Now halts he where the lifeless Silence sleeps In the embrace of mournful Solitude;-- Silence unstirr'd--save where the guilty tread Call'd the dull echo from mysterious vaults!
High from the opening of the dome above, Came with wan smile the silver-shining moon. And, awful as some pale presiding god, Dim-gleaming through the hush of that large gloom, In its wan veil the Giant Image stood.
With an unsteady step he onward past, Already touch'd the violating hand The Holy--and recoil'd! a shudder thrill'd His limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns, As if invisible arms would pluck the soul Back from the deed. "O miserable man! What would'st thou?" (Thus within the inmost heart Murmur'd the warning whisper.) "Wilt thou dare The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born' (So spake the oracular word)--'may lift the veil Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not-- The same oracular word--'who lifts the veil Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may, I dare the hazard--I will lift the veil--" Loud rang his shouting voice--"and I will see!" "SEE!" A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again! He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare? I know not--pale and senseless, stretch'd before The statue of the great Egyptian queen, The priests beheld him at the dawn of day; But what he saw, or what did there befall, His lips reveal'd not. Ever from his heart Was fled the sweet serenity of life, And the deep anguish dug the early grave "Woe--woe to him"--such were his warning words, Answering some curious and impetuous brain, "Woe--for her face shall charm him never more! Woe--woe to him who treads through Guilt to TRUTH!"
Forever fair, forever calm and bright, Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light, For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice-- Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb, And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom The rosy days of Gods-- With Man, the choice, Timid and anxious, hesitates between The sense's pleasure and the soul's content; While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen, The beams of both are blent.
Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods to share, Safe in the Realm of Death?--beware To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye; Content thyself with gazing on their glow-- Short are the joys Possession can bestow, And in Possession sweet Desire will die. 'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river-- She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground, And so--was Hell's forever!