by Byron
Their limbs along the crimson’d turf have crept;
The faint remains of life such struggles waste,
But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste:
410
They feel its freshness, and almost partake —
Why pause? No further thirst have they to slake –
It is unquench’d, and yet they feel it not;
It was an agony – but now forgot!
XVII
Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene,
415
Where but for him that strife had never been,
A breathing but devoted warrior lay:
’Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away.
His follower once, and now his only guide,
Kneels Kaled watchful o’er his welling side,
420
And with his scarf would stanch the tides that rush,
With each convulsion, in a blacker gush;
And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,
In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow:
He scarce can speak, but motions him ’tis vain,
425
And merely adds another throb to pain.
He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage,
And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page,
Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor sees,
Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;
430
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,
Held all the light that shone on earth for him.
XVIII
The foe arrives, who long had search’d the field,
Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield;
They would remove him, but they see ’twere vain,
435
And he regards them with a calm disdain,
That rose to reconcile him with his fate,
And that escape to death from living hate:
And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed,
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed,
440
And questions of his state; he answers not,
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot,
And turns to Kaled: – each remaining word
They understood not, if distinctly heard;
His dying tones are in that other tongue,
445
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung.
They spake of other scenes but what – is known
To Kaled whom their meaning reach’d alone;
And he replied, though faintly, to their sound,
While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round:
450
They seem’d even then – that twain – unto the last
To half forget the present in the past;
To share between themselves some separate fate,
Whose darkness none beside should penetrate.
XIX
Their words though faint were many – from the tone
455
Their import those who heard could judge alone;
From this, you might have deem’d young Kaled’s death
More near than Lara’s by his voice and breath,
So sad, so deep, and hesitating broke
The accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke;
460
But Lara’s voice, though low, at first was clear
And calm, till murmuring death gasp’d hoarsely near:
But from his visage little could we guess,
So unrepentant, dark, and passionless,
Save that when struggling nearer to his last,
465
Upon that page his eye was kindly cast;
And once, as Kaled’s answering accents ceased,
Rose Lara’s hand, and pointed to the East:
Whether (as then the breaking sun from high
Roll’d back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye,
470
Or that ’twas chance, or some remember’d scene,
That raised his arm to point where such had been,
Scarce Kaled seem’d to know, but turn’d away,
As if his heart abhorr’d that coming day,
And shrunk his glance before that morning light,
475
To look on Lara’s brow – where all grew night.
Yet sense seem’d left, though better were its loss;
For when one near display’d the absolving cross,
And proffer’d to his touch the holy bead,
Of which his parting soul might own the need,
480
He look’d upon it with an eye profane,
And smiled – Heaven pardon! if ’twere with disdain:
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew
From Lara’s face his fix’d despairing view,
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,
485
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,
As if such but disturb’d the expiring man,
Nor seem’d to know his life but then began,
That life of Immortality, secure
To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.
XX
490
But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,
And dull the film along his dim eye grew;
His limbs stretch’d fluttering, and his head droop’d o’er
The weak yet still untiring knee that bore;
He press’d the hand he held upon his heart -
495
It beats no more, but Kaled will not part
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,
For that faint throb which answers not again.
‘It beats!’ – Away, thou dreamer! he is gone –
It once was Lara which thou look’st upon.
XXI
500
He gazed, as if not yet had pass’d away
The haughty spirit of that humble clay;
And those around have roused him from his trance,
But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;
And when, in raising him from where he bore
505
Within his arms the form that felt no more,
He saw the head his breast would still sustain,
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;
He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear
The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,
510
But strove to stand and gaze, but reel’d and fell,
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.
Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneath
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe!
That trying moment hath at once reveal’d
515
The secret long and yet but half conceal’d;
In baring to revive that lifeless breast,
Its grief seem’d ended, but the sex confess’d;
And life return’d, and Kaled felt no shame –
What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?
XXII
520
And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep;
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless’d nor marble deck’d the mound,
And he was mourn’d by one whose quiet grief,
525
Less loud, outlasts a people’s for their chief.
Vain was all question ask’d her of the past,
And vain e’en menace – silent to the last;
She told nor whence, nor why she left behind
Her all for one who seem’d but little kind.
530
Why did she love him? Curious fool! — be still –
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness; the stern
Have deeper tho
ughts than your dull eyes discern,
And when they love, your smilers guess not how
535
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.
They were not common links, that form’d the chain
That bound to Lara Kaled’s heart and brain;
But that wild tale she brook’d not to unfold,
And seal’d is now each lip that could have told.
XXIII
540
They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,
They found the scatter’d dints of many a scar,
Which were not planted there in recent war;
Where’er had pass’d his summer years of life,
545
It seems they vanish’d in a land of strife;
But all unknown his glory or his guilt,
These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,
Return’d no more – that night appear’d his last.
XXIV
550
Upon that night (a peasant’s is the tale)
A Serf that cross’d the intervening vale,1
When Cynthia’s light almost gave way to morn,
And nearly veil’d in mist her waning horn;
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,
555
And hew the bough that bought his children’s food,
Pass’d by the river that divides the plain
Of Otho’s lands and Lara’s broad domain:
He heard a tramp – a horse and horseman broke
From out the wood – before him was a cloak
560
Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,
And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watch’d the stranger’s course,
565
Who reach’d the river, bounded from his horse,
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dash’d it from the shore,
Then paused, and look’d, and turn’d, and seem’d to watch,
And still another hurried glance would snatch,
570
And follow with his step the stream that flow’d,
As if even yet too much its surface show’d:
At once he started, stoop’d, around him strown
The winter floods had scatter’d heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather’d there,
575
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean;
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter’d starlike on the vest;
580
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:
It rose again, but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappear’d: the horseman gazed
585
Till ebb’d the latest eddy it had raised;
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurr’d him into panting speed.
His face was mask’d – the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer’s dread;
590
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such ’tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.
If thus he perish’d Heaven receive his soul!
595
His undiscover’d limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell
It was not Lara’s hand by which he fell.
XXV
And Kaled – Lara – Ezzelin, are gone,
Alike without their monumental stone!
600
The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean
From lingering where her chieftain’s blood had been;
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
605
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk’d all idly unto shapes of air,
610
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
615
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she stanch’d anew some phantom’s wound.
620
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden’s root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
625
Or trace strange characters along the sand –
This could not last – she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold – her truth too dearly proved.
The Destruction of Sennacherib
I
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
II
5
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown.
III
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
10
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
IV
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride:
15
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
V
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
20
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
VI
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
Napoleon’s Farewell (From the French)
I
Farewell to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory
Arose and o’ershadow’d the earth with her name –
She abandons me now — but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill’d with my fame.
5
I have war
r’d with a world which vanquish’d me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely,
The last single Captive to millions in war.
II
Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown’d me,
10
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth, –
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay’d in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won –
15
Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
Had still soar’d with eyes fix’d on victory’s sun!
III
Farewell to thee, France! – but when Liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then, –
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
20
Though wither’d, thy tear will unfold it again –
Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice –
There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us,
Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!
From the French (‘Must thou go, my glorious Chief’) 1
I
Must thou go, my glorious Chief,
Sever’d from thy faithful few?
Who can tell thy warrior’s grief,
Maddening o’er that long adieu?
5
Woman’s love, and friendship’s zeal,
Dear as both have been to me –
What are they to all I feel,
With a soldier’s faith for thee?
II
Idol of the soldier’s soul!
10
First in fight, but mightiest now:
Many could a world control;
Thee alone no doom can bow.
By thy side for years I dared
Death; and envied those who fell,
15
When their dying shout was heard,
Blessing him they served so well.2
III
Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes
20
Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free!
Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.
IV
25
Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty’s prayer,
Were his borrow’d glories dim,
In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,
30
All thou calmly dost resign,
Could he purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thine?
V
My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!