XXVIII. And when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw That column, and those corpses, and the moon, And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon Of senseless death would be accorded soon;When from that stony gloom a voice arose, Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune The midnight pines, the grate did then unclose, And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose. XXIX. He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled: My wretched frame, my scorched limbs he wound As dew to drooping leaves :-the chain, with sound Like earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound, XXX. As lifting me, it fell!-What next I heard, That mountain and its column, the known mark XXXI. For now indeed, over the salt sea billow I sail'd: yet dared not look upon the shape Of him who ruled the helm, although the pillow For my light head was hollow'd in his lap, And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap, Fearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent O'er me his aged face, as if to snap Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent, And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent. XXXII. A soft and healing potion to my lips I joy'd as those a human tone to hear, XXXIV. And then the night-wind streaming from the shore, Where ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove. CANTO IV. I. THE old man took the oars, and soon the bark Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone; It was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark With blooming ivy trails was overgrown; Upon whose floor the spangling sands were strown, And rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood, Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood A changeling of man's art, nursed amid Nature's brood. II. When the old man his boat had anchored, He wound me in his arms with tender care, And very few, but kindly words he said, And bore me through the tower adown a stair, Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear For many a year had fall'n-We came at last To a small chamber, which with mosses rare Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced. III. The moon was darting through the lattices Who in cells deep and lone have languish'd many a Whose lore had made that sage all that he had become year. XXXIII. A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpes oft Were quench'd in a relapse of wildering dreams, Yet still methought we sail'd, until aloft The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams Of morn descended on the ocean-streams, And still that aged man, so grand and mild, Tended me, even as some sick mother seems To hang in hope over a dying child, Till in the azure East darkness again was piled. IV. The rock-built barrier of the sea was past,- A lonely lake, amid the forests vast And that the multitude was gathering wide; XVI. "For I have been thy passive instrument"- VI. Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes We talk'd, a sound of sweeping conflict spread, As from the earth did suddenly arise; From every tent, roused by that clamor 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 Stabb'd in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war, The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare. VII. Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child scare The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky,| Seem'd sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory. VIII. In sudden panic those false murderers fled, Made the high virtue of the patriots fail: IX. The spear transfix'd my arm that was uplifted Gush'd 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. X. "Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain: Ye murder'd 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 quench'd 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 stabb'd as they did sleep-but they forgive ye now. XI. "O 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 hath given, Even as to thee have these done ill, and are forgiven. XII. "Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past Freshly, swift shadows o'er mine eyes had shed. The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close My wound with balmiest herbs, and soothed me to repose. XIII. And one whose spear had pierced me, lean'd beside With quivering lips and humid eyes;-and all Seem'd 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. XIV. 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 Link'd by a jealous interchange of good; A glorious pageant, more magnificent Than kingly slaves array'd in gold and blood; When they return from carnage, and are sent In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement. XV. Afar, the City walls were throng'd 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 approach'd a shout of joyance sprung At once from all the crowd, as if the vast And peopled Earth its boundless skies among The sudden clamor of delight had cast, When from before its face some general wreck had past. XVI. Our armies through the City's hundred gates Were pour'd, 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 past 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. XVII. I trod as one tranced in some rapturous vision: And did with soft attraction ever draw |