LXX. What heard I then?-a ringing shriek of pain, In the mid-battle-ay, to turn the flying- LXXI. It was a fearful, yet a glorious thing, To hear that hymn of martyrdom, and know Up from th' unsounded gulfs of human woe! Alvar! Theresa!--what is deep? what strong? -God's breath within the soul!-It fill'd that song From your victorious voices!--but the glow On the hot air and lurid skies increas'd -Faint grew the sounds-more faint-I listen'd—they had ceas'd! LXXII. And thou indeed hadst perish'd, my soul's friend! I might form other ties-but thou alone Couldst with a glance the veil of dimness rend, By other years o'er boyhood's memory thrown! Others might aid me onward :-Thou and I Had mingled the fresh thoughts that early die, Once flowering-never more!—And thou wert gone! Who could give back my youth, my spirit free, Or be in aught again what thou hadst been to me? LXXIII. And yet I wept thee not, thou true and brave! I would have set, against all earth's decree, There are swift hours sa Ide-string, rising hours. That do the work of tempests in their might! They shake down things that stood as meis and towers For which the uprooting of an oak makes way ;— They sweep the enduring mists from off our sight, They touch with fire, thought's graven page, the reli Stamp'd with past years-and lo! it shrivels as a scroll! LXXV. And this was of such hours!-the sudden flow Of my soul's tide seem'd whelming me; the glare Well with me then, in some vast desert scene, LXXVI. I would have call'd, adjuring the dark cloud ; To the most ancient Heavens I would have said -"Speak to me! show me truth!"-through night aloud I would have cried to him, the newly dead, "Come back! and show me truth!"-My spirit seem'd Gasping for some free burst, its darkness teem'd With such pent storms of thought!—again I fled I fled, a refuge from man's face to gain, Scarce conscious when I paus'd, entering a lonely fane. LXXVII. A mighty minster, dim, and proud, and vast! A halo of sad fame to mantle o'er Its white sepulchral forms of mail-clad men, And all was hush'd as night in some deep Alpine glen. LXXVIII. More hush'd, far more!-for there the wind sweeps by, Or the woods tremble to the streams' loud play! Seem for the place too much a sound of day! Of incense.-I stood still-as before God and death! LXXIX. For thick ye girt me round, ye long-departed 9 ! It seem'd as if your ashes would have started, To make your proud tombs ring:-no, no! I could not there! |