Poems, Victor Hugo [highly recommended books TXT] 📗

juive.”)

[XII., Oct. 27, 1828.]

 

To please you, Jewess, jewel!

I have thinned my harem out! Must every flirting of your fan

Presage a dying shout?

Grace for the damsels tender

Who have fear to hear your laugh, For seldom gladness gilds your lips

But blood you mean to quaff.

In jealousy so zealous,

Never was there woman worse; You’d have no roses but those grown

Above some buried corse.

Am I not pinioned firmly?

Why be angered if the door Repulses fifty suing maids

Who vainly there implore?

Let them live on—to envy

My own empress of the world, To whom all Stamboul like a dog

Lies at the slippers curled.

To you my heroes lower

Those scarred ensigns none have cowed; To you their turbans are depressed

That elsewhere march so proud.

To you Bassora offers

Her respect, and Trebizonde Her carpets richly wrought, and spice

And gems, of which you’re fond.

To you the Cyprus temples

Dare not bar or close the doors; For you the mighty Danube sends

The choicest of its stores.

Fear you the Grecian maidens,

Pallid lilies of the isles? Or the scorching-eyed sand-rover

From Baalbec’s massy piles?

Compared with yours, oh, daughter Of King Solomon the grand, What are round ebon bosoms, High brows from Hellas’ strand?

You’re neither blanched nor blackened,

For your tint of olive’s clear; Yours are lips of ripest cherry,

You are straight as Arab spear.

Hence, launch no longer lightning On these paltry slaves of ours. Why should your flow of tears be matched By their mean life-blood showers?

Think only of our banquets

Brought and served by charming girls, For beauties sultans must adorn

As dagger-hilts the pearls.

 

THE PASHA AND THE DERVISH.

(“Un jour Ali passait.”)

[XIII, Nov. 8, 1828.]

 

Ali came riding by—the highest head Bent to the dust, o’ercharged with dread,

Whilst “God be praised!” all cried; But through the throng one dervish pressed, Aged and bent, who dared arrest

The pasha in his pride.

“Ali Tepelini, light of all light, Who hold’st the Divan’s upper seat by right,

Whose fame Fame’s trump hath burst— Thou art the master of unnumbered hosts, Shade of the Sultan—yet he only boasts

In thee a dog accurst!

“An unseen tomb-torch flickers on thy path, Whilst, as from vial full, thy spare-naught wrath

Splashes this trembling race: These are thy grass as thou their trenchant scythes Cleaving their neck as ‘twere a willow withe—

Their blood none can efface.

“But ends thy tether! for Janina makes A grave for thee where every turret quakes,

And thou shalt drop below To where the spirits, to a tree enchained, Will clutch thee, there to be ‘mid them retained

For all to-come in woe!

“Or if, by happy chance, thy soul might flee Thy victims, after, thou shouldst surely see

And hear thy crimes relate; Streaked with the guileless gore drained from their veins, Greater in number than the reigns on reigns

Thou hopedst for thy state.

“This so will be! and neither fleet nor fort Can stay or aid thee as the deathly port

Receives thy harried frame! Though, like the cunning Hebrew knave of old, To cheat the angel black, thou didst enfold

In altered guise thy name.”

Ali deemed anchorite or saint a pawn— The crater of his blunderbuss did yawn,

Sword, dagger hung at ease: But he had let the holy man revile, Though clouds o’erswept his brow; then, with a smile,

He tossed him his pelisse.

 

THE LOST BATTLE.

(“Allah! qui me rendra-“)

[XVL, May, 1828.]

 

Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array? My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day; My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight, Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night, Seemed oft unto the sentinel that watched the midnight hours, As heaven along the sombre hill had rained its stars in showers? Where are my beys so gorgeous, in their light pelisses gay, And where my fierce Timariot bands, so fearless in the fray; My dauntless khans, my spahis brave, swift thunderbolts of war; My sunburnt Bedouins, trooping from the Pyramids afar, Who laughed to see the laboring hind stand terrified at gaze, And urged their desert horses on amid the ripening maize? These horses with their fiery eyes, their slight untiring feet, That flew along the fields of corn like grasshoppers so fleet— What! to behold again no more, loud charging o’er the plain, Their squadrons, in the hostile shot diminished all in vain, Burst grandly on the heavy squares, like clouds that bear the storms, Enveloping in lightning fires the dark resisting swarms! Oh! they are dead! their housings bright are trailed amid their gore; Dark blood is on their manes and sides, all deeply clotted o’er; All vainly now the spur would strike these cold and rounded flanks, To wake them to their wonted speed amid the rapid ranks: Here the bold riders red and stark upon the sands lie down, Who in their friendly shadows slept throughout the halt at noon. Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array? See where it straggles ‘long the fields for leagues on leagues away, Like riches from a spendthrift’s hand flung prodigal to earth. Lo! steed and rider;—Tartar chiefs or of Arabian birth, Their turbans and their cruel course, their banners and their cries, Seem now as if a troubled dream had passed before mine eyes— My valiant warriors and their steeds, thus doomed to fall and bleed! Their voices rouse no echo now, their footsteps have no speed; They sleep, and have forgot at last the sabre and the bit— Yon vale, with all the corpses heaped, seems one wide charnel-pit. Long shall the evil omen rest upon this plain of dread— Tonight, the taint of solemn blood; to-morrow, of the dead. Alas! ‘tis but a shadow now, that noble armament! How terribly they strove, and struck from morn to eve unspent, Amid the fatal fiery ring, enamoured of the fight! Now o’er the dim horizon sinks the peaceful pall of night: The brave have nobly done their work, and calmly sleep at last. The crows begin, and o’er the dead are gathering dark and fast; Already through their feathers black they pass their eager beaks. Forth from the forest’s distant depth, from bald and barren peaks, They congregate in hungry flocks and rend their gory prey. Woe to that flaunting army’s pride, so vaunting yesterday! That formidable host, alas! is coldly nerveless now To drive the vulture from his gorge, or scare the carrion crow. Were now that host again mine own, with banner broad unfurled, With it I would advance and win the empire of the world. Monarchs to it should yield their realms and veil their haughty brows; My sister it should ever be, my lady and my spouse. Oh! what will unrestoring Death, that jealous tyrant lord, Do with the brave departed souls that cannot swing a sword? Why turned the balls aside from me? Why struck no hostile hand My head within its turban green upon the ruddy sand? I stood all potent yesterday; my bravest captains three, All stirless in their tigered selle, magnificent to see, Hailed as before my gilded tent rose flowing to the gales, Shorn from the tameless desert steeds, three dark and tossing tails. But yesterday a hundred drums were heard when I went by; Full forty agas turned their looks respectful on mine eye, And trembled with contracted brows within their hall of state. Instead of heavy catapults, of slow unwieldy weight, I had bright cannons rolling on oak wheels in threatening tiers, And calm and steady by their sides marched English cannoniers. But yesterday, and I had towns, and castles strong and high, And Greeks in thousands, for the base and merciless to buy. But yesterday, and arsenals and harems were my own; While now, defeated and proscribed, deserted and alone, I flee away, a fugitive, and of my former power, Allah! I have not now at least one battlemented tower. And must he fly—the grand vizier! the pasha of three tails! O’er the horizon’s bounding hills, where distant vision fails, All stealthily, with eyes on earth, and shrinking from the sight, As a nocturnal robber holds his dark and breathless flight, And thinks he sees the gibbet spread its arms in solemn wrath, In every tree that dimly throws its shadow on his path!

 

Thus, after his defeat, pale Reschid speaks.

Among the dead we mourned a thousand Greeks.

Lone from the field the Pasha fled afar,

And, musing, wiped his reeking scimitar;

His two dead steeds upon the sands were flung,

And on their sides their empty stirrups hung.

W.D., Bentley’s Miscellany, 1839.

 

THE GREEK BOY.

(“Les Turcs ont passés là.”)

[XVIII., June 10, 1828.]

 

All is a ruin where rage knew no bounds: Chio is levelled, and loathed by the hounds,

For shivered yest’reen was her lance; Sulphurous vapors envenom the place Where her true beauties of Beauty’s true race

Were lately linked close in the dance.

Dark is the desert, with one single soul; Cerulean eyes! whence the burning tears roll

In anguish of uttermost shame, Under the shadow of one shrub of May, Splashed still with ruddy drops, bent in decay

Where fiercely the hand of Lust came.

“Soft and sweet urchin, still red with the lash Of rein and of scabbard of wild Kuzzilbash,

What lack you for changing your sob— If not unto laughter beseeming a child— To utterance milder, though they have defiled

The graves which they shrank not to rob?

“Would’st thou a trinket, a flower, or scarf, Would’st thou have silver? I’m ready with half

These sequins a-shine in the sun! Still more have I money—if you’ll but speak!” He spoke: and furious the cry of the Greek,

“Oh, give me your dagger and gun!”

 

ZARA, THE BATHER

(“Sara, belle d’indolence.”)

[XIX., August, 1828.]

 

In a swinging hammock lying,

Lightly flying, Zara, lovely indolent,

O’er a fountain’s crystal wave

There to lave Her young beauty—see her bent.

As she leans, so sweet and soft,

Flitting oft, O’er the mirror to and fro,

Seems that airy floating bat,

Like a feather From some sea-gull’s wing of snow.

Every time the frail boat laden

With the maiden Skims the water in its flight,

Starting from its trembling sheen,

Swift are seen A white foot and neck so white.

As that lithe foot’s timid tips

Quick she dips, Passing, in the rippling pool,

(Blush, oh! snowiest ivory!)

Frolic, she Laughs to feel the pleasant cool.

Here displayed, but half concealed—

Half revealed, Each bright charm shall you behold,

In her innocence emerging,

As a-verging On the wave her hands grow cold.

For no star howe’er divine

Has the shine Of a maid’s pure loveliness,

Frightened if a leaf but quivers

As she shivers, Veiled with naught but dripping trees.

By the happy breezes fanned

See her stand,— Blushing like a living rose,

On her bosom swelling high

If a fly Dare to seek a sweet repose.

In those eyes which maiden pride

Fain would hide, Mark how passion’s lightnings sleep!

And their glance is brighter far

Than the star Brightest in heaven’s bluest deep.

O’er her limbs the glittering current

In soft torrent Rains adown the gentle girl,

As if, drop by drop, should fall,

One and all From her necklace every pearl.

Lengthening still the reckless pleasure

At her leisure, Care-free Zara ever slow

As the hammock floats and swings

Smiles and sings, To herself, so sweet and low.

“Oh, were I a capitana,

Or sultana, Amber should be always mixt

In my bath of jewelled stone,

Near my throne, Griffins twain of gold betwixt.

“Then my hammock should be silk,

White as milk; And, more soft than down of dove,

Velvet cushions where I sit

Should emit Perfumes that inspire