Selections from the American Poets/Scene from Atalantis
SCENE FROM ATALANTIS.
Scene changes to the Ship—Leon reclining on a cushion
—to him, enter Isabel. Isa. What wraps you thus, sweet brother! why so sad,When thus, so trimly, speeds our swan-like bark.Upon the placid waters? You are sick,And in your eye a dim abstraction lies,Lacking all sense; and, as it were, at searchFor airy speculations in the deep. Leon. Why, thon art right: a speculation true,For I behold naught that may speak for it,And tell me whence it comes. Isa. What is't thou say'st? Leon. Stay but a moment! as I live, I heard itSteal by me, like the whispers of a luteFrom thy own lattice, Isabel. Isa. Heard what!What is it that thou speak'st of! Leon. A sound—a strain,Even as the softest music, heard afar,At twilight, o'er our Andalusian hills,From melancholy maiden, by me crept,But now, upon the waters. They were tonesSlight as a spirit's whisperings; and, as farAs met my sense, they had a gentle voice,Tremulous as an écho faintly made,The replication of an infant's cry,Thrown back from some rude mountain. Ian. Thou dreamest.Whence should such music come? Leon. Ay, where or whence,But from some green-haired maiden of the sea!If thou believ'st me, Isabel, 'tis true;I heard it even now, and syllabled Into familiar sounds, that conjured upMy boyhood's earliest dreams of isles, that lieIn farthest depths of ocean; girt with allOf natural wealth and splendour—jewell'd isles—Boundless in unimaginable spoils,That earth is stranger to. Isa. Thou dreamest still:Thy boyhood's legends carry thee away,Till thou forgett'st the mighty difference'Twixt those two worlds—the one, where nature toils,The other she but dreams of. Leon. I dream not:I heard it visibly to the sense, and hark!It comes again: dost thou not hear it now!List now, dear Isabel. Isa. I hear naught. Leon. Surely I marked it then; I could not dream:'Twas like the winds among a bed of reeds,And spoke a deep, heart-melancholy sound,That made me sigh when I heard it. Isa. No more!Thou art too led away by idle thoughts,Dear Leon; and, I fear me, thou dost takeToo much the colour of the passing cloud,Filling thy heart with shadowings, that misleadThy roving thoughts, already too much proneTo empty speculation. Leon. I said not wrong:My spirit trick'd me not my sense was true.I hear it now again. Far, far off, fine—So delicate, as if some spirit formWere for the first time murmuring into life,And this its first complaining. Hearken now—Nay, Isabel! thou dost not longer doubt—Thy ears are traitors if they did not feelThe music as it came by us but now. Isa. I heard a murmur truly, but so slight,A breath of the wind might make it, or a sailDrawn suddenly. Leon. Now, now, thou hast it there:Thou dost not longer question. It is there.
—to him, enter Isabel. Isa. What wraps you thus, sweet brother! why so sad,When thus, so trimly, speeds our swan-like bark.Upon the placid waters? You are sick,And in your eye a dim abstraction lies,Lacking all sense; and, as it were, at searchFor airy speculations in the deep. Leon. Why, thon art right: a speculation true,For I behold naught that may speak for it,And tell me whence it comes. Isa. What is't thou say'st? Leon. Stay but a moment! as I live, I heard itSteal by me, like the whispers of a luteFrom thy own lattice, Isabel. Isa. Heard what!What is it that thou speak'st of! Leon. A sound—a strain,Even as the softest music, heard afar,At twilight, o'er our Andalusian hills,From melancholy maiden, by me crept,But now, upon the waters. They were tonesSlight as a spirit's whisperings; and, as farAs met my sense, they had a gentle voice,Tremulous as an écho faintly made,The replication of an infant's cry,Thrown back from some rude mountain. Ian. Thou dreamest.Whence should such music come? Leon. Ay, where or whence,But from some green-haired maiden of the sea!If thou believ'st me, Isabel, 'tis true;I heard it even now, and syllabled Into familiar sounds, that conjured upMy boyhood's earliest dreams of isles, that lieIn farthest depths of ocean; girt with allOf natural wealth and splendour—jewell'd isles—Boundless in unimaginable spoils,That earth is stranger to. Isa. Thou dreamest still:Thy boyhood's legends carry thee away,Till thou forgett'st the mighty difference'Twixt those two worlds—the one, where nature toils,The other she but dreams of. Leon. I dream not:I heard it visibly to the sense, and hark!It comes again: dost thou not hear it now!List now, dear Isabel. Isa. I hear naught. Leon. Surely I marked it then; I could not dream:'Twas like the winds among a bed of reeds,And spoke a deep, heart-melancholy sound,That made me sigh when I heard it. Isa. No more!Thou art too led away by idle thoughts,Dear Leon; and, I fear me, thou dost takeToo much the colour of the passing cloud,Filling thy heart with shadowings, that misleadThy roving thoughts, already too much proneTo empty speculation. Leon. I said not wrong:My spirit trick'd me not my sense was true.I hear it now again. Far, far off, fine—So delicate, as if some spirit formWere for the first time murmuring into life,And this its first complaining. Hearken now—Nay, Isabel! thou dost not longer doubt—Thy ears are traitors if they did not feelThe music as it came by us but now. Isa. I heard a murmur truly, but so slight,A breath of the wind might make it, or a sailDrawn suddenly. Leon. Now, now, thou hast it there:Thou dost not longer question. It is there.
Spirit sings.
O'er the wide world of ocean My home is afar,Beyond its commotion, I laugh at its war;Yet by destiny bidden, I cannot deny,All night I have ridden From my home in the sky.
In the billow before thee My form is conceal'd,In the breath that comes o'er thee My thought is reveal'd;Strown thickly beneath me The coral rocks grow,And the waves that enwreath me Are working thee we.
Leon. Did'st hear the strain it utter'd, Isabel? Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not? Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;For, by the chart which now before me lies,Thy own impractised eye may well discernThe wide extent of the ocean—shoreless all.The land, for many a league, to th' eastward hangs,And not a point beside it. Isa. Wherefore, then,Should come this voice of warning? Leon. From the deep:It hath its demons as the earth and air,All tributaries to the master-fiendThat sets their springs in motion. This is one,That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,So to divert our course, that we may strikeThe very rocks be fain would warn us from. Isa. A subtle sprite and, now I think of it,Dost thou remember the old story toldBy Diaz Ortis, the lame mariner,Of an adventure in the Indian Seas,Where he made one with John of Portugal,Touching a woman of the ocean wave,That swam beside the barque, and sang strange songsOf riches in the waters; with a speechSo winning on the senses, that the crewGrew all infected with the melody;And, but for a good father of the church,Who made the sign of the cross, and offer'd upBefitting pray'rs, which drove the fiend away,They had been tempted by her cunning voiceTo leap into the ocean. Leon. I do, I do!And, at the time, I do remember me,I made much mirth of the extravagant tale,As a deceit of the reason: the old manBeing in his second childhood, and at fitsWild, as you know, on other themes than this. Isa. I never more shalt mock at marvellous things,Such strange conceits hath after-time found true,That once were themes for jest. I shall not smileAt the most monstrous legend. Leon. Nor will I:To any tale of mighty wondermentI shall bestow my ear, nor wonder more;And every fancy that my childhood bred,In vagrant dreams of frolic, I shall lookTo have, without rebuke, my sense approve.Thus, like a little island in the sea,Girt in by perilous waters, and unknownTo all adventure, may be yon same cloud,Specking, with fleecy bosom, the blue sky,Lit by the rising moon. There we may dream,And find no censure in an after day—Throng the assembled fairies, perch'd on beams,And riding on their way triumphantly. There gather the coy spirits. Many a fay,Roving the silver sands of that same isle,Floating in azure ether, plumes her wingOf ever-frolicsome fancy, and pursues—While myriads, like herself, do watch the chase—Some truant sylph, through the infinitudeOf their uncircumscribed and rich domain.There sport they through the night, with mimicryOf strife and battle; striking their tiny shieldsAnd gathering into combat; meeting fierce,With lip compress'd and spear aloft, and eyeGlaring with fight and desperate circumstance;Then sudden—in a moment all their wrath,Mellow'd to friendly terms of courtesy—Throwing aside the dread array, and linked,Each, in his foe's embrace. Then comes the dance,The grateful route, the wild and musical pomp,The long procession o'er fantastic realmsOf cloud and moonbeam, through th' enamoured night,Making it all one revel. Thus the eye,Breathed on by fancy, with enlarged scope,Through the protracted and deep hush of nightMay note the fairies, coursing the lazy hoursIn various changes and without fatigue.A fickle race, who tell their time by flow'rs,And live on zephyrs, and have stars for lamps,And night-dews for ambrosia; perch'd on beams,Speeding through space, even with the scattering lightOn which they feed and frolic. Isa. A sweet dream:And yet, since this same tale we laughed at once,The story of old Ortis, is made sooth—Perchance not all a dream. I will not doubt. Leon. And yet there may be, dress'd in subtle guiseOf unsuspected art, some gay deceitOf human conjuration mix'd with this.Some cunning seaman having natural skill—As, from the books, we learn may yet be done—Hath 'yond our vessel's figure pitched his voice,Leading us wantonly. Isa. It is not so,Or does my sense deceive! Look there: the waveA perch beyond our barque. What dost thou see? Leon. A marvellous shape, that with the billow curls,In gambols of the deep, and yet is notIts wonted burden; for beneath the wavesI mark a gracious form, though nothing clearOf visage I discern. Again it speaks.