| |
| THE CYPRESSES of Scutari | |
| In stern magnificence look down | |
| On the bright lake and stream of sea, | |
| And glittering theatre of town: | |
| Above the throng of rich kiosks, | 5 |
| Above the towers in triple tire, | |
| Above the domes of loftiest mosques, | |
| These pinnacles of death aspire. | |
| |
| It is a wilderness of tombs,— | |
| Where white and gold and brilliant hue | 10 |
| Contrast with Nature’s gravest glooms, | |
| As these again with heaven’s clear blue: | |
| The city’s multitudinous hum, | |
| So far, yet strikes the listening ear,— | |
| But what are thousands to the sum | 15 |
| Of millions calmly sleeping here? | |
| |
| For here, whate’er his life’s degree, | |
| The Muslim loves to rest at last, | |
| Loves to recross the band of sea | |
| That parts him from his people’s past. | 20 |
| ’T is well to live and lord o’er those | |
| By whom his sires were most renowned, | |
| But his fierce heart finds best repose | |
| In this traditionary ground. | |
| |
| From this funereal forest’s edge | 25 |
| I gave my sight full range below, | |
| Reclining on a grassy ledge, | |
| Itself a grave, or seeming so: | |
| And that huge city flaunting bright, | |
| That crowded port and busy shore, | 30 |
| With roofs and minarets steeped in light, | |
| Seemed but a gaudy tomb the more. | |
| |
| I thought of what one might have hoped | |
| From Greek and Roman power combined, | |
| From strength, that with a world had coped, | 35 |
| Matched to the queen of human mind;— | |
| From all the wisdom, might, and grace, | |
| That Fancy’s gods to man had given, | |
| Blent in one empire and one race, | |
| By the true faith in Christ and Heaven. | 40 |
| |
| The finest webs of earthly fate | |
| Are soonest and most harshly torn; | |
| The wise could scarce discriminate | |
| That evening splendor from the morn: | |
| Though we, sad students of the past, | 45 |
| Can trace the lurid twilight line | |
| That lies between the first and last, | |
| Who bore the name of Constantine. | |
| |
| Such were my thoughts and such the scene, | |
| When I perceived that by me stood | 50 |
| A Grecian youth of earnest mien, | |
| Well suiting my reflective mood: | |
| And when he spoke, his words were tuned | |
| Harmonious to my present mind, | |
| As if his spirit had communed | 55 |
| With mine, while I had there reclined. | |
| |
| “Stranger! whose soul has strength to soar | |
| Beyond the compass of the eye, | |
| And on a spot like this can more | |
| Than charms of form and hue descry, | 60 |
| Take off this mask of beauty,—scan | |
| The face of things with truth severe,— | |
| Think, as becomes a Christian man, | |
| Of us thy Christian brethren here! | |
| |
| “Think of that age’s awful birth, | 65 |
| When Europe echoed, terror-riven, | |
| That a new foot was on the earth, | |
| And a new name come down from Heaven; | |
| When over Calpe’s straits and steeps | |
| The Moor had bridged his royal road, | 70 |
| And Othman’s sons from Asia’s deeps | |
| The conquests of the Cross o’erflowed. | |
| |
| “Think, if the arm of Charles Martel | |
| Had failed upon the plain of Tours, | |
| The fate, whose course you know so well, | 75 |
| This foul subjection had been yours: | |
| Where then had been the long renown | |
| France can from sire to son deliver? | |
| Where English freedom rolling down, | |
| One widening, one continuous river? | 80 |
| |
| “Think with what passionate delight | |
| The tale was told in Christian halls, | |
| How Sobieski turned to flight | |
| The Muslim from Vienna’s walls; | |
| How, when his horse triumphant trod | 85 |
| The burgher’s richest robes upon, | |
| The ancient words rose loud,—‘From God | |
| A man was sent whose name was John.’ | |
| |
| “Think not that time can ever give | |
| Prescription to such doom as ours, | 90 |
| That Grecian hearts can ever live | |
| Contented serfs of barbarous powers; | |
| More than six hundred years had past, | |
| Since Moorish hosts could Spain o’erwhelm, | |
| Yet Boabdil was thrust at last, | 95 |
| Lamenting, from Grenada’s realm. | |
| |
| “And if to his old Asian seat, | |
| From this usurped unnatural throne, | |
| The Turk is driven, ’t is surely meet | |
| That we again should hold our own: | 100 |
| Be but Byzantium’s native sign | |
| Of Cross on Crescent once unfurled, | |
| And Greece shall guard by right divine | |
| The portals of the Eastern world. | |
| |
| “Before the small Athenian band | 105 |
| The Persian myriads stood at bay, | |
| The spacious East lay down unmanned | |
| Beneath the Macedonian’s sway: | |
| Alas! that Greek could turn on Greek,— | |
| Fountain of all our woes and shame,— | 110 |
| Till men knew scarcely where to seek | |
| The fragments of the Grecian name. | |
| |
| “Know ye the Romans of the North? | |
| The fearful race whose infant strength | |
| Stretches its arms of conquest forth, | 115 |
| To grasp the world in breadth and length? | |
| They cry, ‘That ye and we are old, | |
| And worn with luxuries and cares, | |
| And they alone are fresh and bold, | |
| Time’s latest and most honored heirs! | 120 |
| |
| “Alas for you! alas for us! | |
| Alas for men that think and feel, | |
| If once beside this Bosphorus | |
| Shall stamp Sclavonia’s frozen heel! | |
| O, place us boldly in the van, | 125 |
| And ere we yield this narrow sea, | |
| The past shall hold within its span | |
| At least one more Thermopylæ.” | |
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