Мазепа

MAZEPPA

1.

‘Twas after dread Pultowa’s day .

When Fortune left the royal Swede –

Around a slaughtered army lay.

No more to combat and to bleed.

The Power and Glory of the war.

Faithless as their vain votaries, Man,

Had passed to the triumphant Czar,

And Moscow’s wall were safe again –

Until a day more dark and drear,

And a more memorable year,

Should give to slaughter and to shame

A mightier host and haughtier name –

A great wreck – a deeper fall,

And to shock to One – a thunderbolt to all. –

2.

Such was the hazard of to die;

The wounded Charles was taught to fly –

By day and night, through field and flood,

Stained with his own and subjects’ blood,

For thousands fell the flight to aid,

And not a voice was heard t’upbraid

Ambition in his humbled hour,

When Truth had naught to dread from Power.

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave

His own; and died the Russians’ slave.

This too sinks after many a league

Of well-sustained but vain fatigue –

And in the depths of forests’ darkling –

The watchfires in distance sparkling –

The beacons of surrounding foes –

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;

His wound 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,

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 jay. –

3.

A band of chiefs – alas! How few

Since but the fleeting of a day

Had trained it – but this wreck was true,

And chivalrous; upon the clay

Each safe him down all sad and mute

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,

Himself as rough and scarce less old –

The Ukraine’s hetman, calm and bold.

But first, outspent with his long course,

The Cossack Prince rubbed down his horse,

And made for him a leafy bed,

And smoothed his fetlocks and his mane,

And slacked his girth, and stripped his rein,

And joyed to hear how well he fed;

For until now he had the dread

His wearied courser might refuse

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,

Shaggy and swift – and strong of limb –

All Tartar-like – he carried him,

Obeyed his voice, and came to call,

And knew him in the midst of all,

Though thousands were around, and Night,

Without a star, pursued her flight;

That Steed from Sunset until down

His chief would follow like fawn.

4.

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak,

And laid his lance beneath his oak –

Felt in his arms in order good

The long days’ march had well withstood –

If still the powder filled the pan,

And flints unloosened kept their lock;

His sabre’s hilt and scabbard felt,

And whether they had chafed his belt;

And next the venerable man

From out his haversack and can

Prepared and spread his slender stock,

And to the monarch and his men

The whole or portion offered then –

With far less of inquietude

Than courtiers at a banquet would.

And Charles of this his lender share

With smiles partook a moment there,

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

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.

All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield

For pricking on o’er flood and filed.”

Mazeppa answered – “I’ll betide

The school wherein I learned to ride.” –

Quoth Charles – “Old Hetman, wherefore so,

Since thou hast learned the art so well?”

Mazeppa said – “Twere long to tell,

And we have many leagues to go,

With every now and then to blow,

And to one at least the foe,

Before our steeds may gaze at ease

Before the swift Borysthenes –

And, Sire, your limbs have need of rest,

And I will be the Sentinel

Of this your troop.” “But I request,”

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 mine eyes

The present hope of Slumber flies.”

“Well, Sire, with such a hope, I’ll track

My seventy years of memory back.

I think ‘twas in my twentieth spring –

Aye, ‘twas, when Casimir was king –

John Casimir – I was his page

Six summers in my earlier age;

A learned monarch, faith, was he –

And most unlike you Majesty –

He made no wars, and did not gain

New realms to have them back again –

And (save debates in Warsaw’s Diet)

He reigned in most unseemly quit. –

Not that he had no cares to vex –

He loved the Muses and the Sex,

And sometimes these so forward are,

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 fetes –

All Warsaw gathered round his gates

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 unpensioned, made a satire,

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 signed my odes “Despairing Thyrsis”.

There was a certain Palatine,

A Court of high and far descent,

Rich as a Salt or silver mine;

And he was proud, ye may divine,

As if from heaven he had been sent;

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,

Which almost looked 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,

And after wishes, hopes, and fears,

To Virtue a few farewell tears,

A restless dream or two, some glances

A Warsaw’s youth. Some songs, and dances –

Awaited but the usual chances,

Those happy accidents which render

The coldest dames so very tender. –

To deck her Court with titles given,

‘Tis said, as passport into heaven;

But, strange to said, they rarely boast

Of these who have deserved them most.

5.

“I was a goodly stripling then –

At seventy years I so may say

That there were few, or boys or men,

Who in my dawning time of day,

Of vassal or a knight’s degree,

Could vie in vanities with me;

For I had strength, youth, gaiety –

A port not like to this ye see,

But smooth, as all is rugged now;

For time, and war, and care have ploughed

My very soul from out my brow;

And thus I should be disavowed

But all my kind and kin, could they

Compare my day and yesterday;

This change was wrought, too, long o’er Age

Had ta’en my features from his page. –

With years, ye know, have not declined

My strength, my courage, or my mind

Or at this hour I should not be

Telling old tales beneath a tree,

With starless sky my canopy. –

But let me on – Theresa’s form –

Methinks it glides before me now,

Between me and yon chestnut’s bough;

The memory is so quick and warm,

And yet I find no words to tell

The Shape of her I loved so well.

She had the Asiatic eye,

Such as our Turkish Neighborhood

Hath mingled with our Polish blood,

Dark as above us in the sky –

But through it stole a tender light

Like the first Moonlight at Midnight –

Large, dark, and swimming in the stream

Which seemed to melt to its own beam –

All love, half languor, and half fire.

Like Saints that at the Stake expire –

And lift their rapture looks on high

As though it were joy to die.

A brow like a Midsummer lake,

Transparent with the Sun therein,

When waves no murmur dare to make,

And Heaven beholds her face within –

A cheek and lip – but why proceed? –

I loved her then – I love her still –

And such as I am loved indeed

In fierce extremes – in good and ill.

But still we love even in our rage,

And haunted to our very age

With the vain shadow of the past –

As is Mazeppa to the last - - -

6.

We met, we gazed, I saw and sighed –

She did not speak, and yet replied –

There are ten thousand tones and signs

We hear and see, but none defines –

Involuntary sparks of thought

Which strike from out the heart o’erwrought,

And for a strange intelligence,

Alike mysterious and intense,

Which link the burning chain that binds,

Without their will, young hearts and minds,

Conveying, as the electric wire,

We know not how, the absorbing fire. –

I saw and sighed – in silence wept –

And still reluctant distance kept,

Until I was made known to her,

And we might then and there confer

Without suspicion –then, even then, -

I longed, and was resolved to speak,

But on my lips they died again,

The ancient tremulous and weak –

Until one hour. There is a Game,

A frivolous and foolish play

Wherewith we wile away the day –

It is – I have forgot the name –

And we to this, it seems, were set,

By some strange chance which I forget;

I recked not if I won or lost;

It was enough for me to be

So near to hear, and oh! to see

The being whom I loved the most. –

I watched her as a Sentinel

(May ours this dark night watch as well!)

Until I saw, and thus it was,

That she was pensive, nor perceived

Her occupation, nor was grieved

Nor glad to lose or gain, but still

Played for hours, as if her will

Yet bound her to the place, though not

That hers might be the winning lot;

Then through my brain the thought did pass,

Even as a flash or lightning there,

That there was Something in her air

Which would not doom me to despair –

But on the thought my words broke forth,

All incoherent as they were –

Their eloquence was little worth,

But yet she listened – ‘tis enough;

Who listens once will listen twice;

Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,

And one refusal no rebuff.

7.

I loved, and was loved again;

They tell me, Sire, you never knew

Those gentle frailties – if ‘tis true,

I shortened all my joy or pain;

To you ‘twould seem absurd as vain;

But all men are not born to reign,

Or o’er their passions, or as you,

Thus o’er themselves and nations too.

I’m – or rather was – a Prince,

A Chief of thousands and could lead

Them on where each would foremost bleed,

But could not o’er myself evince

The like control; but to resume –

I loved, and was beloved again;

In sooth – it is a happy doom,

But yet, where happiest, ends in pain. –

We met in secret, and the hour

Which led me to that Lady bower

Was fiery Expectation’s dower.

My days and nights were nothing – all

Except that hour, which doth recall,

In the long lapse from youth to age,

No other like itself – I’d give

The Ukraine back again to live

It o’er once more, and be a Page,

The happy Page who was the Lord

Of one soft heart and his own Sword,

And had no other gem nor wealth

Save nature’s gift of youth and health;

We met in secret – doubly sweet,

Some say, they find it so to meet;

I know not that – I would have given

My life but to have called her mine

In the full view of earth and heaven,

For I did oft and long repine

That we could only meet by stealth.

8.

“For lovers there are many eyes,

And such there were on us; the Devil

On such occasions should be civil –

The Devil – I’m loathe to do him wrong –

It might be some untoward Saint,

Who would not be at rest too long,

But to his pious bile gave vent –

But one fire night, some lurking spies

Surprised and sized us both. –

The Count was something more than wroth –

I was unarmed; but if in steel,

All cap-a-pe from head to heels,

What ‘gainst their numbers could I do?

‘Twas near his castle, far away

From city or from succour near,

And almost on the break of the day;

I did not think to see another –

My moments seemed reduced to few,

And with one prayer to Mary Mother,

And, it may be, a Saint or two,

As I resigned me to my fate –

They led me to the Castle Gate;

Theresa’s doom I never knew –

Our lot was henceforth separate. –

An angry man, ye may opine,

Was he, the proud Count Palatine,

And he had reason good to be;

But he was most enraged lest such

An accident should chance touch

Upon his future Pedigree;

Nor less amazed, that such a blot

His noble Scutcheon should have got,

While he was highest on his line;

Because unto himself he seemed

The first of men, nor les, he deemed,

In others’ eyes, and most in mine. –

‘Sdeath! With a Page! – perchance a King

Had reconciled him to the thing –

But with a stripling of a Page –

I felt, but cannot paint, his rage. –

9.

“Bring forth the horse!” The horse was brought;

In truth, he was a noble Steed,

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,

Who looked as though the Speed of thought

Were in his limbs – but he was wild,

Wild as the wild-deer, and untaught,

With spur and bridle undefiled;

‘Twas but a day he had been caught,

And snorting with erected mane

And struggling fiercely but in vain,

In the full foam of wrath and dread,

To me the Desert-born was led. –

They bound me on, the menial throng,

Upon his back with many a thong,

Than loosed him with a sudden lash –

Away! Away! – and on we dash! –

Torrents less rapid and less rush.

10.

“Away” – “Away!” – my breath was gone –

I saw not where he hurried on –

‘Twas scarcely yet the break of the day,

And on he foamed – Away! – Away!

The last of human sounds which rose

As I was darted from my foes

Was the wild shout of savage laughter,

Which on the wind came roaring after,

A moment from that rabble rout;

With sudden wrath I wrenched my head,

And snapped the cord which to the mane

Had bound my neck in lieu of rein,

And, writhing half my form about,

Howled back my course; but ‘midst the tread,

The thunder of my courser’s speed,

Perchance they did not hear nor heed,

It vexes me – for I would fain

Have paid their insult back again;

I paid it well in after days –

There is not of that castle gate,

Its drawbridge and portcullis weight,

Stone, bar, moat, bridge, or barrier left,

Nor of its fields a blade of grass,

Save what grows on a ridge of wall

Where stood the heart-stone of the hall;

And many a time ye there might pass

Nor dream that e’er that fortress was.

I saw its turrets in a blaze –

Their crackling battlements all cleft –

And the hot lead pour down like a rain

From off the scorched and blackening roof,

Whose thickness was not vengeance proof.

They little thought, that day of pain,

When launched, as on the lightning’s flash,

They bade me to destruction dash,

That one day I should come again,

With twice five thousand horse, to thank

The Count for his uncourteous ride.

They played me there a bitter prank

When, with the wild horse for my guide,

They bound me to his foaming flank –

For Time at last sets all things even,

And if we do but watch the hour,

There never yet was human power

Which could evade, if unforgiven,

The patient search – and vigil long –

Of him who treasures up a wrong.

11.

“Away! Away!” my steed an I,

Upon the pinions of the wind,

All human dwellings left behind;

We sped like meteors through the sky,

When with it s crackling sound the Night

Is chequered with the Northern light –

Town – village – none were on our track,

But a wild plain of far extent,

And bounded by a forest black

And, save the scarce-seen battlement

On distant heights of some stronghold

Against the Tartars built of old,

No trace of man – the year before

A Turkish army had marched o’er,

And where the Spahi’s hoof hath trod

The Verdure flies the bloody sod.

The sky was dull, and dim, and grey,

And a low breeze crept moaning by

I could have answered with a sigh,

But fast we fled – Away! – Away!

And I could neither sigh or pray,

And my cold sweat-drops fell like rain

Upon the courser’s bristling mane;

But, snorting still with rage and fear,

He flew upon his far career.

At times I almost thought, indeed,

He must have slackened in his speed –

But no – my bound and slender frame

Was nothing to his angry Might,

And merely like a spur became.

Each motion which I made to free

My swoln limbs from their agony

Increased his fury and affright;

I tried my voice – ‘twas faint and low,

But yet he swerved as from a blow;

And, starting to each accent, sprang

As from a sudden trumpet’s Clang;

Meantime my cords were wet with gore.

Which oozing through my limbs ran o’er;

And in my tongue the thirst became

A something fierier than flame.

12.

…

(Lord Byron: MAZEPPA, April 2^nd 1817)