II.

Hither, from the recent Tomb,

From the Prison's direr gloom,

From Distemper's midnight anguish;
And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines Manhood's maze;

Or where o'er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze,
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
By time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep

Raises its fateful strings from sleep,

I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band!
From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,

Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice, O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth,

Weep and rejoice!

Still echoes the dread NAME that o'er the earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell:
And now advance in saintly Jubilee

Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,

They too obey thy name, Divinest LIBERTY!

III.

I marked Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! "Groans not her chariot on its onward way! ?" Fly, mailed Monarch, fly!

Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace,

No more on Murder's luric face

The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!
Manes of the unnumbered slain!

Ye that gasped on WARSAW's plain!

Ye that erst at ISMAIL's tower,
When human ruin choked the streams,
Fell in conquest's glutted hour,

Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams!
Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling!

The exterminating fiend is fled

(Foul her life, and dark her doom)

Mighty armies of the dead

Dance like death-fires round her tomb!

Then with prophetic song relate,

Each some tyrant-murderer's fate!

IV.

Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye MEMORY sits: thy robe inscribed with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choired Gods advancing,

The SPIRIT of the EARTH made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

v.

Throughout the blissful throng,

Hushed were harp and song:

Till wheeling round the throne the LAMPADS seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven)

Permissive signal make:

The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and spake!

66

"Thou in stormy blackness throning
"Love and uncreated Light,
"By the Earth's unsolaced groaning,
"Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!
By Peace with proffered insult scared,
"Masked Hate and envying Scorn!
"By Years of Havoc yet unborn!

66

"And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! "But chief by Afric's wrongs,

"Strange, horrible, and foul!

"By what deep guilt belongs

"To the deaf Synod, 'full of gifts and lies!'

By Wealth's insensate laugh! by Torture's howl! "Avenger, rise!

"For ever shall the thankless Island scowl, "Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud! "And on the darkling foe

"Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud! "O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!

"The Past to thee, to thee the future cries! "Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Rise, God of Nature! rise."

VI.

The voice had ceased, the vision fled;
Yet still I gasped and reeled with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims;
Wild is the tempest of my heart;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of Death!

No stranger agony confounds

The Soldier on the war-field spread, When all foredone with toil and wounds, Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

(The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

See! the starting wretch's head

Lies pillowed on a brother's corse!)

VII.

Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,
O Albion! O my mother Isle !
Thy vallies, fair as Eden's bowers,
Glitter green with sunny showers;