Part 4 — ELPHOLEN. A FRAGMENT.

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BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

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Where many cedars shade Igondo’s shelf,

Like towering Dukes of Edom crowned with plumes;

Where seven rivers to an awful gulf

Fall, with much foam, from Himalaya’s flooms;

And where, from Baal-Phaxi’s caverned rooms,

Through ice-arched galleries pours tumultuous Ulf,

Are built across a swarthy savage glen,

The gates which bar the land of Elpholen.

Above all mountains, clouds, and smoking isles,

From one huge base three stately hills arise;

A wall extends from them a thousand miles,

Steep and unbroken, builded to the skies,

Higher than even the gray-winged condor flies;

And compasseth, with rocks and snowy piles

A table land, both wide and wonderful,

And only by that gated pass accessible—

Crossing a frightful plain which the sun scorches,

Which plain is full of chasms and trap-dykes,

Scoriæ, cinders, and dry river gorges,

With timber petrified, basaltic spikes,

And lava-ponds, with hard, black, stony surges

We reached the shaded pass below the peaks,

And paused to hear the roar of plunging Ulf,

And the seven rivers, far within the gulf.

Up that defile, with fear and silent wonder,

We rode; our horses seemed but two small mice.

The rivers in the gulf gave forth large thunder,

And rocks, above the clouds, fell, bounding thrice,

With uproar, from the grim cliffs, cracked asunder.

Aloft, like Anakim, with helms of ice

The mountains raised their huge Plutonic shoulders,

Clothed in Titanic mail of ore and boulders.

Three Prophets of grand stature and bald brows

Sat by the gates. They were much older than

The river Nile. One of deep eyes arose

And said: “Speak unto us what manner of man

Thou art, O, hero; if of some fierce clan

Hyperborean, or of pagan Huns?”

He of the icebergs spoke with rhetoric fit

In words and figures following, to wit;

. . . . . .

The Prophet said, “Here shalt thou rest this night

While the sun sleeps in hollow Erebus;

And as the hours pass on in silent flight

All known philosophy will we discuss.

But thou, O wizard Etheuòlymus,

To Himmalaya’s broken pinnacle

Fly with this young esquire, that he may see

All kingdoms on the continent that be.”

Then, with the wizard in a flying mist,

I rose along the sides of that steep cone:

’Twas like an iron trunk of girdle vast;

The moon’s full globe upon all cities shone;

Tyre, by the waters; glimmering Ascalon;

The City of the Magians, girt with fire;

And in the East we saw those mountain ranges

Which separate the Nile from sacred Ganges.

Alas! all earthly things have been revised

Even Learning’s careful patron and Protector,

The Inquisition, is disorganized.

The world is round, and has a Radius Vector;

There’s not a ghost on duty, nor a spectre;

Sinbad is dead, and almost any loafer

Can go, in steamers, round Cape Horn to Ophir.

Then, on the blackness of the Night’s deep chasm,

The anchored earth lay, floating, like a floor:—

Beneath, the shadow and the veiled phantasm

Their local habitation had of yore;

But each veiled shadow, and each dreadful phasm

Rose with the night, above the western shore—

When, through the void, all flame and ruddy gold

The Day-god’s cavalcade, descending, rolled.

Without the continent, old Ocean’s torrent

Extended to the earth’s remotest verge:

Both jovial Tritons, and the Powers abhorrent,

Were seized of provinces upon the surge;

And from Arcturus to the Southern gorge

Black tempests bearing old Eolus’ warrant

Patrolled the seas in search of ships or steamers

Breaking the closes of the ocean emirs.

Through the dense night, archangels of strong wing,

From heaven roving, saw the earth’s vast plane—

The kingdoms of the Pole, all glimmering—

The twisted rivers, and the enfolding main—

The shining gulfs which dent the Indian chain,

And smiled to see the hollow planets swing

Above that dim abyss within whose core

Were hooked the world’s deep sunken anchors four.

Large breakers tumbling on the Arabian shoals,

With wooded regions by the Caucasian gaps—

The town of Ebony, the land of Gholes,

(Which are omitted in the modern maps)—

All these I saw; and hills with misty caps,

Where dwell the Glactophagi—blameless souls:

The wizard spoke—I was with awe oppressed:

The words like ghosts rose from his sounding chest—

“These mountains I have watched a thousand years;

And I have writ one thousand solemn books:

Who reads them shall be wise! Hell’s fiercest Peers

Have oft essayed to burst these bolted rocks;

And, under Baal-Phaxi’s deepest blocks,

Mines they have digged, and loaded, and exploded.

Yea, Mogophur, the Lord of Babylon,

Came with his captains and a countless rabble on—

“Of spearmen, chariots, and Tartarian riders,

Whose faces were the likeness of a flame,

And elephants crept through the pass like spiders,

And the whole College of Magicians came,

Who caused sharp earthquakes and much whizzing flame

By means of diagrams, and long dividers,

And thus exclaimed each iron-harnessed savage,

‘The unseen land of Elpholen we’ll ravage.’

“I did but ope one solemn book, and say:

‘O, ye Hydraulic Goblins of the mountains,

At once your tunnels, pumps, and flooms let play;

And loose old Himmalah’s rock-bound fountains.’

Then rivers of cold foam and spouting spray,

And cataracts which broke the cliffs away,

Burst from the mountains’ inner reservoirs.

’Twas very good to see those watery Druids

Destroy that haughty host, with roaring fluids!”

. . . . . .

But now, those noisy trumpeters, the Hours,

Blew the reveillé through the camps of morn:

Now storm-girt Taurus raised his icy horn,

Like blazing silver, o’er the mists and showers;

And sunlight struck the unclouded mountain towers,

Which ranged the circuit of that snowy wall:

We then rode down a chasm from the gates,

And entered Elpholen’s enchanted states.

To a wild amphitheatre we rode,

Begirt with precipices. From an astounding

Cavern in the mountain-side, there flowed

A river deep and broad; but the surrounding

Dark hollows echoed not a single sounding;

For silently it moved—we only heard

At times the plunging of some dull cascade

Far up the tunnel, like a cannonade.

Full many other rivers cross those lands,

Some, from the eternal snows come pouring;

Some, roll around the chasms, in foaming bends;

Some, through the hills, a ragged highway boring,

Rush to the valleys, with an angry roaring,

And hurry onward to the ocean sands;

But many a cataract and runlet trickles

Down from the glaciers, making huge icicles.

We moved along by wooded peaks and crags,

Carvéd with images and hieroglyphs,

Ruffling their scales and quills like golden flags,

And, pawing their odd cubs, the hippogriffs

Rolled in their nests, upon the shady cliffs;

And in the glens, both bears and royal stags,

With lazy lions, goats, and yawning leopards

Like cattle lay, and children were their shepherds.

Along through ancient forests, vast, and slumbrous,

Roes, of the mountain, grazed beside the springs,

And often rose some bird of plumage cumbrous

Unto the branches, folding his wide wings.

There, too, were tombs of certain wizard-kings—

Antediluvians of visage sombrous—

And holy men, before their moss-grown crypts,

Studied in awful Syriac manuscripts.

Beyond, there dwelleth an immortal folk,

About a stream, which to a lake enlarges:

Pine hills curve greenly round, and groves of oak,

Sometimes they rested on the river marges,

Sometimes they plowed the lake in hollow barges,

And sometimes, on the altars made sweet smoke,

Some painted pictures in their pleasant tents,

And many played on all stringed instruments.

But some rode up unto the gorgeous clouds

Around the necks of monstrous eagles clinging.

The people which do there have their abodes

Welcoméd them with flags, and wild bell-ringing;

With musical cannon from th’ embrasures flinging

Puffs of white vapor, bombs, and rattling grape:—

The Goblin-populace of Cloud-land we

Could well behold:—Ah, they a brisk folk be!

And caravans continually crossed the plains.

Camels and elephants innumerable—

With carriages, and pigmy oxen trains,

And scampering knights, in armor of black shell,

Lords, bearded patriarchs, and gay rabble,

And baggage-wagons full of chattering dames,

And mounted archers, shooting slender arrows,

Wound slowly round the curving river narrows.

But some came down the rivers on broad rafts;

With shells, and bells, and crooked bugles, waking

Numberless echoes on the rocks. The shafts

Of the forests stood, like champions unquaking,

Though many clamors, the old silence breaking,

Startled the musing Hermits. Now arose

The stars, and moon, and all the hosts of night:

We stood above a plain upon a height.

Three noble rivers, in the moonlight shining,

Sparkled from three defiles in East, and West,

And North—in silence to a blue gulf winding,

Which, by the distant mountains, lay at rest;

And there a city with a massive crest

Of turrets, overlooked that rock-bound sheet.

The rivers round it, in broad girdles pressed;

Bridges there were, and groves, and gardens meet;

And in the bay lay moored an idle fleet.

Unto that city did all people flow:

In the deep plain we saw their circular camps,

Like islands of an archipelago;

And as we looked, a belt of fiery lamps

Was wound around the crowning citadel;

Whereat each watching pilgrim said: “Full well

I know, that now within yon distant dell

The Lord of blessed Elpholen doth dwell.

“To him we will present our offering

Of fruits, and herds, and many precious ores,

Which rivers from the mountain-summits bring:—

Upon the gulf’s cool strand, and shady shores

Our ancient games we will perform long hours:

Then we will go again to our dear tribes,

And to our cattle in the pleasant meadows,

And dappled deer browsing in mountain shadows.”

That night we camped upon the sandy margent

Of an unknown sea; and when, behind sharp peaks,

The moon retired in her skiff of argent,

Then certain meteors filled the sky with streaks,

And diving, from the zenith-ridge divergent,

Through the purple heavens fell in flakes,

Which, as they struck the water, lost their light,

And grew a portion of its night.

Meanwhile we saw a corps of sentry ghosts,

Standing erect the farthest Eastern shore on,

And many thousand stars, above those coasts,

Flashed like the Arabic of a fiery Koran;

Then those great captains of the heavenly hosts,

Orion, Sirius, and Aldebóran,

On the dark field of Heaven took their stations;

And calmly wheeled the close-ranked constellations.

No outposts of the Morn marked the approach

Of the Hœlios’ chariot; no gleams, or tinges

Upon the tent of Darkness dared encroach;

But sudden brilliance pierced its dusky fringes;

Wide swung the Morning’s gates upon their hinges;

Those burning horses, and that flaming coach

Sprang out upon the ocean, through the gateway:

Night struck her tattered tent, and vanished straightway.