16. "This need not be.

17.

Ye might arise, and will

That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory;
That love, which none may bind, be free to fill

The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary
With crime, be quenched and die.-Yon promontory
Even now eclipses the descending moon !—

Dungeons and palaces are transitory

High temples fade like vapour-Man alone

Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

"Let all be free and equal !-From your hearts

I feel an echo; through my inmost frame,

Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts.—
Whence come ye, friends? Alas! I cannot name
All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,

On your worn faces; as in legends old

Which make immortal the disastrous fame
Of conquerors and impostors false and bold,

The discord of your hearts I in your looks behold.

18. "Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood Forth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold,

That kings may dupe and slay the multitude?

Or from the famished poor, pale, weak, and cold, Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold! Speak! Are your hands in slaughter's sanguine hue Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old? Know yourselves thus,-ye shall be pure as dew, And I will be a friend and sister unto you.

666

19. Disguise it not-we have one human heartAll mortal thoughts confess a common home. Blush not for what may to thyself impart

Stains of inevitable crime: the doom

Is this which has, or may, or must, become
Thine, and all humankind's. Ye are the spoil

Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb;
Thou and thy thoughts-and they and all the toil
Wherewith ye twine the rings of life's perpetual coil.
20. "Disguise it not-ye blush for what ye hate,
And Enmity is sister unto Shame;
Look on your mind-it is the book of fate-
Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name
Of misery-all are mirrors of the same;
But the dark fiend who with his iron pen,
Dipped in scorn's fiery poison, makes his fame
Enduring there, would o'er the heads of men
Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.
21. "Yes, it is Hate-that shapeless fiendly thing
Of many names, all evil, some divine-
Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;
Which-when the heart its snaky folds entwine

Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine
To gorge such bitter prey-on all beside

It turns with ninefold rage; as, with his twine
When amphisbæna some fair bird has tied,

Soon o'er the putrid mass he threats on every side.
22. "Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself;
Nor hate another's crime, nor loathe thine own.
It is the dark idolatry of self

Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone, Demands that man should weep and bleed and groan; Oh vacant expiation !--- Be at rest:

The past is Death's, the future is thine own;

And love and joy can make the foulest breast

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A paradise of flowers where peace might build her nest. 23. 'Speak thou! whence come ye?'---A youth made reply: 'Wearily, wearily o'er the boundless deep

We sail. Thou readest well the misery

Told in these faded eyes; but much doth sleep
Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep,

Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow.

Even from our childhood have we learned to steep
The bread of slavery in the tears of woe,

And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now.

24. "Yes-I must speak-my secret would have perished
Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand

Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,
But that no human bosom can withstand
Thee, wondrous lady, and the mild command
Of thy keen eyes :-yes, we are wretched slaves,
Who from their wonted loves and native land
Are reft, and bear o'er the dividing waves
The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.
25. "We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest

Among the daughters of those mountains lone;
We drag them there where all things best and rarest
Are stained and trampled. Years have come and gone
Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known
No thought;-but now the eyes of one dear maid
On mine with light of mutual love have shone :
She is my life, I am but as the shade

-:

Of her--a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade :-
26. "For she must perish in the tyrant's hall---
Alas, alas !'-He ceased, and by the sail
Sate cowering-but his sobs were heard by all ;
And still before the ocean and the gale
The ship fled fast till the stars 'gan to fail.
All round me gathered with mute countenance;
The seamen gazed, the pilot worn and pale
With toil, the captain with grey locks, whose glance
Met mine in restless awe-they stood as in a trance.

27.

Recede not pause not now! Thou art grown old,
But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
Are children of one mother, Love. Behold!

The eternal stars gaze on us!—is the truth
Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth
For others' sufferings? do ye thirst to bear

A heart which not the serpent custom's tooth
May violate?-Be free! and, even here,

Swear to be firm till death!' They cried 'We swear! we swear! 28. "The very darkness shook, as with a blast

Of subterranean thunder, at the cry;
The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast
Into the night, as if the sea and sky
And earth rejoiced with new-born liberty,

For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,
And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye,
The captives gazing stood, and every one

Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone.
29. "They were earth's purest children, young and fair,
With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,
And brows as bright as Spring or morning, ere
Dark time had there its evil legend wrought
In characters of cloud which wither not.-
The change was like a dream to them; but soon
They knew the glory of their altered lot.

In the bright wisdom of youth's breathless noon, Sweet talk and smiles and sighs all bosoms did attune. 30. "But one was mute. Her cheeks and lips most fair, Changing their hue like lilies newly blown

Beneath a bright acacia's shadowy hair

Waved by the wind amid the sunny noon,
Showed that her soul was quivering; and full soon

That youth arose, and breathlessly did look

On her and me, as for some speechless boon :
I smiled, and both their hands in mine I took,
And felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook.

CANTO IX.

I. "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. "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

5.

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;

9.

-

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
Women from bonds and death, and on my head
The burthen of their sins would frightfully be laid.
"But soon my human words found sympathy

10.

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. "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. II. "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 leapt 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 grace

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.