Where her own standard desolately waves
Over the dust of prophets and of kings.
Many yet stand in her array-she paves
Her path with human hearts,' and o'er it flings
The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.
25. "There is a plain beneath the city's wall,
Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast ;
Millions there lift at Freedom's thrilling call
Ten thousand standards wide; they load the blast
Which bears one sound of many voices past,
And startles on his throne their sceptred foe.
He sits amid his idle pomp aghast,
And that his power hath passed away doth know: Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow? 26. "The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain :
Fearless and fierce and hard as beasts of blood,
They stand a speck amid the peopled plain.
Carnage and ruin have been made their food
From infancy-ill has become their good,
And for its hateful sake their will has wove
The chains which eat their hearts.
Surrounding them, with words of human love
Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.
27. "Over the land is felt a sudden pause,
As night and day those ruthless bands around
The watch of love is kept-a trance which awes
The thoughts of men with hope. As, when the sound
Of whirlwind whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds
Dies suddenly, the mariner in fear
Feels silence sink upon his heart-thus bound,
The conquerors pause; and oh! may freemen ne'er
Clasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer !
28. "If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice
Of bonds-from slavery to cowardice,-
A wretched fall!-Uplift thy charmed voice!
Pour on those evil men the love that lies
Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes!
Arise, my friend, farewell "-As thus he spake,
From the green earth lightly I did arise,
As one out of dim dreams that doth awake,
And looked upon the depth of that reposing lake.
29. I saw my countenance reflected there,-
And then my youth fell on me like a wind
Descending on still waters. My thin hair
Was prematurely grey; my face was lined
With channels, such as suffering leaves behind,
Not age; my brow was pale; but in my cheek
And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find
Its food and dwelling, though mine eyes might speak
A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.
30. And, though their lustre now was spent and faded.
Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien
The likeness of a shape for which was braided
The brightest woof of genius still was seen-
One who, methought, had gone from the world's scene,
And left it vacant :-'twas her lover's face-
It might resemble her-it once had been The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace Which her mind's shadow cast left there a lingering trace. 31. What then was I? She slumbered with the dead. Glory and joy and peace had come and gone. Doth the cloud perish when the beams are fled Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone, Doth it not through the paths of night, unknown, On outspread wings of its own wind upborne,
Pour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown
When the cold.moon sharpens her silver horn
Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.
2. Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man
I left with interchange of looks and tears
And lingering speech, and to the Camp began
My way.
O'er many a mountain-chain which rears
Its hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears
My frame, -o'er many a dale and many a moor:
And gaily now meseems serene earth wears
The blosmy Spring's star-bright investiture,—
A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.
33. My powers revived within me, and I went,
As one whom winds waft o'er the bending grass,
Through many a vale of that broad continent.
At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pass
Before my pillow; my own Cythna was,
Not like a child of death, among them ever ;-
When I arose from rest, a woful mass
That gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever, As if the light of youth were not withdrawn forever. 34. Aye as I went, that maiden who had reared
The torch of truth afar, of whose high deeds
The hermit in his pilgrimage had heard,
Haunted my thoughts. Ah! hope its sickness feeds
With whatsoe'er it finds, or flowers or weeds!--
Could she be Cythna? Was that corpse a shade
Such as self-torturing thought from madness breeds ?—
Why was this hope not torture? Yet it made
A light around my steps which would not ever fade.
I. OVER the utmost hill at length I sped,
A snowy steep:-the moon was hanging low
Over the Asian mountains, and, outspread
The plain, the city, and the camp, below,
Skirted the midnight ocean's glimmering flow;
The city's moonlit spires and myriad lamps
Like stars in a sublunar sky did glow,
And fires blazed far amid the scattered camps,
Like springs of flame which burst where'er swift earthqual stamps.
2. All slept but those in watchful arms who stood,
And those who sate tending the beacon's light;
And the few sounds from that vast multitude
Made silence more profound. -Oh! what a might
Of human thought was cradled in that night!
How many hearts impenetrably veiled
Beat underneath its shade! what secret fight
Evil and Good, in woven passions mailed,
Waged through that silent throng,—a war that never failed! 3. And now the Power of Good held victory.
So, through the labyrinth of many a tent, Among the silent millions who did lie
In innocent sleep, exultingly I went.
The moon had left heaven desert now, but, lent From eastern morn, the first faint lustre showed An armed youth-over his spear he bent
His downward face.-"A friend !" I cried aloud; And quickly common hopes made freemen understood.
4. I sate beside him while the morning beam
Crept slowly over heaven, and talked with him
Of those immortal hopes, a glorious theme,
Which led us forth, until the stars grew dim:
And all the while, methought, his voice did swim,
As if it drownèd in remembrance were
Of thoughts which make the moist eyes overbrim :
At last, when daylight 'gan to fill the air,
He looked on me, and cried in wonder "Thou art here?'
5. Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth
In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found;
But envious tongues had stained his spotless truth,
And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound,
And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound,
Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded.
The truth now came upon me; on the ground
Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded,
Fell fast, and o'er its peace our mingling spirits brooded,
6. Thus while with rapid lips and earnest eyes
We talked, a sound of sweeping conflict, spread
As from the earth, did suddenly arise.
From every tent, roused by that clamour dread,
Our bands outsprung, and seized their arms; we sped
Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far.
Those sanguine slaves, amid ten thousand dead
Stabbed in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war
The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.
7. Like rabid snakes that sting some gentle child
Who brings them food when winter false and fair
Allures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild
They rage among the camp ;-they overbear
The patriot host-confusion, then despair
Descends like night-when "Laon!” one did cry.
Like a bright ghost from heaven, that shout did scare
The slaves, and, widening through the vaulted sky,
Seemed sent from earth to heaven in sign of victory.
8. In sudden panic those false murderers fled,
Like insect tribes before the northern gale :
But, swifter still, our hosts encompassèd
Their shattered ranks, and in a craggy vale,
Where even their fierce despair might nought avail,
Hemmed them around !—And then revenge and fear
Made the high virtue of the patriots fail :
One pointed on his foe the mortal spear
I rushed before its point, and cried "Forbear, forbear!" 9. The spear transfixed my arm that was uplifted
In swift expostulation, and the blood
Gushed round its point. I smiled, and-"Oh! thou gifted
With eloquence which shall not be withstood,
Flow thus," I cried in joy, "thou vital flood,
Until my heart be dry, ere thus the cause
For which thou wert aught worthy be subdued !Ah! ye are pale,-ye weep,-your passions pause,— 'Tis well! ye feel the truth of love's benignant laws. 10. "Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain.
Ye murdered them, I think, as they did sleep!
Alas! what have ye done? The slightest pain
Which ye might suffer there were eyes to weep,
But ye have quenched them-there were smiles to steep
Your hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe;
And those whom Love did set his watch to keep
Around your tents, truth's freedom to bestow,
Ye stabbed as they did sleep-but they forgive ye now.
II. "Oh wherefore should ill ever flow from ill,
And pain still keener pain for ever breed?
We all are brethren-even the slaves who kill
For hire are men; and to avenge misdeed
On the misdoer doth but Misery feed
With her own broken heart! O earth, O heaven!
And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed,
And all that lives or is, to be hast given,
Even as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven! 12. "Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past Be as a grave, which gives not up its dead,
To evil thoughts."-A film then overcast
My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled
Freshly, swift shadows o'er mine eyes had shed.
When I awoke, I lay 'mid friends and foes,
And earnest countenances on me shed
The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close
My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose.
13. And one, whose spear had pierced me, leaned beside
With quivering lips and humid eyes ;—and all
Seemed like some brothers on a journey wide
Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall
In a strange land round one whom they might call
Their friend, their chief, their father, for assay
Of peril, which had saved them from the thrall
Of death, now suffering. Thus the vast array
Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day.
14. Lifting the thunder of their acclamation
Towards the city, then the multitude,
And I among them, went in joy—a nation
Made free by love, a mighty brotherhood
Linked by a jealous interchange of good;
A glorious pageant, more magnificent
Than kingly slaves arrayed in gold and blood,
When they return from carnage, and are sent
In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement.
15. Afar, the city walls were thronged on high,
And myriads on each giddy turret clung,
And to each spire far lessening in the sky
Bright pennons on the idle winds were hung.
As we approached, a shout of joyance sprung
At once from all the crowd, as if the vast
And peopled earth its boundless skies among
The sudden clamour of delight had cast,
When from before its face some general wreck had passed
16. Our armies through the city's hundred gates
Were poured, like brooks which to the rocky lair
Of some deep lake, whose silence them awaits,
Throng from the mountains when the storms are there :
And, as we passed through the calm sunny air,
A thousand flower-inwoven crowns were shed,
The token flowers of truth and freedom fair,
And fairest hands bound them on many a head,
Those angels of love's heaven that over all was spread.
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