945
Watching the hopes which there her heart had learned to trace.
XXXII
In me, communion with this purest being
Kindled intenser zeal, and made me wise
In knowledge, which, in hers mine own mind seeing,
Left in the human world few mysteries:
950
How without fear of evil or disguise
Was Cythna!—what a spirit strong and mild,
Which death, or pain or peril could despise,
Yet melt in tenderness! what genius wild
Yet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!
XXXIII
955
New lore was this—old age, with its gray hair,
And wrinkled legends of unworthy things,
And icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare
To burst the chains which life for ever flings
On the entangled soul’s aspiring wings,
960
So is it cold and cruel, and is made
The careless slave of that dark power which brings
Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed,
Laughs o’er the grave in which his living hopes are laid.
XXXIV
Nor are the strong and the severe to keep
965
The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught
Even in the visions of her eloquent sleep,
Unconscious of the power through which she wrought
The woof of such intelligible thought,
As from the tranquil strength which cradled lay
970
In her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought
Why the deceiver and the slave has sway
O’er heralds so divine of truth’s arising day.
XXXV
Within that fairest form, the female mind
Untainted by the poison-clouds which rest
975
On the dark world, a sacred home did find:
But else, from the wide earth’s maternal breast,
Victorious Evil, which had dispossessed
All native power, had those fair children torn,
And made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,
980
And minister to lust its joys forlorn,
Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.
XXXVI
This misery was but coldly felt, till she
Became my only friend, who had endued
My purpose with a wider sympathy;
985
Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude
In which the half of humankind were mewed
Victims of lust and hate, the slaves of slaves,
She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food
To the hyaena lust, who, among graves,
990
Over his loathèd meal, laughing in agony, raves.
XXXVII
And I, still gazing on that glorious child,
Even as these thoughts flushed o’er her:—‘Cythna sweet,
Well with the world art thou unreconciled;
Never will peace and human nature meet
995
Till free and equal man and woman greet
Domestic peace; and ere this power can make
In human hearts its calm and holy seat,
This slavery must be broken’—as I spake,
From Cythna’s eyes a light of exultation brake.
XXXVIII
1000
She replied earnestly:—‘It shall be mine,
This task, mine, Laon!—thou hast much to gain;
Nor wilt thou at poor Cythna’s pride repine,
If she should lead a happy female train
To meet thee over the rejoicing plain,
1005
When myriads at thy call shall throng around
The Golden City.’—Then the child did strain
My arm upon her tremulous heart, and wound
Her own about my neck, till some reply she found.
XXXIX
I smiled, and spake not.—‘Wherefore dost thou smile
1010
At what I say? Laon, I am not weak,
And though my cheek might become pale the while,
With thee, if thou desirest, will I seek
Through their array of banded slaves to wreak
Ruin upon the tyrants. I had thought
1015
It was more hard to turn my unpractised cheek
To scorn and shame, and this beloved spot
And thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.
XL
‘Whence came I what I am? Thou, Laon, knowest
How a young child should thus undaunted be;
1020
Methinks, it is a power which thou bestowest,
Through which I seek, by most resembling thee,
So to become most good and great and free,
Yet far beyond this Ocean’s utmost roar
In towers and huts are many like to me,
1025
Who, could they see thine eyes, or feel such lore
As I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.
XLI
‘Think’st thou that I shall speak unskilfully,
And none will heed me? I remember now,
How once, a slave in tortures doomed to die,
1030
Was saved, because in accents sweet and low
He sung a song his Judge loved long ago,
As he was led to death.—All shall relent
Who hear me—tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow,
Hearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent
1035
As renovates the world; a will omnipotent!
XLII
‘Yes, I will tread Pride’s golden palaces,
Through Penury’s roofless huts and squalid cells
Will I descend, where’er in abjectness
Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells,
1040
There with the music of thine own sweet spells
Will disenchant the captives, and will pour
For the despairing, from the crystal wells
Of thy deep spirit, reason’s mighty lore,
And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more.
XLIII
1045
‘Can man be free if woman be a slave?
Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air.
To the corruption of a closèd grave!
Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear
Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare
1050
To trample their oppressors? in their home
Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear
The shape of woman—hoary Crime would come
Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion’s tottering dome.
XLIV
‘I am a child:—I would not yet depart.
1055
When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp
Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart,
Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp
Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp
Of ages leaves their limbs—no ill may harm
1060
Thy Cythna ever—truth its radiant stamp
Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm
Upon her children’s brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.
XLV
‘Wait yet awhile for the appointed day—
Thou wilt depart, and I with tears stall stand
1065
Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray;
Amid the dwellers of this lonely land
I shall remain alone—and thy command
Shall then dissolve the world’s unquiet trance,
And, multitudinous as the desert sand
1070
Borne
on the storm, its millions shall advance,
Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.
XLVI
‘Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,
Which from remotest glens two warring winds
Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain
1075
Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds
Of evil, catch from our uniting minds
The spark which must consume them;—Cythna then
Will have cast off the impotence that binds
Her childhood now, and through the paths of men
1080
Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent’s den.
XLVII
‘We part!—O Laon, I must dare nor tremble
To meet those looks no more!—Oh, heavy stroke!
Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble
The agony of this thought?’—As thus she spoke
1085
The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke,
And in my arms she hid her beating breast.
I remained still for tears—sudden she woke
As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed
My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.
XLVIII
1090
‘We part to meet again—but yon blue waste,
Yon desert wide and deep holds no recess,
Within whose happy silence, thus embraced
We might survive all ills in one caress:
Nor doth the grave—I fear ’tis passionless—
1095
Nor yon cold vacant Heaven:—we meet again
Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless
Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain
When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain.’
XLIX
I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now
1100
The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep,
Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;
So we arose, and by the starlight steep
Went homeward—neither did we speak nor weep,
But, pale, were calm with passion—thus subdued
1105
Like evening shades that o’er the mountains creep,
We moved towards our home; where, in this mood,
Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.
CANTO III
I
WHAT thoughts had sway o’er Cythna’s lonely slumber
That night, I know not; but my own did seem
1110
As if they might ten thousand years outnumber
Of waking life, the visions of a dream
Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream
Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,
Whose limits yet were never memory’s theme:
1115
And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed,
Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.
II
Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make gray the infant world,
Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:
1120
When the third came, like mist on breezes curled,
From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:
Methought, upon the threshold of a cave
I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled
With dew from the wild streamlet’s shattered wave,
1125
Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave.
III
We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,
And the bright air o’er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
1130
The leafless bough among the leaves alone,
Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna’s pure and radiant self was shown,
In this strange vision, so divine to me,
That, if I loved before, now love was agony.
IV
Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended,
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon—when suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
1140
Sounds gathering upwards!—accents incomplete,
And stifled shrieks,—and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern’s secret depths beneath the earth did beat.
V
The scene was changed, and away, away, away!
1145
Through the air and over the sea we sped,
And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,
And the winds bore me—through the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
1150
Upon my flight; and ever, as we fled,
They plucked at Cythna—soon to me then clung
A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.
VI
And I lay struggling in the impotence
Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,
1155
To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound
Which in the light of morn was poured around
Our dwelling—breathless, pale, and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found
1160
With armèd men, whose glittering swords were bare,
And whose degraded limbs the tyrant’s garb did wear.
VII
And, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow
I could demand the cause—a feeble shriek—
It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,
1165
Arrested me—my mien grew calm and meek,
And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd—’twas Cythna’s cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak
Its whirlwind rage:—so I passed quietly
1170
Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.
VIII
I started to behold her, for delight
And exultation, and a joyance free,
Solemn, serene and lofty, filled the light
Of the calm smile with which she looked on me:
1175
So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,
Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her—
‘Farewell! farewell!’ she said, as I drew nigh.
‘At first my peace was marred by this strange stir,
Now I am calm as truth—its chosen minister.
IX
1180
‘Look not so, Laon—say farewell in hope,
These bloody men are but the slaves who bear
Their mistress to her task—it was my scope
The slavery where they drag me now, to share,
And among captives willing chains to wear
1185
Awhile—the rest thou knowest—return, dear friend!
Let our first triumph trample the despair
Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,
In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend.’
X
These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,
1190
Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew
With seeming-careless glance; not many were
Around her, for their comrades just withdrew
To guard some other victim—so I drew
My knife, and with one i
mpulse, suddenly
1195
All unaware three of their number slew,
And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry
My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!
XI
What followed then, I know not—for a stroke
On my raised arm and naked head, came down,
1200
Filling my eyes with blood—when I awoke,
I felt that they had bound me in my swoon,
And up a rock which overhangs the town,
By the steep path were bearing me: below,
The plain was filled with slaughter,—overthrown
1205
The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow
Of blazing roofs shone far o’er the white Ocean’s flow.
XII
Upon that rock a mighty column stood,
Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,
Which to the wanderers o’er the solitude
1210
Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,
Had made a landmark; o’er its height to fly
Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,
Has power—and when the shades of evening lie
On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast
1215
The sunken daylight far through the aërial waste.
XIII
They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath that column, and unbound me there:
And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
1220
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torch’s fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.