Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,
Following me obediently; with pain
Of heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,
When lips and heart refuse to part again
Till they have told their fill, could scarce express
The anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,

XLIV

Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrode

That willing steed-the tempest and the night,
Which gave my path its safety as I rode
Down the ravine of rocks, did soon unite
The darkness and the tumult of their might

Borne on all winds.-Far through the streaming rain
Floating at intervals the garments white

Of Cythna gleamed, and her voice once again

2720

2725

Came to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain. 2730

XLV

I dreaded not the tempest, nor did he

Who bore me, but his eyeballs wide and red
Turned on the lightning's cleft exultingly;

And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,
Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spread

His nostrils to the blast, and joyously

Mock the fierce peal with neighings;-thus we sped

O'er the lit plain, and soon I could descry

Where Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.

XLVI

There was a desolate village in a wood

Whose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fed The hungry storm; it was a place of blood,

A heap of hearthless walls; the flames were dead Within those dwellings now,-the life had fled From all those corpses now, but the wide sky Flooded with lightning was ribbed overhead

By the black rafters, and around did lie

Women, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

XLVII

Beside the fountain in the market-place

2735

2740

2745

Dismounting, I beheld those corpses stare

2750

With horny eyes upon each other's face,
And on the earth and on the vacant air,
And upon me, close to the waters where
I stooped to slake my thirst;-I shrank to taste,
For the salt bitterness of blood was there;
But tied the steed beside, and sought in haste
If any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

2755

XLVIII

No living thing was there beside one woman,
Whom I found wandering in the streets, and she
Was withered from a likeness of aught human
Into a fiend, by some strange misery:
Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,
And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughed
With a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,

2760

2765

And cried,Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffed The Plague's blue kisses-soon millions shall pledge the

draught!

XLIX

'My name is Pestilence-this bosom dry,

Once fed two babes-a sister and a brother

When I came home, one in the blood did lie

Of three death-wounds-the flames had ate the other!
Since then I have no longer been a mother,

But I am Pestilence ;-hither and thither

I flit about, that I may slay and smother:

All lips which I have kissed must surely wither,

2771

But Death's-if thou art he, we'll go to work together! 2775

L

'What seek'st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,— The dew is rising dankly from the dell

"Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashes

In my sweet boy, now full of worms-but tell

First what thou seek'st.'-'I seek for food.'-" "Tis well,

Thou shalt have food; Famine, my paramour,

Waits for us at the feast-cruel and fell

Is Famine, but he drives not from his door

2781

Those whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!'

LI

As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strength 2785
Of madness, and by many a ruined hearth

She led, and over many a corpse:-at length
We came to a lone hut where on the earth
Which made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth
Gathering from all those homes now desolate,
Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearth
Among the dead-round which she set in state
A ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

LII

She leaped upon a pile, and lifted high

2790

Her mad looks to the lightning, and cried: Eat! 2795 Share the great feast-to-morrow we must die!'

And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,
Towards her bloodless guests ;-that sight to meet,

Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that she
Who loved me, did with absent looks defeat
Despair, I might have raved in sympathy;
But now I took the food that woman offered me;

LIII

And vainly having with her madness striven
If I might win her to return with me,
Departed. In the eastern beams of Heaven
The lightning now grew pallid-rapidly,
As by the shore of the tempestuous sea

The dark steed bore me, and the mountain gray
Soon echoed to his hoofs, and I could see

Cythna among the rocks, where she alway

Had sate, with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

LIV

And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,
Famished, and wet and weary, so I cast
My arms around her, lest her steps should fail
As to our home we went, and thus embraced,
Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to taste
Than e'er the prosperous know; the steed behind
Trod peacefully along the mountain waste:
We reached our home ere morning could unbind
Night's latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.

LV

Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,
And sweetest kisses past, we two did share
Our peaceful meal:-as an autumnal blossom

2800

2805

2810

2815

2820

Which spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,
After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,

Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spirit
Mantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphere

Of health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,
And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.

2825

CANTO VII

I

So we sate joyous as the morning ray

Which fed upon the wrecks of night and storm
Now lingering on the winds; light airs did play
Among the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,
And we sate linked in the inwoven charm
Of converse and caresses sweet and deep,
Speechless caresses, talk that might disarm

Time, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,
And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

2830

2835

II

I told her of my sufferings and my madness,
And how, awakened from that dreamy mood
By Liberty's uprise, the strength of gladness
Came to my spirit in my solitude;

And all that now I was-while tears pursued
Each other down her fair and listening cheek

2840

Fast as the thoughts which fed them, like a flood 2845 From sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak, Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

III

She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,
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

2850

From the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firm
When from all mortal hope she did depart,
Borne by those slaves across the Ocean's term,

2855

And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.

IV

One was she among many there, the thralls
Of the cold Tyrant's cruel lust and they
Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;
But she was calm and sad, musing alway
On loftiest enterprise, till on a day

The Tyrant heard her singing to her lute
A wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,

2860

Like winds that die in wastes-one moment mute

The evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute. 2855

Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,
One moment to great Nature's sacred power

He bent, and was no longer passionless;

But when he bade her to his secret bower
Be borne, a loveless victim, and she tore
Her locks in agony, and her words of flame
And mightier looks availed not; then he bore
Again his load of slavery, and became

2870

A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.

VI

She told me what a loathsome agony

Is that when selfishness mocks love's delight, Foul as in dream's most fearful imagery

To dally with the mowing dead-that night All torture, fear, or horror made seem light 2877 dreams ed. 1813.

2875

Which the soul dreams or knows, and when the day 2880 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

2884

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 saveAll 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:
At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,-
One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grown
From human shape into an instrument
Of all things ill-distorted, bowed and bent.
The other was a wretch from infancy

Made dumb by poison; who nought 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;

2890

2895

2900

They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze, 2905
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.

X

2910

'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; 2915 And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder, And among mightier shadows which pursued 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:

2920