Gebir (Seventh Book)
SEVENTH BOOK.
What mortal first by adverse fate assailed,
Trampled by tyranny or scoffed by scorn,
Stung by remorse or wrung by poverty,
Bade with fond sigh his native laud farewell?
Wretched! but tenfold wretched who resolved
Against the waves to plunge th’ expatriate keel
Deep with the richest harvest of his land!
Driven with that weak blast which Winter leaves
Closing his palace gates on Caucasus,
Oft hath a berry risen forth a shade;
From the same parent plant another lies
Deaf to the daily call of weary hind;
Zephyrs pass by and laugh at his distress.
By every lake’s and every river’s side
The nymphs and Naiads teach Equality;
In voices gently querulous they ask,
'Who would with aching head and toiling arms
Bear the full pitcher to the stream far off?
Who would, of power intent on high emprise,
Deem less the praise to fill the vacant gulf
Then raise Charybdis upon Etna’s brow?'
Amid her darkest caverns most retired,
Nature calls forth her filial elements
To close around and cruel that monster VOID:
Fire, springing fierce from his resplendent throne,
And Water, dashing the devoted wretch
Woundless and whole with iron—coloured mace,
Or whirling headlong in his war—belt’s fold.
Mark well the lesson, man! and spare thy kind.
Go, from their midnight darkness wake the woods,
Woo the lone forest in her last retreat:
Many still bend their beauteous heads unblest
And sigh aloud for elemental man.
Through palaces and porches evil eyes
Light upon e’en the wretched, who have fled
The house of bondage or the house of birth;
Suspicions, murmurs, treacheries, taunts, retorts,
Attend the brighter banners that invade;
And the first horn of hunter, pale with want,
Sounds to the chase, the second to the war.
The long awaited day at last arrived,
When, linked together by the seven—armed Nile,
Egypt with proud Iberia should unite.
Here the Tartesian, there the Gadite tents
Rang with impatient pleasure: here engaged
Woody Nebrissa’s quiver—bearing crew,
Contending warm with amicable skill;
While they of Durius raced along the beach
And scattered mud and jeers on all behind.
The strength of Baetis too removed the helm
And stripped the corslet off, and staunched the foot
Against the mossy maple, while they tore
Their quivering lances from the hissing wound.
Others push forth the prows of their compeers,
And the wave, parted by the pouncing beak,
Swells up the sides, and closes far astern:
The silent oars now dip their level wings,
And weary with strong stroke the whitening wave.
Others, afraid of tardiness, return:
Now, entering the still harbour, every surge
Runs with a louder murmur up their keel,
And the slack cordage rattles round the mast.
Sleepless with pleasure and expiring fears
Had Gebir risen ere the break of dawn,
And o’er the plains appointed for the feast
Hurried with ardent step: the swains admired
What so transversely could have swept the dew;
For never long one path had Gebir trod,
Nor long, unheeding man, one pace preserved.
Not thus Charoba: she despaired the day:
The day was present; true; yet she despaired.
In the too tender and once tortured heart
Doubts gather strength from habit, like disease;
Fears, like the needle verging to the pole,
Tremble and tremble into certainty.
How often, when her maids with merry voice
Called her, and told the sleepless queen 'twas morn,
How often would she feign some fresh delay,
And tell them (though they saw) that she arose.
Next to her chamber, closed by cedar doors
A bath of purest marble, purest wave,
On its fair surface bore its pavement high:
Arabian gold enchased the crystal roof,
With fluttering boys adorned and girls unrobed:
These, when you touch the quiet water, start
From their aerial sunny arch, and pant
Entangled mid each other’s flowery wreaths,
And each pursuing is in turn pursued.
Here came at last, as ever wont at morn,
Charoba: long she lingered at the brink,
Often she sighed, and, naked as she was,
Sat down, and leaning on the couch’s edge,
On the soft inward pillow of her arm
Rested her burning cheek: she moved her eyes;
She blushed; and blushing plunged into the wave.
Now brazen chariots thunder through each street,
And neighing steeds paw proudly from delay.
While o’er the palace breathes the dulcimer,
Lute, and aspiring harp, and lisping reed;
Loud rush the trumpets bursting through the throng
And urge the high—shouldered vulgar; now are heard
Curses and quarrels and constricted blows,
Threats and defiance and suburban war.
Hark! the reiterated clangour sounds!
Now murmurs, like the sea or like the storm,
Or like the flames on forests, move and mount
From rank to rank, and loud and louder roll,
Till all the people is one vast applause.
Yes, 'tis herself, Charoba—now the strife
To see again a form so often seen!
Feel they some partial pang, some secret void,
Some doubt of feasting those fond eyes again?
Panting imbibe they that refreshing sight
To reproduce in hour of bitterness?
She goes, the king awaits her from the camp:
Him she descried, and trembled ere he reached
Her car, but shuddered paler at his voice.
So the pale silver at the festive board
Grows paler filled afresh and dewed with wine;
So seems the tenderest herbage of the spring
To whiten, bending from a balmy gale.
The beauteous queen alighting he received,
And sighed to loose her from his arms; she hung
A little longer on them through her fears:
Her maidens followed her, and one that watched,
One that had called her in the morn, observed
How virgin passion with unfueled flame
Burns into whiteness, while the blushing cheek
Imagination heats and Shame imbues.
Between both nations drawn in ranks they pass:
The priests, with linen ephods, linen robes,
Attend their steps, some follow, some precede,
Where clothed with purple intertwined with gold
Two lofty thrones commanded land and main.
Behind and near them numerous were the tents
As freckled clouds o’erfloat our vernal skies,
Numerous as wander in warm moonlight nights,
Along Meander’s or Cayster’s marsh,
Swans pliant—necked and village storks revered.
Throughout each nation moved the hum confused,
Like that from myriad wings o’er Scythian cups
Of frothy milk, concreted soon with blood.
Throughout the fields the savoury smoke ascends,
And boughs and branches shade the hides unbroached.
Some roll the flowery turf into a seat,
And others press the helmet—now resounds
The signal—queen and monarch mount the thrones.
The brazen clarion hoarsens: many leagues
Above them, many to the south, the heron
Rising with hurried croak and throat outstretched,
Ploughs up the silvering surface of her plain.
Tottering with age’s zeal and mischief’s haste
Now was discovered Dalica; she reached
The throne, she leant against the pedestal,
And now ascending stood before the king.
Prayers for his health and safety she preferred,
And o’er his head and o’er his feet she threw
Myrrh, nard, and cassia, from three golden urns;
His robe of native woof she next removed,
And round his shoulders drew the garb accursed,
And bowed her head and parted: soon the queen
Saw the blood mantle in his manly cheeks,
And feared, and faltering sought her lost replies,
And blessed the silence that she wished were broke.
Alas! unconscious maiden! night shall close,
And love and sovereignty and life dissolve,
And Egypt be one desert drenched in blood.
When thunder overhangs the fountain’s head,
Losing its wonted freshness every stream
Grows turbid, grows with sickly warmth suffused:
Thus were the brave Iberians when they saw
The king of nations from his throne descend.
Scarcely, with pace uneven, knees unnerved,
Reached he the waters: in his troubled ear
They sounded murmuring drearily; they rose
Wild, in strange colours, to his parching eyes;
They seemed to rush around him, seemed to lift
From the receding earth his helpless feet.
He fell—Charoba shrieked aloud—she ran—
Frantic with fears and fondness, mazed with woe,
Nothing but Gebir dying she beheld.
The turban that betrayed its golden charge
Within, the veil that down her shoulders hung,
All fallen at her feet! the furthest wave
Creeping with silent progress up the sand,
Glided through all, and raised their hollow folds.
In vain they bore him to the sea, in vain
Rubbed they his temples with the briny warmth:
He struggled from them, strong with agony,
He rose half up, he fell again, he cried
‘Charoba! O Charoba!’ She embraced
His neck, and raising on her knee one arm,
Sighed when it moved not, when it fell she shrieked,
And clasping loud both hands above her head,
She called on Gebir, called on earth, on heaven.
‘Who will believe me? what shall I protest?
How innocent, thus wretched! God of gods,
Strike me—who most offend thee most defy—
Charoba most offends thee—strike me, hurl
From this accursed land, this faithless throne.
O Dalica! see here the royal feast!
See here the gorgeous robe! you little thought
How have the demons dyed that robe with death.
Where are ye, dear fond parents! when ye heard
My feet in childhood pat the palace—floor,
Ye started forth and kissed away surprise:
Will ye now meet me! how, and where, and when?
And must I fill your bosom with my tears,
And, what I never have done, with your own!
Why have the gods thus punished me? what harm
Have ever I done them? have I profaned
Their temples, asked too little, or too much?
Proud if they granted, grieved if they withheld?
O mother! stand between your child and them!
Appease them, soothe them, soften their revenge,
Melt them to pity with maternal tears—
Alas, but if you cannot! they themselves
Will then want pity rather than your child.
O Gebir! best of monarchs, best of men,
What realm hath ever thy firm even hand
Or lost by feebleness or held by force!
Behold thy cares and perils how repaid!
Behold the festive day, the nuptial hour!’
Thus raved Charoba: horror, grief, amaze,
Pervaded all the host; all eyes were fixed;
All stricken motionless and mute: the feast
Was like the feast of Cepheus, when the sword
Of Phineus, white with wonder, shook restrained,
And the hilt rattled in his marble hand.
She heard not, saw not, every sense was gone;
One passion banished all; dominion, praise,
The world itself was nothing. Senseless man!
What would thy fancy figure now from worlds?
There is no world to those that grieve and love.
She hung upon his bosom, pressed his lips,
Breathed, and would feign it his that she resorbed;
She chafed the feathery softness of his veins,
That swelled out black, like tendrils round their vase
After libation: lo! he moves! he groans!
He seems to struggle from the grasp of death.
Charoba shrieked and fell away, her hand
Still clasping his, a sudden blush o’erspread
Her pallid humid cheek, and disappeared.
‘Twas not the blush of shame—what shame has woe? —
’Twas not the genuine ray of hope, it flashed
With shuddering glimmer through unscattered clouds,
It flashed from passions rapidly opposed.
Never so eager, when the world was waves,
Stood the less daughter of the ark, and tried
(Innocent this temptation!) to recall
With folded vest and casting arm the dove;
Never so fearful, when amid the vines
Rattled the hail, and when the light of heaven
Closed, since the wreck of Nature, first eclipsed,
As she was eager for his life’s return,
As she was fearful how his groans might end.
They ended: cold and languid calm succeeds;
His eyes have lost their lustre, but his voice
Is not unheard, though short: he spake these words:
‘And weepest thou, Charoba! shedding tears
More precious than the jewels that surround
The neck of kings entombed! then weep, fair queen,
At once thy pity and my pangs assuage.
Ah! what is grandeur, glory—they are past!
When nothing else, not life itself, remains,
Still the fond mourner may be called our own.
Should I complain of Fortune? how she errs,
Scattering her bounty upon barren ground,
Slow to allay the lingering thirst of toil?
Fortune, ’tis true, may err, may hesitate,
Death follows close nor hesitates nor errs.
I feel the stroke! I die!' He would extend
His dying arm; it fell upon his breast:
Cold sweat and shivering ran o’er every limb,
His eyes grew stiff, he struggled and expired.
