Of Wisdom, Pity's altar stood: Serve not the unknown God in vain, But pay that broken shrine again, Love for hate and tears for blood. thy fellow men But raised above Of thee and me, the future and the past; But look on that which cannot change -the One, By thought, as I by power. Ahasuerus. Of Greek and Frank philosophy; thou numberest The flowers, and thou measurest the This firmament pavilioned upon chaos, stars; Thou severest element from element; Of desolation and of loveliness, With all its cressets of immortal fire, As Calpe the Atlantic clouds-this And when man was not, and how man Of suns, and worlds, and men, and became beasts, and flowers, The monarch and the slave of this low With all the silent or tempestuous workings sphere, And all its narrow circles-it is much- By which they have been, are, or cease I honour thee, and would be what thou art to be, Is but a vision ;-all that it inherits Were I not what I am; but the unborn Are motes of a sick eye, bubbles and hour, dreams; Cradled in fear and hope, conflicting Thought is its cradle and its grave, nor storms, less Who shall unveil? Nor thou, nor I, The future and the past are idle shadows Of thought's eternal flight-they have nor any Mighty or wise. I apprehended not perceive That thou art no interpreter of dreams; Can make the future present - let it no being: Nought is but that which feels itself to be. Mahmud. What meanest thou? Thy words stream like a tempest Of dazzling mist within my brain-they shake The earth on which I stand, and hang Moreover thou disdainest us and ours; platest. avail ? What can they Ahasuerus. Disdain thee?----not the They cast on all things surest, brightest, worm beneath my feet! best, Doubt, insecurity, astonishment. Ahasuerus. Mistake me not! All is contained in each. Dodona's forest to an acorn's cup Fall of vast bastions and precipitous towers, The shock of crags shot from strange enginery, hoofs, Is that which has been, or will be, to The clash of wheels, and clang of armèd that Which is the absent to the present. And crash of brazen mail as of the Thought wreck Alone, and its quick elements, Will, Of adamantine mountains the mad And shrieks of women whose thrill jars the blood, The stuff whence mutability can weave All that it hath dominion o'er, worlds, And one sweet laugh, most horrible to hear, worms, Empires, and superstitions. What has As of a joyous infant waked and playing With its dead mother's breast, and now thought The written fortunes of thy house and Of regal port has cast himself beneath The stream of war. Another proudly The sound Thou call'st reality. As of the assault of an imperial city, How cities, on which Empire sleeps enthroned, Bow their towered crests to mutability. Poised by the flood, e'en on the height The foliage in which Fame, the eagle, built thou holdest, Thou mayst now learn how the full tide Her aërie, while Dominion whelped of power below. Ebbs to its depths.-Inheritor of glory, The storm is in its branches, and the Conceived in darkness, born in blood, and nourished With tears and toil, thou seest the mortal throes Of that whose birth was but the same. The Past Now stands before thee like an Incarnation Of the To-come; yet wouldst thou commune with That portion of thyself which was ere thou Didst start for this brief race whose crown is death, Dissolve with that strong faith and fervent passion Which called it from the uncreated deep, Yon cloud of war, with its tempestuous phantoms Of raging death; and draw with mighty will The imperial shade hither. Mahmud. Phantom. [Exit AHASUERUS. Approach! I come Thence whither thou must go! The grave is fitter To take the living than give up the dead; frost Is on its leaves, and the blank deep expects Oblivion on oblivion, spoil on spoil, Ruin on ruin :-Thou art slow, my son; The Anarchs of the world of darkness keep A throne for thee, round which thine empire lies Boundless and mute; and for thy subjects thou, Like us, shalt rule the ghosts of murdered life, The phantoms of the powers who rule thee now Mutinous passions, and conflicting fears, And hopes that sate themselves on dust and die !- Stript of their mortal strength, as thou of thine. Islam must fall, but we will reign together Over its ruins in the world of death :— And if the trunk be dry, yet shall the seed Unfold itself even in the shape of that Which gathers birth in its decay. Woe! woe! To the weak people tangled in the grasp Yet has thy faith prevailed, and I am Of its last spasms. here. Mahmud. Spirit, woe to all! The heavy fragments of the power which Woe to the wronged and the avenger! fell Woe When I arose, like shapeless crags and To the destroyer, woe to the destroyed! Woe to the dupe, and woe to the deceiver ! clouds, Hang round my throne on the abyss, and voices Of strange lament soothe my supreme repose, Wailing for glory never to return.— A later Empire nods in its decay : The autumn of a greener faith is come, And wolfish change, like winter, howls to strip Woe to the oppressed, and woe to the oppressor! Woe both to those that suffer and inflict; Those who are born and those who die! but say, Imperial shadow of the thing I am, When, how, by whom, Destruction must accomplish Her consummation? Phantom. Ask the cold pale Hour, Rich in reversion of impending death, When he shall fall upon whose ripe gray hairs Sit Care, and Sorrow, and Infirmity— The weight which Crime, whose wings are plumed with years, Leaves in his flight from ravaged heart | Round which the kingly hunters of the to heart earth Over the heads of men, under which Stand smiling. Anarchs, ye whose burthen daily food They bow themselves unto the grave: Are curses, groans, and gold, the fruit fond wretch! of death He leans upon his crutch, and talks of From Thule to the girdle of the world, Come, feast! the board groans with the flesh of men; years To come, and how in hours of youth renewed He will renew lost joys, and—Voice without. Victory! Victory! [The Phantom vanishes. Mahmud. What sound of the importunate earth has broken My mighty trance? Voice without. Victory! Victory! Mahmud. Weak lightning before darkness! poor faint smile Of dying Islam ! response Voice which art the Of hollow weakness! Do I wake and live? Were there such things, or may the un quiet brain, The cup is foaming with a nation's blood, Famine and Thirst await! eat, drink, and die! Semichorus I. Victorious Wrong, with vulture scream, Salutes the risen sun, pursues the flying day! I saw her, ghastly as a tyrant's dream, Perch on the trembling pyramid of night, Beneath which earth and all her realms pavilioned lay In visions of the dawning undelight. Vexed by the wise mad talk of the old Dare not to prey beneath the crescent's Jew, light. Have shaped itself these shadows of its Impale the remnant of the Greeks! fear? despoil! It matters not!-for nought we see or Violate! make their flesh cheaper than dream, Possess, or lose, or grasp at, can be worth dust! Semichorus II. Thou voice which art More than it gives or teaches. Come The herald of the ill in splendour hid! what may, The future must become the past, and 1 As they were to whom once this present hour, This gloomy crag of time to which I cling, Seemed an Elysian isle of peace and joy Thou echo of the hollow heart Of monarchy, bear me to thine abode When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed: Oh, bear me to those isles of jagged cloud Which float like mountains on the earthquake, mid The momentary oceans of the lightning, At length they wept aloud, and cried, Ho, there! bring torches, sharpen those And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire red stakes, These chains are light, fitter for slaves and poisoners tremble When ye desert the free- Than Greeks. Kill! plunder! burn! A wreck, yet shall its fragments re let none remain. Semichorus I. Alas! for Liberty! If numbers, wealth, or unfulfilling years, Alas! for Virtue, when Torments, or contumely, or the sneers Can break the heart where it abides. Can change with its false times and Like hope and terror,— Alas for Love! And Truth, who wanderest lone and unbefriended, Semichorus II. If thou canst veil thy lie-consuming Our dead shall be the seed of their mirror Before the dazzled eyes of Error, Semichorus II. Repulse, with plumes from con- Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn decay, Our survivors be the shadow of their pride, Our adversity a dream to pass awayTheir dishonour a remembrance to abide! Voice without. Victory! Victory! The bought Briton sends Through many an hostile Anarchy! The keys of ocean to the Islamite.— |