Gentle, but without memory she lay;
At length those eyes, which they would fain be weaning
Back to old thoughts, waxed full of fearful meaning.
LXV
And then a slave bethought her of a harp;
The harper came, and tuned his instrument;
At the first notes, irregular and sharp,
On him her flashing eyes a moment bent,
Then to the wall she turned as if to warp
Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent;
And he began a long low island-song
Of ancient days, ere Tyranny grew strong.
LXVI
Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall
In time to his old tune: he changed the theme,
And sung of Love; the fierce name struck through all
Her recollection; on her flashed the dream
Of what she was, and is, if ye could call
To be so being; in a gushing stream
The tears rushed forth from her o’erclouded brain,
Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.
LXVII
Short solace, vain relief!—Thought came too quick,
And whirled her brain to madness; she arose
As one who ne’er had dwelt among the sick,
And flew at all she met, as on her foes;
But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
Although her paroxysm drew towards its close;—
Hers was a frenzy which disdained to rave,
Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.
LXVIII
Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of sense;
Nothing could make her meet her Father’s face,
Though on all other things with looks intense
She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;
Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence
Availed for either; neither change of place,
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her
Senses to sleep—the power seemed gone for ever.
LXIX
Twelve days and nights she withered thus; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show
A parting pang, the spirit from her passed:
And they who watched her nearest could not know
The very instant, till the change that cast
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,384
Glazed o’er her eyes—the beautiful, the black—
Oh! to possess such lustre—and then lack!
LXX
She died, but not alone; she held, within,
A second principle of Life, which might
Have dawned a fair and sinless child of sin;385
But closed its little being without light,
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie withered with one blight;
In vain the dews of Heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of Love.
LXXI
Thus lived—thus died she; never more on her
Shall Sorrow light, or Shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth: her days and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful—such as had not staid
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well386
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell.
LXXII
That isle is now all desolate and bare,
Its dwellings down, its tenants passed away;
None but her own and Father’s grave is there,
And nothing outward tells of human clay;
Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair,
No stone is there to show, no tongue to say,
What was; no dirge, except the hollow sea’s,387
Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.
LXXIII
But many a Greek maid in a loving song
Sighs o’er her name; and many an islander
With her Sire’s story makes the night less long;
Valour was his, and Beauty dwelt with her:
If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong—
A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape; let none think to fly the danger,
For soon or late Love is his own avenger.
LXXIV
But let me change this theme, which grows too sad,
And lay this sheet of sorrows on the shelf;
I don’t much like describing people mad,
For fear of seeming rather touched myself—
Besides, I’ve no more on this head to add;
And as my Muse is a capricious elf,
We’ll put about, and try another tack
With Juan, left half-killed some stanzas back.
LXXV
Wounded and fettered, “cabined, cribbed, confined,”388
Some days and nights elapsed before that he
Could altogether call the past to mind;
And when he did, he found himself at sea,
Sailing six knots an hour before the wind;
The shores of Ilion lay beneath their lee—
Another time he might have liked to see ’em,
But now was not much pleased with Cape Sigeum.
LXXVI
There, on the green and village-cotted hill, is
(Flanked by the Hellespont, and by the sea)
Entombed the bravest of the brave, Achilles;
They say so—(Bryant389 says the contrary):
And further downward, tall and towering still, is
The tumulus—of whom? Heaven knows! ’t may be
Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus—
All heroes, who if living still would slay us.390
LXXVII
High barrows, without marble, or a name,
A vast, untilled, and mountain-skirted plain,391
And Ida in the distance, still the same,
And old Scamander (if ’tis he) remain;
The situation seems still formed for fame—
A hundred thousand men might fight again,
With ease; but where I sought for Ilion’s walls,
The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise392 crawls;393
LXXVIII
Troops of untended horses; here and there
Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth;
Some shepherds (unlike Paris) led to stare
A moment at the European youth
Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear;394
A Turk, with beads in hand, and pipe in mouth,
Extremely taken with his own religion,
Are what I found there—but the devil a Phrygian.
LXXIX
Don Juan, here permitted to emerge
From his dull cabin, found himself a slave;
Forlorn, and gazing on the deep blue surge,
O’ershadowed there by many a Hero’s grave;
Weak still with loss of blood, he scarce could urge
A few brief questions; and the answers gave
No very satisfactory information
About his past or present situation.
LXXX
He saw some fellow captives, who appeared
To be
