Classic Poem

Apollo (musing).

There was no whisper out of space,
Scarcely a ripple ran
From thine incommensurable side
O dim leviathan,

When from afar I came in flight,
Rumours 'gainst thee to probe,
Leaving afar, engraved in shade,
Many a dreaming silver globe
And approached thee on the middle sea
Wrapt in my darkling robe.

That Ship becalm'd, that triple-tier'd
Of Heaven and Earth and Hell,
Spread strange commotion as I near'd
Over the starred sea-swell.

Arcturus, I remember, shone —
That rebel! mirror'd bright,
And Saturn in his moat of moons
Glass'd in unsounded night:
The million-litten vault below
Breathed, in a slumber light.

As in a mountain forest-glade
When frosts ere dawn are brisk
And early spring boughs knitted close
Across the red moon's disk,

The rimy turf rings hard to hoof
Of light branch-feeding deer,
One sees upflushing some glen's brow
Camp-fire of mountaineer

Bivouack'd below; shag-bearded pines
All gnarled, loom down estranged
At wanton fire about their knees
With moon-fire interchanged —

So strange her gaunt dishevelled spars
Loomed down out of the sky;
Sails that had drunk Earth's soul immense
Hung pierced and slung awry,

My inwoven eternal blazonries
An idle tattered shame.
Was this the keen fire-spirited prow
Ark of the heaving flame,

That sun-stampt and illumined ship,
That keel of mystery,
Loosed, after toilings beyond count,
To plunge from the Daedalian mount
To stem futurity?

Now, since mine own insignia badged
Each white celestial vail,
Rage seized me, like your emperor
Trajan — how goes the tale? —
Who on Tigris, twice defeated, tore
His gold wolves from the sail. ...

And as from forge doors in her decks
Escaped, lulled, rose again,
Confused blasts — insolent uproar
From torch'd and naked men,
As 'twere some wind from Africa's
Tropic and demon'd fen.

Beast-like shadows ran and flashed;
Knotted at grips they swayed
And writhed. Unkennelled Hell was loose
And swarmed in escalade.

Hard-pressed my righteous stood at bay,
But when Hell's desperate brood
Saw me, they shouted, " Lord of light ,
Release! " Ruinous strew'd,
Fell on their faces on the decks
That breathless multitude.

Their leader, with inverted torch,
Stepp'd through them. Stern he comes,
Stirring their night-bound forest hearts
Like distant savage drums,
He cries aloud, " In this, in this —
Shaking his torch — is peace!
Not thou, tardy deliverer,
But I, confer release!

" Mighty shall be the golden flame!
Superb the funeral pyre
Of Heaven and Earth! ... Kindle it, Hell,
To glut this God's desire! "

He paused, with arms distorted, black,
Rear'd, long before the crash —
Like hollow oak that long outliveth
Coil of the lightning's lash;

Then fell. Majestic enemy,
Time with thy falling rang!
He, first of all the ship, was free
And fled without a pang.

*****

Out of the throng'd expanse, skull-bare
Heads rose, and dropped again.
They quailed, they flinched before my gaze,
My light to them was pain!
Shadows of wreckage on the masts
Went streaming down the main.

Stooping above one cowering shape,
I raised it by the chin,
Upturned the pallid chronicle
And read the tale therein;
Read the thing purposed, by the bone,
The thing done, by the skin.

The lecher, wan, with eyelid lined,
Heavy-soul'd, torn with vice,
The murderous, with the flitting smile,
The drunkard, blue as ice;
Incomplete and colourable things,
Whose breathings must be lies.

All the sweet neighbours that men take
Within their breasts to thrive
Had blown like glass the body's case
Or stamped its clay alive.
I mused — (All hung upon a hair!)
Why need the dead survive?

In one face, stony, white and bleak,
Had passions scooped their bed;
Old lavas down the rigid cheek,
Meseemed, were still unshed;
I read the eyes of him athirst
Only for things beyond;
Whose strata, tossed in molten dreams,
Would never correspond
With things about him, for he willed
To die unparagoned.

*****

Unseen above them so bowed down
Like beaten, sodden corn,
How cast them with derision back,
That throng of the forlorn,

Herding them with derision cold
As with a hand of steel,
Condemn them to endurance back
And still to think and feel,
While tears that might not fall for them
Did on my cheek congeal?

And in that pause their mournful hope,
Swelling like undertone
That dins within the wildest gale,
Utter'd aloud mine own.

Blindly they stretched their scarry hands,
Their piteous hands, to me:
" Since bonds we cannot bear, nor sight,
Be thou our sanctuary!
Open again the narrow gate —
Let us no longer be! "

Then lo! my righteous, whose wounds still
With bitter conflict bled,
Veer'd in their wrath, hoarsely unjust,
Arraigned me for these dead —
Spat on their own high bliss, and craved
To stand in Hades' stead!

Had all white-priested Egypt, then,
Not taught thee to perdure,
My Boat of Years? Lo, in man's dust
So mixed — so long impure —
Came light! I summoned up each soul
And round its neck secure
Fastened this token: " Judge thyself! "
That justice might be sure.

Aloft, long since, I saw, had fled
That viewless sanhedrim
Of presences starry-cresseted
Who erst through waters dim
Had breathed the towering sails along,
My faithful seraphim.

I turned about in mournfulness
Stedfastly to behold
Bulwarks charred, ay, drunken masts
And slow deep-labouring hold,

And heeling of age-crumbled beams
And helmless spars divine —
Beheld the horror of those decks
Bloodied with mystic wine;
Even the little fluttering Genius reft
From the wrecked and flameless shrine.

And I cried to the white shape on the prow
Ascendant by my skill,
" O winged Ardour, headless now,
To sound what wild sea-victory
Swing'st there, triumphant still?
Why spared they wholly to shatter thee?
Thy rippling veils from feet to breasts
Winds from the future fill.

But I know my handiwork outworn,
This bolted fabric vast
That disciplined through many wars
Man's courage in the past, —
And well, well, hath she served her Lord —
Unseaworthy at last! "

Then from ocean's frothy hazardous
Dream-element I caught
Hen crew — every half-foundered soul
Wherewith her hold was fraught;

I sang them back to steady Earth
After their wanderings long,
Both quick and dead. Hangs on thy breast
The token of my song?

(He fumbled in his hairy breast,
Yes — the " Judge thyself " hung there)
Remembering then their mad outburst
Of quaint hope and despair,

Who deemed each puny life should last,
When nothing else escapes,
And the nations and the planets melt
Like breakers on the capes,

From laughter, from tears unquenchable,
Scarce able to forbear,
I smote the great hull to a ghost, —
The mighty masts to air. . . .

Seaman.

What! is there not even left enough
Of that so noble craft,
A gang-board or a plank or two,
To lash into a raft?

Apollo.

No, lad: you shall not ride in her;
But then you shall not weep;
Nor hear aloft her pipes of cheer
Nor the wail under the deep.

Yet sometimes, like the Northern Lights,
Hull-down — a radiance dim —
Loftier than air of Earth, up-sprung
To planes beyond its rim,

At hours when you are fever-struck
A phantom you may see,
Derelict — drifting out of hail —
Lost Immortality!