Teaching the woods and waves, and Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt In the calm regions of the orient day! Round France, the ghastly vint In songs whose music cannot pass away, age, stood Though it must flow for ever: not Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. XI The eager hours and unreluctant years mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers Rose armies mingled in obscure array, Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers As on a dawn-illumined mountain Of serene heaven. He, by the past stood, Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their And cried aloud, Liberty! Indignation Death grew pale within the grave, When like heaven's sun girt by the Of its own glorious light, thou didst pursued, Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. XIII England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Ætna, and the cold Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: Chasing thy foes from nation unto O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle nation Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: At dreaming midnight o'er the western They cry, Be dim; ye lamps of heaven Thou heaven of earth! what spells could To the eternal years enthroned before us, Till thy sweet stars could weep the Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead, stain away; How like Bacchanals of blood Till, like a standard from a watch tower's staff, And cries: Give me, thy child, When the bolt has pierced its brain; dominion Over all height and depth? if Life can As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life's illapportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise Wept tears, and blood like tears? XIX Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn; Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, Sinks headlong through the aërial golden light On the heavy sounding plain, |
