Pocahontas, and Other Poems/The Martyr of Scio
THE MARTYR OF SCIO.
Bright summer breathed in Scio. Gay she hung
Her coronal upon the olive groves,
Flushed the rich clusters on the ripening vines,
And shook fresh fragrance from the citron boughs,
Till every breeze was satiate. But the sons
Of that fair isle bore winter in their soul.
'Mid the proud temples of their ancestors,
And through the weeping mastic bowers, their step
Was like the man who hears the oppressor's voice
In Nature's softest echo; for the Turk
In sullen domination sternly roamed
Where mighty Homer awed the listening world.
Once to the proud divan, with stately step,
A youth drew near. Surpassing beauty sate
Upon his princely brow, and from his eye
A glance like lightning parted as he spake.
"I had a jewel. From my sires it came
In long transmission; and upon my soul
There was a bond to keep it for my sons.
'Tis gone—and in its place a false one shines,—
I ask for justice."
Brandishing aloft
His naked scimitar, the cadi cried,
"By Allah and his Prophet! guilt like this
Shall feel the avenger's stroke. Show me the wretch
Who robbed thy casket."
Then the appellant tore
The turban from his head, and cast it down;
"Lo! the false jewel see. And would'st thou know
Whose fraud exchanged it for my precious gem?
Thou art the man. My birth-right was the faith
Of Jesus Christ, which thou hast stolen away
With hollow words. Take back thy tinselled bait
And let me, sorrowing, seek my Saviour's fold.
Tempted I was, and madly have I fallen—
Oh, give me back my faith."
And there he stood,
The stately-born of Scio, in whose veins
Stirred the high blood of Greece. There was a pause,
A haughty lifting up of Turkish brows,
In wonder and in scorn; a hissing tone
Of wrath precursive, and a stern reply
"The faith of Moslem, or the sabre-stroke:
Choose thee, young Greek!"
Then rose his lofty form
In all its majesty, and his deep voice
Rang out sonorous as a triumph-song,
"Give back my faith!"
A pale torch faintly gleamed
Through niche and window of a lonely church,
And thence the wailing of a stifled dirge
Rose sad o'er midnight's ear. A corpse was there—
And a young beauteous creature, kneeling low
In speechless grief. Her wealth of raven locks
Swept o'er the dead man's brow, as there she laid
The withered bridal crown, while every hope
That at its twining woke, and every joy
Young love in fond idolatry had nursed,
Perished that hour.
Feebly she raised her child,
And bade him kiss his father. But the boy
Shrank back in horror from the clotted blood,
And wildly clasped his hands with such a cry
Of piercing anguish that each heart recoiled
Prom his impassioned woe. Yet there was one
Unmoved,—one white-haired, melancholy man,
Who stood in utter desolation forth,
Silent and solemn, like some lonely tower.
Still in his tearless eye there seemed a spark
Of ancient glory 'mid despair to burn—
That Sciote martyr was his only son.