Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head droop'd o'er Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale),

The weak yet still untiring knee that bore;

He press'd the hand he held upon his heart-
It beats no more, but Kaled will not part
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,
For that faint throb which answers not again.

It beats!»-Away, thou dreamer!-he is goneI once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

XXI.

He gazed, as if not yet had pass'd away
The haughty spirit of that humble clay;
And those around have roused him from his trance,
But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;
And when in raising him from where he bore
Within his arms the form that felt no more,
He saw the head his breast would still sustain,
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;
He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear
The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,
But strove to stand and gaze, but reel'd and fell,
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.
Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneath
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe!
That trying moment hath at once reveal'd
The secret long and yet but half conceal'd;
la baring to revive that lifeless breast,
fts grief seem'd ended, but the sex confess'd;
And life return'd, and Kaled felt no shame-
What now to her was Womanhood or Fame!

XXII.

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep;
But where he died his grave was dug as deep,
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd the mound;
And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief,
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief.
Vain was all question ask'd her of the past,
And vain even menace-silent to the last,
She told nor whence, nor why she left behind
Her all for one who seem'd but little kind.
Why did she love him? Curious fool!-be still-
is human love the growth of human will?

A serf that cross'd the intervening vale,
When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,
And nearly veil'd in mist her waning horn;

A serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,
And hew the bough that bought his children's food,
Pass'd by the river that divides the plain

Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain:
He heard a tramp-a horse and horseman broke
From out the wood-before him was a cloak
Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,
And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watch'd the stranger's course,
Who reach'd the river, bounded from his horse,
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dash'd it from the shore,
Then paused, and look'd, and turn'd, and seem'd to watch,
And still another hurried glance would snatch,
And follow with his step the stream that flow'd,]
As if even yet too much its surface show'd:
At once he started, stoop'd, around him strown
The winter floods had scatter'd heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather'd there,
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean;
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter'd starlike on the vest,
But here he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:
It rose again but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappear'd: the horseman gazed
Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised;
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurr'd him into panting speed.
His face was mask'd-the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such 't is known Sir Ezzelin bad worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.

If thus he perish'd, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscover'd limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.
XXV.

And Kaled-Lara-Ezzelin, are gone,
Alike without their monumental stone!
The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean

From lingering where her chieftain's blood had been;
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,
Her cye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recal;
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunch'd anew some phantom's wound.
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand-
This could not last-she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold-her truth too dearly proved.

if he did not return, he might repair to the palace. The duke then seated the person in the mask behind him, and rode, I know not whither; but in that night he was assassinated, and thrown into the river. The servant, after having been dismissed, was also assaulted and mortally wounded; and although he was attended with great care, yet such was his situation, that he could give no intelligible account of what had befallen his master. In the morning, the duke not having returned to the palace, his servants began to be alarmed; and one of them informed the pontiff of the evening excursion of his sons, and that the duke had not yet made his appearance. This gave the Pope no small anxiety; but he conjectured that the duke had been attracted by some courtesan to pass the night with her, and not choosing to quit the house in open day, had waited till the following evening to return home. When, however, the evening arrived, and he found himself disappointed in his expectations, he became deeply afflicted, and began to make inquiries from different persons, whom he ordered to attend him for that purpose. Amongst these was a man named Giorgio Schiavoni, who, having discharged some timber from a bark in the river, had remained on board the vessel, to watch it, and being interrogated whether he had seen any one thrown into the river, on the night preceding, he replied, that he saw two men on foot, who came down the street, and looked diligently about, to observe whether any person was passing. That seeing no one, they returned, and a short time afterwards two others came, and looked around in the same manner as the former; no person still appearing, they gave a sign to their companions, when a man came, mounted on a white horse, having behind him a dead body, the head and arms of which hung on one side, and the feet on the other side of the horse; the two persons on foot supporting the body, to prevent its falling. They thus proceeded towards that part, where the filth of the city is usually discharged into the river, and turning the horse, with his tail towards the water, the two persons took the dead body by the arms and feet, and with all their strength flung it into the river. The person on horseback then asked if they had thrown it in, to which they replied, Signor, si (yes, Sir). He The most interesting and particular account of this then looked towards the river, and seeing a mantle mysterious event is given by Burchard; and is in sub-floating on the stream, he inquired what it was that stance as follows: «On the eighth day of June, the appeared black; to which they answered, it was a cardinal of Valenza, and the Duke of Gandia, sons of mantle; and one of them threw stones upon it, in conThe attendants of the the Pope, supped with their mother, Vanozza, near the sequence of which it sunk. church of S. Pietro ad vincula; several other persons pontiff then inquired from Giorgio, why he had not being present at the entertainment. A late hour ap- revealed this to the governor of the city; to which he proaching, and the cardinal having reminded his brother, replied, that he had seen in his time a hundred dead that it was time to return to the apostolic palace, they bodies thrown into the river at the same place, without mounted their horses or mules, with only a few at- any inquiry being made respecting them, and that he tendants, and proceeded together as far as the palace had not, therefore, considered it as a matter of any of cardinal Ascanio Sforza, when the duke informed importance. The fishermen and seamen were then the cardinal, that before he returned home, he had to collected, and ordered to search the river; where, on pay a visit of pleasure. Dismissing therefore all his the following evening, they found the body of the attendants, excepting his staffiero, or footman, and a duke, with his habit entire, and thirty ducats in his person in a mask, who had paid him a visit whilst at purse. He was pierced with nine wounds, one of supper, and who, during the space of a month, or there- which was in his throat, the others in his head, body, abouts, previous to this time, had called upon him and limbs. No sooner was the pontiff informed of almost daily, at the apostolic palace; he took this per- the death of his son, and that he had been thrown, son behind him on his mule, and proceeded to the like filth, into the river, than giving way to his grief, street of the Jews, where he quitted his servant, direct- he shut himself up in a chamber, and wept bitterly. ing him to remain there until a certain hour; when, The cardinal of Segovia, and other attendants on the

NOTE.

THE event in section 24, Canto II, was suggested by the description of the death or rather burial of the

Duke of Gandia.

Pope went to the door, and after many hours spent in persuasions and exhortations, prevailed upon him to admit them. From the evening of Wednesday, till the following Saturday, the Pope took no food; nor did he sleep from Thursday morning till the same hour on the

ensuing day. At length, however, giving way to the entreaties of his attendants, he began to restrain his sorrow, and to consider the injury which his own health might sustain, by the further indulgence of his grief.»-Roscoe's Leo Tenth, vol. I, page 265.

The Curse of Minerva,

А РОЕМ.

➖➖➖➖➖Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas
Immolat, et pœnam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun:
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
Bat one unclouded blaze of living light!

Oer the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gulds the green wave, that trembles as it glows:
On old Egina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulph, unconquer'd Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his meilowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last:
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd' sage's latest day!
Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still :
But sad his light to agonising eyes,

And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown'd before;
Bat ere he sunk below Citharon's head,
The cup of woe was quaffd-the spirit fled;
The soul of him that scorn'd to fear or fly-
Who lived and died as none can live or die!

Ent, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
The queen of Night asserts her silent reign; 2
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form.
With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret;
The groves of olive scatter'd dark and wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
'The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk, 3
And, dun and sombre mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane, von solitory palm,

All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye-
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.

Again the Agean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold,
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile.

As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane

I mark'd the beauties of the land and main,
Alone and friendless, on the magic shore
Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore,
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease,
And glory knew no clime beyond her Greece.
Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky,
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god;
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's glare,
Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and measured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode.
Yes, 'twas Minerva's self, but, ah! how changed
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged!
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand;
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle Ægis bore no gorgon now;
Her helm was deep indented, and her lance
Seem'd weak and shaftless, c'en to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her grasp:
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe.
« Mortal! (twas thus she spake) that blush of shame
Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble name—
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all-and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:-
Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around!
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,

I saw successive tyrannies expire;

'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth, Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both! Survey this vacant violated fane;

Recount the relics torn that yet remain;

These Cecrops placed-this Pericles adorn'd 4—

That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science mourn'd: What more I owe let gratitude attest

Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

That all may learn from whence the plunderer came,
Th' insulted wall sustains his hated name. 5
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer.
Arms gave the first his right-the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won!
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf-the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make their own;
The last base brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are crost―
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.»>6

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:«Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim! Frown not on England-England owns him notAthena, no! the plunderer was a Scot!7

Ask'st thou the difference? From fair Phyle's towers
Survey Boeotia-Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard land 8
Hath wisdom's goddess never held command:
A barren soil, where nature's germs, confined,
To stern sterility can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth.
Each genial influence nurtured to resist,
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain,
Till burst at length each watery head o'erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Dispatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some east, some west, some every where but north!
In quest of lawless gain they issue forth;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth-
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,
Shake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like children of a happier strand:
As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,
Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race!»>

[ocr errors][merged small]

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did the deed
My curse shall light,-on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,

Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him prate,
And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate!
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest native gusto—is to sell :
To sell, and make (may shame record the day!)
The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey!
Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West,
Europe's worst dauber and poor Britain's best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore: 9
Be all the bruisers call'd from all St. Giles,
That art and nature may compare their styles;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordship's stone shop there. 10
Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep:
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb,
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then;
Exclaims, these Greeks indeed were proper men;
Draws slight comparisons of these with those,
And envies Laïs all her Attic beaux:

When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!

And last of all, amidst the gaping crew,

Some calm spectator, as he takes his view, 11

In silent indignation, mix'd with grief,

Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.

Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd in the dust,

May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!

Link'd with the fool who fired th' Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine

In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accursed—
Perchance the second viler than the first:
So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn!
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic blazing from afar-
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war:
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field
She fled--but left behind her gorgon shield;
A fatal gift, that turn'd your friends to stone,
And left lost Albion hated and alone.
Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake your usurpation to its base;
Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,
And glares the Nemesis of native dead,
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,
And claims his long arrear of northern blood,

So may ye perish! Pallas, when she
gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to enslave.
Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand she hates,
But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barrossa, thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won;
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat.
Look last at home-ye love not to look there,
On the grim smile of comfortless despair;
Your city saddens, loud though revel howls,
Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls :
See all alike of more or less bereft-

No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
Elest paper credit' who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:
Yet Pallas pluck'd each Premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear;
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late :
Then raves for***; 13 to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends:
Him senates hear whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd :
So once of yore each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log;
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour; Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power; Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme, Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream. Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind, And pirates barter all that's left behind; 14

away,

No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal ou his own encumber'd shores;
The starved mechanic breaks his rusting loom,
And desperate mans him 'gainst the common doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state,

Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice whose tones could once command;
E en factions cease to charm a factious land;
While jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

«Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain, The Furies seize her abdicated reign; Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands, And wring her vitals with their fiery hands. Bat one convulsive struggle still remains, And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains, The banner d pomp of war, the glittering files, Oer whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles; The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum, That bid the foe defiance ere they come; The hero bounding at his country's call, The glorious death that decorates his fall,

Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught-
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight,
His day of mercy is the day of fight;

But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun.
His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,-
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.
Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burgers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion ! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them most?
The law of heaven and earth is life for life;
And she who raised in vain regrets the strife.>>

NOTES.

Note 1. Page 189, line 22. How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murder'd sage's latest day! Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down. Note 2. Page 189, line 34.

The queen of Night asserts her silent reign.

The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

[blocks in formation]

Note 3. Page 189, line 44. The gleaming turret of the The Kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

Note 4. Page 190, line 5.

These Cecrops placed-this Pericles adorn'd. This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and style of architecture.

Note 5. Page 190, line 10.

Th' insulted wall sustains his hated name.

It is related by a late oriental traveller, that when the wholesale spoliator visited Athens, he caused his own name, with that of his wife, to be inscribed on a pillar of one of the principal temples. This inscription was executed in a very conspicuous manner, and deeply engraved in the marble, at a very considerable elevation. Notwithstanding which precautions, some person (doubtless inspired by the Patron Goddess), has been at the pains to get himself raised up to the requisite height, and has obliterated the name of the laird, but left that of the lady untouched. The traveller in question ac

« AnteriorContinuar »