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diff --git a/26675-h/26675-h.htm b/26675-h/26675-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ef90b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/26675-h/26675-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1577 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Masque of the Elements, by Herman Scheffauer</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 75%;} +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Masque of the Elements, by Herman Scheffauer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Masque of the Elements + +Author: Herman Scheffauer + +Release Date: September 20, 2008 [EBook #26675] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASQUE OF THE ELEMENTS *** + + + + +Produced by Ruth Hart + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<p>[Note: This text contains many words with archaic spelling, +which I have not modernized. Also, while the first word of each +poem is usually capitalized, not all of them are, and I have left the uncapitalized words as is.]</p> + +<br> +<center> +<p>THE MASQUE OF THE ELEMENTS</p> + +<p>BY HERMAN SCHEFFAUER</p> + +<br> + +<p>LONDON: J. M. Dent & Sons, Limited<br> +Bedford Street, Strand 1912<br> +New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.</p> + + +<br> + + + +<p>All rights reserved</p> +<br> + + +<p>TO MY DEAR FRIEND<br> +ALBERT M. BENDER</p> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>CONTENTS</p> + +<br> +<table id="table1"> + +<tr><td><a href="#0">ARGUMENT</a></td><td align="right">9</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td><td align="right"> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#1">THE PASSING</a></td><td align="right"> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#2">Song of the Spirit of Chaos</a></td><td align="right"> 14</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#3">Song of the Sun</a></td><td align="right"> 16</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#4">Song of the Planet Earth</a></td><td align="right"> 18</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#5">Song of the Moon Wraith</a></td><td align="right"> 20</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#6">Song of Earth the Element</a></td><td align="right"> 22</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#7">Song of Air</a></td><td align="right">24</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#8">Song of the Sea</a></td><td align="right">26</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#9">Song of Fire</a></td><td align="right">28</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#10">Song of the Spirit of Chaos</a></td><td align="right">31</td></tr> + +<tr><td> </td><td align="right"> </td></tr> + +<tr><td><a href="#0a">RE-BIRTH</a></td><td align="right"> </td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#1a">Song of the Spirit of Creation</a></td><td align="right"> 37</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#2a">Song of the Sun</a></td><td align="right"> 39</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#3a">Song of the Planet Earth</a></td><td align="right"> 41</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#4a">Song of the Moon</a></td><td align="right"> 43</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#5a">Song of Air</a></td><td align="right"> 45</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#6a">Song of the Sea</a></td><td align="right"> 47</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#7a">Song of Earth the Element</a></td><td align="right"> 48</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#8a">Song of Fire</a></td><td align="right"> 51</td></tr> +<tr><td><a href="#9a">Song of the Spirit of Creation</a></td><td align="right"> 55</td> + +</table> + +</center> + + +<br> +<a name="0"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>ARGUMENT</p> + +<p>In this Threnody and Birth-song of the Elements, written in California some five +years ago, I have striven to capture and present some of the chief-factors and phases of +the eternal drama of Life and Death in the Universe. These powers, elements and +agents I have endowed with human attributes and human emotions as though +it were Man himself who uttered himself through them.</p> + +<p>The actors in this cosmic masque or pageant of +the planets are the Sun, the Moon and the Earth with her four +Elements; for stage there is the limitless +background of Time and Space, and the audience may +be conceived as being represented by Immanent +Nature. Creation and Dissolution are her ministers, twin forces +of that divine everlasting Energy which brings to pass +the cycles of the Eternal Recurrence.</p> + +<p>The action takes its course with +a certain regard +for the laws and revelations of +Science, but this compliance is only such as poetry need observe. +Despite the inherent and mystic majesty of Matter,--too +commonly reviled!--fantasy must have leave, in +such a work, to force its way past the barrier of +facts or to reshape them to its needs.</p> + +<p>Whether the action begin with the impulse of +Dissolution or with that of Creation does not +in any way affect the essentials of the plan. +The alternations of Life and Death, of +Cosmic Night and Day, must inevitably +follow and destroy each other, like the serpents in the ancient symbol. +Yet I thought it desirable to end this work with the larger and +salient note of hope and joy that rings out of the Birth +that is Re-birth rather than +with the Passing which is but a recurrent preparation +for that Birth.</p> + +<p>HERMAN SCHEFFAUER.<br> +London, 1911.</p> + +<br> +<a name="1"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>THE PASSING</p> + +<p><i>The song of the Spirit of Chaos is heard on high +above the aged Solar Universe.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Sun hangs in the black wastes below. His +dazzling beams are shorn away. He glows, but dimly, +like an ember, with a red and smouldering heat.</i></p> + +<p><i>In their concentric rounds lie poised the planets, like +weary-winged cup-bearers, circling about their sleepless +lord.</i></p> + +<p><i>His fire, dull with death, wavers across their dim +faces, even unto dusky Uranus and lowering Neptune in +the cold, outermost rings.</i></p> + +<p><i>In the dark, all-surrounding void new constellations +gleam on the thrones of the heavens. The old are +changed, deposed or dead.</i></p> + +<p><i>Their figures, unfixed in the abyss, have been shifted +like errant sands of Earth.</i></p> + +<p><i>The spirit of Chaos, from her uncharted tracts, +summons her ministrant powers of Death and Change. +She beholds them blight the worlds. Her presence enfolds +destroyers and destroyed as with a cloak.</i></p> + +<p><i>The dusks and damps of dissolution spread out their +lethal and invisible wings.</i></p> + +<p><i>The voice of the Spirit, like spheral music, flows out +of the darkness.</i></p> + +<p><i>The orbs listen and are filled with a miraculous +consciousness and the soft lassitude of Death.</i></p> + + +<br> +<a name="2"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CHAOS</p> + + +<p>THE staring vessels of these worlds no wine<br> + Of Life refills, no seeds of potent change.<br> +So may Death's pale and lingering weeds entwine<br> + These hollow globes that still unhindered range<br> +Through Heaven. O famished Time! thy jaws devour<br> + The suns and slumbers of the broken spheres,<br> +Whose knell young stars have heard, whose rounded hour<br> + Strikes, and is buried in thy bourneless years.<br> +They glow like fevered jewels in the deeps,<br> + Like sullen embers in remorseless Night,<br> +Like flowers with'ring when the Winter creeps<br> + With iron dews their little lives to blight.<br> +Since recordless immensities of Time<br> + I stand whose ne'er-sealed eyes the birth behold<br> +Of worlds dream-born,--their fiery infant clime,<br> + Their teeming life, their epochs gray and cold,<br> +Peace kiss and blot their tarnished light and close<br> + Their leaden urns with gentleness. I shed<br> +The ashes of my silence on their snows,--<br> + Then waft them to my kingdoms of the dead.</p> + + +<p><i>Through the doomed Sun runs a tremor from core +to crust. There is a faltering in his flight.</i></p> + +<p><i>His vassal globes roll on, disturbed and bleak.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Lord of Day shakes upon his central seat and +turns up his hectic front in dumb questionings of +despair. He yearns for sleep to seal his kingly eye.</i></p> + +<p><i>The calcined wounds upon him are like many mouths. +They roll forth trembling thunder.</i></p> + +<p><i>And now is heard the voice of the Sun in agony:</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="3"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SUN</p> + +<p>WEARY am I at last! weary am I!<br> + Shall the old eons bring me no repose?<br> +Oh, in long-promised slumbers once to lie<br> + And feel the films of sleep mine eyelids close!<br> +Oh, once to lave my burning head in Night--<br> + Blest Night! my planets joy thee--every one!<br> +Perish, fatigueless Fire! and thou, O Light!<br> + Vanish. Go leave your emperor, your Sun!<br> +For I am done with blessings scattered wide<br> + Throughout the waste, oppressive Universe,<br> +And yonder fading Earth-globe, once my bride,<br> + Becomes to me a burden and a curse.<br> +No more she smiles for me, no more my rays<br> + Urge on her frozen roots to coloured bloom,<br> +No clouds enrobe her nakedness--her days,<br> + Once golden in the dance, are bent on doom.<br> +A loathing throngs the vision, and the face<br> + Of Man is stone and ashen, fallen supine.<br> +How long with Light and Love I warmed his race!<br> + Now iron crowns of Ruin and Death be mine.</p> + +<p><i>The Earth-orb and her four elements are locked in +the arms of decay.</i></p> + +<p><i>She, like a stricken mother, bereaved of all beloved +things, calls on the Sun, her primal fount of Life.</i></p> + +<p><i>The saddest of all her twilights has fallen and is +moving on to night.</i></p> + +<p><i>Life, be it of man, or beast, or flower, is slowly +quenched, as a torch is quenched in a midnight +lake.</i></p> + +<p><i>The haunts and habitations of men have vanished; +they are not any more. Yet their ruins are heaped +with snow that shall know no thawing.</i></p> + +<p><i>Every hour of Earth is an eon and her day has yet +many hours.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her elements sing each their song. The parent +Earth sends forth her cry into the void.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="4"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE PLANET EARTH</p> + +<p>NOT now thy beams arouse me morn by morn,<br> + O Sun! as when my flesh was warm and young.<br> +Out of our love what children fair were born<br> + To rapture! ere thy last wild song was sung.<br> +I deem thy day is Night and thou the Moon--<br> + So feeble is thy kiss, so cold thy light,--<br> +Lamp of my life, alas!--how soon, how soon--<br> + O speak! comes thy last greeting and good-night?<br> +My breasts are sere as sand, no flowers bloom,<br> + No grass, no forests hide my misery bare;<br> +The reaches of the tyrannous poles consume<br> + Those gardens of delight we made so fair,<br> +And men lie dark in caves, a sullen race,<br> + Framed of ray daughter's flesh but now my bane,<br> +Yet shall I not withdraw my patient face,<br> + Nor tomb them in my hollow caves of pain.<br> +Soon shall I creep no more about thee, orb<br> + Of Heaven, for all my thews grow stark and dry.<br> +When the years drag me to my end--absorb,<br> + Embrace, enfold, caress me, ere I die!</p> + +<p><i>A song fours down from the skies, a plangent song +of triumph from the Moon. Yet it is not her voice, +but that of the Moon Wraith. She reigns in mockery +and malice upon her peaks in gulfs of solitude.</i></p> + +<p><i>She sings for her who perished long ago. Her +voice is flung exulting over the ruins.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Phantasm turns the ashen sphere about the +rusted poles.</i></p> + +<p><i>The mystery of the Moons invisible hemisphere is +now revealed.</i></p> + +<p><i>It too is desolation.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="5"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE MOON WRAITH</p> + +<p>THEY are dying! all are dying! Night shall force<br> + Us headlong through her shoreless regions blind.<br> +Then must I, an empty lamp, around the corse<br> + Of Earth my dark, unending spirals wind.<br> +I loved the Sun. My heart was molten stone,<br> + Like Earth my face for him with beauty bloomed,<br> +Ere lust and hatred scarred my every zone,<br> + And passion tore my beauty and consumed.<br> +They are dying! I have waited lone and long,--<br> + Long have hung, a warning skull that gleamed<br> +Above their feast of Life and Love;--their song<br> + Is ended, and the Sun sheds blood. They dreamed.<br> +Earth that called me cold and pale, grows pale and cold,--<br> + Now wearily her groaning axle turns<br> +Those alternating glories that she rolled<br> + To mock my ashen tombs and crater-urns!<br> +No more her midnight ghouls nor lovers creep<br> + To curse or bless my light; my shadow crawls<br> +Like some dark moth upon her. I shall sleep<br> + Equal with her in death. The tyrant falls!</p> + +<p><i>The Element of Earth, waste and inert, hears at +last the cry of the Mother-globe.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her crests and peaks, her vales and plains, lie +white and whelmed with snow.</i></p> + +<p><i>The mountain ranges draw their icy shrouds over +the faces of dead continents.</i></p> + +<p><i>A convulsion seizes on her granite heart, and the +lips of her hills are heard uttering their dirge.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="6"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF EARTH THE ELEMENT</p> + +<p>SPRUNG molten from the fierce embrace of stars,<br> + Graven by hungry seas and winds and fires--<br> +Lo, my poor frame terrene with all its scars<br> + Lies arid like the dross of blasted pyres!<br> +Opulent fields and fruits, and forest tracts--<br> + O fourfold largess of the seasons! grain,<br> +Once on this bosom waving! cataracts<br> + Poured from my heart!--each precious living vein<br> +Of gold or gleaming mineral, and flower<br> + And grass and mated creature that I gave<br> +To man unstinted from my royal dower,<br> + Lie cold in this my never-sated grave.<br> +And he, my noblest offspring, whom my breasts<br> + Suckled when ushered from my fertile womb,<br> +Lies low in dark and underearthen nests,<br> + Calling on slow and silent-footed doom.<br> +No more, no more the joyous spring shall thaw<br> + These crystal cere-cloths from my withered heart,--<br> +No more shall Life his golden pageant draw,<br> + Nor ever a seed shall spring nor a flower start.</p> + +<p><i>The all-embracing and tender Air is without motion, +lifeless and exhaust.</i></p> + +<p><i>His eight lordly sons lie undone in eight far regions +of the globe.</i></p> + +<p><i>Thinner and thinner grows the element as it is +drained away to dissolution.</i></p> + +<p><i>Meteors from the outer vast pierce, unconsumed, the +canopy of the dying Air. The helpless Earth is smitten +with showers of fire-javelins.</i></p> + +<p><i>Sighs suffuse the atmosphere and putrescence rises +with its legions of leaden ghosts.</i></p> + +<p><i>What is this sound, so low, so faint, so thin? It +seems like the first whisper of the youngest of all the +Angels, or the last sigh of the oldest of all Men.</i></p> + +<p><i>It is the Song of the dying Air.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="7"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF AIR</p> + +<p>DEAD! dark! flown! my primal happiness;<br> + The stark ice ribs my high and hollow cave.<br> +The vortex of the World spins raptureless,<br> + And languorously crawls the oily wave.<br> +From sun-shot peaks of dawn no more I leap<br> + Like a launching condor past control,--<br> +O speak, Son of the West! if this be Sleep--<br> + Or Death that is our destiny and goal?<br> +Thick torpor clouds the climes; eternal snow<br> + Falling, falling, falling, throngs my realm.<br> +Shall nevermore my breath o'er Ocean blow?<br> + Nor wrestle with his seas that roar and whelm?<br> +No balsam to the woods can I restore,<br> + Nor render pure my breath for man to drain;<br> +I faint within his nostrils that implore<br> + My draught to rouse his drooping heart again.<br> +My Earth that I enfolded like a bloom,<br> + Lies but a withered creature,--sterile, cold,--<br> +Hither, fly hither! O winds who share my doom,<br> + Oh, wail your dying sire whose days are told.</p> + +<p><i>A prone and expiring giant lifts up his bulk once +more and would not die.</i></p> + +<p><i>It is Ocean, usurper of Earth's deepest vales, +besieger of islands, batterer of continents.</i></p> + +<p><i>His great green front and land-fettered limbs glimmer +up to his mistress Moon. His breast heaves unto her +as of old with an awful and passionate longing.</i></p> + +<p><i>But a film has veiled his eyes, and now stagnation +builds up her muddy pillars in his heart. There Death +reigns amidst havoc.</i></p> + +<p><i>His leviathans and huge worms and wrecks of ships +rot on every shore and in his dunnest deeps amidst +pearls and sea-born blooms.</i></p> + +<p><i>The innumerable myrmidons of his empire, fretted +masses, chained by weeds, oppress the old Equator.</i></p> + +<p><i>The coasts he laved and swept are marred with +deadly froth. They are now but ruins of the vast +poison-chalice of the sea, all fringed with bloody +spume.</i></p> + +<p><i>This is his final anguish and these his final groans.</i></p> + +<p><i>It is the last song of the sorrowing Sea!</i></p> + +<p><i>Hoarsely reverberates his threnody; he piles up higher and higher his +tremendous tomb of sound, beneath which he shall compose himself in tideless calms +of sleep.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="8"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SEA</p> + +<p>Oh, I am old and hoar! so old that none<br> + Of all my drops holds memory of birth:<br> +My mists no longer rise to robe the Sun,<br> + No longer lend great rivers to the Earth.<br> +Low in my deeps my broken creatures die,--<br> + They die! and their corruption loads my floors;<br> +Countless and cold, my lordly monsters lie<br> + On league-long sands of continental shores.<br> +Where bide you, O white stallions of the waves?<br> + And you torrential surges,--where the crest<br> +You flung on leaping mountains that you drave<br> + Across your father's fields from East to West?<br> +Shine forth, O Moon! unveil thee, pallid queen!<br> + Heal me, as when my passion clomb to thine;<br> +Shed down thy lucent drench, thy light serene,<br> + Oh, lift me back to Life and Love--oh, shine!<br> +My salt hath lost its virtue in men's blood<br> + And o'er their hearts the marish vapour crawls;<br> +Now Death o'erwhelms me with his colder flood,<br> + And, prey to Time, my royal glory falls.</p> + +<p><i>Daemon of Fire, fairest of all elements, fairest, purest, +divinest, Spirit of Life and Power, that dwells never +with Death!</i></p> + +<p><i>His feet take hold on Earth, but his crest rears its +unhampered glory in the highest airs.</i></p> + +<p><i>Fleeing from Nature's frozen breast, he trends to +lowest crypts, swift to some final refuge, moving in +leaping sheets and sinuous trails.</i></p> + +<p><i>The mouths of all volcanoes, once his throne, are +choked with snow. In subterranean corridors cold creeps +upon the central vaults of flame.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="9"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF FIRE</p> + +<p>BACK to the womb I creep, back to the womb!<br> + Let snows and stagnant seas my province blight,<br> +Deep down in matrix grots shall I consume<br> + My mother's flesh, my spirit and the night.<br> +I shall beat about her heart a few brief years,--<br> + I, who once rolled fiery gold through all her veins,<br> +And soared from mountain-throats o'er hemispheres,<br> + And throbbed in huts and palaces and fanes.<br> +What power in me abode! what loveliness!<br> + The three vast elements proclaimed me king,<br> +Straight from the Sun I sank with gifts to bless<br> + The world with living tongue and burning wing.<br> +I came, and Man sat caverned with the brute;<br> + I nursed him and he rose into a god;<br> +I leave him and he withers with the fruit<br> + Of ages on the ground his splendour trod.<br> +Farewell, you airs and skies from whence I fell,<br> + Fond Earth, farewell, and all thy beauty past--<br> +And thou, old pulseless Ocean foe, farewell!--<br> + All dead! I too shall die, though I be last.</p> + +<p><i>Utter silence and utter lifelessness engulf the Globe; +the frozen and adamantine bars of oblivion fall.</i></p> + +<p><i>As the soft sibilant tones of the Fire-daemon flutter +away, slowly the spheres recede and vanish in the +clasp of Night.</i></p> + +<p><i>Once more is heard, sweet and clear, the voice of the +Spirit of Chaos.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her music of mercy sinks softly down like star-dust, +or as of old dew on terrestrial flowers.</i></p> + +<p><i>Through the infinite Universe, through Eternity, she +sings her everlasting song.</i></p> + +<p><i>She lulls her endless flocks of worlds asleep; she seals +them up in the dark cycles of mutation--or +makes them +to bloom in the Night.</i></p> + +<p><i>For they awaken once more when rings aloud the +impulsive alternating song of the Spirit of Life, her joyful +sister, clad with inevitable day.</i></p> + +<p><i>Now the solar orbs are overcast with swift eclipse as +with a mantle.</i></p> + +<p><i>They are swept into illimitable abysses.</i></p> + +<p><i>Above, below and all about gleam vast cohorts and +constellations of living stars, pouring crystalline melody +from thrones of Light.</i></p> + +<p><i>Ghosts of worlds drift by, and suns wrapped in +extinction.</i></p> + +<p><i>They too are floating tombs, in them too, Life, Love +and Thought lie sepultured like seeds.</i></p> + +<p><i>Sepultured, until from the mighty marriage of orb with +orb in planetary impact shall the great rose of Existence +re-unfold its leaves in the light and warmth of suns +new-born.</i></p> + +<p><i>So follow and follow the unending successions of the +Seasons of Eternity.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="10"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CHAOS</p> + +<p>DARKNESS, unconquered Darkness, spread thy tent,<br> + Silence, build up thy co-eternal wall.<br> +Death, who art silent and dark, this firmament<br> + Is thine, these withered worlds--Oh, take them all!<br> +Pearls dead and lustreless, float back to Death,--<br> + You from the sun-dust born and starry spray,<br> +Life set you free and warmed you with his breath<br> + A day, and Night hath fallen on that day.<br> +Float back to Death, pearls dead and lustreless,<br> + So he may sow you on the stormy streams<br> +That wander unto aweful wars and press<br> + Onward their throneless orbs that know no beams,--<br> +Blind sepulchres that hold within their stones<br> + Ashes that sang and dust that shone with thought.<br> +Though suns on suns emergent dash your zones<br> + With lustre-floods,--no wonder shall be wrought,<br> +Till out of ruins of transmuting strife<br> + With sister globes that weld the eternal chain,<br> +You win alternate Life and Death and Life<br> + Again . . . and again . . . and again . . .</p> + +<p><i>The voice of the Spirit passes away into Immensity.</i></p> + +<p><i>Darkness and Silence in Immanence.</i></p> + +<p><i>The unheard rhythmical suspiration of the Universe.</i></p> + +<p><i>Peace.</i></p> + + +<br> +<a name="0a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>RE-BIRTH</p> + +<p><i>The vacant room of stars is flooded with a presence.</i></p> + +<p><i>The tides of Life pulsate with the prophecy of Birth.</i></p> + +<p><i>Now it is the Song of the Spirit of Creation that is +heard on high above the perished Solar Universe.</i></p> + +<p><i>The dead worlds are hidden in the lap of Night, +sightless, forlorn wanderers. They move in darkness, +unseeing and unseen, though smitten by the rays of +living stars.</i></p> + +<p><i>Upon their cold breasts of stone the dust of ruined +worlds lies as a garment. Windless it lies as it falls or +rises out of Chaos that encompasses all.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Spirit of Creation moves grandly through the +deeps. In her hands she bears Fire and Light, on +her lips her all-conquering command. She flings dead +worlds among the dead, as a sower his seed or a slinger +his stones.</i></p> + +<p><i>A spark is lit in the vast obscure. A glory, a rose +of fire, blooms in the pit of darkness. It is now a +glowing mist with far-spread vans, a phoenix wrought +of flame.</i></p> + +<p><i>The cloud gathers about it its flowing veils and +swarming foam of Fire. It winds them around its +white effulgent heart. The sundered flakes of crimson +twist and turn, they shrink, yet do not flee.</i></p> + +<p><i>Out of the blazing mists a new-born Sun shapes +forth his awful splendour. His worlds divest themselves +of robes and wings, shining in beauty white and pure.</i></p> + +<p><i>The dead are born again and the stars rejoice in +light.</i></p> + +<p><i>From the molten orbs there comes a murmur, a fresh +music to mingle with the Sun's.</i></p> + +<p><i>The words of the Spirit of Creation swell in a +harmonious storm, they mould the worlds as with hands, they +sweep the plumbless spaces as with a besom of winds.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="1a"></a> +<br> +<br> + + +<p> SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CREATION</p> + +<p>LET orb be wedded unto orb!--let light<br> + Engender in the wombs of fiery clouds<br> +In flashing spirals scarring the dead Night,<br> + With tongues of argent fire and crimson shrouds.<br> +You bear the seed of Worlds; from you shall spring<br> + A Universe through roaring cycles spun<br> +Round him whose bulk enormous crowns him king<br> + And master of all vassal orbs, the Sun!<br> +You golden worlds or white, you gelid Moons,<br> + Each in your mountant orbit king or queen,<br> +In midnights plunged or soaring in your noons,<br> + Accoutred in glory male, or virgin sheen,<br> +Awake! awake! the dark unbars her gate!<br> + Burst forth like gems from Death's titanic tomb!<br> +The joyous zenith and mute nadir wait,<br> + Vessels of Life reborn, to yield you room.<br> +Rocks and their garnered ores shall form your flesh,<br> + And you shall pant in flowing seas of Air;<br> +You shall have boon of Waters, salt and fresh,<br> + And gift of godlike Fire to make you fair.</p> + +<p><i>Afloat in splendour, panoplied in light--the +arch-pontifical Sun!</i></p> + +<p><i>He shakes his threshing, intolerable mane of flames, +his face bans darkness and makes a burning void in his +domains. He pours his lustihood and power upon the +joyous spheres. His rays transmute all things. Through +the dancing infant host his Magnificat is upborne on the +breath of his desire.</i></p> + +<p><i>Triumphant rolls his paean. He casts from him his +tempests of solar melody, vibrant and far-winged.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="2a"></a> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>SONG OF THE SUN</p> + +<p>EMBATTLED life in living light immerst,<br> + I shed the glory of my fatherhood!<br> +These shafts shall quell the surgent dark and burst<br> + The walls of night that pent my circling brood.<br> +Rolled twyfold in each shining cirque and arch,<br> + My jewelled court of splendour ring on ring,<br> +Salutes me down my firmamental march,<br> + Hailing me sire, all-quickener, lord and king!<br> +I fling eternal largesses of light<br> + And warmth, and wave my torch within the deep,--<br> +Dance! purple planet-children, in my sight<br> + Around Creation's golden core! Go sweep<br> +Within this blaze of winnowed flames, you sons<br> + And daughters wing'd with veils of rain and fire,<br> +Hold high your mirrored Moons!--you myrmidons<br> + Of meteors robed with flame--you comets dire,<br> +Far-wandering lights, go seek my brother spheres<br> + And yonder orbs, now basking span on span;<br> +And bear me tidings if their ripened years<br> + Have made them joyous with the face of Man.</p> + +<p><i>Emblazoned with crests of lustre like the Sun, the +Earth-orb wanders singing through her rounds.</i></p> + +<p><i>She flings her arms and tresses of Fire to the stars, +a maenad in the planetary dance.</i></p> + +<p><i>The cold voids of hungry space drink up her ardours. +She glows redly; the Fires retreat into her heart and +her form is clothed with lava as with the Sea. Now +is she muffled in her new-born clouds and the rains +struggle through her fervent Airs.</i></p> + +<p><i>She floats, a watery globe, in the face of the Sun.</i></p> + +<p><i>She urges up her writhing continents that smoke high +unto Heaven.</i></p> + +<p><i>And they grow green as her Seas are green. The +Winds are in her hair, the Sun dowers her with riches +as a bride, the Waters lace her robes with silver cords.</i></p> + +<p><i>The tributary seasons begin their march, laden with +store of beauty.</i></p> + +<p><i>The stately sphere lifts up her chant, measured unto +her dance in majestic tides of rhythm:</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="3a"></a> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>SONG OF THE PLANET EARTH</p> + +<p>Again before thee winding, O Sun, at length,--<br> + At length, thou call'st me from the wintry deep!<br> +With cornucopian Fire thou giv'st me strength,<br> + Caresses and golden hours and grace of sleep.<br> +My filial song I weave with theirs who roll<br> + Afar or close, past thy celestial face,<br> +My sister lamps that o'er the Zodiac's scroll<br> + From fane to fane in adoration pace.<br> +The rapt Equator's crimson cincture holds<br> + Me close; my emerald ocean-robes flow free,<br> +And purple soar my mountains, folds on folds,<br> + With vale and plain. My bondmaid Moon to me<br> +Reveals her marbled snow in cusp and shale--<br> + Whilst in my flinty womb the valiant strife<br> +Of Fire proclaims me thine and bans the pale<br> + Usurper Death beyond my fields of Life.<br> +In Winds that wrap my path, lo, I shall sing<br> + To thee a choral eternal, Lord of Days,<br> +And Life with myriad hearts in me shall sing<br> + Thy glory to scan forever, and chant thy praise.</p> + +<p><i>The wrinkled Moon, charred by the fires of her +brief youth, sits serene above the rose-blown round of +Earth.</i></p> + +<p><i>Like an aged beldam she crouches in the heavens, +ashes upon her head, weaving her ancient silver magic, +spelling enchantment upon the nether Sea.</i></p> + +<p><i>She is a sybil in whom the wisdom of the worlds +is garnered up. Her eyelids are heavy with the +poppy.</i></p> + +<p><i>She smiles and spins in sunlight and in shadow, +weaving robes of slumber for her mistress. She holds her shining disk on +high as a mirror for her +queen.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her song is such as the watchers sing that sit +by the couches of birth and death.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="4a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE MOON</p> + +<p>THE silvern mistress of the golden Sun,<br> + The milk-white sister to the wine-red Earth,<br> +My lord still smiles upon me, nor will shun<br> + My face for hers of younger, fairer birth.<br> +Though oft her fruitful beauty glides between<br> + And robs me of his countenance, I will<br> +Ne'er hate her, but yield up my borrowed sheen<br> + To make her hallowed nights more hallowed still.<br> +Burn then, my pale and vestal flame, make fair<br> + The nuptials of the amorous Earth with night!<br> +My sickle reaps the lurking stars in air,<br> + My argent shield hangs lucent on the height.<br> +Yet he that chafes and wounds the Earthen shores,<br> + And flees though she embrace--the yearning Sea,--<br> +Is shackled by my smiling and implores<br> + My chaster, colder kiss and mounts to me.<br> +With pearls of white enchantment I bestrew<br> + The happy realms where lovers hunt their bliss;<br> +My ray is pale as frost and soft as dew;<br> + My path is woven in snow through the abyss.</p> + +<p><i>The ambient fluid of the Winds is born, Air is born, +invisible Element, felt yet unfeeling. The fissure of the +lightning leaves it unwounded, the destroying tempest +undestroyed.</i></p> + +<p><i>It is the bath of the girdled Earth, perfumed with +balms and essences. It is the crystal shell whereunder Earth ripens like a fruit.</i></p> + +<p><i>The light Winds sing as they roll in their courses, +weaving the bland and passionate Airs into prophetic chords.</i></p> + +<p><i>The Element stirs into harmony and musters into one +universal voice:</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="5a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF AIR</p> + +<p>AGAIN I clasp the pure, the passive globe,<br> + Her delving valleys and each granite range,--<br> +The Sun and Heaven's bent azure form my robe:<br> + With me the Oceans rove, the cloudlands change.<br> +Once more the quarters of the world I part,<br> + And part those quarters 'twixt my princely sons<br> +And pennoned fowl! Let lark and eagle dart!<br> + And warbling flocks fill my dominions!<br> +Son of the South! bring perfume, nard and spice,<br> + Lade all thine amorous burdens on my gales:--<br> +Thou that the Pole-star wooest, mailed in ice,<br> + Let swarm thy snow-white bees upon these vales!<br> +O West Wind, from each rude and swooping wing<br> + Shake forth thy salty tempests, from the plains<br> +Transport me healing! Golden Orient, sing,<br> + And fan me with thy murmurous painted vanes.<br> +O whirlwinds, rash and rude! O headlong wrath<br> + Of your unbridled and cyclonic staves!<br> +Shall man yet tread you like some earthly path?<br> + Shall I, your king, wear shackles like his slaves?</p> + +<p><i>Lord of all waters, Ocean, wrapped in emerald robes, +clasps and usurps the world.</i></p> + +<p><i>The flagrant arrows of the Sun shower on his glancing +mail. The estray Winds are wanton with his locks. His +mutinous waves whisper each to each, and leap and sink.</i></p> + +<p><i>Desire irresistible roves within his heaving deeps. +Life wields a goad in every drop.</i></p> + +<p><i>He decks his floods for the face of the Moon, and +enlaces them with chains of shackled pearls and bands of foam.</i></p> + +<p><i>He sends his salty breath aloft and wreathes the Sun +with clouds. But his mists return again, falling as tears +upon his face.</i></p> + +<p><i>Inert in the profounds the blind bathybus lies. Fecundity +flings her seeds and spores into the glazed abysses, and +they teem. There is a heaving in the broken, sunless +bottoms; the continents and islands are upcast, rugged +and black, shaking the roaring Seas from their flanks.</i></p> + +<p><i>The labour and song of the Sea begin; the billows +repeat it to the lips of the infant land.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="6a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SEA</p> + +<p>FLOW, Waters! spread afar my zones of green,<br> + So I with salt baptismal waves may haunt<br> +And bathe the new-sprung continents terrene,<br> + Hearing my freshets and young rivers chaunt.<br> +O white-armed children of mine elder waves,<br> + Behold what golden lands lie in your sight!<br> +Bellow! you molten thunders, in my caves,<br> + You whales, gush forth your fountains of delight!<br> +Dance, merfolk and mad dolphins, dance the Seas,--<br> + My watery palace-halls are deep and wide,<br> +And Earth hath quaffed mine emerald wine whose lees<br> + Shall make her shores teem fertile. O'er my tide,<br> +The ermine of my surges and the flags<br> + And mews lie dense, and pearls sleep in my breast.<br> +The coral burns upon my darkest crags,<br> + And the slow, mountant atoll knows no rest.<br> +My leman fair, the charmed Moon, bends low<br> + To draw me with her webs of mute desire,<br> +And lo! beyond her magic empires glow<br> + Pale fires of sunrise and red sunset fire!</p> + +<br> +<a name="7a"></a> +<br> +<br> + + +<p>SONG OF EARTH THE ELEMENT</p> + +<p><i>Earth, the Element, mute, impassive, primal, lies +shaped to valley, plain and peak. Enwombed in her, +the ancient vast fertility lives on.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her veins are charged with promise and birth, exhaustless +quickenings of her eager flesh. She drinks from rocky +bowls where lakes lie spread, from twining rivers and +living streams.</i></p> + +<p><i>She pours her virgin vigour through fields no plow +has riven. In darkness granite-ribbed, she prisons her +mineral hoards.</i></p> + +<p><i>She lies as a garment upon the Mother-sphere; her +feet trespass on Ocean.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her heart is fretted with Fire, her flanks by the Seas, +her brows by Sun and Wind.</i></p> + +<p><i>In patience and sweet sufferance she lies, substance, +nurse and genetrix of Life.</i></p> + +<p><i>Her Song is heard, a mutter of music, low yet +coalescent in slow estrangement from her lips.</i></p> + +<p>I WAKE again!--O dauntless peaks that stand,<br> + Watch-towers to all the Heavens--O vales that lie,--<br> +See where I rise or stretch, the lusty land<br> + Checks Seas and winnows Winds and frets the sky.<br> +Deep in my vaulted heart and womb of fire,<br> + And in the domes and chambers of my breasts,<br> +The seeds of Life glow teeming--O Sun-king, sire!<br> + Arch-quickener of Existence, gild these crests;--<br> +Scatter thy warmth till harvest clothe these plains,<br> + And I shall broider me in bridal dreams,<br> +Yea, light my feast with blazonry, my veins<br> + Leap like my crystal and tellurian streams.<br> +In me bright blooms and golden fruitage blown<br> + Shall mark where errant, immortal summers creep,<br> +And man that is flesh of me, in every zone<br> + Build jewelled towns where quick and dead shall sleep.<br> +O fixed and faithful through the seasons round,<br> + The throne of Earth, her sceptre and her loom,<br> +Are mine, with mute, maternal glory crowned,<br> + In me all Life shall flower, all Death re-bloom!</p> + +<p><i>Child of the Sun, unmastered and insurgent pulse +of Life; breath of the empyrean, seraph winged with +ardours and with loveliness!</i></p> + +<p><i>Comes Fire, pontiff celestial, King of Elements, errant +angel, that basks and rejoices in his spaces.</i></p> + +<p><i>He comes and takes from darkness and cold their +undivided victories. Out of the famished sands he +leaps, out of the crater's maw.</i></p> + +<p><i>The genius of flame winds on, touching the peaks with +consecration. His red and golden nakedness is crested +with his sable clouds of hair.</i></p> + +<p><i>Upward and onward he aspires. His crimson vans +are spread against the heavens, his torches flutter, +making glorious the funerals of the day. His feet are +a scourge across the soil; his arms are lifted to the +stars.</i></p> + +<p><i>Co-eval with them he burns and sings with a thousand +tongues.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="8a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF FIRE</p> + +<p>A FETTERLESS, bright spirit, wing'd and pure,<br> + Soul from all souls of Suns in essence bred,<br> +Lo! Fire am I,--without me shall endure<br> + No Life, nor plant nor creature lift its head.<br> +In burning beards of comets red I float;<br> + I dance with lambent torches on the stars;<br> +I wash with sulphurous flame the roaring throat<br> + Of peaks, and blaze beneath the thunder's cars.<br> +Master of Earth am I;--on her my will<br> + I stamp, and with fierce searing kisses press<br> +My passion on her naked flesh and thrill<br> + Her hidden veins with rapture. My caress<br> +Is lustral. In her lovers' hearts I creep<br> + And tip with fateful coals the prophet's tongue;<br> +God-like from lips of poets I sing and leap,--<br> + I the eternal fair, the eternal young!<br> +And none shall conquer me save they who call<br> + My strength to sovereign toil in craft or strife;<br> +With me shall tribes of men hold festival,--<br> + Cities and realms shall find me Death or Life.</p> + +<p><i>Repossessed of their ancient heritage, the four +conqueror Elements sit on their dowered spheres.</i></p> + +<p><i>Wind, Ember, Current, conscious Earth, the eternal +weavers and toilers, labour in felicity.</i></p> + +<p><i>Chaos and Night and Death are disenthroned. The +system burns along its orbits through the dark. The +benisons of the stars and suns are cast upon these +youngest worlds.</i></p> + +<p><i>Buoyant and blithe the planets wheel.</i></p> + +<p><i>Their year-long arcs and each season's ordained +processional are portioned unto them: their vassal moons +also and the speed of their turning and their measure +of night and day.</i></p> + +<p><i>The ruddy jocund Earth presses close to the Sun, +timorous of the outer void, baring her bosom to his kiss.</i></p> + +<p><i>Has not the inevitable and recurrent Spring of +Existence come unto her once again? The iron shackles +of Silence--are they not broken?--the granite of the +Night, is it not crumbled low?--the +ice of Death, is it not molten?</i></p> + +<p><i>She blooms in her resurrection; her voice is lifted in +the universal litany to Life. She rolls in her golden +garniture of beams, circling with the singing sister-spheres. +Her rondure floats against the distant cohorts +of the constellations.</i></p> + +<p><i>The ancient Spirit of Chaos swings her pitchy cressets, +and sinks down the starless deep on her tall catafalque +of Death.</i></p> + +<p><i>Rejoice, O orb vestured in beauty! Put forth thy +wings, thy coronals of Love, wrap thee with fluctuant +Winds and exulting Seas!</i></p> + +<p><i>Shall thy offspring feel dismay, knowing what light +shall burst from dark, what life leap from Death, what +flowers blow from dust?</i></p> + +<p><i>So the anointed and belted spheres, re-risen from their bath of silence and +their sleep of time, move on companioned with eternal hope.</i></p> + +<p><i>The fingers of the Sun stroke forth a glorious strain; +the worlds are shawns and cymbals for his minstrelsy. +The Spirit of Creation pours forth her victorious +baptismal harmonies.</i></p> + +<p><i>Triumphantly her music daunts the firmament and +echoes against the dusks of the Unapproachable.</i></p> + +<br> +<a name="9a"></a> +<br> +<br> + +<p>SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CREATION</p> + +<p>ONCE more the soft, terraqueous chaunt I hear<br> + In choral, and the nuptial planet-dance<br> +I mark. With puissant sceptre o'er each sphere,<br> + Life thrones in music and in wonder's trance.<br> +Hail! vessels solar and terrestrial, hail!<br> + Whose prows shall cross the dim, celestial bars<br> +With helm sidereal and cloudy sail,<br> + Bannered with youth and lanterned with the stars.<br> +What fates for ballast? by what voices grim<br> + And laughters urged, your astral course I mark,--<br> +Warped to what ports remote your hulks shall swim<br> + Or anchor silent in what stagnant dark?<br> +Mine arms have raised you from the cosmic deep;<br> + Now Fire hath sprent his jewelled drops and sown<br> +Marvellous seeds whence beauty's plants shall creep<br> + Season to season weaving, zone to zone.<br> +Now sacerdotal Love shall shape and dye<br> + His forms within the house of joy and tears,<br> +And Birth shall bless and Death shall sanctify<br> + Earth's passion and her pageant through the years.</p> + +<p><i>Down the everlasting, unchangeable cope the hymnal +of Life is reft away.</i></p> + +<p><i>But its music is showered over Earth.</i></p> + +<p><i>It is prisoned in the sea-shells; the flowers garner +it in their chalices.</i></p> + +<p><i>It stirs in the heart of Man.</i></p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Masque of the Elements, by Herman Scheffauer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASQUE OF THE ELEMENTS *** + +***** This file should be named 26675-h.htm or 26675-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/6/7/26675/ + +Produced by Ruth Hart + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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