The Dweller in Two Worlds

A MAN stood pondering at twilight hour.
Still in the bloom of life's unfaded flower ;
Upon a narrow mossy ledge he stood,
Starred with some blossoms like to sprinkled blood.
Upon a mountain slope precipitous.
Gloomy with pines and olive cavernous.
Yonder, a stone's throw from him, was a grove
Where once the ruined temple proudly throve,
Ile.K or vine-festooning terebinth
Veiling it now from cornice unto plinth.
Deep down a gorge tremendous fronting him.
Winding immeasurable, seemed to climb
Slow into heaven, all its gloom below
Filled with wan clouds, like leagues of mounded snow
On rolling upland, densely thronged, and crowned,
Where it met heaven beyond the latest mound,
With a v.st solemn, dusky-crimson sun,
Robed round in mist voluminous and wan —
Which yet relaxed anon above his head
Into a melancholy bloom of red —
Grim ramparts pinnacled of ragged stone,
Reared either side the vapours lying prone.

Methought I knew no living Sun was there;
Only his phantom in astonished air
Rises again, though he hath set and died —
As in some rare concurrence may betide.
The youth stood dreamily beholding all
Bathed in the weird glow funereal.
Darkly ensanguined wall of crumbling fane.
And tottering pilasters that remain ;
A snowy mountain in north-eastern skies ;
Cedar and pine in their obscurities.
Is it the wind, or any ghostly thing,
That talks with these dim boughs low murmuring?
Passing above from darkling tree to tree,
That each in turn may whisper secretly
His tale of half-articulate despair,
Yet find no hope nor absolution there —
Fragrant from pine tears and from cedar wood.
Yet seems the sultry atmosphere imbued
Beside with odour indefinable.
Whether of musk or blood I cannot tell —
With age-long sheddings from the firs embrowned,
And dank with dripping of their boughs, the ground —
Murmur sonorous from a torrent far,
With plaintive hooting of some owls that are
Hid in the forest, more oppressive only
Weighs down deep silence on the pilgrim lonely;
While ever and anon there rustles by
Some indistinct thing swift and stealthily ;

But whether wolf or jackal by me ran,
Or somewhat with affinity to man,
A nameless loathsome presence, my desire
Led me not then more nearly to inquire —
No vestige of blest human neighbourhood
To cheer the solitary where he stood !

And yet I knew a mighty pilgrim host
Athwart this drear deserted realm had crossed,
Men, women, children, in full light of day.
Replete with life, rejoicing in the way I
But they have gone to other lands from here —
Nay, not the very travellers that were !
Hath the red dust, that mingles here so well
With withered pine-leaves, ne'er a tale to tell ?
Yea, as in this wise pines and cedars shed
Their quiet lives, in this wise do the dead
Of human forests lose their joys and tears.
Their longings and their fervours and their fears !

Later, considering the youth, methought
He seemed not unfamiliar : I sought
I low this mysterious land's dim denizen
I should have known ; it dawned upon me then
That in the waking world of every day
The very same in different array
I had beholden, surely in a mood
Mating but strangely with such solitude —
Now in some every-day pursuit immersed :
Now among dallying idlers gay dispersed
On some park-sward ; yet oftener by the gate,
Where starving men with scowling looks of hate
Toil out their lives, he ministers in pain.
Till he devise the riving of their chain.
Often when summer air was warm and mild.
I .saw him resting with his wife and child
Hard by the shadow of a village spire.
With veering vane that glistered like a fire,
Where quiet sleep the meek and mossy dead,
Some simple words of hope above their head.
They 'mid ripe orchards of their numblc croft
Reposing on the grass beheld aloft
How round the leaves and mellowing apples ran
A luscious glory, warm, caeruieaii.
I marvelled much if this indeed were he.
The lover of a sweet tranquillity !
Yet I remembering noting with surprise
His sudden gleam of visionary eyes,
As of a soul transported otherwhere,
Even from the heart of common wonted care,
Or from the haven of a home most fair.

Alas I alas ! he was no demon foul ;
But a poor mortal sprighted with a soul
Bisexual, conflicting ; nay, with two —
One childlike and affectionate that grew
Rooted a creeper clinging round a home ;
And one a restless spirit prone to roam
In far forbidden lands mysterious,
Dear unto haughty moods adventurous —
Thin airs where eagle-reason loves to breathe,
Which to the feeble and timorous were death ;
Ideal realms more glorious than day,
Where lovely visions falter from decay
With waving wand of wizard fantasy :
Awful forbidden regions of the dead,
Where wild lost souls of living men have fled
To cast them on the violated floors
Of gods reviled and disinherited,
Where life o'er dusky stains new crimson pours,
While each lost soul delirious implores
For violent sinful joys the gods can give,
In these to agonise, then cease to live.
These are the haunts of that perturbed sprite.
Who will not bend him to a tame delight.
Yea, for the ghost of some of ancient time
Lingered until it entered into him.
While oft with tears the tender soul implores,
A troubled spirit wafts him from the doors
Into yon fascinating solitudes ;
Though often here a formless fear intrudes.
Lest, if he slide upon the slope too rash,
He whelm his well-beloved in the crash.

Ah ! ye who sit in winter by the fire
About your old hearthstone, nor feel desire
To wander from it, do not curse your child
Gone with unquiet spirits of the wild.
Who sits no longer with you — pray for him,
And weep ! for when the window-pane grew dim
With rain flung flying from a maniac blast,
Did ye behold a scared white face that passed,
Vet peered a moment out of the wild weather
Into the warm glow where ye rest together?
That was your lost one wistfully beholding
The quiet faith of your serene enfolding !
If God hath gifted you with hallowed ease,
Think ye He hath no care for such as these ?
He leads unseen lone feelers after truth ;
On all blind blown wayfarers hath He ruth !

Yea, God inhabiteth both hell and heaven,
Love in the maybeam. Fury in the levin ;
From steadfast suns He squandereth life and light,
In death's pale mask He scattereth them by night ;
Peals in the hallelujah of a saint.
Raves in a rebel's blasphemous complaint, —
Yet art Thou holy before whom we fall,
Profound Unnamed who reconcilest all !

Behold ! the temple seemed as though on fire.
While heaven glowed as from a burning pyre.
Suddenly shadow muffled noiselessly
All feet of rocks and pines and cedars nigh:
Then o'er that mouldered cornice which impends
Over the huge stones of the wall ascends
A fringe of very flame, that grows more large,
Silently soft expanding on the marge,
Till imaged like a huge new-risen moon,
Ruddy it rests upon the temple soon.

Then in the mystic luminous new night,
One of those prowling things, I with affright
Had noted nigh, now paused in its career,
Rising upon two legs, a shape of fear ;
Shaggy and clumsy, with half human face,
And filthy gesture pointing to a place
Behind the temple, where I now beheld
Laurel and cypress, while among them welled
Waters delightful, bubbling, musical,
And a more soul-dissolving madrigal
From bulbul amorous among myrtle blooms ;
There over grove and emerald sward there looms.
As from the temple, enkindling mist of myrrh.
Mingling with liquid lute and dulcimer.

Yet lo ! a scene unnoted earlier —
For look, beneath yon inner ruin wall,
Shadowed till now, the moon a spectacle
Most hideous reveals — an altar square
Of massy stone, and over it a bare
Obscene grey idol, phallic, horrible,
Collared and braceleted with carbuncle.
Beneath, upon the horizontal stone
A human body beautiful lay prone,
A body of ideal-moulded youth —
Weep, holier lovers, o'er her in your ruth !
Her lower limbs, yet warm, hung helplessly
Over the verge ; along the ivory
I saw a slender rill of crimson glide
From a small gash within her tender side.

Stands, crimson-robed, the sacrificial priest,
And gloats upon her form, as on a feast
For eyes that seem to smoulder and to smoke
With lust unglutted in the slaughter-stroke.
A gleaming gory knife is in his hand ;
He wears on features, noble once, the brand,
Like a fallen angel, of the wrath of God,
All lightning-scarred ; his vitals are the food
Of an undying worm ; once golden hair
Hangs disarrayed ; his colour once most fair
Shows deadly livid ; one may note the drip
Of sanguine horror slowly down his lip ;
Hatred and scorn writhe ever there awake.
Like some foul life of convoluted snake.

In these dread natures dwells no rivalry-
Of two strong souls that grapple unto death:
One only reiijned since these have drawn a breath ;
Or else one soul hath proved so powerful,
There lives none now to challenge the dark rule
Of that usurper ; never anxious care
Possesses them for other men's despair,
Lest weaker lives be trampled in the crush
Where eagerly for ends of ours we push ;
Their sweetest music is a victim's moan ;
With breaths of dying men they feed their own.
Never they sweep the infinite of time,
Wistfully peering for a hope sublime ;
They scorn the innocence of kindly ties,
And common cares, and pure felicities ;
For them no heaven of love, nor sacrifice
Of heroes for a cause ; their halls of ice
Sunder from human sympathy ; they dwell
Palaced alone in flame unquenchable,
A prison gorgeous, whose walls of fire
Are fed and fuelled with insane desire !

Alas ! my pilgrim's gaze appeared to range
O'er all the scene with fascination strange.
Yet hearken ! what new message floats from far,
Melodious from where the living are ?
'Tis like a peal of mellow village bells,
With muffled interval, that sweetly wells,
While early memories of childish times
Answer the faint pulsation of the chimes.
Mother and sister tender tones have twined
With that old hallowed music in the wind,
Even as one may send a loving word
Nestled within the plumage of a bird.
He dimly hears them pleading by the cross,
" O Jesus, save him from an utter loss ! "
He dimly sees them kneeling, earnest, mild,
There where he worshipped with them when a child.

He vacillates upon the slope of fear
With misted eyes ; but louder and more near
Strains of the revel captivate the ear,
And still he moves ; — yet speedily methought
Yon bells with lovelier melody were fraught ;
For now they ring a hymeneal peal.
And ringing to his bleeding heart reveal
A vision of a childlike woman crowned
With orange-blossom, beaming o'er a ground
Children have strewn with lilies and with roses,
While she, serenely confident, reposes
On a man's arm, who leads her from the porch —
He knows himself, ho knows the village church I
Innocent hymnals of the children call
Vengeance upon him if he let her fall !
Winged with miraculous anguish of her love,
Even through shadows of this alien grove
An image of herself appears to move
With streaming eyes and long dishevelled hair
i Imploring, and she brings their infant fair.
I O then he paused, reaching a hand to
I grasp
The hand that, woe is me ! it cannot clasp, —
: Vision adored and holy, yet a vision !

; But shouts of laughter pealed as in derision
Clear from the revel ; clash of dulcimer,
I Mingled with ravishment of musk and myrrh,
I And lute and marrying music from below,
I Swam cloudlike o'er him ; in the glimmering grove.
Rained on with roses, youths and maidens move,
All blooming with a rare voluptuous bloom ;
Now languidly they glow athwart the gloom.
Dissolved with breathing some narcotic fume.
In pliant somnolence of yielding grace
Faintly repelling many a lewd embrace
Of things half-brute, half-man, that wind among
The bare-limbed mazes of their foam-white throng.
Now, like a smouldering fire that springs to flame
With a libation of poured oil, the tame
Assemblage, unaware to frenzy stung.
Bacchanals bounded, reeled, and kissed, and clung !
Slowly, more swiftly, see the pilgrim move,
Until his feet seem flying to the grove !
Lust, loathly monster, fiercely folds him round :
And on the scene there falls a night profound. . . .

. . . Silence : anon a mighty storm arose
Oceanlike in the pines uproarious.
Their haughty heads all agonizing swayed ;
They wailed, and rent, and wrestled, sore afraid.
Till in a lull methought I was aware
Of wings that clanged innumerous in air
Assembling, of a trample and a crash :
Then, in an awful livid lightning flash,
A myriad bounding bristling backs I viewed
Horribly hustling, crashing through the wood ;
And peals of mocking diabolic laughter
Clutched at my heart in closely following after.
All the black forest, cliff and cleft and peak,
Reiterated that infernal shriek.
Rebounding and rebellowing for ever :
Hearing such hell's glee hardest hearts may shiver :
Flash followed flash ; among those hoofs obscene
Lay the white form of him who once had been
Pure, happy, generous, of kingly mind :
May they be hoofs of fiend, or human kind ?
For cruel moral jubilations fall
From men when off its lonely pedestal
Genius tumbles with a loud undoing :
Maniacal they leap in his warm ruin !

Lo ! pines colossal cumbered with the snow,
Heavily falling from rent members now,
Or skeleton trees of humid shrouded head,
With lank grey parasitic growth long dead.
Above, the forest mounteth stern and steep,
Where in a boulder-chaos cataracts leap,
Resounding in the abyss a muffled thunder.
Behold ! where livid icy seas up yonder
Stare from a sterile snow ; but higher yet
Huge solid flamelike crag with many a jet
Springs in the vaporous void : it glares a vast
Condor abnormal in the storm aghast,
With many a ragged neck and baldest pate.
Scarred from remorseless torturing of Fate.
O grand Promethean visage marred with fire.
Hail, flood and frost, and blasts that never tire.
Power's agelong insult ! dost thou still aspire ?
Lo ! now the dazzling violet serpents dart
To maim your grandeur ! and you cleave apart :
Hark ! how stone tears do ponderously roll
Down the torn flank — so slides a human soul
Little by little, grates and lingers, holds,
Falls ; bounding clutches at some awful folds
Of God's precipitous drear robe, and falls.
And crashing to perdition all around appals !
The spectral brotherhood of mountains round
From one to another toss the terrible sound ;
And after murmurous pause the wrack beguiles
Some hoar mount, far a desolate hundred miles,
Out of his wintry swound to answer slow.
Moaning a baffled human soul laid low. . . .
Then, save for solemn sound of waterfalls,
And sobbing wind subsiding, nothing calls :
Over the marred white youth snow softh'
silent falls.

Yea, silence shed a healing chrism around :
Then lifting heavy eyes that sought the ground,
I saw cloud-phantoms pale confusedly.
Bewraying presence of a light on high.
Till unaware they stilly rend asunder.
Revealing a fair Empyrean wonder.
A snowy peak illumes a violet air.
And a clear star serene reposes there,
Darting all colours : surely all is well !
Doth not the crimson sparkle shoot from
Hell?

Last, while the clouds from all the mount were torn,
In desolate lower roots of it a horn
Resounded harsh and loud : but higher rocks
Multiplied into more ethereal shocks
Of melody the sound, which as it passed
To loftier shining regions ever amassed
A more ideal spiritual tone ;
Till, like a delicate subtle flame, it won
Its way to yonder battlements of ice,
Exhaling there in silver paradise.
As from some luminous aerial places,
And sweet serenely-modulated faces ;
Dissolving now, an overblown faint flower,
Into a perfumed stillness evermore.