No More Learning

We met the vultures legioned in the air _515
Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind;
They, screaming from their cloudy mountain-peaks,
Stooped through the sulphurous battle-smoke and perched
Each on the weltering carcase that we loved,
Like its ill angel or its damned soul, _520
Riding upon the bosom of the sea.
We saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast.
Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea,
And ravening Famine left his ocean cave
To dwell with War, with us, and with Despair. _525
We met night three hours to the west of Patmos,
And with night, tempest--

NOTES:
_503 in edition 1822; of editions 1839.
_527 And edition 1822; As editions 1839.

MAHMUD:
Cease!

[ENTER A MESSENGER. ]

MESSENGER:
Your Sublime Highness,
That Christian hound, the Muscovite Ambassador,
Has left the city. --If the rebel fleet
Had anchored in the port, had victory _530
Crowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome,
Panic were tamer. --Obedience and Mutiny,
Like giants in contention planet-struck,
Stand gazing on each other. --There is peace
In Stamboul. --

MAHMUD:
Is the grave not calmer still? _535
Its ruins shall be mine.

HASSAN:
Fear not the Russian:
The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay
Against the hunter. --Cunning, base, and cruel,
He crouches, watching till the spoil be won,
And must be paid for his reserve in blood.
_540
After the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian
That which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion
Of blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields,
Rivers and seas, like that which we may win,
But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves! _545

[ENTER SECOND MESSENGER. ]

SECOND MESSENGER:
Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens,
Navarin, Artas, Monembasia,
Corinth, and Thebes are carried by assault,
And every Islamite who made his dogs
Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves _550
Passed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood,
Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death;
But like a fiery plague breaks out anew
In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale
In its own light. The garrison of Patras _555
Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope
But from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant,
His wishes still are weaker than his fears,
Or he would sell what faith may yet remain
From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway; _560
And if you buy him not, your treasury
Is empty even of promises--his own coin.
The freedman of a western poet-chief
Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels,
And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont: _565
The aged Ali sits in Yanina
A crownless metaphor of empire:
His name, that shadow of his withered might,
Holds our besieging army like a spell
In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny; _570
He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth
Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors
The ruins of the city where he reigned
Childless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped
The costly harvest his own blood matured, _575
Not the sower, Ali--who has bought a truce
From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads
Of Indian gold.

NOTE:
_563 freedman edition 1822; freeman editions 1839.

[ENTER A THIRD MESSENGER. ]

MAHMUD:
What more?

THIRD MESSENGER:
The Christian tribes
Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness
Are in revolt;--Damascus, Hems, Aleppo _580
Tremble;--the Arab menaces Medina,
The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,
And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,
Who denies homage, claims investiture
As price of tardy aid. Persia demands _585
The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians
Refuse their living tribute. Crete and Cyprus,
Like mountain-twins that from each other's veins
Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm,
Shake in the general fever. Through the city, _590
Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek,
And prophesyings horrible and new
Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men
Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.
A Dervise, learned in the Koran, preaches _595
That it is written how the sins of Islam
Must raise up a destroyer even now.
The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West,
Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,
But in the omnipresence of that Spirit _600
In which all live and are. Ominous signs
Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky:
One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;
It has rained blood; and monstrous births declare
The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.