XVII

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene, Where but for him that strife had never been,

A breathing but devoted warrior lay: 'T was Lara bleeding fast from life away. His follower once, and now his only guide, Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side,

And with his scarf would stanch the tides that rush,

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With each convulsion, in a blacker gush;
And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,
In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow:
He scarce can speak, but motions him 't is
vain,

And merely adds another throb to pain.
He clasps the hand that pang which would
assuage,

And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page, Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds,

That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;

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But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints.
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her
knee;

And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;
And she had shorn, but saved her raven
hair,

And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,

And fold, and press it gently to the ground, As if she stanch'd anew some phantom's wound. 619

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, Her tale untold, her truth too dearly proved.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country, thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, 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.

In the year since Jesus died for men,
Eighteen hundred years and ten,
We were a gallant company,

Riding o'er land and sailing o'er sea.
Oh, but we went merrily!

We forded the river, and clomb the high hill,

Never our steeds for a day stood still; Whether we lay in the cave or the shed, Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed; Whether we couch'd in our rough capote, 10 On the rougher plank of our gliding boat, Or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread

As a pillow beneath the resting head,
Fresh we woke upon the morrow.

All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,
Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds;-
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church,
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;
Yet through the wide world might ye
search,

Nor find a motlier crew nor blither.

But some are dead, and some are gone,
And some are scatter'd and alone,
And some are rebels on the hills

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That look along Epirus' valleys, Where freedom still at moments rallies And pays in blood oppression's ills;

And some are in a far countree, And some all restlessly at home;

But never more, oh, never, we Shall meet to revel and to roam.

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But those hardy days flew cheerily,
And when they now fall drearily,
My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,
And bear my spirit back again
Over the earth, and through the air,
A wild bird and a wanderer.

"T is this that ever wakes my strain,
And oft, too oft, implores again