Hyperion, A Vision: Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem

CANTO I.

Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave

A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,

From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

Guesses at heaven; pity these have not

Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian leaf

The shadows of melodious utterance,

But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;

For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,--

With the fine spell of words alone can save

Imagination from the sable chain

And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

"Thou art no Poet -- may'st not tell thy dreams?"

Since every man whose soul is not a clod

Hath visions and would speak, if he had loved,

And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

Whether the dream now purpos'd to rehearse

Be poet's or fanatic's will be known

When this warm scribe, my hand, is in the grave.

Methought I stood where trees of every clime,

Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,

With plantane and spice-blossoms, made a screen,

In neighbourhood of fountains (by the noise

Soft-showering in mine ears), and (by the touch

Of scent) not far from roses. Twining round

I saw an arbour with a drooping roof

Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,

Like floral censers, swinging light in air;

Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound

Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,

Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse of a meal

By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

For empty shells were scatter'd on the grass,

And grapestalks but half-bare, and remnants more

Sweet-smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.

Still was more plenty than the fabled horn

Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting,

For Prosperine return'd to her own fields,

Where the white heifers low. And appetite,

More yearning than on earth I ever felt,

Growing within, I ate deliciously,--

And, after not long, thirsted; for thereby

Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the which I took,

And pledging all the mortals of the world,

And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.

No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

Of the soon-fading, jealous, Caliphat,

No poison gender'd in close monkish cell,

To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,

Could so have rapt unwilling life away.

Among the fragment husks and berries crush'd

Upon the grass, I struggled hard against

The domineering potion, but in vain.

The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sank,

Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance to guess.

When sense of life return'd, I started up

As if with wings, but the fair trees were gone,

The mossy mound and arbour were no more;

I look'd around upon the curved sides

Of an old sanctuary, with roof august,

Builded so high, it seem'd that filmed clouds

Might spread beneath as o'er the stars of heaven.

So old the place was, I remember'd none

The like upon the earth: what I had seen

Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd walls, rent towers,

The superannuations of sunk realms,

Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in waves and winds,

Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit things

To that eternal domed monument.

Upon the marble at my feet there lay

Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

Which needs have been of dyed asbestos wove,

Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

So white the linen, so, in some, distinct

Ran imageries from a sombre loom.

All in a mingled heap confus'd there lay

Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing-dish,

Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.

Turning from these with awe, once more I raised

My eyes to fathom the space every way:

The embossed roof, the silent massy range

Of columns north and south, ending in mist

Of nothing; then to eastward, where black gates

Were shut against the sunrise evermore;

Then to the west I look'd, and saw far off

An image, huge of feature as a cloud,

At level of whose feet an altar slept,

To be approach'd on either side by steps

And marble balustrade, and patient travail

To count with toil the innumerable degrees.

Towards the altar sober-pac'd I went,

Repressing haste as too unholy there;

And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

One ministering; and there arose a flame

When in mid-day the sickening east-wind

Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain

Melts out of the frozen incense from all flowers,

And fills the air with so much pleasant health

That even the dying man forgets his shroud;--

Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,

Sending forth Maian incense, spread around

Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,

And clouded all the altar with soft smoke;

From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard

Language pronounc'd: "If thou canst not ascend

These steps, die on that marble where thou art.

Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,

Will parch for lack of nutriment; thy bones

Will wither in few years, and vanish so

That not the quickest eye could find a grain

Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.

The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,

And no hand in the universe can turn

Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt

Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps."

I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once,

So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed.

Prodigious seem'd the toil; the leaves were yet

Burning, when suddenly a palsied chill

Struck from the paved level up my limbs.

And was ascending quick to put cold grasp

Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat.

I shriek'd, and the sharp anguish of my shriek

Stung my own ears; I strove hard to escape

The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step.

Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold

Grew stifling, suffocating at the heart;

And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not.

One minute before death my ic'd foot touch'd

The lowest stair; and, as it touch'd, life seem'd

To pour in at the toes; I mounted up

As once fair angels on a ladder flew

From the green turf to heaven. "Holy Power,"

Cry'd I, approaching near the horned shrine,

"What am I that another death come not

To choke my utterance, sacrilegious, here?"

Then said the veiled shadow: "Thou hast felt

What 'tis to die and live again before

Thy fated hour; that thou hadst power to do so

Is thine own safety; thou hast dated on

Thy doom." "High Prophetess," said I, "purge off,

Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film."

"None can usurp this height," return'd that shade,

"But those to whom the miseries of the world

Are misery, and will not let them rest.

All else who find a haven in the world,

Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days,

If by a chance into this fane they come,

Rot on the pavement where thou rottedst half."

"Are there not thousands in the world," said I,

Encourag'd by the sooth voice of the shade,

"Who love their fellows even to the death,

Who feel the giant agony of the world,

And more, like slaves to poor humanity,

Labour for mortal good? I sure should see

Other men here, but I am here alone."

"Those whom thou spakest of are no visionaries,"

Rejoin'd that voice; "they are no dreamers weak;

They seek no wonder but the human face,

No music but a happy-noted voice:

They come not here, they have no thought to come;

And thou art here, for thou art less than they.

What benefit canst thou do, or all thy tribe,

To the great world? Thou art a dreaming thing,

A fever of thyself: think of the earth;

What bliss, even in hope, is there for thee?

What haven? every creature hath its home,

Every sole man hath days of joy and pain,

Whether his labours be sublime or low --

The pain alone, the joy alone, distinct:

Only the dreamer venoms all his days,

Bearing more woe than all his sins deserve.

Therefore, that happiness be somewhat shared,

Such things as thou art are admitted oft

Into like gardens thou didst pass erewhile,

And suffer'd in these temples: for that cause

Thou standest safe beneath this statue's knees."

"That I am favour'd for unworthiness,

But such propitious parley medicined

In sickness not ignoble, I rejoice,

Aye, and could weep for love of such award."

So answer'd I, continuing, "If it please,

Majestic shadow, tell me where I am,

Whose altar this, for whom this incense curls;

What image this whose face I cannot see

For the broad marble knees; and who thou art,

Of accent feminine so courteous?"

Then the tall shade, in drooping linen veil'd,

Spoke out, so much more earnest, that her breath

Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze that drooping hung

About a golden censer from her hand

Pendent; and by her voice I knew she shed

Long-treasured tears. "This temple, sad and lone,

Is all spar'd from the thunder of a war

Foughten long since by giant hierarchy

Against rebellion: this old image here,

Whose carved features wrinkled as he fell,

Is Saturn's; I, Moneta, left supreme,

Sole goddess of this desolation."

I had no words to answer, for my tongue,

Useless, could find about its roofed home

No syllable of a fit majesty

To make rejoinder of Moneta's mourn:

There was a silence, while the altar's blaze

Was fainting for sweet food. I look'd thereon,

And on the paved floor, where nigh were piled

Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps

Of other crisped spicewood: then again

I look'd upon the altar, and its horns

Whiten'd with ashes, and its languorous flame,

And then upon the offerings again;

And so, by turns, till sad Moneta cry'd:

"The sacrifice is done, but not the less

Will I be kind to thee for thy good will.

My power, which to me is still a curse,

Shall be to thee a wonder; for the scenes

Still swooning vivid through my globbed brain,

With an electral changing misery,

Thou shalt with these dull mortal eyes behold

Free from all pain, if wonder pain thee not."

As near as an immortal's sphered words

Could to a mother's soften were these last:

And yet I had a terror of her robes,

And chiefly of the veils that from her brow

Hung pale, and curtain'd her in mysteries,

That made my heart too small to hold its blood.

This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand

Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face,

Not pin'd by human sorrows, but bright-blanch'd

By an immortal sickness which kills not;

It works a constant change, which happy death

Can put no end to; deathwards progressing

To no death was that visage; it had past

The lilly and the snow; and beyond these

I must not think now, though I saw that face.

But for her eyes I should have fled away;

They held me back with a benignant light,

Soft, mitigated by divinest lids

Half-clos'd, and visionless entire they seem'd

Of all external things; they saw me not,

But in blank splendour beam'd, like the mild moon,

Who comforts those she sees not, who knows not

What eyes are upward cast. As I had found

A grain of gold upon a mountain's side,

And, twing'd with avarice, strain'd out my eyes

To search its sullen entrails rich with ore,

So, at the sad view of Moneta's brow,

I ask'd to see what things the hollow brow

Behind environ'd: what high tragedy

In the dark secret chambers of her skull

Was acting, that could give so dread a stress

To her cold lips, and fill with such a light

Her planetary eyes, and touch her voice

With such a sorrow? "Shade of Memory!"

Cried I, with act adorant at her feet,

"By all the gloom hung round thy fallen house,

By this last temple, by the golden age,

By Great Apollo, thy dear Foster-child,

And by thyself, forlorn divinity,

The pale Omega of a wither'd race,

Let me behold, according as thou saidst,

What in thy brain so ferments to and fro!"

No sooner had this conjuration past

My devout lips, than side by side we stood

(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn pine)

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn,

Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star.

Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy boughs,

And saw what first I thought an image huge,

Like to the image pedestall'd so high

In Saturn's temple; then Moneta's voice

Came brief upon mine ear. "So Saturn sat

When he had lost his realms;" whereon there grew

A power within me of enormous ken

To see as a god sees, and take the depth

Of things as nimbly as the outward eye

Can size and shape pervade. The lofty theme

Of those few words hung vast before my mind

With half-unravell'd web. I sat myself

Upon an eagle's watch, that I might see,

And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of life

Was in this shrouded vale, -- not so much air

As in the zoning of a summer's day

Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass;

But where the dead leaf fell there did it rest.

A stream went noiseless by, still deaden'd more

By reason of the fallen divinity

Spreading more shade; the Naiad 'mid her reeds

Prest her cold finger closer to her lips.

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went

No further than to where old Saturn's feet

Had rested, and there slept how long a sleep!

Degraded, cold, upon the sodden ground

His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead,

Unsceptred, and his realmless eyes were closed;

While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet.

It seem'd no force could wake him from his place;

But there came one who, with a kindred hand,

Touch'd his wide shoulders, after bending low

With reverence, though to one who knew it not.

Then came the griev'd voice of Mnemosyne,

And griev'd I hearken'd. "That divinity

Whom thou saw'st step from yon forlornest wood,

And with slow pace approach our fallen king,

Is Thea, softest-natured of our brood."

I mark'd the Goddess, in fair statuary

Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,

And in her sorrow nearer woman's tears.

There was a list'ning fear in her regard,

As if calamity had but begun;

As if the venom'd clouds of evil days

Had spent their malice, and the sullen rear

Was with its stored thunder labouring up,

One hand she press'd upon that aching spot

Where beats the human heart, as if just there,

Though an immortal, she felt cruel pain;

The other upon Saturn's bended neck

She laid, and to the level of his ear

Leaning, with parted lips some words she spoke

In solemn tenour and deep organ-tone;

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue

Would come in this like accenting; how frail

To that large utterance of the early gods!

"Saturn, look up! and for what, poor lost king?

I have no comfort for thee; no, not one;

I cannot say, wherefore thus sleepest thou?

For Heaven is parted from thee, and the Earth

Knows thee not, so afflicted, for a god.

The Ocean, too, with all its solemn noise,

Has from thy sceptre pass'd; and all the air

Is emptied of thy hoary majesty.

Thy thunder, captious at the new command,

Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen house;

And thy sharp lightning, in unpractis'd hands,

Scourges and burns our once serene domain.

"With such remorseless speed still come new woes,

That unbelief has not a space to breathe.

Saturn! sleep on: me thoughtless, why should I

Thus violate thy slumbrous solitude?

Why should I ope thy melancholy eyes?

Saturn! sleep on, while at thy feet I weep."

As when upon a tranced summer-night

Forests, branch-charmed by the earnest stars,

Dream, and so dream all night without a noise,

Save from one gradual solitary gust

Swelling upon the silence, dying off,

As if the ebbing air had but one wave,

So came these words and went; the while in tears

She prest her fair large forehead to the earth,

Just where her fallen hair might spread in curls,

A soft and silken net for Saturn's feet.

Long, long these two were postured motionless,

Like sculpture builded-up upon the grave

Or their own power. A long awful time

I look'd upon them: still they were the same;

The frozen God still bending to the earth,

And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet;

Moneta silent. Without stay or prop

But my own weak mortality, I bore

The load of this eternal quietude,

The unchanging gloom and the three fixed shapes

Ponderous upon my senses, a whole moon;

For by my burning brain I measured sure

Her silver seasons shedded on the night.

And every day by day methought I grew

More gaunt and ghostly. Oftentimes I pray'd

Intense, that death would take me from the vale

And all its burthens; gasping with despair

Of change, hour after hour I curs'd myself,

Until old Saturn rais'd his faded eyes,

And look'd around and saw his kingdom gone,

And all the gloom and sorrow of the place,

And that fair kneeling Goddess at his feet.

As the moist scent of flowers, and grass, and leaves,

Fills forest-dells with a pervading air,

Known to the woodland nostril, so the words

Of Saturn fill'd the mossy glooms around,

Even to the hollows of time-eaten oaks,

And to the windings of the foxes' hole,

With sad, low tones, while thus he spoke, and sent

Strange moanings to the solitary Pan.

"Moan, brethren, moan, for we are swallow'd up

And buried from all godlike exercise

Of influence benign on planets pale,

And peaceful sway upon man's harvesting,

And all those acts which Deity supreme

Doth ease its heart of love in. Moan and wail;

Moan, brethren, moan; for lo, the rebel spheres

Spin round; the stars their ancient courses keep;

Clouds still with shadowy moisture haunt the earth,

Still suck their fill of light from sun and moon;

Still buds the tree, and still the seashores murmur;

There is no death in all the universe,

No smell of death. -- There shall be death. Moan, moan,

Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy pernicious babes

Weak as the reed, weak, feeble as my voice.

Oh! Oh! the pain, the pain of feebleness;

Moan, moan, for still I thaw; or give me help;

Throw down those imps, and give me victory.

Let me hear other groans, and trumpets blown

Of triumph calm, and hymns of festival,

From the gold peaks of heaven's high-piled clouds;

Voices of soft proclaim, and silver stir

Of strings in hollow shells; and there shall be

Beautiful things made new, for the surprise

Of the sky-children." So he feebly ceased,

With such a poor and sickly-sounding pause,

Methought I heard some old man of the earth

Bewailing earthly loss; nor could my eyes

And ears act with that unison of sense

Which marries sweet sound with the grace of form,

And dolorous accent from a tragic harp

With large-limb'd visions. More I scrutinized.

Still fixt he sat beneath the sable trees,

Whose arms spread straggling in wild serpent forms

With leaves all hush'd; his awful presence there

(Now all was silent) gave a deadly lie

To what I erewhile heard: only his lips

Trembled amid the white curls of his beard;

They told the truth, though round the snowy locks

Hung nobly, as upon the face of heaven

A mid-day fleece of clouds. Thea arose,

And stretcht her white arm through the hollow dark,

Pointing some whither: whereat he too rose,

Like a vast giant, seen by men at sea

To grow pale from the waves at dull midnight.

They melted from my sight into the woods;

Ere I could turn, Moneta cry'd, "These twain

Are speeding to the families of grief,

Where, rooft in by black rocks, they waste in pain

And darkness, for no hope." And she spake on,

As ye may read who can unwearied pass

Onward from the antechamber of this dream,

Where, even at the open doors, awhile

I must delay, and glean my memory

Of her high phrase -- perhaps no further dare.

CANTO II.

"Mortal, that thou may'st understand aright,

I humanize my sayings to thine ear,

Making comparisons of earthly things;

Or thou might'st better listen to the wind,

Whose language is to thee a barren noise,

Though it blows legend-laden thro' the trees.

In melancholy realms big tears are shed,

More sorrow like to this, and such like woe,

Too huge for mortal tongue or pen of scribe.

The Titans fierce, self-hid or prison-bound,

Groan for the old allegiance once more,

Listening in their doom for Saturn's voice.

But one of the whole eagle-brood still keeps

His sovereignty, and rule, and majesty:

Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire

Still sits, still snuffs the incense teeming up

From Man to the Sun's God -- yet insecure.

For as upon the earth dire prodigies

Fright and perplex, so also shudders he;

Not at dog's howl or gloom-bird's hated screech,

Or the familiar visiting of one

Upon the first toll of his passing bell,

Or prophesyings of the midnight lamp;

But horrors, portioned to a giant nerve,

Make great Hyperion ache. His palace bright,

Bastion'd with pyramids of shining gold,

And touch'd with shade of bronzed obelisks,

Glares a blood-red thro' all the thousand courts,

Arches, and domes, and fiery galleries;

And all its curtains of Aurorian clouds

Flash angerly; when he would taste the wreaths

Of incense, breath'd aloft from sacred hills,

Instead of sweets, his ample palate takes

Savour of poisonous brass and metals sick;

Wherefore when harbour'd in the sleepy West,

After the full completion of fair day,

For rest divine upon exalted couch,

And slumber in the arms of melody,

He paces through the pleasant hours of ease,

With strides colossal, on from hall to hall,

While far within each aisle and deep recess

His winged minions in close clusters stand

Amaz'd, and full of fear; like anxious men,

Who on a wide plain gather in sad troops,

When earthquakes jar their battlements and towers.

Even now where Saturn, rous'd from icy trance,

Goes step for step with Thea from yon woods,

Hyperion, leaving twilight in the rear,

Is sloping to the threshold of the West.

Thither we tend." Now in the clear light I stood,

Reliev'd from the dusk vale. Mnemosyne

Was sitting on a square-edg'd polish'd stone,

That in its lucid depth reflected pure

Her priestess' garments. My quick eyes ran on

From stately nave to nave, from vault to vault,

Through bow'rs of fragrant and enwreathed light,

And diamond-paved lustrous long arcades.

Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion;

His flaming robes stream'd out beyond his heels,

And gave a roar as if of earthy fire,

That scar'd away the meek ethereal hours,

And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.

Hyperion, A Vision: Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem

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