Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/270

234 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 sank,

Like a Silenus on an antique vase.

How long I slumber'd 't is 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 curved 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 raised

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.

Toward the altar sober-pac'd I went,

Repressing haste as too unholy there;

And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine

One ministering; and there arose a flame

When in mid-day 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

That not the quickest eye could find a grain

Of what thou now art on that pavement cold.

The sands of thy short life are spent this hour,

And no hand in the universe can turn

Thy hourglass, if these gummed leaves be burnt

Ere thou canst mount up these immortal steps.'

I heard, I look'd: two senses both at once,

So fine, so subtle, felt the tyranny

Of that fierce threat and the hard task proposed.

Prodigious seem'd the toil; the leaves were yet

Burning, when suddenly a palsied chill

Struck from the paved level up my limbs,

And was ascending quick to put cold grasp

Upon those streams that pulse beside the throat.

I shriek'd, and the sharp anguish of my shriek

Stung my own ears; I strove hard to escape

The numbness, strove to gain the lowest step.

Slow, heavy, deadly was my pace: the cold

Grew stifling, suffocating at the heart;

And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not.

One minute before death my ic'd foot touch'd

The lowest stair; and, as it touch'd, life seem'd

To pour in at the toes; I mounted up

As once fair angels on a ladder flew

From the green turf to heaven. 'Holy Power,'

Cried I, approaching near the horned shrine,

'What am I that should so be saved from death?

What am I that another death come not

To choke my utterance, sacrilegious, here?'

Then said the veiled shadow: 'Thou hast felt

What 't is to die and live again before

Thy fated hour; that thou hadst power to do so

Is thine own safety; thou hast dated on

Thy doom.' 'High Prophetess,' said I, 'purge off,