XIX. Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. XX. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! XXI. Teach me half the gladness Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine; My spirit is too deeply laden Ever to burthen thine. I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Thou needest not fear mine; ODE TO LIBERTY. Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, BYRON. I. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty, From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dis may, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, came A voice out of the deep; I will record the same. II. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth; Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Of the Sun's throne: palace and pyramid, lion, Were, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung tyranny; beneath, sate deified The sister-pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody On the unapprehensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, V. Athens arose a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean floors By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! Through the caverns of the past; Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast. A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew, Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast |