Selected Poems (137 page)

MYRRHA
:You wax paler.

SALEMENES
: Your hand; this broken weapon but prolongs

My pangs, without sustaining life enough

130

To make me useful: I would draw it forth

And my life with it, could I but hear how

The fight goes.

[
Enter
SARDANAPALUS
and Soldiers
.]

SARDANAPALUS
: My best brother!

SALEMENES
:And the battle

Is lost?

SARDANAPALUS
[
despondingly
]: You see
me here
.

SALEMENES
: I’d rather see you
thus
!

[
He draws out the weapon from the wound, and dies
.]

SARDANAPALUS
: And
thus
I will be seen; unless the

succour,

135

The last frail reed of our beleaguer’d hopes,

Arrive with Ofratanes.

MYRRHA
:Did you not

Receive a token from your dying brother,

Appointing Zames chief?

SARDANAPALUS
:I did.

MYRRHA
:Where’s Zames?

SARDANAPALUS
: Dead.

MYRRHA
:And Altada?

SARDANAPALUS
:Dying.

MYRRHA
:Pania? Sfero?

140

SARDANAPALUS
: Pania yet lives; but Sfero’s fled or captive.

I am alone.

MYRRHA
: And is all lost?

SARDANAPALUS
:Our walls,

Though thinly mann’d, may still hold out against

Their present force, or aught save treachery:

But i’ the field —

MYRRHA
:I thought ’twas the intent

145

Of Salemenes not to risk a sally

Till ye were strenthen’d by the expected succours.

SARDANAPALUS
:
I
over-ruled him.

MYRRHA
:Well, the fault’s a brave one.

SARDANAPALUS
: But fatal. Oh, my brother! I would give

These realms, of which thou wert the ornament,

150

The sword and shield, the sole-redeeming honour,

To call back — But I will not weep for thee;

Thou shalt be mourn’d for as thou wouldst be mourn’d.

It grieves me most that thou couldst quit this life

Believing that I could survive what thou

155

Hast died for – our long royalty of race.

If I redeem it, I will give thee blood

Of thousands, tears of millions, for atonement

(The tears of all the good are thine already).

If not, we meet again soon, – if the spirit

160

Within us lives beyond: – thou readest mine,

And dost me justice now. Let me once clasp

That yet warm hand, and fold that throbless heart

[
Embraces the body
.]

To this which beats so bitterly. Now, bear

The body hence.

SOLDIER
: Where?

SARDANAPALUS
:To my proper chamber.

165

Place it beneath my canopy, as though

The king lay there: when this is done, we will

Speak further of the rites due to such ashes.

[
Exeunt Soldiers with the body of
SALEMENES
.]

[
Enter
PANIA
.]

SARDANAPALUS
: Well, Pania! have you placed the guards,

and issued

The orders fix’d on?

PANIA
:Sire, I have obey’d.

170

SARDANAPALUS
: And do the soldiers keep their hearts up?

PANIA
:Sire?

SARDANAPALUS
: I’m answer’d! When a king asks twice, and has

A question as an answer to
his
question,

It is a portent. What! they are dishearten’d?

PANIA
: The death of Salemenes, and the shouts

175

Of the exulting rebels on his fall,

Have made them —

SARDANAPALUS
:
Rage
– not droop – it should have been.

We’ll find the means to rouse them.

PANIA
:Such a loss

Might sadden even a victory.

SARDANAPALUS
:Alas!

Who can so feel it as I feel? but yet,

180

Though coop’d within these walls, they are strong, and we

Have those without will break their way through hosts,

To make their sovereign’s dwelling what it was –

A palace; not a prison, nor a fortress.

[
Enter an
OFFICER
,
hastily
.]

SARDANAPALUS
: Thy face seems ominous. Speak!

OFFICER
:I dare not

SARDANAPALUS
:Dare not?

185

While millions dare revolt with sword in hand!

That’s strange. I pray thee break that loyal silence

Which loathes to shock its sovereign; we can hear

Worse than thou hast to tell.

PANIA
:Proceed, thou hearest.

OFFICER
: The wall which skirted near the river’s brink

190

Is thrown down by the sudden inundation

Of the Euphrates, which now rolling, swoln

From the enormous mountains where it rises,

By the late rains of that tempestuous region,

O’erfloods its banks, and hath destroy’d the bulwark.

195

PANIA
: That’s a black augury! it has been said

For ages, ‘That the city ne’er should yield

To man, until the river grew its foe.’

SARDANAPALUS
: I can forgive the omen, not the ravage.

How much is swept down of the wall?

OFFICER
:About

200

Some twenty stadii.

SARDANAPALUS
: And all this is left

Pervious to the assailants?

OFFICER
:For the present

The river’s fury must impede the assault;

But when he shrinks into his wonted channel,

And may be cross’d by the accustom’d barks,

205

The palace is their own.

SARDANAPALUS
:That shall be never.

Though men, and gods, and elements, and omens,

Have risen up ’gainst one who ne’er provoked them,

My father’s house shall never be a cave

For wolves to horde and howl in.

PANIA
:With your sanction,

210

I will proceed to the spot, and take such measures

For the assurance of the vacant space

As time and means permit,

SARDANAPALUS
: About it straight,

And bring me back, as speedily as full

And fair investigation may permit,

215

Report of the true state of this irruption

Of waters.

[
Exeunt
PANIA
and the
OFFICER
.]

MYRRHA
: Thus the very waves rise up

Against you.

SARDANAPALUS
: They are not my subjects, girl,

And may be pardon’d, since they can’t be punish’d.

MYRRHA
: I joy to see this portent shakes you not.

220

SARDANAPALUS
: I am past the fear of portents: they can tell me

Nothing I have not told myself since midnight:

Despair anticipates such things.

MYRRHA
:Despair!

SARDANAPALUS
: No; not despair precisely. When we know

All that can come, and how to meet it, our

225

Resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble

Word than this is to give it utterances

But what are words to us? we have well nigh done

With them and all things.

MYRRHA
: Save
one deed
– the last

And greatest to all mortals; crowning act

230

Of all that was – or is – or is to be –

The only thing common to all mankind,

So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures,

Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects,

Without one point of union save in this,

235

To which we tend, for which we’re born, and thread

The labyrinth of mystery, call’d life.

SARDANAPALUS
: Our clew being well nigh wound out, let’s

be cheerful.