The Revolt of Islam/Canto 12
Canto Twelfth.
I.The transport of a fierce and monstrous gladnessSpread thro' the multitudinous streets, fast flyingUpon the winds of fear; from his dull madnessThe starveling waked, and died in joy; the dying,Among the corpses in stark agony lying,Just heard the happy tidings, and in hopeClosed their faint eyes; from house to house replyingWith loud acclaim, the living shook Heaven's cope,And filled the startled Earth with echoes: morn did ope
II.Its pale eyes then; and lo! the long arrayOf guards in golden arms, and priests beside,Singing their bloody hymns, whose garbs betrayThe blackness of the faith it seems to hide;And see, the Tyrant's gem-wrought chariot glideAmong the gloomy cowls and glittering spears—A Shape of light is sitting by his side,A child most beautiful. I'the midst appearsLaon,—exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.
III.His head and feet are bare, his hands are boundBehind with heavy chains, yet none do wreakTheir scoffs on him, tho' myriads throng around;There are no sneers upon his lip which speakThat scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheekResolve has not turned pale—his eyes are mildAnd calm, and like the morn about to break,Smile on mankind—his heart seems reconciledTo all things and itself, like a reposing child.
IV.Tumult was in the soul of all beside,Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who sawTheir tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glideInto their brain, and became calm with awe.—See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.A thousand torches in the spacious square,Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,Await the signal round: the morning fairIs changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare,
V.And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,Upon a platform level with the pile,The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smileIn expectation, but one child: the whileI, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bierOf fire, and look around; each distant isleIs dark in the bright dawn; towers far and near,Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.
VI.There was such silence through the host, as whenAn earthquake trampling on some populous town,Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and menExpect the second; all were mute but one,That fairest child, who, bold with love, aloneStood up before the King, without avail,Pleading for Laon's life—her stifled groanWas heard—she trembled like one aspin paleAmong the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.
VII.What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,Among those reptiles, stingless with delay,Even like a tyrant's wrath?—the signal gunRoared—hark, again! in that dread pause he layAs in a quiet dream—the slaves obey—A thousand torches drop,—and hark, the lastBursts on that awful silence; far awayMillions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.
VIII.They fly—the torches fall—a cry of fearHas startled the triumphant!—they recede!For ere the cannon's roar has died, they hearThe tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steedDark and gigantic, with the tempest's speed,Bursts thro' their ranks: a woman sits thereon,Fairer it seems than aught that earth can breed,Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn,A spirit from the caves of day-light wandering gone.
IX.All thought it was God's Angel come to sweepThe lingering guilty to their fiery grave;The tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,—Her innocence his child from fear did save;Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slaveKnelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,And, like the refluence of a mighty waveSucked into the loud sea, the multitudeWith crushing panic, fled in terror's altered mood.
X.They pause, they blush, they gaze,—a gathering shoutBursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams[errata 1]Of a tempestuous sea:—that sudden routOne checked, who, never in his mildest dreamsFelt awe from grace or loveliness, the seamsOf his rent heart so hard and cold a creedHad seared with blistering ice—but he misdeemsThat he is wise, whose wounds do only bleedInly for self, thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,
XI.And others too, thought he was wise to see,In pain, and fear, and hate, something divineIn love and beauty—no divinity.—Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shineLike a fiend's hope upon his lips and eyne,He said, and the persuasion of that sneerRallied his trembling comrades—"Is it mineTo stand alone, when kings and soldiers fearA woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here."
XII."Were it not impious," said the King, "to breakOur holy oath?"—"Impious to keep it, say!"Shrieked the exulting Priest—"Slaves, to the stakeBind her, and on my head the burthen layOf her just torments:—at the Judgment DayWill I stand up before the golden throneOf Heaven, and cry, to thee did I betrayAn Infidel; but for me she would have knownAnother moment's joy! the glory be thine own."
XIII.They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprungFrom her gigantic steed, who, like a shadeChased by the winds, those vacant streets amongFled tameless, as the brazen rein she flungUpon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow.A piteous sight, that one so fair and young,The clasp of such a fearful death should wooWith smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.
XIV.The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear,From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dewsWhich feed spring's earliest buds, hung gathered there,Frozen by doubt,—alas, they could not chuse,But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuseTo climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;And with her eloquent gestures, and the huesOf her quick lips, even as a weary childWins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,
XV.She won them, tho' unwilling, her to bindNear me, among the snakes. When then had fledOne soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,But each upon the other's countenance fedLooks of insatiate love; the mighty veilWhich doth divide the living and the deadWas almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,—All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.—
XVI.Yet,—yet—one brief relapse, like the last beamOf dying flames, the stainless air aroundHung silent and serene—a blood-red gleamBurst upwards, hurling fiercely from the groundThe globed smoke,—I heard the mighty soundOf its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean;And, thro' its chasms I saw, as in a swound,The tyrant's child fall without life or motionBefore his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.
XVII.And is this death? the pyre has disappeared,The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng;The flames grow silent—slowly there is heardThe music of a breath-suspending song,Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;With ever changing notes it floats along,Till on my passive soul there seemed to creepA melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.
XVIII.The warm touch of a soft and tremulous handWakened me then; lo, Cythna sate reclinedBeside me, on the waved and golden sandOf a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwinedWith strange and star-bright flowers, which to the windBreathed divine odour; high above, was spreadThe emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overheadA shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.
XIX.And round about sloped many a lawny mountainWith incense-bearing forests, and vast cavesOf marble radiance to that mighty fountain;And where the flood its own bright margin laves,Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,Which, from the depths whose jagged caverns breedTheir unreposing strife, it lifts and heaves,—Till thro' a chasm of hills they roll, and feedA river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed.
XX.As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,A boat approached, borne by the musical airAlong the waves which sung and sparkled underIts rapid keel—a winged shape sate there,A child with silver-shining wings, so fair,That as her bark did thro' the waters glide,The shadow of the lingering waves did wearLight, as from starry beams; from side to side,While veering to the wind her plumes the bark did guide.
XXI.The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl,Almost translucent with the light divineOf her within; the prow and stern did curlHorned on high, like the young moon supine,When o'er dim twilight mountains dark with pine,It floats upon the sunset's sea of beams,Whose golden waves in many a purple lineFade fast, till borne on sunlight's ebbing streams,Dilating, on earth's verge the sunken meteor gleams.
XXII.Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet;—Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyesWhich swam with unshed tears, a look more sweetThan happy love, a wild and glad surprise,Glanced as she spake; "Aye, this is ParadiseAnd not a dream, and we are all united!Lo, that is mine own child, who in the guiseOf madness came, like day to one benightedIn lonesome woods: my heart is now too well requited!"
XXIII.And then she wept aloud, and in her armsClasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fairThan her own human hues and living charms;Which, as she leaned in passion's silence there,Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;The glossy darkness of her streaming hairFell o'er that snowy child, and wrapt from sightThe fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.
XXIV.Then the bright child, the plumed Seraph came,And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,And said, "I was disturbed by tremulous shameWhen once we met, yet knew that I was thineFrom the same hour in which thy lips divineKindled a clinging dream within my brain,Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twineThine image with her memory dear—againWe meet; exempted now from mortal fear or pain.
XXV."When the consuming flames had wrapt ye round,The hope which I had cherished went away;I fell in agony on the senseless ground,And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astrayMy mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day,The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,"They wait for thee beloved;"—then I knewThe death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.
XXVI."It was the calm of love—for I was dying.I saw the black and half-extinguished pyreIn its own grey and shrunken ashes lying;The pitchy smoke of the departed fireStill hung in many a hollow dome and spireAbove the towers like night; beneath whose shadeAwed by the ending of their own desireThe armies stood; a vacancy was madeIn expectation's depth, and so they stood dismayed.
XXVII."The frightful silence of that altered mood,The tortures of the dying clove alone,Till one uprose among the multitude,And said—'The flood of time is rolling on,We stand upon its brink, whilst they are goneTo glide in peace down death's mysterious stream.Have ye done well? they moulder flesh and bone,Who might have made this life's envenomed dreamA sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.
XXVIII."'These perish as the good and great of yoreHave perished, and their murderers will repent,Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow beforeYon smoke has faded from the firmamentEven for this cause, that ye who must lamentThe death of those that made this world so fair,Cannot recall them now; but then is lentTo man the wisdom of a high despair,When such can die, and he live on and linger here.
XXIX."'Aye, ye may fear not now the Pestilence,From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn,All power and faith must pass, since calmly henceIn pain and fire have unbelievers gone;And ye must sadly turn away, and moanIn secret, to his home each one returning,And to long ages shall this hour be known;And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning.
XXX."'For me the world is grown too void and cold,Since hope pursues immortal destinyWith steps thus slow—therefore shall ye beholdHow those who love, yet fear not, dare to die;Tell to your children this!' then suddenlyHe sheathed a dagger in his heart and fell;My brain grew dark in death, and yet to meThere came a murmur from the crowd, to tellOf deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.
XXXI."Then suddenly I stood a winged ThoughtBefore the immortal Senate, and the seatOf that star-shining spirit, whence is wroughtThe strength of its dominion, good and great,The better Genius of this world's estate.His realm around one mighty Fane is spread,Elysian islands bright and fortunate,Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead,Where I am sent to lead!" these winged words she said,
XXXII.And with the silence of her eloquent smile,Bade us embark in her divine canoe;Then at the helm we took our seat, the whileAbove her head those plumes of dazzling hueInto the winds' invisible stream she threw,Sitting beside the prow: like gossamer,On the swift breath of morn, the vessel flewO'er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,Whose shores receded fast, whilst we seemed lingering there;
XXXIII.Till down that mighty stream dark, calm, and fleet,Between a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,Chased by the thronging winds whose viewless feetAs swift as twinkling beams, had, under Heaven,From woods and waves wild sounds and odours driven,The boat fled visibly—three nights and days,Borne like a cloud thro' morn, and noon, and even,We sailed along the winding watery waysOf the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze,
XXXIV.A scene of joy and wonder to beholdThat river's shapes and shadows changing ever,Where the broad sunrise, filled with deepening gold,Its whirlpools, where all hues did spread and quiver,And where melodious falls did burst and shiverAmong rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spraySparkled like stars upon the sunny river,Or when the moonlight poured a holier day,One vast and glittering lake around green islands lay.
XXXV.Morn, noon, and even, that boat of pearl outranThe streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloudOf tempest, or the speedier thought of man,Which flieth forth and cannot make abode,Sometimes thro' forests, deep like night, we glode,Between the walls of mighty mountains crownedWith Cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,The homes of the departed, dimly frownedO'er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round.
XXXVI.Sometimes between the wide and flowering meadows,Mile after mile we sailed, and 'twas delightTo see far off the sunbeams chase the shadowsOver the grass; sometimes beneath the nightOf wide and vaulted caves, whose roofs were brightWith starry gems, we fled, whilst from their deepAnd dark-green chasms, shades beautiful and white,Amid sweet sounds across our path would sweep,Like swift and lovely dreams that walk the waves of sleep.
XXXVII.And ever as we sailed, our minds were fullOf love and wisdom, which would overflowIn converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful;And in quick smiles whose light would come and go,Like music o'er wide waves, and in the flowOf sudden tears, and in the mute caress—For a deep shade was cleft, and we did know,That virtue, tho' obscured on Earth, not lessSurvives all mortal change in lasting loveliness.
XXXVIII.Three days and nights we sailed, as thought and feelingNumber delightful hours—for thro' the skyThe sphered lamps of day and night, revealingNew changes and new glories, rolled on high,Sun, Moon, and moonlike lamps, the progenyOf a diviner Heaven, serene and fair:On the fourth day, wild as a wind-wrought seaThe stream became, and fast and faster bareThe spirit-winged boat, steadily speeding there.
XXXIX.Steady and swift, where the waves rolled like mountainsWithin the vast ravine, whose rifts did pourTumultuous floods from their ten thousand fountains,The thunder of whose earth-uplifting roarMade the air sweep in whirlwinds from the shore,Calm as a shade, the boat of that fair childSecurely fled, that rapid stress before,Amid the topmost spray, and sunbows wild,Wreathed in the silver mist: in joy and pride we smiled.
XL.The torrent of that wide and raging riverIs past, and our aërial speed suspended.We look behind; a golden mist did quiverWhen its wild surges with the lake were blended:Our bark hung there, as one line suspendedBetween two heavens, that windless waveless lake;Which four great cataracts from four vales, attendedBy mists, aye feed; from rocks and clouds they break,And of that azure sea a silent refuge make.
XLI.Motionless resting on the lake awhile,I saw its marge of snow-bright mountains rearTheir peaks aloft, I saw each radiant isle,And in the midst, afar, even like a sphereHung in one hollow sky, did there appearThe Temple of the Spirit; on the soundWhich issued thence, drawn nearer and more near,Like the swift moon this glorious earth around,The charmed boat approached, and there its haven found.
Finis.
- ↑ Original: waves was amended to streams