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Robert Laurence Binyon - Porphyrion
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Book I
 ``O from the dungeon of this flesh to break
 At last, and to have peace,`` Porphyrion cried,
 Inly tormented, as with pain he toiled
 Before his dwelling in the Syrian noon:
 The desert, idly echoing, answered him.
 Had not the desert peace? All empty stood
 That region, the swept mansion of the wind.
 Pillars of skyey rock encompassed it
 Afar; there was no voice, nor any sound
 Of living creature, but from morn to eve
 Silence abounding, that o`erflowed the air
 And the waste sunshine, and on stone and herb
 The tinge and odour of neglected time.

 Yet into vacancy the troubled heart
 Brings its own fullness: and Porphyrion found
 The void a prison, and in the silence chains.

 He in the unripe fervour of sweet youth
 Hearing a prophet`s cry, had fled from mirth
 And revel to assuaging solitude.
 He turned from soft entreaties, he unwound
 The arms that would have stayed him, he denied
 His friends, and cast the garland from his brow.
 Pangs of diviner hunger urged him forth
 Into the wild; for ever there to lose
 Love, hate and wrath, and fleshly tyrannies,
 And madness of desire: tumultuous life,
 Full of sweet peril, thronged with rich alarms,
 Dismayed his soul, too suddenly revealed:
 And far into the wilderness, from face
 And feet of men he fled, by memory fierce
 Pursued; till in the impenetrable hills
 He deemed at last to have discovered peace.
 Three years amid the wilderness he dwelt,
 In solitary, pure aspiring turned
 Toward the immortal Light, that all the stars
 Outshines, and the frail shadow of our death
 Consumes for ever, and sustains the sun.
 The voiceless days in pious order flowed,
 Calm as the gliding shadow of a cloud
 On Lebanon; morn followed after morn
 Like the still coming of a stream: his mind
 Was habited in silence, like a robe.

 Then gradually mutinous, quenched youth
 Swelled up again within him, hard to tame.
 For like that secret Asian wave, that drinks
 The ever--running rivers, and holds all
 In jealous wells; so had the desert drunk
 All his young thoughts, wishes, and idle tears,
 Nor any sigh returned; but in his breast
 Sweet yearnings, and the thousand needs that live
 Upon the touch of others, impulses
 Quick as dim buds are to the rain and light,
 Falterings, and leanings backward after joy,
 And dewy flowerings in the heart, that make
 Life fragrant, were all sealed and frozen up.
 Now, at calm evening, the just--waving boughs
 Of the lone tree began to trouble him:
 Almost he had arisen, following swift
 As after beckoning hands. Now every dawn
 At once disrobed him of tranquillity:
 Fever had taken him; and he was wrought
 Into perpetual strangeness, visited
 By rumours and bright hauntings from the world.
 And now the noon intolerable grew:
 The very rock, hanging about him, seemed
 To listen for his footfall, and the stream
 Commented, whispering to the rushes. Ah,
 The little lizard, blinking in the sun,
 Was spying on his soul! A terror ran
 Into his veins, and he cried out aloud,
 And heard his own voice ringing in the air,
 A sound to start at, echoing fearfully.
 He paced with fingers clenched, with knotted brow:
 He cast himself upon the ground, to feel
 His wild breast nearer the impassive earth,
 So far away in peace, but all in vain!
 And springing up he cast swift eyes around
 Like a sore--hunted creature that must seek
 A path to fly: alas, from his own thoughts
 What outer wilderness shall harbour him?
 Then after many idle purposes,
 And such vain wringing of the hands, as use
 Men slowly overtaken by despair,
 He sought in toil, last refuge, to forget:
 And he began to labour at the plot
 Before his rocky cell, digging the soil
 With patience, and the sweat was on his brow.
 All the lone day he toiled, until at last
 He rested heavy on the spade, and bowed
 His head upon his hands: a shadow lay
 Beneath him, and deep silence all around.
 The silence seized him. As a man who feels
 Some eye upon him unperceived, he turned
 His head in fear: and lo, a little sound
 Among the reeds, like laughter, mocked at him.
 And he discerned bright eyes in ambush hid
 Beyond the bushes; and he heard distinct
 A song, borne to him with the clapping hands
 Of banqueters; an old song heard afresh,
 That melted quivering in his heart, and woke
 Delicious memory: all his senses hung
 To listen when that voice sang to his soul:
 Then, fearfully aware, he shuddered back;
 Yet could not shake the music from his ears.
 He cast the spade down, with quick--beating heart,
 And sought that voice, whence came it; but the reeds
 In the soft--running stream were motionless,
 The bushes vacant, all the valley dumb:
 And clear upon the yellowed region burned
 Evening serene. Then his sore troubled heart
 With a tumultuous surging in his breast
 Heaved to the calm heaven in a bitter cry:
 ``I have no strength, I have no refuge more.
 Father, ere thou forsake me, send me peace!``

 Scarce had the sun into his furnace drawn
 The western hills, whose molten peaks shot far
 Over the wide waste region fiery rays,
 When swiftly Night descended with her stars:
 And lo, upon this wrought, unhappy spirit
 At last out of the darkness, raining mild
 In precious dew upon the desert, peace
 Incredibly descended with the night.
 He stood immersed in the sweet falling hush.
 Over him liquid gloom quivered with stars
 Appearing endlessly, as each its place
 Remembered, and in order tranquil shone.
 Easily all his fever was allayed:
 And as a traveller strained against a storm
 That meets him, buffeting the mountain side,
 Suddenly entering a deep hollow, finds
 Magical ease over his nerves, and thinks
 He never tasted stillness till that hour;
 So eager he surrendered and relaxed
 His will, persuaded sweetly beyond hope.

 Tranquil at last, his solitary cell
 He entered, and a taper lit, that shed
 Upon rude arches and deep--shadowed walls
 A clearness, tempering all with gentle beam.
 Then he, that with such anguish of desire
 Had supplicated peace, now peace was come,
 Of all forgetful save of his strange joy,
 That dear guest in his bosom entertained;
 From trouble and from the stealing steps of time
 Sequestered; housed within a blissful mood
 Of contemplation, like a sacred shrine;
 And poured his soul out, into gratitude
 Released: how long, there was no tongue to tell,
 Nor was himself aware; no warning voice
 Admonished, and the great stars altered heaven
 Unnoted, and the hours moved over him,
 When on his ear and slowly into his soul
 Deliciously distilling, stole a sigh.
 O like the blossoming of peace it seemed,
 Or like an odour heard; or as the air
 Had mirrored his own yearning joy in speech,
 A whisper wandering out of Paradise.
 ``Porphyrion, Porphyrion!`` Like a wind
 Shaking a tree, that whisper shook his heart.
 Keen to reality enkindled now
 His inmost fibre was aware of all:
 Vast night and the unpeopled wilderness
 Around him silent; in that solitude
 Himself, and near to him a human sigh!

 Immediately the faint voice called again:
 "Thou only in this perilous wilderness
 Hast found a refuge; ah, for pity`s sake
 Open! It is a woman weak and lost
 In this great darkness, that importunes thee.``

 Then with a beating heart, Porphyrion spoke.
 ``O woman, I have made my soul a vow
 To look upon a human face no more.``

 "Yet in some corner might I rest my limbs
 That are so weary with much wandering,
 And thou be unhurt by the sight of me!``

 Sweet was the voice: doubting, he answered slow.
 "Thou troublest me. I know not who thou art
 That com`st so strangely, and I fear thy voice.
 What wouldst thou with me? Enter: but my face
        Seek not to meet.`` Then he unclosed the door,
 But turned aside, and knelt apart, and strove
 Again to enter the sweet house of peace.
 Yet his heart listened, as with hurried feet
 The woman entered; and he heard her sigh,
 Like one that after peril breathes secure.
 Now the more fixedly he prayed; his will
 Was fervent to be lost in holy calm,
 So hardly new--recovered: but his ear
 Yearned for each gentle human sound, the stir
 Of garments, moving hand or heaving breast.
 Amid his prayer he questioned, who is this
 That wanders in this wilderness alone?
 And, as he thought, the faint voice came to him:
       "I hunger.`` Then, as men do in a dream,
 Obeying without will, he sought and found
 Food from his store, and brought, and gave to her.
 But as he gave, he touched her on the hand:
 He looked at unawares, then turned away;
 And dared with venturing eyes to look again;
 And when he had looked, he could not look elsewhere.
 O what an unknown sweetness troubled him!
 He gazed: and as wine blushes through a cup
 Of water slowly, in sure--winding coils
 Of crimson, the pale solitude of his soul
 Was filled and flushed, and he was born anew.
 Instantly he forgot all his despair
 And anguished supplications after peace.
 Not peace, but to be filled with this strange joy
 He pined for, while that lovely miracle
 His eyes possessed, nor wonder wanted more.
 At last his breast heaved, and he found a voice.

 ``Mystery, speak! O once again refresh
 My famished ear with thy sweet syllables!
 Thou comest from the desert night, all bloom!
 I fear to look away, lest thou shouldst fade.
 Art thou too moulded out of simple earth
 As I, or only visitest my sight,
 Deluding? Ah, Delusion, breathe again
 The music of thy voice into my soul!``

 As if a rose had sprung within his cell
 And magically opened odorous leaves,
 So felt he, as she raised her eyes on him
       And spoke. "Hast thou forgotten then so soon?
 Hast thou not vowed never again to look
 On face of woman or of man? Remember
 Ere it be lost, thy vow, thy treasured vow.
 O turn away thy wonder--wounded eyes,
 Call back thy rashly wandering looks, unsay
 Thy words, and this frail image from thy breast
 Lock harshly out! Defend thy soul with prayers,
 Nor hazard for a dream thy holy calm;
 Lest thou repent, and this joy shatter thee.``

 While thus she spoke, the stirring of her soul,
 Even as a breeze is seen upon a pool,
 Appeared upon her face. Like the pale flower
 Of darkness, the sweet moon, that dazzles first
 And then delights, unfolding more and more
 Her beauty, shining full of histories
 On the dark world, upon Porphyrion now
 She shone; and he was lifted into air
 Such as immortals breathe, who dwell in light
 Of memory beginningless, and hope
 Endless, and joy old and forever fresh.
 He heard, yet heard not, and still gazing, sighed:

 ``Pour on, delicious Music, in my ears
 Thy sweetness: for I parch, I am athirst.
 Three years have I been vacant of all joy,
 Have mocked my sense with famine, and the sound
 Of wind and reed: but in thy voice is bliss.
 How am I changed, since I have looked on thee!
 Thou art not dream. Yet, if a vision only,
 Tell me not yet, suffer me still to brim
 My sight to overflowing, to rejoice
 My heart to melting, even to despair.
 Thou art not dream! Yet tell me what thou art,
 That in this desert venturest so deep?``

 "Seek not,`` she answered, "what I am, nor whence
 I come; in destiny, perhaps, my hand
 Was stretched toward thee, and my way prepared.
 Only rejoice that thou didst not refuse
 Help to the helpless, and hast succoured me.``

 As the awakened earth beholds the sun,
 Her saviour, when his beam delivers her
 From icy prison, and that annual fear
 Of death, Porphyrion in his bosom felt
 Pangs of recovered ecstasy, old thoughts
 Made young, and sweet desires bursting his heart
 Like the fresh bursting of a thousand leaves.
 Uplifted into rapture he exclaimed:

 ``O full of bliss, out of the empty world
 That comest wondrous, I will ask no more.
 Enough that thou art here, that I behold
 Thy face, and in thee mirrored all the world
 Created newly: Eyes, my oracles,
 What days, what years of wonder ye foretell!
 As in a dewdrop all the morning shines
 I see in you time glorious, grief refreshed,
       And Fate undone.`` "Seest thou only this?``
 She said, and earnestly regarded him:
 "Art thou so eager after joy? Yet think
 In what a boundless wilderness of time
 We wander brief! Art thou so swift to taste
 Of thy mortality? Yet I am come
 To bring thee tidings out of every sea;
 Not pearls alone, but shipwrecks in the night
 Unsuccoured, and disastrous luring fires,
 And tossings infinite, and peril strange.
 O wilt thou dare embark? Dost thou not dread
 This ocean, in whose murmur seems delight?
 Will even thy hunger drive thee through the waves
 To bliss? I look on thee, and see the joy
 Rise up within thy bosom, and I fear.
 So fragile is this sweetness, and so vast
 The world: O venturous, glad voyager,
 Be sure of all thy courage, for I see
 Far off the cloud of sorrow, and bright spears,
 And dirges, and joy changed from what it seemed.
 Art thou still fervent, O impetuous one?
 Still hastest thou to fly tranquillity?``

 But he on whom she looked with those deep eyes
 Of bright compassion, answered undismayed:

 ``Let me drink deep of this fountain of bliss!
 Speak not of mortal fear, speak not of pain:
 Thou painest, but with joy. Thou art all joy;
 And in the world I have no joy but thee.
 O that I had the wasted days once more
 Since to this idle, barren wilderness
 I fled, in fear of the tumultuous world,
 Enamoured of the silence: here I dreamed
 In lonely prayer to satiate my soul.
 But now, I want. Rain on my thirsty heart
 Thy charm, and by so much as was my loss
 By so much more enrich me. I have stript
 My days, imprisoned wandering desires,
 Made of my mind a jealous solitude,
 Pruned overrunning thoughts, and rooted up
 Delight and the vain weeds of memory,
 Imagining far off to capture peace.
 Blind fool! But O no, let me rather praise
 Foreseeing Fate, that kept so fast a watch
 Over my bliss, and of my heart prepared
 A wilderness to bloom with only thee!``

 Even now he would embrace her; but awhile
 She with delaying gesture stayed him still,
 Wistfully doubting, and perusing well
 His inmost gaze and his adoring heart.
 As from bright water on some early morn,
 Under a beautiful dim--branching tree,
 A gleam floats up among the leaves, and sends
 Light into darkness wavering: from the light
 Of his enraptured face a radiance shone
 Into the mystery of her eyes; at last
 To his warm being she resigned her soul.
 She on his heart inscribed for evermore
 Her look in that deep moment, and her love.
 At unawares this trembled from her lips:

 ``O joyful spirit, I too have need of thee!``
 And now he seemed to fold her in his arms,
 And on the mouth to kiss her; close to him,
 Surely her swimming eyes were dim with love,
 Her lips against him murmured tenderly,
 And her cheek touched his own: yet even now,
 Even as her bosom swelled within his arms,
 As like the inmost richness of a rose
 Wounding, the perfume of her soul breathed up
 An insupportable joy into his brain,
 Even now, alas! faltering in ecstasy,
 His arms were emptied; back he sank; despair
 Drowned him; upon his sense the darkness closed;
 And with a cry, lost in a cloud, he fell.


Book II
 Slumber these desolated senses guard
 With silence interposed and dimness kind;
 While in tumultuous ebb joy and dismay
 Murmur, re--gathering their surge afar.
 Idle thou liest, Porphyrion, and o`erthrown
 By violent bliss into a trance as deep:
 Yet even in thy trance thou takest vows,
 Thou burnest with a dedicated fire,
 And thou canst be no more what thou hast been.
 A rebel, thou wert in strong bonds, who now
 Art chosen and consenting: and prepared
 Is all thy path, that no more leads to peace,
 But to repining fever; pain so dear,
 It will not be assuaged. Awaiting thee
 Is all that Love of the deep heart requires;
 The ecstasy, the loss, the hope, the want,
 The prick of grief beneath the closed eyelid
 Of him whom memory visits, but not rest;
 The sweetness touched, for ever perishing
 Out of the eager hands. Invisibly
 Perhaps even now on thy unconscious cheek
 Thy Guide is gazing, and to pity moved
 He thy forgetful term gently extends.

 At last from heavily unclouding sleep
 Porphyrion stirs: dimly over his brain
 Returns the noon, and opens wide his eyes.
 Some moments by the veiling sense of use
 Delayed in wonder, troubled he starts up.
 Instantly he remembered; and all changed
 Appeared his cell, the silence and the light:
 She, whom his heart had need of, was not there.
 And eager from his dwelling he came forth,
 If there were sign of her. But all was still.

 Suspended over the forsaken land,
 The sun stood motionless, and palsied Time,
 Helpless to urge his congregated hours,
 Leaned heavy on the mountain: the steep noon
 Had all the cool shade into fire devoured.
 Then quailed Porphyrion. Lost was his new joy,
 An apparition frail as a bright flame
 Seen in the sun: irrevocably lost
 The old thoughts that so long had sheltered him.
 The fear, that presaging the heavy world
 Makes wail the newborn child, he now, a man,
 Thrice competent to suffer, felt afresh,
 To cruel truth re--born, a naked soul.
 Now he had eyes to see and ears to hear,
 And knew at last he was alone: the sky
 Absorbed he saw, the earth with absent face,
 The water murmuring only to the reeds,
 Unconscious rock, and sun--contented sand.
 And even as within him keener rose
 Longing unloosed, so much the heavier grew
 The intensity of solitude around.

 Melancholy had planned her palace here.
 Dead columns, to support the burning sky,
 For living senses insupportable,
 She made, and ample barrenness, wherein
 To ponder of defeated spirits, quenched
 Desire, o`ertaken hope, courage undone,
 Implored oblivion, and rejected joy:
 Nor this alone, but idleness so vast
 As even the stormiest enterprise becalmed,
 Till it was trivial to advance one foot
 Beyond the other; rashness to provoke
 An echo, where if ever man could laugh,
 Laughter had seemed the end of vanity,
 Were not a vanity more vain in tears.
 For from the blown dust to the extremest hills,
 Audible silence, that sustained despair,
 A ceiling over all immovable,
 Presided; and the desert, nourishing
 That silence, listened, jealous of a sound
 Younger than her unageing solitude;
 The desert, that was old when earth was young.

 Wailing into the silence, that rang back
 A wounded cry, to the unhearkening ear
 Of the austere ravines perhaps not strange,
 The youth in that vain region stood, and cast
 Hither and thither seeking, his sad eyes.
 Out of the dreadful light to his dim cell
 He fled for refuge. Here he had possessed
 Joy, for a brief space, here She looked on him,
 Here had her heart beat in her bosom close
 Against his own. Her voice was in his ear;
 And suddenly his soul was quieted.
 Surely the visitation of such spirits
 Comes not of chance, he murmured, but of truth.
 Surely this was the shadow of some light
 That shines, the odour of some flower that blooms,
 And far off mid the great world dwells in flesh
 That blissful spirit, and bears a human name.
 If she be far, yet have I all my days
 For seeking, and no other joy on earth:
 I will arise, and seek her through the world.

 With this resolve impassioned and inspired,
 His thoughts were bright, and his hot bosom calmed.
 Sweet was it to behold that radiant goal,
 Though far, and hazardous and wide the way.
 The greatness of his quest found answer in him
 Of greatness, and the thousand teasing cares
 That swarm upon perplexity, flew off.
 Gladly against his journey he prepared
 His pilgrim`s need, and laid him down and slept,
 And ere the dawn with scrip and staff arose.

 Now at his door, irrevocably free,
 Before the unknown world, spread dim and vast,
 He stood and pondered, gazing forth, which way
 To follow, and what distant city or vale
 Held his desire; but pondering he was drawn
 Forth by some secret impulse; he obeyed,
 Not doubting; toward the places of his youth
 He turned his face, toward the high mountain slopes
 Of the dim west, and Antioch and the sea.
 Up the long valley, by the glimmering stream
 He went; and over him the stars grew pale.
 Cliffs upon either hand in darkness plunged
 Built up a shadow; but far off, in front,
 Invaded by the first uncertain beam,
 Mountain on mountain like a cloud arose.
 He seemed ascending some old Titan stair,
 That led up to the sky by great degrees,
 In the vast dawn; he journeyed eagerly,
 Foot keeping pace with thought; for his full heart
 Tarried not, but was with its happy goal,
 One face, one form, one vision, one desire.

 Due onward over the unending hills
 He held his way, and the warm morning sprang
 Behind him, and a less impatient speed
 Drove his feet onward. In the midday heat
 He rested weary; and relaxing thought,
 Had leisure to perceive where he had come.

 Burning beneath the solitary noon
 All round him rose, rock upon rock o`erhung,
 A fiery silence: undefended now
 By clouding grief, nor in illusion armed,
 He to the heavy lure all open lay
 That from this mortal desolation breathed.
 Out of his heart he sought to summon up
 The vision, but it fled before his thought.
 Only the hot blank everywhere opposed
 His spirit, and the silent mountain wall.
 Like one, on whom the fear of blindness comes,
 For whom the sun begins to fall from heaven,
 And the ground darkens, he rose up and fled,
 Grasping his staff; and fearful now to pause
 In that death--breathing region, onward ran.

 Yet was not peril past. He had not come
 Far, when his agitated eyes beheld,
 Amid the uneven crumbling ground, a stone
 Square--hewn and edgeways fallen; and he knew
 That he had come where men long since had been.
 And as he lifted up his eyes, all round
 Were massy granite pillars half o`erthrown,
 Propping the air; and yellow marble shone,
 Dimly inscribed, fragments of maimed renown.
 Over the ruined region he stole on,
 Threading the interrupted clue of roads
 That led all to oblivion, trenches choked
 With weed, and old mounds heaped on idle gold.
 And now Porphyrion paused, inhaling fast
 Odours of buried fame: as in a dream,
 All that remote dead city and her brisk streets,
 Repeopled and for mountain battle armed,
 He apprehended. The deep wave of time
 Subsiding, had disclosed englutted wrecks,
 Which now so long slept idle, that they seemed
 To emulate the agelessness of earth;
 Did not the fondness of mortality
 Still haunt them, and a kind of youth forlorn,
 As if the Desert their brief fable, man,
 Indulging from austerest indolence,
       Forbore a just disdain. Porphyrion,
 With beating pulses, and with running blood,
 Alone on ashes perishably breathed.
 As he who treads the uncertain lava fears
 Each moment that his rash foot may awaken
 Fire from beneath him, from that sepulchre
 Of smouldering ages fearfully he fled.
 And sometimes he looked backward, lest his feet
 Startle a shadowy population up
 In the deserted sunlight, faces stern
 Of fleshless kings, to claim him for their own:
 So frail appeared the heaving of his breath,
 So brief his pace, so idle his desire.

 At last beyond the scarred gray walls he came,
 And gladly found the savage rock once more
 Beneath him, nor yet dared to rest or pause,
 But onward pressed, over the winding sides
 Of pathless valleys, where an echoing stream
 Ran far below; and ridges desolate
 He climbed, and under precipices huge
 And down the infinite spread slopes made way.
 The eagle steering in the upper winds,
 As, balanced out of sight, his eye surveyed
 From white Palmyra to Damascus, flushed
 Among faint--shining streams, saw him afar
 Journey, a shadow never wearying
 From hour to hour: until at last the hills
 Less steep opposed him, toward the distant plains
 Declining in great uplands dimly rolled.
 Here were few stubborn trees, by sunset now
 With sullen glory lighted rich, till night
 Rose in the east, and hooded the bare world.

 Porphyrion had ascended a last ridge
 Of many, and his eyes gazed out afar
 On boundless country darkening; he lay down
 At last, full weary: the keen foreign air
 Filled his delighted nostril: and his heart
 Was soothed. As on a troubled mere at night
 Wind ceases, and the gentle evening brings
 Beauty to that vext mirror, and all fresh
 In perfect images the lost returns;
 Serenely in his bosom rose anew
 The vision: somewhere in that distant world,
 He mused, is she; and there is all my joy.

 But evening now before his gazing eyes
 Receded dim, until the whole wide earth
 Appeared a cloud. Then in the gloom a dread
 Came whispering, and hope faltered in his breast:

 ``O if the great world be but fantasy
 Raised by the deep enchantment of desire,
 And melt before my coming like a cloud!``
 Parleying with the ghost of fear, yet still
 Cherishing his thought`s treasure, he resigned
 His senses to the huge and empty night,
 When on the infinite horizon, lo!
 Sending a herald clearness, upward stole
 Tranquil and vast, over the world, the moon.

 Delicately as when a sculptor charms
 The ignorant clay to liberate his dream,
 Out of the yielding dark with subtle ray
 And imperceptible touch she moulded hill
 And valley, beauteous undulation mild,
 Inlaid with silver estuary and stream,
 Until her solid world created shines
 Before her, and the hearts of men with peace,
 That is not theirs, disquiets: peopled now
 Is her dominion; she in far--off towns
 Has lighted clear a long--awaited lamp
 For many a lover, or set an end to toil,
 Or terribly invokes the brazen lip
 Of trumpets blown to Fate, where men besieged
 For desperate sally buckle their bright arms.
 All these, that the cheered wanderer on his height
 In fancy sees, the lover`s secret kiss,
 The mirth--flushed faces thronging through the streets,
 And ships upon the glimmering wave, and flowers
 In sleeping gardens, and encounters fierce,
 And revellers with lifted cups, and men
 In prison bowed, that move not for their chains,
 And sacred faces of the newly dead;
 All with a mystery of gentle light
 She visits, and in her deep charm includes.


Book III
 Dawn in the ancient heavens over the earth
 Shone up; but in Porphyrion`s bosom rose
 A brighter dawn: the early ray that touched
 His slumber, woke the new, unfathomed need,
 Fallen from radiant night into his soul,
 That thirsted still for beauty; for that joy
 Beyond possession, ever flying far
 From our dim utterance, beauty causing tears.

 He stretched his arms out to the golden sun,
 His glorious kin, impetuously glad,
 And with aërial morning journeyed on
     O`er valley and o`er hill. The second dawn
 Found him far--travelled over pastoral lands,
 Where from the shepherds` lonely huts a smoke
 Went up, or some white shrine gleamed on a height.
 Soon the dark ranging and unchanging pines
 Yielded to ash and chestnut; O how fair
 Their perishable leaf! Porphyrion knew
 That some great city neared him, and his pace
 Grew eager, climbing a soft--crested hill
 In expectation; yet all unprepared
 At last upon his eye the prospect broke,
 Dawning serene, and endlessly unrolled.

 There lay the city, there embodied hope
 Rose to outmatch desire: he cried aloud,
 Taken with joy so irresistible,
 That he must seize a sapling by the stem
 To uphold him, and in ardent silence gazed.
 Solitary heaven, strown with vast white clouds,
 Moved toward him over the abounding land;
 A land of showers, a land of quivering trees,
 A land of youth, lovely and full of sap,
 Upon whose border trembled the wide sea.
 Young were the branches round him, in fresh leaf
 Luminously shaded; the arriving winds
 Broke over him in soft aërial surge;
 For him the grass was glittering, the far cloud
 Loosened her faltering tresses of dim rain,
 And broad Orontes interrupted shone.
 But mid that radiant amphitheatre
 He saw but the far city: thither ran
 His gaze, and rested on her, in a bloom
 Of distant air apparelled, while his heart
 Beat at the thought of what she held for him.
 Bright Antioch! From the endless ocean wave
 Gliding the sunbeam broke upon her towers,
 A moment gleaming white, then into shade
 Withdrawn, until she seemed a thing of breath,
 Created fair, from whose far roofs arose
 Soft, like an exhalation, human joy.

 Clear as a pool to plunge in, seemed the world
 This blissful morn, to him that thither gazed,
 Wondering, until unconscious tears were wet
 Upon his flushing cheek, while he sent forth
 His eager thoughts flying to that sweet goal,
 And conjuring wishes waved unknown delight
 To come to him. Already in dream arrived,
 Close to his ear the hum of those far streets
 He hears; already sees the busy crowd
 Pass and repass, with laughter and with cries.
 Meeting him, children hand in hand from school
 Gleefully run, and old men, slow of step,
 Approach; the mason, pausing from his toil
 Under the plank`s cool shadow, looks at him,
 Or, with a negligent wonder glancing down,
 Beautiful faces; oh, perhaps the face
 That to his fate he follows through the world.
 That deepest hope, too dear to muse upon,
 A moment filled him with a thrilling light:
 And as a bird, alighting on a reed
 Sprung straight and slender from a lonely stream,
 Some idle morning, delicately sways
 The mirrored stem, and sings for perfect joy;
 So musical, alighted young desire
 Upon his heart, that trembled like the reed.

 Down from that height, over delicious grass,
 Amid the rocks, amid the trees, he sped.
 The browsing sheep upstarted in the sun,
 Scared by his coming; he ran on, and tore
 A fresh leaf in his mouth, or sang aloud
 Out of his happy heart; such keen delight
 His eye was treasuring, that welcomed all
 The variable blooms in the high grass,
 Borage and mullein and the rust--red plume
 Of sorrel, and the sprinkled daisies white.
 Even the sap in the young bough he felt
 Reach warmly up to the inviting sun,
 As if his own blood by the spring renewed
 Were theirs, and budding leaves within his breast.

 At last, ere he perceived it, he was close
 Upon the city walls: through shading boughs
 Across a valley they rose populous
 With crowding towers and roofs of distant hum.
 Then in the midst of joy he was afraid.
 So close to him the richness he desired
 Dismayed his spirit, that to doubt and fear
 Recoiling fell. Not yet will I go up,
 He thought; but when the dark comes, I will go.
 Even as his purpose was relaxed, his limbs
 To sudden heaviness surrendered: down
 He laid him in sweet grass beside a pool,
 Under a chestnut, opposite a grove
 Of cypress; and at once sleep fell on him:
 Deep sleep, that into dark unfathomed wells
 Plunges the spirit, and with ignorance lost
 Acquaints, and inaccessible delight,
       And unborn beauty. But meanwhile the noon
 Had ripened and grown pale in the soft sky.
 A gentle rain fell as the light declined;
 And, the drops ceasing, an unprisoned beam
 Out of a cloud flowed trembling o`er the grove,
 And ran beside long shadows of the stems,
 And lighted the dark underleaves, and touched
 The sleeper: suddenly his cheek was warm:
 He stirred an arm, and unrelaxing, sighed;
 And now, through crimsoned eyelids, on his brain
 The full sun burned; to wonder he awoke.
 Green over him, in mystery o`erhung,
 Was dimness fluttered with a thousand rays;
 Unfathomable green; that living roof
 A single stem upbore, whose mighty swerve
 Upward he followed, till it branched abroad
 In heaven, and through the dark leaves shone remote,
 Smooth--molten splendour, the broad evening cloud.
 Porphyrion upon his elbow leaned
 And hearkened, for the trembling air was hushed
 By hundred birds, praising the peaceful light
 Invisibly: a wet drop from the leaf
 Spilled glittering on his hand. Then he reclined
 Deep into joy, absolved out of himself,
 The while the wind brought to him light attired
 In fragrance, and the breathing stillness seemed
 Music asleep, too lovely to be stirred.

 As thus he drew into his pining heart
 Such juices as make young the world, and feed
 The veins of spring; as into one pure sense
 Embodied, he was hearkening blissfully,
 A sound came to him wonderful, like pain,
 With such a sweetness edged. It was a voice,
 A happy voice: and toward it instantly
 The fibre of his flesh yearningly turned,
 Trembling as at a touch. Then he arose
 Troubled: he looked, and in the grove beyond
 That peaceful water, lo! a little band
 Of youths and maidens under distant trees
 Departing: one looked backward ere she went;
 And his heart cried within his breast, awaked
 Suddenly into blissful hope. Alas!
 With flutter of fair robes and mingled, gay,
 Faint laughter, down a bank out of his view
 They were all taken. Pierced with sudden loss,
 And kindled, like a wild, uncertain flame,
 Into a hundred joyful, wavering fears,
 He gazed upon the empty grove, the pool,
 And the light brimming over on fresh grass
 And lonely stems: but the bereaved bright scene
 No more rejoiced him. Now, to aid his wish,
 Swift night upon the fading west inclined:
 And he stole forward through the cypress gloom
 Toward Antioch. Halting on a neighbour brow,
 Afar off he beheld that company
 Even now under the dim gate entering in.
 He followed, and at last the darkened street
 Received him, wondering, back among his kind.

 Was ever haven like the dream of it
 In peril? or did ever feet attain
 Their goal, but still a richer rose beyond?
 It was a festal night: gay multitudes
 Came idly by, and no man noted him.
 His seeking gaze, hither and thither drawn,
 Roamed in a mirror of desires amazed,
 And found, yet wanted more than it could find.
 Beauty he felt around him brushing near,
 And joy in others seen; but all to him,
 Without the vision that his soul required,
 Was idle: solitary was his heart,
 And full to breaking: yet, as wounds are dulled
 To the frail sense, he knew not yet his grief,
 For wonder clothed it; through a veil he heard
       And saw. Thus wandering aimlessly he found
 His feet upon a marble stair; in face
 A porch rose; issuing was a festal sound,
 That drew him onward out of the lone night.
 Halting upon the threshold he gazed in.

 Pillars in lovely parallel sustained
 A roof of shadowed snow, enkindled warm
 From torches pedestalled in order bright;
 Amid whose brilliance at a banquet sat,
 Crowned with sweet garlands, revellers, and cups
 Lifted in laughing, boisterous pledge, or gazed
 Earnest in joy, on their proud paramours.
 Pages, with noiseless tripping feet, had borne
 The feast aside; and now the brimming wine
 From frosted flagons blushed, and the spread board
 Showed the soft cheek of apricot, or glory
 Of orange burning from a dusk of leaves,
 Cloven pomegranates, brimmed with ruby cells,
 Great melons, purpling to the frosty core,
 And mountain strawberries. Beyond, less bright,
 Was hung mysterious magnificence
 Of tapestry, where, with ever--moving feet,
 A golden Triumph followed banners waved
 O`er captive arms, and slender trumpets blew
 To herald a calm hero charioted.
 Just when a music, melted from above,
 Over the feasters flowed, and softly fixed
 The listening gaze, and stilled the idle hand,
 Porphyrion entered; all those faces flushed,
 Lights, flowers and laughter, and the trembling wine,
 And hushing melody, and happy fume
 Of the clear torches burning Indian balm,
 Clouded his brain with sweetness, like a waft
 Of perished youth returned; those wonders held
 His eyes, yet were as things he might not touch,
 And, if he stretched his hand out, they would fade.

 Then he remembered whom he sought. A pang
 Disturbed him; eager with bright eyes inspired,
 Through those that would have stayed his feet, he stole
 Nearer to bliss. They all regarded him
 Astonished; in their joyful throng he seemed
 An apparition: darkly the long hair
 Hung on his shoulders, and his form was frail.
 Some cried, then all were silent; a strange want
 Woke in their sated breasts, and wonder dread
 Troubled them, whence had come and what required
 This messenger unknown. But he passed on,
 And in each woman`s face with questioning gaze,
 Dazzled by nearer splendour, looked, and sought,
       Doubtful. Already one, whose arm was laid
 Around the shoulder of her paramour,
 Stayed him, so deep into his heart she looked,
 Biting her pearly necklace: in her robe
 Was moonlight shivering over purple seas.
 Encountering, their spirits parleyed: then
 Unwillingly he drew his eyes away.
 Another, clothed as in the fiery bloom
 Of cloud at evening changing o`er the sun,
 Backward reclining, under lids half--closed
 Gazed, and a moment held him at her feet:
 Until at last one turned and dazzled him,
 Of whose attire he knew not, so her face
 With sun--like glory drew him: he approached;
 And she, presiding beauteous and adored
 Queen of that perfumed feast, beckoned him on.
 Her bosom heaved; the music from her ears
 Faded, and from her sated sense the glow
 Of empty mirth: far lovelier were in him
 Sorrow and youth and wonder and desire.
 Forward she leaned, and showed a vacant place
 By her, and he came near, and sat him down,
 Charm--stricken also, whispering, Art thou she?
 She said no word, but to his shining eyes
 Answered, and of the red pomegranate fruit
 Gave him to eat, and golden wine to drink,
 And with pale honeyed roses crowned his hair.
 All marvelled, and with murmur looked on him,
 As, high exalted over realms of joy,
 He sat in glory, and sweet incense breathed
 Of that dominion, riches in a cloud
 Descending, and before his feet prepared
 The world in bloom, and in his eyes the dream
 Of destiny excelled, and rushing thoughts
 Radiant, and beauty by his side enthroned.


Book IV
 Love, the sweet nourishing sun of human kind,
 Who with unquenchable fire inhabitest
 Worlds, that would fall into that happy death
 Out of their course, were not their course so fixt;
 Who from the dark soil drawest up the plant,
 And the sweet leaves out of the naked tree;
 Whose ardent air to taste and to enjoy
 All flesh desire, even of bitter pangs
 Enamoured, so that this intenser breath
 They breathe, and one victorious moment taste
 Life perfect, over Fate and Time empowered;
 Leave him not desolate, Love, who to thy glory
 Is dedicated, and for thee endures
 To look upon the dreadful grave of joy,
 Knowing the lost is lost; comfort him now,
 Thy votary, who by the pale sea--shore
 In the young dawn paces uncomforted.
 Ah, might not sweet embraces have assuaged
 The fever which had burnt him, honeyed mouth
 And the close girdle of voluptuous arms?
 Nor dimly fragrant hair have curtained him
 From memory? Alas, too new he came
 From love, too recent from that ecstasy;
 And memory mocked him under the cold stars,
 With finished yet untasted pleasure sad.

 Flying that fragrant lure, unhappy soul,
 By the dark shore he paces: and his eyes
 The dawn delights not, far off in the east
 Discovering the sleeping world, and men
 To all their tasks arousing, while she strews
 Neglected roses on the unchanging hills,
 And over the dim earth and wave unfolds
 Beauty, but not the beauty he desires.
 To her, to her, who in the desert touched
 His spirit, and unsealed his eyes, and showed
 Above a new earth a new sun, and brought
 His steps forth to this perilous rich world,
 Stirred with ineffable deep longing now
 He turned; ev`n to behold her from afar,
 To touch the hem of her apparel, seemed
 Sweeter ten thousandfold than absolute
 Taste and possession of a lesser charm.

 ``Where art thou?`` cried he. ``Ah, dost thou behold
 My desolation and not come to me?
 O ere my sick heart all delight refuse,
 Return, appear! Or say in what far land
 Thou lingerest, that I may seek thee out
 And find thee, without whom I have no peace
 Nor joy, but wander aimless in a path
 Barren and undetermined o`er the world.
 Wilt not thou make thy voice upon the wind
 Float hither, or in dew thy secret breathe
     To answer my entreaty?`` The still shore
 Was echoless, unanswered that sad cry.
 Warm on the wave the Syrian morning stole.
 Out of suspended hazes the smooth sea
 Swelled into brilliance, and subsiding hushed
 The lonely shore with music: such a calm
 As vexes the full heart, inviting it,
 Flattered with sighing pause Porphyrion`s ear.
 The sea hungered his spirit; he could not lift
 His eyes from the arriving splendour calm
 Of those broad waters, to their solemn chime
 Setting his grief; and gradually vast
 His longing opened to horizons wide
 As the round ocean; deep as the deep sea
 His heart, and the unbounded earth his road.

 That inward stream and dark necessity,
 Which drives us onward in the way of Time,
 Moved his uncertain hesitating soul
 Into its old course, and his feet set firm
 To tread their due path, seeking over earth
 The Wonder that made idle all things else.
 He raised his brow, inhaling the wide air;
 And the wind rose, and his resolve was set.

 Broad on the morrow hoisting to the sun
 Her sail, a ship out of the harbour stands
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