Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  Wet with thine own best blood shall drip

  Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;

  Then stalking to thy sullen grave,

  Go — and with Gouls and Afrits rave;

  Till these in horror shrink away

  From Spectre more accursed than they!

  “How name ye yon lone Caloyer?

  His features I have scanned before

  In mine own land: ‘tis many a year,

  Since, dashing by the lonely shore, 790

  I saw him urge as fleet a steed

  As ever served a horseman’s need.

  But once I saw that face, yet then

  It was so marked with inward pain,

  I could not pass it by again;

  It breathes the same dark spirit now,

  As death were stamped upon his brow.

  “‘Tis twice three years at summer tide

  Since first among our freres he came;

  And here it soothes him to abide 800

  For some dark deed he will not name.

  But never at our Vesper prayer,

  Nor e’er before Confession chair

  Kneels he, nor recks he when arise

  Incense or anthem to the skies,

  But broods within his cell alone,

  His faith and race alike unknown.

  The sea from Paynim land he crost,

  And here ascended from the coast;

  Yet seems he not of Othman race, 810

  But only Christian in his face:

  I’d judge him some stray renegade,

  Repentant of the change he made,

  Save that he shuns our holy shrine,

  Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine.

  Great largess to these walls he brought,

  And thus our Abbot’s favour bought;

  But were I Prior, not a day

  Should brook such stranger’s further stay,

  Or pent within our penance cell 820

  Should doom him there for aye to dwell.

  Much in his visions mutters he

  Of maiden whelmed beneath the sea;

  Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,

  Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying.

  On cliff he hath been known to stand,

  And rave as to some bloody hand

  Fresh severed from its parent limb,

  Invisible to all but him,

  Which beckons onward to his grave, 830

  And lures to leap into the wave.”

  Dark and unearthly is the scowl

  That glares beneath his dusky cowl:

  The flash of that dilating eye

  Reveals too much of times gone by;

  Though varying, indistinct its hue,

  Oft with his glance the gazer rue,

  For in it lurks that nameless spell,

  Which speaks, itself unspeakable,

  A spirit yet unquelled and high, 840

  That claims and keeps ascendancy;

  And like the bird whose pinions quake,

  But cannot fly the gazing snake,

  Will others quail beneath his look,

  Nor ‘scape the glance they scarce can brook.

  From him the half-affrighted Friar

  When met alone would fain retire,

  As if that eye and bitter smile

  Transferred to others fear and guile:

  Not oft to smile descendeth he, 850

  And when he doth ‘tis sad to see

  That he but mocks at Misery.

  How that pale lip will curl and quiver!

  Then fix once more as if for ever;

  As if his sorrow or disdain

  Forbade him e’er to smile again.

  Well were it so — such ghastly mirth

  From joyaunce ne’er derived its birth.

  But sadder still it were to trace

  What once were feelings in that face: 860

  Time hath not yet the features fixed,

  But brighter traits with evil mixed;

  And there are hues not always faded,

  Which speak a mind not all degraded

  Even by the crimes through which it waded:

  The common crowd but see the gloom

  Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom;

  The close observer can espy

  A noble soul, and lineage high:

  Alas! though both bestowed in vain, 870

  Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain,

  It was no vulgar tenement

  To which such lofty gifts were lent,

  And still with little less than dread

  On such the sight is riveted.

  The roofless cot, decayed and rent,

  Will scarce delay the passer-by;

  The tower by war or tempest bent,

  While yet may frown one battlement,

  Demands and daunts the stranger’s eye; 880

  Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,

  Pleads haughtily for glories gone!

  “His floating robe around him folding,

  Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle;

  With dread beheld, with gloom beholding

  The rites that sanctify the pile.

  But when the anthem shakes the choir,

  And kneel the monks, his steps retire;

  By yonder lone and wavering torch

  His aspect glares within the porch; 890

  There will he pause till all is done —

  And hear the prayer, but utter none.

  See — by the half-illumined wall

  His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,

  That pale brow wildly wreathing round,

  As if the Gorgon there had bound

  The sablest of the serpent-braid

  That o’er her fearful forehead strayed:

  For he declines the convent oath,

  And leaves those locks unhallowed growth, 900

  But wears our garb in all beside;

  And, not from piety but pride,

  Gives wealth to walls that never heard

  Of his one holy vow nor word.

  Lo! — mark ye, as the harmony

  Peals louder praises to the sky,

  That livid cheek, that stony air

  Of mixed defiance and despair!

  Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine!

  Else may we dread the wrath divine 910

  Made manifest by awful sign.

  If ever evil angel bore

  The form of mortal, such he wore;

  By all my hope of sins forgiven,

  Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!”

  To Love the softest hearts are prone,

  But such can ne’er be all his own;

  Too timid in his woes to share,

  Too meek to meet, or brave despair;

  And sterner hearts alone may feel 920

  The wound that Time can never heal.

  The rugged metal of the mine

  Must burn before its surface shine,

  But plunged within the furnace-flame,

  It bends and melts — though still the same;

  Then tempered to thy want, or will,

  ‘Twill serve thee to defend or kill —

  A breast-plate for thine hour of need,

  Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;

  But if a dagger’s form it bear, 930

  Let those who shape its edge, beware!

  Thus Passion’s fire, and Woman’s art,

  Can turn and tame the sterner heart;

  From these its form and tone are ta’en,

  And what they make it, must remain,

  But break — before it bend again.

  If solitude succeed to grief,

  Release from pain is slight relief;

  The vacant bosom’s wilderness

  Might thank the pang that made it less. 940

  We loat
he what none are left to share:

  Even bliss — ‘twere woe alone to bear;

  The heart once left thus desolate

  Must fly at last for ease — to hate.

  It is as if the dead could feel

  The icy worm around them steal,

  And shudder, as the reptiles creep

  To revel o’er their rotting sleep,

  Without the power to scare away

  The cold consumers of their clay! 950

  It is as if the desert bird,

  Whose beak unlocks her bosom’s stream

  To still her famished nestlings’ scream,

  Nor mourns a life to them transferred,

  Should rend her rash devoted breast,

  And find them flown her empty nest.

  The keenest pangs the wretched find

  Are rapture to the dreary void,

  The leafless desert of the mind,

  The waste of feelings unemployed. 960

  Who would be doomed to gaze upon

  A sky without a cloud or sun?

  Less hideous far the tempest’s roar,

  Than ne’er to brave the billows more —

  Thrown, when the war of winds is o’er,

  A lonely wreck on Fortune’s shore,

  ‘Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,

  Unseen to drop by dull decay; —

  Better to sink beneath the shock

  Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! 970

  “Father! thy, days have passed in peace,

  ‘Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;

  To bid the sins of others cease,

  Thyself without a crime or care,

  Save transient ills that all must bear,

  Has been thy lot from youth to age;

  And thou wilt bless thee from the rage

  Of passions fierce and uncontrolled,

  Such as thy penitents unfold,

  Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 980

  Within thy pure and pitying breast.

  My days, though few, have passed below

  In much of Joy, but more of Woe;

  Yet still in hours of love or strife,

  I’ve ‘scaped the weariness of Life:

  Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,

  I loathed the languor of repose.

  Now nothing left to love or hate,

  No more with hope or pride elate,

  I’d rather be the thing that crawls 990

  Most noxious o’er a dungeon’s walls,

  Than pass my dull, unvarying days,

  Condemned to meditate and gaze.

  Yet, lurks a wish within my breast

  For rest — but not to feel ‘tis rest.

  Soon shall my Fate that wish fulfil;

  And I shall sleep without the dream

  Of what I was, and would be still

  Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:

  My memory now is but the tomb 1000

  Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:

  ‘Though better to have died with those

  Than bear a life of lingering woes.

  My spirit shrunk not to sustain

  The searching throes of ceaseless pain;

  Nor sought the self-accorded grave

  Of ancient fool and modern knave:

  Yet death I have not feared to meet;

  And in the field it had been sweet,

  Had Danger wooed me on to move 1010

  The slave of Glory, not of Love.

  I’ve braved it — not for Honour’s boast;

  I smile at laurels won or lost;

  To such let others carve their way,

  For high renown, or hireling pay:

  But place again before my eyes

  Aught that I deem a worthy prize —

  The maid I love, the man I hate —

  And I will hunt the steps of fate,

  To save or slay, as these require, 1020

  Through rending steel, and rolling fire:

  Nor needst thou doubt this speech from one

  Who would but do — what he hath done.

  Death is but what the haughty brave,

  The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;

  Then let life go to Him who gave:

  I have not quailed to Danger’s brow

  When high and happy — need I now?

  “I loved her, Friar! nay, adored —

  But these are words that all can use — 1030

  I proved it more in deed than word;

  There’s blood upon that dinted sword,

  A stain its steel can never lose:

  ‘Twas shed for her, who died for me,

  It warmed the heart of one abhorred:

  Nay, start not — no — nor bend thy knee,

  Nor midst my sin such act record;

  Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,

  For he was hostile to thy creed!

  The very name of Nazarene 1040

  Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.

  Ungrateful fool! since but for brands

  Well wielded in some hardy hands,

  And wounds by Galileans given —

  The surest pass to Turkish heaven —

  For him his Houris still might wait

  Impatient at the Prophet’s gate.

  I loved her — Love will find its way

  Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;

  And if it dares enough,’twere hard 1050

  If Passion met not some reward —

  No matter how, or where, or why,

  I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:

  Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain

  I wish she had not loved again.

  She died — I dare not tell thee how;

  But look — ‘tis written on my brow!

  There read of Cain the curse and crime,

  In characters unworn by Time:

  Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause; 1060

  Not mine the act, though I the cause.

  Yet did he but what I had done

  Had she been false to more than one.

  Faithless to him — he gave the blow;

  But true to me — I laid him low:

  Howe’er deserved her doom might be,

  Her treachery was truth to me;

  To me she gave her heart, that all

  Which Tyranny can ne’er enthrall;

  And I, alas! too late to save! 1070

  Yet all I then could give, I gave —

  ‘Twas some relief — our foe a grave.

  His death sits lightly; but her fate

  Has made me — what thou well mayst hate.

  His doom was sealed — he knew it well,

  Warned by the voice of stern Taheer,

  Deep in whose darkly boding ear

  The deathshot pealed of murder near,

  As filed the troop to where they fell!

  He died too in the battle broil, 1080

  A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;

  One cry to Mahomet for aid,

  One prayer to Alla all he made:

  He knew and crossed me in the fray —

  I gazed upon him where he lay,

  And watched his spirit ebb away:

  Though pierced like pard by hunter’s steel,

  He felt not half that now I feel.

  I searched, but vainly searched, to find

  The workings of a wounded mind; 1090

  Each feature of that sullen corse

  Betrayed his rage, but no remorse.

  Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace

  Despair upon his dying face!

  The late repentance of that hour

  When Penitence hath lost her power

  To tear one terror from the grave,

  And will not soothe, and cannot save.

  “The cold in clime are cold in blood, />
  Their love can scarce deserve the name; 1100

  But mine was like the lava flood

  That boils in Ætna’s breast of flame.

  I cannot prate in puling strain

  Of Ladye-love, and Beauty’s chain:

  If changing cheek, and scorching vein,

  Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,

  If bursting heart, and maddening brain,

  And daring deed, and vengeful steel,

  And all that I have felt, and feel,

  Betoken love — that love was mine, 1110

  And shown by many a bitter sign.

  ‘Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,

  I knew but to obtain or die.

  I die — but first I have possessed,

  And come what may, I have been blessed.

  Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?

  No — reft of all, yet undismayed

  But for the thought of Leila slain,

  Give me the pleasure with the pain,

  So would I live and love again. 1120

  I grieve, but not, my holy Guide!

  For him who dies, but her who died:

  She sleeps beneath the wandering wave —

  Ah! had she but an earthly grave,

  This breaking heart and throbbing head

  Should seek and share her narrow bed.

  She was a form of Life and Light,

  That, seen, became a part of sight;

  And rose, where’er I turned mine eye,

  The Morning-star of Memory! 1130

  “Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;

  A spark of that immortal fire

  With angels shared, by Alia given,

  To lift from earth our low desire.

  Devotion wafts the mind above,

  But Heaven itself descends in Love;

  A feeling from the Godhead caught,

  To wean from self each sordid thought;

  A ray of Him who formed the whole;

  A Glory circling round the soul! 1140

  I grant my love imperfect, all

  That mortals by the name miscall;

  Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;

  But say, oh say, hers was not Guilt!

  She was my Life’s unerring Light:

  That quenched — what beam shall break my night?

  Oh! would it shone to lead me still,

  Although to death or deadliest ill!

  Why marvel ye, if they who lose

  This present joy, this future hope, 1150

  No more with Sorrow meekly cope;

  In phrensy then their fate accuse;

  In madness do those fearful deeds

  That seem to add but Guilt to Woe?

  Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

  Hath nought to dread from outward blow:

  Who falls from all he knows of bliss,

  Cares little into what abyss.

  Fierce as the gloomy vulture’s now

  To thee, old man, my deeds appear: 1160

  I read abhorrence on thy brow,