Chapter XXVI: Introduction: To Hebrew Melodies (2)

Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty's prayer,[nw]
Were his borrowed glories dim,
In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,
All thou calmly dost resign,
Could he purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thine?[nx]

V.

My Chief, my King, my Friend, adieu!
Never did I droop before;
Never to my Sovereign sue,
As his foes I now implore:
All I ask is to divide
Every peril he must brave;
Sharing by the hero's side
His fall--his exile--and his grave.[ny]

[First published, _Poems_, 1816,]

ODE FROM THE FRENCH.[322]

I.

We do not curse thee, Waterloo!
Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew;
There 'twas shed, but is not sunk--
Rising from each gory trunk,
Like the water-spout from ocean,
With a strong and growing motion--
It soars, and mingles in the air,
With that of lost La Bédoyère--[323]
With that of him whose honoured grave
Contains the "bravest of the brave."
A crimson cloud it spreads and glows,
But shall return to whence it rose;
When 'tis full 'twill burst asunder--
Never yet was heard such thunder
As then shall shake the world with wonder--
Never yet was seen such lightning
As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!
Like the Wormwood Star foretold
By the sainted Seer of old,
Show'ring down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood.[324]

II.

The Chief has fallen, but not by you,
Vanquishers of Waterloo!
When the soldier citizen
Swayed not o'er his fellow-men--
Save in deeds that led them on
Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son--
Who, of all the despots banded,
With that youthful chief competed?
Who could boast o'er France defeated,
Till lone Tyranny commanded?
Till, goaded by Ambition's sting,
The Hero sunk into the King?
Then he fell:--so perish all,
Who would men by man enthral!

III.

And thou, too, of the snow-white plume!
Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb;[325]
Better hadst thou still been leading
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding,
Than sold thyself to death and shame
For a meanly royal name;
Such as he of Naples wears,
Who thy blood-bought title bears.
Little didst thou deem, when dashing
On thy war-horse through the ranks.
Like a stream which burst its banks,
While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing,
Shone and shivered fast around thee--
Of the fate at last which found thee:
Was that haughty plume laid low
By a slave's dishonest blow?
Once--as the Moon sways o'er the tide,
It rolled in air, the warrior's guide;
Through the smoke-created night
Of the black and sulphurous fight,
The soldier raised his seeking eye
To catch that crest's ascendancy,--
And, as it onward rolling rose,
So moved his heart upon our foes.
There, where death's brief pang was quickest,
And the battle's wreck lay thickest,
Strewed beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagle's burning crest--
(There with thunder-clouds to fan her,
_Who_ could then her wing arrest--
Victory beaming from her breast?)
While the broken line enlarging
Fell, or fled along the plain;
There be sure was Murat charging!
There he ne'er shall charge again!

IV.

O'er glories gone the invaders march,
Weeps Triumph o'er each levelled arch--
But let Freedom rejoice,
With her heart in her voice;
But, her hand on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored;
France hath twice too well been taught
The "moral lesson"[326] dearly bought--
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With Capet or Napoleon!
But in equal rights and laws,
Hearts and hands in one great cause--
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven,
With their breath, and from their birth,
Though guilt would sweep it from the earth;
With a fierce and lavish hand
Scattering nations' wealth like sand;
Pouring nations' blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter!

V.

But the heart and the mind,
And the voice of mankind,
Shall arise in communion--
And who shall resist that proud union?
The time is past when swords subdued--
Man may die--the soul's renewed:
Even in this low world of care
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir;
Millions breathe but to inherit
Her for ever bounding spirit--
When once more her hosts assemble,
Tyrants shall believe and tremble--
Smile they at this idle threat?
Crimson tears will follow yet.[327]

[First published, _Morning Chronicle_, March 15, 1816.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

1.

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charméd Ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lulled winds seem dreaming:

2.

And the midnight Moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

_March_ 28 [1816].
[First published, _Poems_, 1816.]

ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF HONOUR."[328]

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

1.

Star of the brave!--whose beam hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead--
Thou radiant and adored deceit!
Which millions rushed in arms to greet,--
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

2.

Souls of slain heroes formed thy rays;
Eternity flashed through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a Volcano of the skies.

3.

Like lava rolled thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rocked beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

4.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours,[329] each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

5.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

6.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail!
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

7.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh, Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

[First published, _Examiner_, April 7, 1816.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

I.

They say that Hope is happiness;
But genuine Love must prize the past,
And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless:
They rose the first--they set the last;

II.

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

III.

Alas! it is delusion all:
The future cheats us from afar,
Nor can we be what we recall,
Nor dare we think on what we are.

[First published, _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829.]

FOOTNOTES:

[305] {409} [Compare _The Corsair_, Canto I. stanza xv. lines 480-490.]

[mr] {410}
_Never may I behold_
_Moment like this_.--[MS.]

[ms]
_The damp of the morning_
_Clung chill on my brow_.--[MS. erased.]

[mt] _Thy vow hath been broken_.--[MS.]

[mu]
----_lies hidden_
_Our secret of sorrow_--
_And deep in my soul_--
_But deed more forbidden_,
_Our secret lies hidden_,
_But never forgot_.--[Erasures, stanza 3, MS.]

[mv] {411}
_If one_ should _meet thee_
_How should we greet thee?_
_In silence and tears_.--[MS.]

[306] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.

The water-mark of the paper on which a much-tortured rough copy of these lines has been scrawled, is 1809, but, with this exception, there is no hint as to the date of composition. An entry in the _Diary_ for November 30, 1813, in which Annabella (Miss Milbanke) is described "as an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be," etc., and a letter (Byron to Miss Milbanke) dated November 29, 1813 (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357, and 1899, iii. 407), in which there is more than one allusion to her would-be suitors, "your thousand and one pretendants," etc., suggest the idea that the lines were addressed to his future wife, when he first made her acquaintance in 1812 or 1813.]

[307] {413} ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without _phrase_."--Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 80.]

[mw] _I speak not--I breathe not--I write not that name_.--[MS. erased.]

[mx] {414}
_We have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!_
_Oh the moment is past, when that Passion might cease._--
[MS. erased.]

[my] _The thought may be madness--the wish may be--guilt_.--[MS. erased.]

[mz]
{_But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall._
{_But the heart which is thine would disdain to recall_.--
[MS. erased.]

[na] ----_though I feel that thou mayst_.--[MS. L. erased.]

[nb]
_This soul in its bitterest moments shall be_,
_And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet_,
_With thee at my side, than the world at my feet_.--[MS.]

[nc] {415}
_And thine is that love which I will never forego_
_Though the price which I pay be Eternity's woe_.--[MS. erased]

[nd] _One tear of thy sorrow, one smile_----.--[MS. erased]

[308] [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see _Life_, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] _Caledonian Asylum_ "for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To soothe," says the compiler of the _Report_ for 1814, p. 4, "by the assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been preserved, is no less an act of sound policy than of gratitude."]

[309] {416} [As an instance of Scottish gallantry in the Peninsular War it is sufficient to cite the following list of "casualties" at the battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813: "The battalion [the seventy-first Highland Light Infantry] suffered very severely, having had 1 field officer, 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, 1 bugler, and 78 rank and file killed; 1 field officer, 3 captains, 7 lieutenants, 13 sergeants, 2 buglers, and 255 rank and file were wounded."--_Historical Record of the 71st Highland Light Infantry_, by Lieut. Henry J. T. Hildyard, 1876, p. 91.]

[310] [Compare _Temora_, bk. vii., "The king took his deathful spear, and struck the deeply-sounding shield.... Ghosts fled on every side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.--Thrice from the winding vale arose the voices of death."--_Works of Ossian_, 1765, ii. 160.]

[311] {417} [The last six lines are printed from the MS.]

[312] [Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from his ship, the _Menelaus_, at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had never met since boyhood. (See letter to Moore, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 150; see too _Letters_, i. 6, note 1.) The stanzas were included in _Hebrew Melodies_, 1815, and in the Ninth Edition of _Childe Harold_, 1818.]

[313] [Compare Tasso's sonnet--"Questa Tomba non è, ehe non è morto," etc. _Rime Eroiche_, Parte Seconda, No. 38, _Opere di Torquato Tasso_, Venice, 1736, vi. 169.]

[314] {419} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

[ne] {421}
1.

_The red light glows, the wassail flows_,
_Around the royal hall;_
_And who, on earth, dare mar the mirth_
_Of that high festival?_
_The prophet dares--before thee glows_--
_Belshazzar rise, nor dare despise_
_The writing on the wall!_

2.

_Thy vice might raise th' avenging steel_,
_Thy meanness shield thee from the blow_--
_And they who loathe thee proudly feel_.--[MS.]

[nf] {422}
_The words of God along the wall_.--[MS. erased.]
_The word of God--the graven wall_.--[MS.]

[ng] _Behold it written_----.--[MS.]

[nh] ----_thy sullied diadem_.--[MS.]

[315] {423} [Byron gave these verses to Moore for Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them, with music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry enough," he wrote, March 2, "to send you a sad song." And again, March 8, 1815, "An event--the death of poor Dorset--and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not--set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." A year later, in another letter to Moore, he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the _truest_, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." (March 8, 1816.)--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 181, 183, 274.]

[ni] _'Tis not the blush alone that fades from Beauty's cheek_.--[MS.]

[nj] {424} _As ivy o'er the mouldering wall that heavily hath crept_.--[MS.]

[316] [Compare--

"And oft we see gay ivy's wreath
The tree with brilliant bloom o'erspread,
When, part its leaves and gaze beneath,
We find the hidden tree is dead."
"To Anna," _The Warrior's Return, etc._, by Mrs. Opie, 1808, p. 144.]

[317] {425} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. The MS. is headed, in pencil, "Lines written on the Death of the Duke of Dorset, a College Friend of Lord Byron's, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting." It is endorsed, "Bought of Markham Thorpe, August 29, 1844." (For Duke of Dorset, see _Poetical Works, 1898, i. 194, note 2_; and _Letters, 1899, in. 181, note 1._)]

[nk] {426} ----_shall eternally be_.--[MS. erased.]

[nl] _Green be the turf_----.--[MS.]

[318] [Compare "O lay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills: let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oaks be near. Green be the place of my rest."--"The War of Inis-Thona," _Works of Ossin_, 1765, i. 156.]

[nm] _May its verdure be sweetest to see_.--[MS.]

[nn] {427}
_Young flowers and a far-spreading tree_
_May wave on the spot of thy rest;_
_But nor cypress nor yew let it be_.--[MS.]

[319] ["We need scarcely remind our readers that there are points in these spirited lines, with which our opinions do not accord; and, indeed, the author himself has told us that he rather adapted them to what he considered the speaker's feelings than his own."--_Examiner_, July 30, 1815.]

[no] _The brightest and blackest are due to my fame_.--[MS.]

[np] _But thy destiny wills_----.--[MS.]

[nq] {428}
_Oh for the thousands of Those who have perished_
_By elements blasted, unvanquished by man_--
_Then the hope which till now I have fearlessly cherished_,
_Had waved o'er thine eagles in Victory's van_.--[MS.]

[320] ["All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted."--_Private Letter from Brussels._]

[nr] {429} ----_that mute adieu_.--[MS.]

[ns] _Dear as they have seemed to me_.--[MS.]

[nt] _In the faith I pledged to thee_.--[MS.]

[nu]
_Glory lightened from thy soul_.
_Never did I grieve till now_.--[MS.]

[321] ["At Waterloo one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other, and, throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, 'Vive l'Empereur, jusqu'à la mort!' There were many other instances of the like: this you may, however, depend on as true."--_Private Letter from Brussels._]

[nv] _When the hearts of coward foes_.--[MS.]

[nw] {430} ----_to Friendship's prayer_.--[MS.]

[nx]
_'Twould not gather round his throne_
_Half the hearts that still are thine_.--[MS.]

[ny]
_Let me but partake his doom_,
_Be it exile or the grave_.
or,
_All I ask is to abide_
_All the perils he must brave_,
_All my hope was to divide_.--[MS.]
or,
_Let me still partake his gloom_,
_Late his soldier, now his slave_--
_Grant me but to share the gloom_
_Of his exile or his grave_.--[MS.]

[322] {431} [These lines "are said to have been done into English verse by R. S. ---- P. L. P. R., Master of the Royal Spanish Inqn., etc., etc."--_Morning Chronicle_, March 15, 1816. "The French have their _Poems_ and _Odes_ on the famous Battle of Waterloo, as well as ourselves. Nay, they seem to glory in the battle as the source of great events to come. We have received the following poetical version of a poem, the original of which is circulating in Paris, and which is ascribed (we know not with what justice) to the Muse of M. de Chateaubriand. If so, it may be inferred that in the poet's eye a new change is at hand, and he wishes to prove his secret indulgence of old principles by reference to this effusion."--Note, _ibid._]

[323] [Charles Angélique François Huchet, Comte de La Bédoyère, born 1786, was in the retreat from Moscow, and in 1813 distinguished himself at the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. On the return of Napoleon from Elba he was the first to bring him a regiment. He was promoted, and raised to the peerage, but being found in Paris after its occupation by the Allied army, he was tried by a court-martial, and suffered death August 15, 1815.]

[324] {432} See _Rev._ Chap. viii. V. 7, etc., "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," etc. V. 8, "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood," etc. V. 10, "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." V. 11, "And the name of the star is called _Wormwood_: and the third part of the waters became _wormwood_; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

[325] Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt. ["Poor dear Murat, what an end ...! His white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the Fourth's. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged."--Letter to Moore, November 4. 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 245. See, too, for Joachim Murat (born 1771), proclaimed King of Naples and the Two Sicilies, August, 1808, _ibid_., note 1.]

[326] {434} ["Write, Britain, write the moral lesson down." Scott's _Field of Waterloo_, Conclusion, stanza vi. line 3.]

[327] {435} ["Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my 'Ode on Waterloo,' written in the year 1815, and comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of '_Vates_,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?--

'Crimson tears will follow yet;'

and have not they?"--Letter to Murray, April 24, 1820.

In the Preface to _The Tyrant's Downfall, etc_., 1814, W. L. Fitzgerald (see _English Bards, etc._, line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 297, note 3) "begs leave to refer his reader to the dates of his Napoleonics ... to prove his legitimate title to the prophetical meaning of _Vates_" (_Cent. Mag._, July, 1814, vol. lxxxiv. p. 58). Coleridge claimed to have foretold the restoration of the Bourbons (see _Biographia Literaria_, cap. x.).]

[328] {436} ["The Friend who favoured us with the following lines, the poetical spirit of which wants no trumpet of ours, is aware that they imply more than an impartial observer of the late period might feel, and are written rather as by Frenchman than Englishman;--but certainly, neither he nor any lover of liberty can help feeling and regretting that in the latter time, at any rate, the symbol he speaks of was once more comparatively identified with the cause of Freedom."--_Examiner_. April 7, 1816.]

[329] {437} The tricolor.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

"Guns, Trumpets, Blunderbusses, Drums and Thunder."

Pope, _Sat._ i. 26.[330]