Selected Poems (48 page)

That strand of strife may bear,

And fragments of each shiver’d brand;

Steps stamp’d; and dash’d into the sand

590

The print of many a struggling hand

May there be mark’d; nor far remote

A broken torch, an oarless boat;

And tangled on the weeds that heap

The beach where shelving to the deep

595

There lies a white capote!

‘Tis rent in twain – one dark-red stain

The wave yet ripples o’er in vain:

But where is he who wore?

Ye! who would o’er his relics weep,

600

Go, seek them where the surges sweep

Their burthen round, Sigaeum’s steep

And cast on Lemnos’ shore:

The sea-birds shriek above the prey,

O’er which their hungry beaks delay,

605

As shaken on his restless pillow,

His head heaves with the heaving billow;

That hand, whose motion is not life,

Yet feebly seems to menace strife,

Flung by the tossing tide on high,

610

Then levell’d with the wave –

What recks it, though that corse shall lie

Within a living grave?

The bird that tears that prostrate form

Hath only robb’d the meaner worm;

615

The only heart, the only eye

Had bled or wept to see him die,

Had seen those scatter’d limbs composed,

And mourn’d above his turban-stone,
¹

That heart hath burst – that eye was closed –

620

Yea – closed before his own!

XXVII

By Helle’s stream there is a voice of wail!

And woman’s eye is wet – man’s cheek is pale:

Zuleika! last of Giaffir’s race,

Thy destined lord is come too late:

625

He sees not – ne’er shall see thy face!

Can he not hear

The loud Wul-wulleh
²
warn his distant ear?

Thy handmaids weeping at the gate,

The Koran-chanters of the hymn of fate,

630

The silent slaves with folded arms that wait,

Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale,

Tell him thy tale!

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall!

That fearful moment when he left the cave

635

Thy heart grew chill:

He was thy hope – thy joy – thy love – thine all –

And that last thought on him thou could’st not save

Sufficed to kill;

Burst forth in one wild cry – and all was still.

640

Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave!

Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!

That grief – though deep – though fatal – was thy first!

Thrice happy! ne’er to feel nor fear the force

Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse!

645

And, oh! that pang where more than Madness lies!

The worm that will not sleep – and never dies;

Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night,

That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light,

That winds around and tears the quivering heart!

650

Ah! wherefore not consume it – and depart!

Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief!

Vainly thou heap’st the dust upon thy head,

Vainly the sackcloth o’er thy limbs dost spread:

By that same hand Abdallah – Selim bled.

655

Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief:

Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman’s bed,

She, whom thy sultan had but seen to wed,

Thy Daughter’s dead!

Hope of thine age, thy twilight’s lonely beam,

660

The Star hath set that shone on Helle’s stream.

What quench’d its ray? – the blood that thou hast shed!

Hark! to the hurried question of Despair:

‘Where is my child?’ – an Echo answers – ‘Where?’
¹

XXVIII

Within the place of thousand tombs

665

That shine beneath, while dark above

The sad but living cypress glooms,

And withers not, though branch and leaf

Are stamp’d with an eternal grief,

Like early unrequited Love,

670

One spot exists, which ever blooms,

Ev’n in that deadly grove –

A single rose is shedding there

Its lonely lustre, meek and pale:

It looks as planted by Despair –

675

So white – so faint – the slightest gale

Might whirl the leaves on high;

And yet, though storms and blight assail,

And hands more rude than wintry sky

May wring it from the stem – in vain –

680

To-morrow sees it bloom again!

The stalk some spirit gently rears,

And waters with celestial tears;

For well may maids of Helle deem

That this can be no earthly flower,

685

Which mocks the tempest’s withering hour,

And buds unshelter’d by a bower;

Nor droops, though spring refuse her shower,

Nor woos the summer beam:

To it the livelong night there sings

690

A bird unseen – but not remote:

Invisible his airy wings,

But soft as harp that Houri strings

His long entrancing note!

It were the Bulbul; but his throat,

695

Though mournful, pours not such a strain;

For they who listen cannot leave

The spot, but linger there and grieve,

As if they loved in vain!

And yet so sweet the tears they shed,

700

’Tis sorrow so unmix’d with dread,

They scarce can bear the morn to break

That melancholy spell,

And longer yet would weep and wake,

He sings so wild and well!

705

But when the day-blush bursts from high

Expires that magic melody.

And some have been who could believe,

(So fondly youthful dreams deceive,

Yet harsh be they that blame,)

710

That note so piercing and profound

Will shape and syllable
¹
its sound

Into Zuleika’s name.

’Tis from her cypress summit heard,

That melts in air the liquid word:

715

’Tis from her lowly virgin earth

That white rose takes its tender birth.

There late was laid a marble stone;

Eve saw it placed – the Morrow gone!

It was no mortal arm that bore

720

That deep fixed pillar to the shore;

For there, as Helle’s legends tell,

Next morn ’twas found where Selim fell;

Lash’d by the tumbling tide, whose wave

Denied his bones a holier grave:

725

And there by night, reclined, ’tis said,

Is seen a ghastly turban’d head:

And hence extended by the billow,

’Tis named the ‘Pirate-phantom’s pillow!’

Where first it lay that mourning flower

730

Hath flourished; flourisheth this hour,

Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale;

As weeping Beauty’s cheek at Sorrow’s tale!

THE CORSAIR
A Tale

‘ – I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno.’

TASSO,
Gerusalemme Liberata,
canto x.

TO
THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

My Dear Moore,

I dedicate to you the last production with which I shall trespass on public patience, and your indulgence, for some years; and I own that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among the firmest of her patriots; while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it commenced, to add the humble but sincere suffrage of friendship, to the voice of more than one nation. It will at least prove to you, that I have neither forgotten the gratification derived from your society, nor abandoned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your friends for too long an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a poem whose scene will be laid in the East; none can do those scenes so much justice. The wrongs of your own country, the magnificent and fiery spirit of her sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and Collins, when he donominated his Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality, are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country’s antiquarians.

May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable, – Self? I have written much, and published more than enough to demand a longer silence than I now meditate; but, for some years to come, it is my intention to tempt no further the award of ‘Gods, men, nor columns.’ In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative; though, I confess, it is the measure most after my own heart: Scott alone, of the present generation, has hitherto completely triumphed over the fatal facility of the octo-syllabic verse; and this is not the least victory of his fertile and mighty genius: in blank verse, Milton, Thomson, and our dramatists, are the beacons that shine along the deep, but warn us from the rough and barren rock on which they are kindled. The heroic couplet is not the most popular measure certainly; but as I did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without further apology, and take my chance once more with that versification, in which I have hitherto published nothing but compositions whose former circulation is part of my present, and will be of my future regret.

With regard to my story, and stories in general, I should have been glad to have rendered my personages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so – if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of ‘drawing from self,’ the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than ‘The Giaour,’ and perhaps – but no – I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever ‘alias’ they please.

If, however, it were worth while to remove the impression, it might be of some service to me, that the man who is alike the delight of his readers and his friends, the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own, permits me here and elsewhere to subscribe myself,

Most truly,

And affectionately,

His obedient servant,

BYRON.

January 2, 1814.

Canto the First
¹

‘—nessun maggior dolore,
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria,–’

D
ANTE
.

I

‘O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,

Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,

Survey our empire, and behold our home!

5

These are our realms, no limits to their sway –

Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.

Ours the wild life in tumult still to range

From toil to rest, and joy in every change.

Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!

10

Whose soul would sicken o’er the heaving wave;

Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!

Whom slumber soothes not – pleasure cannot please –

Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,

And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide,

15

The exulting sense – the pulse’s maddening play,

That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?

That for itself can woo the approaching fight,

And turn what some deem danger to delight;

That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,

20

And where the feebler faint – can only feel –

Feel – to the rising bosom’s inmost core,

Its hope awaken and its spirit soar?

No dread of death - if with us die our foes –

Save that it seems even duller than repose:

25

Come when it will – we snatch the life of life –

When lost – what recks it – by disease or strife?

Let him who crawls enamour’d of decay

Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;

Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;

30

Ours – the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed.

While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,

Ours with one pang – one bound – escapes control.

His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,

And they who loath’d his life may gild his grave:

35

Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,

When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.

For us, even banquets fond regret supply

In the red cup that crowns our memory;

And the brief epitaph in danger’s day,

40

When those who win at length divide the prey,

And cry Remembrance saddening o’er each brow

How had the brave who fell exulted
now
!’

II

Such were the notes that from the Pirate’s isle

Around the kindling watch-fire rang the while:

45

Such were the sounds that thrill’d the rocks along,

And unto ears as rugged seem’d a song!

In scatter’d groups upon the golden sand,

They game – carouse – converse – or whet the brand;

Select the arms – to each his blade assign,

50

And careless eye the blood that dims its shine;

Repair the boat, replace the helm or oar,

While others straggling muse along the shore;

For the wild bird the busy springes set,

Or spread beneath the sun the dripping net;

55

Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies,

With all the thirsting eye of Enterprise;

Tell o’er the tales of many a night of toil,

And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil:

No matter where – their chief’s allotment this;

60

Theirs, to believe no prey nor plan amiss.

But who that CHIEF? his name on every shore

Is famed and fear’d – they ask and know no more.

With these he mingles not but to command;

Few are his words, but keen his eye and hand.

65

Ne’er seasons he with mirth their jovial mess,

But they forgive his silence for success.

Ne’er for his lip the purpling cup they fill

That goblet passes him untasted still –

And for his fare – the rudest of his crew

70

Would that, in turn, have pass’d untasted too;

Earth’s coarsest bread, the garden’s homeliest roots,

And scarce the summer luxury of fruits,

His short repast in humbleness supply

With all a hermit’s board would scarce deny.

75

But while he shuns the grosser joys of sense,

His mind seems nourished by that abstinence.

‘Steer to that shore!’ – they sail. ‘Do this!’ ’tis done:

‘Now form and follow me!’ – the spoil is won.

Thus prompt his accents and his actions still,

80

And all obey and few enquire his will;

To such, brief answer and contemptuous eye

Convey reproof, nor further deign reply.

III

‘A sail! – a sail!’ – a promised prize to Hope!

Her nation – flag – how speaks the telescope?

85

No prize, alas! – but yet a welcome sail:

The blood-red signal glitters in the gale.

Yes – she is ours – a home returning bark –

Blow fair, thou breeze! – she anchors ere the dark.

Already doubled is the cape – our bay

90

Receives that prow which proudly spurns the spray.

How gloriously her gallant course she goes!

Her white wings flying – never from her foes –

She walks the waters like a thing of life,

And seems to dare the elements to strife.

95

Who would not brave the battle-fire – the wreck –

To move the monarch of her peopled deck?

IV

Hoarse o’er her side the rustling cable rings;