Roll'd like a torrent o'er the rest.
He sue for mercy! He dismay'd
By wild words of a timid maid!
He, wrong'd by Venice, vow to save
Her sons devoted to the grave!
No-though that cloud were thunder's
worst,

And charged to crush him-let it burst!

He look'd upon it earnestly, Without an accent of reply; He watch'd it passing; it is flown: Full on his eye the clear moon shone, And thus he spake-"Whate'er my fate, I am no changeling-'tis too late: The reed in storms may bow and quiver, Then rise again; the tree must shiver. What Venice made me, I must be Her foe in all, save love to thee: But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!" He turn'd, but she is gone! Nothing is there but the column-stone. Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air? He saw not, he knew not; but nothing is there.

The night is past, and shines the sun As if that morn were a jocund one. Lightly and brightly breaks away The Morning from her mantle gray, And the Noon will look on a sultry day. Hark to the trump, and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous

horn, And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne, steed, and the multitude's hum, shout, "they come, they come!"

And the neigh of the
And the clash, and the

The horsetails are pluck'd from the ground,

and the sword

From its sheath; and they form, and but

wait for the word. Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape,

Aged or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they

Forms in his phalanx each Janizar;
Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,
So is the blade of his scimitar;

The khan and the pachas are all at their
post;
The vizier himself at the head of the host.
When the culverin's signal is fired, then on;
Leave not in Corinth a living one-
A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,
A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her
walls.

God and the prophet-Alla Hu!
Up to the skies with that wild halloo!
"There the breach lies for passage, the
ladder to scale;

And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail? He who first downs with the red cross may crave His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"

Thus utter'd Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier ;

The reply was the brandish of sabre and

spear, And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire:Silence-hark to the signal-fire!

As the wolves, that headlong go
On the stately buffalo,
Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,
And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,
He tramples on earth, or tosses on high
The foremost, who rush on his strength
but to die:

Thus against the wall they went,
Thus the first were backward bent;
Strew'd the earth like broken glass,
Many a bosom, sheath'd in brass,
The ground whereon they moved no more:
Shiver'd by the shot, that tore
Even as they fell, in files they lay,
Like the mower's grass at the close of day,
When his work is done on the levell'd
plain;

Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,
From the cliffs invading dash
Huge fragments, sapp'd by the ceaseless
flow,

Till white and thundering down they go;
Like the avalanche's snow
On the Alpine vales below:
Thus at length, outbreathed and worn,
Corinth's sons were downward borne
By the long and oft renew'd
Charge of the Moslem multitude.
In firmness they stood, and in masses they
fell,
Heap'd by the host of the infidel,
Hand to hand, and foot to foot:
Nothing there, save death, was mute;

Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry
For quarter, or for victory,

Mingle there with the volleying thunder,
Which makes the distant cities wonder
How the sounding battle goes,

If with them, or for their foes;

If they must mourn, or may rejoice

In that annihilating voice,

Patroclus' spirit less was pleased

through

With an echo dread and new:

You might have heard it, on that day,
O'er Salamis and Megara;
(We have heard the hearers say,)
Even unto Piraeus bay.

From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,

And all but the after-carnage done.
Shriller shrieks now mingling come
From within the plunder'd dome:
Hark to the haste of flying feet,

That splash in the blood of the slippery street;

But here and there, where 'vantage-ground
Against the foe may still be found,
Desperate groups, of twelve or ten,
Make a pause, and turn again-
With banded backs against the wall,
Fiercely stand, or fighting fall.

There stood an old man-his hairs were white,

But his veteran arm was full of might:
So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray,
The dead before him on that day
In a semicircle lay;

Still he combated unwounded,
Though retreating, unsurrounded.
Many a scar of former fight
Lurked beneath his corslet bright;
But of every wound his body bore,
Each and all had been ta'en before:
Though aged he was, so iron of limb,
Few of our youth could cope with him;
And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay,
Outnumber'd his thin hairs of silver-gray.
From right to left his sabre swept:
Many an Othman mother wept
Sons that were unborn, when dipp'd
His weapon first in Moslem gore,
Ere his years could count a score.
Of all he might have been the sire
Who fell that day beneath his ire:
For, sonless left long years ago,
His wrath made many a childless foe;
And since the day, when in the strait
His only boy had met his fate,
His parent's iron hand did doom
More than a human hecatomb.

If shades by carnage be appeased,

But they live in the verse that immortally

saves.

Hark to the Allah shout! a band Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand:

Their leader's nervous arm is hare,
Swifter to smite, and never to spare-
Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them on;
Thus in the fight is he ever known:
Others a gaudier garb may show,
To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe;
Many a hand's on a richer hilt,
But none on a steel more ruddily gilt:
Many a loftier turban may wear,-
Alp is but known by the white arm bare;
Look through the thick of the fight, 'tis
there!

There is not a standard on that shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
Will lure the Delhis half so far;
It glances like a falling star!
Where'er that mighty arm is seen,
The bravest be, or late have been;
There the craven cries for quarter
Vainly to the vengeful Tartar;
Or the hero, silent lying,
Scorns to yield a groan in dying;
Mustering his last feeble blow
'Gainst the nearest levell'd foe,

Though faint beneath the mutual wound,
Grappling on the gory ground.

Nor weep I for her spirit's flight:
None of my pure race shall be
Slaves to Mahomet and thee-

Come on!"—That challenge is in vain –
Alp's already with the slain!
While Minotti's words were wreaking
More revenge in bitter speaking
Than his falchion's point had found,
Had the time allow'd to wound,
From within the neighbouring porch
Of a long defended church,
Where the last and desperate few
Would the failing fight renew,
The sharp shot dash'd Alp to the ground;
Ere an eye could view the wound
That crash'd through the brain of the infidel,
Round he spun, and down he fell;
A flash like fire within his eyes
Blazed, as he bent no more to rise,
And then eternal darkness sunk
Through all the palpitating trunk ;
Nought of life left, save a quivering
Where his limbs were slightly shivering:
They turn'd him on his back; his breast
And brow were stain'd with gore and
dust,

And through his lips the life-blood oozed,
From its deep veins lately loosed;
But in his pulse there was no throb,
Nor on his lips one dying sob;

Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath
Heralded his way to death;

Ere his very thought could pray,
Unaneal'd he pass'd away,

Without a hope from mercy's aid,
To the last a renegade.

Fearfully the yell arose

Of his followers, and his foes;
These in joy, in fury those:
Then again in conflict mixing,
Clashing swords, and spears transfixing,
Interchanged the blow and thrust,
Hurling warriors in the dust.
Street by street, and foot by foot,
Still Minotti dares dispute
The latest portion of the land
Left beneath his high command;
With him, aiding heart and hand,
The remnant of his gallant band.
Still the church is tenable,
Whence issued late the fated ball
That half avenged the city's fall,
When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell:
Thither bending sternly back,
They leave before a bloody track;
And, with their faces to the foe,
Dealing wounds with every blow,
The chief, and his retreating train;
Join to those within the fane:
There they yet may breathe awhile,
Shelter'd by the massy pile.

Brief breathing-time! the turban'd host,
With added ranks and raging boast,
Press onwards with such strength and heat,
Their numbers balk their own retreat;
For narrow the way that led to the spot
Where still the Christians yielded not;
And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try
Through the massy column to turn and fly;
They perforce must do or die.

They die; but, ere their eyes could close,
Avengers o'er their bodies rose;
Fresh and furious, fast they fill
The ranks unthinn'd, though slaughter'd

still;

And faint the weary Christians wax
Before the still renew'd attacks:
And now the Othmans gain the gate;
Still resists its iron weight,
And still, all deadly aim'd and hot,
From every crevice comes the shot;
From every shatter'd window pour
The volleys of the sulphurous shower:
But the portal wavering grows and weak-
The iron yields, the hinges creak—
It bends-it falls-and all is o'er;
Lost Corinth may resist no more!

Darkly, sternly, and all alone,
Minotti stood o'er the altar-stone:
Madonna's face upon him shone,
Painted in heavenly hues above,
With eyes of light and looks of love;
And placed upon that holy shrine
To fix our thoughts on things divine,
When pictured there, we kneeling see
Her, and the Boy-God on her knee,
Smiling sweetly on each prayer
To heaven, as if to waft it there.
Still she smiled; even now she smiles,
Though slaughter streams along her aisles:
Minotti lifted his aged eye,

And made the sign of a cross with a sigh,
Then seized a torch which blazed thereby;
And still he stood, while, with steel and
flame,
Inward and onward the Mussulman came.

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone Contain'd the dead of ages gone; Their names were on the graven floor, But now illegible with gore; The carved crests, and curious hues The varied marble's veins diffuse, Were smear'd, and slippery-stain'd, and

strown

With broken swords, and helms o'erthrown:
There were dead above, and the dead below
Lay cold in many a coffin'd row;
You might see them piled in sæble state,
By a pale light through a gloomy grate;
But War had enter'd their dark caves,
And stored along the vaulted graves
Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread
In masses by the fleshless dead;

Here, throughout the siege, had been
The Christians' chiefest magazine;
To these a late form'd train now led,
Minotti's last and stern resource
Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.

The foe came on, and few remain
To strive, and those must strive in vain :
For lack of further lives, to slake
The thirst of vengeance now awake,
With barbarous blows they gash the dead,
And lop the already lifeless head,
And fell the statues from their niche,
And spoil the shrines of offerings rich,
And from each other's rude hands wrest
The silver vessels saints had bless'd.
To the high altar on they go;
Oh, but it made a glorious show!
On its table still behold

The cup of consecrated gold;
Massy and deep, a glittering prize,
Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes:
That morn it held the holy wine,
Converted by Christ to his blood so divine,
Which his worshippers drank at the break
of day,
To shrive their souls ere they join'd in the
fray.

Still a few drops within it lay;
And round the sacred table glow
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row,
From the purest metal cast;
A spoil-the richest, and the last.

So near they came, the nearest stretch'd To grasp the spoil he almost reach'd, When old Minotti's hand

Touch'd with the torch the train
'Tis fired!

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,
The turban'd victors, the Christian band,
All that of living or dead remain,
Hurl'd on high with the shiver'd fane,
In one wild roar expired!

The shatter'd town the walls thrown down

The waves a moment backward bent----
The hills that shake, although unrent,
As if an earthquake pass'd -

The thousand shapeless things all driven
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,
By that tremendous blast-

Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er
On that too long afflicted shore:
Up to the sky like rockets go
All that mingled there below:
Many a tall and goodly man,
Scorch'd and shrivell'd to a span,
When he fell to earth again
Like a cinder strew'd the plain:
Down the ashes shower like rain;
Some fell in the gulf, which received the
sprinkles
With a thousand circling wrinkles;
Some fell on the shore, but far away,
Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay;
Christian or Moslem, which be they?
Let their mothers see and say!
When in cradled rest they lay,
And each nursing mother smiled
On the sweet sleep of her child,
Little deem'd she such a day
Would rend those tender limbs away.
Not the matrons that them bore
Could discern their offspring more ;
That one moment left no trace

More of human form or face
Save a scatter'd scalp or bone:
And down came blazing rafters, strown
Around, and many a falling stone,
Deeply dinted in the clay,
All blacken'd there and reeking lay.
All the living things that heard
That deadly earth-shock disappear'd:
The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead;
The camels from their keepers broke;
The distant steer forsook the yoke-
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,
And burst his girth, and tore his rein;
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh,
Deep-mouth'd arose, and doubly harsh ;
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill,
Where echo roll'd in thunder still;
The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry,
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound:
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,
And mounted nearer to the sun,
The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun;
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak,
And made him higher soar and shriek-
Thus was Corinth lost and won!