“Woman!—­she is his slave, she has become
  A thing I weep to speak,—­the child of scorn,
  The outcast of a desolated home. 
  Falsehood and fear and toil, like waves, have worn
  Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,
  As calm decks the false ocean.  Well ye know
  What woman is; for none of woman born
  Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,
  Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.”

The indignation against the revolting subjugation of womanhood comes out still more distinctly in the preceding canto, where Cythna relates the horrors to which she was subjected.

“One was she among the many there, the thralls
Of the cold tyrant’s cruel lust; and they
Laughed mournfully in those polluted halls;
But she was calm and sad, musing alway
On loftiest enterprise, till on a day

* * * * *

She told me what a loathsome agony
Is that when selfishness mocks love’s delight,
Foul as in dreams’ most fearful imagery
To dally with the mowing dead;—­that night
All torture, fear, or horror made seem light
Which the soul dreams or knows.”

The poet bears testimony to the spiritual power which rules throughout Nature; the monster recovering his dignity while he is under the higher influence.

“Even when he saw her wondrous loveliness,
One moment to great Nature’s sacred power
He bent and was no longer passionless;
But when he bade her to his secret bower
Be borne a loveless victim, and she tore
Her locks in agony, and her words of flame
And mightier looks availed not, then he bore
Again his load of slavery, and became
A king, a heartless beast, a pageant and a name.

                       ...."When the day
  Shone on her awful frenzy, from the sight,
  Where like a spirit in fleshly chains she lay
  Struggling, aghast and pale the tyrant fled away.

“Her madness was a beam of light, a power
Which dawned through the rent soul; and words it gave,
Gestures and looks, such as in whirlwinds bore
Which might not be withstood.”

The doctrine involved in this passage is very clear, and it marks a decided progress since the days of “Queen Mab.”  It will be observed that Shelley’s mind had become familiarized with the idea of a spirit ruling throughout Nature, obedience to which constitutes human power.  Most remarkable is the passage in which the tyrant recovers his faculties through his subjection to this spirit; because it indicates Shelley’s faithful adhesion to the universal, though oft obscurely formed belief, that the ability to receive influence is the most exalted faculty to which human nature can attain, while the exercise of an arbitrary power centring in self is not only debasing, but is an actual destroyer of human faculty.