The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; Into the shadow of her pinions wide Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves On the unapprehensive wild The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Ægean main V. Athens arose: a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision By thunder-zonèd winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! Through the caverns of the past; Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast : A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew, Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; will 1 ad oracle One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. VIII. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Teaching the woods and waves, and desart rocks, To talk in echoes sad and stern, Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep. When from its sea of death to kill and burn, The Galilean serpent forth did creep, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. IX. A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: And many a warrior-peopled citadel, Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty ; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep, And burst around their walls, like idle foam, Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die, With divine wand traced on our earthly home X. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror Of the world's wolves! thou bearer of the quiver, Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-wingèd Error, As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever In the calm regions of the orient day! Luther caught thy wakening glance, Like lightning, from his leaden lance Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen, In songs whose music cannot pass away, Though it must flow for ever: not unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. XI. The eager hours and unreluctant years As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their multitude, And cried aloud, Liberty! Indignation |