ODE TO LIBERTY. Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying, Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. BYRON. I. A GLORIOUS people vibrated again : The lightning of the nations, Liberty, From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, And, in the rapid plumes of song, Clothed itself, sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the heaven of fame The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep: I will record the same. II. The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth : The burning stars of the abyss were hurled Into the depths of heaven. The dædal earth, That island in the ocean of the world, Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: But this divinest universe Was yet a chaos and a curse, For thou wert not: but power from worst producing worse, The spirit of the beasts was kindled there, And of the birds, and of the watery forms, And there was war among them, and despair Within them, raging without truce or terms: The bosom of their violated nurse Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms, And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. III. Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied His generations under the pavilion Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude, For thou wert not; but o'er the populous solitude, Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; Into the shadow of her pinions wide Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood, Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. IV. The nodding promontories, and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves On the unapprehensive wild The vine, the corn, the olive mild, Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled; Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, V. Athens arose a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision By thunder-zonèd winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. VI. Within the surface of Time's fleeting river It trembles, but it cannot pass away! Through the caverns of the past; Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast : One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. VII. Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side, Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, Slaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighed Faint echoes of Ionian song; that tone Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. VIII. From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, |