At intervals he raised-now looked
on high,

To mark if yet the starry giant dips
His zone in the dim sea-now
cheeringly,

Though he said little, did he speak

to me.

"It is a friend beside thee- take
good cheer,

Poor victim, thou art now at
liberty!"

I joyed as those, a human tone to
hear,

Who in cells deep and lone have languished many a year.

XXXIII

A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses
oft

Were quenched in a relapse of
wildering dreams,

Yet still methought we sailed, 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.

XXXIV

And then the night-wind, steaming from the shore,

Sent odours dying sweet across the

sea,

And the swift boat the little waves
which bore

Were cut by its keen keel, though
slantingly;

Soon I could hear the leaves sigh,
and could see

grove,

Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed

The myrtle-blossoms starring the dim Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves

interlaced.

In converse with the dead who
leave the stamp

Of ever-burning thoughts on many a
page,

When they are gone into the sense

less damp

Each heart was there a shield, and
every tongue

Was as a sword, of truth-young
Laon's name

Rallied their secret hopes, though
tyrants sung

Of graves his spirit thus became Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered
a lamp
tribes among.

Of splendour, like to those on which

it fed:

Through peopled haunts, the city
and the camp,

Deep thirst for knowledge had his footsteps led,

And all the ways of men among mankind he read.

IX

But custom maketh blind and obdurate

The loftiest hearts :-he had beheld
the woe

In which mankind was bound, but
deemed that fate

Which made them abject would
preserve them so;

And in such faith, some steadfast
joy to know,

He sought this cell: but, when fame
went abroad

That one in Argolis did undergo Torture for liberty, and that the crowd

High truths from gifted lips had heard and understood;

X

And that the multitude was gathering wide,

His spirit leaped within his aged
frame,

In lonely peace he could no more
abide,

But to the land on which the vic-
tor's flame

XI

Have I collected language to unfold

Truth to my countrymen; from shore to shore

Doctrines of human power my words have told,

They have been heard, and men as-
pire to more

Had fed, my native land, the Than they have ever gained or ever lost
Hermit came:
of y
f yore.

They congregate: in her they put their trust;

The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell

Her power; they, even like a thunder-gust

Their brethren and themselves; great

is the strength

Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell

Of words-for lately did a maiden Of that young maiden's speech, and to fair,

their chiefs rebel.

Who from her childhood has been taught to bear

The tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and
make

Her sex the law of truth and free-
dom hear,

And with these quiet words 'For
thine own sake,

I prithee spare me'-did with ruth so take

XVIII

"Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length

Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare

The serpent and the dove, wisdom and

innocence.

XX

XIX

"All hearts that even the torturer,
who had bound

Her meek calm frame, ere it was
yet impaled,

Loosened her, weeping then; nor
could be found

And matrons with their babes, a
stately throng!
Lovers renew the vows which they
did plight

One human hand to harm her-un- In early faith, and hearts long parted
assailed
now unite.

Therefore she walks through the
great City, veiled

In virtue's adamantine eloquence,
'Gainst scorn and death and pain
thus trebly mailed,

And blending, in the smiles of that
defence,

"The wild-eyed women throng around her path:

XXI

"Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach

To woman, outraged and polluted long; Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach

From their luxurious dungeons,
from the dust

Of meaner thralls, from the oppres-
sor's wrath,

Or the caresses of his sated lust,

For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong;

Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright,

XXII

"And homeless orphans find a home near her,

And those poor victims of the proud, no less,

Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world, with stir,

Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:

In squalid huts and in its palaces Sits Lust alone, while o'er the land is borne

Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress

All evil, and her foes relenting turn, And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.