XXXIV.

"For to my will my fancies were as slaves
To do their sweet and subtle ministries;
And oft from that bright fountain's shadowy waves
They would make human throngs gather and rise
To combat with my overflowing eyes

And voice made deep with passion. Thus I grew
Familiar with the shock and the surprise

And war of earthly minds, from which I drew

The power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew.

XXXV.

"And thus my prison was the populous earth ;
Where I saw even as misery dreams of morn
Before the east has given its glory birth—
Religion's pomp made desolate by the scorn
Of Wisdom's faintest smile, and thrones uptorn,
And dwellings of mild people interspersed
With undivided fields of ripening corn,
And love made free, a hope which we have nursed
Even with our blood and tears;-until its glory burst.

XXXVI.

"All is not lost! There is some recompense
For hope whose fountain can be thus profound ;-
Even throned Evil's splendid impotence
Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound
Of hymns to truth and freedom, the dread bound
Of life and death passed fearlessly and well,
Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,
Racks which degraded woman's greatness tell,
And what may else be good and irresistible.

XXXVII.

"Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare
In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet
In this dark ruin-such were mine even there.

As in its sleep

some odorous violet,

While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,

Breathes in

Or as, ere

Prophetic dreams of day's uprise,

Spring's messengers descending from the skies,

Scythian frost in fear has met

The buds foreknow their life-this hope must ever rise.

XXXVIII.

"So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rent
The depth of ocean, and the cavern cracked
With sound, as if the world's wide continent
Had fallen in universal ruin wracked:

And through the cleft streamed in one cataract
The stifling waters.-When I woke, the flood,

Whose banded waves that crystal cave had sacked,

Was ebbing round me, and my bright abode

Before me yawned-a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.

XXXIX.

"Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:
I stood upon a point of shattered stone,
And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuously

With splash and shock into the deep—anon

All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.

I felt that I was free! The ocean-spray

Quivered beneath my feet, the broad heaven shone Around, and in my hair the winds did play, Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.

XL.

"My spirit moved upon the sea like wind,
Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,
Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind
The strength of tempest. Day was almost over,
When through the fading light I could discover
A ship approaching-its white sails were fed

With the north wind-its moving shade did cover

The twilight deep ;-the mariners in dread

Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

XLI.

"And, when they saw one sitting on a crag, They sent a boat to me ;-the sailors rowed In awe through many a new and fearful jag

Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed The foam of streams that cannot make abode. They came and questioned me; but, when they heard My voice, they became silent, and they stood

And moved as men in whom new love had stirred Deep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.

CANTO VIII.

1.

"I SATE beside the steersman then, and, gazing
Upon the west, cried, 'Spread the sails! Behold!
The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing
Over the mountains yet; the City of Gold
Yon cape alone does from the sight withhold.
The stream is fleet-the north breathes steadily
Beneath the stars; they tremble with the cold.
Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea;—

Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!'

II.

"The mariners obeyed. The Captain stood
Aloof, and, whispering to the pilot, said:
'Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued

By wicked ghosts! a phantom of the dead,
The night before we sailed, came to my bed
In dream, like that!' The pilot then replied:
'It cannot be she is a human maid-

Her low voice makes you weep-she is some bride Or daughter of high birth-she can be nought beside.'

III.

"We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,
And, as we sailed, the mariners came near
And thronged around to listen. In the gleam
Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear
May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear:
'Ye are all human-yon broad moon gives light
To millions who the selfsame likeness wear.
Even while I speak-beneath this very night,
Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.

IV.

"What dream ye? Your own hands have built a home,

Even for yourselves

on a beloved shore:

For some, fond eyes are pining till they come ; How they will greet him when his toils are o'er, And laughing babes rush from the well-known door! Is this your care? ye toil for your own goodYe feel and think. Has some Immortal Power Such purposes? or, in a human mood, Dream ye that God thus builds for man in solitude?

V.

"What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give

A human heart to what ye cannot know:

As if the cause of life could think and live!

'Twere as if man's own works should feel, and show The hopes and fears and thoughts from which they flow, And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free

To waste, blight, poison, earthquake, hail, and snow, Disease, and want, and worse necessity

Of hate and ill, and pride, and fear, and tyranny!

VI.

"What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood
Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown

Fill heaven and darken earth, and in such mood
The form he saw and worshiped was his own,
His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown ;-
And 'twere an innocent dream, but that a faith

Nursed by fear's dew of poison grows thereon,
And that men say that Power has chosen Death
On all who scorn its laws to wreak immortal wrath.

VII.

"""Men say they have seen God, and heard from God,
Or known from others who have known such things,
And that his will is all our law, a rod

To scourge us into slaves; that priests and kings,
Custom, domestic sway, ay all that brings
Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel,

Are his strong ministers; and that the stings
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,

Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

VIII.

"And it is said that God will punish wrong; Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain; And deepest hell and deathless snakes among Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain Which like a plague, a burthen, and a bane, Clung to him while he lived ;-for love and hate, Virtue and vice, they say, are difference vainThe will of strength is right. This human state Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.

666

IX.

'Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail
To hide the orb of truth: and every throne
Of earth or heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,
One shape of many names. For this ye plough
The barren waves of ocean; hence each one
Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,
Command or kill or fear, or wreak or suffer woe.

X.

"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy
All power-ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade,
Of power-lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;
The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,
A law to which mankind has been betrayed;
And human love is as the name well known

Of a dear mother whom the murderer laid

In bloody grave, and, into darkness thrown, Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

XI.

"Oh! love (who to the heart of wandering man Art as the calm to ocean's weary waves),

Justice, or truth, or joy-those only can

From slavery and religion's labyrinth caves

Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.

To give to all an equal share of good;

To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves

She pass; to suffer all in patient mood;

To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend's dearest blood;

XII.

"To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot;
To own all sympathies, and outrage none;
And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought,
Until life's sunny day is quite gone down,
To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,

To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;

To live as if to love and live were one ;

This is not faith or law, nor those who bow

To thrones on heaven or earth such destiny may know
VOL. I.