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Robert Southey - The Vision Of The Maid Of Orleans - The Third BookRobert Southey - The Vision Of The Maid Of Orleans - The Third Book
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The Maiden, musing on the Warrior`s words,   Turn`d from the Hall of Glory. Now they reach`d   A cavern, at whose mouth a Genius stood,   In front a beardless youth, whose smiling eye   Beam`d promise, but behind, withered and old,   And all unlovely. Underneath his feet   Lay records trampled, and the laurel wreath   Now rent and faded: in his hand he held   An hour-glass, and as fall the restless sands,   So pass the lives of men. By him they past   Along the darksome cave, and reach`d a stream,   Still rolling onward its perpetual waves,   Noiseless and undisturbed. Here they ascend   A Bark unpiloted, that down the flood,   Borne by the current, rush`d. The circling stream,   Returning to itself, an island form`d;   Nor had the Maiden`s footsteps ever reach`d   The insulated coast, eternally   Rapt round the endless course; but Theodore   Drove with an angel`s will the obedient bark.   They land, a mighty fabric meets their eyes,   Seen by its gem-born light. Of adamant   The pile was framed, for ever to abide   Firm in eternal strength. Before the gate   Stood eager EXPECTATION, as to list   The half-heard murmurs issuing from within,   Her mouth half-open`d, and her head stretch`d forth.   On the other side there stood an aged Crone,   Listening to every breath of air; she knew   Vague suppositions and uncertain dreams,   Of what was soon to come, for she would mark   The paley glow-worm`s self-created light,   And argue thence of kingdoms overthrown,   And desolated nations; ever fill`d   With undetermin`d terror, as she heard   Or distant screech-owl, or the regular beat   Of evening death-watch.                           "Maid," the Spirit cried,   Here, robed in shadows, dwells FUTURITY.   There is no eye hath seen her secret form,   For round the MOTHER OF TIME, unpierced mists   Aye hover. Would`st thou read the book of Fate,   Enter."           The Damsel for a moment paus`d,   Then to the Angel spake: "All-gracious Heaven!   Benignant in withholding, hath denied   To man that knowledge. I, in faith assured,   That he, my heavenly Father, for the best   Ordaineth all things, in that faith remain   Contented."               "Well and wisely hast thou said,   So Theodore replied; "and now O Maid!   Is there amid this boundless universe   One whom thy soul would visit? is there place   To memory dear, or visioned out by hope,   Where thou would`st now be present? form the wish,   And I am with thee, there."                               His closing speech   Yet sounded on her ear, and lo! they stood   Swift as the sudden thought that guided them,   Within the little cottage that she loved.   "He sleeps! the good man sleeps!" enrapt she cried,   As bending o`er her Uncle`s lowly bed   Her eye retraced his features. "See the beads   That never morn nor night he fails to tell,   Remembering me, his child, in every prayer.   Oh! quiet be thy sleep, thou dear old man!   Good Angels guard thy rest! and when thine hour   Is come, as gently mayest thou wake to life,   As when thro` yonder lattice the next sun   Shall bid thee to thy morning orisons!   Thy voice is heard, the Angel guide rejoin`d,   He sees thee in his dreams, he hears thee breathe   Blessings, and pleasant is the good man`s rest.   Thy fame has reached him, for who has not heard   Thy wonderous exploits? and his aged heart   Hath felt the deepest joy that ever yet   Made his glad blood flow fast. Sleep on old Claude!   Peaceful, pure Spirit, be thy sojourn here,   And short and soon thy passage to that world   Where friends shall part no more!                                     "Does thy soul own   No other wish? or sleeps poor Madelon   Forgotten in her grave? seest thou yon star,"   The Spirit pursued, regardless of her eye   That look`d reproach; "seest thou that evening star   Whose lovely light so often we beheld   From yonder woodbine porch? how have we gazed   Into the dark deep sky, till the baffled soul,   Lost in the infinite, returned, and felt   The burthen of her bodily load, and yearned   For freedom! Maid, in yonder evening slar   Lives thy departed friend. I read that glance,   And we are there!"                       He said and they had past   The immeasurable space.                           Then on her ear   The lonely song of adoration rose,   Sweet as the cloister`d virgins vesper hymn,   Whose spirit, happily dead to earthly hopes   Already lives in Heaven. Abrupt the song   Ceas`d, tremulous and quick a cry   Of joyful wonder rous`d the astonish`d Maid,   And instant Madelon was in her arms;   No airy form, no unsubstantial shape,   She felt her friend, she prest her to her heart,   Their tears of rapture mingled.                                   She drew back   And eagerly she gazed on Madelon,   Then fell upon her neck again and wept.   No more she saw the long-drawn lines of grief,   The emaciate form, the hue of sickliness,   The languid eye: youth`s loveliest freshness now   Mantled her cheek, whose every lineament   Bespake the soul at rest, a holy calm,   A deep and full tranquillity of bliss.   "Thou then art come, my first and dearest friend!"   The well known voice of Madelon began,   "Thou then art come! and was thy pilgrimage   So short on earth? and was it painful too,   Painful and short as mine? but blessed they   Who from the crimes and miseries of the world   Early escape!"                     "Nay," Theodore replied,   She hath not yet fulfill`d her mortal work.   Permitted visitant from earth she comes   To see the seat of rest, and oftentimes   In sorrow shall her soul remember this,   And patient of the transitory woe   Partake the anticipated peace again."   "Soon be that work perform`d!" the Maid exclaimed,   "O Madelon! O Theodore! my soul,   Spurning the cold communion of the world,   Will dwell with you! but I shall patiently,   Yea even with joy, endure the allotted ills   Of which the memory in this better state   Shall heighten bliss. That hour of agony,   When, Madelon, I felt thy dying grasp,   And from thy forehead wiped the dews of death,   The very horrors of that hour assume   A shape that now delights."                               "O earliest friend!   I too remember," Madelon replied,   "That hour, thy looks of watchful agony,   The suppressed grief that struggled in thine eye   Endearing love`s last kindness. Thou didst know   With what a deep and melancholy joy   I felt the hour draw on: but who can speak   The unutterable transport, when mine eyes,   As from a long and dreary dream, unclosed   Amid this peaceful vale, unclos`d on him,   My Arnaud! he had built me up a bower,   A bower of rest.--See, Maiden, where he comes,   His manly lineaments, his beaming eye   The same, but now a holier innocence   Sits on his cheek, and loftier thoughts illume   The enlighten`d glance."                             They met, what joy was theirs   He best can feel, who for a dear friend dead   Has wet the midnight pillow with his tears.   Fair was the scene around; an ample vale   Whose mountain circle at the distant verge   Lay softened on the sight; the near ascent   Rose bolder up, in part abrupt and bare,   Part with the ancient majesty of woods   Adorn`d, or lifting high its rocks sublime.   The river`s liquid radiance roll`d beneath,   Beside the bower of Madelon it wound   A broken stream, whose shallows, tho` the waves   Roll`d on their way with rapid melody,   A child might tread. Behind, an orange grove   Its gay green foliage starr`d with golden fruit;   But with what odours did their blossoms load   The passing gale of eve! less thrilling sweet   Rose from the marble`s perforated floor,   Where kneeling at her prayers, the Moorish queen   Inhaled the cool delight, and whilst she asked   The Prophet for his promised paradise,   Shaped from the present scene its utmost joys.   A goodly scene! fair as that faery land   Where Arthur lives, by ministering spirits borne   From Camlan`s bloody banks; or as the groves   Of earliest Eden, where, so legends say,   Enoch abides, and he who rapt away   By fiery steeds, and chariotted in fire,   Past in his mortal form the eternal ways;   And John, beloved of Christ, enjoying there   The beatific vision, sometimes seen   The distant dawning of eternal day,   Till all things be fulfilled.                               "Survey this scene!"   So Theodore address`d the Maid of Arc,   "There is no evil here, no wretchedness,   It is the Heaven of those who nurst on earth   Their nature`s gentlest feelings. Yet not here   Centering their joys, but with a patient hope,   Waiting the allotted hour when capable   Of loftier callings, to a better state   They pass; and hither from that better state   Frequent they come, preserving so those ties   That thro` the infinite progressiveness   Complete our perfect bliss.                               "Even such, so blest,   Save that the memory of no sorrows past   Heightened the present joy, our world was once,   In the first aera of its innocence   Ere man had learnt to bow the knee to man.   Was there a youth whom warm affection fill`d,   He spake his honest heart; the earliest fruits   His toil produced, the sweetest flowers that deck`d   The sunny bank, he gather`d for the maid,   Nor she disdain`d the gift; for VICE not yet   Had burst the dungeons of her hell, and rear`d   Those artificial boundaries that divide   Man from his species. State of blessedness!   Till that ill-omen`d hour when Cain`s stern son   Delved in the bowels of the earth for gold,   Accursed bane of virtue! of such force   As poets feign dwelt in the Gorgon`s locks,   Which whoso saw, felt instant the life-blood   Cold curdle in his veins, the creeping flesh   Grew stiff with horror, and the heart forgot   To beat. Accursed hour! for man no more   To JUSTICE paid his homage, but forsook   Her altars, and bow`d down before the shrine   Of WEALTH and POWER, the Idols he had made.   Then HELL enlarged herself, her gates flew wide,   Her legion fiends rush`d forth. OPPRESSION came   Whose frown is desolation, and whose breath   Blasts like the Pestilence; and POVERTY,   A meagre monster, who with withering touch   Makes barren all the better part of man,   MOTHER OF MISERIES. Then the goodly earth   Which God had fram`d for happiness, became   One theatre of woe, and all that God   Had given to bless free men, these tyrant fiends   His bitterest curses made. Yet for the best   Hath he ordained all things, the ALL-WISE!   For by experience rous`d shall man at length   Dash down his Moloch-Idols, Samson-like   And burst his fetters, only strong whilst strong   Believed. Then in the bottomless abyss   OPPRESSION shall be chain`d, and POVERTY   Die, and with her, her brood of Miseries;   And VIRTUE and EQUALITY preserve   The reign of LOVE, and Earth shall once again   Be Paradise, whilst WISDOM shall secure   The state of bliss which IGNORANCE betrayed."   "Oh age of happiness!" the Maid exclaim`d,   Roll fast thy current, Time till that blest age   Arrive! and happy thou my Theodore,   Permitted thus to see the sacred depths   Of wisdom!"               "Such," the blessed Spirit replied,   Beloved! such our lot; allowed to range   The vast infinity, progressive still   In knowledge and encreasing blessedness,   This our united portion. Thou hast yet   A little while to sojourn amongst men:   I will be with thee! there shall not a breeze   Wanton around thy temples, on whose wing   I will not hover near! and at that hour   When from its fleshly sepulchre let loose,   Thy phoenix soul shall soar, O best-beloved!   I will be with thee in thine agonies,   And welcome thee to life and happiness,   Eternal infinite beatitude!"   He spake, and led her near a straw-roof`d cot,   LOVE`S Palace. By the Virtues circled there,   The cherub listen`d to such melodies,   As aye, when one good deed is register`d   Above, re-echo in the halls of Heaven.   LABOUR was there, his crisp locks floating loose,   Clear was his cheek, and beaming his full eye,   And strong his arm robust; the wood-nymph HEALTH   Still follow`d on his path, and where he trod   Fresh flowers and fruits arose. And there was HOPE,   The general friend; and PITY, whose mild eye   Wept o`er the widowed dove; and, loveliest form,   Majestic CHASTITY, whose sober smile   Delights and awes the soul; a laurel wreath   Restrain`d her tresses, and upon her breast   The snow-drop hung its head, that seem`d to grow   Spontaneous, cold and fair: still by the maid   LOVE went submiss, wilh eye more dangerous   Than fancied basilisk to wound whoe`er   Too bold approached; yet anxious would he read   Her every rising wish, then only pleased   When pleasing. Hymning him the song was rais`d.   "Glory to thee whose vivifying power   Pervades all Nature`s universal frame!   Glory to thee CREATOR LOVE! to thee,   Parent of all the smiling CHARITIES,   That strew the thorny path of Life with flowers!   Glory to thee PRESERVER! to thy praise   The awakened woodlands echo all the day   Their living melody; and warbling forth   To thee her twilight song, the Nightingale   Holds the lone Traveller from his way, or charms   The listening Poet`s ear. Where LOVE shall deign   To fix his seat, there blameless PLEASURE sheds   Her roseate dews; CONTENT will sojourn there,   And HAPPINESS behold AFFECTION`S eye   Gleam with the Mother`s smile. Thrice happy he   Who feels thy holy power! he shall not drag,   Forlorn and friendless, along Life`s long path   To Age`s drear abode; he shall not waste   The bitter evening of his days unsooth`d;   But HOPE shall cheer his hours of Solitude,   And VICE shall vainly strive to wound his breast,   That bears that talisman; and when he meets   The eloquent eye of TENDERNESS, and hears   The bosom-thrilling music of her voice;   The joy he feels shall purify his Soul,   And imp it for anticipated Heaven."
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