19. 
’The rest thou knowest.—­Lo! we two are here—­
We have survived a ruin wide and deep—­
Strange thoughts are mine.—­I cannot grieve or fear,
Sitting with thee upon this lonely steep
I smile, though human love should make me weep. 3635
We have survived a joy that knows no sorrow,
And I do feel a mighty calmness creep
Over my heart, which can no longer borrow
Its hues from chance or change, dark children of to-morrow.

20. 
’We know not what will come—­yet, Laon, dearest, 3640
Cythna shall be the prophetess of Love,
Her lips shall rob thee of the grace thou wearest,
To hide thy heart, and clothe the shapes which rove
Within the homeless Future’s wintry grove;
For I now, sitting thus beside thee, seem 3645
Even with thy breath and blood to live and move,
And violence and wrong are as a dream
Which rolls from steadfast truth, an unreturning stream.

21. 
’The blasts of Autumn drive the winged seeds
Over the earth,—­next come the snows, and rain, 3650
And frosts, and storms, which dreary Winter leads
Out of his Scythian cave, a savage train;
Behold!  Spring sweeps over the world again,
Shedding soft dews from her ethereal wings;
Flowers on the mountains, fruits over the plain, 3655
And music on the waves and woods she flings,
And love on all that lives, and calm on lifeless things.

22. 
’O Spring, of hope, and love, and youth, and gladness
Wind-winged emblem! brightest, best and fairest! 
Whence comest thou, when, with dark Winter’s sadness 3660
The tears that fade in sunny smiles thou sharest? 
Sister of joy, thou art the child who wearest
Thy mother’s dying smile, tender and sweet;
Thy mother Autumn, for whose grave thou bearest
Fresh flowers, and beams like flowers, with gentle feet, 3665
Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.

23. 
’Virtue, and Hope, and Love, like light and Heaven,
Surround the world.—­We are their chosen slaves. 
Has not the whirlwind of our spirit driven
Truth’s deathless germs to thought’s remotest caves? 3670
Lo, Winter comes!—­the grief of many graves,
The frost of death, the tempest of the sword,
The flood of tyranny, whose sanguine waves
Stagnate like ice at Faith the enchanter’s word,
And bind all human hearts in its repose abhorred. 3675

24. 
’The seeds are sleeping in the soil:  meanwhile
The Tyrant peoples dungeons with his prey,
Pale victims on the guarded scaffold smile
Because they cannot speak; and, day by day,
The moon of wasting Science wanes away 3680
Among her stars, and in that darkness vast
The sons of earth to their foul idols pray,
And gray Priests triumph, and like blight or blast
A shade of selfish care o’er human looks is cast.