| THE VAULT. | 5 |
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SO by the unseen comforted, raised I my head in obedience,
And in a vault I found myself placed, arch’d over on all sides.
Narrow and low was that house of the dead. Around it were coffins,
Each in its niche, and palls, and urns, and funeral hatchments;
Velvets of Tyrian dye, retaining their hues unfaded;
Blazonry vivid still, as if fresh from the touch of the limner;
Nor was the golden fringe, nor the golden broidery tarnish’d.
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Whence came the light whereby that place of death was discover’d?
For there was there no lamp, whose wonderous flame inextinguish’d,
As with a vital power endued, renewing its substance,
Age after age unchanged, endureth in self-subsistence:
Nor did the cheerful beam of day, direct or reflected,
Penetrate there. That low and subterranean chamber
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| 6 | THE VAULT. |
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Saw not the living ray, nor felt the breeze; but for ever
Closely immured, was seal’d in perpetual silence and darkness.
Whence then this lovely light, calm, pure, and soft, and cerulean,
Such as the sapphire sheds? And whence this air that infuses
Strength while I breathe it in, and a sense of life, and a stillness,
Filling the heart with peace, and giving a joy that contents it?
Not of the Earth that light; and these paradisiacal breathings,
Not of the Earth are they!
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These thoughts were passing within me,
When there arose around a strain of heavenly music,
Such as the hermit hears when Angels visit his slumbers.
Faintly it first began, scarce heard; and gentle its rising,
Low as the softest breath that passes in summer at evening
O’er the Eolian strings, felt there when nothing is moving,
Save the thistle-down, lighter than air, and the leaf of the aspin.
Then as it swell’d and rose, the thrilling melody deepen’d,
Such, methought, should the music be, which is heard in the cloister,
By the sisterhood standing around the beatified Virgin,
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| THE VAULT. | 7 |
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When with her dying eyes she sees the firmament open,
Lifts from the bed of dust her arms towards her beloved,
Utters the adorable name, and breathes out her soul in a rapture.
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Well could I then believe such legends, and well could I credit
All that the poets old relate of Amphion and Orpheus;
How to melodious sounds wild beasts their strength have surrender’d,
Men were reclaim’d from the woods, and stones in harmonious order
Moved, as their atoms obey’d the mysterious attraction of concord.
This was a higher strain; a mightier, holier virtue
Came with its powerful tones. O’ercome by the piercing emotion,
Dizzy I grew, and it seem’d as though my soul were dissolving.
How might I bear unmoved such sounds? For, like as the vapours
Melt on the mountain side, when the sun comes forth in his splendour,
Even so the vaulted roof and whatever was earthly
Faded away; the Grave was gone, and the Dead was awaken’d.
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