year.

XXXIII.

A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpes oft

Were quench'd in a relapse of wildering dreams,
Yet still methought we sail'd, until aloft
The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams
Of morn descended on the ocean-streams,
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,

Fill in the azure East darkness again was piled.

IV.

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-color'd as the snake
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?

"Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds
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
Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw
This hope, compels all spirits to obey,

stood;

X.

And that the multitude was gathering wide; His spirit leap'd 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 Was as a sword of truth-young Laon's name Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung Hymns of triumphant joy our scatter'd tribes among.

array.

XVI.

"For I have been thy passive instrument" (As thus the old man spake, his countenance Gleam'd 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-aye, thou didst rear That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance, Nor change may not extinguish, and my share Of good, was o'er the world its gather'd beams to beur

XVII.

"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 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 Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

XVIII.

"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, 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

XIX.

"All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled, Loosen'd her weeping then; nor could be found One human hand to harm her—unassail'd Therefore she walks through the great City, veil'd In virtue's adamantine eloquence,

'Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mail'd, And blending in the smiles of that defence, The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.

XX.

"The wild-eyed women throng around her path: '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 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.

XXI.

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

XXII.

"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,
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,

And cast the vote of love in hope's abandon'd urn.

XXIII.

"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,

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 trem-
bling thrones.

XXIV.

"Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed
The free cannot forbear—the Queen of Slaves,
The hoodwink'd Angel of the blind and dead,
Custom, with iron mace points to the graves
When her own standard desolately waves
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.
XXV.

"There is a plain beneath the City's wall,
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:
He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,

And that his power hath past away, doth knowWhy pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow

XXVI.

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

move.

XXVII.

"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
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 Clasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer!

XXVIII.

"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 Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyesArise, 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 look'd upon the depth of that reposing lake

VI.

Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes We talk'd, a sound of sweeping conflict spread, As from the earth did suddenly arise;

From every tent, roused by that clamor dread, Our bands outsprung and seized their arms-we sped

Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far, Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead Stabb'd in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war, The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.

VII.

Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child
Who brings them food, when winter false and fair
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

The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky, Seem'd sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory. VIII.

In sudden panic those false murderers fled,
Like insect tribes before the northern gale:
But swifter still, our hosts encompassed
Their shatter'd ranks, and in a craggy vale,
Where even their fierce despair might naught avail,
Hemm'd them around!-and then revenge and
fear

Made the high virtue of the patriots fail:
One pointed at his foe the mortal spear-

I rush'd before its point, and cried, "Forbear, forbear!"

And one whose spear had pierced me, lean'd beside

With quivering lips and humid eyes;-and all Seem'd like some brothers on a journey wide 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 Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day. XIV.

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 Link'd by a jealous interchange of good; A glorious pageant, more magnificent Than kingly slaves array'd in gold and blood; When they return from carnage, and are sent In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement.

XV.

Afar, the City walls were throng'd 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 approach'd a shout of joyance sprung At once from all the crowd, as if the vast And peopled Earth its boundless skies among The sudden clamor of delight had cast, When from before its face some general wreck had past.

XVI.

Our armies through the City's hundred gates Were pour'd, 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 past through the calm sunny air, A thousand flower-inwoven crowns were shed, 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.

XVII.

I trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision:
Those bloody bands so lately reconciled,
Were, ever as they went, by the contrition
Of anger turn'd 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,

And did with soft attraction ever draw
Their spirits to the love of freedom's equal law