Of thy deep spirit, reason's mighty lore, And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more. XLIII. "Can man be free if woman be a slave? Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air To the corruption of a closed grave! Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare To trample their oppressors? in their home Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear The shape of woman-hoary Crime would come Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion's tottering dome. XLIV. "I am a child:-I would not yet depart. When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart, Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp Of ages leaves their limbs-no ill may harm Thy Cythna ever-Truth its radiant stamp Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm Upon her children's brow, dark Falsehood to disarm. XLV. "Wait yet awhile for the appointed dayThou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean grey; Amid the dwellers of this lonely land I shall remain alone-and thy command Shall then dissolve the world's unquiet trance, And, multitudinous as the desert sand Borne on the storm, its millions shall advance, Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance. 66 XLVI. Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain, Which from remotest glens two warring winds Involve in fire, which not the loosened fountain Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds Of evil catch from our uniting minds The spark which must consume them ;Cythna then Will have cast off the impotence that binds Her childhood now, and through the paths of men Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den. XLVII. "We part!-O Laon, I must dare nor tremble To meet those looks no more!—Oh, heavy stroke, Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble The agony of this thought?"-As thus she spoke The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke, And in my arms she hid her beating breast. I remained still for tears-sudden she woke As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed. XLVIII. "We part to meet again-but yon blue waste, Yon desert wide and deep holds no recess, Within whose happy silence, thus embraced, We might survive all ills in one caress: Nor doth the grave-I fear 'tis passionlessNor yon cold vacant Heaven:-we meet again Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain." XLIX. I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow; So we arose, and by the star-light steep Went homeward-neither did we speak nor weep, But pale, were calm with passion-thus subdued Like evening shades that o'er the mountains creep, We moved towards our home; where, in this mood, Each from the other sought refuge in solitude. CANTO THIRD. I. WHAT thoughts had sway over my sister's slumber That night, I know not; but my own did seem As if they did ten thousand years outnumber Of waking life, the visions of a dream, Which hid in one dim gulph the troubled stream Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast, Whose limits yet were never memory's theme: And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed, Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast. II. Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace More time than might make grey the infant world, Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space : When the third came, like mist on breezes curled, From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled : wave, Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave. We lived a day as we were wont to live; But Nature had a robe of glory on, And the bright air o'er every shape did weave Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone, The leafless bough among the leaves alone, Had being clearer than its own could be, And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown In this strange vision, so divine to me, That if I loved before, now love was agony. IV. Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere Of the calm moon-when, suddenly, was blended With our repose a nameless sense of fear; And from the cave behind I seemed to hear Sounds gathering upwards!-accents incomplete, And stifled shrieks,-and now, more near and near, A tumult and a rush of thronging feet The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat. V. The scene was changed, and away, away, Through the air and over the sea we sped, Around, the gaping earth then vomited |