  [Note: This text contains many words with archaic spelling, which I have not modernized. Also, while the first word of each poem is usually capitalized, not all of them are, and I have left the uncapitalized words as is.] THE MASQUE OF THE ELEMENTS BY HERMAN SCHEFFAUER LONDON: J. M. Dent & Sons, Limited All rights reserved TO MY DEAR FRIEND CONTENTS ARGUMENT In this Threnody and Birth-song of the Elements, written in California some five years ago, I have striven to capture and present some of the chief-factors and phases of the eternal drama of Life and Death in the Universe. These powers, elements and agents I have endowed with human attributes and human emotions as though it were Man himself who uttered himself through them. The actors in this cosmic masque or pageant of the planets are the Sun, the Moon and the Earth with her four Elements; for stage there is the limitless background of Time and Space, and the audience may be conceived as being represented by Immanent Nature. Creation and Dissolution are her ministers, twin forces of that divine everlasting Energy which brings to pass the cycles of the Eternal Recurrence. The action takes its course with a certain regard for the laws and revelations of Science, but this compliance is only such as poetry need observe. Despite the inherent and mystic majesty of Matter,--too commonly reviled!--fantasy must have leave, in such a work, to force its way past the barrier of facts or to reshape them to its needs. Whether the action begin with the impulse of Dissolution or with that of Creation does not in any way affect the essentials of the plan. The alternations of Life and Death, of Cosmic Night and Day, must inevitably follow and destroy each other, like the serpents in the ancient symbol. Yet I thought it desirable to end this work with the larger and salient note of hope and joy that rings out of the Birth that is Re-birth rather than with the Passing which is but a recurrent preparation for that Birth. HERMAN SCHEFFAUER. THE PASSING The song of the Spirit of Chaos is heard on high above the aged Solar Universe. The Sun hangs in the black wastes below. His dazzling beams are shorn away. He glows, but dimly, like an ember, with a red and smouldering heat. In their concentric rounds lie poised the planets, like weary-winged cup-bearers, circling about their sleepless lord. His fire, dull with death, wavers across their dim faces, even unto dusky Uranus and lowering Neptune in the cold, outermost rings. In the dark, all-surrounding void new constellations gleam on the thrones of the heavens. The old are changed, deposed or dead. Their figures, unfixed in the abyss, have been shifted like errant sands of Earth. The spirit of Chaos, from her uncharted tracts, summons her ministrant powers of Death and Change. She beholds them blight the worlds. Her presence enfolds destroyers and destroyed as with a cloak. The dusks and damps of dissolution spread out their lethal and invisible wings. The voice of the Spirit, like spheral music, flows out of the darkness. The orbs listen and are filled with a miraculous consciousness and the soft lassitude of Death. SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CHAOS THE staring vessels of these worlds no wine Through the doomed Sun runs a tremor from core to crust. There is a faltering in his flight. His vassal globes roll on, disturbed and bleak. The Lord of Day shakes upon his central seat and turns up his hectic front in dumb questionings of despair. He yearns for sleep to seal his kingly eye. The calcined wounds upon him are like many mouths. They roll forth trembling thunder. And now is heard the voice of the Sun in agony: SONG OF THE SUN WEARY am I at last! weary am I! The Earth-orb and her four elements are locked in the arms of decay. She, like a stricken mother, bereaved of all beloved things, calls on the Sun, her primal fount of Life. The saddest of all her twilights has fallen and is moving on to night. Life, be it of man, or beast, or flower, is slowly quenched, as a torch is quenched in a midnight lake. The haunts and habitations of men have vanished; they are not any more. Yet their ruins are heaped with snow that shall know no thawing. Every hour of Earth is an eon and her day has yet many hours. Her elements sing each their song. The parent Earth sends forth her cry into the void. SONG OF THE PLANET EARTH NOT now thy beams arouse me morn by morn, A song fours down from the skies, a plangent song of triumph from the Moon. Yet it is not her voice, but that of the Moon Wraith. She reigns in mockery and malice upon her peaks in gulfs of solitude. She sings for her who perished long ago. Her voice is flung exulting over the ruins. The Phantasm turns the ashen sphere about the rusted poles. The mystery of the Moons invisible hemisphere is now revealed. It too is desolation. SONG OF THE MOON WRAITH THEY are dying! all are dying! Night shall force The Element of Earth, waste and inert, hears at last the cry of the Mother-globe. Her crests and peaks, her vales and plains, lie white and whelmed with snow. The mountain ranges draw their icy shrouds over the faces of dead continents. A convulsion seizes on her granite heart, and the lips of her hills are heard uttering their dirge. SONG OF EARTH THE ELEMENT SPRUNG molten from the fierce embrace of stars, The all-embracing and tender Air is without motion, lifeless and exhaust. His eight lordly sons lie undone in eight far regions of the globe. Thinner and thinner grows the element as it is drained away to dissolution. Meteors from the outer vast pierce, unconsumed, the canopy of the dying Air. The helpless Earth is smitten with showers of fire-javelins. Sighs suffuse the atmosphere and putrescence rises with its legions of leaden ghosts. What is this sound, so low, so faint, so thin? It seems like the first whisper of the youngest of all the Angels, or the last sigh of the oldest of all Men. It is the Song of the dying Air. SONG OF AIR DEAD! dark! flown! my primal happiness; A prone and expiring giant lifts up his bulk once more and would not die. It is Ocean, usurper of Earth's deepest vales, besieger of islands, batterer of continents. His great green front and land-fettered limbs glimmer up to his mistress Moon. His breast heaves unto her as of old with an awful and passionate longing. But a film has veiled his eyes, and now stagnation builds up her muddy pillars in his heart. There Death reigns amidst havoc. His leviathans and huge worms and wrecks of ships rot on every shore and in his dunnest deeps amidst pearls and sea-born blooms. The innumerable myrmidons of his empire, fretted masses, chained by weeds, oppress the old Equator. The coasts he laved and swept are marred with deadly froth. They are now but ruins of the vast poison-chalice of the sea, all fringed with bloody spume. This is his final anguish and these his final groans. It is the last song of the sorrowing Sea! Hoarsely reverberates his threnody; he piles up higher and higher his tremendous tomb of sound, beneath which he shall compose himself in tideless calms of sleep. SONG OF THE SEA Oh, I am old and hoar! so old that none Daemon of Fire, fairest of all elements, fairest, purest, divinest, Spirit of Life and Power, that dwells never with Death! His feet take hold on Earth, but his crest rears its unhampered glory in the highest airs. Fleeing from Nature's frozen breast, he trends to lowest crypts, swift to some final refuge, moving in leaping sheets and sinuous trails. The mouths of all volcanoes, once his throne, are choked with snow. In subterranean corridors cold creeps upon the central vaults of flame. SONG OF FIRE BACK to the womb I creep, back to the womb! Utter silence and utter lifelessness engulf the Globe; the frozen and adamantine bars of oblivion fall. As the soft sibilant tones of the Fire-daemon flutter away, slowly the spheres recede and vanish in the clasp of Night. Once more is heard, sweet and clear, the voice of the Spirit of Chaos. Her music of mercy sinks softly down like star-dust, or as of old dew on terrestrial flowers. Through the infinite Universe, through Eternity, she sings her everlasting song. She lulls her endless flocks of worlds asleep; she seals them up in the dark cycles of mutation--or makes them to bloom in the Night. For they awaken once more when rings aloud the impulsive alternating song of the Spirit of Life, her joyful sister, clad with inevitable day. Now the solar orbs are overcast with swift eclipse as with a mantle. They are swept into illimitable abysses. Above, below and all about gleam vast cohorts and constellations of living stars, pouring crystalline melody from thrones of Light. Ghosts of worlds drift by, and suns wrapped in extinction. They too are floating tombs, in them too, Life, Love and Thought lie sepultured like seeds. Sepultured, until from the mighty marriage of orb with orb in planetary impact shall the great rose of Existence re-unfold its leaves in the light and warmth of suns new-born. So follow and follow the unending successions of the Seasons of Eternity. SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CHAOS DARKNESS, unconquered Darkness, spread thy tent, The voice of the Spirit passes away into Immensity. Darkness and Silence in Immanence. The unheard rhythmical suspiration of the Universe. Peace. RE-BIRTH The vacant room of stars is flooded with a presence. The tides of Life pulsate with the prophecy of Birth. Now it is the Song of the Spirit of Creation that is heard on high above the perished Solar Universe. The dead worlds are hidden in the lap of Night, sightless, forlorn wanderers. They move in darkness, unseeing and unseen, though smitten by the rays of living stars. Upon their cold breasts of stone the dust of ruined worlds lies as a garment. Windless it lies as it falls or rises out of Chaos that encompasses all. The Spirit of Creation moves grandly through the deeps. In her hands she bears Fire and Light, on her lips her all-conquering command. She flings dead worlds among the dead, as a sower his seed or a slinger his stones. A spark is lit in the vast obscure. A glory, a rose of fire, blooms in the pit of darkness. It is now a glowing mist with far-spread vans, a phoenix wrought of flame. The cloud gathers about it its flowing veils and swarming foam of Fire. It winds them around its white effulgent heart. The sundered flakes of crimson twist and turn, they shrink, yet do not flee. Out of the blazing mists a new-born Sun shapes forth his awful splendour. His worlds divest themselves of robes and wings, shining in beauty white and pure. The dead are born again and the stars rejoice in light. From the molten orbs there comes a murmur, a fresh music to mingle with the Sun's. The words of the Spirit of Creation swell in a harmonious storm, they mould the worlds as with hands, they sweep the plumbless spaces as with a besom of winds. SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CREATION LET orb be wedded unto orb!--let light Afloat in splendour, panoplied in light--the arch-pontifical Sun! He shakes his threshing, intolerable mane of flames, his face bans darkness and makes a burning void in his domains. He pours his lustihood and power upon the joyous spheres. His rays transmute all things. Through the dancing infant host his Magnificat is upborne on the breath of his desire. Triumphant rolls his paean. He casts from him his tempests of solar melody, vibrant and far-winged. SONG OF THE SUN EMBATTLED life in living light immerst, Emblazoned with crests of lustre like the Sun, the Earth-orb wanders singing through her rounds. She flings her arms and tresses of Fire to the stars, a maenad in the planetary dance. The cold voids of hungry space drink up her ardours. She glows redly; the Fires retreat into her heart and her form is clothed with lava as with the Sea. Now is she muffled in her new-born clouds and the rains struggle through her fervent Airs. She floats, a watery globe, in the face of the Sun. She urges up her writhing continents that smoke high unto Heaven. And they grow green as her Seas are green. The Winds are in her hair, the Sun dowers her with riches as a bride, the Waters lace her robes with silver cords. The tributary seasons begin their march, laden with store of beauty. The stately sphere lifts up her chant, measured unto her dance in majestic tides of rhythm: SONG OF THE PLANET EARTH Again before thee winding, O Sun, at length,-- The wrinkled Moon, charred by the fires of her brief youth, sits serene above the rose-blown round of Earth. Like an aged beldam she crouches in the heavens, ashes upon her head, weaving her ancient silver magic, spelling enchantment upon the nether Sea. She is a sybil in whom the wisdom of the worlds is garnered up. Her eyelids are heavy with the poppy. She smiles and spins in sunlight and in shadow, weaving robes of slumber for her mistress. She holds her shining disk on high as a mirror for her queen. Her song is such as the watchers sing that sit by the couches of birth and death. SONG OF THE MOON THE silvern mistress of the golden Sun, The ambient fluid of the Winds is born, Air is born, invisible Element, felt yet unfeeling. The fissure of the lightning leaves it unwounded, the destroying tempest undestroyed. It is the bath of the girdled Earth, perfumed with balms and essences. It is the crystal shell whereunder Earth ripens like a fruit. The light Winds sing as they roll in their courses, weaving the bland and passionate Airs into prophetic chords. The Element stirs into harmony and musters into one universal voice: SONG OF AIR AGAIN I clasp the pure, the passive globe, Lord of all waters, Ocean, wrapped in emerald robes, clasps and usurps the world. The flagrant arrows of the Sun shower on his glancing mail. The estray Winds are wanton with his locks. His mutinous waves whisper each to each, and leap and sink. Desire irresistible roves within his heaving deeps. Life wields a goad in every drop. He decks his floods for the face of the Moon, and enlaces them with chains of shackled pearls and bands of foam. He sends his salty breath aloft and wreathes the Sun with clouds. But his mists return again, falling as tears upon his face. Inert in the profounds the blind bathybus lies. Fecundity flings her seeds and spores into the glazed abysses, and they teem. There is a heaving in the broken, sunless bottoms; the continents and islands are upcast, rugged and black, shaking the roaring Seas from their flanks. The labour and song of the Sea begin; the billows repeat it to the lips of the infant land. SONG OF THE SEA FLOW, Waters! spread afar my zones of green, SONG OF EARTH THE ELEMENT Earth, the Element, mute, impassive, primal, lies shaped to valley, plain and peak. Enwombed in her, the ancient vast fertility lives on. Her veins are charged with promise and birth, exhaustless quickenings of her eager flesh. She drinks from rocky bowls where lakes lie spread, from twining rivers and living streams. She pours her virgin vigour through fields no plow has riven. In darkness granite-ribbed, she prisons her mineral hoards. She lies as a garment upon the Mother-sphere; her feet trespass on Ocean. Her heart is fretted with Fire, her flanks by the Seas, her brows by Sun and Wind. In patience and sweet sufferance she lies, substance, nurse and genetrix of Life. Her Song is heard, a mutter of music, low yet coalescent in slow estrangement from her lips. I WAKE again!--O dauntless peaks that stand, Child of the Sun, unmastered and insurgent pulse of Life; breath of the empyrean, seraph winged with ardours and with loveliness! Comes Fire, pontiff celestial, King of Elements, errant angel, that basks and rejoices in his spaces. He comes and takes from darkness and cold their undivided victories. Out of the famished sands he leaps, out of the crater's maw. The genius of flame winds on, touching the peaks with consecration. His red and golden nakedness is crested with his sable clouds of hair. Upward and onward he aspires. His crimson vans are spread against the heavens, his torches flutter, making glorious the funerals of the day. His feet are a scourge across the soil; his arms are lifted to the stars. Co-eval with them he burns and sings with a thousand tongues. SONG OF FIRE A FETTERLESS, bright spirit, wing'd and pure, Repossessed of their ancient heritage, the four conqueror Elements sit on their dowered spheres. Wind, Ember, Current, conscious Earth, the eternal weavers and toilers, labour in felicity. Chaos and Night and Death are disenthroned. The system burns along its orbits through the dark. The benisons of the stars and suns are cast upon these youngest worlds. Buoyant and blithe the planets wheel. Their year-long arcs and each season's ordained processional are portioned unto them: their vassal moons also and the speed of their turning and their measure of night and day. The ruddy jocund Earth presses close to the Sun, timorous of the outer void, baring her bosom to his kiss. Has not the inevitable and recurrent Spring of Existence come unto her once again? The iron shackles of Silence--are they not broken?--the granite of the Night, is it not crumbled low?--the ice of Death, is it not molten? She blooms in her resurrection; her voice is lifted in the universal litany to Life. She rolls in her golden garniture of beams, circling with the singing sister-spheres. Her rondure floats against the distant cohorts of the constellations. The ancient Spirit of Chaos swings her pitchy cressets, and sinks down the starless deep on her tall catafalque of Death. Rejoice, O orb vestured in beauty! Put forth thy wings, thy coronals of Love, wrap thee with fluctuant Winds and exulting Seas! Shall thy offspring feel dismay, knowing what light shall burst from dark, what life leap from Death, what flowers blow from dust? So the anointed and belted spheres, re-risen from their bath of silence and their sleep of time, move on companioned with eternal hope. The fingers of the Sun stroke forth a glorious strain; the worlds are shawns and cymbals for his minstrelsy. The Spirit of Creation pours forth her victorious baptismal harmonies. Triumphantly her music daunts the firmament and echoes against the dusks of the Unapproachable. SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CREATION ONCE more the soft, terraqueous chaunt I hear Down the everlasting, unchangeable cope the hymnal of Life is reft away. But its music is showered over Earth. It is prisoned in the sea-shells; the flowers garner it in their chalices. It stirs in the heart of Man.
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