43.
Night came, a starless and a moonless gloom.
Until the dawn, those hosts of many a nation
Stood round that pile, as near one lover’s tomb
Two gentle sisters mourn their desolation;
And in the silence of that expectation, _4175
Was heard on high the reptiles’ hiss and crawl—
It was so deep—save when the devastation
Of the swift pest, with fearful interval,
Marking its path with shrieks, among the crowd would fall.
44.
Morn came,—among those sleepless multitudes, _4180
Madness, and Fear, and Plague, and Famine still
Heaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods
The frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill
Earth’s cold and sullen brooks; in silence, still
The pale survivors stood; ere noon, the fear _4185
Of Hell became a panic, which did kill
Like hunger or disease, with whispers drear,
As ‘Hush! hark! Come they yet?—Just Heaven! thine hour is near!’
45.
And Priests rushed through their ranks, some counterfeiting
The rage they did inspire, some mad indeed _4190
With their own lies; they said their god was waiting
To see his enemies writhe, and burn, and bleed,—
And that, till then, the snakes of Hell had need
Of human souls:—three hundred furnaces
Soon blazed through the wide City, where, with speed, _4195
Men brought their infidel kindred to appease
God’s wrath, and, while they burned, knelt round on quivering knees.
46.
The noontide sun was darkened with that smoke,
The winds of eve dispersed those ashes gray.
The madness which these rites had lulled, awoke _4200
Again at sunset.—Who shall dare to say
The deeds which night and fear brought forth, or weigh
In balance just the good and evil there?
He might man’s deep and searchless heart display,
And cast a light on those dim labyrinths, where _4205
Hope, near imagined chasms, is struggling with despair.
47.
’Tis said, a mother dragged three children then,
To those fierce flames which roast the eyes in the head,
And laughed, and died; and that unholy men,
Feasting like fiends upon the infidel dead, _4210
Looked from their meal, and saw an Angel tread
The visible floor of Heaven, and it was she!
And, on that night, one without doubt or dread
Came to the fire, and said, ‘Stop, I am he!
Kill me!’—They burned them both with hellish mockery. _4215
48.
And, one by one, that night, young maidens came,
Beauteous and calm, like shapes of living stone
Clothed in the light of dreams, and by the flame
Which shrank as overgorged, they laid them down,
And sung a low sweet song, of which alone _4220
One word was heard, and that was Liberty;
And that some kissed their marble feet, with moan
Like love, and died; and then that they did die
With happy smiles, which sunk in white tranquillity.
NOTES: _3834 native home edition 1818. _3967 earthquakes edition 1818. _4176 reptiles’]reptiles edition 1818.
CANTO 11.
1.
She saw me not—she heard me not—alone _4225
Upon the mountain’s dizzy brink she stood;
She spake not, breathed not, moved not—there was thrown
Over her look, the shadow of a mood
Which only clothes the heart in solitude,
A thought of voiceless depth;—she stood alone, _4230
Above, the Heavens were spread;—below, the flood
Was murmuring in its caves;—the wind had blown
Her hair apart, through which her eyes and forehead shone.
2.
A cloud was hanging o’er the western mountains;
Before its blue and moveless depth were flying _4235
Gray mists poured forth from the unresting fountains
Of darkness in the North:—the day was dying:—
Sudden, the sun shone forth, its beams were lying
Like boiling gold on Ocean, strange to see,
And on the shattered vapours, which defying _4240
The power of light in vain, tossed restlessly
In the red Heaven, like wrecks in a tempestuous sea.