II.

Its pale eyes then; and lo! the long array
Of guards in golden arms, and priests beside,
Singing their bloody hymns, whose garbs betray
The blackness of the faith it seems to hide;
And see, the Tyrant's gem-wrought chariot glide
Among the gloomy cowls and glittering spears--
A shape of light is sitting by his side,

A child most beautiful. I' the midst appears
Laon-exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.

His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound Behind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng around; There are no sneers upon his lip which speak That scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek Resolve has not turned pale,-his eyes are mild And calm, and like the morn about to break, Smile on mankind-his heart seems reconciled To all things and itself, like a reposing child.

IV.

Turult was in the soul of all beside,

Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw
Their tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide
Into their brain, and became calm with awe.—
See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.
A thousand torches in the spacious square,
Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,
Await the signal round: the morning fair
Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare.

V.

And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,

Upon a platform level with the pile,

The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,
Girt by the chieftains of the host. All smile
In expectation, but one child: the while

I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier

Of fire, and look around. Each distant isle

Is dark in the bright dawn; towers far and near Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

VI.

There was such silence through the host, as when An earthquake, trampling on some populous town. Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men Expect the second; all were mute but one, That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone Stood up before the king, without avail, Pleading for Laon's life-her stifled groan Was heard-she trembled like an aspen pale Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

VII.

What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,
Among those reptiles, stingless with delay,
Even like a tyrant's wrath-the signal-gun
Roared-hark, again! In that dread pause he lay
As in a quiet dream-the slaves obey-

A thousand torches drop,-and hark, the last
Bursts on that awful silence. Far away

Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,
Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

VIII.

They fly-the torches fall-a cry of fear Has startled the triumphant !—they recede! For ere the cannon's roar has died, they hear The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed Dark and gigantic, with a tempest's speed, Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon, Fairer it seems than aught that earth can breed, Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn, A spirit from the caves of day-light wandering gone.

IX.

All thought it was God's Angel come to sweep
The lingering guilty to their fiery grave;
The tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,-
Her innocence his child from fear did save.
Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave
Knelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,
And, like the refluence of a mighty wave
Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude

With crushing panic fled in terror's altered mood.

X.

They pause, they blush, they gaze; a gathering shout Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams

Of a tempestuous sea: that sudden rout

One checked, who never in his mildest dreams

Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams

Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed

Had seared with blistering ice-but he misdeems That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed Inly for self; thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed;

XI.

And others, too, thought he was wise to see,
In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine;
In love and beauty-no divinity.-

Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine
Like a fiend's hope upon his lips and eyne,
He said, and the persuasion of that sneer
Rallied his trembling comrades-" Is it mine
To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear
A woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here."

XII.

"Were it not impious," said the King, " to break
Our holy oath?"-" Impious to keep it, say!"
Shrieked the exulting Priest :-" Slaves, to the stake
Bind her, and on my head the burthen lay
Of her just torments :-at the Judgment Day
Will I stand up before the golden throne
Of Heaven, and cry, to thee I did betray

An infidel! but for me she would have known
Another moment's joy !-the glory be thine own."

XIII.

They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed, Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung Upon his neck, and kissed his moonèd brow. A piteous sight, that one so fair and young, The clasp of such a fearful death should woo With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.

XIV.

The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear,
From many a tremulous eye, but, like soft dews
Which feed spring's earliest buds, hung gathered there,
Frozen by doubt,-alas! they could not choose
But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse
To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;
And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues
Of her quick lips, even as a weary child

Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,

IV.

She won them, though unwilling, her to bind

Near me, among the stakes. When then had fled One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind, She smiled on me, and nothing then we said, But each upon the other's countenance fed Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil Which doth divide the living and the dead Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.

XVI.

Yet,-yet-one brief relapse, like the last beam
Of dying flames, the stainless air around
Hung silent and serene.-A blood-red gleam
Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground
The globed smoke.-I heard the mighty sound
Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean;
And, through its chasms I saw, as in a swound,
The tyrant's child fall without life or motion
Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.

XVII.

And is this death? The pyre has disappeared,
The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng;
The flames grow silent-slowly there is heard
The music of a breath-suspending song,
Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,
Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;
With ever-changing notes it floats along,

Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep
A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

XVIII.

The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand
Wakened me then; lo, Cythna sate reclined
Beside me, on the waved and golden sand
Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined

With strange and star-bright flowers, which to the wind
Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread
The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,
Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead
A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.

ΧΙΧ.

And round about sloped many a lawny mountain
With incense-bearing forests, and vast caves
Of marble radiance to that mighty fountain;
And where the flood its own bright margin laves,
Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,

Which, from the depths whose jagged caverns breed
Their unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,

Till through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed
A river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed.

XX.

As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,

A boat approached, borne by the musical air
Along the waves, which sung and sparkled under

Its rapid keel-a winged shape sate there,

A child with silver-shining wings, so fair, That as her bark did through the waters glide, The shadow of the lingering waves did wear Light, as from starry beams; from side to side, While veering to the wind, her plumes the bark did guide

XXI.

The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl,

Almost translucent with the light divine

Of her within; the prow and stern did curl,
Horned on high, like the young moon supine,
When, o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,
It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams,
Whose golden waves in many a purple line
Fade fast, till, borne on sunlight's ebbing streams,
Dilating, on earth's verge the sunken meteor gleams.

XXII.

Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet ;Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise, Glanced as she spake: "Ay, this is Paradise And not a dream, and we are all united! Lo, that is mine own child, who, in the guise Of madness, came like day to one benighted In lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited!"

XXIII.

And then she wept aloud, and in her arms
Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair
Than her own human hues and living charms;
Which, as she leaned in passion's silence there,
Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,
Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;
The glossy darkness of her streaming hair

Fell o'er that snowy child, and wrapt from sight
The foud and long embrace which did their hearts unite.

XXIV.

Then the bright child, the plumed Seraph, came,
And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,
And said, "I was disturbed by tremulous shame
When once we met, yet knew that I was thine
From the same hour in which thy lips divine
Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,
Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine
Thine image with her memory dear-again
We meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain.

XXV.

"When the consuming flames had wrapt ye round, The hope which I had cherished went away;

I fell in agony on the senseless ground,

And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray

My mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day,
The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,

And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,
They wait for thee, beloved!'-then I knew
The death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.

XXVI.

"It was the calm of love-for I was dying.
I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre
In its own grey and shrunken ashes lying;
The pitchy smoke of the departed fire
Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire
Above the towers, like night; beneath whose shade,
Awed by the ending of their own desire,
The armies stood; a vacancy was made

In expectation's depth, and so they stood dismayed.