Thou of the darkness and the fire, and fame
Avenged by misery and the Orphic doom,
Bard of the tyrant-lay! whom dreadless wrongs,
Impatient, and pale thirst for justice drove,
A visionary exile, from the earth,
To seek it in its iron reign—O stern!
And not accepting sympathy, accept
A not presumptuous offering, that joins
That region with a greater name: And thou,
Of my own native language, O dread bard!
Who, amid heaven's unshadowed light, by thee
Supremely sung, abidest—shouldst thou know
Who on the earth with thoughts of thee erects
And purifies his mind, and, but by thee,
Awed by no fame, boldened by thee, and awed—
Not with thy breadth of wing, yet with the power
To breathe the region air—attempts the height
Where never Scio's singing eagle towered,
Nor that high-soaring Theban moulted plume,
Hear thou my song! hear, or be deaf, who may.
And if not rashly, or too soon, I heed
The impulse, but have waited on my heart
With patience, and its utterance stilled with awe
Of what inspired it, till I felt it beat
True cadence to unconquerable strains;
Oh, then may she first wooed from heaven by prayer
From thy pure lips, and sympathy austere
With suffering, and the sight of solemn age,
And thy gray Homer's head, with darkness bound,
To me descend, more near, as I am far
Beneath thee, and more need her aiding wing.
Oh, not again invoked in vain, descend,
Urania! and eyes with common light
More blinded than were his by Heaven's hand
Imposed to intercept distracting rays,
Bathe in the vision of transcendent day;
And of the human senses (the dark veil
Before the world of spirit drawn) remove
The dim material hindrance, and illume;
That human thought again may dare behold
The shape and port of spirits, and once more
Hear voices in that distant, shadowy world,
To which ourselves, and this, are shadows, they
The substance, immaterial essence pure—
Souls that have freed their slave, and given back
Its force unto the elements, the dread
Manes, or the more dread Archetypes of men:
Like whom in featured reason's shape—like whom
Created in the mould of God—they fell,
And, mixed with them in common ruin, made
One vast and many-realmèd world, and shared
Their deep abodes—their endless exile, some,—
Some to return to the ethereous light
When one of human form, a Saviour-Man
Almighty, not in deity alone,
But mightier than all angels in the might
And guard of human innocence preserved,
Should freely enter their dark empire—these
To loose, o'er those to triumph; this the theme,
The adventure, and the triumph of my song.
Avenged by misery and the Orphic doom,
Bard of the tyrant-lay! whom dreadless wrongs,
Impatient, and pale thirst for justice drove,
A visionary exile, from the earth,
To seek it in its iron reign—O stern!
And not accepting sympathy, accept
A not presumptuous offering, that joins
That region with a greater name: And thou,
Of my own native language, O dread bard!
Who, amid heaven's unshadowed light, by thee
Supremely sung, abidest—shouldst thou know
Who on the earth with thoughts of thee erects
And purifies his mind, and, but by thee,
Awed by no fame, boldened by thee, and awed—
Not with thy breadth of wing, yet with the power
To breathe the region air—attempts the height
Where never Scio's singing eagle towered,
Nor that high-soaring Theban moulted plume,
Hear thou my song! hear, or be deaf, who may.
And if not rashly, or too soon, I heed
The impulse, but have waited on my heart
With patience, and its utterance stilled with awe
Of what inspired it, till I felt it beat
True cadence to unconquerable strains;
Oh, then may she first wooed from heaven by prayer
From thy pure lips, and sympathy austere
With suffering, and the sight of solemn age,
And thy gray Homer's head, with darkness bound,
To me descend, more near, as I am far
Beneath thee, and more need her aiding wing.
Oh, not again invoked in vain, descend,
Urania! and eyes with common light
More blinded than were his by Heaven's hand
Imposed to intercept distracting rays,
Bathe in the vision of transcendent day;
And of the human senses (the dark veil
Before the world of spirit drawn) remove
The dim material hindrance, and illume;
That human thought again may dare behold
The shape and port of spirits, and once more
Hear voices in that distant, shadowy world,
To which ourselves, and this, are shadows, they
The substance, immaterial essence pure—
Souls that have freed their slave, and given back
Its force unto the elements, the dread
Manes, or the more dread Archetypes of men:
Like whom in featured reason's shape—like whom
Created in the mould of God—they fell,
And, mixed with them in common ruin, made
One vast and many-realmèd world, and shared
Their deep abodes—their endless exile, some,—
Some to return to the ethereous light
When one of human form, a Saviour-Man
Almighty, not in deity alone,
But mightier than all angels in the might
And guard of human innocence preserved,
Should freely enter their dark empire—these
To loose, o'er those to triumph; this the theme,
The adventure, and the triumph of my song.