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{The City of Dream 1888}
174
BOOK IX.
THE GROVES OF FAUN.
STILL listening to that stately Eremite,
And gently gazing on the snowy Maid
Who glided on before us golden-hair’d,
We pass’d into a mighty forest grove,
When on mine eager ears there swept a sound
Of birds innumerable on leafy boughs
Singing aloud!—and as we softly trod
The mossy carpet of the broad bright glade,
With trees of ancient growth on either side,
We suddenly beheld a group of forms,
That, clustering before us on the sward,
With large, brown, lustrous eyes fix’d full on ours,
Stood like a startled flock of fallow-deer
Prepared to spring away; yet shaped like men
Were these, though hairy were their limbs, their feet
Cloven like feet of swine, and all their ears,
That large and hairy twinkled in the sun,
Prick’d up to listen. Golden shone the light
Upon them, and their shadows on the sward
Were softly strewn, as thither with quick cry 175
Hasten’d the Maid; but, ere into their midst
Her feet could spring, they ev’n as startled deer
Leapt, flitted, vanish’d, with a faint, wild cry
Like human laughter on a hill-top heard,
Forlorn and indistinct; but as their shapes
Vanish’d afar, deep down the emerald glade
A thousand sylvan echoes answer’d them,
And from the leaves on either side the way
Innumerable faces flash’d, as fair
As ever wood-nymph wore. Then did I know
Those glades were haunted by the flocks of Faun;
The Satyr dwelt there, and the Sylvan throng,
And in the wood’s hot heart the Naïad fill’d
The hollow of her white outstretchèd hand
With drops of summer dew.
And as I went
I gladden’d more; for never groves of earth
Were half so fair as those wherein I trod.
Statues of marble, mystically wrought,
Gleam’d in the open spaces cool and white
As shapes of snow; and here and there were strewn
The ruin’d steps of marble white and red,
Or broken marble columns moss-bestain’d,
That show’d where once a Temple had been raised
To Pan or Faunus, or some lesser god 176
Of wood or stream; and though those temples fair
Were overthrown, the Spirits unto whom
They had been raised were there, and merry amid
The ruins of the shrine.
‘I know them well,’
I murmur’d, smiling, ‘these enchanted groves,
Where Faunus leads his legions ruminant;
And where Selene, with soft silvern feet,
Walks every summer night; and well I know
They are but conjurations of the sense
Which sees them—shadows, neither less nor more,
Of Nature’s primal joy.’
The Shepherd smiled,
And said: ‘The substance, not the shadow. These,
And all such joyous images as these,
Are elemental—weary were the world
Whence they were wholly flown. Once on a time
They peopled the wide earth, and man might mark
At every roadside, and by every door,
Flower-crown’d Priapus, the fair child of Pan,
Close kin to Love and Death; but now they haunt
Only the places of the solitude
Where mortals seldom creep. Seen or unseen,
Known or unknown, they are immortal, part
Of that eternal youth and happiness 177
Which first created them, and whence they draw
Their brightness and their being.’
Silently
We wander’d on, and now our footsteps fell
In scented shade. From every nook i’ the leaves
A Spirit peep’d; o’erhead from every bough
A Spirit sang!—and ever and anon,
Out of the flower-enwoven and emerald gloom,
White arms were waved, while voices soft as sleep
Did whisper, ‘Come!’ Calm through the thronging flowers
Whose honey’d sweets were crushed against his lips,
The Shepherd trod. The bright light fell subdued
Upon the snow of his divine grey hair,
And every woodland Spirit that upsprang
To clasp him in her warm and naked arms,
Gazed for a moment in his solemn eyes,
Then like a fountain falling sank in shame
To kiss his feet. The marble Maiden moved
Untouch’d by any of the glittering beams,
Pure as a dewdrop the light gleams upon
Yet cannot drink, while lost in light my soul
Sprang from its sheath of sorrow, and in the sun
Hover’d like any golden butterfly!
I leapt i’ the joyful air, I laugh’d aloud, 178
I stretch’d mine arms to every flashing form,
I kiss’d fair faces fading into flowers,
I drank the sunshine down like golden wine;
And, lastly, sinking on a rainbow’d bank,
O’er-canopied by faces, forms, and eyes,
That changed and changed to radiant fruit and flowers
With every breathing of the summer wind,
I cried, ‘Farewell! Leave me to linger here.
My quest was vain, but oh, these bowers are blest!
I’ll roam no further!’
‘Rise!’ the old man said;
‘Who linger in these vales of vain delight
Perish betimes; it is thy privilege
To share as doth a master, not a slave,
Fair Nature’s primal joy! On every side
See scatter’d those who lie too wholly lost
Ever to rise again.’ And all around,
Across the tangled paths on every side,
I saw indeed that many mortal shapes
Were fallen like o’er-ripe fruit; and many of these
Were clad as if for heavenly pilgrimage,
Yea, arm’d with staff and scrip; but o’er them bent
Women so lustrous and so sweetly pale
They seem’d of marble and moonlight interblent,
And yet so bright and warm in nakedness 179
They seem’d of living flesh. Ah, God, to see
Their syren faces, dead-eyed like the Sphynx,
Yet lustrous-cheek’d, with bright vermilion lips
Like poppy-flowers! Yet sadder still than theirs
The faces that below them on the grass
Flash’d amorous of the very breath they drew!
Pale youths and students Time had snow’d upon;
Gaunt poets, clasping to their cold breast-bones
Their harps of gold; and hunters, clad in green,
Gross-mouth’d and lewd; and kings, that proffer’d crowns
For one cold kiss; and senile agéd men,
Who shook like palsied leaves upon the tree
With every thrill of sylvan melody
That breathed beneath the overhanging boughs.
These things beholding, to my feet I sprang
With piteous cry, and as I gazed around
Low voices from the scented darkness sang,
In slumbrous human tones:—
Kiss, dream, and die!—love, let thy lips divine
In one long heavenly kiss be seal’d to mine,
While singing low the flower-crown’d Hours steal by—
Thy beauty warms my blood like wondrous wine—
While yet the sun hangs still in yonder sky,
Kiss, dream, and die!
Dream,—while I kiss!—Dream, in these happy bowers, 180
Thy naked limbs and body strewn with flowers,
Thy being scented thro’ with balmy bliss—
Dream, love, of heavenly light and golden showers,
Melting to touch of lips, like this—and this—
Dream, while I kiss!
Kiss, while I dream!—Kiss with thy clinging lips,
With clasp of hands and thrill of finger-tips,
With breasts that heave and fall, with eyes that beam—
Long, lingering, as the wild-bee clings and sips,
Deep, as the rose-branch trail’d in the hot stream,—
Kiss, while I dream!
Kiss, dream, and die!—Love, after life comes Death,
No spirit to rapture reawakeneth
When once Love’s sun hath sunk in yonder sky—
Cling closer, drink my being, drain my breath,—
Soul answering soul, in one last rapturous sigh,
Kiss, dream, and die!
As the voice ceased,
There flash’d across the haunted forest-path
A flock so strange that even the happy Maid
Stood still, and gazed. A Spirit led the way
Like Bacchus crown’d with grapes and leaves of vine,
And wingéd too like Love; but underneath
The falling tresses of his golden hair
A death’s head smiled; on a white steed he rode 181
Caparison’d with gold; and at his back
The tumult follow’d—Satyrs, Nymphs, and Fauns,
Pale Queens with crowns; dishevell’d naked maids;
Priapus next, the laughing garden-god,
Raining ripe fruit around and leaves of gold;
Then Ethiop dancers, clashing cymbals bright;
And after them, supreme among the rest,
A livid Conqueror like Cæsar’s self
With wild beasts chainéd to his chariot-wheels;
Behind him drunken legions blood-bestain’d,
With captives wailing in their midst. These pass’d;
Then, mounted on a jet-black stallion’s back,
Herodias, bearing in her naked lap
A hoary, bleeding head; and after her
A troop commingled from all times and climes—
Pale knights in armour, on whose shoulders sat
Nixes or elves; goths, mighty-limb’d and grim;
Pale monks, with hollow cheeks and lean long hands;
Nuns from the cloister, whose wild, hectic cheeks
Burn’d red as blood between their ghastly bands;
And bringing up the rear a hideous flock
Of idiot children, twisted with disease,
And laughing in a mad and mindless mirth.
And gazing after them with gentle eyes 182
The old man sigh’d: ‘They follow Death, not Love!—
From every corner of the populous earth
They come to mar that primal happiness
Which is the root of being!’
But I cried,
Raising my hands: ‘Is it not pitiful?
Is it not hateful and most pitiful?
Lo, out of every innocent bower of flowers,
And out of every bed where Love may sleep,
The Shape with “Thanatos” upon its brow
Dreadfully peeps! Why may not Man be glad,
Forgetting death and darkness for an hour?
Is it so evil to be happy? Nay!
Yet the one cup God proffers to his seed
Is wormwood, wormwood!’
As I spake the Maid,
Coming upon a little mossy well,
That fill’d up softly as a dewy eye
And ever look’d at heaven through azure tears,
Stood white as any lamb upon the brink,
And on her dim sweet double down below
Dropt leaves and flowers, and smiled for joy to see
Her image broken into flakes of snow 183
But ever mingling beautiful again
Whene’er the soft shower ceased. While on her face,
Serene yet masterful in innocence,
I gazed in awe, the old man answer’d me:
‘Ev’n as the Gorgon mother ate her young,
Nature for ever feeds on and consumes
Those creatures who, too frail to quit her breast,
Miss the full height and privilege of Man!
I say again that Man was made supreme,
Radiant and strong, to conquer with a smile
The transports that he shares;
And he by wisdom or by innocence
May conquer if he will;
And surely he who learns to conquer Love
Hath learnt to conquer Death! Behold my child!
See where she stands like marble ’mid the beam
That beats so brightly on her sinless brows.
As she is, must thy soul be—if thy soul
Would read our creed aright.’
But I return’d,
Bitterly smiling, ‘She? thine icicle!
Cold to the kiss of Man, what knoweth she
Of love or joy?’
Still as a star her face 184
Turn’d full upon me, with a beam so sad,
So strange in sorrow and divine despair,
My heart within me shook; and though she had heard
She spake not, but moved onward silently;
And sinking low his voice, and following her,
Her foster-father cried:
‘Is there no joy
But riot? Is there no immortal love
To make eternal hunger sweeter far
Than lustful feasts? O blind and wayward one,
Hadst thou but seen what these sad eyes have seen,
The passionate eternal purity
Walking these shadowy woods with silvern feet!
I bear the lifelong glory in my heart,
And with the splendour of its own despair
My soul is glad!’
I answer’d him again,
Still mocking, ‘Keep thy vision!—she, perchance,
Some night may look on hers!’
‘By night and day,’
Return’d the Shepherd very solemnly,
‘By night and day my child beholdeth him,
And quencheth all the fiery flame o’ the sense 185
Against his image, and is sadly glad.
Perchance ere long thine eyes may see him too,
And kiss his holy feet as she hath done.
But now,’ he added, looking sadly down
On the bright bowers around him, ‘stay not here;
For if thou dost, we twain must part, and thou
Fade back to flower, or dwindle back to beast,
As these thou seest are doing momently.
Come!’ And he held me gently with his hand,
And drew me softly on. Like one that sleeps,
And sleeping seems to totter heavy-eyed
Through woods of poppy and rank hellebore,
Feebly I moved; my head swam; on my lips
Linger’d sour savours as of dregs of wine,
And all my soul with sick and shameful thirst
Woke, as a drunkard after deep debauch
Wakes to the shiver of a glimmering dawn.
In vain ripe fruits were crush’d against my lips,
In vain the branches with their blossom’d arms
Entwined around me; vainly in my face
The naked dryad and the wood-nymph laugh’d.
Past these I drave as fiercely as a ship
Before the beating of a bitter wind,
And crushing fruit and blossom under foot,
Tearing the tangled tracery apart,
I wander’d on for hours. Nor did I pause 186
Till from that wondrous Grove my feet had pass’d,
And once again in open glades we stood
Under the azure canopy of heaven.
Now I beheld we stood upon the bank
Of a broad river flowing along between
Deep banks of flowering ferns and daffodils—
A gentle river winding far away
Under green trees that hung their laden boughs
And shed their fruits upon it lavishly;
Yet cool the water seem’d, and silvern bright
As any star, and on the boughs above it
Sat doves as white as snow, brooding for joy,—
And by its brim one crane of glittering gold
With bright shade lengthening from the pensive light
Stood, knee-deep in the mosses of the marge.
Slowly my sense grew clear. ‘What place is this?’
I murmur’d; ‘Say, what place divine is this—
God’s home, or Love’s, or Death’s!’ but in mine ear
The gentle voice replied, ‘Question no more,
But at the brink stoop down, and bathe thy brows;
And if thou thirstest, drink!’ So on the marge
I stoop’d, and in my hollow’d hand did lift
The waters, scattering them upon my face, 187
And tasting; and the fever from my frame
Fell like an unclean robe, and stretching arms
I, like a man rejoicing in his strength,
Stood calm and new-baptized. Tall by the lake
The old man tower’d, and I beheld his face
Was shining as an angel’s, with new light
Of rapture in his eyes; and by his side
The Maid, with lips apart and eager eyes,
Stood bathed in glory of her golden hair
And the great sunlight that encircled her!
Scarce had I drunk, when I was ’ware of One
Who through the green glades by the river’s brim
Walk’d, like a slow star sailing through the clouds
Of twilight; yea, the face of him afar
Shone starlike, and around his coming feet
The moon-dew shone. As white and still he seem’d
As some fair form of marble brought to life
And gliding in the glory of a dream;
But from his frame, at every step he took,
Shot light which never yet from marble gleam’d,
And splendour that was never seen in stone.
For raiment, backward from his shoulders blown,
He wore a scarf diaphanous; round his form
A chlamys of the whitest woof of lambs;
But all uncover’d was his golden hair, 188
His feet unsandall’d. ‘Who is this that comes?’
Trembling I cried. But suddenly on his knees
The old man fell, with head submissive bent
In gentle adoration. Then, methought:
‘The City of my Dream is close at hand,
And this is He who comes to lead me thither!’
And wonder’d much that while the old man knelt,
The Maid leapt forward with outstretching arms,
And with less fear than hath a yeanling lamb
Feeling its mother on a mead in May,
Thrust out her hand and took his hand who came
And brightening in his brightness led him on
With bird-like cries. Then I perceived her face
Now smiling glorified, and straight I knew
That she was gazing on the lonely love
Of her young soul; that all her maiden dream
Was shining there in substance, fairer far
Than star or flower; that on his face she fed
In palpitating awe, so strange, so deep,
She did not even kiss the holy hand
She held within her own.
‘Who comes? who comes?’
I murmured to the old man once again;
‘A god—the messenger of gods—his name?
He smileth; mine eyes dazzle in the light 189
Of his bright smiling!’ And the other cried,
Not rising, ‘To thy knees! and veil thine eyes,
Lest the ecstatic ray his presence sheds
Blind thee apace! He hath a thousand names,
All sweet; but in these glades his holiest name
Is Eros!’ ‘Eros!’ rapturously I sighed;
And tottering as one drunken in the sun,
Fell at his feet who came; and the pale Maid,
Upleaping in the brightness, fountain-like,
Cried, ‘Eros! Eros!’ leading Eros on,
While the birds sang and every echo rang.
There was a pause, as when in golden June
The heavens, the glassy waters, and the hills
Throb wrapt in mists of heat as in a dream,
So that the humming of the tiniest gnat
Is heard while in the moted ray it swings,—
There was a pause and silence for a space,
But soon the Shepherd, rising reverently,
Cried: ‘Master of these golden groves of Faun,
All hail! Unto thy sacred place I bring
A Pilgrim from the dusty tracts of Time,
A seeker of the secret Beautiful
No ear hath heard; and from the summer bowers,
The gardens, and the glades of vain delight,
Latest he comes, still fever’d from the flush 190
Of those bright bowers. Him to thy feet I bring,
And if his soul be worthy, thou perchance
Mayst heal his pain!’ He ceased; and on the air
There rose the thrill of the divinest voice
That ever on a starry midnight charm’d
The swooning sense of lovers unto dream,—
A voice divine, and in a tongue divine
It spake,—such Greek, such honey’d liquid Greek
As Psyche heard that night beneath the stars
She threw her rose-hung casement open wide
And stood with lamp uplifted, welcoming
Her love, storm-beaten in his saffron veil.
‘What seeks he?’ ask’d the voice; and lo! I cried,
Uplifting not mine eyes: ‘O gentle God,
Surely I seek that City Beautiful,
From whence thou comest! Dead I fancied thee,
Fallen with that glorious umbrage of dead gods
Which doth bestrew the forest paths of Greece;
And since thou livest, I can seek no guide
More beautiful than thou!’ Whereon again,
Burning like amber in the golden beam,
That nightingale of deities replied,
‘O child of man, can the Immortal die?
To love, is to endure; and lo, I am;
But from that City Beautiful thou namest
I come not, and I cannot guide thy steps 191
Thither, nor further than mine own fair realm.’
Smiling I answer’d, rising to my feet:
‘If this thy realm is, Spirit Paramount,
Let me abide within it close to thee!
Peace dwelleth here, and Light; and here at last,
As in a crystal mirror, I perceive
The clouds and forms of being stream subdued
Through azure voids of immortality.’
‘Come, then,’ said Eros, smiling beautiful;
‘And for a season I will lead thy feet,
That thou mayst know my secret realm and me!’
And as he spake he waved his shining hand,
And lo, the cluster’d lilies of the stream
Again were parted by invisible airs,
And through the waters came a shallop slight,
Drawn by white swans that cleft the crystal mere
With webbèd feet as soft as oilèd leaves,
And in the shallop’s brow a blood-red star
Burnt wondrous, with its image in the mere
Broken ’mid ripples into rubied lines.
Slow to the bank it came, and there it paused,
So slight, so small, it seem’d no mortal shape
Might float upon the crystal mere therein;
And Eros pointed, silent, to the boat,
But I, half turning to my greyhair’d guide, 192
Question’d with outstretch’d hands and glance of eyes,
‘And thou?’
The Shepherd smiled, with gentle hand
Restraining now the Maid, who, stretching arms,
Would fain have follow’d that diviner Form
On whom her eyes were fasten’d, ring in ring
Enlarging, like the iris-eyes of doves.
‘Farewell!’ he said; ‘further I fare not friend!
For whosoever sails that crystal stream
Must with the golden godhead sail alone.
My path winds homeward, back to the sunny glades
Where first we met. Farewell! a long farewell!
If ever backward through these groves of Faun
Thou comest, seek that Valley where I dwell,
And tell me of thy quest!’
Methought I raised
The Maid, and set upon her brow the seal
Of one long kiss; but me she heeded not,
Gazing in fascination deep as Death
On that calm god; then, stooping low, I kiss’d
The Shepherd’s hand, and enter’d the bright boat
That on the shallow margin of the river
Did droop the glory of its rubied star
Like some bright water-flower. Beneath my weight
The shallop trembled, but it bare me up; 193
And slowly through the shallows lily-sown
It moved, pulsating on the throbbing stream
As white and warm as bosoms of the swans
That drew it. In its wake the godhead swam,
Gold crown’d; and from beneath the mere his limbs
Gleam’d, like the flashing of a salmon’s sides.
Slowly it seem’d to sail, yet swiftly now
The shore receded, till the Man and Maid
Beyond the mists of brightness disappear’d,
And ever till they faded utterly
Moveless the Maiden’s face as any star
Shone tremulous with innocent desire,
And when they vanish’d, from the vanish’d shore
There came a quick and solitary cry
That wither’d on the wind.
Then forth we fared,
Till nought was seen around us or above
But golden glory of the golden Day
Reflected from the bosom of the mere
As from a blinding shield; and, lo! my sense
Grew lost in dizziness and deep delight:
All things I saw as in a dazzling dream,
And drooping o’er them drowsily gazed down
Into the crystal depths whereon I sail’d.
Then was I ’ware that underneath me throbb’d 194
Strange vistas, dim and wonderful, wherein
The great ghost of the burning sun did shine
Subdued and dim, amid a heaven as blue,
As blue and deep, as that which burnt o’erhead;
And in the under-void like gold-fish gleam’d
Innumerable Spirits of the lake,
Naked, blown hither and thither light as leaves,
With lilies in their hands, their eyes half closed,
Their hair like drifting weeds; thick as the flowers
Above, they floated; near the surface some,
And others far away as films of cloud
In that deep under-heaven; but all their eyes
Were softly upturn’d, as unto some strange star, [l.xiv]
To him who in the shallop’s glittering wake
Swam ’mid the light of his lone loveliness.
Then all grew dim! I closed my heated eyes,
Like one who on a summer hill lies down
Face upward, blinded by the burning blue,
And in my ears there grew a dreamy hum
Of lark-like song. The heaven above my head,
The heaven below my feet, swam swiftly by,
Till clouds and birds and flowers and water-elves
Were blent to one bright flash of rainbow light
Bewildering the sense. And now I swam
By jewell’d islands smother’d deep in flowers 195
Glassily mirror’d in the golden river;
And from the isles blue-plumaged warblers humm’d.
Swinging to boughs of purple, yellow, and green,
Their pendent nests of down; and on the banks,
Dim-shaded by the umbrage and the flowers,
Sat naked fauns who fluted to the swans
On pipes of reeds, while in the purple shallows,
Wading knee-deep, listen’d the golden cranes,
And walking upon floating lotus-leaves
The red jacana scream’d.
Still paramount
Shone Eros, piloting with lily hand
His shallop through the waters wonderful,
And wheresoe’er he went his brightness fell
Celestial, turning all the saffron pools
To crimson and to purple and to gold.
Calm were his eyes and steadfast, with a light
Which in a face of aspect less divine
Would have seem’d sad, and on his brows there lay
A golden shadow of celestial thought.
Thus in my dream I saw him floating on,
While, with dim eyes of rapture downward turn’d,
I feasted on his beauty silently;
And under him the strange abysses swoon’d,
And o’er his head the azure heaven stoop’d down; 196
And even as a snow-white steed that runs
Pleased with its burthen, merrily hasting on,
The river rambled on from bank to bank,
In curves of splendour winding serpentine.
Betimes it broaden’d into bright lagoons
Sown with innumerable crimson isles;
And merrily on the mossy banks there ran,
Pelting each other with ripe fruits and flowers,
Bright troops of naked nymphs and cupidons
With golden bows; and o’er them in the air
Floated glad butterflies and gleaming doves;
And ever to the rippling of the river
Rose melody of unseen voices, blown
From the serene abysms far beneath;
And other voices answer’d from the isles,
And from the banks, and from the snow-white clouds
That, flowing with the flowing of the stream,
Trembled and changed, like shapes with lilied hands!
Now one green island stretch’d across the stream,
Paven with purple and with emerald,
And walking there, all wondrous in white robes,
Moved troops of virgins singing solemnly
To lutes of amber and to harps of gold. 197
Among them, resting on a flowery bank,
Sat one like Bacchus, roses in his hair,
His cheeks most pale with summer melancholy,
Fondling a tigress that with sleepy eyes
Nestled her mottled head into his palm.
O’er head an eagle hover’d with his mate,
And rising slow on great wind-winnowing wings
Faded into the sunset, silently.
Now gazing on these wondrous scenes methought:
‘This is enchantment, and these things I see
Only the figures of an antique Joy,
Unreal as shapes in an enchanter’s glass
And hollow as a pleasure snatch’d in sleep.’
Suddenly, strangely, answering my thought,
And smiling with a strange excess of light,
Murmur’d that God my Guide: ‘Fly from thy dream,
And it shall last for ever; cherish it,
And it shall wither in thy cherishing!
These things are phantasies and images
As thou and I are imaged phantasies;
But if the primal joy of Earth is real,
And if thou sharest deep that primal joy,
These phantasies are real—not false, but true.’
Then did I cry, ‘If these fair shapes be true, 198
No dream is false.’ And Eros answer’d me:
‘All things are true save Sin and Sin’s despair,
All lovely thoughts abide imperishable,
Though countless generations pass and die!’
The wonder deepen’d. Earth and Heaven seem’d blent
In one still rapture, for their beating hearts
Were prest like breasts of lovers, close together;
And in the love-embrace of Heaven and Earth,
The river, ever-smiling, wound and wound;
And as in beauteous galleries of Art
Picture on picture swooneth past the sense,
Marble with marble mingles mystically,
Till all is one wild rapture of the eyes,
E’en so that pageant on the river’s banks
Went drifting by to sound of shawms and songs.
Bright isles with white nymphs cover’d; promontories
Whereon immortal nakednesses lay
Singing aloud and playing on amber lutes;
Vistas of woodland, on whose shaven lawns
The satyrs danced with swift alternate feet,
Came, faded, changed; and ever far below
In the dim under-heaven floated fair
Those Spirits singing; and ever far above 199
Those Spirits slight as flecks of whitest clouds
Still singing floated; and the same still way
The river floated did the heavens move on,
Till all seem’d drawn in a swift drift of dream
To some consummate wonder yet unseen.
And now, the river narrowing once again,
We stole ’neath forest umbrage which o’erhead
Mingled outstretching arms from either bank,
And woven in the green transparent roof
Were glorious creepers like the lian-flower,
And flowers that ran like many-colour’d snakes
Turning and trembling from green bough to bough;
And in the glowing river glass’d with speed
This intertangled golden tracery
Was mirror’d leaf by leaf and flower by flower,
For ever changing and ever flitting past.
Thus gliding, suddenly we floated forth
Upon a broad lagoon as red as blood,
Stainèd with sunset; and no creature stirr’d
Upon or round the water, but on high
A vulture hover’d dwindled to a speck;
And on the shallow marge one silent Shape
Hung like a leafless tree, with hoary head
Dejected o’er the crimson pool beneath;
And no man would have wist that dark Shape lived;— 200
Till suddenly into the great lagoon
The shallop sail’d, and the white swans that drew it
Were crimson’d, oaring on through crimson pools
And casting purple shadows. Then behold!
That crimson light on him who drave the bark
Fell as the shafts of sunset round a star,
Encircling, touching, but suffusing not
The shining silvern marble of his limbs;
And that dark Shape that brooded o’er the stream
Stirr’d, lifting up a face miraculous
As of some lonely godhead! Cold as stone,
Formlessly fair as some upheaven rock
Behung with weary weeds and mosses dark,
That face was; and the flashing of that face
Was as the breaking of a sad sea-wave,
Desolate, silent, on some lonely shore!
Then Eros as he passed across the pool
Upraised up his shining head, and softly named [l.xix]
Three times the name of ‘Pan;’ and that large Shape,
His face upturning sadly to the light,
Reveal’d the peace of two great awful eyes
Made heavenly by the starlight of a smile;
And as he smiled, the stillness of the place
Was broken, and the notes of nightingales 201
Fell soft as spray of roseleaves on the air,
And once again the waters far beneath
Were peopled, and the clouds moved on again
In their slow drift of dream they knew not whither;
But Eros swiftly pass’d and once again
The brooding godhead, sinking in his place,
Hung large and shadowy like a mighty tree
Above the brightness of that still lagoon.
And now methought that far away there rose
Beautiful mountains stain’d with purple shades
And pinnacled with peaks of glittering ice,
And o’er the frosted crystal of the peaks
The trembling splendour of the lover’s star
Shone like a sapphire. Thitherward now crept,
Slowly, in bright and many-colour’d curves,
That river, hastening with a living will,
With happy murmurs like a living thing;
And soon it turn’d its soft and flowery steps
Into the bosom of great woods that lay
Under the mountains. Peaceful on its breast
Shadows now fell, while still gnats humm’d, and flowers
Closed up their leaves i’ the dew; and thro’ the leaves,
With radiance faintly drawn as spiders’ webs, 202
Trembled the twilight of the lover’s star.
At last, against a mossy shore, thick strewn
With violets dewy-eyed, the shallop paused,
And Eros, wading to the grassy bank
Under the shadow of the forest trees,
Cried ‘Come!’—and silently I follow’d him
Into the sunless silence of the woods.
203
BOOK X.
THE AMPHITHEATRE.
AND in my dream, which seem’d no dream at all,
Methought I follow’d my celestial Guide
From path to path, from emerald glade to glade;
And ever as we went, methought the path
Grew with the summer shadows silenter,
While overhead from the great azure folds
Began to stray the peaceful flocks of stars.
Now I perceived before that Spirit’s feet
A light like moonlight running, and I heard,
Far away, mystically, in my dream,
The song of deep-embower’d nightingales.
Along the woodland path on either side
There glimmer’d marble hermæ crown’d with flowers,
And ’mid the boughs hung many-colour’d lamps
Like fruit of amber, crimson, purple, and gold.
Last on mine ears there fell a sudden sound 204
Like shepherds piping or like fountains falling,
A sound that gather’d volume, and became
As music of innumerable harps
And lutes and muffled drums, and therewithal
A heavy distant hum as of a crowd
Of living men together gathering.
Then did I mark that all the forest way
Was thronging unaware with hooded shapes
Who moved in the direction of that sound;
Shadows they seem’d, yet living; and as they went
They to each other spake in quick low tones
And hurried their dark feet as if in haste.
Tall in their midst shone that fair God my Guide,
To whom I whisper’d as we stole along,
‘What Shapes are these?’ and ‘Pilgrims like thyself,’
The Spirit cried; ‘but hush, for we are nigh
The midmost of the Shrine.’ Ev’n as he spake,
Out of the shadow of the woods we stept,
While on our ears the murmur of the crowd
Grew to low thunder, as of waves that wash
Silent, in darkness, up some ocean strand;
And lo! we saw before us thick as waves
Thousands that gather’d in their pilgrims’ weeds
Within a mighty Amphitheatre 205
Hewn in a hollow of the grassy hills,—
And faces like the foam-fleck’d sides of waves,
Before some wind of wonder blowing there,
Flash’d all one way and multitudinous
Far as the eye could see or ears could hear,
Watching a far-off curtain, on whose folds
Two words in fire were written:
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