59. I looked, and lo! one stood forth eloquently.

His eyes were dark and deep, and the clear brow
Which shadowed them was like the morning sky,
The cloudless heaven of Spring, when in their flow
Through the bright air the soft winds as they blow
Wake the green world: his gestures did obey

The oracular mind that made his features glow;
And, where his curvèd lips half-open lay,
Passion's divinest stream had made impetuous way.
fo. Beneath the darkness of his outspread hair

He stood thus beautiful. But there was One
Who sate beside him like his shadow there,
And held his hand-far lovelier.

She was known

To be thus fair by the few lines alone

Which through her floating locks and gathered cloak,
Glances of soul-dissolving glory, shone.

None else beheld her eyes; in him they woke Memories which found a tongue, as thus he silence broke.

CANTO II.

I. THE starlight smile of children, the sweet looks
Of women, the fair breast from which I fed,
The murmur of the unreposing brooks,

And the green light which, shifting overhead,
Some tangled bower of vines around me shed,
The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers,

The lamplight through the rafters cheerly spread,
And on the twining flax-in life's young hours
These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit's folded powers.
2. In Argolis beside the echoing sea,

Such impulses within my mortal frame
Arose, and they were dear to memory,

Like tokens of the dead:-but others came
Soon, in another shape: the wondrous fame
Of the past world, the vital words and deeds

Of minds whom neither time nor change can tame,

Traditions dark and old whence evil creeds

Start forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.

5. I heard, as all have heard, the various story

Of human life, and wept unwilling tears.
Feeble historians of its shame and glory,
False disputants on all its hopes and fears,
Victims who worshiped ruin, chroniclers

Of daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state,
Yet, flattering Power, had given its ministers
A throne of judgment in the grave-'twas fate
That among such as these my youth should seek its mate.

4. The land in which I lived by a fell bane
Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side,
And stabled in our homes-until the chain

Stifled the captive's cry, and to abide
That blasting curse men had no shame.
In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust

All vied

Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied,
Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust,

Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.
5. Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters,
And the etherial shapes which are suspended
Over its green expanse-and those fair daughters,
The Clouds, of sun and ocean, who have blended
The colours of the air since first extended

It cradled the young World,-none wandered forth
To see or feel: a darkness had descended

On every heart.

The light which shows its worth
Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.

6. This vital world, this home of happy spirits,
Was as a dungeon to my blasted kind.
All that despair from murdered hope inherits
They sought, and, in their helpless misery blind,
A deeper prison and heavier chains did find,
And stronger tyrants :—a dark gulf before,

The realm of a stern ruler, yawned; behind,
Terror and time conflicting drove, and bore

On their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore. 7. Out of that ocean's wrecks had Guilt and Woe

Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought,

And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro

Glide o'er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought The worship thence which they each other taught. Well might men loathe their life! well might they turn Even to the ills again from which they sought Such refuge after death! well might they learn To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern! 8. For they all pined in bondage; body and soul, Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent Before one Power, to which supreme control Over their will by their own weakness lent Made all its many names omnipotent;

All symbols of things evil, all divine;

And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent The air from all its fanes, did intertwine Imposture's impious toils round each discordant shrine. 9. I heard, as all have heard, life's various story, And in no careless heart transcribed the tale; But from the sneers of men who had grown hoary In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale

By famine, from a mother's desolate wail
O'er her polluted child, from innocent blood

Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale
With the heart's warfare, did I gather food
To feed my many thoughts-a tameless multitude.
10. I wandered through the wrecks of days departed
Far by the desolated shore, when even

O'er the still sea and jagged islets darted

The light of moonrise; in the northern heaven,
Among the clouds near the horizon driven,
The mountains lay beneath one planet pale;
Around me broken tombs and columns riven
Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale
Waked in those ruins grey its everlasting wail.
II. I knew not who had framed these wonders then,
Nor had I heard the story of their deeds;
But dwellings of a race of mightier men,
And monuments of less ungentle creeds,
Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds
The language which they speak; and now to me
The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds.
The bright stars shining in the breathless sea,
Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery.

12. Such man has been, and such may yet become!
Ay, wiser, greater, gentler, even than they
Who on the fragments of yon shattered dome
Have stamped the sign of power! I felt the sway
Of the vast stream of ages bear away

My floating thoughts- my heart beat loud and fast--
Even as a storm let loose beneath the ray
Of the still moon, my spirit onward passed,
Beneath truth's steady beams upon its tumult cast.
13. "It shall be thus no more! too long, too long,
Sons of the glorious dead, have ye lain bound
In darkness and in ruin !-Hope is strong,
Justice and Truth their winged child have found
Awake! arise! until the mighty sound

Of your career shall scatter in its gust

The thrones of the oppressor, and the ground
Hide the last altar's unregarded dust,

Whose idol has so long betrayed your impious trust! 14. "It must be so-I will arise and waken

The multitude, and, like a sulphurous hill
Which on a sudden from its snows has shaken
The swoon of ages, it shall burst, and fill
The world with cleansing fire; it must, it will--
It may not be restrained !-And who shall stand
Amid the rocking earthquake steadfast still,

But Laon? on high freedom's desert land

A tower whose marble walls the leaguèd storms withstand!"

15. One summer night, in commune with the hope
Thus deeply fed, amid those ruins grey
I watched beneath the dark sky's starry cope;
And ever, from that hour, upon me lay
The burthen of this hope,-and night or day,
In vision or in dream, clove to my breast.

Among mankind, or when gone far away

To the lone shores and mountains, 'twas a guest Which followed where I fled, and watched when I did rest. 16. These hopes found words through which my spirit sought To weave a bondage of such sympathy

As might create some response to the thought
Which ruled me now-and as the vapours lie
Bright in the outspread morning's radiancy,
So were these thoughts invested with the light
Of language; and all bosoms made reply
On which its lustre streamed, whene'er it might
Through darkness wide and deep those tranced spirits smite.
17. Yes, many an eye with dizzy tears was dim ;

And oft I thought to clasp my own heart's brother
When I could feel the listener's senses swim,

And hear his breath its own swift gaspings smother
Even as my words evoked them—and another,
And yet another, I did fondly deem,

Felt that we all were sons of one great mother;
And the cold truth such sad reverse did seem
As to awake in grief from some delightful dream.

18. Yes, oft beside the ruined labyrinth

Which skirts the hoary caves of the green deep
Did Laon and his friend on one grey plinth

Round whose worn base the wild waves hiss and leap,
Resting at eve, a lofty converse keep :

And that his friend was false may now be said

Calmly-that he, like other men, could weep Tears which are lies, and could betray and spread Snares for that guileless heart which for his own had bled. 19. Then, had no great aim recompensed my sorrow, I must have sought dark respite from its stress In dreamless rest, in sleep that sees no morrow: For to tread life's dismaying wilderness Without one smile to cheer, one voice to bless, Amid the snares and scoffs of humankind,

Is hard. But I betrayed it not, nor less,

With love that scorned return, sought to unbind The interwoven clouds which make its wisdom blind.

20. With deathless minds, which leave where they have passed A path of light, my soul communion knew;

Till from that glorious intercourse, at last,
As from a mine of magic store, I drew

F

Words which were weapons ;-round my heart there grew
The adamantine armour of their power,

And from my fancy wings of golden hue
Sprang forth. Yet not alone from wisdom's tower,
A minister of truth, these plumes young Laon bore.
21. An orphan with my parents lived, whose eyes

Where lodestars of delight which drew me home
When I might wander forth; nor did I prize
Aught human thing beneath heaven's mighty dome
Beyond this child. So, when sad hours were come,
And baffled hope like ice still clung to me,

Since kin were cold, and friends had now become
Heartless and false, I turned from all to be,
Cythna, the only source of tears and smiles to thee.
22. What wert thou then? A child most infantine,
Yet wandering far beyond that innocent age
In all but its sweet looks and mien divine;

Even then, methought, with the world's tyrant rage
A patient warfare thy young heart did wage,

When those soft eyes of scarcely conscious thought
Some tale or thine own fancies would engage
To overflow with tears, or converse fraught

With passion o'er their depths its fleeting light had wrought. 23. She moved upon this earth a shape of brightness, A power that from its objects scarcely drew

One impulse of her being-in her lightness

Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew

Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue,

To nourish some far desert; she did seem,

Beside me, gathering beauty as she grew,

Like the bright shade of some immortal dream

Which walks when tempest sleeps the wave of life's dark stream. 24. As mine own shadow was this child to me,

A second self, far dearer and more fair,

Which clothed in undissolving radiancy

All those steep paths which languor and despair
Of human things had made so dark and bare,
But which I trod alone; nor, till bereft

Of friends, and overcome by lonely care,
Knew I what solace for that loss was left,
Though by a bitter wound my trusting heart was cleft.
25. Once she was dear; now she was all I had

To love in human life-this playmate sweet,
This child of twelve years old. So she was made
My sole associate, and her willing feet

Wandered with mine where earth and ocean meet,
Beyond the aërial mountains whose vast cells
The unreposing billows ever beat,

Through forests wide and old, and lawny dells
Where boughs of incense droop over the emerald wells.