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(From Book I)
GEBIR, at Egypt’s youthful queen’s approach | |
| Laid by his orbéd shield; his vizor-helm, | |
| His buckler, and his corset he laid by, | |
| And bade that none attend him: at his side | |
| Two faithful dogs that urge the silent course, | 5 |
| Shaggy, deep-chested, croucht; the crocodile, | |
| Crying, oft made them raise their flaccid ears | |
| And push their heads within their master’s hand. | |
| There was a brightening paleness in his face, | |
| Such as Diana rising o’er the rocks | 10 |
| Showered on the lonely Latmian; on his brow | |
| Sorrow there was, yet naught was there severe. | |
| But when the royal damsel first he saw, | |
| Faint, hanging on her handmaid, and her knees | |
| Tottering, as from the motion of the car, | 15 |
| His eyes lookt earnest on her, and those eyes | |
| Showed, if they had not, that they might have, loved, | |
| For there was pity in them at that hour. | |
| With gentle speech, and more with gentle looks, | |
| He soothed her; but lest Pity go beyond | 20 |
| And crost Ambition lose her lofty aim, | |
| Bending, he kist her garment, and retired. | |
| He went, nor slumbered in the sultry noon, | |
| When viands, couches, generous wines, persuade, | |
| And slumber most refreshes; nor at night, | 25 |
| When heavy dews are laden with disease; | |
| And blindness waits not there for lingering age. | |
| Ere morning dawned behind him, he arrived | |
| At those rich meadows where young Tamar fed | |
| The royal flocks intrusted to his care. | 30 |
| “Now,” said he to himself, “will I repose | |
| At least this burthen on a brother’s breast.” | |
| His brother stood before him: he, amazed, | |
| Reared suddenly his head, and thus began; | |
| “Is it thou, brother! Tamar, is it thou! | 35 |
| Why, standing on the valley’s utmost verge, | |
| Lookest thou on that dull and dreary shore | |
| Where beyond sight Nile blackens all the sand? | |
| And why that sadness? When I past our sheep | |
| The dew-drops were not shaken off the bar, | 40 |
| Therefor if one be wanting, ’t is untold.” | |
| “Yes, one is wanting, nor is that untold,” | |
| Said Tamar; “and this dull and dreary shore | |
| Is neither dull nor dreary at all hours.” | |
| Whereon the tear stole silent down his cheek, | 45 |
| Silent, but not by Gebir unobserved: | |
| Wondering he gazed awhile, and pitying spake. | |
| “Let me approach thee; does the morning light | |
| Scatter this wan suffusion o’er thy brow, | |
| This faint blue lustre under both thine eyes?” | 50 |
| “O brother, is this pity or reproach?” | |
| Cried Tamar; “cruel if it be reproach, | |
| If pity, O how vain!” “Whate’er it be | |
| That grieves thee, I will pity, thou but speak, | |
| And I can tell thee, Tamar, pang for pang.” | 55 |
| “Gebir! then more than brothers are we now! | |
| Everything (take my hand) will I confess. | |
| I neither feed the flock nor watch the fold; | |
| How can I, lost in love? But, Gebir, why | |
| That anger which has risen to your cheek? | 60 |
| Can other men? could you? what, no reply! | |
| And still more anger, and still worse concealed! | |
| Are these your promises? your pity this?” | |
| “Tamar, I well may pity what I feel— | |
| Mark me aright—I feel for thee—proceed— | 65 |
| Relate me all.” “Then will I all relate,” | |
| Said the young shepherd, gladdened from his heart. | |
| “’T was evening, though not sunset, and the tide | |
| Level with these green meadows, seemed yet higher: | |
| ’T was pleasant; and I loosened from my neck | 70 |
| The pipe you gave me, and began to play. | |
| O that I ne’er had learnt the tuneful art! | |
| It always brings us enemies or love. | |
| Well, I was playing, when above the waves | |
| Some swimmer’s head methought I saw ascend; | 75 |
| I, sitting near, surveyed it, with my pipe | |
| Awkwardly held before my lips half-closed. | |
| Gebir! it was a nymph! a nymph divine! | |
| I cannot wait describing how she came, | |
| How I was sitting, how she first assumed | 80 |
| The sailor; of what happened there remains | |
| Enough to say, and too much to forget. | |
| The sweet deceiver stept upon this bank | |
| Before I was aware; for with surprise | |
| Moments fly rapid as with love itself. | 85 |
| Stooping to tune afresh the hoarsened reed, | |
| I heard a rustling, and where that arose | |
| My glance first lighted on her nimble feet. | |
| Her feet resembled those long shells explored | |
| By him who to befriend his steed’s dim sight | 90 |
| Would blow the pungent powder in the eye. | |
| Her eyes too! O immortal Gods! her eyes | |
| Resembled—what could they resemble? what | |
| Ever resemble those? Even her attire | |
| Was not of wonted woof nor vulgar art; | 95 |
| Her mantle showed the yellow samphire-pod, | |
| Her girdle the dove-colored wave serene. | |
| ‘Shepherd,’ said she, ‘and will you wrestle now, | |
| And with the sailor’s hardier race engage?’ | |
| I was rejoiced to hear it, and contrived | 100 |
| How to keep up contention: could I fail | |
| By pressing not too strongly, yet to press? | |
| ‘Whether a shepherd, as indeed you seem, | |
| Or whether of the hardier race you boast, | |
| I am not daunted; no; I will engage.’ | 105 |
| ‘But first,’ said she, ‘what wager will you lay?’ | |
| ‘A sheep,’ I answered: ‘add whate’er you will.’ | |
| ‘I cannot,’ she replied, ‘make that return: | |
| Our hided vessels in their pitchy round | |
| Seldom, unless from rapine, hold a sheep. | 110 |
| But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue | |
| Within, and they that lustre have imbibed | |
| In the Sun’s palace-porch, where when unyoked | |
| His chariot-wheel stands midway in the wave: | |
| Shake one and it awakens, then apply | 115 |
| Its polisht lips to your attentive ear, | |
| And it remembers its august abodes, | |
| And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. | |
| And I have others given me by the Nymphs, | |
| Of sweeter sound than any pipe you have; | 120 |
| But we, by Neptune! for no pipe contend, | |
| This time a sheep I win, a pipe the next.’ | |
| Now came she forward, eager to engage, | |
| But first her dress, her bosom then surveyed, | |
| And heaved it, doubting if she could deceive. | 125 |
| Her bosom seemed, enclosed in haze like heaven, | |
| To baffle touch, and rose forth undefined: | |
| Above her knee she drew the robe succinct, | |
| Above her breast, and just below her arms. | |
| ‘This will preserve my breath when tightly bound, | 130 |
| If struggle and equal strength should so constrain.’ | |
| Thus, pulling hard to fasten it, she spake, | |
| And, rushing at me, closed: I thrilled throughout | |
| And seemed to lessen and shrink up with cold. | |
| Again with violent impulse gusht my blood, | 135 |
| And hearing naught external, thus absorbed, | |
| I heard it, rushing through each turbid vein, | |
| Shake my unsteady, swimming sight in air. | |
| Yet with unyielding though uncertain arms | |
| I clung around her neck; the vest beneath | 140 |
| Rustled against our slippery limbs entwined; | |
| Often mine springing with eluded force | |
| Started aside and trembled till replaced: | |
| And when I most succeeded, as I thought, | |
| My bosom and my throat felt so comprest | 145 |
| That life was almost quivering on my lips, | |
| Yet nothing was there painful: these are signs | |
| Of secret arts and not of human might; | |
| What arts I cannot tell; I only know | |
| My eyes grew dizzy and my strength decayed; | 150 |
| I was indeed o’ercome—with what regret, | |
| And more, with what confusion, when I reacht | |
| The fold, and yielding up the sheep, she cried, | |
| ‘This pays a shepherd to a conquering maid.’ | |
| She smiled, and more of pleasure than disdain | 155 |
| Was in her dimpled chin and liberal lip, | |
| And eyes that languisht, lengthening, just like love. | |
| She went away; I on the wicker gate | |
| Leaned, and could follow with my eyes alone. | |
| The sheep she carried easy as a cloak; | 160 |
| But when I heard its bleating, as I did, | |
| And saw, she hastening on, its hinder feet | |
| Struggle, and from her snowy shoulder slip, | |
| One shoulder its poor efforts had unveiled, | |
| Then all my passions mingling fell in tears; | 165 |
| Restless then ran I to the highest ground | |
| To watch her; she was gone; gone down the tide; | |
| And the long moonbeam on the hard wet sand | |
| Lay like a jasper column half upreared.” | |
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