XVII. Yes, many an eye with dizzy tears was dim, And oft I thought to clasp my own heart's brother, When I could feel the listener's senses swim, And hear his breath its own swift gaspings smother Even as my words evoked them—and another, And yet another, I did fondly deem, Felt that we all were sons of one great mother; And the cold truth such sad reverse did seem, As to awake in grief from some delightful dream. XVIII. Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth Which skirts the hoary caves of the green deep, Did Laon and his friend on one grey plinth, Round whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap, Resting at eve, a lofty converse keep: And that this friend was false, may now be said Calmly-that he like other men could weep Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread Snares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled. XIX. Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow, I must have sought dark respite from its stress In dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no mor row For to tread life's dismaying wilderness Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless, Amid the snares and scoffs of human kind, Is hard-but I betrayed it not, nor less With love that scorned return, sought to unbind The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind. XX. With deathless minds which leave where they have passed A path of light, my soul communion knew; The adamantine armour of their power, A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore. XXI. I had a little sister, whose fair eyes Were loadstars of delight, which drew me home When I might wander forth; nor did I prize Aught human thing beneath Heaven's mighty dome Beyond this child: so when sad hours were come, And baffled hope like ice still clung to me, Since kin were cold, and friends had now become Heartless and false, I turned from all, to be, Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee. XXII. What wert thou then? A child most infan tine, Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age In all but its sweet looks and mien divine; Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage A patient warfare thy young heart did wage, When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought, Some tale, or thine own fancies would engage To overflow with tears, or converse fraught With passion o'er their depths its fleeting light had wrought. XXIII. She moved upon this earth a shape of bright ness, A power that from its objects scarcely drew Which wanders through the waste air's path- To nourish some far desert: she did seem Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's dark stream. XXIV. As mine own shadow was this child to me, Which clothed in undissolving radiancy, Of human things had made so dark and bare, XXV. Once she was dear, now she was all I had My sole associate, and her willing feet Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet, Beyond the aërial mountains whose vast cells The unreposing billows ever beat, Through forests wide and old, and lawny dells, Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells. XXVI. And warm and light I felt her clasping hand When twined in mine: she followed where I went, Through the lone path of our immortal land. It had no waste, but some memorial lent Which strung me to my toil-some monument Vital with mind: then Cythna by my side, Until the bright and beaming day were spent, Would rest, with looks entreating to abide, Too earnest and too sweet ever to be denied. XXVII. And soon I could not have refused her—thus For ever, day and night, we two were ne'er Parted, but when brief sleep divided us: And when the pauses of the lulling air Of noon beside the sea, had made a lair For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept, And I kept watch over her slumbers there, While, as the shifting visions o'er her swept, Amid her innocent rest by turns she smiled and wept. XXVIII. And in the murmur of her dreams was heard Sometimes the name of Laon :- -suddenly She would arise, and like the secret bird Whom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky With her sweet accents-a wild melody! Hymns which my soul had woven to Freedom, strong The source of passion whence they rose, to be; Triumphant strains, which, like a spirit's tongue, To the enchanted waves that child of glory sung. XXIX. Her white arms lifted thro' the shadowy stream Of her loose hair-oh, excellently great Seemed to me then my purpose, the vast theme Of those impassioned songs, when Cythna sate Amid the calm which rapture doth create |