III
Then pass as softly: shed no tear
Nor flaw with sighs the peace that’s here;
The pallid silence, far and near,
So weary grown;
Nor bring the world to jar the ear
So weary grown.
SIN
There is a legend of an old Hartz tower
That tells of one, a noble, who had sold
His soul unto the Fiend; who grew not old
On this condition: that the Demon’s power
Cease every midnight for a single hour,
And, in that hour, his body should lie cold
With limbs up-shriveled, and with face, behold!
Shrunk to a death’s-head in the taper’s glower.—
So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her arts
Make all his outward seeming beautiful
Before the world; but in his heart of hearts
Abides an hour when her strength is null;
When he shall feel the death through all his parts
Strike, and his countenance become a skull.
THE HOUSE OF FEAR
Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and lone
Where Death sits, listening to the wind and rain;
And dark the house, where I shall meet again
That long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown:
For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone,
And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain;
And windows glaring with a blood-red stain,
And hollow eyes, that burn me to the bone,
Within a face that looks as that black night
It looked when deep I dug for it a grave,—
The dagger wound above the brow, the thin
Blood trickling slantwise down the cheek’s dead white;—
And I have dreamed not even God can save
Me and my soul from that arisen Sin.
SATAN
Still shall I stand the everlasting hate
Colossal Chaos builded ’neath thine eyes,
The symbol of all evil, that defies
Thy victory, and, vanquished, still can wait.
Scar me again with such vast flame as late
Hurled abrupt thunder and archangel cries,
’Mid fiery whirlwinds of the terrible skies,
Down the deep’s roar against Hell’s monster gate!
Thy wrath can not abolish or make less
Me, an eternal wile opposed to wrath:
Me, who to thwart thee evermore shall plan!
Behold thy Eden’s vanished loveliness!—
Why hast thou set a sword within its path,
And cursed and exiled thine own image, Man?
OSSIAN
Long have I heard the noise of battle clash
Along the windy sea that roared again;
Seen helmets rise, and on the clanking plain
Barbaric chieftains meet and, howling, dash
Their mailéd thousands down, with crash on crash,
Like crags contending with the roaring main;
Torrents of shields, like rivers of rolling rain,
I have beheld within the moon’s pale flash;
The moon, that, like a spirit, o’er the wood
Hung white as steel, glimmering the spears and swords,
That shone like ripples in the iron flood,
The streams of war, that beat in heathen hordes
About their rock-like kings, whence wave-like far,
Circled the battle, warrior on warrior.