Thro' the lone paths of our immortal land. It had no waste, but some memorial lent Which strung me to my toil-some monu

ment

Vital with mind: then, Cythna by my side,
Until the bright and beaming day were spent,
Would rest, with looks entreating to abide,
Too earnest and too sweet ever to be denied.

And soon I could not have refused her thus
For ever, day and night, we two were ne'er
Parted, but when brief sleep divided us :
And when the pauses of the lulling air
Of noon beside the sea, had made a lair
For her soothed senses, in my arms she slept,
And I kept watch over her slumbers there,
While, as the shifting visions o'er her swept,
Amid her innocent rest by turns she smil'd
and wept.

I.aon, in his phrenzy, slays three of the ravishers, and is forthwith dragged by the rest of them to await the punishment of his violence in a strange prison.

And one (says he) did strip me stark; and one did fill

A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torches' fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid
hung.

They raised me to the platform of the pile,
That column's dizzy height:-the grate of
Thro' which they thrust me, open stood the

brass

while,

As to its ponderous and suspended mass, With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!

With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound:

The grate, as they departed to repass,
With horrid clangour fell, and the far sound
Of their retiring steps in the dense gloom
was drowned.

The noon was calm and bright-around that column

The overhanging sky and circling sea
Spread forth in silentness profound and solemn
The darkness of brief frenzy cast on me,
So that I knew not my own misery:
The islands and the mountains in the day
Like clouds reposed afar; and I could see
The town among the woods below that lay,
And the dark rocks which bound the bright
and glassy bay.

It was so calm, that scarce the feathery weed
Sown by some eagle on the topmost stone
Swayed in the air:-so bright, that noon

did breed

No shadow in the sky beside mine ownMine, and the shadow of my chain alone. Below the smoke of roofs involved in flame Rested like night, all else was clearly shewn In that broad glare, yet sound to me none

came,

But of the living blood that ran within my frame.

But the " peace of madness is" of so long endurance, and Laon, wakening from thirst and hunger to a sense of his own condition, forgets that again in the remembrance of Cythna. A white sail is set on the bay far below him, and he feels that the vessel is destined to bear the maiden from the shore. The thought of this turns the stream of his mind to a darker channel, and the agonies of fierce madness succeed to the lethargy out of which he had arisen. The fourth day finds him raving on the summit of his pillar, when there arrives at the foot of it a venerable hermit, who had heard of the cause of his afdiction-of his generous nature and lofty aspirations. This visitor sets him free from his chain, and conveys him to a small hark below, while entirely insensible to what is passing around him; but he learns long afterwards, that the old man's eloquence had subdued his keepers, and that they had consented, at their own peril, to his escape. He ly island, where for seven years he is is conveyed across the sea to a lonetended by his aged benefactor, whose kind and compassionate wisdom, and that long space, are not more than sufficient to win back the mind of Laon to entire self-possession.

In the first moments of the patient's perfect recovery, he is informed by the old man, that during the years of his illness the cause of liberty had been slowly gaining ground in the "Golden city"-that he himself would fain assist in the Revolution which had now actually commenced there, but that he felt himself too old and too subdued in his spirit and language to be an effectual leader,

"While Laon's name to the tumultuous throng

Were like the star whose beams the waves compel,

And tempests; and his soul-subduing tongue Were as a lance to quell the mailed crest of wrong."

Laon accepts with eagerness the proposal of the old man, and they depart in their bark for the Revolutionized city. On their arrival they find the work already apparently well-nigh completed. An immense multitude of the people-of men weary of political, and women sick of domestic slavery—are assembled in the fields without the walls. Laon and his friend walk into the encampment, and are received as friends. The host already acknowledge a leader and a presiding spirit in the person of a female, whom they reverence under the name of LAONE. Laon and this heroine are attracted to each other by some unknown sympathy; the tones of her voice stir up all the depths of his spirit; but her countenance is veiled, and scarcely dares he wish to have the covering removed. The palace of the tyrant Othman, is, mean time, surrounded by the multitude; and Laon entering it, finds him sitting alone in his hall, deserted by all but one little child, whose affection had been won to him by previous commendations and caresses. Noth ing can be more touching than the picture of this innocent. Thus speaks Laon:

She fled to him, and wildly clasped his feet When human steps were heard:he moved nor spoke,

Nor changed his hue, nor raised his looks to

The monarch is quietly removed from his palace, none following him but this child; and on this consummation of their triumph, the multitude join in holding a high festival, of which Laone is the priestess. Laon sits near her in her pyramid; but he is withheld, by a strange impulse, from speaking to her, and he retires to pass the night in repose at a distance from where she sleeps.

At break of day, Laon is awakened by sounds of tumults; the multitude, lately so firm and collected, are seen flying in every direction; and he learns that the cause of their disarray is the arrival of a foreign army, sent by some of his brother princes to the relief of Othman. Laon, and a few of the more heroic spirits, withdraw to the side of a hill, where, ill-armed and outnumbered, they are slaughtered till the evening by their enemies. The carnage, and the confidence of the sufferers, are painted with a power and energy altogether admirable; but we have room to quote only the deliverance of Laon.

Of those brave bands I soon survived alone-and now I lay Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody

hands

I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands:

When on my foes a sudden terror came, And they fled, scattering-lo! with reinless speed

A black Tartarian horse of giant frame Comes trampling o'er the dead, the living bleed Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed, 3 P

On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,
Sate one waving a sword;-the hosts recede
And fly, as thro' their ranks with awful might,
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom
swift and bright;

And its path made a solitude.-I rose
And marked its coming: it relaxed its course
As it approached me, and the wind that flows
Thro' night, bore accents to mine ear whose
force

Might create smiles in death-the Tartar horse

Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,

And heard her musical pants, like the sweet

source

Of waters in the desart, as she said, "Mount with me Laon, now"-I rapidly obeyed.

Then: "Away! away!" she cried, and stretched her sword

As 'twere a scourge over the courser's head, And lightly shook the reins :-We spake no word

But like the vapour of the tempest fled
Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread
Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast;
Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spread
Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,
As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's
broad shadow past.

And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust, His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray, And turbulence, as of a whirlwind's gust, Surrounded us;-and still away! away ! They take up their abode in a lonely ruin, and many hours are wasted in the transports of a recognition-which, even in such circumstances, to them is joyful.

The night grew damp and dim, and thro' a

Within her frame, mingle with mine, and fall

Around my heart like fire; and over all
A mist was spread, the sickness of a deep
And speechless swoon of joy, as might befall
Two disunited spirits when they leap
In union from this earth's obscure and fad-
ing sleep.

Was it one moment that confounded thus
All thought, all sense, all feeling, into one
Unutterable power, which shielded us
Even from our own cold looks, when we had
gone

Into a wide and wild oblivion

Of tumult and of tenderness? or now
Had ages, such as make the moon and sun,
The seasons, and mankind their changes
know,

Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below? I know not. What are kisses whose fire clasps

The failing heart in languishment, or limb Twined within limb ? or the quick dying gasps

Of the life meeting, when the faint eyes swim Thro' tears of a wide mist boundless and dim, In one caress? What is the strong controul Which leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,

Where far over the world those vapours roll, Which blend two restless frames in one réposing soul?

They remain for some time in this retreat, communicating to each other the long histories of their suffering. Cythna, according to her own wild tale, being carried away from Laon at the moment when he slew three of the slaves that surrounded her, had been conveyed to the tyrant's palace, and had suffered all the insults, and almost all the injuries to which its inmates were exposed. Her high spirit had, however, offended at last her oppressor, and she was sent to a Submarine cavern, near the Symplegades, to which strange dungeon she was borne through the waves by a siave, "made dumb by poison,"

A Diver lean and strong, of Oman's coral

sea."

Here she was supplied with a daily pittance of food by an eagle, trained to hover over the only crevice through which the air had access to the captive. She sank into a melancholy phrenzy, and was aroused to consciousness by strange feelings which taught her to expect that she was about to be a mother. It is so, and for a while all the sorrows of her prison are soothed by the caresses of her child; but the child disappears suddenly, and the bewildered mother half suspects that its existence has been but a dream of lier madness. At last an earthquake changes the position of the cavern, and Cythna

is released by some passing mariners, who convey her to the city of Othman, and are prepared by her discourses during the voyage to take a part in the insurrection, which Cythna arrives in time to lead. But to come to the main story-it is the custom of Laon to ride forth every night on the Tartar horse to procure food for Cythna. By this means their retreat is at last discovered, Laon is seized, led before the tyrant, and sentenced to be burned alive before his eyes, on the very scene of his treason. The guards, the priests, and the slaves, are gathered around the throne of Othman.

A Shape of light is sitting by his side,
A child most beautiful. I' the midst appears
Laon,-exempt alone from mortal hopes and
fears.

His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound

Behind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng

around;

There are no sneers upon his lip which speak That scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek

Resolve has not turned pale,-his eyes are mild

And calm, and like the morn about to break, Smile on mankind-his heart seems reconciled

To all things and itself, like a reposing child.
Tumult was in the soul of all beside,
Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw
Their tranquil victim pass, felt wonder glide
Into their brain, and became calm with awe.--
See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.
A thousand torches in the spacious square,
Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,
Await the signal round; the morning fair
Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural
glare.

And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,
Upon a platform level with the pile,
The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,
Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smile
In expectation, but one child: the while
I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier
Of fire, and look around; each distant isle
Is dark in the bright dawn; towers far and

near,

Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

There was such silence through the host, as when

An earthquake trampling on some populous

town,

Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men

Expect the second; all were mute but one, That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone Stood up before the King, without avail, Pleading for Laon's life-her stifled groan Was heard she trembled like one aspin pale Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

Bursts on that awful silence; far away Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,

Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

They fly-the torches fall-a cry of fear Has startled the triumphant !-they recede! For ere the cannon's roar has died, they hear The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed

Dark and gigantic, with the tempest's speed, Bursts through their ranks: a woman sits thereon,

Fairer it seems than aught that earth can breed,

Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn, A spirit from the caves of day-light wander. ing gone.

This is Cythna come to partake the fate of her lord.

The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear, From many a tremulous eye, but like soft dews

Which feed spring's earliest buds, hung gáthered there,

Frozen by doubt,-alas, they could not chuse, But weep; for when her faint limbs did refuse

To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she

smiled;

And is this death? the pyre has disappeared, The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng; The flames grow silent-slowly there is heard The music of a breath-suspending song, Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,

Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;

With ever changing notes it floats along, Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand Wakened me then; lo, Cythna sate reclined Beside me, on the waved and golden sand Of a clear pool, upon a bank o'ertwined With strange and star-bright flowers, which

to the wind

Breathed divine odour; high above, was spread

The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,

Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit

overhead

A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.

And round about sloped many a lawny

mountain

With incense-bearing forests, and vast caves Of marble radiance to that mighty fountain; And where the flood its own bright margin laves,

Their echoes talk with its eternal waves, Which, from the depths whose jagged cav

erns breed

arrowy speed.

bark did guide.

Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise,
Glanced as she spake; "Aye, this is Para-
dise

And not a dream, and we are all united!
Lo, that is mine own child, who in the
guise

Of madness came, like day to one benighted
In lonesome woods: my heart is now too
well requited!

We forbear from making any comments on this strange narrative; because we could not do so without entering upon other points which we have already professed our intention of waving for the present. It will easily be seen, indeed, that neither the main interest nor the main merit of the poet at all consists in the conception of his plot or in the arrangement of his incidents. His praise is, in our judginent, that of having poured over his narrative a very rare strength and abundance of poetic imagery and feeling-of having steeped every word in the essence of his inspiration. The

Revolt of Islam contains no detached passages at all comparable with some which our readers recollect in the works of the great poets our contemporaries; but neither does it contain any such intermixture of prosaic materials as disfigure even the greatest of them. Mr Shelly has displayed his possession of a mind intensely poetical, and of an exuberance of poetic language, perpetually strong and perpetually varied. In spite, moreover, of a certain perversion in all his modes of thinking, which, unless he gets rid of it, will ever prevent him from being acceptable to any considerable or respectable body of readers, he has displayed many glimpses of right understanding and generous feeling, which must save him from the unmingled condemnation even of the most rigorous judges. His destiny is entirely in his own hands; if he acts wisely, it cannot fail to be a glorious one; if he continues to pervert his talents, by making them the instruments of a base sophistry, their splendour will only contribute to render his disgrace the more conspicuous. Mr Shelly, whatever his errors

may

have been, is a scholar, a gentleman, and a poet; and he must therefore despise from his soul the only eulogies to which he has hitherto been accustomed-paragraphs from the Examiner, and sonnets from Johnny Keats. He has it in his power to select better companions; and if he does so, he may very securely promise himself abundance of better praise.