IONE.

There is a sense of words upon mine ear.

PANTHEA.

An universal sound like words: Oh, list!

DEMOGORGON.

Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,

520

Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll

The love which paves thy path along the skies:

THE EARTH.

I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.

DEMOGORGON.

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth

With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:

THE MOON.

I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee!

DEMOGORGON.

Ye kings of suns and stars, Dæmons and Gods,

Etherial Dominations, who possess

Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes

Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:

A VOICE from above.

Our great Republic hears, we are bless'd, and bless.

525

530

DEMOGORGON.

Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray,
Whether your nature is that universe

Which once ye saw and suffered —

A VOICE from beneath.

Or as they

Whom we have left, we change and pass away.

DEMOGORGON.

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone Of sullen lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:

Spirits, whose homes are flesh : ye beasts and birds,
Ye worms, and fish; ye living leaves and buds;
Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds,
Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:

A VOICE.

Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.

DEMOGORGON.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;

A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;

A traveller from the cradle to the grave

Through the dim night of this immortal day:

535

540

545

550

ALL.

Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.

DEMOGORGON.

This is the day, which down the void abysm

At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism, 555
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep :

Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dead endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance

560

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

565

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to re-assume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

570

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;

This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

575

SONNET: ENGLAND IN 1819.

AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, —
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-
An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield:
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless - a book sealed;
A Senate, Time's worst statute unrepealed,
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

1819.

5

10

SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.

I.

MEN of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

II.

Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
From the cradle to the grave,

Those ungrateful drones who would

Drain your sweat - nay, drink your blood?

5

III.

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

IV.

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear

With your pain and with your fear?

V.

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps ;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.

VI.

Sow seed,- but let no tyrant reap ;
Find wealth,

let no impostor heap;

Weave robes, let not the idle wear;

Forge arms, in

your

defence to bear.

VII.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;

25

In halls ye deck another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

VIII.

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,

Trace your grave, and build your tomb,

And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.

30

1819.