Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,

Or even these thoughts.-Come near me! I do weave

A chain I cannot break-I am possessed

With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human

breast.

XXXIV

'Yes, yes-thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm—
O! willingly, beloved, would these eyes,
Might they no more drink being from thy form,
Even as to sleep whence we again arise,

Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize
Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee-
Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:
Darkness and death, if death be true, must be
Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.

XXXV

3765

3770

3776

'Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters
Return not to their fountain-Earth and Heaven,
The Ocean and the Sun, the Clouds their daughters,
Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even,
All that we are or know, is darkly driven
Towards one gulf.-Lo! what a change is come
Since I first spake-but time shall be forgiven,

3780

Though it change all but thee!'-She ceased-night's gloom Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky's sunless dome.

XXXVI

Though she had ceased, her countenance uplifted

To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright; 3785 Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted The air they breathed with love, her locks undight. 'Fair star of life and love,' I cried, my soul's delight, Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?

O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night, Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!' She turned to me and smiled-that smile was Paradise!

3790

CANTO X

I

WAS there a human spirit in the steed,

That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone, He broke our linked rest? or do indeed

All living things a common nature own,
And thought erect an universal throne,

3795

Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?

And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan To see her sons contend? and makes she bare

3800

Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?

II

I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue
Which was not human-the lone nightingale
Has answered me with her most soothing song,
Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale

With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale
The antelopes who flocked for food have spoken
With happy sounds, and motions, that avail

3805

Like man's own speech; and such was now the token Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.

III

Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,
And I returned with food to our retreat,
And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed
Over the fields, had stained the courser's feet;

3810

Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew,-then meet 3815 The vulture, and the wild dog, and the snake,

The wolf, and the hyæna gray, and eat

The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make

Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship's wake.

IV

For, from the utmost realms of earth, came pouring 3820 The banded slaves whom every despot sent

At that throned traitor's summons; like the roaring

Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent
In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent

The armies of the leaguèd Kings around

Their files of steel and flame;-the continent

Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,

3825

Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies' sound.

From every nation of the earth they came,
The multitude of moving heartless things,

3830

Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,

Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings

To the stall, red with blood; their many kings

Led them, thus erring, from their native land;
Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings
Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band
The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea's sand,

3835

VI

Fertile in prodigies and lies;-so there
Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.
The desert savage ceased to grasp in fear

His Asian shield and bow, when, at the will
Of Europe's subtler son, the bolt would kill
3834 native home ed. 1818.

3840

Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;

But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,
And savage sympathy: those slaves impure,
Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.

VII

For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe

3845

His countenance in lies,-even at the hour When he was snatched from death, then o'er the globe, With secret signs from many a mountain-tower, With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power

Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,

3850

He called:-they knew his cause their own, and swore Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars

Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.

VIII

Myriads had come-millions were on their way;
The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel
Of hired assassins, through the public way,

Choked with his country's dead :-his footsteps reel
On the fresh blood-he smiles. 'Ay, now I feel

I am a King in truth!' he said, and took

His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,

And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look.

IX

'But first, go slay the rebels-why return
The victor bands?' he said, 'millions yet live,
Of whom the weakest with one word might turn
The scales of victory yet;-let none survive
But those within the walls-each fifth shall give
The expiation for his brethren here.-

Go forth, and waste and kill!'-'O king, forgive
My speech,' a soldier answered-'but we fear
The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;

X

'For we were slaying still without remorse,
And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand
Defenceless lay, when, on a hell-black horse,
An Angel bright as day, waving a brand

3855

3860

3865

3870

3875

Which flashed among the stars, passed.'-'Dost thou stand Parleying with me, thou wretch?' the king replied;

'Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band, 3880 Whoso will drag that woman to his side

That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;

XI

'And gold and glory shall be his.-Go forth!' They rushed into the plain.-Loud was the roar Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;

3885

The wheeled artillery's speed the pavement tore;
The infantry, file after file, did pour

Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:

XII

Peace in the desert fields and villages,

Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead! Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries

3890

Of victims to their fiery judgement led,

3895

Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread

Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue

Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;
Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng
Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!

XIII

Day after day the burning sun rolled on
Over the death-polluted land-it came
Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone
A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame
The few lone ears of corn;-the sky became
Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast
Languished and died, the thirsting air did claim
All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed

From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.

XIV

3900

3905

3911

First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay. Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood Had lured, or who, from regions far away, Had tracked the hosts in festival array, From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now, Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey; In their green eyes a strange disease did glow, They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.

XV

3915

The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds
In the green woods perished; the insect race
Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds
Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase
Died moaning, each upon the other's face

3920

In helpless agony gazing; round the City
All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case
Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!

3925

And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.

XVI

Amid the aëreal minarets on high,
The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell
From their long line of brethren in the sky,

Startling the concourse of mankind.-Too well
These signs the coming mischief did foretell :-
Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread

3930

Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell, A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.

XVII

Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts
Strip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;
So on those strange and congregated hosts
Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air
Groaned with the burden of a new despair;
Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter

3935

3940

Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there With lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter, A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe's sullen water.

XVIII

There was no food, the corn was trampled down,
The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore

The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;

3945

3950

The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more Creaked with the weight of birds, but, as before Those winged things sprang forth, were void of shade; The vines and orchards, Autumn's golden store, Were burned; so that the meanest food was weighed With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.

XIX

There was no corn-in the wide market-place
All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;
They weighed it in small scales-and many a face
Was fixed in eager horror then his gold

3955

The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain; 3960 The mother brought her eldest-born, controlled By instinct blind as love, but turned again And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.

XX

Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.
'O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave
Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran

3965

With brothers' blood! O, that the earthquake's grave
Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!'
3967 earthquakes ed. 1818.