Selected Poems (126 page)

ARBACES
:But no less we owe them;

345

And I should blush far more to take the grantor’s!

BELESES
: Thou may’st endure whate’er thou wilt – the stars

Have written otherwise.

ARBACES
:Though they came down,

And marshall’d me the way in all their brightness,

I would not follow.

BELESES
: This is weakness – worse

350

Than a scared beldam’s dreaming of the dead,

And waking in the dark. – Go to – go to.

ARBACES
: Methought he look’d like Nimrod as he spoke,

Even as the proud imperial statue stands

Looking the monarch of the kings around it,

355

And sways, while they but ornament, the temple.

BELESES
: I told you that you had too much despised him,

And that there was some royalty within him –

What then? he is the nobler foe.

ARBACES
:But we

The meaner. – Would he had not spared us!

BELESES
:So-

360

Wouldst thou be sacrificed thus readily?

ARBACES
: No – but it had been better to have died

Than live ungrateful.

BELESES
:Oh, the souls of some men!

Thou wouldst digest what some call treason, and

Fools treachery – and, behold, upon the sudden,

365

Because for something or for nothing, this

Rash reveller steps, ostentatiously,

’Twixt thee and Salemenes, thou art turn’d

Into – what shall I say? – Sardanapalus!

I know no name more ignominious.

ARBACES
:But

370

An hour ago, who dared to term me such

Had held his life but lightly – as it is,

I must forgive you, even as he forgave us –

Semiramis herself would not have done it.

BELESES
: No – the queen liked no sharers of the kingdom

Not even a husband.

375

ARBACES
:I must serve him truly —

BELESES
: And humbly?

ARBACES
:No, sir, proudly – being honest.

I shall be nearer thrones than you to heaven;

And if not quite so haughty, yet more lofty.

You may do your own deeming – you have codes,

380

And mysteries, and corollaries of

Right and wrong, which I lack for my direction,

And must pursue but what a plain heart teaches.

And now you know me.

BELESES
:Have you finish’d?

ARBACES
: Yes –

With you.

BELESES
: And would, perhaps, betray as well

385

As quit me?

ARBACES
:That’s a sacerdotal thought,

And not a soldier’s.

BELESES
: Be it what you will –

Truce with these wranglings, and but hear me.

ARBACES
: No –

There is more peril in your subtle spirit

Than in a phalanx.

BELESES
: If it must be so –

390

I’ll on alone!

ARBACES
:Alone!

BELESES
:Thrones hold but one.

ARBASES
: But this is fill’d.

BELESES
: With worse than vacancy –

A despised monarch. Look to it, Arbaces:

I have still aided, cherish’d, loved, and urged you;

Was willing even to serve you, in the hope

395

To serve and save Assyria. Heaven itself

Seem’d to consent, and all events were friendly,

Even to the last, till that your spirit shrunk

Into a shallow softness; but now, rather

Than see my country languish, I will be

400

Her saviour or the victim of her tyrant,

Or one or both, for sometimes both are one;

And if I win, Arbaces is my servant.

ARBACES
:
Your
servant!

BELESES
:Why not? better than be slave,

The
pardon’d
slave of
she
Sardanapalus!

[
Enter
PANIA
.]

405

PANIA
: My lords, I bear an order from the king.

ARBACES
: It is obey’d ere spoken.

BELESES
:Notwithstanding,

Let’s hear it.

PANIA
: Forthwith, on this very night,

Repair to your respective satrapies

Of Babylon and Media.

BELESES
: With our troops?

410

PANIA
: My order is unto the satraps and

Their household train.

ARBACES
:But—

BELESES
:It must be obev’d:

Say, we depart.

PANIA
:My order is to see you

Depart, and not to bear your answer.

BELESES
[
aside
]:Ay!

Well, sir, we will accompany you hence.

415

PANIA
: I will retire to marshal forth the guard

Of honour which befits your rank, and wait

Your leisure, so that it the hour exceeds not.

[
Exit
PANIA
.]

BELESES
:
Now
then obey!

ARBACES
:Doubtless.

BELESES
:Yes, to the gates

That grate the palace, which is now our prison —

420

No further.

ARBACES
: Thou hast harp’d the truth indeed!

The realm itself, in all its wide extension,

Yawns dungeons at each step for thee and me.

BELESES
: Graves!

ARBACES
:If I thought so, this good sword should dig

One more than mine.

BELESES
:It shall have work enough.

425

Let me hope better than thou augurest;

At present, let us hence as best we may.

Thou dost agree with me in understanding

This order as a sentence?

ARBACES
:Why, what other

Interpretation should it bear? it is

430

The very policy of orient monarchs —

Pardon and poison — favours and a sword —

A distant voyage, and an eternal sleep.

How many satraps in his father’s time —

For he I own is, or at least
was
, bloodless —

435

BELESES
: But
will
not,
can
not be so now.

ARBACES
:I doubt it.

How many satraps have I seen set out

In his sire’s day for mighty vice-royalties,

Whose tombs are on their path! I know not how,

But they all sicken’d by the way, it was

440

So long and heavy.

BELESES
:Let us but regain

The free air of the city, and we’ll shorten

The journey.

ARBACES
:’Twill be shorten’d at the gates,

It may be.

BELESES
: No; they hardly will risk that.

They mean us to die privately, but not

445

Within the palace or the city walls,

Where we are known, and may have partisans:

If they had meant to slay us here, we were

No longer with the living. Let us hence.

ARBACES
: If I but thought he did not mean my life —

450

BELESES
: Fool! hence — what else should despotism

alarm’d

Mean? Let us but rejoin our troops, and march.

ARBACES
: Towards our provinces?

BELESES
:No; towards your kingdom.

There’s time, there’s heart, and hope, and power, and means,

Which their half measures leave us in full scope. —

455

Away!

ARBACES
: And I even yet repenting must

Relapse to guilt!

BELESES
:Self-defence is a virtue,

Sole bulwark of all right. Away, I say!

Let’s leave this place, the air grows thick and choking,

And the walls have a scent of night-shade – hence!

460

Let us not leave them time for further council.

Our quick departure proves our civic zeal;