With life and love makes chaos ever new, renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fair est, Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmæan Mænad,* She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest From that Elysian food was yet unweaned; And many a deed of terrible uprightness By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, The senate of the tyrants: they sunk prone Slaves of one tyrant. Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone VIII. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, *See the Bacchæ of Euripides. And every Naiad's ice-cold urn, To talk in echoes sad and stern, Of that sublimest lore which man had dared un learn? For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's sleep.. What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks, Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep, When from its sea of death to kill and burn, And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. IX. A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? And then the shadow of thy coming fell On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: And many a warrior-peopled citadel, Like rocks, which fire lifts out of the flat deep, Arose in sacred Italy, Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty ; That multitudinous anarchy did sweep, And burst around their walls, like idle foam, Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb Dissonant arms; and Art which cannot die, With divine want traced on our earthly home Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. X. Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terror Of the world's wolves! thou bearer of the quiver, Whose sun-like shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, As light may pierce the clouds when they dis sever In the calm regions of the orient day! Luther caught thy wakening glance: Like lightning from his leaden lance Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay; And England's prophets hailed thee as their In queen, songs whose music cannot pass away, Though it must flow for ever: not unseen Before the spirit-sighted countenance Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. XI. The eager hours and unreluctant years As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood, Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, Darkening each other with their multitude, And cried aloud, Liberty! Indignation Death grew pale within the grave, And desolation howled to the destroyer, Save! When, like heaven's sun, girt by the exhalation Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. XII. Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then, In ominous eclipse? A thousand years, Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; How like Bacchanals of blood Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptered slaves, and Folly's mitred brood! When one, like them, but mightier far than they, The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, Rose: armies mingled in obscure array Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sa cred bowers Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours, Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. XIII. England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Ætna, and the cold Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle From Pithecusa to Pelorus Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus: They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us. Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile [of steel, And they dissolve; but Spain's were links Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. Twins of a single destiny! appeal To the eternal years enthroned before us, All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. XIV. Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant's head! Thy victory shall be his epitaph, |