by Byron
And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;
520
And swarthy Nubia’s mutilated son;
The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak,
Master of all around, too potent to be meek,
LIX
Are mix’d conspicuous: some recline in groups,
Scanning the motley scene that varies round;
525
There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,
And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;
Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;
Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;
Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,
530
The Muezzin’s call doth shake the minaret,
‘There is no god but God! – to prayer – lo! God is great!’
L Χ
Just at this season Ramazani’s fast
Through the long day its penance did maintain:
But when the lingering twilight hour was past,
535
Revel and feast assumed the rule again:
Now all was bustle, and the menial train
Prepared and spread the plenteous board within;
The vacant gallery now seem’d made in vain,
But from the chambers came the mingling din,
540
As page and slave anon were passing out and in.
LXI
Here woman’s voice is never heard: apart,
And scarce permitted, guarded, veil’d, to move,
She yields to one her person and her heart,
Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove:
545
For, not unhappy in her master’s love,
And joyful in a mother’s gentlest cares,
Blest cares! all other feelings far above!
Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears,
Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares.
LXII
550
In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
ALI reclined, a man of war and woes:
555
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace,
While Gentleness her milder radiance throws
Along that aged venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.
LXIII
It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard
560
Ill suits the passions which belong to youth;
Love conquers age – so Hafiz hath averr’d,
So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth –
But crimes that scorn the tender voice of Ruth,
Beseeming all men ill, but most the man
565
In years, have mark’d him with a tiger’s tooth;
Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal span,
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.
LXIV
‘Mid many things most new to ear and eye
The pilgrim rested here his weary feet,
570
And gazed around on Moslem luxury,
Till quickly wearied with that spacious seat
Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat
Of sated Grandeur from the city’s noise:
And were it humbler it in sooth were sweet;
575
But Peace abhorreth artificial joys,
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys.
LXV
Fierce are Albania’s children, yet they lack
Not virtues, were those virtues more mature.
Where is the foe that ever saw their back?
580
Who can so well the toil of war endure?
Their native fastnesses not more secure
Than they in doubtful time of troublous need:
Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure,
When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed,
585
Unshaken rushing on where’er their chief may lead.
LXVI
Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain’s tower
Thronging to war in splendour and success;
And after view’d them, when, within their power,
Himself awhile the victim of distress;
590
That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press:
But these did shelter him beneath their roof,
When less barbarians would have cheer’d him less,
And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof – 1
In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof!
LXVII
595
It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark
Full on the coast of Suli’s shaggy shore,
When all around was desolate and dark;
To land was perilous, to sojourn more;
Yet for a while the mariners forbore,
600
Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk:
At length they ventured forth, though doubting sore
That those who loathe alike the Frank and Turk
Might once again renew their ancient butcher-work.
LXVIII
Vain fear! the Suliotes stretch’d the welcome hand,
605
Led them o’er rocks and past the dangerous swamp,
Kinder than polish’d slaves though not so bland,
And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp,
And fill’d the bowl, and trimm’d the cheerful lamp,
And spread their fare; though homely, all they had:
610
Such conduct bears Philanthropy’s rare stamp –
To rest the weary and to soothe the sad,
Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad.
LXIX
It came to pass, that when he did address
Himself to quit at length this mountain-land,
615
Combined marauders half-way barr’d egress,
And wasted far and near with glaive and brand;
And therefore did he take a trusty band
To traverse Acarnania’s forest wide.
In war well season’d, and with labours tann’d,
620
Till he did greet white Achelous‘ tide,
And from his further bank Ætolia’s wolds espied.
LXX
Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove,
And weary waves retire to gleam at rest,
How brown the foliage of the green hill’s grove,
625
Nodding at midnight o’er the calm bay’s breast,
As winds come lightly whispering from the west,
Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep’s serene: –
Here Harold was received a welcome guest;
Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene,
630
For many a joy could he from Night’s soft presence glean.
LXXI
On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed,
The feast was done, the red wine circling fast,1
And he that unawares had there ygazed
With gaping wonderment had stared aghast;
635
For ere night’s midmost, stillest hour was past,
The native revels of the troop began;
Each Palikar2 his sabre from him cast,
And bounding hand in hand, man link’d to man,
Yelling their uncouth dirge, long daunced the kirtled clan.
LXXII
640
Childe Harold at a little distance stood
And view’d, but not displeased, the revelrie,
Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude:
/>
In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see
Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee;
645
And, as the flames along their faces gleam’d,
Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,
The long wild locks that to their girdles stream’d,
While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream’d: –3
I
Tambourgi! Tambourgi!1 thy ’larum afar
650
Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war;
All the sons of the mountains arise at the note,
Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote!2
2
Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?
655
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock,
And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.
3
Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?
Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?
660
What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?
4
Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase;
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o’er.
5
665
Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,
And track to his covert the captive on shore.
6
I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
670
My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,
And many a maid from her mother shall tear.
7
I love the fair face of the maid in her youth,
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe;
675
Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre,
And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.
8
Remember the moment when Previsa fell,1
The shrieks of the conquer’d, the conquerors’ yell;
The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,
680
The wealthy we slaughter’d, the lovely we spared.
9
I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier:
Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne’er saw
A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.
10
685
Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,
Let the yellow-hair’d2 Giaours3 view his horse-tail4 with dread;
When his Delhis5 come dashing in blood o’er the banks,
How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!
II
Selictar!6 unsheathe then our chief’s scimitar:
690
Tambourgi! thy ’larum gives promise of war.
Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!
LXXIII
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!1
Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!
695
Who now shall lead thy scatter’d children forth,
And long accustom’d bondage uncreate?
Not such thy sons who whilome did await,
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,
In bleak Thermopylae’s sepulchral strait –
700
Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume,
Leap from Eurotas’ banks, and call thee from the tomb?
LXXIV
Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle’s brow2
Thou sat’st with Thrasybulus and his train,
Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now
705
Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?
Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,
But every carle can lord it o’er thy land;
Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,
Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,
710
From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann’d.
LXXV
In all save form alone, how changed! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who but would deem their bosoms burn’d anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
715
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their fathers’ heritage:
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,
Or tear their name defiled from Slavery’s mournful page.
LXXVI
720
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no!
True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,
725
But not for you will Freedom’s altars flame.
Shades of the Helots! triumph o’er your foe!
Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;
Thy glorious day is o’er, but not thine years of shame.
LXXVII
The city won for Allah from the Giaour,
730
The Giaour from Othman’s race again may wrest;
And the Serai’s impenetrable tower
Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;1
Or Wahab’s rebel brood who dared divest
The prophet’s2 tomb of all its pious spoil,
735
May wind their path of blood along the West;
But ne’er will freedom seek this fated soil,
But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.
LXXVIII
Yet mark their mirth – ere lenten days begin,
That penance which their holy rites prepare
740
To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin,
By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;
But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear,
Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all,
To take of pleasaunce each his secret share,
745
In motley robe to dance at masking ball,
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.
LXXIX
And whose more rife with merriment than thine,
Oh Stamboul! once the empress of their reign?
Though turbans now pollute Sophia’s shrine,
750
And Greece her very altars eyes in vain:
(Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!)
Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,
All felt the common joy they now must feign,
Nor oft I’ve seen such sight, nor heard such song,
755
As woo’d the eye, and thrill’d the Bosphorus along.
LXXX
Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore,
Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone,
And timely echo’d back the measured oar,
And rippling waters made a pleasant moan:
760
The Queen of tides on high consenting shone,
And when a transient breeze swept o’er the wave,
‘Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne,
A brighter glance her form reflected gave,
Till sparkling
billows seem’d to light the banks they lave.
LXXXI
765
Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,
Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home,
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,
770
Or gently prest, return’d the pressure still:
Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem Life’s years of ill!
LXXXII
But, midst the throng in merry masquerade,
775
Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,
Even through the closest searment half betray’d?
To such the gentle murmurs of the main
Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain;
To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd
780
Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain:
How do they loathe the laughter idly loud,
And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!
LXXXIII
This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece,
If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast:
785
Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace,
The bondsman’s peace, who sighs for all he lost,
Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost,
And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword:
Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most;
790
Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record
Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!
LXXXIV
When riseth Lacedemon’s hardihood,
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,
When Athens’ children are with hearts endued,
795
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
Then may’st thou be restored; but not till then.
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;
An hour may lay it in the dust: and when
Can man its shatter’d splendour renovate,
800
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?
LXXXV
And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,
Land of lost gods and godlike men! art thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,1
Proclaim thee Nature’s varied favourite now;
805
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke by the share of every rustic plough:
So perish monuments of mortal birth,
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth;
LXXXVI
810
Save where some solitary column mourns
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave1
Save where Tritonia’s airy shrine adorns
Colonna’s cliff,2 and gleams along the wave;
