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Percy Bysshe Shelley - The Revolt Of Islam: Canto I-XII
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Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.


  `"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,
    Which, 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 state
Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.


  `"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
    Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
  Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail
    To hide the orb of truth—and every throne
    Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,
  One shape of many names:—for this ye plough
    The barren waves of ocean, hence each one
  Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,
Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.


  `"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy
    All power—ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade
  Of 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
    Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid
  In bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,
Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.


  `"O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men
    Art as the calm to Ocean`s weary waves!
  Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can
    From slavery and religion`s labyrinth caves
    Guide 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
  She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,
To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend`s dearest blood,—


  `"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,
    Until 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
To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.


  `"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,
    And 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 dwells
Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells.


  `"Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave
    A lasting chain for his own slavery;—
  In fear and restless care that he may live
    He toils for others, who must ever be
    The joyless thralls of like captivity;
  He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;
    He builds the altar, that its idol`s fee
  May be his very blood; he is pursuing—
O, blind and willing wretch!—his own obscure undoing.


  `"Woman!—she is his slave, she has become
    A thing I weep to speak—the child of scorn,
  The outcast of a desolated home;
    Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn
    Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,
  As calm decks the false Ocean:—well ye know
    What Woman is, for none of Woman born,
  Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,
Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.


  `"This need not be; ye might arise, and will
    That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory:
  That love, which none may bind, be free to fill
    The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary
    With crime, be quenched and die.—Yon promontory
  Even now eclipses the descending moon!—
    Dungeons and palaces are transitory—
  High temples fade like vapour—Man alone
Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.


  `"Let all be free and equal!—From your hearts
    I feel an echo; through my inmost frame
  Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts—
    Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name
    All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,
  On your worn faces; as in legends old
    Which make immortal the disastrous fame
  Of conquerors and impostors false and bold,
The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.


  `"Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood
    Forth 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,
    Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!
  Speak! Are your hands in slaughter`s sanguine hue
    Stained 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.


  `"Disguise it not—we have one human heart—
    All mortal thoughts confess a common home:
  Blush not for what may to thyself impart
    Stains of inevitable crime: the doom
    Is this, which has, or may, or must become
  Thine, and all humankind`s. Ye are the spoil
    Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb,
  Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil
Wherewith ye twine the rings of life`s perpetual coil.


  `"Disguise it not—ye blush for what ye hate,
    And Enmity is sister unto Shame;
  Look on your mind—it is the book of fate—
    Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name
    Of misery—all are mirrors of the same;
  But the dark fiend who with his iron pen
    Dipped in scorn`s fiery poison, makes his fame
  Enduring there, would o`er the heads of men
Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.


  `"Yes, it is Hate—that shapeless fiendly thing
    Of many names, all evil, some divine,
  Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;
    Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine
    Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine
  To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside
    It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine
  When Amphisbæna some fair bird has tied,
Soon o`er the putrid mass he threats on every side.


  `"Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,
    Nor hate another`s crime, nor loathe thine own.
  It is the dark idolatry of self,
    Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,
    Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;
  O vacant expiation! Be at rest.—
    The past is Death`s, the future is thine own;
  And love and joy can make the foulest breast
A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.


  `"Speak thou! whence come ye?"—A Youth made reply:
    "Wearily, wearily o`er the boundless deep
  We sail;—thou readest well the misery
    Told in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep
    Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep,
  Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow;
    Even from our childhood have we learned to steep
  The bread of slavery in the tears of woe,
And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now.


  `"Yes—I must speak—my secret should have perished
    Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand
  Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,
    But that no human bosom can withstand
    Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command
  Of thy keen eyes:—yes, we are wretched slaves,
    Who from their wonted loves and native land
  Are reft, and bear o`er the dividing waves
The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.


  `"We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest
    Among the daughters of those mountains lone,
  We drag them there, where all things best and rarest
    Are stained and trampled:—years have come and gone
    Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known
  No thought;—but now the eyes of one dear Maid
    On mine with light of mutual love have shone—
  She is my life,—I am but as the shade
Of her,—a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.


  `"For she must perish in the Tyrant`s hall—
    Alas, alas!"—He ceased, and by the sail
  Sate cowering—but his sobs were heard by all,
    And still before the ocean and the gale
    The ship fled fast till the stars `gan to fail,
  And, round me gathered with mute countenance,
    The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale
  With toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glance
Met mine in restless awe—they stood as in a trance.


  `"Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old,
    But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
  Are children of one mother, even Love—behold!
    The eternal stars gaze on us!—is the truth
    Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth
  For others` sufferings? do ye thirst to bear
    A heart which not the serpent Custom`s tooth
  May violate?—Be free! and even here,
Swear to be firm till death!" They cried "We swear! We swear!"


  `The very darkness shook, as with a blast
    Of subterranean thunder, at the cry;
  The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast
    Into the night, as if the sea, and sky,
    And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,
  For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,
    And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye
  The captives gazing stood, and every one
Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone.


  `They were earth`s purest children, young and fair,
    With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,
  And brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ere
    Dark time had there its evil legend wrought
    In characters of cloud which wither not.—
  The change was like a dream to them; but soon
    They 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.


  `But one was mute, her cheeks and lips most fair,
    Changing 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 soon
  That Youth arose, and breathlessly did look
    On 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.


CANTO IX

  `That night we anchored in a woody bay,
    And sleep no more around us dared to hover
  Than, 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 over
  In mutual joy:—around, a forest grew
    Of poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover
  The waning stars pranked in the waters blue,
And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.


  `The joyous Mariners, and each free Maiden,
    Now brought from the deep forest many a bough,
  With woodland spoil most innocently laden;
    Soon wreaths of budding foliage seemed to flow
    Over the mast and sails, the stern and prow
  Were canopied with blooming boughs,—the while
    On the slant sun`s path o`er the waves we go
  Rejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle
Doomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.


  `The many ships spotting the dark blue deep
    With snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh,
  In fear and wonder; and on every steep
    Thousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry,
    Like Earth`s own voice lifted unconquerably
  To all her children, the unbounded mirth,
    The glorious joy of thy name—Liberty!
  They heard!—As o`er the mountains of the earth
From peak to peak leap on the beams of Morning`s birth:


  `So from that cry over the boundless hills
    Sudden was caught one universal sound,
  Like a volcano`s voice, whose thunder fills
    Remotest skies,—such glorious madness found
    A path through human hearts with stream which drowned
  Its struggling fears and cares, dark Custom`s brood;
    They knew not whence it came, but felt around
  A wide contagion poured—they called aloud
On Liberty—that name lived on the sunny flood.


  `We reached the port.—Alas! from many spirits
    The wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled,
  Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits
    From 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
    Of 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!


  `I walked through the great City then, but free
    From shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners
  And happy Maidens did encompass me;
    And like a subterranean wind that stirs
    Some forest among caves, the hopes and fears
  From every human soul, a murmur strange
    Made as I passed: and many wept, with tears
  Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range,
And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.


  `For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid
    Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—
  As one who from some mountain`s pyramid
    Points to the unrisen sun!—the shades approve
    His truth, and flee from every stream and grove.
  Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,—
    Wisdom, the mail of tried affections wove
  For many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill,
Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.


  `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,
    Who had stolen human shape, and o`er the wave,
  The forest, and the mountain came;—some said
    I was the child of God, sent down to save
  Women from bonds and death, and on my head
The burden of their sins would frightfully be laid.


  `But soon my human words found sympathy
    In 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,
  Leagued with me in their hearts;—their meals, their slumber,
    Their hourly occupations, were possessed
  By hopes which I had armed to overnumber
Those hosts of meaner cares, which life`s strong wings encumber.


  `But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken
    From 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 desolately
  In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain;
    For wrath`s red fire had withered in the eye,
  Whose lightning once was death,—nor fear, nor gain
Could tempt one captive now to lock another`s chain.


  `Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt
    Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round,
  Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt
    In 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
  The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,
Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.


  `Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,
    By winds from distant regions meeting there,
  In the high name of truth and liberty,
    Around the City millions gathered were.
    By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,—
  Words which the lore of truth in hues of flame
    Arrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air
  Like homeless odours floated, and the name
Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.


  `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,
    To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent,
  Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.
    Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent
  To curse the rebels.—To their gods did they
For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way.


  `And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell
    From seats where law is made the slave of wrong,
  How glorious Athens in her splendour fell,
    Because her sons were free,—and that among
    Mankind, the many to the few belong,
  By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.
    They said, that age was truth, and that the young
  Marred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,
With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.


  `And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips
    They breathed on the enduring memory
  Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse;
    There was one teacher, who necessity
    Had armed with strength and wrong against mankind,
  His slave and his avenger aye to be;
    That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,
  And that the will of one was peace, and we
Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery—


  `"For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter."
    So spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied;
  Alas, their sway was past, and tears and laughter
    Clung to their hoary hair, withering the pride
    Which in their hollow hearts dared still abide;
  And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,
    And sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide,
  Said, that the rule of men was over now,
And hence, the subject world to woman`s will must bow;


  `And gold was scattered through the streets, and wine
    Flowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.
  In vain! the steady towers in Heaven did shine
    As they were wont, nor at the priestly call
    Left 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 all
  Who throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame,
Nor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope`s newly kindled flame.


  `For gold was as a god whose faith began
    To fade, so that its worshippers were few,
  And Faith itself, which in the heart of man
    Gives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, knew
    Its 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.


  `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 steep
    I smile, though human love should make me weep.
  We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,
    And I do feel a mighty calmness creep
  Over my heart, which can no longer borrow
Its hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.


  `We know not what will come—yet Laon, dearest,
    Cythna 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 rove
    Within the homeless Future`s wintry grove;
  For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem
    Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,
  And violence and wrong are as a dream
Which rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.


  `The blasts of Autumn drive the wingèd seeds
    Over the earth,—next come the snows, and rain,
  And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads
    Out 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,
  And music on the waves and woods she flings,
And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.


  `O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness
    Wind-wingèd emblem! brightest, best and fairest!
  Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter`s sadness
    The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
    Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest
  Thy mother`s dying smile, tender and sweet;
    Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
  Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.


  `Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,
    Surround the world.—We are their chosen slaves.
  Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven
    Truth`s deathless germs to thought`s remotest caves?
    Lo, Winter comes!—the grief of many graves,
  The frost of death, the tempest of the sword.
    The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves
  Stagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter`s word.
And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred.


  `The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhile
    The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,
  Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile
    Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,
    The moon of wasting Science wanes away
  Among her stars, and in that darkness vast
    The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,
  And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast
A shade of selfish care o`er human looks is cast.


  `This is the winter of the world;—and here
    We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,
  Expiring in the frore and foggy air.—
    Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who made
    The promise of its birth,—even as the shade
  Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings
    The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed
  As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,
From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.


  `O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold
    Before this morn may on the world arise;
  Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?
    Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes
    On thine own heart—it is a paradise
  Which everlasting Spring has made its own,
    And while drear Winter fills the naked skies,
  Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,
Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.


  `In their own hearts the earnest of the hope
    Which made them great, the good will ever find;
  And though some envious shades may interlope
    Between the effect and it, One comes behind,
    Who aye the future to the past will bind—
  Necessity, whose sightless strength for ever
    Evil with evil, good with good must wind
  In bands of union, which no power may sever:
They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!


  `The good and mighty of departed ages
    Are in their graves, the innocent and free,
  Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,
    Who leave the vesture of their majesty
    To adorn and clothe this naked world;—and we
  Are like to them—such perish, but they leave
    All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,
  Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,
To be a rule and law to ages that survive.


  `So be the turf heaped over our remains
    Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,
  Whate`er it be, when in these mingling veins
    The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought
    Pass from our being, or be numbered not
  Among the things that are; let those who come
    Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought
  A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,
Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.


  `Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,
    Our happiness, and all that we have been,
  Immortally must live, and burn and move,
    When we shall be no more;—the world has seen
    A type of peace; and—as some most serene
  And lovely spot to a poor maniac`s eye,
    After long years, some sweet and moving scene
  Of youthful hope, returning suddenly,
Quells his long madness—thus man shall remember thee.


  `And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,
    As worms devour the dead, and near the throne
  And at the altar, most accepted thus
    Shall sneers and curses be;—what we have done
    None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;
  That record shall remain, when they must pass
    Who built their pride on its oblivion;
  And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,
Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.


  `The while we two, belovèd, must depart,
    And Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,
  Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart
    That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:
    These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there
  To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep
    Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,
  Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep
In joy;—but senseless death—a ruin dark and deep!


  `These are blind fancies—reason cannot know
    What 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,
    Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give
  Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,
    Or even these thoughts.—Come near me! I do weave
  A chain I cannot break—I am possessed
With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.


  `Yes, yes—thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm—
    O! willingly, belovèd, 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
  Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee—
    Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:
  Darkness and death, if death be true, must be
Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.


  `Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters
    Return 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 driven
  Towards one gulf.—Lo! what a change is come
    Since I first spake—but time shall be forgiven,
  Though it change all but thee!`—She ceased—night`s gloom
Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky`s sunless dome.


  Though she had ceased, her countenance uplifted
    To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright;
  Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted
    The 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,
  Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!`
She turned to me and smiled—that smile was Paradise!


CANTO X

  Was there a human spirit in the steed,
    That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,
  He broke our linkèd rest? or do indeed
    All 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 groan
  To see her sons contend? and makes she bare
Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?


  I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue
    Which was not human—the lone nightingale
  Has answered me with her most soothing song,
    Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale
    With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale
  The antelopes who flocked for food have spoken
    With happy sounds, and motions, that avail
  Like man`s own speech; and such was now the token
Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.


  Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,
    And I returned with food to our retreat,
  And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed
    Over the fields, had stained the courser`s feet;
    Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew,—then meet
  The vulture, and the wild dog, and the snake,
    The wolf, and the hyæna gray, and eat
  The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make
Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship`s wake.


  For, from the utmost realms of earth, came pouring
    The banded slaves whom every despot sent
  At that throned traitor`s summons; like the roaring
    Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent
    In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent
  The armies of the leaguèd Kings around
    Their files of steel and flame;—the continent
  Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,
Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies` sound.


  From every nation of the earth they came,
    The multitude of moving heartless things,
  Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,
    Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings
    To the stall, red with blood; their many kings
  Led them, thus erring, from their native land;
    Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings
  Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band
The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea`s sand,


  Fertile in prodigies and lies;—so there
    Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.
  The desert savage ceased to grasp in fear
    His Asian shield and bow, when, at the will
    Of Europe`s subtler son, the bolt would kill
  Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;
    But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,
  And savage sympathy: those slaves impure,
Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.


  For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe
    His countenance in lies,—even at the hour
  When he was snatched from death, then o`er the globe,
    With secret signs from many a mountain-tower,
    With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power
  Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,
    He called:—they knew his cause their own, and swore
  Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars
Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.


  Myriads had come—millions were on their way;
    The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel
  Of hired assassins, through the public way,
    Choked with his country`s dead:—his footsteps reel
    On the fresh blood—he smiles. `Ay, now I feel
  I am a King in truth!` he said, and took
    His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel
  Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,
And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look.


  `But first, go slay the rebels—why return
    The victor bands?` he said, `millions yet live,
  Of whom the weakest with one word might turn
    The scales of victory yet;—let none survive
    But those within the walls—each fifth shall give
  The expiation for his brethren here.—
    Go forth, and waste and kill!`—`O king, forgive
  My speech,` a soldier answered—`but we fear
The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;


  `For we were slaying still without remorse,
    And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand
  Defenceless lay, when, on a hell-black horse,
    An Angel bright as day, waving a brand
    Which flashed among the stars, passed.`—`Dost thou stand
  Parleying with me, thou wretch?` the king replied;
    `Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band,
  Whoso will drag that woman to his side
That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;


  `And gold and glory shall be his.—Go forth!`
    They rushed into the plain.—Loud was the roar
  Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;
    The wheeled artillery`s speed the pavement tore;
    The infantry, file after file, did pour
  Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew
    Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore
  Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew
Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:


  Peace in the desert fields and villages,
    Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!
  Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries
    Of victims to their fiery judgement led,
    Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread
  Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue
    Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;
  Peace in the Tyrant`s palace, where the throng
Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!


  Day after day the burning sun rolled on
    Over the death-polluted land—it came
  Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone
    A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame
    The few lone ears of corn;—the sky became
  Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast
    Languished and died,—the thirsting air did claim
  All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed
From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.


  First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food
    Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.
  Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood
    Had lured, or who, from regions far away,
    Had tracked the hosts in festival array,
  From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now,
    Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;
  In their green eyes a strange disease did glow,
They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.


  The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds
    In the green woods perished; the insect race
  Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds
    Who had survived the wild beasts` hungry chase
    Died moaning, each upon the other`s face
  In helpless agony gazing; round the City
    All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case
  Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!
And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.


  Amid the aëreal minarets on high,
    The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell
  From their long line of brethren in the sky,
    Startling the concourse of mankind.—Too well
    These signs the coming mischief did foretell:—
  Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread
    Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell,
  A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread
With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.


  Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts
    Strip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;
  So on those strange and congregated hosts
    Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air
    Groaned with the burden of a new despair;
  Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter
    Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there
  With lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter,
A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe`s sullen water.


  There was no food, the corn was trampled down,
    The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore
  The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;
    The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more
    Creaked with the weight of birds, but, as before
  Those wingèd things sprang forth, were void of shade;
    The vines and orchards, Autumn`s golden store,
  Were burned;—so that the meanest food was weighed
With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.


  There was no corn—in the wide market-place
    All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;
  They weighed it in small scales—and many a face
    Was fixed in eager horror then: his gold
    The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold
  Through hunger, bared her scornèd charms in vain;
    The mother brought her eldest-born, controlled
  By instinct blind as love, but turned again
And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.


  Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.
    `O, for the sheathèd steel, so late which gave
  Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran
    With brothers` blood! O, that the earthquake`s grave
    Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!`
  Vain cries—throughout the streets, thousands pursued
    Each by his fiery torture howl and rave,
  Or sit, in frenzy`s unimagined mood,
Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.


  It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well
    Was choked with rotting corpses, and became
  A cauldron of green mist made visible
    At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,
    Seeking to quench the agony of the flame,
  Which raged like poison through their bursting veins;
    Naked they were from torture, without shame,
  Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains,
Childhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage pains.


  It was not thirst but madness! Many saw
    Their own lean image everywhere, it went
  A ghastlier self beside them, till the awe
    Of that dread sight to self-destruction sent
    Those shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent,
  Sought, with a horrid sympathy, to shed
    Contagion on the sound; and others rent
  Their matted hair, and cried aloud, `We tread
On fire! the avenging Power his hell on earth has spread!`


  Sometimes the living by the dead were hid.
    Near the great fountain in the public square,
  Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid
    Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer
    For life, in the hot silence of the air;
  And strange `twas, amid that hideous heap to see
    Some shrouded in their long and golden hair,
  As if not dead, but slumbering quietly
Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.


  Famine had spared the palace of the king:—
    He rioted in festival the while,
  He and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling
    One shadow upon all. Famine can smile
    On him who brings it food, and pass, with guile
  Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray,
    The house-dog of the throne; but many a mile
  Comes Plague, a wingèd wolf, who loathes alway
The garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.


  So, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast,
    Sheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight
  To luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased
    That lingered on his lips, the warrior`s might
    Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night
  In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell
    Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright
  Among the guests, or raving mad, did tell
Strange truths; a dying seer of dark oppression`s hell.


  The Princes and the Priests were pale with terror;
    That monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind,
  Fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman`s error,
    On their own hearts: they sought and they could find
    No refuge—`twas the blind who led the blind!
  So, through the desolate streets to the high fane,
    The many-tongued and endless armies wind
  In sad procession: each among the train
To his own Idol lifts his supplications vain.


  `O God!` they cried, `we know our secret pride
    Has scorned thee, and thy worship, and thy name;
  Secure in human power we have defied
    Thy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame
    Before thy presence; with the dust we claim
  Kindred; be merciful, O King of Heaven!
    Most justly have we suffered for thy fame
  Made dim, but be at length our sins forgiven,
Ere to despair and death thy worshippers be driven.


  `O King of Glory! thou alone hast power!
    Who can resist thy will? who can restrain
  Thy wrath, when on the guilty thou dost shower
    The shafts of thy revenge, a blistering rain?
    Greatest and best, be merciful again!
  Have we not stabbed thine enemies, and made
    The Earth an altar, and the Heavens a fane,
  Where thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid
Those hearts in dust which would thy searchless works have weighed?


  `Well didst thou loosen on this impious City
    Thine angels of revenge: recall them now;
  Thy worshippers, abased, here kneel for pity,
    And bind their souls by an immortal vow:
    We swear by thee! and to our oath do thou
  Give sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame,
    That we will kill with fire and torments slow,
  The last of those who mocked thy holy name,
And scorned the sacred laws thy prophets did proclaim.


  Thus they with trembling limbs and pallid lips
    Worshipped their own hearts` image, dim and vast,
  Scared by the shade wherewith they would eclipse
    The light of other minds;—troubled they passed
    From the great Temple;—fiercely still and fast
  The arrows of the plague among them fell,
    And they on one another gazed aghast,
  And through the hosts contention wild befell,
As each of his own god the wondrous works did tell.


  And Oromaze, Joshua, and Mahomet,
    Moses and Buddh, Zerdusht, and Brahm, and Foh,
  A tumult of strange names, which never met
    Before, as watchwords of a single woe,
    Arose; each raging votary `gan to throw
  Aloft his armèd hands, and each did howl
    `Our God alone is God!`—and slaughter now
  Would have gone forth, when from beneath a cowl
A voice came forth, which pierced like ice through every soul.


  `Twas an Iberian Priest from whom it came,
    A zealous man, who led the legioned West,
  With words which faith and pride had steeped in flame,
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