On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed,
The feast was done, the red wine circling fast, 28.B. And he that unawares had there ygazed With gaping wonderment had stared aghast; For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past, The native revels of the troop began; Each Palikar his sabre from him cast, 29.B. And bounding hand in hand, man linked to man, Yelling their uncouth dirge, long daunced the kirtled clan.168
LXXII.
Childe Harold at a little distance stood
And viewed, but not displeased, the revelrie,
Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude:
In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see
Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee;
And, as the flames along their faces gleamed,
Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,
The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed,
While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half screamed:—169 30.B.
1.
Tambourgi!170 Tambourgi! thy 'larum afarfm 31.B. Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; All the Sons of the mountains arise at the note, Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote!
2.
Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
In his snowy camese171 and his shaggy capote? To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.
3.
Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgivefn The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live? Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego? What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?172
4.
Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase:
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.
5.
Then the Pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves,
And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,
And track to his covert the captive on shore.
6.
I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,fo And many a maid from her mother shall tear.
7.
I love the fair face of the maid in her youth,fp Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe;fq Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her Sire.
8.
Remember the moment when Previsa fell,173 32.B. The shrieks of the conquered, the conquerors' yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared.
9.
I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;
He neither must know who would serve the Vizier:
Since the days of our Prophet the Crescent ne'er saw
A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.
10.
Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,174 Let the yellow-haired175 Giaours176 view his horse-tail177 with dread; When his Delhis178 come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!
11.
Selictar!179 unsheathe then our chief's Scimitār; Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of War.fr Ye Mountains, that see us descend to the shore, Shall view us as Victors, or view us no more!
LXXIII.
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed Worth! 33.B. Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The helpless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait— Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?180
LXXIV.
Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow 34.B. Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour
