We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate.
And we burthen the blasts of the atmosphere,
But vainly we toil till ye come here.
Ione. Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings. Pan. These solid mountains quiver with the sound Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make The space between my plumes more black than night. First Fury. Your call was a winged car
Driven on whirlwinds fast and far;
It rapt us from red gulphs of war.
Second Fury. From wide cities, famine wasted;
Third Fury. Groans half heard, and blood untasted;
Fourth Fury. Kingly conclaves stern and cold,
Where blood with gold is bought and sold.
Fifth Fury. From the furnace, white and hot,
In which-
Speak not: whisper not:
I know all that ye would tell,
But to speak might break the spell
Which must bend the Invincible,
The stern of thought;
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell
Fury. Tear the veil !
The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery dire to be borne.
Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn. Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for
Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran
Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fover.
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever.
One came forth of gentle worth
Smiling on the sanguine earth;
His words outlived him, like swift poison
Withering up truth, peace, and pity
Look! where round the wide horizon
Many a million-peopled city
Vomits smoke in the bright air.
Mark that outcry of despair.
'Tis his mild and gentle ghost
Wailing for the faith he kindled:
Look again, the flames almost
To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled :
The survivors round the embers
Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,
And the future is dark, and the present is spread
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.
Semichorus I. Drops of bloody agony flow
From his white and quivering brow.
Grant a little respite now:
See a disenchanted nation
Springs like day from desolation:
To truth its state is dedicate,
And Freedom leads it forth, her mate:
A legioned band of linked brothers
Whom Love calls children-
See how kindred murder kin :
'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within,
'Till Despair smothers
The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.
[All the FURIES vanish, except one.
Ione. Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart
Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep,
And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.
Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?
Pan. Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more. Ione. What didst thou see?
Pan. A woful sight: a youth
With patient looks nailed to a crucifix.
Pan. The heaven around, the earth below,
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death,
All horrible, and wrought by human hands,
And some appeared the work of human hearts,
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles:
And other sights too foul to speak and live
Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear
By looking forth: those groans are grief enough.
Fury. Behold an emblem: those who do endure Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap Thousand-fold torment on themselves and him.
Pro. Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;
Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow
Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!
Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death,
So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,
So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.
O horrible! Thy name I will not speak
It hath become a curse.
The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just,
Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,
Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home,
An early-chosen late-lamented home;
As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind;
Some linked to corpses in un wholesome cells:
Some-Hear I not the multitude laugh loud?---
Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms
Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,
Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood
By the red light of their own burning homes.
[groans; Fury. Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind.
Fury. In each human heart terror survives
The ruin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn,
They dare not devise good for man's estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want, worse need for them
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom,
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men
As if none felt: they know not what they do.
Pro. Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes; And yet I pity those they torture not.
Fury. Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!
Pro.
Ah woe! Alas' pain, pain ever, for ever!
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumed mind,
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God, and cannot find it there,
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul
With new endurance, till the hour arrives
When they shall be no types of things which a e.
Pan. Alas! what sawest thou?
Pro. There are two woes;
To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watch-words, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud,
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw.
The Earth. I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,
Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind
Its world-surrounding ether! they behold
Beyond that twilight realm as in a glass,
The future; may they speak comfort to thee!
Pan. Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air'
Ione. And see! more come,
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines,
And, hark! is it the music of the pines?
Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?
Pan. 'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.
Chorus of Spirits. From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and grey,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float thro' all above the grave;
We make these our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloud-like and unpent
Thro' the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!
Ione. More yet come, one by one: the air around them Looks radiant as the air around a star.
First Spirit. On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner tora,
|