by Lord Byron
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given 30
In softest incense back to Heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner’s guitar 40
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay.
Strange — that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,
And every charm and grace hath mixed
Within the Paradise she fixed,
There man, enamoured of distress, 50
Should mar it into wilderness,
And trample, brute-like, o’er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him — but to spare!
Strange — that where all is Peace beside,
There Passion riots in her pride,
And Lust and Rapine wildly reign 60
To darken o’er the fair domain.
It is as though the Fiends prevailed
Against the Seraphs they assailed,
And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of Hell;
So soft the scene, so formed for joy,
So curst the tyrants that destroy!
He who hath bent him o’er the dead
Ere the first day of Death is fled,
The first dark day of Nothingness, 70
The last of Danger and Distress,
(Before Decay’s effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where Beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of Repose that’s there,
The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And — but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow, 80
Where cold Obstruction’s apathy
Appals the gazing mourner’s heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the Tyrant’s power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first, last look by Death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore; 90
‘Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for Soul is wanting there.
Hers is the loveliness in death,
That parts not quite with parting breath;
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression’s last receding ray,
A gilded Halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away! 100
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth!
Clime of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermopylæ?
These waters blue that round you lave, — 110
Oh servile offspring of the free —
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis!
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your Sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear
That Tyranny shall quake to hear, 120
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame:
For Freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!
Attest it many a deathless age!
While Kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy Heroes, though the general doom 130
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger’s eye
The graves of those that cannot die!
‘Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
Each step from Splendour to Disgrace;
Enough — no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yet! Self-abasement paved the way 140
To villain-bonds and despot sway.
What can he tell who treads thy shore?
No legend of thine olden time,
No theme on which the Muse might soar
High as thine own in days of yore,
When man was worthy of thy clime.
The hearts within thy valleys bred,
The fiery souls that might have led
Thy sons to deeds sublime,
Now crawl from cradle to the Grave, 150
Slaves — nay, the bondsmen of a Slave,
And callous, save to crime;
Stained with each evil that pollutes
Mankind, where least above the brutes;
Without even savage virtue blest,
Without one free or valiant breast,
Still to the neighbouring ports they waft
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft;
In this the subtle Greek is found,
For this, and this alone, renowned. 160
In vain might Liberty invoke
The spirit to its bondage broke
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke:
No more her sorrows I bewail,
Yet this will be a mournful tale,
And they who listen may believe,
Who heard it first had cause to grieve.
Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing,
The shadows of the rocks advancing
Start on the fisher’s eye like boat 170
Of island-pirate or Mainote;
And fearful for his light caïque,
He shuns the near but doubtful creek:
Though worn and weary with his toil,
And cumbered with his scaly spoil,
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar,
Till Port Leone’s safer shore
Receives him by the lovely light
That best becomes an Eastern night.
Who thundering comes on blackest steed, 180
With slackened bit and hoof of speed?
Beneath the clattering iron’s sound
The caverned Echoes wake around
In lash for lash, and bound for bound:
The foam that streaks the courser’s side
Seems gathered from the Ocean-tide:
Though weary waves are sunk to rest,
There’s none within his rider’s breast;
And though to-morrow’s tempest lower,
‘Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour! 190
I know thee not, I loathe thy race,
But in thy lineaments I trace
What Time shall strengthen, not efface:
Though young and pale, that sallow front
Is scathed by fiery Passion’s brunt;
Though bent on earth thine evil eye,
As meteor-like thou glidest by,
Right well I view and deem thee one
Whom Othman’s sons should slay or shun.
On — on he hastened, and he drew 200
My gaze of wonder as he flew:
Though like a Demon of the night
He passed, and vanished from my sight,
His aspect and his air impressed
A troubled memory on my breast,
And long upon my startled ear
Rung his dark courser’s hoofs of fear.
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep,
That, jutting, shadows o’er the deep;
He winds around; he hurries by; 210
The rock relieves him from mine eye;
For, well I ween, unwelcome he
Whose glance is fixed on those that flee;
And not a star but shines too bright
On him who takes such timeless flight.
He wound along; but ere he passed
One glance he snatched, as if his last,
A moment checked his wheeling steed,
A moment breathed him from his speed,
A moment on his stirrup stood — 220
Why looks he o’er the olive wood?
The Crescent glimmers on the hill,
The Mosque’s high lamps are quivering still
Though too remote for sound to wake
In echoes of the far tophaike,
The flashes of each joyous peal
Are seen to prove the Moslem’s zeal.
To-night, set Rhamazani’s sun;
To-night, the Bairam feast’s begun;
To-night — but who and what art thou 230
Of foreign garb and fearful brow?
And what are these to thine or thee,
That thou shouldst either pause or flee?
He stood — some dread was on his face,
Soon Hatred settled in its place:
It rose not with the reddening flush
Of transient Anger’s hasty blush,
But pale as marble o’er the tomb,
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom.
His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; 240
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised,
And sternly shook his hand on high,
As doubting to return or fly;
Impatient of his flight delayed,
Here loud his raven charger neighed —
Down glanced that hand, and grasped his blade;
That sound had burst his waking dream,
As Slumber starts at owlet’s scream.
The spur hath lanced his courser’s sides;
Away — away — for life he rides: 250
Swift as the hurled on high jerreed
Springs to the touch his startled steed;
The rock is doubled, and the shore
Shakes with the clattering tramp no more;
The crag is won, no more is seen
His Christian crest and haughty mien.
‘Twas but an instant he restrained
That fiery barb so sternly reined;
‘Twas but a moment that he stood,
Then sped as if by Death pursued; 260
But in that instant o’er his soul
Winters of Memory seemed to roll,
And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O’er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years:
What felt he then, at once opprest
By all that most distracts the breast?
That pause, which pondered o’er his fate,
Oh, who its dreary length shall date! 270
Though in Time’s record nearly nought,
It was Eternity to Thought!
For infinite as boundless space
The thought that Conscience must embrace,
Which in itself can comprehend
Woe without name, or hope, or end.
The hour is past, the Giaour is gone:
And did he fly or fall alone?
Woe to that hour he came or went!
The curse for Hassan’s sin was sent 280
To turn a palace to a tomb;
He came, he went, like the Simoom,
That harbinger of Fate and gloom,
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath
The very cypress droops to death —
Dark tree, still sad when others’ grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o’er the dead!
The steed is vanished from the stall;
No serf is seen in Hassan’s hall;
The lonely Spider’s thin gray pall 290
Waves slowly widening o’er the wall;
The Bat builds in his Haram bower,
And in the fortress of his power
The Owl usurps the beacon-tower;
The wild-dog howls o’er the fountain’s brim,
With baffled thirst, and famine, grim;
For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed,
Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread.
‘Twas sweet of yore to see it play
And chase the sultriness of day, 300
As springing high the silver dew
In whirls fantastically flew,
And flung luxurious coolness round
The air, and verdure o’er the ground.
‘Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were bright,
To view the wave of watery light,
And hear its melody by night.
And oft had Hassan’s Childhood played
Around the verge of that cascade;
And oft upon his mother’s breast 310
That sound had harmonized his rest;
And oft had Hassan’s Youth along
Its bank been soothed by Beauty’s song;
And softer seemed each melting tone
Of Music mingled with its own.
But ne’er shall Hassan’s Age repose
Along the brink at Twilight’s close:
The stream that filled that font is fled —
The blood that warmed his heart is shed!
And here no more shall human voice 320
Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.
The last sad note that swelled the gale
Was woman’s wildest funeral wail:
That quenched in silence, all is still,
But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill:
Though raves the gust, and floods the rain,
No hand shall close its clasp again.
On desert sands ‘twere joy to scan
The rudest steps of fellow man,
So here the very voice of Grief 330
Might wake an Echo like relief —
At least ‘twould say, “All are not gone;
There lingers Life, though but in one” —
For many a gilded chamber’s there,
Which Solitude might well forbear;
Within that dome as yet Decay
Hath slowly worked her cankering way —
But gloom is gathered o’er the gate,
Nor there the Fakir’s self will wait;
Nor there will wandering Dervise stay, 3
40
For Bounty cheers not his delay;
Nor there will weary stranger halt
To bless the sacred “bread and salt.”
Alike must Wealth and Poverty
Pass heedless and unheeded by,
For Courtesy and Pity died
With Hassan on the mountain side.
His roof, that refuge unto men,
Is Desolation’s hungry den.
The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour, 350
Since his turban was cleft by the infidel’s sabre!
I hear the sound of coming feet,
But not a voice mine ear to greet;
More near — each turban I can scan,
And silver-sheathèd ataghan;
The foremost of the band is seen
An Emir by his garb of green:
“Ho! who art thou?” — “This low salam
Replies of Moslem faith I am.
The burthen ye so gently bear, 360
Seems one that claims your utmost care,
And, doubtless, holds some precious freight —
My humble bark would gladly wait.”
“Thou speakest sooth: thy skiff unmoor,
And waft us from the silent shore;
Nay, leave the sail still furled, and ply
The nearest oar that’s scattered by,
And midway to those rocks where sleep
The channelled waters dark and deep.
Rest from your task — so — bravely done, 370
Our course has been right swiftly run;
Yet ‘tis the longest voyage, I trow,
That one of — * * * “
Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank,
The calm wave rippled to the bank;
I watched it as it sank, methought
Some motion from the current caught
Bestirred it more, — ‘twas but the beam
That checkered o’er the living stream:
I gazed, till vanishing from view, 380
Like lessening pebble it withdrew;
Still less and less, a speck of white
That gemmed the tide, then mocked the sight;
And all its hidden secrets sleep,
Known but to Genii of the deep,
Which, trembling in their coral caves,
They dare not whisper to the waves.
As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen of Eastern spring,
O’er emerald meadows of Kashmeer 390
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child,
With hue as bright, and wing as wild:
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal ills betrayed, 400
Woe waits the insect and the maid;
A life of pain, the loss of peace;