The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley Read Online

So to their homes, to dream or wake

2050

2050            All went. The sleepless silence did recall

                 Laone to my thoughts, with hopes that make

               The flood recede from which their thirst they seek to slake.

XXXVIII

                 The dawn flowed forth, and from its purple fountains

                    I drank those hopes which make the spirit quail,

2055

2055         As to the plain between the misty mountains

                    And the great City, with a countenance pale

                    I went:—it was a sight which might avail

                 To make men weep exulting tears, for whom

                    Now first from human power the reverend veil

2060

2060         Was torn, to see Earth from her general womb

               Pour forth her swarming sons to a fraternal doom:

XXXIX

                 To see, far glancing in the misty morning,

                    The signs of that innumerable host,

                 To hear one sound of many made, the warning

2065

2065            Of Earth to Heaven from its free children tossed,

                    While the eternal hills, and the sea lost

                 In wavering light, and, starring the blue sky

                    The city’s myriad spires of gold, almost

                 With human joy made mute society—

2070

2070       Its witnesses with men who must hereafter be.

XL

                 To see, like some vast island from the Ocean,

                    The Altar of the Federation rear

                 Its pile i’ the midst; a work which the devotion

                    Of millions in one night created there,

2075

2075            Sudden, as when the moonrise makes appear

                 Strange clouds in the east; a marble pyramid

                    Distinct with steps: that mighty shape did wear

                 The light of genius; its still shadow hid

               Far ships: to know its height the morning mists forbid!

XLI

2080

2080         To hear the restless multitudes for ever

                    Around the base of that great Altar flow,

                 As on some mountain-islet burst and shiver

                    Atlantic waves; and solemnly and slow

                    As the wind bore that tumult to and fro,

2085

2085         To feel the dreamlike music, which did swim

                    Like beams through floating clouds on waves below

                 Falling in pauses, from that Altar dim

               As silver-sounding tongues breathed an aëreal hymn.

XLII

                 To hear, to see, to live, was on that morn

2090

2090            Lethean joy! so that all those assembled

                 Cast off their memories of the past outworn;

                    Two only bosoms with their own life trembled.

                    And mine was one,—and we had both dissembled;

                 So with a beating heart I went, and one,

2095

2095            Who having much, covets yet more, resembled;

                 A lost and dear possession, which not won,

               He walks in lonely gloom beneath the noonday sun.

XLIII

                 To the great Pyramid I came: its stair

                    With female choirs was thronged: the loveliest

2100

2100         Among the free, grouped with its sculptures rare;

                    As I approached, the morning’s golden mist,

                    Which now the wonder-stricken breezes kissed

                 With their cold lips, fled, and the summit shone

                    Like Athos seen from Samothracia, dressed

2105

2105         In earliest light, by vintagers, and one

               Sate there, a female Shape upon an ivory throne:

XLIV

                 A Form most like the imagined habitant

                    Of silver exhalations sprung from dawn,

                 By winds which feed on sunrise woven, to enchant

2110

2110            The faiths of men: all mortal eyes were drawn,

                    As famished mariners through strange seas gone

                 Gaze on a burning watch-tower, by the light

                    Of those divinest lineaments—alone

                 With thoughts which none could share, from that fair sight

2115

2115       I turned in sickness, for a veil shrouded her countenance bright.

XLV

                 And, neither did I hear the acclamations,

                    Which from brief silence bursting, filled the air

                 With her strange name and mine, from all the nations

                    Which we, they said, in strength had gathered there

2120

2120            From the sleep of bondage; nor the vision fair

                 Of that bright pageantry beheld,—but blind

                    And silent, as a breathing corpse did fare,

                 Leaning upon my friend, till like a wind

               To fevered cheeks, a voice flowed o’er my troubled mind.

XLVI

2125

2125         Like music of some minstrel heavenly-gifted,

                    To one whom fiends enthral, this voice to me;

                 Scarce did I wish her veil to be uplifted,

                    I was so calm and joyous.—I could see

                    The platform where we stood, the statues three

2130

2130         Which kept their marble watch on that high shrine,

                    The multitudes, the mountains, and the sea;

                 As when eclipse hath passed, things sudden shine

               To men’s astonished eyes most clear and crystalline.

XLVII

                 At first Laone spoke most tremulously:

2135

2135            But soon her voice the calmness which it shed

                 Gathered, and—‘Thou art whom I sought to see,

                    And thou art our first votary here,’ she said:

                    ‘I had a dear friend once, but he is dead!—

                 And of all those on the wide earth who breathe,

2140

2140            Thou dost resemble him alone—I spread

                 This veil between us two, that thou beneath

               Shouldst image one who may have been long lost in death.

XLVIII

                 ‘For this wilt thou not henceforth pardon me?

                    Yes, but those joys which silence well requite

2145

2145         Forbid reply;—why men have chosen me

                    To be the Priestess of this holiest rite

                    I scarcely know, but that the floods of light

                 Which flow over the world, have borne me hither

                    To meet thee, long most dear; and now unite

2150

2150         Thine hand with mine, and may all comfort wither

               From both the hearts whose pulse in joy now beat together,

XLIX

                 ‘If our own will as others’ law we bind,

                    If the foul worship trampled here we fear;

                 If as ourselves we cease to love our kind!’—

2155

2155            She paused, and pointed upwards—sculptured there

                    Three shapes around her ivory throne appear;

                 One was a Giant, like a child asleep

                    On a loose rock, whose grasp crushed, as it were

                 In dream, sceptres and crowns; and one did keep

2160

2160       Its watchful eyes in doubt whether to smile or weep;

L

                 A Woman sitting on the sculptured disk

                    Of the broad earth, and feeding from one breast

                 A human babe and a young basilisk;

                    Her looks were sweet as Heaven’s when loveliest

2165

2165            In Autumn eves. The third Image was dressed

                 In white wings swift as clouds in winter skies;

                    Beneath his feet, ’mongst ghastliest forms, repressed

                 Lay Faith, an obscene worm, who sought to rise,

               While calmly on the Sun he turned his diamond eyes.

LI

2170

2170         Beside that Image then I sate, while she

                    Stood, mid the throngs which ever ebbed and flowed,

                 Like light amid the shadows of the sea

                    Cast from one cloudless star, and on the crowd

                    That touch which none who feels forgets, bestowed;

2175

2175         And whilst the sun returned the steadfast gaze

                    Of the great Image, as o’er Heaven it glode.

                 That rite had place; it ceased when sunset’s blaze

               Burned o’er the isles. All stood in joy and deep amaze—

                    —When in the silence of all spirits there

2180

2180         Laone’s voice was felt, and through the air

               Her thrilling gestures spoke, most eloquently fair:—

1

                 ‘Calm art thou as yon sunset! swift and strong

                 As new-fledged Eagles, beautiful and young,

                 That float among the blinding beams of morning;

2185

2185            And underneath thy feet writhe Faith, and Folly,

                    Custom, and Hell, and mortal Melancholy—

                 Hark! the Earth starts to hear the mighty warning

                       Of thy voice sublime and holy;

                       Its free spirits here assembled,

2190

2190                 See thee, feel thee, know thee now,—

                       To thy voice their hearts have trembled

                         Like ten thousand clouds which flow

                       With one wide wind as it flies!—

                 Wisdom! thy irresistible children rise

2195

2195         To hail thee, and the elements they chain

               And their own will, to swell the glory of thy train.

2

                 ‘O Spirit vast and deep as Night and Heaven!

                 Mother and soul of all to which is given

                 The light of life, the loveliness of being,

2200

2200            Lo! thou dost re-ascend the human heart,

                    Thy throne of power, almighty as thou wert

                 In dreams of Poets old grown pale by seeing

                       The shade of thee:—now, millions start

                       To feel thy lightnings through them burning:

2205

2205                 Nature, or God, or Love, or Pleasure,

                       Or Sympathy the sad tears turning

                         To mutual smiles, a drainless treasure,

                    Descends amidst us;—Scorn, and Hate,

                 Revenge and Selfishness are desolate—

2210

2210         A hundred nations swear that there shall be

               Pity and Peace and Love, among the good and free!

3

                 ‘Eldest of things, divine Equality!

                 Wisdom and Love are but the slaves of thee,

                 The Angels of thy sway, who pour around thee

2215

2215            Treasures from all the cells of human thought,

                    And from the Stars, and from the Ocean brought,

                 And the last living heart whose beatings bound thee:

                       The powerful and the wise had sought

                       Thy coming, thou in light descending

2220

2220                 O’er the wide land which is thine own

                       Like the Spring whose breath is blending

                         All blasts of fragrance into one,

                       Comest upon the paths of men!—

                 Earth bares her general bosom to thy ken,

2225

2225         And all her children here in glory meet

               To feed upon thy smiles, and clasp thy sacred feet.

4

                 ‘My brethren, we are free! the plains and mountains,

                 The gray sea-shore, the forests and the fountains,

                 Are haunts of happiest dwellers;—man and woman,

2230

2230            Their common bondage burst, may freely borrow

                    From lawless love a solace for their sorrow;

                 For oft we still must weep, since we are human.

                       A stormy night’s serenest morrow,

                       Whose showers are pity’s gentle tears,

2235

2235                 Whose clouds are smiles of those that die

                       Like infants without hopes or fears,

                         And whose beams are joys that lie

                       In blended hearts, now holds dominion;

                 The dawn of mind, which upwards on a pinion

2240

2240         Borne, swift as sunrise, far illumines space,

               And clasps this barren world in its own bright embrace!

5

                 ‘My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing

                 Beneath the stars, and the night winds are flowing

                 O’er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming—

2245

2245            Never again may blood of bird or beast

                    Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,

                 To the pure skies in accusation steaming;

                    Avenging poisons shall have ceased

                    To feed disease and fear and madness,

2250

2250               The dwellers of the earth and air

                    Shall throng around our steps in gladness

                       Seeking their food or refuge there.

                 Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,

                 To make this Earth, our home, more beautiful,

2255

2255         And Science, and her sister Poesy,

               Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!

6

                 ‘Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations!

                 Bear witness Night, and ye mute Constellations

                 Who gaze on us from your crystalline cars!

                    Thoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep no more!

                    Victory! Victory! Earth’s remotest shore,

                 Regions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars,

                       The green lands cradled in the roar

                       Of western waves, and wildernesses

2265

2265                 Peopled and vast, which skirt the oceans

                       Where morning dyes her golden tresses,

                         Shall soon partake our high emotions:

                       Kings shall turn pale! Almighty Fear

                 The Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear,

2270

2270         Shall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes,

               While Truth with Joy enthroned o’er his lost empire reigns!’

LII

                 Ere she had ceased, the mists of night entwining

                    Their dim woof, floated o’er the infinite throng;

                 She, like a spirit through the darkness shining,

2275

2275            In tones whose sweetness silence did prolong,

                    As if to lingering winds they did belong,

                 Poured forth her inmost soul: a passionate speech

                    With wild and thrilling pauses woven among,

                 Which whoso heard, was mute, for it could teach

2280

2280       To rapture like her own all listening hearts to reach.

LIII

                 Her voice was as a mountain-stream which sweeps

                    The withered leaves of Autumn to the lake,

                 And in some deep and narrow bay then sleeps

                    In the shadow of the shores; as dead leaves wake

2285

2285            Under the wave, in flowers and herbs which make

                 Those green depths beautiful when skies are blue,

                    The multitude so moveless did partake

                 Such living change, and kindling murmurs flew

               As o’er that speechless calm delight and wonder grew.

LIV

2290

2290         Over the plain the throngs were scattered then

                    In groups around the fires, which from the sea

                 Even to the gorge of the first mountain-glen

                    Blazed wide and far: the banquet of the free

                    Was spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree,

2295

2295         Beneath whose spires, which swayed in the red flame,

                    Reclining, as they ate, of Liberty,

                 And Hope, and Justice, and Laone’s name,

               Earth’s children did a woof of happy converse frame.

LV

                 Their feast was such as Earth, the general mother,

2300

2300            Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles

                 In the embrace of Autumn;—to each other

                    As when some parent fondly reconciles

                    Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles

                 With her own sustenance; they relenting weep:

2305

2305            Such was this Festival, which from their isles

                 And continents, and winds, and oceans deep,

               All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep,—

LVI

                 Might share in peace and innocence, for gore

                    Or poison none this festal did pollute,

2310

2310         But piled on high, an overflowing store

                    Of pomegranates, and citrons, fairest fruit,

                    Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root

                 Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes ere yet

                    Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute

2315

2315         Into a mortal bane, and brown corn set

               In baskets; with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.

LVII

                 Laone had descended from the shrine,

                    And every deepest look and holiest mind

                 Fed on her form, though now those tones divine

2320

2320            Were silent as she passed: she did unwind

                    Her veil, as with the crowds of her own kind

                 She mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain

                    From seeking her that night, so I reclined

                 Amidst a group, where on the utmost plain

2325

2325       A festal watchfire burned beside the dusky main.

LVIII

                 And joyous was our feast; pathetic talk,

                    And wit, and harmony of choral strains,

                 While far Orion o’er the waves did walk

                    That flow among the isles, held us in chains

2330

2330            Of sweet captivity, which none disdains

                 Who feels: but when his zone grew dim in mist

                    Which clothes the Ocean’s bosom, o’er the plains

                 The multitudes went homeward, to their rest,

               Which that delightful day with its own shadow blessed.

CANTO VI

I

2335

2335         BESIDE the dimness of the glimmering sea,

                    Weaving swift language from impassioned themes,

                 With that dear friend I lingered, who to me

                    So late had been restored, beneath the gleams

                    Of the silver stars; and ever in soft dreams

2340

2340         Of future love and peace sweet converse lapped

                    Our willing fancies, till the pallid beams

                 Of the last watchfire fell, and darkness wrapped

               The waves, and each bright chain of floating fire was snapped;

II

                 And till we came even to the City’s wall

                    And the great gate; then, none knew whence or why,

                 Disquiet on the multitudes did fall:

                    And first, one pale and breathless passed us by,

                    And stared and spoke not;—then with piercing cry

                 A troop of wild-eyed women, by the shrieks

2350

2350            Of their own terror driven,—tumultuously

                 Hither and thither hurrying with pale cheeks,

               Each one from fear unknown a sudden refuge seeks—

III

                 Then, rallying cries of treason and of danger

                    Resounded: and—‘They come! to arms! to arms!

2355

2355         The Tyrant is amongst us, and the stranger

                    Comes to enslave us in his name! to arms!’

                    In vain: for Panic, the pale fiend who charms

                 Strength to forswear her right, those millions swept

                    Like waves before the tempest—these alarms

2360

2360         Came to me, as to know their cause I lept

               On the gate’s turret, and in rage and grief and scorn I wept!

IV

                 For to the North I saw the town on fire,

                    And its red light made morning pallid now,

                 Which burst over wide Asia;—louder, higher,

2365

2365            The yells of victory and the screams of woe

                    I heard approach, and saw the throng below

                 Stream through the gates like foam-wrought waterfalls

                    Fed from a thousand storms—the fearful glow

                 Of bombs flares overhead—at intervals

2370

2370       The red artillery’s bolt mangling among them falls.

V

                 And now the horsemen come—and all was done

                    Swifter than I have spoken—I beheld

                 Their red swords flash in the unrisen sun.

                    I rushed among the rout, to have repelled

2375

2375            That miserable flight—one moment quelled

                 By voice and looks and eloquent despair,

                    As if reproach from their own hearts withheld

                 Their steps, they stood; but soon came pouring there

               New multitudes, and did those rallied bands o’erbear.

VI

2380

2380         I strove, as, drifted on some cataract

                    By irresistible streams, some wretch might strive

                 Who hears its fatal roar:—the files compact

                    Whelmed me, and from the gate availed to drive

                    With quickening impulse, as each bolt did rive

2385

2385         Their ranks with bloodier chasm:—into the plain

                    Disgorged at length the dead and the alive

                 In one dread mass, were parted, and the stain

               Of blood, from mortal steel fell o’er the fields like rain.

VII

                 For now the despot’s bloodhounds with their prey

2390

2390            Unarmed and unaware, were gorging deep

                 Their gluttony of death; the loose array

                    Of horsemen o’er the wide fields murdering sweep,

                    And with loud laughter for their tyrant reap

                 A harvest sown with other hopes, the while,

2395

2395            Far overhead, ships from Propontis keep

                 A killing rain of fire:—when the waves smile

               As sudden earthquakes light many a volcano-isle,

VIII

                 Thus sudden, unexpected feast was spread

                    For the carrion-fowls of Heaven.—I saw the sight—

2400

2400         I moved—I lived—as o’er the heaps of dead,

                    Whose stony eyes glared in the morning light

                    I trod;—to me there came no thought of flight,

                 But with loud cries of scorn which whoso heard

                    That dreaded death, felt in his veins the might

2405

2405         Of virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred,

               And desperation’s hope in many hearts recurred.

IX

                 A band of brothers gathering round me, made,

                    Although unarmed, a steadfast front, and still

                 Retreating, with stern looks beneath the shade

2410

2410            Of gathered eyebrows, did the victors fill

                    With doubt even in success; deliberate will

                 Inspired our growing troop, not overthrown

                    It gained the shelter of a grassy hill,

                 And ever still our comrades were hewn down,

2415

2415       And their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown.

X

                 Immovably we stood—in joy I found,

                    Beside me then, firm as a giant pine

                 Among the mountain-vapours driven around,

                    The old man whom I loved—his eyes divine

2420

2420            With a mild look of courage answered mine,

                 And my young friend was near, and ardently

                    His hand grasped mine a moment—now the line

                 Of war extended, to our rallying cry

               As myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.

XI

2425

2425         For ever while the sun was climbing Heaven

                    The horseman hewed our unarmed myriads down

                 Safely, though when by thirst of carnage driven

                    Too near, those slaves were swiftly overthrown

                    By hundreds leaping on them:—flesh and bone

2430

2430         Soon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaft

                    Of the artillery from the sea was thrown

                 More fast and fiery, and the conquerors laughed

               In pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.

XII

                 For on one side alone the hill gave shelter,

2435

2435            So vast that phalanx of unconquered men,

                 And there the living in the blood did welter

                    Of the dead and dying, which, in that green glen,

                    Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fen

                 Under the feet—thus was the butchery waged

                    While the sun clomb Heaven’s eastern steep—but when

                 It ’gan to sink—a fiercer combat raged,

               For in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.

XIII

                 Within a cave upon the hill were found

                    A bundle of rude pikes, the instrument

2445

2445         Of those who war but on their native ground

                    For natural rights: a shout of joyance sent

                    Even from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent,

                 As those few arms the bravest and the best

                    Seized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present

2450

2450         A line which covered and sustained the rest,

               A confident phalanx, which the foe on every side invest.

XIV

                 That onset turned the foes to flight almost;

                    But soon they saw their present strength, and knew

                 That coming night would to our resolute host

2455

2455            Bring victory; so dismounting, close they drew

                    Their glittering files, and then the combat grew

                 Unequal but most horrible;—and ever

                    Our myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew,

                 Or the red sword, failed like a mountain-river

2460

2460       Which rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever.

XV

                 Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kind

                    Our human brethren mix, like beasts of blood,

                 To mutual ruin armed by one behind

                    Who sits and scoffs!—That friend so mild and good,

2465

2465            Who like its shadow near my youth had stood,

                 Was stabbed!—my old preserver’s hoary hair

                    With the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewed

                 Under my feet!—I lost all sense or care,

               And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.

XVI

2470

2470         The battle became ghastlier—in the midst

                    I paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell

                 O Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd’st

                    For love. The ground in many a little dell

                    Was broken, up and down whose steeps befell

2475

2475         Alternate victory and defeat, and there

                    The combatants with rage most horrible

                 Strove, and their eyes started with cracking stare,

               And impotent their tongues they lolled into the air,

XVII

                 Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog’s hanging;

2480

2480            Want, and Moon-madness, and the pest’s swift Bane

                 When its shafts smite—while yet its bow is twanging—

                    Have each their mark and sign—some ghastly stain;

                    And this was thine, O War! of hate and pain

                 Thou loathèd slave. I saw all shapes of death

2485

2485            And ministered to many, o’er the plain

                 While carnage in the sunbeam’s warmth did seethe,

               Till twilight o’er the east wove her serenest wreath.

XVIII

                 The few who yet survived, resolute and firm

                    Around me fought. At the decline of day

2490

2490         Winding above the mountain’s snowy term

                    New banners shone: they quivered in the ray

                    Of the sun’s unseen orb—ere night the array

                 Of fresh troops hemmed us in—of those brave bands

                    I soon survived alone—and now I lay

2495

2495         Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands

               I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands:

XIX

                 When on my foes a sudden terror came,

                    And they fled, scattering—lo! with reinless speed

                 A black Tartarian horse of giant frame

2500

2500            Conies trampling over the dead, the living bleed

                    Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,

                 On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,

                    Sate one waving a sword;—the hosts recede

                 And fly, as through their ranks with awful might,

2505

2505       Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright;

XX

                 And its path made a solitude.—I rose

                    And marked its coming: it relaxed its course

                 As it approached me, and the wind that flows

                    Through night, bore accents to mine ear whose force

2510

2510            Might create smiles in death—the Tartar horse

                 Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,

                    And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source

                 Of waters in the desert, as she said,

               ‘Mount with me, Laon, now!’—I rapidly obeyed.

XXI

                 Then: ‘Away! away!’ she cried, and stretched her sword

                    As ’twere a scourge over the courser’s head,

                 And lightly shook the reins.—We spake no word,

                    But like the vapour of the tempest fled

                    Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread

2520

2520         Like the pine’s locks upon the lingering blast;

                    Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread

                 Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,

               As o’er their glimmering forms the steed’s broad shadow passed.

XXII

                 And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,

2525

2525            His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray,

                 And turbulence, as of a whirlwind’s gust

                    Surrounded us;—and still away! away!

                    Through the desert night we sped, while she alway

                 Gazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,

2530

2530            Crowned with a marble ruin, in the ray

                 Of the obscure stars gleamed;—its rugged breast

               The steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.

XXIII

                 A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:—

                    From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted

2535

2535         Paused, might be heard the murmur of the motion

                    Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted

                    By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted

                 To music, by the wand of Solitude,

                    That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted

2540

2540         Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood

               Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean’s curved flood.

XXIV

                 One moment these were heard and seen—another

                    Passed; and the two who stood beneath that night,

                 Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other;

2545

2545            As from the lofty steed she did alight,

                    Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light

                 Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale

                    With influence strange of mournfullest delight,

                 My own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail,

2550

2550       And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.

XXV

                 And for a space in my embrace she rested,

                    Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,

                 While my faint arms her languid frame invested:

                    At length she looked on me, and half unclosing

                    Her tremulous lips, said: ‘Friend, thy bands were losing

                 The battle, as I stood before the King

                    In bonds.—I burst them then, and swiftly choosing

                 The time, did seize a Tartar’s sword, and spring

               Upon his horse, and, swift as on the whirlwind’s wing,

XXVI

2560

2560         ‘Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer,

                    And we are here.’—Then turning to the steed,

                 She pressed the white moon on his front with pure

                    And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed

                    From the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;—

2565

2565         But I to a stone seat that Maiden led,

                    And kissing her fair eyes, said, ‘Thou hast need

                 Of rest,’ and I heaped up the courser’s bed

               In a green mossy nook, with mountain-flowers dispread.

XXVII

                 Within that ruin, where a shattered portal

2570

2570            Looks to the eastern stars, abandoned now

                 By man, to be the home of things immortal,

                    Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go.

                    And must inherit all he builds below,

                 When he is gone, a hall stood; o’er whose roof

2575

2575            Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow,

                 Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof,

               A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.

XXVIII

                 The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made

                    A natural couch of leaves in that recess,

2580

2580         Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade

                    Of flowering parasites, did Spring love to dress

                    With their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness

                 Of those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene’er

                    The wandering wind her nurslings might caress;

2585

2585         Whose intertwining fingers ever there

               Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.

XXIX

                 We know not where we go, or what sweet dream

                    May pilot us through caverns strange and fair

                 Of far and pathless passion, while the stream

2590

2590            Of life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,

                    Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;

                 Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion

                    Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there

                 Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean

2595

2595       Of universal life, attuning its commotion.

XXX

                 To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapped

                    Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow

                 Of public hope was from our being snapped,

                    Though linkèd years had bound it there; for now

2600

2600            A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below

                 All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere,

                    Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow,

                 Came on us, as we sate in silence there,

               Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air:—

XXXI

2605

2605         In silence which doth follow talk that causes

                    The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears,

                 When wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses

                    Of inexpressive speech:—the youthful years

                    Which we together passed, their hopes and fears,

2610

2610         The blood itself which ran within our frames,

                    That likeness of the features which endears

                 The thoughts expressed by them, our very names,

               And all the wingèd hours which speechless memory claims,

XXXII

                 Had found a voice—and ere that voice did pass,

2615

2615            The night grew damp and dim, and through a rent

                 Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass,

                    A wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent,

                    Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent

                 A faint and pallid lustre; while the song

2620

2620            Of blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent,

                 Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;

               A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit’s tongue.

XXXIII

                 The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,

                    And Cythna’s glowing arms, and the thick ties

2625

2625         Of her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight

                    My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes,

                    Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies

                 O’er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,

                    Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,

2630

2630         Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,

               With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.

XXXIV

                 The Meteor to its far morass returned:

                    The beating of our veins one interval

                 Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned

2635

2635            Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall

                    Around my heart like fire; and over all

                 A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep

                    And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall

                 Two disunited spirits when they leap

2640

2640       In union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep.

XXXV

                 Was it one moment that confounded thus

                    All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one

                 Unutterable power, which shielded us

                    Even from our own cold looks, when we had gone

2645

2645            Into a wide and wild oblivion

                 Of tumult and of tenderness? or now

                    Had ages, such as make the moon and sun,

                 The seasons, and mankind their changes know,

               Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?

XXXVI

2650

2650         I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps

                    The failing heart in languishment, or limb

                 Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps

                    Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim

                    Through tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,

2655

2655         In one caress? What is the strong control

                    Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,

                 Where far over the world those vapours roll,

               Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?

XXXVII

                 It is the shadow which doth float unseen,

2660

2660            But not unfelt, o’er blind mortality,

                 Whose divine darkness fled not, from that green

                    And lone recess, where lapped in peace did lie

                    Our linkèd frames till, from the changing sky,

                 That night and still another day had fled;

2665

2665            And then I saw and felt. The moon was high,

                 And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spread

               Under its orb,—loud winds were gathering overhead.

XXXVIII

                 Cythna’s sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,

                    Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,

2670

2670         And her dark tresses were all loosely strewn

                    O’er her pale bosom:—all within was still,

                    And the sweet peace of joy did almost fill

                 The depth of her unfathomable look;—

                    And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,

2675

2675         The waves contending in its caverns strook,

               For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.

XXXIX

                 There we unheeding sate, in the communion

                    Of interchangèd vows, which, with a rite

                 Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—

2680

2680            Few were the living hearts which could unite

                    Like ours, or celebrate a bridal-night

                 With such close sympathies, for they had sprung

                    From linked youth, and from the gentle might

                 Of earliest love, delayed and cherished long,

               Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong.

XL

2685

2685         And such is Nature’s law divine, that those

                    Who grow together cannot choose but love,

                 If faith or custom do not interpose,

                    Or common slavery mar what else might move

2690

2690            All gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove

                 Which shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,

                    That living tree, which, if the arrowy dove

                 Strike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,

               But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;

XLI

2695

2695         And clings to them, when darkness may dissever

                    The close caresses of all duller plants

                 Which bloom on the wide earth—thus we for ever

                    Were linked, for love had nursed us in the haunts

                    Where knowledge, from its secret source enchants

2700

2700         Young hearts with the fresh music of its springing,

                    Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,

                 As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flinging

               Light on the woven boughs which o’er its waves are swinging.

XLII

                 The tones of Cythna’s voice like echoes were

                    Of those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell,

                 Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,—

                    And so we sate, until our talk befell

                    Of the late ruin, swift and horrible,

                 And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,

2710

2710            Whose fruit is evil’s mortal poison: well,

                 For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,

               But Cythna’s eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone

XLIII

                 Since she had food:—therefore I did awaken

                    The Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane

2715

2715         Soon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken,

                    Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,

                    Following me obediently; with pain

                 Of heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,

                    When lips and heart refuse to part again

2720

2720         Till they have told their fill, could scarce express

               The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,

XLIV

                 Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode

                    That willing steed—the tempest and the night,

                 Which gave my path its safety as I rode

2725

2725            Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite

                    The darkness and the tumult of their might

                 Borne on all winds.—Far through the streaming rain

                    Floating at intervals the garments white

                 Of Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again

2730

2730       Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain.

XLV

                 I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he

                    Who bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red

                 Turned on the lightning’s cleft exultingly;

                    And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,

2735

2735            Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread

                 His nostrils to the blast, and joyously

                    Mock the fierce peal with neighings;—thus we sped

                 O’er the lit plain, and soon I could descry

               Where Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.

XLVI

2740

2740         There was a desolate village in a wood

                    Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed

                 The hungry storm; it was a place of blood,

                    A heap of hearthless walls;—the flames were dead

                    Within those dwellings now,—the life had fled

2745

2745         From all those corpses now,—but the wide sky

                    Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead

                 By the black rafters, and around did lie

               Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

XLVII

                 Beside the fountain in the market-place

2750

2750            Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare

                 With horny eyes upon each other’s face,

                    Ana on the earth and on the vacant air,

                    And upon me, close to the waters where

                 I stooped to slake my thirst;—I shrank to taste,

2755

2755            For the salt bitterness of blood was there;

                 But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste

               If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

XLVIII

                 No living thing was there beside one woman,

                    Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she

2760

2760         Was withered from a likeness of aught human

                    Into a fiend, by some strange misery:

                    Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,

                 And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed

                    With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,

2765

2765         And cried, ‘Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed

               The Plague’s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!

XLIX

                 ‘My name is Pestilence—this bosom dry,

                    Once fed two babes—a sister and a brother—

                 When I came home, one in the blood did lie

                    Of three death-wounds—the flames had ate the other!

                    Since then I have no longer been a mother,

                 But I am Pestilence;—hither and thither

                    I flit about, that I may slay and smother:—

                 All lips which I have kissed must surely wither,

2775

2775       But Death’s—if thou art he, we’ll go to work together!

L

                 ‘What seek’st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,—

                    The dew is rising dankly from the dell—

                 ’Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes

                    In my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell

                    First what thou seek’st.’—‘I seek for food.’—‘’Tis well,

                 Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour,

                    Waits for us at the feast—cruel and fell

                 Is Famine, but he drives not from his door

               Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!’

LI

2785

2785         As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength

                    Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth

                 She led, and over many a corpse:—at length

                    We came to a lone hut where on the earth

                    Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth

2790

2790         Gathering from all those homes now desolate,

                    Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth

                 Among the dead—round which she set in state

               A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

LII

                 She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high

2795

2795            Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: ‘Eat!

                 Share the great feast—to-morrow we must die!’

                    And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,

                    Towards her bloodless guests;—that sight to meet,

                 Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she

2800

2800            Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat

                 Despair, I might have raved in sympathy;

               But now I took the food that woman offered me;

LIII

                 And vainly having with her madness striven

                    If I might win her to return with me,

2805

2805         Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven

                    The lightning now grew pallid—rapidly,

                    As by the shore of the tempestuous sea

                 The dark steed bore me, and the mountain gray

                    Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see

2810

2810         Cythna among the rocks, where she alway

               Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

LIV

                 And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,

                    Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast

                 My arms around her, lest her steps should fail

2815

2815            As to our home we went, and thus embraced,

                    Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste

                 Than e’er the prosperous know; the steed behind

                    Trod peacefully along the mountain waste:

                 We reached our home ere morning could unbind

2820

2820       Night’s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.

LV

                 Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,

                    And sweetest kisses past, we two did share

                 Our peaceful meal:—as an autumnal blossom

                    Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,

2825

2825            After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,

                 Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit

                    Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere

                 Of health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,

               And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.

CANTO VII

I

2830

2830         So we sate joyous as the morning ray

                    Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm

                 Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play

                    Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,

                    And we sate linked in the inwoven charm

2835

2835         Of converse and caresses sweet and deep,

                    Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm

                 Time, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,

               And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

II

                 I told her of my sufferings and my madness,

2840

2840            And how, awakened from that dreamy mood

                 By Liberty’s uprise, the strength of gladness

                    Came to my spirit in my solitude;

                    And all that now I was—while tears pursued

                 Each other down her fair and glistening cheek

2845

2845            Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood

                 From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,

               Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

III

                 She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,

                    Like broken memories of many a heart

2850

2850         Woven into one; to which no firm assurance,

                    So wild were they, could her own faith impart.

                    She said that not a tear did dare to start

                 From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm

                    When from all mortal hope she did depart,

2855

2855         Borne by those slaves across the Ocean’s term,

               And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.

IV

                 One was she among many there, the thralls

                    Of the cold Tyrant’s cruel lust: and they

                 Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;

2860

2860            But she was calm and sad, musing alway

                    On loftiest enterprise, till on a day

                 The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute

                    A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,

                 Like winds that die in wastes—one moment mute

2865

2865       The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.

V

                 Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,

                    One moment to great Nature’s sacred power

                 He bent, and was no longer passionless;

                    But when he bade her to his secret bower

2870

2870            Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore

                 Her locks in agony, and her words of flame

                    And mightier looks availed not; then he bore

                 Again his load of slavery, and became

               A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.

VI

2875

2875         She told me what a loathsome agony

                    Is that when selfishness mocks love’s delight,

                 Foul as in dream’s most fearful imagery

                    To dally with the mowing dead—that night

                    All torture, fear, or horror made seem light

2880

2880         Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day

                    Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight

                 Where like a Spirit in fleshly chains she lay

               Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.

VII

                 Her madness was a beam of light, a power

2885

2885            Which dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave,

                 Gestures, and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore

                    Which might not be withstood—whence none could save—

                    All who approached their sphere,—like some calm wave

                 Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;

2890

2890            And sympathy made each attendant slave

                 Fearless and free, and they began to breathe

               Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath,

VIII

                 The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:

                    At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,—

2895

2895         One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown

                    From human shape into an instrument

                    Of all things ill—distorted, bowed and bent.

                 The other was a wretch from infancy

                    Made dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant

2900

2900         But to obey: from the fire-isles came he,

               A diver lean and strong, of Oman’s coral sea.

IX

                 They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke

                    Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,

                 Until upon their path the morning broke;

2905

2905            They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze,

                    The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades

                 Shakes with the sleepless surge;—the Ethiop there

                    Wound his long arms around her, and with knees

                 Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her

2910

2910       Among the closing waves out of the boundless air.

X

                 ‘Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain

                    Of morning light, into some shadowy wood,

                 He plunged through the green silence of the main,

                    Through many a cavern which the eternal flood

2915

2915            Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood;

                 And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,

                    And among mightier shadows which pursued

                 His heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under

               He touched a golden chain—a sound arose like thunder.

XI

2920

2920         ‘A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling

                    Beneath the deep—a burst of waters driven

                 As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:

                    And in that roof of crags a space was riven

                    Through which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,

2925

2925         Shot through the lines of many waves inwoven,

                    Like sunlight through acacia woods at even,

                 Through which, his way the diver having cloven,

               Passed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven,

XII

                 ‘And then,’ she said, ‘he laid me in a cave

2930

2930            Above the waters, by that chasm of sea,

                 A fountain round and vast, in which the wave

                    Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,

                    Down which, one moment resting, he did flee,

                 Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell

2935

2935            Like an hupaithric temple wide and high,

                 Whose aëry dome is inaccessible,

               Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.

XIII

                 ‘Below, the fountain’s brink was richly paven

                    With the deep’s wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand

2940

2940         Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven

                    With mystic legends by no mortal hand,

                    Left there, when thronging to the moon’s command,

                 The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate

                    Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand

2945

2945         Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state

               Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.

XIV

                 ‘The fiend of madness which had made its prey

                    Of my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile:

                 There was an interval of many a day,

2950

2950            And a sea-eagle brought me food the while,

                    Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle,

                 And who, to be the gaoler had been taught

                    Of that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile

                 Like light and rest at morn and even is sought

               That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought.

XV

                 ‘The misery of a madness slow and creeping,

                    Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,

                 And the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping,

                    In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,

2960

2960            Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there;

                 And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore

                    Thy mangled limbs for food!—Thus all things were

                 Transformed into the agony which I wore

               Even as a poisoned robe around my bosom’s core.

XVI

2965

2965         ‘Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing,

                    The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;

                 Another frenzy came—there seemed a being

                    Within me—a strange load my heart did bear,

                    As if some living thing had made its lair

2970

2970         Even in the fountains of my life:—a long

                    And wondrous vision wrought from my despair,

                 Then grew, like sweet reality among

               Dim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.

XVII

                 ‘Methought I was about to be a mother—

2975

2975            Month after month went by, and still I dreamed

                 That we should soon be all to one another,

                    I and my child; and still new pulses seemed

                    To beat beside my heart, and still I deemed

                 There was a babe within—and, when the rain

2980

2980            Of winter through the rifted cavern streamed,

                 Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,

               I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.

XVIII

                 ‘It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,—

                    It was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine,

2985

2985         Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earth

                    It laid its fingers, as now rest on mine

                    Thine own, belovèd!—’twas a dream divine;

                 Even to remember how it fled, how swift,

                    How utterly, might make the heart repine,—

2990

2990         Though ’twas a dream.’—Then Cythna did uplift

               Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:

XIX

                 A doubt which would not flee, a tenderness

                    Of questioning grief, a source of thronging tears:

                 Which having passed, as one whom sobs oppress

2995

2995            She spoke: ‘Yes, in the wilderness of years

                    Her memory, aye, like a green home appears;

                 She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,

                    For many months. I had no mortal fears;

                 Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,—

3000

3000       It was a human thing which to my bosom clove.

XX

                 ‘I watched the dawn of her first smiles, and soon

                    When zenith-stars were trembling on the wave,

                 Or when the beams of the invisible moon,

                    Or sun, from many a prism within the cave

3005

3005            Their gem-born shadows to the water gave,

                 Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand,

                    From the swift lights which might that fountain pave,

                 She would mark one, and laugh, when that command

               Slighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.

XXI

3010

3010         ‘Methought her looks began to talk with me;

                    And no articulate sounds, but something sweet

                 Her lips would frame,—so sweet it could not be,

                    That it was meaningless; her touch would meet

                    Mine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat

3015

3015         In response while we slept; and on a day

                    When I was happiest in that strange retreat,

                 With heaps of golden shells we two did play,—

               Both infants, weaving wings for time’s perpetual way.

XXII

                 ‘Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown

3020

3020            Weary with joy, and tired with our delight,

                 We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down

                    On one fair mother’s bosom:—from that night

                    She fled;—like those illusions clear and bright,

                 Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high

3025

3025            Pause ere it wakens tempest;—and her flight,

                 Though ’twas the death of brainless fantasy,

               Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.

XXIII

                 ‘It seemed that in the dreary night, the diver

                    Who brought me thither, came again, and bore

3030

3030         My child away. I saw the waters quiver,

                    When he so swiftly sunk, as once before;

                    Then morning came—it shone even as of yore,

                 But I was changed—the very life was gone

                    Out of my heart—I wasted more and more,

3035

3035         Day after day, and sitting there alone,

               Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

XXIV

                 ‘I was no longer mad, and yet methought

                    My breasts were swoln and changed:—in every vein

                 The blood stood still one moment, while that thought

3040

3040            Was passing—with a gush of sickening pain

                    It ebbed even to its withered springs again:

                 When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned

                    From that most strange delusion, which would fain

                 Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned

3045

3045       With more than human love,—then left it unreturned.

XXV

                 ‘So now my reason was restored to me

                    I struggled with that dream, which, like a beast

                 Most fierce and beauteous, in my memory

                    Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast;

3050

3050            But all that cave and all its shapes, possessed

                 By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one

                    Some smile, some look, some gesture which had blessed

                 Me heretofore: I, sitting there alone,

               Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

XXVI

                 ‘Time passed, I know not whether months or years;

                    For day, nor night, nor change of seasons made

                 Its note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:

                    And I became at last even as a shade,

                    A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed,

3060

3060         Till it be thin as air; until, one even,

                    A Nautilus upon the fountain played,

                 Spreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven

               Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven,

XXVII

                 ‘And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,

3065

3065            Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat,

                 Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing,

                    The Eagle, hovering o’er his prey did float;

                    But when he saw that I with fear did note

                 His purpose, proffering my own food to him,

3070

3070            The eager plumes subsided on his throat—

                 He came where that bright child of sea did swim,

               And o’er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.

XXVIII

                 ‘This wakened me, it gave me human strength;

                    And hope, I knew not whence or wherefore, rose,

3075

3075         But I resumed my ancient powers at length;

                    My spirit felt again like one of those

                    Like thine, whose fate it is to make the woes

                 Of humankind their prey—what was this cave?

                    Its deep foundation no firm purpose knows

3080

3080         Immutable, resistless, strong to save,

               Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.

XXIX

                 ‘And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,

                    While that far dearer heart could move and be?

                 Or whilst over the earth the pall was spread,

3085

3085            Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free,

                    Could I but win that friendly bird to me,

                 To bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought

                    By intercourse of mutual imagery

                 Of objects, if such aid he could be taught;

3090

3090       But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought.

XXX

                 ‘We live in our own world, and mine was made

                    From glorious fantasies of hope departed:

                 Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,

                    Or cast a lustre on them—time imparted

3095

3095            Such power to me—I became fearless-hearted,

                 My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,

                    And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted

                 Its lustre on all hidden things, behind

               Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.

XXXI

3100

3100         ‘My mind became the book through which I grew

                    Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,

                 Which like a mine I rifled through and through,

                    To me the keeping of its secrets gave—

                    One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave

3105

3105         Whose calm reflects all moving things that are,

                    Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,

                 And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear;

               Justice, and truth, and time, and the world’s natural sphere.

XXXII

                 ‘And on the sand would I make signs to range

3110

3110            These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought;

                 Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest change

                    A subtler language within language wrought:

                    The key of truths which once were dimly taught

                 In old Crotona;—and sweet melodies

3115

3115            Of love, in that lorn solitude I caught

                 From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes

               Shone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize,

XXXIII

                 ‘Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,

                    As in a wingèd chariot, o’er the plain

3120

3120         Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill

                    My heart with joy, and there we sate again

                    On the gray margin of the glimmering main,

                 Happy as then but wiser far, for we

                    Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain

3125

3125         Fear, Faith, and Slavery; and mankind was free,

               Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom’s prophecy.

XXXIV

                 ‘For to my will my fancies were as slaves

                    To do their sweet and subtile ministries;

                 And oft from that bright fountain’s shadowy waves

3130

3130            They would make human throngs gather and rise

                    To combat with my overflowing eyes,

                 And voice made deep with passion—thus I grew

                    Familiar with the shock and the surprise

                 And war of earthly minds, from which I drew

3135

3135       The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew.

XXXV

                 ‘And thus my prison was the populous earth—

                    Where I saw—even as misery dreams of morn

                 Before the east has given its glory birth—

                    Religion’s pomp made desolate by the scorn

3140

3140            Of Wisdom’s faintest smile, and thrones, uptorn,

                 And dwellings of mild people interspersed

                    With undivided fields of ripening corn,

                 And love made free,—a hope which we have nursed

               Even with our blood and tears,—until its glory burst.

XXXVI

3145

3145         ‘All is not lost! There is some recompense

                    For hope whose fountain can be thus profound,

                 Even thronèd Evil’s splendid impotence,

                    Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound

                    Of hymns to truth and freedom—the dread bound

3150

3150         Of life and death passed fearlessly and well,

                    Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,

                 Racks which degraded woman’s greatness tell,

               And what may else be good and irresistible.

XXXVII

                 ‘Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare

3155

3155            In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet

                 In this dark ruin—such were mine even there;

                    As in its sleep some odorous violet,

                    While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,

                 Breathes in prophetic dreams of day’s uprise,

3160

3160            Or, as ere Scythian frost in fear has met

                 Spring’s messengers descending from the skies,

               The buds foreknow their life—this hope must ever rise.

XXXVIII

                 ‘So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent

                    The depth of ocean, and the cavern cracked

3165

3165         With sound, as if the world’s wide continent

                    Had fallen in universal ruin wracked:

                    And through the cleft streamed in one cataract

                 The stifling waters—when I woke, the flood

                    Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked

3170

3170         Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode

               Before me yawned—a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.

XXXIX

                 ‘Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:

                    I stood upon a point of shattered stone,

                 And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously

3175

3175            With splash and shock into the deep—anon

                    All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.

                 I felt that I was free! The Ocean-spray

                    Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone

                 Around, and in my hair the winds did play

3180

3180       Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.

XL

                 ‘My spirit moved upon the sea like wind

                    Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,

                 Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind

                    The strength of tempest: day was almost over,

3185

3185            When through the fading light I could discover

                 A ship approaching—its white sails were fed

                    With the north wind—its moving shade did cover

                 The twilight deep;—the Mariners in dread

               Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

XLI

3190

3190         ‘And when they saw one sitting on a crag,

                    They sent a boat to me;—the Sailors rowed

                 In awe through many a new and fearful jag

                    Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed

                    The foam of streams that cannot make abode.

3195

3195         They came and questioned me, but when they heard

                    My voice, they became silent, and they stood

                 And moved as men in whom new love had stirred

               Deep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.

CANTO VIII

I

                 ‘I SATE beside the Steersman then, and gazing

3200

3200            Upon the west, cried, “Spread the sails! Behold!

                 The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing

                    Over the mountains yet;—the City of Gold

                    Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;

                 The stream is fleet—the north breathes steadily

3205

3205            Beneath the stars, they tremble with the cold!

                 Yet cannot rest upon the dreary sea!—

               Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!”

II

                 ‘The Mariners obeyed—the Captain stood

                    Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,

3210

3210         “Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued

                    By wicked ghosts: a Phantom of the Dead,

                    The night before we sailed, came to my bed

                 In dream, like that!” The Pilot then replied,

                    “It cannot be—she is a human Maid—

3215

3215         Her low voice makes you weep—she is some bride,

               Or daughter of high birth—she can be nought beside.”

III

                 ‘We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,

                    And as we sailed, the Mariners came near

                 And thronged around to listen;—in the gleam

3220

3220            Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear

                    May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear;

                 “Ye all are human—yon broad moon gives light

                    To millions who the selfsame likeness wear,

                 Even while I speak—beneath this very night,

               Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.

IV

                 ‘ “What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home,

                    Even for yourselves on a beloved shore:

                 For some, fond eyes are pining till they come,

                    How they will greet him when his toils are o’er,

                    And laughing babes rush from the well-known door!

                 Is this your care? ye toil for your own good—

                    Ye feel and think—has some immortal power

                 Such purposes? or in a human mood,

               Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?

V

                 ‘ “What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give

                    A human heart to what ye cannot know:

                 As if the cause of life could think and live!

                    ‘Twere as if man’s own works should feel, and show

                    The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,

3240

3240         And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free

                    To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,

                 Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity

               Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!

VI

                 ‘ “What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood

3245

3245            Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown

                 Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood

                    The Form he saw and worshipped was his own,

                    His likeness in the world’s vast mirror shown;

                 And ’twere an innocent dream, but that a faith

3250

3250            Nursed by fear’s dew of poison, grows thereon,

                 And that men say, that Power has chosen Death

               On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.

VII

                 ‘ “Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,

                    Or known from others who have known such things,

3255

3255         A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between

                    Wields an invisible rod—that Priests and Kings,

                    Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings

                 Man’s freeborn soul beneath the oppressor’s heel,

                    Are his strong ministers, and that the stings

3260

3260         Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,

               Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

VIII

                 “ ‘And it is said, this Power will punish wrong;

                    Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!

                 And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,

3265

3265            Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain,

                    Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,

                 Clung to him while he lived;—for love and hate,

                    Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain—

                 The will of strength is right—this human state

3270

3270       Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.

IX

                 ‘ “Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail

                    Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon

                 Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail

                    To hide the orb of truth—and every throne

3275

3275            Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,

                 One shape of many names:—for this ye plough

                    The barren waves of ocean, hence each one

                 Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,

               Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.

X

3280

3280         ‘ “Its names are each a sign which maketh holy

                    All power—ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade

                 Of power—lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;

                    The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,

                    A law to which mankind has been betrayed;

3285

3285         And human love, is as the name well known

                    Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid

                 In bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,

               Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

XI

                 ‘ “O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men

3290

3290            Art as the calm to Ocean’s weary waves!

                 Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can

                    From slavery and religion’s labyrinth caves

                    Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.

                 To give to all an equal share of good,

                    To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves

                 She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,

               To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend’s dearest blood,—

XII

                 ‘ “To feel the peace of self-contentment’s lot,

                    To own all sympathies, and outrage none,

3300

3300         And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought,

                    Until life’s sunny day is quite gone down,

                    To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,

                 To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;

                    To live, as if to love and live were one,—

3305

3305         This is not faith or law, nor those who bow

               To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.

XIII

                 ‘ “But children near their parents tremble now,

                    Because they must obey—one rules another,

                 And as one Power rules both high and low,

3310

3310            So man is made the captive of his brother,

                    And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,

                 Above the Highest—and those fountain-cells,

                    Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,

                 Are darkened—Woman as the bond-slave dwells

3315

3315       Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells.

XIV

                 ‘ “Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave

                    A lasting chain for his own slavery;—

                 In fear and restless care that he may live

                    He toils for others, who must ever be

3320

3320            The joyous thralls of like captivity;

                 He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;

                    He builds the altar, that its idol’s fee

                 May be his very blood; he is pursuing—

               O, blind and willing wretch!—his own obscure undoing.

XV

3325

3325         ‘ “Woman!—she is his slave, she has become

                    A thing I weep to speak—the child of scorn,

                 The outcast of a desolated home;

                    Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn

                    Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,

3330

3330         As calm decks the false Ocean:—well ye know

                    What Woman is, for none of Woman born,

                 Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,

               Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.

XVI

                 ‘ “This need not be; ye might arise, and will

                    That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory,

                 That love, which none may bind, be free to fill

                    The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary

                    With crime, be quenched and die.—Yon promontory

                 Even now eclipses the descending moon!—

3340

3340            Dungeons and palaces are transitory—

                 High temples fade like vapour—Man alone

               Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

XVII

                 ‘ “Let all be free and equal!—From your hearts

                    I feel an echo; through my inmost frame

3345

3345         Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts—

                    Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name

                    All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,

                 On your worn faces; as in legends old

                    Which make immortal the disastrous fame

3350

3350         Of conquerors and impostors false and bold,

               The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.

XVIII

                 ‘ “Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood

                    Forth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold,

                 That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude?

3355

3355            Or from the famished poor, pale, weak, and cold,

                    Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!

                 Speak! Are your hands in slaughter’s sanguine hue

                    Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?

                 Know yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew,

3360

3360       And I will be a friend and sister unto you.

XIX

                 ‘ “Disguise it not—we have one human heart—

                    All mortal thoughts confess a common home:

                 Blush not for what may to thyself impart

                    Stains of inevitable crime: the doom

3365

3365            Is this, which has, or may, or must become

                 Thine, and all humankind’s. Ye are the spoil

                    Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb,

                 Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil

               Wherewith ye twine the rings of life’s perpetual coil.

XX

3370

3370         ‘ “Disguise it not—ye blush for what ye hate,

                    And Enmity is sister unto Shame;

                 Look on your mind—it is the book of fate—

                    Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name

                    Of misery—all are mirrors of the same;

3375

3375         But the dark fiend who with his iron pen

                    Dipped in scorn’s fiery poison, makes his fame

                 Enduring there, would o’er the heads of men

               Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.

XXI

                 ‘ “Yes, it is Hate—that shapeless fiendly thing

3380

3380            Of many names, all evil, some divine,

                 Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;

                    Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine

                    Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine

                 To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside

3385

3385            It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine

                 When Amphisbæna some fair bird has tied,

               Soon o’er the putrid mass he threats on every side.

XXII

                 ‘ “Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,

                    Nor hate another’s crime, nor loathe thine own.

3390

3390         It is the dark idolatry of self,

                    Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,

                    Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;

                 O vacant expiation! Be at rest.—

                    The past is Death’s, the future is thine own;

3395

3395         And love and joy can make the foulest breast

               A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.

XXIII

                 ‘ “Speak thou! whence come ye?”—A Youth made reply:

                    “Wearily, wearily o’er the boundless deep

                 We sail;—thou readest well the misery

3400

3400            Told in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep

                    Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep,

                 Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow;

                    Even from our childhood have we learned to steep

                 The bread of slavery in the tears of woe,

3405

3405       And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now.

XXIV

                 ‘ “Yes—I must speak—my secret should have perished

                    Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand

                 Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,

                    But that no human bosom can withstand

3410

3410            Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command

                 Of thy keen eyes:—yes, we are wretched slaves,

                    Who from their wonted loves and native land

                 Are reft, and bear o’er the dividing waves

               The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.

XXV

3415

3415         ‘ “We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest

                    Among the daughters of those mountains lone,

                 We drag them there, where all things best and rarest

                    Are stained and trampled:—years have come and gone

                    Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known

3420

3420         No thought;—but now the eyes of one dear Maid

                    On mine with light of mutual love have shone—

                 She is my life,—I am but as the shade

               Of her,—a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.

XXVI

                 ‘ “For she must perish in the Tyrant’s hall—

3425

3425            Alas, alas!”—He ceased, and by the sail

                 Sate cowering—but his sobs were heard by all,

                    And still before the ocean and the gale

                    The ship fled fast till the stars ’gan to fail,

                 And, round me gathered with mute countenance,

3430

3430            The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale

                 With toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glance

               Met mine in restless awe—they stood as in a trance.

XXVII

                 ‘ “Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old,

                    But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth

3435

3435         Are children of one mother, even Love—behold!

                    The eternal stars gaze on us! Is the truth

                    Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth

                 For others’ sufferings? do ye thirst to bear

                    A heart which not the serpent Custom’s tooth

3440

3440         May violate?—Be free! and even here,

               Swear to be firm till death!” They cried “We swear! We swear!”

XXVIII

                 ‘The very darkness shook, as with a blast

                    Of subterranean thunder, at the cry;

                 The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast

3445

3445            Into the night, as if the sea, and sky,

                    And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,

                 For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,

                    And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye

                 The captives gazing stood, and every one

               Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone.

XXIX

                 ‘They were earth’s purest children, young and fair,

                    With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,

                 And brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ere

                    Dark time had there its evil legend wrought

3455

3455            In characters of cloud which wither not.—

                 The change was like a dream to them; but soon

                    They knew the glory of their altered lot,

                 In the bright wisdom of youth’s breathless noon,

               Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune.

XXX

3460

3460         ‘But one was mute, her cheeks and lips most fair,

                    Changing their hue like lilies newly blown,

                 Beneath a bright acacia’s shadowy hair,

                    Waved by the wind amid the sunny noon,

                    Showed that her soul was quivering; and full soon

3465

3465         That Youth arose, and breathlessly did look

                    On her and me, as for some speechless boon:

                 I smiled, and both their hands in mine I took,

               And felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook.

CANTO IX

I

                 ‘THAT night we anchored in a woody bay,

3470

3470            And sleep no more around us dared to hover

                 Than, when all doubt and fear has passed away,

                    It shades the couch of some unresting lover,

                    Whose heart is now at rest: thus night passed over

                 In mutual joy:—around, a forest grew

3475

3475            Of poplar and dark oaks, whose shade did cover

                 The waning stars pranked in the waters blue,

               And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.

II

                 ‘The joyous Mariners, and each free Maiden,

                    Now brought from the deep forest many a bough,

3480

3480         With woodland spoil most innocently laden;

                    Soon wreaths of budding foliage seemed to flow

                    Over the mast and sails, the stern and prow

                 Were canopied with blooming boughs,—the while

                    On the slant sun’s path o’er the waves we go

3485

3485         Rejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle

               Doomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.

III

                 ‘The many ships spotting the dark blue deep

                    With snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh,

                 In fear and wonder; and on every steep

3490

3490            Thousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry,

                    Like Earth’s own voice lifted unconquerably

                 To all her children, the unbounded mirth,

                    The glorious joy of thy name—Liberty!

                 They heard!—As o’er the mountains of the earth

3495

3495       From peak to peak leap on the beams of Morning’s birth:

IV

                 ‘So from that cry over the boundless hills

                    Sudden was caught one universal sound,

                 Like a volcano’s voice, whose thunder fills

                    Remotest skies,—such glorious madness found

                    A path through human hearts with stream which drowned

                 Its struggling fears and cares, dark Custom’s brood;

                    They knew not whence it came, but felt around

                 A wide contagion poured—they called aloud

               On Liberty—that name lived on the sunny flood.

V

3505

3505         ‘We reached the port.—Alas! from many spirits

                    The wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled,

                 Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits

                    From the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread,

                    Upon the night’s devouring darkness shed:

3510

3510         Yet soon bright day will burst—even like a chasm

                    Of fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead,

                 Which wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm,

               To cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake’s spasm!

VI

                 ‘I walked through the great City then, but free

3515

3515            From shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners

                 And happy Maidens did encompass me;

                    And like a subterranean wind that stirs

                    Some forest among caves, the hopes and fears

                 From every human soul, a murmur strange

3520

3520            Made as I passed: and many wept, with tears

                 Of joy and awe, and wingèd thoughts did range,

               And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.

VII

                 ‘For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid

                    Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—

3525

3525         As one who from some mountain’s pyramid

                    Points to the unrisen sun!—the shades approve

                    His truth, and flee from every stream and grove.

                 Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,—

                    Wisdom, the mail of tried affections wove

3530

3530         For many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill,

               Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.

VIII

                 ‘Some said I was a maniac wild and lost;

                    Some, that I scarce had risen from the grave,

                 The Prophet’s virgin bride, a heavenly ghost:—

3535

3535            Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave,

                    Who had stolen human shape, and o’er the wave,

                 The forest, and the mountain came;—some said

                    I was the child of God, sent down to save

                 Women from bonds and death, and on my head

3540

3540       The burden of their sins would frightfully be laid.

IX

                 ‘But soon my human words found sympathy

                    In human hearts: the purest and the best,

                 As friend with friend, made common cause with me,

                    And they were few, but resolute:—the rest,

3545

3545            Ere yet success the enterprise had blessed,

                 Leagued with me in their hearts;—their meals, their slumber,

                    Their hourly occupations, were possessed

                 By hopes which I had armed to overnumber

               Those hosts of meaner cares, which life’s strong wings encumber.

X

3550

3550         ‘But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken

                    From their cold, careless, willing slavery,

                 Sought me: one truth their dreary prison has shaken,—

                    They looked around, and lo! they became free!

                    Their many tyrants sitting desolately

3555

3555         In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain;

                    For wrath’s red fire had withered in the eye,

                 Whose lightning once was death,—nor fear, nor gain

               Could tempt one captive now to lock another’s chain.

XI

                 ‘Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt

                    Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round,

                 Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt

                    In the white furnace; and a visioned swound,

                    A pause of hope and awe the City bound,

                 Which, like the silence of a tempest’s birth,

3565

3565            When in its awful shadow it has wound

                 The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,

               Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.

XII

                 ‘Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,

                    By winds from distant regions meeting there,

3570

3570         In the high name of truth and liberty,

                    Around the City millions gathered were,

                    By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,—

                 Words which the lore of truth in hues of flame

                    Arrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air

3575

3575         Like homeless odours floated, and the name

               Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.

XIII

                 ‘The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear,

                    The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the event—

                 That perfidy and custom, gold and prayer,

3580

3580            And whatsoe’er, when force is impotent,

                    To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent,

                 Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.

                    Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent

                 To curse the rebels.—To their gods did they

3585

3585       For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way.

XIV

                 ‘And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell

                    From seats where law is made the slave of wrong,

                 How glorious Athens in her splendour fell,

                    Because her sons were free,—and that among

3590

3590            Mankind, the many to the few belong,

                 By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.

                    They said, that age was truth, and that the young

                 Marred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,

               With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.

XV

3595

3595         ‘And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips

                    They breathed on the enduring memory

                 Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse;

                    There was one teacher, who necessity

                    Had armed with strength and wrong against mankind,

3600

3600         His slave and his avenger aye to be;

                    That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,

                 And that the will of one was peace, and we

               Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery—

XVI

                 ‘ “For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter.”

3605

3605            So spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied;

                 Alas, their sway was past, and tears and laughter

                    Clung to their hoary hair, withering the pride

                    Which in their hollow hearts dared still abide;

                 And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,

3610

3610            And sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide,

                 Said, that the rule of men was over now,

               And hence, the subject world to woman’s will must bow;

XVII

                 ‘And gold was scattered through the streets, and wine

                    Flowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.

3615

3615         In vain! the steady towers in Heaven did shine

                    As they were wont, nor at the priestly call

                    Left Plague her banquet in the Ethiop’s hall,

                 Nor Famine from the rich man’s portal came,

                    Where at her ease she ever preys on all

3620

3620         Who throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame,

               Nor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope’s newly kindled flame.

XVIII

                 ‘For gold was as a god whose faith began

                    To fade, so that its worshippers were few,

                 And Faith itself, which in the heart of man

3625

3625            Gives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, knew

                    Its downfall, as the altars lonelier grew,

                 Till the Priests stood alone within the fane;

                    The shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew,

                 And the cold sneers of calumny were vain,

3630

3630       The union of the free with discord’s brand to stain.

XIX

                 ‘The rest thou knowest.—Lo! we two are here—

                    We have survived a ruin wide and deep—

                 Strange thoughts are mine.—I cannot grieve or fear,

                    Sitting with thee upon this lonely steep

3635

3635            I smile, though human love should make me weep.

                 We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,

                    And I do feel a mighty calmness creep

                 Over my heart, which can no longer borrow

               Its hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.

XX

3640

3640         ‘We know not what will come—yet Laon, dearest,

                    Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love,

                 Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,

                    To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove

                    Within the homeless Future’s wintry grove;

3645

3645         For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem

                    Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,

                 And violence and wrong are as a dream

               Which rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.

XXI

                 ‘The blasts of Autumn drive the wingèd seeds

3650

3650            Over the earth,—next come the snows, and rain,

                 And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads

                    Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train;

                    Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again,

                 Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;

3655

3655            Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain,

                 And music on the waves and woods she flings,

               And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.

XXII

                 ‘O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness

                    Wind-wingèd emblem! brightest, best and fairest!

3660

3660         Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness

                    The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?

                    Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest

                 Thy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;

                    Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest

3665

3665         Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,

               Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.

XXIII

                 ‘Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,

                    Surround the world.—We are their chosen slaves.

                 Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven

3670

3670            Truth’s deathless germs to thought’s remotest caves?

                    Lo, Winter comes!—the grief of many graves,

                 The frost of death, the tempest of the sword,

                    The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves

                 Stagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter’s word,

3675

3675       And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred.

XXIV

                 ‘The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhile

                    The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,

                 Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile

                    Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,

3680

3680            The moon of wasting Science wanes away

                 Among her stars, and in that darkness vast

                    The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,

                 And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast

               A shade of selfish care o’er human looks is cast.

XXV

3685

3685         ‘This is the winter of the world;—and here

                    We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,

                 Expiring in the frore and foggy air.—

                    Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who made

                    The promise of its birth,—even as the shade

3690

3690         Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings

                    The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed

                 As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,

               From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.

XXVI

                 ‘O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold

3695

3695            Before this morn may on the world arise;

                 Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?

                    Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes

                    On thine own heart—it is a paradise

                 Which everlasting Spring has made its own,

3700

3700            And while drear Winter fills the naked skies,

                 Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,

               Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.

XXVII

                 ‘In their own hearts the earnest of the hope

                    Which made them great, the good will ever find;

3705

3705         And though some envious shades may interlope

                    Between the effect and it, One comes behind,

                    Who aye the future to the past will bind—

                 Necessity, whose sightless strength for ever

                    Evil with evil, good with good must wind

3710

3710         In bands of union, which no power may sever:

               They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!

XXVIII

                 ‘The good and mighty of departed ages

                    Are in their graves, the innocent and free,

                 Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,

3715

3715            Who leave the vesture of their majesty

                    To adorn and clothe this naked world;—and we

                 Are like to them—such perish, but they leave

                    All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,

                 Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,

3720

3720       To be a rule and law to ages that survive.

XXIX

                 ‘So be the turf heaped over our remains

                    Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,

                 Whate’er it be, when in these mingling veins

                    The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought

3725

3725            Pass from our being, or be numbered not

                 Among the things that are; let those who come

                    Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought

                 A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,

               Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.

XXX

3730

3730         ‘Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,

                    Our happiness, and all that we have been,

                 Immortally must live, and burn and move,

                    When we shall be no more;—the world has seen

                    A type of peace; and—as some most serene

3735

3735         And lovely spot to a poor maniac’s eye,

                    After long years, some sweet and moving scene

                 Of youthful hope, returning suddenly,

               Quells his long madness—thus man shall remember thee.

XXXI

                 ‘And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,

3740

3740            As worms devour the dead, and near the throne

                 And at the altar, most accepted thus

                    Shall sneers and curses be;—what we have done

                    None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;

                 That record shall remain, when they must pass

3745

3745            Who built their pride on its oblivion;

                 And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,

               Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.

XXXII

                 ‘The while we two, belovèd, must depart,

                    And Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,

3750

3750         Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart

                    That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:

                    These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there

                 To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep

                    Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,

3755

3755         Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep

               In joy;—but senseless death—a ruin dark and deep!

XXXIII

                 ‘These are blind fancies—reason cannot know

                    What sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;

                 There is delusion in the world—and woe,

3760

3760            And fear, and pain—we know not whence we live,

                    Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give

                 Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,

                    Or even these thoughts.—Come near me! I do weave

                 A chain I cannot break—I am possessed

3765

3765       With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.

XXXIV

                 ‘Yes, yes—thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm—

                    O! willingly, belovèd, would these eyes,

                 Might they no more drink being from thy form,

                    Even as to sleep whence we again arise,

3770

3770            Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize

                 Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee—

                    Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:

                 Darkness and death, if death be true, must be

               Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.

XXXV

                 ‘Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters

                    Return not to their fountain—Earth and Heaven,

                 The Ocean and the Sun, the Clouds their daughters,

                    Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,

                    All that we are or know, is darkly driven

3780

3780         Towards one gulf.—Lo! what a change is come

                    Since I first spake—but time shall be forgiven,

                 Though it change all but thee!’—She ceased—night’s gloom

               Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky’s sunless dome.

XXXVI

                 Though she had ceased, her countenance uplifted

3785

3785            To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright;

                 Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted

                    The air they breathed with love, her locks undight.

                    ‘Fair star of life and love,’ I cried, ‘my soul’s delight,

                 Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?

3790

3790            O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night,

                 Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!’

               She turned to me and smiled—that smile was Paradise!

CANTO X

I

                 WAS there a human spirit in the steed,

                    That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,

3795

3795         He broke our linked rest? or do indeed

                    All living things a common nature own,

                    And thought erect an universal throne,

                 Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?

                    And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan

3800

3800         To see her sons contend? and makes she bare

               Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?

II

                 I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue

                    Which was not human—the lone nightingale

                 Has answered me with her most soothing song,

3805

3805            Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale

                    With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale

                 The antelopes who flocked for food have spoken

                    With happy sounds, and motions, that avail

3810

3810         Like man’s own speech; and such was now the token

               Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.

III

                 Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,

                    And I returned with food to our retreat,

                 And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed

                    Over the fields, had stained the courser’s feet;

3815

3815            Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew,—then meet

                 The vulture, and the wild dog, and the snake,

                    The wolf, and the hyæna gray, and eat

                 The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make

               Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship’s wake.

IV

3820

3820         For, from the utmost realms of earth, came pouring

                    The banded slaves whom every despot sent

                 At that throned traitor’s summons; like the roaring

                    Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent

                    In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent

3825

3825         The armies of the leaguèd Kings around

                    Their files of steel and flame;—the continent

                 Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,

               Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies’ sound.

V

                 From every nation of the earth they came,

3830

3830            The multitude of moving heartless things,

                 Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,

                    Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings

                    To the stall, red with blood; their many kings

                 Led them, thus erring, from their native land;

3835

3835            Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings

                 Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band

               The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea’s sand,

VI

                 Fertile in prodigies and lies;—so there

                    Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.

3840

3840         The desert savage ceased to grasp in fear

                    His Asian shield and bow, when, at the will

                    Of Europe’s subtler son, the bolt would kill

                 Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;

                    But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,

3845

3845         And savage sympathy: those slaves impure,

               Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.

VII

                 For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe

                    His countenance in lies,—even at the hour

                 When he was snatched from death, then o’er the globe,

3850

3850            With secret signs from many a mountain-tower,

                    With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power

                 Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,

                    He called:—they knew his cause their own, and swore

3855

3855         Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars

               Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.

VIII

                 Myriads had come—millions were on their way;

                    The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel

                 Of hired assassins, through the public way,

                    Choked with his country’s dead:—his footsteps reel

3860

3860            On the fresh blood—he smiles. ‘Ay, now I feel

                 I am a King in truth!’ he said, and took

                    His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel

                 Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,

               And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look.

IX

3865

3865         ‘But first, go slay the rebels—why return

                    The victor bands?’ he said, ‘millions yet live,

                 Of whom the weakest with one word might turn

                    The scales of victory yet;—let none survive

                    But those within the walls—each fifth shall give

3870

3870         The expiation for his brethren here.—

                    Go forth, and waste and kill!’—‘O king, forgive

                 My speech,’ a soldier answered—‘but we fear

               The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;

X

                 ‘For we were slaying still without remorse,

3875

3875            And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand

                 Defenceless lay, when, on a hell-black horse,

                    An Angel bright as day, waving a brand

                    Which flashed among the stars, passed.’—‘Dost thou stand

                 Parleying with me, thou wretch?’ the king replied;

3880

3880            ‘Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band,

                 Whoso will drag that woman to his side

               That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;

XI

                 ‘And gold and glory shall be his.—Go forth!’

                    They rushed into the plain.—Loud was the roar

3885

3885         Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;

                    The wheeled artillery’s speed the pavement tore;

                    The infantry, file after file, did pour

                 Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew

                    Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore

3890

3890         Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew

               Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:

XII

                 Peace in the desert fields and villages,

                    Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!

                 Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries

3895

3895            Of victims to their fiery judgement led,

                    Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread

                 Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue

                    Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;

                 Peace in the Tyrant’s palace, where the throng

3900

3900       Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!

XIII

                 Day after day the burning sun rolled on

                    Over the death-polluted land—it came

                 Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone

                    A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame

3905

3905            The few lone ears of corn;—the sky became

                 Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast

                    Languished and died,—the thirsting air did claim

                 All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed

               From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.

XIV

                 First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food

                    Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.

                 Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood

                    Had lured, or who, from regions far away,

                    Had tracked the hosts in festival array,

3915

3915         From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now,

                    Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;

                 In their green eyes a strange disease did glow.

               They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.

XV

                 The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds

3920

3920            In the green woods perished; the insect race

                 Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds

                    Who had survived the wild beasts’ hungry chase

                    Died moaning, each upon the other’s face

                 In helpless agony gazing; round the City

3925

3925            All night, the lean hyænas their sad case

                 Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!

               And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.

XVI

                 Amid the aëreal minarets on high,

                    The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell

3930

3930         From their long line of brethren in the sky,

                    Startling the concourse of mankind.—Too well

                    These signs the coming mischief did foretell:—

                 Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread

                    Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell,

3935

3935         A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread

               With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.

XVII

                 Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts

                    Strip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;

                 So on those strange and congregated hosts

3940

3940            Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air

                    Groaned with the burden of a new despair;

                 Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter

                    Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there

                 With lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter,

3945

3945       A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe’s sullen water.

XVIII

                 There was no food, the corn was trampled down,

                    The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore

                 The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;

                    The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more

3950

3950            Creaked with the weight of birds, but, as before

                 Those wingèd things sprang forth, were void of shade;

                    The vines and orchards, Autumn’s golden store,

                 Were burned;—so that the meanest food was weighed

               With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.

XIX

3955

3955         There was no corn—in the wide market-place

                    All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;

                 They weighed it in small scales—and many a face

                    Was fixed in eager horror then: his gold

                    The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold

3960

3960         Through hunger, bared her scornèd charms in vain;

                    The mother brought her eldest-born, controlled

                 By instinct blind as love, but turned again

               And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.

XX

                 Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.

3965

3965            ‘O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave

                 Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran

                    With brothers’ blood! O, that the earthquake’s grave

                    Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!’

                 Vain cries—throughout the streets, thousands pursued

3970

3970            Each by his fiery torture howl and rave,

                 Or sit, in frenzy’s unimagined mood,

               Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.

XXI

                 It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well

                    Was choked with rotting corpses, and became

3975

3975         A cauldron of green mist made visible

                    At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,

                    Seeking to quench the agony of the flame,

                 Which raged like poison through their bursting veins;

                    Naked they were from torture, without shame,

3980

3980         Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains,

               Childhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage pains.

XXII

                 It was not thirst but madness! Many saw

                    Their own lean image everywhere, it went

                 A ghastlier self beside them, till the awe

3985

3985            Of that dread sight to self-destruction sent

                    Those shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent,

                 Sought, with a horrid sympathy, to shed

                    Contagion on the sound; and others rent

                 Their matted hair, and cried aloud, ‘We tread

3990

3990       On fire! the avenging Power his hell on earth has spread!’

XXIII

                 Sometimes the living by the dead were hid.

                    Near the great fountain in the public square,

                 Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid

                    Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer

3995

3995            For life, in the hot silence of the air;

                 And strange ’twas, amid that hideous heap to see

                    Some shrouded in their long and golden hair,

                 As if not dead, but slumbering quietly

               Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.

XXIV

4000

4000         Famine had spared the palace of the king:—

                    He rioted in festival the while,

                 He and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling

                    One shadow upon all. Famine can smile

                    On him who brings it food, and pass, with guile

4005

4005         Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray,

                    The house-dog of the throne; but many a mile

                 Comes Plague, a wingèd wolf, who loathes alway

               The garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.

XXV

                 So, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast,

4010

4010            Sheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight

                 To luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased

                    That lingered on his lips, the warrior’s might

                    Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night

                 In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell

4015

4015            Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright

                 Among the guests, or raving mad, did tell

               Strange truths; a dying seer of dark oppression’s hell.

XXVI

                 The Princes and the Priests were pale with terror;

                    That monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind,

4020

4020         Fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman’s error,

                    On their own hearts: they sought and they could find

                    No refuge—’twas the blind who led the blind!

                 So, through the desolate streets to the high fane,

                    The many-tongued and endless armies wind

4025

4025         In sad procession: each among the train

               To his own Idol lifts his supplications vain.

XXVII

                 ‘O God!’ they cried, ‘we know our secret pride

                    Has scorned thee, and thy worship, and thy name;

                 Secure in human power we have defied

4030

4030            Thy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame

                    Before thy presence; with the dust we claim

                 Kindred; be merciful, O King of Heaven!

                    Most justly have we suffered for thy fame

                 Made dim, but be at length our sins forgiven,

4035

4035       Ere to despair and death thy worshippers be driven.

XXVIII

                 ‘O King of Glory! thou alone hast power!

                    Who can resist thy will? who can restrain

                 Thy wrath, when on the guilty thou dost shower

                    The shafts of thy revenge, a blistering rain?

4040

4040            Greatest and best, be merciful again!

                 Have we not stabbed thine enemies, and made

                    The Earth an altar, and the Heavens a fane,

                 Where thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid

               Those hearts in dust which would thy searchless works have weighed?

XXIX

4045

4045         ‘Well didst thou loosen on this impious City

                    Thine angels of revenge: recall them now;

                 Thy worshippers, abased, here kneel for pity,

                    And bind their souls by an immortal vow:

                    We swear by thee! and to our oath do thou

4050

4050         Give sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame,

                    That we will kill with fire and torments slow,

                 The last of those who mocked thy holy name,

               And scorned the sacred laws thy prophets did proclaim.’

XXX

                 Thus they with trembling limbs and pallid lips

                    Worshipped their own hearts’ image, dim and vast,

                 Scared by the shade wherewith they would eclipse

                    The light of other minds;—troubled they passed

                    From the great Temple;—fiercely still and fast

                 The arrows of the plague among them fell,

4060

4060            And they on one another gazed aghast,

                 And through the hosts contention wild befell,

               As each of his own god the wondrous works did tell.

XXXI

                 And Oromaze, Joshua, and Mahomet,

                    Moses and Buddh, Zerdusht, and Brahm, and Foh,

4065

4065         A tumult of strange names, which never met

                    Before, as watchwords of a single woe,

                    Arose; each raging votary ’gan to throw

                 Aloft his armèd hands, and each did howl

                    ‘Our God alone is God!’—and slaughter now

4070

4070         Would have gone forth, when from beneath a cowl

               A voice came forth, which pierced like ice through every soul.

XXXII

                 ’Twas an Iberian Priest from whom it came,

                    A zealous man, who led the legioned West,

                 With words which faith and pride had steeped in flame,

4075

4075            To quell the unbelievers; a dire guest

                    Even to his friends was he, for in his breast

                 Did hate and guile lie watchful, intertwined,

                    Twin serpents in one deep and winding nest;

                 He loathed all faith beside his own, and pined

4080

4080       To wreak his fear of Heaven in vengeance on mankind.

XXXIII

                 But more he loathed and hated the clear light

                    Of wisdom and free thought, and more did fear,

                 Lest, kindled once, its beams might pierce the night,

                    Even where his Idol stood; for, far and near

4085

4085            Did many a heart in Europe leap to hear

                 That faith and tyranny were trampled down;

                    Many a pale victim, doomed for truth to share

                 The murderer’s cell, or see, with helpless groan,

               The priests his children drag for slaves to serve their own.

XXXIV

4090

4090         He dared not kill the infidels with fire

                    Or steel, in Europe; the slow agonies

                 Of legal torture mocked his keen desire:

                    So he made truce with those who did despise

                    The expiation, and the sacrifice,

4095

4095         That, though detested, Islam’s kindred creed

                    Might crush for him those deadlier enemies;

                 For fear of God did in his bosom breed

               A jealous hate of man, an unreposing need.

XXXV

                 ‘Peace! Peace!’ he cried, ‘when we are dead, the Day

4100

4100            Of Judgement comes, and all shall surely know

                 Whose God is God, each fearfully shall pay

                    The errors of his faith in endless woe!

                    But there is sent a mortal vengeance now

                 On earth, because an impious race had spurned

4105

4105            Him whom we all adore,—a subtle foe,

                 By whom for ye this dread reward was earned,

               And kingly thrones, which rest on faith, nigh overturned.

XXXVI

                 ‘Think ye, because ye weep, and kneel, and pray,

                    That God will lull the pestilence? It rose

4110

4110         Even from beneath his throne, where, many a day,

                    His mercy soothed it to a dark repose:

                    It walks upon the earth to judge his foes;

                 And what are thou and I, that he should deign

                    To curb his ghastly minister, or close

4115

4115         The gates of death, ere they receive the twain

               Who shook with mortal spells his undefended reign?

XXXVII

                 ‘Ay, there is famine in the gulf of hell,

                    Its giant worms of fire for ever yawn.—

                 Their lurid eyes are on us! those who fell

4120

4120            By the swift shafts of pestilence ere dawn,

                    Are in their jaws! they hunger for the spawn

                 Of Satan, their own brethren, who were sent

                    To make our souls their spoil. See! see! they fawn

                 Like dogs, and they will sleep with luxury spent,

4125

4125       When those detested hearts their iron fangs have rent!

XXXVIII

                 ‘Our God may then lull Pestilence to sleep:—

                    Pile high the pyre of expiation now,

                 A forest’s spoil of boughs, and on the heap

                    Pour venomous gums, which sullenly and slow,

                    When touched by flame, shall burn, and melt, and flow,

                 A stream of clinging fire,—and fix on high

                    A net of iron, and spread forth below

                 A couch of snakes, and scorpions, and the fry

               Of centipedes and worms, earth’s hellish progeny!

XXXIX

4135

4135         ‘Let Laon and Laone on that pyre,

                    Linked tight with burning brass, perish!—then pray

                 That, with this sacrifice, the withering ire

                    Of Heaven may be appeased.’ He ceased, and they

                    A space stood silent, as far, far away

4140

4140         The echoes of his voice among them died;

                    And he knelt down upon the dust, alway

                 Muttering the curses of his speechless pride,

               Whilst shame, and fear, and awe, the armies did divide.

XL

                 His voice was like a blast that burst the portal

4145

4145            Of fabled hell; and as he spake, each one

                 Saw gape beneath the chasms of fire immortal,

                    And Heaven above seemed cloven, where, on a throne

                    Girt round with storms and shadows, sate alone

                 Their King and Judge—fear killed in every breast

4150

4150            All natural pity then, a fear unknown

                 Before, and with an inward fire possessed,

               They raged like homeless beasts whom burning woods invest.

XLI

                 ’Twas morn.—At noon the public crier went forth,

                    Proclaiming through the living and the dead,

4155

4155         ‘The Monarch saith, that his great Empire’s worth

                    Is set on Laon and Laone’s head:

                    He who but one yet living here can lead,

                 Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,

                    Shall be the kingdom’s heir, a glorious meed!

4160

4160         But he who both alive can hither bring,

               The Princess shall espouse, and reign an equal King.’

XLII

                 Ere night the pyre was piled, the net of iron

                    Was spread above, the fearful couch below;

                 It overtopped the towers that did environ

4165

4165            That spacious square; for Fear is never slow

                    To build the thrones of Hate, her mate and foe,

                 So, she scourged forth the maniac multitude

                    To rear this pyramid—tottering and slow,

                 Plague-stricken, foodless, like lean herds pursued

4170

4170       By gadflies, they have piled the heath, and gums, and wood.

XLIII

                 Night came, a starless and a moonless gloom.

                    Until the dawn, those hosts of many a nation

                 Stood round that pile, as near one lover’s tomb

                    Two gentle sisters mourn their desolation;

4175

4175            And in the silence of that expectation,

                 Was heard on high the reptiles’ hiss and crawl—

                    It was so deep—save when the devastation

                 Of the swift pest, with fearful interval,

               Marking its path with shrieks, among the crowd would fall.

XLIV

4180

4180         Morn came,—among those sleepless multitudes,

                    Madness, and Fear, and Plague, and Famine still

                 Heaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods

                    The frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill

                    Earth’s cold and sullen brooks; in silence, still

4185

4185         The pale survivors stood; ere noon, the fear

                    Of Hell became a panic, which did kill

                 Like hunger or disease, with whispers drear,

               As ‘Hush! hark! Come they yet? Just Heaven! thine hour is near!’

XLV

                 And Priests rushed through their ranks, some counterfeiting

4190

4190            The rage they did inspire, some mad indeed

                 With their own lies; they said their god was waiting

                    To see his enemies writhe, and burn, and bleed,—

                    And that, till then, the snakes of Hell had need

                 Of human souls:—three hundred furnaces

                    Soon blazed through the wide City, where, with speed,

                 Men brought their infidel kindred to appease

               God’s wrath, and while they burned, knelt round on quivering knees.

XLVI

                 The noontide sun was darkened with that smoke,

                    The winds of eve dispersed those ashes gray.

4200

4200         The madness which these rites had lulled, awoke

                    Again at sunset.—Who shall dare to say

                    The deeds which night and fear brought forth, or weigh

                 In balance just the good and evil there?

                    He might man’s deep and searchless heart display,

4205

4205         And cast a light on those dim labyrinths, where

               Hope, near imagined chasms, is struggling with despair.

XLVII

                 ’Tis said, a mother dragged three children then,

                    To those fierce flames which roast the eyes in the head,

                 And laughed, and died; and that unholy men,

4210

4210            Feasting like fiends upon the infidel dead,

                    Looked from their meal, and saw an Angel tread

                 The visible floor of Heaven, and it was she!

                    And, on that night, one without doubt or dread

                 Came to the fire, and said, ‘Stop, I am he!

4215

4215       Kill me!’—They burned them both with hellish mockery.

XLVIII

                 And, one by one, that night, young maidens came,

                    Beauteous and calm, like shapes of living stone

                 Clothed in the light of dreams, and by the flame

                    Which shrank as overgorged, they laid them down,

4220

4220            And sung a low sweet song, of which alone

                 One word was heard, and that was Liberty;

                    And that some kissed their marble feet, with moan

                 Like love, and died; and then that they did die

               With happy smiles, which sunk in white tranquillity.

CANTO XI

I

4225

4225         SHE saw me not—she heard me not— alone

                    Upon the mountain’s dizzy brink she stood;

                 She spake not, breathed not, moved not—there was thrown

                    Over her look, the shadow of a mood

                    Which only clothes the heart in solitude,

4230

4230         A thought of voiceless depth;—she stood alone,

                    Above, the Heavens were spread;—below, the flood

                 Was murmuring in its caves;—the wind had blown

               Her hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone.

II

                 A cloud was hanging o’er the western mountains;

4235

4235            Before its blue and moveless depth were flying

                 Gray mists poured forth from the unresting fountains

                    Of darkness in the North:—the day was dying:—

                    Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying

                 Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,

4240

4240            And on the shattered vapours, which defying

                 The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly

               In the red Heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.

III

                 It was a stream of living beams, whose bank

                    On either side by the cloud’s cleft was made;

4245

4245         And where its chasms that flood of glory drank,

                    Its waves gushed forth like fire, and as if swayed

                    By some mute tempest, rolled on her; the shade

                 Of her bright image floated on the river

                    Of liquid light, which then did end and fade—

4250

4250         Her radiant shape upon its verge did shiver;

               Aloft, her flowing hair like strings of flame did quiver.

IV

                 I stood beside her, but she saw me not—

                    She looked upon the sea, and skies, and earth;

                 Rapture, and love, and admiration wrought

4255

4255            A passion deeper far than tears, or mirth,

                    Or speech, or gesture, or whate’er has birth

                 From common joy; which with the speechless feeling

                    That led her there united, and shot forth

                 From her far eyes a light of deep revealing,

4260

4260       All but her dearest self from my regard concealing.

V

                 Her lips were parted, and the measured breath

                    Was now heard there;—her dark and intricate eyes

                 Orb within orb, deeper than sleep or death,

                    Absorbed the glories of the burning skies,

4265

4265            Which, mingling with her heart’s deep ecstasies,

                 Burst from her looks and gestures;—and a light

                    Of liquid tenderness, like love, did rise

                 From her whole frame, an atmosphere which quite

               Arrayed her in its beams, tremulous and soft and bright.

VI

4270

4270         She would have clasped me to her glowing frame;

                    Those warm and odorous lips might soon have shed

                 On mine the fragrance and the invisible flame

                    Which now the cold winds stole;—she would have laid

                    Upon my languid heart her dearest head;

4275

4275         I might have heard her voice, tender and sweet;

                    Her eyes mingling with mine, might soon have fed

                 My soul with their own joy.—One moment yet

               I gazed—we parted then, never again to meet!

VII

                 Never but once to meet on Earth again!

4280

4280            She heard me as I fled—her eager tone

                 Sunk on my heart, and almost wove a chain

                    Around my will to link it with her own,

                    So that my stern resolve was almost gone.

                 ‘I cannot reach thee! whither dost thou fly?

                    My steps are faint—Come back, thou dearest one—

                 Return, ah me! return!’—The wind passed by

               On which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.

VIII

                 Woe! Woe! that moonless midnight!—Want and Pest

                    Were horrible, but one more fell doth rear,

4290

4290         As in a hydra’s swarming lair, its crest

                    Eminent among those victims—even the Fear

                    Of Hell: each girt by the hot atmosphere

                 Of his blind agony, like a scorpion stung

                    By his own rage upon his burning bier

4295

4295         Of circling coals of fire; but still there clung

               One hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung:

IX

                 Not death—death was no more refuge or rest;

                    Not life—it was despair to be!—not sleep,

                 For fiends and chasms of fire had dispossessed

4300

4300            All natural dreams: to wake was not to weep,

                    But to gaze mad and pallid, at the leap

                 To which the Future, like a snaky scourge,

                    Or like some tyrant’s eye, which aye doth keep

                 Its withering beam upon his slaves, did urge

4305

4305       Their steps; they heard the roar of Hell’s sulphureous surge.

X

                 Each of that multitude, alone, and lost

                    To sense of outward things, one hope yet knew;

                 As on a foam-girt crag some seaman tossed

                    Stares at the rising tide, or like the crew

                    Whilst now the ship is splitting through and through;

                 Each, if the tramp of a far steed was heard,

                    Started from sick despair, or if there flew

                 One murmur on the wind, or if some word

               Which none can gather yet, the distant crowd has stirred.

XI

4315

4315         Why became cheeks, wan with the kiss of death,

                    Paler from hope? they had sustained despair.

                 Why watched those myriads with suspended breath

                    Sleepless a second night? they are not here,

                    The victims, and hour by hour, a vision drear,

4320

4320         Warm corpses fall upon the clay-cold dead;

                    And even in death their lips are wreathed with fear.—

                 The crowd is mute and moveless—overhead

               Silent Arcturus shines—‘Ha! hear’st thou not the tread

XII

                 ‘Of rushing feet? laughter? the shout, the scream,

4325

4325            Of triumph not to be contained? See! hark!

                 They come, they come! give way!’ Alas, ye deem

                    Falsely—’tis but a crowd of maniacs stark

                    Driven, like a troop of spectres, through the dark,

                 From the choked well, whence a bright death-fire sprung,

4330

4330            A lurid earth-star, which dropped many a spark

                 From its blue train, and spreading widely, clung

               To their wild hair, like mist the topmost pines among.

XIII

                 And many, from the crowd collected there,

                    Joined that strange dance in fearful sympathies;

4335

4335         There was the silence of a long despair,

                    When the last echo of those terrible cries

                    Came from a distant street, like agonies

                 Stifled afar.—Before the Tyrant’s throne

                    All night his aged Senate sate, their eyes

4340

4340         In stony expectation fixed; when one

               Sudden before them stood, a Stranger and alone.

XIV

                 Dark Priests and haughty Warriors gazed on him

                    With baffled wonder, for a hermit’s vest

                 Concealed his face; but, when he spake, his tone,

4345

4345            Ere yet the matter did their thoughts arrest,—

                    Earnest, benignant, calm, as from a breast

                 Void of all hate or terror—made them start;

                    For as with gentle accents he addressed

                 His speech to them, on each unwilling heart

4350

4350       Unusual awe did fall—a spirit-quelling dart.

XV

                 ‘Ye Princes of the Earth, ye sit aghast

                    Amid the ruin which yourselves have made,

                 Yes, Desolation heard your trumpet’s blast,

                    And sprang from sleep!—dark Terror has obeyed

4355

4355            Your bidding—O, that I whom ye have made

                 Your foe, could set my dearest enemy free

                    From pain and fear! but evil casts a shade,

                 Which cannot pass so soon, and Hate must be

               The nurse and parent still of an ill progeny.

XVI

4360

4360         ‘Ye turn to Heaven for aid in your distress;

                    Alas, that ye, the mighty and the wise,

                 Who, if ye dared, might not aspire to less

                    Than ye conceive of power, should fear the lies

                    Which thou, and thou, didst frame for mysteries

4365

4365         To blind your slaves:—consider your own thought,

                    An empty and a cruel sacrifice

                 Ye now prepare, for a vain idol wrought

               Out of the fears and hate which vain desires have brought.

XVII

                 ‘Ye seek for happiness—alas, the day!

4370

4370            Ye find it not in luxury nor in gold,

                 Nor in the fame, nor in the envied sway

                    For which, O willing slaves to Custom old,

                    Severe taskmistress! ye your hearts have sold.

                 Ye seek for peace, and when ye die, to dream

4375

4375            No evil dreams: all mortal things are cold

                 And senseless then; if aught survive, I deem

               It must be love and joy, for they immortal seem.

XVIII

                 ‘Fear not the future, weep not for the past.

                    O, could I win your ears to dare be now

4380

4380         Glorious, and great, and calm! that ye would cast

                    Into the dust those symbols of your woe,

                    Purple, and gold, and steel! that ye would go

                 Proclaiming to the nations whence ye came.

                    That Want, and Plague, and Fear, from slavery flow;

4385

4385         And that mankind is free, and that the shame

               Of royalty and faith is lost in freedom’s fame!

XIX

                 ‘If thus, ’tis well—if not, I come to say

                    That Laon—’ while the Stranger spoke, among

                 The Council sudden tumult and affray

4390

4390            Arose, for many of those warriors young,

                    Had on his eloquent accents fed and hung

                 Like bees on mountain-flowers; they knew the truth,

                    And from their thrones in vindication sprung;

                 The men of faith and law then without ruth

4395

4395       Drew forth their secret steel, and stabbed each ardent youth.

XX

                 They stabbed them in the back and sneered—a slave

                    Who stood behind the throne, those corpses drew

                 Each to its bloody, dark, and secret grave;

                    And one more daring raised his steel anew

4400

4400            To pierce the Stranger. ‘What hast thou to do

                 With me, poor wretch?’—Calm, solemn, and severe,

                    That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw

                 His dagger on the ground, and pale with fear,

               Sate silently—his voice then did the Stranger rear.

XXI

4405

4405         ‘It doth avail not that I weep for ye—

                    Ye cannot change, since ye are old and gray,

                 And ye have chosen your lot—your fame must be

                    A book of blood, whence in a milder day

                    Men shall learn truth, when ye are wrapped in clay:

4410

4410         Now ye shall triumph. I am Laon’s friend,

                    And him to your revenge will I betray,

                 So ye concede one easy boon. Attend!

               For now I speak of things which ye can apprehend.

XXII

                 ‘There is a People mighty in its youth,

4415

4415            A land beyond the Oceans of the West,

                 Where, though with rudest rites, Freedom and Truth

                    Are worshipped; from a glorious Mother’s breast,

                    Who, since high Athens fell, among the rest

                 Sate like the Queen of Nations, but in woe,

4420

4420            By inbred monsters outraged and oppressed,

                 Turns to her chainless child for succour now,

               It draws the milk of Power in Wisdom’s fullest flow.

XXIII

                 ‘That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze

                    Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume

4425

4425         Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze

                    Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;

                    An epitaph of glory for the tomb

                 Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,

                    Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;

                 Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;

               The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.

XXIV

                 ‘Yes, in the desert there is built a home

                    For Freedom. Genius is made strong to rear

                 The monuments of man beneath the dome

4435

4435            Of a new Heaven; myriads assemble there,

                    Whom the proud lords of man, in rage or fear,

                 Drive from their wasted homes: the boon I pray

                    Is this—that Cythna shall be convoyed there—

                 Nay, start not at the name—America!

4440

4440       And then to you this night Laon will I betray.

XXV

                 ‘With me do what you will. I am your foe!’

                    The light of such a joy as makes the stare

                 Of hungry snakes like living emeralds glow,

                    Shone in a hundred human eyes—‘Where, where

4445

4445            Is Laon? Haste! fly! drag him swiftly here!

                 We grant thy boon.’—‘I put no trust in ye,

                    Swear by the Power ye dread.’—‘We swear, we swear!’

                 The Stranger threw his vest back suddenly,

               And smiled in gentle pride, and said, ‘Lo! I am he!’

CANTO XII

I

4450

4450         THE transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness

                    Spread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying

                 Upon the winds of fear; from his dull madness

                    The starveling waked, and died in joy; the dying,

                    Among the corpses in stark agony lying,

4455

4455         Just heard the happy tidings, and in hope

                    Closed their faint eyes; from house to house replying

                 With loud acclaim, the living shook Heaven’s cope,

               And filled the startled Earth with echoes: morn did ope

II

                 Its pale eyes then; and lo! the long array

4460

4460            Of guards in golden arms, and Priests beside,

                 Singing their bloody hymns, whose garbs betray

                    The blackness of the faith it seems to hide;

                    And see, the Tyrant’s gem-wrought chariot glide

                 Among the gloomy cowls and glittering spears—

4465

4465            A Shape of light is sitting by his side,

                 A child most beautiful. I’ the midst appears

               Laon,—exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.

III

                 His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound

                    Behind and with heavy chains, yet none do wreak

4470

4470         Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng around;

                    There are no sneers upon his lip which speak

                    That scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek

                 Resolve has not turned pale,—his eyes are mild

                    And calm, and, like the morn about to break,

4475

4475         Smile on mankind—his heart seems reconciled

               To all things and itself, like a reposing child.

IV

                 Tumult was in the soul of all beside,

                    Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw

                 Their tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide

4480

4480            Into their brain, and became calm with awe.—

                    See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.

                 A thousand torches in the spacious square,

                    Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,

                 Await the signal round: the morning fair

4485

4485       Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare.

V

                 And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,

                    Upon a platform level with the pile,

                 The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,

                    Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smile

4490

4490            In expectation, but one child: the while

                 I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier

                    Of fire, and look around: each distant isle

                 Is dark in the bright dawn; towers far and near,

               Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

VI

4495

4495         There was such silence through the host, as when

                    An earthquake trampling on some populous town,

                 Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men

                    Expect the second; all were mute but one,

                    That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone

4500

4500         Stood up before the King, without avail,

                    Pleading for Laon’s life—her stifled groan

                 Was heard—she trembled like one aspen pale

               Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

VII

                 What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,

4505

4505            Among those reptiles, stingless with delay,

                 Even like a tyrant’s wrath?—The signal-gun

                    Roared—hark, again! In that dread pause he lay

                    As in a quiet dream—the slaves obey—

                 A thousand torches drop,—and hark, the last

4510

4510            Bursts on that awful silence; far away,

                 Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,

               Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

VIII

                 They fly—the torches fall—a cry of fear

                    Has startled the triumphant!—they recede!

4515

4515         For ere the cannon’s roar has died, they hear

                    The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed

                    Dark and gigantic, with the tempest’s speed,

                 Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,

                    Fairer, it seems, than aught that earth can breed,

4520

4520         Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn,

               A spirit from the caves of daylight wandering gone.

IX

                 All thought it was God’s Angel come to sweep

                    The lingering guilty to their fiery grave;

                 The Tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,—

4525

4525            Her innocence his child from fear did save;

                    Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave

                 Knelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,

                    And, like the refluence of a mighty wave

                 Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude

4530

4530       With crushing panic, fled in terror’s altered mood.

X

                 They pause, they blush, they gaze,—a gathering shout

                    Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams

                 Of a tempestuous sea:—that sudden rout

                    One checked, who, never in his mildest dreams

4535

4535            Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams

                 Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed

                    Had seared with blistering ice—but he misdeems

                 That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed

               Inly for self—thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,

XI

4540

4540         And others too, thought he was wise to see,

                    In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine;

                 In love and beauty, no divinity.—

                    Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine

                    Like a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne,

4545

4545         He said, and the persuasion of that sneer

                    Rallied his trembling comrades—‘Is it mine

                 To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear

               A woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here.’

XII

                 ‘Were it not impious,’ said the King, ‘to break

4550

4550            Our holy oath?’—‘Impious to keep it, say!’

                 Shrieked the exulting Priest—‘Slaves, to the stake

                    Bind her, and on my head the burden lay

                    Of her just torments:—at the Judgement Day

                 Will I stand up before the golden throne

4555

4555            Of Heaven, and cry, “To thee did I betray

                 An Infidel; but for me she would have known

               Another moment’s joy! the glory be thine own!” ’

XIII

                 They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,

                    Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung

4560

4560         From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade

                    Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among

                    Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung

                 Upon his neck, and kissed his moonèd brow.

                    A piteous sight, that one so fair and young,

4565

4565         The clasp of such a fearful death should woo

               With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.

XIV

                 The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear

                    From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews

                 Which feed Spring’s earliest buds, hung gathered there,

4570

4570            Frozen by doubt,—alas! they could not choose

                    But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse

                 To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;

                    And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues

                 Of her quick lips, even as a weary child

4575

4575       Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,

XV

                 She won them, though unwilling, her to bind

                    Near me, among the snakes. When there had fled

                 One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,

                    She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,

4580

4580            But each upon the other’s countenance fed

                 Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil

                    Which doth divide the living and the dead

                 Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,—

               All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.—

XVI

4585

4585         Yet—yet—one brief relapse, like the last beam

                    Of dying flames, the stainless air around

                 Hung silent and serene—a blood-red gleam

                    Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground

                    The globèd smoke,—I heard the mighty sound

4590

4590         Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean;

                    And through its chasms I saw, as in a swound,

                 The tyrant’s child fall without life or motion

               Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.

XVII

                 And is this death?—The pyre has disappeared,

4595

4595            The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng;

                 The flames grow silent—slowly there is heard

                    The music of a breath-suspending song,

                    Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,

                 Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep:

4600

4600            With ever-changing notes it floats along,

                 Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep

               A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

XVIII

                 The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand

                    Wakened me then; lo! Cythna sate reclined

4605

4605         Beside me, on the waved and golden sand

                    Of a clear pool, upon a bank o’ertwined

                    With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind

                 Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread

                    The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,

4610

4610         Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead

               A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.

XIX

                 And round about sloped many a lawny mountain

                    With incense-bearing forests, and vast caves

                 Of marble radiance, to that mighty fountain;

4615

4615            And where the flood its own bright margin laves,

                    Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,

                 Which, from the depths whose jaggèd caverns breed

                    Their unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,—

                 Till through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed

4620

4620       A river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed.

XX

                 As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,

                    A boat approached, borne by the musical air

                 Along the waves which sung and sparkled under

                    Its rapid keel—a wingèd shape sate there,

4625

4625            A child with silver-shining wings, so fair,

                 That as her bark did through the waters glide,

                    The shadow of the lingering waves did wear

                 Light, as from starry beams; from side to side,

               While veering to the wind her plumes the bark did guide.

XXI

4630

4630         The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl,

                    Almost translucent with the light divine

                 Of her within; the prow and stern did curl

                    Hornèd on high, like the young moon supine,

                    When o’er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,

4635

4635         It floats upon the sunset’s sea of beams,

                    Whose golden waves in many a purple line

                 Fade fast, till borne on sunlight’s ebbing streams,

               Dilating, on earth’s verge the sunken meteor gleams.

XXII

                 Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet;—

4640

4640            Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes

                 Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet

                    Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise,

                    Glanced as she spake: ‘Ay, this is Paradise

                 And not a dream, and we are all united!

4645

4645            Lo, that is mine own child, who in the guise

                 Of madness came, like day to one benighted

               In lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited!’

XXIII

                 And then she wept aloud, and in her arms

                    Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair

4650

4650         Than her own human hues and living charms;

                    Which, as she leaned in passion’s silence there,

                    Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,

                 Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;

                    The glossy darkness of her streaming hair

4655

4655         Fell o’er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight

               The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.

XXIV

                 Then the bright child, the plumèd Seraph came,

                    And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,

                 And said, ‘I was disturbed by tremulous shame

4660

4660            When once we met, yet knew that I was thine

                    From the same hour in which thy lips divine

                 Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,

                    Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine

                 Thine image with her memory dear—again

4665

4665       We meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain.

XXV

                 ‘When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round,

                    The hope which I had cherished went away;

                 I fell in agony on the senseless ground,

                    And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray

                    My mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day,

                 The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,

                    And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,

                 “They wait for thee, belovèd!”—then I knew

               The death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.

XXVI

4675

4675         ‘It was the calm of love—for I was dying.

                    I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre

                 In its own gray and shrunken ashes lying;

                    The pitchy smoke of the departed fire

                    Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire

4680

4680         Above the towers, like night; beneath whose shade

                    Awed by the ending of their own desire

                 The armies stood; a vacancy was made

               In expectation’s depth, and so they stood dismayed.

XXVII

                 ‘The frightful silence of that altered mood,

4685

4685            The tortures of the dying clove alone,

                 Till one uprose among the multitude,

                    And said—“The flood of time is rolling on,

                    We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone

                 To glide in peace down death’s mysterious stream.

                    Have ye done well? They moulder flesh and bone,

                 Who might have made this life’s envenomed dream

               A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.

XXVIII

                 ‘ “These perish as the good and great of yore

                    Have perished, and their murderers will repent,—

4695

4695         Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow before

                    Yon smoke has faded from the firmament

                    Even for this cause, that ye who must lament

                 The death of those that made this world so fair,

                    Cannot recall them now; but there is lent

4700

4700         To man the wisdom of a high despair,

               When such can die, and he live on and linger here.

XXIX

                 ‘ “Ay, ye may fear not now the Pestilence,

                    From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn;

                 All power and faith must pass, since calmly hence

4705

4705            In pain and fire have unbelievers gone;

                    And ye must sadly turn away, and moan

                 In secret, to his home each one returning,

                    And to long ages shall this hour be known;

                 And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,

4710

4710       Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning.

XXX

                 ‘ “For me the world is grown too void and cold,

                    Since Hope pursues immortal Destiny

                 With steps thus slow—therefore shall ye behold

                    How those who love, yet fear not, dare to die;

4715

4715            Tell to your children this!” Then suddenly

                 He sheathed a dagger in his heart and fell;

                    My brain grew dark in death, and yet to me

                 There came a murmur from the crowd, to tell

               Of deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.

XXXI

4720

4720         ‘Then suddenly I stood, a wingèd Thought,

                    Before the immortal Senate, and the seat

                 Of that star-shining spirit, whence is wrought

                    The strength of its dominion, good and great,

                    The better Genius of this world’s estate.

4725

4725         His realm around one mighty Fane is spread,

                    Elysian islands bright and fortunate,

                 Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead,

               Where I am sent to lead!’ These wingèd words she said,

XXXII

                 And with the silence of her eloquent smile,

4730

4730            Bade us embark in her divine canoe;

                 Then at the helm we took our seat, the while

                    Above her head those plumes of dazzling hue

                    Into the winds’ invisible stream she threw,

                 Sitting beside the prow: like gossamer

4735

4735            On the swift breath of morn, the vessel flew

                 O’er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,

               Whose shores receded fast, whilst we seemed lingering there;

XXXIII

                 Till down that mighty stream, dark, calm, and fleet,

                    Between a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,

4740

4740         Chased by the thronging winds whose viewless feet

                    As swift as twinkling beams, had, under Heaven,

                    From woods and waves wild sounds and odours driven,

                 The boat fled visibly—three nights and days,

                    Borne like a cloud through morn, and noon, and even,

4745

4745         We sailed along the winding watery ways

               Of the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze.

XXXIV

                 A scene of joy and wonder to behold

                    That river’s shapes and shadows changing ever,

                 When the broad sunrise filled with deepening gold

                    Its whirlpools, where all hues did spread and quiver;

                    And where melodious falls did burst and shiver

                 Among rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spray

                    Sparkled like stars upon the sunny river,

                 Or when the moonlight poured a holier day,

4755

4755       One vast and glittering lake around green islands lay.

XXXV

                 Morn, noon, and even, that boat of pearl outran

                    The streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloud

                 Of tempest, or the speedier thought of man,

                    Which flieth forth and cannot make abode;

                    Sometimes through forests, deep like night, we glode,

                 Between the walls of mighty mountains crowned

                    With Cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,

                 The homes of the departed, dimly frowned

               O’er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round,

XXXVI

                 Sometimes between the wide and flowering meadows,

                    Mile after mile we sailed, and ’twas delight

                 To see far off the sunbeams chase the shadows

                    Over the grass; sometimes beneath the night

                    Of wide and vaulted caves, whose roofs were bright

4770