Part I

Nec tantum prodere vati,Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unamCongeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.LUCAN, Phars. v. 176.

How wonderful is Death,Death and his brother Sleep!One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,With lips of lurid blue,The other glowing like the vital morn,When throned on ocean's waveIt breathes over the world:Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throneCast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,Which love and admiration cannot viewWithout a beating heart, whose azure veinsSteal like dark streams along a field of snow,Whose outline is as fair as marble clothedIn light of some sublimest mind, decay?Nor putrefaction's breathLeave aught of this pure spectacleBut loathsomeness and ruin?--Spare aught but a dark theme,On which the lightest heart might moralize?Or is it but that downy-winged slumbersHave charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lidsTo watch their own repose?Will they, when morning's beamFlows through those wells of light,Seek far from noise and day some western cave,Where woods and streams with soft and pausing windsA lulling murmur weave?--Ianthe doth not sleepThe dreamless sleep of death:Nor in her moonlight chamber silentlyDoth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,Or mark her delicate cheekWith interchange of hues mock the broad moon,Outwatching weary night,Without assured reward.Her dewy eyes are closed;On their translucent lids, whose texture fineScarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn belowWith unapparent fire,The baby Sleep is pillowed:Her golden tresses shadeThe bosom's stainless pride,Twining like tendrils of the parasiteAround a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound?'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweepsAround a lonely ruinWhen west winds sigh and evening waves respondIn whispers from the shore:'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notesWhich from the unseen lyres of dells and grovesThe genii of the breezes sweep.Floating on waves of music and of light,The chariot of the Daemon of the WorldDescends in silent power:Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloudThat catches but the palest tinge of dayWhen evening yields to night,Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indueIts transitory robe.Four shapeless shadows bright and beautifulDraw that strange car of glory, reins of lightCheck their unearthly speed; they stop and foldTheir wings of braided air:The Daemon leaning from the ethereal carGazed on the slumbering maid.Human eye hath ne'er beheldA shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleepWaving a starry wand,Hung like a mist of light.Such sounds as breathed around like odorous windsOf wakening spring arose,Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.Maiden, the world's supremest spiritBeneath the shadow of her wingsFolds all thy memory doth inheritFrom ruin of divinest things,Feelings that lure thee to betray,And light of thoughts that pass away.For thou hast earned a mighty boon,The truths which wisest poets seeDimly, thy mind may make its own,Rewarding its own majesty,Entranced in some diviner moodOf self-oblivious solitude.

Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;From hate and awe thy heart is free;Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,For dark and cold mortalityA living light, to cheer it long,The watch-fires of the world among.

Therefore from nature's inner shrine,Where gods and fiends in worship bend,Majestic spirit, be it thineThe flame to seize, the veil to rend,Where the vast snake EternityIn charmed sleep doth ever lie.

All that inspires thy voice of love,Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,Or through thy frame doth burn or move,Or think or feel, awake, arise!Spirit, leave for mine and meEarth's unsubstantial mimicry!

It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frameA radiant spirit arose,All beautiful in naked purity.Robed in its human hues it did ascend,Disparting as it went the silver clouds,It moved towards the car, and took its seatBeside the Daemon shape.

Obedient to the sweep of aery song,The mighty ministersUnfurled their prismy wings.The magic car moved on;The night was fair, innumerable starsStudded heaven's dark blue vault;The eastern wave grew paleWith the first smile of morn.The magic car moved on.From the swift sweep of wingsThe atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;And where the burning wheelsEddied above the mountain's loftiest peakWas traced a line of lightning.Now far above a rock the utmost vergeOf the wide earth it flew,The rival of the Andes, whose dark browFrowned o'er the silver sea.Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,Calm as a slumbering babe,Tremendous ocean lay.Its broad and silent mirror gave to viewThe pale and waning stars,The chariot's fiery track,And the grey light of mornTingeing those fleecy cloudsThat cradled in their folds the infant dawn.The chariot seemed to flyThrough the abyss of an immense concave,Radiant with million constellations, tingedWith shades of infinite colour,And semicircled with a beltFlashing incessant meteors.

As they approached their goal,The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.The sea no longer was distinguished; earthAppeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspendedIn the black concave of heavenWith the sun's cloudless orb,Whose rays of rapid lightParted around the chariot's swifter course,And fell like ocean's feathery sprayDashed from the boiling surgeBefore a vessel's prow.

The magic car moved on.Earth's distant orb appearedThe smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,Whilst round the chariot's wayInnumerable systems widely rolled,And countless spheres diffusedAn ever varying glory.It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,And like the moon's argentine crescent hungIn the dark dome of heaven; some did shedA clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the seaYet glows with fading sunlight; others dashedAthwart the night with trains of bickering fire,Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passedBedimmed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! hereIn this interminable wildernessOf worlds, at whose involved immensityEven soaring fancy staggers,Here is thy fitting temple.Yet not the lightest leafThat quivers to the passing breezeIs less instinct with thee,--Yet not the meanest worm.That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,Less shares thy eternal breath.Spirit of Nature! thouImperishable as this glorious scene,Here is thy fitting temple.

If solitude hath ever led thy stepsTo the shore of the immeasurable sea,And thou hast lingered thereUntil the sun's broad orbSeemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,Thou must have marked the braided webs of goldThat without motion hangOver the sinking sphere:Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,Edged with intolerable radiancy,Towering like rocks of jetAbove the burning deep:And yet there is a momentWhen the sun's highest pointPeers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,When those far clouds of feathery purple gleamLike fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:Then has thy rapt imagination soaredWhere in the midst of all existing thingsThe temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.

Yet not the golden islandsThat gleam amid yon flood of purple light,Nor the feathery curtainsThat canopy the sun's resplendent couch,Nor the burnished ocean wavesPaving that gorgeous dome,So fair, so wonderful a sightAs the eternal temple could afford.The elements of all that human thoughtCan frame of lovely or sublime, did joinTo rear the fabric of the fane, nor aughtOf earth may image forth its majesty.Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall,As heaven low resting on the wave it spreadIts floors of flashing light,Its vast and azure dome;And on the verge of that obscure abyssWhere crystal battlements o'erhang the gulfOf the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuseTheir lustre through its adamantine gates.

The magic car no longer moved;The Daemon and the SpiritEntered the eternal gates.Those clouds of aery goldThat slept in glittering billowsBeneath the azure canopy,With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;While slight and odorous mistsFloated to strains of thrilling melodyThrough the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

The Daemon and the SpiritApproached the overhanging battlement,Below lay stretched the boundless universe!There, far as the remotest lineThat limits swift imagination's flight.Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,Immutably fulfillingEternal Nature's law.Above, below, around,The circling systems formedA wilderness of harmony.Each with undeviating aimIn eloquent silence through the depths of spacePursued its wondrous way.--

Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,Strange things within their belted orbs appear.Like animated frenzies, dimly movedShadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,Thronging round human graves, and o'er the deadSculpturing records for each memoryIn verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hellConfounded burst in ruin o'er the world:And they did build vast trophies, instrumentsOf murder, human bones, barbaric gold,Skins torn from living men, and towers of skullsWith sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stainedWith blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,The sanguine codes of venerable crime.The likeness of a throned king came by.When these had passed, bearing upon his browA threefold crown; his countenance was calm.His eye severe and cold; but his right handWas charged with bloody coin, and he did gnawBy fits, with secret smiles, a human heartConcealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looksOf true submission, as the sphere rolled by.Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,Which human hearts must feel, while human tonguesTremble to speak, they did rage horribly,Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemiesAgainst the Daemon of the World, and highHurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,Serene and inaccessibly secure,Stood on an isolated pinnacle.The flood of ages combating below,The depth of the unbounded universeAbove, and all aroundNecessity's unchanging harmony.