The Triumph Of Life

  Swift as a spirit hastening to his task
  Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth
  Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask
  Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.
  The smokeless altars of the mountain snows
  Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth
  Of light, the Ocean's orison arose
  To which the birds tempered their matin lay,
  All flowers in field or forest which unclose
  Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,
  Swinging their censers in the element,
  With orient incense lit by the new ray
  Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent
  Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,
  And in succession due, did Continent,
  Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear
  The form & character of mortal mould
  Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear
  Their portion of the toil which he of old
  Took as his own & then imposed on them;
  But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold
  Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem
  The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,
  Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem
  Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep
  Of a green Apennine: before me fled
  The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep
  Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head
  When a strange trance over my fancy grew
  Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
  Was so transparent that the scene came through
  As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
  O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew
  That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,
  Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair
  And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn
  Under the self same bough, & heard as there
  The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold
  Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.
  And then a Vision on my brain was rolled.

  As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay
  This was the tenour of my waking dream.
  Methought I sate beside a public way
  Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream
  Of people there was hurrying to & fro
  Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,
  All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know
  Whither he went, or whence he came, or why
  He made one of the multitude, yet so
  Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky
  One of the million leaves of summer's bier.—
  Old age & youth, manhood & infancy,
  Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,
  Some flying from the thing they feared & some
  Seeking the object of another's fear,
  And others as with steps towards the tomb
  Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,
  And others mournfully within the gloom
  Of their own shadow walked, and called it death…
    And some fled from it as it were a ghost,
  Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.
  But more with motions which each other crost
  Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw
  Or birds within the noonday ether lost,
  Upon that path where flowers never grew;
  And weary with vain toil & faint for thirst
  Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew
  Out of their mossy cells forever burst
  Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told
  Of grassy paths, & wood lawns interspersed
  With overarching elms & caverns cold,
  And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they
  Pursued their serious folly as of old….
  And as I gazed methought that in the way
  The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June
  When the South wind shakes the extinguished day.—
  And a cold glare, intenser than the noon
  But icy cold, obscured with [[blank]] light
  The Sun as he the stars. Like the young moon
  When on the sunlit limits of the night
  Her white shell trembles amid crimson air
  And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might
  Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear
  The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form
  Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair,
  So came a chariot on the silent storm
  Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape
  So sate within as one whom years deform
  Beneath a dusky hood & double cape
  Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,
  And o'er what seemed the head, a cloud like crape,
  Was bent a dun & faint etherial gloom
  Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam
  A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume
  The guidance of that wonder-winged team.
  The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings
  Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream
  The music of their ever moving wings.
  All the four faces of that charioteer
  Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings
  Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,
  Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun
  Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere
  Of all that is, has been, or will be done.—
  So ill was the car guided, but it past
  With solemn speed majestically on . . .
  The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,
  Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,
  And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast
  The million with fierce song and maniac dance
  Raging around; such seemed the jubilee
  As when to greet some conqueror's advance
  Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea
  From senatehouse & prison & theatre
  When Freedom left those who upon the free
  Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.
  Nor wanted here the true similitude
  Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er
  The chariot rolled a captive multitude
  Was driven; althose who had grown old in power
  Or misery,—all who have their age subdued,
  By action or by suffering, and whose hour
  Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
  So that the trunk survived both fruit & flower;
  All those whose fame or infamy must grow
  Till the great winter lay the form & name
  Of their own earth with them forever low,
  All but the sacred few who could not tame
  Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon
  As they had touched the world with living flame
  Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
  Of those who put aside the diadem
  Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one
  Were there;—for they of Athens & Jerusalem
  Were neither mid the mighty captives seen
  Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them
  Or fled before . . Now swift, fierce & obscene
  The wild dance maddens in the van, & those
  Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,
  Outspeed the chariot & without repose
  Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
  To savage music…. Wilder as it grows,
  They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,
  Convulsed & on the rapid whirlwinds spun
  Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure
  Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
  Throw back their heads & loose their streaming hair,
  And in their dance round her who dims the Sun
  Maidens & youths fling their wild arms in air
  As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now
  Bending within each other's atmosphere
  Kindle invisibly; and as they glow
  Like moths by light attracted & repelled,
  Oft to new bright destruction come & go.
  Till like two clouds into one vale impelled
  That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
  And die in rain,—the fiery band which held
  Their natures, snaps . . . ere the shock cease to tingle
  One falls and then another in the path
  Senseless, nor is the desolation single,
  Yet ere I can say  where the chariot hath
  Past over them; nor other trace I find
  But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath
  Is spent upon the desert shore.—Behind,
  Old men, and women foully disarrayed
  Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,
  Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed,
  Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
  Farther behind & deeper in the shade.
  But not the less with impotence of will
  They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
  Round them & round each other, and fulfill
  Their work and to the dust whence they arose
  Sink & corruption veils them as they lie
  And frost in these performs what fire in those.
  Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
  Half to myself I said, "And what is this?
  Whose shape is that within the car? & why"-
  I would have added—"is all here amiss?"
  But a voice answered . . "Life" . . . I turned & knew
  (O Heaven have mercy on such wretchedness!)
  That what I thought was an old root which grew
  To strange distortion out of the hill side
  Was indeed one of that deluded crew,
  And that the grass which methought hung so wide
  And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,
  And that the holes it vainly sought to hide
  Were or had been eyes.—"lf thou canst forbear
  To join the dance, which I had well forborne,"
  Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,
  "I will now tell that which to this deep scorn
  Led me & my companions, and relate
  The progress of the pageant since the morn;
  "If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate,
  Follow it even to the night, but I
  Am weary" . . . Then like one who with the weight
  Of his own words is staggered, wearily
  He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,
  "First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory
  "I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died,
  And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit
  Earth had with purer nutriment supplied
  "Corruption would not now thus much inherit
  Of what was once Rousseau—nor this disguise
  Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.—
  "If I have been extinguished, yet there rise
  A thousand beacons from the spark I bore."—
  "And who are those chained to the car?" "The Wise,
  "The great, the unforgotten: they who wore
  Mitres & helms & crowns, or wreathes of light,
  Signs of thought's empire over thought; their lore
  "Taught them not this—to know themselves; their might
  Could not repress the mutiny within,
  And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night
  "Caught them ere evening." "Who is he with chin
  Upon his breast and hands crost on his chain?"
  "The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win
  "The world, and lost all it did contain
  Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; & more
  Of fame & peace than Virtue's self can gain
  "Without the opportunity which bore
  Him on its eagle's pinion to the peak
  From which a thousand climbers have before
  "Fall'n as Napoleon fell."—I felt my cheek
  Alter to see the great form pass away
  Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak
  That every pigmy kicked it as it lay—
  And much I grieved to think how power & will
  In opposition rule our mortal day—
  And why God made irreconcilable
  Good & the means of good; and for despair
  I half disdained mine eye's desire to fill
  With the spent vision of the times that were
  And scarce have ceased to be . . . "Dost thou behold,"
  Said then my guide, "those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,
  "Frederic, & Kant, Catherine, & Leopold,
  Chained hoary anarch, demagogue & sage
  Whose name the fresh world thinks already old—
  "For in the battle Life & they did wage
  She remained conqueror—I was overcome
  By my own heart alone, which neither age
  "Nor tears nor infamy nor now the tomb
  Could temper to its object."—"Let them pass"—
  I cried—"the world & its mysterious doom
  "Is not so much more glorious than it was
  That I desire to worship those who drew
  New figures on its false & fragile glass
  "As the old faded."—"Figures ever new
  Rise on the bubble, paint them how you may;
  We have but thrown, as those before us threw,
  "Our shadows on it as it past away.
  But mark, how chained to the triumphal chair
  The mighty phantoms of an elder day—
  "All that is mortal of great Plato there
  Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not;
  That star that ruled his doom was far too fair—
  "And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,
  Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain
  Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not—
  "And near [[blank]] walk the [[blank]] twain,
  The tutor & his pupil, whom Dominion
  Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.—
  "The world was darkened beneath either pinion
  Of him whom from the flock of conquerors
  Fame singled as her thunderbearing minion;
  "The other long outlived both woes & wars,
  Throned in new thoughts of men, and still had kept
  The jealous keys of truth's eternal doors
  "If Bacon's spirit [[blank]] had not leapt
  Like lightning out of darkness; he compelled
  The Proteus shape of Nature's as it slept
  "To wake & to unbar the caves that held
  The treasure of the secrets of its reign—
  See the great bards of old who inly quelled
  "The passions which they sung, as by their strain
  May well be known: their living melody
  Tempers its own contagion to the vein
  "Of those who are infected with it—I
  Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!—
  "And so my words were seeds of misery—
  Even as the deeds of others."—"Not as theirs,"
  I said—he pointed to a company
  In which I recognized amid the heirs
  Of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine,
  The Anarchs old whose force & murderous snares
  Had founded many a sceptre bearing line
  And spread the plague of blood & gold abroad,
  And Gregory & John and men divine
  Who rose like shadows between Man & god
  Till that eclipse, still hanging under Heaven,
  Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode
  For the true Sun it quenched.—"Their power was given
  But to destroy," replied the leader—"I
  Am one of those who have created, even
  "If it be but a world of agony."—
  "Whence camest thou & whither goest thou?
  How did thy course begin," I said, "& why?
  "Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow
  Of people, & my heart of one sad thought.—
  Speak."—"Whence I came, partly I seem to know,
  "And how & by what paths I have been brought
  To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;
  Why this should be my mind can compass not;
  "Whither the conqueror hurries me still less.
  But follow thou, & from spectator turn
  Actor or victim in this wretchedness,
  "And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn
  From thee.—Now listen . . . In the April prime
  When all the forest tops began to burn
  "With kindling green, touched by the azure clime
  Of the young year, I found myself asleep
  Under a mountain which from unknown time
  "Had yawned into a cavern high & deep,
  And from it came a gentle rivulet
  Whose water like clear air in its calm sweep
  "Bent the soft grass & kept for ever wet
  The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove
  With sound which all who hear must needs forget
  "All pleasure & all pain, all hate & love,
  Which they had known before that hour of rest:
  A sleeping mother then would dream not of
  "The only child who died upon her breast
  At eventide, a king would mourn no more
  The crown of which his brow was dispossest
  "When the sun lingered o'er the Ocean floor
  To gild his rival's new prosperity.—
  Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore
  "Ills, which if ills, can find no cure from thee,
  The thought of which no other sleep will quell
  Nor other music blot from memory—
  "So sweet & deep is the oblivious spell.—
  Whether my life had been before that sleep
  The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell
  "Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,
  I know not. I arose & for a space
  The scene of woods & waters seemed to keep,
  "Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace
  Of light diviner than the common Sun
  Sheds on the common Earth, but all the place
  "Was filled with many sounds woven into one
  Oblivious melody, confusing sense
  Amid the gliding waves & shadows dun;
  "And as I looked the bright omnipresence
  Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,
  And the Sun's image radiantly intense
  "Burned on the waters of the well that glowed
  Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze
  With winding paths of emerald fire—there stood
  "Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze
  Of his own glory, on the vibrating
  Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,
  "A shape all light, which with one hand did fling
  Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn
  Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing
  "A silver music on the mossy lawn,
  And still before her on the dusky grass
  Iris her many coloured scarf had drawn.—
  "In her right hand she bore a crystal glass
  Mantling with bright Nepenthe;—the fierce splendour
  Fell from her as she moved under the mass
  "Of the deep cavern, & with palms so tender
  Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,
  Glided along the river, and did bend her
  "Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow
  Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream
  That whispered with delight to be their pillow.—
  "As one enamoured is upborne in dream
  O'er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist
  To wondrous music, so this shape might seem
  "Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist
  The dancing foam, partly to glide along
  The airs that roughened the moist amethyst,
  "Or the slant morning beams that fell among
  The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;
  And her feet ever to the ceaseless song
  "Of leaves & winds & waves & birds & bees
  And falling drops moved in a measure new
  Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze
  "Up from the lake a shape of golden dew
  Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,
  Moves up the east, where eagle never flew.—
  "And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune
  To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot
  The thoughts of him who gazed on them, & soon
  "All that was seemed as if it had been not,
  As if the gazer's mind was strewn beneath
  Her feet like embers, & she, thought by thought,
  "Trampled its fires into the dust of death,
  As Day upon the threshold of the east
  Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath
  "Of darkness reillumines even the least
  Of heaven's living eyes—like day she came,
  Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased
  "To move, as one between desire and shame
  Suspended, I said—'If, as it doth seem,
  Thou comest from the realm without a name,
  " 'Into this valley of perpetual dream,
  Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why—
  Pass not away upon the passing stream.'
  " 'Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply,
  And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand
  Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,
  "I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,
  Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
  And suddenly my brain became as sand
  "Where the first wave had more than half erased
  The track of deer on desert Labrador,
  Whilst the fierce wolf from which they fled amazed
  "Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore
  Until the second bursts—so on my sight
  Burst a new Vision never seen before.—
  "And the fair shape waned in the coming light
  As veil by veil the silent splendour drops
  From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite
  "Of sunrise ere it strike the mountain tops—
  And as the presence of that fairest planet
  Although unseen is felt by one who hopes
  "That his day's path may end as he began it
  In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent
  Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,
  "Or the soft note in which his dear lament
  The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress
  That turned his weary slumber to content.—
  "So knew I in that light's severe excess
  The presence of that shape which on the stream
  Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,
  "More dimly than a day appearing dream,
  The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep
  A light from Heaven whose half extinguished beam
  "Through the sick day in which we wake to weep
  Glimmers, forever sought, forever lost.—
  So did that shape its obscure tenour keep
  "Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;
  But the new Vision, and its cold bright car,
  With savage music, stunning music, crost
  "The forest, and as if from some dread war
  Triumphantly returning, the loud million
  Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.—
  "A moving arch of victory the vermilion
  And green & azure plumes of Iris had
  Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,
  "And underneath aetherial glory clad
  The wilderness, and far before her flew
  The tempest of the splendour which forbade
  Shadow to fall from leaf or stone;—the crew
  Seemed in that light like atomies that dance
  Within a sunbeam.—Some upon the new
  "Embroidery of flowers that did enhance
  The grassy vesture of the desart, played,
  Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance;
  "Others stood gazing till within the shade
  Of the great mountain its light left them dim.—
  Others outspeeded it, and others made
  "Circles around it like the clouds that swim
  Round the high moon in a bright sea of air,
  And more did follow, with exulting hymn,
  "The chariot & the captives fettered there,
  But all like bubbles on an eddying flood
  Fell into the same track at last & were
  "Borne onward.—I among the multitude
  Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long,
  Me not the shadow nor the solitude,
  "Me not the falling stream's Lethean song,
  Me, not the phantom of that early form
  Which moved upon its motion,—but among
  "The thickest billows of the living storm
  I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime
  Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.—
  "Before the chariot had begun to climb
  The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,
  Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme
  "Of him whom from the lowest depths of Hell
  Through every Paradise & through all glory
  Love led serene, & who returned to tell
  "In words of hate & awe the wondrous story
  How all things are transfigured, except Love;
  For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary
  "The world can hear not the sweet notes that move
  The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—-
  A wonder worthy of his rhyme—the grove
  "Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,
  The earth was grey with phantoms, & the air
  Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers
  "A flock of vampire-bats before the glare
  Of the tropic sun, bring ere evening
  Strange night upon some Indian isle,—thus were
  "Phantoms diffused around, & some did fling
  Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,
  Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing
  "Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves
  Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes
  Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;
  "And others sate chattering like restless apes
  On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.
  Some made a cradle of the ermined capes
  "Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar
  Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played
  Within the crown which girt with empire
  "A baby's or an idiot's brow, & made
  Their nests in it; the old anatomies
  Sate hatching their bare brood under the shade
  "Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes
  To reassume the delegated power
  Arrayed in which these worms did monarchize
  "Who make this earth their charnel.—Others more
  Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist
  Of common men, and round their heads did soar,
  "Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist
  On evening marshes, thronged about the brow
  Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,
  "And others like discoloured flakes of snow
  On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair
  Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow
  "Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were
  A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained
  In drops of sorrow.—I became aware
  "Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained
  The track in which we moved; after brief space
  From every form the beauty slowly waned,
  "From every firmest limb & fairest face
  The strength & freshness fell like dust, & left
  The action & the shape without the grace
  "Of life; the marble brow of youth was cleft
  With care, and in the eyes where once hope shone
  Desire like a lioness bereft
  "Of its last cub, glared ere it died; each one
  Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly
  These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown
  "In Autumn evening from a popular tree—
  Each, like himself & like each other were,
  At first, but soon distorted, seemed to be
  "Obscure clouds moulded by the casual air;
  And of this stuff the car's creative ray
  Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there
  "As the sun shapes the clouds—thus, on the way
  Mask after mask fell from the countenance
  And form of all, and long before the day
  "Was old, the joy which waked like Heaven's glance
  The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died,
  And some grew weary of the ghastly dance
  "And fell, as I have fallen by the way side,
  Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past
  And least of strength & beauty did abide."—
  "Then, what is Life?" I said . . . the cripple cast
  His eye upon the car which now had rolled
  Onward, as if that look must be the last,
  And answered…. "Happy those for whom the fold
  Of…