Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion

Of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeath'd

a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,

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As if his senseless sceptre were a wand
Full of the magic of exploded science
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic! She has taught
Her Esau-brethren1 that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands
have bought

Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, forever

Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,

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That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Damn'd like the dull canal with locks and
chains,

And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering: — better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopyla,
Than stagnate in our marsh, or o'er the
deep

Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

KNOW YE THE LAND?

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Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,2

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams

ever shine;

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl3 in her bloom;

1 Those who have sold their birth-right, Liberty. 2 dove 3 the rose

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,

In colour though varied, in beauty may vie, And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 'Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?

Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear, their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

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Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its
claims

To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, 102
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own.

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His wandering step, Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec,1 and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 110 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of

Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?

15 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and

desolate?

Ask why the sunlight not forever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river,

Why aught should fail and fade that once is

Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?

Such gloom,

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given 26 Therefore the names of Dæmon, Ghost, and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.

1 Observe that "shower" is a verb.

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While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,

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And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our
youth is fed,

I was not heard - I saw them not
When musing deeply on the lot

Of life, at the sweet time when winds are 55 wooing

All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;

I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 61 To thee and thine - have I not kept the vow?

With beating heart and streaming eyes,

even now

I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bower

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Of studious zeal or love's delight Outstretched with me the envious

night

They know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of

stone

Stand in the desert.

Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, (stamped on these lifeless things,)

The hand that mocked them and the heart 7 that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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