Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love;
Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,
To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove
Within the homeless Future’s wintry grove;
For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem
Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,
And violence and wrong are as a dream
Which rolls from steadfast truth, — an unreturning stream.
XXI
‘The blasts of Autumn drive the wingèd seeds
Over the earth; next come the snows, and rain,
And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads
Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train.
Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again,
Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;
Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain,
And music on the waves and woods she flings,
And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.
XXII
‘O Spring, of hope and love and youth and gladness
Wind-wingèd emblem! brightest, best and fairest!
Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?
Sister of joy! thou art the child who wearest
Thy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding sheet.
XXIII
‘Virtue and Hope and Love, like light and Heaven,
Surround the world. We are their chosen slaves.
Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven
Truth’s deathless germs to thought’s remotest caves?
Lo, Winter comes! — the grief of many graves,
The frost of death, the tempest of the sword,
The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves
Stagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter’s word,
And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred.
XXIV
‘The seeds are sleeping in the soil. Meanwhile
The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey;
Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile
Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,
The moon of wasting Science wanes away
Among her stars, and in that darkness vast
The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,
And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast
A shade of selfish care o’er human looks is cast.
XXV
‘This is the Winter of the world; and here
We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,
Expiring in the frore and foggy air.
Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass who made
The promise of its birth, — even as the shade
Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings
The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed
As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,
From its dark gulf of chains Earth like an eagle springs.
XXVI
‘O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold
Before this morn may on the world arise.
Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?
Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes
On thine own heart — it is a Paradise
Which everlasting spring has made its own,
And while drear winter fills the naked skies,
Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh blown,
Are there, and weave their sounds and odors into one.
XXVII
‘In their own hearts the earnest of the hope
Which made them great the good will ever find;
And though some envious shade may interlope
Between the effect and it, One comes behind,
Who aye the future to the past will bind —
Necessity, whose sightless strength forever
Evil with evil, good with good, must wind
In bands of union, which no power may sever;
They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!
XXVIII
‘The good and mighty of departed ages
Are in their graves, the innocent and free,
Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,
Who leave the vesture of their majesty
To adorn and clothe this naked world; — and we
Are like to them — such perish, but they leave
All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,
Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,
XXIX
‘So be the turf heaped over our remains
Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,
Whate’er it be, when in these mingling veins
The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought
Pass from our being, or be numbered not
Among the things that are; let those who come
Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought
A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,
Insult with careless tread our undivided tomb.
XXX
‘Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,
Our happiness, and all that we have been,
Immortally must live and burn and move
When we shall be no more; — the world has seen
A type of peace; and as some most serene
And lovely spot to a poor maniac’s eye —
After long years some sweet and moving scene
Of youthful hope returning suddenly —
Quells his long madness, thus Man shall remember thee.
XXXI
‘And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us
As worms devour the dead, and near the throne
And at the altar most accepted thus
Shall sneers and curses be; — what we have done
None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;
That record shall remain when they must pass
Who built their pride on its oblivion,
And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,
Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.
XXXII
‘The while we two, belovèd, must depart,
And Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,
Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart
That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair;
These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there
To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep,
Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,
Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep
In joy; — but senseless death — a ruin dark and deep!
XXXIII
‘These are blind fancies. Reason cannot know
What sense can neither feel nor thought conceive;
There is delusion in the world — and woe,
And fear, and pain — we know not whence we live,
Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give
Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,
Or even these thoughts. — Come near me! I do weave
A chain I cannot break — I am possessed
With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.
XXXIV
‘Yes, yes — thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm —
Oh, willingly, belovèd, would these eyes
Might they no more drink being from thy form,
Even as to sleep whence we again arise,
Close their faint orbs in death. I fear nor prize
Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee.
Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise
;
Darkness and death, if death be true, must be
Dearer than life and hope if unenjoyed with thee.
XXXV
‘Alas! our thoughts flow on with stream whose waters
Return not to their fountain; Earth and Heaven,
The Ocean and the Sun, the clouds their daughters,
Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even —
All that we are or know, is darkly driven
Towards one gulf. — Lo! what a change is come
Since I first spake — but time shall be forgiven,
Though it change all but thee!’ She ceased — night’s gloom
Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky’s sunless dome.
XXXVI
Though she had ceased, her countenance uplifted
To Heaven still spake with solemn glory bright;
Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted
The air they breathed with love, her locks undight;
‘Fair star of life and love,’ I cried, ‘my soul’s delight,
Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?
Oh, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night,
Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!’
She turned to me and smiled — that smile was Paradise!
REVOLT OF ISLAM: Canto Tenth
I
WAS there a human spirit in the steed
That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,
He broke our linkèd rest? or do indeed
All living things a common nature own,
And thought erect an universal throne,
Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?
And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan
To see her sons contend? and makes she bare
Her breast that all in peace its drainless stores may share?
II
I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue
Which was not human; the lone nightingale
Has answered me with her most soothing song,
Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale
With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale
The antelopes who flocked for food have spoken
With happy sounds and motions that avail
Like man’s own speech; and such was now the token
Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.
III
Each night that mighty steed bore me abroad,
And I returned with food to our retreat,
And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed
Over the fields had stained the courser’s feet;
Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew, — then meet
The vulture, and the wild-dog, and the snake,
The wolf, and the hyena gray, and eat
The dead in horrid truce; their throngs did make
Behind the steed a chasm like waves in a ship’s wake.
IV
For from the utmost realms of earth came pouring
The banded slaves whom every despot sent
At that throned traitor’s summons; like the roaring
Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent
In the scorched pastures of the south, so bent
The armies of the leaguèd kings around
Their files of steel and flame; the continent
Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,
Beneath their feet — the sea shook with their Navies’ sound.
V
From every nation of the earth they came,
The multitude of moving heartless things,
Whom slaves call men; obediently they came,
Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings
To the stall, red with blood; their many kings
Led them, thus erring, from their native land —
Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings
Of Indian breezes lull; and many a band
The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea’s sand
VI
Fertile in prodigies and lies. So there
Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.
The desert savage ceased to grasp in fear
His Asian shield and bow when, at the will
Of Europe’s subtler son, the bolt would kill
Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;
But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,
And savage sympathy; those slaves impure
Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.
VII
For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe
His countenance in lies; even at the hour
When he was snatched from death, then o’er the globe,
With secret signs from many a mountain tower,
With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power
Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,
He called; they knew his cause their own, and swore
Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars
Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.
VIII
Myriads had come — millions were on their way;
The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel
Of hired assassins, through the public way,
Choked with his country’s dead; his footsteps reel
On the fresh blood — he smiles. ‘Ay, now I feel
I am a King in truth!’ he said, and took
His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel
Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,
And scorpions, that his soul on its revenge might look.
IX
‘But first, go slay the rebels — why return
The victor bands?’ he said, ‘millions yet live,
Of whom the weakest with one word might turn
The scales of victory yet; let none survive
But those within the walls — each fifth shall give
The expiation for his brethren here.
Go forth, and waste and kill!’—’O king, forgive
My speech,’ a soldier answered, ‘but we fear
The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;
X
‘For we were slaying still without remorse,
And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand
Defenceless lay, when on a hell-black horse
An Angel bright as day, waving a brand
Which flashed among the stars, passed.’—’Dost thou stand
Parleying with me, thou wretch?’ the king replied;
‘Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band
Whoso will drag that woman to his side
That scared him thus may burn his dearest foe beside;
XI
‘And gold and glory shall be his. Go forth!’
They rushed into the plain. Loud was the roar
Of their career; the horsemen shook the earth;
The wheeled artillery’s speed the pavement tore;
The infantry, file after file, did pour
Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew
Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore
Stream through the City; on the seventh the dew
Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:
XII
Peace in the desert fields and villages,
Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!
Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries
Of victims, to their fiery judgment led,
Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread,
Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue
Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;
Peace in the Tyrant’s palace, where the throng
Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!
XIII
Day after day the burning Sun rolled on
Over t
he death-polluted land. It came
Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone
A lamp of autumn, ripening with its flame
The few lone ears of corn; the sky became
Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast
Languished and died; the thirsting air did claim
All moisture, and a rotting vapor passed
From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.
XIV
First Want, then Plague, came on the beasts; their food
Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.
Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood
Had lured, or who from regions far away
Had tracked the hosts in festival array,
From their dark deserts, gaunt and wasting now
Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;
In their green eyes a strange disease did glow —
They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.
XV
The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds
In the green woods perished; the insect race
Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds
Who had survived the wild beasts’ hungry chase
Died moaning, each upon the other’s face
In helpless agony gazing; round the City
All night, the lean hyenas their sad case
Like starving infants wailed — a woful ditty;
And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.
XVI
Amid the aërial minarets on high
The Æthiopian vultures fluttering fell
From their long line of brethren in the sky,
Startling the concourse of mankind. Too well
These signs the coming mischief did foretell.
Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread,
Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell,
A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread
With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.
XVII
Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts
Strip its green crown of leaves till all is bare;
So on those strange and congregated hosts
Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air
Groaned with the burden of a new despair;
Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter
Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there
With lidless eyes lie Faith and Plague and Slaughter —
A ghastly brood conceived of Lethe’s sullen water.
XVIII
There was no food; the corn was trampled down,
The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore
The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;
The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more
Creaked with the weight of birds, but as before
Those wingèd things sprang forth, were void of shade;