"Grant this—a freeman's, if a monarch's, prayer!—64
Life, while my life one man from chains can save;
While earth one refuge, or the cave one lair,
Yields to the closing struggle of the brave!—
Mine the last desperate but avenging hand;
If reft the sceptre, not resign'd the brand!"
"Close to my clasp!" the prophet cried, "Impart65
To these iced veins the glow of youth once more;
The healthful throb of one great human heart
Baffles more fiends than all a magian's lore;
Brave child——" Young arms embracing check'd the rest,
And youth and age stood mingled breast to breast.
"Ho!" cried the mighty master, while he broke66
From the embrace, and round from vault to floor
Mysterious echoes answered as he spoke;
And flames twined snake-like round the wand he bore.
And freezing winds tumultuous swept the cell,
As from the wings of hosts invisible:
"Ho! ye spiritual Ministers of all67
The airy space below the Sapphire Throne,
To the swift axle of this earthly ball—
Yea, to the deep, where evermore alone
Hell's king with memory of lost glory dwells.
And from that memory weaves his hell of hells;—
"Ho! ye who fill the crevices of air,68
And speed the whirlwind round the reeling bark—
Or dart destroying in the forkèd glare,
Or rise—the bloodless People of the Dark,
In the pale shape of Dreams—when to the bed
Of Murder glide the simulated dead,—
"Hither ye myriad hosts!—O'er tower and dome,69
Wait the high mission, and attend the word;
Whether to pierce the mountain with the gnome,
Or soar to heights where never wing'd the bird;
So that the secret and the boon ye wrest
From Time's cold grasp, or Fate's reluctant breast!"
Mute stood the King—when lo, the dragon-keep70
Shook to its rack'd foundations, as when all
Corycia's caverns and the Delphic steep
Shook to the foot-tread of invading Gaul;[7]
Or, as his path when flaming Ætna frees,
Shakes some proud city on Sicilian seas;
Reel'd heaving from his feet the dizzy floor;71
Swam dreamlike on his gaze the fading cell;
As falls the seaman, when the waves dash o'er
The plank that glideth from his grasp—he fell.
To eyes ungifted, deadly were the least
Of those last mysteries, Nature yields her priest.
Morn, the joy-bringer, from her sparkling urn72
Scatters o'er herb and flower the orient dew;
The larks to heaven, and souls to thought return—
Life, in each source, leaps rushing forth anew,
Fills every grain in Nature's boundless plan,
And wakes new fates in each desire of man.
In each desire, each thought, each fear, each hope,73
Each scheme, each wish, each fancy, and each end,
That morn calls forth, say, who can span the scope?
Who track the arrow which the soul may send?
One morning woke Olympia's youthful son,
And long'd for fame—and half the world was won.