Selected Poems (119 page)

SALEMENES
:’Tis beyond

That easy, far too easy, idle nature,

Which I would urge thee. O that I could rouse thee!

Though ’twere against myself.

SARDANAPALUS
:By the god Baal!

65

The man would make me tyrant.

SALEMENES
:So thou art.

Think’st thou there is no tyranny but that

Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice –

The weakness and the wickedness of luxury –

The negligence – the apathy – the evils

70

Of sensual sloth – produce ten thousand tyrants,

Whose delegated cruelty surpasses

The worst acts of one energetic master,

However harsh and hard in his own bearing.

The false and fond examples of thy lusts

75

Corrupt no less than they oppress, and sap

In the same moment all thy pageant power

And those who should sustain it; so that whether

A foreign foe invade, or civil broil

Distract within, both will alike prove fatal:

80

The first thy subjects have no heart to conquer;

The last they rather would assist than vanquish.

SARDANAPALUS:
Why, what makes thee the mouth-piece of the people?

SALEMENES:
Forgiveness of the queen, my sister’s wrongs;

A natural love unto my infant nephews;

85

Faith to the king, a faith he may need shortly,

In more than words; respect for Nimrod’s line;

Also, another thing thou knowest not.

SARDANAPALUS
: What’s that?

SALEMENES
:To thee an unknown word.

Yet speak it;

I love to learn.

SALEMENES
: Virtue.

SARDANAPALUS
:Not know the word!

90

Never was word yet rung so in my ears —

Worse than the rabble’s shout, or splitting trumpet:

I’ve heard thy sister talk of nothing else.

SALEMENES
: To change the irksome theme, then, hear of vice.

SARDANAPALUS
: From whom?

SALEMENES
:Even from the winds, if thou couldst listen

95

Unto the echoes of the nation’s voice.

SARDANAPALUS
: Come, I’m indulgent, as thou knowest, patient,

As thou hast often proved – speak out, what moves thee?

SALEMENES
: Thy peril.

SARDANAPALUS
:Say on.

SALEMENES
:Thus, then: all the nations,

For they are many, whom thy father left

100

In heritage, are loud in wrath against thee.

SARDANAPALUS
: ’Gainst
me
! What would the slaves?

SALEMENES
:A king.

SARDANAPALUS
:And what Am I then?

SALEMENES
: In their eyes a nothing; but

In mine a man who might be something still.

SARDANAPALUS
: The railing drunkards! why, what would they have?

105

Have they not peace and plenty?

SALEMENES
:Of the first

More than is glorious; of the last, far less

Than the king recks of.

SARDANAPALUS
:Whose then is the crime,

But the false satraps, who provide no better?

SALEMENES
: And somewhat in the monarch who ne’er looks

110

Beyond his palace walls, or if he stirs

Beyond them, ’tis but to some mountain palace,

Till summer heats wear down. O glorious Baal!

Who built up this vast empire, and wert made

A god, or at the least shinest like a god

115

Through the long centuries of thy renown,

This, thy presumed descendant, ne’er beheld

As king the kingdoms thou didst leave as hero,

Won with thy blood, and toil, and time, and peril!

For what? to furnish imposts for a revel,

120

Or multiplied extortions for a minion.

SARDANAPALUS
: I understand thee – thou wouldst have me go

Forth as a conqueror. By all the stars

Which the Chaldeans read – the restless slaves

Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes,

125

And lead them forth to glory.

SALEMENES
:Wherefore not?

Semiramis – a woman only – led

These our Assyrians to the solar shores

Of Ganges.

SARDANAPALUS
: ’Tis most true. And
how
return’d?

SALEMENES
: Why, like a
man
– a hero; baffled, but

130

Not vanquish’d. With but twenty guards, she made

Good her retreat to Bactria.

SARDANAPALUS
:And how many

Left she behind in India to the vultures?

SALEMENES
: Our annals say not.

SARDANAPALUS
:Then I will say for them –

That she had better woven within her palace

135

Some twenty garments, than with twenty guards

Have fled to Bactria, leaving to the ravens,

And wolves, and men – the fiercer of the three,

Her myriads of fond subjects. Is
this
glory?

Then let me live in ignominy ever.

140

SALEMENES
: All warlike spirits have not the same fate.

Semiramis, the glorious parent of

A hundred kings, although she fail’d in India,

Brought Persia, Media, Bactria, to the realm

Which she once sway’d – and thou
might’st
sway.

SARDANAPALUS
: I
sway
them –

145

She but subdued them.

SALEMENES
:It may be ere long

That they will need her sword more than your sceptre.

SARDANAPALUS
: There was a certain Bacchus, was there not?

I’ve heard my Greek girls speak of such – they say

He was a god, that is, a Grecian god,

150

An idol foreign to Assyria’s worship,

Who conquer’d this same golden realm of Ind

Thou prat’st of, where Semiramis was vanquish’d.

SALEMENES
: I have heard of such a man; and thou perceiv’st

That he is deem’d a god for what he did.

155

SARDANAPALUS
: And in his godship I will honour him –

Not much as man. What, ho! my cupbearer!

SALEMENES
: What means the king?

SARDANAPALUS
:To worship your new god

And ancient conqueror. Some wine, I say.

[
Enter Cupbearer
.]

SARDANAPALUS
[
addressing the Cupbearer
]: Bring me the golden goblet thick with gems,

160

Which bears the name of Nimrod’s chalice. Hence,

Fill full, and bear it quickly.

[
Exit Cupbearer
.]

SALEMENES
:Is this moment

A fitting one for the resumption of

Thy yet unslept-off revels?

[
Re-enter Cupbearer, with wine
.]

SARDANAPALUS
[
taking the cup from him
]: Noble kinsman,

If these barbarian Greeks of the far shores

165

And skirts of these our realms lie not, this Bacchus

Conquer’d the whole of India, did he not?

SALEMENES
: He did, and thence was deem’d a deity.

SARDANAPALUS
: Not so: – of all his conquests a few columns,

Which may be his, and might be mine, if I

170

Thought them worth purchase and conveyance, are

The landmarks of the seas of gore he shed,

The realms he wasted, and the hearts he broke.

But here, here in this goblet is his title

To immortality – the immortal grape

175

From which he first express’d the soul, and gave

To gladden that of man, as some atonement

For the victorious mischiefs he had done.

Had it not been for this, he would have been

A mortal still in name as in his grave;

180

And, like my ancestor Semiramis,

A sort of semi-glorious human monster.

Here’s that which deified him - let it now

Humanise thee; my surly, chiding brother,

Pledge me to the Greek god!

SALEMENES
:For all thy realms

185

I would not so blaspheme our country’s creed.

SARDANAPALUS
: That is to say, thou thinkest him a hero,