The Fall of Hyperion - A Dream
CANTO I
Fanatics have their dreams,
wherewith they weave
A paradise for a sect; the savage
too
From forth the loftiest fashion of
his sleep
Guesses at Heaven; pity these have
not
Trac'd upon vellum or wild Indian
leaf
The shadows of melodious utterance.
But bare of laurel they live,
dream, and die;
For Poesy alone can tell her
dreams,
With the fine spell of words alone
can save
Imagination from the sable charm
And dumb enchantment. Who alive can
say,
'Thou art no Poet may'st not tell
thy dreams?'
Since every man whose soul is not a
clod
Hath visions, and would speak, if
he had loved
And been well nurtured in his
mother tongue.
Whether the dream now purpos'd to
rehearse
Be poet's or fanatic's will be
known
When this warm scribe my hand is in
the grave.
Methought I stood where trees of
every clime,
Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore,
and beech,
With plantain, and spice blossoms,
made a screen;
In neighbourhood of fountains, by
the noise
Soft showering in my ears, and, by
the touch
Of scent, not far from roses.
Turning round
I saw an arbour with a drooping
roof
Of trellis vines, and bells, and
larger blooms,
Like floral censers swinging light
in air;
Before its wreathed doorway, on a
mound
Of moss, was spread a feast of
summer fruits,
Which, nearer seen, seem'd refuse
of a meal
By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;
For empty shells were scattered on
the grass,
And grape stalks but half bare, and
remnants more,
Sweet smelling, whose pure kinds I
could not know.
Still was more plenty than the
fabled horn
Thrice emptied could pour forth, at
banqueting
For Proserpine return'd to her own
fields,
Where the white heifers low. And
appetite
More yearning than on earth I ever
felt
Growing within, I ate deliciously;
And, after not long, thirsted, for
thereby
Stood a cool vessel of transparent
juice
Sipp'd by the wander'd bee, the
which I took,
And, pledging all the mortals of
the world,
And all the dead whose names are in
our lips,
Drank. That full draught is parent
of my theme.
No Asian poppy nor elixir fine
Of the soon fading jealous
Caliphat,
No poison gender'd in close monkish
cell
To thin the scarlet conclave of old
men,
Could so have rapt unwilling life
away.
Among the fragrant husks and berries
crush'd,
Upon the grass I struggled hard
against
The domineering potion; but in
vain:
The cloudy swoon came on, and down
I sunk
Like a Silenus on an antique vase.
How long I slumber'd 'tis a chance
to guess.
When sense of life return'd, I
started up
As if with wings; but the fair
trees were gone,
The mossy mound and arbour were no
more:
I look'd around upon the carved
sides
Of an old sanctuary with roof
august,
Builded so high, it seem'd that
filmed clouds
Might spread beneath, as o'er the
stars of heaven;
So old the place was, I remember'd
none
The like upon the earth: what I had
seen
Of grey cathedrals, buttress'd
walls, rent towers,
The superannuations of sunk realms,
Or Nature's rocks toil'd hard in
waves and winds,
Seem'd but the faulture of decrepit
things
To that eternal domed monument.
Upon the marble at my feet there
lay
Store of strange vessels and large
draperies,
Which needs had been of dyed
asbestos wove,
Or in that place the moth could not
corrupt,
So white the linen, so, in some,
distinct
Ran imageries from a sombre loom.
All in a mingled heap confus'd
there lay
Robes, golden tongs, censer and
chafing dish,
Girdles, and chains, and holy
jewelries.
Turning from these with awe, once
more I rais'd
My eyes to fathom the space every
way;
The embossed roof, the silent massy
range
Of columns north and south, ending
in mist
Of nothing, then to eastward, where
black gates
Were shut against the sunrise
evermore.
Then to the west I look'd, and saw
far off
An image, huge of feature as a
cloud,
At level of whose feet an altar
slept,
To be approach'd on either side by
steps,
And marble balustrade, and patient
travail
To count with toil the innumerable
degrees.
Towards the altar sober paced I
went,
Repressing haste, as too unholy
there;
And, coming nearer, saw beside the
shrine
One minist'ring; and there arose a
flame.
When in mid May the sickening East
wind
Shifts sudden to the south, the
small warm rain
Melts out the frozen incense from
all flowers,
And fills the air with so much
pleasant health
That even the dying man forgets his
shroud;
Even so that lofty sacrificial
fire,
Sending forth Maian incense, spread
around
Forgetfulness of everything but
bliss,
And clouded all the altar with soft
smoke,
From whose white fragrant curtains
thus I heard
Language pronounc'd: 'If thou canst
not ascend
'These steps, die on that marble
where thou art.
'Thy flesh, near cousin to the
common dust,
'Will parch for lack of nutriment
thy bones
'Will wither in few years, and
vanish so
'That not the quickest eye could
find a grain
'Of what thou now art on that
pavement cold.
'The sands of thy short life are
spent this hour,
'And no hand in the universe can
turn
'Thy hourglass, if these gummed
leaves be burnt
'Ere thou canst mount up these
immortal steps.'
I heard, I look'd: two senses both
at once,
So fine, so subtle, felt the
tyranny
Of that fierce threat and the hard
task proposed.
Prodigious seem'd the toil, the
leaves were yet
Burning when suddenly a palsied chill
Struck from the paved level up my
limbs,
And was ascending quick to put cold
grasp
Upon those streams that pulse
beside the throat:
I shriek'd; and the sharp anguish
of my shriek
Stung my own ears I strove hard to
escape
The numbness; strove to gain the
lowest step.
Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace:
the cold
Grew stifling, suffocating, at the
heart;
And when I clasp'd my hands I felt
them not.
One minute before death, my iced
foot touch'd
The lowest stair; and as it
touch'd, life seem'd
To pour in at the toes: I mounted
up,
As once fair angels on a ladder
flew
From the green turf to Heaven.
'Holy Power,'
Cried I, approaching near the
horned shrine,
'What am I that should so be saved
from death?
'What am I that another death come
not
'To choke my utterance sacrilegious
here?'
Then said the veiled shadow 'Thou
hast felt
'What 'tis to die and live again
before
'Thy fated hour. That thou hadst
power to do so
'Is thy own safety; thou hast dated
on
'Thy doom.' 'High Prophetess,' said
I, 'purge off,
'Benign, if so it please thee, my
mind's film.'
'None can usurp this height,'
return'd that shade,
'But those to whom the miseries of
the world
'Are misery, and will not let them
rest.
'All else who find a haven in the
world,
'Where they may thoughtless sleep
away their days,
'If by a chance into this fane they
come,
'Rot on the pavement where thou
rottedst half.'
'Are there not thousands in the
world,' said I,
Encourag'd by the sooth voice of
the shade,
'Who love their fellows even to the
death;
'Who feel the giant agony of the
world;
'And more, like slaves to poor
humanity,
'Labour for mortal good? I sure
should see
'Other men here; but I am here
alone.'
'Those whom thou spak'st of are no
vision'ries,'
Rejoin'd that voice; 'they are no
dreamers weak;
'They seek no wonder but the human
face,
'No music but a happy noted voice;
'They come not here, they have no
thought to come;
'And thou art here, for thou art
less than they:
'What benefit canst thou do, or all
thy tribe,
'To the great world? Thou art a
dreaming thing,
'A fever of thyself think of the
Earth;
'What bliss even in hope is there
for thee?
'What haven? every creature hath
its home;
'Every sole man hath days of joy
and pain,
'Whether his labours be sublime or
low
'The pain alone; the joy alone;
distinct:
'Only the dreamer venoms all his
days,
'Bearing more woe than all his sins
deserve.
'Therefore, that happiness be
somewhat shar'd,
'Such things as thou art are
admitted oft
'Into like gardens thou didst pass
erewhile,
'And suffer'd in these temples: for
that cause
'Thou standest safe beneath this
statue's knees.'
'That I am favour'd for
unworthiness,
'By such propitious parley
medicin'd
'In sickness not ignoble, I
rejoice,
'Aye, and could weep for love of
such award.'
So answer'd I, continuing, 'If it
please,
'Majestic shadow, tell me: sure not
all
'Those melodies sung into the
world's ear
'Are useless: sure a poet is a
sage;
'A humanist, physician to all men.
'That I am none I feel, as vultures
feel
'They are no birds when eagles are
abroad.
'What am I then? Thou spakest of my
tribe:
'What tribe?' The tall shade veil'd
in drooping white
Then spake, so much more earnest,
that the breath
Moved the thin linen folds that
drooping hung
About a golden censer from the hand
Pendent. 'Art thou not of the
dreamer tribe?
'The poet and the dreamer are
distinct,
'Diverse, sheer opposite,
antipodes.
'The one pours out a balm upon the
world,
'The other vexes it.' Then shouted
I
Spite of myself, and with a
Pythia's spleen,
'Apollo! faded! O far flown Apollo!
'Where is thy misty pestilence to
creep
'Into the dwellings, through the
door crannies
'Of all mock lyrists, large self
worshipers,
'And careless Hectorers in proud
bad verse.
'Though I breathe death with them
it will be life
'To see them sprawl before me into
graves.
'Majestic shadow, tell me where I
am,
'Whose altar this; for whom this
incense curls;
'What image this whose face I
cannot see,
'For the broad marble knees; and
who thou art,
'Of accent feminine so courteous?'
Then the tall shade, in drooping
linens veil'd,
Spoke out, so much more earnest,
that her breath
Stirr'd the thin folds of gauze
that drooping hung
About a golden censer from her hand
Pendent; and by her voice I knew
she shed
Long treasured tears. 'This temple,
sad and lone,
'Is all spar'd from the thunder of
a war
'Foughten long since by giant
hierarchy
'Against rebellion: this old image
here,
'Whose carved features wrinkled as
he fell,
'Is Saturn's; I Moneta, left
supreme
'Sole priestess of this
desolation.'
I had no words to answer, for my
tongue,
Useless, could find about its
roofed home
No syllable of a fit majesty
To make rejoinder to Moneta's
mourn.
There was a silence, while the
altar's blaze
Was fainting for sweet food: I
look'd thereon,
And on the paved floor, where nigh
were piled
Faggots of cinnamon, and many heaps
Of other crisped spice wood then
again
I look'd upon the altar, and its
horns
Whiten'd with ashes, and its
lang'rous flame,
And then upon the offerings again;
And so by turns till sad Moneta
cried,
'The sacrifice is done, but not the
less
'Will I be kind to thee for thy
good will.
'My power, which to me is still a
curse,
'Shall be to thee a wonder; for the
scenes
'Still swooning vivid through my
globed brain
'With an electral changing misery
'Thou shalt with those dull mortal
eyes behold,
'Free from all pain, if wonder pain
thee not.'
As near as an immortal's sphered
words
Could to a mother's soften, were
these last:
And yet I had a terror of her
robes,
And chiefly of the veils, that from
her brow
Hung pale, and curtain'd her in
mysteries
That made my heart too small to
hold its blood.
This saw that Goddess, and with
sacred hand
Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan
face,
Not pin'd by human sorrows, but
bright blanch'd
By an immortal sickness which kills
not;
It works a constant change, which
happy death
Can put no end to; deathwards
progressing
To no death was that visage; it had
pass'd
The lily and the snow; and beyond
these
I must not think now, though I saw
that face
But for her eyes I should have fled
away.
They held me back, with a benignant
light
Soft mitigated by divinest lids
Half closed, and visionless entire
they seem'd
Of all external things; they saw me
not,
But in blank splendour beam'd like
the mild moon,
Who comforts those she sees not,
who knows not
What eyes are upward cast. As I had
found
A grain of gold upon a mountain
side,
And twing'd with avarice strain'd
out my eyes
To search its sullen entrails rich
with ore,
So at the view of sad Moneta's brow
I ach'd to see what things the
hollow brain
Behind enwombed: what high tragedy
In the dark secret chambers of her
skull
Was acting, that could give so
dread a stress
To her cold lips, and fill with
such a light
Her planetary eyes, and touch her
voice
With such a sorrow 'Shade of
Memory!'
Cried I, with act adorant at her
feet,
'By all the gloom hung round thy
fallen house,
'By this last temple, by the golden
age,
'By great Apollo, thy dear Foster
Child,
'And by thyself, forlorn divinity,
'The pale Omega of a withered race,
'Let me behold, according as thou
saidst,
'What in thy brain so ferments to
and fro!'
No sooner had this conjuration
pass'd
My devout lips, than side by side
we stood
(Like a stunt bramble by a solemn
pine)
Deep in the shady sadness of a
vale,
Far sunken from the healthy breath
of morn,
Far from the fiery noon and eve's
one star.
Onward I look'd beneath the gloomy
boughs,
And saw, what first I thought an
image huge,
Like to the image pedestal'd so
high
In Saturn's temple. Then Moneta's
voice
Came brief upon mine ear 'So Saturn
sat
When he had lost his realms '
whereon there grew
A power within me of enormous ken
To see as a god sees, and take the
depth
Of things as nimbly as the outward
eye
Can size and shape pervade. The
lofty theme
At those few words hung vast before
my mind,
With half unravel'd web. I set
myself
Upon an eagle's watch, that I might
see,
And seeing ne'er forget. No stir of
life
Was in this shrouded vale, not so
much air
As in the zoning of a summer's day
Robs not one light seed from the
feather'd grass,
But where the dead leaf fell there
did it rest.
A stream went voiceless by, still
deaden'd more
By reason of the fallen divinity
Spreading more shade; the Naiad
'mid her reeds
Press'd her cold finger closer to
her lips.
Along the margin sand large
footmarks went
No farther than to where old
Saturn's feet
Had rested, and there slept, how
long a sleep!
Degraded, cold, upon the sodden
ground
His old right hand lay nerveless,
listless, dead,
Unsceptred; and his realmless eyes
were clos'd,
While his bow'd head seem'd
listening to the Earth,
His ancient mother, for some
comfort yet.
It seem'd no force could wake him
from his place;
But there came one who with a
kindred hand
Touch'd his wide shoulders after
bending low
With reverence, though to one who
knew it not.
Then came the griev'd voice of
Mnemosyne,
And griev'd I hearken'd. 'That
divinity
'Whom thou saw'st step from yon
forlornest wood,
'And with slow pace approach our
fallen King,
'Is Thea, softest natur'd of our
brood.'
I mark'd the Goddess in fair
statuary
Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,
And in her sorrow nearer woman's
tears.
There was a listening fear in her
regard,
As if calamity had but begun;
As if the vanward clouds of evil
days
Had spent their malice, and the
sullen rear
Was with its stored thunder
labouring up.
One hand she press'd upon that
aching spot
Where beats the human heart, as if
just there,
Though an immortal, she felt cruel
pain;
The other upon Saturn's bended neck
She laid, and to the level of his
hollow ear
Leaning with parted lips, some
words she spake
In solemn tenor and deep organ
tune;
Some mourning words, which in our
feeble tongue
Would come in this like accenting;
how frail
To that large utterance of the
early Gods!
'Saturn! look up and for what, poor
lost King?
'I have no comfort for thee; no not
one;
'I cannot cry, Wherefore thus
sleepest thou?
'For Heaven is parted from thee,
and the Earth
'Knows thee not, so afflicted, for
a God;
'And Ocean too, with all its solemn
noise,
'Has from thy sceptre pass'd, and
all the air
'Is emptied of thine hoary majesty:
'Thy thunder, captious at the new
command,
'Rumbles reluctant o'er our fallen
house;
'And thy sharp lightning, in
unpracticed hands,
'Scorches and burns our once serene
domain.
'With such remorseless speed still
come new woes,
'That unbelief has not a space to
breathe.
'Saturn! sleep on: Me thoughtless,
why should I
'Thus violate thy slumbrous
solitude?
'Why should I ope thy melancholy
eyes?
'Saturn, sleep on, while at thy
feet I weep.'
As when upon a tranced summer night
Forests, branch charmed by the
earnest stars,
Dream, and so dream all night
without a noise,
Save from one gradual solitary
gust,
Swelling upon the silence; dying
off;
As if the ebbing air had but one
wave;
So came these words, and went; the
while in tears
She press'd her fair large forehead
to the earth,
Just where her fallen hair might
spread in curls
A soft and silken mat for Saturn's
feet.
Long, long those two were postured
motionless,
Like sculpture builded up upon the
grave
Of their own power. A long awful
time
I look'd upon them: still they were
the same;
The frozen God still bending to the
earth,
And the sad Goddess weeping at his
feet,
Moneta silent. Without stay or prop
But my own weak mortality, I bore
The load of this eternal quietude,
The unchanging gloom, and the three
fixed shapes
Ponderous upon my senses, a whole
moon.
For by my burning brain I measured
sure
Her silver seasons shedded on the
night,
And ever day by day methought I
grew
More gaunt and ghostly. Oftentimes
I pray'd
Intense, that Death would take me
from the vale
And all its burthens gasping with
despair
Of change, hour after hour I curs'd
myself;
Until old Saturn rais'd his faded
eyes,
And look'd around and saw his
kingdom gone,
And all the gloom and sorrow of the
place,
And that fair kneeling Goddess at
his feet.
As the moist scent of flowers, and
grass, and leaves
Fills forest dells with a pervading
air,
Known to the woodland nostril, so
the words
Of Saturn fill'd the mossy glooms
around,
Even to the hollows of time eaten
oaks
And to the windings of the foxes'
hole,
With sad low tones, while thus he
spake, and sent
Strange musings to the solitary
Pan.
'Moan, brethren, moan; for we are
swallow'd up
'And buried from all Godlike
exercise
'Of influence benign on planets
pale,
'And peaceful sway above man's
harvesting,
'And all those acts which Deity
supreme
'Doth ease its heart of love in.
Moan and wail,
'Moan, brethren, moan; for lo, the
rebel spheres
'Spin round, the stars their
ancient courses keep,
'Clouds still with shadowy moisture
haunt the earth,
'Still suck their fill of light
from sun and moon,
'Still buds the tree, and still the
sea shores murmur;
'There is no death in all the
Universe,
'No smell of death there shall be
death Moan, moan,
'Moan, Cybele, moan; for thy
pernicious babes
'Have changed a God into a shaking
Palsy.
'Moan, brethren, moan, for I have
no strength left,
'Weak as the reed weak feeble as my
voice
'O, O, the pain, the pain of
feebleness.
'Moan, moan, for still I thaw or
give me help;
'Throw down those imps, and give me
victory.
'Let me hear other groans, and
trumpets blown
'Of triumph calm, and hymns of
festival
'From the gold peaks of Heaven's
high piled clouds;
'Voices of soft proclaim, and
silver stir
'Of strings in hollow shells; and
let there be
'Beautiful things made new, for the
surprise
'Of the sky children.' So he feebly
ceas'd,
With such a poor and sickly
sounding pause,
Methought I heard some old man of
the earth
Bewailing earthly loss; nor could
my eyes
And ears act with that pleasant
unison of sense
Which marries sweet sound with the
grace of form,
And dolorous accent from a tragic
harp
With large limb'd visions. More I
scrutinized:
Still fix'd he sat beneath the
sable trees,
Whose arms spread straggling in
wild serpent forms,
With leaves all hush'd; his awful
presence there
(Now all was silent) gave a deadly
lie
To what I erewhile heard only his
lips
Trembled amid the white curls of
his beard.
They told the truth, though, round,
the snowy locks
Hung nobly, as upon the face of
heaven
A mid day fleece of clouds. Thea
arose,
And stretched her white arm through
the hollow dark,
Pointing some whither: whereat he
too rose
Like a vast giant, seen by men at
sea
To grow pale from the waves at dull
midnight.
They melted from my sight into the
woods;
Ere I could turn, Moneta cried,
'These twain
'Are speeding to the families of
grief,
'Where roof'd in by black rocks
they waste, in pain
'And darkness, for no hope.' And
she spake on,
As ye may read who can unwearied
pass
Onward from the antechamber of this
dream,
Where even at the open doors awhile
I must delay, and glean my memory
Of her high phrase: perhaps no
further dare.
CANTO II
'Mortal, that thou may'st
understand aright,
'I humanize my sayings to thine
ear,
'Making comparisons of earthly
things;
'Or thou might'st better listen to
the wind,
'Whose language is to thee a barren
noise,
'Though it blows legend laden
through the trees.
'In melancholy realms big tears are
shed,
'More sorrow like to this, and such
like woe,
'Too huge for mortal tongue, or pen
of scribe.
'The Titans fierce, self hid or
prison bound,
'Groan for the old allegiance once
more,
'Listening in their doom for
Saturn's voice.
'But one of our whole eagle brood
still keeps
'His sov'reignty, and rule, and
majesty;
'Blazing Hyperion on his orbed fire
'Still sits, still snuffs the
incense teeming up
'From man to the sun's God: yet
unsecure,
'For as upon the earth dire
prodigies
'Fright and perplex, so also
shudders he:
'Nor at dog's howl or gloom bird's
Even screech,
'Or the familiar visitings of one
'Upon the first toll of his passing
bell:
'But horrors, portioned to a giant
nerve,
'Make great Hyperion ache. His
palace bright,
'Bastion'd with pyramids of glowing
gold,
'And touch'd with shade of bronzed
obelisks,
'Glares a blood red through all the
thousand courts,
'Arches, and domes, and fiery
galleries:
'And all its curtains of Aurorian
clouds
'Flush angerly; when he would taste
the wreaths
'Of incense breath'd aloft from
sacred hills,
'Instead of sweets his ample palate
takes
'Savour of poisonous brass and
metals sick.
'Wherefore when harbour'd in the
sleepy West,
'After the full completion of fair
day,
'For rest divine upon exalted couch
'And slumber in the arms of melody,
'He paces through the pleasant
hours of ease
'With strides colossal, on from
hall to hall;
'While far within each aisle and
deep recess
'His winged minions in close
clusters stand
'Amaz'd, and full of fear; like
anxious men,
'Who on a wide plain gather in sad
troops,
'When earthquakes jar their
battlements and towers.
'Even now, while Saturn, roused
from icy trance,
'Goes step for step with Thea from
yon woods,
'Hyperion, leaving twilight in the
rear,
'Is sloping to the threshold of the
West.
'Thither we tend.' Now in clear
light I stood,
Reliev'd from the dusk vale.
Mnemosyne Was sitting on a square edg'd polish'd stone,
That in its lucid depth reflected
pure
Her priestess garments. My quick
eyes ran on
From stately nave to nave, from
vault to vault,
Through bow'rs of fragrant and
enwreathed light
And
diamond paved lustrous long arcades.
Anon rush'd by the bright Hyperion;
His flaming robes stream'd out
beyond his heels,
And gave a roar, as if of earthly
fire,
That scared away the meek ethereal
hours
And made their dove wings tremble.
On he flared.
THE END
