When, as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer,

Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,

And smoke which strangled every infant wind That soothed the silver clouds through the deep

air.

At length the battle slept, but the Scirocco 630 Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds Over the sea-horizon, blotting out

All objects-save that in the faint moonglimpse

He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral
And two the loftiest of our ships of war,
With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven
Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;
And the abhorred cross--

The Jew, who

Enter an Attendant.

ATTENDANT.

Your Sublime Highness,

MAHMUD.

Could not come more seasonably :

Bid him attend. I'll hear no more! too long 640
We gaze on danger through the mist of fear,
And multiply upon our shattered hopes
The images of ruin. Come what will!
To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps
Set in our path to light us to the edge
Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer

aught

Which he inflicts not in whose hand we are.

[Exeunt.

SEMICHORUS I.

Would I were the wingèd cloud
Of a tempest swift and loud!
I would scorn

The smile of morn

650

And the wave where the moon-rise is born!

I would leave

The spirits of eve

A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave From other threads than mine!

Bask in the deep blue noon divine

Who would, not I.

SEMICHORUS II.

Whither to fly?

SEMICHORUS I.

Where the rocks that gird th' Ægean

Echo to the battle pæan

Of the free

I would flee

A tempestuous herald of victory!
My golden rain

For the Grecian slain

660

Should mingle in tears with the bloody main,
And my solemn thunder knell

Should ring to the world the passing bell
Of tyranny!

SEMICHORUS II.

Ah king! wilt thou chain

The rack and the rain?

670

Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane? The storms are free,

But we

CHORUS.

O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime,

Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns

bare!

Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime,

These brows thy branding garland bear;

But the free heart, the impassive soul, 680
Scorn thy control!

SEMICHORUS I.

"Let there be light!" said Liberty,
And like sunrise from the sea,
Athens arose !-Around her born,
Shone like mountains in the morn
Glorious states;-and are they now
Ashes, wrecks, oblivion?

SEMICHORUS II.

Go,

Where Thermæ and Asopus swallowed

Persia, as the sand does foam;

Deluge upon deluge followed,

Discord, Macedon, and Rome:

And lastly thou!

SEMICHORUS I.

Temples and towers,

Citadels and marts, and they

Who live and die there, have been ours,
And may be thine, and must decay;
But Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity;
Her citizens, imperial spirits,
Rule the present from the past;
On all this world of men inherits
Their seal is set.

690

700

SEMICHORUS II.

Hear ye the blast,

Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls From ruin her Titanian walls? Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones Of Slavery? Argos, Corinth, Crete Hear, and from their mountain thrones The dæmons and the nymphs repeat The harmony.

SEMICHORUS I.

I hear! I hear!

SEMICHORUS II.

The world's eyeless charioteer,

Destiny, is hurrying by!

What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds
Beneath her earthquake-footed steeds?
What eagle-winged victory sits

At her right hand? what shadow flits
Before? what splendour rolls behind?
Ruin and renovation cry

"Who but We?"

SEMICHORUS I.

I hear! I hear!

The hiss as of a rushing wind,

The roar as of an ocean foaming,

The thunder as of earthquake coming.

I hear! I hear!

The crash as of an empire falling,
The shrieks as of a people calling
"Mercy!--mercy!"-How they thrill!
Then a shout of "kill! kill! kill!"
And then a small still voice, thus-

710

720

SEMICHORUS II.

Fear,1

Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,
The foul cubs like their parents are; 730
Their den is in the guilty mind,

And Conscience feeds them with despair.

SEMICHORUS I.

In sacred Athens, near the fane
Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood:
Serve not the unknown God in vain,
But pay that broken shrine again,
Love for hate and tears for blood.

Enter MAHMUD and AHASUerus,'

MAHMUD.

Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we.

No more!

AHASUERUS.

MAHMUD.

But raised above thy fellow men

By thought, as I by power.

AHASUERUS.

Thou sayest so. 740

MAHMUD.

Thou art an adept in the difficult lore

Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest

The flowers, and thou measurest the stars;
Thou severest element from element;

1 The word Fear was substituted for For by Mr. Rossetti. The emendation is conjectural, but is supported by the sense and sound of the passage.-ED,