Canto VII

So we sate joyous as the morning rayWhich fed upon the wrecks of night and stormNow lingering on the winds; light airs did playAmong the dewy weeds, the sun was warm,And we sate linked in the inwoven charmOf converse and caresses sweet and deep,Speechless caresses, talk that might disarmTime, though he wield the darts of death and sleep,And those thrice mortal barbs in his own poison steep.

I told her of my sufferings and my madness,And how, awakened from that dreamy moodBy Liberty's uprise, the strength of gladnessCame to my spirit in my solitude;And all that now I was--while tears pursuedEach other down her fair and listening cheekFast as the thoughts which fed them, like a floodFrom sunbright dales; and when I ceased to speak,Her accents soft and sweet the pausing air did wake.

She told me a strange tale of strange endurance,Like broken memories of many a heartWoven into one; to which no firm assurance,So wild were they, could her own faith impart.She said that not a tear did dare to startFrom the swoln brain, and that her thoughts were firmWhen from all mortal hope she did depart,Borne by those slaves across the Ocean's term,And that she reached the port without one fear infirm.

One was she among many there, the thrallsOf the cold Tyrant's cruel lust; and theyLaughed mournfully in those polluted halls;But she was calm and sad, musing alwayOn loftiest enterprise, till on a dayThe Tyrant heard her singing to her luteA wild, and sad, and spirit-thrilling lay,Like winds that die in wastes--one moment muteThe evil thoughts it made, which did his breast pollute.

Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,One moment to great Nature's sacred powerHe bent, and was no longer passionless;But when he bade her to his secret bowerBe borne, a loveless victim, and she toreHer locks in agony, and her words of flameAnd mightier looks availed not; then he boreAgain his load of slavery, and becameA king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.

She told me what a loathsome agonyIs that when selfishness mocks love's delight,Foul as in dream's most fearful imagery,To dally with the mowing dead--that nightAll torture, fear, or horror made seem lightWhich the soul dreams or knows, and when the dayShone on her awful frenzy, from the sightWhere like a Spirit in fleshly chains she layStruggling, aghast and pale the Tyrant fled away.

Her madness was a beam of light, a powerWhich dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave,Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds boreWhich might not be withstood--whence none could save--All who approached their sphere,--like some calm waveVexed into whirlpools by the chasms beneath;And sympathy made each attendant slaveFearless and free, and they began to breatheDeep curses, like the voice of flames far underneath.

The King felt pale upon his noonday throne:At night two slaves he to her chamber sent,--One was a green and wrinkled eunuch, grownFrom human shape into an instrumentOf all things ill--distorted, bowed and bent.The other was a wretch from infancyMade dumb by poison; who nought knew or meantBut to obey: from the fire isles came he,A diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral sea.

They bore her to a bark, and the swift strokeOf silent rowers clove the blue moonlight seas,Until upon their path the morning broke;They anchored then, where, be there calm or breeze,The gloomiest of the drear SymplegadesShakes with the sleepless surge;--the Ethiop thereWound his long arms around her, and with kneesLike iron clasped her feet, and plunged with herAmong the closing waves out of the boundless air.

'Swift as an eagle stooping from the plainOf morning light, into some shadowy wood,He plunged through the green silence of the main,Through many a cavern which the eternal floodHad scooped, as dark lairs for its monster brood;And among mighty shapes which fled in wonder,And among mightier shadows which pursuedHis heels, he wound: until the dark rocks underHe touched a golden chain--a sound arose like thunder.

'A stunning clang of massive bolts redoublingBeneath the deep--a burst of waters drivenAs from the roots of the sea, raging and bubbling:And in that roof of crags a space was rivenThrough which there shone the emerald beams of heaven,Shot through the lines of many waves inwoven,Like sunlight through acacia woods at even,Through which, his way the diver having cloven,Passed like a spark sent up out of a burning oven.

'And then,' she said, 'he laid me in a caveAbove the waters, by that chasm of sea,A fountain round and vast, in which the waveImprisoned, boiled and leaped perpetually,Down which, one moment resting, he did flee,Winning the adverse depth; that spacious cellLike an hupaithric temple wide and high,Whose aery dome is inaccessible,Was pierced with one round cleft through which the sunbeams fell.

'Below, the fountain's brink was richly pavenWith the deep's wealth, coral, and pearl, and sandLike spangling gold, and purple shells engravenWith mystic legends by no mortal hand,Left there, when thronging to the moon's command,The gathering waves rent the Hesperian gateOf mountains, and on such bright floor did standColumns, and shapes like statues, and the stateOf kingless thrones, which Earth did in her heart create.

'The fiend of madness which had made its preyOf my poor heart, was lulled to sleep awhile:There was an interval of many a day,And a sea-eagle brought me food the while,Whose nest was built in that untrodden isle,And who, to be the gaoler had been taughtOf that strange dungeon; as a friend whose smileLike light and rest at morn and even is soughtThat wild bird was to me, till madness misery brought.

'The misery of a madness slow and creeping,Which made the earth seem fire, the sea seem air,And the white clouds of noon which oft were sleeping,In the blue heaven so beautiful and fair,Like hosts of ghastly shadows hovering there;And the sea-eagle looked a fiend, who boreThy mangled limbs for food!--Thus all things wereTransformed into the agony which I woreEven as a poisoned robe around my bosom's core.

'Again I knew the day and night fast fleeing,The eagle, and the fountain, and the air;Another frenzy came--there seemed a beingWithin me--a strange load my heart did bear,As if some living thing had made its lairEven in the fountains of my life:--a longAnd wondrous vision wrought from my despair,Then grew, like sweet reality amongDim visionary woes, an unreposing throng.

'Methought I was about to be a mother--Month after month went by, and still I dreamedThat we should soon be all to one another,I and my child; and still new pulses seemedTo beat beside my heart, and still I deemedThere was a babe within--and, when the rainOf winter through the rifted cavern streamed,Methought, after a lapse of lingering pain,I saw that lovely shape, which near my heart had lain.

'It was a babe, beautiful from its birth,--It was like thee, dear love, its eyes were thine,Its brow, its lips, and so upon the earthIt laid its fingers, as now rest on mineThine own, beloved!--'twas a dream divine;Even to remember how it fled, how swift,How utterly, might make the heart repine,--Though 'twas a dream.'--Then Cythna did upliftHer looks on mine, as if some doubt she sought to shift:

A doubt which would not flee, a tendernessOf questioning grief, a source of thronging tears;Which having passed, as one whom sobs oppressShe spoke: 'Yes, in the wilderness of yearsHer memory, aye, like a green home appears;She sucked her fill even at this breast, sweet love,For many months. I had no mortal fears;Methought I felt her lips and breath approve,--It was a human thing which to my bosom clove.

'I watched the dawn of her first smiles; and soonWhen zenith stars were trembling on the wave,Or when the beams of the invisible moon,Or sun, from many a prism within the caveTheir gem-born shadows to the water gave,Her looks would hunt them, and with outspread hand,From the swift lights which might that fountain pave,She would mark one, and laugh, when that commandSlighting, it lingered there, and could not understand.

'Methought her looks began to talk with me;And no articulate sounds, but something sweetHer lips would frame,--so sweet it could not be,That it was meaningless; her touch would meetMine, and our pulses calmly flow and beatIn response while we slept; and on a dayWhen I was happiest in that strange retreat,With heaps of golden shells we two did play,--Both infants, weaving wings for time's perpetual way.

'Ere night, methought, her waning eyes were grownWeary with joy, and tired with our delight,We, on the earth, like sister twins lay downOn one fair mother's bosom:--from that nightShe fled,--like those illusions clear and bright,Which dwell in lakes, when the red moon on highPause ere it wakens tempest;--and her flight,Though 'twas the death of brainless fantasy,Yet smote my lonesome heart more than all misery.

'It seemed that in the dreary night the diverWho brought me thither, came again, and boreMy child away. I saw the waters quiver,When he so swiftly sunk, as once before:Then morning came--it shone even as of yore,But I was changed--the very life was goneOut of my heart--I wasted more and more,Day after day, and sitting there alone,Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

'I was no longer mad, and yet methoughtMy breasts were swoln and changed:--in every veinThe blood stood still one moment, while that thoughtWas passing--with a gush of sickening painIt ebbed even to its withered springs again:When my wan eyes in stern resolve I turnedFrom that most strange delusion, which would fainHave waked the dream for which my spirit yearnedWith more than human love,--then left it unreturned.

'So now my reason was restored to meI struggled with that dream, which, like a beastMost fierce and beauteous, in my memoryHad made its lair, and on my heart did feast;But all that cave and all its shapes, possessedBy thoughts which could not fade, renewed each oneSome smile, some look, some gesture which had blessedMe heretofore: I, sitting there alone,Vexed the inconstant waves with my perpetual moan.

'Time passed, I know not whether months or years;For day, nor night, nor change of seasons madeIts note, but thoughts and unavailing tears:And I became at last even as a shade,A smoke, a cloud on which the winds have preyed,Till it be thin as air; until, one even,A Nautilus upon the fountain played,Spreading his azure sail where breath of HeavenDescended not, among the waves and whirlpools driven.

'And, when the Eagle came, that lovely thing,Oaring with rosy feet its silver boat,Fled near me as for shelter; on slow wing,The Eagle, hovering o'er his prey did float;But when he saw that I with fear did noteHis purpose, proffering my own food to him,The eager plumes subsided on his throat--He came where that bright child of sea did swim,And o'er it cast in peace his shadow broad and dim.

'This wakened me, it gave me human strength;And hope, I know not whence or wherefore, rose,But I resumed my ancient powers at length;My spirit felt again like one of thoseLike thine, whose fate it is to make the woesOf humankind their prey--what was this cave?Its deep foundation no firm purpose knowsImmutable, resistless, strong to save,Like mind while yet it mocks the all-devouring grave.

'And where was Laon? might my heart be dead,While that far dearer heart could move and be?Or whilst over the earth the pall was spread,Which I had sworn to rend? I might be free,Could I but win that friendly bird to me,To bring me ropes; and long in vain I soughtBy intercourse of mutual imageryOf objects, if such aid he could be taught;But fruit, and flowers, and boughs, yet never ropes he brought.

'We live in our own world, and mine was madeFrom glorious fantasies of hope departed:Aye we are darkened with their floating shade,Or cast a lustre on them--time impartedSuch power to me--I became fearless-hearted,My eye and voice grew firm, calm was my mind,And piercing, like the morn, now it has dartedIts lustre on all hidden things, behindYon dim and fading clouds which load the weary wind.

'My mind became the book through which I grewWise in all human wisdom, and its cave,Which like a mine I rifled through and through,To me the keeping of its secrets gave--One mind, the type of all, the moveless waveWhose calm reflects all moving things that are,Necessity, and love, and life, the grave,And sympathy, fountains of hope and fear,Justice, and truth, and time, and the world's natural sphere.

'And on the sand would I make signs to rangeThese woofs, as they were woven, of my thought;Clear, elemental shapes, whose smallest changeA subtler language within language wrought:The key of truths which once were dimly taughtIn old Crotona;--and sweet melodiesOf love, in that lorn solitude I caughtFrom mine own voice in dream, when thy dear eyesShone through my sleep, and did that utterance harmonize.

'Thy songs were winds whereon I fled at will,As in a winged chariot, o'er the plainOf crystal youth; and thou wert there to fillMy heart with joy, and there we sate againOn the gray margin of the glimmering main,Happy as then but wiser far, for weSmiled on the flowery grave in which were lainFear, Faith and Slavery; and mankind was free,Equal, and pure, and wise, in Wisdom's prophecy.

'For to my will my fancies were as slavesTo do their sweet and subtile ministries;And oft from that bright fountain's shadowy wavesThey would make human throngs gather and riseTo combat with my overflowing eyes,And voice made deep with passion--thus I grewFamiliar with the shock and the surpriseAnd war of earthly minds, from which I drewThe power which has been mine to frame their thoughts anew.

'And thus my prison was the populous earth--Where I saw--even as misery dreams of mornBefore the east has given its glory birth--Religion's pomp made desolate by the scornOf Wisdom's faintest smile, and thrones uptorn,And dwellings of mild people interspersedWith undivided fields of ripening corn,And love made free,--a hope which we have nursedEven with our blood and tears,--until its glory burst.

'All is not lost! There is some recompenseFor hope whose fountain can be thus profound,Even throned Evil's splendid impotence,Girt by its hell of power, the secret soundOf hymns to truth and freedom--the dread boundOf life and death passed fearlessly and well,Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,Racks which degraded woman's greatness tell,And what may else be good and irresistible.

'Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flareIn storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yetIn this dark ruin--such were mine even there;As in its sleep some odorous violet,While yet its leaves with nightly dews are wet,Breathes in prophetic dreams of day's uprise,Or as, ere Scythian frost in fear has metSpring's messengers descending from the skies,The buds foreknow their life--this hope must ever rise.

'So years had passed, when sudden earthquake rentThe depth of ocean, and the cavern crackedWith sound, as if the world's wide continentHad fallen in universal ruin wracked:And through the cleft streamed in one cataractThe stifling waters--when I woke, the floodWhose banded waves that crystal cave had sackedWas ebbing round me, and my bright abodeBefore me yawned--a chasm desert, and bare, and broad.

'Above me was the sky, beneath the sea:I stood upon a point of shattered stone,And heard loose rocks rushing tumultuouslyWith splash and shock into the deep--anonAll ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.I felt that I was free! The Ocean-sprayQuivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shoneAround, and in my hair the winds did playLingering as they pursued their unimpeded way.

'My spirit moved upon the sea like windWhich round some thymy cape will lag and hover,Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbindThe strength of tempest: day was almost over,When through the fading light I could discoverA ship approaching--its white sails were fedWith the north wind--its moving shade did coverThe twilight deep; the mariners in dreadCast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

'And when they saw one sitting on a crag,They sent a boat to me;--the Sailors rowedIn awe through many a new and fearful jagOf overhanging rock, through which there flowedThe foam of streams that cannot make abode.They came and questioned me, but when they heardMy voice, they became silent, and they stoodAnd moved as men in whom new love had stirredDeep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.