I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion: Thou needest not fear mine: ODE TO LIBERTY. Yet freedom, yet, thy banner torn but flying, 1. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty, BYRON. From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void, was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness; when there came A voice out of the deep; I will record the same.— II. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth; Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not; but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms. The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied Of the Sun's throne: palace and pyramid, Temple and prison, to many a swarming mil lion Were as to mountain wolves their ragged caves. This human living multitude Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves, Hung tyranny; beneath, sat deified The sister pest, congregator of slaves; Into the shadow of her pinions wide, Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring heaven; from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody On the unapprehensive wild. The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, V. Athens arose; a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean floors By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garianded, A divine work! Athens diviner yet Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew Rending the veil of space and time asunder! One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast With life and love makes chaos ever new, As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fair est, Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmean 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 proaned 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 Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 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 Baccha of Euripides. |