The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 10

9.

But custom maketh blind and obdurate The loftiest hearts;--he had beheld the woe In which mankind was bound, but deemed that fate Which made them abject, would preserve them so; And in such faith, some steadfast joy to know, _1490 He sought this cell: but when fame went abroad That one in Argolis did undergo Torture for liberty, and that the crowd High truths from gifted lips had heard and understood;

10.

And that the mult.i.tude was gathering wide,-- _1495 His spirit leaped within his aged frame; In lonely peace he could no more abide, But to the land on which the victor's flame Had fed, my native land, the Hermit came: Each heart was there a shield, and every tongue _1500 Was as a sword of truth--young Laon's name Rallied their secret hopes, though tyrants sung Hymns of triumphant joy our scattered tribes among.

11.

He came to the lone column on the rock, And with his sweet and mighty eloquence _1505 The hearts of those who watched it did unlock, And made them melt in tears of penitence.

They gave him entrance free to bear me thence.

'Since this,' the old man said, 'seven years are spent, While slowly truth on thy benighted sense _1510 Has crept; the hope which wildered it has lent Meanwhile, to me the power of a sublime intent.

12.

'Yes, from the records of my youthful state, And from the lore of bards and sages old, From whatsoe'er my wakened thoughts create _1515 Out of the hopes of thine aspirings bold, Have I collected language to unfold Truth to my countrymen; from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e Doctrines of human power my words have told, They have been heard, and men aspire to more _1520 Than they have ever gained or ever lost of yore.

13.

'In secret chambers parents read, and weep, My writings to their babes, no longer blind; And young men gather when their tyrants sleep, And vows of faith each to the other bind; _1525 And marriageable maidens, who have pined With love, till life seemed melting through their look, A warmer zeal, a n.o.bler hope, now find; And every bosom thus is rapt and shook, Like autumn's myriad leaves in one swoln mountain-brook. _1530

14.

'The tyrants of the Golden City tremble At voices which are heard about the streets; The ministers of fraud can scarce dissemble The lies of their own heart, but when one meets Another at the shrine, he inly weets, _1535 Though he says nothing, that the truth is known; Murderers are pale upon the judgement-seats, And gold grows vile even to the wealthy crone, And laughter fills the Fane, and curses shake the Throne.

15.

'Kind thoughts, and mighty hopes, and gentle deeds _1540 Abound, for fearless love, and the pure law Of mild equality and peace, succeeds To faiths which long have held the world in awe, b.l.o.o.d.y and false, and cold:--as whirlpools draw All wrecks of Ocean to their chasm, the sway _1545 Of thy strong genius, Laon, which foresaw This hope, compels all spirits to obey, Which round thy secret strength now throng in wide array.

16.

'For I have been thy pa.s.sive instrument'-- (As thus the old man spake, his countenance _1550 Gleamed 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--ay, thou didst rear That lamp of hope on high, which time nor chance _1555 Nor change may not extinguish, and my share Of good, was o'er the world its gathered beams to bear.

17.

'But I, alas! am both unknown and old, And though the woof of wisdom I know well To dye in hues of language, I am cold _1560 In seeming, and the hopes which inly dwell, My manners note that I did long repel; But Laon's name to the tumultuous throng Were like the star whose beams the waves compel And tempests, and his soul-subduing tongue _1565 Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong.

18.

'Perchance blood need not flow, if thou at length Wouldst rise, perchance the very slaves would spare Their brethren and themselves; great is the strength Of words--for lately did a maiden fair, _1570 Who from her childhood has been taught to bear The Tyrant's heaviest yoke, arise, and make Her s.e.x the law of truth and freedom hear, And with these quiet words--"for thine own sake I prithee spare me;"--did with ruth so take _1575

19.

'All hearts, that even the torturer who had bound Her meek calm frame, ere it was yet impaled, Loosened her, weeping then; nor could be found One human hand to harm her--una.s.sailed Therefore she walks through the great City, veiled _1580 In virtue's adamantine eloquence, 'Gainst scorn, and death and pain thus trebly mailed, And blending, in the smiles of that defence, The Serpent and the Dove, Wisdom and Innocence.

20.

'The wild-eyed women throng around her path: _1585 From their luxurious dungeons, from the dust Of meaner thralls, from the oppressor's wrath, Or the caresses of his sated l.u.s.t They congregate:--in her they put their trust; The tyrants send their armed slaves to quell _1590 Her power;--they, even like a thunder-gust Caught by some forest, bend beneath the spell Of that young maiden's speech, and to their chiefs rebel.

21.

'Thus she doth equal laws and justice teach To woman, outraged and polluted long; _1595 Gathering the sweetest fruit in human reach For those fair hands now free, while armed wrong Trembles before her look, though it be strong; Thousands thus dwell beside her, virgins bright, And matrons with their babes, a stately throng! _1600 Lovers renew the vows which they did plight In early faith, and hearts long parted now unite,

22.

'And homeless orphans find a home near her, And those poor victims of the proud, no less, Fair wrecks, on whom the smiling world with stir, _1605 Thrusts the redemption of its wickedness:-- In squalid huts, and in its palaces Sits l.u.s.t alone, while o'er the land is borne Her voice, whose awful sweetness doth repress All evil, and her foes relenting turn, _1610 And cast the vote of love in hope's abandoned urn.

23.

'So in the populous City, a young maiden Has baffled Havoc of the prey which he Marks as his own, whene'er with chains o'erladen Men make them arms to hurl down tyranny,-- _1615 False arbiter between the bound and free; And o'er the land, in hamlets and in towns The mult.i.tudes collect tumultuously, And throng in arms; but tyranny disowns Their claim, and gathers strength around its trembling thrones. _1620

24.

'Blood soon, although unwillingly, to shed The free cannot forbear--the Queen of Slaves, The hoodwinked Angel of the blind and dead, Custom, with iron mace points to the graves Where her own standard desolately waves _1625 Over the dust of Prophets and of Kings.

Many yet stand in her array--"she paves Her path with human hearts," and o'er it flings The wildering gloom of her immeasurable wings.

25.

'There is a plain beneath the City's wall, _1630 Bounded by misty mountains, wide and vast, Millions there lift at Freedom's thrilling call Ten thousand standards wide, they load the blast Which bears one sound of many voices past, And startles on his throne their sceptred foe: _1635 He sits amid his idle pomp aghast, And that his power hath pa.s.sed away, doth know-- Why pause the victor swords to seal his overthrow?

26.

'The tyrant's guards resistance yet maintain: Fearless, and fierce, and hard as beasts of blood, _1640 They stand a speck amid the peopled plain; Carnage and ruin have been made their food From infancy--ill has become their good, And for its hateful sake their will has wove The chains which eat their hearts. The mult.i.tude _1645 Surrounding them, with words of human love, Seek from their own decay their stubborn minds to move.

27.

'Over the land is felt a sudden pause, As night and day those ruthless bands around, The watch of love is kept:--a trance which awes _1650 The thoughts of men with hope; as when the sound Of whirlwind, whose fierce blasts the waves and clouds confound, Dies suddenly, the mariner in fear Feels silence sink upon his heart--thus bound, The conquerors pause, and oh! may freemen ne'er _1655 Clasp the relentless knees of Dread, the murderer!

28.

'If blood be shed, 'tis but a change and choice Of bonds,--from slavery to cowardice A wretched fall!--Uplift thy charmed voice!

Pour on those evil men the love that lies _1660 Hovering within those spirit-soothing eyes-- Arise, my friend, farewell!'--As thus he spake, From the green earth lightly I did arise, As one out of dim dreams that doth awake, And looked upon the depth of that reposing lake. _1665

29.

I saw my countenance reflected there;-- And then my youth fell on me like a wind Descending on still waters--my thin hair Was prematurely gray, my face was lined With channels, such as suffering leaves behind, _1670 Not age; my brow was pale, but in my cheek And lips a flush of gnawing fire did find Their food and dwelling; though mine eyes might speak A subtle mind and strong within a frame thus weak.

30.

And though their l.u.s.tre now was spent and faded, _1675 Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien The likeness of a shape for which was braided The brightest woof of genius, still was seen-- One who, methought, had gone from the world's scene, And left it vacant--'twas her lover's face-- _1680 It might resemble her--it once had been The mirror of her thoughts, and still the grace Which her mind's shadow cast, left there a lingering trace.

31.

What then was I? She slumbered with the dead.

Glory and joy and peace, had come and gone. _1685 Doth the cloud perish, when the beams are fled Which steeped its skirts in gold? or, dark and lone, Doth it not through the paths of night unknown, On outspread wings of its own wind upborne Pour rain upon the earth? The stars are shown, _1690 When the cold moon sharpens her silver horn Under the sea, and make the wide night not forlorn.

32.

Strengthened in heart, yet sad, that aged man I left, with interchange of looks and tears, And lingering speech, and to the Camp began _1695 My war. O'er many a mountain-chain which rears Its hundred crests aloft, my spirit bears My frame; o'er many a dale and many a moor, And gaily now meseems serene earth wears The blosmy spring's star-bright invest.i.ture, _1700 A vision which aught sad from sadness might allure.

33.

My powers revived within me, and I went, As one whom winds waft o'er the bending gra.s.s, Through many a vale of that broad continent.

At night when I reposed, fair dreams did pa.s.s _1705 Before my pillow;--my own Cythna was, Not like a child of death, among them ever; When I arose from rest, a woful ma.s.s That gentlest sleep seemed from my life to sever, As if the light of youth were not withdrawn for ever. _1710

34.

Aye as I went, that maiden who had reared The torch of Truth afar, of whose high deeds The Hermit in his pilgrimage had heard, Haunted my thoughts.--Ah, Hope its sickness feeds With whatsoe'er it finds, or flowers or weeds! _1715 Could she be Cythna?--Was that corpse a shade Such as self-torturing thought from madness breeds?

Why was this hope not torture? Yet it made A light around my steps which would not ever fade.

NOTES: _1625 Where]When edition 1818.

CANTO 5.

1.

Over the utmost hill at length I sped, _1720 A snowy steep:--the moon was hanging low Over the Asian mountains, and outspread The plain, the City, and the Camp below, Skirted the midnight Ocean's glimmering flow; The City's moonlit spires and myriad lamps, _1725 Like stars in a sublunar sky did glow, And fires blazed far amid the scattered camps, Like springs of flame, which burst where'er swift Earthquake stamps.

2.

All slept but those in watchful arms who stood, And those who sate tending the beacon's light, _1730 And the few sounds from that vast mult.i.tude Made silence more profound.--Oh, what a might Of human thought was cradled in that night!

How many hearts impenetrably veiled Beat underneath its shade, what secret fight _1735 Evil and good, in woven pa.s.sions mailed, Waged through that silent throng--a war that never failed!

3.