The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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XVI.

"Onward we went--but slack and slow;
His savage force at length o'erspent,
The drooping courser, faint and low,
All feebly foaming went:
A sickly infant had had power
To guide him forward in that hour! 630
But, useless all to me,
His new-born tameness nought availed--
My limbs were bound; my force had failed,
Perchance, had they been free.
With feeble effort still I tried
To rend the bonds so starkly tied,
But still it was in vain;
My limbs were only wrung the more,
And soon the idle strife gave o'er,
Which but prolonged their pain. 640
The dizzy race seemed almost done,
Although no goal was nearly won:
Some streaks announced the coming sun--
How slow, alas! he came!
Methought that mist of dawning gray
Would never dapple into day,
How heavily it rolled away!
Before the eastern flame
Rose crimson, and deposed the stars,
And called the radiance from their cars,[bv] 650
And filled the earth, from his deep throne,
With lonely lustre, all his own.

XVII.

"Uprose the sun; the mists were curled
Back from the solitary world
Which lay around--behind--before.
What booted it to traverse o'er
Plain--forest--river? Man nor brute,
Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot,
Lay in the wild luxuriant soil--
No sign of travel, none of toil-- 660
The very air was mute:
And not an insect's shrill small horn,[269]
Nor matin bird's new voice was borne
From herb nor thicket. Many a _werst,_
Panting as if his heart would burst,
The weary brute still staggered on;
And still we were--or seemed--alone:
At length, while reeling on our way,
Methought I heard a courser neigh,
From out yon tuft of blackening firs. 670
Is it the wind those branches stirs?[270]
No, no! from out the forest prance
A trampling troop; I see them come!
In one vast squadron they advance!
I strove to cry--my lips were dumb!
The steeds rush on in plunging pride;
But where are they the reins to guide?
A thousand horse, and none to ride!
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
Wide nostrils never stretched by pain, 680
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on,
As if our faint approach to meet!
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet,
A moment staggering, feebly fleet,
A moment, with a faint low neigh, 690
He answered, and then fell!
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
And reeking limbs immoveable,
His first and last career is done!
On came the troop--they saw him stoop,
They saw me strangely bound along
His back with many a bloody thong.
They stop--they start--they snuff the air,
Gallop a moment here and there,
Approach, retire, wheel round and round, 700
Then plunging back with sudden bound,
Headed by one black mighty steed,
Who seemed the Patriarch of his breed,
Without a single speck or hair
Of white upon his shaggy hide;
They snort--they foam--neigh--swerve aside,
And backward to the forest fly,
By instinct, from a human eye.
They left me there to my despair,
Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, 710
Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch,
Relieved from that unwonted weight,
From whence I could not extricate
Nor him nor me--and there we lay,
The dying on the dead!
I little deemed another day
Would see my houseless, helpless head.

"And there from morn to twilight bound,
I felt the heavy hours toil round,
With just enough of life to see 720
My last of suns go down on me,
In hopeless certainty of, mind,
That makes us feel at length resigned
To that which our foreboding years
Present the worst and last of fears:
Inevitable--even a boon,
Nor more unkind for coming soon,
Yet shunned and dreaded with such care,
As if it only were a snare
That Prudence might escape: 730
At times both wished for and implored,
At times sought with self-pointed sword,
Yet still a dark and hideous close
To even intolerable woes,
And welcome in no shape.
And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure,
They who have revelled beyond measure
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure,
Die calm, or calmer, oft than he
Whose heritage was Misery. 740
For he who hath in turn run through
All that was beautiful and new,
Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave;
And, save the future, (which is viewed
Not quite as men are base or good,
But as their nerves may be endued,)
With nought perhaps to grieve:
The wretch still hopes his woes must end,
And Death, whom he should deem his friend,
Appears, to his distempered eyes, 750
Arrived to rob him of his prize,
The tree of his new Paradise.
To-morrow would have given him all,
Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall;
To-morrow would have been the first
Of days no more deplored or curst,
But bright, and long, and beckoning years,
Seen dazzling through the mist of tears,
Guerdon of many a painful hour;
To-morrow would have given him power 760
To rule--to shine--to smite--to save--
And must it dawn upon his grave?

XVIII.

"The sun was sinking--still I lay
Chained to the chill and stiffening steed!
I thought to mingle there our clay;[271]
And my dim eyes of death had need,
No hope arose of being freed.
I cast my last looks up the sky,
And there between me and the sun[272]
I saw the expecting raven fly, 770
Who scarce would wait till both should die,
Ere his repast begun;[273]
He flew, and perched, then flew once more,
And each time nearer than before;
I saw his wing through twilight flit,
And once so near me he alit
I could have smote, but lacked the strength;
But the slight motion of my hand,
And feeble scratching of the sand,
The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, 780
Which scarcely could be called a voice,
Together scared him off at length.
I know no more--my latest dream
Is something of a lovely star
Which fixed my dull eyes from afar,
And went and came with wandering beam,
And of the cold--dull--swimming--dense
Sensation of recurring sense,
And then subsiding back to death,
And then again a little breath, 790
A little thrill--a short suspense,
An icy sickness curdling o'er
My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain--
A gasp--a throb--a start of pain,
A sigh--and nothing more.

XIX.

"I woke--where was I?--Do I see
A human face look down on me?
And doth a roof above me close?
Do these limbs on a couch repose?
Is this a chamber where I lie? 800
And is it mortal yon bright eye,
That watches me with gentle glance?
I closed my own again once more,
As doubtful that my former trance
Could not as yet be o'er.
A slender girl, long-haired, and tall,
Sate watching by the cottage wall.
The sparkle of her eye I caught,
Even with my first return of thought;
For ever and anon she threw 810
A prying, pitying glance on me
With her black eyes so wild and free:
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew
No vision it could be,--
But that I lived, and was released
From adding to the vulture's feast:
And when the Cossack maid beheld
My heavy eyes at length unsealed,
She smiled--and I essayed to speak,
But failed--and she approached, and made 820
With lip and finger signs that said,
I must not strive as yet to break
The silence, till my strength should be
Enough to leave my accents free;
And then her hand on mine she laid,
And smoothed the pillow for my head,
And stole along on tiptoe tread,
And gently oped the door, and spake
In whispers--ne'er was voice so sweet![274]
Even music followed her light feet. 830
But those she called were not awake,
And she went forth; but, ere she passed,
Another look on me she cast,
Another sign she made, to say,
That I had nought to fear, that all
Were near, at my command or call,
And she would not delay
Her due return:--while she was gone,
Methought I felt too much alone.

XX.

"She came with mother and with sire-- 840
What need of more?--I will not tire
With long recital of the rest,
Since I became the Cossack's guest.
They found me senseless on the plain,
They bore me to the nearest hut,
They brought me into life again--
Me--one day o'er their realm to reign!
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
His rage, refining on my pain,
Sent me forth to the wilderness, 850
Bound--naked--bleeding--and alone,
To pass the desert to a throne,--
What mortal his own doom may guess?
Let none despond, let none despair!
To-morrow the Borysthenes
May see our coursers graze at ease
Upon his Turkish bank,--and never
Had I such welcome for a river
As I shall yield when safely there.[275]
Comrades, good night!"--The Hetman threw 860
His length beneath the oak-tree shade,
With leafy couch already made--
A bed nor comfortless nor new
To him, who took his rest whene'er
The hour arrived, no matter where:
His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.
And if ye marvel Charles forgot
To thank his tale, _he_ wondered not,--
The King had been an hour asleep!

FOOTNOTES:

[br] {205}_la suite_.--[MS. and First Edition.]

[248] {207}[The Battle of Poltava on the Vorskla took place July 8,
1709. "The Swedish troops (under Rehnskjoeld) numbered only 12,500
men.... The Russian army was four times as numerous.... The Swedes
seemed at first to get the advantage, ... but everywhere the were
overpowered and surrounded--beaten in detail; and though for two hours
they fought with the fierceness of despair, they were forced either to
surrender or to flee.... Over 2800 officers and men were taken
prisoners."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 148, 149.]

[249] [Napoleon began his retreat from Moscow, October 15, 1812. He was
defeated at Vitepsk, November 14; Krasnoi, November 16-18; and at
Beresina, November 25-29, 1812.]

[250] ["It happened ... that during the operations of June 27-28,
Charles was severely wounded in the foot. On the morning of June 28 he
was riding close to the river ... when a ball struck him on the left
heel, passed through his foot, and lodged close to the great toe.... On
the night of July 7, 1709 ... Charles had the foot carefully dressed,
while he wore a spurred boot on his sound foot, put on his uniform, and
placed himself on a kind of litter, in which he was drawn before the
lines of the array.... [After the battle, July 8] those who survived
took refuge in flight, the King--whose litter had been smashed by a
cannon-ball, and who was carried by the soldiers on crossed poles--going
with them, and the Russians neglecting to pursue. In this manner they
reached their former camp."--_Charles XII._, by Oscar Browning, 1899,
pp. 213, 220, 224, sq. For an account of his flight southwards into
Turkish territory, _vide post_, p. 233, note 1. The bivouack "under a
savage tree" must have taken place on the night of the battle, at the
first halt, between Poltava and the junction of the Vorskla and
Dnieper.]

[251] {208}[Compare--

"Thus elms and thus the savage cherry grows."

Dryden's _Georgics_, ii. 24.]

[252] {209}[For some interesting particulars concerning the Hetman
Mazeppa, see Barrow's _Memoir of the Life of Peter the Great_, 1832, pp.
181-202.]

[253] {211}[The Dnieper.]

[254] [John Casimir (1609-1672), Jesuit, cardinal, and king, was a
Little-Polander, not to say a pro-Cossack, and suffered in consequence.
At the time of his proclamation as King of Poland, November, 1649,
Poland was threatened by an incursion of Cossacks. The immediate cause
was, or was supposed to be, the ill treatment which [Bogdan Khmelnitzky]
a Lithuanian had received at the hands of the Polish governor,
Czaplinski. The governor, it was alleged, had carried off, ravished, and
put to death Khmelnitzky's wife, and, not content with this outrage, had
set fire to the house of the Cossack, "in which perished his infant son
in his cradle." Others affirmed that the Cossack had begun the strife by
causing the governor "to be publicly and ignominiously whipped," and
that it was the Cossack's mill and not his house which he burnt. Be that
as it may, Casimir, on being exhorted to take the field, declined, on
the ground that the Poles "ought not to have set fire to Khmelnitzky's
house." It is probably to this unpatriotic determination to look at both
sides of the question that he earned the character of being an unwarlike
prince. As a matter of fact, he fought and was victorious against the
Cossacks and Tartars at Bereteskow and elsewhere. (See _Mod. Univ.
Hist._, xxxiv. 203, 217; Puffend, _Hist. Gener._, 1732, iv. 328; and
_Histoire des Kosaques_, par M. (Charles Louis) Le Sur, 1814, i. 321.)]

[255] [A.D. 1660 or thereabouts.]

[256] {212}[According to the editor of Voltaire's Works (_Oeuvres_,
Beuchot, 1830, xix. 378, note 1), there was a report that Casimir, after
his retirement to Paris in 1670, secretly married "_Marie Mignot, fille
d'une blanchisseuse_;" and there are other tales of other loves, e.g.
Ninon de Lenclos.]

[257] [According to the biographers, Mazeppa's intrigue took place after
he had been banished from the court of Warsaw, and had retired to his
estate in Volhynia. The _pane_ [Lord] Falbowsky, the old husband of the
young wife, was a neighbouring magnate. It was a case of "love in
idlenesse."--_Vide ante_, "The Introduction to _Mazeppa_," p. 201.]

[258] This comparison of a "_salt_ mine" may, perhaps, be permitted to a
Pole, as the wealth of the country consists greatly in the salt mines.

[259] {213}[It is improbable that Byron, when he wrote these lines, was
thinking of Theresa Gamba, Countess Guiccioli. He met her for the first
time "in the autumn of 1818, three days after her marriage," but it was
not till April, 1819, that he made her acquaintance. (See _Life_, p.
393, and _Letters_, 1900, iv. 289.) The copy of _Mazeppa_ sent home to
Murray is in the Countess Guiccioli's handwriting, but the assertion
(see Byron's _Works_, 1832, xi. 178), that "it is impossible not to
suspect that the Poet had some circumstances of his own personal
history, when he portrayed the fair Polish _Theresa_, her faithful
lover, and the jealous rage of the old Count Palatine," is open to
question. It was Marianna Segati who had "large, black, Oriental eyes,
with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among
_Europeans_ ... forehead remarkably good" (see lines 208-220); not
Theresa Guiccioli, who was a "blonde," with a "brilliant complexion and
blue eyes." (See Letters to Moore, November 17, 1816; and to Murray, May
6, 1819: _Letters_, 1900, iv. 8, 289, note 1.) Moreover, the "Maid of
Athens" was called Theresa. Dr. D. Englaender, in his exhaustive
monologue, _Lord Byron's Mazeppa_, pp. 48, sq., insists on the identity
of the Theresa of the poem with the Countess Guiccioli, but from this
contention the late Professor Koelbing (see _Englische Studien_, 1898,
vol. xxiv. pp 448-458) dissents.]

[bs] {214}_Until it proves a joy to die_.--[MS. erased.]

[260] {215}[For the use of "electric" as a metaphor, compare _Parisina_,
line 480, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 524, note i.]

[bt] {216}

--_but not_
_For that which we had both forgot_.--[MS. erased.]

[261] {217}[Compare--

"We loved, Sir, used to meet:
How sad, and bad, and mad it was!
But then how it was sweet!"

_Confessions_, by Robert Browning.]

[262] {220}[Compare--

"In sleep I heard the northern gleams; ...
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive."

_The Complaint_, stanza i. lines 3, 5, 6.

See, too, reference to _Hearne's Journey from Hudson's Bay, etc_., in
prefatory note, _Works_ of W. Wordsworth, 1889, p. 86.]

[263] [As Dr. Englaender points out (_Mazeppa_, 1897, p. 73), it is
probable that Byron derived his general conception of the scenery of the
Ukraine from passages in Voltaire's _Charles XII._, e.g.: "Depuis Grodno
jusqu'au Borysthene, en tirant vers l'orient ce sont des marais, des
deserts, des forets immenses" (_Oeuvres_, 1829, xxiv. 170). The
exquisite beauty of the virgin steppes, the long rich grass, the
wild-flowers, the "diviner air," to which the Viscount de Voguee
testifies so eloquently in his _Mazeppa_, were not in the "mind's eye"
of the poet or the historian.]

[bu] {222}

_And stains it with a lifeless red_.--[MS.]
_Which clings to it like stiffened gore_.--[MS. erased.]

[264] {223}[The thread on which the successive tropes or images are
loosely strung seems to give if not to snap at this point. "Considering
that Mazeppa was sprung of a race which in moments of excitement, when
an enemy has stamped upon its vitals, springs up to repel the attack, it
was only to be expected that he should sink beneath the blow--and sink
he did." The conclusion is at variance with the premiss.]

[265] {224}[Compare--

"'Alas,' said she, 'this ghastly ride,
Dear Lady! it hath wildered you.'"

_Christabel_, Part I. lines 216, 217.]

[266] {225}[Compare--

"How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare."

_Ancient Mariner,_ Part V. lines 393, 394.]

[267] [Compare--

"From precipices of distempered sleep."

Sonnet, "No more my visionary soul shall dwell," by S. T. Coleridge,
attributed by Southey to Favell.--_Letters of S. T. Coleridge,_ 1895, i.
83; Southey's _Life and Correspondence,_ 1849, i. 224.]

[268] {226}[Compare _Werner_, iii. 3--

"Burn still,
Thou little light! Thou art my _ignis fatuus_.
My stationary Will-o'-the-wisp!--So! So!"

Compare, too, _Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza xxvii. line 6, and Canto XV,
stanza liv. line 6.]

[bv] {227}

_Rose crimson, and forebade the stars_
_To sparkle in their radiant cars_.--[MS, erased.]

[269] [Compare--

"What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn."

_Lycidas,_ line 28.]

[270] [Compare--

"Was it the wind through some hollow stone?"

_Siege of Corinth,_ line 521, _Poetical Works,_
1900, iii. 471, note 1.]

[271] {230}[Compare--

"The Architect ... did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought."

_Churchill's Grave_, lines 20-23 (_vide ante_, p. 47).]

[272] [Compare--

" ... that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun."

_Ancient Mariner_, Part III. lines 175, 176.]

[273] [_Vide infra_, line 816. The raven turns into a vulture a few
lines further on. Compare--

"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."

_Siege of Corinth_, lines 471-474, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iv. 468.]

[274] {232}[Compare--

"Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose,
Although she told him, in good modern Greek,
With an Ionian accent, low and sweet,
That he was faint, and must not talk but eat.

"Now Juan could not understand a word,
Being no Grecian; but he had an ear,
And her voice was the warble of a bird,
So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear."

_Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cl. line 5 to stanza cli. line 4.]

[275] {233}["By noon the battle (of Poltava) was over.... Charles had
been induced to return to the camp and rally the remainder of the army.
In spite of his wounded foot, he had to ride, lying on the neck of his
horse.... The retreat (down the Vorskla to the Dnieper) began towards
evening.... On the afternoon of July 11 the Swedes arrived at the little
town of Perevolotchna, at the mouth of the Vorskla, where there was a
ferry across the Dnieper ... the king, Mazeppa, and about 1000 men
crossed the Dnieper.... The king, with the Russian cavalry in hot
pursuit, rode as fast as he could to the Bug, where half his escourt was
captured, and he barely escaped. Thence he went to Bender, on the
Dniester, and for five years remained the guest of Turkey."--_Peter the
Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 149-151.]

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

"'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before."

Campbell, [_Lochiel's Warning_].

INTRODUCTION TO _THE PROPHECY OF DANTE_.

The _Prophecy of Dante_ was written at Ravenna, during the month of
June, 1819, "to gratify" the Countess Guiccioli. Before she left Venice
in April she had received a promise from Byron to visit her at Ravenna.
"Dante's tomb, the classical pinewood," and so forth, had afforded a
pretext for the invitation to be given and accepted, and, at length,
when she was, as she imagined, "at the point of death," he arrived,
better late than never, "on the Festival of the _Corpus Domini_" which
fell that year on the tenth of June (see her communication to Moore,
_Life_, p. 399). Horses and books were left behind at Venice, but he
could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject
of Dante" (_ibid_., p. 402). A heightened interest born of fuller
knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this
labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best
thing he ever wrote" (Letter to Murray, March 23, 1820, _Letters_, 1900,
iv. 422), his _Vision_ (or _Prophecy_) _of Dante_.

It would have been strange if Byron, who had sounded his _Lament_ over
the sufferings of Tasso, and who had become _de facto_ if not _de jure_
a naturalized Italian, had forborne to associate his name and fame with
the sacred memory of the "Gran padre Alighier." If there had been any
truth in Friedrich Schlegel's pronouncement, in a lecture delivered at
Vienna in 1814, "that at no time has the greatest and most national of
all Italian poets ever been much the favourite of his countrymen," the
reproach had become meaningless. As the sumptuous folio edition (4
vols.) of the _Divina Commedia_, published at Florence, 1817-19; a
quarto edition (4 vols.) published at Rome, 1815-17; a folio edition (3
vols.) published at Bologna 1819-21, to which the Conte Giovanni
Marchetti (_vide_ the Preface, _post_, p. 245) contributed his famous
excursus on the allegory in the First Canto of the _Inferno_, and
numerous other issues remain to testify, Dante's own countrymen were
eager "to pay honours almost divine" to his memory. "The last age,"
writes Hobhouse, in 1817 (note 18 to Canto IV. of _Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage_, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 496), "seemed inclined to
undervalue him.... The present generation ... has returned to the
ancient worship, and the _Danteggiare_ of the northern Italians is
thought even indiscreet by the more moderate Tuscans." Dante was in the
air. As Byron wrote in his Diary (January 29, 1821), "Read Schlegel
[probably in a translation published at Edinburgh, 1818]. Not a
favourite! Why, they talk Dante, write Dante, and think and dream Dante
at this moment (1821), to an excess which would be ridiculous, but that
he deserves it."

There was, too, another reason why he was minded to write a poem "on the
subject of Dante." There was, at this time, a hope, if not a clear
prospect, of political change--of throwing off the yoke of the Bourbon,
of liberating Italy from the tyrant and the stranger. "Dante was the
poet of liberty. Persecution, exile, the dread of a foreign grave, could
not shake his principles" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 242). The
_Prophecy_ was "intended for the Italians," intended to foreshadow as in
a vision "liberty and the resurrection of Italy" (_ibid_., p. 241). As
he rode at twilight through the pine forest, or along "the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood," the undying past inspired him
with a vision of the future, delayed, indeed, for a time, "the flame
ending in smoke," but fulfilled after many days, a vision of a redeemed
and united Italy.