The Last Days of Pompeii. Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
this I serve the mass, I fulfill the general law, I execute the great moral that Nature preaches. For myself I claim the individual exception; I claim it for the wise—satisfied that my individual actions are nothing in the great balance of good and evil; satisfied that the product of my knowledge can give greater blessings to the mass than my desires can operate evil on the few (for the first can extend to remotest regions and humanize nations yet unborn), I give to the world wisdom, to myself freedom. I enlighten the lives of others, and I enjoy my own. Yes; our wisdom is eternal, but our life is short: make the most of it while it lasts. Surrender thy youth to pleasure, and thy senses to delight. Soon comes the hour when the wine-cup is shattered, and the garlands shall cease to bloom. Enjoy while you may. Be still, O Apaecides, my pupil and my follower! I will teach thee the mechanism of Nature, her darkest and her wildest secrets—the lore which fools call magic—and the mighty mysteries of the stars. By this shalt thou discharge thy duty to the mass; by this shalt thou enlighten thy race. But I will lead thee also to pleasures of which the vulgar do not dream; and the day which thou givest to men shall be followed by the sweet night which thou surrenderest to thyself.'
As the Egyptian ceased there rose about, around, beneath, the softest music that Lydia ever taught, or Iona ever perfected. It came like a stream of sound, bathing the senses unawares; enervating, subduing with delight. It seemed the melodies of invisible spirits, such as the shepherd might have heard in the golden age, floating through the vales of Thessaly, or in the noontide glades of Paphos. The words which had rushed to the lip of Apaecides, in answer to the sophistries of the Egyptian, died tremblingly away. He felt it as a profanation to break upon that enchanted strain—the susceptibility of his excited nature, the Greek softness and ardour of his secret soul, were swayed and captured by surprise. He sank on the seat with parted lips and thirsting ear; while in a chorus of voices, bland and melting as those which waked Psyche in the halls of love, rose the following song:
THE HYMN OF EROS
By the cool banks where soft Cephisus flows,
A voice sail'd trembling down the waves of air;
The leaves blushed brighter in the Teian's rose,
The doves couch'd breathless in their summer lair;
While from their hands the purple flowerets fell,
The laughing Hours stood listening in the sky;—
From Pan's green cave to AEgle's haunted cell,
Heaved the charm'd earth in one delicious sigh.
Love, sons of earth! I am the Power of Love!
Eldest of all the gods, with Chaos born;
My smile sheds light along the courts above,
My kisses wake the eyelids of the Morn.
Mine are the stars—there, ever as ye gaze,
Ye meet the deep spell of my haunting eyes;
Mine is the moon—and, mournful if her rays,
'Tis that she lingers where her Carian lies.
The flowers are mine—the blushes of the rose,
The violet—charming Zephyr to the shade;
Mine the quick light that in the Maybeam glows,
And mine the day-dream in the lonely glade.
Love, sons of earth—for love is earth's soft lore,
Look where ye will—earth overflows with ME;
Learn from the waves that ever kiss the shore,
And the winds nestling on the heaving sea.
'All teaches love!'—The sweet voice, like a dream,
Melted in light; yet still the airs above,
The waving sedges, and the whispering stream,
And the green forest rustling, murmur'd 'LOVE!'
As the voices died away, the Egyptian seized the hand of Apaecides, and
led him, wandering, intoxicated, yet half-reluctant, across the chamber
towards the curtain at the far end; and now, from behind that curtain,
there seemed to burst a thousand sparkling stars; the veil itself,
hitherto dark, was now lighted by these fires behind into the tenderest
blue of heaven. It represented heaven itself—such a heaven, as in the
nights of June might have shone down over the streams of Castaly. Here
and there were painted rosy and aerial clouds, from which smiled, by the
limner's art, faces of divinest beauty, and on which reposed the shapes
of which Phidias and Apelles dreamed. And the stars which studded the
transparent azure rolled rapidly as they shone, while the music, that
again woke with a livelier and lighter sound, seemed to imitate the
melody of the joyous spheres.
'Oh! what miracle is this, Arbaces,' said Apaecides in faltering accents. 'After having denied the gods, art thou about to reveal to me … '
'Their pleasures!' interrupted Arbaces, in a tone so different from its usual cold and tranquil harmony that Apaecides started, and thought the Egyptian himself transformed; and now, as they neared the curtain, a wild—a loud—an exulting melody burst from behind its concealment. With that sound the veil was rent in twain—it parted—it seemed to vanish into air: and a scene, which no Sybarite ever more than rivalled, broke upon the dazzled gaze of the youthful priest. A vast banquet-room stretched beyond, blazing with countless lights, which filled the warm air with the scents of frankincense, of jasmine, of violets, of myrrh; all that the most odorous flowers, all that the most costly spices could distil, seemed gathered into one ineffable and ambrosial essence: from the light columns that sprang upwards to the airy roof, hung draperies of white, studded with golden stars. At the extremities of the room two fountains cast up a spray, which, catching the rays of the roseate light, glittered like countless diamonds. In the centre of the room as they entered there rose slowly from the floor, to the sound of unseen minstrelsy, a table spread with all the viands which sense ever devoted to fancy, and vases of that lost Myrrhine fabric, so glowing in its colors, so transparent in its material, were crowned with the exotics of the East. The couches, to which this table was the centre, were covered with tapestries of azure and gold; and from invisible tubes the vaulted roof descended showers of fragrant waters, that cooled the delicious air, and contended with the lamps, as if the spirits of wave and fire disputed which element could furnish forth the most delicious odorous. And now, from behind the snowy draperies, trooped such forms as Adonis beheld when he lay on the lap of Venus. They came, some with garlands, others with lyres; they surrounded the youth, they led his steps to the banquet. They flung the chaplets round him in rosy chains. The earth—the thought of earth, vanished from his soul. He imagined himself in a dream, and suppressed his breath lest he should wake too soon; the senses, to which he had never yielded as yet, beat in his burning pulse, and confused his dizzy and reeling sight. And while thus amazed and lost, once again, but in brisk and Bacchic measures, rose the magic strain:
ANACREONTIC
In the veins of the calix foams and glows
The blood of the mantling vine,
But oh! in the bowl of Youth there glows
A Lesbian, more divine!
Bright, bright,
As the liquid light,
Its waves through thine eyelids shine!
Fill up, fill up, to the sparkling brim,
The juice of the young Lyaeus;
The grape is the key that we owe to him
From the gaol of the world to free us.
Drink, drink!
What need to shrink,
When the lambs alone can see us?