Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 269
This not concerns us, this, come storm or sun,
Regards us nowise: time hath all in hand:
And time, I think, shall hurl this world to hell,
Or give — not now, perchance, nor many a year,
Nor many a century hence — God knows — but yet
Some day, some year, some century, give our sons
Freedom. Nor haply then may we deserve
Remembrance: better many a man than we
May prove himself, and perish: yet, if God
Fail us not so, that, failing, we should die
Cowards, it may be we shall sleep not scorned
Of all that hold our faith for ever. Now
Go thou and watch, but not with me, who here
Would keep my watch alone till morning. God
Be with thee.
(Exit Bertuccio.)
God?may God indeed tonight
Be with us? Yet red-handed men of death,
Scarce breathing now from battle, praise his name,
Give thanks for happy slaughters, mix with prayer
The panting passion of their hearts that beat
Like vultures’ wings toward bloodshed: and shall we
Dare not desire of God his comfort, we
That war not save with wrongs abhorred of him,
That smite not heads of open enemies, men
Found manful in the fielded front of war,
Fair foes, and worth fair fighting, but of slaves
Who mar the name they mock with reverence, make
The fair fame foul of freedom, soil and stain
The seamless robe wherein their fathers clothed
For bridal of one bridegroom with the sea
Venice? When time hath wiped her tyrants out —
Time that now ripening thrusts into mine hand
The scythe to reap this harvest — earth has known
Never, since life sprang first against the sun,
So fair, so splendid, so sublime a life
As this that God shall give her: and to me,
To me and mine who served and saved her, life
Shall God give surely, such as dateless time
Spares, and its light puts out the shadow of death.
( Voices
chanting from below.)
Quis tam celer, quis tam fortis,
Pedem qui præcurrat mortis?
Quis e fractis tumbæ portis
Præter unum redeat?
Præter unum Te reversus
Nemo, Christe, solem versus,
Mortis fluctu semel mersus,
Surget, sol dum cœlo stat.
FALIERO.
Yea, but if many waters cannot quench
Love, nor the strong floods drown it, how shall not
Man’s love for man, that saves and smites, to bring
For every slave deliverance, and for all
The peace of equal righteousness and right,
Though girt with even this iron girdle round
And robed in this red raiment, rise again
And as a swimmer against a sundering wave
Beat back the billow of death, and climb, and laugh
Loud laughters of thanksgiving? Strong is death,
But stronger lives man’s love who dies for man
Than all ye fear and trust in, heaven or hell.
(Chanting again.)
De profundis tenebrarum
Ardor atrox animarum
Quas non legum vis tuarum,
Christe, fecit humiles,
Ex infernis in superna
Fervet: quem cùm lux æterna
Tangit, fit ut herba verna
Quam conculcat vulgi pes.
FALIERO.
O tender laws of bland humility
Wherewith priests’ hearts are girdled! These are they
Who drink and eat God, and who kiss and stroke
Satan; who burn men’s living limbs with fire
And hold themselves God’s chosen and blest of God
And me of God rejected and accursed
Because in wrath long since I smote a priest
Who bore in hand God palpable, whereon
The curse of the eucharist I violated,
And of God’s blessing made myself a curse,
Fell or shall one day fall and smite me. Nay,
If humbleness to these must buy men heaven,
Let all high hope stand outcast thence with me.
(Chanting again.)
Virgo sancta, Christe clemens,
Homo miser, homo demens,
Ubi Sathanas it semens,
Hunc secutus, nescit vos;
Mortis messor, edax vitæ,
Spernit vos: at vos auditæ
Preces animæ contritæ
Flectant: nam quid sumus nos?
FALIERO.
Not men, God knows, are ye nor any of you,
Priests, and the flocks of priesthood: sheep or swine
Or wolves at heart man finds you. Christ our Lord
Chief light and lord of men, made manifest
Before no bloodier judgment-seat than yours
Man, and the son of man — no lord of priests,
No God of slaves who hears their tyrants pray,
And sees them, praying, smite earth and strengthen hell,
And hallows hell with blessing — he, being just,
Should think, if he be God indeed, and hear
Me now and all men alway, if this word
Be bearable, that man, being smitten, should
Still turn his cheek and smite not. Nay, but, Lord,
Hadst thou been mere man, even as I, and borne
Shame, knowing thyself no God, whom no man’s hand
Could turn indeed to a thing dishonoured — nay,
But one whom shame might scourge and scar like me,
Brand on thy brows and ravin round thine heart —
Thou, that couldst bear for us the body’s death,
Thou couldst not, Christ, have borne it: hadst thou borne,
Not higher of heart but less thou hadst been than we.
(Chanting again.)
Fac ut metatmali sator
Mali messem, mundi Stator,
Une, trine, tu Creator,
Pater, Fili, Spiritus:
Tuque, boni nobis bone
Dator, Marce, tu patrone,
Ab inferno nos latrone,
Salva nos ab hostibus.
FALIERO.
And I, for these a hellish thief in wait,
A midnight-mantled slayer — for these am I
Their headsman, I that was their head: but thou,
St. Mark, our lord, no better friend than I,
Not thou, not thou, to Venice. Have not these
Been sowers indeed of evil, and shall they reap
For harvest of a desolated field
Good? Have they not made wide the wilderness,
Kept fresh with blood the roots of tares and thorns,
Drawn dry the breasts of pale sterility,
Wasted the ways with fire and sown with salt,
That they should gather grain? Our foes are these,
Not Genoa, not the stranger, south nor east,
Turk nor Hungarian, but thy sons alone,
Venice, who mock their mother: thine it is,
Thine hand by mine that smites them, and redeems
Thine equal name for ever, lest the world
Lack this that none as thou shalt give hath given,
The light of equal manhood’s equity,
Full freedom, sovereign where no sovereign sits.
But wilt not thou speak yet, Mark? From thy tongue
Time is it now the word should break, that sounds
To them that do thee this dishonour death
And loftier life to Venice: yet not yet
Thy belfry through the sleep of tyrants flings
The knell that is a clarion, and mine ear
Takes only through the g
leaming April gloom
That rustle of whispering water against the dawn
Which wakes before the world may. Wind is none
To warn our watery streets of storm, which here
Broods windward, hard on breaking; if ye wist,
Friends! — Will the prayers of priests not wake thee, then?
(Chanting again.)
Te, cùm timor barbarorum
Corda conflictavit, horum
Turba prima te tuorum
Conclamabant Veneti:
Te, sub umbrâ Christi crucis,
Fontem te videmus lucis;
Tanti stas tutamen ducis,
Tanti fautor populi.
FALIERO.
Ay, for no poor faint people shalt thou speak,
For no mean city: lion-like shall they,
With feet once loosened from the strangling toils,
Go forth to plant thy lion. But the duke,
The leader, red of hand and hoar of hair,
An old man clothed in slaughters — but the chief,
Worthy worship and honour once of all,
I, Marino Faliero, citizen,
Soldier, servant of Venice — how shall I
Follow, with feet washed here in civic blood,
The flag once more by civic hearts and hands
Exalted? Nay, the fugitive feet that here
Found harbourage first, the feeble knees that fell,
Suppliant, and maimed with fear of foes behind,
Imploring first thy comfort, when the Hun
Raged as a fire against them — nay, the hands
That first here staked a camp in the eastward sea,
Trembling, and toward thine emblem and thy Lord’s
Uplift with wail and worship — these that first
Scarce here gat rest and refuge where to die
Were worthier yet to found than I may be
To rear again from ruin Venice. O,
That thou wouldst pray God for me now tonight
To speed the wheels of morning! Will this hour
Stretch not its darkness out to noon, and bid
The day lie dumb, lest when the morning speaks
Death answer with a cry from clamorous hell
And strike the sun down darkling, that the world
May reel in fearful travail out of life?
(Chanting again.)
Mors immanis, mors immensa,
Tendit fila semper tensa;
Illi regum sordet mensa,
Illi vana ducum vox:
Mors immensa, mors immanis,
Instat rebus mundi vanis;
Fugit claris lux e fanis,
Mors cùm dixit, Fiat nox.
FALIERO.
Let there be night, and there was night — who says
That? Nay, though heaven and earth were they that bade,
No less were light immortal, night no less
Fugitive, abject, void, vain, outcast, frail,
In the eye of dawn that seeks and sees not night.
Vain if my voice be, vainer yet are these
That swell from choral throats the choir of death
With prostrate noise of praises; vain as fear,
Penitence, passion, ache of afterthought,
When man hath once laid hand on high design
And armed his heart with purpose. Death and life
In God’s clear eyes are one thing, wrong and right
Are twain for ever: nor though night kiss day
Shall right kiss wrong and die not. Let the world
End; if the spirit expire not, then in mine
The will that gave wing to this enterprise
Shall fade not, nor the trust I had alive
To serve not wrath but righteousness at last
With offering shed of sin for sacrifice.
Was I not chosen as helmsman of my state,
As herdsman of my people? Woe were mine
If when the dogs turn wolves to rend the sheep
I durst not drown or hang them, with their jaws
Yet foul and full of flesh and wet red fleece,
Or when the ship reels right and left on death,
Storm-stunned, and loud with mutiny as with fear,
Would ease her not of mutinous rioters, fain
To bind me foot and hand, and bid the wheel
Swing as the storm wills till the tumbling prow
Plunge, and dive, and the wreck bear down the crew
And them, still drunk with rage of revel, whence
No sunken state rose ever. Let them live
And all this people perish? God, not I.
(Chanting again.)
Miserere, Pastor vere,
Pastor clemens, miserere,
Sere judex, ultor sere,
Deus magne, Deus mi:
Quanquam plena vanitatis,
Fracta vi, laborat ratis,
Miserere civitatis,
Miserere domini.
FALIERO.
Yea, pity and mercy need we both — of man
They that of man shall find not, and of God
I, that may haply find it. Vanity
Too vain indeed for men most frail of soul
Were this, that one of fourscore years should dream
To twine himself with trembling treasonous hands
False wreaths of timeless triumph, steal the crown
By freedom woven about his country’s head
To change its green leaf into gold, and wear
A diadem’s weight brow-bound of empire, till,
Some three days thence, death, laughing broad and blind,
Laid hand upon his bloodred hand, and led
To hell the hoar head and the murderous heart,
For three days’ kingdom’s sake perpetually
Damned, and dishonoured. Never man that sinned,
Traitor nor tyrant, thief nor manslayer, none,
Did thus, nor would, being less than mad with sin —
Not Nero, nor Iscariot. I nor mine
By this may thrive more than the meanest born
That plies his oar in Venice. One for all
Strikes, that for each man all his brethren may
Think, speak, and strike hereafter. Shall not this
Be? for the woful warning song of wail
Hath ended, and the new song only heard
Is now the sun’s at sundawn. Now, St. Mark,
Speak! for thine hour, even thine, it is that strikes,
First hour of this first day that sees thy sons
Free, father, as thy soul is free in heaven,
With no man’s shadow cast on them but thine.
Why should the sun keep silence here? thou seest,
Night seals not up for us the lips of light
As on the downward verge of hell: and thou,
Why should thy tongue be sealed, and all our hope
Perish, as might some heartless bondman’s, worn
With wasting sloth and patience? Night and hell,
With all their mortal ministers in man,
Shame, doubt, and base endurance, force and fear,
Cold heart, and abject custom, these are they
That fight against us: fain, with all this aid,
Fain would night thrust us back and bind us fast
Where no man hears the sun’s word: nor may these
By harmless hands be fought with, nor subdued
With bloodless or with blameless weapons: yet,
If hell be here not yet, ere man make earth
Hell, here today the sun should speak, and thou
Make answer, Mark, and help us. Yea, for here
Night hath not put the sun to silence: dawn
Speaks: and we lack but one loud word from thee.
Enter an Officer with Guards.
OFFICER.
My lord, you are prisoner of the state, and mine.
FALIERO.
Thine! Does my nephew live?
OFF
ICER.
He lives as you —
Prisoner.
FALIERO.
I think I am overwatched, and thou
Part of the dream I walk in unaware —
A thing made out of slumber. Many a night
I have slept but ill — never so sound as this.
Why tolls the bell not from St. Mark’s?
OFFICER.
My lord,
By mandate of the sovereign council met
The warden of the bell-tower had in charge
To see that none should sound the bells today.
The gates are fastened of the palace square:
The Ten, with twenty chosen in aid of them
Forth of the chiefest of the state, are set
To judge the prisoners even this hour attaint
On mortal charge of murderous treason.
FALIERO.
If
True men be they that shall arraign me, I
May stand in sooth approved their traitor.
OFFICER.
Sir,
For your sole name’s sake is it of all the rest
That this new court of judgment sits, to speak
On this great cause no common sentence.
FALIERO.
No:
Strange court, and stranger trial, and most of all
Strange will the strange court’s judgment held today
Read where it stands on record. Good my friend,
I will not trouble thee nor vex thy lords
With tarriance nor with wrangling: I desire
Nothing of man, nor aught of God save peace.
I shall not lack it long: yet would I say
Perchance a word before I die, because
I have loved this city. Lead me where they sit
That I may stand and speak my soul and go:
The rest is death’s and God’s: if these be just,
Judge they between us, and their will be mine.
[Exeunt.
ACT V.
Scene I. — The Hall of the Council of Ten.
Benintende and Senators sitting. Enter Faliero, guarded.
BENINTENDE.
Justice has given her doom against the accused,
Israello and Calendaro: they that fled
To Chioggia lie in ward, and hence await
An equal sentence: this remains, to speak
Judgment on him, the guiltiest head of all
And murderous heart of this conspiracy,
Head once and heart of Venice, present here