The Abencerrage

Lonely and still are now thy marble halls,Thou fair Alhambra! there the feast is o’er;And with the murmur of thy fountain-fallsBlend the wild tones of minstrelsy no more.

Hush’d are the voices that in years gone byHave mourn’d, exulted, menaced, through thy towers;Within thy pillar’d courts the grass waves high,And all uncultured bloom thy fairy bowers.

Unheeded there the flowering myrtle blows,Through tall arcades unmark’d the sunbeam smiles,And many a tint of soften’d brilliance throwsO’er fretted walls and shining peristyles.

And well might Fancy deem thy fabrics lone,So vast, so silent, and so wildly fair,Some charm’d abode of beings all unknown,Powerful and viewless, children of the air.

For there no footstep treads th’ enchanted ground,There not a sound the deep repose pervades,Save winds and founts, diffusing freshness round,Through the light domes and graceful colonnades.

Far other tones have swell’d those courts alongIn days romance yet fondly loves to traceThe clash of arms, the voice of choral song,The revels, combats of a vanish’d race.

And yet awhile, at Fancy’s potent call,Shall rise that race, the chivalrous, the bold;Peopling once more each fair forsaken hallWith stately forms, the knights and chiefs of old.

----The sun declines: upon Nevada’s heightThere dwells a mellow flush of rosy light;Each soaring pinnacle of mountain snowSmiles in the richness of that parting glow,And Darro’s wave reflects each passing dyeThat melts and mingles in th’ empurpled sky.Fragrance, exhaled from rose and citron bower,Blends with the dewy freshness of the hour;Hush’d are the winds, and nature seems to sleepIn light and stillness; wood, and tower, and steep,Are dyed with tints of glory, only givenTo the rich evening of a southern heaven--Tints of the sun, whose bright farewell is fraughtWith all that art hath dreamt, but never caught--Yes, Nature sleeps; but not with her at restThe fiery passions of the human breast,Hark! from th’ Alhambra’s towers what stormy sound,Each moment deepening, wildly swells around?Those are no tumults of a festal throng,Not the light zambra nor the choral song:The combat rages--’tis the shout of war,’Tis the loud clash of shield and scimitar.Within the Hall of Lions, where the raysOf eve, yet lingering, on the fountain blaze;There, girt and guarded by his Zegri bands,And stern in wrath, the Moorish monarch stands:There the strife centres--swords around him wave,There bleed the fallen, there contend the brave;While echoing domes return the battle-cry,“Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!”And onward rushing, and prevailing still,Court, hall, and tower the fierce avengers fill.But first and bravest of that gallant train,Where foes are mightiest, charging ne’er in vain;In his red hand the sabre glancing bright,His dark eye flashing with a fiercer light,Ardent, untired, scarce conscious that he bleeds,His Aben-Zurrahs there young Hamet leads;While swells his voice that wild acclaim on high,“Revenge and freedom! let the tyrant die!”

Yes! trace the footsteps of the warrior’s wrathBy helm and corslet shatter’d in his path,And by the thickest harvest of the slain,And by the marble’s deepest crimson stain:Search through the serried fight, where loudest criesFrom triumph, anguish, or despair, arise;And brightest where the shivering falchions glare,And where the ground is reddest--he is there.Yes! that young arm, amidst the Zegri host,Hath well avenged a sire, a brother, lost.

They perish’d--not as heroes should have died,On the red field, in victory’s hour of pride,In all the glow and sunshine of their fame,And proudly smiling as the death-pang came:Oh! had they thus expired, a warrior’s tearHad flow’d, almost in triumph, o’er their bier.For thus alone the brave should weep for thoseWho brightly pass in glory to repose.--Not such their fate: a tyrant’s stern commandDoom’d them to fall by some ignoble hand,As, with the flower of all their high-born race,Summon’d Abdallah’s royal feast to grace,Fearless in heart, no dream of danger nigh,They sought the banquet’s gilded hall--to die.Betray’d, unarm’d, they fell--the fountain waveFlow’d crimson with the life-blood of the brave,Till far the fearful tidings of their fateThrough the wide city rang from gate to gate,And of that lineage each surviving sonRush’d to the scene where vengeance might be won.

For this young Hamet mingles in the strife,Leader of battle, prodigal of life,Urging his followers, till their foes, beset,Stand faint and breathless, but undaunted yet.Brave Aben-Zurrahs, on! one effort more,Yours is the triumph, and the conflict o’er.

But lo! descending o’er the darken’d hall,The twilight-shadows fast and deeply fall,Nor yet the strife hath ceased--though scarce they know,Through that thick gloom, the brother from the foe;Till the moon rises with her cloudless ray,The peaceful moon, and gives them light to slay.

Where lurks Abdallah?--midst his yielding trainThey seek the guilty monarch, but in vain.He lies not number’d with the valiant dead,His champions round him have not vainly bled;But when the twilight spread her shadowy veil,And his last warriors found each effort fail,In wild despair he fled--a trusted few,Kindred in crime, are still in danger true;And o’er the scene of many a martial deed,The Vega’s green expanse, his flying footsteps lead.He pass’d th’ Alhambra’s calm and lovely bowers,Where slept the glistening leaves and folded flowersIn dew and starlight--there, from grot and cave,Gush’d in wild music many a sparkling wave;There on each breeze the breath of fragrance rose,And all was freshness, beauty, and repose.

But thou, dark monarch! in thy bosom reignStorms that, once roused, shall never sleep again.Oh! vainly bright is nature in the courseOf him who flies from terror or remorse!A spell is round him which obscures her bloom,And dims her skies with shadows of the tomb;There smiles no Paradise on earth so fairBut guilt will raise avenging phantoms there.Abdallah heeds not, though the light gale rovesFraught with rich odour, stolen from orange-groves;Hears not the sounds from wood and brook that rise,Wild notes of nature’s vesper-melodies;Marks not how lovely, on the mountain’s head,Moonlight and snow their mingling lustre spread;But urges onward, till his weary band,Worn with their toil, a moment’s pause demand.He stops, and turning, on Granada’s fanesIn silence gazing, fix’d awhile remainsIn stern, deep silence: o’er his feverish brow,And burning cheek, pure breezes freshly blow,But waft in fitful murmurs, from afar,Sounds indistinctly fearful--as of war.What meteor bursts with sudden blaze on high,O’er the blue clearness of the starry sky?Awful it rises, like some Genie-form,Seen midst the redness of the desert storm,Magnificently dread--above, below,Spreads the wild splendour of its deepening glow.Lo! from the Alhambra’s towers the vivid glareStreams through the still transparence of the air!Avenging crowds have lit the mighty pyre,Which feeds that waving pyramid of fire;And dome and minaret, river, wood, and height,From dim perspective start to ruddy light.

Oh Heaven! the anguish of Abdallah’s soul,The rage, though fruitless, yet beyond control!Yet must he cease to gaze, and raving flyFor life--such life as makes it bliss to die!On yon green height, the mosque, but half reveal’dThrough cypress-groves, a safe retreat may yield.Thither his steps are bent--yet oft he turns,Watching that fearful beacon as it burns.But paler grow the sinking flames at last,Flickering they fade, their crimson light is past;And spiry vapours, rising o’er the scene,Mark where the terrors of their wrath have been.And now his feet have reach’d that lonely pile,Where grief and terror may repose awhile;Embower’d it stands, midst wood and cliff on high,Through the gray rocks a torrent sparkling nigh:He hails the scene where every care should cease,And all--except the heart he brings--is peace.

There is deep stillness in those halls of stateWhere the loud cries of conflict rang so late;Stillness like that, when fierce the Kamsin’s blastHath o’er the dwellings of the desert pass’d.Fearful the calm--nor voice, nor step, nor breathDisturbs that scene of beauty and of death:Those vaulted roofs re-echo not a sound,Save the wild gush of waters--murmuring roundIn ceaseless melodies of plaintive tone,Through chambers peopled by the dead alone.O’er the mosaic floors, with carnage red,Breastplate and shield and cloven helm are spreadIn mingled fragments--glittering to the lightOf yon still moon, whose rays, yet softly bright,Their streaming lustre tremulously shed,And smile in placid beauty o’er the dead:O’er features where the fiery spirit’s traceE’en death itself is powerless to efface;O’er those who flush’d with ardent youth awoke,When glowing morn in bloom and radiance broke,Nor dreamt how near the dark and frozen sleepWhich hears not Glory call, nor Anguish weep;In the low silent house, the narrow spot,Home of forgetfulness--and soon forgot.

But slowly fade the stars--the night is o’er--Morn beams on those who hail her light no more;Slumberers who ne’er shall wake on earth again,Mourners, who call the loved, the lost, in vain.Yet smiles the day--oh! not for mortal tearDoth nature deviate from her calm career:Nor is the earth less laughing or less fair,Though breaking hearts her gladness may not share.O’er the cold urn the beam of summer glows,O’er fields of blood the zephyr freshly blows;Bright shines the sun, though all be dark below,And skies arch cloudless o’er a world of woe;And flowers renew’d in spring’s green pathway bloom,Alike to grace the banquet and the tomb.

Within Granada’s walls the funeral riteAttends that day of loveliness and light;And many a chief, with dirges and with tears,Is gather’d to the brave of other years:And Hamet, as beneath the cypress shadeHis martyr’d brother and his sire are laid,Feels every deep resolve and burning thoughtOf ampler vengeance e’en to passion wrought;Yet is the hour afar--and he must broodO’er those dark dreams awhile in solitude.Tumult and rage are hush’d--another dayIn still solemnity hath pass’d away,In that deep slumber of exhausted wrath,The calm that follows in the tempest’s path.

And now Abdallah leaves yon peaceful fane,His ravaged city traversing again.No sound of gladness his approach precedes,No splendid pageant the procession leads;Where’er he moves the silent streets along,Broods a stern quiet o’er the sullen throng.No voice is heard; but in each alter’d eye,Once brightly beaming when his steps were nigh,And in each look of those whose love hath fledFrom all on earth to slumber with the dead,Those by his guilt made desolate, and thrownOn the bleak wilderness of life alone--In youth’s quick glance of scarce-dissembled rage,And the pale mien of calmly-mournful age,May well be read a dark and fearful taleOf thought that ill the indignant heart can veil,And passion like the hush’d volcano’s power,That waits in stillness its appointed hour.

No more the clarion from Granada’s walls,Heard o’er the Vega, to the tourney calls;No more her graceful daughters, throned on high,Bend o’er the lists the darkly-radiant eye:Silence and gloom her palaces o’erspread,And song is hush’d, and pageantry is fled.--Weep, fated city! o’er thy heroes weep--Low in the dust the sons of glory sleep!Furl’d are their banners in the lonely hall,Their trophied shields hang mouldering on the wall,Wildly their chargers range the pastures o’er--Their voice in battle shall be heard no more.And they, who still thy tyrant’s wrath survive,Whom he hath wrong’d too deeply to forgive,That race of lineage high, of worth approved,The chivalrous, the princely, the beloved--Thine Aben-Zurrahs--they no more shall wieldIn thy proud cause the conquering lance and shield:Condemn’d to bid the cherish’d scenes farewellWhere the loved ashes of their fathers dwell,And far o’er foreign plains as exiles roam,Their land the desert, and the grave their home.Yet there is one shall see that race departIn deep though silent agony of heart:One whose dark fate must be to mourn alone,Unseen her sorrows and their cause unknown,And veil her heart, and teach her cheek to wearThat smile in which the spirit hath no share--Like the bright beams that shed their fruitless glowO’er the cold solitude of Alpine snow.

Soft, fresh, and silent is the midnight hour,And the young Zayda seeks her lonely bower;That Zegri maid, within whose gentle mindOne name is deeply, secretly enshrined.That name in vain stern reason would efface:Hamet! ’tis thine, thou foe to all her race!

And yet not hers in bitterness to proveThe sleepless pangs of unrequited love--Pangs which the rose of wasted youth consume,And make the heart of all delight the tomb,Check the free spirit in its eagle flight,And the spring-morn of early genius blight:Not such her grief--though now she wakes to weep,While tearless eyes enjoy the honey-dews of sleep.

A step treads lightly through the citron-shade,Lightly, but by the rustling leaves betray’d--Doth her young hero seek that well-known spot,Scene of past hours that ne’er may be forgot?’Tis he--but changed that eye, whose glance of fireCould like a sunbeam hope and joy inspire,As, luminous with youth, with ardour fraught,It spoke of glory to the inmost thought:Thence the bright spirit’s eloquence hath fled,And in its wild expression may be readStem thoughts and fierce resolves--now veil’d in shade,And now in characters of fire portray’d.Changed e’en his voice--as thus its mournful toneWakes in her heart each feeling of his own.

“Zayda! my doom is fix’d--another dayAnd the wrong’d exile shall be far away;Far from the scenes where still his heart must be,His home of youth, and, more than all--from thee.Oh! what a cloud hath gather’d o’er my lotSince last we met on this fair tranquil spot!Lovely as then the soft and silent hour,And not a rose hath faded from thy bower;But I--my hopes the tempest hath o’erthrown,And changed my heart, to all but thee alone.Farewell, high thoughts! inspiring hopes of praise!Heroic visions of my early days!In me the glories of my race must end--The exile hath no country to defend!E’en in life’s morn my dreams of pride are o’er,Youth’s buoyant spirit wakes for me no more,And one wild feeling in my alter’d breastBroods darkly o’er the ruins of the rest.Yet fear not thou--to thee, in good or ill,The heart, so sternly tried, is faithful still!But when my steps are distant, and my nameThou hear’st no longer in the song of fame;When Time steals on, in silence to effaceOf early love each pure and sacred trace,Causing our sorrows and our hopes to seemBut as the moonlight pictures of a dream,--Still shall thy soul be with me, in the truthAnd all the fervour of affection’s youth?If such thy love, one beam of heaven shall playIn lonely beauty o’er thy wanderer’s way.”

“Ask not if such my love! Oh! trust the mindTo grief so long, so silently resign’d!Let the light spirit, ne’er by sorrow taughtThe pure and lofty constancy of thought,Its fleeting trials eager to forget,Rise with elastic power o’er each regret!Foster’d in tears, our young affection grew,And I have learn’d to suffer and be true.Deem not my love a frail, ephemeral flower,Nursed by soft sunshine and the balmy shower;No! ’tis the child of tempests, and defies,And meets unchanged, the anger of the skies!Too well I feel, with grief’s prophetic heart,That ne’er to meet in happier days we part.We part! and e’en this agonising hour,When love first feels his own o’erwhelming power,Shall soon to memory’s fix’d and tearful eyeSeem almost happiness--for thou wert nigh!Yes! when this heart in solitude shall bleed,As days to days all wearily succeed,When doom’d to weep in loneliness, ’twill beAlmost like rapture to have wept with thee!

“But thou, my Hamet! thou canst yet bestowAll that of joy my blighted lot can know.Oh! be thou still the high-soul’d and the brave,To whom my first and fondest vows I gave;In thy proud fame’s untarnish’d beauty stillThe lofty visions of my youth fulfil.So shall it soothe me, midst my heart’s despair,To hold undimm’d one glorious image there!”

“Zayda, my best-beloved! my words too well,Too soon, thy bright illusions must dispel;Yet must my soul to thee unveil’d be shown,And all its dreams and all its passions known.Thou shalt not be deceived--for pure as heavenIs thy young love, in faith and fervour given.I said my heart was changed--and would thy thoughtExplore the ruin by thy kindred wrought,In fancy trace the land whose towers and fanes,Crush’d by the earthquake, strew its ravaged plains;And such that heart where desolation’s handHath blighted all that once was fair or grand!But Vengeance, fix’d upon her burning throne,Sits midst the wreck in silence and alone;And I, in stem devotion at her shrine,Each softer feeling, but my love, resign.Yes! they whose spirits all my thoughts control,Who hold dread converse with my thrilling soul;They, the betray’d, the sacrificed, the brave,Who fill a blood-stain’d and untimely grave,Must be avenged! and pity and remorseIn that stem cause are banish’d from my course.Zayda! thou tremblest--and thy gentle breastShrinks from the passions that destroy my rest;Yet shall thy form, in many a stormy hour,Pass brightly o’er my soul with softening power,And, oft recall’d, thy voice beguile my lot,Like some sweet lay, once heard, and ne’er forgot.

“But the night wanes--the hours too swiftly fly,The bitter moment of farewell draws nigh;Yet, loved one! weep not thus--in joy or pain,Oh! trust thy Hamet, we shall meet again!Yes, we shall meet! and haply smile at lastOn all the clouds and conflicts of the past.On that fair vision teach thy thoughts to dwell,Nor deem these mingling tears our last farewell!”

Is the voice hush’d, whose loved expressive toneThrill’d to her heart--and doth she weep alone?Alone she weeps; that hour of parting o’er,When shall the pang it leaves be felt no more?The gale breathes light, and fans her bosom fair,Showering the dewy rose-leaves o’er her hair;But ne’er for her shall dwell reviving powerIn balmy dew, soft breeze, or fragrant flower,To wake once more that calm serene delight,The soul’s young bloom, which passion’s breath could blight--The smiling stillness of life’s morning hour,Ere yet the day-star burns in all his power.Meanwhile, through groves of deep luxurious shade,In the rich foliage of the South array’d,Hamet, ere dawns the earliest blush of day,Bends to the vale of tombs his pensive way.Fair is that scene where palm and cypress waveOn high o’er many an Aben-Zurrah’s grave.Lonely and fair, its fresh and glittering leavesWith the young myrtle there the laurel weaves,To canopy the dead; nor wanting thereFlowers to the turf, nor fragrance to the air,Nor wood-bird’s note, nor fall of plaintive stream--Wild music, soothing to the mourner’s dream.There sleep the chiefs of old--their combats o’er,The voice of glory thrills their hearts no more.Unheard by them th’ awakening clarion blows;The sons of war at length in peace repose.No martial note is in the gale that sighsWhere proud their trophied sepulchres arise,Mid founts, and shades, and flowers of brightest bloom--As, in his native vale, some shepherd’s tomb.

There, where the trees their thickest foliage spreadDark o’er that silent valley of the dead;Where two fair pillars rise, embower’d and lone,Not yet with ivy clad, with moss o’ergrown,Young Hamet kneels--while thus his vows are pour’d,The fearful vows that consecrate his sword:--“Spirit of him who first within my mindEach loftier aim, each nobler thought enshrined,And taught my steps the line of light to traceLeft by the glorious fathers of my race,Hear thou my voice!--for thine is with me still,In every dream its tones my bosom thrill,In the deep calm of midnight they are near,Midst busy throngs they vibrate on my ear,Still murmuring ‘vengeance!’--nor in vain the call,Few, few shall triumph in a hero’s fall!Cold as thine own to glory and to fame,Within my heart there lives one only aim;There, till th’ oppressor for thy fate atone,Concentring every thought, it reigns alone.I will not weep--revenge, not grief, must be,And blood, not tears, an offering meet for thee;But the dark hour of stern delight will come,And thou shalt triumph, warrior! in thy tomb.

“Thou, too, my brother! thou art pass’d away,Without thy fame, in life’s fair dawning day.Son of the brave! of thee no trace will shineIn the proud annals of thy lofty line;Nor shall thy deeds be deathless in the laysThat hold communion with the after-days.Yet, by the wreaths thou might’st have nobly won,Hadst thou but lived till rose thy noontide sun;By glory lost, I swear! by hope betray’d,Thy fate shall amply, dearly, be repaid:War with thy foes I deem a holy strife,And to avenge thy death devote my life.

“Hear ye my vows, O spirits of the slain!Hear, and be with me on the battle-plain!At noon, at midnight, still around me bide,Rise on my dreams, and tell me how ye died!”

Transcriber’s Note: Anchor not found on original page 68 footnote3. An extreme redness in the sky is the presage of the Simoom.--SeeBruce’s Travels.