by Byron
And arm’d with Kings to strive –
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject – yet alive!
5
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strew’d our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive?
Since he, miscall’d the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
II
10
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow’d so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught’st the rest to see.
With might unquestion’d, - power to save, -
15
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipp’d thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition’s less than littleness!
III
Thanks for that lesson – it will teach
20
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach’d before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,
25
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 strife1 -
30
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem’d made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife –
35
All quell’d! – Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!
V
The Desolator desolate!
The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others’ fate
40
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 -
45
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
VI
He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream’d not of the rebound;
Chain’d by the trunk he vainly broke –
Alone – how look’d he round?
50
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
55
The Roman,1 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
60
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon’d power.
VIII
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
65
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
70
His dotage trifled well:
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 –
75
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;
80
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 bow’d the trembling limb,
85
And thank’d 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
90
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:
95
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?
XII
100
Weigh’d in the balance, here dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
105
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
And she, proud Austria’s mournful flower,
110
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,
115
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
’Tis worth thy vanish’d diadem!
XIV
Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
120
That element may meet thy smile –
It ne’er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand
That Earth is now as free!
125
That Corinth’s pedagogue hath now
Transferr’d his by-word to thy brow.
XV
Thou Timour! in his captive’s cage1
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison’d rage?
130
But one – ‘The world was mine!’
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit pour’d so widely forth –
135
So long obey’d – so little worth!
XVI
Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,2
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
140
Foredoom’d by God – by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend’s arch mock;1
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!
XVII
145
There was a day – there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul’s – Gaul thine –
When that immeasurable power
Unsated to resign
Had been an act of purer fame
150
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,
155
And don the purple vest, –
As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
160
The star – the string – the crest?
Vain froward child of empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatch’d away?
XIX
Where may the wearied eye repose
When gazing on the Great;
165
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,
170
Bequeath’d the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one!
Stanzas for Music
I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame:
But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
5
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace
Were those hours – can their joy or their bitterness cease?
We repent – we abjure – we will break from our chain, –
We will part, – we will fly to – unite it again!
Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt!
10
Forgive me, adored one! – forsake, if thou wilt; –
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,
And man shall not break it – whatever thou mayst.
And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,
This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be;
15
And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,
With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.
One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove;
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign -
20
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.
May, 1814.
She walks in beauty
I
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
5
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
II
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
10
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
III
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
15
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
LARA
A Tale
Canto the First
I
The Serfs1 are glad through Lara’s wide domain,
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled chieftain, is restored:
5
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 faggots’ hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
10
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
II
The chief of Lara is return’d again:
And why had Lara cross’d the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; – that heritage of woe,
15
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
20
Had Lara’s daring boyhood govern’d men.
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,
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III
25
And Lara left in youth his father-land;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax’d fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
30
’Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
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,
35
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
‘Yet doth he live!’ exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
40
The Laras’ last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome in that Gothic pile.
IV
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;
45
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 roll’d on, and fast they speed away
50
To those that wander as to those that stay;
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.
55
He lives, nor yet is past his manhood’s prime,
Though sear’d by toil, and something touch’d 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
60
Might yet uphold his patrimonial fame:
His soul in youth was haughty, but his sins
No more than pleasure from the stripling wins;
And such, if not yet harden’d in their course,
Might be redeem’d, nor ask a long remorse.
V
65
And they indeed were changed - ’tis quickly seen,
Whate’er he be, ’twas not what he had been:
That brow in furrow’d lines had fix’d at last,
And spake of passions, but of passion past:
The pride, but not the fire, of early days,
70
Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise;
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,
75
That darts in seeming playfulness around,
And makes those feel that will not own the wound;
All these seem’d his, and something more beneath
Than glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.
Ambition, glory, love, the common aim,
80
That some can conquer, and that all would claim,
Within his breast appear’d no more to strive,
Yet seem’d as lately they had been alive;
And some deep feeling it were vain to trace
At moments lighten’d o’er his livid face.
VI
85
Not much he loved long question of the past,
Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast,
In those far lands where he had wander’d lone,
And – as himself would have it seem – unknown:
Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,
90
Nor glean experience from his fellow man;
But what he had beheld he shunn’d to show,
As hardly worth a stranger’s care to know;
If still more prying such enquiry grew,
His brow fell darker, and his words more few.
VII
95
Not unrejoiced to see him once again,
Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;
Born of high lineage, link’d in high command,
He mingled with the Magnates of his land;
Join’d the carousals of the great and gay,
100
And saw them smile or sigh their hours away;
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 renew’d;
105
Nor shadowy honour, nor substantial gain,
Nor beauty’s preference, and the rival’s pain:
Around him some mysterious circle thrown
Repell’d approach, and show’d him still alone;
Upon his eye sat something of reproof
110
That kept at least frivolity aloof;
And things more timid that beheld him near,
In silence gazed, or whisper’d mutual fear;
And they the wiser, friendlier few confess’d
They deem’d him better than his air express’d.
VIII
115
’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 ransack’d all below,
120
And found his recompense in joy or woe,
No tame, trite medium; for his feelings sought
In that intenseness an escape from thought:
The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazed
On that the feebler elements hath raised;
125
The rapture of his heart had look’d on high,
And ask’d if greater dwelt beyond the sky:
Chain’d to excess, the slave of each extreme,