Читать книгу Ismael; an oriental tale. With other poems онлайн

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So fierce Alvante saw each coming day,

The luckless chiefs of Tauris sweep away.

Whence is that piercing scream?—Oh, turn thine eye

To view that scene of more than misery!

Yon maiden lov’d yon lifeless youth; he fell

Beneath Alvante’s rage,—the rest too well

That scream has told;—wide floats her streaming hair,

As if to ask compassion of the air,250

And her dark eye-balls’ wilder’d, frenzied roll,

Tell all the pangs that rend her madd’ning soul.

She press’d her lips to his, in vain to breathe

Life into lips, where all is death beneath;—

She feels his heart, for ever cold its glow,

And its high bound of rapture, silenc’d now!

And up she springs, and laughs—she laughs—but there

Burst forth the horrid laughter of Despair.

Vain, vain is reason, life against the stroke,

Dead on her love she falls—her faithful heart is broke.260

See the pale tyrant in his lofty tow’rs,

In reckless revelry employ his hours;

No blood, though torrents round his dwelling roll,

Dims the forbidden[8] sparkle of the bowl. His form gigantic, and commanding mien, The eye of memory ne’er could quit, once seen. Yet there, no foulness stain’d, no beauty shone, If each stern feature were remark’d alone;— But all united, the tremendous whole269 Went, in an instant, through the awe-struck soul— All, all appear’d t’ announce—this, this must be Almost a demon, or a deity.