As its far shadow frowned above the mast,
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he passed;
He thought of all--Gonsalvo and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride: 1630
He turned and saw--Gulnare, the Homicide!
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he passed;
He thought of all--Gonsalvo and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride: 1630
He turned and saw--Gulnare, the Homicide!
Byron
1120
No warmth these lips return by his imprest,
And chilled Remembrance shudders o'er the rest.
Yes--had I ever proved that Passion's zeal,
The change to hatred were at least to feel:
But still--he goes unmourned--returns unsought--
And oft when present--absent from my thought.
Or when Reflection comes--and come it must--
I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust;
I am his slave--but, in despite of pride,
'Twere worse than bondage to become his bride. 1130
Oh! that this dotage of his breast would cease!
Or seek another and give mine release,
But yesterday--I could have said, to peace!
Yes, if unwonted fondness now I feign,[hv]
Remember--Captive! 'tis to break thy chain;
Repay the life that to thy hand I owe;
To give thee back to all endeared below,
Who share such love as I can never know.
Farewell--Morn breaks--and I must now away:
'Twill cost me dear--but dread no death to-day! " 1140
XV.
She pressed his fettered fingers to her heart,
And bowed her head, and turned her to depart,
And noiseless as a lovely dream is gone.
And was she here? and is he now alone?
What gem hath dropped and sparkles o'er his chain?
The tear most sacred, shed for others' pain,
That starts at once--bright--pure--from Pity's mine,
Already polished by the hand divine!
Oh! too convincing--dangerously dear--
In Woman's eye the unanswerable tear! 1150
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue--at once her spear and shield:
Avoid it--Virtue ebbs and Wisdom errs,
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers!
What lost a world, and bade a hero fly?
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye.
Yet be the soft Triumvir's fault forgiven;
By this--how many lose not earth--but Heaven!
Consign their souls to Man's eternal foe,
And seal their own to spare some Wanton's woe! 1160
XVI.
'Tis Morn--and o'er his altered features play
The beams--without the Hope of yesterday.
What shall he be ere night? perchance a thing
O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing,
By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt;
While sets that Sun, and dews of Evening melt,
Chill, wet, and misty round each stiffened limb,
Refreshing earth--reviving all but him!
CANTO THE THIRD.
"Come vedi--ancor non m'abbandona"
Dante, _Inferno_, v. 105.
I.
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,[224]
Along Morea's hills the setting Sun; 1170
Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old AEgina's rock, and Idra's isle,[225]
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis! 1180
Their azure arches through the long expanse
More deeply purpled met his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When--Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage's[226] latest day! 1190
Not yet--not yet--Sol pauses on the hill--
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes:
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land, where Phoebus never frowned before:
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head,
The cup of woe was quaffed--the Spirit fled;
The Soul of him who scorned to fear or fly--
Who lived and died, as none can live or die! 1200
But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The Queen of night asserts her silent reign. [227]
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moon-beams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret:
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide; 1210
The cypress saddening by the sacred Mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk;[228]
And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm,
All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye--
And dull were his that passed him heedless by.
Again the AEgean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold, 1220
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown--where gentler Ocean seems to smile.
II.
Not now my theme--why turn my thoughts to thee?
Oh! who can look along thy native sea,
Nor dwell upon thy name, whate'er the tale,
So much its magic must o'er all prevail?
Who that beheld that Sun upon thee set,
Fair Athens! could thine evening face forget?
Not he--whose heart nor time nor distance frees,
Spell-bound within the clustering Cyclades! 1230
Nor seems this homage foreign to its strain,
His Corsair's isle was once thine own domain--[229]
Would that with freedom it were thine again!
III.
The Sun hath sunk--and, darker than the night,
Sinks with its beam upon the beacon height
Medora's heart--the third day's come and gone--
With it he comes not--sends not--faithless one!
The wind was fair though light! and storms were none.
Last eve Anselmo's bark returned, and yet
His only tidings that they had not met! 1240
Though wild, as now, far different were the tale
Had Conrad waited for that single sail.
The night-breeze freshens--she that day had passed
In watching all that Hope proclaimed a mast;
Sadly she sate on high--Impatience bore
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore,
And there she wandered, heedless of the spray
That dashed her garments oft, and warned away:
She saw not, felt not this--nor dared depart,
Nor deemed it cold--her chill was at her heart; 1250
Till grew such certainty from that suspense--
His very Sight had shocked from life or sense!
It came at last--a sad and shattered boat,
Whose inmates first beheld whom first they sought;
Some bleeding--all most wretched--these the few--
Scarce knew they how escaped--_this_ all they knew.
In silence, darkling, each appeared to wait
His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's fate:
Something they would have said; but seemed to fear
To trust their accents to Medora's ear. 1260
She saw at once, yet sunk not--trembled not--
Beneath that grief, that loneliness of lot,
Within that meek fair form, were feelings high,
That deemed not till they found their energy.
While yet was Hope they softened, fluttered, wept--
All lost--that Softness died not--but it slept;
And o'er its slumber rose that Strength which said,
"With nothing left to love, there's nought to dread. "
'Tis more than Nature's--like the burning might
Delirium gathers from the fever's height. 1270
"Silent you stand--nor would I hear you tell
What--speak not--breathe not--for I know it well--
Yet would I ask--almost my lip denies
The--quick your answer--tell me where he lies. "
"Lady! we know not--scarce with life we fled;
But here is one denies that he is dead:
He saw him bound; and bleeding--but alive. "
She heard no further--'twas in vain to strive--
So throbbed each vein--each thought--till then withstood;
Her own dark soul--these words at once subdued: 1280
She totters--falls--and senseless had the wave
Perchance but snatched her from another grave;
But that with hands though rude, yet weeping eyes,
They yield such aid as Pity's haste supplies:[hw]
Dash o'er her deathlike cheek the ocean dew,
Raise, fan, sustain--till life returns anew;
Awake her handmaids, with the matrons leave
That fainting form o'er which they gaze and grieve;
Then seek Anselmo's cavern, to report
The tale too tedious--when the triumph short. 1290
IV.
In that wild council words waxed warm and strange,[hx]
With thoughts of ransom, rescue, and revenge;
All, save repose or flight: still lingering there
Breathed Conrad's spirit, and forbade despair;
Whate'er his fate--the breasts he formed and led
Will save him living, or appease him dead.
Woe to his foes! there yet survive a few,
Whose deeds are daring, as their hearts are true.
V.
Within the Haram's secret chamber sate[230]
Stern Seyd, still pondering o'er his Captive's fate; 1300
His thoughts on love and hate alternate dwell,
Now with Gulnare, and now in Conrad's cell;
Here at his feet the lovely slave reclined
Surveys his brow--would soothe his gloom of mind;
While many an anxious glance her large dark eye
Sends in its idle search for sympathy,
_His_ only bends in seeming o'er his beads,[231]
But inly views his victim as he bleeds.
"Pacha! the day is thine; and on thy crest
Sits Triumph--Conrad taken--fall'n the rest! 1310
His doom is fixed--he dies; and well his fate
Was earned--yet much too worthless for thy hate:
Methinks, a short release, for ransom told[hy]
With all his treasure, not unwisely sold;
Report speaks largely of his pirate-hoard--
Would that of this my Pacha were the lord!
While baffled, weakened by this fatal fray--
Watched--followed--he were then an easier prey;
But once cut off--the remnant of his band
Embark their wealth, and seek a safer strand. " 1320
"Gulnare! --if for each drop of blood a gem
Where offered rich as Stamboul's diadem;
If for each hair of his a massy mine
Of virgin ore should supplicating shine;
If all our Arab tales divulge or dream
Of wealth were here--that gold should not redeem!
It had not now redeemed a single hour,
But that I know him fettered, in my power;
And, thirsting for revenge, I ponder still
On pangs that longest rack--and latest kill. " 1330
"Nay, Seyd! I seek not to restrain thy rage,
Too justly moved for Mercy to assuage;
My thoughts were only to secure for thee
His riches--thus released, he were not free:
Disabled--shorn of half his might and band,
His capture could but wait thy first command. "
"His capture _could! _--and shall I then resign
One day to him--the wretch already mine?
Release my foe! --at whose remonstrance? --thine!
Fair suitor! --to thy virtuous gratitude, 1340
That thus repays this Giaour's relenting mood,
Which thee and thine alone of all could spare--
No doubt, regardless--if the prize were fair--
My thanks and praise alike are due--now hear!
I have a counsel for thy gentler ear:
I do mistrust thee, Woman! and each word
Of thine stamps truth on all Suspicion heard. [hz]
Borne in his arms through fire from yon Serai--
Say, wert thou lingering there with him to fly?
Thou need'st not answer--thy confession speaks, 1350
Already reddening on thy guilty cheeks:
Then--lovely Dame--bethink thee! and beware:
'Tis not _his_ life alone may claim such care!
Another word and--nay--I need no more.
Accursed was the moment when he bore
Thee from the flames, which better far--but no--
I then had mourned thee with a lover's woe--
Now 'tis thy lord that warns--deceitful thing!
Know'st thou that I can clip thy wanton wing?
In words alone I am not wont to chafe: 1360
Look to thyself--nor deem thy falsehood safe! "
He rose--and slowly, sternly thence withdrew,
Rage in his eye, and threats in his adieu:
Ah! little recked that Chief of womanhood--
Which frowns ne'er quelled, nor menaces subdued;
And little deemed he what thy heart, Gulnare!
When soft could feel--and when incensed could dare!
His doubts appeared to wrong--nor yet she knew
How deep the root from whence Compassion grew--
She was a slave--from such may captives claim 1370
A fellow-feeling, differing but in name;
Still half unconscious--heedless of his wrath,
Again she ventured on the dangerous path,
Again his rage repelled--until arose
That strife of thought, the source of Woman's woes!
VI.
Meanwhile--long--anxious--weary--still the same
Rolled day and night: his soul could Terror tame--
This fearful interval of doubt and dread,
When every hour might doom him worse than dead;[ia]
When every step that echoed by the gate, 1380
Might entering lead where axe and stake await;
When every voice that grated on his ear
Might be the last that he could ever hear;
Could Terror tame--that Spirit stern and high
Had proved unwilling as unfit to die;
'Twas worn--perhaps decayed--yet silent bore
That conflict, deadlier far than all before:
The heat of fight, the hurry of the gale,
Leave scarce one thought inert enough to quail:
But bound and fixed in fettered solitude, 1390
To pine, the prey of every changing mood;
To gaze on thine own heart--and meditate
Irrevocable faults, and coming fate--
Too late the last to shun--the first to mend--
To count the hours that struggle to thine end,
With not a friend to animate and tell
To other ears that Death became thee well;
Around thee foes to forge the ready lie,
And blot Life's latest scene with calumny;
Before thee tortures, which the Soul can dare, 1400
Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear;
But deeply feels a single cry would shame,
To Valour's praise thy last and dearest claim;
The life thou leav'st below, denied above
By kind monopolists of heavenly love;
And more than doubtful Paradise--thy Heaven
Of earthly hope--thy loved one from thee riven.
Such were the thoughts that outlaw must sustain,
And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain:
And those sustained he--boots it well or ill? 1410
Since not to sink beneath, is something still!
VII.
The first day passed--he saw not her--Gulnare--
The second, third--and still she came not there;
But what her words avouched, her charms had done,
Or else he had not seen another Sun.
The fourth day rolled along, and with the night
Came storm and darkness in their mingling might.
Oh! how he listened to the rushing deep,
That ne'er till now so broke upon his sleep;
And his wild Spirit wilder wishes sent, 1420
Roused by the roar of his own element!
Oft had he ridden on that winged wave,
And loved its roughness for the speed it gave;
And now its dashing echoed on his ear,
A long known voice--alas! too vainly near!
Loud sung the wind above; and, doubly loud,
Shook o'er his turret cell the thunder-cloud;[232]
And flashed the lightning by the latticed bar,
To him more genial than the Midnight Star:
Close to the glimmering grate he dragged his chain, 1430
And hoped _that_ peril might not prove in vain.
He rais'd his iron hand to Heaven, and prayed
One pitying flash to mar the form it made:
His steel and impious prayer attract alike--
The storm rolled onward, and disdained to strike;
Its peal waxed fainter--ceased--he felt alone,
As if some faithless friend had spurned his groan!
VIII.
The midnight passed, and to the massy door
A light step came--it paused--it moved once more;
Slow turns the grating bolt and sullen key: 1440
'Tis as his heart foreboded--that fair She!
Whate'er her sins, to him a Guardian Saint,
And beauteous still as hermit's hope can paint;
Yet changed since last within that cell she came,
More pale her cheek, more tremulous her frame:
On him she cast her dark and hurried eye,
Which spoke before her accents--"Thou must die!
Yes, thou must die--there is but one resource,
The last--the worst--if torture were not worse. "
"Lady! I look to none; my lips proclaim 1450
What last proclaimed they--Conrad still the same:
Why should'st thou seek an outlaw's life to spare,
And change the sentence I deserve to bear?
Well have I earned--nor here alone--the meed
Of Seyd's revenge, by many a lawless deed. "
"Why should I seek? because--Oh! did'st thou not
Redeem my life from worse than Slavery's lot?
Why should I seek? --hath Misery made thee blind
To the fond workings of a woman's mind?
And must I say? --albeit my heart rebel 1460
With all that Woman feels, but should not tell--
Because--despite thy crimes--that heart is moved:
It feared thee--thanked thee--pitied--maddened--loved.
Reply not, tell not now thy tale again,
Thou lov'st another--and I love in vain:
Though fond as mine her bosom, form more fair,
I rush through peril which she would not dare.
If that thy heart to hers were truly dear,
Were I thine own--thou wert not lonely here:
An outlaw's spouse--and leave her Lord to roam! 1470
What hath such gentle dame to do with home?
But speak not now--o'er thine and o'er my head
Hangs the keen sabre by a single thread;[ib]
If thou hast courage still, and would'st be free,
Receive this poniard--rise and follow me! "
"Aye--in my chains! my steps will gently tread,
With these adornments, o'er such slumbering head!
Thou hast forgot--is this a garb for flight?
Or is that instrument more fit for fight? "
"Misdoubting Corsair! I have gained the guard, 1480
Ripe for revolt, and greedy for reward.
A single word of mine removes that chain:
Without some aid how here could I remain?
Well, since we met, hath sped my busy time,
If in aught evil, for thy sake the crime:
The crime--'tis none to punish those of Seyd.
That hatred tyrant, Conrad--he must bleed!
I see thee shudder, but my soul is changed--
Wronged--spurned--reviled--and it shall be avenged--
Accused of what till now my heart disdained-- 1490
Too faithful, though to bitter bondage chained.
Yes, smile! --but he had little cause to sneer,
I was not treacherous then, nor thou too dear:
But he has said it--and the jealous well,--
Those tyrants--teasing--tempting to rebel,--
Deserve the fate their fretting lips foretell.
I never loved--he bought me--somewhat high--
Since with me came a heart he could not buy.
I was a slave unmurmuring; he hath said,
But for his rescue I with thee had fled. 1500
'Twas false thou know'st--but let such Augurs rue,
Their words are omens Insult renders true.
Nor was thy respite granted to my prayer;
This fleeting grace was only to prepare
New torments for thy life, and my despair.
Mine too he threatens; but his dotage still
Would fain reserve me for his lordly will:
When wearier of these fleeting charms and me,
There yawns the sack--and yonder rolls the sea!
What, am I then a toy for dotard's play, 1510
To wear but till the gilding frets away?
I saw thee--loved thee--owe thee all--would save,
If but to show how grateful is a slave.
But had he not thus menaced fame and life,--
And well he keeps his oaths pronounced in strife--
I still had saved thee--but the Pacha spared:
Now I am all thine own--for all prepared:
Thou lov'st me not--nor know'st--or but the worst.
Alas! _this_ love--_that_ hatred--are the first--
Oh! could'st thou prove my truth, thou would'st not start, 1520
Nor fear the fire that lights an Eastern heart;
'Tis now the beacon of thy safety--now
It points within the port a Mainote prow:
But in one chamber, where our path must lead,
There sleeps--he must not wake--the oppressor Seyd! "
"Gulnare--Gulnare--I never felt till now
My abject fortune, withered fame so low:
Seyd is mine enemy; had swept my band
From earth with ruthless but with open hand,
And therefore came I, in my bark of war, 1530
To smite the smiter with the scimitar;
Such is my weapon--not the secret knife;
Who spares a Woman's seeks not Slumber's life.
Thine saved I gladly, Lady--not for this;
Let me not deem that mercy shown amiss.
Now fare thee well--more peace be with thy breast!
Night wears apace, my last of earthly rest! "[ic]
"Rest! rest! by sunrise must thy sinews shake,
And thy limbs writhe around the ready stake,
I heard the order--saw--I will not see-- 1540
If thou wilt perish, I will fall with thee.
My life--my love--my hatred--all below
Are on this cast--Corsair! 'tis but a blow!
Without it flight were idle--how evade
His sure pursuit? --my wrongs too unrepaid,
My youth disgraced--the long, long wasted years,
One blow shall cancel with our future fears;
But since the dagger suits thee less than brand,
I'll try the firmness of a female hand.
The guards are gained--one moment all were o'er-- 1550
Corsair! we meet in safety or no more;
If errs my feeble hand, the morning cloud
Will hover o'er thy scaffold, and my shroud. "
IX.
She turned, and vanished ere he could reply,
But his glance followed far with eager eye;
And gathering, as he could, the links that bound
His form, to curl their length, and curb their sound,
Since bar and bolt no more his steps preclude,
He, fast as fettered limbs allow, pursued.
'Twas dark and winding, and he knew not where 1560
That passage led; nor lamp nor guard was there:
He sees a dusky glimmering--shall he seek
Or shun that ray so indistinct and weak?
Chance guides his steps--a freshness seems to bear
Full on his brow as if from morning air;
He reached an open gallery--on his eye
Gleamed the last star of night, the clearing sky:
Yet scarcely heeded these--another light
From a lone chamber struck upon his sight.
Towards it he moved; a scarcely closing door 1570
Revealed the ray within, but nothing more.
With hasty step a figure outward passed,
Then paused, and turned--and paused--'tis She at last!
No poniard in that hand, nor sign of ill--
"Thanks to that softening heart--she could not kill! "
Again he looked, the wildness of her eye
Starts from the day abrupt and fearfully.
She stopped--threw back her dark far-floating hair,
That nearly veiled her face and bosom fair,
As if she late had bent her leaning head 1580
Above some object of her doubt or dread.
They meet--upon her brow--unknown--forgot--
Her hurrying hand had left--'twas but a spot--
Its hue was all he saw, and scarce withstood--
Oh! slight but certain pledge of crime--'tis Blood!
X.
He had seen battle--he had brooded lone
O'er promised pangs to sentenced Guilt foreshown;
He had been tempted--chastened--and the chain
Yet on his arms might ever there remain:
But ne'er from strife--captivity--remorse-- 1590
From all his feelings in their inmost force--
So thrilled, so shuddered every creeping vein,
As now they froze before that purple stain.
That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,
Had banished all the beauty from her cheek!
Blood he had viewed--could view unmoved--but then
It flowed in combat, or was shed by men! [id]
XI.
"'Tis done--he nearly waked--but it is done.
Corsair! he perished--thou art dearly won.
All words would now be vain--away--away! 1600
Our bark is tossing--'tis already day.
The few gained over, now are wholly mine,
And these thy yet surviving band shall join:
Anon my voice shall vindicate my hand,
When once our sail forsakes this hated strand. "
XII.
She clapped her hands, and through the gallery pour,
Equipped for flight, her vassals--Greek and Moor;
Silent but quick they stoop, his chains unbind;
Once more his limbs are free as mountain wind!
But on his heavy heart such sadness sate, 1610
As if they there transferred that iron weight.
No words are uttered--at her sign, a door
Reveals the secret passage to the shore;
The city lies behind--they speed, they reach
The glad waves dancing on the yellow beach;
And Conrad following, at her beck, obeyed,
Nor cared he now if rescued or betrayed;
Resistance were as useless as if Seyd
Yet lived to view the doom his ire decreed.
XIII.
Embarked--the sail unfurled--the light breeze blew-- 1620
How much had Conrad's memory to review! [ie]
Sunk he in contemplation, till the Cape
Where last he anchored reared its giant shape.
Ah! --since that fatal night, though brief the time,
Had swept an age of terror, grief, and crime.
As its far shadow frowned above the mast,
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he passed;
He thought of all--Gonsalvo and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride: 1630
He turned and saw--Gulnare, the Homicide!
XIV.
She watched his features till she could not bear
Their freezing aspect and averted air;
And that strange fierceness foreign to her eye
Fell quenched in tears, too late to shed or dry. [if]
She knelt beside him and his hand she pressed,
"Thou may'st forgive though Allah's self detest;
But for that deed of darkness what wert thou?
Reproach me--but not yet--Oh! spare me _now! _
I am not what I seem--this fearful night 1640
My brain bewildered--do not madden quite!
If I had never loved--though less my guilt--
Thou hadst not lived to--hate me--if thou wilt. "
XV.
She wrongs his thoughts--they more himself upbraid
Than her--though undesigned--the wretch he made;
But speechless all, deep, dark, and unexprest,
They bleed within that silent cell--his breast.
Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge,
The blue waves sport around the stern they urge;
Far on the Horizon's verge appears a speck, 1650
A spot--a mast--a sail--an armed deck!
Their little bark her men of watch descry,
And ampler canvass woos the wind from high;
She bears her down majestically near,
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier;[ig][233]
A flash is seen--the ball beyond her bow
Booms harmless, hissing to the deep below.
Up rose keen Conrad from his silent trance,
A long, long absent gladness in his glance;
"'Tis mine--my blood-rag flag! again--again-- 1660
I am not all deserted on the main! "
They own the signal, answer to the hail,
Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail.
"'Tis Conrad! Conrad! " shouting from the deck,
Command nor Duty could their transport check!
With light alacrity and gaze of Pride,
They view him mount once more his vessel's side;
A smile relaxing in each rugged face,
Their arms can scarce forbear a rough embrace.
He, half forgetting danger and defeat, 1670
Returns their greeting as a Chief may greet,
Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's hand,
And feels he yet can conquer and command!
XVI.
These greetings o'er, the feelings that o'erflow,
Yet grieve to win him back without a blow;
They sailed prepared for vengeance--had they known
A woman's hand secured that deed her own,
She were their Queen--less scrupulous are they
Than haughty Conrad how they win their way.
With many an asking smile, and wondering stare, 1680
They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare;
And her, at once above--beneath her sex,
Whom blood appalled not, their regards perplex. [ih]
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye,
She drops her veil, and stands in silence by;
Her arms are meekly folded on that breast,
Which--Conrad safe--to Fate resigned the rest.
Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill,
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her Woman still! 1690
XVII.
This Conrad marked, and felt--ah! could he less? --
Hate of that deed--but grief for her distress;
What she has done no tears can wash away,
And Heaven must punish on its angry day:
But--it was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt,
For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;
And he was free! --and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven! [234]
And now he turned him to that dark-eyed slave
Whose brow was bowed beneath the glance he gave, 1700
Who now seemed changed and humbled, faint and meek,
But varying oft the colour of her cheek
To deeper shades of paleness--all its red
That fearful spot which stained it from the dead!
He took that hand--it trembled--now too late--
So soft in love--so wildly nerved in hate;
He clasped that hand--it trembled--and his own
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone.
"Gulnare! "--but she replied not--"dear Gulnare! "[ii]
She raised her eye--her only answer there-- 1710
At once she sought and sunk in his embrace:
If he had driven her from that resting-place,
His had been more or less than mortal heart,
But--good or ill--it bade her not depart.
Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,
His latest virtue then had joined the rest.
Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss[ij]
That asked from form so fair no more than this,
The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith--
To lips where Love had lavished all his breath, 1720
To lips--whose broken sighs such fragrance fling,
As he had fanned them freshly with his wing! [ik]
XVIII.
They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle.
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive Dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak! 1730
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? [il]
XIX.
The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And 'midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain--'tis strange--and all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark.
'Tis strange--of yore its welcome never failed,
Nor now, perchance, extinguished--only veiled. 1740
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not--looks not--leaps into the wave,
Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high
Ascends the path familiar to his eye.
He reached his turret door--he paused--no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around. 1750
He knocked, and loudly--footstep nor reply
Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh:
He knocked, but faintly--for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.
The portal opens--'tis a well known face--
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent--twice his own essayed,
And failed to frame the question they delayed;
He snatched the lamp--its light will answer all--
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall. 1760
He would not wait for that reviving ray--
As soon could he have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor,
Another chequers o'er the shadowed floor;
His steps the chamber gain--his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not--yet foretold!
XX.
He turned not--spoke not--sunk not--fixed his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed--how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain! 1770
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That Death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers[235] her colder hand contained,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep--
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And veiled--Thought shrinks from all that lurked below--Oh!
o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,[236]
And hurls the Spirit from her throne of light; 1780
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips--
Yet, yet they seem as they forebore to smile,
And wished repose,--but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long, fair--but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;[im]
These--and the pale pure cheek, became the bier--
But She is nothing--wherefore is he here? 1790
XXI.
He asked no question--all were answered now
By the first glance on that still, marble brow. [in]
It was enough--she died--what recked it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less;--the Good explore,
For peace, those realms where Guilt can never soar:
The proud, the wayward--who have fixed below 1800
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite--
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where Grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
XXII.
By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one, 1810
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul Exhaustion prest,
And Stupor almost lulled it into rest;
So feeble now--his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confessed without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears--perchance, if seen, 1820
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flowed--he dried them to depart,
In helpless--hopeless--brokenness of heart:
The Sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim:
And the night cometh--ne'er to pass from him. [io]
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye--the blindest of the blind!
Which may not--dare not see--but turns aside
To blackest shade--nor will endure a guide!
XXIII. [237]
His heart was formed for softness--warped to wrong, 1830
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure--as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot--like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last. [238]
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now.
The thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both, 1840
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell;
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shivered fragments on the barren ground!
XXIV.
'Tis morn--to venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there, nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed o'er:
Another morn--another bids them seek, 1850
And shout his name till Echo waxeth weak;
Mount--grotto--cavern--valley searched in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain:
Their hope revives--they follow o'er the main.
'Tis idle all--moons roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not, came not since that day:
Nor trace nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perished his despair!
Long mourned his band whom none could mourn beside;
And fair the monument they gave his Bride: 1860
For him they raise not the recording stone--
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes. [239]
ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
I.
'Tis done--but yesterday a King!
And armed with Kings to strive--
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject--yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive? [243]
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,[244]
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
II. [245]
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bowed so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestioned,--power to save,--
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!
III.
Thanks for that lesson--it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men[246]
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.
IV.
The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife--[247]
The earthquake-voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife--
All quelled! --Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!
V. [248]
The Desolator desolate! [249]
The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate
A Suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope
That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?
To die a Prince--or live a slave--
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
VI.
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dreamed not of the rebound;[250]
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke--
Alone--how looked he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length.
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
VII.
The Roman,[251] when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger--dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home. --
He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandoned power.
VIII.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,[252]
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:[253]
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
IX.
But thou--from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung--
Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart
To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean;
X.
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
XI.
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain--
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again--
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night? [ip]
XII.
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;[iq]
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.
XIII. [254]
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,--
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem! [255]
XIV.
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;[ir]
That element may meet thy smile--
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand[is]
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue[256] hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.
XV.
Thou Timour! in his captive's cage[257][it]
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one--"The world _was_ mine! "
Unless, like he of Babylon,[258]
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,[259]
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth--
So long obeyed--so little worth!
XVI.
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,[260]
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God--by man accurst,[iu]
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend's arch mock;[261]
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died! [iv][262]
XVII.
There was a day--there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's--Gaul thine--[iw]
When that immeasurable power
Unsated to resign
Had been an act of purer fame
Than gathers round Marengo's name
And gilded thy decline,
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.
XVIII.
But thou forsooth must be a King
And don the purple vest,
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where[ix]
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star, the string, the crest? [iy][263]
Vain froward child of Empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatched away?
XIX.
Where may the wearied eye repose[iz]
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes--One--the first--the last--the best--
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom Envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one! [ja][264]
LARA. [jb]
CANTO THE FIRST. [265]
I.
The Serfs[266] are glad through Lara's wide domain,[267]
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 10
II.
The Chief of Lara is returned again:
And why had Lara crossed the bounding main?
Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know,[268]
Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! --
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood governed men. [jc] 20
It skills not, boots not step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,[jd]
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III.
And Lara left in youth his father-land;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace waxed fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there; 30
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,[je]
The young forgot him, and the old had died;[jf]
"Yet doth he live! " exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear. [jg]
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place; 40
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome in that Gothic pile. [jh]
IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;
They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er
Not that he came, but came not long before:
No train is his beyond a single page,
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.
Years had rolled on, and fast they speed away
To those that wander as to those that stay; 50
But lack of tidings from another clime
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time.
They see, they recognise, yet almost deem
The present dubious, or the past a dream.
He lives, nor yet is past his Manhood's prime,
Though seared by toil, and something touched by Time;
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot,
Might be untaught him by his varied lot;
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame: 60
His soul in youth was haughty, but his sins[269]
No more than pleasure from the stripling wins;
And such, if not yet hardened in their course,
Might be redeemed, nor ask a long remorse.
V.
And they indeed were changed--'tis quickly seen,
Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been:
That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last,
And spake of passions, but of passion past:
The pride, but not the fire, of early days,
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise; 70
A high demeanour, and a glance that took
Their thoughts from others by a single look;
And that sarcastic levity of tongue,
The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,
That darts in seeming playfulness around,
And makes those feel that will not own the wound;
All these seemed his, and something more beneath
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.
Ambition, Glory, Love, the common aim,
That some can conquer, and that all would claim, 80
Within his breast appeared no more to strive,
Yet seemed as lately they had been alive;
And some deep feeling it were vain to trace
At moments lightened o'er his livid face.
VI.
Not much he loved long question of the past,
Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast,
In those far lands where he had wandered lone,
And--as himself would have it seem--unknown:
Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,
Nor glean experience from his fellow man; 90
But what he had beheld he shunned to show,
As hardly worth a stranger's care to know;
If still more prying such inquiry grew,
His brow fell darker, and his words more few.
VII.
Not unrejoiced to see him once again,
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;
Born of high lineage, linked in high command,
He mingled with the Magnates of his land;
Joined the carousals of the great and gay,
And saw them smile or sigh their hours away; 100
But still he only saw, and did not share,
The common pleasure or the general care;
He did not follow what they all pursued
With hope still baffled still to be renewed;
Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial Gain,
Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's pain:
Around him some mysterious circle thrown
Repelled approach, and showed him still alone;
Upon his eye sat something of reproof,
That kept at least Frivolity aloof; 110
And things more timid that beheld him near
In silence gazed, or whispered mutual fear;
And they the wiser, friendlier few confessed
They deemed him better than his air expressed.
VIII.
Twas strange--in youth all action and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;
Woman--the Field--the Ocean, all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried--he ransacked all below,
And found his recompense in joy or woe, 120
No tame, trite medium; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought:[ji]
The Tempest of his Heart in scorn had gazed
On that the feebler Elements hath raised;
The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,
And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:
Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,
How woke he from the wildness of that dream!
Alas! he told not--but he did awake
To curse the withered heart that would not break. 130
IX.
Books, for his volume heretofore was Man,
With eye more curious he appeared to scan,
And oft in sudden mood, for many a day,
From all communion he would start away:
And then, his rarely called attendants said,
Through night's long hours would sound his hurried tread
O'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned
In rude but antique portraiture around:
They heard, but whispered--"_that_ must not be known--
The sound of words less earthly than his own. [jj] 140
Yes, they who chose might smile, but some had seen
They scarce knew what, but more than should have been.
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head[270]
Which hands profane had gathered from the dead,
That still beside his opened volume lay,
As if to startle all save him away?
Why slept he not when others were at rest?
Why heard no music, and received no guest?
All was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong? [271]
Some knew perchance--but 'twere a tale too long; 150
And such besides were too discreetly wise,
To more than hint their knowledge in surmise;
But if they would--they could"--around the board
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.
X.
It was the night--and Lara's glassy stream
The stars are studding, each with imaged beam;
So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And yet they glide like Happiness away;[272]
Reflecting far and fairy-like from high
The immortal lights that live along the sky: 160
Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,
And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee;
Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove,
And Innocence would offer to her love.
These deck the shore; the waves their channel make
In windings bright and mazy like the snake.
All was so still, so soft in earth and air,
You scarce would start to meet a spirit there;
Secure that nought of evil could delight
To walk in such a scene, on such a night! 170
It was a moment only for the good:
So Lara deemed, nor longer there he stood,
But turned in silence to his castle-gate;
Such scene his soul no more could contemplate:
Such scene reminded him of other days,
Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze,
Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now--
No--no--the storm may beat upon his brow,
Unfelt, unsparing--but a night like this,
A night of Beauty, mocked such breast as his.
No warmth these lips return by his imprest,
And chilled Remembrance shudders o'er the rest.
Yes--had I ever proved that Passion's zeal,
The change to hatred were at least to feel:
But still--he goes unmourned--returns unsought--
And oft when present--absent from my thought.
Or when Reflection comes--and come it must--
I fear that henceforth 'twill but bring disgust;
I am his slave--but, in despite of pride,
'Twere worse than bondage to become his bride. 1130
Oh! that this dotage of his breast would cease!
Or seek another and give mine release,
But yesterday--I could have said, to peace!
Yes, if unwonted fondness now I feign,[hv]
Remember--Captive! 'tis to break thy chain;
Repay the life that to thy hand I owe;
To give thee back to all endeared below,
Who share such love as I can never know.
Farewell--Morn breaks--and I must now away:
'Twill cost me dear--but dread no death to-day! " 1140
XV.
She pressed his fettered fingers to her heart,
And bowed her head, and turned her to depart,
And noiseless as a lovely dream is gone.
And was she here? and is he now alone?
What gem hath dropped and sparkles o'er his chain?
The tear most sacred, shed for others' pain,
That starts at once--bright--pure--from Pity's mine,
Already polished by the hand divine!
Oh! too convincing--dangerously dear--
In Woman's eye the unanswerable tear! 1150
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue--at once her spear and shield:
Avoid it--Virtue ebbs and Wisdom errs,
Too fondly gazing on that grief of hers!
What lost a world, and bade a hero fly?
The timid tear in Cleopatra's eye.
Yet be the soft Triumvir's fault forgiven;
By this--how many lose not earth--but Heaven!
Consign their souls to Man's eternal foe,
And seal their own to spare some Wanton's woe! 1160
XVI.
'Tis Morn--and o'er his altered features play
The beams--without the Hope of yesterday.
What shall he be ere night? perchance a thing
O'er which the raven flaps her funeral wing,
By his closed eye unheeded and unfelt;
While sets that Sun, and dews of Evening melt,
Chill, wet, and misty round each stiffened limb,
Refreshing earth--reviving all but him!
CANTO THE THIRD.
"Come vedi--ancor non m'abbandona"
Dante, _Inferno_, v. 105.
I.
Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,[224]
Along Morea's hills the setting Sun; 1170
Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old AEgina's rock, and Idra's isle,[225]
The God of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis! 1180
Their azure arches through the long expanse
More deeply purpled met his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of Heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When--Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last.
How watched thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murdered Sage's[226] latest day! 1190
Not yet--not yet--Sol pauses on the hill--
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonising eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes:
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour,
The land, where Phoebus never frowned before:
But ere he sunk below Cithaeron's head,
The cup of woe was quaffed--the Spirit fled;
The Soul of him who scorned to fear or fly--
Who lived and died, as none can live or die! 1200
But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The Queen of night asserts her silent reign. [227]
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moon-beams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the Minaret:
The groves of olive scattered dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide; 1210
The cypress saddening by the sacred Mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk;[228]
And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm,
All tinged with varied hues arrest the eye--
And dull were his that passed him heedless by.
Again the AEgean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold, 1220
Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown--where gentler Ocean seems to smile.
II.
Not now my theme--why turn my thoughts to thee?
Oh! who can look along thy native sea,
Nor dwell upon thy name, whate'er the tale,
So much its magic must o'er all prevail?
Who that beheld that Sun upon thee set,
Fair Athens! could thine evening face forget?
Not he--whose heart nor time nor distance frees,
Spell-bound within the clustering Cyclades! 1230
Nor seems this homage foreign to its strain,
His Corsair's isle was once thine own domain--[229]
Would that with freedom it were thine again!
III.
The Sun hath sunk--and, darker than the night,
Sinks with its beam upon the beacon height
Medora's heart--the third day's come and gone--
With it he comes not--sends not--faithless one!
The wind was fair though light! and storms were none.
Last eve Anselmo's bark returned, and yet
His only tidings that they had not met! 1240
Though wild, as now, far different were the tale
Had Conrad waited for that single sail.
The night-breeze freshens--she that day had passed
In watching all that Hope proclaimed a mast;
Sadly she sate on high--Impatience bore
At last her footsteps to the midnight shore,
And there she wandered, heedless of the spray
That dashed her garments oft, and warned away:
She saw not, felt not this--nor dared depart,
Nor deemed it cold--her chill was at her heart; 1250
Till grew such certainty from that suspense--
His very Sight had shocked from life or sense!
It came at last--a sad and shattered boat,
Whose inmates first beheld whom first they sought;
Some bleeding--all most wretched--these the few--
Scarce knew they how escaped--_this_ all they knew.
In silence, darkling, each appeared to wait
His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's fate:
Something they would have said; but seemed to fear
To trust their accents to Medora's ear. 1260
She saw at once, yet sunk not--trembled not--
Beneath that grief, that loneliness of lot,
Within that meek fair form, were feelings high,
That deemed not till they found their energy.
While yet was Hope they softened, fluttered, wept--
All lost--that Softness died not--but it slept;
And o'er its slumber rose that Strength which said,
"With nothing left to love, there's nought to dread. "
'Tis more than Nature's--like the burning might
Delirium gathers from the fever's height. 1270
"Silent you stand--nor would I hear you tell
What--speak not--breathe not--for I know it well--
Yet would I ask--almost my lip denies
The--quick your answer--tell me where he lies. "
"Lady! we know not--scarce with life we fled;
But here is one denies that he is dead:
He saw him bound; and bleeding--but alive. "
She heard no further--'twas in vain to strive--
So throbbed each vein--each thought--till then withstood;
Her own dark soul--these words at once subdued: 1280
She totters--falls--and senseless had the wave
Perchance but snatched her from another grave;
But that with hands though rude, yet weeping eyes,
They yield such aid as Pity's haste supplies:[hw]
Dash o'er her deathlike cheek the ocean dew,
Raise, fan, sustain--till life returns anew;
Awake her handmaids, with the matrons leave
That fainting form o'er which they gaze and grieve;
Then seek Anselmo's cavern, to report
The tale too tedious--when the triumph short. 1290
IV.
In that wild council words waxed warm and strange,[hx]
With thoughts of ransom, rescue, and revenge;
All, save repose or flight: still lingering there
Breathed Conrad's spirit, and forbade despair;
Whate'er his fate--the breasts he formed and led
Will save him living, or appease him dead.
Woe to his foes! there yet survive a few,
Whose deeds are daring, as their hearts are true.
V.
Within the Haram's secret chamber sate[230]
Stern Seyd, still pondering o'er his Captive's fate; 1300
His thoughts on love and hate alternate dwell,
Now with Gulnare, and now in Conrad's cell;
Here at his feet the lovely slave reclined
Surveys his brow--would soothe his gloom of mind;
While many an anxious glance her large dark eye
Sends in its idle search for sympathy,
_His_ only bends in seeming o'er his beads,[231]
But inly views his victim as he bleeds.
"Pacha! the day is thine; and on thy crest
Sits Triumph--Conrad taken--fall'n the rest! 1310
His doom is fixed--he dies; and well his fate
Was earned--yet much too worthless for thy hate:
Methinks, a short release, for ransom told[hy]
With all his treasure, not unwisely sold;
Report speaks largely of his pirate-hoard--
Would that of this my Pacha were the lord!
While baffled, weakened by this fatal fray--
Watched--followed--he were then an easier prey;
But once cut off--the remnant of his band
Embark their wealth, and seek a safer strand. " 1320
"Gulnare! --if for each drop of blood a gem
Where offered rich as Stamboul's diadem;
If for each hair of his a massy mine
Of virgin ore should supplicating shine;
If all our Arab tales divulge or dream
Of wealth were here--that gold should not redeem!
It had not now redeemed a single hour,
But that I know him fettered, in my power;
And, thirsting for revenge, I ponder still
On pangs that longest rack--and latest kill. " 1330
"Nay, Seyd! I seek not to restrain thy rage,
Too justly moved for Mercy to assuage;
My thoughts were only to secure for thee
His riches--thus released, he were not free:
Disabled--shorn of half his might and band,
His capture could but wait thy first command. "
"His capture _could! _--and shall I then resign
One day to him--the wretch already mine?
Release my foe! --at whose remonstrance? --thine!
Fair suitor! --to thy virtuous gratitude, 1340
That thus repays this Giaour's relenting mood,
Which thee and thine alone of all could spare--
No doubt, regardless--if the prize were fair--
My thanks and praise alike are due--now hear!
I have a counsel for thy gentler ear:
I do mistrust thee, Woman! and each word
Of thine stamps truth on all Suspicion heard. [hz]
Borne in his arms through fire from yon Serai--
Say, wert thou lingering there with him to fly?
Thou need'st not answer--thy confession speaks, 1350
Already reddening on thy guilty cheeks:
Then--lovely Dame--bethink thee! and beware:
'Tis not _his_ life alone may claim such care!
Another word and--nay--I need no more.
Accursed was the moment when he bore
Thee from the flames, which better far--but no--
I then had mourned thee with a lover's woe--
Now 'tis thy lord that warns--deceitful thing!
Know'st thou that I can clip thy wanton wing?
In words alone I am not wont to chafe: 1360
Look to thyself--nor deem thy falsehood safe! "
He rose--and slowly, sternly thence withdrew,
Rage in his eye, and threats in his adieu:
Ah! little recked that Chief of womanhood--
Which frowns ne'er quelled, nor menaces subdued;
And little deemed he what thy heart, Gulnare!
When soft could feel--and when incensed could dare!
His doubts appeared to wrong--nor yet she knew
How deep the root from whence Compassion grew--
She was a slave--from such may captives claim 1370
A fellow-feeling, differing but in name;
Still half unconscious--heedless of his wrath,
Again she ventured on the dangerous path,
Again his rage repelled--until arose
That strife of thought, the source of Woman's woes!
VI.
Meanwhile--long--anxious--weary--still the same
Rolled day and night: his soul could Terror tame--
This fearful interval of doubt and dread,
When every hour might doom him worse than dead;[ia]
When every step that echoed by the gate, 1380
Might entering lead where axe and stake await;
When every voice that grated on his ear
Might be the last that he could ever hear;
Could Terror tame--that Spirit stern and high
Had proved unwilling as unfit to die;
'Twas worn--perhaps decayed--yet silent bore
That conflict, deadlier far than all before:
The heat of fight, the hurry of the gale,
Leave scarce one thought inert enough to quail:
But bound and fixed in fettered solitude, 1390
To pine, the prey of every changing mood;
To gaze on thine own heart--and meditate
Irrevocable faults, and coming fate--
Too late the last to shun--the first to mend--
To count the hours that struggle to thine end,
With not a friend to animate and tell
To other ears that Death became thee well;
Around thee foes to forge the ready lie,
And blot Life's latest scene with calumny;
Before thee tortures, which the Soul can dare, 1400
Yet doubts how well the shrinking flesh may bear;
But deeply feels a single cry would shame,
To Valour's praise thy last and dearest claim;
The life thou leav'st below, denied above
By kind monopolists of heavenly love;
And more than doubtful Paradise--thy Heaven
Of earthly hope--thy loved one from thee riven.
Such were the thoughts that outlaw must sustain,
And govern pangs surpassing mortal pain:
And those sustained he--boots it well or ill? 1410
Since not to sink beneath, is something still!
VII.
The first day passed--he saw not her--Gulnare--
The second, third--and still she came not there;
But what her words avouched, her charms had done,
Or else he had not seen another Sun.
The fourth day rolled along, and with the night
Came storm and darkness in their mingling might.
Oh! how he listened to the rushing deep,
That ne'er till now so broke upon his sleep;
And his wild Spirit wilder wishes sent, 1420
Roused by the roar of his own element!
Oft had he ridden on that winged wave,
And loved its roughness for the speed it gave;
And now its dashing echoed on his ear,
A long known voice--alas! too vainly near!
Loud sung the wind above; and, doubly loud,
Shook o'er his turret cell the thunder-cloud;[232]
And flashed the lightning by the latticed bar,
To him more genial than the Midnight Star:
Close to the glimmering grate he dragged his chain, 1430
And hoped _that_ peril might not prove in vain.
He rais'd his iron hand to Heaven, and prayed
One pitying flash to mar the form it made:
His steel and impious prayer attract alike--
The storm rolled onward, and disdained to strike;
Its peal waxed fainter--ceased--he felt alone,
As if some faithless friend had spurned his groan!
VIII.
The midnight passed, and to the massy door
A light step came--it paused--it moved once more;
Slow turns the grating bolt and sullen key: 1440
'Tis as his heart foreboded--that fair She!
Whate'er her sins, to him a Guardian Saint,
And beauteous still as hermit's hope can paint;
Yet changed since last within that cell she came,
More pale her cheek, more tremulous her frame:
On him she cast her dark and hurried eye,
Which spoke before her accents--"Thou must die!
Yes, thou must die--there is but one resource,
The last--the worst--if torture were not worse. "
"Lady! I look to none; my lips proclaim 1450
What last proclaimed they--Conrad still the same:
Why should'st thou seek an outlaw's life to spare,
And change the sentence I deserve to bear?
Well have I earned--nor here alone--the meed
Of Seyd's revenge, by many a lawless deed. "
"Why should I seek? because--Oh! did'st thou not
Redeem my life from worse than Slavery's lot?
Why should I seek? --hath Misery made thee blind
To the fond workings of a woman's mind?
And must I say? --albeit my heart rebel 1460
With all that Woman feels, but should not tell--
Because--despite thy crimes--that heart is moved:
It feared thee--thanked thee--pitied--maddened--loved.
Reply not, tell not now thy tale again,
Thou lov'st another--and I love in vain:
Though fond as mine her bosom, form more fair,
I rush through peril which she would not dare.
If that thy heart to hers were truly dear,
Were I thine own--thou wert not lonely here:
An outlaw's spouse--and leave her Lord to roam! 1470
What hath such gentle dame to do with home?
But speak not now--o'er thine and o'er my head
Hangs the keen sabre by a single thread;[ib]
If thou hast courage still, and would'st be free,
Receive this poniard--rise and follow me! "
"Aye--in my chains! my steps will gently tread,
With these adornments, o'er such slumbering head!
Thou hast forgot--is this a garb for flight?
Or is that instrument more fit for fight? "
"Misdoubting Corsair! I have gained the guard, 1480
Ripe for revolt, and greedy for reward.
A single word of mine removes that chain:
Without some aid how here could I remain?
Well, since we met, hath sped my busy time,
If in aught evil, for thy sake the crime:
The crime--'tis none to punish those of Seyd.
That hatred tyrant, Conrad--he must bleed!
I see thee shudder, but my soul is changed--
Wronged--spurned--reviled--and it shall be avenged--
Accused of what till now my heart disdained-- 1490
Too faithful, though to bitter bondage chained.
Yes, smile! --but he had little cause to sneer,
I was not treacherous then, nor thou too dear:
But he has said it--and the jealous well,--
Those tyrants--teasing--tempting to rebel,--
Deserve the fate their fretting lips foretell.
I never loved--he bought me--somewhat high--
Since with me came a heart he could not buy.
I was a slave unmurmuring; he hath said,
But for his rescue I with thee had fled. 1500
'Twas false thou know'st--but let such Augurs rue,
Their words are omens Insult renders true.
Nor was thy respite granted to my prayer;
This fleeting grace was only to prepare
New torments for thy life, and my despair.
Mine too he threatens; but his dotage still
Would fain reserve me for his lordly will:
When wearier of these fleeting charms and me,
There yawns the sack--and yonder rolls the sea!
What, am I then a toy for dotard's play, 1510
To wear but till the gilding frets away?
I saw thee--loved thee--owe thee all--would save,
If but to show how grateful is a slave.
But had he not thus menaced fame and life,--
And well he keeps his oaths pronounced in strife--
I still had saved thee--but the Pacha spared:
Now I am all thine own--for all prepared:
Thou lov'st me not--nor know'st--or but the worst.
Alas! _this_ love--_that_ hatred--are the first--
Oh! could'st thou prove my truth, thou would'st not start, 1520
Nor fear the fire that lights an Eastern heart;
'Tis now the beacon of thy safety--now
It points within the port a Mainote prow:
But in one chamber, where our path must lead,
There sleeps--he must not wake--the oppressor Seyd! "
"Gulnare--Gulnare--I never felt till now
My abject fortune, withered fame so low:
Seyd is mine enemy; had swept my band
From earth with ruthless but with open hand,
And therefore came I, in my bark of war, 1530
To smite the smiter with the scimitar;
Such is my weapon--not the secret knife;
Who spares a Woman's seeks not Slumber's life.
Thine saved I gladly, Lady--not for this;
Let me not deem that mercy shown amiss.
Now fare thee well--more peace be with thy breast!
Night wears apace, my last of earthly rest! "[ic]
"Rest! rest! by sunrise must thy sinews shake,
And thy limbs writhe around the ready stake,
I heard the order--saw--I will not see-- 1540
If thou wilt perish, I will fall with thee.
My life--my love--my hatred--all below
Are on this cast--Corsair! 'tis but a blow!
Without it flight were idle--how evade
His sure pursuit? --my wrongs too unrepaid,
My youth disgraced--the long, long wasted years,
One blow shall cancel with our future fears;
But since the dagger suits thee less than brand,
I'll try the firmness of a female hand.
The guards are gained--one moment all were o'er-- 1550
Corsair! we meet in safety or no more;
If errs my feeble hand, the morning cloud
Will hover o'er thy scaffold, and my shroud. "
IX.
She turned, and vanished ere he could reply,
But his glance followed far with eager eye;
And gathering, as he could, the links that bound
His form, to curl their length, and curb their sound,
Since bar and bolt no more his steps preclude,
He, fast as fettered limbs allow, pursued.
'Twas dark and winding, and he knew not where 1560
That passage led; nor lamp nor guard was there:
He sees a dusky glimmering--shall he seek
Or shun that ray so indistinct and weak?
Chance guides his steps--a freshness seems to bear
Full on his brow as if from morning air;
He reached an open gallery--on his eye
Gleamed the last star of night, the clearing sky:
Yet scarcely heeded these--another light
From a lone chamber struck upon his sight.
Towards it he moved; a scarcely closing door 1570
Revealed the ray within, but nothing more.
With hasty step a figure outward passed,
Then paused, and turned--and paused--'tis She at last!
No poniard in that hand, nor sign of ill--
"Thanks to that softening heart--she could not kill! "
Again he looked, the wildness of her eye
Starts from the day abrupt and fearfully.
She stopped--threw back her dark far-floating hair,
That nearly veiled her face and bosom fair,
As if she late had bent her leaning head 1580
Above some object of her doubt or dread.
They meet--upon her brow--unknown--forgot--
Her hurrying hand had left--'twas but a spot--
Its hue was all he saw, and scarce withstood--
Oh! slight but certain pledge of crime--'tis Blood!
X.
He had seen battle--he had brooded lone
O'er promised pangs to sentenced Guilt foreshown;
He had been tempted--chastened--and the chain
Yet on his arms might ever there remain:
But ne'er from strife--captivity--remorse-- 1590
From all his feelings in their inmost force--
So thrilled, so shuddered every creeping vein,
As now they froze before that purple stain.
That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,
Had banished all the beauty from her cheek!
Blood he had viewed--could view unmoved--but then
It flowed in combat, or was shed by men! [id]
XI.
"'Tis done--he nearly waked--but it is done.
Corsair! he perished--thou art dearly won.
All words would now be vain--away--away! 1600
Our bark is tossing--'tis already day.
The few gained over, now are wholly mine,
And these thy yet surviving band shall join:
Anon my voice shall vindicate my hand,
When once our sail forsakes this hated strand. "
XII.
She clapped her hands, and through the gallery pour,
Equipped for flight, her vassals--Greek and Moor;
Silent but quick they stoop, his chains unbind;
Once more his limbs are free as mountain wind!
But on his heavy heart such sadness sate, 1610
As if they there transferred that iron weight.
No words are uttered--at her sign, a door
Reveals the secret passage to the shore;
The city lies behind--they speed, they reach
The glad waves dancing on the yellow beach;
And Conrad following, at her beck, obeyed,
Nor cared he now if rescued or betrayed;
Resistance were as useless as if Seyd
Yet lived to view the doom his ire decreed.
XIII.
Embarked--the sail unfurled--the light breeze blew-- 1620
How much had Conrad's memory to review! [ie]
Sunk he in contemplation, till the Cape
Where last he anchored reared its giant shape.
Ah! --since that fatal night, though brief the time,
Had swept an age of terror, grief, and crime.
As its far shadow frowned above the mast,
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he passed;
He thought of all--Gonsalvo and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride: 1630
He turned and saw--Gulnare, the Homicide!
XIV.
She watched his features till she could not bear
Their freezing aspect and averted air;
And that strange fierceness foreign to her eye
Fell quenched in tears, too late to shed or dry. [if]
She knelt beside him and his hand she pressed,
"Thou may'st forgive though Allah's self detest;
But for that deed of darkness what wert thou?
Reproach me--but not yet--Oh! spare me _now! _
I am not what I seem--this fearful night 1640
My brain bewildered--do not madden quite!
If I had never loved--though less my guilt--
Thou hadst not lived to--hate me--if thou wilt. "
XV.
She wrongs his thoughts--they more himself upbraid
Than her--though undesigned--the wretch he made;
But speechless all, deep, dark, and unexprest,
They bleed within that silent cell--his breast.
Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge,
The blue waves sport around the stern they urge;
Far on the Horizon's verge appears a speck, 1650
A spot--a mast--a sail--an armed deck!
Their little bark her men of watch descry,
And ampler canvass woos the wind from high;
She bears her down majestically near,
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier;[ig][233]
A flash is seen--the ball beyond her bow
Booms harmless, hissing to the deep below.
Up rose keen Conrad from his silent trance,
A long, long absent gladness in his glance;
"'Tis mine--my blood-rag flag! again--again-- 1660
I am not all deserted on the main! "
They own the signal, answer to the hail,
Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail.
"'Tis Conrad! Conrad! " shouting from the deck,
Command nor Duty could their transport check!
With light alacrity and gaze of Pride,
They view him mount once more his vessel's side;
A smile relaxing in each rugged face,
Their arms can scarce forbear a rough embrace.
He, half forgetting danger and defeat, 1670
Returns their greeting as a Chief may greet,
Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo's hand,
And feels he yet can conquer and command!
XVI.
These greetings o'er, the feelings that o'erflow,
Yet grieve to win him back without a blow;
They sailed prepared for vengeance--had they known
A woman's hand secured that deed her own,
She were their Queen--less scrupulous are they
Than haughty Conrad how they win their way.
With many an asking smile, and wondering stare, 1680
They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare;
And her, at once above--beneath her sex,
Whom blood appalled not, their regards perplex. [ih]
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye,
She drops her veil, and stands in silence by;
Her arms are meekly folded on that breast,
Which--Conrad safe--to Fate resigned the rest.
Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill,
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her Woman still! 1690
XVII.
This Conrad marked, and felt--ah! could he less? --
Hate of that deed--but grief for her distress;
What she has done no tears can wash away,
And Heaven must punish on its angry day:
But--it was done: he knew, whate'er her guilt,
For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;
And he was free! --and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven! [234]
And now he turned him to that dark-eyed slave
Whose brow was bowed beneath the glance he gave, 1700
Who now seemed changed and humbled, faint and meek,
But varying oft the colour of her cheek
To deeper shades of paleness--all its red
That fearful spot which stained it from the dead!
He took that hand--it trembled--now too late--
So soft in love--so wildly nerved in hate;
He clasped that hand--it trembled--and his own
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone.
"Gulnare! "--but she replied not--"dear Gulnare! "[ii]
She raised her eye--her only answer there-- 1710
At once she sought and sunk in his embrace:
If he had driven her from that resting-place,
His had been more or less than mortal heart,
But--good or ill--it bade her not depart.
Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,
His latest virtue then had joined the rest.
Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss[ij]
That asked from form so fair no more than this,
The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith--
To lips where Love had lavished all his breath, 1720
To lips--whose broken sighs such fragrance fling,
As he had fanned them freshly with his wing! [ik]
XVIII.
They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle.
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive Dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak! 1730
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? [il]
XIX.
The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And 'midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain--'tis strange--and all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark.
'Tis strange--of yore its welcome never failed,
Nor now, perchance, extinguished--only veiled. 1740
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not--looks not--leaps into the wave,
Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high
Ascends the path familiar to his eye.
He reached his turret door--he paused--no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around. 1750
He knocked, and loudly--footstep nor reply
Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh:
He knocked, but faintly--for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.
The portal opens--'tis a well known face--
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent--twice his own essayed,
And failed to frame the question they delayed;
He snatched the lamp--its light will answer all--
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall. 1760
He would not wait for that reviving ray--
As soon could he have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor,
Another chequers o'er the shadowed floor;
His steps the chamber gain--his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not--yet foretold!
XX.
He turned not--spoke not--sunk not--fixed his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed--how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain! 1770
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That Death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers[235] her colder hand contained,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep--
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And veiled--Thought shrinks from all that lurked below--Oh!
o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,[236]
And hurls the Spirit from her throne of light; 1780
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips--
Yet, yet they seem as they forebore to smile,
And wished repose,--but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long, fair--but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;[im]
These--and the pale pure cheek, became the bier--
But She is nothing--wherefore is he here? 1790
XXI.
He asked no question--all were answered now
By the first glance on that still, marble brow. [in]
It was enough--she died--what recked it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once--and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less;--the Good explore,
For peace, those realms where Guilt can never soar:
The proud, the wayward--who have fixed below 1800
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all--perchance a mite--
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where Grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
XXII.
By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one, 1810
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul Exhaustion prest,
And Stupor almost lulled it into rest;
So feeble now--his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confessed without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears--perchance, if seen, 1820
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flowed--he dried them to depart,
In helpless--hopeless--brokenness of heart:
The Sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim:
And the night cometh--ne'er to pass from him. [io]
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye--the blindest of the blind!
Which may not--dare not see--but turns aside
To blackest shade--nor will endure a guide!
XXIII. [237]
His heart was formed for softness--warped to wrong, 1830
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure--as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot--like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last. [238]
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now.
The thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both, 1840
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell;
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shivered fragments on the barren ground!
XXIV.
'Tis morn--to venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there, nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed o'er:
Another morn--another bids them seek, 1850
And shout his name till Echo waxeth weak;
Mount--grotto--cavern--valley searched in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain:
Their hope revives--they follow o'er the main.
'Tis idle all--moons roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not, came not since that day:
Nor trace nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perished his despair!
Long mourned his band whom none could mourn beside;
And fair the monument they gave his Bride: 1860
For him they raise not the recording stone--
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes. [239]
ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.
I.
'Tis done--but yesterday a King!
And armed with Kings to strive--
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject--yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive? [243]
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,[244]
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
II. [245]
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bowed so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestioned,--power to save,--
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!
III.
Thanks for that lesson--it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men[246]
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.
IV.
The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife--[247]
The earthquake-voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife--
All quelled! --Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!
V. [248]
The Desolator desolate! [249]
The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate
A Suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope
That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?
To die a Prince--or live a slave--
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
VI.
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dreamed not of the rebound;[250]
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke--
Alone--how looked he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length.
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
VII.
The Roman,[251] when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger--dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home. --
He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandoned power.
VIII.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,[252]
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:[253]
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
IX.
But thou--from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung--
Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart
To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean;
X.
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
XI.
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain--
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again--
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night? [ip]
XII.
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;[iq]
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.
XIII. [254]
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,--
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem! [255]
XIV.
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;[ir]
That element may meet thy smile--
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand[is]
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue[256] hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.
XV.
Thou Timour! in his captive's cage[257][it]
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one--"The world _was_ mine! "
Unless, like he of Babylon,[258]
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,[259]
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth--
So long obeyed--so little worth!
XVI.
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,[260]
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God--by man accurst,[iu]
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend's arch mock;[261]
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died! [iv][262]
XVII.
There was a day--there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's--Gaul thine--[iw]
When that immeasurable power
Unsated to resign
Had been an act of purer fame
Than gathers round Marengo's name
And gilded thy decline,
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.
XVIII.
But thou forsooth must be a King
And don the purple vest,
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where[ix]
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star, the string, the crest? [iy][263]
Vain froward child of Empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatched away?
XIX.
Where may the wearied eye repose[iz]
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes--One--the first--the last--the best--
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom Envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one! [ja][264]
LARA. [jb]
CANTO THE FIRST. [265]
I.
The Serfs[266] are glad through Lara's wide domain,[267]
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth. 10
II.
The Chief of Lara is returned again:
And why had Lara crossed the bounding main?
Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know,[268]
Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! --
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood governed men. [jc] 20
It skills not, boots not step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,[jd]
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III.
And Lara left in youth his father-land;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace waxed fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there; 30
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,[je]
The young forgot him, and the old had died;[jf]
"Yet doth he live! " exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear. [jg]
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place; 40
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome in that Gothic pile. [jh]
IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;
They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er
Not that he came, but came not long before:
No train is his beyond a single page,
Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.
Years had rolled on, and fast they speed away
To those that wander as to those that stay; 50
But lack of tidings from another clime
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time.
They see, they recognise, yet almost deem
The present dubious, or the past a dream.
He lives, nor yet is past his Manhood's prime,
Though seared by toil, and something touched by Time;
His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot,
Might be untaught him by his varied lot;
Nor good nor ill of late were known, his name
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame: 60
His soul in youth was haughty, but his sins[269]
No more than pleasure from the stripling wins;
And such, if not yet hardened in their course,
Might be redeemed, nor ask a long remorse.
V.
And they indeed were changed--'tis quickly seen,
Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been:
That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last,
And spake of passions, but of passion past:
The pride, but not the fire, of early days,
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise; 70
A high demeanour, and a glance that took
Their thoughts from others by a single look;
And that sarcastic levity of tongue,
The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,
That darts in seeming playfulness around,
And makes those feel that will not own the wound;
All these seemed his, and something more beneath
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.
Ambition, Glory, Love, the common aim,
That some can conquer, and that all would claim, 80
Within his breast appeared no more to strive,
Yet seemed as lately they had been alive;
And some deep feeling it were vain to trace
At moments lightened o'er his livid face.
VI.
Not much he loved long question of the past,
Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast,
In those far lands where he had wandered lone,
And--as himself would have it seem--unknown:
Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,
Nor glean experience from his fellow man; 90
But what he had beheld he shunned to show,
As hardly worth a stranger's care to know;
If still more prying such inquiry grew,
His brow fell darker, and his words more few.
VII.
Not unrejoiced to see him once again,
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;
Born of high lineage, linked in high command,
He mingled with the Magnates of his land;
Joined the carousals of the great and gay,
And saw them smile or sigh their hours away; 100
But still he only saw, and did not share,
The common pleasure or the general care;
He did not follow what they all pursued
With hope still baffled still to be renewed;
Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial Gain,
Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's pain:
Around him some mysterious circle thrown
Repelled approach, and showed him still alone;
Upon his eye sat something of reproof,
That kept at least Frivolity aloof; 110
And things more timid that beheld him near
In silence gazed, or whispered mutual fear;
And they the wiser, friendlier few confessed
They deemed him better than his air expressed.
VIII.
Twas strange--in youth all action and all life,
Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;
Woman--the Field--the Ocean, all that gave
Promise of gladness, peril of a grave,
In turn he tried--he ransacked all below,
And found his recompense in joy or woe, 120
No tame, trite medium; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought:[ji]
The Tempest of his Heart in scorn had gazed
On that the feebler Elements hath raised;
The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,
And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:
Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,
How woke he from the wildness of that dream!
Alas! he told not--but he did awake
To curse the withered heart that would not break. 130
IX.
Books, for his volume heretofore was Man,
With eye more curious he appeared to scan,
And oft in sudden mood, for many a day,
From all communion he would start away:
And then, his rarely called attendants said,
Through night's long hours would sound his hurried tread
O'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frowned
In rude but antique portraiture around:
They heard, but whispered--"_that_ must not be known--
The sound of words less earthly than his own. [jj] 140
Yes, they who chose might smile, but some had seen
They scarce knew what, but more than should have been.
Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head[270]
Which hands profane had gathered from the dead,
That still beside his opened volume lay,
As if to startle all save him away?
Why slept he not when others were at rest?
Why heard no music, and received no guest?
All was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong? [271]
Some knew perchance--but 'twere a tale too long; 150
And such besides were too discreetly wise,
To more than hint their knowledge in surmise;
But if they would--they could"--around the board
Thus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.
X.
It was the night--and Lara's glassy stream
The stars are studding, each with imaged beam;
So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,
And yet they glide like Happiness away;[272]
Reflecting far and fairy-like from high
The immortal lights that live along the sky: 160
Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,
And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee;
Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove,
And Innocence would offer to her love.
These deck the shore; the waves their channel make
In windings bright and mazy like the snake.
All was so still, so soft in earth and air,
You scarce would start to meet a spirit there;
Secure that nought of evil could delight
To walk in such a scene, on such a night! 170
It was a moment only for the good:
So Lara deemed, nor longer there he stood,
But turned in silence to his castle-gate;
Such scene his soul no more could contemplate:
Such scene reminded him of other days,
Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze,
Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now--
No--no--the storm may beat upon his brow,
Unfelt, unsparing--but a night like this,
A night of Beauty, mocked such breast as his.
