"I am a child :-I would not yet depart. When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart, Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp Of ages leaves their limbs-no ill may harm Thy Cythna ever-truth its radiant stamp Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm
Upon her children's brow, dark falsehood to disarm,
"Wait yet awhile for the appointed day- Thou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean grey; Amid the dwellers of this lonely land
I shall remain alone and thy command Shall then dissolve the world's unquiet trance, And, multitudinous as the desert sand
Borne on the storm, its millions shall advance, Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance,
"Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain, Which from remotest glens two warring winds Involve in fire, which not the loosened fountain Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds Of evil, catch from our uniting minds
The spark which must consume them ;-Cythna then
Will have cast off the impotence that binds
Her childhood now, and through the paths of men
Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den.
"We part !-O Laon, I must dare nor tremble To meet those looks no more!-Oh, heavy stroke, Sweet brother of my soul ! can I dissemble The agony of this thought?"-As thus she spoke The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke, And in my arms she hid her beating breast. I remained still for tears-sudden she woke As one awakes from sleep, and wildly prest My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possest.
"We part to meet again--but yon blue waste, Yon desert wide and deep holds no recess, Within whose happy silence, thus embraced We might survive all ills in one caress: Nor doth the grave I fear 'tis passionless- Nor yon cold vacant Heaven :-we meet again Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain."
I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep, Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow; So we arose, and by the starlight steep
Went homeward-neither did we speak nor weep, But pale, were calm with passion-thus subdued Like evening shades that o'er the mountains creep, We moved towards our home; where, in this mood, Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.
What thoughts had sway o'er Cythna's lonely slumber That night, I know not; but my own did seen As if they might ten thousand years outnumber Of waking life, the visions of a dream, Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast, Whose limits yet were never memory's theme: And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds past, Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain agħast.
Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace
More time than might make grey the infant world, ̧ ́1 Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space :
When the third came, like mist on breezes curled, From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled : Methought, upon the threshold of a cavè
I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled
With dew from the wild streamlet's shattered wave, I Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave.
We lived a day as we were wont to live,
But Nature had a robe of glory on,,
And the bright air o'er every shape did weave
Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,
The leafless bough among the leaves alone, Had being clearer than its own could be,
And Cythna's pure and radiant self was shown In this strange vision, so divine to me, That if I loved before, now love was agony,
Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended, And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere
Of the calm moon-when, suddenly was blended With our repose a nameless sense of fear;
And from the cave behind I seemed to hear Sounds gathering upwards !-accents incomplete, And stifled shrieks, -and now, more near and near, A tumult and a rush of thronging feet
The cavern's secret depths beneath the earth did beat.
The scene was changed; away, away, away! Through the air and over the sea we sped,
And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,
And the winds bore me--through the darkness spread Around, the gaping earth then vomited
Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung
Upon my flight; and ever as we fled,
They plucked at Cythna-soon to me then clung
A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.
And I lay struggling in the impotence
Of sleep, while outward life had burst its' bound, Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound Which in the light of morn was poured around Our dwelling-breathless, pale, and unaware
I rose, and all the cottage crowded found
With armed men, whose glittering swords were bare, And whose degraded limbs the tyrant's garb did wear.
And ere with rapid lips and gathered brow I could demand the cause-a feeble shriek It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low, Arrested me my mien grew calm and meek, And grasping a small knife, I went to seek
That voice among the crowd-'twas Cythna's cry Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak Its whirlwind rage: so I past quietly
Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie,
I started to behold her, for delight
And exultation, and a joyance free,
Solemn, serene, and lofty, filled the light
Of the calm smile with which she looked on me :
So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,
Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her "Farewell! farewell!" she said, as I drew nigh. "At first my peace was marred by this strange stir, Now I am calm as truth-its chosen minister.
"Look not so, Laon-say farewell in hope, These bloody men are but the slaves who bear Their mistress to her task-it was my scope The slavery where they drag me now, to share,
And among captives willing chains to wear Awhile the rest thou knowest-return, dear friend! Let our first triumph trample the despair
Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,
In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend."
These words had fallen on my unheeding ear, Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew With seeming careless glance; not many were Around her, for their comrades just withdrew To guard some other victim-so I drew My knife, and with one impulse, suddenly All unaware three of their number slew,
And grasped a fourth by the throat, and withl oud cry My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!
What followed then I know not-for a stroke On my raised arm and naked head, came down, Filling my eyes with blood-when I awoke, I felt that they had bound me in my swoon, And up a rock which overhangs the town, By the steep path were bearing me: below, The plain was filled with slaughter,--overthrown The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow Of blazing roofs shone far o'er the white Ocean's flow.
Upon that rock a mighty column stood, Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky, Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude Of distant seas, from ages long gone by, Had made a landmark; o'er its height to fly Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast, Has power-and when the shades of evening lie On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast The sunken daylight far through the aërial waste.
They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath that column, and unbound me there: And one did strip me stark; and one did fill A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare A lighted torch, and four with friendless care Guided my steps the cavern-paths along, Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair We wound, until the torches' fiery tongue Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.
They raised me to the platform of the pile, That column's dizzy height :-the grate of brass Through which they thrust me, open stood the while, As to its ponderous and suspended mass,
With chains which eat into the flesh, alas ! With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound : The grate, as they departed to repass,
With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound
Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom were drowned.
The noon was calm and bright :-around that column The overhanging sky and circling sea
Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not my own misery:
The islands and the mountains in the day Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see The town among the woods below that lay,
And the dark rocks which bound the bright and glasbý bay.
It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed
Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone
Swayed in the air :-so bright, that noon did breed No shadow in the sky beside mine own→ Mine, and the shadow of my chain alone. Below the smoke of roofs involved in flame Rested like night, all else was clearly shown In that broad glare, yet sound to me none came, But of the living blood that ran within my frame.
The peace of madness fled, and ah, too soon! A ship was lying on the sunny main, Its sails were flagging in the breathless noon→ Its shadow lay beyond-that sight again Waked, with its presence, in my tranced brain The stings of a known sorrow, keen and cold: I knew that ship bore Cythna o'er the plain
Of waters, to her blighting slavery sold,
And watched it with such thoughts as must remain untold,
I watched, until the shades of evening wrapt Earth like an exhalation-then the bark Moved, for that calm was by the sunset snapt. It moved a speck upon the Ocean dark:
Soon the wan stars came forth, and I could mark Its path no more I sought to close mine eyes, But like the balls, their lids were stiff and stark; I would have risen, but ere that I could rise, My parched skin was split with piercing agonies.
I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever Its adamantine links, that I might die : O Liberty! forgive the base endeavour, Forgive me, if reserved for victory,
« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια » |