Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Ει δε πεπονθατε δεινα δι 'υμετερην κακοτητα,
Μη τι Θεοις τουτων μοιραν επαμφερετε.
Αυτοι γαρ τουτους νυξησατε ρυσια δοντες,
Και δια ταυτα κακην εσχετε δουλοσυνην.”----
Nicetas.

297

THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

A CHRONICLE OF THE FALL OF THE GREEK EMPIRE.

IN FOUR PARTS.

I. PART I.

“La vint al Comte, si comme dit
Vn Danziaus, ki ioenes estoit
A qui toute Gresse appendoit,
Par son Oncle ies deseritès
Et de chastiaus & de citès.
Alexis ot nom, mult fu biaus,
Bien enseniés iere le Danziaus:

Conté li a tot son afaire,
Et li Quens ki bien li vot faire,
Li fist jurer le sairement,
Kil en iroit tout voirement
A quan qu'il poroit outremer
Auec lui s'il puet recouurer
Sa tierre, & tant faire li sache
Que couronne porter li face.”

—Philippes Mouskes.

I.THE EMPEROR ISAAC.

In gold Byzantium, girt with purple seas,
Isaac is Emperor, and reigns at ease.
For, if he smiles, a swarm of gilded slaves
Smiles also, grateful for the grace that saves

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Their fortunes one day longer: if he frowns,
Spears sparkle on the walls of frighten'd towns,
And half the East is darken'd: if he sleeps,
The soul of Music o'er his slumber keeps
Melodious vigil, and, down lucid floors
Of marble chambers vast, at sighing doors
Dusk faces watch, while long-hair'd large-eyed girls
Crouch at his pillow fringed with dropping pearls.
Proud to up-prop his throne, four lions—four
Large bulks of blazing gold—crook evermore
Their wrinkled backs. For him the murex dies
In Tyrrhene nets. For him, 'neath golden skies,
In gorgeous cluster, all those glittering isles
That circle Delos, where the sun first smiles,
Broider the sea's blue breast with beauty rare.
For him, thro' valleys cool'd with shadowy air,
The Phrygian shepherd leads his numerous flocks.
His are the towers on Helespontine rocks,
And his the hill-built citadels that crown
Morean bays, by many a mountain town.
For him, from antique Thessaly's witch-lands
Sweet sorceries breathe. For him, the hardy bands
Of snowy Thrace, a multitude of spears,
March with the Macedonian mountaineers.
From strong Durazzo's battlemented steep
To sultry Tarsus, and Malmistra, sweep
His glowing realms; and to his sway respond
All Anatolia's tribes, from Trebezond

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Far as the Syrian Gates. His standards float
And flash athwart Pamphylian shores remote,
Throng all Meander's many-winding stream,
And in blue Asian weather blaze supreme
From ancient cities, proud and populous,
O'ertopping temples white in Ephesus,
Sardes, and Smyrna, and among the groves
The swarthy-faced Laödicean loves,
Or where, in Philadelphia's teeming squares,
The turban'd trader spreads his silken wares.
The glories of old Rome, by all the line
Of Latin Cæsars left to Constantine,
Blaze in his eyes, to make him glad and great.
Red Asia doth green Europe emulate
Which with most lavish hand shall treasures heap
Within his palace gates. All sails, that sweep
The waters of the world and every shore,
Meet in his harbours. Princely Pages pour
For him the Chian and the Lesbian wine
In agate cups and vases crystalline,
Wrought first in Rome, when thro' the Triumph Gate
Pompeïus came from conquering Mithridate.
For him, on gems and jasper stones is writ
The Arab wisdom, and the Persic wit.
For him, Greek Monks, in Thracian convents cold,
Guard Homer's songs on parchments graved with gold.
To nourish this one man a million starve:
And on his tables kingborn butlers carve

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The quadripartite globe: earth, sea, and air,
Are devastated for his daily fare.
To serve him, twice ten thousand eunuchs stand,
Who start, if he but nod, or wave his hand.
Daily, his Prophet, whom for smiling views
He pays with Patriarchal revenues,
Prophesies to him of ease, pleasantness,
And length of days, glory, and great success,
And realms extended from Euphrates far
As where the Lebanonian cedars are.
The grandeur of the East and of the West
Glows in his galleries. He is potent, blest,
Supreme. He hath two bloodhounds in a leash,
Terror, and Force: two slaves that serve his wish,
Pleasure, and Pomp.

II.IS SAD.

Yet, in despite of all,
The Emperor Isaac sits in his vast hall
An undelighted man. To him all meat
Is tasteless, and all sweetnesses unsweet:
To him all beauty is unbeautiful,
All pleasures without pleasantness, and dull
Each day's delights. His women and his wine
Nauseate the sense they sate not. His lamps shine
In cedarn chambers, ceil'd with gold, as gleam
Corpse-lights in charnels. Music's strenuous stream

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Of pining sounds makes passionatest pain
About his joyless heart, and jaded brain.
So harsh an echo in the hollowness
Within him dwells, that echo to suppress
He, if he could, would make the whole world mute.
He curses both the fluteplayer and the flute:
He strikes both lyre and lyrist to the ground:
The silence is less tolerable than sound.
For men's praise undeserved, the pain assign'd
To this praised man is scorn of all mankind.
To please him, Age its reverend form foregoes,
And wrinkled panders for his public shows
Invent new vices. At his least of looks
Manhood forsakes its manliness, and crooks
Beneath a truculent foot a slavish neck.
White-fronted Womanhood, if he but beck,
Wallows in shame, unshamed: while Youth, to charm
His fancy all the Virtues doth disarm,
Disgracing all the Graces. And, for this,
He hates Man, Woman, Youth, and Age. No bliss
In youthfulness, no dignity in years,
Men to this man, by men adored, endears:
Because his greatness, being of a kind
That grows from all men's littleness combined,
Dwells self-condemn'd among the multitude
Of voices lifted to proclaim it good,
And tongues that lick the dust, and knees that fall,
And backs that cringe before its pedestal.

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Him all these immense means to make him glad,
Misused immensely, make immensely sad.

III.AND SO IS HIS BROTHER ALEXIUS: WHO PROPOSES

Beside the Emperor sits the Emperor's brother:
Companions, one as joyless as the other,
And soul-distemper'd both:—the first, with what
He hath; the second, that he hath it not.
So, turning to Alexius, with dull eyes
By dull eyes met, Isaac the Emperor sighs
“How things desired, and had, desire destroy!
How hard it is, enjoyment to enjoy!
Advise us, Brother, how may Pleasure borrow
Some new disguise to fool the querulous Morrow
From his foreseen reproval of Today?”
Whereto Alexius,

“I have oft heard say
That more wild beasts than men be left in Thrace.
Wherefore” . . .
“The chase!” the Emperor cries, “the chase?
A happy thought! Such sleep as nightly flies
The silken couch where Ease, uneasy, lies,
Perchance kind Nature charitably drops
On wearied limbs from perilous mountain tops.
And ancient poets say that pure Content
Was never yet in crowded city pent.

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She, with young Health, her hardy child, they say
After the shadows of the clouds doth stray,
Or near the nibbling flocks by grassy dells,
And, bee-like, feeds at eve in myrtle bells
On little drops of dew, deliciously
As the fair Queen of Fays. I know not, I,
If that be true: but this I know full well,
That not in any palace where I dwell,
—Neither beneath Blachernæ's sculptured roofs,
Nor in Boucoleon, where my horses' hoofs,
Shod with red gold, strike echoes musical
From porphyry pavements in a silver stall,—
This Phantom hath her haunt. We'll try the woods,
Wild-water'd glens, and savage solitudes;
And, if she hide with Echo in her cave,
We'll rouse her; if with Naiads in the wave,
We'll plunge to find her; tho' black Death should leap
From out the lair whence she may chance to peep.
The chase tomorrow morn!”

IV.A PARTY OF PLEASURE.

The morrow morn
At sunrise, to the sound of fife and horn,
Byzantium's spacious marble wharves, from stair
To stair, with broider'd cloths, and carpets rare
Of crimson seam'd and rivell'd rough with gold,
A train of swarthy servants spread and fold,

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For the proud treading of Imperial feet,
Down to the granite pedestals; where meet
Thick myrtle boughs, and oleanders flush
The green-lit lymph. There, little galleys push
Their golden prows beneath the glossy dark
Of laurel leaves; and many a pleasure-bark
Lolls in the sun, with streaming bandrol bright,
And gorgeous canopies, that shut soft light
Under soft shadow. Suddenly, shrill sounds
The brazen music, and the baying hounds
Drag sideways at the hunter's hand. The drums
Throb to the screaming trumpet.

And forth comes
The Emperor.
Then his courtiers: then his slaves.

At sunset, to the wilds beyond the waves
They came: light revellers arm'd with bow and spear,
Cinct for the chase, and gay with hunting gear.
With silk pavilions gleam the lonely glens,
Glad of their unaccustom'd denizens
That shout across dark tracts of starry weather.
To grassy tufts young grooms, light-laughing, tether
Sleek-coated steeds. And, where the bubbled brooks
Leap under rushy brinks, white-turban'd cooks
In silver vessels plunge the purple wine.
Within the tents, the lucid tables shine

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(Under soft lamps from burning odours lit)
With sumptuous viands; and young wassailers sit,
With heated faces femininely fair,
And holiday arms thick-sheathed with jewels rare,
Babbling of battles. Round the mountain lawn
The sportive court leans, propp'd on skins of fawn,
And quilts thick-velveted of foreign fur,
Marten, and zibeline, and miniver,
Brought by the barbarous fair-hair'd folk that come
Blithe from the north star, where they have their home
Among the basalt rocks, and starry caves
Stalactical, and walk upon the waves
Sandall'd with steel. Low-sounding angelots
Sprinkle light music in among the knots
Of laughing boys that tinkle cups of gold
Round heaps of grapes, and rough-globed melons cold,
And purple figs. There, down the glimmering green
Half-naked dance, with tossing tambourine,
Greek girls, whose flusht and panting limbs flash bare
Across the purple glooms.
At dawn, they dare
The distant crags, and storm the savage woods.
Then, all day long, thro' slumbrous solitudes
Flit the sweet ghosts of glad and healthful sounds
Scatter'd from fairy horns, and flying hounds:
And, in and out, among the thickets lone
The dazzling tumult darts; as, one by one,
Thro' bosk and brake, gay-gilded dragon flies

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Flash, and are gone. When mellow daylight dies,
Well-pleased, they bear their shaggy burthen back
To' the silken camp, adown the mountain track,
And roast the bristly boar; and quaff and laugh,
And sing, and ring the goblets gay; till, half
Drowsed, and half roused again by rosy wine,
They drink, and wink, and sink at last supine
On the fresh herbage by their watchfires red;
While the wind wakes the gloomy woods o'erhead
Unnoticed, and unnoticed, now and then,
Sound distant roarings from the rocky glen.
So pass the days, the nights: so pass the weeks,
The months.

V.WHICH ENDS UNPLEASANTLY.

At length, the Emperor upbreaks
His wandering camp. Of wood and mountain tired,
Town-life he deems once more to be desired.
Aye, from illusion to illusion tost,
Men seek new things, to prize things old the most.
Life wastes itself by wishing to be more,
And turns to froth and scum whilst bubbling o'er.
Thus, having all things, save the joy they give,
The Imperial pauper still is fain to live
For means of life (which nothing known supplies)
Dependent on the charity of surprise.

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Sick as he went, he to Byzance returns.
There, from the warders on the walls he learns
That his bold brother, whom (while he the chase
Pursued) himself had charged to hold his place
Is pleased to keep it; which the soldiery, bought,
Are pleased to sanction; and the people, taught
That Power in Place is Power where it should be,
Pleased, or displeased, obedient bow the knee.
'Tis idle knocking at your own housedoor
When your own housedog knows your voice no more.
Fly, or be bitten!

Flying all alone,
(Friendless, being powerless) into Macedon,
—A fugitive from his own guards, the scorn
Of his tame creatures, turn'd on, hunted, torn
By his own bandogs, Isaac,—yesterday
Lord paramount of half a world, great, gay,
Glorious, and strong,—today, a something less
Than all earth's common kinds of wretchedness,—
Fled from the refuse of himself; but, caught,
And back a prisoner to Byzantium brought,
They dropp'd him down a donjeon.

VI.OUT OF THE LIGHT, INTO THE DARK.

Four wet walls:
Round which the newt, his sickly housemate, crawls

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To criticize, and, being abhorr'd, abhor
What men had crown'd, and surnamed Emperor,
And tremblingly admired. A mouldy crust,
Some muddy water, once a day down thrust
Into this putrid pit, still keep aware
The nameless human thing forgotten there
That it is wretched, and alive in spite
Of wretchedness. In nothingness and night
This nothing lives: cast out of Life, flung back
By Death, unpitied. And, to make more black
The blackness that is there to blot it out,
The new-made Emperor beckon'd from the rout
Of smiling and of crawling creatures,—things
That do ill-make, and are ill-made by, kings,
Feeders of infamy, and fed by it,—
One that most smiled, and lowest crawl'd, to fit
His master's humour: unto whom he said
“Our Brother hath two eyes yet in his head,
Worth nothing now to him, worth much to me.
Get them away from him, and thou shalt be
The gainer by his loss.”
This deed was done.
They left him in the dark.

VII.ALEXIUS THE YOUNGER FLIES FROM ALEXIUS THE ELDER.

He hath a son,
This miserable remnant of man's being

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That lives and hath no life,—unseen, unseeing!
God gave him both a brother and a son,
And both men name Alexius. And the one
Is Emperor now, and reigns, where he once reign'd,
In bright Byzance; and drains, as he once drain'd,
In agate cups, from vases crystalline,
Careless, the Chian and the Lesbian wine,
By princes pour'd: for him, the murex dies
In Tyrrhene nets: for him, green Europe vies
With tawny Asia, to extol his state:
For him those twice ten thousand eunuchs wait
In whisperous halls: for him, the Thracian spears
March with the Macedonian mountaineers:
And him men praise.
Meanwhile, the other flees,
Scaped from his clutch, across the great salt seas,
And thanks kind heaven's rough winds that blow so rude
Upon his cheek. Among the multitude,
In seaman's garb, he, gliding secret, found
A Venice galley for Sicilia bound:
And, thence, thro' many lands, for many years,
Wandering in search of succour from his peers,
The exiled Prince draws far in foreign climes
The breath of life; and broods upon the times.

VIII.AND TRIES HIS FORTUNES AND HIS FRIENDS.

But Greatness, God keeps fast upon its throne,

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Is ever prompt full greatly to disown
Greatness by God struck down.
The Pope is wise,
Humane, and just.
The Pope the Prince first plies
With the sad story of his sire's distress.
And ‘Pax vobiscum!’ sighs His Holiness.
“Leonem, Optime, mox conculcabis”
Urges the Prince, “me quoque liberabis
“De laqueo venantium.”
Whereunto
The Pontiff
“Cœlum dedit Domino,
Hominum autem terram filiis.
Schismatics, also, are ye Greeks, I wis.”
And still the Prince
“O Holy Father, stay!
“The Greek shall to the Latin rite give way,
If Latin arms the Grecian throne recover.”

“Another time, my son, we'll talk this over.
Festina lente. Vale!” sighs the Pope,
And waives him off.
He nurses yet his hope
And flees to Germany.

In Germany
Philip is Kaiser; and by craft holds high

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A brow serene above the brawling crowd,
—Fine-balanced on Fate's pinnacle, and proud.
And Kaiser Philip hath, in summers fled,
Irene, sister to Alexius, wed:
And Kaiser Philip doth with deep concern
The fallen fortunes of his kinsman learn:
Concern'd the more, that he just now can spare
Nor men, nor money; since his rival there,
The lynx-eyed Otho, lurking for a spring,
Crouches hard by, and troubles everything.
The times are wild.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross Lords
(Five hundred sail, and thrice ten thousand swords)
In Zara halt, the new Crusade to plan.
And thither wends the Prince.

IX.A GREAT MAN.

Venetian
Dandalo, Doge elect, and Amiral,
And Captain, sits in solemn council hall.
His long beard, lustrous with the spotless snows
Of more than fourscore winters, amply flows
To hide the angry jewel, clasp'd with gold,
That firmly doth his heavy mantle hold.
Cover'd he sits. Above his blind bald brow
The Ducal bonnet (Tintoret shows ye how)

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Glows like a sunset glory on the scalp
Of some sublime and thunder-scathèd alp.
And the furr'd velvets o'er his breastplate fall
In folded masses, as majestical
As honours on the manhood of the man.
Soon may ye tell, if ye his posture scan,
By the grand careless calmness of the way
His mantle laps and hangs, that in the play
Of this world's business he hath ever been
Chief actor, chosen for each foreground scene;
Whence, living is to him a stately thing
Made easy by long wont of governing.
Those deep blind eyes for Venice' sake burn'd out!
Since he, whom Venice fear'd, most fear'd, no doubt,
Those eyes. The firm fine features of that face,
In strength so delicate, so strong in grace!
All those augustest opposites that mix
In some superlative character, to fix
With one strong soul, and grace with one fit frame,
Man's evanescent elements, became
Associate ministers to this man's will.
—The symbols of the valley and the hill:
The storm, the eagle, and the cataract,—
Passions, and powers that passionately act;
The streamlet, and the vineleaf in the sun,—
Graces that gracious influence acts upon;
Meet in the aspect of that bended head.
And the great Lion of St. Mark doth spread

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His mighty wings above the baldachin
That decks the throne; mute mid the trumpet's din,
Claiming his own.
The smooth and spacious floors
Are open-porched. Thro' airy corridors
You mark the marshal'd heralds, station'd calm
About the broad stone platform, bathed in balm
Of blissful weather, and the warm noon-light.
Down the sloped hill, the streeted city white
Hums populous. The sea-breeze, blowing in,
Flutters gay flags in harbours Zaratin;
Heaving on ballustraded ramparts wide,
And at high casements, throng'd and balconied,
Thick streams of many-colour'd silken scarves.
And, all about the warmèd quays and wharves,
The sea is strown with snowy sails, by swarms
Of high-deck'd galleys, from whose prows the arms
Of heroes hang, and low-hull'd palanders.

X.AND SOME NOTABLE MEN.

Meanwhile, among his council-keeping Sers,
The great Doge greets from his unenvied throne
The Barons, striding inwards, one by one,
From that bright background, and the golden noon,
Like banded forms on Byzant frescoes. Soon
The hall is cramm'd. Below the high daïs sit
Peers, princes, prelates, paladins.

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To wit:—
The conqueror of Asti, Boniface,
Marquis of Montferrat; who with his mace
Can brain a bull. When Theöbald, their chief,
Count of Champagne, left Christendom in grief,
Dying untimely, and dispute arose
About the headship, him the Barons chose
(Favour'd by fame, tho' foreign to the Franks)
As Dux and Daysman of the Red Cross Ranks.
Baldwin; whose dreams are of a diadem,
Since last the Turks have tugg'd Jerusalem
From Lusignan; content to wait meanwhile
As Count of Flanders, till his fortunes smile:
Him, also, Hainault's hardy race respect,
Scion of Charlemagne by line direct,
And cousin to the Royalty of France.
Beside him, having broken his last lance
At Bruges, in that great tourney, when the twain
First cross'd their shields, Count Henry, with his train
Of Flanders knights. Sir Guy, the Gascon; grim
Grey, gaunt, as on the Pyrenæan rim
His own three cloudy border castles are,
Held fast for his White Heiress of Navarre,
Daughter of good King Sance, surnamed The Wise,
Blanche with the golden hair and holy eyes.
Whose husband, Theöbald, last year expired
In the fond arms of Friar Fulk, admired
By weeping Barons; but bewail'd the most

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By that stout servant of the Red Cross Host,
Geoffroy of Ville-Hardouïn, Lord of Bar
And Arcis, and the hill-side country far
As Troyes, and both the blossom-bearing banks
Of Aube; Ambassador of all the Franks,
And Marshal of Champagne. Miles, Lord of Brie.
Geoffroy de Joinville. And those Gautiers three
Of Vignory, Montbeliard, and Brienne.
Roger de Marche. Bernard de Somerghen.
William, surnamed The Red; Lord Advocate
Of Arras, Seignieur of Bethune; whose straight
Strong amber locks, like haum, in heaps half smother
His heavy brow. And Conon, his boy-brother.
Renier de Trit. And Jaen, the Castelain
Of Bruges. And Dreux, the Seignieur of Beaurain.
Baldwin of Beauvoir. Anseau de Kaieu.
Huges de Belines. Eustache de Cantelieu.
With shields slung frontwise o'er chain habergeons,
Gautier de Stombe, and Renier de Monz.
Grey Gervais and young Heruë of Castèl,
Jakes of Avesnnes, Bernard of Monstrüel,
Robert of Malvoisin. And Nicolas
De Mailli. Guy de Coucy, he that was
The son of Adela. Those brothers two,
Stephen and Jeffry, offspring of Rotroù,
And Counts of Perche. St. Pol, to prove whose power
His daughter Elzabet had brought in dower
To Chatillon two counties. Mathieu, Lord

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Of Montmorency. Trifling with the sword
He leans on, Piere, the new-made Cardinal
Of Capua; who was the first of all
To take the cross. And he of Trainel, learn'd
Bishop of Troyes, Garniers; who back return'd
Anon from spoil'd Byzance, “with nothing less”
(Quoth Alberic) “to grace his diocess
Than the true scull, from Grecian monks reclaim'd,
Of Philip the Apostle. Near him (named
By Gunther magnæ sanctitatis vir)
Neuelon; “on whom the Pope was pleased confer
Thessalonica's new archbishopric
Some few years afterwards,” writes Alberic;
Bishop, meanwhile, of Soissons; whose grandsire,
Gerard, the Frankish chroniclers admire
As “Castelain of Laon, and noble prince;”
Return'd from Rome, well pleased, a fortnight since
With absolution won from Innocent
For Zara captured, to the discontent
Of those that sought to break the Red Cross ranks,
This prelate sits, requited by the thanks
Of pious souls, in comfortable chat
With those of Bethlehem and Halberstadt,
Receiving praise of Fulk himself; the Monk
Of Neuilly; who, when English Richard shrunk,
And Frankish Philip, from his fierce appeal,
Stirr'd up their Barons to a proper zeal;
The Boänerges of the new crusade;

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A lean sharp-faced enthusiast, with shorn head
And starry eyes,—no hawk's, from Norway brought,
More vivid, or more vigilant,—his thought
So flashes thro' them 'neath his cowl's grey serge.
De Montfort; whom the Pope proclaims “God's scourge,”
Tho' styled “Hell's Hangman” by the Albigeois,
And “Bloody Simon.” Louis, Count of Blois
And Chartre; the crownless kinsman of the kings
Of France and England, whose high humour springs
From blood twice royal. Peter of Courtenày;
Whose sires upon the sons of kings, men say,
Imposed their name and arms, “three torteaux, or,”
Which Godfrey, Bouillon's famous chieftain bore
In Christ's first battle for His sepulchre.

Not the least warlike of these warriors were
Those Bishops four, of Soissons, Bethlehem,
And Halberstadt. In conference with them
That strong-limb'd Legate, loved by Innocent,
And (thanks to skill in arms with learning blent)
Acre's Elect Archbishop, sits beside
Loces' stout Abbot. Ugo, the one-eyed,
The Lord of Forli, leaning on his spear
And whispering to the grey Gonfalonier
O' the Holy See. Pons of Sienna, lord
Of empty coffers and a hungry sword
At all men's service, trusting from the sack
Of pagan towns to take good fortune back.

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John of Brienne; whose daughter Frederic
Made Queen of Naples later; Almeric,
His wife's grandfather, gave him from the grave
Jerusalem, still later; grey-hair'd, brave,
And, tho' untitled, honour'd, him men call
The noblest Christian warrior of them all.
Guy, Abbot of Sernay and Val; anon
Made by the Pope Bishop of Carcasson;
Suspected leader of the malcontents.
Henry of Orm; whose Brabant shield presents
Argent, three chevrons, gules. Roger de Cuick,
Lord only of a little bailiwick.
Garnier of Borland; whose assaults, when Hell
Stirr'd him against the Church, a miracle
Defeated; for the blood of God His Son,
To warn him back, did on the rood down-run,
Seen at St. Goar, of Treves, upon the Rhein;
Sister to Godfried, that of Eppestein
Was Baron (and good Bishop Siegfried's brother)
His mother was; his sister, too, was mother
O' the other Siegfried that of Ratisbon
Was Bishop. Ogier de Sancheron.
Jaen de Friaise. Gautier de Gadonville.
Guillaume de Sains, and Oris of the Isle,
With grey Menasses: and stout-limb'd Machaire
St. Menehould's Lord: and Renaud de Dampière.
Mathieu of Valincourt: and Eudes of Ham:
And Piere of Amiens, call'd The Wolf; whose dam

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Was nameless Madge. Haimon of Pesmes, and Guy;
Eudes of Champlite, and Hugues of Cormory.
Eustache le Marchis, with his helmet on,
And, undisguised, his quilted gamboison,
Fret by no hauberk, half-way to his knee.
Villers, and Aimory of Villerey,
Peter of Braiquel, Eudo of the Vale,
Rochfort, and Ardelliers, and Montmirail.

Pietro Alberti; who, as simple Ser
Of Venice, boasts his power to confer
Titles, he deems less grand because his sire
Help'd Dominic, the Doge, to get back Tyre
(That famous town Agenor built, say some)
From those two former foes of Christendom,
The Egyptian Kailif, and that Soldan damn'd
Who in Damascus kept his dungeons cramm'd
With Christian souls: he fingers his gold chain,
And, with a smile of careless gay disdain,
Folds his patrician robe across his knees.
Less grave, and chatting too much at his ease,
Pataleone Barbo; whose renown,
Scarce older than his senatorial gown,
Folks yet dispute. Francesco Contarini:
And that famed Ser, Thomaso Morosini:
Lorenzo Gradenigo: Giammarìa
Francesco Gritti, famed in Apulìa:
Daniele Gozzi: Jacopo Pisani:

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And Giambattista Ercole Grimani;
Noble Venetians.

Side by side they sit,
Grey faces in grave circle. Could I fit
This rough-edged rhyme-work into finer frames
For their smooth-vowell'd, voluble, sweet names,
No wrong done, no wrench to them, bruise or wound
—As when the torturer to his engine bound
The melting-limb'd deliciousness of some
Dear lady, doom'd to luckless martyrdom,—
Friends, you should know their noblenesses all
Henceforth for ever, and to mind recall
By special name each serious face of them,
Pale, mid its pomp of purple robe and gem,
Forth peering over every fur-trimm'd vest.
Search ye the Golden Volume for the rest,
You whom fate favours, whosoe'er ye be,
With leave, once lavish'd, long denied to me,
To walk, a living man, in Venice' streets,
Where ghost meets ghost, and spirit spirit greets,
Among the doves and bells, and bounteous things
Strewn 'twixt the sky that clings, the sea that clings
To the sweet city,—'twixt gloom, glory, 'twixt
Life, death, in maze inextricably mixt
Of gorgeous labyrinth,

Leaning by the wall,

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Near the great doorway, fair-hair'd, blue-eyed, tall,
Behind St. Pol (who tunes, to pass the time,
Humming unheard, an amorous Norman rhyme
To the slow music of a Latin hymn)
Bussy d'Herboise, the frank French knight, whose trim
And sober surcoat, of no special hue,
Attracts, by seeming to evade, the view.
Ulric of Thun: and Charles of Aquitaine:
Eberhard, count of Traun, and castelain
Of the Imperial fortress of Pavìa:
Giàn the Unnamed; for whom his mother Pia
Forgot to choose a father ere she died,
Being embarrass'd by a choice too wide;
Martin the fighting Abbot; whose priest's gown
Scarce hides the corselet which in Basil town
He bought last month, to join the northern knights
From windy burgs sea-beat on Baltic heights,
Fair-meadow'd manors, and grey castles cold,
'Mid blue Bohemian woods, on windy wold
In the dark Hartz, or Salzburg's mountains bleak.
Henry of Ofterdingen, who the week
Before, came bringing, for his part, indeed,
Only his lute, his lance, his squire, his steed.
Ludwig the Ironhead, of Falkenstein:
Ulric the Hawk; whose mother Adeline
Priests say the Pope will canonize next year:
And Ottoker, men call the Blear-eyed Bear:
The Duke of Styria, leaning on his shield,

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—A milk-white panther-rampant, on a field
Vert: Witikind, Carinthia's Duke, some say
The bastard son of Bilstein's Countess gay,
Who, help'd by some sleek nameless Levantine,
Contrives to keep alive the ducal line.

Only the constellations and the suns
Are call'd by kingly names: the millions
Of lesser lights, in charts celestial,
Are noticed merely by a numeral.
These, but the special stars that strongest flame
In foremost firmament. No need to name
The many more, less noble, or less known,
All known, all noble; all content to own
A greater than their greatest in that great
Grey-headed, blind, old man, who sits sedate
And serious in their midst; the central soul
Of this brute power which he doth all control,
Shaping the many-minded multitude
To oneness; both the worthless and the good,
The weak, the strong. For he is born of those
High seldom spirits that of all earth's shows
Suck out the substance, and make all men's wills
The agents of their own.

XI.LE VALET DE CONSTANTINOPLE.

The trumpet shrills

323

Thrice in the outer porch, with brazen din,
Thrice in the vestibule, and thrice within
The vaulted aisles.
Then, thro' the clanging arch,
The gaunt, red-cross'd, steel-shirted heralds march.
Then silence.
Then, a humming, and a sound
Of metal clink'd upon the marble ground,
And, in between those six that, either side
The column'd entry, gleam in tabards pied,
Bare-headed, with no blazon on his breast,
Comes the discrownèd Heir of all the East,
Alexius Angelus, the last in line
Of those Greek heirs to Christian Constantine,
The Byzant Emperors.

Who seeks for aid
Must show how service sought can be repaid.
Therefore the Prince, as soon as on bent knee
He gave the Doge the Kaiser's letter,—free
To plead his cause before the assembled knights
Of Christendom, and urge his wrongs and rights,
—Pledges himself to pay, upon his crown,
Two hundred thousand marks of silver down:
To join the Egyptian Pilgrims: and make cease
The age-long schism dividing Rome and Greece:
To find and furnish at his proper cost,
For Christendom, and to the Red Cross Host,

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For one whole year, ten thousand mounted men,
Soldier and horse: and, ever after then,
A company of fifty knights,—a Band
Vow'd to the service of the Holy Land.—
“Le Valet de Constantinople,” states
The Frankish Chronicler, whose pen relates
What his eye witness'd, since himself was there,
“Li cuers des genz esmeut, mainte lerme amere
Moult durement plorant.” Thus, with filial tears,
Comment and argument, to lay their fears
And lift their valours,—now, with pour'd appeal
To sacred Justice and the Public Weal,
Now, hinting novel outlets to be won
To teeming Trade,—until the set of sun,
Full passionately pleading, spake the Prince.

XII.A BLIND MAN SEES FAR.

And all this time, Doge Dandalo,—for, since
His sight was saved from surfaces and shows
That grossly intercept the sight of those
Who, seeing many things, see nothing thro',
He with serene, unvext, internal view
Beheld all naked causes and effects
In that clear glass whereon the soul reflects,
Unshaked by Time's distraught and shifting glare,
Events and acts,—while passionately there

325

The Prince stood pleading, saw, as in a trance,
Constructed out of golden circumstance,
The steadfast image of a far off thing
Glorious, and full of wonder . . . .

Clear upspring
Into the deep blue sky the golden spires
That top the milkwhite towers, like windless fires:
O'er garden'd slopes, slant shafts of plumy palm
Lean seaward from hot hillsides breathing balm:
Green, azure, and vermilion, fret with gold,
Blaze the domed roofs in many a globèd fold
Of splendour, set with silver studs and discs:
And, underneath, the solemn obelisks
And sombre cypress stripe with blackest shade
Sea-terraces, by Summer overlaid
With such a lavish sunlight as o'erflows
And drops between thick clusters of wild rose
And clambering spurweed, down the sleepy walls
To the broad base of granite pedestals
That prop the gated ramparts, round about
The wave-girt city; whence flow in and out
The wealth and wonder of the Orient World:
And, high o'er all this populous pomp, unfurl'd
In the sublime dominions of the sun,
And fann'd by floating Bosphorus breezes, won
To waft to Venice each triumphant bark,
The wing'd and warrior Lion of St. Mark!

326

All this he saw beforehand: so foreknew
What last great deed God kept for him to do:
Which, being apprehended, was half done
In his deep soul, though yet divined by none.
So when the Prince had ended, and the Hall
Began to buzz, and those flusht faces all
To turn their glances on the Doge (because
He was the inventor of their wills) no pause
For further thought he needed: but smoothed down
Across his knee one crease of his calm gown,
And answer'd, very quietly, “It is good,”
And rose.

XIII.QUOT HOMINES TOT SENTENTIAE.

But then began that multitude
To murmur. And some said, “The thing is wild,
And not to be endeavour'd.” Others smiled,
Play'd silent with the pomels of their swords,
And sided with the loudest. Many lords
And many princes drew themselves aside,
And, blaming all the rest, with ruffled pride,
Took ship and so departed home again,
Gnawing their beards and hinting high disdain.
So was there great division of men's minds,
And tempest worse than of the waves and winds
When tides are equinoctial. It appears
The priests first took each other by the ears,

327

Arguing if war be lawful, waged as well
On Christian sinner, as on infidel,
Bid text trip text, and learning learning trample.
The unlearnèd laics follow'd their example.
Those Abbots stout of Loces and of Val
With latin curses evangelical
Denounced each other. Borland then took sail,
And left the camp, followed by Montmirail.
Froieville, and Belmont, and Vidame as well,
And with them the boy Henry of Castèl,
Went, swearing on the Holy Gospels Four
To come again, but never came they more;
Nor spared God's wrath the recreant fugitives,
Of whom five hundred Barons lost their lives,
Sunk in one ship, and hundreds more beside,
Slaughter'd by peasants in Sclavonia, died.
And daily still, some brawling baron went,
Clinking his arms and clamouring discontent
Whereon he in his burgs and towers would brood.

The Doge said very quietly “It is good.”

Now, of the remnant of the Red Cross Ranks
The most part were Venetians, the rest Franks.

END OF PART I.

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II. PART II.

“Li bruis fu mult granz par le dedenz, et le message s'en tornent, & vienent à la porte, et montent sur les chevaux. Quant ils furent de fors la porte, ni ot celui ne fust mult liez et ne fu mie granz mervoille, qui il erent mult di grant peril escampé: que mult se tint à pou, que il ne furent tuit mort, & pris.” Geoffroy de Ville-Hardouin, c. 113, p. 86.

I. THE EMPEROR MAKES A PROCLAMATION.

On all the walls and gateways of the town
Of great Byzantium, passing up and down,
Men read this placard:

“IN THE EMPEROR'S NAME,

Great, gracious, just, and clement! let his fame
Endure, whom may God bless and keep! Amen.
People!

It is notorious to all men
That one Alexius, son of Isaac (late
Emperor of the East; whom, by just fate
And the high hand of Heaven dethroned, our grace
And clemency, ill-merited, did place
In safety, suffering him to live) hath stirr'd
By treasonable act and traitrous word

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Against our state a barbarous armament
Of Latins, chiefly out of Venice sent
And France; pretexting in the misused name
Of Christendom, by them deceived, the same
High cause which our own arms have heretofore
Not slightly served, in famous fields of yore.
Now therefore, having call'd about our throne
Our loyal liegemen, we to all make known
That we have set our price upon the head
(Six, if alive, three thousand, byzants, dead)
Of this Alexius Angelus, self-styled
Prince and Augustus, falsely, since exiled
And forfeit of his life, and titles all.
By order of our Lord Imperial and Paramount, his servant
Muzufer.”

And after this, the city was astir
With rumours; and, from ramparts, wharves, and streets
Wild whisperers watch'd the coming of the fleets.

II. AND RECEIVES THE AMBASSADORS.

When the Ambassadors of Venice, France,
And the Allied Crusade, bearing the lance
And lion of St. Mark, the gonfalon
O' the Holy See, the sword, and habergeon,

330

And mace of Charlemagne, with heralds came,
Before the Emperor, and the amber flame
Of the great Oriental sunlight flow'd
Thro' the long-galleried hall, and hotly glow'd
About the pillar'd walls with purple bright,
They were at first as men whom too much light
Staggers, and blinds; so much the inopinate
Magnificence and splendour of his state
Amazed them.

At the Emperor's right hand,
Tracing upon the floor with snaky wand
Strange shapes, was standing his astrologer
And mystic, Ishmael the son of Shur,
A swarthy, lean, and melancholy man,
With eyes in caverns, an Arabian.
Who seem'd to notice nothing, save his own
Strange writing on the floor before the throne.
At the Emperor's feet, half-naked, and half-robed
With rivulets of emeroldes, that throbb'd
Green fire as her rich breathings billow'd all
Their thrill'd and glittering drops, crouch'd Jezraäl,
The fair Egyptian, with strange-colour'd eyes
Full of fierce change and somnolent surprise.
She, with upslanted shoulder leaning couch'd
On one smooth elbow, sphynx-like, calm, and crouch'd,
Tho' motionless, yet seem'd to move,—its slim
Fine slope so glidingly each glossy limb

331

Curv'd on the marble, melting out and in
Her gemmy tunic, downward to her thin
Clear ankles, ankleted with dull pale gold.
Thick gushing thro' a jewell'd hoop, down roll'd,
All round her, rivers of dark slumbrous hair,
Sweeping her burnisht breast, sharp-slanted, bare,
And sallow shoulder. This was the last slave
The Emperor loved. No sea-nymph in a cave
Ever more indolently dreaming lay,
Lull'd by low surges, on a summer's day.
The midnight theft of some Bohemian witch,
Stol'n from a Moslem mother, when the rich
Turk camps in Carmel fled before the cross
That lured the remnant left by Barbaross
To Suabia's Duke, was Jezraäl. Four black dwarves
Like toads, green-turban'd, and in scarlet scarves,
The four familiars of the fair witch-queen,
With fans of ostrich feathers, dipt in sheen
Arabian dyes and redden'd at the rims,
Stood round her, winnowing cool her coilèd limbs.
And, behind these, on either side the throne,
Stand two tame jackals to Apollyon:
One, in his right, across his shoulder props
An axe, and from his left a loose cord drops,
And he is nameless, and his trade is death.
The other, whose silk vest flows loose beneath
The small enamell'd dagger at his hip,
Smiles, with a restless finger at the lip;

332

Sleek, subtle, beauteous, bloodless minister
Of evil; and men call him Muzufer;
And when he smiles the people are afraid,
And hide themselves. And smiling is his trade.

The Ambassadors of the Red-cross'd Allies
Spake to the Emperor upon this wise,
“The supreme Pontiff of the Holy See
Of Rome, in concert with the sovereign, free
Republic of St. Mark, the Chevisance,
And gentlemen of Germany and France
In arms,—by us, Charles, Count of Aquitaine,
Eberhard, lord of Traun, and Castelain
Of the Imperial fortress of Pavìa,
Lorenzo Gradenigo, Giammarìa
Francisco Gritti, Jacopo Pisani,
And Giambattista Ercole Grimani,
Noble Venetians,—to Alexius, styled
And titled, falsely, Emperor, who despoil'd
His brother of the purple and high place
Of power, to him allotted by God's grace:
—Render to Cæsar what is Cæsar's own,
And unto God good deeds: restore the throne,
By thee usurp'd with sacrilegious sword,
To Isaac, thine hereditary lord
And master: and so live, forgiven of men
And God. But if thou dost not this, know then
Thou art accurst, and anathematised.”

333

The Egyptian lifted her large eyes, surprised,
And laugh'd. The scarlet-clad huge-handed man
That stood behind, with axe and cord, began,
Under a snarling lip, to gnash white teeth.
The other monster half out of its sheath
Lifted his dagger, with the self-same smile
Wherewith he had been listening all this while.
The Emperor glanced at Jezraäl, and said,
“Yon young French Envoy hath a comely head.
Answer him, girl.”

The glittering witch leap'd up
With a shrill laugh, and seized a golden cup,
And shook her sparkling tunic to green flame,
And, hand on haunch, made answer
“In the name
Of Satan, and the Powers that be! Who saith
To Life ‘Live not: give up thy place to Death?’
Who calleth to the Sun ‘Come down: make way
For Darkness?’ Who demandeth of the Day
To give his golden palace to the Night?
Life answers ‘Fool! I live.’ And, saith the Light,
‘Thou fool! I shine.’ Who cannot keep his throne
May lose it: whiles he hath it, 'tis his own.
And, were I Emperor, I would answer ‘Lo!
Upon all hills that rise, all waves that flow,
And on the lives and souls of men, is cast
The shadow of my purple. Heaven is vast,

334

And Hell is deep. And God, if God there be,
Doth hide Himself, to leave this world to me.
Mankind is my tame dog; and, knowing it,
Fawns on me; on whose collar there is writ
Sum Cæsaris. The world is but a wheel
That draws my chariot. I hold fast my heel
Upon the neck of my cringed vassal, Time.
Fear is my slave: my household creature, Crime.
The Lords of Hell are my retainers. When
I frown or smile, all Valour dies in men,
Virtue in women: men and women are mine,
Body and soul: their blood is in my wine,
The lion croucheth on my palace floors:
And Life and Death are suppliants in my doors.
The bolted thunder hangeth on my walls,
And, lo ye, when I nod the thunder falls!’”

“The thunder hangeth in the hand of God,”
Lorenzo cried; “and falleth at His nod.
See ye, from yonder golden pole, that props
The baldachin his burnisht barb o'ertops,
The many-coloured silken streamers fall?
The same hand, from the same silk, fashion'd all,
Nor hath the stuff with purple tinct imprest
Essential value more than all the rest.
Great Cæsar with his fortunes to admit
Death opes his doors no wider by a whit
Than for the beggar buried in a ditch.

335

The dust is brother to the dust. Seeing which,
And that alone the actions of the just
Are lords forever, and defy the dust,
Repent! spread sackcloth on thy former sin.
For, by the Living Lord that listeneth in
The everlasting silences on high,
I swear—beneath the patience of the sky,
Beneath yon gorgeous canopy, beneath
Yon golden roof, tho' incensed by the breath
Of prostituted slaves like this, and throned
In pomp, and girt with power, and crown'd, and zoned
With the imperial purple of the East,
Alexius is a miscreant, and a beast.
And God shall say to him, as to that other
Whom he resembles, ‘Cain, where is thy brother?’
But thou, dread degradation of the form
Of woman,—what art thou, strange glittering worm?
What public mother, to what sire unknown,
Spawn'd thee, shamed creature of a shameless throne,
That dost with insult answer Christendom?”

The Egyptian sprang, then stood death-white. A hum
As of a hornet's nest, all round the hall,
Responded to her gesture, augural
Of wrath. She stood, a sorceress brewing storm:
The jewels crackled on her stiffening form:
Her wild unholy eyes flash'd hate: the breath,
Drawn sharply in, hiss'd thro' her sparkling teeth

336

Close clench'd. But her rude lord, with laughter rough,
Waved to her a careless hand, and call'd ‘Enough!
Crouch.’ And she crouch'd: then, like a beaten child,
Whimper'd upon the marble. Drily smiled
The Emperor; and to Muzufer he said,
“The old Venice Envoy hath a reverend head
Answer thou him.” But he, “Great Lord, I have
Not any knowledge nor experience, save
(What much, I doubt, delights not these grave Sers)
A little, of the various characters
Of wines and women. Nor indeed have I
Enough of latinised theology
To answer, text for text, this reverend man.”

The Emperor laugh'd. “Speak thou, Arabian,
That knowest all things.” Then the Arab said

“Nebuchadnezzar reign'd: and he is dead.
When Babylon was mistress of the world,
He was the lord of Babylon. Death furl'd
His face in dark: and him the world forgot.
Greek Alexander reign'd: his bones do rot.
This little earth was smaller than his state,
He held it in his hand. Men call'd him Great.
At last God blew his life out like a spark,
And he became a darkness in the dark.

337

To Alaric the eagle gave his wing,
His claw the lion, and the snake her sting.
His clarions, blown upon the seven hill tops,
Shook the round globe. Grasses the wild goat crops
Grow over him. A little sickness made
Of all he was nothing but dust and shade.
Attila reign'd. The strong Huns worship'd him.
All mankind fear'd him. He was great and grim.
Rome grovell'd at his feet. One night he ceased.
The worms upon his flesh have held high feast.
Behind the hosts of suns and stars, behind
The rushing of the chariots of the wind,
Behind all noises and all shapes of things,
And men, and deeds, behind the blaze of kings
Princes and paladins and potentates,
An immense solitary Spectre waits.
It has no shape: it has no sound: it has
No place: it has not time: it is, and was,
And will be: it is never more, nor less,
Nor glad, nor sad. Its name is Nothingness.
Power walketh high: and Misery doth crawl:
And the clepsydra drips: and the sands fall
Down in the hourglass: and the shadows sweep
Around the dial: and men wake, and sleep,
Live, strive, regret, forget, and love, and hate,
And know it not. This spectre saith, ‘I wait.’
And at the last it beckons, and they pass.
And still the red sands fall within the glass:

338

And still the shades around the dial sweep:
And still the water-clock doth drip and weep:
And this is all.”

“Yea,” said the Emperor, “then
If thus it fare with the world's mighty men,
And there be no more greatness in the dust,
How fares it with the men the world calls just,
Who lived not for the body but the mind,
Augustin, Plato, Socrates?”

“Behind
The mingled multitude of mortal deeds
Call'd good or ill, behind all codes and creeds,
All terrors, all desires, all hopes, all fears,
Behind all laughter, and behind all tears,”
The Arabian said, “this shapeless Spectre waits.
And no man knoweth what it meditates.”

Frowning, he turn'd, and fashion'd as before,
With snaky wand, upon the porphyry floor
Strange figures, cube, and pentagram, and sphere.
The Emperor mused; then murmur'd in the ear
Of Muzufer some word whereto replied
That minister “Let your Majesty decide.
Yet I have heard what Emperors decree
Heaven doth approve; whereby it seems to me

339

This maxim may be broadly understood,
That for the good o' the state all means are good.”

Thereat the Emperor rose; and from his face
Suddenly all its smiling ceased,—gave place
Forthwith to hate too deadly for disguise;
As when thro' sultry, seeming-empty skies
Suddenly rushes, wrapt in glare and gloom,
The blood-red darkness of the strong simoom.
With lips that labour'd 'neath the weight and strain
Of wrath, he cried
“You—Sir of Acquitane,
You—Sir of Traun—whose title we ignore,
Whose master styles himself an Emperor,
And is . . . . a puny Suabian Duke! You,—all,
Of Venice—whose nobility we call,
Like its new banner and filch'd patron both,
Of doubtful origin, and upstart growth!
This is our answer to your host, and you:
—Come ye as peaceful pilgrims, to pursue
A pious journey to Jerusalem?
Then, nor your course we check, nor zeal condemn;
Then, market free, and passage fair, expect;
Our wealth shall aid you, and our power protect.
But come ye here, in hostile arms array'd,
The sanctuary of Empire to invade?
Then,—mark me! as I live . . . . as I that speak
Am Emperor both of Roman and of Greek,

340

(Mark me!) I swear—and swear it by the line
Of God-like Cæsars all since Constantine,
—Your myriads, were they ten times what they be,
Our scorn shall sweep from land, and sweep from sea,
As easily as yon light fan could sweep
A swarm of midges from the unvext sleep
Of our dark-eyelash'd leman. And, in pledge
Of power to smite,—not less than we allege,
Our answer prompt to your barbarian crew
Shall be your heads . . . . the head of each of you!
Yours—Sir of Acquitaine! yours—Sir of Traun!
Fresh trophies for each gate of yonder town!
And yours—Venetian! . . . . yours! and yours! and yours!
Ho, in the gallery, there! Bar all the doors.
No foot budge hence till we be satisfied!”

“Disloyal lord! . . . . Enough!” Lorenzo cried.
“For us,—our response shall, in thunder-falls,
Be heard anon round yonder doomèd walls,
And rain'd in blood—less innocent than ours,
Ay, and less pure!—round yonder traitrous towers.
For thee,—mock emperor, true barbarian!
Whose image, stamp'd in the alloy of man,
Sullies the wealth that buys obedience base
To Treason trembling on a throne,—disgrace
Would be grace wasted. But hark . . . . ye, his slaves!

341

Who falls on us must fall on iron staves.
'Ware, the first traitor here, that lifts his hand!
Christ and His cause about this banner stand.
For every hair upon our heads, a host
In arms, for Justice wrong'd, shall claim the cost.
'Ware, the first slave that stands across our path
To yonder door! This wingèd lion hath
—(For God, the giver of all strength to men,
Shall smite the smiter now, Who smote him then)
The self-same strength between the wings of him
That once, between the wingèd Cherubim,
In Ashdod smote usurping Dagon down,
And shatter'd in the dust his idol crown,
Before the captived but triumphant Ark.
Now,—God defend the Right, and good St. Mark!”

Forthwith outfurl'd, in resonant circle shone
Round those eight knights the rustling gonfalon.
And, thro' a hundred hands with hired swords
To murder purchased, march'd the Red Cross Lords
Majestic, unmolested, down the hall,
Strode thro' the startled Guards Imperial,
And from the treacherous threshold pass'd in scorn.
Alexius, with white lips, and garment torn,
Scream'd “Cowards! slaves! Is Cæsar disobey'd?
Traitors! a hundred byzants for each head
Of those eight churls! Up, bloodhounds! or the whip
Shall mend the mongrel valour that lets slip

342

An Emperor's quarry!”
But the Eight meanwhile,
Spurring full speed, had pass'd the embattled pile
Of the great gate. Foil'd, as they forward sprang,
Down in the gap the shrill portcullis rang.

END OF PART II.

END OF VOL. I.

III. VOL. II. BOOK VI. (Continued.)
3

THE SIEGE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.

PART III.

“ων μεν γαρ χειρας απετεμεν, ων δε δακτυλους ως αμπελων περιεκειρε κλαδους, τινων δε ποδας αφηπηκε, πολλοι δε χειρων και οφθαλμων υπεστησαν στερησιν. ησαν δ'οι και οφθαλμον δεξιον και ποδα ευωνυμον εζημιωντο, και αι τουναντιον επιπονθεισαν ετεροι.”— Nicetas, Chon. de And. Comn. lib. i. 374.

I.HOW THE EMPEROR PICKED UP WHAT THE DEVIL LET FALL.

Thereafter, met for mischief and debate
Morose, within a certain intricate
Small chamber, plann'd for plotting, with slant glooms
In glooms, beyond a maze of banquet rooms,
Muzufer and his liege lord up and down
Were pacing leopard-like. Meanwhile, the town
Mutter'd outside the porphyry porches all
Like souls perturb'd in Purgatorial
Abysses paced by lamentable throngs;
As to and fro i' the streets with surly songs
Among his myrmidons the headsman strode,
Beckoning in turn from each condemn'd abode
(So to appease the Emperor's discontent
Of his own creatures for that morn's event)
Some terror-stricken wretch whose mangled limb,
—Lopp'd foot or hand,—must serve ere dark to trim

Arch, column, obelisk, and cornice, where
Already sallow-visaged slaves prepare
The midnight banquet, o'er great gardens gay
With placid statues, and the luminous play
Of perfumed waters, leaping pure upon
Lipp'd lavers large of black obsidian
Or alabaster fill'd with filmy light.
For 'mid his Court the Emperor sups to-night.
And in that chamber dim where these debate,
O'er the low bronzen door elaborate,
Some old Greek sculptor (dead an age ago
Ere Pisa yet brought forth her wondrous Two,
For Florence' sake, and all the world's, to impart
New sweetness to his barbarous Christian art)
Had wrought in monstrous imagery, bold,
Uncouth, and drear despite of paint and gold,
Christ tempted of the Devil upon the Mount:
Varying the tale the Evangelists recount
After the manner of the artist's mind.
Colossal forms! the Saviour of mankind,
And Tempter,—not alluring he, but grim
As the grim Middle Age imagined him;
Satan; that ancient hodman of the souls
That God forgets; in corners, dens, and holes
Where'er Sin squats, taking what he can find,
He rakes earth's offal for that hod behind
His hateful back; God's scavenger is he;
Who here, with obscene gesture coarse and free,

Hell's twy-prong in his claw-bunch-fingers clutch'd,
Picks from the rubbish at his shoulder hutch'd,
And proffers to the Son of Man, a crown.

Now, while these two were pacing up and down
In moody talk, and Muzufer began
To praise and pity much that day's marr'd plan,
As being shrewdly plotted,—righteous, too,
If rightly look'd at . . . . “For, Sir Emperor, who
Disputes the right of Christian Emperors
To slay the infidel ambassadors
Of Moslem monarchs, that by nature stand
Outside the law of every Christian land?
Yet Christians that, unchristianly, oppose
Your Christian Majesty, are, certes, foes
More formidable, therefore worse by far,
Than merely Ottoman and Moslem are.
Meanwhile, they have escaped us. We have fail'd.
Which is a pity. Fifty slaves impaled
Will poorly, poorly at the best, replace
Those eight Frank heads which we had hoped should grace
This evening's banquet. For altho' we preach
Thereby a wholesome homily to each
Incipient traitor, and altho', indeed,
These cravens merit death, methinks you feed
On your own limbs thus—prey on your own power,
Devour'd the more, the more that you devour.”

—He speaking thus, against the bronzen door
Alexius struck his fist fierce-clench'd, and swore
An angry oath that neither Heaven nor Hell
Should mar that evening's merriment.

Then there fell
With clink and clatter, by that blow shaked down,
Out of the Devil's claw the Devil's crown
Striking the Emperor's foot.

The two stood still,
And stared upon each other.

“Omen ill!”
Mused Muzufer. “Hell's Monarch's clutch is not
So sure but it lets go what it hath got.”
Alexius, laughing, answer'd quick “Not so.
Nor is it the first time I have stoop'd as low
To get,—nor, gotten, thank'd the Devil for
This glittering hoop.” And “Ay, Sir Emperor!”
With mimic mirth laugh'd Muzufer. Within
His dusky niche a sympathetic grin
The wrinkled visage of the Father Fiend
Emitted, till his coarse brows seem'd thick-vein'd,
And dull eye seem'd to wink with dismal glee.
So all together laugh'd that Wicked Three,
While Day, to reach the West's red innermost
With lurid foot the lucid pavement crost.

Then at the casement Muzufer cried “Hark!
The butchery has begun before 'tis dark.
One . . two . . three . . four . . five wretches? how they twist
On those spiked staves! Sure, that's a woman's wrist
And hand there, with the fluttering fingers? Phew!
We must not sup to windward of this stew,
Or you will find the hippocrass smell strong.
Burn, burn benzoin! How heavily hums along
Yon beetle, caring nothing for it all,
—Fool, and it sets me talking!”

“The shades fall
Fast,” cried Alexius. “Come! the Banquet waits.”

II.GAVE AWAY WHAT HE NO LONGER POSSESSED.

And while he spake, Byzantium's golden gates
From silver clarions to the setting sun
Breathed farewells musical; and, Day being done,
Night enter'd swift to meet the Sons of Night.

Not black however, but in blaze of light
Luxurious.

Gardens. Galleries. Walls o'erlaid
With marvellous, many-colour'd marbles, made

By multitudes of fragrant flames, that pant
From flashing silver lampads, fulgurant:
Cornelian, agate, jasper, Istrian stone
And Canan mix'd, to shame the glories gone
From Roman streets since first Mamurra had
His own housewalls with milkwhite marble clad.
And down deep lengths of glowing colonades
The dim lamps twinkle soft thro' slumbrous shades
Around rich-foliaged frieze, and capitals
Of columns opening into halls and halls
Warm with sweet air, and wondrous colour roll'd
From rare mosaics—azure dasht with gold;
'Neath domes of purple populous with star
On star of silver, coved o'er circular
Vermiculated pavements interlaid
With wreaths of flowers and intricatest braid
Of delicate device, about the base
Of granite basins broad, which all the race
Of sea-gods and sea-horses linger round,
In love for ever with the long cool sound
Of lucent waters that low-laughing fall
And fall from pedestal to pedestal
Among those curling nymphs and tritons bold
That bridle restive dolphins rein'd with gold.
Beyond, 'twixt pillar'd range and statued plinth,
The lustrous maze of marble labyrinth
Unfolds; and, disentangling from itself
Its luminous spaces, spreads into a shelf

Of shining floorage carpeted with deep
Thick-tufted crimsons, soft as summer sleep
Under the footsteps of delicious dreams.
O'er which, thro' dark arcades, steal airy gleams
And sumptuous odours, and melifluous waves
Of music that with swimming languor laves
Dim gardens green and deep, and flowery plots
Where minstrels strike their golden angelots,
And sing—now, Cæsar's splendour, Cæsar's state,
That doth Olympian glories emulate,
—And now, lascivious songs, the wanton loves
Of Mars and Venus,—till the lemon groves
Are loud with lyric rapture.

Piled and built
On glowing tables, garlanded and gilt,
Of Mauritanian tree, the Banquet shines,
—Bright-beaming vessels brimm'd with costly wines,
And savorous fruits on golden salvers heap'd,
And smoking meats in misty spices steep'd—
All round the terraced porch. In plenitude
Of power, here, midmost of his multitude
Of Greek Patricians robed in purple pomp
Alexius sits. Meanwhile the bronzen tromp,
Blown from dim-gaping galleries far behind,
Strives, with the clang of sudden cymbals join'd,
To crush all feebler sound out of each dull
Low wail, or intense shriek, that in the lull

Of that loud music ever and anon
Some wind, from outer darkness pour'd upon
The palace thresholds, pulsing passionate,
Contrives to filter thro' the golden grate.

Along a brilliant frieze of burnish'd wall
That beams behind the throne Imperial,
In rangèd groups emboss'd and painted, blaze
Byzantine sculptures that perpetuate praise
Of Trajan's Justice, and the Sages Seven
Of Antique Greece: between whose tablets driven
Great cedarn beams, that prop the deep pavilion,
Drop cataracts down of silken streams vermilion.
Beneath, in bronze, Alcides with his club,
And that she-wolf that had for sucking cub
Rome's founder. But before the Emperor gleam
High argent censers, whence thick odours stream
From left to right in vast voluptuous clouds
Of incense that with floating mist enshrouds
His glory like a God's. And by his side
At his left hand, dark-hair'd delicious-eyed
Egyptian Jesraäl leans. Around her twine
The curling odours, and the fragrant wine
Is lucent on her humid lip: and he,
Beneath the loaded board, with amorous knee
Frets her lascivious tunic's light-spun folds,
And in hot palm her languid finger holds.
Anon, with heated eyes, turning from her

(All glitter and all glare) to Muzufer
(All gravity, all gloom) that sits meanwhile
On his lord's right,—forgetting even to smile
So much his mind is busy at the task
Of plotting how to slip from life's main masque
Silently, unperceived, by some side-way
Into safe darkness, ere God's Judgment lay
Pride's revel all in ruins . . . for he read
Strange writing on the walls,—Alexius said
“What wise and weighty matter is astir
Behind those knitted brows?”

Then Muzufer,
Like one surprised without his armour on,
Caught up his smile in haste, and answer'd “None,
Great Master, weigh more anxiously than I
The mighty interests of Your Majesty;
Whose greatness needs must oft oppress the brain
Compell'd its utmost faculty to strain
In contemplating the august extent
Of power that doth, as doth heaven's firmament,
Invest the world with glory. Who oppose
Your Majesty, oppose mankind, which owes
From realms unnumber'd homage to your rule.
Who doubts this is a miscreant and a fool:
Whoe'er Your Majesty's most sacred, high,
And solemn rights dare question or deny
Is a vile traitor and an arrant knave:

But they that now in arms presume to brave
Your power supreme are sinners more accurst
Than any, save (if such there be) that worst
Of wicked men that, being Grecian born,
This barbarous rabble doth not loathe and scorn
More than Turk, Jew, or Saracenic scum
Of nameless nations scorn'd by Christendom.
If such there be, were he my father's son,
Myself would hold, to hang that caitiff on,
No gibbet high enough. My thoughts are these.”

“Paul's body!” quoth Alexius, “well they please
Our passing humour. Wherefore we assign
Hereby, from this time forth to thee and thine
In title principal, and lordship free,
Our palace of Chalcedon by the Sea.”

And while he spake thus, echoed by the shout
“Long live Alexius!” from the gates without
Hoarse hubbub stream'd, and up the revelling hall,
Bearing the banner'd bird imperial,
A legionary captain, pale with fear,
Made way towards the throne.

To whom “What cheer?”
With husky wine-quench'd voice the Emperor cried,
And to the Emperor, rueful, he replied
“Ill cheer, Sir Emperor! The Latin Host

Hath fall'n upon Chalcedon. We have lost
Many brave men, and one fair palace you.”
“Pish!” cried the Emperor. “The Franks are few.
What's lost to-night may be to-morrow won,
Palaces be there many a fairer one
For us to feast in, you to fight for, still.
Begone!”

III.WHAT WAS SHOWN TO THEOCRITE, THE MONK.

So feasted they. No bird of ill
With boding note around the rooftree croak'd,
Nor bearded star the mason'd turrets stroked,
Nor howl'd the hoarse wolf near the revelling town.
Only, that night a marvellous thing was shown
To Theocrite the Monk, when he in prayer,
After long fast went forth to breathe the air
What time the air was stillest. For to him
Appear'd in heaven, above the city dim,
The helmeted Arch-Angel of high God,
That in his right hand held a measuring rod,
Stretch'd over all the East. To whom God gave
Command to measure out a mighty grave
Wherein to bury and hide from human eye
The body of a world about to die.
This thing in vision at the mid of night,
'Twixt heaven and earth, was shown to Theocrite.

END OF PART III.

PART IV.

“Ω πολις πολις, πολεων πασων οφθαλμε, ακουσμα παγκοσμιον, θεαμα υπερκοσμιον, εκκλησιων γαλουχε, πιστεως αρχηγε, ορθοδοξιας ποδηγε, λογων μελημα, καλου παντος ενδιαιτημα! ω η εκ χειρος κυριου το του θυμου πιουσα ποτηριον, ω η γενομενη πυρος μεπις πολλω δραστικωτερου του καταιβασιου καλαι πυρος πενταπολεως, τι μαρτυρησω σοι;”— Nicetas. Alexius Ducas, p. 763. c. 5.

I.JUSTICE

“Te lucis ante terminum” . . . . and lo,
One half of heaven is wrapt in rosy glow!
“Rerum creator poscimus” . . . . the hymn
Sweet-heaving swells o'er solemn air and dim.
Sunset. A few large stars. The sea-wind vents
Among the narrow-streeted silken tents,
From Chalcedonian palace chambers calm,
The lofty, pure, sonorous Latin psalm
Forth-pour'd by sworded priests athwart the tramp
And hoarse buzz humming deep from camp to camp
Of those six battles, ranged and banner'd all
Under the Counts of Flanders, of St. Paul,
Of Montmorency, of Blois, and Montferrat
Who, with his Lombards, holds the rear, stretch'd flat
Behind the city, lengthening many a mile
Into the midnight toward St. Stephen's pile.—

And all athwart this rustling region far
Buzz'd over by the sounding wings of War
(That frets and flutters, bound in brazen chain,
And breasts his iron cage) from brain to brain
One passionate purpose seethes.

For now those eight
Ambassadors, return'd, with wrath relate
In clamorous conclave their scorn'd embassage:
Whose high compeers consult how best to wage
Now-imminent conflict with self-confident Crime,
And wield the weighty instrument of Time,
Ready to smite.

So, after lowly prayer,
Each Knight upon his naked sword doth swear
A solemn oath to see dread justice done,
And rouse the slumbering war at rise of sun.
Therefore, all night, the humming tents about,
By twos and threes conversing, in and out
'Twixt mighty mangonel, and wheelèd tower
Arm'd with spring-shoulder'd arbalists of power,
The great chiefs stride indignant.

II.ARMED

At sunrise
The six-times-folded Battle, serpent-wise,

Slid past Blachernæ, and with steely fold
At sunset wrapt grey Boemond's castle hold.
There, by long labouring in the dark, was made
All round the camps deep trench and palisade;
'Gainst which the war for many a night and day
Flared, rock'd, and roar'd.

Full hard it were to say
What multitudes of mighty deeds were done,
Since first Lascaris by the Bourgignon
Was captived, till the Danish curtle axe
Dropp'd on the walls, before those fierce attacks
Which, all unarm'd, Eustache Le Marchis led,
Only an iron cap upon his head.

III.BY SEA AND LAND

Meanwhile, at sea, the white Fleet, following,
Hover'd hard by; and crept with cautious wing
Under the wave-girt city; planting there
A formidable grove.

Not anywhere
Thro' seas and skies were ever sail'd or row'd
Ships huge as these. The Paradiso proud,
Like a broad mountain, monarch of the morn,
By the mad clutch of tumbling Titans torn
Down from the windy ruins of the sky,
With Jove's chained thunders throbbing silently

In his strong pines, adown the displaced deep
Shoulders the Pelegrino,—half asleep,
With wavy fins each side a scarlet breast
Slanted. Hard by, more huge than all the rest,
—Air's highest, water's deepest, denizen,
A citadel of ocean, throng'd with men
That tramp in silk and steel round battlements
Of windy wooden streets, mid terrced tents
And turrets, under shoals of sails unfurl'd,
—That vaunting monster, Venice calls “The World.”

And now is pass'd each purple promontory
Of Sestos and Abydos, famed in story,
And now all round the deep blue bay uprise
Into the deep blue air, o'er galleries
Of marble, marble galleries; and lids
O'er lids of shining streets; dusk pyramids
O'er pyramids; and temple walls o'er walls
Of glowing gardens, whence white sunlight falls
From sleepy palm to palm; and palace tops
O'ertopp'd by palaces. Nought ever stops
The struggling Glory, from the time he leaves
His myrtle-muffled base, and higher heaves
His mountain march from golden-grated bower
To bronzen-gated wall,—and on, from tower
To tower,—until at last deliciously
All melts in azure summer and sweet sky.

Then, after anthem sung, sonorous all
The bronzen trumpets to the trumpets call;
Sounding across the sea from bark to bark,
Where floats the wingèd Lion of St. Mark,
The mighty signal for assault.

A shout
Shakes heaven. And swift from underneath upspout
Thick showers of hissing arrows that down-rain
Their rattling drops upon the walls, and stain
The blood-streak'd bay. The floating forest groans,
And creaks, and reels, and cracks. The rampart-stones
Clatter and shriek beneath the driven darts.
And on the shores, and at the gates, upstarts,
One after one, each misshaped monster fell
Of creaking ram, and cumbrous mangonel,
Great stones, down-jumping, chop, and split, and crush
The rocking towers; wherefrom the spearmen rush.
The morning star of battle, marshalling all
That movement massive and majestical,
Gay through the tumult which it guides doth go
The grand grey head of gallant Dandalo.
With what a full heart following that fine head,
—Thine, noble Venice by thy noblest led!
In his blithe-dancing turret o'er the sea,
Glad as the grey sea-eagle, hovers he
Thro' sails in flocks and masts in avenues.

Elsewhere, the inland battle, broken, strews

With flying horse the hollows; while but ill
The heavy-harness'd Frankish Knighthood still
Strains, staggering as each Flanders stallion falls,
In the rear region, round the city walls,
Against those silken turms and squadrons light,
That follow and fly, scatter and reunite,
Tormenting their full-bulk'd too-cumbrous foe;
Like swarms of golden bees that come and go
About the bear whose paw is on their hive
Patient and pertinacious, tho' they drive
Their stings into his eyes, settle and swarm,
Disperse and close again, to do him harm,
Unharm'd. For there in splendour eminent
Is pitch'd the purple-topt Imperial tent,
And domes of crimson glow i' the azure sky,
Girt by Byzantium's gorgeous chivalry.

So to the kindling of the Even Star
The groaning-hearted battle greatens.

IV.IS TRIUMPHANT.

Far
And near the strong siege tugs by sea and land
The storm-struck city,—hugg'd on either hand
By heavy ruin—till from mast to wall,
From sea to shore, the high drawbridges fall,
And in mid-air the arm'd men march, and drop

On battlemented roof and turret top.
The deadly Greek fire dips, and drips, and crawls,
And twists, and runs about the ruining walls,
And all is blaze and blackness, glare and gloom.
Pietro Alberti, the Venetian, whom
His sword lights, shining naked 'twixt his teeth
Sharp-gripp'd, thro' rushing arrows, wrapt with death,
Leaps from his ship into the waves: now stands
On the soak'd shore: now climbs with bleeding hands
And knees the wall: now left, now right, swift, bright,
Wild weapons round him whirl and sing: now right,
Now left, he smites, fights, shakes, breaks, all things down.

The Standard of St. Mark is on the town!

André d' Herboise, the gallant gay French knight,
Fast following him, hath gain'd the other height.
Prompt as a plunging meteor, that strikes straight
And instantaneous thro' the intricate
Thick-crowded stars its keen aim, flitting thro'
The choked breach, flashes dauntless Dandalo.
In rush the rest. In clattering cataract
The invading host rolls down. Disrupt, distract,
The invaded break and fly. The great church bells
Toll madly, and the battering mangonels
Bellow. The priests in long procession plant
The cross before them, passing suppliant

To meet the marching conquest. With fierce cries
Against the throne the rabble people rise,
And slaves cast off their fetters, and set free
Their hidden hates. For aye the craven knee
That meekest crooks, adoring present power,
Before the little idol of the hour,
Is cousin to the craven hand that smites
Most fiercely down the image it delights
To insult and shame when greater gods wax wroth.

V.SICUT FUMUS.

Now, therefore, when Alexius saw that both
The creatures and destroyers of his power
Were on him, to his soul he said—“The Hour
Is mine no more. Soul, we have lived our day.”
Then, waiting for the night, he fled away
Into the night. Night took him by the hand
And led him silently into the land
Of darkness. Darkness o'er his forehead cast
Her mighty mantle, murmuring “Mine, at last!”

In the great audience chamber at Byzance
A Latin soldier, leaning on his lance
Fatigued with slaughter, on the marble ground
Blood-bathed an empty purple garment found.
And then, for the first time, immersed in thought,

The Latin soldier mutter'd “I have fought
Against an Emperor!”

Jewels in her head
And serpents in her hand,—smiling, and dead,
And beautiful in death,—each glorious globe
(Loosed from the glittering murrey satin robe)
Of her upturn'd defiant bosom, bare
Save for the few looks of delicious hair
That swept them—saved by scornful death from scorn—
Only the beauty left of her—at morn
They found the Egyptian Jezraäl.

So fades
Star after star along the cypress glades,
Face after face from the rose-bowers: so song
After song dies the lonesome lawns along.
Each to his time! The revel and the rout
Lamp after lamp, mask after mask, go out;
Still for new singers the old songs to sing
In the same place to the same lute-playing:
Still for new dancers, to new tunes the same
Dance dancing ever, to take up the game
All lose in turn.

Another time begins.
New passions, and new pleasures, and new sins,
For ever the old failure in new forms;
To fashion a metropolis for worms
And write in dust man's moral!

Meanwhile, where
Hides Muzufer? what doth he? how doth fare?
How fares the small sunshiny insect thing
That feeds on death and in the beam doth sing,
When quench'd the beam, and stopp'd the moment's play?
Nature both brings to birth and sweeps away
Myriads of minims such: whose souls minute
For loss or gain doth Heaven or Hell compute?
Please they, or tease they, how shall Fate devise
Fit retribution for dead butterflies?

Then, Power being changed, the changeful people went,
And from the noisome pit where he was pent
Drew forth blind Isaac.

Seven black years of night
Clung to him, and kept him cold in the sun's light.
For he had grown to hold familiar talk
With newts and creeping things,—long wont to walk
About him in the silent dark down there,
Which he would miss henceforth. He was aware
Of little else. And it was hard to him
To understand (so very faint and dim
To his dull memory were the former times)
Why the great world, intent upon its crimes
And pleasures, was at pains to take him back
Unto itself, from that oblivion black,
Where he, the loveless man of long ago,

Had learn'd to love, what men abhor—the slow
Soft-footed dwellers of the dark. He had
So lost the habitude of being glad,
And all the strength of it, that, tho' thrice o'er
New friends explain'd to him his joy, no more
Than one born deaf and dumb he seem'd to find
A meaning to the matter in his mind.
So, passively, he yielded to the crowd
That robed him, crown'd him, and proclaim'd aloud
Him only the true Cæsar.

VI.TWO BLIND MEN.

Now once more
Proud to up-prop all Power, those lions four,
Subservient, their broad blazing backs upon
The bright floor crouch, beneath the throne whereon
Blind Isaac sits; with fumbling hand, in dull
Delaying doubt, to affix the golden bull
And great sign manual, by the Barons claim'd,
To that high treaty with Alexius framed
In Zara.

Which to place in those weak hands,
Blind Dandalo before blind Isaac stands.
Two grey old men, and sightless each. The one
Sits robed in royal state on sumptuous throne,
Distinguisht by the imperial diadem
And purple mantle proud with many a gem;

And sees them not: but, in himself, doth gaze
On darkness, gloomy death, and guilty days.
The other, by long noble labours marr'd,
With august brows by battle thunder scarr'd,
Stands,—mark'd to sight by honourable soils
Of his yet recent self-regardless toils;
And sees them not: but, in himself, doth see
The bright beginnings of great days to be,
And glory never dying.

VII.THE DOGE IS OBSTINATE.

After this,
In the Cathedral (as old custom is)
On battle shield, in purple buskins, borne,
And vermeil robe, by new-made Cæsars worn,
The young Alexius, in full pomp and state
Of sovran power, supreme beneath the great
Imperial ensign's eagle wings unfurl'd,
Receives high homage of one half a world.

Which things accomplisht; and a month or more
Of pageant and carousal being o'er
(Whose swiftly-sliding and soft-footed hours
Slipp'd unsuspected by, mid myrtle bowers,
From porphyry palaces) the Red Cross lords,
Yawning, with listless looks down their long swords,

As banquet after banquet pall'd on them,
Cry . . . “Now for Joppa and Jerusalem!”

The new-made Emperor still their presence prays
And added aid, with promised guerdon: says
Need yet remains to heal by wholesome arts
The much-hurt empire,—all the popular parts
Bind up in single, and compact the state;
Which tasks more time: hints vaguely hindrance great;
Claims to appease, and scruples nice to weigh;
Funds hard to find; grave causes for delay;
With promise fair of further profit still,
Thereby implied.

“The Treaty, sign'd, fulfil
First, Emperor of the East,” said Dandalo.

VIII.VERTIGO.

Alas, that in this world 'tis ever so!
For men might be as gods, if it were not
That greed of power goes mad from power got.
Who stands upon the pinnacle, as 'twere,
Of Greatness,—seeing, hearing, everywhere
About himself the dazzling orb spin round,
Turns dizzy at the sight and at the sound,
And tumbles from the top to the abyss.
Of all high places this the danger is:—
—That those who stand there needs must gaze beneath,

Till they wax desperate; being wooed to death
By depth; from whose black clutch some point of sight
Above them seen, if such there were,—some height
Higher than theirs,—whereon to fix their eyes,
Might haply save them. But this Heaven denies.
And, seeing that, of Emperors and Kings,
The Scribe of Judgment (who plucks out his wings
To write their histories o'er and o'er again,
Leaving meanwhile the lives of meaner men
To kind oblivion) doth record to us
So many monsters, so few virtuous,
What wonder if some weary souls suppose
That 'tis perchance the thing itself (who knows?)
Time cannot cure: the nature of the thing,
Not of the man: the kingship, not the king?

Howe'er that be, Alexius, now made strong
By rights restored, forthwith wax'd weak by wrong
Renew'd: and palter'd both with his allies
And with his people; teasing each with lies,
And fronting bothways with a double face.
Thus, since, with reason shrewd, the populace
Look'd coldly, and askance, on power restored
By foreign arms, the frighten'd Prince ignored
Those foreign friends to whom he owed his throne:
Carp'd at their claims, and did his oath disown.
For heedless Hope in misery oft is fain
To mortgage more of gratitude for gain

Than, in possession, frugal Memory yields
Her clamorous claimant, from full harvest fields.
But since, withal, he fear'd the people too,
He plotted still, and still desired (untrue
To all alike) by foreign arms kept still
Still, too, to keep in check the people's will.
Till foes, thus finding friends in friends turn'd foes,
Said, “Power is powerless.”

IX.A DARK DEED.

Then one night uprose
Myrtillus, the one-eyebrow'd, in the dark
(Mark'd out for mischief by the devil's mark
Across his squinting double-minded eyes)
And seized on the Boy-Emperor by surprise
And treason foul, in unsuspecting sleep;
Whom, having plunged him down a dungeon deep,
Six times with hell-brew'd hebanon he tried
To poison. But the Prince, because he died
That way too slowly, being young and hard
Of life, 'tis said, was strangled afterward.
No need to strangle Isaac. Soon as told
Of what was done, he did his mantle fold
Across his brows, and said, “This was to be
Because of my great sins that follow me.”
And that same night he died.

The morrow morn,
On battle shield, in purple buskins, borne,
Myrtillus men crown'd Emperor.

X.THE FULNESS OF TIME.

Dandalo
Said then . . . . “The time is come, which long ago
I saw in Zara. Who eschew the good
Must choose the evil. Drunk with brawl and blood,
This Empire reels upon her downward road;
Corrupt at home, contemptible abroad.
Devilish, she would be godlike without God:
Godless, would rule, who needs, herself, the rod:
And deems, not being good, she can be great:
—Great, without one great man, i' the face of Fate!
The singular tyrant breeds the general slave,
And shameless citizens shamed cities have.
The time is now, and ours the hands, O friends,
To sweep this rubbish hence, and make amends
To earth, too long encumber'd with the same.
—To arms, for all men's sake, and in God's name!”

So, down before the iron Occident
The guilty golden-crownèd Orient went.

Because those Powers that make, and break, and keep,
And cast away—Spirits that in the deep

And toilful stithy of that underground
Grey miner, Nature, with unheeded sound
Monotonously hammer, heave, and beat,
And bend with blow on blow, and heat on heat,
The pliant world to every shape it wears,
Upon the stubborn anvils of the years—
—Said to each other “Break we up this Past!”
And suddenly one half a world was cast
Into the furnace, to be forged anew.

XI.THE HORSES OF LYSIPPUS.

At midnight, in the murtherous streets, the dew
Was blood-red, and the heavens were hurt with sound
Of shriek and wail the ransack'd region round.
So that men heard not, in the Hippodrome,
Those Four Bronze Horses, that had come from Rome,
In conference, talking each to each.

One said
“Our purple-mantled master, Power, is fled.
And how shall We Four fare? Let us away
Thro' the thick night! For ever since the day
We follow'd that great Western Cæsar home
To grace the glories of Augustine Rome,
We Four have felt no hand upon our manes
Less great than theirs, who grasp the golden reins
Of Empire; they behind whose chariot wheel
Yet-burning ruts their fervid course reveal,

Who rode the rolling world. We also, when
Power pass'd from Rome, his car drew here again,
And carried Conquest in his course divine
From West to East, to dwell with Constantine.
But now is Power departed, who knows where?
Out of the East!”

So spake that voice in air.
The others answer'd “Whither shall we go?
Our master being gone? For who doth know
Where we may find him?”

XII.AND THE LION OF ST. MARK.

Listening in the dark,
To these replied the Lion of St. Mark.
“Power rideth on my wings. Come also ye
Whither I go, across the vassal sea.
And let us bear with us, to please him well,
Beauty, the spouse of Power. And we will dwell
Together.”

Then they answer'd “Even so,
Lion! and where thou goest, we will go.”

So those Five Beasts went forth. And took with them
Power, and Beauty. For whose diadem
They also brought great store of precious things,
And gather'd graven gems in golden rings,
And carved and colour'd stones, to be the dower

Of Beauty and the heritage of Power:
Clear agate cups and vases crystalline,
Porphyry, and syenite, and serpentine,
Obsidion, alabaster: statues fair
Of lucid gods: garments of richness rare:
And gold, and bronze, and silver: turkis blue
As Venus' veins: and rubies red in hue
As Adon's lips: and jasper, onyx, opal.

In this way Venice took Constantinople.

END OF BOOK VI.

University of Virginia Library

BOOK VI.