Complete Works of Bram Stoker

by Bram Stoker

  She could not rest in the garden-bower,

  But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower:

  ‘Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet,

  Nor shrink they from the summer heat;

  Why sends not the bridegroom his promised gift?

  Is his heart more cold, or his barb less swift?

  Oh, false reproach! yon Tartar now

  Has gained our nearest mountain’s brow,

  And warily the steep descends,

  And now within the valley bends;

  And he bears the gift at his saddle bow

  How could I deem his courser slow?

  Right well my largess shall repay

  His welcome speed, and weary way.’

  The Tartar lighted at the gate,

  But scarce upheld his fainting weight!

  His swarthy visage spake distress,

  But this might be from weariness;

  His garb with sanguine spots was dyed,

  But these might be from his courser’s side;

  He drew the token from his vest -

  Angel of Death! ‘tis Hassan’s cloven crest!

  His calpac rent - his caftan red -

  ‘Lady, a fearful bride thy son hath wed:

  Me, not from mercy, did they spare,

  But this empurpled pledge to bear.

  Peace to the brave! whose blood is spilt:

  Woe to the Giaour! for his the guilt.’

  A turban carved in coarsest stone,

  A pillar with rank weeds o’ergrown,

  Whereon can now be scarcely read

  The Koran verse that mourns the dead,

  Point out the spot where Hassan fell

  A victim in that lonely dell.

  There sleeps as true an Osmanlie

  As e’er at Mecca bent the knee;

  As ever scorned forbidden wine,

  Or prayed with face towards the shrine,

  In orisons resumed anew

  At solemn sound of ‘Allah Hu!’

  Yet died he by a stranger’s hand,

  And stranger in his native land;

  Yet died he as in arms he stood,

  And unavenged, at least in blood.

  But him the maids of Paradise

  Impatient to their halls invite,

  And the dark Heaven of Houris’ eyes

  On him shall glance for ever bright;

  They come - their kerchiefs green they wave,

  And welcome with a kiss the brave!

  Who falls in battle ‘gainst a Giaour

  Is worthiest an immortal bower.

  But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe

  Beneath avenging Monkir’s scythe;

  And from its torment ‘scape alone

  To wander round lost Eblis’ throne;

  And fire unquenched, unquenchable,

  Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;

  Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell

  The tortures of that inward hell!

  But first, on earth as vampire sent,

  Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:

  Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

  And suck the blood of all thy race;

  There from thy daughter, sister, wife,

  At midnight drain the stream of life;

  Yet loathe the banquet which perforce

  Must feed thy livid living corse:

  Thy victims ere they yet expire

  Shall know the demon for their sire,

  As cursing thee, thou cursing them,

  Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

  But one that for thy crime must fall,

  The youngest, most beloved of all,

  Shall bless thee with a father’s name -

  That word shall wrap thy heart in flame!

  Yet must thou end thy task, and mark

  Her cheek’s last tinge, her eye’s last spark,

  And the last glassy glance must view

  Which freezes o’er its lifeless blue;

  Then with unhallowed hand shalt tear

  The tresses of her yellow hair,

  Of which in life a lock when shorn

  Affection’s fondest pledge was worn,

  But now is borne away by thee,

  Memorial of thine agony!

  Wet with thine own best blood shall drip

  Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;

  Then stalking to thy sullen grave,

  Go - and with Gouls and Afrits rave;

  Till these in horror shrink away

  From spectre more accursed than they!

  ‘How name ye yon lone Caloyer?

  His features I have scanned before

  In mine own land: ‘tis many a year,

  Since, dashing by the lonely shore,

  I saw him urge as fleet a steed

  As ever served a horseman’s need.

  But once I saw that face, yet then

  It was so marked with inward pain,

  I could not pass it by again;

  It breathes the same dark spirit now,

  As death were stamped upon his brow.

  ‘‘Tis twice three years at summer tide

  Since first among our freres he came;

  And here it soothes him to abide

  For some dark deed he will not name.

  But never at our vesper prayer,

  Nor e’er before confession chair

  Kneels he, nor recks he when arise

  Incense or anthem to the skies,

  But broods within his cell alone,

  His faith and race alike unknown.

  The sea from Paynim land he crost,

  And here ascended from the coast;

  Yet seems he not of Othman race,

  But only Christian in his face:

  I’d judge him some stray renegade,

  Repentant of the change he made,

  Save that he shuns our holy shrine,

  Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine.

  Great largess to these walls he brought,

  And thus our abbot’s favour bought;

  But were I prior, not a day

  Should brook such stranger’s further stay,

  Or pent within our penance cell

  Should doom him there for aye to dwell.

  Much in his visions mutters he

  Of maiden whelmed beneath the sea;

  Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,

  Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying.

  On cliff he hath been known to stand,

  And rave as to some bloody hand

  Fresh severed from its parent limb,

  Invisible to all but him,

  Which beckons onward to his grave,

  And lures to leap into the wave.’

  Dark and unearthly is the scowl

  That glares beneath his dusky cowl:

  The flash of that dilating eye

  Reveals too much of times gone by;

  Though varying, indistinct its hue,

  Oft will his glance the gazer rue,

  For in it lurks that nameless spell,

  Which speaks, itself unspeakable,

  A spirit yet unquelled and high,

  That claims and keeps ascendency;

  And like the bird whose pinions quake,

  But cannot fly the gazing snake,

  Will others quail beneath his look,

  Nor ‘scape the glance they scarce can brook.

  From him the half-affrighted friar

  When met alone would fain retire,

  As if that eye and bitter smile

  Transferred to others fear and guile:

  Not oft to smile descendeth he,

  And when he doth ‘tis sad to see

  That he but mocks at misery.

  How that pale lip will curl and quiver!

  Then fix once more as if for ever;

  As if his sorrow or disdain

  Forbade him e’er to smile again.

  Well were it so - such ghastly mirth

&nb
sp; From joyaunce ne’er derived its birth.

  But sadder still it were to trace

  What once were feelings in that face:

  Time hath not yet the features fixed,

  But brighter traits with evil mixed;

  And there are hues not always faded,

  Which speak a mind not all degraded

  Even by the crimes through which it waded:

  The common crowd but see the gloom

  Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom;

  The close observer can espy

  A noble soul, and lineage high:

  Alas! though both bestowed in vain,

  Which grief could change, and guilt could stain,

  It was no vulgar tenement

  To which such lofty gifts were lent,

  And still with little less than dread

  On such the sight is riveted.

  The roofless cot, decayed and rent,

  Will scarce delay the passer-by;

  The tower by war or tempest bent,

  While yet may frown one battlement,

  Demands and daunts the stranger’s eye;

  Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,

  Pleads haughtily for glories gone!

  ‘His floating robe around him folding,

  Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle;

  With dread beheld, with gloom beholding

  The rites that sanctify the pile.

  But when the anthem shakes the choir,

  And kneel the monks, his steps retire;

  By yonder lone and wavering torch

  His aspect glares within the porch;

  There will he pause till all is done -

  And hear the prayer, but utter none.

  See - by the half-illumined wall

  His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,

  That pale brow wildly wreathing round,

  As if the Gorgon there had bound

  The sablest of the serpent-braid

  That o’er her fearful forehead strayed:

  For he declines the convent oath

  And leaves those locks unhallowed growth,

  But wears our garb in all beside;

  And, not from piety but pride,

  Gives wealth to walls that never heard

  Of his one holy vow nor word.

  Lo! - mark ye, as the harmony

  Peals louder praises to the sky,

  That livid cheek, that stony air

  Of mixed defiance and despair!

  Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine!

  Else may we dread the wrath divine

  Made manifest by awful sign.

  If ever evil angel bore

  The form of mortal, such he wore:

  By all my hope of sins forgiven,

  Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!’

  To love the softest hearts are prone,

  But such can ne’er be all his own;

  Too timid in his woes to share,

  Too meek to meet, or brave despair;

  And sterner hearts alone may feel

  The wound that time can never heal.

  The rugged metal of the mine,

  Must burn before its surface shine,

  But plunged within the furnace-flame,

  It bends and melts - though still the same;

  Then tempered to thy want, or will,

  ‘Twill serve thee to defend or kill;

  A breast-plate for thine hour of need,

  Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;

  But if a dagger’s form it bear,

  Let those who shape its edge, beware!

  Thus passion’s fire, and woman’s art,

  Can turn and tame the sterner heart;

  From these its form and tone are ta’en,

  And what they make it, must remain,

  But break - before it bend again.

  If solitude succeed to grief,

  Release from pain is slight relief;

  The vacant bosom’s wilderness

  Might thank the pang that made it less.

  We loathe what none are left to share:

  Even bliss - ‘twere woe alone to bear;

  The heart once left thus desolate

  Must fly at last for ease - to hate.

  It is as if the dead could feel

  The icy worm around them steal,

  And shudder, as the reptiles creep

  To revel o’er their rotting sleep,

  Without the power to scare away

  The cold consumers of their clay I

  It is as if the desert-bird,

  Whose beak unlocks her bosom’s stream

  To still her famished nestlings’ scream,

  Nor mourns a life to them transferred,

  Should rend her rash devoted breast,

  And find them flown her empty nest.

  The keenest pangs the wretched find

  Are rapture to the dreary void,

  The leafless desert of the mind,

  The waste of feelings unemployed.

  Who would be doomed to gaze upon

  A sky without a cloud or sun?

  Less hideous far the tempest’s roar

  Than ne’er to brave the billows more -

  Thrown, when the war of winds is o’er,

  A lonely wreck on fortune’s shore,

  ‘Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,

  Unseen to drop by dull decay; -

  Better to sink beneath the shock

  Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!

  ‘Father! thy days have passed in peace,

  ‘Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;

  To bid the sins of others cease

  Thyself without a crime or care,

  Save transient ills that all must bear,

  Has been thy lot from youth to age;

  And thou wilt bless thee from the rage

  Of passions fierce and uncontrolled,

  Such as thy penitents unfold,

  Whose secret sins and sorrows rest

  Within thy pure and pitying breast.

  My days, though few, have passed below

  In much of joy, but more of woe;

  Yet still in hours of love or strife,

  I’ve ‘scaped the weariness of life:

  Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,

  I loathed the languor of repose.

  Now nothing left to love or hate,

  No more with hope or pride elate,

  I’d rather be the thing that crawls

  Most noxious o’er a dungeon’s walls,

  Than pass my dull, unvarying days,

  Condemned to meditate and gaze.

  Yet, lurks a wish within my breast

  For rest - but not to feel ‘tis rest

  Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;

  And I shall sleep without the dream

  Of what I was, and would be still,

  Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:

  My memory now is but the tomb

  Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:

  Though better to have died with those

  Than bear a life of lingering woes.

  My spirit shrunk not to sustain

  The searching throes of ceaseless pain;

  Nor sought the self-accorded grave

  Of ancient fool and modern knave:

  Yet death I have not feared to meet;

  And the field it had been sweet,

  Had danger wooed me on to move

  The slave of glory, not of love.

  I’ve braved it - not for honour’s boast;

  I smile at laurels won or lost;

  To such let others carve their way,

  For high renown, or hireling pay:

  But place again before my eyes

  Aught that I deem a worthy prize

  The maid I love, the man I hate,

  And I will hunt the steps of fate,

  To save or slay, as these require,

  Through rending steel, and rolling fire:
/>   Nor needest thou doubt this speech from one

  Who would but do ~ what he hath done.

  Death is but what the haughty brave,

  The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;

  Then let life go to him who gave:

  I have not quailed to danger’s brow

  When high and happy - need I now?

  ‘I loved her, Friar! nay, adored -

  But these are words that all can use -

  I proved it more in deed than word;

  There’s blood upon that dinted sword,

  A stain its steel can never lose:

  ‘Twas shed for her, who died for me,

  It warmed the heart of one abhorred:

  Nay, start not - no - nor bend thy knee,

  Nor midst my sins such act record;

  Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,

  For he was hostile to thy creed!

  The very name of Nazarene

  Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.

  Ungrateful fool! since but for brands

  Well wielded in some hardy hands,

  And wounds by Galileans given -

  The surest pass to Turkish heaven

  For him his Houris still might wait

  Impatient at the Prophet’s gate.

  I loved her - love will find its way

  Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;

  And if it dares enough, ‘twere hard

  If passion met not some reward -

  No matter how, or where, or why,

  I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:

  Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain

  I wish she had not loved again.

  She died - I dare not tell thee how;

  But look - ‘tis written on my brow!

  There read of Cain the curse and crime,

  In characters unworn by time:

  Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause;

  Not mine the act, though I the cause.

  Yet did he but what I had done

  Had she been false to more than one.

  Faithless to him, he gave the blow;

  But true to me, I laid him low:

  Howe’er deserved her doom might be,

  Her treachery was truth to me;

  To me she gave her heart, that all

  Which tyranny can ne’er enthral;

  And I, alas! too late to save!

  Yet all I then could give, I gave,

  ‘Twas some relief, our foe a grave.

  His death sits lightly; but her fate

  Has made me - what thou well mayest hate.

  His doom was sealed - he knew it well

  Warned by the voice of stern Taheer,

  Deep in whose darkly boding ear

  The deathshot pealed of murder near,

  As filed the troop to where they fell!