Jephthah and Other Mysteries

viii DEDICATION. Let there be light! and there was light: the womb Of Earth resounded, and the empyréan Roared: and the thunder of the seas averred The presence of thy recreating word. The stone rolls back: the charioted night, Stricken, swings backwards on her broken pinions: Faith sickens, drunken tyranny reels, the spite Of monarchs, ruinous of their chained dominions: The splendid forehead, crowned with Love and Light, Flames in the starry air: the fallen minions Drop like lost souls through horrid emptinesses To their own black unfathomable abysses! Now Freedom, flower and star and wind and wave And spirit of the unimagined fire, Begotten on the dishonourable grave Of fallen tyranny, may seek her sire In the pure soul of Man, her lips may lave In the pure waters of her soul’s desire, Truth: and deep eyes behold thine eyes as deep, Fresh lips kiss thine that kissed her soul from sleep. See Italy, the eagle of all time, Triumphant, from her coffin’s leaden prison, Soar into freedom, seek the heights sublime Of self-reliance, from those depths new-risen, Stirred by the passion of thy mighty rhyme: Eagle, and phoenix: shrill, sharp flames bedizen The burning citadel, where crested Man Leaps sword in hand upon the Vatican.