The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 23

The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?

Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?

What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?[172]

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.

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 sh.o.r.e.

6.

I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy; Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,[fo]

And many a maid from her mother shall tear.

7.

I love the fair face of the maid in her youth,[fp]

Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe;[fq]

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,[173][32.B.]

The shrieks of the conquered, the conquerors' yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughtered, 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.

Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,[174]

Let the yellow-haired[175] Giaours[176]

view his horse-tail[177] with dread; When his Delhis[178] come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!

11.

Selictar![179] unsheathe then our chief's Scimitar; Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of War.[fr]

Ye Mountains, that see us descend to the sh.o.r.e, Shall view us as Victors, or view us no more!

LXXIII.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth![33.B.]

Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!

Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate?

Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The helpless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait-- Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?[180]

LXXIV.

Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow[34.B.]

Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now 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, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.[fs]

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 burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty![ft]

And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

LXXVI.

Hereditary Bondsmen! know ye not _Who_ would be free _themselves_ must strike the blow?

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?[181]

Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No!

True--they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's Altars flame.

Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!

Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame.

LXXVII.

The city won for Allah from the Giaour The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; And the Serai's impenetrable tower Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;[35.B.]

Or Wahab's[182] rebel brood who dared divest The Prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,[36.B.]

May wind their path of blood along the West; But ne'er will Freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

LXXVIII.

Yet mark their mirth--ere Lenten days begin, That penance which their holy rites prepare To shrive from Man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.

LXXIX.[183]

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, Oh Stamboul! once the Empress of their reign?

Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain: (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along.

Lx.x.x.

Loud was the lightsome tumult on the sh.o.r.e,[184]

Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echoed back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan: The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave.

Lx.x.xI.

Glanced many a light Caique along the foam, Danced on the sh.o.r.e the daughters of the land, No thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or gently prest, returned the pressure still: Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill![185]

Lx.x.xII.

But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, Even through the closest searment[186] half betrayed?

To such the gentle murmurs of the main Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain; To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain: How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!

Lx.x.xIII.