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 pass.
The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;
Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;
White is the foam of their champ on the bit:
The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;
The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,
And crush the wall they have crumbled before:
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-Allah 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!

XXIII.

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;
Many a bosom, sheathed in brass,
Strew'd the earth like broken glass,
Shiver'd by the shot, that tore

The ground whereon they moved no more:
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.

XXIV.

As the spring tides, with heavy splash,
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;

The horse-tails, fixed upon a lance, forming a pacha's standard.

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
Lurk'd beneath his corselet 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,
Patroclus' spirit less was pleased
Than his, Minotti's son, who died
Where Asia's bounds and ours divide.
Buried he lay, where thousands before
For thousands of years were inhumed on the
shore;

What of them is left, to tell

Where they lie, and how they fell?

Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves; But they live in the verse that immortally saves.

XXVI.

Hark to the Allah shout! a band

Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand:

+ In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, be tween the Venetians and the Turks.

Their leader's nervous arm is bare,
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, 't is 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.

XXVII.

Still the old man stood erect,
And Alp's career a moment check'd.
"Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take,
For thine own, thy daughter's sake.'

"Never, renegado, never!

Though the life of thy gift would last for ever."

"Francesca!-Oh, my promised bride! Must she too perish by thy pride?"

"She is safe."-"Where? where?"-"In heaven; From whence thy traitor soul is drivenFar from thee, and undefiled."

Grimly then Minotti smiled,

As he saw Alp staggering bow

Before his words, as with a blow.

"Oh God! when died she?"-"YesternightNor 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 neighboring 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,
Unanell'd he pass'd away,

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

XXVIII.

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.

XXIX.

Brief breathing-time! the turban'd host,
With adding 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!

XXX.

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.

XXXI.

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 sable 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.

XXXII.

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.

XXXIII.

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"T is fired!

* I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these

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 jackals' 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!

animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins and follow armies.

And though they hope, and vow, they grieve,
As if that parting were the last.
The frequent sigh-the long embrace—
The lip that there would cling forever,
While gleams on Parisina's face

The Heaven she fears will not forgive her,
As if each calmly conscious star
Beheld her frailty from afar—
The frequent sigh, the long embrace,
Yet binds them to their trysting-place.
But it must come, and they must part
In fearful heaviness of heart,
With all the deep and shuddering chill
Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

V.

And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed,
To covet there another's bride;
But she must lay her conscious head
A husband's trusting heart beside.
But fever'd in her sleep she seems,
And red her cheek with troubled dreams,
And mutters she in her unrest

A name she dare not breathe by day,
And clasps her lord unto the breast
Which pants for one away:
And he to that embrace awakes,
And, happy in the thought, mistakes
That dreaming sigh, and warm caress,
For such as he was wont to bless;
And could in very fondness weep
O'er her who loves him even in sleep.

VI.

He clasp'd her sleeping to his heart,
And listen'd to each broken word:
He hears-Why doth Prince Azo start,
As if the Archangel's voice he heard?
And well he may-a deeper doom
Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb,
When he shall wake to sleep no more,
And stand the eternal throne before.
And well he may-his earthly peace
Upon that sound is doom'd to cease.
That sleeping whisper of a name
Bespeaks her guilt and Azo's shame.
And whose that name? that o'er his pillow
Sounds fearful as the breaking billow,
Which rolls the plank upon the shore,
And dashes on the pointed rock
The wretch who sinks to rise no more,-
So came upon his soul the shock.
And whose that name? 't is Hugo's,-his-
In sooth he had not deem'd of this!-
"Tis Hugo's,-he, the child of one
He loved his own all-evil son-
The offspring of his wayward youth,
When he betray'd Bianca's truth,
The maid whose folly could confide
In him who made her not his bride.

VII.

He pluck'd his poniard in its sheath,
But sheath'd it ere the point was bare-
Howe'er unworthy now to breathe,

He could not slay a thing so fair-
At least, not smiling-sleeping-there:
Nay more: he did not wake her then,
But gazed upon her with a glance

Which, had she roused her from her trance,
Had frozen her sense to sleep again;
And o'er his brow the burning lamp
Gleam'd on the dew-drops big and damp.
She spake no more-but still she slumber'd-
While, in his thought, her days are number'd.

VIII. And with the morn he sought, and found, In many a tale from those around, The proof of all he fear'd to know, Their present guilt, his future woe; The long conniving damsels seek

To save themselves, and would transfer
The guilt-the shame-the doom to her:
Concealment is no more-they speak
All circumstance which may compel
Full credence to the tale they tell:
And Azo's tortured heart and ear
Have nothing more to feel or hear.
IX.

He was not one who brook'd delay:
Within the chamber of his state,
The chief of Este's ancient sway

Upon his throne of judgment sate;
His nobles and his guards are there,―
Before him is the sinful pair;

Both young, and one how passing fair!
With swordless belt, and fetter'd hand,
Oh, Christ! that thus a son should stand
Before a father's face!

Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire,
And hear the sentence of his ire,
The tale of his disgrace!

And yet he seems not overcome,
Although, as yet, his voice be dumb.

X.

And still, and pale, and silently
Did Parisina wait her doom;
How changed since last her speaking eye
Glanced gladness round the glittering room,
Where high-born men were proud to wait-
Where Beauty watch'd to imitate

Her gentle voice-her lovely mien-
And gather from her air and gait

The graces of its queen:

Then, had her eye in sorrow wept,
A thousand warriors forth had leapt,
A thousand swords had sheathless shone,
And made her quarrel all their own.
Now, what is she? and what are they?
Can she command, or these obey?
All silent and unheeding now,
With downcast eyes and knitting brow,
And folded arms, and freezing air,
And lips that scarce their scorn forbear,
Her knights and dames, her court-is there:
And he, the chosen one, whose lance
Had yet been couch'd before her glance,
Who-were his arms a moment free-
Had died or gain'd her liberty;
The minion of his father's bride,-
He, too, is fetter'd by her side;
Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim
Less for her own despair than him:
Those lids-o'er which the violet vein
Wandering, leaves a tender stain,
Shining through the smoothest white
That e'er did softest kiss invite-
Now seem'd with hot and livid glow
To press, not shade, the orbs below;
Which glance so heavily, and fill,
As tear on tear grows gathering still.
XI.

And he for her had also wept,

But for the eyes that on him gazed:
His sorrow, if he felt it, slept;

Stern and erect his brow was raised.
Whate'er the grief his soul avow'd,
He would not shrink before the crowd;