Lara by Lord Byron

CANTO THE FIRST.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,The long self-exiled Chieftain, is restored:There be bright faces in the busy hall,Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;Far checkering o'er the pictured window, playsThe unwonted faggot's hospitable blaze;And gay retainers gather round the hearth,With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

The Chief of Lara is returned again:And why had Lara crossed the bounding main?Left by his Sire, too young such loss to know,Lord of himself,--that heritage of woe,That fearful empire which the human breastBut holds to rob the heart within of rest!--With none to check, and few to point in timeThe thousand paths that slope the way to crime;Then, when he most required commandment, thenHad Lara's daring boyhood governed men.It skills not, boots not step by step to traceHis youth through all the mazes of its race;Short was the course his restlessness had run,But long enough to leave him half undone.

And Lara left in youth his father-land;But from the hour he waved his parting handEach trace waxed fainter of his course, till allHad nearly ceased his memory to recall.His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grewCold in the many, anxious in the few.His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,His portrait darkens in its fading frame,Another chief consoled his destined bride,The young forgot him, and the old had died;"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,And sighs for sables which he must not wear.A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy graceThe Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;But one is absent from the mouldering file,That now were welcome in that Gothic pile.

He comes at last in sudden loneliness,And whence they know not, why they need not guess;They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'erNot that he came, but came not long before:No train is his beyond a single page,Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.Years had rolled on, and fast they speed awayTo those that wander as to those that stay;But lack of tidings from another climeHad lent a flagging wing to weary Time.They see, they recognise, yet almost deemThe present dubious, or the past a dream.

He lives, nor yet is past his Manhood's prime,Though seared by toil, and something touched by Time;His faults, whate'er they were, if scarce forgot,Might be untaught him by his varied lot;Nor good nor ill of late were known, his nameMight yet uphold his patrimonial fame:His soul in youth was haughty, but his sinsNo more than pleasure from the stripling wins;And such, if not yet hardened in their course,Might be redeemed, nor ask a long remorse.

And they indeed were changed--'tis quickly seen,Whate'er he be, 'twas not what he had been:That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last,And spake of passions, but of passion past:The pride, but not the fire, of early days,Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise;A high demeanour, and a glance that tookTheir thoughts from others by a single look;And that sarcastic levity of tongue,The stinging of a heart the world hath stung,That darts in seeming playfulness around,And makes those feel that will not own the wound;All these seemed his, and something more beneathThan glance could well reveal, or accent breathe.Ambition, Glory, Love, the common aim,That some can conquer, and that all would claim,Within his breast appeared no more to strive,Yet seemed as lately they had been alive;And some deep feeling it were vain to traceAt moments lightened o'er his livid face.

Not much he loved long question of the past,Nor told of wondrous wilds, and deserts vast,In those far lands where he had wandered lone,And--as himself would have it seem--unknown:Yet these in vain his eye could scarcely scan,Nor glean experience from his fellow man;But what he had beheld he shunned to show,As hardly worth a stranger's care to know;If still more prying such inquiry grew,His brow fell darker, and his words more few.

Not unrejoiced to see him once again,Warm was his welcome to the haunts of men;Born of high lineage, linked in high command,He mingled with the Magnates of his land;Joined the carousals of the great and gay,And saw them smile or sigh their hours away;But still he only saw, and did not share,The common pleasure or the general care;He did not follow what they all pursuedWith hope still baffled still to be renewed;Nor shadowy Honour, nor substantial Gain,Nor Beauty's preference, and the rival's pain:Around him some mysterious circle thrownRepelled approach, and showed him still alone;Upon his eye sat something of reproof,That kept at least Frivolity aloof;And things more timid that beheld him nearIn silence gazed, or whispered mutual fear;And they the wiser, friendlier few confessedThey deemed him better than his air expressed.

Twas strange--in youth all action and all life,Burning for pleasure, not averse from strife;Woman--the Field--the Ocean, all that gavePromise of gladness, peril of a grave,In turn he tried--he ransacked all below,And found his recompense in joy or woe,No tame, trite medium; for his feelings soughtIn that intenseness an escape from thought:The Tempest of his Heart in scorn had gazedOn that the feebler Elements hath raised;The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,How woke he from the wildness of that dream!Alas! he told not--but he did awakeTo curse the withered heart that would not break.

Books, for his volume heretofore was Man,With eye more curious he appeared to scan,And oft in sudden mood, for many a day,From all communion he would start away:And then, his rarely called attendants said,Through night's long hours would sound his hurried treadO'er the dark gallery, where his fathers frownedIn rude but antique portraiture around:They heard, but whispered--"that must not be known--The sound of words less earthly than his own.Yes, they who chose might smile, but some had seenThey scarce knew what, but more than should have been.Why gazed he so upon the ghastly headWhich hands profane had gathered from the dead,That still beside his opened volume lay,As if to startle all save him away?Why slept he not when others were at rest?Why heard no music, and received no guest?All was not well, they deemed--but where the wrong?Some knew perchance--but 'twere a tale too long;And such besides were too discreetly wise,To more than hint their knowledge in surmise;But if they would--they could"--around the boardThus Lara's vassals prattled of their lord.

It was the night--and Lara's glassy streamThe stars are studding, each with imaged beam;So calm, the waters scarcely seem to stray,And yet they glide like Happiness away;Reflecting far and fairy-like from highThe immortal lights that live along the sky:Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee;Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove,And Innocence would offer to her love.These deck the shore; the waves their channel makeIn windings bright and mazy like the snake.All was so still, so soft in earth and air,You scarce would start to meet a spirit there;Secure that nought of evil could delightTo walk in such a scene, on such a night!It was a moment only for the good:So Lara deemed, nor longer there he stood,But turned in silence to his castle-gate;Such scene his soul no more could contemplate:Such scene reminded him of other days,Of skies more cloudless, moons of purer blaze,Of nights more soft and frequent, hearts that now--No--no--the storm may beat upon his brow,Unfelt, unsparing--but a night like this,A night of Beauty, mocked such breast as his.

He turned within his solitary hall,And his high shadow shot along the wall:There were the painted forms of other times,'Twas all they left of virtues or of crimes,Save vague tradition; and the gloomy vaultsThat hid their dust, their foibles, and their faults;And half a column of the pompous page,That speeds the specious tale from age to age;Where History's pen its praise or blame supplies,And lies like Truth, and still most truly lies.He wandering mused, and as the moonbeam shoneThrough the dim lattice, o'er the floor of stone,And the high fretted roof, and saints, that thereO'er Gothic windows knelt in pictured prayer,Reflected in fantastic figures grew,Like life, but not like mortal life, to view;His bristling locks of sable, brow of gloom,And the wide waving of his shaken plume,Glanced like a spectre's attributes--and gaveHis aspect all that terror gives the grave.

'Twas midnight--all was slumber; the lone lightDimmed in the lamp, as both to break the night.Hark! there be murmurs heard in Lara's hall--A sound--a voice--a shriek--a fearful call!A long, loud shriek--and silence--did they hearThat frantic echo burst the sleeping ear?They heard and rose, and, tremulously brave,Rush where the sound invoked their aid to save;They come with half-lit tapers in their hands,And snatched in startled haste unbelted brands.

Cold as the marble where his length was laid,Pale as the beam that o'er his features played,Was Lara stretched; his half-drawn sabre near,Dropped it should seem in more than Nature's fear;Yet he was firm, or had been firm till now,And still Defiance knit his gathered brow;Though mixed with terror, senseless as he lay,There lived upon his lip the wish to slay;Some half formed threat in utterance there had died,Some imprecation of despairing Pride;His eye was almost sealed, but not forsook,Even in its trance, the gladiator's look,That oft awake his aspect could disclose,And now was fixed in horrible repose.They raise him--bear him;--hush! he breathes, he speaks,The swarthy blush recolours in his cheeks,His lip resumes its red, his eye, though dim,Rolls wide and wild, each slowly quivering limbRecalls its function, but his words are strungIn terms that seem not of his native tongue;Distinct but strange, enough they understandTo deem them accents of another land;And such they were, and meant to meet an earThat hears him not--alas! that cannot hear!

His page approached, and he alone appearedTo know the import of the words they heard;And, by the changes of his cheek and brow,They were not such as Lara should avow,Nor he interpret,--yet with less surpriseThan those around their Chieftain's state he eyes,But Lara's prostrate form he bent beside,And in that tongue which seemed his own replied;And Lara heeds those tones that gently seemTo soothe away the horrors of his dream--If dream it were, that thus could overthrowA breast that needed not ideal woe.

Whate'er his frenzy dreamed or eye beheld,--If yet remembered ne'er to be revealed,--Rests at his heart: the customed morning came,And breathed new vigour in his shaken frame;And solace sought he none from priest nor leech,And soon the same in movement and in speech,As heretofore he filled the passing hours,Nor less he smiles, nor more his forehead lowers,Than these were wont; and if the coming nightAppeared less welcome now to Lara's sight,He to his marvelling vassals showed it not,Whose shuddering proved their fear was less forgot.In trembling pairs (alone they dared not) crawlThe astonished slaves, and shun the fated hall;The waving banner, and the clapping door,The rustling tapestry, and the echoing floor;The long dim shadows of surrounding trees,The flapping bat, the night song of the breeze;Aught they behold or hear their thought appals,As evening saddens o'er the dark grey walls.

Vain thought! that hour of ne'er unravelled gloomCame not again, or Lara could assumeA seeming of forgetfulness, that madeHis vassals more amazed nor less afraid.Had Memory vanished then with sense restored?Since word, nor look, nor gesture of their lordBetrayed a feeling that recalled to theseThat fevered moment of his mind's disease.Was it a dream? was his the voice that spokeThose strange wild accents; his the cry that brokeTheir slumber? his the oppressed, o'erlaboured heartThat ceased to beat, the look that made them start?Could he who thus had suffered so forget,When such as saw that suffering shudder yet?Or did that silence prove his memory fixedToo deep for words, indelible, unmixedIn that corroding secrecy which gnawsThe heart to show the effect, but not the cause?Not so in him; his breast had buried both,Nor common gazers could discern the growthOf thoughts that mortal lips must leave half told;They choke the feeble words that would unfold.

In him inexplicably mixed appearedMuch to be loved and hated, sought and feared;Opinion varying o'er his hidden lot,In praise or railing ne'er his name forgot:His silence formed a theme for others' prate--They guessed--they gazed--they fain would know his fate.What had he been? what was he, thus unknown,Who walked their world, his lineage only known?A hater of his kind? yet some would say,With them he could seem gay amidst the gay;But owned that smile, if oft observed and near,Waned in its mirth, and withered to a sneer;That smile might reach his lip, but passed not by,Nor e'er could trace its laughter to his eye:Yet there was softness too in his regard,At times, a heart as not by nature hard,But once perceived, his Spirit seemed to chideSuch weakness, as unworthy of its pride,And steeled itself, as scorning to redeemOne doubt from others' half withheld esteem;In self-inflicted penance of a breastWhich Tenderness might once have wrung from Rest;In vigilance of Grief that would compelThe soul to hate for having loved too well.

There was in him a vital scorn of all:As if the worst had fallen which could befall,He stood a stranger in this breathing world,An erring Spirit from another hurled;A thing of dark imaginings, that shapedBy choice the perils he by chance escaped;But 'scaped in vain, for in their memory yetHis mind would half exult and half regret:With more capacity for love than EarthBestows on most of mortal mould and birth.His early dreams of good outstripped the truth,And troubled Manhood followed baffled Youth;With thought of years in phantom chase misspent,And wasted powers for better purpose lent;And fiery passions that had poured their wrathIn hurried desolation o'er his path,And left the better feelings all at strifeIn wild reflection o'er his stormy life;But haughty still, and loth himself to blame,He called on Nature's self to share the shame,And charged all faults upon the fleshly formShe gave to clog the soul, and feast the worm:Till he at last confounded good and ill,And half mistook for fate the acts of will:Too high for common selfishness, he couldAt times resign his own for others' good,But not in pity--not because he ought,But in some strange perversity of thought,That swayed him onward with a secret prideTo do what few or none would do beside;And this same impulse would, in tempting time,Mislead his spirit equally to crime;So much he soared beyond, or sunk beneath,The men with whom he felt condemned to breathe,And longed by good or ill to separateHimself from all who shared his mortal state;His mind abhorring this had fixed her throneFar from the world, in regions of her own:Thus coldly passing all that passed below,His blood in temperate seeming now would flow:Ah! happier if it ne'er with guilt had glowed,But ever in that icy smoothness flowed!'Tis true, with other men their path he walked,And like the rest in seeming did and talked,Nor outraged Reason's rules by flaw nor start,His Madness was not of the head, but heart;And rarely wandered in his speech, or drewHis thoughts so forth as to offend the view.

With all that chilling mystery of mien,And seeming gladness to remain unseen,He had (if 'twere not nature's boon) an artOf fixing memory on another's heart:It was not love perchance--nor hate--nor aughtThat words can image to express the thought;But they who saw him did not see in vain,And once beheld--would ask of him again:And those to whom he spake remembered well,And on the words, however light, would dwell:None knew, nor how, nor why, but he entwinedHimself perforce around the hearer's mind;There he was stamped, in liking, or in hate,If greeted once; however brief the dateThat friendship, pity, or aversion knew,Still there within the inmost thought he grew.You could not penetrate his soul, but found,Despite your wonder, to your own he wound;His presence haunted still; and from the breastHe forced an all unwilling interest:Vain was the struggle in that mental net--His Spirit seemed to dare you to forget!

There is a festival, where knights and dames,And aught that wealth or lofty lineage claims,Appear--a high-born and a welcome guestTo Otho's hall came Lara with the rest.The long carousal shakes the illumined hall,Well speeds alike the banquet and the ball;And the gay dance of bounding Beauty's trainLinks grace and harmony in happiest chain:Blest are the early hearts and gentle handsThat mingle there in well according bands;It is a sight the careful brow might smooth,And make Age smile, and dream itself to youth,And Youth forget such hour was past on earth,So springs the exulting bosom to that mirth!

And Lara gazed on these, sedately glad,His brow belied him if his soul was sad;And his glance followed fast each fluttering fair,Whose steps of lightness woke no echo there:He leaned against the lofty pillar nigh,With folded arms and long attentive eye,Nor marked a glance so sternly fixed on his--Ill brooked high Lara scrutiny like this:At length he caught it--'tis a face unknown,But seems as searching his, and his alone;Prying and dark, a stranger's by his mien,Who still till now had gazed on him unseen:At length encountering meets the mutual gazeOf keen enquiry, and of mute amaze;On Lara's glance emotion gathering grew,As if distrusting that the stranger threw;Along the stranger's aspect, fixed and stern,Flashed more than thence the vulgar eye could learn.

"'Tis he!" the stranger cried, and those that heardRe-echoed fast and far the whispered word."'Tis he!"--"'Tis who?" they question far and near,Till louder accents rung on Lara's ear;So widely spread, few bosoms well could brookThe general marvel, or that single look:But Lara stirred not, changed not, the surpriseThat sprung at first to his arrested eyesSeemed now subsided--neither sunk nor raisedGlanced his eye round, though still the stranger gazed;And drawing nigh, exclaimed, with haughty sneer,"'Tis he!--how came he thence?--what doth he here?"

It were too much for Lara to pass bySuch questions, so repeated fierce and high;With look collected, but with accent cold,More mildly firm than petulantly bold,He turned, and met the inquisitorial tone--"My name is Lara--when thine own is known,Doubt not my fitting answer to requiteThe unlooked for courtesy of such a knight.'Tis Lara!--further wouldst thou mark or ask?I shun no question, and I wear no mask."

"Thou shunn'st no question! Ponder--is there noneThy heart must answer, though thine ear would shun?And deem'st thou me unknown too? Gaze again!At least thy memory was not given in vain.Oh! never canst thou cancel half her debt--Eternity forbids thee to forget."With slow and searching glance upon his faceGrew Lara's eyes, but nothing there could traceThey knew, or chose to know--with dubious lookHe deigned no answer, but his head he shook,And half contemptuous turned to pass away;But the stern stranger motioned him to stay.

"A word!--I charge thee stay, and answer hereTo one, who, wert thou noble, were thy peer,But as thou wast and art--nay, frown not, Lord,If false, 'tis easy to disprove the word--But as thou wast and art, on thee looks down,Distrusts thy smiles, but shakes not at thy frown.Art thou not he? whose deeds----""Whate'er I be,Words wild as these, accusers like to thee,I list no further; those with whom they weighMay hear the rest, nor venture to gainsayThe wondrous tale no doubt thy tongue can tell,Which thus begins so courteously and well.Let Otho cherish here his polished guest,To him my thanks and thoughts shall be expressed."And here their wondering host hath interposed--"Whate'er there be between you undisclosed,This is no time nor fitting place to marThe mirthful meeting with a wordy war.If thou, Sir Ezzelin, hast aught to showWhich it befits Count Lara's ear to know,To-morrow, here, or elsewhere, as may bestBeseem your mutual judgment, speak the rest;I pledge myself for thee, as not unknown,Though, like Count Lara, now returned aloneFrom other lands, almost a stranger grown;And if from Lara's blood and gentle birthI augur right of courage and of worth,He will not that untainted line belie,Nor aught that Knighthood may accord, deny."

"To-morrow be it," Ezzelin replied,"And here our several worth and truth be tried;I gage my life, my falchion to attestMy words, so may I mingle with the blest!"What answers Lara? to its centre shrunkHis soul, in deep abstraction sudden sunk;The words of many, and the eyes of allThat there were gathered, seemed on him to fall;But his were silent, his appeared to strayIn far forgetfulness away--away--Alas! that heedlessness of all aroundBespoke remembrance only too profound.

"To-morrow!--aye, to-morrow!" further wordThan those repeated none from Lara heard;Upon his brow no outward passion spoke;From his large eye no flashing anger broke;Yet there was something fixed in that low tone,Which showed resolve, determined, though unknown.He seized his cloak--his head he slightly bowed,And passing Ezzelin, he left the crowd;And, as he passed him, smiling met the frownWith which that Chieftain's brow would bear him down:It was nor smile of mirth, nor struggling prideThat curbs to scorn the wrath it cannot hide;But that of one in his own heart secureOf all that he would do, or could endure.Could this mean peace? the calmness of the good?Or guilt grown old in desperate hardihood?Alas! too like in confidence are each,For man to trust to mortal look or speech;From deeds, and deeds alone, may he discernTruths which it wrings the unpractised heart to learn.

And Lara called his page, and went his way--Well could that stripling word or sign obey:His only follower from those climes afar,Where the Soul glows beneath a brighter star:For Lara left the shore from whence he sprung,In duty patient, and sedate though young;Silent as him he served, his faith appearsAbove his station, and beyond his years.Though not unknown the tongue of Lara's land,In such from him he rarely heard command;But fleet his step, and clear his tones would come,When Lara's lip breathed forth the words of home:Those accents, as his native mountains dear,Awake their absent echoes in his ear,Friends'--kindred's--parents'--wonted voice recall,Now lost, abjured, for one--his friend, his all:For him earth now disclosed no other guide;What marvel then he rarely left his side?

Light was his form, and darkly delicateThat brow whereon his native sun had sate,But had not marred, though in his beams he grew,The cheek where oft the unbidden blush shone through;Yet not such blush as mounts when health would showAll the heart's hue in that delighted glow;But 'twas a hectic tint of secret careThat for a burning moment fevered there;And the wild sparkle of his eye seemed caughtFrom high, and lightened with electric thought,Though its black orb those long low lashes' fringeHad tempered with a melancholy tinge;Yet less of sorrow than of pride was there,Or, if 'twere grief, a grief that none should share:And pleased not him the sports that please his age,The tricks of Youth, the frolics of the Page;For hours on Lara he would fix his glance,As all-forgotten in that watchful trance;And from his chief withdrawn, he wandered lone,Brief were his answers, and his questions none;His walk the wood, his sport some foreign book;His resting-place the bank that curbs the brook:He seemed, like him he served, to live apartFrom all that lures the eye, and fills the heart;To know no brotherhood, and take from earthNo gift beyond that bitter boon--our birth.

If aught he loved, 'twas Lara; but was shownHis faith in reverence and in deeds alone;In mute attention; and his care, which guessedEach wish, fulfilled it ere the tongue expressed.Still there was haughtiness in all he did,A spirit deep that brooked not to be chid;His zeal, though more than that of servile hands,In act alone obeys, his air commands;As if 'twas Lara's less than his desireThat thus he served, but surely not for hire.Slight were the tasks enjoined him by his Lord,To hold the stirrup, or to bear the sword;To tune his lute, or, if he willed it more,On tomes of other times and tongues to pore;But ne'er to mingle with the menial train,To whom he showed nor deference nor disdain,But that well-worn reserve which proved he knewNo sympathy with that familiar crew:His soul, whate'er his station or his stem,Could bow to Lara, not descend to them.Of higher birth he seemed, and better days,Nor mark of vulgar toil that hand betrays,So femininely white it might bespeakAnother sex, when matched with that smooth cheek,But for his garb, and something in his gaze,More wild and high than Woman's eye betrays;A latent fierceness that far more becameHis fiery climate than his tender frame:True, in his words it broke not from his breast,But from his aspect might be more than guessed.Kaled his name, though rumour said he boreAnother ere he left his mountain-shore;For sometimes he would hear, however nigh,That name repeated loud without reply,As unfamiliar--or, if roused again,Start to the sound, as but remembered then;Unless 'twas Lara's wonted voice that spake,For then--ear--eyes--and heart would all awake.

He had looked down upon the festive hall,And mark'd that sudden strife so marked of all:And when the crowd around and near him toldTheir wonder at the calmness of the bold,Their marvel how the high-born Lara boreSuch insult from a stranger, doubly sore,The colour of young Kaled went and came,The lip of ashes, and the cheek of flame;And o'er his brow the dampening heart-drops threwThe sickening iciness of that cold dew,That rises as the busy bosom sinksWith heavy thoughts from which Reflection shrinks.Yes--there be things which we must dream and dare,And execute ere thought be half aware:Whate'er might Kaled's be, it was enowTo seal his lip, but agonise his brow.He gazed on Ezzelin till Lara castThat sidelong smile upon the knight he past;When Kaled saw that smile his visage fell,As if on something recognised right well:His memory read in such a meaning moreThan Lara's aspect unto others wore:Forward he sprung--a moment, both were gone,And all within that hall seemed left alone;Each had so fixed his eye on Lara's mien,All had so mixed their feelings with that scene,That when his long dark shadow through the porchNo more relieves the glare of yon high torch,Each pulse beats quicker, and all bosoms seemTo bound as doubting from too black a dream,Such as we know is false, yet dread in sooth,Because the worst is ever nearest truth.And they are gone--but Ezzelin is there,With thoughtful visage and imperious air;But long remained not; ere an hour expiredHe waved his hand to Otho, and retired.

The crowd are gone, the revellers at rest;The courteous host, and all-approving guest,Again to that accustomed couch must creepWhere Joy subsides, and Sorrow sighs to sleep,And Man, o'erlaboured with his Being's strife,Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life:There lie Love's feverish hope, and Cunning's guile,Hate's working brain, and lulled Ambition's wile;O'er each vain eye Oblivion's pinions wave,And quenched Existence crouches in a grave.What better name may Slumber's bed become?Night's sepulchre, the universal home,Where Weakness--Strength--Vice--Virtue--sunk supine,Alike in naked helplessness recline;Glad for a while to heave unconscious breath,Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of Death,And shun--though Day but dawn on ills increased--That sleep,--the loveliest, since it dreams the least.

CANTO THE SECOND.

Night wanes--the vapours round the mountains curledMelt into morn, and Light awakes the world,Man has another day to swell the past,And lead him near to little, but his last;But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,The Sun is in the heavens, and Life on earth;Flowers in the valley, splendour in the beam,Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream.Immortal Man! behold her glories shine,And cry, exulting inly, "They are thine!"Gaze on, while yet thy gladdened eye may see:A morrow comes when they are not for thee:And grieve what may above thy senseless bier,Nor earth nor sky will yield a single tear;Nor cloud shall gather more, nor leaf shall fall,Nor gale breathe forth one sigh for thee, for all;But creeping things shall revel in their spoil,And fit thy clay to fertilise the soil.

'Tis morn--'tis noon--assembled in the hall,The gathered Chieftains come to Otho's call;'Tis now the promised hour, that must proclaimThe life or death of Lara's future fame;And Ezzelin his charge may here unfold,And whatsoe'er the tale, it must be told.His faith was pledged, and Lara's promise given,To meet it in the eye of Man and Heaven.Why comes he not? Such truths to be divulged,Methinks the accuser's rest is long indulged.

The hour is past, and Lara too is there,With self-confiding, coldly patient air;Why comes not Ezzelin? The hour is past,And murmurs rise, and Otho's brow's o'ercast."I know my friend! his faith I cannot fear,If yet he be on earth, expect him here;The roof that held him in the valley standsBetween my own and noble Lara's lands;My halls from such a guest had honour gained,Nor had Sir Ezzelin his host disdained,But that some previous proof forbade his stay,And urged him to prepare against to-day;The word I pledged for his I pledge again,Or will myself redeem his knighthood's stain."He ceased--and Lara answered, "I am hereTo lend at thy demand a listening earTo tales of evil from a stranger's tongue,Whose words already might my heart have wrung,But that I deemed him scarcely less than mad,Or, at the worst, a foe ignobly bad.I know him not--but me it seems he knewIn lands where--but I must not trifle too:Produce this babbler--or redeem the pledge;Here in thy hold, and with thy falchion's edge."

Proud Otho on the instant, reddening, threwHis glove on earth, and forth his sabre flew."The last alternative befits me best,And thus I answer for mine absent guest."

With cheek unchanging from its sallow gloom,However near his own or other's tomb;With hand, whose almost careless coolness spokeIts grasp well-used to deal the sabre-stroke;With eye, though calm, determined not to spare,Did Lara too his willing weapon bare.In vain the circling Chieftains round them closed,For Otho's frenzy would not be opposed;And from his lip those words of insult fell--His sword is good who can maintain them well.

Short was the conflict; furious, blindly rash,Vain Otho gave his bosom to the gash:He bled, and fell; but not with deadly wound,Stretched by a dextrous sleight along the ground."Demand thy life!" He answered not: and thenFrom that red floor he ne'er had risen again,For Lara's brow upon the moment grewAlmost to blackness in its demon hue;And fiercer shook his angry falchion nowThan when his foe's was levelled at his brow;Then all was stern collectedness and art,Now rose the unleavened hatred of his heart;So little sparing to the foe he felled,That when the approaching crowd his arm withheld,He almost turned the thirsty point on thoseWho thus for mercy dared to interpose;But to a moment's thought that purpose bent;Yet looked he on him still with eye intent,As if he loathed the ineffectual strifeThat left a foe, howe'er o'erthrown, with life;As if to search how far the wound he gaveHad sent its victim onward to his grave.

They raised the bleeding Otho, and the LeechForbade all present question, sign, and speech;The others met within a neighbouring hall,And he, incensed, and heedless of them all,The cause and conqueror in this sudden fray,In haughty silence slowly strode away;He backed his steed, his homeward path he took,Nor cast on Otho's towers a single look.

But where was he? that meteor of a night,Who menaced but to disappear with light.Where was this Ezzelin? who came and went,To leave no other trace of his intent.He left the dome of Otho long ere morn,In darkness, yet so well the path was wornHe could not miss it: near his dwelling lay;But there he was not, and with coming dayCame fast inquiry, which unfolded nought,Except the absence of the Chief it sought.A chamber tenantless, a steed at rest,His host alarmed, his murmuring squires distressed:Their search extends along, around the path,In dread to meet the marks of prowlers' wrath:But none are there, and not a brake hath borneNor gout of blood, nor shred of mantle torn;Nor fall nor struggle hath defaced the grass,Which still retains a mark where Murder was;Nor dabbling fingers left to tell the tale,The bitter print of each convulsive nail,When agoniséd hands that cease to guard,Wound in that pang the smoothness of the sward.Some such had been, if here a life was reft,But these were not; and doubting Hope is left;And strange Suspicion, whispering Lara's name,Now daily mutters o'er his blackened fame;Then sudden silent when his form appeared,Awaits the absence of the thing it fearedAgain its wonted wondering to renew,And dye conjecture with a darker hue.

Days roll along, and Otho's wounds are healed,But not his pride; and hate no more concealed:He was a man of power, and Lara's foe,The friend of all who sought to work him woe,And from his country's justice now demandsAccount of Ezzelin at Lara's hands.Who else than Lara could have cause to fearHis presence? who had made him disappear,If not the man on whom his menaced chargeHad sate too deeply were he left at large?The general rumour ignorantly loud,The mystery dearest to the curious crowd;The seeming friendliness of him who stroveTo win no confidence, and wake no love;The sweeping fierceness which his soul betrayed,The skill with which he wielded his keen blade;Where had his arm unwarlike caught that art?Where had that fierceness grown upon his heart?For it was not the blind capricious rageA word can kindle and a word assuage;But the deep working of a soul unmixedWith aught of pity where its wrath had fixed;Such as long power and overgorged successConcentrates into all that's merciless:These, linked with that desire which ever swaysMankind, the rather to condemn than praise,'Gainst Lara gathering raised at length a storm,Such as himself might fear, and foes would form,And he must answer for the absent headOf one that haunts him still, alive or dead.

Within that land was many a malcontent,Who cursed the tyranny to which he bent;That soil full many a wringing despot saw,Who worked his wantonness in form of law;Long war without and frequent broil withinHad made a path for blood and giant sin,That waited but a signal to beginNew havoc, such as civil discord blends,Which knows no neuter, owns but foes or friends;Fixed in his feudal fortress each was lord,In word and deed obeyed, in soul abhorred.Thus Lara had inherited his lands,And with them pining hearts and sluggish hands;But that long absence from his native climeHad left him stainless of Oppression's crime,And now, diverted by his milder sway,All dread by slow degrees had worn away.The menials felt their usual awe alone,But more for him than them that fear was grown;They deemed him now unhappy, though at firstTheir evil judgment augured of the worst,And each long restless night, and silent mood,Was traced to sickness, fed by solitude:And though his lonely habits threw of lateGloom o'er his chamber, cheerful was his gate;For thence the wretched ne'er unsoothed withdrew,For them, at least, his soul compassion knew.Cold to the great, contemptuous to the high,The humble passed not his unheeding eye;Much he would speak not, but beneath his roofThey found asylum oft, and ne'er reproof.And they who watched might mark that, day by day,Some new retainers gathered to his sway;But most of late, since Ezzelin was lost,He played the courteous lord and bounteous host:Perchance his strife with Otho made him dreadSome snare prepared for his obnoxious head;Whate'er his view, his favour more obtainsWith these, the people, than his fellow thanes.If this were policy, so far 'twas sound,The million judged but of him as they found;From him by sterner chiefs to exile drivenThey but required a shelter, and 'twas given.By him no peasant mourned his rifled cot,And scarce the Serf could murmur o'er his lot;With him old Avarice found its hoard secure,With him contempt forbore to mock the poor;Youth present cheer and promised recompenseDetained, till all too late to part from thence:To Hate he offered, with the coming change,The deep reversion of delayed revenge;To Love, long baffled by the unequal match,The well-won charms success was sure to snatch.All now was ripe, he waits but to proclaimThat slavery nothing which was still a name.The moment came, the hour when Otho thoughtSecure at last the vengeance which he sought:His summons found the destined criminalBegirt by thousands in his swarming hall;Fresh from their feudal fetters newly riven,Defying earth, and confident of heaven.That morning he had freed the soil-bound slaves,Who dig no land for tyrants but their graves!Such is their cry--some watchword for the fightMust vindicate the wrong, and warp the right;Religion--Freedom--Vengeance--what you will,A word's enough to raise Mankind to kill;Some factious phrase by cunning caught and spread,That Guilt may reign-and wolves and worms be fed!

Throughout that clime the feudal Chiefs had gainedSuch sway, their infant monarch hardly reigned;Now was the hour for Faction's rebel growth,The Serfs contemned the one, and hated both:They waited but a leader, and they foundOne to their cause inseparably bound;By circumstance compelled to plunge again,In self-defence, amidst the strife of men.Cut off by some mysterious fate from thoseWhom Birth and Nature meant not for his foes,Had Lara from that night, to him accurst,Prepared to meet, but not alone, the worst:Some reason urged, whate'er it was, to shunInquiry into deeds at distance done;By mingling with his own the cause of all,E'en if he failed, he still delayed his fall.The sullen calm that long his bosom kept,The storm that once had spent itself and slept,Roused by events that seemed foredoomed to urgeHis gloomy fortunes to their utmost verge,Burst forth, and made him all he once had been,And is again; he only changed the scene.Light care had he for life, and less for fame,But not less fitted for the desperate game:He deemed himself marked out for others' hate,And mocked at Ruin so they shared his fate.And cared he for the freedom of the crowd?He raised the humble but to bend the proud.He had hoped quiet in his sullen lair,But Man and Destiny beset him there:Inured to hunters, he was found at bay;And they must kill, they cannot snare the prey.Stern, unambitious, silent, he had beenHenceforth a calm spectator of Life's scene;But dragged again upon the arena, stoodA leader not unequal to the feud;In voice--mien--gesture--savage nature spoke,And from his eye the gladiator broke.

What boots the oft-repeated tale of strife,The feast of vultures, and the waste of life?The varying fortune of each separate field,The fierce that vanquish, and the faint that yield?The smoking ruin, and the crumbled wall?In this the struggle was the same with all;Save that distempered passions lent their forceIn bitterness that banished all remorse.None sued, for Mercy knew her cry was vain,The captive died upon the battle-plain:In either cause, one rage alone possessedThe empire of the alternate victor's breast;And they that smote for freedom or for sway,Deemed few were slain, while more remained to slay.It was too late to check the wasting brand,And Desolation reaped the famished land;The torch was lighted, and the flame was spread,And Carnage smiled upon her daily dead.

Fresh with the nerve the new-born impulse strung,The first success to Lara's numbers clung:But that vain victory hath ruined all;They form no longer to their leader's call:In blind confusion on the foe they press,And think to snatch is to secure success.The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate,Lure on the broken brigands to their fate:In vain he doth whate'er a chief may do,To check the headlong fury of that crew;In vain their stubborn ardour he would tame,The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame;The wary foe alone hath turned their mood,And shown their rashness to that erring brood:The feigned retreat, the nightly ambuscade,The daily harass, and the fight delayed,The long privation of the hoped supply,The tentless rest beneath the humid sky,The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art,And palls the patience of his baffled art,Of these they had not deemed: the battle-dayThey could encounter as a veteran may;But more preferred the fury of the strife,And present death, to hourly suffering life:And Famine wrings, and Fever sweeps awayHis numbers melting fast from their array;Intemperate triumph fades to discontent,And Lara's soul alone seems still unbent;But few remain to aid his voice and hand,And thousands dwindled to a scanty band:Desperate, though few, the last and best remainedTo mourn the discipline they late disdained.One hope survives, the frontier is not far,And thence they may escape from native war:And bear within them to the neighbouring stateAn exile's sorrows, or an outlaw's hate:Hard is the task their father-land to quit,But harder still to perish or submit.

It is resolved--they march--consenting NightGuides with her star their dim and torchless flight;Already they perceive its tranquil beamSleep on the surface of the barrier stream;Already they descry--Is yon the bank?Away! 'tis lined with many a hostile rank.Return or fly!--What glitters in the rear?'Tis Otho's banner--the pursuer's spear!Are those the shepherds' fires upon the height?Alas! they blaze too widely for the flight:Cut off from hope, and compassed in the toil,Less blood perchance hath bought a richer spoil!

A moment's pause--'tis but to breathe their band,Or shall they onward press, or here withstand?It matters little--if they charge the foesWho by their border-stream their march oppose,Some few, perchance, may break and pass the line,However linked to baffle such design."The charge be ours! to wait for their assaultWere fate well worthy of a coward's halt."Forth flies each sabre, reined is every steed,And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed:In the next tone of Lara's gathering breathHow many shall but hear the voice of Death!

His blade is bared,--in him there is an airAs deep, but far too tranquil for despair;A something of indifference more than thenBecomes the bravest, if they feel for men--He turned his eye on Kaled, ever near,And still too faithful to betray one fear;Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim twilight threwAlong his aspect an unwonted hueOf mournful paleness, whose deep tint expressedThe truth, and not the terror of his breast.This Lara marked, and laid his hand on his:It trembled not in such an hour as this;His lip was silent, scarcely beat his heart,His eye alone proclaimed, "We will not part!Thy band may perish, or thy friends may flee,Farewell to Life--but not Adieu to thee!"

The word hath passed his lips, and onward driven,Pours the linked band through ranks asunder riven:Well has each steed obeyed the arméd heel,And flash the scimitars, and rings the steel;Outnumbered, not outbraved, they still opposeDespair to daring, and a front to foes;And blood is mingled with the dashing stream,Which runs all redly till the morning beam.

Commanding--aiding--animating all,Where foe appeared to press, or friend to fall,Cheers Lara's voice, and waves or strikes his steel,Inspiring hope, himself had ceased to feel.None fled, for well they knew that flight were vain;But those that waver turn to smite again,While yet they find the firmest of the foeRecoil before their leader's look and blow:Now girt with numbers, now almost alone,He foils their ranks, or re-unites his own;Himself he spared not--once they seemed to fly--Now was the time, he waved his hand on high,And shook--Why sudden droops that pluméd crest?The shaft is sped--the arrow's in his breast!That fatal gesture left the unguarded side,And Death has stricken down yon arm of pride.The word of triumph fainted from his tongue;That hand, so raised, how droopingly it hung!But yet the sword instinctively retains,Though from its fellow shrink the falling reins;These Kaled snatches: dizzy with the blow,And senseless bending o'er his saddle-bow,Perceives not Lara that his anxious pageBeguiles his charger from the combat's rage:Meantime his followers charge, and charge again;Too mixed the slayers now to heed the slain!

Day glimmers on the dying and the dead,The cloven cuirass, and the helmless head;The war-horse masterless is on the earth,And that last gasp hath burst his bloody girth;And near, yet quivering with what life remained,The heel that urged him and the hand that reined;And some too near that rolling torrent lie,Whose waters mock the lip of those that die;That panting thirst which scorches in the breathOf those that die the soldier's fiery death,In vain impels the burning mouth to craveOne drop--the last--to cool it for the grave;With feeble and convulsive effort swept,Their limbs along the crimsoned turf have crept;The faint remains of life such struggles waste,But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste:They feel its freshness, and almost partake--Why pause? No further thirst have they to slake--It is unquenched, and yet they feel it not;It was an agony--but now forgot!

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene,Where but for him that strife had never been,A breathing but devoted warrior lay:'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away.His follower once, and now his only guide,Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side,And with his scarf would staunch the tides that rush,With each convulsion, in a blacker gush;And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow:He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain,And merely adds another throb to pain.He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage,And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page,Who nothing fears--nor feels--nor heeds--nor sees--Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,Held all the light that shone on earth for him.

The foe arrives, who long had searched the field,Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield:They would remove him, but they see 'twere vain,And he regards them with a calm disdain,That rose to reconcile him with his fate,And that escape to death from living hate:And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed,Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed,And questions of his state; he answers not,Scarce glances on him as on one forgot,And turns to Kaled:--each remaining wordThey understood not, if distinctly heard;His dying tones are in that other tongue,To which some strange remembrance wildly clung.They spake of other scenes, but what--is knownTo Kaled, whom their meaning reached alone;And he replied, though faintly, to their sound,While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round:They seemed even then--that twain--unto the lastTo half forget the present in the past;To share between themselves some separate fate,Whose darkness none beside should penetrate.

Their words though faint were many--from the toneTheir import those who heard could judge alone;From this, you might have deemed young Kaled's deathMore near than Lara's by his voice and breath,So sad--so deep--and hesitating brokeThe accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke;But Lara's voice, though low, at first was clearAnd calm, till murmuring Death gasped hoarsely near;But from his visage little could we guess,So unrepentant--dark--and passionless,Save that when struggling nearer to his last,Upon that page his eye was kindly cast;And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased,Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the East:Whether (as then the breaking Sun from highRolled back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye,Or that 'twas chance--or some remembered scene,That raised his arm to point where such had been,Scarce Kaled seemed to know, but turned away,As if his heart abhorred that coming day,And shrunk his glance before that morning light,To look on Lara's brow--where all grew night.Yet sense seemed left, though better were its loss;For when one near displayed the absolving Cross,And proffered to his touch the holy bead,Of which his parting soul might own the need,He looked upon it with an eye profane,And smiled--Heaven pardon! if 'twere with disdain:And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrewFrom Lara's face his fixed despairing view,With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,As if such but disturbed the expiring man,Nor seemed to know his life but then began--That Life of Immortality, secureTo none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,And dull the film along his dim eye grew;His limbs stretched fluttering, and his head drooped o'erThe weak yet still untiring knee that bore;He pressed the hand he held upon his heart--It beats no more, but Kaled will not partWith the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,For that faint throb which answers not again."It beats!"--Away, thou dreamer! he is gone--It once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

He gazed, as if not yet had passed awayThe haughty spirit of that humbled clay;And those around have roused him from his trance,But cannot tear from thence his fixéd glance;And when, in raising him from where he boreWithin his arms the form that felt no more,He saw the head his breast would still sustain,Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;He did not dash himself thereby, nor tearThe glossy tendrils of his raven hair,But strove to stand and gaze, but reeled and fell,Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneathThe breast of man such trusty love may breathe!That trying moment hath at once revealedThe secret long and yet but half concealed;In baring to revive that lifeless breast,Its grief seemed ended, but the sex confessed;And life returned, and Kaled felt no shame--What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,But where he died his grave was dug as deep;Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,Though priest nor blessed nor marble decked the mound,And he was mourned by one whose quiet grief,Less loud, outlasts a people's for their Chief.Vain was all question asked her of the past,And vain e'en menace--silent to the last;She told nor whence, nor why she left behindHer all for one who seemed but little kind.Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--Is human love the growth of human will?To her he might be gentleness; the sternHave deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,And when they love, your smilers guess not howBeats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.They were not common links, that formed the chainThat bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain;But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold,And sealed is now each lip that could have told.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,They found the scattered dints of many a scar,Which were not planted there in recent war;Where'er had passed his summer years of life,It seems they vanished in a land of strife;But all unknown his Glory or his Guilt,These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,Returned no more--that night appeared his last.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale)A Serf that crossed the intervening vale,When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,And nearly veiled in mist her waning horn;A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,And hew the bough that bought his children's food,Passed by the river that divides the plainOf Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain:He heard a tramp--a horse and horseman brokeFrom out the wood--before him was a cloakWrapt round some burthen at his saddle-bow,Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,And some foreboding that it might be crime,Himself unheeded watched the stranger's course,Who reached the river, bounded from his horse,And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from the shore,Then paused--and looked--and turned--and seemed to watch,And still another hurried glance would snatch,And follow with his step the stream that flowed,As if even yet too much its surface showed;At once he started--stooped--around him strownThe winter floods had scattered heaps of stone:Of these the heaviest thence he gathered there,And slung them with a more than common care.Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseenHimself might safely mark what this might mean;He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,And something glittered starlike on the vest;But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:It rose again, but indistinct to view,And left the waters of a purple hue,Then deeply disappeared: the horseman gazedTill ebbed the latest eddy it had raised;Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,And instant spurred him into panting speed.His face was masked--the features of the dead,If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread;But if in sooth a Star its bosom bore,Such is the badge that Knighthood ever wore,And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had wornUpon the night that led to such a morn.If thus he perished, Heaven receive his soul!His undiscovered limbs to ocean roll;And charity upon the hope would dwellIt was not Lara's hand by which he fell.

And Kaled--Lara--Ezzelin, are gone,Alike without their monumental stone!The first, all efforts vainly strove to weanFrom lingering where her Chieftain's blood had been:Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;But furious would you tear her from the spotWhere yet she scarce believed that he was not,Her eye shot forth with all the living fireThat haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;But left to waste her weary moments there,She talked all idly unto shapes of air,Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,And woos to listen to her fond complaints:And she would sit beneath the very treeWhere lay his drooping head upon her knee;And in that posture where she saw him fall,His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,And fold, and press it gently to the ground,As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound.Herself would question, and for him reply;Then rising, start, and beckon him to flyFrom some imagined Spectre in pursuit;Then seat her down upon some linden's root,And hide her visage with her meagre hand,Or trace strange characters along the sand--This could not last--she lies by him she loved;Her tale untold--her truth too dearly proved.