The Palace of Art

I built my soul a lordly pleasurehouse, 2Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, "Oh Soul, make merry and carouse, 3Dear Soul, for all is well.

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnished brass, ⁠2I chose, whose rangèd ramparts bright From great broad meadowbases of deep grass ⁠3Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf ⁠2The rock rose clear, or winding stair. My soul would live alone unto herself ⁠3In her high palace there.

"While the world runs round and round," I said, ⁠2"Reign thou apart, a quiet king; Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade ⁠3Sleeps on his luminous ring.

"And richly feast within thy palacehall, 2Like to the dainty bird that sups, Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial, 3Draining the honeycups."

To which my soul made answer readily. ⁠2"Trust me, in bliss I shall abide In this great mansion that is built for me ⁠3So royalrich and wide."

Full of long-sounding corridors it was ⁠2That overvaulted grateful glooms, Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass 3Ending in stately rooms.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, ⁠2All various, all beautiful, Looking all ways, fitted to every mood ⁠3And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue ⁠2Showing a gaudy summer morn, Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew ⁠3His wreathèd buglehorn.

One showed an English home—gray twilight poured ⁠2On dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep—all things in order stored— ⁠3A haunt of ancient Peace.

Some were all dark and red, glimmering land ⁠2Lit with a low large moon, Among brown rocks a man upon the sand 3Went weeping all alone.

One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags. 2Below sunsmitten icy spires Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags, 3Deeptrenched with thunderfires.

Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers, 2Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers 3Trellised with bunchy vine.

Or the maidmother by a crucifix, 2In yellow pastures sunnywarm, Beneath branchwork of costly sardonyx, 3Sat smiling, babe in arm.

Or Venus in a snowy shell alone, 2Deepshadowed in the glassy brine, Moonlike glowed double on the blue, and shone 3A naked shape divine.

Or in a clearwalled city on the sea, 2Near gilded organpipes (her hair Wound with white roses) slept Saint Cecily; 3An angel looked at her.

Or that deepwounded child of Pendragon 2Mid misty woods on sloping greens Dozed in the valley of Avilion, 3Tended by crownèd queens.

Or blue-eyed Kriemhilt from a craggy hold, 2Athwart the lightgreen rows of vine. Poured blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold, 3Down to the gulfy Rhine.

Europa's scarf blew in an arch, unclasped, 2From her bare shoulder backward borne; From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped 3The mild bull's golden horn.

He thro' the streaming crystal swam, and rolled 2Ambrosial breaths that seemed to float In lightwreathed curls. She from the ripple cold 3Updrew her sandalled foot.

Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh 2Half-buried in the eagle's down, Sole, as a flying star, shot thro' the sky 3Over the pillared town.

Not these alone: but many a legend fair, 2Which the supreme Caucasian mind Carved out of nature for itself, was there 3Broidered in screen and blind.

So that my soul beholding in her pride 2All these, from room to room did pass; And all things that she saw, she multiplied, 3A manyfacèd glass;

And, being both the sower and the seed, 2Remaining in herself became All that she saw, Madonna, Ganymede, 3Or the Asiatic dame—

Still changing, as a lighthouse in the night 2Changeth athwart the gleaming main, From red to yellow, yellow to pale white, 3Then back to red again.

"From change to change four times within the womb 2The brain is moulded," she began, "So thro' all phases of all thought I come 3Into the perfect man.

"All nature widens upward: evermore 2The simpler essence lower lies. More complex is more perfect, owning more 3Discourse, more widely wise.

"I take possession of men's minds and deeds. 2I live in all things great and small. I dwell apart, holding no forms of creeds, 3But contemplating all."

Four ample courts there were, East, West, South, North, 2In each a squarèd lawn wherefrom A golden-gorgèd dragon spouted forth 3The fountain's diamond foam.

All round the cool green courts there ran a row 2Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow 3Of spouted fountain floods.

From those four jets four currents in one swell 2Over the black rock streamed below In steamy folds, that, floating as they fell, 3Lit up a torrentbow;

And round the roofs ran gilded galleries 2That gave large view to distant lands, Tall towns and mounds, and close beneath the skies 3Long lines of amber sands.

Huge incense-urns along the balustrade, 2Hollowed of solid amethyst, Each with a different odour fuming, made 3The air a silver mist.

Far-off 'twas wonderful to look upon 2Those sumptuous towers between the gleam Of that great foambow trembling in the sun, 3And the argent incense-steam;

And round the terraces and round the walls, 2While day sank lower or rose higher, To see those rails with all their knobs and balls, 3Burn like a fringe of fire.

Likewise the deepset windows, stained and traced, 2Burned, like slowflaming crimson fires, From shadowed grots of arches interlaced, 3And topped with frostlike spires.

Up in the towers I placed great bells that swung 2Moved of themselves with silver sound: And with choice paintings of wise men I hung 3The royal daïs round.

There deephaired Milton like an angel tall 2Stood limnèd, Shakspeare bland and mild, Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall 3The hald blind Homer smiled.

And underneath freshcarved in cedarwood, 2Somewhat alike in form and face, The Genii of every climate stood, 3All brothers of one race:

Angels who sway the seasons by their art, 2And mould all shapes in earth and sea; And with great effort build the human heart 3From earliest infancy.

And in the sunpierced Oriel's coloured flame 2Immortal Michael Angelo Looked down, bold Luther, largebrowed Verulam, 3The king of those who know.

Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon, 2Robed David touching holy strings, The Halicarnasseän, and alone, 3Alfred the flower of kings,

Isaïah with fierce Ezekiel, 2Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea, Plato, Petrarca, Livy, and Raphaël, 3And eastern Confutzee:

And many more, that in their lifetime were 2Fullwelling fountainheads of Change, Between the stone shafts glimmered, blazoned fair 3In divers raiment strange.

Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, 2Flushed in her temples and her eyes, And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew 3Rivers of melodies.

No nightingale delighteth to prolong 2Her low preamble all alone, More than my soul to hear her echoed song 3Throb thro' the ribbèd stone.

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth 2Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over nature, lord o' the visible earth, 3Lord of the senses five—

As some rich tropic mountain, that infolds 2All change, from flats of scattered palms Sloping thro' five great zones of climate, holds 3His head in snows and calms—

Full of her own delight and nothing else, 2My vainglorious, gorgeous soul Sat throned between the shining oriels, 3In pomp beyond control;

With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twine 2Of gold, upheapèd, crushing down Muskscented blooms—all taste—grape, gourd or pine— 3In bunch, or singlegrown—

Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heats 2Make out of crimson blossoms deep, Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweets 3Sunchanged, when seawinds sleep.

With graceful chalices of curious wine, 2Wonders of art—and costly jars, And bossèd salvers. Ere young night divine 3Crowned dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils, 2She lit white streams of dazzling gas, And soft and fragrant flames of precious oils 3In moons of purple glass

Ranged on the fretted woodwork to the ground. 2Thus her intense untold delight, In deep or vivid colour, smell and sound, 3Was flattered day and night.

Sometimes the riddle of the painful earth Flashed thro' her as she sat alone, Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne

Of fullsphered contemplation. So three years She throve, but on the fourth she fell, Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Struck thro' with pangs of hell.

Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies 2Shuddered with silent stars, she clomb, And as with optic glasses her keen eyes 3Pierced thro' the mystic dome,

Regions of lucid matter taking forms, 2Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms 3Of suns, and starry streams.

She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, 2That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars 3Whereof the one more bright

Is circled by the other, &c.

Lest she should fail and perish utterly, 2God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of Personality, 3Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, wheree'er she turned her sight 2The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite 3The kingdom of her thought.

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude 2Fell on her, from which mood was born Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood 3Laughter at her selfscorn.

"Who hath drawn dry the fountains of delight, 2That from my deep heart everywhere Moved in my blood and dwelt, as power and might 3Abode in Sampson's hair?

"What, is not this my place of strength," she said, 2"My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundationstones were laid 3Since my first memory?"

But in dark corners of her palace stood 2Uncertain shapes, and unawares On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood 3And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, 2And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she came 3That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light 2Or power of movement, seemed my soul, Mid downward-sloping motions infinite 3Making for one sure goal.

A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand, 2Left on the shore, that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land 3Their moonled waters white.

A star that with the choral starry dance 2Joined not, but stood, and standing saw The hollow orb of moving Circumstance 3Rolled round by one fixed law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curled. 2"No voice," she shrieked in that lone hall, "No voice breaks through the stillness of this world— 3"One deep, deep silence all."

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, 2Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exilèd from eternal God, 3Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally, 2And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, 3No comfort anywhere;

Remaining utterly confused with fears, 2And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, 3And all alone in crime;

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round 2With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seemed to hear the dully sound 3Of human footsteps fall.

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, 2In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moonrise hears the low 3Moan of an unknown sea,

And knows not if it be thunder or the sound 2Of stones thrown down, or one deep cry Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found 3A new land, but I die."

She howled aloud "I am on fire within. 2There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin 3Dying the death I die?"

So when four years were wholly finishèd, 2She threw her royal robes away. "Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, 3"Where I may mourn and pray.

"Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 2So lightly, beautifully built: Perchance I may return with others there 3When I have purged my guilt."