XXIX.

"So be the turf heaped over our remains
Even in our happy youth, and that strange lot,
Whate'er it be, when in these mingling veins
The blood is still, be ours; let sense and thought
Pass from our being, or be numbered not
Among the things that are; let those who come
Behind, for whom our steadfast1 will has bought
A calm inheritance, a glorious doom,

Insult with careless tread, our undivided tomb.

XXX.

"Our many thoughts and deeds, our life and love,
Our happiness, and all that we have been,
Immortally must live, and burn and move,
When we shall be no more;-the world has seen
A type of peace; and as some most serene
And lovely spot to a poor maniac's eye,

After long years, some sweet and moving scene
Of youthful hope returning suddenly,

Quells his long madness-thus man shall remember thee.

XXXI.

"And Calumny meanwhile shall feed on us,
As worms devour the dead, and near the throne
And at the altar, most accepted thus

Shall sneers and curses be;-what we have done
None shall dare vouch, tho' it be truly known;
That record shall remain, when they must pass
Who built their pride on its oblivion;

And fame, in human hope which sculptured was,
Survive the perished scrolls of unenduring brass.

1 In Shelley's edition, stedfast again.

XXXII.

"The while we two, beloved, must depart,

And Sense and Reason, those inchanters fair,
Whose wand of power is hope, would bid the heart
That gazed beyond the wormy grave despair:

These eyes, these lips, this blood, seems darkly there
To fade in hideous ruin; no calm sleep

Peopling with golden dreams the stagnant air,
Seems our obscure and rotting eyes to steep

In joy;-but senseless death-a ruin dark and deep!

XXXIII.

"These are blind fancies-reason cannot know
What sense can neither feel, nor thought conceive;
There is delusion in the world-and woe,

And fear, and pain-we know not whence we live,
Or why, or how, or what mute Power may give
Their being to each plant, and star, and beast,

Or even these thoughts :-Come near me! I do weave
A chain I cannot break-I am possest

With thoughts too swift and strong for one lone human

breast.

XXXIV.

"Yes, yes-thy kiss is sweet, thy lips are warm

O willingly,1 beloved, would these eyes,
Might they no more drink being from thy form,
Even as to sleep whence we again arise,

Close their faint orbs in death: I fear nor prize
Aught that can now betide, unshared by thee-
Yes, Love when Wisdom fails makes Cythna wise:
Darkness and death, if death be true, must be
Dearer than life and hope, if unenjoyed with thee.

1 There is no comma at willingly in Shelley's edition.

2 Wisdom is spelt with a small w in Shelley's edition.

XXXV.

Alas, our thoughts flow on with stream, whose waters Return not to their fountain-Earth and Heaven,

The Ocean and the Sun, the clouds their daughters, Winter, and Spring, and Morn, and Noon, and Even, All that we are or know, is darkly driven

Towards one gulph-Lo! what a change is come

Since I first spake-but time shall be forgiven,

Tho' it change all but thee!"-She ceased, night's gloom Meanwhile had fallen on earth from the sky's sunless dome.

XXXVI.

Tho' she had ceased, her countenance uplifted
To Heaven, still spake, with solemn glory bright;
Her dark deep eyes, her lips, whose motions gifted
The air they breathed with love, her locks undight;
"Fair star of life and love," I cried, "my soul's delight,1
Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies?

O, that my spirit were yon Heaven of night,
Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!"

She turned to me and smiled-that smile was Paradise!

1 This "alexandrine in the middle of a stanza" divides with that in stanza XXVII of Canto IV the claim to be considered the one referred to in

Shelley's preface.

In Shelley's edition crystalline has no accent on the second syllable, though clearly to be read with one.

S

Canto Tenth.

I.

WAS there a human spirit in the steed,

That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,
He broke our linkèd rest? or do indeed
All living things a common nature own,
And thought erect an1 universal throne,
Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?
And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan

To see her sons contend? and makes she bare
Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?

II.

I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue,

Which was not human-the lone Nightingale

Has answered me with her most soothing song,

Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale

With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale
The Antelopes who flocked for food have spoken

With happy sounds, and motions, that avail

Like man's own speech; and such was now the token Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.

1 We have a for an in Mrs. Shelley's and Mr. Rossetti's editions.

III.

Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,
And I returned with food to our retreat,
And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed
Over the fields, had stained the courser's feet;-
Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew,-then meet
The vulture, and the wild-dog, and the snake,
The wolf, and the hyaena grey, and eat

The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship's wake.

IV.

For, from the utmost realms of earth, came pouring
The banded slaves whom every despot sent

At that throned1 traitor's summons; like the roaring
Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent
In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent
The armies of the leaguèd kings around

Their files of steel and flame;-the continent

Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,

Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies' sound.

V.

From every nation of the earth they came,
The multitude of moving heartless things,
Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,

Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings
To the stall, red with blood; their many kings
Led them, thus erring, from their native land;2
Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings
Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band
The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea's sand,

1 Thron'd in Shelley's edition.

In Shelley's edition the word here

is home,-clearly an oversight, whether in writing or in correcting the press.