Which thy breath kindled, Power of holiest name!
And oft in cycles since, when darkness gave
New weapons to thy foe, their sunlike fame
Upon the combat shone — a light to save,
Like Paradise spread forth beyond the shadowy grave.
XXXIII
‘Such is this conflict — when mankind doth strive
With its oppressors in a strife of blood,
Or when free thoughts, like lightnings, are alive,
And in each bosom of the multitude
Justice and truth with custom’s hydra brood
Wage silent war; when priests and kings dissemble
In smiles or frowns their fierce disquietude,
When round pure hearts a host of hopes assemble,
The Snake and Eagle meet — the world’s foundations tremble!
XXXIV
‘Thou hast beheld that fight — when to thy home
Thou dost return, steep not its hearth in tears;
Though thou mayst hear that earth is now become
The tyrant’s garbage, which to his compeers,
The vile reward of their dishonored years,
He will dividing give. The victor Fiend
Omnipotent of yore, now quails, and fears
His triumph dearly won, which soon will lend
An impulse swift and sure to his approaching end.
XXXV
‘List, stranger, list! mine is an human form
Like that thou wearest — touch me — shrink not now!
My hand thou feel’st is not a ghost’s, but warm
With human blood. ‘T was many years ago,
Since first my thirsting soul aspired to know
The secrets of this wondrous world, when deep
My heart was pierced with sympathy for woe
Which could not be mine own, and thought did keep
In dream unnatural watch beside an infant’s sleep.
XXXVI
‘Woe could not be mine own, since far from men
I dwelt, a free and happy orphan child,
By the sea-shore, in a deep mountain glen;
And near the waves and through the forests wild
I roamed, to storm and darkness reconciled;
For I was calm while tempest shook the sky,
But when the breathless heavens in beauty smiled,
I wept sweet tears, yet too tumultuously
For peace, and clasped my hands aloft in ecstasy.
XXXVII
‘These were forebodings of my fate. Before
A woman’s heart beat in my virgin breast,
It had been nurtured in divinest lore;
A dying poet gave me books, and blessed
With wild but holy talk the sweet unrest
In which I watched him as he died away;
A youth with hoary hair, a fleeting guest
Of our lone mountains; and this lore did sway
My spirit like a storm, contending there alway.
XXXVIII
‘Thus the dark tale which history doth unfold
I knew, but not, methinks, as others know,
For they weep not; and Wisdom had unrolled
The clouds which hide the gulf of mortal woe;
To few can she that warning vision show;
For I loved all things with intense devotion,
So that when Hope’s deep source in fullest flow,
Like earthquake did uplift the stagnant ocean
Of human thoughts, mine shook beneath the wide emotion.
XXXIX
‘When first the living blood through all these veins
Kindled a thought in sense, great France sprang forth,
And seized, as if to break, the ponderous chains
Which bind in woe the nations of the earth.
I saw, and started from my cottage hearth;
And to the clouds and waves in tameless gladness
Shrieked, till they caught immeasurable mirth,
And laughed in light and music: soon sweet madness
Was poured upon my heart, a soft and thrilling sadness.
XL
‘Deep slumber fell on me: — my dreams were fire,
Soft and delightful thoughts did rest and hover
Like shadows o’er my brain; and strange desire,
The tempest of a passion, raging over
My tranquil soul, its depths with light did cover,
Which passed; and calm, and darkness, sweeter far,
Came — then I loved; but not a human lover!
For when I rose from sleep, the Morning Star
Shone through the woodbine wreaths which round my casement were.
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
The thronging constellations rush in crowds,
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,
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 w
ild 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