II.

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 :
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.
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-
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 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,
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.

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,

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 shadeHimself 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,

And smooth'd his fetlocks and his mane, And slack'd his girth, and stripp'd his And joy'd to see how well he fed ; For until now he had the dread

His wearied courser might refuse

[rein,

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;
Obey'd his voice, and came at 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 dawn
His chief would follow like a fawn.

IV.

This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak
And laid his lance beneath his oak,
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 lockHis sabre's hilt and scabbard felt, 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
The whole or portion offer'd then,
With far less of inquietude

Than courtiers at a banquet would.
And Charles of this his slender 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;

[so

All Scythia's fame to thine should yield,
For pricking on o'er flood and field.'
Mazeppa answer'd,' Ill betide
The school wherein I learn'd to ride!'
Quoth Charles,-'Old Hetman, wherefore
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,

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,'
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.'

'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
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;

By all my kind and kin, could they
Compare my day and yesterday.
This change was wrought, too, long ere age
Had ta'en my features for 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 skies 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 neighbourhood
Hath mingled with our Polish blood,
Dark as above us is the sky;
But through it stole a tender light,
Like the first moonrise of midnight;
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream,
Which seem'd to melt to its own beam;
All love, half languor, and half fire,
Like saints that at the stake expire,
And lift their raptured looks on high,
As though it were a 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 loved her still;
And such as I am, love 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.

'We met-we gazed-I saw, and sigh'd;
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 form 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 sigh'd-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 long'd, and was resolved to speak;
But on my lips they died again,

The accents 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 nameAnd we to this, it seems, were set,

By some strange chance, which I forget:

I reck'd 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 watch'd 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
Play'd on 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
Even as a flash of lightning there, [pass,
That there was something in her air
Which would not doom me to despair;
And on the thought my words broke forth,
All incoherent as they were—
Their eloquence was little worth,
But yet she listen'd-'tis enough-
Who listens once will listen twice;
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.

VII.

'I loved, and was beloved again-
They tell me, sire, you never knew
Those gentle frailties; if 'tis true,
I shorten all my joy or pain;
Το

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 am-or rather was-a prince,

[bleed;

A chief of thousands, and could lead Them on where each would foremost 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's 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 call'd her mine In the full view of earth and heaven;

For I did oft and long repine That we could only meet by stealth.

VIII.

'For lovers there are many eyes,

And such there were on us ;-the devil On such occasions should be civilThe devil!-I'm loth to do him wrong; It might be some untoward saint Who would not be at rest too long,

But to his pious bile give vent-
But one fair night, some lurking spies
Surprised and seized us both.

The Count was something more than wroth-
I was unarm'd; but if in steel,
All cap-à-pie from head to heel,
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 day;
I did not think to see another,

My moments seem'd reduced to few;
And with one prayer to Mary Mother,
And it may be a saint or two,
As I resign'd 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 to touch
Upon his future pedigree;

Nor less amazed that such a blot
His noble 'scutcheon should have got,
While he was highest of his line;

Because unto himself he seem'd
The first of men, nor less he deem'd
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.

IX.

"Bring forth the horse!" The horse was brought;

In truth, he was a noble steed,

A Tartar of the Ukraine breed,

Who look'd 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, that menial throng,
Upon his back with many a throng;
Then loosed him with a sudden lash-
Away!-away!-and on we dash !---
Torrents less rapid and less rash.

X.

'Away!-away!-my breath was gone-
I saw not where he hurried on :
Twas scarcely yet the break of day,
And on he foam'd-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 wrench'd my head,
And snapp'd the cord which to the mane
Had bound my neck in lieu of rein,
And, writhing half my form about,
Howl'd back my curse; 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 field a blade of grass,

Save what grows on a ridge of wall,
Where stood the hearthstone 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 rain From off the scorch'd and blackening roof, Whose thickness was not vengeance-proof. They little thought that day of pain, When launch'd, 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 play'd me then a bitter prank,

When, with the wild horse for my guide,
They bound me to his foaming flank:
At length I play'd them one as frank-
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.

XI.

'Away, away, my steed and I,

Upon the pinions of the wind,

All human dwellings left behind; We sped like meteors through the sky, When with its crackling sound the night Is chequer'd 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 strong hold, Against the Tartars built of old,

No trace of man. The year before
A Turkish army had march'd 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 answer'd with a sigh-
But fast we fled, away, away,-
And I could neither sigh nor 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 slacken'd 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 swoll'n 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 or
And in my tongue the thirst became
A something fierier than flame.

XII.

'We near'd the wild wood-'twas so wide,
I saw no bounds on either side;
'Twas studded with old sturdy trees,
That bent not to the roughest breeze
Which howls down from Siberia's waste,
And strips the forest in its haste-
But these were few and far between,
Set thick with shrubs more young and green,
Luxuriant with their annual leaves,
Ere strewn by those autumnal eves
That nip the forest's foliage dead,
Discolour'd with a lifeless red,
Which stands thereon like stiffen'd gore
Upon the slain when battle's o'er,
And some long winter's night hath shed
Its frosts o'er every tombless head,
So cold and stark the raven's beak
May peck unpierced each frozen cheek:
'Twas a wild waste of underwood,
And here and there a chestnut stood,
The strong oak, and the hardy pine;
But far apart-and well it were,
Or else a different lot were mine-

The boughs gave way, and did not tear
My limbs; and I found strength to bear
My wounds, already scarr'd with cold-
My bonds forbade to loose my hold.
We rustled through the leaves like wind
Left shrubs, and trees, and wolves behind.
By night I heard them on the track,
Their troop came hard upon our back.
With their long gallop, which can tire
The hound's deep hate and hunter's fire: