The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 71

"War," said the King, "is waged on mortal life 31 By men with men;--_that_, dare I with the rest: In conflicts awful with no human strife, Mightiest methinks, that soul the loneliest!

When starry charms from Afrite caves were won, No Judah march'd with dauntless Solomon!"

Fell fangs the demon gnash'd, and o'er the crowd 32 Wild c.u.mbering round his feet, with hungry stare Greeding the man, his drooping visage bow'd; "Go elsewhere, sons--your prey escapes the snare: Yours but the food which flesh to flesh supplies; Here not the mortal but the soul defies."

Then striding to the cave, he plunged within; 33 "Follow," he cried, and like a prison'd blast Along the darkness, the reverberate din Roll'd from the rough sides of the viewless Vast; As goblin echoes, through the haunted hollow, 'Twixt groan and laughter, chimed hoa.r.s.e-gibbering, "Follow!"

The King, recoiling, paused irresolute, 34 Till through the cave the white wing went its way; Then on his breast he sign'd the cross, and mute, With solemn prayer, he left the world of day.

Thick stood the night, save where the falchion gave Its clear sharp glimmer lengthening down the cave.

Advancing; flashes rush'd irregular 35 Like subterranean lightning, fork'd and red: From warring matter--wandering shot the star Of poisonous gases; and the tortured bed Of the' old Volcano show'd in trailing fires, Where the numb'd serpent dragg'd its mangled spires.

Broader and ruddier on the Dove's pale wings 36 Now glow'd the lava of the widening s.p.a.ces; Grinn'd from the rook the jaws of giant things, The lurid skeletons of vanish'd races, They who, perchance, ere man himself had birth, Ruled the moist slime of uncompleted earth.

Enormous couch'd fang'd Iguanodon,[3] 37 To which the monster-lizard of the Nile Were prey too small,--whose dismal haunts were on The swamps where now such golden harvests smile As had sufficed those myriad hosts to feed When all the Orient march'd behind the Mede.

There the foul, earliest reptile spectra lay, 38 Distinct as when the chaos was their home; Half plant, half serpent, some subside away Into gnarl'd roots (now stone)--more hideous some, Half bird--half fish--seem struggling yet to spring, Shark-like the maw, and dragon-like the wing.

But, life-like more, from later layers emerge 39 With their fell tusks deep-stricken in the stone, Herds,[4] that through all the thunders of the surge, Had to the Ark which swept relentless on (Denied to them)--knell'd the despairing roar Of sentenced races time shall know no more.

Under the limbs of mammoths went the path, 40 Or through the arch immense of Dragon jaws, And ever on the King, in watchful wrath, Gazed the attendant Fiend, with artful pause Where dread was deadliest; had the mortal one Falter'd or quail'd, the Fiend his prey had won,

And rent it limb by limb; but on the Dove 41 Arthur look'd steadfast, and the Fiend was foil'd.

Now, as along the skeleton world they move, Strange noises jar, and flit strange shadows. Toil'd The Troll's[5] swart people, in their inmost home At work on ruin for the days to come.

A baleful race, whose anvils forge the flash 42 Of iron murder for the limbs of war; Who ripen hostile embryos, for the crash Of earthquakes rolling slow to towers afar; Or train from Hecla's fount the lurid rills, To cities sleeping under shepherd hills;

Or nurse the seeds, through patient ages rife 43 With the full harvest of that crowning fire, When for the sentenced Three--Time, Death, and Life-- Our globe itself shall be the funeral pyre; And, awed, in orbs remote some race unknown Shall miss one star, whose smile had lit their own!

Through the Phlegraean glare, innumerous eyes, 44 Fierce with the murther-l.u.s.t, scowl ravening, And forms on which had never look'd the skies Stalk near and nearer, swooping round the King, Till from the blazing sword the foul array Shrink back, and wolf-like follow on the way.

Now through waste mines of iron, whose black peaks 45 Frown o'er dull Phlegethons of fire below, While, vague as worlds unform'd, sulphureous reeks Roll on before them huge and dun,--they go.

Abrupt the vapours vanish, and the light Bursts like a flood and rushes o'er the night.

A mighty cirque with l.u.s.tre belts the mine; 46 Its walls of iron glittering into steel; Wall upon wall reflected flings the shrine Of armour! Vizorless the Corpses kneel, Their glazed eyes fix'd upon a couch where, screen'd With whispering curtains, sleeps the Kingly Fiend:

Corpses of giants, who perchance had heard 47 The tromps of Tubal, and had leapt to strife Whose guilt provoked the Deluge: sepulchred In their world's ruins, still a frown like life Hung o'er vast brows,--and spears like turrets shone In hands whose grasp had crush'd the Mastodon.

Around the couch, a silent solemn ring, 48 They whom the Teuton call the Valkyrs sate.

Shot through pale webs their spindles glistening; Dread tissues woven out of human hate For heavenly ends!--for there is spun the woe Of every war that ever earth shall know.

Below their feet a bottomless pit of gore 49 Yawn'd, where each web, when once the woof was done, Was scornful cast. Yet rising evermore Out of the surface, wander'd airy on (Till lost in upper s.p.a.ce), pale winged seeds, The future heaven-fruit of the h.e.l.l-born deeds;

For out of every evil born of time, 50 G.o.d shapes a good for his eternity.

Lo where the spindles, weaving crime on crime, Form the world-work of Charlemains to be;-- How in that hall of iron lengthen forth The fates that ruin, to rebuild, the North!

Here, one stern Sister smiling on the King, 51 Hurries the thread that twines his Nation's doom; And, farther down, the whirring spindles sing Around the woof which from his Baltic home Shall charm the avenging Norman, to control The shatter'd races into one calm whole.

Already here, the hueless lines along, 52 Grows the red creed of the Arabian horde; Already here, the arm'd Chivalric Wrong Which made the cross the symbol of the sword, Which thy worst idol, Rome, to Judah gave, And wors.h.i.+pp'd Mars upon the Saviour's grave!

Already the wild Tartar in his tents, 53 Dreamless of thrones--and the fierce Visigoth[6]

Who on Colombia's golden armaments Shall loose the h.e.l.l-hounds,--nurse the age-long growth Of Desolation--as the noiseless skein Clasps in its web, thy far descendants, Cain!

Already, in the hearts of sires remote 54 In their rude Isle, the spell ordains the germ Of what shall be a Name of wonder, wrought From that fell feast which Glory gives the worm, When Rome's dark bird shall shade with thunder wings Calm brows that brood the doom of breathless kings![7]

Already, though the sad unheeded eyes 55 Of Bards alone foresee, and none believe, The lightning boarded from the farthest skies Into the mesh the race-destroyers weave, When o'er our marts shall graze a stranger's fold, And the new Tars.h.i.+sh rot, as rots the old.

Yea, ever there, each spectre hand the birth 56 Weaves of a war--until the angel-blast (Peal'd from the tromp that knells the doom of earth) Shall start the livid legions from their last; And man, with arm uplifted still to slay, Reel on some Alp that rolls in smoke away!

Fierce glared the dwarf upon the silent King, 57 "There is the prize thy visions would achieve!

There, where the hush'd inexorable ring Murder the myriads in the webs they weave, Behind the curtains of Incarnate War, Whose lightest tremour topples thrones afar,--

"Which ev'n the Valkyrs with their bloodless hands 58 Dare never draw aside,--go seek the s.h.i.+eld!

Yet be what follows known!--yon kneeling bands Whose camps were Andes, and whose battle-field Left plains, now empires, rolling seas of gore, Shall near the clang and heap to life once more.

"Roused from their task, revengeful shall arise 59 The never-baffled 'Choosers of the Slain;'

The Fiend thy hand shall wake, unclose the eyes That flash'd on heavenly hosts their storms again, And thy soul wither in the mighty frown Before whose night an earlier sun sunk down.

"The rocks shall close all path for flight save one, 60 Where now the Troll-fiends wait to rend their prey, And each malign and monster skeleton, Reclothed with life as in the giant day When yonder seas were valleys, scent thy gore, And grin with fangs that gnash for food once more.

"Ho, dost thou shudder, pale one? Back and live." 61 Thrice strove the King for speech, and thrice in vain; For he was man, and till our souls survive The instincts born of flesh, shall Horror reign In that Unknown beyond the realms of Sense, Where the soul's darkness seems the man's defence.

Yet as when through uncertain troublous cloud 62 Breaks the sweet morning star, and from its home Smiles lofty peace, so through the phantom crowd Of fears the Eos of the world to come, FAITH, look'd--revealing how earth-nourish'd are The clouds, and how beyond their reach the star!

Mute on his knee, amidst the kneeling dead 63 He sank--the dead the dreaming fiend revered, And he, the living G.o.d! Then terror fled, And all the king illumed the front he rear'd.

Firm to the couch on which the fiend reposed He strode;--the curtains, murmuring, round him closed.

Now while this chanced, without the tortured rock 64 Raged fierce the war between the rival might Of beast and man; the dwarf king's ravenous flock And Norway's warriors led by Cymri's knight.

For by the foot-prints through the snows explored, On to the rock the bands had track'd their lord.

Repell'd, not conquer'd, back to crag and cave, 65 Sullen and watchful still, the monsters go; And solitude resettles on the wave, But silence not; around, aloft, alow Roar the couch'd beasts, and answering from the main, Shrieks the shrill gull and booms the dismal crane.

And now the rock itself from every tomb 66 Of its dead world within, sends voices forth, Sounds direr far, than in its rayless gloom Crash on the midnight of the farthest North.

From beasts our world hath lost, the strident yell, The shout of giants and the laugh of h.e.l.l.

Reels all the isle; and every ragged steep 67 Hurls down an avalanche;--all the crater-cave Glows into swarthy red, and fire-showers leap From rended summits, hissing to the wave Through its hard ice; or in huge crags, wide-sounding Spring where they crash--on rus.h.i.+ng and rebounding.

Dizzy and blind, the staggering Northmen fall 68 On earth that rocks beneath them like a bark; Loud and more loud the tumult swells with all The Acheron of the discord. Swift and dark From every cleft the smoke-clouds burst their way, Rush through the void, and sweep from heaven the day.

Smitten beneath the pestilential blast 69 And the great terror, senseless lay the band, Till the arrested life, with throes at last, Gasp'd back: and holy over sea and land Silence and light reposed. They look'd above And calm in calmed air beheld the Dove!

And o'er their prostrate lord was poised the wing; 70 And when they rush'd and reach'd him, shouting joy, There came no answer from the corpse-like King; And when his true knight raised him, heavily Droop'd his pale front upon the faithful breast, And the closed lids seem'd leaden in their rest.

And all his mail was dinted, hewn, and crush'd, 71 And the bright falchion dim with foul dark gore; And the strong pulse of the strong hand was hush'd; Like a spent storm, that might, which seem'd before Charged with the bolts of Jove, now from the sky Drew breath more feeble than an infant's sigh.

And there was solemn change on that fair face, 72 Nor, whatsoe'er the fear or scorn had been, Did the past pa.s.sion leave its haggard trace; But on the rigid beauty awe was seen, As one who on the Gorgon's aspect fell Had gazed, and freezing, yet survived the spell!

Not by the chasm in which he left the day, 73 But through a new-made gorge the fires had cleft, As if with fires themselves were forced the way, Had rush'd the King;--and sense and sinew left The form that struggled till the strife was o'er: So faints the swimmer when he gains the sh.o.r.e.