LARA.jb: Canto II

Night wanes--the vapours round the mountains curledMelt into morn, and Light awakes the world,Man has another day to swell the past,And lead him near to little, but his last;But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,The Sun is in the heavens, and Life on earth;Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.Immortal Man! behold her glories shine,And cry, exulting inly, "They are thine!"Gaze on, while yet thy gladdened eye may see:A morrow comes when they are not for thee:And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear;Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,And fit thy clay to fertilise the soil.

'Tis morn--'tis noon--assembled in the hall,The gathered Chieftains come to Otho's call;'Tis now the promised hour, that must proclaimThe life or death of Lara's future fame;And Ezzelin his charge may here unfold,khAnd whatsoe'er the tale, it must be told.His faith was pledged, and Lara's promise given,To meet it in the eye of Man and Heaven.Why comes he not? Such truths to be divulged,Methinks the accuser's rest is long indulged.

The hour is past, and Lara too is there,With self-confiding, coldly patient air;Why comes not Ezzelin? The hour is past,And murmurs rise, and Otho's brow's o'ercast."I know my friend! his faith I cannot fear,If yet he be on earth, expect him here;The roof that held him in the valley standsBetween my own and noble Lara's lands;My halls from such a guest had honour gained,Nor had Sir Ezzelin his host disdained,But that some previous proof forbade his stay,And urged him to prepare against to-day;The word I pledged for his I pledge again,Or will myself redeem his knighthood's stain."He ceased--and Lara answered, "I am hereTo lend at thy demand a listening earTo tales of evil from a stranger's tongue,Whose words already might my heart have wrung,But that I deemed him scarcely less than mad,Or, at the worst, a foe ignobly bad.I know him not--but me it seems he knewIn lands where--but I must not trifle too:Produce this babbler--or redeem the pledge;Here in thy hold, and with thy falchion's edge."ki

Proud Otho on the instant, reddening, threwHis glove on earth, and forth his sabre flew."The last alternative befits me best,And thus I answer for mine absent guest."

With cheek unchanging from its sallow gloom,However near his own or other's tomb;With hand, whose almost careless coolness spokeIts grasp well-used to deal the sabre-stroke;With eye, though calm, determined not to spare,Did Lara too his willing weapon bare.In vain the circling Chieftains round them closed,For Otho's frenzy would not be opposed;And from his lip those words of insult fell--His sword is good who can maintain them well.

Short was the conflict; furious, blindly rash,Vain Otho gave his bosom to the gash:He bled, and fell; but not with deadly wound,Stretched by a dextrous sleight along the ground."Demand thy life!" He answered not: and thenFrom that red floor he ne'er had risen again,For Lara's brow upon the moment grewAlmost to blackness in its demon hue;And fiercer shook his angry falchion nowThan when his foe's was levelled at his brow;Then all was stern collectedness and art,Now rose the unleavened hatred of his heart;So little sparing to the foe he felled,kjThat when the approaching crowd his arm withheld,He almost turned the thirsty point on thoseWho thus for mercy dared to interpose;But to a moment's thought that purpose bent;Yet looked he on him still with eye intent,As if he loathed the ineffectual strifeThat left a foe, howe'er o'erthrown, with life;As if to search how far the wound he gaveHad sent its victim onward to his grave.

They raised the bleeding Otho, and the LeechForbade all present question, sign, and speech;The others met within a neighbouring hall,And he, incensed, and heedless of them all,kkThe cause and conqueror in this sudden fray,In haughty silence slowly strode away;He backed his steed, his homeward path he took,Nor cast on Otho's towers a single look.

But where was he? that meteor of a night,Who menaced but to disappear with light.Where was this Ezzelin? who came and went,To leave no other trace of his intent.He left the dome of Otho long ere morn,In darkness, yet so well the path was wornHe could not miss it: near his dwelling lay;But there he was not, and with coming dayCame fast inquiry, which unfolded nought,Except the absence of the Chief it sought.A chamber tenantless, a steed at rest,His host alarmed, his murmuring squires distressed:Their search extends along, around the path,In dread to meet the marks of prowlers' wrath:But none are there, and not a brake hath borneNor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle torn;Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the grass,Which still retains a mark where Murder was;Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the tale,The bitter print of each convulsive nail,When agonised hands that cease to guard,Wound in that pang the smoothness of the sward.Some such had been, if here a life was reft,But these were not; and doubting Hope is left;And strange Suspicion, whispering Lara's name,Now daily mutters o'er his blackened fame;Then sudden silent when his form appeared,Awaits the absence of the thing it fearedAgain its wonted wondering to renew,And dye conjecture with a darker hue.

Days roll along, and Otho's wounds are healed,But not his pride; and hate no more concealed:He was a man of power, and Lara's foe,The friend of all who sought to work him woe,And from his country's justice now demandsAccount of Ezzelin at Lara's hands.Who else than Lara could have cause to fearHis presence? who had made him disappear,If not the man on whom his menaced chargeHad sate too deeply were he left at large?The general rumour ignorantly loud,The mystery dearest to the curious crowd;The seeming friendliness of him who stroveTo win no confidence, and wake no love;The sweeping fierceness which his soul betrayed,The skill with which he wielded his keen blade;Where had his arm unwarlike caught that art?Where had that fierceness grown upon his heart?For it was not the blind capricious rageklA word can kindle and a word assuage;But the deep working of a soul unmixedWith aught of pity where its wrath had fixed;Such as long power and overgorged successConcentrates into all that's merciless:These, linked with that desire which ever swaysMankind, the rather to condemn than praise,'Gainst Lara gathering raised at length a storm,Such as himself might fear, and foes would form,And he must answer for the absent headOf one that haunts him still, alive or dead.

Within that land was many a malcontent,Who cursed the tyranny to which he bent;That soil full many a wringing despot saw,Who worked his wantonness in form of law;Long war without and frequent broil withinHad made a path for blood and giant sin,That waited but a signal to beginNew havoc, such as civil discord blends,Which knows no neuter, owns but foes or friends;Fixed in his feudal fortress each was lord,In word and deed obeyed, in soul abhorred.Thus Lara had inherited his lands,And with them pining hearts and sluggish hands;But that long absence from his native climeHad left him stainless of Oppression's crime,And now, diverted by his milder sway,kmAll dread by slow degrees had worn away.The menials felt their usual awe alone,But more for him than them that fear was grown;They deemed him now unhappy, though at firstTheir evil judgment augured of the worst,And each long restless night, and silent mood,Was traced to sickness, fed by solitude:And though his lonely habits threw of lateGloom o'er his chamber, cheerful was his gate;knFor thence the wretched ne'er unsoothed withdrew,For them, at least, his soul compassion knew.Cold to the great, contemptuous to the high,The humble passed not his unheeding eye;Much he would speak not, but beneath his roofThey found asylum oft, and ne'er reproof.And they who watched might mark that, day by day,Some new retainers gathered to his sway;But most of late, since Ezzelin was lost,He played the courteous lord and bounteous host:Perchance his strife with Otho made him dreadSome snare prepared for his obnoxious head;Whate'er his view, his favour more obtainsWith these, the people, than his fellow thanes.If this were policy, so far 'twas sound,The million judged but of him as they found;From him by sterner chiefs to exile drivenThey but required a shelter, and 'twas given.By him no peasant mourned his rifled cot,And scarce the Serf could murmur o'er his lot;With him old Avarice found its hoard secure,With him contempt forbore to mock the poor;Youth present cheer and promised recompenseDetained, till all too late to part from thence:To Hate he offered, with the coming change,The deep reversion of delayed revenge;To Love, long baffled by the unequal match,The well-won charms success was sure to snatch.koAll now was ripe, he waits but to proclaimThat slavery nothing which was still a name.The moment came, the hour when Otho thoughtSecure at last the vengeance which he sought:His summons found the destined criminalBegirt by thousands in his swarming hall;Fresh from their feudal fetters newly riven,Defying earth, and confident of heaven.That morning he had freed the soil-bound slaves,Who dig no land for tyrants but their graves!Such is their cry--some watchword for the fightMust vindicate the wrong, and warp the right;Religion--Freedom--Vengeance--what you will,A word's enough to raise Mankind to kill;kpSome factious phrase by cunning caught and spread,That Guilt may reign-and wolves and worms be fed!

Throughout that clime the feudal Chiefs had gainedSuch sway, their infant monarch hardly reigned;Now was the hour for Faction's rebel growth,The Serfs contemned the one, and hated both:They waited but a leader, and they foundOne to their cause inseparably bound;By circumstance compelled to plunge again,In self-defence, amidst the strife of men.Cut off by some mysterious fate from thoseWhom Birth and Nature meant not for his foes,Had Lara from that night, to him accurst,Prepared to meet, but not alone, the worst:Some reason urged, whate'er it was, to shunInquiry into deeds at distance done;By mingling with his own the cause of all,E'en if he failed, he still delayed his fall.The sullen calm that long his bosom kept,The storm that once had spent itself and slept,Roused by events that seemed foredoomed to urgeHis gloomy fortunes to their utmost verge,Burst forth, and made him all he once had been,And is again; he only changed the scene.Light care had he for life, and less for fame,But not less fitted for the desperate game:He deemed himself marked out for others' hate,And mocked at Ruin so they shared his fate.And cared he for the freedom of the crowd?He raised the humble but to bend the proud.He had hoped quiet in his sullen lair,But Man and Destiny beset him there:Inured to hunters, he was found at bay;And they must kill, they cannot snare the prey.Stern, unambitious, silent, he had beenHenceforth a calm spectator of Life's scene;But dragged again upon the arena, stoodA leader not unequal to the feud;In voice--mien--gesture--savage nature spoke,And from his eye the gladiator broke.

What boots the oft-repeated tale of strife,The feast of vultures, and the waste of life?The varying fortune of each separate field,The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield?The smoking ruin, and the crumbled wall?In this the struggle was the same with all;Save that distempered passions lent their forceIn bitterness that banished all remorse.None sued, for Mercy knew her cry was vain,The captive died upon the battle-plain:kqIn either cause, one rage alone possessedThe empire of the alternate victor's breast;And they that smote for freedom or for sway,Deemed few were slain, while more remained to slay.It was too late to check the wasting brand,And Desolation reaped the famished land;The torch was lighted, and the flame was spread,And Carnage smiled upon her daily dead.

Fresh with the nerve the new-born impulse strung,The first success to Lara's numbers clung:But that vain victory hath ruined all;They form no longer to their leader's call:In blind confusion on the foe they press,And think to snatch is to secure success.The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate,Lure on the broken brigands to their fate:In vain he doth whate'er a chief may do,To check the headlong fury of that crew;In vain their stubborn ardour he would tame,The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame;The wary foe alone hath turned their mood,And shown their rashness to that erring brood:The feigned retreat, the nightly ambuscade,The daily harass, and the fight delayed,The long privation of the hoped supply,The tentless rest beneath the humid sky,The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art,And palls the patience of his baffled art,Of these they had not deemed: the battle-dayThey could encounter as a veteran may;But more preferred the fury of the strife,krAnd present death, to hourly suffering life:And Famine wrings, and Fever sweeps awayHis numbers melting fast from their array;Intemperate triumph fades to discontent,And Lara's soul alone seems still unbent;But few remain to aid his voice and hand,And thousands dwindled to a scanty band:Desperate, though few, the last and best remainedTo mourn the discipline they late disdained.One hope survives, the frontier is not far,And thence they may escape from native war:And bear within them to the neighbouring stateAn exile's sorrows, or an outlaw's hate:Hard is the task their father-land to quit,But harder still to perish or submit.

It is resolved--they march--consenting NightGuides with her star their dim and torchless flight;Already they perceive its tranquil beamSleep on the surface of the barrier stream;Already they descry--Is yon the bank?Away! 'tis lined with many a hostile rank.Return or fly!--What glitters in the rear?'Tis Otho's banner--the pursuer's spear!Are those the shepherds' fires upon the height?Alas! they blaze too widely for the flight:Cut off from hope, and compassed in the toil,Less blood perchance hath bought a richer spoil!

A moment's pause--'tis but to breathe their band,Or shall they onward press, or here withstand?It matters little--if they charge the foesWho by their border-stream their march oppose,Some few, perchance, may break and pass the line,However linked to baffle such design."The charge be ours! to wait for their assaultWere fate well worthy of a coward's halt."Forth flies each sabre, reined is every steed,And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed:In the next tone of Lara's gathering breathHow many shall but hear the voice of Death!

His blade is bared,--in him there is an airAs deep, but far too tranquil for despair;A something of indifference more than thenBecomes the bravest, if they feel for men--He turned his eye on Kaled, ever near,And still too faithful to betray one fear;Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim twilight threwAlong his aspect an unwonted hueOf mournful paleness, whose deep tint expressedThe truth, and not the terror of his breast.This Lara marked, and laid his hand on his:It trembled not in such an hour as this;His lip was silent, scarcely beat his heart,His eye alone proclaimed, "We will not part!Thy band may perish, or thy friends may flee,Farewell to Life--but not Adieu to thee!"

The word hath passed his lips, and onward driven,Pours the linked band through ranks asunder riven:Well has each steed obeyed the armed heel,And flash the scimitars, and rings the steel;Outnumbered, not outbraved, they still opposeDespair to daring, and a front to foes;And blood is mingled with the dashing stream,Which runs all redly till the morning beam.ks

Commanding--aiding--animating all,Where foe appeared to press, or friend to fall,Cheers Lara's voice, and waves or strikes his steel,Inspiring hope, himself had ceased to feel.None fled, for well they knew that flight were vain;But those that waver turn to smite again,While yet they find the firmest of the foeRecoil before their leader's look and blow:Now girt with numbers, now almost alone,He foils their ranks, or re-unites his own;Himself he spared not--once they seemed to fly--Now was the time, he waved his hand on high,And shook--Why sudden droops that plumed crest?The shaft is sped--the arrow's in his breast!That fatal gesture left the unguarded side,And Death has stricken down yon arm of pride.The word of triumph fainted from his tongue;That hand, so raised, how droopingly it hung!But yet the sword instinctively retains,Though from its fellow shrink the falling reins;These Kaled snatches: dizzy with the blow,And senseless bending o'er his saddle-bow,Perceives not Lara that his anxious pageBeguiles his charger from the combat's rage:Meantime his followers charge, and charge again;Too mixed the slayers now to heed the slain!

Day glimmers on the dying and the dead,The cloven cuirass, and the helmless head;The war-horse masterless is on the earth,ktAnd that last gasp hath burst his bloody girth;And near, yet quivering with what life remained,The heel that urged him and the hand that reined;And some too near that rolling torrent lie,kuWhose waters mock the lip of those that die;That panting thirst which scorches in the breathOf those that die the soldier's fiery death,In vain impels the burning mouth to craveOne drop--the last--to cool it for the grave;With feeble and convulsive effort swept,Their limbs along the crimsoned turf have crept;The faint remains of life such struggles waste,But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste:They feel its freshness, and almost partake--Why pause? No further thirst have they to slake--It is unquenched, and yet they feel it not;It was an agony--but now forgot!

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene,Where but for him that strife had never been,A breathing but devoted warrior lay:'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away.His follower once, and now his only guide,Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side,And with his scarf would staunch the tides that rush,With each convulsion, in a blacker gush;And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow:He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain,And merely adds another throb to pain.He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage,And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page,Who nothing fears--nor feels--nor heeds--nor sees--Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,Held all the light that shone on earth for him.

The foe arrives, who long had searched the field,Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield:They would remove him, but they see 'twere vain,And he regards them with a calm disdain,That rose to reconcile him with his fate,And that escape to death from living hate:And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed,Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed,And questions of his state; he answers not,Scarce glances on him as on one forgot,And turns to Kaled:--each remaining wordThey understood not, if distinctly heard;His dying tones are in that other tongue,To which some strange remembrance wildly clung.They spake of other scenes, but what--is knownTo Kaled, whom their meaning reached alone;And he replied, though faintly, to their sound,While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round:They seemed even then--that twain--unto the lastTo half forget the present in the past;To share between themselves some separate fate,Whose darkness none beside should penetrate.

Their words though faint were many--from the toneTheir import those who heard could judge alone;From this, you might have deemed young Kaled's deathMore near than Lara's by his voice and breath,So sad--so deep--and hesitating brokeThe accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke;kvBut Lara's voice, though low, at first was clearAnd calm, till murmuring Death gasped hoarsely near;But from his visage little could we guess,So unrepentant--dark--and passionless,kwSave that when struggling nearer to his last,Upon that page his eye was kindly cast;And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased,Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the East:Whether (as then the breaking Sun from highRolled back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye,Or that 'twas chance--or some remembered scene,That raised his arm to point where such had been,Scarce Kaled seemed to know, but turned away,As if his heart abhorred that coming day,And shrunk his glance before that morning light,To look on Lara's brow--where all grew night.Yet sense seemed left, though better were its loss;For when one near displayed the absolving Cross,And proffered to his touch the holy bead,Of which his parting soul might own the need,He looked upon it with an eye profane,And smiled--Heaven pardon! if 'twere with disdain:And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrewFrom Lara's face his fixed despairing view,With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,As if such but disturbed the expiring man,Nor seemed to know his life but then began--That Life of Immortality, securekxTo none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,kyAnd dull the film along his dim eye grew;His limbs stretched fluttering, and his head drooped o'erThe weak yet still untiring knee that bore;He pressed the hand he held upon his heart--It beats no more, but Kaled will not partWith the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,For that faint throb which answers not again."It beats!"--Away, thou dreamer! he is gone--It once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

He gazed, as if not yet had passed awaykzThe haughty spirit of that humbled 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 boreWithin 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 tearThe glossy tendrils of his raven hair,But strove to stand and gaze, but reeled and fell,Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneathThe breast of man such trusty love may breathe!That trying moment hath at once revealedThe secret long and yet but half concealed;In baring to revive that lifeless breast,Its grief seemed ended, but the sex confessed;And life returned, and Kaled felt no shame--What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

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 blessed nor marble decked the mound,And he was mourned by one whose quiet grief,Less loud, outlasts a people's for their Chief.Vain was all question asked her of the past,And vain e'en menace--silent to the last;She told nor whence, nor why she left behindHer all for one who seemed but little kind.Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--Is human love the growth of human will?To her he might be gentleness; the sternHave deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,And when they love, your smilers guess not howBeats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.They were not common links, that formed the chainThat bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain;But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold,And sealed is now each lip that could have told.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,They found the scattered dints of many a scar,Which were not planted there in recent war;Where'er had passed his summer years of life,It seems they vanished in a land of strife;But all unknown his Glory or his Guilt,laThese only told that somewhere blood was spilt,And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,Returned no more--that night appeared his last.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale)A Serf that crossed the intervening vale,When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,And nearly veiled in mist her waning horn;A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,And hew the bough that bought his children's food,Passed by the river that divides the plainOf Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain:He heard a tramp--a horse and horseman brokeFrom out the wood--before him was a cloakWrapt 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 watched the stranger's course,Who reached the river, bounded from his horse,And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from the shore,Then paused--and looked--and turned--and seemed to watch,And still another hurried glance would snatch,And follow with his step the stream that flowed,As if even yet too much its surface showed;At once he started--stooped--around him strownThe winter floods had scattered heaps of stone:Of these the heaviest thence he gathered there,And slung them with a more than common care.Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseenHimself might safely mark what this might mean;He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,And something glittered starlike on the vest;But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:lbIt rose again, but indistinct to view,And left the waters of a purple hue,Then deeply disappeared: the horseman gazedTill ebbed the latest eddy it had raised;Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,And instant spurred him into panting speed.His face was masked--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 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had wornUpon the night that led to such a morn.If thus he perished, Heaven receive his soul!His undiscovered limbs to ocean roll;And charity upon the hope would dwellIt was not Lara's hand by which he fell.lc

And Kaled--Lara--Ezzelin, are gone,Alike without their monumental stone!The first, all efforts vainly strove to weanFrom 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 spotWhere yet she scarce believed that he was not,Her eye shot forth with all the living fireThat haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;But left to waste her weary moments there,She talked 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 treeWhere lay his drooping head upon her knee;And in that posture where she saw him fall,His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;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 staunched anew some phantom's wound.ldHerself would question, and for him reply;Then rising, start, and beckon him to flyFrom 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.