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[ENTER A FOURTH MESSENGER.]

MAHMUD:
And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow
Of some untimely rumour, speak!

FOURTH MESSENGER:
One comes
Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood:
He stood, he says, on Chelonites’ 620
Promontory, which o’erlooks the isles that groan
Under the Briton’s frown, and all their waters
Then trembling in the splendour of the moon,
When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid
Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets 625
Stalk through the night in the horizon’s glimmer,
Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,
And smoke which strangled every infant wind
That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.
At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco 630
Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds
Over the sea-horizon, blotting out
All objects–save that in the faint moon-glimpse
He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral
And two the loftiest of our ships of war, 635
With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven,
Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;
And the abhorred cross–

[NOTE:
620 on Chelonites’]on Chelonites “Errata”;
upon Clelonite’s edition 1822;
upon Clelonit’s editions 1839.]

[ENTER AN ATTENDANT.]

ATTENDANT:
Your Sublime Highness,
The Jew, who–

MAHMUD:
Could not come more seasonably:
Bid him attend. I’ll hear no more! too long 640
We gaze on danger through the mist of fear,
And multiply upon our shattered hopes
The images of ruin. Come what will!
To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps
Set in our path to light us to the edge 645
Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught
Which He inflicts not in whose hand we are.

[EXEUNT.]

SEMICHORUS 1:
Would I were the winged cloud
Of a tempest swift and loud!
I would scorn 650
The smile of morn
And the wave where the moonrise is born!
I would leave
The spirits of eve
A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave 655
From other threads than mine!
Bask in the deep blue noon divine.
Who would? Not I.

[NOTE:
657 the deep blue “Errata”, Wms. transcript; the blue edition 1822.]

SEMICHORUS 2:
Whither to fly?

SEMICHORUS 1:
Where the rocks that gird th’ Aegean 660
Echo to the battle paean
Of the free–
I would flee
A tempestuous herald of victory!
My golden rain
For the Grecian slain 665
Should mingle in tears with the bloody main,
And my solemn thunder-knell
Should ring to the world the passing-bell
Of Tyranny! 670