"Yes-I must speak-my secret should have perished Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished, But that no human bosom can withstand Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command Of thy keen eyes:-yes, we are wretched slaves, Who from their wonted loves and native land Are reft, and bear o'er the dividing waves The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.
"We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest
Among the daughters of those mountains lone,
We drag them there, where all things best and rarest
Are stained and trampled :-years have come and gone
Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known
No thought;-but now the eyes of one dear Maid
On mine with light of mutual love have shone-
She is my life,-I am but as the shade.
Of her, a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.
"For she must perish in the Tyrant's hall-
Alas, alas!'-He ceased, and by the sail
Sate cowering-but his sobs were heard by all,
And still before the ocean and the gale
The ship fled fast till the stars 'gan to fail,
And round me gathered with mute countenance,
The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale
With toil, the Captain with grey locks, whose glance Met mine in restless awe-they stood as in a trance.
"Recede not! pause not now! thou art grown old,
But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth
Are children of one mother, even Love-behold!
The eternal stars gaze on us!—is the truth
Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth
For others' sufferings? do ye thirst to bear
A heart which not the serpent Custom's tooth
May violate?-be free! and even here,
Swear to be firm till death!' they cried, 'We swear! we swear!'
"The very darkness shook, as with a blast
Of subterranean thunder at the cry;
The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast
Into the night, as if the sea, and sky,
And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,
For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,
And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye
The captives gazing stood, and every one
Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone.
"They were earth's purest children, young and fair,
With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,
And brows as bright as spring or morning, ere
Dark time had there its evil legend wrought
In characters of cloud which wither not.-
The change was like a dream to them; but soon
They knew the glory of their altered lot,
In the bright wisdom of youth's breathless noon.
Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune,
"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,
Shewed 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.
"THAT night we anchored 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.
"The joyous mariners, and each free maiden,
Now brought from the deep forest many a bough,
With woodland spoil most innocently laden;
Soon wreathes of budding foliage seemed 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
Doomed to pursue those waves that cannot cease to smile.
"The many ships spotting the dark blue deep
With snowy sails, fled fast as our's came nigh,
In fear and wonder; and on every steep
Thousands did gaze, they heard the startling cry,
Like earth's own voice lifted unconquerably
To all her children, the unbounded mirth,
The glorious joy of thy name-Liberty!
They heard!-As o'er the mountains of the earth
From peak to peak leap on the beams of morning's birth:
"So from that cry over the boundless hills,
Sudden was caught one universal sound,
Like a volcano's voice, whose thunder fills
Remotest skies, such glorious madness found
A path thro' human hearts with stream which drowned
Its struggling fears and cares, dark Custom's brood,
They knew not whence it came, but felt around
A wide contagion poured-they called aloud
On Liberty-that name lived on the sunny flood.
"We reached 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 fevered world as with an earthquake's spasm!
"I walked thro' 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 wingèd thoughts did range, And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change.
"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 steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.
"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
The burthen of their sins would frightfully be laid.
"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 armed to overnumber
Those hosts of meaner cares, which life's strong wings encumber.
"But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken
From their cold, careless, willing slavery,
Sought me one truth their dreary prison has shaken,-
They looked around, and lo! they became free!
Their many tyrants sitting desolately
In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain;
For wrath's red fire had withered in the eye,
Whose lightning once was death,-nor fear, nor gain Could tempt one captive now to lock another's chain.
"Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round, Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt In the white furnace; and a visioned 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.
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