IO! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of
Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of
Circassy—
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill—
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will
dwell—
O! nothing of the dross of
ours—
Yet all the beauty—all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our
bowers—
Adorn yon world afar, afar—
The wandering star.
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace—for
there
Her world lay lolling on the
golden air,
Near four bright suns—a temporary
rest—
An oasis in desert of the
blest.
Away away—'mid seas of rays that
roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th'
unchained soul—
The soul that scarce (the billows
are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd
eminence—
To distant spheres, from time to
time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one
of God—
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd
realm,
She throws aside the
sceptre—leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high
spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel
limbs.
Now happiest, loveliest in yon
lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty"
into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a
startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls,
until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there
dwelt),
She look'd into Infinity—and
knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about
her curled—
Fit emblems of the model of her
world—
Seen but in beauty—not impeding
sight—
Of other beauty glittering thro'
the light—
A wreath that twined each starry
form around,
And all the opal'd air in color
bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a
bed
Of flowers: of lilies such as
rear'd the head
On the fair Capo Deucato, and
sprang
So eagerly around about to
hang
Upon the flying footsteps of—deep
pride—
Of her who lov'd a mortal—and so
died.
The Sephalica, budding with young
bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around
her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond
misnam'd—
Inmate of highest stars, where
erst it sham'd
All other loveliness: its honied
dew
(The fabled nectar that the
heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd
from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the
unforgiven
In Trebizond—and on a sunny
flower
So like its own above that, to
this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the
bee
With madness, and unwonted
reverie:
In Heaven, and all its environs,
the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in
grief
Disconsolate linger—grief that
hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long
have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the
balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and
more fair:
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the
light
She fears to perfume, perfuming
the night:
And Clytia pondering between many
a sun,
While pettish tears adown her
petals run:
And that aspiring flower that
sprang on Earth—
And died, ere scarce exalted into
birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in
spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of
a king:
And Valisnerian lotus thither
flown
From struggling with the waters of
the Rhone:
And thy most lovely purple
perfume, Zante!
Isola d'oro!—Fior di Levante!
And the Nelumbo bud that floats
for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy
river—
Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose
care is given
To bear the Goddess' song, in
odors, up to Heaven:
"Spirit! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie!
Beyond the line of blue—
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar—
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride, and from their
throne
To be drudges till the last—
To be carriers of fire
(The red fire of their
heart)
With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not
part—
Who livest—that we know—
In Eternity—we feel—
But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal?
Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream'd for thy Infinity
A model of their own—
Thy will is done, O God!
The star hath ridden high
Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye;
And here, in thought, to
thee—
In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne—
By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given,
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven.
She ceas'd—and buried then her
burning cheek
Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to
seek
A shelter from the fervor of His
eye;
For the stars trembled at the
Deity.
She stirr'd not—breath'd not—for a
voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm
air!
A sound of silence on the startled
ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music
of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words: Quiet we
call
"Silence"—which is the merest word
of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal
things
Flap shadowy sounds from the
visionary wings—
But ah! not so when, thus, in
realms on high
The eternal voice of God is
passing by,
And the red winds are withering in
the sky!
"What tho' in worlds which
sightless cycles run,
Link'd to a little system, and one
sun—
Where all my love is folly, and
the crowd
Still think my terrors but the
thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the
ocean-wrath
(Ah! will they cross me in my
angrier path?)
What tho' in worlds which own a
single sun
The sands of time grow dimmer as
they run,
Yet thine is my resplendency, so
given
To bear my secrets thro' the upper
Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home,
and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the
moony sky—
Apart—like fire-flies in Sicilian
night,
And wing to other worlds another
light!
Divulge the secrets of thy
embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle—and
so be
To ev'ry heart a barrier and a
ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt
of man!"
Up rose the maiden in the yellow
night,
The single-mooned eve!-on earth we
plight
Our faith to one love—and one moon
adore—
The birth-place of young Beauty
had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from
downy hours,
Up rose the maiden from her shrine
of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountain and
dim plain
Her way—but left not yet her
Therasæan reign.
II High on a mountain of enamell'd head—
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his
bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his
ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts
and sees
With many a mutter'd "hope to be
forgiven"
What time the moon is quadrated in
Heaven—
Of rosy head, that towering far
away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the
ray
Of sunken suns at eve—at noon of
night,
While the moon danc'd with the
fair stranger light—
Uprear'd upon such height arose a
pile
Of gorgeous columns on th'
unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that
twin smile
Far down upon the wave that
sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in
its lair.
Of molten stars their pavement,
such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering
the pall
Of their own dissolution, while
they die—
Adorning then the dwellings of the
sky.
A dome, by linked light from
Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a
crown—
A window of one circular diamond,
there,
Look'd out above into the purple
air
And rays from God shot down that
meteor chain
And hallow'd all the beauty twice
again,
Save when, between th' Empyrean
and that ring,
Some eager spirit flapp'd his
dusky wing.
But on the pillars Seraph eyes
have seen
The dimness of this world: that
grayish green
That Nature loves the best for
Beauty's grave
Lurk'd in each cornice, round each
architrave—
And every sculptured cherub
thereabout
That from his marble dwelling
peered out,
Seem'd earthly in the shadow of
his niche—
Achaian statues in a world so
rich?
Friezes from Tadmor and
Persepolis—
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear
abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah! Oh, the
wave
Is now upon thee—but too late to
save!
Sound loves to revel in a summer
night:
Witness the murmur of the gray
twilight
That stole upon the ear, in
Eyraco,
Of many a wild star-gazer long
ago—
That stealeth ever on the ear of
him
Who, musing, gazeth on the
distance dim,
And sees the darkness coming as a
cloud—
Is not its form—its voice—most
palpable and loud?
But what is this?—it cometh—and it
brings
A music with it—'tis the rush of
wings—
A pause—and then a sweeping,
falling strain,
And Nesace is in her halls
again.
From the wild energy of wanton
haste
Her cheeks were flushing, and her
lips apart;
The zone that clung around her
gentle waist
Had burst beneath the heaving of
her heart.
Within the centre of that hall to
breathe
She paus'd and panted, Zanthe! all
beneath,