Mahmud: Cease!

MESSENGER:Your Sublime Highness,That Christian hound, the Muscovite Ambassador,Has left the city.--If the rebel fleetHad anchored in the port, had victoryCrowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome,Panic were tamer.--Obedience and Mutiny,Like giants in contention planet-struck,Stand gazing on each other.--There is peaceIn Stamboul.--

MAHMUD:Is the grave not calmer still?Its ruins shall be mine.

HASSAN:Fear not the Russian:The tiger leagues not with the stag at bayAgainst the hunter.--Cunning, base, and cruel,He crouches, watching till the spoil be won,And must be paid for his reserve in blood.After the war is fought, yield the sleek RussianThat which thou canst not keep, his deserved portionOf blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields,Rivers and seas, like that which we may win,But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves!

Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens,Navarin, Artas, Monembasia,Corinth, and Thebes are carried by assault,And every Islamite who made his dogsFat with the flesh of Galilean slavesPassed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood,Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death;But like a fiery plague breaks out anewIn deeds which make the Christian cause look paleIn its own light. The garrison of PatrasHas store but for ten days, nor is there hopeBut from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant,His wishes still are weaker than his fears,Or he would sell what faith may yet remainFrom the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway;And if you buy him not, your treasuryIs empty even of promises--his own coin.The freedman of a western poet-chiefHolds Attica with seven thousand rebels,And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont:The aged Ali sits in YaninaA crownless metaphor of empire:His name, that shadow of his withered might,Holds our besieging army like a spellIn prey to famine, pest, and mutiny;He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forthJoyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrorsThe ruins of the city where he reignedChildless and sceptreless. The Greek has reapedThe costly harvest his own blood matured,Not the sower, Ali--who has bought a truceFrom Ypsilanti with ten camel-loadsOf Indian gold.

MAHMUD:What more?

The Christian tribesOf Lebanon and the Syrian wildernessAre in revolt;--Damascus, Hems, AleppoTremble;--the Arab menaces Medina,The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,Who denies homage, claims investitureAs price of tardy aid. Persia demandsThe cities on the Tigris, and the GeorgiansRefuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus,Like mountain-twins that from each other's veinsCatch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm,Shake in the general fever. Through the city,Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek,And prophesyings horrible and newAre heard among the crowd: that sea of menSleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.A Dervise, learned in the Koran, preachesThat it is written how the sins of IslamMust raise up a destroyer even now.The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West,Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,But in the omnipresence of that SpiritIn which all live and are. Ominous signsAre blazoned broadly on the noonday sky:One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;It has rained blood; and monstrous births declareThe secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.The army encamped upon the CydarisWas roused last night by the alarm of battle,And saw two hosts conflicting in the air,The shadows doubtless of the unborn timeCast on the mirror of the night. While yetThe fight hung balanced, there arose a stormWhich swept the phantoms from among the stars.At the third watch the Spirit of the PlagueWas heard abroad flapping among the tents;Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead.The last news from the camp is, that a thousandHave sickened, and--

MAHMUD:And thou, pale ghost, dim shadowOf some untimely rumour, speak!

One comesFainting with toil, covered with foam and blood:He stood, he says, on Chelonites'Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groanUnder the Briton's frown, and all their watersThen trembling in the splendour of the moon,When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hidHer boundless light, he saw two adverse fleetsStalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer,Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,And smoke which strangled every infant windThat soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.At length the battle slept, but the SiroccoAwoke, and drove his flock of thunder-cloudsOver the sea-horizon, blotting outAll objects--save that in the faint moon-glimpseHe saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiralAnd two the loftiest of our ships of war,With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven,Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;And the abhorred cross--

NOTE:on Chelonites']on Chelonites "Errata";upon Clelonite's edition 1822;upon Clelonit's editions 1839.

ATTENDANT:Your Sublime Highness,The Jew, who--

MAHMUD:Could not come more seasonably:Bid him attend. I'll hear no more! too longWe gaze on danger through the mist of fear,And multiply upon our shattered hopesThe images of ruin. Come what will!To-morrow and to-morrow are as lampsSet in our path to light us to the edgeThrough rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aughtWhich He inflicts not in whose hand we are.

Would I were the winged cloudOf a tempest swift and loud!I would scornThe smile of mornAnd the wave where the moonrise is born!I would leaveThe spirits of eveA shroud for the corpse of the day to weaveFrom other threads than mine!Bask in the deep blue noon divine.Who would? Not I.

Whither to fly?

Where the rocks that gird th' AegeanEcho to the battle paeanOf the free--I would fleeA tempestuous herald of victory!My golden rainFor the Grecian slainShould mingle in tears with the bloody main,And my solemn thunder-knellShould ring to the world the passing-bellOf Tyranny!

Ah king! wilt thou chainThe rack and the rain?Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane?The storms are free,But we--

CHORUS:O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime,Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare!Thy touch has stamped these limbs with crime,These brows thy branding garland bear,But the free heart, the impassive soulScorn thy control!

Let there be light! said Liberty,And like sunrise from the sea,Athens arose!--Around her born,Shone like mountains in the mornGlorious states;--and are they nowAshes, wrecks, oblivion?

Go,Where Thermae and Asopus swallowedPersia, as the sand does foam:Deluge upon deluge followed,Discord, Macedon, and Rome:And lastly thou!

Temples and towers,Citadels and marts, and theyWho live and die there, have been ours,And may be thine, and must decay;But Greece and her foundations areBuilt below the tide of war,Based on the crystalline seaOf thought and its eternity;Her citizens, imperial spirits,Rule the present from the past,On all this world of men inheritsTheir seal is set.

Hear ye the blast,Whose Orphic thunder thrilling callsFrom ruin her Titanian walls?Whose spirit shakes the sapless bonesOf Slavery? Argos, Corinth, CreteHear, and from their mountain thronesThe daemons and the nymphs repeatThe harmony.

I hear! I hear!

The world's eyeless charioteer,Destiny, is hurrying by!What faith is crushed, what empire bleedsBeneath her earthquake-footed steeds?What eagle-winged victory sitsAt her right hand? what shadow flitsBefore? what splendour rolls behind?Ruin and renovation cry'Who but We?'

I hear! I hear!The hiss as of a rushing wind,The roar as of an ocean foaming,The thunder as of earthquake coming.I hear! I hear!The crash as of an empire falling,The shrieks as of a people calling'Mercy! mercy!'--How they thrill!Then a shout of 'kill! kill! kill!'And then a small still voice, thus--

ForRevenge and Wrong bring forth their kind,The foul cubs like their parents are,Their den is in the guilty mind,And Conscience feeds them with despair.

NOTE:Fear cj. Fleay, Forman, Dowden. See Editor's Note.

In sacred Athens, near the faneOf Wisdom, Pity's altar stood:Serve not the unknown God in vain.But pay that broken shrine again,Love for hate and tears for blood.

MAHMUD:Thou art a man, thou sayest, even as we.

AHASUERUS:No more!

MAHMUD:But raised above thy fellow-menBy thought, as I by power.

AHASUERUS:Thou sayest so.

MAHMUD:Thou art an adept in the difficult loreOf Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberestThe flowers, and thou measurest the stars;Thou severest element from element;Thy spirit is present in the Past, and seesThe birth of this old world through all its cyclesOf desolation and of loveliness,And when man was not, and how man becameThe monarch and the slave of this low sphere,And all its narrow circles--it is much--I honour thee, and would be what thou artWere I not what I am; but the unborn hour,Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting storms,Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, nor anyMighty or wise. I apprehended notWhat thou hast taught me, but I now perceiveThat thou art no interpreter of dreams;Thou dost not own that art, device, or God,Can make the Future present--let it come!Moreover thou disdainest us and ours;Thou art as God, whom thou contemplatest.

AHASUERUS:Disdain thee?--not the worm beneath thy feet!The Fathomless has care for meaner thingsThan thou canst dream, and has made pride for thoseWho would be what they may not, or would seemThat which they are not. Sultan! talk no moreOf thee and me, the Future and the Past;But look on that which cannot change--the One,The unborn and the undying. Earth and ocean,Space, and the isles of life or light that gemThe sapphire floods of interstellar air,This firmament pavilioned upon chaos,With all its cressets of immortal fire,Whose outwall, bastioned impregnablyAgainst the escape of boldest thoughts, repels themAs Calpe the Atlantic clouds--this WholeOf suns, and worlds, and men, and beasts, and flowers,With all the silent or tempestuous workingsBy which they have been, are, or cease to be,Is but a vision;--all that it inheritsAre motes of a sick eye, bubbles and dreams;Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor lessThe Future and the Past are idle shadowsOf thought's eternal flight--they have no being:Nought is but that which feels itself to be.

MAHMUD:What meanest thou? Thy words stream like a tempestOf dazzling mist within my brain--they shakeThe earth on which I stand, and hang like nightOn Heaven above me. What can they avail?They cast on all things surest, brightest, best,Doubt, insecurity, astonishment.

AHASUERUS:Mistake me not! All is contained in each.Dodona's forest to an acorn's cupIs that which has been, or will be, to thatWhich is--the absent to the present. ThoughtAlone, and its quick elements, Will, Passion,Reason, Imagination, cannot die;They are, what that which they regard appears,The stuff whence mutability can weaveAll that it hath dominion o'er, worlds, worms,Empires, and superstitions. What has thoughtTo do with time, or place, or circumstance?Wouldst thou behold the Future?--ask and have!Knock and it shall be opened--look, and lo!The coming age is shadowed on the PastAs on a glass.

MAHMUD:Wild, wilder thoughts convulseMy spirit--Did not Mahomet the SecondWin Stamboul?

AHASUERUS:Thou wouldst ask that giant spiritThe written fortunes of thy house and faith.Thou wouldst cite one out of the grave to tellHow what was born in blood must die.

MAHMUD:Thy wordsHave power on me! I see--

AHASUERUS:What hearest thou?

MAHMUD:A far whisper--Terrible silence.

AHASUERUS:What succeeds?

MAHMUD:The soundAs of the assault of an imperial city,The hiss of inextinguishable fire,The roar of giant cannon; the earthquakingFall of vast bastions and precipitous towers,The shock of crags shot from strange enginery,The clash of wheels, and clang of armed hoofs,And crash of brazen mail as of the wreckOf adamantine mountains--the mad blastOf trumpets, and the neigh of raging steeds,The shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood,And one sweet laugh, most horrible to hear,As of a joyous infant waked and playingWith its dead mother's breast, and now more loudThe mingled battle-cry,--ha! hear I not'En touto nike!' 'Allah-illa-Allah!'?

AHASUERUS:The sulphurous mist is raised--thou seest--

MAHMUD:A chasm,As of two mountains in the wall of Stamboul;And in that ghastly breach the Islamites,Like giants on the ruins of a world,Stand in the light of sunrise. In the dustGlimmers a kingless diadem, and oneOf regal port has cast himself beneathThe stream of war. Another proudly cladIn golden arms spurs a Tartarian barbInto the gap, and with his iron maceDirects the torrent of that tide of men,And seems--he is--Mahomet!

AHASUERUS:What thou seestIs but the ghost of thy forgotten dream.A dream itself, yet less, perhaps, than thatThou call'st reality. Thou mayst beholdHow cities, on which Empire sleeps enthroned,Bow their towered crests to mutability.Poised by the flood, e'en on the height thou holdest,Thou mayst now learn how the full tide of powerEbbs to its depths.--Inheritor of glory,Conceived in darkness, born in blood, and nourishedWith tears and toil, thou seest the mortal throesOf that whose birth was but the same. The PastNow stands before thee like an IncarnationOf the To-come; yet wouldst thou commune withThat portion of thyself which was ere thouDidst start for this brief race whose crown is death,Dissolve with that strong faith and fervent passionWhich called it from the uncreated deep,Yon cloud of war, with its tempestuous phantomsOf raging death; and draw with mighty willThe imperial shade hither.