7. 
’For, with strong speech I tore the veil that hid
Nature, and Truth, and Liberty, and Love,—­
As one who from some mountain’s pyramid 3525
Points to the unrisen sun!—­the shades approve
His truth, and flee from every stream and grove. 
Thus, gentle thoughts did many a bosom fill,—­
Wisdom, the mail of tried affections wove
For many a heart, and tameless scorn of ill, 3530
Thrice steeped in molten steel the unconquerable will.

8. 
’Some said I was a maniac wild and lost;
Some, that I scarce had risen from the grave,
The Prophet’s virgin bride, a heavenly ghost:—­
Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave, 3535
Who had stolen human shape, and o’er the wave,
The forest, and the mountain, came;—­some said
I was the child of God, sent down to save
Woman from bonds and death, and on my head
The burden of their sins would frightfully be laid. 3540

9. 
’But soon my human words found sympathy
In human hearts:  the purest and the best,
As friend with friend, made common cause with me,
And they were few, but resolute;—­the rest,
Ere yet success the enterprise had blessed, 3545
Leagued with me in their hearts;—­their meals, their slumber,
Their hourly occupations, were possessed
By hopes which I had armed to overnumber
Those hosts of meaner cares, which life’s strong wings encumber.

10. 
’But chiefly women, whom my voice did waken 3550
From their cold, careless, willing slavery,
Sought me:  one truth their dreary prison has shaken,—­
They looked around, and lo! they became free! 
Their many tyrants sitting desolately
In slave-deserted halls, could none restrain; 3555
For wrath’s red fire had withered in the eye,
Whose lightning once was death,—­nor fear, nor gain
Could tempt one captive now to lock another’s chain.

11. 
’Those who were sent to bind me, wept, and felt
Their minds outsoar the bonds which clasped them round, 3560
Even as a waxen shape may waste and melt
In the white furnace; and a visioned swound,
A pause of hope and awe the City bound,
Which, like the silence of a tempest’s birth,
When in its awful shadow it has wound 3565
The sun, the wind, the ocean, and the earth,
Hung terrible, ere yet the lightnings have leaped forth.

12. 
’Like clouds inwoven in the silent sky,
By winds from distant regions meeting there,
In the high name of truth and liberty, 3570
Around the City millions gathered were,
By hopes which sprang from many a hidden lair,—­
Words which the lore of truth in hues of flame
Arrayed, thine own wild songs which in the air
Like homeless odours floated, and the name 3575
Of thee, and many a tongue which thou hadst dipped in flame.