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XVI.

O that the wise from their bright minds would

kindle

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and

dwindle

Into the hell from which it first was hurled,
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure,

Till human thoughts might kneel alone,
Each before the judgment-throne

Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown!
O that the words which make the thoughts

obscure

From which they spring, as clouds of glim

mering dew

From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture,

Were stript of their thin masks and various

hue

And frowns and smiles and splendours not their

own,

Till in the nakedness of false and true

They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due.

XVII.

He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever
Can be between the cradle and the grave,
Crowned him the King of Life. Oh vain endea-

vour!

If on his own high will, a willing slave,

He has enthroned the oppression and the op

pressor.

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 thousand-fold 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To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ;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,
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil.
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass.

ARETHUSA.

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows

In the Acroceraunian mountains;
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

ARETHUSA.

It concealed behind

The urns of the silent snow.

And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below:

The beard and the hair
Of the river-god were

Seen through the torrent's sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph's flight

To the brink of the Dorian deep.

"O save me! O 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 divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream:

Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main

Alpheus rushed behind,

As an eagle pursuing

A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

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