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Fall of Hyperion

       Table of Contents

      A Dream

      CANTO I

      Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave

       A paradise for a sect; the savage too

       From forth the loftiest fashion of his sleep

       Guesses at Heaven; pity these have not

       Trac’d upon vellum or wild Indian leaf

       The shadows of melodious utterance.

       But bare of laurel they live, dream, and die;

       For Poesy alone can tell her dreams,

       With the fine spell of words alone can save

       Imagination from the sable charm

       And dumb enchantment. Who alive can say,

       ‘Thou art no Poet may’st not tell thy dreams?’

       Since every man whose soul is not a clod

       Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved

       And been well nurtured in his mother tongue.

       Whether the dream now purpos’d to rehearse

       Be poet’s or fanatic’s will be known

       When this warm scribe my hand is in the grave.

      Methought I stood where trees of every clime,

       Palm, myrtle, oak, and sycamore, and beech,

       With plantain, and spice blossoms, made a screen;

       In neighbourhood of fountains, by the noise

       Soft showering in my ears, and, by the touch

       Of scent, not far from roses. Turning round

       I saw an arbour with a drooping roof

       Of trellis vines, and bells, and larger blooms,

       Like floral censers swinging light in air;

       Before its wreathed doorway, on a mound

       Of moss, was spread a feast of summer fruits,

       Which, nearer seen, seem’d refuse of a meal

       By angel tasted or our Mother Eve;

       For empty shells were scattered on the grass,

       And grape stalks but half bare, and remnants more,

       Sweet smelling, whose pure kinds I could not know.

       Still was more plenty than the fabled horn

       Thrice emptied could pour forth, at banqueting

       For Proserpine return’d to her own fields,

       Where the white heifers low. And appetite

       More yearning than on earth I ever felt

       Growing within, I ate deliciously;

       And, after not long, thirsted, for thereby

       Stood a cool vessel of transparent juice

       Sipp’d by the wander’d bee, the which I took,

       And, pledging all the mortals of the world,

       And all the dead whose names are in our lips,

       Drank. That full draught is parent of my theme.

       No Asian poppy nor elixir fine

       Of the soon fading jealous Caliphat,

       No poison gender’d in close monkish cell

       To thin the scarlet conclave of old men,

       Could so have rapt unwilling life away.

       Among the fragrant husks and berries crush’d,

       Upon the grass I struggled hard against

       The domineering potion; but in vain:

       The cloudy swoon came on, and down I sunk

       Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

       How long I slumber’d ’tis a chance to guess.

       When sense of life return’d, I started up

       As if with wings; but the fair trees were gone,

       The mossy mound and arbour were no more:

       I look’d around upon the carved sides

       Of an old sanctuary with roof august,

       Builded so high, it seem’d that filmed clouds

       Might spread beneath, as o’er the stars of heaven;

       So old the place was, I remember’d none

       The like upon the earth: what I had seen

       Of grey cathedrals, buttress’d walls, rent towers,

       The superannuations of sunk realms,

       Or Nature’s rocks toil’d hard in waves and winds,

       Seem’d but the faulture of decrepit things

       To that eternal domed monument.

       Upon the marble at my feet there lay

       Store of strange vessels and large draperies,

       Which needs had been of dyed asbestos wove,

       Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,

       So white the linen, so, in some, distinct

       Ran imageries from a sombre loom.

       All in a mingled heap confus’d there lay

       Robes, golden tongs, censer and chafing dish,

       Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.

      Turning from these with awe, once more I rais’d

       My eyes to fathom the space every way;

       The embossed roof, the silent massy range

       Of columns north and south, ending in mist

       Of nothing, then to eastward, where black gates

       Were shut against the sunrise evermore.

       Then to the west I look’d, and saw far off

       An image, huge of feature as a cloud,

       At level of whose feet an altar slept,

       To be approach’d on either side by steps,

       And marble balustrade, and patient travail

       To count with toil the innumerable degrees.

       Towards the altar sober paced I went,

       Repressing haste, as too unholy there;

       And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

       One minist’ring; and there arose a flame.

       When in mid May the sickening East wind

       Shifts sudden to the south, the small warm rain

       Melts out the frozen incense from all flowers,

       And fills the air with so much pleasant health

       That even the dying man forgets his shroud;

       Even so that lofty sacrificial fire,

       Sending forth Maian incense, spread around

       Forgetfulness of everything but bliss,

       And clouded all the altar with soft smoke,

       From whose white fragrant curtains thus I heard

       Language pronounc’d: ‘If thou canst not ascend

       ‘These steps, die on that marble where thou art.

       ‘Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust,

       ‘Will parch for lack of nutriment thy bones

       ‘Will wither in few years, and vanish so

      

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