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Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden's
root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand—
This could not last-she lies by him she
loved;

And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunch'd anew some phantom's Her tale untold her truth too dearly

wound.

-

proved.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

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MANY a vanish'd year and age,
And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands
A fortress form'd to Freedom's hands.
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's
shock,

Have left untouch'd her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,
The land-mark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,
Or baffled Persia's despot fled,
Arise from out the earth which drank
The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:
Or could the bones of all the slain,
Who perish'd there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise
More mountain-like, through those
skies,

and the governor seeing it was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed: which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war.”History of the Turks, vol. III. p. 151.

On dun Cithaeron's ridge appears The gleam of twice ten thousand spears; And downward to the Isthmian plain From shore to shore of either main, The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines Along the Moslem's leaguering lines; And the dusk Spahi's bands advance Beneath each bearded pasha's glance; And far and wide as eye can reach The turban'd cohorts throng the beach; And there the Arab's camel kneels, And there his steed the Tartar wheels; The Turcoman hath left his herd, The sabre round his loins to gird; And there the volleying thunders pour, Till waves grow smoother to the roar. The trench is dug, the cannon's breath Wings the far hissing globe of death; Fast whirl the fragments from the wall, Which crumbles with the ponderous ball; And from that wall the foe replies, O'er dusty plain and smoky skies, With fires that answer fast and well The summons of the Infidel.

clear

Than yon tower-capt Acropolis Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

But near and nearest to the wall Of those who wish and work its fall,

With deeper skill in war's black art
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart
As any chief that ever stood
Triumphant in the fields of blood;
From post to post, and deed to deed,
Fast spurring on his reeking steed,
Where sallying ranks the trench assail,
And make the foremost Moslem quail;
Or where the battery, guarded well,
Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire
The soldier slackening in his fire;
The first and freshest of the host
Which Stamboul's sultan there can boast,
To guide the follower o'er the field,
To point the tube, the lance to wield,
Or whirl around the bickering blade;—
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade!

From Venice- once a race of worth His gentle sires-he drew his birth; But late an exile from her shore, Against his countrymen he bore The arms they taught to bear; and now The turban girt his shaven brow. Through many a change had Corinth pass'd With Greece to Venice' rule at last; And here, before her walls, with those To Greece and Venice equal foes, He stood a foe, with all the zeal Which young and fiery converts feel, Within whose heated bosom throngs The memory of a thousand wrongs. To him had Venice ceased to be Her ancient civic boast-"the Free;" And in the palace of St. Mark Unnamed accusers in the dark Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed A charge against him uneffaced: He fled in time, and saved his life, To waste his future years in strife, That taught his land how great her loss In him who triumph'd o'er the Cross, 'Gainst which he rear'd the Crescent high, And battled to avenge or die.

Coumourgi-he whose closing scene Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene, When on Carlowitz' bloody plain, The last and mightiest of the slain, He sank, regretting not to die, But curst the Christian's victory— Coumourgi-can his glory cease, That latest conqueror of Greece, Till Christian hands to Greece restore The freedom Venice gave of yore? A hundred years have roll'd away Since he refix'd the Moslem's sway; And now he led the Mussulman, And gave the guidance of the van To Alp, who well repaid the trust By cities levell'd with the dust; And proved, by many a deed of death, How firm his heart in novel faith.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot
Against them pour'd the ceaseless shot,
With unabating fury sent
From battery to battlement;
And thunder-like the pealing din
Rose from each heated culverin;

And here and there some crackling dome
Was fired before the exploding bomb:
And as the fabric sank beneath
The shattering shell's volcanic breath,
In red and wreathing columns flash'd
The flame, as loud the ruin crash'd,
Or into countless meteors driven,
Its earth-stars melted into heaven;
Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun,
Impervious to the hidden sun,
With volumed smoke that slowly grew
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

But not for vengeance, long delay'd,
Alone, did Alp, the renegade,
The Moslem warriors sternly teach
His skill to pierce the promised breach:
Within these walls a maid was pent
His hope would win, without consent
Of that inexorable sire,

Whose heart refused him in its ire,
When Alp, beneath his Christian name,
Her virgin hand aspired to claim.
In happier mood, and earlier time,
While unimpeach'd for traitorous crime,
Gayest in gondola or hall,

He glitter'd through the Carnival ;*
And tuned the softest serenade
That e'er on Adria's waters play'd
At midnight to Italian maid.

And many deem'd her heart was won; For sought by numbers, given to none, Had young Francesca's hand remain'd Still by the church's bonds unchain'd: And when the Adriatic bore Lanciotto to the Paynim shore, Her wonted smiles were seen to fail, And pensive wax'd the maid and pale;' More constant at confessional, More rare at masque and festival; Or seen at such, with downcast eyes, Which conquer'd hearts they ceased to prize: With listless look she seems to gaze; With humbler care her form arrays; Her voice less lively in the song; Her step, though light, less fleet among The pairs, on whom the Morning's glance Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

Sent by the state to guard the land, (Which, wrested from the Moslem's hand, While Sobieski tamed his pride By Buda's wall and Danube's side, The chiefs of Venice wrung away From Patra to Euboea's bay), Minotti held in Corinth's towers The Doge's delegated powers,

While yet the pitying eye of Peace
Smiled o'er her long forgotten Greece:
And ere that faithless truce was broke
Which freed her from the unchristian yoke,
With him his gentle daughter came;
Nor there, since Menelaus' dame
Forsook her lord and land, to prove
What woes await on lawless love,
Had fairer form adorn'd the shore
Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn; And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn, O'er the disjointed mass shall vault The foremost of the fierce assault. The bands are rank'd; the chosen van Of Tartar, and of Mussulman, The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn," Who hold the thought of death in scorn, And win their way with falchions' force, Or pave the path with many a corse, O'er which the following brave may rise, Their stepping-stone- the last who dies!

Tis midnight: on the mountain's brown The cold, round moon shines deeply down; Blue roll the waters, blue the sky Spreads like an ocean hung on high, Bespangled with those isles of light, So wildly, spiritually bright; Who ever gazed upon them shining, And turn'd to earth without repining, Nor wish'd for wings to flee away, And mix with their eternal ray? The waves on either shore lay there Calm, clear, and azure as the air; And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, But murmur'd meekly as the brook. The winds were pillow'd on the waves; The banners droop'd along their staves, And, as they fell around them furling, Above them shone the crescent curling; And that deep silence was unbroke, Save where the watch his signal spoke, Save where the steed neigh'd oft shrill,

and

And echo answer'd from the hill,
And the wide hum of that wild host
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast,
As rose the Muezzin's voice in air
In midnight call to wonted prayer;
It rose, that chanted mournful strain,
Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain:
'Twas musical, but sadly sweet,
Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,
And take a long unmeasured tone,
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.
It seem'd to those within the wall
A cry prophetic of their fall:
It struck even the besieger's ear
With something ominous and drear,
An undefined and sudden thrill,
Which makes the heart a moment still,
Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed

Of that strange sense its silence framed;
Such as a sudden passing-bell
Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.

The tent of Alp was on the shore,
The sound was hush'd, the prayer was o'er;
The watch was set, the night-round made,
All mandates issued and obey'd:
'Tis but another anxious night,
His pains the morrow may requite
With all revenge and love can pay,
In guerdon for their long delay.
Few hours remain, and he hath need
Of rest, to nerve for many a deed
Of slaughter; but within his soul
The thoughts like troubled waters roll.
He stood alone among the host;
Not his the loud fanatic boast
To plant the crescent o'er the cross,
Or risk a life with little loss,
Secure in paradise to be

By Houris loved immortally:
Nor his, what burning patriots feel,
The stern exaltedness of zeal,
Profuse of blood, untired in toil,
When battling on the parent soil.
He stood alone-a renegade
Against the country he betray'd;
He stood alone amidst his band,
Without a trusted heart or hand:
They follow'd him, for he was brave,
And great the spoil he got and gave;
They crouch'd to him, for he had skill
To warp and wield the vulgar will:
But still his Christian origin

With them was little less than sin.

They envied even the faithless fame
He earn'd beneath a Moslem-name;
Since he, their mightiest chief, had been
In youth a bitter Nazarene.

They did not know how pride can stoop,
When baffled feelings withering droop;
They did not know how hate can burn

In hearts once changed from soft to stern;
Nor all the false and fatal zeal

The convert of revenge can feel.

He ruled them-man may rule the worst, By ever daring to be first:

So lions o'er the jackal sway;

The jackal points, he fells the prey,
Then on the vulgar yelling press,
To gorge the relics of success.

His head grows fever'd, and his pulse The quick successive throbs convulse; In vain from side to side he throws His form, in courtship of repose; Or if he dozed, a sound, a start Awoke him with a sunken heart. The turban on his hot brow press'd, The mail weigh'd lead-like on his breast, Though oft and long beneath its weight Upon his eyes had slumber sate, Without or couch or canopy,

Except a rougher field and sky

Than now might yield a warrior's bed,
Than now along the heaven was spread.
He could not rest, he could not stay
Within his tent to wait for day,
But walk'd him forth along the sand,
Where thousand sleepers strew'd the strand.
What pillow'd them? and why should he
More wakeful than the humblest be!
Since more their peril, worse their toil,
And yet they fearless dream of spoil;
While he alone, where thousands passed
A night of sleep, perchance their last,
In sickly vigil wander'd on,
And envied all he gazed upon.

He felt his soul become more light Beneath the freshness of the night. Cool was the silent sky, though calm, And bathed his brow with airy balm: Behind, the camp-before him lay, In many a winding creek and bay, Lepanto's gulf: and, on the brow Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow, High and eternal, such as shone Through thousand summers brightly gone, Along the gulf, the mount, the clime; It will not melt, like man, to time: Tyrant and slave are swept away, Less form'd to wear before the ray; But that white veil, the lightest, frailest, Which on the mighty mount thou hailest, While tower and tree are torn and rent, Shines o'er its craggy battlement; In form a peak, in height a cloud, In texture like a hovering shroud, Thus high by parting Freedom spread, As from her fond abode she fled, And linger'd on the spot, where long Her prophet-spirit spake in song. Oh, still her step at moments falters O'er wither'd fields, and ruin'd altars, And fain would wake, in souls too broken, By pointing to each glorious token. But vain her voice, till better days Dawn in those yet remember'd rays Which shone upon the Persian flying, And saw the Spartan smile in dying.

Not mindless of these mighty times Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes; And through this night, as on he wander'd, And o'er the past and present ponder'd, And thought upon the glorious dead Who there in better cause had bled, He felt how faint and feebly dim The fame that could accrue to him, Who cheer'd the band, and waved the sword, A traitor in a turban'd horde; And led them to the lawless siege, Whose best success were sacrilege. Not so had those his fancy number'd, The chiefs whose dust around him slum

ber'd;

Their phalanx marshall'd on the plain,
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain.
They fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seem'd sighing:
The waters murmur'd of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,
Claim'd kindred with their sacred clay;
Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river
Roll'd mingling with their fame for ever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
That land is glory's still and theirs!
'Tis still a watch-word to the earth:
When man would do a deed of worth
He points to Greece, and turns to tread,
So sanction'd, on the tyrant's head:
He looks to her, and rushes on
Where life is lost, or freedom won.

Still by the shore Alp mutely mused,
And woo'd the freshness Night diffused.
There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,
Which changeless rolls eternally;
So that wildest of waves, in their angriest
mood,

Scarce break on the bounds of the land for
a rood;
And the powerless moon beholds them flow,
Heedless if she come or go:
Calm or high, in main or bay,
On their course she hath no sway.
The rock unworn its base doth bare,
And looks o'er the surf, but it comes not
there:

And the fringe of the foam may be seen below,
On the line that it left long ages ago:
A smooth short space of yellow sand
Between it and the greener land.

He wander'd on, along the beach, Till within the range of a carbine's reach Of the leaguer'd wall; but they saw him not, Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot? Did traitors lurk in the Christian's hold? Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts wax'd cold?

I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall
There flash'd no fire, and there hiss'd no ball,
Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown,
That flank'd the sea-ward gate of the town;
Though he heard the sound, and could
almost tell

The sullen words of the sentinel,
As his measured step on the stone below
Clank'd, as he paced it to and fro;
And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall
Hold o'er the dead their carnival,
Gorging and growling o'er carcase and limb;
They were too busy to bark at him!
From a Tartar's skull they had stripp'd the
flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;

And their white tusks crunch'd o'er the O'er that which hath been, and o'er that whiter skull, which must be : What we have seen, our sons shall see; Remnants of things that have pass'd away, Fragments of stone, rear'd by creatures of clay!

As it slipp'd through their jaws, when their
edge grew dull,
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the
dead,

When they scarce could rise from the spot
where they fed;
So well had they broken a lingering fast
With those who had fallen for that night's

repast.

And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll'd

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He sate him down at a pillar's base,
Like one in dreary musing mood,
And pass'd his hand athwart his face;
Declining was his attitude;

His head was drooping on his breast,
Fever'd, throbbing, and opprest;
And o'er his brow, so downward bent,
Oft his beating fingers went,
Hurriedly, as you may see
Your own run over the ivory key,

Ere the measured tone is taken
By the chords you would awaken.
There he sate all heavily,
Was it the wind, through some hollow
As he heard the night-wind sigh.

stone,

Sent that soft and tender moan?
But it was unrippled as glass may be;
He lifted his head, and he look'd on the sea,
He look'd on the long grass-it waved not
a blade;

How was that gentle sound convey'd?
He look'd to the banners-each flag lay still,
So did the leaves on Cithaeron's hill,
And he felt not a breath come over his
cheek;

What did that sudden sound bespeak?
He turn'd to the left-is he sure of sight?
There sate a lady, youthful and bright!

Than if an armed foe were near.
He started up with more of fear
Who art thou, and wherefore sent
"God of my fathers! what is here?

So near a hostile armament?"
His trembling hands refused to sign
The cross he deem'd no more divine :

He had resumed it in that hour,
But conscience wrung away the power.
He gazed, he saw: he knew the face
Of beauty, and the form of grace;
It was Francesca by his side,

The maid who might have been his bride!

The rose was yet upon her cheek,
But mellow'd with a tenderer streak:
Where was the play of her soft lips fled?
Gone was the smile that enliven'd their red.
The ocean's calm within their view,
Beside her eye had less of blue;
But like that cold wave it stood still,
And its glance, though clear, was chill.
Around her form a thin robe twining,
Nought conceal'd her bosom shining;
Through the parting of her hair,
Floating darkly downward there,

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