intervals-gleaming amongst clouds and surges of incense-threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart-shattering music. Choir and anti-choir were 5 filling fast with unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter, with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult; trumpet and echo-farewell love, and farewell anguish10 rang through the dreadful sanctus.1 Oh, THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE "6 PROME Write it in gold-A spirit of the sun, An intellect ablaze with heavenly thoughts, A soul with all the dews of pathos shining, Odorous with love, and sweet to silent woe 5 With the dark glories of concentrate song, Was sphered in mortal earth. Angelic 10 sounds The dancing showers, the birds, whose anthems wild Note after note unbind the enchanted leaves Of breaking buds, eve, and the flow of dawn, 15 Were centred and condensed in his one darkness of the grave! that from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited and searched by the effulgence in the angel's eye-were these indeed thy children? 15 Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, did ye indeed mingle with the festivals of Death? Lo! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw 20 the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sang to the generations of man. All the hosts of jubilation, like armies that ride in pursuit, moved with one step. Us, that, with laurelled heads, were 25 passing from the cathedral, they overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders greater than our own. As brothers we moved together; to the dawn that advanced, to the stars that fled, render30 ing thanks to God in the highest2-that, having hid His face through one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending, from the Campo Santo of Waterloo was ascending, in the visions of Peace; 35 rendering thanks for thee, young girl! whom having overshadowed with His ineffable passion of death, suddenly did God relent, suffered thy angel to turn aside His arm, and even in thee, sister unknown! shown to 40 me for a moment only to be hidden forever, found an occasion to glorify His goodness. A thousand times, amongst the phantoms of sleep, have I seen thee entering the gates of the golden dawn, with the secret word rid45 ing before thee, with the armies of the grave 10 behind thee, seen thee sinking, rising, raving, despairing; a thousand times in the worlds of sleep have I seen thee followed by God's angel through storms, through des50 ert seas, through the darkness of quicksands, through dreams and the dreadful revelations that are in dreams; only that at the last, with one sling of His victorious arm, He might snatch thee back from ruin, 55 and might emblazon in thy deliverance the endless resurrections of His love! 1 A part of the Mass, beginning with the Latin Poor old pilgrim Misery, Beneath the silent moon he sate, 15 And his cry it was ever, alack! Alack, and woe is me! From TORRISMOND HOW MANY TIMES DO I LOVE THEE, DEAR! How many times do I love thee, dear? Tell me how many thoughts there be In the atmosphere Of a new-fall'n year, Whose white and sable hours appear The latest flake of Eternity: So many times do I love thee, dear. How many times do I love again? Of evening rain, From DEATH'S JEST BOOK 1825-32 1850 TO SEA, TO SEA! To sea, to sea! The calm is o'er; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cow snorts, 5 And unseen mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er. 10 15 To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark The anchor heaves, the ship swings free, THE SWALLOW LEAVES HER NEST The swallow leaves her nest, On my grave 5 10 15 20 25 necropolis; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon, so mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs-bas-reliefs of battles and of battle-fields; battles from forgotten ages, battles from yesterday; battlefields that, long since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers; battle-fields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run; where the towers curved, there did we curve. With the flight of swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood wheeling round headlands, like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of forests, faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions, kindled warrior instincts, amongst the dust that lay around us-dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Crécy to Trafalgar.1 And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the arrow-like flight of the illimitable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld afar off a female child, that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists which went before her hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic flowers with which she playedbut could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked down upon her from the mighty shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us; face to face she rode, as if danger there were none. "Oh, baby!" I exclaimed, "shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every people,2 be messengers of ruin to thee!" In horror I rose at the thought; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on a bas-relief-a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he 55 rose to his feet; and, unslinging his stony 1 The Battle of Crécy was fought in 1346; Trafalgar in 1805. 2 See Luke 2:10. 30 35 40 45 50 trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips-sounding once, and yet once again; proclamation that, in thy ears, oh baby! spoke from the battlements of death. Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the dreadful rattle of our harness, the groaning of our wheels, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked unto life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their fiery fore-legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen to a basrelief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded; the seals were taken off all pulses; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels again; again the choir burst forth in sunny grandeur, as from the muffling of storms and darkness; again the thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips, as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us.-"Whither has the infant fled?-is the young child caught up to God?" Lo! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the clouds; and on a level with their summits, at height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. A glory was it from the reddening dawn that now streamed through the windows? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs painted on the windows? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth? There suddenly, within that crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, and then of a woman's figThe child it was-grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood-sinking, rising, raving, despairing; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day, streamed upwards from the altar, dimly was seen the fiery font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who should have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings; that wept and pleaded for her; that prayed when she could not; that fought with Heaven by tears for her deliverance; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that from Heaven he had won at last. ure. Then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but muttered at THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES (1803-1849) LINES WRITTEN IN A BLANK LEAF OF THE "PROME- Write it in gold-A spirit of the sun, 10 15 intervals-gleaming amongst clouds and 1A part of the Mass, beginning with the Latin Alive with panting thoughts sunned the The bright creations of an human heart beauty, The dancing showers, the birds, whose anthems wild Note after note unbind the enchanted leaves Of breaking buds, eve, and the flow of dawn, Were centred and condensed in his one name As in a providence-and that was Shelley. POOR OLD PILGRIM MISERY Poor old pilgrim Misery, Beneath the silent moon he sate, With withered willow2 twined, And his cry it was ever, alack! Anon a wanton imp astray His piteous moaning hears, And hid it in your eyes, Or your cry shall be ever, alack! 1 Written by Shelley. See p. 662. |