–

Chapman.

 

To Mary ––

I

 

So now my summer task is ended, Mary,

And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;

As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faëry,

Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;

Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become

A star among the stars of mortal night,

If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,

Its doubtful promise thus I would unite

With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

 

II

 

The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,

Is ended, – and the fruit is at thy feet!

No longer where the woods to frame a bower

With interlaced branches mix and meet,

Or where with sound like many voices sweet,

Waterfalls leap among wild islands green,

Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat

Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen:

But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.

 

III

 

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first

The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.

I do remember well the hour which burst

My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,

When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,

And wept, I knew not why; until there rose

From the near schoolroom, voices, that, alas!

Were but one echo from a world of woes –

The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

 

IV

 

And then I clasped my hands and looked around –

– But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,

Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground –

 

So, without shame, I spake: – »I will be wise,

And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies

Such power, for I grow weary to behold

The selfish and the strong still tyrannise

Without reproach or check.« I then controlled

My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.

 

V

 

And from that hour did I with earnest thought

Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore,

Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught

I cared to learn, but from that secret store

Wrought linked armour for my soul, before

It might walk forth to war among mankind;

Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more

Within me, till there came upon my mind

A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.

 

VI

 

Alas, that love should be a blight and snare

To those who seek all sympathies in one! –

Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,

The shadow of a starless night, was thrown

Over the world in which I moved alone: –

Yet never found I one not false to me,

Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone

Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be

Aught but a lifeless clod, until revived by thee.

 

VII

 

Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart

Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain;

How beautiful and calm and free thou wert

In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain

Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,

And walked as free as light the clouds among,

Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain

From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung

To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long!

 

VIII

 

No more alone through the world's wilderness,

Although I trod the paths of high intent,

I journeyed now: no more companionless,

Where solitude is like despair, I went. –

There is the wisdom of a stern content

When Poverty can blight the just and good,

When Infamy dares mock the innocent,

And cherished friends turn with the multitude

To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

 

IX

 

Now has descended a serener hour,

And with inconstant fortune, friends return;

Though suffering leaves the knowledge and the power

Which says: – Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.

And from thy side two gentle babes are born

To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we

Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn;

And these delights, and thou, have been to me

The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.

 

X

 

Is it, that now my inexperienced fingers

But strike the prelude of a loftier strain?

Or, must the lyre on which my spirit lingers

Soon pause in silence, ne'er to sound again,

Though it might shake the Anarch Custom's reign,

And charm the minds of men to Truth's own sway

Holier than was Amphion's? I would fain

Reply in hope – but I am worn away,

And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey.

 

XI

 

And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak:

Time may interpret to his silent years.

Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek,

And in the light thine ample forehead wears,

And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears,

And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy

Is whispered, to subdue my fondest fears:

And through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see

A lamp of vestal fire burning internally.

 

XII

 

They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,

Of glorious parents, thou aspiring Child.

I wonder not – for One then left this earth

Whose life was like a setting planet mild,

Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled

Of its departing glory; still her fame

Shines on thee, through the tempests dark and wild

Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim

The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name.

 

XIII

 

One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit,

Which was the echo of three thousand years;

And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it,

As some lone man who in a desert hears

The music of his home: – unwonted fears

Fell on the pale oppressors of our race,

And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted cares,

Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space

Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place.

 

XIV

 

Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind!

If there must be no response to my cry –

If men must rise and stamp with fury blind

On his pure name who loves them, – thou and I,

 

Sweet friend! can look from our tranquillity

Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night, –

Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by

Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight,

That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.

 

Canto I

I

When the last hope of trampled France had failed

Like a brief dream of unremaining glory,

From visions of despair I rose, and scaled

The peak of an aëreal promontory,

Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary;

And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken

Each cloud, and every wave: – but transitory

The calm: for sudden, the firm earth was shaken,

As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken.

 

II

So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder

Burst in far peals along the waveless deep,

When, gathering fast, around, above, and under,

Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep,

Until their complicating lines did steep

The orient sun in shadow: – not a sound

Was heard; one horrible repose did keep

The forests and the floods, and all around

Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.

 

III

Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps

Earth and the ocean. See! the lightnings yawn

Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps

Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on,

One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown,

Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by.

There is a pause – the sea-birds, that were gone

Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy

What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.

 

IV

For, where the irresistible storm had cloven

That fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen

Fretted with many a fair cloud interwoven

Most delicately, and the ocean green,

Beneath that opening spot of blue serene,

Quivered like burning emerald: calm was spread

On all below; but far on high, between

Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled,

Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed.

 

V

For ever, as the war became more fierce

Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high,

That spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce

 

The woof of those white clouds, which seem to lie

Far, deep, and motionless; while through the sky

The pallid semicircle of the moon

Passed on, in slow and moving majesty;

Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon

But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.

 

VI

 

I could not choose but gaze; a fascination

Dwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew

My fancy thither, and in expectation

Of what I knew not, I remained: – the hue

Of the white moon, amid that heaven so blue,

Suddenly stained with shadow did appear;

A speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew,

Like a great ship in the sun's sinking sphere

Beheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear.

 

VII

Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains,

Dark, vast, and overhanging, on a river

Which there collects the strength of all its fountains,

Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver,

Sails, oars, and stream, tending to one endeavour;

So, from that chasm of light a winged Form

On all the winds of heaven approaching ever

Floated, dilating as it came: the storm

Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm.

 

VIII

A course precipitous, of dizzy speed,

Suspending thought and breath; a monstrous sight!

For in the air do I behold indeed

An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight: –

And now relaxing its impetuous flight,

Before the aëreal rock on which I stood,

The Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right,

And hung with lingering wings over the flood,

And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude.

 

IX

 

A shaft of light upon its wings descended,

And every golden feather gleamed therein –

Feather and scale, inextricably blended.

The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin

Shone through the plumes its coils were twined within

By many a swoln and knotted fold, and high

And far, the neck, receding lithe and thin,

Sustained a crested head, which warily

Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's steadfast eye.

 

X

Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling

With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed

Incessantly – sometimes on high concealing

Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed,

Drooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed,

And casting back its eager head, with beak

And talon unremittingly assailed

The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek

Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak.

 

XI

What life, what power, was kindled and arose

Within the sphere of that appalling fray!

For, from the encounter of those wondrous foes,

A vapour like the sea's suspended spray

Hung gathered: in the void air, far away,

Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,

Where'er the Eagle's talons made their way,

Like sparks into the darkness; – as they sweep,

Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep.

 

XII

Swift chances in that combat – many a check,

And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil;

Sometimes the Snake around his enemy's neck

Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,

Until the Eagle, faint with pain and toil,

Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea

Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil

His adversary, who then reared on high

His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.

 

XIII

Then on the white edge of the bursting surge,

Where they had sunk together, would the Snake

Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge

The wind with his wild writhings; for to break

That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake

The strength of his unconquerable wings

As in despair, and with his sinewy neck,

Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings,

Then soar – as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.

 

XIV

Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,

Thus long, but unprevailing: – the event

Of that portentous fight appeared at length:

Until the lamp of day was almost spent

It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent,

Hung high that mighty Serpent, and at last

Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent,

With clang of wings and scream the Eagle passed,

Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast.

 

XV

And with it fled the tempest, so that ocean

And earth and sky shone through the atmosphere –

Only, 'twas strange to see the red commotion

Of waves like mountains o'er the sinking sphere

Of sunset sweep, and their fierce roar to hear

Amid the calm: down the steep path I wound

To the sea-shore – the evening was most clear

And beautiful, and there the sea I found

Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.

 

XVI

There was a Woman, beautiful as morning,

Sitting beneath the rocks, upon the sand

Of the waste sea – fair as one flower adorning

An icy wilderness – each delicate hand

Lay crossed upon her bosom, and the band

Of her dark hair had fall'n, and so she sate

Looking upon the waves; on the bare strand

Upon the sea-mark a small boat did wait,

Fair as herself, like Love by Hope left desolate.

 

XVII

It seemed that this fair Shape had looked upon

That unimaginable fight, and now

That her sweet eyes were weary of the sun,

As brightly it illustrated her woe;

For in the tears which silently to flow

Paused not, its lustre hung: she watching aye

The foam-wreaths which the faint tide wove below

Upon the spangled sands, groaned heavily,

And after every groan looked up over the sea.

 

XVIII

And when she saw the wounded Serpent make

His path between the waves, her lips grew pale,

Parted, and quivered; the tears ceased to break

From her immovable eyes; no voice of wail

Escaped her; but she rose, and on the gale

Loosening her star-bright robe and shadowy hair

Poured forth her voice; the caverns of the vale

That opened to the ocean, caught it there,

And filled with silver sounds the overflowing air.

 

XIX

She spake in language whose strange melody

Might not belong to earth. I heard, alone,

What made its music more melodious be,

The pity and the love of every tone;

But to the Snake those accents sweet were known

His native tongue and hers; nor did he beat

The hoar spray idly then, but winding on

Through the green shadows of the waves that meet

Near to the shore, did pause beside her snowy feet.

 

XX

Then on the sands the Woman sate again,

And wept and clasped her hands, and all between,

Renewed the unintelligible strain

Of her melodious voice and eloquent mien;

And she unveiled her bosom, and the green

And glancing shadows of the sea did play

O'er its marmoreal depth: – one moment seen,

For ere the next, the Serpent did obey

Her voice, and, coiled in rest in her embrace it lay.

 

XXI

Then she arose, and smiled on me with eyes

Serene yet sorrowing, like that planet fair,

While yet the daylight lingereth in the skies

Which cleaves with arrowy beams the dark-red air,

And said: »To grieve is wise, but the despair

Was weak and vain which led thee here from sleep:

This shalt thou know, and more, if thou dost dare

With me and with this Serpent, o'er the deep,

A voyage divine and strange, companionship to keep.«

 

XXII

 

Her voice was like the wildest, saddest tone,

Yet sweet, of some loved voice heard long ago.

I wept. »Shall this fair woman all alone,

Over the sea with that fierce Serpent go?

His head is on her heart, and who can know

How soon he may devour his feeble prey?« –

Such were my thoughts, when the tide gan to flow;

And that strange boat like the moon's shade did sway

Amid reflected stars that in the waters lay: –

 

XXIII

A boat of rare device, which had no sail

But its own curved prow of thin moonstone,

Wrought like a web of texture fine and frail,

To catch those gentlest winds which are not known

To breathe, but by the steady speed alone

With which it cleaves the sparkling sea; and now

We are embarked – the mountains hang and frown

Over the starry deep that gleams below,

A vast and dim expanse, as o'er the waves we go.

 

XXIV

And as we sailed, a strange and awful tale

That Woman told, like such mysterious dream

As makes the slumberer's cheek with wonder pale!

'Twas midnight, and around, a shoreless stream,

Wide ocean rolled, when that majestic theme

Shrined in her heart found utterance, and she bent

Her looks on mine; those eyes a kindling beam

Of love divine into my spirit sent,

And ere her lips could move, made the air eloquent.

 

XXV

»Speak not to me, but hear! Much shalt thou learn,

Much must remain unthought, and more untold,

In the dark Future's ever-flowing urn:

Know then, that from the depth of ages old,

Two Powers o'er mortal things dominion hold

Ruling the world with a divided lot,

Immortal, all-pervading, manifold,

Twin Genii, equal Gods – when life and thought

Sprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought.

 

XXVI

The earliest dweller of the world, alone,

Stood on the verge of chaos. Lo! afar

O'er the wide wild abyss two meteors shone,

Sprung from the depth of its tempestuous jar:

A blood-red Comet and the Morning Star

Mingling their beams in combat – as he stood,

All thoughts within his mind waged mutual war,

In dreadful sympathy – when to the flood

That fair Star fell, he turned and shed his brother's blood.

 

XXVII

Thus evil triumphed, and the Spirit of evil,

One Power of many shapes which none may know,

One Shape of many names; the Fiend did revel

In victory, reigning o'er a world of woe,

For the new race of man went to and fro,

Famished and homeless, loathed and loathing, wild,

And hating good – for his immortal foe,

He changed from starry shape, beauteous and mild,

To a dire Snake, with man and beast unreconciled.

 

XXVIII

The darkness lingering o'er the dawn of things,

Was Evil's breath and life; this made him strong

To soar aloft with overshadowing wings;

And the great Spirit of Good did creep among

The nations of mankind, and every tongue

Cursed and blasphemed him as he passed; for none

Knew good from evil, though their names were hung

In mockery o'er the fane where many a groan,

As King, and Lord, and God, the conquering Fiend did own, –

 

XXIX

The Fiend, whose name was Legion; Death, Decay,

Earthquake and Blight, and Want, and Madness pale,

Winged and wan diseases, an array

Numerous as leaves that strew the autumnal gale;

Poison, a snake in flowers, beneath the veil

Of food and mirth hiding his mortal head;

And, without whom all these might nought avail,

Fear, Hatred, Faith, and Tyranny, who spread

Those subtle nets which snare the living and the dead.

 

XXX

 

His spirit is their power, and they his slaves

In air, and light, and thought, and language, dwell;

And keep their state from palaces to graves,

In all resorts of men – invisible,

But when, in ebon mirror, Nightmare fell

To tyrant or impostor bids them rise,

Black-winged demon forms – whom, from the hell,

His reign and dwelling beneath nether skies,

He loosens to their dark and blasting ministries.

 

XXXI

In the world's youth his empire was as firm

As its foundations ... Soon the Spirit of Good,

Though in the likeness of a loathsome worm,

Sprang from the billows of the formless flood,

Which shrank and fled; and with that Fiend of blood

Renewed the doubtful war ... Thrones then first shook,

And earth's immense and trampled multitude

In hope on their own powers began to look,

 

And Fear, the demon pale, his sanguine shrine forsook.

 

XXXII

Then Greece arose, and to its bards and sages,

In dream, the golden-pinioned Genii came,

Even where they slept amid the night of ages,

Steeping their hearts in the divinest flame

Which thy breath kindled, Power of holiest name!

And oft in cycles since, when darkness gave

New weapons to thy foe, their sunlike fame

Upon the combat shone – a light to save,

Like Paradise spread forth beyond the shadowy grave.

 

XXXIII

 

Such is this conflict – when mankind doth strive

With its oppressors in a strife of blood,

Or when free thoughts, like lightnings, are alive,

And in each bosom of the multitude

Justice and truth with Custom's hydra brood

Wage silent war; when Priests and Kings dissemble

In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude,

When round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble,

The Snake and Eagle meet – the world's foundations tremble!

 

XXXIV

Thou hast beheld that fight – when to thy home

Thou dost return, steep not its hearth in tears;

Though thou may'st hear that earth is now become

The tyrant's garbage, which to his compeers,

The vile reward of their dishonoured years,

He will dividing give. – The victor Fiend,

Omnipotent of yore, now quails, and fears

His triumph dearly won, which soon will lend

An impulse swift and sure to his approaching end.

 

XXXV

List, stranger, list, mine is an human form,

Like that thou wearest – touch me – shrink not now!

My hand thou feel'st is not a ghost's, but warm

With human blood. – 'Twas many years ago,

Since first my thirsting soul aspired to know

The secrets of this wondrous world, when deep

My heart was pierced with sympathy, for woe

Which could not be mine own – and thought did keep,

In dream, unnatural watch beside an infant's sleep.

 

XXXVI

Woe could not be mine own, since far from men

I dwelt, a free and happy orphan child,

By the sea-shore, in a deep mountain-glen;

And near the waves, and through the forests wild,

I roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled:

For I was calm while tempest shook the sky:

But when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled,

I wept, sweet tears, yet too tumultuously

For peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy.

 

XXXVII

These were forebodings of my fate – before

A woman's heart beat in my virgin breast,

It had been nurtured in divinest lore:

A dying poet gave me books, and blessed

With wild but holy talk the sweet unrest

In which I watched him as he died away –

A youth with hoary hair – a fleeting guest

Of our lone mountains: and this lore did sway

My spirit like a storm, contending there alway.

 

XXXVIII

Thus the dark tale which history doth unfold

I knew, but not, methinks, as others know,

For they weep not; and Wisdom had unrolled

The clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe, –

To few can she that warning vision show –

For I loved all things with intense devotion;

So that when Hope's deep source in fullest flow

Like earthquake did uplift the stagnant ocean

Of human thoughts – mine shook beneath the wide emotion.

 

XXXIX

When first the living blood through all these veins

Kindled a thought in sense, great France sprang forth,

And seized, as if to break, the ponderous chains

Which bind in woe the nations of the earth.

I saw, and started from my cottage-hearth;

And to the clouds and waves in tameless gladness,

Shrieked, till they caught immeasurable mirth –

And laughed in light and music: soon, sweet madness

Was poured upon my heart, a soft and thrilling sadness.

 

XL

 

Deep slumber fell on me: – my dreams were fire –

Soft and delightful thoughts did rest and hover

Like shadows o'er my brain; and strange desire,

The tempest of a passion, raging over

My tranquil soul, its depths with light did cover, –

Which passed; and calm, and darkness, sweeter far,

Came – then I loved; but not a human lover!

For when I rose from sleep, the Morning Star

Shone through the woodbine-wreaths which round my casement were.

 

XLI

'Twas like an eye which seemed to smile on me.

I watched, till by the sun made pale, it sank

Under the billows of the heaving sea;

But from its beams deep love my spirit drank,

And to my brain the boundless world now shrank

Into one thought – one image – yes, for ever!

Even like the dayspring, poured on vapours dank,

The beams of that one Star did shoot and quiver

Through my benighted mind – and were extinguished never.

 

XLII

The day passed thus: at night, methought in dream

A shape of speechless beauty did appear:

It stood like light on a careering stream

Of golden clouds which shook the atmosphere;

A winged youth, his radiant brow did wear

The Morning Star: a wild dissolving bliss

Over my frame he breathed, approaching near,

And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness

Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss, –

 

XLIII

And said: ›A Spirit loves thee, mortal maiden,

How wilt thou prove thy worth?‹ Then joy and sleep

Together fled, my soul was deeply laden,

And to the shore I went to muse and weep;

But as I moved, over my heart did creep

A joy less soft, but more profound and strong

Than my sweet dream; and it forbade to keep

The path of the sea-shore: that Spirit's tongue

Seemed whispering in my heart, and bore my steps along.

 

XLIV

How, to that vast and peopled city led,

Which was a field of holy warfare then,

I walked among the dying and the dead,

And shared in fearless deeds with evil men,

 

Calm as an angel in the dragon's den –

How I braved death for liberty and truth,

And spurned at peace, and power, and fame – and when

Those hopes had lost the glory of their youth,

How sadly I returned – might move the hearer's ruth:

 

XLV

 

Warm tears throng fast! the tale may not be said –

Know then, that when this grief had been subdued,

I was not left, like others, cold and dead;

The Spirit whom I loved, in solitude

Sustained his child: the tempest-shaken wood,

The waves, the fountains, and the hush of night –

These were his voice, and well I understood

His smile divine, when the calm sea was bright

With silent stars, and Heaven was breathless with delight.

 

XLVI

In lonely glens, amid the roar of rivers,

When the dim nights were moonless, have I known

Joys which no tongue can tell; my pale lip quivers

When thought revisits them: – know thou alone,

That after many wondrous years were flown,

I was awakened by a shriek of woe;

And over me a mystic robe was thrown,

By viewless hands, and a bright Star did glow

Before my steps – the Snake then met his mortal foe.«

 

XLVII

»Thou fearest not then the Serpent on thy heart?«

»Fear it!« she said, with brief and passionate cry,

And spake no more: that silence made me start –

I looked, and we were sailing pleasantly,

Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky;

Beneath the rising moon seen far away,

Mountains of ice, like sapphire, piled on high,

Hemming the horizon round, in silence lay

On the still waters – these we did approach alway.

 

XLVIII

And swift and swifter grew the vessel's motion,

So that a dizzy trance fell on my brain –

Wild music woke me: we had passed the ocean

Which girds the pole, Nature's remotest reign –

And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain

Of waters, azure with the noontide day.

Ethereal mountains shone around – a Fane

Stood in the midst, girt by green isles which lay

On the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.

 

XLIX

It was a Temple, such as mortal hand

Has never built, nor ecstasy, nor dream

Reared in the cities of enchanted land:

'Twas likest Heaven, ere yet day's purple stream

Ebbs o'er the western forest, while the gleam

Of the unrisen moon among the clouds

Is gathering – when with many a golden beam

The thronging constellations rush in crowds,

Paving with fire the sky and the marmoreal floods.

 

L

Like what may be conceived of this vast dome,

When from the depths which thought can seldom pierce

Genius beholds it rise, his native home,

Girt by the deserts of the Universe;

Yet, nor in painting's light, or mightier verse,

Or sculpture's marble language, can invest

That shape to mortal sense – such glooms immerse

That incommunicable sight, and rest

Upon the labouring brain and overburdened breast.

 

LI

Winding among the lawny islands fair,

Whose blosmy forests starred the shadowy deep,

The wingless boat paused where an ivory stair

Its fretwork in the crystal sea did steep,

Encircling that vast Fane's aërial heap:

We disembarked, and through a portal wide

We passed – whose roof of moonstone carved, did keep

A glimmering o'er the forms on every side,

Sculptures like life and thought; immovable, deep-eyed.

 

LII

We came to a vast hall, whose glorious roof

Was diamond, which had drank the lightning's sheen

In darkness, and now poured it through the woof

Of spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen

Its blinding splendour – through such veil was seen

That work of subtlest power, divine and rare;

Orb above orb, with starry shapes between,

And horned moons, and meteors strange and fair,

On night-black columns poised – one hollow hemisphere!

 

LIII

Ten thousand columns in that quivering light

Distinct – between whose shafts wound far away

The long and labyrinthine aisles – more bright

With their own radiance than the Heaven of Day;

And on the jasper walls around, there lay

Paintings, the poesy of mightiest thought,

Which did the Spirit's history display;

A tale of passionate change, divinely taught,

Which, in their winged dance, unconscious Genii wrought.

 

LIV

 

Beneath, there sate on many a sapphire throne,

The Great, who had departed from mankind,

A mighty Senate; – some, whose white hair shone

Like mountain snow, mild, beautiful, and blind;

Some, female forms, whose gestures beamed with mind;

And ardent youths, and children bright and fair;

And some had lyres whose strings were intertwined

With pale and clinging flames, which ever there

Waked faint yet thrilling sounds that pierced the crystal air.

 

LV

One seat was vacant in the midst, a throne,

Reared on a pyramid like sculptured flame,

Distinct with circling steps which rested on

Their own deep fire – soon as the Woman came

Into that hall, she shrieked the Spirit's name

And fell; and vanished slowly from the sight.

Darkness arose from her dissolving frame,

Which gathering, filled that dome of woven light,

Blotting its sphered stars with supernatural night.

 

LVI

Then first, two glittering lights were seen to glide

In circles on the amethystine floor,

Small serpent eyes trailing from side to side,

Like meteors on a river's grassy shore,

They round each other rolled, dilating more

And more – then rose, commingling into one,

One clear and mighty planet hanging o'er

A cloud of deepest shadow, which was thrown

Athwart the glowing steps and the crystalline throne.

 

LVII

The cloud which rested on that cone of flame

Was cloven; beneath the planet sate a Form,

Fairer than tongue can speak or thought may frame,

The radiance of whose limbs rose-like and warm

Flowed forth, and did with softest light inform

The shadowy dome, the sculptures, and the state

Of those assembled shapes – with clinging charm

Sinking upon their hearts and mine. He sate

Majestic, yet most mild – calm, yet compassionate.

 

LVIII

Wonder and joy a passing faintness threw

Over my brow – a hand supported me,

Whose touch was magic strength: an eye of blue

Looked into mine, like moonlight, soothingly;

And a voice said: – »Thou must a listener be

This day – two mighty Spirits now return,

Like birds of calm, from the world's raging sea,

They pour fresh light from Hope's immortal urn;

A tale of human power – despair not – list and learn!«

 

LIX

I looked, and lo! one stood forth eloquently,

His eyes were dark and deep, and the clear brow

Which shadowed them was like the morning sky,

The cloudless Heaven of Spring, when in their flow

Through the bright air, the soft winds as they blow

Wake the green world – his gestures did obey

The oracular mind that made his features glow,

And where his curved lips half-open lay,

Passion's divinest stream had made impetuous way.

 

LX

Beneath the darkness of his outspread hair

He stood thus beautiful: but there was One

Who sate beside him like his shadow there,

And held his hand – far lovelier – she was known

To be thus fair, by the few lines alone

Which through her floating locks and gathered cloak,

Glances of soul-dissolving glory, shone: –

None else beheld her eyes – in him they woke

Memories which found a tongue as thus he silence broke.

 

Canto II

I

The starlight smile of children, the sweet looks

Of women, the fair breast from which I fed,

The murmur of the unreposing brooks,

And the green light which, shifting overhead,

Some tangled bower of vines around me shed,

The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers,

The lamplight through the rafters cheerly spread,

And on the twining flax – in life's young hours

These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit's folded powers.

 

II

In Argolis, beside the echoing sea,

Such impulses within my mortal frame

Arose, and they were dear to memory,

Like tokens of the dead: – but others came

Soon, in another shape: the wondrous fame

Of the past world, the vital words and deeds

Of minds whom neither time nor change can tame,

Traditions dark and old, whence evil creeds

Start forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.

 

III

I heard, as all have heard, the various story

Of human life, and wept unwilling tears.

Feeble historians of its shame and glory,

False disputants on all its hopes and fears,

Victims who worshipped ruin, – chroniclers

Of daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state

Yet, flattering power, had given its ministers

A throne of judgement in the grave: – 'twas fate,

That among such as these my youth should seek its mate.

 

IV

The land in which I lived, by a fell bane

Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side,

And stabled in our homes, – until the chain

Stifled the captive's cry, and to abide

That blasting curse men had no shame – all vied

In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust

Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied,

Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust,

Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.

 

V

Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters,

And the ethereal shapes which are suspended

Over its green expanse, and those fair daughters,

The clouds, of Sun and Ocean, who have blended

The colours of the air since first extended

It cradled the young world, none wandered forth

To see or feel: a darkness had descended

On every heart: the light which shows its worth,

Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.

 

VI

 

This vital world, this home of happy spirits,

Was as a dungeon to my blasted kind;

All that despair from murdered hope inherits

They sought, and in their helpless misery blind,

A deeper prison and heavier chains did find,

And stronger tyrants: – a dark gulf before,

The realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind,

Terror and Time conflicting drove, and bore

On their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore.

 

VII

Out of that Ocean's wrecks had Guilt and Woe

Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,

And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro

Glide o'er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought

The worship thence which they each other taught.

Well might men loathe their life, well might they turn

Even to the ills again from which they sought

Such refuge after death! – well might they learn

To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!

 

VIII

For they all pined in bondage; body and soul,

Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent

Before one Power, to which supreme control

Over their will by their own weakness lent,

Made all its many names omnipotent;

All symbols of things evil, all divine;

And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent

The air from all its fanes, did intertwine

Imposture's impious toils round each discordant shrine.

 

IX

I heard, as all have heard, life's various story,

And in no careless heart transcribed the tale;

But, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary

In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale

By famine, from a mother's desolate wail

O'er her polluted child, from innocent blood

Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale

With the heart's warfare; did I gather food

To feed my many thoughts: a tameless multitude!

 

X

I wandered through the wrecks of days departed

Far by the desolated shore, when even

O'er the still sea and jagged islets darted

The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven,

Among the clouds near the horizon driven,

The mountains lay beneath our planet pale;

Around me, broken tombs and columns riven

Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale

Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!

 

XI

I knew not who had framed these wonders then,

Nor had I heard the story of their deeds;

But dwellings of a race of mightier men,

And monuments of less ungentle creeds

Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds

The language which they speak; and now, to me

The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds,

The bright stars shining in the breathless sea,

Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery.

 

XII

Such man has been, and such may yet become!

Ay, wiser, greater, gentler, even than they

Who on the fragments of yon shattered dome

Have stamped the sign of power – I felt the sway

Of the vast stream of ages bear away

My floating thoughts – my heart beat loud and fast –

Even as a storm let loose beneath the ray

Of the still moon, my spirit onward past

Beneath truth's steady beams upon its tumult cast.

 

XIII

It shall be thus no more! too long, too long,

Sons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound

In darkness and in ruin! – Hope is strong,

Justice and Truth their winged child have found –

Awake! arise! until the mighty sound

Of your career shall scatter in its gust

The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground

Hide the last altar's unregarded dust,

Whose Idol has so long betrayed your impious trust!

 

XIV

It must be so – I will arise and waken

The multitude, and like a sulphurous hill,

Which on a sudden from its snows has shaken

The swoon of ages, it shall burst and fill

The world with cleansing fire: it must, it will –

It may not be restrained! – and who shall stand

Amid the rocking earthquake steadfast still,

But Laon? on high Freedom's desert land

A tower whose marble walls the leagued storms withstand!

 

XV

 

One summer night, in commune with the hope

Thus deeply fed, amid those ruins gray

I watched, beneath the dark sky's starry cope;

And ever from that hour upon me lay

The burden of this hope, and night or day,

In vision or in dream, clove to my breast:

Among mankind, or when gone far away

To the lone shores and mountains, 'twas a guest

Which followed where I fled, and watched when I did rest.

 

XVI

These hopes found words through which my spirit sought

To weave a bondage of such sympathy,

As might create some response to the thought

Which ruled me now – and as the vapours lie

Bright in the outspread morning's radiancy,

So were these thoughts invested with the light

Of language: and all bosoms made reply

On which its lustre streamed, whene'er it might

Through darkness wide and deep those tranced spirits smite.

 

XVII

Yes, many an eye with dizzy tears was dim,

And oft I thought to clasp my own heart's brother,

When I could feel the listener's senses swim,

And hear his breath its own swift gaspings smother

Even as my words evoked them – and another,

And yet another, I did fondly deem,

Felt that we all were sons of one great mother;

And the cold truth such sad reverse did seem,

As to awake in grief from some delightful dream.

 

XVIII

 

Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth

Which skirts the hoary caves of the green deep,

Did Laon and his friend, on one gray plinth,

Round whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap,

Resting at eve, a lofty converse keep:

And that this friend was false, may now be said

Calmly – that he like other men could weep

Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread

Snares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled.

 

XIX

Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow,

I must have sought dark respite from its stress

In dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no morrow –

For to tread life's dismaying wilderness

Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless,

Amid the snares and scoffs of human kind,

Is hard – but I betrayed it not, nor less

With love that scorned return, sought to unbind

The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.

 

XX

With deathless minds which leave where they have passed

A path of light, my soul communion knew;

Till from that glorious intercourse, at last,

As from a mine of magic store, I drew

Words which were weapons; – round my heart there grew

The adamantine armour of their power,

And from my fancy wings of golden hue

 

Sprang forth – yet not alone from wisdom's tower,

A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.

 

XXI

An orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes

Were lodestars of delight, which drew me home

When I might wander forth; nor did I prize

Aught human thing beneath Heaven's mighty dome

Beyond this child: so when sad hours were come,

And baffled hope like ice still clung to me,

Since kin were cold, and friends had now become

Heartless and false, I turned from all, to be,

Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee.

 

XXII

What wert thou then? A child most infantine,

Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age

In all but its sweet looks and mien divine:

Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage

A patient warfare thy young heart did wage,

When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought

Some tale, or thine own fancies, would engage

To overflow with tears, or converse fraught

With passion, o'er their depths its fleeting light had wrought.

 

XXIII

 

She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,

A power, that from its objects scarcely drew

One impulse of her being – in her lightness

Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,

Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue,

To nourish some far desert: she did seem

Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,

Like the bright shade of some immortal dream

Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream.

 

XIV

As mine own shadow was this child to me,

A second self, far dearer and more fair;

Which clothed in undissolving radiancy

All those steep paths which languor and despair

Of human things, had made so dark and bare,

But which I trod alone – nor, till bereft

Of friends, and overcome by lonely care,

Knew I what solace for that loss was left,

Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft.

 

XXV

Once she was dear, now she was all I had

To love in human life – this playmate sweet,

This child of twelve years old – so she was made

My sole associate, and her willing feet

Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet,

Beyond the aëreal mountains whose vast cells

The unreposing billows ever beat,

Through forests wide and old, and lawny dells

Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells.

 

XXVI

And warm and light I felt her clasping hand

When twined in mine: she followed where I went,

Through the lone paths of our immortal land.

It had no waste but some memorial lent

Which strung me to my toil – some monument

Vital with mind: then, Cythna by my side,

Until the bright and beaming day were spent,

Would rest, with looks entreating to abide,

Too earnest and too sweet ever to be denied.

 

XXVII

And soon I could not have refused her – thus

For ever, day and night, we two were ne'er

Parted, but when brief sleep divided us:

And when the pauses of the lulling air

Of noon beside the sea, had made a lair

For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept,

And I kept watch over her slumbers there,

While, as the shifting visions o'er her swept,

Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept.

 

XXVIII

And, in the murmur of her dreams was heard

Sometimes the name of Laon: – suddenly

She would arise, and, like the secret bird

Whom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky

With her sweet accents – a wild melody!

Hymns which my soul had woven to Freedom, strong

The source of passion, whence they rose, to be;

Triumphant strains, which, like a spirit's tongue,

To the enchanted waves that child of glory sung –

 

XXIX

Her white arms lifted through the shadowy stream

Of her loose hair – oh, excellently great

Seemed to me then my purpose, the vast theme

Of those impassioned songs, when Cythna sate

Amid the calm which rapture doth create

 

After its tumult, her heart vibrating,

Her spirit o'er the ocean's floating state

From her deep eyes far wandering, on the wing

Of visions that were mine, beyond its utmost spring.

 

XXX

For, before Cythna loved it, had my song

Peopled with thoughts the boundless universe,

A mighty congregation, which were strong

Where'er they trod the darkness to disperse

The cloud of that unutterable curse

Which clings upon mankind; – all things became

Slaves to my holy and heroic verse,

Earth, sea and sky, the planets, life and fame

And fate, or whate'er else binds the world's wondrous frame.

 

XXXI

And this beloved child thus felt the sway

Of my conceptions, gathering like a cloud

The very wind on which it rolls away:

Hers too were all my thoughts, ere yet, endowed

With music and with light, their fountains flowed

In poesy; and her still and earnest face,

Pallid with feelings which intensely glowed

Within, was turned on mine with speechless grace,

Watching the hopes which there her heart had learned to trace.

 

XXXII

 

In me, communion with this purest being

Kindled intenser zeal, and made me wise

In knowledge, which, in hers mine own mind seeing,

Left in the human world few mysteries:

How without fear of evil or disguise

Was Cythna! – what a spirit strong and mild,

Which death, or pain or peril could despise,

Yet melt in tenderness! what genius wild

Yet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!

 

XXXIII

New lore was this – old age, with its gray hair,

And wrinkled legends of unworthy things,

And icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare

To burst the chains which life for ever flings

On the entangled soul's aspiring wings,

So is it cold and cruel, and is made

The careless slave of that dark power which brings

Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed,

Laughs o'er the grave in which his living hopes are laid.

 

XXXIV

Nor are the strong and the severe to keep

The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught

Even in the visions of her eloquent sleep,

Unconscious of the power through which she wrought

The woof of such intelligible thought,

As from the tranquil strength which cradled lay

In her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought

Why the deceiver and the slave has sway

O'er heralds so divine of truth's arising day.

 

XXXV

Within that fairest form, the female mind

Untainted by the poison-clouds which rest

On the dark world, a sacred home did find:

But else, from the wide earth's maternal breast,

Victorious Evil, which had dispossessed

All native power, had those fair children torn,

And made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,

And minister to lust its joys forlorn,

Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.

 

XXXVI

This misery was but coldly felt, till she

Became my only friend, who had endued

My purpose with a wider sympathy;

Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude

In which the half of humankind were mewed

Victims of lust and hate, the slaves of slaves,

She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food

To the hyaena lust, who, among graves,

Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves.

 

XXXVII

 

And I, still gazing on that glorious child,

Even as these thoughts flushed o'er her: – »Cythna sweet,

Well with the world art thou unreconciled;

Never will peace and human nature meet

Till free and equal man and woman greet

Domestic peace; and ere this power can make

In human hearts its calm and holy seat,

This slavery must be broken« – as I spake,

From Cythna's eyes a light of exultation brake.

 

XXXVIII

She replied earnestly: – »It shall be mine,

This task, mine, Laon! – thou hast much to gain;

Nor wilt thou at poor Cythna's pride repine,

If she should lead a happy female train

To meet thee over the rejoicing plain,

When myriads at thy call shall throng around

The Golden City.« – Then the child did strain

My arm upon her tremulous heart, and wound

Her own about my neck, till some reply she found.

 

XXXIX

I smiled, and spake not. – »Wherefore dost thou smile

At what I say? Laon, I am not weak,

And though my cheek might become pale the while,

With thee, if thou desirest, will I seek

Through their array of banded slaves to wreak

Ruin upon the tyrants. I had thought

It was more hard to turn my unpractised cheek

To scorn and shame, and this beloved spot

And thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.

 

XL

Whence came I what I am? Thou, Laon, knowest

How a young child should thus undaunted be;

Methinks, it is a power which thou bestowest,

Through which I seek, by most resembling thee,

So to become most good and great and free,

Yet far beyond this Ocean's utmost roar

In towers and huts are many like to me,

Who, could they see thine eyes, or feel such lore

As I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.

 

XLI

Think'st thou that I shall speak unskilfully,

And none will heed me? I remember now,

How once, a slave in tortures doomed to die,

Was saved, because in accents sweet and low

He sung a song his Judge loved long ago,

As he was led to death. – All shall relent

Who hear me – tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow,

Hearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent

As renovates the world; a will omnipotent!

 

XLII

Yes, I will tread Pride's golden palaces,

Through Penury's roofless huts and squalid cells

Will I descend, where'er in abjectness

Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells,

There with the music of thine own sweet spells

Will disenchant the captives, and will pour

For the despairing, from the crystal wells

Of thy deep spirit, reason's mighty lore,

And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more.

 

XLIII

Can man be free if woman be a slave?

Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air,

To the corruption of a closed grave!

Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear

Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare

To trample their oppressors? in their home

Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear

The shape of woman – hoary Crime would come

Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion's tottering dome.

 

XLIV

 

I am a child: – I would not yet depart.

When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp

Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart,

Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp

Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp

Of ages leaves their limbs – no ill may harm

Thy Cythna ever – truth its radiant stamp

Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm

Upon her children's brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.

 

XLV

Wait yet awhile for the appointed day –

Thou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand

Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray;

Amid the dwellers of this lonely land

I shall remain alone – and thy command

Shall then dissolve the world's unquiet trance,

And, multitudinous as the desert sand

Borne on the storm, its millions shall advance,

Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.

 

XLVI

Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,

Which from remotest glens two warring winds

Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain

Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds

Of evil, catch from our uniting minds

The spark which must consume them; – Cythna then

Will have cast off the impotence that binds

Her childhood now, and through the paths of men

Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den.

 

XLVII

We part! – O Laon, I must dare nor tremble

To meet those looks no more! – Oh, heavy stroke!

Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble

The agony of this thought?« – As thus she spoke

The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke,

And in my arms she hid her beating breast.

I remained still for tears – sudden she woke

As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed

My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.

 

XLVIII

»We part to meet again – but yon blue waste,

Yon desert wide and deep holds no recess,

Within whose happy silence, thus embraced

We might survive all ills in one caress:

Nor doth the grave – I fear 'tis passionless –

Nor yon cold vacant Heaven: – we meet again

Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless

Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain

When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain.«

 

XLIX

I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now

The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep,

Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;

So we arose, and by the starlight steep

Went homeward – neither did we speak nor weep,

But, pale, were calm with passion – thus subdued

Like evening shades that o'er the mountains creep,

We moved towards our home; where, in this mood,

Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.

 

Canto III

I

What thoughts had sway o'er Cythna's lonely slumber

That night, I know not; but my own did seem

As if they might ten thousand years outnumber

 

Of waking life, the visions of a dream

Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream

Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,

Whose limits yet were never memory's theme:

And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed,

Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.

 

II

Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace

More time than might make gray the infant world,

Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:

 

When the third came, like mist on breezes curled,

From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:

Methought, upon the threshold of a cave

I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled

With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave,

Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave.

 

III

We lived a day as we were wont to live,

But Nature had a robe of glory on,

And the bright air o'er every shape did weave

Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,

The leafless bough among the leaves alone,

Had being clearer than its own could be,

And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown,

In this strange vision, so divine to me,

That, if I loved before, now love was agony.

 

IV

 

Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended,

And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere

Of the calm moon – when suddenly was blended

With our repose a nameless sense of fear;

And from the cave behind I seemed to hear

Sounds gathering upwards! – accents incomplete,

And stifled shrieks, – and now, more near and near,

A tumult and a rush of thronging feet

The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.

 

V

The scene was changed, and away, away, away!

Through the air and over the sea we sped,

And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,

And the winds bore me – through the darkness spread

Around, the gaping earth then vomited

Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung

Upon my flight; and ever, as we fled,

They plucked at Cythna – soon to me then clung

A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

 

VI

And I lay struggling in the impotence

Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,

Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense

To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound

Which in the light of morn was poured around

Our dwelling – breathless, pale, and unaware

I rose, and all the cottage crowded found

With armed men, whose glittering swords were bare,

And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.

 

VII

And, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow

I could demand the cause – a feeble shriek –

It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,

Arrested me – my mien grew calm and meek,

And grasping a small knife, I went to seek

That voice among the crowd – 'twas Cythna's cry!

Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak

Its whirlwind rage: – so I passed quietly

Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.

 

VIII

I started to behold her, for delight

And exultation, and a joyance free,

Solemn, serene and lofty, filled the light

Of the calm smile with which she looked on me:

So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,

Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her –

»Farewell! farewell!« she said, as I drew nigh.

»At first my peace was marred by this strange stir,

Now I am calm as truth – its chosen minister.

 

IX

Look not so, Laon – say farewell in hope,

These bloody men are but the slaves who bear

Their mistress to her task – it was my scope

The slavery where they drag me now, to share,

And among captives willing chains to wear

Awhile – the rest thou knowest – return, dear friend!

Let our first triumph trample the despair

Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,

In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend.«

 

X

These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,

Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew

With seeming-careless glance; not many were

Around her, for their comrades just withdrew

To guard some other victim – so I drew

My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly

All unaware three of their number slew,

And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry

My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!

 

XI

What followed then, I know not – for a stroke

On my raised arm and naked head, came down,

Filling my eyes with blood – when I awoke,

I felt that they had bound me in my swoon,

And up a rock which overhangs the town,

By the steep path were bearing me: below,

The plain was filled with slaughter, – overthrown

The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow

Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.

 

XII

Upon that rock a mighty column stood,

Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,

Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude

Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,

Had made a landmark; o'er its height to fly

Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,

Has power – and when the shades of evening lie

On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast

The sunken daylight far through the aërial waste.

 

XIII

 

They bore me to a cavern in the hill

Beneath that column, and unbound me there:

And one did strip me stark; and one did fill

A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare

A lighted torch, and four with friendless care

Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,

Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair

We wound, until the torch's fiery tongue

Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.

 

XIV

They raised me to the platform of the pile,

That column's dizzy height: – the grate of brass

Through which they thrust me, open stood the while,

As to its ponderous and suspended mass,

With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!

With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound:

The grate, as they departed to repass,

With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound

Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom were drowned.

 

XV

The noon was calm and bright: – around that column

The overhanging sky and circling sea

Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn

The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,

So that I knew not my own misery:

The islands and the mountains in the day

Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see

The town among the woods below that lay,

And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.

 

XVI

It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed

Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone

Swayed in the air: – so bright, that noon did breed

No shadow in the sky beside mine own –

Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone.

Below, the smoke of roofs involved in flame

Rested like night, all else was clearly shown

In that broad glare, yet sound to me none came,

But of the living blood that ran within my frame.

 

 

XVII

The peace of madness fled, and ah, too soon!

A ship was lying on the sunny main,

Its sails were flagging in the breathless noon –

Its shadow lay beyond – that sight again

Waked, with its presence, in my tranced brain

The stings of a known sorrow, keen and cold:

I knew that ship bore Cythna o'er the plain

Of waters, to her blighting slavery sold,

And watched it with such thoughts as must remain untold.

 

XVIII

I watched, until the shades of evening wrapped

Earth like an exhalation – then the bark

Moved, for that calm was by the sunset snapped.

It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark:

Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark

Its path no more! – I sought to close mine eyes,

But like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark;

I would have risen, but ere that I could rise,

My parched skin was split with piercing agonies.

 

XIX

I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever

Its adamantine links, that I might die:

O Liberty! forgive the base endeavour,

Forgive me, if, reserved for victory,

The Champion of thy faith e'er sought to fly. –

That starry night, with its clear silence, sent

Tameless resolve which laughed at misery

Into my soul – linked remembrance lent

To that such power, to me such a severe content.

 

XX

To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair

And die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun

Its shafts of agony kindling through the air

Moved over me, nor though in evening dun,

Or when the stars their visible courses run,

Or morning, the wide universe was spread

In dreary calmness round me, did I shun

Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead

From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.

 

XXI

Two days thus passed – I neither raved nor died –

Thirst raged within me, like a scorpion's nest

Built in mine entrails; I had spurned aside

The water-vessel, while despair possessed

My thoughts, and now no drop remained! The uprest

Of the third sun brought hunger – but the crust

Which had been left, was to my craving breast

Fuel, not food. I chewed the bitter dust,

And bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.

 

XXII

My brain began to fail when the fourth morn

Burst o'er the golden isles – a fearful sleep,

Which through the caverns dreary and forlorn

Of the riven soul, sent its foul dreams to sweep

With whirlwind swiftness – a fall far and deep, –

A gulf, a void, a sense of senselessness –

These things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep

Their watch in some dim charnel's loneliness,

A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless!

 

XXIII

The forms which peopled this terrific trance

I well remember – like a choir of devils,

Around me they involved a giddy dance;

Legions seemed gathering from the misty levels

Of Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels,

Foul, ceaseless shadows: – thought could not divide

The actual world from these entangling evils,

Which so bemocked themselves, that I descried

All shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied.

 

XXIV

The sense of day and night, of false and true,

Was dead within me. Yet two visions burst

That darkness – one, as since that hour I knew,

Was not a phantom of the realms accursed,

 

Where then my spirit dwelt – but of the first

I know not yet, was it a dream or no.

But both, though not distincter, were immersed

In hues which, when through memory's waste they flow,

Make their divided streams more bright and rapid now.

 

XXV

Methought that grate was lifted, and the seven

Who brought me thither four stiff corpses bare,

And from the frieze to the four winds of Heaven

Hung them on high by the entangled hair:

Swarthy were three – the fourth was very fair:

As they retired, the golden moon upsprung,

And eagerly, out in the giddy air,

Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung

Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.

 

XXVI

A woman's shape, now lank and cold and blue,

The dwelling of the many-coloured worm,

Hung there; the white and hollow cheek I drew

To my dry lips – what radiance did inform

Those horny eyes? whose was that withered form?

Alas, alas! it seemed that Cythna's ghost

Laughed in those looks, and that the flesh was warm

Within my teeth! – A whirlwind keen as frost

Then in its sinking gulfs my sickening spirit tossed.

 

XXVII

Then seemed it that a tameless hurricane

Arose, and bore me in its dark career

Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane

On the verge of formless space – it languished there,

And dying, left a silence lone and drear,

More horrible than famine: – in the deep

 

The shape of an old man did then appear,

Stately and beautiful; that dreadful sleep

His heavenly smiles dispersed, and I could wake and weep.

 

XXVIII

 

And, when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw

That column, and those corpses, and the moon,

And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw

My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon

Of senseless death would be accorded soon; –

When from that stony gloom a voice arose,

Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune

The midnight pines; the grate did then unclose,

And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose.

 

XXIX

He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled:

As they were loosened by that Hermit old,

Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled,

To answer those kind looks – he did enfold

His giant arms around me, to uphold

My wretched frame, my scorched limbs he wound

In linen moist and balmy, and as cold

As dew to drooping leaves; – the chain, with sound

Like earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound,

 

XXX

As, lifting me, it fell! – What next I heard,

Were billows leaping on the harbour-bar,

And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred

My hair; – I looked abroad, and saw a star

Shining beside a sail, and distant far

That mountain and its column, the known mark

Of those who in the wide deep wandering are,

So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark,

In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.

 

XXXI

For now indeed, over the salt sea-billow

I sailed: yet dared not look upon the shape

Of him who ruled the helm, although the pillow

For my light head was hollowed in his lap,

And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap,

Fearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent

O'er me his aged face, as if to snap

Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent,

And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.

 

XXXII

A soft and healing potion to my lips

At intervals he raised – now looked on high,

To mark if yet the starry giant dips

His zone in the dim sea – now cheeringly,

Though he said little, did he speak to me.

»It is a friend beside thee – take good cheer,

Poor victim, thou art now at liberty!«

I joyed as those a human tone to hear,

Who in cells deep and lone have languished many a year.

 

XXXIII

A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses oft

Were quenched in a relapse of wildering dreams,

Yet still methought we sailed, until aloft

The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams

Of morn descended on the ocean-streams,

And still that aged man, so grand and mild,

Tended me, even as some sick mother seems

To hang in hope over a dying child,

Till in the azure East darkness again was piled.

 

XXXIV

And then the night-wind steaming from the shore,

Sent odours dying sweet across the sea,

And the swift boat the little waves which bore,

Were cut by its keen keel, though slantingly;

Soon I could hear the leaves sigh, and could see

The myrtle-blossoms starring the dim grove,

As past the pebbly beach the boat did flee

On sidelong wing, into a silent cove,

Where ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove.

 

Canto IV

I

The old man took the oars, and soon the bark

Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone;

It was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark

With blooming ivy-trails was overgrown;

Upon whose floor the spangling sands were strown,

And rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood,

Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown

Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood

A changeling of man's art, nursed amid Nature's brood.

 

II

When the old man his boat had anchored,

He wound me in his arms with tender care,

And very few, but kindly words he said,

And bore me through the tower adown a stair,

Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear

For many a year had fallen. – We came at last

To a small chamber, which with mosses rare

Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed

Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

 

III

The moon was darting through the lattices

Its yellow light, warm as the beams of day –

So warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,

The old man opened them; the moonlight lay

Upon a lake whose waters wove their play

Even to the threshold of that lonely home:

Within was seen in the dim wavering ray

The antique sculptured roof, and many a tome

Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become.

 

IV

The rock-built barrier of the sea was past, –

 

And I was on the margin of a lake,

A lonely lake, amid the forests vast

And snowy mountains; – did my spirit wake

From sleep as many-coloured as the snake

That girds eternity? in life and truth,

Might not my heart its cravings ever slake?

Was Cythna then a dream, and all my youth,

And all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?

 

V

Thus madness came again, – a milder madness,

Which darkened nought but time's unquiet flow

With supernatural shades of clinging sadness;

That gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe,

By my sick couch was busy to and fro,

Like a strong spirit ministrant of good:

When I was healed, he led me forth to show

The wonders of his sylvan solitude,

And we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.

 

VI

He knew his soothing words to weave with skill

From all my madness told; like mine own heart,

Of Cythna would he question me, until

That thrilling name had ceased to make me start,

From his familiar lips – it was not art,

Of wisdom and of justice when he spoke –

When mid soft looks of pity, there would dart

A glance as keen as is the lightning's stroke

When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

 

VII

Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,

My thoughts their due array did re-assume

Through the enchantments of that Hermit old;

Then I bethought me of the glorious doom

Of those who sternly struggle to relume

 

The lamp of Hope o'er man's bewildered lot,

And, sitting by the waters, in the gloom

Of eve, to that friend's heart I told my thought –

That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.

 

VIII

 

That hoary man had spent his livelong age

In converse with the dead, who leave the stamp

Of ever-burning thoughts on many a page,

When they are gone into the senseless damp

Of graves; – his spirit thus became a lamp

Of splendour, like to those on which it fed:

Through peopled haunts, the City and the Camp,

Deep thirst for knowledge had his footsteps led,

And all the ways of men among mankind he read.

 

IX

But custom maketh blind and obdurate

The loftiest hearts: – he had beheld the woe

In which mankind was bound, but deemed that fate

Which made them abject, would preserve them so;

And in such faith, some steadfast joy to know,

He sought this cell: but when fame went abroad,

That one in Argolis did undergo

Torture for liberty, and that the crowd

High truths from gifted lips had heard and understood;

 

X

And that the multitude was gathering wide, –

His spirit leaped within his aged frame,

In lonely peace he could no more abide,

But to the land on which the victor's flame

Had fed, my native land, the Hermit came:

Each heart was there a shield, and every tongue

Was as a sword, of truth – young Laon's name

Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung

Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among.

 

XI

He came to the lone column on the rock,

And with his sweet and mighty eloquence

The hearts of those who watched it did unlock,

And made them melt in tears of penitence.

They gave him entrance free to bear me thence.

»Since this,« the old man said, »seven years are spent,

While slowly truth on thy benighted sense

Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent

Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.

 

XII

Yes, from the records of my youthful state,

And from the lore of bards and sages old,

From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create

Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold,

Have I collected language to unfold

Truth to my countrymen; from shore to shore

Doctrines of human power my words have told,

They have been heard, and men aspire to more

Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.

 

XIII

In secret chambers parents read, and weep,

My writings to their babes, no longer blind;

And young men gather when their tyrants sleep,

And vows of faith each to the other bind;

And marriageable maidens, who have pined

With love, till life seemed melting through their look,

A warmer zeal, a nobler hope now find;

And every bosom thus is rapt and shook,

Like autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook.

 

XIV

The tyrants of the Golden City tremble

At voices which are heard about the streets,

The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble

The lies of their own heart; but when one meets

Another at the shrine, he inly weets,

Though he says nothing, that the truth is known;

Murderers are pale upon the judgement-seats,

And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,

And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.

 

XV

Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds

Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law

Of mild equality and peace, succeeds

To faiths which long have held the world in awe,

Bloody and false, and cold: – as whirlpools draw

All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway

Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw

This hope, compels all spirits to obey,

Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

 

XVI

For I have been thy passive instrument« –

(As thus the old man spake, his countenance

Gleamed on me like a spirit's) – 'thou hast lent

To me, to all, the power to advance

Towards this unforeseen deliverance

From our ancestral chains – ay, thou didst rear

That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance

Nor change may not extinguish, and my share

Of good, was o'er the world its gathered beams to bear.

 

XVII

 

»But I, alas! am both unknown and old,

And though the woof of wisdom I know well

To dye in hues of language, I am cold

In seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell,

My manners note that I did long repel;

But Laon's name to the tumultuous throng

Were like the star whose beams the waves compel

And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue

Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

 

XVIII

Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length

Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare

Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength

Of words – for lately did a maiden fair,

Who from her childhood has been taught to bear

The tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and make

Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear,

And with these quiet words – ›For thine own sake

I prithee spare me;‹ – did with ruth so take

 

XIX

All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound

Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,

Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found

One human hand to harm her – unassailed

Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled

In virtue's adamantine eloquence,

'Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed,

And blending, in the smiles of that defence,

The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.

 

XX

The wild-eyed women throng around her path:

From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust

Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor's wrath,

Or the caresses of his sated lust

They congregate: – in her they put their trust;

The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell

Her power; – they, even like a thunder-gust

Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell

Of that young maiden's speech, and to their chiefs rebel.

 

XXI

Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach

To woman, outraged and polluted long;

Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach

For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong

Trembles before her look, though it be strong;

Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,

And matrons with their babes, a stately throng!

Lovers renew the vows which they did plight

In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,

 

XXII

And homeless orphans find a home near her,

And those poor victims of the proud, no less,

Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir,

Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness: –

In squalid huts, and in its palaces

Sits Lust alone, while o'er the land is borne

Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress

All evil, and her foes relenting turn,

And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.

 

XXIII

So in the populous City, a young maiden

Has baffled Havoc of the prey which he

Marks as his own, whene'er with chains o'erladen

Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny, –

False arbiter between the bound and free;

And o'er the land, in hamlets and in towns

The multitudes collect tumultuously,

And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns

Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones.

 

XXIV

Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed,

The free cannot forbear – the Queen of Slaves,

The hoodwinked Angel of the blind and dead,

Custom, with iron mace points to the graves

Where her own standard desolately waves

Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings.

Many yet stand in her array – ›she paves

Her path with human hearts,‹ and o'er it flings

The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.

 

XXV

There is a plain beneath the City's wall,

Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast,

Millions there lift at Freedom's thrilling call

Ten thousand standards wide, they load the blast

Which bears one sound of many voices past,

And startles on his throne their sceptred foe:

He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,

And that his power hath passed away, doth know –

Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?

 

XXVI

The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain:

Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood,

They stand a speck amid the peopled plain;

Carnage and ruin have been made their food

From infancy – ill has become their good,

And for its hateful sake their will has wove

The chains which eat their hearts – the multitude

Surrounding them, with words of human love,

Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.

 

XXVII

Over the land is felt a sudden pause,

As night and day those ruthless bands around,

The watch of love is kept: – a trance which awes

The thoughts of men with hope – as, when the sound

Of whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds confound,

Dies suddenly, the mariner in fear

Feels silence sink upon his heart – thus bound,

The conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne'er

Clasp the relentless knees of Dread the murderer!

 

XXVIII

If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice

Of bonds, – from slavery to cowardice

A wretched fall! – Uplift thy charmed voice!

Pour on those evil men the love that lies

Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes –

Arise, my friend, farewell!« – As thus he spake,

From the green earth lightly I did arise,

As one out of dim dreams that doth awake,

And looked upon the depth of that reposing lake.

 

XXIX

I saw my countenance reflected there; –

And then my youth fell on me like a wind

Descending on still waters – my thin hair

Was prematurely gray, my face was lined

With channels, such as suffering leaves behind,

Not age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek

And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find

Their food and dwelling; though mine eyes might speak

A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.

 

XXX

And though their lustre now was spent and faded,

Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien

The likeness of a shape for which was braided

The brightest woof of genius, still was seen –

One who, methought, had gone from the world's scene,

And left it vacant – 'twas her lover's face –

It might resemble her – it once had been

The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace

Which her mind's shadow cast, left there a lingering trace.

 

XXXI

What then was I? She slumbered with the dead.

Glory and joy and peace, had come and gone.

Doth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled

Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone,

Doth it not through the paths of night unknown,

 

On outspread wings of its own wind upborne

Pour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown,

When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn

Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.

 

XXXII

Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man

I left, with interchange of looks and tears,

And lingering speech, and to the Camp began

My way. O'er many a mountain-chain which rears

Its hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears

My frame; o'er many a dale and many a moor,

And gaily now meseems serene earth wears

The blosmy spring's star-bright investiture,

A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.

 

XXXIII

My powers revived within me, and I went

As one whom winds waft o'er the bending grass,

Through many a vale of that broad continent.

At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass

Before my pillow; – my own Cythna was,

Not like a child of death, among them ever;

When I arose from rest, a woful mass

That gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever,

As if the light of youth were not withdrawn for ever.

 

XXXIV

Aye as I went, that maiden who had reared

The torch of Truth afar, of whose high deeds

The Hermit in his pilgrimage had heard,

Haunted my thoughts. – Ah, Hope its sickness feeds

With whatso'er it finds, or flowers or weeds!

Could she be Cythna? – Was that corpse a shade

Such as self-torturing thought from madness breeds?

Why was this hope not torture? Yet it made

A light around my steps which would not ever fade.

 

Canto V

I

Over the utmost hill at length I sped,

A snowy steep: – the moon was hanging low

Over the Asian mountains, and outspread

The plain, the City, and the Camp below,

Skirted the midnight Ocean's glimmering flow;

The City's moonlit spires and myriad lamps,

Like stars in a sublunar sky did glow,

And fires blazed far amid the scattered camps,

Like springs of flame, which burst where'er swift Earthquake stamps.

 

II

All slept but those in watchful arms who stood,

And those who sate tending the beacon's light,

And the few sounds from that vast multitude

Made silence more profound. – Oh, what a might

Of human thought was cradled in that night!

How many hearts impenetrably veiled

Beat underneath its shade, what secret fight

Evil and good, in woven passions mailed,

Waged through that silent throng; a war that never failed!

 

III

And now the Power of Good held victory,

So, through the labyrinth of many a tent,

Among the silent millions who did lie

In innocent sleep, exultingly I went;

 

The moon had left Heaven desert now, but lent

From eastern morn the first faint lustre showed

An armed youth – over his spear he bent

His downward face. – »A friend!« I cried aloud,

And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.

 

IV

 

I sate beside him while the morning beam

Crept slowly over Heaven, and talked with him

Of those immortal hopes, a glorious theme!

Which led us forth, until the stars grew dim:

And all the while, methought, his voice did swim

As if it drowned in remembrance were

Of thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim:

At last, when daylight 'gan to fill the air,

He looked on me, and cried in wonder – »Thou art here!«

 

V

Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth

In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found;

But envious tongues had stained his spotless truth,

And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound,

And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound,

Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded;

The truth now came upon me, on the ground

Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded.

Fell fast, and o'er its peace our mingling spirits brooded.

 

VI

Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes

We talked, a sound of sweeping conflict spread

As from the earth did suddenly arise;

From every tent roused by that clamour dread,

Our bands outsprung and seized their arms – we sped

Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far.

Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead

Stabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war

The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.

 

VII

Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child

Who brings them food, when winter false and fair

Allures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild

They rage among the camp; – they overbear

The patriot hosts – confusion, then despair

Descends like night – when ›Laon!‹ one did cry:

Like a bright ghost from Heaven that shout did scare

The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky,

Seemed sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory.

 

VIII

In sudden panic those false murderers fled,

Like insect tribes before the northern gale:

But swifter still, our hosts encompassed

Their shattered ranks, and in a craggy vale,

Where even their fierce despair might nought avail,

Hemmed them around! – and then revenge and fear

Made the high virtue of the patriots fail:

One pointed on his foe the mortal spear –

I rushed before its point, and cried, »Forbear, forbear!«

 

IX

 

The spear transfixed my arm that was uplifted

In swift expostulation, and the blood

Gushed round its point: I smiled, and – »Oh! thou gifted

With eloquence which shall not be withstood,

Flow thus!« – I cried in joy, »thou vital flood,

Until my heart be dry, ere thus the cause

For which thou wert aught worthy be subdued –

Ah, ye are pale, – ye weep, – your passions pause, –

'Tis well! ye feel the truth of love's benignant laws.

 

X

Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain.

Ye murdered them, I think, as they did sleep!

 

Alas, what have ye done? the slightest pain

Which ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep,

But ye have quenched them – there were smiles to steep

Your hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe;

And those whom love did set his watch to keep

Around your tents, truth's freedom to bestow,

Ye stabbed as they did sleep – but they forgive ye now.

 

XI

Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill,

And pain still keener pain for ever breed?

We all are brethren – even the slaves who kill

For hire, are men; and to avenge misdeed

On the misdoer, doth but Misery feed

With her own broken heart! O Earth, O Heaven!

And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed

And all that lives or is, to be hath given,

Even as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven!

 

XII

Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past

Be as a grave which gives not up its dead

To evil thoughts.« – A film then overcast

My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled

Freshly, swift shadows o'er mine eyes had shed.

When I awoke, I lay mid friends and foes,

And earnest countenances on me shed

The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close

My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose;

 

XIII

And one whose spear had pierced me, leaned beside,

With quivering lips and humid eyes; – and all

Seemed like some brothers on a journey wide

Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall

In a strange land, round one whom they might call

Their friend, their chief, their father, for assay

Of peril, which had saved them from the thrall

Of death, now suffering. Thus the vast array

Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.

 

XIV

Lifting the thunder of their acclamation,

Towards the City then the multitude,

And I among them, went in joy – a nation

Made free by love; – a mighty brotherhood

Linked by a jealous interchange of good;

A glorious pageant, more magnificent

Than kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood,

When they return from carnage, and are sent

In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement.

 

XV

Afar, the city-walls were thronged on high,

And myriads on each giddy turret clung,

And to each spire far lessening in the sky

Bright pennons on the idle winds were hung;

As we approached, a shout of joyance sprung

At once from all the crowd, as if the vast

And peopled Earth its boundless skies among

The sudden clamour of delight had cast,

When from before its face some general wreck had passed.

 

XVI

Our armies through the City's hundred gates

Were poured, like brooks which to the rocky lair

Of some deep lake, whose silence them awaits,

Throng from the mountains when the storms are there

And, as we passed through the calm sunny air

A thousand flower-inwoven crowns were shed,

The token flowers of truth and freedom fair,

And fairest hands bound them on many a head,

Those angels of love's heaven, that over all was spread.

 

XVII

I trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision:

Those bloody bands so lately reconciled,

Were, ever as they went, by the contrition

Of anger turned to love, from ill beguiled,

And every one on them more gently smiled,

Because they had done evil: – the sweet awe

Of such mild looks made their own hearts grow mild

And did with soft attraction ever draw

Their spirits to the love of freedom's equal law.

 

XVIII

And they, and all, in one loud symphony

My name with Liberty commingling, lifted,

»The friend and the preserver of the free!

The parent of this joy!« and fair eyes gifted

With feelings, caught from one who had uplifted

The light of a great spirit, round me shone;

And all the shapes of this grand scenery shifted

Like restless clouds before the steadfast sun, –

Where was that Maid? I asked, but it was known of none.

 

XIX

Laone was the name her love had chosen,

For she was nameless, and her birth none knew:

Where was Laone now? – The words were frozen

Within my lips with fear; but to subdue

Such dreadful hope, to my great task was due,

And when at length one brought reply, that she

To-morrow would appear, I then withdrew

To judge what need for that great throng might be,

For now the stars came thick over the twilight sea.

 

XX

Yet need was none for rest or food to care,

Even though that multitude was passing great,

Since each one for the other did prepare

All kindly succour – Therefore to the gate

Of the Imperial House, now desolate,

I passed, and there was found aghast, alone,

The fallen Tyrant! – Silently he sate

Upon the footstool of his golden throne,

Which, starred with sunny gems, in its own lustre shone.

 

XXI

Alone, but for one child, who led before him

A graceful dance: the only living thing

Of all the crowd, which thither to adore him

Flocked yesterday, who solace sought to bring

In his abandonment! – She knew the King

Had praised her dance of yore, and now she wove

Its circles, aye weeping and murmuring

Mid her sad task of unregarded love,

That to no smiles it might his speechless sadness move.

 

XXII

 

She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet

When human steps were heard: – he moved nor spoke,

 

Nor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to meet

The gaze of strangers – our loud entrance woke

The echoes of the hall, which circling broke

The calm of its recesses, – like a tomb

Its sculptured walls vacantly to the stroke

Of footfalls answered, and the twilight's gloom

Lay like a charnel's mist within the radiant dome.

 

XXIII

The little child stood up when we came nigh;

Her lips and cheeks seemed very pale and wan,

But on her forehead, and within her eye

Lay beauty, which makes hearts that feed thereon

Sick with excess of sweetness; on the throne

She leaned; – the King, with gathered brow, and lips

Wreathed by long scorn, did inly sneer and frown

With hue like that when some great painter dips

His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

 

XXIV

She stood beside him like a rainbow braided

Within some storm, when scarce its shadows vast

From the blue paths of the swift sun have faded;

A sweet and solemn smile, like Cythna's, cast

One moment's light, which made my heart beat fast,

O'er that child's parted lips – a gleam of bliss,

A shade of vanished days, – as the tears passed

Which wrapped it, even as with a father's kiss

I pressed those softest eyes in trembling tenderness.

 

XXV

 

The sceptred wretch then from that solitude

I drew, and, of his change compassionate,

With words of sadness soothed his rugged mood.

But he, while pride and fear held deep debate,

With sullen guile of ill-dissembled hate

Glared on me as a toothless snake might glare:

Pity, not scorn I felt, though desolate

The desolator now, and unaware

The curses which he mocked had caught him by the hair.

 

XXVI

I led him forth from that which now might seem

A gorgeous grave: through portals sculptured deep

With imagery beautiful as dream

We went, and left the shades which tend on sleep

Over its unregarded gold to keep

Their silent watch. – The child trod faintingly,

And as she went, the tears which she did weep

Glanced in the starlight; wildered seemed she,

And when I spake, for sobs she could not answer me.

 

XXVII

At last the tyrant cried, »She hungers, slave,

Stab her, or give her bread!« – It was a tone

Such as sick fancies in a new-made grave

Might hear. I trembled, for the truth was known;

He with this child had thus been left alone,

And neither had gone forth for food, – but he

 

In mingled pride and awe cowered near his throne,

And she a nursling of captivity

Knew nought beyond those walls, nor what such change might be.

 

XXVIII

And he was troubled at a charm withdrawn

Thus suddenly; that sceptres ruled no more –

That even from gold the dreadful strength was gone,

Which once made all things subject to its power –

Such wonder seized him, as if hour by hour

The past had come again; and the swift fall

Of one so great and terrible of yore,

To desolateness, in the hearts of all

Like wonder stirred, who saw such awful change befall.

 

XXIX

A mighty crowd, such as the wide land pours

Once in a thousand years, now gathered round

The fallen tyrant; – like the rush of showers

Of hail in spring, pattering along the ground,

Their many footsteps fell, else came no sound

From the wide multitude: that lonely man

Then knew the burden of his change, and found,

Concealing in the dust his visage wan,

Refuge from the keen looks which through his bosom ran.

 

XXX

 

And he was faint withal: I sate beside him

Upon the earth, and took that child so fair

From his weak arms, that ill might none betide him

Or her; – when food was brought to them, her share

To his averted lips the child did bear,

But, when she saw he had enough, she ate

And wept the while; – the lonely man's despair

Hunger then overcame, and of his state

Forgetful, on the dust as in a trance he sate.

 

XXXI

Slowly the silence of the multitudes

Passed, as when far is heard in some lone dell

The gathering of a wind among the woods –

»And he is fallen!« they cry, »he who did dwell

Like famine or the plague, or aught more fell

Among our homes, is fallen! the murderer

Who slaked his thirsting soul as from a well

Of blood and tears with ruin! he is here!

Sunk in a gulf of scorn from which none may him rear!«

 

XXXII

Then was heard – »He who judged let him be brought

To judgement! blood for blood cries from the soil

On which his crimes have deep pollution wrought!

Shall Othman only unavenged despoil?

Shall they who by the stress of grinding toil

 

Wrest from the unwilling earth his luxuries,

Perish for crime, while his foul blood may boil,

Or creep within his veins at will? – Arise!

And to high justice make her chosen sacrifice.«

 

XXXIII

»What do ye seek? what fear ye,« then I cried,

Suddenly starting forth, »that ye should shed

The blood of Othman? – if your hearts are tried

In the true love of freedom, cease to dread

This one poor lonely man – beneath Heaven spread

In purest light above us all, through earth

Maternal earth, who doth her sweet smiles shed

For all, let him go free; until the worth

Of human nature win from these a second birth.

 

XXXIV

What call ye justice? Is there one who ne'er

In secret thought has wished another's ill? –

Are ye all pure? Let those stand forth who hear,

And tremble not. Shall they insult and kill,

If such they be? their mild eyes can they fill

With the false anger of the hypocrite?

 

Alas, such were not pure, – the chastened will

Of virtue sees that justice is the light

Of love, and not revenge, and terror and despite.«

 

XXXV

 

The murmur of the people, slowly dying,

Paused as I spake, then those who near me were,

Cast gentle looks where the lone man was lying

Shrouding his head, which now that infant fair

Clasped on her lap in silence; – through the air

Sobs were then heard, and many kissed my feet

In pity's madness, and to the despair

Of him whom late they cursed, a solace sweet

His very victims brought – soft looks and speeches meet.

 

XXXVI

Then to a home for his repose assigned,

Accompanied by the still throng he went

In silence, where, to soothe his rankling mind,

Some likeness of his ancient state was lent;

And if his heart could have been innocent

As those who pardoned him, he might have ended

His days in peace; but his straight lips were bent,

Men said, into a smile which guile portended,

A sight with which that child like hope with fear was blended.

 

XXXVII

'Twas midnight now, the eve of that great day

Whereon the many nations at whose call

The chains of earth like mist melted away,

Decreed to hold a sacred Festival,

A rite to attest the equality of all

Who live. So to their homes, to dream or wake

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,

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

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

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 –

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,

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

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,

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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:

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,

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

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

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!« –

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

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

In Autumn eves.