I SAW, as in a dream sublime, | |
| The balance in the hand of Time. | |
| O’er East and West its beam impended; | |
| And Day, with all its hours of light, | |
| Was slowly sinking out of sight, | 5 |
| While, opposite, the scale of Night | |
| Silently with the stars ascended. | |
| |
| Like the astrologers of eld, | |
| In that bright vision I beheld | |
| Greater and deeper mysteries. | 10 |
| I saw, with its celestial keys, | |
| Its chords of air, its frets of fire, | |
| The Samian’s great Æolian lyre, | |
| Rising through all its sevenfold bars, | |
| From earth unto the fixèd stars. | 15 |
| And through the dewy atmosphere, | |
| Not only could I see, but hear, | |
| Its wondrous and harmonious strings, | |
| In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, | |
| From Dian’s circle light and near, | 20 |
| Onward to vaster and wider rings, | |
| Where, chanting through his beard of snows, | |
| Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes, | |
| And down the sunless realms of space | |
| Reverberates the thunder of his bass. | 25 |
| |
| Beneath the sky’s triumphal arch | |
| This music sounded like a march, | |
| And with its chorus seemed to be | |
| Preluding some great tragedy. | |
| Sirius was rising in the east; | 30 |
| And, slow ascending one by one, | |
| The kindling constellations shone. | |
| Begirt with many a blazing star, | |
| Stood the great giant Algebar, | |
| Orion, hunter of the beast! | 35 |
| His sword hung gleaming by his side, | |
| And, on his arm, the lion’s hide | |
| Scattered across the midnight air | |
| The golden radiance of its hair. | |
| |
| The moon was pallid, but not faint; | 40 |
| And beautiful as some fair saint, | |
| Serenely moving on her way | |
| In hours of trial and dismay. | |
| As if she heard the voice of God, | |
| Unharmed with naked feet she trod | 45 |
| Upon the hot and burning stars, | |
| As on the glowing coals and bars, | |
| That were to prove her strength and try | |
| Her holiness and her purity. | |
| |
| Thus moving on, with silent pace, | 50 |
| And triumph in her sweet, pale face, | |
| She reached the station of Orion. | |
| Aghast he stood in strange alarm! | |
| And suddenly from his outstretched arm | |
| Down fell the red skin of the lion | 55 |
| Into the river at his feet. | |
| His mighty club no longer beat | |
| The forehead of the bull; but he | |
| Reeled as of yore beside the sea, | |
| When, blinded by Œnopion, | 60 |
| He sought the blacksmith at his forge, | |
| And, climbing up the mountain gorge, | |
| Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun. | |
| |
| Then, through the silence overhead, | |
| An angel with a trumpet said, | 65 |
| “Forevermore, forevermore, | |
| The reign of violence is o’er!” | |
| And, like an instrument that flings | |
| Its music on another’s strings, | |
| The trumpet of the angel cast | 70 |
| Upon the heavenly lyre its blast, | |
| And on from sphere to sphere the words | |
| Reëchoed down the burning chords,— | |
| “Forevermore, forevermore, | |
| The reign of violence is o’er!” | 75 |
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