In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like–almost any thing–
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before–
Videlicet a tent–
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented thing!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
1831
* * * * *
THE LAKE.
In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less– So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon the spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody–
Then–ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight–
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define– Nor Love–although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining–
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
1827.
* * * * *
EVENING STAR.
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And midtime of night,
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, through the light
Of the brighter, cold moon.
‘Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold–too cold for me–
There passed, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
1827.
* * * * *
IMITATION.
A dark unfathomed tide
Of interminable pride–
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control,
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my wordly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it passed on:
I care not though it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
1827.
* * * * *
“THE HAPPIEST DAY.”
I. The happiest day–the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.
II. Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween But they have vanished long, alas! The visions of my youth have been– But let them pass.
III. And pride, what have I now with thee? Another brow may ev’n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me– Be still my spirit!
IV. The happiest day–the happiest hour Mine eyes shall see–have ever seen The brightest glance of pride and power I feel have been:
V. But were that hope of pride and power Now offered with the pain
Ev’n _then_ I felt–that brightest hour I would not live again:
VI. For on its wing was dark alloy And as it fluttered–fell
An essence–powerful to destroy A soul that knew it well.
1827.
* * * * *
Translation from the Greek.
HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS.
I. Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal, Like those champions devoted and brave, When they plunged in the tyrant their steel, And to Athens deliverance gave.
II. Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam In the joy breathing isles of the blest; Where the mighty of old have their home– Where Achilles and Diomed rest.
III. In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine, Like Harmodius, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny’s blood.
IV. Ye deliverers of Athens from shame! Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame, Embalmed in their echoing songs!
1827
* * * * *
DREAMS.
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream! My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow. Yes! though that long dream were of hopeless sorrow, ‘Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be, And hath been still, upon the lovely earth, A chaos of deep passion, from his birth. But should it be–that dream eternally
Continuing–as dreams have been to me In my young boyhood–should it thus be given, ‘Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven. For I have revelled when the sun was bright I’ the summer sky, in dreams of living light And loveliness,–have left my very heart Inclines of my imaginary apart [1]
From mine own home, with beings that have been Of mine own thought–what more could I have seen? ‘Twas once–and only once–and the wild hour From my remembrance shall not pass–some power Or spell had bound me–’twas the chilly wind Came o’er me in the night, and left behind Its image on my spirit–or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon Too coldly–or the stars–howe’er it was That dream was that that night-wind–let it pass. _I have been_ happy, though in a dream. I have been happy–and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things Of Paradise and Love–and all my own!– Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
[Footnote 1: In climes of mine imagining apart?–Ed.]
* * * * *
“IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE.”
_How often we forget all time, when lone Admiring Nature’s universal throne; Her woods–her wilds–her mountains–the intense Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_
I. In youth I have known one with whom the Earth In secret communing held–as he with it, In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth A passionate light such for his spirit was fit– And yet that spirit knew–not in the hour Of its own fervor–what had o’er it power.
II. Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought To a ferver [1] by the moonbeam that hangs o’er, But I will half believe that wild light fraught With more of sovereignty than ancient lore Hath ever told–or is it of a thought The unembodied essence, and no more That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?
III. Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye To the loved object–so the tear to the lid Will start, which lately slept in apathy? And yet it need not be–(that object) hid From us in life–but common–which doth lie Each hour before us–but then only bid With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken T’ awake us–‘Tis a symbol and a token–
IV. Of what in other worlds shall be–and given In beauty by our God, to those alone Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone, That high tone of the spirit which hath striven Though not with Faith–with godliness–whose throne With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down; Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
[Footnote 1: Query “fervor”?–Ed.]
* * * * *
A PAEAN.
I. How shall the burial rite be read? The solemn song be sung?
The requiem for the loveliest dead, That ever died so young?
II. Her friends are gazing on her, And on her gaudy bier,
And weep!–oh! to dishonor
Dead beauty with a tear!
III. They loved her for her wealth– And they hated her for her pride– But she grew in feeble health,
And they _love_ her–that she died.
IV. They tell me (while they speak
Of her “costly broider’d pall”) That my voice is growing weak–
That I should not sing at all–
V. Or that my tone should be
Tun’d to such solemn song
So mournfully–so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI. But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride.–
VII. Of the dead–dead who lies
All perfum’d there,
With the death upon her eyes.
And the life upon her hair.
VIII. Thus on the coffin loud and long I strike–the murmur sent
Through the gray chambers to my song, Shall be the accompaniment.
IX. Thou diedst in thy life’s June– But thou didst not die too fair:
Thou didst not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.
X. From more than friends on earth, Thy life and love are riven,
To join the untainted mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven.–
XI. Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a Paean of old days.
* * * * *
NOTES.
30. On the “Poems written in Youth” little comment is needed. This section includes the pieces printed for the first volume of 1827 (which was subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised versions, and a few others collected from various sources.
“Al Aaraaf” first appeared, with the sonnet “To Silence” prefixed to it, in 1829, and is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however, this poem, its author’s longest, was introduced by the following twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in all subsequent collections:
AL AARAAF.
Mysterious star!
Thou wert my dream
All a long summer night–
Be now my theme!
By this clear stream,
Of thee will I write;
Meantime from afar
Bathe me in light!
Thy world has not the dross of ours, Yet all the beauty–all the flowers
That list our love or deck our bowers In dreamy gardens, where do lie
Dreamy maidens all the day;
While the silver winds of Circassy On violet couches faint away.
Little–oh! little dwells in thee
Like unto what on earth we see:
Beauty’s eye is here the bluest
In the falsest and untruest–
On the sweetest air doth float
The most sad and solemn note–
If with thee be broken hearts,
Joy so peacefully departs,
That its echo still doth dwell,
Like the murmur in the shell.
Thou! thy truest type of grief
Is the gently falling leaf–
Thou! thy framing is so holy
Sorrow is not melancholy.
* * * * *
31. The earliest version of “Tamerlane” was included in the suppressed volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the lines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at least.
* * * * *
32. “To Helen” first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also “The Valley of Unrest” (as “The Valley Nis”), “Israfel,” and one or two others of the youthful pieces.
The poem styled “Romance” constituted the Preface of the 1829 volume, but with the addition of the following lines:
Succeeding years, too wild for song, Then rolled like tropic storms along,
Where, though the garish lights that fly Dying along the troubled sky,
Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven, The blackness of the general Heaven,
That very blackness yet doth fling Light on the lightning’s silver wing.
For being an idle boy lang syne,
Who read Anacreon and drank wine,
I early found Anacreon rhymes
Were almost passionate sometimes– And by strange alchemy of brain
His pleasures always turned to pain– His naivete to wild desire–
His wit to love–his wine to fire– And so, being young and dipt in folly,
I fell in love with melancholy.
And used to throw my earthly rest
And quiet all away in jest–
I could not love except where Death Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath– Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,
Were stalking between her and me.
* * * * *
But _now_ my soul hath too much room– Gone are the glory and the gloom–
The black hath mellow’d into gray, And all the fires are fading away.
My draught of passion hath been deep– I revell’d, and I now would sleep–
And after drunkenness of soul
Succeeds the glories of the bowl– An idle longing night and day
To dream my very life away.
But dreams–of those who dream as I, Aspiringly, are damned, and die:
Yet should I swear I mean alone,
By notes so very shrilly blown,
To break upon Time’s monotone,
While yet my vapid joy and grief
Are tintless of the yellow leaf–
Why not an imp the greybeard hath, Will shake his shadow in my path–
And e’en the greybeard will o’erlook Connivingly my dreaming-book.
* * * * *
DOUBTFUL POEMS.
* * * * *
ALONE.
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were–I have not seen
As others saw–I could not bring
My passions from a common spring– From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow–I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone– And all I loved–_I_ loved alone–
_Thou_–in my childhood–in the dawn Of a most stormy life–was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still– From the torrent, or the fountain–
From the red cliff of the mountain– From the sun that round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold–
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by–
From the thunder and the storm–
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view.
March 17, 1829.
* * * * *
TO ISADORE.
I. Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door–
Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves– Within thy snowy clasped hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand, Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land– Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!
II. And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem With the deep, untold delight
Of Love’s serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight, Enthralled my soul to thee!
III. Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes, Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset’s fringe of gold; Now strangely clear thine image grows, And olden memories
Are startled from their long repose Like shadows on the silent snows
When suddenly the night-wind blows Where quiet moonlight lies.
IV. Like music heard in dreams,
Like strains of harps unknown, Of birds for ever flown,–
Audible as the voice of streams That murmur in some leafy dell,
I hear thy gentlest tone,
And Silence cometh with her spell Like that which on my tongue doth dwell, When tremulous in dreams I tell
My love to thee alone!
V. In every valley heard,
Floating from tree to tree,
Less beautiful to me,
The music of the radiant bird, Than artless accents such as thine
Whose echoes never flee!
Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:– For uttered in thy tones benign
(Enchantress!) this rude name of mine Doth seem a melody!
* * * * *
THE VILLAGE STREET.
In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,–
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen, Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night’s irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas;
While the winds were hushed in slumber In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
‘Neath the willows by the stream; Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast; Swift and keen there came unto me
Bitter memories of the past–
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered– Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh When the Night’s first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams; And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, O heart, forget thine idol! And, O soul, forget thy dreams!
* * * * *
THE FOREST REVERIE.
‘Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of wo, Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow–
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow– The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale,
And the queenly lily adown the dale (Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife Are broken at a blow–
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died– Quenching the fires its ashes hide,–
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow Sweet flowers, ere long,–
The rare and radiant flowers of song!
* * * * *
NOTES.
Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe, and not included among his known writings, the lines entitled “Alone” have the chief claim to our notice. ‘Fac-simile’ copies of this piece had been in possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication in ‘Scribner’s Magazine’ for September 1875; but as proofs of the authorship claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from publishing it as requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced, and there is, at present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us. “Alone” is stated to have been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore lady (Mrs. Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and the ‘fac-simile’ given in ‘Scribner’s’ is alleged to be of his handwriting. If the caligraphy be Poe’s, it is different in all essential respects from all the many specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of the writer of the heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which the contributor of the poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The lines, however, if not by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to speak, “are not unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them.”
Whilst Edgar Poe was editor of the ‘Broadway Journal’, some lines “To Isadore” appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared, saying they were by “A. Ide, junior.” Two previous poems had appeared in the ‘Broadway Journal’ over the signature of “A. M. Ide,” and whoever wrote them was also the author of the lines “To Isadore.” In order, doubtless, to give a show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his journal over ‘noms de plume’, and as no other writings whatever can be traced to any person bearing the name of “A. M. Ide,” it is not impossible that the poems now republished in this collection may be by the author of “The Raven.” Having been published without his usual elaborate revision, Poe may have wished to hide his hasty work under an assumed name. The three pieces are included in the present collection, so the reader can judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be by the author of “The Raven.”
* * * * *
PROSE POEMS.
* * * * *
THE ISLAND OF THE FAY.
“Nullus enim locus sine genio est.”
_Servius_.
“_La musique_,” says Marmontel, in those “Contes Moraux”[1] which in all our translations we have insisted upon calling “Moral Tales,” as if in mockery of their spirit–“_la musique est le seul des talens qui jouisse de lui-meme: tous les autres veulent des temoins_.” He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any other _talent_, is that for music susceptible of complete enjoyment where there is no second party to appreciate its exercise; and it is only in common with other talents that it produces _effects_ which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the _raconteur_ has either failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of _point_, is doubtless the very tenable one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition in this form will be admitted at once by those who love the lyre for its own sake and for its spiritual uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality, and perhaps only one, which owes even more than does music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me at least the presence, not of human life only, but of life, in any other form than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are voiceless, is a stain upon the landscape, is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon all,–I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole–a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose life is eternity; whose thought is that of a god; whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the _animalculae_ which infest the brain, a being which we in consequence regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the same manner as these _animalculae_ must thus regard us.
Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every hand, notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the priesthood, that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of those bodies are accurately such as within a given surface to include the greatest possible amount of matter; while the surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an object with God that space itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill it; and since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle–indeed, as far as our judgments extend, the _leading_ principle in the operations of Deity, it is scarcely logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within cycle without end, yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast “clod of the valley” which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than that he does not behold it in operation [2].
These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a tinge of what the every-day world would not fail to term the fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through many a dim deep valley, or gazed into the reflected heaven of many a bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and gazed _alone._ What flippant Frenchman [3] was it who said, in allusion to the well known work of Zimmermann, that _”la solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la solitude est une belle chose”_? The epigram cannot be gainsaid; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.
It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy tarns writhing or sleeping within all, that I chanced upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf beneath the branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon it, such was the character of phantasm which it wore.
On all sides, save to the west where the sun was about sinking, arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east; while in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and continuously into the valley a rich golden and crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.
About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream.
So blended bank and shadow there,
That each seemed pendulous in air–
so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern and western extremities of the islet, and I observed a singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the eye of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect, bright, slender, and graceful, of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all, and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet everything had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings [4].
The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom, here pervaded all things. The trees were dark in color and mournful in form and attitude– wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes, that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of graves, but were not, although over and all about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shades of the trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream, while other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors thus entombed.
This idea having once seized upon my fancy greatly excited it, and I lost myself forthwith in reverie. “If ever island were enchanted,” said I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs theirs?–or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully, rendering unto God little by little their existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?”
As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island, bearing upon their bosom large dazzling white flakes of the bark of the sycamore, flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have converted into anything it pleased; while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering, made its way slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy, but sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. “The revolution which has just been made by the Fay,” continued I musingly, “is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year nearer unto death: for I did not fail to see that as she came into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the dark water, making its blackness more black.”
And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which deepened momently), and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again she made the circuit of the island (while the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length, when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for darkness fell over all things, and I beheld her magical figure no more.
[Footnote 1: Moraux is here derived from _moeurs_, and its meaning is “_fashionable_,” or, more strictly, “of manners.”]
[Footnote 2: Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise, ‘De Situ Orbis’, says,
“Either the world is a great animal, or,” etc.]
[Footnote 3: Balzac, in substance; I do not remember the words.]
[Footnote 4:
“Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera.”
‘P. Commire’.]
* * * * *
THE POWER OF WORDS.
‘Oinos.’
Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with immortality!
‘Agathos.’
You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition. For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!
‘Oinos.’
But in this existence I dreamed that I should be at once cognizant of all things, and thus at once happy in being cognizant of all.
‘Agathos.’
Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of knowledge! In forever knowing, we are forever blessed; but to know all, were the curse of a fiend.
‘Oinos.’
But does not The Most High know all?
‘Agathos’.
_That_ (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the _one_ thing unknown even to HIM.
‘Oinos.’
But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not _at last_ all things be known?
‘Agathos.’
Look down into the abysmal distances!–attempt to force the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep slowly through them thus–and thus–and thus! Even the spiritual vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden walls of the universe?–the walls of the myriads of the shining bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?
‘Oinos’.
I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.
‘Agathos’.
There are no dreams in Aidenn–but it is here whispered that, of this infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford infinite springs at which the soul may allay the thirst _to know_ which is forever unquenchable within it–since to quench it would be to extinguish the soul’s self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple-tinted suns.
‘Oinos’.
And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!–speak to me in the earth’s familiar tones! I understand not what you hinted to me just now of the modes or of the methods of what during mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say that the Creator is not God?
‘Agathos’.
I mean to say that the Deity does not create.
‘Oinos’.
Explain!
‘Agathos’.
In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures which are now throughout the universe so perpetually springing into being can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.
‘Oinos.’
Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical in the extreme.
‘Agathos.’
Among the angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.
‘Oinos.’
I can comprehend you thus far–that certain operations of what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain conditions, give rise to that which has all the _appearance_ of creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of animalculae.
‘Agathos.’
The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the secondary creation, and of the _only_ species of creation which has ever been since the first word spoke into existence the first law.
‘Oinos.’
Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity, burst hourly forth into the heavens–are not these stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?
‘Agathos.’
Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and in so doing we gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was indefinitely extended till it gave impulse to every particle of the earth’s air, which thenceforward, _and forever_, was actuated by the one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation–so that it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of given extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (forever) every atom of the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty; from a given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless–and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis–who saw, too, the facility of the retrogradation–these men saw, at the same time, that this species of analysis itself had within itself a capacity for indefinite progress–that there were no bounds conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our mathematicians paused.
‘Oinos.’
And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?
‘Agathos.’
Because there were some considerations of deep interest beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of infinite understanding–one to whom the _perfection_ of the algebraic analysis lay unfolded–there could be no difficulty in tracing every impulse given the air–and the ether through the air–to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse _given the air_, must _in the end_ impress every individual thing that exists _within the universe;_–and the being of infinite understanding–the being whom we have imagined–might trace the remote undulations of the impulse–trace them upward and onward in their influences upon all particles of all matter–upward and onward forever in their modifications of old forms–or, in other words, _in their creation of new_–until he found them reflected–unimpressive _at last_–back from the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such a being do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded him–should one of these numberless comets, for example, be presented to his inspection–he could have no difficulty in determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection–this faculty of referring at _all_ epochs, _all_ effects to _all_ causes–is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone–but in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic Intelligences.
‘Oinos’.
But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.
‘Agathos’.
In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth: but the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether–which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the great medium of _creation_.
‘Oinos’.
Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?
‘Agathos’.
It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the source of all motion is thought–and the source of all thought is–
‘Oinos’.
God.
‘Agathos’.
I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child, of the fair Earth which lately perished–of impulses upon the atmosphere of the earth.
‘Oinos’.
You did.
‘Agathos’.
And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some thought of the _physical power of words_? Is not every word an impulse on the air?
‘Oinos’.
But why, Agathos, do you weep–and why, oh, why do your wings droop as we hover above this fair star–which is the greenest and yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream–but its fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.
‘Agathos’.
They _are_!–they _are_!–This wild star–it is now three centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the feet of my beloved–I spoke it–with a few passionate sentences–into birth. Its brilliant flowers _are_ the dearest of all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes _are_ the passions of the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts!
* * * * *
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA.
[Greek: Mellonta sauta’]
These things are in the future.
_Sophocles_–‘Antig.’
‘Una.’
“Born again?”
‘Monos.’
Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death itself resolved for me the secret.
‘Una.’
Death!
‘Monos.’
How strangely, sweet _Una_, you echo my words! I observe, too, a vacillation in your step, a joyous inquietude in your eyes. You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts, throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!
‘Una.’
Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss, saying unto it, “thus far, and no farther!” That earnest mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosoms, how vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas, as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus in time it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy then.
‘Monos’.
Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una–mine, mine forever now!
‘Una’.
But the memory of past sorrow, is it not present joy? I have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and Shadow.
‘Monos’.
And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in vain? I will be minute in relating all, but at what point shall the weird narrative begin?
‘Una’.
At what point?
‘Monos’.
You have said.
‘Una’.
Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then, commence with the moment of life’s cessation–but commence with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.
‘Monos’.
One word first, my Una, in regard to man’s general condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the wise among our forefathers–wise in fact, although not in the world’s esteem–had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term “improvement,” as applied to the progress of our civilization. There were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose some vigorous intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious –principles which should have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws rather than attempt their control. At long intervals some master-minds appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect–that intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of all–since those truths which to us were of the most enduring importance could only be reached by that _analogy_ which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to the unaided reason bears no weight–occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his soul. And these men–the poets–living and perishing amid the scorn of the “utilitarians”–of rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves a title which could have been properly applied only to the scorned–these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were keen–days when _mirth_ was a word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was happiness–holy, august, and blissful days, blue rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes, primeval, odorous, and unexplored. Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days. The great “movement”–that was the cant term–went on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art–the Arts–arose supreme, and once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of God–in despite of the loud warning voice of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in Earth and Heaven–wild attempts at an omniprevalent Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our _taste_, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone–that faculty which, holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely have been disregarded–it was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas for the [Greek: mousichae] which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!–since both were most desperately needed, when both were most entirely forgotten or despised [1]. Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly!–“_Que tout notre raisonnement se reduit a ceder au sentiment;_” and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old ascendency over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge, the old age of the world drew near. This the mass of mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate from comparison of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent mother of all Arts. In the history of these regions I met with a ray from the Future. The individual artificialities of the three latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied; but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration save in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw that he must be “_born again._”
And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits, daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, having undergone that purification which alone could efface its rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure and the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and be rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for man:–for man the Death-purged–for man to whose now exalted intellect there should be poison in knowledge no more–for the redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for the _material_, man.
‘Una’.
Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but the epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in believing. Men lived; and died individually. You yourself sickened, and passed into the grave; and thither your constant Una speedily followed you. And though the century which has since elapsed, and whose conclusion brings up together once more, tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience of duration, yet my Monos, it was a century still.
‘Monos’.
Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity. Unquestionably, it was in the Earth’s dotage that I died. Wearied at heart with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you–after some days there came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless torpor; and this was termed _Death_ by those who stood around me.
Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid-summer noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness, through the mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by external disturbances.
I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses were unusually active, although eccentrically so–assuming often each other’s functions at random. The taste and the smell were inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and intense. The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers–fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The eye-lids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their sockets–but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as _sound_–sound sweet or discordant as the matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark in shade–curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same time, although excited in degree, was not irregular in action–estimating real sounds with an extravagance of precision, not less than of sensibility. Touch had undergone a modification more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and resulted always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only recognized through vision, at length, long after their removal, filled my whole being with a sensual delight immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. _All_ my perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave them birth; while large and constant tears which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And this was in truth the _Death_ of which these bystanders spoke reverently, in low whispers–you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with loud cries.
They attired me for the coffin–three or four dark figures which flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my vision they affected me as _forms;_ but upon passing to my side their images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and, other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of woe. You alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about.
The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed by a vague uneasiness–an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear–low distant bell-tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and commingling with melancholy dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown in strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into the rooms, and this reverberation became forthwith interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound, but less dreary and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a great measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp (for there were many), there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side, breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with the merely physical sensations which circumstances had called forth, a something akin to sentiment itself–a feeling that, half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and sorrow; but this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away, first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual pleasure as before.
And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its exercise I found a wild delight–yet a delight still physical, inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up in the brain _that_ of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man’s abstract idea of _Time_. By the absolute equalization of this movement–or of such as this–had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted. By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true proportion–and these deviations were omniprevalent–affected me just as violations of abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense. Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the respective momentary errors of each. And this–this keen, perfect self-existing sentiment of _duration_–this sentiment existing (as man could not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of any succession of events–this idea–this sixth sense, upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of the temporal eternity.
It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer. The oppression of the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull shot like that of electricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by total loss of the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense was merged in the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of duration. The mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of the deadly _Decay_.
Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dully felt that you sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of the second day came, I was not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side, which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.
And here in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose, there rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record of its flight–without effort and without object.
A year passed. The consciousness of _being_ had grown hourly more indistinct, and that of mere _locality_ had in great measure usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of _place_. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the body was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is _Death_ imaged)–at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the deep slumberer, when some flitting light half startled him into awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams–so to me, in the strict embrace of the _Shadow_, came _that_ light which alone might have had power to startle–the light of enduring _Love_. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there descended the coffin of Una. And now again all was void. That nebulous light had been extinguished. That feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quiescence. Many _lustra_ had supervened. Dust had returned to dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being had at length utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead– instead of all things, dominant and perpetual–the autocrats _Place_ and _Time._ For _that_ which _was not_–for that which had no form–for that which had no thought–for that which had no sentience–for that which was soundless, yet of which matter formed no portion–for all this nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.
[Footnote 1:
“It will be hard to discover a better [method of education] than that which the experience of so many ages has already discovered; and this may be summed up as consisting in gymnastics for the body, and _music_ for the soul.”
Repub. lib. 2.
“For this reason is a musical education most essential; since it causes Rhythm and Harmony to penetrate most intimately into the soul, taking the strongest hold upon it, filling it with _beauty_ and making the man _beautiful-minded_. … He will praise and admire _the beautiful_, will receive it with joy into his soul, will feed upon it, and _assimilate his own condition with it_.”
Ibid. lib. 3. Music had, however, among the Athenians, a far more comprehensive signification than with us. It included not only the harmonies of time and of tune, but the poetic diction, sentiment and creation, each in its widest sense. The study of _music_ was with them, in fact, the general cultivation of the taste–of that which recognizes the beautiful–in contradistinction from reason, which deals only with the true.]
* * * * *
THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION.
I will bring fire to thee.
_Euripides_.–‘Androm’.
‘Eiros’.
Why do you call me Eiros?
‘Charmion’.
So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget, too, _my_ earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.
‘Eiros’.
This is indeed no dream!
‘Charmion’.
Dreams are with us no more;–but of these mysteries anon. I rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart, and fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired, and to-morrow I will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel existence.
‘Eiros’.
True–I feel no stupor–none at all. The wild sickness and the terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad, rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice of many waters.” Yet my senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their perception of _the new_.
‘Charmion’.
A few days will remove all this;–but I fully understand you, and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what you undergo–yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.
‘Eiros’.
In Aidenn?
‘Charmion’.
In Aidenn.
‘Eiros’.
O God!–pity me, Charmion!–I am overburthened with the majesty of all things–of the unknown now known–of the speculative Future merged in the august and certain Present.
‘Charmion’.
Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward–but back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so fearfully perished.
‘Eiros’.
Most fearfully, fearfully!–this is indeed no dream.
‘Charmion’.
Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?
‘Eiros’.
Mourned, Charmion?–oh, deeply. To that last hour of all there hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.
‘Charmion’.
And that last hour–speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave–at that period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day.
‘Eiros’.
The individual calamity was, as you say, entirely unanticipated; but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire as having reference to the orb of the earth alone, But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites of Jupiter without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were accurately known. That among _them_ we should look for the agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been of late days strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a _new_ comet, yet this announcement was generally received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.
The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was at once conceded by all observers that its path, at perihelion would bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or three astronomers of secondary note who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they would not believe an assertion which their intellect, so long employed among worldly considerations, could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge lies not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was not at first seemingly rapid, nor was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were discarded, and all interest absorbed in a growing discussion instituted by the philosophic in respect to the cometary nature. Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such considerations. The learned _now_ gave their intellect–their soul–to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of loved theory. They sought–they panted for right views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. _Truth_ arose in the purity of her strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.
That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would result from the apprehended contact was an opinion which hourly lost ground among the wise; and the wise were now freely permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated that the density of the comet’s _nucleus_ was far less than that of our rarest gas; and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to allay terror. Theologists, with an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded them to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had been known. That the final destruction of the earth must be brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit that enforced everywhere conviction; and that the comets were of no fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved all, in a great measure, from the apprehension of the great calamity foretold. It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar errors in regard to pestilences and wars–errors which were wont to prevail upon every appearance of a comet–were now altogether unknown, as if by some sudden convulsive exertion reason had at once hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive interest.
What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and consequently in vegetation; of possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect would in any manner be produced. While such discussions were going on, their subject gradually approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All human operations were suspended.
There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their bosoms. A very few days suffered, however, to merge even such feelings in sentiments more unendurable. We could no longer apply to the strange orb any _accustomed_ thoughts. Its _historical_ attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous _novelty_ of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken, with unconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.
Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this