ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{The City of Dream 1888}

                                                                                                                                                                   141

BOOK VIII.

THE OUTCAST, ESAU.

O DREARY dawn! from drearier dreams I woke,
And found it gently creeping through the pane
And shedding dusky silver on the floor;
Whereon I rose, and slipping down the stairs,
From chilly gallery to gallery
I stole until I reach’d the ghostly hall;
Yet, early as it was, Host Moth was up
And shivering in his slippers at the door,
For folk were bearing in upon a bier
A ragged woman and her newborn child,
Both dead, found frozen on the waste hard by,
And the lean host was chiding querulously,
Bidding them take their ghastly load elsewhere,
Nor mar his custom with a sight so sad;—
So intent was he, he scarcely seem’d to heed
My greeting, but he clutch’d with eager hand
The reckoning I tost him as I pass’d.

Then out again upon the dreary waste                                                 142
I passed slow-footed, while a chilly wind
Blew up along the black horizon line
Dusk streaks of crimson like dead burnish’d leaves,
And through their fluttering folds a gusty film
Sparkled and melted into crystal dew.
Then I was ’ware that straight across the waste
There ran a dreary and an open way,
With gloomy reaches of the sunless moor,
And lonely tarns alive with ominous light,
Stretching on either side; and by the tarns
The bittern boom’d and the gray night-hern cried,
And high in air against the dreary gleam
A string of black swans waver’d to the south;
But presently, as the dull daylight grew,
I encounter’d men and women on the road
Coming and going; all were closely wrapt,
With eyes that sought the ground, but some strode by
With frowning brows and haggard sleepless eyes:
A melancholy race they seem’d indeed
Of toilers on the moorland and the marsh.
One I accosted, a tall, woeful man,
Gaunt, clad in rags, and shivering in the cold,
And question’d of the City and whither led
That dreary open way; and for a space
He answer’d not, but as a dumb man tries
With foam-froth’d tongue to gather shreds of speech,                         143
Stood muttering, with his blank eyes gazing at me
In wonder, but at last he found a voice.

THE MAN.

A City, master? Nay, I know of none,
And in this country I was born and bred.

THE PILGRIM.

But whither runs this road across the waste?

THE MAN.

Far as a man may walk until he drops,
And farther, league on league of loneliness.
It leadeth—whither I know not, since my toil
Keepeth me busy here upon the heath;
But yonder to the right a rugged path
Winds to the mountains, where, I have heard, there dwells
A race of moonstruck madmen, mountaineers.

THE PILGRIM.

Alas! and toilest thou upon the ground,
Nor seekest to be wandering far away,
Upward and heavenward to the radiant place
Where stands the City of God?

                                                                                                         144

THE MAN.

                                                   I know not God,
Nor any City of so strange a name;
Yet I have often heard my granddam tell
(When I was but a child) of some bright place
Where folk might cease their weary work and rest;
But, master, she died mad! My father saith,
Who reared me up and made me toil for bread,
That they are mad folk too who pass this way,
Clad like thyself in pilgrim’s robes and shoon,
Seeking that City and calling out on God.

I left him standing like a marble man,
With humbled head and heavily hanging brow,
And wander’d on; and when my weary feet
Had gone a little space, I backward gazed,
And saw him gazing dumbly after me
With vacant eyeballs; and the daylight grew;
And many others pass’d with looks as dull,
Faces as blank, and tread as sorrowful,
And all seem’d little cheer’d by the dim dawn,
But crawl’d to some dark taskwork on the waste;
But some that pass’d on horseback carried loads
Of corn and gold, as to some dreary mart.

Deep darkness seal’d mine eyelids for a time,                                    145
And when they open’d, opening still in dream,
Amid mysterious shadows drifting by
Confused and imageless, methought my form
Now shone deep hidden, like a stormy moon;
And fast I seem’d to fly, as seems the moon
Through the swift tempest-rack to plough her way,
Yet stirs not, but beholds the vaporous drift
Floating and flying round her luminous feet.
Nor could my troubled eyes distinguish well
What land I walk’d in, or to what far bourne
My slow feet fared, though dimly I discern’d
A weary waste it was without a road,
Figure of man, or sign of any star.

Meseem’d that weary years had pass’d away
Since first upon that lonely waste I fared,
For ever struggling, yet for evermore
As stationary as the storm-vex’d moon;
And endless seem’d the heavy space of time.
At last, as in the growing light of day
The night-clouds thin, and in white wreaths of smoke,
Soon kindled into crimson, float away,
The shadows that across me darkly stream’d
Grew fainter, melted, brighten’d, and dissolved,                                   146
Till every shade was fled, the prospect clear,
And once again I paused upon the path,
Standing and gazing round me, solitary,
’Mid dusky gleams of dawn.

                                               Now, far away
I saw the flashing of Christopolis
Bright and remote as is a phantom city
Seen in the sunset, and as sunset towers
Crumble to golden vapour and are lost
Strangely and quickly of their own bright will,
So flash’d the holy City’s walls and spires
Dissolved by distance. ’Tween Christopolis
And my now lingering feet stretch’d waste on waste,
Weary, forlorn, abandon’d, without bound,
With never wood or gentle cynosure,
Or flash of silver stream, or human dwelling,
To break its infinite monotony.
There had I linger’d, thence my feet had fared,
I knew not how; for all the way was dark
Behind me, dim the sense and memory,
And dimly sad; and all my wandering thither
Was like an evil ill-remember’d dream
Nor yet of that forlornest solitude
My feet were free, for round about me still                                          147
Its dreary prospect dawn’d.
                                               While thus I stood
Dejected, leaning heavy on my staff,
I faintly heard, far off across the heath,
The sound of horse’s hoofs, which ever came
Nearer and nearer; till mine eyes beheld
Approaching, swift as any storm-swept cloud,
A horseman with his wild hair backward streaming,
His hands outreaching o’er his horse’s mane;
Quickly he came, and from the ground beneath
Shot sparks of fire, for mighty was his steed
Beyond all common steeds that stride the earth,
Maned like a comet, and as black as clouds
That blot a comet’s path;
And though its back was bare and ’tween its teeth
It bare no bit, most tamely it obey’d
The white hand twisted in its trembling mane;
And ever with its bright eye backward flashing
Neigh’d to the murmur of its rider’s mouth,
And ever sprang more swiftly on and on
The more his hand caress’d. Onward it came;
And now I saw that he who strode the steed
Was slight and white and woman-like of form,
Though on his pallid cheek there burn’d resolve
Of mighty men; and his blue eye was fix’d                                          148
On vacancy, so that he noted not
The figure of the Pilgrim on his way;
And he was flashing past with fair face set
Like any star, when with one mighty bound
The steed leapt back, its nostrils flashing fire,
And striking up the sward with horny hoofs
Stood quivering. Starting from his trance, like one
Shaken from quiet sleep, the rider turn’d
His face on mine, and, lo, that face was stern
In pallor, and his dove-like eye became
Keen as an eagle’s fix’d upon its prey.
‘What man art thou?’ he question’d; and I said,
Dejected, sick from very weariness,
Scarce lifting up my head, ‘See for thyself!
A Pilgrim well-nigh spent!’
                                             The horseman’s face
Grew brighter, though he laugh’d a bitter laugh,
Then leaping from his seat but holding still
His black steed’s mane, quickly across the ground
He pass’d, and coming close he gazed for long
Into my face; then lightly laugh’d again,
Saying, ‘Well met! Methinks I know thee now,
Or else thy dreary cheek belies thy soul—
Thou comest from Christopolis! How now?
Hast thou been stoned i’ the town, and have thy robes                        149
Been rent, and thou cast forth beyond the gate?
Answer, and fear not! I who question thus
Am outcast like thyself.’
                                         Then did I tell,
In hurried accents panting out my pain,
My hope, my dream, my weary life-long quest,
And all my sorrow in Christopolis;
And how for many days and nights my feet
Had struggled in the darkness of the waste;
And how my light was lost, my strength nigh spent,
My path all solitary; yea, how no Christ
Could bring me comfort, and no God at all
Could bring me peace—‘Because,’ I murmur’d low,
‘My heart is dead!’
                                 Again that stranger laugh’d,
And, answering him, the jet-black steed threw up
His head and through great nostrils neigh’d aloud.
Then cried he, ‘Toiler on the ground, too low
Thou crawlest, even as a creeping thing.
But knowest thou me?’ Whereon I answer’d, ‘Nay,’
And looking up more eagerly, beheld
The light of starry eyes that shook with dew                                       150
Of their exceeding lustre, wondrously.

Then the clear voice, in accents sweet as song,
Cried, ‘Christ they crucified, and thee they stoned,
And me they would have given to the fire—
Esau am I, call’d even after him
Whom smooth sly Jacob of his birthright robb’d
In times of old. Another Jacob sits
In the high places of Christopolis,
Eating my substance. Long ago I rode
Into their Temples, overcasting them
Who at the bloody altars minister’d;
And in their market-places I proclaim’d
Their god an idol and their creed a lie;
And in the madness of mine own despair
Wassail I held, with lemans at my side,
In the dark centre of their midmost shrine,
And there they found me and shrieking “Anti-Christ!”
They would have slain me, but my steed was nigh,
And on his back I sprang with laugh full shrill,
Trampled their priests as dust beneath my feet,
And through their dark throngs plunged, till once again
On the fair waste I wander’d.’                                                           151
                                                                 Then I said,
‘Where dwellest thou?’
                 ‘Where doth the swift wind dwell,
That on the high places and on the low,
Homeless for ever, ever is found and lost?
Even as the wind am I; the lonely woods,
The torrents, the great solitary meres,
Know me, and through their solitude I sail
Even as amid the tempest sails the crane.
All these have voices, crying as I pass
Compassionless, alone; and from their speech
And silent looks I have drunk deeper joy
Than ever in any temple rear’d by hands
The soul of man hath known. Wilt ride with me?
O Pilgrim, wilt thou ride?’
                                       So saying, he sprang
Again upon his mighty sinewy steed,
Which leapt for very joy beneath his weight,
And holding out his white hand eagerly,
He murmur’d, ‘Come!’ Then cried I, hesitating,
‘But whither? Knowest thou that fair City I seek,
Or any place of peace?’
                                       ‘Ask not, but come,’
Answer’d that other, while his black steed rear’d
In act to paw the air and bound along—
And ere I knew it I had ta’en the hand,                                                152
And leaping on the steed was clinging tight
To that pale horseman, who with wild laugh cried,
‘Away! away!’
                           As from a tense-strung bow
Whistles the wingèd shaft, or as a star
Shoots into space, the sable steed upleapt
And bounded on; so swift its fiery speed,
That to its rider pale I clung in fear,
While underneath I saw the billowy heath
Rush by me like a boiling whirling tide.
I seem’d as one uplifted high in air,
Sailing through ever-drifting clouds, between
The regions of the flower and of the star,
And for a time my head swam dizzily
And in a trance of speed I closed mine eyes.
Then in mine ears I seem’d to hear the rush
Of many winds, the cry of many streams,
The crash of many clouds; yet evermore
I felt the beating of the horse’s hoofs
Beneath me, and its breathing like the sound
Of fire blown from a forge.
                                             At first my soul
Shrunk trembling, but betimes a new desire
Uprose within my heart and in mine eyes
Soon sparkled while they open’d gazing round;                                  153
And I beheld with wild ecstatic thrills
New prospects flashing past as dark as dream:
For through a mighty wood of firs and pines
Shapen like harps, wherefrom the rising wind
Drew wails of wild and wondrous melody,
The steed was speeding; and the stars had risen,
Cold-sparkling through the jet-black naked boughs;
And far before us in our headlong track
Great torrents flash’d round gash’d and gaunt ravines;
And higher glimmer’d rocks and crags and peaks,
O’er which, with blood-red beams, ’mid driving clouds
The windy moon was rising.
                                               Once again,
I question’d, looking on the rider’s face
Which glimmer’d in the moonlight dim as death,
‘Whither, O whither?’
                                     And the answer came,
Not in cold speech or chilly undertone,
But musically, in a wild strange song,
To which the sobbing of the torrents round,
The moaning of the wind among the pines,
The beating of the horse’s thunderous feet,
Kept strange accord.

                                                                                                         154

Winds of the mountain, mingle with my crying,
Clouds of the tempest, flee as I am flying,
Gods of the cloudland, Christus and Apollo,
                   Follow, O follow!

Through the dark valleys, up the misty mountains,
Over the black wastes, past the gleaming fountains,
Praying not, hoping not, resting nor abiding,
                   Lo, I am riding!

Who now shall name me? who shall find and bind me?
Daylight before me, and darkness behind me,
E’en as a black crane down the winds of heaven
                   Fast I am driven.

Clangour and anger of elements are round me,
Torture has clasp’d me, cruelty has crown’d me,
Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her—
                   Fast speed I thither!

Not ’neath the greenwood, not where roses blossom,
Not on the green vale on a loving bosom,
Not on the sea-sands, not across the billow,
                   Seek I a pillow!

Gods of the storm-cloud, drifting darkly yonder,
Point fiery hands and mock me as I wander,
Gods of the forest glimmer out upon me,
                   Shrink back and shun me!

Gods, let them follow!—gods, for I defy them!                                  155
They call me, mock me; but I gallop by them—
If they would find me, touch me, whisper to me,
                   Let them pursue me!

Faster, O faster! Darker and more dreary
Groweth the pathway, yet I am not weary—
Gods, I defy them! gods, I can unmake them,
                   Bruise them and break them!

White steed of wonder, with thy feet of thunder,
Find out their temples, tread their high-priests under,—
Leave them behind thee—if their gods speed after,
                   Mock them with laughter.

Who standeth yonder, in white raiment reaching
Down to His bare feet? Who stands there beseeching?
Hark how He crieth, beck’ning with his finger,
                   ‘Linger, O linger!’

Shall a god grieve me? shall a phantom win me?
Nay—by the wild wind around and o’er and in me—
Be his name Vishnu, Christus, or Apollo—
                   Let the god follow!

Clangour and anger of elements are round me,
Torture has clasp’d me, cruelty has crown’d me,
Sorrow awaits me, Death is waiting with her —
                   Fast speed I thither!

                                                 And as the singer sang,                     156
Dark hooded creatures, moving through the woods
In black processions, paused and echoed him;
And on their faces fell the livid light,
While to the wind-blown boughs they lifted hands;
And from the torrent’s bed a spirit shriek’d
With eldritch cry. Still the black steed plunged on,
And as it went it seem’d that spectral hands
Were stretch’d to tear its rider from his seat,
But laughing low he urged his eager steed,
And from his beauty those frail phantoms fell
Like flakes of cloud blown into gleaming air
By the soft breathing of some patient star.
Then upward, through the desolate ravines,
Past flashing cataracts and torrent pools,
Along dim ledges that in silence lean’d
O’er horrible abysses dimly lit
By mirror’d moons, the horseman held his way,
Until he came unto a lonely sward
As bright and green as verdure softly trod
By elfin feet, which high among the crags
Stretch’d in the moonlight. Like some abbey old
Around whose crumbling walls and buttresses
The ivy frosted white by moonlight twines,
And whose deep floor of deep green grass is rough
With fragments of old shrines and mossy graves,
This lone spot seem’d; for round the stone-strewn grass                      157
The dark crags rose like builded walls and towers
All dark and desolate and ivy twined,
And through the open arches overhead
The moon and stars shone in.
                                               Here from his seat,
(While I, too, leapt upon the grassy ground,)
Dark Esau lighted, and relinquishing
His grasp upon the mighty horse’s mane,
Cried: ‘Feed thy fill!’ and o’er the silvern grass,
Casting a shade gigantic, slowly walk’d
The black steed, feeding gently as it went.
‘Behold my Temple!’ upward pointing cried
That pallid wanderer—‘hark how the wind
Intoneth with deep organ-voice amid
These ivied lofts, and see how wondrously
With spectral hand that white moon lifts the Host!
Hither, when I am sick of wandering
Like some dark spirit up and down the earth,
I come by night, and pant my passing prayer
To Him who made the tempest which ere long
Shall gnaw the heartstrings of Christopolis!
Hither the white Christ comes not, nor His priests,
Nor any feet of slaves; and here thy soul                                              158
May rest a space and worship at its will
Whatever god thou choosest, or indeed,
May make an idol of its own despair,
And kneeling, pray to that!’
                                           The wild wind wail’d,
The dark clouds drifted even as driving waves
Over the moon, while ’mid the ivied crags
The screech-owl cried. Then said I, shivering,
Yet feeling still my eager heart abeat
With all the ecstasy of that mad ride,
‘Most cheerless is thy Temple!—and its god
Only the god o’ the storm!’
                                         ‘Cheerless, perchance,’
Answer’d the outcast one, ‘yet not unblest—
For lo! ’tis gentle, and its altar-stones
Cemented are with no poor innocent blood
Drawn from the throat of lambs or lamb-like men;
And from its porches Lazarus is not driven;
And in its inmost shrines the priests of Baal
Are not upheaping gold. Better such cheer,
Though bitter as the bruisèd heart of Love,
Than merry music of a thousand choirs
Drowning the moans of sad humanity;
Than glory of a thousand golden shrines,
Each one of which shuts up within its folds                                          159
A thousand hearts still beating and still bleeding!
This is my Temple; and its god, thou sayst,
Is but the Storm-god?—Blessings on that god!
Upon his burning eyes and night-black hair,
His dark breath and the fire around his feet!
For rock’d in his wild arms the soul of man
May find the comfort of divine unrest.
O, who could dwell upon the dreary earth,
Hark to the wretched wailing, and behold
The terror and the anarchy of Nature,
And keep his heart from breaking, did he never
Upleap and rush into the whirl of things,
And like a wild cloud driven up and down
Ease the mad motion of his life in tears?
My Storm-god—hear him cry! my god o’ the winds,
List to him, list!—for as he murmureth there
He murmur’d to the wind-blown tribes o’ the Jew!—
More holy he than yonder hungry Lamb,
Who, pale and impotent in gentleness,
Sits in His niche complacent and beholds
Those hecatombs of broken hearts which priests,
In blood-red robes adjusted smilingly,
Pile on His altars!’
                               All erect he stood,                                              160
Pale as an angel in the white-heat gleam
Of Heaven’s central sun, and from his eyes
Gleam’d light now lovely and now terrible;
And in the cloudy wrack above his head
Answer’d the Storm-god with a clangour of wind
Like far-off thunder.
                                   Silent for a space
I waited, for the words within my heart
Woke awful echoes, but at last I spake,
Saying: ‘Yea, there is wisdom in thy words—
Better to wander up and down the world
All outcast, or in Nature’s stormy fanes
To pray in protestation and despair,
Than in Christopolis with priests and slaves
To gnaw the frozen crust of a cold creed
Amid the brazen glory of a lie.
Yet am I weary of much storm, and fain
To rest by quiet waters. Blest be thou,
If thou canst guide me thither.’
                                                 Passionately
The wanderer laugh’d, brushing with thin white hand
The long hair blown into his burning eyes—
‘By quiet waters? I have search’d the world
And found them not; yea, not from Zion hill,
Nor from the brighter sides of Helicon,                                              161
Such waters flow;—and all that I have seen
Are stony to the sight, and to the taste
Most bitter!’
                       ‘Woe is me! If this be so,
Where shall we rest our feet?’
                                                 ‘Rest not at all,’
He answer’d. ‘Doth the cloud rest, or the stream,
Or sun, or star, or any shape that moves
Still onward, by its dim will piloted,
As solitary as the soul of man?
Be thou a meteor blown from place to place,
Still testifying up and down the earth
Against the power that made thee miserable;
Then die! soul-sure thou hast not lived in vain,
If with thy hand ere dying thou hast smitten
Some hateful Altar down!’
                                             Then did I cry,
In darkness and in agony and despair:
‘O misery! Is there no light at all
To guide my footsteps on? What country lies
Beyond these hills?’
                                   Answer’d the Wanderer:
‘A land of Shepherds—in the vales beyond
The flocks of Faunus feed.—Why, how thy face
Is shining!’

                                                                                                         162

THE PILGRIM.

Lead me thither—very sweet
The name is, and methinks the land is fair.
A shepherd there ’mong shepherds I will hear
The brook flow, see the sheep upon the heights
Trickling like silvern streams;—and, if I can,
Forget mine own mad quest.

ESAU.

                                               Mount, if thou wilt,
And I will lead thee thither; but remember
They knee strange gods.

THE PILGRIM.

                                         Strange gods?

ESAU.

                                           Yea, strange and dead.
Still bleeding, with a dove upon his lips,
Down its bright streams the slain Adonis floats;
’Mid its deep umbrage Faunus lies his length
Strewn by the robin redbreast and the wren
With gentle leaves; and in some dumb, dark mere,
With all the lustrous ooze about his hair,
Lies drownéd Pan!

                                                                                                         163

THE PILGRIM.

                                 Sweet gods! I know them well.
Surely the land wherein they sleep is blest,
A land of peace; surely thy stormy soul
Might there have found its place of rest?

ESAU.

                                                               The dead
Shall never have my worship! Fair indeed
The land is, and amid its woods and vales
A space I wander’d, till its flowery breath,
Rich as the breathing of a summer rose,
Oppress’d my soul to swooning. So again
I rode into the tempest of the world!
Better to be the weariest-wingéd cloud
That to and fro about the shoreless heaven
Flieth without a spot to rest its feet;
Better to be the weariest wave that breaks
Moaning and dying on Thought’s shoreless sea,
Than the supremest blossom born i’ the wood
And like a snow-flake shed upon the ground!
Oh, I have rested in a hundred bowers,
And should have dream’d to death a thousand times,
But that the clarion of mine own despair
Found me and woke me. For this head of mine
Earth finds no pillow!—I have cradled it                                             164
On breasts of women warm with wildest love,
And sighing low, ‘Here is my heaven at last,’
I have sunken down into delicious sleep;
But lo! the very billowing of those breasts,
The very come-and-go of Love’s own heart,
Hath waken’d me!—with every hot pulse beating
I have risen, and, upspringing to my feet,
Heard the far trumpet blowing!
                                                   As he spake,
His face flash’d like a star, and, raising hands
To the dark, dripping wrack above his head,
He trembled as a tree in the mad wind
Of his wild words; then whistling to his steed,—
Which came unto him tame as any hound,
With foot that paw’d the ground and eyes of fire,—
He cried: ‘To horse; and onward!’
                                                       To his seat
Smiling he leapt, and, hesitating not,
I follow’d, clinging round his slender waist
With eager hands; and swiftly once again
The lonely ride began.
                                     Meseem’d we rode
For many nights and days, yet day and night
Were strangely mingled, and my senses lost
True count of time. Through desolate ravines,                                      165
O’er lonely mountain-peaks, and down the beds
Of vanish’d torrents, our strange pathway lay;
And fleeter than the feet of swift izzards
That twinkle on the Pyrenean crags
Where never man may creep or sheep may crawl,
The feet of that swift steed, from spot to spot,
Moved, never slipping and for ever sure.
Ever above us moan’d the winds and moved
The clouds wind-driven; ever with low voice
Dark Esau sang; and in his songs he named
The death-star and the birth-star and the signs
Of Adam, and of Christ, and Antichrist;
And sometimes of dark woods and waters wild,
And of the snow upon the mountain-tops,
He wove wild runes, and scatter’d them like flowers
Under the trampling footsteps of the storm.

So rode we on and on. At last, meseem’d
The pace grew slower, the steed’s fiery breath
More gentle, while upon my face there fell
A warmth like sunlight. Gazing round, I saw
That we were riding down a green hillside,
Flowers and grass were growing underfoot,
The summer sun was shining, and a lark
Uprose before the horse’s very feet,                                                   166
Singing!
               Still slower grew the dark steed’s pace,
And now upon the brightening sward his hoofs
Fell soft as fruit that falleth from the bough;
While Esau, ceasing his mad minstrelsy,
Relax’d his hold upon the flowing mane,
And with his chin sunk forward on his breast,
Frown’d darkly, in a dream.

                                               Beneath us lay
A mighty Valley, darken’d everywhere
With woods primæval, whose umbrageous tops
Roll’d with the great wind darkly, like a sea;
And waves of shadow travell’d softly on
Far as the eye could see across the boughs,
And upward came a murmur deep and sweet,
Such as he hears who stands on ocean sands
On some divine, dark day of emerald calm.
And when we rode into the greenness stretch’d
Beneath us, and along the dappled shades
Crept slowly on a carpet mossy and dark,
It seemëd still as if with charméd lives
We walk’d some wondrous bottom of the Deep.
For pallid flowers and mighty purple weeds,
Such as bestrew the Ocean, round us grew,
Soft stirring as with motions of the ooze;                                             167
And far above, the boughs did break like waves
To foam of flowers and sunlight, with a sound
Solemn, afar off, faint as in a dream!

Now ever lull’d by that deep melody,
Dark Esau held his chin upon his breast,
And gazing neither right nor left, rode on
With deeper frown. So stole we slowly on
Through that green shade.
                                           Suddenly on our ears
There came a sound of sylvan melody,
Deep, like the lover’s lute; and ’mid that sound
A voice rose clear and sparkling as a fountain
Upleaping from some nest of greenery.
Dark Esau raised his head, and his twain eyes
Grew luminous as any serpent’s orbs,
Watching a space of sunlight bright as gold
Which open’d through the boughs before his path.
And soon meseem’d into that sunny space
Slowly he rode, and dazzled in the gleam,
Stood glorified and shading both his brows;
And there, beside the sparkle of a stream,
I saw a Shepherd and a Shepherdess
Sit smiling; and upon a shepherd’s pipe
The wight play’d soft and low, while loud and clear,
Sitting and clasping hands around her knees,                                       168
And gazing at the glimmer overhead,
The Maiden sang!
                           Dark were the Shepherd’s locks,
Threaded with silvern grey, and on his face
A brownness as of ripen’d fruitage lay;
And though the fever of his youth was past,
His black eyes flash’d with some deep inner fire
Wherein his heart was burning. O’er his brow
A fillet green he wore; around his form
A mantle azure as the open heaven,
And wrought with lilies like to heavenly stars;
Dark shoon upon his feet, and by his side
There lay a gentle crook Arcadian.
Him did I quickliest mark, and whisper’d low:
‘What wight is he that plays?’—and Esau said,
Now smiling darkly and in mockery:
‘Thyrsis, the shepherd of the flocks of Faun;
He saw Diana pass one summer night
In all the wonder of her nakedness.
He was a boy then, but his hair that hour
Was silver’d; since that hour he hath not smiled,
But on his cheek the wonder of that sight
Still flashes flame!’ He added, while his eye
Kindled to feverish rapture: ‘Turn thine eyes
On her who sings beside him in the sun!
Was ever hamadryad half so fair?                                                       169
He found her even like any fallen flower
In the warm heart o’ the wood one summer night,
And wanton spirits whisper’d in his ear
That she was Dian’s child. He took the babe,
And rear’d her as his own; and there she sits
Fairer than Dian’s self!’
                                       Fairer, indeed,
Than any woman of a woman born
Was that strange Shepherdess. Her face was bright
As sunlight, but her lips were poppy-red,
And o’er her brows and alabaster limbs
The lilies and the roses interblent
In that full glory. Raven-black her hair,
And black her brows o’er azure eyes that swam
With passionate and never-ceasing fires
Deep hidden ’neath her snows; most brilliantly
They burnt, but with no trembling, fitful light,
Nay, rather, steady as two vestal stars;
And though their flame was passionately bright,
Soul-’trancing, soul-consuming, yet it seem’d
Most virginal and sweetly terrible,
Chaste with the splendour of an appetite
That never could be fed on food of earth,
Or stoop to quench its chastity with less
Than perfect godhead.
                                       As the steed drew near,                               170
She ceased her song, and fix’d on Esau’s face
Her melting eyes; and paler than the dead
He turn’d, his lips like ashes, and his hand
Held heavily on his heart. She did not stir,
Nor smile, nor did her shining features change;
But quietly the elder Shepherd rose
And stood erect, but leaning on his crook
In silence, while dark Esau, with a smile,
Grim as the smile upon a corpse’s face,
Forced from his heart a hollow laugh, and cried:
‘Ho, Thyrsis! see, what guest I bring to thee!
Another Pilgrim sick of Christ and God,
And eager for the clammy kiss of Earth—
Aye, or content, if thou wilt have it so,
To sleep on Dian’s breast!’
                                             The Shepherd raised
His hand in deprecation, answering low:
‘Blaspheme not, Esau! she thou namest is
Too holy for thy lips!’—then courteously
Turning to me, who now upon the grass
Had leapt with eager feet, he bow’d his head,
Saying, ‘Be welcome! May thy soul find rest
In these green shades!’
                                       But Esau, with his eyes
Still fix’d upon the maiden feverishly,
Echoed him: ‘Rest! God help him! Rest with thee?’                            171
‘Why not?’ the Shepherd said, not angrily,
But softly as the rippling runlet falls.
The other answer’d not, but laugh’d aloud,
And pointed with his fingers mockingly
At the pale Maiden, who unto her feet
Rose like a spirit, shining, with no sound.

Then Esau cried, with quick laugh like a shriek,
‘Away!’—and as the laughter left his lips,
The steed sprang on across the golden glade
And plunged into the umbrage suddenly;
But ere it faded Esau’s pallid face
Cast one last look behind on her who shone
Still as a star.
                         Softly the Shepherd sigh’d,
And to the questioning look upon my face
Made answer: ‘Dian, give that wanderer peace!
None other, god or goddess, ever can!
I see thou marvellest much at his wild words,
And wilder looks.—Sir, ’tis the old, sad tale.
He loved my child, whom I in reverence
Named Dian, after Dian the divine,
The holy ministress of these dark woods.
He loved her, as full many a wight hath done,
But never upon any man that lives                                                        172
She smileth, and methinks the good gods will
That she shall die a maid!’

                                           Then did my soul
Marvel in sooth to hear the names of gods
Falling so simply from the Shepherd’s tongue;—
For reverently, with lowly-lidded eyne,
The Shepherd spake, and reverently his child
Gazed upward, like to one who seeth afar
The dewy star-point of an angel’s wing.
Wherefore I murmur’d, half to those who heard,
Half to myself: ‘Gods!—but the gods are dead!’
And Thyrsis answer’d: ‘As the pallid Christ,
Swathen in burial linen icy cold,
Sepulchred deep, and sealéd with a stone,
Yet walking from His grave, and withering
The grass of centuries with feet of fire,
As He is dead, so they! If He abides,
They are not lost!—and though the eye of Faith
Hath grown too dim to trace their forms divine,
The gods survive, heirs of their own green realm,
Inheritors of immortality!
For this is fatal:—to be beautiful,
Is to be thrice divine, as Dian is!’
And as he named the blessed name again                                           173
His face shone with its pale beatitude.

‘But come!’ he cried—‘dwell with us for a space,
And I will guide thee through our woodland realm,
And tell thee of its secrets one by one.
The fever of the world is on thy face,
The wormwood of the Priest is on thy heart;
And here by quiet waters thou shalt brood
On shapes of beauty till thy thought becomes
As beautiful as that it broodeth on.’

He ceased; I answer’d not; my soul was wrapt
In contemplation of the flower-crown’d Maid,
Who turning on me, softly as a star
Opens in heaven, all the dreamful light
Of her still face, stood gazing into mine
With all the wonder of immortal eyes
Tremulous with unutterable desire
That never could be fed. Then, even as one
Under enchantment, spell-bound by that face,
Still gazing on it in a burning awe,
In a low voice I answer’d, ‘I will stay!’

_____

The City of Dream continued

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