The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron.
Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair, the nameless female stood.
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night
When pestilence is shot from heaven,—no other arms she needs,—
Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loins
Their awful folds in the dark air. Silent she stood as night:
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
But dumb from that dread day when Orc essay'd his fierce embrace.
'Dark virgin!' said the hairy youth, 'thy father stern, ahhorr'd,
'Rivets my tenfold chains, while still on high my spirit soars;
'Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky; sometimes a lion,
'Stalking upon the mountains; and sometimes a whale, I lash
'The raging, fathomless abyss; anon, a serpent folding
'Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
'On the Canadian wilds I fold.'
The poem opens itself thus:—
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent.
Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore.
Piercing the souls of warlike men, who rise in silent night,
Washington, Franklin, Paine, Warren, Gates, Hancock and Green,
Meet on the coast, glowing with blood, from Albion's fiery prince.
Washington spoke: 'Friends of America, look over the Atlantic sea.
'A bended bow is lifted in heaven, and a heavy iron chain
'Descends link by link from Albion's cliffs across the sea to bind
'Brothers and sons of America, till our faces pale and yellow,
'Heads deprest, voices weak, eyes downcast, hands work-bruised,
'Feet bleeding on the sultry sands, and the furrows of the whip,
'Descend to generations that in future times forget.'
The strong voice ceased: for a terrible blast swept over the heaving sea,
The eastern cloud rent. On his cliffs stood Albion's wrathful Prince,—
A dragon form clashing his scales: at midnight he arose,
And flamed red meteors round the land of Albion beneath.
His voice, his locks, his awful shoulders and his glowing eyes,
Appear to the Americans, upon the cloudy night.
Solemn heave the Atlantic waves between the gloomy nations.
