The Revolt Of Islam. - Canto 9.

1.     'That night we anchored in a woody bay,     And sleep no more around us dared to hover     Than, when all doubt and fear has passed away,     It shades the couch of some unresting lover,     Whose heart is now at rest: thus night passed over     In mutual joy: - around, a forest grew     Of poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover     The waning stars pranked in the waters blue,     And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.     2.     'The joyous Mariners, and each free Maiden     Now brought from the deep forest many a bough,     With woodland spoil most innocently laden;     Soon wreaths of budding foliage seemed to flow     Over the mast and sails, the stern and prow     Were canopied with blooming boughs, - the while     On the slant sun's path o'er the waves we go     Rejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle     Doomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.     3.     'The many ships spotting the dark blue deep     With snowy sails, fled fast as ours came nigh,     In fear and wonder; and on every steep     Thousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry,     Like Earth's own voice lifted unconquerably     To all her children, the unbounded mirth,     The glorious joy of thy name - Liberty!     They heard! - As o'er the mountains of the earth     From peak to peak leap on the beams of Morning's birth:     4.     'So from that cry over the boundless hills     Sudden was caught one universal sound,     Like a volcano's voice, whose thunder fills     Remotest skies, - such glorious madness found     A path through human hearts with stream which drowned     Its struggling fears and cares, dark Custom's brood;     They knew not whence it came, but felt around     A wide contagion poured - they called aloud     On Liberty - that name lived on the sunny flood.     5.     'We reached the port. - Alas! from many spirits     The wisdom which had waked that cry, was fled,     Like the brief glory which dark Heaven inherits     From the false dawn, which fades ere it is spread,     Upon the night's devouring darkness shed:     Yet soon bright day will burst - even like a chasm     Of fire, to burn the shrouds outworn and dead,     Which wrap the world; a wide enthusiasm,     To cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake's spasm!     6.     'I walked through the great City then, but free     From shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners     And happy Maidens did encompass me;     And like a subterranean wind that stirs     Some forest among caves, the hopes and fears     From every human soul, a murmur strange     Made as I passed; and many wept, with tears     Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range,     And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.     7.     'For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid     Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love, -     As one who from some mountain's pyramid     Points to the unrisen sun! - the shades approve     His truth, and flee from every stream and grove.     Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill, -     Wisdom, the mail of tried affections wove     For many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill,     Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.     8.     'Some said I was a maniac wild and lost;     Some, that I scarce had risen from the grave,     The Prophet's virgin bride, a heavenly ghost: -     Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave,     Who had stolen human shape, and o'er the wave,     The forest, and the mountain, came; - some said     I was the child of God, sent down to save     Woman from bonds and death, and on my head     The burden of their sins would frightfully be laid.     9.     'But soon my human words found sympathy     In human hearts: the purest and the best,     As friend with friend, made common cause with me,     And they were few, but resolute; - the rest,     Ere yet success the enterprise had blessed,     Leagued with me in their hearts; - their meals, their slumber,     Their hourly occupations, were possessed     By hopes which I had armed to overnumber     Those hosts of meaner cares, which life's strong wings encumber.     10.     'But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken     From their cold, careless, willing slavery,     Sought me: one truth their dreary prison has shaken, -     They looked around, and lo! they became free!     Their many tyrants sitting desolately     In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain;     For wrath's red fire had withered in the eye,     Whose lightning once was death, - nor fear, nor gain     Could tempt one captive now to lock another's chain.     11.     'Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt     Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round,     Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt     In the white furnace; and a visioned swound,     A pause of hope and awe the City bound,     Which, like the silence of a tempest's birth,     When in its awful shadow it has wound     The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,     Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.     12.     'Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,     By winds from distant regions meeting there,     In the high name of truth and liberty,     Around the City millions gathered were,     By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair, -     Words which the lore of truth in hues of flame     Arrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air     Like homeless odours floated, and the name     Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.     13.     'The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear,     The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the event -     That perfidy and custom, gold and prayer,     And whatsoe'er, when force is impotent,     To fraud the sceptre of the world has lent,     Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.     Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent     To curse the rebels. - To their gods did they     For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way.     14.     'And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell     From seats where law is made the slave of wrong,     How glorious Athens in her splendour fell,     Because her sons were free, - and that among     Mankind, the many to the few belong,     By Heaven, and Nature, and Necessity.     They said, that age was truth, and that the young     Marred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,     With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.     15.     'And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips     They breathed on the enduring memory     Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse;     There was one teacher, who necessity     Had armed with strength and wrong against mankind,     His slave and his avenger aye to be;     That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,     And that the will of one was peace, and we     Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery -     16.     '"For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter."     So spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied;     Alas, their sway was past, and tears and laughter     Clung to their hoary hair, withering the pride     Which in their hollow hearts dared still abide;     And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,     And sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide,     Said that the rule of men was over now,     And hence, the subject world to woman's will must bow;     17.     'And gold was scattered through the streets, and wine     Flowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.     In vain! the steady towers in Heaven did shine     As they were wont, nor at the priestly call     Left Plague her banquet in the Ethiop's hall,     Nor Famine from the rich man's portal came,     Where at her ease she ever preys on all     Who throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame,     Nor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope's newly kindled flame.     18.     'For gold was as a god whose faith began     To fade, so that its worshippers were few,     And Faith itself, which in the heart of man     Gives shape, voice, name, to spectral Terror, knew     Its downfall, as the altars lonelier grew,     Till the Priests stood alone within the fane;     The shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew,     And the cold sneers of calumny were vain,     The union of the free with discord's brand to stain.     19.     'The rest thou knowest. - Lo! we two are here -     We have survived a ruin wide and deep -     Strange thoughts are mine. - I cannot grieve or fear,     Sitting with thee upon this lonely steep     I smile, though human love should make me weep.     We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,     And I do feel a mighty calmness creep     Over my heart, which can no longer borrow     Its hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.     20.     'We know not what will come - yet, Laon, dearest,     Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love,     Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,     To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove     Within the homeless Future's wintry grove;     For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem     Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,     And violence and wrong are as a dream     Which rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.     21.     'The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds     Over the earth, - next come the snows, and rain,     And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads     Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train;     Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again,     Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;     Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain,     And music on the waves and woods she flings,     And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.     22.     'O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness     Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest!     Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter's sadness     The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest?     Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest     Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet;     Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest     Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet,     Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.     23.     'Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,     Surround the world. - We are their chosen slaves.     Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven     Truth's deathless germs to thought's remotest caves?     Lo, Winter comes! - the grief of many graves,     The frost of death, the tempest of the sword,     The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves     Stagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter's word,     And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred.     24.     'The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhile     The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,     Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile     Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,     The moon of wasting Science wanes away     Among her stars, and in that darkness vast     The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,     And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast     A shade of selfish care o'er human looks is cast.     25.     'This is the winter of the world; - and here     We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,     Expiring in the frore and foggy air.     Behold! Spring comes, though we must pass, who made     The promise of its birth, - even as the shade     Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings     The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed     As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,     From its dark gulf of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.     26.     'O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold     Before this morn may on the world arise;     Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?     Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes     On thine own heart - it is a paradise     Which everlasting Spring has made its own,     And while drear Winter fills the naked skies,     Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh-blown,     Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.     27.     'In their own hearts the earnest of the hope     Which made them great, the good will ever find;     And though some envious shade may interlope     Between the effect and it, One comes behind,     Who aye the future to the past will bind -     Necessity, whose sightless strength for ever     Evil with evil, good with good must wind     In bands of union, which no power may sever:     They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!     28.     'The good and mighty of departed ages     Are in their graves, the innocent and free,     Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,     Who leave the vesture of their majesty     To adorn and clothe this naked world; - and we     Are like to them - such perish, but they leave     All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,     Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive,     To be a rule and law to ages that survive.     29.     'So be the turf heaped over our remains     Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,     Whate'er it be, when in these mingling veins     The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought     Pass from our being, or be numbered not     Among the things that are; let those who come     Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought     A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,     Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.     30.     'Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,     Our happiness, and all that we have been,     Immortally must live, and burn and move,     When we shall be no more; - the world has seen     A type of peace; and - as some most serene     And lovely spot to a poor maniac's eye,     After long years, some sweet and moving scene     Of youthful hope, returning suddenly,     Quells his long madness - thus man shall remember thee.     31.     'And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,     As worms devour the dead, and near the throne     And at the altar, most accepted thus     Shall sneers and curses be; - what we have done     None shall dare vouch, though it be truly known;     That record shall remain, when they must pass     Who built their pride on its oblivion;     And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,     Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.     32.     'The while we two, beloved, must depart,     And Sense and Reason, those enchanters fair,     Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart     That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:     These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there     To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep     Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,     Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep     In joy; - but senseless death - a ruin dark and deep!     33.     'These are blind fancies - reason cannot know     What sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;     There is delusion in the world - and woe,     And fear, and pain - we know not whence we live,     Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give     Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,     Or even these thoughts. - Come near me! I do weave     A chain I cannot break - I am possessed     With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.     34.     'Yes, yes - thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm -     O! willingly, beloved, would these eyes,     Might they no more drink being from thy form,     Even as to sleep whence we again arise,     Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize     Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee -     Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:     Darkness and death, if death be true, must be     Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.     35.     'Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters     Return not to their fountain - Earth and Heaven,     The Ocean and the Sun, the Clouds their daughters,     Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,     All that we are or know, is darkly driven     Towards one gulf. - Lo! what a change is come     Since I first spake - but time shall be forgiven,     Though it change all but thee!' - She ceased - night's gloom     Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky's sunless dome.     36.     Though she had ceased, her countenance uplifted     To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright;     Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted     The air they breathed with love, her locks undight.     'Fair star of life and love,' I cried, 'my soul's delight,     Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?     O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night,     Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!'     She turned to me and smiled - that smile was Paradise!