My gentle, wrong'd Zarina!
I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse-borne away with every breath!
Misplaced upon the throne-misplaced in life.
I know not what I could have been, but feel
I am not what I should be-let it end.
But take this with thee: if I was not form'd
To prize a love like thine, a mind like thine,
Nor dote even on thy beauty-as I've doted
On lesser charms, for no cause save that such
Devotion was a duty, and I hated
All that look'd like a chain for me or others
(This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear
These words, perhaps among my last-that none
Ere valued more thy virtues, though he knew not
To profit by them-as the miner lights
Upon a vein of virgin ore, discovering
That which avails him nothing; he hath found it,
But 't is not his-but some superior's, who
Placed him to dig, but not divide the wealth
Which sparkles at his feet; nor dare he lift
Nor poise it, but must grovel on upturning
The sullen earth.
Oh! if thou hast at length
Discover'd that my love is worth esteem,
I ask no more-but let us hence together,
And let me say we-shall yet be happy.
Assyria is not all the earth-we 'll find
A world out of our own-and be more blest
Than I have ever been, or thou, with all
An empire to indulge thee.
I may be worthier of you-and, if not,
Remember that my faults, though not atoned for,
Are ended. Yet, I dread thy nature will
Grieve more above the blighted name and ashes
Which once were mightiest in Assyria-than--
But I grow womanish again, and must not;
I must learn sternness now. My sins have all
Been of the softer order—-hide thy tears-
I do not bid thee not to shed them-'t were
Easier to stop Euphrates at its source
Than one tear of a true and tender heart-
But let me not behold them; they unman me
Here when I had re-mann'd myself.
Lead her away.
And this too must I suffer-I, who never
Inflicted purposely on human hearts
A voluntary pang! But that is false-
She loved me, and I loved her. Fatal passion!
Why dost thou not expire at once in hearts
Which thou hast lighted up at once? Zarina!
I must pay dearly for the desolation
Now brought upon thee. Had I never loved
But thee, I should have been an unopposed
Monarch of honouring nations. To what gulphs
A single deviation from the track
Of human duties leads even those who claim
Renown. To be forced thus to uphold my right,
Sits heavier on my heart than all the wrongs
These men would bow me down with. Never, never
Can I forget this night, even should I live
To add it to the memory of others.
I thought to have made mine inoffensive rule
An era of sweet peace 'midst bloody annals,
A green spot amidst desert centuries,
On which the future would turn back and smile,
And cultivate, or sigh when it could not
hecal Sardanapalus' golden reign.
I thought to have made my realm a paradise,
And every moon an epoch of new pleasures.
I took the rabble's shouts for love-the breath
Of friends for truth-the lips of woman for
My only guerdon-so they are, my Myrrha:
[He kisses her.
Kiss me. Now let them take my realm and life!
They shall have both, but never thee!
Man may despoil his brother man of all
That were hardly prudent
Now, though it was our first intention. If
By noon to-morrow we are join'd by those
I've sent for by sure messengers, we shall be
In strength enough to venture an attack,
Ay, and pursuit too: but, till then, my voice
Is to await the onset.
That waiting; though it seems so safe to fight
Behind high walls, and hurl down foes into
Deep fosses, or behold them sprawl on spikes
Strew'd to receive them, still I like it not-
My soul seems lukewarm; but when I set on them,
Though they were piled on mountains, I would have
A pluck at them, or perish in hot blood!--
Let,me then charge!
You talk like a young soldier.
I am no soldier, but a man: speak not
That's great or glittering: kingdoms fall-hosts yield-Of soldiership, I loathe the word, and those
Who pride themselves upon it; but direct me
Where I may pour upon them.
Friends fail-slaves fly—and all betray-and, more
Than all, the most indebted-but a heart
That loves without self-love! T is here-now prove it.
I sought you.-How! she here again?
Now to reproof: methinks your aspect speaks
Of higher matter than a woman's presence.
The only woman whom it much imports me
At such a moment now is safe in absence-
The queen's embark`d.
SARDANAPALUS.
And well? say that much.
To expose your life too hastily; 't is not
Like mine or any other subject's breath :
The whole war turns upon it-with it; this
Alone creates it, kindles, and may quench it-
Prolong it-end it.
SARDANAPALUS.
Then let us end both!
'T were better thus, perhaps, than prolong either; I'm sick of one, perchance of both.
[A trumpet sounds without.
'Tis heal'd-I had forgotten it. Away!
A leech's lancet would have scratch'd me deeper:
The slave that gave it might be well ashamed
To have struck so weakly.
Strike with a better aim!
Ay, if we conquer;
But if not, they will only leave to me
A task they might have spared their king. Upon them'
Ho, my arms! again, my arms!
The same Hall of the Palace.
MYRRHA and BALEA.
MYRRHA (at a window).
The day at last has broken.
What a night
Hath usher'd it! How beautiful in heaven!
Though varied with a transitory storm,
More beautiful in that variety!
How hideous upon earth! where peace and hope,
And love and revel, in an hour were trampled
By human passions to a human chaos,
Not yet resolved to separate elements.-
'Tis warring still! And can the sun so rise,
So bright, so rolling back the clouds into
Vapours more lovely than the unclouded sky,
With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains,
And billows purpler than the ocean's, making
In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,
So like, we almost deem it permanent;
So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught
Beyond a vision, 't is so transiently
Scatter'd along the eternal vault: and yet
It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,
And blends itself into the soul, until
Suarise and sunset form the haunted epoch
Of sorrow and of love; which they who mark not
Know not the realms where those twin genii
(Who chasten and who purify our hearts,
So that we would not change their sweet rebukes
For all the boisterous joys that ever shook
The air with clamour) build the palaces
Where their fond votaries repose and breathe
Briefly;-but in that brief cool calm inhale
Enough of heaven to enable them to bear
The rest of common, heavy, human hours,
And dream them through in placid sufferance;
Though seemingly employ'd like all the rest
Of toiling breathers in allotted tasks
Of pain or pleasure, two names for one feeling,
Which our internal, restless agony
Would vary in the sound, although the sense
Escapes our highest efforts to be happy.
You muse right calmly: and can you so watch The sunrise which may be our last?
Therefore that I so watch it, and reproach
Those eyes, which never may behold it more,
For having look'd upon it oft, too oft,
Without the reverence and the rapture due
To that which keeps all earth from being as fragile
As I am in this form. Come, look upon it,
The Chaldee's god, which, when I
gaze upon,
I grow almost a convert to your Baal.
As now he reigns in heaven, so once on earth lle sway'd.
He sways it now far more, then; never Had earthly monarch half the peace and glory Which centres in a single ray of his.
|