II

How shall a mortal dare to tell
What there the little maid befell ?
Nought she knows within the grasp,
Save that it is her lover's clasp. . . .
Released, she finds herself in wondrous columned halls,
Whose grand infinitude her slender soul appals.
Many a water-green, self-luminous column
Stupendous rises in dim heights and solemn.
Their labyrinths for evermore extend
In hollow-echoing chambers with no end.
Self-luminous are they, and yet very dim :
She turns, and hides her timid face in him.
" Is it not splendid, love, my water-dwelling?
With spheral music all around thee welling ?
My rainbow pillars, glowing with soft light,
Soaring till lost in Heaven's infinite ? "
"Alas !" she said, " I hear low sounds unlinked ;
Nor seem your columns with blithe colours tinct,
For all is sombre-hued, though beautiful.
Alas ! my hearing and mine eyes are dull ! "

"Nay, come, for thou art dazzled !" he replied.
In gentle tones of love to his young bride ;
Then bore her over the dim-shining floor
To where climbed, like a giant conqueror,
One of the columns, faintly tinged with rose.
" Melcha! behold ! how glorious it glows !
Here, with the rose-hue, hues of the young apple.
And of young pear leaves, blend, as by the chapel
N'ear your sweet home, my love ; and violet.
With many other flower souls, have met.
Soft interchanging delicate qualities,
Alliance and imminglement of dyes.
They ever move with music from beneath.
Flower souls to bloom in many a fragrant wreath
Up yonder, in yon visible world of light ;
But here in mine they are married ere the flight.
Ever the Life from caverned gloom swift flushes,
Mantling, as though through stalks of water - rushes.
Here through these columns in your world to blossom.
Innumerably fair from Night's own bosom.
Now these have changed to a wave of breezy ocean,
Now to a river of full mazy motion ;
Here clouds arise, their hearts relieved in rain ;
Here two young forms, ere beauty's blossom wane,
Clasp one another in pure loveliness ;
Here treachery murders, feigning a caress :
All genders a confused, life-labouring sound.
As Vulcan wrought in stithys underground.
Here element to element fond hies.
Or with a hatred of repulsion flies.
Each following his own affinities.
The rhythmic molecule, that only moves,
Foreknows blithe genius, who sings and loves ;
Crystal snowflower, albumen ocean-floor.
Are faint foreshadowing of cells, and more,
Hold in their womb alcyon, moss, or rose :
Yea, rosier virgins lovelier than those !
There yawns no blank unfathomable abysm
Between the man, the sunbeam, and the prism !
Heaving impartial. Night engendereth
Genius crowned, and Love with rosy wreath ;
Madness all haggard ; bloody Hate ; pale
Death ;
Or Sun, and Moon, and Stars, whose semblance dim
With man, and beast, and bird of shadowy limb.
Follow in bewildering swift change ;
All into one another find free range ;
Vet, save the flower-souls, they all appear
As in their embryo, phantasmal here."

But Melcha very faintly may discern
Those ardours, even where they brightly burn,
Needing some sweet assistance of his eyes :
So to another column-stalk he flies.
Here he revealed the bowels of old Earth ;
Fire, and slow water-growths, and many a birth
Forgotten, long bereft of grief or mirth.
There, in a third, intolerably royal,
A soul of Sunlight bursteth, while the loyal
Planets obeisant with their moons are moving ;
Systems through solitary spaces roving
In primal order, while young nebulte
Blindly brood over worlds of grief and glee.
While these are clearest glories, yet there follow
All most prevailing in a sister hollow.
There follow faintly other forms and colours.
Herbs, and live things with many joys and dolours.
For every magic column hath a class
Of powers prevailing in his mystic glass :
This towering droops with wealth of many a world.
Like some vast palm, whose boughs are night-impearled,
Or richly laden with dates' golden clusters ;
So fountainous in ether float the starry lustres ;
Even as a Geyser, or a fountain shoots
In one straight water from perennial roots ;
Falls in blue air with myriad diamonds fair hurled.

In yet another pillar he discovers
Swarming low lives ; the animal world ; with lovers ;
Shadowy presentment of fair youths and maidens,
Lovingly marrying in fresh flowering aidenns ;
With little babes, who laughing reach soft arms
To where above them mother's eyelight warms ;
All roseate dissolving; pale wild-eyed
Faces of saint, or seeker ; there harsh Pride,
Horror, and Shame; there Lust, and Cruelty
Deformed arise in mists of lurid dye.
Here springs the growth supreme of Good and Evil,
Twin-birth indissoluble : angel, devil,
Eternal hierarchies infinite,
Animal, human ; sorrow and delight
Issue in morning-gold, or sanguine gloom.
From one divine unfathomable Womb ;
Neither, and both, and more than both ; the
Whole,
Adored in silence of the fainting soul.
Hearken ! a sound of restless-hearted ocean ;
Or of a city's far-off heard emotion!

But little Melcha shrinking hides in him.
" I faint ! " she cries, " for though mine eyes be dim,
I cannot bear these awful sights and sounds,
Where all immingling my poor sense confounds."

" Nay, here," he chaunted, her own demon lover,
While in his arms more loosely he enwove her,
" Here in solemn halls of Thought,
The marvel of the world is ever wrought !
Famine, a vulture, glares on men to ruin brought ;
Here loud volcanoes whelm with fiery lava;
Sin desolates a groaning earth with blood ;
Here men and women loll by mango and lush guava ;
Fair Bacchanals are reeling near a winy wave or wood ;
Yea ! and the Man Divine dies for alien good."

"Ah!" she exclaimeth, "where is then the Rood ?
I lose my Lord in your sublime turmoil !
Not so I learned Him on my native soil."

"Yet is He here in heavenlier raiment dressed ;
More nobly than in your old forms expressed !
But now behold ! for thou must needs admire
Monuments wrought as though from living fire!
Among these columns rising into real
Stand fair enchantments of Thought's own ideal :
And ]o ! among them, wandering palcbrowed,
Mighty creators, with raised eyes or bowed,
Silently brooding, clothed in solemn cloud !
Here at a Plato's, or a Newton's gaze.
To luminous order from a nebulous haze
Gleams many a column : here Spinoza wanders ;
Schelling, the Stagyrite, or Hegel, ponders ;
Kepler, or Galileo, crowned with stars ;
All Hero-shatterers of prison bars ;
Columbus, and our earth-discoverers :
Eagle-eyed martyrs of the quest for truth.
Whose effort bloometh in immortal youth :
Men dowered with the world's rank insult and hot hate,
Because they dared to smite our swollen state,
Whose idol-wheels a human blood must lubricate !
Tyndale, Mazzini, Regulus, or Tell ;
And they who by the Malian water fell !
Cato, and Manlius ; patriots who died ;
Harmodius, and all who brave a tyrant's purple pride !
Gems in the crown of Freedom set ;
Washington, or Lafayette !
Here walks the wisest of Athenian teachers,
And here the mightiest of Hebrew preachers;
Founders of all the commonwealths of earth ;
Founders from whom world-shadowing faiths have birth.
Moses, Mohammed, with the Indian :
Beethoven, Angelo, or Titian . . .
Whose spirit stalks alone? the world-worn man,
Florentine Dante ! he the third grand ghost,
Who seems to rise above the glorious host
Of Daedal poets — third — there are two others ;
Homer, with Avon's bard ; and yet some brothers
Have scarce a lowlier post, from Orient
And Western climes ; they form of sound, or stone.
Or metal, colour, word, a monument.
Wherein their own essential selves have grown.

Perishing sea-lives leave the coral-forest
P air from their hearts ; like these on whom thou porest ;
And glory of the rainbow-rippled shells
Flows from a lowly life that ever wells.
Luxuriant labyrinths of sound are floated
From choirs of viewless harmonists fullthroated !
Rearers of Temples, and Cathedrals grand,
Whom earth remembers not, imperial hand,
Behold ! with Pheidias, and Praxiteles ;
And many who left no memory with these."
But when the Knight beheld some members of the throng.
Impetuously he burst forth into song:

" Builders of the warning tower,
Whose flashing eye commands the storm,
When thunderous wild waves fling foaming arms of power,
To hurl below, to shatter, the tall Saviour form !
Fathers of fire-souled mechanic
Demons whirlwind-limbed are ye ;
Of wrought-iron tubes Titanic
Thrown 'thwart rivers, and the free
Heretofore unfettered sea !

" Armoured monsters on the deep.
Grim whale-like islands, formidably sleep :
Your resolute fire-ships throbbing sweep I
I' the teeth of howling solid blasts.
And billowy cataracts hoar ocean casts
To overwhelm, ye find the Pole,
Guard a world-wide empire whole ;
Quell the foes of freedom with indomitable soul !

" Sensitive needle in a crystal shrine,
Who dost, like Conscience, evermore incline
Toward one Eternal Pole, although the cloud
From storm -tossed mariner His radiance shroud !
By thee Gama dares to round
Afric's awful utmost bound !
And the Clenoese discovers
A morning-land for Liberty's blithe lovers!
" Your magic glass reveals a realm
Too far, too fine, for human eyes !
While suns, and planets, and fair moons o'erwhelm,
In fairy-like societies,
Under our feet, in our own frames.
One organising Reason flames !
Man shrinks abashed within his shell.
Abashed by atom, world, and cell ;
Yet magnifies the mighty Mind,
Subtler than light, more swift than wind.
That tangles in Her ordered prisms
Rays of unvoyageable abysms,
Pulsing a million years through strange illimitable places,
Hurled from hot hearts of stars, far homes of unimaginable races!

"Iron-souled Inventors, you
Are of earth's illustrious few !
Conquerors of reluctant Nature,
Adding to man's pigmy stature ;
With delver's lamp, and axe, and powerloom,
Your spirit broods upon the gloom ;
Ye have arisen
To irradiate the serfs' dull prison !
Ye are they who forge the chain,
Flashing thought from brain to brain.
Not to bind,
But liberate mankind !
Ye have winged the fiery dragon,
Thundering to feast or drouth.
Ye who pass life's foaming flagon
Tumultuously from mouth to mouth.
Rushing North and rushing South !
Who devastate with rumbling tumbril-wheel.
Rifle, cannon, shell, or steel,
Human frames, and human hearts ;
While our wharves, and all our marts
Glow wealthier from your arts :
With hideous scurf, with lurid smoke unblest,
Ye devastate earth's flowery rest,
Her virginal sweet vest !
Life's a journey;
Life's a tourney ;
Swift we go !

Hail ! wild wind of our strong speed.
Lightning, and a clangorous thunder !
Farm or village, town or mead.
Flashing past, earth trembles under ;
Autumn leaves about us twirling.
Tumultuous clouds around us whirling,
Ringing axles eager to burst forth in flame !
Who shall tame us ?
Praise or blame us !
Shrieking onward.
Hurrying sunward.
Swift we go,
Reeling, jarring, or with crash of horrible overthrow,
Darkly travelling, ever nearing yonder
Orient aglow ! "

Some ghosts, in gazing on a crystal tower.
Where man, or animal, or herb, or flower
More dominates, or sea, or earth, or sun.
Convert the several Powers they gaze upon
To gods of aspect glorious and strange,
Bewraying each his nature in the change ;
Benign now ; now malevolent they range.

And Melcha saw some spirits wandering there,
Whose bodies yet abode i' the upper air.
Pier lover, he who disappeared from earth
By other portals than Death's mystic birth
Into an alien land, so silent seeming ;
As stars seem silent, or dim forests teeming
With infinite fairy-like societies,
Whose rich life-dramas we may faint surmise ;
Her lover, he may view the spirits moving.
And she by him ; but earthly souls, in roving
Through the stupendous halls that never end,
Perceive not those who died, although they wend
Their ways beside them, nor some beings nigh
Of another order in the hierarchy.
It may be few perceive them ; yet all here
Assemble, each from his own natal sphere.
Only a dweller in a foreign star
Hath his more wonted haunts from these afar.
In other realms of Nature's laboratory.
Nor of the dead may all distinguish well
Their dead companions ; for souls from hell,
And souls from heaven mutually repel.
But all seems peopled with impalpable pale hosts,
A common crowd, and even with less than human ghosts.
No word is breathed between the shapes who wander :
On one another's work they reverently ponder ;
Knowing the Lord all over it and under.
The wisest ask no homage for their names,
To One all-bounteous yielding private claims.
And where some organising thought, long gleaming
Upon a column's core, hath left it beaming,
For ever after, when a follower gazes.
Reason's high hallowing remains, and blazes
I' the core of these enchanted chrysoprases.

The lovers first behold a Dcedal thought,
With the world's buoyant youth sublimely fraught.
Here, as in purest marble white.
Though with a sunrise faintly flushing,
Are nobly-moulded forms who fight.
Chariots and steeds to battle rushing.
Here glorious Achilles mourns his friend,
Embracing a young warrior's corse,
While, with head bowed to earth, each generous horse
Of race divine who brought him mourns
Patroclus' end.
There Hector flies the avenging Champion,
Roused from his sullen rest upon the plain ;
Thrice round Troy -ramparts, by Achilles slain.
Lashed to his car, before proud Ilion,
Her hero, with most cruel contumely,
Is dragged, in sight of poor Andromache.

Odysseus, deemed long dead, clad in rude weeds,
Growling low in his lion soul, yet feeds
With little insolent men beneath the dome
Pertaining to him, his ancestral home :
They dare his queen, and his young heir offend :
But now he draws the bow none save himself can bend ;
And while they cower, divining the dread end.
Throws off concealment, towers in his own hall,
And turns the twanging death upon them all !

A kind of mighty pedestal upholds
This living imagery with green folds.
As were they heavings of an emerald ocean.
Ever young, resonant with stormful motion.

Further, as on a mass of diamond.
Some figures of colossal port arise.
With tragic face and form ; fixed by a bond
Of art inviolable their mournful guise
Of guilt and agony ; they seem to glow
Darkly as bronze late molten, or like some
Whelmed in fire-floods of Herculaneum.

Hangs the god-Titan , hurling scorn at Jove,
Torn by Heaven's ravening bird, implacable in love.

There generous - hearted (Edipus, who mocks
Sinister breathings of impending doon..
Staggers beneath accumulating shocks
Of Destiny Divine ; then bows in gloom.
As a brave man with youthfid strength adorned
Yields to a purple smothering Simoom,
Or snowy whirlwinds, that he blithely scorned
At morning on a mountain ;
Here Antigone
Supports her father blind ; there one with lavish locks.
Her brother slain, entombs, defying tyranny ;
Perishing in her youth with splendid piety.

"These works are wonderful," avowed the bride,
" I love to explore their glories with my love ;
But I should tremble if I left your side "
"Nay, thou shalt be at home here, O my dove !
Even as one of us — once more behold
What marvel yonder chasm may unfold ! "
A lurid haze upsteams from an Abyss,
Immense, profound, down-narrowing gradual:
There, as in ruby wrought, souls reft of bliss
Agonise all around the furnace wall,
Clean-carven in relief, as on a gem
Blood red ; so one grim thought hath imaged them.
And lo ! that awful Shade himself stood nigh
Gazing abstracted, with dread light upon
His haggard features : then he raised his face ;
And those two lovers noted the full grace
Of all the seer, with Beatrice by,
Beheld in Heaven, where spirits who have won
Their crown of glory form a snow-white rose,
Ethereal jewels ; every petal glows
Beamingly loving, or their ardours cluster
To a mighty eagle of empyreal lustre,
And to a Cross immense ; aloft they noted those.

" Now let us pause," the mortal urges ;
"all
My brain reels with the marvels that appal.
How fair soever ! " the Knight folding her,
A grateful shade involved them, and they sank
In one another's arms, with no demur
From either lover :
When they woke from slumber.
When loving eyes of hers the lovelight drank
From his wild orbs, did any sorrow cumber
Their lakelike splendour? — but he sighed and said :
"To a strange bridegroom thou in sooth art wed !
Even in my Pagan monarchy of old.
No letter of a priestly creed might hold
My soul, who will her ampld* wings unfold.
Yet ere Christ's Planet in the Orient rose.
Justly and wisely did I rule my land,
Yonder on earth ; till my rapt words disclose.
One sunny eve within my castle hall
(Lapping its portal silver waters doze).
The phantom Future, whose fiir-off footfall
Mine ears prophetic on faint-sounding sand
Of present time laid listening discern.
And while the chiefs around all hearkening burn
With inspiration of my words, I rise.
And seem to vanish from their wondering eyes
Within the waters of our tranquil lake.
Mightier rulers follow in my wake ;
A Faith Diviner, subtler joys and woes ;
Yet ever more my wistful longing grows
For some dear feminine heart to dwell with me
Here in Thought's own profound tranquillity.
I want a fresh, a guileless Christian spirit
To breathe an ampler, a diviner air.
Than in her lowly cell she may inherit ;
So mine imperial burden one may share,
And faithful Love's unshamed simplicity
Direct the challenge of keen Reason's eye.
So I make more, and purify my pleasure,
By halving our unfathomable treasure.

" In summer, or in stormier weather,
We will explore God's wondrous worlds together.
How often have I failed to baffle wrong,
Because thou wast not nigh to make me strong !
Wrestling with loathsome coils about me prest,
How oft the mortal Hydra mocked my rest !
One withering glance of thine had scotched the Pest !
Shall not a child from our two selves be born,
Who shall annihilate Error with blithe scorn ?
And yet, alas ! I doubt if thou canst breathe
Freely in these my realms : they leave thee pale with death ! "

"Nay, I will strive to help thee, and to live :
I chose thee : I have dared the dimlit dive !
And yet, in sooth, my spirit seems confused
As one who, falling far, lies dazed and bruised.
I only fear lest, from my native sphere
Deserting, I may find no haven here ! "
Lo ! living mimes of all the human drama !
Swift shifting scenes of life's weird panorama !
Silent succeeding groups of figures gathered
From forth dim air, and slowly vanishing :
In various forms all these the semblance bring
Of very men and women, yet are fathered
Of human Art, not nature ; all are moulded,
So that their inner being lies unfolded
In many a moment of concentrate life,
Wherewith their mutual-moving moods are rife.

By night, upon the rock-built platform standing,
Hamlet hath heard the sire's dread shade commanding ;
Unwilling scattereth his life-love-blossom,
Whose sweet shed petals flutter in his bosom :
Here in her haunted room adjures the mother ;
Here wrestles desolate, alone with fury-fates that smother :
Till smiting down the evil with a tardy random doom.
He and the innocent sink with them in the same dull tomb !

There a fiend-woman with red hand upbraids
The lingering manhood, that so swiftly fades
Under Hell's own exorcism, when the twain
Their royal reverend guest have foully slain.
Who slept the just man's sleep beneath their roof:
And there Macbeth's dyed soul is put to proof.
When at the banquet rises a pale ghost.
To upbraid the horror-faced usurping host.

With Romeo on her heart young Juliet,
In Love's own garden, swears no morning yet
Troubles the cool blue air of summer night.
Or moon, or stars, or Philomel's delight !
That was no lark-note ! bird of envious morn ! . , .
Death meets them, and all lovers, with his chilling scorn !
Further, wild laughter in stained lips and eyes.
Fat Falstaff, full of merry jests and lies.
Carouses with a prince of generous blood.
Where in Old London a quaint tavern stood.

Cordelia implores her poor mad Lear
To know her for his faithful -hearted child.
Nor longer do her wrong ; he cannot clear
In his dark mind, all shattered and defiled
By traitor cruelty, reflect her love.
Once in his own blind arrogance reviled :
And when she dawns within his soul, the dove
Death sneering snatches from him ; he may moan.
Yearning remorseful for her — she is gone.
All lost to love and light, he may but die . . .
So, cursing, laughing, weeping, passes Life's grim pageantry.

Behold I what seems the ruin of the Past,
Sport of an earthquake, or a whirlwind-blast !
Where golden crosses, jewelled shrines and chalices
Mingle with wrecks of sumptuous royal palaces.
Rare alabaster, with embossed rich pyx,
From dainty lady's chamber sardonyx.
Enamel, and flushed porcelain immix :
Silk from far looms, with proud emblazonries.
Banner, and arras, glass of rainbow dyes,
Drums of great column, sculptured architrave.
Red dust of monarch from cathedral nave ;
Ruby and sapphire, raiment sown with pearl,
Worn by fair scions of emperor and earl ;
King's ancient crowns, and ermines, and tiaras,
'Mid blocks from towers fallen on the wearers.
The Samson-strength of Peoples hath arisen.
Hurling to dust the palace and the prison :
(joaded to madness the blind giant bowed,
Till all the Commonwealth's huge pillars crashed with ruin loud !
Such chaos weltered when with furious cries
Mobs held blood-orgies in the Tuilleries !
Hut many a wilding bryony and bramble
Over the wilderness halh learned to ramble :
So grass, germander, violet, may vie
With malachite, or lapis lazuli,
In Rome, in Caesar's palace, or grey baths
Of Caracalla ; among sweet green paths,
Anemones and lilies fair enshrine
Red porphyries, or rich aventurine.

Upon a crowning cornice crumbling grey
Stand two young lovers, beautiful as day.
Their lips meet, and their delicate limbs are twining ;
Psyche and Eros so were carven inclining.
There falls a sunset blush upon their whiteness,
While ever and anon a pulse of overpassionate brightness
Lightning-like thrills the rosy-tlushing forms.
Opposite gazed a visage dark with storms.
All marred and riven, a crag tempest-worn ;
Gazed with alternate joy, and grief, and scorn.
Like a fallen angel, it hath terrible beauty ;
While fain to breathe an empyrean of Duty,
Its frame colossal, and sublimely moulded
Strains ever and anon from sloughs that hold it
Among these ruins, waving a wide pinion
Of snowy plume, that pants to have dominion ;
Yet fails to free the angel altogether,
Who seems an eagle taunted by a tether —
A mire, alive with myriad coiling things.
Draining the life-blood, mocking the white wings !
Those swarthy limbs appear like lava, yet
Smouldering sullen : they were a fire-jet
From some volcano ; ye, white wings of snow!
Love formed you of yonder Alp, that from below
Soars in high Heaven, with pure eve aglow.
'Tis as though ye were broken of a shaft,
Aimed by some cruel jealous god, who laughed,
Seeing how true it speeded : writhe, O man !
Presumptuous Titan, thou Promethean !

Not far hence a pure Alp abides in light,
Gemmed with live sapphires, cloven with torrents, yonder
Girdled with forests : how he soars in might,
While ocean at his feet makes everlasting thunder !
Most wistfully the man contemplates Nature's glory ;
And now the undying idyl of a lover's story ;
Now with a bitter smile beholds an altar,
Betwixt him and the pair ; Fate will not falter.
Offering youth, sweet sacrifice to Death !
The very twain, whose delicate arms enwreathe
Before him as alive, he sees low laid
Here, as on some revolt's red barricade
Young men and maidens, lately bold and hot.
With hoary sire and little child, lie shot ;
So these have ceased from loving, and are not,
Lying fair-frozen in a mortal shade.
Their names are manifold ; yet these may be.
Who loved in isles Ionian, Juan and Haidee.
While he who stands, a sunset-smitten tower,
Leaning aside now, reaching hands of power.
Is called Childe Harold ; Manfred ; Cain ;
the Giaour.

The limed, morass-entangled, floundering angel,
A devil, as some deem, hath his evangel !
He sinks, he rises, he hath freed one foot —
Reaching a hand to lift some Manlike Brute —
Which is it ? maimed and stunted in its growth ;
From sheer disuse its eyeballs blinded both !
Like some weird reptile's from Carinthian caves,
A human thrall in subterranean graves.
Rags flutter from a shagged and leathern frame :
Its food was blows, its daily wage was shame :
Famine 'mid mortal wrongs long kept it tame.
Shut from free light and air 'neath church and palace.
This human thing lay cramped of human malice.
Through dull, slow centuries, till it retrograded.
Toward brute brows and jowls, the manhood faded.
See ! how it crawls from forth a rift amid the ruin,
Gnawing and burrowing ! alas ! this wrought the terrible undoing !

Now from the fingers of his other hand
The form colossal filters a fine sand,
Which seems a dust of all in the wide world,
Immingled with red dust that hath been human :
And while in smoke all vanishes, lips curled
Appear to scoff: Behold ! O man, and woman.
Your hopes, your longings into ruin hurled !

But some illustrious spirits may be seen.
Where that disaster of the creeds hath been.
Bouddha, Rousseau, bold Luther, with rude
Knox,
lena, with Konisberg unwandering eyes
Bend where huge moveless adamantine blocks
Rest undisturbed, though the fair fabric flies.
That hath been reared thereover, like a mist,
Before a blast from God's old Anarchist.
Even as on the Lebanonian plain
A man beholds foundations vast remain.
Whose every stone Cyclopean hath length
Of sixty feet, being measured ; ruin-fraught
Temples were raised upon them ; all the strength
Of Genii, by Solomon compelled.
Hath poised the ponderous platform that rebelled,
Thwarting man's power to found.
One with very ground !
So Tadmor's mighty stones were brought ;
So Duty, and Love abide, with Postulates of Thought.

Beside these souls illustrious are more,
Kneeling, or standing proud ; but all adore.
Divine Love, very Christ, they worship all.
Whether or no upon His Name they call.

Upon a cloud-car, vaporous alabaster.
Swift, though the rider longs to travel faster,
Stood one, ethereal-limbed like Ariel,
Whose spear, the sunbeam of Ithuriel,
Touched many a bulk of pompous purple pride.
That lay imposing, overswollen beside
His chariot-course; when lo! an infant's bubble.
Each bursting freed the burdened air from trouble.
His car was winged with plumes of sunny snow,
Edgeless and downy ; but the front below,
Isled in deep azure, wore a soft dove-grey.
Heaved and recessed, with many a tender play
Of hyacinth or harebell ; visionary changes,
As subtle-fancy'd amorous wind arranges ;
While white rims of the rear, resolved to spray,
Evanish all in oceans of deep day.
One-half sun's rondure the cloud-chariot stole
From vision; half burned wheel-like; aureole,
]\.elieved on opaline, of slant slim ray,
Streamed up aloft behind the angel form,
Whosewild eyes ever yearned to where a storm
Of ominous thunder hath a rainbow arch,
Shining from falling showers before his march :
Surely he held them rain of human tears.
Falling from founts of human woes and fears.
In this fair Form, like Hopes, or Memories,
Cythna, Alastor, Laon, meet the lovers' eyes.

During long weary, dreary intervals
The spirit was compelled in his vast halls
To leave his bride alone, while he explored
Realms of a world wherein he was a lord.
Realms of lone terrors, of bewildering awe,
That fascinate adventuring souls, and draw,
As with lodestones, or glittering weird eyes
Of anaconda, one to snatch the prize.
The jewel Truth from clefts of the crag
Danger,
Up sheer and giddy cliffs a solitary ranger :
On steep snow-walls, where a mere whispered breath
May rouse the slumbering avalanche of death ;
In dark grim chasms where daylight never cheers,
Only the lammergeyer, or corven peers :
In wintry caverns roofed with frozen tears.
Where mystic murmuring chill waters flow.
Rivers that are the souls of realms unrolled below.
He plucks the glory of the edelweiss,
Planting his feet in perpendicular ice ;
Upward he clambers with stern axe and pole :
What shall daunt the indomitable soul ?
Clouds may beleaguer with bewildering error,
Torrents may thunder, cataracts of terror,
But he will mount, till on the proudest crest
Sun-crowned he stands, a conqueror confessed.
Or hurled to atoms in the abyss unbaffled he will rest.

Behold ! he flounders in a forest foul,
Where balefire eyes from stealthy things that prowl
Glare on him, as he girds him unto war ;
And though his love must yet abide afar
From him contending, yet her soul, a star.
Beams on him holy influence from yonder.
Nerving his own to quell the lion-thunder.
Yet there too in strange frondage, or lush blossom,
Hide youths and maidens with soft limbs and bosom.
Who with Circean spells would lure among them
Pilgrims for revelry ; sweet songs they sung them ;
Yet if one rested there, a mad desire
Possessed him, a fierce marrow -feeding fire.

Or he must toil upon a salt-scurf plain.
Whose barren light beats on the burning brain :
A sullen sea sleeps bitter to the taste ;
Gaunt skeletons are strewn upon a bitter herbless waste :
So forth must fare sweet Melcha's errant knight ;
Nor free from stain shines out that armour white.
And she would travel with him to the strife ;
But wars and wanderings would wither her young life.
Yet she may pray for him, yea, send her love
Plovering o'er him like a holy dove.
And he behold faint glimmers from her ark.
The while he welters, lost in waters dark.
She strove to assimilate when he was gone
The food that he would have her feed upon ;
Pondered his words, or would retrace some scene,
Where with him her companioned feet have been.
Alas ! the more she strove, the more she knew
Abysms impassable betwixt them two !
Not even those shades relieved the loneliness,
That did upon her fainting spirit press.
She could discern no shadowy moving throng
Those vast interminable aisles among.
Shadowy twilight ! a cold prison crypt !
Eternal silence ! awful glooms that slept !
Death weighed upon her, as she cowered, and wept.
Ah ! very faintly she beheld the splendours ;
And hardly her bewildered memory renders
Account to her of what dim ways impart
Views of the grand creative forms of art.
So, unfamiliar with some ancient pile,
A wandering guest may lose himself, the while
He seeks his chamber in a twilit tangle
Of corridor, and banquet-hall, dim cloister, and quadrangle.
She heard some murmuring of cold blind springs
Under huge crags, haunted by condor wings,
Where pine, or cedar to the sheer steep clings.
Nor ever ray of sunlight falls
Between stupendous granite walls.

Then she recalled what her confessor spake,
Warning her of weird lords below the lake.
For eerie things, whose semblances she saw
Lately within the columns, thrust a claw,
Or a dead hand to seize her ; so it seemed,
When for a moment a tall column gleamed ;
Muffled friar from shadowy cowl
Glaring with unearthly scowl.
Yea, once she met with one who seemed her
Knight,
Victorious returning from the fight ;
She throws her in his arms, all happiness ;
And lo ! she peers in horrible eyes deadwhite ;
The caverned bosom crumbles in her caress !

" Yet ah ! " she sighed, " if he would only stay
Humbly with me in mine own earthly day !
Can I not lure him to abide in peace
In my forefather's land ? win him release
From this eternal proud disquietude ?
Lead him to rest beneath our holy rood ?
I fear, for all the glories that so gleam,
It is the unholy glamour of a dream ! . . .
Though some profound black possibility
Opens before me when my Knight is nigh —
I dare not sound it ! Madness yawns thereby! .. .
How may I breathe here underneath the wave ?
Or I must fly, or lure him from the cave ! "

So now she strove with eloquent sobs to win
Her fairy lover from the halls of sin ;
For so she deemed them, weeping o'er the loss
Of her own homely sanctuary-cross —
"I cannot mock my glorious destiny,"
He answered, a fierce lightning in his eye ;
"No, not for love, nor comfort, nor a bride !
Wilt thou not share with me my throne, my pride ? "
Then he spake bitter words of foolish gall
Anent her faith ; the faith of a mere thrall,
He dared aver, till she herself felt anger,
And there arose a hybrid-born vain clangour
Betwixt their loves; dull mist enveloped all.
A chilling feud arose from good and evil ;
Love's limpid springs were poisoned by the devil.
" I deem that what thine incantation vaunts
May be but water, and long waterplants !
I fear thee ! there be stains upon thine armour !
What realms hast haunted? art thou mine own charmer ?
Hast thou not sinned ? art thou the paragon
I lately set my faith upon ? . . .
Nay, if vague rumour muttered of some sin,
Vile men malign us, and I hope to win
Thee from the peril : thou wilt not be ruled !
Courting the wily foe, thou wilt be fooled !
Why leave me here in darkness over long.
In chase of some conundrum, or a song ?
Why wage in ghostly realms a shadowy war,
.Scorning the warm world for a phantom far ?
I fear to lose my footing, and my goal !
\'ea, thou hast robbed me of my rest, my soul I
While thy proud thoughts through all the world would roll ! . . .
Thy gloomy pavements heave beneath my feet,
And all thy pillars rocking seem to meet ! . . .
Why did I leave my native sphere above ?
Thou wilt be lost too ! fly with me, my love !
And thou shalt be no more a wandering wraith.
But our own stalwart champion of the faith ! "

" Unworthy of this royal realm of mine !
I snatched you from the dust to make you mine.
I deemed the sacred fire within your spirit
-Smouldered ; mine eager, breathing love may stir it —
No queen ! mere common clay, for all fair seeming !
Of toys, and dress, and dross for ever dreaming ;
In highest Heaven longing for the sound
Of beasts of burden on the common ground.
At their monotonous unsoulful toil ;
Drawing mere water, ploughing stubborn soil ;
That hinds, or royal, or rich, or clothed in rags.
May gnaw roots, if their plodding never flags !
May only masks and mummeries delight you.
Though to full feasts of Reason I invite you ?
Will you not let me couch your filmed eyes ?
For all your Atys' priests' insensate lies,
Trust me ! God's day, when one is used thereto,
Strikes grander than mere spangles red and blue ;
Or ghostly spawn of humours in sick blood !
Though all your sacred books pronounce them good,
And God's veracious ambient air profane
Come forth, and all your juggling ghosts will wane ! —
Come from your blinded dungeons 1 — or remain !"
" Shall I resign my soul, my life, my hope,
Among mere shadowy fancies here to grope
For ever ? why calumniate my creed ?
You wise ones know not all our bitter need !
See yon dim millions of human lives,
Swarming in labour's dun defiled hives,
Stunned with base sounds, immersed in dingy crafts !
Dare not disdain the star, the flower that wafts
Our unimprisoned souls ! a moment lifts
From reeking pestilent squalors, through what rifts
So-ever, to blue skies, and woodlands fair,
Fresh flowing water, and sweet liberal air !
Hail ! soiled flower, dim star among the smoke
O'er ruinous roofs! faint heaven-dawn that broke,
Luminous pearl above man's misery,
Mute for a moment now, where lewd huts lie.
Surprised to shame of their own shamelessness.
Deep degradation, and Hell's hopelessness,
By the young Angel, Morning!
Lo ! one wonders,
Wakes unaware, and sees God, while she ponders ;
Ere yet long, thin, black throats of factories
Soil with brown breath yon virginal pure skies ;
While, by the pearly river flowing fast.
She muses on a mole, with many a mast
Of wealth-gorged hulls from foreign lands around her :
Diseased, debauched, God's youthful Morning found her !
Wilt block these from the ray above their roof,
Or hold them from the Saviour flower aloof,
Till they have fathomed your astronomy.
Or learn to babble jargonous botany ?
Jesus, and Mary, human wants have met !
Why will ye rob poor souls of their one amulet ?
For me, my lot is low! I will fall prone.
With those dull worshippers then dost disown ! "
He held her in his arms : he groaned : he fled.
But on the floors of Night she reeled, she stumbled, and fell dead.

Arousing, Melcha slowly gazed around :
Grey forms gigantic stand, with ne'er a sound ;
Every ghost, relieved against a column,
Hath one vast -moulded hand enclasping solemn
The other arm, whose hand the visage muffled.
Their heads are bowed, their rocky robes unruffled
Fall, like a mountain flank, with gorge profound
Grey riven : columns congregated here
Have thunderous amplitude : aloft they rear
To heights unknown, roofed over with dim fear,
Forming one vasty chamber of sphered gloom,
On whose faint heart there weighs a huge dark Tomb :
Hewn out of solid Night it seemed, in form
Resembling some sarcophagus enorm
Of Bull Osirian, disinterred by Nile
From dull oblivion of Time's ponderous pile.
As Melcha gazed, she felt One had been there,
To whom the world clings with sublime despair.
" If He be there still, all is doubt and doom ;
I deemed that He was risen from the tomb" . . .
Stay ! did she hear within the sepulchre
A sound? . . . "Wilt Thou arise. Deliverer?"
. . . She hears her own loud heart ; nought else astir.
" But I will ask these guardians," she said,
" If He indeed be risen from the dead ! "
Then, in a whisper, daring scarce to frame
The syllables of that beloved Name,
" Tell me ! " she murmured : " Is the Saviour risen ? "
. . . From yonder Forms, from hollows of the prison.
In weird unearthly tones, the sound "Arisen!"
Rolled in upon her soul . . . Ah ! how to gauge
The dark significance of such reply ?
Despair's own long-drawn wail of inarticulate agony !
Shall this the soul's deep yearning doubt assuage ?
Behold ! reverberations infinite
All the vast vaults and labyrinths affright
To conscious desolation, fatherless, profound,
Whom dull Oblivion's anodyne consoled with slumber sound !
Lulled on its dungeon floor, the world's
Despair
Wakes with a wail! "Arisen! would He were ! "

And then it seemed as though, from all the gloom
Of never-ending hollows round the tomb,
A never-ending multitude of souls,
Inwardly weeping, cloaked in mournful stoles,
Moved from one point toward the silent grave
Of Him who came our ruined race to save.
Passing, each turned ; all haggard ; some in tears :
Every one, moving silent, disappears,
A hopeless mourner, in the Darkness facing
That night, when he emerged with melancholy pacing.
But one who laughed in that dim hall
Ghastlier seemed to her than all !

At length she moaned, with voice of one that dies :
" Innumerable throng
Of human generations manifold ! how long ?
For ever shall I see your hopeless eyes ?
Ah ! let me perish ! Ah ! for mine own skies ! " . . .
Dreamfully she hears the swells
Of water-muffled peals of bells.