What if earth can clothe and feed Amplest millions at their need, [seed? And power in thought be as the tree within the Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor, Diving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, And cries, give me, thy child, dominion Over all height and depth ? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan, Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one. XVIII. Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O, Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears ? The solemn harmony XIX. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, Sinks headlong through the aërial golden light On the heavy sounding plain, When the bolt has pierced its brain ; As summer clouds dissolve unburthened of their rain ; As a far taper fades with fading night; As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempest uous play. THE WANING MOON. And like a dying lady, lean and pale, ARETHUSA. ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows From cloud and from crag With many a jag, Shepherding her bright fountains. She leapt down the rocks With her rainbow locks Streaming among the streams ; Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams : And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing, In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep. Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook ; And opened a chasm In the rocks ;with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind And earthquake and thunder Did rend in sunder The beard and the hair Of the river God were As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight Oh, save me! Oh, guide me! And bid the deep hide me, For he grasps me now by the hair!” The loud Ocean heard, To its blue depth stirred, And under the water The Earth's white daughter Behind her descended Her billows, unblended Like a gloomy stain On the emerald main As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. VOL. III. 4 Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearled thrones; Through the coral woods Of the weltering floods, Over heaps of unvalued stones ; Through the dim beams Which amid the streams Weave a network of coloured light; And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night : Outspeeding the shark, And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep At noontide they flow |