"And on the sand, would I make signs to range
These woofs, as they were woven, of my thought;
Clear elemental shapes, whose smallest change
A subtler language within language wrought:
The key of truths which once were dimly taught
In old Crotona; and sweet melodies
Of love, in that lone solitude I caught
From mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyes Shone thro' my sleep, and did that utterance har monize.
Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will
As in a winged chariot o'er the plain
Of crystal youth; and thou wert there to fill
My heart with joy, and there we sate again
On the grey margin of the glimmering main,
Happy as then but wiser far, for we
Smiled on the flowery grave in which were lain
Fear, Faith, and Slavery; and mankind was free,
Equal, and pure, and wise, in wisdom's prophecy.
"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
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 nurst
Even with our blood and tears,-until its glory burst.
" 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 bouna
Of life and death past 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.
"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 prophetic dreams of days uprise,
Or, as ere Scythian frost in fear has met
S ring's messengers descending from the skies, The buds foreknow their life-this hope must ever rise.
"So years had past, when sudden earthquake rent The depth of ocean, and the cavern crackt
With sound, as if the world's wide continent
Had fallen in universal ruin wrackt;
And thro' 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,
"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
"My spirit moved upon the sea like wind
Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover,
Tho' it can wake the still cloud, and unbind
The strength of tempest: day was almost over,
When thro' 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.
"And when they saw one sitting on a crag.
They sent a boat to me ;-the sailors rowed
In awe thro' many a new and fearful jag
Of overhanging rock, thro' 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 pass'd without a word
"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!
"The Mariners obeyed-the Captain stood
Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,
'Alas, alas! fear we are pursued
By wicked ghosts: a Phantom of the Dead,
The night before we led, 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.
"We past 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 all are human-yon broad moon gives light
To millions who the self-same likeness wear.
Even while I speak, beneath this very night,
Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.
"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 good-
Ye feel and think-has some immortal power
Such purposes? or in human mood,
Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?
"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 shew 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.
"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 worshipped 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.
"Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,
Or known from others who have known such things,
A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between
Wields an invisible rod-that Priests and Kings,
Custom, domestic sway, aye, all that brings
Man's free born soul beneath the oppressor's heel,
Are his strong ministers, and that the stings
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,
Tho' truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold stee
"And it is said, this Power 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 vain-
The will of strength is right-this human state
Tyrants, that they may rule with lies, thus desolate.
"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
That yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
Even while we gaze, tho' it awhile avail
To hide the orb of truth-and every throne
Of Earth or Heaven, tho' 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
"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy
All power-aye, 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;
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