The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 84

And a name and a nation Be forgotten, Freedom, with thee!

INDIAN: His brow grows darker--breathe not--move not! _110 He starts--he shudders--ye that love not, With your panting loud and fast, Have awakened him at last.

MAHMUD [STARTING FROM HIS SLEEP]: Man the Seraglio-guard! make fast the gate!

What! from a cannonade of three short hours? _115 'Tis false! that breach towards the Bosphorus Cannot be practicable yet--who stirs?

Stand to the match; that when the foe prevails One spark may mix in reconciling ruin The conqueror and the conquered! Heave the tower _120 Into the gap--wrench off the roof!

[ENTER Ha.s.sAN.]

Ha! what!

The truth of day lightens upon my dream And I am Mahmud still.

Ha.s.sAN: Your Sublime Highness Is strangely moved.

MAHMUD: The times do cast strange shadows On those who watch and who must rule their course, _125 Lest they, being first in peril as in glory, Be whelmed in the fierce ebb:--and these are of them.

Thrice has a gloomy vision hunted me As thus from sleep into the troubled day; It shakes me as the tempest shakes the sea, _130 Leaving no figure upon memory's gla.s.s.

Would that--no matter. Thou didst say thou knewest A Jew, whose spirit is a chronicle Of strange and secret and forgotten things.

I bade thee summon him:--'tis said his tribe _135 Dream, and are wise interpreters of dreams.

Ha.s.sAN: The Jew of whom I spake is old,--so old He seems to have outlived a world's decay; The h.o.a.ry mountains and the wrinkled ocean Seem younger still than he;--his hair and beard _140 Are whiter than the tempest-sifted snow; His cold pale limbs and pulseless arteries Are like the fibres of a cloud instinct With light, and to the soul that quickens them Are as the atoms of the mountain-drift _145 To the winter wind:--but from his eye looks forth A life of unconsumed thought which pierces The Present, and the Past, and the To-come.

Some say that this is he whom the great prophet Jesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery, _150 Mocked with the curse of immortality.

Some feign that he is Enoch: others dream He was pre-adamite and has survived Cycles of generation and of ruin.

The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence _155 And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh, Deep contemplation, and unwearied study, In years outstretched beyond the date of man, May have attained to sovereignty and science Over those strong and secret things and thoughts _160 Which others fear and know not.

MAHMUD: I would talk With this old Jew.

Ha.s.sAN: Thy will is even now Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern 'Mid the Demonesi, less accessible Than thou or G.o.d! He who would question him _165 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, _170 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 _175 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 _180 Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus: Thence at the hour and place and circ.u.mstance Fit for the matter of their conference The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare Win the desired communion--but that shout _185 Bodes--

[A SHOUT WITHIN.]

MAHMUD: Evil, doubtless; Like all human sounds.

Let me converse with spirits.

Ha.s.sAN: That shout again.

MAHMUD: This Jew whom thou hast summoned--

Ha.s.sAN: Will be here--

MAHMUD: When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked He, I, and all things shall compel--enough! _190 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.

Kinks are like stars--they rise and set, they have _195 The wors.h.i.+p of the world, but no repose.

[EXEUNT SEVERALLY.]

CHORUS: Worlds on worlds are rolling ever From creation to decay, Like the bubbles on a river Sparkling, bursting, borne away. _200 But they are still immortal Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro, Clothe their unceasing flight In the brief dust and light _205 Gathered around their chariots as they go; New shapes they still may weave, New G.o.ds, new laws receive, Bright or dim are they as the robes they last On Death's bare ribs had cast. _210

A power from the unknown G.o.d, A Promethean conqueror, came; Like a triumphal path he trod The thorns of death and shame.

A mortal shape to him _215 Was like the vapour dim Which the orient planet animates with light; h.e.l.l, Sin, and Slavery came, Like bloodhounds mild and tame, Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight; _220 The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set: While blazoned as on Heaven's immortal noon The cross leads generations on.

Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep _225 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 _230 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, _235 Dispeopled of their dreams, Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears, Wailed for the golden years.

[ENTER MAHMUD, Ha.s.sAN, DAOOD, AND OTHERS.]

MAHMUD: More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory, And shall I sell it for defeat?

DAOOD: The Janizars _240 Clamour for pay.

MAHMUD: Go! bid them pay themselves With Christian blood! Are there no Grecian virgins Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy?

No infidel children to impale on spears?

No h.o.a.ry priests after that Patriarch _245 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.

DAOOD: It has been sown, And yet the harvest to the sicklemen Is as a grain to each.

MAHMUD: Then, take this signet, _250 Unlock the seventh chamber in which lie The treasures of victorious Solyman,-- An empire's spoil stored for a day of ruin.

O spirit of my sires! is it not come?

The prey-birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep; _255 But these, who spread their feast on the red earth, Hunger for gold, which fills not.--See them fed; Then, lead them to the rivers of fresh death.

[EXIT DAOOD.]

O miserable dawn, after a night More glorious than the day which it usurped! _260 O faith in G.o.d! O power on earth! O word Of the great prophet, whose o'ershadowing wings Darkened the thrones and idols of the West, Now bright!--For thy sake cursed be the hour, Even as a father by an evil child, _265 When the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph From Caucasus to White Ceraunia!

Ruin above, and anarchy below; Terror without, and treachery within; The Chalice of destruction full, and all _270 Thirsting to drink; and who among us dares To dash it from his lips? and where is Hope?

Ha.s.sAN: The lamp of our dominion still rides high; One G.o.d is G.o.d--Mahomet is His prophet.

Four hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits _275 Of utmost Asia, irresistibly Throng, like full clouds at the Sirocco's cry; But not like them to weep their strength in tears: They bear destroying lightning, and their step Wakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm, _280 And reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus, Tmolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen With horrent arms; and lofty s.h.i.+ps even now, Like vapours anch.o.r.ed to a mountain's edge, Freighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala _285 The convoy of the ever-veering wind.

Samos is drunk with blood;--the Greek has paid Brief victory with swift loss and long despair.

The false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far When the fierce shout of 'Allah-illa-Allah!' _290 Rose like the war-cry of the northern wind Which kills the sluggish clouds, and leaves a flock Of wild swans struggling with the naked storm.

So were the lost Greeks on the Danube's day!

If night is mute, yet the returning sun _295 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, _300 To speak in thunder to the rebel world.

Like sulphurous clouds, half-shattered by the storm, They sweep the pale Aegean, while the Queen Of Ocean, bound upon her island-throne, Far in the West, sits mourning that her sons _305 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 _310 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 Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy, And howl upon their limits; for they see _315 The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover, Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood Crouch round. What Anarch wears a crown or mitre, Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold, Whose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foes? _320 Our a.r.s.enals and our armouries are full; Our forts defy a.s.sault; 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 _325 The Christian merchant; and the yellow Jew Hides his h.o.a.rd 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 _330 Sweep;--the far flas.h.i.+ng of their starry lances Reverberates the dying light of day.

We have one G.o.d, one King, one Hope, one Law; But many-headed Insurrection stands Divided in itself, and soon must fall. _335

NOTES: _253 spoil edition 1822; spoils editions 1839.

_279 bear edition 1822; have editions 1839.

_322 a.s.sault edition 1822; a.s.saults editions 1839.

MAHMUD: Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable: Look, Ha.s.san, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud Which leads the rear of the departing day; Wan emblem of an empire fading now! _340 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, _345 Like arrows through a fainting antelope, Strikes its weak form to death.

Ha.s.sAN: Even as that moon Renews itself--

MAHMUD: Shall we be not renewed!

Far other bark than ours were needed now To stem the torrent of descending time: _350 The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord Stalks through the capitals of armed kings, And spreads his ensign in the wilderness: Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls, Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust; _355 And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear Cower in their kingly dens--as I do now.

What were Defeat when Victory must appal?

Or Danger, when Security looks pale?-- _360 How said the messenger--who, from the fort Islanded in the Danube, saw the battle Of Bucharest?--that--

NOTES: _351 his edition 1822; its editions 1839.

_356 of the earth edition 1822; of earth editions 1839.

Ha.s.sAN: Ibrahim's scimitar Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven, To burn before him in the night of battle-- _365 A light and a destruction.