Poems - Victor Hugo

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Am I not pinioned firmly?

             Why be angered if the door

           Repulses fifty suing maids

             Who vainly there implore?

           Let them live on – to envy

             My own empress of the world,

           To whom all Stamboul like a dog

             Lies at the slippers curled.

           To you my heroes lower

             Those scarred ensigns none have cowed;

           To you their turbans are depressed

             That elsewhere march so proud.

           To you Bassora offers

             Her respect, and Trebizonde

           Her carpets richly wrought, and spice

             And gems, of which you're fond.

           To you the Cyprus temples

             Dare not bar or close the doors;

           For you the mighty Danube sends

             The choicest of its stores.

           Fear you the Grecian maidens,

             Pallid lilies of the isles?

           Or the scorching-eyed sand-rover

             From Baalbec's massy piles?

           Compared with yours, oh, daughter

            Of King Solomon the grand,

           What are round ebon bosoms,

            High brows from Hellas' strand?

           You're neither blanched nor blackened,

             For your tint of olive's clear;

           Yours are lips of ripest cherry,

             You are straight as Arab spear.

           Hence, launch no longer lightning

            On these paltry slaves of ours.

           Why should your flow of tears be matched

            By their mean life-blood showers?

           Think only of our banquets

             Brought and served by charming girls,

           For beauties sultans must adorn

             As dagger-hilts the pearls.

      THE PASHA AND THE DERVISH

      ("Un jour Ali passait.")

      {XIII, Nov. 8, 1828.}

           Ali came riding by – the highest head

           Bent to the dust, o'ercharged with dread,

               Whilst "God be praised!" all cried;

           But through the throng one dervish pressed,

           Aged and bent, who dared arrest

               The pasha in his pride.

           "Ali Tepelini, light of all light,

           Who hold'st the Divan's upper seat by right,

               Whose fame Fame's trump hath burst —

           Thou art the master of unnumbered hosts,

           Shade of the Sultan – yet he only boasts

               In thee a dog accurst!

           "An unseen tomb-torch flickers on thy path,

           Whilst, as from vial full, thy spare-naught wrath

               Splashes this trembling race:

           These are thy grass as thou their trenchant scythes

           Cleaving their neck as 'twere a willow withe —

               Their blood none can efface.

           "But ends thy tether! for Janina makes

           A grave for thee where every turret quakes,

               And thou shalt drop below

           To where the spirits, to a tree enchained,

           Will clutch thee, there to be 'mid them retained

               For all to-come in woe!

           "Or if, by happy chance, thy soul might flee

           Thy victims, after, thou shouldst surely see

               And hear thy crimes relate;

           Streaked with the guileless gore drained from their veins,

           Greater in number than the reigns on reigns

               Thou hopedst for thy state.

           "This so will be! and neither fleet nor fort

           Can stay or aid thee as the deathly port

               Receives thy harried frame!

           Though, like the cunning Hebrew knave of old,

           To cheat the angel black, thou didst enfold

               In altered guise thy name."

           Ali deemed anchorite or saint a pawn —

           The crater of his blunderbuss did yawn,

               Sword, dagger hung at ease:

           But he had let the holy man revile,

           Though clouds o'erswept his brow; then, with a smile,

               He tossed him his pelisse.

      THE LOST BATTLE

      ("Allah! qui me rendra-")

      {XVI., May, 1828.}

           Oh, Allah! who will give me back my terrible array?

           My emirs and my cavalry that shook the earth to-day;

           My tent, my wide-extending camp, all dazzling to the sight,

           Whose watchfires, kindled numberless beneath the brow of night,

           Seemed oft unto the sentinel that watched the midnight hours,

           As heaven along the sombre hill had rained its stars in showers?

           Where are my beys so gorgeous, in their light pelisses gay,

           And where my fierce Timariot bands, so fearless in the fray;

           My dauntless khans, my spahis brave, swift thunderbolts of war;

           My sunburnt Bedouins, trooping from the Pyramids afar,

           Who laughed to see the laboring hind stand terrified at gaze,

           And urged their desert horses on amid the ripening maize?

           These horses with their fiery eyes, their slight untiring feet,

          

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