Once free, ’tis mine our horde again to guide; | |
Friends to each other, foes to aught beside: | |
Yet there we follow but the bent assign’d | |
By fatal Nature to man’s warring kind: | |
430 | Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! |
He makes a solitude, and calls it – peace! | |
I like the rest must use my skill or strength, | |
But ask no land beyond my sabre’s length: | |
Power sways but by division – her resource | |
435 | The blest alternative of fraud or force! |
Ours be the last; in time deceit may come | |
When cities cage us in a social home: | |
There ev’n thy soul might err – how oft the heart | |
Corruption shakes which peril could not part! | |
440 | And woman, more than man, when death or woe, |
Or even Disgrace, would lay her lover low, | |
Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame – | |
Away suspicion! – | |
But life is hazard at the best; and here | |
445 | No more remains to win, and much to fear: |
Yes, fear! – the doubt, the dread of losing thee, | |
By Osman’s power, and Giaffir’s stern decree. | |
That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale, | |
Which love to-night hath promised to my sail: | |
450 | No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest, |
Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest. | |
With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms; | |
Earth – sea alike – our world within our arms! | |
Ay – let the loud winds whistle o’er the deck, | |
455 | So that those arms cling closer round my neck: |
The deepest murmur of this lip shall be | |
No sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee! | |
The war of elements no fears impart | |
To Love, whose deadliest bane is human Art: | |
460 | There |
Here | |
But hence ye thoughts that rise in Horror’s shape! | |
This hour bestows, or ever bars escape. | |
Few words remain of mine my tale to close: | |
465 | Of thine but |
Yea – foes – to me will Giaffir’s hate decline? | |
And is not Osman, who would part us, thine? | |
XXI | |
‘His head and faith from doubt and death | |
Return’d in time my guard to save; | |
470 | Few heard, none told, that o’er the wave |
From isle to isle I roved the while: | |
And since, though parted from my band, | |
Too seldom now I leave the land, | |
No deed they’ve done, nor deed shall do, | |
475 | Ere I have heard and doom’d it too: |
I form the plan, decree the spoil, | |
‘Tis fit I oftener share the toil. | |
But now too long I’ve held thine ear; | |
Time presses, floats my bark, and here | |
480 | We leave behind but hate and fear. |
To-morrow Osman with his train | |
Arrives – to-night must break thy chain: | |
And would’st thou save that haughty Bey, | |
Perchance, | |
485 | With me, this hour away – away! |
But yet, though thou art plighted mine, | |
Would’st thou recall thy willing vow, | |
Appall’d by truths imparted now, | |
Here rest I – not to see thee wed: | |
490 | But be that peril on my head!’ |
XXII | |
Zuleika, mute and motionless, | |
Stood like that statue of distress, | |
When, her last hope for ever gone, | |
The mother harden’d into stone; | |
495 | All in the maid that eye could see |
Was but a younger Niobé. | |
But ere her lip, or even her eye, | |
Essay’d to speak, or look reply, | |
Beneath the garden’s wicket porch | |
500 | Far flash’d on high a blazing torch! |
Another – and another – and another – | |
‘Oh! fly – no more – yet now my more than brother!’ | |
Far, wide, through every thicket spread, | |
The fearful lights are gleaming red; | |
505 | Nor these alone – for each right hand |
Is ready with a sheathless brand. | |
They part, pursue, return, and wheel | |
With searching flambeau, shining steel; | |
And last of all, his sabre waving, | |
510 | Stern Giaffir in his fury raving: |
And now almost they touch the cave – | |
Oh! must that grot be Selim’s grave? | |
XXIII | |
Dauntless he stood – ‘ ’T is come – soon past – | |
One kiss, Zuleika – ’tis my last: | |
515 | But yet my band not far from shore |
May hear this signal, see the flash; | |
Yet now too few – the attempt were rash: | |
No matter – yet one effort more.’ | |
Forth to the cavern mouth he stept; | |
520 | His pistol’s echo rang on high, |
Zuleika started not, nor wept, | |
Despair benumb’d her breast and eye! – | |
‘They hear me not, or if they ply | |
Their oars, ’t is but to see me die; | |
525 | That sound hath drawn my foes more nigh. |
Then forth my father’s scimitar, | |
Thou ne’er hast seen less equal war! | |
Farewell, Zuleika! – Sweet! retire: | |
Yet stay within – here linger safe, | |
530 | At thee his rage will only chafe. |
Stir not – lest even to thee perchance | |
Some erring blade or ball should glance. | |
Fear’st thou for him? – may I expire | |
If in this strife I seek thy sire! | |
535 | No – though by him that poison pour’d: |
No – though again he call me coward! | |
But tamely shall I meet their steel? | |
No – as each crest save his may feel!’ | |
XXIV | |
One bound he made, and gain’d the sand: | |
540 | Already at his feet hath sunk |
The foremost of the prying band, | |
A gasping head, a quivering trunk: | |
Another falls – but round him close | |
A swarming circle of his foes; | |
545 | From right to left his path he cleft, |
And almost met the meeting wave: | |
His boat appears – not five oars’ length – | |
His comrades strain with desperate strength – | |
Oh! are they yet in time to save? | |
550 | His feet the foremost breakers lave; |
His band are plunging in the bay | |
Their sabres glitter through the spray; | |
Wet – wild – unwearied to the strand | |
They struggle – now they touch the land! | |
555 | They come – ’tis but to add to slaughter – |
His heart’s best blood is on the water. | |
XXV | |
Escaped from shot, unharm’d by steel, | |
Or scarcely grazed its force to feel, | |
Had Selim won, betray’d, beset, | |
560 | To where the strand and billows met; |
There as his last step left the land, | |
And the last death-blow dealt his hand – | |
Ah! wherefore did he turn to look | |
For her his eye but sought in vain? | |
565 | That pause, that fatal gaze he took, |
Hath doom’d his death, or fix’d his chain. | |
Sad proof, in peril and in pain, | |
How late will Lover’s hope remain! | |
His back was to the dashing spray; | |
570 | Behind, but close, his comrades lay, |
When, at the instant, hiss’d the ball – | |
‘So may the foes of Giaffir fall!’ | |
Whose voice is heard? whose carbine rang? | |
Whose bullet through the night-air sang, | |
575 | Too nearly, deadly aim’d to err? |
‘Tis thine – Abdallah’s Murderer! | |
The father slowly rued thy hate, | |
The son hath found a quicker fate: | |
Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling, | |
580 | The whiteness of the sea-foam troubling – |
If aught his lips essay’d to groan, | |
The rushing billows choked the tone! | |
XXVI | |
Morn slowly rolls the clouds away; | |
Few trophies of the fight are there: | |
585 | The shouts that shook the midnight-bay |
Are silent; but some signs of fray |