Thus spoke the King, to whom the Enchanted Lake,28
Where from all sources Wisdom ever springs,
Had given unknown the subtle powers that wake
Our intuitions into cloudiest things,
Won but by those, who, after passionate dreams,
Taste the sharp herb and dare the solemn streams.
The Demon heard; and as a moon that shines,29
Rising behind Arcturus, cold and still
O'er Baltic headlands black with rigid pines,—
So on his knit and ominous brows a chill
And livid smile, revealed the gloomy night,
To leave the terror sterner for the light.
Thus spoke the Dwarf, "Thou wouldst survive to tell30
Of trophies wrested from the halls of Lok,
Yet wherefore singly face the hosts of Hell?
Return, and lead thy comrades to the rock;
Never to one, on earth's less dreadful field,
The prize of chiefs do War's fierce Valkyrs yield."
"War," said the King, "is waged on mortal life31
By men with men;—that, dare I with the rest:
In conflicts awful with no human strife,
Mightiest methinks, that soul the loneliest!
When starry charms from Afrite caves were won,
No Judah march'd with dauntless Solomon!"
Fell fangs the demon gnash'd, and o'er the crowd32
Wild cumbering round his feet, with hungry stare
Greeding the man, his drooping visage bow'd;
"Go elsewhere, sons—your prey escapes the snare:
Yours but the food which flesh to flesh supplies;
Here not the mortal but the soul defies."
Then striding to the cave, he plunged within;33
"Follow," he cried, and like a prison'd blast
Along the darkness, the reverberate din
Roll'd from the rough sides of the viewless Vast;
As goblin echoes, through the haunted hollow,
'Twixt groan and laughter, chimed hoarse-gibbering, "Follow!"
The King, recoiling, paused irresolute,34
Till through the cave the white wing went its way;
Then on his breast he sign'd the cross, and mute,
With solemn prayer, he left the world of day.
Thick stood the night, save where the falchion gave
Its clear sharp glimmer lengthening down the cave.
Advancing; flashes rush'd irregular35
Like subterranean lightning, fork'd and red:
From warring matter—wandering shot the star
Of poisonous gases; and the tortured bed
Of the' old Volcano show'd in trailing fires,
Where the numb'd serpent dragg'd its mangled spires.
Broader and ruddier on the Dove's pale wings36
Now glow'd the lava of the widening spaces;
Grinn'd from the rook the jaws of giant things,
The lurid skeletons of vanish'd races,
They who, perchance, ere man himself had birth,
Ruled the moist slime of uncompleted earth.
Enormous couch'd fang'd Iguanodon,[3]37
To which the monster-lizard of the Nile
Were prey too small,—whose dismal haunts were on
The swamps where now such golden harvests smile
As had sufficed those myriad hosts to feed
When all the Orient march'd behind the Mede.