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Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.
Nor wanted here the just similitude
Of a triumphal pageant, for where’er

The chariot rolled, a captive multitude
Was driven;–all those who had grown old in power 120
Or misery,–all who had their age subdued

By action or by suffering, and whose hour
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,
So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;–

All those whose fame or infamy must grow 125
Till the great winter lay the form and name
Of this green earth with them for ever low;–

All but the sacred few who could not tame
Their spirits to the conquerors–but as soon
As they had touched the world with living flame, 130

Fled back like eagles to their native noon,
Or those who put aside the diadem
Of earthly thrones or gems…

Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem.
Were neither mid the mighty captives seen, 135
Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.
The wild dance maddens in the van, and those
Who lead it–fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose 140
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
To savage music, wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure,
Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure 145

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,
Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair;
And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air
As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now 150
Bending within each other’s atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly–and as they glow,
Like moths by light attracted and repelled,
Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled, 155
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle
And die in rain–the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps–while the shock still may tingle
One falls and then another in the path
Senseless–nor is the desolation single, 160

Yet ere I can say WHERE–the chariot hath
Passed over them–nor other trace I find
But as of foam after the ocean’s wrath

Is spent upon the desert shore;–behind,
Old men and women foully disarrayed, 165
Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed,
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still
Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of will 170
They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose
Round them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose
Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie,
And past in these performs what … in those. 175

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,
Half to myself I said–‘And what is this?
Whose shape is that within the car? And why–‘