Selected Poems (27 page)

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 Palikar
²
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’d
²
Giaours
³
view his horse-tail
⁴
with dread;

When his Delhis
⁵
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: