Both infants, weaving wings for time’s perpetual way.
XXII
‘Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grown
Weary with joy — and, tired with our delight,
We, on the earth, like sister twins lay down
On one fair mother’s bosom: — from that night
She fled, — like those illusions clear and bright,
Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on high
Pause ere it wakens tempest; and her flight,
Though ‘t was the death of brainless fantasy,
Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.
XXIII
‘It seemed that in the dreary night the diver
Who brought me thither came again, and bore
My child away. I saw the waters quiver,
When he so swiftly sunk, as once before;
Then morning came — it shone even as of yore,
But I was changed — the very life was gone
Out of my heart — I wasted more and more,
Day after day, and, sitting there alone,
Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.
XXIV
‘I was no longer mad, and yet methought
My breasts were swoln and changed: — in every vein
The blood stood still one moment, while that thought
Was passing — with a gush of sickening pain
It ebbed even to its withered springs again;
When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turned
From that most strange delusion, which would fain
Have waked the dream for which my spirit yearned
With more than human love, — then left it unreturned.
XXV
‘So now my reason was restored to me
I struggled with that dream, which like a beast
Most fierce and beauteous in my memory
Had made its lair, and on my heart did feast;
But all that cave and all its shapes, possessed
By thoughts which could not fade, renewed each one
Some smile, some look, some gesture which had blessed
Me heretofore; I, sitting there alone,
Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.
XXVI
‘Time passed, I know not whether months or years;
For day, nor night, nor change of seasons made
Its note, but thoughts and unavailing tears;
And I became at last even as a shade,
A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed,
Till it be thin as air; until, one even,
A Nautilus upon the fountain played,
Spreading his azure sail where breath of heaven
Descended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.
XXVII
‘And when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,
Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat,
Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing
The Eagle hovering o’er his prey did float;
But when he saw that I with fear did note
His purpose, proffering my own food to him,
The eager plumes subsided on his throat —
He came where that bright child of sea did swim,
And o’er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.
XXVIII
‘This wakened me, it gave me human strength;
And hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose,
But I resumed my ancient powers at length;
My spirit felt again like one of those,
Like thine, whose fate it is to make the woes
Of humankind their prey. What was this cave?
Its deep foundation no firm purpose knows
Immutable, resistless, strong to save,
Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.
XXIX
‘And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,
While that far dearer heart could move and be?
Or whilst over the earth the pall was spread
Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free,
Could I but win that friendly bird to me
To bring me ropes; and long in vain I sought
By intercourse of mutual imagery
Of objects if such aid he could be taught;
But fruit and flowers and boughs, yet never ropes he brought.
XXX
‘We live in our own world, and mine was made
From glorious fantasies of hope departed;
Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,
Or cast a lustre on them; time imparted
Such power to me — I became fearless-hearted,
My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,
And piercing, like the morn, now it has darted
Its lustre on all hidden things behind
Yon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.
XXXI
‘My mind became the book through which I grew
Wise in all human wisdom, and its cave,
Which like a mine I rifled through and through,
To me the keeping of its secrets gave —
One mind, the type of all, the moveless wave
Whose calm reflects all moving things that are,
Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,
And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear,
Justice, and truth, and time, and the world’s natural sphere.
XXXII
‘And on the sand would I make signs to range
These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought;
Clear elemental shapes, whose smallest change
A subtler language within language wrought —
The key of truths which once were dimly taught
In old Crotona; and sweet melodies
Of love in that lorn solitude I caught
From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes
Shone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.
XXXIII
‘Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,
As in a wingèd chariot, o’er the plain
Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill
My heart with joy, and there we sate again
On the gray margin of the glimmering main,
Happy as then but wiser far, for we
Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain
Fear, Faith and Slavery: and mankind was free,
Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom’s prophecy.
XXXIV
‘For to my will my fancies were as slaves
To do their sweet and subtle ministries;
And oft from that bright fountain’s shadowy waves
They would make human throngs gather and rise
To combat with my overflowing eyes
And voice made deep with passion; — thus I grew
Familiar with the shock and the surprise
And war of earthly minds, from which I drew
The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew.
XXXV
‘And thus my prison was the populous earth,
Where I saw — even as misery dreams of morn
Before the east has given its glory birth —
Religion’s pomp made desolate by the scorn
Of Wisdom’s faintest smile, and thrones uptorn,
And dwellings of mild people interspersed
With undivided fields of ripening corn,
And love made free — a hope which we have nursed
Even with our blood and tears, — until its glory burst.
XXXVI
‘All is not lost! There is some recompense
For hope whose fountain can be thus profound, —
Even thronèd Evil’s splendid impotence
Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound
Of hymns to truth and freedom, the dread bound
Of life and dea
th passed fearlessly and well,
Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,
Racks which degraded woman’s greatness tell,
And what may else be good and irresistible.
XXXVII
‘Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare
In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet
In this dark ruin — such were mine even there;
As in its sleep some odorous violet,
While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,
Breathes in prophetic dreams of day’s uprise,
Or as, ere Scythian frost in fear has met
Spring’s messengers descending from the skies,
The buds foreknow their life — this hope must ever rise.
XXXVIII
‘So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent
The depth of Ocean, and the cavern cracked
With sound, as if the world’s wide continent
Had fallen in universal ruin wracked,
And through the cleft streamed in one cataract
The stifling waters: — when I woke, the flood
Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked
Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode
Before me yawned — a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.
XXXIX
‘Above me was the sky, beneath the sea;
I stood upon a point of shattered stone,
And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously
With splash and shock into the deep — anon
All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.
I felt that I was free! The Ocean spray
Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone
Around, and in my hair the winds did play
Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.
XL
‘My spirit moved upon the sea like wind
Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,
Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind
The strength of tempest. Day was almost over,
When through the fading light I could discover
A ship approaching — its white sails were fed
With the north wind — its moving shade did cover
The twilight deep; the mariners in dread
Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.
XLI
‘And when they saw one sitting on a crag,
They sent a boat to me; the sailors rowed
In awe through many a new and fearful jag
Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed
The foam of streams that cannot make abode.
They came and questioned me, but when they heard
My voice, they became silent, and they stood
And moved as men in whom new love had stirred
Deep thoughts; so to the ship we passed without a word.
REVOLT OF ISLAM: Canto Eighth
I
‘I SATE beside the steersman then, and gazing
Upon the west cried, “Spread the sails! behold!
The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing
Over the mountains yet; the City of Gold
Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;
The stream is fleet — the north breathes steadily
Beneath the stars; they tremble with the cold!
Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea! —
Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!”
II
‘The Mariners obeyed; the Captain stood
Aloof, and whispering to the Pilot said,
“Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued
By wicked ghosts; a Phantom of the Dead,
The night before we sailed, came to my bed
In dream, like that!” The Pilot then replied,
“It cannot be — she is a human maid —
Her low voice makes you weep — she is some bride,
Or daughter of high birth — she can be nought beside.”
III
‘We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,
And as we sailed the Mariners came near
And thronged around to listen; in the gleam
Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear
May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear:
“Ye are all human — yon broad moon gives light
To millions who the self-same likeness wear,
Even while I speak — beneath this very night,
Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.
IV
‘“What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home
Even for yourselves on a belovèd shore;
For some, fond eyes are pining till they come —
How they will greet him when his toils are o’er,
And laughing babes rush from the well-known door!
Is this your care? ye toil for your own good —
Ye feel and think — has some immortal power
Such purposes? or in a human mood
Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?
V
‘“What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give
A human heart to what ye cannot know:
As if the cause of life could think and live!
‘T were as if man’s own works should feel, and show
The hopes and fears and thoughts from which they flow,
And he be like to them. Lo! Plague is free
To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,
Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity
Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny.
VI
‘“What is that Power? Some moonstruck sophist stood,
Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown
Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood
The Form he saw and worshipped was his own,
His likeness in the world’s vast mirror shown;
And ‘t were an innocent dream, but that a faith
Nursed by fear’s dew of poison grows thereon,
And that men say that Power has chosen Death
On all who scorn its laws to wreak immortal wrath.
‘“Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,
Or known from others who have known such things,
A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between
Wields an invisible rod — that Priests and Kings,
Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings
Man’s free-born soul beneath the oppressor’s heel,
Are his strong ministers, and that the stings
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,
Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.
VIII
‘“And it is said this Power will punish wrong;
Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!
And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,
Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain,
Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,
Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate,
Virtue and vice, they say, are difference vain —
The will of strength is right. This human state
Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.
IX
‘“Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail
To hide the orb of truth — and every throne
Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,
One shape of many names: — for this ye plough
The barren waves of Ocean — hence each one
Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,
Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak or suffer woe.
X
‘“Its nam
es are each a sign which maketh holy
All power — ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade
Of power — lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;
The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,
A law to which mankind has been betrayed;
And human love is as the name well known
Of a dear mother whom the murderer laid
In bloody grave, and, into darkness thrown,
Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.
XI
‘“O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men
Art as the calm to Ocean’s weary waves!
Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can
From slavery and religion’s labyrinth-caves
Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.
To give to all an equal share of good,
To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves
She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,
To weep for crime though stained with thy friend’s dearest blood,
XII
‘“To feel the peace of self-contentment’s lot,
To own all sympathies, and outrage none,
And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought,
Until life’s sunny day is quite gone down,
To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,
To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;
To live as if to love and live were one, —
This is not faith or law, nor those who bow
To thrones on Heaven or Earth such destiny may know.
XIII
‘“But children near their parents tremble now,
Because they must obey; one rules another,
And, as one Power rules both high and low,
So man is made the captive of his brother,
And Hate is throned on high with Fear his mother
Above the Highest; and those fountain-cells,
Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,
Are darkened — Woman as the bond-slave dwells
Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells.
XIV
‘“Man seeks for gold in mines that he may weave
A lasting chain for his own slavery;
In fear and restless care that he may live
He toils for others who must ever be
The joyless thralls of like captivity;
He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;
He builds the altar that its idol’s fee
May be his very blood; he is pursuing —
Oh, blind and willing wretch! — his own obscure undoing.
XV
‘“Woman! — she is his slave, she has become
A thing I weep to speak — the child of scorn,
The outcast of a desolated home;
Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn
Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn