Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

empire’s spoil stored for a day of ruin.

      O spirit of my sires! is it not come?

      The prey-birds and the wolves are gorged and sleep;

      But these, who spread their feast on the red earth,

      Hunger for gold, which fills not.—See them fed;

      Then, lead them to the rivers of fresh death.

      [Exit DAOOD.]

      O miserable dawn, after a night

      More glorious than the day which it usurped!

      O faith in God! O power on earth! O word

      Of the great prophet, whose o’ershadowing wings

      Darkened the thrones and idols of the West,

      Now bright!—For thy sake cursed be the hour,

      Even as a father by an evil child,

      When the orient moon of Islam rolled in triumph

      From Caucasus to White Ceraunia!

      Ruin above, and anarchy below;

      Terror without, and treachery within;

      The Chalice of destruction full, and all

      Thirsting to drink; and who among us dares

      To dash it from his lips? and where is Hope?

      HASSAN. The lamp of our dominion still rides high;

      One God is God—Mahomet is His prophet.

      Four hundred thousand Moslems, from the limits

      Of utmost Asia, irresistibly

      Throng, like full clouds at the Sirocco’s cry;

      But not like them to weep their strength in tears.

      They bear destroying lightning, and their step

      Wakes earthquake to consume and overwhelm,

      And reign in ruin. Phrygian Olympus,

      Tmolus, and Latmos, and Mycale, roughen

      With horrent arms; and lofty ships even now,

      Like vapours anchored to a mountain’s edge,

      Freighted with fire and whirlwind, wait at Scala

      The convoy of the ever-veering wind.

      Samos is drunk with blood;—the Greek has paid

      Brief victory with swift loss and long despair.

      The false Moldavian serfs fled fast and far

      When the fierce shout of ‘Allah-illa-Allah!’

      Rose like the war-cry of the northern wind

      Which kills the sluggish clouds, and leaves a flock

      Of wild swans struggling with the naked storm.

      So were the lost Greeks on the Danube’s day!

      If night is mute, yet the returning sun

      Kindles the voices of the morning birds;

      Nor at thy bidding less exultingly

      Than birds rejoicing in the golden day,

      The Anarchies of Africa unleash

      Their tempest-winged cities of the sea,

      To speak in thunder to the rebel world.

      Like sulphurous clouds, half-shattered by the storm,

      They sweep the pale Aegean, while the Queen

      Of Ocean, bound upon her island-throne,

      Far in the West, sits mourning that her sons

      Who frown on Freedom spare a smile for thee.

      Russia still hovers, as an eagle might

      Within a cloud, near which a kite and crane

      Hang tangled in inextricable fight,

      To stoop upon the victor;—for she fears

      The name of Freedom, even as she hates thine.

      But recreant Austria loves thee as the Grave

      Loves Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war

      Fleshed with the chase, come up from Italy,

      And howl upon their limits; for they see

      The panther, Freedom, fled to her old cover,

      Amid seas and mountains, and a mightier brood

      Crouch round. What Anarch wears a crown or mitre,

      Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold,

      Whose friends are not thy friends, whose foes thy foes?

      Our arsenals and our armouries are full;

      Our forts defy assault; ten thousand cannon

      Lie ranged upon the beach, and hour by hour

      Their earth-convulsing wheels affright the city;

      The galloping of fiery steeds makes pale

      The Christian merchant; and the yellow Jew

      Hides his hoard deeper in the faithless earth.

      Like clouds, and like the shadows of the clouds,

      Over the hills of Anatolia,

      Swift in wide troops the Tartar chivalry

      Sweep;—the far flashing of their starry lances

      Reverberates the dying light of day.

      We have one God, one King, one Hope, one Law;

      But many-headed Insurrection stands

      Divided in itself, and soon must fall.

      MAHMUD. Proud words, when deeds come short, are seasonable.

      Look, Hassan, on yon crescent moon, emblazoned

      Upon that shattered flag of fiery cloud

      Which leads the rear of the departing day;

      Wan emblem of an empire fading now!

      See how it trembles in the blood-red air,

      And like a mighty lamp whose oil is spent

      Shrinks on the horizon’s edge, while, from above,

      One star with insolent and victorious light

      Hovers above its fall, and with keen beams,

      Like arrows through a fainting antelope,

      Strikes its weak form to death.

      HASSAN. Even as that moon

      Renews itself—

      MAHMUD. Shall we be not renewed!

      Far other bark than ours were needed now

      To stem the torrent of descending time.

      The Spirit that lifts the slave before his lord

      Stalks through the capitals of armed kings,

      And spreads his ensign in the wilderness.

      Exults in chains; and, when the rebel falls,

      Cries like the blood of Abel from the dust;

      And the inheritors of the earth, like beasts

      When earthquake is unleashed, with idiot fear

      Cower in their kingly dens—as I do now.

      What were Defeat when Victory must appal?

      Or Danger, when Security looks pale?—

      How