SEMICHORUS 1: 
I hear!  I hear! 710

SEMICHORUS 2: 
The world’s eyeless charioteer,
Destiny, is hurrying by! 
What faith is crushed, what empire bleeds
Beneath her earthquake-footed steeds? 
What eagle-winged victory sits 715
At her right hand? what shadow flits
Before? what splendour rolls behind? 
Ruin and renovation cry
‘Who but We?’

SEMICHORUS 1: 
I hear!  I hear! 
The hiss as of a rushing wind, 720
The roar as of an ocean foaming,
The thunder as of earthquake coming. 
I hear!  I hear! 
The crash as of an empire falling,
The shrieks as of a people calling 725
’Mercy! mercy!’—­How they thrill! 
Then a shout of ‘kill! kill! kill!’
And then a small still voice, thus—­

SEMICHORUS 2: 
For
Revenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,
The foul cubs like their parents are, 730
Their den is in the guilty mind,
And Conscience feeds them with despair.

NOTE: 
728 For edition 1822, Wms. transcript;
     Fear cj.  Fleay, Forman, Dowden.  See Editor’s Note.

SEMICHORUS 1: 
In sacred Athens, near the fane
Of Wisdom, Pity’s altar stood: 
Serve not the unknown God in vain. 735
But pay that broken shrine again,
Love for hate and tears for blood.

[ENTER MAHMUD AND AHASUERUS.]

MAHMUD: 
Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we.

AHASUERUS: 
No more!

MAHMUD: 
But raised above thy fellow-men
By thought, as I by power.

AHASUERUS: 
Thou sayest so. 740

MAHMUD: 
Thou art an adept in the difficult lore
Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest
The flowers, and thou measurest the stars;
Thou severest element from element;
Thy spirit is present in the Past, and sees 745
The birth of this old world through all its cycles
Of desolation and of loveliness,
And when man was not, and how man became
The monarch and the slave of this low sphere,
And all its narrow circles—­it is much—­ 750
I honour thee, and would be what thou art
Were I not what I am; but the unborn hour,
Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms,
Who shall unveil?  Nor thou, nor I, nor any
Mighty or wise.  I apprehended not 755
What thou hast taught me, but I now perceive
That thou art no interpreter of dreams;
Thou dost not own that art, device, or God,
Can make the Future present—­let it come! 
Moreover thou disdainest us and ours; 760
Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest.