The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  945

  Watching the hopes which there her heart had learned to trace.

  XXXII

  In me, communion with this purest being

  Kindled intenser zeal, and made me wise

  In knowledge, which, in hers mine own mind seeing,

  Left in the human world few mysteries:

  950

  How without fear of evil or disguise

  Was Cythna!—what a spirit strong and mild,

  Which death, or pain or peril could despise,

  Yet melt in tenderness! what genius wild

  Yet mighty, was enclosed within one simple child!

  XXXIII

  955

  New lore was this—old age, with its gray hair,

  And wrinkled legends of unworthy things,

  And icy sneers, is nought: it cannot dare

  To burst the chains which life for ever flings

  On the entangled soul’s aspiring wings,

  960

  So is it cold and cruel, and is made

  The careless slave of that dark power which brings

  Evil, like blight, on man, who, still betrayed,

  Laughs o’er the grave in which his living hopes are laid.

  XXXIV

  Nor are the strong and the severe to keep

  965

  The empire of the world: thus Cythna taught

  Even in the visions of her eloquent sleep,

  Unconscious of the power through which she wrought

  The woof of such intelligible thought,

  As from the tranquil strength which cradled lay

  970

  In her smile-peopled rest, my spirit sought

  Why the deceiver and the slave has sway

  O’er heralds so divine of truth’s arising day.

  XXXV

  Within that fairest form, the female mind

  Untainted by the poison-clouds which rest

  975

  On the dark world, a sacred home did find:

  But else, from the wide earth’s maternal breast,

  Victorious Evil, which had dispossessed

  All native power, had those fair children torn,

  And made them slaves to soothe his vile unrest,

  980

  And minister to lust its joys forlorn,

  Till they had learned to breathe the atmosphere of scorn.

  XXXVI

  This misery was but coldly felt, till she

  Became my only friend, who had endued

  My purpose with a wider sympathy;

  985

  Thus, Cythna mourned with me the servitude

  In which the half of humankind were mewed

  Victims of lust and hate, the slaves of slaves,

  She mourned that grace and power were thrown as food

  To the hyaena lust, who, among graves,

  990

  Over his loathèd meal, laughing in agony, raves.

  XXXVII

  And I, still gazing on that glorious child,

  Even as these thoughts flushed o’er her:—‘Cythna sweet,

  Well with the world art thou unreconciled;

  Never will peace and human nature meet

  995

  Till free and equal man and woman greet

  Domestic peace; and ere this power can make

  In human hearts its calm and holy seat,

  This slavery must be broken’—as I spake,

  From Cythna’s eyes a light of exultation brake.

  XXXVIII

  1000

  She replied earnestly:—‘It shall be mine,

  This task, mine, Laon!—thou hast much to gain;

  Nor wilt thou at poor Cythna’s pride repine,

  If she should lead a happy female train

  To meet thee over the rejoicing plain,

  1005

  When myriads at thy call shall throng around

  The Golden City.’—Then the child did strain

  My arm upon her tremulous heart, and wound

  Her own about my neck, till some reply she found.

  XXXIX

  I smiled, and spake not.—‘Wherefore dost thou smile

  1010

  At what I say? Laon, I am not weak,

  And though my cheek might become pale the while,

  With thee, if thou desirest, will I seek

  Through their array of banded slaves to wreak

  Ruin upon the tyrants. I had thought

  1015

  It was more hard to turn my unpractised cheek

  To scorn and shame, and this beloved spot

  And thee, O dearest friend, to leave and murmur not.

  XL

  ‘Whence came I what I am? Thou, Laon, knowest

  How a young child should thus undaunted be;

  1020

  Methinks, it is a power which thou bestowest,

  Through which I seek, by most resembling thee,

  So to become most good and great and free,

  Yet far beyond this Ocean’s utmost roar

  In towers and huts are many like to me,

  1025

  Who, could they see thine eyes, or feel such lore

  As I have learnt from them, like me would fear no more.

  XLI

  ‘Think’st thou that I shall speak unskilfully,

  And none will heed me? I remember now,

  How once, a slave in tortures doomed to die,

  1030

  Was saved, because in accents sweet and low

  He sung a song his Judge loved long ago,

  As he was led to death.—All shall relent

  Who hear me—tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow,

  Hearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent

  1035

  As renovates the world; a will omnipotent!

  XLII

  ‘Yes, I will tread Pride’s golden palaces,

  Through Penury’s roofless huts and squalid cells

  Will I descend, where’er in abjectness

  Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells,

  1040

  There with the music of thine own sweet spells

  Will disenchant the captives, and will pour

  For the despairing, from the crystal wells

  Of thy deep spirit, reason’s mighty lore,

  And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more.

  XLIII

  1045

  ‘Can man be free if woman be a slave?

  Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air.

  To the corruption of a closèd grave!

  Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear

  Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare

  1050

  To trample their oppressors? in their home

  Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear

  The shape of woman—hoary Crime would come

  Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion’s tottering dome.

  XLIV

  ‘I am a child:—I would not yet depart.

  1055

  When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp

  Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart,

  Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp

  Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp

  Of ages leaves their limbs—no ill may harm

  1060

  Thy Cythna ever—truth its radiant stamp

  Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm

  Upon her children’s brow, dark Falsehood to disarm.

  XLV

  ‘Wait yet awhile for the appointed day—

  Thou wilt depart, and I with tears stall stand

  1065

  Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray;

  Amid the dwellers of this lonely land

  I shall remain alone—and thy command

  Shall then dissolve the world’s unquiet trance,

  And, multitudinous as the desert sand

  1070

  Borne
on the storm, its millions shall advance,

  Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance.

  XLVI

  ‘Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain,

  Which from remotest glens two warring winds

  Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain

  1075

  Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds

  Of evil, catch from our uniting minds

  The spark which must consume them;—Cythna then

  Will have cast off the impotence that binds

  Her childhood now, and through the paths of men

  1080

  Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent’s den.

  XLVII

  ‘We part!—O Laon, I must dare nor tremble

  To meet those looks no more!—Oh, heavy stroke!

  Sweet brother of my soul! can I dissemble

  The agony of this thought?’—As thus she spoke

  1085

  The gathered sobs her quivering accents broke,

  And in my arms she hid her beating breast.

  I remained still for tears—sudden she woke

  As one awakes from sleep, and wildly pressed

  My bosom, her whole frame impetuously possessed.

  XLVIII

  1090

  ‘We part to meet again—but yon blue waste,

  Yon desert wide and deep holds no recess,

  Within whose happy silence, thus embraced

  We might survive all ills in one caress:

  Nor doth the grave—I fear ’tis passionless—

  1095

  Nor yon cold vacant Heaven:—we meet again

  Within the minds of men, whose lips shall bless

  Our memory, and whose hopes its light retain

  When these dissevered bones are trodden in the plain.’

  XLIX

  I could not speak, though she had ceased, for now

  1100

  The fountains of her feeling, swift and deep,

  Seemed to suspend the tumult of their flow;

  So we arose, and by the starlight steep

  Went homeward—neither did we speak nor weep,

  But, pale, were calm with passion—thus subdued

  1105

  Like evening shades that o’er the mountains creep,

  We moved towards our home; where, in this mood,

  Each from the other sought refuge in solitude.

  CANTO III

  I

  WHAT thoughts had sway o’er Cythna’s lonely slumber

  That night, I know not; but my own did seem

  1110

  As if they might ten thousand years outnumber

  Of waking life, the visions of a dream

  Which hid in one dim gulf the troubled stream

  Of mind; a boundless chaos wild and vast,

  Whose limits yet were never memory’s theme:

  1115

  And I lay struggling as its whirlwinds passed,

  Sometimes for rapture sick, sometimes for pain aghast.

  II

  Two hours, whose mighty circle did embrace

  More time than might make gray the infant world,

  Rolled thus, a weary and tumultuous space:

  1120

  When the third came, like mist on breezes curled,

  From my dim sleep a shadow was unfurled:

  Methought, upon the threshold of a cave

  I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled

  With dew from the wild streamlet’s shattered wave,

  1125

  Hung, where we sate to taste the joys which Nature gave.

  III

  We lived a day as we were wont to live,

  But Nature had a robe of glory on,

  And the bright air o’er every shape did weave

  Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone,

  1130

  The leafless bough among the leaves alone,

  Had being clearer than its own could be,

  And Cythna’s pure and radiant self was shown,

  In this strange vision, so divine to me,

  That, if I loved before, now love was agony.

  IV

  Morn fled, noon came, evening, then night descended,

  And we prolonged calm talk beneath the sphere

  Of the calm moon—when suddenly was blended

  With our repose a nameless sense of fear;

  And from the cave behind I seemed to hear

  1140

  Sounds gathering upwards!—accents incomplete,

  And stifled shrieks,—and now, more near and near,

  A tumult and a rush of thronging feet

  The cavern’s secret depths beneath the earth did beat.

  V

  The scene was changed, and away, away, away!

  1145

  Through the air and over the sea we sped,

  And Cythna in my sheltering bosom lay,

  And the winds bore me—through the darkness spread

  Around, the gaping earth then vomited

  Legions of foul and ghastly shapes, which hung

  1150

  Upon my flight; and ever, as we fled,

  They plucked at Cythna—soon to me then clung

  A sense of actual things those monstrous dreams among.

  VI

  And I lay struggling in the impotence

  Of sleep, while outward life had burst its bound,

  1155

  Though, still deluded, strove the tortured sense

  To its dire wanderings to adapt the sound

  Which in the light of morn was poured around

  Our dwelling—breathless, pale, and unaware

  I rose, and all the cottage crowded found

  1160

  With armèd men, whose glittering swords were bare,

  And whose degraded limbs the tyrant’s garb did wear.

  VII

  And, ere with rapid lips and gathered brow

  I could demand the cause—a feeble shriek—

  It was a feeble shriek, faint, far and low,

  1165

  Arrested me—my mien grew calm and meek,

  And grasping a small knife, I went to seek

  That voice among the crowd—’twas Cythna’s cry!

  Beneath most calm resolve did agony wreak

  Its whirlwind rage:—so I passed quietly

  1170

  Till I beheld, where bound, that dearest child did lie.

  VIII

  I started to behold her, for delight

  And exultation, and a joyance free,

  Solemn, serene and lofty, filled the light

  Of the calm smile with which she looked on me:

  1175

  So that I feared some brainless ecstasy,

  Wrought from that bitter woe, had wildered her—

  ‘Farewell! farewell!’ she said, as I drew nigh.

  ‘At first my peace was marred by this strange stir,

  Now I am calm as truth—its chosen minister.

  IX

  1180

  ‘Look not so, Laon—say farewell in hope,

  These bloody men are but the slaves who bear

  Their mistress to her task—it was my scope

  The slavery where they drag me now, to share,

  And among captives willing chains to wear

  1185

  Awhile—the rest thou knowest—return, dear friend!

  Let our first triumph trample the despair

  Which would ensnare us now, for in the end,

  In victory or in death our hopes and fears must blend.’

  X

  These words had fallen on my unheeding ear,

  1190

  Whilst I had watched the motions of the crew

  With seeming-careless glance; not many were

  Around her, for their comrades just withdrew

  To guard some other victim—so I drew

  My knife, and with one i
mpulse, suddenly

  1195

  All unaware three of their number slew,

  And grasped a fourth by the throat, and with loud cry

  My countrymen invoked to death or liberty!

  XI

  What followed then, I know not—for a stroke

  On my raised arm and naked head, came down,

  1200

  Filling my eyes with blood—when I awoke,

  I felt that they had bound me in my swoon,

  And up a rock which overhangs the town,

  By the steep path were bearing me: below,

  The plain was filled with slaughter,—overthrown

  1205

  The vineyards and the harvests, and the glow

  Of blazing roofs shone far o’er the white Ocean’s flow.

  XII

  Upon that rock a mighty column stood,

  Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky,

  Which to the wanderers o’er the solitude

  1210

  Of distant seas, from ages long gone by,

  Had made a landmark; o’er its height to fly

  Scarcely the cloud, the vulture, or the blast,

  Has power—and when the shades of evening lie

  On Earth and Ocean, its carved summits cast

  1215

  The sunken daylight far through the aërial waste.

  XIII

  They bore me to a cavern in the hill

  Beneath that column, and unbound me there:

  And one did strip me stark; and one did fill

  A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare

  1220

  A lighted torch, and four with friendless care

  Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,

  Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair

  We wound, until the torch’s fiery tongue

  Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.