Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended,
And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon-when, suddenly was blended
With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear
Sounds gathering upwards!-accents incomplete,
And stifled shrieks, and now, more near and near,
A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.
The scene was changed, and away, away, away!
Thro' the air and over the sea we sped,
And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,
And the winds bore me-thro' the darkness spread
Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
Upon my flight; and ever as we fled,
They plucked at Cythna-soon to me then clung A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.
And I lay struggling in the impotence
Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound.
Tho', still deluded, strove the tortured sense
To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound
Which in the light of morn was poured around
Our dwelling-breathless, pale, and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found
With armèd men, whose glittering swords were bare, And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.
And ere with rapid lips and gathered brow
I could demand the cause-a feeble shriek-
It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,
Arrested me-my mien grew calm and meek,
And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd-'twas Cythna's cry!
Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak
Its whirlwind rage:-so I past quietly
Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.
I started to behold her, for delight
And exultation, and a joyance free,
Solemn, serene. and lofty, filled the light
Of the calm smile with which she looked on me:
So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,
Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her-
"Farewell! farewell!" she said, as I drew nigh.
"At first my peace was marred by this strange stir, Now I am calm as truth-its chosen minister.
"Look not so, Laon-say farewell in hope,
These bloody men are but the slaves who bear
Their mistress to her task-it was my scope
The slavery where they drag me now, to share,
And among captives willing chains to wear
Awhile the rest thou knowest-return, dear friend!
Let our first triumph trample the despair
Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,
In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend."
These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,
Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew
With seeming careless glance; not many were
Around her, for their comrades just withdrew
To guard some other victim-so I drew
My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly
All unaware three of their number slew,
And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!
What followed then, I know not-for a stroke
On my raised arm and naked head, came down,
Filling my eyes with blood-when I awoke,
I felt that they had bound me in my swoon,
And up a rock which overhangs the town,
By the steep path were bearing me: below,
The plain was filled with slaughter,-overthrown
The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow
Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.
Upon that rock a mighty column stood,
Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,
Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude
Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,
Had made a landmark; o'er its height to fly
Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,
Has power-and when the shades of evening lie
On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast
The sunken day-light far thro' the aërial waste.
They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath that column, and unbound me there:
And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torch's fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.
They raised me to the platform of the pile,
That column's dizzy height:-the grate of brass
Thro' which they thrust me, open stood the while,
As to its ponderous and suspended mass,
With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!
With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound:
The grate, as they departed to repass,
With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound
Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom were drowned.
The noon was calm and bright :-around that column. The overhanging sky and circling sea
Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn
The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not my own misery:
The islands and the mountains in the day
Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see
The town among the woods below that lay,
And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glassy bay.
It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed
Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone
Swayed in the air:-so bright, that noon did breed.
No shadow in the sky beside mine own-
Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone.
Below the smoke of roofs involved in flame
Rested like night, all else was clearly shewn
In that broad glare, yet sound to me none came,
But of the living blood that ran within my frame.
The peace of madness fled, and ah, too soon!
A ship was lying on the sunny main,
Its sails were flagging in the breathless noon-
Its shadow lay beyond-that sight again
Waked, with its presence, in my tranced brain
The stings of a known sorrow, keen and cold:
I knew that ship bore Cythna o'er the plain
Of waters, to her blighting slavery sold,
And watched it with such thoughts as must remain untold.
I watched, until the shades of evening wrapt
Earth like an exhalation-then the bark
Moved, for that calm was by the sunset snapt.
It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark:
Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark
Its path no more! I sought to close mine eyes,
But like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark;
I would have risen, but ere that I could rise,
My parched skin was split with piercing agonies.
I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever
Its adamantine links, that I might die:
O Liberty! forgive the base endeavour,
Forgive me, if reserved for victory,
The Champion of thy faith e'er sought to fly.-
That starry night, with its clear silence, sent
Tameless resolve which laughed at misery
Into my soul-linkèd remembrance lent
To that such power, to me such a severe content.
To breathe, to be, to hope, or to despair
And die, I questioned not; nor, though the Sun
Its shafts of agony kindling thro' the air
Moved over me, nor though in evening dun,
Or when the stars their visible courses run,
Or morning, the wide universe was spread
In dreary calmness round me, did I shun
Its presence, nor seek refuge with the dead
From one faint hope whose flower a dropping poison shed.
Two days thus past-I neither raved nor died-
Thirst raged within me, like a scorpion's nest
Built in mine entrails: I had spurned aside
The water-vessel, while despair possest
My thoughts, and now no drop remained! the uprest
Of the third sun brought hunger-but the crust
Which had been left, was to my craving breast
Fuel, not food. I chewed the bitter dust,
And bit my bloodless arm, and licked the brazen rust.
My brain began to fail when the fourth morn
Burst o'er the golden isles-a fearful sleep,
Which through the caverns dreary and forlorn
Of the riven soul, sent its foul dreams to sweep
With whirlwind swiftness-a fall far and deep,-
A gulph, a void, a sense of senselessness-
These things dwelt in me, even as shadows keep
Their watch in some dim charnel's loneliness,
A shoreless sea, a sky sunless and planetless!
The forms which peopled this terrific trance
I well remember-like a quire of devils,
Around me they involved a giddy dance;
Legions seemed gathering from the misty levels
Of Ocean, to supply those ceaseless revels,
Foul, ceaseless shadows:-thought could not divide
The actual world from these entangling evils,
Which so bemocked themselves, that I descried
All shapes like mine own self, hideously multiplied.
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