VI. "What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood

Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood The Form he saw and worshipp'd was his own, His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown; And 't were an innocent dream, but that a faith Nursed by fear's dew of poison, grows thereon, And that men say, that Power has chosen Death On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath. VII.

"Men say that they themselves have heard and

seen,

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

VIIL

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 fix'd a stain, Which, like a plague, a burthen, and a bane, Clung to him while he lived;-for love and hate, Virtue and vice, they say, are difference vainThe will of strength is right-this human state Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.

XII.

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

XIII.

"But children near their parents tremble now,
Because they must obey-one rules another,
And as one Power rules both high and low,
So man is made the captive of his brother,
And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,
Above the Highest-and those fountain-cells,
Whence love yet flow'd when faith had choked all

other,

Are darken'd-Woman as the bond-slave, dwells Of man, a slave; and life is poison'd in its wells.

XIV.

"Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave A lasting chain for his own slavery;

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

XV.

"Woman!-she is his slave, she has become A thing I weep to speak-the child of scorn, The outcast of a desolated home,

Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn Channels upon her cheeks, which smiles adorn, As calm decks the false Ocean:-well ye know What Woman is, for none of Woman born Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe, Which ever from the oppress'd to the oppressors flow.

XVI.

"This need not be; ye might arise, and will That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory;

That love, which none may bind, be free to fill The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary With crime, be quench'd and die.-Yon promon

tory

Even now eclipses the descending moon!— Dungeons and palaces are transitory— High temples fade like vapor-Man alone Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

XVII.

"Let all be free and equal!—from your hearts I feel an echo; through my inmost frame Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it dartsWhence 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, The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold

XVIII.

"Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood

Forth on the earth? or bring ye steel and gold,
That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude?
Or from the famish'd poor, pale, weak, and cold,
Bear ye the earnings of their toil? unfold!
Speak! are your hands in slaughter's sanguine hue
Stain'd 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.

XIX.

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

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

XXIV.

"Yes-I must speak-my secret should have perish'd

Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherish'd, But that no human bosom can withstand Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command Of thy keen eyes:-yes, we are wretched slaves Who from their wonted loves and native land Are réft, and bear o'er the dividing waves The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.

XXV.

We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest, Among the daughters of those mountains lone, We drag them there, where all things best and

rarest

Are stain'd 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 On mine with light of mutual love have shoneShe is my life,-I am but as the shade

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

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

"They were earth's purest children, young and farr With eyes the shrines of unawaken'd 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 The change was like a dream to them; but soon They knew the glory of their alter'd lot, In the bright wisdom of youth's breathless noon, Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms lid

attune

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

CANTO IX.

I.

"THAT night we anchor'd in a woody bay,
And sleep no more around us dared to hover
Than, when all doubt and fear has past away,
It shades the couch of some unresting lover,
Whose heart is now at rest: thus night past over
In mutual joy:-around, a forest grew

Of poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover
The waning stars prankt in the waters blue,
And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.
II.

"The joyous mariners, and each free maiden,
Now brought from the deep forest many a bough,
With woodland spoil most innocently laden;
Soon wreaths of budding foliage seem'd to flow
Over the mast and sails, the stern and prow
Were canopied with blooming boughs,-the while
On the slant sun's path o'er the waves we go
Rejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle

III.

"The many ships spotting the dark-blue deep With snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh, In fear and wonder; and on every steep Thousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry, Like earth's own voice lifted unconquerably To all her children, the unbounded mirth, The glorious joy of thy name-Liberty! They heard!-As o'er the mountains of the earth From peak to peak leap on the beams of morning's birth:

IV.

"So from that cry over the boundless hills, Sudden was caught one universal sound, Like a volcano's voice, whose thunder fills Remotest skies, such glorious madness found A path through human hearts with stream which drown'd

Its struggling fears and cares, dark custom's brood. They knew not whence it came, but felt around A wide contagion pour'd-they call'd aloud On Liberty-that name lived on the sunny flood.

IX.

"But soon my human words found sympathy In human hearts: the purest and the best, As friend with friend, made common cause with me, And they were few, but resolute;—the rest, Ere yet success the enterprise had blest, Leagued with me in their hearts;-their meals, their slumber,

Their hourly occupations were possest

By hopes which I had arm'd to overnumber, Those hosts of meaner cares, which life's strong wings

encumber.

X.

"But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken From their cold, careless, willing slavery, Sought me one truth their dreary prison has

shaken,

They look'd around, and lo! they became free! Their many tyrants sitting desolately In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; For wrath's red fire had wither'd in the eye, Whose lightning once was death,-nor fear, nor gain Could tempt one captive now to lock another's chain.

XI.

Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasp'd them round,

Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt In the white furnace; and a vision'd swound, A pause of hope and awe the City bound, Which, like the silence of a tempest's birth, When in its awful shadow it has wound The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth, Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leapt forth.

XII.

"Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky, By winds from distant regions meeting there, In the high name of truth and liberty Around the City millions gather'd were, By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair; Words, which the lore of truth in hues of grace Array'd, thine own wild songs which in the air Like homeless odors floated, and the name Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipp'd in flame.

XIII.

but Fear,

"The Tyrant knew his power was gone, The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the eventThat perfidy and custom, gold and prayer, And whatsoe'er, when force is impotent, To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent, Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway. Therefore throughout the streets the Priests he sent To curse the rebels.-To their gods did they For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way. XIV.

"And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell From seats where law is made the slave of wrong, How glorious Athens in her splendor fell, Because her sons were free,--and that among Mankind, the many to the few belong, By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity. They said, that age was truth, and that the young Marr'd with wild hopes the peace of slavery, With which old times and men had quell'd the vain and free.

XXI.

"The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds Over the earth,-next come the snows, and rain, And frost, and storms, which dreary Winter leads Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train. Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again, Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings; Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, And music on the waves and woods she flings, And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things

XXII.

"O Spring! of hope, and love. and youth, and gladness Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest! Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter's

sadness

The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest? Sister of joy! thou art the child who wearest Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet; Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,

Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet