XII.

"Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,
By winds from distant regions meeting there,
In the high name of truth and liberty,
Around the City millions gathered were,

By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,
Words, which the lore of truth in hues of flame
Arrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air.
Like homeless odours floated, and the name

Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.

XIII.

"The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear, The nurse of Vengeance, bade him wait the eventThat perfidy and custom, gold and prayer,

And whatsoe'er, when force is impotent,

To fraud the scepter of the world has lent,
Might, as he judged, confirm his failing sway.
Therefore throughout the streets, the Priests he sent
To curse the rebels.-To their God did they

For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way.

XIV.

"And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell
From seats where law is made the slave of wrong,
How glorious Athens in her splendour fell,
Because her sons were free,-and that among
Mankind, the many to the few belong,

By God, and Nature, and Necessity.

They said, that age was truth, and that the young
Marred with wild hopes the peace of slavery,

With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free.

XV.

"And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips They breathed on the enduring memory

Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse;

There was one teacher, who, necessity

Had armed, with strength and wrong against mankind,
His slave and his avenger aye to be;

That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind,
And that the will of one was peace, and we

Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery.

XVI.

"For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter.'
So spake the hypocrites, who cursed and lied;
Alas, their sway was past, and tears and laughter
Clung to their hoary hair, withering the pride
Which in their hollow hearts dared still abide;
And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,
And sneers on their strait lips, thin, blue and wide,
Said, that the rule of men was over now,

And hence, the subject world to woman's will must bow.

XVII.

"And gold was scattered thro' the streets, and wine Flowed at a hundred feasts within the wall.

In vain the steady towers in Heaven did shine
As they were wont, nor at the priestly call,
Left Plague her banquet in the Ethiop's hall,
Nor Famine from the rich man's portal came,
Where at her ease she ever preys on all

Who throng to kneel for food: nor fear nor shame, Nor faith, nor discord, dimmed hope's newly kindled flame.

XVIII.

For gold was as a God whose faith began
To fade, so that its worshippers were few,

And Hell and Awe, which in the heart of man
Is God itself; the Priests its downfall knew,
As day by day their altars lonelier grew,
Till they were left alone within the fane;
The shafts of falsehood unpolluting flew,
And the cold sneers of calumny were vain,
The union of the free with discord's braud to stain.

XIX.

"The rest thou knowest-Lo! we two are hereWe have survived a ruin wide and deep

Strange thoughts are mine-I cannot grieve or fear.
Sitting with thee upon this lonely steep

I smile, tho' human love should make me weep,
We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,
And I do feel a mighty calmness creep

Over my heart, which can no longer borrow

Its hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.

XX.

"We know not what will come-yet Laon, dearest,
Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love,

Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,
To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove
Within the homeless Future's wintry grove;

For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem
Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,
And violence and wrong are as a dream

Which rolls from steadfast truth an unreturning stream.

XXI.

"The blasts of Autumn drive the wingèd seeds Over the earth,-next come the snows, and rain, And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train; Behold! Spring sweeps over the world again, Shedding soft dews from her ætherial wings; Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, And music on the waves and woods she flings, And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.

XXII.

"O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest ! Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter's sadness The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest? Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest Thy mother's dying smile, tender and sweet; Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet, Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.

XXIII.

Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven, Surround the world.-We are their chosen slaves. Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven

Truth's deathless germs to thought's remotest caves? Lo, Winter comes!-the grief of many graves, The frost of death, the tempest of the sword, The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves Stagnate like ice at Faith, the inchanter's word, And bind all human hearts in it's repose abhorred.

XXIV.

"The seeds are sleeping in the soil: meanwhile
The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,
Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile
Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,
The moon of wasting Science wanes away
Among her stars, and in that darkness vast
The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,

And grey Priests triumph, and like blight or blast
A shade of selfish care o'er human looks is cast.

XXV.

"This is the winter of the world;-and here
We die, even as the winds of Autumn fade,
Expiring in the frore and foggy air.-

Behold! Spring comes, tho' we must pass, who made
The promise of its birth,-even as the shade
Which from our death, as from a mountain, flings

The future, a broad sunrise; thus arrayed

As with the plumes of overshadowing wings,

From its dark gulph of chains, Earth like an eagle springs.

XXVI.

"O dearest love! we shall be dead and cold
Before this morn may on the world arise;
Wouldst thou the glory of its dawn behold?
Alas! gaze not on me, but turn thine eyes
On thine own heart-it is a Paradise
Which everlasting spring has made its own,
And while drear winter fills the naked skies,

Sweet streams of sunny thought, and flowers fresh blown, Are there, and weave their sounds and odours into one.

XXVII.

"In their own hearts the earnest of the hope

Which made them great, the good will ever find; And tho' some envious shade may interlope Between the effect and it,One comes behind, Who aye the future to the past will bind— Necessity, whose sightless strength forever Evil with evil, good with good must wind In bands of union, which no power may sever: They must bring forth their kind, and be divided never!

XXVIII.

"The good and mighty of departed ages
Are in their graves, the innocent and free,
Heroes, and Poets, and prevailing Sages,
Who leave the vesture of their majesty

To adorn and clothe this naked world;-and we
Are like to them-such perish, but they leave
All hope, or love, or truth, or liberty,

Whose forms their mighty spirits could conceive
To be a rule and law to ages that survive.

XXIX.

"So be the turf heaped over our remains
Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,
Whate'er it be, when in these mingling veins
The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought
Pass from our being, or be numbered not
Among the things that are; let those who come
Behind, for whom our steadfast will has bought
A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,

Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.

XXX.

"Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,
Our happiness, and all that we have been,
Immortally must live, and burn and move,
When we shall be no more;-the world has seen
A type of peace; and as some most serene
And lovely spot to a poor maniac's eye,
After long years, some sweet and moving scene
Of youthful hope returning suddenly,

Quells his long madness-thus man shall remember thee.

XXXI.

"And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,

As worms devour the dead, and near the throne
And at the altar, most accepted thus

Shall sneers and curses be;-what we have done
None shall dare vouch, tho' it be truly known;
That record shall remain, when they must pass
Who built their pride in its oblivion;

And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,
Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.