Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  His very rival almost deemed him such.

  We — we have seen the intellectual race

  Of giants stand, like Titans, face to face —

  Athos and Ida, with a dashing sea

  Of eloquence between, which flowed all free,

  As the deep billows of the Ægean roar

  Betwixt the Hellenic and the Phrygian shore.

  But where are they — the rivals! a few feet

  Of sullen earth divide each winding sheet. 20

  How peaceful and how powerful is the grave,

  Which hushes all! a calm, unstormy wave,

  Which oversweeps the World. The theme is old

  Of “Dust to Dust,” but half its tale untold:

  Time tempers not its terrors — still the worm

  Winds its cold folds, the tomb preserves its form,

  Varied above, but still alike below;

  The urn may shine — the ashes will not glow —

  Though Cleopatra’s mummy cross the sea

  O’er which from empire she lured Anthony; 30

  Though Alexander’s urn a show be grown

  On shores he wept to conquer, though unknown —

  How vain, how worse than vain, at length appear

  The madman’s wish, the Macedonian’s tear!

  He wept for worlds to conquer — half the earth

  Knows not his name, or but his death, and birth,

  And desolation; while his native Greece

  Hath all of desolation, save its peace.

  He “wept for worlds to conquer!” he who ne’er

  Conceived the Globe, he panted not to spare! 40

  With even the busy Northern Isle unknown,

  Which holds his urn — and never knew his throne.

  III.

  But where is he, the modern, mightier far,

  Who, born no king, made monarchs draw his car;

  The new Sesostris, whose unharnessed kings,

  Freed from the bit, believe themselves with wings,

  And spurn the dust o’er which they crawled of late,

  Chained to the chariot of the Chieftain’s state?

  Yes! where is he, “the champion and the child”

  Of all that’s great or little — wise or wild; 50

  Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones;

  Whose table Earth — whose dice were human bones?

  Behold the grand result in yon lone Isle,

  And, as thy nature urges — weep or smile.

  Sigh to behold the Eagle’s lofty rage

  Reduced to nibble at his narrow cage;

  Smile to survey the queller of the nations

  Now daily squabbling o’er disputed rations;

  Weep to perceive him mourning, as he dines,

  O’er curtailed dishes and o’er stinted wines; 60

  O’er petty quarrels upon petty things.

  Is this the Man who scourged or feasted kings?

  Behold the scales in which his fortune hangs,

  A surgeon’s statement, and an earl’s harangues!

  A bust delayed, — a book refused, can shake

  The sleep of Him who kept the world awake.

  Is this indeed the tamer of the Great,

  Now slave of all could tease or irritate —

  The paltry gaoler and the prying spy,

  The staring stranger with his note-book nigh? 70

  Plunged in a dungeon, he had still been great;

  How low, how little was this middle state,

  Between a prison and a palace, where

  How few could feel for what he had to bear!

  Vain his complaint, — My Lord presents his bill,

  His food and wine were doled out duly still;

  Vain was his sickness, never was a clime

  So free from homicide — to doubt’s crime;

  And the stiff surgeon, who maintained his cause,

  Hath lost his place, and gained the world’s applause. 80

  But smile — though all the pangs of brain and heart

  Disdain, defy, the tardy aid of art;

  Though, save the few fond friends and imaged face

  Of that fair boy his Sire shall ne’er embrace,

  None stand by his low bed — though even the mind

  Be wavering, which long awed and awes mankind:

  Smile — for the fettered Eagle breaks his chain,

  And higher Worlds than this are his again.

  IV.

  How, if that soaring Spirit still retain

  A conscious twilight of his blazing reign, 90

  How must he smile, on looking down, to see

  The little that he was and sought to be!

  What though his Name a wider empire found

  Than his Ambition, though with scarce a bound;

  Though first in glory, deepest in reverse,

  He tasted Empire’s blessings and its curse;

  Though kings, rejoicing in their late escape

  From chains, would gladly be their Tyrant’s ape;

  How must he smile, and turn to yon lone grave,

  The proudest Sea-mark that o’ertops the wave! 100

  What though his gaoler, duteous to the last,

  Scarce deemed the coffin’s lead could keep him fast,

  Refusing one poor line along the lid,

  To date the birth and death of all it hid;

  That name shall hallow the ignoble shore,

  A talisman to all save him who bore:

  The fleets that sweep before the eastern blast

  Shall hear their sea-boys hail it from the mast;

  When Victory’s Gallic column shall but rise,

  Like Pompey’s pillar, in a desert’s skies, 110

  The rocky Isle that holds or held his dust,

  Shall crown the Atlantic like the Hero’s bust,

  And mighty Nature o’er his obsequies

  Do more than niggard Envy still denies.

  But what are these to him? Can Glory’s lust

  Touch the freed spirit or the fettered dust?

  Small care hath he of what his tomb consists;

  Nought if he sleeps — nor more if he exists:

  Alike the better-seeing Shade will smile

  On the rude cavern of the rocky isle, 120

  As if his ashes found their latest home

  In Rome’s Pantheon or Gaul’s mimic dome.

  He wants not this; but France shall feel the want

  Of this last consolation, though so scant:

  Her Honour — Fame — and Faith demand his bones,

  To rear above a Pyramid of thrones;

  Or carried onward in the battle’s van,

  To form, like Guesclin’s dust, her Talisman.

  But be it as it is — the time may come

  His name shall beat the alarm, like Ziska’s drum. 130

  V.

  Oh Heaven! of which he was in power a feature;

  Oh Earth! of which he was a noble creature;

  Thou Isle! to be remembered long and well,

  That saw’st the unfledged eaglet chip his shell!

  Ye Alps which viewed him in his dawning flights

  Hover, the Victor of a hundred fights!

  Thou Rome, who saw’st thy Cæsar’s deeds outdone!

  Alas! why passed he too the Rubicon —

  The Rubicon of Man’s awakened rights,

  To herd with vulgar kings and parasites? 140

  Egypt! from whose all dateless tombs arose

  Forgotten Pharaohs from their long repose,

  And shook within their pyramids to hear

  A new Cambyses thundering in their ear;

  While the dark shades of Forty Ages stood

  Like startled giants by Nile’s famous flood;

  Or from the Pyramid’s tall pinnacle

  Beheld the desert peopled
, as from hell,

  With clashing hosts, who strewed the barren sand,

  To re-manure the uncultivated land! 150

  Spain! which, a moment mindless of the Cid,

  Beheld his banner flouting thy Madrid!

  Austria! which saw thy twice-ta’en capital

  Twice spared to be the traitress of his fall!

  Ye race of Frederic! — Frederics but in name

  And falsehood — heirs to all except his fame:

  Who, crushed at Jena, crouched at Berlin, fell

  First, and but rose to follow! Ye who dwell

  Where Kosciusko dwelt, remembering yet

  The unpaid amount of Catherine’s bloody debt! 160

  Poland! o’er which the avenging Angel past,

  But left thee as he found thee, still a waste,

  Forgetting all thy still enduring claim,

  Thy lotted people and extinguished name,

  Thy sigh for freedom, thy long-flowing tear,

  That sound that crashes in the tyrant’s ear —

  Kosciusko! On — on — on — the thirst of War

  Gasps for the gore of serfs and of their Czar.

  The half barbaric Moscow’s minarets

  Gleam in the sun, but ‘tis a sun that sets! 170

  Moscow! thou limit of his long career,

  For which rude Charles had wept his frozen tear

  To see in vain — he saw thee — how? with spire

  And palace fuel to one common fire.

  To this the soldier lent his kindling match,

  To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch,

  To this the merchant flung his hoarded store,

  The prince his hall — and Moscow was no more!

  Sublimest of volcanoes! Etna’s flame

  Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla’s tame; 180

  Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight

  For gaping tourists, from his hackneyed height:

  Thou stand’st alone unrivalled, till the Fire

  To come, in which all empires shall expire!

  Thou other Element! as strong and stern,

  To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn! —

  Whose icy wing flapped o’er the faltering foe,

  Till fell a hero with each flake of snow;

  How did thy numbing beak and silent fang,

  Pierce, till hosts perished with a single pang! 190

  In vain shall Seine look up along his banks

  For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks!

  In vain shall France recall beneath her vines

  Her Youth — their blood flows faster than her wines;

  Or stagnant in their human ice remains

  In frozen mummies on the Polar plains.

  In vain will Italy’s broad sun awaken

  Her offspring chilled; its beams are now forsaken.

  Of all the trophies gathered from the war,

  What shall return? the Conqueror’s broken car! 200

  The Conqueror’s yet unbroken heart! Again

  The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain.

  Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,

  Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die:

  Dresden surveys three despots fly once more

  Before their sovereign, — sovereign as before;

  But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,

  And Leipsic’s treason bids the unvanquished yield;

  The Saxon jackal leaves the lion’s side

  To turn the bear’s, and wolf’s, and fox’s guide; 210

  And backward to the den of his despair

  The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

  Oh ye! and each, and all! Oh France! who found

  Thy long fair fields ploughed up as hostile ground,

  Disputed foot by foot, till Treason, still

  His only victor, from Montmartre’s hill

  Looked down o’er trampled Paris! and thou Isle,

  Which seest Etruria from thy ramparts smile,

  Thou momentary shelter of his pride,

  Till wooed by danger, his yet weeping bride! 220

  Oh, France! retaken by a single march,

  Whose path was through one long triumphal arch!

  Oh bloody and most bootless Waterloo!

  Which proves how fools may have their fortune too,

  Won half by blunder, half by treachery:

  Oh dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh —

  Hear! hear Prometheus from his rock appeal

  To Earth, — Air, — Ocean, — all that felt or feel

  His power and glory, all who yet shall hear

  A name eternal as the rolling year; 230

  He teaches them the lesson taught so long,

  So oft, so vainly — learn to do no wrong!

  A single step into the right had made

  This man the Washington of worlds betrayed:

  A single step into the wrong has given

  His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;

  The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,

  Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod;

  His country’s Cæsar, Europe’s Hannibal,

  Without their decent dignity of fall. 240

  Yet Vanity herself had better taught

  A surer path even to the fame he sought,

  By pointing out on History’s fruitless page

  Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.

  While Franklin’s quiet memory climbs to Heaven,

  Calming the lightning which he thence hath riven,

  Or drawing from the no less kindled earth

  Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;

  While Washington’s a watchword, such as ne’er

  Shall sink while there’s an echo left to air: 250

  While even the Spaniard’s thirst of gold and war

  Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar!

  Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave

  Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant’s grave —

  The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,

  Who burst the chains of millions to renew

  The very fetters which his arm broke through,

  And crushed the rights of Europe and his own,

  To flit between a dungeon and a throne?

  VI.

  But ‘twill not be — the spark’s awakened — lo! 260

  The swarthy Spaniard feels his former glow;

  The same high spirit which beat back the Moor

  Through eight long ages of alternate gore

  Revives — and where? in that avenging clime

  Where Spain was once synonymous with crime,

  Where Cortes’ and Pizarro’s banner flew,

  The infant world redeems her name of “New.”

  ‘Tis the old aspiration breathed afresh,

  To kindle souls within degraded flesh,

  Such as repulsed the Persian from the shore 270

  Where Greece was — No! she still is Greece once more.

  One common cause makes myriads of one breast,

  Slaves of the East, or helots of the West:

  On Andes’ and on Athos’ peaks unfurled,

  The self-same standard streams o’er either world:

  The Athenian wears again Harmodius’ sword;

  The Chili chief abjures his foreign lord;

  The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,

  Young Freedom plumes the crest of each cacique;

  Debating despots, hemmed on either shore, 280

  Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic’s roar;

  Through Calpe’s strait the rolling tides advance,

  Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,

  Dash o’er the old Spaniard’s cradle, and would fain

  Unite Ausonia to the mighty main:

 
But driven from thence awhile, yet not for aye,

  Break o’er th’ Ægean, mindful of the day

  Of Salamis! — there, there the waves arise,

  Not to be lulled by tyrant victories.

  Lone, lost, abandoned in their utmost need 290

  By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,

  The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,

  The fostered feud encouraged to beguile,

  The aid evaded, and the cold delay,

  Prolonged but in the hope to make a prey; —

  These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can show

  The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.

  But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,

  Not the barbarian, with his masque of peace.

  How should the Autocrat of bondage be 300

  The king of serfs, and set the nations free?

  Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,

  Than swell the Cossaque’s prowling caravan;

  Better still toil for masters, than await,

  The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate, —

  Numbered by hordes, a human capital,

  A live estate, existing but for thrall,

  Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward

  For the first courtier in the Czar’s regard;

  While their immediate owner never tastes 310

  His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia’s wastes:

  Better succumb even to their own despair,

  And drive the Camel — than purvey the Bear.

  VII.

  But not alone within the hoariest clime

  Where Freedom dates her birth with that of Time,

  And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd

  Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud,

  The dawn revives: renowned, romantic Spain

  Holds back the invader from her soil again.

  Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde 320

  Demands her fields as lists to prove the sword;

  Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth

  Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both;

  Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears

  The warlike fathers of a thousand years.

  That seed is sown and reaped, as oft the Moor

  Sighs to remember on his dusky shore.

  Long in the peasant’s song or poet’s page

  Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage;

  The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung 330

  Back to the barbarous realm from whence they sprung.

  But these are gone — their faith, their swords, their sway,

  Yet left more anti-christian foes than they;

  The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest,

  The Inquisition, with her burning feast,

  The Faith’s red “Auto,” fed with human fuel,