The Triumph of Life

Swift as a spirit hastening to his taskOf glory and of good, the Sun sprang forthRejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth--The smokeless altars of the mountain snowsFlamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

Of light, the Ocean's orison arose,To which the birds tempered their matin lay.All flowers in field or forest which unclose

Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,Swinging their censers in the element,With orient incense lit by the new ray

Burned slow and inconsumably, and sentTheir odorous sighs up to the smiling air;And, in succession due, did continent,

Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wearThe form and character of mortal mould,Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

Their portion of the toil, which he of oldTook as his own, and then imposed on them:But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gemThe cone of night, now they were laid asleepStretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steepOf a green Apennine: before me fledThe night; behind me rose the day; the deep

Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head,--When a strange trance over my fancy grewWhich was not slumber, for the shade it spread

Was so transparent, that the scene came throughAs clear as when a veil of light is drawnO'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew

That I had felt the freshness of that dawnBathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair,And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

Under the self-same bough, and heard as thereThe birds, the fountains and the ocean holdSweet talk in music through the enamoured air,And then a vision on my train was rolled.

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay,This was the tenour of my waking dream:--Methought I sate beside a public way

Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great streamOf people there was hurrying to and fro,Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to knowWhither he went, or whence he came, or whyHe made one of the multitude, and so

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the skyOne of the million leaves of summer's bier;Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,Some flying from the thing they feared, and someSeeking the object of another's fear;

And others, as with steps towards the tomb,Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,And others mournfully within the gloom

Of their own shadow walked, and called it death;And some fled from it as it were a ghost,Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:

But more, with motions which each other crossed,Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw,Or birds within the noonday aether lost,

Upon that path where flowers never grew,--And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst,Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

Out of their mossy cells forever burst;Nor felt the breeze which from the forest toldOf grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed

With overarching elms and caverns cold,And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but theyPursued their serious folly as of old.

And as I gazed, methought that in the wayThe throng grew wilder, as the woods of JuneWhen the south wind shakes the extinguished day,

And a cold glare, intenser than the noon,But icy cold, obscured with blinding lightThe sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon--

When on the sunlit limits of the nightHer white shell trembles amid crimson air,And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might--

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bearThe ghost of its dead mother, whose dim formBends in dark aether from her infant's chair,--

So came a chariot on the silent stormOf its own rushing splendour, and a ShapeSo sate within, as one whom years deform,

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape,Crouching within the shadow of a tomb;And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape

Was bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloomTempering the light. Upon the chariot-beamA Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

The guidance of that wonder-winged team;The shapes which drew it in thick lighteningsWere lost:--I heard alone on the air's soft stream

The music of their ever-moving wings.All the four faces of that CharioteerHad their eyes banded; little profit brings

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear,Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun,--Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

Of all that is, has been or will be done;So ill was the car guided--but it passedWith solemn speed majestically on.

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast,Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,

The million with fierce song and maniac danceRaging around--such seemed the jubileeAs when to greet some conqueror's advance

Imperial Rome poured forth her living seaFrom senate-house, and forum, and theatre,When ... upon the free

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.Nor wanted here the just similitudeOf a triumphal pageant, for where'er

The chariot rolled, a captive multitudeWas driven;--all those who had grown old in powerOr misery,--all who had their age subdued

By action or by suffering, and whose hourWas drained to its last sand in weal or woe,So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;--

All those whose fame or infamy must growTill the great winter lay the form and nameOf this green earth with them for ever low;--

All but the sacred few who could not tameTheir spirits to the conquerors--but as soonAs they had touched the world with living flame,

Fled back like eagles to their native noon,Or those who put aside the diademOf earthly thrones or gems...

Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem.Were neither mid the mighty captives seen,Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.The wild dance maddens in the van, and thoseWho lead it--fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without reposeMix with each other in tempestuous measureTo savage music, wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spunOf that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in airAs their feet twinkle; they recede, and nowBending within each other's atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly--and as they glow,Like moths by light attracted and repelled,Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled,That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingleAnd die in rain--the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps--while the shock still may tingleOne falls and then another in the pathSenseless--nor is the desolation single,

Yet ere I can say WHERE--the chariot hathPassed over them--nor other trace I findBut as of foam after the ocean's wrath

Is spent upon the desert shore;--behind,Old men and women foully disarrayed,Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,Seeking to reach the light which leaves them stillFarther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of willThey wheel, though ghastly shadows interposeRound them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence they roseSink, and corruption veils them as they lie,And past in these performs what ... in those.

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,Half to myself I said--'And what is this?Whose shape is that within the car? And why--'

I would have added--'is all here amiss?--'But a voice answered--'Life!'--I turned, and knew(O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)

That what I thought was an old root which grewTo strange distortion out of the hill side,Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the grass, which methought hung so wideAnd white, was but his thin discoloured hair,And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,

Were or had been eyes:--'If thou canst forbearTo join the dance, which I had well forborne,'Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,

'I will unfold that which to this deep scornLed me and my companions, and relateThe progress of the pageant since the morn;

'If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate,Follow it thou even to the night, but IAm weary.'--Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearilyHe paused; and ere he could resume, I cried:'First, who art thou?'--'Before thy memory,

'I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died,And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spiritHad been with purer nutriment supplied,

'Corruption would not now thus much inheritOf what was once Rousseau,--nor this disguiseStain that which ought to have disdained to wear it;

'If I have been extinguished, yet there riseA thousand beacons from the spark I bore'--'And who are those chained to the car?'--'The wise,

'The great, the unforgotten,--they who woreMitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light,Signs of thought's empire over thought--their lore

'Taught them not this, to know themselves; their mightCould not repress the mystery within,And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

'Caught them ere evening.'--'Who is he with chinUpon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?'--'The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

'The world, and lost all that it did containOf greatness, in its hope destroyed; and moreOf fame and peace than virtue's self can gain

'Without the opportunity which boreHim on its eagle pinions to the peakFrom which a thousand climbers have before

'Fallen, as Napoleon fell.'--I felt my cheekAlter, to see the shadow pass away,Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay;And much I grieved to think how power and willIn opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilableGood and the means of good; and for despairI half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that wereAnd scarce have ceased to be.--'Dost thou behold,'Said my guide, 'those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,

'Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold,And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage--names which the world thinks always old,

'For in the battle Life and they did wage,She remained conqueror. I was overcomeBy my own heart alone, which neither age,

'Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tombCould temper to its object.'--'Let them pass,'I cried, 'the world and its mysterious doom

'Is not so much more glorious than it was,That I desire to worship those who drewNew figures on its false and fragile glass

'As the old faded.'--'Figures ever newRise on the bubble, paint them as you may;We have but thrown, as those before us threw,

'Our shadows on it as it passed away.But mark how chained to the triumphal chairThe mighty phantoms of an elder day;

'All that is mortal of great Plato thereExpiates the joy and woe his master knew not;The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

'And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain,Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

'And near him walk the ... twain,The tutor and his pupil, whom DominionFollowed as tame as vulture in a chain.

'The world was darkened beneath either pinionOf him whom from the flock of conquerorsFame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion;

'The other long outlived both woes and wars,Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had keptThe jealous key of Truth's eternal doors,

'If Bacon's eagle spirit had not leptLike lightning out of darkness--he compelledThe Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

'To wake, and lead him to the caves that heldThe treasure of the secrets of its reign.See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

'The passions which they sung, as by their strainMay well be known: their living melodyTempers its own contagion to the vein

'Of those who are infected with it--IHave suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!And so my words have seeds of misery--

'Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.'And then he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirsOf Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine;The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line,And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad:And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God;Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven,Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched--'Their power was givenBut to destroy,' replied the leader:--'IAm one of those who have created, even

'If it be but a world of agony.'--'Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou?How did thy course begin?' I said, 'and why?

'Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flowOf people, and my heart sick of one sad thought--Speak!'--'Whence I am, I partly seem to know,

'And how and by what paths I have been broughtTo this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;--Why this should be, my mind can compass not;

'Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;--But follow thou, and from spectator turnActor or victim in this wretchedness,

'And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learnFrom thee. Now listen:--In the April prime,When all the forest-tips began to burn

'With kindling green, touched by the azure climeOf the young season, I was laid asleepUnder a mountain, which from unknown time

'Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep;And from it came a gentle rivulet,Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep

'Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wetThe stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the groveWith sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

'All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love,Which they had known before that hour of rest;A sleeping mother then would dream not of

'Her only child who died upon the breastAt eventide--a king would mourn no moreThe crown of which his brows were dispossessed

'When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floorTo gild his rival's new prosperity.'Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore

'Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee,The thought of which no other sleep will quell,Nor other music blot from memory,

'So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell;And whether life had been before that sleepThe Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell

'Like this harsh world in which I woke to weep,I know not. I arose, and for a spaceThe scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,

Though it was now broad day, a gentle traceOf light diviner than the common sunSheds on the common earth, and all the place

'Was filled with magic sounds woven into oneOblivious melody, confusing senseAmid the gliding waves and shadows dun;

'And, as I looked, the bright omnipresenceOf morning through the orient cavern flowed,And the sun's image radiantly intense

'Burned on the waters of the well that glowedLike gold, and threaded all the forest's mazeWith winding paths of emerald fire; there stood

'Amid the sun, as he amid the blazeOf his own glory, on the vibratingFloor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,

'A Shape all light, which with one hand did flingDew on the earth, as if she were the dawn,And the invisible rain did ever sing

'A silver music on the mossy lawn;And still before me on the dusky grass,Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:

'In her right hand she bore a crystal glass,Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendourFell from her as she moved under the mass

'Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender,Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,Glided along the river, and did bend her

'Head under the dark boughs, till like a willowHer fair hair swept the bosom of the streamThat whispered with delight to be its pillow.

'As one enamoured is upborne in dreamO'er lily-paven lakes, mid silver mistTo wondrous music, so this shape might seem

'Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissedThe dancing foam; partly to glide alongThe air which roughened the moist amethyst,

'Or the faint morning beams that fell amongThe trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song

'Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees,And falling drops, moved in a measure newYet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,

'Up from the lake a shape of golden dewBetween two rocks, athwart the rising moon,Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew;

'And still her feet, no less than the sweet tuneTo which they moved, seemed as they moved to blotThe thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon

'All that was, seemed as if it had been not;And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneathHer feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,

'Trampled its sparks into the dust of deathAs day upon the threshold of the eastTreads out the lamps of night, until the breath

'Of darkness re-illumine even the leastOf heaven's living eyes--like day she came,Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased

'To move, as one between desire and shameSuspended, I said--If, as it doth seem,Thou comest from the realm without a name

'Into this valley of perpetual dream,Show whence I came, and where I am, and why--Pass not away upon the passing stream.

'Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply.And as a shut lily stricken by the wandOf dewy morning's vital alchemy,

'I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,And suddenly my brain became as sand

'Where the first wave had more than half erasedThe track of deer on desert Labrador;Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

'Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,Until the second bursts;--so on my sightBurst a new vision, never seen before,

'And the fair shape waned in the coming light,As veil by veil the silent splendour dropsFrom Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

'Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops;And as the presence of that fairest planet,Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

'That his day's path may end as he began it,In that star's smile, whose light is like the scentOf a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,

'Or the soft note in which his dear lamentThe Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caressThat turned his weary slumber to content;

'So knew I in that light's severe excessThe presence of that Shape which on the streamMoved, as I moved along the wilderness,

'More dimly than a day-appearing dream,The host of a forgotten form of sleep;A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam

'Through the sick day in which we wake to weepGlimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost;So did that shape its obscure tenour keep

'Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;But the new Vision, and the cold bright car,With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed

'The forest, and as if from some dread warTriumphantly returning, the loud millionFiercely extolled the fortune of her star.

'A moving arch of victory, the vermilionAnd green and azure plumes of Iris hadBuilt high over her wind-winged pavilion,

'And underneath aethereal glory cladThe wilderness, and far before her flewThe tempest of the splendour, which forbade

'Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crewSeemed in that light, like atomies to danceWithin a sunbeam;--some upon the new

'Embroidery of flowers, that did enhanceThe grassy vesture of the desert, played,Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance;

'Others stood gazing, till within the shadeOf the great mountain its light left them dim;Others outspeeded it; and others made

'Circles around it, like the clouds that swimRound the high moon in a bright sea of air;And more did follow, with exulting hymn,

'The chariot and the captives fettered there:--But all like bubbles on an eddying floodFell into the same track at last, and were

'Borne onward.--I among the multitudeWas swept--me, sweetest flowers delayed not long;Me, not the shadow nor the solitude;

'Me, not that falling stream's Lethean song;Me, not the phantom of that early FormWhich moved upon its motion--but among

'The thickest billows of that living stormI plunged, and bared my bosom to the climeOf that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.

'Before the chariot had begun to climbThe opposing steep of that mysterious dell,Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme

'Of him who from the lowest depths of hell,Through every paradise and through all glory,Love led serene, and who returned to tell

'The words of hate and awe; the wondrous storyHow all things are transfigured except Love;For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,

'The world can hear not the sweet notes that moveThe sphere whose light is melody to lovers--A wonder worthy of his rhyme.--The grove

'Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,The earth was gray with phantoms, and the airWas peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers

'A flock of vampire-bats before the glareOf the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening,Strange night upon some Indian isle;--thus were

'Phantoms diffused around; and some did flingShadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing

'Were lost in the white day; others like elvesDanced in a thousand unimagined shapesUpon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;

'And others sate chattering like restless apesOn vulgar hands,...Some made a cradle of the ermined capes

'Of kingly mantles; some across the tiarOf pontiffs sate like vultures; others playedUnder the crown which girt with empire

'A baby's or an idiot's brow, and madeTheir nests in it. The old anatomiesSate hatching their bare broods under the shade

'Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyesTo reassume the delegated power,Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,

'Who made this earth their charnel. Others moreHumble, like falcons, sate upon the fistOf common men, and round their heads did soar;

Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mistOn evening marshes, thronged about the browOf lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;--

'And others, like discoloured flakes of snowOn fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair,Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

'Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they wereA veil to those from whose faint lids they rainedIn drops of sorrow. I became aware

'Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stainedThe track in which we moved. After brief space,From every form the beauty slowly waned;

'From every firmest limb and fairest faceThe strength and freshness fell like dust, and leftThe action and the shape without the grace

'Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleftWith care; and in those eyes where once hope shone,Desire, like a lioness bereft

'Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each oneOf that great crowd sent forth incessantlyThese shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

'In autumn evening from a poplar tree.Each like himself and like each other wereAt first; but some distorted seemed to be

'Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air;And of this stuff the car's creative rayWrought all the busy phantoms that were there,

'As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the wayMask after mask fell from the countenanceAnd form of all; and long before the day

'Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glanceThe sleepers in the oblivious valley, died;And some grew weary of the ghastly dance,

'And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside;--Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed,And least of strength and beauty did abide.