The Witch of Atlas

Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birthIncestuous Change bore to her father Time,Error and Truth, had hunted from the EarthAll those bright natures which adorned its prime,And left us nothing to believe in, worthThe pains of putting into learned rhyme,A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountainWithin a cavern, by a secret fountain.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides:The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholdenIn his wide voyage o'er continents and seasSo fair a creature, as she lay enfoldenIn the warm shadow of her loveliness;--He kissed her with his beams, and made all goldenThe chamber of gray rock in which she lay--She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,Round the red west when the sun dies in it:And then into a meteor, such as caperOn hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:Then, into one of those mysterious starsWhich hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

Ten times the Mother of the Months had bentHer bow beside the folding-star, and biddenWith that bright sign the billows to indentThe sea-deserted sand--like children chidden,At her command they ever came and went--Since in that cave a dewy splendour hiddenTook shape and motion: with the living formOf this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.

A lovely lady garmented in lightFrom her own beauty--deep her eyes, as areTwo openings of unfathomable nightSeen through a Temple's cloven roof--her hairDark--the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight.Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,And her low voice was heard like love, and drewAll living things towards this wonder new.

And first the spotted cameleopard came,And then the wise and fearless elephant;Then the sly serpent, in the golden flameOf his own volumes intervolved;--all gauntAnd sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.They drank before her at her sacred fount;And every beast of beating heart grew bold,Such gentleness and power even to behold.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,That she might teach them how they should foregoTheir inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrungHis sinews at her feet, and sought to knowWith looks whose motions spoke without a tongueHow he might be as gentle as the doe.The magic circle of her voice and eyesAll savage natures did imparadise.

And old Silenus, shaking a green stickOf lilies, and the wood-gods in a crewCame, blithe, as in the olive copses thickCicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,Teasing the God to sing them something new;Till in this cave they found the lady lone,Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there,And though none saw him,--through the adamantOf the deep mountains, through the trackless air,And through those living spirits, like a want,He passed out of his everlasting lairWhere the quick heart of the great world doth pant,And felt that wondrous lady all alone,--And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks,Who drives her white waves over the green sea,And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,And quaint Priapus with his company,All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocksCould have brought forth so beautiful a birth;--Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant--Their spirits shook within them, as a flameStirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as hauntWet clefts,--and lumps neither alive nor dead,Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

For she was beautiful--her beauty madeThe bright world dim, and everything besideSeemed like the fleeting image of a shade:No thought of living spirit could abide,Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,On any object in the world so wide,On any hope within the circling skies,But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

Which when the lady knew, she took her spindleAnd twined three threads of fleecy mist, and threeLong lines of light, such as the dawn may kindleThe clouds and waves and mountains with; and sheAs many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindleIn the belated moon, wound skilfully;And with these threads a subtle veil she wove--A shadow for the splendour of her love.

The deep recesses of her odorous dwellingWere stored with magic treasures--sounds of air,Which had the power all spirits of compelling,Folded in cells of crystal silence there;Such as we hear in youth, and think the feelingWill never die--yet ere we are aware,The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,And the regret they leave remains alone.

And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faintWith the soft burthen of intensest bliss.It was its work to bear to many a saintWhose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,Even Love's:--and others white, green, gray, and black,And of all shapes--and each was at her beck.

And odours in a kind of aviaryOf ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick FairyHad woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;As bats at the wired window of a dairy,They beat their vans; and each was an adept,When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.

And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful mightCould medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,And change eternal death into a nightOf glorious dreams--or if eyes needs must weep,Could make their tears all wonder and delight,She in her crystal vials did closely keep:If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis saidThe living were not envied of the dead.

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,The works of some Saturnian Archimage,Which taught the expiations at whose priceMen from the Gods might win that happy ageToo lightly lost, redeeming native vice;And which might quench the Earth-consuming rageOf gold and blood--till men should live and moveHarmonious as the sacred stars above;

And how all things that seem untameable,Not to be checked and not to be confined,Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill;Time, earth, and fire--the ocean and the wind,And all their shapes--and man's imperial will;And other scrolls whose writings did unbindThe inmost lore of Love--let the profaneTremble to ask what secrets they contain.

And wondrous works of substances unknown,To which the enchantment of her father's powerHad changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shoneIn their own golden beams--each like a flower,Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his lightUnder a cypress in a starless night.

At first she lived alone in this wild home,And her own thoughts were each a minister,Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,To work whatever purposes might comeInto her mind; such power her mighty SireHad girt them with, whether to fly or run,Through all the regions which he shines upon.

The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,Offered to do her bidding through the seas,Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,And far beneath the matted roots of trees,And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,So they might live for ever in the lightOf her sweet presence--each a satellite.

'This may not be,' the wizard maid replied;'The fountains where the Naiades bedewTheir shining hair, at length are drained and dried;The solid oaks forget their strength, and strewTheir latest leaf upon the mountains wide;The boundless ocean like a drop of dewWill be consumed--the stubborn centre mustBe scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.

'And ye with them will perish, one by one;--If I must sigh to think that this shall be,If I must weep when the surviving SunShall smile on your decay--oh, ask not meTo love you till your little race is run;I cannot die as ye must--over meYour leaves shall glance--the streams in which ye dwellShall be my paths henceforth, and so--farewell!'--

She spoke and wept:--the dark and azure wellSparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,And every little circlet where they fellFlung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheresAnd intertangled lines of light:--a knellOf sobbing voices came upon her earsFrom those departing Forms, o'er the sereneOf the white streams and of the forest green.

All day the wizard lady sate aloof,Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;Or broidering the pictured poesyOf some high tale upon her growing woof,Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dyeIn hues outshining heaven--and ever sheAdded some grace to the wrought poesy.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a pieceOf sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is--Each flame of it is as a precious stoneDissolved in ever-moving light, and thisBelongs to each and all who gaze upon.The Witch beheld it not, for in her handShe held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

This lady never slept, but lay in tranceAll night within the fountain--as in sleep.Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance;Through the green splendour of the water deepShe saw the constellations reel and danceLike fire-flies--and withal did ever keepThe tenour of her contemplations calm,With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descendedFrom the white pinnacles of that cold hill,She passed at dewfall to a space extended,Where in a lawn of flowering asphodelAmid a wood of pines and cedars blended,There yawned an inextinguishable wellOf crimson fire--full even to the brim,And overflowing all the margin trim.

Within the which she lay when the fierce warOf wintry winds shook that innocuous liquorIn many a mimic moon and bearded starO'er woods and lawns;--the serpent heard it flickerIn sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar--And when the windless snow descended thickerThan autumn leaves, she watched it as it cameMelt on the surface of the level flame.

She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wroughtFor Venus, as the chariot of her star;But it was found too feeble to be fraughtWith all the ardours in that sphere which are,And so she sold it, and Apollo boughtAnd gave it to this daughter: from a carChanged to the fairest and the lightest boatWhich ever upon mortal stream did float.

And others say, that, when but three hours old,The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,And like a horticultural adept,Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,And sowed it in his mother's star, and keptWatering it all the summer with sweet dew,And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flowerFell, and the long and gourd-like fruit beganTo turn the light and dew by inward powerTo its own substance; woven tracery ranOf light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'erThe solid rind, like a leaf's veined fan--Of which Love scooped this boat--and with soft motionPiloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

This boat she moored upon her fount, and litA living spirit within all its frame,Breathing the soul of swiftness into it.Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit--Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame--Or on blind Homer's heart a winged thought,--In joyous expectation lay the boat.

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snowTogether, tempering the repugnant massWith liquid love--all things together growThrough which the harmony of love can pass;And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow--A living Image, which did far surpassIn beauty that bright shape of vital stoneWhich drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

A sexless thing it was, and in its growthIt seemed to have developed no defectOf either sex, yet all the grace of both,--In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,The countenance was such as might selectSome artist that his skill should never die,Imaging forth such perfect purity.

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere:She led her creature to the boiling springsWhere the light boat was moored, and said: 'Sit here!'And pointed to the prow, and took her seatBeside the rudder, with opposing feet.

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast,Around their inland islets, and amidThe panther-peopled forests whose shade castDarkness and odours, and a pleasure hidIn melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;By many a star-surrounded pyramidOf icy crag cleaving the purple sky,And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

The silver noon into that winding dell,With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell;A green and glowing light, like that which dropsFrom folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;Between the severed mountains lay on high,Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky.

And ever as she went, the Image layWith folded wings and unawakened eyes;And o'er its gentle countenance did playThe busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay,And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighsInhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

And ever down the prone vale, like a cloudUpon a stream of wind, the pinnace went:Now lingering on the pools, in which abodeThe calm and darkness of the deep contentIn which they paused; now o'er the shallow roadOf white and dancing waters, all besprentWith sand and polished pebbles:--mortal boatIn such a shallow rapid could not float.

And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiverTheir snow-like waters into golden air,Or under chasms unfathomable everSepulchre them, till in their rage they tearA subterranean portal for the river,It fled--the circling sunbows did upbearIts fall down the hoar precipice of spray,Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

And when the wizard lady would ascendThe labyrinths of some many-winding vale,Which to the inmost mountain upward tend--She called 'Hermaphroditus!'--and the paleAnd heavy hue which slumber could extendOver its lips and eyes, as on the galeA rapid shadow from a slope of grass,Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,With stars of fire spotting the stream below;And from above into the Sun's dominionsFlinging a glory, like the golden glowIn which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,All interwoven with fine feathery snowAnd moonlight splendour of intensest rime,With which frost paints the pines in winter time.

And then it winnowed the Elysian airWhich ever hung about that lady bright,With its aethereal vans--and speeding there,Like a star up the torrent of the night,Or a swift eagle in the morning glareBreasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

The water flashed, like sunlight by the prowOf a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven;The still air seemed as if its waves did flowIn tempest down the mountains; loosely drivenThe lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro:Beneath, the billows having vainly strivenIndignant and impetuous, roared to feelThe swift and steady motion of the keel.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,Or in the noon of interlunar night,The lady-witch in visions could not chainHer spirit; but sailed forth under the lightOf shooting stars, and bade extend amainIts storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;She to the Austral waters took her way,Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,--

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven,Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,With the Antarctic constellations paven,Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake--There she would build herself a windless havenOut of the clouds whose moving turrets makeThe bastions of the storm, when through the skyThe spirits of the tempest thundered by:

A haven beneath whose translucent floorThe tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,And around which the solid vapours hoar,Based on the level waters, to the skyLifted their dreadful crags, and like a shoreOf wintry mountains, inaccessiblyHemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,And hanging crags, many a cove and bay.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lashOf the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,And the incessant hail with stony clashPloughed up the waters, and the flagging wingOf the roused cormorant in the lightning flashLooked like the wreck of some wind-wanderingFragment of inky thunder-smoke--this havenWas as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,--

On which that lady played her many pranks,Circling the image of a shooting star,Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banksOutspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,In her light boat; and many quips and cranksShe played upon the water, till the carOf the late moon, like a sick matron wan,To journey from the misty east began.

And then she called out of the hollow turretsOf those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,The armies of her ministering spirits--In mighty legions, million after million,They came, each troop emblazoning its meritsOn meteor flags; and many a proud pavilionOf the intertexture of the atmosphereThey pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

They framed the imperial tent of their great QueenOf woven exhalations, underlaidWith lambent lightning-fire, as may be seenA dome of thin and open ivory inlaidWith crimson silk--cressets from the sereneHung there, and on the water for her treadA tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caughtUpon those wandering isles of aery dew,Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not,She sate, and heard all that had happened newBetween the earth and moon, since they had broughtThe last intelligence--and now she grewPale as that moon, lost in the watery night--And now she wept, and now she laughed outright.

These were tame pleasures; she would often climbThe steepest ladder of the crudded rackUp to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,And like Arion on the dolphin's backRide singing through the shoreless air;--oft-timeFollowing the serpent lightning's winding track,She ran upon the platforms of the wind,And laughed to bear the fire-balls roar behind.

And sometimes to those streams of upper airWhich whirl the earth in its diurnal round,She would ascend, and win the spirits thereTo let her join their chorus. Mortals foundThat on those days the sky was calm and fair,And mystic snatches of harmonious soundWandered upon the earth where'er she passed,And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,To glide adown old Nilus, where he threadsEgypt and Aethiopia, from the steepOf utmost Axume, until he spreads,Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,His waters on the plain: and crested headsOf cities and proud temples gleam amid,And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes,Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,Or charioteering ghastly alligators,Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakesOf those huge forms--within the brazen doorsOf the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

And where within the surface of the riverThe shadows of the massy temples lie,And never are erased--but tremble everLike things which every cloud can doom to die,Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoeverThe works of man pierced that serenest skyWith tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delightTo wander in the shadow of the night.

With motion like the spirit of that windWhose soft step deepens slumber, her light feetPassed through the peopled haunts of humankind.Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth minedWith many a dark and subterranean streetUnder the Nile, through chambers high and deepShe passed, observing mortals in their sleep.

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to seeMortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep.Here lay two sister twins in infancy;There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;Within, two lovers linked innocentlyIn their loose locks which over both did creepLike ivy from one stem;--and there lay calmOld age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,Not to be mirrored in a holy song--Distortions foul of supernatural awe,And pale imaginings of visioned wrong;And all the code of Custom's lawless lawWritten upon the brows of old and young:'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the strifeWhich stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'

And little did the sight disturb her soul.--We, the weak mariners of that wide lakeWhere'er its shores extend or billows roll,Our course unpiloted and starless makeO'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:--But she in the calm depths her way could take,Where in bright bowers immortal forms abideBeneath the weltering of the restless tide.

And she saw princes couched under the glowOf sunlike gems; and round each temple-courtIn dormitories ranged, row after row,She saw the priests asleep--all of one sort--For all were educated to be so.--The peasants in their huts, and in the portThe sailors she saw cradled on the waves,And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves.

And all the forms in which those spirits layWere to her sight like the diaphanousVeils, in which those sweet ladies oft arrayTheir delicate limbs, who would conceal from usOnly their scorn of all concealment: theyMove in the light of their own beauty thus.But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

She, all those human figures breathing there,Beheld as living spirits--to her eyesThe naked beauty of the soul lay bare,And often through a rude and worn disguiseShe saw the inner form most bright and fair--And then she had a charm of strange device,Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone,Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have givenFor such a charm when Tithon became gray?Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heavenWouldst thou have yielded, ere ProserpinaHad half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgivenWhich dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,To any witch who would have taught you it?The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

'Tis said in after times her spirit freeKnew what love was, and felt itself alone--But holy Dian could not chaster beBefore she stooped to kiss Endymion,Than now this lady--like a sexless beeTasting all blossoms, and confined to none,Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maidenPassed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

To those she saw most beautiful, she gaveStrange panacea in a crystal bowl:--They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave,And lived thenceforward as if some control,Mightier than life, were in them; and the graveOf such, when death oppressed the weary soul,Was as a green and overarching bowerLit by the gems of many a starry flower.

For on the night when they were buried, sheRestored the embalmers' ruining, and shookThe light out of the funeral lamps, to beA mimic day within that deathy nook;And she unwound the woven imageryOf second childhood's swaddling bands, and tookThe coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

And there the body lay, age after age.Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying,Like one asleep in a green hermitage,With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,And living in its dreams beyond the rageOf death or life; while they were still arrayingIn liveries ever new, the rapid, blindAnd fleeting generations of mankind.

And she would write strange dreams upon the brainOf those who were less beautiful, and makeAll harsh and crooked purposes more vainThan in the desert is the serpent's wakeWhich the sand covers--all his evil gainThe miser in such dreams would rise and shakeInto a beggar's lap;--the lying scribeWould his own lies betray without a bribe.

The priests would write an explanation full,Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,How the God Apis really was a bull,And nothing more; and bid the herald stickThe same against the temple doors, and pullThe old cant down; they licensed all to speakWhate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,By pastoral letters to each diocese.

The king would dress an ape up in his crownAnd robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,And on the right hand of the sunlike throneWould place a gaudy mock-bird to repeatThe chatterings of the monkey.--Every oneOf the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feetOf their great Emperor, when the morning came,And kissed--alas, how many kiss the same!

The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, andWalked out of quarters in somnambulism;Round the red anvils you might see them standLike Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,Beating their swords to ploughshares;--in a bandThe gaolers sent those of the liberal schismFree through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,To the annoyance of king Amasis.

And timid lovers who had been so coy,They hardly knew whether they loved or not,Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;And when next day the maiden and the boyMet one another, both, like sinners caught,Blushed at the thing which each believed was doneOnly in fancy--till the tenth moon shone;

And then the Witch would let them take no ill:Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,The Witch found one,--and so they took their fillOf happiness in marriage warm and kind.Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,Were torn apart--a wide wound, mind from mind!--She did unite again with visions clearOf deep affection and of truth sincere.

These were the pranks she played among the citiesOf mortal men, and what she did to SpritesAnd Gods, entangling them in her sweet dittiesTo do her will, and show their subtle sleights,I will declare another time; for it isA tale more fit for the weird winter nightsThan for these garish summer days, when weScarcely believe much more than we can see.