Gebir, and Count Julian

by Walter Savage Landor

Once a fair city, courted then by king,
Mistress of nations, thronged by palaces,
Raising her head o’er destiny, her face
Glowing with pleasure and with palms refreshed,
Now pointed at by Wisdom or by Wealth,
Bereft of beauty, bare of ornaments,
Stood in the wilderness of woe, Masar.
Ere far advancing, all appeared a plain;
Treacherous and fearful mountains, far advanced.
Her glory so gone down, at human step
The fierce hyena frighted from the walls
Bristled his rising back, his teeth unsheathed,
Drew the long growl and with slow foot retired.
Yet were remaining some of ancient race,
And ancient arts were now their sole delight:
With Time’s first sickle they had marked the hour
When at their incantation would the Moon
Start back, and shuddering shed blue blasted light.
The rifted rays they gathered, and immersed
In potent portion of that wondrous wave,
Which, hearing rescued Israel, stood erect,
And led her armies through his crystal gates.
Hither (none shared her way, her counsel none)
Hied the Masarian Dalica: ’twas night,
And the still breeze fell languid on the waste.
She, tired with journey long and ardent thoughts
Stopped; and before the city she descried
A female form emerge above the sands.
Intent she fixed her eyes, and on herself
Relying, with fresh vigour bent her way;
Nor disappeared the woman, but exclaimed,
One hand retaining tight her folded vest,
“Stranger, who loathest life, there lies Masar.
Begone, nor tarry longer, or ere morn
The cormorant in his solitary haunt
Of insulated rock or sounding cove
Stands on thy bleachéd bones and screams for prey.
My lips can scatter them a hundred leagues,
So shrivelled in one breath as all the sands
We tread on could not in as many years.
Wretched who die nor raise their sepulchre!
Therefore begone.”
But Dalica unawed
(Though in her withered but still firm right-hand
Held up with imprecations hoarse and deep
Glimmered her brazen sickle, and enclosed
Within its figured curve the fading moon)
Spake thus aloud. “By yon bright orb of Heaven,
In that most sacred moment when her beam
Guided first thither by the forkéd shaft,
Strikes through the crevice of Arishtah’s tower—”
“Sayst thou?” astonished cried the sorceress,
“Woman of outer darkness, fiend of death,
From what inhuman cave, what dire abyss,
Hast thou invisible that spell o’erheard?
What potent hand hath touched thy quickened corse,
What song dissolved thy cerements, who unclosed
Those faded eyes and filled them from the stars?
But if with inextinguished light of life
Thou breathest, soul and body unamerced,
Then whence that invocation? who hath dared
Those hallowed words, divulging, to profane?”
Dalica cried, “To heaven, not earth, addressed,
Prayers for protection cannot be profane.”
Here the pale sorceress turned her face aside
Wildly, and muttered to herself amazed;
“I dread her who, alone at such an hour,
Can speak so strangely, who can thus combine
The words of reason with our gifted rites,
Yet will I speak once more.—If thou hast seen
The city of Charoba, hast thou marked
The steps of Dalica?”
“What then?”
“The tongue
Of Dalica has then our rites divulged.”
“Whose rites?”
“Her sister’s, mother’s, and her own.”
“Never.”
“How sayst thou never? one would think,
Presumptuous, thou wert Dalica.”
“I am,
Woman, and who art thou?”
With close embrace,
Clung the Masarian round her neck, and cried:
“Art thou then not my sister? ah, I fear
The golden lamps and jewels of a court
Deprive thine eyes of strength and purity.
O Dalica, mine watch the waning moon,
For ever patient in our mother’s art,
And rest on Heaven suspended, where the founts
Of Wisdom rise, where sound the wings of Power;
Studies intense of strong and stern delight!
And thou too, Dalica, so many years
Weaned from the bosom of thy native land,
Returnest back and seekest true repose.
Oh, what more pleasant than the short-breathed sigh
When laying down your burden at the gate,
And dizzy with long wandering, you embrace
The cool and quiet of a homespun bed.”
“Alas,” said Dalica, “though all commend
This choice, and many meet with no control,
Yet none pursue it! Age by Care oppressed
Feels for the couch, and drops into the grave.
The tranquil scene lies further still from Youth:
Frenzied Ambition and desponding Love
Consume Youth’s fairest flowers; compared with Youth
Age has a something something like repose.
Myrthyr, I seek not here a boundary
Like the horizon, which, as you advance,
Keeping its form and colour, yet recedes;
But mind my errand, and my suit perform.
Twelve years ago Charoba first could speak:
If her indulgent father asked her name,
She would indulge him too, and would reply
‘What? why, Charoba!’ raised with sweet surprise,
And proud to shine a teacher in her turn.
Show her the graven sceptre; what its use?
’Twas to beat dogs with, and to gather flies.
She thought the crown a plaything to amuse
Herself, and not the people, for she thought
Who mimic infant words might infant toys:
But while she watched grave elders look with awe
On such a bauble, she withheld her breath;
She was afraid her parents should suspect
They had caught childhood from her in a kiss;
She blushed for shame, and feared—for she believed.
Yet was not courage wanting in the child.
No; I have often seen her with both hands
Shake a dry crocodile of equal height,
And listen to the shells within the scales,
And fancy there was life, and yet apply
The jagged jaws wide open to her ear.
Past are three summers since she first beheld
The ocean; all around the child await
Some exclamation of amazement here:
She coldly said, her long-lashed eyes abased,
‘Is this the mighty ocean? is this all!’
That wondrous soul Charoba once possessed,
Capacious then as earth or heaven could hold,
Soul discontented with capacity,
Is gone, I fear, for ever. Need I say
She was enchanted by the wicked spells
Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed
The western winds have landed on our coast?
I since have watched her in each lone retreat,
Have heard her sigh and soften out the name,
Then would she change it for Egyptian sounds
More sweet, and seem to taste them on her lips,
Then loathe them—Gebir, Gebir still returned.
Who would repine, of reason not bereft!
For soon the sunny stream of youth runs down,
And not a gadfly streaks the lake beyond.
Lone in the gardens, on her gathered vest
How gently would her languid arm recline!
How often have I seen her kiss a flower,
And on cool mosses press her glowing cheek!
Nor was the stranger free from pangs himself.
Whether by spell imperfect, or while brewed
The swelling herbs infected him with foam,
Oft have the shepherds met him wandering
Through unfrequented paths, oft overheard
Deep groans, oft started from soliloquies
Which they believe assuredly were meant
For spirits who attended him unseen.
But when from his illuded eyes retired
That figure Fancy fondly chose to raise,
He clasped the vacant air and stood and gazed;
Then owning it was folly, strange to tell,
Burst into peals of laughter at his woes.
Next, when his passion had subsided, went
Where from a cistern, green and ruined, oozed
A little rill, soon lost; there gathered he
Violets, and harebells of a sister bloom,
Twining complacently their tender stems
With plants of kindest pliability.
These for a garland woven, for a crown
He platted pithy rushes, and ere dusk
The grass was whitened with their roots nipped off.
These threw he, finished, in the little rill
And stood surveying them with steady smile:
But such a smile as that of Gebir bids
To Comfort a defiance, to Despair
A welcome, at whatever hour she please.
Had I observed him I had pitied him;
I have observed Charoba, I have asked
If she loved Gebir.
‘Love him!’ she exclaimed
With such a start of terror, such a flush
Of anger, ‘I love Gebir? I in love?’
And looked so piteous, so impatient looked—
And burst, before I answered, into tears.
Then saw I, plainly saw I, ’twas not love;
For such her natural temper, what she likes
She speaks it out, or rather she commands.
And could Charoba say with greater ease
Bring me a water-melon from the Nile,’
Than, if she loved him, ‘Bring me him I love.’
Therefore the death of Gebir is resolved.”
“Resolved indeed,” cried Myrthyr, nought surprised,
“Precious my arts! I could without remorse
Kill, though I hold thee dearer than the day,
E’en thee thyself, to exercise my arts.
Look yonder! mark yon pomp of funeral!
Is this from fortune or from favouring stars?
Dalica, look thou yonder, what a train!
What weeping! Oh, what luxury! Come, haste,
Gather me quickly up these herbs I dropped,
And then away—hush! I must unobserved
From those two maiden sisters pull the spleen:
Dissemblers! how invidious they surround
The virgin’s tomb, where all but virgins weep.”
“Nay, hear me first,” cried Dalica; “’tis hard
To perish to attend a foreign king.”
“Perish! and may not then mine eye alone
Draw out the venom drop, and yet remain
Enough? the portion cannot be perceived.”
Away she hastened with it to her home,
And, sprinkling thrice flesh sulphur o’er the hearth,
Took up a spindle with malignant smile,
And pointed to a woof, nor spake a word;
’Twas a dark purple, and its dye was dread.
Plunged in a lonely house, to her unknown,
Now Dalica first trembled: o’er the roof
Wandered her haggard eyes—’twas some relief.
The massy stones, though hewn most roughly, showed
The hand of man had once at least been there:
But from this object sinking back amazed,
Her bosom lost all consciousness, and shook
As if suspended in unbounded space.
Her thus entranced the sister’s voice recalled.
“Behold it here dyed once again! ’tis done.”
Dalica stepped, and felt beneath her feet
The slippery floor, with mouldered dust bestrewn;
But Myrthyr seized with bare bold-sinewed arm
The grey cerastes, writhing from her grasp,
And twisted off his horn, nor feared to squeeze
The viscous poison from his glowing gums.
Nor wanted there the root of stunted shrub
Which he lays ragged, hanging o’er the sands,
And whence the weapons of his wrath are death:
Nor the blue urchin that with clammy fin
Holds down the tossing vessel for the tides.
Together these her scient hand combined,
And more she added, dared I mention more.
Which done, with words most potent, thrice she dipped
The reeking garb; thrice waved it through the air:
She ceased; and suddenly the creeping wool
Shrunk up with crispèd dryness in her hands.
“Take this,” she cried, “and Gebir is no more.”

SIXTH BOOK.

Now to Aurora borne by dappled steeds,
The sacred gate of orient pearl and gold,
Smitten with Lucifer’s light silver wand,
Expanded slow to strains of harmony:
The waves beneath in purpling rows, like doves
Glancing with wanton coyness tow’rd their queen,
Heaved softly; thus the damsel’s bosom heaves
When from her sleeping lover’s downy cheek,
To which so warily her own she brings
Each moment nearer, she perceives the warmth
Of coming kisses fanned by playful dreams.
Ocean and earth and heaven was jubilee.
For ’twas the morning pointed out by Fate
When an immortal maid and mortal man
Should share each other’s nature knit in bliss.
The brave Iberians far the beach o’erspread
Ere dawn with distant awe; none hear the mew,
None mark the curlew flapping o’er the field;
Silence held all, and fond expectancy.
Now suddenly the conch above the sea
Sounds, and goes sounding through the woods profound.
They, where they hear the echo, turn their eyes,
But nothing see they, save a purple mist
Roll from the distant mountain down the shore:
It rolls, it sails, it settles, it dissolves—
Now shines the nymph to human eye revealed,
And leads her Tamar timorous o’er the waves.
Immortals crowding round congratulate
The shepherd; he shrinks back, of breath bereft:
His vesture clinging closely round his limbs
Unfelt, while they the whole fair form admire,
He fears that he has lost it, then he fears
The wave has moved it, most to look he fears.
Scarce the sweet-flowing music he imbibes,
Or sees the peopled ocean; scarce he sees
Spio with sparkling eyes, and Beroe
Demure, and young Ione, less renowned,
Not less divine, mild-natured; Beauty formed
Her face, her heart Fidelity; for gods
Designed, a mortal too Ione loved.
These were the nymphs elected for the hour
Of Hesperus and Hymen; these had strewn
The bridal bed, these tuned afresh the shells,
Wiping the green that hoarsened them within:
These wove the chaplets, and at night resolved
To drive the dolphins from the wreathéd door.
Gebir surveyed the concourse from the tents,
The Egyptian men around him; ’twas observed
By those below how wistfully he looked,
From what attention with what earnestness
Now to his city, now to theirs, he waved
His hand, and held it, while they spake, outspread.
They tarried with him, and they shared the feast.
They stooped with trembling hand from heavy jars
The wines of Gades gurgling in the bowl;
Nor bent they homeward till the moon appeared
To hang midway betwixt the earth and skies.
’Twas then that leaning o’er the boy beloved,
In Ocean’s grot where Ocean was unheard,
“Tamar!” the nymph said gently, “come awake!
Enough to love, enough to sleep, is given,
Haste we away.” This Tamar deemed deceit,
Spoken so fondly, and he kissed her lips,
Nor blushed he then, for he was then unseen.
But she arising bade the youth arise.
“What cause to fly?” said Tamar; she replied,
“Ask none for flight, and feign none for delay.”
“Oh, am I then deceived! or am I cast
From dreams of pleasure to eternal sleep,
And, when I cease to shudder, cease to be!”
She held the downcast bridegroom to her breast,
Looked in his face and charmed away his fears.
She said not “Wherefore leave I then embraced
You a poor shepherd, or at most a man,
Myself a nymph, that now I should deceive?”
She said not—Tamar did, and was ashamed.
Him overcome her serious voice bespake.
“Grief favours all who bear the gift of tears!
Mild at first sight he meets his votaries
And casts no shadow as he comes along:
But after his embrace the marble chills
The pausing foot, the closing door sounds loud,
The fiend in triumph strikes the roof, then falls
The eye uplifted from his lurid shade.
Tamar, depress thyself, and miseries
Darken and widen: yes, proud-hearted man!
The sea-bird rises as the billows rise;
Nor otherwise when mountain floods descend
Smiles the unsullied lotus glossy-haired.
Thou, claiming all things, leanest on thy claim
Till overwhelmed through incompliancy.
Tamar, some silent tempest gathers round!”
“Round whom?” retorted Tamar; “thou describe
The danger, I will dare it.”
“Who will dare
What is unseen?”
“The man that is unblessed.”
“But wherefore thou? It threatens not thyself,
Nor me, but Gebir and the Gadite host.”
“The more I know, the more a wretch am I.”
Groaned deep the troubled youth, “still thou proceed.”
“Oh, seek not destined evils to divine,
Found out at last too soon! cease here the search,
’Tis vain, ’tis impious, ’tis no gift of mine:
I will impart far better, will impart
What makes, when winter comes, the sun to rest
So soon on ocean’s bed his paler brow,
And night to tarry so at spring’s return.
And I will tell sometimes the fate of men
Who loosed from drooping neck the restless arm
Adventurous, ere long nights had satisfied
The sweet and honest avarice of love;
How whirlpools have absorbed them, storms o’er-whelmed,
And how amid their struggles and their prayers
The big wave blackened o’er the mouths supine:
Then, when my Tamar trembles at the tale,
Kissing his lips half open with surprise,
Glance from the gloomy story, and with glee
Light on the fairer fables of the gods.
Thus we may sport at leisure where we go
Where, loved by Neptune and the Naiad, loved
By pensive Dryad pale, and Oread
The spritely nymph whom constant Zephyr wooes,
Rhine rolls his beryl-coloured wave; than Rhine
What river from the mountains ever came
More stately! most the simple crown adorns
Of rushes and of willows interwined
With here and there a flower: his lofty brow
Shaded with vines and mistletoe and oak
He rears, and mystic bards his fame resound.
Or gliding opposite, th’ Illyrian gulf
Will harbour us from ill.” While thus she spake,
She touched his eyelashes with libant lip,
And breathed ambrosial odours, o’er his cheek
Celestial warmth suffusing: grief dispersed,
And strength and pleasure beamed upon his brow.
Then pointed she before him: first arose
To his astonished and delighted view
The sacred isle that shrines the queen of love.
It stood so near him, so acute each sense,
That not the symphony of lutes alone,
Or coo serene or billing strife of doves,
But murmurs, whispers, nay the very sighs
Which he himself had uttered once, he heard.
Next, but long after and far off, appear
The cloud-like cliffs and thousand towers of Crete,
And further to the right, the Cyclades:
Phoebus had raised and fixed them, to surround
His native Delos and aërial fane.
He saw the land of Pelops, host of gods,
Saw the steep ridge where Corinth after stood
Beckoning the serious with the smiling arts
Into the sunbright bay; unborn the maid
That to assure the bent-up hand unskilled
Looked oft, but oftener fearing who might wake.
He heard the voice of rivers; he descried
Pindan Peneus and the slender nymphs
That tread his banks but fear the thundering tide;
These, and Amphrysos and Apidanus
And poplar-crowned Spercheus, and reclined
On restless rocks Enipeus, whore the winds
Scattered above the weeds his hoary hair.
Then, with Pirene and with Panope,
Evenus, troubled from paternal tears,
And last was Achelous, king of isles.
Zacynthus here, above rose Ithaca,
Like a blue bubble floating in the bay.
Far onward to the left a glimmering light
Glanced out oblique, nor vanished; he inquired
Whence that arose, his consort thus replied—
“Behold the vast Eridanus! ere long
We may again behold him and rejoice.
Of noble rivers none with mightier force
Rolls his unwearied torrent to the main.”
And now Sicanian Etna rose to view:
Darkness with light more horrid she confounds,
Baffles the breath and dims the sight of day.
Tamar grew giddy with astonishment
And, looking up, held fast the bridal vest;
He heard the roar above him, heard the roar
Beneath, and felt it too, as he beheld,
Hurl, from earth’s base, rocks, mountains, to the skies.
Meanwhile the nymph had fixed her eyes beyond,
As seeing somewhat, not intent on aught.
He, more amazed than ever, then exclaimed,
“Is there another flaming isle? or this
Illusion, thus passed over unobserved?”
“Look yonder,” cried the nymph, without reply,
“Look yonder!” Tamar looked, and saw afar
Where the waves whitened on the desert shore.
When from amid grey ocean first he caught
The heights of Calpé, saddened he exclaimed,
“Rock of Iberia! fixed by Jove and hung
With all his thunder-hearing clouds, I hail
Thy ridges rough and cheerless! what though Spring
Nor kiss thy brow nor cool it with a flower,
Yet will I hail thee, hail thy flinty couch,
Where Valour and where Virtue have reposed.”
The nymph said, sweetly smiling, “Fickle man
Would not be happy could he not regret!
And I confess how, looking back, a thought
Has touched and tuned or rather thrilled my heart,
Too soft for sorrow and too strong for joy:
Fond foolish maid, ’twas with mine own accord
It soothed me, shook me, melted, drowned, in tears.
But weep not thou; what cause hast thou to weep?
Wouldst thou thy country? wouldst those caves abhorred,
Dungeons and portals that exclude the day?
Gebir, though generous, just, humane, inhaled
Rank venom from these mansions. Rest, O king
In Egypt thou! nor, Tamar! pant for sway.
With horrid chorus, Pain, Diseases, Death,
Stamp on the slippery pavement of the proud,
And ring their sounding emptiness through earth.
Possess the ocean, me, thyself, and peace.”
And now the chariot of the Sun descends,
The waves rush hurried from his foaming steeds,
Smoke issues from their nostrils at the gate,
Which when they enter, with huge golden bar
Atlas and Calpe close across the sea.

SEVENTH BOOK.

What mortal first by adverse fate assailed,
Trampled by tyranny or scoffed by scorn,
Stung by remorse or wrung by poverty,
Bade with fond sigh his native laud farewell?
Wretched! but tenfold wretched who resolved
Against the waves to plunge th’ expatriate keel
Deep with the richest harvest of his land!
Driven with that weak blast which Winter leaves
Closing his palace gates on Caucasus,
Oft hath a berry risen forth a shade;
From the same parent plant another lies
Deaf to the daily call of weary hind;
Zephyrs pass by and laugh at his distress.
By every lake’s and every river’s side
The nymphs and Naiads teach Equality;
In voices gently querulous they ask,
“Who would with aching head and toiling arms
Bear the full pitcher to the stream far off?
Who would, of power intent on high emprise,
Deem less the praise to fill the vacant gulf
Then raise Charybdis upon Etna’s brow?”
Amid her darkest caverns most retired,
Nature calls forth her filial elements
To close around and cruel that monster Void:
Fire, springing fierce from his resplendent throne,
And Water, dashing the devoted wretch
Woundless and whole with iron-coloured mace,
Or whirling headlong in his war-belt’s fold.
Mark well the lesson, man! and spare thy kind.
Go, from their midnight darkness wake the woods,
Woo the lone forest in her last retreat:
Many still bend their beauteous heads unblest
And sigh aloud for elemental man.
Through palaces and porches evil eyes
Light upon e’en the wretched, who have fled
The house of bondage or the house of birth;
Suspicions, murmurs, treacheries, taunts, retorts,
Attend the brighter banners that invade;
And the first horn of hunter, pale with want,
Sounds to the chase, the second to the war.
The long awaited day at last arrived,
When, linked together by the seven-armed Nile,
Egypt with proud Iberia should unite.
Here the Tartesian, there the Gadite tents
Rang with impatient pleasure: here engaged
Woody Nebrissa’s quiver-bearing crew,
Contending warm with amicable skill;
While they of Durius raced along the beach
And scattered mud and jeers on all behind.
The strength of Bætis too removed the helm
And stripped the corslet off, and staunched the foot
Against the mossy maple, while they tore
Their quivering lances from the hissing wound.
Others push forth the prows of their compeers,
And the wave, parted by the pouncing beak,
Swells up the sides, and closes far astern:
The silent oars now dip their level wings,
And weary with strong stroke the whitening wave.
Others, afraid of tardiness, return:
Now, entering the still harbour, every surge
Runs with a louder murmur up their keel,
And the slack cordage rattles round the mast.
Sleepless with pleasure and expiring fears
Had Gebir risen ere the break of dawn,
And o’er the plains appointed for the feast
Hurried with ardent step: the swains admired
What so transversely could have swept the dew;
For never long one path had Gebir trod,
Nor long, unheeding man, one pace preserved.
Not thus Charoba: she despaired the day:
The day was present; true; yet she despaired.
In the too tender and once tortured heart
Doubts gather strength from habit, like disease;
Fears, like the needle verging to the pole,
Tremble and tremble into certainty.
How often, when her maids with merry voice
Called her, and told the sleepless queen ’twas morn,
How often would she feign some fresh delay,
And tell them (though they saw) that she arose.
Next to her chamber, closed by cedar doors
A bath of purest marble, purest wave,
On its fair surface bore its pavement high:
Arabian gold enchased the crystal roof,
With fluttering boys adorned and girls unrobed:
These, when you touch the quiet water, start
From their aërial sunny arch, and pant
Entangled mid each other’s flowery wreaths,
And each pursuing is in turn pursued.
Here came at last, as ever wont at morn,
Charoba: long she lingered at the brink,
Often she sighed, and, naked as she was,
Sat down, and leaning on the couch’s edge,
On the soft inward pillow of her arm
Rested her burning cheek: she moved her eyes;
She blushed; and blushing plunged into the wave.
Now brazen chariots thunder through each street,
And neighing steeds paw proudly from delay.
While o’er the palace breathes the dulcimer,
Lute, and aspiring harp, and lisping reed;
Loud rush the trumpets bursting through the throng
And urge the high-shouldered vulgar; now are heard
Curses and quarrels and constricted blows,
Threats and defiance and suburban war.
Hark! the reiterated clangour sounds!
Now murmurs, like the sea or like the storm,
Or like the flames on forests, move and mount
From rank to rank, and loud and louder roll,
Till all the people is one vast applause.
Yes, ’tis herself, Charoba—now the strife
To see again a form so often seen!
Feel they some partial pang, some secret void,
Some doubt of feasting those fond eyes again?
Panting imbibe they that refreshing sight
To reproduce in hour of bitterness?
She goes, the king awaits her from the camp:
Him she descried, and trembled ere he reached
Her car, but shuddered paler at his voice.
So the pale silver at the festive board
Grows paler filled afresh and dewed with wine;
So seems the tenderest herbage of the spring
To whiten, bending from a balmy gale.
The beauteous queen alighting he received,
And sighed to loose her from his arms; she hung
A little longer on them through her fears:
Her maidens followed her, and one that watched,
One that had called her in the morn, observed
How virgin passion with unfueled flame
Burns into whiteness, while the blushing cheek
Imagination heats and Shame imbues.
Between both nations drawn in ranks they pass:
The priests, with linen ephods, linen robes,
Attend their steps, some follow, some precede,
Where clothed with purple intertwined with gold
Two lofty thrones commanded land and main.
Behind and near them numerous were the tents
As freckled clouds o’erfloat our vernal skies,
Numerous as wander in warm moonlight nights,
Along Meander’s or Cayster’s marsh,
Swans pliant-necked and village storks revered.
Throughout each nation moved the hum confused,
Like that from myriad wings o’er Scythian cups
Of frothy milk, concreted soon with blood.
Throughout the fields the savoury smoke ascends,
And boughs and branches shade the hides unbroached.
Some roll the flowery turf into a seat,
And others press the helmet—now resounds
The signal—queen and monarch mount the thrones.
The brazen clarion hoarsens: many leagues
Above them, many to the south, the heron
Rising with hurried croak and throat outstretched,
Ploughs up the silvering surface of her plain.
Tottering with age’s zeal and mischief’s haste
Now was discovered Dalica; she reached
The throne, she leant against the pedestal,
And now ascending stood before the king.
Prayers for his health and safety she preferred,
And o’er his head and o’er his feet she threw
Myrrh, nard, and cassia, from three golden urns;
His robe of native woof she next removed,
And round his shoulders drew the garb accursed,
And bowed her head and parted: soon the queen
Saw the blood mantle in his manly cheeks,
And feared, and faltering sought her lost replies,
And blessed the silence that she wished were broke.
Alas! unconscious maiden! night shall close,
And love and sovereignty and life dissolve,
And Egypt be one desert drenched in blood.
When thunder overhangs the fountain’s head,
Losing its wonted freshness every stream
Grows turbid, grows with sickly warmth suffused:
Thus were the brave Iberians when they saw
The king of nations from his throne descend.
Scarcely, with pace uneven, knees unnerved,
Reached he the waters: in his troubled ear
They sounded murmuring drearily; they rose
Wild, in strange colours, to his parching eyes;
They seemed to rush around him, seemed to lift
From the receding earth his helpless feet.
He fell—Charoba shrieked aloud—she ran—
Frantic with fears and fondness, mazed with woe,
Nothing but Gebir dying she beheld.
The turban that betrayed its golden charge
Within, the veil that down her shoulders hung,
All fallen at her feet! the furthest wave
Creeping with silent progress up the sand,
Glided through all, and raised their hollow folds.
In vain they bore him to the sea, in vain
Rubbed they his temples with the briny warmth:
He struggled from them, strong with agony,
He rose half up, he fell again, he cried
“Charoba! O Charoba!” She embraced
His neck, and raising on her knee one arm,
Sighed when it moved not, when it fell she shrieked,
And clasping loud both hands above her head,
She called on Gebir, called on earth, on heaven.
“Who will believe me? what shall I protest?
How innocent, thus wretched! God of gods,
Strike me—who most offend thee most defy—
Charoba most offends thee—strike me, hurl
From this accursed land, this faithless throne.
O Dalica! see here the royal feast!
See here the gorgeous robe! you little thought
How have the demons dyed that robe with death.
Where are ye, dear fond parents! when ye heard
My feet in childhood pat the palace-floor,
Ye started forth and kissed away surprise:
Will ye now meet me! how, and where, and when?
And must I fill your bosom with my tears,
And, what I never have done, with your own!
Why have the gods thus punished me? what harm
Have ever I done them? have I profaned
Their temples, asked too little, or too much?
Proud if they granted, grieved if they withheld?
O mother! stand between your child and them!
Appease them, soothe them, soften their revenge,
Melt them to pity with maternal tears—
Alas, but if you cannot! they themselves
Will then want pity rather than your child.
O Gebir! best of monarchs, best of men,
What realm hath ever thy firm even hand
Or lost by feebleness or held by force!
Behold thy cares and perils how repaid!
Behold the festive day, the nuptial hour!”
Thus raved Charoba: horror, grief, amaze,
Pervaded all the host; all eyes were fixed;
All stricken motionless and mute: the feast
Was like the feast of Cepheus, when the sword
Of Phineus, white with wonder, shook restrained,
And the hilt rattled in his marble hand.
She heard not, saw not, every sense was gone;
One passion banished all; dominion, praise,
The world itself was nothing. Senseless man!
What would thy fancy figure now from worlds?
There is no world to those that grieve and love.
She hung upon his bosom, pressed his lips,
Breathed, and would feign it his that she resorbed;
She chafed the feathery softness of his veins,
That swelled out black, like tendrils round their vase
After libation: lo! he moves! he groans!
He seems to struggle from the grasp of death.
Charoba shrieked and fell away, her hand
Still clasping his, a sudden blush o’erspread
Her pallid humid cheek, and disappeared.
’Twas not the blush of shame—what shame has woe?—
’Twas not the genuine ray of hope, it flashed
With shuddering glimmer through unscattered clouds,
It flashed from passions rapidly opposed.
Never so eager, when the world was waves,
Stood the less daughter of the ark, and tried
(Innocent this temptation!) to recall
With folded vest and casting arm the dove;
Never so fearful, when amid the vines
Rattled the hail, and when the light of heaven
Closed, since the wreck of Nature, first eclipsed,
As she was eager for his life’s return,
As she was fearful how his groans might end.
They ended: cold and languid calm succeeds;
His eyes have lost their lustre, but his voice
Is not unheard, though short: he spake these words:
“And weepest thou, Charoba! shedding tears
More precious than the jewels that surround
The neck of kings entombed! then weep, fair queen,
At once thy pity and my pangs assuage.
Ah! what is grandeur, glory—they are past!
When nothing else, not life itself, remains,
Still the fond mourner may be called our own.
Should I complain of Fortune? how she errs,
Scattering her bounty upon barren ground,
Slow to allay the lingering thirst of toil?
Fortune, ’tis true, may err, may hesitate,
Death follows close nor hesitates nor errs.
I feel the stroke! I die!” He would extend
His dying arm; it fell upon his breast:
Cold sweat and shivering ran o’er every limb,
His eyes grew stiff, he struggled and expired.

COUNT JULIAN.

CHARACTERS.

Count Julian.

Roderigo, King of Spain.

Opas, Metropolitan of Seville.