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5.

And from that hour did I with earnest

thought

Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore;

Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn, but from that secret store Wrought linkèd armour for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind; Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more

Within me, till there came upon my mind A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.

6.

Alas, that love should be a blight and snare To those who seek all sympathies in one!Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,

:

The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone :-
Yet never found I one not false to me,-
Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy

stone

Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be

Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee.

7.

Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart

Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain,

How beautiful and calm and free thou wert In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,

And walked as free as light the clouds among, Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain

From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long.

8.

No more alone through the world's wilder

ness,

Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went.-
There is the wisdom of a stern content
When Poverty can blight the just and good,
When Infamy dares mock the innocent,
And cherished friends turn with the multi-

tude

To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

9.

Now has descended a serener hour,

And with inconstant fortune friends return; Tho' suffering leaves the knowledge and the power

Which says:-Let scorn be not repaid with

scorn.

And from thy side two gentle babes are born To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn; And these delights, and thou, have been to me The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.

10.

Is it that now my inexperienced fingers
But strike the prelude of a loftier strain?

Or must the lyre on which my spirit lingers Soon pause in silence, ne'er to sound again, Though it might shake the Anarch Custom's reign,

And charm the minds of men to Truth's own sway

Holier than was Amphion's? I would fain Reply in hope-but I am worn away, And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey.

11.

And what art thou? I know, but dare not

speak:

Time may interpret to his silent years. Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek, And in the light thine ample forehead wears, And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears, And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy Is whispered, to subdue my fondest fears: And through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see A lamp of vestal fire burning internally.

12.

They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,

Of glorious parents, thou aspiring Child.
I wonder not-for One then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory; still her fame

Shines on thee, thro' the tempests dark and wild

Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim

The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal

name.

13.

One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit,

Which was the echo of three thousand years; And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it,

As some lone man who in a desert hears
The music of his home:-unwonted fears
Fell on the pale oppressors of our race;
And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted

cares,

Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place.

14.

Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind!

If there must be no response to my cry—
If men must rise and stamp with fury blind
On his pure name who loves them,-thou
and I,

Sweet friend! can look from our tranquillity Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night,

Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by

Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight,

That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.

LAON AND CYTHNA.

ὅσαις δὲ βροτὸν ἔθνος ἀγλαΐαις ἁπτόμεσθα,
περαίνει πρὸς ἔσχατον

πλόον· ναυσὶ δ ̓ οὔτε πεζὺς ἰὼν τάχ ̓ εὕροις

ἐς Ὑπερβορέων ἀγῶνα θαυματὰν ὁδόν.

CANTO FIRST.

PIND. Pyth. X.

I.

WHEN the last hope of trampled France had failed

Like a brief dream of unremaining glory, From visions of despair I rose, and scaled The peak of an aërial promontory,

Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary;

And saw the golden dawn break forth, and waken

Each cloud, and every wave:-but transitory The calm for sudden, the firm earth was

shaken,

As if by the last wreck its frame were overtaken.

II.

So as I stood, one blast of muttering thunder Burst in far peals along the waveless deep,

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