Selected Poems (132 page)

Read Selected Poems Online

Authors: Byron

Tags: #Literary Criticism, #Poetry, #General

BOOK: Selected Poems
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I quicken him to heavier pain? The fever
Of this tumultuous night, the grief too of

20

His wound, though slight, may cause all this, and shake
Me more to see than him to suffer. No:
Let Nature use her own maternal means, —
And I await to second, not disturb her.
SARDANAPALUS
[
awakening
]: Not so – although ye
multiplied the stars,

25

And gave them to me as a realm to share
From you and with you! I would not so purchase
The empire of eternity. Hence – hence –
Old hunter of the earliest brutes! and ye,
Who hunted fellow-creatures as if brutes!

30

Once bloody mortals – and now bloodier idols,
If your priests lie not! And thou, ghastly beldame!
Dripping with dusky gore, and trampling on
The carcasses of Inde – away! away!
Where am I? Where the spectres? Where – No – that

35

Is no false phantom: I should know it ’midst
All that the dead dare gloomily raise up
From their black gulf to daunt the living. Myrrha!
MYRRHA
: Alas! thou art pale, and on thy brow the drops
Gather like night dew. My beloved, hush –

40

Calm thee. Thy speech seems of another world,
And thou art lord of this. Be of good cheer;
All will go well.
SARDANAPALUS
: Thy
hand
– so – ’tis thy hand;
’Tis flesh; grasp – clasp – yet closer, till I feel
Myself that which I was.
MYRRHA
:At least know me

45

For what I am, and ever must be – thine.
SARDANAPALUS
: I know it now. I know this life again.
Ah, Myrrha! I have been where we shall be.
MYRRHA
: My lord!
SARDANAPALUS
: I’ve been i’ the grave – where worms
are lords,
And kings are — But I did not deem it so;

50

I thought ’twas nothing.
MYRRHA
:So it is; except
Unto the timid, who anticipate
That which may never be.
SARDANAPALUS
:Oh, Myrrha! if
Sleep shows such things, what may not death disclose?
MYRRHA
: I know no evil death can show, which life

55

Has not already shown to those who live
Embodied longest. If there be indeed
A shore where mind survives, ’twill be as mind,
All unincorporate: or if there flits
A shadow of this cumbrous clog of clay,

60

Which stalks, methinks, between our souls and heaven,
And fetters us to earth – at least the phantom,
Whate’er it have to fear, will not fear death.
SARDANAPALUS
: I fear it not; but I have felt – have seen –
A legion of the dead.
MYRRHA
:And so have I.

65

The dust we tread upon was once alive,
And wretched. But proceed: what hast thou seen?
Speak it, ’twill lighten thy dimm’d mind.
SARDANAPALUS
:Methought –
MYRRHA
: Yet pause, thou art tired — in pain — exhausted; all
Which can impair both strength and spirit: seek

70

Rather to sleep again.
SARDANAPALUS
:Not now – I would not
Dream; though I know it now to be a dream
What I have dreamt: – and canst thou bear to hear it?
MYRRHA
: I can bear all things, dreams of life or death,
Which I participate with you in semblance

75

Or full reality.
SARDANAPALUS
: And this look’d real,
I tell you: after that these eyes were open,
I saw them in their flight – for then they fled.
MYRRHA
: Say on.
SARDANAPALUS
: I saw, that is, I dream’d myself
Here – here – even where we are, guests as we were,

80

Myself a host that deem’d himself but guest,
Willing to equal all in social freedom;
But, on my right hand and my left, instead
Of thee and Zames, and our custom’d meeting,
Was ranged on my left hand a haughty, dark,

85

And deadly face – I could not recognise it,
Yet I had seen it, though I knew not where:
The features were a giant’s, and the eye
Was still, yet lighted; his long locks curl’d down
On his vast bust, whence a huge quiver rose

90

With shaft-heads feather’d from the eagle’s wing,
That peep’d up bristling through his serpent hair.
I invited him to fill the cup which stood
Between us, but he answer’d not – I fil’d it –
He took it not, but stared upon me, till

95

I trembled at the fix’d glare of his eye:
I frown’d upon him as a king should frown –
He frown’d not in his turn, but look’d upon me
With the same aspect, which appall’d me more,
Because it changed not; and I turn’d for refuge

100

To milder guests, and sought them on the right,
Where thou wert wont to be. But —
[
He pauses
.]
MYRRHA
:What instead?
SARDANAPALUS
: In thy own chair – thy own place in the
banquet –
I sought thy sweet face in the circle – but
Instead – a grey-hair’d, wither’d, bloody-eyed,

105

And bloody-handed, ghastly, ghostly thing,
Female in garb, and crown’d upon the brow,
Furrow’d with years, yet sneering with the passion
Of vengeance, leering too with that of lust,
Sate: – my veins curdled.
MYRRHA
:Is this all?
SARDANAPALUS
:Upon

110

Her right hand – her lank, bird-like right hand – stood
A goblet, bubbling o’er with blood; and on
Her left, another, fill’d with – what I saw not,
But turn’d from it and her. But all along
The table sate a range of crowned wretches,

115

Of various aspects, but of one expression.
MYRRHA
: And felt you not this a mere vision?
SARDANAPALUS
:No:
It was so palpable, I could have touch’d them.
I turn’d from one face to another, in
The hope to find at last one which I knew

120

Ere I saw theirs: but no – all turn’d upon me,
And stared, but neither ate nor drank, but stared,
Till I grew stone, as they seem’d half to be,
Yet breathing stone, for I felt life in them,
And life in me: there was a horrid kind

125

Of sympathy between us, as if they
Had lost a part of death to come to me,
And I the half of life to sit by them.
We were in an existence all apart
From heaven or earth — And rather let me see

130

Death all than such a being!
MYRRHA
:And the end?
SARDANAPALUS
: At last I sate, marble, as they, when rose
The hunter and the crone; and smiling on me –
Yes, the enlarged but noble aspect of
The hunter smiled upon me – I should say,

135

His lips, for his eyes moved not – and the woman’s
Thin lips relax’d to something like a smile.
Both rose, and the crown’d figures on each hand
Rose also, as if aping their chief shades –
Mere mimics even in death – but I sate still:

140

A desperate courage crept through every limb,
And at the last I fear’d them not, but laugh’d
Full in their phantom faces. But then – then
The hunter laid his hand on mine: I took it,
And grasp’d it – but it melted from my own;

145

While he too vanish’d, and left nothing but
The memory of a hero, for he look’d so.
MYRRHA
: And was: the ancestor of heroes, too,
And thine no less.
SARDANAPALUS
: Ay, Myrrha, but the woman,
The female who remain’d, she flew upon me,

150

And burnt my lips up with her noisome kisses;
And, flinging down the goblets on each hand,
Methought their poisons flow’d around us, till
Each form’d a hideous river. Still she clung;
The other phantoms, like a row of statues,

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