And so she throve and prosper'd; so three years

She prosper'd on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his

ears,

Struck thro' with pangs of hell. Lest she should fail and perish utterly, God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of personality,

Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, where' er she turn'd her sight

The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote, "Mene, mene," and divided quite

The kingdom of her thought.

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood

Laughter at her self-scorn.

"What! is not this my place of strength," she said,

"My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid

Since my first memory?"

But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears
of blood,

And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,

And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she

came,

That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,

Mid onward-sloping motions infinite
Making for one sure goal;

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand,

Left on the shore, that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land

Their moon-led waters white;

A star that with the choral starry dance Join'd not, but stood, and standing

saw

The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Roll'd round by one fix'd law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.

66

"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone

hall,

"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world;

One deep, deep silence all!"

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort any where ;

Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime.

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round

With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound

Of human footsteps fall;

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,

In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moonrise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea;

And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound

Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry

Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found

A new land, but I die."

She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin, And save me lest I die?

So when four years where wholly finished,

She threw her royal robes away. "Make me a cottage in the vale," she

said,

"Where I may mourn and pray.

mountain-tops,

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, Stood sunset-flush'd; and, dew'd with showery drops,

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown In the red West; thro' mountain clefts the dale

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale

And meadow, set with slender galingale;

A land where all things always seem'd the same!

And round about the keel with faces pale,

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters

came.

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from
the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved
flowers weep,

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

II

Why are we weigh'd upon with heavi

ness,

And utterly consumed with sharp distress,

While all things else have rest from weariness?

All things have rest: why should we toil alone,

We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan,

Still from one sorrow to another thrown; Nor ever fold our wings,

And cease from wanderings,

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, "There is no joy but calm!"Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears; but all hath suffer'd change;

For surely now our household hearths are cold,

Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,

And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.

Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings

Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,

And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.

Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.

The Gods are hard to reconcile ;
"T is hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath,

Sore task to hearts worn out by many

VII

But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly,

How sweet-while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly—

With half-dropped eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing
slowly

His waters from the purple hill-
To hear the dewy echoes calling

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine

To watch the emerald-color'd water falling

Thro' many a woven acanthus-wreath divine!

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we,

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd

Far below them in the valleys, and the

clouds are lightly curl'à

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world; Where they smile in secret, looking over

wasted lands,

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song

Steaming up, a lamentation and an an cient tale of wrong,

Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;

Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,

Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,

Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;

Till they perish and they suffer-some, 't is whisper'd-down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore

Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 1832, 1842.

Corpses across the threshold, heroes tall Dislodging pinnacle and parapet Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall, Lances in ambush set;

And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts

That run before the fluttering tongues of fire;

White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts,

And ever climbing higher;

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,

Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,

Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,

And hush'd seraglios.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land

Bluster the winds and tides the selfsame way,

Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,

Torn from the fringe of spray.