28.The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had madeA natural couch of leaves in that recess,Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade _2580Of flowering parasites, did Spring love to dressWith their sweet blooms the wintry lonelinessOf those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene’erThe wandering wind her nurslings might caress;Whose intertwining fingers ever there _2585Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.
29.We know not where we go, or what sweet dreamMay pilot us through caverns strange and fairOf far and pathless passion, while the streamOf life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear, _2590Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;Nor should we seek to know, so the devotionOf love and gentle thoughts be heard still thereLouder and louder from the utmost OceanOf universal life, attuning its commotion. _2595
30.To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrappedOur spirits, and the fearful overthrowOf public hope was from our being snapped,Though linked years had bound it there; for nowA power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below _2600All thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere,Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow,Came on us, as we sate in silence there,Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air;—
31.In silence which doth follow talk that causes _2605The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears,When wildering passion swalloweth up the pausesOf inexpressive speech:—the youthful yearsWhich we together passed, their hopes and fears,The blood itself which ran within our frames, _2610That likeness of the features which endearsThe thoughts expressed by them, our very names,And all the winged hours which speechless memory claims,
32.Had found a voice—and ere that voice did pass,The night grew damp and dim, and, through a rent _2615Of the ruin where we sate, from the morassA wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent,Hung high in the green dome, to which it lentA faint and pallid lustre; while the songOf blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent, _2620Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit’s tongue.
33.The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,And Cythna’s glowing arms, and the thick tiesOf her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight _2625My neck near hers; her dark and deepening eyes,Which, as twin phantoms of one star that liesO’er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses, _2630With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.
34.The Meteor to its far morass returned:The beating of our veins one intervalMade still; and then I felt the blood that burnedWithin her frame, mingle with mine, and fall _2635Around my heart like fire; and over allA mist was spread, the sickness of a deepAnd speechless swoon of joy, as might befallTwo disunited spirits when they leapIn union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep. _2640
35.Was it one moment that confounded thusAll thought, all sense, all feeling, into oneUnutterable power, which shielded usEven from our own cold looks, when we had goneInto a wide and wild oblivion _2645Of tumult and of tenderness? or nowHad ages, such as make the moon and sun,The seasons, and mankind their changes know,Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?
36.I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps _2650The failing heart in languishment, or limbTwined within limb? or the quick dying gaspsOf the life meeting, when the faint eyes swimThrough tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,In one caress? What is the strong control _2655Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,Where far over the world those vapours rollWhich blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?37.It is the shadow which doth float unseen,But not unfelt, o’er blind mortality, _2660Whose divine darkness fled not from that greenAnd lone recess, where lapped in peace did lieOur linked frames, till, from the changing skyThat night and still another day had fled;And then I saw and felt. The moon was high, _2665And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spreadUnder its orb,—loud winds were gathering overhead.
38.Cythna’s sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,And her dark tresses were all loosely strewn _2670O’er her pale bosom:—all within was still,And the sweet peace of joy did almost fillThe depth of her unfathomable look;—And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,The waves contending in its caverns strook, _2675For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.
39.There we unheeding sate, in the communionOf interchanged vows, which, with a riteOf faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—Few were the living hearts which could unite _2680Like ours, or celebrate a bridal nightWith such close sympathies, for they had sprungFrom linked youth, and from the gentle mightOf earliest love, delayed and cherished long,Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong. _2685
40.And such is Nature’s law divine, that thoseWho grow together cannot choose but love,If faith or custom do not interpose,Or common slavery mar what else might moveAll gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove _2690Which shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,That living tree which, if the arrowy doveStrike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;
41.And clings to them, when darkness may dissever _2695The close caresses of all duller plantsWhich bloom on the wide earth—thus we for everWere linked, for love had nursed us in the hauntsWhere knowledge, from its secret source enchantsYoung hearts with the fresh music of its springing, _2700Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flingingLight on the woven boughs which o’er its waves are swinging.
42.The tones of Cythna’s voice like echoes wereOf those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell, _2705Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,—And so we sate, until our talk befellOf the late ruin, swift and horrible,And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,Whose fruit is evil’s mortal poison: well, _2710For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,But Cythna’s eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone
43.Since she had food:—therefore I did awakenThe Tartar steed, who, from his ebon maneSoon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken, _2715Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,Following me obediently; with painOf heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,When lips and heart refuse to part againTill they have told their fill, could scarce express _2720The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,
44.Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrodeThat willing steed—the tempest and the night,Which gave my path its safety as I rodeDown the ravine of rocks, did soon unite _2725The darkness and the tumult of their mightBorne on all winds.—Far through the streaming rainFloating at intervals the garments whiteOf Cythna gleamed, and her voice once againCame to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain. _2730
45.I dreaded not the tempest, nor did heWho bore me, but his eyeballs wide and redTurned on the lightning’s cleft exultingly;And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread _2735His nostrils to the blast, and joyouslyMock the fierce peal with neighings;—thus we spedO’er the lit plain, and soon I could descryWhere Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.
46.There was a desolate village in a wood _2740Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fedThe hungry storm; it was a place of blood,A heap of hearthless walls;—the flames were deadWithin those dwellings now,—the life had fledFrom all those corpses now,—but the wide sky _2745Flooded with lightning was ribbed overheadBy the black rafters, and around did lieWomen, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.
47.Beside the fountain in the market-placeDismounting, I beheld those corpses stare _2750With horny eyes upon each other’s face,And on the earth and on the vacant air,And upon me, close to the waters whereI stooped to slake my thirst;—I shrank to taste,For the salt bitterness of blood was there; _2755But tied the steed beside, and sought in hasteIf any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.
48.No living thing was there beside one woman,Whom I found wandering in the streets, and sheWas withered from a likeness of aught human _2760Into a fiend, by some strange misery:Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughedWith a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,And cried, ‘Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed _2765The Plague’s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!
49.‘My name is Pestilence—this bosom dry,Once fed two babes—a sister and a brother—When I came home, one in the blood did lieOf three death-wounds—the flames had ate the other! _2770Since then I have no longer been a mother,But I am Pestilence;—hither and thitherI flit about, that I may slay and smother:—All lips which I have kissed must surely wither,But Death’s—if thou art he, we’ll go to work together! _2775
50.‘What seek’st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,—The dew is rising dankly from the dell—‘Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashesIn my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tellFirst what thou seek’st.’—‘I seek for food.’—‘’Tis well, _2780Thou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour,Waits for us at the feast—cruel and fellIs Famine, but he drives not from his doorThose whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!’
51.As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength _2785Of madness, and by many a ruined hearthShe led, and over many a corpse:—at lengthWe came to a lone hut where on the earthWhich made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth,Gathering from all those homes now desolate, _2790Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearthAmong the dead—round which she set in stateA ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.
52.She leaped upon a pile, and lifted highHer mad looks to the lightning, and cried: ‘Eat! _2795Share the great feast—to-morrow we must die!’And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,Towards her bloodless guests;—that sight to meet,Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that sheWho loved me, did with absent looks defeat _2800Despair, I might have raved in sympathy;But now I took the food that woman offered me;
53.And vainly having with her madness strivenIf I might win her to return with me,Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven _2805The lightning now grew pallid—rapidly,As by the shore of the tempestuous seaThe dark steed bore me; and the mountain graySoon echoed to his hoofs, and I could seeCythna among the rocks, where she alway _2810Had sate with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.
54.And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,Famished, and wet and weary, so I castMy arms around her, lest her steps should failAs to our home we went, and thus embraced, _2815Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to tasteThan e’er the prosperous know; the steed behindTrod peacefully along the mountain waste;We reached our home ere morning could unbindNight’s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined. _2820
55.Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,And sweetest kisses past, we two did shareOur peaceful meal:—as an autumnal blossomWhich spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,After cold showers, like rainbows woven there, _2825Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spiritMantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphereOf health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.
NOTES: _2397 -isle. Bradley, who cps. Marianne’s Dream, St. 12. See note at end.
1.So we sate joyous as the morning ray _2830Which fed upon the wrecks of night and stormNow lingering on the winds; light airs did playAmong the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,And we sate linked in the inwoven charmOf converse and caresses sweet and deep, _2835Speechless caresses, talk that might disarmTime, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.
2.I told her of my sufferings and my madness,And how, awakened from that dreamy mood _2840By Liberty’s uprise, the strength of gladnessCame to my spirit in my solitude;And all that now I was—while tears pursuedEach other down her fair and listening cheekFast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood _2845From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.
3.She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,Like broken memories of many a heartWoven into one; to which no firm assurance, _2850So wild were they, could her own faith impart.She said that not a tear did dare to startFrom the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firmWhen from all mortal hope she did depart,Borne by those slaves across the Ocean’s term, _2855And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.
4.One was she among many there, the thrallsOf the cold Tyrant’s cruel lust; and theyLaughed mournfully in those polluted halls;But she was calm and sad, musing alway _2860On loftiest enterprise, till on a dayThe Tyrant heard her singing to her luteA wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,Like winds that die in wastes—one moment muteThe evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute. _2865
5.Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,One moment to great Nature’s sacred powerHe bent, and was no longer passionless;But when he bade her to his secret bowerBe borne, a loveless victim, and she tore _2870Her locks in agony, and her words of flameAnd mightier looks availed not; then he boreAgain his load of slavery, and becameA king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.
6.She told me what a loathsome agony _2875Is that when selfishness mocks love’s delight,Foul as in dream’s most fearful imagery,To dally with the mowing dead—that nightAll torture, fear, or horror made seem lightWhich the soul dreams or knows, and when the day _2880Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sightWhere like a Spirit in fleshly chains she layStruggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.
7.Her madness was a beam of light, a powerWhich dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave, _2885Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds boreWhich might not be withstood—whence none could save—All who approached their sphere,—like some calm waveVexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;And sympathy made each attendant slave _2890Fearless and free, and they began to breatheDeep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.
8.The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,—One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown _2895From human shape into an instrumentOf all things ill—distorted, bowed and bent.The other was a wretch from infancyMade dumb by poison; who nought knew or meantBut to obey: from the fire isles came he, _2900A diver lean and strong, of Oman’s coral sea.
9.They bore her to a bark, and the swift strokeOf silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,Until upon their path the morning broke;They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze, _2905The gloomiest of the drear SymplegadesShakes with the sleepless surge;—the Ethiop thereWound his long arms around her, and with kneesLike iron clasped her feet, and plunged with herAmong the closing waves out of the boundless air. _2910
10.‘Swift as an eagle stooping from the plainOf morning light, into some shadowy wood,He plunged through the green silence of the main,Through many a cavern which the eternal floodHad scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood; _2915And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,And among mightier shadows which pursuedHis heels, he wound: until the dark rocks underHe touched a golden chain—a sound arose like thunder.
11.‘A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling _2920Beneath the deep—a burst of waters drivenAs from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:And in that roof of crags a space was rivenThrough which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,Shot through the lines of many waves inwoven, _2925Like sunlight through acacia woods at even,Through which, his way the diver having cloven,Passed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.
12.‘And then,’ she said, ‘he laid me in a caveAbove the waters, by that chasm of sea, _2930A fountain round and vast, in which the waveImprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,Down which, one moment resting, he did flee,Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cellLike an hupaithric temple wide and high, _2935Whose aery dome is inaccessible,Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.
13.‘Below, the fountain’s brink was richly pavenWith the deep’s wealth, coral, and pearl, and sandLike spangling gold, and purple shells engraven _2940With mystic legends by no mortal hand,Left there, when thronging to the moon’s command,The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gateOf mountains, and on such bright floor did standColumns, and shapes like statues, and the state _2945Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.
14.‘The fiend of madness which had made its preyOf my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile:There was an interval of many a day,And a sea-eagle brought me food the while, _2950Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle,And who, to be the gaoler had been taughtOf that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smileLike light and rest at morn and even is soughtThat wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought. _2955
15.‘The misery of a madness slow and creeping,Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,And the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping,In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there; _2960And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who boreThy mangled limbs for food!—Thus all things wereTransformed into the agony which I woreEven as a poisoned robe around my bosom’s core.
16.‘Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing, _2965The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;Another frenzy came—there seemed a beingWithin me—a strange load my heart did bear,As if some living thing had made its lairEven in the fountains of my life:—a long _2970And wondrous vision wrought from my despair,Then grew, like sweet reality amongDim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.
17.‘Methought I was about to be a mother—Month after month went by, and still I dreamed _2975That we should soon be all to one another,I and my child; and still new pulses seemedTo beat beside my heart, and still I deemedThere was a babe within—and, when the rainOf winter through the rifted cavern streamed, _2980Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.
18.‘It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,—It was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine,Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earth _2985It laid its fingers, as now rest on mineThine own, beloved!—’twas a dream divine;Even to remember how it fled, how swift,How utterly, might make the heart repine,—Though ’twas a dream.’—Then Cythna did uplift _2990Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:
19.A doubt which would not flee, a tendernessOf questioning grief, a source of thronging tears;Which having passed, as one whom sobs oppressShe spoke: ‘Yes, in the wilderness of years _2995Her memory, aye, like a green home appears;She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,For many months. I had no mortal fears;Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,—It was a human thing which to my bosom clove. _3000
20.‘I watched the dawn of her first smiles; and soonWhen zenith stars were trembling on the wave,Or when the beams of the invisible moon,Or sun, from many a prism within the caveTheir gem-born shadows to the water gave, _3005Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand,From the swift lights which might that fountain pave,She would mark one, and laugh, when that commandSlighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.
21.‘Methought her looks began to talk with me; _3010And no articulate sounds, but something sweetHer lips would frame,—so sweet it could not be,That it was meaningless; her touch would meetMine, and our pulses calmly flow and beatIn response while we slept; and on a day _3015When I was happiest in that strange retreat,With heaps of golden shells we two did play,—Both infants, weaving wings for time’s perpetual way.
22.‘Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grownWeary with joy, and tired with our delight, _3020We, on the earth, like sister twins lay downOn one fair mother’s bosom:—from that nightShe fled,—like those illusions clear and bright,Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on highPause ere it wakens tempest;—and her flight, _3025Though ’twas the death of brainless fantasy,Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.
23.‘It seemed that in the dreary night the diverWho brought me thither, came again, and boreMy child away. I saw the waters quiver, _3030When he so swiftly sunk, as once before:Then morning came—it shone even as of yore,But I was changed—the very life was goneOut of my heart—I wasted more and more,Day after day, and sitting there alone, _3035Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.
24.‘I was no longer mad, and yet methoughtMy breasts were swoln and changed:—in every veinThe blood stood still one moment, while that thoughtWas passing—with a gush of sickening pain _3040It ebbed even to its withered springs again:When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turnedFrom that most strange delusion, which would fainHave waked the dream for which my spirit yearnedWith more than human love,—then left it unreturned. _3045
25.‘So now my reason was restored to meI struggled with that dream, which, like a beastMost fierce and beauteous, in my memoryHad made its lair, and on my heart did feast;But all that cave and all its shapes, possessed _3050By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each oneSome smile, some look, some gesture which had blessedMe heretofore: I, sitting there alone,Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.
26.‘Time passed, I know not whether months or years; _3055For day, nor night, nor change of seasons madeIts note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:And I became at last even as a shade,A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed,Till it be thin as air; until, one even, _3060A Nautilus upon the fountain played,Spreading his azure sail where breath of HeavenDescended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.
27.‘And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat, _3065Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing,The Eagle, hovering o’er his prey did float;But when he saw that I with fear did noteHis purpose, proffering my own food to him,The eager plumes subsided on his throat— _3070He came where that bright child of sea did swim,And o’er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.
28.‘This wakened me, it gave me human strength;And hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose,But I resumed my ancient powers at length; _3075My spirit felt again like one of thoseLike thine, whose fate it is to make the woesOf humankind their prey—what was this cave?Its deep foundation no firm purpose knowsImmutable, resistless, strong to save, _3080Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.
29.‘And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,While that far dearer heart could move and be?Or whilst over the earth the pall was spread,Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free, _3085Could I but win that friendly bird to me,To bring me ropes; and long in vain I soughtBy intercourse of mutual imageryOf objects, if such aid he could be taught;But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought. _3090
30.‘We live in our own world, and mine was madeFrom glorious fantasies of hope departed:Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,Or cast a lustre on them—time impartedSuch power to me—I became fearless-hearted, _3095My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,And piercing, like the morn, now it has dartedIts lustre on all hidden things, behindYon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.
31.‘My mind became the book through which I grew _3100Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,Which like a mine I rifled through and through,To me the keeping of its secrets gave—One mind, the type of all, the moveless waveWhose calm reflects all moving things that are, _3105Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear,Justice, and truth, and time, and the world’s natural sphere.
32.‘And on the sand would I make signs to rangeThese woofs, as they were woven, of my thought; _3110Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest changeA subtler language within language wrought:The key of truths which once were dimly taughtIn old Crotona;—and sweet melodiesOf love, in that lorn solitude I caught _3115From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyesShone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.
33.‘Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,As in a winged chariot, o’er the plainOf crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill _3120My heart with joy, and there we sate againOn the gray margin of the glimmering main,Happy as then but wiser far, for weSmiled on the flowery grave in which were lainFear, Faith and Slavery; and mankind was free, _3125Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom’s prophecy.
34.‘For to my will my fancies were as slavesTo do their sweet and subtile ministries;And oft from that bright fountain’s shadowy wavesThey would make human throngs gather and rise _3130To combat with my overflowing eyes,And voice made deep with passion—thus I grewFamiliar with the shock and the surpriseAnd war of earthly minds, from which I drewThe power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew. _3135
35.‘And thus my prison was the populous earth—Where I saw—even as misery dreams of mornBefore the east has given its glory birth—Religion’s pomp made desolate by the scornOf Wisdom’s faintest smile, and thrones uptorn, _3140And dwellings of mild people interspersedWith undivided fields of ripening corn,And love made free,—a hope which we have nursedEven with our blood and tears,—until its glory burst.
36.‘All is not lost! There is some recompense _3145For hope whose fountain can be thus profound,Even throned Evil’s splendid impotence,Girt by its hell of power, the secret soundOf hymns to truth and freedom—the dread boundOf life and death passed fearlessly and well, _3150Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,Racks which degraded woman’s greatness tell,And what may else be good and irresistible.
37.‘Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flareIn storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet _3155In this dark ruin—such were mine even there;As in its sleep some odorous violet,While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,Breathes in prophetic dreams of day’s uprise,Or as, ere Scythian frost in fear has met _3160Spring’s messengers descending from the skies,The buds foreknow their life—this hope must ever rise.
38.‘So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rentThe depth of ocean, and the cavern crackedWith sound, as if the world’s wide continent _3165Had fallen in universal ruin wracked:And through the cleft streamed in one cataractThe stifling waters—when I woke, the floodWhose banded waves that crystal cave had sackedWas ebbing round me, and my bright abode _3170Before me yawned—a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.
39.‘Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:I stood upon a point of shattered stone,And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuouslyWith splash and shock into the deep—anon _3175All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.I felt that I was free! The Ocean-sprayQuivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shoneAround, and in my hair the winds did playLingering as they pursued their unimpeded way. _3180
40.‘My spirit moved upon the sea like windWhich round some thymy cape will lag and hover,Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbindThe strength of tempest: day was almost over,When through the fading light I could discover _3185A ship approaching—its white sails were fedWith the north wind—its moving shade did coverThe twilight deep; the mariners in dreadCast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.
41.‘And when they saw one sitting on a crag, _3190They sent a boat to me;—the Sailors rowedIn awe through many a new and fearful jagOf overhanging rock, through which there flowedThe foam of streams that cannot make abode.They came and questioned me, but when they heard _3195My voice, they became silent, and they stoodAnd moved as men in whom new love had stirredDeep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.
NOTES: _2877 dreams edition 1818. _2994 opprest edition 1818. _3115 lone solitude edition 1818.
1.‘I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazingUpon the west, cried, “Spread the sails! Behold! _3200The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazingOver the mountains yet;—the City of GoldYon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;The stream is fleet—the north breathes steadilyBeneath the stars; they tremble with the cold! _3205Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea!—Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!”
2.‘The Mariners obeyed—the Captain stoodAloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,“Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued _3210By wicked ghosts; a Phantom of the Dead,The night before we sailed, came to my bedIn dream, like that!” The Pilot then replied,“It cannot be—she is a human Maid—Her low voice makes you weep—she is some bride, _3215Or daughter of high birth—she can be nought beside.”
3.‘We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,And as we sailed, the Mariners came nearAnd thronged around to listen;—in the gleamOf the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear _3220May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear;“Ye are all human—yon broad moon gives lightTo millions who the selfsame likeness wear,Even while I speak—beneath this very night,Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight. _3225
4.‘“What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home,Even for yourselves on a beloved shore:For some, fond eyes are pining till they come,How they will greet him when his toils are o’er,And laughing babes rush from the well-known door! _3230Is this your care? ye toil for your own good—Ye feel and think—has some immortal powerSuch purposes? or in a human mood,Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?
5.‘“What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give _3235A human heart to what ye cannot know:As if the cause of life could think and live!’Twere as if man’s own works should feel, and showThe hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free _3240To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,Disease, and Want, and worse NecessityOf hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!
6.‘“What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stoodWatching the shade from his own soul upthrown _3245Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such moodThe Form he saw and worshipped was his own,His likeness in the world’s vast mirror shown;And ’twere an innocent dream, but that a faithNursed by fear’s dew of poison, grows thereon, _3250And that men say, that Power has chosen DeathOn all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.
7.‘“Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,Or known from others who have known such things,A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between _3255Wields an invisible rod—that Priests and Kings,Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that bringsMan’s freeborn soul beneath the oppressor’s heel,Are his strong ministers, and that the stingsOf death will make the wise his vengeance feel, _3260Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.
8.‘“And it is said, this Power will punish wrong;Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain, _3265Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate,Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain—The will of strength is right—this human stateTyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate. _3270
9.‘“Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frailThan yon dim cloud now fading on the moonEven while we gaze, though it awhile availTo hide the orb of truth—and every throneOf Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon, _3275One shape of many names:—for this ye ploughThe barren waves of ocean, hence each oneIs slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.
10.‘“Its names are each a sign which maketh holy _3280All power—ay, the ghost, the dream, the shadeOf power—lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,A law to which mankind has been betrayed;And human love, is as the name well known _3285Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laidIn bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.
11.‘“O Love, who to the hearts of wandering menArt as the calm to Ocean’s weary waves! _3290Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only canFrom slavery and religion’s labyrinth cavesGuide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.To give to all an equal share of good,To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves _3295She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend’s dearest blood,—
12.‘“To feel the peace of self-contentment’s lot,To own all sympathies, and outrage none,And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, _3300Until life’s sunny day is quite gone down,To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;To live, as if to love and live were one,—This is not faith or law, nor those who bow _3305To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.
13.‘“But children near their parents tremble now,Because they must obey—one rules another,And as one Power rules both high and low,So man is made the captive of his brother, _3310And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,Above the Highest—and those fountain-cells,Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,Are darkened—Woman as the bond-slave dwellsOf man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells. _3315
14.‘“Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weaveA lasting chain for his own slavery;—In fear and restless care that he may liveHe toils for others, who must ever beThe joyless thralls of like captivity; _3320He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;He builds the altar, that its idol’s feeMay be his very blood; he is pursuing—O, blind and willing wretch!—his own obscure undoing.
15.‘“Woman!—she is his slave, she has become _3325A thing I weep to speak—the child of scorn,The outcast of a desolated home;Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have wornChannels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,As calm decks the false Ocean:—well ye know _3330What Woman is, for none of Woman bornCan choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.
16.‘“This need not be; ye might arise, and willThat gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory; _3335That love, which none may bind, be free to fillThe world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoaryWith crime, be quenched and die.—Yon promontoryEven now eclipses the descending moon!—Dungeons and palaces are transitory— _3340High temples fade like vapour—Man aloneRemains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.
17.‘“Let all be free and equal!—From your heartsI feel an echo; through my inmost frameLike sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts— _3345Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot nameAll that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,On your worn faces; as in legends oldWhich make immortal the disastrous fameOf conquerors and impostors false and bold, _3350The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.
18.‘“Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human bloodForth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold,That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude?Or from the famished poor, pale, weak and cold, _3355Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!Speak! Are your hands in slaughter’s sanguine hueStained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?Know yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew,And I will be a friend and sister unto you. _3360
19.‘“Disguise it not—we have one human heart—All mortal thoughts confess a common home:Blush not for what may to thyself impartStains of inevitable crime: the doomIs this, which has, or may, or must become _3365Thine, and all humankind’s. Ye are the spoilWhich Time thus marks for the devouring tomb—Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toilWherewith ye twine the rings of life’s perpetual coil.
20.‘“Disguise it not—ye blush for what ye hate, _3370And Enmity is sister unto Shame;Look on your mind—it is the book of fate—Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned nameOf misery—all are mirrors of the same;But the dark fiend who with his iron pen _3375Dipped in scorn’s fiery poison, makes his fameEnduring there, would o’er the heads of menPass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.
21.‘“Yes, it is Hate, that shapeless fiendly thingOf many names, all evil, some divine, _3380Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwineIs wasted quite, and when it doth repineTo gorge such bitter prey, on all besideIt turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine _3385When Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied,Soon o’er the putrid mass he threats on every side.
22.‘“Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,Nor hate another’s crime, nor loathe thine own.It is the dark idolatry of self, _3390Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;Oh, vacant expiation! Be at rest.—The past is Death’s, the future is thine own;And love and joy can make the foulest breast _3395A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.
23.‘“Speak thou! whence come ye?”—A Youth made reply:“Wearily, wearily o’er the boundless deepWe sail;—thou readest well the miseryTold in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep _3400Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep,Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow;Even from our childhood have we learned to steepThe bread of slavery in the tears of woe,And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now. _3405
24.‘“Yes—I must speak—my secret should have perishedEven with the heart it wasted, as a brandFades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,But that no human bosom can withstandThee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command _3410Of thy keen eyes:—yes, we are wretched slaves,Who from their wonted loves and native landAre reft, and bear o’er the dividing wavesThe unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.
25.‘“We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest _3415Among the daughters of those mountains lone,We drag them there, where all things best and rarestAre stained and trampled:—years have come and goneSince, like the ship which bears me, I have knownNo thought;—but now the eyes of one dear Maid _3420On mine with light of mutual love have shone—She is my life,—I am but as the shadeOf her,—a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.
26.‘“For she must perish in the Tyrant’s hall—Alas, alas!”—He ceased, and by the sail _3425Sate cowering—but his sobs were heard by all,And still before the ocean and the galeThe ship fled fast till the stars ‘gan to fail;And, round me gathered with mute countenance,The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale _3430With toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glanceMet mine in restless awe—they stood as in a trance.
27.‘“Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old,But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and YouthAre children of one mother, even Love—behold! _3435The eternal stars gaze on us!—is the truthWithin your soul? care for your own, or ruthFor others’ sufferings? do ye thirst to bearA heart which not the serpent Custom’s toothMay violate?—Be free! and even here, _3440Swear to be firm till death!” They cried, “We swear! We swear!”
28.‘The very darkness shook, as with a blastOf subterranean thunder, at the cry;The hollow shore its thousand echoes castInto the night, as if the sea and sky, _3445And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,And on the deck, with unaccustomed eyeThe captives gazing stood, and every oneShrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone. _3450
29.‘They were earth’s purest children, young and fair,With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,And brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ereDark time had there its evil legend wroughtIn characters of cloud which wither not.— _3455The change was like a dream to them; but soonThey knew the glory of their altered lot,In the bright wisdom of youth’s breathless noon,Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune.
30.‘But one was mute; her cheeks and lips most fair, _3460Changing their hue like lilies newly blown,Beneath a bright acacia’s shadowy hair,Waved by the wind amid the sunny noon,Showed that her soul was quivering; and full soonThat Youth arose, and breathlessly did look _3465On her and me, as for some speechless boon:I smiled, and both their hands in mine I took,And felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook.
1.‘That night we anchored in a woody bay,And sleep no more around us dared to hover _3470Than, when all doubt and fear has passed away,It shades the couch of some unresting lover,Whose heart is now at rest: thus night passed overIn mutual joy:—around, a forest grewOf poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover _3475The waning stars pranked in the waters blue,And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.
2.‘The joyous Mariners, and each free MaidenNow brought from the deep forest many a bough,With woodland spoil most innocently laden; _3480Soon wreaths of budding foliage seemed to flowOver the mast and sails, the stern and prowWere canopied with blooming boughs,—the whileOn the slant sun’s path o’er the waves we goRejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle _3485Doomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.
3.‘The many ships spotting the dark blue deepWith snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh,In fear and wonder; and on every steepThousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry, _3490Like Earth’s own voice lifted unconquerablyTo all her children, the unbounded mirth,The glorious joy of thy name—Liberty!They heard!—As o’er the mountains of the earthFrom peak to peak leap on the beams of Morning’s birth: _3495
4.‘So from that cry over the boundless hillsSudden was caught one universal sound,Like a volcano’s voice, whose thunder fillsRemotest skies,—such glorious madness foundA path through human hearts with stream which drowned _3500Its struggling fears and cares, dark Custom’s brood;They knew not whence it came, but felt aroundA wide contagion poured—they called aloudOn Liberty—that name lived on the sunny flood.
5.‘We reached the port.—Alas! from many spirits _3505The wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled,Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inheritsFrom the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread,Upon the night’s devouring darkness shed:Yet soon bright day will burst—even like a chasm _3510Of fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead,Which wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm,To cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake’s spasm!
6.‘I walked through the great City then, but freeFrom shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners _3515And happy Maidens did encompass me;And like a subterranean wind that stirsSome forest among caves, the hopes and fearsFrom every human soul, a murmur strangeMade as I passed; and many wept, with tears _3520Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range,And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.
7.‘For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hidNature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—As one who from some mountain’s pyramid _3525Points to the unrisen sun!—the shades approveHis truth, and flee from every stream and grove.Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,—Wisdom, the mail of tried affections woveFor many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill, _3530Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.
8.‘Some said I was a maniac wild and lost;Some, that I scarce had risen from the grave,The Prophet’s virgin bride, a heavenly ghost:—Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, _3535Who had stolen human shape, and o’er the wave,The forest, and the mountain, came;—some saidI was the child of God, sent down to saveWoman from bonds and death, and on my headThe burden of their sins would frightfully be laid. _3540
9.‘But soon my human words found sympathyIn human hearts: the purest and the best,As friend with friend, made common cause with me,And they were few, but resolute;—the rest,Ere yet success the enterprise had blessed, _3545Leagued with me in their hearts;—their meals, their slumber,Their hourly occupations, were possessedBy hopes which I had armed to overnumberThose hosts of meaner cares, which life’s strong wings encumber.
10.‘But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken _3550From their cold, careless, willing slavery,Sought me: one truth their dreary prison has shaken,—They looked around, and lo! they became free!Their many tyrants sitting desolatelyIn slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; _3555For wrath’s red fire had withered in the eye,Whose lightning once was death,—nor fear, nor gainCould tempt one captive now to lock another’s chain.
11.‘Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and feltTheir minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round, _3560Even as a waxen shape may waste and meltIn the white furnace; and a visioned swound,A pause of hope and awe the City bound,Which, like the silence of a tempest’s birth,When in its awful shadow it has wound _3565The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.
12.‘Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,By winds from distant regions meeting there,In the high name of truth and liberty, _3570Around the City millions gathered were,By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,—Words which the lore of truth in hues of flameArrayed, thine own wild songs which in the airLike homeless odours floated, and the name _3575Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.
13.‘The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear,The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the event—That perfidy and custom, gold and prayer,And whatsoe’er, when force is impotent, _3580To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent,Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sentTo curse the rebels.—To their gods did theyFor Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way. _3585
14.‘And grave and hoary men were bribed to tellFrom seats where law is made the slave of wrong,How glorious Athens in her splendour fell,Because her sons were free,—and that amongMankind, the many to the few belong, _3590By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.They said, that age was truth, and that the youngMarred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.
15.‘And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips _3595They breathed on the enduring memoryOf sages and of bards a brief eclipse;There was one teacher, who necessityHad armed with strength and wrong against mankind,His slave and his avenger aye to be; _3600That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,And that the will of one was peace, and weShould seek for nought on earth but toil and misery—
16.‘“For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter.”So spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied; _3605Alas, their sway was past, and tears and laughterClung to their hoary hair, withering the prideWhich in their hollow hearts dared still abide;And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,And sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide, _3610Said that the rule of men was over now,And hence, the subject world to woman’s will must bow;
17.‘And gold was scattered through the streets, and wineFlowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.In vain! the steady towers in Heaven did shine _3615As they were wont, nor at the priestly callLeft Plague her banquet in the Ethiop’s hall,Nor Famine from the rich man’s portal came,Where at her ease she ever preys on allWho throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame, _3620Nor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope’s newly kindled flame.
18.‘For gold was as a god whose faith beganTo fade, so that its worshippers were few,And Faith itself, which in the heart of manGives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, knew _3625Its downfall, as the altars lonelier grew,Till the Priests stood alone within the fane;The shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew,And the cold sneers of calumny were vain,The union of the free with discord’s brand to stain. _3630
19.‘The rest thou knowest.—Lo! we two are here—We have survived a ruin wide and deep—Strange thoughts are mine.—I cannot grieve or fear,Sitting with thee upon this lonely steepI smile, though human love should make me weep. _3635We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,And I do feel a mighty calmness creepOver my heart, which can no longer borrowIts hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.
20.‘We know not what will come—yet, Laon, dearest, _3640Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love,Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which roveWithin the homeless Future’s wintry grove;For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem _3645Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,And violence and wrong are as a dreamWhich rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.
21.‘The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seedsOver the earth,—next come the snows, and rain, _3650And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leadsOut of his Scythian cave, a savage train;Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again,Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, _3655And music on the waves and woods she flings,And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.
22.‘O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladnessWind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest!Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness _3660The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearestThy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearestFresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet, _3665Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.
23.‘Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,Surround the world.—We are their chosen slaves.Has not the whirlwind of our spirit drivenTruth’s deathless germs to thought’s remotest caves? _3670Lo, Winter comes!—the grief of many graves,The frost of death, the tempest of the sword,The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine wavesStagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter’s word,And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred. _3675
24.‘The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhileThe Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smileBecause they cannot speak; and, day by day,The moon of wasting Science wanes away _3680Among her stars, and in that darkness vastThe sons of earth to their foul idols pray,And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blastA shade of selfish care o’er human looks is cast.
25.‘This is the winter of the world;—and here _3685We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,Expiring in the frore and foggy air.Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who madeThe promise of its birth,—even as the shadeWhich from our death, as from a mountain, flings _3690The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayedAs with the plumes of overshadowing wings,From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.
26.‘O dearest love! we shall be dead and coldBefore this morn may on the world arise; _3695Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyesOn thine own heart—it is a paradiseWhich everlasting Spring has made its own,And while drear Winter fills the naked skies, _3700Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.
27.‘In their own hearts the earnest of the hopeWhich made them great, the good will ever find;And though some envious shade may interlope _3705Between the effect and it, One comes behind,Who aye the future to the past will bind—Necessity, whose sightless strength for everEvil with evil, good with good must windIn bands of union, which no power may sever: _3710They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!
28.‘The good and mighty of departed agesAre in their graves, the innocent and free,Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,Who leave the vesture of their majesty _3715To adorn and clothe this naked world;—and weAre like to them—such perish, but they leaveAll hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,To be a rule and law to ages that survive. _3720
29.‘So be the turf heaped over our remainsEven in our happy youth, and that strange lot,Whate’er it be, when in these mingling veinsThe blood is still, be ours; let sense and thoughtPass from our being, or be numbered not _3725Among the things that are; let those who comeBehind, for whom our steadfast will has boughtA calm inheritance, a glorious doom,Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.
30.‘Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love, _3730Our happiness, and all that we have been,Immortally must live, and burn and move,When we shall be no more;—the world has seenA type of peace; and—as some most sereneAnd lovely spot to a poor maniac’s eye, _3735After long years, some sweet and moving sceneOf youthful hope, returning suddenly,Quells his long madness—thus man shall remember thee.
31.‘And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,As worms devour the dead, and near the throne _3740And at the altar, most accepted thusShall sneers and curses be;—what we have doneNone shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;That record shall remain, when they must passWho built their pride on its oblivion; _3745And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.
32.‘The while we two, beloved, must depart,And Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart _3750That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly thereTo fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleepPeopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep _3755In joy;—but senseless death—a ruin dark and deep!
33.‘These are blind fancies—reason cannot knowWhat sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;There is delusion in the world—and woe,And fear, and pain—we know not whence we live, _3760Or why, or how, or what mute Power may giveTheir being to each plant, and star, and beast,Or even these thoughts.—Come near me! I do weaveA chain I cannot break—I am possessedWith thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast. _3765
34.‘Yes, yes—thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm—O! willingly, beloved, would these eyes,Might they no more drink being from thy form,Even as to sleep whence we again arise,Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize _3770Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee—Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:Darkness and death, if death be true, must beDearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.
35.‘Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters _3775Return not to their fountain—Earth and Heaven,The Ocean and the Sun, the Clouds their daughters,Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,All that we are or know, is darkly drivenTowards one gulf.—Lo! what a change is come _3780Since I first spake—but time shall be forgiven,Though it change all but thee!’—She ceased—night’s gloomMeanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky’s sunless dome.
36.Though she had ceased, her countenance upliftedTo Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright; _3785Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions giftedThe air they breathed with love, her locks undight.‘Fair star of life and love,’ I cried, ‘my soul’s delight,Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night, _3790Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!’She turned to me and smiled—that smile was Paradise!
NOTES: _3573 hues of grace edition 1818.
1.Was there a human spirit in the steed,That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,He broke our linked rest? or do indeed _3795All living things a common nature own,And thought erect an universal throne,Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groanTo see her sons contend? and makes she bare _3800Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?
2.I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongueWhich was not human—the lone nightingaleHas answered me with her most soothing song,Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale _3805With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a daleThe antelopes who flocked for food have spokenWith happy sounds, and motions, that availLike man’s own speech; and such was now the tokenOf waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken. _3810