And first, one pale and breathless passed us by,
And stared and spoke not;—then with piercing cry
A troop of wild-eyed women, by the shrieks
2350
Of their own terror driven,—tumultuously
Hither and thither hurrying with pale cheeks,
Each one from fear unknown a sudden refuge seeks—
III
Then, rallying cries of treason and of danger
Resounded: and—‘They come! to arms! to arms!
2355
The Tyrant is amongst us, and the stranger
Comes to enslave us in his name! to arms!’
In vain: for Panic, the pale fiend who charms
Strength to forswear her right, those millions swept
Like waves before the tempest—these alarms
2360
Came to me, as to know their cause I lept
On the gate’s turret, and in rage and grief and scorn I wept!
IV
For to the North I saw the town on fire,
And its red light made morning pallid now,
Which burst over wide Asia;—louder, higher,
2365
The yells of victory and the screams of woe
I heard approach, and saw the throng below
Stream through the gates like foam-wrought waterfalls
Fed from a thousand storms—the fearful glow
Of bombs flares overhead—at intervals
2370
The red artillery’s bolt mangling among them falls.
V
And now the horsemen come—and all was done
Swifter than I have spoken—I beheld
Their red swords flash in the unrisen sun.
I rushed among the rout, to have repelled
2375
That miserable flight—one moment quelled
By voice and looks and eloquent despair,
As if reproach from their own hearts withheld
Their steps, they stood; but soon came pouring there
New multitudes, and did those rallied bands o’erbear.
VI
2380
I strove, as, drifted on some cataract
By irresistible streams, some wretch might strive
Who hears its fatal roar:—the files compact
Whelmed me, and from the gate availed to drive
With quickening impulse, as each bolt did rive
2385
Their ranks with bloodier chasm:—into the plain
Disgorged at length the dead and the alive
In one dread mass, were parted, and the stain
Of blood, from mortal steel fell o’er the fields like rain.
VII
For now the despot’s bloodhounds with their prey
2390
Unarmed and unaware, were gorging deep
Their gluttony of death; the loose array
Of horsemen o’er the wide fields murdering sweep,
And with loud laughter for their tyrant reap
A harvest sown with other hopes, the while,
2395
Far overhead, ships from Propontis keep
A killing rain of fire:—when the waves smile
As sudden earthquakes light many a volcano-isle,
VIII
Thus sudden, unexpected feast was spread
For the carrion-fowls of Heaven.—I saw the sight—
2400
I moved—I lived—as o’er the heaps of dead,
Whose stony eyes glared in the morning light
I trod;—to me there came no thought of flight,
But with loud cries of scorn which whoso heard
That dreaded death, felt in his veins the might
2405
Of virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred,
And desperation’s hope in many hearts recurred.
IX
A band of brothers gathering round me, made,
Although unarmed, a steadfast front, and still
Retreating, with stern looks beneath the shade
2410
Of gathered eyebrows, did the victors fill
With doubt even in success; deliberate will
Inspired our growing troop, not overthrown
It gained the shelter of a grassy hill,
And ever still our comrades were hewn down,
2415
And their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown.
X
Beside me then, firm as a giant pine
Among the mountain-vapours driven around,
The old man whom I loved—his eyes divine
2420
With a mild look of courage answered mine,
And my young friend was near, and ardently
His hand grasped mine a moment—now the line
Of war extended, to our rallying cry
As myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.
XI
2425
For ever while the sun was climbing Heaven
The horseman hewed our unarmed myriads down
Safely, though when by thirst of carnage driven
Too near, those slaves were swiftly overthrown
By hundreds leaping on them:—flesh and bone
2430
Soon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaft
Of the artillery from the sea was thrown
More fast and fiery, and the conquerors laughed
In pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.
XII
For on one side alone the hill gave shelter,
2435
So vast that phalanx of unconquered men,
And there the living in the blood did welter
Of the dead and dying, which, in that green glen,
Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fen
Under the feet—thus was the butchery waged
While the sun clomb Heaven’s eastern steep—but when
It ’gan to sink—a fiercer combat raged,
For in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.
XIII
Within a cave upon the hill were found
A bundle of rude pikes, the instrument
2445
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
2450
A line which covered and sustained the rest,
A confident phalanx, which the foe on every side invest.
XIV
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
2455
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
2460
Which rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever.
XV
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,
2465
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.
XVI
2470
The battle became ghastlier—in the midst
I paused, a
nd 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
2475
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,
XVII
Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog’s hanging;
2480
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
2485
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.
XVIII
The few who yet survived, resolute and firm
Around me fought. At the decline of day
2490
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
2495
Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands
I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands:
XIX
When on my foes a sudden terror came,
And they fled, scattering—lo! with reinless speed
A black Tartarian horse of giant frame
2500
Conies 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,
2505
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright;
XX
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
2510
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.
XXI
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
2520
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.
XXII
And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,
2525
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,
2530
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.
XXIII
A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:—
From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted
2535
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
2540
Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood
Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean’s curved flood.
XXIV
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;
2545
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,
2550
And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.
XXV
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,
XXVI
2560
‘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;—
2565
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.
XXVII
Within that ruin, where a shattered portal
2570
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
2575
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.
XXVIII
The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had made
A natural couch of leaves in that recess,
2580
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;
2585
Whose intertwining fingers ever there
Made music wild and soft that filled the listening air.
XXIX
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
2590
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 Oce
an
2595
Of universal life, attuning its commotion.
XXX
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
2600
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:—
XXXI
2605
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,
2610
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,
XXXII
Had found a voice—and ere that voice did pass,
2615
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
2620
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.
XXXIII
The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,
And Cythna’s glowing arms, and the thick ties