The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds
shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous j and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless — they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: —a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails—men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food.
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress—he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton handi
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
j Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects—saw, and shriek'd, and died —
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Scasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless —
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge—
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
1 [" Darkness" is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the heavenly bodies : executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical solution of Incidents. The very conception is terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry—Jefprby.]
* [On the sheet containing the original draught of these lines. Lord Byron has written : — " The following poem (as most that 1 have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet — Its beauties and its defects: I say the ttyle; for the thoughts I claim as my own. in this, if there be any thing ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth ; of whom there can exbt few greater admirers than myself. 1 have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as delects ot his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional." ]
And the clouds perish'd 1 Darkness had no need Of aid from them — She was the Universe.1
Dlodati, July, MI6.
CHURCHILL'S GRAVE;'
A FACT LITJ-.RALLT DIDBIft
I Stood beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and 1 saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd
Through the thick deaths of half a century?
And thus he answer'd —" Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
ile died before my day of Sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave.''
And is this all? I thought, —and do we rip
The veil of Immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight,
So soon, and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought.
Were it not that all life must end in one.
Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught
As't were the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he, —•" 1 believe the man of whom
Tou wot, who lies In this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,—and myself whate'er
Tour honour pleases,"—then most pleased I s
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as't were
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently: — Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones I all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I—for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that Old Sexton's natural homily.
In which there was Obscurity and Fame—
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name. 3
3 [" The Grave of Churchill might hare called from Lar4 Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they reoeraily differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of ChurcbiU flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and pof-ulanrr which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exoiiet an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity o4 mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pu*he«i to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy eeyuod the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. Both died in the flower of tbdr at?e in a foreign land."—Sie Walter Scott—ChurcaiU died at Boulogne, November 4, 1764, in the thirty-third year
of his age "Though his associates obtained Christian tairka!
for him, by bringing the body to Dover, where it was i"*— in the old cemetery which once belonged to toe tr' church of St. Martin, they inscribed upon bis t—■■
PROMETHEUS.
Titan I to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and Intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness.
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity
Was thine—and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack j
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in bis Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Soil in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallled existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself — and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter'd recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.
Oiodati, July, 1816.
of any consolatory or monitory text, this Epicurean line one of bis own poems — Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies." / Cooper, Toi. II. p. 159 ]
A FRAGMENT.
Could I remount the river of my years
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,
I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers,
But bid it flow as now — until it glides
Into the number of the nameless tides. • « • •
What is this Death ? —a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For life is but a vision—what I see
Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so — the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrances our hours of rest
The absent are the dead—for they arc cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless, — or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided—equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both — but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.
The under-earth inhabitants—are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?
Or have they their own language ? and a sense
Of breathless being ?—darken'd and intense
As midnight in her solitude ? —Oh Earth!
Where are the past ?—and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors—and we
But bubbles on thy surface ; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more. • • • •
Dlodati, July, 18IG.
SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN.
Rousseau—Voltaire—our Gibbon—andDe Stat'.— Leman1! these names are worthy of thy shore, Thy shore of names like these ! wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous ; but by ilu-e
How much more, Lake of Beauty 1 do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,
The wild glow of that not ungentle real,
Which of the heirs of immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real 1
Dlodati, July, 1816.
i Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. — [See ante, p. 35.— "1 have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the lllloUe before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express, with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and too beauty of their reality." — Byron Letters, 1816.]
ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO
DEL SITIO T TOMA DE ALHAMI. 1
El qua! dezia en Amigo asst.
Passe A Va sx el Rey Moro
Por la ciudad de Granada,
Desde las puertas de Elvira
Hasta las de Bivarambla.
Ay de ml, Albama!
Cartas le fueron venidas
Que Alhama era ganada.
Las cartas echó en el fuego,
Y al raensagero matava.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Descavalga de una muía,
Y en un cavallo cavaiga.
Por el Zacatín arriba
Subido se avia al Aibambra.
Ay de mi, Alhama I
Como en el Alhambra estuvo,
Al mismo punto mandava
Que se toquen las trompetas
Con añafiles de plata.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Y que atambores de guerra
Apriessa toquen alarma;
Por que lo oygan sus Moros,
Los de la Vega y Granada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Los Moros que el son oyeron,
Que al sangriento Marte llama,
Cno a uno, y dos a dos,
Un gran esquadron formavan.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Alli hablo un Moro viejo;
Dota manera hablava: —
Para que nos llamas, Rey?
Para que es este llamada?
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Aveys de saber, amigos.
Una nueva desdichada:
Que Christianos, con braveza,
Ta nos han tomado Alhama.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Alli habló un viejo Alfaqui,
De barba crecida y cana: —
Bien se te emplea, buen Rey,
Buen Rey ; bien se te empleava.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Mataste los Bencerrages,
Que era la flor de Granada:
Cogiste los tornadizos
De Cordova la nombrada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Por csso mereces, Rey,
Una pene bien doblada;
Que te pierdas tu y el reyno,
Y que se pierda Granada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
* The effect of the original ballad—which existed both n Spanish and Arabic — vas such that it vas
A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD
ON THE SIIOE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA, Which, in the Arabic language, it to tkefoUovmg purport.
The Moorish King rides up and down
Through Granada's royal town;
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe Is me, Albania!
Letters to the monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
He quits his mule, and mounts his hone,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatín
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!
When the Alhambra walls be gain'd,
On the moment he ordain'd
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.
Woe is me, Alhama:
And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain.
Woe Is mc.
Then the Moors, by this aware
That bloody Mars recall'd them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.
Woe is me, Alhama!
Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh King?
What may mean this gathering?"
Woe is me, Alhama'.
"Friends I ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow,
That the Christians, stern and bold.
Have obtain'd Alhama's hold."
Woe is me, Alhama!
Out then spake old Alfaqui,
With his beard so white to see,
"Good King! thou art justly served.
Good King 1 this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Albama:
"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerragc, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee
Of Cordova the Chivalry.
Woe Is me, Albama!
"And for this, oh King ! is sent
On thee a double chastisement:
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm.
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
Woe is me, Alhama!
to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within C
Si no se respetan leyes,
Es ley que todo se pierda;
T que se pierda Granada,
T que te pierdas en ella.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Fuego por los ojos vierte,
El Rey que esto oyera.
T como el otro de leyes
De leyes también hablava.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Sabe un Rey que no ay leyes
De darle a Reyes disgusto —
Esso dize el Rey Moro
Relinchando de colera.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Moro Alfaqui, Moro Alfaqui,
£1 de la vellida barba,
El Rey te manda prender,
Por la perdida de Alhama.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
T cortarte la cabeza,
T ponerla en el Alhambra,
Por que a ti castigo sea,
T otros tiemblen en miralla.
Ay de mi, Alhama:
Cavalleros, hombres buenos,
Dczid de mi parte al Rey,
Al Rey Moro de Granada,
Como no le devo nada.
Ay de mi, Alhama 1
De averse Alhama perdido
A mi me pesa en el alma.
Que si el Rey perdió su tierra.
Otro mucho mas perdiera.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Perdieran hijos padres,
Y casados las casadas:
! .a, cosas que mas amara Perdió 1' un y el otro fama.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Perdí una luja donzella
Que era la flor d' esta tierra,
Cien doblas dava por ella.
No me las estimo en nada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Diziendo assi al hacen Alfaqui,
Le cortaron la cabeca,
Y la elevan al Alhambra,
Assi come el Rey lo manda.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Hombres, niños y mugeres, . Lloran tan grande perdida. Lloravan todas las damas Quantas en Granada avia.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
Por las calles y ventanas
Mucho luto parecía;
Llora el Rey como fembra,
Qu' es mucho lo que perdía.
Ay de mi, Alhama!
"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law;
And Granada must be won.
And thyself with her undone."
Woe Is me, Alhama!
Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's eyes.
The Monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answer'd, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.
Woe Is me, Alhama!
"There Is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings : " —
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish King, and doom'd him dead.
Woe is me, Alhama:
Moor Alfaqui I Moor Alfaqui!
Though thy beard so hoary be,
The King hath sent to have thee seized,
For Alhama's loss displeased.
Woe is me, Alhama.'
And to fix thy head upon
High Alhambra's loftiest stone;
That this for thee should be the law,
And others tremble when they saw.
Woe i9 me, Alhama!
"Cavalier, and man of worth!
Let these words of mine go forth;
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe.
Woe is me, Alhama!
"But on my soul Alhama weighs,
And on my Inmost spirit preys;
And if the King his land hath lost,
Yet others may have lost the most
Woe is me, Alhama I
"Sires have lost their children, wives
Their lords, and valiant men their lives;
One what best his love might claim
Hath lost, another wealth, or fame.
Woe is me, Alhama!
"I lost a damsel in that hour.
Of all the land the loveliest flower;
Doubloons a hundred I would pay,
And think her ransom cheap that day."
Woe is me, Alhama 1
And as these things the old Moor said,
They sevcr'd from the trunk his head;
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed
'Twas carried, as the King decreed.
Woe is me, Alhama 1
And men and infants therein weep
Their loss, so heavy and so deep:
Granada's ladies, all she rears
Within her walls, burst into tears.
Woe is mc, Alhama!
And from the windows o'er the walls
The sable web of mourning falls;
The King weeps as a woman o'er
His loss, for it Is much and sore.
Woe is me, Alhama'.
SONETTO DI VITTORELLL
»R MONACA.
Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cm era morta poco innanzl una flglia appena maritata; c diretto ai geuitore della tacra sposa.
Di due vaghe donzelle, onestc, accorte
Lteti e miseri padri 11 clel nc feo,
II ml, che degne di piu nobil sorte
L' una e 1' altra veggcndo, ambo chiedeo.
La mla fu tolta da veloce raorte
A le fumantl tcdc d' imeneo:
La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte
Eterna prigloniera or si rendeo.
Ma tu almeno potrai de la gelosa
IrTemeabil sogUa, ove s' ascondc,
La sua tenera udir voce pietosa.
lo verso un flume d' amarissim' onde,
Corro a quel marmo, in cui la flglia or posa,
Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun rlsponde.
TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLL
OX A NUN.
Sonnet composed In the name of a father, whose daughter had recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the father of her who had lately taken the veil.
Or two fair virgins, modest, though admired.
Heaven made us happy, and now, wretched sires; Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires, And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired
Becomes extinguished, soon— too soon —expires:
But thine, within the closing grate retired.
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.
But tliou at least from out the jealous door,
Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes,
May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:
I to the marble, where my daughter lies,
Rush,—the swoln flood of bitterness I pour. And knock, and knock, and knock — but none replies.
STANZAS FOR MUSIC
Bright be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wcrt all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be; And our sorrow may cease to repine
When we know that thy God is with thee.
Light be the turf of thy tomb!
May its verdure like emeralds be! There should not be the shadow of gloom,
In aught that reminds us of thee. Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest: But nor cypress nor yew let us see;
For why should we mourn for the blest?
STANZAS FOR MUSIC
They say that Hope is happiness;
But genuine Love must prize the past. And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first—they set the last;
And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be, And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.
Alas! it is delusion all:
The future cheats us from afar.
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.
1 [" This should have been written fifteen moons ago: the first stanza was. I am just come out from an hour's swim in the Adriatic." — Lord Huron to Mr. Moore, July 10. 1817.J
2 [" The Helen of Canova (a bust which is In the house
TO THOMAS MOORE.
Mr boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee:
Here's a sigh to those who love mc,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
Though the ocean roar around me.
Yet it still shall bear me on; Though a desert should surround me.
It hath springs that may be won.
Were't the last drop In the well,
As I gasp'd upon the brink. Ere my fainting spirit fell,
Tls to thee that I would drink.
With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be—peace with thine and mine.
And a health to thee, Tom Moore.
July, 1UT.<
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