Clarel

Part II.  The Wilderness

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Canto xxxv

Prelusive.

In Piranezi's rarer prints,

Interiors measurelessly strange,

Where the distrustful thought may range

Misgiving still—what mean the hints?

5

Stairs upon stairs which dim ascend

In series from plunged Bastiles drear—

Pit under pit; long tier on tier

Of shadowed galleries which impend

Over cloisters, cloisters without end;

10

The hight, the depth—the far, the near;

Ring-bolts to pillars in vaulted lanes,

And dragging Rhadamanthine chains;

These less of wizard influence lend

Than some allusive chambers closed.

15

Those wards of hush are not disposed

In gibe of goblin fantasy—

Grimace—unclean diablery:

Thy wings, Imagination, span

Ideal truth in fable's seat:

20

The thing implied is one with man,

His penetralia of retreat—

The heart, with labyrinths replete:

In freaks of intimation see

Paul's "mystery of iniquity:"

25

Involved indeed, a blur of dream;

As, awed by scruple and restricted

In first design, or interdicted

By fate and warnings as might seem;

The inventor miraged all the maze,

30

Obscured it with prudential haze;

Nor less, if subject unto question,

The egg left, egg of the suggestion.

Dwell on those etchings in the night,

Those touches bitten in the steel

35

By aqua-fortis, till ye feel

The Pauline text in gray of light;

Turn hither then and read aright.

For ye who green or gray retain

Childhood's illusion, or but feign;

40

As bride and suit[e] let pass a bier—

So pass the coming canto here.