'And are you really truly, now a Turk? With any other women did you wive? Is 't true they use their fingers for a fork? Well, that's the prettiest shawl-as I'm alive! You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork. And how so many years did you contrive To-Bless me! did I ever? No, I never Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver? XCIII. "Beppo! that beard of your's becomes you not; It shall be shaved before you're a day older: Why do you wear it? Oh! I had forgot
Pray don't you think the weather here is colder How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot
In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder Should find you out, and make the story known. How short your hair is! Lord! how gray it's grown!"
What answer Beppo made to these demands.
Is more than I know. He was cast away
About where Troy stood once, and nothing stands;
Became a slave of course, and for his pay
Had bread and bastinadoes, till some bands
Of pirates landing in a neighboring bay,
He join'd the rogues and prosper'd, and became
A renegado of indifferent fame.
But he grew rich, and with his riches grew so
Keen the desire to see his home again,
He thought himself in duty bound to do so,
And not be always thieving on the main;
Lonely he felt, at times, as Robin Crusoe,
And so he hired a vessel come from Spain,
Bound for Corfu: she was a fine polacca,
Mann'd with twelve hands, and laden with tobacco.
Himself, and much (heaven knows how gotten) cash
He then embark'd with risk of life and limb,
And got clear off, although the attempt was rash:
He said that Providence protected him-
For my part, I say nothing, lest we clash
In our opinions: well, the ship was trim,
Set sail, and kept her reckoning fairly on,
Except three days of calm when off Cape Bonn.
They reach'd the island, he transferr'd his lading,
And self and live-stock, to another bottom,
And pass'd for a true Turkey merchant, trading
With goods of various names, but I've forgot 'em.
However, he got off by this evading,
Or else the people would perhaps have shot him;
And thus at Venice landed to reclaim
His wife, religion, house, and Christian name.
His wife received, the patriarch rebaptized him,
(He made the church a present by the way ;)
He then threw off the garments which disguised him,
And borrow'd the Count's small-clothes for a day;
His friends the more for his long absence prized him,
Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay,
With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them,
For stories-but I don't believe the half of them.
Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age
With wealth and talking made him some amends; Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage, I've heard the Count and he were always friends. My pen is at the bottom of a page,
Which being finish'd, here the story ends; 'Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done, But stories somehow lengthen when begun.
"CELUI qui remplissait alors cette place était un gentilhomme Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat de Padolie; il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. Une intrigue qu'il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d'un gentilhomme Polonais, ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. Le cheval, qui était du pays de l'Ukraine, y retourna, et y porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelques paysans le secoururent: il resta longtems parmi eux, et se signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération parmi les Cosaques: sa réputation s'augmentant de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de l'Ukraine." -VOLTAIRE, Hist. de Charles XII. p. 196.
"Le roi fuyant et poursuivi eut son cheval tué sous lui; le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout son sang, lui donna le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la fuite, ce conquérant qui n'avait pu y monter pendant la bataille."-VOLTAIRE, Hist. de Charles XII. p. 216.
"Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. Le carrosse, où il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit à cheval. Pour comble de disgrace, il s'égara pendant la nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer à ses forces épuissées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues plus insupportables par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d'un arbre, en danger d'être surpris à tout moment par les vainqueurs qui le cherchaient de tous côtés."-VOLTAIRE, Hist. de Charles XII. p. 218.
"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. 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,
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.
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 sustained, 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.
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 shade-
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,
And smoothed his fetlocks and his name,
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
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 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 dawn
His chief would follow like a fawn.
This done, Mazeppa spread his cloak,
And laid his lance beneath his oak,
Felt if his arms in order geod
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,
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 them,
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 wo;-
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 field."
Mazeppa answer'd-" Ill betide
The school wherein I learn'd to ride!"
Quoth Charles-" Old Hetman, wherefore so,
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;
And (save debates in Warsaw's diet)
He reigned 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,
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
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,
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 Thirsis.
There was a certain Palatine,
A count of far and high 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 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;
And, after wishes, hopes, and fears,
To virtue a few farewell tears,
A restless dream or two, some glances
At 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 Count with titles given,
'Tis said, as passports into heaven;
But, strange to say, they rarely boast
Of these who have deserved them most.
"I was a goodly stripling then;
At seventy years I so may say,
• This comparison of a "salt mine" may perhaps be admitted to a Pole
as the wealth of the country consists greatly in the salt mines.
That there were few, or boys or men,
Who, in my dawning time of day,
Of vassal or of knight's degree,
Could vie in vanities with me;
For I had strength, youth, gayety,
A port, not like to this ye see,
But smooth, as all is rugged now:
For time, and care, and war, have plough'd
My very soul from out my brow;
And thus I should be disavow'd
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 neighborhood
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 love 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 while 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 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 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 pass,
Even as a flash of lightning there,
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 listened-'tis enough-
Who listens once will listen twice;
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.
"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;
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 am-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'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;
Fet I did oft and long repine That we could only meet by stealth.
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 gave ventBut 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 succor 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.
"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 thong;
Then losed him with a sudden lash-
Away!-away!-and on we dash!-
Torrents less rapid and less rash.
"Away!-away!-my breath was goneI 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 wrenched 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 fields a blade of grass,
Save what grows on a ridge of wall,
Where stood the hearth-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 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 checker'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 Tartar's 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 gray,
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:
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