tomed eye,

XXV

Within your soul ? care for your “We drag afar from pastoral vales

own, or ruth the fairest

For others' sufferings ? do ye thirst

to bear Among the daughters of those

A heart which not the serpent mountains lone,

Custom's tooth We drag them there where all things best and rarest

May violate?— Be free! and even here Are stained and trampled :-years

Swear to be firm till death!' They cried have come and gone

"We swear! We swear!'
Since, like the ship which bears
me, I have known

XXVIII
No thought;— but now the eyes of

“The very darkness shook, as with a one dear Maid

blast On mine with light of mutual love

Of subterranean thunder, at the cry; have shone :

The hollow shore its thousand echoes She is my life, -I am but as the shade

cast Of her-a smoke sent up from ashes,

Into the night, as if the sea and sky soon to fade.

And earth rejoiced with new-born

liberty, XXVI

For in that name they swore ! Bolts *** For she must perish in the Tyrant's

were undrawn, hall

And on the deck, with unaccus. Alas, alas !'--He ceased, and by the sail

The captives gazing stood, and every Sate cowering — but his sobs were heard by all,

Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her
And still before the ocean and the

countenance shone.
gale
The ship fled fast till the stars 'gan

XXIX
to fail :
And, round me gathered with mute

• They were earth's purest children, countenance,

young and fair, The seamen gazed, the pilot worn

With eyes the shrines of unand pale

awakened thought, With toil, the captain with gray locks, And brows as bright as Spring or whose glance

morning, ere Met mine in restless awe-they stood as Dark time had there its evil legend in a trance.

wrought

In characters of cloud which wither XXVII

not.• Recede not! pause not

now ! The change was like a dream to Thou art grown old,

them; but soon But Hope will make thee young, They knew the glory of their for Hope and Youth

altered lot, Are children of one mother, even In the bright wisdom of youth's Love--behold !

breathless noon, The eternal stars gaze on us !—is Sweet talk and smiles and sighs all the truth

one

and prow

XXX

Soon wreaths of budding foliage

seemed to flow “ But one was mute; her cheeks

Over the mast and sails, the stern and lips most fair, Changing their hue like lilies newly

Were canopied with blooming boughs, blown

the while Beneath a bright acacia's shadowy hair Waved by the wind amid the sunny

On the slant sun's path o'er the

waves we go noon, Showed that her soul was quiver. Doomed to pursue those waves that

Rejoicing, like the dwellers of an isle ing; and full soon

cannot cease to smile. That Youth arose, and breathlessly

did look
On her and me, as for some speech-

“The many ships spotting the darkless boon:

blue deep I smiled, and both their hands in

With snowy sails fled fast as ours mine I took,

came nigh, And felt a soft delight from what their

In fear and wonder; and on every spirits shook.

steep Thousands did gaze ; they heard

the startling cry, CANTO IX

Like Earth's own voice listed un

conquerably I

To all her children, the unbounded “That night we anchored in a mirth, woody bay,

The glorious joy of thy nameAnd sleep no more around us dared

Liberty ! to hover

They heard !-As o'er the mountains Than, when all doubt and fear has

of the earth passed away,

From peak to peak leap on the beams
It shades the couch of some unrest-

of morning's birth :
ing lover
Whose heart is now at rest : thus
night passed over

“So from that cry over the boundless In mutual joy :-around, a forest grew hills Of poplars and dark oaks, whose

Sudden was caught one universal shade did cover

sound, The waning stars pranked in the Like a volcano's voice whose thunder waters blue,

fills And trembled in the wind which from

Remotest skies, — such glorious the morning flew.

madness found A path through human hearts with

-stream which drowned “The joyous mariners and each free Its struggling fears and cares, dark maiden

Custom's brood; Now brought from the deep forest They knew not whence it came, many a bough,

but felt around With woodland spoil most innocently A wide contagion poured—they called laden ;

aloud S

IV

II

N

sunny flood.

V

lost;

the grave,

On Liberty-that name lived on the As one who from some mountain's

pyramid Points to the unrisen sun !- the

shades approve • We reached the port.-Alas! from

His truth, and fee from every

stream and grove.
many spirits
The wisdom which had waked that

Thus, gentle thoughts did many a

bosom fill, cry was fled,

Wisdom the mail of tried affections
Like the brief glory which dark
Heaven inherits

Wove
From the false dawn, which fades

For many a heart, and tameless scorn ere it is spread,

of ill Upon the night's devouring dark- Thrice steeped in molten steel the unness shed:

conquerable will.
Yet soon bright day will burst-even
like a chasm

VIII
Of fire, to burn the shrouds out. "Some said I was a maniac wild and

worn and dead Which wrap the world ; a wide Some, that I scarce had risen from

enthusiasm, To cleanse the fevered world as with an The Prophet's virgin bride, a heavenly earthquake's spasm !

ghost : Some said I was a fiend from my

weird cave, "I walked through the great City

Who had stolen human shape, and then, but free

o'er the wave, From shame or fear; those toil- The forest, and the mountain, came ; worn mariners

some said And happy maidens did encompass

I was the child of God, sent down me ;

to save And, like a subterranean wind that Women from bonds and death, and stirs

on my head Some forest among caves, the hopes The burden of their sins would frightfully and fears

be laid. From every human soul a murmur

strange Made as I passed: and many wept, “But soon my human words found with tears

sympathy Of joy and awe, and winged thoughts In human hearts : the purest and

the best, And half - extinguished words which

As friend with friend, made common prophesied of change.

cause with me, And they were few, but resolute;

VI

IX

did range,

VII

the rest,

“For with strong speech I tore the

veil that hid
Nature and Truth and Liberty and

Love,-

Ere yet success the enterprise had

blest, Leagued with me in their hearts ;

their meals, their slumber,

XV

XVIII

few;

and we

man

They said that age was truth, and In vain ! the steady towers in Heaven that the young

did shine Marred with wild hopes the peace of As they were wont, nor at the slavery,

priestly call With which old times and men had Left Plague her banquet in the quelled the vain and free.

Ethiop's hall,
Nor Famine from the rich man's portal

came, “ And with the falsehood of their Where at her ease she ever preys on poisonous lips

all They breathed on the enduring Who throng to kneel for food : nor memory

fear nor shame Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse ; Nor faith nor discord dimmed hope's There was one teacher, who neces- newly kindled flame.

sity
Had armed with strength and wrong

against mankind,
His slave and his avenger aye to be ;

“For gold was as a god whose faith

began
That we were weak and sinful, frail
and blind,

To fade, so that its worshippers were And that the will of one was peace,

And Faith itself, which in the heart of Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery

Gives shape, voice, name, to spectral

Terror, knew

Its downfall, as the altars lonelier “For thus we might avoid the hell

grew, hereafter.'

Till the priests stood alone within the

fane ;
So spake the hypocrites, who cursed
and lied;

The shafts of falsehood unpolluting

flew, Alas! their sway was past, and tears and laughter

And the cold sneers of calumny were

vain Clung to their hoary hair, withering

The union of the free with discord's the pride Which in their hollow hearts dared

brand to stain. still abide ; And yet obscener slaves with smoother brow,

" The rest thou knowest. - Lo! we And sneers on their strait lips, thin,

two are here blue, and wide,

We have survived a ruin wide and Said that the rule of men was over now,

deepAnd hence the subject world to women's Strange thoughts are mine.-I cannot will must bow.

grieve or fear;

Sitting with thee upon this lonely XVII

steep, “ And gold was scattered through the I smile, though human love should streets, and wine

make me weep. Flowed at a hundred feasts within

We have survived a joy that knows the wall.

XVI

XIX