Over those strong and secret things and thoughts
Which others fear and know not.
Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern
'Mid the Demonesi, less accessible
Than thou or God! He who would question him
Must sail alone at sunset, where the stream
Of ocean sleeps around those foamless isles
When the young moon is westering as now,
And evening airs wander upon the wave;
And when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle,
Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow
Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water;
Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud,
Ahasuerus! and the caverns round
Will answer, Ahasuerus! If his prayer
Be granted, a faint meteor will arise,
Lighting him over Marmora, and a wind
Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest,
And with the wind a storm of harmony
Unutterably sweet, and pilot him
Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus:
Thence, at the hour and place and circumstance
Fit for the matter of their conference,
The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare,
Win the desired communion-but that shout
Bodes-
[A shout without.
Evil, doubtless; like all human sounds. Let me converse with spirits.
This Jew whom thou hast summon'd
And Death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,
Clothe their unceasing flight
In the brief dust and light
Gather'd around their chariots as they go;
New shapes they still may weave,
New Gods, new laws receive;
Bright or dim are they, as the robes they last
On Death's bare ribs had cast.
A power from the unknown God;
A Promethean conqueror came;
Like a triumphal path he trod
The thorns of death and shame.
A mortal shape to him
Was like the vapor dim
Which the orient planet animates with light;
Hell, Sin and Slavery came,
Like blood-hounds mild and tame,
Nor prey'd until their lord had taken flight.
The moon of Mahomet
Arose, and it shall set:
While blazon'd as on Heaven's immortal noon
The cross leads generations on.
Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep
From one whose dreams are paradise,
Fly when the fond wretch wakes to weep,
And day peers forth with her blank eyes!
So fleet, so faint, so fair,
The powers of earth and air
Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem :
Apollo, Pan, and Love,
And even Olympian Jove
Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them.
Our hills, and seas, and streams,
Dispeopled of their dreams,
Their waters turn'd to blood, their dew to tears,
Wail'd for the golden years.
Enter MAHMUD, HASSAN, DAOOD, and others.
Will be here More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory,
And shall I sell it for defeat?
When the omnipotent hour, to which are yoked
He, I, and all things, shall compel-enough.
Silence those mutineers-that drunken crew
That crowd about the pilot in the storm.
Ay! strike the foremost shorter by a head!
They weary me, and I have need of rest.
Kings are like stars-they rise and set, they have
The worship of the world, but no repose.
CHORUS.*
Worlds on worlds are rolling ever
From creation to decay,
Like the bubbles on a river,
Sparkling, bursting, borne away;
But they are still immortal
Who, through birth's orient portal,
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or less exalted existence, according to the degree of perfection which every distinct intelligence may have attained. Let it not be supposed that I mean to dogmatize upon a subject concerning which all men are equally ignorant, or that I think the Gordian knot of the origin of evil can be disentangled by that or any similar assertions. The received hypothesis of a Being resembling men in the moral attributes of his nature, having called us out of non-existence, and after inflicting on us the misery of the commission of error, should superadd that of the punishment and the privations consequent upon it, still would remain inexplicable and incredible. That there is a true solution of the riddle, and that in our present state that solution is • The popular notions of Christianity are represented in this unattainable by us, are propositions which may be regarded as chorus as true in their relation to the worship they superseded, equally certain; meanwhile, as it is the province of the poet to and that which in all probability they will supersede, without attach himself to those ideas which exalt and ennoble humanity, considering their merits in a relation more universal. The first let him be permitted to have conjectured the condition of that stanza contrasts the immortality of the living and thinking futurity towards which we are all impelled by an inextinguishbeings which inhabit the planets, and, to use a common and able thirst for immortality. Until better arguments can be proinadequate phrase, clothe themselves in matter, with the tran-duced than sophisms which disgrace the cause, this desire itself sience of the noblest manifestations of the external world. must remain the strongest and the only presumption that eter
The concluding verse indicates a progressive state of more nity is the inheritance of every thinking being.
Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy? If night is mute, yet the returning sun
No infidel children to impale on spears?
No hoary priests after that patriarch*
Who bent the curse against his country's heart, Which clove his own at last? Go! bid them kill: Blood is the seed of gold.
Oh! miserable dawn, after a night
More glorious than the day which it usurp❜d!
O, faith in God! O, power on earth! O, word
Of the great Prophet, whose overshadowing wings
Darken'd the thrones and idols of the west,
Now bright!-For thy sake cursed be the hour,
Even as a father by an evil child,
When the orient moon of Islam roll'd in triumph
From Caucasus to white Ceraunia!
Ruin above, and anarchy below;
Terror without, and treachery within;
The chalice of destruction full, and all
Thirsting to drink; and who among us dares
To dash it from his lips? and where is Hope?
The lamp of our dominion still rides high;
One God is God-Mahomet is his Prophet.
Four hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits
Of utmost Asia irresistibly
Throng, like full clouds at the Sirocco's cry,
But not like them to weep their strength in tears;
They have destroying lightning, and their step
Wakes earthquake, to consume and overwhelm,
And reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus,
Tymolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen
With horrent arms, and lofty ships, even now,
Like vapors anchor'd to a mountain's edge,
Freighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala
The convoy of the ever-veering wind.
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The Greek Patriarch, after having been compelled to fulminate an anathema against the insurgents, was put to death by the Turks.
Fortunately the Greeks have been taught that they cannot buy security by degradation, and the Turks, though equally cruel, are less cunning than the smooth-faced tyrants of Europe. As to the anathema, his Holiness might as well have thrown his mitre at Mount Athos, for any effect that it produced. The chiefs of the Greeks are almost all men of comprehension and enlightened views on religion and politics.
Kindles the voices of the morning birds;
Nor at thy bidding less exultingly
Than birds rejoicing in the golden day,
The anarchies of Africa unleash
Their tempest-winged cities of the sea,
To speak in thunder to the rebel world.
Like sulphurous clouds half-shatter'd by the storm
They sweep the pale gean, while the Queen
Of Ocean, bound upon her island throne,
Far in the west sits mourning that her sons,
Who frown on Freedom, spare a smile for thee:
Russia still hovers, as an eagle might
Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane
Hang tangled in inextricable fight,
To stoop upon the victor;-for she fears
The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine.
But recreant Austria loves thee as the grave
Loves pestilence, and her slow dogs of war,
Flesh'd with the chase, come up from Italy,
And howl upon their limits; for they see
The panther Freedom fled to her old cover
'Mid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood
Crouch around. What anarch wears a crown or tre,
Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold,
Whose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foen!
Our arsenals and our armories are full;
Our forts defy assaults; ten thousand cannon
Lie ranged upon the beach, and hour by hour
Their earth-convulsing wheels affright the city;
The galloping of fiery steeds makes pale
The Christian merchant, and the yellow Jew
Hides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth.
Like clouds, and like the shadows of the clouds
Over the hills of Anatolia,
Swift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry
Sweep; the far-flashing of their starry lances
Reverberates the dying light of day.
We have one God, one King, one Hope, one Law,
But many-headed Insurrection stands
Divided in itself, and soon must fall.
Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable: Look, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazon'd
Upon that shatter'd flag of fiery cloud
Which leads the rear of the departing day,
Wan emblem of an empire fading now!
See how it trembles in the blood-red air,
And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent,
Shrinks on the horizon's edge, while, from above,
One star with insolent and victorious light
Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams,
Like arrows through a fainting antelope,
Strikes its weak form to death.
By victor myriads, form'd in hollow square
With rough and stedfast front, and thrice flung back
The deluge of our foaming cavalry;
Thrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines.
Our baffled army trembled like one man
Before a host, and gave them space; but soon,
From the surrounding hills, the batteries blazed,
Kneading them down with fire and iron rain.
Yet none approach'd; till, like a field of corn
Under the hook of the swart sickle-man,
The bands intrench'd in mounds of Turkish dead
Grew weak and few-Then said the Pacha, "Slaves,
Render yourselves! They have abandon'd you—
What hope of refuge, or retreat, or aid?
We grant your lives."-" Grant that which is thine
own,"
But he cried, "Phantoms of the free, we come!
Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike
To dust the citadels of sanguine kings,
And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts,
And thaw their frost-work diadems like dew!-
O ye who float around this clime, and weave
The garment of the glory which it wears,
Whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasp'd,
Lies sepulchred in monumental thought!
Progenitors of all that yet is great,
Ascribe to your bright senate, O accept
In your high ministrations, us, your sons-
Us first, and the more glorious yet to come!
And ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale
When the crush'd worm rebels beneath your tread-
The vultures, and the dogs, your pensioners tame,
Are overgorged; but, like oppressors, still
They crave the relic of destruction's feast.
The exhalations and the thirsty winds
Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death-
Heaven's light is quench'd in slaughter: Thus
where'er
Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets,
The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast
Of these dead limbs upon your streams and mountains,
Upon your fields, your gardens, and your house-tops,
Where'er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly,
Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down
With poison'd light-Famine, and Pestilence,
And Panic, shall wage war upon our side!
Nature from all her boundaries is moved
Against ye: Time has found ye light as foam.
The Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake
Their empire o'er the unborn world of men
On this one cast-but ere the die be thrown,
The renovated genius of our race,
Proud umpire of this impious game, descends
A seraph-winged Victory, bestriding
The tempest of the Omnipotence of God,
Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom,
And you to Oblivion!"-More he would have said.
But-
Died-as thou shouldst ere thy lips had painted
Their ruin in the hues of our success.
A rebel's crime, gilt with a rebel's tongue!
Your heart is Greek, Hassan.
It may be so:
A spirit not my own wrench'd me within,
And I have spoken words I fear and hate;
Yet would I die for-
Me and this sinking empire:-but the fleet
Cried one, and fell upon his sword and died!
Another "God, and man, and hope abandon me;
But I to them and to myself remain
Constant;"-he bow'd his head, and his heart burst.
A third exclaim'd, "There is a refuge, tyrant,
Where thou darest not pursue, and canst not harm,
Shouldst thou pursue; there we shall meet again."
Then held his breath, and, after a brief spasm,
The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment
Among the slain-dead earth upon the earth!
So these survivors, each by different ways,
Some strange, all sudden, none dishonorable,
Met in triumphant death; and when our army,
Closed in, while yet in wonder, and awe, and shame, Alas!
Held back the base hyenas of the battle
That feed upon the dead and fly the living,
One rose out of the chaos of the slain;
And if it were a corpse which some dead spirit
Of the old saviors of the land we rule
Had lifted in its anger, wandering by;
Of if there burn'd within the dying man
Unquenchable disdain of death, and faith
Creating what it feign'd;-I cannot tell.
The fleet which, like a flock of clouds
Chased by the wind, flies the insurgent banner;
Our winged castles from their merchant ships!
Our myriads before their weak pirate bands!
Our arms before their chains! Our years of empire
Before their centuries of servile fear!
Death is awake! Repulsed on the waters,
They own no more the thunder-bearing banner
Of Mahmud; but like hounds of a base breed, Gorge from a stranger's hand, and rend their master.
Latmos, and Ampelos, and Phanae, saw The wreck
The caves of the Icarian isles Howl each to the other in loud mockery, And with the tongue as of a thousand echoes First of the sea-convulsing fight-and thenThou darest to speak-senseless are the mountains; Interpret thou their voice!
A part in that day's shame. The Grecian fleet
Bore down at day-break from the North, and hung,
As multitudinous on the ocean line
As cranes upon the cloudless Thracian wind.
Our squadron, convoying ten thousand men,
Was stretching towards Nauplia when the battle
Was kindled.-
First through the hail of our artillery
The agile Hydriote barks with press of sail
Dash'd:-ship to ship, cannon to cannon, man
To man were grappled in the embrace of war,
Inextricable but by death or victory.
The tempest of the raging fight convulsed
To its crystalline depths that stainless sea,
And shook heaven's roof of golden morning clouds
Poised on an hundred azure mountain-isles.
In the brief trances of the artillery,
One cry from the destroy'd and the destroyer
Rose, and a cloud of desolation wrapt
The unforeseen event, till the north wind
Sprung from the sea, lifting the heavy veil
Of battle-smoke-then victory-victory!
For, as we thought, three frigates from Algiers
Bore down from Naxos to our aid, but soon
The abhorred cross glimmer'd behind, before,
Among, around us; and that fatal sign
Dried with its beams the strength of Moslem hearts,
As the sun drinks the dew.-What more? We fled!
Our noonday path over the sanguine foam
Was beacon'd, and the glare struck the sun pale
By our consuming transports: the fierce light
Made all the shadows of our sails blood-red,
And every countenance blank. Some ships lay feeding
The ravening fire even to the water's level:
Some were blown up: some, settling heavily,
Sunk; and the shrieks of our companions died
Upon the wind, that bore us fast and far,
Even after they were dead. Nine thousand perish'd!
We met the vultures legion'd in the air,
Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind:
They, screaming from the cloudy mountain peak
Stoop'd through the sulphurous battle-smoke,
perch'd
Each on the weltering carcass that we loved,
Like its ill angel or its damned soul.
Riding upon the bosom of the sea,
We saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast.
Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea,
And ravening famine left his ocean-cave
To dwell with war, with us, and with despair.
We met night three hours to the west of Patmos,
And with night, tempest-
Fear not the Russian; The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay Against the hunter.-Cunning, base, and cruel, He crouches, watching till the spoil be won, And must be paid for his reserve in blood. After the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian That which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion Of blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields Rivers and seas, like that which we may win, But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves! Enter SECOND MESSENGER.
SECOND MESSENGER.
Nauplia, Tripolizzi, Mothon, Athens,
Navarin, Artas, Mowenbasia,
Corinth and Thebes are carried by assault;
And every Islamite who made his dogs
Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves,
Pass'd at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood
Which made our warriors drunk, is quench'd in death,
But like a fiery plague breaks out anew,
In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale
In its own light. The garrison of Patras
Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope
But from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant,
His wishes still are weaker than his fears;
Or he would sell what faith may yet remain
From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway:
And if you buy him not, your treasury
Is empty even of promises-his own coin.
The freedman of a western poet chief*
Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels,
And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont;
The aged Ali sits in Yanina,
A crownless metaphor of empire;
His name, that shadow of his wither'd might,
Holds our besieging army like a spell
In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny:
He, bastion'd in his citadel, looks forth
Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors
The ruins of the city where he reign'd
Childless and sceptreless. Tfie Greek has reap'd
The costly harvest his own blood matured,
* A Greek who had been Lord Byron's servant commanded the insurgents in Attica. This Greek, Lord Byron informs me, though a poet and an enthusiastic patriot, gave him rather the idea of a timid and unenterprising person. It appears that circumstances make men what they are, and that we all contain the germ of a degree of degradation or of greatness, whose connexion with our character is determined by events.
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Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness
Are in revolt ;-Damascus, Hems, Aleppo,
Tremble-the Arab menaces Medina;
The Ethiop has intrench'd himself in Sennaar,
And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employ'd :
Who denies homage, claims investiture
As price of tardy aid. Persia demands
The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians
Refuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus,
Like mountain-twins that from each other's veins
Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake spasm,
Shake in the general fever. Through the city,
Like birds before a storm the santons shriek,
And prophecyings horrible and new
Are heard among the crowd; that sea of men
Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.
A Devise, learn'd in the koran, preaches
That it is written how the sins of Islam
Must raise up a destroyer even now.
The Greeks expect a Savior from the west,*
Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,
But in the omnipresence of that spirit
In which all live and are. Ominous signs
Are blazon'd broadly on the noonday sky;
One saw a red cross stamp'd upon the sun;
It has rain'd blood; and monstrous births declare
The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.
The army encamp'd upon the Cydaris
Was roused last night by the alarm of battle,
And saw two hosts conflicting in the air,-
The shadows doubtless of the unborn time,
Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet
The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm
Which swept the phantoms from among the stars.
At the third watch the spirit of the plague
Was heard abroad flapping among the tents:
Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead.
The last news from the camp is, that a thousand
Have sicken'd, and—
Enter a FOURTH MESSENGER.
And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow
Of some untimely rumor, speak!
FOURTH MESSENGER.
Fainting with toil, cover'd with foam and blood; He stood, he says, upon Clelonites'
Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groan Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendor of the moon, When as the wandering clouds unveil'd or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets Stalk through the night in the horizon's glimmer,
Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,
And smoke which strangled every infant wind
That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.
At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco
Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds
Over the sea-horizon, blotting out
All objects-save that in the faint moon-glimpse
He saw, or dream'd he saw the Turkish admiral
And two the loftiest of our ships of war,
With the bright image of the queen of heaven,
Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;
And the abhorred cross-
O Slavery thou frost of the world's prime, Killing its flowers and leaving its thorns bare!
* It is reported that this Messiah had arrived at a seaport near Lacedæmon in an American brig. The asso-Thy touch has stamp'd these limbs with crime,
ciation of names and ideas is irresistibly ludicrous, but the prevalence of such a rumor strongly marks the state of popular enthusiasm in Greece.
These brows thy branding garland bear; But the free heart, the impassive soul, Scorn thy control!
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