by Lord Byron
Silent but quick they stoop, his chains unbind;
Once more his limbs are free as mountain wind!
But on his heavy heart such sadness sate, 1610
As if they there transferred that iron weight.
No words are uttered — at her sign, a door
Reveals the secret passage to the shore;
The city lies behind — they speed, they reach
The glad waves dancing on the yellow beach;
And Conrad following, at her beck, obeyed,
Nor cared he now if rescued or betrayed;
Resistance were as useless as if Seyd
Yet lived to view the doom his ire decreed.
XIII.
Embarked — the sail unfurled — the light breeze blew — 1620
How much had Conrad’s memory to review!
Sunk he in contemplation, till the Cape
Where last he anchored reared its giant shape.
Ah! — since that fatal night, though brief the time,
Had swept an age of terror, grief, and crime.
As its far shadow frowned above the mast,
He veiled his face, and sorrowed as he passed;
He thought of all — Gonsalvo and his band,
His fleeting triumph and his failing hand;
He thought on her afar, his lonely bride: 1630
He turned and saw — Gulnare, the Homicide!
XIV.
She watched his features till she could not bear
Their freezing aspect and averted air;
And that strange fierceness foreign to her eye
Fell quenched in tears, too late to shed or dry.
She knelt beside him and his hand she pressed,
“Thou may’st forgive though Allah’s self detest;
But for that deed of darkness what wert thou?
Reproach me — but not yet — Oh! spare me now!
I am not what I seem — this fearful night 1640
My brain bewildered — do not madden quite!
If I had never loved — though less my guilt —
Thou hadst not lived to — hate me — if thou wilt.”
XV.
She wrongs his thoughts — they more himself upbraid
Than her — though undesigned — the wretch he made;
But speechless all, deep, dark, and unexprest,
They bleed within that silent cell — his breast.
Still onward, fair the breeze, nor rough the surge,
The blue waves sport around the stern they urge;
Far on the Horizon’s verge appears a speck, 1650
A spot — a mast — a sail — an arméd deck!
Their little bark her men of watch descry,
And ampler canvass woos the wind from high;
She bears her down majestically near,
Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier;
A flash is seen — the ball beyond her bow
Booms harmless, hissing to the deep below.
Up rose keen Conrad from his silent trance,
A long, long absent gladness in his glance;
“‘Tis mine — my blood-rag flag! again — again — 1660
I am not all deserted on the main!”
They own the signal, answer to the hail,
Hoist out the boat at once, and slacken sail.
“‘Tis Conrad! Conrad!” shouting from the deck,
Command nor Duty could their transport check!
With light alacrity and gaze of Pride,
They view him mount once more his vessel’s side;
A smile relaxing in each rugged face,
Their arms can scarce forbear a rough embrace.
He, half forgetting danger and defeat, 1670
Returns their greeting as a Chief may greet,
Wrings with a cordial grasp Anselmo’s hand,
And feels he yet can conquer and command!
XVI.
These greetings o’er, the feelings that o’erflow,
Yet grieve to win him back without a blow;
They sailed prepared for vengeance — had they known
A woman’s hand secured that deed her own,
She were their Queen — less scrupulous are they
Than haughty Conrad how they win their way.
With many an asking smile, and wondering stare, 1680
They whisper round, and gaze upon Gulnare;
And her, at once above — beneath her sex,
Whom blood appalled not, their regards perplex.
To Conrad turns her faint imploring eye,
She drops her veil, and stands in silence by;
Her arms are meekly folded on that breast,
Which — Conrad safe — to Fate resigned the rest.
Though worse than frenzy could that bosom fill,
Extreme in love or hate, in good or ill,
The worst of crimes had left her Woman still! 1690
XVII.
This Conrad marked, and felt — ah! could he less? —
Hate of that deed — but grief for her distress;
What she has done no tears can wash away,
And Heaven must punish on its angry day:
But — it was done: he knew, whate’er her guilt,
For him that poniard smote, that blood was spilt;
And he was free! — and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!
And now he turned him to that dark-eyed slave
Whose brow was bowed beneath the glance he gave, 1700
Who now seemed changed and humbled, faint and meek,
But varying oft the colour of her cheek
To deeper shades of paleness — all its red
That fearful spot which stained it from the dead!
He took that hand — it trembled — now too late —
So soft in love — so wildly nerved in hate;
He clasped that hand — it trembled — and his own
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone.
“Gulnare!” — but she replied not — “dear Gulnare!”
She raised her eye — her only answer there — 1710
At once she sought and sunk in his embrace:
If he had driven her from that resting-place,
His had been more or less than mortal heart,
But — good or ill — it bade her not depart.
Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,
His latest virtue then had joined the rest.
Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss
That asked from form so fair no more than this,
The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith —
To lips where Love had lavished all his breath, 1720
To lips — whose broken sighs such fragrance fling,
As he had fanned them freshly with his wing!
XVIII.
They gain by twilight’s hour their lonely isle.
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o’er the curly bay,
And sportive Dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse sea-bird’s shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak! 1730
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope’s gay glance from Ocean’s troubled foam?
XIX.
The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And ‘midst them Conrad seeks Medora’s tower:
He looks in vain — ‘tis strange — and all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark.
> ‘Tis strange — of yore its welcome never failed,
Nor now, perchance, extinguished — only veiled. 1740
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon’s flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not — looks not — leaps into the wave,
Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and high
Ascends the path familiar to his eye.
He reached his turret door — he paused — no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around. 1750
He knocked, and loudly — footstep nor reply
Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh:
He knocked, but faintly — for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart’s demand.
The portal opens — ‘tis a well known face —
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent — twice his own essayed,
And failed to frame the question they delayed;
He snatched the lamp — its light will answer all —
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall. 1760
He would not wait for that reviving ray —
As soon could he have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridor,
Another chequers o’er the shadowed floor;
His steps the chamber gain — his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not — yet foretold!
XX.
He turned not — spoke not — sunk not — fixed his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed — how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain! 1770
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That Death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers her colder hand contained,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep —
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And veiled — Thought shrinks from all that lurked below — Oh!
o’er the eye Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the Spirit from her throne of light; 1780
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips —
Yet, yet they seem as they forebore to smile,
And wished repose, — but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long, fair — but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;
These — and the pale pure cheek, became the bier —
But She is nothing — wherefore is he here? 1790
XXI.
He asked no question — all were answered now
By the first glance on that still, marble brow.
It was enough — she died — what recked it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once — and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less; — the Good explore,
For peace, those realms where Guilt can never soar:
The proud, the wayward — who have fixed below 1800
Their joy, and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all — perchance a mite —
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where Grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
XXII.
By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one, 1810
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad’s stricken soul Exhaustion prest,
And Stupor almost lulled it into rest;
So feeble now — his mother’s softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant’s wept:
It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confessed without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears — perchance, if seen, 1820
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flowed — he dried them to depart,
In helpless — hopeless — brokenness of heart:
The Sun goes forth, but Conrad’s day is dim:
And the night cometh — ne’er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief’s vain eye — the blindest of the blind!
Which may not — dare not see — but turns aside
To blackest shade — nor will endure a guide!
XXIII.
His heart was formed for softness — warped to wrong, 1830
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure — as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot — like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade — it sheltered — saved till now.
The thunder came — that bolt hath blasted both, 1840
The Granite’s firmness, and the Lily’s growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell;
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shivered fragments on the barren ground!
XXIV.
‘Tis morn — to venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there, nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed o’er:
Another morn — another bids them seek, 1850
And shout his name till Echo waxeth weak;
Mount — grotto — cavern — valley searched in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat’s broken chain:
Their hope revives — they follow o’er the main.
‘Tis idle all — moons roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not, came not since that day:
Nor trace nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perished his despair!
Long mourned his band whom none could mourn beside;
And fair the monument they gave his Bride: 1860
For him they raise not the recording stone —
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair’s name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.
LARA
A TALE.
INTRODUCTION
The MS. of Lara is dated May 14, 1814. The opening lines, which were not prefixed to the published poem, and were first printed in Murray’s Magazine (January, 1887), are of the nature of a Dedication. They were probably written a few days af
ter the well-known song, “I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,” which was enclosed to Moore in a letter dated May 4, 1814. There can be little doubt that both song and dedication were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster, and that Lara, like the Corsair and the Bride of Abydos, was written con amore, and because the poet was “eating his heart away.”
By the 14th of June Byron was able to announce to Moore that “Lara was finished, and that he had begun copying.” It was written, owing to the length of the London season, “amidst balls and fooleries, and after coming home from masquerades and routs, in the summer of the sovereigns” (Letter to Moore, June 8, 1822, Life, p. 561).
By way of keeping his engagement — already broken by the publication of the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte — not to “trespass on public patience,” Byron began by protesting (June 14) that Lara was not to be published separately, but “might be included in a third volume now collecting.” A fortnight later (June 27) an interchange of unpublished poems between himself and Rogers, “two cantos of darkness and dismay” in return for a privately printed copy of Jacqueline, who is “all grace and softness and poetry” (Letter to Rogers, Letters, 1899, iii. 101), suggested another and happier solution of the difficulty, a coalescing with Rogers, and, if possible, Moore (Life, 1892, p. 257, note 2), “into a joint invasion of the public” (Letter to Moore, July 8, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 102). But Rogers hesitated, and Moore refused to embark on so doubtful a venture, with the result that, as late as the 3rd of August, Byron thought fit to remonstrate with Murray for “advertising Lara and Jacqueline,” and confessed to Moore that he was “still demurring and delaying and in a fuss” (Letters, 1899, iii. 115, 119). Murray knew his man, and, though he waited for Byron’s formal and ostensibly reluctant word of command, “Out with Lara, since it must be” (August 5, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 122), he admitted (August 6, Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 230) that he had “anticipated his consent,” and “had done everything but actually deliver the copies of Lara.” “The moment,” he adds, “I received your letter, for for it I waited, I cut the last cord of my aerial work, and at this instant 6000 copies are sold.” Lara, a Tale; Jacqueline, a Tale, was published on Saturday, August 6, 1814.
Jacqueline is a somewhat insipid pastoral, betraying the influence of the Lake School, more especially Coleridge, on a belated and irresponsive disciple, and wholly out of place as contrast or foil to the melodramatic Lara.
No sooner had the “lady,” as Byron was pleased to call her, played her part as decoy, than she was discharged as emerita. A week after publication (August 12, 1814, Letters, iii. 125) Byron told Moore that “Murray talks of divorcing Larry and Jacky — a bad sign for the authors, who will, I suppose, be divorced too…. Seriously, I don’t care a cigar about it.” The divorce was soon pronounced, and, contrary to Byron’s advice (September 2, 1814, Letters, iii. 131), at least four separate editions of Lara were published during the autumn of 1814.