Hung tyranny; beneath, sat deified The sister pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring heaven; from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody On the unapprehensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, V. Athens arose; a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean floors By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, A divine work! Athens diviner yet Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! Through the caverns of the past; Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast. A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast With life and love makes chaos ever new, As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fair est, Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmean Mænad,* She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest From that Elysian food was yet unweaned; And many a deed of terrible uprightness By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone Slaves of one tyrant. Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone VIII. From what Hyrcanian gler. or frozen hill, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, See the Baccha of Euripides. And every Naiad's ice-cold urn, Of that sublimest lore which man had dared un learn? For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep. What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep, When from its sea of death to kill and burn, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. IX. A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? And then the shadow of thy coming fell On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: And many a warrior-peopled citadel, Like rocks, which fire lifts out of the flat deep, Arose in sacred Italy, Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty ; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep And burst around their walls like idle foam, Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art which cannot die, With divine want traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. X. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror Of the world's wolves! thou bearer of the quiver, Whose sun-like shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, As light may pierce the clouds when they dis sever In the calm regions of the orient day! Luther caught thy wakening glance: Like lightning from his leaden lance Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay; And England's prophets hailed thee as their queen, In songs whose music cannot pass away, Though it must flow for ever: not unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. The XI. eager hours and unreluctant years As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their multitude, |