Selected Poems (121 page)

320

Even in the chase. Hast ever seen them, brother?

SALEMENES
: Is this a time for such fantastic trifling? –

If need be, wilt thou wear them?

SARDANAPALUS
:Will I not?

Oh! if it must be so, and these rash slaves

Will not be ruled with less, I’ll use the sword

325

Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff.

SALEMENES
: They say thy sceptre’s turn’d to that already.

SARDANAPALUS
: That’s false! but let them say so: the old Greeks,

Of whom our captives often sing, related

The same of their chief hero, Hercules,

330

Because he loved a Lydian queen: thou seest

The populace of all the nations seize

Each calumny they can to sink their sovereigns.

SALEMENES
: They did not speak thus of thy fathers.

SARDANAPALUS
:No;

They dared not. They were kept to toil and combat;

335

And never changed their chains but for their armour:

Now they have peace and pastime, and the license

To revel and to rail; it irks me not.

I would not give the smile of one fair girl

For all the popular breath that e’er divided

340

A name from nothing. What are the rank tongues

Of this vile herd, grown insolent with feeding,

That I should prize their noisy praise, or dread

Their noisome clamour?

SALEMENES
:You have said they are men;

As such their hearts are something.

SARDANAPALUS
:So my dogs’ are;

345

And better, as more faithful: – but, proceed;

Thou hast my signet: – since they are tumultuous,

Let them be temper’d, yet not roughly, till

Necessity enforce it. I hate all pain,

Given or received; we have enough within us,

350

The meanest vassal as the loftiest monarch,

Not to add to each other’s natural burthen

Of mortal misery, but rather lessen,

By mild reciprocal alleviation,

The fatal penalties imposed on life:

355

But this they know not, or they will not know.

I have, by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:

I made no wars, I added no new imposts,

I interfered not with their civic lives,

I let them pass their days as best might suit them,

360

Passing my own as suited me.

SALEMENES
:Thou stopp’st

Short of the duties of a king; and therefore

They say thou art unfit to be a monarch.

SARDANAPALUS
: They lie. - Unhappily, I am unfit

To be aught save a monarch; else for me

365

The meanest Mede might be the king instead.

SALEMENES
: There is one Mede, at least, who seeks to be so.

SARDANAPALUS
: What mean’st thou? – ’tis thy secret; thou desirest

Few questions, and I’m not of curious nature.

Take the fit steps; and, since necessity

370

Requires, I sanction and support thee. Ne’er

Was man who more desired to rule in peace

The peaceful only: if they rouse me, better

They had conjured up stern Nimrod from his ashes,

‘The mighty hunter.’ I will turn these realms

375

To one wide desert chase of brutes, who
were
,

But
mould
no more, by their own choice, be human.

What
they have found me, they belie;
that which

They yet may find me – shall defy their wish

To speak it worse; and let them thank themselves.

380

SALEMENES
: Then thou at last canst feel?

SARDANAPALUS
:Feel! who feels not

Ingratitude?

SALEMENES
: I will not pause to answer

With words, but deeds. Keep thou awake that energy

Which sleeps at times, but is not dead within thee,

385

And thou may’st yet be glorious in thy reign,

As powerful in thy realm. Farewell!

[
Exit
SALEMENES
.]

SARDANAPALUS
[
solus
]:Farewell!

He’s gone; and on his finger bears my signet,

Which is to him a sceptre. He is stern

As I am heedless; and the slaves deserve

To feel a master. What may be the danger,

390

I know not: he hath found it, let him quell it.

Must I consume my life – this little life –

In guarding against all may make it less?

It is not worth so much! It were to die

Before my hour, to live in dread of death,

395

Tracing revolt; suspecting all about me,

Because they are near; and all who are remote,

Because they are far. But if it should be so —

If they should sweep me off from earth and empire,

Why, what is earth or empire of the earth?

400

I have loved, and lived, and multiplied my image;

To die is no less natural than those

Acts of this clay! ’Tis true I have not shed

Blood as I might have done in oceans, till

My name became the synonyme of death –

405

A terror and a trophy. But for this

I feel no penitence; my life is love:

If I must shed blood, it shall be by force.

Till now, no drop from an Assyrian vein

Hath flow’d for me, nor hath the smallest coin

410

Of Nineveh’s vast treasures e’er been lavish’d

On objects which could cost her sons a tear:

If then they hate me, ’tis because I hate not:

If they rebel, ’tis because I oppress not.

Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,

415

And mowd down like the grass, else all we reap

Is rank abundance, and a rotten harvest

Of discontents infecting the fair soil,

Making a desert of fertility. –

I’ll think no more. — Within there, ho!

[
Enter an
ATTENDANT
.]

SARDANAPALUS
:Slave, tell

420

The Ionian Myrrha we would crave her presence.

ATTENDANT
: King, she is here.

[
MYRRHA
enters
.]

SARDANAPALUS
[
apart to
ATTENDANT
]: Away!

[Addressing
MYRRHA
]Beautiful being!

Thou dost almost anticipate my heart;

It throbb’d for thee, and here thou comest: let me

Deem that some unknown influence, some sweet oracle,

425

Communicates between us, though unseen,

In absence, and attracts us to each other.

MYRRHA
: There doth.

SARDANAPALUS
:I know there doth, but not its name:

What is it?

MYRRHA
: In my native land a God,

And in my heart a feeling like a God’s,

430

Exalted; yet I own ’tis only mortal;

For what I feel is humble, and yet happy –

That is, it would be happy; but —

[
MYRRHA
pauses
.]

SARDANAPALUS
:There comes

For ever something between us and what

We deem our happiness: let me remove

435

The barrier which that hesitating accent

Proclaims to thine, and mine is seal’d.

MYRRHA
: My lord! –

SARDANAPALUS
: My lord – my king – sire – sovereign;

thus it is –

For ever thus, address’d with awe. I ne’er

Can see a smile, unless in some broad banquet’s

440

Intoxicating glare, when the buffoons

Have gorged themselves up to equality,

Or I have quaff’d me down to their abasement.

Myrrha, I can hear all these things, these names,

Lord – king – sire – monarch – nay, time was I prized them;

445

That is, I suffer’d them – from slaves and nobles;

But when they falter from the lips I love,

The lips which have been press’d to mine, a chill

Comes o’er my heart, a cold sense of the falsehood

Of this my station, which represses feeling

450

In those for whom I have felt most, and makes me

Wish that I could lay down the dull tiara,

And share a cottage on the Caucasus

With thee, and wear no crowns but those of flowers.