Selected Poems
Page 62
45
To serve with a Muscovite master,
And help him to polish
A nation so owlish,
They thought shaving their beards a disaster.
IX
For the man, ‘poor and shrewd, ‘
50
With whom you’d conclude
A compact without more delay,
Perhaps some such pen is
Still extant in Venice;
But please, sir, to mention your pay.
X
55
Now tell me some news
Of your friends and the Muse
Of the Bar, — or the Gown — or the House,
From Canning the tall wit
To Wilmot the small wit
60
Ward’s creeping Companion and Louse —
XI
Who’s so damnably bit
With fashion and Wit
That he crawls on the surface like Vermin,
But an Insect in both, —
65
By his Intellect’s growth
Of what size you may quickly determine.
XII
Now, I’ll put out my taper
(I’ve finished my paper
For these stanzas you see on the brink stand),
70
There’s a whore on my right,
For I rhyme best at night
When a C —t is tied close to my inkstand.
XIII
It was Mahomet’s notion
That comical motion
75
Increased his ‘devotion in prayer’ —
If that tenet holds good
In a Prophet, it should
In a poet be equally fair. —
XIV
For in rhyme or in love
80
(Which both come from above)
I’ll stand with our ‘Tommy’ or ‘Sammy’
But the Sopha and lady
Are both of them ready
And so, here’s ‘Good night to you dammee!’
MAZEPPA
ADVERTISEMENT
‘Celui qui remplissait alors cette place était un gentilhomme Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Padolie: il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu’il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d’un gentilhomme Polonais ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de I’Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta longtems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa réputations’ augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l’Ukraine.’ – VOLTAIRE, Hist. de Charles XII. p. 196.
‘Le roi fuyant, et poursuivi, eut son cheval tué sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite, ce conquérant qui n’avait pu y monter pendant la bataille.’ – p. 216.
‘Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, oú il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit á cheval. Pour comble de disgrace, il s’égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d’un arbre, en danger d’être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs, qui le cherchaient de tous côtés’ — p. 218.
I
’Twas after dread Pultowa’s day,
When fortune left the royal Swede,
Around a slaughter’d army lay,
No more to combat and to bleed.
5
The power and glory of the war,
Faithless as their vain votaries, men,
Had pass’d to the triumphant Czar,
And Moscow’s walls were safe again,
Until a day more dark and drear,
10
And a more memorable year,
Should give to slaughter and to shame
A mightier host and haughtier name;
A greater wreck, a deeper fall,
A shock to one – a thunderbolt to all.
II
15
Such was the hazard of the die;
The wounded Charles was taught to fly
By day and night through field and flood,
Stain’d with his own and subjects’ blood;
For thousands fell that flight to aid:
20
And not a voice was heard t’ upbraid
Ambition in his humbled hour,
When truth had nought to dread from power.
His horse was slain, and Gieta gave
His own – and died the Russians’ slave.
25
This too sinks after many a league
Of well sustain’d, but vain fatigue;
And in the depth of forests, darkling
The watchfires in the distance sparkling –
The beacons of surrounding foes –
30
A king must lay his limbs at length.
Are these the laurels and repose
For which the nations strain their strength?
They laid him by a savage tree,
In outworn nature’s agony;
35
His wounds were stiff – his limbs were stark –
The heavy hour was chill and dark;
The fever in his blood forbade
A transient slumber’s fitful aid:
And thus it was; but yet through all,
40
Kinglike the monarch bore his fall,
And made, in this extreme of ill,
His pangs the vassals of his will:
All silent and subdued were they,
As once the nations round him lay.
III
45
A band of chiefs! – alas! how few,
Since but the fleeting of a day
Had thinn’d it; but this wreck was true
And chivalrous: upon the clay
Each sate him down, all sad and mute,
50
Beside his monarch and his steed,
For danger levels man and brute,
And all are fellows in their need.
Among the rest, Mazeppa made
His pillow in an old oak’s shade –
55
Himself as rough, and scarce less old,
The Ukraine’s hetman, calm and bold;
But first, outspent with this long course,
The Cossack prince rubb’d down his horse,
And made for him a leafy bed,
60
And smooth’d his fetlocks and his mane,
And slack’d his girth, and stripp’d his rein,
And joy’d to see how well he fed;
For until now he had the dread
His wearied courser might refuse
65
To browse beneath the midnight dews:
But he was hardy as his lord,
And little cared for bed and board;
But spirited and docile too;
Whate’er was to be done, would do.
70
Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb,
All Tartar-like he carried him;
Obey’d his voice, and came to call,
And knew him in the midst of all:
Though thousands were around, – and Night,
75
Without a star, pursued her flight, –
That steed from sunset until dawn
His chief would follow like a fawn.
IV
This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak,
And laid his lance beneath his oak,
80
Felt if his arms
in order good
The long day’s march had well withstood –
If still the powder fill’d the pan,
And flints unloosen’d kept their lock —
His sabre’s hilt and scabbard felt,
85
And whether they had chafed his belt -
And next the venerable man,
From out his havresack and can,
Prepared and spread his slender stock;
And to the monarch and his men
90
The whole or portion offer’d then
With far less of inquietude
Than courtiers at a banuet would
And Charles of this his slender share
With smiles artook a moment there
95
To force of cheer a greater show,
And seem above both wounds and woe; —
And then he said – ’Of all our band,
Though firm of heart and strong of hand,
In skirmish, march, or forage, none
100
Can less have said or more have done
Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth
So fit a pair had never birth,
Since Alexander’s days till now,
As thy Bucephalus and thou:
105
All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield
For pricking on o’er flood and field.’
Mazeppa answer’d — I’ll betide
The school wherein I learn’d to ride!’
Quoth Charles – ‘Old Hetman, wherefore so,
110
Since thou hast learn’d the art so well?’
Mazeppa said – ‘ ’Twere long to tell;
And we have many a league to go,
With every now and then a blow,
And ten to one at least the foe,
115
Before our steeds may graze at ease,
Beyond the swift Borysthenes:
And, sire, your limbs have need of rest,
And I will be the sentinel
Of this your troop.’ – ‘But I request,’
120
Said Sweden’s monarch, ’thou wilt tell
This tale of thine, and I may reap,
Perchance, from this the boon of sleep;
For at this moment from my eyes
The hope of present slumber flies.’
125
‘Well, sire, with such a hope, I’ll track
My seventy years of memory back:
I think ’twas in my twentieth spring, –
Ay, ’twas, — when Casimir was king —
John Casimir, – I was his page
130
Six summers, in my earlier age:
A learned monarch, faith! was he,
And most unlike your majesty:
He made no wars, and did not gain
New realms to lose them back again;
135
And (save debates in Warsaw’s diet)
He reign’d in most unseemly quiet;
Not that he had no cares to vex,
He loved the muses and the sex;
And sometimes these so froward are,
140
They made him wish himself at war;
But soon his wrath being o’er, he took
Another mistress, or new book:
And then he gave prodigious fêtes –
All Warsaw gather’d round his gates
145
To gaze upon his splendid court,
And dames, and chiefs, of princely port:
He was the Polish Solomon,
So sung his poets, all but one,
Who, being unpension’d, made a satire,
150
And boasted that he could not flatter.
It was a court of jousts and mimes,
Where every courtier tried at rhymes;
Even I for once produced some verses,
And sign’d my odes ‘Despairing Thyrsis.’
155
There was a certain Palatine,
A count of far and high descent,
Rich as a salt or silver mine;1
And he was proud, ye may divine,
As if from heaven he had been sent:
160
He had such wealth in blood and ore
As few could match beneath the throne;
And he would gaze upon his store,
And o’er his pedigree would pore,
Until by some confusion led,
165
Which almost look’d like want of head,
He thought their merits were his own.
His wife was not of his opinion –
His junior she by thirty years –
Grew daily tired of his dominion;
170
And, after wishes, hopes, and fears,
To virtue a few farewell tears,
A restless dream or two, some glances
At Warsaw’s youth, some songs, and dances,
Awaited but the usual chances,
175
Those happy accidents which render
The coldest dames so very tender,
To deck her Count with titles given,
’Tis said, as passports into heaven;
But, strange to say, they rarely boast
180
Of these, who have deserved them most.
V
‘I was a goodly stripling then;
At seventy years I so may say,
That there were few, or boys or men
Who, in my dawning time of day,
185
Of vassal or of knight’s degree,
Could vie in vanities with me;
For I had strength, youth, gaiety,
A port, not like to this ye see,
But smooth, as all is rugged now;
190
For time, and care, and war, have plough’d
My very soul from out my brow;
And thus I should be disavow’d
By all my kind and kin, could they
Compare my day and yesterday;
195
This change was wrought, too, long ere age
Had ta’en my features for his page:
With years, ye know, have not declined
My strength, my courage, or my mind,
Or at this hour I should not be
200
Telling old tales beneath a tree,
With starless skies my canopy.
But let me on: Theresa’s form –
Methinks it glides before me now,
Between me and yon chestnut’s bough,
205
The memory is so quick and warm;
And yet I find no words to tell
The shape of her I loved so well:
She had the Asiatic eye,
Such as our Turkish neighbourhood
210
Hath mingled with our Polish blood,
Dark as above us is the sky;
But through it stole a tender light,
Like the first moonrise of midnight;
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream,
215
Which seem’d to melt to its own beam;
All love, half languor, and half fire,
Like saints that at the stake expire,
And lift their raptured looks on high,
As though it were a joy to die.
220
A brow like a midsummer lake,
Transparent with the sun therein,
When waves no murmur dare to make,
And heaven beholds her face within.
A cheek and lip – but why proceed?
225
I loved her then – I love her still;
And such as I am, love indeed
In fierce extremes — in good and ill.
But still we love even in our rage,
And haunted to our very age
230
With the vain shadow of the past,
As is Ma
zeppa to the last.
VI
‘We met – we gazed – I saw, and sigh’d,
She did not speak, and yet replied;
There are ten thousand tones and signs
235
We hear and see, but none defines —
Involuntary sparks of thought,
Which strike from out the heart o’erwrought,
And form a strange intelligence,
Alike mysterious and intense,
240
Which link the burning chain that binds,
Without their will, young hearts and minds;
Conveying, as the electric wire,
We know not how, the absorbing fire. –
I saw, and sigh’d – in silence wept,
245
And still reluctant distance kept,
Until I was made known to her,
And we might then and there confer
Without suspicion — then, even then,
I long’d, and was resolved to speak;
250
But on my lips they died again,
The accents tremulous and weak,
Until one hour. — There is a game,
A frivolous and foolish play,
Wherewith we while away the day;
255
It is – I have forgot the name –
And we to this, it seems, were set,
By some strange chance, which I forget:
I reck’d not if I won or lost,
It was enough for me to be
260
So near to hear, and oh! to see
The being whom I loved the most. –
I watch’d her as a sentinel,
(May ours this dark night watch as well!)
Until I saw, and thus it was,
265
That she was pensive, nor perceived
Her occupation, nor was grieved
Nor glad to lose or gain; but still
Play’d on for hours, as if her will
Yet bound her to the place, though not
270
That hers might be the winning lot.
Then through my brain the thought did pass
Even as a flash of lightning there,
That there was something in her air
Which would not doom me to despair;
275
And on the thought my words broke forth,
All incoherent as they were —
Their eloquence was little worth,
But yet she listen’d – ’tis enough –
Who listens once will listen twice;
280
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.
VII
‘I loved, and was beloved again –
They tell me, Sire, you never knew
Those gentle frailties; if ’tis true,
285
I shorten all my joy or pain;
To you ’twould seem absurd as vain;
But all men are not born to reign,
Or o’er their passions, or as you
Thus o’er themselves and nations too.
290
I am — or rather was — a prince,
A chief of thousands, and could lead