THE FALL OF THE FAIRIES.

———

BY HENRY B. HIRST.

———

The night was clear and cool and calm,

The evening wind, exhaling balm

From spicy Caribbean isles,

Perfumed the forest’s deep defiles.

The mournful sister Pleiades

Arose from oriental seas;

Lyra no more, as once, in old,

Shook harmony from her harp of gold.

Silence, like God, was every where:

There was no sound in earth or air:

An omnipresent quietude

Reposed on field and flood and wood.

Serenely calm, the waning moon

Rose, dreaming of the nights of June,

And silently, from weeping eyes,

Shed tears of silver down the skies.

She seemed to walk her pilgrimage

Like one who, in the frosts of age,

Totters on toward the Holy Land,

Impelled by some pale phantom hand.

Wan August in extremis lay:

He knew that the approaching day

Consigned him to the solemn tomb

Which yawned upon him through the gloom.

The summer flowers were on their wane;

And silently, like one in pain,

Who hides his pangs from loving eyes,

The brooks looked calmly toward the skies.

A little circle in a wood—

The heart of the old solitude—

Lay wrapped in something more than sleep—

A boding silence, stern and deep.

Suddenly, from a distant bell,

Ten several sounds fell, like a knell,

And like a sigh (which was despair)

A shudder thrilled the tremulous air.

The leaves fell rustling from the trees,

The grasses shivered in the breeze,

As Saturn, with complacent eye,

Walked coldly up the central sky.

Slowly among the quivering limbs

Come hollow moons, like funeral hymns;

The trees, aroused from slumber, wail

Before the occidental gale.

The clouds, in horror, hurry by;

Unusual darkness drowns the sky;

The moon moves with suspended breath,

Like one who dreads the approach of death.

The stars expire, the moon grows dim,

The wind has ceased to be a hymn,

And through the arches of the wood

Roars, like a lion scenting blood.

Above the wind, whose surging sound

The brazen tumult almost drowned,

Pealing and ringing as it passed,

A clarion’s clamor filled the blast.

Along the earth, among the elms

Who shook and clanged their hoary helms,

And waved their arms in wild despite,

Again that summons filled the night.

Up, piercing space, again it rung

Where fair-haired Lyra sat and sung

Like Sappho, in a passionate trance,

Stunning her with its dissonance.

The little vista of the wood

Suddenly in the darkness stood

Flushed with a wild, unusual light,

Which filled the filmy eyes of night.

From oak and elm, from beech and larch,

That crowned the vista, like an arch,

Between whose leaves, like frowning eyes,

Came glimpses of the gloomy skies;

From Asia’s sultry hills and vales,

From far Topróbanè’s dells and dales,

From Ganges’ source, from Niger’s side,

And turbid Nile’s eternal tide;

From England’s fields, from Scotland’s glens,

From Ireland’s mosses, bogs and fens;

From sunny France, from swarthy Spain,

As if the skies shed golden rain,

Flashing, like streams of falling stars,

A myriad million minim Lars,

With terror painted on each face,

Stood, shuddering in that solemn place.

And from the farthest sphere of even,

From every sun (whose name is heaven,

And whose inhabitants are kings,)

Was heard the rushing of their wings.

Some stood attired in elfin steel,

With sword on hip, and spur at heel,

And crimson cheeks, and brows aflame;

Some in long, flowing garments came,—

Sages, whose sunken eyes had caught

From ceaseless study quenchless thought—

Maidens, with timid, trembling lips,

Their beauties purple with eclipse;

Mothers, within whose matron eyes

Dwelt all the depth of tropic skies,

Clasping their offspring, as the rose

Enfolds its heart at evening close.

Some stood alone, with drooping wings;

Some gathered here and there in rings,

But each one felt, though far apart,

The beating of his neighbor’s heart.

And each one, with a sad surmise,

Gazed wistfully in his fellow’s eyes,

And turned, and doubtfully bowed his head,

Despairing at the lore he read.

Each seemed to wonder why that hour

Beheld them in that ancient bower,

Where tree, and leaf, and grass, and stone,

Spoke audibly of ages gone.

Where shining, ghostly, through the trees,

Were idols, fern-clad to the knees,

And scattered round, in pale decay,

The ruins of old temples lay.

Altars of many a mythic age,

Forgotten even on history’s page,

With sacrificial knife and brand,

Arose, like tombs, on either hand.

And each one seemed to ask, though not

A word disturbed that haunted spot,

For some one, who, with eye of lynx,

Would read this riddle of the Sphynx;

And with oracular voice and air

Declare why they were summoned there—

Why called from worlds that felt no flood

To tremble in that ancient wood—

That wood which from the birth of time

Had gone on growing, through the chime

Of falling spheres,—a Druid sage,

Unwearied with life’s pilgrimage.

While standing thus in mute amaze,

Sadly, along the forest ways

Came slowly toward the appointed place

The Fathers of the Fairy Race.

And as, by sacred instinct urged,

From gloom to light their forms emerged,

It seemed as if unnumbered years

Of elfin lore had made them seers.

And each one seemed to walk the sod,

Clothed in his wisdom, like a god;

But in his step, and in his air,

Were mingled terror and despair.

Even as they came, the distant bell

Again proclaimed its solemn knell;

Eleven deep sounds, which, one by one,

Through every shuddering bosom run.

The night grew light, and on the skies

Each one in wonder fixed his eyes,

And saw, encircled with his rays,

Cold Saturn, like a comet, blaze.

Saturn, who on the zenith stood,

Freezing, it seemed, their very blood;

So cold, so thin it grew, they shook

As if by sudden palsy strook.

Each gazed in terror on the other;

Sister sought sister—brother brother—

But over all had come a strange,

Unprecedented—horrid change.

A moment did the work of years;

And gazing through their blinding tears,

They felt that centuries had passed

Since they saw one another last—

That what was youth was wrinkled age,

Sere, hoary, palsied, trembling age:

The very babe, so great the charm,

Grew gray upon its mother’s arm.

Suddenly, on the gloom of night,

Leaving a trail of silvery light,

Six coursers, with disheveled hair,

Swept madly through the fields of air.

Their argent manes, in separate threads,

Streamed from their bony necks and heads;

The crooked lightnings of their eyes

Flashed fitfully athwart the skies;

Behind a sparkling chariot shone,

Burning with many a precious stone

And flaming on the eyes of all—

A planet trembling to its fall!

Erect, while sobbing, at his side

Reclined his once immortal bride,

Sat Oberon, with pallid brow,

And tresses white as winter’s snow.

Pale Hecatè, peering from a cloud—

A maiden, lying in her shroud—

Less pale were than the Fairy Queen,

Less cold, less motionless of mien.

Heart-broken Titania, wan with age,

Leant feebly on her Indian page,

Looking as if all hope was gone;—

Than even Death himself more wan.

“Subjects,” said Oberon, “gentle friends,

This night our long dominion ends;

Stern Saturn, with his stony eyes,

Smiles grimly on his sacrifice.”

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

And as he spoke, above his head

In masses rolled the weltering clouds;

The stars still lay within their shrouds;

Save Saturn, whose untroubled light

Almost made daylight of the night.

With groans the myriad mourners said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

“The Ideal age, the lyric strain

Expire; with them the fairy reign;

The Real comes with iron tread:—

Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

So said the king, and as he spoke

Long, heavy, rolling thunders broke

Above them, rattling through the spheres,

Whose eyes were drowned with pitying tears.

The wind arose and struck the wood;

The rain descended in a flood;

Hither and thither rushed the leaves

Along the ruined temples’ eaves.

But Saturn shone as cold and stern

As death beside a funeral urn,

Looking as though his lustre said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”

And now the storm was at its height;

The trees rolled to and fro in fright;

The lurid lightnings blazed and played

Demoniac through the eternal shade.

While far above the tempest’s plash,

Above the thunder’s deafening crash,

Twelve sounds fell, fainting, on the blast

Which rushed in eddying whirlwinds past.

Even as the last sound rent the air

A hopeless shriek of fierce despair

Shook earth and heaven! and all was calm—

Unutterably, coldly calm.

The stars came out; the moon once more

Shone bright as on its birth of yore;

Lyra alone looked down in pain:

Her golden chords were rent in twain.

But Saturn, smiling, seemed to say—

“The Ideal Age has passed away;

I have devoured my sons,” he said—

“Henceforth all poetry is dead!”