I
The starlight smile of children, the sweet looks
Of women, the fair breast from which I fed, The murmur of the unreposing brooks, And the green light which, shifting overhead, Some tangled bower of vines around me shed, The shells on the sea-sand, and the wild flowers, The lamp-light through the rafters cheerly spread, And on the twining flax—in life’s young hours These sights and sounds did nurse my spirit’s folded powers.
II
In Argolis, beside the echoing sea, Such impulses within my mortal frame Arose, and they were dear to memory, Like tokens of the dead:—but others came Soon, in another shape: the wondrous fame Of the past world, the vital words and deeds Of minds whom neither time nor change can tame, Traditions dark and old, whence evil creeds Start forth, and whose dim shade a stream of poison feeds.
III
I heard, as all have heard, the various story
Of human life, and wept unwilling tears. Feeble historians of its shame and glory, False disputants on all its hopes and fears, Victims who worshipped ruin, chroniclers Of daily scorn, and slaves who loathed their state Yet, flattering power, had given its ministers A throne of judgement in the grave:—’twas fate, That among such as these my youth should seek its mate.
IV
The land in which I lived, by a fell bane
Was withered up. Tyrants dwelt side by side, And stabled in our homes,—until the chain Stifled the captive’s cry, and to abide That blasting curse men had no shame—all vied In evil, slave and despot; fear with lust Strange fellowship through mutual hate had tied, Like two dark serpents tangled in the dust, Which on the paths of men their mingling poison thrust.
V
Earth, our bright home, its mountains and its waters, And the ethereal shapes which are suspended Over its green expanse, and those fair daughters, The clouds, of Sun and Ocean, who have blended The colours of the air since first extended It cradled the young world, none wandered forth To see or feel; a darkness had descended On every heart; the light which shows its worth, Must among gentle thoughts and fearless take its birth.
VI
This vital world, this home of happy spirits, Was as a dungeon to my blasted kind; All that despair from murdered hope inherits They sought, and in their helpless misery blind, A deeper prison and heavier chains did find, And stronger tyrants:—a dark gulf before, The realm of a stern Ruler, yawned; behind, Terror and Time conflicting drove, and bore On their tempestuous flood the shrieking wretch from shore.
VII
Out of that Ocean’s wrecks had Guilt and Woe
Framed a dark dwelling for their homeless thought, And, starting at the ghosts which to and fro Glide o’er its dim and gloomy strand, had brought The worship thence which they each other taught. Well might men loathe their life, well might they turn Even to the ills again from which they sought Such refuge after death!—well might they learn To gaze on this fair world with hopeless unconcern!
VIII
For they all pined in bondage; body and soul, Tyrant and slave, victim and torturer, bent Before one Power, to which supreme control Over their will by their own weakness lent, Made all its many names omnipotent; All symbols of things evil, all divine; And hymns of blood or mockery, which rent The air from all its fanes, did intertwine Imposture’s impious toils round each discordant shrine.
IX
I heard, as all have heard, life’s various story, And in no careless heart transcribed the tale; But, from the sneers of men who had grown hoary In shame and scorn, from groans of crowds made pale By famine, from a mother’s desolate wail O’er her polluted child, from innocent blood Poured on the earth, and brows anxious and pale With the heart’s warfare, did I gather food To feed my many thoughts—a tameless multitude!
X
I wandered through the wrecks of days departed
Far by the desolated shore, when even
O’er the still sea and jagged islets darted
The light of moonrise; in the northern Heaven, Among the clouds near the horizon driven, The mountains lay beneath one planet pale; Around me, broken tombs and columns riven Looked vast in twilight, and the sorrowing gale Waked in those ruins gray its everlasting wail!
XI
I knew not who had framed these wonders then, Nor had I heard the story of their deeds; But dwellings of a race of mightier men, And monuments of less ungentle creeds Tell their own tale to him who wisely heeds The language which they speak; and now, to me The moonlight making pale the blooming weeds, The bright stars shining in the breathless sea, Interpreted those scrolls of mortal mystery.