And, like the refluence of a mighty wave
Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude
With crushing panic fled in terror's altered mood.
They pause, they blush, they gaze-a gathering shout Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams Of a tempestuous sea:-that sudden rout
One checked, who never in his mildest dreams Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams
Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed
Had seared with blistering ice-but he misdeems That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed
Inly for self; thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,
And others too thought he was wise to see In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine; In love and beauty, no divinity.-
Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine Like a fiend's hope upon his lips and eyne, He said, and the persuasion of that sneer Rallied his trembling comrades-" It is mine To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear A woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here."
"Were it not impious," said the King, to break Our holy oath ?"" Impious to keep it, say !" Shrieked the exulting Priest:-"Slaves, to the stake Bind her, and on my head the burthen lay Of her just torments:-at the Judgment Day Will I stand up before the golden throne Of Heaven, and cry, to thee did I betray
An Infidel; but for me she would have known Another moment's joy!-the glory be thine own."
They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed, Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprang From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung Upon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow. A piteous sight, that one so fare and young
The clasp of such a fearful death should woo With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.
The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear From many a tremulous eye, but, like soft dews Which feed spring's earliest buds, hung gathered there, Frozen by doubt.-Alas, they could not choose But weep; for, when her faint limbs did refuse To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled: And, with her eloquent gestures and the hues Of her quick lips, even as a weary child
Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,
She won them, tho' unwilling, her to bind
Near me, among the snakes. When then had fled One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind, She smiled on me, and nothing then we said, But each upon the other's countenance fed Looks of insatiate love. The mighty veil Which doth divide the living and the dead Was almost rent-the world grew dim and pale,- All light in Heaven or Earth beside her love did fail.-
Yet,-yet-one brief relapse, like the last beam Of dying flames, the stainless air around Hung silent and serene. A blood-red gleam Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground The globed smoke.-I heard the mighty sound Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean; And, thro' its chasms I saw as in a swound, The tyrant's child fall without life or motion
Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.
And is this death? The pyre has disappeared, The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng; The flames grow silent-slowly there is heard The music of a breath-suspending song, Which, like the kiss of love when life is young, Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep; With ever changing notes it floats along, Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep A melody like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.
The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand Wakened me then. Lo, Cythna sate reclined Beside me, on the waved and golden sand Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined
With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind Breathed divine odour: high above was spread The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind, Whose moonlight blooms and bright fruit overhead A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.
And round about sloped many a lawny mountain With incense-bearing forests, and vast caves Of marble radiance to that mighty fountain; And, where the flood its own bright margin laves, Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,
Which, from the depths whose jagged caverns breed Their unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,
Till thro' a chasm of hills they roll, and feed
A river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed
As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder
A boat approached, borne by the musical air Along the waves which sung and sparkled under Its rapid keel-a winged shape sate there, A child with silver-shining wings, so fair, That, as her bark did thro' the waters glide, The shadow of the lingering waves did wear Light as from starry beams; from side to side,
While veering to the wind, her plumes the bark did guide
The boat was one curved shell of hoiow pearl, Almost translucent with the light divine
Of her within; the prow and stern did curl, Horned on high, like the young moon supine, When, o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine, It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams, Whose golden waves in many a purple line
Fade fast, till, borne on sun-light's ebbing streams, Dilating, on earth's verge the sunken meteor gleams.
Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet.- Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes, Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise, Glanced as she spake: "Aye, this is Paradise And not a dream, and we are all united! Lo, that is mine own child, who, in the guise Of madness, came like day to one benighted
In lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited!"'
And then she wept aloud, and in her arms Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair Than her own human hues and living charms; Which, as she leaned in passion's silence there, Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air, Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight. The glossy darkness of her streaming hair
Fell o'er that snowy child, and wrapt from sight The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite,
Then the bright child, the plumed Seraph, came, And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine, And said, "I was disturbed by tremulous shame When once we met, yet knew that I was thine From the same hour in which thy lips divine Kindled a clinging dream within my brain, Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine Thine image with her memory dear-again We meet, exempted now from mortal fear or pain.
"When the consuming flames had wrapt ye round, The hope which I had cherished went away. I fell in agony on the senseless ground,
And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray
My mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day, The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,
And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,
They wait for thee, beloved!"-Then I knew
The death mark on my breast, and became calm anew.
"It was the calm of love-for I was dying I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre In its own grey and shrunken ashes lying; The pitchy smoke of the departed fire Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire Above the towers like night; beneath whose shade, Awed by the ending of their own desire,
The armies stood: a vacancy was made
In expectation's depth, and so they stood dismayed.
"The frightful silence of that altered mood The tortures of the dying clove alone, Till one uprose among the multitude, And said the flood of time is rolling on. We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone To glide in peace down death's mysterious stream. Have ye done well? They moulder flesh and bone Who might have made this life's envenomed dream A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste I deem.
"These perish as the good and great of yore Have perished, and their murderers will repent. Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow before Yon smoke has faded from the firmament; Even for this cause, that ye, who must lament The death of those that made this world so fair, Cannot recall them now; but then is lent To man the wisdom of a high despair
When such can die, and he live on and linger here.
"Aye, ye may fear not now the Pestilence, From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn; All power and faith must pass, since calmly hence In pain and fire have unbelievers gone; And ye must sadly turn away, and moan in secret, to his home each one returning; And to long ages shall this hour be known, And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,
Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning
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