PART THE SIXTH

Even as one voice the great sea sang. From out

The green heart of the waters round about,

Welled as a bubbling fountain silverly

The overflowing song of the great sea;

Until the Prince, by dint of listening long,

Divined the purport of that mystic song;

( For so do all things breathe articulate breath

Into his ears who rightly harkeneth )

And, if indeed he heard that harmony

Aright, in this wise came the song of the sea:

“Behold all ye that stricken of love do lie,

Wherefore in manacles of a maiden's eye

Lead ye the life of bondmen and of slaves?

Lo in the caverns and the depths of Me

A thousand mermaids dwell beneath the waves:

A thousand maidens meet for love have I,

Ev'n I the virgin-hearted cold chaste sea.

Behold all ye that weary of life do lie,

There is no rest at all beneath the sky

Save in the nethermost deepness of the deep.

Only the silence and the midst of Me

Can still the sleepless soul that fain would sleep;

For such, a cool death and a sweet have I,

Ev'n I the crystal-hearted cool sweet sea.

Behold all ye that in my lap do lie,

To love is sweet and sweeter still to die,

And woe to him that laugheth me to scorn!

Lo in a little while the anger of Me

Shall make him mourn the day that he was born:

For in mine hour of wrath no ruth have I,

Ev'n I the tempest-hearted pitiless sea.”

So sang the waters, if indeed‘ twere they

That sang unto the Prince's ears that day,

Since in the ship was not a soul besides

Could hear that burden of the voiceful tides;

For when he told the sailors of this thing,

And ev'n what words the waters seemed to sing,

They stared astonishment, and some, that had

More churlish souls than others, held him mad,

And laughed before his face outright. But when

The captain heard the gossip of his men

Touching this marvel, the strange news begot

No merry mood in him, who wist not what

Should be the meaning of the miracle,

Nor whether‘ twere an omen good or ill.

Wherefore the old seafarer — having heard

The tale retold with many an afterword

The mariners’ own most fruitful wit supplied

To grace the telling — took the Prince aside,

And ask'd him sundry questions privily

Concerning this same singing of the sea.

So the Prince told him all there was to tell,

And when that he had heard, the old man fell

To meditating much, and shook his head

As one exceeding ill at ease, and said,

“I doubt the singing thou hast heard was no

Voice of the waters billowing below,

But rather of some evil spirit near,

Who sought with singing to beguile thine ear,

Spreading a snare to catch the soul of thee

In meshes of entangling melody,

Which taketh captive the weak minds of men.

Therefore if thou should'st hear the sound again,

Look thou content thee not with hearkening,

But cast thine eyes around, and mark what thing

Thou seëst, and let no man know but me.”

So spake the white-haired wanderer of the sea.

And on the morrow — when the sealine grew

O'erhazed with visible heat, and no wind blew,

And the half-stifled morning dropt aswoon

Into the panting bosom of the noon —

There came into the Prince's ears anew

The song that yestermorn had hearkened to.

And lifting up his eyes in hope to see

What lips they were that made such melody

And filled him with the fulness of their sound,

He saw the sun at highest of his round

Show as a shield with one dark bloodstain blurred,

By reason of the body of some great bird

Like to an eagle, with wide wings outspread,

Athwart the sunfire hovering duskly red.

So to the master of the ship he told

What he had witnessed, bidding him behold

The marvel with his own eyes if he would;

Who, though he strained his vision all he could,

Yet might not once endure to look the sun

I’ the face; and calling to him one by one

The whole ship's crew, he bade each mariner look

Sunward who could, but no man's eyes might brook

The glare upon them of the noontide rays

And lidless fervour of that golden gaze:

So none of them beheld the bodeful bird.

Then said the greybeard captain, hardly heard

Amid the babble of voices great and small,

“The bird thou seëst is no bird at all,

But some unholy spirit in guise of one;

And I do fear that we are all undone

If any amongst us hearken to its voice;—

For of its mouth, I doubt not, was the noise

Thou heardest as of dulcet carolling,

When at thine ear the waters seemed to sing.”

And truly, many a wiser man than he

Herein had farther strayed from verity;

For that great bird that seemed to fan the sun's

Face with its wings was even the same as once

Flew screaming westward o'er the Prince's head,

Beguiling him to follow where it fled.

And bird it was not, but a spirit of ill,

Man-hating, and of mankind hated still,

And slave to one yet mightier demon-sprite

Whose dwelling is the shadow of the night.

So the days passed, and always on the next

The bird-sprite like a baleful vision vexed

The happy-hearted sunlight; and each time

Its false sweet song was wedded to the rhyme

And chime of wind and wave — although it dropped

As honey changed to music — the Prince stopped

His ears, and would not hear; and so the Sprite,

Seeing his charmèd songcraft of no might

Him to ensnare who hearkened not at all,

On the tenth day with dreadful noise let fall

A tempest shaken from the wings of him,

Whereat the eyes of heaven wox thunderous-dim,

Till the day-darkness blinded them, and fell

Holding the world in night unseasonable.

And from his beakèd mouth the demon blew

A breath as of a hundred winds, and flew

Downward aswoop upon the labouring bark,

And, covered of the blear untimely Dark,

Clutch'd with his gripple claws the Prince his prey,

And backward through the tempest soared away,

Bearing that royal burden; and his eyes

Were wandering wells of lightning to the skies.

Long time the Prince was held in swound, and knew

Nor outer world nor inner, as they flew

From darkness unto darkness; till at last —

The fierce flight over, and his body cast

Somewhere alone in a strange place — the life

Stirred in him faintly, as at feeble strife

With covetous Death for ownership of him.

And‘ fore his eyes the world began to swim

All vague, and doubtful as a dream that lies

Folded within another, petal-wise.

And therewithal himself but half believed

His own eyes’ testimony, and perceived

The things that were about him as who hears

A distant music throbbing toward his ears

At noontide, in a flowery hollow of June,

And listens till he knows not if the tune

And he be one or twain, or near or far,

But only feels that sound and perfume are,

And tremulous light and leafy umbrage: so

The Prince beheld unknowing, nor fain to know.

About him was a ruinous fair place,

Which Time, who still delighteth to abase

The highest, and throw down what men do build,

With splendid prideful barrenness had filled,

And dust of immemorial dreams, and breath

Of silence, which is next of kin to death.

A weedy wilderness it seemed, that was

In days forepast a garden, but the grass

Grew now where once the flowers, and hard by

A many-throated fountain had run dry

Which erst all day a web of rainbows wove

Out of the body of the sun its love.

And but a furlong's space beyond, there towered

In middest of that silent realm deflowered

A palace builded of black marble, whence

The shadow of a swart magnificence

Falling, upon the outer space begot

A dream of darkness when the night was not.

Which while the Prince beheld, a wonderment

Laid hold upon him, that he rose and went

Toward the palace-portico apace,

Thinking to read the riddle of the place.

And entering in ( for open was the door )

From hall to hall he passed, from floor to floor,

Through all the spacious house, and ( saving where

The subtile spider had his darksome lair )

No living creature could he find in it.

Howbeit, by certain writing that was writ

Upon the wall of one dark room and bare,

He guessed that some great sorcerer had there

Inhabited, a slave to his own lust

Of evil power and knowledge, till the dust

Received his dust, and darkness had his soul;

But ere death took him he had willed the whole

Of his possessions to a Spirit of Ill,

His sometime mate in commerce damnable,

Making him lord of that high house, wherein

The twain had sealed their covenant of sin.

With that a horror smote the Prince, and fain

Would he have fled that evil spirit's domain

And shook its dust from off his feet that hour.

But from a window of the topmost tower

Viewing the dim-leaved wilderness without,

Full plainly he perceived it hemmed about

With waves, an island of the middle sea,

In watery barriers bound insuperably;

And human habitation saw he none,

Nor heard one bird a-singing in the sun

To lighten the intolerable stress

Of utter undisputed silentness.

So by these signs he knew himself the thrall

Of that foul spirit unseen, and therewithal

Wholly unfellowed in captivity,

Bound round with fetters of the tyrannous sea.

And sick for very loneliness, he passed

Downward through galleries and chambers vast

To one wide hall wherefrom a vestibule

Opened into a dim green space and cool,

Where great trees grew that various fruitage bore

The like whereof he had not seen before,

And hard by was a well of water sweet;

And being anhungered he did pluck and eat

The strange fair fruit, and being athirst did drink

The water, and lay down beside the brink;

Till sleep, as one that droppeth from the skies,

Dropt down, and made a mist about his eyes.