XXVIII. And when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw That column, and those corpses, and the moon, And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon

Of senseless death would be accorded soon;When from that stony gloom a voice arose, Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune The midnight pines, the grate did then unclose, And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose.

XXIX.

He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled:
As they were loosen'd by that Hermit old,
Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled,
To answer those kind looks-he did infold
His giant arms around me, to uphold

My wretched frame, my scorched limbs he wound
In linen moist and balmy, and as cold

As dew to drooping leaves:-the chain, with sound Like earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound,

XXX.

As lifting me, it fell!-What next I heard,
Were billows leaping on the harbor bar,
And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirr'd
My hair;-I look'd abroad, and saw a star
Shining beside a sail, and distant far

That mountain and its column, the known mark
Of those who in the wide deep wandering are,
So that I fear'd some Spirit, fell and dark,

In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark.

XXXI.

For now indeed, over the salt sea billow

I sail'd: yet dared not look upon the shape

Of him who ruled the helm, although the pillow
For
my light head was hollow'd in his lap,
And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap,
Fearing it was a fiend; at last, he bent
O'er me his aged face, as if to snap

Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent, And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent.

XXXII.

A soft and healing potion to my lips

At intervals he raised-now look'd on high,
To mark if yet the starry giant dips
His zone in the dim sea-now cheeringly,
Though he said little, did he speak to me.
"It is a friend beside thee-take good cheer,
Poor victim, thou art now at liberty!"
I joy'd as those a human tone to hear,

XXXIV.

And then the night-wind streaming from the shore, Sent odors dying sweet across the sea, And the swift boat the little waves which bore, Were cut by its keen keel, though slantingly; Soon I could hear the leaves sigh, and could see The myrtle-blossoms starring the dim grove, As past the pebbly beach the boat did flee On sidelong wing, into a silent cove, Where ebon pines a shade under the starlight wove.

CANTO IV.

I.

THE old man took the oars, and soon the bark Smote on the beach beside a tower of stone; It was a crumbling heap, whose portal dark With blooming ivy trails was overgrown; Upon whose floor the spangling sands were strown, And rarest sea-shells, which the eternal flood, Slave to the mother of the months, had thrown Within the walls of that gray tower, which stood A changeling of man's art, nursed amid Nature's brood.

II.

When the old man his boat had anchored, He wound me in his arms with tender care, And very few, but kindly words he said, And bore me through the tower adown a stair, Whose smooth descent some ceaseless step to wear For many a year had fall'n-We came at last To a small chamber, which with mosses rare Was tapestried, where me his soft hands placed Upon a couch of grass and oak-leaves interlaced.

III.

The moon was darting through the lattices
Its yellow light, warm as the beams of day-
So warm, that to admit the dewy breeze,
The old man open'd them; the moonlight lay
Upon a lake whose waters wore their play
Even to the threshold of that lonely home:
Within was seen in the dim wavering ray,
The antique sculptured roof, and many a tome,

year.

XXXIII.

A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpes oft

Were quench'd in a relapse of wildering dreams, Yet still methought we sail'd, until aloft The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams Of morn descended on the ocean-streams, And still that aged man, so grand and mild, Tended me, even as some sick mother seems To hang in hope over a dying child, Till in the azure East darkness again was piled.

IV.

The rock-built barrier of the sea was past,And I was on the margin of a lake, A lonely lake, amid the forests vast And snowy mountains-did my spirit wake From sleep, as many-color'd as the snake That girds eternity? in life and truth, Might not my heart its cravings ever slake? Was Cythna then a dream, and all my youth, And all its hopes and fears, and all its joy and ruth?

V.

Thus madness came again.-a milder madness, Which darken'd naught but time's unquiet flow With supernatural shades of clinging sadness; That gentle Hermit, in my helpless woe, By my sick couch was busy to and fro, Like a strong spirit ministrant of good: When I was heal'd, he led me forth to show The wonders of his sylvan solitude, And we together sate by that isle-fretted flood.

VI.

He knew his soothing words to weave with skill
From all my madness told; like mine own heart,
Of Cythna would he question me, until
That thrilling name had ceased to make me start,
From his familiar lips-it was not art,

Of wisdom and of justice when he spokeWhen 'mid soft looks of pity, there would dart A glance as keen as is the lightning's stroke When it doth rive the knots of some ancestral oak.

VII.

Thus slowly from my brain the darkness roll'd, My thoughts their due array did reassume Through the enchantments of that Hermit old; Then I bethought me of the glorious doom Of those who sternly struggle to relume The lamp of Hope o'er man's bewilder'd lot, And, sitting by the waters, in the gloom Of eve, to that friend's heart I told my thought— That heart which had grown old, but had corrupted

not.

VIII.

That hoary man had spent his livelong age In converse with the dead, who leave the stamp Of over-burning thoughts on many a page, When they are gone into the senseless damp Of graves-his spirit thus became a lamp Of splendor, like to those on which it fed Through peopled haunts, the City and the Camp, Deep thirst for knowledge had his footsteps led, And all the ways of men among mankind he read.

IX.

But custom maketh blind and obdurate
The loftiest hearts-he had beheld the woe
In which mankind was bound, but deem'd that fate
Which made them abject, would preserve them so;
And in such faith, some stedfast joy to know,
He sought this cell: but when fame went abroad,
That one in Argolis did undergo

Torture for liberty, and that the crowd

Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law Of mild equality and peace, succeeds To faiths which long have held the world in awe, Bloody and false, and cold-as whirlpools draw All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw This hope. compels all spirits to obey,

For I have been thy passive instrument"(As thus the old man spake, his countenance Gleam'd on me like a spirit's)" thou hast lent To me, to all, the power to advance Towards this unforeseen deliverance From our ancestral chains-aye, thou didst rear That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance, Nor change may not extinguish, and my share Of good, was o'er the world its gather'd beams to bear.

Then, suddenly, I knew it was the youth In whom its earliest hopes my spirit found; But envious tongues had stain'd his spotless truth. And thoughtless pride his love in silence bound, And shame and sorrow mine in toils had wound, Whilst he was innocent, and I deluded; The truth now came upon me, on the ground Tears of repenting joy, which fast intruded, Fell fast, and o'er its peace our mingling spirits brooded

VI.

Thus, while with rapid lips and earnest eyes We talk'd, a sound of sweeping conflict spread, As from the earth did suddenly arise;

From every tent, roused by that clamor dread, Our bands outsprung and seized their arms-we sped

Towards the sound: our tribes were gathering far, Those sanguine slaves amid ten thousand dead Stabb'd in their sleep, trampled in treacherous war, The gentle hearts whose power their lives had sought to spare.

VII.

Like rabid snakes, that sting some gentle child
Who brings them food, when winter false and fair
Allures them forth with its cold smiles, so wild
They rage among the camp:-they overbear
The patriot hosts-confusion, then despair
Descends like night-when "Laon!" one did cry:|
Like a bright ghost from Heaven that shout did

scare

The slaves, and widening through the vaulted sky, Seem'd sent from Earth to Heaven in sign of victory. VIII.

In sudden panic those false murderers fled,
Like insect tribes before the northern gale:
But swifter still, our hosts encompassed
Their shatter'd ranks, and in a craggy vale,
Where even their fierce despair might naught avail.
Hemm'd them around!-and then revenge and
fear

Made the high virtue of the patriots fail:
One pointed at his foe the mortal spear-
Irush'd before its point, and cried, "Forbear, forbear!"

IX.

The
spear transfix'd my arm that was uplifted
In swift expostulation, and the blood

Gush'd round its point: I smiled, and-" Oh! thou gifted

With eloquence which shall not be withstood, Flow thus!"-I cried in joy, "thou vital flood, Until my heart be dry, ere thus the cause For which thou wert aught worthy be subduedAh, ye are pale,-ye weep,-your passions pause,Tis well! ye feel the truth of love's benignant laws. X.

"Soldiers, our brethren and our friends are slain: Ye murder'd them, I think, as they did sleep! Alas, what have ye done? the slightest pain Which ye might suffer, there were eyes to weep; But ye have quench'd them-there were smiles to steep

Your hearts in balm, but they are lost in woe; And those whom love did set his watch to keep Around your tents truth's freedom to bestow, Ye stabb'd as they did sleep-but they forgive ye

now.

XI.

"O wherefore should ill ever flow from ill,
And pain still keener pain for ever breed?
We all are brethren-even the slaves who kill
For hire, are men! and to avenge misdeed
On the misdoer, doth but Misery feed
With her own broken heart! O Earth, O Heaven!
And thou, dread Nature, which to every deed
And all that lives, or is, to be hath given, ·

XII.

"Join then your hands and hearts, and let the past Be as a grave which gives not up its dead To evil thoughts."-A film then overcast

My sense with dimness, for the wound, which bled

Freshly, swift shadows o'er mine eyes had shed.
When I awoke, I lay 'mid friends and foes,
And earnest countenances on me shed

The light of questioning looks, whilst one did close My wound with baliniest herbs, and soothed me to

repose.

XIII.

And one whose spear had pierced me, lean'd beside

With quivering lips and humid eyes;—and all Seem'd like some brothers on a journey wide Gone forth, whom now strange meeting did befall In a strange land, round one whom they might

call

Their friend, their chief, their father, for assay Of peril, which had saved them from the thrall Of death, now suffering. Thus the vast array Of those fraternal bands were reconciled that day. XIV.

Lifting the thunder of their acclamation, Towards the City then the multitude, And I among them, went in joy-a nation Made free by love,-a mighty brotherhood Link'd by a jealous interchange of good; A glorious pageant, more magnificent Than kingly slaves array'd in gold and blood; When they return from carnage, and are sent In triumph bright beneath the populous battlement.