HELEN.
I fear 'twill shake
Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well
Rememberest when we met no more,595
And, though I dwelt with Lionel,
That friendless caution pierced me sore
With grief; a wound my spirit bore.
Indignantly, but when he died
With him lay dead both hope and pride.600
Alas! all hope is buried now.
But then men dreamed the aged earth
Was labouring in that mighty birth,
Which many a poet and a sage
Has aye foreseen—the happy age605
When truth and love shall dwell below
Among the works and ways of men;
Which on this world not power but will
Even now is wanting to fulfil.
Among mankind what thence befell[1]610
Of strife, how vain, is known too well;
When liberty's dear paean fell
'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,
Though of great wealth and lineage high,
Yet through those dungeon walls there came615
Thy thrilling light, O liberty!
And as the meteor's midnight flame
Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth
Flashed on his visionary youth,
And filled him, not with love, but faith,620
And hope, and courage mute in death;
For love and life in him were twins,
Born at one birth: in every other
First life then love its course begins,
- ↑ In Shelley's edition, befel, as at p. 35.
