2625
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,
2630
Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,
With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.
XXXIV
The Meteor to its far morass returned:
The beating of our veins one interval
Made still; and then I felt the blood that burned
2635
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
2640
In union from this earth’s obscure and fading sleep.
XXXV
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
2645
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?
XXXVI
2650
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,
2655
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?
XXXVII
It is the shadow which doth float unseen,
2660
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;
2665
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.
XXXVIII
Cythna’s sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,
Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,
2670
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,
2675
The waves contending in its caverns strook,
For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.
XXXIX
There we unheeding sate, in the communion
Of interchangèd vows, which, with a rite
Of faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.—
2680
Few were the living hearts which could unite
Like ours, or celebrate a bridal-night
With such close sympathies, for they had sprung
From linked youth, and from the gentle might
Of earliest love, delayed and cherished long,
Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong.
XL
2685
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
2690
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;
XLI
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
2700
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.
XLII
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,
2710
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
XLIII
Since she had food:—therefore I did awaken
The Tartar steed, who, from his ebon mane
2715
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
2720
Till they have told their fill, could scarce express
The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,
XLIV
Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode
That willing steed—the tempest and the night,
Which gave my path its safety as I rode
2725
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
2730
Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain.
XLV
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,
2735
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.
XLVI
2740
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
2745
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.
XLVII
Beside the fountain in the market-place
&n
bsp; 2750
Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare
With horny eyes upon each other’s face,
Ana 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,
2755
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.
XLVIII
No living thing was there beside one woman,
Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she
2760
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,
2765
And cried, ‘Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed
The Plague’s blue kisses—soon millions shall pledge the draught!
XLIX
‘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,
2775
But Death’s—if thou art he, we’ll go to work together!
L
‘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!’
LI
2785
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
2790
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.
LII
She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high
2795
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
2800
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;
LIII
And vainly having with her madness striven
If I might win her to return with me,
2805
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
2810
Cythna among the rocks, where she alway
Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.
LIV
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
2815
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
2820
Night’s latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.
LV
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,
2825
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
I
2830
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
2835
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.
II
I told her of my sufferings and my madness,
2840
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 glistening cheek
2845
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.
III
She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,
Like broken memories of many a heart
2850
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,
2855
Borne by those slaves across the Ocean’s term,
And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.
IV
One was she among many there, the thralls
Of the cold Tyrant’s cruel lust: and they
Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;
2860
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
2865
The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.
V
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
2870
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.
VI
2875
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
2880
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.
VII
Her madness was a beam of light, a power
2885
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;
2890
And sympathy made each attendant slave
Fearless and free, and they began to breathe
Deep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath,
VIII
The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:
At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,—
2895
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
2900
But to obey: from the fire-isles came he,
A diver lean and strong, of Oman’s coral sea.
IX
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;