Complete Works of Bram Stoker

by Bram Stoker

  And softer seem’d each melting tone

  Of music mingled with its own.

  But ne’er shall Hassan’s age repose

  Along the brink at twilight’s close:

  The stream that filled that font is fled -

  The blood that warmed his heart is shed!

  And here no more shall human voice

  Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.

  The last sad note that swelled the gale

  Was woman’s wildest funeral wall:

  That quenched in silence all is still,

  But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill:

  Though raves the gust, and floods the rain,

  No hand shall clasp its clasp again.

  On desert sands ‘twere joy to scan

  The rudest steps of fellow man,

  So here the very voice of grief

  Might wake an echo like relief -

  At least ‘twould say, ‘All are not gone;

  There lingers life, though but in one’ -

  For many a gilded chamber’s there,

  Which solitude might well forbear;

  Within that dome as yet decay

  Hath slowly worked her cankering way -

  But gloom is gathered o’er the gate,

  Nor there the fakir’s self will wait;

  Nor there will wandering dervise stay,

  For bounty cheers not his delay;

  Nor there will weary stranger halt

  To bless the sacred ‘bread and salt’.

  Alike must wealth and poverty

  Pass heedless and unheeded by,

  For courtesy and pity died

  With Hassan on the mountain side.

  His roof, that refuge unto men,

  Is desolation’s hungry den.

  The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour,

  Since his turban was cleft by the infidel’s sabre!

  I hear the sound of coming feet,

  But not a voice mine ear to greet;

  More near - each turban I can scan,

  And silver-sheathed ataghan;

  The foremost of the band is seen

  An emir by his garb of green:

  ‘Ho! Who art thou?’ - ‘This low salam

  Replies of Moslem faith I am.’

  ‘The burden ye so gently bear,

  Seems one that claims your utmost care,

  And, doubtless, holds some precious freight,

  My humble bark would gladly wait.’

  ‘Thou speakest sooth; they skiff unmoor,

  And waft us from the silent shore;

  Nay, leave the sail still furled, and ply

  The nearest oar that’s scattered by,

  And midway to those rocks where sleep

  The channeled waters dark and deep.

  Rest from your task - so - bravely done,

  Of course had been right swiftly run;

  Yet ‘tis the longest voyage, I trow,

  That one of -

  Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank,

  The calm wave rippled to the bank;

  I watched it as it sank, methought

  Some motion from the current caught

  Bestirred it more, - ‘twas but the beam

  That checkered o’er the living stream:

  I gazed, till vanishing from view,

  Like lessening pebble it withdrew;

  Still less and less, a speck of white

  That gemmed the tide, then mocked the sight;

  And all its hidden secrets sleep,

  Known but to Genii of the deep,

  Which, trembling in their coral caves,

  They dare not whisper to the waves.

  As rising on its purple wing

  The insect-queen of eastern spring,

  O’er emerald meadows of Kashmeer

  Invites the young pursuer near,

  And leads him on from flower to flower

  A weary chase and wasted hour,

  Then leaves him, as it soars on high,

  With panting heart and tearful eye:

  So beauty lures the full-grown child,

  With hue as bright, and wing as wild:

  A chase of idle hopes and fears,

  Begun in folly, closed in tears.

  If won, to equal ills betrayed,

  Woe waits the insect and the maid;

  A life of pain, the loss of peace,

  From infant’s play and man’s caprice:

  The lovely toy so fiercely sought

  Hath lost its charm by being caught,

  For every touch that wooed its stay

  Hath brushed its brightest hues away,

  Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,

  ‘Tis left to fly or fall alone.

  With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,

  Ah! Where shall either victim rest?

  Can this with faded pinion soar

  From rose to tulip as before?

  Or beauty, blighted in an hour,

  Find joy within her broken bower?

  No: gayer insects fluttering by

  Ne’er droop the wing o’er those that die,

  And lovelier things have mercy shown

  To every failing but their own,

  And every woe a tear can claim

  Except an erring sister’s shame.

  The mind that broods o’er guilty woes,

  Is like the scorpion girt by fire;

  In circle narrowing as it glows,

  The flames around their captive close,

  Till inly searched by thousand throes,

  And maddening in her ire,

  One sad and sole relief she knows,

  The sting she nourished for her foes,

  Whose venom never yet was vain,

  Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,

  So do the dark in soul expire,

  Or live like scorpion girt by fire;

  So writhes the mind remorse hath riven,

  Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,

  Darkness above, despair beneath,

  Around it flame, within it death!

  Black Hassan from the harem flies,

  Nor bends on woman’s form his eyes;

  The unwonted chase each hour employs,

  Yet shares he not the hunter’s joys.

  Not thus was Hassan wont to fly

  When Leila dwelt in his Serai.

  Doth Leila there no longer dwell?

  That tale can only Hassan tell:

  Strange rumours in our city say

  Upon that eve she fled away

  When Rhamazan’s last sun was set,

  And flashing from each minaret

  Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast

  Of Bairam through the boundless East.

  ‘Twas then she went as to the bath,

  Which Hassan vainly searched in wrath;

  For she was flown her master’s rage

  In likeness of a Georgian page,

  And far beyond the Moslem’s power

  Had wronged him with the faithless Giaour.

  Somewhat of this had Hassan deemed;

  But still so fond, so fair she seemed,

  Too well he trusted to the slave

  Whose treachery deserved a grave:

  And on that eve had gone to mosque,

  And thence to feast in his kiosk.

  Such is the tale his Nubians tell,

  Who did not watch their charge too well;

  But others say, that on that night,

  By pale Phingari’s trembling light,

  The Giaour upon his jet-black steed

  Was seen, but seen alone to speed

  With bloody spur along the shore,

  Nor maid nor page behind him bore.

  Her eye’s dark charm ‘twere vain to tell,

  But gaze on that of the gazelle,

  It will assist thy fancy well;

  As large, as languishingly dark,

  But soul beamed forth in every spark
/>
  That darted from beneath the lid,

  Bright as the jewel of Giamschild.

  Yea, Soul, and should our prophet say

  That form was nought but breathing clay,

  By Allah! I would answer nay;

  Though on Al-Sirat’s arch I stood,

  Which totters o’er the fiery flood,

  With Paradise within my view,

  And all his Houris beckoning through.

  Oh! Who young Leila’s glance could read

  And keep that portion of his creed,

  Which saith that woman is but dust,

  A soulless toy for tyrant’s lust?

  On her might Muftis might gaze, and own

  That through her eye the Immortal shone;

  On her fair cheek’s unfading hue

  The young pomegranate’s blossoms strew

  Their bloom in blushes ever new;

  Her hair in hyacinthine flow,

  When left to roll its folds below,

  As midst her handmaids in the hall

  She stood superior to them all,

  Hath swept the marble where her feet

  Gleamed whiter than the mountain sleet

  Ere from the cloud that gave it birth

  It fell, and caught one stain of earth.

  The cygnet nobly walks the water;

  So moved on earth Circassia’s daughter,

  The loveliest bird of Franguestan!

  As rears her crest the ruffled swan,

  And spurns the wave with wings of pride,

  When pass the steps of stranger man

  Along the banks that bound her tide;

  Thus rose fair Leila’s whiter neck:-

  Thus armed with beauty would she check

  Intrusion’s glance, till folly’s gaze

  Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise:

  Thus high and graceful as her gait;

  Her heart as tender to her mate;

  Her mate - stern Hassan, who was he?

  Alas! That name was not for thee!

  Stern Hassan hath a journey ta’en

  With twenty vassals in his train,

  Each armed, as best becomes a man,

  With arquebuss and ataghan;

  The chief before, as decked for war,

  Bears in his belt the scimitar

  Stain’d with the best of Amaut blood

  When in the pass the rebels stood,

  And few returned to tell the tale

  Of what befell in Parne’s vale.

  The pistols which his girdle bore

  Were those that once a pasha wore,

  Which still, though gemmed and bossed with gold,

  Even robbers tremble to behold.

  ‘Tis said he goes to woo a bride

  More true than her who left his side;

  The faithless slave that broke her bower,

  And - worse than faithless - for a Giaour!

  The sun’s last rays are on the hill,

  And sparkle in the fountain rill,

  Whose welcome waters, cool and clear,

  Draw blessings from the mountaineer:

  Here may the loitering merchant Greek

  Find that repose ‘twere vain to seek

  In cities lodged too near his lord,

  And trembling for his secret hoard -

  Here may he rest where none can see,

  In crowds a slave, in deserts free;

  And with forbidden wine may stain

  The bowl a Moslem must not drain.

  The foremost Tartar’s in the gap,

  Conspicuous by his yellow cap;

  The rest in lengthening line the while

  Wind slowly through the long defile:

  Above, the mountain rears a peak,

  Where vultures whet the thirsty beak,

  And theirs may be a feast tonight,

  Shall tempt them down ere morrow’s light;

  Beneath, a river’s wintry stream

  Has shrunk before the summer beam,

  And left a channel bleak and bare,

  Save shrubs that spring to perish there:

  Each side the midway path there lay

  Small broken crags of granite grey

  By time, or mountain lightning, riven

  From summits clad in mists of heaven;

  For where is he that hath beheld

  The peak of Liakura unveiled?

  They reach the grove of pine at last:

  ‘Bismillah! now the peril’s past;

  For yonder view the opening plain,

  And there we’ll prick our steeds amain.’

  The Chiaus spake, and as he said,

  A bullet whistled o’er his head;

  The foremost Tartar bites the ground!

  Scarce had they time to check the rein,

  Swift from their steeds the riders bound;

  But three shall never mount again:

  Unseen the foes that gave the wound,

  The dying ask revenge in vain.

  With steel unsheathed, and carbine bent,

  Some o’er their courser’s harness leant,

  Half sheltered by the steed;

  Some fly behind the nearest rock,

  And there await the coming shock,

  Nor tamely stand to bleed

  Beneath the shaft of foes unseen,

  Who dare not quit their craggy screen.

  Stern Hassan only from his horse

  Disdains to light, and keeps his course,

  Till fiery flashes in the van

  Proclaim too sure the robber-clan

  Have well secured the only way

  Could now avail the promised prey;

  Then curled his very beard with ire,

  And glared his eye with fiercer fire:

  ‘Though far and near the bullets hiss,

  I’ve ‘scaped a bloodier hour than this.’

  And now the foe their covert quit,

  And call his vassals to submit;

  But Hassan’s frown and furious word

  Are dreaded more than hostile sword,

  Nor of his little band a man

  Resigned carbine or ataghan,

  Nor raised the craven cry, Amaun!

  In fuller sight, more near and near,

  The lately ambushed foes appear,

  And, issuing from the grove, advance

  Some who on battle-charger prance.

  Who leads them on with foreign brand,

  Far flashing in his red right hand?

  “Tis he! ‘tis he! I know him now;

  I know him by his pallid brow;

  I know him by the evil eye

  That aids his envious treachery;

  I know him by his jet-black barb:

  Though now arrayed in Arnaut garb

  Apostate from his own vile faith,

  It shall not save him from the death:

  ‘Tis he! well met in any hour,

  Lost Leila’s love, accursed Giaour!

  As rolls the river into ocean,

  In sable torrent wildly streaming;

  As the sea-tide’s opposing motion,

  In azure column Proudly gleaming

  Beats back the current many a rood,

  In curling foam and mingling flood,

  While eddying whirl, and breaking wave,

  Roused by the blast of winter, rave;

  Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash,

  The lightnings of the waters flash

  In awful whiteness o’er the shore,

  That shines and shakes beneath the roar;

  Thus - as the stream, and Ocean greet,

  With waves that madden as they meet -

  Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong,

  And fate, and fury, drive along.

  The bickering sabres’ shivering jar;

  And pealing wide or ringing near

  Its echoes on the throbbing ear,

  The deathshot hissing from afar;

  The shock, the shout, the groan of
war,

  Reverberate along that vale

  More suited to the shepherds tale:

  Though few the numbers - theirs the strife

  That neither spares nor speaks for life!

  Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,

  To seize and share the dear caress;

  But love itself could never pant

  For all that beauty sighs to grant

  With half the fervour hate bestows

  Upon the last embrace of foes,

  When grappling in the fight they fold

  Those arms that ne’er shall lose their hold:

  Friends meet to part; love laughs at faith;

  True foes, once met, are joined till death!

  With sabre shivered to the hilt,

  Yet dripping with the blood he spilt;

  Yet strained within the severed hand

  Which quivers round that faithless brand;

  His turban far behind him rolled,

  And cleft in twain its firmest fold;

  His flowing robe by falchion torn,

  And crimson as those clouds of morn

  That, streaked with dusky red, portend

  The day shall have a stormy end;

  A stain on every bush that bore

  A fragment of his palampore

  His breast with wounds unnumbered riven,

  His back to earth, his face to heaven,

  Fallen Hassan lies - his unclosed eye

  Yet lowering on his enemy,

  As if the hour that sealed his fate

  Surviving left his quenchless hate;

  And o’er him bends that foe with brow

  As dark as his that bled below.

  ‘Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave,

  But his shall be a redder grave;

  Her spirit pointed well the steel

  Which taught that felon heart to feel.

  He called the Prophet, but his power

  Was vain against the vengeful Giaour:

  He called on Allah - but the word.

  Arose unheeded or unheard.

  Thou Paynim fool! could Leila’s prayer

  Be passed, and thine accorded there?

  I watched my time, I leagued with these,

  The traitor in his turn to seize;

  My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done,

  And now I go - but go alone.’

  The browsing camels’ bells are tinkling:

  His mother looked from her lattice high -

  She saw the dews of eve besprinkling

  The pasture green beneath her eye,

  She saw the planets faintly twinkling:

  ‘‘Tis twilight - sure his train is nigh.’