Part VI

Even as one voice the great sea sang. From outThe green heart of the waters round about,Welled as a bubbling fountain silverlyThe overflowing song of the great sea;Until the Prince, by dint of listening long,Divined the purport of that mystic song;(For so do all things breathe articulate breathInto his ears who rightly harkeneth)And, if indeed he heard that harmonyAright, in this wise came the song of the sea:

"Behold all ye that stricken of love do lie,Wherefore in manacles of a maiden's eyeLead ye the life of bondmen and of slaves?Lo in the caverns and the depths of MeA thousand mermaids dwell beneath the waves:A thousand maidens meet for love have I,Ev'n I the virgin-hearted cold chaste sea.Behold all ye that weary of life do lie,There is no rest at all beneath the skySave in the nethermost deepness of the deep.Only the silence and the midst of MeCan still the sleepless soul that fain would sleep;For such, a cool death and a sweet have I,Ev'n I the crystal-hearted cool sweet sea.Behold all ye that in my lap do lie,To love is sweet and sweeter still to die,And woe to him that laugheth me to scorn!Lo in a little while the anger of MeShall make him mourn the day that he was born:For in mine hour of wrath no ruth have I,Ev'n I the tempest-hearted pitiless sea."

So sang the waters, if indeed 'twere theyThat sang unto the Prince's ears that day,Since in the ship was not a soul besidesCould hear that burden of the voiceful tides;For when he told the sailors of this thing,And ev'n what words the waters seemed to sing,They stared astonishment, and some, that hadMore churlish souls than others, held him mad,And laughed before his face outright. But whenThe captain heard the gossip of his menTouching this marvel, the strange news begotNo merry mood in him, who wist not whatShould be the meaning of the miracle,Nor whether 'twere an omen good or ill.Wherefore the old seafarer--having heardThe tale retold with many an afterwordThe mariners' own most fruitful wit suppliedTo grace the telling--took the Prince aside,And ask'd him sundry questions privilyConcerning this same singing of the sea.So the Prince told him all there was to tell,And when that he had heard, the old man fellTo meditating much, and shook his headAs one exceeding ill at ease, and said,"I doubt the singing thou hast heard was noVoice of the waters billowing below,But rather of some evil spirit near,Who sought with singing to beguile thine ear,Spreading a snare to catch the soul of theeIn meshes of entangling melody,Which taketh captive the weak minds of men.Therefore if thou should'st hear the sound again,Look thou content thee not with hearkening,But cast thine eyes around, and mark what thingThou seëst, and let no man know but me."

So spake the white-haired wanderer of the sea.And on the morrow--when the sealine grewO'erhazed with visible heat, and no wind blew,And the half-stifled morning dropt aswoonInto the panting bosom of the noon--There came into the Prince's ears anewThe song that yestermorn had hearkened to.And lifting up his eyes in hope to seeWhat lips they were that made such melodyAnd filled him with the fulness of their sound,He saw the sun at highest of his roundShow as a shield with one dark bloodstain blurred,By reason of the body of some great birdLike to an eagle, with wide wings outspread,Athwart the sunfire hovering duskly red.So to the master of the ship he toldWhat he had witnessed, bidding him beholdThe marvel with his own eyes if he would;Who, though he strained his vision all he could,Yet might not once endure to look the sunI' the face; and calling to him one by oneThe whole ship's crew, he bade each mariner lookSunward who could, but no man's eyes might brookThe glare upon them of the noontide raysAnd lidless fervour of that golden gaze:So none of them beheld the bodeful bird.

Then said the greybeard captain, hardly heardAmid the babble of voices great and small,"The bird thou seëst is no bird at all,But some unholy spirit in guise of one;And I do fear that we are all undoneIf any amongst us hearken to its voice;--For of its mouth, I doubt not, was the noiseThou heardest as of dulcet carolling,When at thine ear the waters seemed to sing."

And truly, many a wiser man than heHerein had farther strayed from verity;For that great bird that seemed to fan the sun'sFace with its wings was even the same as onceFlew screaming westward o'er the Prince's head,Beguiling him to follow where it fled.And bird it was not, but a spirit of ill,Man-hating, and of mankind hated still,And slave to one yet mightier demon-spriteWhose dwelling is the shadow of the night.

So the days passed, and always on the nextThe bird-sprite like a baleful vision vexedThe happy-hearted sunlight; and each timeIts false sweet song was wedded to the rhymeAnd chime of wind and wave--although it droppedAs honey changed to music--the Prince stoppedHis ears, and would not hear; and so the Sprite,Seeing his charmèd songcraft of no mightHim to ensnare who hearkened not at all,On the tenth day with dreadful noise let fallA tempest shaken from the wings of him,Whereat the eyes of heaven wox thunderous-dim,Till the day-darkness blinded them, and fellHolding the world in night unseasonable.And from his beakèd mouth the demon blewA breath as of a hundred winds, and flewDownward aswoop upon the labouring bark,And, covered of the blear untimely Dark,Clutch'd with his gripple claws the Prince his prey,And backward through the tempest soared away,Bearing that royal burden; and his eyesWere wandering wells of lightning to the skies.

Long time the Prince was held in swound, and knewNor outer world nor inner, as they flewFrom darkness unto darkness; till at last--The fierce flight over, and his body castSomewhere alone in a strange place--the lifeStirred in him faintly, as at feeble strifeWith covetous Death for ownership of him.And 'fore his eyes the world began to swimAll vague, and doubtful as a dream that liesFolded within another, petal-wise.And therewithal himself but half believedHis own eyes' testimony, and perceivedThe things that were about him as who hearsA distant music throbbing toward his earsAt noontide, in a flowery hollow of June,And listens till he knows not if the tuneAnd he be one or twain, or near or far,But only feels that sound and perfume are,And tremulous light and leafy umbrage: soThe Prince beheld unknowing, nor fain to know.

About him was a ruinous fair place,Which Time, who still delighteth to abaseThe highest, and throw down what men do build,With splendid prideful barrenness had filled,And dust of immemorial dreams, and breathOf silence, which is next of kin to death.A weedy wilderness it seemed, that wasIn days forepast a garden, but the grassGrew now where once the flowers, and hard byA many-throated fountain had run dryWhich erst all day a web of rainbows woveOut of the body of the sun its love.And but a furlong's space beyond, there toweredIn middest of that silent realm defloweredA palace builded of black marble, whenceThe shadow of a swart magnificenceFalling, upon the outer space begotA dream of darkness when the night was not.Which while the Prince beheld, a wondermentLaid hold upon him, that he rose and wentToward the palace-portico apace,Thinking to read the riddle of the place.And entering in (for open was the door)From hall to hall he passed, from floor to floor,Through all the spacious house, and (saving whereThe subtile spider had his darksome lair)No living creature could he find in it.Howbeit, by certain writing that was writUpon the wall of one dark room and bare,He guessed that some great sorcerer had thereInhabited, a slave to his own lustOf evil power and knowledge, till the dustReceived his dust, and darkness had his soul;But ere death took him he had willed the wholeOf his possessions to a Spirit of Ill,His sometime mate in commerce damnable,Making him lord of that high house, whereinThe twain had sealed their covenant of sin.

With that a horror smote the Prince, and fainWould he have fled that evil spirit's domainAnd shook its dust from off his feet that hour.But from a window of the topmost towerViewing the dim-leaved wilderness without,Full plainly he perceived it hemmed aboutWith waves, an island of the middle sea,In watery barriers bound insuperably;And human habitation saw he none,Nor heard one bird a-singing in the sunTo lighten the intolerable stressOf utter undisputed silentness.

So by these signs he knew himself the thrallOf that foul spirit unseen, and therewithalWholly unfellowed in captivity,Bound round with fetters of the tyrannous sea.And sick for very loneliness, he passedDownward through galleries and chambers vastTo one wide hall wherefrom a vestibuleOpened into a dim green space and cool,Where great trees grew that various fruitage boreThe like whereof he had not seen before,And hard by was a well of water sweet;And being anhungered he did pluck and eatThe strange fair fruit, and being athirst did drinkThe water, and lay down beside the brink;Till sleep, as one that droppeth from the skies,Dropt down, and made a mist about his eyes.