The Revolt of Islam Read Online

»Ay, now I feel

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

His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel

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

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

IX

»But first, go slay the rebels – why return

The victor bands?« he said, »millions yet live,

Of whom the weakest with one word might turn

The scales of victory yet; – let none survive

But those within the walls – each fifth shall give

The expiation for his brethren here. –

Go forth, and waste and kill!« – »O king, forgive

My speech,« a soldier answered – »but we fear

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

X

For we were slaying still without remorse,

And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand

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

An Angel bright as day, waving a brand

Which flashed among the stars, passed.« – »Dost thou stand

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

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

Whoso will drag that woman to his side

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

XI

And gold and glory shall be his. – Go forth!«

They rushed into the plain. – Loud was the roar

Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;

The wheeled artillery's speed the pavement tore;

The infantry, file after file, did pour

Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew

Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore

Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew

Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:

XII

Peace in the desert fields and villages,

Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!

Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries

Of victims to their fiery judgement led,

Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread

Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue

Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;

Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng

Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!

XIII

Day after day the burning sun rolled on

Over the death-polluted land – it came

Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone

A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame

The few lone ears of corn; – the sky became

Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast

Languished and died, – the thirsting air did claim

All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed

From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.

XIV

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

Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.

Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood

Had lured, or who, from regions far away,

Had tracked the hosts in festival array,

From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now,

Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;

In their green eyes a strange disease did glow,

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

XV

The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds

In the green woods perished; the insect race

Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds

Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase

Died moaning, each upon the other's face

In helpless agony gazing; round the City

All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case

Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!

And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.

XVI

Amid the aëreal minarets on high,

The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell

From their long line of brethren in the sky,

Startling the concourse of mankind. – Too well

These signs the coming mischief did foretell: –

Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread

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

A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread

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

XVII

Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts

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

So on those strange and congregated hosts

Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air

Groaned with the burden of a new despair;

Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter

Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there

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

A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe's sullen water.

XVIII

There was no food, the corn was trampled down,

The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore

The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;

The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more

Creaked with the weight of birds, but, as before

Those winged things sprang forth, were void of shade;

The vines and orchards, Autumn's golden store,

Were burned; – so that the meanest food was weighed

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

XIX

There was no corn – in the wide market-place

All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;

They weighed it in small scales – and many a face

Was fixed in eager horror then: his gold

The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold

Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain;

The mother brought her eldest-born, controlled

By instinct blind as love, but turned again

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

XX

Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.

»O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave

Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran

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

Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!«

Vain cries – throughout the streets, thousands pursued

Each by his fiery torture howl and rave,

Or sit, in frenzy's unimagined mood,

Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.

XXI

It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well

Was choked with rotting corpses, and became

A cauldron of green mist made visible

At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,

Seeking to quench the agony of the flame,

Which raged like poison through their bursting veins;

Naked they were from torture, without shame,

Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains,

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

XXII

It was not thirst but madness! Many saw

Their own lean image everywhere, it went

A ghastlier self beside them, till the awe

Of that dread sight to self-destruction sent

Those shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent,

Sought, with a horrid sympathy, to shed

Contagion on the sound; and others rent

Their matted hair, and cried aloud, »We tread

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

XXIII

Sometimes the living by the dead were hid.

Near the great fountain in the public square,

Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid

Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer

For life, in the hot silence of the air;

And strange 'twas, amid that hideous heap to see

Some shrouded in their long and golden hair,

As if not dead, but slumbering quietly

Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.

XXIV

Famine had spared the palace of the king: –

He rioted in festival the while,

He and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling

One shadow upon all. Famine can smile

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

Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray,

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

Comes Plague, a winged wolf, who loathes alway

The garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.

XXV

So, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast,

Sheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight

To luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased

That lingered on his lips, the warrior's might

Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night

In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell

Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright

Among the guests, or raving mad, did tell

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

XXVI

The Princes and the Priests were pale with terror;

That monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind,

Fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman's error,

On their own hearts: they sought and they could find

No refuge – 'twas the blind who led the blind!

So, through the desolate streets to the high fane,

The many-tongued and endless armies wind

In sad procession: each among the train

To his own Idol lifts his supplications vain.

XXVII

»O God!« they cried, »we know our secret pride

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

Secure in human power we have defied

Thy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame

Before thy presence; with the dust we claim

Kindred; be merciful, O King of Heaven!

Most justly have we suffered for thy fame

Made dim, but be at length our sins forgiven,

Ere to despair and death thy worshippers be driven.

XXVIII

O King of Glory! thou alone hast power!

Who can resist thy will? who can restrain

Thy wrath, when on the guilty thou dost shower

The shafts of thy revenge, a blistering rain?

Greatest and best, be merciful again!

Have we not stabbed thine enemies, and made

The Earth an altar, and the Heavens a fane,

Where thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid

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

XXIX

Well didst thou loosen on this impious City

Thine angels of revenge: recall them now;

Thy worshippers, abased, here kneel for pity,

And bind their souls by an immortal vow:

We swear by thee! and to our oath do thou

Give sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame,

That we will kill with fire and torments slow,

The last of those who mocked thy holy name,

And scorned the sacred laws thy prophets did proclaim.«

XXX

Thus they with trembling limbs and pallid lips

Worshipped their own hearts' image, dim and vast,

Scared by the shade wherewith they would eclipse

The light of other minds; – troubled they passed

From the great Temple; – fiercely still and fast

The arrows of the plague among them fell,

And they on one another gazed aghast,

And through the hosts contention wild befell,

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

XXXI

And Oromaze, Joshua, and Mahomet,

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

A tumult of strange names, which never met

Before, as watchwords of a single woe,

Arose; each raging votary 'gan to throw

Aloft his armed hands, and each did howl

»Our God alone is God!« – and slaughter now

Would have gone forth, when from beneath a cowl

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

XXXII

'Twas an Iberian Priest from whom it came,

A zealous man, who led the legioned West,

With words which faith and pride had steeped in flame,

To quell the unbelievers; a dire guest

Even to his friends was he, for in his breast

Did hate and guile lie watchful, intertwined,

Twin serpents in one deep and winding nest;

He loathed all faith beside his own, and pined

To wreak his fear of Heaven in vengeance on mankind.

XXXIII

But more he loathed and hated the clear light

Of wisdom and free thought, and more did fear,

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

Even where his Idol stood; for, far and near

Did many a heart in Europe leap to hear

That faith and tyranny were trampled down;

Many a pale victim, doomed for truth to share

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

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

XXXIV

He dared not kill the infidels with fire

Or steel, in Europe; the slow agonies

Of legal torture mocked his keen desire:

So he made truce with those who did despise

The expiation, and the sacrifice,

That, though detested, Islam's kindred creed

Might crush for him those deadlier enemies;

For fear of God did in his bosom breed

A jealous hate of man, an unreposing need.

XXXV

»Peace! Peace!« he cried, »when we are dead, the Day

Of Judgement comes, and all shall surely know

Whose God is God, each fearfully shall pay

The errors of his faith in endless woe!

But there is sent a mortal vengeance now

On earth, because an impious race had spurned

Him whom we all adore, – a subtle foe,

By whom for ye this dread reward was earned,

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

XXXVI

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

That God will lull the pestilence? It rose

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

His mercy soothed it to a dark repose:

It walks upon the earth to judge his foes;

And what are thou and I, that he should deign

To curb his ghastly minister, or close

The gates of death, ere they receive the twain

Who shook with mortal spells his undefended reign?

XXXVII

Ay, there is famine in the gulf of hell,

Its giant worms of fire for ever yawn. –

Their lurid eyes are on us! those who fell

By the swift shafts of pestilence ere dawn,

Are in their jaws! they hunger for the spawn

Of Satan, their own brethren, who were sent

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

Like dogs, and they will sleep with luxury spent,

When those detested hearts their iron fangs have rent!

XXXVIII

Our God may then lull Pestilence to sleep: –

Pile high the pyre of expiation now,

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

Pour venomous gums, which sullenly and slow,

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

A stream of clinging fire, – and fix on high

A net of iron, and spread forth below

A couch of snakes, and scorpions, and the fry

Of centipedes and worms, earth's hellish progeny!

XXXIX

Let Laon and Laone on that pyre,

Linked tight with burning brass, perish! – then pray

That, with this sacrifice, the withering ire

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

A space stood silent, as far, far away

The echoes of his voice among them died;

And he knelt down upon the dust, alway

Muttering the curses of his speechless pride,

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

XL

His voice was like a blast that burst the portal

Of fabled hell; and as he spake, each one

Saw gape beneath the chasms of fire immortal,

And Heaven above seemed cloven, where, on a throne

Girt round with storms and shadows, sate alone

Their King and Judge – fear killed in every breast

All natural pity then, a fear unknown

Before, and with an inward fire possessed,

They raged like homeless beasts whom burning woods invest.

XLI

'Twas morn. – At noon the public crier went forth,

Proclaiming through the living and the dead,

»The Monarch saith, that his great Empire's worth

Is set on Laon and Laone's head:

He who but one yet living here can lead,

Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,

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

But he who both alive can hither bring,

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

XLII

Ere night the pyre was piled, the net of iron

Was spread above, the fearful couch below;

It overtopped the towers that did environ

That spacious square; for Fear is never slow

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

So, she scourged forth the maniac multitude

To rear this pyramid – tottering and slow,

Plague-stricken, foodless, like lean herds pursued

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

XLIII

Night came, a starless and a moonless gloom.

Until the dawn, those hosts of many a nation

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

Two gentle sisters mourn their desolation;

And in the silence of that expectation,

Was heard on high the reptiles' hiss and crawl –

It was so deep – save when the devastation

Of the swift pest, with fearful interval,

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

XLIV

Morn came, – among those sleepless multitudes,

Madness, and Fear, and Plague, and Famine still

Heaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods

The frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill

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

The pale survivors stood; ere noon, the fear

Of Hell became a panic, which did kill

Like hunger or disease, with whispers drear,

As »Hush! hark! Come they yet? Just Heaven! thine hour is near!«

XLV

And Priests rushed through their ranks, some counterfeiting

The rage they did inspire, some mad indeed

With their own lies; they said their god was waiting

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

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

Of human souls: – three hundred furnaces

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

Men brought their infidel kindred to appease

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

XLVI

The noontide sun was darkened with that smoke,

The winds of eve dispersed those ashes gray.

The madness which these rites had lulled, awoke

Again at sunset. – Who shall dare to say

The deeds which night and fear brought forth, or weigh

In balance just the good and evil there?

He might man's deep and searchless heart display,

And cast a light on those dim labyrinths, where

Hope, near imagined chasms, is struggling with despair.

XLVII

'Tis said, a mother dragged three children then,

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

And laughed, and died; and that unholy men,

Feasting like fiends upon the infidel dead,

Looked from their meal, and saw an Angel tread

The visible floor of Heaven, and it was she!

And, on that night, one without doubt or dread

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

Kill me!« – They burned them both with hellish mockery.

XLVIII

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

Beauteous and calm, like shapes of living stone

Clothed in the light of dreams, and by the flame

Which shrank as overgorged, they laid them down,

And sung a low sweet song, of which alone

One word was heard, and that was Liberty;

And that some kissed their marble feet, with moan

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

With happy smiles, which sunk in white tranquillity.

Canto XI

I

She saw me not – she heard me not – alone

Upon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood;

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

Over her look, the shadow of a mood

Which only clothes the heart in solitude,

A thought of voiceless depth; – she stood alone,

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

Was murmuring in its caves; – the wind had blown

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

II

A cloud was hanging o'er the western mountains;

Before its blue and moveless depth were flying

Gray mists poured forth from the unresting fountains

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

Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying

Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,

And on the shattered vapours, which defying

The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly

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

III

It was a stream of living beams, whose bank

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

And where its chasms that flood of glory drank,

Its waves gushed forth like fire, and as if swayed

By some mute tempest, rolled on her; the shade

Of her bright image floated on the river

Of liquid light, which then did end and fade –

Her radiant shape upon its verge did shiver;

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

IV

I stood beside her, but she saw me not –

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

Rapture, and love, and admiration wrought

A passion deeper far than tears, or mirth,

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

From common joy; which with the speechless feeling

That led her there united, and shot forth

From her far eyes a light of deep revealing,

All but her dearest self from my regard concealing.

V

Her lips were parted, and the measured breath

Was now heard there; – her dark and intricate eyes

Orb within orb, deeper than sleep or death,

Absorbed the glories of the burning skies,

Which, mingling with her heart's deep ecstasies,

Burst from her looks and gestures; – and a light

Of liquid tenderness, like love, did rise

From her whole frame, an atmosphere which quite

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

VI

She would have clasped me to her glowing frame;

Those warm and odorous lips might soon have shed

On mine the fragrance and the invisible flame

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

Upon my languid heart her dearest head;

I might have heard her voice, tender and sweet;

Her eyes mingling with mine, might soon have fed

My soul with their own joy. – One moment yet

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

VII

Never but once to meet on Earth again!

She heard me as I fled – her eager tone

Sunk on my heart, and almost wove a chain

Around my will to link it with her own,

So that my stern resolve was almost gone.

»I cannot reach thee! whither dost thou fly?

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

Return, ah me! return!« – The wind passed by

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

VIII

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

Were horrible, but one more fell doth rear,

As in a hydra's swarming lair, its crest

Eminent among those victims – even the Fear

Of Hell: each girt by the hot atmosphere

Of his blind agony, like a scorpion stung

By his own rage upon his burning bier

Of circling coals of fire; but still there clung

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

IX

Not death – death was no more refuge or rest;

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

For fiends and chasms of fire had dispossessed

All natural dreams: to wake was not to weep,

But to gaze mad and pallid, at the leap

To which the Future, like a snaky scourge,

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

Its withering beam upon his slaves, did urge

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

X

Each of that multitude, alone, and lost

To sense of outward things, one hope yet knew;

As on a foam-girt crag some seaman tossed

Stares at the rising tide, or like the crew

Whilst now the ship is splitting through and through;

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

Started from sick despair, or if there flew

One murmur on the wind, or if some word

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

XI

Why became cheeks, wan with the kiss of death,

Paler from hope? they had sustained despair.

Why watched those myriads with suspended breath

Sleepless a second night? they are not here,

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

Warm corpses fall upon the clay-cold dead;

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

The crowd is mute and moveless – overhead

Silent Arcturus shines – »Ha! hear'st thou not the tread

XII

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

Of triumph not to be contained? See! hark!

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

Falsely – 'tis but a crowd of maniacs stark

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

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

A lurid earth-star, which dropped many a spark

From its blue train, and spreading widely, clung

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

XIII

And many, from the crowd collected there,

Joined that strange dance in fearful sympathies;

There was the silence of a long despair,

When the last echo of those terrible cries

Came from a distant street, like agonies

Stifled afar. – Before the Tyrant's throne

All night his aged Senate sate, their eyes

In stony expectation fixed; when one

Sudden before them stood, a Stranger and alone.

XIV

Dark Priests and haughty Warriors gazed on him

With baffled wonder, for a hermit's vest

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

Ere yet the matter did their thoughts arrest, –

Earnest, benignant, calm, as from a breast

Void of all hate or terror – made them start;

For as with gentle accents he addressed

His speech to them, on each unwilling heart

Unusual awe did fall – a spirit-quelling dart.

XV

»Ye Princes of the Earth, ye sit aghast

Amid the ruin which yourselves have made,

Yes, Desolation heard your trumpet's blast,

And sprang from sleep! – dark Terror has obeyed

Your bidding – O, that I whom ye have made

Your foe, could set my dearest enemy free

From pain and fear! but evil casts a shade,

Which cannot pass so soon, and Hate must be

The nurse and parent still of an ill progeny.

XVI

Ye turn to Heaven for aid in your distress;

Alas, that ye, the mighty and the wise,

Who, if ye dared, might not aspire to less

Than ye conceive of power, should fear the lies

Which thou, and thou, didst frame for mysteries

To blind your slaves: – consider your own thought,

An empty and a cruel sacrifice

Ye now prepare, for a vain idol wrought

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

XVII

Ye seek for happiness – alas, the day!

Ye find it not in luxury nor in gold,

Nor in the fame, nor in the envied sway

For which, O willing slaves to Custom old,

Severe taskmistress! ye your hearts have sold.

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

No evil dreams: all mortal things are cold

And senseless then; if aught survive, I deem

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

XVIII

Fear not the future, weep not for the past.

O, could I win your ears to dare be now

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

Into the dust those symbols of your woe,

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

Proclaiming to the nations whence ye came,

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

And that mankind is free, and that the shame

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

XIX

If thus, 'tis well – if not, I come to say

That Laon –« while the Stranger spoke, among

The Council sudden tumult and affray

Arose, for many of those warriors young,

Had on his eloquent accents fed and hung

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

And from their thrones in vindication sprung;

The men of faith and law then without ruth

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

XX

They stabbed them in the back and sneered – a slave

Who stood behind the throne, those corpses drew

Each to its bloody, dark, and secret grave;

And one more daring raised his steel anew

To pierce the Stranger. »What hast thou to do

With me, poor wretch?« – Calm, solemn, and severe,

That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threw

His dagger on the ground, and pale with fear,

Sate silently – his voice then did the Stranger rear.

XXI

»It doth avail not that I weep for ye –

Ye cannot change, since ye are old and gray,

And ye have chosen your lot – your fame must be

A book of blood, whence in a milder day

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

Now ye shall triumph. I am Laon's friend,

And him to your revenge will I betray,

So ye concede one easy boon. Attend!

For now I speak of things which ye can apprehend.

XXII

There is a People mighty in its youth,

A land beyond the Oceans of the West,

Where, though with rudest rites, Freedom and Truth

Are worshipped; from a glorious Mother's breast,

Who, since high Athens fell, among the rest

Sate like the Queen of Nations, but in woe,

By inbred monsters outraged and oppressed,

Turns to her chainless child for succour now,

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

XXIII

That land is like an Eagle, whose young gaze

Feeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plume

Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze

Of sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;

An epitaph of glory for the tomb

Of murdered Europe may thy fame be made,

Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;

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

The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.

XXIV

Yes, in the desert there is built a home

For Freedom. Genius is made strong to rear

The monuments of man beneath the dome

Of a new Heaven; myriads assemble there,

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

Drive from their wasted homes: the boon I pray

Is this – that Cythna shall be convoyed there –

Nay, start not at the name – America!

And then to you this night Laon will I betray.

XXV

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

The light of such a joy as makes the stare

Of hungry snakes like living emeralds glow,

Shone in a hundred human eyes – »Where, where

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

We grant thy boon.« – »I put no trust in ye,

Swear by the Power ye dread.« – »We swear, we swear!«

The Stranger threw his vest back suddenly,

And smiled in gentle pride, and said, »Lo! I am he!«

Canto XII

I

The transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness

Spread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying

Upon the winds of fear; from his dull madness

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

Among the corpses in stark agony lying,

Just heard the happy tidings, and in hope

Closed their faint eyes; from house to house replying

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

And filled the startled Earth with echoes: morn did ope

II

Its pale eyes then; and lo! the long array

Of guards in golden arms, and Priests beside,

Singing their bloody hymns, whose garbs betray

The blackness of the faith it seems to hide;

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

Among the gloomy cowls and glittering spears –

A Shape of light is sitting by his side,

A child most beautiful. I' the midst appears

Laon, – exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.

III

His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound

Behind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak

Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng around;

There are no sneers upon his lip which speak

That scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek

Resolve has not turned pale, – his eyes are mild

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

Smile on mankind – his heart seems reconciled

To all things and itself, like a reposing child.

IV

Tumult was in the soul of all beside,

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

Their tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide

Into their brain, and became calm with awe. –

See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.

A thousand torches in the spacious square,

Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,

Await the signal round: the morning fair

Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare.

V

And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,

Upon a platform level with the pile,

The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,

Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smile

In expectation, but one child: the while

I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier

Of fire, and look around: each distant isle

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

Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

VI

There was such silence through the host, as when

An earthquake trampling on some populous town,

Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men

Expect the second; all were mute but one,

That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone

Stood up before the King, without avail,

Pleading for Laon's life – her stifled groan

Was heard – she trembled like one aspen pale

Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

VII

What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,

Among those reptiles, stingless with delay,

Even like a tyrant's wrath? – The signal-gun

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

As in a quiet dream – the slaves obey –

A thousand torches drop, – and hark, the last

Bursts on that awful silence; far away,

Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,

Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

VIII

They fly – the torches fall – a cry of fear

Has startled the triumphant! – they recede!

For ere the cannon's roar has died, they hear

The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed

Dark and gigantic, with the tempest's speed,

Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,

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

Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn,

A spirit from the caves of daylight wandering gone.

IX

All thought it was God's Angel come to sweep

The lingering guilty to their fiery grave;

The Tyrant from his throne in dread did leap, –

Her innocence his child from fear did save;

Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave

Knelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,

And, like the refluence of a mighty wave

Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude

With crushing panic, fled in terror's altered mood.

X

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

Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams

Of a tempestuous sea: – that sudden rout

One checked, who, never in his mildest dreams

Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams

Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed

Had seared with blistering ice – but he misdeems

That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed

Inly for self – thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,

XI

And others too, thought he was wise to see,

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

In love and beauty, no divinity. –

Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine

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

He said, and the persuasion of that sneer

Rallied his trembling comrades – »Is it mine

To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear

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

XII

»Were it not impious,« said the King, »to break

Our holy oath?« – »Impious to keep it, say!«

Shrieked the exulting Priest – »Slaves, to the stake

Bind her, and on my head the burden lay

Of her just torments: – at the Judgement Day

Will I stand up before the golden throne

Of Heaven, and cry, ›To thee did I betray

An Infidel; but for me she would have known

Another moment's joy! the glory be thine own!«‹

XIII

They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,

Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung

From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade

Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among

Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung

Upon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow.

A piteous sight, that one so fair and young,

The clasp of such a fearful death should woo

With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.

XIV

The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear

From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews

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

Frozen by doubt, – alas! they could not choose

But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse

To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;

And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues

Of her quick lips, even as a weary child

Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,

XV

She won them, though unwilling, her to bind

Near me, among the snakes. When there had fled

One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,

She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,

But each upon the other's countenance fed

Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil

Which doth divide the living and the dead

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

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

XVI

Yet – yet – one brief relapse, like the last beam

Of dying flames, the stainless air around

Hung silent and serene – a blood-red gleam

Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground

The globed smoke, – I heard the mighty sound

Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean;

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

The tyrant's child fall without life or motion

Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.

XVII

And is this death? – The pyre has disappeared,

The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng;

The flames grow silent – slowly there is heard

The music of a breath-suspending song,

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

Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;

With ever-changing notes it floats along,

Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep

A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

XVIII

The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand

Wakened me then; lo! Cythna sate reclined

Beside me, on the waved and golden sand

Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined

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

Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread

The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,

Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead

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

XIX

And round about sloped many a lawny mountain

With incense-bearing forests, and vast caves

Of marble radiance, to that mighty fountain;

And where the flood its own bright margin laves,

Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,

Which, from the depths whose jagged caverns breed

Their unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves, –

Till through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed

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

XX

As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,

A boat approached, borne by the musical air

Along the waves which sung and sparkled under

Its rapid keel – a winged shape sate there,

A child with silver-shining wings, so fair,

That as her bark did through the waters glide,

The shadow of the lingering waves did wear

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

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

XXI

The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl,

Almost translucent with the light divine

Of her within; the prow and stern did curl

Horned on high, like the young moon supine,

When o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,

It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams,

Whose golden waves in many a purple line

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

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

XXII

Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet; –

Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes

Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet

Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise,

Glanced as she spake: »Ay, this is Paradise

And not a dream, and we are all united!

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

Of madness came, like day to one benighted

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

XXIII

And then she wept aloud, and in her arms

Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair

Than her own human hues and living charms;

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

Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,

Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;

The glossy darkness of her streaming hair

Fell o'er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight

The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.

XXIV

Then the bright child, the plumed Seraph came,

And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,

And said, »I was disturbed by tremulous shame

When once we met, yet knew that I was thine

From the same hour in which thy lips divine

Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,

Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine

Thine image with her memory dear – again

We meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain.

XXV

When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round,

The hope which I had cherished went away;

I fell in agony on the senseless ground,

And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray

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

The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,

And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,

›They wait for thee, beloved!‹ – then I knew

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

XXVI

It was the calm of love – for I was dying.

I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre

In its own gray and shrunken ashes lying;

The pitchy smoke of the departed fire

Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire

Above the towers, like night; beneath whose shade

Awed by the ending of their own desire

The armies stood; a vacancy was made

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

XXVII

The frightful silence of that altered mood,

The tortures of the dying clove alone,

Till one uprose among the multitude,

And said – ›The flood of time is rolling on,

We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone

To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.

Have ye done well? They moulder flesh and bone,

Who might have made this life's envenomed dream

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

XXVIII

These perish as the good and great of yore

Have perished, and their murderers will repent, –

Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow before

Yon smoke has faded from the firmament

Even for this cause, that ye who must lament

The death of those that made this world so fair,

Cannot recall them now; but there is lent

To man the wisdom of a high despair,

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

XXIX

Ay, ye may fear not now the Pestilence,

From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn;

All power and faith must pass, since calmly hence

In pain and fire have unbelievers gone;

And ye must sadly turn away, and moan

In secret, to his home each one returning,

And to long ages shall this hour be known;

And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,

Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning.

XXX

For me the world is grown too void and cold,

Since Hope pursues immortal Destiny

With steps thus slow – therefore shall ye behold

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

Tell to your children this!‹ Then suddenly

He sheathed a dagger in his heart and fell;

My brain grew dark in death, and yet to me

There came a murmur from the crowd, to tell

Of deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.

XXXI

Then suddenly I stood, a winged Thought,

Before the immortal Senate, and the seat

Of that star-shining spirit, whence is wrought

The strength of its dominion, good and great,

The better Genius of this world's estate.

His realm around one mighty Fane is spread,

Elysian islands bright and fortunate,

Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead,

Where I am sent to lead!« These winged words she said,

XXXII

And with the silence of her eloquent smile,

Bade us embark in her divine canoe;

Then at the helm we took our seat, the while

Above her head those plumes of dazzling hue

Into the winds' invisible stream she threw,

Sitting beside the prow: like gossamer

On the swift breath of morn, the vessel flew

O'er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,

Whose shores receded fast, whilst we seemed lingering there;

XXXIII

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

Between a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,

Chased by the thronging winds whose viewless feet

As swift as twinkling beams, had, under Heaven,

From woods and waves wild sounds and odours driven,

The boat fled visibly – three nights and days,

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

We sailed along the winding watery ways

Of the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze.

XXXIV

A scene of joy and wonder to behold

That river's shapes and shadows changing ever,

When the broad sunrise filled with deepening gold

Its whirlpools, where all hues did spread and quiver;

And where melodious falls did burst and shiver

Among rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spray

Sparkled like stars upon the sunny river,

Or when the moonlight poured a holier day,

One vast and glittering lake around green islands lay.

XXXV

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

The streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloud

Of tempest, or the speedier thought of man,

Which flieth forth and cannot make abode;

Sometimes through forests, deep like night, we glode,

Between the walls of mighty mountains crowned

With Cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,

The homes of the departed, dimly frowned

O'er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round.

XXXVI

Sometimes between the wide and flowering meadows,

Mile after mile we sailed, and 'twas delight

To see far off the sunbeams chase the shadows

Over the grass; sometimes beneath the night

Of wide and vaulted caves, whose roofs were bright

With starry gems, we fled, whilst from their deep

And dark-green chasms, shades beautiful and white,

Amid sweet sounds across our path would sweep,

Like swift and lovely dreams that walk the waves of sleep.

XXXVII

And ever as we sailed, our minds were full

Of love and wisdom, which would overflow

In converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful,

And in quick smiles whose light would come and go

Like music o'er wide waves, and in the flow

Of sudden tears, and in the mute caress –

For a deep shade was cleft, and we did know,

That virtue, though obscured on Earth, not less

Survives all mortal change in lasting loveliness.

XXXVIII

Three days and nights we sailed, as thought and feeling

Number delightful hours – for through the sky

The sphered lamps of day and night, revealing

New changes and new glories, rolled on high,

Sun, Moon, and moonlike lamps, the progeny

Of a diviner Heaven, serene and fair:

On the fourth day, wild as a windwrought sea

The stream became, and fast and faster bare

The spirit-winged boat, steadily speeding there.

XXXIX

Steady and swift, where the waves rolled like mountains

Within the vast ravine, whose rifts did pour

Tumultuous floods from their ten thousand fountains,

The thunder of whose earth-uplifting roar

Made the air sweep in whirlwinds from the shore,

Calm as a shade, the boat of that fair child

Securely fled, that rapid stress before,

Amid the topmost spray, and sunbows wild,

Wreathed in the silver mist: in joy and pride we smiled.

XL

The torrent of that wide and raging river

Is passed, and our aëreal speed suspended.

We look behind; a golden mist did quiver

Where its wild surges with the lake were blended, –

Our bark hung there, as on a line suspended

Between two heavens, – that windless waveless lake

Which four great cataracts from four vales, attended

By mists, aye feed; from rocks and clouds they break,

And of that azure sea a silent refuge make.

XLI

Motionless resting on the lake awhile,

I saw its marge of snow-bright mountains rear

Their peaks aloft, I saw each radiant isle,

And in the midst, afar, even like a sphere

Hung in one hollow sky, did there appear

The Temple of the Spirit; on the sound

Which issued thence, drawn nearer and more near,

Like the swift moon this glorious earth around,

The charmed boat approached, and there its haven found.

Notes

1 I ought to except Sir W. Drummond's Academical Questions; a volume of very acute and powerful metaphysical criticism.

2 It is remarkable, as a symptom of the revival of public hope, that Mr. Malthus has assigned, in the later editions of his work, an indefinite dominion to moral restraint over the principle of population. This concession answers all the inferences from his doctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the Essay on Population to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of Political Justice.

3 In this sense there may be such a thing as perfectibility in works of fiction, notwithstanding the concession often made by the advocates of human improvement, that perfectibility is a term applicable only to science.

4 Milton stands alone in the age which he illumined.