6.
There was such silence through the host, as when _4495
An earthquake trampling on some populous town,
Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men
Expect the second; all were mute but one,
That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone
Stood up before the King, without avail, _4500
Pleading for Laon’s life—her stifled groan
Was heard—she trembled like one aspen pale
Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.
7.
What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,
Among those reptiles, stingless with delay, _4505
Even like a tyrant’s wrath?—The signal-gun
Roared—hark, again! In that dread pause he lay
As in a quiet dream—the slaves obey—
A thousand torches drop,—and hark, the last
Bursts on that awful silence; far away, _4510
Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,
Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.
8.
They fly—the torches fall—a cry of fear
Has startled the triumphant!—they recede!
For, ere the cannon’s roar has died, they hear _4515
The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed
Dark and gigantic, with the tempest’s speed,
Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,
Fairer, it seems, than aught that earth can breed,
Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn, _4520
A spirit from the caves of daylight wandering gone.
9.
All thought it was God’s Angel come to sweep
The lingering guilty to their fiery grave;
The Tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,—
Her innocence his child from fear did save; _4525
Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave
Knelt for his mercy whom they served with blood,
And, like the refluence of a mighty wave
Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude
With crushing panic, fled in terror’s altered mood. _4530
10.
They pause, they blush, they gaze,—a gathering shout
Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams
Of a tempestuous sea:—that sudden rout
One checked, who, never in his mildest dreams
Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams _4535
Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed
Had seared with blistering ice—but he misdeems
That he is wise, whose wounds do only bleed
Inly for self,—thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,
11.
And others, too, thought he was wise to see, _4540
In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine;
In love and beauty, no divinity.—
Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine
Like a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne,
He said, and the persuasion of that sneer _4545
Rallied his trembling comrades—‘Is it mine
To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear
A woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here.’
12.
‘Were it not impious,’ said the King, ‘to break
Our holy oath?’—‘Impious to keep it, say!’ _4550
Shrieked the exulting Priest:—‘Slaves, to the stake
Bind her, and on my head the burden lay
Of her just torments:—at the Judgement Day
Will I stand up before the golden throne
Of Heaven, and cry, “To Thee did I betray _4555
An infidel; but for me she would have known
Another moment’s joy! the glory be thine own.”’
13.
They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,
Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung
From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade _4560
Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among
Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung
Upon his neck, and kissed his mooned brow.
A piteous sight, that one so fair and young,
The clasp of such a fearful death should woo _4565
With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.
14.
The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear
From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews
Which feed Spring’s earliest buds, hung gathered there,
Frozen by doubt,—alas! they could not choose _4570
But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse
To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;
And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues
Of her quick lips, even as a weary child
Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild, _4575
15.
She won them, though unwilling, her to bind
Near me, among the snakes. When there had fled
One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,
She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,
But each upon the other’s countenance fed _4580
Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil
Which doth divide the living and the dead
Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale,—
All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.—