|
SECRET was the garden; | |
Set i the pathless awe | |
Where no star its breath can draw. | |
Life, that is its warden, | |
Sits behind the fosse of death. Mine eyes saw not, and I saw. | 5 |
|
It was a mazeful wonder; | |
Thrice three times it was enwalld | |
With an emerald | |
Sealèd so asunder. | |
All its birds in middle air hung a-dream, their music thralld. | 10 |
|
The Lady of fair weeping, | |
At the gardens core, | |
Sang a song of sweet and sore | |
And the after-sleeping; | |
In the land of Luthany, and the tracts of Elenore. | 15 |
|
With sweet-pangd singing | |
Sang she through a dream-nights day; | |
That the bowers might stay, | |
Birds bate their winging, | |
Nor the wall of emerald float in wreathèd haze away. | 20 |
|
The lily kept its gleaming, | |
In her tears (divine conservers!) | |
Washèd with sad art; | |
And the flowers of dreaming | |
Palèd not their fervours, | 25 |
For her blood flowd through their nervures; | |
And the roses were most red, for she dipt them in her heart. | |
|
There was never moon, | |
Save the white sufficing woman: | |
Light most heavenly-human | 30 |
Like the unseen form of sound, | |
Sensed invisibly in tune, | |
With a sun-derivèd stole | |
Did inaureole | |
All her lovely body round; | 35 |
Lovelily her lucid body with that light was interstrewn. | |
|
The sun which lit that garden wholly, | |
Low and vibrant visible, | |
Temperd glory woke; | |
And it seemèd solely | 40 |
Like a silver thurible | |
Solemnly swung, slowly, | |
Fuming clouds of golden fire for a cloud of incense-smoke. | |
|
But woe s me, and woe s me, | |
For the secrets of her eyes! | 45 |
In my visions fearfully | |
They are ever shown to be | |
As fringèd pools, whereof each lies | |
Pallid-dark beneath the skies | |
Of a night that is | 50 |
But one blear necropolis. | |
And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs. | |
|
Many changes rise on | |
Their phantasmal mysteries. | |
They grow to an horizon | 55 |
Where earth and heaven meet; | |
And like a wing that dies on | |
The vague twilight-verges, | |
Many a sinking dream doth fleet | |
Lessening down their secrecies. | 60 |
And, as dusk with day converges, | |
Their orbs are troublously | |
Over-gloomd and over-glowd with hope and fear of things to be. | |
|
There is a peak on Himalay, | |
And on the peak undeluged snow, | 65 |
And on the snow not eagles stray; | |
There if your strong feet could go, | |
Looking over towrd Cathay | |
From the never-deluged snow | |
Farthest ken might not survey | 70 |
Where the peoples underground dwell whom antique fables know. | |
|
East, ah, east of Himalay, | |
Dwell the nations underground; | |
Hiding from the shock of Day, | |
For the suns uprising-sound: | 75 |
Dare not issue from the ground | |
At the tumults of the Day, | |
So fearfully the sun doth sound | |
Clanging up beyond Cathay; | |
For the great earthquaking sunrise rolling up beyond Cathay. | 80 |
|
Lend me, O lend me | |
The terrors of that sound, | |
That its music may attend me, | |
Wrap my chant in thunders round; | |
While I tell the ancient secrets in that Ladys singing found. | 85 |
|
On Ararat there grew a vine, | |
When Asia from her bathing rose; | |
Our first sailor made a twine | |
Thereof for his prefiguring brows. | |
Canst divine | 90 |
Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cluster grows? | |
|
On Golgotha there grew a thorn | |
Round the long-prefigured Brows. | |
Mourn, O mourn! | |
For the vine have we the spine? Is this all the Heaven allows? | 95 |
|
On Calvary was shook a spear; | |
Press the point into thy heart | |
Joy and fear! | |
All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils start. | |
|
O dismay! | 100 |
I, a wingless mortal, sporting | |
With the tresses of the sun? | |
I, that dare my hand to lay | |
On the thunder in its snorting? | |
Ere begun, | 105 |
Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old Icarian way. | |
|
From the fall precipitant | |
These dim snatches of her chant | |
Only have remained mine; | |
That from spear and thorn alone | 110 |
May be grown | |
For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine. | |
|
Her song said that no springing | |
Paradise but evermore | |
Hangeth on a singing | 115 |
That has chords of weeping, | |
And that sings the after-sleeping | |
To souls which wake too sore. | |
But woe the singer, woe! she said; beyond the dead his singing-lore, | |
All its art of sweet and sore | 120 |
He learns, in Elenore! | |
|
Where is the land of Luthany, | |
Where is the tract of Elenore? | |
I am bound therefor. | |
|
Pierce thy heart to find the key; | 125 |
With thee take | |
Only what none else would keep; | |
Learn to dream when thou dost wake, | |
Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. | |
Learn to water joy with tears, | 130 |
Learn from fears to vanquish fears; | |
To hope, for thou darst not despair, | |
Exult, for that thou darst not grieve; | |
Plough thou the rock until it bear; | |
Know, for thou else couldst not believe; | 135 |
Lose, that the lost thou mayst receive; | |
Die, for none other way canst live. | |
When earth and heaven lay down their veil, | |
And that apocalypse turns thee pale; | |
When thy seeing blindeth thee | 140 |
To what thy fellow-mortals see; | |
When their sight to thee is sightless; | |
Their living, death; their light, most lightless; | |
Search no more | |
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore. | 145 |
|
Where is the land of Luthany, | |
And where the region Elenore? | |
I do faint therefor. | |
|
When to the new eyes of thee | |
All things by immortal power, | 150 |
Near or far, | |
Hiddenly | |
To each other linkèd are, | |
That thou canst not stir a flower | |
Without troubling of a star; | 155 |
When thy song is shield and mirror | |
To the fair snake-curlèd Pain, | |
Where thou darst affront her terror | |
That on her thou mayst attain | |
Perséan conquest; seek no more, | 160 |
O seek no more! | |
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore. | |
|
So sang she, so wept she, | |
Through a dream-nights day; | |
And with her magic singing kept she | 165 |
Mystical in music | |
That garden of enchanting | |
In visionary May; | |
Swayless for my spirits haunting, | |
Thrice-threefold walld with emerald from our mortal mornings grey. | 170 |
|
And as a necromancer | |
Raises from the rose-ash | |
The ghost of the rose; | |
My heart so made answer | |
To her voices silver plash, | 175 |
Stirrd in reddening flash, | |
And from out its mortal ruins the purpureal phantom blows. | |
|
Her tears made dulcet fretting, | |
Her voice had no word, | |
More than thunder or the bird. | 180 |
Yet, unforgetting, | |
The ravishd soul her meanings knew. Mine ears heard not, and I heard. | |
|
When she shall unwind | |
All those wiles she wound about me, | |
Tears shall break from out me, | 185 |
That I cannot find | |
Music in the holy poets to my wistful want, I doubt me! | |
|