A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Hyperion

H >> Henry Wadsworth Longfellow >> Hyperion




Even the sunny morning, which followed thisgloomy day, had not
chased the desolate impression from the soul of Flemming. His
excitement increased as he lost himself more and more among the
mountains; and now, as he lay all alone on the summit of the sunny
hill, with only glaciers and snowy peaks about him, his soul, as I
have said, was wild with a fierce and painful delight.

A human voice broke his reverie. He looked, and beheld at a short
distance from him, the athletic form of a mountain herdsman, who was
approaching the spot where he lay. He was a young man, clothed in a
rustic garb, and holding a long staff in his hand. When Flemming
rose, he stood still, and gazed at him, as if he loved the face of
man, even in a stranger, and longed to hear a human voice, though it
might speak in an unknown tongue. He answered Flemming's salutation
in a rude mountain dialect, and in reply to his questions said;

"I, with two others, have charge of two hundred head of cattle on
these mountains. Throughthe two summer months we remain here night
and day; for which we receive each a Napoleon."

Flemming gave him half his summer wages. He was glad to do a good
deed in secret, and yet so near heaven. The man received it as his
due, like a toll-keeper; and soon after departed, leaving the
traveller alone. And the traveller went his way down the mountain,
as one distraught. He stopped only to pluck one bright blue flower,
which bloomed all alone in the vast desert, and looked up at him, as
if to say; "O take me with you! leave me not here
companionless!"

Ere long he reached the magnificent glacier of the Rhone; a
frozen cataract, more than two thousand feet in height, and many
miles broad at its base. It fills the whole valley between two
mountains, running back to their summits. At the base it is arched,
like a dome; and above, jagged and rough, and resembles a mass of
gigantic crystals, of a pale emerald tint, mingled with white. A
snowy crust covers its surface; but at every rent and crevice the
pale green ice shines clear in thesun. Its shape is that of a glove,
lying with the palm downwards, and the fingers crooked and close
together. It is a gauntlet of ice, which, centuries ago, Winter, the
King of these mountains, threw down in defiance to the Sun; and year
by year the Sun strives in vain to lift it from the ground on the
point of his glittering spear. A feeling of wonder and delight came
over the soul of Flemming when he beheld it, and he shouted and
cried aloud;

"How wonderful! how glorious!"

After lingering a few hours in the cold, desolate valley, he
climbed in the afternoon the steep Mayen-Wand, on the Grimsel,
passed the Lake of the Dead, with its ink-black waters; and through
the melting snow, and over slippery stepping-stones in the beds of
numberless shallow brooks, descended to the Grimsel Hospital, where
he passed the night, and thought it the most lone and desolate spot,
that man ever slept in.

On the morrow, he rose with the day; and the rising sun found him
already standing on the rusticbridge, which hangs over the verge of
the Falls of the Aar at Handeck, where the river pitches down a
precipice into a narrow and fearful abyss, shut in by perpendicular
cliffs. At right angles with it comes the beautiful Aerlenbach; and
halfway down the double cascade mingles into one. Thus he pursued
his way down the Hasli Thal into the Bernese Oberland, restless,
impatient, he knew not why, stopping seldom, and never long, and
then rushing forward again, like the rushing river whose steps he
followed, and in whose ice-cold waters ever and anon he bathed his
wrists, to cool the fever in his blood; for the noonday sun was
hot.

His heart dilated in the dilating valley, that grew broader and
greener at every step. The sight of human faces and human dwellings
soothed him; and through the fields of summer grain, in the broad
meadows of Imgrund, he walked with a heart that ached no more, but
trembled only, as our eyelids when we have done weeping. As he
climbed the opposite hill, which hems in this romanticvalley, and,
like a heavy yoke, chafes the neck of the Aar, he believed the
ancient tradition, which says, that once the valley was a lake. From
the summit of the hill he looked southward upon a beautiful
landscape of gardens, and fields of grain, and woodlands, and
meadows, and the ancient castle of Resti, looking down upon
Meyringen. And now all around him were the singing of birds, and
grateful shadows of the leafy trees; and sheeted waterfalls dropping
from the woodland cliffs, seen only, but unheard, the fluted columns
breaking into mist, and fretted with frequent spires and ornaments
of foam, and not unlike the towers of a Gothic church inverted.
There, in one white sheet of foam, the Riechenbach pours down into
its deep beaker, into which the sun never shines. Face to face it
beholds the Alpbach falling from the opposite hill, "like a downward
smoke." When Flemming saw the innumerable runnels, sliding down the
mountain-side, and leaping, all life and gladness, he would fain
have clasped them in his arms and been their playmate, and revelled
withthem in their freedom and delight. Yet he was weary with the
day's journey, and entered the village of Meyringen, embowered in
cherry-trees, which were then laden with fruit, more like a way-worn
traveller than an enthusiastic poet. As he went up the tavern steps
he said in his heart, with the Italian Aretino; "He who has not been
at a tavern, knows not what a paradise it is. O holy tavern! O
miraculous tavern! holy, because no carking cares are there, nor
weariness, nor pain; and miraculous, because of the spits, which of
themselves turn round and round! Of a truth all courtesy and good
manners come from taverns, so full of bows, and Signor, sì! and
Signor, nò!"

But even in the tavern he could not rest long. The same evening
at sunset he was floating on the lake of Brienz, in an open boat,
close under the cascade of the Giessbach, hearing the peasants sing
the Ranz des Vaches. He slept that night at the other extremity of
the lake, in a large house, which, like Saint Peter's at Joppa,
stood by the water's side. The next day he wasted inwriting letters,
musing in this green nest, and paddling about the lake again; and in
the evening went across the beautiful meadows to Interlachen, where
many things happened to him, and detained him long.




CHAPTER III. INTERLACHEN.



Interlachen! How peacefully, by the margin of the swift-rushing
Aar, thou liest, on the broad lap of those romantic meadows, all
overshadowed by the wide arms of giant trees! Only the round towers
of thine ancient cloister rise above their summits; the round towers
themselves, but a child's playthings under the great church-towers
of the mountains. Close beside thee are lakes, which the flowing
band of the river ties together. Before thee opens the magnificent
valley of Lauterbrunn, where the cloud-hooded Monk and pale Virgin
stand like Saint Francis and his Bride of Snow; and all around thee
are fields, and orchards, and hamlets green, from which the
church-bells answer each other at evening! The eveningsun was
setting when I first beheld thee! The sun of life will set ere I
forget thee! Surely it was a scene like this, that inspired the soul
of the Swiss poet, in his Song of the Bell!

"Bell! thou soundest merrily,

When the bridal party

To the church doth hie!

Bell! thou soundest solemnly,

When, on Sabbath morning,

Fields deserted lie!

"Bell! thou soundest merrily;

Tellest thou at evening,

Bed-time draweth nigh!

Bell! thou soundest mournfully;

Tellest thou the bitter

Parting hath gone by!

"Say! how canst thou mourn?

How canst thou rejoice?

Art but metal dull!

And yet all our sorrowings,

And all our rejoicings,

Thou dost feel them all!

"God hath wonders many,

Which we cannot fathom,

Placed within thy form!

When the heart is sinking,

Thou alone canst raise it,

Trembling in the storm!"

Paul Flemming alighted at one of the principal hotels. The
landlord came out to meet him. He had great eyes and a green coat;
and reminded Flemming of the innkeeper mentioned in the Golden Ass,
who had been changed by magic into a frog, and croaked to his
customers from the lees of a wine-cask. His house, he said, was
full; and so was every house in Interlachen; but, if the gentleman
would walk into the parlour, he would procure a chamber for him, in
the neighbourhood.

On the sofa sat a gentleman, reading; a stout gentleman of
perhaps forty-five, round, ruddy, and with a head, which, being a
little bald on the top, looked not unlike a crow's nest, with one
egg in it. A good-humored face turned from the book as Flemming
entered; and a good-humored voice exclaimed;

"Ha! ha! Mr. Flemming! Is it you, or your apparition! I told you
we should meet again! though you were for taking an eternal farewell
of your fellow-traveller."

Saying these words, the stout gentleman rose and shook Flemming
heartily by the hand. And Flemming returned the shake as heartily,
recognising in this ruddy personage, a former travelling companion,
Mr. Berkley, whom he had left, a week or two previous, toiling up
the Righi. Mr. Berkley was an Englishman of fortune; a good-humored,
humane old bachelor; remarkable alike for his common sense and his
eccentricity. That is to say, the basis of his character was good,
sound common sense, trodden down and smoothed by education; but this
level groundwork his strange and whimsical fancy used as a
dancing-floor, whereon to exhibit her eccentric tricks. His ruling
passion was cold-bathing; and he usually ate his breakfast sitting
in a tub of cold water, and reading a newspaper. He kissed every
child he met; and to every old man, said in passing, "God bless
you!" with such an expression of voice and countenance, that no one
could doubt his sincerity. He reminded one of Roger Bontemps, or the
Little Man in Gray; though with a difference.

"The last time I had the pleasure of seeing you, Mr. Berkley,"
said Flemming, "was at Goldau, just as you were going up the Righi.
I hope you were gratified with a fine sunrise on the mountain
top."

"No, Sir, I was not!" replied Mr. Berkley. "It is all a humbug! a
confounded humbug! They made such a noise about their sunrise, that
I determined I would not see it. So I lay snug in bed; and only
peeped through the window curtain. That was enough. Just above the
house, on the top of the hill, stood some fifty half-dressed,
romantic individuals, shivering in the wet grass; and, a short
distance from them, a miserable wretch, blowing a long, wooden horn.
That's your sunrise on the Righi, is it? said I; and went to sleep
again. The best thing I saw at the Culm, was the advertisement on
the bed-room doors, saying, that, if the ladies would wear the quilts
and blankets for shawls, when they went out to see the sunrise, they
must pay for the washing. Take my word for it, the Righi is a great
humbug!"

"Where have you been since?"

"At Zurich and Schaffhausen. If you go to Zurich, beware how you
stop at the Raven. They will cheat you. They cheated me; but I had
my revenge, for, when we reached Schaffhausen, I wrote in the
Traveller's Book;

Beware of the Raven of Zurich!

'T is a bird of omen ill;

With a noisy and an unclean nest,

And a very, very long bill.

If you go to the Golden Falken you will find it there. I am the
author of those lines!"

"Bitter as Juvenal!" exclaimed Flemming.

"Not in the least bitter," said Mr. Berkley. "It is all true. Go
to the Raven and see. But this Interlachen! this Interlachen! It is
the loveliest spot on the face of the earth," he continued,
stretching out both arms, as if to embrace the objectof his
affection. "There,--only look out there!"

Here he pointed to the window. Flemming looked, and beheld a
scene of transcendent beauty. The plain was covered already by the
brown shade of the summer twilight. From the cottage roofs in
Unterseen rose here and there a thin column of smoke over the tops
of the trees and mingled with the evening shadows. The Valley of
Lauterbrunnen was filled with a blue haze. Far above, in the clear,
cloudless heaven, the white forehead of the Jungfrau blushed at the
last kiss of the departing sun. It was a glorious Transfiguration of
Nature! And when the village bells began to ring, and a single voice
at a great distance was heard yodling forth a ballad, it rather
broke than increased the enchantment of a scene, where silence was
more musical than sound.

For a long time they gazed at the gloaming landscape, and spake
not. At length people came into the parlour, and laid aside their
shawls and hats, and exchanged a word or two with Berkley to Flemming
they were all unknown. To him it was all Mr. Brown and Mrs. Johnson,
and nothing more. The conversation turned upon the various
excursions of the day. Some had been at the Staubbach, others at the
Grindelwald; others at the Lake of Thun; and nobody before had ever
experienced half the rapture, which they had experienced that day.
And thus they sat in the twilight, as people love to do, at the
close of a summer day. As yet the lamps had not been lighted; and
one could not distinguish faces; but voices only, and forms, like
shadows.

Presently a female figure, clothed in black, entered the room and
sat down by the window. She rather listened to the conversation,
than joined in it; but the few words she said were spoken in a voice
so musical and full of soul, that it moved the soul of Flemming,
like a whisper from heaven.

O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of
the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his
forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis
countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God
revealed himself to the prophet of old in the still, small voice;
and in a voice from the burning bush. The soul of man is audible,
not visible. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal
fountain, invisible to man!

Flemming would fain have sat and listened for hours to the sound
of that unknown voice. He felt sure, in his secret heart, that the
being from whom it came was beautiful. His imagination filled up the
faint outline, which the eye beheld in the fading twilight, and the
figure stood already in his mind, like Raphael's beautiful Madonna
in the Dresden gallery. He was never more mistaken in his life. The
voice belonged to a beautiful being, it is true; but her beauty was
different from that of any Madonna which Raphael ever painted; as he
would have seen, had he waited till the lamps were lighted. But in
the midst of his reverie and saint-painting, the landlord came in,
andtold him he had found a chamber, which he begged him to go and
look at.

Flemming took his leave and departed. Berkley went with him, to
see, he said, what kind of a nest his young friend was to sleep
in.

"The chamber is not what I could wish," said the landlord, as he
led them across the street. "It is in the old cloister. But
to-morrow or next day, you can no doubt have a room at the
house."

The name of the cloister struck Flemming's imagination
pleasantly. He was owl enough to like ruins and old chambers, where
nuns or friars had slept. And he said to Berkley;

"So, you perceive, my nest is to be in a cloister. It already
makes me think of a bird's-nest I once saw on an old tower of
Heidelberg castle, built in the jaws of a lion, which formerly
served as a spout. But pray tell me, who was that young lady, with
the soft voice?"

"What young lady with the soft voice?"

"The young lady in black, who sat by the window."

"O, she is the daughter of an English officer, who died not long
ago at Naples. She is passing the summer here with her mother, for
her health."

"What is her name?"

"Ashburton."

"Is she beautiful?"

"Not in the least; but very intellectual. A woman of genius, I
should say."

And now they had reached the walls of the cloister, and passed
under an arched gateway, and close beneath the round towers, which
Flemming had already seen, rising with their cone-shaped roofs above
the trees, like tall tapers, with extinguishers upon them.

"It is not so bad, as it looks," said the landlord, knocking at a
small door, in the main building. "The Bailiff lives in one part of
it."

A servant girl, with a candle in her hand, opened the door, and
conducted Flemming and Berkley to the chamber which had been
engaged. It was a large room on the lower floor, wainscoted with
pine, and unpainted. Three lofty and narrowwindows, with leaden
lattices and small panes, looked southward towards the valley of
Lauterbrunnen and the mountains. In one corner was a large square
bed, with a tester and checked curtains. In another, a huge stove of
painted tiles, reaching almost to the ceiling. An old sofa, a few
high-backed antique chairs, and a table, completed the furniture of
the room.

Thus Flemming took possession of his monkish cell and dormitory.
He ordered tea, and began to feel at home. Berkley passed the
evening with him. On going away he said;

"Good night! I leave you to the care of the Virgin and all the
Saints. If the ghost of any old monk comes back after his
prayer-book, my compliments to him. If I were a younger man, you
certainly should see a ghost. Good night!"

When he had departed, Flemming opened the lattice of one of the
windows. The moon had risen, and silvered the dark outline of the
nearest hills; while, afar off, the snowy summits of the Jungfrau
and the Silver-Horn shone like a white cloud in the sky. Close
beneath the windows was a flower-garden; and the breath of the
summer night came to him with dewy fragrance. There was a grateful
seclusion about the place. He blessed the happy accident, which gave
him such a lodging, and fell asleep that night thinking of the nuns,
who once had slept in the same quiet cells; but neither wimpled nun
nor cowled monk appeared to him in his dreams; not even the face of
Mary Ashburton; nor did he hear her voice.




CHAPTER IV. THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR.



Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that when King Edward
beheld the Countess of Salisbury at her castle gate, he thought he
had never seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was stricken
therewith to the heart with a sparkle of fine love, that endured
long after; he thought no lady in the world so worthy to be beloved,
as she. And so likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he beheld the
English lady in the fair light of a summer morning. I will not
disguise the truth. She is my heroine; and I mean to describe her
with great truth and beauty, so that all shall be in love with her,
and I most of all.

Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer. Like the fair maiden
Amoret, she was sitting inthe lap of womanhood. They did her wrong,
who said she was not beautiful; and yet

"she was not fair,

Nor beautiful;--those words express her not.

But O, her looks had something excellent,

That wants a name!"

Her face had a wonderful fascination in it. It was such a calm,
quiet face, with the light of the rising soul shining so peacefully
through it. At times it wore an expression of seriousness,--of
sorrow even; and then seemed to make the very air bright with what
the Italian poets so beautifully call the lampeggiar dell' angelico
riso,--the lightning of the angelic smile.

And O, those eyes,--those deep, unutterable eyes, with
"down-falling eyelids, full of dreams and slumber," and within them
a cold, living light, as in mountain lakes at evening, or in the
river of Paradise, forever gliding,

"with a brown, brown current

Under the shade perpetual, that never

Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon."

I dislike an eye that twinkles like a star. Those only are
beautiful which, like the planets, have a steady, lambent
light;--are luminous, but not sparkling. Such eyes the Greek poets
give to the Immortals. But I forget myself.

The lady's figure was striking. Every step, every attitude was
graceful, and yet lofty, as if inspired by the soul within. Angels
in the old poetic philosophy have such forms; it was the soul itself
imprinted on the air. And what a soul was hers! A temple dedicated
to Heaven, and, like the Pantheon at Rome, lighted only from above.
And earthly passions in the form of gods were no longer there, but
the sweet and thoughtful faces of Christ, and the Virgin Mary, and
the Saints. Thus there was not one discordant thing in her; but a
perfect harmony of figure, and face, and soul, in a word of the
whole being. And he who had a soul to comprehend hers, must of
necessity love her, and, having once loved her, could love no other
woman forevermore.

No wonder, then, that Flemming felt his heartdrawn towards her,
as, in her morning walk, she passed him, sitting alone under the
great walnut trees near the cloister, and thinking of Heaven, but
not of her. She, too, was alone. Her cheek was no longer pale; but
glowing and bright, with the inspiration of the summer air. Flemming
gazed after her till she disappeared, even as a vision of his
dreams, he knew not whither. He was not yet in love, but very near
it; for he thanked God, that he had made such beautiful beings to
walk the earth.

Last night he had heard a voice to which his soul responded; and
he might have gone on his way, and taken no farther heed. But he
would have heard that voice afterwards, whenever at evening he
thought of this evening at Interlachen. To-day he had seen more
clearly the vision, and his restless soul calm. The place seemed
pleasant to him; and he could not go. He did not ask himself whence
came this calm. He felt it; and was happy in the feeling; and
blessed thelandscape and the summer morning, as if they possessed
the wonder-working power.

"A pleasant morning dream to you;" said a friendly voice; and at
the same moment some one laid his hand upon Flemming's shoulder. It
was Berkley. He had approached unseen and unheard.

"I see by the smile on your countenance," he continued, "that it
is no day-incubus."

"You are right," replied Flemming. "It was a pleasant dream,
which you have put to flight."

"And I am glad to see, that you have also put to flight the
gloomy thoughts which used to haunt you. I like to see people
cheerful and happy. What is the use of giving way to sadness in this
beautiful world?"

"Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed,
I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and
sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes
suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In
the lives of the saddestof us, there are bright days like this, when
we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it.
Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our
hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal,
cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows,
which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when
he is only sad."

"And who says we don't?" interrupted Berkley. "Come, come! Let us
go to breakfast. The morning air has given me a rude appetite. I
long to say grace over a fresh egg; and eat salt with my worst
enemies; namely, the Cockneys at the hotel. After breakfast you must
give yourself up wholly to me. I shall take you to the
Grindelwald!"

"To-day, then, you do not breakfast like Diogenes, but consent to
leave your tub."

"Yes, for the pleasure of your company. I shall also blow out the
light in my lantern, having found you."

"Thank you."

The breakfast passed without any unusual occurrence. Flemming
watched the entrance of every guest; but she came not,--the guest he
most desired to see.

"And now for the Grindelwald!" said Berkley.

"Why such haste? We have the whole day before us. There is time
enough."

"Not a moment to loso, I assure you. The carriage is at the
door."

They drove up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and turned eastward
among the mountains of the Grindelwald. There they passed the day;
half-frozen by the icy breath of the Great Glacier, upon whose
surface stand pyramids and blocks of ice, like the tombstones of a
cemetery. It was a weary day to Flemming. He wished himself at
Interlachen; and was glad when, towards evening, he saw once more
the cone-roofed towers of the cloister rising above the walnut
trees.

That evening is written in red letters in his history. It gave
him another revelation of thebeauty and excellence of the female
character and intellect; not wholly new to him, yet now renewed and
fortified. It was from the lips of Mary Ashburton, that the
revelation came. Her form arose, like a tremulous evening star, in
the firmament of his soul. He conversed with her; and with her
alone; and knew not when to go. All others were to him as if they
were not there. He saw their forms, but saw them as the forms of
inanimate things. At length her mother came; and Flemming beheld in
her but another Mary Ashburton, with beauty more mature;--the same
forehead and eyes, the same majestic figure; and, as yet, no trace
of age. He gazed upon her with a feeling of delight, not unmingled
with holy awe. She was to him the rich and glowing Evening, from
whose bosom the tremulous star was born.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.