Book: Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX.

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX.




The Khan assisted the Bek to extricate himself from the stirrups; but
observed with alarm that his efforts had displaced the bandage on
Ammalat's wounded arm, and that the blood was soaking through it afresh.
The young man, it seemed, was insensible to pain; tears were rolling
down his face upon the dead horse. So one drop fills not, but overflows
the cup. "Thou wilt never more bear me like down upon the wind," he
said, "nor hear behind thee from the dust-cloud of the race, the shouts,
unpleasing to the rival, the acclamations of the people: in the blaze of
battle no more shalt thou carry me from the iron rain of the Russian
cannon. With thee I gained the fame of a warrior--why should I survive,
or it, or thee?" He bent his face upon his knee, and remained silent a
long time, while the Khan carefully bound up his wounded arm: at length
Ammalat raised his head: "Leave me!" he cried, resolutely: "leave,
Sultan Akhmet Khan, a wretch to his fate! The way is long, and I am
exhausted. By remaining with me, you will perish in vain. See! the eagle
soars around us; he knows that my heart will soon quiver beneath his
talons, and I thank God! Better find an airy grave in the maw of a bird
of prey, than leave my corse beneath a Christian foot. Farewell, linger
not."

"For shame, Ammalat! you trip against a straw....! What the great harm?
You are wounded, and your horse is dead. Your wound will soon healed,
and we will find you a better horse! Allah sendeth not misfortunes
alone. In the flower of your age, and the full vigour of your faculties,
it is a sin to despair. Mount my horse, I will lead him by the bridle,
and by night we shall be at home. Time is precious!"

"For me, time is no more, Sultan Ahkmet Khan ... I thank you heartily
for your brotherly care, but I cannot take advantage of it ... you
yourself cannot support a march on foot after such fatigue. I repeat ...
leave me to my fate. Here, on these inaccessible heights, I will die
free and contented ... And what is there to recall me to life! My
parents lie under the earth, my wife is blind, my uncle and
father-in-law the Shamkhal are cowering at Tarki before the Russians ...
the Giaour is revelling in my native land, in my inheritance; and I
myself an a wanderer from my home, a runaway from battle. I neither can,
nor ought to live."

"You ought _not_ to talk such nonsense, dear Ammalat:--and nothing but
fever can excuse you. We are created that we may live longer than our
fathers. For wives, if one has not teazed you enough, we will find you
three more. If you love not the Shamkhal, yet love your own
inheritance--you ought to live, if but for that; since to a dead man
power is useless, and victory impossible. Revenge on the Russians is a
holy duty: live, if but for that. That we are beaten, is no novelty for
a warrior; to-day luck is theirs, to-morrow it falls to us. Allah gives
fortune; but a man creates his own glory, not by fortune, but by
firmness. Take courage, my friend Ammalat.... You are wounded and weak;
I am strong from habit, and not fatigued by flight. Mount! and we may
yet live to beat the Russians."

The colour returned to Ammalat's face ... "Yes, I will live for
revenge!" he cried: "for revenge both secret and open. Believe me,
Sultan Akhmet Khan, it is only for this that I accept your generosity!
Henceforth I am yours; I swear by the graves of my fathers.... I am
yours! Guide my steps, direct the strokes of my arm; and if ever,
drowned in softness, I forget my oath, remind me of this moment, of this
mountain peak: Ammalat Bek will awake, and his dagger will be
lightning!"

The Khan embraced him, as he lifted the excited youth into the saddle.
"Now I behold in you the pure blood of the Emirs!" said he: "the burning
blood of their children, which flows in our veins like the sulphur in
the entrails of the rocks, which, ever and anon inflaming, shakes and
topples down the crags." Steadying with one hand the wounded man in the
saddle, the Khan began cautiously to descend the rugged croft.
Occasionally the stones fell rattling from under their feet, or the
horse slid downward over the smooth granite, so that they were well
pleased to reach the mossy slopes. By degrees, creeping plants began to
appear, spreading their green sheets; and, waving from the crevices like
fans, they hung down in long ringlets like ribbons or flags. At length
they reached a thick wood of nut-trees; then came the oak, the wild
cherry, and, lower still, the tchinar,[41] and the tchindar. The
variety, the wealth of vegetation, and the majestic silence of the
umbrageous forest, produced a kind of involuntary adoration of the wild
strength of nature. Ever and anon, from the midnight darkness of the
boughs, there dawned, like the morning, glimpses of meadows, covered
with a fragrant carpet of flowers untrodden by the foot of man. The
pathway at one time lost itself in the depth of the thicket; at another,
crept forth upon the edge of the rock, below which gleamed and murmured
a rivulet, now foaming over the stones, then again slumbering on its
rocky bed, under the shade of the barberry and the eglantine. Pheasants,
sparkling with their rainbow tails, flitted from shrub to shrub; flights
of wild pigeons flew over the crags, sometimes in an horizontal troop,
sometimes like a column, rising to the sky; and sunset flooded all with
its airy purple, and light mists began to rise from the narrow gorges:
every thing breathed the freshness of evening. Our travellers were now
near the village of Aki, and separated only by a hill from Khounzakh. A
low crest alone divided them from that village, when the report of a gun
resounded from the mountain, and, like an ominous signal, was repeated
by the echoes of the cliffs. The travellers halted irresolute: the
echoes by degrees sank into stillness. "Our hunters!" cried Sultan
Akhmet Khan, wiping the sweat from his face: "they expect me not, and
think not to meet me here! Many tears of joy, and many of sorrow, do I
bear to Khounzakh!" Unfeigned sorrow was expressed in the face of Akhmet
Khan. Vividly does every soft and every savage sentiment play on the
features of the Asiatic.

[41] Tchinar, the palmated-leaved plane.

Another report soon interrupted his meditation; then another, and
another. Shot answered shot, and at length thickened into a warm fire.
"'Tis the Russians!" cried Ammalat, drawing his sabre. He pressed his
horse with the stirrup, as though he would have leaped over the ridge at
a single bound; but in a moment his strength failed him, and the blade
fell ringing on the ground, as his arm dropped heavily by his side.
"Khan!" said he, dismounting, "go to the succour of your people; your
face will be worth more to them than a hundred warriors."

The Khan heard him not; he was listening intently for the flight of the
balls, as if he would distinguish those of the Russian from the Avarian.
"Have they, besides the agility of the goat, stolen the wings of the
eagle of Kazbec? Can they have reached our inaccessible fastnesses?"
said he, leaning to the saddle, with his foot already in the stirrup.
"Farewell, Ammalat!" he cried at length, listening to the firing, which
now grew hotter: "I go to perish on the ruins I have made, after
striking like a thunderbolt!" At this moment a bullet whistled by, and
fell at his feet. Bending down and picking it up, his face was lighted
with a smile. He quietly took his foot from the stirrup, and turning to
Ammalat, "Mount!" said he, "you shall presently find with your own eyes
an answer to this riddle. The Russian bullets are of lead; but this is
copper[42]--an Avaretz, my dear countryman. Besides, it comes from the
south, where the Russians cannot be."

[42] Having no lead, the Avaretzes use balls of copper, as they
possess small mines of that metal.

They ascended to the summit of the crest, and before their view opened
two villages, situated on the opposite sides of a deep ravine; from
behind them came the firing. The inhabitants sheltering themselves
behind rocks and hedges, were firing at each other. Between them the
women were incessantly running, sobbing and weeping when any combatant,
approaching the edge of the ravine, fell wounded. They carried stones,
and, regardless of the whistling of the balls, fearlessly piled them up,
so as to make a kind of defence. Cries of joy arose from one side or the
other, as a wounded adversary was carried from the field; a groan of
sorrow ascended in the air when one of their kinsmen or comrades was
hit. Ammalat gazed at the combat for some time with surprise, a combat in
which there was a great deal more noise than execution. At length he
turned an enquiring eye upon the Khan.

"With us these are everyday affairs!" he answered, delightedly marking
each report. "Such skirmishes cherish among us a warlike spirit and
warlike habits. With you, private quarrels end in a few blows of the
dagger; among us they become the common business of whole villages, and
any trifle is enough to occasion them. Probably they are fighting about
some cow that has been stolen. With us it is no disgrace to steal in
another village--the shame is, to be found out. Admire the coolness of
our women; the balls are whizzing about like gnats, yet they pay no
attention to them! Worthy wives and mothers of brave men! To be sure,
there would be eternal disgrace to him who could wound a woman, yet no
man can answer for a ball. A sharp eye may aim it; but blind chance
carries it to the mark. But darkness is falling from heaven, and
dividing these enemies for a moment. Let us hasten to my kinsmen."

Nothing but the experience of the Khan could have saved our travellers
from frequent falls in the precipitous descent to the river Ouzen.
Ammalat could see scarcely any thing before him; the double veil of
night and weakness enveloped his eyes; his head turned: he beheld, as it
were in a dream, when they again mounted an eminence, the gate and
watch-tower of the Khan's house. With an uncertain foot he dismounted in
a courtyard, surrounded by shouting noukers and attendants; and he had
hardly stepped over the grated threshold when his breath failed him--a
deadly paleness poured its snow over the wounded man's face; and the
young Bek, exhausted by loss of blood, fatigued by travel, hunger, and
anguish of soul, fell senseless on the embroidered carpets.

* * * * *




POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.

No. VI.


THE LAY OF THE BELL.

"Vivos voco--Mortuous plango--Fulgura frango."

Fast, in its prison-walls of earth,
Awaits the mould of baked clay.
Up, comrades, up, and aid the birth--
THE BELL that shall be born to-day!
And wearily now,
With the sweat of the brow,
Shall the work win its grace in the master's eye,
But the blessing that hallows must come from high.

And well an earnest word beseems
The work the earnest hand prepares;
Its load more light the labour deems,
When sweet discourse the labour shares.
So let us ponder--nor in vain--
What strength has wrought when labour wills;
For who would not the fool disdain
Who ne'er can feel what he fulfills?
And well it stamps our Human Race,
And hence the gift TO UNDERSTAND,
When in the musing heart we trace
Whate'er we fashion with the hand.

From the fir the fagot take,
Keep it, heap it hard and dry,
That the gather'd flame may break
Through the furnace, wroth and high.
Smolt the copper within--
Quick--the brass with the tin,
That the glutinous fluid that feeds the Bell
May flow in the right course glib and well.

What now these mines so deeply shroud,
What Force with Fire is moulding thus,
Shall from yon steeple, oft and loud,
Speak, witnessing of us!
It shall, in later days unfailing,
Rouse many an ear to rapt emotion;
Its solemn voice with Sorrow wailing,
Or choral chiming to Devotion.
Whatever sound in man's deep breast
Fate wakens, through his winding track,
Shall strike that metal-crowned crest,
Which rings the moral answer back.

* * * * *

See the silvery bubbles spring!
Good! the mass is melting now!
Let the salts we duly bring
Purge the flood, and speed the flow.
From the dross and the scum,
Pure, the fusion must come;
For perfect and pure we the metal must keep,
That its voice may be perfect, and pure, and deep.

That voice, with merry music rife,
The cherish'd child shall welcome in;
What time the rosy dreams of life,
In the first slumber's arms begin.
As yet in Time's dark womb unwarning,
Repose the days, or foul or fair;
And watchful o'er that golden morning,
The Mother-Love's untiring care!

And swift the years like arrows fly--
No more with girls content to play,
Bounds the proud Boy upon his way,
Storms through loud life's tumultuous pleasures,
With pilgrim staff the wide world measures;
And, wearied with the wish to roam,
Again seeks, stranger-like, the Father-Home.
And, lo, as some sweet vision breaks
Out from its native morning skies,
With rosy shame on downcast cheeks,
The Virgin stands before his eyes.
A nameless longing seizes him!
From all his wild companions flown;
Tears, strange till then, his eyes bedim;
He wanders all alone.
Blushing, he glides where'er she move;
Her greeting can transport him;
To every mead to deck his love,
The happy wild flowers court him!
Sweet Hope--and tender Longing--ye
The growth of Life's first Age of Gold;
When the heart, swelling, seems to see
The gates of heaven unfold!
O Love, the beautiful and brief! O prime,
Glory, and verdure, of life's summer time!

* * * * *

Browning o'er the pipes are simmering,
Dip this fairy rod within;
If like glass the surface glimmering,
Then the casting may begin.
Brisk, brisk to the rest--
Quick!--the fusion to test;
And welcome, my merry men, welcome the sign,
If the ductile and brittle united combine.

For still where the strong is betrothed to the weak,
And the stern in sweet marriage is blent with the meek,
Rings the concord harmonious, both tender and strong:
So be it with thee, if for ever united,
The heart to the heart flows in one, love-delighted;
Illusion is brief, but Repentance is long.

Lovely, thither are they bringing,
With her virgin wreath, the Bride!
To the love-feast clearly ringing,
Tolls the church-bell far and wide!
With that sweetest holyday,
Must the May of Life depart;
With the cestus loosed--away
Flies ILLUSION from the heart!
Yet Love lingers lonely,
When Passion is mute,
And the blossoms may only
Give way to the fruit.

The Husband must enter
The hostile life,
With struggle and strife,
To plant or to watch,
To snare or to snatch,
To pray and importune,
Must wager and venture
And hunt down his fortune!
Then flows in a current the gear and the gain,
And the garners are fill'd with the gold of the grain,
Now a yard to the court, now a wing to the centre!
Within sits Another,
The thrifty Housewife;
The mild one, the mother--
Her home is her life.
In its circle she rules,
And the daughters she schools,
And she cautions the boys,
With a bustling command,
And a diligent hand
Employ'd she employs;
Gives order to store,
And the much makes the more;
Locks the chest and the wardrobe, with lavender smelling,
And the hum of the spindle goes quick through the dwelling;
And she hoards in the presses, well polish'd and full,
The snow of the linen, the shine of the wool;
Blends the sweet with the good, and from care and endeavour
Rests never!
Blithe the Master (where the while
From his roof he sees them smile)
Eyes the lands, and counts the gain;
There, the beams projecting far,
And the laden store-house are,
And the granaries bow'd beneath
The blessings of the golden grain;
There, in undulating motion,
Wave the corn-fields like an ocean.
Proud the boast the proud lips breathe:--
"My house is built upon a rock,
And sees unmoved the stormy shock
Of waves that fret below!"
What chain so strong, what girth so great,
To bind the giant form of Fate?--
Swift are the steps of Woe.

* * * * *

Now the casting may begin;
See the breach indented there:
Ere we run the fusion in,
Halt--and speed the pious prayer!
Pull the bung out--
See around and about
What vapour, what vapour--God help us!--has risen?--
Ha! the flame like a torrent leaps forth from its prison!

What, friend, is like the might of fire
When man can watch and wield the ire?
Whate'er we shape or work, we owe
Still to that heaven-descended glow.
But dread the heaven-descended glow,
When from their chain its wild wings go,
When, where it listeth, wide and wild
Sweeps the free Nature's free-born Child!
When the Frantic One fleets,
While no force can withstand,
Through the populous streets
Whirling ghastly the brand;
For the Element hates
What Man's labour creates,
And the work of his hand!
Impartially out from the cloud,
Or the curse or the blessing may fall!
Benignantly out from the cloud
Come the dews, the revivers of all!
Avengingly our from the cloud
Come the levin, the bolt, and the ball!
Hark--a wail from the steeple!--aloud
The bell shrills its voice to the crowd!
Look--look--red as blood
All on high!
It is not the daylight that fills with its flood
The sky!
What a clamour awaking
Roars up through the street,
What a hell-vapour breaking
Rolls on through the street,
And higher and higher
Aloft moves the Column of Fire!
Through the vistas and rows
Like a whirlwind it goes,
And the air like the steam from a furnace glows.
Beams are crackling--posts are shrinking--
Walls are sinking--windows clinking--
Children crying--
Mothers flying--
And the beast (the black ruin yet smouldering under)
Yells the howl of its pain and its ghastly wonder!
Hurry and skurry--away--away,
And the face of the night is as clear as day!
As the links in a chain,
Again and again
Flies the bucket from hand to hand;
High in arches up rushing
The engines are gushing,
And the flood, as a beast on the prey that it hounds,
With a roar on the breast of the element bounds.
To the grain and the fruits,
Through the rafters and beams,
Through the barns and the garners it crackles and streams!
As if they would rend up the earth from its roots,
Rush the flames to the sky
Giant-high;
And at length,
Wearied out and despairing, man bows to their strength!
With an idle gaze sees their wrath consume,
And submits to his doom!
Desolate
The place, and dread
For storms the barren bed.
In the deserted gaps that casements were,
Looks forth despair;
And, where the roof hath been,
Peer the pale clouds within!

One look
Upon the grave
Of all that Fortune gave
The loiterer took--
Then grasps his staff. Whate'er the fire bereft,
One blessing, sweeter than all else, is left--
_The faces that he loves_! He counts them o'er--
And, see--not one dear look is missing from _that_ store!

* * * * *

Now clasp'd the bell within the clay--
The mould the mingled metals fill--
Oh, may it, sparkling into day,
Reward the labour and the skill!
Alas! should it fail,
For the mould may be frail--
And still with our hope must be mingled the fear--
And, even now, while we speak, the mishap may be near!

To the dark womb of sacred earth
This labour of our hands is given,
As seeds that wait the second birth,
And turn to blessings watch'd by heaven!
Ah seeds, how dearer far than they
We bury in the dismal tomb,
Where Hope and Sorrow bend to pray
That suns beyond the realm of day
May warm them into bloom!

From the steeple
Tolls the bell,
Deep and heavy,
The death-knell!
Measured and solemn, guiding up the road
A wearied wanderer to the last abode.
It is that worship'd wife--
It is that faithful mother![43]
Whom the dark Prince of Shadows leads benighted,
From that dear arm where oft she hung delighted.
Far from those blithe companions, born
Of her, and blooming in their morn;
On whom, when couch'd, her heart above
So often look'd the Mother-Love!

Ah! rent the sweet Home's union-band,
And never, never more to come--
She dwells within the shadowy land,
Who was the Mother of that Home!
How oft they miss that tender guide,
The care--the watch--the face--the MOTHER--
And where she sate the babes beside,
Sits with unloving looks--ANOTHER!

* * * * *

While the mass is cooling now,
Let the labour yield to leisure,
As the bird upon the bough,
Loose the travail to the pleasure.
When the soft stars awaken,
Each task be forsaken!

And the vesper-bell lulling the earth into peace,
If the master still toil, chimes the workman's release!

Gleesome and gay,
On the welcoming way,
Through the wood glides the wanderer home!
And the eye and ear are meeting,
Now, the slow sheep homeward bleating--
Now, the wonted shelter near,
Lowing the lusty-fronted steer;
Creaking now the heavy wain,
Reels with the happy harvest grain.
Which with many-coloured leaves,
Glitters the garland on the sheaves;
And the mower and the maid
Bound to the dance beneath the shade!
Desert street, and quiet mart;--
Silence is in the city's heart;
Round the taper burning cheerly,
Gather the groups HOME loves so dearly;
And the gate the town before
Heavily swings with sullen roar!

Though darkness is spreading
O'er earth--the Upright
And the Honest, undreading,
Look safe on the night.
Which the evil man watching in awe,
For the Eye of the Night is the Law!
Bliss-dower'd: O daughter of the skies,
Hail, holy ORDER, whose employ
Blends like to like in light and joy--
Builder of Cities, who of old
Call'd the wild man from waste and wold.
And in his hut thy presence stealing,
Roused each familiar household feeling;
And, best of all the happy ties,
The centre of the social band,--
_The Instinct of the Fatherland!_

United thus--each helping each,
Brisk work the countless hands for ever;
For nought its power to strength can teach,
Like Emulation and Endeavour!
Thus link'd the master with the man,
Each in his rights can each revere,
And while they march in freedom's van,
Scorn the lewd rout that dogs the rear!
To freemen labour is renown!
Who works--gives blessings and commands;
Kings glory in the orb and crown--
Be ours the glory of our hands.

Long in these walls--long may we greet
Your footfalls, Peace and concord sweet!
Distant the day, Oh! distant far,
When the rude hordes of trampling War
Shall scare the silent vale;
And where,
Now the sweet heaven when day doth leave
The air;
Limns its soft rose-hues on the veil of Eve;
Shall the fierce war-brand tossing in the gale,
From town and hamlet shake the horrent glare!

* * * * *

Now, its destined task fulfill'd,
Asunder break the prison-mould;
Let the goodly Bell we build,
Eye and heart alike behold.
The hammer down heave,
Till the cover it cleave.
For the Bell to rise up to the freedom of day,
Destruction must seize on the shape of the clay.

To break the mould, the master may,
If skilled the hand and ripe the hour;
But woe, when on its fiery way
The metal seeks itself to pour.
Frantic and blind, with thunder-knell,
Exploding from its shattered home,
And glaring forth, as from a hell,
Behold the red Destruction come!
When rages strength that has no reason,
_There_ breaks the mould before the season;
When numbers burst what bound before,
Woe to the State that thrives no more!
Yea, woe, when in the City's heart,
The latent spark to flame is blown;
And Millions from their silence start,
To claim, without a guide, their own!
Discordant howls the warning Bell,
Proclaiming discord wide and far,
And, born but things of peace to tell,
Becomes the ghastliest voice of war:
"Freedom! Equality!"--to blood,
Rush the roused people at the sound!
Through street, hall, palace, roars the flood,
And banded murder closes round!
The hyaena-shapes, that women were!
Jest with the horrors they survey;
They hound--they rend--they mangle there--
As panthers with their prey!
Nought rests to hallow--burst the ties
Of life's sublime and reverent awe;
Before the Vice the Virtue flies,
And Universal Crime is Law!
Man fears the lion's kingly tread;
Man fears the tiger's fangs of terror;
And still the dreadliest of the dread,
Is Man himself in error!
No torch, though lit from Heaven, illumes
The Blind!--Why place it in his hand?
It lights not him--it but consumes
The City and the Land!

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