Be thou like the
imperial
Basilisk
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Shelley
thou Heart of men which ever pantest
Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!
Elysian City, which to calm enchantest
The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55
As sleep round Love, are driven!
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise
Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained!
Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice
Which armed Victory offers up unstained _60
To Love, the flower-enchained!
Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,--
Hail, hail, all hail! _65
STROPHE 2.
Thou youngest giant birth
Which from the groaning earth
Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!
Last of the Intercessors!
Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70
Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail,
Wave thy lightning lance in mirth
Nor let thy high heart fail,
Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors
With hurried legions move! _75
Hail, hail, all hail!
ANTISTROPHE 1a.
What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme
Freedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam
To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80
A new Actaeon's error
Shall theirs have been--devoured by their own hounds!
Be thou like the imperial Basilisk
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85
Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk:
Fear not, but gaze--for freemen mightier grow,
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:--
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,
Thou shalt be great--All hail! _90
ANTISTROPHE 2a.
From Freedom's form divine,
From Nature's inmost shrine,
Strip every impious gawd, rend
Error veil by veil;
O'er Ruin desolate,
O'er Falsehood's fallen state, _95
Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!
And equal laws be thine,
And winged words let sail,
Freighted with truth even from the throne of God:
That wealth, surviving fate, _100
Be thine. --All hail!
NOTE:
_100 wealth-surviving cj. A. C. Bradley.
ANTISTROPHE 1b.
Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean
From land to land re-echoed solemnly,
Till silence became music? From the Aeaean
To the cold Alps, eternal Italy _105
Starts to hear thine! The Sea
Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs
In light, and music; widowed Genoa wan
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,
Murmuring, 'Where is Doria? ' fair Milan, _110
Within whose veins long ran
The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal
(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail)
Art thou of all these hopes.
Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!
Elysian City, which to calm enchantest
The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55
As sleep round Love, are driven!
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise
Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained!
Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice
Which armed Victory offers up unstained _60
To Love, the flower-enchained!
Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,--
Hail, hail, all hail! _65
STROPHE 2.
Thou youngest giant birth
Which from the groaning earth
Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!
Last of the Intercessors!
Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70
Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail,
Wave thy lightning lance in mirth
Nor let thy high heart fail,
Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors
With hurried legions move! _75
Hail, hail, all hail!
ANTISTROPHE 1a.
What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme
Freedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam
To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80
A new Actaeon's error
Shall theirs have been--devoured by their own hounds!
Be thou like the imperial Basilisk
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85
Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk:
Fear not, but gaze--for freemen mightier grow,
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:--
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,
Thou shalt be great--All hail! _90
ANTISTROPHE 2a.
From Freedom's form divine,
From Nature's inmost shrine,
Strip every impious gawd, rend
Error veil by veil;
O'er Ruin desolate,
O'er Falsehood's fallen state, _95
Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!
And equal laws be thine,
And winged words let sail,
Freighted with truth even from the throne of God:
That wealth, surviving fate, _100
Be thine. --All hail!
NOTE:
_100 wealth-surviving cj. A. C. Bradley.
ANTISTROPHE 1b.
Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean
From land to land re-echoed solemnly,
Till silence became music? From the Aeaean
To the cold Alps, eternal Italy _105
Starts to hear thine! The Sea
Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs
In light, and music; widowed Genoa wan
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,
Murmuring, 'Where is Doria? ' fair Milan, _110
Within whose veins long ran
The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal
(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail)
Art thou of all these hopes.
