swear!" XXVIII. * 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, And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty, For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn, And on the deck, with unaccustom'd eye The captives gazing stood, and every one Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone. XXIX. • They were earth's purest children, voung and fair, With eyes the shrines of unawaken'd thought, And brows as bright as spring or morning, ere Dark time had there its evillegend wrought In characters of cloud which wither not.— 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 moon, Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did 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. CAN TO IX. I. • Ta at night we anchord 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. il. • 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 seemed 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 Doom'd to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile. 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, drown'd W. “We reach'd the port—alas! from many spirits The wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled, Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits From the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread, Upon the night's devouring darkness shed : Yet soon bright day will burst—even like a chasm Of fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead, Which wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm, To cleanse the fever'd world as with an earthquake's spasm Wi. • I walked through the great City then, but free From shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners And happy Maidens did encompass me; And like a subterranean wind that stirs Some forest among caves, the hopes and fears From every human soul, a murmur strange Made as I past; and many wept, with tears Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range, And half-extinguish'd words, which prophesied of change. Wii. • For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love, As one who from some mountain's pyramid, Points to the unrisen sun —the shades approve Ilis truth, and slee from every stream and grove. Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,— Wisdom, the mail of tried affections wove For many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill, Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will. Whi. • Some said I was a maniac wild and lost; Some, that I scarce had risen from the grave The Prophet's virgin bride, a heavenly ghost:— Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, Who had stolen human shape, and o'er the wave, The forest, and the mountain came;—some said I was the child of God, sent down to save Women from bonds and death, and on my head The burthen of their sins would frightfully be laid. iv. ... 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 eve, whose lightning once was death, nor fear, nor gain Could tempt one captive now to lock another's chain. | on Liberty—that name lived on the sunny flood. Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery. will. • The Tvrant knew his power was gone, but Fear, The nurse of Wengeance, bade him wait the event— That 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. MiW. “And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell From eats where law is made the slave of wrong, How Ilorious Athens in her splendour fell, Because her sons were free,_and that annong Mankind, the many to the few belong, ity leaven, 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. xW. • And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips They breathed on the enduring memory Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse; There was one teacher, who, necessity Hadarmed, with strength and wrong against mankind, His slave and his avenger aye to be ; That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind, And that the will of one was peace, and we xvii. • And gold was scatter'd through the streets ami-wome Flow'd at a hundred feasts within the wall. In vain! the steady towers in Heaven to aime As they were wont, nor at the priesio allLeft Plague her banquet in the Ethiops haul. Nor famine from the rich man's portal tae. Where at her ease she ever preys on all Who throng to kneel for food : nor fear nor same. flame. xWiii. a For gold was as a god whose faith began To fade, so that its worshippers were few. And Faith itself, which in the heart of mum Gives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, krew Its downfall, as the altars lonelier grew, Till the Priests stood alone within the fame; The shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew, And the cold sneers of calumny were vain The union of the free with discord's brand to stain. XIX. * The rest thou knowest–Lo! we two are here— We have survived a ruin wide and deep— Strange thoughts are mine.—I cannot grieve or fear, Sitting with thee upon this lonely steep I smile, though human love should make me weep. We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow, And I do feel a mighty calmness creep Over my heart, which can no longer borrow Its hues from chance or change, dark children of tominotto W. XX. ... We know not what will come—yet Laon, dearest, Cythna shall be the prophetess of love, Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest, To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove Within the homeless future's wintry grove; For 1 now, sitting thus beside thee, seem Even with thy breath and blood to live and move, And violence and wrong are as a dream Which rolls from stedfast truth an unreturning stream. 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 lis Scythian cave a savage train: Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again, Shedding soft dews from her otherial wings: Flowers on the mountains fruits over the Plain. And music on the waves and woods she fung | And love on all that lives, and calm on infec- to xvi. • ‘For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter." ** the sahject world to woman's will must bows ww.il. - oSpring of hope, and love, and wruth, and retres wind-winged emblem brighies best and fairs Whence comest than when, with dark winter*** The tears that fade in sunriv smiles titan shares" Sister of joy than ar, the child who wear= Thy mother's dwing smie. tender and sweet Thy mether Autumn, for whose grave thou to Fresh flowers and beams lar flowers wou font-toDisturbing not the leaves which are her winuint XXIII. • Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven, Surround the world.—We are their chosen slaves. Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven Truth's deathless germs to thought's remotest caves? Lo, Winter comes!—the grief of many graves, The frost of death, the tempest of the sword, The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves Statinate like ice at Faith, the enchanter's word, And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorr'd. xxIV. • The seeds are sleeping in the soil; meanwhile The tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey, Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile Because they cannot speak; and, day by day, The moon of wasting Science wanes away Among her stars, and in that darkness vast The sons of earth to their foul idols pray, And grey Priests triumph, and like blight or blast A shade of selfish care o'er human looks is cast. XXV. • This is the winter of the world ;—and here We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade, Expiring in the froze and fogby air.— Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who made The promise of its birth, even as the shade Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed As with the plumes of overshadowing wings, From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs. XW WI. • O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold Before this morn may on the world arise; Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold? Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes On thine own heart—it is a paradise Which everlasting spring has made its own, And while drear Winter fills the naked skies, Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh blown, Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one. XXVII. • In their own hearts the earnest of the hope Which made them great, the good will ever find; And though some envious shade may interlope Between the effect and it, one connes behind, Who aye the future to the past will bind— Necessity, whose sightless strength forever Evil with evil, good with tood must wind In bands of union, which no power may sever: They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never! XXVIII. • The good and mighty of departed ages Are in their graves, the innocent and free, Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages, Who leave the vesture of their majesty To adorn and clothe this naked world;—and we Are like to them—such perish, but they leave All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty, Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive To be a rule and law to ages that survive. XXIX. • So be the turf heap'd over our remains Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot, Whate'er it be, when in these mingling veins The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought Pass from our being, or be number'd not Among the things that are; let those who come Behind, for whom our stedfast will has brought A calm inheritance, a glorious doom, Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb. XXX. “Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, Our happiness, and all that we have been, Immortally must live, and burn and move, When we shall be no more;—the world has seen A type of peace; and as some most serene And lovely spot to a poor maniac's eye, After long years, some sweet and moving scene Of youthful hope returning suddenly, Quells his long inadness—thus man shall remember thee. XXXI. “And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us, As worms devour the dead, and near the throne And at the altar, most accepted thus Shall sneers and curses be;—what we have done None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known; That record shall remain, when they must pass Who built their pride on its oblivion; And fame, in human hope which sculptured was, Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass. XYXIi. • The while we two, beloved, must depart, And Sense and Reason, those inchanters fair, Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair: These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air, Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep In joy;-but senseless death—a ruin dark and deep! XXXIII. • These are blind fancies—reason cannot know What sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive; There is delusion in the world—and woe, And fear, and pain—we know not whence we live, Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give Their being to each plant, and star, and beast, Or even these thoughts:—Come near me! I do weave A chain I cannot break—I am possest With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast. XXXIV. * Yes, yes—thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm— O! willingly beloved, would these eyes, Might they no more drink being from thy form, Even as to sleep whence we again arise, Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee— Yes, Love when wisdom fails makes Cythna wise: Darkness and death, if death be true, must be Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoy'd with thee. |