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Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Revolt Of Islam: Canto I-XII
Work rating: Medium

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  Of those who war but on their native ground
    For natural rights: a shout of joyance sent
    Even from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent.
  As those few arms the bravest and the best
    Seized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present
  A line which covered and sustained the rest,
A confident phalanx, which the foe on every side invest.


  That onset turned the foes to flight almost;
    But soon they saw their present strength, and knew
  That coming night would to our resolute host
    Bring victory; so dismounting, close they drew
    Their glittering files, and then the combat grew
  Unequal but most horrible;—and ever
    Our myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew,
  Or the red sword, failed like a mountain-river
Which rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever.


  Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kind
    Our human brethren mix, like beasts of blood,
  To mutual ruin armed by one behind
    Who sits and scoffs!—That friend so mild and good,
    Who like its shadow near my youth had stood,
  Was stabbed!—my old preserver`s hoary hair
    With the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewed
  Under my feet!—I lost all sense or care,
And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.


  The battle became ghastlier—in the midst
    I paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell
  O Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd`st
    For love. The ground in many a little dell
    Was broken, up and down whose steeps befell
  Alternate victory and defeat, and there
    The combatants with rage most horrible
  Strove, and their eyes started with cracking stare.
And impotent their tongues they lolled into the air.


  Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog`s hanging;
    Want, and Moon-madness, and the pest`s swift Bane
  When its shafts smite—while yet its bow is twanging—
    Have each their mark and sign—some ghastly stain;
    And this was thine, O War! of hate and pain
  Thou loathèd slave. I saw all shapes of death
    And ministered to many, o`er the plain
  While carnage in the sunbeam`s warmth did seethe,
Till twilight o`er the east wove her serenest wreath.


  The few who yet survived, resolute and firm
    Around me fought. At the decline of day
  Winding above the mountain`s snowy term
    New banners shone: they quivered in the ray
    Of the sun`s unseen orb—ere night the array
  Of fresh troops hemmed us in—of those brave bands
    I soon survived alone—and now I lay
  Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands
I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands:


  When on my foes a sudden terror came,
    And they fled, scattering—lo! with reinless speed
  A black Tartarian horse of giant frame
    Comes trampling over the dead, the living bleed
    Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,
  On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,
    Sate one waving a sword;—the hosts recede
  And fly, as through their ranks with awful might,
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright;


  And its path made a solitude.—I rose
    And marked its coming: it relaxed its course
  As it approached me, and the wind that flows
    Through night, bore accents to mine ear whose force
    Might create smiles in death—the Tartar horse
  Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,
    And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source
  Of waters in the desert, as she said,
`Mount with me Laon, now!`—I rapidly obeyed.


  Then: `Away! away!` she cried, and stretched her sword
    As `twere a scourge over the courser`s head,
  And lightly shook the reins.—We spake no word,
    But like the vapour of the tempest fled
    Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread
  Like the pine`s locks upon the lingering blast;
    Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread
  Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,
As o`er their glimmering forms the steed`s broad shadow passed.


  And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,
    His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray,
  And turbulence, as of a whirlwind`s gust
    Surrounded us;—and still away! away!
    Through the desert night we sped, while she alway
  Gazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,
    Crowned with a marble ruin, in the ray
  Of the obscure stars gleamed;—its rugged breast
The steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.


  A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:—
    From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted
  Paused, might be heard the murmur of the motion
    Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted
    By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted
  To music, by the wand of Solitude,
    That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted
  Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood
Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean`s curved flood.


  One moment these were heard and seen—another
    Passed; and the two who stood beneath that night,
  Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other;
    As from the lofty steed she did alight,
    Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light
  Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale
    With influence strange of mournfullest delight,
  My own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail,
And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.


  And for a space in my embrace she rested,
    Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,
  While my faint arms her languid frame invested:
    At length she looked on me, and half unclosing
    Her tremulous lips, said: `Friend, thy bands were losing
  The battle, as I stood before the King
    In bonds.—I burst them then, and swiftly choosing
  The time, did seize a Tartar`s sword, and spring
Upon his horse, and, swift as on the whirlwind`s wing,


  `Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer,
    And we are here.`—Then turning to the steed,
  She pressed the white moon on his front with pure
    And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed
    From the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;—
  But I to a stone seat that Maiden led,
    And kissing her fair eyes, said, `Thou hast need
  Of rest,` and I heaped up the courser`s bed
In a green mossy nook, with mountain-flowers dispread.


  Within that ruin, where a shattered portal
    Looks to the eastern stars, abandoned now
  By man, to be the home of things immortal,
    Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go,
    And must inherit all he builds below,
  When he is gone, a hall stood; o`er whose roof
    Fair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow,
  Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof,
A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.


  The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made
    A natural couch of leaves in that recess,
  Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shade
    Of flowering parasites, did Spring love to dress
    With their sweet blooms the wintry loneliness
  Of those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene`er
    The wandering wind her nurslings might caress;
  Whose intertwining fingers ever there
Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.


  We know not where we go, or what sweet dream
    May pilot us through caverns strange and fair
  Of far and pathless passion, while the stream
    Of life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,
    Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;
  Nor should we seek to know, so the devotion
    Of love and gentle thoughts be heard still there
  Louder and louder from the utmost Ocean
Of universal life, attuning its commotion.


  To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrapped
    Our spirits, and the fearful overthrow
  Of public hope was from our being snapped,
    Though linkèd years had bound it there; for now
    A power, a thirst, a knowledge, which below
  All 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:—


  In silence which doth follow talk that causes
    The baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears,
  When wildering passion swalloweth up the pauses
    Of inexpressive speech:—the youthful years
    Which we together passed, their hopes and fears,
  The blood itself which ran within our frames,
    That likeness of the features which endears
  The thoughts expressed by them, our very names,
And all the wingèd hours which speechless memory claims,


  Had found a voice—and ere that voice did pass,
    The night grew damp and dim, and through a rent
  Of the ruin where we sate, from the morass,
    A wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent,
    Hung high in the green dome, to which it lent
  A faint and pallid lustre; while the song
    Of blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent,
  Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;
A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit`s tongue.


  The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,
    And Cythna`s glowing arms, and the thick ties
  Of her soft hair, which bent with gathered weight
    My neck near hers, her dark and deepening eyes,
    Which, as twin phantoms of one star that lies
  O`er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,
    Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,
  Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,
With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.


  The Meteor to its far morass returned:
    The beating of our veins one interval
  Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned
    Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall
    Around my heart like fire; and over all
  A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep
    And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall
  Two disunited spirits when they leap
In union from this earth`s obscure and fading sleep.


  Was it one moment that confounded thus
    All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one
  Unutterable power, which shielded us
    Even from our own cold looks, when we had gone
    Into a wide and wild oblivion
  Of tumult and of tenderness? or now
    Had ages, such as make the moon and sun,
  The seasons, and mankind their changes know,
Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?


  I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps
    The failing heart in languishment, or limb
  Twined within limb? or the quick dying gasps
    Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim
    Through tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,
  In one caress? What is the strong control
    Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,
  Where far over the world those vapours roll,
Which blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?


  It is the shadow which doth float unseen,
    But not unfelt, o`er blind mortality,
  Whose divine darkness fled not, from that green
    And lone recess, where lapped in peace did lie
    Our linkèd frames till, from the changing sky,
  That night and still another day had fled;
    And then I saw and felt. The moon was high,
  And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spread
Under its orb,—loud winds were gathering overhead.


  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
    O`er her pale bosom:—all within was still,
    And the sweet peace of joy did almost fill
  The depth of her unfathomable look;—
    And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,
  The waves contending in its caverns strook,
For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.


  There we unheeding sate, in the communion
    Of interchangèd vows, which, with a rite
  Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—
    Few were the living hearts which could unite
    Like ours, or celebrate a bridal-night
  With such close sympathies, for they had sprung
    From linkèd youth, and from the gentle might
  Of earliest love, delayed and cherished long,
Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong.


  And such is Nature`s law divine, that those
    Who grow together cannot choose but love,
  If faith or custom do not interpose,
    Or common slavery mar what else might move
    All gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred grove
  Which shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,
    That living tree, which, if the arrowy dove
  Strike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,
But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;


  And clings to them, when darkness may dissever
    The close caresses of all duller plants
  Which bloom on the wide earth—thus we for ever
    Were linked, for love had nursed us in the haunts
    Where knowledge, from its secret source enchants
  Young hearts with the fresh music of its springing,
    Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,
  As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flinging
Light on the woven boughs which o`er its waves are swinging.


  The tones of Cythna`s voice like echoes were
    Of those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell.
  Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,
    And so we sate, until our talk befell
    Of the late ruin, swift and horrible,
  And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,
    Whose fruit is evil`s mortal poison: well,
  For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,
But Cythna`s eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone


  Since she had food:—therefore I did awaken
    The Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane
  Soon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken,
    Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,
    Following me obediently; with pain
  Of heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,
    When lips and heart refuse to part again
  Till they have told their fill, could scarce express
The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,


  Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode
    That willing steed—the tempest and the night,
  Which gave my path its safety as I rode
    Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite
    The darkness and the tumult of their might
  Borne on all winds.—Far through the streaming rain
    Floating at intervals the garments white
  Of Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again
Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain.


  I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he
    Who bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red
  Turned on the lightning`s cleft exultingly;
    And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,
    Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread
  His nostrils to the blast, and joyously
    Mock the fierce peal with neighings;—thus we sped
  O`er the lit plain, and soon I could descry
Where Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.


  There was a desolate village in a wood
    Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed
  The hungry storm; it was a place of blood,
    A heap of hearthless walls;—the flames were dead
    Within those dwellings now,—the life had fled
  From all those corpses now,—but the wide sky
    Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead
  By the black rafters, and around did lie
Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.


  Beside the fountain in the market-place
    Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare
  With horny eyes upon each other`s face,
    And on the earth and on the vacant air,
    And upon me, close to the waters where
  I stooped to slake my thirst;—I shrank to taste,
    For the salt bitterness of blood was there;
  But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste
If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.


  No living thing was there beside one woman,
    Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she
  Was withered from a likeness of aught human
    Into a fiend, by some strange misery:
    Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,
  And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed
    With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,
  And cried, `Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed
The Plague`s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!


  `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 lie
    Of three death-wounds—the flames had ate the other!
    Since then I have no longer been a mother,
  But I am Pestilence;—hither and thither
    I 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!


  `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 gashes
    In my sweet boy, now full of worms—but tell
    First what thou seek`st.`—`I seek for food.`—`Tis well,
  Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour,
    Waits for us at the feast—cruel and fell
  Is Famine, but he drives not from his door
Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!


  As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength
    Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth
  She led, and over many a corpse:—at length
    We came to a lone hut where on the earth
    Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth
  Gathering from all those homes now desolate,
    Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth
  Among the dead—round which she set in state
A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.


  She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high
    Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: `Eat!
  Share 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 she
    Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat
  Despair, I might have raved in sympathy;
But now I took the food that woman offered me;


  And vainly having with her madness striven
    If I might win her to return with me,
  Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven
    The lightning now grew pallid—rapidly,
    As by the shore of the tempestuous sea
  The dark steed bore me, and the mountain gray
    Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see
  Cythna among the rocks, where she alway
Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.


  And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,
    Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast
  My arms around her, lest her steps should fail
    As to our home we went, and thus embraced,
    Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste
  Than e`er the prosperous know; the steed behind
    Trod peacefully along the mountain waste:
  We reached our home ere morning could unbind
Night`s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.


  Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,
    And sweetest kisses past, we two did share
  Our peaceful meal:—as an autumnal blossom
    Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,
    After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,
  Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit
    Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere
  Of health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,
And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.


CANTO VII

  So we sate joyous as the morning ray
    Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm
  Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play
    Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,
    And we sate linked in the inwoven charm
  Of converse and caresses sweet and deep,
    Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm
  Time, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,
And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.


  I told her of my sufferings and my madness,
    And how, awakened from that dreamy mood
  By Liberty`s uprise, the strength of gladness
    Came to my spirit in my solitude;
    And all that now I was—while tears pursued
  Each other down her fair and listening cheek
    Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood
  From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,
Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.


  She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,
    Like broken memories of many a heart
  Woven into one; to which no firm assurance,
    So wild were they, could her own faith impart.
    She said that not a tear did dare to start
  From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm
    When from all mortal hope she did depart,
  Borne by those slaves across the Ocean`s term,
And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.


  One was she among many there, the thralls
    Of the cold Tyrant`s cruel lust: and they
  Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;
    But she was calm and sad, musing alway
    On loftiest enterprise, till on a day
  The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute
    A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,
  Like winds that die in wastes—one moment mute
The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.


  Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,
    One moment to great Nature`s sacred power
  He bent, and was no longer passionless;
    But when he bade her to his secret bower
    Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore
  Her locks in agony, and her words of flame
    And mightier looks availed not; then he bore
  Again his load of slavery, and became
A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.


  She told me what a loathsome agony
    Is that when selfishness mocks love`s delight,
  Foul as in dream`s most fearful imagery
    To dally with the mowing dead—that night
  All torture, fear, or horror made seem light
  Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day
    Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight
  Where like a Spirit in fleshly chains she lay
Struggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.


  Her madness was a beam of light, a power
    Which dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave,
  Gestures, and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore
    Which might not be withstood—whence none could save—
    All who approached their sphere,—like some calm wave
  Vexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;
    And sympathy made each attendant slave
  Fearless and free, and they began to breathe
Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.


  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
    From human shape into an instrument
    Of all things ill—distorted, bowed and bent.
  The other was a wretch from infancy
    Made dumb by poison; who nought knew or meant
  But to obey: from the fire-isles came he,
A diver lean and strong, of Oman`s coral sea.


  They bore her to a bark, and the swift stroke
    Of silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,
  Until upon their path the morning broke;
    They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze,
    The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades
  Shakes with the sleepless surge;—the Ethiop there
    Wound his long arms around her, and with knees
  Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her
Among the closing waves out of the boundless air.


  `Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain
    Of morning light, into some shadowy wood,
  He plunged through the green silence of the main,
    Through many a cavern which the eternal flood
    Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood;
  And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,
    And among mightier shadows which pursued
  His heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under
He touched a golden chain—a sound arose like thunder.


  `A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling
    Beneath the deep—a burst of waters driven
  As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:
    And in that roof of crags a space was riven
    Through which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,
  Shot through the lines of many waves inwoven,
    Like 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.


  `And then,` she said, `he laid me in a cave
    Above the waters, by that chasm of sea,
  A fountain round and vast, in which the wave
    Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,
    Down which, one moment resting, he did flee,
  Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell
    Like an hupaithric temple wide and high,
  Whose aëry dome is inaccessible,
Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.


  `Below, the fountain`s brink was richly paven
    With the deep`s wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand
  Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven
    With mystic legends by no mortal hand,
    Left there, when thronging to the moon`s command,
  The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate
    Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand
  Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state
Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.


  `The fiend of madness which had made its prey
    Of 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,
    Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle,
  And who, to be the gaoler had been taught
    Of that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smile
  Like light and rest at morn and even is sought
That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought.


  `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;
  And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who bore
    Thy mangled limbs for food!—Thus all things were
  Transformed into the agony which I wore
Even as a poisoned robe around my bosom`s core.


  `Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing,
    The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;
  Another frenzy came—there seemed a being
    Within me—a strange load my heart did bear,
    As if some living thing had made its lair
  Even in the fountains of my life:—a long
    And wondrous vision wrought from my despair,
  Then grew, like sweet reality among
Dim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.


  `Methought I was about to be a mother—
    Month after month went by, and still I dreamed
  That we should soon be all to one another,
    I and my child; and still new pulses seemed
    To beat beside my heart, and still I deemed
  There was a babe within—and, when the rain
    Of winter through the rifted cavern streamed,
  Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,
I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.


  `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
    It laid its fingers, as now rest on mine
    Thine own, belovèd!—`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
Her looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:


  A doubt which would not flee, a tenderness
    Of questioning grief, a source of thronging tears:
  Which having passed, as one whom sobs oppress
    She spoke: `Yes, in the wilderness of years
    Her 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.


  `I watched the dawn of her first smiles, and soon
    When zenith-stars were trembling on the wave,
  Or when the beams of the invisible moon,
    Or sun, from many a prism within the cave
    Their gem-born shadows to the water gave,
  Her 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 command
Slighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.


  `Methought her looks began to talk with me;
    And no articulate sounds, but something sweet
  Her lips would frame,—so sweet it could not be,
    That it was meaningless; her touch would meet
    Mine, and our pulses calmly flow and beat
  In response while we slept; and on a day
    When 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.


  `Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown
    Weary with joy, and tired with our delight,
  We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down
    On one fair mother`s bosom:—from that night
    She fled;—like those illusions clear and bright,
  Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high
    Pause ere it wakens tempest;—and her flight,
  Though `twas the death of brainless fantasy,
Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.


  `It seemed that in the dreary night, the diver
    Who brought me thither, came again, and bore
  My child away. I saw the waters quiver,
    When he so swiftly sunk, as once before:
    Then morning came—it shone even as of yore,
  But I was changed—the very life was gone
    Out of my heart—I wasted more and more,
  Day after day, and sitting there alone,
Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.


  `I was no longer mad, and yet methought
    My breasts were swoln and changed:—in every vein
  The blood stood still one moment, while that thought
    Was passing—with a gush of sickening pain
    It ebbed even to its withered springs again:
  When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned
    From that most strange delusion, which would fain
  Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned
With more than human love,—then left it unreturned.


  `So now my reason was restored to me
    I struggled with that dream, which, like a beast
  Most fierce and beauteous, in my memory
    Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast;
    But all that cave and all its shapes, possessed
  By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one
    Some smile, some look, some gesture which had blessed
  Me heretofore: I, sitting there alone,
Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.


  `Time passed, I know not whether months or years;
    For day, nor night, nor change of seasons made
  Its 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,
    A Nautilus upon the fountain played,
  Spreading his azure sail where breath of Heaven
Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.


  `And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,
    Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat,
  Fled 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 note
  His purpose, proffering my own food to him,
    The eager plumes subsided on his throat—
  He came where that bright child of sea did swim,
And o`er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.


  `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;
    My spirit felt again like one of those
    Like thine, whose fate it is to make the woes
  Of humankind their prey—what was this cave?
    Its deep foundation no firm purpose knows
  Immutable, resistless, strong to save,
Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.


  `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,
    Could I but win that friendly bird to me,
  To bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought
    By intercourse of mutual imagery
  Of objects, if such aid he could be taught;
But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought.


  `We live in our own world, and mine was made
    From glorious fantasies of hope departed:
  Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,
    Or cast a lustre on them—time imparted
    Such power to me—I became fearless-hearted,
  My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,
    And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted
  Its lustre on all hidden things, behind
Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.


  `My mind became the book through which I grew
    Wise 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 wave
  Whose calm reflects all moving things that are,
    Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,
  And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear;
Justice, and truth, and time, and the world`s natural sphere.


  `And on the sand would I make signs to range
    These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought;
  Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest change
    A subtler language within language wrought:
    The key of truths which once were dimly taught
  In old Crotona;—and sweet melodies
    Of love, in that lorn solitude I caught
  From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes
Shone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.


  `Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,
    As in a wingèd chariot, o`er the plain
  Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill
    My heart with joy, and there we sate again
    On the gray margin of the glimmering main.
  Happy as then but wiser far, for we
    Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain
  Fear, Faith, and Slavery; and mankind was free,
Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom`s prophecy.


  `For to my will my fancies were as slaves
    To do their sweet and subtile ministries;
  And oft from that bright fountain`s shadowy waves
    They would make human throngs gather and rise
    To combat with my overflowing eyes,
  And voice made deep with passion—thus I grew
    Familiar with the shock and the surprise
  And war of earthly minds, from which I drew
The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew.


  `And thus my prison was the populous earth—
    Where I saw—even as misery dreams of morn
  Before the east has given its glory birth—
    Religion`s pomp made desolate by the scorn
    Of Wisdom`s faintest smile, and thrones uptorn,
  And dwellings of mild people interspersed
    With undivided fields of ripening corn,
  And love made free,—a hope which we have nursed
Even with our blood and tears,—until its glory burst.


  `All is not lost! There is some recompense
    For hope whose fountain can be thus profound,
  Even thronèd Evil`s splendid impotence,
    Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound
    Of hymns to truth and freedom—the dread bound
  Of life and death passed fearlessly and well,
    Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,
  Racks which degraded woman`s greatness tell,
And what may else be good and irresistible.


  `Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare
    In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet
  In 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
  Spring`s messengers descending from the skies,
The buds foreknow their life—this hope must ever rise.


  `So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent
    The depth of ocean, and the cavern cracked
  With sound, as if the world`s wide continent
    Had fallen in universal ruin wracked:
    And through the cleft streamed in one cataract
  The stifling waters—when I woke, the flood
    Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked
  Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode
Before me yawned—a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.


  `Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:
    I stood upon a point of shattered stone,
  And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously
    With splash and shock into the deep—anon
    All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.
  I felt that I was free! The Ocean-spray
    Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone
  Around, and in my hair the winds did play
Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.


  `My spirit moved upon the sea like wind
    Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,
  Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind
    The strength of tempest: day was almost over,
    When through the fading light I could discover
  A ship approaching—its white sails were fed
    With the north wind—its moving shade did cover
  The twilight deep;—the Mariners in dread
Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.


  `And when they saw one sitting on a crag,
    They sent a boat to me;—the Sailors rowed
  In awe through many a new and fearful jag
    Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed
    The foam of streams that cannot make abode.
  They came and questioned me, but when they heard
    My voice, they became silent, and they stood
  And moved as men in whom new love had stirred
Deep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.


CANTO VIII

  `I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing
    Upon the west, cried, "Spread the sails! Behold!
  The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing
    Over the mountains yet;—the City of Gold
    Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;
  The stream is fleet—the north breathes steadily
    Beneath the stars, they tremble with the cold!
  Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea!—
Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!"


  `The Mariners obeyed—the Captain stood
    Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,
  "Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued
    By wicked ghosts: a Phantom of the Dead,
    The night before we sailed, came to my bed
  In 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,
Or daughter of high birth—she can be nought beside."


  `We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,
    And as we sailed, the Mariners came near
  And thronged around to listen;—in the gleam
    Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear
    May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear;
  "Ye all are human—yon broad moon gives light
    To millions who the selfsame likeness wear,
  Even while I speak—beneath this very night,
Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.


  `"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!
  Is this your care? ye toil for your own good—
    Ye feel and think—has some immortal power
  Such purposes? or in a human mood,
Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?


  `"What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give
    A 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 show
    The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,
  And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free
    To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,
  Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity
Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!


  `"What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood
    Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown
  Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood
    The 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 faith
    Nursed by fear`s dew of poison, grows thereon.
  And that men say, that Power has chosen Death
On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.


  `"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
    Wields an invisible rod—that Priests and Kings,
    Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings
  Man`s freeborn soul beneath the oppressor`s heel,
    Are his strong ministers, and that the stings
  Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,
Source
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