ABSTRACT
John Addington Symonds. From ‘Three Visions of Imperial Rome’, in Lyra Viginti Cordarum c. 1875. It is a night of summer: overhead Pale stars are slumbering in a liquid sky; And from the journeying moon blue splendours spread O’er breathing earth and sea’s serenity. I hear a kissing ripple on some shore Unseen, not far below me: thick and high Shoot laurel boughs above: the marble floor, Laid smooth and cool beneath, like frozen snow, Gives back no sound; as from the gilded door Furtive I steal, and with hushed footsteps slow Glide through the palace between painted wall And pillared aisle and flowering shrubs arow. Where am I? Thwart my path dim glimmerings fall From one tall narrow portal: onward still It lures me breathless through a silent hall: Still onward: sense and thought and shrinking will Are drawn by irresistible control Unto that core of light that sharp and chill Shines like the loadstar of my shuddering soul. Yet would I fain draw back: all is so dark, So ominously tranquil; and the goal To which I tend is but one tiny spark Cleaving the dreamy twilight terrible. 144What sound? Nay, quiver not! The watch dogs bark Far off in farm-yards where men slumber well. Here stillness broods; save when a cricket chirrs, Or wheeling on slant wing the black bat shrill Utters her thin sharp scream. No night wind stirs The sleeping foliage of the stately bays. Forward I venture. On warm silky furs My feet fall muffled now; and now I raise The latchet of the door that stands ajar. I enter: with a fixed and frozen gaze What is within I reckon: – near and far, Things small and great, sights terrible and strange, Alike in equal vision, on that bar Of blackness standing, with firm eyes I range. It is a narrow room: walls high and straight Enclose it: here the lights that counterchange Pale midnight shadows, scarce can penetrate The fretwork of far rafters rough with gold. The lamps are silver – Cupids love-elate Upraising cressets: phallic horns that hold Pure essences and oils. From gloom profound Shine shapes of mural gods and heroes old, Gleaming with hues auroral on the ground Of ebon blackness: Hylas, Hyacinth, And heaven-rapt Ganymede: – I know them. Crowned With lilies dew-bedrenched upon a plinth Of jasper stands Uranian Love, a god Carved out of marble for some labyrinth Of Acadèmic grove where sages trod: – Here, breathless, in his beauty-bloom, he smiled, Making more grim the ghastly solitude. Amid the chamber was a table piled With fruits and flowers. Thereon there blazed a cup, Sculptured of sardonyx, where Maenads wild With wine and laughter, shrieking, seemed to sup The blood of mangled Pentheus: it was full Of dark Falernian; the draught bubbling up From blackness into crimson, rich and cool, Glowed in the bowl untasted. Wreathes of rose, Such as the shepherd lads of Paestum pull, Circled two smaller murrhine cups: but these Were empty, and no hand the flowers had shed. Then was I ware how neath the gleaming rows Of cressets a fair ivory couch was spread: Rich Tyrian silks and gauzes hyaline Were bound with jewelled buckles to the bed: Thereon I saw a naked form supine. It was a youth from foot to forehead laid In slumber. Very white and smooth and fine Were all his limbs; and on his breast there played The lambent smiles of lamplight. But a pool Of blood beneath upon the pavement stayed. There, where blue cups of lotos-lilies cool With reeds into mosaic-wreathes were blent, The black blood grew and curdled; and the wool Whereon his cloudy curls were pillowed, sent Thick drops slow-soaking down o’er gold and gem. Yet was the raiment ruffled not nor rent. Spell-bound I crept, and closer gazed at him: And lo! from side to side his throat was gashed With some keen blade; and every goodly limb, With marks of crispéd fingers marred and lashed, Told the fierce strain of tyrannous lust that here Life’s crystal vase of youth divine had dashed. It is enough. Those glazed eyes, wide and clear; Those lips by frantic kisses bruised; that cheek Whereon foul teeth-dints blackened; the tense fear Of that white innocent forehead; – vain and weak Are words, unutterably weak and vain, To paint how madly eloquent, how meek, Were those mute signs of dire soul-shattering pain!
