On visionary schemes debate, To snatch the Rayals from their fate. So let them ease their hearts with prate Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew; I have a love for freedom too. Ay! let me like the ocean-Patriarch roam Or only know on land the Tartar's home! My tent on shore, my galley on the sea, Are more than cities and Serais to me: Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail, Across the desert, or before the gale, Bound where thou wilt, my barb! or glide, my prow! But be the star that guides the wanderer, Thou! Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark; The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark! Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life! The evening beam that smiles the clouds come When cities cage us in a social home: There ev'n thy soul might err-how oft the heart Corruption shakes which peril could not part! And woman, more than man, whe death or woe, Or even Disgrace, would lay her love: low, Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame-Away suspicion !-not Zuleika's name! But life is hazard at the best; and here No more remains to win, and much to fear: Yes, fear! the doubt, the dread of losing thee, By Osman's power, and Giaflir's stern decree. That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale, Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail : No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest, Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest. With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms; Earth-sea alike-our world within ou arms! Ay-let the loud winds whistle o'er the deck, So that those arms cling closer round my neck: "His head and faith from doubt and death Return'd in time my guard to save; Perchance his life who gave thee thine, With me this hour away-away! But yet, though thou art plighted Wouldst thou recall thy willing vow, Zuleika, mute and motionless, But ere her lip, or even her eye, Another-and another-and another"Oh! fly-no more-yet now my more than brother!" Far, wide, through every thicket spread One kiss, Zuleika-'tis my last : But yet my band not far from shore May hear this signal, see the flash; Yet now too few-the attempt were rash: No matter-yet one effort more." Forth to the cavern mouth he stept; His pistol's echo rang on high, Zuleika started not, nor wept, Despair benumb'd her breast and eye! "They hear me not, or if they ply Their oars 'tis but to see me die; Then forth my father's scimitar, Yet stay within--here linger safe, One bound he made, and gain'd the sand: Already at his feet hath sunk The foremost of the prying band, A gasping head, a quivering trunk : Another falls-but round him close A swarming circle of his foes; From right to left his path he cleft, And almost met the meeting wave: His boat appears-nct five oars' lengthHis comrades strain with desperate strength- Oh! are they yet in time to save? His and are plunging in the bay, Escaped from shot, unharm'd by steel, For her his eye but sought in vain? That pause, that fatal gaze he took, Hath doom'd his death, or fix'd his chain. Sad proof, in peril and in pain, Whose bullet through the night-air sang, Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling, The whiteness of the sea-foam troubling If aught his lips essay'd to groan, Morn slowly rolls the clouds away; Few trophies of the fight are there: The shouts that shook the midnight-bay Are silent; but some signs of fray That strand of strife may bear, And fragments of each shiver'd brand Steps stamp'd; and dash'd into the sand The print of many a struggling hand May there be mark'd; nor far remote A broken torch, an oarless boat; And tangled on the weeds that heap The beach where shelving to the deep There lies a white capote! "T is rent in twain--one dark-red stain The wave yet ripples o'er in vain; But where is he who wore? Ye! who would o'er his relics weep, Go, seek them where the surges sweep Their burthen round Sigæum's steep And cast on Lemnos' shore : The sea-birds shriek above the prey, O'er which their hungry beaks delay, That hand, whose motion is not life, Within a living grave? The bird that tears that prostrate form Yea-closed before his own! The worm that will not sleep--and never dies; Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night, That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light, That winds around, and tears the quivering heart! Ah! wherefore not consume it-and depart! Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief! Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs dost spread: By that same hand Abdallah-Selim: bled. Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief. Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed, She, whom thy sultan had but seen to wed, Thy Daughter's dead! Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam, The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream. What quench'd its ray?—the blood that thou hast shed! Hark! to the hurried question of Despair: "Where is my child?"-an Echo answers-Where?" Within the place of thousand tombs That shine beneath, while dark above The sad but living cypress glooms And withers not, though branch and leaf Are stamp'd with an eternal grief, Like early unrequited Love, Its lonely lustre, meek and pale: So white- -so faint-the slightest gale Might whirl the leaves on high: And yet, though storms and blight assail, And hands more rude than wintry sky For well may maids of Helle deem That this can be no earthly flower, Which mocks the tempest's withering hour, And buds unshelter'd by a bower; Nor droops though Spring refuse bei shower, Nor woos the summer beam: But soft as harp that Houri strings It were the Bulbul; but his throat, Though mournful, pours not such a strain: For they who listen cannot leave And yet so sweet the tears they shed, And longer yet would weep and wake, And some have been who could believe, (So fondly youthful dreams deceive, Yet harsh be they that blame,) That note so piercing and profound Will shape and syllable its sound Into Zuleika's name. 'Tis from her cypress summit heard, And hence extended by the billow, Where first it lay that mourning lower Hath flourish'd; flourisheth this hour, Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale; As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale! November, 1813. November 29, 1813. ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE "Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo Invenies?"-Juvenal, Sat. x. "T IS done but yesterday a King! And arm'd with Kings to strive And now thou art a nameless thing: So abject-yet alive! Is this the man of thousand thrones, Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones, And can he thus survive? Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind save, Thine only gift hath been the grave, Thanks for that lesson-It will teach That led them to adore The triumph and the vanity, The rapture of the strife- To thee the breath of life; All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be The madness of thy memory! The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! The Arbiter of others' fate A Suppliant for his own! Is it some yet imperial hope That with such change can calmly cope? To die a prince-or live a slave- He who of old would rend the oak, And darker fate hast found: The Roman, when his burning heart The Spaniard, when the lust of sway A strict accountant of his beads, Yet better had he neither known But thou-from thy reluctant hand It is enough to grieve the heart To see thine own unstrung; To think that God's fair world hath been And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, And thank'd him for a throne! In humblest guise have shown. If thou hadst died as honor dies. To shame the world again- Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust To all that pass away: 1 The Emperor Charles V |