by Thomas Moore
“The knee may bend, the lip may move,
“But pray I cannot, without thee!
“I’ve fed the altar in my bower
“With droppings from the incense tree;
“I’ve sheltered it from wind and shower,
“But dim it burns the livelong hour,
“As if, like me, it had no power
“Of life or lustre without thee!
“A boat at midnight sent alone
“To drift upon the moonless sea,
“A lute, whose leading chord is gone,
“A wounded bird that hath but one
“Imperfect wing to soar upon,
“Are like what I am without thee!
“Then ne’er, my spirit-love, divide,
“In life or death, thyself from me;
“But when again in sunny pride
“Thou walk’st thro’ Eden, let me glide,
“A prostrate shadow, by thy side —
“Oh happier thus than without thee!”
The song had ceased when from the wood
Which sweeping down that airy height,
Reached the lone spot whereon they stood —
There suddenly shone out a light
From a clear lamp, which, as it blazed
Across the brow of one, who raised
Its flame aloft (as if to throw
The light upon that group below),
Displayed two eyes sparkling between
The dusky leaves, such as are seen
By fancy only, in those faces,
That haunt a poet’s walk at even,
Looking from out their leafy places
Upon his dreams of love and heaven.
’Twas but a moment — the blush brought
O’er all her features at the thought
Of being seen thus, late, alone,
By any but the eyes she sought,
Had scarcely for an instant shore
Thro’ the dark leaves when she was gone —
Gone, like a meteor that o’erhead
Suddenly shines, and, ere we’ve said,
“Behold, how beautiful!”— ’tis fled,
Yet ere she went the words, “I come,
“I come, my NAMA,” reached her ear,
In that kind voice, familiar, dear,
Which tells of confidence, of home, —
Of habit, that hath drawn hearts near,
Till they grow one, — of faith sincere,
And all that Love most loves to hear;
A music breathing of the past,
The present and the time to be,
Where Hope and Memory to the last
Lengthen out life’s true harmony!
Nor long did he whom call so kind
Summoned away remain behind:
Nor did there need much time to tell
What they — alas! more fallen than he
From happiness and heaven — knew well,
His gentler love’s short history!
Thus did it run — not as he told
The tale himself, but as ’tis graved
Upon the tablets that, of old,
By SETH17 were from the deluge saved,
All written over with sublime
And saddening legends of the unblest
But glorious Spirits of that time,
And this young Angel’s ‘mong the rest.
THIRD ANGEL’S STORY.
Among the Spirits, of pure flame,
That in the eternal heavens abide —
Circles of light that from the same
Unclouded centre sweeping wide,
Carry its beams on every side —
Like spheres of air that waft around
The undulations of rich sound —
Till the far-circling radiance be
Diffused into infinity!
First and immediate near the Throne
Of ALLA, as if most his own,
The Seraphs stand18 this burning sign
Traced on their banner, “Love Divine!”
Their rank, their honors, far above
Even those to high-browed Cherubs given,
Tho’ knowing all; — so much doth Love
Transcend all Knowledge, even in heaven!
‘Mong these was ZARAPH once — and none
E’er felt affection’s holy fire,
Or yearned towards the Eternal One,
With half such longing, deep desire.
Love was to his impassioned soul
Not as with others a mere part
Of its existence, but the whole —
The very life-breath of his heart!
Oft, when from ALLA’S lifted brow
A lustre came, too bright to bear,
And all the seraph ranks would bow,
To shade their dazzled sight nor dare
To look upon the effulgence there —
This Spirit’s eyes would court the blaze
(Such pride he in adoring took),
And rather lose in that one gaze
The power of looking than not look!
Then too when angel voices sung
The mercy of their God and strung
Their harps to hail with welcome sweet
That moment, watched for by all eyes,
When some repentant sinner’s feet
First touched the threshold of the skies,
Oh! then how clearly did the voice
Of ZARAPH above all rejoice!
Love was in every buoyant tone —
Such love as only could belong
To the blest angels and alone
Could, even from angels, bring such song!
Alas! that it should e’er have been
In heaven as ’tis too often here,
Where nothing fond or bright is seen,
But it hath pain and peril near; —
Where right and wrong so close resemble,
That what we take for virtue’s thrill
Is often the first downward tremble
Of the heart’s balance unto ill;
Where Love hath not a shrine so pure,
So holy, but the serpent, Sin,
In moments, even the most secure,
Beneath his altar may glide in!
So was it with that Angel — such
The charm, that sloped his fall along,
From good to ill, from loving much,
Too easy lapse, to loving wrong. —
Even so that amorous Spirit, bound
By beauty’s spell where’er ’twas found,
From the bright things above the moon
Down to earth’s beaming eyes descended,
Till love for the Creator soon
In passion for the creature ended.
’Twas first at twilight, on the shore
Of the smooth sea, he heard the lute
And voice of her he loved steal o’er
The silver waters that lay mute,
As loath, by even a breath, to stay
The pilgrimage of that sweet lay;
Whose echoes still went on and on,
Till lost among the light that shone
Far off beyond the ocean’s brim —
There where the rich cascade of day
Had o’er the horizon’s golden rim,
Into Elysium rolled away!
Of God she sung and of the mild
Attendant Mercy that beside
His awful throne for ever smiled,
Ready with her white hand to guide
His bolts of vengeance to their prey —
That she might quench them on the way!
Of Peace — of that Atoning Love,
Upon whose star, shining above
This twilight world of hope and fear,
The weeping eyes of Faith are fixt
So fond that with her every tear
The light of that love-star is mixt! —
All this she sung, and such a soul
Of piety wa
s in that song
That the charmed Angel as it stole
Tenderly to his ear, along
Those lulling waters where he lay,
Watching the daylight’s dying ray,
Thought ’twas a voice from out the wave,
An echo, that some sea-nymph gave
To Eden’s distant harmony,
Heard faint and sweet beneath the sea!
Quickly, however, to its source,
Tracking that music’s melting course,
He saw upon the golden sands
Of the sea-shore a maiden stand,
Before whose feet the expiring waves
Flung their last offering with a sigh —
As, in the East, exhausted slaves
Lay down the far-brought gift and die —
And while her lute hung by her hushed
As if unequal to the tide
Of song that from her lips still gushed,
She raised, like one beatified,
Those eyes whose light seemed rather given
To be adored than to adore —
Such eyes as may have lookt from heaven
But ne’er were raised to it before!
Oh Love, Religion, Music — all
That’s left of Eden upon earth —
The only blessings, since the fall
Of our weak souls, that still recall
A trace of their high, glorious birth —
How kindred are the dreams you bring!
How Love tho’ unto earth so prone,
Delights to take Religion’s wing,
When time or grief hath stained his own!
How near to Love’s beguiling brink
Too oft entranced Religion lies!
While Music, Music is the link
They both still hold by to the skies,
The language of their native sphere
Which they had else forgotten here.
How then could ZARAPH fail to feel
That moment’s witcheries? — one, so fair,
Breathing out music, that might steal
Heaven from itself, and rapt in prayer
That seraphs might be proud to share!
Oh, he did feel it, all too well —
With warmth, that far too dearly cost —
Nor knew he, when at last he fell,
To which attraction, to which spell,
Love, Music, or Devotion, most
His soul in that sweet hour was lost.
Sweet was the hour, tho’ dearly won,
And pure, as aught of earth could be,
For then first did the glorious sun
Before religion’s altar see
Two hearts in wedlock’s golden tie
Self-pledged, in love to live and die.
Blest union! by that Angel wove,
And worthy from such hands to come;
Safe, sole, asylum, in which Love,
When fallen or exiled from above,
In this dark world can find a home.
And, tho’ the Spirit had transgrest,
Had, from his station ‘mong the blest
Won down by woman’s smile, allow’d
Terrestrial passion to breathe o’er
The mirror of his heart, and cloud
God’s image there so bright before —
Yet never did that Power look down
On error with a brow so mild;
Never did Justice wear a frown,
Thro’ which so gently Mercy smiled.
For humble was their love — with awe
And trembling like some treasure kept,
That was not theirs by holy law —
Whose beauty with remorse they saw
And o’er whose preciousness they wept.
Humility, that low, sweet root,
From which all heavenly virtues shoot,
Was in the hearts of both — but most
In NAMA’S heart, by whom alone
Those charms, for which a heaven was lost.
Seemed all unvalued and unknown;
And when her Seraph’s eyes she caught,
And hid hers glowing on his breast,
Even bliss was humbled by the thought —
“What claim have I to be so blest”?
Still less could maid, so meek, have nurst
Desire of knowledge — that vain thirst,
With which the sex hath all been curst
From luckless EVE to her who near
The Tabernacle stole to hear
The secrets of the Angels: no —
To love as her own Seraph loved,
With Faith, the same thro’ bliss and woe —
Faith that were even its light removed,
Could like the dial fixt remain
And wait till it shone out again; —
With Patience that tho’ often bowed
By the rude storm can rise anew;
And Hope that even from Evil’s cloud
See sunny Good half breaking thro’!
This deep, relying Love, worth more
In heaven than all a Cherub’s lore —
This Faith more sure than aught beside
Was the sole joy, ambition, pride
Of her fond heart — the unreasoning scope
Of all its views, above, below —
So true she felt it that to hope,
To trust, is happier than to know.
And thus in humbleness they trod,
Abasht but pure before their God;
Nor e’er did earth behold a sight
So meekly beautiful as they,
When with the altar’s holy light
Full on their brows they knelt to pray,
Hand within hand and side by side,
Two links of love awhile untied
From the great chain above, but fast
Holding together to the last! —
Two fallen Splendors from that tree19
Which buds with such eternally,
Shaken to earth yet keeping all
Their light and freshness in the fall.
Their only punishment, (as wrong,
However sweet, must bear its brand.)
Their only doom was this — that, long
As the green earth and ocean stand,
They both shall wander here — the same,
Throughout all time, in heart and frame —
Still looking to that goal sublime,
Whose light remote but sure they see;
Pilgrims of Love whose way is Time,
Whose home is in Eternity!
Subject the while to all the strife
True Love encounters in this life —
The wishes, hopes, he breathes in vain;
The chill that turns his warmest sighs
To earthly vapor ere they rise;
The doubt he feeds on and the pain
That in his very sweetness lies: —
Still worse, the illusions that betray
His footsteps to their shining brink;
That tempt him on his desert way
Thro’ the bleak world, to bend and drink,
Where nothing meets his lips, alas! —
But he again must sighing pass
On to that far-off home of peace,
In which alone his thirst will cease.
All this they bear but not the less
Have moments rich in happiness —
Blest meetings, after many a day
Of widowhood past far away,
When the loved face again is seen
Close, close, with not a tear between —
Confidings frank, without control,
Poured mutually from soul to soul;
As free from any fear or doubt
As is that light from chill or strain
The sun into the stars sheds out
To be by them shed back again! —
That happy minglement of hearts,
Where, changed as chymic compounds are,
Each with its own existence parts
To find a new one, happier far!
Such are their joys — and crowning all
That blessed hope of the bright hour,
When, happy and no more to fall,
Their spirits shall with freshened power
Rise up rewarded for their trust
In Him from whom all goodness springs,
And shaking off earth’s soiling dust
From their emancipated wings,
Wander for ever thro’ those skies
Of radiance where Love never dies!
In what lone region of the earth,
These Pilgrims now may roam or dwell,
God and the Angels who look forth
To watch their steps, alone can tell.
But should we in our wanderings
Meet a young pair whose beauty wants
But the adornment of bright wings
To look like heaven’s inhabitants —
Who shine where’er they tread and yet
Are humble in their earthly lot,
As is the way-side violet,
That shines unseen, and were it not
For its sweet breath would be forgot
Whose hearts in every thought are one,
Whose voices utter the same wills —
Answering, as Echo doth some tone
Of fairy music ‘mong the hills,
So like itself we seek in vain
Which is the echo, which the strain —
Whose piety is love, whose love
Tho’ close as ‘twere their souls’ embrace.
Is not of earth but from above —
Like two fair mirrors face to face,
Whose light from one to the other thrown,
Is heaven’s reflection, not their own —
Should we e’er meet with aught so pure,
So perfect here, we may be sure
’Tis ZARAPH and his bride we see;
And call young lovers round to view
The pilgrim pair as they pursue
Their pathway towards eternity.
1 “To which will be joined the sound of the bells hanging on the trees, which will be put in motion by the wind proceeding from the Throne, so often as the Blessed wish for music.” — See Sale’s Koran, Prelim. Dissert.
2 The ancient Persians supposed that this Throne was placed in the Sun, and that through the stars were distributed the various classes of Angels that encircled it. The Basilidians supposed that there were three hundred and sixty-five orders of angels.
3 It appears that, in most languages, the term employed for an angel means also a messenger.
4 The name given by the Mahometans to the infernal regions, over which, they say, the angel Tabliek presides.
5 The Kerubilna, as the Mussulmans call them, are often joined indiscriminately with the Asrafil or Seraphim, under one common name of Azazil, by which all spirits who approach near the throne of Alla are designated.
6 A belief that the stars are either spirits or the vehicles of spirits, was common to all the religions and heresies of the East. Kircher has given the names and stations of the seven archangels, who were by the Cabala of the Jews distributed through the planets.
