And cried aloud, Liberty! Indignation Death grew pale within the grave, And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! When, like heaven's sun, girt by the exhalation Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. XII. Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then, In ominous eclipse? A thousand years, Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away: How like Bacchanals of blood Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered Rose armies mingled in obscure array powers Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sa cred bowers Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. XIII. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Ætna, and the cold Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us. Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile And they dissolve; but Spain's were links Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. [of steel, Twins of a single destiny! appeal To the eternal years enthroned before us, In the dim West; impress us * from a seal, All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. XIV. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant's head! Thy victory shall be his epitaph, . Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine. His dead spirit lives in thee. Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free And thou, lost Paradise of this divine And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness Thou island of eternity! thou shrine Where desolation, clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. XV. O that the free would stamp the impious name Of **** into the dust; or write it there, So that this blot upon the page of fame Were as a serpent's path, which the light air Erases, and the flat sands close behind! Ye the oracle have heard: Lift the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind Into a mass, irrefragably firm, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred; Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm XVI. O that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle Into the hell from which it first was hurled, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure, Till human thoughts might kneel alone. Each before the judgment-throne Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! O that the words which make the thoughts obscure From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, Were stript of their thin masks and various hue And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, Till in the nakedness of false and true They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. XVII. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever vour! If on his own high will, a willing slave, pressor. What if earth can clothe and feed [seed? And power in thought be as the tree within the Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor, Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Checks the great mother stooping to caress her And cries, give me, thy child, dominion Over all height and depth? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousand-fold for Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot, Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O, Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought |