41. 'Think'st thou that I shall speak unskilfully, And none will heed me? I remember now, How once, a slave in tortures doomed to die, Was saved, because in accents sweet and low _1030 He sung a song his Judge loved long ago, As he was led to death.--All shall relent Who hear me--tears, as mine have flowed, shall flow, Hearts beat as mine now beats, with such intent As renovates the world; a will omnipotent! _1035 42. 'Yes, I will tread Pride's golden palaces, Through Penury's roofless huts and squalid cells Will I descend, where'er in abjectness Woman with some vile slave her tyrant dwells, There with the music of thine own sweet spells _1040 Will disenchant the captives, and will pour For the despairing, from the crystal wells Of thy deep spirit, reason's mighty lore, And power shall then abound, and hope arise once more. 43. 'Can man be free if woman be a slave? _1045 Chain one who lives, and breathes this boundless air, To the corruption of a closed grave! Can they whose mates are beasts, condemned to bear Scorn, heavier far than toil or anguish, dare To trample their oppressors? in their home _1050 Among their babes, thou knowest a curse would wear The shape of woman--hoary Crime would come Behind, and Fraud rebuild religion's tottering dome. 44. 'I am a child:--I would not yet depart. When I go forth alone, bearing the lamp _1055 Aloft which thou hast kindled in my heart, Millions of slaves from many a dungeon damp Shall leap in joy, as the benumbing cramp Of ages leaves their limbs--no ill may harm Thy Cythna ever--truth its radiant stamp _1060 Has fixed, as an invulnerable charm, Upon her children's brow, dark Falsehood to disarm. 45. 'Wait yet awhile for the appointed day-- Thou wilt depart, and I with tears shall stand Watching thy dim sail skirt the ocean gray; _1065 Amid the dwellers of this lonely land I shall remain alone--and thy command Shall then dissolve the world's unquiet trance, And, multitudinous as the desert sand Borne on the storm, its millions shall advance, _1070 Thronging round thee, the light of their deliverance. 46. 'Then, like the forests of some pathless mountain, Which from remotest glens two warring winds Involve in fire which not the loosened fountain Of broadest floods might quench, shall all the kinds _1075 Of evil, catch from our uniting minds The spark which must consume them;--Cythna then Will have cast off the impotence that binds Her childhood now, and through the paths of men Will pass, as the charmed bird that haunts the serpent's den. _1080