To strive, and those must strive in vain: | |
For lack of further lives, to slake | |
The thirst of vengeance now awake, | |
945 | With barbarous blows they gash the dead, |
And lop the already lifeless head, | |
And fell the statues from their niche, | |
And spoil the shrines of offering rich, ’ | |
And from each other’s rude hands wrest | |
950 | The silver vessels saints had bless’d. |
To the high altar on they go; | |
Oh, but it made a glorious show! | |
On its table still behold | |
The cup of consecrated gold; | |
955 | Massy and deep, a glittering prize, |
Brightly it sparkles to plunderers’ eyes: | |
That morn it held the holy wine, | |
Converted by Christ to his blood so divine, | |
Which his worshippers drank at the break of day, | |
960 | To shrive their souls ere they join’d in the fray. |
Still a few drops within it lay; | |
And round the sacred table glow | |
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row, | |
From the purest metal cast; | |
965 | A spoil – the richest, and the last. |
XXXIII | |
So near they came, the nearest stretch’d | |
To grasp the spoil he almost reach’d, | |
When old Minotti’s hand | |
Touch’d with the torch the train — | |
970 | ’Tis fired! |
Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, | |
The turban’d victors, the Christian band, | |
All that of living or dead remain, | |
Hurl’d on high with the shiver’d fane, | |
975 | In one wild roar expired! |
The shatter’d town – the walls thrown down – | |
The waves a moment backward bent – | |
The hills that shake, although unrent, | |
As if an earthquake pass’d – | |
980 | The thousand shapeless things all driven |
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven, | |
By that tremendous blast – | |
Proclaim’d the desperate conflict o’er | |
On that too long afflicted shore: | |
985 | Up to the sky like rockets go |
All that mingled there below: | |
Many a tall and goodly man, | |
Scorch’d and shrivell’d to a span, | |
When he fell to earth again | |
990 | Like a cinder strew’d the plain: |
Down the ashes shower like rain; | |
Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles | |
With a thousand circling wrinkles; | |
Some fell on the shore, but, far away, | |
995 | Scatter’d o’er the isthmus lay; |
Christian or Moslem, which be they? | |
Let their mothers see and say! | |
When in cradled rest they lay, | |
And each nursing mother smiled | |
1000 | On the sweet sleep of her child, |
Little deem’d she such a day | |
Would rend those tender limbs away. | |
Not the matrons that them bore | |
Could discern their offspring more; | |
1005 | That one moment left no trace |
More of human form or face | |
Save a scatter’d scalp or bone: | |
And down came blazing rafters, strown | |
Around, and many a falling stone, | |
1010 | Deeply dinted in the clay, |
All blacken’d there and reeking lay. | |
All the living things that heard | |
That deadly earth-shock disappear’d: | |
The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled, | |
1015 | And howling left the unburied dead; |
The camels from their keepers broke; | |
The distant steer forsook the yoke – | |
The nearer steed plunged o’er the plain, | |
And burst his girth, and tore his rein; ’ | |
1020 | The bull-frog’s note, from out the marsh, |
Deep-mouth’d arose, and doubly harsh; | |
The wolves yell’d on the cavern’d hill | |
Where echo roll’d in thunder still; | |
The jackal’s troop, in gather’d cry, | |
1025 | Bay’d from afar complainingly, |
With a mix’d and mournful sound, | |
Like crying babe, and beaten hound: | |
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast, | |
The eagle left his rocky nest, | |
1030 | And mounted nearer to the sun, |
The clouds beneath him seem’d so dun; | |
Their smoke assail’d his startled beak, | |
And made him higher soar and shriek – | |
Thus was Corinth lost and won! |
When we two parted | |
When we two parted | |
In silence and tears, | |
Half broken-hearted | |
To sever for years, | |
5 | Pale grew thy cheek and cold, |
Colder thy kiss; | |
Truly that hour foretold | |
Sorrow to this. | |
The dew of the morning | |
10 | Sunk chill on my brow – |
It felt like the warning | |
Of what I feel now. | |
Thy vows are all broken, | |
And light is thy fame; | |
15 | I hear thy name spoken, |
And share in its shame. | |
They name thee before me, | |
A knell to mine ear; | |
A shudder comes o’er me – | |
20 | Why wert thou so dear? |
They know not I knew thee, | |
Who knew thee too well: – | |
Long, long shall I rue thee, | |
Too deeply to tell. | |
25 | In secret we met – |
In silence I grieve, | |
That thy heart could forget, | |
Thy spirit deceive. | |
If I should meet thee | |
30 | After long years, |
How should I greet thee? – | |
With silence and tears. | |
1808. |
Fare thee well! | |
‘Alas! they had been friends in Youth; | |
But whispering tongues can poison truth; | |
And constancy lives in realms above; | |
And Life is thorny; and youth is vain: | |
And to be wroth with one we love, | |
Doth work like madness in the brain; | |
* * * * * | |
But never either found another | |
To free the hollow heart from paining – | |
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, | |
Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder; | |
A dreary sea now flows between, | |
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder | |
Shall wholly do away, I ween, | |
The marks of that which once hath been.’ | |
C | |
Fare thee well! and if for ever, | |
Still for ever, fare | |
Even though unforgiving, never | |
‘Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. | |
5 | Would that breast were bared before thee |
Where thy head so oft hath lain, | |
While that placid sleep came o’er thee | |
Which thou ne’er canst know again: | |
Would that breast, by thee glanced over, | |
10 | Every inmost thought could show! |
Then thou would’st at last discover | |
’Twas not well to spurn it so. | |
Though the world for this commend thee – | |
Though it smile upon the blow, | |
15 | Even its praises must offend thee, |
Founded on another’s woe: | |
Though my many faults defaced me, | |
Could no other arm be found, | |
Than the one which once embraced me, | |
20 | To inflict a cureless wound? |
Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not; | |
Love may sink by slow decay, | |
But by sudden wrench, believe not | |
Hearts can thus be torn away: | |
25 | Still thine own its life retaineth — |
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; | |
And the undying thought which paineth | |
Is — that we no more may meet. | |
These are words of deeper sorrow | |
30 | Than the wail above the dead; |
Both shall live, but every morrow | |
Wake us from a widow’d bed. | |
And when thou would solace gather, | |
When our child’s first accents flow, | |
35 | Wilt thou teach her to say ‘Father!’ |
Though his care she must forego? | |
When her little hands shall press thee, | |
When her lip to thine is press’d, | |
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee, | |
40 | Think of him thy love had bless’d! |
Should her lineaments resemble | |
Those thou never more may’st see, | |
Then thy heart will softly tremble | |
With a pulse yet true to me. | |
45 | All my faults perchance thou knowest, |
All my madness none can know; | |
All my hopes, where’er thou goest, | |
Wither, yet with | |
Every feeling hath been shaken; | |
50 | Pride, which not a world could bow, |
Bows to thee — by thee forsaken, | |
Even my soul forsakes me now: | |
But ’tis done — all words are idle — | |
Words from me are vainer still; | |
55 | But the thoughts we cannot bridle |
Force their way without the will. — | |
Fare thee well! — thus disunited, | |
Torn from every nearer tie, | |
Sear’d in heart, and lone, and blighted, | |
60 | More than this I scarce can die. |
March 17, 1816. |