The Revolt Of Islam. - Canto 10.

1.     Was there a human spirit in the steed,     That thus with his proud voice, ere night was gone,     He broke our linked rest? or do indeed     All living things a common nature own,     And thought erect an universal throne,     Where many shapes one tribute ever bear?     And Earth, their mutual mother, does she groan     To see her sons contend? and makes she bare     Her breast, that all in peace its drainless stores may share?     2.     I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue     Which was not human - the lone nightingale     Has answered me with her most soothing song,     Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale     With grief, and sighed beneath; from many a dale     The antelopes who flocked for food have spoken     With happy sounds, and motions, that avail     Like man's own speech; and such was now the token     Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was broken.     3.     Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,     And I returned with food to our retreat,     And dark intelligence; the blood which flowed     Over the fields, had stained the courser's feet;     Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew, - then meet     The vulture, and the wild dog, and the snake,     The wolf, and the hyaena gray, and eat     The dead in horrid truce: their throngs did make     Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship's wake.     4.     For, from the utmost realms of earth came pouring     The banded slaves whom every despot sent     At that throned traitor's summons; like the roaring     Of fire, whose floods the wild deer circumvent     In the scorched pastures of the South; so bent     The armies of the leagued Kings around     Their files of steel and flame; - the continent     Trembled, as with a zone of ruin bound,     Beneath their feet, the sea shook with their Navies' sound.     5.     From every nation of the earth they came,     The multitude of moving heartless things,     Whom slaves call men: obediently they came,     Like sheep whom from the fold the shepherd brings     To the stall, red with blood; their many kings     Led them, thus erring, from their native land;     Tartar and Frank, and millions whom the wings     Of Indian breezes lull, and many a band     The Arctic Anarch sent, and Idumea's sand,     6.     Fertile in prodigies and lies; - so there     Strange natures made a brotherhood of ill.     The desert savage ceased to grasp in fear     His Asian shield and bow, when, at the will     Of Europe's subtler son, the bolt would kill     Some shepherd sitting on a rock secure;     But smiles of wondering joy his face would fill,     And savage sympathy: those slaves impure,     Each one the other thus from ill to ill did lure.     7.     For traitorously did that foul Tyrant robe     His countenance in lies, - even at the hour     When he was snatched from death, then o'er the globe,     With secret signs from many a mountain-tower,     With smoke by day, and fire by night, the power     Of Kings and Priests, those dark conspirators,     He called: - they knew his cause their own, and swore     Like wolves and serpents to their mutual wars     Strange truce, with many a rite which Earth and Heaven abhors.     8.     Myriads had come - millions were on their way;     The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel     Of hired assassins, through the public way,     Choked with his country's dead: - his footsteps reel     On the fresh blood - he smiles. 'Ay, now I feel     I am a King in truth!' he said, and took     His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel     Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook,     And scorpions, that his soul on its revenge might look.     9.     'But first, go slay the rebels - why return     The victor bands?' he said, 'millions yet live,     Of whom the weakest with one word might turn     The scales of victory yet; - let none survive     But those within the walls - each fifth shall give     The expiation for his brethren here. -     Go forth, and waste and kill!' - 'O king, forgive     My speech,' a soldier answered - 'but we fear     The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;     10.     'For we were slaying still without remorse,     And now that dreadful chief beneath my hand     Defenceless lay, when on a hell-black horse,     An Angel bright as day, waving a brand     Which flashed among the stars, passed.' - 'Dost thou stand     Parleying with me, thou wretch?' the king replied;     'Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band,     Whoso will drag that woman to his side     That scared him thus, may burn his dearest foe beside;     11.     'And gold and glory shall be his. - Go forth!'     They rushed into the plain. - Loud was the roar     Of their career: the horsemen shook the earth;     The wheeled artillery's speed the pavement tore;     The infantry, file after file, did pour     Their clouds on the utmost hills. Five days they slew     Among the wasted fields; the sixth saw gore     Stream through the city; on the seventh, the dew     Of slaughter became stiff, and there was peace anew:     12.     Peace in the desert fields and villages,     Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead!     Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries     Of victims to their fiery judgement led,     Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread     Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue     Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed;     Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng     Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song!     13.     Day after day the burning sun rolled on     Over the death-polluted land - it came     Out of the east like fire, and fiercely shone     A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame     The few lone ears of corn; - the sky became     Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast     Languished and died, - the thirsting air did claim     All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed     From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.     14.     First Want, then Plague came on the beasts; their food     Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay.     Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood     Had lured, or who, from regions far away,     Had tracked the hosts in festival array,     From their dark deserts; gaunt and wasting now,     Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey;     In their green eyes a strange disease did glow,     They sank in hideous spasm, or pains severe and slow.     15.     The fish were poisoned in the streams; the birds     In the green woods perished; the insect race     Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds     Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chase     Died moaning, each upon the other's face     In helpless agony gazing; round the City     All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case     Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!     And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.     16.     Amid the aereal minarets on high,     The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell     From their long line of brethren in the sky,     Startling the concourse of mankind. - Too well     These signs the coming mischief did foretell: -     Strange panic first, a deep and sickening dread     Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell,     A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread     With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings shed.     17.     Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts     Strip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;     So on those strange and congregated hosts     Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air     Groaned with the burden of a new despair;     Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter     Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there     With lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter,     A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe's sullen water.     18.     There was no food, the corn was trampled down,     The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore     The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown;     The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more     Creaked with the weight of birds, but, as before     Those winged things sprang forth, were void of shade;     The vines and orchards, Autumn's golden store,     Were burned; - so that the meanest food was weighed     With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.     19.     There was no corn - in the wide market-place     All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold;     They weighed it in small scales - and many a face     Was fixed in eager horror then: his gold     The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold     Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain;     The mother brought her eldest born, controlled     By instinct blind as love, but turned again     And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.     20.     Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.     'O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave     Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran     With brothers' blood! O, that the earthquake's grave     Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!'     Vain cries - throughout the streets thousands pursued     Each by his fiery torture howl and rave,     Or sit in frenzy's unimagined mood,     Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.     21.     It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well     Was choked with rotting corpses, and became     A cauldron of green mist made visible     At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,     Seeking to quench the agony of the flame,     Which raged like poison through their bursting veins;     Naked they were from torture, without shame,     Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains,     Childhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage pains.     22.     It was not thirst, but madness! Many saw     Their own lean image everywhere, it went     A ghastlier self beside them, till the awe     Of that dread sight to self-destruction sent     Those shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent,     Sought, with a horrid sympathy, to shed     Contagion on the sound; and others rent     Their matted hair, and cried aloud, 'We tread     On fire! the avenging Power his hell on earth has spread!'     23.     Sometimes the living by the dead were hid.     Near the great fountain in the public square,     Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid     Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer     For life, in the hot silence of the air;     And strange 'twas, amid that hideous heap to see     Some shrouded in their long and golden hair,     As if not dead, but slumbering quietly     Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.     24.     Famine had spared the palace of the king: -     He rioted in festival the while,     He and his guards and priests; but Plague did fling     One shadow upon all. Famine can smile     On him who brings it food, and pass, with guile     Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gray,     The house-dog of the throne; but many a mile     Comes Plague, a winged wolf, who loathes alway     The garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.     25.     So, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast,     Sheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight     To luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased     That lingered on his lips, the warrior's might     Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night     In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell     Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright     Among the guests, or raving mad did tell     Strange truths; a dying seer of dark oppression's hell.     26.     The Princes and the Priests were pale with terror;     That monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind,     Fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman's error,     On their own hearts: they sought and they could find     No refuge - 'twas the blind who led the blind!     So, through the desolate streets to the high fane,     The many-tongued and endless armies wind     In sad procession: each among the train     To his own Idol lifts his supplications vain.     27.     'O God!' they cried, 'we know our secret pride     Has scorned thee, and thy worship, and thy name;     Secure in human power we have defied     Thy fearful might; we bend in fear and shame     Before thy presence; with the dust we claim     Kindred; be merciful, O King of Heaven!     Most justly have we suffered for thy fame     Made dim, but be at length our sins forgiven,     Ere to despair and death thy worshippers be driven.     28.     'O King of Glory! thou alone hast power!     Who can resist thy will? who can restrain     Thy wrath, when on the guilty thou dost shower     The shafts of thy revenge, a blistering rain?     Greatest and best, be merciful again!     Have we not stabbed thine enemies, and made     The Earth an altar, and the Heavens a fane,     Where thou wert worshipped with their blood, and laid     Those hearts in dust which would thy searchless works have weighed?     29.     'Well didst thou loosen on this impious City     Thine angels of revenge: recall them now;     Thy worshippers, abased, here kneel for pity,     And bind their souls by an immortal vow:     We swear by thee! and to our oath do thou     Give sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame,     That we will kill with fire and torments slow,     The last of those who mocked thy holy name,     And scorned the sacred laws thy prophets did proclaim.'     30.     Thus they with trembling limbs and pallid lips     Worshipped their own hearts' image, dim and vast,     Scared by the shade wherewith they would eclipse     The light of other minds; - troubled they passed     From the great Temple; - fiercely still and fast     The arrows of the plague among them fell,     And they on one another gazed aghast,     And through the hosts contention wild befell,     As each of his own god the wondrous works did tell.     31.     And Oromaze, Joshua, and Mahomet,     Moses, and Buddh, Zerdusht, and Brahm, and Foh,     A tumult of strange names, which never met     Before, as watchwords of a single woe,     Arose; each raging votary 'gan to throw     Aloft his armed hands, and each did howl     'Our God alone is God!' - and slaughter now     Would have gone forth, when from beneath a cowl     A voice came forth, which pierced like ice through every soul.     32.     'Twas an Iberian Priest from whom it came,     A zealous man, who led the legioned West,     With words which faith and pride had steeped in flame,     To quell the unbelievers; a dire guest     Even to his friends was he, for in his breast     Did hate and guile lie watchful, intertwined,     Twin serpents in one deep and winding nest;     He loathed all faith beside his own, and pined     To wreak his fear of Heaven in vengeance on mankind.     33.     But more he loathed and hated the clear light     Of wisdom and free thought, and more did fear,     Lest, kindled once, its beams might pierce the night,     Even where his Idol stood; for, far and near     Did many a heart in Europe leap to hear     That faith and tyranny were trampled down;     Many a pale victim, doomed for truth to share     The murderer's cell, or see, with helpless groan,     The priests his children drag for slaves to serve their own.     34.     He dared not kill the infidels with fire     Or steel, in Europe; the slow agonies     Of legal torture mocked his keen desire:     So he made truce with those who did despise     The expiation, and the sacrifice,     That, though detested, Islam's kindred creed     Might crush for him those deadlier enemies;     For fear of God did in his bosom breed     A jealous hate of man, an unreposing need.     35.     'Peace! Peace!' he cried, 'when we are dead, the Day     Of Judgement comes, and all shall surely know     Whose God is God, each fearfully shall pay     The errors of his faith in endless woe!     But there is sent a mortal vengeance now     On earth, because an impious race had spurned     Him whom we all adore, - a subtle foe,     By whom for ye this dread reward was earned,     And kingly thrones, which rest on faith, nigh overturned.     36.     'Think ye, because ye weep, and kneel, and pray,     That God will lull the pestilence? It rose     Even from beneath his throne, where, many a day,     His mercy soothed it to a dark repose:     It walks upon the earth to judge his foes;     And what are thou and I, that he should deign     To curb his ghastly minister, or close     The gates of death, ere they receive the twain     Who shook with mortal spells his undefended reign?     37.     'Ay, there is famine in the gulf of hell,     Its giant worms of fire for ever yawn. -     Their lurid eyes are on us! those who fell     By the swift shafts of pestilence ere dawn,     Are in their jaws! they hunger for the spawn     Of Satan, their own brethren, who were sent     To make our souls their spoil. See! see! they fawn     Like dogs, and they will sleep with luxury spent,     When those detested hearts their iron fangs have rent!     38.     'Our God may then lull Pestilence to sleep: -     Pile high the pyre of expiation now,     A forest's spoil of boughs, and on the heap     Pour venomous gums, which sullenly and slow,     When touched by flame, shall burn, and melt, and flow,     A stream of clinging fire, - and fix on high     A net of iron, and spread forth below     A couch of snakes, and scorpions, and the fry     Of centipedes and worms, earth's hellish progeny!     39.     'Let Laon and Laone on that pyre,     Linked tight with burning brass, perish! - then pray     That, with this sacrifice, the withering ire     Of Heaven may be appeased.' He ceased, and they     A space stood silent, as far, far away     The echoes of his voice among them died;     And he knelt down upon the dust, alway     Muttering the curses of his speechless pride,     Whilst shame, and fear, and awe, the armies did divide.     40.     His voice was like a blast that burst the portal     Of fabled hell; and as he spake, each one     Saw gape beneath the chasms of fire immortal,     And Heaven above seemed cloven, where, on a throne     Girt round with storms and shadows, sate alone     Their King and Judge - fear killed in every breast     All natural pity then, a fear unknown     Before, and with an inward fire possessed,     They raged like homeless beasts whom burning woods invest.     41.     'Twas morn. - At noon the public crier went forth,     Proclaiming through the living and the dead,     'The Monarch saith, that his great Empire's worth     Is set on Laon and Laone's head:     He who but one yet living here can lead,     Or who the life from both their hearts can wring,     Shall be the kingdom's heir - a glorious meed!     But he who both alive can hither bring,     The Princess shall espouse, and reign an equal King.'     42.     Ere night the pyre was piled, the net of iron     Was spread above, the fearful couch below;     It overtopped the towers that did environ     That spacious square; for Fear is never slow     To build the thrones of Hate, her mate and foe;     So, she scourged forth the maniac multitude     To rear this pyramid - tottering and slow,     Plague-stricken, foodless, like lean herds pursued     By gadflies, they have piled the heath, and gums, and wood.     43.     Night came, a starless and a moonless gloom.     Until the dawn, those hosts of many a nation     Stood round that pile, as near one lover's tomb     Two gentle sisters mourn their desolation;     And in the silence of that expectation,     Was heard on high the reptiles' hiss and crawl -     It was so deep - save when the devastation     Of the swift pest, with fearful interval,     Marking its path with shrieks, among the crowd would fall.     44.     Morn came, - among those sleepless multitudes,     Madness, and Fear, and Plague, and Famine still     Heaped corpse on corpse, as in autumnal woods     The frosts of many a wind with dead leaves fill     Earth's cold and sullen brooks; in silence, still     The pale survivors stood; ere noon, the fear     Of Hell became a panic, which did kill     Like hunger or disease, with whispers drear,     As 'Hush! hark! Come they yet? - Just Heaven! thine hour is near!'     45.     And Priests rushed through their ranks, some counterfeiting     The rage they did inspire, some mad indeed     With their own lies; they said their god was waiting     To see his enemies writhe, and burn, and bleed, -     And that, till then, the snakes of Hell had need     Of human souls: - three hundred furnaces     Soon blazed through the wide City, where, with speed,     Men brought their infidel kindred to appease     God's wrath, and, while they burned, knelt round on quivering knees.     46.     The noontide sun was darkened with that smoke,     The winds of eve dispersed those ashes gray.     The madness which these rites had lulled, awoke     Again at sunset. - Who shall dare to say     The deeds which night and fear brought forth, or weigh     In balance just the good and evil there?     He might man's deep and searchless heart display,     And cast a light on those dim labyrinths, where     Hope, near imagined chasms, is struggling with despair.     47.     'Tis said, a mother dragged three children then,     To those fierce flames which roast the eyes in the head,     And laughed, and died; and that unholy men,     Feasting like fiends upon the infidel dead,     Looked from their meal, and saw an Angel tread     The visible floor of Heaven, and it was she!     And, on that night, one without doubt or dread     Came to the fire, and said, 'Stop, I am he!     Kill me!' - They burned them both with hellish mockery.     48.     And, one by one, that night, young maidens came,     Beauteous and calm, like shapes of living stone     Clothed in the light of dreams, and by the flame     Which shrank as overgorged, they laid them down,     And sung a low sweet song, of which alone     One word was heard, and that was Liberty;     And that some kissed their marble feet, with moan     Like love, and died; and then that they did die     With happy smiles, which sunk in white tranquillity.