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(From Book vii)
I. NOW starting up among the living changed, | |
| Appeared innumerous the risen dead. | |
| Each particle of dust was claimed: the turf, | |
| For ages trod beneath the careless foot | |
| Of men, rose, organised in human form; | 5 |
| The monumental stones were rolled away; | |
| The doors of death were opened; and in the dark | |
| And loathsome vault, and silent charnel-house, | |
| Moving, we heard the mouldered bones that sought | |
| Their proper place. Instinctive, every soul | 10 |
| Flew to its clayey part: from grass-grown mould | |
| The nameless spirit took its ashes up, | |
| Reanimate; and, merging from beneath | |
| The flattering marble, undistinguished rose | |
| The great, nor heeded once the lavish rhyme, | 15 |
| And costly pomp of sculptured garnish vain. | |
| The Memphian mummy, that from age to age | |
| Descending, bought and sold a thousand times, | |
| In hall of curious antiquary stowed, | |
| Wrapped in mysterious weeds, the wondrous theme | 20 |
| Of many an erring tale, shook off its rags; | |
| And the brown son of Egypt stood beside | |
| The European, his last purchaser. | |
| In vale remote, the hermit rose, surprised | |
| At crowds that rose around him, where he thought | 25 |
| His slumbers had been single; and the bard, | |
| Who fondly covenanted with his friend, | |
| To lay his bones beneath the sighing bough | |
| Of some old lonely tree, rising, was pressed | |
| By multitudes that claimed their proper dust | 30 |
| From the same spot, and he that, richly hearsed, | |
| With gloomy garniture of purchased woe, | |
| Embalmed, in princely sepulchre was laid, | |
| Apart from vulgar men, built nicely round | |
| And round by the proud heir, who blushed to think | 35 |
| His father’s lordly clay should ever mix | |
| With peasant dust,—saw by his side awake | |
| The clown that long had slumbered in his arms. | |
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II. Self-purifying, unpolluted Sea! | |
| Lover unchangeable, thy faithful breast | 40 |
| For ever heaving to the lovely moon, | |
| That like a shy and holy virgin, robed | |
| In saintly white, walked nightly in the heavens, | |
| And to thy everlasting serenade | |
| Gave gracious audience; nor was wooed in vain. | 45 |
| That morning, thou, that slumbered not before, | |
| Nor slept, great Ocean! laid thy waves to rest, | |
| And hushed thy mighty minstrelsy; no breath | |
| Thy deep composure stirred, no fin, no oar; | |
| Like beauty newly dead, so calm, so still, | 50 |
| So lovely, thou, beneath the light that fell | |
| From angel-chariots sentinelled on high, | |
| Reposed, and listened, and saw thy living change, | |
| Thy dead arise. Charybdis listened, and Scylla; | |
| And savage Euxine on the Thracian beach | 55 |
| Lay motionless; and every battle-ship | |
| Stood still, and every ship of merchandise, | |
| And all that sailed, of every name, stood still. | |
| Even as the ship of war, full-fledged, and swift, | |
| Like some fierce bird of prey, bore on her foe, | 60 |
| Opposing with as fell intent, the wind | |
| Fell withered from her wings that idly hung; | |
| The stormy bullet, by the cannon thrown | |
| Uncivilly against the heavenly face | |
| Of men, half sped, sank harmlessly, and all | 65 |
| Her loud, uncircumcised, tempestuous crew— | |
| How ill prepared to meet their God!—were changed, | |
| Unchangeable; the pilot at the helm | |
| Was changed, and the rough captain, while he mouthed | |
| The huge enormous oath. The fisherman, | 70 |
| That in his boat expectant watched his lines, | |
| Or mended on the shore his net, and sang, | |
| Happy in thoughtlessness, some careless air, | |
| Heard Time depart, and felt the sudden change. | |
| In solitary deep, far out from land, | 75 |
| Or steering from the port with many a cheer; | |
| Or, while returning from long voyage, fraught | |
| With lusty wealth, rejoicing to have escaped | |
| The dangerous main, and plagues of foreign climes, | |
| The merchant quaffed his native air, refreshed; | 80 |
| And saw his native hills in the sun’s light | |
| Serenely rise; and thought of meetings glad, | |
| And many days of ease and honour spent | |
| Among his friends—unwarnèd man! even then | |
| The knell of Time broke on his reverie, | 85 |
| And in the twinkling of an eye his hopes, | |
| All earthly, perished all. As sudden rose, | |
| From out their watery beds, the Ocean’s dead, | |
| Renewed, and on the unstirring billows stood, | |
| From pole to pole, thick covering all the sea— | 90 |
| Of every nation blent, and every age. | |
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(From Book viii)
III. RESTORED to reason, on that morn, appeared | |
| The lunatic, who raved in chains, and asked | |
| No mercy when he died. Of lunacy, | |
| Innumerous were the causes: humbled pride | 95 |
| Ambition disappointed, riches lost, | |
| And bodily disease, and sorrow, oft | |
| By man inflicted on his brother man;… | |
| Take one example, one of female woe. | |
| Loved by a father’s and a mother’s love, | 100 |
| In rural peace she lived, so fair, so light | |
| Of heart, so good, and young, that reason scarce | |
| The eye could credit, but would doubt, as she | |
| Did stoop to pull the lily or the rose | |
| From morning’s dew, if it reality | 105 |
| Of flesh and blood, or holy vision, saw, | |
| In imagery of perfect womanhood. | |
| But short her bloom, her happiness was short. | |
| One saw her loveliness, and, with desire | |
| Unhallowed burning, to her ear addressed | 110 |
| Dishonest words: “Her favour was his life, | |
| His heaven; her frown, his woe, his night, his death.” | |
| With turgid phrase, thus wove in flattery’s loom, | |
| He on her womanish nature won, and age | |
| Suspicionless; and ruined, and forsook: | 115 |
| For he a chosen villain was at heart, | |
| And capable of deeds that durst not seek | |
| Repentance. Soon her father saw her shame; | |
| His heart grew stone, he drove her forth to want | |
| And wintry winds, and with a horrid curse | 120 |
| Pursued her ear, forbidding all return. | |
| Upon a hoary cliff that watched the sea, | |
| Her babe was found—dead. On its little cheek, | |
| The tear that nature bade it weep, had turned | |
| An ice-drop, sparkling in the morning beam; | 125 |
| And to the turf its helpless hands were frozen. | |
| For she, the woeful mother, had gone mad, | |
| And laid it down, regardless of its fate, | |
| And of her own. Yet had she many days | |
| Of sorrow in the world, but never wept. | 130 |
| She lived on alms, and carried in her hand | |
| Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring. | |
| When any asked the cause, she smiled, and said | |
| They were her sisters, and would come and watch | |
| Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke | 135 |
| Of her deceiver, father, mother, home, | |
| Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God; but still | |
| In lonely places walked, and ever gazed | |
| Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them; | |
| Till wasted to the shadow of her youth, | 140 |
| With woe too wide to see beyond, she died— | |
| Not unatoned for by imputed blood, | |
| Nor by the Spirit, that mysterious works, | |
| Unsanctified. | |
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