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 carnestly, 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.

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 the
post;
The vizier himself at the head of the hos
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 hall
A hearth in her mansions, a stone on he
walls.

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

And your hands on your sabres, and ho should ye fail? He who first downs with the red cro

may crave His heart's dearest wish; let him ask i and have!" Thus utter'd Coumourgi, the dauntle vizier; The reply was the brandish of sabre a

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

As the wolves, that headlong go On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes, and angry ro And hoofs that stamp, and horns that go

He tramples on earth, or tosses on hig

The foremost, who rush on his streng 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 mo
Shiver'd by the shot, that tore
Like the mower's grass at the close of da
Even as they fell, in files they lay,

When his work is done on the level 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 ceasele flow, Till white and thundering down they g 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 the

fell, Heap'd by the host of the infidel, Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save death, was mute;

"Oh God! when died she?" — "Yesternight—

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 tr 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
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 aisl
Minotti lifted his aged eye,

And made the sign of a cross with a sig
Then seized a torch which blazed thereb
And still he stood, while, with steel a
flame,
Inward and onward the Mussulman cam

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, a

strown

With broken swords, and helms o'erthrow
There were dead above, and the dead belo
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.

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 cap 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.

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

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

vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, The turban'd victors, the Christian band, Ail that of living or dead remain,

aid on high with the shiver'd fane, one wild roar expired!

Ta shatter'd town

the walls thrown down

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

The thousand shapeless things all driven cloud and flame athwart the heaven, Bythat tremendous blast —

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!