To? that eternal domed monument. compared to
Upon the marble at my feet there lay
Store of strange vessels, and large draperies,
Which needs had been of dyed asbestus wove,
75 Or in that place the moth could not corrupt,9
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,
so Girdles, and chains, and holy jewelries.1
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
85 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,
5. The drink puts the poet to sleep and effects the of the period's Gothic novels. dream within a dream that constitutes the remain-8. An elderly satyr, usually represented as drunk. der of the fragment. 9. Matthew 6.20: 'Lay up for yourselves treasures 6. A council of caliphs, Muslim rulers, who plot in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corto kill each other with a poisonous drink ('elixir'). rupt.' 7. The College of Cardinals. This scenario of poi-1. Offerings to the gods were spread on the floor soning, like the preceding Orientalist reference to of Greek temples. intrigue among the caliphs, recalls a stock setting
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93 0 / JOHN KEATS
90 To be approach'd on either side by steps, And marble balustrade,0 and patient travail banister To count with toil the innumerable degrees. Towards the altar sober-pac'd I went, Repressing haste, as too unholy there;
95 And, coming nearer, saw beside the shrine One minist'ring;2 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,
ioo 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 Maian3 incense, spread around Forgetfulness of every thing but bliss,
105 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,4 die on that marble where thou art. Thy flesh, near cousin to the common dust, no 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, 115 And no hand in the universe can turn Thy hour glass, if these gummed0 leaves be burnt aromatic 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 120 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 125 Upon those streams0 that pulse beside the throat: arteries 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 130 Grew stifling, suffocating, at the heart; And when I clasp'd my hands I felt them not. One minute before death, my iced foot touch'd The lowest stair; and as it touch'd, life seem'd To pour in at the toes: I mounted up, 135 As once fair angels on a ladder flew From the green turf to heaven.5?'Holy Power,' Cried I, approaching near the horned shrine,6
2. Who identifies herself in line 226 as Moneta. torio. 3. Maia was one of the Pleiades, a daughter of 5. The ladder by which, in a dream, Jacob saw Atlas and (by Zeus) the mother of Hermes. She was angels passing between heaven and Earth (Genesis the goddess of the month of May. 28.12 and Paradise Lost 3.510-15). 4. These steps that the poet must ascend were 6. As, e.g., in Exodus 27.2, 'And thou shalt make probably suggested by the stairs going up the steep the horns of [the altar] upon the four corners side of the purgatorial Mount in Dante's Pnrga-thereof.' In his description of the temple and
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THE FALL OF HYPERION / 93 1
'What am I that should so be sav'd from death? What am I that another death come not
140 To choak my utterance sacrilegious here?' Then said the veiled shadow?'Thou hast felt What 'tis to die and live again before Thy fated hour. That thou hadst power to do so Is thy own safety; thou hast dated on
145 Thy doom.'7?'High Prophetess,' said I, 'purge off Benign, if so it please thee, my mind's film.'8 'None can usurp this height,' return'd that shade, 'But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest.
150 All else who find a haven in the world,
Where they may thoughtless sleep away their days, If by a chance into this fane? they come, temple Rot on
