And, when thou art but a dim moaning heard From out the pitiless glooms of Chaos, I A name to fright all tyrants with, a light Huge echoes that from age to age live on In kindred spirits, giving them a sense Of boundless power from boundless suffering wrung: Evil springs up, and flowers, and bears no seed, But Good, once put in action or in thought, Like a strong oak, doth from its boughs shed down The ripe germs of a forest. Thou, weak god, In every heaving shall partake, that grows From heart to heart among As the ominous hum before the earthquake runs Far through the Ægean from roused isle to isle,- And mighty rents in many a cavernous error Grows but more lovely 'neath the beaks and claws In all the throbbing exultations share Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove! Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long, Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still, In its invincible manhood, overtops Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth But straightway like a god he is uplift And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams By his free inward nature, which nor thou, Nor any anarch after thee, can bind From working its great doom,—now, now set free This essence, not to die, but to become Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off, And hideous sense of utter loneliness, All hope of safety, all desire of peace, All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,- In patient calm on the unpilfered nest Of man's deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged To sail with darkening shadow o'er the world, Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make But no, this cannot be; for ages yet, In solitude unbroken, shall I hear The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, And Euxine answer with a muffled roar, On either side storming the giant walls Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam, Snatched up in wrath and horrible turmoil, Once beautiful, when I was free to walk The influence benign of loving eyes, But now by aged use grown wearisome; False thought! most false ! for how could I endure These crawling centuries of lonely woe Unshamed by weak complaining, but for thee, Loneliest, save me, of all created things, Mild-eyed Astarte, my best comforter, With thy pale smile of sad benignity? Year after year will pass away and seem |