| |
| I STOOD upon the mountain which o’erlooks | |
| The narrow seas, whose rapid interval | |
| Parts Afric from green Europe, when the sun | |
| Had fallen below the Atlantic, and above | |
| The silent heavens were blenched with faery light, | 5 |
| Uncertain whether faery light or cloud, | |
| Flowing southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue | |
| Slumbered unfathomable, and the stars | |
| Were flooded over with clear glory and pale. | |
| I gazed upon the sheeny coast beyond, | 10 |
| There where the Giant of old Time infixed | |
| The limits of his prowess, pillars high | |
| Long time erased from earth; even as the Sea | |
| When weary of wild inroad buildeth up | |
| Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves. | 15 |
| And much I mused on legends quaint and old, | |
| Which whilome won the hearts of all on earth | |
| Toward their brightness, even as flame draws air; | |
| But had their being in the heart of man, | |
| As air is the life of flame: and thou wert then | 20 |
| A centred glory-circled memory, | |
| Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves | |
| Have buried deep, and thou of later name, | |
| Imperial Eldorado, roofed with gold: | |
| Shadows to which, despite all shocks of change, | 25 |
| All onset of capricious accident, | |
| Men clung with yearning hope which would not die. * * * * * | |
| Then I raised | |
| My voice and cried, “Wide Afric, doth thy sun | |
| Lighten, thy hills enfold a city as fair | 30 |
| As those which starred the night o’ the elder world? | |
| Or is the rumor of thy Timbuctoo | |
| A dream as frail as those of ancient time?” | |
| A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light! | |
| A rustling of white wings! the bright descent | 35 |
| Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me | |
| There on the ridge, and looked into my face | |
| With his unutterable, shining orbs, | |
| So that with hasty motion I did veil | |
| My vision with both hands, and saw before me | 40 |
| Such colored spots as dance athwart the eyes | |
| Of those that gaze upon the noonday sun. | |
| Girt with a zone of flashing gold beneath | |
| His breast, and compassed round about his brow | |
| With triple arch of everchanging bows, | 45 |
| And circled with the glory of living light | |
| And alternation of all hues, he stood. | |
| “O child of man, why muse you here alone | |
| Upon the mountain, on the dreams of old | |
| Which filled the earth with passing loveliness, | 50 |
| Which flung strange music on the howling winds, | |
| And odors rapt from remote Paradise? | |
| Thy sense is clogged with dull mortality; | |
| Open thine eyes and see.” * * * * * | |
| Then first within the south methought I saw | 55 |
| A wilderness of spires, and crystal pile | |
| Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome, | |
| Illimitable range of battlement | |
| On battlement, and the imperial height | |
Of canopy o’ercanopied.
Behind | 60 |
| In diamond light upspring the dazzling peaks | |
| Of pyramids, as far surpassing earth’s | |
| As heaven than earth is fairer. Each aloft | |
| Upon his narrowed eminence bore globes | |
| Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances | 65 |
| Of either, showering circular abyss | |
| Of radiance. But the glory of the place | |
| Stood out a pillared front of burnished gold, | |
| Interminably high, if gold it were | |
| Or metal more ethereal, and beneath | 70 |
| Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze | |
| Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan, | |
| Through length of porch and valve and boundless hall, | |
| Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom | |
| The snowy skirting of a garment hung, | 75 |
| And glimpse of multitude of multitudes | |
| That ministered around it—if I saw | |
| These things distinctly, for my human brain | |
| Staggered beneath the vision, and thick night | |
| Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell. | 80 |
| With ministering hand he raised me up: | |
| Then with a mournful and ineffable smile, | |
| Which but to look on for a moment filled | |
| My eyes with irresistible sweet tears, | |
| In accents of majestic melody, | 85 |
| Like a swollen river’s gushings in still night | |
| Mingled with floating music, thus he spake: | |
| “There is no mightier spirit than I to sway | |
| The heart of man; and teach him to attain | |
| By shadowing forth the Unattainable; | 90 |
| And step by step to scale that mighty stair | |
| Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds | |
| Of glory of heaven. * * * * * | |
| “I am the spirit, | |
| The permeating life which courseth through | 95 |
| All the intricate and labyrinthine veins | |
| Of the great vine of Fable, which, outspread | |
| With growth of shadowing leaf and clusters rare, | |
| Reacheth to every corner under heaven, | |
| Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth; | 100 |
| So that men’s hopes and fears take refuge in | |
| The fragrance of its complicated glooms, | |
| And cool impeachéd twilights. Child of man, | |
| Seest thou yon river, whose translucent wave, | |
| Forth issuing from the darkness, windeth through | 105 |
| The argent streets o’ the city, imaging | |
| The soft inversion of her tremulous domes, | |
| Her gardens frequent with the stately palm, | |
| Her pagods hung with music of sweet bells, | |
| Her obelisks of rangéd chrysolite, | 110 |
| Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by, | |
| And gulfs himself in sands, as not enduring | |
| To carry through the world those waves, which bore | |
| The reflex of my city in their depth. | |
| O city! O latest throne! where I was raised | 115 |
| To be a mystery of loveliness | |
| Unto all eyes, the time is wellnigh come | |
| When I must render up this glorious home | |
| To keen Discovery; soon yon brilliant towers | |
| Shall darken with the waving of her wand; | 120 |
| Darken and shrink and shiver into huts, | |
| Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand, | |
| Low-built, mud-walled, barbarian settlements. | |
How changed from this fair city!”
Thus far the Spirit: | |
| Then parted heavenward on the wing: and I | 125 |
| Was left alone on Calpe, and the moon | |
| Had fallen from the night, and all was dark! | |
| |
