Like broken memories of many a heart 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 swol'n brain, and that her thoughts were firm When from all mortal hope she did depart, 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 The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute Like winds that die in wastes-one moment mute The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute. V. Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness, A king, a heartless beast, a pageant, and a name. VI. She told me what a loathsome agony 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 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; 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: Made dumb by poison; who naught knew or meant 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; They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze, The gloomiest of the drear Symplegades Shakes with the sleepless surge;-the Ethiop there Wound his long arms around her, and with knees Like iron clasped her feet, and plunged with her Among the closing waves out of the boundless air. 1 X. "Swift as an eagle stooping from the plain Of morning light, into some shadowy wood, He plunged through the green silence of the main, Through many a cavern which the eternal flood Had scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood; And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder, And among mightier shadows which pursued 1 From this point until the last stanza but one of canto ix, the narrator Laon is merely reporting what Cythna said, save in a few lines interpolated on his own account in stanzas xviii and xix, page 149.-ED. His heels, he wound: until the dark rocks under He touched a golden chain—a sound arose like thunder. XI. "A stunning clang of massive bolts redoubling Beneath the deep-a burst of waters driven As from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling: And in that roof of crags a space was riven Through which there shone the emerald beams of heaven, Shot through the lines of many waves in woven, Like sunlight through acacia woods at even, Through which, his way the diver having cloven, Passed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven. XII. "And then," she said, "he laid me in a cave Above the waters, by that chasm of sea, A fountain round and vast, in which the wave Imprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually, Down which, one moment resting, he did flee, Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cell Like an hupaithric temple wide and high, Whose aëry dome is inaccessible, Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sun-beams fell. XIII. "Below, the fountain's brink was richly paven With the deep's wealth, coral, and pearl, and sand Like spangling gold, and purple shells engraven With mystic legends by no mortal hand, Left there, when thronging to the moon's command, The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gate Of mountains, and on such bright floor did stand Columns, and shapes like statues, and the state Of kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create. XIV. "The fiend of madness, which had made its prey Of my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile: And who, to be the jailor had been taught, smile Like light and rest at morn and even is sought, That wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought. XV. "The misery of a madness slow and creeping, Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air, |