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