Hellas. A Lyrical Drama Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE FGHIJKLEEMAENOPQKKKR STUVWXO YZEA2B2C2QKD2KB2KE2K KB2QKKKA KE B2B2KB2K QEKEEKKKKKKKKF2G2 EE KKB2KB2 KWE H2KB2KKI2E J2B2EK2EEL2KTEM2B2B2 KKKKB2 B2B2KN2B2O2B2EB2B2KK WPP2B2 EEEB2KECKPEEQ2KB2SEB 2R2ES2T2U2K2V2B2KB2W 2NWX2B2KH2K2Q2B2B2WE EB2E KKS2KB2B2PB2Y2E KKKKZ2K KEA3Z2 KK B2 A3 KEKHEEB2 EO K EOB3C3 EB2OB2OH2H2H2 EB2H2B2H2K2K2 B2EWEWH2H2H2 EOEOEH2H2 B2OEW2W2OOO B2KKEE B2QQOK B2EKKQQ B2KKB2KB2KEEEKEKEEEE KK KKD2LD2D2B2B2B2EEEB3 B3B3EB3EB2EB2KB2KB2B 2B2B2D3D3 B2EB2 B2B2E B2B2K B2ED2 B2ED2 B2EK B2EK B2E B2EEE EKKKK H2KB2B2B2B2EEE3EKD2O EB2K KB2B2ED2EKEB2KOB2F3B 2 EKKEKB2B2KD2KEB2D2KE ED2KEB2G3EEB2B2K KH3E EEEOD2D2B2ED3OB2EKKE B2KKED2B2B2B2EKB2 E KB2B2 EE KK EE KKI3ED2KKJ3B2 E B2EKEKOOB2KKB2K3K3KK KD2KD2D2D2KD2D2KKKEE H2B2H2B2EED2L3L3D2B2 B2B2B2 B2 KEK KB2K KB2B2M3B2N3KOK KEEO3 KKOEED2H2EKEKKKKB2KE KL3EB2EOB2V2 EOKB2EOB2P3D2B2EEQ3O KKEE KR3D2KEB2OKS3EKD2EEB 2EKEKB2EL3EEEEKEKB2O EEEOEEB2OEB2KOB2O B2B2B2B2 KOKKKEEKL3KB2V2E EEL3 KKED2KB2B2B2KB2EEOOK OK B2B2B2 EEEOE KKE EB2B2EKT3KE KK EKEU3EB2EEKEEEKB2EK KEEKKD2 D2KEB2OED2OB3EKOOEEO D2V3B2B2EL3B2KKKKB2D 2OKD2OKB2EEB2KB2B2OE B2KKD2W2EEB2B2W2KD2K K KB2 KKB2W2E EB2EKE KL3K EB2 KB2EB2B2EEB2EKE KE EB2W2 KB2EB2EB2B2 KE EEKW2EKEOKEOEEEKEB2B 2EEKKOEB2EEEB2KD2OKK W2OEKEKEKB2KKOEKEL3E EK EEE KE E EEEKED2EW2EO KOE EEKOEKEEEEE E EES3KEEKEEOEV2KEEKEE L3EKEEKOEEEKKKEEK KE E KE EEEV2EEKEEEEED2EW2EE OED2EKEKEW2EEKEOED2K D2EW2EKKK E KKW2 EEKEEEEKEEEKEW2EKEOE EKE KKEE K KEE KOW2EEOEQ3KE K EKKEEEL3L3L3EEW2 KE EW2 EEEEEEEEEOOE EEEEEE ED2ED2EOO EEEEEEE EW2KD2KD2E EEKEKEEEEEKEK EKEEEKEKE EE EEW2EEEEKW2 EEKW2W2EW2W2O E EEKEKE KKK EEKEEK E KE EE KEE EE KEKEKEEED2ES3KEEEKL3 EKD2EK EKEED2EKEED2EEEOD2OE EEEEEEW2E KE KKW2KOKK ES3V2KKEKEL3EKEL3OKE KEKO EKEOK KEE EE KEE EE KKEEW2EEEW2KEKEW2KK EK KD2OEKKEEKW3EEK EKD2KKKKKEEKEKEEEEEV 2EOE E E KS3 D2D2EKEOEEEEW2D2V2KO KEOEV2EEL3EEKEEEKKOV 2E KOOKEEKW2D2S3E D2EEEEEKES3EKK KE E KEE KE KOEL3EEED2EW2KEW2M3W 2KE K KEKEKEKEKK ED2W2D2KW2KKW2 KEKW2K EKKKKKKKW2KKW2EEKK KE KKEW2EEE EKEKEEEEKEEL3KEEL3 EEEK ED2D2EKKKKW2KKW2W2D2 D2D2 EKD2KD2 EW2KW2K KEKKKW2KV2 EKD2KD2EKEK EKEEKEEKKKKW2W2W2EEE EW2W2 W2V2D2D2V2KKEEEE KW2 W2EEEED2D2 W2EW2EV2V2 EW2EW2EE M3W2M3W2EE W2D2W2D2L3L3 W2KW2KW2W2 EKEW2KK W2W2EKEE

HERALD OF ETERNITY	A
It is the day when all the sons of God	B
Wait in the roofless senate house whose floor	C
Is Chaos and the immovable abyss	D
Frozen by His steadfast word to hyaline	E
	-
	-
	-
The shadow of God and delegate	F
Of that before whose breath the universe	G
Is as a print of dew	H
Hierarchs and kings	I
Who from your thrones pinnacled on the past	J
Sway the reluctant present ye who sit	K
Pavilioned on the radiance or the gloom	L
Of mortal thought which like an exhalation	E
Steaming from earth conceals the of heaven	E
Which gave it birth assemble here	M
Before your Father's throne the swift decree	A
Yet hovers and the fiery incarnation	E
Is yet withheld clothed in which it shall	N
annul	O
The fairest of those wandering isles that gem	P
The sapphire space of interstellar air	Q
That green and azure sphere that earth enwrapped	K
Less in the beauty of its tender light	K
Than in an atmosphere of living spirit	K
Which interpenetrating all the	R
it rolls from realm to realm	S
And age to age and in its ebb and flow	T
Impels the generations	U
To their appointed place	V
Whilst the high Arbiter	W
Beholds the strife and at the appointed time	X
Sends His decrees veiled in eternal	O
	-
Within the circuit of this pendent orb	Y
There lies an antique region on which fell	Z
The dews of thought in the world's golden dawn	E
Earliest and most benign and from it sprung	A2
Temples and cities and immortal forms	B2
And harmonies of wisdom and of song	C2
And thoughts and deeds worthy of thoughts so fair	Q
And when the sun of its dominion failed	K
And when the winter of its glory came	D2
The winds that stripped it bare blew on and swept	K
That dew into the utmost wildernesses	B2
In wandering clouds of sunny rain that thawed	K
The unmaternal bosom of the North	E2
Haste sons of God for ye beheld	K
Reluctant or consenting or astonished	K
The stern decrees go forth which heaped on Greece	B2
Ruin and degradation and despair	Q
A fourth now waits assemble sons of God	K
To speed or to prevent or to suspend	K
If as ye dream such power be not withheld	K
The unaccomplished destiny	A
	-
NOTE	K
your Garnett yon Forman Dowden	E
	-
	-
	-
CHORUS	B2
The curtain of the Universe	B2
Is rent and shattered	K
The splendour winged worlds disperse	B2
Like wild doves scattered	K
	-
Space is roofless and bare	Q
And in the midst a cloudy shrine	E
Dark amid thrones of light	K
In the blue glow of hyaline	E
Golden worlds revolve and shine	E
In flight	K
From every point of the Infinite	K
Like a thousand dawns on a single night	K
The splendours rise and spread	K
And through thunder and darkness dread	K
Light and music are radiated	K
And in their pavilioned chariots led	K
By living wings high overhead	K
The giant Powers move	F2
Gloomy or bright as the thrones they fill	G2
	-
	-
	-
A chaos of light and motion	E
Upon that glassy ocean	E
	-
	-
	-
The senate of the Gods is met	K
Each in his rank and station set	K
There is silence in the spaces	B2
Lo Satan Christ and Mahomet	K
Start from their places	B2
	-
CHRIST	K
Almighty Father	W
Low kneeling at the feet of Destiny	E
	-
	-
	-
There are two fountains in which spirits weep	H2
When mortals err Discord and Slavery named	K
And with their bitter dew two Destinies	B2
Filled each their irrevocable urns the third	K
Fiercest and mightiest mingled both and added	K
Chaos and Death and slow Oblivion's lymph	I2
And hate and terror and the poisoned rain	E
	-
	-
	-
The Aurora of the nations By this brow	J2
Whose pores wept tears of blood by these wide wounds	B2
By this imperial crown of agony	E
By infamy and solitude and death	K2
For this I underwent and by the pain	E
Of pity for those who would for me	E
The unremembered joy of a revenge	L2
For this I felt by Plato's sacred light	K
Of which my spirit was a burning morrow	T
By Greece and all she cannot cease to be	E
Her quenchless words sparks of immortal truth	M2
Stars of all night her harmonies and forms	B2
Echoes and shadows of what Love adores	B2
In thee I do compel thee send forth Fate	K
Thy irrevocable child let her descend	K
A seraph winged Victory arrayed	K
In tempest of the omnipotence of God	K
Which sweeps through all things	B2
	-
From hollow leagues from Tyranny which arms	B2
Adverse miscreeds and emulous anarchies	B2
To stamp as on a winged serpent's seed	K
Upon the name of Freedom from the storm	N2
Of faction which like earthquake shakes and sickens	B2
The solid heart of enterprise from all	O2
By which the holiest dreams of highest spirits	B2
Are stars beneath the dawn	E
She shall arise	B2
Victorious as the world arose from Chaos	B2
And as the Heavens and the Earth arrayed	K
Their presence in the beauty and the light	K
Of Thy first smile O Father as they gather	W
The spirit of Thy love which paves for them	P
Their path o'er the abyss till every sphere	P2
Shall be one living Spirit so shall Greece	B2
	-
SATAN	E
Be as all things beneath the empyrean	E
Mine Art thou eyeless like old Destiny	E
Thou mockery king crowned with a wreath of thorns	B2
Whose sceptre is a reed the broken reed	K
Which pierces thee whose throne a chair of scorn	E
For seest thou not beneath this crystal floor	C
The innumerable worlds of golden light	K
Which are my empire and the least of them	P
which thou wouldst redeem from me	E
Know'st thou not them my portion	E
Or wouldst rekindle the strife	Q2
Which our great Father then did arbitrate	K
Which he assigned to his competing sons	B2
Each his apportioned realm	S
Thou Destiny	E
Thou who art mailed in the omnipotence	B2
Of Him who tends thee forth whate'er thy task	R2
Speed spare not to accomplish and be mine	E
Thy trophies whether Greece again become	S2
The fountain in the desert whence the earth	T2
Shall drink of freedom which shall give it strength	U2
To suffer or a gulf of hollow death	K2
To swallow all delight all life all hope	V2
Go thou Vicegerent of my will no less	B2
Than of the Father's but lest thou shouldst faint	K
The winged hounds Famine and Pestilence	B2
Shall wait on thee the hundred forked snake	W2
Insatiate Superstition still shall	N
The earth behind thy steps and War shall hover	W
Above and Fraud shall gape below and Change	X2
Shall flit before thee on her dragon wings	B2
Convulsing and consuming and I add	K
Three vials of the tears which daemons weep	H2
When virtuous spirits through the gate of Death	K2
Pass triumphing over the thorns of life	Q2
Sceptres and crowns mitres and swords and snares	B2
Trampling in scorn like Him and Socrates	B2
The first is Anarchy when Power and Pleasure	W
Glory and science and security	E
On Freedom hang like fruit on the green tree	E
Then pour it forth and men shall gather ashes	B2
The second Tyranny	E
	-
CHRIST	K
Obdurate spirit	K
Thou seest but the Past in the To come	S2
Pride is thy error and thy punishment	K
Boast not thine empire dream not that thy worlds	B2
Are more than furnace sparks or rainbow drops	B2
Before the Power that wields and kindles them	P
True greatness asks not space true excellence	B2
Lives in the Spirit of all things that live	Y2
Which lends it to the worlds thou callest thine	E
	-
	-
	-
MAHOMET	K
Haste thou and fill the waning crescent	K
With beams as keen as those which pierced the shadow	K
Of Christian night rolled back upon the West	K
When the orient moon of Islam rode in triumph	Z2
From Tmolus to the Acroceraunian snow	K
	-
	-
	-
Wake thou Word	K
Of God and from the throne of Destiny	E
Even to the utmost limit of thy way	A3
May Triumph	Z2
	-
	-
	-
Be thou a curse on them whose creed	K
Divides and multiplies the most high God	K
	-
	-
HELLAS	B2
	-
DRAMATIS PERSONAE	A3
	-
MAHMUD	K
HASSAN	E
DAOOD	K
AHASUERUS A JEW	H
CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN	E
THE PHANTOM OF MAHOMET II OMITTED EDITION	E
MESSENGERS SLAVES AND ATTENDANTS	B2
	-
SCENE	E
CONSTANTINOPLE	O
	-
TIME SUNSET	K
	-
SCENE	E
A TERRACE ON THE SERAGLIO	O
MAHMUD SLEEPING	B3
AN INDIAN SLAVE SITTING BESIDE HIS COUCH	C3
	-
CHORUS OF GREEK CAPTIVE WOMEN	E
We strew these opiate flowers	B2
On thy restless pillow	O
They were stripped from Orient bowers	B2
By the Indian billow	O
Be thy sleep	H2
Calm and deep	H2
Like theirs who fell not ours who weep	H2
	-
INDIAN	E
Away unlovely dreams	B2
Away false shapes of sleep	H2
Be his as Heaven seems	B2
Clear and bright and deep	H2
Soft as love and calm as death	K2
Sweet as a summer night without a breath	K2
	-
CHORUS	B2
Sleep sleep our song is laden	E
With the soul of slumber	W
It was sung by a Samian maiden	E
Whose lover was of the number	W
Who now keep	H2
That calm sleep	H2
Whence none may wake where none shall weep	H2
	-
INDIAN	E
I touch thy temples pale	O
I breathe my soul on thee	E
And could my prayers avail	O
All my joy should be	E
Dead and I would live to weep	H2
So thou mightst win one hour of quiet sleep	H2
	-
CHORUS	B2
Breathe low low	O
The spell of the mighty mistress now	E
When Conscience lulls her sated snake	W2
And Tyrants sleep let Freedom wake	W2
Breathe low low	O
The words which like secret fire shall flow	O
Through the veins of the frozen earth low low	O
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
Life may change but it may fly not	K
Hope may vanish but can die not	K
Truth be veiled but still it burneth	E
Love repulsed but it returneth	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
Yet were life a charnel where	Q
Hope lay coffined with Despair	Q
Yet were truth a sacred lie	O
Love were lust	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
If Liberty	E
Lent not life its soul of light	K
Hope its iris of delight	K
Truth its prophet's robe to wear	Q
Love its power to give and bear	Q
	-
CHORUS	B2
In the great morning of the world	K
The Spirit of God with might unfurled	K
The flag of Freedom over Chaos	B2
And all its banded anarchs fled	K
Like vultures frighted from Imaus	B2
Before an earthquake's tread	K
So from Time's tempestuous dawn	E
Freedom's splendour burst and shone	E
Thermopylae and Marathon	E
Caught like mountains beacon lighted	K
The springing Fire The winged glory	E
On Philippi half alighted	K
Like an eagle on a promontory	E
Its unwearied wings could fan	E
The quenchless ashes of Milan	E
From age to age from man to man	E
It lived and lit from land to land	K
Florence Albion Switzerland	K
	-
Then night fell and as from night	K
Reassuming fiery flight	K
From the West swift Freedom came	D2
Against the course of Heaven and doom	L
A second sun arrayed in flame	D2
To burn to kindle to illume	D2
From far Atlantis its young beams	B2
Chased the shadows and the dreams	B2
France with all her sanguine steams	B2
Hid but quenched it not again	E
Through clouds its shafts of glory rain	E
From utmost Germany to Spain	E
As an eagle fed with morning	B3
Scorns the embattled tempest's warning	B3
When she seeks her aerie hanging	B3
In the mountain cedar's hair	E
And her brood expect the clanging	B3
Of her wings through the wild air	E
Sick with famine Freedom so	B2
To what of Greece remaineth now	E
Returns her hoary ruins glow	B2
Like Orient mountains lost in day	K
Beneath the safety of her wings	B2
Her renovated nurslings prey	K
And in the naked lightenings	B2
Of truth they purge their dazzled eyes	B2
Let Freedom leave where'er she flies	B2
A Desert or a Paradise	B2
Let the beautiful and the brave	D3
Share her glory or a grave	D3
	-
NOTES	B2
tempest's tempests edition	E
prey edition play editions	B2
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
With the gifts of gladness	B2
Greece did thy cradle strew	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
With the tears of sadness	B2
Greece did thy shroud bedew	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
With an orphan's affection	E
She followed thy bier through Time	D2
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
And at thy resurrection	E
Reappeareth like thou sublime	D2
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
If Heaven should resume thee	E
To Heaven shall her spirit ascend	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
If Hell should entomb thee	E
To Hell shall her high hearts bend	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
If Annihilation	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	B2
Dust let her glories be	E
And a name and a nation	E
Be forgotten Freedom with thee	E
	-
INDIAN	E
His brow grows darker breathe not move not	K
He starts he shudders ye that love not	K
With your panting loud and fast	K
Have awakened him at last	K
	-
MAHMUD STARTING FROM HIS SLEEP	H2
Man the Seraglio guard make fast the gate	K
What from a cannonade of three short hours	B2
'Tis false that breach towards the Bosphorus	B2
Cannot be practicable yet who stirs	B2
Stand to the match that when the foe prevails	B2
One spark may mix in reconciling ruin	E
The conqueror and the conquered Heave the tower	E
Into the gap wrench off the roof	E3
ENTER HASSAN	E
Ha what	K
The truth of day lightens upon my dream	D2
And I am Mahmud still	O
	-
HASSAN	E
Your Sublime Highness	B2
Is strangely moved	K
	-
MAHMUD	K
The times do cast strange shadows	B2
On those who watch and who must rule their course	B2
Lest they being first in peril as in glory	E
Be whelmed in the fierce ebb and these are of them	D2
Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me	E
As thus from sleep into the troubled day	K
It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea	E
Leaving no figure upon memory's glass	B2
Would that no matter Thou didst say thou knewest	K
A Jew whose spirit is a chronicle	O
Of strange and secret and forgotten things	B2
I bade thee summon him 'tis said his tribe	F3
Dream and are wise interpreters of dreams	B2
	-
HASSAN	E
The Jew of whom I spake is old so old	K
He seems to have outlived a world's decay	K
The hoary mountains and the wrinkled ocean	E
Seem younger still than he his hair and beard	K
Are whiter than the tempest sifted snow	B2
His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries	B2
Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct	K
With light and to the soul that quickens them	D2
Are as the atoms of the mountain drift	K
To the winter wind but from his eye looks forth	E
A life of unconsumed thought which pierces	B2
The Present and the Past and the To come	D2
Some say that this is he whom the great prophet	K
Jesus the son of Joseph for his mockery	E
Mocked with the curse of immortality	E
Some feign that he is Enoch others dream	D2
He was pre adamite and has survived	K
Cycles of generation and of ruin	E
The sage in truth by dreadful abstinence	B2
And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh	G3
Deep contemplation and unwearied study	E
In years outstretched beyond the date of man	E
May have attained to sovereignty and science	B2
Over those strong and secret things and thoughts	B2
Which others fear and know not	K
	-
MAHMUD	K
I would talk	H3
With this old Jew	E
	-
HASSAN	E
Thy will is even now	E
Made known to him where he dwells in a sea cavern	E
'Mid the Demonesi less accessible	O
Than thou or God He who would question him	D2
Must sail alone at sunset where the stream	D2
Of Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles	B2
When the young moon is westering as now	E
And evening airs wander upon the wave	D3
And when the pines of that bee pasturing isle	O
Green Erebinthus quench the fiery shadow	B2
Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water	E
Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud	K
'Ahasuerus ' and the caverns round	K
Will answer 'Ahasuerus ' If his prayer	E
Be granted a faint meteor will arise	B2
Lighting him over Marmora and a wind	K
Will rush out of the sighing pine forest	K
And with the wind a storm of harmony	E
Unutterably sweet and pilot him	D2
Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus	B2
Thence at the hour and place and circumstance	B2
Fit for the matter of their conference	B2
The Jew appears Few dare and few who dare	E
Win the desired communion but that shout	K
Bodes	B2
	-
A SHOUT WITHIN	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Evil doubtless Like all human sounds	B2
Let me converse with spirits	B2
	-
HASSAN	E
That shout again	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
This Jew whom thou hast summoned	K
	-
HASSAN	E
Will be here	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked	K
He I and all things shall compel enough	I3
Silence those mutineers that drunken crew	E
That crowd about the pilot in the storm	D2
Ay strike the foremost shorter by a head	K
They weary me and I have need of rest	K
Kinks are like stars they rise and set they have	J3
The worship of the world but no repose	B2
	-
EXEUNT SEVERALLY	E
	-
CHORUS	B2
Worlds on worlds are rolling ever	E
From creation to decay	K
Like the bubbles on a river	E
Sparkling bursting borne away	K
But they are still immortal	O
Who through birth's orient portal	O
And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro	B2
Clothe their unceasing flight	K
In the brief dust and light	K
Gathered around their chariots as they go	B2
New shapes they still may weave	K3
New gods new laws receive	K3
Bright or dim are they as the robes they last	K
On Death's bare ribs had cast	K
	-
A power from the unknown God	K
A Promethean conqueror came	D2
Like a triumphal path he trod	K
The thorns of death and shame	D2
A mortal shape to him	D2
Was like the vapour dim	D2
Which the orient planet animates with light	K
Hell Sin and Slavery came	D2
Like bloodhounds mild and tame	D2
Nor preyed until their Lord had taken flight	K
The moon of Mahomet	K
Arose and it shall set	K
While blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon	E
The cross leads generations on	E
	-
Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep	H2
From one whose dreams are Paradise	B2
Fly when the fond wretch wakes to weep	H2
And Day peers forth with her blank eyes	B2
So fleet so faint so fair	E
The Powers of earth and air	E
Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem	D2
Apollo Pan and Love	L3
And even Olympian Jove	L3
Grew weak for killing Truth had glared on them	D2
Our hills and seas and streams	B2
Dispeopled of their dreams	B2
Their waters turned to blood their dew to tears	B2
Wailed for the golden years	B2
	-
ENTER MAHMUD HASSAN DAOOD AND OTHERS	B2
	-
MAHMUD	K
More gold our ancestors bought gold with victory	E
And shall I sell it for defeat	K
	-
DAOOD	K
The Janizars	B2
Clamour for pay	K
	-
MAHMUD	K
Go bid them pay themselves	B2
With Christian blood Are there no Grecian virgins	B2
Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy	M3
No infidel children to impale on spears	B2
No hoary priests after that Patriarch	N3
Who bent the curse against his country's heart	K
Which clove his own at last Go bid them kill	O
Blood is the seed of gold	K
	-
DAOOD	K
It has been sown	E
And yet the harvest to the sicklemen	E
Is as a grain to each	O3
	-
MAHMUD	K
Then take this signet	K
Unlock the seventh chamber in which lie	O
The treasures of victorious Solyman	E
An empire's spoil stored for a day of ruin	E
O spirit of my sires is it not come	D2
The prey birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep	H2
But these who spread their feast on the red earth	E
Hunger for gold which fills not See them fed	K
Then lead them to the rivers of fresh death	E
EXIT DAOOD	K
O miserable dawn after a night	K
More glorious than the day which it usurped	K
O faith in God O power on earth O word	K
Of the great prophet whose o'ershadowing wings	B2
Darkened the thrones and idols of the West	K
Now bright For thy sake cursed be the hour	E
Even as a father by an evil child	K
When the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph	L3
From Caucasus to White Ceraunia	E
Ruin above and anarchy below	B2
Terror without and treachery within	E
The Chalice of destruction full and all	O
Thirsting to drink and who among us dares	B2
To dash it from his lips and where is Hope	V2
	-
HASSAN	E
The lamp of our dominion still rides high	O
One God is God Mahomet is His prophet	K
Four hundred thousand Moslems from the limits	B2
Of utmost Asia irresistibly	E
Throng like full clouds at the Sirocco's cry	O
But not like them to weep their strength in tears	B2
They bear destroying lightning and their step	P3
Wakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm	D2
And reign in ruin Phrygian Olympus	B2
Tmolus and Latmos and Mycale roughen	E
With horrent arms and lofty ships even now	E
Like vapours anchored to a mountain's edge	Q3
Freighted with fire and whirlwind wait at Scala	O
The convoy of the ever veering wind	K
Samos is drunk with blood the Greek has paid	K
Brief victory with swift loss and long despair	E
The false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far	E
When the fierce shout of 'Allah illa Allah '	-
Rose like the war cry of the northern wind	K
Which kills the sluggish clouds and leaves a flock	R3
Of wild swans struggling with the naked storm	D2
So were the lost Greeks on the Danube's day	K
If night is mute yet the returning sun	E
Kindles the voices of the morning birds	B2
Nor at thy bidding less exultingly	O
Than birds rejoicing in the golden day	K
The Anarchies of Africa unleash	S3
Their tempest winged cities of the sea	E
To speak in thunder to the rebel world	K
Like sulphurous clouds half shattered by the storm	D2
They sweep the pale Aegean while the Queen	E
Of Ocean bound upon her island throne	E
Far in the West sits mourning that her sons	B2
Who frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee	E
Russia still hovers as an eagle might	K
Within a cloud near which a kite and crane	E
Hang tangled in inextricable fight	K
To stoop upon the victor for she fears	B2
The name of Freedom even as she hates thine	E
But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave	L3
Loves Pestilence and her slow dogs of war	E
Fleshed with the chase come up from Italy	E
And howl upon their limits for they see	E
The panther Freedom fled to her old cover	E
Amid seas and mountains and a mightier brood	K
Crouch round What Anarch wears a crown or mitre	E
Or bears the sword or grasps the key of gold	K
Whose friends are not thy friends whose foes thy foes	B2
Our arsenals and our armouries are full	O
Our forts defy assault ten thousand cannon	E
Lie ranged upon the beach and hour by hour	E
Their earth convulsing wheels affright the city	E
The galloping of fiery steeds makes pale	O
The Christian merchant and the yellow Jew	E
Hides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth	E
Like clouds and like the shadows of the clouds	B2
Over the hills of Anatolia	O
Swift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry	E
Sweep the far flashing of their starry lances	B2
Reverberates the dying light of day	K
We have one God one King one Hope one Law	O
But many headed Insurrection stands	B2
Divided in itself and soon must fall	O
	-
NOTES	B2
spoil edition spoils editions	B2
bear edition have editions	B2
assault edition assaults editions	B2
	-
MAHMUD	K
Proud words when deeds come short are seasonable	O
Look Hassan on yon crescent moon emblazoned	K
Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud	K
Which leads the rear of the departing day	K
Wan emblem of an empire fading now	E
See how it trembles in the blood red air	E
And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent	K
Shrinks on the horizon's edge while from above	L3
One star with insolent and victorious light	K
Hovers above its fall and with keen beams	B2
Like arrows through a fainting antelope	V2
Strikes its weak form to death	E
	-
HASSAN	E
Even as that moon	E
Renews itself	L3
	-
MAHMUD	K
Shall we be not renewed	K
Far other bark than ours were needed now	E
To stem the torrent of descending time	D2
The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord	K
Stalks through the capitals of armed kings	B2
And spreads his ensign in the wilderness	B2
Exults in chains and when the rebel falls	B2
Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust	K
And the inheritors of the earth like beasts	B2
When earthquake is unleashed with idiot fear	E
Cower in their kingly dens as I do now	E
What were Defeat when Victory must appal	O
Or Danger when Security looks pale	O
How said the messenger who from the fort	K
Islanded in the Danube saw the battle	O
Of Bucharest that	K
	-
NOTES	B2
his edition its editions	B2
of the earth edition of earth editions	B2
	-
HASSAN	E
Ibrahim's scimitar	E
Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven	E
To burn before him in the night of battle	O
A light and a destruction	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Ay the day	K
Was ours but how	E
	-
HASSAN	E
The light Wallachians	B2
The Arnaut Servian and Albanian allies	B2
Fled from the glance of our artillery	E
Almost before the thunderstone alit	K
One half the Grecian army made a bridge	T3
Of safe and slow retreat with Moslem dead	K
The other	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Speak tremble not	K
	-
HASSAN	E
Islanded	K
By victor myriads formed in hollow square	E
With rough and steadfast front and thrice flung back	U3
The deluge of our foaming cavalry	E
Thrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines	B2
Our baffled army trembled like one man	E
Before a host and gave them space but soon	E
From the surrounding hills the batteries blazed	K
Kneading them down with fire and iron rain	E
Yet none approached till like a field of corn	E
Under the hook of the swart sickleman	E
The band intrenched in mounds of Turkish dead	K
Grew weak and few Then said the Pacha 'Slaves	B2
Render yourselves they have abandoned you	E
What hope of refuge or retreat or aid	K
We grant your lives ' 'Grant that which is thine own '	-
Cried one and fell upon his sword and died	K
Another 'God and man and hope abandon me	E
But I to them and to myself remain	E
Constant ' he bowed his head and his heart burst	K
A third exclaimed 'There is a refuge tyrant	K
Where thou darest not pursue and canst not harm	D2
Shouldst thou pursue there we shall meet again '	-
Then held his breath and after a brief spasm	D2
The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment	K
Among the slain dead earth upon the earth	E
So these survivors each by different ways	B2
Some strange all sudden none dishonourable	O
Met in triumphant death and when our army	E
Closed in while yet wonder and awe and shame	D2
Held back the base hyaenas of the battle	O
That feed upon the dead and fly the living	B3
One rose out of the chaos of the slain	E
And if it were a corpse which some dread spirit	K
Of the old saviours of the land we rule	O
Had lifted in its anger wandering by	O
Or if there burned within the dying man	E
Unquenchable disdain of death and faith	E
Creating what it feigned I cannot tell	O
But he cried 'Phantoms of the free we come	D2
Armies of the Eternal ye who strike	V3
To dust the citadels of sanguine kings	B2
And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts	B2
And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew	E
O ye who float around this clime and weave	L3
The garment of the glory which it wears	B2
Whose fame though earth betray the dust it clasped	K
Lies sepulchred in monumental thought	K
Progenitors of all that yet is great	K
Ascribe to your bright senate O accept	K
In your high ministrations us your sons	B2
Us first and the more glorious yet to come	D2
And ye weak conquerors giants who look pale	O
When the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread	K
The vultures and the dogs your pensioners tame	D2
Are overgorged but like oppressors still	O
They crave the relic of Destruction's feast	K
The exhalations and the thirsty winds	B2
Are sick with blood the dew is foul with death	E
Heaven's light is quenched in slaughter thus where'er	E
Upon your camps cities or towers or fleets	B2
The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast	K
Of these dead limbs upon your streams and mountains	B2
Upon your fields your gardens and your housetops	B2
Where'er the winds shall creep or the clouds fly	O
Or the dews fall or the angry sun look down	E
With poisoned light Famine and Pestilence	B2
And Panic shall wage war upon our side	K
Nature from all her boundaries is moved	K
Against ye Time has found ye light as foam	D2
The Earth rebels and Good and Evil stake	W2
Their empire o'er the unborn world of men	E
On this one cast but ere the die be thrown	E
The renovated genius of our race	B2
Proud umpire of the impious game descends	B2
A seraph winged Victory bestriding	W2
The tempest of the Omnipotence of God	K
Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom	D2
And you to oblivion ' More he would have said	K
But	K
	-
NOTE	K
band edition bands editions	B2
	-
MAHMUD	K
Died as thou shouldst ore thy lips had painted	K
Their ruin in the hues of our success	B2
A rebel's crime gilt with a rebel's tongue	W2
Your heart is Greek Hassan	E
	-
HASSAN	E
It may be so	B2
A spirit not my own wrenched me within	E
And I have spoken words I fear and hate	K
Yet would I die for	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Live oh live outlive	L3
Me and this sinking empire But the fleet	K
	-
HASSAN	E
Alas	B2
	-
MAHMUD	K
The fleet which like a flock of clouds	B2
Chased by the wind flies the insurgent banner	E
Our winged castles from their merchant ships	B2
Our myriads before their weak pirate bands	B2
Our arms before their chains our years of empire	E
Before their centuries of servile fear	E
Death is awake Repulse is on the waters	B2
They own no more the thunder bearing banner	E
Of Mahmud but like hounds of a base breed	K
Gorge from a stranger's hand and rend their master	E
	-
NOTE	K
Repulse is Shelley Errata edition Repulsed edition	E
	-
HASSAN	E
Latmos and Ampelos and Phanae saw	B2
The wreck	W2
	-
MAHMUD	K
The caves of the Icarian isles	B2
Told each to the other in loud mockery	E
And with the tongue as of a thousand echoes	B2
First of the sea convulsing fight and then	E
Thou darest to speak senseless are the mountains	B2
Interpret thou their voice	B2
	-
NOTE	K
Told Errata Wms transcript Hold edition	E
	-
HASSAN	E
My presence bore	E
A part in that day's shame The Grecian fleet	K
Bore down at daybreak from the North and hung	W2
As multitudinous on the ocean line	E
As cranes upon the cloudless Thracian wind	K
Our squadron convoying ten thousand men	E
Was stretching towards Nauplia when the battle	O
Was kindled	K
First through the hail of our artillery	E
The agile Hydriote barks with press of sail	O
Dashed ship to ship cannon to cannon man	E
To man were grappled in the embrace of war	E
Inextricable but by death or victory	E
The tempest of the raging fight convulsed	K
To its crystalline depths that stainless sea	E
And shook Heaven's roof of golden morning clouds	B2
Poised on an hundred azure mountain isles	B2
In the brief trances of the artillery	E
One cry from the destroyed and the destroyer	E
Rose and a cloud of desolation wrapped	K
The unforeseen event till the north wind	K
Sprung from the sea lifting the heavy veil	O
Of battle smoke then victory victory	E
For as we thought three frigates from Algiers	B2
Bore down from Naxos to our aid but soon	E
The abhorred cross glimmered behind before	E
Among around us and that fatal sign	E
Dried with its beams the strength in Moslem hearts	B2
As the sun drinks the dew What more We fled	K
Our noonday path over the sanguine foam	D2
Was beaconed and the glare struck the sun pale	O
By our consuming transports the fierce light	K
Made all the shadows of our sails blood red	K
And every countenance blank Some ships lay feeding	W2
The ravening fire even to the water's level	O
Some were blown up some settling heavily	E
Sunk and the shrieks of our companions died	K
Upon the wind that bore us fast and far	E
Even after they were dead Nine thousand perished	K
We met the vultures legioned in the air	E
Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind	K
They screaming from their cloudy mountain peaks	B2
Stooped through the sulphurous battle smoke and perched	K
Each on the weltering carcase that we loved	K
Like its ill angel or its damned soul	O
Riding upon the bosom of the sea	E
We saw the dog fish hastening to their feast	K
Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea	E
And ravening Famine left his ocean cave	L3
To dwell with War with us and with Despair	E
We met night three hours to the west of Patmos	E
And with night tempest	K
	-
NOTES	E
in edition of editions	E
And edition As editions	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Cease	E
	-
ENTER A MESSENGER	E
	-
MESSENGER	E
Your Sublime Highness	E
That Christian hound the Muscovite Ambassador	E
Has left the city If the rebel fleet	K
Had anchored in the port had victory	E
Crowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome	D2
Panic were tamer Obedience and Mutiny	E
Like giants in contention planet struck	W2
Stand gazing on each other There is peace	E
In Stamboul	O
	-
MAHMUD	K
Is the grave not calmer still	O
Its ruins shall be mine	E
	-
HASSAN	E
Fear not the Russian	E
The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay	K
Against the hunter Cunning base and cruel	O
He crouches watching till the spoil be won	E
And must be paid for his reserve in blood	K
After the war is fought yield the sleek Russian	E
That which thou canst not keep his deserved portion	E
Of blood which shall not flow through streets and fields	E
Rivers and seas like that which we may win	E
But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves	E
	-
ENTER SECOND MESSENGER	E
	-
SECOND MESSENGER	E
Nauplia Tripolizza Mothon Athens	E
Navarin Artas Monembasia	S3
Corinth and Thebes are carried by assault	K
And every Islamite who made his dogs	E
Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves	E
Passed at the edge of the sword the lust of blood	K
Which made our warriors drunk is quenched in death	E
But like a fiery plague breaks out anew	E
In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale	O
In its own light The garrison of Patras	E
Has store but for ten days nor is there hope	V2
But from the Briton at once slave and tyrant	K
His wishes still are weaker than his fears	E
Or he would sell what faith may yet remain	E
From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway	K
And if you buy him not your treasury	E
Is empty even of promises his own coin	E
The freedman of a western poet chief	L3
Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels	E
And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont	K
The aged Ali sits in Yanina	E
A crownless metaphor of empire	E
His name that shadow of his withered might	K
Holds our besieging army like a spell	O
In prey to famine pest and mutiny	E
He bastioned in his citadel looks forth	E
Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors	E
The ruins of the city where he reigned	K
Childless and sceptreless The Greek has reaped	K
The costly harvest his own blood matured	K
Not the sower Ali who has bought a truce	E
From Ypsilanti with ten camel loads	E
Of Indian gold	K
	-
NOTE	K
freedman edition freeman editions	E
	-
ENTER A THIRD MESSENGER	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
What more	E
	-
THIRD MESSENGER	E
The Christian tribes	E
Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness	E
Are in revolt Damascus Hems Aleppo	V2
Tremble the Arab menaces Medina	E
The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar	E
And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed	K
Who denies homage claims investiture	E
As price of tardy aid Persia demands	E
The cities on the Tigris and the Georgians	E
Refuse their living tribute Crete and Cyprus	E
Like mountain twins that from each other's veins	E
Catch the volcano fire and earthquake spasm	D2
Shake in the general fever Through the city	E
Like birds before a storm the Santons shriek	W2
And prophesyings horrible and new	E
Are heard among the crowd that sea of men	E
Sleeps on the wrecks it made breathless and still	O
A Dervise learned in the Koran preaches	E
That it is written how the sins of Islam	D2
Must raise up a destroyer even now	E
The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West	K
Who shall not come men say in clouds and glory	E
But in the omnipresence of that Spirit	K
In which all live and are Ominous signs	E
Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky	W2
One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun	E
It has rained blood and monstrous births declare	E
The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord	K
The army encamped upon the Cydaris	E
Was roused last night by the alarm of battle	O
And saw two hosts conflicting in the air	E
The shadows doubtless of the unborn time	D2
Cast on the mirror of the night While yet	K
The fight hung balanced there arose a storm	D2
Which swept the phantoms from among the stars	E
At the third watch the Spirit of the Plague	W2
Was heard abroad flapping among the tents	E
Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead	K
The last news from the camp is that a thousand	K
Have sickened and	K
	-
ENTER A FOURTH MESSENGER	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
And thou pale ghost dim shadow	K
Of some untimely rumour speak	W2
	-
FOURTH MESSENGER	E
One comes	E
Fainting with toil covered with foam and blood	K
He stood he says on Chelonites'	E
Promontory which o'erlooks the isles that groan	E
Under the Briton's frown and all their waters	E
Then trembling in the splendour of the moon	E
When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid	K
Her boundless light he saw two adverse fleets	E
Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer	E
Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams	E
And smoke which strangled every infant wind	K
That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air	E
At length the battle slept but the Sirocco	W2
Awoke and drove his flock of thunder clouds	E
Over the sea horizon blotting out	K
All objects save that in the faint moon glimpse	E
He saw or dreamed he saw the Turkish admiral	O
And two the loftiest of our ships of war	E
With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven	E
Who hid perhaps her face for grief reversed	K
And the abhorred cross	E
	-
NOTE	K
on Chelonites' on Chelonites Errata	K
upon Clelonite's edition	E
upon Clelonit's editions	E
	-
ENTER AN ATTENDANT	K
	-
ATTENDANT	K
Your Sublime Highness	E
The Jew who	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Could not come more seasonably	O
Bid him attend I'll hear no more too long	W2
We gaze on danger through the mist of fear	E
And multiply upon our shattered hopes	E
The images of ruin Come what will	O
To morrow and to morrow are as lamps	E
Set in our path to light us to the edge	Q3
Through rough and smooth nor can we suffer aught	K
Which He inflicts not in whose hand we are	E
	-
EXEUNT	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Would I were the winged cloud	K
Of a tempest swift and loud	K
I would scorn	E
The smile of morn	E
And the wave where the moonrise is born	E
I would leave	L3
The spirits of eve	L3
A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave	L3
From other threads than mine	E
Bask in the deep blue noon divine	E
Who would Not I	W2
	-
NOTE	K
the deep blue Errata Wms transcript the blue edition	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Whither to fly	W2
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Where the rocks that gird th' Aegean	E
Echo to the battle paean	E
Of the free	E
I would flee	E
A tempestuous herald of victory	E
My golden rain	E
For the Grecian slain	E
Should mingle in tears with the bloody main	E
And my solemn thunder knell	O
Should ring to the world the passing bell	O
Of Tyranny	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Ah king wilt thou chain	E
The rack and the rain	E
Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane	E
The storms are free	E
But we	E
	-
CHORUS	E
O Slavery thou frost of the world's prime	D2
Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare	E
Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime	D2
These brows thy branding garland bear	E
But the free heart the impassive soul	O
Scorn thy control	O
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Let there be light said Liberty	E
And like sunrise from the sea	E
Athens arose Around her born	E
Shone like mountains in the morn	E
Glorious states and are they now	E
Ashes wrecks oblivion	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Go	W2
Where Thermae and Asopus swallowed	K
Persia as the sand does foam	D2
Deluge upon deluge followed	K
Discord Macedon and Rome	D2
And lastly thou	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Temples and towers	E
Citadels and marts and they	K
Who live and die there have been ours	E
And may be thine and must decay	K
But Greece and her foundations are	E
Built below the tide of war	E
Based on the crystalline sea	E
Of thought and its eternity	E
Her citizens imperial spirits	E
Rule the present from the past	K
On all this world of men inherits	E
Their seal is set	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Hear ye the blast	K
Whose Orphic thunder thrilling calls	E
From ruin her Titanian walls	E
Whose spirit shakes the sapless bones	E
Of Slavery Argos Corinth Crete	K
Hear and from their mountain thrones	E
The daemons and the nymphs repeat	K
The harmony	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
I hear I hear	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
The world's eyeless charioteer	E
Destiny is hurrying by	W2
What faith is crushed what empire bleeds	E
Beneath her earthquake footed steeds	E
What eagle winged victory sits	E
At her right hand what shadow flits	E
Before what splendour rolls behind	K
Ruin and renovation cry	W2
'Who but We '	-
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
I hear I hear	E
The hiss as of a rushing wind	K
The roar as of an ocean foaming	W2
The thunder as of earthquake coming	W2
I hear I hear	E
The crash as of an empire falling	W2
The shrieks as of a people calling	W2
'Mercy mercy ' How they thrill	O
Then a shout of 'kill kill kill '	-
And then a small still voice thus	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
For	E
Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind	K
The foul cubs like their parents are	E
Their den is in the guilty mind	K
And Conscience feeds them with despair	E
	-
NOTE	K
For edition Wms transcript	K
Fear cj Fleay Forman Dowden See Editor's Note	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
In sacred Athens near the fane	E
Of Wisdom Pity's altar stood	K
Serve not the unknown God in vain	E
But pay that broken shrine again	E
Love for hate and tears for blood	K
	-
ENTER MAHMUD AND AHASUERUS	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Thou art a man thou sayest even as we	E
	-
AHASUERUS	E
No more	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
But raised above thy fellow men	E
By thought as I by power	E
	-
AHASUERUS	E
Thou sayest so	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Thou art an adept in the difficult lore	E
Of Greek and Frank philosophy thou numberest	K
The flowers and thou measurest the stars	E
Thou severest element from element	K
Thy spirit is present in the Past and sees	E
The birth of this old world through all its cycles	E
Of desolation and of loveliness	E
And when man was not and how man became	D2
The monarch and the slave of this low sphere	E
And all its narrow circles it is much	S3
I honour thee and would be what thou art	K
Were I not what I am but the unborn hour	E
Cradled in fear and hope conflicting storms	E
Who shall unveil Nor thou nor I nor any	E
Mighty or wise I apprehended not	K
What thou hast taught me but I now perceive	L3
That thou art no interpreter of dreams	E
Thou dost not own that art device or God	K
Can make the Future present let it come	D2
Moreover thou disdainest us and ours	E
Thou art as God whom thou contemplatest	K
	-
AHASUERUS	E
Disdain thee not the worm beneath thy feet	K
The Fathomless has care for meaner things	E
Than thou canst dream and has made pride for those	E
Who would be what they may not or would seem	D2
That which they are not Sultan talk no more	E
Of thee and me the Future and the Past	K
But look on that which cannot change the One	E
The unborn and the undying Earth and ocean	E
Space and the isles of life or light that gem	D2
The sapphire floods of interstellar air	E
This firmament pavilioned upon chaos	E
With all its cressets of immortal fire	E
Whose outwall bastioned impregnably	O
Against the escape of boldest thoughts repels them	D2
As Calpe the Atlantic clouds this Whole	O
Of suns and worlds and men and beasts and flowers	E
With all the silent or tempestuous workings	E
By which they have been are or cease to be	E
Is but a vision all that it inherits	E
Are motes of a sick eye bubbles and dreams	E
Thought is its cradle and its grave nor less	E
The Future and the Past are idle shadows	E
Of thought's eternal flight they have no being	W2
Nought is but that which feels itself to be	E
	-
NOTE	K
thy edition my editions	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
What meanest thou Thy words stream like a tempest	K
Of dazzling mist within my brain they shake	W2
The earth on which I stand and hang like night	K
On Heaven above me What can they avail	O
They cast on all things surest brightest best	K
Doubt insecurity astonishment	K
	-
AHASUERUS	E
Mistake me not All is contained in each	S3
Dodona's forest to an acorn's cup	V2
Is that which has been or will be to that	K
Which is the absent to the present Thought	K
Alone and its quick elements Will Passion	E
Reason Imagination cannot die	K
They are what that which they regard appears	E
The stuff whence mutability can weave	L3
All that it hath dominion o'er worlds worms	E
Empires and superstitions What has thought	K
To do with time or place or circumstance	E
Wouldst thou behold the Future ask and have	L3
Knock and it shall be opened look and lo	O
The coming age is shadowed on the Past	K
As on a glass	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Wild wilder thoughts convulse	E
My spirit Did not Mahomet the Second	K
Win Stamboul	O
	-
AHASUERUS	E
Thou wouldst ask that giant spirit	K
The written fortunes of thy house and faith	E
Thou wouldst cite one out of the grave to tell	O
How what was born in blood must die	K
	-
MAHMUD	K
Thy words	E
Have power on me I see	E
	-
AHASUERUS	E
What hearest thou	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
A far whisper	E
Terrible silence	E
	-
AHASUERUS	E
What succeeds	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
The sound	K
As of the assault of an imperial city	E
The hiss of inextinguishable fire	E
The roar of giant cannon the earthquaking	W2
Fall of vast bastions and precipitous towers	E
The shock of crags shot from strange enginery	E
The clash of wheels and clang of armed hoofs	E
And crash of brazen mail as of the wreck	W2
Of adamantine mountains the mad blast	K
Of trumpets and the neigh of raging steeds	E
The shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood	K
And one sweet laugh most horrible to hear	E
As of a joyous infant waked and playing	W2
With its dead mother's breast and now more loud	K
The mingled battle cry ha hear I not	K
'En touto nike ' 'Allah illa Allah '	-
	-
AHASUERUS	E
The sulphurous mist is raised thou seest	K
	-
MAHMUD	K
A chasm	D2
As of two mountains in the wall of Stamboul	O
And in that ghastly breach the Islamites	E
Like giants on the ruins of a world	K
Stand in the light of sunrise In the dust	K
Glimmers a kingless diadem and one	E
Of regal port has cast himself beneath	E
The stream of war Another proudly clad	K
In golden arms spurs a Tartarian barb	W3
Into the gap and with his iron mace	E
Directs the torrent of that tide of men	E
And seems he is Mahomet	K
	-
AHASUERUS	E
What thou seest	K
Is but the ghost of thy forgotten dream	D2
A dream itself yet less perhaps than that	K
Thou call'st reality Thou mayst behold	K
How cities on which Empire sleeps enthroned	K
Bow their towered crests to mutability	K
Poised by the flood e'en on the height thou holdest	K
Thou mayst now learn how the full tide of power	E
Ebbs to its depths Inheritor of glory	E
Conceived in darkness born in blood and nourished	K
With tears and toil thou seest the mortal throes	E
Of that whose birth was but the same The Past	K
Now stands before thee like an Incarnation	E
Of the To come yet wouldst thou commune with	E
That portion of thyself which was ere thou	E
Didst start for this brief race whose crown is death	E
Dissolve with that strong faith and fervent passion	E
Which called it from the uncreated deep	V2
Yon cloud of war with its tempestuous phantoms	E
Of raging death and draw with mighty will	O
The imperial shade hither	E
	-
EXIT AHASUERUS	E
	-
THE PHANTOM OF MAHOMET THE SECOND APPEARS	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Approach	S3
	-
PHANTOM	D2
I come	D2
Thence whither thou must go The grave is fitter	E
To take the living than give up the dead	K
Yet has thy faith prevailed and I am here	E
The heavy fragments of the power which fell	O
When I arose like shapeless crags and clouds	E
Hang round my throne on the abyss and voices	E
Of strange lament soothe my supreme repose	E
Wailing for glory never to return	E
A later Empire nods in its decay	W2
The autumn of a greener faith is come	D2
And wolfish change like winter howls to strip	V2
The foliage in which Fame the eagle built	K
Her aerie while Dominion whelped below	O
The storm is in its branches and the frost	K
Is on its leaves and the blank deep expects	E
Oblivion on oblivion spoil on spoil	O
Ruin on ruin Thou art slow my son	E
The Anarchs of the world of darkness keep	V2
A throne for thee round which thine empire lies	E
Boundless and mute and for thy subjects thou	E
Like us shalt rule the ghosts of murdered life	L3
The phantoms of the powers who rule thee now	E
Mutinous passions and conflicting fears	E
And hopes that sate themselves on dust and die	K
Stripped of their mortal strength as thou of thine	E
Islam must fall but we will reign together	E
Over its ruins in the world of death	E
And if the trunk be dry yet shall the seed	K
Unfold itself even in the shape of that	K
Which gathers birth in its decay Woe woe	O
To the weak people tangled in the grasp	V2
Of its last spasms	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Spirit woe to all	O
Woe to the wronged and the avenger Woe	O
To the destroyer woe to the destroyed	K
Woe to the dupe and woe to the deceiver	E
Woe to the oppressed and woe to the oppressor	E
Woe both to those that suffer and inflict	K
Those who are born and those who die but say	W2
Imperial shadow of the thing I am	D2
When how by whom Destruction must accomplish	S3
Her consummation	E
	-
PHANTOM	D2
Ask the cold pale Hour	E
Rich in reversion of impending death	E
When HE shall fall upon whose ripe gray hairs	E
Sit Care and Sorrow and Infirmity	E
The weight which Crime whose wings are plumed with years	E
Leaves in his flight from ravaged heart to heart	K
Over the heads of men under which burthen	E
They bow themselves unto the grave fond wretch	S3
He leans upon his crutch and talks of years	E
To come and how in hours of youth renewed	K
He will renew lost joys and	K
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Victory Victory	E
	-
THE PHANTOM VANISHES	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
What sound of the importunate earth has broken	E
My mighty trance	E
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Victory Victory	E
	-
MAHMUD	K
Weak lightning before darkness poor faint smile	O
Of dying Islam Voice which art the response	E
Of hollow weakness Do I wake and live	L3
Were there such things or may the unquiet brain	E
Vexed by the wise mad talk of the old Jew	E
Have shaped itself these shadows of its fear	E
It matters not for nought we see or dream	D2
Possess or lose or grasp at can be worth	E
More than it gives or teaches Come what may	W2
The Future must become the Past and I	K
As they were to whom once this present hour	E
This gloomy crag of time to which I cling	W2
Seemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy	M3
Never to be attained I must rebuke	W2
This drunkenness of triumph ere it die	K
And dying bring despair Victory poor slaves	E
	-
EXIT MAHMUD	K
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Shout in the jubilee of death The Greeks	E
Are as a brood of lions in the net	K
Round which the kingly hunters of the earth	E
Stand smiling Anarchs ye whose daily food	K
Are curses groans and gold the fruit of death	E
From Thule to the girdle of the world	K
Come feast the board groans with the flesh of men	E
The cup is foaming with a nation's blood	K
Famine and Thirst await eat drink and die	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Victorious Wrong with vulture scream	D2
Salutes the rising sun pursues the flying day	W2
I saw her ghastly as a tyrant's dream	D2
Perch on the trembling pyramid of night	K
Beneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay	W2
In visions of the dawning undelight	K
Who shall impede her flight	K
Who rob her of her prey	W2
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Victory Victory Russia's famished eagles	E
Dare not to prey beneath the crescent's light	K
Impale the remnant of the Greeks despoil	W2
Violate make their flesh cheaper than dust	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Thou voice which art	K
The herald of the ill in splendour hid	K
Thou echo of the hollow heart	K
Of monarchy bear me to thine abode	K
When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed	K
Oh bear me to those isles of jagged cloud	K
Which float like mountains on the earthquake mid	K
The momentary oceans of the lightning	W2
Or to some toppling promontory proud	K
Of solid tempest whose black pyramid	K
Riven overhangs the founts intensely bright'ning	W2
Of those dawn tinted deluges of fire	E
Before their waves expire	E
When heaven and earth are light and only light	K
In the thunder night	K
	-
NOTE	K
earthquake edition earthquakes editions	E
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Victory Victory Austria Russia England	K
And that tame serpent that poor shadow France	E
Cry peace and that means death when monarchs speak	W2
Ho there bring torches sharpen those red stakes	E
These chains are light fitter for slaves and poisoners	E
Than Greeks Kill plunder burn let none remain	E
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Alas for Liberty	K
If numbers wealth or unfulfilling years	E
Or fate can quell the free	K
Alas for Virtue when	E
Torments or contumely or the sneers	E
Of erring judging men	E
Can break the heart where it abides	E
Alas if Love whose smile makes this obscure world splendid	K
Can change with its false times and tides	E
Like hope and terror	E
Alas for Love	L3
And Truth who wanderest lone and unbefriended	K
If thou canst veil thy lie consuming mirror	E
Before the dazzled eyes of Error	E
Alas for thee Image of the Above	L3
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Repulse with plumes from conquest torn	E
Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn	E
Through many an hostile Anarchy	K
At length they wept aloud and cried 'The Sea the Sea '	-
Through exile persecution and despair	E
Rome was and young Atlantis shall become	D2
The wonder or the terror or the tomb	D2
Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair	E
But Greece was as a hermit child	K
Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built	K
To woman's growth by dreams so mild	K
She knew not pain or guilt	K
And now O Victory blush and Empire tremble	W2
When ye desert the free	K
If Greece must be	K
A wreck yet shall its fragments reassemble	W2
And build themselves again impregnably	W2
In a diviner clime	D2
To Amphionic music on some Cape sublime	D2
Which frowns above the idle foam of Time	D2
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Let the tyrants rule the desert they have made	K
Let the free possess the Paradise they claim	D2
Be the fortune of our fierce oppressors weighed	K
With our ruin our resistance and our name	D2
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Our dead shall be the seed of their decay	W2
Our survivors be the shadow of their pride	K
Our adversity a dream to pass away	W2
Their dishonour a remembrance to abide	K
	-
VOICE WITHOUT	K
Victory Victory The bought Briton sends	E
The keys of ocean to the Islamite	K
Now shall the blazon of the cross be veiled	K
And British skill directing Othman might	K
Thunder strike rebel victory Oh keep holy	W2
This jubilee of unrevenged blood	K
Kill crush despoil Let not a Greek escape	V2
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
Darkness has dawned in the East	K
On the noon of time	D2
The death birds descend to their feast	K
From the hungry clime	D2
Let Freedom and Peace flee far	E
To a sunnier strand	K
And follow Love's folding star	E
To the Evening land	K
	-
SEMICHORUS	E
The young moon has fed	K
Her exhausted horn	E
With the sunset's fire	E
The weak day is dead	K
But the night is not born	E
And like loveliness panting with wild desire	E
While it trembles with fear and delight	K
Hesperus flies from awakening night	K
And pants in its beauty and speed with light	K
Fast flashing soft and bright	K
Thou beacon of love thou lamp of the free	W2
Guide us far far away	W2
To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day	W2
Thou art hidden	E
From waves on which weary Noon	E
Faints in her summer swoon	E
Between kingless continents sinless as Eden	E
Around mountains and islands inviolably	W2
Pranked on the sapphire sea	W2
	-
SEMICHORUS	W2
Through the sunset of hope	V2
Like the shapes of a dream	D2
What Paradise islands of glory gleam	D2
Beneath Heaven's cope	V2
Their shadows more clear float by	K
The sound of their oceans the light of their sky	K
The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe	E
Burst like morning on dream or like Heaven on death	E
Through the walls of our prison	E
And Greece which was dead is arisen	E
	-
NOTE	K
dream edition dreams editions	W2
	-
CHORUS	W2
The world's great age begins anew	E
The golden years return	E
The earth doth like a snake renew	E
Her winter weeds outworn	E
Heaven smiles and faiths and empires gleam	D2
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream	D2
	-
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains	W2
From waves serener far	E
A new Peneus rolls his fountains	W2
Against the morning star	E
Where fairer Tempes bloom there sleep	V2
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep	V2
	-
A loftier Argo cleaves the main	E
Fraught with a later prize	W2
Another Orpheus sings again	E
And loves and weeps and dies	W2
A new Ulysses leaves once more	E
Calypso for his native shore	E
	-
Oh write no more the tale of Troy	M3
If earth Death's scroll must be	W2
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy	M3
Which dawns upon the free	W2
Although a subtler Sphinx renew	E
Riddles of death Thebes never knew	E
	-
Another Athens shall arise	W2
And to remoter time	D2
Bequeath like sunset to the skies	W2
The splendour of its prime	D2
And leave if nought so bright may live	L3
All earth can take or Heaven can give	L3
	-
Saturn and Love their long repose	W2
Shall burst more bright and good	K
Than all who fell than One who rose	W2
Than many unsubdued	K
Not gold not blood their altar dowers	W2
But votive tears and symbol flowers	W2
	-
Oh cease must hate and death return	E
Cease must men kill and die	K
Cease drain not to its dregs the urn	E
Of bitter prophecy	W2
The world is weary of the past	K
Oh might it die or rest at last	K
	-
NOTES	W2
his edition its editions	W2
Argo Argos edition	E
See Editor's note	K
bright editions wise edition ed Galignani	E
unsubdued editions unwithstood edition ed Galignani	E

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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