The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 57

The foe arrives, who long had searched the field, Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield: They would remove him, but they see 'twere vain, And he regards them with a calm disdain, 1080 That rose to reconcile him with his fate, And that escape to death from living hate: And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed, Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed, And questions of his state; he answers not, Scarce glances on him as on one forgot, And turns to Kaled:--each remaining word They understood not, if distinctly heard; His dying tones are in that other tongue, To which some strange remembrance wildly clung. 1090 They spake of other scenes, but what--is known To Kaled, whom their meaning reached alone; And he replied, though faintly, to their sound, While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round: They seemed even then--that twain--unto the last To half forget the present in the past; To share between themselves some separate fate, Whose darkness none beside should penetrate.

XIX.[285]

Their words though faint were many--from the tone Their import those who heard could judge alone; 1100 From this, you might have deemed young Kaled's death More near than Lara's by his voice and breath, So sad--so deep--and hesitating broke The accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke;[kv]

But Lara's voice, though low, at first was clear And calm, till murmuring Death gasped hoa.r.s.ely near; But from his visage little could we guess, So unrepentant--dark--and pa.s.sionless,[kw]

Save that when struggling nearer to his last, Upon that page his eye was kindly cast; 1110 And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased, Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the East: Whether (as then the breaking Sun from high Rolled back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye, Or that 'twas chance--or some remembered scene, That raised his arm to point where such had been, Scarce Kaled seemed to know, but turned away, As if his heart abhorred that coming day, And shrunk his glance before that morning light, To look on Lara's brow--where all grew night. 1120 Yet sense seemed left, though better were its loss; For when one near displayed the absolving Cross, And proffered to his touch the holy bead, Of which his parting soul might own the need, He looked upon it with an eye profane, And smiled--Heaven pardon! if 'twere with disdain: And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew From Lara's face his fixed despairing view, With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift, Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift, 1130 As if such but disturbed the expiring man, Nor seemed to know his life but _then_ began-- That Life of Immortality, secure[kx]

To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

XX.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,[ky]

And dull the film along his dim eye grew; His limbs stretched fluttering, and his head drooped o'er The weak yet still untiring knee that bore; He pressed the hand he held upon his heart-- It beats no more, but Kaled will not part 1140 With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain, For that faint throb which answers not again.

"It beats!"--Away, thou dreamer! he is gone-- It once _was_ Lara which thou look'st upon.

XXI.

He gazed, as if not yet had pa.s.sed away[kz]

The haughty spirit of that humbled clay; And those around have roused him from his trance, But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance; And when, in raising him from where he bore Within his arms the form that felt no more, 1150 He saw the head his breast would still sustain, Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain; He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear The glossy tendrils of his raven hair, But strove to stand and gaze, but reeled and fell, Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.

Than that _he_ loved! Oh! never yet beneath The breast of _man_ such trusty love may breathe!

That trying moment hath at once revealed The secret long and yet but half concealed; 1160 In baring to revive that lifeless breast, Its grief seemed ended, but the s.e.x confessed; And life returned, and Kaled felt no shame-- What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

XXII.

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep, But where he died his grave was dug as deep; Nor is his mortal slumber less profound, Though priest nor blessed nor marble decked the mound, And he was mourned by one whose quiet grief, Less loud, outlasts a people's for their Chief. 1170 Vain was all question asked her of the past, And vain e'en menace--silent to the last; She told nor whence, nor why she left behind Her all for one who seemed but little kind.

Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still-- Is human love the growth of human will?

To her he might be gentleness; the stern Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern, And when they love, your smilers guess not how Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow. 1180 They were not common links, that formed the chain That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain; But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold, And sealed is now each lip that could have told.

XXIII.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast, Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest, They found the scattered dints of many a scar, Which were not planted there in recent war; Where'er had pa.s.sed his summer years of life, It seems they vanished in a land of strife; 1190 But all unknown his Glory or his Guilt,[la]

These only told that somewhere blood was spilt, And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past, Returned no more--that night appeared his last.

XXIV.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale) A Serf that crossed the intervening vale,[286]

When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn, And nearly veiled in mist her waning horn; A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood, And hew the bough that bought his children's food, 1200 Pa.s.sed by the river that divides the plain Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain: He heard a tramp--a horse and horseman broke From out the wood--before him was a cloak Wrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow, Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.

Roused by the sudden sight at such a time, And some foreboding that it might be crime, Himself unheeded watched the stranger's course, Who reached the river, bounded from his horse, 1210 And lifting thence the burthen which he bore, Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from the sh.o.r.e, Then paused--and looked--and turned--and seemed to watch, And still another hurried glance would s.n.a.t.c.h, And follow with his step the stream that flowed, As if even yet too much its surface showed; At once he started--stooped--around him strown The winter floods had scattered heaps of stone: Of these the heaviest thence he gathered there, And slung them with a more than common care. 1220 Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen Himself might safely mark what this might mean; He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast, And something glittered starlike on the vest; But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk, A ma.s.sy fragment smote it, and it sunk:[lb]

It rose again, but indistinct to view, And left the waters of a purple hue, Then deeply disappeared: the horseman gazed Till ebbed the latest eddy it had raised; 1230 Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed, And instant spurred him into panting speed.

His face was masked--the features of the dead, If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread; But if in sooth a Star its bosom bore, Such is the badge that Knighthood ever wore, And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn Upon the night that led to such a morn.

If thus he perished, Heaven receive his soul!

His undiscovered limbs to ocean roll; 1240 And charity upon the hope would dwell It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.[lc]

XXV.

And Kaled--Lara--Ezzelin, are gone, Alike without their monumental stone!

The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean From lingering where her Chieftain's blood had been: Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud, Her tears were few, her wailing never loud; But furious would you tear her from the spot Where yet she scarce believed that he was not, 1250 Her eye shot forth with all the living fire That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire; But left to waste her weary moments there, She talked all idly unto shapes of air, Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints, And woos to listen to her fond complaints: And she would sit beneath the very tree Where lay his drooping head upon her knee; And in that posture where she saw him fall, His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall; 1260 And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair, And oft would s.n.a.t.c.h it from her bosom there, And fold, and press it gently to the ground, As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound.[ld]

Herself would question, and for him reply; Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly From some imagined Spectre in pursuit; Then seat her down upon some linden's root, And hide her visage with her meagre hand, Or trace strange characters along the sand-- 1270 This could not last--she lies by him she loved; Her tale untold--her truth too dearly proved.

FOOTNOTES:

[jb] {323} _Lara the sequel of "the Corsair_."--[MS. erased.]

[265] [A revised version of the following "Advertis.e.m.e.nt" was prefixed to the First Edition (Printed for J. Murray, Albemarle Street, By T.

Davison, Whitefriars, 1814), which was accompanied by _Jacqueline:_--

"The Reader--if the tale of _Lara_ has the fortune to meet with one--may probably regard it as a sequel to the _Corsair_;--the colouring is of a similar cast, and although the situations of the characters are changed, the stories are in some measure connected.

The countenance is nearly the same--but with a different expression. To the readers' conjecture are left the name of the writer and the failure or success of his attempt--the latter are the only points upon which the author or his judges can feel interested.

"The Poem of _Jaqueline_ is the production of a different author and is added at the request of the writer of the former tale, whose wish and entreaty it was that it should occupy the first pages of the following volume, and he regrets that the tenacious courtesy of his friend would not permit him to place it where the judgement of the reader concurring with his own will suggest its more appropriate station."]

[266] The reader is apprised, that the name of Lara being Spanish, and no circ.u.mstance of local and natural description fixing the scene or hero of the poem to any country or age, the word "Serf," which could not be correctly applied to the lower cla.s.ses in Spain, who were never va.s.sals of the soil, has nevertheless been employed to designate the followers of our fict.i.tious chieftain.

[Byron, writing to Murray, July 14, 1814, says, "The name only is Spanish; the country is not Spain, but the Moon" (not "Morea," as. .h.i.therto printed).--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 110. The MS. is dated May 15, 1814.]

[267] {324} [For the opening lines to _Lara_, see _Murray's Magazine_, January, 1887, vol. i. p. 3.]

[268] [Compare _Childish Recollections_, lines 221-224--

"Can Rank, or e'en a Guardian's name supply The love, which glistens in a Father's eye?

For this, can Wealth, or t.i.tle's sound atone, Made, by a Parent's early loss, my own?"

Compare, too, _English Bards, etc._, lines 689-694, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 95, 352.]

[jc] _First in each folly--nor the last in vice_.--[MS. erased]

[jd] {325} _Short was the course the beardless wanderer run_.--[MS.]

[je] _Another chief had won_----.--[MS. erased.]

[jf] _His friends forgot him--and his dog had died_.--[MS.]

[jg] _Without one rumour to relieve his care_.--[MS. erased.]

[jh] _That most might decorate that gloomy pile_.--[MS. erased.]

[269] {326} [The construction is harsh and obscure, but the meaning is, perhaps, that, though Lara's soul was haughty, his sins were due to nothing worse than pleasure, that they were the natural sins of youth.]

[ji] {328} _Their refuge in intensity of thought_.--[MS.]

[jj] {329} _The sound of other voices than his own_.--[MS.]

[270] ["The circ.u.mstance of his having at this time [1808-9] among the ornaments of his study, a number of skulls highly polished, and placed on light stands round the room, would seem to indicate that he rather courted than shunned such gloomy a.s.sociations."--_Life_, p. 87.]

[271] [Compare--

"His train but deemed the favourite page Was left behind to spare his age, Or other if they deemed, none dared To mutter what he thought or heard."