I
1415 Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone;
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,
1420 Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown
Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood
A changeling of man’s art, nursed amid Nature’s brood.
II
When the old man his boat had anchorèd,
He wound me in his arms with tender care,
1425 And very few, but kindly words he said,
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
1430 Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed
Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.
III
The moon was darting through the lattices
Its yellow light, warm as the beams of day—
So warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,
1435 The old man opened them; the moonlight lay
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
1440 Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become.
IV
> The rock-built barrier of the sea was past,—
And I was on the margin of a lake,
A lonely lake, amid the forests vast
And snowy mountains:—did my spirit wake
1445 From sleep as many-coloured as the snake
That girds eternity? in life and truth,
Might not my heart its cravings ever slake?
Was Cythna then a dream, and all my youth,
And all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?
V
1450 Thus madness came again,—a milder madness,
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,
1455 Like a strong spirit ministrant of good:
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.
VI
He knew his soothing words to weave with skill
1460 From all my madness told; like mine own heart,
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—
1465 When mid soft looks of pity, there would dart
A glance as keen as is the lightning’s stroke
When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.
VII
Thus slowly from my brain the darkness rolled,
My thoughts their due array did re-assume
1470 Through the enchantments of that Hermit old;
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
1475 Of eve, to that friend’s heart I told my thought—
That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted not.
VIII
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,
1480 When they are gone into the senseless damp
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,
1485 And all the ways of men among mankind he read.
IX
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;
1490 And in such faith, some steadfast joy to know,
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;
X
1495 And that the multitude was gathering wide,—
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:
1500 Each heart was there a shield, and every tongue
Was as a sword, of truth—young Laon’s name
Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung
Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among.
XI
He came to the lone column on the rock,
1505 And with his sweet and mighty eloquence
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,
1510 While slowly truth on thy benighted sense
Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent
Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.
XII
‘Yes, from the records of my youthful state,
And from the lore of bards and sages old,
1515 From whatsoe’er my wakened thoughts create
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,
1520 They have been heard, and men aspire to more
Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.
XIII
‘In secret chambers parents read, and weep,
My writings to their babes, no longer blind;
And young men gather when their tyrants sleep,
1525 And vows of faith each to the other bind;
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,
1530 Like autumn’s myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook.
XIV
‘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
1535 Another at the shrine, he inly weets,
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.
XV
1540 ‘Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds
Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law
Of mild equality and peace, succeeds
To faiths which long have held the world in awe,
Bloody and false, and cold:—as whirlpools draw
1545 All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway
Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw
This hope, compels all spirits to obey,
Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.
XVI
‘For I have been thy passive instrument’—
1550 (As thus the old man spake, his countenance
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
1555 That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance
Nor change may not extinguish, and my share
Of good, was o’er the world its gathered beams to bear.
XVII
‘But I, alas! am both unknown and old,
And though the woof of wisdom I know well
1560 To dye in hues of language, I am cold
In seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell,
My manners note that I did long repel;
But Laon’s name to the tumultuous throng
Were like the star whose beams the waves compel
1565 And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue
Were as a lance to quell the mailèd crest of wrong.
XVIII
‘Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length
Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare
Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength
1570 Of words—for lately did a maiden fair,
Who from her childhood has been taught to bear
The tyrant’s heaviest yoke, arise, and make
Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear,
And with these quiet words—“For thine own sake
1575 I prithee spare me;”—did with ruth so take
XIX
‘All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound
Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled,
Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found
One human hand to harm her—unassailed
1580 Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled
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.
XX
1585 ‘The wild-eyed women throng around her path:
From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust
Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor’s wrath,
Or the caresses of his sated lust
1590 The tyrants send their armèd slaves to quell
Her power;—they, even like a thunder-gust
Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell
Of that young maiden’s speech, and to their chiefs rebel.
XXI
‘Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach
1595 To woman, outraged and polluted long;
Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach
For those fair hands now free, while armèd wrong
Trembles before her look, though it be strong;
Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,
1600 And matrons with their babes, a stately throng!
Lovers renew the vows which they did plight
In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,
XXII
‘And homeless orphans find a home near her,
And those poor victims of the proud, no less,
1605 Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir,
Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:—
In squalid huts, and in its palaces
Sits Lust alone, while o’er the land is borne
Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress
1610 All evil, and her foes relenting turn,
And cast the vote of love in hope’s abandoned urn.
XXIII
‘So in the populous City, a young maiden
Has baffled Havoc of the prey which he
Marks as his own, whene’er with chains o’erladen
1615 Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny,—
False arbiter between the bound and free;
And o’er the land, in hamlets and in towns
The multitudes collect tumultuously,
And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns
Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones.
XXIV
‘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
1625 Where her own standard desolately waves
Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings.
Many yet stand in her array—“she paves
Her path with human hearts,” and o’er it flings
The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.
XXV
1630 ‘There is a plain beneath the City’s wall,
Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast,
Millions there lift at Freedom’s thrilling call
Ten thousand standards wide, they load the blast
Which bears one sound of many voices past,
1635 And startles on his throne their sceptred foe:
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?
XXVI
‘The tyrant’s guards resistance yet maintain:
1640 Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood,
They stand a speck amid the peopled plain;
Carnage and ruin have been made their food
From infancy—ill has become their good,
And for its hateful sake their will has wove
1645 The chains which eat their hearts—the multitude
Surrounding them, with words of human love,
Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.
XXVII
‘Over the land is felt a sudden pause,
As night and day those ruthless bands around,
1650 The watch of love is kept:—a trance which awes
The thoughts of men with hope—as, when the sound
Of whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds confound,
Dies suddenly, the mariner in fear
Feels silence sink upon his heart—thus bound,
1655 The conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne’er
Clasp the relentless knees of Dread the murderer!
XXVIII
‘If blood be shed, ’tis but a change and choice
Of bonds,—from slavery to cowardice
A wretched fall!—Uplift thy charmèd voice!
1660 Pour on those evil men the love that lies
Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes—
Arise, my friend, farewell!’—As thus he spake,
From the green earth lightly I did arise,
As one out of dim dreams that doth awake,
1665 And looked upon the depth of that reposing lake.
XXIX
I saw my countenance reflected there;—
And then my youth fell on me like a wind
Descending on still waters—my thin hair
Was prematurely gray, my face was lined
1670 With channels, such as suffering leaves behind,
Not age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek
And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find
Their food and dwelling; though mine eyes might speak
A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.
XXX
1675 And though their lustre now was spent and faded,
Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien
The likeness of a shape for which was braided
The brightest woof of genius, still was seen—
One who, methought, had gone from the world’s scene,
1680 And left it vacant—’twas her lover’s face—
It might resemble her—it once had been
The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace
Which her mind’s shadow cast, left there a lingering trace.
XXXI
What then was I? She slumbered with the dead.
1685 Glory and joy and peace, had come and gone.
Doth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled
Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone,
Doth it not through the paths of night unknown,
On outspread wings of its own wind upborne
1690 Pour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown,
When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn
Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.
XXXII
Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man
I left, with interchange of looks and tears,
1695 And lingering speech, and to the Camp began
My way. O’er many a mountain-chain which rears
Its hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears
My frame: o’er many a dale and many a moor,
And gaily now meseems serene earth wears
1700 The blosmy spring’s star-bright investiture.
A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.
XXXIII
My powers revived within me, and I went
As one whom winds waft o’er the bending grass,
Through many a vale of that broad continent.
1705 At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass
Before my pillow;—my own Cythna was,
Not like a child of death, among them ever;
When I arose from rest, a woful mass
That gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever,
1710 As if the light of youth were not withdrawn for ever.
XXXIV
Aye as I went, that maiden who had reared
The torch of Truth afar, of whose high deeds
The Hermit in his pilgrimage had heard,
Haunted my thoughts.—Ah, Hope its sickness feeds
1715 With whatso’er it finds, or flowers or weeds!
Could she be Cythna?—Was that corpse a shade
Such as self-torturing thought from madness breeds?
Why was this hope not torture? Yet it made
A light around my steps which would not ever fade.
I
1720 OVER the utmost hill at length I sped,
A snowy steep:—the moon was hanging low
Over the Asian mountains, and outspread
The plain, the City, and the Camp below,
Skirted the midnight Ocean’s glimmering flow;
1725 The City’s moonlit spires and myriad lamps,
Like stars in a sublunar sky did glow,
And fires blazed far amid the scattered camps,
Like springs of flame, which burst where’er swift Earthquake stamps.
II
All slept but those in watchful arms who stood,
1730 And those who sate tending the beacon’s light,
And the few sounds from that vast multitude
Made silence more profound.—Oh, what a might
Of human thought was cradled in that night!
How many hearts impenetrably veiled
1735 Beat underneath its shade, what secret fight
Evil and good, in woven passions mailed,
Waged through that silent throng; a war that never failed!
III
And now the Power of Good held victory,
So, through the labyrinth of many a tent,
1740 Among the silent millions who did lie
In innocent sleep, exultingly I went;
The moon had left Heaven desert now, but lent
From eastern morn the first faint lustre showed
An armèd youth—over his spear he bent
1745 His downward face.—‘A friend!’ I cried aloud,
And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.
IV
I sate beside him while the morning beam
Crept slowly over Heaven, and talked with him
Of those immortal hopes, a glorious theme!
1750 Which led us forth, until the stars grew dim:
And all the while, methought, his voice did swim
As if it drownèd in remembrance were
Of thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim:
At last, when daylight ’gan to fill the air,
1755 He looked on me, and cried in wonder—‘Thou art here!’
V
Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth
In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found;
But envious tongues had stained his spotless truth,
And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound,
1760 And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound,
Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded;
The truth now came upon me, on the ground
Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded,
Fell fast, and o’er its peace our mingling spirits brooded.
VI
1765 Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes
We talked, a sound of sweeping conflict spread
As from the earth did suddenly arise;
From every tent roused by that clamour dread.
1770 Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far.
Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead
Stabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war
The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.
VII
Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child
1775 Who brings them food, when winter false and fair
Allures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild
They rage among the camp;—they overbear
The patriot hosts—confusion, then despair
Descends like night—when ‘Laon!’ one did cry:
Like a bright ghost from Heaven that shout did scare
The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky,
Seemed sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory.
VIII
In sudden panic those false murderers fied,
Like insect tribes before the northern gale:
1785 But swifter still, our hosts encompassèd
Their shattered ranks, and in a craggy vale,
Where even their fierce despair might nought avail,
Hemmed them around!—and then revenge and fear
Made the high virtue of the patriots fail:
1790 One pointed on his foe the mortal spear—
I rushed before its point, and cried, ‘Forbear, forbear!’
IX
The spear transfixed my arm that was uplifted
In swift expostulation, and the blood
Gushed round its point: I smiled, and—‘Oh! thou gifted
1795 With eloquence which shall not be withstood,
Flow thus!’—I cried in joy, ‘thou vital flood,
Until my heart be dry, ere thus the cause
For which thou wert aught worthy be subdued—
Ah, ye are pale,—ye weep,—your passions pause,—
1800 ’Tis well! ye feel the truth of love’s benignant laws.
X
‘Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain.
Ye murdered them, I think, as they did sleep!
Alas, what have ye done? the slightest pain
Which ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep,
But ye have quenched them—there were smiles to steep
Your hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe;
And those whom love did set his watch to keep
Around your tents, truth’s freedom to bestow,
Ye stabbed as they did sleep—but they forgive ye now.
XI
1810 ‘Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill,
And pain still keener pain for ever breed?
We all are brethren—even the slaves who kill
For hire, are men; and to avenge misdeed
On the misdoer, doth but Misery feed
1815 With her own broken heart! O Earth, O Heaven!
And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed
And all that lives or is, to be hath given,
Even as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven!
XII
‘Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past
1820 Be as a grave which gives not up its dead
To evil thoughts.’—A film then overcast
My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled
Freshly, swift shadows o’er mine eyes had shed.
When I awoke, I lay mid friends and foes,
1825 And earnest countenances on me shed
The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close
My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose;
XIII
And one whose spear had pierced me, leaned beside,
With quivering lips and humid eyes;—and all
1830 Seemed like some brothers on a journey wide
Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall
In a strange land, round one whom they might call
Their friend, their chief, their father, for assay
Of peril, which had saved them from the thrall
1835 Of death, now suffering. Thus the vast array
Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.
XIV
Lifting the thunder of their acclamation,
Towards the City then the multitude,
And I among them, went in joy—a nation
1840 Made free by love;—a mighty brotherhood
Linked by a jealous interchange of good;
A glorious pageant, more magnificent
Than kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood,
When they return from carnage, and are sent
1845 In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement.
XV
Afar, the city-walls were thronged on high,
And myriads on each giddy turret clung,
And to each spire far lessening in the sky
Bright pennons on the idle winds were hung;
1850 As we approached, a shout of joyance sprung
At once from all the crowd, as if the vast
And peopled Earth its boundless skies among
The sudden clamour of delight had cast,
When from before its face some general wreck had passed.
XVI
1855 Our armies through the City’s hundred gates
Were poured, like brooks which to the rocky lair
Of some deep lake, whose silence them awaits,
Throng from the mountains when the storms are there
And, as we passed through the calm sunny air
1860 A thousand flower-inwoven crowns were shed,
The token flowers of truth and freedom fair,
And fairest hands bound them on many a head,
Those angels of love’s heaven, that over all was spread.
XVII
I trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision:
1865 Those bloody bands so lately reconciled,
Were, ever as they went, by the contrition
Of anger turned to love, from ill beguiled,
And every one on them more gently smiled,
Because they had done evil:—the sweet awe
Of such mild looks made their own hearts grow mild,
And did with soft attraction ever draw
Their spirits to the love of freedom’s equal law.
XVIII
And they, and all, in one loud symphony
My name with Liberty commingling, lifted,
1875 ‘The friend and the preserver of the free!
The parent of this joy!’ and fair eyes gifted
With feelings, caught from one who had uplifted
The light of a great spirit, round me shone;
And all the shapes of this grand scenery shifted
1880 Like restless clouds before the steadfast sun,—
Where was that Maid? I asked, but it was known of none.
XIX
Laone was the name her love had chosen,
For she was nameless, and her birth none knew:
Where was Laone now?—The words were frozen
1885 Within my lips with fear; but to subdue
Such dreadful hope, to my great task was due,
And when at length one brought reply, that she
To-morrow would appear, I then withdrew
To judge what need for that great throng might be,
1890 For now the stars came thick over the twilight sea.
XX
Yet need was none for rest or food to care,
Even though that multitude was passing great,
Since each one for the other did prepare
All kindly succour—Therefore to the gate
1895 Of the Imperial House, now desolate,
I passed, and there was found aghast, alone,
The fallen Tyrant!—Silently he sate
Upon the footstool of his golden throne,
Which, starred with sunny gems, in its own lustre shone.
XXI
1900 Alone, but for one child, who led before him
A graceful dance: the only living thing
Of all the crowd, which thither to adore him
Flocked yesterday, who solace sought to bring
In his abandonment!—She knew the King
1905 Had praised her dance of yore, and now she wove
Its circles, aye weeping and murmuring
Mid her sad task of unregarded love,
That to no smiles it might his speechless sadness move.
XXII
She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet
When human steps were heard:—he moved nor spoke,
Nor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to meet
The gaze of strangers—our loud entrance woke
The echoes of the hall, which circling broke
The calm of its recesses,—like a tomb
1915 Its sculptured walls vacantly to the stroke
Of footfalls answered, and the twilight’s gloom
Lay like a charnel’s mist within the radiant dome.
XXIII
The little child stood up when we came nigh;
Her lips and cheeks seemed very pale and wan,
1920 But on her forehead, and within her eye
Lay beauty, which makes hearts that feed thereon
Sick with excess of sweetness; on the throne
She leaned;—the King, with gathered brow, and lips
Wreathed by long scorn, did inly sneer and frown
1925 With hue like that when some great painter dips
His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
XXIV
She stood beside him like a rainbow braided
Within some storm, when scarce its shadows vast
From the blue paths of the swift sun have faded;
1930 A sweet and solemn smile, like Cythna’s cast
One moment’s light, which made my heart beat fast,
O’er that child’s parted lips—a gleam of bliss,
A shade of vanished days,—as the tears passed
Which wrapped it, even as with a father’s kiss
1935 I pressed those softest eyes in trembling tenderness.
XXV
The sceptred wretch then from that solitude
I drew, and, of his change compassionate,
With words of sadness soothed his rugged mood.
But he, while pride and fear held deep debate,
1940 With sullen guile of ill-dissembled hate
Glared on me as a toothless snake might glare:
Pity, not scorn I felt, though desolate
The desolator now, and unaware
The curses which he mocked had caught him by the hair.
XXVI
1945 I led him forth from that which now might seem
A gorgeous grave: through portals sculptured deep
With imagery beautiful as dream
We went, and left the shades which tend on sleep
1950 Their silent watch.—The child trod faintingly,
And as she went, the tears which she did weep
Glanced in the starlight; wildered seemèd she,
And when I spake, for sobs she could not answer me.
XXVII
At last the tyrant cried, ‘She hungers, slave,
1955 Stab her, or give her bread!’—It was a tone
Such as sick fancies in a new-made grave
Might hear. I trembled, for the truth was known;
He with this child had thus been left alone,
And neither had gone forth for food,—but he
In mingled pride and awe cowered near his throne,
And she a nursling of captivity
Knew nought beyond those walls, nor what such change might be.
XXVIII
And he was troubled at a charm withdrawn
Thus suddenly; that sceptres ruled no more—
1965 That even from gold the dreadful strength was gone,
Which once made all things subject to its power—
Such wonder seized him, as if hour by hour
The past had come again; and the swift fall
Of one so great and terrible of yore,
1970 To desolateness, in the hearts of all
Like wonder stirred, who saw such awful change befall.
XXIX
A mighty crowd, such as the wide land pours
Once in a thousand years, now gathered round
The fallen tyrant;—like the rush of showers
1975 Of hail in spring, pattering along the ground,
Their many footsteps fell, else came no sound
From the wide multitude: that lonely man
Then knew the burden of his change, and found,
Concealing in the dust his visage wan,
1980 Refuge from the keen looks which through his bosom ran.
XXX
And he was faint withal: I sate beside him
Upon the earth, and took that child so fair
From his weak arms, that ill might none betide him
Or her:—when food was brought to them, her share
1985 To his averted lips the child did bear,
But, when she saw he had enough, she ate
And wept the while;—the lonely man’s despair
Hunger then overcame, and of his state
Forgetful, on the dust as in a trance he sate.
XXXI
1990 Slowly the silence of the multitudes
Passed, as when far is heard in some lone dell
The gathering of a wind among the woods—
‘And he is fallen!’ they cry, ‘he who did dwell
Like famine or the plague, or aught more fell
1995 Among our homes, is fallen! the murderer
Who slaked his thirsting soul as from a well
Of blood and tears with ruin! he is here!
Sunk in a gulf of scorn from which none may him rear!’
XXXII
Then was heard—‘He who judged let him be brought
2000 To judgement! blood for blood cries from the soil
On which his crimes have deep pollution wrought!
Shall Othman only unavenged despoil?
Shall they who by the stress of grinding toil
Wrest from the unwilling earth his luxuries,
2005 Perish for crime, while his foul blood may boil,
Or creep within his veins at will?—Arise!
And to high justice make her chosen sacrifice.’
XXXIII
‘What do ye seek? what fear ye,’ then I cried,
Suddenly starting forth, ‘that ye should shed
2010 The blood of Othman?—if your hearts are tried
In the true love of freedom, cease to dread
This one poor lonely man—beneath Heaven spread
In purest light above us all, through earth
Maternal earth, who doth her sweet smiles shed
2015 For all, let him go free; until the worth
Of human nature win from these a second birth.
XXXIV
‘What call ye justice? Is there one who ne’er
In secret thought has wished another’s ill?—
Are ye all pure? Let those stand forth who hear,
2020 And tremble not. Shall they insult and kill,
If such they be? their mild eyes can they fill
With the false anger of the hypocrite?
Alas, such were not pure,—the chastened will
Of virtue sees that justice is the light
2025 Of love, and not revenge, and terror and despite.’
XXXV
The murmur of the people, slowly dying,
Paused as I spake, then those who near me were,
Cast gentle looks where the lone man was lying
Shrouding his head, which now that infant fair
2030 Clasped on her lap in silence;—through the air
Sobs were then heard, and many kissed my feet
In pity’s madness, and to the despair
Of him whom late they cursed, a solace sweet
His very victims brought—soft looks and speeches meet.
XXXVI
2035 Then to a home for his repose assigned,
Accompanied by the still throng he went
In silence, where, to soothe his rankling mind,
Some likeness of his ancient state was lent;
And if his heart could have been innocent
2040 As those who pardoned him, he might have ended
His days in peace; but his straight lips were bent,
Men said, into a smile which guile portended,
A sight with which that child like hope with fear was blended.
XXXVII
’Twas midnight now, the eve of that great day
2045 Whereon the many nations at whose call
The chains of earth like mist melted away,
Decreed to hold a sacred Festival,
A rite to attest the equality of all
Who live. So to their homes, to dream or wake
2050 All went. The sleepless silence did recall
Laone to my thoughts, with hopes that make
The flood recede from which their thirst they seek to slake.
XXXVIII
The dawn flowed forth, and from its purple fountains
I drank those hopes which make the spirit quail,
2055 As to the plain between the misty mountains
And the great City, with a countenance pale
I went:—it was a sight which might avail
To make men weep exulting tears, for whom
Now first from human power the reverend veil
2060 Was torn, to see Earth from her general womb
Pour forth her swarming sons to a fraternal doom:
XXXIX
To see, far glancing in the misty morning,
The signs of that innumerable host,
To hear one sound of many made, the warning
2065 Of Earth to Heaven from its free children tossed,
While the eternal hills, and the sea lost
In wavering light, and, starring the blue sky
The city’s myriad spires of gold, almost
With human joy made mute society—
2070 Its witnesses with men who must hereafter be.
XL
To see, like some vast island from the Ocean,
The Altar of the Federation rear
Its pile i’ the midst; a work which the devotion
Of millions in one night created there,
2075 Sudden, as when the moonrise makes appear
Strange clouds in the east; a marble pyramid
Distinct with steps: that mighty shape did wear
The light of genius; its still shadow hid
Far ships: to know its height the morning mists forbid!
XLI
2080 To hear the restless multitudes for ever
Around the base of that great Altar flow,
As on some mountain-islet burst and shiver
Atlantic waves; and solemnly and slow
As the wind bore that tumult to and fro,
2085 To feel the dreamlike music, which did swim
Like beams through floating clouds on waves below
Falling in pauses, from that Altar dim
As silver-sounding tongues breathed an aëreal hymn.
XLII
To hear, to see, to live, was on that morn
2090 Lethean joy! so that all those assembled
Cast off their memories of the past outworn;
Two only bosoms with their own life trembled.
And mine was one,—and we had both dissembled;
So with a beating heart I went, and one,
2095 Who having much, covets yet more, resembled;
A lost and dear possession, which not won,
He walks in lonely gloom beneath the noonday sun.
XLIII
To the great Pyramid I came: its stair
With female choirs was thronged: the loveliest
2100 Among the free, grouped with its sculptures rare;
As I approached, the morning’s golden mist,
Which now the wonder-stricken breezes kissed
With their cold lips, fled, and the summit shone
Like Athos seen from Samothracia, dressed
2105 In earliest light, by vintagers, and one
Sate there, a female Shape upon an ivory throne:
XLIV
A Form most like the imagined habitant
Of silver exhalations sprung from dawn,
By winds which feed on sunrise woven, to enchant
2110 The faiths of men: all mortal eyes were drawn,
As famished mariners through strange seas gone
Gaze on a burning watch-tower, by the light
Of those divinest lineaments—alone
With thoughts which none could share, from that fair sight
2115 I turned in sickness, for a veil shrouded her countenance bright.
XLV
And, neither did I hear the acclamations,
Which from brief silence bursting, filled the air
With her strange name and mine, from all the nations
Which we, they said, in strength had gathered there
2120 From the sleep of bondage; nor the vision fair
Of that bright pageantry beheld,—but blind
And silent, as a breathing corpse did fare,
Leaning upon my friend, till like a wind
To fevered cheeks, a voice flowed o’er my troubled mind.
XLVI
2125 Like music of some minstrel heavenly-gifted,
To one whom fiends enthral, this voice to me;
Scarce did I wish her veil to be uplifted,
I was so calm and joyous.—I could see
2130 Which kept their marble watch on that high shrine,
The multitudes, the mountains, and the sea;
As when eclipse hath passed, things sudden shine
To men’s astonished eyes most clear and crystalline.
XLVII
At first Laone spoke most tremulously:
2135 But soon her voice the calmness which it shed
Gathered, and—‘Thou art whom I sought to see,
And thou art our first votary here,’ she said:
‘I had a dear friend once, but he is dead!—
And of all those on the wide earth who breathe,
2140 Thou dost resemble him alone—I spread
This veil between us two, that thou beneath
Shouldst image one who may have been long lost in death.
XLVIII
‘For this wilt thou not henceforth pardon me?
Yes, but those joys which silence well requite
2145 Forbid reply;—why men have chosen me
To be the Priestess of this holiest rite
I scarcely know, but that the floods of light
Which flow over the world, have borne me hither
To meet thee, long most dear; and now unite
2150 Thine hand with mine, and may all comfort wither
From both the hearts whose pulse in joy now beat together,
XLIX
‘If our own will as others’ law we bind,
If the foul worship trampled here we fear;
If as ourselves we cease to love our kind!’—
2155 She paused, and pointed upwards—sculptured there
Three shapes around her ivory throne appear;
One was a Giant, like a child asleep
On a loose rock, whose grasp crushed, as it were
In dream, sceptres and crowns; and one did keep
2160 Its watchful eyes in doubt whether to smile or weep;
L
A Woman sitting on the sculptured disk
Of the broad earth, and feeding from one breast
A human babe and a young basilisk;
Her looks were sweet as Heaven’s when loveliest
2165 In Autumn eves. The third Image was dressed
In white wings swift as clouds in winter skies;
Beneath his feet, ’mongst ghastliest forms, repressed
Lay Faith, an obscene worm, who sought to rise,
While calmly on the Sun he turned his diamond eyes.
LI
2170 Beside that Image then I sate, while she
Stood, mid the throngs which ever ebbed and flowed,
Like light amid the shadows of the sea
Cast from one cloudless star, and on the crowd
That touch which none who feels forgets, bestowed;
2175 And whilst the sun returned the steadfast gaze
Of the great Image, as o’er Heaven it glode.
That rite had place; it ceased when sunset’s blaze
Burned o’er the isles. All stood in joy and deep amaze—
—When in the silence of all spirits there
2180 Laone’s voice was felt, and through the air
Her thrilling gestures spoke, most eloquently fair:—
1
‘Calm art thou as yon sunset! swift and strong
As new-fledged Eagles, beautiful and young,
That float among the blinding beams of morning;
2185 And underneath thy feet writhe Faith, and Folly,
Custom, and Hell, and mortal Melancholy—
Hark! the Earth starts to hear the mighty warning
Of thy voice sublime and holy;
Its free spirits here assembled,
2190 See thee, feel thee, know thee now,—
To thy voice their hearts have trembled
Like ten thousand clouds which flow
With one wide wind as it flies!—
Wisdom! thy irresistible children rise
2195 To hail thee, and the elements they chain
And their own will, to swell the glory of thy train.
2
‘O Spirit vast and deep as Night and Heaven!
Mother and soul of all to which is given
The light of life, the loveliness of being,
2200 Lo! thou dost re-ascend the human heart,
Thy throne of power, almighty as thou wert
In dreams of Poets old grown pale by seeing
The shade of thee:—now, millions start
2205 Nature, or God, or Love, or Pleasure,
Or Sympathy the sad tears turning
To mutual smiles, a drainless treasure,
Descends amidst us;—Scorn, and Hate,
Revenge and Selfishness are desolate—
2210 A hundred nations swear that there shall be
Pity and Peace and Love, among the good and free!
3
‘Eldest of things, divine Equality!
Wisdom and Love are but the slaves of thee,
The Angels of thy sway, who pour around thee
2215 Treasures from all the cells of human thought,
And from the Stars, and from the Ocean brought,
And the last living heart whose beatings bound thee:
The powerful and the wise had sought
Thy coming, thou in light descending
2220 O’er the wide land which is thine own
Like the Spring whose breath is blending
All blasts of fragrance into one,
Comest upon the paths of men!—
Earth bares her general bosom to thy ken,
2225 And all her children here in glory meet
To feed upon thy smiles, and clasp thy sacred feet.
4
‘My brethren, we are free! the plains and mountains,
The gray sea-shore, the forests and the fountains,
Are haunts of happiest dwellers;—man and woman,
2230 Their common bondage burst, may freely borrow
From lawless love a solace for their sorrow;
For oft we still must weep, since we are human.
A stormy night’s serenest morrow,
Whose showers are pity’s gentle tears,
2235 Whose clouds are smiles of those that die
Like infants without hopes or fears,
And whose beams are joys that lie
In blended hearts, now holds dominion;
The dawn of mind, which upwards on a pinion
2240 Borne, swift as sunrise, far illumines space,
And clasps this barren world in its own bright embrace!
5
‘My brethren, we are free! The fruits are glowing
Beneath the stars, and the night winds are flowing
2245 Never again may blood of bird or beast
Stain with its venomous stream a human feast,
To the pure skies in accusation steaming;
Avenging poisons shall have ceased
To feed disease and fear and madness,
2250 The dwellers of the earth and air
Shall throng around our steps in gladness
Seeking their food or refuge there.
Our toil from thought all glorious forms shall cull,
To make this Earth, our home, more beautiful,
2255 And Science, and her sister Poesy,
Shall clothe in light the fields and cities of the free!
6
‘Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations!
Bear witness Night, and ye mute Constellations
Who gaze on us from your crystalline cars!
Thoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep no more!
Victory! Victory! Earth’s remotest shore,
Regions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars,
The green lands cradled in the roar
Of western waves, and wildernesses
2265 Peopled and vast, which skirt the oceans
Where morning dyes her golden tresses,
Shall soon partake our high emotions:
Kings shall turn pale! Almighty Fear
The Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear,
2270 Shall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes,
While Truth with Joy enthroned o’er his lost empire reigns!’
LII
Ere she had ceased, the mists of night entwining
Their dim woof, floated o’er the infinite throng;
She, like a spirit through the darkness shining,
2275 In tones whose sweetness silence did prolong,
As if to lingering winds they did belong,
Poured forth her inmost soul: a passionate speech
With wild and thrilling pauses woven among,
Which whoso heard, was mute, for it could teach
2280 To rapture like her own all listening hearts to reach.
LIII
Her voice was as a mountain-stream which sweeps
The withered leaves of Autumn to the lake,
And in some deep and narrow bay then sleeps
In the shadow of the shores; as dead leaves wake
2285 Under the wave, in flowers and herbs which make
Those green depths beautiful when skies are blue,
The multitude so moveless did partake
Such living change, and kindling murmurs flew
As o’er that speechless calm delight and wonder grew.
LIV
2290 Over the plain the throngs were scattered then
In groups around the fires, which from the sea
Even to the gorge of the first mountain-glen
Blazed wide and far: the banquet of the free
Was spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree,
2295 Beneath whose spires, which swayed in the red flame,
Reclining, as they ate, of Liberty,
And Hope, and Justice, and Laone’s name,
Earth’s children did a woof of happy converse frame.
LV
Their feast was such as Earth, the general mother,
2300 Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles
In the embrace of Autumn;—to each other
As when some parent fondly reconciles
Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles
With her own sustenance; they relenting weep:
2305 Such was this Festival, which from their isles
And continents, and winds, and oceans deep,
All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk, or creep,—
LVI
Might share in peace and innocence, for gore
Or poison none this festal did pollute,
2310 But piled on high, an overflowing store
Of pomegranates, and citrons, fairest fruit,
Melons, and dates, and figs, and many a root
Sweet and sustaining, and bright grapes ere yet
Accursed fire their mild juice could transmute
2315 Into a mortal bane, and brown corn set
In baskets; with pure streams their thirsting lips they wet.
LVII
Laone had descended from the shrine,
And every deepest look and holiest mind
Fed on her form, though now those tones divine
2320 Were silent as she passed: she did unwind
Her veil, as with the crowds of her own kind
She mixed; some impulse made my heart refrain
From seeking her that night, so I reclined
Amidst a group, where on the utmost plain
2325 A festal watchfire burned beside the dusky main.
LVIII
And joyous was our feast; pathetic talk,
And wit, and harmony of choral strains,
While far Orion o’er the waves did walk
That flow among the isles, held us in chains
2330 Of sweet captivity, which none disdains
Who feels: but when his zone grew dim in mist
Which clothes the Ocean’s bosom, o’er the plains
The multitudes went homeward, to their rest,
Which that delightful day with its own shadow blessed.