Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

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by Lord Byron


  To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

  VII.

  But not for vengeance, long delayed,

  Alone, did Alp, the renegade,

  The Moslem warriors sternly teach

  His skill to pierce the promised breach: 180

  Within these walls a Maid was pent

  His hope would win, without consent

  Of that inexorable Sire,

  Whose heart refused him in its ire,

  When Alp, beneath his Christian name,

  Her virgin hand aspired to claim.

  In happier mood, and earlier time,

  While unimpeached for traitorous crime,

  Gayest in Gondola or Hall,

  He glittered through the Carnival; 190

  And tuned the softest serenade

  That e’er on Adria’s waters played

  At midnight to Italian maid.

  VIII.

  And many deemed her heart was won;

  For sought by numbers, given to none,

  Had young Francesca’s hand remained

  Still by the Church’s bonds unchained:

  And when the Adriatic bore

  Lanciotto to the Paynim shore,

  Her wonted smiles were seen to fail, 200

  And pensive waxed the maid and pale;

  More constant at confessional,

  More rare at masque and festival;

  Or seen at such, with downcast eyes,

  Which conquered hearts they ceased to prize:

  With listless look she seems to gaze:

  With humbler care her form arrays;

  Her voice less lively in the song;

  Her step, though light, less fleet among

  The pairs, on whom the Morning’s glance 210

  Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

  IX.

  Sent by the State to guard the land,

  (Which, wrested from the Moslem’s hand,

  While Sobieski tamed his pride

  By Buda’s wall and Danube’s side,

  The chiefs of Venice wrung away

  From Patra to Euboea’s bay,)

  Minotti held in Corinth’s towers

  The Doge’s delegated powers,

  While yet the pitying eye of Peace 220

  Smiled o’er her long forgotten Greece:

  And ere that faithless truce was broke

  Which freed her from the unchristian yoke,

  With him his gentle daughter came;

  Nor there, since Menelaus’ dame

  Forsook her lord and land, to prove

  What woes await on lawless love,

  Had fairer form adorned the shore

  Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.

  X.

  The wall is rent, the ruins yawn; 230

  And, with to-morrow’s earliest dawn,

  O’er the disjointed mass shall vault

  The foremost of the fierce assault.

  The bands are ranked — the chosen van

  Of Tartar and of Mussulman,

  The full of hope, misnamed “forlorn,”

  Who hold the thought of death in scorn,

  And win their way with falchion’s force,

  Or pave the path with many a corse,

  O’er which the following brave may rise, 240

  Their stepping-stone — the last who dies!

  XI.

  ‘Tis midnight: on the mountains brown

  The cold, round moon shines deeply down;

  Blue roll the waters, blue the sky

  Spreads like an ocean hung on high,

  Bespangled with those isles of light,

  So wildly, spiritually bright;

  Who ever gazed upon them shining

  And turned to earth without repining,

  Nor wished for wings to flee away, 250

  And mix with their eternal ray?

  The waves on either shore lay there

  Calm, clear, and azure as the air;

  And scarce their foam the pebbles shook,

  But murmured meekly as the brook.

  The winds were pillowed on the waves;

  The banners drooped along their staves,

  And, as they fell around them furling,

  Above them shone the crescent curling;

  And that deep silence was unbroke, 260

  Save where the watch his signal spoke,

  Save where the steed neighed oft and shrill,

  And echo answered from the hill,

  And the wide hum of that wild host

  Rustled like leaves from coast to coast,

  As rose the Muezzin’s voice in air

  In midnight call to wonted prayer;

  It rose, that chanted mournful strain,

  Like some lone Spirit’s o’er the plain:

  ‘Twas musical, but sadly sweet, 270

  Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,

  And take a long unmeasured tone,

  To mortal minstrelsy unknown.

  It seemed to those within the wall

  A cry prophetic of their fall:

  It struck even the besieger’s ear

  With something ominous and drear,

  An undefined and sudden thrill,

  Which makes the heart a moment still,

  Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed 280

  Of that strange sense its silence framed;

  Such as a sudden passing-bell

  Wakes, though but for a stranger’s knell.

  XII.

  The tent of Alp was on the shore;

  The sound was hushed, the prayer was o’er;

  The watch was set, the night-round made,

  All mandates issued and obeyed:

  ‘Tis but another anxious night,

  His pains the morrow may requite

  With all Revenge and Love can pay, 290

  In guerdon for their long delay.

  Few hours remain, and he hath need

  Of rest, to nerve for many a deed

  Of slaughter; but within his soul

  The thoughts like troubled waters roll.

  He stood alone among the host;

  Not his the loud fanatic boast

  To plant the Crescent o’er the Cross,

  Or risk a life with little loss,

  Secure in paradise to be 300

  By Houris loved immortally:

  Nor his, what burning patriots feel,

  The stern exaltedness of zeal,

  Profuse of blood, untired in toil,

  When battling on the parent soil.

  He stood alone — a renegade

  Against the country he betrayed;

  He stood alone amidst his band,

  Without a trusted heart or hand:

  They followed him, for he was brave, 310

  And great the spoil he got and gave;

  They crouched to him, for he had skill

  To warp and wield the vulgar will:

  But still his Christian origin

  With them was little less than sin.

  They envied even the faithless fame

  He earned beneath a Moslem name;

  Since he, their mightiest chief, had been

  In youth a bitter Nazarene.

  They did not know how Pride can stoop, 320

  When baffled feelings withering droop;

  They did not know how Hate can burn

  In hearts once changed from soft to stern;

  Nor all the false and fatal zeal

  The convert of Revenge can feel.

  He ruled them — man may rule the worst,

  By ever daring to be first:

  So lions o’er the jackals sway;

  The jackal points, he fells the prey,

  Then on the vulgar, yelling, press, 330

  To gorge the relics of success.

  XIII.

  His head grows fevered,
and his pulse

  The quick successive throbs convulse;

  In vain from side to side he throws

  His form, in courtship of repose;

  Or if he dozed, a sound, a start

  Awoke him with a sunken heart.

  The turban on his hot brow pressed,

  The mail weighed lead-like on his breast,

  Though oft and long beneath its weight 340

  Upon his eyes had slumber sate,

  Without or couch or canopy,

  Except a rougher field and sky

  Than now might yield a warrior’s bed,

  Than now along the heaven was spread.

  He could not rest, he could not stay

  Within his tent to wait for day,

  But walked him forth along the sand,

  Where thousand sleepers strewed the strand.

  What pillowed them? and why should he 350

  More wakeful than the humblest be,

  Since more their peril, worse their toil?

  And yet they fearless dream of spoil;

  While he alone, where thousands passed

  A night of sleep, perchance their last,

  In sickly vigil wandered on,

  And envied all he gazed upon.

  XIV.

  He felt his soul become more light

  Beneath the freshness of the night.

  Cool was the silent sky, though calm, 360

  And bathed his brow with airy balm:

  Behind, the camp — before him lay,

  In many a winding creek and bay,

  Lepanto’s gulf; and, on the brow

  Of Delphi’s hill, unshaken snow,

  High and eternal, such as shone

  Through thousand summers brightly gone,

  Along the gulf, the mount, the clime;

  It will not melt, like man, to time:

  Tyrant and slave are swept away, 370

  Less formed to wear before the ray;

  But that white veil, the lightest, frailest,

  Which on the mighty mount thou hailest,

  While tower and tree are torn and rent,

  Shines o’er its craggy battlement;

  In form a peak, in height a cloud,

  In texture like a hovering shroud,

  Thus high by parting Freedom spread,

  As from her fond abode she fled,

  And lingered on the spot, where long 380

  Her prophet spirit spake in song.

  Oh! still her step at moments falters

  O’er withered fields, and ruined altars,

  And fain would wake, in souls too broken,

  By pointing to each glorious token:

  But vain her voice, till better days

  Dawn in those yet remembered rays,

  Which shone upon the Persian flying,

  And saw the Spartan smile in dying.

  XV.

  Not mindless of these mighty times 390

  Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes;

  And through this night, as on he wandered,

  And o’er the past and present pondered,

  And thought upon the glorious dead

  Who there in better cause had bled,

  He felt how faint and feebly dim

  The fame that could accrue to him,

  Who cheered the band, and waved the sword,

  A traitor in a turbaned horde;

  And led them to the lawless siege, 400

  Whose best success were sacrilege.

  Not so had those his fancy numbered,

  The chiefs whose dust around him slumbered;

  Their phalanx marshalled on the plain,

  Whose bulwarks were not then in vain.

  They fell devoted, but undying;

  The very gale their names seemed sighing;

  The waters murmured of their name;

  The woods were peopled with their fame;

  The silent pillar, lone and grey, 410

  Claimed kindred with their sacred clay;

  Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,

  Their memory sparkled o’er the fountain;

  The meanest rill, the mightiest river

  Rolled mingling with their fame for ever.

  Despite of every yoke she bears,

  That land is Glory’s still and theirs!

  ‘Tis still a watch-word to the earth:

  When man would do a deed of worth

  He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 420

  So sanctioned, on the tyrant’s head:

  He looks to her, and rushes on

  Where life is lost, or Freedom won.

  XVI.

  Still by the shore Alp mutely mused,

  And wooed the freshness Night diffused.

  There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,

  Which changeless rolls eternally;

  So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood,

  Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood;

  And the powerless moon beholds them flow, 430

  Heedless if she come or go:

  Calm or high, in main or bay,

  On their course she hath no sway.

  The rock unworn its base doth bare,

  And looks o’er the surf, but it comes not there;

  And the fringe of the foam may be seen below,

  On the line that it left long ages ago:

  A smooth short space of yellow sand

  Between it and the greener land.

  He wandered on along the beach, 440

  Till within the range of a carbine’s reach

  Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not,

  Or how could he ‘scape from the hostile shot?

  Did traitors lurk in the Christians’ hold?

  Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold?

  I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall

  There flashed no fire, and there hissed no ball,

  Though he stood beneath the bastion’s frown,

  That flanked the seaward gate of the town;

  Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell 450

  The sullen words of the sentinel,

  As his measured step on the stone below

  Clanked, as he paced it to and fro;

  And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall

  Hold o’er the dead their Carnival,

  Gorging and growling o’er carcass and limb;

  They were too busy to bark at him!

  From a Tartar’s skull they had stripped the flesh,

  As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;

  And their white tusks crunched o’er the whiter skull, 460

  As it slipped through their jaws, when their edge grew dull,

  As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,

  When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed;

  So well had they broken a lingering fast

  With those who had fallen for that night’s repast.

  And Alp knew, by the turbans that rolled on the sand,

  The foremost of these were the best of his band:

  Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear,

  And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair,

  All the rest was shaven and bare. 470

  The scalps were in the wild dog’s maw,

  The hair was tangled round his jaw:

  But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf,

  There sat a vulture flapping a wolf,

  Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away,

  Scared by the dogs, from the human prey;

  But he seized on his share of a steed that lay,

  Picked by the birds, on the sands of the bay.

  XVII.

  Alp turned him from the sickening sight:

  Never had shaken his nerves in fight; 480

  But he bet
ter could brook to behold the dying,

  Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,

  Scorched with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain,

  Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.

  There is something of pride in the perilous hour,

  Whate’er be the shape in which Death may lower;

  For Fame is there to say who bleeds,

  And Honour’s eye on daring deeds!

  But when all is past, it is humbling to tread

  O’er the weltering field of the tombless dead, 490

  And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,

  Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;

  All regarding man as their prey,

  All rejoicing in his decay.

  XVIII.

  There is a temple in ruin stands,

  Fashioned by long forgotten hands;

  Two or three columns, and many a stone,

  Marble and granite, with grass o’ergrown!

  Out upon Time! it will leave no more

  Of the things to come than the things before! 500

  Out upon Time! who for ever will leave

  But enough of the past for the future to grieve

  O’er that which hath been, and o’er that which must be:

  What we have seen, our sons shall see;

  Remnants of things that have passed away,

  Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay!

  XIX.

  He sate him down at a pillar’s base,

  And passed his hand athwart his face;

  Like one in dreary musing mood,

  Declining was his attitude; 510

  His head was drooping on his breast,

  Fevered, throbbing, and oppressed;

  And o’er his brow, so downward bent,

  Oft his beating fingers went,

  Hurriedly, as you may see

  Your own run over the ivory key,

  Ere the measured tone is taken

  By the chords you would awaken.

  There he sate all heavily,

  As he heard the night-wind sigh. 520

  Was it the wind through some hollow stone,

  Sent that soft and tender moan?

  He lifted his head, and he looked on the sea,

  But it was unrippled as glass may be;

  He looked on the long grass — it waved not a blade;

  How was that gentle sound conveyed?

  He looked to the banners — each flag lay still,

  So did the leaves on Cithæron’s hill,

  And he felt not a breath come over his cheek;

  What did that sudden sound bespeak? 530

  He turned to the left — is he sure of sight?

  There sate a lady, youthful and bright!

  XX.

  He started up with more of fear

  Than if an arméd foe were near.

  “God of my fathers! what is here?

  Who art thou? and wherefore sent

  So near a hostile armament?”

  His trembling hands refused to sign

 

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