The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 139

Shorn of her bishops, banks, and dividends, Another Babel soars--but Britain ends.

And why? to pamper the self-seeking wants, 650 And prop the hill of these agrarian ants.

"Go to these ants, thou sluggard, and be wise;"

Admire their patience through each sacrifice, Till taught to feel the lesson of their pride, The price of taxes and of homicide; Admire their justice, which would fain deny The debt of nations:--pray _who made it high?_[337]

XV.

Or turn to sail between those s.h.i.+fting rocks, The new Symplegades[338]--the crus.h.i.+ng Stocks, Where Midas might again his wish behold 660 In real paper or imagined gold.

That magic palace of Alcina[339] shows More wealth than Britain ever had to lose, Were all her atoms of unleavened ore, And all her pebbles from Pactolus' sh.o.r.e.

There Fortune plays, while Rumour holds the stake And the World trembles to bid brokers break.

How rich is Britain! not indeed in mines, Or peace or plenty, corn or oil, or wines; No land of Canaan, full of milk and honey, 670 Nor (save in paper shekels) ready money: But let us not to own the truth refuse, Was ever Christian land so rich in Jews?

Those parted with their teeth to good King John, And now, ye kings, they kindly draw your own; All states, all things, all sovereigns they control, And waft a loan "from Indus to the pole."

The banker--broker--baron[340]--brethren, speed To aid these bankrupt tyrants in their need.

Nor these alone; Columbia feels no less 680 Fresh speculations follow each success; And philanthropic Israel deigns to drain Her mild per-centage from exhausted Spain.

Not without Abraham's seed can Russia march; Tis gold, not steel, that rears the conqueror's arch.

Two Jews, a chosen people, can command In every realm their Scripture-promised land:-- Two Jews, keep down the Romans,[341] and uphold The accursed Hun, more brutal than of old: Two Jews,--but not Samaritans--direct 690 The world, with all the spirit of their sect.

What is the happiness of earth to them?

A congress forms their "New Jerusalem,"

Where baronies and orders both invite-- Oh, holy Abraham! dost thou see the sight?

Thy followers mingling with these royal swine, Who spit not "on their Jewish gaberdine,"

But honour them as portion of the show-- (Where now, oh Pope! is thy forsaken toe?

Could it not favour Judah with some kicks? 700 Or has it ceased to "kick against the p.r.i.c.ks?") On Shylock's sh.o.r.e behold them stand afresh, To cut from Nation's hearts their "pound of flesh."

XVI.

Strange sight this Congress! destined to unite All that's incongruous, all that's opposite.

I speak not of the Sovereigns--they're alike, A common coin as ever mint could strike; But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, Have more of motley than their heavy kings.

Jews, authors, generals, charlatans, combine, 710 While Europe wonders at the vast design: There Metternich, power's foremost parasite, Cajoles; there Wellington forgets to fight; There Chateaubriand[342] forms new books of martyrs; And subtle Greeks[343] intrigue for stupid Tartars; There Montmorenci, the sworn foe to charters,[344]

Turns a diplomatist of great eclat, To furnish articles for the "Debats;"

Of war so certain--yet not quite so sure As his dismissal in the "Moniteur." 720 Alas! how could his cabinet thus err!

Can Peace be worth an ultra-minister?

He falls indeed, perhaps to rise again, "Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain.[345]"

XVII.

Enough of this--a sight more mournful woos The averted eye of the reluctant Muse.

The Imperial daughter, the Imperial bride,[346]

The imperial Victim--sacrifice to pride; The mother of the Hero's hope, the boy, The young Astyanax of Modern Troy;[347] 730 The still pale shadow of the loftiest Queen That Earth has yet to see, or e'er hath seen; She flits amidst the phantoms of the hour, The theme of pity, and the wreck of power.

Oh, cruel mockery! Could not Austria spare A daughter? What did France's widow there?

Her fitter place was by St. Helen's wave, Her only throne is in Napoleon's grave.

But, no,--she still must hold a petty reign, Flanked by her formidable chamberlain; 740 The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes[348]

Must watch her through these paltry pageantries.

What though she share no more, and shared in vain, A sway surpa.s.sing that of Charlemagne, Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas!

Yet still she rules the pastoral realm of cheese, Where Parma views the traveller resort, To note the trappings of her mimic court.

But she appears! Verona sees her shorn Of all her beams--while nations gaze and mourn-- 750 Ere yet her husband's ashes have had time To chill in their inhospitable clime; (If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;-- But no,--their embers soon will burst the mould;) She comes!--the Andromache (but not Racine's, Nor Homer's,)--Lo! on Pyrrhus' arm[349] she leans![ew]

Yes! the right arm, yet red from Waterloo, Which cut her lord's half-shattered sceptre through, Is offered and accepted? Could a slave Do more? or less?--and _he_ in his new grave! 760 Her eye--her cheek--betray no inward strife, And the _Ex_-Empress grows as _Ex_ a wife!

So much for human ties in royal b.r.e.a.s.t.s!

Why spare men's feelings, when their own are jests?

XVIII.

But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home, And sketch the group--the picture's yet to come.

My Muse 'gan weep, but, ere a tear was spilt, She caught Sir William Curtis in a kilt![350]

While thronged the chiefs of every Highland clan To hail their brother, Vich Ian Alderman! 770 Guildhall grows Gael, and echoes with Erse roar, While all the Common Council cry "Claymore!"[351]

To see proud Albyn's tartans as a belt Gird the gross sirloin of a city Celt, She burst into a laughter so extreme, That I awoke--and lo! it was _no_ dream!

Here, reader, will we pause:--if there's no harm in This first--you'll have, perhaps, a second "Carmen."

B. J^n 10^th^ 1823.

FOOTNOTES:

[dv] {535} _Annus Mirabilis_.--MS.

[253] [It has been suggested by Dr. Garnett (late keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum) that the motto to _The Age of Bronze_ may, possibly, contain a reference to the statue of Achilles, "inscribed by the women of England to Arthur, Duke of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms," which was erected in Hyde Park, June 18, 1822.]

[dw] {541} _Want nothing of the little, but their_ will.--[MS.]

[254] [_Measure for Measure_, act ii. sc. 2, line 121.]

[255] [Fox used to say, "_I_ never want _a_ word, but Pitt never wants _the_ word."]

[256] [The grave of Fox, in Westminster Abbey is within eighteen inches of that of Pitt. Compare--

"Nor yet suppress the generous sigh.

Because his rival slumbers nigh; Nor be thy _requiescat_ dumb, Lest it be said o'er Fox's tomb.

Where,--taming thought to human pride!-- The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.

Drop upon Fox's grave the tear, 'Twill trickle to his rival's bier," etc.

_Marmion_, by Sir Walter Scott, Introduction to Canto I. lines 125-128, 184-188.

Compare, too, Macaulay on Warren Hastings: "In that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey ... the dust of the ill.u.s.trious accused should have mingled with the dust of the ill.u.s.trious accusers. This was not to be."--_Critical and Historical Essays_, 1843, iii. 465.]

[257] {542}[The Cleopatra whose mummy is preserved in the British Museum was a member of the Theban Archon family. Her date was _circ._ A.D.

100.]

[258] [According to Strabo (_Rerum Geog._, xvii. ed. 1807, ii. 1127), Ptolemaeus Soter brought Alexander's body back from Babylon, and buried it in Alexandria, in the spot afterwards known as the _Soma_. There it lay, in Strabo's time, not in its original body-mask of golden chase-work, which Ptolemaeus Cocces had stolen, but in a casket of gla.s.s. Great men "turned to pilgrims" to visit Alexander's grave.

Augustus crowned the still life-like body with a golden laurel-wreath, and scattered flowers over the tomb: Caligula stole the breastplate, and wore it during his pantomimic triumphs; Septimius Severus buried in the sarcophagus the writings of the priests, and a clue to the hieroglyphics. Finally, the sarcophagus and its sacred remains disappear, and Alexander himself pa.s.ses into the land of fable and romance. In 1801 a sarcophagus came into the possession of the English Army, and was presented by George III. to the British Museum.

Hieroglyphics were as yet undeciphered, and, in 1805, the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke published a quarto monograph (_The Tomb of Alexander, etc._), in which he proves, to his own satisfaction, that "this surprising sarcophagus in one entire block of green Egyptian _breccia_," had once contained the ashes of Alexander the Great. Byron knew Clarke, and, no doubt, respected his authority (see letter December 15, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 308); and, hence, the description of "Alexander's urn" as "a show." The sarcophagus which has, since 1844, been a.s.signed to its rightful occupant, Nectanebus II. (Nekht-neb-f), is a conspicuous object in the Egyptian Gallery of the British Museum. It is a curious coincidence that in the Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander is said to have been the son of Nectanebus II., who threw a spell over Olympias, the wife of Philip of Macedon, and won her love by the exercise of nefarious magic. (See the _Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great_, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., Keeper of the Egyptian and a.s.syrian Antiquities in the British Museum, 1896, i, ix.)]

[259] {543}[Arrian (_Alexand. Anabasis_, vii. i, 4, ed. 1849, p. 165) says that Alexander would never have rested content with what he had acquired; "that if he had annexed Europe to Asia, and the British Isles to Europe, he would have sought out some no-man's-land to conquer." So insatiable was his ambition, that when the courtly philosopher Anaxarchus explained to him the theory of the plurality of worlds he bemoaned himself because as yet he was not master of one. "_Heu me_, inquit, _miserum, quod ne uno quidem adhuc pot.i.tus sum_."--Valerius Maximus, _De Dictis, etc._, lib. viii. cap. xiv. ex. 2. See, too, _Juvenal_, x. 168, 169. Burton (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, 1893, i. 64) denies that this was spoken like a prince, but, as wise Seneca censures him [on another occasion, however], 'twas _vox iniquissima et stultissima_, "'twas spoken like a bedlam fool."]

[260] [Compare _Werner_, act iii. sc. I, lines 288, 289, "When he [Sesostris] went into the temple or the city, his custom was to cause the horses to be unharnessed out of his chariot, and to yoke four kings and four princes to the chariot-pole."--Diodori Siculi _Bibl. Hist_., lib. i. p. 37, C, ed. 1604, p. 53.]