[Note 330: Voici des vers dignes de Pope, très-beaux et très-faux:
And havoc loathes so much the waste of time,
She scarce had left an uncommitted crime.
One hour beheld him since the tide he stemm'd,
Disguised, discover'd, conquering, ta'en, condemn'd,
A chief on land, an outlaw on the deep,
Destroying, saving, prison'd, and asleep!]
[Note 331:
Who thundering comes on blackest steed,
With slacken'd bit and hoof of speed?
.... Approach, thou craven crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermopylæ?]
[Note 332: Moore's _Life of lord Byron_, III, 438; 1820.]
[Note 333: I am living here exposed to it (assassination) daily,
for I have happened to make a powerful and unprincipled man my enemy,
and I never sleep the worse for it, or ride in less solitary places,
because precaution is useless and one thinks of it as of a disease
which may or may not strike.]
[Note 334: Galt's _Life of lord Byron_, 113.]
[Note 335: «Well, we are all born to die--I shall go with regret,
but certainly not with fear.--It is every man's duty to endeavour to
preserve the life God has given him; so I advise you all to strip:
swimming, indeed, can be of little use in these billows--but as
children, when tired with crying, sink placidly to repose--we, when
exhausted with struggling, shall die the easier....»]
[Note 336: «Qu'aurais-je connu et écrit si j'avais été un paisible
politique mercantile ou un lord d'antichambre? Un homme doit voyager
et se jeter dans le tourbillon, sinon ce n'est pas vivre.» Moore, III,
429.]
[Note 337:
They coldly laughed,--and laid him there:
The flat and turfless earth above
The being we so much did love;
His empty chain above it leant....
.... He faded............
.......... with all the while a cheek whose bloom
Was as mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray.....]
[Note 338:
.... The Earth gave way, the skies roll'd round,
I seem'd to sink upon the ground;
But err'd, for I was fastly bound,
My heart turn'd sick, my brain grew sore,
And throbb'd awhile, then beat no more:
The skies span like a mighty wheel;
I saw the trees like drunkards reel,
And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes,
Which saw no farther: he who dies
Can die no more than then I died.
.... I felt the blackness come and go
And strove to wake; but could not make
My senses climb up from below:
I felt as on a plank at sea,
When all the waves that dash o'er thee,
At the same time upheave and whelm,
And hurl thee towards a desert realm.]
[Note 339:
'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an Ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light...
......................
The waves on either shore lay there
Calm, clear, and azure as the air;
And scarce their foam the pebbles shook,
But murmur'd meekly as the brook.
The winds were pillow'd on the waves;
The banners droop'd along their staves,
And that deep silence was unbroke,
Save where the watch his signal spoke,
Save where the steed neigh'd oft and shrill,
And the wide hum of that wild host
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast....]
[Note 340:
.... And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall
Hold o'er the dead their carnival,
Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb;
They were too busy to bark at him.
From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;
And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the whiter skull,
As it slipp'd through their jaws when their edge grew dull,
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed;
So well had they broken a lingering fast
With those who had fallen for that night's repast.
And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll'd on the sand,
The foremost of these were the best of his band:
Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear,
And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair,
All the rest was shaven and bare.
The scalps were in the wild dog's maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.
But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf,
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf,
Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away,
Scared by the dogs, from the human prey;
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay,
Pick'd by the birds, on the sands of the bay.]
[Note 341:
He scarce can speak, but motions him 't is vain,
He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage.
And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page.
.... His dying tones are in that other tongue,
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung....
.... And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased,
Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the East:
Whether (as then the breaking sun from high
Roll'd back the clouds), the morrow caught his eye,
Or that it was chance, or some remember'd scene,
That raised his arm to point where such had been,
Scarce Kaled seem'd to know, but turn'd away,
As if his heart abhorr'd that coming day,
And shrunk his glance before that morning light,
To look on Lara's brow,--where all grew night.
.... But from his visage little could we guess,
So unrepentant, dark, and passionless....
.... But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,
And dull the film along his dim eye grew;
His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head droop'd o'er.]
[Note 342:
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day.
.............................
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
............................
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
.... The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and thence again
With curses cast them down upon the dust
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart,
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corpse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them; or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food.
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands.
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died....]