Lyra Heroica Part 24

Woe is me, Alhama!

I lost a damsel in that hour, Of all the land the loveliest flower; Doubloons a hundred I would pay, And think her ransom cheap that day.'

Woe is me, Alhama!

And as these things the old Moor said, They severed from the trunk his head; And to the Alhambra's wall with speed 'Twas carried, as the King decreed.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And men and infants therein weep Their loss, so heavy and so deep; Granada's ladies, all she rears Within her walls, burst into tears.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And from the windows o'er the walls The sable web of mourning falls; The King weeps as a woman o'er His loss, for it is much and sore.

Woe is me, Alhama!

_Byron._

LXXV

FRIENDSHIP

My boat is on the sh.o.r.e, And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore, Here's a double health to thee!

Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate; And, whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate.

Though the ocean roar around me, Yet it still shall bear me on; Though a desert should surround me, It hath springs that may be won.

Were 't the last drop in the well, As I gasped upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to thee that I would drink.

With that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour Should be, 'Peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore!'

_Byron._

LXXVI

THE RACE WITH DEATH

O Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea!

If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?--anything but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep.

In contrast with their fathers--as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.

O agony! that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears, And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum With dull and daily dissonance repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.

But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightening half an hour ere death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away; Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain; And then he talks of life, and how again He feels his spirits soaring--albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek: And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps; And so the film comes o'er him, and the dizzy Chamber swims round and round, and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, And all is ice and blackness, and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.

_Byron._

LXXVII

THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!

Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!

Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all except their sun is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your sh.o.r.es refuse: Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo further west Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.'

The mountains look on Marathon-- And Marathon looks on the sea; And, musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships by thousands lay below, And men in nations;--all were his!

He counted them at break of day, And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless sh.o.r.e The heroic lay is tuneless now, The heroic bosom beats no more!

And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something in the dearth of fame, Though linked among a fettered race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here?

For Greeks a blush, for Greece a tear!

Must _we_ but weep o'er days more blest?

Must _we_ but blush? Our fathers bled.

Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead!

Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae!

What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah! no: the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, 'Let one living head, But one arise,--we come, we come!'

'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain--in vain: strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine!

Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine!

Hark! rising to the ign.o.ble call, How answers each bold Baccha.n.a.l!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet; Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?

Of two such lessons, why forget The n.o.bler and the manlier one?

You have the letters Cadmus gave; Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

We will not think of themes like these!

It made Anacreon's song divine: He served--but served Polycrates: A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; _That_ tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!