Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

"Alexander. 'When will you finish Campaspe?'

Apelles. 'Never finish: for always in absolute

beauty there is somewhat above art.'"

LYLY'S Campaspe.

And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed she was

present unseen? I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy, heedless

of the innumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way: these might

cross my eyes, but the unseen filled my brain. I wandered long, up and

down the silent space: no songs came. My soul was not still enough for

songs. Only in the silence and darkness of the soul's night, do those

stars of the inward firmament sink to its lower surface from the singing

realms beyond, and shine upon the conscious spirit. Here all effort was

unavailing. If they came not, they could not be found.

Next night, it was just the same. I walked through the red glimmer of

the silent hall; but lonely as there I walked, as lonely trod my soul

up and down the halls of the brain. At last I entered one of the

statue-halls. The dance had just commenced, and I was delighted to find

that I was free of their assembly. I walked on till I came to the sacred

corner. There I found the pedestal just as I had left it, with the faint

glimmer as of white feet still resting on the dead black. As soon as I

saw it, I seemed to feel a presence which longed to become visible; and,

as it were, called to me to gift it with self-manifestation, that it

might shine on me. The power of song came to me. But the moment my

voice, though I sang low and soft, stirred the air of the hall, the

dancers started; the quick interweaving crowd shook, lost its form,

divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and stood, a self-evolving

life no more, but a rigid, life-like, marble shape, with the whole form

composed into the expression of a single state or act. Silence rolled

like a spiritual thunder through the grand space. My song had ceased,

scared at its own influences.

But I saw in the hand of one of the

statues close by me, a harp whose chords yet quivered. I remembered

that as she bounded past me, her harp had brushed against my arm; so

the spell of the marble had not infolded it. I sprang to her, and with a

gesture of entreaty, laid my hand on the harp. The marble hand, probably

from its contact with the uncharmed harp, had strength enough to relax

its hold, and yield the harp to me. No other motion indicated life.

Instinctively I struck the chords and sang. And not to break upon the

record of my song, I mention here, that as I sang the first four lines,

the loveliest feet became clear upon the black pedestal; and ever as I

sang, it was as if a veil were being lifted up from before the form, but

an invisible veil, so that the statue appeared to grow before me, not

so much by evolution, as by infinitesimal degrees of added height. And,

while I sang, I did not feel that I stood by a statue, as indeed it

appeared to be, but that a real woman-soul was revealing itself by

successive stages of imbodiment, and consequent manifestatlon and

expression.