The insensate mob, and, whilst one hand was red
With murder, feign to stretch the other out 240
For brotherhood and peace; and that they now
Babble of love and mercy, whilst their deeds
Are marked with all the narrowness and crime
That Freedom’s young arm dare not yet chastise,
Reason may claim our gratitude, who now 245
Establishing the imperishable throne
Of truth, and stubborn virtue, maketh vain
The unprevailing malice of my Foe,
Whose bootless rage heaps torments for the brave,
Adds impotent eternities to pain, 250
Whilst keenest disappointment racks His breast
To see the smiles of peace around them play,
To frustrate or to sanctify their doom.

’Thus have I stood,—­through a wild waste of years
Struggling with whirlwinds of mad agony, 255
Yet peaceful, and serene, and self-enshrined,
Mocking my powerless Tyrant’s horrible curse
With stubborn and unalterable will,
Even as a giant oak, which Heaven’s fierce flame
Had scathed in the wilderness, to stand 260
A monument of fadeless ruin there;
Yet peacefully and movelessly it braves
The midnight conflict of the wintry storm,
As in the sunlight’s calm it spreads
Its worn and withered arms on high 265
To meet the quiet of a summer’s noon.’

The Fairy waved her wand: 
Ahasuerus fled
Fast as the shapes of mingled shade and mist,
That lurk in the glens of a twilight grove, 270
Flee from the morning beam: 
The matter of which dreams are made
Not more endowed with actual life
Than this phantasmal portraiture
Of wandering human thought. 275

NOTE: 
180 reillumined edition 1813.

8.

THE FAIRY: 
’The Present and the Past thou hast beheld: 
It was a desolate sight.  Now, Spirit, learn
The secrets of the Future.—­Time! 
Unfold the brooding pinion of thy gloom,
Render thou up thy half-devoured babes, 5
And from the cradles of eternity,
Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep
By the deep murmuring stream of passing things,
Tear thou that gloomy shroud.—­Spirit, behold
Thy glorious destiny!’ 10

Joy to the Spirit came. 
Through the wide rent in Time’s eternal veil,
Hope was seen beaming through the mists of fear: 
Earth was no longer Hell;
Love, freedom, health, had given 15
Their ripeness to the manhood of its prime,
And all its pulses beat
Symphonious to the planetary spheres: 
Then dulcet music swelled
Concordant with the life-strings of the soul;