FullReads

[NOTES:
253 spoil edition 1822; spoils editions 1839.
279 bear edition 1822; have editions 1839.
322 assault edition 1822; assaults editions 1839.]

MAHMUD:
Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable:
Look, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned
Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud
Which leads the rear of the departing day;
Wan emblem of an empire fading now! 340
See how it trembles in the blood-red air,
And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent
Shrinks on the horizon’s edge, while, from above,
One star with insolent and victorious light
Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams, 345
Like arrows through a fainting antelope,
Strikes its weak form to death.

HASSAN:
Even as that moon
Renews itself–

MAHMUD:
Shall we be not renewed!
Far other bark than ours were needed now
To stem the torrent of descending time: 350
The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord
Stalks through the capitals of armed kings,
And spreads his ensign in the wilderness:
Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls,
Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust; 355
And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts
When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear
Cower in their kingly dens–as I do now.
What were Defeat when Victory must appal?
Or Danger, when Security looks pale?– 360
How said the messenger–who, from the fort
Islanded in the Danube, saw the battle
Of Bucharest?–that–

[NOTES:
351 his edition 1822; its editions 1839.
356 of the earth edition 1822; of earth editions 1839.]

HASSAN:
Ibrahim’s scimitar
Drew with its gleam swift victory from Heaven,
To burn before him in the night of battle– 365
A light and a destruction.

MAHMUD:
Ay! the day
Was ours: but how?–

HASSAN:
The light Wallachians,
The Arnaut, Servian, and Albanian allies
Fled from the glance of our artillery
Almost before the thunderstone alit. 370
One half the Grecian army made a bridge
Of safe and slow retreat, with Moslem dead;
The other–

MAHMUD:
Speak–tremble not.–

HASSAN:
Islanded
By victor myriads, formed in hollow square
With rough and steadfast front, and thrice flung back 375
The deluge of our foaming cavalry;
Thrice their keen wedge of battle pierced our lines.
Our baffled army trembled like one man
Before a host, and gave them space; but soon,
From the surrounding hills, the batteries blazed, 380
Kneading them down with fire and iron rain:
Yet none approached; till, like a field of corn
Under the hook of the swart sickleman,
The band, intrenched in mounds of Turkish dead,
Grew weak and few.–Then said the Pacha, ‘Slaves, 385
Render yourselves–they have abandoned you–
What hope of refuge, or retreat, or aid?
We grant your lives.’ ‘Grant that which is thine own!’
Cried one, and fell upon his sword and died!
Another–‘God, and man, and hope abandon me; 390
But I to them, and to myself, remain
Constant:’–he bowed his head, and his heart burst.
A third exclaimed, ‘There is a refuge, tyrant,
Where thou darest not pursue, and canst not harm
Shouldst thou pursue; there we shall meet again.’ 395
Then held his breath, and, after a brief spasm,
The indignant spirit cast its mortal garment
Among the slain–dead earth upon the earth!
So these survivors, each by different ways,
Some strange, all sudden, none dishonourable, 400
Met in triumphant death; and when our army
Closed in, while yet wonder, and awe, and shame
Held back the base hyaenas of the battle
That feed upon the dead and fly the living,
One rose out of the chaos of the slain: 405
And if it were a corpse which some dread spirit
Of the old saviours of the land we rule
Had lifted in its anger, wandering by;–
Or if there burned within the dying man
Unquenchable disdain of death, and faith 410
Creating what it feigned;–I cannot tell–
But he cried, ‘Phantoms of the free, we come!
Armies of the Eternal, ye who strike
To dust the citadels of sanguine kings,
And shake the souls throned on their stony hearts, 415
And thaw their frostwork diadems like dew;–
O ye who float around this clime, and weave
The garment of the glory which it wears,
Whose fame, though earth betray the dust it clasped,
Lies sepulchred in monumental thought;– 420
Progenitors of all that yet is great,
Ascribe to your bright senate, O accept
In your high ministrations, us, your sons–
Us first, and the more glorious yet to come!
And ye, weak conquerors! giants who look pale 425
When the crushed worm rebels beneath your tread,
The vultures and the dogs, your pensioners tame,
Are overgorged; but, like oppressors, still
They crave the relic of Destruction’s feast.
The exhalations and the thirsty winds 430
Are sick with blood; the dew is foul with death;
Heaven’s light is quenched in slaughter: thus, where’er
Upon your camps, cities, or towers, or fleets,
The obscene birds the reeking remnants cast
Of these dead limbs,–upon your streams and mountains, 435
Upon your fields, your gardens, and your housetops,
Where’er the winds shall creep, or the clouds fly,
Or the dews fall, or the angry sun look down
With poisoned light–Famine, and Pestilence,
And Panic, shall wage war upon our side! 440
Nature from all her boundaries is moved
Against ye: Time has found ye light as foam.
The Earth rebels; and Good and Evil stake
Their empire o’er the unborn world of men
On this one cast;–but ere the die be thrown, 445
The renovated genius of our race,
Proud umpire of the impious game, descends,
A seraph-winged Victory, bestriding
The tempest of the Omnipotence of God,
Which sweeps all things to their appointed doom, 450
And you to oblivion!’–More he would have said,
But–