Chronicles and Characters :: :: University of Virginia Library

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.