Yes, from the records of my youthful state,
And from the lore of bards and sages old,
From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create
Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold,
Have I collected language to unfold
Truth to my countrymen: from shore to shore
Doctrines of human power my words have told;
They have been heard, and men aspire to more
Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.
"In secret chambers parents read, and weep,
My writings to their babes, no longer blind;
And young men gather when their tyrants sleep,
And vows of faith each to the other bind;
And marriageable maidens, who have pined
With love till life seemed melting thro' their look,
A warmer zeal, a nobler hope, now find,
And every bosom thus is rapt and shook,
Like autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain
"The tyrants of the Golden City tremble
At voices which are heard about the streets;
The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble
The lies of their own heart; but when one meets
Another at the shrine, he inly weets,
Tho' he says nothing, that the truth is known;
Murderers are pale upon the judgment seats,
And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone,
And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.
"Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds, Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law
Of mild equality and peace, succeeds
To faiths which long have held the world in awe,
Bloody, and false, and cold-as whirlpools draw
All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway
Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw
This hope, compels all spirits to obey,
Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide
"For I have been thy passive instrument"-
(As thus the old man spake, his countenance
Gleamed on me like a spirit's)" thou hast lent
To me, to all, the power to advance
Towards this unforeseen deliverance
From our ancestral chains-aye, thou didst rear
That lamp of hope on high, which time, nor chance,
Nor change, may not extinguish, and my share
Of good was o'er the world its gathered beams to bear
"But I, alas! am both unknown and old.
And, though the woof of wisdom I know well
To die in hues of language, I am cold
Iu seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell
My manners note that I did long repel;
But Laon's name to the tumultuous throng
Were like the star whose beams the waves compel
And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue
Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.
"Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length
Wouldst rise; perchance the very slaves would spare
Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength
Of words for lately did a maiden fair,
Who from her childhood has been taught to bear
The tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and make
Her sex the law of truth and freedom hear:
And with these quiet words" for thine own sake
I prithee spare me,"-did with ruth so take
"All hearts, that even the torturer, who had bound Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled, Loosened her weeping then; nor could be found . One human hand to harm her-unassailed
Therefore she walks thro' the great City, veiled
In virtue's adamantine eloquence,
'Gaiust scorn, and death, and pain, thus trebly mailed, And, blending in the smiles of that defence
The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.
"The wild-eyed women throng around her path:
From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust
Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor's wrath,
Or the caresses of his sated lust,
They congregate:-in her they put their trust;
The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell
He: power;-they, even like a thunder gust
Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell
Of that young maiden's speech, and to their chiefs rebel
"Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach
To woman, outraged and polluted long;
Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach
For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong
Trembles before her look, tho' it be strong;
Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,
And matrons with their babes, a atately throng!
Lovers renew the vows which they did plight
In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,
"And homeless orphans find a home near her,
And those poor victims of the proud, no less
Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir
Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:-
In squalid huts, and in its palaces,
Sits Lust alone, while o'er the land is borne
Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress
All evil, and her foes relenting turn,
And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.
"So in the populous City, a young maiden
Has baffled havock of the prey which he
Mark as his own, whene'er with chains o'erladen
Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny,
False arbiter, between the hound and iree;
And o'er the land, in hamlets and in towns,
The multitudes collect tumultuously,
And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns
Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling
"Blood soon, altho' unwillingly to shed
The free cannot forbear-the Queen of Slaves,
The hood-winked Angel of the blind and dead
Custom, with iron mace points to the graves
Where her own standard desolately waves
Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings.
Many yet stand in her array-' she paves
Her path with human hearts,' and o'er it flings
The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings
"There is a plain beneath the City's wall,
Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast;
Millions there left at Freedom's thrilling call
Ten thousand standards wide; they load the blast
Which bears one sound of many voices past,
And startles on his throne their sceptered foe:
He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,
And that his power hath past away doth know-
Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?
"The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain :
Fearless, and fierce, and hard, as beasts of blood,
They stand a speck amid the peopled plain;
Carnage and ruin have been made their food
From infancy-ill has become their good,
And for its hateful sake their will has wove
The chains which eat their hearts-the multitude
Surrounding them, with words of human love,
Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.
Over the land is felt a sudden pause,
As night and day those ruthless bands around
The watch of love is kept:-a trapce which awes
The thoughts of men with hope-as when the sound
Of whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds
confound,
Dies suddently, the mariner in fear
Feels silence sink upon his heart-thus bound,
The conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne'er
Clasp the relentless knees of Dread the murderer!
"If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice
Of bonds,--from slavery to cowardice
A wretched fall!-uplift thy charmed voice,
Pour on those evil men the love that lies
Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes-
Arise, my friend, farewell!"-As thus he spake,
From the green earth lightly I did arise
As one out of dim dreams that doth awake,
And locked upon the depth of that reposing lake.
I saw my countenance reflected there ;-
And then my youth fell on me like a wind
Descending on still waters-my thin hair
Was prematurely grey, my face was lined
With channels, such as suffering leaves behind,
Not age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek
And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find
Their food and dwelling; tho' mine eyes might speak
A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak;
And, tho' their lustre now was spent and faded.
Yet in my hollowed looks and withered mien
The likeness of a shape for which was braided
The brightest woof of genius, still was seen-
One who, methought, had gone from the world's scene,
And left it vacant-'twas her lover's face--
It might resemble her-it once had been
The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace Which her mind's shadow cast left there a lingering trace.
What then was I? She slumbered with the dead. Glory, and joy, and peace had come and gone. Doth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone, Doth it not thro' the paths of night unknown, On outspread wings of its own wind upborne . Pour rain upon the earth? the stars are shewn, When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.
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