Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
Panthea
Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking
In crimson foam, even at our feet!—it rises
45As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon
Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.
Asia
The fragments of the cloud are scattered up;
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;
Its billows now sweep o’er mine eyes—my brain
50Grows dizzy—seest thou shapes within the mist?
Panthea
A countenance with beckoning smiles—there burns
An azure fire within its golden locks—
Another and another—hark! they speak!
Song of Spirits
To the Deep, to the Deep,
55 Down, down!
Through the shade of Sleep,
Through the cloudy strife
Of Death and of Life;
Through the veil and the bar
60 Of things which seem and are
Even to the steps of the remotest throne,
Down, down!
While the sound whirls around,
Down, down!
65 As the fawn draws the hound,
As the lightning the vapour,
As a weak moth the taper;
Death, Despair; Love, Sorrow;
Time both; to-day, to-morrow;
70As steel obeys the spirit of the stone,
Down, down!
Through the grey, void Abysm,
Down, down!
Where the air is no prism,
75 And the moon and stars are not,
And the cavern-crags wear not
The radiance of Heaven,
Nor the gloom to Earth given;
Where there is One pervading, One alone,
80 Down, down!
In the depth of the Deep,
Down, down!
Like veiled lightning asleep,
Like the spark nursed in embers,
85 The last look Love remembers,
Like a diamond, which shines
On the dark wealth of mines,
A spell is treasured but for thee alone.
Down, down!
90 We have bound thee, we guide thee
Down, down!
With the bright form beside thee;
Resist not the weakness—
Such strength is in meekness
95 That the Eternal, the Immortal,
Must unloose through life’s portal
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne
By that alone!
Scene iv
The Cave of DEMOGORGON. ASIA and PANTHEA.
Panthea
What veiled form sits on that ebon throne?
Asia
The veil has fallen.
Panthea
I see a mighty Darkness
Filling the seat of power; and rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun,
5Ungazed upon and shapeless—neither limb,
Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.
Demogorgon
Ask what thou wouldst know.
Asia
What canst thou tell?
Demogorgon
All things thou dar’st demand.
Asia
Who made the living world?
Demogorgon
God.
Asia
Who made all
10That it contains—thought, passion, reason, will,
Imagination?
Demogorgon
God: Almighty God.
Asia
Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring
In rarest visitation, or the voice
Of one beloved heard in youth alone,
15Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim
The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,
And leaves this peopled earth a solitude
When it returns no more?
Demogorgon
Merciful God.
Asia
And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,
20Which from the links of the great chain of things
To every thought within the mind of man
Sway and drag heavily—and each one reels
Under the load towards the pit of death;
Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;
25And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood;
Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech
Is howling and keen shrieks, day after day;
And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?
Demogorgon
He reigns.
Asia
Utter his name: a world pining in pain
30Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down.
Demogorgon
He reigns.
Asia
I feel, I know it: who?
Demogorgon
He reigns.
Asia
Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,
And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
Time fell, an envious shadow; such the state
35Of the earth’s primal spirits beneath his sway,
As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves
Before the wind or sun has withered them
And semi-vital worms; but he refused
The birthrights of their being, knowledge, power,
40The skill which wields the elements, the thought
Which pierces this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;
For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus
Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,
45And with this law alone: ‘Let man be free’,
Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign;
And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man
50First famine, and then toil, and then disease,
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove,
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,
Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves;
55And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,
And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle
Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,
So ruining the lair wherein they raged.
Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes
60Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,
Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,
That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings
The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine
65Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to his will
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
70And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;
And Science struck the thrones of Earth and Heaven,
75Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;
And music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
Godlike, o’er the clear billows of sweet sound;
80And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,
With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,
The human form, t
ill marble grew divine,
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race—behold, and perish.
85He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,
And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven
Of the wide-wandering stars, and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
90The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea;
He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,
The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then
95Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man—for which he hangs
100Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on
The wreck of his own will, the scorn of Earth,
105The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?
Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven, aye, when
His adversary from adamantine chains
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare
Who is his master? Is he too a slave?
Demogorgon
110All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil:
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
Asia
Whom called’st thou God?
Demogorgon
I spoke but as ye speak,
For Jove is the supreme of living things.
Asia
Who is the master of the slave?
Demogorgon
If the Abysm
115Could vomit forth its secrets:—but a voice
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? what to bid speak
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance and Change? To these
120All things are subject but eternal Love.
Asia
So much I asked before, and my heart gave
The response thou hast given; and of such truths
Each to itself must be the oracle.
One more demand; and do thou answer me
125As my own soul would answer, did it know
That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise
Henceforth the Sun of this rejoicing world:
When shall the destined hour arrive?
Demogorgon
Behold!
Asia
The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
130I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer, urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
135Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet’s flashing hair: they all
140Sweep onward.
Demogorgon
These are the immortal Hours,
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
Asia
A spirit with a dreadful countenance
Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf.
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer,
145What art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!
Spirit
I am the shadow of a destiny
More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet
Has set, the Darkness which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night Heaven’s kingless throne.
Asia
150What meanest thou?
Panthea
That terrible shadow floats
Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke
Of earthquake-ruined cities o’er the sea.
Lo! it ascends the Car … the coursers fly
Terrified: watch its path among the stars
155Blackening the night!
Asia
Thus I am answered: strange!
Panthea
See, near the verge, another chariot stays;
An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire,
Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim
Of delicate strange tracery; the young Spirit
160That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope;
How its soft smiles attracts the soul!—as light
Lures winged insects through the lampless air.
Spirit
My coursers are fed with the lightning,
They drink of the whirlwind’s stream,
165And when the red morning is bright’ning
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam;
They have strength for their swiftness, I deem:
Then ascend with me, Daughter of Ocean.
I desire—and their speed makes night kindle;
170 I fear—they outstrip the Typhoon;
Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle
We encircle the earth and the moon:
We shall rest from long labours at noon:
Then ascend with me, Daughter of Ocean.
Scene v
The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of a snowy Mountain. ASIA, PANTHEA, and the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.
Spirit
On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire:
5 They shall drink the hot speed of desire!
Asia
Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath
Would give them swifter speed.
Spirit
Alas! it could not.
Panthea
Oh Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light
Which fills this cloud—the sun is yet unrisen.
Spirit
10The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
Is held in Heaven by wonder; and the light
Which fills this vapour, as the aërial hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister.
Panthea
Yes, I feel …
Asia
15What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.
Panthea
How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
Is working in the elements, which suffer
20Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell
That on the day when the clear hyaline
Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veined shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
25Among the Aegean isles, and by the shores
Which bear thy name, love, like the atmosphere
Of the sun’s fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined Earth and Heaven
And the deep ocean and the sunless caves
30And all that dwells within them; till grief cast
Eclipse upon the soul from which it came:
Such art thou now; nor is it I alone,
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
35Hearest thou not sounds
i’ the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!
[Music
Asia
Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his
Whose echoes they are: yet all love is sweet,
40Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
Like the wide Heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
45As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.
Panthea
List! Spirits speak.
Voice (in the air, singing)
Life of Life! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
50And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire; then screen them
In those looks, where whoso gazes
Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
55 Through the vest which seems to hide them
As the radiant lines of morning
Through the clouds ere they divide them;
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.
60Fair are others;—none beholds thee,
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest—for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendour,
And all feel, yet see thee never,
65As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
70Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost … yet unbewailing!
Asia
My soul is an enchanted boat
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Selected Poems and Prose Page 28
