And maids and valets waltz behind the scenes; | |
155 | Wide and more wide thy witching circle spreads, |
And turns – if nothing else – at least our | |
With thee even clumsy cits attempt to bounce, | |
And cockneys practise what they can’t pronounce. | |
Gods! how the glorious theme my strain exalts, | |
160 | And rhyme finds partner rhyme in praise of ‘Waltz!’ |
Blest was the time Waltz chose for her | |
The court, the Regent, like herself were new; | |
New face for friends, for foes some new rewards; | |
New ornaments for black and royal guards; | |
165 | New laws to hang the rogues that roar’d for bread: |
New coins (most new) | |
New victories – nor can we prize them less, | |
Though Jenky wonders at his own success; | |
New wars, because the old succeed so well, | |
170 | That most survivors envy those who fell; |
New mistresses – no, old – and yet ’tis true, | |
Though they be | |
Each new, quite new – (except some ancient tricks), | |
New white-sticks, gold-sticks, broom-sticks, all new sticks! | |
175 | With vests or ribands – deck’d alike in hue, |
New troopers strut, new turncoats blush in blue: | |
So saith the muse: my –, | |
Such was the time when Waltz might best maintain | |
Her new preferments in this novel reign; | |
180 | Such was the time, nor ever yet was such; |
Hoops are | |
Morals and minuets, virtue and her stays, | |
And tell-tale powder – all have had their days. | |
The ball beins – the honours of the house | |
185 | First duly done by daughter or by spouse, |
Some potentate – or royal or serene – | |
With Kent’s gay grace, or sapient Gloster’s mien, | |
Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush | |
Might once have been mistaken for a blush. | |
190 | From where the garb just leaves the bosom free, |
That spot where hearts | |
Round all the confines of the yielded waist, | |
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced; | |
The lady’s in return may grasp as much | |
195 | As princely paunches offer to her touch. |
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip, | |
One hand reposing on the royal hip; | |
The other to the shoulder no less royal | |
Ascending with affection truly loyal! | |
200 | Thus front to front the partners move or stand, |
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand; | |
And all in turn may follow in their rank, | |
The Earl of – Asterisk – and Lady – Blank; | |
Sir – Such-a-one – with those of fashion’s host, | |
205 | For whose blest surnames – vide ‘Morning Post’ |
(Or if for that impartial print too late, | |
Search Doctors’ Commons six months from my date) – | |
Thus all and each, in movement swift or slow, | |
The genial contact gently undergo; | |
210 | Till some might marvel, with the modest Turk, |
If ‘nothing follows all this palming work?’ | |
True, honest Mirza! – you may trust my rhyme – | |
Something does follow at a fitter time; | |
The breast thus publicly resign’d to man, | |
215 | In private may resist him—if it can. |
O ye who loved our grandmothers of yore, | |
Fitzpatrick, Sheridan, and many more! | |
And thou, my prince! whose sovereign taste and will | |
It is to love the lovely beldames still! | |
220 | Thou ghost of Queensbury! whose judging sprite |
Satan may spare to peep a single night, | |
Pronounce – if ever in your days of bliss | |
Asmodeus struck so bright a stroke as this; | |
To teach the young ideas how to rise, | |
225 | Flush in the cheek, and languish in the eyes; |
Rush to the heart, and lighten through the frame, | |
With half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame | |
For prurient nature still will storm the breast – | |
Who | |
230 | But ye – who never felt a single thought |
For what our morals are to be, or ought; | |
Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, | |
Say – would you make those beauties quite so cheap? | |
Hot from the hands promiscuously applied, | |
235 | Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, |
Where were the rapture then to clasp the form | |
From this lewd grasp and lawless contact warm? | |
At once love’s most endearing thought resign, | |
To press the hand so press’d by none but thine; | |
240 | To gaze upon that eye which never met |
Another’s ardent look without regret; | |
Approach the lip which all, without restraint, | |
Come near enough – if not to touch – to taint; | |
If such thou lovest – love her then no more, | |
245 | Or give – like her – caresses to a score; |
Her mind with these is gone, and with it go | |
The little left behind it to bestow. | |
Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? | |
Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. | |
250 | Terpsichore, forgive! – at every ball |
My wife | |
My | |
These little accidents should ne’er transpire; | |
Some ages hence our genealogic tree | |
255 | Will wear as green a bough for him as me) – |
Waltzing shall rear, to make our name amends, | |
Grandsons for me – in heirs to all his friends. |
Remember Thee! Remember Thee! | |
Remember thee! remember thee! | |
Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream, | |
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, | |
And haunt thee like a feverish dream! | |
5 | Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not; |
Thy husband too shall think of thee! | |
By neither shalt thou be forgot, | |
Thou |
THE GIAOUR
A Fragment of a Turkish Tale
‘One fatal remembrance – one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o’er our joys and our woes –
To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring,
For which joy hath no balm – and affliction no sting.’
[T
HOMAS
] M
OORE
. [
Irish Melodies
]
TO
SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.
AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION OF HIS GENIUS, RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT,
BYRON.
London, May, 1813.
ADVERTISEMENT
The tale which these disjointed fragments present is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the ‘olden time,’ or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful.
No breath of air to break the wave | |
That rolls below the Athenian’s grave, | |
That tomb | |
First greets the homeward-veering skiff, | |
5 | High o’er the land he saved in vain: |
When shall such hero live again? | |
* * * * * | |
Fair clime! where every season smiles | |
Benignant o’er those blessed isles, | |
Which, seen from far Colonna’s height, | |
10 | Make glad the heart that hails the sight, |
And lend to loneliness delight. | |
There mildly dimpling, Ocean’s cheek | |
Reflects the tints of many a peak | |
Caught by the laughing tides that lave | |
15 | These Edens of the eastern wave: |
And if at times a transient breeze | |
Break the blue crystal of the seas, | |
Or sweep one blossom from the trees, | |
How welcome is each gentle air | |
20 | That wakes and wafts the odours there! |
For there – the Rose o’er crag or vale, | |
Sultana of the Nightingale, | |
The maid for whom his melody, | |
His thousand songs are heard on high, | |
25 | Blooms blushing to her lover’s tale: |
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose, | |
Unbent by winds, unchill’d by snows, | |
Far from the winters of the west, | |
By every breeze and season blest, | |
30 | Returns the sweets by nature given |
In softest incense back to heaven; | |
And grateful yields that smiling sky | |
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh. | |
And many a summer flower is there, | |
35 | And many a shade that love might share, |
And many a grotto, meant for rest, | |
That holds the pirate for a guest; | |
Whose bark in sheltering cove below | |
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow, | |
40 | Till the gay mariner’s guitar |
Is heard, and seen the evening star; | |
Then stealing with the muffled oar | |
Far shaded by the rocky shore, | |
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey, | |
45 | And turn to groans his roundelay. |
Strange – that where Nature loved to trace, | |
As if for Gods, a dwelling place, | |
And every charm and grace hath mix’d | |
Within the paradise she fix’d, | |
50 | There man, enamour’d of distress, |
Should mar it into wilderness, | |
And trample, brute-like, o’er each flower | |
That tasks not one laborious hour; | |
Nor claims the culture of his hand | |
55 | To bloom along the fairy land, |
But springs as to preclude his care, | |
And sweetly woos him – but to spare! | |
Strange – that where all is peace beside, | |
There passion riots in her pride, | |
60 | And lust and rapine wildly reign |
To darken o’er the fair domain. | |
It is as though the fiends prevail’d | |
Against the seraphs they assail’d, | |
And, fix’d on heavenly thrones, should dwell | |
65 | The freed inheritors of hell; |
So soft the scene, so form’d for joy, | |
So curst the tyrants that destroy! | |
He who hath bent him o’er the dead | |
Ere the first day of death is fled, | |
70 | The first dark day of nothingness, |
The last of danger and distress, | |
(Before Decay’s effacing fingers | |
Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,) | |
And mark’d the mild angelic air, | |
75 | The rapture of repose that’s there, |
The fix’d vet tender traits that streak | |
The languor of the placid cheek, | |
And – but for that sad shrouded eye, | |
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, | |
80 | And but for that chill, changeless brow, |
Where cold Obstruction’s apathy | |
Appals the gazing mourner’s heart, | |
As if to him it could impart | |
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; | |
85 | Yes, but for these and these alone, |
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, | |
He still might doubt the tyrant’s power; | |
So fair, so calm, so softly seal’d, | |
The first, last look by death reveal’d! | |
90 | Such is the aspect of this shore; |
‘Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! | |
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, | |
We start, for soul is wanting there. | |
Hers is the loveliness in death, | |
95 | That parts not quite with parting breath; |
But beauty with that fearful bloom, | |
That hue which haunts it to the tomb, | |
Expression’s last receding ray, | |
A gilded halo hovering round decay, | |
100 | The farewell beam of Feeling past away! |
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, | |
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish’d earth! | |
Clime of the unforgotten brave! | |
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave | |
105 | Was Freedom’s home or Glory’s grave! |
Shrine of the mighty! can it be, | |
That this is all remains of thee? | |
Approach, thou craven crouching slave: | |
Say, is not this Thermopylæ? | |
110 | These waters blue that round you lave, |
Oh servile offspring of the free – | |
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this? | |
The gulf, the rock of Salamis! | |
These scenes, their story not unknown, | |
115 | Arise, and make again your own; |
Snatch from the ashes of your sires | |
The embers of their former fires; | |
And he who in the strife expires | |
Will add to theirs a name of fear | |
120 | That Tyranny shall quake to hear, |
And leave his sons a hope, a fame, | |
They too will rather die than shame: | |
For Freedom’s battle once begun, | |
Bequeath’d by bleeding Sire to Son, | |
125 | Though baffled oft is ever won. |
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page, | |
Attest it many a deathless age! | |
While kings, in dusty darkness hid, | |
Have left a nameless pyramid, | |
130 | Thy heroes, though the general doom |
Hath swept the column from their tomb, | |
A mightier monument command, | |
The mountains of their native land! | |
There points thy Muse to stranger’s eye | |
135 | The graves of those that cannot die! |
‘Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, | |
Each step from splendour to disgrace; | |
Enough – no foreign foe could quell | |
Thy soul, till from itself it fell; | |
140 | Yes! Self-abasement paved the way |
To villain-bonds and despot sway. | |
What can he tell who treads thy shore? | |
No legend of thine olden time, | |
No theme on which the muse might soar | |
145 | High as thine own in days of yore, |
When man was worthy of thy clime. | |
The hearts within thy valleys bred, | |
The fiery souls that might have led | |
Thy sons to deeds sublime, | |
150 | Now crawl from cradle to the grave, |
Slaves – nay, the bondsmen of a slave, | |
And callous, save to crime; | |
Stain’d with each evil that pollutes | |
Mankind, where least above the brutes; | |
155 | Without even savage virtue blest, |
Without one free or valiant breast, | |
Still to the neighbouring ports they waft | |
Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft; | |
In this the subtle Greek is found, | |
160 | For this, and this alone, renown’d. |
In vain might Liberty invoke | |
The spirit to its bondage broke, | |
Or raise the neck that courts the yoke: | |
No more her sorrows I bewail, | |
165 | Yet this will be a mournful tale, |
And they who listen may believe, | |
Who heard it first had cause to grieve. | |
* * * * * |