Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  Then again in conflict mixing, 900

  Clashing swords, and spears transfixing,

  Interchanged the blow and thrust,

  Hurling warriors in the dust.

  Street by street, and foot by foot,

  Still Minotti dares dispute

  The latest portion of the land

  Left beneath his high command;

  With him, aiding heart and hand,

  The remnant of his gallant band.

  Still the church is tenable, 910

  Whence issued late the fated ball

  That half avenged the city’s fall,

  When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell:

  Thither bending sternly back,

  They leave before a bloody track;

  And, with their faces to the foe,

  Dealing wounds with every blow,

  The chief, and his retreating train,

  Join to those within the fane;

  There they yet may breathe awhile, 920

  Sheltered by the massy pile.

  XXIX.

  Brief breathing-time! the turbaned host,

  With added ranks and raging boast,

  Press onwards with such strength and heat,

  Their numbers balk their own retreat;

  For narrow the way that led to the spot

  Where still the Christians yielded not;

  And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try

  Through the massy column to turn and fly;

  They perforce must do or die. 930

  They die; but ere their eyes could close,

  Avengers o’er their bodies rose;

  Fresh and furious, fast they fill

  The ranks unthinned, though slaughtered still;

  And faint the weary Christians wax

  Before the still renewed attacks:

  And now the Othmans gain the gate;

  Still resists its iron weight,

  And still, all deadly aimed and hot,

  From every crevice comes the shot; 940

  From every shattered window pour

  The volleys of the sulphurous shower:

  But the portal wavering grows and weak —

  The iron yields, the hinges creak —

  It bends — it falls — and all is o’er;

  Lost Corinth may resist no more!

  XXX.

  Darkly, sternly, and all alone,

  Minotti stood o’er the altar stone:

  Madonna’s face upon him shone,

  Painted in heavenly hues above, 950

  With eyes of light and looks of love;

  And placed upon that holy shrine

  To fix our thoughts on things divine,

  When pictured there, we kneeling see

  Her, and the boy-God on her knee,

  Smiling sweetly on each prayer

  To Heaven, as if to waft it there.

  Still she smiled; even now she smiles,

  Though slaughter streams along her aisles:

  Minotti lifted his agéd eye, 960

  And made the sign of a cross with a sigh,

  Then seized a torch which blazed thereby;

  And still he stood, while with steel and flame,

  Inward and onward the Mussulman came.

  XXXI.

  The vaults beneath the mosaic stone

  Contained the dead of ages gone;

  Their names were on the graven floor,

  But now illegible with gore;

  The carvéd crests, and curious hues

  The varied marble’s veins diffuse, 970

  Were smeared, and slippery — stained, and strown

  With broken swords, and helms o’erthrown:

  There were dead above, and the dead below

  Lay cold in many a coffined row;

  You might see them piled in sable state,

  By a pale light through a gloomy grate;

  But War had entered their dark caves,

  And stored along the vaulted graves

  Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread

  In masses by the fleshless dead: 980

  Here, throughout the siege, had been

  The Christians’ chiefest magazine;

  To these a late formed train now led,

  Minotti’s last and stern resource

  Against the foe’s o’erwhelming force.

  XXXII.

  The foe came on, and few remain

  To strive, and those must strive in vain:

  For lack of further lives, to slake

  The thirst of vengeance now awake,

  With barbarous blows they gash the dead, 990

  And lop the already lifeless head,

  And fell the statues from their niche,

  And spoil the shrines of offerings rich,

  And from each other’s rude hands wrest

  The silver vessels Saints had blessed.

  To the high altar on they go;

  Oh, but it made a glorious show!

  On its table still behold

  The cup of consecrated gold;

  Massy and deep, a glittering prize, 1000

  Brightly it sparkles to plunderers’ eyes:

  That morn it held the holy wine,

  Converted by Christ to his blood so divine,

  Which his worshippers drank at the break of day,

  To shrive their souls ere they joined in the fray.

  Still a few drops within it lay;

  And round the sacred table glow

  Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row,

  From the purest metal cast;

  A spoil — the richest, and the last. 1010

  XXXIII.

  So near they came, the nearest stretched

  To grasp the spoil he almost reached

  When old Minotti’s hand

  Touched with the torch the train —

  ‘Tis fired!

  Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,

  The turbaned victors, the Christian band,

  All that of living or dead remain,

  Hurled on high with the shivered fane,

  In one wild roar expired! 1020

  The shattered town — the walls thrown down —

  The waves a moment backward bent —

  The hills that shake, although unrent,

  As if an Earthquake passed —

  The thousand shapeless things all driven

  In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,

  By that tremendous blast —

  Proclaimed the desperate conflict o’er

  On that too long afflicted shore:

  Up to the sky like rockets go 1030

  All that mingled there below:

  Many a tall and goodly man,

  Scorched and shrivelled to a span,

  When he fell to earth again

  Like a cinder strewed the plain:

  Down the ashes shower like rain;

  Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles

  With a thousand circling wrinkles;

  Some fell on the shore, but, far away,

  Scattered o’er the isthmus lay; 1040

  Christian or Moslem, which be they?

  Let their mothers see and say!

  When in cradled rest they lay,

  And each nursing mother smiled

  On the sweet sleep of her child,

  Little deemed she such a day

  Would rend those tender limbs away.

  Not the matrons that them bore

  Could discern their offspring more;

  That one moment left no trace 1050

  More of human form or face

  Save a scattered scalp or bone:

  And down came blazing rafters, strown

  Around, and many a falling stone,

  Deeply dinted in the clay,

  All blackened there and reeking lay.


  All the living things that heard

  The deadly earth-shock disappeared:

  The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,

  And howling left the unburied dead; 1060

  The camels from their keepers broke;

  The distant steer forsook the yoke —

  The nearer steed plunged o’er the plain,

  And burst his girth, and tore his rein;

  The bull-frog’s note, from out the marsh,

  Deep-mouthed arose, and doubly harsh;

  The wolves yelled on the caverned hill

  Where Echo rolled in thunder still;

  The jackal’s troop, in gathered cry,

  Bayed from afar complainingly, 1070

  With a mixed and mournful sound,

  Like crying babe, and beaten hound:

  With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,

  The eagle left his rocky nest,

  And mounted nearer to the sun,

  The clouds beneath him seemed so dun;

  Their smoke assailed his startled beak,

  And made him higher soar and shriek —

  Thus was Corinth lost and won!

  PARISINA

  INTRODUCTION

  Parisina, which had been begun before the Siege of Corinth, was transcribed by Lady Byron, and sent to the publisher at the beginning of December, 1815. Murray confessed that he had been alarmed by some hints which Byron had dropped as to the plot of the narrative, but was reassured when he traced “the delicate hand that transcribed it.” He could not say enough of this “Pearl” of great price. “It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful — do you know I would almost say moral” (Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 353). Ward, to whom the MS. of Parisina was shown, and Isaac D’Israeli, who heard it read aloud by Murray, were enthusiastic as to its merits; and Gifford, who had mingled censure with praise in his critical appreciation of the Siege, declared that the author “had never surpassed Parisina.”

  The last and shortest of the six narrative poems composed and published in the four years (the first years of manhood and of fame, the only years of manhood passed at home in England) which elapsed between the appearance of the first two cantos of Childe Harold and the third, Parisina has, perhaps, never yet received its due. At the time of its appearance it shared the odium which was provoked by the publication of Fare Thee Well and A Sketch, and before there was time to reconsider the new volume on its own merits, the new canto of Childe Harold, followed almost immediately by the Prisoner of Chillon and its brilliant and noticeable companion poems, usurped the attention of friend and foe. Contemporary critics (with the exception of the Monthly and Critical Reviews) fell foul of the subject-matter of the poem — the guilty passion of a bastard son for his father’s wife. “It was too disgusting to be rendered pleasing by any display of genius” (European Magazine); “The story of Parisina includes adultery not to be named” (Literary Panorama); while the Eclectic, on grounds of taste rather than of morals, gave judgment that “the subject of the tale was purely unpleasing” — “the impression left simply painful.”

  Byron, no doubt, for better or worse, was in advance of his age, in the pursuit of art for art’s sake, and in his indifference, not to morality — the dénouement of the story is severely moral — but to the moral edification of his readers. The tale was chosen because it is a tale of love and guilt and woe, and the poet, unconcerned with any other issue, sets the tale to an enchanting melody. It does not occur to him to condone or to reprobate the loves of Hugo and Parisina, and in detailing the issue leaves the actors to their fate. It was this aloofness from ethical considerations which perturbed and irritated the “canters,” as Byron called them — the children and champions of the anti-revolution. The modern reader, without being attracted or repelled by the motif of the story, will take pleasure in the sustained energy and sure beauty of the poetic strain. Byron may have gone to the “nakedness of history” for his facts, but he clothed them in singing robes of a delicate and shining texture.

  TO

  SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, ESQ.

  the following poem

  Is Inscribed,

  by one who has long admired his talents

  and valued his friendship.

  January 22, 1816.

  ADVERTISEMENT

  The following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon’s “Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.” I am aware, that in modern times, the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical. — [B.]

  “Under the reign of Nicholas III. [A.D. 1425] Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of a maid, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty: if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent.” — Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 470. — [Ed. 1837, p. 830.]

  PARISINA

  I.

  It is the hour when from the boughs

  The nightingale’s high note is heard;

  It is the hour when lovers’ vows

  Seem sweet in every whispered word;

  And gentle winds, and waters near,

  Make music to the lonely ear.

  Each flower the dews have lightly wet,

  And in the sky the stars are met,

  And on the wave is deeper blue,

  And on the leaf a browner hue, 10

  And in the heaven that clear obscure,

  So softly dark, and darkly pure,

  Which follows the decline of day,

  As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

  II.

  But it is not to list to the waterfall

  That Parisina leaves her hall,

  And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light

  That the Lady walks in the shadow of night;

  And if she sits in Este’s bower,

  ‘Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower; 20

  She listens — but not for the nightingale —

  Though her ear expects as soft a tale.

  There glides a step through the foliage thick,

  And her cheek grows pale, and her heart beats quick.

  There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves,

  And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves:

  A moment more — and they shall meet —

  ‘Tis past — her Lover’s at her feet.

  III.

  And what unto them is the world beside,

  With all its change of time and tide? 30

  Its living things — its earth and sky —

  Are nothing to their mind and eye.

  And heedless as the dead are they

  Of aught around, above, beneath;

  As if all else had passed away,

  They only for each other breathe;

  Their very sighs are full of joy

  So deep, that did it not decay,

  That happy madness would destroy

  The hearts which feel its fiery sway: 40

  Of guilt, of peril, do they deem

  In that tumultuous tender dream?

  Who that have felt that passion’s power,

  Or paused, or feared in such an hour?

  Or thought how brief such moments last?

  But yet — they are already past!

  Alas! we must awake before
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  We know such vision comes no more.

  IV.

  With many a lingering look they leave

  The spot of guilty gladness past: 50

  And though they hope, and vow, they grieve,

  As if that parting were the last.

  The frequent sigh — the long embrace —

  The lip that there would cling for ever,

  While gleams on Parisina’s face

  The Heaven she fears will not forgive her,

  As if each calmly conscious star

  Beheld her frailty from afar —

  The frequent sigh, the long embrace,

  Yet binds them to their trysting-place. 60

  But it must come, and they must part

  In fearful heaviness of heart,

  With all the deep and shuddering chill

  Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

  V.

  And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed,

  To covet there another’s bride;

  But she must lay her conscious head

  A husband’s trusting heart beside.

  But fevered in her sleep she seems,

  And red her cheek with troubled dreams, 70

  And mutters she in her unrest

  A name she dare not breathe by day,

  And clasps her Lord unto the breast

  Which pants for one away:

  And he to that embrace awakes,

  And, happy in the thought, mistakes

  That dreaming sigh, and warm caress,

  For such as he was wont to bless;

  And could in very fondness weep

  O’er her who loves him even in sleep. 80

  VI.

  He clasped her sleeping to his heart,

  And listened to each broken word:

  He hears — Why doth Prince Azo start,

  As if the Archangel’s voice he heard?

  And well he may — a deeper doom

  Could scarcely thunder o’er his tomb,

  When he shall wake to sleep no more,

  And stand the eternal throne before.

  And well he may — his earthly peace

  Upon that sound is doomed to cease. 90

  That sleeping whisper of a name

  Bespeaks her guilt and Azo’s shame.

  And whose that name? that o’er his pillow

  Sounds fearful as the breaking billow,

  Which rolls the plank upon the shore,

  And dashes on the pointed rock

  The wretch who sinks to rise no more, —

  So came upon his soul the shock.

  And whose that name? — ‘tis Hugo’s, — his —

  In sooth he had not deemed of this! — 100

  ‘Tis Hugo’s, — he, the child of one

  He loved — his own all-evil son —