PART V.

Day broke — the city's life was left behind;
That human cauldron where he had drawn breath,
Or, rather, life endured for its great end
Of being, without which existence, self
Were but a shadow; all the virtues pent
Within that chaos struggling into light
In forms that proved divinity; all vice
From which recoil the fiends incorporate
Created by the heart; all passions blind
In brute indulgence; all the apathy,
That petrifies until indifference looks
The resignation which is hopelessness,
Left like the memory of a vision chased
By the bright steps of Morning.
Now he lived
In stateliest halls, the honoured guest, nor yet
His lineage known, save in his mien, that bore
The stamp of Nature's own nobility.
He stood apart with Ulyssean eye,
And watched the Circe of enchantment there,
That daughter of the sun, the lesser lights
Revolving round her, she the attraction sole.
Within that palace of the sense he saw
How time and life were wasted; golden sands
O'erflowing from the hour-glass of youth
Sporting o'er stridden fields on champing steeds,
With deafening yell of hounds, and fiercer shouts
Of bipeds, for a prey scarce visible
Above the covert grass; or piling up
Insatiate hecatombs of birds, preserved
From vulgar palates with the price of blood;
Or pacing solemnly round tables green,
With finest stroke of mace and careful art
The ivory balls in silken pockets thrown;
Or, imitative still of the excess
Of foreign fashion — what new mode will not
The imitative Anglian imitate?
With goat-like beards of savage growth, reclined
Beside the rivulet, with eyes intent
On the poised rod and line, wait patiently
The bait that rises not; or stretched beside
Patrician trees, with serious face intent,
Mournfully gazing upon vacancy.

Then in the saloon, bright with starry lights,
From lamps that shed a moonlight lustrousness,
The harp was strung to the Italian song;
To the one theme attuned, on love or hate,
Till ears o'erstrained were palled, and hearts, fatigued,
Prayed silently for respite in the close.

Then followed dance, or rather ghost evoked
Of that ecstatic nymph of life and joy;
She of the airy step and laughing eye,
And head thrown back, and gesture unrestrained.
Not as once lightly tripping o'er the grass
With grace of bearing, and the spell of art;
The furtive language of the speaking foot,
The poetry of motion; flexile forms
Responsive to the impalpable melody,
Bending, wave-like, before the breeze.
These were
As modes forgot, a fashion passed away.
And now she rose, a Matron with grave brow,
With the conventional smile on her cold face,
That played like sunbeams on a wintry stream;
And morning dawned upon the mockery
Till weariness in its exhaustion slept.

Thus in those halls, amidst a paradise
Of garden-park touched with autumnal hues,
Astrophel lived, or rather life endured,
Allied with those of whom he was not one,
A star whose influence disclaimed, was felt,
Unwelcomed there. The triflers of the hour
Eyed him with supercilious distrust
That looks down from its height upon a thing
Repelling and repelled. In the calm lines
Of his austerer face and mien sedate
They read the alien; fancies of the hour
With its affinities by him unshared.
Yet they were honoured in his thought, for they
The one attraction owned; they sunned their life
In the light gathered from Cornelia's eyes.

They knew not of the influence that had passed
Between her and that man of cold reserve;
That each was conscious of the other near;
The inward perturbation that revealed
The one unseen where utterance was none.
They met not, but the ray had passed between,
Lightning-like, owned, buried in either breast,
Until they loved concealment that was joy.

Thus in Circean haunts he was not free;
Threads of restraint invisible were felt;
He knew that he succumbed, even while he chafed
At golden chains. He yielded now no more
To passionate impulses of joy or grief,
Or hope or aspiration; these the wings
That raise the chainless spirit in solitude
Beyond the turmoil of humanity.
But now he breathed an atmosphere whose name
Was enervation, though of Paradise.
Cold shadows of a life conventional
Chilled the fine emanations of the soul.
Oh, for the freedom of the mountain airs,
For wastes and savage solitudes! He loved
Those nurses that had made him all he was;
The hills that breathed in him their fixedness,
The vales their rest; the quiet drawn from woods,
The perseverance taught by the great Sea.
Oh, for the grasp of hands as rough and rude
As were the crags around! his brethren felt,
In those impulsive hours.
Even thus he lived,
The honoured guest, yet unavowed, a life
Where feeling was repressed, where liberty
Of thought was not; and still he lingered there
And to the enchantress knelt, repining still.

He looked into his spirit's depths, and read
The records of neglected tasks put by;
Of nobler aspirations thrown aside
Like pointless shafts, their aim forgot; high thoughts
Reserved for meditative hours that failed.
Each day claimed a pursuit which was not his;
Yet still he lingered there; obeying there
The spell when most opposed.
He drained the cup
Of the young Hebe, but, amid the draught,
He dared not meet the face of Truth unveiled,
And hear her audibly say, the poet loved;
Nor marked a rising cloud scarce visible
Above the scene, that yet might herald storm.

Amidst the crowd that filled those halls stood one,
Who was not with that inner circle bound.
That Man obscure watched, silently apart,
The central star and the one cynosure
Towards whom all eyes were cast, but with a thought
Hidden, and feeling buried in his breast.
His name was heard already among men,
The son of lyric verse, familiar made
By songs entwining fancies in their flight,
Inwoven into elfin melodies.
Whene'er the grace and the precision met
Of the fine hand, that latest touches lent
To visionary pictures; weaving forms
That float film-like on sunny atmospheres,
Foundationless yet beautiful, evolved
Through webs of thought, viewless or visible,
The song was Auriol's.
And thus it fell,
Whene'er the subtle lay dwelt on the ear,
Unfolding one by one the veils that lie
Upon the heart, tracing dim griefs through gloom,
Or chasing joy like the light butterfly,
The song be sure was Auriol's of the West.
None questioned his high claim. Among the crowd
Astrophel listened with a brow sedate
To that high lark-like verse, that rose and fell
With its airial theme; or flitted round
On errant pinions. Heedfully he heard,
With grave regard; such woke not in his breast
Feeling or thought of feverish rivalry.
He doubted not the prescient faculty
That in him dwelt as in the priest of old;
But in the world that lyric name had grown;
His verse had tones that thrilled upon the chords
Of woman's heart; they gathered round the harp
Then most when wakened by Cornelia's hand.

And there were listening those who deemed the notes
That vibrated through her deep accents sunk
Within her soul; that she too might succumb
To the Enchanter's wand, for they had turned
Covertly from the song where he, apart,
Stood watchful, motionless as one whose life
Existed on those sounds. She slighted not,
Nor loved; impassable the gulf between
And measureless of those doomed not to join;
Nor his the form to win a woman's eye,
Or memory to live within her heart;
Reserved and statue-like, and passionless;
Slave to his art, and fancies of the ideal
That held no kin with life's realities;
Staid, self-possessed, and measured in his words
As life, indifference closed around his heart,
The grave of feeling resurrectionless.
Whate'er his thought he spake not; was it pride,
Or masked, or real, or apathy, or love,
Its fiery endurance unconfessed? —
None knew, he held the secret, and the key
Of silence on his lips. And thus he stood
A stranger in those halls, among a crowd
Repellent still; and still his dark eye dwelt
Upon her face. Thus from the hour of morn,
Till midnight closed the circle of the day.