Mazeppa: A Poem

Lord Byron

• Publisher: Fantasy and Horror Classics
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781528768689
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Poetry
• Index: Literature

"Mazeppa" is a 1819 narrative poem composed by the seminal English romantic poet Lord Byron. Based on a popular legend concerning the early life of Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), it describes how the young Mazeppa had a love affair with a Polish Countess named Theresa during his time spent as a page in the Court of King John II Casimir Vasa. The Countess Theresa was, however, married and, upon discovering the affair, her husband punishes Mazeppa by stripping him and tying him to a wild horse. George Gordon Byron (1788 – 1824), commonly known as Lord Byron, was a British poet, politician, peer, and important figure of the Romantic movement. He is hailed as one of the most influential British poets and is continued to be widely read and influential. His most famous works include the poems "Don Juan" and "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage". Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

MAZEPPA.

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“CELUI qui remplissait alors cette place, était un gentilhomme “Polonais, nommé Mazeppa, né dans le palatinat “de Padolie; il avait été élevé page de Jean Casimir, et “avait pris à sa cour quelque teinture des belles-lettres. “Une intrigue qu’il eut dans sa jeunesse avec la femme d’un “gentilhomme Polonais, ayant été découverte, le mari le fit lier “tout nu sur un cheval farouche, et le laissa aller en cet état. “Le cheval, qui était du pays de l’Ukraine, y retourna, et y “porta Mazeppa, demi-mort de fatigue et de faim. Quelque “paysans le secoururent: il resta long-tems parmi eux, et se “signala dans plusieurs courses contre les Tartares. La “supériorité de ses lumières lui donna une grande considération “parmi les Cosaques: sa réputation s’augmentant “de jour en jour, obligea le Czar à le faire Prince de “l’Ukraine.”—VOLTAIRE, Histoire de Charles XII. p. 196.

“Le roi fuyant et poursuivi eut son cheval tué sous lui; “le Colonel Gieta, blessé, et perdant tout sa sang, lui donna “le sien. Ainsi on remit deux fois à cheval, dans la suite, “ce conquérant qui n’avait pu y monter pendant la bataille.” VOLTAIRE, Hist, de Charles XII. p. 216.

“Le roi alla par un autre chemin avec quelques cavaliers. “Le carrosse, où il était, rompit dans la marche; on le remit “à cheval. Pour comble de disgrace, il s’égara pendant la “nuit dans un bois; là, son courage ne pouvant plus suppléer “à ses forces épuisées, les douleurs de sa blessure devenues “plus insupportable par la fatigue, son cheval étant tombé “de lassitude, il se coucha quelques heures au pied d’un “arbre, en danger d’être surpris à tout moment par les “vainqueurs qui le cherchaient de tout côtés.”—VOLTAIRE, Histoire de Charles XII. p. 218.

MAZEPPA.

I.

’TWAS after dread Pultowa’s day,

When fortune left the royal Swede,

Around a slaughter’d army lay,

No more to combat and to bleed.

The power and glory of the war,

Faithless as their vain votaries, men,

Had pass’d to the triumphant Czar,

And Moscow’s walls were safe again,

Until a day more dark and drear,

And a more memorable year, 10

Should give to slaughter and to shame

A mightier host and haughtier name;

A greater wreck, a deeper fall,

A shock to one—a thunderbolt to all.

II.

Such was the hazard of the die;

The wounded Charles was taught to fly

By day and night through field and flood,

Stain’d with his own and subjects’ blood;

For thousands fell that flight to aid:

And not a voice was heard t’upbraid 20

Ambition in his humbled hour,

When truth had nought to dread from power.

His horse was slain, and Gieta gave

His own—and died the Russians’ slave.

This too sinks after many a league

Of well sustain’d, but vain fatigue;

And in the depth of forests, darkling,

The watch-fires in the distance sparkling—

The beacons of surrounding foes—

A king must lay his limbs at length. 30

Are these the laurels and repose

For which the nations strain their strength?

They laid him by a savage tree,

In out-worn nature’s agony;

His wounds were stiff—his limbs were stark—

The heavy hour was chill and dark;

The fever in his blood forbade

A transient slumber’s fitful aid:

And thus it was; but yet through all,

Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, 40

And made, in this extreme of ill,

His pangs the vassals of his will;

All silent and subdued were they,

As once the nations round him lay.

III.

A band of chiefs!—alas! how few,

Since but the fleeting of a day

Had thinn’d it; but this wreck was true

And chivalrous: upon the clay

Each sate him down, all sad and mute,

Beside his monarch and his steed, 50

For danger levels man and brute,

And all are fellows in their need.

Among the rest, Mazeppa made

His pillow in an old oak’s shade—

Himself as rough, and scarce less old,

The Ukraine’s hetman, calm and bold;

But first, outspent with this long course,

The Cossack prince rubb’d down his horse,

And made for...