DISENCHANTMENT.
I.
Glides the shadow round the dial,
Youth and Hope have almost flown,
Vainly fade my days like water,
On the sandy desert thrown.
On the Tree of Life the verdure,
Leaf by leaf decaying, dies;
And a low prophetic murmur
In its waving branches sighs.
At its roots the Nornas sitting,
Chant, by turns, their solemn hymn;
In its shadow dreams are brooding,
As at old Dodona dim.
II.
Once like trodden vintage foaming,
Through my veins the life-blood rolled,
Fiery visions flashed around me,
Such as blinded prophets old.
Cold and dark the golden mountains,
Which of yore environed me;
From the star its sheen has faded,
From the blossom and the tree.
Gazing westward in the sunset,
I no longer can descry
Tents of Paladins, in clusters,
Pitched against the darkening sky.
III.
They have furled their gorgeous banners,
And their oriflammes uprolled,
They have struck their far pavilions,
Rich with purple and with gold.
In the galley of Ulysses
I no more at random sail,
On each tenth returning sunrise
Sure some stranger port to hail.
Now the regions of the Lotos
O’er the waters disappear;
Now the meadows of the Sirens
Starred with blossoms glitter near;
IV.
Now the golden ether leaving,
We to lampless glooms descend,
Where the Shadows of the Weary
Through the umbered spaces wend.
With “the blind old man” I wandered
On the soft Ionian shore,
Danced at harvest feasts in autumn,
While the oak tree arched me o’er;
Through the streets of Asian cities,
Lit with nuptial tapers trod,
Where in star-light flamed the altars
Of the yellow-buskined god.
V.
All the dark-eyed tribes of Hellas
I could visit, one by one,
In their agorai I gossipped
With the idlers in the sun;
At the school of old Crotona
Heard the Samian recite,
How the eternal Monad flowers
Into blossoms infinite;
How from shape to shape forever
Silent, serpent-like it glides,
On a starred, unresting circle,
In its pilgrimages rides.
VI.
At the city of Glaucopis,
’Neath the olive trees I lay,
While the bird of Itys warbled
Through the livelong summer day,
And at moon-rise, decked with garlands,
Lay reclined in that alcove,
Where harangued the Man-Silenus
On the genesis of Love.
Fast the wine and wit were flowing,
Mid the banquet’s joyous din;
At the door, the son of Clinias,
Crowned and drunken, gazing in.
VII.
Or at morning, in some stoa,
Heard the Sage, as in his toils
He immeshed the wordy sophists
Come to dazzle from the Isles.
In the house of Thespis sitting,
On upæthric seats of stone,
Saw the tribes of birds collected
In a kingdom of their own;
In a quaint ethereal city,
Full of many-tinted plumes,
Which in mid-air intercepted
Jove’s refection, altar-fumes.
VIII.
But the portals of Athenæ
I no longer wander through,
To her Owl and to her Bema
I have bid a long adieu.
Cities thronged with breathing beings—
Not the pavements of the dead—
For the future I must frequent,
For the future I must tread.
Though their streets have not the glory,
Which the towns of Hellas wore,
In them I must toil and battle,
Till the fret and din are o’er.
IX.
Till the clamor of the Present
In the eternal silence dies,
And my frame, but dust and ruin,
In its final chamber lies,
With the vanished and forgotten,
With the lovely and the brave,
Who have sunken through the Ages,
To the quiet of the grave.
There the eye of love shall vainly
Through the red earth seek to pry,
There the grass and night winds only
True to sorrow ever sigh.
Elfin Land
PART I.
Into the fabled Fairy land
My portals open wide,
Where life is all a holiday
From morn till eventide.
A soft and dreamy atmosphere
Above its plains is hung,
A summer noon and twilight fused
And mingled into one.
From all its bounds the turbaned cock
Is banished far away,
As erst he was from Sybaris,
Where drowsy people lay,
Indulging drowsy phantasies,
Long after break of day.
The cricket’s wiry song by night,
By day the humblebee’s,
The loudest noises are, that float
Upon the Elfin breeze.
The Welsh king, Arthur, and his court
Have dwelt long ages here—
Sir Launcelot still whispers sly
To faithless Guenevere.
Here Jacques and his gay compeers
In forests still carouse,
Pavilioned by a network green
Of melancholy boughs.
Removed beyond the Sabbath chime,
Far in the shady wold,
Unvexed by care they fleet the time,
As in the Age of Gold.
Still in the limpid runnels’ waves,
Which round their lodges wind,
And in the stones and in the trees,
Monitions deep they find.
That merry knot is also here
Of fabling Florentines,
Who revelled while the Avenger hung
O’er Arno and its vines.
The love of story, dance, and song,
They had in Tuscan land,
Still warms their breasts, though ferried o’er
Unto the Fairy strand.
Here too La Mancha’s cavalier
Reposes ’neath his bays,
Who roamed the wilds of tawny Spain
In quest of knightly praise.
O’er river, vale, and mountain lone,
He ne’er shall wander more,—
His steed is in the self-same stall
With Roland’s Brigliadore.
Stretched on the banks of Elfin streams,
With antique knights he lies,
And talks through all the livelong day,
Of many an old emprize.
Here sages dwell, whose names adorn
The mediæval time,
In lonely turrets, whence at night
Their ruddy tapers shine.
Aquinas, dialectic sage,
Endowed with subtlest wits—
Beneath a cobweb canopy
The saintly sophist sits.
And he, who in his wizard glass
To Surry’s eye displayed
His gentle lady o’er the sea,
With lilied pallor spread.
Brave Surry, knightly bard, who cull’d,
Where Tuscan summers shine,
Ambrosial flowers of heavenly song
To deck a colder clime.
Those cloistral lovers far renowned,
The sage and nun, are here,
Whose quenchless passion yielded not
To penances austere.
In vain the serge, the flinty bed,
The eremital glooms—
The boy-god flashed his fire-tipt reed
Athwart the censer’s fumes.
Ficino, mighty Platonist,
Hath here his dwelling-place;
No sphingal countenance more calm
Than his majestic face.
Among the starry flock was he,
Whose holy toils unsealed
The fountains of Hellenic lore,
And all their wealth revealed.
From Plato’s thoughts their Attic dress,
To charm an era rude,
He tore away, and in its stead
A meaner garb indued.
But unto eyes, o’er which no film
By ignorance is thrown,
His dreams those garments only grace
In which at birth they shone.
Of bright Cadmean rune he wove
A rich asbestic web;
Sometimes its woof like sunset glows,
Of gold and purple thread;
Sometimes with rosy spring it vies—
Then flowers inwoven shine;
Sometimes diaphonous as oil;
Than Coan gauze more fine.
And thus each imaged thought, that sprung
From his sciential brain,
A fluent drapery received,
To make its beauty plain.
Here pilgrims dwell, strange sights that saw
On many a foreign strand—
He born beneath the Doge’s rule,
Beloved of Kubla Khan,
And Mandeville, who journeyed far
Against the Eastern wind,
The sacred Capital to see,
And miracles of Ind.
None ever wore the sandal shoon
More marvellous than he;
For then the world had far away
Its realms of mystery.
The giant Roc then winnowed swift
The morning-cradled breeze,
And happy islands glittered o’er
The Occidental seas.
Upon Saint Michael’s happy morn
How throbbed his glowing brow,
When towards the ancient Orient
His galley turned her prow!
Already in the wind he smells
Hyblæan odors blown
From isles invisible, afar
Amid the Indian foam.
The turbaned millions, dusky, wild,
Already meet his eyes—
The domes of Islam crescent-crowned
In long perspective rise,
Mid waving palms, o’er level sands,
With skyey verges low,
Where from his eastern tent, the Sun
Spreads wide a saffron glow.
The golden thrones of Asian kings,
Their empery supreme,
Their capitals Titanic, laved
By many a famous stream;
The cities, desolate and lone,
Where desert monsters prowl,
Where spiders film the royal throne,
And shrieks the nightly owl;
Enormous Caf, the mountain wall
Of ancient Colchian land—
Where dragon-drawn Medea gave
The Argonaut her hand;
Nysæan Meros, mid whose rifts
The viny God was born,—
The empyreal sky its summit cleaves,
In shape a golden horn;
And o’er its top reclining swim
In zones of windless air
The slumbrous deities of Ind,
Removed from earthly care;
The Ammonian phalanx round its base
In festal garments ranged,
Their brows with ivied chaplets bound,
Their swords to thyrsi changed;
The ravenous gryphons, brooding o’er
The desert’s gleaming gold,
The auroral Chersonese, that shines
With treasures manifold;
The groves of odorous scent, that line
The green Sabæan shore,
Whence wrapped in cerements dipt in balm,
His sire the Phœnix bore;
The Persian valley famed in song,
Where gentle Hafiz strayed;
The Indian Hollow far beyond,
By mountains tall embayed;
Whose virgins boast a richer bloom
Than peaches of Cabool,
And nymph-like fall their marble urns
With fountain-waters cool;
Whose looms produce a gorgeous web,
That with the rainbow vies,
So delicate its downy woof,
So deep its royal dyes.
The motionless Yogee, who stands
In wildernesses lone,
His sleepless eye forever fixed
On Brahma’s airy throne,
In blue infinity to melt
His troubled soul away,
And of the sunny Monad form
A portion and a ray.
The tales, Milesian-like, that charm
The vacant ear at eve,
Wherein the Orient fabulists
Their marvels interweave;
Of wondrous realms beyond the reach
Of mortal footstep far,
Whose maidens, winged with pinions light,
Outstrip the falling star;
Whose forests bear a vocal fruit,
With human tongues endowed,
That mid the autumn-laden boughs
Are querulous and loud;
Of sparry caves in musky hills,
Which sevenfold seas surround,
Where ancient kings enchanted lie,
In dreamless slumber bound;
Of potent gems, whose hidden might
Can thwart malignant star;
Of Eblis’ pavement saffron-strewn
’Neath fallen Istakhar;
All these in long succession rose,
Illumed by fancy’s ray,
As swiftly towards the Morning lands
His galley ploughed her way.
Elfin Land.
PART II.
But far the greatest miracle
Which Elfin land can show,
A hostel is, like that which stood
In Eastcheap long ago.
Before the entrance, in the blast
There swings a tusky sign;
And when at night the Elfin moon
And constellations shine,
A ruddy glow illumes the panes,
And looking through you see,
With merry faces seated round,
A famous company.
Prince Hal the royal wassailer,
And that great fount of fun,
Diana’s portly forester,
The merry knight Sir John,
With all their losel servitors,
Mirth-shaken cheek by cheek;
Cambysean Pistol, Peto, Poins,
And Bardolph’s fiery beak.
A grove there is in Elfin land,
Where closely intertwine
The Grecian myrtle’s branches light
With Gothic oak sublime.
Beneath its canopy of shade,
Their temples bound with bays,
Are grouped the minstrels, that adorn
The mediæval days.
The laurelled Ghibelline, who saw
The Stygian abyss,
The fiery mosques and walls, that gird
The capital of Dis;
The realms of penance, and the rings
Of constellated light,
Whose luminous pavilions hold
The righteous robed in white;
Uranian groves and spheral vales,
Saturnian academes,
Where sainted theologues abide,
Discoursing mystic themes;
The Paradisal stream, that winds
Through Heaven’s unfading bowers,
And on its banks the beauteous maid,
Who culled celestial flowers.
Him next the sweet Vauclusian swan,
Love’s Laureate, appears,
Who bathed his mistress’ widowed urn
With Heliconian tears;
Certaldo’s storied sage,—a bard,
Though round his genius rare
The golden manacles of verse
He did not choose to wear.
Those rosy morns, that usher in
Each festal-gladdened day,
His prose depicts in hues as bright
As could the poet’s lay.
His ultramontane brother, born
In Albion’s shady isle;
Dan Chaucer, of his tameless race
Apollo’s eldest child;
The Medecean banqueter,
Whose Fescennines unfold
The deeds of heathen Anakim
Restored to Peter’s fold;
Ferrara’s Melesigenes,
Who o’er a wide domain
Of haunted forests, mounts, and seas,
Exerts his magic reign;
A glowing Mœnad, with her locks
Dishevelled in the wind,
His fancy wantons far and near,
From Thule unto Ind;
Now from her griffin steed alights
Alcina’s palace near,
Now in the Patmian prophet’s car
Ascends the lunar sphere;
Or with Rinaldo wanders through
The Caledonian wood,
Amid whose shades and coverts green
Heroic trophies glowed;
Or paints the mighty Paladin
Transformed to monster gross,
Whose mistress drank in Ardennes lone
The lymph of Anterōs.
Next hapless Tasso, pale and wan,
Released from dungeon grates;
The sacred legions of the cross
His genius celebrates;
Armida’s mountain paradise
Amid the western seas;
Her dragon-yoke, whose nimble hooves
Could run upon the breeze.
The sombre forest, where encamped
Dark Eblis’ minions lay,
With shapes evoked from Orcus’ gloom
To fright his foes away.
Lo, marble pontifices spring,
To arch illusive streams,
And swans and nightingales rehearse
Their moist melodious threnes!
The centuried trees are cloven wide,
And forth from every plant
A maiden steps, whose tears might melt
A heart of adamant.
A sudden darkness veils the sky,
And fortresses of fire,
With ruddy towers of pillared flame,
Above the woods aspire.
Transfigured in the morning beam.
On Zion’s holy height
Rinaldo puts the dusky swarms
Of Erebus to flight.
Nor absent from the shining throng
That dainty bard, I ween,
Who hung the maiden empress throne
With garlands ever green.
The Elfin Court’s Demodocus,
His lay he carols light,
His fancy’s unexhausted urns
Still brimmed with waters bright.
Far distant from the minstrel’s bower,
Another group is seen,
Who ruled of yore a sylvan race
In western forests green.
Manhattan’s sleepy potentates—
Of ox-like girth are they;
In ages gone the Hudson rolled
Beneath their gentle sway.
A hazy nimbus sleeps about
Their smooth unwrinkled brows;
Like ripened melon through its folds
Each mottled visage glows.
The ponderous Twiller dozes still,
Benignant, voiceless, deep;
His council-board, rotund and grave,
Unbroken silence keep.
And still Van Winkle snores and dreams
Upon the mountain side,
Unwakened by the ebbless flow
Of time’s unwearied tide.
And Sleepy Hollow’s pedagogue,
In smoky autumn air,
Lies musing of his faithless love,
His Katarina fair.
Those knights are here who wandered through
The forests of the south,
And vast savannas green and lone,
To find the fount of youth.
The towers and fanes they likewise sought
Of Eldorado bright;
Amid magnolian woods and palms
Uprose its turrets light.
Glittered its roofs with golden tiles—
All things of gold were wrought;
Its burghers wore a jaundiced hue
From yellow pavements caught.
But who shall number all that haunt
King Oberon’s domains?
His lieges are the airy shapes
Conceived in poet’s brains.
Their limbs are cast in fairer mould
Than those of common earth;
Their ladies are more beautiful
Than dames of mortal birth.
This work-day world perchance will show,
In epochs yet to be,
As goodly men and lovely maids
As those in Faërie.