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THE MANDRAKES; A STUDY IN GROTESQUE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Whether in meditation or in dream
Last Line: Where faint wave-music was as balm to me.


Prorex. And whither must these flies be sent?
Oberon. To everlasting banishment.
The woods are yew-trees, bent and broke
By whirlwinds; here and there an oak
Half cleft with thunder. To this grove
We banish them.
Culprits. Some mercy, Jove!
Oberon. You should have cried so in your youth,
When Chronos and his daughter Truth
Sojourned among you: when you spent
Whole years in riotous merriment.
DAY'S Parliament of Bees, 1607.

WHETHER in meditation or in dream,
Or whether in the circle of known lands
I walked, I cannot tell; the crested stream
Of the great waters breaking on the sands,
The far brown moors, the gulls in white-winged bands,
Seem too clear-coloured on my memory
To be the ghosts of any phantasy.

Along the sweep of an untrodden bay,
Towards a great headland that before me rose,
Full merrily I held my sunny way;
And in that atmosphere of gold, and snows,
And pure blue fire of air and sea, the woes
Of mortals and their pitiful despair
Seemed vague to my glad spirit void of care.

The long bluff rose against the sea, and thrust
Its storm-proof bosom far into the deep,
And many a breaker, many a roaring gust
Disturbed the calm of its primeval sleep,
Through the gray winter twilight; there did creep
In swarthy trefoil, or salt-blighted grass,
A token where the uncurb'd sea-wind did pass.

So even in the bright and pure June air
The place seemed vestured in unholy guise;
The loneliness was like a pain to bear,
I sought about, with strangely troubled eyes,
For bird or flower to glad me in some-wise,
In vain; then at the utmost verge I stayed
Where far beneath the refluent thunders swayed.

Then as I stood upon the precipice,
Drinking the sunlight and sharp air like wine,
I heard, or thought I heard, a murmur twice, --
First, like a far-off shrieking, clear and fine,
Then like an anxious shouting for a sign
To careless boatmen steering o'er the rim
Of rocks, -- but both behind me and both dim.

But even while, not turning, in my mind
I thought how very lonely the place was, --
The rushing of the steadfast wings of wind
Being empty of all common sounds that pass,
The song of birds, or sighing in the grass, --
Then suddenly a howl to rend the skies
From the bare land behind me seemed to rise.

And while my skin was wrinkled with affright,
I noticed far and far away, an isle,
With faintest waves of jagged pale blue light,
Skirt the horizon, land not seen erewhile; --
This in a flash of thought; such sights beguile
Our hearts in wildest moments, and we know
Not clearly after how it could be so.

But in a second, ere the long shriek died,
I turned to see whence came this note of woe,
And marked on the down's topmost hollow wide
One lonely scrawling gnarled tree that did grow,
Coiling its leafless branches stunt and low,
Midmost the promontory; thither I
Drawn by some hate-spell felt my way did lie.

It was a shameful tree, the twisted pain
Of its sad boughs and sterile hollow stem
Took fearful forms of things that are man's bane,
And circling drops of oozings did begem
Its twigs with a dull poisonous anadem;
It had no bright young leaves to tell of Spring,
Nor clustering moss that hallowed eld doth bring.

And at its foot were forms that had no shape,
Unmoving creatures twisted like the tree,
With horrid wooden faces set agape
And bodies buried in the earth; to see
Such human features moulded terribly
Sent all the life-blood surging to my heart,
And mine own breath was ready to depart;

When one most awful visage bent the roots
That were its jaws, and moaning, slowly spake:
"O mortal, what assemblage of soft lutes
Rings now across the silvery waves that break
Along the city, where the shadows make
In tremulous calm lines of sunset fire
A magic image of each dome and spire?"

He questioned thus in strained voluptuous tones;
His hideous feet deep in the ground were set;
His body fashioned without skin or bones
Was like the mystic figure of smooth jet
Egyptian priests wore in an amulet,
What time they mourned Osiris; like a shriek
His pained voice ended sharply, forced and weak.

Then when I answered nothing, once again
He spoke -- "In what elysium of the blest,
Lapped in sweet airs, forgetful of all pain,
Fulfilling an eternity of rest,
Lies Titian, of all painters loved the best?
Oh! say, in any land where you have been,
Heard you of him and not of Aretine?

"O matchless painter of the noble heart!
Dear friend I loved long centuries ago!
Lean from that golden chamber where thou art,
Above the sun and moon, and lighten so
The utter, endless agony of woe
That fills my wretched being, doomed for aye
Rooted in this foul living grave to stay.

"Ah, mortal, listen! I was once a child
Into whose brain God poured the mystic wine,
Full of pure odours, fragrance undefiled, --
Keen drink to make a poet all divine.
I took the gift; men called me Aretine:
All that was pure and poet-like I spurned,
And to hell-fire for inspiration turned.

"God suffered long with me, and let the fire
Of passionate youth burn to the ash of age,
Saying to the angels, 'Surely when desire
Is dead within him, his true heritage
Will seem more precious to him, and the page
Of the great book shall in the end record
Some prayer, some love, some tender-spoken word.'

"Yet I, still impious, burned before my God
The rancid oil of hypocritic prayer,
And with unsanctified, rash footsteps trod
Those shadowy precincts, where the misty air
Is heavy with the sound of hymns, and rare
High spirit-breathings fill the solemn place
Where God meets man, in silence, face to face."

I stood beneath the tree now; all the ground
Was full of these grim shadows of mankind,
And all in some way shamefully were bound
Into the earth, but no two could I find
In which the same quaint shapes were intertwined:
But each was human, yet each had the feature
Of some misshapen thing or hideous creature.

Oh, how the calm around us, and the light
Of pure cerulean aether, full of sun,
Made awful contrast with the shameful blight
Of these foul natures! Him I looked upon
Was like an old man, utterly undone,
With white thin locks, that blew about his eyes,
Like grasses round a stump when summer dies.

Fear held my tongue; I trembled like the leaves
That quiver when the gradual autumn falls
On shadowy Vallombrosa, and bereaves
The forest, full of flowery funerals, --
And all the windy places have their palls
Of yellow leafage, till the noiseless snow
Muffles the rustling of this gusty woe.

At last I murmured, "Cannot rest or death
Forever visit this pale place of tombs?"
And ceased; for, like the sound of a sharp breath
That from the drawn throat of one dying comes,
Whose heart the Master of all breath benumbs,
An answering voice arose, whose calm, intense,
Sad music won my ear with sharp suspense:

"Not vervain, gathered when the dog-star rose,
Not agrimony, euphrasy, or rue,
Not any herb can bring our pain repose,
Nor any poison make our summers few;
Forever our own agonies renew
Our wasted bodies still to suffer pain,
To suffer, pine, renew, and pine again.

"Ah, turn away! behold me not! those eyes
Burn me like lightning with a searing shame;
Gaze not upon these ghastly infamies,
That must deform me worse than maimed or lame,
The ribald children scoff at for their game;
Ah! in what jocund wise I danced and sung
Through the warm Tuscan nights, when life was young!

"These gray and shrunken fingers once were lithe,
And meet for all most dainty handiwork;
Whether a painted coffer for a blithe
Fair bride, or for the Caliph or Grand Turk
A golden chalice, where red wine might lurk
Coiled unforbidden; or for monks' dim eyes, --
Worked in distemper, -- hell and paradise.

"Ay me! what lovely fancies I have wrought
In cloisters, or along a church's wall,
Where in a high-fenced garden angels taught
Our Lady at her baby's feet to fall;
There, with his keys, went Peter; there stood Pau
With long brown beard, and leant upon his sword;
And all the virgins, singing, praised the Lord.

"But, best of all, I loved to stand and paint
His face who doubted when the Lord arose, --
Andrew, my ever-blessed patron saint,
Bearing his mighty cross, and worn with woes,
And pining sore from self-inflicted blows, --
His passionate, jealous, loving, hating heart
Seemed every-way my very counterpart.

"He is in glory now, and walks and sings
With saints who take his rough brown hand in theirs,
And sees the angels' silver-spotted wings!
But I convulse the noonday with my prayers,
And in the night-time blast the icy airs
With my shrill pains; hearken for what offence
My soul was doomed to anguish so intense!

"If one man's art can be another's bane, --
If half the swiftest runners miss the goal, --
If thinkers weave out holy thoughts in vain,
Which bless the world and ruin their own soul, --
If bitterness and languor be our dole, --
Why do we seek, so greedily, at all
Laurel, to poison our own brows withal?

"All this is only vanity; but, lo!
For weary years I slowly fought my way
High up the hill of fame, and should I go
Right sadly down again at fall of day,
Because this Domenic, this popinjay,
Could trick a wall out with a newer brush,
And after him all men began to rush?

"When I grew poor, and no man came to me,
One night I lay awake, and by my bed
Heard a low, subtle voice, and seemed to see
A little demon, with a fiery head,
That whispered, 'If now Domenic were dead,
And his new way dead with him, ha! ha! ha!
Luck would come back again to Andrea!'

"So one bright night when singing he went by
I watched him; round his neck a chain of gold
Glittered and lured me like a serpent's eye;
It was the price of some new picture sold:
My nerves grew steel, my veins of fire throbbed cold,
My dagger smote him through the neck, charm-bound,
And like a snake, the chain slid to the ground.

"Ay me! ay me! what cruel, cruel pang
Draws forth this tale of mine own infamy;
Ah, youth! by all the angel choirs that sang
Round holy Christ at His nativity,
I pray thee mock me not, in charity,
Who for one hour of passion and fell spite
Must suffer endless torture infinite."

Then at my side a voice cried, "Look on me!
Stamp on me, crush me, grind me with your heel!
I, even I, this shapeless thing am he
That slandered Sappho! Set on me the seal
Of your undying hatred, let me feel,
Even though I burn with anguish, that men know
Her holy life was ever pure as snow."

Then flattened out, I saw upon the ground
What seemed the hide of some misshapen beast,
With a pinned cord to bind it twisted round;
But lo! its heart in beating never ceased,
And now the flutter of its breath increased,
Barring its body of unhealthy hue
With lurid waves of mingling green and blue.

"Of old," a stifled voice proclaimed, "I dwelt
Deep in the cedar-shades of that high hill,
Whose brow looks down on Lesbos, and the belt
Of sunlit sea, where rippling laughters fill
The spaces down to Chios; thither still,
As gold above the Lydian mountains shone,
Sappho would climb to dream and muse alone.

"How oft her wind-swept hair and kindling eyes
I watched, unseen within my own rose-bowers,
Her cheek that glowed at her heart's phantasies,
Bright as the refluent flush of fields of flowers
Stirred by the light feet of the flying hours,
When, about sunrise, on a morn of May,
Westward they troop, and herald the young day!

"So fair was she in my conceit; but soon
Her songs were sung from Lesbian town to town,
And other islands claimed the lyric boon,
And Andros praised, and Paros sent a crown,
And reverend men, in philosophic gown,
From Greece, from sage Ionia, came to lay
At Sappho's feet the homage of a day.

"Then in my heart the love I bore her grew
To foulest envy, like the bitter core
That lies in the sweet berry of the yew;
For I, too, fashioned for the lute, and bore
Such ivy-wreaths as would-be poets wore;
But never ode of mine did men repeat,
Singing for glee along the broad white street.

"It happed that through the islands I must go
To gather tribute, and where'er I came
The youths and girls would gather round to know
What news of Sappho, till my heart became
Shrivelled and parched with spite as with a flame,
And evermore I set my subtle tongue
To hint and whisper nameless tales of wrong.

"And soon all lands rang out with that ill-fame,
For little souls delight to think the worst
Of sovereign spirits who have won great name
For virtue or for wit, so all men nursed
And spread the rumour of these tales accursed,
Which smouldered, far from Lesbos, till she died,
Then burst in lurid flames unsanctified.

"So to this limbo my unholy spirit
Was dragged by demons when my pulses sank,
And here forever shall my flesh inherit
More pain than ever human body drank;
See this bruised head, this haggard arm and shank,
The slow contracting pain of centuries
Has drawn the bones into this hideous guise."

Then silence came, save far away the sound
Of waves that rang like timbrels in the air,
Dashing and dying on the shore, steel-bound;
I stood above those lurid shapes in prayer,
Desiring that, if any hope there were,
Quickly their souls and bodies might decay,
And to the sovereign waters fade away.

For to my thought the moaning, sighing sea
Seemed yearning to receive them to its breast,
And fain would let its huge embraces be
Their haven of forgetfulness and rest: --
"O let them die!" I murmured; "It is best!
Have they not fed on anguish all their years?
And drenched the morsel in the wine of tears?

"Their pains are greater than the Titan's were,
Hung, a god-man, a sign to man and God,
For his immortal spirit was aware
Of its own immortality, and trod
With head erect beneath the oppressor's rod;
But these are bitten through with their own shame,
And scorcht with infamy as with a flame.

"Wherefore, if Heaven forbid not, let them die!"
The echo of my accents broke in moans
From all the grim and stark fraternity,
That lay in heaps about my feet like stones;
Down to the caverns of my heart their groans
Sank, as a meteor, breeding death and woe,
Slants down the skies on weeping lands below.

Then all the silence grew a mighty sound,
Gathering in voice along the nether sea,
As when, in some Norwegian gulf profound,
Sailors, becalmed along the monstrous lee
Of desolate Torghatten, hear the glee
Of many a riotous and rebel wind,
Deep in the mountain's riven heart confined.

With murmuring of immortal wings it came,
Blown by no wind, and moaned along the deep;
Then hung at last above that place of shame
On plumes of sound, like some great bird asleep, --
Though o'er the blue no cloud nor stain did creep, --
And slowly gave in words articulate
All the vast utterance of the unseen fate.

O thou grave mystic, who, by inner light,
Didst watch the ruddy, throbbing life in flowers,
And shaken by no pitiful affright,
Held'st converse with the eternal starry powers;
By all the bliss in full ecstatic hours,
From spirit-tongues, to thee, a spirit, given,
Bow down and aid me from thy lucent heaven!

Blake, loveliest of the sons of shadowy light,
Throned, with dawn-mist for purple, sun for gold, --
Regent above us in all true men's sight,
Among thy kindred angel-ranks enrolled, --
Think not thy latest lover overbold,
If in sore need he for a while prolong
Prayer for thy aid in his most arduous song!

For he must murmur what a spirit sang,
Lisp the weird words no mortal can pronounce;
For all about my head the air now rang
With the dread clarion Voice, that did denounce
The writhing things, and bade my heart renounce
Pity and grief, and drown in obloquy
All hope for these, still dying and to die.

"No temple, and no tripod, and no shrine
Is half so sacred as the soul of man,
Lit with a flame more subtle, more divine,
Than that which round the glimmering altar ran,
With mutterings and with thunders, when the clan
Of Baal-prophets howled, and sank down dead
On the cold parapet their life-blood fed.

"Man is himself the lamp for hallowed use,
The oil that feeds it and the hand that lights,
Each to his brother is the plenteous cruse,
And in the universal gift unites;
So all combine, with sacrificial rites,
Throughout the gleaming world, from bound to bound,
To spread the wealth that old Prometheus found.

"And so should all things slowly climb up higher
Into the perfectness of utter rest,
And no least breath of passion stir the fire
That fell from God and burneth in man's breast;
By his own purity should man be blest,
The soul being priest, and worshipper, and shrine,
Bearing God's presence for an outward sign.

"But ah! what punishment would not be meet
To scourge that ribald priest, that should defile
The lintel of his own God's mercy-seat;
Or who, with nimble fingers and smooth wile,
Should from the prostrate worshippers beguile
The sacred gifts of balsam or of myrrh,
To burn in sport where harlot-loves confer?

"Would the vexed God be pitiful and meek,
Nor smite the impious with a thunderbolt,
Clothing the lingering life and hollow cheek
With pain as with a garment? Let the dolt
Go whine and whimper over heath and holt, --
Shall any lovers of the God be found
Whose heart shall melt with pity at the sound?

"Wherefore, if all things sacred, all things pure,
All that makes life worth living for to men,
White chastity, and faith, and honour sure
Have in your heart their answering echoes, then
Cease to be wise above a mortal ken,
And judge that we, whose robes are virtues, know
Where justice rules, and mercy may not go."

As from the heart's-core of a trumpet-blast
May rise the melody of whispering flutes,
A softer music on my ear was cast,
Even as I lay among those living roots,
And heard their direful sentence, and the fruits
Of their insane rebellion; sweet and far,
As orchard-singing under a pale star,

That tender fluting rose, but, gathering strength,
Thrilled like a hundred instruments in tune,
Here soft citoles, and here in liquid length
The sobbing of tense harp-strings, and all soon
Rounded with murmurs of the full bassoon,
And all words faded, and I rose, and lo!
A lady standing on the hill of woe.

Adown her shoulders, over the broad breast,
A saffron robe fell lightly to her feet,
Edged quaintly with meander; for the rest,
Her changeful eyes were wonderfully sweet,
Sea-coloured, and her braided hair made meet
Under a fillet of starred myrtle-flowers,
More large and pure than any bloom of ours.

Her face was even as apple-blossom is,
When first the winds awaken it; her mouth
Seemed like the incarnation of a kiss;
A philtre for all sorrow; in heart-drouth
A fountain breathing of the fragrant south;
A cage for songs; -- a violin -- who knows?
Perchance the rose-tree of the world's great rose!

Kalliope, the eternal Muse, she hight,
Whose lips woke music in Maeonides,
Through all the alternatives of day and night,
Silence and song, that this poor wan world sees,
She walks unchanged, while old divinities
Wither and die, and new creeds spring and fall,
And new flowers hear the new-born cuckoos call.

There in her loveliness she stood and spread
Her arms out to me in most smiling wise,
Saying, "Oh, my servant, in such drearihed,
Why floats thy spirit in a wind of sighs?
What ruth and passion gather to thine eyes?
What part hast thou with these? Ah! wayward child,
Should I be clement to them?" And she smiled.

O! what a smile! But when she ceased, once more
I cast my eyes upon the twisted features;
And all the pity that my heart once bore
To watch the writhing of the loathsome creatures
Fled from me, for their foul degenerate natures
Scowled under those pure eyes of hers, as hell
Must blacken, seen from heaven's white pinnacle.

She vanished. Then they howled and howled until
The cave of air, devoid of other sound,
Was full of moaning echoes round the hill;
Then with my hands my aching ears I bound,
And rushing from that cruel cursed ground,
From cleft to cleft leapt downwards to the sea,
Where faint wave-music was as balm to me.





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