The glorious agonies of martyr-spirits,—­
    Sharp lightning-throes to split the jagged clouds
    That veil the future, showing them the end,—­ 265
    Pain’s thorny crown for constancy and truth,
    Girding the temples like a wreath of stars. 
    This is a thought, that, like the fabled laurel,
    Makes my faith thunder-proof; and thy dread bolts
    Fall on me like the silent flakes of snow 270
    On the hoar brows of aged Caucasus: 
    But, O thought far more blissful, they can rend
    This cloud of flesh, and make my soul a star!

      Unleash thy crouching thunders now, O Jove! 
    Free this high heart, which, a poor captive long, 275
    Doth knock to be let forth, this heart which still,
    In its invincible manhood, overtops
    Thy puny godship, as this mountain doth
    The pines that moss its roots.  Oh, even now,
    While from my peak of suffering I look down, 280
    Beholding with a far-spread gush of hope
    The sunrise of that Beauty, in whose face,
    Shone all around with love, no man shall look
    But straightway like a god he is uplift
    Unto the throne long empty for his sake, 285
    And clearly oft foreshadowed in wide dreams
    By his free inward nature, which nor thou,
    Nor any anarch after thee, can bind
    From working its great doom,—­now, now set free
    This essence, not to die, but to become 290
    Part of that awful Presence which doth haunt
    The palaces of tyrants, to hunt off,
    With its grim eyes and fearful whisperings
    And hideous sense of utter loneliness,
    All hope of safety, all desire of peace, 295
    All but the loathed forefeeling of blank death,—­
    Part of that spirit which doth ever brood
    In patient calm on the unpilfered nest
    Of man’s deep heart, till mighty thoughts grow fledged
    To sail with darkening shadow o’er the world, 300
    Filling with dread such souls as dare not trust
    In the unfailing energy of Good,
    Until they swoop, and their pale quarry make
    Of some o’erbloated wrong,—­that spirit which
    Scatters great hopes in the seed-field of man, 305
    Like acorns among grain, to grow and be
    A roof for freedom in all coming time! 
    But no, this cannot be; for ages yet,
    In solitude unbroken, shall I hear
    The angry Caspian to the Euxine shout, 310
    And Euxine answer with a muffled roar,
    On either side storming the giant walls
    Of Caucasus with leagues of climbing foam
    (Less, from my height, than flakes of downy snow),
    That draw back baffled but to hurl again, 315