Kind solace in a dying hour!
         Such, father, is not (now) my theme—
     I will not madly deem that power
             Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
             Unearthly pride hath revell’d in—
         I have no time to dote or dream:
     You call it hope—that fire of fire!
     It is but agony of desire:
     If I can hope—Oh God! I can—
         Its fount is holier—more divine—
     I would not call thee fool, old man,
         But such is not a gift of thine.

     Know thou the secret of a spirit
         Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.
     O! yearning heart! I did inherit
         Thy withering portion with the fame,
     The searing glory which hath shone
     Amid the jewels of my throne,
     Halo of Hell! and with a pain
     Not Hell shall make me fear again—
     O! craving heart, for the lost flowers
     And sunshine of my summer hours!
     Th’ undying voice of that dead time,
     With its interminable chime,
     Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
     Upon thy emptiness—a knell.

     I have not always been as now:
     The fever’d diadem on my brow
         I claim’d and won usurpingly—
     Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
         Rome to the Caesar—this to me?
             The heritage of a kingly mind,
     And a proud spirit which hath striven
             Triumphantly with human kind.

     On mountain soil I first drew life:
         The mists of the Taglay have shed
         Nightly their dews upon my head,
     And, I believe, the winged strife
     And tumult of the headlong air
     Have nestled in my very hair.

     So late from Heaven—that dew—it fell
         (Mid dreams of an unholy night)
     Upon me—with the touch of Hell,
         While the red flashing of the light
     From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,
         Appeared to my half-closing eye
         The pageantry of monarchy,
     And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar
         Came hurriedly upon me, telling
             Of human battle, where my voice,
         My own voice, silly child!—was swelling
             (O! how my spirit would rejoice,
     And leap within me at the cry)
     The battle-cry of Victory!

     The rain came down upon my head
         Unshelter’d—and the heavy wind
         Was giantlike—so thou, my mind!—
     It was but man, I thought, who shed
         Laurels upon me: and the rush—
     The torrent of the chilly air
     Gurgled within my ear the crush
         Of empires—with the captive’s prayer—
     The hum of suiters—and the tone
     Of flattery ‘round a sovereign’s throne.

     My passions, from that hapless hour,
         Usurp’d a tyranny which men
     Have deem’d, since I have reach’d to power;
             My innate nature—be it so:
         But, father, there liv’d one who, then,
     Then—in my boyhood—when their fire
             Burn’d with a still intenser glow,
     (For passion must, with youth, expire)
         E’en then who knew this iron heart
         In woman’s weakness had a part.

     I have no words—alas!—to tell
     The loveliness of loving well!
     Nor would I now attempt to trace
     The more than beauty of a face
     Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
     Are—shadows on th’ unstable wind:
     Thus I remember having dwelt
     Some page of early lore upon,
     With loitering eye, till I have felt
     The letters—with their meaning—melt
     To fantasies—with none.

     O, she was worthy of all love!
     Love—as in infancy was mine—
     ‘Twas such as angel minds above
     Might envy; her young heart the shrine
     On which my ev’ry hope and thought
         Were incense—then a goodly gift,
             For they were childish—and upright—
     Pure—as her young example taught:
         Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
             Trust to the fire within, for light?

     We grew in age—and love—together,
         Roaming the forest, and the wild;
     My breast her shield in wintry weather—
         And, when the friendly sunshine smil’d,
     And she would mark the opening skies,
     I saw no Heaven—but in her eyes.

     Young Love’s first lesson is—the heart:
         For ‘mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
     When, from our little cares apart,
         And laughing at her girlish wiles,
     I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,
         And pour my spirit out in tears—
     There was no need to speak the rest—
         No need to quiet any fears
     Of her—who ask’d no reason why,
     But turn’d on me her quiet eye!

     Yet more than worthy of the love
     My spirit struggled with, and strove,
     When, on the mountain peak, alone,
     Ambition lent it a new tone—
     I had no being—but in thee:
         The world, and all it did contain
     In the earth—the air—the sea—
         Its joy—its little lot of pain
     That was new pleasure—the ideal,
         Dim, vanities of dreams by night—
     And dimmer nothings which were real—
         (Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)
     Parted upon their misty wings,
             And, so, confusedly, became
             Thine image, and—a name—a name!
     Two separate—yet most intimate things.

     I was ambitious—have you known
             The passion, father? You have not:
     A cottager, I mark’d a throne
     Of half the world as all my own,
             And murmur’d at such lowly lot—
     But, just like any other dream,
             Upon the vapour of the dew
     My own had past, did not the beam
             Of beauty which did while it thro’ 
     The minute—the hour—the day—oppress
     My mind with double loveliness.

     We walk’d together on the crown
     Of a high mountain which look’d down
     Afar from its proud natural towers
         Of rock and forest, on the hills—
     The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
         And shouting with a thousand rills.

     I spoke to her of power and pride,
         But mystically—in such guise
     That she might deem it nought beside
         The moment’s converse; in her eyes
     I read, perhaps too carelessly—
         A mingled feeling with my own—
     The flush on her bright cheek, to me
         Seem’d to become a queenly throne
     Too well that I should let it be
         Light in the wilderness alone.

     I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,
         And donn’d a visionary crown—
             Yet it was not that Fantasy
             Had thrown her mantle over me—
     But that, among the rabble—men,
             Lion ambition is chain’d down—
     And crouches to a keeper’s hand—
     Not so in deserts where the grand
     The wild—the terrible conspire
     With their own breath to fan his fire.

     Look ‘round thee now on Samarcand!—
         Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
     Above all cities? in her hand
         Their destinies? in all beside
     Of glory which the world hath known
     Stands she not nobly and alone?
     Falling—her veriest stepping-stone
     Shall form the pedestal of a throne—
     And who her sovereign? Timour—he
         Whom the astonished people saw
     Striding o’er empires haughtily
         A diadem’d outlaw—

     O! human love! thou spirit given,
     On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
     Which fall’st into the soul like rain
     Upon the Siroc wither’d plain,
     And failing in thy power to bless
     But leav’st the heart a wilderness!
     Idea! which bindest life around
     With music of so strange a sound
     And beauty of so wild a birth—
     Farewell! for I have won the Earth!

     When Hope, the eagle that tower’d, could see
         No cliff beyond him in the sky,
     His pinions were bent droopingly—
         And homeward turn’d his soften’d eye.
     ‘Twas sunset: when the sun will part
     There comes a sullenness of heart
     To him who still would look upon
     The glory of the summer sun.
     That soul will hate the ev’ning mist,
     So often lovely, and will list
     To the sound of the coming darkness (known
     To those whose spirits hearken) as one
     Who, in a dream of night, would fly
     But cannot from a danger nigh.

     What tho’ the moon—the white moon
     Shed all the splendour of her noon,
     Her smile is chilly—and her beam,
     In that time of dreariness, will seem
     (So like you gather in your breath)
     A portrait taken after death.
     And boyhood is a summer sun
     Whose waning is the dreariest one—
     For all we live to know is known,
     And all we seek to keep hath flown—
     Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
     With the noon-day beauty—which is all.

     I reach’d my home—my home no more—
         For all had flown who made it so—
     I pass’d from out its mossy door,
         And, tho’ my tread was soft and low,
     A voice came from the threshold stone
     Of one whom I had earlier known—
         O! I defy thee, Hell, to show
         On beds of fire that burn below,
         A humbler heart—a deeper wo—

     Father, I firmly do believe—
         I know—for Death, who comes for me
             From regions of the blest afar,
     Where there is nothing to deceive,
             Hath left his iron gate ajar,
         And rays of truth you cannot see
         Are flashing thro’ Eternity—
     I do believe that Eblis hath
     A snare in ev’ry human path—
     Else how, when in the holy grove
     I wandered of the idol, Love,
     Who daily scents his snowy wings
     With incense of burnt offerings
     From the most unpolluted things,
     Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
     Above with trelliced rays from Heaven
     No mote may shun—no tiniest fly
     The light’ning of his eagle eye—
     How was it that Ambition crept,
         Unseen, amid the revels there,
     Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
         In the tangles of Love’s very hair?

I

This is the month, and this the happy morn,  
Wherein the Son of Heaven’s eternal King,  
Of wedded maid and Virgin Mother born,  
Our great redemption from above did bring;  
For so the holy sages once did sing,
  That he our deadly forfeit should release,  
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.  
  
II

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,  
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,  
Wherewith he wont at Heaven’s high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,  
He laid aside, and, here with us to be,  
  Forsook the Courts of everlasting Day,  
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.  
  
III

Say, Heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a present to the Infant God?  
Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,  
To welcome him to this his new abode,  
Now while the heaven, by the Sun’s team untrod,  
  Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?  
  
IV

See how from far upon the Eastern road  
The star-led Wisards haste with odours sweet!  
Oh! run; prevent them with thy humble ode,  
And lay it lowly at his blessèd feet; 
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,  
  And join thy voice unto the Angel Quire,  
From out his secret altar touched with hallowed fire.  


The Hymn

I

    It was the winter wild,  
     While the heaven-born child 
   All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;  
      Nature, in awe to him,  
      Had doffed her gaudy trim,  
  With her great Master so to sympathize:  
It was no season then for her 
To wanton with the Sun, her lusty Paramour.  
  
II

    Only with speeches fair  
    She woos the gentle air  
  To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,  
    And on her naked shame, 
    Pollute with sinful blame,  
  The saintly veil of maiden white to throw;  
Confounded, that her Maker’s eyes  
Should look so near upon her foul deformities.  
  
III

    But he, her fears to cease, 
    Sent down the meek-eyed Peace:  
  She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding  
    Down through the turning sphere,  
    His ready Harbinger,  
  With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;
And, waving wide her myrtle wand,  
She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.  
  
IV

    No war, or battail’s sound,  
    Was heard the world around;  
  The idle spear and shield were high uphung;
    The hookèd chariot stood,  
    Unstained with hostile blood;  
  The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;  
And Kings sat still with awful eye,  
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
  
V

    But peaceful was the night  
    Wherein the Prince of Light  
  His reign of peace upon the earth began.  
    The winds, with wonder whist,  
    Smoothly the waters kissed, 
  Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,  
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,  
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.  
  
VI

    The stars, with deep amaze,  
    Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
  Bending one way their precious influence,  
    And will not take their flight,  
    For all the morning light,  
  Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;  
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.  
  
VII

    And, though the shady gloom  
    Had given day her room,  
  The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,  
    And hid his head of shame,  
    As his inferior flame  
  The new-enlightened world no more should need:  
He saw a greater Sun appear  
Than his bright Throne or burning axletree could bear.  
  
VIII

    The Shepherds on the lawn,
    Or ere the point of dawn,  
  Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;  
    Full little thought they than  
    That the mighty Pan  
  Was kindly come to live with them below:
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,  
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.  
  
IX

    When such music sweet  
    Their hearts and ears did greet  
  As never was by mortal finger strook,
    Divinely-warbled voice  
    Answering the stringèd noise,  
  As all their souls in blissful rapture took:  
The air, such pleasure loth to lose,  
With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly close.
  
X

    Nature, that heard such sound  
    Beneath the hollow round  
  Of Cynthia’s seat the airy Region thrilling,  
    Now was almost won  
    To think her part was done,  
  And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:  
She knew such harmony alone  
Could hold all Heaven and Earth in happier union.  
  
XI

    At last surrounds their sight  
    A globe of circular light,  
  That with long beams the shamefaced Night arrayed;  
    The helmèd Cherubim  
    And sworded Seraphim  
  Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed,  
Harping in loud and solemn quire,     
With unexpressive notes, to Heaven’s newborn Heir.  
  
XII

    Such music (as ’tis said)  
    Before was never made,  
  But when of old the Sons of Morning sung,  
    While the Creator great  
    His constellations set,  
  And the well-balanced World on hinges hung,  
And cast the dark foundations deep,  
And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep.  
  
XIII

    Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 
    Once bless our human ears,  
  If ye have power to touch our senses so;  
    And let your silver chime  
    Move in melodious time;  
  And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow;
And with your ninefold harmony  
Make up full consort of the angelic symphony.  
  
XIV

    For, if such holy song  
    Enwrap our fancy long,  
  Time will run back and fetch the Age of Gold;
    And speckled Vanity  
    Will sicken soon and die,  
  And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;  
And Hell itself will pass away,  
And leave her dolorous mansions of the peering day.
  
XV

    Yes, Truth and Justice then  
    Will down return to men,  
  The enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing;  
    And Mercy set between,  
    Throned in celestial sheen,    
  With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering;  
And Heaven, as at some festival,  
Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall.  
  
XVI

    But wisest Fate says No,  
    This must not yet be so; 
  The Babe lies yet in smiling infancy  
    That on the bitter cross  
    Must redeem our loss,  
  So both himself and us to glorify:  
Yet first, to those chained in sleep,  
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,  
  
XVII

    With such a horrid clang  
    As on Mount Sinai rang,  
  While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake:  
    The aged Earth, aghast     
    With terror of that blast,  
  Shall from the surface to the centre shake,  
When, at the world’s last sessiön,  
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.  
  
XVIII

    And then at last our bliss
    Full and perfect is,  
  But now begins; for from this happy day  
    The Old Dragon under ground,  
    In straiter limits bound,  
  Not half so far casts his usurpèd sway,
And, wroth to see his Kingdom fail,  
Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail.  
  
XIX

    The Oracles are dumb;  
    No voice or hideous hum  
  Runs through the archèd roof in words deceiving. 
    Apollo from his shrine  
    Can no more divine,  
  Will hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.  
No nightly trance, or breathèd spell,  
Inspires the pale-eyed Priest from the prophetic cell.
  
XX

    The lonely mountains o’er,  
    And the resounding shore,  
  A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;  
    Edgèd with poplar pale,  
    From haunted spring, and dale     
  The parting Genius is with sighing sent;  
With flower-inwoven tresses torn  
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.  
  
XXI

    In consecrated earth,  
    And on the holy hearth,     
  The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;  
    In urns, and altars round,  
    A drear and dying sound  
  Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;  
And the chill marble seems to sweat,    
While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.  
  
XXII

    Peor and Baälim  
    Forsake their temples dim,  
  With that twice-battered god of Palestine;  
    And moonèd Ashtaroth,      
    Heaven’s Queen and Mother both,  
  Now sits not girt with tapers’ holy shine:  
The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;  
In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.  
  
XXIII

    And sullen Moloch, fled,    
    Hath left in shadows dread  
  His burning idol all of blackest hue;  
    In vain with cymbals’ ring  
    They call the grisly king,  
  In dismal dance about the furnace blue;   
The brutish gods of Nile as fast,  
Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.  
  
XXIV

    Nor is Osiris seen  
    In Memphian grove or green,  
  Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud;  
    Nor can he be at rest  
    Within his sacred chest;  
  Nought but profoundest Hell can be his shroud;  
In vain, with timbreled anthems dark,  
The sable-stolèd Sorcerers bear his worshiped ark.     
  
XXV

    He feels from Juda’s land  
    The dreaded Infant’s hand;  
  The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;  
    Nor all the gods beside  
    Longer dare abide,     
  Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:  
Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,  
Can in his swaddling bands control the damnèd crew.  
  
XXVI

    So, when the Sun in bed,  
    Curtained with cloudy red, 
  Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,  
    The flocking shadows pale  
    Troop to the infernal jail,  
  Each fettered ghost slips to his several grave,  
And the yellow-skirted Fays
Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-loved maze.  
  
XXVII

    But see! the Virgin blest  
    Hath laid her Babe to rest,  
  Time is our tedious song should here have ending:  
    Heaven’s youngest-teemèd star
    Hath fixed her polished car,  
  Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;  
And all about the courtly stable  
Bright-harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.

Since I am coming to that Holy room, 
    Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore, 
I shall be made Thy music; as I come 
    I tune the instrument here at the door, 
    And what I must do then, think here before; 

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown 
    Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie 
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown 
    That this is my south-west discovery, 
    Per fretum febris, by these straits to die; 

I joy, that in these straits I see my west; 
    For, though those currents yield return to none, 
What shall my west hurt me?  As west and east 
    In all flat maps—and I am one—are one, 
    So death doth touch the resurrection. 

Is the Pacific sea my home?  Or are 
    The eastern riches?  Is Jerusalem? 
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar? 
    All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them 
    Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem. 

We think that Paradise and Calvary, 
    Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place; 
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me; 
    As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face, 
    May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace. 

So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord; 
    By these His thorns, give me His other crown; 
And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word, 
    Be this my text, my sermon to mine own, 
    "Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down."

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy:
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;	
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells	
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's	
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;	
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:	        
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;	
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,	
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.	
 
Í say móre: the just man justices;	
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;	        
Acts in God's eye what in God’s eye he is—	
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,	
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his	
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
   It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
   It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
   And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
   And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
   There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
   Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see 
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse. 

What is the song the stars sing?
    (And a million songs are as song of one.)
This is the song the stars sing:
    Sweeter song’s none.

One to set, and many to sing,
    (And a million songs are as song of one),
One to stand, and many to cling,
The many things, and the one Thing,
    The one that runs not, the many that run.

The ever new weaveth the ever old
    (And a million songs are as song of one)
Ever telling the never told;
The silver saith, and the said is gold,
    And done ever the never done.

The chase that’s chased is the Lord o’ the chase
(And a million songs are as song of one),
And the pursued cries on the race;
    And the hounds in leash are the hounds that run.

Hidden stars by the shown stars’ sheen;
    (And a million suns are but as one);
Colours unseen by the colours seen,
And sounds unheard heard sounds between,
    And a night is in the light of the sun.

An ambuscade of lights in night,
    (And a million secrets are but as one),
And a night is dark in the sun’s light,
    And a world in the world man looks upon.

Hidden stars by the shown stars’ wings,
    (And a million cycles are but as one),
And a world with unapparent strings
Knits the stimulant world of things;
    Behold, and vision thereof is none.

The world above in the world below,
    (And a million worlds are but as one),
And the One in all; as the sun’s strength so
Strives in all strength, glows in all glow
    Of the earth that wits not, and man thereon.

Braced in its own fourfold embrace
    (And a million strengths are as strength of one),
And round it all God’s arms of grace,
The world, so as the Vision says,
    Doth with great lightning-tramples run.

And thunder bruiteth into thunder,
    (And a million sounds are as sound of one),
From stellate peak to peak is tossed a voice of wonder,
And the height stoops down to the depths thereunder,
    And sun leans forth to his brother sun.

And the more ample years unfold
    (With a million songs as song of one),
A little new of the ever old,
A little told of the never told,
    Added act of the never done.

Loud the descant, and low the theme,
    (A million songs are as song of one)
And the dream of the world is dream in dream,
But the one Is is, or nought could seem;
    And the song runs round to the song begun.

This is the song the stars sing,
    (Tonèd all in time);
Tintinnabulous, tuned to ring
A multitudinous-single thing,
    (Rung all in rhyme).

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

^{“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa: αποθανειν θελω.”}

^{For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro}

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

           Frisch weht der Wind
           Der Heimat zu,            
           Mein Irisch Kind,
           Wo weilest du?

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Öd’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished thone,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed.
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Clawed into words, then would be savagely still.

“My nerves are bad tonight. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
“Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.
“What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
“I never know what you are thinking. Think.”

I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

“What is the noise?”
                                 The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
                                        Nothing again nothing.
                                                              “Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”
                    I remember
                                        Those are pearls that were his eyes.
“Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
                                                            But
O  O  O  O  that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent

“What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
“With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
“What shall we ever do?”
                                    The hot water at ten.
And if it rains, a closed car at four.
And we shall play a game of chess,
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.
And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said,
Others can pick and choose if you can’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don’t want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

III. The Fire Sermon

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu

Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire,
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

“This music crept by me upon the waters”
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City City, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.

The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
                       Weialala leia
                       Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
                       Weialala leia
                       Wallala leialala

“Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.”

“My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised ‘a new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?”

“On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.”
                       la la

To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest

burning

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
                                       A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
                                       Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

V. What the Thunder Said

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                              If there were water
      And no rock
      If there were rock
      And also water
      And water
      A spring
      A pool among the rock
      If there were the sound of water only
      Not the cicada
      And dry grass singing
      But sound of water over a rock
      Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
      Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
      But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that one on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home,
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain

Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands

                                    I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
em>Quando fiam ceu chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

          Shantih     shantih     shantih

Notes

Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Cambridge). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.

I. The Burial of the Dead

Line 20. Cf. Ezekiel II, i.
23. Cf. Ecclesiastes XII, v.
31. V. Tristan und Isolde, I, verses 5–8.
42. Id. III, verse 24.
46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience. The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose in two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples of Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the Merchant appear later; also the “crowds of people,” and Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher King himself.
60. Cf. Baudelaire:

“Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves
“Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.”

63. Cf. Inferno III, 55–57:

                          “si lunga tratta
“di gente, ch’io non avrei mai creduto
che morte tanta n’avesse disfatta.”

64. Cf. Inferno IV, 25–27:

“Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare,
“non avea pianto ma’ che de sospiri,
“che l’aura eterna facevan tremare.”

68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.
74. Cf. The Dirge in Webster’s White Devil.
76. V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.

II. A Game of Chess

77. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, I. 190.
92. Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I, 726:

                          “dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.”

98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 140.
99. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, VI, Philomela.
100. Cf. Part III 1. 204.
115. Cf. Part III 1. 195.
118. Cf. Webster: “Is the wind in that door still?”
126. Cf. Part I, ll. 37, 48.
138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton’s Women Beware Women.

III. The Fire Sermon

176. V. Spenser, Prothalamion.
192. Cf. The Tempest, I, ii.
196. Cf. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.
197. Cf. Day, Parliament of Bees:

“When of the sudden, listening, you shall hear,
“A noise of horns and hunting, which shall bring
“Actaeon to Diana in the spring,
“Where all shall see her naked skin. . .”

199. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken; it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.
202. V. Verlaine, “Parsifal.”
210. The currants were quoted at a price “carriage and insurance free to London”; and the Bill of Lading etc. were to be handed to the buyer upon payment of the sight draft.
218. Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a “character,” is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts into the Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinct from Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman, and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact, is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid is of great anthropological interest:

. . . Cum Iunone iocos et “maior vestra profecto est
Quam, quae contingit maribus,” dixisse, “voluptas.”
Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti
Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota.
Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva
Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu
Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem
Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem
Vidit et “est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae,”
Dixit “ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet,
Nunc quoque vos feriam!” percussis anguibus isdem
Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago.
Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa
Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto
Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique
Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte,
At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inrita cuiquam
Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto
Scire future dedit poenamque levavit honore.

221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had in mind the “longshore” or “dory” fisherman, who returns at nightfall.
253. V. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield.
257. V. The Tempest, as above.
264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren’s interiors. See The Proposed Demolition of Nineteen City Churches: (P.S. King & Son Ltd.).
266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here. From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn. V. Götterdämmerung, III, i: the Rhine-daughters.
279. V. Froude, Elizabeth Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De Quadra to Philip of Spain: “In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river. (The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why they should not be married if the queen pleased.”
293. Cf. Purgatorio, V. 133:

“Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
“Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.”

307. V. St. Augustine’s Confessions: “to Carthage then I came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears.”
308. The complete text of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (which corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren’s Buddhism in Translation (Harvard Oriental Series). Mr. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the occident.
312. From St. Augustine’s Confessions again. The collocation of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism, as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.

V. What the Thunder Said

In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.

357. This is Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, the hermit-thrush which I have heard in Quebec Country. Chapman says (Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America) “it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone and exquisite modulation they are unequaled.” Its “water-dripping song” is justly celebrated.
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.
366-76. Cf. Hermann Hesse, Blick ins Chaos: “Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas auf dem Wege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligem Wahn am Abgrund entlang und singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang. Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heilige und Seher hört sie mit Tränen.”
401. “Datta, dayadhvam, damyata” (Give, sympathise, control). The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is found in the Brihadaranyaka–Upanishad, 5, I. A translation is found in Deussen’s Sechzig Upanishads des Veda, p. 489.
407. Cf. Webster, The White Devil, V. vi:

                          “. . . they’ll remarry
“Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider
Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.”

411. Cf. Inferno, XXXIII, 46:

“ed io seniti chiavar l’uscio di sotto
all’orribile torre.”

Also F. H, Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 346.
“My external sensations are no less private to myself than are my thoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it. . . . In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul, the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.”
424. V. Weston: From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the Fisher King.
427. V. Purgatorio, XXVI, 148.

“‘Ara vos prec, per aquella valor
‘que vos guida al som de l’escalina,
‘sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.’
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina.”

428. V. Pervigilium Veneris. Cf. Philomela in Parts II and III.
429. V. Gérard de Nerval, Sonnet “El Desdichado.”
431. V. Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy.
433. Shantih. Repeated as here, a formal ending to an Upanishad. “The Peace which passeth understanding” is a feeble transition of the content of this word.