And she led him down to vast
Caves of sardonyx, whose ceiling
Domed one chrysoberyl. Blast
On blast of music,—stealing
Out of aural atmospheres,—
Beat like surf upon his ears;
Then receded, faintly pealing
Psalteries and dulcimers.
Living figures seemed to heave
High the walls, where, wild, embattled,
Warred Amshaspand and the Deev:
Over all two splendors rattled
Arms of Heaven, arms of Hell;
Forms of flame that seemed to swell
Godlike: Aherman who battled
With Ormuzd he could not quell.
There she left him wond’ring; till
The reverberant music, drifting,
Strong beyond his utmost will,
Drew him onward where, high lifting
Pillar and entablature,
Vast with emblem, yawned a door—
Valves of liquid lightning, shifting
In and out and up and o’er.
Through the door he swept: deep-domed,
Green with serpentine and beryl,
Loomed a cavern, crusted, foamed,
Tortuous with gems of peril:
Difficult, a colonnade
Seemed, of satin-spar, to braid
Deeps of labyrinthed and sterile
Tiger-spar that, twisting, rayed.
Dizzy stones of magic price
Crammed volute and loaded corbel:
Irridescent shafts of ice
Leapt: with long reëchoed warble
Waters unto waters sang:
Crystal arc and column sprang
Into fire as each marble
Fountain flung its foam that rang.
And around him, filled with sound,
Streams of resonant colors jetted:
Rainbow surf that interwound
Crypts and arcades, crescent-fretted:
Mists of citron and of roon;
Lemon lights that mocked the moon;
Shot with scarlet, veined and netted,
Beating golden hearts of tune.
Suns arose, of blinding blue;
Moons of green-dilating splendor:
In whose centers slowly grew
Spots like serpents’ eyes that, slender,
Glared; at first, prismatic beams;
Then, intolerable gleams;
Hissing trails of fire, tender
As an houri’s breath that dreams.
Characters of Arabic,
Cabalistic, red as coral,
Flashed through violet veils, so quick
None might read: as if, in quarrel,
Iran wrote of Turan there
Hate and scorn, or, everywhere,
Wrought some talisman of moral
Strength no Afrit’s heart would dare.
Sounding splendors drew him on
To another cavern; hollow;
Hewn of alabastar wan;
Lucid; where his gaze could follow
Caves in caves; transparent flights
Rolling, lost in moving lights,
Glaucous gold: he like a swallow
O’er a lake the morning smites.
Down the dome flashed out and in
Instant faces of the Peris:
Restless eyes of Deevs and Jinn
In the walls watched: unseen Faeries
Out of rainbows rained and tossed
Flowers of fire full of frost;
Blossoms where the fire varies,
Gold and green and crimson-mossed.