Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
she might glorify my eyes with her presence. “For,” I argued, “who can
tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this, essential
Marble—that spirit of marble which, present throughout, makes it
capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should awake! But
how to awake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach
her through the incrusting alabaster.” I kneeled, however, and kissed
the pale coffin; but she slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the
following stones—that trees should follow his music seemed nothing
surprising now. Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of
motion might for a time displace the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds
can go where kisses may not enter. I sat and thought. Now, although
always delighting in music, I had never been gifted with the power of
song, until I entered the fairy forest. I had a voice, and I had a true
sense of sound; but when I tried to sing, the one would not content the
other, and so I remained silent. This morning, however, I had found
myself, ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song; but whether it was before
or after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, I could not satisfy
myself. I concluded it was after, however; and that the increased
impulse to sing I now felt, was in part owing to having drunk of the
little well, which shone like a brilliant eye in a corner of the cave.
I sat down on the ground by the “antenatal tomb,” leaned upon it with
my face towards the head of the figure within, and sang—the words and
tones coming together, and inseparably connected, as if word and tone
formed one thing; or, as if each word could be uttered only in that
tone, and was incapable of distinction from it, except in idea, by an
acute analysis. I sang something like this: but the words are only a
dull representation of a state whose very elevation precluded the
possibility of remembrance; and in which I presume the words really
employed were as far above these, as that state transcended this
wherein I recall it:
“Marble woman, vainly sleeping
In the very death of dreams!
Wilt thou—slumber from thee sweeping,
All but what with vision teems—
Hear my voice come through the golden
Mist of memory and hope;
And with shadowy smile embolden
Me with primal Death to cope?
“Thee the sculptors all pursuing,
Have embodied but their own;
Round their visions, form enduring,
Marble vestments thou hast thrown;
But thyself, in silence winding,
Thou hast kept eternally;
Thee they found not, many finding—
I have found thee: wake for me.”
As I sang, I looked earnestly at the face so vaguely revealed before
me. I fancied, yet believed it to be but fancy, that through the dim
veil of the alabaster, I saw a motion of the head as if caused by a
sinking sigh. I gazed more earnestly, and concluded that it was but
fancy. Neverthless I could not help singing again—
“Rest is now filled full of beauty,
And can give thee up, I ween;
Come thou forth, for other duty
Motion pineth for her queen.
“Or, if needing years to wake thee
From thy slumbrous solitudes,
Come, sleep-walking, and betake thee
To the friendly, sleeping woods.
Sweeter dreams are in the forest,
Round thee storms would never rave;
And when need of rest is sorest,
Glide thou then into thy cave.
“Or, if still thou choosest rather
Marble, be its spell on me;
Let thy slumber round me gather,
Let another dream with thee!”
Again I paused, and gazed through the stony shroud, as if, by very
force of penetrative sight, I would clear every lineament of the lovely
face. And now I thought the hand that had lain under the cheek, had
slipped a little downward. But then I could not be sure that I had at
first observed its position accurately. So I sang again; for the
longing had grown into a passionate need of seeing her alive—
“Or art thou Death, O woman? for since I
Have set me singing by thy side,
Life hath forsook the upper sky,
And all the outer world hath died.
“Yea, I am dead; for thou hast drawn
My life all downward unto thee.
Dead moon of love! let twilight dawn:
Awake! and let the darkness flee.
“Cold lady of the lovely stone!
Awake! or I shall perish here;
And thou be never more alone,
My form and I for ages near.
“But words are vain; reject them all—
They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
The voiceless longing of my heart.”
There arose a slightly crashing sound. Like a sudden apparition that
comes and is gone, a white form, veiled in a light robe of whiteness,
burst upwards from the stone, stood, glided forth, and gleamed away
towards the woods. For I followed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as
the amazement and concentration of delight permitted the nerves of
motion again to act; and saw the white form amidst the trees, as it
crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest where the sunlight
fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one object
that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams. I gazed
after her in a kind of despair; found, freed, lost! It seemed useless
to follow, yet follow I must. I marked the direction she took; and
without once looking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the
forest.
CHAPTER VI
“Ah, let a man beware, when his wishes, fulfilled, rain down
upon him, and his happiness is unbounded.”
—FOUQUÉ, _Der Zauberring_.
“Thy red lips, like worms,
Travel over my cheek.”
—MOTHERWELL.
But as I crossed the space between the foot of the hill and the forest,
a vision of another kind delayed my steps. Through an opening to the
westward flowed, like a stream, the rays of the setting sun, and
overflowed with a ruddy splendour the open space where I was. And
riding as it were down this stream towards me, came a horseman in what
appeared red armour. From frontlet to tail, the horse likewise shone
red in the sunset. I felt as if I must have seen the knight before; but
as he drew near, I could recall no feature of his countenance. Ere he
came up to me, however, I remembered the legend of Sir Percival in the
rusty armour, which I had left unfinished in the old book in the
cottage: it was of Sir Percival that he reminded me. And no wonder; for
when he came close up to me, I saw that, from crest to heel, the whole
surface of his armour was covered with a light rust. The golden spurs
shone, but the iron greaves glowed in the sunlight. The _morning star_,
which hung from his wrist, glittered and glowed with its silver and
bronze. His whole appearance was terrible; but his face did not answer
to this appearance. It was sad, even to gloominess; and something of
shame seemed to cover it. Yet it was noble and high, though thus
beclouded; and the form looked lofty, although the head drooped, and
the whole frame was bowed as with an inward grief. The horse seemed to
share in his master’s dejection, and walked spiritless and slow. I
noticed, too, that the white plume on his helmet was discoloured and
drooping. “He has fallen in a joust with spears,” I said to myself;
“yet it becomes not a noble knight to be conquered in spirit because
his body hath fallen.” He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding
past without looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment
the first sound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame,
covered all of his face that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned
my greeting with distant courtesy, and passed on. But suddenly, he
reined up, sat a moment still, and then turning his horse, rode back to
where I stood looking after him.
“I am ashamed,” he said, “to appear a knight, and in such a guise; but
it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the same evil,
in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast
thou ever read the story of Sir Percival and the”—(here he shuddered,
that his armour rang)—“Maiden of the Alder-tree?”
“In part, I have,” said I; “for yesterday, at the entrance of this
forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded.”
“Then take heed,” he rejoined; “for, see my armour—I put it off; and as
it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proud am humble
now. Yet is she terribly beautiful—beware. Never,” he added, raising
his head, “shall this armour be furbished, but by the blows of knightly
encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every spot where
the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers, or noble foes, might fall; when
I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, ‘Do thy duty once
more, and make this armour shine.’”
Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and
galloped away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armour. For I
called after him, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress;
but in vain—he heard me not. “Yet,” I said to myself, “I have now been
often warned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully
resolved I shall not be ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful.
Doubtless, some one man may escape, and I shall be he.” So I went on
into the wood, still hoping to find, in some one of its mysterious
recesses, my lost lady of the marble. The sunny afternoon died into the
loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit about with their own
noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its objects are
unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected
quarters in the half-darkness around me. The glow-worm was alight here
and there, burning out into the great universe. The night-hawk
heightened all the harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring,
discordant jar. Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk;
but all were of twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed
atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing. The odours of night
arose, and bathed me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them,
as if the plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone
tears. Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down
and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in
a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose about
me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and
twigs, and leaves—the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with
its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and
dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed
my path; great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the
earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. It seemed an old, old
forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures. And when, in the midst of
this ecstacy, I remembered that under some close canopy of leaves, by
some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy well, sat
the lady of the marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer
world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a
twilight which would veil her confusion, the whole night became one
dream-realm of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present,
although unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called
her from the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of
alabaster—“Why,” thought I, “should not my voice reach her now, through
the ebon night that inwraps her.” My voice burst into song so
spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily.
“Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on Thee,
Queen of Night!
Every tree,
O’ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still’d,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.
“Let no moon
Creep up the heaven to-night;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light—
Grope for thee!
“Darker grow