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 XII. Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then, Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, 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 bowers Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. XIII. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: 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, All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. XIV. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead, Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant's head; Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, His dead spirit lives in thee. Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! Where desolation clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. XV. O, that the free would stamp the impious name Of KING into the dust! or write it there, So that this blot upon the page of fame Ye the oracle have heard: Lift the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, Into a mass, irrefragably firm, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred; To set thine armèd heel on this reluctant worm. XVI. O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Till human thoughts might kneel alone Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! 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. XVII. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Can be between the cradle and the grave Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour! If on his own high will a willing slave, Ee is ironed he oppression and he oppressor. Ta farian dicthe ad fed Angles milliers at their need And power in ought be as de ree within the seed? New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot? O, Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought |