"The while we two, belovèd, must depart,
And Sense and Reason, those inchanters fair,
Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart
That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:
These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there
To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep
Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,
Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep
In joy;-but senseless death-a ruin dark and deep!
"These are blind fancies-reason cannot know
What sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;
There is delusion in the world-and woe,
And fear, and pain-we know not whence we live,
Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give
Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,
Or even these thoughts:-Come near me! I do weave
A chain I cannot break-I am possest
With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human breast.
"Yes, yes-thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm-
O willingly, beloved, would these eyes,
Might they no more drink being from thy form,
Even as to sleep whence we again arise,
Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize
Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee-
Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:
Darkness and death, if death be true, must be
Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.
Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters
Return not to their fountain-Earth and Heaven,
The Ocean and the Sun, the clouds their daughters,
Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,
All that we are or know, is darkly driven
Towards one gulph-Lo! what a change is come
Since I first spake-but time shall be forgiven,
Tho' it change all but thee!"-She ceased, night's gloom Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky's sunless dome.
Tho' she had ceased, her countenance uplifted
To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright;
Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted
The air they breathed with love, her locks undight;
"Fair star of life and love," I cried, "my soul's delight,
Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?
O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night,
Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!"
She turned to me and smiled-that smile was Paradise!
WAS there a human spirit in the steed,
That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,
He broke our linked rest? or do indeed
All living things a common nature own,
And thought erect an universal throne,
Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?
And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan
To see her sons contend? and makes she bare
Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?
I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue,
Which was not human-the lone Nightingale
Has answered me with her most soothing song,
Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale
With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale
The Antelopes who flocked for food have spoken
With happy sounds, and motions, that avail
Like man's own speech; and such was now the token Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.
Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,
And I returned with food to our retreat,
And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed
Over the fields, had stained the courser's feet;-
Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew,-then meet
The vulture, and the wild-dog, and the snake,
The wolf, and the hyæna grey, and eat
The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship's wake.
For, from the utmost realms of earth, came pouring
The banded slaves whom every despot sent
At that throned traitor's summons; like the roaring
Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent
In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent
The armies of the leaguèd kings around
Their files of steel and flame;-the continent
Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,
Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies' sound.
From every nation of the earth they came,
The multitude of moving heartless things,
Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,
Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings
To the stall, red with blood; their many kings
Led them, thus erring, from their native land;
Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings
Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band
The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea's sand,
Fertile in prodigies and lies;-so there
Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.
The desart savage ceased to grasp in fear
His Asian shield and bow, when, at the will
Of Europe's subtler son, the bolt would kill
Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;
But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,
And savage sympathy: those slaves impure,
Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.
For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe
His countenance in lies,-even at the hour
When he was snatched from death, then o'er the globe
With secret signs from many a mountain tower,
With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power
Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators
He called:-they knew his cause their own, and swore
Like wolves and serpents, to their mutual wars
Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.
Myriads had come-millions were on their way;
The Tyrant past, surrounded by the steel
Of hired assassins, thro' the public way,
Choked with his country's dead:-his footsteps reel
On the fresh blood-he smiles, "Aye, now I feel
I am a King in truth!" he said, and took
His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel
Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,
And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look.
"But first, go slay the rebels-why return
The victor bands," he said, "millions yet live,
Of whom the weakest with one word might turn
The scales of victory yet;-let none survive
But those within the walls-each fifth shall give
The expiation for his brethren here.-
Go forth, and waste and kill!"-"O king, forgive
My speech," a soldier answered-" but we fear
The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;
"For we were slaying still without remorse,
And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand
Defenceless lay, when, on a hell-black horse,
An Angel bright as day, waving a brand
Which flashed among the stars, past."-" Dost thou stand
Parleying with me, thou wretch?" the king replied;
"Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band,
Whoso will drag that woman to his side
That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;
"And gold and glory shall be his.-Go forth!"
They rushed into the plain.-Loud was the roar
Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;
The wheeled artillery's speed the pavement tore;
The infantry, file after file did pour
Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew Among the wasted fields: the sixth saw gore Stream thro' the city; on the seventh, the dew Of slaughter became stiff; and there was peace anew:
Peace in the desart fields and villages,
Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!
Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries
Of victims to their fiery judgment led,
Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread
Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue
Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;
Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng
Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!
Day after day the burning Sun rolled on
Over the death-polluted land-it came
Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone
A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame
The few lone ears of corn;-the sky became
Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast
Languished and died, the thirsting air did claim
All moisture, and a rotting vapour past
From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.
First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food
Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.
Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood
Had lured, or who, from regions far away,
Had tracked the hosts in festival array,
From their dark desarts; gaunt and wasting now,
Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;
In their green eyes a strange disease did glow,
They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.
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