Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

army like a spell

      In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny;

      He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth

      Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors

      The ruins of the city where he reigned

      Childless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped

      The costly harvest his own blood matured,

      Not the sower, Ali—who has bought a truce

      From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads

      Of Indian gold.

      [Enter a third Messenger.]

      MAHMUD. What more?

      THIRD MESSENGER. The Christian tribes

      Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness

      Are in revolt;—Damascus, Hems, Aleppo

      Tremble;—the Arab menaces Medina,

      The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,

      And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,

      Who denies homage, claims investiture

      As price of tardy aid. Persia demands

      The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians

      Refuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus,

      Like mountain-twins that from each other’s veins

      Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm,

      Shake in the general fever. Through the city,

      Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek,

      And prophesyings horrible and new

      Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men

      Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.

      A Dervise, learned in the Koran, preaches

      That it is written how the sins of Islam

      Must raise up a destroyer even now.

      The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West,

      Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,

      But in the omnipresence of that Spirit

      In which all live and are. Ominous signs

      Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky.

      One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;

      It has rained blood; and monstrous births declare

      The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.

      The army encamped upon the Cydaris

      Was roused last night by the alarm of battle,

      And saw two hosts conflicting in the air,

      The shadows doubtless of the unborn time

      Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet

      The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm

      Which swept the phantoms from among the stars.

      At the third watch the Spirit of the Plague

      Was heard abroad flapping among the tents;

      Those who relieved watch found the sentinels dead.

      The last news from the camp is, that a thousand

      Have sickened, and—

      [Enter a fourth Messenger.]

      MAHMUD. And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow

      Of some untimely rumour, speak!

      FOURTH MESSENGER. One comes

      Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood.

      He stood, he says, on Chelonites’

      Promontory, which o’erlooks the isles that groan

      Under the Briton’s frown, and all their waters

      Then trembling in the splendour of the moon,

      When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid

      Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets

      Stalk through the night in the horizon’s glimmer,

      Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous gleams,

      And smoke which strangled every infant wind

      That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.

      At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco

      Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds

      Over the sea-horizon, blotting out

      All objects—save that in the faint moon-glimpse

      He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral

      And two the loftiest of our ships of war,

      With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven,

      Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed;

      And the abhorred cross—

      [Enter an Attendant.]

      ATTENDANT. Your Sublime Highness,

      The Jew, who—

      MAHMUD. Could not come more seasonably.

      Bid him attend. I’ll hear no more! too long

      We gaze on danger through the mist of fear,

      And multiply upon our shattered hopes

      The images of ruin. Come what will!

      To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps

      Set in our path to light us to the edge

      Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught

      Which He inflicts not in whose hand we are.

      [Exeunt.]

      SEMICHORUS I.

      Would I were the winged cloud

      Of a tempest swift and loud!

      I would scorn

      The smile of morn

      And the wave where the moonrise is born!

      I would leave

      The spirits of eve

      A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave

      From other threads than mine!

      Bask in the deep blue noon divine.

      Who would? Not I.

      SEMICHORUS II.

      Whither to fly?

      SEMICHORUS I.

      Where the rocks that gird th’ Aegean

      Echo to the battle paean

      Of the free—

      I would flee

      A tempestuous herald of victory!

      My golden rain

      For the Grecian slain

      Should mingle in tears with the bloody main,

      And my solemn thunder-knell

      Should ring to the world the passing-bell

      Of Tyranny!

      SEMICHORUS II.

      Ah king! wilt thou chain

      The rack and the rain?

      Wilt