University of Virginia Library

I. PART I.

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

III.AND SO IS HIS BROTHER ALEXIUS: WHO PROPOSES

IV.A PARTY OF PLEASURE.

V.WHICH ENDS UNPLEASANTLY.

VI.OUT OF THE LIGHT, INTO THE DARK.

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

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)
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
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.

XI.LE VALET DE CONSTANTINOPLE.

XII.A BLIND MAN SEES FAR.

XIII.QUOT HOMINES TOT SENTENTIAE.