The Poems of Felicia Hemans
With all their fires and darts, though blood is gushing
Fast o’er their sides, as rivers to the deep.
Stand firm!--there yet is hope; th’ ascent is steep,
And from on high no shaft descends in vain.
--But those that fall swell up the mangled heap,
In the red moat, the dying and the slain,
And o’er that fearful bridge the assailants mount again!
LXXXIV.
Oh! the dread mingling, in that awful hour,
Of all terrific sounds!--the savage tone
Of the wild horn, the cannon’s peal, the shower
Of hissing darts, the crash of walls o’erthrown,
The deep dull tambour’s beat--man’s voice alone
Is there unheard! Ye may not catch the cry
Of trampled thousands--prayer, and shriek, and moan,
All drown’d, as that fierce hurricane sweeps by,
But swell the unheeded sum earth pays for victory.
LXXXV.
War-clouds have wrapt the city!--through their dun
O’erloaded canopy, at times a blaze
As of an angry storm-presaging sun,
From the Greek fire shoots up![223] and lightning rays
Flash, from the shock of sabres, through the haze,
And glancing arrows cleave the dusky air!
--Ay! _this_ is in the compass of our gaze,
But fearful things unknown, untold, are there--
Workings of wrath and death, and anguish, and despair!
LXXXVI.
Woe, shame and woe!--A chief, a warrior flies,
A red-cross champion, bleeding, wild, and pale!
--Oh God! that Nature’s passing agonies
Thus, o’er the spark which dies not, should prevail!
Yes! rend the arrow from thy shatter’d mail,
And stanch the blood-drops, Genoa’s fallen son![224]
Fly swifter yet! the javelins pour as hail!
--But there are tortures which thou canst not shun:
The spirit is _their_ prey--thy pangs are but begun!
LXXXVII.
Oh, happy in their homes, the noble dead!
The seal is set on their majestic fame;
Earth has drunk deep the generous blood they shed,
Fate has no power to dim their stainless name!
_They_ may not, in one bitter moment, shame
Long glorious years. From many a lofty stem
Fall graceful flowers, and eagle hearts grow tame,
And stars drop, fading from the diadem;
But the bright _past_ is theirs--there is no change for _them_!
LXXXVIII.
Where art thou, Constantine?--where death is reaping
His sevenfold harvest!--where the stormy light,
Fast as th’ artillery’s thunderbolts are sweeping,
Throws meteor-bursts o’er battle’s noonday-night!
Where the towers rock and crumble from their height,
As to the earthquake, and the engines ply
Like red Vesuvio; and where human might
Confronts all this, and still brave hearts beat high,
While scimitars ring loud on shivering panoply.
LXXXIX.
Where art thou, Constantine?--where Christian blood
Hath bathed the walls in torrents, and in vain!
Where faith and valour perish in the flood,
Whose billows, rising o’er their bosoms, gain
Dark strength each moment; where the gallant slain
Around the banner of the Cross lie strew’d
Thick as the vine-leaves on th’ autumnal plain;
Where all, save one high spirit, is subdued,
And through the breach press on th’ o’erwhelming
multitude.
XC.
Now is he battling midst a host alone,
As the last cedar stems awhile the sway
Of mountain storms, whose fury hath o’erthrown
Its forest-brethren in their green array!
And he hath cast his purple robe away,
With its imperial bearings, that his sword
An iron ransom from the chain may pay,
And win, what haply fate may yet accord,
A soldier’s death--the all now left an empire’s lord!
XCI.
Search for him now where bloodiest lie the files
Which once were men, the faithful and the brave!
Search for him now where loftiest rise the piles
Of shatter’d helms and shields which could not save,
And crests and banners never more to wave
In the free winds of heaven! He is of those
O’er whom the host may rush, the tempest rave,
And the steeds trample, and the spearmen close,
Yet wake them not!--so deep their long and last repose!
XCII.
Woe to the vanquish’d!--thus it hath been still
Since Time’s first march! Hark, hark, a people’s cry!
Ay, now the conquerors in the streets fulfil
Their task of wrath! In vain the victims fly;
Hark! now each piercing tone of agony
Blends in the city’s shriek! The lot is cast.
Slaves! ’twas your _choice_ thus, rather thus, to die,
Than where the warrior’s blood flows warm and fast,
And roused and mighty hearts beat proudly to the last!
XCIII.
Oh! well doth freedom battle! Men have made,
E’en midst their blazing roofs, a noble stand,
And on the floors, where once their children play’d,
And by the hearths, round which their household band
At evening met; ay, struggling hand to hand,
Within the very chambers of their sleep,
_There_ have they taught the spoilers of the land
In chainless hearts what fiery strength lies deep,
To guard free homes! But ye!--kneel, tremblers! kneel, and weep!
XCIV.
’Tis eve--the storm hath died, the valiant rest
Low on their shields; the days fierce work is done,
And blood-stain’d seas and burning towers attest
Its fearful deeds. An empire’s race is run!
Sad, midst his glory, looks the parting sun
Upon the captive city. Hark! a swell
(Meet to proclaim barbaric war-fields won)
Of fierce triumphal sounds, that wildly tell
The Soldan comes within the Cæsars’ halls to dwell!
XCV.
Yes! with the peal of cymbal and of gong,
He comes: the Moslem treads those ancient halls!
But all is stillness there, as death had long
Been lord alone within those gorgeous walls.
And half that silence of the grave appals
The conqueror’s heart. Ay! thus, with triumph’s hour,
Still comes the boding whisper, which recalls
A thought of those impervious clouds that lower
O’er grandeur’s path, a sense of some far mightier Power!
XCVI.
“The owl upon Afrasiab’s towers hath sung
Her watch-song,[225] and around th’ imperial throne
The spider weaves his web!”--Still darkly hung
That verse of omen, as a prophet’s tone,
O’er his flush’d spirit. Years on years have flown
To prove its truth: kings pile their domes in air,
That the coil’d snake may bask on sculptured stone,
And nations clear the forest, to prepare
For the wild fox and wolf more stately dwellings there!
XCVII.
But thou! that on thy ramparts proudly dying,
As a crown’d leader in such hours should die,
Upon thy pyre of shiver’d spears art lying,
With the heavens o’er thee for a canopy,
And banners for thy shroud! No tear, no sigh,
Shall mingle with thy dirge; for thou art now
Beyond vicissitude! Lo! rear’d on high,
The Crescent blazes, while the Cross must bow--
But where no change can reach, there, Constantine, art thou!
XCVIII.
“After life’s fitful fever thou sleep’st well!”
We may not mourn thee! Sceptred chiefs, from whom
The earth received her destiny, and fell
Before them trembling--to a sterner doom
Have oft been call’d. For them the dungeon’s gloom,
With its cold starless midnight, hath been made
More fearful darkness, where, as in a tomb,
Without a tomb’s repose, the chain hath weigh’d
Their very soul to dust, with each high power decay’d.
XCIX.
Or in the eye of thousands they have stood,
To meet the stroke of death; but not like thee!
From bonds and scaffolds hath appeal’d _their_ blood,
But thou didst fall unfetter’d, arm’d, and free,
And kingly to the last! And if it be,
That from the viewless world, whose marvels none
Return to tell, a spirit’s eye can see
The things of earth: still may’st thou hail the sun,
Which o’er thy land shall dawn, when freedom’s fight is won!
C.
And the hour comes, in storm! A light is glancing
Far through the forest god’s Arcadian shades!
--’Tis not the moonbeam, tremulously dancing,
Where lone Alpheus bathes his haunted glades.
A murmur, gathering power, the air pervades,
Round dark Cithæron and by Delphi’s steep;
--’Tis not the song and lyre of Grecian maids,
Nor pastoral reed that lulls the vales to sleep,
Nor yet the rustling pines, nor yet the sounding deep!
CI.
Arms glitter on the mountains, which of old
Awoke to freedom’s first heroic strain,
And by the streams, once crimson, as they roll’d
The Persian helm and standard to the main;
And the blue waves of Salamis again
Thrill to the trumpet; and the tombs reply,
With their ten thousand echoes, from each plain,
Far as Platæa’s, where the mighty lie,
Who crown’d so proudly there the bowl of liberty![226]
CII.
Bright land, with glory mantled o’er by song!
Land of the vision-peopled hills, and streams,
And fountains, whose deserted banks along
Still the soft air with inspiration teems;
Land of the graves, whose dwellers shall be themes
To verse for ever; and of ruin’d shrines,
That scarce look desolate beneath such beams,
As bathe in gold thine ancient rocks and pines?
--When shall thy sons repose in peace beneath their vines?
CIII.
_Thou_ wert not made for bonds, nor shame, nor fear!
--Do the hoar oaks and dark-green laurels wave
O’er Mantinea’s earth?--doth Pindus rear
His snows, the sunbeam and the storm to brave?
And is there yet on Marathon a grave?
And doth Eurotas lead his silvery line
By Sparta’s ruins? And shall man, a slave,
Bow’d to the dust, amid such scenes repine?
--If e’er a soil was mark’d for freedom’s step, ’tis thine!
CIV.
Wash from that soil the stains with battle-showers.
--Beneath Sophia’s dome the Moslem prays,
The Crescent gleams amidst the olive-bowers,
In the Comneni’s halls the Tartar sways:[227]
But not for long!--the spirit of those days,
When the three hundred made their funeral pile
Of Asia’s dead, is kindling, like the rays
Of thy rejoicing sun, when first his smile
Warms the Parnassian rock, and gilds the Delian isle.
CV.
If then ’tis given thee to arise in might,
Trampling the scourge, and dashing down the chain,
Pure be thy triumphs, as thy name is bright!
The cross of victory should not know a stain!
So may that faith once more supremely reign,
Through which we lift our spirits from the dust!
And deem not, e’en when virtue dies in vain,
She dies forsaken; but repose our trust
On Him whose ways are dark, unsearchable--but just.
[205] The army of Mohammed the Second, at the siege of Constantinople,
was thronged with fanatics of all sects and nations, who were not
enrolled amongst the regular troops.
The Sultan himself marched upon the city from Adrianople; but his army
must have been principally collected in the Asiatic provinces, which he
had previously visited.
[206]
“Huc vina, et unguenta, et nimium breves Flores amœnæ ferre jube
rosæ.”--Horace.
[207] The castle of the Seven Towers is mentioned in the Byzantine
history, as early as the sixth century of the Christian era, as an
edifice which contributed materially to the defence of Constantinople;
and it was the principal bulwark of the town on the coast of the
Propontis, in the later periods of the empire. For a description of
this building, see Pouqueville’s _Travels_.
[208] An allusion to the Roman custom of carrying in procession, at the
funerals of their great men, the images of their ancestors.