Х

ing ear,

It was a feeble shriek, faint, far, and

Which would ensnare us now, for, low

in the end, Arrested me—my mien grew calm In victory or in death our hopes and and meek,

fears must blend." And, grasping a small knife, I went

to seek
That voice among the crowd—'twas

These words had fallen on my unheed-
Cythna's cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did

Whilst I had watched the motions agony wreak

of the crew Its whirlwind rage :

so I past

With seeming-careless glance; not quietly,

many were Till I beheld where bound that dearest

Around her, for their comrades just child did lie.

withdrew

To guard some other victim—so I VIII

drew I started to behold her, for delight My knife, and with one impulse, sud

And exultation, and a joyance free, denly, Solemn, serene, and losty, filled the All unaware three of their number light

slew, Of the calm smile with which she And grasped a fourth by the throat, looked on me :

and with loud cry So that I feared some brainless My countrymen invoked to death or ecstasy,

liberty ! Wrought from that bitter woe, had

XI wildered her--“ Farewell ! farewell !” she said, as What followed then I know not-for a I drew nigh.

stroke " At first my peace was marred by On my raised arm and naked head this strange stir,

came down, Now I am calm as truth-its chosen Filling my eyes with blood. - When minister.

I awoke,

I felt that they had bound me in IX

my swoon, “Look not so, Laon--say farewell in

And up a rock which overhangs hope, These bloody men are but the slaves

By the steep path, were bearing me :

below who bear Their mistress to her task-it was

The plain was filled with slaughter,

-overthrown
my scope
The slavery where they drag me

The vineyards and the arvests, and

the glow now to share, And among captives willing chains

Of blazing roofs shone sar o'er the white

ocean's flow. to wear Awhile the rest thou knowest-re

XII turn, dear friend ! Let our first triumph trample the Upon that rock a nighty column despair

the town,

gone by,

XV

sea

XIII

Whose capital seemed sculptured in The grate, as they departed to the sky,

repass, Which to the wanderers o'er the soli. With horrid clangour fell, and the tude

far sound Of distant seas, from ages long or their retiring steps in the dense

gloom were drowned. Had made a landmark ; o'er its

height to fly Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or The noon was calm and bright : the blast,

around that column Hlas power—and, when the shades The overhanging sky and circling

of evening lie On earth and ocean, its carved sum- Spread forth, in silentness profound mits cast

and solemn, The sunken daylight far through the The darkness of brief frenzy cast aërial waste.

on me, So that I knew not my own misery :

The islands and the mountains in the They bore me to a cavern in the hill

day Beneath that column, and unbound Like clouds reposed afar ; and I me there :

could see And one did strip me stark; and one The town among the woods below did fill

that lay, A vessel from the putrid pool ; one And the dark rocks which bound the bare

bright and glassy bay. A lighted torch, and four with

friendless care Guided my steps the cavern - paths It was so calm that scarce the feathery along.

weed Then up a steep and dark and Sown by some eagle on the topnarrow stair

most stone We wound, until the torch's fiery Swayed in the air :-so bright that tongue

noon did breed Amid the gushing day beamless and No shadow in the sky beside mine pallid hung

Mine, and the shadow of my chain XIV

alone. They raised me to the platform of Below, the smoke of roofs involved the pile,

in flame That column's dizzy height : the Rested like night, all else was grate of brass,

clearly shown Through which they thrust me, open In that broad glare,-.yet sound to me stood the while,

none came,
As to its ponderous and suspended But of the living blood that ran within

mass,
With chains which eat into the

flesh, alas! With brazen links, my naked limbs The peace of madness fled, and ah they bound :

XVI

my frame.

noon

XX

A ship was lying on the sunny Tameless resolve which laughed main,

at misery Its sails were fagging in the breathless Into my soul - linked remembrance

lent Its shadow lay beyond — that To that such power, to me such a severe sight again

content. Waked with its presence in my

tranced brain The stings of a known sorrow, keen

To breathe, to be, to hope, or to and cold :

despair I knew that ship bore Cythna o'er

And die, I questioned not ; nor, the plain

though the sun, Of waters, to her blighting slavery

Its shafts of agony kindling through

the air, sold, And watched it with such thoughts as

Moved over me, nor though, in must remain untold.

evening dun,

Or when the stars their visible XVIII

courses run, I watched, until the shades of evening

Or morning, the wide universe was wrapped

spread Earth like an exhalation then

In dreary calmness round me, did the bark

I shun Moved, for that calm was by the sun.

Its presence, nor seek refuge with the set snapt.

dead It moved a speck upon the ocean

From one faint hope whose flower a dark :

dropping poison shed.
Soon the wan stars came forth, and

XXI
I could mark

Two days thus past

I neither Its path no more! I sought to close

raved nor died

Thirst raged within me, like a But, like the balls, their lids were

scorpion's nest stiff and stark ;

Built in mine entrails ; I had spurned I would have risen, but ere that I

aside could rise

The water - vessel while despair My parched skin was split with piercing

possest agonies.

My thoughts, and now no drop

remained !

Of the third sun brought hunger—but I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought

the crust to sever

Which had been left was to my Its adamantine links, that I might

craving breast

Fuel, not food. I chewed the bitter O Liberty! forgive the base endeav.

dust, our,

And bit my bloodless arm, and licked Forgive me if, reserved for victory,

the brazen rust. The Champion of thy faith e'er sought to fly!

XXII That starry night, with its clear silence, My brain began to fail when the fourth

mine eyes,

XIX

The uprest

die ;

XXV

ness

Burst o'er the golden isles

a fear

But both, though not distincter, ful sleep,

were immersed Which through the caverns dreary In hues which, when through memory's and forlorn

waste they flow, of the riven soul sent its foul Make their divided streams more bright dreams to sweep

and rapid now. With whirlwind swistness - a fall

far and deepA gull, a void, a sense of senseless- Methought that grate was listed, and

the seven These things dwelt in me, even as Who brought me thither four stiff shadows keep

corpses bare, Their watch in some dim charnel's And from the frieze to the four winds loneliness,

of Heaven A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planet- Hung them on high by the enless!

tangled hair ;

Swarthy were three — the fourth XXIII

was very fair : The forms which peopled this terrific As they retired, the golden moon uptrance

sprung, I well remember — like a choir of And eagerly, out in the giddy air devils,

Leaning that I might eat, I stretched Around me they involved a giddy

and clung dance ;

Over the shapeless depth in which those Legions seemed gathering from the

corpses hung
misty levels

XXVI
of ocean to supply those ceaseless
revels,

A woman's shape, now lank and cold Foul ceaseless shadows :

:-- thought and blue, could not divide

The dwelling of the many-coloured The actual world from these en

worm, tangling evils,

Hung there ; the white and hollow Which so bemocked themselves that

cheek I drew I descried

To my dry lips--- What radiance All shapes like mine own self hideously did inform multiplied.

Those horny eyes ? whose was

that withered form? XXIV

Alas, alas ! it seemed that Cythna's The sense of day and night, of false

ghost

Laughed in those looks, and that Was dead within me. Yet two

the flesh was warm visions burst

Within my teeth !-A whirlwind keen That darkness- one, as since that

as frost hour I knew,

Then in its sinking gulfs my sickening
Was not a phantom of the realms spirit tost.

accurst
Where then my spirit dwelt-but,

XXVII
of the first,

Then seemed it that a tameless hurriI know not yet was it a dream or no. S

K

and true,

cane

wane

Arose, and bore me in its dark My wretched frame, my scorched career

limbs he wound Beyond the sun, beyond the stars that In linen moist and balmy, and as

cold On the verge of formless space-it As dew to drooping leaves: the chain, languished there,

with sound And, dying, lest a silence lone and Like earthquake, through the chasm of drear,

that steep stair did bound, More horrible than famine: -in the deep

XXX The shape of an old man did then As, listing me, it sell !- What next I appear,

heard Stately and beautiful; that dreadful

Were billowsleaping on the harboursleep

bar, His heavenly smiles dispersed, and I And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath could wake and weep.

idly stirred

My hair ; - I looked abroad, and XXVIII

saw a star And, when the blinding tears had

Shining beside a sail, and distant fallen, I saw

far That column and those corpses and

That mountain and its column, the the

known mark moon, And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger

Of those who in the wide deep

wandering are,
gnaw
My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the

So that I feared some Spirit fell and boon

dark Of senseless death would be ac

In trance had lain me thus within a corded soon ;

fiendish bark. When from that stony gloom a voice

XXXI arose,

For now indeed over the salt sea-billow Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune

I sailed : yet dared not look upon The midnight pines ; the grate did

the shape then unclose,

Of him who ruled the helm, although And on that reverend form the moon

the pillow light did repose.

For my light head was hollowed

in his lap,

And my bare limbs his mantle did XXIX

enwrap, He struck my chains, and gently spake Fearing it was a fiend : at last, he and smiled ;

bent As they were loosened by that O'er me his aged face, as if to snap Hermit old,

Those dreadful thoughts the gentle Mine eyes were of their madness half

grandsire bent, beguiled,

And to my inmost soul his soothing
To answer those kind looks. He

looks he sent.
did enfold
His giant arms around me, to
uphold

A soft and healing potion to my lips

XXXII