No More Learning

A copy, with
several pages missing, of the "Preface", the Dedication", and "Canto
1" of "Laon and Cythna" is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the
Bodleian. For a full collation of this manuscript see Mr. C. D.
Locock's "Examination of the Shelley Manuscripts at the Bodleian
Library". Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903. Two manuscript fragments from
the Hunt papers are also extant: one (twenty-four lines) in the
possession of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, another (9 23 9 to 29 6) in that of
Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C. B. See "The Shelley Library", pages 83-86, for
an account of the copy of "Laon" upon which Shelley worked in revising
for publication. ]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The Poem which I now present to the world is an attempt from which I
scarcely dare to expect success, and in which a writer of established
fame might fail without disgrace. It is an experiment on the temper of
the public mind, as to how far a thirst for a happier condition of
moral and political society survives, among the enlightened and
refined, the tempests which have shaken the age in which we live. I
have sought to enlist the harmony of metrical language, the ethereal
combinations of the fancy, the rapid and subtle transitions of human
passion, all those elements which essentially compose a Poem, in the
cause of a liberal and comprehensive morality; and in the view of
kindling within the bosoms of my readers a virtuous enthusiasm for
those doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith and hope in
something good, which neither violence nor misrepresentation nor
prejudice can ever totally extinguish among mankind.

For this purpose I have chosen a story of human passion in its most
universal character, diversified with moving and romantic adventures,
and appealing, in contempt of all artificial opinions or institutions,
to the common sympathies of every human breast. I have made no attempt
to recommend the motives which I would substitute for those at present
governing mankind, by methodical and systematic argument. I would only
awaken the feelings, so that the reader should see the beauty of true
virtue, and be incited to those inquiries which have led to my moral
and political creed, and that of some of the sublimest intellects in
the world. The Poem therefore (with the exception of the first canto,
which is purely introductory) is narrative, not didactic. It is a
succession of pictures illustrating the growth and progress of
individual mind aspiring after excellence, and devoted to the love of
mankind; its influence in refining and making pure the most daring and
uncommon impulses of the imagination, the understanding, and the
senses; its impatience at 'all the oppressions which are done under
the sun;' its tendency to awaken public hope, and to enlighten and
improve mankind; the rapid effects of the application of that
tendency; the awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and
degradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the
bloodless dethronement of their oppressors, and the unveiling of the
religious frauds by which they had been deluded into submission; the
tranquillity of successful patriotism, and the universal toleration
and benevolence of true philanthropy; the treachery and barbarity of
hired soldiers; vice not the object of punishment and hatred, but
kindness and pity; the faithlessness of tyrants; the confederacy of
the Rulers of the World and the restoration of the expelled Dynasty by
foreign arms; the massacre and extermination of the Patriots, and the
victory of established power; the consequences of legitimate
despotism,--civil war, famine, plague, superstition, and an utter
extinction of the domestic affections; the judicial murder of the
advocates of Liberty; the temporary triumph of oppression, that secure
earnest of its final and inevitable fall; the transient nature of
ignorance and error and the eternity of genius and virtue. Such is the
series of delineations of which the Poem consists. And, if the lofty
passions with which it has been my scope to distinguish this story
shall not excite in the reader a generous impulse, an ardent thirst
for excellence, an interest profound and strong such as belongs to no
meaner desires, let not the failure be imputed to a natural unfitness
for human sympathy in these sublime and animating themes. It is the
business of the Poet to communicate to others the pleasure and the
enthusiasm arising out of those images and feelings in the vivid
presence of which within his own mind consists at once his inspiration
and his reward.

The panic which, like an epidemic transport, seized upon all classes
of men during the excesses consequent upon the French Revolution, is
gradually giving place to sanity. It has ceased to be believed that
whole generations of mankind ought to consign themselves to a hopeless
inheritance of ignorance and misery, because a nation of men who had
been dupes and slaves for centuries were incapable of conducting
themselves with the wisdom and tranquillity of freemen so soon as some
of their fetters were partially loosened. That their conduct could not
have been marked by any other characters than ferocity and
thoughtlessness is the historical fact from which liberty derives all
its recommendations, and falsehood the worst features of its
deformity. There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears
the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are
past. Methinks, those who now live have survived an age of despair.

The French Revolution may be considered as one of those manifestations
of a general state of feeling among civilised mankind produced by a
defect of correspondence between the knowledge existing in society and
the improvement or gradual abolition of political institutions. The
year 1788 may be assumed as the epoch of one of the most important
crises produced by this feeling. The sympathies connected with that
event extended to every bosom. The most generous and amiable natures
were those which participated the most extensively in these
sympathies. But such a degree of unmingled good was expected as it was
impossible to realise. If the Revolution had been in every respect
prosperous, then misrule and superstition would lose half their claims
to our abhorrence, as fetters which the captive can unlock with the
slightest motion of his fingers, and which do not eat with poisonous
rust into the soul. The revulsion occasioned by the atrocities of the
demagogues, and the re-establishment of successive tyrannies in
France, was terrible, and felt in the remotest corner of the civilised
world. Could they listen to the plea of reason who had groaned under
the calamities of a social state according to the provisions of which
one man riots in luxury whilst another famishes for want of bread? Can
he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become
liberal-minded, forbearing, and independent? This is the consequence
of the habits of a state of society to be produced by resolute
perseverance and indefatigable hope, and long-suffering and
long-believing courage, and the systematic efforts of generations of
men of intellect and virtue. Such is the lesson which experience
teaches now. But, on the first reverses of hope in the progress of
French liberty, the sanguine eagerness for good overleaped the
solution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the
unexpectedness of their result. Thus, many of the most ardent and
tender-hearted of the worshippers of public good have been morally
ruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored appeared
to show as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes.
Hence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age
in which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously
finds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This
influence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness
of the minds from which it flows. Metaphysics (I ought to except sir
W. Drummond's "Academical Questions"; a volume of very acute and
powerful metaphysical criticism. ), and inquiries into moral and
political science, have become little else than vain attempts to
revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus
(It is remarkable, as a symptom of the revival of public hope, that
Mr. Malthus has assigned, in the later editions of his work, an
indefinite dominion to moral restraint over the principle of
population. This concession answers all the inferences from his
doctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the "Essay on
Population" to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of
"Political Justice". ), calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind
into a security of everlasting triumph. Our works of fiction and
poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But
mankind appear to me to be emerging from their trance. I am aware,
methinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have
composed the following Poem.

I do not presume to enter into competition with our greatest
contemporary Poets. Yet I am unwilling to tread in the footsteps of
any who have preceded me. I have sought to avoid the imitation of any
style of language or versification peculiar to the original minds of
which it is the character; designing that, even if what I have
produced be worthless, it should still be properly my own. Nor have I
permitted any system relating to mere words to divert the attention of
the reader, from whatever interest I may have succeeded in creating,
to my own ingenuity in contriving to disgust them according to the
rules of criticism. I have simply clothed my thoughts in what appeared
to me the most obvious and appropriate language. A person familiar
with nature, and with the most celebrated productions of the human
mind, can scarcely err in following the instinct, with respect to
selection of language, produced by that familiarity.

There is an education peculiarly fitted for a Poet, without which
genius and sensibility can hardly fill the circle of their capacities.
No education, indeed, can entitle to this appellation a dull and
unobservant mind, or one, though neither dull nor unobservant, in
which the channels of communication between thought and expression
have been obstructed or closed. How far it is my fortune to belong to
either of the latter classes I cannot know. I aspire to be something
better. The circumstances of my accidental education have been
favourable to this ambition. I have been familiar from boyhood with
mountains and lakes and the sea, and the solitude of forests: Danger,
which sports upon the brink of precipices, has been my playmate. I
have trodden the glaciers of the Alps, and lived under the eye of Mont
Blanc. I have been a wanderer among distant fields. I have sailed down
mighty rivers, and seen the sun rise and set, and the stars come
forth, whilst I have sailed night and day down a rapid stream among
mountains. I have seen populous cities, and have watched the passions
which rise and spread, and sink and change, amongst assembled
multitudes of men. I have seen the theatre of the more visible ravages
of tyranny and war, cities and villages reduced to scattered groups of
black and roofless houses, and the naked inhabitants sitting famished
upon their desolated thresholds. I have conversed with living men of
genius. The poetry of ancient Greece and Rome, and modern Italy, and
our own country, has been to me, like external nature, a passion and
an enjoyment. Such are the sources from which the materials for the
imagery of my Poem have been drawn. I have considered Poetry in its
most comprehensive sense; and have read the Poets and the Historians
and the Metaphysicians (In this sense there may be such a thing as
perfectibility in works of fiction, notwithstanding the concession
often made by the advocates of human improvement, that perfectibility
is a term applicable only to science. ) whose writings have been
accessible to me, and have looked upon the beautiful and majestic
scenery of the earth, as common sources of those elements which it is
the province of the Poet to embody and combine. Yet the experience and
the feelings to which I refer do not in themselves constitute men
Poets, but only prepares them to be the auditors of those who are. How
far I shall be found to possess that more essential attribute of
Poetry, the power of awakening in others sensations like those which
animate my own bosom, is that which, to speak sincerely, I know not;
and which, with an acquiescent and contented spirit, I expect to be
taught by the effect which I shall produce upon those whom I now
address.

I have avoided, as I have said before, the imitation of any
contemporary style. But there must be a resemblance, which does not
depend upon their own will, between all the writers of any particular
age. They cannot escape from subjection to a common influence which
arises out of an infinite combination of circumstances belonging to
the times in which they live; though each is in a degree the author of
the very influence by which his being is thus pervaded. Thus, the
tragic poets of the age of Pericles; the Italian revivers of ancient
learning; those mighty intellects of our own country that succeeded
the Reformation, the translators of the Bible, Shakespeare, Spenser,
the Dramatists of the reign of Elizabeth, and Lord Bacon (Milton
stands alone in the age which he illumined. ); the colder spirits of
the interval that succeeded;--all resemble each other, and differ from
every other in their several classes. In this view of things, Ford can
no more be called the imitator of Shakespeare than Shakespeare the
imitator of Ford. There were perhaps few other points of resemblance
between these two men than that which the universal and inevitable
influence of their age produced. And this is an influence which
neither the meanest scribbler nor the sublimest genius of any era can
escape; and which I have not attempted to escape.

I have adopted the stanza of Spenser (a measure inexpressibly
beautiful), not because I consider it a finer model of poetical
harmony than the blank verse of Shakespeare and Milton, but because in
the latter there is no shelter for mediocrity; you must either succeed
or fail. This perhaps an aspiring spirit should desire. But I was
enticed also by the brilliancy and magnificence of sound which a mind
that has been nourished upon musical thoughts can produce by a just
and harmonious arrangement of the pauses of this measure. Yet there
will be found some instances where I have completely failed in this
attempt, and one, which I here request the reader to consider as an
erratum, where there is left, most inadvertently, an alexandrine in
the middle of a stanza.

But in this, as in every other respect, I have written fearlessly. It
is the misfortune of this age that its Writers, too thoughtless of
immortality, are exquisitely sensible to temporary praise or blame.
They write with the fear of Reviews before their eyes. This system of
criticism sprang up in that torpid interval when Poetry was not.
Poetry, and the art which professes to regulate and limit its powers,
cannot subsist together. Longinus could not have been the contemporary
of Homer, nor Boileau of Horace. Yet this species of criticism never
presumed to assert an understanding of its own; it has always, unlike
true science, followed, not preceded, the opinion of mankind, and
would even now bribe with worthless adulation some of our greatest
Poets to impose gratuitous fetters on their own imaginations, and
become unconscious accomplices in the daily murder of all genius
either not so aspiring or not so fortunate as their own. I have sought
therefore to write, as I believe that Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton
wrote, with an utter disregard of anonymous censure. I am certain that
calumny and misrepresentation, though it may move me to compassion,
cannot disturb my peace. I shall understand the expressive silence of
those sagacious enemies who dare not trust themselves to speak. I
shall endeavour to extract, from the midst of insult and contempt and
maledictions, those admonitions which may tend to correct whatever
imperfections such censurers may discover in this my first serious
appeal to the Public. If certain Critics were as clear-sighted as they
are malignant, how great would be the benefit to be derived from their
virulent writings! As it is, I fear I shall be malicious enough to be
amused with their paltry tricks and lame invectives. Should the Public
judge that my composition is worthless, I shall indeed bow before the
tribunal from which Milton received his crown of immortality, and
shall seek to gather, if I live, strength from that defeat, which may
nerve me to some new enterprise of thought which may not be worthless.
I cannot conceive that Lucretius, when he meditated that poem whose
doctrines are yet the basis of our metaphysical knowledge, and whose
eloquence has been the wonder of mankind, wrote in awe of such censure
as the hired sophists of the impure and superstitious noblemen of Rome
might affix to what he should produce. It was at the period when
Greece was led captive and Asia made tributary to the Republic, fast
verging itself to slavery and ruin, that a multitude of Syrian
captives, bigoted to the worship of their obscene Ashtaroth, and the
unworthy successors of Socrates and Zeno, found there a precarious
subsistence by administering, under the name of freedmen, to the vices
and vanities of the great. These wretched men were skilled to plead,
with a superficial but plausible set of sophisms, in favour of that
contempt for virtue which is the portion of slaves, and that faith in
portents, the most fatal substitute for benevolence in the
imaginations of men, which, arising from the enslaved communities of
the East, then first began to overwhelm the western nations in its
stream. Were these the kind of men whose disapprobation the wise and
lofty-minded Lucretius should have regarded with a salutary awe? The
latest and perhaps the meanest of those who follow in his footsteps
would disdain to hold life on such conditions.

The Poem now presented to the Public occupied little more than six
months in the composition. That period has been devoted to the task
with unremitting ardour and enthusiasm. I have exercised a watchful
and earnest criticism on my work as it grew under my hands. I would
willingly have sent it forth to the world with that perfection which
long labour and revision is said to bestow. But I found that, if I
should gain something in exactness by this method, I might lose much
of the newness and energy of imagery and language as it flowed fresh
from my mind. And, although the mere composition occupied no more than
six months, the thoughts thus arranged were slowly gathered in as many
years.

I trust that the reader will carefully distinguish between those
opinions which have a dramatic propriety in reference to the
characters which they are designed to elucidate, and such as are
properly my own. The erroneous and degrading idea which men have
conceived of a Supreme Being, for instance, is spoken against, but not
the Supreme Being itself. The belief which some superstitious persons
whom I have brought upon the stage entertain of the Deity, as
injurious to the character of his benevolence, is widely different
from my own. In recommending also a great and important change in the
spirit which animates the social institutions of mankind, I have
avoided all flattery to those violent and malignant passions of our
nature which are ever on the watch to mingle with and to alloy the
most beneficial innovations. There is no quarter given to Revenge, or
Envy, or Prejudice. Love is celebrated everywhere as the sole law
which should govern the moral world.


DEDICATION.

There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is: there's not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law. --CHAPMAN.

TO MARY -- --.

1.
So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become _5
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.

2.
The toil which stole from thee so many an hour, _10
Is ended,--and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Waterfalls leap among wild islands green, _15
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen;
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.

3.
Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. _20
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirit's sleep. A fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
From the near schoolroom, voices that, alas! _25
Were but one echo from a world of woes--
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

4.
And then I clasped my hands and looked around--
--But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground-- _30
So without shame I spake:--'I will be wise,
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power, for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannise
Without reproach or check. ' I then controlled _35
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.

5.
And from that hour did I with earnest thought
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore;
Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
I cared to learn, but from that secret store _40
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind;
Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more
Within me, till there came upon my mind
A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined. _45

6.
Alas, that love should be a blight and snare
To those who seek all sympathies in one! --
Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone:-- _50
Yet never found I one not false to me,
Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone
Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be
Aught but a lifeless clod, until revived by thee.

7.
Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart _55
Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,
And walked as free as light the clouds among, _60
Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain
From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung
To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long!

8.
No more alone through the world's wilderness,
Although I trod the paths of high intent, _65
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went. --
There is the wisdom of a stern content
When Poverty can blight the just and good,
When Infamy dares mock the innocent, _70
And cherished friends turn with the multitude
To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

9.
Now has descended a serener hour,
And with inconstant fortune, friends return;
Though suffering leaves the knowledge and the power _75
Which says:--Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.
And from thy side two gentle babes are born
To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we
Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn;
And these delights, and thou, have been to me _80
The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.

10.
Is it that now my inexperienced fingers
But strike the prelude of a loftier strain?
Or, must the lyre on which my spirit lingers
Soon pause in silence, ne'er to sound again, _85
Though it might shake the Anarch Custom's reign,
And charm the minds of men to Truth's own sway
Holier than was Amphion's? I would fain
Reply in hope--but I am worn away,
And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey. _90

11.
And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak:
Time may interpret to his silent years.
Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek,
And in the light thine ample forehead wears,
And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears, _95
And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy
Is whispered, to subdue my fondest fears:
And through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning internally.

12.
They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth, _100
Of glorious parents thou aspiring Child.
I wonder not--for One then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory; still her fame _105
Shines on thee, through the tempests dark and wild
Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim
The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name.

13.
One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit,
Which was the echo of three thousand years; _110
And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it,
As some lone man who in a desert hears
The music of his home:--unwonted fears
Fell on the pale oppressors of our race,
And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted cares, _115
Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space
Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place.

14.
Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind!
If there must be no response to my cry--
If men must rise and stamp with fury blind _120
On his pure name who loves them,--thou and I,
Sweet friend! can look from our tranquillity
Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night,--
Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by
Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight, _125
That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.


NOTES.
_54 cloaking edition 1818. See notes at end.


CANTO 1.

1.
When the last hope of trampled France had failed
Like a brief dream of unremaining glory,
From visions of despair I rose, and scaled
The peak of an aerial promontory, _130
Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary;
And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken
Each cloud, and every wave:--but transitory
The calm; for sudden, the firm earth was shaken,
As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken. _135

2.
So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder
Burst in far peals along the waveless deep,
When, gathering fast, around, above, and under,
Long trains of tremulous mist began to creep,
Until their complicating lines did steep _140
The orient sun in shadow:--not a sound
Was heard; one horrible repose did keep
The forests and the floods, and all around
Darkness more dread than night was poured upon the ground.

3.
Hark! 'tis the rushing of a wind that sweeps _145
Earth and the ocean. See! the lightnings yawn
Deluging Heaven with fire, and the lashed deeps
Glitter and boil beneath: it rages on,
One mighty stream, whirlwind and waves upthrown,
Lightning, and hail, and darkness eddying by. _150
There is a pause--the sea-birds, that were gone
Into their caves to shriek, come forth, to spy
What calm has fall'n on earth, what light is in the sky.

4.
For, where the irresistible storm had cloven
That fearful darkness, the blue sky was seen _155
Fretted with many a fair cloud interwoven
Most delicately, and the ocean green,
Beneath that opening spot of blue serene,
Quivered like burning emerald; calm was spread
On all below; but far on high, between _160
Earth and the upper air, the vast clouds fled,
Countless and swift as leaves on autumn's tempest shed.

5.
For ever, as the war became more fierce
Between the whirlwinds and the rack on high,
That spot grew more serene; blue light did pierce _165
The woof of those white clouds, which seem to lie
Far, deep, and motionless; while through the sky
The pallid semicircle of the moon
Passed on, in slow and moving majesty;
Its upper horn arrayed in mists, which soon _170
But slowly fled, like dew beneath the beams of noon.

6.
I could not choose but gaze; a fascination
Dwelt in that moon, and sky, and clouds, which drew
My fancy thither, and in expectation
Of what I knew not, I remained:--the hue _175
Of the white moon, amid that heaven so blue,
Suddenly stained with shadow did appear;
A speck, a cloud, a shape, approaching grew,
Like a great ship in the sun's sinking sphere
Beheld afar at sea, and swift it came anear. _180

7.
Even like a bark, which from a chasm of mountains,
Dark, vast and overhanging, on a river
Which there collects the strength of all its fountains,
Comes forth, whilst with the speed its frame doth quiver,
Sails, oars and stream, tending to one endeavour; _185
So, from that chasm of light a winged Form
On all the winds of heaven approaching ever
Floated, dilating as it came; the storm
Pursued it with fierce blasts, and lightnings swift and warm.

8.
A course precipitous, of dizzy speed, _190
Suspending thought and breath; a monstrous sight!
For in the air do I behold indeed
An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight:--
And now, relaxing its impetuous flight,
Before the aerial rock on which I stood, _195
The Eagle, hovering, wheeled to left and right,
And hung with lingering wings over the flood,
And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude.

9.
A shaft of light upon its wings descended,
And every golden feather gleamed therein-- _200
Feather and scale, inextricably blended.
The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin
Shone through the plumes its coils were twined within
By many a swoln and knotted fold, and high
And far, the neck, receding lithe and thin, _205
Sustained a crested head, which warily
Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's steadfast eye.

10.
Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling
With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed
Incessantly--sometimes on high concealing _210
Its lessening orbs, sometimes as if it failed,
Drooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed,
And casting back its eager head, with beak
And talon unremittingly assailed
The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek _215
Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak.

11.
What life, what power, was kindled and arose
Within the sphere of that appalling fray!
For, from the encounter of those wondrous foes,
A vapour like the sea's suspended spray _220
Hung gathered; in the void air, far away,
Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap,
Where'er the Eagle's talons made their way,
Like sparks into the darkness;--as they sweep,
Blood stains the snowy foam of the tumultuous deep. _225

12.
Swift chances in that combat--many a check,
And many a change, a dark and wild turmoil;
Sometimes the Snake around his enemy's neck
Locked in stiff rings his adamantine coil,
Until the Eagle, faint with pain and toil, _230
Remitted his strong flight, and near the sea
Languidly fluttered, hopeless so to foil
His adversary, who then reared on high
His red and burning crest, radiant with victory.

13.
Then on the white edge of the bursting surge, _235
Where they had sunk together, would the Snake
Relax his suffocating grasp, and scourge
The wind with his wild writhings; for to break
That chain of torment, the vast bird would shake
The strength of his unconquerable wings _240
As in despair, and with his sinewy neck,
Dissolve in sudden shock those linked rings--
Then soar, as swift as smoke from a volcano springs.

14.
Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength,
Thus long, but unprevailing:--the event _245
Of that portentous fight appeared at length:
Until the lamp of day was almost spent
It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent,
Hung high that mighty Serpent, and at last
Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent _250
With clang of wings and scream the Eagle passed,
Heavily borne away on the exhausted blast.

15.
And with it fled the tempest, so that ocean
And earth and sky shone through the atmosphere--
Only, 'twas strange to see the red commotion _255
Of waves like mountains o'er the sinking sphere
Of sunset sweep, and their fierce roar to hear
Amid the calm: down the steep path I wound
To the sea-shore--the evening was most clear
And beautiful, and there the sea I found _260
Calm as a cradled child in dreamless slumber bound.

16.
There was a Woman, beautiful as morning,
Sitting beneath the rocks, upon the sand
Of the waste sea--fair as one flower adorning
An icy wilderness; each delicate hand _265
Lay crossed upon her bosom, and the band
Of her dark hair had fall'n, and so she sate
Looking upon the waves; on the bare strand
Upon the sea-mark a small boat did wait,
Fair as herself, like Love by Hope left desolate. _270

17.
It seemed that this fair Shape had looked upon
That unimaginable fight, and now
That her sweet eyes were weary of the sun,
As brightly it illustrated her woe;
For in the tears which silently to flow _275
Paused not, its lustre hung: she watching aye
The foam-wreaths which the faint tide wove below
Upon the spangled sands, groaned heavily,
And after every groan looked up over the sea.

18.
And when she saw the wounded Serpent make _280
His path between the waves, her lips grew pale,
Parted, and quivered; the tears ceased to break
From her immovable eyes; no voice of wail
Escaped her; but she rose, and on the gale
Loosening her star-bright robe and shadowy hair _285
Poured forth her voice; the caverns of the vale
That opened to the ocean, caught it there,
And filled with silver sounds the overflowing air.

19.
She spake in language whose strange melody
Might not belong to earth. I heard alone, _290
What made its music more melodious be,
The pity and the love of every tone;
But to the Snake those accents sweet were known
His native tongue and hers; nor did he beat
The hoar spray idly then, but winding on _295
Through the green shadows of the waves that meet
Near to the shore, did pause beside her snowy feet.

20.
Then on the sands the Woman sate again,
And wept and clasped her hands, and all between,
Renewed the unintelligible strain _300
Of her melodious voice and eloquent mien;
And she unveiled her bosom, and the green
And glancing shadows of the sea did play
O'er its marmoreal depth:--one moment seen,
For ere the next, the Serpent did obey _305
Her voice, and, coiled in rest in her embrace it lay.

21.
Then she arose, and smiled on me with eyes
Serene yet sorrowing, like that planet fair,
While yet the daylight lingereth in the skies
Which cleaves with arrowy beams the dark-red air, _310
And said: 'To grieve is wise, but the despair
Was weak and vain which led thee here from sleep:
This shalt thou know, and more, if thou dost dare
With me and with this Serpent, o'er the deep,
A voyage divine and strange, companionship to keep. ' _315

22.
Her voice was like the wildest, saddest tone,
Yet sweet, of some loved voice heard long ago.
I wept. 'Shall this fair woman all alone,
Over the sea with that fierce Serpent go?
His head is on her heart, and who can know _320
How soon he may devour his feeble prey? '--
Such were my thoughts, when the tide gan to flow;
And that strange boat like the moon's shade did sway
Amid reflected stars that in the waters lay:--

23.
A boat of rare device, which had no sail _325
But its own curved prow of thin moonstone,
Wrought like a web of texture fine and frail,
To catch those gentlest winds which are not known
To breathe, but by the steady speed alone
With which it cleaves the sparkling sea; and now _330
We are embarked--the mountains hang and frown
Over the starry deep that gleams below,
A vast and dim expanse, as o'er the waves we go.

24.
And as we sailed, a strange and awful tale
That Woman told, like such mysterious dream _335
As makes the slumberer's cheek with wonder pale!
'Twas midnight, and around, a shoreless stream,
Wide ocean rolled, when that majestic theme
Shrined in her heart found utterance, and she bent
Her looks on mine; those eyes a kindling beam _340
Of love divine into my spirit sent,
And ere her lips could move, made the air eloquent.

25.
'Speak not to me, but hear! Much shalt thou learn,
Much must remain unthought, and more untold,
In the dark Future's ever-flowing urn: _345
Know then, that from the depth of ages old
Two Powers o'er mortal things dominion hold,
Ruling the world with a divided lot,
Immortal, all-pervading, manifold,
Twin Genii, equal Gods--when life and thought _350
Sprang forth, they burst the womb of inessential Nought.

26.
'The earliest dweller of the world, alone,
Stood on the verge of chaos. Lo! afar
O'er the wide wild abyss two meteors shone,
Sprung from the depth of its tempestuous jar: _355
A blood-red Comet and the Morning Star
Mingling their beams in combat--as he stood,
All thoughts within his mind waged mutual war,
In dreadful sympathy--when to the flood
That fair Star fell, he turned and shed his brother's blood. _360

27.
'Thus evil triumphed, and the Spirit of evil,
One Power of many shapes which none may know,
One Shape of many names; the Fiend did revel
In victory, reigning o'er a world of woe,
For the new race of man went to and fro, _365
Famished and homeless, loathed and loathing, wild,
And hating good--for his immortal foe,
He changed from starry shape, beauteous and mild,
To a dire Snake, with man and beast unreconciled.

28.
'The darkness lingering o'er the dawn of things, _370
Was Evil's breath and life; this made him strong
To soar aloft with overshadowing wings;
And the great Spirit of Good did creep among
The nations of mankind, and every tongue
Cursed and blasphemed him as he passed; for none _375
Knew good from evil, though their names were hung
In mockery o'er the fane where many a groan,
As King, and Lord, and God, the conquering Fiend did own,--

29.
'The Fiend, whose name was Legion: Death, Decay,
Earthquake and Blight, and Want, and Madness pale, _380
Winged and wan diseases, an array
Numerous as leaves that strew the autumnal gale;
Poison, a snake in flowers, beneath the veil
Of food and mirth, hiding his mortal head;
And, without whom all these might nought avail, _385
Fear, Hatred, Faith, and Tyranny, who spread
Those subtle nets which snare the living and the dead.

30.
'His spirit is their power, and they his slaves
In air, and light, and thought, and language, dwell;
And keep their state from palaces to graves, _390
In all resorts of men--invisible,
But when, in ebon mirror, Nightmare fell
To tyrant or impostor bids them rise,
Black winged demon forms--whom, from the hell,
His reign and dwelling beneath nether skies, _395
He loosens to their dark and blasting ministries.

31.
'In the world's youth his empire was as firm
As its foundations. . . Soon the Spirit of Good,
Though in the likeness of a loathsome worm,
Sprang from the billows of the formless flood, _400
Which shrank and fled; and with that Fiend of blood
Renewed the doubtful war. . . Thrones then first shook,
And earth's immense and trampled multitude
In hope on their own powers began to look,
And Fear, the demon pale, his sanguine shrine forsook. _405

32.
'Then Greece arose, and to its bards and sages,
In dream, the golden-pinioned Genii came,
Even where they slept amid the night of ages,
Steeping their hearts in the divinest flame
Which thy breath kindled, Power of holiest name! _410
And oft in cycles since, when darkness gave
New weapons to thy foe, their sunlike fame
Upon the combat shone--a light to save,
Like Paradise spread forth beyond the shadowy grave.

33.
'Such is this conflict--when mankind doth strive _415
With its oppressors in a strife of blood,
Or when free thoughts, like lightnings, are alive,
And in each bosom of the multitude
Justice and truth with Custom's hydra brood
Wage silent war; when Priests and Kings dissemble _420
In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude,
When round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble,
The Snake and Eagle meet--the world's foundations tremble!

34.
'Thou hast beheld that fight--when to thy home
Thou dost return, steep not its hearth in tears; _425
Though thou may'st hear that earth is now become
The tyrant's garbage, which to his compeers,
The vile reward of their dishonoured years,
He will dividing give. --The victor Fiend,
Omnipotent of yore, now quails, and fears _430
His triumph dearly won, which soon will lend
An impulse swift and sure to his approaching end.

35.
'List, stranger, list, mine is an human form,
Like that thou wearest--touch me--shrink not now!
My hand thou feel'st is not a ghost's, but warm _435
With human blood. --'Twas many years ago,
Since first my thirsting soul aspired to know
The secrets of this wondrous world, when deep
My heart was pierced with sympathy, for woe
Which could not be mine own, and thought did keep, _440
In dream, unnatural watch beside an infant's sleep.

36.
'Woe could not be mine own, since far from men
I dwelt, a free and happy orphan child,
By the sea-shore, in a deep mountain glen;
And near the waves, and through the forests wild, _445
I roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled:
For I was calm while tempest shook the sky:
But when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled,
I wept, sweet tears, yet too tumultuously
For peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy. _450

37.
'These were forebodings of my fate--before
A woman's heart beat in my virgin breast,
It had been nurtured in divinest lore:
A dying poet gave me books, and blessed
With wild but holy talk the sweet unrest _455
In which I watched him as he died away--
A youth with hoary hair--a fleeting guest
Of our lone mountains: and this lore did sway
My spirit like a storm, contending there alway.

38.
'Thus the dark tale which history doth unfold _460
I knew, but not, methinks, as others know,
For they weep not; and Wisdom had unrolled
The clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe,--
To few can she that warning vision show--
For I loved all things with intense devotion; _465
So that when Hope's deep source in fullest flow,
Like earthquake did uplift the stagnant ocean
Of human thoughts--mine shook beneath the wide emotion.

39.
'When first the living blood through all these veins
Kindled a thought in sense, great France sprang forth, _470
And seized, as if to break, the ponderous chains
Which bind in woe the nations of the earth.
I saw, and started from my cottage-hearth;
And to the clouds and waves in tameless gladness
Shrieked, till they caught immeasurable mirth-- _475
And laughed in light and music: soon, sweet madness
Was poured upon my heart, a soft and thrilling sadness.

40.
'Deep slumber fell on me:--my dreams were fire--
Soft and delightful thoughts did rest and hover
Like shadows o'er my brain; and strange desire, _480
The tempest of a passion, raging over
My tranquil soul, its depths with light did cover,
Which passed; and calm, and darkness, sweeter far,
Came--then I loved; but not a human lover!
For when I rose from sleep, the Morning Star _485
Shone through the woodbine-wreaths which round my casement were.

41.
''Twas like an eye which seemed to smile on me.
I watched, till by the sun made pale, it sank
Under the billows of the heaving sea;
But from its beams deep love my spirit drank, _490
And to my brain the boundless world now shrank
Into one thought--one image--yes, for ever!
Even like the dayspring, poured on vapours dank,
The beams of that one Star did shoot and quiver
Through my benighted mind--and were extinguished never. _495

42.
'The day passed thus: at night, methought, in dream
A shape of speechless beauty did appear:
It stood like light on a careering stream
Of golden clouds which shook the atmosphere;
A winged youth, his radiant brow did wear _500
The Morning Star: a wild dissolving bliss
Over my frame he breathed, approaching near,
And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness
Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss,--

43.
'And said: "A Spirit loves thee, mortal maiden, _505
How wilt thou prove thy worth? " Then joy and sleep
Together fled; my soul was deeply laden,
And to the shore I went to muse and weep;
But as I moved, over my heart did creep
A joy less soft, but more profound and strong _510
Than my sweet dream; and it forbade to keep
The path of the sea-shore: that Spirit's tongue
Seemed whispering in my heart, and bore my steps along.

44.
'How, to that vast and peopled city led,
Which was a field of holy warfare then, _515
I walked among the dying and the dead,
And shared in fearless deeds with evil men,
Calm as an angel in the dragon's den--
How I braved death for liberty and truth,
And spurned at peace, and power, and fame--and when _520
Those hopes had lost the glory of their youth,
How sadly I returned--might move the hearer's ruth:

45.
'Warm tears throng fast! the tale may not be said--
Know then, that when this grief had been subdued,
I was not left, like others, cold and dead; _525
The Spirit whom I loved, in solitude
Sustained his child: the tempest-shaken wood,
The waves, the fountains, and the hush of night--
These were his voice, and well I understood
His smile divine, when the calm sea was bright _530
With silent stars, and Heaven was breathless with delight.

46.
'In lonely glens, amid the roar of rivers,
When the dim nights were moonless, have I known
Joys which no tongue can tell; my pale lip quivers
When thought revisits them:--know thou alone, _535
That after many wondrous years were flown,
I was awakened by a shriek of woe;
And over me a mystic robe was thrown,
By viewless hands, and a bright Star did glow
Before my steps--the Snake then met his mortal foe. ' _540

47.
'Thou fearest not then the Serpent on thy heart? '
'Fear it! ' she said, with brief and passionate cry,
And spake no more: that silence made me start--
I looked, and we were sailing pleasantly,
Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky; _545
Beneath the rising moon seen far away,
Mountains of ice, like sapphire, piled on high,
Hemming the horizon round, in silence lay
On the still waters--these we did approach alway.

48.
And swift and swifter grew the vessel's motion, _550
So that a dizzy trance fell on my brain--
Wild music woke me; we had passed the ocean
Which girds the pole, Nature's remotest reign--
And we glode fast o'er a pellucid plain
Of waters, azure with the noontide day. _555
Ethereal mountains shone around--a Fane
Stood in the midst, girt by green isles which lay
On the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.

49.
It was a Temple, such as mortal hand
Has never built, nor ecstasy, nor dream _560
Reared in the cities of enchanted land:
'Twas likest Heaven, ere yet day's purple stream
Ebbs o'er the western forest, while the gleam
Of the unrisen moon among the clouds
Is gathering--when with many a golden beam _565
The thronging constellations rush in crowds,
Paving with fire the sky and the marmoreal floods.

50.
Like what may be conceived of this vast dome,
When from the depths which thought can seldom pierce
Genius beholds it rise, his native home, _570
Girt by the deserts of the Universe;
Yet, nor in painting's light, or mightier verse,
Or sculpture's marble language, can invest
That shape to mortal sense--such glooms immerse
That incommunicable sight, and rest _575
Upon the labouring brain and overburdened breast.

51.
Winding among the lawny islands fair,
Whose blosmy forests starred the shadowy deep,
The wingless boat paused where an ivory stair
Its fretwork in the crystal sea did steep, _580
Encircling that vast Fane's aerial heap:
We disembarked, and through a portal wide
We passed--whose roof of moonstone carved, did keep
A glimmering o'er the forms on every side,
Sculptures like life and thought, immovable, deep-eyed. _585

52.
We came to a vast hall, whose glorious roof
Was diamond, which had drunk the lightning's sheen
In darkness, and now poured it through the woof
Of spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen
Its blinding splendour--through such veil was seen _590
That work of subtlest power, divine and rare;
Orb above orb, with starry shapes between,
And horned moons, and meteors strange and fair,
On night-black columns poised--one hollow hemisphere!

53.
Ten thousand columns in that quivering light _595
Distinct--between whose shafts wound far away
The long and labyrinthine aisles--more bright
With their own radiance than the Heaven of Day;
And on the jasper walls around, there lay
Paintings, the poesy of mightiest thought, _600
Which did the Spirit's history display;
A tale of passionate change, divinely taught,
Which, in their winged dance, unconscious Genii wrought.

54.
Beneath, there sate on many a sapphire throne,
The Great, who had departed from mankind, _605
A mighty Senate;--some, whose white hair shone
Like mountain snow, mild, beautiful, and blind;
Some, female forms, whose gestures beamed with mind;
And ardent youths, and children bright and fair;
And some had lyres whose strings were intertwined _610
With pale and clinging flames, which ever there
Waked faint yet thrilling sounds that pierced the crystal air.

55.
One seat was vacant in the midst, a throne,
Reared on a pyramid like sculptured flame,
Distinct with circling steps which rested on _615
Their own deep fire--soon as the Woman came
Into that hall, she shrieked the Spirit's name
And fell; and vanished slowly from the sight.
Darkness arose from her dissolving frame,
Which gathering, filled that dome of woven light, _620
Blotting its sphered stars with supernatural night.

56.
Then first, two glittering lights were seen to glide
In circles on the amethystine floor,
Small serpent eyes trailing from side to side,
Like meteors on a river's grassy shore, _625
They round each other rolled, dilating more
And more--then rose, commingling into one,
One clear and mighty planet hanging o'er
A cloud of deepest shadow, which was thrown
Athwart the glowing steps and the crystalline throne. _630

57.
The cloud which rested on that cone of flame
Was cloven; beneath the planet sate a Form,
Fairer than tongue can speak or thought may frame,
The radiance of whose limbs rose-like and warm
Flowed forth, and did with softest light inform _635
The shadowy dome, the sculptures, and the state
Of those assembled shapes--with clinging charm
Sinking upon their hearts and mine. He sate
Majestic, yet most mild--calm, yet compassionate.

58.
Wonder and joy a passing faintness threw _640
Over my brow--a hand supported me,
Whose touch was magic strength; an eye of blue
Looked into mine, like moonlight, soothingly;
And a voice said:--'Thou must a listener be
This day--two mighty Spirits now return, _645
Like birds of calm, from the world's raging sea,
They pour fresh light from Hope's immortal urn;
A tale of human power--despair not--list and learn!

59.
I looked, and lo! one stood forth eloquently.
His eyes were dark and deep, and the clear brow _650
Which shadowed them was like the morning sky,
The cloudless Heaven of Spring, when in their flow
Through the bright air, the soft winds as they blow
Wake the green world--his gestures did obey
The oracular mind that made his features glow, _655
And where his curved lips half-open lay,
Passion's divinest stream had made impetuous way.

60.
Beneath the darkness of his outspread hair
He stood thus beautiful; but there was One
Who sate beside him like his shadow there, _660
And held his hand--far lovelier; she was known
To be thus fair, by the few lines alone
Which through her floating locks and gathered cloak,
Glances of soul-dissolving glory, shone:--
None else beheld her eyes--in him they woke _665
Memories which found a tongue as thus he silence broke.


CANTO 2.

1.
The starlight smile of children, the sweet looks
Of women, the fair breast from which I fed,
The murmur of the unreposing brooks,
And the green light which, shifting overhead, _670
Some tangled bower of vines around me shed,
The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers,
The lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread,
And on the twining flax--in life's young hours
These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit's folded powers. _675

2.
In Argolis, beside the echoing sea,
Such impulses within my mortal frame
Arose, and they were dear to memory,
Like tokens of the dead:--but others came
Soon, in another shape: the wondrous fame _680
Of the past world, the vital words and deeds
Of minds whom neither time nor change can tame,
Traditions dark and old, whence evil creeds
Start forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.

3.
I heard, as all have heard, the various story _685
Of human life, and wept unwilling tears.
Feeble historians of its shame and glory,
False disputants on all its hopes and fears,
Victims who worshipped ruin, chroniclers
Of daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state _690
Yet, flattering power, had given its ministers
A throne of judgement in the grave:--'twas fate,
That among such as these my youth should seek its mate.

4.
The land in which I lived, by a fell bane
Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side, _695
And stabled in our homes,--until the chain
Stifled the captive's cry, and to abide
That blasting curse men had no shame--all vied
In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust
Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied, _700
Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust,
Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.

5.
Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters,
And the ethereal shapes which are suspended
Over its green expanse, and those fair daughters, _705
The clouds, of Sun and Ocean, who have blended
The colours of the air since first extended
It cradled the young world, none wandered forth
To see or feel; a darkness had descended
On every heart; the light which shows its worth, _710
Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.

6.
This vital world, this home of happy spirits,
Was as a dungeon to my blasted kind;
All that despair from murdered hope inherits
They sought, and in their helpless misery blind, _715
A deeper prison and heavier chains did find,
And stronger tyrants:--a dark gulf before,
The realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind,
Terror and Time conflicting drove, and bore
On their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore. _720

7.
Out of that Ocean's wrecks had Guilt and Woe
Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,
And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro
Glide o'er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought
The worship thence which they each other taught. _725
Well might men loathe their life, well might they turn
Even to the ills again from which they sought
Such refuge after death! --well might they learn
To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!

8.
For they all pined in bondage; body and soul, _730
Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent
Before one Power, to which supreme control
Over their will by their own weakness lent,
Made all its many names omnipotent;
All symbols of things evil, all divine; _735
And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent
The air from all its fanes, did intertwine
Imposture's impious toils round each discordant shrine.

9.
I heard, as all have heard, life's various story,
And in no careless heart transcribed the tale; _740
But, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary
In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale
By famine, from a mother's desolate wail
O'er her polluted child, from innocent blood
Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale _745
With the heart's warfare, did I gather food
To feed my many thoughts--a tameless multitude!

10.
I wandered through the wrecks of days departed
Far by the desolated shore, when even
O'er the still sea and jagged islets darted _750
The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven,
Among the clouds near the horizon driven,
The mountains lay beneath one planet pale;
Around me, broken tombs and columns riven
Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale _755
Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!

11.
I knew not who had framed these wonders then,
Nor had I heard the story of their deeds;
But dwellings of a race of mightier men,
And monuments of less ungentle creeds _760
Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds
The language which they speak; and now, to me
The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds,
The bright stars shining in the breathless sea,
Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery. _765

12.
Such man has been, and such may yet become!
Ay, wiser, greater, gentler even than they
Who on the fragments of yon shattered dome
Have stamped the sign of power--I felt the sway
Of the vast stream of ages bear away _770
My floating thoughts--my heart beat loud and fast--
Even as a storm let loose beneath the ray
Of the still moon, my spirit onward passed
Beneath truth's steady beams upon its tumult cast.

13.
It shall be thus no more! too long, too long, _775
Sons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound
In darkness and in ruin! --Hope is strong,
Justice and Truth their winged child have found--
Awake! arise! until the mighty sound
Of your career shall scatter in its gust _780
The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground
Hide the last altar's unregarded dust,
Whose Idol has so long betrayed your impious trust!

14.
It must be so--I will arise and waken
The multitude, and like a sulphurous hill, _785
Which on a sudden from its snows has shaken
The swoon of ages, it shall burst and fill
The world with cleansing fire; it must, it will--
It may not be restrained! --and who shall stand
Amid the rocking earthquake steadfast still, _790
But Laon? on high Freedom's desert land
A tower whose marble walls the leagued storms withstand!

15.
One summer night, in commune with the hope
Thus deeply fed, amid those ruins gray
I watched, beneath the dark sky's starry cope; _795
And ever from that hour upon me lay
The burden of this hope, and night or day,
In vision or in dream, clove to my breast:
Among mankind, or when gone far away
To the lone shores and mountains, 'twas a guest _800
Which followed where I fled, and watched when I did rest.

16.
These hopes found words through which my spirit sought
To weave a bondage of such sympathy,
As might create some response to the thought
Which ruled me now--and as the vapours lie _805
Bright in the outspread morning's radiancy,
So were these thoughts invested with the light
Of language: and all bosoms made reply
On which its lustre streamed, whene'er it might
Through darkness wide and deep those tranced spirits smite. _810

17.
Yes, many an eye with dizzy tears was dim,
And oft I thought to clasp my own heart's brother,
When I could feel the listener's senses swim,
And hear his breath its own swift gaspings smother
Even as my words evoked them--and another, _815
And yet another, I did fondly deem,
Felt that we all were sons of one great mother;
And the cold truth such sad reverse did seem
As to awake in grief from some delightful dream.

18.
Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth _820
Which skirts the hoary caves of the green deep,
Did Laon and his friend, on one gray plinth,
Round whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap,
Resting at eve, a lofty converse keep:
And that this friend was false, may now be said _825
Calmly--that he like other men could weep
Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread
Snares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled.

19.
Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow,
I must have sought dark respite from its stress _830
In dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no morrow--
For to tread life's dismaying wilderness
Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless,
Amid the snares and scoffs of human kind,
Is hard--but I betrayed it not, nor less _835
With love that scorned return sought to unbind
The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.

20.
With deathless minds which leave where they have passed
A path of light, my soul communion knew;
Till from that glorious intercourse, at last, _840
As from a mine of magic store, I drew
Words which were weapons;--round my heart there grew
The adamantine armour of their power;
And from my fancy wings of golden hue
Sprang forth--yet not alone from wisdom's tower, _845
A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.

21.
An orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes
Were lodestars of delight, which drew me home
When I might wander forth; nor did I prize
Aught human thing beneath Heaven's mighty dome _850
Beyond this child; so when sad hours were come,
And baffled hope like ice still clung to me,
Since kin were cold, and friends had now become
Heartless and false, I turned from all, to be,
Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee. _855

22.
What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age
In all but its sweet looks and mien divine;
Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage
A patient warfare thy young heart did wage, _860
When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought
Some tale, or thine own fancies, would engage
To overflow with tears, or converse fraught
With passion, o'er their depths its fleeting light had wrought.

23.
She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, _865
A power, that from its objects scarcely drew
One impulse of her being--in her lightness
Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,
Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue,
To nourish some far desert; she did seem _870
Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,
Like the bright shade of some immortal dream
Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream.

24.
As mine own shadow was this child to me,
A second self, far dearer and more fair; _875
Which clothed in undissolving radiancy
All those steep paths which languor and despair
Of human things, had made so dark and bare,
But which I trod alone--nor, till bereft
Of friends, and overcome by lonely care, _880
Knew I what solace for that loss was left,
Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft.

25.
Once she was dear, now she was all I had
To love in human life--this playmate sweet,
This child of twelve years old--so she was made _885
My sole associate, and her willing feet
Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet,
Beyond the aereal mountains whose vast cells
The unreposing billows ever beat,
Through forests wild and old, and lawny dells _890
Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells.

26.
And warm and light I felt her clasping hand
When twined in mine; she followed where I went,
Through the lone paths of our immortal land.
It had no waste but some memorial lent _895
Which strung me to my toil--some monument
Vital with mind; then Cythna by my side,
Until the bright and beaming day were spent,
Would rest, with looks entreating to abide,
Too earnest and too sweet ever to be denied. _900

27.
And soon I could not have refused her--thus
For ever, day and night, we two were ne'er
Parted, but when brief sleep divided us:
And when the pauses of the lulling air
Of noon beside the sea had made a lair _905
For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept,
And I kept watch over her slumbers there,
While, as the shifting visions over her swept,
Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept.

28.
And, in the murmur of her dreams was heard _910
Sometimes the name of Laon:--suddenly
She would arise, and, like the secret bird
Whom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky
With her sweet accents, a wild melody!
Hymns which my soul had woven to Freedom, strong _915
The source of passion, whence they rose, to be;
Triumphant strains, which, like a spirit's tongue,
To the enchanted waves that child of glory sung--

29.