Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  The cross he deemed no more divine:

  He had resumed it in that hour, 540

  But Conscience wrung away the power.

  He gazed, he saw; he knew the face

  Of beauty, and the form of grace;

  It was Francesca by his side,

  The maid who might have been his bride!

  The rose was yet upon her cheek,

  But mellowed with a tenderer streak:

  Where was the play of her soft lips fled?

  Gone was the smile that enlivened their red.

  The Ocean’s calm within their view, 550

  Beside her eye had less of blue;

  But like that cold wave it stood still,

  And its glance, though clear, was chill.

  Around her form a thin robe twining,

  Nought concealed her bosom shining;

  Through the parting of her hair,

  Floating darkly downward there,

  Her rounded arm showed white and bare:

  And ere yet she made reply,

  Once she raised her hand on high; 560

  It was so wan, and transparent of hue,

  You might have seen the moon shine through.

  XXI.

  “I come from my rest to him I love best,

  That I may be happy, and he may be blessed.

  I have passed the guards, the gate, the wall;

  Sought thee in safety through foes and all.

  ‘Tis said the lion will turn and flee

  From a maid in the pride of her purity;

  And the Power on high, that can shield the good

  Thus from the tyrant of the wood, 570

  Hath extended its mercy to guard me as well

  From the hands of the leaguering Infidel.

  I come — and if I come in vain,

  Never, oh never, we meet again!

  Thou hast done a fearful deed

  In falling away from thy fathers’ creed:

  But dash that turban to earth, and sign

  The sign of the cross, and for ever be mine;

  Wring the black drop from thy heart,

  And to-morrow unites us no more to part.” 580

  “And where should our bridal couch be spread?

  In the midst of the dying and the dead?

  For to-morrow we give to the slaughter and flame

  The sons and the shrines of the Christian name.

  None, save thou and thine, I’ve sworn,

  Shall be left upon the morn:

  But thee will I bear to a lovely spot,

  Where our hands shall be joined, and our sorrow forgot.

  There thou yet shall be my bride,

  When once again I’ve quelled the pride 590

  Of Venice; and her hated race

  Have felt the arm they would debase

  Scourge, with a whip of scorpions, those

  Whom Vice and Envy made my foes.”

  Upon his hand she laid her own —

  Light was the touch, but it thrilled to the bone,

  And shot a chillness to his heart,

  Which fixed him beyond the power to start.

  Though slight was that grasp so mortal cold,

  He could not loose him from its hold; 600

  But never did clasp of one so dear

  Strike on the pulse with such feeling of fear,

  As those thin fingers, long and white,

  Froze through his blood by their touch that night.

  The feverish glow of his brow was gone,

  And his heart sank so still that it felt like stone,

  As he looked on the face, and beheld its hue,

  So deeply changed from what he knew:

  Fair but faint — without the ray

  Of mind, that made each feature play 610

  Like sparkling waves on a sunny day;

  And her motionless lips lay still as death,

  And her words came forth without her breath,

  And there rose not a heave o’er her bosom’s swell,

  And there seemed not a pulse in her veins to dwell.

  Though her eye shone out, yet the lids were fixed,

  And the glance that it gave was wild and unmixed

  With aught of change, as the eyes may seem

  Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream;

  Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare, 620

  Stirred by the breath of the wintry air

  So seen by the dying lamp’s fitful light,

  Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight;

  As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down

  From the shadowy wall where their images frown;

  Fearfully flitting to and fro,

  As the gusts on the tapestry come and go.

  “If not for love of me be given

  Thus much, then, for the love of Heaven, —

  Again I say — that turban tear 630

  From off thy faithless brow, and swear

  Thine injured country’s sons to spare,

  Or thou art lost; and never shalt see —

  Not earth — that’s past — but Heaven or me.

  If this thou dost accord, albeit

  A heavy doom’ tis thine to meet,

  That doom shall half absolve thy sin,

  And Mercy’s gate may receive thee within:

  But pause one moment more, and take

  The curse of Him thou didst forsake; 640

  And look once more to Heaven, and see

  Its love for ever shut from thee.

  There is a light cloud by the moon —

  ‘Tis passing, and will pass full soon —

  If, by the time its vapoury sail

  Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,

  Thy heart within thee is not changed,

  Then God and man are both avenged;

  Dark will thy doom be, darker still

  Thine immortality of ill.” 650

  Alp looked to heaven, and saw on high

  The sign she spake of in the sky;

  But his heart was swollen, and turned aside,

  By deep interminable pride.

  This first false passion of his breast

  Rolled like a torrent o’er the rest.

  He sue for mercy! He dismayed

  By wild words of a timid maid!

  He, wronged by Venice, vow to save

  Her sons, devoted to the grave! 660

  No — though that cloud were thunder’s worst,

  And charged to crush him — let it burst!

  He looked upon it earnestly,

  Without an accent of reply;

  He watched it passing; it is flown:

  Full on his eye the clear moon shone,

  And thus he spake — “Whate’er my fate,

  I am no changeling — ‘tis too late:

  The reed in storms may bow and quiver,

  Then rise again; the tree must shiver. 670

  What Venice made me, I must be,

  Her foe in all, save love to thee:

  But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!”

  He turned, but she is gone!

  Nothing is there but the column stone.

  Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air?

  He saw not — he knew not — but nothing is there.

  XXII.

  The night is past, and shines the sun

  As if that morn were a jocund one.

  Lightly and brightly breaks away 680

  The Morning from her mantle grey,

  And the Noon will look on a sultry day.

  Hark to the trump, and the drum,

  And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,

  And the flap of the banners, that flit as they’re borne,

  And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude’s hum,

  And the clash, and the shout, “They come!
they come!”

  The horsetails are plucked from the ground, and the sword

  From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word.

  Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 690

  Strike your tents, and throng to the van;

  Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,

  That the fugitive may flee in vain,

  When he breaks from the town; and none escape,

  Agéd or young, in the Christian shape;

  While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,

  Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.

  The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;

  Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;

  White is the foam of their champ on the bit; 700

  The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;

  The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,

  And crush the wall they have crumbled before:

  Forms in his phalanx each Janizar;

  Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,

  So is the blade of his scimitar;

  The Khan and the Pachas are all at their post;

  The Vizier himself at the head of the host.

  When the culverin’s signal is fired, then on;

  Leave not in Corinth a living one — 710

  A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,

  A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.

  God and the prophet — Alla Hu!

  Up to the skies with that wild halloo!

  “There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale;

  And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?

  He who first downs with the red cross may crave

  His heart’s dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!”

  Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless Vizier;

  The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, 720

  And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire: —

  Silence — hark to the signal — fire!

  XXIII.

  As the wolves, that headlong go

  On the stately buffalo,

  Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,

  And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,

  He tramples on earth, or tosses on high

  The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die

  Thus against the wall they went,

  Thus the first were backward bent; 730

  Many a bosom, sheathed in brass,

  Strewed the earth like broken glass,

  Shivered by the shot, that tore

  The ground whereon they moved no more:

  Even as they fell, in files they lay,

  Like the mower’s grass at the close of day,

  When his work is done on the levelled plain;

  Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

  XXIV.

  As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,

  From the cliffs invading dash 740

  Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow,

  Till white and thundering down they go,

  Like the avalanche’s snow

  On the Alpine vales below;

  Thus at length, outbreathed and worn,

  Corinth’s sons were downward borne

  By the long and oft renewed

  Charge of the Moslem multitude.

  In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell,

  Heaped by the host of the Infidel, 750

  Hand to hand, and foot to foot:

  Nothing there, save Death, was mute;

  Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry

  For quarter, or for victory,

  Mingle there with the volleying thunder,

  Which makes the distant cities wonder

  How the sounding battle goes,

  If with them, or for their foes;

  If they must mourn, or may rejoice

  In that annihilating voice, 760

  Which pierces the deep hills through and through

  With an echo dread and new:

  You might have heard it, on that day,

  O’er Salamis and Megara;

  (We have heard the hearers say,)

  Even unto Piræus’ bay.

  XXV.

  From the point of encountering blades to the hilt,

  Sabres and swords with blood were gilt;

  But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,

  And all but the after carnage done. 770

  Shriller shrieks now mingling come

  From within the plundered dome:

  Hark to the haste of flying feet,

  That splash in the blood of the slippery street;

  But here and there, where ‘vantage ground

  Against the foe may still be found,

  Desperate groups, of twelve or ten,

  Make a pause, and turn again —

  With banded backs against the wall,

  Fiercely stand, or fighting fall. 780

  There stood an old man — his hairs were white,

  But his veteran arm was full of might:

  So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray,

  The dead before him, on that day,

  In a semicircle lay;

  Still he combated unwounded,

  Though retreating, unsurrounded.

  Many a scar of former fight

  Lurked beneath his corslet bright;

  But of every wound his body bore, 790

  Each and all had been ta’en before:

  Though agéd, he was so iron of limb,

  Few of our youth could cope with him,

  And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay,

  Outnumbered his thin hairs of silver grey.

  From right to left his sabre swept:

  Many an Othman mother wept

  Sons that were unborn, when dipped

  His weapon first in Moslem gore,

  Ere his years could count a score. 800

  Of all he might have been the sire

  Who fell that day beneath his ire:

  For, sonless left long years ago,

  His wrath made many a childless foe;

  And since the day, when in the strait

  His only boy had met his fate,

  His parent’s iron hand did doom

  More than a human hecatomb.

  If shades by carnage be appeased,

  Patroclus’ spirit less was pleased 810

  Than his, Minotti’s son, who died

  Where Asia’s bounds and ours divide.

  Buried he lay, where thousands before

  For thousands of years were inhumed on the shore;

  What of them is left, to tell

  Where they lie, and how they fell?

  Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves;

  But they live in the verse that immortally saves.

  XXVI.

  Hark to the Allah shout! a band

  Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand; 820

  Their leader’s nervous arm is bare,

  Swifter to smite, and never to spare —

  Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them on;

  Thus in the fight is he ever known:

  Others a gaudier garb may show,

  To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe;

  Many a hand’s on a richer hilt,

  But none on a steel more ruddily gilt;

  Many a loftier turban may wear, —

  Alp is but known by the white arm bare; 830

  Look through the thick of the fight,’tis there!

  There is not a standard on that shore

  So well advanced the ranks before;

  There is not a banner in Moslem war

  Will lure the Delhis half so far;

  It glances like a falling star!

  Where’er that mighty arm is seen,

 
The bravest be, or late have been;

  There the craven cries for quarter

  Vainly to the vengeful Tartar; 840

  Or the hero, silent lying,

  Scorns to yield a groan in dying;

  Mustering his last feeble blow

  ‘Gainst the nearest levelled foe,

  Though faint beneath the mutual wound,

  Grappling on the gory ground.

  XXVII.

  Still the old man stood erect.

  And Alp’s career a moment checked.

  “Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take,

  For thine own, thy daughter’s sake.” 850

  “Never, Renegado, never!

  Though the life of thy gift would last for ever.”

  “Francesca! — Oh, my promised bride!

  Must she too perish by thy pride!”

  “She is safe.” — “Where? where?” — “In Heaven;

  From whence thy traitor soul is driven —

  Far from thee, and undefiled.”

  Grimly then Minotti smiled,

  As he saw Alp staggering bow

  Before his words, as with a blow. 860

  “Oh God! when died she?” — “Yesternight —

  Nor weep I for her spirit’s flight:

  None of my pure race shall be

  Slaves to Mahomet and thee —

  Come on!” — That challenge is in vain —

  Alp’s already with the slain!

  While Minotti’s words were wreaking

  More revenge in bitter speaking

  Than his falchion’s point had found,

  Had the time allowed to wound, 870

  From within the neighbouring porch

  Of a long defended church,

  Where the last and desperate few

  Would the failing fight renew,

  The sharp shot dashed Alp to the ground;

  Ere an eye could view the wound

  That crashed through the brain of the infidel,

  Round he spun, and down he fell;

  A flash like fire within his eyes

  Blazed, as he bent no more to rise, 880

  And then eternal darkness sunk

  Through all the palpitating trunk;

  Nought of life left, save a quivering

  Where his limbs were slightly shivering:

  They turned him on his back; his breast

  And brow were stained with gore and dust,

  And through his lips the life-blood oozed,

  From its deep veins lately loosed;

  But in his pulse there was no throb,

  Nor on his lips one dying sob; 890

  Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath

  Heralded his way to death:

  Ere his very thought could pray,

  Unaneled he passed away,

  Without a hope from Mercy’s aid, —

  To the last a Renegade.

  XXVIII.

  Fearfully the yell arose

  Of his followers, and his foes;

  These in joy, in fury those: