Canto VI

Beside the dimness of the glimmering sea,Weaving swift language from impassioned themes,With that dear friend I lingered, who to meSo late had been restored, beneath the gleamsOf the silver stars; and ever in soft dreamsOf future love and peace sweet converse lappedOur willing fancies, till the pallid beamsOf the last watchfire fell, and darkness wrappedThe waves, and each bright chain of floating fire was snapped;

And till we came even to the City's wallAnd the great gate; then, none knew whence or why,Disquiet on the multitudes did fall:And first, one pale and breathless passed us by,And stared and spoke not;--then with piercing cryA troop of wild-eyed women, by the shrieksOf their own terror driven,--tumultuouslyHither and thither hurrying with pale cheeks,Each one from fear unknown a sudden refuge seeks--

Then, rallying cries of treason and of dangerResounded: and--'They come! to arms! to arms!The Tyrant is amongst us, and the strangerComes to enslave us in his name! to arms!'In vain: for Panic, the pale fiend who charmsStrength to forswear her right, those millions sweptLike waves before the tempest--these alarmsCame to me, as to know their cause I leptOn the gate's turret, and in rage and grief and scorn I wept!

For to the North I saw the town on fire,And its red light made morning pallid now,Which burst over wide Asia;--louder, higher,The yells of victory and the screams of woeI heard approach, and saw the throng belowStream through the gates like foam-wrought waterfallsFed from a thousand storms--the fearful glowOf bombs flares overhead--at intervalsThe red artillery's bolt mangling among them falls.

And now the horsemen come--and all was doneSwifter than I have spoken--I beheldTheir red swords flash in the unrisen sun.I rushed among the rout, to have repelledThat miserable flight--one moment quelledBy voice and looks and eloquent despair,As if reproach from their own hearts withheldTheir steps, they stood; but soon came pouring thereNew multitudes, and did those rallied bands o'erbear.

I strove, as, drifted on some cataractBy irresistible streams, some wretch might striveWho hears its fatal roar:--the files compactWhelmed me, and from the gate availed to driveWith quickening impulse, as each bolt did riveTheir ranks with bloodier chasm:--into the plainDisgorged at length the dead and the aliveIn one dread mass, were parted, and the stainOf blood, from mortal steel fell o'er the fields like rain.

For now the despot's bloodhounds with their preyUnarmed and unaware, were gorging deepTheir gluttony of death; the loose arrayOf horsemen o'er the wide fields murdering sweep,And with loud laughter for their tyrant reapA harvest sown with other hopes; the while,Far overhead, ships from Propontis keepA killing rain of fire:--when the waves smileAs sudden earthquakes light many a volcano-isle,

Thus sudden, unexpected feast was spreadFor the carrion-fowls of Heaven.--I saw the sight--I moved--I lived--as o'er the heaps of dead,Whose stony eyes glared in the morning lightI trod;--to me there came no thought of flight,But with loud cries of scorn, which whoso heardThat dreaded death, felt in his veins the mightOf virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred,And desperation's hope in many hearts recurred.

A band of brothers gathering round me, made,Although unarmed, a steadfast front, and stillRetreating, with stern looks beneath the shadeOf gathered eyebrows, did the victors fillWith doubt even in success; deliberate willInspired our growing troop; not overthrownIt gained the shelter of a grassy hill,And ever still our comrades were hewn down,And their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown.

Immovably we stood--in joy I found,Beside me then, firm as a giant pineAmong the mountain-vapours driven around,The old man whom I loved--his eyes divineWith a mild look of courage answered mine,And my young friend was near, and ardentlyHis hand grasped mine a moment--now the lineOf war extended, to our rallying cryAs myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.

For ever while the sun was climbing HeavenThe horseman hewed our unarmed myriads downSafely, though when by thirst of carnage drivenToo near, those slaves were swiftly overthrownBy hundreds leaping on them:--flesh and boneSoon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaftOf the artillery from the sea was thrownMore fast and fiery, and the conquerors laughedIn pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.

For on one side alone the hill gave shelter,So vast that phalanx of unconquered men,And there the living in the blood did welterOf the dead and dying, which in that green glen,Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fenUnder the feet--thus was the butchery wagedWhile the sun clomb Heaven's eastern steep--but whenIt 'gan to sink--a fiercer combat raged,For in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.

Within a cave upon the hill were foundA bundle of rude pikes, the instrumentOf those who war but on their native groundFor natural rights: a shout of joyance sentEven from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent,As those few arms the bravest and the bestSeized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now presentA line which covered and sustained the rest,A confident phalanx, which the foes on every side invest.

That onset turned the foes to flight almost;But soon they saw their present strength, and knewThat coming night would to our resolute hostBring victory; so dismounting, close they drewTheir glittering files, and then the combat grewUnequal but most horrible;--and everOur myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew,Or the red sword, failed like a mountain riverWhich rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever.

Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kindOur human brethren mix, like beasts of blood,To mutual ruin armed by one behindWho sits and scoffs!--That friend so mild and good,Who like its shadow near my youth had stood,Was stabbed!--my old preserver's hoary hairWith the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewedUnder my feet!--I lost all sense or care,And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.

The battle became ghastlier--in the midstI paused, and saw, how ugly and how fellO Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd'stFor love. The ground in many a little dellWas broken, up and down whose steeps befellAlternate victory and defeat, and thereThe combatants with rage most horribleStrove, and their eyes started with cracking stare,And impotent their tongues they lolled into the air,

Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog's hanging;Want, and Moon-madness, and the pest's swift BaneWhen its shafts smite--while yet its bow is twanging--Have each their mark and sign--some ghastly stain;And this was thine, O War! of hate and painThou loathed slave! I saw all shapes of deathAnd ministered to many, o'er the plainWhile carnage in the sunbeam's warmth did seethe,Till twilight o'er the east wove her serenest wreath.

The few who yet survived, resolute and firmAround me fought. At the decline of dayWinding above the mountain's snowy termNew banners shone; they quivered in the rayOf the sun's unseen orb--ere night the arrayOf fresh troops hemmed us in--of those brave bandsI soon survived alone--and now I layVanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody handsI felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands,

When on my foes a sudden terror came,And they fled, scattering--lo! with reinless speedA black Tartarian horse of giant frameComes trampling over the dead, the living bleedBeneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,On which, like to an Angel, robed in white,Sate one waving a sword;--the hosts recedeAnd fly, as through their ranks with awful might,Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright;

And its path made a solitude.--I roseAnd marked its coming: it relaxed its courseAs it approached me, and the wind that flowsThrough night, bore accents to mine ear whose forceMight create smiles in death--the Tartar horsePaused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,And heard her musical pants, like the sweet sourceOf waters in the desert, as she said,'Mount with me, Laon, now'--I rapidly obeyed.

Then: 'Away! away!' she cried, and stretched her swordAs 'twere a scourge over the courser's head,And lightly shook the reins.--We spake no word,But like the vapour of the tempest fledOver the plain; her dark hair was dispreadLike the pine's locks upon the lingering blast;Over mine eyes its shadowy strings it spreadFitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's broad shadow passed.

And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust,His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray,And turbulence, as of a whirlwind's gustSurrounded us;--and still away! away!Through the desert night we sped, while she alwayGazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,Crowned with a marble ruin, in the rayOf the obscure stars gleamed;--its rugged breastThe steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.

A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:--From that lone ruin, when the steed that pantedPaused, might be heard the murmur of the motionOf waters, as in spots for ever hauntedBy the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchantedTo music, by the wand of Solitude,That wizard wild, and the far tents implantedUpon the plain, be seen by those who stoodThence marking the dark shore of Ocean's curved flood.

One moment these were heard and seen--anotherPassed; and the two who stood beneath that night,Each only heard, or saw, or felt the other;As from the lofty steed she did alight,Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest lightOf love and sadness made my lips feel paleWith influence strange of mournfullest delight,My own sweet Cythna looked), with joy did quail,And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.

And for a space in my embrace she rested,Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,While my faint arms her languid frame invested;At length she looked on me, and half unclosingHer tremulous lips, said, 'Friend, thy bands were losingThe battle, as I stood before the KingIn bonds.--I burst them then, and swiftly choosingThe time, did seize a Tartar's sword, and springUpon his horse, and swift, as on the whirlwind's wing,

'Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer,And we are here.'--Then, turning to the steed,She pressed the white moon on his front with pureAnd rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weedFrom the green ruin plucked, that he might feed;--But I to a stone seat that Maiden led,And, kissing her fair eyes, said, 'Thou hast needOf rest,' and I heaped up the courser's bedIn a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread.

Within that ruin, where a shattered portalLooks to the eastern stars, abandoned nowBy man, to be the home of things immortal,Memories, like awful ghosts which come and go,And must inherit all he builds below,When he is gone, a hall stood; o'er whose roofFair clinging weeds with ivy pale did grow,Clasping its gray rents with a verdurous woof,A hanging dome of leaves, a canopy moon-proof.

The autumnal winds, as if spell-bound, had madeA natural couch of leaves in that recess,Which seasons none disturbed, but, in the shadeOf flowering parasites, did Spring love to dressWith their sweet blooms the wintry lonelinessOf those dead leaves, shedding their stars, whene'erThe wandering wind her nurslings might caress;Whose intertwining fingers ever thereMade music wild and soft that filled the listening air.

We know not where we go, or what sweet dreamMay pilot us through caverns strange and fairOf far and pathless passion, while the streamOf life, our bark doth on its whirlpools bear,Spreading swift wings as sails to the dim air;Nor should we seek to know, so the devotionOf love and gentle thoughts be heard still thereLouder and louder from the utmost OceanOf universal life, attuning its commotion.

To the pure all things are pure! Oblivion wrappedOur spirits, and the fearful overthrowOf public hope was from our being snapped,Though linked years had bound it there; for nowA power, a thirst, a knowledge, which belowAll thoughts, like light beyond the atmosphere,Clothing its clouds with grace, doth ever flow,Came on us, as we sate in silence there,Beneath the golden stars of the clear azure air;--

In silence which doth follow talk that causesThe baffled heart to speak with sighs and tears,When wildering passion swalloweth up the pausesOf inexpressive speech:--the youthful yearsWhich we together passed, their hopes and fears,The blood itself which ran within our frames,That likeness of the features which endearsThe thoughts expressed by them, our very names,And all the winged hours which speechless memory claims,

Had found a voice--and ere that voice did pass,The night grew damp and dim, and, through a rentOf the ruin where we sate, from the morassA wandering Meteor by some wild wind sent,Hung high in the green dome, to which it lentA faint and pallid lustre; while the songOf blasts, in which its blue hair quivering bent,Strewed strangest sounds the moving leaves among;A wondrous light, the sound as of a spirit's tongue.

The Meteor showed the leaves on which we sate,And Cythna's glowing arms, and the thick tiesOf her soft hair, which bent with gathered weightMy neck near hers; her dark and deepening eyes,Which, as twin phantoms of one star that liesO'er a dim well, move, though the star reposes,Swam in our mute and liquid ecstasies,Her marble brow, and eager lips, like roses,With their own fragrance pale, which Spring but half uncloses.

The Meteor to its far morass returned:The beating of our veins one intervalMade still; and then I felt the blood that burnedWithin her frame, mingle with mine, and fallAround my heart like fire; and over allA mist was spread, the sickness of a deepAnd speechless swoon of joy, as might befallTwo disunited spirits when they leapIn union from this earth's obscure and fading sleep.

Was it one moment that confounded thusAll thought, all sense, all feeling, into oneUnutterable power, which shielded usEven from our own cold looks, when we had goneInto a wide and wild oblivionOf tumult and of tenderness? or nowHad ages, such as make the moon and sun,The seasons, and mankind their changes know,Left fear and time unfelt by us alone below?

I know not. What are kisses whose fire claspsThe failing heart in languishment, or limbTwined within limb? or the quick dying gaspsOf the life meeting, when the faint eyes swimThrough tears of a wide mist boundless and dim,In one caress? What is the strong controlWhich leads the heart that dizzy steep to climb,Where far over the world those vapours rollWhich blend two restless frames in one reposing soul?It is the shadow which doth float unseen,But not unfelt, o'er blind mortality,Whose divine darkness fled not from that greenAnd lone recess, where lapped in peace did lieOur linked frames, till, from the changing skyThat night and still another day had fled;And then I saw and felt. The moon was high,And clouds, as of a coming storm, were spreadUnder its orb,--loud winds were gathering overhead.

Cythna's sweet lips seemed lurid in the moon,Her fairest limbs with the night wind were chill,And her dark tresses were all loosely strewnO'er her pale bosom:--all within was still,And the sweet peace of joy did almost fillThe depth of her unfathomable look;--And we sate calmly, though that rocky hill,The waves contending in its caverns strook,For they foreknew the storm, and the gray ruin shook.

There we unheeding sate, in the communionOf interchanged vows, which, with a riteOf faith most sweet and sacred, stamped our union.--Few were the living hearts which could uniteLike ours, or celebrate a bridal nightWith such close sympathies, for they had sprungFrom linked youth, and from the gentle mightOf earliest love, delayed and cherished long,Which common hopes and fears made, like a tempest, strong.

And such is Nature's law divine, that thoseWho grow together cannot choose but love,If faith or custom do not interpose,Or common slavery mar what else might moveAll gentlest thoughts; as in the sacred groveWhich shades the springs of Ethiopian Nile,That living tree which, if the arrowy doveStrike with her shadow, shrinks in fear awhile,But its own kindred leaves clasps while the sunbeams smile;

And clings to them, when darkness may disseverThe close caresses of all duller plantsWhich bloom on the wide earth--thus we for everWere linked, for love had nursed us in the hauntsWhere knowledge, from its secret source enchantsYoung hearts with the fresh music of its springing,Ere yet its gathered flood feeds human wants,As the great Nile feeds Egypt; ever flingingLight on the woven boughs which o'er its waves are swinging.

The tones of Cythna's voice like echoes wereOf those far murmuring streams; they rose and fell,Mixed with mine own in the tempestuous air,--And so we sate, until our talk befellOf the late ruin, swift and horrible,And how those seeds of hope might yet be sown,Whose fruit is evil's mortal poison: well,For us, this ruin made a watch-tower lone,But Cythna's eyes looked faint, and now two days were gone

Since she had food:--therefore I did awakenThe Tartar steed, who, from his ebon maneSoon as the clinging slumbers he had shaken,Bent his thin head to seek the brazen rein,Following me obediently; with painOf heart, so deep and dread, that one caress,When lips and heart refuse to part againTill they have told their fill, could scarce expressThe anguish of her mute and fearful tenderness,

Cythna beheld me part, as I bestrodeThat willing steed--the tempest and the night,Which gave my path its safety as I rodeDown the ravine of rocks, did soon uniteThe darkness and the tumult of their mightBorne on all winds.--Far through the streaming rainFloating at intervals the garments whiteOf Cythna gleamed, and her voice once againCame to me on the gust, and soon I reached the plain.

I dreaded not the tempest, nor did heWho bore me, but his eyeballs wide and redTurned on the lightning's cleft exultingly;And when the earth beneath his tameless tread,Shook with the sullen thunder, he would spreadHis nostrils to the blast, and joyouslyMock the fierce peal with neighings;--thus we spedO'er the lit plain, and soon I could descryWhere Death and Fire had gorged the spoil of victory.

There was a desolate village in a woodWhose bloom-inwoven leaves now scattering fedThe hungry storm; it was a place of blood,A heap of hearthless walls;--the flames were deadWithin those dwellings now,--the life had fledFrom all those corpses now,--but the wide skyFlooded with lightning was ribbed overheadBy the black rafters, and around did lieWomen, and babes, and men, slaughtered confusedly.

Beside the fountain in the market-placeDismounting, I beheld those corpses stareWith horny eyes upon each other's face,And on the earth and on the vacant air,And upon me, close to the waters whereI stooped to slake my thirst;--I shrank to taste,For the salt bitterness of blood was there;But tied the steed beside, and sought in hasteIf any yet survived amid that ghastly waste.

No living thing was there beside one woman,Whom I found wandering in the streets, and sheWas withered from a likeness of aught humanInto a fiend, by some strange misery:Soon as she heard my steps she leaped on me,And glued her burning lips to mine, and laughedWith a loud, long, and frantic laugh of glee,And cried, 'Now, Mortal, thou hast deeply quaffedThe Plague's blue kisses--soon millions shall pledge the draught!

'My name is Pestilence--this bosom dry,Once fed two babes--a sister and a brother--When I came home, one in the blood did lieOf three death-wounds--the flames had ate the other!Since then I have no longer been a mother,But I am Pestilence;--hither and thitherI flit about, that I may slay and smother:--All lips which I have kissed must surely wither,But Death's--if thou art he, we'll go to work together!

'What seek'st thou here? The moonlight comes in flashes,--The dew is rising dankly from the dell--'Twill moisten her! and thou shalt see the gashesIn my sweet boy, now full of worms--but tellFirst what thou seek'st.'--'I seek for food.'--''Tis well,Thou shalt have food. Famine, my paramour,Waits for us at the feast--cruel and fellIs Famine, but he drives not from his doorThose whom these lips have kissed, alone. No more, no more!'

As thus she spake, she grasped me with the strengthOf madness, and by many a ruined hearthShe led, and over many a corpse:--at lengthWe came to a lone hut where on the earthWhich made its floor, she in her ghastly mirth,Gathering from all those homes now desolate,Had piled three heaps of loaves, making a dearthAmong the dead--round which she set in stateA ring of cold, stiff babes; silent and stark they sate.

She leaped upon a pile, and lifted highHer mad looks to the lightning, and cried: 'Eat!Share the great feast--to-morrow we must die!'And then she spurned the loaves with her pale feet,Towards her bloodless guests;--that sight to meet,Mine eyes and my heart ached, and but that sheWho loved me, did with absent looks defeatDespair, I might have raved in sympathy;But now I took the food that woman offered me;

And vainly having with her madness strivenIf I might win her to return with me,Departed. In the eastern beams of HeavenThe lightning now grew pallid--rapidly,As by the shore of the tempestuous seaThe dark steed bore me; and the mountain graySoon echoed to his hoofs, and I could seeCythna among the rocks, where she alwayHad sate with anxious eyes fixed on the lingering day.

And joy was ours to meet: she was most pale,Famished, and wet and weary, so I castMy arms around her, lest her steps should failAs to our home we went, and thus embraced,Her full heart seemed a deeper joy to tasteThan e'er the prosperous know; the steed behindTrod peacefully along the mountain waste;We reached our home ere morning could unbindNight's latest veil, and on our bridal-couch reclined.

Her chilled heart having cherished in my bosom,And sweetest kisses past, we two did shareOur peaceful meal:--as an autumnal blossomWhich spreads its shrunk leaves in the sunny air,After cold showers, like rainbows woven there,Thus in her lips and cheeks the vital spiritMantled, and in her eyes, an atmosphereOf health, and hope; and sorrow languished near it,And fear, and all that dark despondence doth inherit.