by Lord Byron
Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,
Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats
And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain,
Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats,
And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, that gain
Their bread as ministers and favourites (that’s
To say, by degradation) mingled there
As plentiful as in a court, or fair.
LXIX
There was no want of lofty mirrors, and
The tables, most of ebony inlaid
With mother of pearl or ivory, stood at hand,
Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made,
Fretted with gold or silver: — by command,
The greater part of these were ready spread
With viands and sherbets in ice — and wine —
Kept for all comers at all hours to dine.
LXX
Of all the dresses I select Haidée’s:
She wore two jelicks — one was of pale yellow;
Of azure, pink, and white was her chemise —
’Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow;
With buttons form’d of pearls as large as peas,
All gold and crimson shone her jelick’s fellow,
And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her,
Like fleecy clouds about the moon, flow’d round her.
LXXI
One large gold bracelet clasp’d each lovely arm,
Lockless — so pliable from the pure gold
That the hand stretch’d and shut it without harm,
The limb which it adorn’d its only mould;
So beautiful — its very shape would charm;
And, clinging as if loath to lose its hold,
The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin
That e’er by precious metal was held in.
LXXII
Around, as princess of her father’s land,
A like gold bar above her instep roll’d
Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand;
Her hair was starr’d with gems; her veil’s fine fold
Below her breast was fasten’d with a band
Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told;
Her orange silk full Turkish trousers furl’d
About the prettiest ankle in the world.
LXXIII
Her hair’s long auburn waves down to her heel
Flow’d like an Alpine torrent which the sun
Dyes with his morning light, — and would conceal
Her person if allow’d at large to run,
And still they seem resentfully to feel
The silken fillet’s curb, and sought to shun
Their bonds whene’er some Zephyr caught began
To offer his young pinion as her fan.
LXXIV
Round her she made an atmosphere of life,
The very air seem’d lighter from her eyes,
They were so soft and beautiful, and rife
With all we can imagine of the skies,
And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wife —
Too pure even for the purest human ties;
Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel.
LXXV
Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged
(It is the country’s custom), but in vain;
For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed,
The glossy rebels mock’d the jetty stain,
And in their native beauty stood avenged:
Her nails were touch’d with henna; but again
The power of art was turn’d to nothing, for
They could not look more rosy than before.
LXXVI
The henna should be deeply dyed to make
The skin relieved appear more fairly fair;
She had no need of this, day ne’er will break
On mountain tops more heavenly white than her:
The eye might doubt if it were well awake,
She was so like a vision; I might err,
But Shakspeare also says, ‘t is very silly
“To gild refinéd gold, or paint the lily.”
LXXVII
Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,
But a white baracan, and so transparent
The sparkling gems beneath you might behold,
Like small stars through the milky way apparent;
His turban, furl’d in many a graceful fold,
An emerald aigrette with Haidée’s hair in ‘t
Surmounted as its clasp — a glowing crescent,
Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.
LXXVIII
And now they were diverted by their suite,
Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet,
Which made their new establishment complete;
The last was of great fame, and liked to show it:
His verses rarely wanted their due feet;
And for his theme — he seldom sung below it,
He being paid to satirize or flatter,
As the psalm says, “inditing a good matter.”
LXXIX
He praised the present, and abused the past,
Reversing the good custom of old days,
An Eastern anti-jacobin at last
He turn’d, preferring pudding to no praise —
For some few years his lot had been o’ercast
By his seeming independent in his lays,
But now he sung the Sultan and the Pacha
With truth like Southey, and with verse like Crashaw.
LXXX
He was a man who had seen many changes,
And always changed as true as any needle;
His polar star being one which rather ranges,
And not the fix’d — he knew the way to wheedle:
So vile he ‘scaped the doom which oft avenges;
And being fluent (save indeed when fee’d ill),
He lied with such a fervour of intention —
There was no doubt he earn’d his laureate pension.
LXXXI
But he had genius, — when a turncoat has it,
The “Vates irritabilis” takes care
That without notice few full moons shall pass it;
Even good men like to make the public stare: —
But to my subject — let me see — what was it? —
Oh! — the third canto — and the pretty pair —
Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress, and mode
Of living in their insular abode.
LXXXII
Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less
In company a very pleasant fellow,
Had been the favourite of full many a mess
Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;
And though his meaning they could rarely guess,
Yet still they deign’d to hiccup or to bellow
The glorious meed of popular applause,
Of which the first ne’er knows the second cause.
LXXXIII
But now being lifted into high society,
And having pick’d up several odds and ends
Of free thoughts in his travels for variety,
He deem’d, being in a lone isle, among friends,
That, without any danger of a riot, he
Might for long lying make himself amends;
And, singing as he sung in his warm youth,
Agree to a short armistice with truth.
LXXXIV
He had travell’d ‘mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,
And knew the self-loves of the different nations;
And having lived with people of all ranks,
Had so
mething ready upon most occasions —
Which got him a few presents and some thanks.
He varied with some skill his adulations;
To “do at Rome as Romans do,” a piece
Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.
LXXXV
Thus, usually, when he was ask’d to sing,
He gave the different nations something national;
‘T was all the same to him — ”God save the king,”
Or “Ça ira,” according to the fashion all:
His muse made increment of any thing,
From the high lyric down to the low rational:
If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder
Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?
LXXXVI
In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;
In England a six canto quarto tale;
In Spain, he’d make a ballad or romance on
The last war — much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he’d prance on
Would be old Goethe’s (see what says De Staël);
In Italy he’d ape the “Trecentisti;”
In Greece, he sing some sort of hymn like this t’ ye:
THE ISLES OF GREECE
1
The isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
2
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ “Islands of the Blest.”
3
The mountains look on Marathon —
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
4
A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations; — all were his!
He counted them at break of day —
And when the sun set where were they?
5
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now —
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
6
’T is something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link’d among a fetter’d race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush — for Greece a tear.
7
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush? — Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae!
8
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no; — the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, “Let one living head,
But one arise, — we come, we come!”
’T is but the living who are dumb.
9
In vain — in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call —
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
10
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave —
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
11
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon’s song divine:
He served — but served Polycrates —
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
12
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom’s best and bravest friend;
That tyrant was Miltiades!
Oh! that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
13
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
14
Trust not for freedom to the Franks —
They have a king who buys and sells;
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
15
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade —
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves
16
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine —
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
LXXXVII
Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung,
The modern Greek, in tolerable verse;
If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young,
Yet in these times he might have done much worse:
His strain display’d some feeling — right or wrong;
And feeling, in a poet, is the source
Of others’ feeling; but they are such liars,
And take all colours — like the hands of dyers.
LXXXVIII
But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;
’T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
Frail man, when paper — even a rag like this,
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that’s his.
LXXXIX
And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank,
His station, generation, even his nation,
Become a thing, or nothing, save to rank
In chronological commemoration,
Some dull MS. oblivion long has sank,
Or graven stone found in a barrack’s station
In digging the foundation of a closet,
May turn his name up, as a rare deposit.
XC
And glory long has made the sages smile;
’T is something, nothing, words, i
llusion, wind —
Depending more upon the historian’s style
Than on the name a person leaves behind:
Troy owes to Homer what whist owes to Hoyle:
The present century was growing blind
To the great Marlborough’s skill in giving knocks,
Until his late life by Archdeacon Coxe.
XCI
Milton’s the prince of poets — so we say;
A little heavy, but no less divine:
An independent being in his day —
Learn’d, pious, temperate in love and wine;
But, his life falling into Johnson’s way,
We’re told this great high priest of all the Nine
Was whipt at college — a harsh sire — odd spouse,
For the first Mrs. Milton left his house.
XCII
All these are, certes, entertaining facts,
Like Shakspeare’s stealing deer, Lord Bacon’s bribes;
Like Titus’ youth, and Caesar’s earliest acts;
Like Burns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);
Like Cromwell’s pranks; — but although truth exacts
These amiable descriptions from the scribes,
As most essential to their hero’s story,
They do not much contribute to his glory.
XCIII
All are not moralists, like Southey, when
He prated to the world of “Pantisocracy;”
Or Wordsworth unexcised, unhired, who then
Season’d his pedlar poems with democracy;
Or Coleridge, long before his flighty pen
Let to the Morning Post its aristocracy;
When he and Southey, following the same path,
Espoused two partners (milliners of Bath).
XCIV
Such names at present cut a convict figure,
The very Botany Bay in moral geography;
Their loyal treason, renegado rigour,
Are good manure for their more bare biography.
Wordsworth’s last quarto, by the way, is bigger
Than any since the birthday of typography;
A drowsy frowzy poem, call’d the “Excursion.”
Writ in a manner which is my aversion.
XCV
He there builds up a formidable dyke
Between his own and others’ intellect;
But Wordsworth’s poem, and his followers, like
Joanna Southcote’s Shiloh, and her sect,
Are things which in this century don’t strike
The public mind, — so few are the elect;
And the new births of both their stale virginities
Have proved but dropsies, taken for divinities.
XCVI
But let me to my story: I must own,
If I have any fault, it is digression —
Leaving my people to proceed alone,
While I soliloquize beyond expression;
But these are my addresses from the throne,
Which put off business to the ensuing session: