The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 52

Between the two the Death-G.o.d broods sublime; 48 On his pale brow the inexorable peace Which speaks of power beyond the sh.o.r.es of time; Calm, not benign like the sweet G.o.ds of Greece,-- Calm as the mystery which in Memphian skies Froze life's warm current from a sphinx's eyes.

With many a grausame shape unutterable, 49 Limn'd were the cavernous sepulchral walls; Life-like they stalk'd, the Populace of h.e.l.l, Through the pale pomp of Acherontian halls; Distinct as when the Trojan's living breath Vex'd the wide silence in the wastes of death.

Shown was the Progress of the guilty Soul 50 From earth's warm threshold to the throne of doom; Here the black genius to the dismal goal Dragg'd the wan spectre from the unshelt'ring tomb; While from the side it never more may warn The better angel, sorrowing, fled forlorn.

Hideous with horrent looks and goading steel 51 The fiend drives on the abject cowering ghost Where (closed the eighth) sev'n yawning gates reveal The sev'nfold anguish that awaits the Lost; By each the gryphon flaps his ravening wings, And dire Chimaera whets her hungry stings.

Here, ev'n that G.o.d, of all the kindliest one, 52 Life of all life (in Tusca's later creed Blent with the orient wors.h.i.+p of the Sun, Or His who loves the madding nymphs to lead On the Fork'd Hill), abjures his genial smile,[10]

And, scowls transform'd, the Typhon of the Nile.

Closed the eighth gate--for _there_, the happy dwell! 53 No glimpse of joy beyond makes horror less.

But that closed gate upon the exiled h.e.l.l Sets h.e.l.l's last seal of misery--Hopelessness!

Nathless, despite the Daemon's chasing thong, Here, as if hoping still, the hopeless throng.

Before the northern knight each nightmare dream 54 Of Theban soothsayer or Chaldean mage, Thus kindling in the torches' breathless beam, As if incarnate with resistless rage, And h.e.l.l's true malice, starts from wall to wall; He signs the cross, and looks unmoved on all.

Before the inmost Penetralian doors, 55 Holding a cypress-branch, the Augur stands; The King's firm foot strides echoless the floors, And with dull groan the temple veil expands; Slow-moving on the brandish'd torches s.h.i.+ne Red o'er the wave that yawns behind the shrine;

Red o'er the wave, as, under vaulted rock, 56 Dark as Cocytus, the false smoothness flows; But where the light fades--there is heard the shock As hurrying down the headlong torrent goes; With mocking oars, a raft sways, moor'd beside-- What keel save Charon's ploughs that dismal tide?

Proud Arthur smiled upon the guileful host, 57 As welcome danger roused him and restored.-- "Friend," quoth the King, "methinks your streams might boast A gentler margin and a fairer ford!"

"As birth to man," replied the priest, "the cave, O guest, to thee! as death to man the wave.

"Doth it appal thee? thou canst yet return! 58 There love, there sunny life;--and yonder"--"Fame, Cymri, and G.o.d!" said Arthur. "Paynim, learn Death has two victors, deathless both--THE NAME, THE SOUL; to each a realm eternal given, This rules the earth, and that achieves the heaven."

He said, and seized a torch with scornful hand; 59 The frail raft rock'd to his descending tread; Upon the prow he fix'd the glowing brand, And the raft drifted down the waves of dread.

So with his fortunes went confiding forth The knightly Caesar of the Christian North.

Then, from its shelter on his breast, the dove 60 Rose, and sail'd slow before with doubtful wing; The dun mists rolling round the vaults above, Below, the gulf with torch-fires crimsoning; Wan through the glare, or white amidst the gloom, Glanced Heaven's mute daughter with the silver plume.

Meanwhile to aegle: from the happier trance, 61 And from the stun of the first human ill Labouring returns her soul!--As lightnings glance O'er battle-fields, with sated slaughter still, The fitful reason flickering comes and goes O'er the past struggle--o'er the blank repose.

At length with one long, eager, searching look, 62 She gazed around, and all the living s.p.a.ce With one great loss seem'd lifeless!--then she strook Her clench'd hand on her heart; and o'er her face Settled ineffable that icy gloom, Which only falls when hope abandons doom.

Why breaks the smile--why waves the exulting hand? 63 Why to the threshold moves that step serene?

The brow superb awes back the maiden band, From the roused woman towers sublime the queen.

She pa.s.s'd the isle--and beam'd upon the crowd, Bright as the May-moon when it bursts the cloud.

Brief and imperious rings her question; quick 64 A hundred hands point, answering, to the fane.

As on she sweeps, behind her, fast and thick, Gather the groups far following in her train.

Behind some bird unknown, of glorious dyes, So swarm the meaner people of the skies.

Oh, the great force, that sleeps in woman's heart! 65 She will, at least, behold that form once more; See its last vestige from her world depart, And mark the spot to haunt and wander o'er, Rased in that impulse of the human breast All the cold lessons on its leaves impress'd;--

Snapp'd in the strength of the divine desire 66 All the vain swathes with which convention thralls;-- Nature breaks forth, and at her breath of fire The elaborate snow-pile's molten temple falls; And meaner priestcrafts fly before that Truth, Whose name is Pa.s.sion, and whose altar, Youth!

Unknown the egress, dreamless of the snare, 67 Sole aim to look the last on the adored: She gains the fane--she treads the aisle--and there The deathlights guide her to the bridal lord; On, through pale groups around the yawning cave, She comes--and looks upon the livid wave.

She comes--she sees afar amidst the dark, 68 That fair, serene, undaunted, G.o.dlike brow-- Sees on the lurid deep the lonely bark Drift through the circling horror;--sees, and now On light's far verge it hovers, wanes, and fades, As roars the hungering cataract up the shades.

Voiceless she look'd, and voiceless look'd and smiled 69 On her the priest: strange though the marvel seem, The old man, childless, loved her more than child; She link'd each thought--she colour'd every dream; But Love, the varying Genius, guides, in turn, The soft to pity, to revenge the stern.

Not his the sympathy which soothes the woe, 70 But that which, wrathful, feels, and shares, the wrong.

He in the faithless view'd alone the foe; The weak he righted when he smote the strong: In one dread crime a twofold virtue seen, Here saved the land, and there avenged the queen.

So through the hush his hissing murmur stole-- 71 "Ay, aegle, blossom on the stem of kings, Not to fresh altars glides the perjurer's soul, Not to new maids the vows still thine he brings!

No rival mocks thee from the bloodless sh.o.r.e, The dead, at least, are faithful evermore."

As when around the demiG.o.d of love, 72 Whom men Prometheus call, relentless fell The flas.h.i.+ng fires of Zeus, and Heaven above Open'd in flame, in flame expanded h.e.l.l; While gazing dauntless on the Thunderer's frown, Sunk from the Earth, the Earth's Light-bringer down;

So, while both worlds before its sight lay bare, 73 And o'er one ruin burst the lightning shook, Love, the Arch-t.i.tan, in sublime despair, Faced the rent Hades from the shatter'd rock; And saw in Heaven, the future Heaven foreshown, When Love shall reign where Force usurps the throne.

The Woman heard, and gathering majesty 74 Beam'd on her front, and crown'd it with command; The pale priest shrunk before her tranquil eye, And the light touch of her untrembling hand-- "Enjoy," she said, with voice as clear as low, "Enjoy thy hate; where love survives I go.

"Sweetly thou smilest--sweetly, gentle Death, 75 Kinder than life;--that severs, thou unitest!

To realms He spoke of goes this living breath, A living soul, wherever s.p.a.ce is brightest-- Fair Love--I trusted, now I claim, thy troth!

Blest be thy couch, for it hath room for both!"

She said, and from each hand that would restrain 76 Broke, in the strength of her sublime despair; Swift as the meteor on the northern main Fades from the ice-lock'd sea-kings' livid stare-- She sprang; the robe a sudden glimmer gave, And o'er the vision swept the closing wave.

Return, wild Song, to Lancelot! Behold 77 Our Lord's lone house beside the placid mere!

There pipes the careless shepherd to his fold, Or from the crags the shy capellae peer Through the green rents of many a hanging brake, Which sends its quivering shadow to the lake.

And by the pastoral margins mournfully 78 Wanders from dawn to eve the earnest knight; And ever to the ring he turns his eye, And ever does the ring perplex the sight; The fairy hand that knew no rest before, Rests now as fix'd as if its task were o'er.

Towards the far head of the calm water turn'd 79 The unmoving finger; yet, when gain'd the place, No path for human foot the knight discern'd-- Abrupt and huge, the rocks enclosed the s.p.a.ce.

His scath'd front veil'd in everlasting snows, High above eagles Alpine Atlas rose.

No cleft! save that a giant torrent clove, 80 For its fierce hurry to the lake it fed; Check'd for a while in chasms conceal'd above, Thence all its pomp the dazzling horror spread, And from the beetling ridges, smooth and sheer, Flash'd in one ma.s.s, down-roaring to the mere.

Still to that spot the fairy hand inclined, 81 And daily there with wistful searching eyes Wander'd the knight; each day no path to find.

What step can scale that ladder to the skies?

What portals yawn in those relentless walls?-- Still the hand points where still the cataract falls.

One noon, as thus he gazed in stern despair 82 On rock and torrent;--from the tortured spray, And through the mists, into cerulean air, A dove descending rush'd its arrowy way; Swift as a falling star, which, falling, brings Woe on the helmet-crown of Dorian kings![11]

Straight to the wanderer's hand bore down the bird, 83 With plumage crisp'd with fear, and piercing plaint; Oft had he heedful, in his wanderings, heard Of the great Wrong-Redresser, whom a saint In the dove's guise directed--"Hail," he cried, "I greet the token--I accept the guide!"

And sudden as he spoke, arose the wing, 84 (Warily veering towards the dexter flank Of the huge chasm, through which leapt thundering From Nature's heart her savage); on the bank Of that fell stream, in root, and jag, and stone, It traced the ladder to the glacier's throne.

Slow sail'd the dove, and paused, and look'd behind, 85 As labouring after, crag on crag, the knight (Close on the deafening roar, and whirling wind Lash'd from the surges), through the vaporous night Of the grey mists, loom'd up the howling wild; Strong in the charm the fairy gave the child.

With bleeding hands, that leave a moment's red 86 On stone and stem wash'd by the mighty spray, He gains at length the inter-alpine bed, Whose lock'd Charybdis checks the torrent's way, And forms a basin o'er abysmal caves, For the grim respite of the headlong waves.

Torrents below--the torrents still above! 87 Above less awful--as precipitous peak And splinter'd ledge, and many a curve and cove In the compress'd, indented margins, break That crus.h.i.+ng sense of power, in which we see What, without Nature's G.o.d, would Nature be!

Before him stretch'd the maelstrom of the abyss; 88 And, in the central torrent, giant pines, Uprooted from the bordering wilderness By some gone winter's blast--in flas.h.i.+ng lines Shot through the whirl--then, pluck'd to the profound, Vanish'd and rose, swift eddying round and round.

But on the marge as on the wave thou art, 89 O conquering Death!--what human, hueless face Rests pillow'd on a silenced human heart?