Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, All various, each a perfect whole te fort From living Nature, fit for every mood And change of my still soul. For some were hung with arras green and blue, Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew One seem'd all dark and red—a tract of sand, One show'd an iron coast and angry waves. And one, a full-fed river winding slow Behind And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. & And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags, 3 And one, an English home-gray twilight pour'd Softer than sleep-all things in order stored, Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling, babe in arm. Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea, Wound with white roses,) slept St. Cecily; Or thronging all one porch of Paradise, The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son And watch'd by weeping queens. Or hollowing one hand against his ear, The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd, Feen pa's mantle blew unclasp'd, Or sweet Europa's From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle's down, a Nor these alone: but every legend fair Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung, And with choice paintings of wise men I hung For there was Milton like a seraph strong, And there the Ionian father of the rest ; Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd Of this wide world, the times of every land The people here, a beast of burden slow, The heads and crowns of kings; Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind And here once more like some sick man declined; But over these she trod: and those great bells To sing her songs alone. And thro' the topmost Oriels' colour'd flame And all those names, that in their motion were Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew Rivers of melodies. No nightingale delighteth to prolong Her low preamble all alone, More than my soul to hear her echo'd song Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth, Communing with herself: "All these are mine, Making sweet close of his delicious toils- To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried, "I marvel if my still delight In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, "O all things fair to sate my various eyes! "O God-like isolation which art mine, "In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, Then of the moral instinct would she prate, "I take possession of man's mind and deed. I care not what the sects may brawl. I sit as God holding no form of creed, Full oft the riddle of the painful earth Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years Lest she should fail and perish utterly, Plagued her with sore despair. When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight, The kingdom of her thought. Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood Laughter at her self-scorn. "What! is not this my place of strength," she said, 'My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid Since my first memory?" But in dark corners of her palace stood On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem'd my soul, 'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite Making for one sure goal. |