51.6 'Victory, Victory to the prostrate nations! Bear witness Night, and ye mute Constellations Who gaze on us from your crystalline cars! Thoughts have gone forth whose powers can sleep no more! _2260 Victory! Victory! Earth's remotest shore, Regions which groan beneath the Antarctic stars, The green lands cradled in the roar Of western waves, and wildernesses Peopled and vast, which skirt the oceans _2265 Where morning dyes her golden tresses, Shall soon partake our high emotions: Kings shall turn pale! Almighty Fear, The Fiend-God, when our charmed name he hear, Shall fade like shadow from his thousand fanes, _2270 While Truth with Joy enthroned o'er his lost empire reigns!' 51.52. Ere she had ceased, the mists of night entwining Their dim woof, floated o'er the infinite throng; She, like a spirit through the darkness shining, In tones whose sweetness silence did prolong, _2275 As if to lingering winds they did belong, Poured forth her inmost soul: a passionate speech With wild and thrilling pauses woven among, Which whoso heard was mute, for it could teach To rapture like her own all listening hearts to reach. _2280 53. Her voice was as a mountain stream which sweeps The withered leaves of Autumn to the lake, And in some deep and narrow bay then sleeps In the shadow of the shores; as dead leaves wake, Under the wave, in flowers and herbs which make _2285 Those green depths beautiful when skies are blue, The multitude so moveless did partake Such living change, and kindling murmurs flew As o'er that speechless calm delight and wonder grew. 54. Over the plain the throngs were scattered then _2290 In groups around the fires, which from the sea Even to the gorge of the first mountain-glen Blazed wide and far: the banquet of the free Was spread beneath many a dark cypress-tree, Beneath whose spires, which swayed in the red flame, _2295 Reclining, as they ate, of Liberty, And Hope, and Justice, and Laone's name, Earth's children did a woof of happy converse frame. 55. Their feast was such as Earth, the general mother, Pours from her fairest bosom, when she smiles _2300 In the embrace of Autumn;--to each other As when some parent fondly reconciles Her warring children, she their wrath beguiles With her own sustenance, they relenting weep: Such was this Festival, which from their isles _2305 And continents, and winds, and oceans deep, All shapes might throng to share, that fly, or walk or creep,--