No More Learning

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.
Her white arms lifted through the shadowy stream
Of her loose hair. Oh, excellently great _920
Seemed to me then my purpose, the vast theme
Of those impassioned songs, when Cythna sate
Amid the calm which rapture doth create
After its tumult, her heart vibrating,
Her spirit o'er the Ocean's floating state _925
From her deep eyes far wandering, on the wing
Of visions that were mine, beyond its utmost spring!

30.
For, before Cythna loved it, had my song
Peopled with thoughts the boundless universe,
A mighty congregation, which were strong _930
Where'er they trod the darkness to disperse
The cloud of that unutterable curse
Which clings upon mankind:--all things became
Slaves to my holy and heroic verse,
Earth, sea and sky, the planets, life and fame _935
And fate, or whate'er else binds the world's wondrous frame.

31.
And this beloved child thus felt the sway
Of my conceptions, gathering like a cloud
The very wind on which it rolls away:
Hers too were all my thoughts, ere yet, endowed _940
With music and with light, their fountains flowed
In poesy; and her still and earnest face,
Pallid with feelings which intensely glowed
Within, was turned on mine with speechless grace,
Watching the hopes which there her heart had learned to trace. _945

32.
In me, communion with this purest being
Kindled intenser zeal, and made me wise
In knowledge, which, in hers mine own mind seeing,
Left in the human world few mysteries:
How without fear of evil or disguise _950
Was Cythna! --what a spirit strong and mild,
Which death, or pain or peril could despise,
Yet melt in tenderness! what genius wild
Yet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!

33.
New lore was this--old age with its gray hair, _955
And wrinkled legends of unworthy things,
And icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare
To burst the chains which life for ever flings
On the entangled soul's aspiring wings,
So is it cold and cruel, and is made _960
The careless slave of that dark power which brings
Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed,
Laughs o'er the grave in which his living hopes are laid.

34.
Nor are the strong and the severe to keep
The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught _965
Even in the visions of her eloquent sleep,
Unconscious of the power through which she wrought
The woof of such intelligible thought,
As from the tranquil strength which cradled lay
In her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought _970
Why the deceiver and the slave has sway
O'er heralds so divine of truth's arising day.

35.
Within that fairest form, the female mind,
Untainted by the poison clouds which rest
On the dark world, a sacred home did find: _975
But else, from the wide earth's maternal breast,
Victorious Evil, which had dispossessed
All native power, had those fair children torn,
And made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,
And minister to lust its joys forlorn, _980
Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.

36.
This misery was but coldly felt, till she
Became my only friend, who had endued
My purpose with a wider sympathy;
Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude _985
In which the half of humankind were mewed
Victims of lust and hate, the slaves of slaves,
She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food
To the hyena lust, who, among graves,
Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves. _990

37.
And I, still gazing on that glorious child,
Even as these thoughts flushed o'er her:--'Cythna sweet,
Well with the world art thou unreconciled;
Never will peace and human nature meet
Till free and equal man and woman greet _995
Domestic peace; and ere this power can make
In human hearts its calm and holy seat,
This slavery must be broken'--as I spake,
From Cythna's eyes a light of exultation brake.

38.
She replied earnestly:--'It shall be mine, _1000
This task,--mine, Laon! --thou hast much to gain;
Nor wilt thou at poor Cythna's pride repine,
If she should lead a happy female train
To meet thee over the rejoicing plain,
When myriads at thy call shall throng around _1005
The Golden City.
'--Then the child did strain
My arm upon her tremulous heart, and wound
Her own about my neck, till some reply she found.

39.
I smiled, and spake not. --'Wherefore dost thou smile
At what I say? Laon, I am not weak, _1010
And, though my cheek might become pale the while,
With thee, if thou desirest, will I seek
Through their array of banded slaves to wreak
Ruin upon the tyrants. I had thought
It was more hard to turn my unpractised cheek _1015
To scorn and shame, and this beloved spot
And thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.

40.
'Whence came I what I am? Thou, Laon, knowest
How a young child should thus undaunted be;
Methinks, it is a power which thou bestowest, _1020
Through which I seek, by most resembling thee,
So to become most good and great and free;
Yet far beyond this Ocean's utmost roar,
In towers and huts are many like to me,
Who, could they see thine eyes, or feel such lore _1025
As I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.

41.
'Think'st thou that I shall speak unskilfully,
And none will heed me? I remember now,
How once, a slave in tortures doomed to die,
Was saved, because in accents sweet and low _1030
He sung a song his Judge loved long ago,
As he was led to death. --All shall relent
Who hear me--tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow,
Hearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent
As renovates the world; a will omnipotent! _1035

42.
'Yes, I will tread Pride's golden palaces,
Through Penury's roofless huts and squalid cells
Will I descend, where'er in abjectness
Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells,
There with the music of thine own sweet spells _1040
Will disenchant the captives, and will pour
For the despairing, from the crystal wells
Of thy deep spirit, reason's mighty lore,
And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more.

43.
'Can man be free if woman be a slave? _1045
Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air,
To the corruption of a closed grave!
Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear
Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare
To trample their oppressors? in their home _1050
Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear
The shape of woman--hoary Crime would come
Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion's tottering dome.

44.
'I am a child:--I would not yet depart.
When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp _1055
Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart,
Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp
Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp
Of ages leaves their limbs--no ill may harm
Thy Cythna ever--truth its radiant stamp _1060
Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm,
Upon her children's brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.

45.
'Wait yet awhile for the appointed day--
Thou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand
Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray; _1065
Amid the dwellers of this lonely land
I shall remain alone--and thy command
Shall then dissolve the world's unquiet trance,
And, multitudinous as the desert sand
Borne on the storm, its millions shall advance, _1070
Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.

46.
'Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,
Which from remotest glens two warring winds
Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain
Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds _1075
Of evil, catch from our uniting minds
The spark which must consume them;--Cythna then
Will have cast off the impotence that binds
Her childhood now, and through the paths of men
Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den. _1080

47.
'We part! --O Laon, I must dare nor tremble,
To meet those looks no more! --Oh, heavy stroke!
Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble
The agony of this thought? '--As thus she spoke
The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke, _1085
And in my arms she hid her beating breast.
I remained still for tears--sudden she woke
As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed
My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.

48.
'We part to meet again--but yon blue waste, _1090
Yon desert wide and deep, holds no recess,
Within whose happy silence, thus embraced
We might survive all ills in one caress:
Nor doth the grave--I fear 'tis passionless--
Nor yon cold vacant Heaven:--we meet again _1095
Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless
Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain
When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain. '

49.
I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now
The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, _1100
Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;
So we arose, and by the starlight steep
Went homeward--neither did we speak nor weep,
But, pale, were calm with passion--thus subdued
Like evening shades that o'er the mountains creep, _1105
We moved towards our home; where, in this mood,
Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.


CANTO 3.

1.
What thoughts had sway o'er Cythna's lonely slumber
That night, I know not; but my own did seem
As if they might ten thousand years outnumber _1110
Of waking life, the visions of a dream
Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream
Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,
Whose limits yet were never memory's theme:
And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed, _1115
Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.

2.
Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make gray the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:
When the third came, like mist on breezes curled, _1120
From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:
Methought, upon the threshold of a cave
I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled
With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave,
Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave. _1125

3.
We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,
And the bright air o'er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
The leafless bough among the leaves alone, _1130
Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown,
In this strange vision, so divine to me,
That if I loved before, now love was agony.

4.
Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, _1135
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon--when suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
Sounds gathering upwards! --accents incomplete, _1140
And stifled shrieks,--and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.

5.
The scene was changed, and away, away, away!
Through the air and over the sea we sped, _1145
And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,
And the winds bore me--through the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
Upon my flight; and ever, as we fled, _1150
They plucked at Cythna--soon to me then clung
A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

6.
And I lay struggling in the impotence
Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,
Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense _1155
To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound
Which in the light of morn was poured around
Our dwelling; breathless, pale and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found
With armed men, whose glittering swords were bare, _1160
And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.

7.
And, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow
I could demand the cause--a feeble shriek--
It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,
Arrested me--my mien grew calm and meek, _1165
And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd--'twas Cythna's cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak
Its whirlwind rage:--so I passed quietly
Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie. _1170

8.
I started to behold her, for delight
And exultation, and a joyance free,
Solemn, serene and lofty, filled the light
Of the calm smile with which she looked on me:
So that I feared some brainless ecstasy, _1175
Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her--
'Farewell! farewell! ' she said, as I drew nigh;
'At first my peace was marred by this strange stir,
Now I am calm as truth--its chosen minister.

9.
'Look not so, Laon--say farewell in hope, _1180
These bloody men are but the slaves who bear
Their mistress to her task--it was my scope
The slavery where they drag me now, to share,
And among captives willing chains to wear
Awhile--the rest thou knowest--return, dear friend! _1185
Let our first triumph trample the despair
Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,
In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend. '

10.
These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,
Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew _1190
With seeming-careless glance; not many were
Around her, for their comrades just withdrew
To guard some other victim--so I drew
My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly
All unaware three of their number slew, _1195
And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry
My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!

11.
What followed then, I know not--for a stroke
On my raised arm and naked head, came down,
Filling my eyes with blood. --When I awoke, _1200
I felt that they had bound me in my swoon,
And up a rock which overhangs the town,
By the steep path were bearing me; below,
The plain was filled with slaughter,--overthrown
The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow _1205
Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.

12.
Upon that rock a mighty column stood,
Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,
Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude
Of distant seas, from ages long gone by, _1210
Had made a landmark; o'er its height to fly
Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,
Has power--and when the shades of evening lie
On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast
The sunken daylight far through the aerial waste. _1215

13.
They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath that column, and unbound me there;
And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care _1220
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torch's fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.

14.
They raised me to the platform of the pile, _1225
That column's dizzy height:--the grate of brass
Through which they thrust me, open stood the while,
As to its ponderous and suspended mass,
With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!
With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound: _1230
The grate, as they departed to repass,
With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound
Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom was drowned.

15.
The noon was calm and bright:--around that column
The overhanging sky and circling sea _1235
Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn
The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not my own misery:
The islands and the mountains in the day
Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see _1240
The town among the woods below that lay,
And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.

16.
It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed
Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone
Swayed in the air:--so bright, that noon did breed _1245
No shadow in the sky beside mine own--
Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone.
Below, the smoke of roofs involved in flame
Rested like night, all else was clearly shown
In that broad glare; yet sound to me none came, _1250
But of the living blood that ran within my frame.

17.
The peace of madness fled, and ah, too soon!
A ship was lying on the sunny main,
Its sails were flagging in the breathless noon--
Its shadow lay beyond--that sight again _1255
Waked, with its presence, in my tranced brain
The stings of a known sorrow, keen and cold:
I knew that ship bore Cythna o'er the plain
Of waters, to her blighting slavery sold,
And watched it with such thoughts as must remain untold. _1260

18.
I watched until the shades of evening wrapped
Earth like an exhalation--then the bark
Moved, for that calm was by the sunset snapped.
It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark:
Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark _1265
Its path no more! --I sought to close mine eyes,
But like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark;
I would have risen, but ere that I could rise,
My parched skin was split with piercing agonies.

19.
I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever _1270
Its adamantine links, that I might die:
O Liberty! forgive the base endeavour,
Forgive me, if, reserved for victory,
The Champion of thy faith e'er sought to fly. --
That starry night, with its clear silence, sent _1275
Tameless resolve which laughed at misery
Into my soul--linked remembrance lent
To that such power, to me such a severe content.

20.
To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair
And die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun _1280
Its shafts of agony kindling through the air
Moved over me, nor though in evening dun,
Or when the stars their visible courses run,
Or morning, the wide universe was spread
In dreary calmness round me, did I shun _1285
Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead
From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.

21.
Two days thus passed--I neither raved nor died--
Thirst raged within me, like a scorpion's nest
Built in mine entrails; I had spurned aside _1290
The water-vessel, while despair possessed
My thoughts, and now no drop remained! The uprest
Of the third sun brought hunger--but the crust
Which had been left, was to my craving breast
Fuel, not food. I chewed the bitter dust, _1295
And bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.

22.
My brain began to fail when the fourth morn
Burst o'er the golden isles--a fearful sleep,
Which through the caverns dreary and forlorn
Of the riven soul, sent its foul dreams to sweep _1300
With whirlwind swiftness--a fall far and deep,--
A gulf, a void, a sense of senselessness--
These things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep
Their watch in some dim charnel's loneliness,
A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless! _1305

23.
The forms which peopled this terrific trance
I well remember--like a choir of devils,
Around me they involved a giddy dance;
Legions seemed gathering from the misty levels
Of Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels, _1310
Foul, ceaseless shadows:--thought could not divide
The actual world from these entangling evils,
Which so bemocked themselves, that I descried
All shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied.

24.
The sense of day and night, of false and true, _1315
Was dead within me. Yet two visions burst
That darkness--one, as since that hour I knew,
Was not a phantom of the realms accursed,
Where then my spirit dwelt--but of the first
I know not yet, was it a dream or no. _1320
But both, though not distincter, were immersed
In hues which, when through memory's waste they flow,
Make their divided streams more bright and rapid now.

25.
Methought that grate was lifted, and the seven
Who brought me thither four stiff corpses bare, _1325
And from the frieze to the four winds of Heaven
Hung them on high by the entangled hair;
Swarthy were three--the fourth was very fair;
As they retired, the golden moon upsprung,
And eagerly, out in the giddy air, _1330
Leaning that I might eat, I stretched and clung
Over the shapeless depth in which those corpses hung.

26.
A woman's shape, now lank and cold and blue,
The dwelling of the many-coloured worm,
Hung there; the white and hollow cheek I drew _1335
To my dry lips--what radiance did inform
Those horny eyes? whose was that withered form?
Alas, alas! it seemed that Cythna's ghost
Laughed in those looks, and that the flesh was warm
Within my teeth! --a whirlwind keen as frost _1340
Then in its sinking gulfs my sickening spirit tossed.

27.
Then seemed it that a tameless hurricane
Arose, and bore me in its dark career
Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that wane
On the verge of formless space--it languished there, _1345
And dying, left a silence lone and drear,
More horrible than famine:--in the deep
The shape of an old man did then appear,
Stately and beautiful; that dreadful sleep
His heavenly smiles dispersed, and I could wake and weep. _1350

28.
And, when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw
That column, and those corpses, and the moon,
And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw
My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon
Of senseless death would be accorded soon;-- _1355
When from that stony gloom a voice arose,
Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune
The midnight pines; the grate did then unclose,
And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose.

29.
He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled; _1360
As they were loosened by that Hermit old,
Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled,
To answer those kind looks; he did enfold
His giant arms around me, to uphold
My wretched frame; my scorched limbs he wound _1365
In linen moist and balmy, and as cold
As dew to drooping leaves;--the chain, with sound
Like earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound,

30.
As, lifting me, it fell! --What next I heard,
Were billows leaping on the harbour-bar, _1370
And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred
My hair;--I looked abroad, and saw a star
Shining beside a sail, and distant far
That mountain and its column, the known mark
Of those who in the wide deep wandering are, _1375
So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark,
In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.

31.
For now indeed, over the salt sea-billow
I sailed: yet dared not look upon the shape
Of him who ruled the helm, although the pillow _1380
For my light head was hollowed in his lap,
And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap,
Fearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent
O'er me his aged face; as if to snap
Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent, _1385
And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.

32.
A soft and healing potion to my lips
At intervals he raised--now looked on high,
To mark if yet the starry giant dips
His zone in the dim sea--now cheeringly, _1390
Though he said little, did he speak to me.
'It is a friend beside thee--take good cheer,
Poor victim, thou art now at liberty! '
I joyed as those a human tone to hear,
Who in cells deep and lone have languished many a year. _1395

33.
A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses oft
Were quenched in a relapse of wildering dreams;
Yet still methought we sailed, until aloft
The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams
Of morn descended on the ocean-streams, _1400
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,
Till in the azure East darkness again was piled.

34.
And then the night-wind steaming from the shore, _1405
Sent odours dying sweet across the sea,
And the swift boat the little waves which bore,
Were cut by its keen keel, though slantingly;
Soon I could hear the leaves sigh, and could see
The myrtle-blossoms starring the dim grove, _1410
As past the pebbly beach the boat did flee
On sidelong wing, into a silent cove,
Where ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove.


NOTES:
_1223 torches' editions 1818, 1839.
_1385 bent]meant cj. J. Nettleship.


CANTO 4.

1.
The old man took the oars, and soon the bark
Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone; _1415
It was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark
With blooming ivy-trails was overgrown;
Upon whose floor the spangling sands were strown,
And rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood,
Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown _1420
Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood
A changeling of man's art nursed amid Nature's brood.

2.
When the old man his boat had anchored,
He wound me in his arms with tender care,
And very few, but kindly words he said, _1425
And bore me through the tower adown a stair,
Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear
For many a year had fallen. --We came at last
To a small chamber, which with mosses rare
Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed _1430
Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

3.
The moon was darting through the lattices
Its yellow light, warm as the beams of day--
So warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,
The old man opened them; the moonlight lay _1435
Upon a lake whose waters wove their play
Even to the threshold of that lonely home:
Within was seen in the dim wavering ray
The antique sculptured roof, and many a tome
Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become. _1440

4.
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-coloured as the snake _1445
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?

5.
Thus madness came again,--a milder madness, _1450
Which darkened nought but time's unquiet flow
With supernatural shades of clinging sadness;
That gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe,
By my sick couch was busy to and fro,
Like a strong spirit ministrant of good: _1455
When I was healed, he led me forth to show
The wonders of his sylvan solitude,
And we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.

6.
He knew his soothing words to weave with skill
From all my madness told; like mine own heart, _1460
Of Cythna would he question me, until
That thrilling name had ceased to make me start,
From his familiar lips--it was not art,
Of wisdom and of justice when he spoke--
When mid soft looks of pity, there would dart _1465
A glance as keen as is the lightning's stroke
When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

7.
Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,
My thoughts their due array did re-assume
Through the enchantments of that Hermit old; _1470
Then I bethought me of the glorious doom
Of those who sternly struggle to relume
The lamp of Hope o'er man's bewildered lot,
And, sitting by the waters, in the gloom
Of eve, to that friend's heart I told my thought-- _1475
That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.

8.
That hoary man had spent his livelong age
In converse with the dead, who leave the stamp
Of ever-burning thoughts on many a page,
When they are gone into the senseless damp _1480
Of graves;--his spirit thus became a lamp
Of splendour, like to those on which it fed;
Through peopled haunts, the City and the Camp,
Deep thirst for knowledge had his footsteps led,
And all the ways of men among mankind he read. _1485

9.
But custom maketh blind and obdurate
The loftiest hearts;--he had beheld the woe
In which mankind was bound, but deemed that fate
Which made them abject, would preserve them so;
And in such faith, some steadfast joy to know, _1490
He sought this cell: but when fame went abroad
That one in Argolis did undergo
Torture for liberty, and that the crowd
High truths from gifted lips had heard and understood;

10.
And that the multitude was gathering wide,-- _1495
His spirit leaped 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 _1500
Was as a sword of truth--young Laon's name
Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung
Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among.

11.
He came to the lone column on the rock,
And with his sweet and mighty eloquence _1505
The hearts of those who watched it did unlock,
And made them melt in tears of penitence.
They gave him entrance free to bear me thence.
'Since this,' the old man said, 'seven years are spent,
While slowly truth on thy benighted sense _1510
Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent
Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.

12.
'Yes, from the records of my youthful state,
And from the lore of bards and sages old,
From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create _1515
Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold,
Have I collected language to unfold
Truth to my countrymen; from shore to shore
Doctrines of human power my words have told,
They have been heard, and men aspire to more _1520
Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.

13.
'In secret chambers parents read, and weep,
My writings to their babes, no longer blind;
And young men gather when their tyrants sleep,
And vows of faith each to the other bind; _1525
And marriageable maidens, who have pined
With love, till life seemed melting through their look,
A warmer zeal, a nobler hope, now find;
And every bosom thus is rapt and shook,
Like autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook. _1530

14.
'The tyrants of the Golden City tremble
At voices which are heard about the streets;
The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble
The lies of their own heart, but when one meets
Another at the shrine, he inly weets, _1535
Though he says nothing, that the truth is known;
Murderers are pale upon the judgement-seats,
And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,
And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.

15.
'Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds _1540
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 _1545
Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw
This hope, compels all spirits to obey,
Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

16.
'For I have been thy passive instrument'--
(As thus the old man spake, his countenance _1550
Gleamed 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--ay, thou didst rear
That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance _1555
Nor change may not extinguish, and my share
Of good, was o'er the world its gathered beams to bear.

17.
'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 _1560
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 _1565
Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

18.
'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, _1570
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 _1575

19.
'All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound
Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,
Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found
One human hand to harm her--unassailed
Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled _1580
In virtue's adamantine eloquence,
'Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed,
And blending, in the smiles of that defence,
The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.

20.
'The wild-eyed women throng around her path: _1585
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 _1590
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.

21.
'Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach
To woman, outraged and polluted long; _1595
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! _1600
Lovers renew the vows which they did plight
In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,

22.
'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, _1605
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, _1610
And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.

23.
'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,-- _1615
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 trembling thrones. _1620

24.
'Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed
The free cannot forbear--the Queen of Slaves,
The hoodwinked Angel of the blind and dead,
Custom, with iron mace points to the graves
Where her own standard desolately waves _1625
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.

25.
'There is a plain beneath the City's wall, _1630
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: _1635
He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,
And that his power hath passed away, doth know--
Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?

26.
'The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain:
Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood, _1640
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 _1645
Surrounding them, with words of human love,
Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.

27.
'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 _1650
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 _1655
Clasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer!

28.
'If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice
Of bonds,--from slavery to cowardice
A wretched fall! --Uplift thy charmed voice!