Canto 2…

Canto 2

1. 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, _670 Some tangled bower of vines around me shed, The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers, The lamp-light 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. _675

2. 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 _680 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.

3. I heard, as all have heard, the various story _685 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 _690 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.

4. The land in which I lived, by a fell bane Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side, _695 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, _700 Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust, Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.

5. Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters, And the ethereal shapes which are suspended Over its green expanse, and those fair daughters, _705 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, _710 Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.

6. 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, _715 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. _720

7. 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. _725 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!

8. For they all pined in bondage; body and soul, _730 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; _735 And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent The air from all its fanes, did intertwine Imposture's impious toils round each discordant shrine.

9. I heard, as all have heard, life's various story, And in no careless heart transcribed the tale; _740 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 _745 With the heart's warfare, did I gather food To feed my many thoughts--a tameless multitude!

10. I wandered through the wrecks of days departed Far by the desolated shore, when even O'er the still sea and jagged islets darted _750 The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven, Among the clouds near the horizon driven, The mountains lay beneath one planet pale; Around me, broken tombs and columns riven Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale _755 Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!

11. 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 _760 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. _765

12. 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 _770 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 passed Beneath truth's steady beams upon its tumult cast.

13. It shall be thus no more! too long, too long, _775 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 _780 The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground Hide the last altar's unregarded dust, Whose Idol has so long betrayed your impious trust!

14. It must be so--I will arise and waken The multitude, and like a sulphurous hill, _785 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, _790 But Laon? on high Freedom's desert land A tower whose marble walls the leagued storms withstand!

15. One summer night, in commune with the hope Thus deeply fed, amid those ruins gray I watched, beneath the dark sky's starry cope; _795 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 _800 Which followed where I fled, and watched when I did rest.

16. 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 _805 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. _810

17. 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, _815 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.

18. Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth _820 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 _825 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.

19. Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow, I must have sought dark respite from its stress _830 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 _835 With love that scorned return sought to unbind The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.

20. With deathless minds which leave where they have passed A path of light, my soul communion knew; Till from that glorious intercourse, at last, _840 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, _845 A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.

21. 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 _850 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. _855

22. 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, _860 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.

23. She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, _865 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 _870 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.

24. As mine own shadow was this child to me, A second self, far dearer and more fair; _875 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, _880 Knew I what solace for that loss was left, Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft.

25. 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 _885 My sole associate, and her willing feet Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet, Beyond the aereal mountains whose vast cells The unreposing billows ever beat, Through forests wild and old, and lawny dells _890 Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells.

26. 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 _895 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. _900

27. 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 _905 For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept, And I kept watch over her slumbers there, While, as the shifting visions over her swept, Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept.

28. And, in the murmur of her dreams was heard _910 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 _915 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--

29. Her white arms lifted through the shadowy stream Of her loose hair. Oh, excellently great _920 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 _925 From her deep eyes far wandering, on the wing Of visions that were mine, beyond its utmost spring!

30. For, before Cythna loved it, had my song Peopled with thoughts the boundless universe, A mighty congregation, which were strong _930 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 _935 And fate, or whate'er else binds the world's wondrous frame.

31. 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 _940 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. _945

32. 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 _950 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!

33. New lore was this--old age with its gray hair, _955 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 _960 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.

34. Nor are the strong and the severe to keep The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught _965 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 _970 Why the deceiver and the slave has sway O'er heralds so divine of truth's arising day.

35. Within that fairest form, the female mind, Untainted by the poison clouds which rest On the dark world, a sacred home did find: _975 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, _980 Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.

36. 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 _985 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 hyena lust, who, among graves, Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves. _990

37. 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 _995 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.

38. She replied earnestly:--'It shall be mine, _1000 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 _1005 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.

39. I smiled, and spake not.--'Wherefore dost thou smile At what I say? Laon, I am not weak, _1010 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 _1015 To scorn and shame, and this beloved spot And thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.

40. '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, _1020 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 _1025 As I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.

41. '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 _1030 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! _1035

42. '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 _1040 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.

43. 'Can man be free if woman be a slave? _1045 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 _1050 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.

44. 'I am a child:--I would not yet depart. When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp _1055 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 _1060 Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm, Upon her children's brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.

45. 'Wait yet awhile for the appointed day-- Thou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray; _1065 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, _1070 Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.

46. '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 _1075 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. _1080

47. '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, _1085 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.

48. 'We part to meet again--but yon blue waste, _1090 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 _1095 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.'

49. I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, _1100 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, _1105 We moved towards our home; where, in this mood, Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.

Canto 3

1. 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 _1110 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, _1115 Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.

2. 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, _1120 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. _1125

3. 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, _1130 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.

4. Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, _1135 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, _1140 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.

5. The scene was changed, and away, away, away! Through the air and over the sea we sped, _1145 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, _1150 They plucked at Cythna--soon to me then clung A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

6. And I lay struggling in the impotence Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound, Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense _1155 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, _1160 And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.

7. 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, _1165 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. _1170

8. 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, _1175 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.

9. 'Look not so, Laon--say farewell in hope, _1180 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! _1185 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.'

10. These words had fallen on my unheeding ear, Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew _1190 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, _1195 And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!

11. 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, _1200 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 _1205 Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.

12. 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, _1210 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 aerial waste. _1215

13. 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 _1220 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.

14. They raised me to the platform of the pile, _1225 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: _1230 The grate, as they departed to repass, With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom was drowned.

15. The noon was calm and bright:--around that column The overhanging sky and circling sea _1235 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 _1240 The town among the woods below that lay, And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.

16. 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 _1245 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, _1250 But of the living blood that ran within my frame.

17. 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 _1255 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. _1260

18. 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 _1265 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.

19. I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever _1270 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 _1275 Tameless resolve which laughed at misery Into my soul--linked remembrance lent To that such power, to me such a severe content.

20. To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair And die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun _1280 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 _1285 Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.

21. 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 _1290 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, _1295 And bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.

22. 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 _1300 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! _1305

23. 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, _1310 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.

24. The sense of day and night, of false and true, _1315 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. _1320 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.

25. Methought that grate was lifted, and the seven Who brought me thither four stiff corpses bare, _1325 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, _1330 Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.

26. 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 _1335 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 _1340 Then in its sinking gulfs my sickening spirit tossed.

27. 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, _1345 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. _1350

28. 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;-- _1355 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.

29. He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled; _1360 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 _1365 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,

30. As, lifting me, it fell!--What next I heard, Were billows leaping on the harbour-bar, _1370 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, _1375 So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark, In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.

31. 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 _1380 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, _1385 And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.

32. 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, _1390 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. _1395

33. 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, _1400 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.

34. And then the night-wind steaming from the shore, _1405 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, _1410 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.

NOTES: _1223 torches' editions 1818, 1839. _1385 bent]meant cj. J. Nettleship.

Canto 4

1. The old man took the oars, and soon the bark Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone; _1415 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 _1420 Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood A changeling of man's art nursed amid Nature's brood.

2. 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, _1425 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 _1430 Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

3. 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 _1435 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. _1440

4. 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 _1445 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?

5. Thus madness came again,--a milder madness, _1450 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: _1455 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.

6. He knew his soothing words to weave with skill From all my madness told; like mine own heart, _1460 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 _1465 A glance as keen as is the lightning's stroke When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

7. Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled, My thoughts their due array did re-assume Through the enchantments of that Hermit old; _1470 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-- _1475 That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.

8. 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 _1480 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. _1485

9. 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, _1490 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;

10. And that the multitude was gathering wide,-- _1495 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 _1500 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.

11. He came to the lone column on the rock, And with his sweet and mighty eloquence _1505 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 _1510 Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.

12. 'Yes, from the records of my youthful state, And from the lore of bards and sages old, From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create _1515 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 _1520 Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.

13. '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; _1525 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. _1530

14. '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, _1535 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.

15. 'Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds _1540 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 _1545 Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw This hope, compels all spirits to obey, Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

16. 'For I have been thy passive instrument'-- (As thus the old man spake, his countenance _1550 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 _1555 Nor change may not extinguish, and my share Of good, was o'er the world its gathered beams to bear.

17. '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 _1560 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 _1565 Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

18. '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, _1570 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 _1575

19. '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 _1580 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.

20. 'The wild-eyed women throng around her path: _1585 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 _1590 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.

21. 'Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach To woman, outraged and polluted long; _1595 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! _1600 Lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,

22. '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, _1605 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, _1610 And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.

23. '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,-- _1615 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. _1620

24. '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 _1625 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.

25. 'There is a plain beneath the City's wall, _1630 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: _1635 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?

26. 'The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain: Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood, _1640 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 _1645 Surrounding them, with words of human love, Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.

27. '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 _1650 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 _1655 Clasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer!

28. '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 _1660 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. _1665

29. 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, _1670 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.

30. And though their lustre now was spent and faded, _1675 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-- _1680 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.

31. What then was I? She slumbered with the dead. Glory and joy and peace, had come and gone. _1685 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, _1690 When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.

32. Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man I left, with interchange of looks and tears, And lingering speech, and to the Camp began _1695 My war. 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, _1700 A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.

33. 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 _1705 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. _1710

34. 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 whatsoe'er it finds, or flowers or weeds! _1715 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.

NOTES: _1625 Where]When edition 1818.

Canto 5

1. Over the utmost hill at length I sped, _1720 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, _1725 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.

2. All slept but those in watchful arms who stood, And those who sate tending the beacon's light, _1730 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 _1735 Evil and good, in woven passions mailed, Waged through that silent throng--a war that never failed!

3. And now the Power of Good held victory. So, through the labyrinth of many a tent, Among the silent millions who did lie _1740 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, _1745 And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.

4. 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: _1750 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!' _1755

5. 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, _1760 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.

6. Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes _1765 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. _1770 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.

7. Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child Who brings them food, when winter false and fair _1775 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 _1780 The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky, Seemed sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory.

8. In sudden panic those false murderers fled, Like insect tribes before the northern gale: But swifter still, our hosts encompassed _1785 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-- _1790 I rushed before its point, and cried 'Forbear, forbear!'

9. 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, _1795 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. _1800

10. '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 _1805 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.

11. 'Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill, _1810 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! _1815 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!

12. 'Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past Be as a grave which gives not up its dead _1820 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 _1825 The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose;

13. 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 _1830 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 _1835 Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.

14. 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 _1840 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. _1845

15. 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 _1850 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.

16. Our armies through the City's hundred gates _1855 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, _1860 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.

17. I trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision: Those bloody bands so lately reconciled, _1865 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, _1870 And did with soft attraction ever draw Their spirits to the love of freedom's equal law.

18. And they, and all, in one loud symphony My name with Liberty commingling, lifted, 'The friend and the preserver of the free! _1875 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,-- _1880 Where was that Maid? I asked, but it was known of none.

19. 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 _1885 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. _1890

20. 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, _1895 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.

21. Alone, but for one child, who led before him _1900 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 _1905 Its circles, aye weeping and murmuring Mid her sad task of unregarded love, That to no smiles it might his speechless sadness move.

22. She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet When human steps were heard:--he moved nor spoke, _1910 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 _1915 Of footfalls answered, and the twilight's gloom Lay like a charnel's mist within the radiant dome.

23. 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 _1920 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 _1925 His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

24. 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 _1930 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. _1935

25. 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 _1940 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.

26. I led him forth from that which now might seem _1945 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, _1950 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.

27. At last the tyrant cried, 'She hungers, slave! Stab her, or give her bread!'--It was a tone _1955 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, _1960 And she a nursling of captivity Knew nought beyond those walls, nor what such change might be.

28. And he was troubled at a charm withdrawn Thus suddenly; that sceptres ruled no more-- That even from gold the dreadful strength was gone, _1965 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 _1970 Like wonder stirred, who saw such awful change befall.

29. 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, _1975 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. _1980

30. 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, _1985 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.

31. Slowly the silence of the multitudes _1990 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 _1995 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!'

32. Then was heard--'He who judged let him be brought To judgement! blood for blood cries from the soil _2000 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, _2005 Or creep within his veins at will?--Arise! And to high justice make her chosen sacrifice!'

33. '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 _2010 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 _2015 Of human nature win from these a second birth.

34. '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, _2020 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.' _2025

35. 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 _2030 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.

36. Then to a home for his repose assigned, _2035 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 _2040 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.

37. 'Twas midnight now, the eve of that great day Whereon the many nations at whose call _2045 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 _2050 Laone to my thoughts, with hopes that make The flood recede from which their thirst they seek to slake.

38. 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 _2055 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 _2060 Pour forth her swarming sons to a fraternal doom:

39. 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, _2065 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. _2070

40. 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 _2075 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!

41. To hear the restless multitudes for ever _2080 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 _2085 Like beams through floating clouds on waves below Falling in pauses, from that Altar dim, As silver-sounding tongues breathed an aerial hymn.

42. To hear, to see, to live, was on that morn Lethean joy! so that all those assembled _2090 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; _2095 A lost and dear possession, which not won, He walks in lonely gloom beneath the noonday sun.

43. To the great Pyramid I came: its stair With female choirs was thronged: the loveliest Among the free, grouped with its sculptures rare; _2100 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 _2105 Sate there, a female Shape upon an ivory throne:

44. 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, _2110 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. _2115

45. 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 _2120 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.

46. Like music of some minstrel heavenly gifted, _2125 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, _2130 The multitudes, the mountains, and the sea; As when eclipse hath passed, things sudden shine To men's astonished eyes most clear and crystalline.

47. At first Laone spoke most tremulously: But soon her voice the calmness which it shed _2135 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 _2140 This veil between us two that thou beneath Shouldst image one who may have been long lost in death.

48. 'For this wilt thou not henceforth pardon me? Yes, but those joys which silence well requite Forbid reply;--why men have chosen me _2145 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 _2150 From both the hearts whose pulse in joy now beat together,

49. '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 _2155 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; _2160

50. 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. The third Image was dressed _2165 In white wings swift as clouds in winter skies; Beneath his feet, 'mongst ghastliest forms, repressed Lay Faith, an obscene worm, who sought to rise, While calmly on the Sun he turned his diamond eyes.

51. Beside that Image then I sate, while she _2170 Stood, mid the throngs which ever ebbed and flowed, Like light amid the shadows of the sea Cast from one cloudless star, and on the crowd That touch which none who feels forgets, bestowed; And whilst the sun returned the steadfast gaze _2175 Of the great Image, as o'er Heaven it glode, That rite had place; it ceased when sunset's blaze Burned o'er the isles. All stood in joy and deep amaze-- --When in the silence of all spirits there Laone's voice was felt, and through the air _2180 Her thrilling gestures spoke, most eloquently fair:--

51.1. 'Calm art thou as yon sunset! swift and strong As new-fledged Eagles, beautiful and young, That float among the blinding beams of morning; And underneath thy feet writhe Faith, and Folly, _2185 Custom, and Hell, and mortal Melancholy-- Hark! the Earth starts to hear the mighty warning Of thy voice sublime and holy; Its free spirits here assembled See thee, feel thee, know thee now,-- _2190 To thy voice their hearts have trembled Like ten thousand clouds which flow With one wide wind as it flies!-- Wisdom! thy irresistible children rise To hail thee, and the elements they chain _2195 And their own will, to swell the glory of thy train.

51.2. 'O Spirit vast and deep as Night and Heaven! Mother and soul of all to which is given The light of life, the loveliness of being, Lo! thou dost re-ascend the human heart, _2200 Thy throne of power, almighty as thou wert In dreams of Poets old grown pale by seeing The shade of thee;--now, millions start To feel thy lightnings through them burning: Nature, or God, or Love, or Pleasure, _2205 Or Sympathy the sad tears turning To mutual smiles, a drainless treasure, Descends amidst us;--Scorn and Hate, Revenge and Selfishness are desolate-- A hundred nations swear that there shall be _2210 Pity and Peace and Love, among the good and free!

51.3. 'Eldest of things, divine Equality! Wisdom and Love are but the slaves of thee, The Angels of thy sway, who pour around thee Treasures from all the cells of human thought, _2215 And from the Stars, and from the Ocean brought, And the last living heart whose beatings bound thee: The powerful and the wise had sought Thy coming, thou in light descending O'er the wide land which is thine own _2220 Like the Spring whose breath is blending All blasts of fragrance into one, Comest upon the paths of men!-- Earth bares her general bosom to thy ken, And all her children here in glory meet _2225 To feed upon thy smiles, and clasp thy sacred feet.

51.4 'My brethren, we are free! the plains and mountains, The gray sea-shore, the forests and the fountains, Are haunts of happiest dwellers;--man and woman, Their common bondage burst, may freely borrow _2230 From lawless love a solace for their sorrow; For oft we still must weep, since we are human. A stormy night's serenest morrow, Whose showers are pity's gentle tears, Whose clouds are smiles of those that die _2235 Like infants without hopes or fears, And whose beams are joys that lie In blended hearts, now holds dominion; The dawn of mind, which upwards on a pinion Borne, swift as sunrise, far illumines space, _2240 And clasps this barren world in its own bright embrace!

51.5 'My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing Beneath the stars, and the night-winds are flowing O'er the ripe corn, the birds and beasts are dreaming-- Never again may blood of bird or beast _2245 Stain with its venomous stream a human feast, To the pure skies in accusation steaming; Avenging poisons shall have ceased To feed disease and fear and madness, The dwellers of the earth and air _2250 Shall throng around our steps in gladness, Seeking their food or refuge there. Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull, To make this Earth, our home, more beautiful, And Science, and her sister Poesy, _2255 Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!

51.6 'Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations! Bear witness Night, and ye mute Constellations Who gaze on us from your crystalline cars! Thoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep no more! _2260 Victory! Victory! Earth's remotest shore, Regions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars, The green lands cradled in the roar Of western waves, and wildernesses Peopled and vast, which skirt the oceans _2265 Where morning dyes her golden tresses, Shall soon partake our high emotions: Kings shall turn pale! Almighty Fear, The Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear, Shall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes, _2270 While Truth with Joy enthroned o'er his lost empire reigns!'

51.52. Ere she had ceased, the mists of night entwining Their dim woof, floated o'er the infinite throng; She, like a spirit through the darkness shining, In tones whose sweetness silence did prolong, _2275 As if to lingering winds they did belong, Poured forth her inmost soul: a passionate speech With wild and thrilling pauses woven among, Which whoso heard was mute, for it could teach To rapture like her own all listening hearts to reach. _2280

53. Her voice was as a mountain stream which sweeps The withered leaves of Autumn to the lake, And in some deep and narrow bay then sleeps In the shadow of the shores; as dead leaves wake, Under the wave, in flowers and herbs which make _2285 Those green depths beautiful when skies are blue, The multitude so moveless did partake Such living change, and kindling murmurs flew As o'er that speechless calm delight and wonder grew.

54. Over the plain the throngs were scattered then _2290 In groups around the fires, which from the sea Even to the gorge of the first mountain-glen Blazed wide and far: the banquet of the free Was spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree, Beneath whose spires, which swayed in the red flame, _2295 Reclining, as they ate, of Liberty, And Hope, and Justice, and Laone's name, Earth's children did a woof of happy converse frame.

55. Their feast was such as Earth, the general mother, Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles _2300 In the embrace of Autumn;--to each other As when some parent fondly reconciles Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles With her own sustenance, they relenting weep: Such was this Festival, which from their isles _2305 And continents, and winds, and oceans deep, All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk or creep,--

56. Might share in peace and innocence, for gore Or poison none this festal did pollute, But, piled on high, an overflowing store _2310 Of pomegranates and citrons, fairest fruit, Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes ere yet Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute Into a mortal bane, and brown corn set _2315 In baskets; with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.

57. Laone had descended from the shrine, And every deepest look and holiest mind Fed on her form, though now those tones divine Were silent as she passed; she did unwind _2320 Her veil, as with the crowds of her own kind She mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain From seeking her that night, so I reclined Amidst a group, where on the utmost plain A festal watchfire burned beside the dusky main. _2325

58. And joyous was our feast; pathetic talk, And wit, and harmony of choral strains, While far Orion o'er the waves did walk That flow among the isles, held us in chains Of sweet captivity which none disdains _2330 Who feels; but when his zone grew dim in mist Which clothes the Ocean's bosom, o'er the plains The multitudes went homeward, to their rest, Which that delightful day with its own shadow blessed.

NOTES: _2295 flame]light edition 1818.

Canto 6

1. Beside the dimness of the glimmering sea, _2335 Weaving swift language from impassioned themes, With that dear friend I lingered, who to me So late had been restored, beneath the gleams Of the silver stars; and ever in soft dreams Of future love and peace sweet converse lapped _2340 Our willing fancies, till the pallid beams Of the last watchfire fell, and darkness wrapped The waves, and each bright chain of floating fire was snapped;

2. And till we came even to the City's wall And the great gate; then, none knew whence or why, _2345 Disquiet on the multitudes did fall: And first, one pale and breathless passed us by, And stared and spoke not;--then with piercing cry A troop of wild-eyed women, by the shrieks Of their own terror driven,--tumultuously _2350 Hither and thither hurrying with pale cheeks, Each one from fear unknown a sudden refuge seeks--

3. Then, rallying cries of treason and of danger Resounded: and--'They come! to arms! to arms! The Tyrant is amongst us, and the stranger _2355 Comes to enslave us in his name! to arms!' In vain: for Panic, the pale fiend who charms Strength to forswear her right, those millions swept Like waves before the tempest--these alarms Came to me, as to know their cause I lept _2360 On the gate's turret, and in rage and grief and scorn I wept!

4. For to the North I saw the town on fire, And its red light made morning pallid now, Which burst over wide Asia;--louder, higher, The yells of victory and the screams of woe _2365 I heard approach, and saw the throng below Stream through the gates like foam-wrought waterfalls Fed from a thousand storms--the fearful glow Of bombs flares overhead--at intervals The red artillery's bolt mangling among them falls. _2370

5. And now the horsemen come--and all was done Swifter than I have spoken--I beheld Their red swords flash in the unrisen sun. I rushed among the rout, to have repelled That miserable flight--one moment quelled _2375 By voice and looks and eloquent despair, As if reproach from their own hearts withheld Their steps, they stood; but soon came pouring there New multitudes, and did those rallied bands o'erbear.

6. I strove, as, drifted on some cataract _2380 By irresistible streams, some wretch might strive Who hears its fatal roar:--the files compact Whelmed me, and from the gate availed to drive With quickening impulse, as each bolt did rive Their ranks with bloodier chasm:--into the plain _2385 Disgorged at length the dead and the alive In one dread mass, were parted, and the stain Of blood, from mortal steel fell o'er the fields like rain.

7. For now the despot's bloodhounds with their prey Unarmed and unaware, were gorging deep _2390 Their gluttony of death; the loose array Of horsemen o'er the wide fields murdering sweep, And with loud laughter for their tyrant reap A harvest sown with other hopes; the while, Far overhead, ships from Propontis keep _2395 A killing rain of fire:--when the waves smile As sudden earthquakes light many a volcano-isle,

8. Thus sudden, unexpected feast was spread For the carrion-fowls of Heaven.--I saw the sight-- I moved--I lived--as o'er the heaps of dead, _2400 Whose stony eyes glared in the morning light I trod;--to me there came no thought of flight, But with loud cries of scorn, which whoso heard That dreaded death, felt in his veins the might Of virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred, _2405 And desperation's hope in many hearts recurred.

9. A band of brothers gathering round me, made, Although unarmed, a steadfast front, and still Retreating, with stern looks beneath the shade Of gathered eyebrows, did the victors fill _2410 With doubt even in success; deliberate will Inspired our growing troop; not overthrown It gained the shelter of a grassy hill, And ever still our comrades were hewn down, And their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown. _2415

10. Immovably we stood--in joy I found, Beside me then, firm as a giant pine Among the mountain-vapours driven around, The old man whom I loved--his eyes divine With a mild look of courage answered mine, _2420 And my young friend was near, and ardently His hand grasped mine a moment--now the line Of war extended, to our rallying cry As myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.

11. For ever while the sun was climbing Heaven _2425 The horseman hewed our unarmed myriads down Safely, though when by thirst of carnage driven Too near, those slaves were swiftly overthrown By hundreds leaping on them:--flesh and bone Soon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaft _2430 Of the artillery from the sea was thrown More fast and fiery, and the conquerors laughed In pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.

12. For on one side alone the hill gave shelter, So vast that phalanx of unconquered men, _2435 And there the living in the blood did welter Of the dead and dying, which in that green glen, Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fen Under the feet--thus was the butchery waged While the sun clomb Heaven's eastern steep--but when _2440 It 'gan to sink--a fiercer combat raged, For in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.

13. Within a cave upon the hill were found A bundle of rude pikes, the instrument Of those who war but on their native ground _2445 For natural rights: a shout of joyance sent Even from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent, As those few arms the bravest and the best Seized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present A line which covered and sustained the rest, _2450 A confident phalanx, which the foes on every side invest.

14. That onset turned the foes to flight almost; But soon they saw their present strength, and knew That coming night would to our resolute host Bring victory; so dismounting, close they drew _2455 Their glittering files, and then the combat grew Unequal but most horrible;--and ever Our myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew, Or the red sword, failed like a mountain river Which rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever. _2460

15. Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kind Our human brethren mix, like beasts of blood, To mutual ruin armed by one behind Who sits and scoffs!--That friend so mild and good, Who like its shadow near my youth had stood, _2465 Was stabbed!--my old preserver's hoary hair With the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewed Under my feet!--I lost all sense or care, And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.

16. The battle became ghastlier--in the midst _2470 I paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell O Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd'st For love. The ground in many a little dell Was broken, up and down whose steeps befell Alternate victory and defeat, and there _2475 The combatants with rage most horrible Strove, and their eyes started with cracking stare, And impotent their tongues they lolled into the air,

17. Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog's hanging; Want, and Moon-madness, and the pest's swift Bane _2480 When its shafts smite--while yet its bow is twanging-- Have each their mark and sign--some ghastly stain; And this was thine, O War! of hate and pain Thou loathed slave! I saw all shapes of death And ministered to many, o'er the plain _2485 While carnage in the sunbeam's warmth did seethe, Till twilight o'er the east wove her serenest wreath.

18. The few who yet survived, resolute and firm Around me fought. At the decline of day Winding above the mountain's snowy term _2490 New banners shone; they quivered in the ray Of the sun's unseen orb--ere night the array Of fresh troops hemmed us in--of those brave bands I soon survived alone--and now I lay Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands _2495 I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands,

19. When on my foes a sudden terror came, And they fled, scattering--lo! with reinless speed A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling over the dead, the living bleed _2500 Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed, On which, like to an Angel, robed in white, Sate one waving a sword;--the hosts recede And fly, as through their ranks with awful might, Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright; _2505

20. And its path made a solitude.--I rose And marked its coming: it relaxed its course As it approached me, and the wind that flows Through night, bore accents to mine ear whose force Might create smiles in death--the Tartar horse _2510 Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed, And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source Of waters in the desert, as she said, 'Mount with me, Laon, now'--I rapidly obeyed.

21. Then: 'Away! away!' she cried, and stretched her sword _2515 As 'twere a scourge over the courser's head, And lightly shook the reins.--We spake no word, But like the vapour of the tempest fled Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast; _2520 Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast, As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's broad shadow passed.

22. And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust, His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray, _2525 And turbulence, as of a whirlwind's gust Surrounded us;--and still away! away! Through the desert night we sped, while she alway Gazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest, Crowned with a marble ruin, in the ray _2530 Of the obscure stars gleamed;--its rugged breast The steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.

23. A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:-- From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted Paused, might be heard the murmur of the motion _2535 Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted To music, by the wand of Solitude, That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood _2540 Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean's curved flood.

24. One moment these were heard and seen--another Passed; and the two who stood beneath that night, Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other; As from the lofty steed she did alight, _2545 Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale With influence strange of mournfullest delight, My own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail, And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail. _2550

25. And for a space in my embrace she rested, Her head on my unquiet heart reposing, While my faint arms her languid frame invested; At length she looked on me, and half unclosing Her tremulous lips, said, 'Friend, thy bands were losing _2555 The battle, as I stood before the King In bonds.--I burst them then, and swiftly choosing The time, did seize a Tartar's sword, and spring Upon his horse, and swift, as on the whirlwind's wing,

26. 'Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer, _2560 And we are here.'--Then, turning to the steed, She pressed the white moon on his front with pure And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed From the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;-- But I to a stone seat that Maiden led, _2565 And, kissing her fair eyes, said, 'Thou hast need Of rest,' and I heaped up the courser's bed In a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread.

27. Within that ruin, where a shattered portal Looks to the eastern stars, abandoned now _2570 By man, to be the home of things immortal, Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go, And must inherit all he builds below, When he is gone, a hall stood; o'er whose roof Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow, _2575 Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof, A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.

28. The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made A natural couch of leaves in that recess, Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade _2580 Of flowering parasites, did Spring love to dress With their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness Of those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene'er The wandering wind her nurslings might caress; Whose intertwining fingers ever there _2585 Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.

29. We know not where we go, or what sweet dream May pilot us through caverns strange and fair Of far and pathless passion, while the stream Of life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, _2590 Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air; Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean Of universal life, attuning its commotion. _2595

30. To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapped Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow Of public hope was from our being snapped, Though linked years had bound it there; for now A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below _2600 All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere, Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow, Came on us, as we sate in silence there, Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air;--

31. In silence which doth follow talk that causes _2605 The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears, When wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses Of inexpressive speech:--the youthful years Which we together passed, their hopes and fears, The blood itself which ran within our frames, _2610 That likeness of the features which endears The thoughts expressed by them, our very names, And all the winged hours which speechless memory claims,

32. Had found a voice--and ere that voice did pass, The night grew damp and dim, and, through a rent _2615 Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass A wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent, Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent A faint and pallid lustre; while the song Of blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, _2620 Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among; A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit's tongue.

33. The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate, And Cythna's glowing arms, and the thick ties Of her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight _2625 My neck near hers; her dark and deepening eyes, Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies O'er a dim well, move, though the star reposes, Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies, Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses, _2630 With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.

34. The Meteor to its far morass returned: The beating of our veins one interval Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall _2635 Around my heart like fire; and over all A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall Two disunited spirits when they leap In union from this earth's obscure and fading sleep. _2640

35. Was it one moment that confounded thus All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one Unutterable power, which shielded us Even from our own cold looks, when we had gone Into a wide and wild oblivion _2645 Of tumult and of tenderness? or now Had ages, such as make the moon and sun, The seasons, and mankind their changes know, Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?

36. I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps _2650 The failing heart in languishment, or limb Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim Through tears of a wide mist boundless and dim, In one caress? What is the strong control _2655 Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb, Where far over the world those vapours roll Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul? 37. It is the shadow which doth float unseen, But not unfelt, o'er blind mortality, _2660 Whose divine darkness fled not from that green And lone recess, where lapped in peace did lie Our linked frames, till, from the changing sky That night and still another day had fled; And then I saw and felt. The moon was high, _2665 And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spread Under its orb,--loud winds were gathering overhead.

38. Cythna's sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon, Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill, And her dark tresses were all loosely strewn _2670 O'er her pale bosom:--all within was still, And the sweet peace of joy did almost fill The depth of her unfathomable look;-- And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill, The waves contending in its caverns strook, _2675 For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.

39. There we unheeding sate, in the communion Of interchanged vows, which, with a rite Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.-- Few were the living hearts which could unite _2680 Like ours, or celebrate a bridal night With such close sympathies, for they had sprung From linked youth, and from the gentle might Of earliest love, delayed and cherished long, Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong. _2685

40. And such is Nature's law divine, that those Who grow together cannot choose but love, If faith or custom do not interpose, Or common slavery mar what else might move All gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove _2690 Which shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile, That living tree which, if the arrowy dove Strike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile, But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;

41. And clings to them, when darkness may dissever _2695 The close caresses of all duller plants Which bloom on the wide earth--thus we for ever Were linked, for love had nursed us in the haunts Where knowledge, from its secret source enchants Young hearts with the fresh music of its springing, _2700 Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants, As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flinging Light on the woven boughs which o'er its waves are swinging.

42. The tones of Cythna's voice like echoes were Of those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell, _2705 Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,-- And so we sate, until our talk befell Of the late ruin, swift and horrible, And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown, Whose fruit is evil's mortal poison: well, _2710 For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone, But Cythna's eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone

43. Since she had food:--therefore I did awaken The Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane Soon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken, _2715 Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein, Following me obediently; with pain Of heart, so deep and dread, that one caress, When lips and heart refuse to part again Till they have told their fill, could scarce express _2720 The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,

44. Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode That willing steed--the tempest and the night, Which gave my path its safety as I rode Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite _2725 The darkness and the tumult of their might Borne on all winds.--Far through the streaming rain Floating at intervals the garments white Of Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain. _2730

45. I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he Who bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red Turned on the lightning's cleft exultingly; And when the earth beneath his tameless tread, Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread _2735 His nostrils to the blast, and joyously Mock the fierce peal with neighings;--thus we sped O'er the lit plain, and soon I could descry Where Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.

46. There was a desolate village in a wood _2740 Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed The hungry storm; it was a place of blood, A heap of hearthless walls;--the flames were dead Within those dwellings now,--the life had fled From all those corpses now,--but the wide sky _2745 Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead By the black rafters, and around did lie Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

47. Beside the fountain in the market-place Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare _2750 With horny eyes upon each other's face, And on the earth and on the vacant air, And upon me, close to the waters where I stooped to slake my thirst;--I shrank to taste, For the salt bitterness of blood was there; _2755 But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

48. No living thing was there beside one woman, Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she Was withered from a likeness of aught human _2760 Into a fiend, by some strange misery: Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me, And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee, And cried, 'Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed _2765 The Plague's blue kisses--soon millions shall pledge the draught!

49. 'My name is Pestilence--this bosom dry, Once fed two babes--a sister and a brother-- When I came home, one in the blood did lie Of three death-wounds--the flames had ate the other! _2770 Since then I have no longer been a mother, But I am Pestilence;--hither and thither I flit about, that I may slay and smother:-- All lips which I have kissed must surely wither, But Death's--if thou art he, we'll go to work together! _2775

50. 'What seek'st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,-- The dew is rising dankly from the dell-- 'Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes In my sweet boy, now full of worms--but tell First what thou seek'st.'--'I seek for food.'--''Tis well, _2780 Thou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour, Waits for us at the feast--cruel and fell Is Famine, but he drives not from his door Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!'

51. As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength _2785 Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth She led, and over many a corpse:--at length We came to a lone hut where on the earth Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth, Gathering from all those homes now desolate, _2790 Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth Among the dead--round which she set in state A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

52. She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: 'Eat! _2795 Share the great feast--to-morrow we must die!' And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet, Towards her bloodless guests;--that sight to meet, Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat _2800 Despair, I might have raved in sympathy; But now I took the food that woman offered me;

53. And vainly having with her madness striven If I might win her to return with me, Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven _2805 The lightning now grew pallid--rapidly, As by the shore of the tempestuous sea The dark steed bore me; and the mountain gray Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see Cythna among the rocks, where she alway _2810 Had sate with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

54. And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale, Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast My arms around her, lest her steps should fail As to our home we went, and thus embraced, _2815 Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste Than e'er the prosperous know; the steed behind Trod peacefully along the mountain waste; We reached our home ere morning could unbind Night's latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined. _2820

55. Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom, And sweetest kisses past, we two did share Our peaceful meal:--as an autumnal blossom Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air, After cold showers, like rainbows woven there, _2825 Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere Of health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it, And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.

NOTES: _2397 -isle. Bradley, who cps. Marianne's Dream, St. 12. See note at end.

Canto 7

1. So we sate joyous as the morning ray _2830 Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm, And we sate linked in the inwoven charm Of converse and caresses sweet and deep, _2835 Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm Time, though he wield the darts of death and sleep, And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

2. I told her of my sufferings and my madness, And how, awakened from that dreamy mood _2840 By Liberty's uprise, the strength of gladness Came to my spirit in my solitude; And all that now I was--while tears pursued Each other down her fair and listening cheek Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood _2845 From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak, Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

3. She told me a strange tale of strange endurance, Like broken memories of many a heart Woven into one; to which no firm assurance, _2850 So wild were they, could her own faith impart. She said that not a tear did dare to start From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm When from all mortal hope she did depart, Borne by those slaves across the Ocean's term, _2855 And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.

4. One was she among many there, the thralls Of the cold Tyrant's cruel lust; and they Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls; But she was calm and sad, musing alway _2860 On loftiest enterprise, till on a day The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay, Like winds that die in wastes--one moment mute The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute. _2865

5. Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness, One moment to great Nature's sacred power He bent, and was no longer passionless; But when he bade her to his secret bower Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore _2870 Her locks in agony, and her words of flame And mightier looks availed not; then he bore Again his load of slavery, and became A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.

6. She told me what a loathsome agony _2875 Is that when selfishness mocks love's delight, Foul as in dream's most fearful imagery, To dally with the mowing dead--that night All torture, fear, or horror made seem light Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day _2880 Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight Where like a Spirit in fleshly chains she lay Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.

7. Her madness was a beam of light, a power Which dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave, _2885 Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore Which might not be withstood--whence none could save-- All who approached their sphere,--like some calm wave Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath; And sympathy made each attendant slave _2890 Fearless and free, and they began to breathe Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.

8. The King felt pale upon his noonday throne: At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,-- One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown _2895 From human shape into an instrument Of all things ill--distorted, bowed and bent. The other was a wretch from infancy Made dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant But to obey: from the fire isles came he, _2900 A diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral sea.

9. They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas, Until upon their path the morning broke; They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze, _2905 The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades Shakes with the sleepless surge;--the Ethiop there Wound his long arms around her, and with knees Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her Among the closing waves out of the boundless air. _2910

10. 'Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain Of morning light, into some shadowy wood, He plunged through the green silence of the main, Through many a cavern which the eternal flood Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood; _2915 And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder, And among mightier shadows which pursued His heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under He touched a golden chain--a sound arose like thunder.

11. 'A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling _2920 Beneath the deep--a burst of waters driven As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling: And in that roof of crags a space was riven Through which there shone the emerald beams of heaven, Shot through the lines of many waves inwoven, _2925 Like sunlight through acacia woods at even, Through which, his way the diver having cloven, Passed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.

12. 'And then,' she said, 'he laid me in a cave Above the waters, by that chasm of sea, _2930 A fountain round and vast, in which the wave Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually, Down which, one moment resting, he did flee, Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell Like an hupaithric temple wide and high, _2935 Whose aery dome is inaccessible, Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.

13. 'Below, the fountain's brink was richly paven With the deep's wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven _2940 With mystic legends by no mortal hand, Left there, when thronging to the moon's command, The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state _2945 Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.

14. 'The fiend of madness which had made its prey Of my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile: There was an interval of many a day, And a sea-eagle brought me food the while, _2950 Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle, And who, to be the gaoler had been taught Of that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile Like light and rest at morn and even is sought That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought. _2955

15. 'The misery of a madness slow and creeping, Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air, And the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping, In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair, Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there; _2960 And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore Thy mangled limbs for food!--Thus all things were Transformed into the agony which I wore Even as a poisoned robe around my bosom's core.

16. 'Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing, _2965 The eagle, and the fountain, and the air; Another frenzy came--there seemed a being Within me--a strange load my heart did bear, As if some living thing had made its lair Even in the fountains of my life:--a long _2970 And wondrous vision wrought from my despair, Then grew, like sweet reality among Dim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.

17. 'Methought I was about to be a mother-- Month after month went by, and still I dreamed _2975 That we should soon be all to one another, I and my child; and still new pulses seemed To beat beside my heart, and still I deemed There was a babe within--and, when the rain Of winter through the rifted cavern streamed, _2980 Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain, I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.

18. 'It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,-- It was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine, Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earth _2985 It laid its fingers, as now rest on mine Thine own, beloved!--'twas a dream divine; Even to remember how it fled, how swift, How utterly, might make the heart repine,-- Though 'twas a dream.'--Then Cythna did uplift _2990 Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:

19. A doubt which would not flee, a tenderness Of questioning grief, a source of thronging tears; Which having passed, as one whom sobs oppress She spoke: 'Yes, in the wilderness of years _2995 Her memory, aye, like a green home appears; She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love, For many months. I had no mortal fears; Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,-- It was a human thing which to my bosom clove. _3000

20. 'I watched the dawn of her first smiles; and soon When zenith stars were trembling on the wave, Or when the beams of the invisible moon, Or sun, from many a prism within the cave Their gem-born shadows to the water gave, _3005 Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand, From the swift lights which might that fountain pave, She would mark one, and laugh, when that command Slighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.

21. 'Methought her looks began to talk with me; _3010 And no articulate sounds, but something sweet Her lips would frame,--so sweet it could not be, That it was meaningless; her touch would meet Mine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat In response while we slept; and on a day _3015 When I was happiest in that strange retreat, With heaps of golden shells we two did play,-- Both infants, weaving wings for time's perpetual way.

22. 'Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown Weary with joy, and tired with our delight, _3020 We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down On one fair mother's bosom:--from that night She fled,--like those illusions clear and bright, Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high Pause ere it wakens tempest;--and her flight, _3025 Though 'twas the death of brainless fantasy, Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.

23. 'It seemed that in the dreary night the diver Who brought me thither, came again, and bore My child away. I saw the waters quiver, _3030 When he so swiftly sunk, as once before: Then morning came--it shone even as of yore, But I was changed--the very life was gone Out of my heart--I wasted more and more, Day after day, and sitting there alone, _3035 Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

24. 'I was no longer mad, and yet methought My breasts were swoln and changed:--in every vein The blood stood still one moment, while that thought Was passing--with a gush of sickening pain _3040 It ebbed even to its withered springs again: When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned From that most strange delusion, which would fain Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned With more than human love,--then left it unreturned. _3045

25. 'So now my reason was restored to me I struggled with that dream, which, like a beast Most fierce and beauteous, in my memory Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast; But all that cave and all its shapes, possessed _3050 By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one Some smile, some look, some gesture which had blessed Me heretofore: I, sitting there alone, Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

26. 'Time passed, I know not whether months or years; _3055 For day, nor night, nor change of seasons made Its note, but thoughts and unavailing tears: And I became at last even as a shade, A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed, Till it be thin as air; until, one even, _3060 A Nautilus upon the fountain played, Spreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.

27. 'And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing, Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat, _3065 Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing, The Eagle, hovering o'er his prey did float; But when he saw that I with fear did note His purpose, proffering my own food to him, The eager plumes subsided on his throat-- _3070 He came where that bright child of sea did swim, And o'er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.

28. 'This wakened me, it gave me human strength; And hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose, But I resumed my ancient powers at length; _3075 My spirit felt again like one of those Like thine, whose fate it is to make the woes Of humankind their prey--what was this cave? Its deep foundation no firm purpose knows Immutable, resistless, strong to save, _3080 Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.

29. 'And where was Laon? might my heart be dead, While that far dearer heart could move and be? Or whilst over the earth the pall was spread, Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free, _3085 Could I but win that friendly bird to me, To bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought By intercourse of mutual imagery Of objects, if such aid he could be taught; But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought. _3090

30. 'We live in our own world, and mine was made From glorious fantasies of hope departed: Aye we are darkened with their floating shade, Or cast a lustre on them--time imparted Such power to me--I became fearless-hearted, _3095 My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind, And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted Its lustre on all hidden things, behind Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.

31. 'My mind became the book through which I grew _3100 Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave, Which like a mine I rifled through and through, To me the keeping of its secrets gave-- One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave Whose calm reflects all moving things that are, _3105 Necessity, and love, and life, the grave, And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear, Justice, and truth, and time, and the world's natural sphere.

32. 'And on the sand would I make signs to range These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought; _3110 Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest change A subtler language within language wrought: The key of truths which once were dimly taught In old Crotona;--and sweet melodies Of love, in that lorn solitude I caught _3115 From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes Shone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.

33. 'Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will, As in a winged chariot, o'er the plain Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill _3120 My heart with joy, and there we sate again On the gray margin of the glimmering main, Happy as then but wiser far, for we Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain Fear, Faith and Slavery; and mankind was free, _3125 Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom's prophecy.

34. 'For to my will my fancies were as slaves To do their sweet and subtile ministries; And oft from that bright fountain's shadowy waves They would make human throngs gather and rise _3130 To combat with my overflowing eyes, And voice made deep with passion--thus I grew Familiar with the shock and the surprise And war of earthly minds, from which I drew The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew. _3135

35. 'And thus my prison was the populous earth-- Where I saw--even as misery dreams of morn Before the east has given its glory birth-- Religion's pomp made desolate by the scorn Of Wisdom's faintest smile, and thrones uptorn, _3140 And dwellings of mild people interspersed With undivided fields of ripening corn, And love made free,--a hope which we have nursed Even with our blood and tears,--until its glory burst.

36. 'All is not lost! There is some recompense _3145 For hope whose fountain can be thus profound, Even throned Evil's splendid impotence, Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound Of hymns to truth and freedom--the dread bound Of life and death passed fearlessly and well, _3150 Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found, Racks which degraded woman's greatness tell, And what may else be good and irresistible.

37. 'Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet _3155 In this dark ruin--such were mine even there; As in its sleep some odorous violet, While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet, Breathes in prophetic dreams of day's uprise, Or as, ere Scythian frost in fear has met _3160 Spring's messengers descending from the skies, The buds foreknow their life--this hope must ever rise.

38. 'So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent The depth of ocean, and the cavern cracked With sound, as if the world's wide continent _3165 Had fallen in universal ruin wracked: And through the cleft streamed in one cataract The stifling waters--when I woke, the flood Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode _3170 Before me yawned--a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.

39. 'Above me was the sky, beneath the sea: I stood upon a point of shattered stone, And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously With splash and shock into the deep--anon _3175 All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone. I felt that I was free! The Ocean-spray Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone Around, and in my hair the winds did play Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way. _3180

40. 'My spirit moved upon the sea like wind Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover, Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind The strength of tempest: day was almost over, When through the fading light I could discover _3185 A ship approaching--its white sails were fed With the north wind--its moving shade did cover The twilight deep; the mariners in dread Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

41. 'And when they saw one sitting on a crag, _3190 They sent a boat to me;--the Sailors rowed In awe through many a new and fearful jag Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed The foam of streams that cannot make abode. They came and questioned me, but when they heard _3195 My voice, they became silent, and they stood And moved as men in whom new love had stirred Deep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.

NOTES: _2877 dreams edition 1818. _2994 opprest edition 1818. _3115 lone solitude edition 1818.

Canto 8

1. 'I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing Upon the west, cried, "Spread the sails! Behold! _3200 The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing Over the mountains yet;--the City of Gold Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold; The stream is fleet--the north breathes steadily Beneath the stars; they tremble with the cold! _3205 Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea!-- Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!"

2. 'The Mariners obeyed--the Captain stood Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said, "Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued _3210 By wicked ghosts; a Phantom of the Dead, The night before we sailed, came to my bed In dream, like that!" The Pilot then replied, "It cannot be--she is a human Maid-- Her low voice makes you weep--she is some bride, _3215 Or daughter of high birth--she can be nought beside."

3. 'We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream, And as we sailed, the Mariners came near And thronged around to listen;--in the gleam Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear _3220 May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear; "Ye are all human--yon broad moon gives light To millions who the selfsame likeness wear, Even while I speak--beneath this very night, Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight. _3225

4. '"What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home, Even for yourselves on a beloved shore: For some, fond eyes are pining till they come, How they will greet him when his toils are o'er, And laughing babes rush from the well-known door! _3230 Is this your care? ye toil for your own good-- Ye feel and think--has some immortal power Such purposes? or in a human mood, Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?

5. '"What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give _3235 A human heart to what ye cannot know: As if the cause of life could think and live! 'Twere as if man's own works should feel, and show The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow, And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free _3240 To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow, Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!

6. '"What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown _3245 Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood The Form he saw and worshipped was his own, His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown; And 'twere an innocent dream, but that a faith Nursed by fear's dew of poison, grows thereon, _3250 And that men say, that Power has chosen Death On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.

7. '"Men say that they themselves have heard and seen, Or known from others who have known such things, A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between _3255 Wields an invisible rod--that Priests and Kings, Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel, Are his strong ministers, and that the stings Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel, _3260 Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

8. '"And it is said, this Power will punish wrong; Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain! And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among, Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain, _3265 Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane, Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate, Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain-- The will of strength is right--this human state Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate. _3270

9. '"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail To hide the orb of truth--and every throne Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon, _3275 One shape of many names:--for this ye plough The barren waves of ocean, hence each one Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow, Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.

10. '"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy _3280 All power--ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade Of power--lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly; The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made, A law to which mankind has been betrayed; And human love, is as the name well known _3285 Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid In bloody grave, and into darkness thrown, Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

11. '"O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves! _3290 Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can From slavery and religion's labyrinth caves Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves. To give to all an equal share of good, To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves _3295 She pass, to suffer all in patient mood, To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend's dearest blood,--

12. '"To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot, To own all sympathies, and outrage none, And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, _3300 Until life's sunny day is quite gone down, To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone, To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe; To live, as if to love and live were one,-- This is not faith or law, nor those who bow _3305 To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.

13. '"But children near their parents tremble now, Because they must obey--one rules another, And as one Power rules both high and low, So man is made the captive of his brother, _3310 And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother, Above the Highest--and those fountain-cells, Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other, Are darkened--Woman as the bond-slave dwells Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells. _3315

14. '"Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave A lasting chain for his own slavery;-- In fear and restless care that he may live He toils for others, who must ever be The joyless thralls of like captivity; _3320 He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin; He builds the altar, that its idol's fee May be his very blood; he is pursuing-- O, blind and willing wretch!--his own obscure undoing.

15. '"Woman!--she is his slave, she has become _3325 A thing I weep to speak--the child of scorn, The outcast of a desolated home; Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn, As calm decks the false Ocean:--well ye know _3330 What Woman is, for none of Woman born Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe, Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.

16. '"This need not be; ye might arise, and will That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory; _3335 That love, which none may bind, be free to fill The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary With crime, be quenched and die.--Yon promontory Even now eclipses the descending moon!-- Dungeons and palaces are transitory-- _3340 High temples fade like vapour--Man alone Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

17. '"Let all be free and equal!--From your hearts I feel an echo; through my inmost frame Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts-- _3345 Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame, On your worn faces; as in legends old Which make immortal the disastrous fame Of conquerors and impostors false and bold, _3350 The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.

18. '"Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood Forth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold, That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude? Or from the famished poor, pale, weak and cold, _3355 Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold! Speak! Are your hands in slaughter's sanguine hue Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old? Know yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew, And I will be a friend and sister unto you. _3360

19. '"Disguise it not--we have one human heart-- All mortal thoughts confess a common home: Blush not for what may to thyself impart Stains of inevitable crime: the doom Is this, which has, or may, or must become _3365 Thine, and all humankind's. Ye are the spoil Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb-- Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil Wherewith ye twine the rings of life's perpetual coil.

20. '"Disguise it not--ye blush for what ye hate, _3370 And Enmity is sister unto Shame; Look on your mind--it is the book of fate-- Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name Of misery--all are mirrors of the same; But the dark fiend who with his iron pen _3375 Dipped in scorn's fiery poison, makes his fame Enduring there, would o'er the heads of men Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.

21. '"Yes, it is Hate, that shapeless fiendly thing Of many names, all evil, some divine, _3380 Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting; Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine _3385 When Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied, Soon o'er the putrid mass he threats on every side.

22. '"Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself, Nor hate another's crime, nor loathe thine own. It is the dark idolatry of self, _3390 Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone, Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan; Oh, vacant expiation! Be at rest.-- The past is Death's, the future is thine own; And love and joy can make the foulest breast _3395 A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.

23. '"Speak thou! whence come ye?"--A Youth made reply: "Wearily, wearily o'er the boundless deep We sail;--thou readest well the misery Told in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep _3400 Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep, Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow; Even from our childhood have we learned to steep The bread of slavery in the tears of woe, And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now. _3405

24. '"Yes--I must speak--my secret should have perished Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished, But that no human bosom can withstand Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command _3410 Of thy keen eyes:--yes, we are wretched slaves, Who from their wonted loves and native land Are reft, and bear o'er the dividing waves The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.

25. '"We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest _3415 Among the daughters of those mountains lone, We drag them there, where all things best and rarest Are stained and trampled:--years have come and gone Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known No thought;--but now the eyes of one dear Maid _3420 On mine with light of mutual love have shone-- She is my life,--I am but as the shade Of her,--a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.

26. '"For she must perish in the Tyrant's hall-- Alas, alas!"--He ceased, and by the sail _3425 Sate cowering--but his sobs were heard by all, And still before the ocean and the gale The ship fled fast till the stars 'gan to fail; And, round me gathered with mute countenance, The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale _3430 With toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glance Met mine in restless awe--they stood as in a trance.

27. '"Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old, But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth Are children of one mother, even Love--behold! _3435 The eternal stars gaze on us!--is the truth Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth For others' sufferings? do ye thirst to bear A heart which not the serpent Custom's tooth May violate?--Be free! and even here, _3440 Swear to be firm till death!" They cried, "We swear! We swear!"

28. 'The very darkness shook, as with a blast Of subterranean thunder, at the cry; The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast Into the night, as if the sea and sky, _3445 And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty, For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn, And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye The captives gazing stood, and every one Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone. _3450

29. 'They were earth's purest children, young and fair, With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought, And brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ere Dark time had there its evil legend wrought In characters of cloud which wither not.-- _3455 The change was like a dream to them; but soon They knew the glory of their altered lot, In the bright wisdom of youth's breathless noon, Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune.

30. 'But one was mute; her cheeks and lips most fair, _3460 Changing their hue like lilies newly blown, Beneath a bright acacia's shadowy hair, Waved by the wind amid the sunny noon, Showed that her soul was quivering; and full soon That Youth arose, and breathlessly did look _3465 On her and me, as for some speechless boon: I smiled, and both their hands in mine I took, And felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook.