Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing, | |
The shadows of the rocks advancing | |
170 | Start on the fisher’s eye like boat |
Of island-pirate or Mainote; | |
And fearful for his light caique, | |
He shuns the near but doubtful creek: | |
Though worn and weary with his toil, | |
175 | And cumber’d with his scaly spoil, |
Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar, | |
Till Port Leone’s safer shore | |
Receives him by the lovely light | |
That best becomes an Eastern night. | |
* * * * * | |
180 | Who thundering comes on blackest steed, |
With slacken’d bit and hoof of speed? | |
Beneath the clattering iron’s sound | |
The cavern’d echoes wake around | |
In lash for lash, and bound for bound; | |
185 | The foam that streaks the courser’s side |
Seems gather’d from the ocean-tide: | |
Though weary waves are sunk to rest, | |
There’s none within his rider’s breast; | |
And though to-morrow’s tempest lower, | |
190 | ‘Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour! |
I know thee not, I loathe thy race, | |
But in thy lineaments I trace | |
What time shall strengthen, not efface: | |
Though young and pale, that sallow front | |
195 | Is scathed by fiery passion’s brunt; |
Though bent on earth thine evil eye, | |
As meteor-like thou glidest by, | |
Right well I view and deem thee one | |
Whom Othman’s sons should slay or shun. | |
200 | On – on he hasten’d, and he drew |
My gaze of wonder as he flew: | |
Though like a demon of the night | |
He pass’d, and vanish’d from my sight, | |
His aspect and his air impress’d | |
205 | A troubled memory on my breast, |
And long upon my startled ear | |
Rung his dark courser’s hoofs of fear. | |
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep, | |
That, jutting, shadows o’er the deep; | |
210 | He winds around; he hurries by; |
The rock relieves him from mine eye; | |
For well I ween unwelcome he | |
Whose glance is fix’d on those that flee; | |
And not a star but shines too bright | |
215 | On him who takes such timeless flight. |
He wound along; but ere he pass’d | |
One glance he snatch’d, as if his last, | |
A moment check’d his wheeling steed, | |
A moment breathed him from his speed, | |
220 | A moment on his stirrup stood – |
Why looks he o’er the olive wood? | |
The crescent glimmers on the hill, | |
The Mosque’s high lamps are quivering still: | |
Though too remote for sound to wake | |
225 | In echoes of the far tophaike, |
The flashes of each joyous peal | |
Are seen to prove the Moslem’s zeal, | |
To-night, set Rhamazani’s sun; | |
To-night, the Bairam feast’s begun; | |
230 | To-night – but who and what art thou |
Of foreign garb and fearful brow? | |
And what are these to thine or thee, | |
That thou should’st either pause or flee? | |
He stood – some dread was on his face, | |
235 | Soon Hatred settled in its place: |
It rose not with the reddening flush | |
Of transient Anger’s hasty blush, | |
But pale as marble o’er the tomb, | |
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom. | |
240 | His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; |
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised, | |
And sternly shook his hand on high, | |
As doubting to return or fly: | |
Impatient of his flight delay’d, | |
245 | Here loud his raven charger neigh’d – |
Down glanced that hand, and grasp’d his blade; | |
That sound had burst his waking dream, | |
As Slumber starts at owlet’s scream. | |
The spur hath lanced his courser’s sides; | |
250 | Away, away, for life he rides: |
Swift as the hurl’d on high jerreed | |
Springs to the touch his startled steed; | |
The rock is doubled, and the shore | |
Shakes with the clattering tramp no more; | |
255 | The crag is won, no more is seen |
His Christian crest and haughty mien. | |
‘Twas but an instant he restrain’d | |
That fiery barb so sternly rein’d; | |
‘Twas but a moment that he stood, | |
260 | Then sped as if by death pursued: |
But in that instant o’er his soul | |
Winters of Memory seem’d to roll, | |
And gather in that drop of time | |
A life of pain, an age of crime. | |
265 | O’er him who loves, or hates, or fears, |
Such moment pours the grief of years: | |
What felt | |
By all that most distracts the breast? | |
That pause, which ponder’d o’er his fate, | |
270 | Oh, who its dreary length shall date! |
Though in Time’s record nearly nought, | |
It was Eternity to Thought! | |
For infinite as boundless space | |
The thought that Conscience must embrace, | |
275 | Which in itself can comprehend |
Woe without name, or hope, or end. | |
The hour is past, the Giaour is gone; | |
And did he fly or fall alone? | |
Woe to that hour he came or went! | |
280 | The curse for Hassan’s sin was sent |
To turn a palace to a tomb; | |
He came, he went, like the Simoom, | |
That harbinger of fate and gloom, | |
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath | |
285 | The very cypress droops to death – |
Dark tree, still sad when others’ grief is fled, | |
The only constant mourner o’er the dead! | |
The steed is vanish’d from the stall; | |
No serf is seen in Hassan’s hall; | |
290 | The lonely Spider’s thin gray pall |
Waves slowly widening o’er the wall; | |
The Bat builds in his Haram bower | |
And in the fortress of his power | |
The Owl usurps the beacon-tower; | |
295 | The wild-dog howls o’er the fountain’s brim, |
With baffled thirst, and famine, grim; | |
For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed, | |
Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread. | |
‘Twas sweet of yore to see it play | |
300 | And chase the sultriness of day, |
As springing high the silver dew | |
In whirls fantastically flew, | |
And flung luxurious coolness round | |
The air, and verdure o’er the ground. | |
305 | ‘Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were bright, |
To view the wave of watery light, | |
And hear its melody by night. | |
And oft had Hassan’s Childhood play’d | |
Around the verge of that cascade; | |
310 | And oft upon his mother’s breast |
That sound had harmonized his rest; | |
And oft had Hassan’s Youth along | |
Its bank been soothed by Beauty’s song; | |
And softer seem’d each melting tone | |
315 | Of Music mingled with its own. |
But ne’er shall Hassan’s Age repose | |
Along the brink at Twilight’s close: | |
The stream that fill’d that font is fled – | |
The blood that warm’d his heart is shed! | |
320 | And here no more shall human voice |
Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice. | |
The last sad note that swell’d the gale | |
Was woman’s wildest funeral wail: | |
That | |
325 | But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill: |
Though raves the gust, and floods the rain, | |
No hand shall close its clasp again. | |
On desert sands ’twere joy to scan | |
The rudest steps of fellow man, | |
330 | So here the very voice of Grief |
Might wake an Echo like relief – | |
At least ’t would say, ‘All are not gone; | |
There lingers Life, though but in one’– | |
For many a gilded chamber’s there, | |
335 | Which Solitude might well forbear; |