Books: Ardath

M >> Marie Corelli >> Ardath

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

"Edris!"

"Theos, my Beloved!"

O sweet and thrilling voice! more musical than the singing of
birds in a sun-filled Spring!

He raised himself a little, and looked at her more intently:--she
smiled,--and that smile, so marvellous in its pensive peace and
lofty devotion, was as though all the light of an unguessed
paradise had suddenly flashed upon his soul!

"Edris!" he said again, trembling in the excess of mingled hope
and fear ... "Hast thou then returned again from heaven, to lift me
out of darkness? ... Tell me, fair Angel, do I wake or sleep? ...
Are my senses deceived? Is this land a dream? ... Am I myself a
dream, and thou the only manifest sweet Truth in a world of
drifting shadows! ... Speak to me, gentle Saint! ... In what vast
mystery have I been engulfed? ... in what timeless trance of soul-
bewilderment? ... in what blind uncertainty and pain? ... O Sweet!
... resolve my wordless wonder! Where have I strayed? ... what have
I seen? ... Ah, let not my rough speech fright thee back to
Paradise! ... Stay with me! ... comfort me! ... I have lost thee
so long! let me not lose thee now!"

Smiling still, she bent over him, and pressed her warm, delicate
ringers lightly on his brow and lips. Then softly she rose and
stood erect.

"Fear nothing, my beloved!" she answered, her silvery accents
sending a throb of holy triumph through the air.. "Let no trouble
disquiet thee, and no shadow of misgiving dim the brightness of
thy waking moments! Thou hast slept ONE night on the Field of
Ardath, in the Valley of Vision!--but lo! the Night is past!"..
and she pointed toward the eastern horizon now breaking into waves
of rosy gold, "Rise! and behold the dawning of thy new Day!"

Roused by her touch, and fired by her tone and the grand,
unworldly dignity of her look and bearing, he sprang up, . . but as
he met the full, pure splendor of her divine eyes, and saw,
wavering round her hair, a shining aureole of amber radiance like
a wreath of woven sunbeams, his spirit quailed within him, . . he
remembered all his doubts of her,--his disbelief, . . and falling at
her feet, he hid his face in a shame that was better than all
glory,--a humiliation that was sweeter than all pride.

"Edris! Immortal Edris!".. he passionately prayed, "As thou art a
crowned saint in Heaven, shed light on the chaos of my soul! From
the depths of a penitence past thought and speech I plead with
thee! Hear me, my Edris, thou who art so maiden-meek, so tender-
patient! ... hear me, help me, guide me...I am all thine! Say,
didst thou not summon me to meet thee here upon this wondrous
Field of Ardath?--did I not come hither according to thy words?--
and have I not seen things that I am not able to express or
understand? Teach me, wise and beloved one! ... I doubt no more! I
know Myself and Thee:--thou art an angel,--but I! ... alas, what
am I? A grain of sand in thy sight and in God's, . . a mere Nothing,
comprehending nothing,--unable even to realize the extent of my
own nothingness! Edris, O Edris! ... THOU canst not love me! ...
thou mayst pity me perchance, and pardon, and bless me gently in
Christ's dear Name! ... but love! ... THY love! ... Oh let me not
aspire to such heights of joy, where I have no place, no right, no
worthiness!"

"No worthiness!" echoed Edris! ... what a rapture trembled through
her sweet caressing voice!--"My Theos, who is so worthy to win
back what is thine own, as thou? All Heaven has wondered at thy
voluntary exile,--thy place in God's supernal Sphere has long been
vacant, . . thy right to dwell there, none have questioned, ... thy
throne is empty--thy crown unclaimed! Thou art an Angel even as I!
... but thou art in bonds while I am free! Ah, how sad and strange
it is to me to see thee here thus fettered to the Sorrowful Star,
when, countless aeons since, thou mightest have enjoyed full
liberty in the Eternal Light of the everlasting Paradise!"

He listened, ... a strong, sweet hope began to kindle in him like
flame, . . but he made no answer. Only he caught and kissed the edge
of her garment, . . its soft gray cloudy texture brushed his lips
with the odorous coolness of a furled roseleaf. She seemed to
tremble at his action, ... but he dared not look up. Presently he
felt the pulsing pressure of her hands upon his head! and a rush
of strange, warm vigor thrilled through his veins like an electric
flash of new and never-ending life.

"Thou wouldst seek after and know the truth!" she said, "Truth
Celestial,--Truth Unchangeable, . . Truth that permeates and
underlies all the mystic inward workings of the Universe, . .
workings and secret laws unguessed by Man! Vast as Eternity is
this Truth,--ungraspable in all its manifestations by the merely
mortal intelligence, ... nevertheless thy spirit, being chastened
to noble humility and repentance, hath risen to new heights of
comprehension, whence thou canst partly penetrate into the wonders
of worlds unseen. Did I not tell thee to 'LEARN FROM THE PERILS OF
THE PAST, THE PERILS OF THE FUTURE'--and understandest thou not
the lesson of the Vision of Al-Kyris? Thou hast seen the Dream-
reflection of thy former Poet-fame and glory in old time,--THOU
WERT SAH-LUMA!"

An agony of shame possessed him as he heard. His soul at once
seized the solution of the mystery, . . his quickened thought
plunged plummet-like straight through the depths of the
bewildering phantasmagoria, in which mere reason had been of no
practical avail, and straightway sounded its whole seemingly
complex, but actually simple meaning! HE WAS SAH-LUMA! ... or
rather, he HAD BEEN Sah-luma in some far stretch of long-receded
time, ... and in his Dream of a single night, he had loved the
brilliant Phantom of his Former Self more than his own present
Identity! Not less remarkable was the fact that, in this strange
Sleep-Mirage, he had imagined himself to be perfectly UNselfish,
whereas all the while he had honored, flattered, and admired the
more Appearance of Himself more than anything or everything in the
world! Ay!--even his occasional reluctant reproaches to Himself in
the ghostly impersonation of Sah-luma had been far more tender
than severe!

O deep and bitter ingloriousness! ... O speechless degradation of
all the higher capabilities of Man! to love one's own ephemeral
Shadow-Existence so utterly as to exclude from thought and
sympathy all other things whether human or divine! And was it not
possible that this Spectre of Self might still be clinging to him?
Was it dead with the Dream of Sah-luma? ... or had Sah-luma never
truly died at all? ... and was the fine, fire-spun Essence that
had formed the Spirit of the Laureate of Al-Kyris yet part of the
living Substance of his present nature, ... he, a world-
unrecognized English poet of the nineteenth century? Did all Sah-
luma's light follies, idle passions, and careless cruelties remain
inherent in him? Had he the same pride of intellect, the same
vain-glory, the same indifference to God and Man? Oh, no, no! ...
he shuddered at the thought! ... and his head sank lower and lower
beneath the benediction touch of Her whose tenderness revived his
noblest energies, and lit anew in his heart the pure, bright fire
of heaven-encompassing Aspiration.

"THOU WERT SAH-LUMA!" went on the mildly earnest voice, "And all
the wide, ungrudging fame given to Earth's great poets in ancient
days, was thine! Thy name was on all men's mouths, ... thou wert
honored by kings, ... thou wert the chief glory of a great people,
... great though misled by their own false opinions, ... and the
City of Al-Kyris, of which thou wert the enshrined jewel, was
mightier far than any now built upon the earth! Christ had not
come to thee, save by dim types and vague prefigurements which
only praying prophets could discern, ... but God had spoken to thy
soul in quiet moments, and thou wouldst neither hear Him nor
believe in Him! I had called thee, but thou wouldst not listen,
... thou didst foolishly prefer to hearken to the clamorous
tempting of thine own beguiling human passions, and wert
altogether deaf to an Angel's whisper! Things of the earth earthly
gained dominion over thee ... by them thou wert led astray,
deceived, and at last forsaken, ... the genius God gave thee thou
didst misuse and indolently waste, ... thy brief life came, as
thou hast seen, to sudden-piteous end,--and the proud City of thy
dwelling was destroyed by fire! Not a trace of it was left to mark
the spot where once it stood. The foundations of Babylon were laid
above it, and no man guessed that it had ever been. And thy poems,
... the fruit of thy heaven-sent but carelessly accepted
inspiration,--who is there that remembers them? ... No one! ...
save THOU! THOU hast recovered them like sunken pearls from the
profound ocean of limitless Memory, ... and to the world of To-day
thou dost repeat the SELF-SAME MUSIC to which Al-Kyris listened
entranced so many thousands of generations ago!"

A deep sigh, that was half a groan, broke from his lips, ... he
could now take the measurement of his own utter littleness and
incompetency! HE COULD CREATE NOTHING NEW! Everything he had
written, as he fancied only just lately, had been written by
himself before! The problem of the poem "Nourhalma" ... was
explained, ... he had designed it when he had played his part on
the stage of life as Sah-luma,--and perhaps not even then for the
first time! In this pride-crushing knowledge there was only one
consolation, ... namely, that if his Dream was a true reflection
of his Past, and exact in details as he felt it must be, then
"Nourhalma," had not been given to Al-Kyris, ... it had been
composed, but not made public. Hence, so far, it was new to the
world, though not new to himself. Yet he had considered it
wondrously new! a "perfectly original" idea! ... Ah! who dares to
boast of any idea as humanly "original" ... seeing that all ideas
whatsoever must be referred back to God and admitted as His and
His only! What is the wisest man that ever lived, but a small,
pale, ill-reflecting mirror of the Eternal Thought that controls
and dominates all things! ... He remembered with conscience-
stricken confusion what pleasure he had felt, what placid
satisfaction, what unqualified admiration, when listening to his
own works recited by the ghost-presentment of his Former Self! ...
pleasure that had certainly exceeded whatever pain he had suffered
by the then enigmatical and perplexing nature of the incident. O
what a foolish Atom he now seemed, viewed by the standard of his
newly aroused higher consciousness! ... how poor and passive a
slave to the glittering, beckoning Phantasm of his own perishable
Fame!

Thus on the Field of Ardath he drained the cup of humility to the
dregs,--the cup which like that offered to the Prophet of Holy
Writ was "full as it were with water, but the color of it was like
fire"--the water of tears.. the fire of faith, . . and with that
prophet he might have said.. "When I had drunk of it, my heart
uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit
strengthened my memory."

Meanwhile Edris, still keeping her gentle hands on his bent head,
went on:

"In such wise didst thou, my Beloved, as the famous Sah-luma,
mournfully perish.. and the nations remembered thee no more! But
thy spiritual, indestructible Essence lived on, and wandered
dismayed and forlorn through a myriad forms of existence in the
depths of Perpetual Darkness which MUST be, even as the
Everlasting Light IS. Thy immortal but perverted Will bore thee
always further from God, . . further from Him, and so far from me,
that thou wert at times beyond even an Angel's ken! Ages upon ages
rolled away, . . the centuries between Earth and Earths purposed
redemption passed, ... and, . . though in Heaven these measured
spaces of time that appear so great to men are as a mere world's
month of summer, . . still, to me, for once God's golden days seemed
long! I had lost THEE! Thou wert my soul's other soul. my king!--
my immortality's completion! ... and though thou wert, alas! a
fallen brightness, yet I held fast to my one hope, . . the hope in
thy diviner nature, which, though sorely overcome, WAS NOT, and
COULD NOT BE wholly destroyed. I knew the fate in store for
thee, . . I knew that thou with other erring spirits wert bound to
live again on earth when Christ had built His Holy Way therefrom
to Heaven,--and never did I cease for thy dear sake to wait and
watch and pray! At last I found thee, ... but ah! how I trembled
for thy destiny! To thee had been delivered, as to all the
children of men, the final message of salvation.. the Message of
Love and Pardon which made all the angels wonder! ... but thou
didst utterly reject it--and with the same willful arrogance of
thy former self, Sah-luma, thou wert blindly and desperately
turning anew into darkness! O my Beloved, that darkness might have
been eternal! ... and crowded with memories dating from the very
beginning of life! ... Nay, let me not speak of that Supernal Agony,
since Christ hath died to quench its terrors! ... Enough!--by
happy chance, through my desire, thine own roused better will, and
the strength of one who hath many friends in Heaven, thy spirit
was released to temporary liberty, . . and in thy vision at Dariel,
which was NO vision, but a Truth, I bade thee meet me here. And
why? ... SOLELY TO TEST THY POWER OF OBEDIENCE TO A DIVINE IMPULSE
UNEXPLAINABLE BY HUMAN REASON,--and I rejoiced as only angels can
rejoice, when of thine own Free-Will thou didst keep the tryst I
made with thee! Yet thou knewest me not! ... or rather thou
WOULDST NOT KNOW ME, . . till I left thee! ... 'Tis ever the way of
mortals, to doubt their angels in disguise!"

Her sweet accents shook with a liquid thrill suggestive of tears,
--but he was silent. It seemed to him that he would be well content
to hold his place forever, if forever he might hear her thus
melodiously speak on! Had she not called him her "other soul, her
king, her immortality's completion!"--and on those wondrous words
of hers his spirit hung, impassioned, dazzled, and entranced
beyond all Time and Space and Nature and Experience!

After a brief pause, during which his ravished mind floated among
the thousand images and vague feelings of a whole Past and Future
merged in one splendid and celestial Present, she resumed, always
softly and with the same exquisite tenderness of tone:

"I left thee, Dearest, but a moment, ... and in that moment, He
who hath himself shared in human sorrows and sympathies,--He who
is the embodiment of the Essence of God's Love,--came to my aid.
Plunging thy senses in deep sleep, as hath been done before to
many a saint and prophet of old time here on this very field of
Ardath,--he summoned up before thee the phantoms of a PORTION of
thy Past, ... phantoms which, to thee, seemed far more real than
the living presence of thy faithful Edris! ... alas, my Beloved!
... thou art not the only one on the Sorrowful Star who accepts a
Dream for Reality and rejects Reality as a Dream!"

She paused again,--and again continued: "Nevertheless, in some
degree thy Vision of Al-Kyris was true, inasmuch as thou wert
shown therein as in a mirror, ONE phase, ONE only of thy former
existence upon earth. The final episode was chosen,--as by the end
of a man's days alone shall he be judged! As much as thy dreaming-
sight was able to see,--as much as thy brain was able to bear,
appeared before thee, ... but that thou, slumbering, wert yet a
conscious Personality among Phantoms, and that these phantoms
spoke to thee, charmed thee, bewildered thee, tempted thee, and
swayed thee, . . this was the Divine Master's work upon thine own
retrospective Thought and Memory. He gave the shadows of thy
bygone life, seeming color, sense, motion, and speech,--He blotted
out from thy remembrance His own Most Holy Name, . . and, shutting
up the Present from thy gaze, He sent thy spirit back into the
Past. There, thou, perplexed and sorrowful, didst painfully re-
weave the last fragments of thy former history, . . and not till
thou hadst abandoned the Shadow of Thyself, didst thou escape
from the fear of destruction! Then, when apparently all alone, and
utterly forsaken, a cloud of angels circled round thee, . . THEN, at
thy first repentant cry for help, He who has never left an earnest
prayer unanswered bade me descend hither, to waken and comfort
thee! ... Oh, never was His bidding more joyously obeyed! Now I have
plainly shown thee the interpretation of thy Dream, . . and dost
thou not comprehend the intention of the Highest in manifesting it
unto thee? Remember the words of God's Prophet of old:

"'Behold the Field thou thoughtest barren, how great a glory
hath the moon unveiled!
"'And I beheld and was sore amazed, for I was no longer
Myself, but Another
"'And the sword of death was in that Other's soul,--and yet
that Other was but Myself in pain
"'And I knew not the things which were once familiar, and my
heart failed within me for very fear!'"

She spoke the quaint and mystic lines with a grave, pure, rhythmic
utterance that was like the far-off singing of sweet psalmody;--
and when she ceased, the stillness that followed seemed quivering
with the rich vibrations of her voice, ... the very air was surely
rendered softer and more delicate by such soul-moving sound!

But Theos, who had listened dumbly until now, began to feel a
sudden sorrowful aching at his heart, a sense of coming
desolation, . . a consciousness that she would soon depart again,
and leave him and, with a mingled reverence and passion, he
ventured to draw one of the fair hands that rested on his brows,
down into his own clasp. He met with no resistance, and half-
happy, half-agonized, he pressed his lips upon its soft and
dazzling whiteness, while the longing of his soul broke forth in
words of fervid, irrepressible appeal.

"Edris!" he implored.. "If thou dost love me give me my death!
Here,--now, at thy feet where I kneel! ... of what avail is it for
me to struggle in this dark and difficult world? ... O deprive me
of this fluctuating breath called Life and let me live indeed! I
understand.. I know all thou hast said,--I have learned my own
sins as in a glass darkly,--I have lived on earth before, and as
it seems, made no good use of life, ... and now: now I have found
THEE! Then why must I lose thee? ... thou who camest to me so
sweetly at the first? ... Nay, I cannot part from thee--I will
not! ... If thou leavest me, I have no strength to follow thee; I
shall but miss the way to thine abode!"

"Thou canst not miss the way!"--responded Edris softly, . . "Look
up, my Theos,--be of good cheer, thou Poet to whom Heaven's
greatest gifts of Song are now accorded! Look up and tell me, . . is
not the way made plain?"

Slowly and in reverential fear, he obeyed, and raised his eyes,
still holding her by the hand,--and saw behind her a distinctly
marked shadow that seemed flung downward by the reflection of some
brilliant light above, . . the shadow of a Cross, against which her
delicate figure stood forth in shining outlines. Seeing, he
understood,--but nevertheless his mind grew more and more
disquieted. A thousand misgivings crowded upon him,--he thought of
the world, . . he remembered what it was, . . he was living in an age
of heresy and wanton unbelief, where not only Christ's Divinity
was made blasphemous mock of, but where even God's existence was
itself called in question.. and as for ANGELS! ... a sort of shock
ran through his nerves as he reflected that though preachers
preached concerning these supernatural beings,--though the very
birth of Christ rested on Angels' testimony,--though poets wrote
of them, and painters strove to delineate them on their most
famous canvases, each and all thus PRACTICALLY DEMONSTRATING THE
SECRET INSTINCTIVE INTUITION OF HUMANITY that such celestial Forms
ARE,--yet it was most absolutely certain that not a man in the
prosaic nineteenth century would, if asked, admit, to any actual
belief in their existence! Inconsistent? ... yes!--but are not men
more inconsistent than the very beasts of the field their tyranny
controls? What, as a rule, DO men believe in? ... Themselves! ...
only themselves! They are, in their own opinion, the Be-All and
the End-All of everything! ... as if the Supreme Creative Force
called God were incapable of designing any Higher Form of
Thinking-Life than their pigmy bodies which strut on two legs and,
with two eyes and a small, quickly staggered brain, profess to
understand and weigh the whole foundation and plan of the
Universe!

Growing swiftly conscious of all that in the Purgatory of the
Present awaited him, Theos felt as though the earth-chasm that had
swallowed up Al-Kyris in his dream had opened again before him,
affrighting him with its black depth of nothingness and
annihilation,--and in a sudden agony of self-distrust he gazed
yearningly at the fair, wistful face above him, . . the divine
beauty that was HIS after all, if he only knew how to claim it!--
Something, he knew not what, filled him with a fiery
restlessness,--a passion of protest and aspiration, which for a
moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must, with one
fierce effort, wrench himself free from the trammels of mortality,
and straightway take upon him the majesty of immortal nature, and
so bear his Angel love company whithersoever she went! Never had
the fetters of flesh weighed upon him with such-heaviness! ...
but, in spite of his feverish longing to escape, some
authoritative yet gentle Force held him prisoner.

"God!" he muttered ... "Why am I thus bound?--why can I not be
free?"

"Because thy time for freedom has not come!" said Edris, quickly
answering his thought ... "Because thou hast work to do that is
not yet done! Thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely
REPETITION, ... the repetition of thy Former Self, ... Go! the
tired world waits for a new Gospel of Poesy, ... a new song that
shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto God and
all things high and fair! Write!--for the nations wait for a
trumpet-voice of Truth! ... the great poets are dead, . . their
spirits are in Heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the
Sorrowful Star save THOU! Not for Fame do thy work--nor for
Wealth, . . but for Love and the Glory of God!--for Love of
Humanity, for Love of the Beautiful, the Pure, the Holy! ... let
the race of men hear one more faithful Apostle of the Divine
Unseen, ere Earth is lost in the withering light of a larger
Creation! Go! ... perform thy long-neglected mission,--that
mission of all poets worthy the name.. TO RAISE THE WORLD! Thou
shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for
the benefit of others. Serve God and live!--serve Self and die!
Such is the Eternal Law of Spheres Invisible, . . the less thou
seest of Self, the more thou seest of Heaven! ... thrust Self
away, and lo! God invests thee with His Presence! Go forth into
the world, . . a King uncrowned, . . a Master of Song, . . and fear not
that I, Edris, will forsake thee,--I, who have loved thee since
the birth of Time!"

He met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad
interrogativeness in his own. What a hard fate was meted out to
him! ... To teach the world that scoffed at teaching!--to rouse
the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine! O
vain task!--O dreary impossibility! ... Enough surely, to guide
his own Will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills
of others!

Her mandate seemed to him almost cruel,--it was like driving him
into a howling wilderness, when with one touch, one kiss, she
might transport him into Paradise! If SHE were in the world, . . if
SHE were always with him.. ah! then how different, how easy life
would be! Again he thought of those strange entrancing words of
hers.. "My other soul, . . my king.. my immortality's completion!"--
and a sudden wild idea took swift possession of his brain.

"Edris!" he cried.. "If I may not yet come to thee, then come THOU
to me! ... Dwell thou with me! ... O by the force of my love,
which God knoweth, let me draw thee, thou fair Light, into my
heart's gloom! Hear me while I swear my faith to thee as at some
holy shrine! ... As I live, with all my soul I do accept thy
Master Christ, as mine utmost good, and His Cross as my proudest
glory! ... but yet, bethink thee, Edris, bethink thee of this
world,--its wilful sin, its scorn of God, and all the evil that
like a spreading thunder-cloud darkens it day by day! Oh, wilt
thou leave me desolate and alone? ... Fight as I will, I shall
often sink under blows, . . conquer as I may, I shall suffer the
solitude of conquest, unless THOU art with me! Oh, speak!--is
there no deeper divine intention in the marvellous destiny that
has brought us together?--thou, pure Spirit, and I, weak Mortal?
Has love, the primal mover of all things, no hold upon thee? ...
If I am, as thou sayest, thy Beloved, loved by thee so long, even
while forgetful of and unworthy of thy love, can I not NOW,--now
when I am all thine,--persuade thee to compassionate the rest of
my brief life on earth? ... Thou art in woman's shape here on this
Field of Ardath,--and yet thou art not woman! Oh, could my love
constrain thee in God's Name, to wear the mask of mortal body for
my sake, would not our union even now make the Sorrowful Star seem
fair? ... Love, love, love! Come to mine aid, and teach me how to
shut the wings of this sweet bird of paradise in mine own breast!
... God! Spare her to me for one of Thy sweet moments which are
our mortal years! ... Christ, who became a mere child for pity of
us, let me learn from Thee the mystic spell that makes Thine angel
mine!"