Selected Poems (135 page)

445

To heed no time nor presence, but approach you

Uncall’d for: – I retire.

SARDANAPALUS
:Yet stay – being here.

I pray you pardon me: events have sour’d me

Till I wax peevish – heed it not: I shall

Soon be myself again.

MYRRHA
:I wait with patience,

450

What I shall see with pleasure

SARDANAPALUS
:Scarce a moment

Before your entrance in this hall, Zarina,

Queen of Assyria, departed hence.

MYRRHA
: Ah!

SARDANAPALUS
: Wherefore do you start?

MYRRHA
:Did I do so?

SARDANAPALUS
: ’Twas well you enter’d by another portal,

455

Else you had met. That pang at least is spared her!

MYRRHA
: I know to feel for her.

SARDANAPALUS
:That is too much,

And beyond nature – ’tis nor mutual

Nor possible. You cannot pity her,

Nor she aught but —

MYRRHA
:Despise the favourite slave?

460

Not more than I have ever scorn’d myself.

SARDANAPALUS
: Scorn’d! what, to be the envy of your sex,

And lord it o’er the heart of the world’s lord?

MYRRHA
: Were you the lord of twice ten thousand worlds –

As you are like to lose the one you sway’d –

465

I did abase myself as much in being

Your paramour, as though you were a peasant –

Nay, more, if that the peasant were a Greek.

SARDANAPALUS
: You talk it well—

MYRRHA
:And truly.

SARDANAPALUS
:In the hour

Of man’s adversity all things grow daring

470

Against the falling; but as I am not

Quite fall’n, nor now disposed to bear reproaches,

Perhaps because I merit them too often,

Let us then part while peace is still between us.

MYRRHA
: Part!

SARDANAPALUS
: Have not all past human beings parted,

475

And must not all the present one day part?

MYRRHA
: Why?

SARDANAPALUS
: For your safety, which I will have look’d to,

With a strong escort to your native land;

And such gifts, as, if you had not been all

A queen, shall make your dowry worth a kingdom.

480

MYRRHA
: I pray you talk not thus.

SARDANAPALUS
:The queen is gone:

You need not shame to follow. I would fall

Alone – I seek no partners but in pleasure.

MYRRHA
: And I no pleasure but in parting not.

You shall not force me from you.

SARDANAPALUS
: Think well of it –

485

It soon may be too late.

MYRRHA
:So let it be;

For then you cannot separate me from you.

SARDANAPALUS
: And will not; but I thought you wish’d it.

MYRRHA
:I!

SARDANAPALUS
: You spoke of your abasement.

MYRRHA
:And I feel it

Deeply – more deeply than all things but love.

490

SARDANAPALUS
: Then fly from it.

MYRRHA
: Twill not recal the past–

’Twill not restore my honour, nor my heart.

No – here I stand or fall. If that you conquer,

I live to joy in your great triumph: should

Your lot be different, I’ll not weep, but share it.

495

You did not doubt me a few hours ago.

SARDANAPALUS
: Your courage never — nor your love till

now;

And none could make me doubt it save yourself.

Those words —

MYRRHA
:Were words. I pray you, let the proofs

Be in the past acts you were pleased to praise

500

This very night, and in my further bearing,

Beside, wherever you are borne by fate.

SARDANAPALUS
: I am content: and, trusting in my cause,

Think we may yet be victors and return

To peace – the only victory I covet.

505

To me war is no glory – conquest no

Renown. To be forced thus to uphold my right

Sits heavier on my heart than all the wrongs

These men would bow me down with. Never, never

Can I forget this night, even should I live

510

To add it to the memory of others.

I thought to have made mine inoffensive rule

An era of sweet peace ’midst bloody annals,

A green spot amidst desert centuries,

On which the future would turn back and smile,

515

And cultivate, or sigh when it could not

Recal Sardanapalus’ golden reign.

I thought to have made my realm a paradise,

And every moon an epoch of new pleasures.

I took the rabble’s shouts for love – the breath

520

Of friends for truth – the lips of woman for

My only guerdon – so they are, my Myrrha:

[
He kisses her
.]

Kiss me. Now let them take my realm and life!

They shall have both, but never thee!

MYRRHA
: No, never!

Man may despoil his brother man of all

525

That’s great or glittering – kingdoms fall – hosts yield –

Friends fail – slaves fly – and all betray – and, more

Than all, the most indebted – but a heart

That loves without self-love! ’Tis here – now prove it.

[
Enter
SALEMENES
.]

SALEMENES
: I sought you – How!
she
here again?

SARDANAPALUS
:Return not

530

Now
to reproof: methinks your aspect speaks

Of higher matter than a woman’s presence.

SALEMENES
: The only woman whom it much imports me

At such a moment now is safe in absence —

The queen’s embark’d.

SARDANAPALUS
:And well? say that much.

SALEMENES
:Yes.

535

Her transient weakness has pass’d o’er; at least,

It settled into tearless silence: her

Pale face and glittering eye, after a glance

Upon her sleeping children, were still fix’d

Upon the palace towers as the swift galley

540

Stole down the hurrying stream beneath the starlight;

But she said nothing.

SARDANAPALUS
:Would I felt no more

Than she has said!

SALEMENES
: ’Tis now too late to feel!

Your feelings cannot cancel a sole pang:

To change them, my advices bring sure tidings

545

That the rebellious Medes and Chaldees, marshall’d

By their two leaders, are already up

In arms again; and, serrying their ranks,

Prepare to attack: they have apparently

Been join’d by other satraps.

SARDANAPALUS
:What! more rebels?

550

Let us be first, then.

SALEMENES
:That were hardly prudent

Now, though it was our first intention. If

By noon to-morrow we are join’d by those

I’ve sent for by sure messengers, we shall be

In strength enough to venture an attack,

555

Ay, and pursuit too; but till then, my voice

Is to await the onset.

SARDANAPALUS
:I detest

That waiting; though it seems so safe to fight

Behind high walls, and hurl down foes into

Deep fosses, or behold them sprawl on spikes

560

Strew’d to receive them, still I like it not —

My soul seems lukewarm; but when I set on them,

Though they were piled on mountains, I would have

A pluck at them, or perish in hot blood! —

Let me then charge.

SALEMENES
:You talk like a young soldier.

565

SARDANAPALUS
: I am no soldier, but a man: speak not

Of soldiership, I loathe the word, and those

Who pride themselves upon it; but direct me

Where I may pour upon them.

SALEMENES
:You must spare

To expose your life too hastily; ’tis not

570

Like mine or any other subject’s breath: