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Raises its fateful strings from sleep, 25

       I bid you haste, a mix’d tumultuous band!

       From every private bower,

       And each domestic hearth,

       Haste for one solemn hour;

       And with a loud and yet a louder voice, 30

      O’er Nature struggling in portentous birth,

       Weep and rejoice!

      Still echoes the dread Name that o’er the earth

      Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of Hell:

       And now advance in saintly Jubilee 35

      Justice and Truth! They too have heard thy spell,

       They too obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

      III

      I mark’d Ambition in his war-array!

       I heard the mailéd Monarch’s troublous cry —

      ‘Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay! 40

      Groans not her chariot on its onward way?’

       Fly, mailéd Monarch, fly!

       Stunn’d by Death’s twice mortal mace,

       No more on Murder’s lurid face

      The insatiate Hag shall gloat with drunken eye! 45

       Manes of the unnumber’d slain!

       Ye that gasp’d on Warsaw’s plain!

       Ye that erst at Ismail’s tower,

      When human ruin choked the streams,

       Fell in Conquest’s glutted hour, 50

      Mid women’s shrieks and infants’ screams!

       Spirits of the uncoffin’d slain,

       Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,

      Oft, at night, in misty train,

       Rush around her narrow dwelling! 55

      The exterminating Fiend is fled —

       (Foul her life, and dark her doom)

      Mighty armies of the dead

       Dance, like death-fires, round her tomb!

      Then with prophetic song relate, 60

      Each some Tyrant-Murderer’s fate!

      IV

      Departing Year! ‘twas on no earthly shore

       My soul beheld thy Vision! Where alone,

       Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,

      Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscrib’d with gore, 65

      With many an unimaginable groan

       Thou storied’st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,

       Deep silence o’er the ethereal multitude,

      Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

       Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, 70

       From the choiréd gods advancing,

      The Spirit of the Earth made reverence meet,

      And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

      V

      Throughout the blissful throng,

       Hush’d were harp and song: 75

      Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven,

       (The mystic Words of Heaven)

       Permissive signal make:

      The fervent Spirit bow’d, then spread his wings and spake!

       ‘Thou in stormy blackness throning 80

       Love and uncreated Light,

       By the Earth’s unsolaced groaning,

       Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!

       By Peace with proffer’d insult scared,

       Masked Hate and envying Scorn! 85

       By years of Havoc yet unborn!

      And Hunger’s bosom to the frost-winds bared!

       But chief by Afric’s wrongs,

       Strange, horrible, and foul!

       By what deep guilt belongs 90

       To the deaf Synod, ‘full of gifts and lies!’

      By Wealth’s insensate laugh! by Torture’s howl!

       Avenger, rise!

       For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,

       Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? 95

      Speak! from thy storm-black Heaven O speak aloud!

       And on the darkling foe

      Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!

       O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!

      The Past to thee, to thee the Future cries! 100

       Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!

       Rise, God of Nature! rise.’

      VI

      The voice had ceas’d, the Vision fled;

      Yet still I gasp’d and reel’d with dread.

      And ever, when the dream of night 105

      Renews the phantom to my sight,

      Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

       My ears throb hot; my eyeballs start;

      My brain with horrid tumult swims;

       Wild is the tempest of my heart; 110

      And my thick and struggling breath

      Imitates the toil of death!

      No stranger agony confounds

       The Soldier on the war-field spread,

      When all foredone with toil and wounds, 115

       Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead!

      (The strife is o’er, the daylight fled,

       And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

      See! the starting wretch’s head

       Lies pillow’d on a brother’s corse!) 120

      VII

      Not yet enslaved, not wholly vile,

      O Albion! O my mother Isle!

      Thy valleys, fair as Eden’s bowers,

      Glitter green with sunny showers;

      Thy grassy uplands’ gentle swells 125

       Echo to the bleat of flocks;

      (Those grassy hills, those glittering dells

       Proudly ramparted with rocks)

      And Ocean mid his uproar wild

       Speaks safety to his Island-child! 130

       Hence for many a fearless age

       Has social Quiet lov’d thy shore;

       Nor ever proud Invader’s rage

      Or sack’d thy towers, or stain’d thy fields with gore.

      VIII

      Abandon’d of Heaven! mad Avarice thy guide, 135

      At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride —

      Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood,

      And join’d the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!

      The nations curse thee! They with eager wondering

       Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream!

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