Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse | Page 2

the western glory wane,?As in groves of dim Cytorus,?Or the bowers of Taprobane!
V
See, the large eyes, lit by heaven,?Brighter than the Sisters Seven,?(Like a star the storm hath cowed)?Sink their flash in sorrow's cloud.
There the crystal tear refraineth,?And the founts of grief are dry;?"Father, Mother--none remaineth;?All are dead; and why not I?"
Yet, by God's will, heavenly beauty?Owes to Heaven alone its duty;?Off ye priests, who dare adjudge?Bride, like this, to slime and sludge!
VI
When they tread the river's margent,?All their mitred heads are bowed--?What hath browned the ripples argent,?Like the plume of thunder-cloud?
Where yestreen the water slumbered,?With a sickly crust encumbered,?Leapeth now a roaring flood,?Wild as war, and red as blood.
Every billow hurries quicker,?Every surge runs up the strand;?While the brindled eddies flicker,?Scourged as with a levin brand.
VII
Every bulrush, parched and welted,?Lifts his long joints yellow-belted;?Every lotus, faint and sick,?Hangs her fragrant tongue to lick.
Countless creatures, lone unthought of,?Swarm from every hole and nook;?What is man, that he make nought of?Other entries in God's book?
Scorpions, rats, and lizards flabby,?Centipedes, and hydras scabby,?Asp, and slug, and toad, whose gem?Outlasts human diadem.
VIII
Therefore hath the priest-procession?Causeway clean of sandal-wood;?That no foul thing make transgression?On the votive maiden's blood.
Pure of blood and soul, she standeth?Where the marble gauge demandeth,?Marble pillar, with black style,?Record of the rising Nile,
White-robed priests around her kneeling,?Ibis-banner floating high,?Conchs, and drums, and sistrals pealing,?And Sesostris standing nigh.
IX
He, whose kingdom-city stretches?Further than our eyesight fetches;?Every street it wanders down?Larger than a regal town;
Built, when each man was a giant,?When the rocks were mason's stones,?When the oaks were osiers pliant,?And the mountains scarcely thrones;
City, whose Titanic portals?Scorn the puny modern mortals,?In thy desert winding-sheet,?Sacred from our insect feet.
X
Thebes No-Amon, hundred-gated,?Every gate could then unfold?Cavalry ten thousand, plated,?Man and horse, in solid gold.
Glancing back through serried ranges,?Vivid as his own phalanges,?Every captain might espy?Equal host in sculpture vie;
Down Piromid vista gazing,?Ten miles back from every gate,?He can see that temple blazing,?Which the world shall never mate.
XI
But the Nile-flood, when it swelleth,?Recks not man, nor where he dwelleth;?And--e'en while Sesostris reigns--?Scarce five cubits man attains.
Lo, the darkening river quaileth,?Like a swamp by giant trod,?And the broad commotion waileth,?Stricken with the hand of God I
When the rushing deluge raging?Flung its flanks, and shook the staging,?Priesthood, cowering from the brim,?Chanted thus its faltering hymn.
XII
"Ocean sire, the earth enclasping,?Like a babe upon thy knee,?In thy cosmic cycle grasping?All that hath been, or shall be;
"Thou, that art around and over?All we labour to discover;?Thou, to whom our world no more?Than a shell is on thy shore;
"God, that wast Supreme, or ever?Orus, or Osiris, saw;?God, with whom is no endeavour,?But thy will eternal law:
XIII
"We, who keep thy feasts and fastings,?We, who live on thy off-castings,?Here in low obeisance crave?Rich abundance of thy wave.
"Seven years now, for some transgression,?Some neglect, or outrage vile,?Vainly hath our poor procession?Offered life, and soul to Nile.
"Seven years now of promise fickle,?Niggard ooze, and paltry trickle,?Freshet sprinkling scanty dole,?Where the roaring flood should roll.
XIV
"Therefore are thy children dwindled,?Therefore is thine altar bare;?Wheat, and rye, and millet spindled,?And the fruits of earth despair.
"Men with haggard bellies languish,?Bridal beds are strewn with anguish,?Mothers sell their babes for bread,?Half the holy kine are dead.
"Is thy wrath at last relaxing??Art thou merciful, once more??Yea, behold the torrent waxing!?Yea, behold the flooded shore!
XV
"Nile, that now with life-blood tidest,?And in gorgeous cold subsidest,?Richer than our victor tread?Stirred in far Hydaspes' bed;
"When thy swelling crest o'er-waveth?Yonder twenty cubit mark,?And thy tongue of white foam laveth?Borders of the desert dark,
"This, the fairest Theban maiden,?Shall be thine, with jewels laden;?Lift thy furrowed brow, and see?_Lita_, dedicate to thee!"
[Illustration: 032.]
XVI
Thus he spake, and lowly stooping?O'er the Calasiris hem,?Took the holy water, scooping?With a bowl of lucid gem;
Chanting from the Bybline psalter?Touched he then her forehead altar;?Sleeking back the trickled jet,?There the marriage-seal he set.
"None of mortals dare pursue thee,?None come near thy hallowed side:?Nile's thou art, and he shall woo thee,--?Nile, who swalloweth his bride."
XVII
With despair's mute self-reliance,?She accepted death's affiance;?She, who hath no home or rest,?Shrank not from the river's breast.
Haply there she shall discover?Father, lost in wilds unknown,?Mother slain, and youthful lover,?Seen as yet in dreams alone.
Ha! sweet maid, what sudden vision?Hath dispelled thy cold derision??What new picture hast thou seen,?Of a world that might have been?
XVIII
From Mount Seir, Duke Iram roveth,?Three renewals of the moon:?To see Egypt him behoveth,?Ere his life be past its noon.
Soul, and mind, at first fell under?Flat discomfiture of wonder,?With the Nile before him spread,?Temple-crowned, and tempest-fed!
Yet a nobler creed he owneth,?Than to worship things of space:?One true God his heart enthroneth?Heart that throbs with Esau's race.
XIX
Thus he stood, with calm eyes scorning?Idols, priests, and their adorning;?Seeing, e'en in nature's show,?Him alone, who made it so.
"God of Abraham, our Father,?Earth, and heaven, and all we see,?Are but gifts of thine, to gather?Us, thy children, back to Thee.
"All the grandeur