging creatures, make me see
All that disgrac'd my betters, met in me:
Say for my comfort, languishing in bed,
'Just so immortal Maro held his head:'
And when I die, be sure you let me know
Great Homer died three thousand years ago.
Why did I write? what sin to me unknown
Dipp'd me in ink, my parents', or my own?
As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame,
I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
I left no calling for this idle trade,
No duty broke, no father disobey'd.
The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife,
To help me through this long disease, my life,
To second, Arbuthnot! thy art and care,
And teach the being you preserv'd, to bear.
But why then publish? Granville the polite,
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write;
Well-natur'd Garth inflamed with early praise,
And Congreve lov'd, and Swift endur'd my lays;
The courtly Talbot, Somers, Sheffield read,
Ev'n mitred Rochester would nod the head,
And St. John's self (great Dryden's friends before)
With open arms receiv'd one poet more.
Happy my studies, when by these approv'd!
Happier their author, when by these belov'd!
From these the world will judge of men and books,
Not from the Burnets, Oldmixons, and Cookes.
Soft were my numbers; who could take offence,
While pure description held the place of sense?
Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme,
A painted mistress, or a purling stream.
76
Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;
I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still.
Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret;
I never answer'd, I was not in debt.
If want provok'd, or madness made them print,
I wag'd no war with Bedlam or the Mint.
Did some more sober critic come abroad?
If wrong, I smil'd; if right, I kiss'd the rod.
Pains, reading, study, are their just pretence,
And all they want is spirit, taste, and sense.
Commas and points they set exactly right,
And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite.
Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel grac'd these ribalds,
From slashing Bentley down to pidling Tibbalds.
Each wight who reads not, and but scans and spells,
Each word-catcher that lives on syllables,
Ev'n such small critics some regard may claim,
Preserv'd in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name.
Pretty! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms;
The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare,
But wonder how the devil they got there?
Were others angry? I excus'd them too;
Well might they rage; I gave them but their due.
A man's true merit 'tis not hard to find,
But each man's secret standard in his mind,
That casting weight pride adds to emptiness,
This, who can gratify? for who can guess?
The bard whom pilfer'd pastorals renown,
Who turns a Persian tale for half a crown,
Just writes to make his barrenness appear,
And strains, from hard-bound brains, eight lines a year:
He, who still wanting, though he lives on theft,
Steals much, spends little, yet has nothing left:
And he, who now to sense, now nonsense leaning,
Means not, but blunders round about a meaning:
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad:
All these, my modest satire bade translate,
And own'd, that nine such poets made a Tate.
77
How did they fume, and stamp, and roar, and chafe?
And swear, not Addison himself was safe.
Peace to all such! but were there one whose fires
True genius kindles, and fair fame inspires,
Blest with each talent and each art to please,
And born to write, converse, and live with ease:
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone,
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne,
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes,
And hate for arts that caus'd himself to rise;
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
Alike reserv'd to blame, or to commend,
A tim'rous foe, and a suspicious friend;
Dreading ev'n fools, by flatterers besieg'd,
And so obliging, that he ne'er oblig'd;
Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
And sit attentive to his own applause;
While wits and templars ev'ry sentence raise,
And wonder with a foolish face of praise.
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he?
What though my name stood rubric on the walls,
Or plaister'd posts, with claps, in capitals?
Or smoking forth, a hundred hawkers' load,
On wings of winds came flying all abroad?
I sought no homage from the race that write;
I kept, like Asian monarchs, from their sight:
Poems I heeded (now berhym'd so long)
No more than thou, great George! a birthday song.
I ne'er with wits or witlings pass'd my days,
To spread about the itch of verse and praise;
Nor like a puppy, daggled through the town,
To fetch and carry sing-song up and down;
Nor at rehearsals sweat, and mouth'd, and cried,
With handkerchief and orange at my side;
But sick of fops, and poetry, and prate,
To Bufo left the whole Castalian state.
78
Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.
His library (where busts of poets dead
And a true Pindar stood without a head,)
Receiv'd of wits an undistinguish'd race,
Who first his judgment ask'd, and then a place:
Much they extoll'd his pictures, much his seat,
And flatter'd ev'ry day, and some days eat:
Till grown more frugal in his riper days,
He paid some bards with port, and some with praise,
To some a dry rehearsal was assign'd,
And others (harder still) he paid in kind.
Dryden alone (what wonder?) came not nigh,
Dryden alone escap'd this judging eye:
But still the great have kindness in reserve,
He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.
May some choice patron bless each grey goose quill!
May ev'ry Bavius have his Bufo still!
So, when a statesman wants a day's defence,
Or envy holds a whole week's war with sense,
Or simple pride for flatt'ry makes demands,
May dunce by dunce be whistled off my hands!
Blest be the great! for those they take away,
And those they left me- for they left me Gay;
Left me to see neglected genius bloom,
Neglected die! and tell it on his tomb;
Of all thy blameless life the sole return
My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn!
Oh let me live my own! and die so too!
('To live and die is all I have to do:')
Maintain a poet's dignity and ease,
And see what friends, and read what books I please.
Above a patron, though I condescend
Sometimes to call a minister my friend:
I was not born for courts or great affairs;
I pay my debts, believe, and say my pray'rs;
Can sleep without a poem in my head,
79
Nor know, if Dennis be alive or dead.
Why am I ask'd what next shall see the light?
Heav'ns! was I born for nothing but to write?
Has life no joys for me? or (to be grave)
Have I no friend to serve, no soul to save?
'I found him close with Swift'- 'Indeed? no doubt',
(Cries prating Balbus) 'something will come out'.
'Tis all in vain, deny it as I will.
'No, such a genius never can lie still,'
And then for mine obligingly mistakes
The first lampoon Sir Will. or Bubo makes.
Poor guiltless I! and can I choose but smile,
When ev'ry coxcomb knows me by my style?
Curs'd be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft-ey'd virgin steal a tear!
But he, who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out:
That fop, whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent, wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend;
Who tells what'er you think, whate'er you say,
And, if he lie not, must at least betray:
Who to the Dean, and silver bell can swear,
And sees at Cannons what was never there;
Who reads, but with a lust to misapply,
Make satire a lampoon, and fiction, lie.
A lash like mine no honest man shall dread,
But all such babbling blockheads in his stead.
Let Sporus tremble- 'What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? '
80
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings,
This painted child of dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose buzz the witty and the fair annoys,
Yet wit ne'er tastes, and beauty ne'r enjoys,
So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid impotence he speaks,
And, as the prompter breathes, the puppet squeaks;
Or at the ear of Eve, familiar toad,
Half froth, half venom, spits himself abroad,
In puns, or politics, or tales, or lies,
Or spite, or smut, or rhymes, or blasphemies.
His wit all see-saw, between that and this,
Now high, now low, now Master up, now Miss,
And he himself one vile antithesis.
Amphibious thing! that acting either part,
The trifling head, or the corrupted heart,
Fop at the toilet, flatt'rer at the board,
Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord.
Eve's tempter thus the rabbins have express'd,
A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust.
Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool,
Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool,
Not proud, nor servile, be one poet's praise,
That, if he pleas'd, he pleas'd by manly ways;
That flatt'ry, even to kings, he held a shame,
And thought a lie in verse or prose the same:
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stoop'd to truth, and moraliz'd his song:
That not for fame, but virtue's better end,
He stood the furious foe, the timid friend,
The damning critic, half-approving wit,
The coxcomb hit, or fearing to be hit;
Laugh'd at the loss of friends he never had,
The dull, the proud, the wicked, and the mad;
The distant threats of vengeance on his head,
The blow unfelt, the tear he never shed;
81
The tale reviv'd, the lie so oft o'erthrown;
Th' imputed trash, and dulness not his own;
The morals blacken'd when the writings 'scape;
The libell'd person, and the pictur'd shape;
Abuse, on all he lov'd, or lov'd him, spread,
A friend in exile, or a father, dead;
The whisper, that to greatness still too near,
Perhaps, yet vibrates on his sovereign's ear:Welcome for thee, fair Virtue! all the past:
For thee, fair Virtue! welcome ev'n the last!
'But why insult the poor? affront the great? '
A knave's a knave, to me, in ev'ry state:
Alike my scorn, if he succeed or fail,
Sporus at court, or Japhet in a jail,
A hireling scribbler, or a hireling peer,
Knight of the post corrupt, or of the shire;
If on a pillory, or near a throne,
He gain his prince's ear, or lose his own.
Yet soft by nature, more a dupe than wit,
Sappho can tell you how this man was bit:
This dreaded sat'rist Dennis will confess
Foe to his pride, but friend to his distress:
So humble, he has knock'd at Tibbald's door,
Has drunk with Cibber, nay, has rhym'd for Moore.
Full ten years slander'd, did he once reply?
Three thousand suns went down on Welsted's lie.
To please a mistress one aspers'd his life;
He lash'd him not, but let her be his wife.
Let Budgell charge low Grub Street on his quill,
And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his will;
Let the two Curlls of town and court, abuse
His father, mother, body, soul, and muse.
Yet why? that father held it for a rule,
It was a sin to call our neighbour fool:
That harmless mother thought no wife a whore,Hear this! and spare his family, James Moore!
Unspotted names! and memorable long,
If there be force in virtue, or in song.
Of gentle blood (part shed in honour's cause,
82
While yet in Britain honour had applause)
Each parent sprung- 'What fortune, pray? '- Their own,
And better got, than Bestia's from the throne.
Born to no pride, inheriting no strife,
Nor marrying discord in a noble wife,
Stranger to civil and religious rage,
The good man walk'd innoxious through his age.
No courts he saw, no suits would ever try,
Nor dar'd an oath, nor hazarded a lie:
Un-learn'd, he knew no schoolman's subtle art,
No language, but the language of the heart.
By nature honest, by experience wise,
Healthy by temp'rance and by exercise;
His life, though long, to sickness past unknown;
His death was instant, and without a groan.
O grant me, thus to live, and thus to die!
Who sprung from kings shall know less joy than I.
O friend! may each domestic bliss be thine!
Be no unpleasing melancholy mine:
Me, let the tender office long engage
To rock the cradle of reposing age,
With lenient arts extend a mother's breath,
Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death,
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep a while one parent from the sky!
On cares like these if length of days attend,
May Heav'n, to bless those days, preserve my friend,
Preserve him social, cheerful, and serene,
And just as rich as when he serv'd a queen.
Whether that blessing be denied or giv'n,
Thus far was right, the rest belongs to Heav'n.
~ Alexander Pope,
611:Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
All flowers in field or forest which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
Swinging their censers in the element,
With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,
And in succession due, did Continent,
Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear
The form & character of mortal mould
Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear
Their portion of the toil which he of old
Took as his own & then imposed on them;
But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
Of a green Apennine: before me fled
The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep
Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head
When a strange trance over my fancy grew
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
Was so transparent that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,
Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
Under the self same bough, & heard as there
The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.
And then a Vision on my brain was rolled.

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
This was the tenour of my waking dream.
Methought I sate beside a public way
Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream
Of people there was hurrying to & fro
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
He made one of the multitude, yet so
Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
One of the million leaves of summer's bier.
Old age & youth, manhood & infancy,
Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
Some flying from the thing they feared & some
Seeking the object of another's fear,
And others as with steps towards the tomb
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
And others mournfully within the gloom
Of their own shadow walked, and called it death
  And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.
But more with motions which each other crost
Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw
Or birds within the noonday ether lost,
Upon that path where flowers never grew;
And weary with vain toil & faint for thirst
Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew
Out of their mossy cells forever burst
Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
Of grassy paths, & wood lawns interspersed
With overarching elms & caverns cold,
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
Pursued their serious folly as of old.
And as I gazed methought that in the way
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
When the South wind shakes the extinguished day.
And a cold glare, intenser than the noon
But icy cold, obscured with [[blank]] light
The Sun as he the stars. Like the young moon
When on the sunlit limits of the night
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air
And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might
Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear
The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form
Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair,
So came a chariot on the silent storm
Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
So sate within as one whom years deform
Beneath a dusky hood & double cape
Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,
And o'er what seemed the head, a cloud like crape,
Was bent a dun & faint etherial gloom
Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam
A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream
The music of their ever moving wings.
All the four faces of that charioteer
Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings
Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere
Of all that is, has been, or will be done.
So ill was the car guided, but it past
With solemn speed majestically on . . .
The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,
Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
The million with fierce song and maniac dance
Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
As when to greet some conqueror's advance
Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
From senatehouse & prison & theatre
When Freedom left those who upon the free
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the true similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
The chariot rolled a captive multitude
Was driven; althose who had grown old in power
Or misery,all who have their age subdued,
By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk survived both fruit & flower;
All those whose fame or infamy must grow
Till the great winter lay the form & name
Of their own earth with them forever low,
All but the sacred few who could not tame
Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon
As they had touched the world with living flame
Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
Of those who put aside the diadem
Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one
Were there;for they of Athens & Jerusalem
Were neither mid the mighty captives seen
Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them
Or fled before . . Now swift, fierce & obscene
The wild dance maddens in the van, & those
Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,
Outspeed the chariot & without repose
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
To savage music. Wilder as it grows,
They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,
Convulsed & on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure
Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
Throw back their heads & loose their streaming hair,
And in their dance round her who dims the Sun
Maidens & youths fling their wild arms in air
As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now
Bending within each other's atmosphere
Kindle invisibly; and as they glow
Like moths by light attracted & repelled,
Oft to new bright destruction come & go.
Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
And die in rain,the fiery band which held
Their natures, snaps . . . ere the shock cease to tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless, nor is the desolation single,
Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath
Past over them; nor other trace I find
But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath
Is spent upon the desert shore.Behind,
Old men, and women foully disarrayed
Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,
Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed,
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
Farther behind & deeper in the shade.
But not the less with impotence of will
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them & round each other, and fulfill
Their work and to the dust whence they arose
Sink & corruption veils them as they lie
And frost in these performs what fire in those.
Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
Half to myself I said, "And what is this?
Whose shape is that within the car? & why"-
I would have added"is all here amiss?"
But a voice answered . . "Life" . . . I turned & knew
(O Heaven have mercy on such wretchedness!)
That what I thought was an old root which grew
To strange distortion out of the hill side
Was indeed one of that deluded crew,
And that the grass which methought hung so wide
And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
And that the holes it vainly sought to hide
Were or had been eyes."lf thou canst forbear
To join the dance, which I had well forborne,"
Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,
"I will now tell that which to this deep scorn
Led me & my companions, and relate
The progress of the pageant since the morn;
"If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate,
Follow it even to the night, but I
Am weary" . . . Then like one who with the weight
Of his own words is staggered, wearily
He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,
"First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory
"I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died,
And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
Earth had with purer nutriment supplied
"Corruption would not now thus much inherit
Of what was once Rousseaunor this disguise
Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.
"If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
A thousand beacons from the spark I bore."
"And who are those chained to the car?" "The Wise,
"The great, the unforgotten: they who wore
Mitres & helms & crowns, or wreathes of light,
Signs of thought's empire over thought; their lore
"Taught them not thisto know themselves; their might
Could not repress the mutiny within,
And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night
"Caught them ere evening." "Who is he with chin
Upon his breast and hands crost on his chain?"
"The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win
"The world, and lost all it did contain
Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; & more
Of fame & peace than Virtue's self can gain
"Without the opportunity which bore
Him on its eagle's pinion to the peak
From which a thousand climbers have before
"Fall'n as Napoleon fell."I felt my cheek
Alter to see the great form pass away
Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak
That every pigmy kicked it as it lay
And much I grieved to think how power & will
In opposition rule our mortal day
And why God made irreconcilable
Good & the means of good; and for despair
I half disdained mine eye's desire to fill
With the spent vision of the times that were
And scarce have ceased to be . . . "Dost thou behold,"
Said then my guide, "those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
"Frederic, & Kant, Catherine, & Leopold,
Chained hoary anarch, demagogue & sage
Whose name the fresh world thinks already old
"For in the battle Life & they did wage
She remained conquerorI was overcome
By my own heart alone, which neither age
"Nor tears nor infamy nor now the tomb
Could temper to its object.""Let them pass"
I cried"the world & its mysterious doom
"Is not so much more glorious than it was
That I desire to worship those who drew
New figures on its false & fragile glass
"As the old faded.""Figures ever new
Rise on the bubble, paint them how you may;
We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
"Our shadows on it as it past away.
But mark, how chained to the triumphal chair
The mighty phantoms of an elder day
"All that is mortal of great Plato there
Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not;
That star that ruled his doom was far too fair
"And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain
Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not
"And near [[blank]] walk the [[blank]] twain,
The tutor & his pupil, whom Dominion
Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.
"The world was darkened beneath either pinion
Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
Fame singled as her thunderbearing minion;
"The other long outlived both woes & wars,
Throned in new thoughts of men, and still had kept
The jealous keys of truth's eternal doors
"If Bacon's spirit [[blank]] had not leapt
Like lightning out of darkness; he compelled
The Proteus shape of Nature's as it slept
"To wake & to unbar the caves that held
The treasure of the secrets of its reign
See the great bards of old who inly quelled
"The passions which they sung, as by their strain
May well be known: their living melody
Tempers its own contagion to the vein
"Of those who are infected with itI
Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
"And so my words were seeds of misery
Even as the deeds of others.""Not as theirs,"
I saidhe pointed to a company
In which I recognized amid the heirs
Of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine,
The Anarchs old whose force & murderous snares
Had founded many a sceptre bearing line
And spread the plague of blood & gold abroad,
And Gregory & John and men divine
Who rose like shadows between Man & god
Till that eclipse, still hanging under Heaven,
Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode
For the true Sun it quenched."Their power was given
But to destroy," replied the leader"I
Am one of those who have created, even
"If it be but a world of agony."
"Whence camest thou & whither goest thou?
How did thy course begin," I said, "& why?
"Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
Of people, & my heart of one sad thought.
Speak.""Whence I came, partly I seem to know,
"And how & by what paths I have been brought
To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;
Why this should be my mind can compass not;
"Whither the conqueror hurries me still less.
But follow thou, & from spectator turn
Actor or victim in this wretchedness,
"And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
From thee.Now listen . . . In the April prime
When all the forest tops began to burn
"With kindling green, touched by the azure clime
Of the young year, I found myself asleep
Under a mountain which from unknown time
"Had yawned into a cavern high & deep,
And from it came a gentle rivulet
Whose water like clear air in its calm sweep
"Bent the soft grass & kept for ever wet
The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
With sound which all who hear must needs forget
"All pleasure & all pain, all hate & love,
Which they had known before that hour of rest:
A sleeping mother then would dream not of
"The only child who died upon her breast
At eventide, a king would mourn no more
The crown of which his brow was dispossest
"When the sun lingered o'er the Ocean floor
To gild his rival's new prosperity.
Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
"Ills, which if ills, can find no cure from thee,
The thought of which no other sleep will quell
Nor other music blot from memory
"So sweet & deep is the oblivious spell.
Whether my life had been before that sleep
The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell
"Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,
I know not. I arose & for a space
The scene of woods & waters seemed to keep,
"Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
Of light diviner than the common Sun
Sheds on the common Earth, but all the place
"Was filled with many sounds woven into one
Oblivious melody, confusing sense
Amid the gliding waves & shadows dun;
"And as I looked the bright omnipresence
Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
And the Sun's image radiantly intense
"Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze
With winding paths of emerald firethere stood
"Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
Of his own glory, on the vibrating
Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
"A shape all light, which with one hand did fling
Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn
Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing
"A silver music on the mossy lawn,
And still before her on the dusky grass
Iris her many coloured scarf had drawn.
"In her right hand she bore a crystal glass
Mantling with bright Nepenthe;the fierce splendour
Fell from her as she moved under the mass
"Of the deep cavern, & with palms so tender
Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,
Glided along the river, and did bend her
"Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
That whispered with delight to be their pillow.
"As one enamoured is upborne in dream
O'er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist
To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
"Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist
The dancing foam, partly to glide along
The airs that roughened the moist amethyst,
"Or the slant morning beams that fell among
The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
And her feet ever to the ceaseless song
"Of leaves & winds & waves & birds & bees
And falling drops moved in a measure new
Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze
"Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,
Moves up the east, where eagle never flew.
"And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot
The thoughts of him who gazed on them, & soon
"All that was seemed as if it had been not,
As if the gazer's mind was strewn beneath
Her feet like embers, & she, thought by thought,
"Trampled its fires into the dust of death,
As Day upon the threshold of the east
Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath
"Of darkness reillumines even the least
Of heaven's living eyeslike day she came,
Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
"To move, as one between desire and shame
Suspended, I said'If, as it doth seem,
Thou comest from the realm without a name,
" 'Into this valley of perpetual dream,
Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why
Pass not away upon the passing stream.'
" 'Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply,
And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand
Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,
"I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
And suddenly my brain became as sand
"Where the first wave had more than half erased
The track of deer on desert Labrador,
Whilst the fierce wolf from which they fled amazed
"Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore
Until the second burstsso on my sight
Burst a new Vision never seen before.
"And the fair shape waned in the coming light
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
"Of sunrise ere it strike the mountain tops
And as the presence of that fairest planet
Although unseen is felt by one who hopes
"That his day's path may end as he began it
In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
"Or the soft note in which his dear lament
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
That turned his weary slumber to content.
"So knew I in that light's severe excess
The presence of that shape which on the stream
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
"More dimly than a day appearing dream,
The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep
A light from Heaven whose half extinguished beam
"Through the sick day in which we wake to weep
Glimmers, forever sought, forever lost.
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
"Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;
But the new Vision, and its cold bright car,
With savage music, stunning music, crost
"The forest, and as if from some dread war
Triumphantly returning, the loud million
Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.
"A moving arch of victory the vermilion
And green & azure plumes of Iris had
Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
"And underneath aetherial glory clad
The wilderness, and far before her flew
The tempest of the splendour which forbade
Shadow to fall from leaf or stone;the crew
Seemed in that light like atomies that dance
Within a sunbeam.Some upon the new
"Embroidery of flowers that did enhance
The grassy vesture of the desart, played,
Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance;
"Others stood gazing till within the shade
Of the great mountain its light left them dim.
Others outspeeded it, and others made
"Circles around it like the clouds that swim
Round the high moon in a bright sea of air,
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
"The chariot & the captives fettered there,
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
Fell into the same track at last & were
"Borne onward.I among the multitude
Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long,
Me not the shadow nor the solitude,
"Me not the falling stream's Lethean song,
Me, not the phantom of that early form
Which moved upon its motion,but among
"The thickest billows of the living storm
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.
"Before the chariot had begun to climb
The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
"Of him whom from the lowest depths of Hell
Through every Paradise & through all glory
Love led serene, & who returned to tell
"In words of hate & awe the wondrous story
How all things are transfigured, except Love;
For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary
"The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
The sphere whose light is melody to lovers-
A wonder worthy of his rhymethe grove
"Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
The earth was grey with phantoms, & the air
Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
"A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
Of the tropic sun, bring ere evening
Strange night upon some Indian isle,thus were
"Phantoms diffused around, & some did fling
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing
"Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;
"And others sate chattering like restless apes
On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
"Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played
Within the crown which girt with empire
"A baby's or an idiot's brow, & made
Their nests in it; the old anatomies
Sate hatching their bare brood under the shade
"Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
To reassume the delegated power
Arrayed in which these worms did monarchize
"Who make this earth their charnel.Others more
Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist
Of common men, and round their heads did soar,
"Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,
"And others like discoloured flakes of snow
On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
"Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
In drops of sorrow.I became aware
"Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
The track in which we moved; after brief space
From every form the beauty slowly waned,
"From every firmest limb & fairest face
The strength & freshness fell like dust, & left
The action & the shape without the grace
"Of life; the marble brow of youth was cleft
With care, and in the eyes where once hope shone
Desire like a lioness bereft
"Of its last cub, glared ere it died; each one
Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
"In Autumn evening from a popular tree
Each, like himself & like each other were,
At first, but soon distorted, seemed to be
"Obscure clouds moulded by the casual air;
And of this stuff the car's creative ray
Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there
"As the sun shapes the cloudsthus, on the way
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
And form of all, and long before the day
"Was old, the joy which waked like Heaven's glance
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died,
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance
"And fell, as I have fallen by the way side,
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past
And least of strength & beauty did abide."
"Then, what is Life?" I said . . . the cripple cast
His eye upon the car which now had rolled
Onward, as if that look must be the last,
And answered. "Happy those for whom the fold
Of
Composed at Lerici on the Gulf of Spezzia in the spring and early summer of 1822 -- the poem on which Shelley was engaged at the time of his death. Published by Mrs. Shelley in the Posthumous Poems of 1824, from a MS. (now in the Bodleian library), whose corrections, omitted words, passages of unrevised improvisation, difficult hand, and long inaccessibility have so far prevented much certainty in the establishment of a text.

Form: terza rima.

The reference to Dante's Divine Comedy in lines 471-76 and to Petrarch's Triumphs in the title (both of which, like The Triumph of Life, are written in terza
rima stanzas) suggests two probable models for the poem.

132-34.
Mary Shelley's text seems impossible, but no textual authority has been
adduced for amending it. Misreading or miswriting of some kind must be
responsible for that apparently parallel, but conflicting, pair, "were there" and
"were neither." W. M. Rossetti makes some sense out of the passage by amending
"or" in 132 to "for" and "were there" in 134 to "whether", and by placing a
semi-colon at the end of 131.

134.
Of Athens or Jerusalem. Commentators assume that the renouncing figures
of which Shelley is thinking are Socrates in Athens and Jesus in Jerusalem. But
the corruption of the text here makes any interpretation doubtful.

190.
Grim Feature: a reminiscence of Paradise Lost, X, 279, where it
represents Death and carries the Latin meaning of "factura" or "creature."

204.
Rousseau. Compare Byron's portrait of Rousseau in Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage, III, lxxvii-lxxxii.

236.
Frederick and Paul, Catherine and Leopold: Frederick the Great of Prussia,
Czar Paul and Catherine the Great of Russia, and Leopold II of the Holy Roman
Empire.

254.
Plato. In the lines which follow, Shelley refers to the legend that Plato in
his old age fell in love with a boy, whose name, Aster, is Greek for a star as
well as for a particular (and short-lived) flower.

261.
The tutor and his pupil: Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

283-84.
The heirs of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine. Julius Caesar's
crime was to undermine the Roman republic and prepare the way for the
Roman emperors ("anarch chiefs" in 286), a procession of which up to
Constantine Shelley now observes.

288.
Gregory and John. "Gregory the Great is appropriate, as the true founder
of the independent political power of the papacy. Which of many Johns is
involved, there is no way of telling" (H. Bloom).

414.
Lucifer: the Morning Star.

421-22.
The soft note in which his dear lament the Brescian shepherd breathes.
"The favourite song, 'Stanco di pascolar le peccorelle, [being weary of pasturing
the little sheep], is a Brescian national air" (Mrs. Shelley's note).

439.
Iris: classical goddess of the rainbow.

472.
Him: Dante in The Divine Comedy.

544.
Here the MS. breaks off.


~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Triumph Of Life
,
612:The Botanic Garden( Part Iii)
The Economy Of Vegetation
Canto III
AGAIN the GODDESS speaks!-glad Echo swells
The tuneful tones along her shadowy dells,
Her wrinkling founts with soft vibration shakes,
Curls her deep wells, and rimples all her lakes,
Thrills each wide stream, Britannia's isle that laves,
Her headlong cataracts, and circumfluent waves.
-Thick as the dews, which deck the morning flowers,
Or rain-drops twinkling in the sun-bright showers,
Fair Nymphs, emerging in pellucid bands,
Rise, as she turns, and whiten all the lands.
I. 'YOUR buoyant troops on dimpling ocean tread,
Wafting the moist air from his oozy bed,
AQUATIC NYMPHS!-YOU lead with viewless march
The winged vapours up the aerial arch,
On each broad cloud a thousand sails expand,
And steer the shadowy treasure o'er the land,
Through vernal skies the gathering drops diffuse,
Plunge in soft rains, or sink in silver dews.YOUR lucid bands condense with fingers chill
The blue mist hovering round the gelid hill;
In clay-form'd beds the trickling streams collect,
Strain through white sands, through pebbly veins direct;
Or point in rifted rocks their dubious way,
And in each bubbling fountain rise to day.
'NYMPHS! YOU then guide, attendant from their source,
The associate rills along their sinuous course;
Float in bright squadrons by the willowy brink,
Or circling slow in limpid eddies sink;
Call from her crystal cave the Naiad-Nymph,
Who hides her fine form in the passing lymph,
And, as below she braids her hyaline hair,
111
Eyes her soft smiles reflected in the air;
Or sport in groups with River-Boys, that lave
Their silken limbs amid the dashing wave;
Pluck the pale primrose bending from its edge,
Or tittering dance amid the whispering sedge.'Onward YOU pass, the pine-capt hills divide,
Or feed the golden harvests on their side;
The wide-ribb'd arch with hurrying torrents fill,
Shove the slow barge, or whirl the foaming mill.
OR lead with beckoning hand the sparkling train
Of refluent water to its parent main,
And pleased revisit in their sea-moss vales
Blue Nereid-forms array'd in shining scales,
Shapes, whose broad oar the torpid wave impels,
And Tritons bellowing through their twisted shells.
'So from the heart the sanguine stream distils,
O'er Beauty's radiant shrine in vermil rills,
Feeds each fine nerve, each slender hair pervades,
The skins bright snow with living purple shades,
Each dimpling cheek with warmer blushes dyes,
Laughs on the lips, and lightens in the eyes.
-Erewhile absorb'd, the vagrant globules swim
From each fair feature, and proportion'd limb,
Join'd in one trunk with deeper tint return
To the warm concave of the vital urn.
II. 1.'AQUATIC MAIDS! YOU sway the mighty realms
Of scale and shell, which Ocean overwhelms;
As Night's pale Queen her rising orb reveals,
And climbs the zenith with refulgent wheels,
Car'd on the foam your glimmering legion rides,
Your little tridents heave the dashing tides,
Urge on the sounding shores their crystal course,
Restrain their fury, or direct their force.
2.'NYMPHS! YOU adorn, in glossy volumes roll'd,
The gaudy conch with azure, green, and gold.
You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail,
Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail;
112
Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend
The anchor'd Pinna, and his Cancer-friend;
With worm-like beard his toothless lips array,
And teach the unwieldy Sturgeon to betray.Ambush'd in weeds, or sepulcher'd in sands,
In dread repose He waits the scaly bands,
Waves in red spires the living lures, and draws
The unwary plunderers to his circling jaws,
Eyes with grim joy the twinkling shoals beset,
And clasps the quick inextricable net.
You chase the warrior Shark, and cumberous Whale,
And guard the Mermaid in her briny vale;
Feed the live petals of her insect-flowers,
Her shell-wrack gardens, and her sea-fan bowers;
With ores and gems adorn her coral cell,
And drop a pearl in every gaping shell.
3. 'YOUR myriad trains o'er stagnant ocean's tow,
Harness'd with gossamer, the loitering prow;
Or with fine films, suspended o'er the deep,
Of oil effusive lull the waves to sleep.
You stay the flying bark, conceal'd beneath,
Where living rocks of worm-built coral breathe;
Meet fell TEREDO, as he mines the keel
With beaked head, and break his lips of steel;
Turn the broad helm, the fluttering canvas urge
From MAELSTROME'S fierce innavigable surge.
-'Mid the lorn isles of Norway's stormy main,
As sweeps o'er many a league his eddying train,
Vast watery walls in rapid circles spin,
And deep-ingulph'd the Demon dwells within;
Springs o'er the fear-froze crew with Harpy-claws,
Down his deep den the whirling vessel draws;
Churns with his bloody mouth the dread repast,
The booming waters murmuring o'er the mast.
III. 'Where with chill frown enormous ALPS alarms
A thousand realms, horizon'd in his arms;
While cloudless suns meridian glories shed
From skies of silver round his hoary head,
Tall rocks of ice refract the coloured rays,
113
And Frost sits throned amid the lambent blaze;
NYMPHS! YOUR thin forms pervade his glittering piles,
His roofs of chrystal, and his glasy ailes;
Where in cold caves imprisoned Naiads sleep,
Or chain'd on mossy couches wake and weep;
Where round dark crags indignant waters bend
Through rifted ice, in ivory veins descend,
Seek through unfathom'd snows their devious track,
Heave the vast spars, the ribbed granites crack,
Rush into day, in foamy torrents shine,
And swell the imperial Danube or the Rhine.Or feed the murmuring TIBER, as he laves
His realms inglorious with diminish'd waves,
Hears his lorn Forum sound with Eunuch-strains,
Sees dancing slaves insult his martial plains;
Parts with chill stream the dim religious bower,
Time-mouldered bastion, and dismantled tower;
By alter'd fanes and nameless villas glides,
And classic domes, that tremble on his sides;
Sighs o'er each broken urn, and yawning tomb,
And mourns the fall of LIBERTY and ROME.
IV. 'Sailing in air, when dark MONSOON inshrouds
His tropic mountains in a night of clouds;
Or drawn by whirlwinds from the Line returns,
And showers o'er Afric all his thousand urns;
High o'er his head the beams of SIRIUS glow,
And, Dog of Nile, ANUBIS barks below.
NYMPHS! YOU from cliff to cliff attendant guide
In headlong cataracts the impetuous tide;
Or lead o'er wastes of Abyssinian sands
The bright expanse to EGYPT'S shower-less lands.
-Her long canals the sacred waters fill,
And edge with silver every peopled hill;
Gigantic SPHINX in circling waves admire;
And MEMNON bending o'er his broken lyre;
O'er furrow'd glebes and green savannas sweep,
And towns and temples laugh amid the deep.
V. 1. 'High in the frozen North where HECCLA glows,
114
And melts in torrents his coeval snows;
O'er isles and oceans sheds a sanguine light,
Or shoots red stars amid the ebon night;
When, at his base intomb'd, with bellowing sound
Fell GIESAR roar'd, and struggling shook the ground;
Pour'd from red nostrils, with her scalding breath,
A boiling deluge o'er the blasted heath;
And, wide in air, in misty volumes hurl'd
Contagious atoms o'er the alarmed world;
NYMPHS! YOUR bold myriads broke the infernal spell,
And crush'd the Sorceress in her flinty cell.
2. 'Where with soft fires in unextinguish'd urns,
Cauldron'd in rock, innocuous Lava burns;
On the bright lake YOUR gelid hands distil
In pearly mowers the parsimonious rill;
And, as aloft the curling vapours rise
Through the cleft roof, ambitious for the skies,
In vaulted hills condense the tepid steams,
And pour to HEALTH the medicated streams.
-So in green vales amid her mountains bleak
BUXTONIA smiles, the Goddess-Nymyh of Peak;
Deep in warm waves, and pebbly baths she dwells,
And calls HYGEIA to her sainted wells.
'Hither in sportive bands bright DEVON leads
Graces and Loves from Chatsworth's flowery meads.Charm'd round the NYMPH, they climb the rifted rocks;
And steep in mountain-mist their golden locks;
On venturous step her sparry caves explore,
And light with radiant eyes her realms of ore;
-Oft by her bubbling founts, and shadowy domes,
In gay undress the fairy legion roams,
Their dripping palms in playful malice fill,
Or taste with ruby lip the sparkling rill;
Croud round her baths, and, bending o'er the side,
Unclasp'd their sandals, and their zones untied,
Dip with gay fear the shuddering foot undress'd,
And quick retract it to the fringed vest;
Or cleave with brandish'd arms the lucid stream,
And sob, their blue eyes twinkling in the steam.
-High o'er the chequer'd vault with transient glow
115
Bright lustres dart, as dash the waves below;
And Echo's sweet responsive voice prolongs
The dulcet tumult of their silver tongues.O'er their flush'd cheeks uncurling tresses flow,
And dew-drops glitter on their necks of snow;
Round each fair Nymph her dropping mantle clings,
And Loves emerging shake their showery wings.
'Here oft her LORD surveys the rude domain,
Fair arts of Greece triumphant in his train;
LO! as he steps, the column'd pile ascends,
The blue roof closes, or the crescent bends;
New woods aspiring clothe their hills with green,
Smooth slope the lawns, the grey rock peeps between;
Relenting Nature gives her hand to Taste,
And Health and Beauty crown the laughing waste.
VI. 'NYMPHS! YOUR bright squadrons watch with chemic eyes
The cold-elastic vapours, as they rise;
With playful force arrest them as they pass,
And to
pure
AIR betroth the
flaming
GAS.
Round their translucent forms at once they fling
Their rapturous arms, with silver bosoms cling;
In fleecy clouds their fluttering wings extend,
Or from the skies in lucid showers descend;
Whence rills and rivers owe their secret birth,
And Ocean's hundred arms infold the earth.
'So, robed by Beauty's Queen, with softer charms
SATURNIA woo'd the Thunderer to her arms;
O'er her fair limbs a veil of light she spread,
And bound a starry diadem on her head;
Long braids of pearl her golden tresses grac'd,
And the charm'd CESTUS sparkled round her waist.
-Raised o'er the woof, by Beauty's hand inwrought,
Breathes the soft Sigh, and glows the enamour'd Thought;
Vows on light wings succeed, and quiver'd Wiles,
Assuasive Accents, and seductive Smiles.
116
-Slow rolls the Cyprian car in purple pride,
And, steer'd by LOVE, ascends admiring Ide;
Climbs the green slopes, the nodding woods pervades,
Burns round the rocks, or gleams amid the shades.
-Glad ZEPHYR leads the train, and waves above
The barbed darts, and blazing torch of Love;
Reverts his smiling face, and pausing flings
Soft showers of roses from aurelian wings.
Delighted Fawns, in wreathes of flowers array'd,
With tiptoe Wood-Boys beat the chequer'd glade;
Alarmed Naiads, rising into air,
Lift o'er their silver urns their leafy hair;
Each to her oak the bashful Dryads shrink,
And azure eyes are seen through every chink.
-LOVE culls a flaming shaft of broadest wing,
And rests the fork upon the quivering string;
Points his arch eye aloft, with fingers strong
Draws to his curled ear the silken thong;
Loud twangs the steel, the golden arrow flies,
Trails a long line of lustre through the skies;
''Tis done!' he shouts, 'the mighty Monarch feels!'
And with loud laughter shakes the silver wheels;
Bends o'er the car, and whirling, as it moves,
His loosen'd bowstring, drives the rising doves.
-Pierced on his throne the slarting Thunderer turns,
Melts with soft sighs, with kindling rapture burns;
Clasps her fair hand, and eyes in fond amaze
The bright Intruder with enamour'd gaze.
'And leaves my Goddess, like a blooming bride,
'The fanes of Argos for the rocks of Ide?
'Her gorgeous palaces, and amaranth bowers,
'For cliff-top'd mountains, and aerial towers?'
He said; and, leading from her ivory seat
The blushing Beauty to his lone retreat,
Curtain'd with night the couch imperial shrouds,
And rests the crimson cushions upon clouds.Earth feels the grateful influence from above,
Sighs the soft Air, and Ocean murmurs love;
Etherial Warmth expands his brooding wing,
And in still showers descends the genial Spring.
117
VII. 'NYMPHS OF AQUATIC TASTE! whose placid smile
Breathes sweet enchantment o'er BRITANNIA'S isle;
Whose sportive touch in showers resplendent flings
Her lucid cataracts, and her bubbling springs;
Through peopled vales the liquid silver guides,
And swells in bright expanse her freighted tides.
YOU with nice ear, in tiptoe trains, pervade
Dim walks of morn or evening's silent shade;
Join the lone Nightingale, her woods among,
And roll your rills symphonious to her song;
Through fount-full dells, and wave-worn valleys move,
And tune their echoing waterfalls to love;
Or catch, attentive to the distant roar,
The pausing murmurs of the dashing shore;
Or, as aloud she pours her liquid strain,
Pursue the NEREID on the twilight main.
-Her playful Sea-horse woos her soft commands,
Turns his quick ears, his webbed claws expands,
His watery way with waving volutes wins,
Or listening librates on unmoving fins.
The Nymph emerging mounts her scaly seat,
Hangs o'er his glossy sides her silver feet,
With snow-white hands her arching veil detains,
Gives to his slimy lips the slacken'd reins,
Lifts to the star of Eve her eye serene,
And chaunts the birth of Beauty's radiant Queen.O'er her fair brow her pearly comb unfurls
Her beryl locks, and parts the waving curls,
Each tangled braid with glistening teeth unbinds
And with the floating treasure musks the winds.Thrill'd by the dulcet accents, as she sings,
The rippling wave in widening circles rings;
Night's shadowy forms along the margin gleam
With pointed ears, or dance upon the stream;
The Moon transported stays her bright career,
And maddening Stars shoot headlong from the sphere.
VIII. 'NYMPHS! whose fair eyes with vivid lustres glow
For human weal, and melt at human woe;
Late as YOU floated on your silver shells,
Sorrowing and slow by DERWENT'S willowy dells;
Where by tall groves his foamy flood he steers
118
Through ponderous arches o'er impetuous wears,
By DERBY'S shadowy towers reflective sweeps,
And gothic grandeur chills his dusky deeps;
You pearl'd with Pity's drops his velvet sides,
Sigh'd in his gales, and murmur'd in his tides,
Waved o'er his fringed brink a deeper gloom,
And bow'd his alders o'er MILCENA'S tomb.
'Oft with sweet voice She led her infant-train,
Printing with graceful step his spangled plain,
Explored his twinkling swarms, that swim or fly,
And mark'd his florets with botanic eye.'Sweet bud of Spring! how frail thy transient bloom,
'Fine film,' she cried, 'of Nature's fairest loom!
'Soon Beauty fades upon its damask throne!'-Unconscious of the worm, that mined her own!-Pale are those lips, where soft caresses hung,
Wan the warm cheek, and mute the tender tongue,
Cold rests that feeling heart on Derwent's shore,
And those love-lighted eye-balls roll no more!
-HERE her sad Consort, stealing through the gloom
Of
Hangs in mute anguish o'er the scutcheon'd hearse,
Or graves with trembling style the votive verse.
'Sexton! oh, lay beneath this sacred shrine,
When Time's cold hand shall close my aching eyes,
Oh, gently lay this wearied earth of mine,
Where wrap'd in night my loved MILCENA lies.
'So shall with purer joy my spirit move,
When the last trumpet thrills the caves of Death,
Catch the first whispers of my waking love,
And drink with holy kiss her kindling breath.
'The spotless Fair, with blush ethereal warm,
Shall hail with sweeter smile returning day,
Rise from her marble bed a brighter form,
And win on buoyant step her airy way.
'Shall bend approved, where beckoning hosts invite,
119
On clouds of silver her adoring knee,
Approach with Seraphim the throne of light,
-And BEAUTY plead with angel-tongue for Me!'
IX. 'YOUR virgin trains on BRINDLEY'S cradle smiled,
And nursed with fairy-love the unletter'd child,
Spread round his pillow all your secret spells,
Pierced all your springs, and open'd all your wells.As now on grass, with glossy folds reveal'd,
Glides the bright serpent, now in flowers conceal'd;
Far shine the scales, that gild his sinuous back,
And lucid undulations mark his track;
So with strong arm immortal BRINDLEY leads
His long canals, and parts the velvet meads;
Winding in lucid lines, the watery mass
Mines the firm rock, or loads the deep morass,
With rising locks a thousand hills alarms,
Flings o'er a thousand streams its silver arms,
Feeds the long vale, the nodding woodland laves,
And Plenty, Arts, and Commerce freight the waves.
-NYMPHS! who erewhile round BRINDLEY'S early bier
On show-white bosoms shower'd the incessant tear,
Adorn his tomb!-oh, raise the marble bust,
Proclaim his honours, and protect his dust!
With urns inverted, round the sacred shrine
Their ozier wreaths let weeping Naiads twine;
While on the top MECHANIC GENIUS stands,
Counts the fleet waves, and balances the lands.
X. 'NYMPHS! YOU first taught to pierce the secret caves
Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves;
Bade with quick stroke the sliding piston bear
The viewless columns of incumbent air;Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below,
Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow,
Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move,
And rising seek the vacancy above.So when the Mother, bending o'er his charms,
Clasps her fair nurseling in delighted arms;
Throws the thin kerchief from her neck of snow,
And half unveils the pearly orbs below;
With sparkling eye the blameless Plunderer owns
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Her soft embraces, and endearing tones,
Seeks the salubrious fount with opening lips,
Spreads his inquiring hands, and smiles, and sips.
'CONNUBIAL FAIR! whom no fond transport warms
To lull your infant in maternal arms;
Who, bless'd in vain with tumid bosoms, hear
His tender wailings with unfeeling ear;
The soothing kiss and milky rill deny
To the sweet pouting lip, and glistening eye!Ah! what avails the cradle's damask roof,
The eider bolster, and embroider'd woof!Oft hears the gilded couch unpity'd plains,
And many a tear the tassel'd cushion stains!
No voice so sweet attunes his cares to rest,
So soft no pillow, as his Mother's breast!-Thus charm'd to sweet repose, when twilight hours
Shed their soft influence on celestial bowers,
The Cherub, Innocence, with smile divine
Shuts his white wings, and sleeps on Beauty's shrine.
XI. 'From dome to dome when flames infuriate climb,
Sweep the long street, invest the tower sublime;
Gild the tall vanes amid the astonish'd night,
And reddening heaven returns the sanguine light;
While with vast strides and bristling hair aloof
Pale Danger glides along the falling roof;
And Giant Terror howling in amaze
Moves his dark limbs across the lurid blaze.
NYMPHS! you first taught the gelid wave to rise
Hurl'd in resplendent arches to the skies;
In iron cells condensed the airy spring,
And imp'd the torrent with unfailing wing;
-On the fierce flames the shower impetuous falls,
And sudden darkness shrouds the shatter'd walls;
Steam, smoak, and dust in blended volumes roll,
And Night and Silence repossess the Pole.'Where were ye, NYMPHS! in those disasterous hours,
Which wrap'd in flames AUGUSTA'S sinking towers?
Why did ye linger in your wells and groves,
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When sad WOODMASON mourn'd her infant loves?
When thy fair Daughters with unheeded screams,
Ill-fated MOLESWORTH! call'd the loitering streams?The trembling Nymph on bloodless fingers hung
Eyes from the tottering wall the distant throng,
With ceaseless shrieks her sleeping friends alarms,
Drops with singed hair into her lover's arms.The illumin'd Mother seeks with footsteps fleet,
Where hangs the safe balcony o'er the street,
Wrap'd in her sheet her youngest hope suspends,
And panting lowers it to her tiptoe friends;
Again she hurries on affection's wings,
And now a third, and now a fourth, she brings;
Safe all her babes, she smooths her horrent brow,
And bursts through bickering flames, unscorch'd, below.
So, by her Son arraign'd, with feet unshod
O'er burning bars indignant Emma trod.
'E'en on the day when Youth with Beauty wed,
The flames surprized them in their nuptial bed;Seen at the opening sash with bosom bare,
With wringing hands, and dark dishevel'd hair,
The blushing Beauty with disorder'd charms
Round her fond lover winds her ivory arms;
Beat, as they clasp, their throbbing hearts with fear,
And many a kiss is mix'd with many a tear;Ah me! in vain the labouring engines pour
Round their pale limbs the ineffectual shower!-Then crash'd the floor, while shrinking crouds retire,
And Love and Virtue sunk amid the fire!With piercing screams afflicted strangers mourn,
And their white ashes mingle in their urn.
XII. 'PELLUCID FORMS! whose crystal bosoms show
The shine of welfare, or the shade of woe;
Who with soft lips salute returning Spring,
And hail the Zephyr quivering on his wing;
Or watch, untired, the wintery clouds, and share
With streaming eyes my vegetable care;
Go, shove the dim mist from the mountain's brow,
Chase the white fog, which floods the vale below;
Melt the thick snows, that linger on the lands,
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And catch the hailstones in your little hands;
Guard the coy blossom from the pelting shower,
And dash the rimy spangles from the bower;
From each chill leaf the silvery drops repel,
And close the timorous floret's golden bell.
'So should young SYMPATHY, in female form,
Climb the tall rock, spectatress of the storm;
Life's sinking wrecks with secret sighs deplore,
And bleed for others' woes, Herself on shore;
To friendless Virtue, gasping on the strand,
Bare her warm heart, her virgin arms expand,
Charm with kind looks, with tender accents cheer,
And pour the sweet consolatory tear;
Grief's cureless wounds with lenient balms asswage,
Or prop with firmer staff the steps of Age;
The lifted arm of mute Despair arrest,
And snatch the dagger pointed to his breast;
Or lull to slumber Envy's haggard mien,
And rob her quiver'd shafts with hand unseen.
-Sound, NYMPHS OF HELICON! the trump of Fame,
And teach Hibernian echoes JONES'S name;
Bind round her polish'd brow the civic bay,
And drag the fair Philanthropist to day.So from secluded springs, and secret caves,
Her Liffy pours his bright meandering waves,
Cools the parch'd vale, the sultry mead divides,
And towns and temples star his shadowy sides.
XIII. 'CALL YOUR light legions, tread the swampy heath,
Pierce with sharp spades the tremulous peat beneath;
With colters bright the rushy sward bisect,
And in new veins the gushing rills direct;So flowers shall rise in purple light array'd,
And blossom'd orchards stretch their silver shade;
Admiring glebes their amber ears unfold,
And Labour sleep amid the waving gold.
'Thus when young HERCULES with firm disdain
Braved the soft smiles of Pleasure's harlot train;
To valiant toils his forceful limbs assign'd,
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And gave to Virtue all his mighty mind,
Fierce ACHELOUS rush'd from mountain-caves,
O'er sad Etolia pour'd his wasteful waves,
O'er lowing vales and bleating pastures roll'd,
Swept her red vineyards, and her glebes of gold,
Mined all her towns, uptore her rooted woods,
And Famine danced upon the shining floods.
The youthful Hero seized his curled crest,
And dash'd with lifted club the watery Pest;
With waving arm the billowy tumult quell'd,
And to his course the bellowing Fiend repell'd.
'Then to a Snake the finny Demon turn'd
His lengthen'd form, with scales of silver burn'd;
Lash'd with restless sweep his dragon-train,
And shot meandering o'er the affrighted plain.
The Hero-God, with giant fingers clasp'd
Firm round his neck, the hissing monster grasp'd;
With starting eyes, wide throat, and gaping teeth,
Curl his redundant folds, and writhe in death.
'And now a Bull, amid the flying throng
The grisly Demon foam'd, and roar'd along;
With silver hoofs the flowery meadows spurn'd,
Roll'd his red eye, his threatening antlers turn'd.
Dragg'd down to earth, the Warrior's victor-hands
Press'd his deep dewlap on the imprinted sands;
Then with quick bound his bended knee he fix'd
High on his neck, the branching horns betwixt,
Strain'd his strong arms, his sinewy shoulders bent,
And from his curled brow the twisted terror rent.
-Pleased Fawns and Nymphs with dancing step applaud,
And hang their chaplets round the resting God;
Link their soft hands, and rear with pausing toil
The golden trophy on the furrow'd soil;
Fill with ripe fruits, with wreathed flowers adorn,
And give to PLENTY her prolific horn.
XIV. 'On Spring's fair lap, CERULEAN SISTERS! pour
From airy urns the sun-illumined shower,
Feed with the dulcet drops my tender broods,
Mellifluous flowers, and aromatic buds;
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Hang from each bending grass and horrent thorn
The tremulous pearl, that glitters to the morn;
Or where cold dews their secret channels lave,
And Earth's dark chambers hide the stagnant wave,
O, pierce, YE NYMPHS! her marble veins, and lead
Her gushing fountains to the thirsty mead;
Wide o'er the shining vales, and trickling hills
Spread the bright treasure in a thousand rills.
So shall my peopled realms of Leaf and Flower
Exult, inebriate with the genial shower;
Dip their long tresses from the mossy brink,
With tufted roots the glassy currents drink;
Shade your cool mansions from meridian beams,
And view their waving honours in your streams.
'Thus where the veins their confluent branches bend,
And milky eddies with the purple blend;
The Chyle's white trunk, diverging from its source,
Seeks through the vital mass its shining course;
O'er each red cell, and tissued membrane spreads
In living net-work all its branching threads;
Maze within maze its tortuous path pursues,
Winds into glands, inextricable clues;
Steals through the stomach's velvet sides, and sips
The silver surges with a thousand lips;
Fills each fine pore, pervades each slender hair,
And drinks salubrious dew-drops from the air.
'Thus when to kneel in Mecca's awful gloom,
Or press with pious kiss Medina's tomb,
League after league, through many a lingering day,
Steer the swart Caravans their sultry way;
O'er sandy wastes on gasping camels toil,
Or print with pilgrim-steps the burning soil;
If from lone rocks a sparkling rill descend,
O'er the green brink the kneeling nations bend,
Bathe the parch'd lip, and cool the feverish tongue,
And the clear lake reflects the mingled throng.'
The Goddess paused,-the listening bands awhile
Still seem to hear, and dwell upon her smile;
Then with soft murmur sweep in lucid trains
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Down the green slopes, and o'er the pebbly plains,
To each bright stream on silver sandals glide,
Reflective fountain, and tumultuous tide.
So shoot the Spider-broods at breezy dawn
Their glittering net-work o'er the autumnal lawn;
From blade to blade connect with cordage fine
The unbending grass, and live along the line;
Or bathe unwet their oily forms, and dwell
With feet repulsive on the dimpling well.
So when the North congeals his watery mass,
Piles high his snows, and floors his seas with glass;
While many a Month, unknown to warmer rays,
Marks its slow chronicle by lunar days;
Stout youths and ruddy damsels, sportive train,
Leave the white soil, and rush upon the main;
From isle to isle the moon-bright squadrons stray,
And win in easy curves their graceful way;
On step alternate borne, with balance nice
Hang o'er the gliding steel, and hiss along the ice.
~ Erasmus Darwin,
613:The Bush
I wonder if the spell, the mystery,
That like a haze about your silence clings,
Moulding your void until we seem to see
Tangible Presences of Deathless Things,
Patterned but little to our spirits' woof,
Yet from our love or hate not all aloof,
Can. be the matrix where are forming slowly
Troy tales of Old Australia, to refine
Eras to come of ordered melancholy
'Neath lily-pale Perfection's anodyne.
For Troy hath ever been, and Homer sang
Its younger story for a lodging's fee,
While o'er Scamander settlers' axes rang
Amid the Bush where Ilium was to be.
For Cretan Art, dim centuries before,
Minoan Dream-times some Briseis bore.
Sumerian Phoebus by a willowed water
Song-built a Troy for far Chaldea, where
The sons of God, beholding Leda's daughter,
Bartered eternal thrones for love of her.
Across each terraced aeon Time hath sowed
With green tautology of vanished years,
Gaping aghast or webbed with shining lode,
Achilles' anger's earthquake-rift appears.
The towers that Phoebus builds can never fall:
Desire that Helen lights can never pall:
Yea, wounded Love hath still but gods to fly to,
When lust of war inflames Diomedes:
Must some Australian Hector vainly die, too?
Captives in ships? (0 change that omen, Trees!)
Yea, Mother Bush, in your deep dreams abide
Cupids alert for man and maid unborn,
Apprentice Pucks amid your saplings hide,
And wistful gorges wait a Roland horn:
Wallet of Sigurd shall this swag replace,
And centaurs curvet where those brumbies race.
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That drover's tale of love shall greaten duly
Through magic prisms of a myriad years,
Till bums Isolde to Tristram's fervour newly,
Or Launcelot to golden Guinevere's.
The miner cradling washdirt by the creek,
Or pulled through darkness dripping to the plat:
The navvy boring tunnels through the peak:
The farmer grubbing box-trees on the flat:
The hawker camping by the roadside spring:
The hodman on the giddy scaffolding:
Moths that around the fashion windows flutter:
The racecourse spider and the betting fly:
The children romping by the city gutter,
While baby crows to every passer-byFrom these rough blocks strewn o'er our ancient stream
Sculptors shall chisel brownie, fairy, faun,
Any myrmidons of some Homeric dream
From Melbourne mob and Sydney push be drawn.
The humdrum lives that now we tire of, then
Romance shall be, and 'we heroic men
Treading the vestibule of Golden Ages,
The Isthmus of the Land of Heart's Desire:
For lo! the Sybil's final volume's pages
Ope with our Advent, close when we expire.
Forgetful Change in one 'antiquity'
Boreal gleams shall drown, and southern glows;
Out of some singing woman's heart-break plea
Australia's dawn shall flush with Sappho's rose:
Strong Shirlow's hand shall trace Mantegna's line,
And Soma foam from Victor Daley's wine:
Scholars to be our prehistoric drama
From Esson's 'Woman Tamer' shall restore,
Or find in Gilbert's 'Lotus Stream and Lama'
An Austral Nile and Buddhas we adore.
The sunlit Satyrs follow Hugh McCrae,
Quinn spans the ocean with a Celtic ford,
And Williamson the Pan-pipe learns to play
From magpie-songs our schoolboy ears ignored:
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A sweeter woe no keen of Erin gave
Than Kendall sings o'er Araluen's grave:
Tasmanian Wordsworth to his chapel riding
The Burning Bush and Ardath mead shall pass,
Or, from the sea-coast of Bohemia gliding
On craft of dream, behold a shepherd lass.
Jessie Mackay on Southern Highlands sees
The elves deploy in kem and gallowglass:
Our Gilbert Murray writes 'Euripides':
Pirani merges in Pythagoras:
Marsyas plunges into Lethe, flayed,
From Rhadamanthine Stephens' steady blade:
While Benvenuto Morton, drunk with singing,
Sees salamanders in a bush-fire's bed,
And Spencer sails from Alcheringa bringing
Intaglios, totems and Books of the Dead.
On Southern fiords shall Brady's Long Snakes hiss,
Heavy with brides he wins to Viking troth:
O'Reilly's Sydney shall be Sybaris,
While Melbourne's Muses sup their Spartan broth:
Murdoch, Zenobia's counsellor, in time,
Redacts from Burke his book on The Sublime:
By Way was Homer into Greek translated:
And Shakespeare's self is Sophocles so plain
They know the kerb whereon the Furies waited
Outside the Mermaid Inn in Brogan's Lane.
Vane shall divide with Vern Eureka's fame;
Tillett and Mann are Tyler then and Cade:
Dowie's entwines with Cagliostro's name,
And in Tarpeia's, lo, those fair forms fade
Who drug the poor, for social bread and wine,
And lift the furtive latch to Catiline:
There, where the Longmore-featured Gracchi hurry,
And Greek-browed Higinbotham walks, anon,
The 'wealthy lower orders' leap the Murray
Before the stockwhip cracks of Jardine Don.
Cleons in 'Windsor dress at Syracuse
Their thin plebeians' promised meal delay;
41
And Archibald begets Australia's Muse
Upon an undine red of Chowder Bay:
Paterson's swan draws Amphitrite's car,
And Sidon learns from Young what purples are:
Rose Scott refutes dogmatic Cyril gaily,
Hypatia turns the anti-suffrage flank,
And Herod's daughter sools her 'morning daily'
On John the Baptist by the Yarra Bank.
Yon regal bustard, fading hence ere long,
Shall seem the guide we followed to the Grail;
This lyre-bird on his dancing-mound of song
Our mystagogue of some Bacchantic vale,
Where feathered Pan guffaws 'Evoe!' above,
And Maenad curlews shriek their midnight love:
That trailing flight of distant swans is bearing
Sarpedon's soul to its eternal joy:
This ibis, from the very Nile, despairing,
Memnon our own would warn from fatal Troy.
Primeval gnomes distilled the golden bribes
That have impregnated your musing waste with men;
But shall the spell of your pathetic tribes
Curl round, in time, our fairer limbs again?
Through that long tunnel of your gloom, I see
Gardens of a metropolis to be!
Out of the depths the mountain ash is soaring
To embryon gods of what unsounded space?
Out of the heights what influence is pouring
Thin desolation on your haunted face?
Many there are who see no higher lot
For all your writhing centuries of toil
Than that the avaricious plough should blot
Their wilding burgeon, and the red brand spoil
Your cyclopean garniture, to sow
The cheap parterres of Europe on your woe.
They weave all sorceries but yours, and borrow
The tinkling spells of alien winds and seas
To drown the chord of purifying sorrow,
Bom ere the world, that pulses through your trees.
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For, save when we, in not o'er-subtle mood,
Hear magpies warbling soft November in,
Or, hand in hand with Love, a dreaming wood
Or bouldered crest of crisper April win,
Your harps, unblurred by glozing strings, intone
The dirges that behind Creation moan'Where, riding reinless billows, new lives dash on
The souring beach of yesterday's decay,
Where Love's chord leaps from mandrake shrieks of passion,
And groping gods mould man from quivering clay.
(Is Nature deaf and blind and dumb? A cruse
Unfilled of wine? Clay for an unbreathed soul?
Alien to man, till his desires transfuse
Their flames through wind and water, leaf and bole,
And each crude fane elaborately fit
With oracles that echo all his wit?
The living wilds of Greece saw death returning
When Pan that men had made fell from his throne:
Till through her sap our very blood is churning
The Bush her lonely alien woe shall moan!
Or is she reticent but to be kind?
Whispers she not beneath her mask of clods'Who asks he shall receive, who seeks shall find,
Who knocks shall open every door of God's?'
Dumb Faith's, blind Hope's eternal consort she,
Gravid with all that is on earth to be;
Corn, wine and oil in hungry granite hiding,
All Beauty under sober wings of clay,
All life beneath her dead heart long abiding,
Yea, all the gods her sons and she obey!)
What sin's wan expiation strewed your Vast
With mounded pillage of what conquering fire?
Slumbering throes of what prodigious Past
Exhale these lingering ghosts of its desire?
Sunshine that bleached corruption out, that glare?
Desolate blue of Purgatory, there?
Flagellant winds through guilty Eden scouring?
Sahara drowning Prester John's domain?
Satumian dam her progeny devouring?
Hath dawn-time Hun these footprints left? Hath Cain?
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Even the human wave, that shall at length
To man's endurance key your strident surge,
Sings in your poignant tones and sombre strength,
And makes, as yet, its own your primal dirge:
A gun-shot startles dawn back from the sky,
And mourning tea-trees echo Gordon's sigh:
Nardoo with Burke's faint sweat is dank for ever:
Spectral a tribe round poisoned rations shrieks:
Till doomday Leichhardt walks die Never Never:
Pensive, of Boake, the circling stock-whip speaks.
The wraiths unseen of roadside crimes unnamed
About that old-time shanty's ruins roam:
This squatter's fenceless acres hide ashamed
The hearth and battered zinc of Naboth's home:
Deserted 'yam-holes' pit your harmonies
With sloughing pock-marks of the gold-disease:
The sludgy creek 'mid hungry rushes rambles,
Where teal once dived and lowan raised her mound:
That tree, with crows, o'erlooks the township shambles:
These paddocks, ordure-smeared, the city bound.
0 yield not all to factory and farm!
For we, who drew a milk no stranger knows
From her scant paps, yearn for the acrid charm
That gossamers the Bush Where No Tree Grows.
And we have ritual moments when we crave
For worship in some messmate-pillared nave,
Where contrite 'bears' for woodland sins are kneeling,
And, 'mid the censers of the mountain musk,
Acolyte bell-birds the Angelus are pealing,
And boobooks moan lone vespers in the dusk,
And you have Children of the Dreaming Star,
Who care but little for the crowded ways
Where meagre spirits' vapid prizes are,
Or for the paddocked ease of dreamless days
And hedges clipped of every sunny growth
That plights the soul to God in daily troth:
Their wayward love prefers your desolation,
Or (where the human trail hath seared its charm)
44
The briar-rose on some abandoned 'station',
To all the tilled obedience of the farm.
Vineyards that purblind thrift shall never glean
The weedy waste and thistly gully hold:
No mint shall melt to currency unclean
Yon river-rounded hillock's Cape-broom gold:
The onion-grass upon that dark green slope
Returns our gaze from eyes of heliotrope:
But more we seek your underflowered expanses
Of scrub monotonous, or, where, O Bush,
The craters of your fiery noon's romances,
Like great firm bosoms, through the bare plains push.
As many. Mother, are your moods and forms
As all the sons who love you. Here, you mow
Careering grounds for every brood of storms
The wild sea-mares to desert stallions throw;
Anon, up through a sea of sand you glance
With green ephemeral exuberance,
And then quick seeds dive deep to years of slumber
From hot-hoofed drought's precipitate return:
There, league on league, the snow's cold fingers number
The shrinking nerves of supple-jack and fern.
To other eyes and ears you are a great
Pillared cathedral tremulously green,
An odorous and hospitable gate
To genial mystery, the happy screen
Of truants or of lovers rambling there
'Neath sun-shot boughs o'er miles of maidenhair.
Wee rubies dot the leaflets of the cherries,
The wooing wagtails hop from log to bough,
The bronzewing comes from Queensland for the berries,
The bell-bird by the creek is calling now.
And you can ride, an Eastern queen, they say,
By living creatures sumptuously borne,
With all barbaric equipages gay,
Beneath the torrid blue of Capricorn.
That native lotus is the very womb
That was the Hindoo goddess' earthly tomb.
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The gang-gang screams o'er cactus wildernesses,
Palm trees are there, and swampy widths of rice,
Unguents and odours ooze from green recesses,
The jungles blaze with birds of Paradise.
But I, in city exile, hear you sing
Of saplinged hill and box-tree dotted plain,
Or silver-grass that prays the North Wind's wing
Convey its sigh to the loitering rain:
And Spring is half distraught with wintry gusts,
Summer the daily spoil of tropic lusts
The sun and she too fiercely shared together
Lingering thro' voluptuous Hindoo woods,
But o'er my windless, soft autumnal weather
The peace that passes understanding broods.
When, now, they say 'The Bush!', I see the top
Delicate amber leanings of the gum
Flutter, or flocks of screaming green leeks drop
Silent, where in the shining morning hum
The gleaning bees for honey-scented hours
'Mid labyrinthine leaves and white gum flowers.
Cantering midnight hoofs are nearing, nearing,
The straining bullocks flick the harpy flies,
The 'hatter' weeds his melancholy clearing,
The distant cow-bell tinkles o'er the rise.
You are the brooding comrade of our way,
Whispering rumour of a new Unknown,
Moulding us white ideals to obey,
Steeping whate'er we learn in lore your own,
And freshening with unpolluted light
The squalid city's day and pallid night,
Till we become ourselves distinct, Australian,
(Your native lightning charging blood and nerve),
Stripped to the soul of borrowed garments, alien
To that approaching Shape of God you serve.
Brooding, brooding, your whispers murmur plain
That searching for the clue to mystery
In grottos of decrepitude is vain,
That never shall the eye of prophet see
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In crooked Trade's tumultuous streets the plan
Of templed cities adequate to man.
Brooding, brooding, you make us Brahmins waiting
(While uninspired pass on the hurtling years),
Faithful to dreams your spirit is creating,
Till Great Australia, born of you, appears.
For Great Australia is not yet: She waits
(Where o'er the Bush prophetic auras play)
The passing of these temporary States,
Flaunting their tawdry flags of far decay.
Her aureole above the alien mists
Beacons our filial eyes to mountain trysts:
'Mid homely trees with all ideals fruited,
She shelters us till Trade's Simoom goes by,
And slakes our thirst from cisterns unpolluted .
For ages cold in brooding deeps of sky.
We love our brothers, and to heal their woe
Pluck simples from the known old gardens still:
We love our kindred over seas, and grow
Their symbols tenderly o'er plain and hill;
We feel their blood rebounding in our hearts,
And speak as they would speak our daily parts:
But under all we know, we know that only
A virgin womb unsoiled by ancient fear
Can Saviours bear. So, we, your Brahmins, lonely,
Deaf to the barren tumult, wait your Year.
The Great Year's quivering dawn pencils the Night
To be the morning of our children's prime,
And weave from rays of yet ungathered Light
A richer noon than e'er apparelled Time.
If it must be, as Tuscan wisdom knew,
Babylon's seer, and wistful Egypt too,
That mellow afternoon shall pensive guide us
Down somnolent Decay's ravine to rest,
Then you, reborn, 0 Mother Bush, shall hide us
All the long night at your dream-laden breast.
Australian eyes that heed your lessons know
Another world than older pilgrims may:
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Prometheus chained in Kosciusko's snow
Sees later gods than Zeus in turn decay:
Boundless plateaux expand the spirit's sight,
Resilient gales uphold her steeper flight:
And your close beating heart, 0 savage Mother,
Throbs secret words of joy and starker pain
Than reach the ears all old deceptions smother
In Lebanon, or e'en in Westermain.
We marvel not, who hear your undersong,
And catch a glimpse in rare exalted hours
Of something like a Being gleam along
Festooned arcades of flossie creeper flowers,
Or, toward the mirk, seem privileged to share
The silent rapture of the trees at prayerWe marvel not that seers in other ages,
With eyes unstrained by peering logic, saw
The desolation glow with Koran pages,
Or Sinai stones with Tables of the Law.
Homers are waiting in the gum trees now,
Far driven from the tarnished Cyclades:
More Druids to your green enchantment bow
Than 'neath unfaithful Mona's vanished trees:
A wind hath spirited from ageing France
To our fresh hills the carpet of Romance:
Heroes and maids of old with young blood tingling
In ampler gardens grow their roses new:
And races long apart their manas mingling
Prepare the cradle of an Advent due.
And those who dig the mounded eld for runes
To read Religion's tangled cipher, here,
Where all Illusion haunts the fainting noons
Of days hysteric with the tireless leer
Of ravenous enamoured suns, shall find
How May a flings her mantle o'er the mind,
Till sober sand to shining water changes,
Dodona whispers from the she-oak groves,
Afreets upon the tempest cross the ranges,
And Fafnir through the bunyip marshes roves.
48
Once, when Uranian Love appeared to glow
Through that abysmal Night that bounds our reignLove that a man may scarcely feel and know i
Quite the same world as other men againWith earthward-streaming frontier wraiths distraught,
Your oracles, 0 Mother Bush, I sought:
But found, dismayed, that eerie light revealing
Those wraiths already in your depths on sleuth,
Termagant Scorns along your hillsides stealing,
Remorse unbaring slow her barbed tooth.
My own thoughts first from far dispersion flew
Back to their sad creator, with the crops
Of woes in flower and all the harvests due
Till tiring Time the fearful seeding stops:
In pigmy forms of friends and foes, anon
In my own image, they came, stung, were gone:
And then I heard the voice of Him Who Questions,
Knowing the faltered answer ere it came,
Chilling the soul by hovering suggestions
Of wan damnation at a wince of blame.
And all your leaves in symbols were arranged,
Despairs long dead would leap from bough to bough,
A gum-tree buttress to a goblin changed
Grinning the warmth of some old broken vow:
Furtive desires for scarce-remembered maids
Glanced in a fearful bo-peep from your shades:
Till you became a purgatory cleansing
With rosy flakes in form of manikins,
To fiercer shame within my soul condensing,
The dim pollution of forgotten sins.
And She, the human symbol of that Love,
Would, as my cleansed eyes forgot their fear,
Comrade beside me. Comforter above,
With sunny smile ubiquitous appear:
Run on before me to the nooks we knew,
Walk hand in hand as glad young lovers do,
Gravely reprove me toying with temptation,
Show me the eyes and ears in roots and clods,
Bend with me o'er some blossom's revelation,
49
Or read from clouds the judgments of the gods.
My old ideals She would tune until
The grating note of self no longer rang:
She drove the birds of gloom and evil will
Out of the cote wherein my poems sang.
Time at Her wand annulled his calendar,
And Space his fallacy of Near and Far,
For through my Bush along with me She glided,
And crowded days of Beauty made more fair,
Though lagging weeks and ocean widths divided
Her mortal casing from Her Presence there.
Her wetted finger oped my shuttered eyes
To boyhood's scership of the Real again:
Upon the Bush descended from the skies
The rapt-up Eden of primordial men:
August Dominions through the vistas strode:
On white-maned clouds the smiling cherubs rode:
Maltreated Faith restored my jangled hearing
Till little seraphs sang from chip and clod:
And prayers were radiant children that, unfearing,
Floated as kisses to the lips of God.
It matters not that for some purpose wise
Myopic Reason censored long ago
The revelations of that Paradise,
When, back of all I feel or will or know,
Its silent angels beacon through the Dark
And point to harbours new my drifted ark.
Nor need we dread the fogs that round us thicken
Questing the Bush for Grails decreed for man,
When Powers our fathers saw unseen still quicken
Eyes that were ours before the world began.
'Twas then I saw the Vision of the Ways,
And 'mid their gloom and glory seemed to live,
Threaded the coverts of the Dark Road's maze,
Toiled up, with tears, the Track Retributive,
And, on the Path of Grace, beheld aglow
The love-lit Nave of all that wheeled below.
And She who flowered, my Mystic Rose, in Heaven,
50
And lit the Purging Mount, my Guiding Star,
Trudged o'er the marl, my mate, through Hell's wan levin,
Nor shrank, like lonely Dante's love, afar.
High towered a cloud over one leafy wild,
And to a bridged volcano grew. Above,
A great Greek group of father, mother, child,
Illumed a narrow round with radiant love.
Below, a smoke-pool thick with faces swirled,
The mutinous omen. of an Under-world,
Defeated, plundered, blackened, but preparing,
E'en though that calm, white dominance fell down,
To overflow the rim, and, sunward faring,
Shape myriad perfect groups from slave and clown.
Or thus I read the symbol, though 'twas sent
To hound compunction on my wincing pride,
That dreamed of raceless brotherhood, content
Though all old Charm dissolved and Glory died.
For often signs will yield their deeper signs,
Virginal Bush, in your untrodden shrines,
Than where the craven ages' human clamour
Distorts the boldest oracle with fear,
Or where dissolving wizards dew with glamour
Arden, Broceliande, or Windermere.
Once while my mother by a spreading tree
Our church's sober rubric bade me con,
My vagrant eyes among the boughs would see
Forbidden wings and •wizard aprons on
Father's 'wee people' from their Irish glades
Brighten and darken with your lights and shades.
And I would only read again those stern leaves
For whispered bribe that, when their tale I told,
We would go and look for fairies in the fern-leaves
And red-capped leprechauns with crocks of gold.
Anon, my boyhood saw how Sunbursts flamed
Or filmy hinds lured on a pale Oisin,
Where lithe indignant saplings crowding claimed
The digger's ravage for their plundered queen:
And heard within yon lichened 'mullock-heap'
51
Lord Edward's waiting horsemen moan in sleep:
Or flew the fragrant path of swans consoling
Lir's exiled daughter wandering with me,
And traced below the Wattle River rolling
Exuberant and golden toward the sea.
Here, would the •wavering wings of heat uplift
Some promontory till the tree-crowned pile
Above a phantom sea would swooning drift,
St. Brendan's vision of the Winged Isle:
Anon, the isle divides again, again,
Till archipelagos poise o'er the main.
There, lazy fingers of a breeze have scattered
The distant blur of factory chimney smoke
hi poignant groups of all the young lives shattered
To feed the ravin of a piston-stroke!
Or when I read the tale of what you were
Beyond these hungry eyes' home-keeping view,
I peopled petrel rocks with Sirens fair,
In Maid Mirage the Fairy Morgan knew,
Steered Quetzalcoatl's skiff to coral coasts,
On Chambers' Pillar throned the Olympian hosts,
Heard in white sulphur-crested parrots' screeches
Remorseful Peris vent their hopeless rage,
Atlantis' borders traced on sunken beaches,
m Alcheringa found the Golden Age.
Sibyl and Siren, with alternate breaths
You read our foetal nation's boon and bane,
And lure to trysts of orgiastic Deaths
Adventurous love that listens to your strain:
Pelsarts and Vanderdeckens of the world
Circle your charms or at your feet are hurled:
And, Southern witch, whose glamour drew De Quiros
O'er half the earth for one unyielded kiss,
Were yours the arms that healed the scalded Eros
When Psyche's curious lamp darkened their bliss?
Ye, who would challenge when we claim to see
The bush alive with Northern wealth of wings,
Forget that at a common mother's knee
52
We learned, with you, the lore of Silent Things.
There is no New that is not older far
Than swirling cradle of the first-born star:
Our youngest hearts prolong the far pulsation
And churn the brine of the primordial sea:
The foetus writes the précis of Creation:
Australia is the whole world's legatee.
Imagination built her throne in us
Before your present bodies saw the sky:
Your myths were counters of our abacus,
And in your brain developed long our eye:
We from the misty folk have also sprung
Who saw the gnomes and heard the Ever Young:
Do Southern skies the fancy disinherit
Of moly flower and Deva-laden breeze?
Do nerves attuned by old defect and merit
Their timbre lose by crossing tropic seas?
All mysteries ye claim as yours alone
Have wafted secrets over oceans here:
Our living soil Antiquity hath sown
With just the corn and tares ye love and fear:
Romance and song enthral us just as you,
Nor change of zenith changes spirit too:
Our necks as yours are sore with feudal halters:
To the Pole ye know our compasses are set;
And shivering years that huddled round your altars
Beneath our stars auspicious tremble yet.
Who fenced the nymphs in European vales?
Or Pan tabooed from all but Oxford dreams?
Warned Shakespeare off from foreign Plutarch's tales?
Or tethered Virgil to Italian themes?
And when the body sailed from your control
Think ye we left behind in bond the soul?
Whate'er was yours is ours in equal measure,
The Temple was not built for you alone,
Altho' 'tis ours to grace the common treasure
With Lares and Penates of our own!
Ye stole yourselves from gardens fragrant long
53
The sprouting seed-pods of your choicest blooms,
And wove the splendid garments of your song
From Viking foam on grave Hebraic looms:
'Twas Roman nerve and rich Hellenic lymph
Changed your pale pixie to a nubile nymph:
Yea, breathed at dawn around Atlantis' islands,
Wind-home o'er some Hesperidean road,
The morning clouds on dim Accadian highlands
Spring-fed the Nile that over Hellas flowed!
As large-eyed Greek amid Sicilian dews
Saw Dis, as ne'er before, pursue the Maid,
Or, safe 'neath screening billows, Arethuse
Alpheus' rugged sleuth unsoiled evade:
We shall complete the tale ye left half-told,
Under the ocean lead your fountains old,
To slake our sceptic thirst with haunted water,
And tame our torrents with a wedding kiss,
Shall loose, mayhap, the spell on Ceres' daughter,
And show, unclouded, God in very Dis.
(Yet, there are moods and mornings when I hear,
Above the music of the Bush's breath,
The rush of alien breezes far and near
Drowning her oracles to very death:
Exotic battle-cries the silence mar,
Seductive perfumes drive the gum-scent far;
And organ-tones august a moment show me
Miltonic billows and Homeric gales
Until I feel the older worlds below me,
And all her wonder trembles, thins and fails.)
Yea, you are all that we may be, and yet
In us is all you are to be for aye!
The Giver of the gifts that we shall get?
An empty womb that waits the wedding day?
Thus drifting sense by age-long habit buoyed
Plays round the thought that knows all nature void!
And so, my song alternate would believe her
Idiot Bush and Daughter of the Sun,
A worthless gift apart from the receiver,
An empty womb, but in a Deathless One.
54
To shapes we would of Freedom, Truth and Joy
Shall we your willing plasm mould for man:
Afresh rebuild the world, and thus destroy
What only Ragnarok in Europe can:
There is no Light but in your dark blendes sleeps,
Drops from your stars or through your ether leaps:
Yea, you are Nature, Chaos since Creation,
Waiting what human Word to chord in song?
Matrix inert of what auspicious nation?
For what far bees your nectar hiving long?
Exhausted manas of the conquering North
Shall rise refreshed to vivid life again
At your approach, and in your lap pour forth
Grateful the gleanings of his mighty reign:
As, when a tropic heat-king southward crawls,
Blistering the ranges, till he hears the calls
Of some cold high-browed bride, her streaming tresses,
Sprinkled with rose-buds, make his wild eyes thrill
To such desire for her superb caresses
He yields his fiery treasures to her will.
'Where is Australia, singer, do you know?
These sordid farms and joyless factories,
Mephitic mines and lanes of pallid woe?
Those ugly towns and cities such as these
With incense sick to all unworthy power,
And all old sin in full malignant flower?
No! to her bourn her children still are faring:
She is a Temple that we are to build:
For her the ages have been long preparing:
She is a prophecy to be fulfilled!
All that we love in olden lands and lore
Was signal of her coming long ago!
Bacon foresaw her, Campanella, More
And Plato's eyes were with her star aglow!
Who toiled for Truth, whate'er their countries were,
Who fought for Liberty, they yearned for her!
No corsair's gathering ground, or tryst for schemers,
55
No chapman Carthage to a huckster Tyre,
She is the Eldorado of old dreamers,
The Sleeping Beauty of the world's desire!
She is the scroll on which we are to write
Mythologies our own and epics new:
She is the port of our propitious flight
From Ur idolatrous and Pharaoh's crew.
She is our own, unstained, if worthy we,
By dream, or god, or star we would not see:
Her crystal beams all but the eagle dazzle;
Her wind-wide ways none but the strong-winged sail:
She is Eutopia, she is Hy-Brasil,
The watchers on the tower of morning hail I
Yet she shall be as we, the Potter, mould:
Altar or tomb, as we aspire, despair:
What wine we bring shall she, the chalice, hold:
What word we write shall she, the script, declare:
Bandage our eyes, she shall be Memphis, Spain:
Barter our souls, she shall be Tyre again:
And if we pour on her the red oblation
All o'er the world shall Asshur's buzzards throng:
Love-lit, her Chaos shall become Creation:
And dewed with dream, her silence flower in song.
~ Bernard O'Dowd,
614:The Botanic Garden (Part Iv)
The Economy Of Vegetation
Canto IV
As when at noon in Hybla's fragrant bowers
CACALIA opens all her honey'd flowers;
Contending swarms on bending branches cling,
And nations hover on aurelian wing;
So round the GODDESS, ere she speaks, on high
Impatient SYLPHS in gawdy circlets fly;
Quivering in air their painted plumes expand,
And coloured shadows dance upon the land.
I. 'SYLPHS! YOUR light troops the tropic Winds confine,
And guide their streaming arrows to the Line;
While in warm floods ecliptic breezes rise,
And sink with wings benumb'd in colder skies.
You bid Monsoons on Indian seas reside,
And veer, as moves the sun, their airy tide;
While southern gales o'er western oceans roll,
And Eurus steals his ice-winds from the Pole.
Your playful trains, on sultry islands born,
Turn on fantastic toe at eve and morn;
With soft susurrant voice alternate sweep
Earth's green pavilions and encircling deep.
OR in itinerant cohorts, borne sublime
On tides of ether, float from clime to clime;
O'er waving Autumn bend your airy ring,
Or waft the fragrant bosom of the Spring.
II. 'When Morn, escorted by the dancing Hours,
O'er the bright plains her dewy lustre showers;
Till from her sable chariot Eve serene
Drops the dark curtain o'er the brilliant scene;
You form with chemic hands the airy surge,
Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge.
SYLPHS! from each sun-bright leaf, that twinkling shakes
O'er Earth's green lap, or shoots amid her lakes,
Your playful bands with simpering lips invite,
10
And wed the enamour'd OXYGENE to LIGHT.Round their white necks with fingers interwove,
Cling the fond Pair with unabating love;
Hand link'd in hand on buoyant step they rise,
And soar and glisten in unclouded skies.
Whence in bright floods the VITAL AIR expands,
And with concentric spheres involves the lands;
Pervades the swarming seas, and heaving earths,
Where teeming Nature broods her myriad births;
Fills the fine lungs of all that
breathe
or
bud
Warms the new heart, and dyes the gushing blood;
With Life's first spark inspires the organic frame,
And, as it wastes, renews the subtile flame.
'So pure, so soft, with sweet attraction shone
Fair PSYCHE, kneeling at the ethereal throne;
Won with coy smiles the admiring court of Jove,
And warm'd the bosom of unconquer'd LOVE.Beneath a moving shade of fruits and flowers
Onward they march to HYMEN'S sacred bowers;
With lifted torch he lights the festive train,
Sublime, and leads them in his golden chain;
Joins the fond pair, indulgent to their vows,
And hides with mystic veil their blushing brows.
Round their fair forms their mingling arms they fling,
Meet with warm lip, and clasp with rustling wing.-Hence plastic Nature, as Oblivion whelms
Her fading forms, repeoples all her realms;
Soft Joys disport on purple plumes unfurl'd,
And Love and Beauty rule the willing world.
III. 1. 'SYLPHS! Your bold myriads on the withering heath
Stay the fell SYROC'S suffocative breath;
Arrest SIMOOM in his realms of sand,
The poisoned javelin balanced in his hand;Fierce on blue streams he rides the tainted air,
Points his keen eye, and waves his whistling hair;
While, as he turns, the undulating soil
Rolls in red waves, and billowy deserts boil.
11
You seize TORNADO by his locks of mist,
Burst his dense clouds, his wheeling spires untwist;
Wide o'er the West when borne on headlong gales,
Dark as meridian night, the Monster sails,
Howls high in air, and shakes his curled brow,
Lashing with serpent-train the waves below,
Whirls his black arm, the forked lightning flings,
And showers a deluge from his demon-wings.
2. 'SYLPHS! with light shafts YOU pierce the drowsy FOG,
That lingering slumbers on the sedge-wove bog,
With webbed feet o'er midnight meadows creeps,
Or flings his hairy limbs on stagnant deeps.
YOU meet CONTAGION issuing from afar,
And dash the baleful conqueror from his car;
When, Guest of DEATH! from charnel vaults he steals,
And bathes in human gore his armed wheels.
'Thus when the PLAGUE, upborne on Belgian air,
Look'd through the mist and shook his clotted hair,
O'er shrinking nations steer'd malignant clouds,
And rain'd destruction on the gasping crouds.
The beauteous AEGLE felt the venom'd dart,
Slow roll'd her eye, and feebly throbb'd her heart;
Each fervid sigh seem'd shorter than the last,
And starting Friendship shunn'd her, as she pass'd.
-With weak unsteady step the fainting Maid
Seeks the cold garden's solitary shade,
Sinks on the pillowy moss her drooping head,
And prints with lifeless limbs her leafy bed.
-On wings of Love her plighted Swain pursues,
Shades her from winds, and shelters her from dews,
Extends on tapering poles the canvas roof,
Spreads o'er the straw-wove matt the flaxen woof,
Sweet buds and blossoms on her bolster strows,
And binds his kerchief round her aching brows;
Sooths with soft kiss, with tender accents charms,
And clasps the bright Infection in his arms.With pale and languid smiles the grateful Fair
Applauds his virtues, and rewards his care;
Mourns with wet cheek her fair companions fled
On timorous step, or number'd with the dead;
Calls to its bosom all its scatter'd rays,
And pours on THYRSIS the collected blaze;
12
Braves the chill night, caressing and caress'd,
And folds her Hero-lover to her breast.Less bold, LEANDER at the dusky hour
Eyed, as he swam, the far love-lighted tower;
Breasted with struggling arms the tossing wave,
And sunk benighted in the watery grave.
Less bold, TOBIAS claim'd the nuptial bed,
Where seven fond Lovers by a Fiend had bled;
And drove, instructed by his Angel-Guide,
The enamour'd Demon from the fatal bride.-SYLPHS! while your winnowing pinions fan'd the air,
And shed gay visions o'er the sleeping pair;
LOVE round their couch effused his rosy breath,
And with his keener arrows conquer'd DEATH.
IV. 1. 'You charm'd, indulgent SYLPHS! their learned toil,
And crown'd with fame your TORRICELL, and BOYLE;
Taught with sweet smiles, responsive to their prayer,
The spring and pressure of the viewless air.
-How up exhausted tubes bright currents flow
Of liquid silver from the lake below,
Weigh the long column of the incumbent skies,
And with the changeful moment fall and rise.
-How, as in brazen pumps the pistons move,
The membrane-valve sustains the weight above;
Stroke follows stroke, the gelid vapour falls,
And misty dew-drops dim the crystal walls;
Rare and more rare expands the fluid thin,
And Silence dwells with Vacancy within.So in the mighty Void with grim delight
Primeval Silence reign'd with ancient Night.
2. 'SYLPHS! your soft voices, whispering from the skies,
Bade from low earth the bold MONGULFIER rise;
Outstretch'd his buoyant ball with airy spring,
And bore the Sage on levity of wing;Where were ye, SYLPHS! when on the ethereal main
Young ROSIERE launch'd, and call'd your aid in vain?
Fair mounts the light balloon, by Zephyr driven,
Parts the thin clouds, and sails along the heaven;
Higher and yet higher the expanding bubble flies,
Lights with quick flash, and bursts amid the skies.Headlong He rushes through the affrighted air
13
With limbs distorted, and dishevel'd hair,
Whirls round and round, the flying croud alarms,
And DEATH receives him in his sable arms!So erst with melting wax and loosen'd strings
Sunk hapless ICARUS on unfaithful wings;
His scatter'd plumage danced upon the wave,
And sorrowing Mermaids deck'd his watery grave;
O'er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed,
And strew'd with crimson moss his marble bed;
Struck in their coral towers the pausing bell,
And wide in ocean toll'd his echoing knell.
V. 'SYLPHS! YOU, retiring to sequester'd bowers,
Where oft your PRIESTLEY woos your airy powers,
On noiseless step or quivering pinion glide,
As sits the Sage with Science by his side;
To his charm'd eye in gay undress appear,
Or pour your secrets on his raptured ear.
How nitrous Gas from iron ingots driven
Drinks with red lips the purest breath of heaven;
How, while Conferva from its tender hair
Gives in bright bubbles empyrean air;
The crystal floods phlogistic ores calcine,
And the pure ETHER marries with the MINE.
'So in Sicilia's ever-blooming shade
When playful PROSERPINE from CERES stray'd,
Led with unwary step her virgin trains
O'er Etna's steeps, and Enna's golden plains;
Pluck'd with fair hand the silver-blossom'd bower,
And purpled mead,-herself a fairer flower;
Sudden, unseen amid the twilight glade,
Rush'd gloomy DIS, and seized the trembling maid.Her starting damsels sprung from mossy seats,
Dropp'd from their gauzy laps the gather'd sweets,
Clung round the struggling Nymph, with piercing cries,
Pursued the chariot, and invoked the skies;Pleased as he grasps her in his iron arms,
Frights with soft sighs, with tender words alarms,
The wheels descending roll'd in smoky rings,
Infernal Cupids flapp'd their demon wings;
Earth with deep yawn received the Fair, amaz'd,
And far in Night celestial Beauty blaz'd.
14
VI. 'Led by the Sage, Lo! Britain's sons shall guide
Huge SEA-BALLOONS beneath the tossing tide;
The diving castles, roof'd with spheric glass,
Ribb'd with strong oak, and barr'd with bolts of brass,
Buoy'd with pure air shall endless tracks pursue,
And PRIESTLEY'S hand the vital flood renew.Then shall BRITANNIA rule the wealthy realms,
Which Ocean's wide insatiate wave o'erwhelms;
Confine in netted bowers his scaly flocks,
Part his blue plains, and people all his rocks.
Deep, in warm waves beneath the Line that roll,
Beneath the shadowy ice-isles of the Pole,
Onward, through bright meandering vales, afar,
Obedient Sharks shall trail her sceptred car,
With harness'd necks the pearly flood disturb,
Stretch the silk rein, and champ the silver curb;
Pleased round her triumph wondering Tritons play,
And Seamaids hail her on the watery way.
-Oft shall she weep beneath the crystal waves
O'er shipwreck'd lovers weltering in their graves;
Mingling in death the Brave and Good behold
With slaves to glory, and with slaves to gold;
Shrin'd in the deep shall DAY and SPALDING mourn,
Each in his treacherous bell, sepulchral urn!Oft o'er thy lovely daughters, hapless PIERCE!
Her sighs shall breathe, her sorrows dew their hearse.With brow upturn'd to Heaven, 'WE WILL NOT PART!'
He cried, and clasp'd them to his aching heart,-Dash'd in dread conflict on the rocky grounds,
Crash the mock'd masts, the staggering wreck rebounds;
Through gaping seams the rushing deluge swims,
Chills their pale bosoms, bathes their shuddering limbs,
Climbs their white shoulders, buoys their streaming hair,
And the last sea-shriek bellows in the air.Each with loud sobs her tender sire caress'd,
And gasping strain'd him closer to her breast!-Stretch'd on one bier they sleep beneath the brine,
And their white bones with ivory arms intwine!
'VII. SYLPHS OF NICE EAR! with beating wings you guide
The fine vibrations of the aerial tide;
15
Join in sweet cadences the measured words,
Or stretch and modulate the trembling cords.
You strung to melody the Grecian lyre,
Breathed the rapt song, and fan'd the thought of fire,
Or brought in combinations, deep and clear,
Immortal harmony to HANDEL'S ear.YOU with soft breath attune the vernal gale,
When breezy evening broods the listening vale;
Or wake the loud tumultuous sounds, that dwell
In Echo's many-toned diurnal shell.
YOU melt in dulcet chords, when Zephyr rings
The Eolian Harp, and mingle all its strings;
Or trill in air the soft symphonious chime,
When rapt CECILIA lifts her eye sublime,
Swell, as she breathes, her bosoms rising snow,
O'er her white teeth in tuneful accents slow,
Through her fair lips on whispering pinions move,
And form the tender sighs, that kindle love!
'So playful LOVE on Ida's flowery sides
With ribbon-rein the indignant Lion guides;
Pleased on his brinded back the lyre he rings,
And shakes delirious rapture from the strings;
Slow as the pausing Monarch stalks along,
Sheaths his retractile claws, and drinks the song;
Soft Nymphs on timid step the triumph view,
And listening Fawns with beating hoofs pursue;
With pointed ears the alarmed forest starts,
And Love and Music soften savage hearts.
VIII. 'SYLPHS! YOUR bold hosts, when Heaven with justice dread
Calls the red tempest round the guilty head,
Fierce at his nod assume vindictive forms,
And launch from airy cars the vollied storms.From Ashur's vales when proud SENACHERIB trod,
Pour'd his swoln heart, defied the living GOD,
Urged with incessant shouts his glittering powers;
And JUDAH shook through all her massy towers;
Round her sad altars press'd the prostrate crowd,
Hosts beat their breasts, and suppliant chieftains bow'd;
Loud shrieks of matrons thrill'd the troubled air,
And trembling virgins rent their scatter'd hair;
High in the midst the kneeling King adored,
16
Spread the blaspheming scroll before the Lord,
Raised his pale hands, and breathed his pausing sighs,
And fixed on Heaven his dim imploring eyes,'Oh! MIGHTY GOD! amidst thy Seraph-throng
'Who sit'st sublime, the Judge of Right and Wrong;
'Thine the wide earth, bright sun, and starry zone,
'That twinkling journey round thy golden throne;
'Thine is the crystal source of life and light,
'And thine the realms of Death's eternal night.
'Oh, bend thine ear, thy gracious eye incline,
'Lo! Ashur's King blasphemes thy holy shrine,
'Insults our offerings, and derides our vows,-'Oh! strike the diadem from his impious brows,
'Tear from his murderous hand the bloody rod,
'And teach the trembling nations, 'THOU ART GOD!'-SYLPHS! in what dread array with pennons broad
Onward ye floated o'er the ethereal road,
Call'd each dank steam the reeking marsh exhales,
Contagious vapours, and volcanic gales,
Gave the soft South with poisonous breath to blow,
And rolled the dreadful whirlwind on the foe!Hark! o'er the camp the venom'd tempest sings,
Man falls on Man, on buckler buckler rings;
Groan answers groan, to anguish anguish yields,
And DEATH'S loud accents shake the tented fields!
-High rears the Fiend his grinning jaws, and wide
Spans the pale nations with colossal stride,
Waves his broad falchion with uplifted hand,
And his vast shadow darkens all the land.
IX. 1. 'Ethereal cohorts! Essences of Air!
Make the green children of the Spring your care!
Oh, SYLPHS! disclose in this inquiring age
One GOLDEN SECRET to some favour'd sage;
Grant the charm'd talisman, the chain, that binds,
Or guides the changeful pinions of the winds!
-No more shall hoary Boreas, issuing forth
With Eurus, lead the tempests of the North;
Rime the pale Dawn, or veil'd in flaky showers
Chill the sweet bosoms of the smiling Hours.
By whispering Auster waked shall Zephyr rise,
Meet with soft kiss, and mingle in the skies,
17
Fan the gay floret, bend the yellow ear,
And rock the uncurtain'd cradle of the year;
Autumn and Spring in lively union blend,
And from the skies the Golden Age descend.
2. 'Castled on ice, beneath the circling Bear,
A vast CAMELION spits and swallows air;
O'er twelve degrees his ribs gigantic bend,
And many a league his leathern jaws extend;
Half-fish, beneath, his scaly volutes spread,
And vegetable plumage crests his head;
Huge fields of air his wrinkled skin receives,
From panting gills, wide lungs, and waving leaves;
Then with dread throes subsides his bloated form,
His shriek the thunder, and his sigh the storm.
Oft high in heaven the hissing Demon wins
His towering course, upborne on winnowing fins;
Steers with expanded eye and gaping mouth,
His mass enormous to the affrighted South;
Spreads o'er the shuddering Line his shadowy limbs,
And Frost and Famine follow as he swims.SYLPHS! round his cloud-built couch your bands array,
And mould the Monster to your gentle sway;
Charm with soft tones, with tender touches check,
Bend to your golden yoke his willing neck,
With silver curb his yielding teeth restrain,
And give to KIRWAN'S hand the silken rein.
-Pleased shall the Sage, the dragon-wings between,
Bend o'er discordant climes his eye serene,
With Lapland breezes cool Arabian vales,
And call to Hindostan antarctic gales,
Adorn with wreathed ears Kampschatca's brows,
And scatter roses on Zealandic snows,
Earth's wondering Zones the genial seasons share,
And nations hail him 'MONARCH OF THE AIR.'
X. 1. 'SYLPHS! as you hover on ethereal wing,
Brood the green children of parturient Spring!Where in their bursting cells my Embryons rest,
I charge you guard the vegetable nest;
Count with nice eye the myriad SEEDS, that swell
Each vaulted womb of husk, or pod, or shell;
Feed with sweet juices, clothe with downy hair,
18
Or hang, inshrined, their little orbs in air.
'So, late descry'd by HERSCHEL'S piercing sight,
Hang the bright squadrons of the twinkling Night;
Ten thousand marshall'd stars, a silver zone,
Effuse their blended lustres round her throne;
Suns call to suns, in lucid clouds conspire,
And light exterior skies with golden fire;
Resistless rolls the illimitable sphere,
And one great circle forms the unmeasured year.
-Roll on, YE STARS! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach;Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark centre fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
-Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal NATURE lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.
2. 'Lo! on each SEED within its slender rind
Life's golden threads in endless circles wind;
Maze within maze the lucid webs are roll'd,
And, as they burst, the living flame unfold.
The pulpy acorn, ere it swells, contains
The Oak's vast branches in its milky veins;
Each ravel'd bud, fine film, and fibre-line
Traced with nice pencil on the small design.
The young Narcissus, in it's bulb compress'd,
Cradles a second nestling on its breast;
In whose fine arms a younger embryon lies,
Folds its thin leaves, and shuts its floret-eyes;
Grain within grain successive harvests dwell,
And boundless forests slumber in a shell.
-So yon grey precipice, and ivy'd towers,
Long winding meads, and intermingled bowers,
Green files of poplars, o'er the lake that bow,
And glimmering wheel, which rolls and foams below,
In one bright point with nice distinction lie
19
Plan'd on the moving tablet of the eye.
-So, fold on fold, Earth's wavy plains extend,
And, sphere in sphere, its hidden strata bend;Incumbent Spring her beamy plumes expands
O'er restless oceans, and impatient lands,
With genial lustres warms the mighty ball,
And the GREAT SEED evolves, disclosing ALL;
LIFE
buds
or
breathes
from Indus to the Poles,
And the vast surface kindles, as it rolls!
3. 'Come, YE SOFT SYLPHS! who sport on Latian land,
Come, sweet-lip'd Zephyr, and Favonius bland!
Teach the fine SEED, instinct with life, to shoot
On Earth's cold bosom its descending root;
With Pith elastic stretch its rising stem,
Part the twin Lobes, expand the throbbing Gem;
Clasp in your airy arms the aspiring Plume,
Fan with your balmy breath its kindling bloom,
Each widening scale and bursting film unfold,
Swell the green cup, and tint the flower with gold;
While in bright veins the silvery Sap ascends,
And refluent blood in milky eddies bends;
While, spread in air, the leaves respiring play,
Or drink the golden quintessence of day.
-So from his shell on Delta's shower-less isle
Bursts into life the Monster of the Nile;
First in translucent lymph with cobweb-threads
The Brain's fine floating tissue swells, and spreads;
Nerve after nerve the glistening spine descends,
The red Heart dances, the Aorta bends;
Through each new gland the purple current glides,
New veins meandering drink the refluent tides;
Edge over edge expands the hardening scale,
And sheaths his slimy skin in silver mail.
-Erewhile, emerging from the brooding sand,
With Tyger-paw He prints the brineless strand,
High on the flood with speckled bosom swims,
Helm'd with broad tail, and oar'd with giant limbs;
Rolls his fierce eye-balls, clasps his iron claws,
20
And champs with gnashing teeth his massy jaws;
Old Nilus sighs along his cane-crown'd shores,
And swarthy Memphis trembles and adores.
XI. 'Come, YE SOFT SYLPHS! who fan the Paphian groves,
And bear on sportive wings the callow Loves;
Call with sweet whisper, in each gale that blows,
The slumbering Snow-drop from her long repose;
Charm the pale Primrose from her clay-cold bed,
Unveil the bashful Violet's tremulous head;
While from her bud the playful Tulip breaks,
And young Carnations peep with blushing cheeks;
Bid the closed
Petals
from nocturnal cold
The virgin
Style
in silken curtains fold,
Shake into viewless air the morning dews,
And wave in light their iridescent hues;
While from on high the bursting
Anthers
trust
To the mild breezes their prolific dust;
Or bend in rapture o'er the central Fair,
Love out their hour, and leave their lives in air.
So in his silken sepulchre the Worm,
Warm'd with new life, unfolds his larva-form;
Erewhile aloft in wanton circles moves,
And woos on Hymen-wings his velvet loves.
XII. 1. 'If prouder branches with exuberance rude
Point their green gems, their barren shoots protrude;
Wound them, ye SYLPHS! with little knives, or bind
A wiry ringlet round the swelling rind;
Bisect with chissel fine the root below,
Or bend to earth the inhospitable bough.
So shall each germ with new prolific power
Delay the leaf-bud, and expand the flower;
Closed in the
Style
the tender pith shall end,
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The lengthening Wood in circling
Stamens
bend;
The smoother Rind its soft embroidery spread
In vaulted
Petals
o'er their fertile bed;
While the rough Bark, in circling mazes roll'd,
Forms the green
Cup
with many a wrinkled fold;
And each small bud-scale spreads its foliage hard,
Firm round the callow germ, a
Floral Guard
2. 'Where cruder juices swell the leafy vein,
Stint the young germ, the tender blossom stain;
On each lop'd shoot a softer scion bind,
Pith press'd to pith, and rind applied to rind,
So shall the trunk with loftier crest ascend,
And wide in air its happier arms extend;
Nurse the new buds, admire the leaves unknown,
And blushing bend with fruitage not its own.
'Thus when in holy triumph Aaron trod,
And offer'd on the shrine his mystic rod;
First a new bark its silken tissue weaves,
New buds emerging widen into leaves;
Fair fruits protrude, enascent flowers expand,
And blush and tremble round the living wand.
XIII. 1. 'SYLPHS! on each Oak-bud wound the wormy galls,
With pigmy spears, or crush the venom'd balls;
Fright the green Locust from his foamy bed,
Unweave the Caterpillar's gluey thread;
Chase the fierce Earwig, scare the bloated Toad,
Arrest the snail upon his slimy road;
Arm with sharp thorns the Sweet-brier's tender wood,
And dash the Cynips from her damask bud;
Steep in ambrosial dews the Woodbine's bells,
And drive the Night-moth from her honey'd cells.
So where the Humming-bird in Chili's bowers
On murmuring pinions robs the pendent flowers;
22
Seeks, where fine pores their dulcet balm distill,
And sucks the treasure with proboscis-bill;
Fair CYPREPEDIA with successful guile
Knits her smooth brow, extinguishes her smile;
A Spiders bloated paunch and jointed arms
Hide her fine form, and mask her blushing charms;
In ambush sly the mimic warrior lies,
And on quick wing the panting plunderer flies.
2. 'Shield the young Harvest from devouring blight,
The Smut's dark poison, and the Mildew white;
Deep-rooted Mould, and Ergot's horn uncouth,
And break the Canker's desolating tooth.
First in one point the festering wound confin'd
Mines unperceived beneath the shrivel'd rin'd;
Then climbs the branches with increasing strength,
Spreads as they spread, and lengthens with their length;
-Thus the slight wound ingraved on glass unneal'd
Runs in white lines along the lucid field;
Crack follows crack, to laws elastic just,
And the frail fabric shivers into dust.
XIV. 1. 'SYLPHS! if with morn destructive Eurus springs,
O, clasp the Harebel with your velvet wings;
Screen with thick leaves the Jasmine as it blows,
And shake the white rime from the shuddering Rose;
Whilst Amaryllis turns with graceful ease
Her blushing beauties, and eludes the breeze.SYLPHS! if at noon the Fritillary droops,
With drops nectareous hang her nodding cups;
Thin clouds of Gossamer in air display,
And hide the vale's chaste Lily from the ray;
Whilst Erythrina o'er her tender flower
Bends all her leaves, and braves the sultry hour;Shield, when cold Hesper sheds his dewy light,
Mimosa's soft sensations from the night;
Fold her thin foilage, close her timid flowers,
And with ambrosial slumbers guard her bowers;
O'er each warm wall while Cerea flings her arms,
And wastes on night's dull eye a blaze of charms.
2. Round her tall Elm with dewy fingers twine
The gadding tendrils of the adventurous Vine;
From arm to arm in gay festoons suspend
23
Her fragrant flowers, her graceful foliage bend;
Swell with sweet juice her vermil orbs, and feed
Shrined in transparent pulp her pearly seed;
Hang round the Orange all her silver bells,
And guard her fragrance with Hesperian spells;
Bud after bud her polish'd leaves unfold,
And load her branches with successive gold.
So the learn'd Alchemist exulting sees
Rise in his bright matrass DIANA'S trees;
Drop after drop, with just delay he pours
The red-fumed acid on Potosi's ores;
With sudden flash the fierce bullitions rise,
And wide in air the gas phlogistic flies;
Slow shoot, at length, in many a brilliant mass
Metallic roots across the netted glass;
Branch after branch extend their silver stems,
Bud into gold, and blossoms into gems.
So sits enthron'd in vegetable pride
Imperial KEW by Thames's glittering side;
Obedient sails from realms unfurrow'd bring
For her the unnam'd progeny of spring;
Attendant Nymphs her dulcet mandates hear,
And nurse in fostering arms the tender year,
Plant the young bulb, inhume the living seed,
Prop the weak stem, the erring tendril lead;
Or fan in glass-built fanes the stranger flowers
With milder gales, and steep with warmer showers.
Delighted Thames through tropic umbrage glides,
And flowers antarctic, bending o'er his tides;
Drinks the new tints, the sweets unknown inhales,
And calls the sons of science to his vales.
In one bright point admiring Nature eyes
The fruits and foliage of discordant skies,
Twines the gay floret with the fragrant bough,
And bends the wreath round GEORGE'S royal brow.
-Sometimes retiring, from the public weal
One tranquil hour the ROYAL PARTNERS steal;
Through glades exotic pass with step sublime,
Or mark the growths of Britain's happier clime;
With beauty blossom'd, and with virtue blaz'd,
Mark the fair Scions, that themselves have rais'd;
Sweet blooms the Rose, the towering Oak expands,
24
The Grace and Guard of Britain's golden lands.
XV. SYLPHS! who, round earth on purple pinions borne,
Attend the radiant chariot of the morn;
Lead the gay hours along the ethereal hight,
And on each dun meridian shower the light;
SYLPHS! who from realms of equatorial day
To climes, that shudder in the polar ray,
From zone to zone pursue on shifting wing,
The bright perennial journey of the spring;
Bring my rich Balms from Mecca's hallow'd glades,
Sweet flowers, that glitter in Arabia's shades;
Fruits, whose fair forms in bright succession glow
Gilding the Banks of Arno, or of Po;
Each leaf, whose fragrant steam with ruby lip
Gay China's nymphs from pictur'd vases sip;
Each spicy rind, which sultry India boasts,
Scenting the night-air round her breezy coasts;
Roots whose bold stems in bleak Siberia blow,
And gem with many a tint the eternal snow;
Barks, whose broad umbrage high in ether waves
O'er Ande's steeps, and hides his golden caves;
-And, where yon oak extends his dusky shoots
Wide o'er the rill, that bubbles from his roots;
Beneath whose arms, protected from the storm
A turf-built altar rears it's rustic form;
SYLPHS! with religious hands fresh garlands twine,
And deck with lavish pomp HYGEIA'S shrine.
'Call with loud voice the Sisterhood, that dwell
On floating cloud, wide wave, or bubbling well;
Stamp with charm'd foot, convoke the alarmed Gnomes
From golden beds, and adamantine domes;
Each from her sphere with beckoning arm invite,
Curl'd with red flame, the Vestal Forms of light.
Close all your spotted wings, in lucid ranks
Press with your bending knees the crowded banks,
Cross your meek arms, incline your wreathed brows,
And win the Goddess with unwearied vows.
'Oh, wave, HYGEIA! o'er BRITANNIA'S throne
Thy serpent-wand, and mark it for thy own;
Lead round her breezy coasts thy guardian trains,
Her nodding forests, and her waving plains;
25
Shed o'er her peopled realms thy beamy smile,
And with thy airy temple crown her isle!'
The GODDESS ceased,-and calling from afar
The wandering Zephyrs, joins them to her car;
Mounts with light bound, and graceful, as she bends,
Whirls the long lash, the flexile rein extends;
On whispering wheels the silver axle slides,
Climbs into air, and cleaves the crystal tides;
Burst from its pearly chains, her amber hair
Streams o'er her ivory shoulders, buoy'd in air;
Swells her white veil, with ruby clasp confined
Round her fair brow, and undulates behind;
The lessening coursers rise in spiral rings,
Pierce the slow-sailing clouds, and stretch their shadowy wings.
~ Erasmus Darwin,
615:Gotham - Book Iii
Can the fond mother from herself depart?
Can she forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed;
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live?
Yes, from herself the mother may depart,
She may forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed,
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live;
But I cannot forget, whilst life remains,
And pours her current through these swelling veins,
Whilst Memory offers up at Reason's shrine;
But I cannot forget that Gotham's mine.
Can the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast tear her young child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone?
Yes, the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast may tear her child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone;
But I, (forbid it, Heaven!) but I can ne'er
The love of Gotham from this bosom tear;
Can ne'er so far true royalty pervert
From its fair course, to do my people hurt.
With how much ease, with how much confidence-As if, superior to each grosser sense,
Reason had only, in full power array'd,
To manifest her will, and be obey'd-Men make resolves, and pass into decrees
The motions of the mind! with how much ease,
In such resolves, doth passion make a flaw,
And bring to nothing what was raised to law!
In empire young, scarce warm on Gotham's throne,
The dangers and the sweets of power unknown,
Pleased, though I scarce know why, like some young child,
55
Whose little senses each new toy turns wild,
How do I hold sweet dalliance with my crown,
And wanton with dominion, how lay down,
Without the sanction of a precedent,
Rules of most large and absolute extent;
Rules, which from sense of public virtue spring,
And all at once commence a Patriot King!
But, for the day of trial is at hand,
And the whole fortunes of a mighty land
Are staked on me, and all their weal or woe
Must from my good or evil conduct flow,
Will I, or can I, on a fair review,
As I assume that name, deserve it too?
Have I well weigh'd the great, the noble part
I'm now to play? have I explored my heart,
That labyrinth of fraud, that deep dark cell,
Where, unsuspected e'en by me, may dwell
Ten thousand follies? have I found out there
What I am fit to do, and what to bear?
Have I traced every passion to its rise,
Nor spared one lurking seed of treacherous vice?
Have I familiar with my nature grown?
And am I fairly to myself made known?
A Patriot King!--why, 'tis a name which bears
The more immediate stamp of Heaven; which wears
The nearest, best resemblance we can show
Of God above, through all his works below.
To still the voice of Discord in the land;
To make weak Faction's discontented band,
Detected, weak, and crumbling to decay,
With hunger pinch'd, on their own vitals prey;
Like brethren, in the self-same interests warm'd,
Like different bodies, with one soul inform'd;
To make a nation, nobly raised above
All meaner thought, grow up in common love;
To give the laws due vigour, and to hold
That secret balance, temperate, yet bold,
With such an equal hand, that those who fear
May yet approve, and own my justice clear;
To be a common father, to secure
The weak from violence, from pride the poor;
Vice and her sons to banish in disgrace,
56
To make Corruption dread to show her face;
To bid afflicted Virtue take new state,
And be at last acquainted with the great;
Of all religions to elect the best,
Nor let her priests be made a standing jest;
Rewards for worth with liberal hand to carve,
To love the arts, nor let the artists starve;
To make fair Plenty through the realm increase,
Give fame in war, and happiness in peace;
To see my people virtuous, great, and free,
And know that all those blessings flow from me;
Oh! 'tis a joy too exquisite, a thought
Which flatters Nature more than flattery ought;
'Tis a great, glorious task, for man too hard;
But no less great, less glorious the reward,
The best reward which here to man is given,
'Tis more than earth, and little short of heaven;
A task (if such comparison may be)
The same in Nature, differing in degree,
Like that which God, on whom for aid I call,
Performs with ease, and yet performs to all.
How much do they mistake, how little know
Of kings, of kingdoms, and the pains which flow
From royalty, who fancy that a crown,
Because it glistens, must be lined with down!
With outside show, and vain appearance caught,
They look no further, and, by Folly taught,
Prize high the toys of thrones, but never find
One of the many cares which lurk behind.
The gem they worship which a crown adorns,
Nor once suspect that crown is lined with thorns.
Oh, might Reflection Folly's place supply,
Would we one moment use her piercing eye,
Then should we find what woe from grandeur springs,
And learn to pity, not to envy kings!
The villager, born humbly and bred hard,
Content his wealth, and Poverty his guard,
In action simply just, in conscience clear,
By guilt untainted, undisturb'd by fear,
His means but scanty, and his wants but few,
Labour his business, and his pleasure too,
Enjoys more comforts in a single hour
57
Than ages give the wretch condemn'd to power.
Call'd up by health, he rises with the day,
And goes to work, as if he went to play,
Whistling off toils, one half of which might make
The stoutest Atlas of a palace quake;
'Gainst heat and cold, which make us cowards faint,
Harden'd by constant use, without complaint
He bears what we should think it death to bear;
Short are his meals, and homely is his fare;
His thirst he slakes at some pure neighbouring brook,
Nor asks for sauce where appetite stands cook.
When the dews fall, and when the sun retires
Behind the mountains, when the village fires,
Which, waken'd all at once, speak supper nigh,
At distance catch, and fix his longing eye,
Homeward he hies, and with his manly brood
Of raw-boned cubs enjoys that clean, coarse food,
Which, season'd with good-humour, his fond bride
'Gainst his return is happy to provide;
Then, free from care, and free from thought, he creeps
Into his straw, and till the morning sleeps.
Not so the king--with anxious cares oppress'd
His bosom labours, and admits not rest:
A glorious wretch, he sweats beneath the weight
Of majesty, and gives up ease for state.
E'en when his smiles, which, by the fools of pride,
Are treasured and preserved from side to side,
Fly round the court, e'en when, compell'd by form,
He seems most calm, his soul is in a storm.
Care, like a spectre, seen by him alone,
With all her nest of vipers, round his throne
By day crawls full in view; when Night bids sleep,
Sweet nurse of Nature! o'er the senses creep;
When Misery herself no more complains,
And slaves, if possible, forget their chains;
Though his sense weakens, though his eyes grow dim,
That rest which comes to all, comes not to him.
E'en at that hour, Care, tyrant Care, forbids
The dew of sleep to fall upon his lids;
From night to night she watches at his bed;
Now, as one moped, sits brooding o'er his head;
Anon she starts, and, borne on raven's wings,
58
Croaks forth aloud--'Sleep was not made for kings!'
Thrice hath the moon, who governs this vast ball,
Who rules most absolute o'er me and all;
To whom, by full conviction taught to bow,
At new, at full, I pay the duteous vow;
Thrice hath the moon her wonted course pursued,
Thrice hath she lost her form, and thrice renew'd,
Since, (bless'd be that season, for before
I was a mere, mere mortal, and no more,
One of the herd, a lump of common clay,
Inform'd with life, to die and pass away)
Since I became a king, and Gotham's throne,
With full and ample power, became my own;
Thrice hath the moon her wonted course pursued,
Thrice hath she lost her form, and thrice renew'd,
Since sleep, kind sleep! who like a friend supplies
New vigour for new toil, hath closed these eyes.
Nor, if my toils are answer'd with success,
And I am made an instrument to bless
The people whom I love, shall I repine;
Theirs be the benefit, the labour mine.
Mindful of that high rank in which I stand,
Of millions lord, sole ruler in the land,
Let me,--and Reason shall her aid afford,-Rule my own spirit, of myself be lord.
With an ill grace that monarch wears his crown,
Who, stern and hard of nature, wears a frown
'Gainst faults in other men, yet all the while
Meets his own vices with a partial smile.
How can a king (yet on record we find
Such kings have been, such curses of mankind)
Enforce that law 'gainst some poor subject elf
Which conscience tells him he hath broke himself?
Can he some petty rogue to justice call
For robbing one, when he himself robs all?
Must not, unless extinguish'd, Conscience fly
Into his cheek, and blast his fading eye,
To scourge the oppressor, when the State, distress'd
And sunk to ruin, is by him oppress'd?
Against himself doth he not sentence give;
If one must die, t' other's not fit to live.
Weak is that throne, and in itself unsound,
59
Which takes not solid virtue for its ground.
All envy power in others, and complain
Of that which they would perish to obtain.
Nor can those spirits, turbulent and bold,
Not to be awed by threats, nor bought with gold,
Be hush'd to peace, but when fair legal sway
Makes it their real interest to obey;
When kings, and none but fools can then rebel,
Not less in virtue, than in power, excel.
Be that my object, that my constant care,
And may my soul's best wishes centre there;
Be it my task to seek, nor seek in vain,
Not only how to live, but how to reign;
And to those virtues which from Reason spring,
And grace the man, join those which grace the king.
First, (for strict duty bids my care extend
And reach to all who on that care depend,
Bids me with servants keep a steady hand,
And watch o'er all my proxies in the land)
First, (and that method Reason shall support)
Before I look into, and purge my court,
Before I cleanse the stable of the State,
Let me fix things which to myself relate.
That done, and all accounts well settled here,
In resolution firm, in honour clear,
Tremble, ye slaves! who dare abuse your trust,
Who dare be villains, when your king is just.
Are there, amongst those officers of state,
To whom our sacred power we delegate,
Who hold our place and office in the realm,
Who, in our name commission'd, guide the helm;
Are there, who, trusting to our love of ease,
Oppress our subjects, wrest our just decrees,
And make the laws, warp'd from their fair intent,
To speak a language which they never meant;
Are there such men, and can the fools depend
On holding out in safety to their end?
Can they so much, from thoughts of danger free,
Deceive themselves, so much misdeem of me,
To think that I will prove a statesman's tool,
And live a stranger where I ought to rule?
What! to myself and to my state unjust,
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Shall I from ministers take things on trust,
And, sinking low the credit of my throne,
Depend upon dependants of my own?
Shall I,--most certain source of future cares,-Not use my judgment, but depend on theirs?
Shall I, true puppet-like, be mock'd with state,
Have nothing but the name of being great;
Attend at councils which I must not weigh;
Do what they bid, and what they dictate, say;
Enrobed, and hoisted up into my chair,
Only to be a royal cipher there?
Perish the thought--'tis treason to my throne-And who but thinks it, could his thoughts be known
Insults me more than he, who, leagued with Hell,
Shall rise in arms, and 'gainst my crown rebel.
The wicked statesman, whose false heart pursues
A train of guilt; who acts with double views,
And wears a double face; whose base designs
Strike at his monarch's throne; who undermines
E'en whilst he seems his wishes to support;
Who seizes all departments; packs a court;
Maintains an agent on the judgment-seat,
To screen his crimes, and make his frauds complete;
New-models armies, and around the throne
Will suffer none but creatures of his own,
Conscious of such his baseness, well may try,
Against the light to shut his master's eye,
To keep him coop'd, and far removed from those
Who, brave and honest, dare his crimes disclose,
Nor ever let him in one place appear,
Where truth, unwelcome truth, may wound his ear.
Attempts like these, well weigh'd, themselves proclaim,
And, whilst they publish, balk their author's aim.
Kings must be blind into such snares to run,
Or, worse, with open eyes must be undone.
The minister of honesty and worth
Demands the day to bring his actions forth;
Calls on the sun to shine with fiercer rays,
And braves that trial which must end in praise.
None fly the day, and seek the shades of night,
But those whose actions cannot bear the light;
None wish their king in ignorance to hold
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But those who feel that knowledge must unfold
Their hidden guilt; and, that dark mist dispell'd
By which their places and their lives are held,
Confusion wait them, and, by Justice led,
In vengeance fall on every traitor's head.
Aware of this, and caution'd 'gainst the pit
Where kings have oft been lost, shall I submit,
And rust in chains like these? shall I give way,
And whilst my helpless subjects fall a prey
To power abused, in ignorance sit down,
Nor dare assert the honour of my crown?
When stern Rebellion, (if that odious name
Justly belongs to those whose only aim,
Is to preserve their country; who oppose,
In honour leagued, none but their country's foes;
Who only seek their own, and found their cause
In due regard for violated laws)
When stern Rebellion, who no longer feels
Nor fears rebuke, a nation at her heels,
A nation up in arms, though strong not proud,
Knocks at the palace gate, and, calling loud
For due redress, presents, from Truth's fair pen,
A list of wrongs, not to be borne by men:
How must that king be humbled, how disgrace
All that is royal in his name and place,
Who, thus call'd forth to answer, can advance
No other plea but that of ignorance!
A vile defence, which, was his all at stake,
The meanest subject well might blush to make;
A filthy source, from whence shame ever springs;
A stain to all, but most a stain to kings.
The soul with great and manly feelings warm'd,
Panting for knowledge, rests not till inform'd;
And shall not I, fired with the glorious zeal,
Feel those brave passions which my subjects feel?
Or can a just excuse from ignorance flow
To me, whose first great duty is--to know?
Hence, Ignorance!--thy settled, dull, blank eye
Would hurt me, though I knew no reason why.
Hence, Ignorance!--thy slavish shackles bind
The free-born soul, and lethargise the mind.
Of thee, begot by Pride, who look'd with scorn
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On every meaner match, of thee was born
That grave inflexibility of soul,
Which Reason can't convince, nor Fear control;
Which neither arguments nor prayers can reach,
And nothing less than utter ruin teach.
Hence, Ignorance!--hence to that depth of night
Where thou wast born, where not one gleam of light
May wound thine eye--hence to some dreary cell
Where monks with superstition love to dwell;
Or in some college soothe thy lazy pride,
And with the heads of colleges reside;
Fit mate for Royalty thou canst not be,
And if no mate for kings, no mate for me.
Come, Study! like a torrent swell'd with rains,
Which, rushing down the mountains, o'er the plains
Spreads horror wide, and yet, in horror kind,
Leaves seeds of future fruitfulness behind;
Come, Study!--painful though thy course, and slow,
Thy real worth by thy effects we know-Parent of Knowledge, come!--Not thee I call,
Who, grave and dull, in college or in hall
Dost sit, all solemn sad, and moping weigh
Things which, when found, thy labours can't repay-Nor, in one hand, fit emblem of thy trade,
A rod; in t' other, gaudily array'd,
A hornbook gilt and letter'd, call I thee,
Who dost in form preside o'er A, B, C:
Nor (siren though thou art, and thy strange charms,
As 'twere by magic, lure men to thine arms)
Do I call thee, who, through a winding maze,
A labyrinth of puzzling, pleasing ways,
Dost lead us at the last to those rich plains,
Where, in full glory, real Science reigns;
Fair though thou art, and lovely to mine eye,
Though full rewards in thy possession lie
To crown man's wish, and do thy favourites grace;
Though (was I station'd in an humbler place)
I could be ever happy in thy sight,
Toil with thee all the day, and through the night,
Toil on from watch to watch, bidding my eye,
Fast rivetted on Science, sleep defy;
Yet (such the hardships which from empire flow)
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Must I thy sweet society forego,
And to some happy rival's arms resign
Those charms which can, alas! no more be mine!
No more from hour to hour, from day to day,
Shall I pursue thy steps, and urge my way
Where eager love of science calls; no more
Attempt those paths which man ne'er trod before;
No more, the mountain scaled, the desert cross'd,
Losing myself, nor knowing I was lost,
Travel through woods, through wilds, from morn to night,
From night to morn, yet travel with delight,
And having found thee, lay me down content,
Own all my toil well paid, my time well spent.
Farewell, ye Muses too!--for such mean things
Must not presume to dwell with mighty kings-Farewell, ye Muses! though it cuts my heart
E'en to the quick, we must for ever part.
When the fresh morn bade lusty Nature wake;
When the birds, sweetly twittering through the brake,
Tune their soft pipes; when, from the neighbouring bloom
Sipping the dew, each zephyr stole perfume;
When all things with new vigour were inspired,
And seem'd to say they never could be tired;
How often have we stray'd, whilst sportive rhyme
Deceived the way and clipp'd the wings of Time,
O'er hill, o'er dale; how often laugh'd to see,
Yourselves made visible to none but me,
The clown, his works suspended, gape and stare,
And seem to think that I conversed with air!
When the sun, beating on the parched soil,
Seem'd to proclaim an interval of toil;
When a faint langour crept through every breast,
And things most used to labour wish'd for rest,
How often, underneath a reverend oak,
Where safe, and fearless of the impious stroke,
Some sacred Dryad lived; or in some grove,
Where, with capricious fingers, Fancy wove
Her fairy bower, whilst Nature all the while
Look'd on, and view'd her mockeries with a smile,
Have we held converse sweet! How often laid,
Fast by the Thames, in Ham's inspiring shade,
Amongst those poets which make up your train,
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And, after death, pour forth the sacred strain,
Have I, at your command, in verse grown gray,
But not impair'd, heard Dryden tune that lay
Which might have drawn an angel from his sphere,
And kept him from his office listening here!
When dreary Night, with Morpheus in her train,
Led on by Silence to resume her reign,
With darkness covering, as with a robe,
The scene of levity, blank'd half the globe;
How oft, enchanted with your heavenly strains,
Which stole me from myself; which in soft chains
Of music bound my soul; how oft have I,
Sounds more than human floating through the sky,
Attentive sat, whilst Night, against her will,
Transported with the harmony, stood still!
How oft in raptures, which man scarce could bear,
Have I, when gone, still thought the Muses there;
Still heard their music, and, as mute as death,
Sat all attention, drew in every breath,
Lest, breathing all too rudely, I should wound,
And mar that magic excellence of sound;
Then, Sense returning with return of day,
Have chid the Night, which fled so fast away!
Such my pursuits, and such my joys of yore,
Such were my mates, but now my mates no more.
Placed out of Envy's walk, (for Envy, sure,
Would never haunt the cottage of the poor,
Would never stoop to wound my homespun lays)
With some few friends, and some small share of praise,
Beneath oppression, undisturb'd by strife,
In peace I trod the humble vale of life.
Farewell, these scenes of ease, this tranquil state;
Welcome the troubles which on empire wait!
Light toys from this day forth I disavow;
They pleased me once, but cannot suit me now:
To common men all common things are free,
What honours them, might fix disgrace on me.
Call'd to a throne, and o'er a mighty land
Ordain'd to rule, my head, my heart, my hand,
Are all engross'd; each private view withstood,
And task'd to labour for the public good:
Be this my study; to this one great end
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May every thought, may every action tend!
Let me the page of History turn o'er,
The instructive page, and needfully explore
What faithful pens of former times have wrote
Of former kings; what they did worthy note,
What worthy blame; and from the sacred tomb
Where righteous monarchs sleep, where laurels bloom,
Unhurt by Time, let me a garland twine,
Which, robbing not their fame, may add to mine.
Nor let me with a vain and idle eye
Glance o'er those scenes, and in a hurry fly,
Quick as the post, which travels day and night;
Nor let me dwell there, lured by false delight;
And, into barren theory betray'd,
Forget that monarchs are for action made.
When amorous Spring, repairing all his charms,
Calls Nature forth from hoary Winter's arms,
Where, like a virgin to some lecher sold,
Three wretched months she lay benumb'd, and cold;
When the weak flower, which, shrinking from the breath
Of the rude North, and timorous of death,
To its kind mother earth for shelter fled,
And on her bosom hid its tender head,
Peeps forth afresh, and, cheer'd by milder sties,
Bids in full splendour all her beauties rise;
The hive is up in arms--expert to teach,
Nor, proudly, to be taught unwilling, each
Seems from her fellow a new zeal to catch;
Strength in her limbs, and on her wings dispatch,
The bee goes forth; from herb to herb she flies,
From flower to flower, and loads her labouring thighs
With treasured sweets, robbing those flowers, which, left,
Find not themselves made poorer by the theft,
Their scents as lively, and their looks as fair,
As if the pillager had not been there.
Ne'er doth she flit on Pleasure's silken wing;
Ne'er doth she, loitering, let the bloom of Spring
Unrifled pass, and on the downy breast
Of some fair flower indulge untimely rest;
Ne'er doth she, drinking deep of those rich dews
Which chemist Night prepared, that faith abuse
Due to the hive, and, selfish in her toils,
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To her own private use convert the spoils.
Love of the stock first call'd her forth to roam,
And to the stock she brings her booty home.
Be this my pattern--as becomes a king,
Let me fly all abroad on Reason's wing;
Let mine eye, like the lightning, through the earth
Run to and fro, nor let one deed of worth,
In any place and time, nor let one man,
Whose actions may enrich dominion's plan,
Escape my note; be all, from the first day
Of Nature to this hour, be all my prey.
From those whom Time, at the desire of Fame,
Hath spared, let Virtue catch an equal flame;
From those who, not in mercy, but in rage,
Time hath reprieved, to damn from age to age,
Let me take warning, lesson'd to distil,
And, imitating Heaven, draw good from ill.
Nor let these great researches, in my breast
A monument of useless labour rest;
No--let them spread--the effects let Gotham share,
And reap the harvest of their monarch's care:
Be other times, and other countries known,
Only to give fresh blessings to my own.
Let me, (and may that God to whom I fly,
On whom for needful succour I rely
In this great hour, that glorious God of truth,
Through whom I reign, in mercy to my youth,
Assist my weakness, and direct me right;
From every speck which hangs upon the sight
Purge my mind's eye, nor let one cloud remain
To spread the shades of Error o'er my brain!)
Let me, impartial, with unwearied thought,
Try men and things; let me, as monarchs ought,
Examine well on what my power depends;
What are the general principles and ends
Of government; how empire first began;
And wherefore man was raised to reign o'er man.
Let me consider, as from one great source
We see a thousand rivers take their course,
Dispersed, and into different channels led,
Yet by their parent still supplied and fed,
That Government, (though branch'd out far and wide,
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In various modes to various lands applied)
Howe'er it differs in its outward frame,
In the main groundwork's every where the same;
The same her view, though different her plan,
Her grand and general view--the good of man.
Let me find out, by Reason's sacred beams,
What system in itself most perfect seems,
Most worthy man, most likely to conduce
To all the purposes of general use;
Let me find, too, where, by fair Reason tried,
It fails, when to particulars applied;
Why in that mode all nations do not join,
And, chiefly, why it cannot suit with mine.
Let me the gradual rise of empires trace,
Till they seem founded on Perfection's base;
Then (for when human things have made their way
To excellence, they hasten to decay)
Let me, whilst Observation lends her clue
Step after step to their decline pursue,
Enabled by a chain of facts to tell
Not only how they rose, but why they fell.
Let me not only the distempers know
Which in all states from common causes grow,
But likewise those, which, by the will of Fate,
On each peculiar mode of empire wait;
Which in its very constitution lurk,
Too sure at last to do its destined work:
Let me, forewarn'd, each sign, each symptom learn,
That I my people's danger may discern,
Ere 'tis too late wish'd health to reassure,
And, if it can be found, find out a cure.
Let me, (though great, grave brethren of the gown
Preach all Faith up, and preach all Reason down,
Making those jar whom Reason meant to join,
And vesting in themselves a right divine),
Let me, through Reason's glass, with searching eye,
Into the depth of that religion pry
Which law hath sanction'd; let me find out there
What's form, what's essence; what, like vagrant air,
We well may change; and what, without a crime,
Cannot be changed to the last hour of time.
Nor let me suffer that outrageous zeal
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Which, without knowledge, furious bigots feel,
Fair in pretence, though at the heart unsound,
These separate points at random to confound.
The times have been when priests have dared to tread,
Proud and insulting, on their monarch's head;
When, whilst they made religion a pretence,
Out of the world they banish'd common-sense;
When some soft king, too open to deceit,
Easy and unsuspecting join'd the cheat,
Duped by mock piety, and gave his name
To serve the vilest purposes of shame.
Pear not, my people! where no cause of fear
Can justly rise--your king secures you here;
Your king, who scorns the haughty prelate's nod,
Nor deems the voice of priests the voice of God.
Let me, (though lawyers may perhaps forbid
Their monarch to behold what they wish hid,
And for the purposes of knavish gain,
Would have their trade a mystery remain)
Let me, disdaining all such slavish awe,
Dive to the very bottom of the law;
Let me (the weak, dead letter left behind)
Search out the principles, the spirit find,
Till, from the parts, made master of the whole,
I see the Constitution's very soul.
Let me, (though statesmen will no doubt resist,
And to my eyes present a fearful list
Of men, whose wills are opposite to mine,
Of men, great men, determined to resign)
Let me, (with firmness, which becomes a king.
Conscious from what a source my actions spring,
Determined not by worlds to be withstood,
When my grand object is my country's good)
Unravel all low ministerial scenes,
Destroy their jobs, lay bare their ways and means,
And track them step by step; let me well know
How places, pensions, and preferments go;
Why Guilt's provided for when Worth is not,
And why one man of merit is forgot;
Let me in peace, in war, supreme preside,
And dare to know my way without a guide.
Let me, (though Dignity, by nature proud,
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Retires from view, and swells behind a cloud,-As if the sun shone with less powerful ray,
Less grace, less glory, shining every day,-Though when she comes forth into public sight,
Unbending as a ghost, she stalks upright,
With such an air as we have often seen,
And often laugh'd at, in a tragic queen,
Nor, at her presence, though base myriads crook
The supple knee, vouchsafes a single look)
Let me, (all vain parade, all empty pride,
All terrors of dominion laid aside,
All ornament, and needless helps of art,
All those big looks, which speak a little heart)
Know (which few kings, alas! have ever known)
How Affability becomes a throne,
Destroys all fear, bids Love with Reverence live,
And gives those graces Pride can never give.
Let the stern tyrant keep a distant state,
And, hating all men, fear return of hate,
Conscious of guilt, retreat behind his throne,
Secure from all upbraidings but his own:
Let all my subjects have access to me,
Be my ears open, as my heart is free;
In full fair tide let information flow;
That evil is half cured, whose cause we know.
And thou, where'er thou art, thou wretched thing,
Who art afraid to look up to a king,
Lay by thy fears; make but thy grievance plain,
And, if I not redress thee, may my reign
Close up that very moment. To prevent
The course of Justice from her vain intent,
In vain my nearest, dearest friend shall plead,
In vain my mother kneel; my soul may bleed,
But must not change. When Justice draws the dart,
Though it is doom'd to pierce a favourite's heart,
'Tis mine to give it force, to give it aim-I know it duty, and I feel it fame.
~ Charles Churchill,
616:The Moat House
PART I
UNDER the shade of convent towers,
Where fast and vigil mark the hours,
From childhood into youth there grew
A maid as fresh as April dew,
And sweet as May's ideal flowers,
Brighter than dawn in wind-swept skies,
Like children's dreams most pure, unwise,
Yet with a slumbering soul-fire too,
That sometimes shone a moment through
Her wondrous unawakened eyes.
The nuns, who loved her coldly, meant
The twig should grow as it was bent;
That she, like them, should watch youth's bier,
Should watch her day-dreams disappear,
And go the loveless way they went.
The convent walls were high and grey;
How could Love hope to find a way
Into that citadel forlorn,
Where his dear name was put to scorn,
Or called a sinful thing to say?
Yet Love did come; what need to tell
Of flowers downcast, that sometimes fell
Across her feet when dreamily
She paced, with unused breviary,
Down paths made still with August's spell--
Of looks cast through the chapel grate,
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Of letters helped by Love and Fate,
That to cold fingers did not come
But lay within a warmer home,
Upon her heart inviolate?
Somehow he loved her--she loved him:
Then filled her soul's cup to the brim,
And all her daily life grew bright
With such a flood of rosy light
As turned the altar candles dim.
But love that lights is love that leads,
And lives upon the heart it feeds;
Soon grew she pale though not less fair,
And sighed his name instead of prayer,
And told her heart-throbs, not her beads.
How could she find the sunlight fair,
A sunlight that he did not share?
How could a rose smell sweet within
The cruel bars that shut her in,
And shut him out while she was there?
He vowed her fealty firm and fast,
Then to the winds her fears she cast;
They found a way to cheat the bars,
And in free air, beneath free stars,
Free, and with him, she stood at last.
'Now to some priest,' he said, 'that he
May give thee--blessing us--to me.'
'No priest,' she cried in doubt and fear,
'He would divide, not join us, dear.
I am mine--I give myself to thee.
'Since thou and I are mine and thine,
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What need to swear it at a shrine?
Would love last longer if we swore
That we would love for evermore?
God gives me thee--and thou art mine.'
'God weds us now,' he said, 'yet still
Some day shall we all forms fulfil.
Eternal truth affords to smile
At laws wherewith man marks his guile,
Yet law shall join us--when you will.
'So look your last, my love, on these
Forbidding walls and wooing trees.
Farewell to grief and gloom,' said he;
'Farewell to childhood's joy,' said she;
But neither said, 'Farewell to peace.'
Song.
My sweet, my sweet,
She is complete
From dainty head to darling feet;
So warm and white,
So brown and bright,
So made for love and love's delight.
God could but spare
One flower so fair,
There is none like her anywhere;
Beneath wide skies
The whole earth lies,
But not two other such brown eyes.
The world we're in,
If one might win?
Not worth that dimple in her chin
A heaven to know?
I'll let that go
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But once to see her lids droop low
Over her eyes,
By love made wise:
To see her bosom fall and rise
Is more than worth
The angels' mirth,
And all the heaven-joys of earth.
This is the hour
Which gives me power
To win and wear earth's whitest flower.
Oh, Love, give grace,
Through all life's ways
Keep pure this heart, her dwelling place.
II
The fields were reaped and the pastures bare,
And the nights grown windy and chill,
When the lovers passed through the beech woods fair,
And climbed the brow of the hill.
In the hill's spread arm the Moat House lies
With elm and willow tree;
'And is that your home at last?' she sighs.
'Our home at last,' laughs he.
Across the bridge and into the hall
Where the waiting housefolk were.
'This is my lady,' he said to them all,
And she looked so sweet and fair
That every maid and serving-boy
God-blessed them then and there,
And wished them luck, and gave them joy,
For a happy, handsome pair.
And only the old nurse shook her head:
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'Too young,' she said, 'too young.'
She noted that no prayers were read,
No marriage bells were rung;
No guests were called, no feast was spread,
As was meet for a marriage tide;
The young lord in the banquet hall broke bread
Alone with his little bride.
Yet her old heart warmed to the two, and blessed,
They were both so glad and gay,
By to-morrow and yesterday unoppressed,
Fulfilled of the joy of to-day;
Like two young birds in that dull old nest,
So careless of coming care,
So rapt in the other that each possessed,
The two young lovers were.
He was heir to a stern hard-natured race,
That had held the Moat House long,
But the gloom of his formal dwelling place
Dissolved at her voice and song;
So bright, so sweet, to the house she came,
So winning of way and word,
The household knew her by one pet name,
'My Lady Ladybird.'
First love so rarely gets leave to bring,
In our world where money is might,
Its tender buds to blossoming
With the sun of its own delight.
We love at rose or at vintage prime,
In the glare and heat of the day,
Forgetting the dawn and the violet time,
And the wild sweet scent of the may.
These loved like children, like children played,
The old house laughed with delight
At her song of a voice, at the radiance made
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By her dress's flashing flight.
Up the dark oak stair, through the gallery's gloom,
She ran like a fairy fleet,
And ever her lover from room to room
Fast followed her flying feet.
They gathered the buds of the late-lived rose
In the ordered garden ways,
They walked through the sombre yew-walled close
And threaded the pine woods maze,
They rode through woods where their horses came
Knee-deep through the rustling leaves,
Through fields forlorn of the poppies' flame
And bereft of their golden sheaves.
In the mellow hush of October noon
They rowed in the flat broad boat,
Through the lily leaves so thickly strewn
On the sunny side of the moat.
They were glad of the fire of the beech-crowned hill,
And glad of the pale deep sky,
And the shifting shade that the willows made
On the boat as she glided by.
They roamed each room of the Moat House through
And questioned the wraiths of the past,
What legends rare the old dresses knew,
And the swords, what had wet them last?
What faces had looked through the lozenge panes,
What shadows darkened the door,
What feet had walked in the jewelled stains
That the rich glass cast on the floor?
She dressed her beauty in old brocade
That breathed of loss and regret,
In laces that broken hearts had swayed,
In the days when the swords were wet;
And the rubies and pearls laughed out and said,
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'Though the lovers for whom we were set,
And the women who loved us, have long been dead,
Yet beauty and we live yet.'
When the wild white winter's spectral hand
Effaced the green and the red,
And crushed the fingers brown of the land
Till they grew death-white instead,
The two found cheer in their dark oak room,
And their dreams of a coming spring,
For a brighter sun shone through winter's gloom
Than ever a summer could bring.
They sat where the great fires blazed in the hall,
Where the wolf-skins lay outspread,
The pictured faces looked down from the wall
To hear his praise of the dead.
He told her ghostly tales of the past,
And legends rare of his house,
Till she held her breath at the shade fire-cast,
And the scamper-rush of the mouse,
Till she dared not turn her head to see
What shape might stand by her chair-Till she cried his name, and fled to his knee,
And safely nestled there.
Then they talked of their journey, the city's crowd,
Of the convent's faint joy and pain,
Till the ghosts of the past were laid in the shroud
Of commonplace things again.
So the winter died, and the baby spring,
With hardly voice for a cry,
And hands too weak the signs to bring
That all men might know her by,
Yet woke, and breathed through the soft wet air
The promise of all things dear,
And poets and lovers knew she was there,
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And sang to their hearts, 'She is here.'
Song.
Soft is the ground underfoot,
Soft are the skies overhead,
Green is the ivy round brown hedge root,
Green is the moss where we tread.
Purple the woods are, and brown;
The blackbird is glossy and sleek,
He knows that the worms are no more kept down
By frost out of reach of his beak.
Grey are the sheep in the fold,
Tired of their turnip and beet,
Dreaming of meadow and pasture and wold,
And turf the warm rain will make sweet.
Leaves sleep, no bud wakens yet,
But we know by the song of the sun,
And the happy way that the world smiles, wet,
That the spring--oh, be glad!--is begun.
What stirs the heart of the tree?
What stirs the seed the earth bears?
What is it stirring in you and in me
Longing for summer, like theirs?-Longing you cannot explain,
Yearning that baffles me still!
Ah! that each spring should bring longings again
No summer can ever fulfil!
III
When all the world had echoed the song
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That the poet and lover sang,
When 'Glory to spring,' sweet, soft, and strong,
From the ferny woods outrang,
In wet green meadow, in hollow green,
The primrose stars outshone,
And the bluebells balanced their drooping sheen
In copses lovely and lone.
The green earth laughed, full of leaf and flower,
The sky laughed too, full of sun;
Was this the hour for a parting hour,
With the heaven of spring just won?
The woods and fields were echoing
To a chorus of life and bliss.
Oh, hard to sting the face of the spring
With the smart of a parting kiss!
A kinsman ailing, a summons sent
To haste to his dying bed.
'Oh, cruel sentence of banishment!
For my heart says 'Go'!' he said.
'So now good-bye to my home, my dear,
To the spring we watched from its birth;
There is no spring, oh, my sweet, but here,
'Tis winter all over the earth.
'But I come again, oh, spring of my life,
You hold the cord in your hand
That will draw me back, oh, my sweetheart wife,
To the place where your dear feet stand;
But a few short days, and my arms shall be
Once more round your little head,
And you will be weeping glad tears with me
On the grave of our parting, dead!
'I leave you my heart for a short short while,
It will ache if 'tis wrapped in fears;
Keep it safe and warm in the sun of your smile,
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Not wet with the rain of your tears.
Be glad of the joy that shall soon be won,
Be glad to-day, though we part;
You shall weep for our parting when parting is done,
And drop your tears on my heart.'
Song.
Good-bye, my love, my only dear, I know your heart is true
And that it lingers here with me while mine fares forth with you.
We part? Our hearts are almost one, and are so closely tied
'Tis yours that stirs my bosom-lace, mine beats against your side.
So not at losing you I grieve, since heart and soul stay here,
But all the gladness of my life, I cry to lose it, dear;
Warmth of the sun, sweet of the rose, night's rest and light of day,
I mourn for these, for if you go, you take them all away.
You are sad too--not at leaving me, whose heart must with you go,
But at the heaven you leave behind--ah, yes--you told me so,
You said wherever you might go you could not ever find
A spring so sweet, love so complete, as these you leave behind.
No future joy will ever pay this moment's bitter ache,
Yet I am glad to be so sad, since it is for your sake.
You take so much, I do but wish that you could take the whole,
Could take me, since you take my rest, my light, my joy, my soul.
Song.
Oh, love, I leave
This springtide eve,
When woods in sunset shine blood-red;
The long road lies
Before my eyes,
My horse goes on with even tread.
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I dare not turn
These eyes that burn
Back to the terrace where you lean;
If I should see
Your tears for me,
I must turn back to dry them, O my queen!
Yet I must go,
Fate has it so,
Duty spoke once, and I obey;
Sadly I rise,
Leave paradise,
And turn my face the other way.
Nothing is dear
On earth but here,
There is no joy away from you;
What though there be
New things to see,
New friends, new faces, and adventures new?
Yet since I may
Not with you stay,
Hey for the outer world of life!
Brace limbs, shake rein,
And seek again
The hurry, jostle, jar and strife.
Hey for the new!
Yet, love, for you-I have loved you so--the last hand-kiss.
How vast a world
Lies here unfurled!
How small, if sweet, home's inner round of bliss!
The road bends right,
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Leads out of sight,
Here I may turn, nor fear to see;
So far away,
One could not say
If you are weeping now for me.
Behind this eve
My love I leave,
The big bright world spreads out before;
Yet will I come,
To you and home,
Oh, love, and rest beneath your yoke once more.
IV
She stood upon the terrace, gazing still
Down the long road to watch him out of sight,
Dry-eyed at first, until the swelling hill
Hid him. Then turned she to the garden bright,
Whose ways held memories of lover's laughter,
And lover's sadness that had followed after,
Both born of passion's too intense delight.
The garden knew her secrets, and its bowers
Threw her her secrets back in mocking wise;
''Twas here he buried you in lilac flowers.
Here while he slept you covered up his eyes
With primroses. They died; and by that token
Love, like a flower whose stalk has once been broken,
Will live no more for all your tears and sighs.'
The sundial that had marked their happy hours
Cried out to her, 'I know that he is gone;
So many twos have wreathed me round with flowers,
And always one came afterwards alone,
And always wept--even as you are weeping.
The flowers while they lived were cold, shade keeping,
But always through the tears the sun still shone.'
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She left the garden; but the house still more
Whispered, 'You love him--he has gone away.'
Where fell her single footstep sighed the floor,
'Another foot than yours fell here to-day.'
The very hound she stroked looked round and past her,
Then in her face, and whined, 'Where is our master?'
The whole house had the same one thing to say.
Empty, without its soul, disconsolate,
The great house was: through all the rooms went she,
And every room was dark and desolate,
Nothing seemed good to do or good to see.
At last, upon the wolf-skins, worn with weeping,
The old nurse found her, like a tired child, sleeping
With face tear-stained, and sobbing brokenly.
Wearily went the days, all sad the same,
Yet each brought its own added heaviness.
Why was it that no letter from him came
To ease the burden of her loneliness?
Why did he send no message, word, or greeting,
To help her forward to their day of meeting,
No written love--no black and white caress?
At last there came a letter, sweet but brief,
'He was so busy--had no time for more.'
No time! She had had time enough for grief,
There never had been so much time before;
And yet the letter lay within her bosom,
Pressed closely to her breathing beauty's blossom,
Worn for a balm, because her heart was sore.
She knew not where he stayed, and so could send,
Of all the letters that she wrote, not one;
Hour after soft spring hour the child would spend
In pouring out her soul, for, once begun,
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The tale of all her love and grief flowed over
Upon the letters that she wrote her lover,
And that the fire read when the tale was done.
And yet she never doubted he would come,
If not before, yet when a baby's eyes
Should look for him, when his deserted home
Should waken to a baby's laughs and cries.
'He judges best--perhaps he comes to-morrow,
But come he will, and we shall laugh at sorrow
When in my arms our little baby lies.'
And in the August days a soft hush fell
Upon the house--the old nurse kept her place
Beside the little wife--and all was well;
After rapt anguish came a breathing space,
And she, mid tears and smiles, white-faced, glad-eyed,
Felt her wee baby move against her side,
Kissed its small hands, worshipped its tiny face.
Song.
Oh, baby, baby, baby dear,
We lie alone together here;
The snowy gown and cap and sheet
With lavender are fresh and sweet;
Through half-closed blinds the roses peer
To see and love you, baby dear.
We are so tired, we like to lie
Just doing nothing, you and I,
Within the darkened quiet room.
The sun sends dusk rays through the gloom,
Which is no gloom since you are here,
My little life, my baby dear.
Soft sleepy mouth so vaguely pressed
Against your new-made mother's breast,
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Soft little hands in mine I fold,
Soft little feet I kiss and hold,
Round soft smooth head and tiny ear,
All mine, my own, my baby dear.
And he we love is far away!
But he will come some happy day.
You need but me, and I can rest
At peace with you beside me pressed.
There are no questions, longings vain,
No murmuring, nor doubt, nor pain,
Only content and we are here,
My baby dear.
PART II
While winged Love his pinions folded in the Moat House by the hill,
In the city there was anger, doubt, distrust, and thoughts of ill;
For his kinsmen, hearing rumours of the life the lovers led,
Wept, and wrung their hands, and sorrowed--'Better that the lad were dead
Than to live thus--he, the son of proudest man and noblest earl-Thus in open sin with her, a nameless, shameless, foreign girl.'
(Ever when they thus lamented, 'twas the open sin they named,
Till one wondered whether sinning, if less frank, had been less blamed.)
''Tis our duty to reclaim him--mate him to a noble bride
Who shall fitly grace his station, and walk stately by his side-Gently loose him from the fetters of this siren fair and frail
(In such cases time and absence nearly always will prevail).
He shall meet the Duke's fair daughter--perfect, saintly Lady May-Beauty is the surest beacon to a young man gone astray!
Not at all precipitately, but with judgment sure and fine,
We will rescue and redeem him from his shameful husks and swine.
So--his uncle's long been ailing (gout and dropsy for his sins)-Let that serve for pretext; hither bring the youth--his cure begins.'
So they summoned him and welcomed, and their utmost efforts bent
345
To snatch back a brand from burning and a soul from punishment-Sought to charm him with their feastings, each more sumptuous than the last,
From his yearning recollections of his very sinful past-Strove to wipe his wicked doings from his memory's blotted
By the chaster, purer interests of the ball-room and the stage.
And for Lady May--they hinted to the girl, child-innocent,
That her hand to save the sinner by her Saviour had been sent,
That her voice might bring his voice her Master's triumph choir to swell,
And might save a man from sorrow and a human soul from hell.
So she used her maiden graces, maiden glances, maiden smiles,
To protect the erring pilgrim from the devil's subtle wiles-Saw him daily, sent him letters, pious verses by the score,
Every angel's trap she baited with her sweet religious lore-Ventured all she knew, not knowing that her beauty and her youth
Were far better to bait traps with than her odds and ends of truth.
First he listened, vain and flattered that a girl as fair as she
Should be so distinctly anxious for his lost humanity,
Yet determined no attentions, even from the Lady May,
Should delay his home-returning one unnecessary day.
But as she--heart-wrung with pity for his erring soul--grew kind,
Fainter, fainter grew the image of his sweetheart left behind;
Till one day May spoke of sorrow--prayed him to reform--repent,
Urged the festival in heaven over every penitent;
Bold in ignorance, spoke vaguely and low-toned of sin and shame,
And at last her voice, half breathless, faltered, broke upon his name,
And two tears fell from her lashes on the roses at her breast,
Far more potent in their silence than her preaching at its best.
And his weak soul thrilled and trembled at her beauty, and he cried,
'Not for me those priceless tears: I am your slave--you shall decide.'
'Save your soul,' she sighed. 'Was ever man so tempted, tried, before?
It is yours!' and at the word his soul was lost for evermore.
Never woman pure and saintly did the devil's work so well!
Never soul ensnared for heaven took a surer road to hell!
Lady May had gained her convert, loved him, and was satisfied,
And before the last leaves yellowed she would kneel down as his bride.
She was happy, and he struggled to believe that perfidy
Was repentance--reformation was not one with cruelty,
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Yet through all congratulations, friends' smiles, lovers' flatteries,
Lived a gnawing recollection of the lost love harmonies.
In the day he crushed it fiercely, kept it covered out of sight,
But it held him by the heart-strings and came boldly out at night:
In the solemn truthful night his soul shrank shuddering from its lies,
And his base self knew its baseness, and looked full in its false eyes.
In the August nights, when all the sky was deep and toneless blue,
And the gold star-points seemed letting the remembered sunlight through,
When the world was hushed and peaceful in the moonlight's searching white,
He would toss and cast his arms out through the silence and the night
To those eyes that through the night and through the silence came again,
Haunting him with the persistence and the passion of their pain.
'Oh, my little love--my sweetheart--oh, our past--our sweet love-day-Oh, if I were only true--or you were only Lady May!'
But the sunshine scared the vision, and he rose once more love-warm
To the Lady May's perfections and his own proposed reform.
Coward that he was! he could not write and break that loving heart:
To the worn-out gouty kinsman was assigned that pleasing part.
'Say it kindly,' said her lover, 'always friends--I can't forget-We must meet no more--but give her tenderest thought and all regret;
Bid her go back to the convent--she and I can't meet as friends-Offer her a good allowance--any terms to make amends
For what nought could make amends for--for my baseness and my sin.
Oh, I know which side the scale this deed of mine will figure in!
Curse reform!--she may forget me--'tis on me the burdens fall,
For I love her only, solely--not the Lady May at all!'
'Patience,' said the uncle, 'patience, this is but the natural pain
When a young man turns from sinning to the paths of grace again.
Your wild oats are sown--you're plighted to the noble Lady May
(Whose estates adjoin your manor in a providential way).
Do your duty, sir, for surely pangs like these are such as win
Pardon and the heavenly blessing on the sinner weaned from sin.'
Song.
Day is fair, and so is she
Whom so soon I wed;
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But the night, when memory
Guards my sleepless bed,
And with cold hands brings once more
Thorns from rose-sweet days of yore-Night I curse and dread.
Day is sweet, as sweet as her
Girlish tenderness;
But the night, when near me stir
Rustlings of a dress,
Echoes of a loving tone
Now renounced, forsworn, foregone,
Night is bitterness.
Day can stir my blood like wine
Or her beauty's fire,
But at night I burn and pine,
Torture, turn and tire,
With a longing that is pain,
Just to kiss and clasp again
Love's one lost desire.
Day is glad and pure and bright,
Pure, glad, bright as she;
But the sad and guilty night
Outlives day--for me.
Oh, for days when day and night
Equal balance of delight
Were alike to me!
In the day I see my feet
Walk in steadfast wise,
Following my lady sweet
To her Paradise,
Like some stray-recovered lamb;
But I see the beast I am
When the night stars rise.
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Yet in wedding day there lies
Magic--so they say;
Ghosts will have no chance to rise
Near my Lady May.
Vain the hope! In good or ill
Those lost eyes will haunt me still
Till my dying day.
II
Quickly died the August roses, and the kin of Lady May
Dowered her richly, blessed her freely, and announced her wedding day;
And his yearnings and remorses fainter grew as days went on
'Neath the magic of the beauty of the woman he had won;
And less often and less strongly was his fancy caught and crossed
By remembrance of the dearness of the woman he had lost.
Long sweet mornings in the boudoir where the flowers stood about,
Whisperings in the balcony when stars and London lamps came out,
Concerts, flower shows, garden parties, balls and dinners, rides and drives,
All the time-killing distractions of these fashionable lives;
Dreary, joyless as a desert, pleasure's everlasting way,
But enchantment can make lovely even deserts, so they say,
Sandy waste, or waste of London season, where no green leaf grows,
Shone on but by love or passion, each will blossom like the rose!
Came no answer to the letter that announced his marriage day;
But his people wrote that Lady Ladybird had gone away.
So he sent to bid get ready to receive his noble wife.
Two such loving women granted to one man, and in one life!
Though he shuddered to remember with what ghosts the Moat House swarmed-Ghosts of lovely days and dreamings ere the time when he reformed-Yet he said, 'She cannot surely greatly care, or I had heard
Some impulsive, passionate pleading, had some sorrowing written word;
She has journeyed to her convent--will be glad as ere I came,
Through her beauty's dear enchantment, to a life of shameless shame;
And the memories of her dearness passion's flaming sword shall slay,
When the Moat House sees the bridal of myself and Lady May!'
III
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Bright the mellow autumn sunshine glows upon the wedding day;
Lawns are swept from leaves, and doorways are wreathed round with garlands
gay,
Flowery arches span the carriage drive from grass again to grass,
Flowers are ready for the flinging when the wedded pair shall pass;
Bells are ringing, clanging, clamouring from the belfry 'mid the trees,
And the sound rings out o'er woodlands, parks and gardens, lawns and leas;
All the village gay with banners waits the signal, 'Here they come!'
To strew flowers, wave hats, drop curtseys, and hurra its 'Welcome home!'
At the gates the very griffins on the posts are wreathed with green.
In their ordered lines wait servants for the pair to pass between;
But among them there is missing more than one familiar face,
And new faces, blank expectant, fill up each vacated place,
And the other servants whisper, 'Nurse would wail to see this day,
It was well she left the service when 'my Lady' ran away.'
Louder, clearer ring the joy-bells through the shaken, shattered air,
Till the echoes of them waken in the hillside far and fair;
Level shine the golden sunbeams in the golden afternoon.
In the east the wan ghost rises of the silver harvest moon.
Hark! wheels was it? No, but fancy. Listen! No--yes--can you hear?
Yes, it is the coming carriage rolling nearer and more near!
Till the horse-hoofs strike the roadway, unmistakable and clear!
They are coming! shout your welcome to my lord and lady fair:
May God shower his choicest blessings on the happy wedded pair!
Here they are! the open carriage and surrounding dusty cloud,
Whence he smiles his proud acceptance of the homage of the crowd;
And my lady's sweet face! Bless her! there's a one will help the poor,
Eyes like those could never turn a beggar helpless from her door!
Welcome, welcome! scatter flowers: see, they smile--bow left and right,
Reach the lodge gates--God of heaven! what was that, the flash of white?
Shehas sprung out from the ambush of the smiling, cheering crowd:
'Fling your flowers--here's my welcome!' sharp the cry rings out and loud.
Sudden sight of wild white face, and haggard eyes, and outstretched hands-Just one heart-beat's space before the bridal pair that figure stands,
Then the horses, past controlling, forward bound, their hoofs down thrust-And the carriage wheels jolt over something bloody in the dust.
'Stop her! Stop her! Stop the horses!' cry the people all too late,
350
For my lord and Lady May have had their welcome at their gate.
'Twas the old nurse who sprang to her, raised the brown-haired, dust-soiled
head,
Looked a moment, closed the eyelids--then turned to my lord and said,
Kneeling still upon the roadway, with her arm flung round the dead,
While the carriage waited near her, blood and dust upon its wheels
(Ask my lord within to tell you how a happy bridegroom feels):
'Now, my lord, you are contented; you have chosen for your bride
This same fine and dainty lady who is sitting by your side.
Did ye tell her ere this bridal of the girl who bore your shame,
Bore your love-vows--bore your baby--everything except your name?
When they strewed the flowers to greet you, and the banners were unfurled,
She has flung before your feet the sweetest flower in all the world!
Woe's the day I ever nursed you--loved your lisping baby word,
For you grew to name of manhood, and to title of my lord;
Woe's the day you ever saw her, brought her home to wreck her life,
Throwing by your human plaything, to seek out another wife.
God will judge, and I would rather be the lost child lying there,
With your babe's milk in her bosom, your horse-hoof marks on her hair,
Than be you when God shall thunder, when your days on earth are filled,
'Where is she I gave, who loved you, whom you ruined, left and killed?'
Murderer, liar, coward, traitor, look upon your work and say
That your heart is glad within you on your happy wedding day!
And for you, my noble lady, take my blessing on your head,
Though it is not like the blessing maidens look for when they wed.
Never bride had such a welcome, such a flower laid on her way,
As was given you when your carriage crushed her out of life to-day.
Take my blessing--see her body, see what you and he have done-And I wish you joy, my lady, of the bridegroom you have won.'
Like a beaten cur, that trembles at the whistling of the lash,
He stands listening, hands a-tremble, face as pale as white wood ash;
But the Lady May springs down, her soul shines glorious in her eyes,
Moving through the angry silence comes to where the other lies,
Gazes long upon her silent, but at last she turns her gaze
On the nurse, and lips a-tremble, hands outstretched, she slowly says,
'She is dead--but, but her baby--' all her woman's heart is wild
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With an infinite compassion for the little helpless child.
Then she turns to snatch the baby from the arms of one near by,
Holds it fast and looks towards him with a voiceless bitter cry,
As imploring him to loose her from some nightmare's deadly bands.
Dogged looks he down and past her, and she sees and understands,
Then she speaks--'I keep your baby--that's my right in sight of men,
But by God I vow I'll never see your dastard face again.'
So she turned with no word further towards the purple-clouded west,
And passed thither with his baby clasped against her maiden breast.
Little Ladybird was buried in the old ancestral tomb.
From that grave there streams a shadow that wraps up his life in gloom,
And he drags the withered life on, longs for death that will not come,
The interminable night hours riven by that 'Welcome home!'
And he dares not leave this earthly hell of sharp remorse behind,
Lest through death not rest but hotter fire of anguish he should find.
Coward to the last, he will not risk so little for so much,
So he burns, convicted traitor, in the hell self-made of such:
And at night he wakes and shivers with unvanquishable dread
At the ghosts that press each other for a place beside his bed,
And he shudders to remember all the dearness that is dead.
Song.
I had a soul,
Not strong, but following good if good but led.
I might have kept it clean and pure and whole,
And given it up at last, grown strong with days
Of steadfast striving in truth's stern sweet ways;
Instead, I soiled and smutched and smothered it
With poison-flowers it valued not one whit-Now it is dead.
I had a heart
Most true, most sweet, that on my loving fed.
I might have kept her all my life, a part
Of all my life--I let her starve and pine,
Ruined her life and desolated mine.
Sin brushed my lips--I yielded at a touch,
352
Tempted so little, and I sinned so much,
And she is dead.
There was a life
That in my sin I took and chained and wed,
And made--perpetual remorse!--my wife.
In my sin's harvest she must reap her share,
That makes its sheaves less light for me to bear.
Oh, life I might have left to bloom and grow!
I struck its root of happiness one blow,
And it is dead.
Once joy I had,
Now I have only agony instead,
That maddens, yet will never send me mad.
The best that comes is numbed half-sick despair,
Remembering how sweet the dear dead were.
My whole life might have been one clear joy song!
Now--oh, my heart, how still life is, how long,
For joy is dead.
Yet there is this:
I chose the thorns not grapes, the stones not bread;
I had my chance, they say, to gain or miss.
And yet I feel it was predestinate
From the first hour, from the first dawn of fate,
That I, thus placed, when that hour should arise,
Must act thus, and could not act otherwise.
This is the worst of all that can be said;
For hope is dead.
~ Edith Nesbit,
617:class:Classics

BOOK THE THIRD

The Story of of Cadmus

When now Agenor had his daughter lost,
He sent his son to search on ev'ry coast;
And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime;
Thus was the father pious to a crime.
The restless youth search'd all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?
When, tir'd at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
He goes a suppliant to the Delphick dome;
There asks the God what new appointed home
Should end his wand'rings, and his toils relieve.
The Delphick oracles this answer give.

"Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plow;
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,
In which the destin'd walls and town shall stand."

No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphick God,
When in the fields the fatal cow he view'd,
Nor gall'd with yokes, nor worn with servitude:
Her gently at a distance he pursu'd;
And as he walk'd aloof, in silence pray'd
To the great Pow'r whose counsels he obey'd.
Her way thro' flow'ry Panope she took,
And now, Cephisus, cross'd thy silver brook;
When to the Heav'ns her spacious front she rais'd,
And bellow'd thrice, then backward turning gaz'd
On those behind, 'till on the destin'd place
She stoop'd, and couch'd amid the rising grass.

Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the Gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lye;
Then sends his servants to a neighb'ring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O'er-run with brambles, and perplex'd with thorn:
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.

Deep in the dreary den, conceal'd from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanc'd his eyes:
His tow'ring crest was glorious to behold,
His shoulders and his sides were scal'd with gold;
Three tongues he brandish'd when he charg'd his foes;
His teeth stood jaggy in three dreadful rowes.
The Tyrians in the den for water sought,
And with their urns explor'd the hollow vault:
From side to side their empty urns rebound,
And rowse the sleeping serpent with the sound.
Strait he bestirs him, and is seen to rise;
And now with dreadful hissings fills the skies,
And darts his forky tongues, and rowles his glaring eyes.

The Tyrians drop their vessels in the fright,
All pale and trembling at the hideous sight.
Spire above spire uprear'd in air he stood,
And gazing round him over-look'd the wood:
Then floating on the ground in circles rowl'd;
Then leap'd upon them in a mighty fold.
Of such a bulk, and such a monstrous size
The serpent in the polar circle lyes,
That stretches over half the northern skies.
In vain the Tyrians on their arms rely,
In vain attempt to fight, in vain to fly:
All their endeavours and their hopes are vain;
Some die entangled in the winding train;
Some are devour'd, or feel a loathsom death,
Swoln up with blasts of pestilential breath.

And now the scorching sun was mounted high,
In all its lustre, to the noon-day sky;
When, anxious for his friends, and fill'd with cares,
To search the woods th' impatient chief prepares.
A lion's hide around his loins he wore,
The well poiz'd javelin to the field he bore,
Inur'd to blood; the far-destroying dart;
And, the best weapon, an undaunted heart.

Soon as the youth approach'd the fatal place,
He saw his servants breathless on the grass;
The scaly foe amid their corps he view'd,
Basking at ease, and feasting in their blood.
"Such friends," he cries, "deserv'd a longer date;
But Cadmus will revenge or share their fate."
Then heav'd a stone, and rising to the throw,
He sent it in a whirlwind at the foe:
A tow'r, assaulted by so rude a stroke,
With all its lofty battlements had shook;
But nothing here th' unwieldy rock avails,
Rebounding harmless from the plaited scales,
That, firmly join'd, preserv'd him from a wound,
With native armour crusted all around.
With more success, the dart unerring flew,
Which at his back the raging warriour threw;
Amid the plaited scales it took its course,
And in the spinal marrow spent its force.
The monster hiss'd aloud, and rag'd in vain,
And writh'd his body to and fro with pain;
He bit the dart, and wrench'd the wood away;
The point still buried in the marrow lay.
And now his rage, increasing with his pain,
Reddens his eyes, and beats in ev'ry vein;
Churn'd in his teeth the foamy venom rose,
Whilst from his mouth a blast of vapours flows,
Such as th' infernal Stygian waters cast.
The plants around him wither in the blast.
Now in a maze of rings he lies enrowl'd,
Now all unravel'd, and without a fold;
Now, like a torrent, with a mighty force
Bears down the forest in his boist'rous course.
Cadmus gave back, and on the lion's spoil
Sustain'd the shock, then forc'd him to recoil;
The pointed jav'lin warded off his rage:
Mad with his pains, and furious to engage,
The serpent champs the steel, and bites the spear,
'Till blood and venom all the point besmear.
But still the hurt he yet receiv'd was slight;
For, whilst the champion with redoubled might
Strikes home the jav'lin, his retiring foe
Shrinks from the wound, and disappoints the blow.

The dauntless heroe still pursues his stroke,
And presses forward, 'till a knotty oak
Retards his foe, and stops him in the rear;
Full in his throat he plung'd the fatal spear,
That in th' extended neck a passage found,
And pierc'd the solid timber through the wound.
Fix'd to the reeling trunk, with many a stroke
Of his huge tail he lash'd the sturdy oak;
'Till spent with toil, and lab'ring hard for breath,
He now lay twisting in the pangs of death.

Cadmus beheld him wallow in a flood
Of swimming poison, intermix'd with blood;
When suddenly a speech was heard from high
(The speech was heard, nor was the speaker nigh),
"Why dost thou thus with secret pleasure see,
Insulting man! what thou thy self shalt be?"
Astonish'd at the voice, he stood amaz'd,
And all around with inward horror gaz'd:
When Pallas swift descending from the skies,
Pallas, the guardian of the bold and wise,
Bids him plow up the field, and scatter round
The dragon's teeth o'er all the furrow'd ground;
Then tells the youth how to his wond'ring eyes
Embattled armies from the field should rise.

He sows the teeth at Pallas's command,
And flings the future people from his hand.
The clods grow warm, and crumble where he sows;
And now the pointed spears advance in rows;
Now nodding plumes appear, and shining crests,
Now the broad shoulders and the rising breasts;
O'er all the field the breathing harvest swarms,
A growing host, a crop of men and arms.

So through the parting stage a figure rears
Its body up, and limb by limb appears
By just degrees; 'till all the man arise,
And in his full proportion strikes the eyes.

Cadmus surpriz'd, and startled at the sight
Of his new foes, prepar'd himself for fight:
When one cry'd out, "Forbear, fond man, forbear
To mingle in a blind promiscuous war."
This said, he struck his brother to the ground,
Himself expiring by another's wound;
Nor did the third his conquest long survive,
Dying ere scarce he had begun to live.

The dire example ran through all the field,
'Till heaps of brothers were by brothers kill'd;
The furrows swam in blood: and only five
Of all the vast increase were left alive.
Echion one, at Pallas's command,
Let fall the guiltless weapon from his hand,
And with the rest a peaceful treaty makes,
Whom Cadmus as his friends and partners takes;
So founds a city on the promis'd earth,
And gives his new Boeotian empire birth.

Here Cadmus reign'd; and now one would have guess'd
The royal founder in his exile blest:
Long did he live within his new abodes,
Ally'd by marriage to the deathless Gods;
And, in a fruitful wife's embraces old,
A long increase of children's children told:
But no frail man, however great or high,
Can be concluded blest before he die.

Actaeon was the first of all his race,
Who griev'd his grandsire in his borrow'd face;
Condemn'd by stern Diana to bemoan
The branching horns, and visage not his own;
To shun his once lov'd dogs, to bound away,
And from their huntsman to become their prey,
And yet consider why the change was wrought,
You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault;
Or, if a fault, it was the fault of chance:
For how can guilt proceed from ignorance?

The Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag

In a fair chace a shady mountain stood,
Well stor'd with game, and mark'd with trails of blood;
Here did the huntsmen, 'till the heat of day,
Pursue the stag, and load themselves with rey:
When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:
"My friends," said he, "our sport is at the best,
The sun is high advanc'd, and downward sheds
His burning beams directly on our heads;
Then by consent abstain from further spoils,
Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,
And ere to-morrow's sun begins his race,
Take the cool morning to renew the chace."
They all consent, and in a chearful train
The jolly huntsmen, loaden with the slain,
Return in triumph from the sultry plain.

Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,
Refresh'd with gentle winds, and brown with shade,
The chaste Diana's private haunt, there stood
Full in the centre of the darksome wood
A spacious grotto, all around o'er-grown
With hoary moss, and arch'd with pumice-stone.
From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,
And trickling swell into a lake below.
Nature had ev'ry where so plaid her part,
That ev'ry where she seem'd to vie with art.
Here the bright Goddess, toil'd and chaf'd with heat,
Was wont to ba the her in the cool retreat.

Here did she now with all her train resort,
Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;
Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,
Some loos'd her sandals, some her veil unty'd;
Each busy nymph her proper part undrest;
While Crocale, more handy than the rest,
Gather'd her flowing hair, and in a noose
Bound it together, whilst her own hung loose.
Five of the more ignoble sort by turns
Fetch up the water, and unlade the urns.

Now all undrest the shining Goddess stood,
When young Actaeon, wilder'd in the wood,
To the cool grott by his hard fate betray'd,
The fountains fill'd with naked nymphs survey'd.
The frighted virgins shriek'd at the surprize
(The forest echo'd with their piercing cries).
Then in a huddle round their Goddess prest:
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
With blushes glow'd; such blushes as adorn
The ruddy welkin, or the purple morn;
And tho' the crowding nymphs her body hide,
Half backward shrunk, and view'd him from a side.
Surpriz'd, at first she would have snatch'd her bow,
But sees the circling waters round her flow;
These in the hollow of her hand she took,
And dash'd 'em in his face, while thus she spoke:
"Tell, if thou can'st, the wond'rous sight disclos'd,
A Goddess naked to thy view expos'd."

This said, the man begun to disappear
By slow degrees, and ended in a deer.
A rising horn on either brow he wears,
And stretches out his neck, and pricks his ears;
Rough is his skin, with sudden hairs o'er-grown,
His bosom pants with fears before unknown:
Transform'd at length, he flies away in haste,
And wonders why he flies away so fast.
But as by chance, within a neighb'ring brook,
He saw his branching horns and alter'd look.
Wretched Actaeon! in a doleful tone
He try'd to speak, but only gave a groan;
And as he wept, within the watry glass
He saw the big round drops, with silent pace,
Run trickling down a savage hairy face.
What should he do? Or seek his old abodes,
Or herd among the deer, and sculk in woods!
Here shame dissuades him, there his fear prevails,
And each by turns his aking heart assails.

As he thus ponders, he behind him spies
His op'ning hounds, and now he hears their cries:
A gen'rous pack, or to maintain the chace,
Or snuff the vapour from the scented grass.

He bounded off with fear, and swiftly ran
O'er craggy mountains, and the flow'ry plain;
Through brakes and thickets forc'd his way, and flew
Through many a ring, where once he did pursue.
In vain he oft endeavour'd to proclaim
His new misfortune, and to tell his name;
Nor voice nor words the brutal tongue supplies;
From shouting men, and horns, and dogs he flies,
Deafen'd and stunn'd with their promiscuous cries.
When now the fleetest of the pack, that prest
Close at his heels, and sprung before the rest,
Had fasten'd on him, straight another pair,
Hung on his wounded haunch, and held him there,
'Till all the pack came up, and ev'ry hound
Tore the sad huntsman grov'ling on the ground,
Who now appear'd but one continu'd wound.
With dropping tears his bitter fate he moans,
And fills the mountain with his dying groans.
His servants with a piteous look he spies,
And turns about his supplicating eyes.
His servants, ignorant of what had chanc'd,
With eager haste and joyful shouts advanc'd,
And call'd their lord Actaeon to the game.
He shook his head in answer to the name;
He heard, but wish'd he had indeed been gone,
Or only to have stood a looker-on.
But to his grief he finds himself too near,
And feels his rav'nous dogs with fury tear
Their wretched master panting in a deer.

The Birth of Bacchus

Actaeon's suff'rings, and Diana's rage,
Did all the thoughts of men and Gods engage;
Some call'd the evils which Diana wrought,
Too great, and disproportion'd to the fault:
Others again, esteem'd Actaeon's woes
Fit for a virgin Goddess to impose.
The hearers into diff'rent parts divide,
And reasons are produc'd on either side.

Juno alone, of all that heard the news,
Nor would condemn the Goddess, nor excuse:
She heeded not the justice of the deed,
But joy'd to see the race of Cadmus bleed;
For still she kept Europa in her mind,
And, for her sake, detested all her kind.
Besides, to aggravate her hate, she heard
How Semele, to Jove's embrace preferr'd,
Was now grown big with an immortal load,
And carry'd in her womb a future God.
Thus terribly incens'd, the Goddess broke
To sudden fury, and abruptly spoke.

"Are my reproaches of so small a force?
'Tis time I then pursue another course:
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die,
If I'm indeed the mistress of the sky,
If rightly styl'd among the Pow'rs above
The wife and sister of the thund'ring Jove
(And none can sure a sister's right deny);
It is decreed the guilty wretch shall die.
She boasts an honour I can hardly claim,
Pregnant she rises to a mother's name;
While proud and vain she triumphs in her Jove,
And shows the glorious tokens of his love:
But if I'm still the mistress of the skies,
By her own lover the fond beauty dies."
This said, descending in a yellow cloud,
Before the gates of Semele she stood.

Old Beroe's decrepit shape she wears,
Her wrinkled visage, and her hoary hairs;
Whilst in her trembling gait she totters on,
And learns to tattle in the nurse's tone.
The Goddess, thus disguis'd in age, beguil'd
With pleasing stories her false foster-child.
Much did she talk of love, and when she came
To mention to the nymph her lover's name,
Fetching a sigh, and holding down her head,
"'Tis well," says she, "if all be true that's said.
But trust me, child, I'm much inclin'd to fear
Some counterfeit in this your Jupiter:
Many an honest well-designing maid
Has been by these pretended Gods betray'd,
But if he be indeed the thund'ring Jove,
Bid him, when next he courts the rites of love,
Descend triumphant from th' etherial sky,
In all the pomp of his divinity,
Encompass'd round by those celestial charms,
With which he fills th' immortal Juno's arms."

Th' unwary nymph, ensnar'd with what she said,
Desir'd of Jove, when next he sought her bed,
To grant a certain gift which she would chuse;
"Fear not," reply'd the God, "that I'll refuse
Whate'er you ask: may Styx confirm my voice,
Chuse what you will, and you shall have your choice."
"Then," says the nymph, "when next you seek my arms,
May you descend in those celestial charms,
With which your Juno's bosom you enflame,
And fill with transport Heav'n's immortal dame."
The God surpriz'd would fain have stopp'd her voice,
But he had sworn, and she had made her choice.

To keep his promise he ascends, and shrowds
His awful brow in whirl-winds and in clouds;
Whilst all around, in terrible array,
His thunders rattle, and his light'nings play.
And yet, the dazling lustre to abate,
He set not out in all his pomp and state,
Clad in the mildest light'ning of the skies,
And arm'd with thunder of the smallest size:
Not those huge bolts, by which the giants slain
Lay overthrown on the Phlegrean plain.
'Twas of a lesser mould, and lighter weight;
They call it thunder of a second-rate,
For the rough Cyclops, who by Jove's comm and
Temper'd the bolt, and turn'd it to his hand,
Work'd up less flame and fury in its make,
And quench'd it sooner in the standing lake.
Thus dreadfully adorn'd, with horror bright,
Th' illustrious God, descending from his height,
Came rushing on her in a storm of light.

The mortal dame, too feeble to engage
The lightning's flashes, and the thunder's rage,
Consum'd amidst the glories she desir'd,
And in the terrible embrace expir'd.

But, to preserve his offspring from the tomb,
Jove took him smoaking from the blasted womb:
And, if on ancient tales we may rely,
Inclos'd th' abortive infant in his thigh.
Here when the babe had all his time fulfill'd,
Ino first took him for her foster-child;
Then the Niseans, in their dark abode,
Nurs'd secretly with milk the thriving God.

The Transformation of Tiresias

'Twas now, while these transactions past on Earth,
And Bacchus thus procur'd a second birth,
When Jove, dispos'd to lay aside the weight
Of publick empire and the cares of state,
As to his queen in nectar bowls he quaff'd,
"In troth," says he, and as he spoke he laugh'd,
"The sense of pleasure in the male is far
More dull and dead, than what you females share."
Juno the truth of what was said deny'd;
Tiresias therefore must the cause decide,
For he the pleasure of each sex had try'd.

It happen'd once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction view'd,
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he view'd
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood:
"And if," says he, "such virtue in you lye,
That he who dares your slimy folds untie
Must change his kind, a second stroke I'll try."
Again he struck the snakes, and stood again
New-sex'd, and strait recover'd into man.
Him therefore both the deities create
The sov'raign umpire, in their grand debate;
And he declar'd for Jove: when Juno fir'd,
More than so trivial an affair requir'd,
Depriv'd him, in her fury, of his sight,
And left him groping round in sudden night.
But Jove (for so it is in Heav'n decreed,
That no one God repeal another's deed)
Irradiates all his soul with inward light,
And with the prophet's art relieves the want of sight.

The Transformation of Echo

Fam'd far and near for knowing things to come,
From him th' enquiring nations sought their doom;
The fair Liriope his answers try'd,
And first th' unerring prophet justify'd.
This nymph the God Cephisus had abus'd,
With all his winding waters circumfus'd,
And on the Nereid got a lovely boy,
Whom the soft maids ev'n then beheld with joy.

The tender dame, sollicitous to know
Whether her child should reach old age or no,
Consults the sage Tiresias, who replies,
"If e'er he knows himself he surely dies."
Long liv'd the dubious mother in suspence,
'Till time unriddled all the prophet's sense.

Narcissus now his sixteenth year began,
Just turn'd of boy, and on the verge of man;
Many a friend the blooming youth caress'd,
Many a love-sick maid her flame confess'd:
Such was his pride, in vain the friend caress'd,
The love-sick maid in vain her flame confess'd.

Once, in the woods, as he pursu'd the chace,
The babbling Echo had descry'd his face;
She, who in others' words her silence breaks,
Nor speaks her self but when another speaks.
Echo was then a maid, of speech bereft,
Of wonted speech; for tho' her voice was left,
Juno a curse did on her tongue impose,
To sport with ev'ry sentence in the close.
Full often when the Goddess might have caught
Jove and her rivals in the very fault,
This nymph with subtle stories would delay
Her coming, 'till the lovers slip'd away.
The Goddess found out the deceit in time,
And then she cry'd, "That tongue, for this thy crime,
Which could so many subtle tales produce,
Shall be hereafter but of little use."
Hence 'tis she prattles in a fainter tone,
With mimick sounds, and accents not her own.

This love-sick virgin, over-joy'd to find
The boy alone, still follow'd him behind:
When glowing warmly at her near approach,
As sulphur blazes at the taper's touch,
She long'd her hidden passion to reveal,
And tell her pains, but had not words to tell:
She can't begin, but waits for the rebound,
To catch his voice, and to return the sound.

The nymph, when nothing could Narcissus move,
Still dash'd with blushes for her slighted love,
Liv'd in the shady covert of the woods,
In solitary caves and dark abodes;
Where pining wander'd the rejected fair,
'Till harrass'd out, and worn away with care,
The sounding skeleton, of blood bereft,
Besides her bones and voice had nothing left.
Her bones are petrify'd, her voice is found
In vaults, where still it doubles ev'ry sound.

The Story of Narcissus

Thus did the nymphs in vain caress the boy,
He still was lovely, but he still was coy;
When one fair virgin of the slighted train
Thus pray'd the Gods, provok'd by his disdain,
"Oh may he love like me, and love like me in vain!"
Rhamnusia pity'd the neglected fair,
And with just vengeance answer'd to her pray'r.

There stands a fountain in a darksom wood,
Nor stain'd with falling leaves nor rising mud;
Untroubled by the breath of winds it rests,
Unsully'd by the touch of men or beasts;
High bow'rs of shady trees above it grow,
And rising grass and chearful greens below.
Pleas'd with the form and coolness of the place,
And over-heated by the morning chace,
Narcissus on the grassie verdure lyes:
But whilst within the chrystal fount he tries
To quench his heat, he feels new heats arise.
For as his own bright image he survey'd,
He fell in love with the fantastick shade;
And o'er the fair resemblance hung unmov'd,
Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he lov'd.
The well-turn'd neck and shoulders he descries,
The spacious forehead, and the sparkling eyes;
The hands that Bacchus might not scorn to show,
And hair that round Apollo's head might flow;
With all the purple youthfulness of face,
That gently blushes in the wat'ry glass.
By his own flames consum'd the lover lyes,
And gives himself the wound by which he dies.
To the cold water oft he joins his lips,
Oft catching at the beauteous shade he dips
His arms, as often from himself he slips.
Nor knows he who it is his arms pursue
With eager clasps, but loves he knows not who.

What could, fond youth, this helpless passion move?
What kindled in thee this unpity'd love?
Thy own warm blush within the water glows,
With thee the colour'd shadow comes and goes,
Its empty being on thy self relies;
Step thou aside, and the frail charmer dies.

Still o'er the fountain's wat'ry gleam he stood,
Mindless of sleep, and negligent of food;
Still view'd his face, and languish'd as he view'd.
At length he rais'd his head, and thus began
To vent his griefs, and tell the woods his pain.
"You trees," says he, "and thou surrounding grove,
Who oft have been the kindly scenes of love,
Tell me, if e'er within your shades did lye
A youth so tortur'd, so perplex'd as I?
I, who before me see the charming fair,
Whilst there he stands, and yet he stands not there:
In such a maze of love my thoughts are lost:
And yet no bulwark'd town, nor distant coast,
Preserves the beauteous youth from being seen,
No mountains rise, nor oceans flow between.
A shallow water hinders my embrace;
And yet the lovely mimick wears a face
That kindly smiles, and when I bend to join
My lips to his, he fondly bends to mine.
Hear, gentle youth, and pity my complaint,
Come from thy well, thou fair inhabitant.
My charms an easy conquest have obtain'd
O'er other hearts, by thee alone disdain'd.
But why should I despair? I'm sure he burns
With equal flames, and languishes by turns.
When-e'er I stoop, he offers at a kiss,
And when my arms I stretch, he stretches his.
His eye with pleasure on my face he keeps,
He smiles my smiles, and when I weep he weeps.
When e'er I speak, his moving lips appear
To utter something, which I cannot hear.

"Ah wretched me! I now begin too late
To find out all the long-perplex'd deceit;
It is my self I love, my self I see;
The gay delusion is a part of me.
I kindle up the fires by which I burn,
And my own beauties from the well return.
Whom should I court? how utter my complaint?
Enjoyment but produces my restraint,
And too much plenty makes me die for want.
How gladly would I from my self remove!
And at a distance set the thing I love.
My breast is warm'd with such unusual fire,
I wish him absent whom I most desire.
And now I faint with grief; my fate draws nigh;
In all the pride of blooming youth I die.
Death will the sorrows of my heart relieve.
Oh might the visionary youth survive,
I should with joy my latest breath resign!
But oh! I see his fate involv'd in mine."

This said, the weeping youth again return'd
To the clear fountain, where again he burn'd;
His tears defac'd the surface of the well,
With circle after circle, as they fell:
And now the lovely face but half appears,
O'er-run with wrinkles, and deform'd with tears.
"Ah whither," cries Narcissus, "dost thou fly?
Let me still feed the flame by which I die;
Let me still see, tho' I'm no further blest."
Then rends his garment off, and beats his breast:
His naked bosom redden'd with the blow,
In such a blush as purple clusters show,
Ere yet the sun's autumnal heats refine
Their sprightly juice, and mellow it to wine.
The glowing beauties of his breast he spies,
And with a new redoubled passion dies.
As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,
And trickle into drops before the sun;
So melts the youth, and languishes away,
His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;
And none of those attractive charms remain,
To which the slighted Echo su'd in vain.

She saw him in his present misery,
Whom, spight of all her wrongs, she griev'd to see.
She answer'd sadly to the lover's moan,
Sigh'd back his sighs, and groan'd to ev'ry groan:
"Ah youth! belov'd in vain," Narcissus cries;
"Ah youth! belov'd in vain," the nymph replies.
"Farewel," says he; the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips, but she reply'd, "farewel."
Then on th' wholsome earth he gasping lyes,
'Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves it self admires.

For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn;
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn:
When, looking for his corps, they only found
A rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown'd.

The Story of Pentheus

This sad event gave blind Tiresias fame,
Through Greece establish'd in a prophet's name.

Th' unhallow'd Pentheus only durst deride
The cheated people, and their eyeless guide.
To whom the prophet in his fury said,
Shaking the hoary honours of his head:
"'Twere well, presumptuous man, 'twere well for thee
If thou wert eyeless too, and blind, like me:
For the time comes, nay, 'tis already here,
When the young God's solemnities appear:
Which, if thou dost not with just rites adorn,
Thy impious carcass, into pieces torn,
Shall strew the woods, and hang on ev'ry thorn.
Then, then, remember what I now foretel,
And own the blind Tiresias saw too well."

Still Pentheus scorns him, and derides his skill;
But time did all the prophet's threats fulfil.
For now through prostrate Greece young Bacchus rode,
Whilst howling matrons celebrate the God:
All ranks and sexes to his Orgies ran,
To mingle in the pomps, and fill the train.
When Pentheus thus his wicked rage express'd:
"What madness, Thebans, has your souls possess'd?
Can hollow timbrels, can a drunken shout,
And the lewd clamours of a beastly rout,
Thus quell your courage; can the weak alarm
Of women's yells those stubborn souls disarm,
Whom nor the sword nor trumpet e'er could fright,
Nor the loud din and horror of a fight?
And you, our sires, who left your old abodes,
And fix'd in foreign earth your country Gods;
Will you without a stroak your city yield,
And poorly quit an undisputed field?
But you, whose youth and vigour should inspire
Heroick warmth, and kindle martial fire,
Whom burnish'd arms and crested helmets grace,
Not flow'ry garlands and a painted face;
Remember him to whom you stand ally'd:
The serpent for his well of waters dy'd.
He fought the strong; do you his courage show,
And gain a conquest o'er a feeble foe.
If Thebes must fall, oh might the fates afford
A nobler doom from famine, fire, or sword.
Then might the Thebans perish with renown:
But now a beardless victor sacks the town;
Whom nor the prancing steed, nor pond'rous shield,
Nor the hack'd helmet, nor the dusty field,
But the soft joys of luxury and ease,
The purple vests, and flow'ry garlands please.
Stand then aside, I'll make the counterfeit
Renounce his god-head, and confess the cheat.
Acrisius from the Grecian walls repell'd
This boasted pow'r; why then should Pentheus yield?
Go quickly drag th' impostor boy to me;
I'll try the force of his divinity."
Thus did th' audacious wretch those rites profane;
His friends dissuade th' audacious wretch in vain:
In vain his grandsire urg'd him to give o'er
His impious threats; the wretch but raves the more.

So have I seen a river gently glide,
In a smooth course, and inoffensive tide;
But if with dams its current we restrain,
It bears down all, and foams along the plain.

But now his servants came besmear'd with blood,
Sent by their haughty prince to seize the God;
The God they found not in the frantick throng,
But dragg'd a zealous votary along.

The Mariners transform'd to Dolphins

Him Pentheus view'd with fury in his look,
And scarce with-held his hands, whilst thus he spoke:
"Vile slave! whom speedy vengeance shall pursue,
And terrify thy base seditious crew:
Thy country and thy parentage reveal,
And, why thou joinest in these mad Orgies, tell."

The captive views him with undaunted eyes,
And, arm'd with inward innocence, replies,

"From high Meonia's rocky shores I came,
Of poor descent, Acoetes is my name:
My sire was meanly born; no oxen plow'd
His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures low'd.
His whole estate within the waters lay;
With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey,
His art was all his livelyhood; which he
Thus with his dying lips bequeath'd to me:
In streams, my boy, and rivers take thy chance;
There swims, said he, thy whole inheritance.
Long did I live on this poor legacy;
'Till tir'd with rocks, and my old native sky,
To arts of navigation I inclin'd;
Observ'd the turns and changes of the wind,
Learn'd the fit havens, and began to note
The stormy Hyades, the rainy Goat,
The bright Taygete, and the shining Bears,
With all the sailor's catalogue of stars.

"Once, as by chance for Delos I design'd,
My vessel, driv'n by a strong gust of wind,
Moor'd in a Chian Creek; a-shore I went,
And all the following night in Chios spent.
When morning rose, I sent my mates to bring
Supplies of water from a neighb'ring spring,
Whilst I the motion of the winds explor'd;
Then summon'd in my crew, and went aboard.
Opheltes heard my summons, and with joy
Brought to the shore a soft and lovely boy,
With more than female sweetness in his look,
Whom straggling in the neighb'ring fields he took.
With fumes of wine the little captive glows,
And nods with sleep, and staggers as he goes.

"I view'd him nicely, and began to trace
Each heav'nly feature, each immortal grace,
And saw divinity in all his face,
I know not who, said I, this God should be;
But that he is a God I plainly see:
And thou, who-e'er thou art, excuse the force
These men have us'd; and oh befriend our course!
Pray not for us, the nimble Dictys cry'd,
Dictys, that could the main-top mast bestride,
And down the ropes with active vigour slide.
To the same purpose old Epopeus spoke,
Who over-look'd the oars, and tim'd the stroke;
The same the pilot, and the same the rest;
Such impious avarice their souls possest.
Nay, Heav'n forbid that I should bear away
Within my vessel so divine a prey,
Said I; and stood to hinder their intent:
When Lycabas, a wretch for murder sent
From Tuscany, to suffer banishment,
With his clench'd fist had struck me over-board,
Had not my hands in falling grasp'd a cord.

"His base confederates the fact approve;
When Bacchus (for 'twas he) begun to move,
Wak'd by the noise and clamours which they rais'd;
And shook his drowsie limbs, and round him gaz'd:
What means this noise? he cries; am I betray'd?
Ah, whither, whither must I be convey'd?
Fear not, said Proreus, child, but tell us where
You wish to land, and trust our friendly care.
To Naxos then direct your course, said he;
Naxos a hospitable port shall be
To each of you, a joyful home to me.
By ev'ry God, that rules the sea or sky,
The perjur'd villains promise to comply,
And bid me hasten to unmoor the ship.
With eager joy I launch into the deep;
And, heedless of the fraud, for Naxos stand.
They whisper oft, and beckon with the hand,
And give me signs, all anxious for their prey,
To tack about, and steer another way.
Then let some other to my post succeed,
Said I, I'm guiltless of so foul a deed.
What, says Ethalion, must the ship's whole crew
Follow your humour, and depend on you?
And strait himself he seated at the prore,
And tack'd about, and sought another shore.

"The beauteous youth now found himself betray'd,
And from the deck the rising waves survey'd,
And seem'd to weep, and as he wept he said:
And do you thus my easy faith beguile?
Thus do you bear me to my native isle?
Will such a multitude of men employ
Their strength against a weak defenceless boy?

"In vain did I the God-like youth deplore,
The more I begg'd, they thwarted me the more.
And now by all the Gods in Heav'n that hear
This solemn oath, by Bacchus' self, I swear,
The mighty miracle that did ensue,
Although it seems beyond belief, is true.
The vessel, fix'd and rooted in the flood,
Unmov'd by all the beating billows stood.
In vain the mariners would plow the main
With sails unfurl'd, and strike their oars in vain;
Around their oars a twining ivy cleaves,
And climbs the mast, and hides the cords in leaves:
The sails are cover'd with a chearful green,
And berries in the fruitful canvass seen.
Amidst the waves a sudden forest rears
Its verdant head, and a new Spring appears.

"The God we now behold with open'd eyes;
A herd of spotted panthers round him lyes
In glaring forms; the grapy clusters spread
On his fair brows, and dangle on his head.
And whilst he frowns, and brandishes his spear,
My mates surpriz'd with madness or with fear,
Leap'd over board; first perjur'd Madon found
Rough scales and fins his stiff'ning sides surround;
Ah what, cries one, has thus transform'd thy look?
Strait his own mouth grew wider as he spoke;
And now himself he views with like surprize.
Still at his oar th' industrious Libys plies;
But, as he plies, each busy arm shrinks in,
And by degrees is fashion'd to a fin.
Another, as he catches at a cord,
Misses his arms, and, tumbling over-board,
With his broad fins and forky tail he laves
The rising surge, and flounces in the waves.
Thus all my crew transform'd around the ship,
Or dive below, or on the surface leap,
And spout the waves, and wanton in the deep.
Full nineteen sailors did the ship convey,
A shole of nineteen dolphins round her play.
I only in my proper shape appear,
Speechless with wonder, and half dead with fear,
'Till Bacchus kindly bid me fear no more.
With him I landed on the Chian shore,
And him shall ever gratefully adore."

"This forging slave," says Pentheus, "would prevail
O'er our just fury by a far-fetch'd tale:
Go, let him feel the whips, the swords, the fire,
And in the tortures of the rack expire."
Th' officious servants hurry him away,
And the poor captive in a dungeon lay.
But, whilst the whips and tortures are prepar'd,
The gates fly open, of themselves unbarr'd;
At liberty th' unfetter'd captive stands,
And flings the loosen'd shackles from his hands.

The Death of Pentheus

But Pentheus, grown more furious than before,
Resolv'd to send his messengers no more,
But went himself to the distracted throng,
Where high Cithaeron echo'd with their song.
And as the fiery war-horse paws the ground,
And snorts and trembles at the trumpet's sound;
Transported thus he heard the frantick rout,
And rav'd and madden'd at the distant shout.

A spacious circuit on the hill there stood.
Level and wide, and skirted round with wood;
Here the rash Pentheus, with unhallow'd eyes,
The howling dames and mystick Orgies spies.
His mother sternly view'd him where he stood,
And kindled into madness as she view'd:
Her leafy jav'lin at her son she cast,
And cries, "The boar that lays our country waste!
The boar, my sisters! Aim the fatal dart,
And strike the brindled monster to the heart."

Pentheus astonish'd heard the dismal sound,
And sees the yelling matrons gath'ring round;
He sees, and weeps at his approaching fate,
And begs for mercy, and repents too late.
"Help, help! my aunt Autonoe," he cry'd;
"Remember, how your own Actaeon dy'd."
Deaf to his cries, the frantick matron crops
One stretch'd-out arm, the other Ino lops.
In vain does Pentheus to his mother sue,
And the raw bleeding stumps presents to view:
His mother howl'd; and, heedless of his pray'r,
Her trembling hand she twisted in his hair,
"And this," she cry'd, "shall be Agave's share,"
When from the neck his struggling head she tore,
And in her hands the ghastly visage bore.
With pleasure all the hideous trunk survey;
Then pull'd and tore the mangled limbs away,
As starting in the pangs of death it lay,
Soon as the wood its leafy honours casts,
Blown off and scatter'd by autumnal blasts,
With such a sudden death lay Pentheus slain,
And in a thousand pieces strow'd the plain.

By so distinguishing a judgment aw'd,
The Thebans tremble, and confess the God.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
~ Ovid, BOOK THE THIRD

,
618:The Cremona Violin
Part First
Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door.
A storm was rising, heavy gusts of wind
Swirled through the trees, and scattered leaves before
Her on the clean, flagged path. The sky behind
The distant town was black, and sharp defined
Against it shone the lines of roofs and towers,
Superimposed and flat like cardboard flowers.
A pasted city on a purple ground,
Picked out with luminous paint, it seemed. The cloud
Split on an edge of lightning, and a sound
Of rivers full and rushing boomed through bowed,
Tossed, hissing branches. Thunder rumbled loud
Beyond the town fast swallowing into gloom.
Frau Altgelt closed the windows of each room.
She bustled round to shake by constant moving
The strange, weird atmosphere. She stirred the fire,
She twitched the supper-cloth as though improving
Its careful setting, then her own attire
Came in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higher
She peered into the wall-glass, now adjusting
A straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting
This way or that to suit her. At last sitting,
Or rather plumping down upon a chair,
She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,
And watched the rain upon the window glare
In white, bright drops. Through the black glass a flare
Of lightning squirmed about her needles. 'Oh!'
She cried. 'What can be keeping Theodore so!'
A roll of thunder set the casements clapping.
Frau Altgelt flung her work aside and ran,
Pulled open the house door, with kerchief flapping
She stood and gazed along the street. A man
Flung back the garden-gate and nearly ran
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Her down as she stood in the door. 'Why, Dear,
What in the name of patience brings you here?
Quick, Lotta, shut the door, my violin
I fear is wetted. Now, Dear, bring a light.
This clasp is very much too worn and thin.
I'll take the other fiddle out to-night
If it still rains. Tut! Tut! my child, you're quite
Clumsy. Here, help me, hold the case while I Give me the candle. No, the inside's dry.
Thank God for that! Well, Lotta, how are you?
A bad storm, but the house still stands, I see.
Is my pipe filled, my Dear? I'll have a few
Puffs and a snooze before I eat my tea.
What do you say? That you were feared for me?
Nonsense, my child. Yes, kiss me, now don't talk.
I need a rest, the theatre's a long walk.'
Her needles still, her hands upon her lap
Patiently laid, Charlotta Altgelt sat
And watched the rain-run window. In his nap
Her husband stirred and muttered. Seeing that,
Charlotta rose and softly, pit-a-pat,
Climbed up the stairs, and in her little room
Found sighing comfort with a moon in bloom.
But even rainy windows, silver-lit
By a new-burst, storm-whetted moon, may give
But poor content to loneliness, and it
Was hard for young Charlotta so to strive
And down her eagerness and learn to live
In placid quiet. While her husband slept,
Charlotta in her upper chamber wept.
Herr Concert-Meister Altgelt was a man
Gentle and unambitious, that alone
Had kept him back. He played as few men can,
Drawing out of his instrument a tone
So shimmering-sweet and palpitant, it shone
Like a bright thread of sound hung in the air,
Afloat and swinging upward, slim and fair.
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Above all things, above Charlotta his wife,
Herr Altgelt loved his violin, a fine
Cremona pattern, Stradivari's life
Was flowering out of early discipline
When this was fashioned. Of soft-cutting pine
The belly was. The back of broadly curled
Maple, the head made thick and sharply whirled.
The slanting, youthful sound-holes through
The belly of fine, vigorous pine
Mellowed each note and blew
It out again with a woody flavour
Tanged and fragrant as fir-trees are
When breezes in their needles jar.
The varnish was an orange-brown
Lustered like glass that's long laid down
Under a crumbling villa stone.
Purfled stoutly, with mitres which point
Straight up the corners. Each curve and joint
Clear, and bold, and thin.
Such was Herr Theodore's violin.
Seven o'clock, the Concert-Meister gone
With his best violin, the rain being stopped,
Frau Lotta in the kitchen sat alone
Watching the embers which the fire dropped.
The china shone upon the dresser, topped
By polished copper vessels which her skill
Kept brightly burnished. It was very still.
An air from `Orfeo' hummed in her head.
Herr Altgelt had been practising before
The night's performance. Charlotta had plead
With him to stay with her. Even at the door
She'd begged him not to go. 'I do implore
You for this evening, Theodore,' she had said.
'Leave them to-night, and stay with me instead.'
'A silly poppet!' Theodore pinched her ear.
'You'd like to have our good Elector turn
274
Me out I think.' 'But, Theodore, something queer
Ails me. Oh, do but notice how they burn,
My cheeks! The thunder worried me. You're stern,
And cold, and only love your work, I know.
But Theodore, for this evening, do not go.'
But he had gone, hurriedly at the end,
For she had kept him talking. Now she sat
Alone again, always alone, the trend
Of all her thinking brought her back to that
She wished to banish. What would life be? What?
For she was young, and loved, while he was moved
Only by music. Each day that was proved.
Each day he rose and practised. While he played,
She stopped her work and listened, and her heart
Swelled painfully beneath her bodice. Swayed
And longing, she would hide from him her smart.
'Well, Lottchen, will that do?' Then what a start
She gave, and she would run to him and cry,
And he would gently chide her, 'Fie, Dear, fie.
I'm glad I played it well. But such a taking!
You'll hear the thing enough before I've done.'
And she would draw away from him, still shaking.
Had he but guessed she was another one,
Another violin. Her strings were aching,
Stretched to the touch of his bow hand, again
He played and she almost broke at the strain.
Where was the use of thinking of it now,
Sitting alone and listening to the clock!
She'd best make haste and knit another row.
Three hours at least must pass before his knock
Would startle her. It always was a shock.
She listened - listened - for so long before,
That when it came her hearing almost tore.
She caught herself just starting in to listen.
What nerves she had: rattling like brittle sticks!
She wandered to the window, for the glisten
Of a bright moon was tempting. Snuffed the wicks
275
Of her two candles. Still she could not fix
To anything. The moon in a broad swath
Beckoned her out and down the garden-path.
Against the house, her hollyhocks stood high
And black, their shadows doubling them. The night
Was white and still with moonlight, and a sigh
Of blowing leaves was there, and the dim flight
Of insects, and the smell of aconite,
And stocks, and Marvel of Peru. She flitted
Along the path, where blocks of shadow pitted
The even flags. She let herself go dreaming
Of Theodore her husband, and the tune
From `Orfeo' swam through her mind, but seeming
Changed - shriller. Of a sudden, the clear moon
Showed her a passer-by, inopportune
Indeed, but here he was, whistling and striding.
Lotta squeezed in between the currants, hiding.
'The best laid plans of mice and men,' alas!
The stranger came indeed, but did not pass.
Instead, he leant upon the garden-gate,
Folding his arms and whistling. Lotta's state,
Crouched in the prickly currants, on wet grass,
Was far from pleasant. Still the stranger stayed,
And Lotta in her currants watched, dismayed.
He seemed a proper fellow standing there
In the bright moonshine. His cocked hat was laced
With silver, and he wore his own brown hair
Tied, but unpowdered. His whole bearing graced
A fine cloth coat, and ruffled shirt, and chased
Sword-hilt. Charlotta looked, but her position
Was hardly easy. When would his volition
Suggest his walking on? And then that tune!
A half-a-dozen bars from `Orfeo'
Gone over and over, and murdered. What Fortune
Had brought him there to stare about him so?
'Ach, Gott im Himmel! Why will he not go!'
Thought Lotta, but the young man whistled on,
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And seemed in no great hurry to be gone.
Charlotta, crouched among the currant bushes,
Watched the moon slowly dip from twig to twig.
If Theodore should chance to come, and blushes
Streamed over her. He would not care a fig,
He'd only laugh. She pushed aside a sprig
Of sharp-edged leaves and peered, then she uprose
Amid her bushes. 'Sir,' said she, 'pray whose
Garden do you suppose you're watching? Why
Do you stand there? I really must insist
Upon your leaving. 'Tis unmannerly
To stay so long.' The young man gave a twist
And turned about, and in the amethyst
Moonlight he saw her like a nymph half-risen
From the green bushes which had been her prison.
He swept his hat off in a hurried bow.
'Your pardon, Madam, I had no idea
I was not quite alone, and that is how
I came to stay. My trespass was not sheer
Impertinence. I thought no one was here,
And really gardens cry to be admired.
To-night especially it seemed required.
And may I beg to introduce myself?
Heinrich Marohl of Munich. And your name?'
Charlotta told him. And the artful elf
Promptly exclaimed about her husband's fame.
So Lotta, half-unwilling, slowly came
To conversation with him. When she went
Into the house, she found the evening spent.
Theodore arrived quite wearied out and teased,
With all excitement in him burned away.
It had gone well, he said, the audience pleased,
And he had played his very best to-day,
But afterwards he had been forced to stay
And practise with the stupid ones. His head
Ached furiously, and he must get to bed.
277
Part Second
Herr Concert-Meister Altgelt played,
And the four strings of his violin
Were spinning like bees on a day in Spring.
The notes rose into the wide sun-mote
Which slanted through the window,
They lay like coloured beads a-row,
They knocked together and parted,
And started to dance,
Skipping, tripping, each one slipping
Under and over the others so
That the polychrome fire streamed like a lance
Or a comet's tail,
Behind them.
Then a wail arose - crescendo And dropped from off the end of the bow,
And the dancing stopped.
A scent of lilies filled the room,
Long and slow. Each large white bloom
Breathed a sound which was holy perfume from a blessed censer,
And the hum of an organ tone,
And they waved like fans in a hall of stone
Over a bier standing there in the centre, alone.
Each lily bent slowly as it was blown.
Like smoke they rose from the violin Then faded as a swifter bowing
Jumbled the notes like wavelets flowing
In a splashing, pashing, rippling motion
Between broad meadows to an ocean
Wide as a day and blue as a flower,
Where every hour
Gulls dipped, and scattered, and squawked, and squealed,
And over the marshes the Angelus pealed,
And the prows of the fishing-boats were spattered
With spray.
And away a couple of frigates were starting
To race to Java with all sails set,
Topgallants, and royals, and stunsails, and jibs,
And wide moonsails; and the shining rails
Were polished so bright they sparked in the sun.
All the sails went up with a run:
278
'They call me Hanging Johnny,
Away-i-oh;
They call me Hanging Johnny,
So hang, boys, hang.'
And the sun had set and the high moon whitened,
And the ship heeled over to the breeze.
He drew her into the shade of the sails,
And whispered tales
Of voyages in the China seas,
And his arm around her
Held and bound her.
She almost swooned,
With the breeze and the moon
And the slipping sea,
And he beside her,
Touching her, leaning The ship careening,
With the white moon steadily shining over
Her and her lover,
Theodore, still her lover!
Then a quiver fell on the crowded notes,
And slowly floated
A single note which spread and spread
Till it filled the room with a shimmer like gold,
And noises shivered throughout its length,
And tried its strength.
They pulled it, and tore it,
And the stuff waned thinner, but still it bore it.
Then a wide rent
Split the arching tent,
And balls of fire spurted through,
Spitting yellow, and mauve, and blue.
One by one they were quenched as they fell,
Only the blue burned steadily.
Paler and paler it grew, and - faded - away.
Herr Altgelt stopped.
'Well, Lottachen, my Dear, what do you say?
I think I'm in good trim. Now let's have dinner.
What's this, my Love, you're very sweet to-day.
I wonder how it happens I'm the winner
279
Of so much sweetness. But I think you're thinner;
You're like a bag of feathers on my knee.
Why, Lotta child, you're almost strangling me.
I'm glad you're going out this afternoon.
The days are getting short, and I'm so tied
At the Court Theatre my poor little bride
Has not much junketing I fear, but soon
I'll ask our manager to grant a boon.
To-night, perhaps, I'll get a pass for you,
And when I go, why Lotta can come too.
Now dinner, Love. I want some onion soup
To whip me up till that rehearsal's over.
You know it's odd how some women can stoop!
Fraeulein Gebnitz has taken on a lover,
A Jew named Goldstein. No one can discover
If it's his money. But she lives alone
Practically. Gebnitz is a stone,
Pores over books all day, and has no ear
For his wife's singing. Artists must have men;
They need appreciation. But it's queer
What messes people make of their lives, when
They should know more. If Gebnitz finds out, then
His wife will pack. Yes, shut the door at once.
I did not feel it cold, I am a dunce.'
Frau Altgelt tied her bonnet on and went
Into the streets. A bright, crisp Autumn wind
Flirted her skirts and hair. A turbulent,
Audacious wind it was, now close behind,
Pushing her bonnet forward till it twined
The strings across her face, then from in front
Slantingly swinging at her with a shunt,
Until she lay against it, struggling, pushing,
Dismayed to find her clothing tightly bound
Around her, every fold and wrinkle crushing
Itself upon her, so that she was wound
In draperies as clinging as those found
Sucking about a sea nymph on the frieze
280
Of some old Grecian temple. In the breeze
The shops and houses had a quality
Of hard and dazzling colour; something sharp
And buoyant, like white, puffing sails at sea.
The city streets were twanging like a harp.
Charlotta caught the movement, skippingly
She blew along the pavement, hardly knowing
Toward what destination she was going.
She fetched up opposite a jeweller's shop,
Where filigreed tiaras shone like crowns,
And necklaces of emeralds seemed to drop
And then float up again with lightness. Browns
Of striped agates struck her like cold frowns
Amid the gaiety of topaz seals,
Carved though they were with heads, and arms, and wheels.
A row of pencils knobbed with quartz or sard
Delighted her. And rings of every size
Turned smartly round like hoops before her eyes,
Amethyst-flamed or ruby-girdled, jarred
To spokes and flashing triangles, and starred
Like rockets bursting on a festal day.
Charlotta could not tear herself away.
With eyes glued tightly on a golden box,
Whose rare enamel piqued her with its hue,
Changeable, iridescent, shuttlecocks
Of shades and lustres always darting through
Its level, superimposing sheet of blue,
Charlotta did not hear footsteps approaching.
She started at the words: 'Am I encroaching?'
'Oh, Heinrich, how you frightened me! I thought
We were to meet at three, is it quite that?'
'No, it is not,' he answered, 'but I've caught
The trick of missing you. One thing is flat,
I cannot go on this way. Life is what
Might best be conjured up by the word: `Hell'.
Dearest, when will you come?' Lotta, to quell
281
His effervescence, pointed to the gems
Within the window, asked him to admire
A bracelet or a buckle. But one stems
Uneasily the burning of a fire.
Heinrich was chafing, pricked by his desire.
Little by little she wooed him to her mood
Until at last he promised to be good.
But here he started on another tack;
To buy a jewel, which one would Lotta choose.
She vainly urged against him all her lack
Of other trinkets. Should she dare to use
A ring or brooch her husband might accuse
Her of extravagance, and ask to see
A strict accounting, or still worse might be.
But Heinrich would not be persuaded. Why
Should he not give her what he liked? And in
He went, determined certainly to buy
A thing so beautiful that it would win
Her wavering fancy. Altgelt's violin
He would outscore by such a handsome jewel
That Lotta could no longer be so cruel!
Pity Charlotta, torn in diverse ways.
If she went in with him, the shopman might
Recognize her, give her her name; in days
To come he could denounce her. In her fright
She almost fled. But Heinrich would be quite
Capable of pursuing. By and by
She pushed the door and entered hurriedly.
It took some pains to keep him from bestowing
A pair of ruby earrings, carved like roses,
The setting twined to represent the growing
Tendrils and leaves, upon her. 'Who supposes
I could obtain such things! It simply closes
All comfort for me.' So he changed his mind
And bought as slight a gift as he could find.
A locket, frosted over with seed pearls,
Oblong and slim, for wearing at the neck,
282
Or hidden in the bosom; their joined curls
Should lie in it. And further to bedeck
His love, Heinrich had picked a whiff, a fleck,
The merest puff of a thin, linked chain
To hang it from. Lotta could not refrain
From weeping as they sauntered down the street.
She did not want the locket, yet she did.
To have him love her she found very sweet,
But it is hard to keep love always hid.
Then there was something in her heart which chid
Her, told her she loved Theodore in him,
That all these meetings were a foolish whim.
She thought of Theodore and the life they led,
So near together, but so little mingled.
The great clouds bulged and bellied overhead,
And the fresh wind about her body tingled;
The crane of a large warehouse creaked and jingled;
Charlotta held her breath for very fear,
About her in the street she seemed to hear:
'They call me Hanging Johnny,
Away-i-oh;
They call me Hanging Johnny,
So hang, boys, hang.'
And it was Theodore, under the racing skies,
Who held her and who whispered in her ear.
She knew her heart was telling her no lies,
Beating and hammering. He was so dear,
The touch of him would send her in a queer
Swoon that was half an ecstasy. And yearning
For Theodore, she wandered, slowly turning
Street after street as Heinrich wished it so.
He had some aim, she had forgotten what.
Their progress was confused and very slow,
But at the last they reached a lonely spot,
A garden far above the highest shot
Of soaring steeple. At their feet, the town
Spread open like a chequer-board laid down.
283
Lotta was dimly conscious of the rest,
Vaguely remembered how he clasped the chain
About her neck. She treated it in jest,
And saw his face cloud over with sharp pain.
Then suddenly she felt as though a strain
Were put upon her, collared like a slave,
Leashed in the meshes of this thing he gave.
She seized the flimsy rings with both her hands
To snap it, but they held with odd persistence.
Her eyes were blinded by two wind-blown strands
Of hair which had been loosened. Her resistance
Melted within her, from remotest distance,
Misty, unreal, his face grew warm and near,
And giving way she knew him very dear.
For long he held her, and they both gazed down
At the wide city, and its blue, bridged river.
From wooing he jested with her, snipped the blown
Strands of her hair, and tied them with a sliver
Cut from his own head. But she gave a shiver
When, opening the locket, they were placed
Under the glass, commingled and enlaced.
'When will you have it so with us?' He sighed.
She shook her head. He pressed her further. 'No,
No, Heinrich, Theodore loves me,' and she tried
To free herself and rise. He held her so,
Clipped by his arms, she could not move nor go.
'But you love me,' he whispered, with his face
Burning against her through her kerchief's lace.
Frau Altgelt knew she toyed with fire, knew
That what her husband lit this other man
Fanned to hot flame. She told herself that few
Women were so discreet as she, who ran
No danger since she knew what things to ban.
She opened her house door at five o'clock,
A short half-hour before her husband's knock.
Part Third
284
The `Residenz-Theater' sparked and hummed
With lights and people. Gebnitz was to sing,
That rare soprano. All the fiddles strummed
With tuning up; the wood-winds made a ring
Of reedy bubbling noises, and the sting
Of sharp, red brass pierced every ear-drum; patting
From muffled tympani made a dark slatting
Across the silver shimmering of flutes;
A bassoon grunted, and an oboe wailed;
The 'celli pizzicato-ed like great lutes,
And mutterings of double basses trailed
Away to silence, while loud harp-strings hailed
Their thin, bright colours down in such a scatter
They lost themselves amid the general clatter.
Frau Altgelt in the gallery, alone,
Felt lifted up into another world.
Before her eyes a thousand candles shone
In the great chandeliers. A maze of curled
And powdered periwigs past her eyes swirled.
She smelt the smoke of candles guttering,
And caught the glint of jewelled fans fluttering
All round her in the boxes. Red and gold,
The house, like rubies set in filigree,
Filliped the candlelight about, and bold
Young sparks with eye-glasses, unblushingly
Ogled fair beauties in the balcony.
An officer went by, his steel spurs jangling.
Behind Charlotta an old man was wrangling
About a play-bill he had bought and lost.
Three drunken soldiers had to be ejected.
Frau Altgelt's eyes stared at the vacant post
Of Concert-Meister, she at once detected
The stir which brought him. But she felt neglected
When with no glance about him or her way,
He lifted up his violin to play.
The curtain went up? Perhaps. If so,
Charlotta never saw it go.
285
The famous Fraeulein Gebnitz' singing
Only came to her like the ringing
Of bells at a festa
Which swing in the air
And nobody realizes they are there.
They jingle and jangle,
And clang, and bang,
And never a soul could tell whether they rang,
For the plopping of guns and rockets
And the chinking of silver to spend, in one's pockets,
And the shuffling and clapping of feet,
And the loud flapping
Of flags, with the drums,
As the military comes.
It's a famous tune to walk to,
And I wonder where they're off to.
Step-step-stepping to the beating of the drums.
But the rhythm changes as though a mist
Were curling and twisting
Over the landscape.
For a moment a rhythmless, tuneless fog
Encompasses her. Then her senses jog
To the breath of a stately minuet.
Herr Altgelt's violin is set
In tune to the slow, sweeping bows, and retreats and advances,
To curtsies brushing the waxen floor as the Court dances.
Long and peaceful like warm Summer nights
When stars shine in the quiet river. And against the lights
Blundering insects knock,
And the `Rathaus' clock
Booms twice, through the shrill sounds
Of flutes and horns in the lamplit grounds.
Pressed against him in the mazy wavering
Of a country dance, with her short breath quavering
She leans upon the beating, throbbing
Music. Laughing, sobbing,
Feet gliding after sliding feet;
His - hers The ballroom blurs She feels the air
Lifting her hair,
And the lapping of water on the stone stair.
286
He is there! He is there!
Twang harps, and squeal, you thin violins,
That the dancers may dance, and never discover
The old stone stair leading down to the river
With the chestnut-tree branches hanging over
Her and her lover.
Theodore, still her lover!
The evening passed like this, in a half faint,
Delirium with waking intervals
Which were the entr'acts. Under the restraint
Of a large company, the constant calls
For oranges or syrops from the stalls
Outside, the talk, the passing to and fro,
Lotta sat ill at ease, incognito.
She heard the Gebnitz praised, the tenor lauded,
The music vaunted as most excellent.
The scenery and the costumes were applauded,
The latter it was whispered had been sent
From Italy. The Herr Direktor spent
A fortune on them, so the gossips said.
Charlotta felt a lightness in her head.
When the next act began, her eyes were swimming,
Her prodded ears were aching and confused.
The first notes from the orchestra sent skimming
Her outward consciousness. Her brain was fused
Into the music, Theodore's music! Used
To hear him play, she caught his single tone.
For all she noticed they two were alone.
Part Fourth
Frau Altgelt waited in the chilly street,
Hustled by lackeys who ran up and down
Shouting their coachmen's names; forced to retreat
A pace or two by lurching chairmen; thrown
Rudely aside by linkboys; boldly shown
The ogling rapture in two bleary eyes
Thrust close to hers in most unpleasant wise.
287
Escaping these, she hit a liveried arm,
Was sworn at by this glittering gentleman
And ordered off. However, no great harm
Came to her. But she looked a trifle wan
When Theodore, her belated guardian,
Emerged. She snuggled up against him, trembling,
Half out of fear, half out of the assembling
Of all the thoughts and needs his playing had given.
Had she enjoyed herself, he wished to know.
'Oh! Theodore, can't you feel that it was Heaven!'
'Heaven! My Lottachen, and was it so?
Gebnitz was in good voice, but all the flow
Of her last aria was spoiled by Klops,
A wretched flutist, she was mad as hops.'
He was so simple, so matter-of-fact,
Charlotta Altgelt knew not what to say
To bring him to her dream. His lack of tact
Kept him explaining all the homeward way
How this thing had gone well, that badly. 'Stay,
Theodore!' she cried at last. 'You know to me
Nothing was real, it was an ecstasy.'
And he was heartily glad she had enjoyed
Herself so much, and said so. 'But it's good
To be got home again.' He was employed
In looking at his violin, the wood
Was old, and evening air did it no good.
But when he drew up to the table for tea
Something about his wife's vivacity
Struck him as hectic, worried him in short.
He talked of this and that but watched her close.
Tea over, he endeavoured to extort
The cause of her excitement. She arose
And stood beside him, trying to compose
Herself, all whipt to quivering, curdled life,
And he, poor fool, misunderstood his wife.
Suddenly, broken through her anxious grasp,
Her music-kindled love crashed on him there.
288
Amazed, he felt her fling against him, clasp
Her arms about him, weighing down his chair,
Sobbing out all her hours of despair.
'Theodore, a woman needs to hear things proved.
Unless you tell me, I feel I'm not loved.'
Theodore went under in this tearing wave,
He yielded to it, and its headlong flow
Filled him with all the energy she gave.
He was a youth again, and this bright glow,
This living, vivid joy he had to show
Her what she was to him. Laughing and crying,
She asked assurances there's no denying.
Over and over again her questions, till
He quite convinced her, every now and then
She kissed him, shivering as though doubting still.
But later when they were composed and when
She dared relax her probings, 'Lottachen,'
He asked, 'how is it your love has withstood
My inadvertence? I was made of wood.'
She told him, and no doubt she meant it truly,
That he was sun, and grass, and wind, and sky
To her. And even if conscience were unruly
She salved it by neat sophistries, but why
Suppose her insincere, it was no lie
She said, for Heinrich was as much forgot
As though he'd never been within earshot.
But Theodore's hands in straying and caressing
Fumbled against the locket where it lay
Upon her neck. 'What is this thing I'm pressing?'
He asked. 'Let's bring it to the light of day.'
He lifted up the locket. 'It should stay
Outside, my Dear. Your mother has good taste.
To keep it hidden surely is a waste.'
Pity again Charlotta, straight aroused
Out of her happiness. The locket brought
A chilly jet of truth upon her, soused
Under its icy spurting she was caught,
289
And choked, and frozen. Suddenly she sought
The clasp, but with such art was this contrived
Her fumbling fingers never once arrived
Upon it. Feeling, twisting, round and round,
She pulled the chain quite through the locket's ring
And still it held. Her neck, encompassed, bound,
Chafed at the sliding meshes. Such a thing
To hurl her out of joy! A gilded string
Binding her folly to her, and those curls
Which lay entwined beneath the clustered pearls!
Again she tried to break the cord. It stood.
'Unclasp it, Theodore,' she begged. But he
Refused, and being in a happy mood,
Twitted her with her inefficiency,
Then looking at her very seriously:
'I think, Charlotta, it is well to have
Always about one what a mother gave.
As she has taken the great pains to send
This jewel to you from Dresden, it will be
Ingratitude if you do not intend
To carry it about you constantly.
With her fine taste you cannot disagree,
The locket is most beautifully designed.'
He opened it and there the curls were, twined.
Charlotta's heart dropped beats like knitting-stitches.
She burned a moment, flaming; then she froze.
Her face was jerked by little, nervous twitches,
She heard her husband asking: 'What are those?'
Put out her hand quickly to interpose,
But stopped, the gesture half-complete, astounded
At the calm way the question was propounded.
'A pretty fancy, Dear, I do declare.
Indeed I will not let you put it off.
A lovely thought: yours and your mother's hair!'
Charlotta hid a gasp under a cough.
'Never with my connivance shall you doff
This charming gift.' He kissed her on the cheek,
290
And Lotta suffered him, quite crushed and meek.
When later in their room she lay awake,
Watching the moonlight slip along the floor,
She felt the chain and wept for Theodore's sake.
She had loved Heinrich also, and the core
Of truth, unlovely, startled her. Wherefore
She vowed from now to break this double life
And see herself only as Theodore's wife.
Part Fifth
It was no easy matter to convince
Heinrich that it was finished. Hard to say
That though they could not meet (he saw her wince)
She still must keep the locket to allay
Suspicion in her husband. She would pay
Him from her savings bit by bit - the oath
He swore at that was startling to them both.
Her resolution taken, Frau Altgelt
Adhered to it, and suffered no regret.
She found her husband all that she had felt
His music to contain. Her days were set
In his as though she were an amulet
Cased in bright gold. She joyed in her confining;
Her eyes put out her looking-glass with shining.
Charlotta was so gay that old, dull tasks
Were furbished up to seem like rituals.
She baked and brewed as one who only asks
The right to serve. Her daily manuals
Of prayer were duties, and her festivals
When Theodore praised some dish, or frankly said
She had a knack in making up a bed.
So Autumn went, and all the mountains round
The city glittered white with fallen snow,
For it was Winter. Over the hard ground
Herr Altgelt's footsteps came, each one a blow.
On the swept flags behind the currant row
Charlotta stood to greet him. But his lip
291
Only flicked hers. His Concert-Meistership
Was first again. This evening he had got
Important news. The opera ordered from
Young Mozart was arrived. That old despot,
The Bishop of Salzburg, had let him come
Himself to lead it, and the parts, still hot
From copying, had been tried over. Never
Had any music started such a fever.
The orchestra had cheered till they were hoarse,
The singers clapped and clapped. The town was made,
With such a great attraction through the course
Of Carnival time. In what utter shade
All other cities would be left! The trade
In music would all drift here naturally.
In his excitement he forgot his tea.
Lotta was forced to take his cup and put
It in his hand. But still he rattled on,
Sipping at intervals. The new catgut
Strings he was using gave out such a tone
The 'Maestro' had remarked it, and had gone
Out of his way to praise him. Lotta smiled,
He was as happy as a little child.
From that day on, Herr Altgelt, more and more,
Absorbed himself in work. Lotta at first
Was patient and well-wishing. But it wore
Upon her when two weeks had brought no burst
Of loving from him. Then she feared the worst;
That his short interest in her was a light
Flared up an instant only in the night.
`Idomeneo' was the opera's name,
A name that poor Charlotta learnt to hate.
Herr Altgelt worked so hard he seldom came
Home for his tea, and it was very late,
Past midnight sometimes, when he knocked. His state
Was like a flabby orange whose crushed skin
Is thin with pulling, and all dented in.
292
He practised every morning and her heart
Followed his bow. But often she would sit,
While he was playing, quite withdrawn apart,
Absently fingering and touching it,
The locket, which now seemed to her a bit
Of some gone youth. His music drew her tears,
And through the notes he played, her dreading ears
Heard Heinrich's voice, saying he had not changed;
Beer merchants had no ecstasies to take
Their minds off love. So far her thoughts had ranged
Away from her stern vow, she chanced to take
Her way, one morning, quite by a mistake,
Along the street where Heinrich had his shop.
What harm to pass it since she should not stop!
It matters nothing how one day she met
Him on a bridge, and blushed, and hurried by.
Nor how the following week he stood to let
Her pass, the pavement narrowing suddenly.
How once he took her basket, and once he
Pulled back a rearing horse who might have struck
Her with his hoofs. It seemed the oddest luck
How many times their business took them each
Right to the other. Then at last he spoke,
But she would only nod, he got no speech
From her. Next time he treated it in joke,
And that so lightly that her vow she broke
And answered. So they drifted into seeing
Each other as before. There was no fleeing.
Christmas was over and the Carnival
Was very near, and tripping from each tongue
Was talk of the new opera. Each book-stall
Flaunted it out in bills, what airs were sung,
What singers hired. Pictures of the young
'Maestro' were for sale. The town was mad.
Only Charlotta felt depressed and sad.
Each day now brought a struggle 'twixt her will
And Heinrich's. 'Twixt her love for Theodore
293
And him. Sometimes she wished to kill
Herself to solve her problem. For a score
Of reasons Heinrich tempted her. He bore
Her moods with patience, and so surely urged
Himself upon her, she was slowly merged
Into his way of thinking, and to fly
With him seemed easy. But next morning would
The Stradivarius undo her mood.
Then she would realize that she must cleave
Always to Theodore. And she would try
To convince Heinrich she should never leave,
And afterwards she would go home and grieve.
All thought in Munich centered on the part
Of January when there would be given
`Idomeneo' by Wolfgang Mozart.
The twenty-ninth was fixed. And all seats, even
Those almost at the ceiling, which were driven
Behind the highest gallery, were sold.
The inches of the theatre went for gold.
Herr Altgelt was a shadow worn so thin
With work, he hardly printed black behind
The candle. He and his old violin
Made up one person. He was not unkind,
But dazed outside his playing, and the rind,
The pine and maple of his fiddle, guarded
A part of him which he had quite discarded.
It woke in the silence of frost-bright nights,
In little lights,
Like will-o'-the-wisps flickering, fluttering,
Here - there Spurting, sputtering,
Fading and lighting,
Together, asunder Till Lotta sat up in bed with wonder,
And the faint grey patch of the window shone
Upon her sitting there, alone.
For Theodore slept.
294
The twenty-eighth was last rehearsal day,
'Twas called for noon, so early morning meant
Herr Altgelt's only time in which to play
His part alone. Drawn like a monk who's spent
Himself in prayer and fasting, Theodore went
Into the kitchen, with a weary word
Of cheer to Lotta, careless if she heard.
Lotta heard more than his spoken word.
She heard the vibrating of strings and wood.
She was washing the dishes, her hands all suds,
When the sound began,
Long as the span
Of a white road snaking about a hill.
The orchards are filled
With cherry blossoms at butterfly poise.
Hawthorn buds are cracking,
And in the distance a shepherd is clacking
His shears, snip-snipping the wool from his sheep.
The notes are asleep,
Lying adrift on the air
In level lines
Like sunlight hanging in pines and pines,
Strung and threaded,
All imbedded
In the blue-green of the hazy pines.
Lines - long, straight lines!
And stems,
Long, straight stems
Pushing up
To the cup of blue, blue sky.
Stems growing misty
With the many of them,
Red-green mist
Of the trees,
And these
Wood-flavoured notes.
The back is maple and the belly is pine.
The rich notes twine
As though weaving in and out of leaves,
Broad leaves
Flapping slowly like elephants' ears,
295
Waving and falling.
Another sound peers
Through little pine fingers,
And lingers, peeping.
Ping! Ping! pizzicato, something is cheeping.
There is a twittering up in the branches,
A chirp and a lilt,
And crimson atilt on a swaying twig.
Wings! Wings!
And a little ruffled-out throat which sings.
The forest bends, tumultuous
With song.
The woodpecker knocks,
And the song-sparrow trills,
Every fir, and cedar, and yew
Has a nest or a bird,
It is quite absurd
To hear them cutting across each other:
Peewits, and thrushes, and larks, all at once,
And a loud cuckoo is trying to smother
A wood-pigeon perched on a birch,
'Roo - coo - oo - oo -'
'Cuckoo! Cuckoo! That's one for you!'
A blackbird whistles, how sharp, how shrill!
And the great trees toss
And leaves blow down,
You can almost hear them splash on the ground.
The whistle again:
It is double and loud!
The leaves are splashing,
And water is dashing
Over those creepers, for they are shrouds;
And men are running up them to furl the sails,
For there is a capful of wind to-day,
And we are already well under way.
The deck is aslant in the bubbling breeze.
'Theodore, please.
Oh, Dear, how you tease!'
And the boatswain's whistle sounds again,
And the men pull on the sheets:
'My name is Hanging Johnny,
Away-i-oh;
296
They call me Hanging Johnny,
So hang, boys, hang.'
The trees of the forest are masts, tall masts;
They are swinging over
Her and her lover.
Almost swooning
Under the ballooning canvas,
She lies
Looking up in his eyes
As he bends farther over.
Theodore, still her lover!
The suds were dried upon Charlotta's hands,
She leant against the table for support,
Wholly forgotten. Theodore's eyes were brands
Burning upon his music. He stopped short.
Charlotta almost heard the sound of bands
Snapping. She put one hand up to her heart,
Her fingers touched the locket with a start.
Herr Altgelt put his violin away
Listlessly. 'Lotta, I must have some rest.
The strain will be a hideous one to-day.
Don't speak to me at all. It will be best
If I am quiet till I go.' And lest
She disobey, he left her. On the stairs
She heard his mounting steps. What use were prayers!
He could not hear, he was not there, for she
Was married to a mummy, a machine.
Her hand closed on the locket bitterly.
Before her, on a chair, lay the shagreen
Case of his violin. She saw the clean
Sun flash the open clasp. The locket's edge
Cut at her fingers like a pushing wedge.
A heavy cart went by, a distant bell
Chimed ten, the fire flickered in the grate.
She was alone. Her throat began to swell
With sobs. What kept her here, why should she wait?
The violin she had begun to hate
Lay in its case before her. Here she flung
297
The cover open. With the fiddle swung
Over her head, the hanging clock's loud ticking
Caught on her ear. 'Twas slow, and as she paused
The little door in it came open, flicking
A wooden cuckoo out: 'Cuckoo!' It caused
The forest dream to come again. 'Cuckoo!'
Smashed on the grate, the violin broke in two.
'Cuckoo! Cuckoo!' the clock kept striking on;
But no one listened. Frau Altgelt had gone.
~ Amy Lowell,
619:TO J. MILSAND, OF DIJON.

1840.

BOOK THE FIRST.
Who will, may hear Sordello's story told:
His story? Who believes me shall behold
The man, pursue his fortunes to the end,
Like me: for as the friendless-people's friend
Spied from his hill-top once, despite the din
And dust of multitudes, Pentapolin
Named o' the Naked Arm, I single out
Sordello, compassed murkily about
With ravage of six long sad hundred years.
Only believe me. Ye believe?
               Appears
Verona . . . Never,I should warn you first,
Of my own choice had this, if not the worst
Yet not the best expedient, served to tell
A story I could body forth so well
By making speak, myself kept out of view,
The very man as he was wont to do,
And leaving you to say the rest for him.
Since, though I might be proud to see the dim
Abysmal past divide its hateful surge,
Letting of all men this one man emerge
Because it pleased me, yet, that moment past,
I should delight in watching first to last
His progress as you watch it, not a whit
More in the secret than yourselves who sit
Fresh-chapleted to listen. But it seems
Your setters-forth of unexampled themes,
Makers of quite new men, producing them,
Would best chalk broadly on each vesture's hem
The wearer's quality; or take their stand,
Motley on back and pointing-pole in hand,
Beside him. So, for once I face ye, friends,
Summoned together from the world's four ends,
Dropped down from heaven or cast up from hell,
To hear the story I propose to tell.
Confess now, poets know the dragnet's trick,
Catching the dead, if fate denies the quick,
And shaming her; 't is not for fate to choose
Silence or song because she can refuse
Real eyes to glisten more, real hearts to ache
Less oft, real brows turn smoother for our sake:
I have experienced something of her spite;
But there 's a realm wherein she has no right
And I have many lovers. Say; but few
Friends fate accords me? Here they are: now view
The host I muster! Many a lighted face
Foul with no vestige of the grave's disgrace;
What else should tempt them back to taste our air
Except to see how their successors fare?
My audience! and they sit, each ghostly man
Striving to look as living as he can,
Brother by breathing brother; thou art set,
Clear-witted critic, by . . . but I 'll not fret
A wondrous soul of them, nor move death's spleen
Who loves not to unlock them. Friends! I mean
The living in good earnestye elect
Chiefly for lovesuppose not I reject
Judicious praise, who contrary shall peep,
Some fit occasion, forth, for fear ye sleep,
To glean your bland approvals. Then, appear,
Verona! staythou, spirit, come not near
Nownot this time desert thy cloudy place
To scare me, thus employed, with that pure face!
I need not fear this audience, I make free
With them, but then this is no place for thee!
The thunder-phrase of the Athenian, grown
Up out of memories of Marathon,
Would echo like his own sword's griding screech
Braying a Persian shield,the silver speech
Of Sidney's self, the starry paladin,
Turn intense as a trumpet sounding in
The knights to tilt,wert thou to hear! What heart
Have I to play my puppets, bear my part
Before these worthies?
           Lo, the past is hurled
In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world,
Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears
Its outline, kindles at the core, appears
Verona. 'T is six hundred years and more
Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore
The purple, and the Third Honorius filled
The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled:
A last remains of sunset dimly burned
O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned
By the wind back upon its bearer's hand
In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,
The woods beneath lay black. A single eye
From all Verona cared for the soft sky.
But, gathering in its ancient market-place,
Talked group with restless group; and not a face
But wrath made livid, for among them were
Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care
To feast him. Fear had long since taken root
In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit,
The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way
It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and grey
Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro,
Letting the silent luxury trickle slow
About the hollows where a heart should be;
But the young gulped with a delirious glee
Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood
At the fierce news: for, be it understood,
Envoys apprised Verona that her prince
Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since
A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust
Taurello Salinguerra, prime in trust
With Ecelin Romano, from his seat
Ferrara,over zealous in the feat
And stumbling on a peril unaware,
Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare,
They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue.
Immediate succour from the Lombard League
Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope,
For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope
Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast!
Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast.
"Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes
"Mirth for the devil when he undertakes
"To play the Ecelin; as if it cost
"Merely your pushing-by to gain a post
"Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all,
"There be sound reasons that preferment fall
"On our beloved" . . .
           "Duke o' the Rood, why not?"
Shouted an Estian, "grudge ye such a lot?
"The hill-cat boasts some cunning of her own,
"Some stealthy trick to better beasts unknown,
"That quick with prey enough her hunger blunts,
"And feeds her fat while gaunt the lion hunts."
"Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane
"Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain
"To fly but forced the earth his couch to make
"Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake,
"Waits he the Kaiser's coming; and as yet
"That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let
"Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs
"The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs
"The sea it means to cross because of him.
"Sinketh the breeze? His hope-sick eye grows dim;
"Creep closer on the creature! Every day
"Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say,
"Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips
"Telling upon his perished finger-tips
"How many ancestors are to depose
"Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze
"Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt
"Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt
"When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet
"Buccio VirtGod's wafer, and the street
"Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm
"With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm!
"This could not last. Off Salinguerra went
"To Padua, Podest, 'with pure intent,'
"Said he, 'my presence, judged the single bar
"'To permanent tranquillity, may jar
"'No longer'so! his back is fairly turned?
"The pair of goodly palaces are burned,
"The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk
"A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk
"In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way,
"Old Salinguerra back againI say,
"Old Salinguerra in the town once more
"Uprooting, overturning, flame before,
"Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled;
"Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead
"Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne,
"He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone,
"Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce
"Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce,
"On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth
"To see troop after troop encamp beneath
"I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch
"It took so many patient months to snatch
"Out of the marsh; while just within their walls
"Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls
"A parley: 'let the Count wind up the war!'
"Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star,
"Agrees to enter for the kindest ends
"Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends,
"No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort
"Should fly Ferrara at the bare report.
"Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog;
"'Ten, twenty, thirty,curse the catalogue
"'Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows
"'Not the least sign of life'whereat arose
"A general growl: 'How? With his victors by?
"'I and my Veronese? My troops and I?
"'Receive us, was your word?' So jogged they on,
"Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone
"Into the trap!"
         Six hundred years ago!
Such the time's aspect and peculiar woe
(Yourselves may spell it yet in chronicles,
Albeit the worm, our busy brother, drills
His sprawling path through letters anciently
Made fine and large to suit some abbot's eye)
When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask,
Flung John of Brienne's favour from his casque,
Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave
Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve
Losses to Otho and to Barbaross,
Or make the Alps less easy to recross;
And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear,
Was excommunicate that very year.
"The triple-bearded Teuton come to life!"
Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife,
Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin,
Took up, as it was Guelf or Ghibellin,
Its cry: what cry?
         "The Emperor to come!"
His crowd of feudatories, all and some,
That leapt down with a crash of swords, spears, shields,
One fighter on his fellow, to our fields,
Scattered anon, took station here and there,
And carried it, till now, with little care
Cannot but cry for him; how else rebut
Us longer?cliffs, an earthquake suffered jut
In the mid-sea, each domineering crest
Which nought save such another throe can wrest
From out (conceive) a certain chokeweed grown
Since o'er the waters, twine and tangle thrown
Too thick, too fast accumulating round,
Too sure to over-riot and confound
Ere long each brilliant islet with itself,
Unless a second shock save shoal and shelf,
Whirling the sea-drift wide: alas, the bruised
And sullen wreck! Sunlight to be diffused
For that!sunlight, 'neath which, a scum at first,
The million fibres of our chokeweed nurst
Dispread themselves, mantling the troubled main,
And, shattered by those rocks, took hold again,
So kindly blazed itthat same blaze to brood
O'er every cluster of the multitude
Still hazarding new clasps, ties, filaments,
An emulous exchange of pulses, vents
Of nature into nature; till some growth
Unfancied yet, exuberantly clothe
A surface solid now, continuous, one:
"The Pope, for us the People, who begun
"The People, carries on the People thus,
"To keep that Kaiser off and dwell with us!"
See you?
    Or say, Two Principles that live
Each fitly by its Representative.
"Hill-cat"who called him so?the gracefullest
Adventurer, the ambiguous stranger-guest
Of Lombardy (sleek but that ruffling fur,
Those talons to their sheath!) whose velvet purr
Soothes jealous neighbours when a Saxon scout
Arpo or Yoland, is it?one without
A country or a name, presumes to couch
Beside their noblest; until men avouch
That, of all Houses in the Trevisan,
Conrad descries no fitter, rear or van,
Than Ecelo! They laughed as they enrolled
That name at Milan on the page of gold,
Godego's lord,Ramon, Marostica,
Cartiglion, Bassano, Loria,
And every sheep cote on the Suabian's fief!
No laughter when his son, "the Lombard Chief"
Forsooth, as Barbarossa's path was bent
To Italy along the Vale of Trent,
Welcomed him at Roncaglia! Sadness now
The hamlets nested on the Tyrol's brow,
The Asolan and Euganean hills,
The Rhetian and the Julian, sadness fills
Them all, for Ecelin vouchsafes to stay
Among and care about them; day by day
Choosing this pinnacle, the other spot,
A castle building to defend a cot,
A cot built for a castle to defend,
Nothing but castles, castles, nor an end
To boasts how mountain ridge may join with ridge
By sunken gallery and soaring bridge.
He takes, in brief, a figure that beseems
The griesliest nightmare of the Church's dreams,
A Signory firm-rooted, unestranged
From its old interests, and nowise changed
By its new neighbourhood: perchance the vaunt
Of Otho, "my own Este shall supplant
"Your Este," come to pass. The sire led in
A son as cruel; and this Ecelin
Had sons, in turn, and daughters sly and tall
And curling and compliant; but for all
Romano (so they styled him) throve, that neck
Of his so pinched and white, that hungry cheek
Proved 't was some fiend, not him, the man's-flesh went
To feed: whereas Romano's instrument,
Famous Taurello Salinguerra, sole
I' the world, a tree whose boughs were slipt the bole
Successively, why should not he shed blood
To further a design? Men understood
Living was pleasant to him as he wore
His careless surcoat, glanced some missive o'er,
Propped on his truncheon in the public way,
While his lord lifted writhen hands to pray,
Lost at Oliero's convent.
             Hill-cats, face
Our Azzo, our Guelf Lion! Why disgrace
A worthiness conspicuous near and far
(Atii at Rome while free and consular,
Este at Padua who repulsed the Hun)
By trumpeting the Church's princely son?
Styled Patron of Rovigo's Polesine,
Ancona's march, Ferrara's . . . ask, in fine,
Our chronicles, commenced when some old monk
Found it intolerable to be sunk
(Vexed to the quick by his revolting cell)
Quite out of summer while alive and well:
Ended when by his mat the Prior stood,
'Mid busy promptings of the brotherhood,
Striving to coax from his decrepit brains
The reason Father Porphyry took pains
To blot those ten lines out which used to stand
First on their charter drawn by Hildebrand.
The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore
Was vested in a certain Twenty-four;
And while within his palace these debate
Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate,
Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare
Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care
For aught that 's seen or heard until we shut
The smother in, the lights, all noises but
The carroch's booming: safe at last! Why strange
Such a recess should lurk behind a range
Of banquet-rooms? Your fingerthusyou push
A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush
Upon the banqueters, select your prey,
Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way
Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear
A preconcerted signal to appear;
Or if you simply crouch with beating heart,
Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part
To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now;
Nor any . . . does that one man sleep whose brow
The dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er?
What woman stood beside him? not the more
Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes
Because that arras fell between! Her wise
And lulling words are yet about the room,
Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom
Down even to her vesture's creeping stir.
And so reclines he, saturate with her,
Until an outcry from the square beneath
Pierces the charm: he springs up, glad to breathe,
Above the cunning element, and shakes
The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks
On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it,
The lean frame like a half-burnt taper, lit
Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away
Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day,
In his wool wedding-robe.
             For hefor he,
Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy,
(If I should falter now)for he is thine!
Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine!
A herald-star I know thou didst absorb
Relentless into the consummate orb
That scared it from its right to roll along
A sempiternal path with dance and song
Fulfilling its allotted period,
Serenest of the progeny of God
Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops
With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops
Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent
Utterly with thee, its shy element
Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear.
Still, what if I approach the august sphere
Named now with only one name, disentwine
That under-current soft and argentine
From its fierce mate in the majestic mass
Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass
In John's transcendent vision,launch once more
That lustre? Dante, pacer of the shore
Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye
In gracious twilights where his chosen lie,
I would do this! If I should falter now!
In Mantua territory half is slough,
Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks
Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes
With sand the summer through: but 't is morass
In winter up to Mantua walls. There was,
Some thirty years before this evening's coil,
One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil,
Goito; just a castle built amid
A few low mountains; firs and larches hid
Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound
The rest. Some captured creature in a pound,
Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress,
Secure beside in its own loveliness,
So peered with airy head, below, above,
The castle at its toils, the lapwings love
To glean among at grape-time. Pass within.
A maze of corridors contrived for sin,
Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past,
You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last
A maple-panelled room: that haze which seems
Floating about the panel, if there gleams
A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold
And in light-graven characters unfold
The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade
Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made,
Cut like a company of palms to prop
The roof, each kissing top entwined with top,
Leaning together; in the carver's mind
Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined
With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair
Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear
A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick
To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick
Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits
Across the buttress suffer light by fits
Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop
A dullish grey-streaked cumbrous font, a group
Round it,each side of it, where'er one sees,
Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides
Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh
Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh
First pulse of life shot brightening the snow.
The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so
They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed;
Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed,
Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil
Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale,
Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length
Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength
Goes when the grate above shuts heavily.
So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see,
Like priestesses because of sin impure
Penanced for ever, who resigned endure,
Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs.
And every eve, Sordello's visit begs
Pardon for them: constant as eve he came
To sit beside each in her turn, the same
As one of them, a certain space: and awe
Made a great indistinctness till he saw
Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks,
Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks
And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain
Her load were lightened, one shade less the stain
Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt
From off the rosary whereby the crypt
Keeps count of the contritions of its charge?
Then with a step more light, a heart more large,
He may depart, leave her and every one
To linger out the penance in mute stone.
Ah, but Sordello? 'T is the tale I mean
To tell you.
      In this castle may be seen,
On the hill tops, or underneath the vines,
Or eastward by the mound of firs and pines
That shuts out Mantua, still in loneliness,
A slender boy in a loose page's dress,
Sordello: do but look on him awhile
Watching ('t is autumn) with an earnest smile
The noisy flock of thievish birds at work
Among the yellowing vineyards; see him lurk
('T is winter with its sullenest of storms)
Beside that arras-length of broidered forms,
On tiptoe, lifting in both hands a light
Which makes yon warrior's visage flutter bright
Ecelo, dismal father of the brood,
And Ecelin, close to the girl he wooed,
Auria, and their Child, with all his wives
From Agnes to the Tuscan that survives,
Lady of the castle, Adelaide. His face
Look, now he turns away! Yourselves shall trace
(The delicate nostril swerving wide and fine,
A sharp and restless lip, so well combine
With that calm brow) a soul fit to receive
Delight at every sense; you can believe
Sordello foremost in the regal class
Nature has broadly severed from her mass
Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames
Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,
For loose fertility; a footfall there
Suffices to upturn to the warm air
Half-germinating spices; mere decay
Produces richer life; and day by day
New pollen on the lily-petal grows,
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose.
You recognise at once the finer dress
Of flesh that amply lets in loveliness
At eye and ear, while round the rest is furled
(As though she would not trust them with her world)
A veil that shows a sky not near so blue,
And lets but half the sun look fervid through.
How can such love?like souls on each full-fraught
Discovery brooding, blind at first to aught
Beyond its beauty, till exceeding love
Becomes an aching weight; and, to remove
A curse that haunts such naturesto preclude
Their finding out themselves can work no good
To what they love nor make it very blest
By their endeavour,they are fain invest
The lifeless thing with life from their own soul,
Availing it to purpose, to control,
To dwell distinct and have peculiar joy
And separate interests that may employ
That beauty fitly, for its proper sake.
Nor rest they here; fresh births of beauty wake
Fresh homage, every grade of love is past,
With every mode of loveliness: then cast
Inferior idols off their borrowed crown
Before a coming glory. Up and down
Runs arrowy fire, while earthly forms combine
To throb the secret forth; a touch divine
And the scaled eyeball owns the mystic rod;
Visibly through his garden walketh God.
So fare they. Now revert. One character
Denotes them through the progress and the stir,
A need to blend with each external charm,
Bury themselves, the whole heart wide and warm,
In something not themselves; they would belong
To what they worshipstronger and more strong
Thus prodigally fedwhich gathers shape
And feature, soon imprisons past escape
The votary framed to love and to submit
Nor ask, as passionate he kneels to it,
Whence grew the idol's empery. So runs
A legend; light had birth ere moons and suns,
Flowing through space a river and alone,
Till chaos burst and blank the spheres were strown
Hither and thither, foundering and blind:
When into each of them rushed lightto find
Itself no place, foiled of its radiant chance.
Let such forego their just inheritance!
For there 's a class that eagerly looks, too,
On beauty, but, unlike the gentler crew,
Proclaims each new revealment born a twin
With a distinctest consciousness within,
Referring still the quality, now first
Revealed, to their own soulits instinct nursed
In silence, now remembered better, shown
More thoroughly, but not the less their own;
A dream come true; the special exercise
Of any special function that implies
The being fair, or good, or wise, or strong,
Dormant within their nature all along
Whose fault? So, homage, other souls direct
Without, turns inward. "How should this deject
"Thee, soul?" they murmur; "wherefore strength be quelled
"Because, its trivial accidents withheld,
"Organs are missed that clog the world, inert,
"Wanting a will, to quicken and exert,
"Like thineexistence cannot satiate,
"Cannot surprise? Laugh thou at envious fate,
"Who, from earth's simplest combination stampt
"With individualityuncrampt
"By living its faint elemental life,
"Dost soar to heaven's complexest essence, rife
"With grandeurs, unaffronted to the last,
"Equal to being all!"
           In truth? Thou hast
Life, thenwilt challenge life for us: our race
Is vindicated so, obtains its place
In thy ascent, the first of us; whom we
May follow, to the meanest, finally,
With our more bounded wills?
               Ah, but to find
A certain mood enervate such a mind,
Counsel it slumber in the solitude
Thus reached nor, stooping, task for mankind's good
Its nature just as life and time accord
"Too narrow an arena to reward
"Emprizethe world's occasion worthless since
"Not absolutely fitted to evince
"Its mastery!" Or if yet worse befall,
And a desire possess it to put all
That nature forth, forcing our straitened sphere
Contain it,to display completely here
The mastery another life should learn,
Thrusting in time eternity's concern,
So that Sordello. . . .
            Fool, who spied the mark
Of leprosy upon him, violet-dark
Already as he loiters? Born just now,
With the new century, beside the glow
And efflorescence out of barbarism;
Witness a Greek or two from the abysm
That stray through Florence-town with studious air,
Calming the chisel of that Pisan pair:
If Nicolo should carve a Christus yet!
While at Siena is Guidone set,
Forehead on hand; a painful birth must be
Matured ere Saint Eufemia's sacristy
Or transept gather fruits of one great gaze
At the moon: look you! The same orange haze,
The same blue stripe round thatand, in the midst,
Thy spectral whiteness, Mother-maid, who didst
Pursue the dizzy painter!
             Woe, then, worth
Any officious babble letting forth
The leprosy confirmed and ruinous
To spirit lodged in a contracted house!
Go back to the beginning, rather; blend
It gently with Sordello's life; the end
Is piteous, you may see, but much between
Pleasant enough. Meantime, some pyx to screen
The full-grown pest, some lid to shut upon
The goblin! So they found at Babylon,
(Colleagues, mad Lucius and sage Antonine)
Sacking the city, by Apollo's shrine,
In rummaging among the rarities,
A certain coffer; he who made the prize
Opened it greedily; and out there curled
Just such another plague, for half the world
Was stung. Crawl in then, hag, and couch asquat,
Keeping that blotchy bosom thick in spot
Until your time is ripe! The coffer-lid
Is fastened, and the coffer safely hid
Under the Loxian's choicest gifts of gold.
Who will may hear Sordello's story told,
And how he never could remember when
He dwelt not at Goito. Calmly, then,
About this secret lodge of Adelaide's
Glided his youth away; beyond the glades
On the fir-forest border, and the rim
Of the low range of mountain, was for him
No other world: but this appeared his own
To wander through at pleasure and alone.
The castle too seemed empty; far and wide
Might he disport; only the northern side
Lay under a mysterious interdict
Slight, just enough remembered to restrict
His roaming to the corridors, the vault
Where those font-bearers expiate their fault,
The maple-chamber, and the little nooks
And nests, and breezy parapet that looks
Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled.
Some foreign women-servants, very old,
Tended and crept about himall his clue
To the world's business and embroiled ado
Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most.
And first a simple sense of life engrossed
Sordello in his drowsy Paradise;
The day's adventures for the day suffice
Its constant tribute of perceptions strange,
With sleep and stir in healthy interchange,
Suffice, and leave him for the next at ease
Like the great palmer-worm that strips the trees,
Eats the life out of every luscious plant,
And, when September finds them sere or scant,
Puts forth two wondrous winglets, alters quite,
And hies him after unforeseen delight.
So fed Sordello, not a shard dissheathed;
As ever, round each new discovery, wreathed
Luxuriantly the fancies infantine
His admiration, bent on making fine
Its novel friend at any risk, would fling
In gay profusion forth: a ficklest king,
Confessed those minions!eager to dispense
So much from his own stock of thought and sense
As might enable each to stand alone
And serve him for a fellow; with his own,
Joining the qualities that just before
Had graced some older favourite. Thus they wore
A fluctuating halo, yesterday
Set flicker and to-morrow filched away,
Those upland objects each of separate name,
Each with an aspect never twice the same,
Waxing and waning as the new-born host
Of fancies, like a single night's hoar-frost,
Gave to familiar things a face grotesque;
Only, preserving through the mad burlesque
A grave regard. Conceive! the orpine patch
Blossoming earliest on the log-house thatch
The day those archers wound along the vines
Related to the Chief that left their lines
To climb with clinking step the northern stair
Up to the solitary chambers where
Sordello never came. Thus thrall reached thrall;
He o'er-festooning every interval,
As the adventurous spider, making light
Of distance, shoots her threads from depth to height,
From barbican to battlement: so flung
Fantasies forth and in their centre swung
Our architect,the breezy morning fresh
Above, and merry,all his waving mesh
Laughing with lucid dew-drops rainbow-edged.
This world of ours by tacit pact is pledged
To laying such a spangled fabric low
Whether by gradual brush or gallant blow.
But its abundant will was baulked here: doubt
Rose tardily in one so fenced about
From most that nurtures judgment,care and pain:
Judgment, that dull expedient we are fain,
Less favoured, to adopt betimes and force
Stead us, diverted from our natural course
Of joyscontrive some yet amid the dearth,
Vary and render them, it may be, worth
Most we forego. Suppose Sordello hence
Selfish enough, without a moral sense
However feeble; what informed the boy
Others desired a portion in his joy?
Or say a ruthful chance broke woof and warp
A heron's nest beat down by March winds sharp,
A fawn breathless beneath the precipice,
A bird with unsoiled breast and unfilmed eyes
Warm in the brakecould these undo the trance
Lapping Sordello? Not a circumstance
That makes for you, friend Naddo! Eat fern-seed
And peer beside us and report indeed
If (your word) "genius" dawned with throes and stings
And the whole fiery catalogue, while springs,
Summers, and winters quietly came and went.
Time put at length that period to content,
By right the world should have imposed: bereft
Of its good offices, Sordello, left
To study his companions, managed rip
Their fringe off, learn the true relationship,
Core with its crust, their nature with his own:
Amid his wild-wood sights he lived alone.
As if the poppy felt with him! Though he
Partook the poppy's red effrontery
Till Autumn spoiled their fleering quite with rain,
And, turbanless, a coarse brown rattling crane
Lay bare. That 's gone: yet why renounce, for that,
His disenchanted tributariesflat
Perhaps, but scarce so utterly forlorn,
Their simple presence might not well be borne
Whose parley was a transport once: recall
The poppy's gifts, it flaunts you, after all,
A poppy:why distrust the evidence
Of each soon satisfied and healthy sense?
The new-born judgment answered, "little boots
"Beholding other creatures' attributes
"And having none!" or, say that it sufficed,
"Yet, could one but possess, oneself," (enticed
Judgment) "some special office!" Nought beside
Serves you? "Well then, be somehow justified
"For this ignoble wish to circumscribe
"And concentrate, rather than swell, the tribe
"Of actual pleasures: what, now, from without
"Effects it?proves, despite a lurking doubt,
"Mere sympathy sufficient, trouble spared?
"That, tasting joys by proxy thus, you fared
"The better for them?" Thus much craved his soul,
Alas, from the beginning love is whole
And true; if sure of nought beside, most sure
Of its own truth at least; nor may endure
A crowd to see its face, that cannot know
How hot the pulses throb its heart below.
While its own helplessness and utter want
Of means to worthily be ministrant
To what it worships, do but fan the more
Its flame, exalt the idol far before
Itself as it would have it ever be.
Souls like Sordello, on the contrary,
Coerced and put to shame, retaining will,
Care little, take mysterious comfort still,
But look forth tremblingly to ascertain
If others judge their claims not urged in vain,
And say for them their stifled thoughts aloud.
So, they must ever live before a crowd:
"Vanity," Naddo tells you.
               Whence contrive
A crowd, now? From these women just alive,
That archer-troop? Forth glidednot alone
Each painted warrior, every girl of stone,
Nor Adelaide (bent double o'er a scroll,
One maiden at her knees, that eve, his soul
Shook as he stumbled through the arras'd glooms
On them, for, 'mid quaint robes and weird perfumes,
Started the meagre Tuscan up,her eyes,
The maiden's, also, bluer with surprise)
But the entire out-world: whatever, scraps
And snatches, song and story, dreams perhaps,
Conceited the world's offices, and he
Had hitherto transferred to flower or tree,
Not counted a befitting heritage
Each, of its own right, singly to engage
Some man, no other,such now dared to stand
Alone. Strength, wisdom, grace on every hand
Soon disengaged themselves, and he discerned
A sort of human life: at least, was turned
A stream of lifelike figures through his brain.
Lord, liegeman, valvassor and suzerain,
Ere he could choose, surrounded him; a stuff
To work his pleasure on; there, sure enough:
But as for gazing, what shall fix that gaze?
Are they to simply testify the ways
He who convoked them sends his soul along
With the cloud's thunder or a dove's brood-song?
While they live each his life, boast each his own
Peculiar dower of bliss, stand each alone
In some one point where something dearest loved
Is easiest gainedfar worthier to be proved
Than aught he envies in the forest-wights!
No simple and self-evident delights,
But mixed desires of unimagined range,
Contrasts or combinations, new and strange,
Irksome perhaps, yet plainly recognized
By this, the sudden companyloves prized
By those who are to prize his own amount
Of loves. Once care because such make account,
Allow that foreign recognitions stamp
The current value, and his crowd shall vamp
Him counterfeits enough; and so their print
Be on the piece, 't is gold, attests the mint,
And "good," pronounce they whom his new appeal
Is made to: if their casual print conceal
This arbitrary good of theirs o'ergloss
What he has lived without, nor felt the loss
Qualities strange, ungainly, wearisome,
What matter? So must speech expand the dumb
Part-sigh, part-smile with which Sordello, late
Whom no poor woodland-sights could satiate,
Betakes himself to study hungrily
Just what the puppets his crude phantasy
Supposes notablest,popes, kings, priests, knights,
May please to promulgate for appetites;
Accepting all their artificial joys
Not as he views them, but as he employs
Each shape to estimate the other's stock
Of attributes, whereona marshalled flock
Of authorized enjoymentshe may spend
Himself, be men, now, as he used to blend
With tree and flowernay more entirely, else
'T were mockery: for instance, "How excels
"My life that chieftain's?" (who apprised the youth
Ecelin, here, becomes this month, in truth,
Imperial Vicar?) "Turns he in his tent
"Remissly? Be it somy head is bent
"Deliciously amid my girls to sleep.
"What if he stalks the Trentine-pass? Yon steep
"I climbed an hour ago with little toil:
"We are alike there. But can I, too, foil
"The Guelf's paid stabber, carelessly afford
"Saint Mark's a spectacle, the sleight o' the sword
"Baffling the treason in a moment?" Here
No rescue! Poppy he is none, but peer
To Ecelin, assuredly: his hand,
Fashioned no otherwise, should wield a brand
With Ecelin's successtry, now! He soon
Was satisfied, returned as to the moon
From earth; left each abortive boy's-attempt
For feats, from failure happily exempt,
In fancy at his beck. "One day I will
"Accomplish it! Are they not older still
"Not grown-up men and women? 'T is beside
"Only a dream; and though I must abide
"With dreams now, I may find a thorough vent
"For all myself, acquire an instrument
"For acting what these people act; my soul
"Hunting a body out may gain its whole
"Desire some day!" How else express chagrin
And resignation, show the hope steal in
With which he let sink from an aching wrist
The rough-hewn ash-bow? Straight, a gold shaft hissed
Into the Syrian air, struck Malek down
Superbly! "Crosses to the breach! God's Town
"Is gained him back!" Why bend rough ash-bows more?
Thus lives he: if not careless as before,
Comforted: for one may anticipate,
Rehearse the future, be prepared when fate
Shall have prepared in turn real men whose names
Startle, real places of enormous fames,
Este abroad and Ecelin at home
To worship him,Mantua, Verona, Rome
To witness it. Who grudges time so spent?
Rather test qualities to heart's content
Summon them, thrice selected, near and far
Compress the starriest into one star,
And grasp the whole at once!
               The pageant thinned
Accordingly; from rank to rank, like wind
His spirit passed to winnow and divide;
Back fell the simpler phantasms; every side
The strong clave to the wise; with either classed
The beauteous; so, till two or three amassed
Mankind's beseemingnesses, and reduced
Themselves eventually,graces loosed,
Strengths lavished,all to heighten up One Shape
Whose potency no creature should escape.
Can it be Friedrich of the bowmen's talk?
Surely that grape-juice, bubbling at the stalk,
Is some grey scorching Saracenic wine
The Kaiser quaffs with the Miramoline
Those swarthy hazel-clusters, seamed and chapped,
Or filberts russet-sheathed and velvet-capped,
Are dates plucked from the bough John Brienne sent
To keep in mind his sluggish armament
Of Canaan:Friedrich's, all the pomp and fierce
Demeanour! But harsh sounds and sights transpierce
So rarely the serene cloud where he dwells
Whose looks enjoin, whose lightest words are spells
On the obdurate! That right arm indeed
Has thunder for its slave; but where 's the need
Of thunder if the stricken multitude
Hearkens, arrested in its angriest mood,
While songs go up exulting, then dispread,
Dispart, disperse, lingering overhead
Like an escape of angels? 'T is the tune,
Nor much unlike the words his women croon
Smilingly, colourless and faint-designed
Each, as a worn-out queen's face some remind
Of her extreme youth's love-tales. "Eglamor
"Made that!" Half minstrel and half emperor,
What but ill objects vexed him? Such he slew.
The kinder sort were easy to subdue
By those ambrosial glances, dulcet tones;
And these a gracious hand advanced to thrones
Beneath him. Wherefore twist and torture this,
Striving to name afresh the antique bliss,
Instead of saying, neither less nor more,
He had discovered, as our world before,
Apollo? That shall be the name; nor bid
Me rag by rag expose how patchwork hid
The youthwhat thefts of every clime and day
Contributed to purfle the array
He climbed with (June at deep) some close ravine
Mid clatter of its million pebbles sheen,
Over which, singing soft, the runnel slipped
Elate with rains: into whose streamlet dipped
He foot, yet trod, you thought, with unwet sock
Though really on the stubs of living rock
Ages ago it crenelled; vines for roof,
Lindens for wall; before him, aye aloof,
Flittered in the cool some azure damsel-fly,
Born of the simmering quiet, there to die.
Emerging whence, Apollo still, he spied
Mighty descents of forest; multiplied
Tuft on tuft, here, the frolic myrtle-trees,
There gendered the grave maple stocks at ease.
And, proud of its observer, straight the wood
Tried old surprises on him; black it stood
A sudden barrier ('twas a cloud passed o'er)
So dead and dense, the tiniest brute no more
Must pass; yet presently (the cloud dispatched)
Each clump, behold, was glistering detached
A shrub, oak-boles shrunk into ilex-stems!
Yet could not he denounce the stratagems
He saw thro', till, hours thence, aloft would hang
White summer-lightnings; as it sank and sprang
To measure, that whole palpitating breast
Of heaven, 't was Apollo, nature prest
At eve to worship.
         Time stole: by degrees
The Pythons perish off; his votaries
Sink to respectful distance; songs redeem
Their pains, but briefer; their dismissals seem
Emphatic; only girls are very slow
To disappearhis Delians! Some that glow
O' the instant, more with earlier loves to wrench
Away, reserves to quell, disdains to quench;
Alike in one material circumstance
All soon or late adore Apollo! Glance
The bevy through, divine Apollo's choice,
His Daphne! "We secure Count Richard's voice
"In Este's counsels, good for Este's ends
"As our Taurello," say his faded friends,
"By granting him our Palma!"the sole child,
They mean, of Agnes Este who beguiled
Ecelin, years before this Adelaide
Wedded and turned him wicked: "but the maid
"Rejects his suit," those sleepy women boast.
She, scorning all beside, deserves the most
Sordello: so, conspicuous in his world
Of dreams sat Palma. How the tresses curled
Into a sumptuous swell of gold and wound
About her like a glory! even the ground
Was bright as with spilt sunbeams; breathe not, breathe
Not!poised, see, one leg doubled underneath,
Its small foot buried in the dimpling snow,
Rests, but the other, listlessly below,
O'er the couch-side swings feeling for cool air,
The vein-streaks swollen a richer violet where
The languid blood lies heavily; yet calm
On her slight prop, each flat and outspread palm,
As but suspended in the act to rise
By consciousness of beauty, whence her eyes
Turn with so frank a triumph, for she meets
Apollo's gaze in the pine glooms.
                 Time fleets:
That 's worst! Because the pre-appointed age
Approaches. Fate is tardy with the stage
And crowd she promised. Lean he grows and pale,
Though restlessly at rest. Hardly avail
Fancies to soothe him. Time steals, yet alone
He tarries here! The earnest smile is gone.
How long this might continue matters not;
For ever, possibly; since to the spot
None come: our lingering Taurello quits
Mantua at last, and light our lady flits
Back to her place disburthened of a care.
Strangeto be constant here if he is there!
Is it distrust? Oh, never! for they both
Goad Ecelin alike, Romano's growth
Is daily manifest, with Azzo dumb
And Richard wavering: let but Friedrich come,
Find matter for the minstrelsy's report
Lured from the Isle and its young Kaiser's court
To sing us a Messina morning up,
And, double rillet of a drinking cup,
Sparkle along to ease the land of drouth,
Northward to Provence that, and thus far south
The other! What a method to apprise
Neighbours of births, espousals, obsequies,
Which in their very tongue the Troubadour
Records! and his performance makes a tour,
For Trouveres bear the miracle about,
Explain its cunning to the vulgar rout,
Until the Formidable House is famed
Over the countryas Taurello aimed,
Who introduced, although the rest adopt,
The novelty. Such games, her absence stopped,
Begin afresh now Adelaide, recluse
No longer, in the light of day pursues
Her plans at Mantua: whence an accident
Which, breaking on Sordello's mixed content
Opened, like any flash that cures the blind,
The veritable business of mankind.


~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the First
,
620:And the font took them: let our laurels lie!
Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly
Because once more Goito gets, once more,
Sordello to itself! A dream is o'er,
And the suspended life begins anew;
Quiet those throbbing temples, then, subdue
That cheek's distortion! Nature's strict embrace,
Putting aside the past, shall soon efface
Its print as wellfactitious humours grown
Over the trueloves, hatreds not his own
And turn him pure as some forgotten vest
Woven of painted byssus, silkiest
Tufting the Tyrrhene whelk's pearl-sheeted lip,
Left welter where a trireme let it slip
I' the sea, and vexed a satrap; so the stain
O' the world forsakes Sordello, with its pain,
Its pleasure: how the tinct loosening escapes,
Cloud after cloud! Mantua's familiar shapes
Die, fair and foul die, fading as they flit,
Men, women, and the pathos and the wit,
Wise speech and foolish, deeds to smile or sigh
For, good, bad, seemly or ignoble, die.
The last face glances through the eglantines,
The last voice murmurs, 'twixt the blossomed vines,
Of Men, of that machine supplied by thought
To compass self-perception with, he sought
By forcing half himselfan insane pulse
Of a god's blood, on clay it could convulse,
Never transmuteon human sights and sounds,
To watch the other half with; irksome bounds
It ebbs from to its source, a fountain sealed
Forever. Better sure be unrevealed
Than part revealed: Sordello well or ill
Is finished: then what further use of Will,
Point in the prime idea not realized,
An oversight? inordinately prized,
No less, and pampered with enough of each
Delight to prove the whole above its reach.
"To need become all natures, yet retain
"The law of my own natureto remain
"Myself, yet yearn . . . as if that chestnut, think,
"Should yearn for this first larch-bloom crisp and pink,
"Or those pale fragrant tears where zephyrs stanch
"March wounds along the fretted pine-tree branch!
"Will and the means to show will, great and small,
"Material, spiritual,abjure them all
"Save any so distinct, they may be left
"To amuse, not tempt become! and, thus bereft,
"Just as I first was fashioned would I be!
"Nor, moon, is it Apollo now, but me
"Thou visitest to comfort and befriend!
"Swim thou into my heart, and there an end,
"Since I possess thee!nay, thus shut mine eyes
"And know, quite know, by this heart's fall and rise,
"When thou dost bury thee in clouds, and when
"Out-standest: wherefore practise upon men
"To make that plainer to myself?"
                 Slide here
Over a sweet and solitary year
Wasted; or simply notice change in him
How eyes, once with exploring bright, grew dim
And satiate with receiving. Some distress
Was caused, too, by a sort of consciousness
Under the imbecility,nought kept
That down; he slept, but was aware he slept,
So, frustrated: as who brainsick made pact
Erst with the overhanging cataract
To deafen him, yet still distinguished plain
His own blood's measured clicking at his brain.
To finish. One declining Autumn day
Few birds about the heaven chill and grey,
No wind that cared trouble the tacit woods
He sauntered home complacently, their moods
According, his and nature's. Every spark
Of Mantua life was trodden out; so dark
The embers, that the Troubadour, who sung
Hundreds of songs, forgot, its trick his tongue,
Its craft his brain, how either brought to pass
Singing at all; that faculty might class
With any of Apollo's now. The year
Began to find its early promise sere
As well. Thus beauty vanishes; thus stone
Outlingers flesh: nature's and his youth gone,
They left the world to you, and wished you joy.
When, stopping his benevolent employ,
A presage shuddered through the welkin; harsh
The earth's remonstrance followed. 'T was the marsh
Gone of a sudden. Mincio, in its place,
Laughed, a broad water, in next morning's face,
And, where the mists broke up immense and white
I' the steady wind, burned like a spilth of light
Out of the crashing of a myriad stars.
And here was nature, bound by the same bars
Of fate with him!
         "No! youth once gone is gone:
"Deeds, let escape, are never to be done.
"Leaf-fall and grass-spring for the year; for us
"Oh forfeit I unalterably thus
"My chance? nor two lives wait me, this to spend,
"Learning save that? Nature has time, may mend
"Mistake, she knows occasion will recur;
"Landslip or seabreach, how affects it her
"With her magnificent resources?I
"Must perish once and perish utterly.
"Not any strollings now at even-close
"Down the field-path, Sordello! by thorn-rows
"Alive with lamp-flies, swimming spots of fire
"And dew, outlining the black cypress' spire
"She waits you at, Elys, who heard you first
"Woo her, the snow-month through, but ere she durst
"Answer 't was April. Linden-flower-time-long
"Her eyes were on the ground; 't is July, strong
"Now; and because white dust-clouds overwhelm
"The woodside, here or by the village elm
"That holds the moon, she meets you, somewhat pale,
"But letting you lift up her coarse flax veil
"And whisper (the damp little hand in yours)
"Of love, heart's love, your heart's love that endures
"Till death. Tush! No mad mixing with the rout
"Of haggard ribalds wandering about
"The hot torchlit wine-scented island-house
"Where Friedrich holds his wickedest carouse,
"Parading,to the gay Palermitans,
"Soft Messinese, dusk Saracenic clans
"Nuocera holds,those tall grave dazzling Norse,
"High-cheeked, lank-haired, toothed whiter than the morse,
"Queens of the caves of jet stalactites,
"He sent his barks to fetch through icy seas,
"The blind night seas without a saving star,
"And here in snowy birdskin robes they are,
"Sordello!here, mollitious alcoves gilt
"Superb as Byzant domes that devils built!
"Ah, Byzant, there again! no chance to go
"Ever like august cheery Dandolo,
"Worshipping hearts about him for a wall,
"Conducted, blind eyes, hundred years and all,
"Through vanquished Byzant where friends note for him
"What pillar, marble massive, sardius slim,
"'T were fittest he transport to Venice' Square
"Flattered and promised life to touch them there
"Soon, by those fervid sons of senators!
"No more lifes, deaths, loves, hatreds, peaces, wars!
"Ah, fragments of a whole ordained to be,
"Points in the life I waited! what are ye
"But roundels of a ladder which appeared
"Awhile the very platform it was reared
"To lift me on?that happiness I find
"Proofs of my faith in, even in the blind
"Instinct which bade forego you all unless
"Ye led me past yourselves. Ay, happiness
"Awaited me; the way life should be used
"Was to acquire, and deeds like you conduced
"To teach it by a self-revealment, deemed
"Life's very use, so long! Whatever seemed
"Progress to that, was pleasure; aught that stayed
"My reaching itno pleasure. I have laid
"The ladder down; I climb not; still, aloft
"The platform stretches! Blisses strong and soft,
"I dared not entertain, elude me; yet
"Never of what they promised could I get
"A glimpse till now! The common sort, the crowd,
"Exist, perceive; with Being are endowed,
"However slight, distinct from what they See,
"However bounded; Happiness must be,
"To feed the first by gleanings from the last,
"Attain its qualities, and slow or fast
"Become what they behold; such peace-in-strife,
"By transmutation, is the Use of Life,
"The Alien turning Native to the soul
"Or bodywhich instructs me; I am whole
"There and demand a Palma; had the world
"Been from my soul to a like distance hurled,
"'T were Happiness to make it one with me:
"Whereas I must, ere I begin to Be,
"Include a world, in flesh, I comprehend
"In spirit now; and this done, what 's to blend
"With? Nought is Alien in the worldmy Will
"Owns all already; yet can turn itstill
"LessNative, since my Means to correspond
"With Will are so unworthy, 't was my bond
"To tread the very joys that tantalize
"Most now, into a grave, never to rise.
"I die then! Will the rest agree to die?
"Next Age or no? Shall its Sordello try
"Clue after clue, and catch at last the clue
"I miss?that 's underneath my finger too,
"Twice, thrice a day, perhaps,some yearning traced
"Deeper, some petty consequence embraced
"Closer! Why fled I Mantua, then?complained
"So much my Will was fettered, yet remained
"Content within a tether half the range
"I could assign it?able to exchange
"My ignorance (I felt) for knowledge, and
"Idle because I could thus understand
"Could e'en have penetrated to its core
"Our mortal mystery, yetfoolforbore,
"Preferred elaborating in the dark
"My casual stuff, by any wretched spark
"Born of my predecessors, though one stroke
"Of mine had brought the flame forth! Mantua's yoke,
"My minstrel's-trade, was to behold mankind,
"My own concern was just to bring my mind
"Behold, just extricate, for my acquist,
"Each object suffered stifle in the mist
"Which hazard, custom, blindness interpose
"Betwixt things and myself."
               Whereat he rose.
The level wind carried above the firs
Clouds, the irrevocable travellers,
Onward.
   "Pushed thus into a drowsy copse,
"Arms twine about my neck, each eyelid drops
"Under a humid finger; while there fleets,
"Outside the screen, a pageant time repeats
"Never again! To be deposed, immured
"Clandestinelystill petted, still assured
"To govern were fatiguing workthe Sight
"Fleeting meanwhile! 'T is noontide: wreak ere night
"Somehow my will upon it, rather! Slake
"This thirst somehow, the poorest impress take
"That serves! A blasted bud displays you, torn,
"Faint rudiments of the full flower unborn;
"But who divines what glory coats o'erclasp
"Of the bulb dormant in the mummy's grasp
"Taurello sent?" . . .
           "Taurello? Palma sent
"Your Trouvere," (Naddo interposing leant
Over the lost bard's shoulder)"and, believe,
"You cannot more reluctantly receive
"Than I pronounce her message: we depart
"Together. What avail a poet's heart
"Verona's pomps and gauds? five blades of grass
"Suffice him. News? Why, where your marish was,
"On its mud-banks smoke rises after smoke
"I' the valley, like a spout of hell new-broke.
"Oh, the world's tidings! small your thanks, I guess,
"For them. The father of our Patroness,
"Has played Taurello an astounding trick,
"Parts between Ecelin and Alberic
"His wealth and goes into a convent: both
"Wed Guelfs: the Count and Palma plighted troth
"A week since at Verona: and they want
"You doubtless to contrive the marriage-chant
"Ere Richard storms Ferrara." Then was told
The tale from the beginninghow, made bold
By Salinguerra's absence, Guelfs had burned
And pillaged till he unawares returned
To take revenge: how Azzo and his friend
Were doing their endeavour, how the end
O' the siege was nigh, and how the Count, released
From further care, would with his marriage-feast
Inaugurate a new and better rule,
Absorbing thus Romano.
           "Shall I school
"My master," added Naddo, "and suggest
"How you may clothe in a poetic vest
"These doings, at Verona? Your response
"To Palma! Wherefore jest? 'Depart at once?
"A good resolve! In truth, I hardly hoped
"So prompt an acquiescence. Have you groped
"Out wisdom in the wilds here?thoughts may be
"Over-poetical for poetry.
"Pearl-white, you poets liken Palma's neck;
"And yet what spoils an orient like some speck
"Of genuine white, turning its own white grey?
"You take me? Curse the cicala!"
                 One more day,
One eveappears Verona! Many a group,
(You mind) instructed of the osprey's swoop
On lynx and ounce, was gatheringChristendom
Sure to receive, whate'er the end was, from
The evening's purpose cheer or detriment,
Since Friedrich only waited some event
Like this, of Ghibellins establishing
Themselves within Ferrara, ere, as King
Of Lombardy, he 'd glad descend there, wage
Old warfare with the Pontiff, disengage
His barons from the burghers, and restore
The rule of Charlemagne, broken of yore
By Hildebrand.
       I' the palace, each by each,
Sordello sat and Palma: little speech
At first in that dim closet, face with face
(Despite the tumult in the market-place)
Exchanging quick low laughters: now would rush
Word upon word to meet a sudden flush,
A look left off, a shifting lips' surmise
But for the most part their two histories
Ran best thro' the locked fingers and linked arms.
And so the night flew on with its alarms
Till in burst one of Palma's retinue;
"Now, Lady!" gasped he. Then arose the two
And leaned into Verona's air, dead-still.
A balcony lay black beneath until
Out, 'mid a gush of torchfire, grey-haired men
Came on it and harangued the people: then
Sea-like that people surging to and fro
Shouted, "Hale forth the carrochtrumpets, ho,
"A flourish! Run it in the ancient grooves!
"Back from the bell! Hammerthat whom behoves
"May hear the League is up! Peallearn who list,
"Verona means not first of towns break tryst
"To-morrow with the League!"
               Enough. Now turn
Over the eastern cypresses: discern!
Is any beacon set a-glimmer?
               Rang
The air with shouts that overpowered the clang
Of the incessant carroch, even: "Haste
"The candle 's at the gateway! ere it waste,
"Each soldier stand beside it, armed to march
"With Tiso Sampier through the eastern arch!"
Ferrara's succoured, Palma!
               Once again
They sat together; some strange thing in train
To say, so difficult was Palma's place
In taking, with a coy fastidious grace
Like the bird's flutter ere it fix and feed.
But when she felt she held her friend indeed
Safe, she threw back her curls, began implant
Her lessons; telling of another want
Goito's quiet nourished than his own;
Palmato serve himto be served, alone
Importing; Agnes' milk so neutralized
The blood of Ecelin. Nor be surprised
If, while Sordello fain had captive led
Nature, in dream was Palma subjected
To some out-soul, which dawned not though she pined
Delaying, till its advent, heart and mind
Their life. "How dared I let expand the force
"Within me, till some out-soul, whose resource
"It grew for, should direct it? Every law
"Of life, its every fitness, every flaw,
"Must One determine whose corporeal shape
"Would be no other than the prime escape
"And revelation to me of a Will
"Orb-like o'ershrouded and inscrutable
"Above, save at the point which, I should know,
"Shone that myself, my powers, might overflow
"So far, so much; as now it signified
"Which earthly shape it henceforth chose my guide,
"Whose mortal lip selected to declare
"Its oracles, what fleshly garb would wear
"The first of intimations, whom to love;
"The next, how love him. Seemed that orb, above
"The castle-covert and the mountain-close,
"Slow in appearing?if beneath it rose
"Cravings, aversions,did our green precinct
"Take pride in me, at unawares distinct
"With this or that endowment,how, repressed
"At once, such jetting power shrank to the rest!
"Was I to have a chance touch spoil me, leave
"My spirit thence unfitted to receive
"The consummating spell?that spell so near
"Moreover! 'Waits he not the waking year?
"'His almond-blossoms must be honey-ripe
"'By this; to welcome him, fresh runnels stripe
"'The thawed ravines; because of him, the wind
"'Walks like a herald. I shall surely find
"'Him now!'
     "And chief, that earnest April morn
"Of Richard's Love-court, was it time, so worn
"And white my cheek, so idly my blood beat,
"Sitting that morn beside the Lady's feet
"And saying as she prompted; till outburst
"One face from all the faces. Not then first
"I knew it; where in maple chamber glooms,
"Crowned with what sanguine-heart pomegranate blooms,
"Advanced it ever? Men's acknowledgment
"Sanctioned my own: 't was taken, Palma's bent,
"Sordello,recognized, accepted.
                 "Dumb
"Sat she still scheming. Ecelin would come
"Gaunt, scared, 'Cesano baffles me,' he 'd say:
"'Better I fought it out, my father's way!
"'Strangle Ferrara in its drowning flats,
"'And you and your Taurello yonder!what's
"'Romano's business there?' An hour's concern
"To cure the froward Chief!induce return
"As heartened from those overmeaning eyes,
"Wound up to persevere,his enterprise
"Marked out anew, its exigent of wit
"Apportioned,she at liberty to sit
"And scheme against the next emergence, I
"To covet her Taurello-sprite, made fly
"Or fold the wingto con your horoscope
"For leave command those steely shafts shoot ope,
"Or straight assuage their blinding eagerness
"In blank smooth snow What semblance of success
"To any of my plans for making you
"Mine and Romano's? Break the first wall through,
"Tread o'er the ruins of the Chief, supplant
"His sons beside, still, vainest were the vaunt:
"There, Salinguerra would obstruct me sheer,
"And the insuperable Tuscan, here,
"Stay me! But one wild eve that Lady died
"In her lone chamber: only I beside:
"Taurello far at Naples, and my sire
"At Padua, Ecelin away in ire
"With Alberic. She held me thusa clutch
"To make our spirits as our bodies touch
"And so began flinging the past up heaps
"Of uncouth treasure from their sunless sleeps
"Within her soul; deeds rose along with dreams,
"Fragments of many miserable schemes,
"Secrets, more secrets, thenno, not the last
"'Mongst others, like a casual trick o' the past,
"How . . . ay, she told me, gathering up her face,
"All left of it, into one arch-grimace
"To die with . . .
         "Friend, 't is gone! but not the fear
"Of that fell laughing, heard as now I hear.
"Nor faltered voice, nor seemed her heart grow weak
"When i' the midst abrupt she ceased to speak
"Dead, as to serve a purpose, mark!for in
"Rushed o' the very instant Ecelin
"(How summoned, who divines?)looking as if
"He understood why Adelaide lay stiff
"Already in my arms; for 'Girl, how must
"'I manage Este in the matter thrust
"'Upon me, how unravel your bad coil?
"'Since' (he declared) ''t is on your browa soil
"'Like hers there!' then in the same breath, 'he lacked
"'No counsel after all, had signed no pact
"'With devils, nor was treason here or there,
"'Goito or Vicenza, his affair:
"'He buried it in Adelaide's deep grave,
"'Would begin life afresh, now,would not slave
"'For any Friedrich's nor Taurello's sake!
"'What booted him to meddle or to make
"'In Lombardy?' And afterward I knew
"The meaning of his promise to undo
"All she had donewhy marriages were made,
"New friendships entered on, old followers paid
"With curses for their pains,new friends' amaze
"At height, when, passing out by Gate St. Blaise,
"He stopped short in Vicenza, bent his head
"Over a friar's neck,'had vowed,' he said,
"'Long since, nigh thirty years, because his wife
"'And child were saved there, to bestow his life
"'On God, his gettings on the Church.'
                     "Exiled
"Within Goito, still one dream beguiled
"My days and nights; 't was found, the orb I sought
"To serve, those glimpses came of Fomalhaut,
"No other: but how serve it?authorize
"You and Romano mingle destinies?
"And straight Romano's angel stood beside
"Me who had else been Boniface's bride,
"For Salinguerra 't was, with neck low bent,
"And voice lightened to music, (as he meant
"To learn, not teach me,) who withdrew the pall
"From the dead past and straight revived it all,
"Making me see how first Romano waxed,
"Wherefore he waned now, why, if I relaxed
"My grasp (even I!) would drop a thing effete,
"Frayed by itself, unequal to complete
"Its course, and counting every step astray
"A gain so much. Romano, every way
"Stable, a Lombard House nowwhy start back
"Into the very outset of its track?
"This patching principle which late allied
"Our House with other Houseswhat beside
"Concerned the apparition, the first Knight
"Who followed Conrad hither in such plight
"His utmost wealth was summed in his one steed?
"For Ecelo, that prowler, was decreed
"A task, in the beginning hazardous
"To him as ever task can be to us;
"But did the weather-beaten thief despair
"When first our crystal cincture of warm air
"That binds the Trevisan,as its spice-belt
"(Crusaders say) the tract where Jesus dwelt,
"Furtive he pierced, and Este was to face
"Despaired Saponian strength of Lombard grace?
"Tried he at making surer aught made sure,
"Maturing what already was mature?
"No; his heart prompted Ecelo, 'Confront
"'Este, inspect yourself. What 's nature? Wont.
"'Discard three-parts your nature, and adopt
"'The rest as an advantage!' Old strength propped
"The man who first grew Podest among
"The Vicentines, no less than, while there sprung
"His palace up in Padua like a threat,
"Their noblest spied a grace, unnoticed yet
"In Conrad's crew. Thus far the object gained,
"Romano was establishedhas remained
"'For are you not Italian, truly peers
"'With Este? Azzo better soothes our ears
"'Than Alberic? or is this lion's-crine
"'From over-mounts' (this yellow hair of mine)
"'So weak a graft on Agnes Este's stock?'
"(Thus went he on with something of a mock)
"'Wherefore recoil, then, from the very fate
"'Conceded you, refuse to imitate
"'Your model farther? Este long since left
"'Being mere Este: as a blade its heft,
"'Este required the Pope to further him:
"'And you, the Kaiserwhom your father's whim
"'Foregoes or, better, never shall forego
"'If Palma dare pursue what Ecelo
"'Commenced, but Ecelin desists from: just
"'As Adelaide of Susa could intrust
"'Her donative,her Piedmont given the Pope,
"'Her Alpine-pass for him to shut or ope
"''Twixt France and Italy,to the superb
"'Matilda's perfecting,so, lest aught curb
"'Our Adelaide's great counter-project for
"'Giving her Trentine to the Emperor
"'With passage here from Germany,shall you
"'Take it,my slender plodding talent, too!'
"Urged me Taurello with his half-smile
                     "He
"As Patron of the scattered family
"Conveyed me to his Mantua, kept in bruit
"Azzo's alliances and Richard's suit
"Until, the Kaiser excommunicate,
"'Nothing remains,' Taurello said, 'but wait
"'Some rash procedure: Palma was the link,
"'As Agnes' child, between us, and they shrink
"'From losing Palma: judge if we advance,
"'Your father's method, your inheritance!'
"The day I was betrothed to Boniface
"At Padua by Taurello's self, took place
"The outrage of the Ferrarese: again,
"The day I sought Verona with the train
"Agreed for,by Taurello's policy
"Convicting Richard of the fault, since we
"Were present to annul or to confirm,
"Richard, whose patience had outstayed its term,
"Quitted Verona for the siege.
                "And now
"What glory may engird Sordello's brow
"Through this? A month since at Oliero slunk
"All that was Ecelin into a monk;
"But how could Salinguerra so forget
"His liege of thirty years as grudge even yet
"One effort to recover him? He sent
"Forthwith the tidings of this last event
"To Ecelindeclared that he, despite
"The recent folly, recognized his right
"To order Salinguerra: 'Should he wring
"'Its uttermost advantage out, or fling
"'This chance away? Or were his sons now Head
"'O' the House?' Through me Taurello's missive sped;
"My father's answer will by me return.
"Behold! 'For him,' he writes, 'no more concern
"'With strife than, for his children, with fresh plots
"'Of Friedrich. Old engagements out he blots
"'For aye: Taurello shall no more subserve,
"'Nor Ecelin impose.' Lest this unnerve
"Taurello at this juncture, slack his grip
"Of Richard, suffer the occasion slip,
"I, in his sons' default (who, mating with
"Este, forsake Romano as the frith
"Its mainsea for that firmland, sea makes head
"Against) I stand, Romano,in their stead
"Assume the station they desert, and give
"Still, as the Kaiser's representative,
"Taurello licence he demands. Midnight
"Morningby noon to-morrow, making light
"Of the League's issue, we, in some gay weed
"Like yours, disguised together, may precede
"The arbitrators to Ferrara: reach
"Him, let Taurello's noble accents teach
"The rest! Then say if I have misconceived
"Your destiny, too readily believed
"The Kaiser's cause your own!"
                And Palma's fled.
Though no affirmative disturbs the head,
A dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er,
Like the alighted planet Pollux wore,
Until, morn breaking, he resolves to be
Gate-vein of this heart's blood of Lombardy,
Soul of this bodyto wield this aggregate
Of souls and bodies, and so conquer fate
Though he should livea centre of disgust
Evenapart, core of the outward crust
He vivifies, assimilates. For thus
I bring Sordello to the rapturous
Exclaim at the crowd's cry, because one round
Of life was quite accomplished; and he found
Not only that a soul, whate'er its might,
Is insufficient to its own delight,
Both in corporeal organs and in skill
By means of such to body forth its Will
And, after, insufficient to apprise
Men of that Will, oblige them recognize
The Hid by the Revealedbut that,the last
Nor lightest of the struggles overpast,
Will, he bade abdicate, which would not void
The throne, might sit there, suffer he enjoyed
Mankind, a varied and divine array
Incapable of homage, the first way,
Nor fit to render incidentally
Tribute connived at, taken by the by,
In joys. If thus with warrant to rescind
The ignominious exile of mankind
Whose proper service, ascertained intact
As yet, (to be by him themselves made act,
Not watch Sordello acting each of them)
Was to secureif the true diadem
Seemed imminent while our Sordello drank
The wisdom of that golden Palma,thank
Verona's Lady in her citadel
Founded by Gaulish Brennus, legends tell:
And truly when she left him, the sun reared
A head like the first clamberer's who peered
A-top the Capitol, his face on flame
With triumph, triumphing till Manlius came.
Nor slight too much my rhymesthat spring, dispread,
Dispart, disperse, lingering over head
Like an escape of angels! Rather say,
My transcendental platan! mounting gay
(An archimage so courts a novice-queen)
With tremulous silvered trunk, whence branches sheen
Laugh out, thick-foliaged next, a-shiver soon
With coloured buds, then glowing like the moon
One mild flame,last a pause, a burst, and all
Her ivory limbs are smothered by a fall,
Bloom-flinders and fruit-sparkles and leaf-dust,
Ending the weird work prosecuted just
For her amusement; he decrepit, stark,
Dozes; her uncontrolled delight may mark
Apart
   Yet not so, surely never so
Only, as good my soul were suffered go
O'er the lagune: forth fare thee, put aside
Entrance thy synod, as a god may glide
Out of the world he fills, and leave it mute
For myriad ages as we men compute,
Returning into it without a break
O' the consciousness! They sleep, and I awake
O'er the lagune, being at Venice.
                 Note,
In just such songs as Eglamor (say) wrote
With heart and soul and strength, for he believed
Himself achieving all to be achieved
By singerin such songs you find alone
Completeness, judge the song and singer one,
And either purpose answered, his in it
Or its in him: while from true works (to wit
Sordello's dream-performances that will
Never be more than dreamed) escapes there still
Some proof, the singer's proper life was 'neath
The life his song exhibits, this a sheath
To that; a passion and a knowledge far
Transcending these, majestic as they are,
Smouldered; his lay was but an episode
In the bard's life: which evidence you owed
To some slight weariness, some looking-off
Or start-away. The childish skit or scoff
In "Charlemagne," (his poem, dreamed divine
In every point except one silly line
About the restiff daughters)what may lurk
In that? "My life commenced before this work,"
(So I interpret the significance
Of the bard's start aside and look askance)
"My life continues after: on I fare
"With no more stopping, possibly, no care
"To note the undercurrent, the why and how,
"Where, when, o' the deeper life, as thus just now.
"But, silent, shall I cease to live? Alas
"For you! who sigh, 'When shall it come to pass
"'We read that story? How will he compress
"'The future gains, his life's true business,
"'Into the better lay whichthat one flout,
"'Howe'er inopportune it be, lets out
"'Engrosses him already, though professed
"'To meditate with us eternal rest,
"'And partnership in all his life has found?'"
'T is but a sailor's promise, weather-bound:
"Strike sail, slip cable, here the bark be moored
"For once, the awning stretched, the poles assured!
"Noontide above; except the wave's crisp dash,
"Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash,
"The margin 's silent: out with every spoil
"Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil,
"This serpent of a river to his head
"I' the midst! Admire each treasure, as we spread
"The bank, to help us tell our history
"Aright: give ear, endeavour to descry
"The groves of giant rushes, how they grew
"Like demons' endlong tresses we sailed through,
"What mountains yawned, forests to give us vent
"Opened, each doleful side, yet on we went
"Till . . . may that beetle (shake your cap) attest
"The springing of a land-wind from the West!"
Wherefore? Ah yes, you frolic it to-day!
To-morrow, and, the pageant moved away
Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you
Part company: no other may pursue
Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate
Intends, if triumph or decline await
The tempter of the everlasting steppe.
I muse this on a ruined palace-step
At Venice: why should I break off, nor sit
Longer upon my step, exhaust the fit
England gave birth to? Who 's adorable
Enough reclaim a - no Sordello's Will
Alack!be queen to me? That Bassanese
Busied among her smoking fruit-boats? These
Perhaps from our delicious Asolo
Who twinkle, pigeons o'er the portico
Not prettier, bind June lilies into sheaves
To deck the bridge-side chapel, dropping leaves
Soiled by their own loose gold-meal? Ah, beneath
The cool arch stoops she, brownest cheek! Her wreath
Endures a montha half-monthif I make
A queen of her, continue for her sake
Sordello's story? Nay, that Paduan girl
Splashes with barer legs where a live whirl
In the dead black Giudecca proves sea-weed
Drifting has sucked down three, four, all indeed
Save one pale-red striped, pale-blue turbaned post
For gondolas.
       You sad dishevelled ghost
That pluck at me and point, are you advised
I breathe? Let stay those girls (e'en her disguised
Jewels i' the locks that love no crownet like
Their native field-buds and the green wheat-spike,
So fair!who left this end of June's turmoil,
Shook off, as might a lily its gold soil,
Pomp, save a foolish gem or two, and free
In dream, came join the peasants o'er the sea.)
Look they too happy, too tricked out? Confess
There is such ****rd stock of happiness
To share, that, do one's uttermost, dear wretch,
One labours ineffectually to stretch
It o'er you so that mother and children, both
May equitably flaunt the sumpter-cloth!
Divide the robe yet farther: be content
With seeing just a score pre-eminent
Through shreds of it, acknowledged happy wights,
Engrossing what should furnish all, by rights!
For, these in evidence, you clearlier claim
A like garb for the rest,grace all, the same
As these my peasants. I ask youth and strength
And health for each of you, not moreat length
Grown wise, who asked at home that the whole race
Might add the spirit's to the body's grace,
And all be dizened out as chiefs and bards.
But in this magic weather one discards
Much old requirement. Venice seems a type
Of Life'twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe,
As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought:
'T is Venice, and 't is Lifeas good you sought
To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone
Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone,
As hinder Life the evil with the good
Which make up Living, rightly understood.
Only, do finish something! Peasants, queens,
Take them, made happy by whatever means,
Parade them for the common credit, vouch
That a luckless residue, we send to crouch
In corners out of sight, was just as framed
For happiness, its portion might have claimed
As well, and so, obtaining joy, had stalked
Fastuous as any!such my project, baulked
Already; I hardly venture to adjust
The first rags, when you find me. To mistrust
Me!nor unreasonably. You, no doubt,
Have the true knack of tiring suitors out
With those thin lips on tremble, lashless eyes
Inveterately tear-shot: there, be wise,
Mistress of mine, there, there, as if I meant
You insult!shall your friend (not slave) be shent
For speaking home? Beside, care-bit erased
Broken-up beauties ever took my taste
Supremely; and I love you more, far more
Than her I looked should foot Life's temple-floor.
Years ago, leagues at distance, when and where
A whisper came, "Let others seek!thy care
"Is found, thy life's provision; if thy race
"Should be thy mistress, and into one face
"The many faces crowd?" Ah, had I, judge,
Or no, your secret? Rough apparelgrudge
All ornaments save tag or tassel worn
To hint we are not thoroughly forlorn
Slouch bonnet, unloop mantle, careless go
Alone (that's saddest, but it must be so)
Through Venice, sing now and now glance aside,
Aught desultory or undignified,
Then, ravishingest lady, will you pass
Or not each formidable group, the mass
Before the Basilic (that feast gone by,
God's great day of the Corpus Domini)
And, wistfully foregoing proper men,
Come timid up to me for alms? And then
The luxury to hesitate, feign do
Some unexampled grace!when, whom but you
Dare I bestow your own upon? And hear
Further before you say, it is to sneer
I call you ravishing; for I regret
Little that she, whose early foot was set
Forth as she 'd plant it on a pedestal,
Now, i' the silent city, seems to fall
Toward meno wreath, only a lip's unrest
To quiet, surcharged eyelids to be pressed
Dry of their tears upon my bosom. Strange
Such sad chance should produce in thee such change,
My love! Warped souls and bodies! yet God spoke
Of right-hand, foot and eyeselects our yoke,
Sordello, as your poetship may find!
So, sleep upon my shoulder, child, nor mind
Their foolish talk; we 'll manage reinstate
Your old worth; ask moreover, when they prate
Of evil men past hope, "Don't each contrive,
"Despite the evil you abuse, to live?
"Keeping, each losel, through a maze of lies,
"His own conceit of truth? to which he hies
"By obscure windings, tortuous, if you will,
"But to himself not inaccessible;
"He sees truth, and his lies are for the crowd
"Who cannot see; some fancied right allowed
"His vilest wrong, empowered the losel clutch
"One pleasure from a multitude of such
"Denied him." Then assert, "All men appear
"To think all better than themselves, by here
"Trusting a crowd they wrong; but really," say,
"All men think all men stupider than they,
"Since, save themselves, no other comprehends
"The complicated scheme to make amends
"Evil, the scheme by which, thro' Ignorance,
"Good labours to exist." A slight advance,
Merely to find the sickness you die through,
And nought beside! but if one can't eschew
One's portion in the common lot, at least
One can avoid an ignorance increased
Tenfold by dealing out hint after hint
How nought were like dispensing without stint
The water of lifeso easy to dispense
Beside, when one has probed the centre whence
Commotion 's borncould tell you of it all!
"Meantime, just meditate my madrigal
"O' the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe!"
What, dullard? we and you in smothery chafe,
Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin
The Horrid, getting neither out nor in,
A hungry sun above us, sands that bung
Our throats,each dromedary lolls a tongue,
Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap,
And you, 'twixt tales of Potiphar's mishap,
And sonnets on the earliest **** that spoke,
Remark, you wonder any one needs choke
With founts about! Potsherd him, Gibeonites!
While awkwardly enough your Moses smites
The rock, though he forego his Promised Land
Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and
Figure as Metaphysic Poet . . . ah,
Mark ye the dim first oozings? Meribah!
Then, quaffing at the fount my courage gained,
Recallnot that I prompt yewho explained . . .
"Presumptuous!" interrupts one. You, not I
'T is brother, marvel at and magnify
Such office: "office," quotha? can we get
To the beginning of the office yet?
What do we here? simply experiment
Each on the other's power and its intent
When elsewhere tasked,if this of mine were trucked
For yours to either's good,we watch construct,
In short, an engine: with a finished one,
What it can do, is all,nought, how 't is done.
But this of ours yet in probation, dusk
A kernel of strange wheelwork through its husk
Grows into shape by quarters and by halves;
Remark this tooth's spring, wonder what that valve's
Fall bodes, presume each faculty's device,
Make out each other more or less precise
The scope of the whole engine 's to be proved;
We die: which means to say, the whole 's removed,
Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex gin,
To be set up anew elsewhere, begin
A task indeed, but with a clearer clime
Than the murk lodgment of our building-time.
And then, I grant you, it behoves forget
How 't is doneall that must amuse us yet
So long: and, while you turn upon your heel,
Pray that I be not busy slitting steel
Or shredding brass, camped on some virgin shore
Under a cluster of fresh stars, before
I name a tithe o' the wheels I trust to do!
So occupied, then, are we: hitherto,
At present, and a weary while to come,
The office of ourselves,nor blind nor dumb,
And seeing somewhat of man's state,has been,
For the worst of us, to say they so have seen;
For the better, what it was they saw; the best
Impart the gift of seeing to the rest:
"So that I glance," says such an one, "around,
"And there 's no face but I can read profound
"Disclosures in; this stands for hope, thatfear,
"And for a speech, a deed in proof, look here!
"'Stoop, else the strings of blossom, where the nuts
"'O'erarch, will blind thee! Said I not? She shuts
"'Both eyes this time, so close the hazels meet!
"'Thus, prisoned in the Piombi, I repeat
"'Events one rove occasioned, o'er and o'er,
"'Putting 'twixt me and madness evermore
"'Thy sweet shape, Zanze! Therefore stoop!'
                       "'That's truth!'
"(Adjudge you) 'the incarcerated youth
"'Would say that!'
         "Youth? Plara the bard? Set down
"That Plara spent his youth in a grim town
"Whose cramped ill-featured streets huddled about
"The minster for protection, never out
"Of its black belfry's shade and its bells' roar.
"The brighter shone the suburb,all the more
"Ugly and absolute that shade's reproof
"Of any chance escape of joy,some roof,
"Taller than they, allowed the rest detect,
"Before the sole permitted laugh (suspect
"Who could, 't was meant for laughter, that ploughed cheek's
"Repulsive gleam!) when the sun stopped both peaks
"Of the cleft belfry like a fiery wedge,
"Then sank, a huge flame on its socket edge,
"With leavings on the grey glass oriel-pane
"Ghastly some minutes more. No fear of rain
"The minster minded that! in heaps the dust
"Lay everywhere. This town, the minster's trust,
"Held Plara; who, its denizen, bade hail
"In twice twelve sonnets, Tempe's dewy vale."
"'Exact the town, the minster and the street!'"
"As all mirth triumphs, sadness means defeat:
"Lust triumphs and is gay, Love 's triumphed o'er
"And sad: but Lucio 's sad. I said before,
"Love's sad, not Lucio; one who loves may be
"As gay his love has leave to hope, as he
"Downcast that lusts' desire escapes the springe:
"'T is of the mood itself I speak, what tinge
"Determines it, else colourless,or mirth,
"Or melancholy, as from heaven or earth."
"'Ay, that 's the variation's gist!'
                   "Indeed?
"Thus far advanced in safety then, proceed!
"And having seen too what I saw, be bold
"And next encounter what I do behold
"(That's sure) but bid you take on trust!"
                       Attack
The use and purpose of such sights! Alack,
Not so unwisely does the crowd dispense
On Salinguerras praise in preference
To the Sordellos: men of action, these!
Who, seeing just as little as you please,
Yet turn that little to account,engage
With, do not gaze at,carry on, a stage,
The work o' the world, not merely make report
The work existed ere their day! In short,
When at some future no-time a brave band
Sees, using what it sees, then shake my hand
In heaven, my brother! Meanwhile where's the hurt
Of keeping the Makers-see on the alert,
At whose defection mortals stare aghast
As though heaven's bounteous windows were slammed fast
Incontinent? Whereas all you, beneath,
Should scowl at, bruise their lips and break their teeth
Who ply the pullies, for neglecting you:
And therefore have I moulded, made anew
A Man, and give him to be turned and tried,
Be angry with or pleased at. On your side,
Have ye times, places, actors of your own?
Try them upon Sordello when full-grown,
And thenah then! If Hercules first parched
His foot in Egypt only to be marched
A sacrifice for Jove with pomp to suit,
What chance have I? The demigod was mute
Till, at the altar, where time out of mind
Such guests became oblations, chaplets twined
His forehead long enough, and he began
Slaying the slayers, nor escaped a man.
Take not affront, my gentle audience! whom
No Hercules shall make his hecatomb,
Believe, nor from his brows your chaplet rend
That's your kind suffrage, yours, my patron-friend,
Whose great verse blares unintermittent on
Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,
You who, Plata and Salamis being scant,
Put up with tna for a stimulant
And did well, I acknowledged, as he loomed
Over the midland sea last month, presumed
Long, lay demolished in the blazing West
At eve, while towards him tilting cloudlets pressed
Like Persian ships at Salamis. Friend, wear
A crest proud as desert while I declare
Had I a flawless ruby fit to wring
Tears of its colour from that painted king
Who lost it, I would, for that smile which went
To my heart, fling it in the sea, content,
Wearing your verse in place, an amulet
Sovereign against all passion, wear and fret!
My English Eyebright, if you are not glad
That, as I stopped my task awhile, the sad
Dishevelled form, wherein I put mankind
To come at times and keep my pact in mind,
Renewed me,hear no crickets in the hedge,
Nor let a glowworm spot the river's edge
At home, and may the summer showers gush
Without a warning from the missel thrush!
So, to our business, nowthe fate of such
As find our common natureovermuch
Despised because restricted and unfit
To bear the burthen they impose on it
Cling when they would discard it; craving strength
To leap from the allotted world, at length
They do leap,flounder on without a term,
Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ
In unexpanded infancy, unless . . .
But that 's the storydull enough, confess!
There might be fitter subjects to allure;
Still, neither misconceive my portraiture
Nor undervalue its adornments quaint:
What seems a fiend perchance may prove a saint.
Ponder a story ancient pens transmit,
Then say if you condemn me or acquit.
John the Beloved, banished Antioch
For Patmos, bade collectively his flock
Farewell, but set apart the closing eve
To comfort those his exile most would grieve,
He knew: a touching spectacle, that house
In motion to receive him! Xanthus' spouse
You missed, made panther's meat a month since; but
Xanthus himself (his nephew 't was, they shut
'Twixt boards and sawed asunder) Polycarp,
Soft Charicle, next year no wheel could warp
To swear by Csar's fortune, with the rest
Were ranged; thro' whom the grey disciple pressed,
Busily blessing right and left, just stopped
To pat one infant's curls, the hangman cropped
Soon after, reached the portal. On its hinge
The door turns and he enters: what quick twinge
Ruins the smiling mouth, those wide eyes fix
Whereon, why like some spectral candlestick's
Branch the disciple's arms? Dead swooned he, woke
Anon, heaved sigh, made shift to gasp, heart-broke,
"Get thee behind me, Satan! Have I toiled
"To no more purpose? Is the gospel foiled
"Here too, and o'er my son's, my Xanthus' hearth,
"Portrayed with sooty garb and features swarth
"Ah Xanthus, am I to thy roof beguiled
"To see thethethe Devil domiciled?"
Whereto sobbed Xanthus, "Father, 't is yourself
"Installed, a limning which our utmost pelf
"Went to procure against to-morrow's loss;
"And that's no twy-prong, but a pastoral cross,
"You 're painted with!"
            His puckered brows unfold
And you shall hear Sordello's story told.


~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Third
,
621:BOOK THE SECOND

The Story of Phaeton

The Sun's bright palace, on high columns rais'd,
With burnish'd gold and flaming jewels blaz'd;
The folding gates diffus'd a silver light,
And with a milder gleam refresh'd the sight;
Of polish'd iv'ry was the cov'ring wrought:
The matter vied not with the sculptor's thought,
For in the portal was display'd on high
(The work of Vulcan) a fictitious sky;
A waving sea th' inferiour Earth embrac'd,
And Gods and Goddesses the waters grac'd.
Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
Triton, and Proteus (the deceiving God)
With Doris here were carv'd, and all her train,
Some loosely swimming in the figur'd main,
While some on rocks their dropping hair divide,
And some on fishes through the waters glide:
Tho' various features did the sisters grace,
A sister's likeness was in ev'ry face.
On Earth a diff'rent landskip courts the eyes,
Men, towns, and beasts in distant prospects rise,
And nymphs, and streams, and woods, and rural deities.
O'er all, the Heav'n's refulgent image shines;
On either gate were six engraven signs.

Here Phaeton still gaining on th' ascent,
To his suspected father's palace went,
'Till pressing forward through the bright abode,
He saw at distance the illustrious God:
He saw at distance, or the dazling light
Had flash'd too strongly on his aking sight.

The God sits high, exalted on a throne
Of blazing gems, with purple garments on;
The Hours, in order rang'd on either hand,
And Days, and Months, and Years, and Ages stand.
Here Spring appears with flow'ry chaplets bound;
Here Summer in her wheaten garl and crown'd;
Here Autumn the rich trodden grapes besmear;
And hoary Winter shivers in the reer.

Phoebus beheld the youth from off his throne;
That eye, which looks on all, was fix'd in one.
He saw the boy's confusion in his face,
Surpriz'd at all the wonders of the place;
And cries aloud, "What wants my son? for know
My son thou art, and I must call thee so."
"Light of the world," the trembling youth replies,
"Illustrious parent! since you don't despise
The parent's name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene's proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve."

The tender sire was touch'd with what he said,
And flung the blaze of glories from his head,
And bid the youth advance: "My son," said he,
"Come to thy father's arms! for Clymene
Has told thee true; a parent's name I own,
And deem thee worthy to be called my son.
As a sure proof, make some request, and I,
Whate'er it be, with that request comply;
By Styx I swear, whose waves are hid in night,
And roul impervious to my piercing sight."
The youth transported, asks, without delay,
To guide the sun's bright chariot for a day.

The God repented of the oath he took,
For anguish thrice his radiant head he shook;
"My son," says he, "some other proof require,
Rash was my promise, rash is thy desire.
I'd fain deny this wish, which thou hast made,
Or, what I can't deny, wou'd fain disswade.
Too vast and hazardous the task appears,
Nor suited to thy strength, nor to thy years.
Thy lot is mortal, but thy wishes fly
Beyond the province of mortality:
There is not one of all the Gods that dares
(However skill'd in other great affairs)
To mount the burning axle-tree, but I;
Not Jove himself, the ruler of the sky,
That hurles the three-fork'd thunder from above,
Dares try his strength: yet who so strong as Jove?
The steeds climb up the first ascent with pain,
And when the middle firmament they gain,
If downward from the Heav'ns my head I bow,
And see the Earth and Ocean hang below,
Ev'n I am seiz'd with horror and affright,
And my own heart misgives me at the sight.
A mighty downfal steeps the ev'ning stage,
And steddy reins must curb the horses' rage.
Tethys herself has fear'd to see me driv'n
Down headlong from the precipice of Heav'n.
Besides, consider what impetuous force
Turns stars and planets in a diff'rent course.
I steer against their motions; nor am I
Born back by all the current of the sky.
But how cou'd you resist the orbs that roul
In adverse whirls, and stem the rapid pole?
But you perhaps may hope for pleasing woods,
And stately dooms, and cities fill'd with Gods;
While through a thousand snares your progress lies,
Where forms of starry monsters stock the skies:
For, shou'd you hit the doubtful way aright,
The bull with stooping horns stands opposite;
Next him the bright Haemonian bow is strung,
And next, the lion's grinning visage hung:
The scorpion's claws, here clasp a wide extent;
And here the crab's in lesser clasps are bent.
Nor wou'd you find it easie to compose
The mettled steeds, when from their nostrils flows
The scorching fire, that in their entrails glows.
Ev'n I their head-strong fury scarce restrain,
When they grow warm and restif to the rein.
Let not my son a fatal gift require,
But, O! in time, recall your rash desire;
You ask a gift that may your parent tell,
Let these my fears your parentage reveal;
And learn a father from a father's care:
Look on my face; or if my heart lay bare,
Cou'd you but look, you'd read the father there.
Chuse out a gift from seas, or Earth, or skies,
For open to your wish all Nature lies,
Only decline this one unequal task,
For 'tis a mischief, not a gift, you ask.
You ask a real mischief, Phaeton:
Nay hang not thus about my neck, my son:
I grant your wish, and Styx has heard my voice,
Chuse what you will, but make a wiser choice."

Thus did the God th' unwary youth advise;
But he still longs to travel through the skies.
When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)
At length to the Vulcanian Chariot leads.
A golden axle did the work uphold,
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orb'd with gold.
The spokes in rows of silver pleas'd the sight,
The seat with party-colour'd gems was bright;
Apollo shin'd amid the glare of light.
The youth with secret joy the work surveys,
When now the moon disclos'd her purple rays;
The stars were fled, for Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.
Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,
And the moon shining with a blunter horn,
He bid the nimble Hours, without delay,
Bring forth the steeds; the nimble Hours obey:
From their full racks the gen'rous steeds retire,
Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire.
Still anxious for his son, the God of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
His temples with celestial ointment wet,
Of sov'reign virtue to repel the heat;
Then fix'd the beamy circle on his head,
And fetch'd a deep foreboding sigh, and said,
"Take this at least, this last advice, my son,
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast,
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
Drive 'em not on directly through the skies,
But where the Zodiac's winding circle lies,
Along the midmost Zone; but sally forth
Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.
The horses' hoofs a beaten track will show,
But neither mount too high, nor sink too low.
That no new fires, or Heav'n or Earth infest;
Keep the mid way, the middle way is best.
Nor, where in radiant folds the serpent twines,
Direct your course, nor where the altar shines.
Shun both extreams; the rest let Fortune guide,
And better for thee than thy self provide!
See, while I speak, the shades disperse away,
Aurora gives the promise of a day;
I'm call'd, nor can I make a longer stay.
Snatch up the reins; or still th' attempt forsake,
And not my chariot, but my counsel, take,
While yet securely on the Earth you stand;
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.
Let me alone to light the world, while you
Enjoy those beams which you may safely view."
He spoke in vain; the youth with active heat
And sprightly vigour vaults into the seat;
And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives
Those thanks his father with remorse receives.

Mean-while the restless horses neigh'd aloud,
Breathing out fire, and pawing where they stood.
Tethys, not knowing what had past, gave way,
And all the waste of Heav'n before 'em lay.
They spring together out, and swiftly bear
The flying youth thro' clouds and yielding air;
With wingy speed outstrip the eastern wind,
And leave the breezes of the morn behind.
The youth was light, nor cou'd he fill the seat,
Or poise the chariot with its wonted weight:
But as at sea th' unballass'd vessel rides,
Cast to and fro, the sport of winds and tides;
So in the bounding chariot toss'd on high,
The youth is hurry'd headlong through the sky.
Soon as the steeds perceive it, they forsake
Their stated course, and leave the beaten track.
The youth was in a maze, nor did he know
Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;
Nor wou'd the horses, had he known, obey.
Then the sev'n stars first felt Apollo's ray,
And wish'd to dip in the forbidden sea.
The folded serpent next the frozen pole,
Stiff and benum'd before, began to rowle,
And raged with inward heat, and threaten'd war,
And shot a redder light from ev'ry star;
Nay, and 'tis said Bootes too, that fain
Thou woud'st have fled, tho' cumber'd with thy wane.

Th' unhappy youth then, bending down his head,
Saw Earth and Ocean far beneath him spread.
His colour chang'd, he startled at the sight,
And his eyes darken'd by too great a light.
Now cou'd he wish the fiery steeds untry'd,
His birth obscure, and his request deny'd:
Now wou'd he Merops for his father own,
And quit his boasted kindred to the sun.

So fares the pilot, when his ship is tost
In troubled seas, and all its steerage lost,
He gives her to the winds, and in despair
Seeks his last refuge in the Gods and pray'r.

What cou'd he do? his eyes, if backward cast,
Find a long path he had already past;
If forward, still a longer path they find:
Both he compares, and measures in his mind;
And sometimes casts an eye upon the east,
And sometimes looks on the forbidden west,
The horses' names he knew not in the fright,
Nor wou'd he loose the reins, nor cou'd he hold 'em right.

Now all the horrors of the Heav'ns he spies,
And monstrous shadows of prodigious size,
That, deck'd with stars, lye scatter'd o'er the skies.
There is a place above, where Scorpio bent
In tail and arms surrounds a vast extent;
In a wide circuit of the Heav'ns he shines,
And fills the space of two coelestial signs.
Soon as the youth beheld him vex'd with heat
Brandish his sting, and in his poison sweat,
Half dead with sudden fear he dropt the reins;
The horses felt 'em loose upon their mains,
And, flying out through all the plains above,
Ran uncontroul'd where-e're their fury drove;
Rush'd on the stars, and through a pathless way
Of unknown regions hurry'd on the day.
And now above, and now below they flew,
And near the Earth the burning chariot drew.

The clouds disperse in fumes, the wond'ring Moon
Beholds her brother's steeds beneath her own;
The highlands smoak, cleft by the piercing rays,
Or, clad with woods, in their own fewel blaze.
Next o'er the plains, where ripen'd harvests grow,
The running conflagration spreads below.
But these are trivial ills: whole cities burn,
And peopled kingdoms into ashes turn.

The mountains kindle as the car draws near,
Athos and Tmolus red with fires appear;
Oeagrian Haemus (then a single name)
And virgin Helicon increase the flame;
Taurus and Oete glare amid the sky,
And Ida, spight of all her fountains, dry.
Eryx and Othrys, and Cithaeron, glow,
And Rhodope, no longer cloath'd in snow;
High Pindus, Mimas, and Parnassus, sweat,
And Aetna rages with redoubled heat.
Ev'n Scythia, through her hoary regions warm'd,
In vain with all her native frost was arm'd.
Cover'd with flames the tow'ring Appennine,
And Caucasus, and proud Olympus, shine;
And, where the long-extended Alpes aspire,
Now stands a huge continu'd range of fire.

Th' astonisht youth, where-e'er his eyes cou'd turn,
Beheld the universe around him burn:
The world was in a blaze; nor cou'd he bear
The sultry vapours and the scorching air,
Which from below, as from a furnace, flow'd;
And now the axle-tree beneath him glow'd:
Lost in the whirling clouds that round him broke,
And white with ashes, hov'ring in the smoke.
He flew where-e'er the horses drove, nor knew
Whither the horses drove, or where he flew.

'Twas then, they say, the swarthy Moor begun
To change his hue, and blacken in the sun.
Then Libya first, of all her moisture drain'd,
Became a barren waste, a wild of sand.
The water-nymphs lament their empty urns,
Boeotia, robb's of silve Dirce, mourns,
Corinth Pyrene's wasted spring bewails,
And Argos grieves whilst Amymone fails.

The floods are drain'd from ev'ry distant coast,
Ev'n Tanais, tho' fix'd in ice, was lost.
Enrag'd Caicus and Lycormas roar,
And Xanthus, fated to be burnt once more.
The fam'd Maeander, that unweary'd strays
Through mazy windings, smoaks in ev'ry maze.
From his lov'd Babylon Euphrates flies;
The big-swoln Ganges and the Danube rise
In thick'ning fumes, and darken half the skies.
In flames Ismenos and the Phasis roul'd,
And Tagus floating in his melted gold.
The swans, that on Cayster often try'd
Their tuneful songs, now sung their last and dy'd.
The frighted Nile ran off, and under ground
Conceal'd his head, nor can it yet be found:
His sev'n divided currents all are dry,
And where they row'ld, sev'n gaping trenches lye:
No more the Rhine or Rhone their course maintain,
Nor Tiber, of his promis'd empire vain.

The ground, deep-cleft, admits the dazling ray,
And startles Pluto with the flash of day.
The seas shrink in, and to the sight disclose
Wide naked plains, where once their billows rose;
Their rocks are all discover'd, and increase
The number of the scatter'd Cyclades.
The fish in sholes about the bottom creep,
Nor longer dares the crooked dolphin leap
Gasping for breath, th' unshapen Phocae die,
And on the boiling wave extended lye.
Nereus, and Doris with her virgin train,
Seek out the last recesses of the main;
Beneath unfathomable depths they faint,
And secret in their gloomy caverns pant.
Stern Neptune thrice above the waves upheld
His face, and thrice was by the flames repell'd.

The Earth at length, on ev'ry side embrac'd
With scalding seas that floated round her waste,
When now she felt the springs and rivers come,
And crowd within the hollow of her womb,
Up-lifted to the Heav'ns her blasted head,
And clapt her hand upon her brows, and said
(But first, impatient of the sultry heat,
Sunk deeper down, and sought a cooler seat):
"If you, great king of Gods, my death approve,
And I deserve it, let me die by Jove;
If I must perish by the force of fire,
Let me transfix'd with thunder-bolts expire.
See, whilst I speak, my breath the vapours choak
(For now her face lay wrapt in clouds of smoak),
See my singe'd hair, behold my faded eye,
And wither'd face, where heaps of cinders lye!
And does the plow for this my body tear?
This the reward for all the fruits I bear,
Tortur'd with rakes, and harrass'd all the year?
That herbs for cattle daily I renew,
And food for Man, and frankincense for you?
But grant me guilty; what has Neptune done?
Why are his waters boiling in the sun?
The wavy empire, which by lot was giv'n,
Why does it waste, and further shrink from Heav'n?
If I nor he your pity can provoke,
See your own Heav'ns, the Heav'ns begin to smoke!
Shou'd once the sparkles catch those bright abodes,
Destruction seizes on the Heav'ns and Gods;
Atlas becomes unequal to his freight,
And almost faints beneath the glowing weight.
If Heav'n, and Earth, and sea, together burn,
All must again into their chaos turn.
Apply some speedy cure, prevent our fate,
And succour Nature, ere it be too late."
She cea'sd, for choak'd with vapours round her spread,
Down to the deepest shades she sunk her head.

Jove call'd to witness ev'ry Pow'r above,
And ev'n the God, whose son the chariot drove,
That what he acts he is compell'd to do,
Or universal ruin must ensue.
Strait he ascends the high aetherial throne,
From whence he us'd to dart his thunder down,
From whence his show'rs and storms he us'd to pour,
But now cou'd meet with neither storm nor show'r.
Then, aiming at the youth, with lifted hand,
Full at his head he hurl'd the forky brand,
In dreadful thund'rings. Thus th' almighty sire
Suppress'd the raging of the fires with fire.

At once from life and from the chariot driv'n,
Th' ambitious boy fell thunder-struck from Heav'n.
The horses started with a sudden bound,
And flung the reins and chariot to the ground:
The studded harness from their necks they broke,
Here fell a wheel, and here a silver spoke,
Here were the beam and axle torn away;
And, scatter'd o'er the Earth, the shining fragments lay.

The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair,
Shot from the chariot, like a falling star,
That in a summer's ev'ning from the top
Of Heav'n drops down, or seems at least to drop;
'Till on the Po his blasted corps was hurl'd,
Far from his country, in the western world.

Phaeton's Sisters transform'd into Trees

The Latian nymphs came round him, and, amaz'd,
On the dead youth, transfix'd with thunder, gaz'd;
And, whilst yet smoaking from the bolt he lay,
His shatter'd body to a tomb convey,
And o'er the tomb an epitaph devise:
"Here he, who drove the sun's bright chariot, lies;
His father's fiery steeds he cou'd not guide,
But in the glorious enterprize he dy'd."

Apollo hid his face, and pin'd for grief,
And, if the story may deserve belief,
The space of one whole day is said to run,
From morn to wonted ev'n, without a sun:
The burning ruins, with a fainter ray,
Supply the sun, and counterfeit a day,
A day, that still did Nature's face disclose:
This comfort from the mighty mischief rose.

But Clymene, enrag'd with grief, laments,
And as her grief inspires, her passion vents:
Wild for her son, and frantick in her woes,
With hair dishevel'd round the world she goes,
To seek where-e'er his body might be cast;
'Till, on the borders of the Po, at last
The name inscrib'd on the new tomb appears.
The dear dear name she bathes in flowing tears,
Hangs o'er the tomb, unable to depart,
And hugs the marble to her throbbing heart.

Her daughters too lament, and sigh, and mourn
(A fruitless tri bute to their brother's urn),
And beat their naked bosoms, and complain,
And call aloud for Phaeton in vain:
All the long night their mournful watch they keep,
And all the day stand round the tomb, and weep.

Four times, revolving, the full moon return'd;
So long the mother and the daughters mourn'd:
When now the eldest, Phaethusa, strove
To rest her weary limbs, but could not move;
Lampetia wou'd have help'd her, but she found
Her self with-held, and rooted to the ground:
A third in wild affliction, as she grieves,
Wou'd rend her hair, but fills her hands with leaves;
One sees her thighs transform'd, another views
Her arms shot out, and branching into boughs.
And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies stood
Crusted with bark, and hard'ning into wood;
But still above were female heads display'd,
And mouths, that call'd the mother to their aid.
What cou'd, alas! the weeping mother do?
From this to that with eager haste she flew,
And kiss'd her sprouting daughters as they grew.
She tears the bark that to each body cleaves,
And from their verdant fingers strips the leaves:
The blood came trickling, where she tore away
The leaves and bark: the maids were heard to say,
"Forbear, mistaken parent, oh! forbear;
A wounded daughter in each tree you tear;
Farewell for ever." Here the bark encreas'd,
Clos'd on their faces, and their words suppress'd.

The new-made trees in tears of amber run,
Which, harden'd into value by the sun,
Distill for ever on the streams below:
The limpid streams their radiant treasure show,
Mixt in the sand; whence the rich drops convey'd
Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid.

The Transformation of Cycnus into a Swan

Cycnus beheld the nymphs transform'd, ally'd
To their dead brother on the mortal side,
In friendship and affection nearer bound;
He left the cities and the realms he own'd,
Thro' pathless fields and lonely shores to range,
And woods made thicker by the sisters' change.
Whilst here, within the dismal gloom, alone,
The melancholy monarch made his moan,
His voice was lessen'd, as he try'd to speak,
And issu'd through a long-extended neck;
His hair transforms to down, his fingers meet
In skinny films, and shape his oary feet;
From both his sides the wings and feathers break;
And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak:
All Cycnus now into a Swan was turn'd,
Who, still remembring how his kinsman burn'd,
To solitary pools and lakes retires,
And loves the waters as oppos'd to fires.

Mean-while Apollo in a gloomy shade
(The native lustre of his brows decay'd)
Indulging sorrow, sickens at the sight
Of his own sun-shine, and abhors the light;
The hidden griefs, that in his bosom rise,
Sadden his looks and over-cast his eyes,
As when some dusky orb obstructs his ray,
And sullies in a dim eclipse the day.

Now secretly with inward griefs he pin'd,
Now warm resentments to his griefs he joyn'd,
And now renounc'd his office to mankind.
"Ere since the birth of time," said he, "I've born
A long ungrateful toil, without return;
Let now some other manage, if he dare,
The fiery steeds, and mount the burning carr;
Or, if none else, let Jove his fortune try,
And learn to lay his murd'ring thunder by;
Then will he own, perhaps, but own too late,
My son deserv'd not so severe a fate."

The Gods stand round him, as he mourns, and pray
He would resume the conduct of the day,
Nor let the world be lost in endless night:
Jove too himself descending from his height,
Excuses what had happen'd, and intreats,
Majestically mixing pray'rs and threats.
Prevail'd upon at length, again he took
The harness'd steeds, that still with horror shook,
And plies 'em with the lash, and whips 'em on,
And, as he whips, upbraids 'em with his son.

The Story of Calisto

The day was settled in its course; and Jove
Walk'd the wide circuit of the Heavens above,
To search if any cracks or flaws were made;
But all was safe: the Earth he then survey'd,
And cast an eye on ev'ry diff'rent coast,
And ev'ry land; but on Arcadia most.
Her fields he cloath'd, and chear'd her blasted face
With running fountains, and with springing grass.
No tracks of Heav'n's destructive fire remain,
The fields and woods revive, and Nature smiles again.

But as the God walk'd to and fro the Earth,
And rais'd the plants, and gave the spring its birth,
By chance a fair Arcadian nymph he view'd,
And felt the lovely charmer in his blood.
The nymph nor spun, nor dress'd with artful pride,
Her vest was gather'd up, her hair was ty'd;
Now in her hand a slender spear she bore,
Now a light quiver on her shoulders wore;
To chaste Diana from her youth inclin'd,
The sprightly warriors of the wood she joyn'd.
Diana too the gentle huntress lov'd,
Nor was there one of all the nymphs that rov'd
O'er Maenalus, amid the maiden throng,
More favour'd once; but favour lasts not long.

The sun now shone in all its strength, and drove
The heated virgin panting to a grove;
The grove around a grateful shadow cast:
She dropt her arrows, and her bow unbrac'd;
She flung her self on the cool grassy bed;
And on the painted quiver rais'd her head,
Jove saw the charming huntress unprepar'd,
Stretch'd on the verdant turf, without a guard.
"Here I am safe," he cries, "from Juno's eye;
Or shou'd my jealous queen the theft descry,
Yet wou'd I venture on a theft like this,
And stand her rage for such, for such a bliss!"
Diana's shape and habit strait he took,
Soften'd his brows, and smooth'd his awful look,
And mildly in a female accent spoke.
"How fares my girl? How went the morning chase?"
To whom the virgin, starting from the grass,
"All hail, bright deity, whom I prefer
To Jove himself, tho' Jove himself were here."
The God was nearer than she thought, and heard
Well-pleas'd himself before himself preferr'd.

He then salutes her with a warm embrace;
And, e're she half had told the morning chase,
With love enflam'd, and eager on his bliss,
Smother'd her words, and stop'd her with a kiss;
His kisses with unwonted ardour glow'd,
Nor cou'd Diana's shape conceal the God.
The virgin did whate'er a virgin cou'd
(Sure Juno must have pardon'd, had she view'd);
With all her might against his force she strove;
But how can mortal maids contend with Jove?

Possest at length of what his heart desir'd,
Back to his Heav'ns, th' exulting God retir'd.
The lovely huntress, rising from the grass,
With down-cast eyes, and with a blushing face,
By shame confounded, and by fear dismay'd,
Flew from the covert of the guilty shade,
And almost, in the tumult of her mind,
Left her forgotten bow and shafts behind.

But now Diana, with a sprightly train
Of quiver'd virgins, bounding o'er the plain,
Call'd to the nymph; the nymph began to fear
A second fraud, a Jove disguis'd in her;
But, when she saw the sister nymphs, suppress'd
Her rising fears, and mingled with the rest.

How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
Slowly she mov'd, and loiter'd in the rear;
Nor lightly tripp'd, nor by the Goddess ran,
As once she us'd, the foremost of the train.
Her looks were flush'd, and sullen was her mien,
That sure the virgin Goddess (had she been
Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.
'Tis said the nymphs saw all, and guess'd aright:
And now the moon had nine times lost her light,
When Dian, fainting in the mid-day beams,
Found a cool covert, and refreshing streams
That in soft murmurs through the forest flow'd,
And a smooth bed of shining gravel show'd.

A covert so obscure, and streams so clear,
The Goddess prais'd: "And now no spies are near
Let's strip, my gentle maids, and wash," she cries.
Pleas'd with the motion, every maid complies;
Only the blushing huntress stood confus'd,
And form'd delays, and her delays excus'd;
In vain excus'd: her fellows round her press'd,
And the reluctant nymph by force undress'd,
The naked huntress all her shame reveal'd,
In vain her hands the pregnant womb conceal'd;
"Begone!" the Goddess cries with stern disdain,
"Begone! nor dare the hallow'd stream to stain":
She fled, for ever banish'd from the train.

This Juno heard, who long had watch'd her time
To punish the detested rival's crime;
The time was come; for, to enrage her more,
A lovely boy the teeming rival bore.

The Goddess cast a furious look, and cry'd,
"It is enough! I'm fully satisfy'd!
This boy shall stand a living mark, to prove
My husband's baseness and the strumpet's love:
But vengeance shall awake: those guilty charms
That drew the Thunderer from Juno's arms,
No longer shall their wonted force retain,
Nor please the God, nor make the mortal vain."

This said, her hand within her hair she wound,
Swung her to Earth, and drag'd her on the ground:
The prostrate wretch lifts up her arms in pray'r;
Her arms grow shaggy, and deform'd with hair,
Her nails are sharpen'd into pointed claws,
Her hands bear half her weight, and turn to paws;
Her lips, that once cou'd tempt a God, begin
To grow distorted in an ugly grin.
And, lest the supplicating brute might reach
The ears of Jove, she was depriv'd of speech:
Her surly voice thro' a hoarse passage came
In savage sounds: her mind was still the same,
The furry monster fix'd her eyes above,
And heav'd her new unwieldy paws to Jove,
And beg'd his aid with inward groans; and tho'
She could not call him false, she thought him so.

How did she fear to lodge in woods alone,
And haunt the fields and meadows, once her own!
How often wou'd the deep-mouth'd dogs pursue,
Whilst from her hounds the frighted huntress flew!
How did she fear her fellow-brutes, and shun
The shaggy bear, tho' now her self was one!
How from the sight of rugged wolves retire,
Although the grim Lycaon was her sire!

But now her son had fifteen summers told,
Fierce at the chase, and in the forest bold;
When, as he beat the woods in quest of prey,
He chanc'd to rouze his mother where she lay.
She knew her son, and kept him in her sight,
And fondly gaz'd: the boy was in a fright,
And aim'd a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbad, and snatch'd 'em through the air
In whirlwinds up to Heav'n, and fix'd 'em there!
Where the new constellations nightly rise,
And add a lustre to the northern skies.

When Juno saw the rival in her height,
Spangled with stars, and circled round with light,
She sought old Ocean in his deep abodes,
And Tethys, both rever'd among the Gods.
They ask what brings her there: "Ne'er ask," says she,
"What brings me here, Heav'n is no place for me.
You'll see, when night has cover'd all things o'er,
Jove's starry bastard and triumphant whore
Usurp the Heav'ns; you'll see 'em proudly rowle
And who shall now on Juno's altars wait,
When those she hates grow greater by her hate?
I on the nymph a brutal form impress'd,
Jove to a goddess has transform'd the beast;
This, this was all my weak revenge could do:
But let the God his chaste amours pursue,
And, as he acted after Io's rape,
Restore th' adultress to her former shape;
Then may he cast his Juno off, and lead
The great Lycaon's offspring to his bed.
But you, ye venerable Pow'rs, be kind,
And, if my wrongs a due resentment find,
Receive not in your waves their setting beams,
Nor let the glaring strumpet taint your streams."

The Goddess ended, and her wish was giv'n.
Back she return'd in triumph up to Heav'n;
Her gawdy peacocks drew her through the skies.
Their tails were spotted with a thousand eyes;
The eyes of Argus on their tails were rang'd,
At the same time the raven's colour chang'd.

The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius

The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
White as the whitest dove's unsully'd breast,
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;
His tongue, his prating tongue had chang'd him quite
To sooty blackness, from the purest white.

The story of his change shall here be told;
In Thessaly there liv'd a nymph of old,
Coronis nam'd; a peerless maid she shin'd,
Confest the fairest of the fairer kind.
Apollo lov'd her, 'till her guilt he knew,
While true she was, or whilst he thought her true.
But his own bird the raven chanc'd to find
The false one with a secret rival joyn'd.
Coronis begg'd him to suppress the tale,
But could not with repeated pray'rs prevail.
His milk-white pinions to the God he ply'd;
The busy daw flew with him, side by side,
And by a thousand teizing questions drew
Th' important secret from him as they flew.
The daw gave honest counsel, tho' despis'd,
And, tedious in her tattle, thus advis'd:
"Stay, silly bird, th' ill-natur'd task refuse,
Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
Be warn'd by my example: you discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
My foolish honesty was all my crime;
Then hear my story. Once upon a time,
The two-shap'd Ericthonius had his birth
(Without a mother) from the teeming Earth;
Minerva nurs'd him, and the infant laid
Within a chest, of twining osiers made.
The daughters of king Cecrops undertook
To guard the chest, commanded not to look
On what was hid within. I stood to see
The charge obey'd, perch'd on a neighb'ring tree.
The sisters Pandrosos and Herse keep
The strict command; Aglauros needs would peep,
And saw the monstrous infant, in a fright,
And call'd her sisters to the hideous sight:
A boy's soft shape did to the waste prevail,
But the boy ended in a dragon's tail.
I told the stern Minerva all that pass'd;
But for my pains, discarded and disgrac'd,
The frowning Goddess drove me from her sight,
And for her fav'rite chose the bird of night.
Be then no tell-tale; for I think my wrong
Enough to teach a bird to hold her tongue.

But you, perhaps, may think I was remov'd,
As never by the heav'nly maid belov'd:
But I was lov'd; ask Pallas if I lye;
Tho' Pallas hate me now, she won't deny:
For I, whom in a feather'd shape you view,
Was once a maid (by Heav'n the story's true)
A blooming maid, and a king's daughter too.
A crowd of lovers own'd my beauty's charms;
My beauty was the cause of all my harms;
Neptune, as on his shores I wont to rove,
Observ'd me in my walks, and fell in love.
He made his courtship, he confess'd his pain,
And offer'd force, when all his arts were vain;
Swift he pursu'd: I ran along the strand,
'Till, spent and weary'd on the sinking sand,
I shriek'd aloud, with cries I fill'd the air
To Gods and men; nor God nor man was there:
A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's pray'r.
For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,
I saw black feathers from my fingers rise;
I strove to fling my garment on the ground;
My garment turn'd to plumes, and girt me round:
My hands to beat my naked bosom try;
Nor naked bosom now nor hands had I:
Lightly I tript, nor weary as before
Sunk in the sand, but skim'd along the shore;
'Till, rising on my wings, I was preferr'd
To be the chaste Minerva's virgin bird:
Preferr'd in vain! I am now in disgrace:
Nyctimene the owl enjoys my place.

On her incestuous life I need not dwell
(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell),
And of her dire amours you must have heard,
For which she now does penance in a bird,
That conscious of her shame, avoids the light,
And loves the gloomy cov'ring of the night;
The birds, where-e'er she flutters, scare away
The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day."

The raven, urg'd by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:
The raven to her injur'd patron flew,
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis and the favour'd youth.

The God was wroth, the colour left his look,
The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook:
His silver bow and feather'd shafts he took,
And lodg'd an arrow in the tender breast,
That had so often to his own been prest.
Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan'd,
And pull'd his arrow reeking from the wound;
And weltring in her blood, thus faintly cry'd,
"Ah cruel God! tho' I have justly dy'd,
What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
That he should fall, and two expire in one?"
This said, in agonies she fetch'd her breath.

The God dissolves in pity at her death;
He hates the bird that made her falshood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feather'd shaft, that sent her to the Fates,
And his own hand, that sent the shaft, he hates.
Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,
And tries the compass of his art in vain.
Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire.
With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,
And, if a God could weep, the God had wept.
Her corps he kiss'd, and heav'nly incense brought,
And solemniz'd the death himself had wrought.

But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spight of th' immortal mixture in his make,
He ript her womb, and set the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron's charge:
Then in his fury black'd the raven o'er,
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.

Ocyrrhoe transform'd into a Mare

Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,
Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.
His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore
The nymph Charicle to the centaur bore,
With hair dishevel'd on her shoulders, came
To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;
She knew her father's arts, and could rehearse
The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.
Once, as the sacred infant she survey'd,
The God was kindled in the raving maid,
And thus she utter'd her prophetick tale:
"Hail, great physician of the world, all-hail;
Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come
Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb;
Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin'd!
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.
Thy daring art shall animate the dead,
And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:
Then shalt thou dye, but from the dark abode
Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.
And thou, my sire, not destin'd by thy birth
To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,
How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to dye,
And quit thy claim to immortality;
When thou shalt feel, enrag'd with inward pains,
The Hydra's venom rankling in thy veins?
The Gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,
And give thee over to the pow'r of Fate."

Thus entring into destiny, the maid
The secrets of offended Jove betray'd:
More had she still to say; but now appears
Oppress'd with sobs and sighs, and drown'd in tears.
"My voice," says she, "is gone, my language fails;
Through ev'ry limb my kindred shape prevails:
Why did the God this fatal gift impart,
And with prophetick raptures swell my heart!
What new desires are these? I long to pace
O'er flow'ry meadows, and to feed on grass;
I hasten to a brute, a maid no more;
But why, alas! am I transform'd all o'er?
My sire does half a human shape retain,
And in his upper parts preserve the man."

Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,
But in shrill accents and mis-shapen words
Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare
The human form confounded in the mare:
'Till by degrees accomplish'd in the beast,
She neigh'd outright, and all the steed exprest.
Her stooping body on her hands is born,
Her hands are turn'd to hoofs, and shod in horn,
Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,
And in a flowing tail she frisks her train,
The mare was finish'd in her voice and look,
And a new name from the new figure took.

The Transformation of Battus to a Touch stone

Sore wept the centuar, and to Phoebus pray'd;
But how could Phoebus give the centaur aid?
Degraded of his pow'r by angry Jove,
In Elis then a herd of beeves he drove;
And wielded in his hand a staff of oak,
And o'er his shoulders threw the shepherd's cloak;
On sev'n compacted reeds he us'd to play,
And on his rural pipe to waste the day.

As once attentive to his pipe he play'd,
The crafty Hermes from the God convey'd
A drove, that sep'rate from their fellows stray'd.
The theft an old insidious peasant view'd
(They call'd him Battus in the neighbourhood),
Hir'd by a vealthy Pylian prince to feed
His fav'rite mares, and watch the gen'rous breed.
The thievish God suspected him, and took
The hind aside, and thus in whispers spoke:
"Discover not the theft, whoe'er thou be,
And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee."
"Go, stranger," cries the clown, "securely on,
That stone shall sooner tell," and show'd a stone.

The God withdrew, but strait return'd again,
In speech and habit like a country swain;
And cries out, "Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray
Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way?
In the recov'ry of my cattle join,
A bullock and a heifer shall be thine."
The peasant quick replies, "You'll find 'em there
In yon dark vale"; and in the vale they were.
The double bribe had his false heart beguil'd:
The God, successful in the tryal, smil'd;
"And dost thou thus betray my self to me?
Me to my self dost thou betray?" says he:
Then to a Touch stone turns the faithless spy;
And in his name records his infamy.

The Story of Aglauros, transform'd into a Statue

This done, the God flew up on high, and pass'd
O'er lofty Athens, by Minerva grac'd,
And wide Munichia, whilst his eyes survey
All the vast region that beneath him lay.

'Twas now the feast, when each Athenian maid
Her yearly homage to Minerva paid;
In canisters, with garlands cover'd o'er,
High on their heads, their mystick gifts they bore:
And now, returning in a solemn train,
The troop of shining virgins fill'd the plain.

The God well pleas'd beheld the pompous show,
And saw the bright procession pass below;
Then veer'd about, and took a wheeling flight,
And hover'd o'er them: as the spreading kite,
That smells the slaughter'd victim from on high,
Flies at a distance, if the priests are nigh,
And sails around, and keeps it in her eye:
So kept the God the virgin quire in view,
And in slow winding circles round them flew.

As Lucifer excells the meanest star,
Or, as the full-orb'd Phoebe, Lucifer;
So much did Herse all the rest outvy,
And gave a grace to the solemnity.
Hermes was fir'd, as in the clouds he hung:
So the cold bullet, that with fury slung
From Balearick engines mounts on high,
Glows in the whirl, and burns along the sky.
At length he pitch'd upon the ground, and show'd
The form divine, the features of a God.
He knew their vertue o'er a female heart,
And yet he strives to better them by art.
He hangs his mantle loose, and sets to show
The golden edging on the seam below;
Adjusts his flowing curls, and in his hand
Waves, with an air, the sleep-procuring wand;
The glitt'ring sandals to his feet applies,
And to each heel the well-trim'd pinion ties.

His ornaments with nicest art display'd,
He seeks th' apartment of the royal maid.
The roof was all with polish'd iv'ry lin'd,
That richly mix'd, in clouds of tortoise shin'd.
Three rooms, contiguous, in a range were plac'd,
The midmost by the beauteous Herse grac'd;
Her virgin sisters lodg'd on either side.
Aglauros first th' approaching God descry'd,
And, as he cross'd her chamber, ask'd his name,
And what his business was, and whence he came.
"I come," reply'd the God, "from Heav'n, to woo
Your sister, and to make an aunt of you;
I am the son and messenger of Jove;
My name is Mercury, my bus'ness love;
Do you, kind damsel, take a lover's part,
And gain admittance to your sister's heart."

She star'd him in the face with looks amaz'd,
As when she on Minerva's secret gaz'd,
And asks a mighty treasure for her hire;
And, 'till he brings it, makes the God retire.
Minerva griev'd to see the nymph succeed;
And now remembring the late impious deed,
When, disobedient to her strict command,
She touch'd the chest with an unhallow'd hand;
In big-swoln sighs her inward rage express'd,
That heav'd the rising Aegis on her breast;
Then sought out Envy in her dark abode,
Defil'd with ropy gore and clots of blood:
Shut from the winds, and from the wholesome skies,
In a deep vale the gloomy dungeon lies,
Dismal and cold, where not a beam of light
Invades the winter, or disturbs the night.

Directly to the cave her course she steer'd;
Against the gates her martial lance she rear'd;
The gates flew open, and the fiend appear'd.
A pois'nous morsel in her teeth she chew'd,
And gorg'd the flesh of vipers for her food.
Minerva loathing turn'd away her eye;
The hideous monster, rising heavily,
Came stalking forward with a sullen pace,
And left her mangled offals on the place.
Soon as she saw the goddess gay and bright,
She fetch'd a groan at such a chearful sight.
Livid and meagre were her looks, her eye
In foul distorted glances turn'd awry;
A hoard of gall her inward parts possess'd,
And spread a greenness o'er her canker'd breast;
Her teeth were brown with rust, and from her tongue,
In dangling drops, the stringy poison hung.
She never smiles but when the wretched weep,
Nor lulls her malice with a moment's sleep,
Restless in spite: while watchful to destroy,
She pines and sickens at another's joy;
Foe to her self, distressing and distrest,
She bears her own tormentor in her breast.
The Goddess gave (for she abhorr'd her sight)
A short command: "To Athens speed thy flight;
On curst Aglauros try thy utmost art,
And fix thy rankest venoms in her heart."
This said, her spear she push'd against the ground,
And mounting from it with an active bound,
Flew off to Heav'n: the hag with eyes askew
Look'd up, and mutter'd curses as she flew;
For sore she fretted, and began to grieve
At the success which she her self must give.
Then takes her staff, hung round with wreaths of thorn,
And sails along, in a black whirlwind born,
O'er fields and flow'ry meadows: where she steers
Her baneful course, a mighty blast appears,
Mildews and blights; the meadows are defac'd,
The fields, the flow'rs, and the whole years laid waste:

On mortals next, and peopled towns she falls,
And breathes a burning plague among their walls.

When Athens she beheld, for arts renown'd,
With peace made happy, and with plenty crown'd,
Scarce could the hideous fiend from tears forbear,
To find out nothing that deserv'd a tear.
Th' apartment now she enter'd, where at rest
Aglauros lay, with gentle sleep opprest.
To execute Minerva's dire command,
She stroak'd the virgin with her canker'd hand,
Then prickly thorns into her breast convey'd,
That stung to madness the devoted maid:
Her subtle venom still improves the smart,
Frets in the blood, and festers in the heart.

To make the work more sure, a scene she drew,
And plac'd before the dreaming virgin's view
Her sister's marriage, and her glorious fate:
Th' imaginary bride appears in state;
The bride-groom with unwonted beauty glows:
For envy magnifies what-e'er she shows.

Full of the dream, Aglauros pin'd away
In tears all night, in darkness all the day;
Consum'd like ice, that just begins to run,
When feebly smitten by the distant sun;
Or like unwholsome weeds, that set on fire
Are slowly wasted, and in smoke expire.
Giv'n up to envy (for in ev'ry thought
The thorns, the venom, and the vision wrought)
Oft did she call on death, as oft decreed,
Rather than see her sister's wish succeed,
To tell her awfull father what had past:
At length before the door her self she cast;
And, sitting on the ground with sullen pride,
A passage to the love-sick God deny'd.
The God caress'd, and for admission pray'd,
And sooth'd in softest words th' envenom'd maid.
In vain he sooth'd: "Begone!" the maid replies,
"Or here I keep my seat, and never rise."
"Then keep thy seat for ever," cries the God,
And touch'd the door, wide op'ning to his rod.
Fain would she rise, and stop him, but she found
Her trunk too heavy to forsake the ground;
Her joynts are all benum'd, her hands are pale,
And marble now appears in ev'ry nail.
As when a cancer in the body feeds,
And gradual death from limb to limb proceeds;
So does the chilness to each vital parte
Spread by degrees, and creeps into her heart;
'Till hard'ning ev'ry where, and speechless grown,
She sits unmov'd, and freezes to a stone.
But still her envious hue and sullen mien
Are in the sedentary figure seen.

Europa's Rape

When now the God his fury had allay'd,
And taken vengeance of the stubborn maid,
From where the bright Athenian turrets rise
He mounts aloft, and re-ascends the skies.
Jove saw him enter the sublime abodes,
And, as he mix'd among the crowd of Gods,
Beckon'd him out, and drew him from the rest,
And in soft whispers thus his will exprest.

"My trusty Hermes, by whose ready aid
Thy sire's commands are through the world convey'd.
Resume thy wings, exert their utmost force,
And to the walls of Sidon speed thy course;
There find a herd of heifers wand'ring o'er
The neighb'ring hill, and drive 'em to the shore."

Thus spoke the God, concealing his intent.
The trusty Hermes, on his message went,
And found the herd of heifers wand'ring o'er
A neighb'ring hill, and drove 'em to the shore;
Where the king's daughter, with a lovely train
Of fellow-nymphs, was sporting on the plain.

The dignity of empire laid aside,
(For love but ill agrees with kingly pride)
The ruler of the skies, the thund'ring God,
Who shakes the world's foundations with a nod,
Among a herd of lowing heifers ran,
Frisk'd in a bull, and bellow'd o'er the plain.
Large rowles of fat about his shoulders clung,
And from his neck the double dewlap hung.
His skin was whiter than the snow that lies
Unsully'd by the breath of southern skies;
Small shining horns on his curl'd forehead stand,
As turn'd and polish'd by the work-man's hand;
His eye-balls rowl'd, not formidably bright,
But gaz'd and languish'd with a gentle light.
His ev'ry look was peaceful, and exprest
The softness of the lover in the beast.

Agenor's royal daughter, as she plaid
Among the fields, the milk-white bull survey'd,
And view'd his spotless body with delight,
And at a distance kept him in her sight.
At length she pluck'd the rising flow'rs, and fed
The gentle beast, and fondly stroak'd his head.
He stood well-pleas'd to touch the charming fair,
But hardly could confine his pleasure there.
And now he wantons o'er the neighb'ring strand,
Now rowls his body on the yellow sand;
And, now perceiving all her fears decay'd,
Comes tossing forward to the royal maid;
Gives her his breast to stroke, and downward turns
His grizly brow, and gently stoops his horns.
In flow'ry wreaths the royal virgin drest
His bending horns, and kindly clapt his breast.
'Till now grown wanton and devoid of fear,
Not knowing that she prest the Thunderer,
She plac'd her self upon his back, and rode
O'er fields and meadows, seated on the God.

He gently march'd along, and by degrees
Left the dry meadow, and approach'd the seas;
Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs,
Now plunges in, and carries off the prize.
The frighted nymph looks backward on the shoar,
And hears the tumbling billows round her roar;
But still she holds him fast: one hand is born
Upon his back; the other grasps a horn:
Her train of ruffling garments flies behind,
Swells in the air, and hovers in the wind.

Through storms and tempests he the virgin bore,
And lands her safe on the Dictean shore;
Where now, in his divinest form array'd,
In his true shape he captivates the maid;
Who gazes on him, and with wond'ring eyes
Beholds the new majestick figure rise,
His glowing features, and celestial light,
And all the God discover'd to her sight.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
~ Ovid, BOOK THE SECOND

,
622:ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.

SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.

HELEN
   Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
   'T is long since thou and I have met;
   And yet methinks it were unkind
   Those moments to forget.
   Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
   By this lone lake, in this far land,
   Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
   Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
   United, and thine eyes replying
   To the hues of yon fair heaven.  
   Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
   And be as thou wert wont to be
   Ere we were disunited?
   None doth behold us now; the power
   That led us forth at this lone hour
   Will be but ill requited
   If thou depart in scorn. Oh, come,
   And talk of our abandoned home!
   Remember, this is Italy,
   And we are exiles. Talk with me
   Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
   Barren and dark although they be,
   Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
   Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
   And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
   Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream;
   Which that we have abandoned now,
   Weighs on the heart like that remorse
   Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
   No more our youthful intercourse.
   That cannot be! Rosalind, speak,
   Speak to me! Leave me not! When morn did come,
   When evening fell upon our common home,
   When for one hour we parted,do not frown;
   I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;
   But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token
   Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
   Turn, as 't were but the memory of me,
   And not my scornd self who prayed to thee!

ROSALIND
   Is it a dream, or do I see  
   And hear frail Helen? I would flee
   Thy tainting touch; but former years
   Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
   And my o'erburdened memory
   Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.
   I share thy crime. I cannot choose
   But weep for thee; mine own strange grief
   But seldom stoops to such relief;
   Nor ever did I love thee less,
   Though mourning o'er thy wickedness
   Even with a sister's woe. I knew
   What to the evil world is due,
   And therefore sternly did refuse
   To link me with the infamy
   Of one so lost as Helen. Now,
   Bewildered by my dire despair,
   Wondering I blush, and weep that thou
   Shouldst love me stillthou only!There,
   Let us sit on that gray stone
   Till our mournful talk be done.

HELEN
   Alas! not there; I cannot bear
   The murmur of this lake to hear.
   A sound from there, Rosalind dear,
   Which never yet I heard elsewhere
   But in our native land, recurs,
   Even here where now we meet. It stirs
   Too much of suffocating sorrow!
   In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood
   Is a stone seat, a solitude
   Less like our own. The ghost of peace
   Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
   If thy kind feelings should not cease,
   We may sit here.

ROSALIND
            Thou lead, my sweet,
   And I will follow.

HENRY
             'T is Fenici's seat
   Where you are going? This is not the way,
   Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow
   Close to the little river.

HELEN
                 Yes, I know;
   I was bewildered. Kiss me and be gay,
   Dear boy; why do you sob?

HENRY
                I do not know;
   But it might break any one's heart to see  
   You and the lady cry so bitterly.

HELEN
   It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home,
   Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.
   We only cried with joy to see each other;
   We are quite merry now. Good night.

                     The boy
   Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,
   And, in the gleam of forced and hollow joy
   Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee
   Of light and unsuspecting infancy,
   And whispered in her ear, 'Bring home with you
   That sweet strange lady-friend.' Then off he flew,
   But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile,
   Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while,
   Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

   In silence then they took the way
   Beneath the forest's solitude.
   It was a vast and antique wood,
   Through which they took their way;
   And the gray shades of evening
   O'er that green wilderness did fling
   Still deeper solitude.
   Pursuing still the path that wound
   The vast and knotted trees around,
   Through which slow shades were wandering,
   To a deep lawny dell they came,
   To a stone seat beside a spring,
   O'er which the columned wood did frame
   A roofless temple, like the fane
   Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
   Man's early race once knelt beneath  
   The overhanging deity.
   O'er this fair fountain hung the sky,
   Now spangled with rare stars. The snake,
   The pale snake, that with eager breath
   Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,
   Is beaming with many a mingled hue,
   Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,
   When he floats on that dark and lucid flood
   In the light of his own loveliness;
   And the birds, that in the fountain dip
   Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
   Above and round him wheel and hover.
   The fitful wind is heard to stir
   One solitary leaf on high;
   The chirping of the grasshopper
   Fills every pause. There is emotion
   In all that dwells at noontide here;
   Then through the intricate wild wood
   A maze of life and light and motion
   Is woven. But there is stillness now
   Gloom, and the trance of Nature now.
   The snake is in his cave asleep;
   The birds are on the branches dreaming;
   Only the shadows creep;
   Only the glow-worm is gleaming;
   Only the owls and the nightingales
   Wake in this dell when daylight fails,
   And gray shades gather in the woods;
   And the owls have all fled far away
   In a merrier glen to hoot and play,
   For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.
   The accustomed nightingale still broods
   On her accustomed bough,
   But she is mute; for her false mate
   Has fled and left her desolate.

   This silent spot tradition old
   Had peopled with the spectral dead.
   For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold
   And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told
   That a hellish shape at midnight led
   The ghost of a youth with hoary hair,
   And sate on the seat beside him there,
   Till a naked child came wandering by,
   When the fiend would change to a lady fair!
   A fearful tale! the truth was worse;
   For here a sister and a brother
   Had solemnized a monstrous curse,
   Meeting in this fair solitude;
   For beneath yon very sky,
   Had they resigned to one another  
   Body and soul. The multitude,
   Tracking them to the secret wood,
   Tore limb from limb their innocent child,
   And stabbed and trampled on its mother;
   But the youth, for God's most holy grace,
   A priest saved to burn in the market-place.

   Duly at evening Helen came
   To this lone silent spot,
   From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow
   So much of sympathy to borrow
   As soothed her own dark lot.
   Duly each evening from her home,
   With her fair child would Helen come
   To sit upon that antique seat,
   While the hues of day were pale;
   And the bright boy beside her feet
   Now lay, lifting at intervals
   His broad blue eyes on her;
   Now, where some sudden impulse calls,
   Following. He was a gentle boy
   And in all gentle sorts took joy.
   Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,
   With a small feather for a sail,
   His fancy on that spring would float,
   If some invisible breeze might stir
   Its marble calm; and Helen smiled
   Through tears of awe on the gay child,
   To think that a boy as fair as he,
   In years which never more may be,
   By that same fount, in that same wood,
   The like sweet fancies had pursued;
   And that a mother, lost like her,
   Had mournfully sate watching him.
   Then all the scene was wont to swim
   Through the mist of a burning tear.
   For many months had Helen known
   This scene; and now she thither turned
   Her footsteps, not alone.
   The friend whose falsehood she had mourned
   Sate with her on that seat of stone.
   Silent they sate; for evening,
   And the power its glimpses bring,
   Had with one awful shadow quelled
   The passion of their grief. They sate
   With linkd hands, for unrepelled
   Had Helen taken Rosalind's.
   Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds
   The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair
   Which is twined in the sultry summer air
   Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre,  
   Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,
   And the sound of her heart that ever beat
   As with sighs and words she breathed on her,
   Unbind the knots of her friend's despair,
   Till her thoughts were free to float and flow;
   And from her laboring bosom now,
   Like the bursting of a prisoned flame,
   The voice of a long-pent sorrow came.

ROSALIND
   I saw the dark earth fall upon
   The coffin; and I saw the stone
   Laid over him whom this cold breast
   Had pillowed to his nightly rest!
   Thou knowest not, thou canst not know
   My agony. Oh! I could not weep.
   The sources whence such blessings flow
   Were not to be approached by me!
   But I could smile, and I could sleep,
   Though with a self-accusing heart.
   In morning's light, in evening's gloom,
   I watchedand would not thence depart
   My husband's unlamented tomb.
   My children knew their sire was gone;
   But when I told them, 'He is dead,'
   They laughed aloud in frantic glee,
   They clapped their hands and leaped about,
   Answering each other's ecstasy
   With many a prank and merry shout.
   But I sate silent and alone,
   Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.

   They laughed, for he was dead; but I
   Sate with a hard and tearless eye,
   And with a heart which would deny
   The secret joy it could not quell,
   Low muttering o'er his loathd name;
   Till from that self-contention came
   Remorse where sin was none; a hell
   Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

   I 'll tell thee truth. He was a man
   Hard, selfish, loving only gold,
   Yet full of guile; his pale eyes ran  
   With tears which each some falsehood told,
   And oft his smooth and bridled tongue
   Would give the lie to his flushing cheek;
   He was a coward to the strong;
   He was a tyrant to the weak,
   On whom his vengeance he would wreak;
   For scorn, whose arrows search the heart,
   From many a stranger's eye would dart,
   And on his memory cling, and follow
   His soul to its home so cold and hollow.
   He was a tyrant to the weak,
   And we were such, alas the day!
   Oft, when my little ones at play
   Were in youth's natural lightness gay,
   Or if they listened to some tale
   Of travellers, or of fairyland,
   When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand
   Flashed on their faces,if they heard
   Or thought they heard upon the stair
   His footstep, the suspended word
   Died on my lips; we all grew pale;
   The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear
   If it thought it heard its father near;
   And my two wild boys would near my knee
   Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

   I 'll tell thee truth: I loved another.
   His name in my ear was ever ringing,
   His form to my brain was ever clinging;
   Yet, if some stranger breathed that name,
   My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast.
   My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,
   My days were dim in the shadow cast
   By the memory of the same!
   Day and night, day and night,
   He was my breath and life and light,
   For three short years, which soon were passed.
   On the fourth, my gentle mother
   Led me to the shrine, to be
   His sworn bride eternally.
   And now we stood on the altar stair,
   When my father came from a distant land,
   And with a loud and fearful cry
   Rushed between us suddenly.
   I saw the stream of his thin gray hair,
   I saw his lean and lifted hand,
   And heard his wordsand live! O God!
   Wherefore do I live?'Hold, hold!'
   He cried, 'I tell thee 't is her brother!
   Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod
   Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold;
   I am now weak, and pale, and old;
   We were once dear to one another,
   I and that corpse! Thou art our child!'
   Then with a laugh both long and wild
   The youth upon the pavement fell.
   They found him dead! All looked on me,
   The spasms of my despair to see;
   But I was calm. I went away;
   I was clammy-cold like clay.
   I did not weep; I did not speak;
   But day by day, week after week,
   I walked about like a corpse alive.
   Alas! sweet friend, you must believe
   This heart is stoneit did not break.

   My father lived a little while,
   But all might see that he was dying,
   He smiled with such a woful smile.
   When he was in the churchyard lying
   Among the worms, we grew quite poor,
   So that no one would give us bread;  
   My mother looked at me, and said
   Faint words of cheer, which only meant
   That she could die and be content;
   So I went forth from the same church door
   To another husband's bed.
   And this was he who died at last,
   When weeks and months and years had passed,
   Through which I firmly did fulfil
   My duties, a devoted wife,
   With the stern step of vanquished will
   Walking beneath the night of life,
   Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain
   Falling forever, pain by pain,
   The very hope of death's dear rest;
   Which, since the heart within my breast
   Of natural life was dispossessed,
   Its strange sustainer there had been.

   When flowers were dead, and grass was green
   Upon my mother's gravethat mother
   Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make
   My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
   Was my vowed task, the single care
   Which once gave life to my despair
   When she was a thing that did not stir,
   And the crawling worms were cradling her
   To a sleep more deep and so more sweet
   Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee,
   I lived; a living pulse then beat
   Beneath my heart that awakened me.
   What was this pulse so warm and free?
   Alas! I knew it could not be
   My own dull blood. 'T was like a thought
   Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
   Under my bosom and in my brain,
   And crept with the blood through every vein,
   And hour by hour, day after day,
   The wonder could not charm away
   But laid in sleep my wakeful pain,
   Until I knew it was a child,
   And then I wept. For long, long years
   These frozen eyes had shed no tears;
   But now't was the season fair and mild
   When April has wept itself to May;
   I sate through the sweet sunny day
   By my window bowered round with leaves,
   And down my cheeks the quick tears ran
   Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves,
   When warm spring showers are passing o'er.
   O Helen, none can ever tell
   The joy it was to weep once more!

   I wept to think how hard it were
   To kill my babe, and take from it
   The sense of light, and the warm air,
   And my own fond and tender care,
   And love and smiles; ere I knew yet
   That these for it might, as for me,
   Be the masks of a grinning mockery.
   And haply, I would dream, 't were sweet
   To feed it from my faded breast,
   Or mark my own heart's restless beat  
   And watch the growing soul beneath
   Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath,
   Half interrupted by calm sighs,
   And search the depth of its fair eyes
   For long departed memories!
   And so I lived till that sweet load
   Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed
   The stream of years, and on it bore
   Two shapes of gladness to my sight;
   Two other babes, delightful more,
   In my lost soul's abandoned night,
   Than their own country ships may be
   Sailing towards wrecked mariners
   Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea.
   For each, as it came, brought soothing tears;
   And a loosening warmth, as each one lay
   Sucking the sullen milk away,
   About my frozen heart did play,
   And weaned it, oh, how painfully
   As they themselves were weaned each one
   From that sweet foodeven from the thirst
   Of death, and nothingness, and rest,
   Strange inmate of a living breast,
   Which all that I had undergone
   Of grief and shame, since she who first
   The gates of that dark refuge closed
   Came to my sight, and almost burst
   The seal of that Lethean spring
   But these fair shadows interposed.
   For all delights are shadows now!
   And from my brain to my dull brow
   The heavy tears gather and flow.
   I cannot speakoh, let me weep!

   The tears which fell from her wan eyes
   Glimmered among the moonlight dew.
   Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs
   Their echoes in the darkness threw.
   When she grew calm, she thus did keep
   The tenor of her tale:

                He died;  
   I know not how; he was not old,
   If age be numbered by its years;
   But he was bowed and bent with fears,
   Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold,
   Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;
   And his strait lip and bloated cheek
   Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers;
   And selfish cares with barren plough,
   Not age, had lined his narrow brow,
   And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed
   Upon the withering life within,
   Like vipers on some poisonous weed.
   Whether his ill were death or sin
   None knew, until he died indeed,
   And then men owned they were the same.

   Seven days within my chamber lay
   That corse, and my babes made holiday.
   At last, I told them what is death.
   The eldest, with a kind of shame,
   Came to my knees with silent breath,  
   And sate awe-stricken at my feet;
   And soon the others left their play,
   And sate there too. It is unmeet
   To shed on the brief flower of youth
   The withering knowledge of the grave.
   From me remorse then wrung that truth.
   I could not bear the joy which gave
   Too just a response to mine own.
   In vain. I dared not feign a groan;
   And in their artless looks I saw,  
   Between the mists of fear and awe,
   That my own thought was theirs; and they
   Expressed it not in words, but said,
   Each in its heart, how every day
   Will pass in happy work and play,
   Now he is dead and gone away!

   After the funeral all our kin
   Assembled, and the will was read.
   My friend, I tell thee, even the dead
   Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,
   To blast and torture. Those who live
   Still fear the living, but a corse
   Is merciless, and Power doth give
   To such pale tyrants half the spoil
   He rends from those who groan and toil,
   Because they blush not with remorse
   Among their crawling worms. Behold,
   I have no child! my tale grows old
   With grief, and staggers; let it reach
   The limits of my feeble speech,
   And languidly at length recline
   On the brink of its own grave and mine.

   Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
   Among the fallen on evil days.
   'T is Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
   And houseless Want in frozen ways
   Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
   And, worse than all, that inward stain,
   Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers
   Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears
   First like hot gall, then dry forever!
   And well thou knowest a mother never
   Could doom her children to this ill,
   And well he knew the same. The will
   Imported that, if e'er again
   I sought my children to behold,
   Or in my birthplace did remain
   Beyond three days, whose hours were told,
   They should inherit nought; and he,
   To whom next came their patrimony,
   A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,
   Aye watched me, as the will was read,
   With eyes askance, which sought to see
   The secrets of my agony;
   And with close lips and anxious brow
   Stood canvassing still to and fro
   The chance of my resolve, and all
   The dead man's caution just did call;
   For in that killing lie 't was said
   'She is adulterous, and doth hold
   In secret that the Christian creed
   Is false, and therefore is much need
   That I should have a care to save
   My children from eternal fire.'
   Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,
   And therefore dared to be a liar!
   In truth, the Indian on the pyre
   Of her dead husband, half consumed,
   As well might there be false as I
   To those abhorred embraces doomed,
   Far worse than fire's brief agony.
   As to the Christian creed, if true
   Or false, I never questioned it;
   I took it as the vulgar do;
   Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet
   To doubt the things men say, or deem
   That they are other than they seem.

   All present who those crimes did hear,
   In feigned or actual scorn and fear,
   Men, women, children, slunk away,
   Whispering with self-contented pride
   Which half suspects its own base lie.
   I spoke to none, nor did abide,
   But silently I went my way,
   Nor noticed I where joyously
   Sate my two younger babes at play
   In the courtyard through which I passed;
   But went with footsteps firm and fast
   Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,
   And there, a woman with gray hairs,
   Who had my mother's servant been,
   Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,
   Made me accept a purse of gold,
   Half of the earnings she had kept
   To refuge her when weak and old.
   With woe, which never sleeps or slept,
   I wander now. 'T is a vain thought
   But on yon Alp, whose snowy head
   'Mid the azure air is islanded,
   (We see ito'er the flood of cloud,
   Which sunrise from its eastern caves
   Drives, wrinkling into golden waves,
   Hung with its precipices proud
   From that gray stone where first we met)
   Therenow who knows the dead feel nought?
   Should be my grave; for he who yet
   Is my soul's soul once said: ''T were sweet
   'Mid stars and lightnings to abide,
   And winds, and lulling snows that beat
   With their soft flakes the mountain wide,
   Where weary meteor lamps repose,
   And languid storms their pinions close,
   And all things strong and bright and pure,
   And ever during, aye endure.
   Who knows, if one were buried there,
   But these things might our spirits make,
   Amid the all-surrounding air,
   Their own eternity partake?'
   Then 't was a wild and playful saying
   At which I laughed or seemed to laugh.
   They were his wordsnow heed my praying,
   And let them be my epitaph.
   Thy memory for a term may be
   My monument. Wilt remember me?
   I know thou wilt; and canst forgive,
   Whilst in this erring world to live
   My soul disdained not, that I thought
   Its lying forms were worthy aught,
   And much less thee.

HELEN
             Oh, speak not so!
   But come to me and pour thy woe
   Into this heart, full though it be,
   Aye overflowing with its own.
   I thought that grief had severed me
   From all beside who weep and groan,
   Its likeness upon earth to be
   Its express image; but thou art
   More wretched. Sweet, we will not part
   Henceforth, if death be not division;
   If so, the dead feel no contrition.
   But wilt thou hear, since last we parted,
   All that has left me broken-hearted?

ROSALIND
   Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn
   Of their thin beams by that delusive morn
   Which sinks again in darkness, like the light
   Of early love, soon lost in total night.

HELEN
   Alas! Italian winds are mild,
   But my bosom is coldwintry cold;
   When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,
   Soft music, my poor brain is wild,
   And I am weak like a nursling child,
   Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

ROSALIND
   Weep not at thine own words, though they must make
   Me weep. What is thy tale?

HELEN
                 I fear 't will shake
   Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well
   Rememberest when we met no more;
   And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
   That friendless caution pierced me sore
   With grief; a wound my spirit bore
   Indignantlybut when he died,
   With him lay dead both hope and pride.

   Alas! all hope is buried now.
   But then men dreamed the aged earth
   Was laboring in that mighty birth
   Which many a poet and a sage
   Has aye foreseenthe happy age
   When truth and love shall dwell below
   Among the works and ways of men;
   Which on this world not power but will
   Even now is wanting to fulfil.

   Among mankind what thence befell
   Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
   When Liberty's dear pan fell
   'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,
   Though of great wealth and lineage high,
   Yet through those dungeon walls there came
   Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!
   And as the meteor's midnight flame
   Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
   Flashed on his visionary youth,
   And filled him, not with love, but faith,
   And hope, and courage mute in death;
   For love and life in him were twins,
   Born at one birth. In every other
   First life, then love, its course begins,
   Though they be children of one mother;
   And so through this dark world they fleet
   Divided, till in death they meet;
   But he loved all things ever. Then
   He passed amid the strife of men,
   And stood at the throne of armd power
   Pleading for a world of woe.
   Secure as one on a rock-built tower
   O'er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,
   'Mid the passions wild of humankind
   He stood, like a spirit calming them;
   For, it was said, his words could bind
   Like music the lulled crowd, and stem
   That torrent of unquiet dream
   Which mortals truth and reason deem,
   But is revenge and fear and pride.
   Joyous he was; and hope and peace
   On all who heard him did abide,
   Raining like dew from his sweet talk,
   As where the evening star may walk
   Along the brink of the gloomy seas,
   Liquid mists of splendor quiver.
   His very gestures touched to tears
   The unpersuaded tyrant, never
   So moved before; his presence stung
   The torturers with their victim's pain,
   And none knew how; and through their ears
   The subtle witchcraft of his tongue
   Unlocked the hearts of those who keep
   Gold, the world's bond of slavery.
   Men wondered, and some sneered to see
   One sow what he could never reap;
   For he is rich, they said, and young,
   And might drink from the depths of luxury.
   If he seeks fame, fame never crowned
   The champion of a trampled creed;  
   If he seeks power, power is enthroned
   'Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed
   Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil
   Those who would sit near power must toil;
   And such, there sitting, all may see.
   What seeks he? All that others seek
   He casts away, like a vile weed
   Which the sea casts unreturningly.
   That poor and hungry men should break
   The laws which wreak them toil and scorn
   We understand; but Lionel,
   We know, is rich and nobly born.
   So wondered they; yet all men loved
   Young Lionel, though few approved;
   All but the priests, whose hatred fell
   Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,
   The withering honey-dew which clings
   Under the bright green buds of May
   Whilst they unfold their emerald wings;
   For he made verses wild and queer
   On the strange creeds priests hold so dear
   Because they bring them land and gold.
   Of devils and saints and all such gear
   He made tales which whoso heard or read
   Would laugh till he were almost dead.
   So this grew a proverb: 'Don't get old
   Till Lionel's Banquet in Hell you hear,
   And then you will laugh yourself young again.'
   So the priests hated him, and he
   Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.

   Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,
   For public hope grew pale and dim
   In an altered time and tide,
   And in its wasting withered him,
   As a summer flower that blows too soon
   Droops in the smile of the waning moon,
   When it scatters through an April night
   The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.
   None now hoped more. Gray Power was seated
   Safely on her ancestral throne;
   And Faith, the Python, undefeated
   Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on
   Her foul and wounded train; and men
   Were trampled and deceived again,
   And words and shows again could bind
   The wailing tribes of humankind
   In scorn and famine. Fire and blood
   Raged round the raging multitude,
   To fields remote by tyrants sent
   To be the scornd instrument
   With which they drag from mines of gore
   The chains their slaves yet ever wore;
   And in the streets men met each other,
   And by old altars and in halls,
   And smiled again at festivals.
   But each man found in his heart's brother
   Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,
   The outworn creeds again believed,
   And the same round anew began
   Which the weary world yet ever ran.

   Many then wept, not tears, but gall,
   Within their hearts, like drops which fall
   Wasting the fountain-stone away.
   And in that dark and evil day
   Did all desires and thoughts that claim
   Men's careambition, friendship, fame,
   Love, hope, though hope was now despair
   Indue the colors of this change,
   As from the all-surrounding air
   The earth takes hues obscure and strange,
   When storm and earthquake linger there.

   And so, my friend, it then befell
   To many,most to Lionel,
   Whose hope was like the life of youth
   Within him, and when dead became
   A spirit of unresting flame,
   Which goaded him in his distress
   Over the world's vast wilderness.
   Three years he left his native land,
   And on the fourth, when he returned,
   None knew him; he was stricken deep
   With some disease of mind, and turned
   Into aught unlike Lionel.
   On himon whom, did he pause in sleep,
   Serenest smiles were wont to keep,
   And, did he wake, a wingd band
   Of bright Persuasions, which had fed
   On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,
   Kept their swift pinions half outspread
   To do on men his least command
   On him, whom once 't was paradise
   Even to behold, now misery lay.
   In his own heart 't was merciless
   To all things else none may express
   Its innocence and tenderness.

   'T was said that he had refuge sought
   In love from his unquiet thought
   In distant lands, and been deceived
   By some strange show; for there were found,
   Blotted with tearsas those relieved
   By their own words are wont to do
   These mournful verses on the ground,
   By all who read them blotted too.

   'How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire;
    I loved, and I believed that life was love.
   How am I lost! on wings of swift desire
    Among Heaven's winds my spirit once did move.
   I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire
    My liquid sleep; I woke, and did approve
   All Nature to my heart, and thought to make
   A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

   'I love, but I believe in love no more.
    I feel desire, but hope not. Oh, from sleep
   Most vainly must my weary brain implore
    Its long lost flattery now! I wake to weep,
   And sit through the long day gnawing the core
    Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep
   Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure
   To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.'

   He dwelt beside me near the sea;
   And oft in evening did we meet,
   When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee
   O'er the yellow sands with silver feet,
   And talked. Our talk was sad and sweet,
   Till slowly from his mien there passed
   The desolation which it spoke;
   And smilesas when the lightning's blast
   Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,
   The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,
   But like flowers delicate and fair,
   On its rent boughsagain arrayed
   His countenance in tender light;
   His words grew subtle fire, which made
   The air his hearers breathed delight;
   His motions, like the winds, were free,
   Which bend the bright grass gracefully,
   Then fade away in circlets faint;
   And wingd Hopeon which upborne
   His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,
   Like some bright spirit newly born
   Floating amid the sunny skies
   Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.
   Yet o'er his talk, and looks, and mien,
   Tempering their loveliness too keen,
   Past woe its shadow backward threw;
   Till, like an exhalation spread
   From flowers half drunk with evening dew,
   They did become infectioussweet
   And subtle mists of sense and thought,
   Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet,
   Almost from our own looks and aught
   The wild world holds. And so his mind
   Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear;
   For ever now his health declined,
   Like some frail bark which cannot bear
   The impulse of an altered wind,
   Though prosperous; and my heart grew full,
   'Mid its new joy, of a new care;
   For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,
   As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are;
   And soon his deep and sunny hair,
   In this alone less beautiful,
   Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.
   The blood in his translucent veins
   Beat, not like animal life, but love
   Seemed now its sullen springs to move,
   When life had failed, and all its pains;
   And sudden sleep would seize him oft
   Like death, so calm,but that a tear,
   His pointed eye-lashes between,
   Would gather in the light serene
   Of smiles whose lustre bright and soft
   Beneath lay undulating there.
   His breath was like inconstant flame
   As eagerly it went and came;
   And I hung o'er him in his sleep,
   Till, like an image in the lake
   Which rains disturb, my tears would break
   The shadow of that slumber deep.
   Then he would bid me not to weep,
   And say, with flattery false yet sweet,
   That death and he could never meet,
   If I would never part with him.
   And so we loved, and did unite
   All that in us was yet divided;
   For when he said, that many a rite,
   By men to bind but once provided,
   Could not be shared by him and me,
   Or they would kill him in their glee,
   I shuddered, and then laughing said
   'We will have rites our faith to bind,
   But our church shall be the starry night,
   Our altar the grassy earth outspread,
   And our priest the muttering wind.'

   'T was sunset as I spoke. One star
   Had scarce burst forth, when from afar
   The ministers of misrule sent
   Seized upon Lionel, and bore
   His chained limbs to a dreary tower,
   In the midst of a city vast and wide.
   For he, they said, from his mind had bent
   Against their gods keen blasphemy,
   For which, though his soul must roasted be
   In hell's red lakes immortally,
   Yet even on earth must he abide
   The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,
   I think, men call it. What avail
   Are prayers and tears, which chase denial
   From the fierce savage nursed in hate?
   What the knit soul that pleading and pale
   Makes wan the quivering cheek which late
   It painted with its own delight?
   We were divided. As I could,
   I stilled the tingling of my blood,
   And followed him in their despite,
   As a widow follows, pale and wild,
   The murderers and corse of her only child;
   And when we came to the prison door,
   And I prayed to share his dungeon floor
   With prayers which rarely have been spurned,
   And when men drove me forth, and I
   Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,
   A farewell look of love he turned,
   Half calming me; then gazed awhile,
   As if through that black and massy pile,
   And through the crowd around him there,
   And through the dense and murky air,
   And the thronged streets, he did espy
   What poets know and prophesy;
   And said, with voice that made them shiver
   And clung like music in my brain,
   And which the mute walls spoke again
   Prolonging it with deepened strain
   'Fear not the tyrants shall rule forever,
   Or the priests of the bloody faith;
   They stand on the brink of that mighty river,
   Whose waves they have tainted with death;
   It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
   Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,
   And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
   Like wrecks, in the surge of eternity.'

   I dwelt beside the prison gate;
   And the strange crowd that out and in
   Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,
   Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,
   But the fever of care was louder within.
   Soon but too late, in penitence
   Or fear, his foes released him thence.
   I saw his thin and languid form,
   As leaning on the jailor's arm,
   Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while
   To meet his mute and faded smile
   And hear his words of kind farewell,
   He tottered forth from his damp cell.
   Many had never wept before,
   From whom fast tears then gushed and fell;
   Many will relent no more,
   Who sobbed like infants then; ay, all
   Who thronged the prison's stony hall,
   The rulers or the slaves of law,
   Felt with a new surprise and awe
   That they were human, till strong shame
   Made them again become the same.
   The prison bloodhounds, huge and grim,
   From human looks the infection caught,
   And fondly crouched and fawned on him;
   And men have heard the prisoners say,
   Who in their rotting dungeons lay,
   That from that hour, throughout one day,
   The fierce despair and hate which kept
   Their trampled bosoms almost slept,
   Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding
   On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding,
   Because their jailors' rule, they thought,
   Grew merciful, like a parent's sway.

   I know not how, but we were free;
   And Lionel sate alone with me,
   As the carriage drove through the streets apace;
   And we looked upon each other's face;
   And the blood in our fingers intertwined  
   Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,
   As the swift emotions went and came
   Through the veins of each united frame.
   So through the long, long streets we passed
   Of the million-peopled City vast;
   Which is that desert, where each one
   Seeks his mate yet is alone,
   Beloved and sought and mourned of none;
   Until the clear blue sky was seen,
   And the grassy meadows bright and green.
   And then I sunk in his embrace
   Enclosing there a mighty space
   Of love; and so we travelled on
   By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,
   And towns, and villages, and towers,
   Day after day of happy hours.
   It was the azure time of June,
   When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,
   And the warm and fitful breezes shake
   The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar;
   And there were odors then to make
   The very breath we did respire
   A liquid element, whereon
   Our spirits, like delighted things
   That walk the air on subtle wings,
   Floated and mingled far away
   'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.
   And when the evening star came forth
   Above the curve of the new bent moon,
   And light and sound ebbed from the earth,
   Like the tide of the full and the weary sea
   To the depths of its own tranquillity,
   Our natures to its own repose
   Did the earth's breathless sleep attune;
   Like flowers, which on each other close
   Their languid leaves when daylight's gone,
   We lay, till new emotions came,
   Which seemed to make each mortal frame
   One soul of interwoven flame,
   A life in life, a second birth
   In worlds diviner far than earth;
   Which, like two strains of harmony
   That mingle in the silent sky,
   Then slowly disunite, passed by
   And left the tenderness of tears,
   A soft oblivion of all fears,
   A sweet sleep:so we travelled on
   Till we came to the home of Lionel,
   Among the mountains wild and lone,
   Beside the hoary western sea,
   Which near the verge of the echoing shore
   The massy forest shadowed o'er.

   The ancient steward with hair all hoar,
   As we alighted, wept to see
   His master changed so fearfully;
   And the old man's sobs did waken me
   From my dream of unremaining gladness;
   The truth flashed o'er me like quick madness
   When I looked, and saw that there was death
   On Lionel. Yet day by day
   He lived, till fear grew hope and faith,
   And in my soul I dared to say,
   Nothing so bright can pass away;
   Death is dark, and foul, and dull,
   But he isoh, how beautiful!
   Yet day by day he grew more weak,
   And his sweet voice, when he might speak,
   Which ne'er was loud, became more low;
   And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek
   Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow
   From sunset o'er the Alpine snow;
   And death seemed not like death in him,
   For the spirit of life o'er every limb
   Lingered, a mist of sense and thought.
   When the summer wind faint odors brought
   From mountain flowers, even as it passed,
   His cheek would change, as the noonday sea
   Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.
   If but a cloud the sky o'ercast,
   You might see his color come and go,
   And the softest strain of music made
   Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade
   Amid the dew of his tender eyes;
   And the breath, with intermitting flow,
   Made his pale lips quiver and part.
   You might hear the beatings of his heart,
   Quick but not strong; and with my tresses
   When oft he playfully would bind
   In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses
   His neck, and win me so to mingle  
   In the sweet depth of woven caresses,
   And our faint limbs were intertwined,
   Alas! the unquiet life did tingle
   From mine own heart through every vein,
   Like a captive in dreams of liberty,
   Who beats the walls of his stony cell.
   But his, it seemed already free,
   Like the shadow of fire surrounding me!
   On my faint eyes and limbs did dwell
   That spirit as it passed, till soon
   As a frail cloud wandering o'er the moon,
   Beneath its light invisible,
   Is seen when it folds its gray wings again
   To alight on midnight's dusky plain
   I lived and saw, and the gathering soul
   Passed from beneath that strong control,
   And I fell on a life which was sick with fear
   Of all the woe that now I bear.

   Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,
   On a green and sea-girt promontory
   Not far from where we dwelt, there stood,
   In record of a sweet sad story,
   An altar and a temple bright
   Circled by steps, and o'er the gate
   Was sculptured, 'To Fidelity;'
   And in the shrine an image sate
   All veiled; but there was seen the light
   Of smiles which faintly could express
   A mingled pain and tenderness
   Through that ethereal drapery.
   The left hand held the head, the right
   Beyond the veil, beneath the skin,
   You might see the nerves quivering within
   Was forcing the point of a barbd dart
   Into its side-convulsing heart.
   An unskilled hand, yet one informed
   With genius, had the marble warmed
   With that pathetic life. This tale
   It told: A dog had from the sea,
   When the tide was raging fearfully,  
   Dragged Lionel's mother, weak and pale,
   Then died beside her on the sand,
   And she that temple thence had planned;
   But it was Lionel's own hand
   Had wrought the image. Each new moon
   That lady did, in this lone fane,
   The rites of a religion sweet
   Whose god was in her heart and brain.
   The seasons' loveliest flowers were strewn
   On the marble floor beneath her feet,
   And she brought crowns of sea-buds white
   Whose odor is so sweet and faint,
   And weeds, like branching chrysolite,
   Woven in devices fine and quaint;
   And tears from her brown eyes did stain
   The altar; need but look upon
   That dying statue, fair and wan,
   If tears should cease, to weep again;
   And rare Arabian odors came,
   Through the myrtle copses, steaming thence
   From the hissing frankincense,
   Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,
   Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome
   That ivory dome, whose azure night
   With golden stars, like heaven, was bright
   O'er the split cedar's pointed flame;
   And the lady's harp would kindle there
   The melody of an old air,
   Softer than sleep; the villagers
   Mixed their religion up with hers,
   And, as they listened round, shed tears.

   One eve he led me to this fane.
   Daylight on its last purple cloud
   Was lingering gray, and soon her strain
   The nightingale began; now loud,
   Climbing in circles the windless sky,
   Now dying music; suddenly
   'T is scattered in a thousand notes;
   And now to the hushed ear it floats
   Like field-smells known in infancy,
   Then, failing, soothes the air again.
   We sate within that temple lone,
   Pavilioned round with Parian stone;
   His mother's harp stood near, and oft
   I had awakened music soft
   Amid its wires; the nightingale
   Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale.
   'Now drain the cup,' said Lionel,
   'Which the poet-bird has crowned so well
   With the wine of her bright and liquid song!
   Heard'st thou not sweet words among
   That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?
   Heard'st thou not that those who die
   Awake in a world of ecstasy?
   That love, when limbs are interwoven,
   And sleep, when the night of life is cloven,
   And thought, to the world's dim boundaries clinging,
   And music, when one beloved is singing,
   Is death? Let us drain right joyously
   The cup which the sweet bird fills for me.'
   He paused, and to my lips he bent
   His own; like spirit his words went
   Through all my limbs with the speed of fire;
   And his keen eyes, glittering through mine,
   Filled me with the flame divine
   Which in their orbs was burning far,
   Like the light of an unmeasured star
   In the sky of midnight dark and deep;
   Yes, 't was his soul that did inspire
   Sounds which my skill could ne'er awaken;
   And first, I felt my fingers sweep
   The harp, and a long quivering cry
   Burst from my lips in symphony;
   The dusk and solid air was shaken,
   As swift and swifter the notes came
   From my touch, that wandered like quick flame,
   And from my bosom, laboring
   With some unutterable thing.
   The awful sound of my own voice made
   My faint lips tremble; in some mood  
   Of wordless thought Lionel stood
   So pale, that even beside his cheek
   The snowy column from its shade
   Caught whiteness; yet his countenance,
   Raised upward, burned with radiance
   Of spirit-piercing joy whose light,
   Like the moon struggling through the night
   Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break
   With beams that might not be confined.
   I paused, but soon his gestures kindled
   New power, as by the moving wind
   The waves are lifted; and my song
   To low soft notes now changed and dwindled,
   And, from the twinkling wires among,
   My languid fingers drew and flung
   Circles of life-dissolving sound,
   Yet faint; in ary rings they bound
   My Lionel, who, as every strain
   Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien
   Sunk with the sound relaxedly;  
   And slowly now he turned to me,
   As slowly faded from his face
   That awful joy; with look serene
   He was soon drawn to my embrace,
   And my wild song then died away
   In murmurs; words I dare not say
   We mixed, and on his lips mine fed
   Till they methought felt still and cold.
   'What is it with thee, love?' I said;
   No word, no look, no motion! yes,
   There was a change, but spare to guess,
   Nor let that moment's hope be told.
   I looked,and knew that he was dead;
   And fell, as the eagle on the plain
   Falls when life deserts her brain,
   And the mortal lightning is veiled again.

   Oh, that I were now dead! but such
   Did they not, love, demand too much,
   Those dying murmurs?he forbade.
   Oh, that I once again were mad!
   And yet, dear Rosalind, not so,
   For I would live to share thy woe.
   Sweet boy! did I forget thee too?
   Alas, we know not what we do
   When we speak words.

              No memory more
   Is in my mind of that sea-shore.
   Madness came on me, and a troop
   Of misty shapes did seem to sit
   Beside me, on a vessel's poop,
   And the clear north wind was driving it.
   Then I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers,
   And the stars methought grew unlike ours,
   And the azure sky and the stormless sea
   Made me believe that I had died
   And waked in a world which was to me
   Drear hell, though heaven to all beside.
   Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,
   Whilst animal life many long years
   Had rescued from a chasm of tears;
   And, when I woke, I wept to find    
   That the same lady, bright and wise,
   With silver locks and quick brown eyes,
   The mother of my Lionel,
   Had tended me in my distress,
   And died some months before. Nor less
   Wonder, but far more peace and joy,
   Brought in that hour my lovely boy.
   For through that trance my soul had well
   The impress of thy being kept;
   And if I waked or if I slept,
   No doubt, though memory faithless be,
   Thy image ever dwelt on me;
   And thus, O Lionel, like thee
   Is our sweet child. 'T is sure most strange
   I knew not of so great a change
   As that which gave him birth, who now
   Is all the solace of my woe.

   That Lionel great wealth had left
   By will to me, and that of all
   The ready lies of law bereft    
   My child and me,might well befall.
   But let me think not of the scorn
   Which from the meanest I have borne,
   When, for my child's belovd sake,
   I mixed with slaves, to vindicate
   The very laws themselves do make;
   Let me not say scorn is my fate,
   Lest I be proud, suffering the same
   With those who live in deathless fame.

   She ceased.'Lo, where red morning through the woods
   Is burning o'er the dew!' said Rosalind.
   And with these words they rose, and towards the flood
   Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves, now wind
   With equal steps and fingers intertwined.
   Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore
   Is shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses
   Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies
   And with their shadows the clear depths below,

   And where a little terrace from its bowers
   Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon flowers
   Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er
   The liquid marble of the windless lake;
   And where the aged forest's limbs look hoar
   Under the leaves which their green garments make,
   They come. 'T is Helen's home, and clean and white,
   Like one which tyrants spare on our own land
   In some such solitude; its casements bright
   Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,
   And even within 't was scarce like Italy.
   And when she saw how all things there were planned
   As in an English home, dim memory
   Disturbed poor Rosalind; she stood as one
   Whose mind is where his body cannot be,
   Till Helen led her where her child yet slept,
   And said, 'Observe, that brow was Lionel's,
   Those lips were his, and so he ever kept
   One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.
   You cannot see his eyesthey are two wells
   Of liquid love. Let us not wake him yet.'
   But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept
   A shower of burning tears which fell upon
   His face, and so his opening lashes shone
   With tears unlike his own, as he did leap
   In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.

   So Rosalind and Helen lived together
   Thenceforthchanged in all else, yet friends again,
   Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather
   They wandered in their youth through sun and rain.
   And after many years, for human things
   Change even like the ocean and the wind,
   Her daughter was restored to Rosalind,
   And in their circle thence some visitings
   Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene.
   A lovely child she was, of looks serene,
   And motions which o'er things indifferent shed
   The grace and gentleness from whence they came.
   And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed
   From the same flowers of thought, until each mind
   Like springs which mingle in one flood became;
   And in their union soon their parents saw
   The shadow of the peace denied to them.
   And Rosalindfor when the living stem
   Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall
   Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe
   The pale survivors followed her remains
   Beyond the region of dissolving rains,
   Up the cold mountain she was wont to call
   Her tomb; and on Chiavenna's precipice
   They raised a pyramid of lasting ice,
   Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun,
   Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,
   The last, when it had sunk; and through the night
   The charioteers of Arctos wheeld round
   Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home,
   Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,
   With willing steps climbing that rugged height,
   And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound
   With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,
   Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light;
   Such flowers as in the wintry memory bloom
   Of one friend left adorned that frozen tomb.

   Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,
   Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led
   Into the peace of his dominion cold.
   She died among her kindred, being old.
   And know, that if love die not in the dead
   As in the living, none of mortal kind
   Are blessed as now Helen and Rosalind.
Begun at Marlow, 1817 (summer); already in the press, March, 1818; finished at the Baths of Lucca, August, 1818; published with other poems, as the title-piece of a slender volume, by C. & J. Ollier, London, 1819 (spring).

Note by Mrs. Shelley: 'Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside -- till I found it; and, at my request, it was completed. Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind and develop some high or abstruse truth. When he does touch on human life and the human heart, no pictures can be more faithful, more delicate, more subtle, or more pathetic. He never mentioned Love but he shed a grace borrowed from his own nature, that scarcely any other poet has bestowed, on that passion. When he spoke of it as the law of life, which inasmuch as we rebel against we err and injure ourselves and others, he promulgated that which he considered an irrefragable truth. In his eyes it was the essence of our being, and all woe and pain arose from the war made against it by selfishness, or insensibility, or mistake. By reverting in his mind to this first principle, he discovered the source of many emotions, and could disclose the secrets of all hearts; and his delineations of passion and emotion touch the finest chords of our nature.
Rosalind and Helen was finished during the summer of 1818, while we were at the baths of Lucca.'

  
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Rosalind and Helen - a Modern Eclogue
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623:1.

Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.

This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.

At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.

Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.
2.

When thou commandest me to sing it seems that my heart would break with pride; and I look to thy face, and tears come to my eyes.

All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony - and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across the sea.

I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.

I touch by the edge of the far-spreading wing of my song thy feet which I could never aspire to reach.

Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend who art my lord.
3.

I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.

The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my master!
4.

Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that thy living touch is upon all my limbs.

I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts, knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason in my mind.

I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.

And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.
5.

I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
6.

Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it droop and drop into the dust.

I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am aware, and the time of offering go by.

Though its colour be not deep and its smell be faint, use this flower in thy service and pluck it while there is time.

7.

My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers.

My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music.
8.

The child who is decked with prince's robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step.

In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move.

Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keeps one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life.
9.

O Fool, try to carry thyself upon thy own shoulders! O beggar, to come beg at thy own door!

Leave all thy burdens on his hands who can bear all, and never look behind in regret.

Thy desire at once puts out the light from the lamp it touches with its breath. It is unholy - take not thy gifts through its unclean hands. Accept only what is offered by sacred love.
10.

Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet where live the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down to the depth where thy feet rest among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

Pride can never approach to where thou walkest in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.

My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost.
11.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the pathmaker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower, and his garment is covered with dust. Put of thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil!

Deliverance? Where is this deliverance to be found? Our master himself has joyfully taken upon him the bonds of creation; he is bound with us all for ever.

Come out of thy meditations and leave aside thy flowers and incense! What harm is there if thy clothes become tattered and stained? Meet him and stand by him in toil and in sweat of thy brow.
12.

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said 'Here art thou!'

The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance 'I am!'
13.

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day. I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.

The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by. I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice; only I have heard his gentle footsteps from the road before my house.

The livelong day has passed in spreading his seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask him into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with him; but this meeting is not yet.
14.

My desires are many and my cry is pitiful, but ever didst thou save me by hard refusals; and this strong mercy has been wrought into my life through and through.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of the simple, great gifts that thou gavest to me unasked - this sky and the light, this body and the life and the mind - saving me from perils of overmuch desire.

There are times when I languidly linger and times when I awaken and hurry in search of my goal; but cruelly thou hidest thyself from before me.

Day by day thou art making me worthy of thy full acceptance by refusing me ever and anon, saving me from perils of weak, uncertain desire.
15.

I am here to sing thee songs. In this hall of thine I have a corner seat.

In thy world I have no work to do; my useless life can only break out in tunes without a purpose.

When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple of midnight, command me, my master, to stand before thee to sing.

When in the morning air the golden harp is tuned, honour me, commanding my presence.
16.

I have had my invitation to this world's festival, and thus my life has been blessed. My eyes have seen and my ears have heard.

It was my part at this feast to play upon my instrument, and I have done all I could.

Now, I ask, has the time come at last when I may go in and see thy face and offer thee my silent salutation?
17.

I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands. That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions.

They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but I evade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.

People blame me and call me heedless; I doubt not they are right in their blame.

The market day is over and work is all done for the busy. Those who came to call me in vain have gone back in anger. I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.
18.

Clouds heap upon clouds and it darkens. Ah, love, why dost thou let me wait outside at the door all alone?

In the busy moments of the noontide work I am with the crowd, but on this dark lonely day it is only for thee that I hope.

If thou showest me not thy face, if thou leavest me wholly aside, I know not how I am to pass these long, rainy hours.

I keep gazing on the far-away gloom of the sky, and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind.
19.

If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience.

The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking through the sky.

Then thy words will take wing in songs from every one of my birds' nests, and thy melodies will break forth in flowers in all my forest groves.
20.

On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded.

Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange fragrance in the south wind.

That vague sweetness made my heart ache with longing and it seemed to me that is was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its completion.

I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and that this perfect sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart.
21.

I must launch out my boat. The languid hours pass by on the shore - Alas for me!

The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger.

The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane the yellow leaves flutter and fall.

What emptiness do you gaze upon! Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air with the notes of the far-away song floating from the other shore?
22.

In the deep shadows of the rainy July, with secret steps, thou walkest, silent as night, eluding all watchers.

Today the morning has closed its eyes, heedless of the insistent calls of the loud east wind, and a thick veil has been drawn over the ever-wakeful blue sky.

The woodlands have hushed their songs, and doors are all shut at every house. Thou art the solitary wayfarer in this deserted street. Oh my only friend, my best beloved, the gates are open in my house - do not pass by like a dream.
23.

Art thou abroad on this stormy night on thy journey of love, my friend? The sky groans like one in despair.

I have no sleep tonight. Ever and again I open my door and look out on the darkness, my friend!

I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path!

By what dim shore of the ink-black river, by what far edge of the frowning forest, through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading thy course to come to me, my friend?
24.

If the day is done, if birds sing no more, if the wind has flagged tired, then draw the veil of darkness thick upon me, even as thou hast wrapt the earth with the coverlet of sleep and tenderly closed the petals of the drooping lotus at dusk.

From the traveller, whose sack of provisions is empty before the voyage is ended, whose garment is torn and dustladen, whose strength is exhausted, remove shame and poverty, and renew his life like a flower under the cover of thy kindly night.
25.

In the night of weariness let me give myself up to sleep without struggle, resting my trust upon thee.

Let me not force my flagging spirit into a poor preparation for thy worship.

It is thou who drawest the veil of night upon the tired eyes of the day to renew its sight in a fresher gladness of awakening.

26.

He came and sat by my side but I woke not. What a cursed sleep it was, O miserable me!

He came when the night was still; he had his harp in his hands, and my dreams became resonant with its melodies.

Alas, why are my nights all thus lost? Ah, why do I ever miss his sight whose breath touches my sleep?
27.

Light, oh where is the light? Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!

There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame - is such thy fate, my heart? Ah, death were better by far for thee!

Misery knocks at thy door, and her message is that thy lord is wakeful, and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.

The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless. I know not what this is that stirs in me - I know not its meaning.

A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight, and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of the night calls me.

Light, oh where is the light! Kindle it with the burning fire of desire! It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void. The night is black as a black stone. Let not the hours pass by in the dark. Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.
28.

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when I try to break them.

Freedom is all I want, but to hope for it I feel ashamed.

I am certain that priceless wealth is in thee, and that thou art my best friend, but I have not the heart to sweep away the tinsel that fills my room.

The shroud that covers me is a shroud of dust and death; I hate it, yet hug it in love.

My debts are large, my failures great, my shame secret and heavy; yet when I come to ask for my good, I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.
29.

He whom I enclose with my name is weeping in this dungeon. I am ever busy building this wall all around; and as this wall goes up into the sky day by day I lose sight of my true being in its dark shadow.

I take pride in this great wall, and I plaster it with dust and sand lest a least hole should be left in this name; and for all the care I take I lose sight of my true being.
30.

I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.
31.

'Prisoner, tell me, who was it that bound you?'

'It was my master,' said the prisoner. 'I thought I could outdo everybody in the world in wealth and power, and I amassed in my own treasure-house the money due to my king. When sleep overcame me I lay upon the bad that was for my lord, and on waking up I found I was a prisoner in my own treasure-house.'

'Prisoner, tell me, who was it that wrought this unbreakable chain?'

'It was I,' said the prisoner, 'who forged this chain very carefully. I thought my invincible power would hold the world captive leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.'
32.

By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But it is otherwise with thy love which is greater than theirs, and thou keepest me free.

Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me alone. But day passes by after day and thou art not seen.

If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart, thy love for me still waits for my love.
33.

When it was day they came into my house and said, 'We shall only take the smallest room here.'

They said, 'We shall help you in the worship of your God and humbly accept only our own share in his grace'; and then they took their seat in a corner and they sat quiet and meek.

But in the darkness of night I find they break into my sacred shrine, strong and turbulent, and snatch with unholy greed the offerings from God's altar.
34.

Let only that little be left of me whereby I may name thee my all.

Let only that little be left of my will whereby I may feel thee on every side, and come to thee in everything, and offer to thee my love every moment.

Let only that little be left of me whereby I may never hide thee.

Let only that little of my fetters be left whereby I am bound with thy will, and thy purpose is carried out in my life - and that is the fetter of thy love.
35.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action- Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
36.

This is my prayer to thee, my lord - strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might. Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles. And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.
37.

I thought that my voyage had come to its end at the last limit of my power, - that the path before me was closed, that provisions were exhausted and the time come to take shelter in a silent obscurity.

But I find that thy will knows no end in me. And when old words die out on the tongue, new melodies break forth from the heart; and where the old tracks are lost, new country is revealed with its wonders.
38.

That I want thee, only thee - let my heart repeat without end. All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core.

As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light, even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry - 'I want thee, only thee'.

As the storm still seeks its end in peace when it strikes against peace with all its might, even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love and still its cry is - 'I want thee, only thee'.
39.

When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.

When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.

When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.

When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.

When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.
40.

The rain has held back for days and days, my God, in my arid heart. The horizon is fiercely naked - not the thinnest cover of a soft cloud, not the vaguest hint of a distant cool shower.

Send thy angry storm, dark with death, if it is thy wish, and with lashes of lightning startle the sky from end to end.

But call back, my lord, call back this pervading silent heat, still and keen and cruel, burning the heart with dire despair.

Let the cloud of grace bend low from above like the tearful look of the mother on the day of the father's wrath.
41.

Where dost thou stand behind them all, my lover, hiding thyself in the shadows? They push thee and pass thee by on the dusty road, taking thee for naught. I wait here weary hours spreading my offerings for thee, while passers-by come and take my flowers, one by one, and my basket is nearly empty.

The morning time is past, and the noon. In the shade of evening my eyes are drowsy with sleep. Men going home glance at me and smile and fill me with shame. I sit like a beggar maid, drawing my skirt over my face, and when they ask me, what it is I want, I drop my eyes and answer them not.

Oh, how, indeed, could I tell them that for thee I wait, and that thou hast promised to come. How could I utter for shame that I keep for my dowry this poverty. Ah, I hug this pride in the secret of my heart.

I sit on the grass and gaze upon the sky and dream of the sudden splendour of thy coming - all the lights ablaze, golden pennons flying over thy car, and they at the roadside standing agape, when they see thee come down from thy seat to raise me from the dust, and set at thy side this ragged beggar girl a-tremble with shame and pride, like a creeper in a summer breeze.

But time glides on and still no sound of the wheels of thy chariot. Many a procession passes by with noise and shouts and glamour of glory. Is it only thou who wouldst stand in the shadow silent and behind them all? And only I who would wait and weep and wear out my heart in vain longing?
42.

Early in the day it was whispered that we should sail in a boat, only thou and I, and never a soul in the world would know of this our pilgrimage to no country and to no end.

In that shoreless ocean, at thy silently listening smile my songs would swell in melodies, free as waves, free from all bondage of words.

Is the time not come yet? Are there works still to do? Lo, the evening has come down upon the shore and in the fading light the seabirds come flying to their nests.

Who knows when the chains will be off, and the boat, like the last glimmer of sunset, vanish into the night?
43.

The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee; and entering my heart unbidden even as one of the common crowd, unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon many a fleeting moment of my life.

And today when by chance I light upon them and see thy signature, I find they have lain scattered in the dust mixed with the memory of joys and sorrows of my trivial days forgotten.

Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among dust, and the steps that I heard in my playroom are the same that are echoing from star to star.
44.

This is my delight, thus to wait and watch at the wayside where shadow chases light and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.

Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies, greet me and speed along the road. My heart is glad within, and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.

From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door, and I know that of a sudden the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.

In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone. In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.
45.

Have you not heard his silent steps? He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age, every day and every night he comes, comes, ever comes.

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind, but all their notes have always proclaimed, 'He comes, comes, ever comes.'

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path he comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart, and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine.

-

46.

I know not from what distant time thou art ever coming nearer to meet me. Thy sun and stars can never keep thee hidden from me for aye.

In many a morning and eve thy footsteps have been heard and thy messenger has come within my heart and called me in secret.

I know not only why today my life is all astir, and a feeling of tremulous joy is passing through my heart.

It is as if the time were come to wind up my work, and I feel in the air a faint smell of thy sweet presence.
47.

The night is nearly spent waiting for him in vain. I fear lest in the morning he suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out. Oh friends, leave the way open to him - forbid him not.

If the sounds of his steps does not wake me, do not try to rouse me, I pray. I wish not to be called from my sleep by the clamorous choir of birds, by the riot of wind at the festival of morning light. Let me sleep undisturbed even if my lord comes of a sudden to my door.

Ah, my sleep, precious sleep, which only waits for his touch to vanish. Ah, my closed eyes that would open their lids only to the light of his smile when he stands before me like a dream emerging from darkness of sleep.

Let him appear before my sight as the first of all lights and all forms. The first thrill of joy to my awakened soul let it come from his glance. And let my return to myself be immediate return to him.
48.

The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.

We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pave more and more as the time sped by.

The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.

My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation - in the shadow of a dim delight.

The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs.

At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, and the struggle to reach thee was hard!
49.

You came down from your throne and stood at my cottage door.

I was singing all alone in a corner, and the melody caught your ear. You came down and stood at my cottage door.

Masters are many in your hall, and songs are sung there at all hours. But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my cottage door.

50.

I had gone a-begging from door to door in the village path, when thy golden chariot appeared in the distance like a gorgeous dream and I wondered who was this King of all kings!

My hopes rose high and methought my evil days were at an end, and I stood waiting for alms to be given unasked and for wealth scattered on all sides in the dust.

The chariot stopped where I stood. Thy glance fell on me and thou camest down with a smile. I felt that the luck of my life had come at last. Then of a sudden thou didst hold out thy right hand and say 'What hast thou to give to me?'

Ah, what a kingly jest was it to open thy palm to a beggar to beg! I was confused and stood undecided, and then from my wallet I slowly took out the least little grain of corn and gave it to thee.

But how great my surprise when at the day's end I emptied my bag on the floor to find a least little gram of gold among the poor heap. I bitterly wept and wished that I had had the heart to give thee my all.
51.

The night darkened. Our day's works had been done. We thought that the last guest had arrived for the night and the doors in the village were all shut. Only some said the king was to come. We laughed and said 'No, it cannot be!'

It seemed there were knocks at the door and we said it was nothing but the wind. We put out the lamps and lay down to sleep. Only some said, 'It is the messenger!' We laughed and said 'No, it must be the wind!'

There came a sound in the dead of the night. We sleepily thought it was the distant thunder. The earth shook, the walls rocked, and it troubled us in our sleep. Only some said it was the sound of wheels. We said in a drowsy murmur, 'No, it must be the rumbling of clouds!'

The night was still dark when the drum sounded. The voice came 'Wake up! delay not!' We pressed our hands on our hearts and shuddered with fear. Some said, 'Lo, there is the king's flag!' We stood up on our feet and cried 'There is no time for delay!'

The king has come - but where are lights, where are wreaths? Where is the throne to seat him? Oh, shame! Oh utter shame! Where is the hall, the decorations? Someone has said, 'Vain is this cry! Greet him with empty hands, lead him into thy rooms all bare!'

Open the doors, let the conch-shells be sounded! in the depth of the night has come the king of our dark, dreary house. The thunder roars in the sky. The darkness shudders with lightning. Bring out thy tattered piece of mat and spread it in the courtyard. With the storm has come of a sudden our king of the fearful night.
52.

I thought I should ask of thee - but I dared not - the rose wreath thou hadst on thy neck. Thus I waited for the morning, when thou didst depart, to find a few fragments on the bed. And like a beggar I searched in the dawn only for a stray petal or two.

Ah me, what is it I find? What token left of thy love? It is no flower, no spices, no vase of perfumed water. It is thy mighty sword, flashing as a flame, heavy as a bolt of thunder. The young light of morning comes through the window and spread itself upon thy bed. The morning bird twitters and asks, 'Woman, what hast thou got?' No, it is no flower, nor spices, nor vase of perfumed water - it is thy dreadful sword.

I sit and muse in wonder, what gift is this of thine. I can find no place to hide it. I am ashamed to wear it, frail as I am, and it hurts me when press it to my bosom. Yet shall I bear in my heart this honour of the burden of pain, this gift of thine.

From now there shall be no fear left for me in this world, and thou shalt be victorious in all my strife. Thou hast left death for my companion and I shall crown him with my life. Thy sword is with me to cut asunder my bonds, and there shall be no fear left for me in the world.

From now I leave off all petty decorations. Lord of my heart, no more shall there be for me waiting and weeping in corners, no more coyness and sweetness of demeanour. Thou hast given me thy sword for adornment. No more doll's decorations for me!
53.

Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with stars and cunningly wrought in myriad-coloured jewels. But more beautiful to me thy sword with its curve of lightning like the outspread wings of the divine bird of Vishnu, perfectly poised in the angry red light of the sunset.

It quivers like the one last response of life in ecstasy of pain at the final stroke of death; it shines like the pure flame of being burning up earty sense with one fierce flash.

Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with starry gems; but thy sword, O lord of thunder, is wrought with uttermost beauty, terrible to behold or think of.
54.

I asked nothing from thee; I uttered not my name to thine ear. When thou took'st thy leave I stood silent. I was alone by the well where the shadow of the tree fell aslant, and the women had gone home with their brown earthen pitchers full to the brim. They called me and shouted, 'Come with us, the morning is wearing on to noon.' But I languidly lingered awhile lost in the midst of vague musings.

I heard not thy steps as thou camest. Thine eyes were sad when they fell on me; thy voice was tired as thou spokest low - 'Ah, I am a thirsty traveller.' I started up from my day-dreams and poured water from my jar on thy joined palms. The leaves rustled overhead; the cuckoo sang from the unseen dark, and perfume of babla flowers came from the bend of the road.

I stood speecess with shame when my name thou didst ask. Indeed, what had I done for thee to keep me in remembrance? But the memory that I could give water to thee to allay thy thirst will cling to my heart and enfold it in sweetness. The morning hour is late, the bird sings in weary notes, neem leaves rustle overhead and I sit and think and think.

55.

Languor is upon your heart and the slumber is still on your eyes.

Has not the word come to you that the flower is reigning in splendour among thorns? Wake, oh awaken! let not the time pass in vain!

At the end of the stony path, in the country of virgin solitude, my friend is sitting all alone. Deceive him not. Wake, oh awaken!

What if the sky pants and trembles with the heat of the midday sun - what if the burning sand spreads its mantle of thirst -

Is there no joy in the deep of your heart? At every footfall of yours, will not the harp of the road break out in sweet music of pain?
56.

Thus it is that thy joy in me is so full. Thus it is that thou hast come down to me. O thou lord of all heavens, where would be thy love if I were not?

Thou hast taken me as thy partner of all this wealth. In my heart is the endless play of thy delight. In my life thy will is ever taking shape.

And for this, thou who art the King of kings hast decked thyself in beauty to captivate my heart. And for this thy love loses itself in the love of thy lover, and there art thou seen in the perfect union of two.
57.

Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion.

Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.
58.

Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song - the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of the grass, the joy that sets the twin brothers, life and death, dancing over the wide world, the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust, and knows not a word.
59.

Yes, I know, this is nothing but thy love, O beloved of my heart - this golden light that dances upon the leaves, these idle clouds sailing across the sky, this passing breeze leaving its coolness upon my forehead.

The morning light has flooded my eyes - this is thy message to my heart. Thy face is bent from above, thy eyes look down on my eyes, and my heart has touched thy feet.
60.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead and the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds the children meet with shouts and dances.

They build their houses with sand and they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats and smilingly float them on the vast deep. Children have their play on the seashore of worlds.

They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. they seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.

The sea surges up with laughter and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach. Death-dealing waves sing meaningless ballads to the children, even like a mother while rocking her baby's cradle. The sea plays with children, and pale gleams the smile of the sea beach.

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the patess sky, ships get wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.
61.

The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes.

The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps.

The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.
62.

When I bring to you coloured toys, my child, I understand why there is such a play of colours on clouds, on water, and why flowers are painted in tints - when I give coloured toys to you, my child.

When I sing to make you dance I truly now why there is music in leaves, and why waves send their chorus of voices to the heart of the listening earth - when I sing to make you dance.

When I bring sweet things to your greedy hands I know why there is honey in the cup of the flowers and why fruits are secretly filled with sweet juice - when I bring sweet things to your greedy hands.

When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what pleasure streams from the sky in morning light, and what delight that is that is which the summer breeze brings to my body - when I kiss you to make you smile.
63.

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother of the stranger.

I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and that there also thou abidest.

Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.

When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of many.
64.

On the slope of the desolate river among tall grasses I asked her, 'Maiden, where do you go shading your lamp with your mantle? My house is all dark and lonesome - lend me your light!' she raised her dark eyes for a moment and looked at my face through the dusk. 'I have come to the river,' she said, 'to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight wanes in the west.' I stood alone among tall grasses and watched the timid flame of her lamp uselessly drifting in the tide.

In the silence of gathering night I asked her, 'Maiden, your lights are all lit - then where do you go with your lamp? My house is all dark and lonesome - lend me your light.' She raised her dark eyes on my face and stood for a moment doubtful. 'I have come,' she said at last, 'to dedicate my lamp to the sky.' I stood and watched her light uselessly burning in the void.

In the moonless gloom of midnight I ask her, 'Maiden, what is your quest, holding the lamp near your heart? My house is all dark and lonesome- - lend me your light.' She stopped for a minute and thought and gazed at my face in the dark. 'I have brought my light,' she said, 'to join the carnival of lamps.' I stood and watched her little lamp uselessly lost among lights.
65.

What divine drink wouldst thou have, my God, from this overflowing cup of my life?

My poet, is it thy delight to see thy creation through my eyes and to stand at the portals of my ears silently to listen to thine own eternal harmony?

Thy world is weaving words in my mind and thy joy is adding music to them. Thou givest thyself to me in love and then feelest thine own entire sweetness in me.
66.

She who ever had remained in the depth of my being, in the twilight of gleams and of glimpses; she who never opened her veils in the morning light, will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song.

Words have wooed yet failed to win her; persuasion has stretched to her its eager arms in vain.

I have roamed from country to country keeping her in the core of my heart, and around her have risen and fallen the growth and decay of my life.

Over my thoughts and actions, my slumbers and dreams, she reigned yet dwelled alone and apart.

many a man knocked at my door and asked for her and turned away in despair.

There was none in the world who ever saw her face to face, and she remained in her loneliness waiting for thy recognition.
67.

Thou art the sky and thou art the nest as well.

O thou beautiful, there in the nest is thy love that encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours.

There comes the morning with the golden basket in her right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the earth.

And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western ocean of rest.

But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There is no day nor night, nor form nor colour, and never, never a word.
68.

Thy sunbeam comes upon this earth of mine with arms outstretched and stands at my door the livelong day to carry back to thy feet clouds made of my tears and sighs and songs.

With fond delight thou wrappest about thy starry breast that mantle of misty cloud, turning it into numberless shapes and folds and colouring it with hues everchanging.

It is so light and so fleeting, tender and tearful and dark, that is why thou lovest it, O thou spotless and serene. And that is why it may cover thy awful white light with its pathetic shadows.
69.

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
70.

Is it beyond thee to be glad with the gladness of this rhythm? to be tossed and lost and broken in the whirl of this fearful joy?

All things rush on, they stop not, they look not behind, no power can hold them back, they rush on.

Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away - colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment.
71.

That I should make much of myself and turn it on all sides, thus casting coloured shadows on thy radiance - such is thy maya.

Thou settest a barrier in thine own being and then callest thy severed self in myriad notes. This thy self-separation has taken body in me.

The poignant song is echoed through all the sky in many-coloured tears and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again, dreams break and form. In me is thy own defeat of self.

This screen that thou hast raised is painted with innumerable figures with the brush of the night and the day. Behind it thy seat is woven in wondrous mysteries of curves, casting away all barren lines of straightness.

The great pageant of thee and me has overspread the sky. With the tune of thee and me all the air is vibrant, and all ages pass with the hiding and seeking of thee and me.
72.

He it is, the innermost one, who awakens my being with his deep hidden touches.

He it is who puts his enchantment upon these eyes and joyfully plays on the chords of my heart in varied cadence of pleasure and pain.

He it is who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds his feet, at whose touch I forget myself.

Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow.
73.

Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.

Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim.

My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame and place them before the altar of thy temple.

No, I will never shut the doors of my senses. The delights of sight and hearing and touch will bear thy delight.

Yes, all my illusions will burn into illumination of joy, and all my desires ripen into fruits of love.
74.

The day is no more, the shadow is upon the earth. It is time that I go to the stream to fill my pitcher.

The evening air is eager with the sad music of the water. Ah, it calls me out into the dusk. In the lonely lane there is no passer-by, the wind is up, the ripples are rampant in the river.

I know not if I shall come back home. I know not whom I shall chance to meet. There at the fording in the little boat the unknown man plays upon his lute.
75.

Thy gifts to us mortals fulfil all our needs and yet run back to thee undiminished.

The river has its everyday work to do and hastens through fields and hamlets; yet its incessant stream winds towards the washing of thy feet.

The flower sweetens the air with its perfume; yet its last service is to offer itself to thee.

Thy worship does not impoverish the world.

From the words of the poet men take what meanings please them; yet their last meaning points to thee.
76.

Day after day, O lord of my life, shall I stand before thee face to face. With folded hands, O lord of all worlds, shall I stand before thee face to face.

Under thy great sky in solitude and silence, with humble heart shall I stand before thee face to face.

In this laborious world of thine, tumultuous with toil and with struggle, among hurrying crowds shall I stand before thee face to face.

And when my work shall be done in this world, O King of kings, alone and speecess shall I stand before thee face to face.
77.

I know thee as my God and stand apart - I do not know thee as my own and come closer. I know thee as my father and bow before thy feet- I do not grasp thy hand as my friend's.

I stand not where thou comest down and ownest thyself as mine, there to clasp thee to my heart and take thee as my comrade.

Thou art the Brother amongst my brothers, but I heed them not, I divide not my earnings with them, thus sharing my all with thee.

In pleasure and in pain I stand not by the side of men, and thus stand by thee. I shrink to give up my life, and thus do not plunge into the great waters of life.
78.

When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang 'Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!'

But one cried of a sudden - 'It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light and one of the stars has been lost.'

The golden string of their harp snapped, their song stopped, and they cried in dismay - 'Yes, that lost star was the best, she was the glory of all heavens!'

From that day the search is unceasing for her, and the cry goes on from one to the other that in her the world has lost its one joy!

Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile and whisper among themselves - 'Vain is this seeking! unbroken perfection is over all!'
79.

If it is not my portion to meet thee in this life then let me ever feel that I have missed thy sight - let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.

As my days pass in the crowded market of this world and my hands grow full with the daily profits, let me ever feel that I have gained nothing - let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.

When I sit by the roadside, tired and panting, when I spread my bed low in the dust, let me ever feel that the long journey is still before me - let me not forget a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.

When my rooms have been decked out and the flutes sound and the laughter there is loud, let me ever feel that I have not invited thee to my house - let me not forget for a moment, let me carry the pangs of this sorrow in my dreams and in my wakeful hours.
80.

I am like a remnant of a cloud of autumn uselessly roaming in the sky, O my sun ever-glorious! Thy touch has not yet melted my vapour, making me one with thy light, and thus I count months and years separated from thee.

If this be thy wish and if this be thy play, then take this fleeting emptiness of mine, paint it with colours, gild it with gold, float it on the wanton wind and spread it in varied wonders.

And again when it shall be thy wish to end this play at night, I shall melt and vanish away in the dark, or it may be in a smile of the white morning, in a coolness of purity transparent.
81.

On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time. But it is never lost, my lord. Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.

Hidden in the heart of things thou art nourishing seeds into sprouts, buds into blossoms, and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.

I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed and imagined all work had ceased. In the morning I woke up and found my garden full with wonders of flowers.
82.

Time is endless in thy hands, my lord. There is none to count thy minutes.

Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait.

Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.

We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for a chances. We are too poor to be late.

And thus it is that time goes by while I give it to every querulous man who claims it, and thine altar is empty of all offerings to the last.

At the end of the day I hasten in fear lest thy gate to be shut; but I find that yet there is time.
83.

Mother, I shall weave a chain of pearls for thy neck with my tears of sorrow.

The stars have wrought their anklets of light to deck thy feet, but mine will hang upon thy breast.

Wealth and fame come from thee and it is for thee to give or to withhold them. But this my sorrow is absolutely mine own, and when I bring it to thee as my offering thou rewardest me with thy grace.
84.

It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.

It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all nights from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in rainy darkness of July.

It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joy in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart.
85.

When the warriors came out first from their master's hall, where had they hid their power? Where were their armour and their arms?

They looked poor and helpless, and the arrows were showered upon them on the day they came out from their master's hall.

When the warriors marched back again to their master's hall where did they hide their power?

They had dropped the sword and dropped the bow and the arrow; peace was on their foreheads, and they had left the fruits of their life behind them on the day they marched back again to their master's hall.
86.

Death, thy servant, is at my door. He has crossed the unknown sea and brought thy call to my home.

The night is dark and my heart is fearful - yet I will take up the lamp, open my gates and bow to him my welcome. It is thy messenger who stands at my door.

I will worship him placing at his feet the treasure of my heart.

He will go back with his errand done, leaving a dark shadow on my morning; and in my desolate home only my forlorn self will remain as my last offering to thee.

87.

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish - no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.
88.

Deity of the ruined temple! The broken strings of Vina sing no more your praise. The bells in the evening proclaim not your time of worship. The air is still and silent about you.

In your desolate dwelling comes the vagrant spring breeze. It brings the tidings of flowers - the flowers that for your worship are offered no more.

Your worshipper of old wanders ever longing for favour still refused. In the eventide, when fires and shadows mingle with the gloom of dust, he wearily comes back to the ruined temple with hunger in his heart.

Many a festival day comes to you in silence, deity of the ruined temple. Many a night of worship goes away with lamp unlit.

Many new images are built by masters of cunning art and carried to the holy stream of oblivion when their time is come.

Only the deity of the ruined temple remains unworshipped in deatess neglect.

89.

No more noisy, loud words from me - such is my master's will. Henceforth I deal in whispers. The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song.

Men hasten to the King's market. All the buyers and sellers are there. But I have my untimely leave in the middle of the day, in the thick of work.

Let then the flowers come out in my garden, though it is not their time; and let the midday bees strike up their lazy hum.

Full many an hour have I spent in the strife of the good and the evil, but now it is the pleasure of my playmate of the empty days to draw my heart on to him; and I know not why is this sudden call to what useless inconsequence!
90.

On the day when death will knock at thy door what wilt thou offer to him?

Oh, I will set before my guest the full vessel of my life - I will never let him go with empty hands.

All the sweet vintage of all my autumn days and summer nights, all the earnings and gleanings of my busy life will I place before him at the close of my days when death will knock at my door.
91.

O thou the last fulfilment of life, Death, my death, come and whisper to me!

Day after day I have kept watch for thee; for thee have I borne the joys and pangs of life.

All that I am, that I have, that I hope and all my love have ever flowed towards thee in depth of secrecy. One final glance from thine eyes and my life will be ever thine own.

The flowers have been woven and the garland is ready for the bridegroom. After the wedding the bride shall leave her home and meet her lord alone in the solitude of night.
92.

I know that the day will come when my sight of this earth shall be lost, and life will take its leave in silence, drawing the last curtain over my eyes.

Yet stars will watch at night, and morning rise as before, and hours heave like sea waves casting up pleasures and pains.

When I think of this end of my moments, the barrier of the moments breaks and I see by the light of death thy world with its careless treasures. Rare is its lowliest seat, rare is its meanest of lives.

Things that I longed for in vain and things that I got - let them pass. Let me but truly possess the things that I ever spurned and overlooked.
93.

I have got my leave. Bid me farewell, my brothers! I bow to you all and take my departure.

Here I give back the keys of my door - and I give up all claims to my house. I only ask for last kind words from you.

We were neighbours for long, but I received more than I could give. Now the day has dawned and the lamp that lit my dark corner is out. A summons has come and I am ready for my journey.
94.

At this time of my parting, wish me good luck, my friends! The sky is flushed with the dawn and my path lies beautiful.

Ask not what I have with me to take there. I start on my journey with empty hands and expectant heart.

I shall put on my wedding garland. Mine is not the red-brown dress of the traveller, and though there are dangers on the way I have no fear in mind.

The evening star will come out when my voyage is done and the plaintive notes of the twilight melodies be struck up from the King's gateway.

95.

I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this life.

What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery like a bud in the forest at midnight!

When in the morning I looked upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this world, that the inscrutable without name and form had taken me in its arms in the form of my own mother.

Even so, in death the same unknown will appear as ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well.

The child cries out when from the right breast the mother takes it away, in the very next moment to find in the left one its consolation.
96.

When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed - let this be my parting word.

In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come - let this be my parting word.
97.

When my play was with thee I never questioned who thou wert. I knew nor shyness nor fear, my life was boisterous.

In the early morning thou wouldst call me from my sleep like my own comrade and lead me running from glade to glade.

On those days I never cared to know the meaning of songs thou sangest to me. Only my voice took up the tunes, and my heart danced in their cadence.

Now, when the playtime is over, what is this sudden sight that is come upon me? The world with eyes bent upon thy feet stands in awe with all its silent stars.
98.

I will deck thee with trophies, garlands of my defeat. It is never in my power to escape unconquered.

I surely know my pride will go to the wall, my life will burst its bonds in exceeding pain, and my empty heart will sob out in music like a hollow reed, and the stone will melt in tears.

I surely know the hundred petals of a lotus will not remain closed for ever and the secret recess of its honey will be bared.

From the blue sky an eye shall gaze upon me and summon me in silence. Nothing will be left for me, nothing whatever, and utter death shall I receive at thy feet.
99.

When I give up the helm I know that the time has come for thee to take it. What there is to do will be instantly done. Vain is this struggle.

Then take away your hands and silently put up with your defeat, my heart, and think it your good fortune to sit perfectly still where you are placed.

These my lamps are blown out at every little puff of wind, and trying to light them I forget all else again and again.

But I shall be wise this time and wait in the dark, spreading my mat on the floor; and whenever it is thy pleasure, my lord, come silently and take thy seat here.
100.

I dive down into the depth of the ocean of forms, hoping to gain the perfect pearl of the formless.

No more sailing from harbour to harbour with this my weather-beaten boat. The days are long passed when my sport was to be tossed on waves.

And now I am eager to die into the deatess.

Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss where swells up the music of toneless strings I shall take this harp of my life.

I shall tune it to the notes of forever, and when it has sobbed out its last utterance, lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.
101.

Ever in my life have I sought thee with my songs. It was they who led me from door to door, and with them have I felt about me, searching and touching my world.

It was my songs that taught me all the lessons I ever learnt; they showed me secret paths, they brought before my sight many a star on the horizon of my heart.

They guided me all the day long to the mysteries of the country of pleasure and pain, and, at last, to what palace gate have the brought me in the evening at the end of my journey?
102.

I boasted among men that I had known you. They see your pictures in all works of mine. They come and ask me, 'Who is he?' I know not how to answer them. I say, 'Indeed, I cannot tell.' They blame me and they go away in scorn. And you sit there smiling.

I put my tales of you into lasting songs. The secret gushes out from my heart. They come and ask me, 'Tell me all your meanings.' I know not how to answer them. I say, 'Ah, who knows what they mean!' They smile and go away in utter scorn. And you sit there smiling.
103.

In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet.

Like a rain-cloud of July hung low with its burden of unshed showers let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee.

Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home in one salutation to thee.
In the introduction to Gitanjali, W.B Yeats says of Tagores poetry.

At every moment the heart of this poet flows outward to these without derogation or condescension, for it has known that they will understand; and it has filled itself with the circumstance of their lives.

An innocence, a simplicity that one does not find elsewhere in literature makes the birds and the leaves seem as near to him as they are near to children, and the changes of the seasons great events as before our thoughts had arisen between them and us.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
,
624:The Door Of Humility
ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;
But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
In patience through the darkness grope;
Until our finer sense expands,
And we exchange for holier sight
The earthly help of voice and hands,
And in His light behold the Light.
Let there be Light! The self-same Power
That out of formless dark and void
Endued with life's mysterious dower
Planet, and star, and asteroid;
That moved upon the waters' face,
And, breathing on them His intent,
Divided, and assigned their place
To, ocean, air, and firmament;
That bade the land appear, and bring
Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower,
Cattle that graze, and birds that sing,
Ordained the sunshine and the shower;
That, moulding man and woman, breathed
In them an active soul at birth
In His own image, and bequeathed
To them dominion over Earth;
That, by whatever is, decreed
418
His Will and Word shall be obeyed,
From loftiest star to lowliest seed;The worm and me He also made.
And when, for nuptials of the Spring
With Summer, on the vestal thorn
The bridal veil hung flowering,
A cry was heard, and I was born.
II
To be by blood and long descent
A member of a mighty State,
Whose greatness, sea-girt, but unpent
By ocean, makes the world more great;
That, ranging limitless, hath won
A Rule more wide than that of Rome,
And, journeying onward with the sun,
In every zone hath found a home;
That, keeping old traditions fast,
Still hails the things that are to be,
And, firmly rooted in the Past,
On Law hath grafted Liberty;That is a birthright nobler far
Than princely claim or Right Divine
From far-off rapine, wanton war,
And I could feel this birthright mine.
And not the lowliest hand that drives
Or share or loom, if so it be
Of British strain, but thence derives
A patent of nobility.
III
The guiding of the infant years
Onward to good, away from guile,
A mother's humanising tears,
A father's philosophic smile;
419
Refining beauty, gentle ways,
The admonitions of the wise,
The love that watches, helps, and prays,
And pities, but doth ne'er despise;
An ancient Faith, abiding hope,
The charity that suffers long,
But flames with sacred zeal to cope
With man's injustice, nature's wrong;
Melodious leisure, learnëd shelf,
Discourse of earnest, temperate mind,
The playful wit that of itself
Flashes, but leaves no wound behind;
The knowledge gleaned from Greece and Rome,
From studious Teuton, sprightly Gaul,
The lettered page, the mellow tome,
And poets' wisdom more than all;These, when no lips severe upbraid,
But counsel rather than control,
In budding boyhood lend their aid
To sensibility of soul.
IV
But, more than mentor, mother, sire,
Can lend to shape the future man
With help of learning or of lyre,
Of ancient rule, or modern plan,
Is that which with our breath we bring
Into the world, we know not whence,
That needs nor care nor fostering,
Because an instinct and a sense.
And days and years are all forgot
When Nature's aspect, growth, and grace,
And veering moods, to me were not
The features of the Loved One's face.
420
The
The
The
The
cloud whose shadow skims the lake,
shimmering haze of summer noon,
voice of April in the brake,
silence of the mounting moon,
Swaying of bracken on the hill,
The murmur of the vagrant stream,
These motions of some unseen Will,
These babblings of some heavenly dream,
Seemed tokens of divine desire
To hold discourse with me, and so
To touch my lips with hallowed fire,
And tell me things I ought to know.
I gazed and listened, all intent,
As to the face and voice of Fate,
But what they said, or what they meant,
I could surmise not, nor translate.
They did but lure me to unrest,
Unanswered questioning, longings vain,
As when one scans some palimpsest
No erudition can explain;
But left me with a deep distaste
For common speech, that still did seem
More meaningless than mountain waste,
Less human than the far-off stream.
So that a stranger in the land
Wherein I moved, where'er I went,
I dwelt, whom none could understand,
Or exorcise my discontent.
And I to them, and they to me
Seemed from two different planets come,
And, save to flower and wild-bird's glee,
My heart was deaf, my soul was dumb.
421
But slowly dawned a happier time
When I began to apprehend,
And catch, as in some poet's rhyme,
The intimations of a friend;
When Nature spake no unknown tongue,
But language kindred to my thought,
Till everything She said, I sung,
In notes unforced, in words unsought.
And I to Her so closely drew,
The seasons round, in mind and mood,
I felt at length as if we knew
Self-same affection, self-same feud:
That both alike scorned worldly aim,
Profit, applause, parade, and pride,
Whereby the love of generous fame
And worthy deeds grows petrified.
I did as yet not understand
Nature is far more vast than I,
Deep as the ocean, wide as land,
And overarching as the sky;
And but responded to my call,
And only felt and fed my need,
Because She doth the same for all
Who to her pity turn and plead.
VI
Shall man have mind, and Nature none,
Shall I, not she, have soul and heart?
Nay, rather, if we be not one,
Each is of each the counterpart.
She too may have within her breast
A conscience, if not like to yours,
A sense of rightness ill at rest,
Long as her waywardness endures.
422
And hence her thunder, earthquakes, hail,
Her levin bolts, her clouds' discharge:
She sins upon a larger scale,
Because She is herself more large.
Hence, too, when She hath pierced with pain
The heart of man, and wrecked his years,
The pity of the April rain,
And late repentance of her tears.
She is no better, worse, than we;
We can but say she seems more great,
That half her will, like ours, is free,
And half of it is locked in Fate.
Nor need we fear that we should err
Beyond our scope in reasoning thus,That there must be a God for Her,
If that there be a God for us.
VII
The chiming of the Sabbath bell,
The silence of the Sabbath fields,
Over the hamlet cast a spell
To which the gracious spirit yields.
Sound is there none of wheel or wain,
Husht stands the anvil, husht the forge,
No shout is heard in rustic lane,
No axe resounds in timbered gorge.
No flail beats time on granary floor,
The windmill's rushing wings are stayed,
And children's glee rings out no more
From hedgerow bank or primrose glade.
The big-boned team that firm and slow
Draw yoked, are free to couch or stray;
The basking covey seem to know
None will invade their peace to-day.
423
And speckless swains, and maidens neat,
Through rustic porch, down cottage stair,
Demurely up the village street
Stream onward to the House of Prayer.
They kneel as they were taught to kneel
In childhood, and demand not why,
But, as they chant or answer, feel
A vague communion with the sky.
VIII
But when the impetuous mind is spurred
To range through epochs great but gone,
And, heedless of dogmatic word,
With fearless ardour presses on,
Confronting pulpit, sceptre, shrine,
With point by Logic beaten out,
And, questioning tenets deemed divine
With human challenge, human doubt,
Hoists Reason's sail, and for the haze
Of ocean quits Tradition's shore,
Awhile he comes, and kneels, and prays,
Then comes and kneels, but prays no more;
And only for the love he bears
To those who love him, and who reared
His frame to genuflexion, shares
In ritual, vain, if still revered.
His Gods are many or are none,
Saturn and Mithra, Christ and Jove,
Consorting, as the Ages run,
With Vestal choir or Pagan drove.
Abiding still by Northern shores,
He sees far off on Grecian coast
Veiled Aphrodite, but adores
Minerva and Apollo most.
424
Beauty of vision, voice, and mind,
Enthrall him so, that unto him
All Creeds seem true, if he but find
Siren, or saint, or seraphim.
And thus once more he dwells apart,
His inward self enswathed in mist,
Blending with poet's pious heart
The dreams of pagan Hedonist.
IX
If Beauty be the Spirit's quest,
Its adoration, creed, and shrine,
Wherein its restlessness finds rest,
And earthly type of the Divine,
Must there for such not somewhere be
A blending of all beauteous things
In some one form wherein we see
The sum of our imaginings?
The smile on mountain's musing brow,
Sunrise and sunset, moon and star,
Wavelets around the cygnet's prow,
Glamour anear and charm afar;
The silence of the silvery pool,
Autumn's reserve and Summer's fire,
Slow vanishings of Winter's rule
To free full voice of April's choir;The worshippers of Beauty find
In maiden form, and face, and tress;
Faint intimations of her mind
And undulating loveliness.
Bound, runnels, bound, bound on, and flow!
Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!
425
Gone is the Winter, fled the snow,
And all that lives is flushed with Spring.
Harry the woods, young truant folk,
For flowers to deck your cottage sills,
And, underneath my orchard oak,
Cluster, ye golden daffodils!
Unfettered by domestic vow,
Cuckoo, proclaim your vagrant loves,
And coo upon the self-same bough,
Inseparable turtle-doves.
Soar, laverock, soar on song to sky,
And with the choir of Heaven rejoice!
You cannot be more glad than I,
Who feel Her gaze, and hear Her voice:
Who see Her cheek more crimson glow,
And through Her veins love's current stream,
And feel a fear She doth but know
Is kin to joy and dawning dream.
Bound, rivulets, bound, bound on, and flow!
Sing, merle and mavis, pair and sing!
Gone from the world are want and woe,
And I myself am one with Spring.
XI
They err who say that Love is blind,
Or, if it be, 'tis but in part,
And that, if for fair face it find
No counterpart in mind and heart,
It dwells on that which it beholds,
Fair fleshly vision void of soul,
Deeming, illusioned, this enfolds,
Longing's fulfilment, end, and whole.
Were such my hapless carnal lot,
I too might evanescent bliss
426
Embrace, fierce-fancied, fast forgot,
Then leave for some fresh loveliness.
But April gaze, and Summer tress,
With something of Autumnal thought,
In Her seem blent to crown and bless
A bond I long in dreams have sought.
She looks as though She came to grace
The earth, from world less soiled than this,
Around her head and virgin face
Halo of heavenly holiness.
XII
He who hath roamed through various lands,
And, wheresoe'er his steps are set,
The kindred meaning understands
Of spire, and dome, and minaret;
By Roman river, Stamboul's sea,
In Peter's or Sophia's shrine,
Acknowledges with reverent knee
The presence of the One Divine;
Who, to the land he loves so well
Returning, towards the sunset hour
Wends homeward, feels yet stronger spell
In lichened roof and grey church-tower;
Round whose foundations, side by side,
Sleep hamlet wit and village sage,
While loud the blackbird cheers his bride
Deep in umbrageous Vicarage.
XIII
Was it that sense which some aver
Foreshadows Fate it doth not see,
That gave unwittingly to Her
The name, for ever dear to me,
427
Borne by that tearful Mother whom,
Nigh unto Ostia's shelving sand,
Augustine laid in lonely tomb,
Ere sailing for his Afric land?
But I at least should have foreseen,
When Monica to me had grown
Familiar word, that names may mean
More than by word and name is shown;
That nought can keep two lives apart
More than divorce 'twixt mind and mind,
Even though heart be one with heart;Alas! Alas! Yes, Love is blind.
XIV
How could I think of jarring Creeds,
And riddles that unread remain,
Or ask if Heaven's indulgence heeds
Broils born of man's polemic brain,
And pause because my venturous mind
Had roamed through tracks of polar thought,
Whence mightiest spirits turn back blind,
Since finding not the thing they sought,
When Love, with luring gifts in hand,
Beauty, refinement, smile, caress,
Heart to surmise and understand,
And crowning grace of holiness,
Stood there before me, and, with gaze
I had been purblind not to see,
Said, ``I to you will, all my days,
Give what you yearn to give to me''?
Must both then sorrow, while we live,
Because, rejoicing, I forgot
Something there was I could not give,
Because, alas! I had it not.
428
XV
She comes from Vicarage Garden, see!
Radiant as morning, lithe and tall,
Fresh lilies in her hand, but She
The loveliest lily of them all.
The thrushes in their fluting pause,
The bees float humming round her head,
Earth, air, and heaven shine out because
They hear her voice, and feel her tread.
Up in the fretted grey church-tower,
That rustic gaze for miles can see,
The belfry strikes the silvery hour,
Announcing her propinquity.
And I who, fearful to be late,
Passed long since through the deerpark pale,
And loitered by the churchyard gate,
Once more exclaim, ``Hail! loved one! hail!''
We pass within, and up the nave,
Husht, because Heaven seems always there,
Wend choirward, where, devoutly grave,
She kneels, to breathe a silent prayer.
She takes the flowers I too have brought,
Blending them deftly with her own,
And ranges them, as quick as thought,
Around the white-draped altar-throne.
How could she know my gaze was not
On things unseen, but fixed on Her,
That, as She prayed, I all forgot
The worship in the worshipper?While She beheld, as in a glass,
The Light Divine, that I but sought
Sight of her soul?-Alas! Alas!
Love is yet blinder than I thought.
429
XVI
Who hath not seen a little cloud
Up from the clear horizon steal,
And, mounting lurid, mutter loud
Premonitory thunder-peal?
Husht grows the grove, the summer leaf
Trembles and writhes, as if in pain,
And then the sky, o'ercharged with grief,
Bursts into drenching tears of rain.
I through the years had sought to hide
My darkening doubts from simple sight.
'Tis sacrilegious to deride
Faith of unquestioning neophyte.
And what, methought, is Doubt at best?
A sterile wind through seeded sedge
Blowing for nought, an empty nest
That lingers in a leafless hedge.
Pain, too, there is we should not share
With others lest it mar their joy;
There is a quiet bliss in prayer
None but the heartless would destroy.
But just as Love is quick divined
From heightened glow or visage pale,
The meditations of the Mind
Disclose themselves through densest veil.
And 'tis the unloving and least wise
Who through life's inmost precincts press,
And with unsympathetic eyes
Outrage our sacred loneliness.
Then, when their sacrilegious gaze
The mournful void hath half surmised,
To some more tender soul they raise
The veil of ignorance it prized.
430
XVII
`What though I write farewell I could
Not utter, lest your gaze should chide,
'Twill by your love be understood
My love is still, dear, at your side.
``Nor must we meet to speak goodbye,
Lest that my Will should lose its choice,
And conscience waver, for then I
Should see your face and hear your voice.
``But, when you find yourself once more,
Come back, come back and look for me,
Beside the little lowly door,
The Doorway of Humility.''
XVIII
There! Peace at last! The far-off roar
Of human passion dies away.
``Welcome to our broad shade once more,''
The waning woodlands seem to say:
The music of the vagrant wind,
That wandered aimlessly, is stilled;
The songless branches all remind
That Summer's glory is fulfilled.
The fluttering of the falling leaves
Dimples the leaden pool awhile;
So Age impassively receives
Youth's tale of troubles with a smile.
Thus, as the seasons steal away,
How much is schemed, how little done,
What splendid plans at break of day!
What void regrets at set of sun!
The world goes round, for you, for me,
For him who sleeps, for him who strives,
And the cold Fates indifferent see
431
Crowning or failure of our lives.
Then fall, ye leaves, fade, summer breeze!
Grow, sedges, sere on every pool!
Let each old glowing impulse freeze,
Let each old generous project cool!
It is not wisdom, wit, nor worth,
Self-sacrifice nor friendship true,
Makes venal devotees of earth
Prostrate themselves and worship you.
The consciousness of sovran powers,
The stubborn purpose, steadfast will,
Have ever, in this world of ours,
Achieved success, achieve it still.
Farewell, ye woods! No more I sit;
Great voices in the distance call.
If this be peace, enough of it!
I go. Fall, unseen foliage, fall!
XIX
Nay, but repress rebellious woe!
In grief 'tis not that febrile fool,
Passion, that can but overthrow,
But Resignation, that should rule.
In patient sadness lurks a gift
To purify the life it stings,
And, as the days move onward, lift
The lonely heart to loftier things;
Bringing within one's ripening reach
The sceptre of majestic Thought,
Wherefrom one slowly learns to teach
The Wisdom to oneself it taught.
And unto what can man aspire,
On earth, more worth the striving for,
Than to be Reason's loftier lyre,
432
And reconciling monitor;
To strike a more resounding string
And deeper notes of joy and pain,
Than such as but lamenting sing,
Or warble but a sensuous strain:
So, when my days are nearly sped,
And my last harvest labours done,
That I may have around my head
The halo of a setting sun.
Yet even if be heard above
Such selfish hope, presumptuous claim,
Better one hour of perfect love
Than an eternity of Fame!
XX
Where then for grief seek out the cure?
What scenes will bid my smart to cease?
High peaks should teach one to endure,
And lakes secluded bring one peace.
Farewell awhile, then, village bells,
Autumnal wood and harvest wain!
And welcome, as it sinks or swells,
The music of the mighty main,
That seems to say, now loud, now low,
Rising or falling, sweet or shrill,
``I pace, a sentry, to and fro,
To guard your Island fortress still.''
The roses falter on their stalk,
The late peach reddens on the wall,
The flowers along the garden walk
Unheeded fade, unheeded fall.
My gates unopened drip with rain,
The wolf-hound wends from floor to floor,
And, listening for my voice in vain,
433
Waileth along the corridor.
Within the old accustomed place
Where we so oft were wont to be,
Kneeling She prays, while down her face
The fruitless tears fall silently.
SWITZERLAND
XXI
Rain, wind, and rain. The writhing lake
Scuds to and fro to scape their stroke:
The mountains veil their heads, and make
Of cloud and mist a wintry cloak.
Through where the arching pinewoods make
Dusk cloisters down the mountain side,
The loosened avalanches take
Valeward their way, with death for guide,
And toss their shaggy manes and fling
To air their foam and tawny froth,
From ledge and precipice bound and spring,
With hungry roar and deepening wrath;
Till, hamlet homes and orchards crushed,
And, rage for further ravin stayed,
They slumber, satiated, husht,
Upon the ruins they have made.
I rise from larch-log hearth, and, lone,
Gaze on the spears of serried rain,
That faster, nigher, still are blown,
Then stream adown the window pane.
The peasant's goatskin garments drip,
As home he wends with lowered head,
Shakes off the drops from lid and lip,
Then slinks within his châlet shed.
434
The cattle bells sound dull and hoarse,
The boats rock idly by the shore;
Only the swollen torrents course
With faster feet and fuller roar.
Mournful, I shape a mournful song,
And ask the heavens, but ask in vain,
``How long, how long?'' Ah! not so long
As, in my heart, rain, wind, and rain.
XXII
I ask the dark, the dawn, the sun,
The domeward-pointing peaks of snow,
Lofty and low alike, but none
Will tell me what I crave to know.
My mind demands, ``Whence, Whither, Why?''
From mountain slope and green defile,
And wait the answer. The replyA far-off irresponsive smile.
I ask the stars, when mortals sleep,
The pensive moon, the lonely winds;
But, haply if they know, they keep
The secret of secluded minds.
Shall I in
Straining
Where in
Where in
vain, then, strive to find,
towards merely fancied goal?
the lily lurks the mind,
the rose discern the soul?
More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake,
The mountains yet more heartless seem,
And life's unceasing quest and ache
Only a dream within a dream.
We know no more, though racked with thought
Than he who, in yon châlet born,
Gives not the riddle, Life, a thought,
But lays him down and sleeps till morn.
435
Sometimes he kneels; I cannot kneel,
So suffer from a wider curse
Than Eden's outcasts, for I feel
An exile in the universe.
The rudeness of his birth enures
His limbs to every season's stings,
And, never probing, so endures
The sadness at the heart of things.
When lauwine growls, and thunder swells,
Their far-off clamour sounds to me
But as the noise of clanging bells
Above a silent sanctuary.
It is their silence that appals,
Their aspect motionless that awes,
When searching spirit vainly calls
On the effect to bare the Cause.
I get no answer, near or far;
The mountains, though they soar so high,
And scale the pathless ether, are
No nearer unto God than I.
There dwells nor mystery nor veil
Round the clear peaks no foot hath trod;
I, gazing on their frontage pale,
See but the waning ghost of God.
Is Faith then but a drug for sleep,
And Hope a fondly soothing friend
That bids us, when it sees us weep,
Wait for the End that hath no end?
Then do I hear voice unforgot
Wailing across the distance dim,
``Think, dear! If God existeth not,
Why are you always seeking Him?''
XXIII
436
Like glowing furnace of the forge,
How the winds rise and roar, as they
Up twisting valley, craggy gorge,
Seek, and still seek, to storm their way;
Then, baffled, up the open slope
With quickening pulses scale and pant,
Indomitably bent to cope
With bristling fronts of adamant.
All through the day resounds the strife,
Then doth at sunset hour subside:
So the fierce passions of our life
Slowly expire at eventide.
By Nature we are ne'er misled;
We see most truly when we dream.
A singer wise was he who said,
``Follow the gleam! Follow the gleam!''
XXIV
I dreamed, last night, again I stood,
Silent, without the village shrine,
While She in modest maidenhood
Left, fondly clasped, her hand in mine.
And, with a face as cerecloth white,
And tears like those that by the bier
Of loved one lost make dim the sight,
She poured her sorrows in mine ear.
``I love your voice, I love your gaze,
But there is something dearer still,
The faith that kneels, the hope that prays,
And bows before the Heavenly Will.
``Not where hills rise, or torrents roll,
Seek Him, nor yet alone, apart;
He dwells within the troubled soul,
His home is in the human heart.
437
``Withal, the peaceful mountains may
'Twixt doubt and yearning end the strife:
So ponder, though you cannot pray,
And think some meaning into life:
``Nor like to those that cross the main
To wander witless through strange land,
Hearing unmastered tongues, disdain
The speech they do not understand.
``Firm stands my faith that they who sound
The depths of doubt Faith yet will save:
They are like children playing round
A still remembered mother's grave;
``Not knowing, when they wax more old,
And somewhat can her vision share,
She will the winding-sheet unfold,
And beckon them to evening prayer.''
Then, with my hand betwixt her hands,
She laid her lips upon my brow,
And, as to one who understands,
Said, ``Take once more my vestal vow.
``No other gaze makes mine to glow,
No other footstep stirs my heart,
To me you only dearer grow,
Dearer and nearer, more apart.
``Whene'er you come with humble mind,
The little Door stands open wide,
And, bending low, you still will find
Me waiting on the other side.''
Her silence woke me. . . . To your breast
Fold me, O sleep! and seal mine ears;
That She may roam through my unrest
Till all my dreams are drenched with tears!
XXV
438
Why linger longer, subject, here,
Where Nature sits and reigns alone,
Inspiring love not, only fear,
Upon her autocratic throne?
Her edicts are the rigid snow,
The wayward winds, the swaying branch;
She hath no pity to bestow,
Her law the lawless avalanche.
Though soon cascades will bound and sing,
That now but drip with tears of ice,
And upland meadows touched by Spring
Blue gentian blend with edelweiss,
Hence to the Land of youthful dreams,
The Land that taught me all I know.
Farewell, lone mountain-peaks and streams;
Yet take my thanks before I go.
You gave me shelter when I fled,
But sternly bade me stem my tears,
Nor aimless roam with rustling tread
'Mong fallen leaves of fruitless years.
ITALY
XXVI
Upon the topmost wheel-track steep,
The parting of two nations' ways,
Athwart stone cross engraven deep,
The name ``Italia'' greets the gaze!
I trembled, when I saw it first,
With joy, my boyish longings fed,
The headspring of my constant thirst,
The altar of my pilgrim tread.
Now once again the magic word,
So faintly borne to Northern home,
Sounds like a silvery trumpet heard
439
Beneath some universal dome.
The forests soften to a smile,
A smile the very mountains wear,
Through mossy gorge and grassed defile
Torrents race glad and debonair.
From casement, balcony and door,
Hang golden gourds, droops tear-tipped vine,
And sun-bronzed faces bask before
Thin straw-swathed flasks of last year's wine.
Unyoked, the patient sleek-skinned steers
Take, like their lords, no heed of time.
Hark! now the evening star appears,
Ave Maria belfries chime.
The maidens knit, and glance, and sing,
With glowing gaze 'neath ebon tress,
And, like to copse-buds sunned by Spring,
Seem burgeoning into tenderness.
On waveless lake where willows weep,
The Borromean Islands rest
As motionless as babe asleep
Upon a slumbering Mother's breast.
O Land of sunshine, song, and Love!
Whether thy children reap or sow,
Of Love they chant on hills above,
Of Love they sing in vale below.
But what avail the love-linked hands,
And love-lit eyes, to them that roam
Passionless through impassioned lands,
Since they have left their heart at home!
XXVII
Among my dreams, now known as dreams
In this my reawakened life,
I thought that by historic streams,
440
Apart from stress, aloof from strife,
By rugged paths that twist and twine
Through olive slope and chesnut wood
Upward to mediaeval shrine,
Or high conventual brotherhood,
Along the mountain-curtained track
Round peaceful lake where wintry bands
Halt briefly but to bivouac
Ere blustering on to Northern lands;Through these, through all I first did see,
With me to share my raptures none,
That nuptialled Monica would be
My novice and companion:
That we should float from mere to mere,
And sleep within some windless cove,
With nightingales to lull the ear,
From ilex wood and orange grove;
Linger at hamlets lost to fame,
That still wise-wandering feet beguile,
To gaze on frescoed wall or frame
Lit by Luini's gracious smile.
Now, but companioned by my pain,
Among each well-remembered scene
I can but let my Fancy feign
The happiness that might have been;
Imagine that I hear her voice,
Imagine that I feel her hand,
And I, enamoured guide, rejoice
To see her swift to understand.
Alack! Imagination might
As lief with rustic Virgil roam,
Reverent, or, welcomed guest, alight
At Pliny's philosophic home;
441
Hear one majestically trace
Rome's world-wide sway from wattled wall,
And read upon the other's face
The omens of an Empire's fall.
XXVIII
Like moonlight seen through forest leaves,
She shines upon me from afar,
What time men reap the ripened sheaves,
And Heaven rains many a falling star.
I gaze up to her lofty height,
And feel how far we dwell apart:
O if I could, this night, this night,
Fold her full radiance to my heart!
But She in Heaven, and I on earth,
Still journey on, but each alone;
She, maiden Queen of sacred birth,
Who with no consort shares her throne.
XXIX
What if She ever thought She saw
The self within myself prefer
Communion with the silent awe
Of far-off mountains more than Her;
That Nature hath the mobile grace
To make life with our moods agree,
And so had grown the Loved One's face,
Since it nor checked nor chided me;
Or from the tasks that irk and tire
I sought for comfort from the Muse,
Because it grants the mind's desire
All that familiar things refuse.
How vain such thought! The face, the form,
Of mountain summits but express,
Clouded or clear, in sun or storm,
442
Feebly Her spirit's loftiness.
Did I explore from pole to pole,
In Nature's aspect I should find
But faint reflections of Her soul,
Dim adumbrations of Her mind.
O come and test with lake, with stream,
With mountain, which the stronger be,
Thou, my divinest dearest dream,
My Muse, and more than Muse, to me!
XXX
They tell me that Jehovah speaks
In silent grove, on lonely strand,
And summit of the mountain peaks;
Yet there I do not understand.
The stars, disdainful of my thought,
Majestic march toward their goal,
And to my nightly watch have brought
No explanation to my soul.
The truth I seek I cannot find,
In air or sky, on land or sea;
If the hills have their secret mind,
They will not yield it up to me:
Like one who lost mid lonely hills
Still seeks but cannot find his way,
Since guide is none save winding rills,
That seem themselves, too, gone astray.
And so from rise to set of sun,
At glimmering dawn, in twilight haze,
I but behold the face of One
Who veils her face, and weeps, and prays.
What know I that She doth not know?
What I know not, She understands:
With heavenly gifts She overflows,
443
While I have only empty hands.
O weary wanderer! Best forego
This questioning of wind and wave.
For you the sunshine and the snow,
The womb, the cradle, and the grave.
XXXI
How blest, when organ concords swell,
And anthems are intoned, are they
Who neither reason nor rebel,
But meekly bow their heads and pray.
And such the peasants mountain-bred,
Who hail to-day with blithe accord
Her Feast Who to the Angel said,
``Behold the Handmaid of the Lord!''
Downward they wind from pastoral height,
Or hamlet grouped round shattered towers,
To wend to shrine more richly dight,
And bring their gift of wilding flowers;
Their gifts, their griefs, their daily needs,
And lay these at Her statue's base,
Who never, deem they, intercedes
Vainly before the Throne of Grace.
Shall I, because I stand apart,
A stranger to their pious vows,
Scorn their humility of heart
That pleads before the Virgin Spouse,
Confiding that the Son will ne'er,
If in His justice wroth with them,
Refuse to harken to Her prayer
Who suckled Him in Bethlehem?
Of all the intercessors born
By man's celestial fancy, none
444
Hath helped the sorrowing, the forlorn,
Lowly and lone, as She hath done.
The maiden faithful to Her shrine
Bids demons of temptation flee,
And mothers fruitful as the vine
Retain their vestal purity.
Too trustful love, by lust betrayed,
And by cold worldlings unforgiven,
Unto Her having wept and prayed,
Faces its fate, consoled and shriven.
The restless, fiercely probing mind
No honey gleans, though still it stings.
What comfort doth the spirit find
In Reason's endless reasonings?
They have no solace for my grief,
Compassion none for all my pain:
They toss me like the fluttering leaf,
And leave me to the wind and rain.
XXXII
If Conscience be God's Law to Man,
Then Conscience must perforce arraign
Whatever falls beneath the ban
Of that allotted Suzerain.
And He, who bids us not to swerve,
Whither the wayward passions draw,
From its stern sanctions, must observe
The limits of the self-same Law.
Yet, if obedient Conscience scan
The sum of wrongs endured and done
Neither by act nor fault of Man,
They rouse it to rebellion.
Life seems of life by life bereft
445
Through some immitigable curse,
And Man sole moral being left
In a non-moral Universe.
My Conscience would my Will withstand,
Did Will project a world like this:
Better Eternal vacuum still,
Than murder, lust, and heartlessness!
If Man makes Conscience, then being good
Is only being worldly wise,
And universal brotherhood
A comfortable compromise.
O smoke of War! O blood-steeped sod!
O groans of fratricidal strife!
Who will explain the ways of God,
That I may be at peace with life!
The moral riddle 'tis that haunts,
Primeval and unending curse,
Racking the mind when pulpit vaunts
A Heaven-created Universe.
Yet whence came Life, and how begin?
Rolleth the globe by choice or chance?
Dear Lord! Why longer shut me in
This prison-house of ignorance!
FLORENCE
XXXIII
City acclaimed ere Dante's days
Fair, and baptized in field of flowers,
Once more I scan with tender gaze
Your glistening domes, your storied towers.
I feel as if long years had flown
Since first with eager heart I came,
446
And, girdled by your mountain zone,
Found you yet fairer than your fame.
It was the season purple-sweet
When figs are plump, and grapes are pressed,
And all your sons with following feet
Bore a dead Poet to final rest.
You seemed to fling your gates ajar,
And softly lead me by the hand,
Saying, ``Behold! henceforth you are
No stranger in the Tuscan land.''
And though no love my love can wean
From native crag and cradling sea,
Yet Florence from that hour hath been
More than a foster-nurse to me.
When mount I terraced slopes arrayed
In bridal bloom of peach and pear,
While under olive's phantom shade
Lupine and beanflower scent the air,
The wild-bees hum round golden bay,
The green frog sings on fig-tree bole,
And, see! down daisy-whitened way
Come the slow steers and swaying pole.
The fresh-pruned vine-stems, curving, bend
Over the peaceful wheaten spears,
And with the glittering sunshine blend
Their transitory April tears.
O'er wall and trellis trailed and wound,
Hang roses blushing, roses pale;
And, hark! what was that silvery sound?
The first note of the nightingale.
Curtained, I close my lids and dream
Of Beauty seen not but surmised,
And, lulled by scent and song, I seem
Immortally imparadised.
447
When from the deep sweet swoon I wake
And gaze past slopes of grape and grain,
Where Arno, like some lonely lake,
Silvers the far-off seaward plain,
I see celestial sunset fires
That lift us from this earthly leaven,
And darkly silent cypress spires
Pointing the way from hill to Heaven.
Then something more than mortal steals
Over the wavering twilight air,
And, messenger of nightfall, peals
From each crowned peak a call to prayer.
And now the last meek prayer is said,
And, in the hallowed hush, there is
Only a starry dome o'erhead,
Propped by columnar cypresses.
XXXIV
Re-roaming through this palaced town,
I suddenly, 'neath grim-barred pile,
Catch sight of Dante's awful frown,
Or Leonardo's mystic smile;
Then, swayed by memory's fancy, stroll
To where from May-day's flaming pyre
Savonarola's austere soul
Went up to Heaven in tongues of fire;
Or Buonarroti's plastic hand
Made marble block from Massa's steep
Dawn into Day at his command,
Then plunged it into Night and Sleep.
No later wanderings can dispel
The glamour of the bygone years;
And, through the streets I know so well,
448
I scarce can see my way for tears.
XXXV
A sombre shadow seems to fall
On comely altar, transept fair;
The saints are still on frescoed wall,
But who comes thither now for prayer?
Men throng from far-off stranger land,
To stare, to wonder, not to kneel,
With map and guide-book in their hand
To tell them what to think and feel.
They scan, they prate, they marvel why
The figures still expressive glow,
Oblivious they were painted by
Adoring Frà Angelico.
Did Dante from his tomb afar
Return, his wrongs redressed at last,
And see you, Florence, as you are,
Half alien to your gracious Past,
Finding no Donatello now,
No reverent Giotto 'mong the quick,
To glorify ascetic vow
Of Francis or of Dominic;
Self-exiled by yet sterner fate
Than erst, he would from wandering cease,
And, ringing at monastic gate,
Plead, ``I am one who craves for peace.''
And what he sought but ne'er could find,
Shall I, less worthy, hope to gain,
The freedom of the tranquil mind,
The lordship over loss and pain?
More than such peace I found when I
Did first, in unbound youth, repair
449
To Tuscan shrine, Ausonian sky.
I found it, for I brought it there.
XXXVI
Yet Art brings peace, itself is Peace,
And, as I on these frescoes gaze,
I feel all fretful tumults cease
And harvest calm of mellower days.
For Soul too hath its seasons. Time,
That leads Spring, Summer, Autumn, round,
Makes our ephemeral passions chime
With something permanent and profound.
And, as in Nature, April oft
Strives to revert to wintry hours,
But shortly upon garth and croft
Re-sheds warm smiles and moistening showers,
Or, for one day, will Autumn wear
The gayer garments of the Spring,
And then athwart the wheatfields bare
Again her graver shadows fling;
So, though the Soul hath moods that veer,
And seem to hold no Rule in awe,
Like the procession of the year,
It too obeys the sovran Law.
Nor Art itself brings settled peace,
Until the mind is schooled to know
That gusts subside and tumults cease
Only in sunset's afterglow.
Life's contradictions vanish then,
Husht thought replacing clashing talk
Among the windy ways of men.
'Tis in the twilight Angels walk.
450
ROME
XXXVII
The last warm gleams of sunset fade
From cypress spire and stonepine dome,
And, in the twilight's deepening shade,
Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome.
Husht the Madonna's Evening Bell;
The steers lie loosed from wain and plough;
The vagrant monk is in his cell,
The meek nun-novice cloistered now.
Pedant's presumptuous voice no more
Vexes the spot where Caesar trod,
And o'er the pavement's soundless floor
Come banished priest and exiled God.
The lank-ribbed she-wolf, couched among
The regal hillside's tangled scrubs,
With doting gaze and fondling tongue
Suckles the Vestal's twin-born cubs.
Yet once again Evander leads
Æneas to his wattled home,
And, throned on Tiber's fresh-cut reeds,
Talks of burnt Troy and rising Rome.
From out the tawny dusk one hears
The half-feigned scream of Sabine maids,
The rush to arms, then swift the tears
That separate the clashing blades.
The Lictors with their fasces throng
To quell the Commons' rising roar,
As Tullia's chariot flames along,
Splashed with her murdered father's gore.
Her tresses free from band or comb,
Love-dimpled Venus, lithe and tall,
451
And fresh as Fiumicino's foam,
Mounts her pentelic pedestal.
With languid lids, and lips apart,
And curving limbs like wave half-furled,
Unarmed she dominates the heart,
And without sceptre sways the world.
Nerved by her smile, avenging Mars
Stalks through the Forum's fallen fanes,
Or, changed of mien and healed of scars,
Threads sylvan slopes and vineyard plains.
With waves of song from wakening lyre
Apollo routs the wavering night,
While, parsley-crowned, the white-robed choir
Wind chanting up the Sacred Height,
Where Jove, with thunder-garlands wreathed,
And crisp locks frayed like fretted foam,
Sits with his lightnings half unsheathed,
And frowns against the foes of Rome.
You cannot kill the Gods. They still
Reclaim the thrones where once they reigned,
Rehaunt the grove, remount the rill,
And renovate their rites profaned.
Diana's hounds still lead the chase,
Still Neptune's Trident crests the sea,
And still man's spirit soars through space
On feathered heels of Mercury.
No flood can quench the Vestals' Fire;
The Flamen's robes are still as white
As ere the Salii's armoured choir
Were drowned by droning anchorite.
The saint may seize the siren's seat,
The shaveling frown where frisked the Faun;
Ne'er will, though all beside should fleet,
The Olympian Presence be withdrawn.
452
Here, even in the noontide glare,
The Gods, recumbent, take their ease;
Go look, and you will find them there,
Slumbering behind some fallen frieze.
But most, when sunset glow hath paled,
And come, as now, the twilight hour,
In vesper vagueness dimly veiled
I feel their presence and their power.
What though their temples strew the ground,
And to the ruin owls repair,
Their home, their haunt, is all around;
They drive the cloud, they ride the air.
And, when the planets wend their way
Along the never-ageing skies,
``Revere the Gods'' I hear them say;
``The Gods are old, the Gods are wise.''
Build as man may, Time gnaws and peers
Through marble fissures, granite rents;
Only Imagination rears
Imperishable monuments.
Let Gaul and Goth pollute the shrine,
Level the altar, fire the fane:
There is no razing the Divine;
The Gods return, the Gods remain.
XXXVIII
Christ is arisen. The place wherein
They laid Him shows but cerements furled,
And belfry answers belfry's din
To ring the tidings round the world.
Grave Hierarchs come, an endless band,
In jewelled mitre, cope embossed,
Who bear Rome's will to every land
453
In all the tongues of Pentecost.
Majestic, along marble floor,
Walk Cardinals in blood-red robe,
Martyrs for Faith and Christ no more,
Who gaze as though they ruled the globe.
With halberds bare and doublets slashed,
Emblems that war will never cease,
Come martial guardians, unabashed,
And march afront the Prince of Peace.
Then, in his gestatorial Chair
See Christ's vicegerent, bland, benign,
To crowds all prostrate as in prayer
Lean low, and make the Holy Sign.
Then trumpets shrill, and organ peals,
Throughout the mighty marble pile,
Whileas a myriad concourse kneels
In dense-packed nave and crowded aisle.
Hark to the sudden hush! Aloft
From unseen source in empty dome
Swells prayerful music silvery-soft,
Borne from far-off celestial Home.
Then, when the solemn rite is done,
The worshippers stream out to where
Dance fountains glittering in the sun,
While expectation fills the air.
Now on high balcony He stands,
And-save for the Colonna curse,Blesses with high-uplifted hands
The City and the Universe.
Christ is arisen! But scarce as when,
On the third day of death and gloom,
Came ever-loving Magdalen
With tears and spices to His tomb.
454
XXXIX
The Tiber winds its sluggish way
Through niggard tracts whence Rome's command
Once cast the shadow of her sway,
O'er Asian city, Afric sand.
Nor even yet doth She resign
Her sceptre. Still the spell is hers,
Though she may seem a rifled shrine
'Mid circumjacent sepulchres.
One after one, they came, they come,
Gaul, Goth, Savoy, to work their will;
She answers, when She most seems dumb,
``I wore the Crown, I wear it still.
``From Jove I first received the gift,
I from Jehovah wear it now,
Nor shall profane invader lift
The diadem from off my brow.
``The Past is mine, and on the Past
The Future builds; and Time will rear
The next strong structure on the last,
Where men behold but shattered tier.
``The Teuton hither hies to teach,
To prove, disprove, to delve and probe.
Fool! Pedant! Does he think to reach
The deep foundations of the globe?''
For me, I am content to tread
On Sabine dust and Gothic foe.
Leave me to deepening silent dread
Of vanished Empire's afterglow.
In this Imperial wilderness
Why rashly babble and explore?
O, let me know a little less,
So I may feel a little more!
455
XL
For upward of one thousand years,
Here men and women prayed to Jove,
With smiles and incense, gifts and tears,
In secret shrine, or civic grove;
And, when Jove did not seem to heed,
Sought Juno's mediatorial power,
Or begged fair Venus intercede
And melt him in his amorous hour.
Sages invoked Minerva's might;
The Poet, ere he struck the lyre,
Prayed to the God of Song and Light
To touch the strings with hallowed fire.
With flaming herbs were altars smoked
Sprinkled with blood and perfumed must,
And gods and goddesses invoked
To second love or sanction lust.
And did they hear and heed the prayer,
Or, through that long Olympian reign,
Were they divinities of air
Begot of man's fantastic brain?
In Roman halls their statues still
Serenely stand, but no one now
Ascends the Capitolian Hill,
To render thanks, or urge the vow.
Through now long centuries hath Rome
Throned other God, preached other Creed,
That here still have their central home,
And feed man's hope, content his need.
Against these, too, will Time prevail?
No! Let whatever gestates, be,
Secure will last the tender tale
456
From Bethlehem to Calvary.
Throughout this world of pain and loss,
Man ne'er will cease to bend his knee
To Crown of Thorns, to Spear, to Cross,
And Doorway of Humility.
XLI
If Reason be the sole safe guide
In man implanted from above,
Why crave we for one only face,
Why consecrate the name of Love?
Faces there are no whit less fair,
Yet ruddier lip, more radiant eye,
Same rippling smile, same auburn hair,
But not for us. Say, Reason, why.
Why bound our hearts when April pied
Comes singing, or when hawthorn blows?
Doth logic in the lily hide,
And where's the reason in the rose?
Why weld our keels and launch our ships,
If Reason urge some wiser part,
Kiss England's Flag with dying lips
And fold its glories to the heart?
In this gross world we touch and see,
If Reason be no trusty guide,
For world unseen why should it be
The sole explorer justified?
The homing swallow knows its nest,
Sure curves the comet to its goal,
Instinct leads Autumn to its rest,
And why not Faith the homing soul?
Is Reason so aloof, aloft,
It doth not 'gainst itself rebel,
457
And are not Reason's reasonings oft
By Reason proved unreasonable?
He is perplexed no more, who prays,
``Hail, Mary Mother, full of grace!''
O drag me from Doubt's endless maze,
And let me see my Loved One's face!
XLII
``Upon this rock!'' Yet even here
Where Christian God ousts Pagan wraith,
Rebellious Reason whets its spear,
And smites upon the shield of Faith.
On sacred mount, down seven-hilled slopes,
Fearless it faces foe and friend,
Saying to man's immortal hopes,
``Whatso began, perforce must end.''
Not men alone, but gods too, die;
Fanes are, like hearths, left bare and lone;
This earth will into fragments fly,
And Heaven itself be overthrown.
Why then should Man immortal be?
He is but fleeting form, to fade,
Like momentary cloud, or sea
Of waves dispersed as soon as made.
Yet if 'tis Force, not Form, survives,
Meseems therein that one may find
Some comfort for distressful lives;
For, if Force ends not, why should Mind?
Is Doubt more forceful than Belief?
The doctor's cap than friar's cowl?
O ripeness of the falling leaf!
O wisdom of the moping owl!
Man's Mind will ever stand apart
458
From Science, save this have for goal
The evolution of the heart,
And sure survival of the Soul.
XLIII
The Umbilicum lonely stands
Where once rose porch and vanished dome;
But he discerns who understands
That every road may lead to Rome.
Enthroned in Peter's peaceful Chair,
The spiritual Caesar sways
A wider Realm of earth and air
Than trembled at Octavian's gaze.
His universal arms embrace
The saint, the sinner, and the sage,
And proffer refuge, comfort, grace
To tribulation's pilgrimage.
Here scientific searchers find
Precursors for two thousand years,
Who in a drouthy world divined
Fresh springs for human doubts and fears.
Here fair chaste Agnes veils her face
From prowlers of the sensual den,
And pity, pardon, and embrace
Await repentant Magdalen.
Princess and peasant-mother wend
To self-same altar, self-same shrine,
And Cardinal and Patriarch bend
Where lepers kneel, and beggars whine.
And is there then, in my distress,
No road, no gate, no shrine, for me?
The answer comes, ``Yes, surely, yes!
The Doorway of Humility.''
459
O rival Faiths! O clamorous Creeds!
Would you but hush your strife in prayer,
And raise one Temple for our needs,
Then, then, we all might worship there.
But dogma new with dogma old
Clashes to soothe the spirit's grief,
And offer to the unconsoled
Polyglot Babel of Belief!
XLIV
The billows roll, and rise, and break,
Around me; fixedly shine the stars
In clear dome overhead, and take
Their course, unheeding earthly jars.
Yet if one's upward gaze could be
But stationed where the planets are,
The star were restless as the sea,
The sea be tranquil as the star.
Hollowed like cradle, then like grave,
Now smoothly curved, now shapeless spray,
Withal the undirected wave
Forms, and reforms, and knows its way.
Then, waters, bear me on where He,
Ere death absolved at Christian font,
Removed Rome's menaced majesty
Eastward beyond the Hellespont.
Foreseeing not what Fate concealed,
But Time's caprice would there beget,
That Cross would unto Crescent yield,
Caesar and Christ to Mahomet.
Is it then man's predestined state
To search for, ne'er to find, the Light?
Arise, my Star, illuminate
These empty spaces of the Night!
460
XLV
Last night I heard the cuckoo call
Among the moist green glades of home,
And in the Chase around the Hall
Saw the May hawthorn flower and foam.
Deep in the wood where primrose stars
Paled before bluebell's dazzling reign,
The nightingale's sad sobbing bars
Rebuked the merle's too joyful strain.
The kine streamed forth from stall and byre,
The foal frisked round its mother staid,
The meads, by sunshine warmed, took fire,
And lambs in pasture, bleating, played.
The uncurbed rivulets raced to where
The statelier river curled and wound,
And trout, of human step aware,
Shot through the wave without a sound.
Adown the village street, as clear
As in one's wakeful mid-day hours,
Beheld I Monica drawing near,
Her vestal lap one crib of flowers.
Lending no look to me, she passed
By the stone path, as oft before,
Between old mounds Spring newly grassed,
And entered through the Little Door.
Led by her feet, I hastened on,
But, ere my feverish steps could get
To the low porch, lo! Morning shone
On Moslem dome and minaret!
CONSTANTINOPLE
461
XLVI
Now Vesper brings the sunset hour,
And, where crusading Knighthood trod,
Muezzin from his minaret tower
Proclaims, ``There is no God but God!''
Male God who shares his godhead with
No Virgin Mother's sacred tear,
But finds on earth congenial kith
In wielders of the sword and spear:
Male God who on male lust bestows
The ruddy lip, the rounded limb,
And promises, at battle's close,
Houri, not saint nor seraphim.
Swift through the doubly-guarded stream,
Shoots the caïque 'neath oarsmen brisk,
While from its cushioned cradle gleam
The eyes of yashmaked odalisque.
Unchanged adown the changing years,
Here where the Judas blossoms blaze,
Against Sophia's marble piers
The scowling Muslim lean and gaze;
And still at sunset's solemn hour,
Where Christ's devout Crusader trod,
Defiant from the minaret's tower
Proclaim, ``There is no God but God!''
XLVII
Three rival Rituals. One revered
In that loved English hamlet where,
With flowers in Vicarage garden reared,
She decks the altar set for prayer:
Another, where majestic Rome,
With fearless Faith and flag unfurled
462
'Gainst Doubt's ephemeral wave and foam,
Demands obedience from the world.
The third, where now I stand, and where
Two hoary Continents have met,
And Islam guards from taint and tare
Monistic Creed of Mahomet.
Yet older than all three, but banned
To suffer still the exile's doom
From shrine where Turkish sentries stand,
And Christians wrangle round Christ's tomb.
Where then find Creed, divine or dead,
All may embrace, and none contemn?Remember Who it was that said,
``Not here, nor at Jerusalem!''
ATHENS
XLVIII
To Acrocorinth's brow I climb,
And, lulled in retrospective bliss,
Descry, as through the mists of time,
Faintly the far Acropolis.
Below me, rivers, mountains, vales,
Wide stretch of ancient Hellas lies:
Symbol of Song that never fails,
Parnassus communes with the skies.
I linger, dream-bound by the Past,
Till sundown joins time's deep abyss,
Then skirt, through shadows moonlight-cast,
Lone strand of sailless Salamis,
Until Eleusis gleams through dawn,
Where, though a suppliant soul I come,
The veil remains still unwithdrawn,
463
And all the Oracles are dumb.
So onward to the clear white Light,
Where, though the worshippers be gone,
Abides on unmysterious height
The calm unquestioning Parthenon.
Find I, now there I stand at last,
That naked Beauty, undraped Truth,
Can satisfy our yearnings vast,
The doubts of age, the dreams of youth;
That, while we ask, in futile strife,
From altar, tripod, fount, or well,
Form is the secret soul of life,
And Art the only Oracle;
That Hera and Athena, linked
With Aphrodite, hush distress,
And, in their several gifts distinct,
Withal are Triune Goddesses?
That mortal wiser then was He
Who gave the prize to Beauty's smile,
Divides his gifts among the Three,
And thuswise baffles Discord's guile?
But who is wise? The nobler twain,
Who the restraining girdle wear,
Contend too often all in vain
With sinuous curve and frolic hair.
Just as one sees in marble, still,
Pan o'er Apollo's shoulder lean,
Suggesting to the poet's quill
The sensual note, the hint obscene.
Doth then the pure white Light grow dim,
And must it be for ever thus?
Listen! I hear a far-off Hymn,
Veni, Creator, Spiritus!
464
XLIX
The harvest of Hymettus drips
As sweet as when the Attic bees
Swarmed round the honey-laden lips
Of heavenly-human Sophocles.
The olives are as green in grove
As in the days the poets bless,
When Pallas with Poseidon strove
To be the City's Patroness.
The wine-hued main, white marble frieze,
Dome of blue ether over all,
One still beholds, but nowhere sees
Panathenaic Festival.
O'erhead, no Zeus or frowns or nods,
Olympus none in air or skies;
Below, a sepulchre of Gods,
And tombs of dead Divinities.
Yet, are they dead? Still stricken blind,
Tiresiaslike, are they that see,
With bold uncompromising mind,
Wisdom in utter nudity;
Experiencing a kindred fate
With the First Parents of us all,
Jehovah thrust through Eden's Gate,
When Knowledge brought about their Fall.
Hath Aphrodite into foam,
Whence She first flowered, sunk back once more,
And doth She nowhere find a home,
Or worship, upon Christian shore?
Her shrine is in the human breast,
To find her none need soar or dive.
Goodness or Loveliness our quest,
The ever-helpful Gods survive.
465
Hellas retorts, when Hebrew gibes
At Gods of levity and lust,
``God of Judaea's wandering tribes
Was jealous, cruel, and unjust.''
Godhead, withal, remains the same,
And Art embalms its symbols still;
As Poets, when athirst for Fame,
Still dream of Aganippe's rill.
Why still pursue a bootless quest,
And wander heartsore farther East,
Because unanswered, south or west,
By Pagan seer or Christian priest?
Brahma and Buddha, what have they
To offer to my shoreless search?
``Let Contemplation be,'' they say,
``Your ritual, Nothingness your Church.
``Passion and purpose both forsake,
Echoes from non-existent wall;
We do but dream we are awake,
Ourselves the deepest dream of all.
``We dream we think, feel, touch, and see,
And what these are, still dreaming, guess,
Though there is no Reality
Behind their fleeting semblances.''
Thus the East answers my appeal,
Denies, and so illudes, my want.
Alas! Could I but cease to feel,
Brahma should be my Hierophant.
But, hampered by my Western mind,
I cannot set the Spirit free
From Matter, but Illusion find,
466
Of all, the most illusory.
DELPHI
LI
The morning mists that hid the bay
And curtained mountains fast asleep,
Begin to feel the touch of day,
And roll from off both wave and steep.
In floating folds they curve and rise,
Then slowly melt and merge in air,
Till high above me glow the skies,
And cloudless sunshine everywhere.
Parnassus wears nor veil nor frown,
Windless the eagle wings his way,
As I from Delphi gaze adown
On Salona and Amphissa.
It was the sovran Sun that drew
Aloft and scattered morning haze,
And now fills all the spacious blue
With its own glorifying rays.
And, no less sovran than the sun,
Imagination brings relief
Of morning light to shadows dun,
To heart's distress, and spirit's grief.
Parnassus boasts no loftier peak
Than Poet's heavenward song; which, though
Harbouring among the sad and weak,
Lifteth aloft man's griefs below.
Though sun-bronzed Phocian maidens lave
Their kerchiefs in Castalia's spring,
The Muses linger round its wave,
And aid the pilgrim sent to sing.
467
And, listening there, I seem to hear
The unseen Oracle say, ``Be strong:
Subdue the sigh, repress the tear,
And let not sorrow silence Song.
``You now have learnt enough from pain;
And, if worse anguish lurk behind,
Breathe in it some unselfish strain,
And with grief's wisdom aid your kind.
``Who but of his own suffering sings,
Is like an eagle, robbed, distressed,
That vainly shrieks and beats its wings,
Because it cannot find its nest.
``Let male Imagination wed
The orphan, Sorrow, to console
Its virgin loneness, whence are bred
Serenity and self-control.
``Hence let the classic breezes blow
You to your Land beyond the sea,
That you may make, for others' woe,
Your own a healing melody;
``To wintry woe no more a slave,
But, having dried your April tears,
Behold a helpful harvest wave
From ridges of the fallow years.''
LII
Rebuked thus by the stately Past,
Whose solemn choruses endure
Through voices new and visions vast,
And centuries of sepulture,
Because, serene, it never blinked
At sheen or shadow of the sun,
But Hades and Olympus linked
468
With Salamis and Marathon;
Which held despondency at bay
And, while revering Fate's decree,
Reconciled with majestic lay
Man to the Human Tragedy;
To Gods of every land I vowed,
Judaea, Hellas, Mecca, Rome,
No more to live by sorrow bowed,
But, wending backward to my home,
Thenceforth to muse on woe more wide
Than individual distress,
The loftier Muses for my guide,
Minerva for my monitress;
Nor yet to scorn the tender aid
Of Christian martyr, virgin, sage,
And, meekly pondering in the shade,
Proffer ripe counsel to my Age.
And, haply, since 'tis Song alone
Can baffle death, and conquer time,
Maiden unborn in days unknown,
Under the leaves of fragrant lime,
Scanning the verse that here is writ,
While cherishing some secret smart
Of love or loss, may glean from it
Some comfort for her weary heart;
And, gently warned, grave minds may own
The world hath more to bear than they,
And, while I dream 'neath mossy stone,
Repeat my name, and love my lay.
LIII
Scarce to the all-indwelling Power
That vow was uttered, ere there came
469
A messenger in boyhood's flower,
Winged with his search, his face aflame.
From Amphissa he straight had clomb,
Thridding that devious mountain land,
With letter from my far-off home,
And written by my Loved One's hand.
``Come to me where I drooping lie.
None yet have died of Love, they say:
Withal, I sometimes think that I
Have prayed and sighed my life away.
``I want your absolution, dear,
For whatso wrong I may have done;
My conscience waneth less severe,
In softness of the setting sun.
``'Twas I, 'twas I, far more than you,
That stood in need, as now I see,
Stooping, to enter meekly through
The Doorway of Humility.
``In vain I turn to Throne of Grace,
Where sorrows cease, and tears are dry;
I fain once more would see your face,
And hear your voice, before I die.''
ENGLAND
LIV
The oak logs smoulder on my hearth,
Though round them hums no household talk;
The roses in the garden-garth
Hang mournfully on curving stalk.
My wolf-hound round me leaps and bays,
That wailed lost footsteps when I went:
He little knows the grief that weighs
470
On my return from banishment.
Half Autumn now, half Summer yet,
For Nature hath a human heart,
It seems as though they, having met,
To take farewell, are loth to part.
The splendour of the Year's decline
Hath not yet come. One still can see
Late honeysuckle intertwine
With Maiden's-Bower and briony.
The bracken-fronds, fast yellowing, tower
From out sere needles of the pine;
Now hawkweed blooms where foxgloves flower,
And bramble where once eglantine.
And, as I wend with hurrying feet
Across the park, along the lane
That leads unto the hamlet street,
And cradle of my bliss and bane,
In cottage plots on either side,
O'er mignonette and fragrant stock
Soar tiger-lilies lithe and tall,
And homely-sheltered hollyhock.
And when I reach the low grey wall
That skirts God's-acre on the hill,
I see, awaiting my recall,
The Little Door stand open still.
A dip, a slight descent, and then
Into the Vicarage Walk I passed;
It seemed as though the tongues of men
Had left it since I saw it last.
Round garden-plot, in westering sun,
Her agëd parents slowly stepped:
Her Mother had the face of one
Who oft hath prayed, and oft hath wept.
471
She wore the silent plaintive grace
Of Autumn just before its close,
And on her slowly fading face
The pathos of November rose.
With pitying gaze and accents kind,
``Go in,'' she said, ``and mount the stair;
And you through open door will find
That Monica awaits you there.''
LV
I mounted. At half-open door
Pausing, I softly called her name,
As one would pause and halt before
Heaven's Gateway. But no answer came.
She lies, methought, in Sleep's caress,
So, passing in, I seemed to see,
So saintly white the vision, less
A chamber than a Sanctuary.
Vestured in white, on snow-white bed,
She lay, as dreaming something sweet,
Madonna lilies at her head,
Madonna lilies at her feet.
A thought, I did not dare to speak,``Is this the sleep of life or death?''
And, with my cheek against her cheek,
Listening, I seemed to hear her breath.
'Twas Love's last blindness not to see
Her sinless soul had taken wing
Unto the Land, if such there be,
Where saints adore, and Seraphs sing.
And yet I felt within my heart,
Though lids were closed and lips were dumb,
That, for Love's sake, her soul in part
Had lingered here, till I should come.
472
I kissed her irresponsive hand,
I laid my lips on her cold brow,
That She, like me, should understand
'Twas thus I sealed our nuptial vow.
And then I saw upon her breast
A something writ, she fain had said
Had I been near, to me addressed,
Which, kneeling down, I took and read.
LVI
``I prayed I might prolong my years
Till you could come and hush my sighs,
And dry my penitential tears;
But Heaven hath willed it otherwise:
``That I may expiate the wrong
By me inflicted on us both,
When, yet Love's novice, feebly strong,
I sinned against Love's sovran troth.
``Now Death, the mirror unto Life,
Shows me that nought should keep apart
Those who, though sore perplexed by strife
'Twixt Faith and Doubt, are one in heart.
``For Doubt is one with Faith when they,
Who doubt, for Truth's sake suffering live;
And Faith meanwhile should hope and pray,
Withholding not what Love can give.
``We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He,
``But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
473
In patience through the darkness grope;
``Until our finer sense expands,
And we exchange for holier sight
The earthly help of voice and hands,
And in His light behold the Light.
``Had my poor Love but been more wise,
I should have ta'en you to my breast,
Striving to hush your plaintive cries,
And rock your Reason back to rest.
``But, though alone you now must tread
Where we together should have trod,
In loneliness you may be led,
Through faith in me, to Faith in God.
``With tranquil purpose, fervent mind,
Foster, while you abide on earth,
And humbly proffer to your kind,
The gift assigned to you at birth.
``As in the far-off boyish year
When did your singing voice awake,
Disinterestedly revere
And love it for its own great sake.
``And when life takes autumnal hues,
With fervent reminiscence woo
All the affections of the Muse,
And write the poem lived by you.
``And should, until your days shall end,
You still the lyric voice retain,
With its seductive music blend
A graver note, a loftier strain.
``While buoyant youth and manhood strong
Follow where Siren sounds entice,
The Deities of Love and Song,
Rapture and loveliness, suffice.
474
``But when decay, and pain, and loss,
Remind one of the Goal forgot,
And we in turn must bear the Cross,
The Pagan Gods can help us not.
``Nor need you then seek, far and near,
More sumptuous shrines on alien strand,
But with domestic mind revere
The Ritual of your native Land.
``The Little Door stands open wide,
And, if you meekly pass therethrough,
Though I no longer kneel inside,
I shall be hovering near to you.
``Farewell! till you shall learn the whole
Of what we here but see in part.
Now I to God commend my soul,
And unto you I leave my heart.''
LVII
I wended up the slope once more
To where the Church stands lone and still,
And passed beneath the Little Door,
My will the subject of Her will.
The sunset rays through pictured pane
Fell, fretted into weft and woof,
On transept, nave, and aisle, to wane
On column cold and vaulted roof.
Within the carven altar screen
Were lilies tall, and white, and fair,
So like to those I late had seen,
It seemed She must be sleeping there.
Mutely I knelt, with bended brow
And shaded eyes, but heart intent,
To learn, should any teach me now,
What Life, and Love, and Sorrow meant.
475
And there remained until the shroud
Of dusk foretold the coming night;
And then I rose, and prayed aloud,
``Let there be Light! Let there be Light!''
~ Alfred Austin,
625:The Victories Of Love. Book I
From Frederick Graham
Mother, I smile at your alarms!
I own, indeed, my Cousin's charms,
But, like all nursery maladies,
Love is not badly taken twice.
Have you forgotten Charlotte Hayes,
My playmate in the pleasant days
At Knatchley, and her sister, Anne,
The twins, so made on the same plan,
That one wore blue, the other white,
To mark them to their father's sight;
And how, at Knatchley harvesting,
You bade me kiss her in the ring,
Like Anne and all the others? You,
That never of my sickness knew,
Will laugh, yet had I the disease,
And gravely, if the signs are these:
As, ere the Spring has any power,
The almond branch all turns to flower,
Though not a leaf is out, so she
The bloom of life provoked in me;
And, hard till then and selfish, I
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
And service: life was mere delight
In being wholly good and right,
As she was; just, without a slur;
Honouring myself no less than her;
Obeying, in the loneliest place,
Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace
Assured that one so fair, so true,
He only served that was so too.
For me, hence weak towards the weak,
No more the unnested blackbird's shriek
Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
Wander'd the gadding butterfly,
Unscared by my flung cap; the bee,
242
Rifling the hollyhock in glee,
Was no more trapp'd with his own flower,
And for his honey slain. Her power,
From great things even to the grass
Through which the unfenced footways pass,
Was law, and that which keeps the law,
Cherubic gaiety and awe;
Day was her doing, and the lark
Had reason for his song; the dark
In anagram innumerous spelt
Her name with stars that throbb'd and felt;
'Twas the sad summit of delight
To wake and weep for her at night;
She turn'd to triumph or to shame
The strife of every childish game;
The heart would come into my throat
At rosebuds; howsoe'er remote,
In opposition or consent,
Each thing, or person, or event,
Or seeming neutral howsoe'er,
All, in the live, electric air,
Awoke, took aspect, and confess'd
In her a centre of unrest,
Yea, stocks and stones within me bred
Anxieties of joy and dread.
O, bright apocalyptic sky
O'erarching childhood! Far and nigh
Mystery and obscuration none,
Yet nowhere any moon or sun!
What reason for these sighs? What hope,
Daunting with its audacious scope
The disconcerted heart, affects
These ceremonies and respects?
Why stratagems in everything?
Why, why not kiss her in the ring?
'Tis nothing strange that warriors bold,
Whose fierce, forecasting eyes behold
The city they desire to sack,
Humbly begin their proud attack
By delving ditches two miles off,
Aware how the fair place would scoff
243
At hasty wooing; but, O child,
Why thus approach thy playmate mild?
One morning, when it flush'd my thought
That, what in me such wonder wrought
Was call'd, in men and women, love,
And, sick with vanity thereof,
I, saying loud, ‘I love her,’ told
My secret to myself, behold
A crisis in my mystery!
For, suddenly, I seem'd to be
Whirl'd round, and bound with showers of threads
As when the furious spider sheds
Captivity upon the fly
To still his buzzing till he die;
Only, with me, the bonds that flew,
Enfolding, thrill'd me through and through
With bliss beyond aught heaven can have
And pride to dream myself her slave.
A long, green slip of wilder'd land,
With Knatchley Wood on either hand,
Sunder'd our home from hers. This day
Glad was I as I went her way.
I stretch'd my arms to the sky, and sprang
O'er the elastic sod, and sang
‘I love her, love her!’ to an air
Which with the words came then and there;
And even now, when I would know
All was not always dull and low,
I mind me awhile of the sweet strain
Love taught me in that lonely lane.
Such glories fade, with no more mark
Than when the sunset dies to dark.
They pass, the rapture and the grace
Ineffable, their only trace
A heart which, having felt no less
Than pure and perfect happiness,
Is duly dainty of delight;
A patient, poignant appetite
For pleasures that exceed so much
244
The poor things which the world calls such,
That, when these lure it, then you may
The lion with a wisp of hay.
That Charlotte, whom we scarcely knew
From Anne but by her ribbons blue,
Was loved, Anne less than look'd at, shows
That liking still by favour goes!
This Love is a Divinity,
And holds his high election free
Of human merit; or let's say,
A child by ladies call'd to play,
But careless of their becks and wiles,
Till, seeing one who sits and smiles
Like any else, yet only charms,
He cries to come into her arms.
Then, for my Cousins, fear me not!
None ever loved because he ought.
Fatal were else this graceful house,
So full of light from ladies' brows.
There's Mary; Heaven in her appears
Like sunshine through the shower's bright tears;
Mildred's of Earth, yet happier far
Than most men's thoughts of Heaven are;
But, for Honoria, Heaven and Earth
Seal'd amity in her sweet birth.
The noble Girl! With whom she talks
She knights first with her smile; she walks,
Stands, dances, to such sweet effect,
Alone she seems to move erect.
The brightest and the chastest brow
Rules o'er a cheek which seems to show
That love, as a mere vague suspense
Of apprehensive innocence,
Perturbs her heart; love without aim
Or object, like the sunlit flame
That in the Vestals' Temple glow'd,
Without the image of a god.
And this simplicity most pure
She sets off with no less allure
Of culture, subtly skill'd to raise
The power, the pride, and mutual praise
245
Of human personality
Above the common sort so high,
It makes such homely souls as mine
Marvel how brightly life may shine.
How you would love her! Even in dress
She makes the common mode express
New knowledge of what's fit so well
'Tis virtue gaily visible!
Nay, but her silken sash to me
Were more than all morality,
Had not the old, sweet, feverous ill
Left me the master of my will!
So, Mother, feel at rest, and please
To send my books on board. With these,
When I go hence, all idle hours
Shall help my pleasures and my powers.
I've time, you know, to fill my post,
And yet make up for schooling lost
Through young sea-service. They all speak
German with ease; and this, with Greek,
(Which Dr. Churchill thought I knew,)
And history, which I fail'd in too,
Will stop a gap I somewhat dread,
After the happy life I've led
With these my friends; and sweet 'twill be
To abridge the space from them to me.
II
From Mrs. Graham
My Child, Honoria Churchill sways
A double power through Charlotte Hayes.
In minds to first-love's memory pledged
The second Cupid's born full-fledged.
I saw, and trembled for the day
When you should see her beauty, gay
And pure as apple-blooms, that show
Outside a blush and inside snow,
Her high and touching elegance
Of order'd life as free as chance.
246
Ah, haste from her bewitching side,
No friend for you, far less a bride!
But, warning from a hope so wild,
I wrong you. Yet this know, my Child:
He that but once too nearly hears
The music of forefended spheres,
Is thenceforth lonely, and for all
His days like one who treads the Wall
Of China, and, on this hand, sees
Cities and their civilities,
And, on the other, lions. Well,
(Your rash reply I thus foretell,)
Good is the knowledge of what's fair,
Though bought with temporal despair!
Yes, good for one, but not for two.
Will it content a wife that you
Should pine for love, in love's embrace,
Through having known a happier grace;
And break with inward sighs your rest,
Because, though good, she's not the best?
You would, you think, be just and kind,
And keep your counsel! You will find
You cannot such a secret keep;
'Twill out, like murder, in your sleep;
A touch will tell it, though, for pride,
She may her bitter knowledge hide;
And, while she accepts love's make-believe,
You'll twice despise what you'd deceive.
I send the books. Dear Child, adieu!
Tell me of all you are and do.
I know, thank God, whate'er it be,
'Twill need no veil 'twixt you and me.
III
From Frederick
The multitude of voices blythe
Of early day, the hissing scythe
Across the dew drawn and withdrawn,
The noisy peacock on the lawn,
247
These, and the sun's eye-gladding gleam,
This morning, chased the sweetest dream
That e'er shed penitential grace
On life's forgetful commonplace;
Yet 'twas no sweeter than the spell
To which I woke to say farewell.
Noon finds me many a mile removed
From her who must not be beloved;
And us the waste sea soon shall part,
Heaving for aye, without a heart!
Mother, what need to warn me so?
I love Miss Churchill? Ah, no, no.
I view, enchanted, from afar,
And love her as I love a star,
For, not to speak of colder fear,
Which keeps my fancy calm, I hear,
Under her life's gay progress hurl'd,
The wheels of the preponderant world,
Set sharp with swords that fool to slay
Who blunders from a poor byway,
To covet beauty with a crown
Of earthly blessing added on;
And she's so much, it seems to me,
Beyond all women womanly,
I dread to think how he should fare
Who came so near as to despair.
IV
From Frederick
Yonder the sombre vessel rides
Where my obscure condition hides.
Waves scud to shore against the wind
That flings the sprinkling surf behind;
In port the bickering pennons show
Which way the ships would gladly go;
Through Edgecumb Park the rooted trees
Are tossing, reckless, in the breeze;
On top of Edgecumb's firm-set tower,
As foils, not foibles, of its power,
248
The light vanes do themselves adjust
To every veering of the gust:
By me alone may nought be given
To guidance of the airs of heaven?
In battle or peace, in calm or storm,
Should I my daily task perform,
Better a thousand times for love,
Who should my secret soul reprove?
Beholding one like her, a man
Longs to lay down his life! How can
Aught to itself seem thus enough,
When I have so much need thereof?
Blest in her place, blissful is she;
And I, departing, seem to be
Like the strange waif that comes to run
A few days flaming near the sun,
And carries back, through boundless night,
Its lessening memory of light.
Oh, my dear Mother, I confess
To a deep grief of homelessness,
Unfelt, save once, before. 'Tis years
Since such a shower of girlish tears
Disgraced me? But this wretched Inn,
At Plymouth, is so full of din,
Talkings and trampings to and fro.
And then my ship, to which I go
To-night, is no more home. I dread,
As strange, the life I long have led;
And as, when first I went to school,
And found the horror of a rule
Which only ask'd to be obey'd,
I lay and wept, of dawn afraid,
And thought, with bursting heart, of one
Who, from her little, wayward son,
Required obedience, but above
Obedience still regarded love,
So change I that enchanting place,
The abode of innocence and grace
And gaiety without reproof,
For the black gun-deck's louring roof,
249
Blind and inevitable law
Which makes light duties burdens, awe
Which is not reverence, laughters gain'd
At cost of purities profaned,
And whatsoever most may stir
Remorseful passion towards her,
Whom to behold is to depart
From all defect of life and heart.
But, Mother, I shall go on shore,
And see my Cousin yet once more!
'Twere wild to hope for her, you say.
l've torn and cast those words away.
Surely there's hope! For life 'tis well
Love without hope's impossible;
So, if I love, it is that hope
Is not outside the outer scope
Of fancy. You speak truth: this hour
I must resist, or lose the power.
What! and, when some short months are o'er,
Be not much other than before?
Drop from the bright and virtuous sphere
In which I'm held but while she's dear?
For daily life's dull, senseless mood,
Slay the fine nerves of gratitude
And sweet allegiance, which I owe
Whether the debt be weal or woe?
Nay, Mother, I, forewarn'd, prefer
To want for all in wanting her.
For all? Love's best is not bereft
Ever from him to whom is left
The trust that God will not deceive
His creature, fashion'd to believe
The prophecies of pure desire.
Not loss, not death, my love shall tire.
A mystery does my heart foretell;
Nor do I press the oracle
For explanations. Leave me alone,
And let in me love's will be done.
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V
From Frederick
Fashion'd by Heaven and by art
So is she, that she makes the heart
Ache and o'erflow with tears, that grace
So lovely fair should have for place,
(Deeming itself at home the while,)
The unworthy earth! To see her smile
Amid this waste of pain and sin,
As only knowing the heaven within,
Is sweet, and does for pity stir
Passion to be her minister:
Wherefore last night I lay awake,
And said, ‘Ah, Lord, for Thy love's sake,
Give not this darling child of Thine
To care less reverent than mine!’
And, as true faith was in my word,
I trust, I trust that I was heard.
The waves, this morning, sped to land,
And shouted hoarse to touch the strand,
Where Spring, that goes not out to sea,
Lay laughing in her lovely glee;
And, so, my life was sunlit spray
And tumult, as, once more to-day,
For long farewell did I draw near
My Cousin, desperately dear.
Faint, fierce, the truth that hope was none
Gleam'd like the lightning in the sun;
Yet hope I had, and joy thereof.
The father of love is hope, (though love
Lives orphan'd on, when hope is dead,)
And, out of my immediate dread
And crisis of the coming hour,
Did hope itself draw sudden power.
So the still brooding storm, in Spring,
Makes all the birds begin to sing.
Mother, your foresight did not err:
I've lost the world, and not won her.
And yet, ah, laugh not, when you think
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What cup of life I sought to drink!
The bold, said I, have climb'd to bliss
Absurd, impossible, as this,
With nought to help them but so great
A heart it fascinates their fate.
If ever Heaven heard man's desire,
Mine, being made of altar-fire,
Must come to pass, and it will be
That she will wait, when she shall see,
This evening, how I go to get,
By means unknown, I know not yet
Quite what, but ground whereon to stand,
And plead more plainly for her hand!
And so I raved, and cast in hope
A superstitious horoscope!
And still, though something in her face
Portended ‘No!’ with such a grace
It burthen'd me with thankfulness,
Nothing was credible but ‘Yes.’
Therefore, through time's close pressure bold,
I praised myself, and boastful told
My deeds at Acre; strain'd the chance
I had of honour and advance
In war to come; and would not see
Sad silence meant, ‘What's this to me.’
When half my precious hour was gone,
She rose to greet a Mr. Vaughan;
And, as the image of the moon
Breaks up, within some still lagoon
That feels the soft wind suddenly,
Or tide fresh flowing from the sea,
And turns to giddy flames that go
Over the water to and fro,
Thus, when he took her hand to-night,
Her lovely gravity of light
Was scatter'd into many smiles
And flattering weakness. Hope beguiles
No more my heart, dear Mother. He,
By jealous looks, o'erhonour'd me.
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With nought to do, and fondly fain
To hear her singing once again,
I stay'd, and turn'd her music o'er;
Then came she with me to the door.
‘Dearest Honoria,’ I said,
(By my despair familiar made,)
‘Heaven bless you!’ Oh, to have back then stepp'd
And fallen upon her neck, and wept,
And said, ‘My friend, I owe you all
‘I am, and have, and hope for. Call
‘For some poor service; let me prove
‘To you, or him here whom you love,
‘My duty. Any solemn task,
‘For life's whole course, is all I ask!’
Then she must surely have wept too,
And said, ‘My friend, what can you do!’
And I should have replied, ‘I'll pray
‘For you and him three times a-day,
‘And, all day, morning, noon, and night,
‘My life shall be so high and right
‘That never Saint yet scaled the stairs
‘Of heaven with more availing prayers!’
But this (and, as good God shall bless
Somehow my end, I'll do no less,)
I had no right to speak. Oh, shame,
So rich a love, so poor a claim!
My Mother, now my only friend,
Farewell. The school-books which you send
I shall not want, and so return.
Give them away, or sell, or burn.
I'll write from Malta. Would I might
But be your little Child to-night,
And feel your arms about me fold,
Against this loneliness and cold!
VI
From Mrs. Graham
The folly of young girls! They doff
Their pride to smooth success, and scoff
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At far more noble fire and might
That woo them from the dust of fight!
But, Frederick, now the storm is past,
Your sky should not remain o'ercast.
A sea-life's dull, and, oh, beware
Of nourishing, for zest, despair.
My Child, remember, you have twice
Heartily loved; then why not thrice,
Or ten times? But a wise man shuns
To cry ‘All's over,’ more than once.
I'll not say that a young man's soul
Is scarcely measure of the whole
Earthly and heavenly universe,
To which he inveterately prefers
The one beloved woman. Best
Speak to the senses' interest,
Which brooks no mystery nor delay:
Frankly reflect, my Son, and say,
Was there no secret hour, of those
Pass'd at her side in Sarum Close,
When, to your spirit's sick alarm,
It seem'd that all her marvellous charm
Was marvellously fled? Her grace
Of voice, adornment, movement, face
Was what already heart and eye
Had ponder'd to satiety;
And so the good of life was o'er,
Until some laugh not heard before,
Some novel fashion in her hair,
Or style of putting back her chair,
Restored the heavens. Gather thence
The loss-consoling inference.
Yet blame not beauty, which beguiles,
With lovely motions and sweet smiles,
Which while they please us pass away,
The spirit to lofty thoughts that stay
And lift the whole of after-life,
Unless you take the vision to wife,
Which then seems lost, or serves to slake
Desire, as when a lovely lake
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Far off scarce fills the exulting eye
Of one athirst, who comes thereby,
And inappreciably sips
The deep, with disappointed lips.
To fail is sorrow, yet confess
That love pays dearly for success!
No blame to beauty! Let's complain
Of the heart, which can so ill sustain
Delight. Our griefs declare our fall,
But how much more our joys! They pall
With plucking, and celestial mirth
Can find no footing on the earth,
More than the bird of paradise,
Which only lives the while it flies.
Think, also, how 'twould suit your pride
To have this woman for a bride.
Whate'er her faults, she's one of those
To whom the world's last polish owes
A novel grace, which all who aspire
To courtliest custom must acquire.
The world's the sphere she's made to charm,
Which you have shunn'd as if 'twere harm.
Oh, law perverse, that loneliness
Breeds love, society success!
Though young, 'twere now o'er late in life
To train yourself for such a wife;
So she would suit herself to you,
As women, when they marry, do.
For, since 'tis for our dignity
Our lords should sit like lords on high,
We willingly deteriorate
To a step below our rulers' state;
And 'tis the commonest of things
To see an angel, gay with wings,
Lean weakly on a mortal's arm!
Honoria would put off the charm
Of lofty grace that caught your love,
For fear you should not seem above
Herself in fashion and degree,
As in true merit. Thus, you see,
'Twere little kindness, wisdom none,
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To light your cot with such a sun.
VII
From Frederick
Write not, my Mother, her dear name
With the least word or hint of blame.
Who else shall discommend her choice,
I giving it my hearty voice?
Wed me? Ah, never near her come
The knowledge of the narrow home!
Far fly from her dear face, that shows
The sunshine lovelier than the rose,
The sordid gravity they wear
Who poverty's base burthen bear!
(And all are poor who come to miss
Their custom, though a crown be this.)
My hope was, that the wheels of fate,
For my exceeding need, might wait,
And she, unseen amidst all eyes,
Move sightless, till I sought the prize,
With honour, in an equal field.
But then came Vaughan, to whom I yield
With grace as much as any man,
In such cause, to another can.
Had she been mine, it seems to me
That I had that integrity
And only joy in her delight—
But each is his own favourite
In love! The thought to bring me rest
Is that of us she takes the best.
'Twas but to see him to be sure
That choice for her remain'd no more!
His brow, so gaily clear of craft;
His wit, the timely truth that laugh'd
To find itself so well express'd;
His words, abundant yet the best;
His spirit, of such handsome show
You mark'd not that his looks were so;
His bearing, prospects, birth, all these
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Might well, with small suit, greatly please;
How greatly, when she saw arise
The reflex sweetness of her eyes
In his, and every breath defer
Humbly its bated life to her;
Whilst power and kindness of command,
Which women can no more withstand
Than we their grace, were still unquell'd,
And force and flattery both compell'd
Her softness! Say I'm worthy. I
Grew, in her presence, cold and shy.
It awed me, as an angel's might
In raiment of reproachful light.
Her gay looks told my sombre mood
That what's not happy is not good;
And, just because 'twas life to please,
Death to repel her, truth and ease
Deserted me; I strove to talk,
And stammer'd foolishness; my walk
Was like a drunkard's; if she took
My arm, it stiffen'd, ached, and shook:
A likely wooer! Blame her not;
Nor ever say, dear Mother, aught
Against that perfectness which is
My strength, as once it was my bliss.
And do not chafe at social rules.
Leave that to charlatans and fools.
Clay graffs and clods conceive the rose,
So base still fathers best. Life owes
Itself to bread; enough thereof
And easy days condition love;
And, kindly train'd, love's roses thrive,
No more pale, scentless petals five,
Which moisten the considerate eye
To see what haste they make to die,
But heavens of colour and perfume,
Which, month by month, renew the bloom
Of art-born graces, when the year
In all the natural grove is sere.
Blame nought then! Bright let be the air
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About my lonely cloud of care.
VIII
From Frederick
Religion, duty, books, work, friends,—
'Tis good advice, but there it ends.
I'm sick for what these have not got.
Send no more books: they help me not;
I do my work: the void's there still
Which carefullest duty cannot fill.
What though the inaugural hour of right
Comes ever with a keen delight?
Little relieves the labour's heat;
Disgust oft crowns it when complete;
And life, in fact, is not less dull
For being very dutiful.
‘The stately homes of England,’ lo,
‘How beautiful they stand!’ They owe
How much to nameless things like me
Their beauty of security!
But who can long a low toil mend
By looking to a lofty end?
And let me, since 'tis truth, confess
The void's not fill'd by godliness.
God is a tower without a stair,
And His perfection, love's despair.
'Tis He shall judge me when I die;
He suckles with the hissing fly
The spider; gazes calmly down,
Whilst rapine grips the helpless town.
His vast love holds all this and more.
In consternation I adore.
Nor can I ease this aching gulf
With friends, the pictures of myself.
Then marvel not that I recur
From each and all of these to her.
For more of heaven than her have I
No sensitive capacity.
Had I but her, ah, what the gain
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Of owning aught but that domain!
Nay, heaven's extent, however much,
Cannot be more than many such;
And, she being mine, should God to me
Say ‘Lo! my Child, I give to thee
All heaven besides,’ what could I then,
But, as a child, to Him complain
That whereas my dear Father gave
A little space for me to have
In His great garden, now, o'erblest,
I've that, indeed, but all the rest,
Which, somehow, makes it seem I've got
All but my only cared-for plot.
Enough was that for my weak hand
To tend, my heart to understand.
Oh, the sick fact, 'twixt her and me
There's naught, and half a world of sea.
IX
From Frederick
In two, in less than two hours more
I set my foot on English shore,
Two years untrod, and, strange to tell,
Nigh miss'd through last night's storm! There fell
A man from the shrouds, that roar'd to quench
Even the billows' blast and drench.
Besides me none was near to mark
His loud cry in the louder dark,
Dark, save when lightning show'd the deeps
Standing about in stony heaps.
No time for choice! A rope; a flash
That flamed as he rose; a dizzy splash;
A strange, inopportune delight
Of mounting with the billowy might,
And falling, with a thrill again
Of pleasure shot from feet to brain;
And both paced deck, ere any knew
Our peril. Round us press'd the crew,
With wonder in the eyes of most.
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As if the man who had loved and lost
Honoria dared no more than that!
My days have else been stale and flat.
This life's at best, if justly scann'd,
A tedious walk by the other's strand,
With, here and there cast up, a piece
Of coral or of ambergris,
Which, boasted of abroad, we ignore
The burden of the barren shore.
I seldom write, for 'twould be still
Of how the nerves refuse to thrill;
How, throughout doubly-darken'd days,
I cannot recollect her face;
How to my heart her name to tell
Is beating on a broken bell;
And, to fill up the abhorrent gulf,
Scarce loving her, I hate myself.
Yet, latterly, with strange delight,
Rich tides have risen in the night,
And sweet dreams chased the fancies dense
Of waking life's dull somnolence.
I see her as I knew her, grace
Already glory in her face;
I move about, I cannot rest,
For the proud brain and joyful breast
I have of her. Or else I float,
The pilot of an idle boat,
Alone, alone with sky and sea,
And her, the third simplicity.
Or Mildred, to some question, cries,
(Her merry meaning in her eyes,)
‘The Ball, oh, Frederick will go;
‘Honoria will be there!’ and, lo,
As moisture sweet my seeing blurs
To hear my name so link'd with hers,
A mirror joins, by guilty chance,
Either's averted, watchful glance!
Or with me, in the Ball-Room's blaze,
Her brilliant mildness thrids the maze;
Our thoughts are lovely, and each word
260
Is music in the music heard,
And all things seem but parts to be
Of one persistent harmony.
By which I'm made divinely bold;
The secret, which she knows, is told;
And, laughing with a lofty bliss
Of innocent accord, we kiss;
About her neck my pleasure weeps;
Against my lip the silk vein leaps;
Then says an Angel, ‘Day or night,
‘If yours you seek, not her delight,
‘Although by some strange witchery
‘It seems you kiss her, 'tis not she;
‘But, whilst you languish at the side
‘Of a fair-foul phantasmal bride,
‘Surely a dragon and strong tower
‘Guard the true lady in her bower.’
And I say, ‘Dear my Lord, Amen!’
And the true lady kiss again.
Or else some wasteful malady
Devours her shape and dims her eye;
No charms are left, where all were rife,
Except her voice, which is her life,
Wherewith she, for her foolish fear,
Says trembling, ‘Do you love me, Dear?’
And I reply, ‘Sweetest, I vow
‘I never loved but half till now.’
She turns her face to the wall at this,
And says, ‘Go, Love, 'tis too much bliss.’
And then a sudden pulse is sent
About the sounding firmament
In smitings as of silver bars;
The bright disorder of the stars
Is solved by music; far and near,
Through infinite distinctions clear,
Their twofold voices' deeper tone
Utters the Name which all things own,
And each ecstatic treble dwells
On one whereof none other tells;
And we, sublimed to song and fire,
Take order in the wheeling quire,
Till from the throbbing sphere I start,
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Waked by the heaving of my heart.
Such dreams as these come night by night,
Disturbing day with their delight.
Portend they nothing? Who can tell!
God yet may do some miracle.
'Tis nigh two years, and she's not wed,
Or you would know! He may be dead,
Or mad, and loving some one else,
And she, much moved that nothing quells
My constancy, or, simply wroth
With such a wretch, accept my troth
To spite him; or her beauty's gone,
(And that's my dream!) and this man Vaughan
Takes her release: or tongues malign,
Confusing every ear but mine,
Have smirch'd her: ah, 'twould move her, sure,
To find I loved her all the more!
Nay, now I think, haply amiss
I read her words and looks, and his,
That night! Did not his jealousy
Show—Good my God, and can it be
That I, a modest fool, all blest,
Nothing of such a heaven guess'd?
Oh, chance too frail, yet frantic sweet,
To-morrow sees me at her feet!
Yonder, at last, the glad sea roars
Along the sacred English shores!
There lies the lovely land I know,
Where men and women lordliest grow;
There peep the roofs where more than kings
Postpone state cares to country things,
And many a gay queen simply tends
The babes on whom the world depends;
There curls the wanton cottage smoke
Of him that drives but bears no yoke;
There laughs the realm where low and high
Are lieges to society.
And life has all too wide a scope,
Too free a prospect for its hope,
For any private good or ill,
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Except dishonour, quite to fill!
—Mother, since this was penn'd, I've read
That ‘Mr. Vaughan, on Tuesday, wed
‘The beautiful Miss Churchill.’ So
That's over; and to-morrow I go
To take up my new post on board
The ‘Wolf,’ my peace at last restored;
My lonely faith, like heart-of-oak,
Shock-season'd. Grief is now the cloak
I clasp about me to prevent
The deadly chill of a content
With any near or distant good,
Except the exact beatitude
Which love has shown to my desire.
Talk not of ‘other joys and higher,’
I hate and disavow all bliss
As none for me which is not this.
Think not I blasphemously cope
With God's decrees, and cast off hope.
How, when, and where can mine succeed?
I'll trust He knows who made my need.
Baseness of men! Pursuit being o'er,
Doubtless her Husband feels no more
The heaven of heavens of such a Bride,
But, lounging, lets her please his pride
With fondness, guerdons her caress
With little names, and turns a tress
Round idle fingers. If 'tis so,
Why then I'm happier of the two!
Better, for lofty loss, high pain,
Than low content with lofty gain.
Poor, foolish Dove, to trust from me
Her happiness and dignity!
From Frederick
I thought the worst had brought me balm:
'Twas but the tempest's central calm.
Vague sinkings of the heart aver
263
That dreadful wrong is come to her,
And o'er this dream I brood and dote,
And learn its agonies by rote.
As if I loved it, early and late
I make familiar with my fate,
And feed, with fascinated will,
On very dregs of finish'd ill.
I think, she's near him now, alone,
With wardship and protection none;
Alone, perhaps, in the hindering stress
Of airs that clasp him with her dress,
They wander whispering by the wave;
And haply now, in some sea-cave,
Where the ribb'd sand is rarely trod,
They laugh, they kiss. Oh, God! oh, God!
There comes a smile acutely sweet
Out of the picturing dark; I meet
The ancient frankness of her gaze,
That soft and heart-surprising blaze
Of great goodwill and innocence,
And perfect joy proceeding thence!
Ah! made for earth's delight, yet such
The mid-sea air's too gross to touch.
At thought of which, the soul in me
Is as the bird that bites a bee,
And darts abroad on frantic wing,
Tasting the honey and the sting;
And, moaning where all round me sleep
Amidst the moaning of the deep,
I start at midnight from my bed—
And have no right to strike him dead.
What world is this that I am in,
Where chance turns sanctity to sin!
'Tis crime henceforward to desire
The only good; the sacred fire
That sunn'd the universe is hell!
I hear a Voice which argues well:
‘The Heaven hard has scorn'd your cry;
‘Fall down and worship me, and I
‘Will give you peace; go and profane
‘This pangful love, so pure, so vain,
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‘And thereby win forgetfulness
‘And pardon of the spirit's excess,
‘Which soar'd too nigh that jealous Heaven
‘Ever, save thus, to be forgiven.
‘No Gospel has come down that cures
‘With better gain a loss like yours.
‘Be pious! Give the beggar pelf,
‘And love your neighbour as yourself!
‘You, who yet love, though all is o'er,
‘And she'll ne'er be your neighbour more,
‘With soul which can in pity smile
‘That aught with such a measure vile
‘As self should be at all named 'love!'
‘Your sanctity the priests reprove;
‘Your case of grief they wholly miss;
‘The Man of Sorrows names not this.
‘The years, they say, graff love divine
‘On the lopp'd stock of love like thine;
‘The wild tree dies not, but converts.
‘So be it; but the lopping hurts,
‘The graff takes tardily! Men stanch
‘Meantime with earth the bleeding branch,
‘There's nothing heals one woman's loss,
‘And lighten's life's eternal cross
‘With intermission of sound rest,
‘Like lying in another's breast.
‘The cure is, to your thinking, low!
‘Is not life all, henceforward, so?’
Ill Voice, at least thou calm'st my mood.
I'll sleep! But, as I thus conclude,
The intrusions of her grace dispel
The comfortable glooms of hell.
A wonder! Ere these lines were dried,
Vaughan and my Love, his three-days' Bride,
Became my guests. I look'd, and, lo,
In beauty soft as is the snow
And powerful as the avalanche,
She lit the deck. The Heav'n-sent chance!
She smiled, surprised. They came to see
The ship, not thinking to meet me.
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At infinite distance she's my day:
What then to him? Howbeit they say
'Tis not so sunny in the sun
But men might live cool lives thereon!
All's well; for I have seen arise
That reflex sweetness of her eyes
In his, and watch'd his breath defer
Humbly its bated life to her,
His wife. My Love, she's safe in his
Devotion! What ask'd I but this?
They bade adieu; I saw them go
Across the sea; and now I know
The ultimate hope I rested on,
The hope beyond the grave, is gone,
The hope that, in the heavens high,
At last it should appear that I
Loved most, and so, by claim divine,
Should have her, in the heavens, for mine,
According to such nuptial sort
As may subsist in the holy court,
Where, if there are all kinds of joys
To exhaust the multitude of choice
In many mansions, then there are
Loves personal and particular,
Conspicuous in the glorious sky
Of universal charity,
As Phosphor in the sunrise. Now
I've seen them, I believe their vow
Immortal; and the dreadful thought,
That he less honour'd than he ought
Her sanctity, is laid to rest,
And, blessing them, I too am blest.
My goodwill, as a springing air,
Unclouds a beauty in despair;
I stand beneath the sky's pure cope
Unburthen'd even by a hope;
And peace unspeakable, a joy
Which hope would deaden and destroy,
Like sunshine fills the airy gulf
266
Left by the vanishing of self.
That I have known her; that she moves
Somewhere all-graceful; that she loves,
And is belov'd, and that she's so
Most happy, and to heaven will go,
Where I may meet with her, (yet this
I count but accidental bliss,)
And that the full, celestial weal
Of all shall sensitively feel
The partnership and work of each,
And thus my love and labour reach
Her region, there the more to bless
Her last, consummate happiness,
Is guerdon up to the degree
Of that alone true loyalty
Which, sacrificing, is not nice
About the terms of sacrifice,
But offers all, with smiles that say,
'Tis little, but it is for aye!
XI
From Mrs. Graham
You wanted her, my Son, for wife,
With the fierce need of life in life.
That nobler passion of an hour
Was rather prophecy than power;
And nature, from such stress unbent,
Recurs to deep discouragement.
Trust not such peace yet; easy breath,
In hot diseases, argues death;
And tastelessness within the mouth
Worse fever shows than heat or drouth.
Wherefore take, Frederick, timely fear
Against a different danger near:
Wed not one woman, oh, my Child,
Because another has not smiled!
Oft, with a disappointed man,
The first who cares to win him can;
For, after love's heroic strain,
Which tired the heart and brought no gain,
267
He feels consoled, relieved, and eased
To meet with her who can be pleased
To proffer kindness, and compute
His acquiescence for pursuit;
Who troubles not his lonely mood;
And asks for love mere gratitude.
Ah, desperate folly! Yet, we know,
Who wed through love wed mostly so.
At least, my Son, when wed you do,
See that the woman equals you,
Nor rush, from having loved too high,
Into a worse humility.
A poor estate's a foolish plea
For marrying to a base degree.
A woman grown cannot be train'd,
Or, if she could, no love were gain'd;
For, never was a man's heart caught
By graces he himself had taught.
And fancy not 'tis in the might
Of man to do without delight;
For, should you in her nothing find
To exhilarate the higher mind,
Your soul would deaden useless wings
With wickedness of lawful things,
And vampire pleasure swift destroy
Even the memory of joy.
So let no man, in desperate mood,
Wed a dull girl because she's good.
All virtues in his wife soon dim,
Except the power of pleasing him,
Which may small virtue be, or none!
I know my just and tender Son,
To whom the dangerous grace is given
That scorns a good which is not heaven;
My Child, who used to sit and sigh
Under the bright, ideal sky,
And pass, to spare the farmer's wheat,
The poppy and the meadow-sweet!
He would not let his wife's heart ache
For what was mainly his mistake;
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But, having err'd so, all his force
Would fix upon the hard, right course.
She's graceless, say, yet good and true,
And therefore inly fair, and, through
The veils which inward beauty fold,
Faith can her loveliness behold.
Ah, that's soon tired; faith falls away
Without the ceremonial stay
Of outward loveliness and awe.
The weightier matters of the law
She pays: mere mint and cumin not;
And, in the road that she was taught,
She treads, and takes for granted still
Nature's immedicable ill;
So never wears within her eyes
A false report of paradise,
Nor ever modulates her mirth
With vain compassion of the earth,
Which made a certain happier face
Affecting, and a gayer grace
With pathos delicately edged!
Yet, though she be not privileged
To unlock for you your heart's delight,
(Her keys being gold, but not the right,)
On lower levels she may do!
Her joy is more in loving you
Than being loved, and she commands
All tenderness she understands.
It is but when you proffer more
The yoke weighs heavy and chafes sore.
It's weary work enforcing love
On one who has enough thereof,
And honour on the lowlihead
Of ignorance! Besides, you dread,
In Leah's arms, to meet the eyes
Of Rachel, somewhere in the skies,
And both return, alike relieved,
To life less loftily conceived.
Alas, alas!
Then wait the mood
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In which a woman may be woo'd
Whose thoughts and habits are too high
For honour to be flattery,
And who would surely not allow
The suit that you could proffer now.
Her equal yoke would sit with ease;
It might, with wearing, even please,
(Not with a better word to move
The loyal wrath of present love);
She would not mope when you were gay,
For want of knowing aught to say;
Nor vex you with unhandsome waste
Of thoughts ill-timed and words ill-placed;
Nor reckon small things duties small,
And your fine sense fantastical;
Nor would she bring you up a brood
Of strangers bound to you by blood,
Boys of a meaner moral race,
Girls with their mother's evil grace,
But not her chance to sometimes find
Her critic past his judgment kind;
Nor, unaccustom'd to respect,
Which men, where 'tis not claim'd, neglect,
Confirm you selfish and morose,
And slowly, by contagion, gross;
But, glad and able to receive
The honour you would long to give,
Would hasten on to justify
Expectancy, however high,
Whilst you would happily incur
Compulsion to keep up with her.
XII
From Frederick
Your letter, Mother, bears the date
Of six months back, and comes too late.
My Love, past all conceiving lost,
A change seem'd good, at any cost,
From lonely, stupid, silent grief,
Vain, objectless, beyond relief,
270
And, like a sea-fog, settled dense
On fancy, feeling, thought, and sense.
I grew so idle, so despised
Myself, my powers, by Her unprized,
Honouring my post, but nothing more,
And lying, when I lived on shore,
So late of mornings: weak tears stream'd
For such slight cause,—if only gleam'd,
Remotely, beautifully bright,
On clouded eves at sea, the light
Of English headlands in the sun,—
That soon I deem'd 'twere better done
To lay this poor, complaining wraith
Of unreciprocated faith:
And so, with heart still bleeding quick,
But strengthen'd by the comfort sick
Of knowing that She could not care,
I turn'd away from my despair,
And told our chaplain's daughter, Jane,—
A dear, good girl, who saw my pain,
And look'd as if she pitied me,—
How glad and thankful I should be
If some kind woman, not above
Myself in rank, would give her love
To one that knew not how to woo.
Whereat she, without more ado,
Blush'd, spoke of love return'd, and closed
With what she thought I had proposed.
And, trust me, Mother, I and Jane,
We suit each other well. My gain
Is very great in this good Wife,
To whom I'm bound, for natural life,
By hearty faith, yet crossing not
My faith towards—I know not what!
As to the ether is the air,
Is her good to Honoria's fair;
One place is full of both, yet each
Lies quite beyond the other's reach
And recognition.
If you say,
271
Am I contented? Yea and nay!
For what's base but content to grow
With less good than the best we know?
But think me not from life withdrawn,
By passion for a hope that's gone,
So far as to forget how much
A woman is, as merely such,
To man's affection. What is best,
In each, belongs to all the rest;
And though, in marriage, quite to kiss
And half to love the custom is,
'Tis such dishonour, ruin bare,
The soul's interior despair,
And life between two troubles toss'd,
To me, who think not with the most;
Whatever 'twould have been, before
My Cousin's time, 'tis now so sore
A treason to the abiding throne
Of that sweet love which I have known,
I cannot live so, and I bend
My mind perforce to comprehend
That He who gives command to love
Does not require a thing above
The strength He gives. The highest degree
Of the hardest grace, humility;
The step t'ward heaven the latest trod,
And that which makes us most like God,
And us much more than God behoves,
Is, to be humble in our loves.
Henceforth for ever therefore I
Renounce all partiality
Of passion. Subject to control
Of that perspective of the soul
Which God Himself pronounces good,
Confirming claims of neighbourhood,
And giving man, for earthly life,
The closest neighbour in a wife,
I'll serve all. Jane be much more dear
Than all as she is much more near!
I'll love her! Yea, and love's joy comes
Ever from self-love's martyrdoms!
272
Yet, not to lie for God, 'tis true
That 'twas another joy I knew
When freighted was my heart with fire
Of fond, irrational desire
For fascinating, female charms,
And hopeless heaven in Her mild arms.
Nor wrong I any, if I profess
That care for heaven with me were less
But that I'm utterly imbued
With faith of all Earth's hope renew'd
In realms where no short-coming pains
Expectance, and dear love disdains
Time's treason, and the gathering dross,
And lasts for ever in the gloss
Of newness.
All the bright past seems,
Now, but a splendour in my dreams,
Which shows, albeit the dreamer wakes,
The standard of right life. Life aches
To be therewith conform'd; but, oh,
The world's so stolid, dark, and low!
That and the mortal element
Forbid the beautiful intent,
And, like the unborn butterfly,
It feels the wings, and wants the sky.
But perilous is the lofty mood
Which cannot yoke with lowly good.
Right life, for me, is life that wends
By lowly ways to lofty ends.
I well perceive, at length, that haste
T'ward heaven itself is only waste;
And thus I dread the impatient spur
Of aught that speaks too plain of Her.
There's little here that story tells;
But music talks of nothing else.
Therefore, when music breathes, I say,
(And urge my task,) Away, away!
Thou art the voice of one I knew,
But what thou say'st is not yet true;
Thou art the voice of her I loved,
273
And I would not be vainly moved.
So that which did from death set free
All things, now dons death's mockery,
And takes its place with things that are
But little noted. Do not mar
For me your peace! My health is high.
The proud possession of mine eye
Departed, I am much like one
Who had by haughty custom grown
To think gilt rooms, and spacious grounds,
Horses, and carriages, and hounds,
Fine linen, and an eider bed
As much his need as daily bread,
And honour of men as much or more.
Till, strange misfortune smiting sore,
His pride all goes to pay his debts,
A lodging anywhere he gets,
And takes his family thereto
Weeping, and other relics few,
Allow'd, by them that seize his pelf,
As precious only to himself.
Yet the sun shines; the country green
Has many riches, poorly seen
From blazon'd coaches; grace at meat
Goes well with thrift in what they eat;
And there's amends for much bereft
In better thanks for much that's left!
Jane is not fair, yet pleases well
The eye in which no others dwell;
And features somewhat plainly set,
And homely manners leave her yet
The crowning boon and most express
Of Heaven's inventive tenderness,
A woman. But I do her wrong,
Letting the world's eyes guide my tongue!
She has a handsomeness that pays
No homage to the hourly gaze,
And dwells not on the arch'd brow's height
And lids which softly lodge the light,
Nor in the pure field of the cheek
274
Flow'rs, though the soul be still to seek;
But shows as fits that solemn place
Whereof the window is the face:
Blankness and leaden outlines mark
What time the Church within is dark;
Yet view it on a Festal night,
Or some occasion else for light,
And each ungainly line is seen
A special character to mean
Of Saint or Prophet, and the whole
Blank window is a living scroll.
For hours, the clock upon the shelf,
Has all the talking to itself;
But to and fro her needle runs
Twice, while the clock is ticking once;
And, when a wife is well in reach,
Not silence separates, but speech;
And I, contented, read, or smoke,
And idly think, or idly stroke
The winking cat, or watch the fire,
In social peace that does not tire;
Until, at easeful end of day,
She moves, and puts her work away,
And, saying ‘How cold 'tis,’ or ‘How warm,’
Or something else as little harm,
Comes, used to finding, kindly press'd,
A woman's welcome to my breast,
With all the great advantage clear
Of none else having been so near.
But sometimes, (how shall I deny!)
There falls, with her thus fondly by,
Dejection, and a chilling shade.
Remember'd pleasures, as they fade,
Salute me, and colossal grow,
Like foot-prints in the thawing snow.
I feel oppress'd beyond my force
With foolish envy and remorse.
I love this woman, but I might
Have loved some else with more delight;
And strange it seems of God that He
275
Should make a vain capacity.
Such times of ignorant relapse,
'Tis well she does not talk, perhaps.
The dream, the discontent, the doubt,
To some injustice flaming out,
Were't else, might leave us both to moan
A kind tradition overthrown,
And dawning promise once more dead
In the pernicious lowlihead
Of not aspiring to be fair.
And what am I, that I should dare
Dispute with God, who moulds one clay
To honour and shame, and wills to pay
With equal wages them that delve
About His vines one hour or twelve!
XIII
From Lady Clitheroe To Mary Churchill
I've dreadful news, my Sister dear!
Frederick has married, as we hear,
Oh, such a girl! This fact we get
From Mr. Barton, whom we met
At Abury once. He used to know,
At Race and Hunt, Lord Clitheroe,
And writes that he ‘has seen Fred Graham,
‘Commander of the 'Wolf,'—the same
‘The Mess call'd Joseph,—with his Wife
‘Under his arm.’ He ‘lays his life,
‘The fellow married her for love,
‘For there was nothing else to move.
‘H. is her Shibboleth. 'Tis said
‘Her Mother was a Kitchen-Maid.’
Poor Fred! What will Honoria say?
She thought so highly of him. Pray
Tell it her gently. I've no right,
I know you hold, to trust my sight;
But Frederick's state could not be hid!
And Felix, coming when he did,
276
Was lucky; for Honoria, too,
Was half in love. How warm she grew
On ‘worldliness,’ when once I said
I fancied that, in ladies, Fred
Had tastes much better than his means!
His hand was worthy of a Queen's,
Said she, and actually shed tears
The night he left us for two years,
And sobb'd, when ask'd the cause to tell,
That ‘Frederick look'd so miserable.’
He did look very dull, no doubt,
But such things girls don't cry about.
What weathercocks men always prove!
You're quite right not to fall in love.
I never did, and, truth to tell,
I don't think it respectable.
The man can't understand it, too.
He likes to be in love with you,
But scarce knows how, if you love him,
Poor fellow. When 'tis woman's whim
To serve her husband night and day,
The kind soul lets her have her way!
So, if you wed, as soon you should,
Be selfish for your husband's good.
Happy the men who relegate
Their pleasures, vanities, and state
To us. Their nature seems to be
To enjoy themselves by deputy,
For, seeking their own benefit,
Dear, what a mess they make of it!
A man will work his bones away,
If but his wife will only play;
He does not mind how much he's teased,
So that his plague looks always pleased;
And never thanks her, while he lives,
For anything, but what he gives!
'Tis hard to manage men, we hear!
Believe me, nothing's easier, Dear.
The most important step by far
Is finding what their colours are.
The next is, not to let them know
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The reason why they love us so.
The indolent droop of a blue shawl,
Or gray silk's fluctuating fall,
Covers the multitude of sins
In me. Your husband, Love, might wince
At azure, and be wild at slate,
And yet do well with chocolate.
Of course you'd let him fancy he
Adored you for your piety.
XIV
From Jane To Her Mother
Dear Mother, as you write, I see
How glad and thankful I should be
For such a husband. Yet to tell
The truth, I am so miserable!
How could he—I remember, though,
He never said he loved me! No,
He is so right that all seems wrong
I've done and thought my whole life long!
I'm grown so dull and dead with fear
That Yes and No, when he is near,
Is all I have to say. He's quite
Unlike what most would call polite,
And yet, when first I saw him come
To tea in Aunt's fine drawing-room,
He made me feel so common! Oh,
How dreadful if he thinks me so!
It's no use trying to behave
To him. His eye, so kind and grave,
Sees through and through me! Could not you,
Without his knowing that I knew,
Ask him to scold me now and then?
Mother, it's such a weary strain
The way he has of treating me
As if 'twas something fine to be
A woman; and appearing not
To notice any faults I've got!
I know he knows I'm plain, and small,
Stupid, and ignorant, and all
278
Awkward and mean; and, by degrees,
I see a beauty which he sees,
When often he looks strange awhile,
Then recollects me with a smile.
I wish he had that fancied Wife,
With me for Maid, now! all my life
To dress her out for him, and make
Her looks the lovelier for his sake;
To have her rate me till I cried;
Then see her seated by his side,
And driven off proudly to the Ball;
Then to stay up for her, whilst all
The servants were asleep; and hear
At dawn the carriage rolling near,
And let them in; and hear her laugh,
And boast, he said that none was half
So beautiful, and that the Queen,
Who danced with him the first, had seen
And noticed her, and ask'd who was
That lady in the golden gauze?
And then to go to bed, and lie
In a sort of heavenly jealousy,
Until 'twas broad day, and I guess'd
She slept, nor knew how she was bless'd.
Pray burn this letter. I would not
Complain, but for the fear I've got
Of going wild, as we hear tell
Of people shut up in a cell,
With no one there to talk to. He
Must never know he is loved by me
The most; he'd think himself to blame;
And I should almost die for shame.
If being good would serve instead
Of being graceful, ah, then, Fred—
But I, myself, I never could
See what's in women's being good;
For all their goodness is to do
Just what their nature tells them to.
Now, when a man would do what's right,
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He has to try with all his might.
Though true and kind in deed and word,
Fred's not a vessel of the Lord.
But I have hopes of him; for, oh,
How can we ever surely know
But that the very darkest place
May be the scene of saving grace!
XV
From Frederick
‘How did I feel?’ The little wight
Fill'd me, unfatherly, with fright!
So grim it gazed, and, out of the sky,
There came, minute, remote, the cry,
Piercing, of original pain.
I put the wonder back to Jane,
And her delight seem'd dash'd, that I,
Of strangers still by nature shy,
Was not familiar quite so soon
With her small friend of many a moon.
But, when the new-made Mother smiled,
She seem'd herself a little child,
Dwelling at large beyond the law
By which, till then, I judged and saw;
And that fond glow which she felt stir
For it, suffused my heart for her;
To whom, from the weak babe, and thence
To me, an influent innocence,
Happy, reparative of life,
Came, and she was indeed my wife,
As there, lovely with love she lay,
Brightly contented all the day
To hug her sleepy little boy,
In the reciprocated joy
Of touch, the childish sense of love,
Ever inquisitive to prove
Its strange possession, and to know
If the eye's report be really so.
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XVI
From Jane To Mrs. Graham
Dear Mother,—such if you'll allow,
In love, not law, I'll call you now,—
I hope you're well. I write to say
Frederick has got, besides his pay,
A good appointment in the Docks;
Also to thank you for the frocks
And shoes for Baby. I, (D.V.,)
Shall soon be strong. Fred goes to sea
No more. I am so glad; because,
Though kinder husband never was,
He seems still kinder to become
The more he stays with me at home.
When we are parted, I see plain
He's dull till he gets used again
To marriage. Do not tell him, though;
I would not have him know I know,
For all the world.
I try to mind
All your advice; but sometimes find
I do not well see how. I thought
To take it about dress; so bought
A gay new bonnet, gown, and shawl;
But Frederick was not pleased at all;
For, though he smiled, and said, ‘How smart!’
I feel, you know, what's in his heart.
But I shall learn! I fancied long
That care in dress was very wrong,
Till Frederick, in his startling way,
When I began to blame, one day,
The Admiral's Wife, because we hear
She spends two hours, or something near,
In dressing, took her part, and said
How all things deck themselves that wed;
How birds and plants grow fine to please
Each other in their marriages;
And how (which certainly is true—
It never struck me—did it you?)
281
Dress was, at first, Heaven's ordinance,
And has much Scripture countenance.
For Eliezer, we are told,
Adorn'd with jewels and with gold
Rebecca. In the Psalms, again,
How the King's Daughter dress'd! And, then,
The Good Wife in the Proverbs, she
Made herself clothes of tapestry,
Purple and silk: and there's much more
I had not thought about before!
But Fred's so clever! Do you know,
Since Baby came, he loves me so!
I'm really useful, now, to Fred;
And none could do so well instead.
It's nice to fancy, if I died,
He'd miss me from the Darling's side!
Also, there's something now, you see,
On which we talk, and quite agree;
On which, without pride too, I can
Hope I'm as wise as any man.
I should be happy now, if quite
Sure that in one thing Fred was right.
But, though I trust his prayers are said,
Because he goes so late to bed,
I doubt his Calling. Glad to find
A text adapted to his mind,—
That where St. Paul, in Man and Wife,
Allows a little worldly life,—
He smiled, and said that he knew all
Such things as that without St. Paul!
And once he said, when I with pain
Had got him just to read Romaine,
‘Men's creeds should not their hopes condemn.
‘Who wait for heaven to come to them
‘Are little like to go to heaven,
‘If logic's not the devil's leaven!’
I cried at such a wicked joke,
And he, surprised, went out to smoke.
But to judge him is not for me,
Who myself sin so dreadfully
As half to doubt if I should care
282
To go to heaven, and he not there.
He must be right; and I dare say
I shall soon understand his way.
To other things, once strange, I've grown
Accustom'd, nay, to like. I own
'Twas long before I got well used
To sit, while Frederick read or mused
For hours, and scarcely spoke. When he
For all that, held the door to me,
Pick'd up my handkerchief, and rose
To set my chair, with other shows
Of honour, such as men, 'tis true,
To sweethearts and fine ladies do,
It almost seem'd an unkind jest;
But now I like these ways the best.
They somehow make me gentle and good;
And I don't mind his quiet mood.
If Frederick does seem dull awhile,
There's Baby. You should see him smile!
I'm pretty and nice to him, sweet Pet,
And he will learn no better yet:
Indeed, now little Johnny makes
A busier time of it, and takes
Our thoughts off one another more,
I'm happy as need be, I'm sure!
XVII
From Felix To Honoria
Let me, Beloved, while gratitude
Is garrulous with coming good,
Or ere the tongue of happiness
Be silenced by your soft caress,
Relate how, musing here of you,
The clouds, the intermediate blue,
The air that rings with larks, the grave
And distant rumour of the wave,
The solitary sailing skiff,
The gusty corn-field on the cliff,
The corn-flower by the crumbling ledge,
Or, far-down at the shingle's edge,
283
The sighing sea's recurrent crest
Breaking, resign'd to its unrest,
All whisper, to my home-sick thought,
Of charms in you till now uncaught,
Or only caught as dreams, to die
Ere they were own'd by memory.
High and ingenious Decree
Of joy-devising Deity!
You whose ambition only is
The assurance that you make my bliss,
(Hence my first debt of love to show,
That you, past showing, indeed do so!)
Trust me, the world, the firmament,
With diverse-natured worlds besprent,
Were rear'd in no mere undivine
Boast of omnipotent design,
The lion differing from the snake
But for the trick of difference sake,
And comets darting to and fro
Because in circles planets go;
But rather that sole love might be
Refresh'd throughout eternity
In one sweet faith, for ever strange,
Mirror'd by circumstantial change.
For, more and more, do I perceive
That everything is relative
To you, and that there's not a star,
Nor nothing in't, so strange or far,
But, if 'twere scanned, 'twould chiefly mean
Somewhat, till then, in you unseen,
Something to make the bondage strait
Of you and me more intimate,
Some unguess'd opportunity
Of nuptials in a new degree.
But, oh, with what a novel force
Your best-conn'd beauties, by remorse
Of absence, touch; and, in my heart,
How bleeds afresh the youthful smart
Of passion fond, despairing still
To utter infinite good-will
284
By worthy service! Yet I know
That love is all that love can owe,
And this to offer is no less
Of worth, in kind speech or caress,
Than if my life-blood I should give.
For good is God's prerogative,
And Love's deed is but to prepare
The flatter'd, dear Belov'd to dare
Acceptance of His gifts. When first
On me your happy beauty burst,
Honoria, verily it seem'd
That naught beyond you could be dream'd
Of beauty and of heaven's delight.
Zeal of an unknown infinite
Yet bade me ever wish you more
Beatified than e'er before.
Angelical were your replies
To my prophetic flatteries;
And sweet was the compulsion strong
That drew me in the course along
Of heaven's increasing bright allure,
With provocations fresh of your
Victorious capacity.
Whither may love, so fledged, not fly?
Did not mere Earth hold fast the string
Of this celestial soaring thing,
So measure and make sensitive,
And still, to the nerves, nice notice give
Of each minutest increment
Of such interminable ascent,
The heart would lose all count, and beat
Unconscious of a height so sweet,
And the spirit-pursuing senses strain
Their steps on the starry track in vain!
But, reading now the note just come,
With news of you, the babes, and home,
I think, and say, ‘To-morrow eve
‘With kisses me will she receive;’
And, thinking, for extreme delight
Of love's extremes, I laugh outright.
285
XVIII
From Frederick
Eight wedding-days gone by, and none
Yet kept, to keep them all in one,
Jane and myself, with John and Grace
On donkeys, visited the place
I first drew breath in, Knatchley Wood.
Bearing the basket, stuff'd with food,
Milk, loaves, hard eggs, and marmalade,
I halted where the wandering glade
Divides the thicket. There I knew,
It seem'd, the very drops of dew
Below the unalter'd eglantine.
Nothing had changed since I was nine!
In the green desert, down to eat
We sat, our rustic grace at meat
Good appetite, through that long climb
Hungry two hours before the time.
And there Jane took her stitching out,
And John for birds'-nests pry'd about,
And Grace and Baby, in between
The warm blades of the breathing green,
Dodged grasshoppers; and I no less,
In conscientious idleness,
Enjoy'd myself, under the noon
Stretch'd, and the sounds and sights of June
Receiving, with a drowsy charm,
Through muffled ear and folded arm.
And then, as if I sweetly dream'd,
I half-remember'd how it seem'd
When I, too, was a little child
About the wild wood roving wild.
Pure breezes from the far-off height
Melted the blindness from my sight,
Until, with rapture, grief, and awe,
I saw again as then I saw.
As then I saw, I saw again
The harvest-waggon in the lane,
286
With high-hung tokens of its pride
Left in the elms on either side;
The daisies coming out at dawn
In constellations on the lawn;
The glory of the daffodil;
The three black windmills on the hill,
Whose magic arms, flung wildly by,
Sent magic shadows o'er the rye.
Within the leafy coppice, lo,
More wealth than miser's dreams could show,
The blackbird's warm and woolly brood,
Five golden beaks agape for food;
The Gipsies, all the summer seen
Native as poppies to the Green;
The winter, with its frosts and thaws
And opulence of hips and haws;
The lovely marvel of the snow;
The Tamar, with its altering show
Of gay ships sailing up and down,
Among the fields and by the Town;
And, dearer far than anything,
Came back the songs you used to sing.
(Ah, might you sing such songs again,
And I, your Child, but hear as then,
With conscious profit of the gulf
Flown over from my present self!)
And, as to men's retreating eyes,
Beyond high mountains higher rise,
Still farther back there shone to me
The dazzling dusk of infancy.
Thither I look'd, as, sick of night,
The Alpine shepherd looks to the height,
And does not see the day, 'tis true,
But sees the rosy tops that do.
Meantime Jane stitch'd, and fann'd the flies
From my repose, with hush'd replies
To Grace, and smiles when Baby fell.
Her countenance love visible
Appear'd, love audible her voice.
Why in the past alone rejoice,
Whilst here was wealth before me cast
287
Which, I could feel, if 'twere but past
Were then most precious? Question vain,
When ask'd again and yet again,
Year after year; yet now, for no
Cause, but that heaven's bright winds will blow
Not at our pray'r but as they list,
It brought that distant, golden mist
To grace the hour, firing the deep
Of spirit and the drowsy keep
Of joy, till, spreading uncontain'd,
The holy power of seeing gain'd
The outward eye, this owning even
That where there's love and truth there's heaven.
Debtor to few, forgotten hours
Am I, that truths for me are powers.
Ah, happy hours, 'tis something yet
Not to forget that I forget!
And now a cloud, bright, huge and calm,
Rose, doubtful if for bale or balm;
O'ertoppling towers and bulwarks bright
Appear'd, at beck of viewless might,
Along a rifted mountain range.
Untraceable and swift in change,
Those glittering peaks, disrupted, spread
To solemn bulks, seen overhead;
The sunshine quench'd, from one dark form
Fumed the appalling light of storm.
Straight to the zenith, black with bale,
The Gipsies' smoke rose deadly pale;
And one wide night of hopeless hue
Hid from the heart the recent blue.
And soon, with thunder crackling loud,
A flash reveal'd the formless cloud:
Lone sailing rack, far wavering rim,
And billowy tracks of stormland dim.
We stood, safe group'd beneath a shed.
Grace hid behind Jane's gown for dread,
Who told her, fondling with her hair,
‘The naughty noise! but God took care
288
‘Of all good girls.’ John seem'd to me
Too much for Jane's theology,
Who bade him watch the tempest. Now
A blast made all the woodland bow;
Against the whirl of leaves and dust
Kine dropp'd their heads; the tortured gust
Jagg'd and convuls'd the ascending smoke
To mockery of the lightning's stroke.
The blood prick'd, and a blinding flash
And close coinstantaneous crash
Humbled the soul, and the rain all round
Resilient dimm'd the whistling ground,
Nor flagg'd in force from first to last,
Till, sudden as it came, 'twas past,
Leaving a trouble in the copse
Of brawling birds and tinkling drops.
Change beyond hope! Far thunder faint
Mutter'd its vast and vain complaint,
And gaps and fractures, fringed with light,
Show'd the sweet skies, with squadrons bright
Of cloudlets, glittering calm and fair
Through gulfs of calm and glittering air.
With this adventure, we return'd.
The roads the feet no longer burn'd.
A wholesome smell of rainy earth
Refresh'd our spirits, tired of mirth.
The donkey-boy drew friendly near
My Wife, and, touch'd by the kind cheer
Her countenance show'd, or sooth'd perchance
By the soft evening's sad advance,
As we were, stroked the flanks and head
Of the ass, and, somewhat thick-voiced, said,
‘To 'ave to wop the donkeys so
‘'Ardens the 'art, but they won't go
‘Without!’ My Wife, by this impress'd,
As men judge poets by their best,
When now we reach'd the welcome door,
Gave him his hire, and sixpence more.
289
XIX
From Jane
Dear Mrs. Graham, the fever's past,
And Fred is well. I, in my last,
Forgot to say that, while 'twas on,
A lady, call'd Honoria Vaughan,
One of his Salisbury Cousins, came.
Had I, she ask'd me, heard her name?
'Twas that Honoria, no doubt,
Whom he would sometimes talk about
And speak to, when his nights were bad,
And so I told her that I had.
She look'd so beautiful and kind!
And just the sort of wife my mind
Pictured for Fred, with many tears,
In those sad early married years.
Visiting, yesterday, she said,
The Admiral's Wife, she learn'd that Fred
Was very ill; she begg'd to be,
If possible, of use to me.
What could she do? Last year, his Aunt
Died, leaving her, who had no want,
Her fortune. Half was his, she thought;
But he, she knew, would not be brought
To take his rights at second hand.
Yet something might, she hoped, be plann'd.
What did I think of putting John
To school and college? Mr. Vaughan,
When John was old enough, could give
Preferment to her relative;
And she should be so pleased.—I said
I felt quite sure that dearest Fred
Would be most thankful. Would we come,
And make ourselves, she ask'd, at home,
Next month, at High-Hurst? Change of air
Both he and I should need, and there
At leisure we could talk, and then
Fix plans, as John was nearly ten.
290
It seemed so rude to think and doubt,
So I said, Yes. In going out,
She said, ‘How strange of Frederick, Dear,’
(I wish he had been there to hear,)
‘To send no cards, or tell me what
‘A nice new Cousin I had got!’
Was not that kind?
When Fred grew strong,
I had, I found, done very wrong.
Anger was in his voice and eye.
With people born and bred so high
As Fred and Mrs. Vaughan and you,
It's hard to guess what's right to do;
And he won't teach me!
Dear Fred wrote,
Directly, such a lovely note,
Which, though it undid all I had done,
Was, both to me and Mrs. Vaughan,
So kind! His words, I can't say why,
Like soldiers' music, made me cry.
~ Coventry Patmore,
626:Obiit Mdcccxxxiii (Entire)
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
414
Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
I.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
‘Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.’
II.
415
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
III.
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
‘The stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run;
A web is wov’n across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands–
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own,–
A hollow form with empty hands.’
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
416
IV.
To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should’st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
‘What is it makes me beat so low?’
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken’d eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’
V.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
417
VI.
One writes, that ‘Other friends remain,’
That ‘Loss is common to the race’–
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
O father, wheresoe’er thou be,
Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still’d the life that beat from thee.
O mother, praying God will save
Thy sailor,–while thy head is bow’d,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
Ye know no more than I who wrought
At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;
Expecting still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
With wishes, thinking, ‘here to-day,’
Or ‘here to-morrow will he come.’
O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!
For now her father’s chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;
And thinking ‘this will please him best,’
She takes a riband or a rose;
418
For he will see them on to-night;
And with the thought her colour burns;
And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
And, even when she turn’d, the curse
Had fallen, and her future Lord
Was drown’d in passing thro’ the ford,
Or kill’d in falling from his horse.
O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.
VII.
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasp’d no more–
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
VIII.
A happy lover who has come
To look on her that loves him well,
Who ’lights and rings the gateway bell,
And learns her gone and far from home;
419
He saddens, all the magic light
Dies off at once from bower and hall,
And all the place is dark, and all
The chambers emptied of delight:
So find I every pleasant spot
In which we two were wont to meet,
The field, the chamber and the street,
For all is dark where thou art not.
Yet as that other, wandering there
In those deserted walks, may find
A flower beat with rain and wind,
Which once she foster'd up with care;
So seems it in my deep regret,
O my forsaken heart, with thee
And this poor flower of poesy
Which little cared for fades not yet.
But since it pleased a vanish’d eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
That if it can it there may bloom,
Or dying, there at least may die.
IX.
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
Sailest the placid ocean-plains
With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.
So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favourable speed
Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead
Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn.
All night no ruder air perplex
Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
As our pure love, thro’ early light
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.
420
Sphere all your lights around, above;
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love;
My Arthur, whom I shall not see
Till all my widow’d race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.
X.
I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell struck in the night:
I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife,
And travell’d men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish’d life.
So bring him: we have idle dreams:
This look of quiet flatters thus
Our home-bred fancies: O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
To rest beneath the clover sod,
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God;
Than if with thee the roaring wells
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine;
And hands so often clasp’d in mine,
Should toss with tangle and with shells.
XI.
421
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro’ the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
XII.
Lo, as a dove when up she springs
To bear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,
Some dolorous message knit below
The wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go; I cannot stay;
I leave this mortal ark behind,
A weight of nerves without a mind,
And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large,
And reach the glow of southern skies,
And see the sails at distance rise,
And linger weeping on the marge,
422
And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend?
Is this the end of all my care?’
And circle moaning in the air:
‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’
And forward dart again, and play
About the prow, and back return
To where the body sits, and learn
That I have been an hour away.
XIII.
Tears of the widower, when he sees
A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;
Which weep a loss for ever new,
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
Which weeps the comrade of my choice,
An awful thought, a life removed,
The human-hearted man I loved,
A Spirit, not a breathing voice.
Come Time, and teach me, many years,
I do not suffer in a dream;
For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
My fancies time to rise on wing,
And glance about the approaching sails,
As tho’ they brought but merchants’ bales,
And not the burthen that they bring.
XIV.
423
If one should bring me this report,
That thou hadst touch’d the land to-day,
And I went down unto the quay,
And found thee lying in the port;
And standing, muffled round with woe,
Should see thy passengers in rank
Come stepping lightly down the plank,
And beckoning unto those they know;
And if along with these should come
The man I held as half-divine;
Should strike a sudden hand in mine,
And ask a thousand things of home;
And
And
And
And
I should tell him all my pain,
how my life had droop’d of late,
he should sorrow o’er my state
marvel what possess’d my brain;
And I perceived no touch of change,
No hint of death in all his frame,
But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.
XV.
To-night the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day:
The last red leaf is whirl’d away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack’d, the waters curl’d,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash’d on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
424
That makes the barren branches loud;
And but for fear it is not so,
The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a labouring breast,
And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
XVI.
What words are these have fall’n from me?
Can calm despair and wild unrest
Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
Or doth she only seem to take
The touch of change in calm or storm;
But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
That holds the shadow of a lark
Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
And staggers blindly ere she sink?
And stunn’d me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;
And made me that delirious man
Whose fancy fuses old and new,
And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?
XVII.
425
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
Compell’d thy canvas, and my prayer
Was as the whisper of an air
To breathe thee over lonely seas.
For I in spirit saw thee move
Thro’ circles of the bounding sky,
Week after week: the days go by:
Come quick, thou bringest all I love.
Henceforth, wherever thou may’st roam,
My blessing, like a line of light,
Is on the waters day and night,
And like a beacon guards thee home.
So may whatever tempest mars
Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
And balmy drops in summer dark
Slide from the bosom of the stars.
So kind an office hath been done,
Such precious relics brought by thee;
The dust of him I shall not see
Till all my widow’d race be run.
XVIII.
’Tis well; ’tis something; we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
’Tis little; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
426
Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be,
I, falling on his faithful heart,
Would breathing thro’ his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;
That dies not, but endures with pain,
And slowly forms the the firmer mind,
Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.
XIX.
The Danube to the Severn gave
The darken’d heart that beat no more;
They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.
There twice a day the Severn fills;
That salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.
The Wye is hush’d nor moved along,
And hush’d my deepest grief of all,
When fill’d with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.
The tide flows down, the wave again
Is vocal in its wooded walls;
My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.
XX.
The lesser griefs that may be said,
That breathe a thousand tender vows,
Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;
427
Who speak their feeling as it is,
And weep the fulness from the mind:
‘It will be hard,’ they say, ‘to find
Another service such as this.’
My lighter moods are like to these,
That out of words a comfort win;
But there are other griefs within,
And tears that at their fountain freeze;
For by the hearth the children sit
Cold in that atmosphere of Death,
And scarce endure to draw the breath,
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit:
But open converse is there none,
So much the vital spirits sink
To see the vacant chair, and think,
‘How good! how kind! and he is gone.’
XXI.
I sing to him that rests below,
And, since the grasses round me wave,
I take the grasses of the grave,
And make them pipes whereon to blow.
The traveller hears me now and then,
And sometimes harshly will he speak:
‘This fellow would make weakness weak,
And melt the waxen hearts of men.’
Another answers, ‘Let him be,
He loves to make parade of pain,
That with his piping he may gain
The praise that comes to constancy.’
A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour
For private sorrow’s barren song,
When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?
428
‘A time to sicken and to swoon,
When Science reaches forth her arms
To feel from world to world, and charms
Her secret from the latest moon?’
Behold, ye speak an idle thing:
Ye never knew the sacred dust:
I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
And one is glad; her note is gay,
For now her little ones have ranged;
And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stol’n away.
XXII.
The path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer’d the way,
And, crown’d with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk’d began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear’d of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull’d the murmur on thy lip,
And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste,
And think, that somewhere in the waste
429
The Shadow sits and waits for me.
XXIII.
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
Or breaking into song by fits,
Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot,
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
I wander, often falling lame,
And looking back to whence I came,
Or on to where the pathway leads;
And crying, How changed from where it ran
Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb;
But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of a happy Pan:
When each by turns was guide to each,
And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
And all we met was fair and good,
And all was good that Time could bring,
And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
And many an old philosophy
On Argive heights divinely sang,
And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.
XXIV.
And was the day of my delight
As pure and perfect as I say?
The very source and fount of Day
430
Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.
If all was good and fair we met,
This earth had been the Paradise
It never look’d to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.
And is it that the haze of grief
Makes former gladness loom so great?
The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?
Or that the past will always win
A glory from its being far;
And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?
XXV.
I know that this was Life,–the track
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
But this it was that made me move
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighty Love would cleave in twain
The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.
XXVI.
Still onward winds the dreary way;
I with it; for I long to prove
No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.
431
And if that eye which watches guilt
And goodness, and hath power to see
Within the green the moulder’d tree,
And towers fall’n as soon as built–
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee
Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
Breaks hither over Indian seas,
That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
XXVII.
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
XXVIII.
432
The time draws near the birth of Christ:
The moon is hid; the night is still;
The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.
Four voices of four hamlets round,
From far and near, on mead and moor,
Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:
Each voice four changes on the wind,
That now dilate, and now decrease,
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.
This year I slept and woke with pain,
I almost wish’d no more to wake,
And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:
But they my troubled spirit rule,
For they controll’d me when a boy;
They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.
XXIX.
With such compelling cause to grieve
As daily vexes household peace,
And chains regret to his decease,
How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;
Which brings no more a welcome guest
To enrich the threshold of the night
With shower’d largess of delight
In dance and song and game and jest?
Yet go, and while the holly boughs
Entwine the cold baptismal font,
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,
That guard the portals of the house;
433
Old sisters of a day gone by,
Gray nurses, loving nothing new;
Why should they miss their yearly due
Before their time? They too will die.
XXX.
With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess’d the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hall
We gambol’d, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.
We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.
Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho’ every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:
We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet:
‘They rest,’ we said, ‘their sleep is sweet,’
And silence follow’d, and we wept.
Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: ‘They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;
‘Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather’d power, yet the same,
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.’
434
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.
XXXI.
When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house return’d,
Was this demanded–if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?
‘Where wert thou, brother, those four days?’
There lives no record of reply,
Which telling what it is to die
Had surely added praise to praise.
From every house the neighbours met,
The streets were fill’d with joyful sound,
A solemn gladness even crown’d
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ!
The rest remaineth unreveal’d;
He told it not; or something seal’d
The lips of that Evangelist.
XXXII.
Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,
Nor other thought her mind admits
But, he was dead, and there he sits,
And he that brought him back is there.
Then one deep love doth supersede
All other, when her ardent gaze
Roves from the living brother’s face,
And rests upon the Life indeed.
435
All subtle thought, all curious fears,
Borne down by gladness so complete,
She bows, she bathes the Saviour’s feet
With costly spikenard and with tears.
Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,
Whose loves in higher love endure;
What souls possess themselves so pure,
Or is there blessedness like theirs?
XXXIII.
O thou that after toil and storm
Mayst seem to have reach’d a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form,
Leave thou thy sister when she prays,
Her early Heaven, her happy views;
Nor thou with shadow’d hint confuse
A life that leads melodious days.
Her faith thro’ form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good:
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
To which she links a truth divine!
See thou, that countest reason ripe
In holding by the law within,
Thou fail not in a world of sin,
And ev’n for want of such a type.
XXXIV.
My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;
This round of green, this orb of flame,
436
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.
What then were God to such as I?
’Twere hardly worth my while to choose
Of things all mortal, or to use
A little patience ere I die;
’Twere best at once to sink to peace,
Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness and to cease.
XXXV.
Yet if some voice that man could trust
Should murmur from the narrow house,
‘The cheeks drop in; the body bows;
Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:’
Might I not say? ‘Yet even here,
But for one hour, O Love, I strive
To keep so sweet a thing alive:’
But I should turn mine ears and hear
The moanings of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that swift or slow
Draw down Æonian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be;
And Love would answer with a sigh,
‘The sound of that forgetful shore
Will change my sweetness more and more,
Half-dead to know that I shall die.’
O me, what profits it to put
And idle case? If Death were seen
At first as Death, Love had not been,
Or been in narrowest working shut,
437
Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,
Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape
Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape,
And bask’d and batten’d in the woods.
XXXVI.
Tho’ truths in manhood darkly join,
Deep-seated in our mystic frame,
We yield all blessing to the name
Of Him that made them current coin;
For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,
Where truth in closest words shall fail,
When truth embodied in a tale
Shall enter in at lowly doors.
And so the Word had breath, and wrought
With human hands the creed of creeds
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought;
Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave
In roarings round the coral reef.
XXXVII.
Urania speaks with darken’d brow:
‘Thou pratest here where thou art least;
This faith has many a purer priest,
And many an abler voice than thou.
‘Go down beside thy native rill,
On thy Parnassus set thy feet,
And hear thy laurel whisper sweet
About the ledges of the hill.’
And my Melpomene replies,
438
A touch of shame upon her cheek:
‘I am not worthy ev’n to speak
Of thy prevailing mysteries;
‘For I am but an earthly Muse,
And owning but a little art
To lull with song an aching heart,
And render human love his dues;
‘But brooding on the dear one dead,
And all he said of things divine,
(And dear to me as sacred wine
To dying lips is all he said),
‘I murmur’d, as I came along,
Of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d;
And loiter’d in the master’s field,
And darken’d sanctities with song.’
XXXVIII.
With weary steps I loiter on,
Tho’ always under alter’d skies
The purple from the distance dies,
My prospect and horizon gone.
No joy the blowing season gives,
The herald melodies of spring,
But in the songs I love to sing
A doubtful gleam of solace lives.
If any care for what is here
Survive in spirits render’d free,
Then are these songs I sing of thee
Not all ungrateful to thine ear.
XXXIX.
Old warder of these buried bones,
439
And answering now my random stroke
With fruitful cloud and living smoke,
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head,
To thee too comes the golden hour
When flower is feeling after flower;
But Sorrow–fixt upon the dead,
And darkening the dark graves of men,–
What whisper’d from her lying lips?
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips,
And passes into gloom again.
XL.
Could we forget the widow’d hour
And look on Spirits breathed away,
As on a maiden in the day
When first she wears her orange-flower!
When crown’d with blessing she doth rise
To take her latest leave of home,
And hopes and light regrets that come
Make April of her tender eyes;
And doubtful joys the father move,
And tears are on the mother’s face,
As parting with a long embrace
She enters other realms of love;
Her office there to rear, to teach,
Becoming as is meet and fit
A link among the days, to knit
The generations each with each;
And, doubtless, unto thee is given
A life that bears immortal fruit
In those great offices that suit
The full-grown energies of heaven.
Ay me, the difference I discern!
440
How often shall her old fireside
Be cheer’d with tidings of the bride,
How often she herself return,
And tell them all they would have told,
And bring her babe, and make her boast,
Till even those that miss’d her most
Shall count new things as dear as old:
But thou and I have shaken hands,
Till growing winters lay me low;
My paths are in the fields I know,
And thine in undiscover’d lands.
XLI.
The spirit ere our fatal loss
Did ever rise from high to higher;
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire,
As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.
But thou art turn’d to something strange,
And I have lost the links that bound
Thy changes; here upon the ground,
No more partaker of thy change.
Deep folly! yet that this could be–
That I could wing my will with might
To leap the grades of life and light,
And flash at once, my friend, to thee.
For tho’ my nature rarely yields
To that vague fear implied in death;
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath,
The howlings from forgotten fields;
Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor
An inner trouble I behold,
A spectral doubt which makes me cold,
That I shall be thy mate no more,
441
Tho’ following with an upward mind
The wonders that have come to thee,
Thro’ all the secular to-be,
But evermore a life behind.
XLII.
I vex my heart with fancies dim:
He still outstript me in the race;
It was but unity of place
That made me dream I rank’d with him.
And so may Place retain us still,
And he the much-beloved again,
A lord of large experience, train
To riper growth the mind and will:
And what delights can equal those
That stir the spirit’s inner deeps,
When one that loves but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?
XLIII.
If Sleep and Death be truly one,
And every spirit’s folded bloom
Thro’ all its intervital gloom
In some long trance should slumber on;
Unconscious of the sliding hour,
Bare of the body, might it last,
And silent traces of the past
Be all the colour of the flower:
So then were nothing lost to man;
So that still garden of the souls
In many a figured leaf enrolls
The total world since life began;
And love will last as pure and whole
442
As when he loved me here in Time,
And at the spiritual prime
Rewaken with the dawning soul.
XLIV.
How fares it with the happy dead?
For here the man is more and more;
But he forgets the days before
God shut the doorways of his head.
The days have vanish’d, tone and tint,
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense
Gives out at times (he knows not whence)
A little flash, a mystic hint;
And in the long harmonious years
(If Death so taste Lethean springs),
May some dim touch of earthly things
Surprise thee ranging with thy peers.
If such a dreamy touch should fall,
O turn thee round, resolve the doubt;
My guardian angel will speak out
In that high place, and tell thee all.
XLV.
The baby new to earth and sky,
What time his tender palm is prest
Against the circle of the breast,
Has never thought that ‘this is I:’
But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’
And finds ‘I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.’
So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
443
As thro’ the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.
This use may lie in blood and breath,
Which else were fruitless of their due,
Had man to learn himself anew
Beyond the second birth of Death.
XLVI.
We ranging down this lower track,
The path we came by, thorn and flower,
Is shadow’d by the growing hour,
Lest life should fail in looking back.
So be it: there no shade can last
In that deep dawn behind the tomb,
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom
The eternal landscape of the past;
A lifelong tract of time reveal’d;
The fruitful hours of still increase;
Days order’d in a wealthy peace,
And those five years its richest field.
O Love, thy province were not large,
A bounded field, nor stretching far;
Look also, Love, a brooding star,
A rosy warmth from marge to marge.
XLVII.
That each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds, and fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall
Remerging in the general Soul,
Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside;
444
And I shall know him when we meet:
And we shall sit at endless feast,
Enjoying each the other’s good:
What vaster dream can hit the mood
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least
Upon the last and sharpest height,
Before the spirits fade away,
Some landing-place, to clasp and say,
‘Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.’
XLVIII.
If these brief lays, of Sorrow born,
Were taken to be such as closed
Grave doubts and answers here proposed,
Then these were such as men might scorn:
Her care is not to part and prove;
She takes, when harsher moods remit,
What slender shade of doubt may flit,
And makes it vassal unto love:
And hence, indeed, she sports with words,
But better serves a wholesome law,
And holds it sin and shame to draw
The deepest measure from the chords:
Nor dare she trust a larger lay,
But rather loosens from the lip
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip
Their wings in tears, and skim away.
XLIX.
From art, from nature, from the schools,
Let random influences glance,
Like light in many a shiver’d lance
445
That breaks about the dappled pools:
The lightest wave of thought shall lisp,
The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe,
The slightest air of song shall breathe
To make the sullen surface crisp.
And look thy look, and go thy way,
But blame not thou the winds that make
The seeming-wanton ripple break,
The tender-pencil’d shadow play.
Beneath all fancied hopes and fears
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down,
Whose muffled motions blindly drown
The bases of my life in tears.
L.
Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.
Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.
Be near me when my faith is dry,
And men the flies of latter spring,
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing
And weave their petty cells and die.
Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.
LI.
446
Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread?
Shall he for whose applause I strove,
I had such reverence for his blame,
See with clear eye some hidden shame
And I be lessen’d in his love?
I wrong the grave with fears untrue:
Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great Death:
The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’.
Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all.
LII.
I cannot love thee as I ought,
For love reflects the thing beloved;
My words are only words, and moved
Upon the topmost froth of thought.
‘Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song,’
The Spirit of true love replied;
‘Thou canst not move me from thy side,
Nor human frailty do me wrong.
‘What keeps a spirit wholly true
To that ideal which he bears?
What record? not the sinless years
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue:
‘So fret not, like an idle girl,
That life is dash’d with flecks of sin.
Abide: thy wealth is gather’d in,
When Time hath sunder’d shell from pearl.’
447
LIII.
How many a father have I seen,
A sober man, among his boys,
Whose youth was full of foolish noise,
Who wears his manhood hale and green:
And dare we to this fancy give,
That had the wild oat not been sown,
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown
The grain by which a man may live?
Or, if we held the doctrine sound
For life outliving heats of youth,
Yet who would preach it as a truth
To those that eddy round and round?
Hold thou the good: define it well:
For fear divine Philosophy
Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell.
LIV.
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.
448
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last–far off–at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
LV.
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
LVI.
449
‘So careful of the type?’ but no.
From scarped cliff and quarried stone
She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing, all shall go.
‘Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death:
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more.’ And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law–
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed–
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or seal’d within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music match’d with him.
O life as futile, then, as frail!
O for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.
LVII.
Peace; come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:
Peace; come away: we do him wrong
To sing so wildly: let us go.
450
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale;
But half my life I leave behind:
Methinks my friend is richly shrined;
But I shall pass; my work will fail.
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look’d with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o’er and o’er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said,
‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore.
LVIII.
In those sad words I took farewell:
Like echoes in sepulchral halls,
As drop by drop the water falls
In vaults and catacombs, they fell;
And, falling, idly broke the peace
Of hearts that beat from day to day,
Half-conscious of their dying clay,
And those cold crypts where they shall cease.
The high Muse answer’d: ‘Wherefore grieve
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear?
Abide a little longer here,
And thou shalt take a nobler leave.’
LIX.
O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me
No casual mistress, but a wife,
My bosom-friend and half of life;
As I confess it needs must be;
O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood,
451
Be sometimes lovely like a bride,
And put thy harsher moods aside,
If thou wilt have me wise and good.
My centred passion cannot move,
Nor will it lessen from to-day;
But I’ll have leave at times to play
As with the creature of my love;
And set thee forth, for thou art mine,
With so much hope for years to come,
That, howsoe’er I know thee, some
Could hardly tell what name were thine.
LX.
He past; a soul of nobler tone:
My spirit loved and loves him yet,
Like some poor girl whose heart is set
On one whose rank exceeds her own.
He mixing with his proper sphere,
She finds the baseness of her lot,
Half jealous of she knows not what,
And envying all that meet him there.
The little village looks forlorn;
She sighs amid her narrow days,
Moving about the household ways,
In that dark house where she was born.
The foolish neighbours come and go,
And tease her till the day draws by:
At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?’
LXI.
If, in thy second state sublime,
452
Thy ransom’d reason change replies
With all the circle of the wise,
The perfect flower of human time;
And if thou cast thine eyes below,
How dimly character’d and slight,
How dwarf’d a growth of cold and night,
How blanch'd with darkness must I grow!
Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore,
Where thy first form was made a man:
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can
The soul of Shakespeare love thee more.
LXII.
Tho’ if an eye that’s downward cast
Could make thee somewhat blench or fail,
Then be my love an idle tale,
And fading legend of the past;
And thou, as one that once declined,
When he was little more than boy,
On some unworthy heart with joy,
But lives to wed an equal mind;
And breathes a novel world, the while
His other passion wholly dies,
Or in the light of deeper eyes
Is matter for a flying smile.
LXIII.
Yet pity for a horse o’er-driven,
And love in which my hound has part,
Can hang no weight upon my heart
In its assumptions up to heaven;
And I am so much more than these,
As thou, perchance, art more than I,
And yet I spare them sympathy,
453
And I would set their pains at ease.
So mayst thou watch me where I weep,
As, unto vaster motions bound,
The circuits of thine orbit round
A higher height, a deeper deep.
LXIV.
Dost thou look back on what hath been,
As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began
And on a simple village green;
Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar,
And grasps the skirts of happy chance,
And breasts the blows of circumstance,
And grapples with his evil star;
Who makes by force his merit known
And lives to clutch the golden keys,
To mould a mighty state’s decrees,
And shape the whisper of the throne;
And moving up from high to higher,
Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope
The pillar of a people’s hope,
The centre of a world’s desire;
Yet feels, as in a pensive dream,
When all his active powers are still,
A distant dearness in the hill,
A secret sweetness in the stream,
The limit of his narrower fate,
While yet beside its vocal springs
He play’d at counsellors and kings,
With one that was his earliest mate;
Who ploughs with pain his native lea
And reaps the labour of his hands,
454
Or in the furrow musing stands;
‘Does my old friend remember me?’
LXV.
Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt;
I lull a fancy trouble-tost
With ‘Love’s too precious to be lost,
A little grain shall not be spilt.’
And in that solace can I sing,
Till out of painful phases wrought
There flutters up a happy thought,
Self-balanced on a lightsome wing:
Since we deserved the name of friends,
And thine effect so lives in me,
A part of mine may live in thee
And move thee on to noble ends.
LXVI.
You thought my heart too far diseased;
You wonder when my fancies play
To find me gay among the gay,
Like one with any trifle pleased.
The shade by which my life was crost,
Which makes a desert in the mind,
Has made me kindly with my kind,
And like to him whose sight is lost;
Whose feet are guided thro’ the land,
Whose jest among his friends is free,
Who takes the children on his knee,
And winds their curls about his hand:
He plays with threads, he beats his chair
For pastime, dreaming of the sky;
His inner day can never die,
455
His night of loss is always there.
LXVII.
When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o’er the number of thy years.
The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And closing eaves of wearied eyes
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray:
And then I know the mist is drawn
A lucid veil from coast to coast,
And in the dark church like a ghost
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.
LXVIII.
When in the down I sink my head,
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, times my breath;
Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death,
Nor can I dream of thee as dead:
I walk as ere I walk’d forlorn,
When all our path was fresh with dew,
And all the bugle breezes blew
Reveillée to the breaking morn.
But what is this? I turn about,
I find a trouble in thine eye,
Which makes me sad I know not why,
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt:
456
But ere the lark hath left the lea
I wake, and I discern the truth;
It is the trouble of my youth
That foolish sleep transfers to thee.
LXIX.
I dream’d there would be Spring no more,
That Nature’s ancient power was lost:
The streets were black with smoke and frost,
They chatter’d trifles at the door:
I wander’d from the noisy town,
I found a wood with thorny boughs:
I took the thorns to bind my brows,
I wore them like a civic crown:
I met with scoffs, I met with scorns
From youth and babe and hoary hairs:
They call’d me in the public squares
The fool that wears a crown of thorns:
They call’d me fool, they call’d me child:
I found an angel of the night;
The voice was low, the look was bright;
He look’d upon my crown and smiled:
He reach’d the glory of a hand,
That seem’d to touch it into leaf:
The voice was not the voice of grief,
The words were hard to understand.
LXX.
I cannot see the features right,
When on the gloom I strive to paint
The face I know; the hues are faint
And mix with hollow masks of night;
457
Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought,
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes,
A hand that points, and palled shapes
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought;
And crowds that stream from yawning doors,
And shoals of pucker’d faces drive;
Dark bulks that tumble half alive,
And lazy lengths on boundless shores;
Till all at once beyond the will
I hear a wizard music roll,
And thro’ a lattice on the soul
Looks thy fair face and makes it still.
LXXI.
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance
And madness, thou hast forged at last
A night-long Present of the Past
In which we went thro’ summer France.
Hadst thou such credit with the soul?
Then bring an opiate trebly strong,
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong
That so my pleasure may be whole;
While now we talk as once we talk’d
Of men and minds, the dust of change,
The days that grow to something strange,
In walking as of old we walk’d
Beside the river’s wooded reach,
The fortress, and the mountain ridge,
The cataract flashing from the bridge,
The breaker breaking on the beach.
LXXII.
458
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
And howlest, issuing out of night,
With blasts that blow the poplar white,
And lash with storm the streaming pane?
Day, when my crown’d estate begun
To pine in that reverse of doom,
Which sicken’d every living bloom,
And blurr’d the splendour of the sun;
Who usherest in the dolorous hour
With thy quick tears that make the rose
Pull sideways, and the daisy close
Her crimson fringes to the shower;
Who might’st have heaved a windless flame
Up the deep East, or, whispering, play’d
A chequer-work of beam and shade
Along the hills, yet look’d the same.
As wan, as chill, as wild as now;
Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime,
When the dark hand struck down thro’ time,
And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou,
Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows
Thro’ clouds that drench the morning star,
And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar,
And sow the sky with flying boughs,
And up thy vault with roaring sound
Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day;
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray,
And hide thy shame beneath the ground.
LXXIII.
So many worlds, so much to do,
So little done, such things to be,
How know I what had need of thee,
For thou wert strong as thou wert true?
459
The fame is quench’d that I foresaw,
The head hath miss’d an earthly wreath:
I curse not nature, no, nor death;
For nothing is that errs from law.
We pass; the path that each man trod
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds:
What fame is left for human deeds
In endless age? It rests with God.
O hollow wraith of dying fame,
Fade wholly, while the soul exults,
And self-infolds the large results
Of force that would have forged a name.
LXXIV.
As sometimes in a dead man’s face,
To those that watch it more and more,
A likeness, hardly seen before,
Comes out–to some one of his race:
So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,
I see thee what thou art, and know
Thy likeness to the wise below,
Thy kindred with the great of old.
But there is more than I can see,
And what I see I leave unsaid,
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made
His darkness beautiful with thee.
LXXV.
I leave thy praises unexpress’d
In verse that brings myself relief,
And by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guess’d;
What practice howsoe’er expert
460
In fitting aptest words to things,
Or voice the richest-toned that sings,
Hath power to give thee as thou wert?
I care not in these fading days
To raise a cry that lasts not long,
And round thee with the breeze of song
To stir a little dust of praise.
Thy leaf has perish’d in the green,
And, while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world which credits what is done
Is cold to all that might have been.
So here shall silence guard thy fame;
But somewhere, out of human view,
Whate’er thy hands are set to do
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim.
LXXVI.
Take wings of fancy, and ascend,
And in a moment set thy face
Where all the starry heavens of space
Are sharpen’d to a needle’s end;
Take wings of foresight; lighten thro’
The secular abyss to come,
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb
Before the mouldering of a yew;
And if the matin songs, that woke
The darkness of our planet, last,
Thine own shall wither in the vast,
Ere half the lifetime of an oak.
Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain;
And what are they when these remain
The ruin’d shells of hollow towers?
461
LXXVII.
What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshorten’d in the tract of time?
These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden’s locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane
A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.
But what of that? My darken’d ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.
LXXVIII.
Again at Christmas did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possess’d the earth,
And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:
The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost,
No wing of wind the region swept,
But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.
As in the winters left behind,
Again our ancient games had place,
The mimic picture’s breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.
Who show’d a token of distress?
462
No single tear, no mark of pain:
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?
O last regret, regret can die!
No–mixt with all this mystic frame,
Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.
LXXIX.
‘More than my brothers are to me,’–
Let this not vex thee, noble heart!
I know thee of what force thou art
To hold the costliest love in fee.
But thou and I are one in kind,
As moulded like in Nature’s mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.
For us the same cold streamlet curl’d
Thro’ all his eddying coves; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world.
At one dear knee we proffer’d vows,
One lesson from one book we learn’d,
Ere childhood’s flaxen ringlet turn’d
To black and brown on kindred brows.
And so my wealth resembles thine,
But he was rich where I was poor,
And he supplied my want the more
As his unlikeness fitted mine.
LXXX.
If any vague desire should rise,
463
That holy Death ere Arthur died
Had moved me kindly from his side,
And dropt the dust on tearless eyes;
Then fancy shapes, as fancy can,
The grief my loss in him had wrought,
A grief as deep as life or thought,
But stay’d in peace with God and man.
I make a picture in the brain;
I hear the sentence that he speaks;
He bears the burthen of the weeks
But turns his burthen into gain.
His credit thus shall set me free;
And, influence-rich to soothe and save,
Unused example from the grave
Reach out dead hands to comfort me.
LXXXI.
Could I have said while he was here,
‘My love shall now no further range;
There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear.’
Love, then, had hope of richer store:
What end is here to my complaint?
This haunting whisper makes me faint,
‘More years had made me love thee more.’
But Death returns an answer sweet:
‘My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.’
LXXXII.
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
464
No lower life that earth’s embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter’d stalks,
Or ruin’d chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.
For this alone on Death I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart;
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
LXXXIII.
Dip down upon the northern shore,
O sweet new-year delaying long;
Thou doest expectant nature wrong;
Delaying long, delay no more.
What stays thee from the clouded noons,
Thy sweetness from its proper place?
Can trouble live with April days,
Or sadness in the summer moons?
Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell’s darling blue,
Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.
O thou, new-year, delaying long,
Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud
And flood a fresher throat with song.
465
LXXXIV.
When I contemplate all alone
The life that had been thine below,
And fix my thoughts on all the glow
To which thy crescent would have grown;
I see thee sitting crown’d with good,
A central warmth diffusing bliss
In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,
On all the branches of thy blood;
Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;
For now the day was drawing on,
When thou should’st link thy life with one
Of mine own house, and boys of thine
Had babbled ‘Uncle’ on my knee;
But that remorseless iron hour
Made cypress of her orange flower,
Despair of Hope, and earth of thee.
I seem to meet their least desire,
To clap their cheeks, to call them mine.
I see their unborn faces shine
Beside the never-lighted fire.
I see myself an honour’d guest,
Thy partner in the flowery walk
Of letters, genial table-talk,
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest;
While now thy prosperous labour fills
The lips of men with honest praise,
And sun by sun the happy days
Descend below the golden hills
With promise of a morn as fair;
And all the train of bounteous hours
Conduct by paths of growing powers,
To reverence and the silver hair;
Till slowly worn her earthly robe,
466
Her lavish mission richly wrought,
Leaving great legacies of thought,
Thy spirit should fail from off the globe;
What time mine own might also flee,
As link’d with thine in love and fate,
And, hovering o’er the dolorous strait
To the other shore, involved in thee,
Arrive at last the blessed goal,
And He that died in Holy Land
Would reach us out the shining hand,
And take us as a single soul.
What reed was that on which I leant?
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake
The old bitterness again, and break
The low beginnings of content.
LXXXV.
This truth came borne with bier and pall,
I felt it, when I sorrow’d most,
’Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all–
O true in word, and tried in deed,
Demanding, so to bring relief
To this which is our common grief,
What kind of life is that I lead;
And whether trust in things above
Be dimm’d of sorrow, or sustain’d;
And whether love for him have drain’d
My capabilities of love;
Your words have virtue such as draws
A faithful answer from the breast,
Thro’ light reproaches, half exprest,
And loyal unto kindly laws.
467
My blood an even tenor kept,
Till on mine ear this message falls,
That in Vienna’s fatal walls
God’s finger touch’d him, and he slept.
The great Intelligences fair
That range above our mortal state,
In circle round the blessed gate,
Received and gave him welcome there;
And led him thro’ the blissful climes,
And show'd him in the fountain fresh
All knowledge that the sons of flesh
Shall gather in the cycled times.
But I remained, whose hopes were dim,
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,
To wander on a darkened earth,
Where all things round me breathed of him.
friendship, equal poised control,
heart, with kindliest motion warm,
sacred essence, other form,
solemn ghost, O crowned soul!
Yet none could better know than I,
How much of act at human hands
The sense of human will demands
By which we dare to live or die.
Whatever way my days decline,
I felt and feel, tho’ left alone,
His being working in mine own,
The footsteps of his life in mine;
A life that all the Muses decked
With gifts of grace, that might express
All comprehensive tenderness,
All-subtilising intellect:
And so my passion hath not swerved
To works of weakness, but I find
468
An image comforting the mind,
And in my grief a strength reserved.
Likewise the imaginative woe,
That loved to handle spiritual strife,
Diffused the shock thro’ all my life,
But in the present broke the blow.
My pulses therefore beat again
For other friends that once I met;
Nor can it suit me to forget
The mighty hopes that make us men.
I woo your love: I count it crime
To mourn for any overmuch;
I, the divided half of such
A friendship as had master’d Time;
Which masters Time indeed, and is
Eternal, separate from fears:
The all-assuming months and years
Can take no part away from this:
But Summer on the steaming floods,
And Spring that swells the narrow brooks,
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks,
That gather in the waning woods,
And every pulse of wind and wave
Recalls, in change of light or gloom,
My old affection of the tomb,
And my prime passion in the grave:
My old affection of the tomb,
A part of stillness, yearns to speak:
‘Arise, and get thee forth and seek
A friendship for the years to come.
‘I watch thee from the quiet shore;
Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
But in dear words of human speech
We two communicate no more.’
469
And I, ‘Can clouds of nature stain
The starry clearness of the free?
How is it? Canst thou feel for me
Some painless sympathy with pain?’
And lightly does the whisper fall;
‘’Tis hard for thee to fathom this;
I triumph in conclusive bliss,
And that serene result of all.’
So hold I commerce with the dead;
Or so methinks the dead would say;
Or so shall grief with symbols play
And pining life be fancy-fed.
Now looking to some settled end,
That these things pass, and I shall prove
A meeting somewhere, love with love,
I crave your pardon, O my friend;
If not so fresh, with love as true,
I, clasping brother-hands aver
I could not, if I would, transfer
The whole I felt for him to you.
For which be they that hold apart
The promise of the golden hours?
First love, first friendship, equal powers,
That marry with the virgin heart.
Still mine, that cannot but deplore,
That beats within a lonely place,
That yet remembers his embrace,
But at his footstep leaps no more,
My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not rest
Quite in the love of what is gone,
But seeks to beat in time with one
That warms another living breast.
Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring,
470
Knowing the primrose yet is dear,
The primrose of the later year,
As not unlike to that of Spring.
LXXXVI.
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
Of evening over brake and bloom
And meadow, slowly breathing bare
The round of space, and rapt below
Thro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood,
And shadowing down the horned flood
In ripples, fan my brows and blow
The fever from my cheek, and sigh
The full new life that feeds thy breath
Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,
Ill brethren, let the fancy fly
From belt to belt of crimson seas
On leagues of odour streaming far,
To where in yonder orient star
A hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’
LXXXVII.
I past beside the reverend walls
In which of old I wore the gown;
I roved at random thro’ the town,
And saw the tumult of the halls;
And heard one more in college fanes
The storm their high-built organs make,
And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophet blazon’d on the panes;
And caught one more the distant shout,
The measured pulse of racing oars
471
Among the willows; paced the shores
And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt
The same, but not the same; and last
Up that long walk of limes I past
To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door:
I linger’d; all within was noise
Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys
That crash’d the glass and beat the floor;
Where once we held debate, a band
Of youthful friends, on mind and art,
And labour, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land;
When one would aim an arrow fair,
But send it slackly from the string;
And one would pierce an outer ring,
And one an inner, here and there;
And last the master-bowman, he,
Would cleave the mark. A willing ear
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear
The rapt oration flowing free
From point to point, with power and grace
And music in the bounds of law,
To those conclusions when we saw
The God within him light his face,
And seem to lift the form, and glow
In azure orbits heavenly wise;
And over those ethereal eyes
The bar of Michael Angelo.
LXXXVIII.
472
Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet,
Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks,
O tell me where the senses mix,
O tell me where the passions meet,
Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf,
And in the midmost heart of grief
Thy passion clasps a secret joy:
And I–my harp would prelude woe–
I cannot all command the strings;
The glory of the sum of things
Will flash along the chords and go.
LXXXIX.
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;
And thou, with all thy breadth and height
Of foliage, towering sycamore;
How often, hither wandering down,
My Arthur found your shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and din and steam of town:
He brought an eye for all he saw;
He mixt in all our simple sports;
They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts
And dusty purlieus of the law.
O joy to him in this retreat,
Immantled in ambrosial dark,
To drink the cooler air, and mark
The landscape winking thro’ the heat:
O sound to rout the brood of cares,
The sweep of scythe in morning dew,
The gust that round the garden flew,
And tumbled half the mellowing pears!
473
O bliss, when all in circle drawn
About him, heart and ear were fed
To hear him, as he lay and read
The Tuscan poets on the lawn:
Or in the all-golden afternoon
A guest, or happy sister, sung,
Or here she brought the harp and flung
A ballad to the brightening moon:
Nor less it pleased in livelier moods,
Beyond the bounding hill to stray,
And break the livelong summer day
With banquet in the distant woods;
Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,
Discuss’d the books to love or hate,
Or touch’d the changes of the state,
Or threaded some Socratic dream;
But if I praised the busy town,
He loved to rail against it still,
For ‘ground in yonder social mill
We rub each other’s angles down,
‘And merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss
The picturesque of man and man.’
We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran,
The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss,
Or cool’d within the glooming wave;
And last, returning from afar,
Before the crimson-circled star
Had fall’n into her father’s grave,
And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,
We heard behind the woodbine veil
The milk that bubbled in the pail,
And buzzings of the honied hours.
474
XC.
He tasted love with half his mind,
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling
This bitter seed among mankind;
That could the dead, whose dying eyes
Were closed with wail, resume their life,
They would but find in child and wife
An iron welcome when they rise:
’Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine,
To pledge them with a kindly tear,
To talk them o’er, to wish them here,
To count their memories half divine;
But if they came who past away,
Behold their brides in other hands;
The hard heir strides about their lands,
And will not yield them for a day.
Yea, tho’ their sons were none of these,
Not less the yet-loved sire would make
Confusion worse than death, and shake
The pillars of domestic peace.
Ah dear, but come thou back to me:
Whatever change the years have wrought,
I find not yet one lonely thought
That cries against my wish for thee.
XCI.
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush;
Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March;
Come, wear the form by which I know
Thy spirit in time among thy peers;
The hope of unaccomplish’d years
475
Be large and lucid round thy brow.
When summer’s hourly-mellowing change
May breathe, with many roses sweet,
Upon the thousand waves of wheat,
That ripple round the lonely grange;
Come: not in watches of the night,
But where the sunbeam broodeth warm,
Come, beauteous in thine after form,
And like a finer light in light.
XCII.
If any vision should reveal
Thy likeness, I might count it vain
As but the canker of the brain;
Yea, tho’ it spake and made appeal
To chances where our lots were cast
Together in the days behind,
I might but say, I hear a wind
Of memory murmuring the past.
Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view
A fact within the coming year;
And tho’ the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,
But spiritual presentiments,
And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.
XCIII.
I shall not see thee. Dare I say
No spirit ever brake the band
That stays him from the native land
476
Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay?
No visual shade of some one lost,
But he, the Spirit himself, may come
Where all the nerve of sense is numb;
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.
O, therefore from thy sightless range
With gods in unconjectured bliss,
O, from the distance of the abyss
Of tenfold-complicated change,
Descend, and touch, and enter; hear
The wish too strong for words to name;
That in this blindness of the frame
My Ghost may feel that thine is near.
XCIV.
How pure at heart and sound in head,
With what divine affections bold
Should be the man whose thought would hold
An hour’s communion with the dead.
In vain shalt thou, or any, call
The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say,
My spirit is at peace with all.
They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest:
But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates,
And hear the household jar within.
XCV.
477
By night we linger’d on the lawn,
For underfoot the herb was dry;
And genial warmth; and o’er the sky
The silvery haze of summer drawn;
And calm that let the tapers burn
Unwavering: not a cricket chirr’d:
The brook alone far-off was heard,
And on the board the fluttering urn:
And bats went round in fragrant skies,
And wheel’d or lit the filmy shapes
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes
And woolly breasts and beaded eyes;
While now we sang old songs that peal’d
From knoll to knoll, where, couch’d at ease,
The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field.
But when those others, one by one,
Withdrew themselves from me and night,
And in the house light after light
Went out, and I was all alone,
A hunger seized my heart; I read
Of that glad year which once had been,
In those fall’n leaves which kept their green,
The noble letters of the dead:
And strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words, and strange
Was love’s dumb cry defying change
To test his worth; and strangely spoke
The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell
On doubts that drive the coward back,
And keen thro’ wordy snares to track
Suggestion to her inmost cell.
So word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch’d me from the past,
478
And all at once it seem’d at last
The living soul was flash’d on mine,
And mine in this was wound, and whirl’d
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,
Æonian music measuring out
The steps of Time–the shocks of Chance–
The blows of Death. At length my trance
Was cancell’d, stricken thro’ with doubt.
Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame
In matter-moulded forms of speech,
Or ev’n for intellect to reach
Thro’ memory that which I became:
Till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d
The knolls once more where, couch’d at ease,
The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees
Laid their dark arms about the field:
And suck’d from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o’er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume,
And gathering freshlier overhead,
Rock’d the full-foliaged elms, and swung
The heavy-folded rose, and flung
The lilies to and fro, and said
‘The dawn, the dawn,’ and died away;
And East and West, without a breath,
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death,
To broaden into boundless day.
XCVI.
479
You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.
I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch’d a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
He fought his doubts and gather’d strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length
To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,
But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinaï’s peaks of old,
While Israel made their gods of gold,
Altho’ the trumpet blew so loud.
XCVII.
My love has talk’d with rocks and trees;
He finds on misty mountain-ground
His own vast shadow glory-crown’d;
He sees himself in all he sees.
Two partners of a married life–
I look’d on these and thought of thee
In vastness and in mystery,
And of my spirit as of a wife.
480
These two–they dwelt with eye on eye,
Their hearts of old have beat in tune,
Their meetings made December June,
Their every parting was to die.
Their love has never past away;
The days she never can forget
Are earnest that he loves her yet,
Whate’er the faithless people say.
Her life is lone, he sits apart,
He loves her yet, she will not weep,
Tho’ rapt in matters dark and deep
He seems to slight her simple heart.
He
He
He
He
thrids the labyrinth of the mind,
reads the secret of the star,
seems so near and yet so far,
looks so cold: she thinks him kind.
She keeps the gift of years before,
A wither’d violet is her bliss:
She knows not what his greatness is,
For that, for all, she loves him more.
For him she plays, to him she sings
Of early faith and plighted vows;
She knows but matters of the house,
And he, he knows a thousand things.
Her faith is fixt and cannot move,
She darkly feels him great and wise,
She dwells on him with faithful eyes,
‘I cannot understand: I love.’
XCVIII.
You leave us: you will see the Rhine,
And those fair hills I sail’d below,
When I was there with him; and go
481
By summer belts of wheat and vine
To where he breathed his latest breath,
That City. All her splendour seems
No livelier than the wisp that gleams
On Lethe in the eyes of Death.
Let her great Danube rolling fair
Enwind her isles, unmark’d of me:
I have not seen, I will not see
Vienna; rather dream that there,
A treble darkness, Evil haunts
The birth, the bridal; friend from friend
Is oftener parted, fathers bend
Above more graves, a thousand wants
Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey
By each cold hearth, and sadness flings
Her shadow on the blaze of kings:
And yet myself have heard him say,
That not in any mother town
With statelier progress to and fro
The double tides of chariots flow
By park and suburb under brown
Of lustier leaves; nor more content,
He told me, lives in any crowd,
When all is gay with lamps, and loud
With sport and song, in booth and tent,
Imperial halls, or open plain;
And wheels the circled dance, and breaks
The rocket molten into flakes
Of crimson or in emerald rain.
XCIX.
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,
So loud with voices of the birds,
482
So thick with lowings of the herds,
Day, when I lost the flower of men;
Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red
On yon swoll’n brook that bubbles fast
By meadows breathing of the past,
And woodlands holy to the dead;
Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves
A song that slights the coming care,
And Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves;
Who wakenest with thy balmy breath
To myriads on the genial earth,
Memories of bridal, or of birth,
And unto myriads more, of death.
O wheresoever those may be,
Betwixt the slumber of the poles,
To-day they count as kindred souls;
They know me not, but mourn with me.
C.
I climb the hill: from end to end
Of all the landscape underneath,
I find no place that does not breathe
Some gracious memory of my friend;
No gray old grange, or lonely fold,
Or low morass and whispering reed,
Or simple stile from mead to mead,
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;
Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw
That hears the latest linnet trill,
Nor quarry trench’d along the hill
And haunted by the wrangling daw;
Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves
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To left and right thro’ meadowy curves,
That feed the mothers of the flock;
But each has pleased a kindred eye,
And each reflects a kindlier day;
And, leaving these, to pass away,
I think once more he seems to die.
CI.
Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,
The tender blossom flutter down,
Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air;
Unloved, by many a sandy bar,
The brook shall babble down the plain,
At noon or when the lesser wain
Is twisting round the polar star;
Uncared for, gird the windy grove,
And flood the haunts of hern and crake;
Or into silver arrows break
The sailing moon in creek and cove;
Till from the garden and the wild
A fresh association blow,
And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger’s child;
As year by year the labourer tills
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills.
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CII.
We leave the well-beloved place
Where first we gazed upon the sky;
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry,
Will shelter one of stranger race.
We go, but ere we go from home,
As down the garden-walks I move,
Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving masterdom.
One whispers, ‘Here thy boyhood sung
Long since its matin song, and heard
The low love-language of the bird
In native hazels tassel-hung.’
The other answers, ‘Yea, but here
Thy feet have stray’d in after hours
With thy lost friend among the bowers,
And this hath made them trebly dear.’
These two have striven half the day,
And each prefers his separate claim,
Poor rivals in a losing game,
That will not yield each other way.
I turn to go: my feet are set
To leave the pleasant fields and farms;
They mix in one another’s arms
To one pure image of regret.
CIII.
On that last night before we went
From out the doors where I was bred,
I dream’d a vision of the dead,
Which left my after-morn content.
Methought I dwelt within a hall,
And maidens with me: distant hills
485
From hidden summits fed with rills
A river sliding by the wall.
The hall with harp and carol rang.
They sang of what is wise and good
And graceful. In the centre stood
A statue veil’d, to which they sang;
And which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me,
The shape of him I loved, and love
For ever: then flew in a dove
And brought a summons from the sea:
And when they learnt that I must go
They wept and wail’d, but led the way
To where a little shallop lay
At anchor in the flood below;
And on by many a level mead,
And shadowing bluff that made the banks,
We glided winding under ranks
Of iris, and the golden reed;
And still as vaster grew the shore
And roll’d the floods in grander space,
The maidens gather’d strength and grace
And presence, lordlier than before;
And I myself, who sat apart
And watch’d them, wax’d in every limb;
I felt the thews of Anakim,
The pulses of a Titan’s heart;
As one would sing the death of war,
And one would chant the history
Of that great race, which is to be,
And one the shaping of a star;
Until the forward-creeping tides
Began to foam, and we to draw
From deep to deep, to where we saw
A great ship lift her shining sides.
486
The man we loved was there on deck,
But thrice as large as man he bent
To greet us. Up the side I went,
And fell in silence on his neck:
Whereat those maidens with one mind
Bewail’d their lot; I did them wrong:
‘We served thee here’ they said, ‘so long,
And wilt thou leave us now behind?’
So rapt I was, they could not win
An answer from my lips, but he
Replying, ‘Enter likewise ye
And go with us:’ they enter’d in.
And while the wind began to sweep
A music out of sheet and shroud,
We steer’d her toward a crimson cloud
That landlike slept along the deep.
CIV.
The time draws near the birth of Christ;
The moon is hid, the night is still;
A single church below the hill
Is pealing, folded in the mist.
A single peal of bells below,
That wakens at this hour of rest
A single murmur in the breast,
That these are not the bells I know.
Like strangers’ voices here they sound,
In lands where not a memory strays,
Nor landmark breathes of other days,
But all is new unhallow’d ground.
CV.
487
To-night ungather’d let us leave
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger’s land,
And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
Our father’s dust is left alone
And silent under other snows:
There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.
No more shall wayward grief abuse
The genial hour with mask and mime;
For change of place, like growth of time,
Has broke the bond of dying use.
Let cares that petty shadows cast,
By which our lives are chiefly proved,
A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.
But let no footstep beat the floor,
Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
For who would keep an ancient form
Thro’ which the spirit breathes no more?
Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
Nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown;
No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east
Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.
CVI.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
488
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring
Ring
Ring
Ring
out old shapes of foul disease;
out the narrowing lust of gold;
out the thousand wars of old,
in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
CVII.
It is the day when he was born,
A bitter day that early sank
489
Behind a purple-frosty bank
Of vapour, leaving night forlorn.
The time admits not flowers or leaves
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
The blast of North and East, and ice
Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves,
And bristles all the brakes and thorns
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
Above the wood which grides and clangs
Its leafless ribs and iron horns
Together, in the drifts that pass
To darken on the rolling brine
That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;
Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat;
Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev’n as he were by;
We keep the day. With festal cheer,
With books and music, surely we
Will drink to him, whate’er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.
CVIII.
I will not shut me from my kind,
And, lest I stiffen into stone,
I will not eat my heart alone,
Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:
What profit lies in barren faith,
And vacant yearning, tho’ with might
To scale the heaven’s highest height,
Or dive below the wells of Death?
What find I in the highest place,
But mine own phantom chanting hymns?
490
And on the depths of death there swims
The reflex of a human face.
I'll rather take what fruit may be
Of sorrow under human skies:
’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,
Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.
CIX.
Heart-affluence in discursive talk
From household fountains never dry;
The critic clearness of an eye,
That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk;
Seraphic intellect and force
To seize and throw the doubts of man;
Impassion’d logic, which outran
The hearer in its fiery course;
High nature amorous of the good,
But touch’d with no ascetic gloom;
And passion pure in snowy bloom
Thro’ all the years of April blood;
A love of freedom rarely felt,
Of freedom in her regal seat
Of England; not the schoolboy heat,
The blind hysterics of the Celt;
And manhood fused with female grace
In such a sort, the child would twine
A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine,
And find his comfort in thy face;
All these have been, and thee mine eyes
Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain,
My shame is greater who remain,
Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.
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CX.
Thy converse drew us with delight,
The men of rathe and riper years:
The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,
Forgot his weakness in thy sight.
On thee the loyal-hearted hung,
The proud was half disarm’d of pride,
Nor cared the serpent at thy side
To flicker with his double tongue.
The stern were mild when thou wert by,
The flippant put himself to school
And heard thee, and the brazen fool
Was soften’d, and he knew not why;
While I, thy nearest, sat apart,
And felt thy triumph was as mine;
And loved them more, that they were thine,
The graceful tact, the Christian art;
Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
But mine the love that will not tire,
And, born of love, the vague desire
That spurs an imitative will.
CXI.
The churl in spirit, up or down
Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all,
To him who grasps a golden ball,
By blood a king, at heart a clown;
The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil
His want in forms for fashion’s sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons thro’ the gilded pale:
For who can always act? but he,
To whom a thousand memories call,
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Not being less but more than all
The gentleness he seem’d to be,
Best seem’d the thing he was, and join’d
Each office of the social hour
To noble manners, as the flower
And native growth of noble mind;
Nor ever narrowness or spite,
Or villain fancy fleeting by,
Drew in the expression of an eye,
Where God and Nature met in light;
And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil’d with all ignoble use.
CXII.
High wisdom holds my wisdom less,
That I, who gaze with temperate eyes
On glorious insufficiencies,
Set light by narrower perfectness.
But thou, that fillest all the room
Of all my love, art reason why
I seem to cast a careless eye
On souls, the lesser lords of doom.
For what wert thou? some novel power
Sprang up for ever at a touch,
And hope could never hope too much,
In watching thee from hour to hour,
Large elements in order brought,
And tracts of calm from tempest made,
And world-wide fluctuation sway’d
In vassal tides that follow’d thought.
493
CXIII.
’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise;
Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee
Which not alone had guided me,
But served the seasons that may rise;
For can I doubt, who knew thee keen
In intellect, with force and skill
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil–
I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:
life in civic action warm,
soul on highest mission sent,
potent voice of Parliament,
pillar steadfast in the storm,
Should licensed boldness gather force,
Becoming, when the time has birth,
A lever to uplift the earth
And roll it in another course,
With thousand shocks that come and go,
With agonies, with energies,
With overthrowings, and with cries,
And undulations to and fro.
CXIV.
Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
Against her beauty? May she mix
With men and prosper! Who shall fix
Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
But on her forehead sits a fire:
She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain–
She cannot fight the fear of death.
494
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain
Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst
All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.
A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain; and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With wisdom, like the younger child:
For she is earthly of the mind,
But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.
O, friend, who camest to thy goal
So early, leaving me behind,
I would the great world grew like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity.
CXV.
Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick
About the flowering squares, and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.
Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown’d in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;
Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
495
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood; that live their lives
From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too; and my regret
Becomes an April violet,
And buds and blossoms like the rest.
CXVI.
Is it, then, regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?
Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry thro’ the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.
Not all regret: the face will shine
Upon me, while I muse alone;
And that dear voice, I once have known,
Still speak to me of me and mine:
Yet less of sorrow lives in me
For days of happy commune dead;
Less yearning for the friendship fled,
Than some strong bond which is to be.
CXVII.
O days and hours, your work is this
To hold me from my proper place,
A little while from his embrace
For fuller gain of after bliss:
That out of distance might ensue
Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
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And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue,
For every grain of sand that runs,
And every span of shade that steals,
And every kiss of toothed wheels,
And all the courses of the suns.
CXVIII.
Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant labouring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature’s earth and lime;
But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends. They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread
In tracts of fluent heat began,
And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
Till at the last arose the man;
Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime,
The herald of a higher race,
And of himself in higher place,
If so he type this work of time
Within himself, from more to more;
Or, crown’d with attributes of woe
Like glories, move his course, and show
That life is not as idle ore,
But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
And batter’d with the shocks of doom
To shape and use. Arise and fly
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The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
Move upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die.
CXIX.
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, not as one that weeps
I come once more; the city sleeps;
I smell the meadow in the street;
I hear a chirp of birds; I see
Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,
And think of early days and thee,
And bless thee, for thy lips are bland,
And bright the friendship of thine eye;
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh
I take the pressure of thine hand.
CXX.
I trust I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
Not only cunning casts in clay:
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,
At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.
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CXXI.
Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done:
The team is loosen’d from the wain,
The boat is drawn upon the shore;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken’d in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world’s great work is heard
Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
Behind thee comes the greater light:
The market boat is on the stream,
And voices hail it from the brink;
Thou hear’st the village hammer clink,
And see’st the moving of the team.
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed; thou art the same.
CXXII.
Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then,
While I rose up against my doom,
And yearn’d to burst the folded gloom,
To bare the eternal Heavens again,
To feel once more, in placid awe,
The strong imagination roll
A sphere of stars about my soul,
In all her motion one with law;
If thou wert with me, and the grave
Divide us not, be with me now,
And enter in at breast and brow,
499
Till all my blood, a fuller wave,
Be quicken’d with a livelier breath,
And like an inconsiderate boy,
As in the former flash of joy,
I slip the thoughts of life and death;
And all the breeze of Fancy blows,
And every dew-drop paints a bow,
The wizard lightnings deeply glow,
And every thought breaks out a rose.
CXXIII.
There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
There where the long street roars, hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell.
CXXIV.
That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All; within, without;
The Power in darkness whom we guess;
I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye;
Nor thro’ the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:
500
If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep,
I heard a voice ‘believe no more’
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;
A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason’s colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’
No, like a child in doubt and fear:
But that blind clamour made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,
But, crying, knows his father near;
And what I am beheld again
What is, and no man understands;
And out of darkness came the hands
That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.
CXXV.
Whatever I have said or sung,
Some bitter notes my harp would give,
Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live
A contradiction on the tongue,
Yet Hope had never lost her youth;
She did but look through dimmer eyes;
Or Love but play’d with gracious lies,
Because he felt so fix’d in truth:
And if the song were full of care,
He breathed the spirit of the song;
And if the words were sweet and strong
He set his royal signet there;
Abiding with me till I sail
To seek thee on the mystic deeps,
And this electric force, that keeps
501
A thousand pulses dancing, fail.
CXXVI.
Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.
Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, tho’ as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompass’d by his faithful guard,
And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.
CXXVII.
And all is well, tho’ faith and form
Be sunder’d in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
But ill for him that wears a crown,
And him, the lazar, in his rags:
They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,
And molten up, and roar in flood;
The fortress crashes from on high,
The brute earth lightens to the sky,
And the great Æon sinks in blood,
502
And compass’d by the fires of Hell;
While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
O’erlook’st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.
CXXVIII.
The love that rose on stronger wings,
Unpalsied when he met with Death,
Is comrade of the lesser faith
That sees the course of human things.
No doubt vast eddies in the flood
Of onward time shall yet be made,
And throned races may degrade;
Yet O ye mysteries of good,
Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear,
If all your office had to do
With old results that look like new;
If this were all your mission here,
To
To
To
To
draw, to sheathe a useless sword,
fool the crowd with glorious lies,
cleave a creed in sects and cries,
change the bearing of a word,
To shift an arbitrary power,
To cramp the student at his desk,
To make old bareness picturesque
And tuft with grass a feudal tower;
Why then my scorn might well descend
On you and yours. I see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is toil coöperant to an end.
CXXIX.
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Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;
Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;
Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.
CXXX.
Thy voice is on the rolling air;
I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
What art thou then? I cannot guess;
But tho’ I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less:
My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.
Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.
CXXXI.
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O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer’d years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.
_________
O true and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay;
In that it is thy marriage day
Is music more than any song.
Nor have I felt so much of bliss
Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved
Since that dark day a day like this;
Tho’ I since then have number’d o’er
Some thrice three years: they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,
And yet is love not less, but more;
No longer caring to embalm
In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,
And moulded in colossal calm.
Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before;
Which makes appear the songs I made
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As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idle brawling rhymes,
The sport of random sun and shade.
But where is she, the bridal flower,
That must he made a wife ere noon?
She enters, glowing like the moon
Of Eden on its bridal bower:
On me she bends her blissful eyes
And then on thee; they meet thy look
And brighten like the star that shook
Betwixt the palms of paradise.
O when her life was yet in bud,
He too foretold the perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she grows
For ever, and as fair as good.
And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
But now set out: the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside
And me behind her, will not fear.
For I that danced her on my knee,
That watch’d her on her nurse’s arm,
That shielded all her life from harm
At last must part with her to thee;
Now waiting to be made a wife,
Her feet, my darling, on the dead;
Their pensive tablets round her head,
And the most living words of life
Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,
The ‘wilt thou’ answer’d, and again
The ‘wilt thou’ ask’d, till out of twain
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Her sweet ‘I will’ has made you one.
Now sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;
The names are sign’d, and overhead
Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O happy hour, and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them–maidens of the place,
That pelt us in the porch with flowers.
O happy hour, behold the bride
With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the grave
That has to-day its sunny side.
To-day the grave is bright for me,
For them the light of life increased,
Who stay to share the morning feast,
Who rest to-night beside the sea.
Let all my genial spirits advance
To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun
The foaming grape of eastern France.
It circles round, and fancy plays,
And hearts are warm’d and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom
We wish them store of happy days.
Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the rest,
And, tho’ in silence, wishing joy.
507
But they must go, the time draws on,
And those white-favour’d horses wait;
They rise, but linger; it is late;
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.
A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she look’d, and what he said,
And back we come at fall of dew.
Again the feast, the speech, the glee,
The shade of passing thought, the wealth
Of words and wit, the double health,
The crowning cup, the three-times-three,
And last the dance;–till I retire:
Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,
And high in heaven the streaming cloud,
And on the downs a rising fire:
And rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapour sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,
The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And catch at every mountain head,
And o’er the friths that branch and spread
Their sleeping silver thro’ the hills;
And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendour fall
To spangle all the happy shores
By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,
508
A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,
And, moved thro’ life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge; under whose command
Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book;
No longer half-akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffer’d, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit;
Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God,
That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,
627:A Lyrical Drama, In Four Acts.
Audisne haec amphiarae, sub terram abdite?

ACT I
Scene.A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prometheus is discovered bound to the Precipice. Panthea andIone are seated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks.
Prometheus.
Monarch of Gods and Dmons, and all Spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,
And moments aye divided by keen pangs
Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair,these are mine empire:
More glorious far than that which thou surveyest
From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!
No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!
The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears
Of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains
Eat with their burning cold into my bones.
Heaven's wingd hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up
My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,
The ghastly people of the realm of dream,
Mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged
To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds
When the rocks split and close again behind:
While from their loud abysses howling throng
The genii of the storm, urging the rage
Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.
And yet to me welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn,
Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs
The leaden-coloured east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom
As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain! Ah no! I pity thee. What ruin
Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!
How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a hell within! I speak in grief,
Not exultation, for I hate no more,
As then ere misery made me wise. The curse
Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,
Whose many-voicd Echoes, through the mist
Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell!
Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,
Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept
Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air,
Through which the Sun walks burning without beams!
And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poisd wings
Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss,
As thunder, louder than your own, made rock
The orbd world! If then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught evil wish
Is dead within; although no memory be
Of what is hate, let them not lose it now!
What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.
First Voice
(from the Mountains).
Thrice three hundred thousand years
O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood:
Oft, as men convulsed with fears,
We trembled in our multitude.
Second Voice
(from the Springs).
Thunderbolts had parched our water,
We had been stained with bitter blood,
And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter,
Thro' a city and a solitude.
Third Voice
(from the Air).
I had clothed, since Earth uprose,
Its wastes in colours not their own,
And oft had my serene repose
Been cloven by many a rending groan.
Fourth Voice
(from the Whirlwinds).
We had soared beneath these mountains
Unresting ages; nor had thunder,
Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains,
Nor any power above or under
Ever made us mute with wonder.
First Voice.
But never bowed our snowy crest
As at the voice of thine unrest.
Second Voice.
Never such a sound before
To the Indian waves we bore.
A pilot asleep on the howling sea
Leaped up from the deck in agony,
And heard, and cried, 'Ah, woe is me!'
And died as mad as the wild waves be.
Third Voice.
By such dread words from Earth to Heaven
My still realm was never riven:
When its wound was closed, there stood
Darkness o'er the day like blood.
Fourth Voice.
And we shrank back: for dreams of ruin
To frozen caves our flight pursuing
Made us keep silencethusand thus
Though silence is as hell to us.
The Earth.
The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills
Cried, 'Misery!' then; the hollow Heaven replied,
'Misery!' And the Ocean's purple waves,
Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds,
And the pale nations heard it, 'Misery!'
Prometheus.
I heard a sound of voices: not the voice
Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou
Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will
Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove,
Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist
Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me,
The Titan? He who made his agony
The barrier to your else all-conquering foe?
Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams,
Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below,
Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once
With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes;
Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now
To commune with me? me alone, who checked,
As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer,
The falsehood and the force of him who reigns
Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves
Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses:
Why answer ye not, still? Brethren!
The Earth.
                   They dare not.
                   Prometheus.
Who dares? for I would hear that curse again.
Ha, what an awful whisper rises up!
'Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame
As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike.
Speak, Spirit! from thine inorganic voice
I only know that thou art moving near
And love. How cursed I him?
The Earth.
               How canst thou hear
Who knowest not the language of the dead?
Prometheus.
Thou art a living spirit; speak as they.
The Earth.
I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King
Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain
More torturing than the one whereon I roll.
Subtle thou art and good, and though the Gods
Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God,
Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now.
Prometheus.
Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim,
Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel
Faint, like one mingled in entwining love;
Yet 'tis not pleasure.
The Earth.
            No, thou canst not hear:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
Only to those who die.
Prometheus.
            And what art thou,
O, melancholy Voice?
The Earth.
           I am the Earth,
Thy mother; she within whose stony veins,
To the last fibre of the loftiest tree
Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air,
Joy ran, as blood within a living frame,
When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud
Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy!
And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted
Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust,
And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread
Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.
Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll
Around us: their inhabitants beheld
My spherd light wane in wide Heaven; the sea
Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire
From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow
Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown;
Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains;
Blue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads
Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled:
When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm,
And Famine; and black blight on herb and tree;
And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass,
Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds
Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry
With grief; and the thin air, my breath, was stained
With the contagion of a mother's hate
Breathed on her child's destroyer; ay, I heard
Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not,
Yet my innumerable seas and streams,
Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air,
And the inarticulate people of the dead,
Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate
In secret joy and hope those dreadful words,
But dare not speak them.
Prometheus.
             Venerable mother!
All else who live and suffer take from thee
Some comfort; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds,
And love, though fleeting; these may not be mine.
But mine own words, I pray, deny me not.
The Earth.
They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust,
The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them and they part no more;
Dreams and the light imaginings of men,
And all that faith creates or love desires,
Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes.
There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade,
'Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains; all the gods
Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds,
Vast, sceptred phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts;
And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom;
And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne
Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter
The curse which all remember. Call at will
Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter,
Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods
From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin
Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons.
Ask, and they must reply: so the revenge
Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades,
As rainy wind through the abandoned gate
Of a fallen palace.
Prometheus.
          Mother, let not aught
Of that which may be evil, pass again
My lips, or those of aught resembling me.
Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear!
Ione.
My wings are folded o'er mine ears:
  My wings are crossd o'er mine eyes:
Yet through their silver shade appears,
  And through their lulling plumes arise,
A Shape, a throng of sounds;
  May it be no ill to thee
O thou of many wounds!
Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake,
Ever thus we watch and wake.
Panthea.
The sound is of whirlwind underground,
  Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven;
The shape is awful like the sound,
  Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven.
A sceptre of pale gold
  To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud
His veind hand doth hold.
Cruel he looks, but calm and strong,
Like one who does, not suffers wrong.
Phantasm of Jupiter.
Why have the secret powers of this strange world
Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither
On direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds
Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice
With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk
In darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou?
Prometheus.
Tremendous Image, as thou art must be
He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe,
The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear,
Although no thought inform thine empty voice.
The Earth.
Listen! And though your echoes must be mute,
Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs,
Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams,
Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.
Phantasm.
A spirit seizes me and speaks within:
It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud.
Panthea.
See, how he lifts his mighty looks, the Heaven
Darkens above.
Ione.
       He speaks! O shelter me!
       Prometheus.
I see the curse on gestures proud and cold,
And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate,
And such despair as mocks itself with smiles,
Written as on a scroll: yet speak: Oh, speak!
Phantasm.
Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind,
  All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;
Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-kind,
  One only being shalt thou not subdue.
Rain then thy plagues upon me here,
Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear;
And let alternate frost and fire
Eat into me, and be thine ire
Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms
Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.
Ay, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.
  O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent
  To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower.
Let thy malignant spirit move
In darkness over those I love:
On me and mine I imprecate
The utmost torture of thy hate;
And thus devote to sleepless agony,
This undeclining head while thou must reign on high.
But thou, who art the God and Lord: O, thou,
  Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe,
To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow
  In fear and worship: all-prevailing foe!
I curse thee! let a sufferer's curse
Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse;
Till thine Infinity shall be
A robe of envenomed agony;
And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain,
To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.
Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse,
  Ill deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good;
Both infinite as is the universe,
  And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude.
An awful image of calm power
Though now thou sittest, let the hour
Come, when thou must appear to be
That which thou art internally;
And after many a false and fruitless crime
Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.
Prometheus.
Were these my words, O Parent?
The Earth.
                They were thine.
                Prometheus.
It doth repent me: words are quick and vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.
I wish no living thing to suffer pain.
The Earth.
Misery, Oh misery to me,
That Jove at length should vanquish thee.
Wail, howl aloud, Land and Sea,
The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye.
Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead,
Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquishd.
First Echo.
Lies fallen and vanquishd!
Second Echo.
Fallen and vanquishd!
Ione.
Fear not: 'tis but some passing spasm,
The Titan is unvanquished still.
But see, where through the azure chasm
Of yon forked and snowy hill
Trampling the slant winds on high
With golden-sandalled feet, that glow
Under plumes of purple dye,
Like rose-ensanguined ivory,
A Shape comes now,
Stretching on high from his right hand
A serpent-cinctured wand.
Panthea.
'Tis Jove's world-wandering herald, Mercury.
Ione.
And who are those with hydra tresses
And iron wings that climb the wind,
Whom the frowning God represses
Like vapours steaming up behind,
Clanging loud, an endless crowd
Panthea.
These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds,
Whom he gluts with groans and blood,
When charioted on sulphurous cloud
He bursts Heaven's bounds.
Ione.
Are they now led, from the thin dead
On new pangs to be fed?
Panthea.
The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud.
First Fury.
Ha! I scent life!
Second Fury.
         Let me but look into his eyes!
         Third Fury.
The hope of torturing him smells like a heap
Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle.
First Fury.
Darest thou delay, O Herald! take cheer, Hounds
Of Hell: what if the Son of Maia soon
Should make us food and sportwho can please long
The Omnipotent?
Mercury.
        Back to your towers of iron,
And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail,
Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,
Chimra, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends
Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine,
Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate:
These shall perform your task.
First Fury.
                Oh, mercy! mercy!
We die with our desire: drive us not back!
Mercury.
Crouch then in silence.
            Awful Sufferer!
To thee unwilling, most unwillingly
I come, by the great Father's will driven down,
To execute a doom of new revenge.
Alas! I pity thee, and hate myself
That I can do no more: aye from thy sight
Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell,
So thy worn form pursues me night and day,
Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good,
But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife
Against the Omnipotent; as yon clear lamps
That measure and divide the weary years
From which there is no refuge, long have taught
And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms
With the strange might of unimagined pains
The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,
And my commission is to lead them here,
Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends
People the abyss, and leave them to their task.
Be it not so! there is a secret known
To thee, and to none else of living things,
Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven,
The fear of which perplexes the Supreme:
Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne
In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer,
And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane,
Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart:
For benefits and meek submission tame
The fiercest and the mightiest.
Prometheus.
                 Evil minds
Change good to their own nature. I gave all
He has; and in return he chains me here
Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night
The crystal-wingd snow cling round my hair:
Whilst my belovd race is trampled down
By his thought-executing ministers.
Such is the tyrant's recompense: 'tis just:
He who is evil can receive no good;
And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost,
He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:
He but requites me for his own misdeed.
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks
With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.
Submission, thou dost know I cannot try:
For what submission but that fatal word,
The death-seal of mankind's captivity,
Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword,
Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept,
Or could I yield? Which yet I will not yield.
Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned
In brief Omnipotence: secure are they:
For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,
Enduring thus, the retributive hour
Which since we spake is even nearer now.
But hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay:
Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown.
Mercury.
Oh, that we might be spared: I to inflict
And thou to suffer! Once more answer me:
Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power?
Prometheus.
I know but this, that it must come.
Mercury.
                   Alas!
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain?
Prometheus.
They last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less
Do I desire or fear.
Mercury.
           Yet pause, and plunge
Into Eternity, where recorded time,
Even all that we imagine, age on age,
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind
Flags wearily in its unending flight,
Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless;
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved?
Prometheus.
Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass.
Mercury.
If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while
Lapped in voluptuous joy?
Prometheus.
              I would not quit
This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.
Mercury.
Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee.
Prometheus.
Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven,
Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene,
As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk!
Call up the fiends.
Ione.
          O, sister, look! White fire
Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar;
How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!
Mercury.
I must obey his words and thine: alas!
Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart!
Panthea.
See where the child of Heaven, with wingd feet,
Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn.
Ione.
Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes
Lest thou behold and die: they come: they come
Blackening the birth of day with countless wings,
And hollow underneath, like death.
First Fury.
                  Prometheus!
                  Second Fury.
Immortal Titan!
Third Fury.
        Champion of Heaven's slaves!
        Prometheus.
He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here,
Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms,
What and who are ye? Never yet there came
Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell
From the all-miscreative brain of Jove;
Whilst I behold such execrable shapes,
Methinks I grow like what I contemplate,
And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.
First Fury.
We are the ministers of pain, and fear,
And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate,
And clinging crime; and as lean dogs pursue
Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn,
We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live,
When the great King betrays them to our will.
Prometheus.
Oh! many fearful natures in one name,
I know ye; and these lakes and echoes know
The darkness and the clangour of your wings.
But why more hideous than your loathd selves
Gather ye up in legions from the deep?
Second Fury.
We knew not that: Sisters, rejoice, rejoice!
Prometheus.
Can aught exult in its deformity?
Second Fury.
The beauty of delight makes lovers glad,
Gazing on one another: so are we.
As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels
To gather for her festal crown of flowers
The areal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,
So from our victim's destined agony
The shade which is our form invests us round,
Else we are shapeless as our mother Night.
Prometheus.
I laugh your power, and his who sent you here,
To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain.
First Fury.
Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone,
And nerve from nerve, working like fire within?
Prometheus.
Pain is my element, as hate is thine;
Ye rend me now: I care not.
Second Fury.
               Dost imagine
We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?
Prometheus.
I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer,
Being evil. Cruel was the power which called
You, or aught else so wretched, into light.
Third Fury.
Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one,
Like animal life, and though we can obscure not
The soul which burns within, that we will dwell
Beside it, like a vain loud multitude
Vexing the self-content of wisest men:
That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain,
And foul desire round thine astonished heart,
And blood within thy labyrinthine veins
Crawling like agony?
Prometheus.
           Why, ye are thus now;
Yet am I king over myself, and rule
The torturing and conflicting throngs within,
As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous.
Chorus of Furies.
From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth,
Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth,
     Come, come, come!
Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth,
When cities sink howling in ruin; and ye
Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea,
And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track,
Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck;
     Come, come, come!
Leave the bed, low, cold, and red,
Strewed beneath a nation dead;
Leave the hatred, as in ashes
  Fire is left for future burning:
It will burst in bloodier flashes
  When ye stir it, soon returning:
Leave the self-contempt implanted
In young spirits, sense-enchanted,
  Misery's yet unkindled fuel:
  Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted
   To the maniac dreamer; cruel
  More than ye can be with hate
    Is he with fear.
     Come, come, come!
We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate
And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,
But vainly we toil till ye come here.
Ione.
Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings.
Panthea.
These solid mountains quiver with the sound
Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make
The space within my plumes more black than night.
First Fury.
Your call was as a wingd car
Driven on whirlwinds fast and far;
It rapped us from red gulfs of war.
Second Fury.
From wide cities, famine-wasted;
Third Fury.
Groans half heard, and blood untasted;
Fourth Fury.
Kingly conclaves stern and cold,
Where blood with gold is bought and sold;
Fifth Fury.
From the furnace, white and hot,
In which
A Fury.
     Speak not: whisper not:
I know all that ye would tell,
But to speak might break the spell
Which must bend the Invincible,
The stern of thought;
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.
A Fury.
Tear the veil!
Another Fury.
       It is torn.
       Chorus.
              The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne.
Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.
Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?
Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran
Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever.
  One came forth of gentle worth
  Smiling on the sanguine earth;
  His words outlived him, like swift poison
   Withering up truth, peace, and pity.
  Look! where round the wide horizon
   Many a million-peopled city
  Vomits smoke in the bright air.
  Hark that outcry of despair!
  'Tis his mild and gentle ghost
   Wailing for the faith he kindled:
  Look again, the flames almost
   To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled:
The survivors round the embers
Gather in dread.
    Joy, joy, joy!
Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,
And the future is dark, and the present is spread
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.
Semichorus I.
Drops of bloody agony flow
From his white and quivering brow.
Grant a little respite now:
See a disenchanted nation
Springs like day from desolation;
To Truth its state is dedicate,
And Freedom leads it forth, her mate;
A legioned band of linkd brothers
Whom Love calls children
Semichorus II.
              'Tis another's:
See how kindred murder kin:
'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within:
  Till Despair smothers
The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.
[All the Furies vanish, except one.
Ione.
Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan
Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart
Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep,
And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.
Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?
Panthea.
Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.
Ione.
What didst thou see?
Panthea.
           A woful sight: a youth
With patient looks nailed to a crucifix.
Ione.
What next?
Panthea.
     The heaven around, the earth below
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death,
All horrible, and wrought by human hands,
And some appeared the work of human hearts,
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles:
And other sights too foul to speak and live
Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear
By looking forth: those groans are grief enough.
Fury.
Behold an emblem: those who do endure
Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap
Thousandfold torment on themselves and him.
Prometheus.
Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;
Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow
Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!
Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death,
So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,
So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.
O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak,
It hath become a curse. I see, I see,
The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just,
Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,
Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home,
An early-chosen, late-lamented home;
As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind;
Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells:
SomeHear I not the multitude laugh loud?
Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms
Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,
Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood
By the red light of their own burning homes.
Fury.
Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans;
Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind.
Prometheus.
Worse?
Fury.
   In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man's estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men
As if none felt: they know not what they do.
Prometheus.
Thy words are like a cloud of wingd snakes;
And yet I pity those they torture not.
Fury.
Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!
[Vanishes.
Prometheus.
                   Ah woe!
Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever!
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumd mind,
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God and cannot find it there,
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul
With new endurance, till the hour arrives
When they shall be no types of things which are.
Panthea.
Alas! what sawest thou more?
Prometheus.
               There are two woes:
To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud,
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw.
The Earth.
I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy
As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,
Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind,
Its world-surrounding aether: they behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,
The future: may they speak comfort to thee!
Panthea.
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air!
Ione.
              And see! more come,
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.
And, hark! is it the music of the pines?
Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?
Panthea.
'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.
Chorus of Spirits.
From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float through all above the grave;
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!
Ione.
More yet come, one by one: the air around them
Looks radiant as the air around a star.
First Spirit.
On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded through the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of Love;
'Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.
Second Spirit.
A rainbow's arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee,
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half:
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy
His plank, then plunged aside to die.
Third Spirit.
I sate beside a sage's bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed,
When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade, its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:
I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
Fourth Spirit.
On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the areal kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!
One of these awakened me,
And I sped to succour thee.
Ione.
Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west
Come, as two doves to one belovd nest,
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air
On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere?
And, hark! their sweet, sad voices! 'tis despair
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.
Panthea.
Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.
Ione.
Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float
On their sustaining wings of skiey grain,
Orange and azure deepening into gold:
Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.
Chorus of Spirits.
Hast thou beheld the form of Love?
Fifth Spirit.
                  As over wide dominions
I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses,
That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions,
Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses:
His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I passed 'twas fading,
And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness,
And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding,
Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of sadness,
Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.
Sixth Spirit.
Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing:
It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air,
But treads with lulling footstep, and fans with silent wing
The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear;
Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above
And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,
Dream visions of areal joy, and call the monster, Love,
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.
Chorus.
Though Ruin now Love's shadow be,
Following him, destroyingly,
On Death's white and wingd steed,
Which the fleetest cannot flee,
Trampling down both flower and weed,
Man and beast, and foul and fair,
Like a tempest through the air;
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim,
Woundless though in heart or limb.
Prometheus.
Spirits! how know ye this shall be?
Chorus.
In the atmosphere we breathe,
As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,
From Spring gathering up beneath,
Whose mild winds shake the elder brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the white-thorn soon will blow:
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,
When they struggle to increase,
  Are to us as soft winds be
  To shepherd boys, the prophecy
  Which begins and ends in thee.
  Ione.
Where are the Spirits fled?
Panthea.
               Only a sense
Remains of them, like the omnipotence
Of music, when the inspired voice and lute
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute,
Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul,
Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.
Prometheus.
How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel
Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far,
Asia! who, when my being overflowed,
Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.
All things are still: alas! how heavily
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart;
Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief
If slumber were denied not. I would fain
Be what it is my destiny to be,
The saviour and the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the original gulf of things:
There is no agony, and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more.
Panthea.
Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?
Prometheus.
I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest.
Panthea.
Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white,
And Asia waits in that far Indian vale,
The scene of her sad exile; rugged once
And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,
And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow
Among the woods and waters, from the aether
Of her transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!
END OF THE FIRST ACT.

ACT II
Scene I.
Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia alone.
Asia.
From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended:
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes
Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,
And beatings haunt the desolated heart,
Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended
Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!
O child of many winds! As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up
As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life.
This is the season, this the day, the hour;
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine,
Too long desired, too long delaying, come!
How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!
The point of one white star is quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains. through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake
Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again
As the waves fade, and as the burning threads
Of woven cloud unravel in pale air:
'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow
The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not
The olian music of her sea-green plumes
Winnowing the crimson dawn?
[Panthea enters.
               I feel, I see
Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears,
Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.
Belovd and most beautiful, who wearest
The shadow of that soul by which I live,
How late thou art! the spherd sun had climbed
The sea; my heart was sick with hope, before
The printless air felt thy belated plumes.
Panthea.
Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint
With the delight of a remembered dream,
As are the noontide plumes of summer winds
Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep
Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm
Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy
Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity,
Both love and woe familiar to my heart
As they had grown to thine: erewhile I slept
Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean
Within dim bowers of green and purple moss,
Our young Ione's soft and milky arms
Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair,
While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within
The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom:
But not as now, since I am made the wind
Which fails beneath the music that I bear
Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved
Into the sense with which love talks, my rest
Was troubled and yet sweet; my waking hours
Too full of care and pain.
Asia.
              Lift up thine eyes,
And let me read thy dream.
Panthea.
              As I have said
With our sea-sister at his feet I slept.
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our linkd sleep.
Then two dreams came. One, I remember not.
But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs
Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night
Grew radiant with the glory of that form
Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell
Like music which makes giddy the dim brain,
Faint with intoxication of keen joy:
'Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world
With lovelinessmore fair than aught but her,
Whose shadow thou artlift thine eyes on me.'
I lifted them: the overpowering light
Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er
By love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs,
And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes,
Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere
Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power,
As the warm aether of the morning sun
Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.
I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt
His presence flow and mingle through my blood
Till it became his life, and his grew mine,
And I was thus absorbed, until it passed,
And like the vapours when the sun sinks down,
Gathering again in drops upon the pines,
And tremulous as they, in the deep night
My being was condensed; and as the rays
Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear
His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died
Like footsteps of weak melody: thy name
Among the many sounds alone I heard
Of what might be articulate; though still
I listened through the night when sound was none.
Ione wakened then, and said to me:
'Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night?
I always knew what I desired before,
Nor ever found delight to wish in vain.
But now I cannot tell thee what I seek;
I know not; something sweet, since it is sweet
Even to desire; it is thy sport, false sister;
Thou hast discovered some enchantment old,
Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept
And mingled it with thine: for when just now
We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips
The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth
Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint,
Quivered between our intertwining arms.'
I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale,
But fled to thee.
Asia.
         Thou speakest, but thy words
Are as the air: I feel them not: Oh, lift
Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul!
Panthea.
I lift them though they droop beneath the load
Of that they would express: what canst thou see
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there?
Asia.
Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven
Contracted to two circles underneath
Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless,
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.
Panthea.
Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed?
Asia.
There is a change: beyond their inmost depth
I see a shade, a shape: 'tis He, arrayed
In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread
Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon.
Prometheus, it is thine! depart not yet!
Say not those smiles that we shall meet again
Within that bright pavilion which their beams
Shall build o'er the waste world? The dream is told.
What shape is that between us? Its rude hair
Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard
Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air,
For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew
Whose stars the noon has quenched not.
Dream.
                     Follow! Follow!
                     Panthea.
It is mine other dream.
Asia.
            It disappears.
            Panthea.
It passes now into my mind. Methought
As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds
Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree,
When swift from the white Scythian wilderness
A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost:
I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down;
But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells
Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief,
O, follow, follow!
Asia.
          As you speak, your words
Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep
With shapes. Methought among these lawns together
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind;
And the white dew on the new-bladed grass,
Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently;
And there was more which I remember not:
But on the shadows of the morning clouds,
Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written
Follow, O, follow! as they vanished by;
And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had fallen,
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire;
A wind arose among the pines; it shook
The clinging music from their boughs, and then
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard: O, follow, follow, follow me!
And then I said: 'Panthea, look on me.'
But in the depth of those belovd eyes
Still I saw, follow, follow!
Echo.
               Follow, follow!
               Panthea.
The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices
As they were spirit-tongued.
Asia.
               It is some being
Around the crags. What fine clear sounds! O, list!
Echoes
(unseen).
Echoes we: listen!
We cannot stay:
As dew-stars glisten
Then fade away
  Child of Ocean!
  Asia.
Hark! Spirits speak. The liquid responses
Of their areal tongues yet sound.
Panthea.
                  I hear.
                  Echoes.
O, follow, follow,
As our voice recedeth
Through the caverns hollow,
Where the forest spreadeth; (More distant.)

O, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
Where the wild bee never flew,
Through the noontide darkness deep,
By the odour-breathing sleep
Of faint night flowers, and the waves
At the fountain-lighted caves,
While our music, wild and sweet,
Mocks thy gently falling feet,
  Child of Ocean!
  Asia.
Shall we pursue the sound? It grows more faint And distant.
Panthea.
List! the strain floats nearer now.
Echoes.
In the world unknown
Sleeps a voice unspoken;
By thy step alone
Can its rest be broken;
  Child of Ocean!
  Asia.
How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind!
Echoes.
O, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
By the woodland noontide dew;
By the forest, lakes, and fountains,
Through the many-folded mountains;
To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms,
Where the Earth reposed from spasms,
On the day when He and thou
Parted, to commingle now;
  Child of Ocean!
  Asia.
Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine,
And follow, ere the voices fade away.
Scene II.
A Forest, intermingled with Rocks and Caverns. Asia and Panthea pass into it. Two young Fauns are sitting on a Rock listening.
Semichorus I. of Spirits.
The path through which that lovely twain
Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,
And each dark tree that ever grew,
Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue;
Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain,
  Can pierce its interwoven bowers,
Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew,
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze,
Between the trunks of the hoar trees,
  Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers
Of the green laurel, blown anew;
And bends, and then fades silently,
One frail and fair anemone:
Or when some star of many a one
That climbs and wanders through steep night,
Has found the cleft through which alone
Beams fall from high those depths upon
Ere it is borne away, away,
By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,
It scatters drops of golden light,
Like lines of rain that ne'er unite:
And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground.
Semichorus II.
There the voluptuous nightingales,
Are awake through all the broad noonday.
When one with bliss or sadness fails,
  And through the windless ivy-boughs,
Sick with sweet love, droops dying away
On its mate's music-panting bosom;
Another from the swinging blossom,
  Watching to catch the languid close
Of the last strain, then lifts on high
The wings of the weak melody,
'Till some new strain of feeling bear
The song, and all the woods are mute;
When there is heard through the dim air
The rush of wings, and rising there
Like many a lake-surrounded flute,
Sounds overflow the listener's brain
So sweet, that joy is almost pain.
Semichorus I.
There those enchanted eddies play
Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw,
By Demogorgon's mighty law,
With melting rapture, or sweet awe,
All spirits on that secret way;
As inland boats are driven to Ocean
Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw:
  And first there comes a gentle sound
  To those in talk or slumber bound,
And wakes the destined soft emotion,
Attracts, impels them; those who saw
Say from the breathing earth behind
There steams a plume-uplifting wind
Which drives them on their path, while they
Believe their own swift wings and feet
The sweet desires within obey:
And so they float upon their way,
Until, still sweet, but loud and strong,
The storm of sound is driven along,
Sucked up and hurrying: as they fleet
Behind, its gathering billows meet
And to the fatal mountain bear
Like clouds amid the yielding air.
First Faun.
Canst thou imagine where those spirits live
Which make such delicate music in the woods?
We haunt within the least frequented caves
And closest coverts, and we know these wilds,
Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft:
Where may they hide themselves?
Second Faun.
                 'Tis hard to tell:
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say,
The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun
Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float
Under the green and golden atmosphere
Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves;
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
The which they breathed within those lucent domes,
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,
And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire
Under the waters of the earth again.
First Faun.
If such live thus, have others other lives,
Under pink blossoms or within the bells
Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep,
Or on their dying odours, when they die,
Or in the sunlight of the spherd dew?
Second Faun.
Ay, many more which we may well divine.
But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come,
And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn,
And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs
Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old,
And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom,
And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth
One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer
Our solitary twilights, and which charm
To silence the unenvying nightingales.
Scene III.
A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains.
Asia and Panthea.
Panthea.
Hither the sound has borne usto the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,
Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm,
Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,
That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,
Like Mnads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!
The voice which is contagion to the world.
Asia.
Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent!
How glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be
The shadow of some spirit lovelier still,
Though evil stain its work, and it should be
Like its creation, weak yet beautiful,
I could fall down and worship that and thee.
Even now my heart adoreth: Wonderful!
Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain:
Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,
As a lake, paving in the morning sky,
With azure waves which burst in silver light,
Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on
Under the curdling winds, and islanding
The peak whereon we stand, midway, around,
Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests,
Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumd caves,
And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains
From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling
The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray,
From some Atlantic islet scattered up,
Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops.
The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl
Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines,
Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast,
Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow!
The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
Panthea.
Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking
In crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises
As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon
Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.
Asia.
The fragments of the cloud are scattered up;
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;
Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes; my brain
Grows dizzy; see'st thou shapes within the mist?
Panthea.
A countenance with beckoning smiles: there burns
An azure fire within its golden locks!
Another and another: hark! they speak!
Song of Spirits.
To the deep, to the deep,
  Down, down!
Through the shade of sleep,
Through the cloudy strife
Of Death and of Life;
Through the veil and the bar
Of things which seem and are
Even to the steps of the remotest throne,
  Down, down!
   While the sound whirls around,
  Down, down!
As the fawn draws the hound,
As the lightning the vapour,
As a weak moth the taper;
Death, despair; love, sorrow;
Time both; to-day, to-morrow;
As steel obeys the spirit of the stone,
  Down, down!
   Through the gray, void abysm,
  Down, down!
Where the air is no prism,
And the moon and stars are not,
And the cavern-crags wear not
The radiance of Heaven,
Nor the gloom to Earth given,
Where there is One pervading, One alone,
  Down, down!
   In the depth of the deep,
  Down, down!
Like veiled lightning asleep,
Like the spark nursed in embers,
The last look Love remembers,
Like a diamond, which shines
On the dark wealth of mines,
A spell is treasured but for thee alone.
  Down, down!
   We have bound thee, we guide thee;
  Down, down!
With the bright form beside thee;
Resist not the weakness,
Such strength is in meekness
That the Eternal, the Immortal,
Most unloose through life's portal
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne
  By that alone.
  Scene IV.
The Cave of Demogorgon.
Asia and Panthea.
Panthea.
What viled form sits on that ebon throne?
Asia.
The veil has fallen.
Panthea.
           I see a mighty darkness
Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun.
Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb,
Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.
Demogorgon.
         Ask what thou wouldst know.
         Asia.
What canst thou tell?
Demogorgon.
           All things thou dar'st demand.
           Asia.
Who made the living world?
Demogorgon.
              God.
              Asia.
                Who made all
That it contains? thought, passion, reason, will, Imagination?
Demogorgon.
God: Almighty God.
Asia.
Who made that sense which, when the winds of Spring
In rarest visitation, or the voice
Of one belovd heard in youth alone,
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim
The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,
And leaves this peopled earth a solitude
When it returns no more?
Demogorgon.
             Merciful God.
             Asia.
And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,
Which from the links of the great chain of things,
To every thought within the mind of man
Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels
Under the load towards the pit of death;
Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;
And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood;
Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech
Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day;
And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?
Demogorgon.
                    He reigns.
                    Asia.
Utter his name: a world pining in pain
Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down.
Demogorgon.
He reigns.
Asia.
     I feel, I know it: who?
     Demogorgon.
                  He reigns.
                  Asia.
Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,
And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
Time fell, an envious shadow: such the state
Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway,
As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves
Before the wind or sun has withered them
And semivital worms; but he refused
The birthright of their being, knowledge, power,
The skill which wields the elements, the thought
Which pierces this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;
For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus
Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,
And with this law alone, 'Let man be free,'
Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign;
And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man
First famine, and then toil, and then disease,
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,
Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:
And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,
And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle
Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,
So ruining the lair wherein they raged.
Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes
Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,
Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,
That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings
The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine
Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to his will
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;
And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,
Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;
And music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,
With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,
The human form, till marble grew divine;
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.
He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,
And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven
Of the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea:
He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,
The tempest-wingd chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then
Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs
Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on,
The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,
The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?
Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven, ay, when
His adversary from adamantine chains
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare
Who is his master? Is he too a slave?
Demogorgon.
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil:
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
Asia.
Whom calledst thou God?
Demogorgon.
            I spoke but as ye speak,
For Jove is the supreme of living things.
Asia.
Who is the master of the slave?
Demogorgon.
                 If the abysm
Could vomit forth its secrets. . . But a voice
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? What to bid speak
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these
All things are subject but eternal Love.
Asia.
So much I asked before, and my heart gave
The response thou hast given; and of such truths
Each to itself must be the oracle.
One more demand; and do thou answer me
As mine own soul would answer, did it know
That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise
Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world:
When shall the destined hour arrive?
Demogorgon.
                    Behold!
                    Asia.
The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
I see cars drawn by rainbow-wingd steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward.
Demogorgon.
       These are the immortal Hours,
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
Asia.
A spirit with a dreadful countenance
Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf.
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer,
Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!
Spirit.
I am the shadow of a destiny
More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet
Has set, the darkness which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne.
Asia.
What meanest thou?
Panthea.
          That terrible shadow floats
Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke
Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea.
Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly
Terrified: watch its path among the stars
Blackening the night!
Asia.
           Thus I am answered: strange!
           Panthea.
See, near the verge, another chariot stays;
An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire,
Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim
Of delicate strange tracery; the young spirit
That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope;
How its soft smiles attract the soul! as light
Lures wingd insects through the lampless air.
Spirit.
My coursers are fed with the lightning,
They drink of the whirlwind's stream,
And when the red morning is bright'ning
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam;
They have strength for their swiftness I deem,
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.
I desire: and their speed makes night kindle;
I fear: they outstrip the Typhoon;
Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle
We encircle the earth and the moon:
We shall rest from long labours at noon:
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.
Scene V.
The Car pauses within a Cloud on the top of a snowy Mountain. Asia, Panthea, and the Spirit of the Hour.
Spirit.
On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire:
They shall drink the hot speed of desire!
Asia.
Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath
Would give them swifter speed.
Spirit.
                Alas! it could not.
                Panthea.
Oh Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light
Which fills this cloud? the sun is yet unrisen.
Spirit.
The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
Is held in heaven by wonder; and the light
Which fills this vapour, as the areal hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister.
Panthea.
                Yes, I feel
                Asia.
What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.
Panthea.
How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
Is working in the elements, which suffer
Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell
That on the day when the clear hyaline
Was cloven at thine uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veind shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
Among the gean isles, and by the shores
Which bear thy name; love, like the atmosphere
Of the sun's fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven
And the deep ocean and the sunless caves
And all that dwells within them; till grief cast
Eclipse upon the soul from which it came:
Such art thou now; nor is it I alone,
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!
[Music.
Asia.
Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his
Whose echoes they are: yet all love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.
Panthea.
            List! Spirits speak.
            Voice in the Air, singing.
Life of Life! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire; then screen them
In those looks, where whoso gazes
Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
Through the vest which seems to hide them;
As the radiant lines of morning
Through the clouds ere they divide them;
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.
Fair are others; none beholds thee,
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest, for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendour,
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
Asia.
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have passed Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
END OF THE SECOND ACT.

ACT III
Scene I.
Heaven. Jupiter on his Throne; Thetis and the other Deities assembled.
Jupiter.
Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share
The glory and the strength of him ye serve,
Rejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent.
All else had been subdued to me; alone
The soul of man, like unextinguished fire,
Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt,
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer,
Hurling up insurrection, which might make
Our antique empire insecure, though built
On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear;
And though my curses through the pendulous air,
Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake,
And cling to it; though under my wrath's night
It climbs the crags of life, step after step,
Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet,
It yet remains supreme o'er misery,
Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall:
Even now have I begotten a strange wonder,
That fatal child, the terror of the earth,
Who waits but till the destined hour arrive,
Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne
The dreadful might of ever-living limbs
Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld,
To redescend, and trample out the spark.
Pour forth heaven's wine, Idan Ganymede,
And let it fill the Ddal cups like fire,
And from the flower-inwoven soil divine
Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise,
As dew from earth under the twilight stars:
Drink! be the nectar circling through your veins
The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,
Till exultation burst in one wide voice
Like music from Elysian winds.
                And thou
Ascend beside me, veild in the light
Of the desire which makes thee one with me,
Thetis, bright image of eternity!
When thou didst cry, 'Insufferable might!
God! Spare me! I sustain not the quick flames,
The penetrating presence; all my being,
Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved,
Sinking through its foundations:' even then
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third
Mightier than either, which, unbodied now,
Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld,
Waiting the incarnation, which ascends,
(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels
Griding the winds?) from Demogorgon's throne.
Victory! victory! Feel'st thou not, O world,
The earthquake of his chariot thundering up
Olympus?
[The Car of the Hour arrives. Demogorgon descends, and moves towards the Throne of Jupiter.
    Awful shape, what art thou? Speak!
    Demogorgon.
Eternity. Demand no direr name.
Descend, and follow me down the abyss.
I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child;
Mightier than thee: and we must dwell together
Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not.
The tyranny of heaven none may retain,
Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee:
Yet if thou wilt, as 'tis the destiny
Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead,
Put forth thy might.
Jupiter.
           Detested prodigy!
Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons
I trample thee! thou lingerest?
                 Mercy! mercy!
No pity, no release, no respite! Oh,
That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge,
Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge,
On Caucasus! he would not doom me thus.
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not
The monarch of the world? What then art thou?
No refuge! no appeal!
           Sink with me then,
We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin,
Even as a vulture and a snake outspent
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight,
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock
Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire,
And whelm on them into the bottomless void
This desolated world, and thee, and me,
The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck
Of that for which they combated.
                 Ai! Ai!
The elements obey me not. I sink
Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down.
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above
Darkens my fall with victory! Ai, Ai!
Scene II.
The Mouth of a great River in the Island Atlantis.Ocean is discovered reclining near the Shore; Apollo stands beside him.
Ocean.
He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown?
Apollo.
Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim
The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars,
The terrors of his eye illumined heaven
With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts
Of the victorious darkness, as he fell:
Like the last glare of day's red agony,
Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds,
Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.
Ocean.
He sunk to the abyss? To the dark void?
Apollo.
An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud
On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings
Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes
Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded
By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail
Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length
Prone, and the areal ice clings over it.
Ocean.
Henceforth the fields of heaven-reflecting sea
Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood,
Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn
Swayed by the summer air; my streams will flow
Round many-peopled continents, and round
Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones
Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark
The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see
The floating bark of the light-laden moon
With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest,
Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea;
Tracking their path no more by blood and groans,
And desolation, and the mingled voice
Of slavery and command; but by the light
Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours,
And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices,
And sweetest music, such as spirits love.
Apollo.
And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make
My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse
Darkens the sphere I guide; but list, I hear
The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit
That sits i' the morning star.
Ocean.
                Thou must away;
Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell:
The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it
With azure calm out of the emerald urns
Which stand for ever full beside my throne.
Behold the Nereids under the green sea,
Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream,
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,
Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. [A sound of waves is heard.

It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.
Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.
Apollo.
                    Farewell.
                    Scene III.
Caucasus. Prometheus, Hercules, Ione, the Earth, Spirits, Asia, and Panthea, borne in the Car with the Spirit of the Hour. Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends.
Hercules.
Most glorious among Spirits, thus doth strength
To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love,
And thee, who art the form they animate,
Minister like a slave.
Prometheus.
            Thy gentle words
Are sweeter even than freedom long desired
And long delayed.
         Asia, thou light of life,
Shadow of beauty unbeheld: and ye,
Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain
Sweet to remember, through your love and care:
Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave,
All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,
Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,
And paved with veind emerald, and a fountain
Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.
From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears
Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,
Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light:
And there is heard the ever-moving air,
Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds,
And bees; and all around are mossy seats,
And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass;
A simple dwelling, which shall be our own;
Where we will sit and talk of time and change,
As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged.
What can hide man from mutability?
And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,
Ione, shalt chant fragments of sea-music,
Until I weep, when ye shal smile away
The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.
We will entangle buds and flowers and beams
Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make
Strange combinations out of common things,
Like human babes in their brief innocence;
And we will search, with looks and words of love,
For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last,
Our unexhausted spirits; and like lutes
Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,
Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,
From difference sweet where discord cannot be;
And hither come, sped on the charmd winds,
Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees
From every flower areal Enna feeds,
At their known island-homes in Himera,
The echoes of the human world, which tell
Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,
And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music,
Itself the echo of the heart, and all
That tempers or improves man's life, now free;
And lovely apparitions,dim at first,
Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright
From the embrace of beauty (whence the forms
Of which these are the phantoms) casts on them
The gathered rays which are reality
Shall visit us, the progeny immortal
Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,
And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.
The wandering voices and the shadows these
Of all that man becomes, the mediators
Of that best worship love, by him and us
Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow
More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,
And, veil by veil, evil and error fall:
Such virtue has the cave and place around. [Turning to the Spirit of the Hour.

For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione,
Give her that curvd shell, which Proteus old
Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it
A voice to be accomplished, and which thou
Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.
Ione.
Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely
Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell;
See the pale azure fading into silver
Lining it with a soft yet glowing light:
Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there?
Spirit.
It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean:
Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.
Prometheus.
Go, borne over the cities of mankind
On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again
Outspeed the sun around the orbd world;
And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,
Thou breathe into the many-folded shell,
Loosening its mighty music; it shall be
As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then
Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.
And thou, O, Mother Earth!
The Earth.
               I hear, I feel;
Thy lips are on me, and their touch runs down
Even to the adamantine central gloom
Along these marble nerves; 'tis life, 'tis joy,
And through my withered, old, and icy frame
The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down
Circling. Henceforth the many children fair
Folded in my sustaining arms; all plants,
And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged,
And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes,
Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom,
Draining the poison of despair, shall take
And interchange sweet nutriment; to me
Shall they become like sister-antelopes
By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind,
Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream.
The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float
Under the stars like balm: night-folded flowers
Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose:
And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy:
And death shall be the last embrace of her
Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother
Folding her child, says, 'Leave me not again.'
Asia.
Oh, mother! wherefore speak the name of death?
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,
Who die?
The Earth.
    It would avail not to reply:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
But to the uncommunicating dead.
Death is the veil which those who live call life:
They sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile
In mild variety the seasons mild
With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds,
And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night,
And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's
All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain
Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild,
Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even
The crag-built deserts of the barren deep,
With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.
And thou! There is a cavern where my spirit
Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain
Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it
Became mad too, and built a temple there,
And spoke, and were oracular, and lured
The erring nations round to mutual war,
And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee;
Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds
A violet's exhalation, and it fills
With a serener light and crimson air
Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around;
It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,
And the dark linkd ivy tangling wild,
And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms
Which star the winds with points of coloured light,
As they rain through them, and bright golden globes
Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven,
And through their veind leaves and amber stems
The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls
Stand ever mantling with areal dew,
The drink of spirits: and it circles round,
Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams,
Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine,
Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine.
Arise! Appear!
[A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child.
       This is my torch-bearer;
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing
On eyes from which he kindled it anew
With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine,
For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward,
And guide this company beyond the peak
Of Bacchic Nysa, Mnad-haunted mountain,
And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers,
Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes
With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying,
And up the green ravine, across the vale,
Beside the windless and crystalline pool,
Where ever lies, on unerasing waves,
The image of a temple, built above,
Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,
And palm-like capital, and over-wrought,
And populous with most living imagery,
Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles
Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.
It is deserted now, but once it bore
Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths
Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom
The lamp which was thine emblem; even as those
Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope
Into the grave, across the night of life,
As thou hast borne it most triumphantly
To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.
Beside that temple is the destined cave.
Scene IV.
A Forest. In the Background a Cave. Prometheus, Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit of the Earth.
Ione.
Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides
Under the leaves! how on its head there burns
A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams
Are twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves,
The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass!
Knowest thou it?
Panthea.
         It is the delicate spirit
That guides the earth through heaven. From afar
The populous constellations call that light
The loveliest of the planets; and sometimes
It floats along the spray of the salt sea,
Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud,
Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep,
Or o'er the mountain tops, or down the rivers,
Or through the green waste wilderness, as now,
Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned
It loved our sister Asia, and it came
Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light
Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted
As one bit by a dipsas, and with her
It made its childish confidence, and told her
All it had known or seen, for it saw much,
Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her
For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I
Mother, dear mother.
The Spirit of the Earth
(running to Asia).
           Mother, dearest mother;
May I then talk with thee as I was wont?
May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms,
After thy looks have made them tired of joy?
May I then play beside thee the long noons,
When work is none in the bright silent air?
Asia.
I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth
Can cherish thee unenvied: speak, I pray:
Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights.
Spirit of the Earth.
Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child
Cannot be wise like thee, within this day;
And happier too; happier and wiser both.
Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms,
And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs
That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever
An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world:
And that, among the haunts of humankind,
Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks,
Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles,
Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance,
Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts
Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man;
And women too, ugliest of all things evil,
(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair,
When good and kind, free and sincere like thee),
When false or frowning made me sick at heart
To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen.
Well, my path lately lay through a great city
Into the woody hills surrounding it:
A sentinel was sleeping at the gate:
When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook
The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet
Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all;
A long, long sound, as it would never end:
And all the inhabitants leaped suddenly
Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets,
Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet
The music pealed along. I hid myself
Within a fountain in the public square,
Where I lay like the reflex of the moon
Seen in a wave under green leaves; and soon
Those ugly human shapes and visages
Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain,
Passed floating through the air, and fading still
Into the winds that scattered them; and those
From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms
After some foul disguise had fallen, and all
Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise
And greetings of delighted wonder, all
Went to their sleep again: and when the dawn
Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts,
Could e'er be beautiful? yet so they were,
And that with little change of shape or hue:
All things had put their evil nature off:
I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake
Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined,
I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward
And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries,
With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay
Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky;
So, with my thoughts full of these happy changes,
We meet again, the happiest change of all.
Asia.
And never will we part, till thy chaste sister
Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon
Will look on thy more warm and equal light
Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow
And love thee.
Spirit of the Earth.
       What; as Asia loves Prometheus?
       Asia.
Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough.
Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes
To multiply your lovely selves, and fill
With spherd fires the interlunar air?
Spirit of the Earth.
Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp
'Tis hard I should go darkling.
Asia.
                 Listen; look!
                 [The Spirit of the Hour enters.
Prometheus.
We feel what thou hast heard and seen: yet speak.
Spirit of the Hour.
Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled
The abysses of the sky and the wide earth,
There was a change: the impalpable thin air
And the all-circling sunlight were transformed,
As if the sense of love dissolved in them
Had folded itself round the spherd world.
My vision then grew clear, and I could see
Into the mysteries of the universe:
Dizzy as with delight I floated down,
Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes,
My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun,
Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil,
Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire;
And where my moonlike car will stand within
A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms
Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me,
And you fair nymphs looking the love we feel,
In memory of the tidings it has borne,
Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers,
Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone,
And open to the bright and liquid sky.
Yoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake
The likeness of those wingd steeds will mock
The flight from which they find repose. Alas,
Whither has wandered now my partial tongue
When all remains untold which ye would hear?
As I have said, I floated to the earth:
It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss
To move, to breathe, to be; I wandering went
Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind,
And first was disappointed not to see
Such mighty change as I had felt within
Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked,
And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked
One with the other even as spirits do,
None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,
Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows
No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
'All hope abandon ye who enter here;'
None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear
Gazed on another's eye of cold command,
Until the subject of a tyrant's will
Became, worse fate, the abject of his own,
Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.
None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;
None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart
The sparks of love and hope till there remained
Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,
And the wretch crept a vampire among men,
Infecting all with his own hideous ill;
None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,
Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy
With such a self-mistrust as has no name.
And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind
As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
On the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms,
From custom's evil taint exempt and pure;
Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions once they feared to feel,
And changed to all which once they dared not be,
Yet being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride,
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,
The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.
Thrones, altars, judgement-seats, and prisons; wherein,
And beside which, by wretched men were borne
Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes
Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance,
Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,
The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame,
Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth
In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs
Of those who were their conquerors: mouldering round,
These imaged to the pride of kings and priests
A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide
As is the world it wasted, and are now
But an astonishment; even so the tools
And emblems of its last captivity,
Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth,
Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now.
And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man,
Which, under many a name and many a form
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,
Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world;
And which the nations, panic-stricken, served
With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love
Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,
And slain amid men's unreclaiming tears,
Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,
Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines:
The painted veil, by those who were, called life,
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread,
All men believed or hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless?no, yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them,
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.
END OF THE THIRD ACT.

ACT IV
Scene.A Part of the Forest near the Cave of Prometheus.Panthea and Ione are sleeping: they awaken gradually during the first Song.
Voice of unseen Spirits.
The pale stars are gone!
For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard.
  But where are ye?
  A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly, singing.
Here, oh, here:
We bear the bier
Of the Father of many a cancelled year!
Spectres we
Of the dead Hours be,
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.
Strew, oh, strew
Hair, not yew!
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!
Be the faded flowers
Of Death's bare bowers
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours!
Haste, oh, haste!
As shades are chased,
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste.
We melt away,
Like dissolving spray,
From the children of a diviner day,
With the lullaby
Of winds that die
On the bosom of their own harmony!
Ione.
What dark forms were they?
Panthea.
The past Hours weak and gray,
With the spoil which their toil
Raked together
From the conquest but One could foil.
Ione.
Have they passed?
Panthea.
         They have passed;
They outspeeded the blast,
While 'tis said, they are fled:
Ione.
Whither, oh, whither?
Panthea.
To the dark, to the past, to the dead.
Voice of unseen Spirits.
Bright clouds float in heaven,
Dew-stars gleam on earth,
Waves assemble on ocean,
They are gathered and driven
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!
They shake with emotion,
They dance in their mirth.
  But where are ye?
   The pine boughs are singing
Old songs with new gladness,
The billows and fountains
Fresh music are flinging,
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;
The storms mock the mountains
With the thunder of gladness.
  But where are ye?
  Ione.
What charioteers are these?
Panthea.
               Where are their chariots?
               Semichorus of Hours.
The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth
Have drawn back the figured curtain of sleep
Which covered our being and darkened our birth
In the deep.
A Voice.
      In the deep?
      Semichorus II.
             Oh, below the deep.
             Semichorus I.
An hundred ages we had been kept
Cradled in visions of hate and care,
And each one who waked as his brother slept,
Found the truth
Semichorus II.
          Worse than his visions were!
          Semichorus I.
We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep;
We have known the voice of Love in dreams;
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap
Semichorus II.
As the billows leap in the morning beams!
Chorus.
Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,
Pierce with song heaven's silent light,
Enchant the day that too swiftly flees,
To check its flight ere the cave of Night.
Once the hungry Hours were hounds
Which chased the day like a bleeding deer,
And it limped and stumbled with many wounds
Through the nightly dells of the desert year.
But now, oh weave the mystic measure
Of music, and dance, and shapes of light,
Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure,
Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite.
A Voice.
                    Unite!
                    Panthea.
See, where the Spirits of the human mind
Wrapped in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach.
Chorus of Spirits.
We join the throng
Of the dance and the song,
By the whirlwind of gladness borne along;
As the flying-fish leap
From the Indian deep,
And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep.
Chorus of Hours.
Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet,
For sandals of lightning are on your feet,
And your wings are soft and swift as thought,
And your eyes are as love which is veild not?
Chorus of Spirits.
We come from the mind
Of human kind
Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind,
Now 'tis an ocean
Of clear emotion,
A heaven of serene and mighty motion
From that deep abyss
Of wonder and bliss,
Whose caverns are crystal palaces;
From those skiey towers
Where Thought's crowned powers
Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours!
From the dim recesses
Of woven caresses,
Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses
From the azure isles,
Where sweet Wisdom smiles,
Delaying your ships with her siren wiles.
From the temples high
Of Man's ear and eye,
Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy;
From the murmurings
Of the unsealed springs
Where Science bedews her Ddal wings.
Years after years,
Through blood, and tears,
And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears;
We waded and flew,
And the islets were few
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.
Our feet now, every palm,
Are sandalled with calm,
And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm;
And, beyond our eyes,
The human love lies
Which makes all it gazes on Paradise.
Chorus of Spirits and Hours.
Then weave the web of the mystic measure;
From the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth,
Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure,
Fill the dance and the music of mirth,
As the waves of a thousand streams rush by
To an ocean of splendour and harmony!
Chorus of Spirits.
Our spoil is won,
Our task is done,
We are free to dive, or soar, or run;
Beyond and around,
Or within the bound
Which clips the world with darkness round.
We'll pass the eyes
Of the starry skies
Into the hoar deep to colonize:
Death, Chaos, and Night,
From the sound of our flight,
Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might.
And Earth, Air, and Light,
And the Spirit of Might,
Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight;
And Love, Thought, and Breath,
The powers that quell Death,
Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath.
And our singing shall build
In the void's loose field
A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield;
We will take our plan
From the new world of man,
And our work shall be called the Promethean.
Chorus of Hours.
Break the dance, and scatter the song;
Let some depart, and some remain.
Semichorus I.
We, beyond heaven, are driven along:
Semichorus II.
Us the enchantments of earth retain:
Semichorus I.
Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free,
With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea,
And a heaven where yet heaven could never be.
Semichorus II.
Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright,
Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night,
With the powers of a world of perfect light.
Semichorus I.
We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere,
Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear
From its chaos made calm by love, not fear.
Semichorus II.
We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth,
And the happy forms of its death and birth
Change to the music of our sweet mirth.
Chorus of Hours and Spirits.
Break the dance, and scatter the song,
Let some depart, and some remain,
Wherever we fly we lead along
In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong,
The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain.
Panthea.
Ha! they are gone!
Ione.
          Yet feel you no delight
From the past sweetness?
Panthea.
             As the bare green hill
When some soft cloud vanishes into rain,
Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water
To the unpavilioned sky!
Ione.
             Even whilst we speak
New notes arise. What is that awful sound?
Panthea.
'Tis the deep music of the rolling world
Kindling within the strings of the waved air
olian modulations.
Ione.
          Listen too,
How every pause is filled with under-notes,
Clear, silver, icy, keen, awakening tones,
Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul,
As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air
And gaze upon themselves within the sea.
Panthea.
But see where through two openings in the forest
Which hanging branches overcanopy,
And where two runnels of a rivulet,
Between the close moss violet-inwoven,
Have made their path of melody, like sisters
Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles,
Turning their dear disunion to an isle
Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts;
Two visions of strange radiance float upon
The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound,
Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet
Under the ground and through the windless air.
Ione.
I see a chariot like that thinnest boat,
In which the Mother of the Months is borne
By ebbing light into her western cave,
When she upsprings from interlunar dreams;
O'er which is curved an orblike canopy
Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods,
Distinctly seen through that dusk aery veil,
Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass;
Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold,
Such as the genii of the thunderstorm
Pile on the floor of the illumined sea
When the sun rushes under it; they roll
And move and grow as with an inward wind;
Within it sits a wingd infant, white
Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow,
Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost,
Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds
Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl.
Its hair is white, the brightness of white light
Scattered in strings; yet its two eyes are heavens
Of liquid darkness, which the Deity
Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured
From jaggd clouds, out of their arrowy lashes,
Tempering the cold and radiant air around,
With fire that is not brightness; in its hand
It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point
A guiding power directs the chariot's prow
Over its wheeld clouds, which as they roll
Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds,
Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew.
Panthea.
And from the other opening in the wood
Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony,
A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres,
Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass
Flow, as through empty space, music and light:
Ten thousand orbs involving and involved,
Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden,
Sphere within sphere; and every space between
Peopled with unimaginable shapes,
Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep,
Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl
Over each other with a thousand motions,
Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning,
And with the force of self-destroying swiftness,
Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on,
Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones,
Intelligible words and music wild.
With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb
Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist
Of elemental subtlety, like light;
And the wild odour of the forest flowers,
The music of the living grass and air,
The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams
Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed,
Seem kneaded into one areal mass
Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself,
Pillowed upon its alabaster arms,
Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil,
On its own folded wings, and wavy hair,
The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep,
And you can see its little lips are moving,
Amid the changing light of their own smiles,
Like one who talks of what he loves in dream.
Ione.
'Tis only mocking the orb's harmony.
Panthea.
And from a star upon its forehead, shoot,
Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears
With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined,
Embleming heaven and earth united now,
Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel
Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought,
Filling the abyss with sun-like lightenings,
And perpendicular now, and now transverse,
Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass,
Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart;
Infinite mines of adamant and gold,
Valueless stones, and unimagined gems,
And caverns on crystalline columns poised
With vegetable silver overspread;
Wells of unfathomed fire, and water springs
Whence the great sea, even as a child is fed,
Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops
With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on
And make appear the melancholy ruins
Of cancelled cycles; anchors, beaks of ships;
Planks turned to marble; quivers, helms, and spears,
And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels
Of scythd chariots, and the emblazonry
Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts,
Round which death laughed, sepulchred emblems
Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin!
The wrecks beside of many a city vast,
Whose population which the earth grew over
Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie,
Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons,
Their statues, homes and fanes; prodigious shapes
Huddled in gray annihilation, split,
Jammed in the hard, black deep; and over these,
The anatomies of unknown wingd things,
And fishes which were isles of living scale,
And serpents, bony chains, twisted around
The iron crags, or within heaps of dust
To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs
Had crushed the iron crags; and over these
The jaggd alligator, and the might
Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once
Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores,
And weed-overgrown continents of earth,
Increased and multiplied like summer worms
On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe
Wrapped deluge round it like a cloak, and they
Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God
Whose throne was in a comet, passed, and cried,
'Be not!' And like my words they were no more.
The Earth.
The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
Ha! ha! the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.
The Moon.
Brother mine, calm wanderer,
Happy globe of land and air,
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,
Which penetrates my frozen frame,
And passes with the warmth of flame,
With love, and odour, and deep melody
  Through me, through me!
  The Earth.
Ha! ha! the caverns of my hollow mountains,
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains
Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter.
The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses,
And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses,
Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after.
They cry aloud as I do. Sceptred curse,
Who all our green and azure universe
Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, sending
A solid cloud to rain hot thunderstones,
And splinter and knead down my children's bones,
All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and blending,
Until each crag-like tower, and storied column,
Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn,
My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, and fire;
My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom
Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom,
Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire:
How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk up
By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup
Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all;
And from beneath, around, within, above,
Filling thy void annihilation, love
Burst in like light on caves cloven by the thunder-ball.
The Moon.
The snow upon my lifeless mountains
Is loosened into living fountains,
My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine:
A spirit from my heart bursts forth,
It clothes with unexpected birth
My cold bare bosom: Oh! it must be thine
  On mine, on mine!
   Gazing on thee I feel, I know
Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow,
And living shapes upon my bosom move:
Music is in the sea and air,
Wingd clouds soar here and there,
Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of:
  'Tis love, all love!
  The Earth.
It interpenetrates my granite mass,
Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass
Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers;
Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread,
It wakes a life in the forgotten dead,
They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers.
And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison
With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen
Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being:
With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver
Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever,
Till hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,
Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror,
Which could distort to many a shape of error,
This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love;
Which over all his kind, as the sun's heaven
Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even,
Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth move:
Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left,
Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft
Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is poured;
Then when it wanders home with rosy smile,
Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile
It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.
Man, oh, not men! a chain of linkd thought,
Of love and might to be divided not,
Compelling the elements with adamantine stress;
As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze,
The unquiet republic of the maze
Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.
Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love;
Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be!
His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,
A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,
Is as a tempest-wingd ship, whose helm
Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm,
Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.
All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass;
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;
Language is a perpetual Orphic song,
Which rules with Ddal harmony a throng
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.
The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on!
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,
Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have none.
The Moon.
The shadow of white death has passed
From my path in heaven at last,
A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers,
Wander happy paramours,
Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
  Thy vales more deep.
  The Earth.
As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold
A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold,
And crystalline, till it becomes a wingd mist,
And wanders up the vault of the blue day,
Outlives the moon, and on the sun's last ray
Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.
The Moon.
Thou art folded, thou art lying
In the light which is undying
Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;
All suns and constellations shower
On thee a light, a life, a power
Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
  On mine, on mine!
  The Earth.
I spin beneath my pyramid of night,
Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;
As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,
Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.
The Moon.
As in the soft and sweet eclipse,
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;
So when thy shadow falls on me,
Then am I mute and still, by thee
Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
  Full, oh, too full!
   Thou art speeding round the sun
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of Heaven
To whom life and light is given;
I, thy crystal paramour
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar Paradise,
Magnet-like of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamoured maiden
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side
Like a Mnad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up
In the weird Cadman forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest
I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Sheltered by the warm embrace
Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,
As a lover or a chameleon
Grows like what it looks upon,
As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds,
As a gray and watery mist
Glows like solid amethyst
Athwart the western mountain it enfolds,
When the sunset sleeps
  Upon its snow
  The Earth.
  And the weak day weeps
   That it should be so.
Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight
Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night,
Through isles for ever calm;
Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep universe,
Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm.
Panthea.
I rise as from a bath of sparkling water,
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks,
Out of the stream of sound.
Ione.
               Ah me! sweet sister,
The stream of sound has ebbed away from us,
And you pretend to rise out of its wave,
Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew
Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair.
Panthea.
Peace! peace! A mighty Power, which is as darkness,
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky
Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.
Ione.
There is a sense of words upon mine ear.
Panthea.
An universal sound like words: Oh, list!
Demogorgon.
Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll
The love which paves thy path along the skies:
The Earth.
I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.
Demogorgon.
Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth
With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;
Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:
The Moon.
I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee!
Demogorgon.
Ye Kings of suns and stars, Dmons and Gods,
Aetherial Dominations, who possess
Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes
Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:
A Voice from above.
Our great Republic hears, we are blest, and bless.
Demogorgon.
Ye happy Dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray,
Whether your nature is that universe
Which once ye saw and suffered
A Voice from beneath.
                 Or as they
Whom we have left, we change and pass away.
Demogorgon.
Ye elemental Genii, who have homes
From man's high mind even to the central stone
Of sullen lead; from heaven's star-fretted domes
To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:
A confused Voice.
We hear: thy words waken Oblivion.
Demogorgon.
Spirits, whose homes are flesh: ye beasts and birds,
Ye worms, and fish; ye living leaves and buds;
Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds,
Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:
A Voice.
Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.
Demogorgon.
Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;
A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;
A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:
All.
Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.
Demogorgon.
This is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Composed at Este, Sept., Oct., 1818 (Act I); at Rome, March - April 6, 1819 (Acts II, III); at Florence, close of 1819 (Act IV). Published by C. and J. Ollier, London, summer of 1820.

Note from Mrs. Shelley: 'On the 12th of March, 1818, Shelley quitted England, never to return. His principal motive was the hope that his health would be improved by a milder climate; he suffered very much during the winter previous to his emigration, and this decided his vacillating purpose. .....Through the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of love; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the prophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the law of the world. ....And, as he wandered among the ruins made one with Nature in their decay, or gaed on the Praxitelean shapes that throng the Vatican, the Capitol, and the palaces of Rome, his soul imbibed forms of loveliness which became a portion of itself. There are many passages in the Prometheus which show the intense delight he received from such studies, and give back the impression with a beauty of poetical description peculiarly his own. He felt this, as a poet must feel when he satisfies himself by the result of his labours; and he wrote from Rome, ''My Prometheus Unbound is just finished, and in a month or two I shall send it. It is a drama, with characters and mechanism of a kind yet unattempted; and I think the execution is better than any of my former attempts.'''
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
,

IN CHAPTERS [99/99]



   32 Poetry
   19 Fiction
   9 Integral Yoga
   7 Occultism
   3 Philosophy
   2 Psychology
   2 Mythology
   2 Mysticism
   2 Kabbalah
   2 Cybernetics
   2 Christianity
   1 Theosophy
   1 Alchemy


   24 Sri Aurobindo
   16 H P Lovecraft
   5 Robert Browning
   4 Percy Bysshe Shelley
   4 John Keats
   3 William Wordsworth
   3 The Mother
   3 Nolini Kanta Gupta
   3 Jorge Luis Borges
   2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
   2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
   2 Rabindranath Tagore
   2 Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
   2 Ovid
   2 Norbert Wiener
   2 Jorge Luis Borges
   2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
   2 James George Frazer
   2 Friedrich Schiller
   2 Carl Jung


   16 Lovecraft - Poems
   5 Browning - Poems
   4 Shelley - Poems
   4 Savitri
   4 Keats - Poems
   3 Wordsworth - Poems
   3 The Synthesis Of Yoga
   3 The Life Divine
   3 Talks
   3 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
   3 Labyrinths
   3 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
   3 Collected Poems
   2 The Golden Bough
   2 Tagore - Poems
   2 Selected Fictions
   2 Schiller - Poems
   2 Metamorphoses
   2 General Principles of Kabbalah
   2 Faust
   2 Cybernetics


02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  In her Mazes of approach and of retreat
  To every side she draws him and repels,

05.01 - Man and the Gods, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   Man possesses characters that mark him as an entity sui generis and give him the value that is his. First, toil and suffering and more failures than success have given him the quality of endurance and patience, of humility and quietness. That is the quality of earth-natureearth is always spoken of by the poets and seers as all-bearing and all-forgiving. She never protests under any load put upon her, never rises in revolt, never in a hurry or in worry, she goes on with her appointed labour silently, steadily, calmly, unflinchingly. Human consciousness can take infinite pains, go through the infinite details of execution, through countless repetitions and Mazes: patience and perseverance are the very badge and blazon of the tribe. Ribhus, the artisans of immortalitychildren of Mahasaraswatiwere originally men, men who have laboured into godhood. Human nature knows to wait, wait infinitely, as it has all the eternity before it and can afford and is prepared to continue and persist life after life. I do not say that all men can do it and are of this nature; but there is this essential capacity in human nature. The gods, who are usually described as the very embodiment of calmness and firmness, of a serene and concentrated will to achieve, nevertheless suffer ill any delay or hindrance to their work. Man has not perhaps the even tenor, the steadiness of their movement, even though intense and fast flowing; but what man possesses is persistence through ups and downshis path is rugged with rise and fall, as the poet says. The steadiness or the staying power of the gods contains something of the nature of indifference, something hard in its grain, not unlike a crystal or a diamond. But human patience, when it has formed and taken shape, possesses a mellowness, an understanding, a sweet reasonableness and a resilience all its own. And because of its intimacy with the tears of things, because of its long travail and calvary, human consciousness is suffused with a quality that is peculiarly human and humane that of sympathy, compassion, comprehension, the psychic feeling of closeness and oneness. The gods are, after all, egoistic; unless in their supreme supramental status where they are one and identical with the Divine himself; on the lower levels, in their own domains, they are separate, more or less immiscible entities, as it were; greater stress is laid here upon their individual functioning and fulfilment than upon their solidarity. Even if they have not the egoism of the Asuras that sets itself in revolt and antagonism to the Divine, still they have to the fullest extent the sense of a separate mission that each has to fulfil, which none else can fulfil and so each is bound rigidly to its own orbit of activity. There is no mixture in their workingsna me thate, as the Vedas say; the conflict of the later gods, the apple of discord that drove each to establish his hegemony over the rest, as narrated in the mythologies and popular legends, carry the difference to a degree natural to the human level and human modes and reactions. The egoism of the gods may have the gait of aristocracy about it, it has the aloofness and indifference and calm nonchalance that go often with nobility: it has a family likeness to the egoism of an ascetic, of a saintit is sttwic; still it is egoism. It may prove even more difficult to break and dissolve than the violent and ebullient rjasicpride of a vital being. Human failings in this respect are generally more complex and contain all shades and rhythms. And yet that is not the whole or dominant mystery of man's nature. His egoism is thwarted at every stepfrom outside, by, the force of circumstances, the force of counter-egoisms, and from inside, for there is there the thin little voice that always cuts across egoism's play and takes away from it something of its elemental blind momentum. The gods know not of this division in their nature, this schizophrenia, as the malady is termed nowadays, which is the source of the eternal strain of melancholy in human nature of which Matthew Arnold speaks, of the Shelleyan saddest thoughts: Nietzsche need not have gone elsewhere in his quest for the origin and birth of Tragedy. A Socrates discontented, the Christ as the Man of Sorrows, and Amitabha, the soul of pity and compassion are peculiarly human phenomena. They are not merely human weaknesses and failings that are to be brushed aside with a godlike disdain; but they contain and yield a deeper sap of life and out of them a richer fulfilment is being elaborated.
   Human understanding, we know, is a tangled skein of light and shademore shade perhaps than lightof knowledge and ignorance, of ignorance straining towards knowledge. And yet this limited and earthly frame that mind is has something to give which even the overmind of the gods does not possess and needs. It is indeed a frame, even though perhaps a steel frame, to hold and fix the pattern of knowledge, that arranges, classifies, consolidates effective ideas, as they are translated into facts and events. It has not the initiative, the creative power of the vision of a god, but it is an indispensable aid, a precious instrument for the canalisation and expression of that vision, for the intimate application of the divine inspiration to physical life and external conduct. If nothing else, it is a sort of blue print which an engineer of life cannot forego if he has to execute his work of building a new life accurately and beautifully and perfectly.

07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Into earth-light poured its Maze of tangled charm
  And heady draught of Nature's primitive joy

10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A crooked Maze they made of thinking mind,
  They suffered a metamorphosis of the heart,

1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
  Eventually the Indweller of the form feels the urge, or attractive pull, of its Own Self. The reincarnating jiva, for instance, lost in the Maze of illusion, begins in course of time to recognise (under the Law of Attraction) the vibration of its own Ego, which stands to it as the Logos of its own system, its deity in the three worlds of experience. Later, when the body egoic itself is seen as illusion, the vibration of the Monad is felt, and the jiva, working under the same law, works its way back through the matter of the two planes of superhuman evolution, till it is merged in its own essence.
  Therefore:

1.01 - The Rape of the Lock, #The Rape of the Lock, #unset, #Zen
  The Sylphs through mystic Mazes guide their way,
  Thro' all the giddy circle they pursue,

1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  The youth was in a Maze, nor did he know
  Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;
  --
  Through mazy windings, smoaks in ev'ry Maze.
  From his lov'd Babylon Euphrates flies;

1.03 - BOOK THE THIRD, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
  Now in a Maze of rings he lies enrowl'd,
  Now all unravel'd, and without a fold;
  --
  In such a Maze of love my thoughts are lost:
  And yet no bulwark'd town, nor distant coast,

1.05 - Computing Machines and the Nervous System, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
  a Maze. All that is needed is that the inducements or punish-
  ments used have, respectively, a positive and a negative affective

1.05 - The Magical Control of the Weather, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  the Maze, and brought us out at last on higher ground, whence,
  resting a little by the way, we can look back over the path we have

1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  The light it sheds illuminates the other parts of the nature which, for want of any better guidance than their own confused and groping powers, have been wandering in the rounds of the Ignorance; it gives to mind the intrinsic feeling of the thoughts and perceptions, to life the infallible sense of the movements that are misled or misleading and those that are well-inspired; something like a quiet oracle from within discloses the causes of our stumblings, warns in time against their repetition, extracts from experience and intuition the law, not rigid but plastic, of a just direction for our acts, a right stepping, an accurate impulse. A will is created that becomes more in consonance with evolving Truth rather than with the circling and dilatory Mazes of a seeking Error. A determined orientation towards the greater Light to be, a soul-instinct, a psychic tact and insight into the true substance, motion and intention of things, coming always nearer and nearer to a spiritual vision, to a knowledge by inner contact, inner sight and even identity, begin to replace the superficial keenness of mental judgment and the eager graspings of the life-force. The works of Life right themselves, escape from confusion, substitute for the artificial or legal order imposed by the intellect and for the arbitrary rule of desire the guidance of the soul's inner insight, enter into the profound paths of the
  Spirit. Above all, the psychic being imposes on life the law of the sacrifice of all its works as an offering to the Divine and the Eternal. Life becomes a call to that which is beyond Life; its every smallest act enlarges with the sense of the Infinite.

1.06 - The Four Powers of the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  15:But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alternation of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms and her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of one and of another, her taking up and dropping now of this line and now of that one and her gathering of them together, it will not recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the Maze of the Ignorance to a supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.
  16:Avoid also the error of the ignorant mind's demand on the Divine Power to act always according to our crude surface notions of omniscience and omnipotence. For our mind clamours to be impressed at every turn by miraculous power and easy success and dazzling splendour; otherwise it cannot believe that here is the Divine. The Mother is dealing with the Ignorance in the fields of the Ignorance; she has descended there and is not all above. Partly she veils and partly she unveils her knowledge and her power, often holds them back from her instruments and personalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of the aspiring psychic, the way of the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature. There are conditions that have been laid down by a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own longconquered fief and province; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure to be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the thing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that is decreed and shape in the midst of imperfection the perfection that is to come. But only when the supermind has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental Shakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the Mother even when she is manifest before you. Follow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances; trust the Divine Power and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature.

1.08 - Information, Language, and Society, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
  able as the struggles of a rat in a Maze. This policy of lies-­or
  rather, of statements irrelevant to the truth-­

1.08 - The Depths of the Divine, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
  In what prayers do men allow themselves! Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless Mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity is vicious. [True] Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not a unity in nature and consciousness.39 God's "supernatural" intervention in "nature": this bears no relation to the contemplative view of the psychic and subtle stages. God or Spirit is not set apart from nature, but rather is the Ground of nature, and indeed of all manifestation-as Teresa puts it, "God is in all things by presence and power and essence." "Supernatural," in this usage, simply means that the natural union of Spirit with all things becomes a conscious realization in some, and that conscious realization is called supernatural, not because the union is present only in them and not in nature, but because they are directly realizing it. Teresa's spiritual friend and collaborator, the extraordinary John of the Cross, explains it thus:
  This union between God and creatures always exists. By it He conserves their being so that if the union would end they would cease to exist [Spirit as Ground of Being]. Consequently, in discussing union with God, we are not discussing the substantial union which is always existing, but the union and transformation of the soul in God. This transformation is supernatural, the other natural.40

1.09 - Equality and the Annihilation of Ego, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  14:Immediately he must take the further step of relegating himself to the position of the Witness. Aloof from the Prakriti, impersonal and dispassionate, he must watch the executive Nature-Force at work within him and understand its action; he must learn by this separation to recognise the play of her universal forces, distinguish her interweaving of light and night, the divine and the undivine, and detect her formidable Powers and Beings that use the ignorant human creature. Nature works in us, says the Gita, through the triple quality of Prakriti, the quality of light and good, the quality of passion and desire and the quality of obscurity and inertia. The seeker must learn to distinguish, as an impartial and discerning witness of all that proceeds within this kingdom of his nature, the separate and the combined action of these qualities; he must pursue the workings of the cosmic forces in him through all the labyrinth of their subtle unseen processes and disguises and know every intricacy of the Maze. As he proceeds in this knowledge, he will be able to become the giver of the sanction and no longer remain an ignorant tool of Nature. At first he must induce the NatureForce in its action on his instruments to subdue the working of its two lower qualities and bring them into subjection to the quality of light and good and, afterwards, he must persuade that again to offer itself so that all three may be transformed by a higher Power into their divine equivalents, supreme repose and calm, divine illumination and bliss, the eternal divine dynamis, Tapas. The first part of this discipline and change can be firmly done in principle by the will of the mental being in us; but its full execution and the subsequent transformation can be done only when the deeper psychic soul increases its hold on the nature and replaces the mental being as its ruler. When this happens, he will be ready to make, not only with an aspiration and intention and an initial and progressive self-abandonment but with the most intense actuality of dynamic self-giving, the complete renunciation of his works to the Supreme Will. By degrees his mind of an imperfect human intelligence will be replaced by a spiritual and illumined mind and that can in the end enter into the supramental Truth-Light; he will then no longer act from his nature of the Ignorance with its three modes of confused and imperfect activity, but from a diviner nature of spiritual calm, light, power and bliss. He will act not from an amalgam of an ignorant mind and will with the drive of a still more ignorant heart of emotion and the desire of the life-being and the urge and instinct of the flesh, but first from a spiritualised self and nature and, last, from a supramental Truth-consciousness and its divine force of supernature.
  15:Thus are made possible the final steps when the veil of Nature is withdrawn and the seeker is face to face with the Master of all existence and his activities are merged in the action of a supreme Energy which is pure, true, perfect and blissful for ever. Thus can he utterly renounce to the supramental Shakti his works as well as the fruits of his works and act only as the conscious instrument of the eternal Worker. No longer giving the sanction, he will rather receive in his instruments and follow in her hands a divine mandate. No longer doing works, he will accept their execution through him by her unsleeping Force. No longer willing the fulfilment of his own mental constructions and the satisfaction of his own emotional desires, he will obey and participate in an omnipotent Will that is also an omniscient Knowledge and a myterious, magical and unfathomable Love and a vast bottomless sea of the eternal Bliss of Existence.

11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Mute in the Maze of these surprising worlds,
  Turning she saw their living knot and source,

1.12 - Delight of Existence - The Solution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  18:Through all this play the secret reality is always one and the same delight of existence, - the same in the delight of the subconscious sleep before the emergence of the individual, in the delight of the struggle and all the varieties, vicissitudes, perversions, conversions, reversions of the effort to find itself amid the Mazes of the half-conscious dream of which the individual is the centre, and in the delight of the eternal superconscient self-possession into which the individual must wake and there become one with the indivisible Sachchidananda. This is the play of the One, the Lord, the All as it reveals itself to our liberated and enlightened knowledge from the conceptive standpoint of this material universe.

1.15 - MARGARETS ROOM, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  My senses Mazed.
  My peace is gone,

1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Among the Vaishnavites too, Saint Nammalvar says, I was in a Maze, sticking to I and mine; I wandered without knowing my Self. On realising my Self I understand that I myself am You and that mine
  (i.e., my possessions) is only You.

1.21 - WALPURGIS-NIGHT, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
  Wandering lights that spin in Mazes,
  Still increasing and expanding!

1.23 - Our Debt to the Savage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
  and recrossing each other in an endless Maze bound him fast within a
  network of observances from which death or deposition alone could

1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Hence all these questions. Why should they wander in that Maze?
  What do they gain at the end? It is only cessation of the trouble of seeking. They find that the Self is eternal and self-evident. Why should they not get that repose even this moment?
  --
  I cannot be seen by men, Gods, etc.; yet Arjuna sees himself and the Gods in Him. No one could see and yet Arjuna was endowed with divine sight to see Him. Does it not look a Maze of contradictions?
  The answer is that the understanding is wrong. Sthula dristi on the physical plane is absurd. Jnana dristi (subtle understanding) is necessary. That is why Arjuna was given divya chakshuh (divine sight). Can such sight be gross? Will such interpretation lead you to a right understanding?
  --
  Later Sri Bhagavan continued: The intricate Maze of philosophy of different schools is said to clarify matters and reveal the Truth.
  But in fact they create confusion where no confusion need exist.
  --
  (vyashti). They are the limbs and senses of Virat (samashti). So they go on explaining Hiranyagarbha, etc. Why should confusion be created and then explained away? Ah! Fortunate is the man who does not involve himself in this Maze!
  I was indeed fortunate that I never took to it. Had I taken to it,

1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
  Hence all these questions. Why should they wander in that Maze?
  What do they gain at the end? It is only cessation of the trouble of seeking. They find that the Self is eternal and self-evident. Why should they not get that repose even this moment?
  --
  "I cannot be seen by men, Gods, etc."; yet Arjuna sees himself and the Gods in Him. No one could see and yet Arjuna was endowed with divine sight to see Him. Does it not look a Maze of contradictions?
  The answer is that the understanding is wrong. Sthula dristi on the physical plane is absurd. Jnana dristi (subtle understanding) is necessary. That is why Arjuna was given divya chakshuh (divine sight). Can such sight be gross? Will such interpretation lead you to a right understanding?
  --
  Later Sri Bhagavan continued: The intricate Maze of philosophy of different schools is said to clarify matters and reveal the Truth.
  But in fact they create confusion where no confusion need exist.
  --
  (vyashti). They are the limbs and senses of Virat (samashti). So they go on explaining Hiranyagarbha, etc. Why should confusion be created and then explained away? Ah! Fortunate is the man who does not involve himself in this Maze!
  I was indeed fortunate that I never took to it. Had I taken to it,

1957-12-04 - The method of The Life Divine - Problem of emergence of a new species, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  I am emphasising this because, unless you proceed systematically, you wont derive much benefit from this reading; it will appear to you like a Maze where it is very difficult to find ones way. All the ideas are joined at the centre, and at the circumference they go in altogether different directions.
  Have you any questions this time? No.

1958-06-25 - Sadhana in the body, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
    In the very nature of things all evolution must proceed at first by a slow unfolding; for each new principle that evolves its powers has to make its way out of an involution in Inconscience and Ignorance. It has a difficult task in pulling itself out of the involution, out of the hold of the obscurity of the original medium, against the pull and strains, the instinctive opposition and obstruction of the Inconscience and the hampering mixture and blind obstinate retardations of the Ignorance. Nature affirms at first a vague urge and tendency which is a sign of the push of the occult, subliminal, submerged reality towards the surface; there are then small half-suppressed hints of the thing that is to be, imperfect beginnings, crude elements, rudimentary appearances, small, insignificant, hardly recognisable quanta. Afterwards there are small or large formations; a more characteristic and recognisable quality begins to show itself, first partially, here and there or in a low intensity, then more vivid, more formative; finally, there is the decisive emergence, a reversal of the consciousness, the beginning of the possibility of its radical change: but still much has to be done in every direction, a long and difficult growth towards perfection lies before the evolutionary endeavour. The thing done has not only to be confirmed, secured against relapse and the downward gravitation, against failure and extinction, but opened out into all the fields of its possibilities, its totality of entire self-achievement, its utmost height, subtlety, riches, wideness; it has to become dominant, all-embracing, comprehensive. This is everywhere the process of Nature and to ignore it is to miss the intention in her works and get lost in the Maze of her procedure.
    The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 862-63

1958-07-09 - Faith and personal effort, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
  Some people think it is a very great mental elegance to play with ideas, to discuss them, to contradict their faith; they think that this gives them a very superior attitude, that in this way they are above superstitions and ignorance; but if you listen to suggestions of doubt and scepticism, then you fall into the grossest ignorance and stray away from the right path. You enter into confusion, error, a Maze of contradictions. You are not always sure you will be able to get out of it. You go so far away from the inner truth that you lose sight of it and sometimes lose too all possible contact with your soul.
  Certainly a personal effort is needed to preserve ones faith, to let it grow within. Latermuch laterone day, looking back, we may see that everything that happened, even what seemed to us the worst, was a Divine Grace to make us advance on the way; and then we become aware that the personal effort too was a grace. But before reaching that point, one has to advance much, to struggle much, sometimes even to suffer a great deal.

1.ac - Adela, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
  Through Maze on Maze of silent waterways,
  Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,

1.ami - To the Saqi (from Baal-i-Jibreel), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
   English version by Naeem Siddiqui Original Language Urdu Look! What wonders the spring has wrought! The river bank is a paradise! Rose-embowered glades, Blossoming jasmine and hyacinth, And violets, the envy of the skies!. Rainbow colours transformed Into a chorus of rapturous sounds, And the harmony of flowers The hillside is carnation-red; In the languid haze, the air Seems drunk with the beauty of life! The brook, on the heights of the hill, Dances to its own music. The world is dizzy in a pageant of colour! My rosy-cheeked Cup-bearer! The voice of spring is the voice of life! But the spring lasts not for ever; So bring me the cup that tears all veils -- The wine that brightens life -- The wine that intoxicates the world -- The wine in which flows The music of everlasting life, The wine that reveals eternity's secret. Unveil the secrets, O Saqi. Look! The world has changed apace! New are the songs, and new is the music; The West's magic has dissolved; The West's magicians are bewildered; Old politics has lost its game; The world is tired of kings; Gone are the days of the rich; Gone is the jugglery of old; Awake is China's sleeping giant; The Himalayas' torrents are unleashed; Sinai is riven; Moses awaits the light divine. The Muslim says that God is One But his heart is Still a heathen: Culture, sufism, rites and rthetoric, All adore non- Arab idols; The truth was lost in trifles, And the nation was lost in conventions. The speaker's rhetoric is enchanting, But is devoid of passion; It is clothed in logic neat, But lost in a Maze of words; The sufi, unique in the love of truth, Unique in the love of God, Was lost in un-Islamic thought; Was lost in the hierarchic quest; The fire of love is extinguished, And a Muslim is a heap of ashes, O Saqi! Give me the old wine again! Let the potent cup go round! Let me soar on the wings of love; Make my dust bright-pinioned; Make wisdom free; And make the young guide the old; Thou it is that nourishest. this nation; Thou it is that canst sustain it; Urge them to move, to stir; Give them Ali's heart; give them Siddiq's passion; Let the same old love pierce their hearts; Awaken in them a burning zeal; Let the stars throw down their spears, And let the earth's dwellers tremble Give the young a passion that consumes; Give them my vision, my love of God; Free my boat from the whirlpool's grip, And make it move forward-, Reveal to me the secrets of life, For thou knowest them all; The treasures of a fakir like me Are suffused, unsleeping eyes, And secret yearnings of the heart-, My anguished sighs at night, My solitude in the world of men, My hopes and my fears, My quest untiring, My nature an arena of thought A mirror of the world. My heart a battlefield of life, With armies of suspicion, And bastions of certitude; With these treasures I am More rich than the richest of all. Let the young join my throng, And let them find an anchor of hope. The sea of life has its ebb and flow-, In every atom's heart is the pulse of life; It manifests itself in the body, As a flame conceals a wave of smoke; Contact with the earth was harsh for it, But it liked the labour; It is in motion, and not in motion; Tired of the elements' shackles; A unity, imprisoned by plurality; But always unique, unequalled. It has made this dome of myriad glass; It has carved this pantheon. It does not repeat its craft For thou art not me, and I am not thou; It has created the world of men, And remains in solitude, Its brightness is seen in the stars, And in the lustre of pearls-, To it belong the wildernesses, The flowers and the thorns; Mountains sometimes are shaken by its might; It captures angels and nymphs; It makes the eagle pounce on a prey, And leave a blood-stained body. Every atom throbs with life; Rest is an illusion; Life's journey pauses not, For every moment is a new glory; Life, thou thinkest, is a mystery; Life is a delight in eternal flight; Life has seen many ups and downs; It loves a journey, not a goal. Movement is life's being; Movement is truth, pause is a mirage. Life's enjoyment is in perils, In facing ups and downs; In the world beyond Life stalked for death, But the impulse to procreate Peopled the world of man and beast. Flowers blossomed and dropped From this tree of life. Fools think life is ephemeral; Life renews itself for ever -- Moving fast as a flash, Moving to eternity in a breath; Time, a chain of days and nights, Is the ebb and flow of breath. This flow of breath is like a sword, Selfhood is its sharpness; Selfhood is the secret of life; It is the world's awakening, Selfhood is solitary, absorbed, An ocean enclosed in a drop; It shines in light and in darkness, Existent in, but away from, thee and me. The dawn of life behind it, eternity before, It has no frontiers before, no frontiers behind. Afloat on the river of time, Bearing the buffets of the waves, Changing the course of its quest, Shifting its glance from time to time; For it a hill is a grain of sand, Mountains are shattered by its blows; A journey is its beginning and end, And this is the secret of its being. It is the moon's beam, the spark in the flint, Colourless itself, though infused with colours, No concern has it with the calculus of space, With linear time's limits, with the finitude of life. It manifested itself in man's essence of dust, After an eternity of a strife to be born. It is in thy heart that Selfhood has an abode, As heaven has its abode in the cornea of thy eye. To one who guards his Selfhood, The living that demeans it, is poison; He accepts only a living, That keeps his self- esteem; Keep away from royal pomp, Keep thy Selfhood free; Thou shouldst bow in prayer, Not bow to a human being. This myriad-coloured world, Under the sentence of death, This world of sight and sound, I Where life means eating and drinking, Is Selfhood's initial stage; It is not thy abode, O traveller! This dust-bowl is not the source of thy fire; The world is for thee, not thou for the world. Demolish this illusion of' time and space; Selfhood is the Tiger of God, the world is its prey; The earth is its prey, the heavens are its prey; Other worlds there are, still awaiting birth, The earth-born are not the centre of all life; They all await thy assault, Thy cataclysmic thought and deed; Days and nights revolve, To reveal thy Selfhood to thee; Thou art the architect of the world. Words fail to convey the truth; Truth is the mirror, words its shade; Though the breath is a burning flame, The flame has limited bounds. 'If now I soar any farther, The vision will sear my wings.' <
1f.lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   Cyclopean Maze of squared, curved, and angled blocks had features which
   cut off all comfortable refuge. It was, very clearly, the blasphemous
  --
   hare-and-hounds for marking our course in any interior Mazes we might
   be able to penetrate. This had been brought in case we found some cave
  --
   As we proceeded through this Maze of stone-shadowed twilight we stopped
   at all available apertures to study interiors and investigate entrance
  --
   upper parts first of all, hence climbed aloft in the Maze for a
   distance of some 100 feet, to where the topmost tier of chambers yawned
  --
   continuous Maze of connected chambers and passages probably leading
   over unlimited areas outside this particular building. The Cyclopean
  --
   penetrated this aeon-silent Maze of unhuman masonry one must correlate
   a hopelessly bewildering chaos of fugitive moods, memories, and
  --
   through the aeon-old stone Maze to the foothills where our aroplane
   waited. Of what had set us fleeing from the darkness of earths secret

1f.lovecraft - He, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   deeper we advanced into this inexhaustible Maze of unknown antiquity.
   We met no person, and as time passed the lighted windows became fewer

1f.lovecraft - In the Walls of Eryx, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   the place was a genuine Mazea labyrinth deliberately built by these
   hellish beings whose craft and mentality I had so badly underestimated.

1f.lovecraft - The Beast in the Cave, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   the numberless ramparts of the black Maze about me, fell upon no ears
   save my own. All at once, however, my attention was fixed with a start

1f.lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   prodded his prisoner on through Mazes of narrow winding corridors. On
   the walls of the corridors were painted frightful scenes older than

1f.lovecraft - The Festival, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   ceaseless Mazes of colonial houses piled and scattered at all angles
   and levels like a childs disordered blocks; antiquity hovering on grey

1f.lovecraft - The Haunter of the Dark, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   stranger and stranger, with bewildering Mazes of brooding brown alleys
   leading eternally off to the south. He crossed two or three broad

1f.lovecraft - The Horror at Red Hook, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   Maze of hybrid squalor near the ancient waterfront opposite Governors
   Island, with dirty highways climbing the hill from the wharves to that

1f.lovecraft - The Mound, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   while the kitchen was a Maze of technical contrivances. Supplies were
   brought, Zamacona was told, through the network of underground passages

1f.lovecraft - The Nameless City, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   the altars I saw with rising excitement a Maze of well-fashioned
   curvilinear carvings. As I held my torch aloft it seemed to me that the

1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   subterrene Mazes which had underlain the city and linked all its titan
   towers, how much had still survived the writhings of earths crust?

1f.lovecraft - The Shunned House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   The history of the house, opening amidst a Maze of dates, revealed no
   trace of the sinister either about its construction or about the

1f.lovecraft - The Silver Key, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   he has merely found a way to traverse these Mazes. Whether or not he
   will ever come back, I cannot say. He wanted the lands of dream he had

1f.lovecraft - The Tomb, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   forced to exercise care in threading the Mazes of the wooded hollow,
   that I might throw off a possible pursuer. My key to the vault I kept

1f.lovecraft - The Tree on the Hill, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
   passed. A wild Maze of hills, ravines, and bluffs hemmed me in on all
   sides, although the rise on which I sat was rather higher than any

1.fs - The Dance, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
  And what can to the reeling Maze breathe harmony and vigor,
  And give an order and repose to every gliding figure?
  --
  The suns that wheel in varying Maze?That music thou discernest?
  No! Thou canst honor that in sport which thou forgettest in earnest.

1.fs - The Lay Of The Mountain, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
  There, in solitude, circles their mystical Maze,
  Where no witness can hearken, no earthborn surveys.

1.jk - A Draught Of Sunshine, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  After its airy Maze,
  As doth a mother wild,

1.jk - A Thing Of Beauty (Endymion), #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  And run in Mazes of the youngest hue
  About old forests; while the willow trails

1.jk - Endymion - Book I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
  And run in Mazes of the youngest hue
  About old forests; while the willow trails
  --
  By all the trembling Mazes that she ran,
  Hear us, great Pan!

1.jk - Endymion - Book II, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
   After a thousand Mazes overgone,
  At last, with sudden step, he came upon
  --
  Follow'd their languid Mazes, till well nigh
  He had left thinking of the mystery,

1.jlb - Everness, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
  Whoever through its endless Mazes wanders
  Hears door on door click shut behind his stride,

1.lovecraft - Fungi From Yuggoth, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  While miles below a Maze of dome on dome
  And tower on tower beside a sea lies sprawled.
  --
  Open the gate to that stone-lanterned Maze
  Where drowsy streams spin out their winding ways,

1.pbs - Prometheus Unbound, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  Faints, entangled in their Mazes.
  Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
  --
   The unquiet republic of the Maze
  Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.

1.pbs - Rosalind and Helen - a Modern Eclogue, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
     A Maze of life and light and motion
     Is woven. But there is stillness now

1.pbs - The Revolt Of Islam - Canto I-XII, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
  Of the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine Maze.
   A scene of joy and wonder to behold

1.pbs - The Triumph Of Life, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
   Like gold, and threaded all the forest Maze
   With winding paths of emerald firethere stood

1.rb - Fra Lippo Lippi, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
   Mazed, motionless, and moonstruckI'm the man!
   Back I shrinkwhat is this I see and hear?

1.rb - In A Gondola, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  As an angel may, between the Maze
  Of midnight palace-pillars, on

1.rb - Mesmerism, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
   On to the Maze
   Of the wild wood-ways,

1.rb - Sordello - Book the First, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  A Maze of corridors contrived for sin,
  Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past,

1.rb - Sordello - Book the Third, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
  "Keeping, each losel, through a Maze of lies,
  "His own conceit of truth? to which he hies

1.rt - Gitanjali, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the Maze of shadows and songs.
  At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes, I saw thee standing by me, flooding my sleep with thy smile. How I had feared that the path was long and wearisome, and the struggle to reach thee was hard!

1.rt - The Journey, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
  to the Maze of shadows and songs.
  At last, when I woke from my slumber and opened my eyes,

1.ww - Book Seventh [Residence in London], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  Beginning, lead his voice through many a Maze
  A minuet course; and, winding up his mouth,

1.ww - Hint From The Mountains For Certain Political Pretenders, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
  There, he wheels in downward Mazes;
  Sunward now his flight he raises,

1.ww - Written Upon A Blank Leaf In The Complete Angler., #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
       Or down the tempting Maze of Shawford brook--      
       Fairer than life itself, in this sweet Book,

20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
   the Mazes of Maya:
   Touch and taste and smell shall remain as they are,
  --
   What the mind perceives is the Maze of illusion
   Scriptures and books, beads and rosaries,

2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
  and transient successes, a Maze of forces acting and reacting on
  each other, helping, hindering and repulsing and always with a

2.04 - Positive Aspects of the Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  ing Mazes of life.
  100

2.15 - Reality and the Integral Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  For we have in this unfolding of knowledge the two terms of the One and the Many, as we have the two terms of the finite and the infinite, of that which becomes and of that which does not become but for ever is, of that which takes form and of that which does not take form, of Spirit and Matter, of the supreme Superconscient and the nethermost Inconscience; in this dualism, and to get away from it, it is open to us to define Knowledge as the possession of one term and the possession of the other as Ignorance. The ultimate of our life would then be a drawing away from the lower reality of the Becoming to the greater reality of the Being, a leap from the Ignorance to the Knowledge and a rejection of the Ignorance, a departure from the many into the One, from the finite into the infinite, from form into the formless, from the life of the material universe into the Spirit, from the hold of the inconscient upon us into the superconscient Existence. In this solution there is supposed to be a fixed opposition, an ultimate irreconcilability in each case between the two terms of our being. Or else, if both are a means of the manifestation of the Brahman, the lower is a false or imperfect clue, a means that must fail, a system of values that cannot ultimately satisfy us. Dissatisfied with the confusions of the multiplicity, disdainful of even the highest light and power and joy that it can reveal, we must drive beyond to the absolute one-pointedness and one-standingness in which all self-variation ceases. Unable by the claim of the Infinite upon us to dwell for ever in the bonds of the finite or to find there satisfaction and largeness and peace, we have to break all the bonds of individual and universal Nature, destroy all values, symbols, images, selfdefinitions, limitations of the illimitable and lose all littleness and division in the Self that is for ever satisfied with its own infinity. Disgusted with forms, disillusioned of their false and transient attractions, wearied and discouraged by their fleeting impermanence and vain round of recurrence, we must escape from the cycles of Nature into the formlessness and featurelessness of permanent Being. Ashamed of Matter and its grossness, impatient of the purposeless stir and trouble of Life, tired out by the goalless running of Mind or convinced of the vanity of all its aims and objects, we have to release ourselves into the eternal repose and purity of the Spirit. The Inconscient is a sleep or a prison, the conscient a round of strivings without ultimate issue or the wanderings of a dream: we must wake into the superconscious where all darkness of night and half-lights cease in the self-luminous bliss of the Eternal. The Eternal is our refuge; all the rest are false values, the Ignorance and its Mazes, a self-bewilderment of the soul in phenomenal Nature.
  Our conception of the Knowledge and the Ignorance rejects this negation and the oppositions on which it is founded: it points to a larger if more difficult issue of reconciliation. For we see that these apparently opposite terms of One and Many, Form and the Formless, Finite and Infinite, are not so much opposites as complements of each other; not alternating values of the Brahman which in its creation perpetually loses oneness to find itself in multiplicity and, unable to discover itself in multiplicity, loses it again to recover oneness, but double and concurrent values which explain each other; not hopelessly incompatible alternatives, but two faces of the one Reality which can lead us to it by our realisation of both together and not only by testing each separately, - even though such separate testing may be a legitimate or even an inevitable step or part of the process of knowledge. Knowledge is no doubt the knowledge of the One, the realisation of the Being; Ignorance is a self-oblivion of Being, the experience of separateness in the multiplicity and a dwelling or circling in the ill-understood Maze of becomings: but this is cured by the soul in the Becoming growing into knowledge, into awareness of the Being which becomes in the multiplicity all these existences and can so become because their truth is already there in its timeless existence. The integral knowledge of Brahman is a consciousness in possession of both together, and the exclusive pursuit of either closes the vision to one side of the truth of the omnipresent Reality. The possession of the Being who is beyond all becomings, brings to us freedom from the bonds of attachment and ignorance in the cosmic existence and brings by that freedom a free possession of the Becoming and of the cosmic existence. The knowledge of the Becoming is a part of knowledge; it acts as an Ignorance only because we dwell imprisoned in it, avidyayam antare, without possessing the Oneness of the Being, which is its base, its stuff, its spirit, its cause of manifestation and without which it could not be possible.
  In fact, the Brahman is one not only in a featureless oneness beyond all relation, but in the very multiplicity of the cosmic existence. Aware of the works of the dividing mind but not itself limited by it, It finds its oneness as easily in the many, in relations, in becoming as in any withdrawal from the many, from relations, from becoming. Ourselves also, to possess even its oneness fully, must possess it - since it is there, since all is that - in the infinite self-variation of the cosmos. The infinity of the multiplicity finds itself explained and justified only when it is contained and possessed in the infinity of the One; but also the infinity of the One pours itself out and possesses itself in the infinity of the Many. To be capable of that outpouring of its energies as well as not to lose itself in it, not to recoil defeated from its boundlessness and endlessness of vicissitudes and differences as well as not to be self-divided by its variations, is the divine strength of the free Purusha, the conscious Soul in its possession of its own immortal self-knowledge. The finite selfvariations of the Self in which the mind losing self-knowledge is caught and dispersed among the variations, are yet not the denials but the endless expression of the Infinite and have no other meaning or reason for existence: the Infinite too, while it possesses its delight of limitless being, finds also the joy of that very limitlessness in its infinite self-definition in the universe.
  --
  But since it is from the Ignorance that we proceed to the Knowledge, we have had first to discover the secret nature and full extent of the Ignorance. If we look at this Ignorance in which ordinarily we live by the very circumstance of our separative existence in a material, in a spatial and temporal universe, we see that on its obscurer side it reduces itself, from whatever direction we look at or approach it, into the fact of a manysided self-ignorance. We are ignorant of the Absolute which is the source of all being and becoming; we take partial facts of being, temporal relations of the becoming for the whole truth of existence, - that is the first, the original ignorance. We are ignorant of the spaceless, timeless, immobile and immutable Self; we take the constant mobility and mutation of the cosmic becoming in Time and Space for the whole truth of existence, - that is the second, the cosmic ignorance. We are ignorant of our universal self, the cosmic existence, the cosmic consciousness, our infinite unity with all being and becoming; we take our limited egoistic mentality, vitality, corporeality for our true self and regard everything other than that as not-self, - that is the third, the egoistic ignorance. We are ignorant of our eternal becoming in Time; we take this little life in a small span of Time, in a petty field of Space, for our beginning, our middle and our end, - that is the fourth, the temporal ignorance. Even within this brief temporal becoming we are ignorant of our large and complex being, of that in us which is superconscient, subconscient, intraconscient, circumconscient to our surface becoming; we take that surface becoming with its small selection of overtly mentalised experiences for our whole existence, - that is the fifth, the psychological ignorance. We are ignorant of the true constitution of our becoming; we take the mind or life or body or any two of these or all three for our true principle or the whole account of what we are, losing sight of that which constitutes them and determines by its occult presence and is meant to determine sovereignly by its emergence their operations, - that is the sixth, the constitutional ignorance. As a result of all these ignorances, we miss the true knowledge, government and enjoyment of our life in the world; we are ignorant in our thought, will, sensations, actions, return wrong or imperfect responses at every point to the questionings of the world, wander in a Maze of errors and desires, strivings and failures, pain and pleasure, sin and stumbling, follow a crooked road, grope blindly for a changing goal, - that is the seventh, the practical ignorance.
  Our conception of the Ignorance will necessarily determine our conception of the Knowledge and determine, therefore, since our life is the Ignorance at once denying and seeking after the Knowledge, the goal of human effort and the aim of the cosmic endeavour. Integral knowledge will then mean the cancelling of the sevenfold Ignorance by the discovery of what it misses and ignores, a sevenfold self-revelation within our consciousness: - it will mean the knowledge of the Absolute as the origin of all things; the knowledge of the Self, the Spirit, the Being and of the cosmos as the Self's becoming, the becoming of the Being, a manifestation of the Spirit; the knowledge of the world as one with us in the consciousness of our true self, thus cancelling our division from it by the separative idea and life of ego; the knowledge of our psychic entity and its immortal persistence in Time beyond death and earth-existence; the knowledge of our greater and inner existence behind the surface; the knowledge of our mind, life and body in its true relation to the self within and the superconscient spiritual and supramental being above them; the knowledge, finally, of the true harmony and true use of our thought, will and action and a change of all our nature into a conscious expression of the truth of the Spirit, the Self, the Divinity, the integral spiritual Reality.

2.21 - The Three Heads, The Beard and The Mazela, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
  object:2.21 - The Three Heads, The Beard and The Mazela
  author class:Rabbi Moses Luzzatto
  --
  comprised in the Mazela (thirteenth emendation).
  Father and Mother, which are included in the Mazela ,
  issue from it and are recognized as "Wisdom, "Intelli
  --
  THREE HEADS, BEARD AND MazeL
  197

2.24 - The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  In the very nature of things all evolution must proceed at first by a slow unfolding; for each new principle that evolves its powers has to make its way out of an involution in Inconscience and Ignorance. It has a difficult task in pulling itself out of the involution, out of the hold of the obscurity of the original medium, against the pull and strains, the instinctive opposition and obstruction of the Inconscience and the hampering mixture and blind obstinate retardations of the Ignorance. Nature affirms at first a vague urge and tendency which is a sign of the push of the occult, subliminal, submerged reality towards the surface; there are then small half-suppressed hints of the thing that is to be, imperfect beginnings, crude elements, rudimentary appearances, small, insignificant, hardly recognisable quanta. Afterwards there are small or large formations; a more characteristic and recognisable quality begins to show itself, first partially, here and there or in a low intensity, then more vivid, more formative; finally, there is the decisive emergence, a reversal of the consciousness, the beginning of the possibility of its radical change: but still much has to be done in every direction, a long and difficult growth towards perfection lies before the evolutionary endeavour. The thing done has not only to be confirmed, secured against relapse and the downward gravitation, against failure and extinction, but opened out into all the fields of its possibilities, its totality of entire self-achievement, its utmost height, subtlety, riches, wideness; it has to become dominant, all-embracing, comprehensive. This is everywhere the process of Nature and to ignore it is to miss the intention in her works and get lost in the Maze of her procedure.
  It is this process that has taken place in the evolution of religion in the human mind and consciousness; the work done by it for humanity cannot be understood or properly appreciated if we ignore the conditions of the process and their necessity. It is evident that the first beginnings of religion must be crude and imperfect, its development hampered by mixtures, errors, concessions to the human mind and vital part which may often be of a very unspiritual character. Ignorant and injurious and even disastrous elements may creep in and lead to error and evil; the dogmatism of the human mind, its self-assertive narrowness, its intolerant and challenging egoism, its attachment to its limited truths and still greater attachment to its errors, or the violence, fanaticism, militant and oppressive self-affirmation of the vital, its treacherous action on the mind in order to get a sanction for its own desires and propensities, may very easily invade the religious field and baulk religion of its higher spiritual aim and character; under the name of religion much ignorance may hide, many errors and an extensive wrong-building be permitted, many crimes even and offences against the spirit be committed.
  --
  This transference has been responsible for much harm; it brings into thought narrowness, limitation, an intolerance of the necessary variation and multiplicity of view-points without which there can be no totality of truth-finding, and by the narrowness and limitation much obstinacy in error. It reduces philosophy to an endless Maze of sterile disputes; religion has been invaded by this misprision and infected with credal dogmatism, bigotry and intolerance. The truth of the spirit is a truth of being and consciousness and not a truth of thought: mental ideas can only represent or formulate some facet, some mindtranslated principle or power of it or enumerate its aspects, but to know it one has to grow into it and be it; without that growing and being there can be no true spiritual knowledge. The fundamental truth of spiritual experience is one, its consciousness is one, everywhere it follows the same general lines and tendencies of awakening and growth into spiritual being; for these are the imperatives of the spiritual consciousness. But also there are, based on those imperatives, numberless possibilities of variation of experience and expression: the centralisation and harmonisation of these possibles, but also the intensive sole following out of any line of experience are both of them necessary movements of the emerging spiritual Conscious-Force within us. Moreover, the accommodation of mind and life to the spiritual truth, its expression in them, must vary with the mentality of the seeker so long as he has not risen above all need of such accommodation or such limiting expression. It is this mental and vital element which has created the oppositions that still divide spiritual seekers or enter into their differing affirmations of the truth that they experience. This difference and variation is needed for the freedom of spiritual search and spiritual growth: to overpass differences is quite possible, but that is most easily done in pure experience; in mental formulation the difference must remain until one can exceed mind altogether and in a highest consciousness integralise, unify and harmonise the many-sided truth of the Spirit.
  In the evolution of the spiritual man there must necessarily be many stages and in each stage a great variety of individual formations of the being, the consciousness, the life, the temperament, the ideas, the character. The nature of instrumental mind and the necessity of dealing with the life must of itself create an infinite variety according to the stage of development and the individuality of the seeker. But, apart from that, even the domain of pure spiritual self-realisation and self-expression need not be a single white monotone, there can be a great diversity in the fundamental unity; the supreme Self is one, but the souls of the Self are many and, as is the soul's formation of nature, so will be its spiritual self-expression. A diversity in oneness is the law of the manifestation; the supramental unification and integration must harmonise these diversities, but to abolish them is not the intention of the Spirit in Nature.

2.30 - The Uniting of the Names 45 and 52, #General Principles of Kabbalah, #Rabbi Moses Luzzatto, #Kabbalah
  Indeed, the supervision of Mazel does not always prevail;
  only the Creator Himself knows when to employ it and
  --
  according to the superior government of decree ( Mazel )
  as well as its union and combination with the govern
  --
  ment of Mazel, which are newly issued, spring from this
  Head, but its path is utterly inexplicable. Everything in
  --
  truth of the government of Mazel and all its fixed
  statutes. But since this Head is unknown to us, we

3.1.05 - A Vision of Science, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Nor matter could deny its myriad Maze
  To the cold enquiry; for the far came near,

3.1.23 - The Rishi, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  A lyric Maze,
  Beauty on beauty heaped pell-mell to chain

36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
   What is then the proper way to be followed for the right understanding of the Vedas? We have, in this respect, to adopt the same principle which forms the key to all ancient literatures. We needs must be acquainted with the texts of the Vedas proper with an unbiased mind empty of all preconceived notions. The commentators, the annotators, the grammarians, the rhetoricians join, as it were, to create a world of confusion. Far from getting an access to the sanctum we get lost in wandering Mazes. That is why we have been deprived of getting a first-hand knowledge of the Vedas. The commentators may be at most helpers. But if we attach too much importance to their commentaries, it will inevitably turn them into an obstacle. First, it is of paramount importance to know the central idea of the Vedas, the viewpoint of the, Rishis. The help of the commentators and the annotators may be necessary later on when we go into details. Needless to say that if we get into the bitter controversies of commentators, we are sure to be deadly confused. So at the very outset we have to be acquainted with the bare texts of the Vedas. This method is applicable to all literatures. We must read poetry in the original in order to appreciate its true spirit, leaving aside all criticisms on it. For, men endowed with the power of true appreciation of poetry are rarely found in the present generation. We are more familiar with the commentaries on the works of Shakespeare and Kalidasa than with their originals.
   However, to be at home in the central theme of the Vedas, the method that we should follow is: to proceed from the known to the unknown. In the Vedic texts we often come across some important words that admit of no ambiguity. With the help of the obvious meanings of these words we have to find out the implications of the words partly obscure or totally obscure. In the Vedas there are such mantras (incantations), sentences and words in abundance which reflect modern ideas and appear quite familiar to the present-day intellect. It is at once advisable and reasonable to accept such self-evident meanings. It is of no avail to leave aside such clear meanings and seek out roundabout abstruse meanings on the ground that what we are dealing with are the Vedas, the writings of hoary antiquity. Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti (The one Truth is expressed differently by the men of knowledge) or, tat Visno param padam...diviva cakuratatam (That is the supreme Status of Vishnu, as if an Eye wide open in the heavens) or, Brhaspatih prathamam jayama mano jyotisah parame Vyoman (Brihaspati being born first as a great Light in the supreme Heaven)-the meanings of these words are by no means obscure or ambiguous. The meanings as well as the ideas with which these words are infused are quite plain and clear enough. These expressions convey no indication of the lisping of the babe or an aborigine or an uncultured mind or even a ritualistic mind. Here we find expressions of a mature mind enlightened with knowledge flowing from a profound realisation of Truth. Neither the befitting rhythm nor rhyme is missing. Further,

3.7.1.05 - The Significance of Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  There are other statements or colourings of the idea of rebirth which admit a more positive sense for existence and nourish a robuster confidence in the power and delight of being which are its secret fountains; but they all stumble in the end over the limitations of humanity and an inability to see any outlet from their bondage in the order of the universe, because they suppose this to be a thing fixed from of years sempiternalvatbhya sambhya, not an eternally developing and creative, but an immutable cycle. The Vaishnava idea of the play of God, striking as it does into the secret of the hidden deligh the core of things, is a luminous ray shot into the very heart of the mystery; but isolated it cannot solve all its enigma. There is more here in the world than a play of secret delight; there is knowledge, there is power, there is a will and a mighty labour. Rebirth so looked at becomes too much of a divine caprice with no object but its playing, and ours is too great and strenuous a world to be so accounted for. Such chequered delight as is given to our becoming, is a game of disguises and seekings with no promise here of any divine completeness; its circles seem in the end not worth following out and the soul turns gladly to its release from the games unsatisfying Mazes. The Tantric solution shows us a supreme superconscient Energy which casts itself out ere into teeming worlds and multitudinous beings and in its order the soul rises from birth to birth and follows its million forms, till in a last human series it opens to the consciousness and powers of its own divinity and returns through them by a rapid illumination to the eternal superconscience. We find at last the commencement of a satisfying synthesis, some justification of existence, a meaningful consequence in rebirth, a use and a sufficient though only temporary significance for the great motion of the cosmos. On lines very like these the modern mind, when it is disposed to accept rebirth, is inclined to view it. But there is a too minor stress on the souls divine potentialities, a haste of insistence on the escape into superconscience; the supreme Energy constructs too long and stupendous a preparation for so brief and so insufficient a flowering. There is a lacuna here, some secret is still missing.
  There are certain limitations of our own thought over which all these solutions stumble, and the chief of these obstacles are our sense of the mechanical nature of the universe and our inability to see forward to a greater than our present type of humanity. We see the superconscient Spirit in its effulgence and freedom and we see the universe in its inconscient bondage to the cycle of its mechanical recurrences, or we see existence as an abstract entity and Nature as a mechanical force; the conscient soul stands between as a link between these opposites, but it is itself so incomplete that we cannot find in this linksecret or make of it a strong master of reconciliation. Then we pronounce birth to be an error of the soul and see our one chance of liberation in a shaking off of these natal shackles and a violent reversion to supracosmic consciousness or the freedom of abstract being. But what if rebirth were in truth no long dragging chain, but rather at first a ladder of the souls ascension and at last a succession of mighty spiritual opportunities? It will be so if the infinite existence is not what it seems to the logical intellect, an abstract entity, but what it is to intuition and in deeper soul experience, a conscious spiritual Reality, and that Reality as real here as in any far off absolute Superconscience. For then universal Nature would be no longer a mechanism with no secret but its own inconscient mechanics and no intention but the mere recurrent working; it would be the conscient energy of the universal Spirit hidden in the greatness of its processes, mahimnam asya. And the soul ascending from the sleep of matter through plant and animal life to the human degree of the power of life and there battling with ignorance and limit to take possession of its royal and infinite kingdom would be the mediator appointed to unfold in Nature the spirit who is hidden in her subtleties and her vastnesses. That is the significance of life and the world which the idea of evolutionary rebirth opens to us; life becomes at once a progressive ascending series for the unfolding of the Spirit. It acquires a supreme significance: the way of the Spirit in its power is justified, no longer a foolish and empty dream, an eternal delirium, great mechanical toil or termless futility, but the sum of works of a large spiritual Will and Wisdom: the human soul and the cosmic spirit look into each others eyes with a noble and divine meaning.

3.7.2.05 - Appendix I - The Tangle of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Let us then call Karma no longer a Law, but rather the many-sided dynamic truth of all action and life, the organic movement here of the Infinite. That was what the ancient thinkers saw in it before it was cut and shredded by lesser minds and turned into an easy and misleading popular formula. Action of Karma follows and takes up many potential lines of the spirit into its multitudinous surge, many waves and streams of combining and disputing world-forces; it is the processus of the creative Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the progression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities cannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial appearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling forward in the cloud of its own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the Maze of these myriad favouring and opposing forces that surround and urge and drive and hamper us from the visible and invisible worlds. Nor can it be perfectly classified, accounted for, tied up in bundles by the precisions of our logical intelligence in its inveterate search for clear-cut dogmas. On that day only shall we perfectly decipher what is now to us Natures obscure hieroglyph of Karma when there rises in our enlarged consciousness the supramental way of knowledge. The supramental eye can see a hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in the largeness of its harmonising vision of Truth all that to our minds is clash and opposition and the collision and interlocked strife of numberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at once single and infinite and the complexities of its play serve to bring out with an abundant ease the rich significance of the Eternals many-sided oneness.
  The complexity of the lines of Karma is much greater than we have yet seen in the steps of thought that we have been obliged to cut in order to climb to the summits where they converge. For the convenience of the mind we have chosen to speak as if there were four quite separate planes each with its separate lines of Karma,the physical with its fixed law and very easily perceptible return to our energies, the life plane, complex, full of doubtful rewards and dangerous rebounds, rich promise and dark menace, the mind plane with its high trenchant unattainable absolutes each in its separateness so difficult to embody and all so hard to reconcile and combine and the supramental where Natures absolutes are reached, her relativities ordered to their place and all these lower movements delivered and harmonised because they have found luminously their inner spiritual reason for existence. That division is not false in itself, but its truth is subject to two capital provisos which at once give them a complexity not apparent in the first formula. There are above and behind our human existence the four levels but there each plane contains in itself the others, although in each these others are subject to the dominant law of the plane,life for instance obeys on the mental level the law of mind and turns its movements into an instrumentation of the free intelligence. Again man exists here in the body and the physical world; he is open more or less to the vast movements of a life plane and the free movements of a mental world that are far vaster and freer in their potentialities than anything that we call here life and mind, but he does not live in that free mental light or in that vast vital force. His business is to bring down and embody here as much of that greater life and greater mind as can be precipitated into matter and equipped with a form and organised in the physical formula. In proportion as he ascends he does indeed rise above the physical and vital into the higher mental lines of Karma, but he cannot leave them entirely behind him. The saint, the intellectual man, scientist, thinker or creator, the seeker after beauty, the seeker after any mental absolute is not that alone; he is also, even if less exclusively than others, the vital and physical man; subject to the urgings of the life and the body, he participates in the vital and physical motives of Karma and receives the perplexed and intertwined return of these energies. It is not intended in his birth that he shall live entirely in mind, for he is here to deal with life and Matter as well and to bring as best he can a higher law into life and Matter. And since he is not a mental being in a mental world, it is not easy and in the end, we may suspect, not possible for him to impose entirely and perfectly the law of the mental absolutes, a mental good, beauty, love, truth and power on his lower parts. He has to take this other difficult truth into account that life and Matter have absolutes of their own armed with an equal right to formulation and persistence and he has to find some light, some truth, some spiritual and supramental power that can take up these imperatives also no less than the minds imperatives and harmonise all in a grand and integral transformation. But the difficulty is again that if he is not open to the world of free intelligence, he is still less open to the deeper and vaster spiritual and supramental levels. There can indeed be great descents of spiritual light, purity, power, love, delight into the earth consciousness in its human formula; but man as he is now can hold only a little of these things and he can give them no adequate organisation and shape and body in his mental movements or his life-action or his physical and material consciousness and dynamis. The moment he tries to get at the absolute of the spirit, he feels himself obliged to reject body, to silence mind, and to draw back from life. It is that urgent necessity, that inability of mind and life and body to hold and answer to the spirit that is the secret of asceticism, the philosophical justification of the illusionist, the compulsion that moves the eremite and the recluse. If on the other hand he tries to spiritualise mind and life and the body he finds in the end that he has only brought down the spirit to a lower formulation that cannot give all its truth and purity and power. He has to some extent spiritualised mind, but much more has he mentalised the spiritual and to mentalise the spiritual is to falsify and obscure it or at the very least to dilute its truth, to imprison its force, to limit and alter its potentialities. He has perhaps to a much less extent spiritualised his life, but much more has he vitalised the spiritual and to vitalise the spiritual is to degrade it. He has never yet spiritualised the body, at most he has minimised the physical by a spiritual refusal and abstinence or brought down some mental and vital powers mistaken for spiritual into his physical force and physical frame. More has not been done in the human past so far as we can discover, or if anything greater was done it was a transitory gain from the superconscient and has returned again into our superconscience.

4.2.1 - The Right Attitude towards Difficulties, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  All these things are common to every path of Yoga; they are the normal difficulties, fluctuations and struggles which come across the path of spiritual effort. But in this Yoga there is an order or succession of the workings of the secret Force which may vary greatly in its circumstances in each sadhak, but still maintains its general line. Our evolution has brought the being up out of inconscient Matter into the Ignorance of mind, life and body tempered by an imperfect knowledge and is trying to lead us into the light of the Spirit, to lift us into that light and to bring the light down into us, into body and life as well as mind and heart and to fill with it all that we are. This and its consequences, of which the greatest is the union with the Divine and life in the divine consciousness, is the meaning of the integral transformation. Mind is our present topmost faculty; it is through the thinking mind and the heart with the soul, the psychic being behind them that we have to grow into the Spirit, for what the Force first tries to bring about is to fix the mind in the right central idea, faith or mental attitude and the right aspiration and poise of the heart and to make these sufficiently strong and firm to last in spite of other things in the mind and heart which are other than or in conflict with them. Along with this it brings whatever experiences, realisations or descent or growth of knowledge the mind of the individual is ready for at the time or as much of it, however small, as is necessary for its further progress: sometimes these realisations and experiences are very great and abundant, sometimes few and small or negligible; in some there seems to be in this first stage nothing much of these things or nothing decisive the Force seems to concentrate on a preparation of the mind only. In many cases the sadhana seems to begin and proceed with experiences in the vital; but in reality this can hardly take place without some mental preparation, even if it is nothing more than a turning of the mind or some kind of opening which makes the vital experiences possible. In any case, to begin with the vital is a hazardous affair; the difficulties there are more numerous and more violent than on the mental plane and the pitfalls are innumerable. The access to the soul, the psychic being, is less easy because it is covered up with a thick veil of ego, passion and desire. One is apt to be swallowed up in a Maze of vital experiences, not always reliable, the temptation of small siddhis, the appeal of the powers of darkness to the ego. One has to struggle through these densities to the psychic being behind and bring it forward; then only can the sadhana on the vital plane be safe.
  However that may be, the descent of the sadhana, of the action of the Force into the vital plane of our being becomes after some time necessary. The Force does not make a wholesale change of the mental being and nature, still less an integral transformation before it takes this step: if that could be done, the rest of the sadhana would be comparatively secure and easy. But the vital is there and always pressing on the mind and heart, disturbing and endangering the sadhana and it cannot be left to itself for too long. The ego and desires of the vital, its disturbances and upheavals have to be dealt with and if not at once expelled, at least dominated and prepared for a gradual if not a rapid modification, change, illumination. This can only be done on the vital plane itself by descending to that level. The vital ego itself must become conscious of its own defects and willing to get rid of them; it must decide to throw away its vanities, ambitions, lusts and longings, its rancours and revolts and all the rest of the impure stuff and unclean movements within it. This is the time of the greatest difficulties, revolts and dangers. The vital ego hates being opposed in its desires, resents disappointment, is furious against wounds to its pride and vanity; it does not like the process of purification and it may very well declare Satyagraha against it, refuse to cooperate, justify its own demands and inclinations, offer passive resistance of many kinds, withdraw the vital support which is necessary both to the life and the sadhana and try to withdraw the being from the path of spiritual endeavour. All this has to be faced and overcome, for the temple of the being has to be swept clean if the Lord of our being is to take his place and receive our worship there.

5.05 - Supermind and Humanity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
   from light to light, from truth to truth and no longer a circling in the Mazes of half-truth and half-nescience. This would not be possible in a world where untransformed mind or human mind burdened with its hampering disabilities, as it now is, will still be the leader or the evolution's highest achievement, but with Supermind for the leading and dominant power this might well happen, and might even be regarded as one result and an almost inevitable result of its descent into the human world and its touch on the mind of humanity.
  How far this would go, whether the whole of humanity would be touched or only a part of it ready for the change, would depend on what was intended or possible in the continued order of the universe. If the old evolutionary principle and order must be preserved, then only a section of the race would pass onward, the rest would keep the old human position, level and function in the ascending order. But even so there must be a passage or bridge between the two levels or orders of being by which the evolution would make its transition from one to the other; the mind would there be capable of contact with and modification by the supramental truth and thus would be the means of the soul's passing on upward: there must be a status of mind capable of receiving and growing in the Light towards Supermind though not reaching it; through that, as even now happens in a lesser degree through a dimmer medium, the lustre of a greater truth would send down its rays for the liberation and uplift of the soul in the ignorance. Supermind is here veiled behind a curtain and, though not organised for its own characteristic action, it is the true cause of all creation here, the power for the growth of truth and knowledge and the ascension of the soul towards the hidden Reality. But in a world where Supermind has made its appearance, it could hardly be a separate factor isolated from the rest, it would inevitably not only create superman but change and uplift man. A total change of the mental principle, such as has been suggested, cannot be ruled out as impossible.

5.06 - THE TRANSFORMATION, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
  [623] The state of imperfect transformation, merely hoped for and waited for, does not seem to be one of torment only, but of positive, if hidden, happiness. It is the state of someone who, in his wanderings among the Mazes of his psychic transformation, comes upon a secret happiness which reconciles him to his apparent loneliness. In communing with himself he finds not deadly boredom and melancholy but an inner partner; more than that, a relationship that seems like the happiness of a secret love, or like a hidden springtime, when the green seed228 sprouts from the barren earth, holding out the promise of future harvests. It is the alchemical benedicta viriditas, the blessed greenness, signifying on the one hand the leprosy of the metals (verdigris), but on the other the secret immanence of the divine spirit of life in all things. O blessed greenness, which generatest all things! cries the author of the Rosarium.229 Did not the spirit of the Lord, writes Mylius, which is a fiery love, give to the waters when it was borne over them a certain fiery vigour, since nothing can be generated without heat? God breathed into created things . . . a certain germination or greenness, by which all things should multiply . . . They called all things green, for to be green means to grow . . . Therefore this virtue of generation and the preservation of things might be called the Soul of the World.230
  [624] Green signifies hope and the future, and herein lies the reason for the Shulamites hidden joy, which otherwise would be difficult to justify. But in alchemy green also means perfection. Thus Arnaldus de Villanova says: Therefore Aristotle says in his book, Our gold, not the common gold, because the green which is in this substance signifies its total perfection, since by our magistery that green is quickly turned into truest gold.231 Hence the Shulamite continues:

5.1.02 - Ahana, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
  Watching the world and its works. Interned in the finite's Mazes,
  Still shall he rise to his vast superconscience, we with him climbing;

Aeneid, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  the wiles and Mazes of the palace; with
  a thread he guided Theseus' blinded footsteps.

Appendix 4 - Priest Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
        The recipient of this spell can find the shortest, most direct physical route that he is seeking, be it the way into or out of a locale. The locale can be outdoors or under ground, a trap, or even a Maze spell. Note that the spell works with respect to locales, not objects or creatures within a locale. Thus, the spell could not find the way to "a forest where a green dragon lives" or to the location of "a hoard of platinum pieces." The location must be in the same plane as the caster.
        The spell enables the subject to sense the correct direction that will eventually lead him to his destination, indicating at the appropriate times the exact path to follow or physical actions to take. For example, with concentration the spell enables the subject to sense trip wires or the proper word to bypass a glyph. The spell ends when the destination is reached or when one turn for each caster level has elapsed. The spell frees the subject, and those with him, from a Maze spell in a single round, and will continue to do so as long as the spell lasts.
        Note that this divination is keyed to the caster, not his companions, and that, like the find traps spell, it does not predict or allow for the actions of creatures.

BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
  order to show modern science divorced from such "dreams," tortured and often ignored in the Maze of
  contradictory theories and hypotheses. A very good corroboration of this charge lies in the fact that

Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  the Mazelike vaults of the Biblioteca Nacional in search of
  old authors and abstruse references. We have done our best
  --
  was able to escape from the Maze.
  Ovid in a line that is meant to be clever speaks of the

BOOK XVIII. - A parallel history of the earthly and heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
  After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had judges, in whose times they were alternately humbled by afflictions on account of their sins, and consoled by prosperity through the compassion of God. In those times were invented the fables about Triptolemus, who, at the comm and of Ceres, borne by winged snakes, bestowed corn on the needy lands in flying over them; about that beast the Minotaur, which was shut up in the Labyrinth, from which men who entered its inextricable Mazes could find no exit; about the Centaurs, whose form was a compound of horse and man; about Cerberus, the three-headed dog of hell; about Phryxus and his sister Hellas, who fled, borne by a winged ram; about the Gorgon, whose hair was composed of serpents, and who turned those who looked on her into stone; about Bellerophon, who was carried by a winged horse called Pegasus; about Amphion, who charmed and attracted the stones by the sweetness of his harp; about the artificer Ddalus and his son Icarus, who flew on wings they had fitted on; about dipus, who compelled a certain four-footed monster with a human face, called a sphynx, to destroy herself by casting herself headlong, having solved the riddle she was wont to propose as insoluble; about Antus, who was the son of the earth, for which reason, on falling on the earth, he was wont to rise up stronger, whom Hercules slew; and perhaps there are others which I have forgotten. These fables, easily found in histories containing a true account of events, bring us down to the Trojan war, at which Marcus Varro has closed his second book about the race of the Roman people; and they[Pg 232] are so skilfully invented by men as to involve no scandal to the gods. But whoever have pretended as to Jupiter's rape of Ganymede, a very beautiful boy, that king Tantalus committed the crime, and the fable ascribed it to Jupiter; or as to his impregnating Dane as a golden shower, that it means that the woman's virtue was corrupted by gold: whether these things were really done or only fabled in those days, or were really done by others and falsely ascribed to Jupiter, it is impossible to tell how much wickedness must have been taken for granted in men's hearts that they should be thought able to listen to such lies with patience. And yet they willingly accepted them, when, indeed, the more devotedly they worshipped Jupiter, they ought the more severely to have punished those who durst say such things of him. But they not only were not angry at those who invented these things, but were afraid that the gods would be angry at them if they did not act such fictions even in the theatres. In those times Latona bore Apollo, not him of whose oracle we have spoken above as so often consulted, but him who is said, along with Hercules, to have fed the flocks of king Admetus; yet he was so believed to be a god, that very many, indeed almost all, have believed him to be the selfsame Apollo. Then also Father Liber made war in India, and led in his army many women called Bacch, who were notable not so much for valour as for fury. Some, indeed, write that this Liber was both conquered and bound; and some that he was slain in Persia, even telling where he was buried; and yet in his name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have instituted the sacred, or rather the sacrilegious, Bacchanalia, of the outrageous vileness of which the senate, after many years, became so much ashamed as to prohibit them in the city of Rome. Men believed that in those times Perseus and his wife Andromeda were raised into heaven after their death, so that they were not ashamed or afraid to mark out their images by constellations, and call them by their names.
  14. Of the theological poets.

COSA - BOOK VIII, #The Confessions of Saint Augustine, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
  related the Mazes of my wanderings. But when I mentioned that I had read
  certain books of the Platonists, which Victorinus, sometime Rhetoric

LUX.05 - AUGOEIDES, #Liber Null, #Peter J Carroll, #Occultism
  The key to this puzzle is in the phenomena of the plane of duality in which we find ourselves. We are, as it were, trapped in a labyrinth or Maze. The only thing to do is move about and keep a close watch on the way the walls turn. In a completely chaotic universe such as this one, there are no accidents. Everything is signifcant. Move a single grain of sand on a distant shore and the entire future history of the world will eventually be changed.
  A person doing his true will is assisted by the momentum of the universe and seems possessed of amazing good luck. In beginning the great work of obtaining the knowledge and conversation, the magician vows "to interpret every manifestation of existence as a direct message from the infinite Chaos to himself personally."

Sophist, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
     'Found no end in wandering Mazes lost.'
  On the other hand, the discovery of abstractions was the great source of all mental improvement in after ages. It was the pushing aside of the old, the revelation of the new. But each one of the company of abstractions, if we may speak in the metaphorical language of Plato, became in turn the tyrant of the mind, the dominant idea, which would allow no other to have a share in the throne. This is especially true of the Eleatic philosophy: while the absoluteness of Being was asserted in every form of language, the sensible world and all the phenomena of experience were comprehended under Not-being. Nor was any difficulty or perplexity thus created, so long as the mind, lost in the contemplation of Being, asked no more questions, and never thought of applying the categories of Being or Not-being to mind or opinion or practical life.
  --
  The strength of the illusion seems to lie in the alternative: If we once admit the existence of Being and Not-being, as two spheres which exclude each other, no Being or reality can be ascribed to Not-being, and therefore not to falsehood, which is the image or expression of Not-being. Falsehood is wholly false; and to speak of true falsehood, as Theaetetus does (Theaet.), is a contradiction in terms. The fallacy to us is ridiculous and transparent,no better than those which Plato satirizes in the Euthydemus. It is a confusion of falsehood and negation, from which Plato himself is not entirely free. Instead of saying, 'This is not in accordance with facts,' 'This is proved by experience to be false,' and from such examples forming a general notion of falsehood, the mind of the Greek thinker was lost in the Mazes of the Eleatic philosophy. And the greater importance which Plato attri butes to this fallacy, compared with others, is due to the influence which the Eleatic philosophy exerted over him. He sees clearly to a certain extent; but he has not yet attained a complete mastery over the ideas of his predecessorsthey are still ends to him, and not mere instruments of thought. They are too rough-hewn to be harmonized in a single structure, and may be compared to rocks which project or overhang in some ancient city's walls. There are many such imperfect syncretisms or eclecticisms in the history of philosophy. A modern philosopher, though emancipated from scholastic notions of essence or substance, might still be seriously affected by the abstract idea of necessity; or though accustomed, like Bacon, to criticize abstract notions, might not extend his criticism to the syllogism.
  The saying or thinking the thing that is not, would be the popular definition of falsehood or error. If we were met by the Sophist's objection, the reply would probably be an appeal to experience. Ten thousands, as Homer would say (mala murioi), tell falsehoods and fall into errors. And this is Plato's reply, both in the Cratylus and Sophist. 'Theaetetus is flying,' is a sentence in form quite as grammatical as 'Theaetetus is sitting'; the difference between the two sentences is, that the one is true and the other false. But, before making this appeal to common sense, Plato propounds for our consideration a theory of the nature of the negative.
  --
  The system of Hegel frees the mind from the dominion of abstract ideas. We acknowledge his originality, and some of us delight to wander in the Mazes of thought which he has opened to us. For Hegel has found admirers in England and Scotl and when his popularity in Germany has departed, and he, like the philosophers whom he criticizes, is of the past. No other thinker has ever dissected the human mind with equal patience and minuteness. He has lightened the burden of thought because he has shown us that the chains which we wear are of our own forging. To be able to place ourselves not only above the opinions of men but above their modes of thinking, is a great height of philosophy. This dearly obtained freedom, however, we are not disposed to part with, or to allow him to build up in a new form the 'beggarly elements' of scholastic logic which he has thrown down. So far as they are aids to reflection and expression, forms of thought are useful, but no further:we may easily have too many of them.
  And when we are asked to believe the Hegelian to be the sole or universal logic, we naturally reply that there are other ways in which our ideas may be connected. The triplets of Hegel, the division into being, essence, and notion, are not the only or necessary modes in which the world of thought can be conceived. There may be an evolution by degrees as well as by opposites. The word 'continuity' suggests the possibility of resolving all differences into differences of quantity. Again, the opposites themselves may vary from the least degree of diversity up to contradictory opposition. They are not like numbers and figures, always and everywhere of the same value. And therefore the edifice which is constructed out of them has merely an imaginary symmetry, and is really irregular and out of proportion. The spirit of Hegelian criticism should be applied to his own system, and the terms Being, Not-being, existence, essence, notion, and the like challenged and defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many distinctions, he obliterates a great many others by the help of the universal solvent 'is not,' which appears to be the simplest of negations, and yet admits of several meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in the play of metaphysical fancy which conducts him from one determination of thought to another. But we begin to suspect that this vast system is not God within us, or God immanent in the world, and may be only the invention of an individual brain. The 'beyond' is always coming back upon us however often we expel it. We do not easily believe that we have within the compass of the mind the form of universal knowledge. We rather incline to think that the method of knowledge is inseparable from actual knowledge, and wait to see what new forms may be developed out of our increasing experience and observation of man and nature. We are conscious of a Being who is without us as well as within us. Even if inclined to Pantheism we are unwilling to imagine that the meagre categories of the understanding, however ingeniously arranged or displayed, are the image of God;that what all religions were seeking after from the beginning was the Hegelian philosophy which has been revealed in the latter days. The great metaphysician, like a prophet of old, was naturally inclined to believe that his own thoughts were divine realities. We may almost say that whatever came into his head seemed to him to be a necessary truth. He never appears to have criticized himself, or to have subjected his own ideas to the process of analysis which he applies to every other philosopher.

Talks 001-025, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
    M.: Yes. Watchfulness is the waking state. Therefore the state will not be one of sleep, but sleepless sleep. If you go the way of your thoughts you will be carried away by them and you will find yourself in an endless Maze.
    D.: So, then, I must go back tracing the source of thoughts.

Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  very academic and pedantic, an abstract rigmarole, a Maze of words, the authors trying to get rid of whatever spiritual experiences they don't recognise.
  For example, Ramanuja says at one place that no such thing as consciousness exists and that nobody can experience pure consciousness! It is staggering.

The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
  to find its way through the experimental Maze without any obvious
  incentive being offered in the form of reward or punishment; and also
  --
  hit-and-miss behaviour of rats trying to find their way through a Maze,
  or cats trying to get out of a puzzle-box. It was an original, self-taught
  --
  dogs or the behaviour of rats in Mazes. To repeat an argument from
  the Preface to Book One: in the history of most sciences we find
  --
  Turning from the spinal level to the brain, Lashley's celebrated Maze
  experiments have shown what astonishing regenerative adaptations the
  --
  self through [the Maze] with his forepaws; another falls at every step
  but gets through by a series of lunges; a third rolls over completely
  --
  theory, the rat in the Maze should learn nothing about it until one of
  his responses is accompanied by a decrease of hunger or thirst, or
  --
  he is allowed to run in the Maze without reward or punishment, the
  rat learns a good deal about it. It is clear of course that the primitive
  --
  that rats who were allowed to familiarize themselves with the Maze
  by running around in it without reward, got quicker to the food-box
  --
  experience in the Maze without being rewarded by food or punished
  by electric shock? As Berlyne put it: 'There are plenty of experiments
  to show that latent Maze-learning can occur in the rat, which is em-
  barrassing for those whose theories are not built to assimilate it. . . .
  --
  trified grill to reach a Maze which contained nothing but some unusual
  objects; he concluded that an exploratory urge did exist 'a biogenic
  --
  still capable of learning to run a Maze to get at food, show a diminished
  tendency to exploration. They 'do not evince the preference for a
  --
  likewise show less variability of route in a Dashiell Maze.' 27 Yet, as
  Lashley's rats have shown, even depriving the creature of substantial
  --
  The matrix of a complex skill such as the Maze-running skill of
  Lashley's rats may be no more 'localized* than the programme of a
  --
  'constancy'. The rat learns to make a 'mental map' of the Maze in its
  head (Chapter XII); and it has always been a mystery to me how my
  --
  former is comparable to the blindfold memorizing of a Maze, the
  latter to the gradual adjustment of various interlocking servo-
  --
  through Mazes, geese being 'imprinted' by Dr. Lorenz ambling on
  all-fours.
  --
  unknown Maze, goes on manipulating its motor-organs at random
  until it hits upon the food in the same way as (the comparison is
  --
  certain performances of rats in Mazes represent insight or trial-and-
  error learning would have been somewhat less prolonged if the
  --
  map of a Maze, the ethologists have shown that this is precisely what
  insects do. Their work merits consideration in some detail which is
  --
  larity to Krechevsky's work on hypotheses in Maze-learning. Many
  such examples lead us imperceptibly to what we may consider as
  --
  of this research was devoted to Maze studies. Not even Newton, as
  Bertr and Russell remarked, 26 could learn a Maze by any method other
  than trial and error; yet what the rat learns is not a chain of responses,
  but the pattern of the Maze as a whole as shown by the experiments
  with mutilated rats, and in others where the rat takes prompt ad-
  --
  bred from a stock with exceptionally good Maze-learning records.
  To a second group of researchers he gave what he explained were
  --
  that they learned to run the Maze much faster than the 'stupid rats'. 28
  The only explanation Rosenthal could offer was that the bias in the
  --
  Thus I shall have little more to say about the bar-pressing and Maze-
  running experiments with rats. In spite of the impressive mathematical
  --
  The rat must piece together, bit by bit, his cognitive map of the Maze;
  THE PITFALLS OF GESTALT
  --
  standing. 22 In fact, of course, it is neither. Rats learn to know a Maze,
  and to form a mental map of it which amounts to as complete an
  --
  The behaviour of the rat exploring a Maze or of the monkey fear-
  fully peeping into the box with the snake, could be described as inter-
  --
  This can be demonstrated even in Maze-learning experiments with
  humans, where the advantages of verbalization are not at once ob-
  --
  in front of a table with a grooved Maze on it. The Maze was of the
  same type as in rat experiments, with various cul-de-sacs; the subject
  --
  tactile guidance, for the Maze was hidden from his view by a screen.
  The number of trials required until the Maze was completely learned
  varied, according to subject, between 16 and 195 (!). At the end of the
  --
  72 to 195 according to subject) to learn the Maze. Eighteen adopted the
  'visual* method; average trials: 68, ranging from 41 to 104. Twenty-
  --
  motor-learners in Wardens Maze experiment. We must conclude that
  verbal symbolism enters even into the learning of complex motor
  --
  reduced to a symbolic performance (p. 570). The rat in the Maze is in
  a more favourable position: it likes exploring highways and byways;

The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  that of its preparation which the artist accomplishes in the center of the Maze. The second
  concerns the mutation of the prepared matter with the aid of the fire. The alchemist thus
  --
  synthetic unification. It is to the second stage or period of the Work which the Mazes Latin
  inscription applies. As a matter of fact, from the moment when the compost, formed of the

The Garden of Forking Paths 1, #Selected Fictions, #unset, #Zen
  Yunnan and gave up temporal power to write a novel with more characters than there are in the Hung Lou Meng, and to create a Maze in which all men would lose themselves. He spent thirteen years on these oddly assorted tasks before he was assassinated by a stranger. His novel had no sense to it and nobody ever found his labyrinth.
  Under the trees of England I meditated on this lost and perhaps mythical labyrinth. I imagined it untouched and perfect on the secret summit of some mountain; I imagined it drowned under rice paddies or beneath the sea; I imagined it infinite, made not only of eight-sided pavilions and of twisting paths but also of rivers, provinces and kingdoms . . . I thought of a Maze of Mazes, of a sinuous, ever growing Maze which would take in both past and future and would somehow involve the stars.
  Lost in these imaginary illusions I forgot my destiny - that of the hunted. For an undetermined period of time I felt myself cut off from the world, an abstract spectator. The hazy and murmuring countryside, the moon, the decline of the evening, stirred within me. Going down the gently sloping road I could not feel fatigue. The evening was at once intimate and infinite.
  --
  "A symbolic labyrinth," he corrected me. "An invisible labyrinth of time. I, a barbarous Englishman, have been given the key to this transparent mystery. After more than a hundred years most of the details are irrecoverable, lost beyond all recall, but it isn't hard to image what must have happened. At one time, Ts'ui Pen must have said; 'I am going into seclusion to write a book,' and at another, 'I am retiring to construct a Maze.' Everyone assumed these were separate activities. No one realized that the book and the labyrinth were one and the same. The Pavilion of the Limpid Sun was set in the middle of an intricate garden. This may have suggested the idea of a physical Maze.
  "Ts'ui Pen died. In all the vast lands which once belonged to your family, no one could find the labyrinth. The novel's confusion suggested that it was the labyrinth.
  Two circumstances showed me the direct solution to the problem. First, the curious legend that Ts'ui Pen had proposed to create an infinite Maze, second, a fragment of a letter which I discovered."
  Albert rose. For a few moments he turned his back to me. He opened the top drawer in the high black and gilded writing cabinet. He returned holding in his hand a piece of paper which had once been crimson but which had faded with the passage of time: it was rose colored, tenuous, quadrangular. Ts'ui Pen's calligraphy was justly famous. Eagerly, but without understanding, I read the words which a man of my own blood had written with a small brush: "I leave to various future times, but not to all, my garden of forking paths."

The Garden of Forking Paths 2, #Selected Fictions, #unset, #Zen
  For an instant, I thought that Richard Madden in some way had penetrated my desperate plan. Very quickly, I understood that that was impossible. The instructions to turn always to the left reminded me that such was the common procedure for discovering the central point of certain labyrinths. I have some understanding of labyrinths: not for nothing am I the great grandson of that Ts'ui Pen who was governor of Yunnan and who renounced worldly power in order to write a novel that might be even more populous than the Hung Lu Meng and to construct a labyrinth in which all men would become lost. Thirteen years he dedicated to these heterogeneous tasks, but the hand of a stranger murdered him-and his novel was incoherent and no one found the labyrinth. Beneath English trees I meditated on that lost Maze: I imagined it inviolate and perfect at the secret crest of a mountain; I imagined it erased by rice fields or beneath the water; I imagined it infinite, no longer composed of octagonal kiosks and returning paths, but of rivers and provinces and kingdoms. . . I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars. Absorbed in these illusory images, I forgot my destiny of one pursued. I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world. The vague, living countryside, the moon, the remains of the day worked on me, as well as the slope of the road which eliminated any possibility of weariness. The afternoon was intimate, infinite. The road descended and forked among the now confused meadows. A high-pitched, almost syllabic music approached and receded in the shifting of the wind, dimmed by leaves and distance. I thought that a man can be an enemy of other men, of the moments of other men, but not of a country: not of fireflies, words, gardens, streams of water, sunsets. Thus I arrived before a tall, rusty gate. Between the iron bars I made out a poplar grove and a pavilion. I understood suddenly two things, the first trivial, the second almost unbelievable: the music came from the pavilion, and the music was Chinese. For precisely that reason I had openly accepted it without paying it any heed. I do not remember whether there was a bell or whether I knocked with my hand. The sparkling of the music continued.
  From the rear of the house within a lantern approached: a lantern that the trees sometimes striped and sometimes eclipsed, a paper lantern that had the form of a drum and the color of the moon. A tall man bore it. I didn't see his face for the light blinded me. He opened the door and said slowly, in my own language: "I see that the pious Hsi P'eng persists in correcting my solitude. You no doubt wish to see the garden?"
  --
  "An astounding fate, that of Ts'ui Pen," Stephen Albert said. "Governor of his native province, learned in astronomy, in astrology and in the tireless interpretation of the canonical books, chess player, famous poet and calligrapher-he abandoned all this in order to compose a book and a Maze. He renounced the pleasures of both tyranny and justice, of his populous couch, of his banquets and even of erudition-all to close himself up for thirteen years in the Pavilion of the Limpid Solitude. When he died, his heirs found nothing save chaotic manuscripts. His family, as you may be aware, wished to condemn them to the fire; but his executor-a Taoist or Buddhist monk-insisted on their publication."
  "We descendants of Ts'ui Pen," I replied, "continue to curse that monk. Their publication was senseless. The book is an indeterminate heap of contradictory drafts. I examined it once: in the third chapter the hero dies, in the fourth he is alive. As for the other undertaking of Ts'ui Pen, his labyrinth. . ."
  --
  "A labyrinth of symbols," he corrected. "An invisible labyrinth of time. To me, a barbarous Englishman, has been entrusted the revelation of this diaphanous mystery. After more than a hundred years, the details are irretrievable; but it is not hard to conjecture what happened. Ts'ui Pen must have said once: I am withdrawing to write a book. And another time: I am withdrawing to construct a labyrinth. Every one imagined two works; to no one did it occur that the book and the Maze were one and the same thing. The Pavilion of the Limpid Solitude stood in the center of a garden that was perhaps intricate; that circumstance could have suggested to the heirs a physical labyrinth. Hs'ui Pen died; no one in the vast territories that were his came upon the labyrinth; the confusion of the novel suggested to me that it was the Maze. Two circumstances gave me the correct solution of the problem. One: the curious legend that Ts'ui Pen had planned to create a labyrinth which would be strictly infinite. The other: a fragment of a letter I discovered."
  Albert rose. He turned his back on me for a moment; he opened a drawer of the black and gold desk. He faced me and in his hands he held a sheet of paper that had once been crimson, but was now pink and tenuous and cross-sectioned. The fame of Ts'ui Pen as a calligrapher had been justly won. I read, uncomprehendingly and with fervor, these words written with a minute brush by a man of my blood: I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths. Wordlessly, I returned the sheet. Albert continued:

The Immortal, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
  I have said that the City was builded on a stone plateau. That plateau, with its precipitous sides, was as difficult to scale as the walls. In vain did my weary feet walk round it; the black foundation revealed not the slightest irregularity, and the invariance of the walls proscribed even a single door. The force of the day drove me to seek refuge in a cavern; toward the rear there was a pit, and out of the pit, out of the gloom below, rose a ladder. I descended the ladder and made my way through a chaos of squalid galleries to a vast, indistinct circular chamber. Nine doors opened into that cellar- like place; eight led to a Maze that returned, deceitfully, to the same chamber; the ninth led through another Maze to a second circular chamber identical to the first. I am not certain how many chambers there were; my misery and anxiety multiplied them. The silence was hostile, and virtually perfect; aside from a subterranean wind whose cause I never discovered, within those deep webs of stone there was no sound; even the thin streams of iron-colored water that trickled through crevices in the stone were noiseless. Horribly, I grew used to that dubious world; it began to seem incredible that anything could exist save nine-doored cellars and long, forking subterranean corridors. I know not how long I wandered under the earth; I do know that from time to time, in a confused dream of home, I conflated the horrendous village of the barbarians and the city of my birth, among the clusters of grapes.
  At the end of one corridor, a not unforeseen wall blocked my path - and a distant light fell upon me. I raised my dazzled eyes; above, vertiginously high above, I saw a circle of sky so blue it was almost purple. The metal treads of a stairway led up the wall. Weariness made my muscles slack, but I climbed the stairs, only pausing from time to time to sob clumsily with joy. Little by little I began to discern friezes and the capitals of columns, triangular pediments and vaults, confused glories carved in granite and marble. Thus it was that I was led to ascend from the blind realm of black and intertwining labyrinths into the brilliant City.
  --
  The impression of great antiquity was joined by others: the impression of endlessness, the sensation of oppressiveness and horror, the sensation of complex irrationality. I had made my way through a dark Maze, but it was the bright City of the Immortals that terrified and repelled me. A Maze is a house built purposely to confuse men; its architecture, prodigal in symmetries, is made to serve that purpose. In the palace that I imperfectly explored, the architecture had no purpose. There were corridors that led nowhere, unreachably high windows, grandly dramatic doors that opened onto monklike cells or empty shafts, incredible upside-down staircases with upside-down treads and balustrades. Other staircases, clinging airily to the side of a monumental wall, petered out after two or three landings, in the high gloom of the cupolas, arriving nowhere. I cannot say whether these are literal examples I have given; I do know that for many years they plagued my troubled dreams; I can no longer know whether any given feature is a faithful transcription of reality or one of the shapes unleashed by my nights. This City, I thought, is so horrific that its mere existence, the mere fact of its having endured - even in the middle of a secret desert - pollutes the past and the future and somehow compromises the stars. So long as this City endures, no one in the world can ever be happy or courageous. I do not want to describe it; a chaos of heterogeneous words, the body of a tiger or a bull pullulating with teeth, organs, and heads monstrously yoked together yet hating each other - those might, perhaps, be approximate images.
  I cannot recall the stages by which I returned, nor my path through the dusty, humid crypts. I know only that I was accompanied by the constant fear that when I emerged from the last labyrinth I would be surrounded once again by the abominable City of the Immortals. I remember nothing else. That loss of memory, now insurmountable, was perhaps willful; it is possible that the circumstances of my escape were so unpleasant that on some day no less lost to memory I swore to put them out of my mind.

The Logomachy of Zos, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  in a Maze of re-recollection of and re-acting to the past, hence our
  dithering I.

The Riddle of this World, #unknown, #Unknown, #unset
  caught through the Maze. It is possible for the whole attitude and action
  and utterance to be so surcharged with the errors of this intermediate

The Shadow Out Of Time, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
  of years since the time of my dreams? Of the subterrene Mazes which had underlain the
  city and linked all the titan towers, how much had still survived the writhings of earth's

WORDNET



--- Overview of noun maze

The noun maze has 2 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
                    
1. (2) maze, labyrinth ::: (complex system of paths or tunnels in which it is easy to get lost)
2. tangle, snarl, maze ::: (something jumbled or confused; "a tangle of government regulations")


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun maze

2 senses of maze                            

Sense 1
maze, labyrinth
   => system
     => instrumentality, instrumentation
       => artifact, artefact
         => whole, unit
           => object, physical object
             => physical entity
               => entity

Sense 2
tangle, snarl, maze
   => perplexity
     => confusion, mental confusion, confusedness, muddiness, disarray
       => cognitive state, state of mind
         => psychological state, psychological condition, mental state, mental condition
           => condition, status
             => state
               => attribute
                 => abstraction, abstract entity
                   => entity


--- Hyponyms of noun maze

1 of 2 senses of maze                        

Sense 1
maze, labyrinth
   HAS INSTANCE=> Labyrinth of Minos


--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun maze

2 senses of maze                            

Sense 1
maze, labyrinth
   => system

Sense 2
tangle, snarl, maze
   => perplexity




--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun maze

2 senses of maze                            

Sense 1
maze, labyrinth
  -> system
   => audio system, sound system
   => communication system
   => computer system, computing system, automatic data processing system, ADP system, ADPS
   => containment
   => control system
   => data system, information system
   => drainage system
   => exhaust, exhaust system
   => explosive detection system, EDS
   => explosive trace detection, ETD
   => guidance system, guidance device
   => hookup, assemblage
   => inertial guidance system, inertial navigation system
   => lockage
   => maze, labyrinth
   => mechanical system
   => navigational system
   => network, electronic network
   => network
   => propulsion system
   => resonator
   => scaffolding, staging
   => security system
   => selsyn, synchro
   => shipboard system
   => solar thermal system
   => sprinkler system
   => synchromesh

Sense 2
tangle, snarl, maze
  -> perplexity
   => mystery, enigma, secret, closed book
   => tangle, snarl, maze
   => dilemma, quandary




--- Grep of noun maze
maze
mazer
sublimaze



IN WEBGEN [10000/688]

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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ride/ThePsychoPathMaze
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/MastersOfTheMaze
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/MazesAndMinotaurs
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Maze_(1953_film)
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The Crystal Maze (1990 - 1995) - A team of 3 male and 3 female contestants completed individual tasks throughout a maze, to collect time crystals. The team was led around the maze by their host, Richard O'Brian (The Rocky Horror Show) for the first four seasons (1990 - 1993), and Ed Tudor-Pole (Ten Pole Tudor) in the latter 2 seaso...
The Parent 'Hood (1999 - 2000) - For today's baby boomer parents, raising a family can not only be tricky, but can be extremely hazardous, especially leading kids through the treacherous maze from childhood, into their teens and then finally adulthood. Life in the Peterson household is no exception. But thank to the unpredictable a...
Masters Of The Maze (1994 - 1996) - Masters Of The Maze is a game show that's considered to be the video game of the future. The show consists of three teams of two. Player number one is the runner who will be going into the maze and player number two is the navigator who will help his partner in the maze, by controlling his power sui...
Now You See It (1974 - 1989) - "Every answer ... to every question ... is hidden somewhere in this maze of letters. And NOW ... YOU ... SEE ... IT!"
Masters of the Maze (1994 - 1996) - A game show where contestants guess the distorted pictures in the first round and the first two contestants won the right to go to the maze.
Mazes and Monsters(1982) - Tom Hanks plays a young man who, along with his group of friends enjoys role playing games such as AD&D, etc. and starts taking the game too seriously.
Having Babies(1976) - Labor is the hardest thing a woman can endure in her life; and for four expectant mothers they hope to get through with the help of their spouses as they experience the Lamaze method of natural childbirth. First, we meet Sally who is expecting her first and wants her husband, George to support her...
Dear God(1996) - When letters written to God start getting results, and replies, people everywhere are amazed. The Post Office however is annoyed.
Clifford's Really Big Movie(2004) - The circus has come to Birdwell Island and Emily Elizabeth comes across an attraction known as Larry's Amazing Animals, where a man performs daring stunts with his dogs. No one is more amazed though than Clifford and his friends Cleo and T-Bone. After the show, Cleo tells the animals that she and he...
Abra Cadabra(1983) - A space boy who resides with his pet dog, cat and magician father in outer space comes to earth pursuing a couple of villains who have stolen the magic pipe from the cosmic maze. Along the way, he becomes involved with the daughter of the mayor of Yellow Town.
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1161/MazeBakunetsu_Jikuu_TV -- Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Mecha, Shounen
https://myanimelist.net/anime/1162/MazeBakunetsu_Jikuu -- Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Mecha, Shounen
https://myanimelist.net/anime/3884/MazeBakunetsu_Jikuu__Hot_Springs -- Action, Comedy, Ecchi, Fantasy
Cube (1997) ::: 7.2/10 -- R | 1h 30min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 11 July 1998 (Netherlands) -- Six complete strangers with widely varying personalities are involuntarily placed in an endless maze containing deadly traps. Director: Vincenzo Natali Writers: Andr Bijelic (as Andre Bijelic), Vincenzo Natali | 1 more credit
Cube (1997) ::: 7.2/10 -- R | 1h 30min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 11 July 1998 (Netherlands) -- Six complete strangers with widely varying personalities are involuntarily placed in an endless maze containing deadly traps. Director: Vincenzo Natali Writers: Andr Bijelic (as Andre Bijelic), Vincenzo Natali | 1 more credit
Easy ::: TV-MA | 30min | Comedy | TV Series (2016 ) -- Intertwined groups of friends in Chicago fumble through the modern maze of love, sex, technology and culture. Creator: Joe Swanberg
Escape Room (2019) ::: 6.4/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 39min | Action, Adventure, Horror | 4 January 2019 (USA) -- Six strangers find themselves in a maze of deadly mystery rooms and must use their wits to survive. Director: Adam Robitel Writers: Bragi F. Schut (screenplay by) (as Bragi Schut), Maria Melnik
Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018) ::: 6.3/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 23min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 26 January 2018 (USA) -- Young hero Thomas embarks on a mission to find a cure for a deadly disease known as "The Flare". Director: Wes Ball Writers: T.S. Nowlin (screenplay by), James Dashner (based upon the novel by)
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) ::: 6.3/10 -- PG-13 | 2h 11min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi | 18 September 2015 (USA) -- After having escaped the Maze, the Gladers now face a new set of challenges on the open roads of a desolate landscape filled with unimaginable obstacles. Director: Wes Ball Writers:
The Maze Runner (2014) ::: 6.8/10 -- PG-13 | 1h 53min | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi | 19 September 2014 (USA) -- Thomas is deposited in a community of boys after his memory is erased, soon learning they're all trapped in a maze that will require him to join forces with fellow "runners" for a shot at escape. Director: Wes Ball Writers:
You Don't Know Jack (2010) ::: 7.6/10 -- TV-14 | 2h 14min | Biography, Drama | TV Movie 24 April 2010 -- A look at the life and work of doctor-assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian. Director: Barry Levinson Writer: Adam Mazer Stars:
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Divergence Eve 2: Misaki Chronicles -- -- Radix -- 13 eps -- Original -- Adventure Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Divergence Eve 2: Misaki Chronicles Divergence Eve 2: Misaki Chronicles -- Through the long distance warp called the "Exodus Project", Worns, Ryer and the -- other crew members of "Watchers Nest" manage to escape from the Earth. Misaki, who -- was attending the final battle with "Ghoul" at that time, isn't present there and -- before her eyes, the earth changes and gets enclosed by a time barrier. -- -- Ryer and the others search for a way to escape from this space time maze, but the -- earth changes to various forms. Innumerable "Nows" appear due to varying time axes. -- -- And also Misaki, who should have disappeared because of the Exodus Project incident, -- still afortiori. Before Ryer and the others, different forms of Misaki appear. The -- Misaki from training school, the Misaki from her childhood days. -- -- Are these reflections caused by the conflicts that exist inside Misaki? -- -- She awakens a second time and when she derives the response, that history is leading -- into a completely differnet direction now. -- -- Will Misaki, Ryer and the others be able to find a real happy end?! -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Sentai Filmworks -- 6,478 6.28
Dorei-ku The Animation -- -- TNK, Zero-G -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Drama Psychological -- Dorei-ku The Animation Dorei-ku The Animation -- Eager to know why her best friend’s boyfriend dumped her for a man, the headstrong Eiya Arakawa suggests a meeting with them. Gathered together at a café, Yuuga Oota agrees to answer Eiya’s questions only if she can correctly ascertain the relationship of a couple sitting across from them, which she does on her first attempt. Amazed by her astounding intellect and intuition, he invites her to a private meeting where he introduces her to the concept of Slave Control Method, or SCM, a retainer-like device that has the ability to turn people into slaves. -- -- When two SCM users enter a duel, the devices exert a powerful influence on their brains. Once the duel is over, the SCM amplifies the loser’s sense of obligation and forces them to bend to the will of the winner. Wanting desperately to test his own abilities, Yuuga asks Eiya to act as his insurance in the event that he himself becomes a slave. Granted access to 10 million yen, Eiya’s job is to convince Yuuga’s would-be master to free him from his servitude. Though hesitant at first, Yuuga’s words resonate with her personal yearning for something more from her life, and she agrees to his request. However, when a mysterious organization begins rapidly accruing slaves, Eiya becomes entangled in a game far more dangerous than she ever could have imagined. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 51,942 5.98
.hack//Quantum -- -- Kinema Citrus -- 3 eps -- Original -- Action Adventure Fantasy Game Sci-Fi -- .hack//Quantum .hack//Quantum -- Tobias, Mary, and Sakuya challenge the impregnable "The One Sin", but they lose their way in the maze and unintentionally trap other guild members. A mysterious cat is watching their blunder. Is it another player character or NPC? -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- OVA - Jan 28, 2011 -- 36,917 7.17
Hajime no Ippo -- -- Madhouse -- 75 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama Shounen -- Hajime no Ippo Hajime no Ippo -- Makunouchi Ippo has been bullied his entire life. Constantly running errands and being beaten up by his classmates, Ippo has always dreamed of changing himself, but never has the passion to act upon it. One day, in the midst of yet another bullying, Ippo is saved by Takamura Mamoru, who happens to be a boxer. Ippo faints from his injuries and is brought to the Kamogawa boxing gym to recover. As he regains consciousness, he is awed and amazed at his new surroundings in the gym, though lacks confidence to attempt anything. Takamura places a photo of Ippo's classmate on a punching bag and forces him to punch it. It is only then that Ippo feels something stir inside him and eventually asks Takamura to train him in boxing. Thinking that Ippo does not have what it takes, Takamura gives him a task deemed impossible and gives him a one week time limit. With a sudden desire to get stronger, for himself and his hard working mother, Ippo trains relentlessly to accomplish the task within the time limit. Thus Ippo's journey to the top of the boxing world begins. -- -- 401,550 8.74
Hajime no Ippo -- -- Madhouse -- 75 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Sports Drama Shounen -- Hajime no Ippo Hajime no Ippo -- Makunouchi Ippo has been bullied his entire life. Constantly running errands and being beaten up by his classmates, Ippo has always dreamed of changing himself, but never has the passion to act upon it. One day, in the midst of yet another bullying, Ippo is saved by Takamura Mamoru, who happens to be a boxer. Ippo faints from his injuries and is brought to the Kamogawa boxing gym to recover. As he regains consciousness, he is awed and amazed at his new surroundings in the gym, though lacks confidence to attempt anything. Takamura places a photo of Ippo's classmate on a punching bag and forces him to punch it. It is only then that Ippo feels something stir inside him and eventually asks Takamura to train him in boxing. Thinking that Ippo does not have what it takes, Takamura gives him a task deemed impossible and gives him a one week time limit. With a sudden desire to get stronger, for himself and his hard working mother, Ippo trains relentlessly to accomplish the task within the time limit. Thus Ippo's journey to the top of the boxing world begins. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Geneon Entertainment USA -- 401,550 8.74
Kenja no Mago -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy -- Kenja no Mago Kenja no Mago -- In the kingdom of Earlshide, Merlin Walford was once regarded as a national hero, hailed for both his power and achievements. Preferring a quiet life however, he secludes himself deep in the rural woods, dedicating his time to raising an orphan that he saved. This orphan is Shin, a normal salaryman in modern-day Japan who was reincarnated into Merlin's world while still retaining his past memories. As the years pass, Shin displays unparalleled talent in both magic casting and martial arts, much to Merlin's constant amazement. -- -- On his 15th birthday however, it becomes apparent that Shin only developed his combat skills and nothing else, leaving him with blatant social awkwardness, a lack of common sense, and a middling sense of responsibility. As a result, Shin enrolls in the kingdom's Magic Academy to hone his skills and mature among other teenagers. However, living a normal life is impossible, as he is established as a local celebrity almost as soon as he arrives. -- -- Kenja no Mago follows Shin Walford's high school life in the capital as he makes new friends, learns about the world, and fights off the various forces of evil surrounding him and his city. -- -- 356,606 6.54
Kenja no Mago -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Comedy Magic Romance Fantasy -- Kenja no Mago Kenja no Mago -- In the kingdom of Earlshide, Merlin Walford was once regarded as a national hero, hailed for both his power and achievements. Preferring a quiet life however, he secludes himself deep in the rural woods, dedicating his time to raising an orphan that he saved. This orphan is Shin, a normal salaryman in modern-day Japan who was reincarnated into Merlin's world while still retaining his past memories. As the years pass, Shin displays unparalleled talent in both magic casting and martial arts, much to Merlin's constant amazement. -- -- On his 15th birthday however, it becomes apparent that Shin only developed his combat skills and nothing else, leaving him with blatant social awkwardness, a lack of common sense, and a middling sense of responsibility. As a result, Shin enrolls in the kingdom's Magic Academy to hone his skills and mature among other teenagers. However, living a normal life is impossible, as he is established as a local celebrity almost as soon as he arrives. -- -- Kenja no Mago follows Shin Walford's high school life in the capital as he makes new friends, learns about the world, and fights off the various forces of evil surrounding him and his city. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 356,606 6.54
Magic Kaito -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Comedy Romance Shounen -- Magic Kaito Magic Kaito -- Magic is not real—everyone knows that. When performed by a true expert, however, magic possesses the ability to amaze and wonder its audience. Kaito Kuroba, son of world-famous stage magician Touichi Kuroba, is no stranger to this fact. Well-versed in the arts of deception and misdirection, Kaito frequently disrupts the lives of those around him with flashy tricks and pranks. But when Kaito accidentally stumbles upon a hidden passage in his home, he discovers a secret that may well have been the cause of his father's death eight years ago—the dove-white outfit of Kid the Phantom Thief. Wanting to find out more about his father, Kaito dons the outfit and searches for the Pandora Gem that is said to grant immortality. However, he is not the only one after the gem—the organization responsible for his father's death is also hot on his tail! -- -- Magic Kaito follows the rebirth of Kaitou Kid, phantom thief of the night. Utilizing his dummies, disguises, and signature card gun, Kaito sets out to steal the world's most precious jewels, uncovering the truth behind his father's death and the rumored Pandora Gem along the way. -- -- Special - Apr 17, 2010 -- 57,983 7.80
Ninja Batman -- -- Kamikaze Douga -- 1 ep -- Other -- Action Martial Arts Samurai -- Ninja Batman Ninja Batman -- At Arkham Asylum, Batman clashes with Gorilla Grodd while trying to destroy Grodd's newest invention: the Quake Engine. Amidst the chaos, the engine activates, and the entire asylum suddenly vanishes into thin air—Batman along with it. Once the dust settles, Batman finds himself standing in the middle of an unfamiliar road. He soon realizes that he is no longer in Gotham City—but instead in Feudal Japan! -- -- The amazement quickly fades as samurai descend upon him, seeking to take his life. Later on, Batman's investigation leads him to discover that the one responsible for the kill order is none other than his archnemesis, the Joker. Following an encounter with Catwoman, he learns that the asylum's criminals had teleported there two years earlier—each ruling over a piece of Japan with Joker being the dominant warlord. -- -- In order to return home, Batman must reactivate the Quake Engine, situated in the remnants of the asylum, now known as Arkham Castle. However, there is one problem: aside from his gadget belt, the arsenal that was once at his fingertips is all but gone. Ninja Batman follows the Dark Knight as he traverses a strange new environment, facing off against familiar foes in a bid to return to Gotham in one piece. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Warner Bros. Japan -- Movie - Jun 15, 2018 -- 41,381 6.11
One Outs -- -- Madhouse -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Sports Psychological Seinen -- One Outs One Outs -- Toua Tokuchi is an athlete by profession, but a reckless gambler at heart. On the streets of Okinawa, he uses nothing but his wits and a "fastball" peaking at a mere 134 kmph to somehow achieve 499 wins in the game of "One Outs," a simplified version of baseball between the pitcher and one batter. Amazed by Toua's unique prowess on the mound, veteran slugger Hiromichi Kojima artfully scouts the pitcher for his long unsuccessful team, the Saikyou Saitama Lycaons. Kojima desperately hopes Toua will lead them to the championship; however, Tsuneo Saikawa, the mercenary owner of the Lycaons, sees the vastly talented pitcher as a threat to the income generated by the team. Rising to the challenge of swaying the owner, Toua suggests a one-of-a-kind "One Outs" contract: every out Toua pitches will earn him five million yen, but with every run he gives up, he will lose fifty million yen. -- -- Adapted from the manga by Shinobu Kaitani of Liar Game fame, One Outs documents the intense psychological battles between Toua and those around him. With millions of yen at stake, can a pitcher who has done nothing but gamble in a head-to-head imitation of baseball finally lead a real baseball team to victory? -- -- TV - Oct 8, 2008 -- 188,651 8.35
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Game Mystery Shounen -- Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle -- Kaito Daimon would be a completely average high school student except for one thing: he's a 'demon' at solving puzzles. Kaito is so brilliant, in fact, that when he's asked to take some 'special' tests of his unique ability, he immediately suspects that the test itself is a test. Kaito suddenly finds himself caught up in a lethal Philosopher's Puzzle made by the sinister group POG, a murderous maze of trap upon trap, where failing to solve the secret correctly will result in death! Fortunately, Kaito's skills prove up to the first test, both for himself and his childhood friend Nanoha, who is also caught up in the deadly scheme. But now that he has been designated as a Solver, he is pulled into a new life where he must travel the world with other Solvers, attempting to solve the latest deadly riddles left by POG. There's a new conundrum around every corner and each deception could lead to death, but once a riddle has been posed, you can count on Kaito to unfold, unravel and unlock it! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 2, 2011 -- 97,029 7.20
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle - Shukuteki! Rätsel-hen -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Game Mystery Shounen -- Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle - Shukuteki! Rätsel-hen Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle - Shukuteki! Rätsel-hen -- "Are puzzles really necessary in this world?" -- -- In order to restore Jin's memory, Kaito and his friends go on a puzzle-viewing journey to England. As they're walking through the underground maze beneath the church, where young Kaito and Rook first met Jin, a mysterious girl appears in front of them. -- -- Jin calls the girl by the name "Raetsel". It seems they know each other. However, she suddenly disappears and takes Jin with her. What's more, the traps in the underground maze are activated and start coming after Kaito and his friends. -- -- (Source: www9.nhk.or.jp) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 6, 2013 -- 32,133 7.27
Rayearth -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Fantasy -- Rayearth Rayearth -- The Earth lies darkened and deserted. Despite the best efforts of the film's heroine, Hikaru, the evil-filled castle of Cephiro has taken over the world and stands in the center of a lifeless Tokyo. Before the ice-witch Alcyone can take her revenge on Hikaru, she is rescued by Lantis, a young man who seals her into a magical maze where she is challenged to prove her powers while her friends are hunted down by Cephiro's warlocks. -- -- Fleeing through the silent city, Umi and Fuu must seek out the sleeping Mashin; godlike creatures that will fuse with them to form giant warriors of awesome destructive power. But the Magic Knights are afraid, untrained and alone... will even the Mashin be enough to save them from the evil acts of Cephiro? -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- -- Licensor: -- Manga Entertainment -- OVA - Jul 25, 1997 -- 13,406 6.89
Sengoku Collection -- -- Brain's Base -- 26 eps -- Game -- Fantasy Parody Samurai -- Sengoku Collection Sengoku Collection -- Sengoku Collection revolves around many samurai who are accidentally removed from a parallel universe inhabited by well-known historic characters. Unlike the historical war period known to us, all inhabitants in this unique world look like high school girls. Coming from the medieval era and finding themselves totally amazed by everything they encounter in modern day Tokyo, the girls become best friends through their adventures. -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- -- Licensor: -- Nozomi Entertainment -- 21,851 6.43
Slayers Revolution -- -- J.C.Staff -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy -- Slayers Revolution Slayers Revolution -- Having lost the Sword of Light in the previous battle, Lina and Gourry continue their journey in search of a replacement weapon. On the way, the two of them meet up with Amelia and Zelgadis in the kingdom of Luvinagard while taunting some pirates. Lina is happy to reunite with her old friends, but appearing before her is Luvinagard's Inspector of the Special Investigative Unit; a man called Wizer. However, Lina is amazed at his unusual behavior... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, NYAV Post -- TV - Jul 3, 2008 -- 32,917 7.28
Tactics -- -- Studio Deen -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Comedy Historical Demons Supernatural Drama Shounen -- Tactics Tactics -- Ichinomiya Kantarou grew up with the ability to see demons, but was isolated and bullied by others who did not share the same gift. Instead, he became being friends with the demons, gaining a great attachment to their existence. One day, Kantarou was told about the strongest demon, the one known as the ogre-eating Tengu. Amazed by the news of his strength, Kantarou vowed to find this demon who was far stronger than any other, deciding to call him Haruka when he did so. Since this time, Kantarou searched far and wide for the ogre-eating Tengu with no luck, making his living by becoming a folklore writer and demon-buster. On a particular job, Kantarou had finally found news of a nearby shrine supposedly the place where the ogre-eating Tengu was sealed. -- -- Licensor: -- Manga Entertainment -- TV - Oct 6, 2004 -- 37,017 7.22
Tactics -- -- Studio Deen -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Mystery Comedy Historical Demons Supernatural Drama Shounen -- Tactics Tactics -- Ichinomiya Kantarou grew up with the ability to see demons, but was isolated and bullied by others who did not share the same gift. Instead, he became being friends with the demons, gaining a great attachment to their existence. One day, Kantarou was told about the strongest demon, the one known as the ogre-eating Tengu. Amazed by the news of his strength, Kantarou vowed to find this demon who was far stronger than any other, deciding to call him Haruka when he did so. Since this time, Kantarou searched far and wide for the ogre-eating Tengu with no luck, making his living by becoming a folklore writer and demon-buster. On a particular job, Kantarou had finally found news of a nearby shrine supposedly the place where the ogre-eating Tengu was sealed. -- TV - Oct 6, 2004 -- 37,017 7.22
Urara Meirochou -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Fantasy Seinen -- Urara Meirochou Urara Meirochou -- Labyrinth Town is a legendary city composed of ten districts, home to witches and diviners alike. In the outermost district of this maze, many young girls begin training to join the ranks of the "Urara," a group of women known far and wide for their ability to divine the answers to the world's most difficult questions. Chiya, a wild girl raised amongst the animals in the mountains, is invited to take her rightful place as a first rank urara. By joining them, she hopes to divine the location of her long-lost mother. -- -- Chiya quickly makes three friends: studious Kon Tatsumi, aspiring witch Koume Yukimi, and reticent Nono Natsume. Armed with only their own ingenuity and a vague connection to the gods, they begin their journey in the way of the urara. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 108,856 7.13
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