| |
I. ’T WAS after dread Pultowa’s day, | |
| When fortune left the royal Swede | |
| Around a slaughtered army lay, | |
| No more to combat and to bleed. | |
| The power and glory of the war, | 5 |
| Faithless as their vain votaries, men, | |
| Had passed to the triumphant Czar, | |
| And Moscow’s walls were safe again, | |
| Until a day more dark and drear, | |
| And a more memorable year, | 10 |
| Should give to slaughter and to shame | |
| A mightier host and haughtier name; | |
| A greater wreck, a deeper fall, | |
| A shock to one,—a thunderbolt to all. | |
| |
II. Such was the hazard of the die; | 15 |
| The wounded Charles was taught to fly | |
| By day and night, through field and flood, | |
| Stained with his own and subjects’ blood; | |
| For thousands fell that flight to aid: | |
| And not a voice was heard to upbraid | 20 |
| Ambition in his humbled hour, | |
| When truth had naught to dread from power. | |
| His horse was slain, and Gieta gave | |
| His own,—and died the Russians’ slave. | |
| This too sinks after many a league | 25 |
| Of well-sustained, but vain fatigue; | |
| And in the depth of forests, darkling | |
| The watch-fires in the distance sparkling,— | |
| The beacons of surrounding foes,— | |
| A king must lay his limbs at length. | 30 |
| Are these the laurels and repose | |
| For which the nations strain their strength? | |
| They laid him by a savage tree, | |
| In out-worn nature’s agony; | |
| His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark, | 35 |
| The heavy hour was chill and dark; | |
| The fever in his blood forbade | |
| A transient slumber’s fitful aid: | |
| And thus it was; but yet through all | |
| King-like the monarch bore his fall, | 40 |
| And made, in this extreme of ill, | |
| His pangs the vassals of his will; | |
| All silent and subdued were they, | |
| As once the nations round him lay. | |
| |
III. A band of chiefs!—alas! how few, | 45 |
| Since but the fleeting of a day | |
| Had thinned it; but this wreck was true | |
| And chivalrous; upon the clay | |
| Each sate him down, all sad and mute, | |
| Beside his monarch and his steed, | 50 |
| For danger levels man and brute, | |
| And all are fellows in their need. | |
| Among the rest, Mazeppa made | |
| His pillow in an old oak’s shade,— | |
| Himself as rough, and scarce less old, | 55 |
| The Ukraine’s hetman, calm and bold; | |
| But first, outspent with this long course, | |
| The Cossack prince rubbed down his horse, | |
| And made for him a leafy bed, | |
| And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane, | 60 |
| And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein, | |
| And joyed to see how well he fed; | |
| For until now he had the dread | |
| His wearied courser might refuse | |
| To browse beneath the midnight dews: | 65 |
| But he was hardy as his lord, | |
| And little cared for bed and board; | |
| But spirited and docile too, | |
| Whate’er was to be done, would do; | |
| Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb, | 70 |
| All Tartar-like he carried him; | |
| Obeyed his voice, and came to call, | |
| And knew him in the midst of all: | |
| Though thousands were around, and night | |
| Without a star pursued her flight, | 75 |
| That steed from sunset until dawn | |
| His chief would follow like a fawn. | |
| |
IV. This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak, | |
| And laid his lance beneath his oak, | |
| Felt if his arms in order good | 80 |
| The long day’s march had well withstood, | |
| If still the powder filled the pan, | |
| And flints unloosened kept their lock,— | |
| His sabre’s hilt and scabbard felt, | |
| And whether they had chafed his belt,— | 85 |
| And next the venerable man, | |
| From out his haversack and can, | |
| Prepared and spread his slender stock; | |
| And to the monarch and his men | |
| The whole or portion offered then, | 90 |
| With far less of inquietude | |
| Than courtiers at a banquet would | |
| And Charles of this his slender share | |
| With smiles partook a moment there, | |
| To force of cheer a greater show. | 95 |
| And seem above both wounds and woe; | |
| And then he said, “Of all our band, | |
| Though firm of heart and strong of hand, | |
| In skirmish, march, or forage, none | |
| Can less have said, or more have done, | 100 |
| Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth | |
| So fit a pair had never birth, | |
| Since Alexander’s days till now, | |
| As thy Bucephalus and thou: | |
| All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield | 105 |
| For pricking on o’er flood and field.” | |
| Mazeppa answered, “Ill betide | |
| The school wherein I learned to ride!” | |
| Quoth Charles, “Old hetman, wherefore so, | |
| Since thou hast learned the art so well?” | 110 |
| Mazeppa said, “’T were long to tell; | |
| And we have many a league to go | |
| With every now and then a blow, | |
| And ten to one at least the foe, | |
| Before our steeds may graze at ease | 115 |
| Beyond the swift Borysthenes: | |
| And, sire, your limbs have need of rest, | |
| And I will be the sentinel | |
| Of this your troop.” “But I request,” | |
| Said Sweden’s monarch, “thou wilt tell | 120 |
| This tale of thine, and I may reap | |
| Perchance from this the boon of sleep; | |
| For at this moment from my eyes | |
| The hope of present slumber flies.” | |
| |
| “Well, sire, with such a hope, I ’ll track | 125 |
| My seventy years of memory back: | |
| I think ’t was in my twentieth spring,— | |
| Ay, ’t was,—when Casimir was king,— | |
| John Casimir,—I was his page | |
| Six summers in my earlier age; | 130 |
| A learned monarch, faith! was he, | |
| And most unlike your majesty: | |
| He made no wars, and did not gain | |
| New realms to lose them back again; | |
| And (save debates in Warsaw’s diet) | 135 |
| He reigned in most unseemly quiet; | |
| Not that he had no cares to vex, | |
| He loved the muses and the sex; | |
| And sometimes these so froward are, | |
| They made him wish himself at war; | 140 |
| But soon his wrath being o’er, he took | |
| Another mistress, or new book: | |
| And then he gave prodigious fêtes,— | |
| All Warsaw gathered round his gates | |
| To gaze upon his splendid court, | 145 |
| And dames, and chiefs, of princely port: | |
| He was the Polish Solomon, | |
| So sung his poets, all but one, | |
| Who, being unpensioned, made a satire, | |
| And boasted that he could not flatter. | 150 |
| It was a court of jousts and mimes, | |
| Where every courtier tried at rhymes; | |
| Even I for once produced some verses, | |
| And signed my odes, Despairing Thirsis. | |
| There was a certain Palatine, | 155 |
| A count of far and high descent, | |
| Rich as a salt or silver mine; | |
| And he was proud, ye may divine, | |
| As if from heaven he had been sent: | |
| He had such wealth in blood and ore, | 160 |
| As few could match beneath the throne; | |
| And he would gaze upon his store, | |
| And o’er his pedigree would pore, | |
| Until by some confusion led, | |
| Which almost looked like want of head, | 165 |
| He thought their merits were his own. | |
| His wife was not of his opinion,— | |
| His junior she by thirty years,— | |
| Grew daily tired of his dominion; | |
| And, after wishes, hopes, and fears, | 170 |
| To virtue a few farewell tears, | |
| A restless dream or two, some glances | |
| At Warsaw’s youth, some songs, and dances, | |
| Awaited but the usual chances, | |
| Those happy accidents which render | 175 |
| The coldest dames so very tender, | |
| To deck her count with titles given, | |
| ’T is said, as passports into heaven; | |
| But, strange to say, they rarely boast | |
| Of these who have deserved them most. | 180 |
| |
V. “I was a goodly stripling then; | |
| At seventy years I so may say, | |
| That there were few, or boys or men, | |
| Who, in my dawning time of day, | |
| Of vassal or of knight’s degree, | 185 |
| Could vie in vanities with me; | |
| For I had strength, youth, gayety, | |
| A port not like to this ye see, | |
| But smooth, as all is rugged now; | |
| For time and care and war have ploughed | 190 |
| My very soul from out my brow; | |
| And thus I should be disavowed | |
| By all my kind and kin, could they | |
| Compare my day and yesterday; | |
| This change was wrought, too, long ere age | 195 |
| Had ta’en my features for his page: | |
| With years, we know, have not declined | |
| My strength, my courage, or my mind, | |
| Or at this hour I should not be | |
| Telling old tales beneath a tree | 200 |
| With starless skies my canopy. | |
| But let me on: Theresa’s form,— | |
| Methinks it glides before me now, | |
| Between me and yon chestnut’s bough, | |
| The memory is so quick and warm; | 205 |
| And yet I find no words to tell | |
| The shape of her I loved so well: | |
| She had the Asiatic eye, | |
| Such as our Turkish neighborhood | |
| Hath mingled with our Polish blood, | 210 |
| Dark as above us is the sky; | |
| But through it stole a tender light, | |
| Like the first moonrise at midnight; | |
| Large, dark, and swimming in the stream, | |
| Which seemed to melt to its own beam; | 215 |
| All love, half languor, and half fire, | |
| Like saints that at the stake expire, | |
| And lift their raptured looks on high, | |
| As though it were a joy to die. | |
| A brow like a midsummer lake, | 220 |
| Transparent with the sun therein, | |
| When waves no murmur dare to make, | |
| And heaven beholds her face within. | |
| A cheek and lip,—but why proceed? | |
| I loved her then,—I love her still; | 225 |
| And such as I am, love indeed | |
| In fierce extremes,—in good and ill. | |
| But still we love even in our rage, | |
| And haunted to our very age | |
| With the vain shadow of the past, | 230 |
| As is Mazeppa to the last. | |
| |
VI. “We met,—we gazed,—I saw, and sighed, | |
| She did not speak, and yet replied; | |
| There are ten thousand tones and signs | |
| We hear and see, but none defines,— | 235 |
| Involuntary sparks of thought, | |
| Which strike from out the heart o’erwrought, | |
| And form a strange intelligence, | |
| Alike mysterious and intense, | |
| Which link the burning chain that binds, | 240 |
| Without their will, young hearts and minds; | |
| Conveying, as the electric wire, | |
| We know not how, the absorbing fire. | |
| I saw, and sighed,—in silence wept, | |
| And still reluctant distance kept, | 245 |
| Until I was made known to her, | |
| And we might then and there confer | |
| Without suspicion,—then, even then, | |
| I longed, and was resolved to speak; | |
| But on my lips they died again, | 250 |
| The accents tremulous and weak, | |
| Until one hour. There is a game, | |
| A frivolous and foolish play, | |
| Wherewith we while away the day; | |
| It is—I have forgot the name,— | 255 |
| And we to this, it seems, were set, | |
| By some strange chance, which I forget: | |
| I recked not if I won or lost, | |
| It was enough for me to be | |
| So near to hear, and O, to see | 260 |
| The being whom I loved the most. | |
| I watched her as a sentinel, | |
| (May ours this dark night watch as well!) | |
| Until I saw, and thus it was, | |
| That she was pensive, nor perceived | 265 |
| Her occupation, nor was grieved | |
| Nor glad to lose or gain; but still | |
| Played on for hours, as if her will | |
| Yet bound her to the place, though not | |
| That hers might be the winning lot. | 270 |
| Then through my brain the thought did pass | |
| Even as a flash of lightning there, | |
| That there was something in her air | |
| Which would not doom me to despair; | |
| And on the thought my words broke forth, | 275 |
| All incoherent as they were,— | |
| Their eloquence was little worth, | |
| But yet she listened,—’t is enough,— | |
| Who listens once will listen twice; | |
| Her heart, be sure, is not of ice, | 280 |
| And one refusal no rebuff. | |
| |
VII. “I loved, and was beloved again,— | |
| They tell me, Sire, you never knew | |
| Those gentle frailties; if ’t is true, | |
| I shorten all my joy or pain, | 285 |
| To you ’t would seem absurd as vain; | |
| But all men are not born to reign, | |
| Or o’er their passions, or, as you, | |
| Thus o’er themselves and nations too. | |
| I am—or rather was—a prince, | 290 |
| A chief of thousands, and could lead | |
| Them on where each would foremost bleed; | |
| But could not o’er myself evince | |
| The like control. But to resume: | |
| I loved, and was beloved again; | 295 |
| In sooth, it is a happy doom, | |
| But yet where happiness ends in pain. | |
| We met in secret, and the hour | |
| Which led me to that lady’s bower | |
| Was fiery expectation’s dower. | 300 |
| My days and nights were nothing,—all | |
| Except that hour, which doth recall | |
| In the long lapse from youth to age | |
| No other like itself,—I ’d give | |
| The Ukraine back again to live | 305 |
| It o’er once more,—and be a page, | |
| The happy page, who was the lord | |
| Of one soft heart, and his own sword, | |
| And had no other gem nor wealth | |
| Save Nature’s gift of youth and health,— | 310 |
| We met in secret,—doubly sweet, | |
| Some say, they find it so to meet; | |
| I know not that,—I would have given | |
| My life but to have called her mine | |
| In the full view of earth and heaven; | 315 |
| For I did oft and long repine | |
| That we could only meet by stealth. | |
| |
VIII. “For lovers there are many eyes, | |
| And such there were on us: the devil | |
| On such occasions should be civil,— | 320 |
| The devil! I ’m loath to do him wrong, | |
| It might be some untoward saint, | |
| Who would not be at rest too long, | |
| But to his pious bile gave vent,— | |
| But one fair night, some lurking spies | 325 |
| Surprised and seized us both. | |
| The count was something more than wroth,— | |
| I was unarmed; but if in steel, | |
| All cap-à-pie, from head to heel, | |
| What ’gainst their numbers could I do? | 330 |
| ’T was near his castle, far away | |
| From city or from succor near, | |
| And almost on the break of day; | |
| I did not think to see another, | |
| My moments seemed reduced to few; | 335 |
| And with one prayer to Mary Mother, | |
| And, it may be, a saint or two, | |
| As I resigned me to my fate, | |
| They led me to the castle gate: | |
| Theresa’s doom I never knew, | 340 |
| Our lot was henceforth separate. | |
| An angry man, ye may opine, | |
| Was he, the proud Count Palatine; | |
| And he had reason good to be, | |
| But he was most enraged lest such | 345 |
| An accident should chance to touch | |
| Upon his future pedigree; | |
| Nor less amazed, that such a blot | |
| His noble ’scutcheon should have got, | |
| While he was highest of his line: | 350 |
| Because unto himself he seemed | |
| The first of men, nor less he deemed | |
| In others’ eyes, and most in mine. | |
| ’Sdeath! with a page,—perchance a king | |
| Had reconciled him to the thing: | 355 |
| But with a stripling of a page,— | |
| I felt, but cannot paint his rage. | |
| |
IX. “‘Bring forth the horse!’—the horse was brought, | |
| In truth, he was a noble steed, | |
| A Tartar of the Ukraine breed, | 360 |
| Who looked as though the speed of thought | |
| Were in his limbs: but he was wild, | |
| Wild as the wild deer, and untaught, | |
| With spur and bridle undefiled,— | |
| ’T was but a day he had been caught; | 365 |
| And snorting, with erected mane, | |
| And struggling fiercely, but in vain, | |
| In the full foam of wrath and dread, | |
| To me the desert-born was led; | |
| They bound me on, that menial throng, | 370 |
| Upon his back with many a thong; | |
| Then loosed him with a sudden lash,— | |
| Away!—away!—and on we dash! | |
| Torrents less rapid and less rash. | |
| |
X. Away!—away! My breath was gone,— | 375 |
| I saw not where he hurried on: | |
| ’T was scarcely yet the break of day, | |
| And on he foamed,—away!—away!— | |
| The last of human sounds which rose, | |
| As I was darted from my foes, | 380 |
| Was the wild shout of savage laughter, | |
| Which on the wind came roaring after | |
| A moment from that rabble rout: | |
| With sudden wrath I wrenched my head, | |
| And snapped the cord, which to the mane | 385 |
| Had bound my neck in lieu of rein, | |
| And writhing half my form about, | |
| Howled back my curse; but midst the tread, | |
| The thunder of my courser’s speed, | |
| Perchance they did not hear nor heed: | 390 |
| It vexes me,—for I would fain | |
| Have paid their insult back again. | |
| I paid it well in after days: | |
| There is not of that castle gate, | |
| Its drawbridge and portcullis’ weight, | 395 |
| Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left; | |
| Nor of its fields a blade of grass, | |
| Save what grows on a ridge of wall, | |
| Where stood the hearthstone of the hall; | |
| And many a time ye there might pass, | 400 |
| Nor dream that e’er that fortress was: | |
| I saw its turrets in a blaze, | |
| Their crackling battlements all cleft, | |
| And the hot lead pour down like rain | |
| From off the scorched and blackening roof, | 405 |
| Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. | |
| They little thought that day of pain, | |
| When launched, as on the lightning’s flash, | |
| They bade me to destruction dash, | |
| That one day I should come again, | 410 |
| With twice five thousand horse, to thank | |
| The count for his uncourteous ride. | |
| They played me then a bitter prank, | |
| When, with the wild horse for my guide, | |
| They bound me to his foaming flank: | 415 |
| At length I played them one as frank,— | |
| For time at last sets all things even,— | |
| And if we do but watch the hour, | |
| There never yet was human power | |
| Which could evade, if unforgiven, | 420 |
| The patient search and vigil long | |
| Of him who treasures up a wrong. | |
| |
XI. “Away, away, my steed and I, | |
| Upon the pinions of the wind, | |
| All human dwellings left behind; | 425 |
| We sped like meteors through the sky, | |
| When with its crackling sound the night | |
| Is checkered with the northern light: | |
| Town,—village,—none were on our track, | |
| But a wild plain of far extent, | 430 |
| And bounded by a forest black: | |
| And, save the scarce-seen battlement | |
| On distant heights of some strong hold, | |
| Against the Tartars built of old, | |
| No trace of man. The year before | 435 |
| A Turkish army had marched o’er; | |
| And where the Spahi’s hoof hath trod, | |
| The verdure flies the bloody sod: | |
| The sky was dull, and dim, and gray, | |
| And a low breeze crept moaning by,— | 440 |
| I could have answered with a sigh,— | |
| But fast we fled, away, away,— | |
| And I could neither sigh nor pray; | |
| And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain | |
| Upon the courser’s bristling mane: | 445 |
| But, snorting still with rage and fear, | |
| He flew upon his far career: | |
| At times I almost thought, indeed, | |
| He must have slackened in his speed: | |
| But no,—my bound and slender frame | 450 |
| Was nothing to his angry might, | |
| And merely like a spur became: | |
| Each motion which I made to free | |
| My swoln limbs from their agony | |
| Increased his fury and affright: | 455 |
| I tried my voice,—’t was faint and low, | |
| But yet he swerved as from a blow; | |
| And, starting to each accent, sprang | |
| As from a sudden trumpet’s clang: | |
| Meantime my cords were wet with gore, | 460 |
| Which, oozing through my limbs, ran o’er; | |
| And in my tongue the thirst became | |
| A something fierier far than flame. | |
| |
XII. “We neared the wild wood,—’t was so wide, | |
| I saw no bounds on either side; | 465 |
| ’T was studded with old sturdy trees, | |
| That bent not to the roughest breeze | |
| Which howls down from Siberia’s waste, | |
| And strips the forest in its haste,— | |
| But these were few, and far between, | 470 |
| Set thick with shrubs more young and green, | |
| Luxuriant with their annual leaves, | |
| Ere strown by those autumnal eves | |
| That nip the forest’s foliage dead, | |
| Discolored with a lifeless red, | 475 |
| Which stands thereon like stiffened gore | |
| Upon the slain when battle ’s o’er, | |
| And some long winter’s night hath shed | |
| Its frost o’er every tombless head, | |
| So cold and stark the raven’s beak | 480 |
| May peck unpierced each frozen cheek: | |
| ’T was a wild waste of underwood, | |
| And here and there a chestnut stood, | |
| The strong oak, and the hardy pine; | |
| But far apart,—and well it were, | 485 |
| Or else a different lot were mine,— | |
| The boughs gave way, and did not tear | |
| My limbs; and I found strength to bear | |
| My wounds, already scarred with cold,— | |
| My bonds forbade to loose my hold. | 490 |
| We rustled through the leaves like wind, | |
| Left shrubs and trees and wolves behind; | |
| By night I heard them on the track, | |
| Their troop came hard upon our back, | |
| With their long gallop, which can tire | 495 |
| The hound’s deep hate, and hunter’s fire: | |
| Where’er we flew they followed on, | |
| Nor left us with the morning sun; | |
| Behind I saw them, scarce a rood, | |
| At daybreak winding through the wood, | 500 |
| And through the night had heard their feet | |
| Their stealing, rustling step repeat. | |
| O, how I wished for spear or sword, | |
| At least to die amidst the horde, | |
| And perish—if it must be so— | 505 |
| At bay, destroying many a foe. | |
| When first my courser’s race begun, | |
| I wished the goal already won; | |
| But now I doubted strength and speed. | |
| Vain doubt! his swift and savage breed | 510 |
| Had nerved him like the mountain-roe; | |
| Nor faster falls the blinding snow | |
| Which whelms the peasant near the door | |
| Whose threshold he shall cross no more, | |
| Bewildered with the dazzling blast, | 515 |
| Than through the forest-paths he past,— | |
| Untired, untamed, and worse than wild; | |
| All furious as a favored child | |
| Balked of its wish; or, fiercer still, | |
| A woman piqued, who has her will. | 520 |
| |
XIII. “The wood was past; ’t was more than noon; | |
| But chill the air, although in June; | |
| Or it might be my veins ran cold,— | |
| Prolonged endurance tames the bold: | |
| And I was then not what I seem, | 525 |
| But headlong as a wintry stream, | |
| And wore my feelings out before | |
| I well could count their causes o’er: | |
| And what with fury, fear, and wrath, | |
| The tortures which beset my path, | 530 |
| Cold, hunger, sorrow, shame, distress, | |
| Thus bound in nature’s nakedness; | |
| Sprung from a race whose rising blood | |
| When stirred beyond its calmer mood, | |
| And trodden hard upon, is like | 535 |
| The rattlesnake’s, in act to strike, | |
| What marvel if this worn-out trunk | |
| Beneath its woes a moment sunk? | |
| The earth gave way, the skies rolled round, | |
| I seemed to sink upon the ground; | 540 |
| But erred, for I was fastly bound. | |
| My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, | |
| And throbbed awhile, then beat no more: | |
| The skies spun like a mighty wheel; | |
| I saw the trees like drunkards reel, | 545 |
| And a slight flash sprang o’er my eyes, | |
| Which saw no farther: he who dies | |
| Can die no more than then I died. | |
| O’ertortured by that ghastly ride, | |
| I felt the blackness come and go, | 550 |
| And strove to wake; but could not make | |
| My senses climb up from below: | |
| I felt as on a plank at sea, | |
| When all the waves that dash o’er thee, | |
| At the same time upheave and whelm, | 555 |
| And hurl thee towards a desert realm. | |
| My undulating life was as | |
| The fancied lights that flitting pass | |
| Our shut eyes in deep midnight, when | |
| Fever begins upon the brain; | 560 |
| But soon it passed, with little pain, | |
| But a confusion worse than such: | |
| I own that I should deem it much, | |
| Dying, to feel the same again; | |
| And yet I do suppose we must | 565 |
| Feel far more ere we turn to dust: | |
| No matter; I have bared my brow | |
| Full in Death’s face—before—and now. | |
| |
XIV. “My thoughts came back; where was I? Cold, | |
| And numb, and giddy: pulse by pulse | 570 |
| Life reassumed its lingering hold, | |
| And throb by throb; till grown a pang | |
| Which for a moment would convulse. | |
| My blood reflowed, though thick and chill; | |
| My ear with uncouth noises rang, | 575 |
| My heart began once more to thrill; | |
| My sight returned, though dim, alas! | |
| And thickened, as it were, with glass. | |
| Methought the dash of waves was nigh; | |
| There was a gleam too of the sky, | 580 |
| Studded with stars;—it is no dream; | |
| The wild horse swims the wilder stream! | |
| The bright broad river’s gushing tide | |
| Sweeps, winding onward, far and wide, | |
| And we are half-way struggling o’er | 585 |
| To yon unknown and silent shore. | |
| The waters broke my hollow trance. | |
| And with a temporary strength | |
| My stiffened limbs were rebaptized, | |
| My courser’s broad breast proudly braves, | 590 |
| And dashes off the ascending waves, | |
| And onward we advance! | |
| We reach the slippery shore at length, | |
| A haven I but little prized, | |
| For all behind was dark and drear, | 595 |
| And all before was night and fear. | |
| How many hours of night or day | |
| In those suspended pangs I lay, | |
| I could not tell; I scarcely knew | |
| If this were human breath I drew. | 600 |
| |
XV. “With glossy skin, and dripping mane, | |
| And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, | |
| The wild steed’s sinewy nerves still strain | |
| Up the repelling bank. | |
| We gain the top: a boundless plain | 605 |
| Spreads through the shadow of the night, | |
| And onward, onward, onward, seems | |
| Like precipices in our dreams, | |
| To stretch beyond the sight; | |
| And here and there a speck of white, | 610 |
| Or scattered spot of dusky green, | |
| In masses broke into the light, | |
| As rose the moon upon my right. | |
| But naught distinctly seen | |
| In the dim waste, would indicate | 615 |
| The omen of a cottage gate; | |
| No twinkling taper from afar | |
| Stood like a hospitable star; | |
| Not even an ignis-fatuus rose | |
| To make him merry with my woes: | 620 |
| That very cheat had cheered me then! | |
| Although detected, welcome still, | |
| Reminding me, through every ill, | |
| Of the abodes of men. | |
| |
XVI. “Onward we went,—but slack and slow; | 625 |
| His savage force at length o’erspent, | |
| The drooping courser, faint and low, | |
| All feebly foaming went. | |
| A sickly infant had had power | |
| To guide him forward in that hour; | 630 |
| But useless all to me. | |
| His new-born tameness naught availed, | |
| My limbs were bound; my force had failed, | |
| Perchance, had they been free. | |
| With feeble effort still I tried | 635 |
| To rend the bonds so starkly tied,— | |
| But still it was in vain; | |
| My limbs were only wrung the more, | |
| And soon the idle strife gave o’er, | |
| Which but prolonged their pain: | 640 |
| The dizzy race seemed almost done, | |
| Although no goal was nearly won: | |
| Some streaks announced the coming sun.— | |
| How slow, alas! he came! | |
| Methought that mist of dawning gray | 645 |
| Would never dapple into day; | |
| How heavily it rolled away,— | |
| Before the eastern flame | |
| Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, | |
| And called the radiance from their cars, | 650 |
| And filled the earth, from his deep throne, | |
| With lonely lustre, all his own. | |
| |
XVII. Up rose the sun; the mists were curled | |
| Back from the solitary world | |
| Which lay around—behind—before: | 655 |
| What booted it to traverse o’er | |
| Plain, forest, river? Man nor brute, | |
| Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, | |
| Lay in the wild luxuriant soil; | |
| No sign of travel,—none of toil; | 660 |
| The very air was mute; | |
| And not an insect’s shrill small horn, | |
| Nor matin bird’s new voice was borne | |
| From herb nor thicket. Many a werst, | |
| Panting as if his heart would burst, | 665 |
| The weary brute still staggered on; | |
| And still we were—or seemed—alone: | |
| At length, while reeling on our way, | |
| Methought I heard a courser neigh, | |
| From out yon tuft of blackening firs. | 670 |
| Is it the wind those branches stirs? | |
| No, no! from out the forest prance | |
| A trampling troop; I see them come! | |
| In one vast squadron they advance! | |
| I strove to cry,—my lips were dumb. | 675 |
| The steeds rush on in plunging pride; | |
| But where are they the reins to guide? | |
| A thousand horse,—and none to ride! | |
| With flowing tail, and flying mane, | |
| Wide nostrils,—never stretched by pain,— | 680 |
| Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein, | |
| And feet that iron never shod, | |
| And flanks unscarred by spur or rod, | |
| A thousand horse, the wild, the free, | |
| Like waves that follow o’er the sea, | 685 |
| Came thickly thundering on, | |
| As if our faint approach to meet; | |
| The sight renerved my courser’s feet, | |
| A moment staggering, feebly fleet, | |
| A moment, with a faint low neigh, | 690 |
| He answered, and then fell; | |
| With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, | |
| And reeking limbs immovable, | |
| His first and last career is done! | |
| On came the troop,—they saw him stoop, | 695 |
| They saw me strangely bound along | |
| His back with many a bloody thong: | |
| They stop—they start—they snuff the air, | |
| Gallop a moment here and there, | |
| Approach, retire, wheel round and round, | 700 |
| Then plunging back with sudden bound, | |
| Headed by one black mighty steed, | |
| Who seemed the patriarch of his breed, | |
| Without a single speck or hair | |
| Of white upon his shaggy hide; | 705 |
| They snort—they foam—neigh—swerve aside, | |
| And backward to the forest fly, | |
| By instinct from a human eye,— | |
| They left me there, to my despair, | |
| Linked to the dead and stiffening wretch, | 710 |
| Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch, | |
| Relieved from that unwonted weight, | |
| From whence I could not extricate | |
| Nor him nor me,—and there we lay, | |
| The dying on the dead! | 715 |
| I little deemed another day | |
| Would see my houseless, helpless head. | |
| And there from morn till twilight bound, | |
| I felt the heavy hours toil round, | |
| With just enough of life to see | 720 |
| My last of suns go down on me, | |
| In hopeless certainty of mind, | |
| That makes us feel at length resigned | |
| To that which our foreboding years | |
| Presents the worst and last of fears | 725 |
| Inevitable,—even a boon, | |
| Nor more unkind for coming soon; | |
| Yet shunned and dreaded with such care, | |
| As if it only were a snare | |
| That prudence might escape: | 730 |
| At times both wished for and implored, | |
| At times sought with self-pointed sword, | |
| Yet still a dark and hideous close | |
| To even intolerable woes, | |
| And welcome in no shape. | 735 |
| And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, | |
| They who have revelled beyond measure | |
| In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, | |
| Die calm, or calmer oft than he | |
| Whose heritage was misery: | 740 |
| For he who hath in turn run through | |
| All that was beautiful and new, | |
| Hath naught to hope and naught to leave; | |
| And, save the future (which is viewed | |
| Not quite as men are base or good, | 745 |
| But as their nerves may be endued), | |
| With naught perhaps to grieve: | |
| The wretch still hopes his woes must end, | |
| And Death, whom he should deem his friend, | |
| Appears to his distempered eyes | 750 |
| Arrived to rob him of his prize, | |
| The tree of his new Paradise. | |
| To-morrow would have given him all, | |
| Repaid his pangs, repaired his fall; | |
| To-morrow would have been the first | 755 |
| Of days no more deplored or curst, | |
| But bright and long and beckoning years, | |
| Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, | |
| Guerdon of many a painful hour; | |
| To-morrow would have given him power | 760 |
| To rule, to shine, to smite, to save,— | |
| And must it dawn upon his grave? | |
| |
XVIII. “The sun was sinking,—still I lay | |
| Chained to the chill and stiffening steed, | |
| I thought to mingle there our clay; | 765 |
| And my dim eyes of death had need, | |
| No hope arose of being freed: | |
| I cast my last looks up the sky, | |
| And there between me and the sun | |
| I saw the expecting raven fly, | 770 |
| Who scarce would wait till both should die, | |
| Ere his repast begun; | |
| He flew, and perched, then flew once more, | |
| And each time nearer than before; | |
| I saw his wing through twilight flit, | 775 |
| And once so near me he alit | |
| I could have smote, but lacked the strength; | |
| But the slight motion of my hand, | |
| And feeble scratching of the sand, | |
| The exerted throat’s faint struggling noise, | 780 |
| Which scarcely could be called a voice, | |
| Together scared him off at length.— | |
| I know no more,—my latest dream | |
| Is something of a lovely star | |
| Which fixed my dull eyes from afar, | 785 |
| And went and came with wandering beam, | |
| And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense | |
| Sensation of recurring sense, | |
| And then subsiding back to death, | |
| And then again a little breath, | 790 |
| A little thrill, a short suspense, | |
| An icy sickness curdling o’er | |
| My heart, and sparks that crossed my brain,— | |
| A gasp, a throb, a start of pain, | |
| A sigh, and nothing more. | 795 |
| |
XIX. “I woke. Where was I?—Do I see | |
| A human face look down on me? | |
| And doth a roof above me close? | |
| Do these limbs on a couch repose? | |
| Is this a chamber where I lie? | 800 |
| And is it mortal yon bright eye, | |
| That watches me with gentle glance? | |
| I closed my own again once more, | |
| As doubtful that the former trance | |
| Could not as yet be o’er. | 805 |
| A slender girl, long-haired, and tall, | |
| Sate watching by the cottage wall; | |
| The sparkle of her eye I caught, | |
| Even with my first return of thought; | |
| Forever and anon she threw | 810 |
| A prying, pitying glance on me | |
| With her black eyes so wild and free: | |
| I gazed, and gazed, until I knew | |
| No vision it could be,— | |
| But that I lived, and was released | 815 |
| From adding to the vulture’s feast: | |
| And when the Cossack maid beheld | |
| My heavy eyes at length unsealed, | |
| She smiled,—and I essayed to speak, | |
| But failed,—and she approached, and made | 820 |
| With lip and finger signs that said, | |
| I must not strive as yet to break | |
| The silence, till my strength should be | |
| Enough to leave my accents free; | |
| And then her hand on mine she laid, | 825 |
| And smoothed the pillow for my head, | |
| And stole along on tiptoe tread, | |
| And gently oped the door, and spake | |
| In whispers,—ne’er was voice so sweet, | |
| Even music followed her light feet! | 830 |
| But those she called were not awake, | |
| And she went forth; but ere she passed, | |
| Another look on me she cast, | |
| Another sign she made, to say, | |
| That I had naught to fear, that all | 835 |
| Were near, at my command or call, | |
| And she would not delay | |
| Her due return;—while she was gone, | |
| Methought I felt too much alone. | |
| |
XX. “She came with mother and with sire,— | 840 |
| What need of more?—I will not tire | |
| With long recital of the rest, | |
| Since I became the Cossack’s guest: | |
| They found me senseless on the plain,— | |
| They bore me to the nearest hut,— | 845 |
| They brought me into life again,— | |
| Me,—one day o’er their realm to reign! | |
| Thus the vain fool who strove to glut | |
| His rage, refining on my pain, | |
| Sent me forth to the wilderness, | 850 |
| Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone, | |
| To pass the desert to a throne.— | |
| What mortal his own doom may guess? | |
| Let none despond, let none despair! | |
| To-morrow the Borysthenes | 855 |
| May see our courser’s graze at ease | |
| Upon his Turkish bank,—and never | |
| Had I such welcome for a river | |
| As I shall yield when safely there. | |
| Comrades, good night!”—The hetman threw | 860 |
| His length beneath the oak-tree shade, | |
| With leafy couch already made, | |
| A bed nor comfortless nor new | |
| To him, who took his rest whene’er | |
| The hour arrived, no matter where:— | 865 |
| His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. | |
| And if ye marvel Charles forgot | |
| To thank his tale, he wondered not,— | |
| The king had been an hour asleep. | |
| |
