XXXVII. Nothing they saw, but a low voice was heard Threading the oninous silence of that fear, Gentle and terrorless as if a bird, Wakened by some volcano's giare, should cheer The murk air with his song; yet every word Inthecathedral's farthest arch seemed near, As if it spoke to every one apart, Like the clear voice of conscience in each heart. XL. "This little spirit with imploring, eyes Wanders alone the dreary wild of space; The shadow of his pain forever lies Upon my soul in this new dwelling place; His loneliness makes me in Paradise More lonely, and, unless I see his face, Even here for grief could I lie down and die, Save for my curse of immortality. XLI. World after world he sees around him swim Crowded with happy souls, that take Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to no heed bring Her nestlings back beneath herwings' embrace ; But still he answers not, and I but know That Heaven and earth are both alike in woe.” Of the sad eyes that from the night's faint rim Gaze sick with longing on them as they speed With golden gates, that only shut out him ; And shapes sometimes from Hell's abysses freed Flap darkly by him, with enormous sweep Of wings that roughen wide the pitchy deep. XLII. “I am a mother, — spirits do not shake This much of earth from them, and I must pine Till I can feel his little hands, and take His weary head upon this heart of mine; And, might it be, full gladly for his sake Would I this solitude of bliss resign, And be shut out of Heaven to dwell with him Forever in that silence drear and dim. XLV. Then the pale priests, with ceremony due, Baptized the child within its dread ful tomb Beneath that mother's heart, whose in stinct true Star-like bad battled dowu the triple gloom Of sorrow, love, and death : young maidens, too, Strewed the pale corpse with many a milkwhite bloom, And parted the bright hair, and on the breast Crossed the unconscious hands in sign of rest. now. gaunt loins Of the North-star, hath shrunk into his den, Scared by the blithesoine footsteps of the Dawn, Whose blushing smile floods all the Orient; And now bright Lucifer grows less and less, Into the heaven's blue quiet deep-with drawn. Sunless and starless all, the desert sky A hes above me, empty as this heart For ages hath been empty of all joy, Except to brood upon its silent hope, As o'er its hope of day the sky doth All night have I heard voices : deeper yet The deep low breathing of the silence grew, While all about, muffled in awe, there stood Shadows, or forms, or both, clear-felt at heart, But, when I turned to front them, far along Only a shudder through the midnight ran, And the dense stillness walled me closer round. But still I heard them wander up and down That solitude, and flappings of dusk wings Did mingle with them, whether of those hags Let slip upon me once from Hades deep, Or of yet direr torments, if such be, I could but guess; and then toward me came A shape as of a woman: very pale It was, and calm ; its cold eyes did not move, And mine moved not, but only stared on them. Their fixed awe went through my brain like ice ; A skeleton hand seemed clutching at • my heart, And a sharp chill, as if a dank night fog Suddenly closed me in, was all I felt : And then, methought, I heard a freez ing sigh, A long, deep, shivering sigh, as from blue lips Stiffening in death, close to mine ear I thought Some doom was close upon me, and I looked And saw the red moon through the heavy mist, Just setting, and it seemed as it wer. falling, Or reeling to its fall, so dim and dead And palsy-struck it looked. all sounds merged Into the rising surges of the pines, Which, leagues below me, clothing the Of ancient Caucasus with hairy strength, Sent up a murmur in the morning wind, Sad as the wail that from the populous earth All day and night to high Olympus soars, Fit incense to thy wicked throne, O Jove! in scorn From off my lips, for I will tell thy doom. And are these tears? Nay, do not tri umph, Jove! They are wrung from me but by the agonies Of prophecy, like those sparse drops which fall From clouds in travail of the lightning, when The great wave of the storm high curled and black Rolls steadily onward to its thunderous break. Why art thou made a god of, thou poor type Of anger, and revenge, and cunning force ? True Power was never born of brutish Streng:h, Nor sweet Truth suckled at the shaggy dugs Of that old she-wolf. Are thy thunder bolts, That quell the darkness for a space, so strong of peace, room no more : As the prevailing patience of meek Light, Who, with the invincible tenderness Wins it to be a portion of herself? Why art thou made a god of, thou, who hast The never-sleeping terror at thy heart, That birthright of all tyrants, worse to bear Than this thy ravening bird on which I smile? Thou swear'st to free me, if I will un fold What kind of doom it is whose omen flits Across thy heart, as o'er a troop of doves The fearful shadow of the kite. What need To know that truth whose knowledge cannot save? Evil its errand hath, as well as Good; When thine is finished, thou art known There is a higher purity than thou, And higher purity is greater strength; Thy nature is thy doom, at which thy heart Trembles behind the thick wall of thy might. Let man but hope, and thou art straightWith thought of that drear silence and deep night Which, like a dream, shall swallow thee and thine : Let man but will, and thou art god no more, More capable of ruin than the gold And ivory that image thee on earth. Ile who hurled down the monstrous Titan-brood Blinded with lightnings, with rough thunders stunned, Is weaker than a simple human thought. My slender voice can shake thee, as the breeze, That seems but apt to stir a maiden's hair, Sways huge Oceanus from pole to pole : For I am still Prometheus, and fore know In my wise heart the end and doomof all. Yes, I am still Prometheus, wiser grown By years of solitude, that holds apart The past and future, giving the soul To search into itself, — and long com mune With this eternal silence ; - more a god, In my long-suffering and strength to meet With equal front the direst shafts of fate, Than thou in thy faint-hearted despot ism, Girt with thy baby-toys of force and wrath. Yes, I am that Prometheus who brought down The light to man, which thou, in selfish fear, Hadst to thyself usurped, - his by sole right, For Man hath right to all save Tyr anny, And which shall free him yet from thy frail throne. Tyrants are but the spawn of Igno rance, Begotten by the slaves they trample on, Who, could they win a glimmer of the light, And see that Tyranny is always weak ness, Or Fear with its own bosom ill at ease, Would laugh away in scorn the sand wove chain Which their own blindness feigned for adamant. Wrong ever builds on quicksands, but the Right To the firm centre lays its moveless base. The tyrant trembles, if the air but stirs The innocent ringlets of a child's free hair, And crouches, when the thought of some great spirit, With world-wide murmur, like a rising gale, Over men's hearts, as over standing corn, Rushes, and bends them to its own way chilled strong will. Own So shall some thought of mine yet cir. cle earth, And puff away thy crumbling altars, Jove! And, wouldst thou know of my su preme revenge, Poor tyrant, even now dethroned in heart, Realmless in soul, as tyrants ever are, Listen ! and tell me if this bitter peak, This never-glutted vulture, and these chains Shrink not before it ; for it shall befit A sorrow-taught, unconquered Titan heart. Men, when their death is on them, seem to stand On a precipitous crag that overhangs The abyss of doom, and in that depth to see, As in a glass, the features dim and vast Of things to come, the shadows, as it seems, Of what have been. Death ever fronts the wise ; Not fearfully, but with clear promises Of larger life, on whose broad vans up borne, Their outlook widens, and they see beyond The horizon of the Present and the Past, Even to the very source and end of things. Sucham I now: immortalwoe hath made My heart a seer, and my soul a judge Between the substance and the shadow of Truth. The sure supremeness of the Beautiful, By all the martyrdoms made doubly sure Of such as I am, this is my revenge, Which of my wrongs builds a trium phal arch, Through which I see a sceptre and a throne. The pipings of glad shepherds on the hills, Tending the flocks no more to bleed for thee, The songs of maidens pressing with white feet The vintage on thine altars poured no The murmurous bliss of lovers, under neath Dim grapevine bowers, whose rosy bunches press Not half so closely their warm cheeks, unpaled By thoughts of thy brute lust, - the hive-like hum Of peaceful commonwealths, where sunburnt Toil Reaps for itself the rich earth made its By its own labor, lightened with glad hymns To an omnipotence which thy mad bolts Would cope with as a spark with the vast sea, Even the spirit of free love and peace, Duty's sure recompense through life and death, These are such harvests as all master spirits Reap, haply not on earth, but reapno less Because ihe sheaves are bound by hands not theirs ; These are the bloodless daggers where withal They stab fallen tyrants, this their high revenge : For their best part of lifeon earth is when, Long after death, prisoned and pent no more, Their thoughts, their wild dreams even, have become Part of the necessary air men breathe : When, like the moon, herself behind a cloud, They shed down light before us on life's sea, That cheers us to steer onward still in hope. Earth with her twining memories ivios o'er Their holy sepulchres; the chainless sea, In tempest or wide calm, repeats thei: thoughts ; The lightning and the thunder, all free things, Have legends of them for theears ofmen. All other glories are as falling stars, But universal Nature watches theirs : Such strength is won by love of human kind. more, |