III. "The many ships spotting the dark blue deep They heard!-As o'er the mountains of the earth From peak to peak leap on the beams of morning's birth: IV. "So from that cry over the boundless hills, A path thro' human hearts with stream which drowned V. "We reached the port-alas! from many spirits Yet soon bright day will burst-even like a chasm To cleanse the fevered world as with an earthquake's spasm! 1 In Shelley's edition custom, though obviously used personally, is given again with a small c. 2 In Shelley's edition we read e'er for ere. VI. "I walked thro' the great City then, but free From shame or fear; those toil-worn Mariners And happy Maidens did encompass me; And like a subterranean wind that stirs Some forest among caves, the hopes and fears From every human soul, a murmur strange Made as I past; and many wept, with tears Of joy and awe, and wingèd thoughts did range, And half-extinguished words, which prophesied of change. VII. "For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid VIII. -- Some said I was a maniac wild and lost; IX. "But soon my human words found sympathy In human hearts: the purest and the best, As friend with friend made common cause with me, And they were few, but resolute;-the rest, Ere yet success the enterprise had blest, Leagued with me in their hearts; their meals, their slumber, Their hourly occupations were possest By hopes which I had armed1 to overnumber2 Those hosts of meaner cares, which life's strong wings encumber. X. "But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken From their cold, careless, willing slavery, Sought me one truth their dreary prison has3 shaken, They looked around, and lo! they became free! In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; Whose lightning once was death,-nor fear, nor gain XI. "Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth, 1 In Shelley's edition, arm'd. 2 There is a comma at overnumber in Shelley's edition. 3 So in all editions known to me; but I suspect has is a misprint for had. XII. "Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky, By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame. XIII. "The Tyrant knew his power was gone, but Fear, To curse the rebels. To their God did they For Earthquake, Plague, and Want, kneel in the public way. XIV. "And grave and hoary men were bribed to tell 1 In all preceding editions known to me this expression is hues of grace; but, as the sense and the metre are both defective under that reading, I am convinced that grace is a misprint for flame. Shelley would hardly refer to colours as graceful, and these songs of Laon, inciting to revolution, would have more to do with fire than with grace. The fact that flame has to do double duty as a rhyme in this stanza does not materially affect the question, as there are other like instances as in stanza XXXIV of this Canto (p. 256), and stanza III of Canto VI (p. 198). See note on metric irregularities at p. 93. 2 God is replaced by gods in The Revolt of Islam. Mankind, the many to the few belong, By God, and Nature, and Necessity. They said, that age was truth, and that the young With which old times and men had quelled the vain and free. XV.2 "And with the falsehood of their poisonous lips They breathed on the enduring memory Of sages and of bards a brief eclipse; There was one teacher, who, necessity Had armed, with strength and wrong against mankind, His slave and his avenger aye to be; That we were weak and sinful, frail and blind, And that the will of one was peace, and we Should seek for nought on earth but toil and misery. XVI. 'For thus we might avoid the hell hereafter.' 1 In The Revolt of Islam we read Hearen instead of God. 2 I leave this stanza as printed in The Revolt of Islam. In Laon and Cythna the stanza has ten lines, and lines 4 to 7 of it read thus : There was one teacher, and must ever be, His slave and his avenger there to be; and there can be little doubt that Shelley's attention was called to the passage to get rid of the obnoxious God. The appearance of the page in my copy shews that he was considerably exercised in this particular revision, there being words written in and smeared out again before he could satisfy himself. It seems incredible that he should have run two lines into one has he did without considering how the process affected the regularity of the metre; and, if he had not already discovered that it was wrong, he would then do so. He would therefore have artistic reasons for the change made; and no other reasons could exist for the alteration of there to aye in line 6 of the stanza as given in the text. It is not surprising that in the annoyance of the whole business he did not discover that the remodelled stanza was still not Spenserian, inasmuch as lines 4 and 5 do not rhyme. |