The Trumpets of Doolkarnein

With awful walls, far glooming, that possess'd
The passes 'twixt the snow-fed Caspian fountains,
Doolkarnein, the dread lord of East and West,
Shut up the northern nations in their mountains ;
And upon platforms where the oak-trees grew,
Trumpets he set, huge beyond dreams of wonder,
Craftily purpos'd, when his arms withdrew.
To make him thought still hous'd there, like the thunder :
And it so fell ; for when the winds blew right,
They woke their trumpets to their calls of might.

Unseen, but heard, their calls the trumpets blew,
Ringing the granite rocks, their only bearers,
Till the long fear into religion grew,
And never more those heights had human darers.

Dreadful Doolkarnein was an earthly god ;
His walls but shadow'd forth his mightier frowning;
Armies of giants at his bidding trod
From realm to realm, king after king discrowning.
When thunder spoke, or when the earthquake stirr'd.
Then, muttering in accord, his host was heard.
But when the winters marr'd the mountain shelves,
And softer changes came with vernal mornings.
Something had touch'd the trumpets' lofty selves,
And less and less rang forth their sovereign warnings :
Fewer and feebler ; as when silence spreads
In plague-struck tents, where haughty chiefs, left dying.
Fail by degrees upon their angry beds.
Till, one by one, ceases the last stern sighing.
One by one, thus, their breath the trumpets drew.
Till now no more the imperious music blew.

Is he then dead ? Can great Doolkarnein die ?
Or can his endless hosts elsewhere be needed ?
Were the great breaths that blew his minstrelsy
Phantoms, that faded as himself receded ?
Or is he anger'd ? Surely he still comes ;
This silence ushers the dread visitation ;
Sudden will burst the torrent of his drums,
And then will follow bloody desolation.
So did fear dream ; though now, with not a sound
To scare good hope, summer had twice crept round.

Then gather'd in a band, with lifted eyes,
The neighbours, and those silent heights ascended.
Giant, nor aught blasting their bold emprize,
They met, though twice they halted, breath suspended ;
Once, at a coming like a god's in rage
With thunderous leaps; but 'twas the piled snow, falling ;
And once, when in the woods, an oak, for age.
Fell dead, the silence with its groan appalling.
At last they came where still, in dread array,
As though they still might speak, the trumpets lay.

Unhurt they lay, like caverns above ground,
The rifted rocks, for hands, about them clinging,
Their tubes as straight, their mighty mouths as round
And firm, as when the rocks were first set ringing —
Fresh from their unimaginable mould
They might have seem'd, save that the storms had stain'd them
With a rich rust, that now, with gloomy gold
In the bright sunshine, beauteously engrain'd them.

Breathless the gazers look'd, nigh faint for awe.
Then leap'd, then laugh'd. What was it now they saw?
Myriads of birds. Myriads of birds, that fill'd
The trumpets all with nests and nestling voices !
The great, huge, stormy music had been still'd
By the soft needs that nursed those small, sweet noises !
O thou Doolkarnein, where is now thy wall ?
Where now thy voice divine and all thy forces ?
Great was thy cunning, but its wit was small
Compar'd with Nature's least and gentlest courses.
Fears and false creeds may fright the realms awhile ;
But Heaven and Earth abide their time, and smile.