Those lines of rainbow light
Are like the moonbeams when they fall Through some cathedral window, but the teints Are such as may not find Comparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen! Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; Their filmy pennons at her word they furl, And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the Queen of Spells drew in, She spread a charm around the spot, And leaning graceful from the ethereal car, Long did she gaze, and silently
Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams, When silvery clouds float through the wilder'd brain, When every sight of lovely, wild and grand, Astonishes, enraptures, elevates- When fancy at a glance combines The wond'rous and the beautiful,— So bright, so fair, so wild a shape Hath ever yet beheld,
As that which reined the coursers of the air, And poured the magic of her gaze Upon the sleeping maid.
The broad and yellow moon Shone dimly through her form- That form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car
Moved not the moonlight's line: "Twas not an earthly pageant; Those who had looked upon the sight, Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not the night-wind's rush, Heard not an earthly sound, Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That fill'd the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy's frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud, That catches but the palest tinge of even, And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn, Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form, Spread a purpureal halo round the scene, Yet with an undulating motion, Swayed to her outline gracefully. From her celestial car
The Fairy Queen descended, And thrice she waved her wand Circled with wreaths of amaranth: Her thin and misty form Moved with the moving air, And the clear silver tones, As thus she spoke, were such As are unheard by all but gifted ear.
Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds
That circle thy domain !
Let not a breath be seen to stir Around yon grass-grown ruin's height, Let even the restless gossamer
Sleep on the moveless air! Soul of Ianthe! thou
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon That waits the good and the sincere; that waits Those who have struggled, and with resolute will Vanquish'd earth's pride and meanness, burst the The icy chains of custom, and have shone [chains, The day-stars of their age;-Soul of Ianthe, Awake! arise!
Sudden arose
Ianthe's Soul; it stood
All beautiful in naked purity,
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame. Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body lay, Wrapt in the depth of slumber:
Its features were fixed and meaningless, Yet animal life was there,
And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions; 'twas a sight Of wonder to behold the body and soul. The self-same lineaments, the same Marks of identity were there;
Yet, oh how different! One aspires to heaven, Pants for its sempiternal heritage, And ever-changing, ever-rising still,
Wantons in endless being.
The other, for a time the unwilling sport Of circumstance and passion, struggles on; Fleets through its sad duration rapidly; Then like a useless and worn-out machine, Rots, perishes, and passes.
I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given The wonders of the human world to keep. The secrets of the immeasurable past, In the unfailing consciences of men, Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find: The future, from the causes which arise In each event, I gather: not the sting Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man; Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day, Are unforeseen, unregistered by me: And it is yet permitted me, to rend The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit, Clothed in its changeless purity, may know How soonest to accomplish the great end For which it hath its being, and may taste That peace, which in the end all life will share. This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul
Ascend the car with me!
The chains of earth's immurement
Fell from Ianthe's spirit;
They shrank and brake like bandages of straw, Beneath a waken'd giant's strength.
She knew her glorious change,
And felt, in apprehension uncontroll'd New raptures opening round: Each day-dream of her mortal life, Each frenzied vision of the slumbers That closed each well-spent day, Seem'd now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded; The silver clouds disparted;
And as the car of magic they ascended, Again the speechless music swell'd, Again the coursers of the air
Unfurl'd their azure pennons, and the Queen, Shaking the beamy reins, Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on.
The night was fair, and countless stars Studded heaven's dark-blue vault,-
Just o'er the eastern wave
Peeped the first faint smile of morn:- The magic car moved on-
From the celestial hoofs
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, And where the burning wheels Eddied above the mountains loftiest peak, Was traced a line of lightning. Now it flew far above a rock,
The utmost verge of earth, The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Lower'd o'er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot's path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous Ocean lay.
The mirror of its stillness show'd The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the gray light of morn Tinging those fleecy clouds That canopied the dawn.
Seem'd it, that the chariot's way
Lay through the midst of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on. As they approach'd their goal
The coursers seem'd to gather speed; The sea no longer was distinguish'd; earth Appear'd a vast and shadowy sphere;
The sun's unclouded orb Roll'd through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot's swifter course, And fell, like ocean's feathery spray Dash'd from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow.
The magic car moved on. Earth's distant orb appear'd
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven; Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems roll'd, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory.
It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam
Like Hesperus o'er the western sea; Some dash'd athwart with trains of flame, Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like suns, and as the chariot pass'd Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature, here!
In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose immensity
E'en soaring fancy staggers,- Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee;
Yet not the meanest worm
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature! thou, Imperishable as this scene,- 1 Here is thy fitting temple!
IF solitude hath ever led thy steps To the wild ocean's echoing shore, And thou hast linger'd there Until the sun's broad orb Seem'd resting on the burnish'd wave, Thou must have mark'd the lines Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have mark'd the billowy clouds Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet
Crown'd with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment
When the sun's highest point
Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge, When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark-blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soar'd above the earth, And furl'd its wearied wing
Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands, Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, Nor the burnish'd ocean-waves,
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that fairy Hall! As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands Floating on a silver sea;
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted Through clouds of circumambient darkness, And pearly battlements around Look'd o'er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved.
The Fairy and the Spirit Entered the Hall of Spells:
Those golden clouds
That roll'd in glittering billows Beneath the azure canopy, With the ethereal footsteps trembled not: The light and crimson mists, Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling, Yielded to every movement of the will. Upon their passive swell the Spirit lean'd, And, for the varied bliss that press'd around, Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.
Spirit! the Fairy said,
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,- This is a wondrous sight, And mocks all human grandeur; But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell In a celestial palace, all resign'd To pleasurable impulses, immured Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless nature would be unfulfill'd. Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come! This is thine high reward:-the past shall rise; Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach The secrets of the future.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Approach'd the overhanging battlement.— Below lay stretch'd the universe! There, far as the remotest line That bounds imagination's flight, Countless and unending orbs In mazy motion intermingled, Yet still fulfill'd immutably Eternal Nature's law. Above, below, around
The circling systems form'd A wilderness of harmony; Each with undeviating aim,
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
None but a spirit's eye
Might ken that rolling orb; None but a spirit's eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold Each action of this earth's inhabitants. But matter, space, and time,
In those aerial mansions cease to act; And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps The harvest of its excellence, o'erbounds Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth. The Spirit's intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognised.
The thronging thousands, to a passing view, Seem'd like an ant-hill's citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch That moves the finest nerve,
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link In the great chain of nature.
Behold, the Fairy cried, Palmyra's ruin'd palaces!-
Behold! where grandeur frown'd; Behold! where pleasure smiled; What now remains?-the memory Of senselessness and shame- What is immortal there? Nothing-it stands to tell A melancholy tale, to give An awful warning: soon Oblivion will steal silently
The remnant of its fame. Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o'er prostrate millions trod- The earthquakes of the human race,— Like them, forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past.
Beside the eternal Nile The Pyramids have risen.
Nile shall pursue his changeless way;
Those Pyramids shall fall;
Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell
The spot whereon they stood; Their very site shall be forgotten, As is their builder's name! Behold yon sterile spot,
Where now the wandering Arab's tent Flaps in the desert-blast!
There once old Salem's haughty fane.
Rear'd high to heaven its thousand golden domes, And in the blushing face of day
Exposed its shameful glory.
Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane; and many a father, Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howl'd hideous praises to their Demon-God; They rush'd to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child,-old age and infancy Promiscuous perish'd; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends: But what was he who taught them that the God Of nature and benevolence had given
A special sanction to the trade of blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing Itself into forgetfulness.
Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood, There is a moral desert now:
The mean and miserable huts, The yet more wretched palaces, Contrasted with those ancient fanes, Now crumbling to oblivion; The long and lonely colonnades
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks Seem like a well-known tune,
Which, in some dear scene we have loved to hear, Remember'd now in sadness.
But, oh! how much more changed How gloomier is the contrast
Of human nature there!
Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave,
A coward and a fool, spreads death around- Then, shuddering, meets his own. Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, A cowl'd and hypocritical monk Prays, curses, and deceives.
Spirit! ten thousand years
Have scarcely pass'd away,
Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, Wakes the unholy song of war,
Metropolis of the western continent: There, now, the mossy column-stone, Indented by time's unrelaxing grasp,
Which once appear'd to brave All, save its country's ruin; There the wide forest scene, Rude in the uncultivated loveliness
Of gardens long run wild,
Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps Chance in that desert has delay'd,
Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.
Yet once it was the busiest haunt,
Whither, as to a common centre, flock'd Strangers, and ships, and merchandise: Once peace and freedom blest The cultivated plain :
But wealth, that curse of man, Blighted the bud of its prosperity: Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty, Fled; to return not, until man shall know That they alone can give the bliss
Worthy a soul that claims
Its kindred with eternity.
There's not one atom of yon earth But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, But flow'd in human veins: And from the burning plains Where Lybian monsters yell, From the most gloomy glens Of Greenland's sunless clime, To where the golden fields Of fertile England spread Their harvest to the day, Thou canst not find one spot Whereon no city stood.
How strange is human pride! I tell thee that those living things, To whom the fragile blade of grass, That springeth in the morn And perisheth ere noon,
Is an unbounded world;
I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel, and live like man; That their affections and antipathies, Like his, produce the laws Ruling their moral state; And the minutest throb
That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs.
The Fairy paused. The Spirit,
In ecstasy of admiration, felt
All knowledge of the past revived; the events Of old and wondrous times,
Which dim tradition interruptedly Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded In just perspective to the view; Yet dim from their infinitude. The Spirit seem'd to stand High on an isolated pinnacle; The flood of ages combating below The depth of the unbounded universe Above, and all around Nature's unchanging harmony.
FAIRY! the Spirit said,
And on the Queen of Spells Fix'd her ethereal eyes,
I thank thee. Thou hast given
A boon which I will not resign, and taught
A lesson not to be unlearn'd. I know The past, and thence I will essay to glean A warning for the future, so that man May profit by his errors, and derive Experience from his folly: For, when the power of imparting joy Is equal to the will, the human soul Requires no other heaven.
Turn thee, surpassing Spirit! Much yet remains unscann'd.
Thou knowest how great is man,
Thou knowest his imbecility: Yet learn thou what he is;
Yet learn the lofty destiny Which restless Time prepares For every living soul.
Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid
Yon populous city, rears its thousand towers And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, Encompass it around; the dweller there Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not The curses of the fatherless, the groans Of those who have no friend? He passes on: The King, the wearer of a gilded chain That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave Even to the basest appetites-that man Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles At the deep curses which the destitute Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy
Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan But for those morsels which his wantonness Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save All that they love from famine: when he hears The tale of horror, to some ready-made face Of hypocritical assent he turns,
Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him, Flushes his bloated cheek.
Now to the meal Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags His palled unwilling appetite. If gold, Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled From every clime, could force the loathing sense To overcome satiety,-if wealth
The spring it draws from poisons not, or vice, Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not Its food to deadliest venom; then that king Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils His unforced task, when he returns at even, And by the blazing fagot meets again Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped, Tastes not a sweeter meal.
Behold him now Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon The slumber of intemperance subsides, And conscience, that undying serpent, calls Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task. Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye- Oh! mark that deadly visage.
In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters; His slumbers are but varied agonies,
They prey like scorpions on the springs of life. There needeth not the hell that bigots frame To punish those who err: earth in itself Contains at once the evil and the cure; And all-sufficing nature can chastise Those who transgress her law,-she only knows How justly to proportion to the fault The punishment it merits.
That this poor wretch should pride him in his wo? Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns, Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth, His soul asserts not its humanity? That man's mild nature rises not in war Against a king's employ? No-'tis not strange! He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a king and virtue. Stranger yet, To those who know not nature, nor deduce The future from the present, it may seem, That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes Of this unnatural being; not one wretch, Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm To dash him from his throne!
Those gilded flies That, basking in the sunshine of a court, Fatten on its corruption!-what are they? -The drones of the community; they feed On the mechanic's labour; the starved hind For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form, Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes A sunless life in the unwholesome mine, Drags out in labour a protracted death, To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil, That few may know the cares and wo of sloth. Whence, think'st thou, kings and parasites arose? Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury
On those who build their palaces, and bring [vice; Their daily bread?-From vice, black, loathsome From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong; From all that genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, Revenge, and murder.-And when reason's voice, Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue Is peace, and happiness, and harmony; When man's maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood;-kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now.
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