XLI
‘‘T was like an eye which seemed to smile on me.
I watched, till by the sun made pale it sank
Under the billows of the heaving sea;
But from its beams deep love my spirit drank,
And to my brain the boundless world now shrank
Into one thought — one image — yes, forever!
Even like the dayspring, poured on vapors dank,
The beams of that one Star did shoot and quiver
Through my benighted mind — and were extinguished never.
XLII
‘The day passed thus. At night, methought, in dream
A shape of speechless beauty did appear;
It stood like light on a careering stream
Of golden clouds which shook the atmosphere;
A wingèd youth, his radiant brow did wear
The Morning Star; a wild dissolving bliss
Over my frame he breathed, approaching near,
And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness
Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss,
XLIII
‘And said: “A Spirit loves thee, mortal maiden;
How wilt thou prove thy worth?” Then joy and sleep
Together fled; my soul was deeply laden,
And to the shore I went to muse and weep;
But as I moved, over my heart did creep
A joy less soft, but more profound and strong
Than my sweet dream; and it forbade to keep
The path of the sea-shore; that Spirit’s tongue
Seemed whispering in my heart, and bore my steps along.
XLIV
‘How, to that vast and peopled city led,
Which was a field of holy warfare then,
I walked among the dying and the dead,
And shared in fearless deeds with evil men,
Calm as an angel in the dragon’s den;
How I braved death for liberty and truth,
And spurned at peace, and power, and fame; and when
Those hopes had lost the glory of their youth,
How sadly I returned — might move the hearer’s ruth.
XLV
‘Warm tears throng fast! the tale may not be said.
Know then that, when this grief had been subdued,
I was not left, like others, cold and dead;
The Spirit whom I loved in solitude
Sustained his child; the tempest-shaken wood,
The waves, the fountains, and the hush of night —
These were his voice, and well I understood
His smile divine, when the calm sea was bright
With silent stars, and Heaven was breathless with delight.
XLVI
‘In lonely glens, amid the roar of rivers,
When the dim nights were moonless, have I known
Joys which no tongue can tell; my pale lip quivers
When thought revisits them: — know thou alone,
That, after many wondrous years were flown,
I was awakened by a shriek of woe;
And over me a mystic robe was thrown
By viewless hands, and a bright Star did glow
Before my steps — the Snake then met his mortal foe.’
XLVII
‘Thou fearest not then the Serpent on thy heart?’
‘Fear it!’ she said, with brief and passionate cry,
And spake no more. That silence made me start —
I looked, and we were sailing pleasantly,
Swift as a cloud between the sea and sky,
Beneath the rising moon seen far away,
Mountains of ice, like sapphire, piled on high,
Hemming the horizon round, in silence lay
On the still waters — these we did approach alway.
XLVIII
And swift and swifter grew the vessel’s motion,
So that a dizzy trance fell on my brain, —
Wild music woke me; we had passed the ocean
Which girds the pole, Nature’s remotest reign;
And we glode fast o’er a pellucid plain
Of waters, azure with the noontide day.
Ethereal mountains shone around; a Fane
Stood in the midst, girt by green isles which lay
On the blue sunny deep, resplendent far away.
XLIX
It was a Temple, such as mortal hand
Has never built, nor ecstasy, nor dream
Reared in the cities of enchanted land;
‘T was likest Heaven, ere yet day’s purple stream
Ebbs o’er the western forest, while the gleam
Of the unrisen moon among the clouds
Is gathering — when with many a golden beam
Paving with fire the sky and the marmoreal floods.
L
Like what may be conceived of this vast dome,
When from the depths which thought can seldom pierce
Genius beholds it rise, his native home,
Girt by the deserts of the Universe;
Yet, nor in painting’s light, or mightier verse,
Or sculpture’s marble language can invest
That shape to mortal sense — such glooms immerse
That incommunicable sight, and rest
Upon the laboring brain and over-burdened breast.
LI
Winding among the lawny islands fair,
Whose blosmy forests starred the shadowy deep,
The wingless boat paused where an ivory stair
Its fretwork in the crystal sea did steep,
Encircling that vast Fane’s aërial heap.
We disembarked, and through a portal wide
We passed, whose roof of moonstone carved did keep
A glimmering o’er the forms on every side,
Sculptures like life and thought, immovable, deep-eyed.
LII
We came to a vast hall, whose glorious roof
Was diamond which had drunk the lightning’s sheen
In darkness and now poured it through the woof
Of spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen
Its blinding splendor — through such veil was seen
That work of subtlest power, divine and rare;
Orb above orb, with starry shapes between,
And hornèd moons, and meteors strange and fair,
On night-black columns poised — one hollow hemisphere!
LIII
Ten thousand columns in that quivering light
Distinct, between whose shafts wound far away
The long and labyrinthine aisles, more bright
With their own radiance than the Heaven of Day;
And on the jasper walls around there lay
Paintings, the poesy of mightiest thought,
Which did the Spirit’s history display;
A tale of passionate change, divinely taught,
Which, in their wingèd dance, unconscious Genii wrought.
LIV
Beneath there sate on many a sapphire throne
The Great who had departed from mankind,
A mighty Senate; — some, whose white hair shone
Like mountain snow, mild, beautiful and blind;
Some, female forms, whose gestures beamed with mind;
And ardent youths, and children bright and fair;
And some had lyres whose strings were intertwined
With pale and clinging flames, which ever there
Waked faint yet thrilling sounds that pierced the crystal air.
LV
One seat was vacant in the midst, a throne,
Reared on a pyramid like sculptured flame,
Distinct with circling steps which rested on
Their own deep fire. Soon as the Woman came
Into that hall, she shrieked the Spirit’s name
And fell; and vanished slowly from the sight.
Darkness arose from her dissolving frame, —
Which, gathering, filled that dome of woven light,
Blotting its spherèd stars with supernatural night.
LVI
Then first two glittering lights were seen to glide
In circles on the amethystine floor,
Small serpent eyes trailing from side to side,
Like meteors on a river’s grassy shore;
They round each other rolled, dilating more
And more — then rose, commingling into one,
One clear and mighty planet hanging o’er
A cloud of deepest shadow which was thrown
Athwart the glowing steps and the crystalline throne.
LVII
The cloud which rested on that cone of flame
Was cloven; beneath the planet sate a Form,
Fairer than tongue can speak or thought may frame,
The radiance of whose limbs rose-like and warm
Flowed forth, and did with softest light inform
The shadowy dome, the sculptures and the state
Of those assembled shapes — with clinging charm
Sinking upon their hearts and mine. He sate
Majestic yet most mild, calm yet compassionate.
LVIII
Wonder and joy a passing faintness threw
Over my brow — a hand supported me,
Whose touch was magic strength; an eye of blue
Looked into mine, like moonlight, soothingly;
And a voice said, ‘Thou must a listener be
This day; two mighty Spirits now return,
Like birds of calm, from the world’s raging sea;
They pour fresh light from Hope’s immortal urn;
A tale of human power — despair not — list and learn!
LIX
I looked, and lo! one stood forth eloquently.
His eyes were dark and deep, and the clear brow
Which shadowed them was like the morning sky,
The cloudless Heaven of Spring, when in their flow
Through the bright air the soft winds as they blow
Wake the green world; his gestures did obey
The oracular mind that made his features glow,
And where his curvèd lips half open lay,
Passion’s divinest stream had made impetuous way.
LX
Beneath the darkness of his outspread hair
He stood thus beautiful; but there was One
Who sate beside him like his shadow there,
And held his hand — far lovelier; she was known
To be thus fair by the few lines alone
Which through her floating locks and gathered cloke,
Glances of soul-dissolving glory, shone;
None else beheld her eyes — in him they woke
Memories which found a tongue, as thus he silence broke.
REVOLT OF ISLAM: Canto Second
I
THE star-light smile of children, the sweet looks
Of women, the fair breast from which I fed,
The murmur of the unreposing brooks,
And the green light which, shifting overhead,
Some tangled bower of vines around me shed,
The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers,
The lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread
And on the twining flax — in life’s young hours
These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit’s folded powers.
II
In Argolis, beside the echoing sea,
Such impulses within my mortal frame
Arose, and they were dear to memory,
Like tokens of the dead; but others came
Soon, in another shape — the wondrous fame
Of the past world, the vital words and deeds
Of minds whom neither time nor change can tame,
Traditions dark and old whence evil creeds
Start forth and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.
III
I heard, as all have heard, the various story
Of human life, and wept unwilling tears.
Feeble historians of its shame and glory,
False disputants on all its hopes and fears,
Victims who worshipped ruin, chroniclers
Of daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state,
Yet, flattering Power, had given its ministers
A throne of judgment in the grave—’t was fate,
That among such as these my youth should seek its mate.
IV
The land in which I lived by a fell bane
Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side,
And stabled in our homes, until the chain
Stifled the captive’s cry, and to abide
That blasting curse men had no shame. All vied
In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust
Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied,
Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust,
Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.
V
Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters,
And the ethereal shapes which are suspended
Over its green expanse, and those fair daughters,
The clouds, of Sun and Ocean, who have blended
The colors of the air since first extended
It cradled the young world, none wandered forth
To see or feel; a darkness had descended
On every heart; the light which shows its worth
Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.
VI
This vital world, this home of happy spirits,
Was as a dungeon to my blasted kind;
All that despair from murdered hope inherits
They sought, and, in their helpless misery blind,
A deeper prison and heavier chains did find,
And stronger tyrants: — a dark gulf before,
The realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind,
Terror and Time conflicting drove, and bore
On their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore.
VII
Out of that Ocean’s wrecks had Guilt and Woe
Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,
And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro
Glide o’er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought
The worship thence which they each other taught.
Well might men loathe their life! well might they turn
Even to the ills again from which they sought
Such refuge after death! — well might they learn
To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!
VIII
For they all pined in bondage; body and soul,
Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent
Before one Power, to which supreme control
Over their will by their own weakness lent
Made all its many names omnipotent;
All symbols of things evil, all divine;
And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent
The air from all its fanes, did intertwine
Imposture’s impious toils round each discordant shrine.
IX
I heard, as all have heard, life’s various story,
And in no careless heart transcribed the tale;
But, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary
In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale
By famine, from a mother’s desolate wail
O’er her polluted child, from innocent blood
Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale
With the heart’s warfare, did I gather food
To feed my many thoughts — a tameless multitude!
X
I wandered through the wrecks of days departed
Far by the desolated shore, when even
O’e
r the still sea and jagged islets darted
The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven,
Among the clouds near the horizon driven,
The mountains lay beneath one planet pale;
Around me broken tombs and columns riven
Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale
Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!
XI
I knew not who had framed these wonders then,
Nor had I heard the story of their deeds;
But dwellings of a race of mightier men,
And monuments of less ungentle creeds,
Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds
The language which they speak; and now, to me,
The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds,
The bright stars shining in the breathless sea,
Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery.
XII
Such man has been, and such may yet become!
Ay, wiser, greater, gentler even than they
Who on the fragments of yon shattered dome
Have stamped the sign of power! I felt the sway
Of the vast stream of ages bear away
My floating thoughts — my heart beat loud and fast —
Even as a storm let loose beneath the ray
Of the still moon, my spirit onward passed
Beneath truth’s steady beams upon its tumult cast.
XIII
It shall be thus no more! too long, too long,
Sons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound
In darkness and in ruin! Hope is strong,
Justice and Truth their wingèd child have found!
Awake! arise! until the mighty sound
Of your career shall scatter in its gust
The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground
Hide the last altar’s unregarded dust,
Whose Idol has so long betrayed your impious trust.
XIV
It must be so — I will arise and waken
The multitude, and like a sulphurous hill,
Which on a sudden from its snows has shaken
The swoon of ages, it shall burst, and fill
The world with cleansing fire; it must, it will —
It may not be restrained! — and who shall stand
Amid the rocking earthquake steadfast still
But Laon? on high Freedom’s desert land
A tower whose marble walls the leaguèd storms withstand!
XV
One summer night, in commune with the hope
Thus deeply fed, amid those ruins gray
I watched beneath the dark sky’s starry cope;
And ever from that hour upon me lay
The burden of this hope, and night or day,
In vision or in dream, clove to my breast;
Among mankind, or when gone far away
To the lone shores and mountains, ‘t was a guest