Canto XI

She saw me not--she heard me not--aloneUpon the mountain's dizzy brink she stood;She spake not, breathed not, moved not--there was thrownOver her look, the shadow of a moodWhich only clothes the heart in solitude,A thought of voiceless depth;--she stood alone,Above, the Heavens were spread;--below, the floodWas murmuring in its caves;--the wind had blownHer hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone.

A cloud was hanging o'er the western mountains;Before its blue and moveless depth were flyingGray mists poured forth from the unresting fountainsOf darkness in the North:--the day was dying:--Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lyingLike boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,And on the shattered vapours, which defyingThe power of light in vain, tossed restlesslyIn the red Heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.

It was a stream of living beams, whose bankOn either side by the cloud's cleft was made;And where its chasms that flood of glory drank,Its waves gushed forth like fire, and as if swayedBy some mute tempest, rolled on HER; the shadeOf her bright image floated on the riverOf liquid light, which then did end and fade--Her radiant shape upon its verge did shiver;Aloft, her flowing hair like strings of flame did quiver.

I stood beside her, but she saw me not--She looked upon the sea, and skies, and earth;Rapture, and love, and admiration wroughtA passion deeper far than tears, or mirth,Or speech, or gesture, or whate'er has birthFrom common joy; which with the speechless feelingThat led her there united, and shot forthFrom her far eyes a light of deep revealing,All but her dearest self from my regard concealing.

Her lips were parted, and the measured breathWas now heard there;--her dark and intricate eyesOrb within orb, deeper than sleep or death,Absorbed the glories of the burning skies,Which, mingling with her heart's deep ecstasies,Burst from her looks and gestures;--and a lightOf liquid tenderness, like love, did riseFrom her whole frame, an atmosphere which quiteArrayed her in its beams, tremulous and soft and bright.

She would have clasped me to her glowing frame;Those warm and odorous lips might soon have shedOn mine the fragrance and the invisible flameWhich now the cold winds stole;--she would have laidUpon my languid heart her dearest head;I might have heard her voice, tender and sweet;Her eyes, mingling with mine, might soon have fedMy soul with their own joy.--One moment yetI gazed--we parted then, never again to meet!

Never but once to meet on Earth again!She heard me as I fled--her eager toneSunk on my heart, and almost wove a chainAround my will to link it with her own,So that my stern resolve was almost gone.'I cannot reach thee! whither dost thou fly?My steps are faint--Come back, thou dearest one--Return, ah me! return!'--The wind passed byOn which those accents died, faint, far, and lingeringly.

Woe! Woe! that moonless midnight!--Want and PestWere horrible, but one more fell doth rear,As in a hydra's swarming lair, its crestEminent among those victims--even the FearOf Hell: each girt by the hot atmosphereOf his blind agony, like a scorpion stungBy his own rage upon his burning bierOf circling coals of fire; but still there clungOne hope, like a keen sword on starting threads uphung:

Not death--death was no more refuge or rest;Not life--it was despair to be!--not sleep,For fiends and chasms of fire had dispossessedAll natural dreams: to wake was not to weep,But to gaze mad and pallid, at the leapTo which the Future, like a snaky scourge,Or like some tyrant's eye, which aye doth keepIts withering beam upon his slaves, did urgeTheir steps; they heard the roar of Hell's sulphureous surge.

Each of that multitude, alone, and lostTo sense of outward things, one hope yet knew;As on a foam-girt crag some seaman tossedStares at the rising tide, or like the crewWhilst now the ship is splitting through and through;Each, if the tramp of a far steed was heard,Started from sick despair, or if there flewOne murmur on the wind, or if some wordWhich none can gather yet, the distant crowd has stirred.

Why became cheeks, wan with the kiss of death,Paler from hope? they had sustained despair.Why watched those myriads with suspended breathSleepless a second night? they are not here,The victims, and hour by hour, a vision drear,Warm corpses fall upon the clay-cold dead;And even in death their lips are wreathed with fear.--The crowd is mute and moveless--overheadSilent Arcturus shines--'Ha! hear'st thou not the tread

'Of rushing feet? laughter? the shout, the scream,Of triumph not to be contained? See! hark!They come, they come! give way!' Alas, ye deemFalsely--'tis but a crowd of maniacs starkDriven, like a troop of spectres, through the dark,From the choked well, whence a bright death-fire sprung,A lurid earth-star, which dropped many a sparkFrom its blue train, and spreading widely, clungTo their wild hair, like mist the topmost pines among.

And many, from the crowd collected there,Joined that strange dance in fearful sympathies;There was the silence of a long despair,When the last echo of those terrible criesCame from a distant street, like agoniesStifled afar.--Before the Tyrant's throneAll night his aged Senate sate, their eyesIn stony expectation fixed; when oneSudden before them stood, a Stranger and alone.

Dark Priests and haughty Warriors gazed on himWith baffled wonder, for a hermit's vestConcealed his face; but when he spake, his tone,Ere yet the matter did their thoughts arrest,--Earnest, benignant, calm, as from a breastVoid of all hate or terror--made them start;For as with gentle accents he addressedHis speech to them, on each unwilling heartUnusual awe did fall--a spirit-quelling dart.

'Ye Princes of the Earth, ye sit aghastAmid the ruin which yourselves have made,Yes, Desolation heard your trumpet's blast,And sprang from sleep!--dark Terror has obeyedYour bidding--O, that I whom ye have madeYour foe, could set my dearest enemy freeFrom pain and fear! but evil casts a shade,Which cannot pass so soon, and Hate must beThe nurse and parent still of an ill progeny.

'Ye turn to Heaven for aid in your distress;Alas, that ye, the mighty and the wise,Who, if ye dared, might not aspire to lessThan ye conceive of power, should fear the liesWhich thou, and thou, didst frame for mysteriesTo blind your slaves:--consider your own thought,An empty and a cruel sacrificeYe now prepare, for a vain idol wroughtOut of the fears and hate which vain desires have brought.

'Ye seek for happiness--alas, the day!Ye find it not in luxury nor in gold,Nor in the fame, nor in the envied swayFor which, O willing slaves to Custom old,Severe taskmistress! ye your hearts have sold.Ye seek for peace, and when ye die, to dreamNo evil dreams: all mortal things are coldAnd senseless then; if aught survive, I deemIt must be love and joy, for they immortal seem.

'Fear not the future, weep not for the past.Oh, could I win your ears to dare be nowGlorious, and great, and calm! that ye would castInto the dust those symbols of your woe,Purple, and gold, and steel! that ye would goProclaiming to the nations whence ye came,That Want, and Plague, and Fear, from slavery flow;And that mankind is free, and that the shameOf royalty and faith is lost in freedom's fame!

'If thus, 'tis well--if not, I come to sayThat Laon--' while the Stranger spoke, amongThe Council sudden tumult and affrayArose, for many of those warriors young,Had on his eloquent accents fed and hungLike bees on mountain-flowers; they knew the truth,And from their thrones in vindication sprung;The men of faith and law then without ruthDrew forth their secret steel, and stabbed each ardent youth.

They stabbed them in the back and sneered--a slaveWho stood behind the throne, those corpses drewEach to its bloody, dark, and secret grave;And one more daring raised his steel anewTo pierce the Stranger. 'What hast thou to doWith me, poor wretch?'--Calm, solemn and severe,That voice unstrung his sinews, and he threwHis dagger on the ground, and pale with fear,Sate silently--his voice then did the Stranger rear.

'It doth avail not that I weep for ye--Ye cannot change, since ye are old and gray,And ye have chosen your lot--your fame must beA book of blood, whence in a milder dayMen shall learn truth, when ye are wrapped in clay:Now ye shall triumph. I am Laon's friend,And him to your revenge will I betray,So ye concede one easy boon. Attend!For now I speak of things which ye can apprehend.

'There is a People mighty in its youth,A land beyond the Oceans of the West,Where, though with rudest rites, Freedom and TruthAre worshipped; from a glorious Mother's breast,Who, since high Athens fell, among the restSate like the Queen of Nations, but in woe,By inbred monsters outraged and oppressed,Turns to her chainless child for succour now,It draws the milk of Power in Wisdom's fullest flow.

'That land is like an Eagle, whose young gazeFeeds on the noontide beam, whose golden plumeFloats moveless on the storm, and in the blazeOf sunrise gleams when Earth is wrapped in gloom;An epitaph of glory for the tombOf murdered Europe may thy fame be made,Great People! as the sands shalt thou become;Thy growth is swift as morn, when night must fade;The multitudinous Earth shall sleep beneath thy shade.

'Yes, in the desert there is built a homeFor Freedom. Genius is made strong to rearThe monuments of man beneath the domeOf a new Heaven; myriads assemble there,Whom the proud lords of man, in rage or fear,Drive from their wasted homes: the boon I prayIs this--that Cythna shall be convoyed there--Nay, start not at the name--America!And then to you this night Laon will I betray.

'With me do what ye will. I am your foe!'The light of such a joy as makes the stareOf hungry snakes like living emeralds glow,Shone in a hundred human eyes--'Where, whereIs Laon? Haste! fly! drag him swiftly here!We grant thy boon.'--'I put no trust in ye,Swear by the Power ye dread.'--'We swear, we swear!'The Stranger threw his vest back suddenly,And smiled in gentle pride, and said, 'Lo! I am he!'