Volume I Part 5 (1/2)

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

Henceforward, human eyes of lovers be The only sweetest sight that I shall see, With tears between the looks raised up to me.

Ah, ah!

When, having wept all night, at break of day Above the folded hills they shall survey My light, a little trembling, in the grey.

Ah, ah!

And gazing on me, such shall comprehend, Through all my piteous pomp at morn or even And melancholy leaning out of heaven, That love, their own divine, may change or end, That love may close in loss!

Ah, ah, Heosphoros!

SCENE.--_Farther on. A wild open country seen vaguely in the approaching night._

_Adam._ How doth the wide and melancholy earth Gather her hills around us, grey and ghast, And stare with blank significance of loss Right in our faces! Is the wind up?

_Eve._ Nay.

_Adam._ And yet the cedars and the junipers Rock slowly through the mist, without a sound, And shapes which have no certainty of shape Drift duskly in and out between the pines, And loom along the edges of the hills, And lie flat, curdling in the open ground-- Shadows without a body, which contract And lengthen as we gaze on them.

_Eve._ O life Which is not man's nor angel's! What is this?

_Adam._ No cause for fear. The circle of G.o.d's life Contains all life beside.

_Eve._ I think the earth Is crazed with curse, and wanders from the sense Of those first laws affixed to form and s.p.a.ce Or ever she knew sin.

_Adam._ We will not fear; We were brave sinning.

_Eve._ Yea, I plucked the fruit With eyes upturned to heaven and seeing there Our G.o.d-thrones, as the tempter said,--not G.o.d.

My heart, which beat then, sinks. The sun hath sunk Out of sight with our Eden.

_Adam._ Night is near.

_Eve._ And G.o.d's curse, nearest. Let us travel back And stand within the sword-glare till we die, Believing it is better to meet death Than suffer desolation.

_Adam._ Nay, beloved!

We must not pluck death from the Maker's hand, As erst we plucked the apple: we must wait Until he gives death as he gave us life, Nor murmur faintly o'er the primal gift Because we spoilt its sweetness with our sin.

_Eve._ Ah, ah! dost thou discern what I behold?

_Adam._ I see all. How the spirits in thine eyes From their dilated orbits bound before To meet the spectral Dread!

_Eve._ I am afraid-- Ah, ah! the twilight bristles wild with shapes Of intermittent motion, aspect vague And mystic bearings, which o'ercreep the earth, Keeping slow time with horrors in the blood.

How near they reach ... and far! How grey they move-- Treading upon the darkness without feet, And fluttering on the darkness without wings!

Some run like dogs, with noses to the ground; Some keep one path, like sheep; some rock like trees; Some glide like a fallen leaf, and some flow on Copious as rivers.

_Adam._ Some spring up like fire; And some coil ...

_Eve._ Ah, ah! dost thou pause to say Like what?--coil like the serpent, when he fell From all the emerald splendour of his height And writhed, and could not climb against the curse, Not a ring's length. I am afraid--afraid-- I think it is G.o.d's will to make me afraid,-- Permitting THESE to haunt us in the place Of his beloved angels--gone from us Because we are not pure. Dear Pity of G.o.d, That didst permit the angels to go home And live no more with us who are not pure, Save _us_ too from a loathly company-- Almost as loathly in our eyes, perhaps, As _we_ are in the purest! Pity us-- Us too! nor shut us in the dark, away From verity and from stability, Or what we name such through the precedence Of earth's adjusted uses,--leave us not To doubt betwixt our senses and our souls, Which are the more distraught and full of pain And weak of apprehension!

_Adam._ Courage, Sweet!

The mystic shapes ebb back from us, and drop With slow concentric movement, each on each,-- Expressing wider s.p.a.ces,--and collapsed In lines more definite for imagery And clearer for relation, till the throng Of shapeless spectra merge into a few Distinguishable phantasms vague and grand Which sweep out and around us vastily And hold us in a circle and a calm.

_Eve._ Strange phantasms of pale shadow! there are twelve.

Thou who didst name all lives, hast names for these?