For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks When from its sea of death to kill and burn, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? 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, Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die, With divine wand traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 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 In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay; 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. 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 Answered Pity from her cave; Death grew pale within the grave, And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then, Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers Rose: armies mingled in obscure array, Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, towers. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Ætna, and the cold Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: They cry, Be dim; ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us. Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile And they dissolve; but Spain's were links of steel, Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. Twins of a single destiny! appeal To the eternal years enthroned before us, In the dim West; impress us from a seal, All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead, Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, King-deluded Germany, His dead spirit lives in thee. Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! Thou island of eternity! thou shrine Where desolation clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress O, that the free would stamp the impious name Were as a serpent's path, which the light air Lift the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; To set thine armèd heel on this reluctant worm. O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle Into the hell from which it first was hurled, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; Till human thoughts might kneel alone Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! ing dew From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, Were stript of their thin masks and various hue And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, Till in the nakedness of false and true They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. He who taught men to vanquish whatsoever He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. Amplest millions at their need, And power in thought be as the tree within the seed? O, what if Art, an ardent intercessor, Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, And cries: Give me, thy child, dominion Over all height and depth? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousand fold for one. Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car |