Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow,
I must have sought dark respite from its stress
In dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no morrow-
For, to tread life's dismaying wilderness
Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless,
Amid the snares and scoffs of human kind,
Is hard-but I betrayed it not, nor less
With love that scorned return sought to unbind
The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.
With deathless minds, which leave where they have past
A path of light, my soul communion knew ;
Till from that glorious intercourse at last,
As from a mine of magic store, I drew
Words which were weapons;-round my heart there grew
The adamantine armour of their power,
And from my fancy wings of golden hue
Sprang forth-yet not alone from wisdom's tower,
A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.
An orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes
Were loadstars of delight, which drew me home
When I might wander forth; nor did I prize
Aught human thing beneath Heaven's mighty dome
Beyond this child: so when sad hours were come,
And baffled hope like ice still clung to me,
Since kin were cold, and friends had now become
Heartless and false, I turned from all, to be,
Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee.
What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age
In all but its sweet looks and mein divine;
Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage
A patient warfare thy young heart did wage,
When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought,
Some tale, or thine own fancies, would engage
To overflow with tears, or converse fraught [wrought
With passion, o'er the depths its fleeting light had
She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness,
A power, that from its objects scarcely drew
One impulse of her being-in her lightness
Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,
Which wanders thro' the waste air's pathless blue,
To nourish some far desert: she did seem
Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,
Like the bright shade of some immortal dream
Which walks, when tempest sleeps, the wave of life's
dark stream.
As mine own shadow was this child to me,
A second self, far dearer and more fair;
Which clothed in undissolving radiancy
All those steep paths which langour and despair
Of human things had made so dark and bare:
But which I trod alone-nor, till bereft
Of friends, and overcome by lonely care,
Knew I what solace for that loss was left,
Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was left.
Once she was dear, now she was all I had
To love in human life-this playmate sweet,
This child of twelve years old-so she was made
My sole associate, and her willing feet
Wandered with mine where earth and ocean met,
Beyond the aerial mountains whose vast cells
The unreposing billows ever beat,
Thro' forests wide and old, and lawny dells,
Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells
And warm and light I felt her clasping hand
When twined in mine: she followed where I went,
Thro' the lone paths of our immortal land.
It had no waste, but some memorial lent
Which strung me to my toil-some monument
Vital with mind: then Cythna by my side,
Until the bright and beaming day were spent,
Would rest, with looks entreating to abide,
Too earnest and too sweet ever to be denied.
And soon I could not have refused her-thus
For ever, day and night, we two were ne'er
Parted, but when brief sleep divided us :
And, when the pauses of the lulling air
Of noon beside the sea had made a lair
For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept,
And I kept watch over her slumbers there.
While as the shifting visions o'er her swept.
Amid her innocent rest by turns she smil'd and wept.
And, in the murmur of her dreams, was heard
Sometimes the name of Laon:-suddenly
She would arise, and, like the secret bird
Whom sunset wakens, fill the shore and sky
With her sweet accents-a wild melody!
Hymns which my soul had woven to Freedom, strong
The source of passion, whence they rose to be
Triumphant strains, which, like a spirit's tongue,
To the enchanted waves that child of glory sung.
Her white arms lifted through the shadowy stream
Of her loose hair-oh, excellently great
Seemed to me then my purpose, the vast theme
Of those impassioned songs, when Cythna sate
Amid the calm which rapture doth create
After its tumult, her heart vibrating,
Her spirit o'er the ocean's floating state
From her deep eyes far wandering, on the wing
Of visions that were mine, beyond its utmost spring
For, before Cythna loved it, had my song
Peopled with thoughts the boundless universe,
A mighty congregation, which were strong
Where'er they trod the darkness to disperse
The cloud of that unutterable curse
Which clings upon mankind :--all things became
Slaves to my holy and heroic verse,
Earth, sea, and sky, the planets, life, and fame,
And fate, or whate'er else binds the world's wondrous
And this beloved child thus felt the sway
Of my conceptions, gathering like a cloud
The very wind on which it rolls away:
Her's too were all my thoughts, ere yet, endowed
With music and with light, their fountains flowed
In poesy; and her still and earnest face,
Palid with feelings which intensely glowed
Within, was turned on mine with speechless grace,
Watching the hopes which there her heart had learned
to trace.
In me, communion with this purest being
Kindled intenser zeal, and made me wise
In knowledge, which in her's mine own mind seeing,
Left in the human world few mysteries:
How without fear of evil or disguise
Was Cythna!-what a spirit strong and mild,
Which death, or pain, or peril, could despise,
Yet melt in tenderness! what genius wild,
Yet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!
New lore was this-old age with its grey hair,
And wrinkled legends of unworthy things,
And icy sneers, is nought; it cannot dare
To burst the chains which life for ever flings
On the entangled soul's aspiring wings,
So is it cold and cruel, and is made
The careless slave of that dark power which brings
Evil, like blight on man, who, still betrayed,
Laughs o'er the grave in which his living hopes are laid
Nor are the strong and the severe to keep
The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught
Even in the visions of her eloquent sleep,
Unconscious of the power thro' which she wrought
The woof of such intelligible thought,
As from the tranquil strength which cradled lay
In her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought
Why the deceiver and the slave has sway
O'er heralds so divine of truth's arising day
Within that fairest form, the female mind
Untainted by the poison clouds which rest
On the dark world, a sacred home did find :
But else, from the wide earth's maternal breast,
Victorious Evil, which had dispossest
All native power, had those fair children torn,
And made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,
And minister to lust its joys forlorn,
Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.
This misery was but coldly felt, 'till she
Became my only friend, who had indued
My purpose with a wider sympathy;
Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude
In which the half of human kind were mewed.
Victims of lust and hate, the slave of slaves,
She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food
To the hyena lust, who, among graves,
Over his loathed meal, laughing in agony, raves.
And I, still gazing on that glorious child,
Even as these thoughts flushed o'er her:- Cythna
Well with the world art thou unreconciled;
Never will peace and human nature meet
Till free and equal man and woman greet
Domestic peace; and ere this power can make
In human hearts its calm and holy seat;
This slavery must be broken.'-As I spake,
From Cythna's eyes a light of exultation brake.
She replied earnestly: It shall be mine,
This task, mine, Laon!-thou hast much to gain;
Nor wilt thou at poor Cythna's pride repine,
If she should lead a happy female train
To meet thee over the rejoicing plain,
When myriads at thy call shall throng aro und
The Golden City,'-Then the child did strain
My arm upon her tremulous heart, and wo und
Her own about my neck, till some reply she found
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