XXX. 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, Show'd 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 anchor'd in a woody bay,
And sleep no more around us dared to hover
Than, when all doubt and fear has past away,
It shades the couch of some unresting lover,
Whose heart is now at rest: thus night past over
In mutual joy :-around, a forest grew

Of poplars and dark oaks, whose shade did cover
The waning stars prankt in the waters blue,
And trembled in the wind which from the morning flew.

II.

"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 seem'd 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

V.

"We reach'd 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 fever'd world as with an earthquake's spasm!

VI

"I walk'd 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 past; and many wept, with tears Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts did range, And half-extinguish'd words, which prophesied of change.

VII.

"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 steep'd in molten steel the unconquerable will.

VIII.

"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
Women from bonds and death, and on my head

"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 blest, Leagued with me in their hearts;-their meals, their slumber,

Their hourly occupations were possest By hopes which I had arm'd to overnumber, Those hosts of meaner cares, which life's strong wings

encumber.

X.

"But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken From their cold, careless, willing slavery, Sought me one truth their dreary prison has

shaken,

They look'd around, and lo! they became free! Their many tyrants sitting desolately In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; For wrath's red fire had wither'd in the eye, Whose lightning once was death,--nor fear, nor gain Could tempt one captive now to lock another's chain.

XI.

"Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasp'd them

round,

Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt
In the white furnace; and a vision'd 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.
XII.

"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 gather'd were,

By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair;
Words, which the lore of truth in hues of grace
Array'd, thine own wild songs which in the air
Like homeless odors floated, and the name
Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipp'd
in flame.

XVII.

"And gold was scatter'd through the streets, and wine

Flow'd 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 Æthiop'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, dimm'd hope's newly-kindled flame.

XVIII.

"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.

XIX.

"The rest thou knowest-Lo! we two are hereWe have survived a ruin wide and deepStrange 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.

XX.

"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 stedfast truth an unreturning stream

XXI.

"The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds Over the earth,-next come the snows, and rain, And frost, 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

XXII.

"OSpring! 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

"So be the turf heap'd 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 number'd not Among the things that are; let those who come Behind, for whom our stedfast will has brought A calm inheritance, a glorious doom, Insult, with careless tread, our undivided tomb.

"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.

XXXI.

"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 perish'd scrolls of unenduring brass.

XXXII.

"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, seem 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!

XXXIII.

"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 possest With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.

XXXIV.

"Yes, yes-thy kiss is sweet, thy fips are warmO! 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 theeYes, Love when wisdom fails makes Cythna wise. Darkness and death, if death be true, must be Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoy'd with thee.

X.

"For we were slaying still without remorse,
And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand
Defenceless lay, when, on a hell-black horse,
An Angel bright as day, waving a brand

Which flash'd among the stars, past."—" Dost thou stand

Parleying with me, thou wretch?" the king replied;| "Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band, Whoso will drag that woman to his side That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;

XI.

"And gold and glory shall be his.-Go forth!" They rush'd into the plain-Loud was the roar Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth; The wheel'd artillery's speed the pavement tore; The infantry, file after file, did pour

Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew

Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew Of slaughter became stiff; and there was peace anew:

XII.

Peace in the desert fields and villages, Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead! Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries Of victims to their fiery judgment led, Made pale their voiceless lips who seem'd to dread Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue Be faithless to the fear yet unbetray'd; Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!

XIII.

Day after day the burning Sun roll'd on Over the death-polluted land-it came Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame The few lone ears of corn;-the sky became Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast Languish'd and died,—the thirsting air did claim All moisture, and a rotting vapor past From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.

XIV.

First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food

Fail'd, and they drew the breath of its decay. Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood Had lured, or who, from regions far away, Had track'd the hosts in festival array, From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now, Stalk'd like fell shades among their perish'd prey; In their green eyes a strange disease did glow, They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.

XV.

The fish were poison'd in the streams; the birds
In the green woods perish'd; the insect race
Was wither'd up; the scatter'd flocks and herds
Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase
Died moaning, each upon the other's face
In helpless agony gazing; round the City
All night, the lean hyenas their sad case
Like starving infants wail'd; a woful ditty!

And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural

pity.

With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made. XIX.

There was no corn-in the wide market-place
All lotheliest things, even human flesh, was sold;
They weigh'd it in small scales-and many a face
Was fix'd in eager horror then: his gold
The miser brought, the tender maid, grown bold
Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain.
The mother brought her eldest born, controll'd
By instinct blind as love, but turn'd again
And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.
XX.

Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.
"O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave
Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran
With brother's blood! O, that the earthquake's

grave

Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!" Vain cries-throughout the streets, thousands pur

sued

Each by his fiery torture howl and rave, Or sit in frenzy's unimagined mood, Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.

XXI.

It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well
Was choked with rotting corpses, and became
A caldron of green mist made visible
At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,
Seeking to quench the agony of the flame
Which raged like poison through their bursting

veins;

Naked they were from torture, without shame, Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains, Childhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage

pains.