Selected Poems (112 page)

I

’Twas after dread Pultowa’s day,

When fortune left the royal Swede,

Around a slaughter’d army lay,

No more to combat and to bleed.

5

The power and glory of the war,

Faithless as their vain votaries, men,

Had pass’d to the triumphant Czar,

And Moscow’s walls were safe again,

Until a day more dark and drear,

10

And a more memorable year,

Should give to slaughter and to shame

A mightier host and haughtier name;

A greater wreck, a deeper fall,

A shock to one – a thunderbolt to all.

II

15

Such was the hazard of the die;

The wounded Charles was taught to fly

By day and night through field and flood,

Stain’d with his own and subjects’ blood;

For thousands fell that flight to aid:

20

And not a voice was heard t’ upbraid

Ambition in his humbled hour,

When truth had nought to dread from power.

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave

His own – and died the Russians’ slave.

25

This too sinks after many a league

Of well sustain’d, but vain fatigue;

And in the depth of forests, darkling

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling –

The beacons of surrounding foes –

30

A king must lay his limbs at length.

Are these the laurels and repose

For which the nations strain their strength?

They laid him by a savage tree,

In outworn nature’s agony;

35

His wounds were stiff – his limbs were stark –

The heavy hour was chill and dark;

The fever in his blood forbade

A transient slumber’s fitful aid:

And thus it was; but yet through all,

40

Kinglike the monarch bore his fall,

And made, in this extreme of ill,

His pangs the vassals of his will:

All silent and subdued were they,

As once the nations round him lay.

III

45

A band of chiefs! – alas! how few,

Since but the fleeting of a day

Had thinn’d it; but this wreck was true

And chivalrous: upon the clay

Each sate him down, all sad and mute,

50

Beside his monarch and his steed,

For danger levels man and brute,

And all are fellows in their need.

Among the rest, Mazeppa made

His pillow in an old oak’s shade –

55

Himself as rough, and scarce less old,

The Ukraine’s hetman, calm and bold;

But first, outspent with this long course,

The Cossack prince rubb’d down his horse,

And made for him a leafy bed,

60

And smooth’d his fetlocks and his mane,

And slack’d his girth, and stripp’d his rein,

And joy’d to see how well he fed;

For until now he had the dread

His wearied courser might refuse

65

To browse beneath the midnight dews:

But he was hardy as his lord,

And little cared for bed and board;

But spirited and docile too;

Whate’er was to be done, would do.

70

Shaggy and swift, and strong of limb,

All Tartar-like he carried him;

Obey’d his voice, and came to call,

And knew him in the midst of all:

Though thousands were around, – and Night,

75

Without a star, pursued her flight, –

That steed from sunset until dawn

His chief would follow like a fawn.

IV

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak,

And laid his lance beneath his oak,

80

Felt if his arms in order good

The long day’s march had well withstood –

If still the powder fill’d the pan,

And flints unloosen’d kept their lock —

His sabre’s hilt and scabbard felt,

85

And whether they had chafed his belt -

And next the venerable man,

From out his havresack and can,

Prepared and spread his slender stock;

And to the monarch and his men

90

The whole or portion offer’d then

With far less of inquietude

Than courtiers at a banuet would

And Charles of this his slender share

With smiles artook a moment there

95

To force of cheer a greater show,

And seem above both wounds and woe; —

And then he said – ’Of all our band,

Though firm of heart and strong of hand,

In skirmish, march, or forage, none

100

Can less have said or more have done

Than thee, Mazeppa! On the earth

So fit a pair had never birth,

Since Alexander’s days till now,

As thy Bucephalus and thou:

105

All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield

For pricking on o’er flood and field.’

Mazeppa answer’d — I’ll betide

The school wherein I learn’d to ride!’

Quoth Charles – ‘Old Hetman, wherefore so,

110

Since thou hast learn’d the art so well?’

Mazeppa said – ‘ ’Twere long to tell;

And we have many a league to go,

With every now and then a blow,

And ten to one at least the foe,

115

Before our steeds may graze at ease,

Beyond the swift Borysthenes:

And, sire, your limbs have need of rest,

And I will be the sentinel

Of this your troop.’ – ‘But I request,’

120

Said Sweden’s monarch, ’thou wilt tell

This tale of thine, and I may reap,

Perchance, from this the boon of sleep;

For at this moment from my eyes

The hope of present slumber flies.’

125

‘Well, sire, with such a hope, I’ll track

My seventy years of memory back:

I think ’twas in my twentieth spring, –

Ay, ’twas, — when Casimir was king —

John Casimir, – I was his page

130

Six summers, in my earlier age:

A learned monarch, faith! was he,

And most unlike your majesty:

He made no wars, and did not gain

New realms to lose them back again;

135

And (save debates in Warsaw’s diet)

He reign’d in most unseemly quiet;

Not that he had no cares to vex,

He loved the muses and the sex;

And sometimes these so froward are,

140

They made him wish himself at war;

But soon his wrath being o’er, he took

Another mistress, or new book:

And then he gave prodigious fêtes –

All Warsaw gather’d round his gates

145

To gaze upon his splendid court,

And dames, and chiefs, of princely port:

He was the Polish Solomon,

So sung his poets, all but one,

Who, being unpension’d, made a satire,

150

And boasted that he could not flatter.

It was a court of jousts and mimes,

Where every courtier tried at rhymes;

Even I for once produced some verses,

And sign’d my odes ‘Despairing Thyrsis.’

155

There was a certain Palatine,

A count of far and high descent,

Rich as a salt or silver mine;
¹

And he was proud, ye may divine,

As if from heaven he had been sent:

160

He had such wealth in blood and ore

As few could match beneath the throne;

And he would gaze upon his store,

And o’er his pedigree would pore,

Until by some confusion led,

165

Which almost look’d like want of head,

He thought their merits were his own.

His wife was not of his opinion –

His junior she by thirty years –

Grew daily tired of his dominion;

170

And, after wishes, hopes, and fears,