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Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
1
Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth
2
Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask
3
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth—
4
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
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Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth
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Of light, the Ocean's orison arose,
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To which the birds tempered their matin lay.
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All flowers in field or forest which unclose
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Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
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Swinging their censers in the element,
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With orient incense lit by the new ray
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Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent
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Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air;
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And, in succession due, did continent,
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Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear
16
The form and character of mortal mould,
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Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear
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Their portion of the toil, which he of old
19
Took as his own, and then imposed on them:
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But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
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Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
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The cone of night, now they were laid asleep
23
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
24
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
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Of a green Apennine: before me fled
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The night; behind me rose the day; the deep
27
Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head,—
28
When a strange trance over my fancy grew
29
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
30
Was so transparent, that the scene came through
31
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
32
O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
33
That I had felt the freshness of that dawn
34
Bathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair,
35
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
36
Under the self-same bough, and heard as there
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The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold
38
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air,
39
And then a vision on my train was rolled.
41
As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay,
42
This was the tenour of my waking dream:—
43
Methought I sate beside a public way
44
Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream
45
Of people there was hurrying to and fro,
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Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
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All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
48
Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
49
He made one of the multitude, and so
50
Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky
51
One of the million leaves of summer's bier;
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Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,
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Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
54
Some flying from the thing they feared, and some
55
Seeking the object of another's fear;
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And others, as with steps towards the tomb,
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Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
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And others mournfully within the gloom
59
Of their own shadow walked, and called it death;
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And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
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Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:
62
But more, with motions which each other crossed,
63
Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw,
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Or birds within the noonday aether lost,
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Upon that path where flowers never grew,—
66
And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,
67
Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew
68
Out of their mossy cells forever burst;
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Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
70
Of grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed
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With overarching elms and caverns cold,
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And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
73
Pursued their serious folly as of old.
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And as I gazed, methought that in the way
75
The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
76
When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,
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And a cold glare, intenser than the noon,
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But icy cold, obscured with blinding light
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The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon—
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When on the sunlit limits of the night
81
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air,
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And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might—
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Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear
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The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form
85
Bends in dark aether from her infant's chair,—
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So came a chariot on the silent storm
87
Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
88
So sate within, as one whom years deform,
89
Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,
90
Crouching within the shadow of a tomb;
91
And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape
92
Was bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloom
93
Tempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam
94
A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
95
The guidance of that wonder-winged team;
96
The shapes which drew it in thick lightenings
97
Were lost:—I heard alone on the air's soft stream
98
The music of their ever-moving wings.
99
All the four faces of that Charioteer
100
Had their eyes banded; little profit brings
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Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,
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Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun,—
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Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere
104
Of all that is, has been or will be done;
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So ill was the car guided—but it passed
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With solemn speed majestically on.
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The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,
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Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
109
And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,
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The million with fierce song and maniac dance
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Raging around—such seemed the jubilee
112
As when to greet some conqueror's advance
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Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
114
From senate-house, and forum, and theatre,
116
Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.
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Nor wanted here the just similitude
118
Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
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The chariot rolled, a captive multitude
120
Was driven;—all those who had grown old in power
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Or misery,—all who had their age subdued
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By action or by suffering, and whose hour
123
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
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So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;—
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All those whose fame or infamy must grow
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Till the great winter lay the form and name
127
Of this green earth with them for ever low;—
128
All but the sacred few who could not tame
129
Their spirits to the conquerors—but as soon
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As they had touched the world with living flame,
131
Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
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Or those who put aside the diadem
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Of earthly thrones or gems…
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Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem.
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Were neither mid the mighty captives seen,
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Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,
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Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.
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The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
139
Who lead it—fleet as shadows on the green,
140
Outspeed the chariot, and without repose
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Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
142
To savage music, wilder as it grows,
143
They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,
144
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
145
Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure
146
Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
147
Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;
148
And in their dance round her who dims the sun,
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Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
150
As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now
151
Bending within each other's atmosphere,
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Kindle invisibly—and as they glow,
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Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
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Oft to their bright destruction come and go,
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Till like two clouds into one vale impelled,
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That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
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And die in rain—the fiery band which held
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Their natures, snaps—while the shock still may tingle
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One falls and then another in the path
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Senseless—nor is the desolation single,
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Yet ere I can say WHERE—the chariot hath
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Passed over them—nor other trace I find
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But as of foam after the ocean's wrath
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Is spent upon the desert shore;—behind,
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Old men and women foully disarrayed,
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Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,
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And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,
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Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
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Farther behind and deeper in the shade.
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But not the less with impotence of will
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They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
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Round them and round each other, and fulfil
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Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose
174
Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie,
175
And past in these performs what … in those.
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Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
177
Half to myself I said—'And what is this?
178
Whose shape is that within the car? And why—'
179
I would have added—'is all here amiss?—'
180
But a voice answered—'Life!'—I turned, and knew
181
(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)
182
That what I thought was an old root which grew
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To strange distortion out of the hill side,
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Was indeed one of those deluded crew,
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And that the grass, which methought hung so wide
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And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
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And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,
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Were or had been eyes:—'If thou canst forbear
189
To join the dance, which I had well forborne,'
190
Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,
191
'I will unfold that which to this deep scorn
192
Led me and my companions, and relate
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The progress of the pageant since the morn;
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'If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,
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Follow it thou even to the night, but I
196
Am weary.'—Then like one who with the weight
197
Of his own words is staggered, wearily
198
He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:
199
'First, who art thou?'—'Before thy memory,
200
'I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died,
201
And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
202
Had been with purer nutriment supplied,
203
'Corruption would not now thus much inherit
204
Of what was once Rousseau,—nor this disguise
205
Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it;
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'If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
207
A thousand beacons from the spark I bore'—
208
'And who are those chained to the car?'—'The wise,
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'The great, the unforgotten,—they who wore
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Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light,
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Signs of thought's empire over thought—their lore
212
'Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might
213
Could not repress the mystery within,
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And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night
215
'Caught them ere evening.'—'Who is he with chin
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Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?'—
217
'The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win
218
'The world, and lost all that it did contain
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Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more
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Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain
221
'Without the opportunity which bore
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Him on its eagle pinions to the peak
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From which a thousand climbers have before
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'Fallen, as Napoleon fell.'—I felt my cheek
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Alter, to see the shadow pass away,
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Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak
227
That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;
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And much I grieved to think how power and will
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In opposition rule our mortal day,
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And why God made irreconcilable
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Good and the means of good; and for despair
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I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill
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With the spent vision of the times that were
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And scarce have ceased to be.—'Dost thou behold,'
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Said my guide, 'those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
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'Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage— names which the world thinks always old,
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'For in the battle Life and they did wage,
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She remained conqueror. I was overcome
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By my own heart alone, which neither age,
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'Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb
241
Could temper to its object.'—'Let them pass,'
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I cried, 'the world and its mysterious doom
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'Is not so much more glorious than it was,
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That I desire to worship those who drew
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New figures on its false and fragile glass
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'As the old faded.'—'Figures ever new
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Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may;
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We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
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'Our shadows on it as it passed away.
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But mark how chained to the triumphal chair
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The mighty phantoms of an elder day;
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'All that is mortal of great Plato there
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Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not;
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The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.
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'And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
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Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,
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Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.
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'And near him walk the … twain,
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The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion
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Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.
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'The world was darkened beneath either pinion
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Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
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Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion;
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'The other long outlived both woes and wars,
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Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept
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The jealous key of Truth's eternal doors,
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'If Bacon's eagle spirit had not lept
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Like lightning out of darkness—he compelled
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The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept
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'To wake, and lead him to the caves that held
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The treasure of the secrets of its reign.
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See the great bards of elder time, who quelled
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'The passions which they sung, as by their strain
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May well be known: their living melody
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Tempers its own contagion to the vein
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'Of those who are infected with it—I
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Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!
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And so my words have seeds of misery—
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'Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.'
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And then he pointed to a company,
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'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs
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Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine;
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The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares
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Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,
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And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:
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And Gregory and John, and men divine,
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Who rose like shadows between man and God;
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Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven,
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Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,
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For the true sun it quenched—'Their power was given
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But to destroy,' replied the leader:—'I
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Am one of those who have created, even
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'If it be but a world of agony.'—
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'Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?
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How did thy course begin?' I said, 'and why?
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'Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
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Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought—
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Speak!'—'Whence I am, I partly seem to know,
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'And how and by what paths I have been brought
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To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;—
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Why this should be, my mind can compass not;
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'Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;—
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But follow thou, and from spectator turn
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Actor or victim in this wretchedness,
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'And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
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From thee. Now listen:—In the April prime,
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When all the forest-tips began to burn
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'With kindling green, touched by the azure clime
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Of the young season, I was laid asleep
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Under a mountain, which from unknown time
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'Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;
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And from it came a gentle rivulet,
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Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep
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'Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet
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The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
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With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget
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'All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,
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Which they had known before that hour of rest;
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A sleeping mother then would dream not of
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'Her only child who died upon the breast
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At eventide—a king would mourn no more
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The crown of which his brows were dispossessed
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'When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floor
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To gild his rival's new prosperity.
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'Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
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'Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee,
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The thought of which no other sleep will quell,
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Nor other music blot from memory,
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'So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell;
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And whether life had been before that sleep
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The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell
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'Like this harsh world in which I woke to weep,
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I know not. I arose, and for a space
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The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,
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Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
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Of light diviner than the common sun
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Sheds on the common earth, and all the place
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'Was filled with magic sounds woven into one
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Oblivious melody, confusing sense
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Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;
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'And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence
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Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
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And the sun's image radiantly intense
344
'Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
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Like gold, and threaded all the forest's maze
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With winding paths of emerald fire; there stood
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'Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
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Of his own glory, on the vibrating
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Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
350
'A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling
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Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,
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And the invisible rain did ever sing
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'A silver music on the mossy lawn;
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And still before me on the dusky grass,
355
Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:
356
'In her right hand she bore a crystal glass,
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Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour
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Fell from her as she moved under the mass
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'Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender,
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Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,
361
Glided along the river, and did bend her
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'Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
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Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
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That whispered with delight to be its pillow.
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'As one enamoured is upborne in dream
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O'er lily-paven lakes, mid silver mist
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To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
368
'Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed
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The dancing foam; partly to glide along
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The air which roughened the moist amethyst,
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'Or the faint morning beams that fell among
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The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
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And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song
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'Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,
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And falling drops, moved in a measure new
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Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,
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'Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
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Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,
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Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew;
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'And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
381
To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot
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The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon
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'All that was, seemed as if it had been not;
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And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath
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Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,
386
'Trampled its sparks into the dust of death
387
As day upon the threshold of the east
388
Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath
389
'Of darkness re-illumine even the least
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Of heaven's living eyes—like day she came,
391
Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
392
'To move, as one between desire and shame
393
Suspended, I said—If, as it doth seem,
394
Thou comest from the realm without a name
395
'Into this valley of perpetual dream,
396
Show whence I came, and where I am, and why—
397
Pass not away upon the passing stream.
398
'Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply.
399
And as a shut lily stricken by the wand
400
Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,
401
'I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
402
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
403
And suddenly my brain became as sand
404
'Where the first wave had more than half erased
405
The track of deer on desert Labrador;
406
Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,
407
'Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,
408
Until the second bursts;—so on my sight
409
Burst a new vision, never seen before,
410
'And the fair shape waned in the coming light,
411
As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
412
From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
413
'Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops;
414
And as the presence of that fairest planet,
415
Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes
416
'That his day's path may end as he began it,
417
In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent
418
Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
419
'Or the soft note in which his dear lament
420
The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
421
That turned his weary slumber to content;
422
'So knew I in that light's severe excess
423
The presence of that Shape which on the stream
424
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
425
'More dimly than a day-appearing dream,
426
The host of a forgotten form of sleep;
427
A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam
428
'Through the sick day in which we wake to weep
429
Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;
430
So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
431
'Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;
432
But the new Vision, and the cold bright car,
433
With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed
434
'The forest, and as if from some dread war
435
Triumphantly returning, the loud million
436
Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.
437
'A moving arch of victory, the vermilion
438
And green and azure plumes of Iris had
439
Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
440
'And underneath aethereal glory clad
441
The wilderness, and far before her flew
442
The tempest of the splendour, which forbade
443
'Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crew
444
Seemed in that light, like atomies to dance
445
Within a sunbeam;—some upon the new
446
'Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance
447
The grassy vesture of the desert, played,
448
Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance;
449
'Others stood gazing, till within the shade
450
Of the great mountain its light left them dim;
451
Others outspeeded it; and others made
452
'Circles around it, like the clouds that swim
453
Round the high moon in a bright sea of air;
454
And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
455
'The chariot and the captives fettered there:—
456
But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
457
Fell into the same track at last, and were
458
'Borne onward.—I among the multitude
459
Was swept—me, sweetest flowers delayed not long;
460
Me, not the shadow nor the solitude;
461
'Me, not that falling stream's Lethean song;
462
Me, not the phantom of that early Form
463
Which moved upon its motion—but among
464
'The thickest billows of that living storm
465
I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
466
Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.
467
'Before the chariot had begun to climb
468
The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
469
Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
470
'Of him who from the lowest depths of hell,
471
Through every paradise and through all glory,
472
Love led serene, and who returned to tell
473
'The words of hate and awe; the wondrous story
474
How all things are transfigured except Love;
475
For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,
476
'The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
477
The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—
478
A wonder worthy of his rhyme.—The grove
479
'Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
480
The earth was gray with phantoms, and the air
481
Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
482
'A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
483
Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening,
484
Strange night upon some Indian isle;—thus were
485
'Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling
486
Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
487
Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing
488
'Were lost in the white day; others like elves
489
Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
490
Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;
491
'And others sate chattering like restless apes
493
Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
494
'Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar
495
Of pontiffs sate like vultures; others played
496
Under the crown which girt with empire
497
'A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made
498
Their nests in it. The old anatomies
499
Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade
500
'Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
501
To reassume the delegated power,
502
Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,
503
'Who made this earth their charnel. Others more
504
Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist
505
Of common men, and round their heads did soar;
506
Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist
507
On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
508
Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;—
509
'And others, like discoloured flakes of snow
510
On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,
511
Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
512
'Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were
513
A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
514
In drops of sorrow. I became aware
515
'Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
516
The track in which we moved. After brief space,
517
From every form the beauty slowly waned;
518
'From every firmest limb and fairest face
519
The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left
520
The action and the shape without the grace
521
'Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft
522
With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,
523
Desire, like a lioness bereft
524
'Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one
525
Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
526
These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
527
'In autumn evening from a poplar tree.
528
Each like himself and like each other were
529
At first; but some distorted seemed to be
530
'Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;
531
And of this stuff the car's creative ray
532
Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,
533
'As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way
534
Mask after mask fell from the countenance
535
And form of all; and long before the day
536
'Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance
537
The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;
538
And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,
539
'And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside;—
540
Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,
541
And least of strength and beauty did abide.
542
'Then, what is life? I cried.'—
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