The Daemon of the World




PART 1.

     Nec tantum prodere vati,
     Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unam
     Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.
     LUCAN, Phars. v. 176.

       How wonderful is Death,
       Death and his brother Sleep!
     One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,
       With lips of lurid blue,
     The other glowing like the vital morn,                        5
       When throned on ocean's wave
       It breathes over the world:
     Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

     Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
     Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,                    10
     To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
     Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,
     Which love and admiration cannot view
     Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
     Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,               15
     Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
     In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
       Nor putrefaction's breath
     Leave aught of this pure spectacle
       But loathsomeness and ruin?—                               20
       Spare aught but a dark theme,
     On which the lightest heart might moralize?
     Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
     Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
       To watch their own repose?                                 25
       Will they, when morning's beam
       Flows through those wells of light,
     Seek far from noise and day some western cave,
     Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds
       A lulling murmur weave?—                                   30
       Ianthe doth not sleep
       The dreamless sleep of death:
     Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
     Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
       Or mark her delicate cheek                                 35
     With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
       Outwatching weary night,
       Without assured reward.
       Her dewy eyes are closed;
     On their translucent lids, whose texture fine                40
     Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
       With unapparent fire,
       The baby Sleep is pillowed:
       Her golden tresses shade
       The bosom's stainless pride,                               45
     Twining like tendrils of the parasite
       Around a marble column.

       Hark! whence that rushing sound?
       'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
       Around a lonely ruin                                       50
     When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
       In whispers from the shore:
     'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
     Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
       The genii of the breezes sweep.                            55
     Floating on waves of music and of light,
     The chariot of the Daemon of the World
       Descends in silent power:
     Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud
     That catches but the palest tinge of day                     60
       When evening yields to night,
     Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
       Its transitory robe.
     Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
     Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light               65
     Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
       Their wings of braided air:
     The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car
       Gazed on the slumbering maid.
     Human eye hath ne'er beheld                                  70
     A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
     As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep
       Waving a starry wand,
       Hung like a mist of light.
     Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds            75
       Of wakening spring arose,
     Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
     Maiden, the world's supremest spirit
       Beneath the shadow of her wings
     Folds all thy memory doth inherit                            80
       From ruin of divinest things,
       Feelings that lure thee to betray,
       And light of thoughts that pass away.
     For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
       The truths which wisest poets see                          85
     Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
       Rewarding its own majesty,
       Entranced in some diviner mood
       Of self-oblivious solitude.

     Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;                  90
       From hate and awe thy heart is free;
     Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
       For dark and cold mortality
       A living light, to cheer it long,
       The watch-fires of the world among.                        95

     Therefore from nature's inner shrine,
       Where gods and fiends in worship bend,
     Majestic spirit, be it thine
       The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
       Where the vast snake Eternity                             100
       In charmed sleep doth ever lie.

     All that inspires thy voice of love,
       Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,
     Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
       Or think or feel, awake, arise!                           105
       Spirit, leave for mine and me
       Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!

     It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
       A radiant spirit arose,
     All beautiful in naked purity.                              110
     Robed in its human hues it did ascend,
     Disparting as it went the silver clouds,
     It moved towards the car, and took its seat
       Beside the Daemon shape.

     Obedient to the sweep of aery song,                         115
       The mighty ministers
     Unfurled their prismy wings.
       The magic car moved on;
     The night was fair, innumerable stars
       Studded heaven's dark blue vault;                         120
       The eastern wave grew pale
       With the first smile of morn.
       The magic car moved on.
       From the swift sweep of wings
     The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;                    125
       And where the burning wheels
     Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak
       Was traced a line of lightning.
     Now far above a rock the utmost verge
       Of the wide earth it flew,                                130
     The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
       Frowned o'er the silver sea.
     Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,
       Calm as a slumbering babe,
       Tremendous ocean lay.                                     135
     Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
       The pale and waning stars,
       The chariot's fiery track,
       And the grey light of morn
       Tingeing those fleecy clouds                              140
     That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
       The chariot seemed to fly
     Through the abyss of an immense concave,
     Radiant with million constellations, tinged
       With shades of infinite colour,                           145
       And semicircled with a belt
       Flashing incessant meteors.

       As they approached their goal,
     The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
     The sea no longer was distinguished; earth                  150
     Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
       In the black concave of heaven
       With the sun's cloudless orb,
       Whose rays of rapid light
     Parted around the chariot's swifter course,                 155
     And fell like ocean's feathery spray
       Dashed from the boiling surge
       Before a vessel's prow.

       The magic car moved on.
       Earth's distant orb appeared                              160
     The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
       Whilst round the chariot's way
     Innumerable systems widely rolled,
       And countless spheres diffused
       An ever varying glory.                                    165
     It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,
     And like the moon's argentine crescent hung
     In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed
     A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
     Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed               170
     Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,
     Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;
     Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed
       Bedimmed all other light.

       Spirit of Nature! here                                    175
     In this interminable wilderness
     Of worlds, at whose involved immensity
       Even soaring fancy staggers,
       Here is thy fitting temple.
       Yet not the lightest leaf                                 180
     That quivers to the passing breeze
       Is less instinct with thee,—
       Yet not the meanest worm.
     That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
       Less shares thy eternal breath.                           185
       Spirit of Nature! thou
     Imperishable as this glorious scene,
       Here is thy fitting temple.

     If solitude hath ever led thy steps
     To the shore of the immeasurable sea,                       190
       And thou hast lingered there
       Until the sun's broad orb
     Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,
       Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold
       That without motion hang                                  195
       Over the sinking sphere:
     Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,
     Edged with intolerable radiancy,
       Towering like rocks of jet
       Above the burning deep:                                   200
       And yet there is a moment
       When the sun's highest point
     Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
     When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
     Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:                 205
     Then has thy rapt imagination soared
     Where in the midst of all existing things
     The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.

       Yet not the golden islands
     That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,                  210
       Nor the feathery curtains
     That canopy the sun's resplendent couch,
       Nor the burnished ocean waves
       Paving that gorgeous dome,
       So fair, so wonderful a sight                             215
     As the eternal temple could afford.
     The elements of all that human thought
     Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join
     To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
     Of earth may image forth its majesty.                       220
     Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall,
     As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
       Its floors of flashing light,
       Its vast and azure dome;
     And on the verge of that obscure abyss                      225
     Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulf
     Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
     Their lustre through its adamantine gates.

       The magic car no longer moved;
       The Daemon and the Spirit                                 230
       Entered the eternal gates.
       Those clouds of aery gold
       That slept in glittering billows
       Beneath the azure canopy,
     With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;                   235
       While slight and odorous mists
     Floated to strains of thrilling melody
     Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

       The Daemon and the Spirit
     Approached the overhanging battlement,                      240
     Below lay stretched the boundless universe!
       There, far as the remotest line
     That limits swift imagination's flight.
     Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,
       Immutably fulfilling                                      245
       Eternal Nature's law.
       Above, below, around,
       The circling systems formed
       A wilderness of harmony.
       Each with undeviating aim                                 250
     In eloquent silence through the depths of space
       Pursued its wondrous way.—

     Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.
     Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
     Strange things within their belted orbs appear.             255
     Like animated frenzies, dimly moved
     Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,
     Thronging round human graves, and o'er the dead
     Sculpturing records for each memory
     In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,                 260
     Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell
     Confounded burst in ruin o'er the world:
     And they did build vast trophies, instruments
     Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,
     Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls            265
     With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,
     Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained
     With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,
     The sanguine codes of venerable crime.
     The likeness of a throned king came by.                     270
     When these had passed, bearing upon his brow
     A threefold crown; his countenance was calm.
     His eye severe and cold; but his right hand
     Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw
     By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart                  275
     Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,
     A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.
     With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks
     Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by.
     Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,                280
     Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues
     Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly,
     Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies
     Against the Daemon of the World, and high
     Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,            285
     Serene and inaccessibly secure,
     Stood on an isolated pinnacle.
     The flood of ages combating below,
     The depth of the unbounded universe
       Above, and all around                                     290
     Necessity's unchanging harmony.

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