Lara: Canto I

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:There be bright faces in the busy hall,Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;Far checkering o'er the pictured window, playsThe unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;And gay retainers gather round the hearth,With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

The Chief of Lara is returned again:And why had Lara crossed the bounding main?Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know,Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe,That fearful empire which the human breastBut holds to rob the heart within of rest!--With none to check, and few to point in timeThe thousand paths that slope the way to crime;Then, when he most required commandment, thenHad Lara's daring boyhood governed men.jcIt skills not, boots not step by step to traceHis youth through all the mazes of its race;Short was the course his restlessness had run,jdBut long enough to leave him half undone.

And Lara left in youth his father-land;But from the hour he waved his parting handEach trace waxed fainter of his course, till allHad nearly ceased his memory to recall.His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grewCold in the many, anxious in the few.His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,His portrait darkens in its fading frame,Another chief consoled his destined bride,jeThe young forgot him, and the old had died;jf"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,And sighs for sables which he must not wear.jgA hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy graceThe Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;But one is absent from the mouldering file,That now were welcome in that Gothic pile.jh

He comes at last in sudden loneliness,And whence they know not, why they need not guess;They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'erNot that he came, but came not long before:No train is his beyond a single page,Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.Years had rolled on, and fast they speed awayTo those that wander as to those that stay;But lack of tidings from another climeHad lent a flagging wing to weary Time.They see, they recognise, yet almost deemThe present dubious, or the past a dream.

He lives, nor yet is past his Manhood's prime,Though seared by toil, and something touched by Time;His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot,Might be untaught him by his varied lot;Nor good nor ill of late were known, his nameMight yet uphold his patrimonial fame:His soul in youth was haughty, but his sinsNo more than pleasure from the stripling wins;And such, if not yet hardened in their course,Might be redeemed, nor ask a long remorse.

And they indeed were changed--'tis quickly seen,Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been:That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last,And spake of passions, but of passion past:The pride, but not the fire, of early days,Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise;A high demeanour, and a glance that tookTheir thoughts from others by a single look;And that sarcastic levity of tongue,The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,That darts in seeming playfulness around,And makes those feel that will not own the wound;All these seemed his, and something more beneathThan glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.Ambition, Glory, Love, the common aim,That some can conquer, and that all would claim,Within his breast appeared no more to strive,Yet seemed as lately they had been alive;And some deep feeling it were vain to traceAt moments lightened o'er his livid face.

Not much he loved long question of the past,Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast,In those far lands where he had wandered lone,And--as himself would have it seem--unknown:Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,Nor glean experience from his fellow man;But what he had beheld he shunned to show,As hardly worth a stranger's care to know;If still more prying such inquiry grew,His brow fell darker, and his words more few.

Not unrejoiced to see him once again,Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;Born of high lineage, linked in high command,He mingled with the Magnates of his land;Joined the carousals of the great and gay,And saw them smile or sigh their hours away;But still he only saw, and did not share,The common pleasure or the general care;He did not follow what they all pursuedWith hope still baffled still to be renewed;Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial Gain,Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's pain:Around him some mysterious circle thrownRepelled approach, and showed him still alone;Upon his eye sat something of reproof,That kept at least Frivolity aloof;And things more timid that beheld him nearIn silence gazed, or whispered mutual fear;And they the wiser, friendlier few confessedThey deemed him better than his air expressed.

Twas strange--in youth all action and all life,Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;Woman--the Field--the Ocean, all that gavePromise of gladness, peril of a grave,In turn he tried--he ransacked all below,And found his recompense in joy or woe,No tame, trite medium; for his feelings soughtIn that intenseness an escape from thought:jiThe Tempest of his Heart in scorn had gazedOn that the feebler Elements hath raised;The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,How woke he from the wildness of that dream!Alas! he told not--but he did awakeTo curse the withered heart that would not break.

Books, for his volume heretofore was Man,With eye more curious he appeared to scan,And oft in sudden mood, for many a day,From all communion he would start away:And then, his rarely called attendants said,Through night's long hours would sound his hurried treadO'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frownedIn rude but antique portraiture around:They heard, but whispered--"that must not be known--The sound of words less earthly than his own.jjYes, they who chose might smile, but some had seenThey scarce knew what, but more than should have been.Why gazed he so upon the ghastly headWhich hands profane had gathered from the dead,That still beside his opened volume lay,As if to startle all save him away?Why slept he not when others were at rest?Why heard no music, and received no guest?All was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong?Some knew perchance--but 'twere a tale too long;And such besides were too discreetly wise,To more than hint their knowledge in surmise;But if they would--they could"--around the boardThus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.

It was the night--and Lara's glassy streamThe stars are studding, each with imaged beam;So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,And yet they glide like Happiness away;Reflecting far and fairy-like from highThe immortal lights that live along the sky:Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee;Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove,And Innocence would offer to her love.These deck the shore; the waves their channel makeIn windings bright and mazy like the snake.All was so still, so soft in earth and air,You scarce would start to meet a spirit there;Secure that nought of evil could delightTo walk in such a scene, on such a night!It was a moment only for the good:So Lara deemed, nor longer there he stood,But turned in silence to his castle-gate;Such scene his soul no more could contemplate:Such scene reminded him of other days,Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze,Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now--No--no--the storm may beat upon his brow,Unfelt, unsparing--but a night like this,A night of Beauty, mocked such breast as his.

He turned within his solitary hall,And his high shadow shot along the wall:There were the painted forms of other times,'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes,Save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaultsThat hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults;And half a column of the pompous page,That speeds the specious tale from age to age;Where History's pen its praise or blame supplies,And lies like Truth, and still most truly lies.He wandering mused, and as the moonbeam shoneThrough the dim lattice, o'er the floor of stone,And the high fretted roof, and saints, that thereO'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer,jkReflected in fantastic figures grew,Like life, but not like mortal life, to view;His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom,And the wide waving of his shaken plume,Glanced like a spectre's attributes--and gaveHis aspect all that terror gives the grave.jl

'Twas midnight--all was slumber; the lone lightDimmed in the lamp, as both to break the night.Hark! there be murmurs heard in Lara's hall--A sound--a voice--a shriek--a fearful call!A long, loud shriek--and silence--did they hearThat frantic echo burst the sleeping ear?They heard and rose, and, tremulously brave,Rush where the sound invoked their aid to save;They come with half-lit tapers in their hands,And snatched in startled haste unbelted brands.

Cold as the marble where his length was laid,Pale as the beam that o'er his features played,Was Lara stretched; his half-drawn sabre near,Dropped it should seem in more than Nature's fear;Yet he was firm, or had been firm till now,And still Defiance knit his gathered brow;Though mixed with terror, senseless as he lay,There lived upon his lip the wish to slay;Some half formed threat in utterance there had died,Some imprecation of despairing Pride;His eye was almost sealed, but not forsook,Even in its trance, the gladiator's look,That oft awake his aspect could disclose,And now was fixed in horrible repose.They raise him--bear him;--hush! he breathes, he speaks,The swarthy blush recolours in his cheeks,His lip resumes its red, his eye, though dim,Rolls wide and wild, each slowly quivering limbRecalls its function, but his words are strungIn terms that seem not of his native tongue;Distinct but strange, enough they understandTo deem them accents of another land;And such they were, and meant to meet an earThat hears him not--alas! that cannot hear!

His page approached, and he alone appearedTo know the import of the words they heard;And, by the changes of his cheek and brow,They were not such as Lara should avow,Nor he interpret,--yet with less surpriseThan those around their Chieftain's state he eyes,But Lara's prostrate form he bent beside,And in that tongue which seemed his own replied;And Lara heeds those tones that gently seemTo soothe away the horrors of his dream--If dream it were, that thus could overthrowA breast that needed not ideal woe.

Whate'er his frenzy dreamed or eye beheld,--If yet remembered ne'er to be revealed,--Rests at his heart: the customed morning came,And breathed new vigour in his shaken frame;And solace sought he none from priest nor leech,And soon the same in movement and in speech,As heretofore he filled the passing hours,Nor less he smiles, nor more his forehead lowers,Than these were wont; and if the coming nightAppeared less welcome now to Lara's sight,He to his marvelling vassals showed it not,Whose shuddering proved their fear was less forgot.In trembling pairs (alone they dared not) crawljmThe astonished slaves, and shun the fated hall;The waving banner, and the clapping door,The rustling tapestry, and the echoing floor;The long dim shadows of surrounding trees,The flapping bat, the night song of the breeze;Aught they behold or hear their thought appals,As evening saddens o'er the dark grey walls.

Vain thought! that hour of ne'er unravelled gloomCame not again, or Lara could assumeA seeming of forgetfulness, that madeHis vassals more amazed nor less afraid.Had Memory vanished then with sense restored?Since word, nor look, nor gesture of their lordBetrayed a feeling that recalled to theseThat fevered moment of his mind's disease.Was it a dream? was his the voice that spokeThose strange wild accents; his the cry that brokeTheir slumber? his the oppressed, o'erlaboured heartThat ceased to beat, the look that made them start?Could he who thus had suffered so forget,When such as saw that suffering shudder yet?Or did that silence prove his memory fixedToo deep for words, indelible, unmixedIn that corroding secrecy which gnawsThe heart to show the effect, but not the cause?Not so in him; his breast had buried both,Nor common gazers could discern the growthOf thoughts that mortal lips must leave half told;They choke the feeble words that would unfold.

In him inexplicably mixed appearedMuch to be loved and hated, sought and feared;Opinion varying o'er his hidden lot,jnIn praise or railing ne'er his name forgot:His silence formed a theme for others' prate--They guessed--they gazed--they fain would know his fate.What had he been? what was he, thus unknown,Who walked their world, his lineage only known?A hater of his kind? yet some would say,With them he could seem gay amidst the gay;joBut owned that smile, if oft observed and near,Waned in its mirth, and withered to a sneer;That smile might reach his lip, but passed not by,Nor e'er could trace its laughter to his eye:Yet there was softness too in his regard,At times, a heart as not by nature hard,But once perceived, his Spirit seemed to chideSuch weakness, as unworthy of its pride,And steeled itself, as scorning to redeemOne doubt from others' half withheld esteem;In self-inflicted penance of a breastWhich Tenderness might once have wrung from Rest;In vigilance of Grief that would compelThe soul to hate for having loved too well.

There was in him a vital scorn of all:jpAs if the worst had fallen which could befall,He stood a stranger in this breathing world,An erring Spirit from another hurled;A thing of dark imaginings, that shapedBy choice the perils he by chance escaped;But 'scaped in vain, for in their memory yetHis mind would half exult and half regret:With more capacity for love than EarthBestows on most of mortal mould and birth.His early dreams of good outstripped the truth,And troubled Manhood followed baffled Youth;With thought of years in phantom chase misspent,And wasted powers for better purpose lent;And fiery passions that had poured their wrathIn hurried desolation o'er his path,And left the better feelings all at strifejqIn wild reflection o'er his stormy life;But haughty still, and loth himself to blame,He called on Nature's self to share the shame,And charged all faults upon the fleshly formShe gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm:Till he at last confounded good and ill,And half mistook for fate the acts of will:jrToo high for common selfishness, he couldAt times resign his own for others' good,But not in pity--not because he ought,But in some strange perversity of thought,That swayed him onward with a secret prideTo do what few or none would do beside;And this same impulse would, in tempting time,Mislead his spirit equally to crime;So much he soared beyond, or sunk beneath,The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe,And longed by good or ill to separateHimself from all who shared his mortal state;His mind abhorring this had fixed her throneFar from the world, in regions of her own:Thus coldly passing all that passed below,His blood in temperate seeming now would flow:Ah! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glowed,But ever in that icy smoothness flowed!'Tis true, with other men their path he walked,And like the rest in seeming did and talked,Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw nor start,His Madness was not of the head, but heart;And rarely wandered in his speech, or drewHis thoughts so forth as to offend the view.

With all that chilling mystery of mien,And seeming gladness to remain unseen,He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an artOf fixing memory on another's heart:It was not love perchance--nor hate--nor aughtThat words can image to express the thought;But they who saw him did not see in vain,And once beheld--would ask of him again:And those to whom he spake remembered well,And on the words, however light, would dwell:None knew, nor how, nor why, but he entwinedHimself perforce around the hearer's mind;jsThere he was stamped, in liking, or in hate,If greeted once; however brief the dateThat friendship, pity, or aversion knew,jtStill there within the inmost thought he grew.You could not penetrate his soul, but found,Despite your wonder, to your own he wound;His presence haunted still; and from the breastjuHe forced an all unwilling interest:Vain was the struggle in that mental net--His Spirit seemed to dare you to forget!

There is a festival, where knights and dames,And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims,Appear--a high-born and a welcome guestTo Otho's hall came Lara with the rest.The long carousal shakes the illumined hall,Well speeds alike the banquet and the ball;And the gay dance of bounding Beauty's trainLinks grace and harmony in happiest chain:Blest are the early hearts and gentle handsThat mingle there in well according bands;It is a sight the careful brow might smooth,And make Age smile, and dream itself to youth,And Youth forget such hour was past on earth,So springs the exulting bosom to that mirth!jv

And Lara gazed on these, sedately glad,His brow belied him if his soul was sad;And his glance followed fast each fluttering fair,Whose steps of lightness woke no echo there:He leaned against the lofty pillar nigh,With folded arms and long attentive eye,Nor marked a glance so sternly fixed on his--Ill brooked high Lara scrutiny like this:At length he caught it--'tis a face unknown,But seems as searching his, and his alone;Prying and dark, a stranger's by his mien,Who still till now had gazed on him unseen:At length encountering meets the mutual gazeOf keen enquiry, and of mute amaze;On Lara's glance emotion gathering grew,As if distrusting that the stranger threw;Along the stranger's aspect, fixed and stern,Flashed more than thence the vulgar eye could learn.

"'Tis he!" the stranger cried, and those that heardRe-echoed fast and far the whispered word."'Tis he!"--"'Tis who?" they question far and near,Till louder accents rung on Lara's ear;So widely spread, few bosoms well could brookThe general marvel, or that single look:But Lara stirred not, changed not, the surpriseThat sprung at first to his arrested eyesSeemed now subsided--neither sunk nor raisedGlanced his eye round, though still the stranger gazed;And drawing nigh, exclaimed, with haughty sneer,"'Tis he!--how came he thence?--what doth he here?"

It were too much for Lara to pass bySuch questions, so repeated fierce and high;jwWith look collected, but with accent cold,More mildly firm than petulantly bold,He turned, and met the inquisitorial tone--"My name is Lara--when thine own is known,Doubt not my fitting answer to requiteThe unlooked for courtesy of such a knight.'Tis Lara!--further wouldst thou mark or ask?I shun no question, and I wear no mask."

"Thou shunn'st no question! Ponder--is there noneThy heart must answer, though thine ear would shun?And deem'st thou me unknown too? Gaze again!At least thy memory was not given in vain.Oh! never canst thou cancel half her debt--Eternity forbids thee to forget."With slow and searching glance upon his faceGrew Lara's eyes, but nothing there could traceThey knew, or chose to know--with dubious lookHe deigned no answer, but his head he shook,And half contemptuous turned to pass away;But the stern stranger motioned him to stay.

"A word!--I charge thee stay, and answer hereTo one, who, wert thou noble, were thy peer,But as thou wast and art--nay, frown not, Lord,If false, 'tis easy to disprove the word--But as thou wast and art, on thee looks down,Distrusts thy smiles, but shakes not at thy frown.Art thou not he? whose deeds----"jx"Whate'er I be,Words wild as these, accusers like to thee,I list no further; those with whom they weighMay hear the rest, nor venture to gainsayThe wondrous tale no doubt thy tongue can tell,Which thus begins so courteously and well.Let Otho cherish here his polished guest,To him my thanks and thoughts shall be expressed."And here their wondering host hath interposed--"Whate'er there be between you undisclosed,This is no time nor fitting place to marThe mirthful meeting with a wordy war.If thou, Sir Ezzelin, hast aught to showWhich it befits Count Lara's ear to know,To-morrow, here, or elsewhere, as may bestBeseem your mutual judgment, speak the rest;I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown,Though, like Count Lara, now returned aloneFrom other lands, almost a stranger grown;And if from Lara's blood and gentle birthI augur right of courage and of worth,He will not that untainted line belie,Nor aught that Knighthood may accord, deny."

"To-morrow be it," Ezzelin replied,"And here our several worth and truth be tried;I gage my life, my falchion to attestMy words, so may I mingle with the blest!"What answers Lara? to its centre shrunkHis soul, in deep abstraction sudden sunk;The words of many, and the eyes of allThat there were gathered, seemed on him to fall;But his were silent, his appeared to strayIn far forgetfulness away--away--Alas! that heedlessness of all aroundBespoke remembrance only too profound.

"To-morrow!--aye, to-morrow!" further wordjyThan those repeated none from Lara heard;Upon his brow no outward passion spoke;From his large eye no flashing anger broke;Yet there was something fixed in that low tone,Which showed resolve, determined, though unknown.He seized his cloak--his head he slightly bowed,And passing Ezzelin, he left the crowd;And, as he passed him, smiling met the frownWith which that Chieftain's brow would bear him down:It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling prideThat curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot hide;But that of one in his own heart secureOf all that he would do, or could endure.Could this mean peace? the calmness of the good?Or guilt grown old in desperate hardihood?Alas! too like in confidence are each,For man to trust to mortal look or speech;From deeds, and deeds alone, may he discernTruths which it wrings the unpractised heart to learn.

And Lara called his page, and went his way--Well could that stripling word or sign obey:His only follower from those climes afar,Where the Soul glows beneath a brighter star:For Lara left the shore from whence he sprung,In duty patient, and sedate though young;Silent as him he served, his faith appearsAbove his station, and beyond his years.Though not unknown the tongue of Lara's land,In such from him he rarely heard command;But fleet his step, and clear his tones would come,When Lara's lip breathed forth the words of home:Those accents, as his native mountains dear,Awake their absent echoes in his ear,jzFriends'--kindred's--parents'--wonted voice recall,Now lost, abjured, for one--his friend, his all:For him earth now disclosed no other guide;What marvel then he rarely left his side?

Light was his form, and darkly delicateThat brow whereon his native sun had sate,But had not marred, though in his beams he grew,The cheek where oft the unbidden blush shone through;Yet not such blush as mounts when health would showAll the heart's hue in that delighted glow;But 'twas a hectic tint of secret careThat for a burning moment fevered there;And the wild sparkle of his eye seemed caughtFrom high, and lightened with electric thought,kaThough its black orb those long low lashes' fringeHad tempered with a melancholy tinge;Yet less of sorrow than of pride was there,Or, if 'twere grief, a grief that none should share:And pleased not him the sports that please his age,The tricks of Youth, the frolics of the Page;For hours on Lara he would fix his glance,As all-forgotten in that watchful trance;And from his chief withdrawn, he wandered lone,Brief were his answers, and his questions none;His walk the wood, his sport some foreign book;His resting-place the bank that curbs the brook:He seemed, like him he served, to live apartFrom all that lures the eye, and fills the heart;To know no brotherhood, and take from earthNo gift beyond that bitter boon--our birth.

If aught he loved, 'twas Lara; but was shownHis faith in reverence and in deeds alone;In mute attention; and his care, which guessedEach wish, fulfilled it ere the tongue expressed.Still there was haughtiness in all he did,A spirit deep that brooked not to be chid;His zeal, though more than that of servile hands,kbIn act alone obeys, his air commands;As if 'twas Lara's less than his desireThat thus he served, but surely not for hire.Slight were the tasks enjoined him by his Lord,To hold the stirrup, or to bear the sword;To tune his lute, or, if he willed it more,kcOn tomes of other times and tongues to pore;But ne'er to mingle with the menial train,To whom he showed nor deference nor disdain,But that well-worn reserve which proved he knewNo sympathy with that familiar crew:His soul, whate'er his station or his stem,Could bow to Lara, not descend to them.Of higher birth he seemed, and better days,Nor mark of vulgar toil that hand betrays,So femininely white it might bespeakAnother sex, when matched with that smooth cheek,But for his garb, and something in his gaze,More wild and high than Woman's eye betrays;A latent fierceness that far more becameHis fiery climate than his tender frame:True, in his words it broke not from his breast,But from his aspect might be more than guessed.kdKaled his name, though rumour said he boreAnother ere he left his mountain-shore;For sometimes he would hear, however nigh,That name repeated loud without reply,As unfamiliar--or, if roused again,Start to the sound, as but remembered then;Unless 'twas Lara's wonted voice that spake,For then--ear--eyes--and heart would all awake.

He had looked down upon the festive hall,And mark'd that sudden strife so marked of all:And when the crowd around and near him toldkeTheir wonder at the calmness of the bold,Their marvel how the high-born Lara boreSuch insult from a stranger, doubly sore,The colour of young Kaled went and came,The lip of ashes, and the cheek of flame;And o'er his brow the dampening heart-drops threwThe sickening iciness of that cold dew,That rises as the busy bosom sinksWith heavy thoughts from which Reflection shrinks.Yes--there be things which we must dream and dare,And execute ere thought be half aware:Whate'er might Kaled's be, it was enowTo seal his lip, but agonise his brow.He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara castThat sidelong smile upon the knight he past;When Kaled saw that smile his visage fell,As if on something recognised right well:His memory read in such a meaning moreThan Lara's aspect unto others wore:Forward he sprung--a moment, both were gone,And all within that hall seemed left alone;Each had so fixed his eye on Lara's mien,All had so mixed their feelings with that scene,That when his long dark shadow through the porchNo more relieves the glare of yon high torch,Each pulse beats quicker, and all bosoms seemTo bound as doubting from too black a dream,Such as we know is false, yet dread in sooth,Because the worst is ever nearest truth.And they are gone--but Ezzelin is there,With thoughtful visage and imperious air;But long remained not; ere an hour expiredHe waved his hand to Otho, and retired.

The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest;The courteous host, and all-approving guest,Again to that accustomed couch must creepWhere Joy subsides, and Sorrow sighs to sleep,And Man, o'erlaboured with his Being's strife,Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life:There lie Love's feverish hope, and Cunning's guile,kfHate's working brain, and lulled Ambition's wile;O'er each vain eye Oblivion's pinions wave,And quenched Existence crouches in a grave.kgWhat better name may Slumber's bed become?Night's sepulchre, the universal home,Where Weakness--Strength--Vice--Virtue--sunk supine,Alike in naked helplessness recline;Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath,Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of Death,And shun--though Day but dawn on ills increased--That sleep,--the loveliest, since it dreams the least.