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 turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished 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 murmured meekly as the brook.
The winds were pillowed on the waves;
The banners drooped 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 neighed oft and shrill,
And echo answered 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-string's meet,
And take a long unmeasured tone;ot: 49
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.

It seemed to those within the wall

A cry prophetic of their fall:

It struck even the besieger's earɔ : trgjabince Ti With something ominous and drear, i

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.

XH.

The tent of Alp was on the shore;

The sound was hushed, the prayer was o'er;
The watch was set, the night-round made,
All mandates issued and obeyed:
'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 betrayed ;'
He stood alone amidst his band,
Without a trusted heart or hand:

They followed him, for he was brave,
And great the spoil he got and gave;
They crouched 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 earned 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.

XIII.

is head grows fevered, 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 pressed, The mail weighed 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 or 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 walked him forth along the sand,

Where thousand sleepers strewed the strand.
What pillowed 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 wandered on,

And envied all be gazed upon.

XIV.

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 formed 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 lingered on the spot where long
Her prophet spirit spake in song.
Oh! still her step at moments falters
O'er withered fields and ruined 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 remembered rays
Which shone upon the Persian flying,
And saw the Spartan smile in dying.

XV.

Not mindless of these mighty times
Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes;

And through this night, as on he wandered,
And o'er the past and present pondered,
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 cheered the band, and waved the sword,
A traitor in a turbaned horde;

And led them to the lawless siege,

Whose best success were sacrilege.

Not so had those his fancy numbered

The chiefs whose dust around him slumbered;

Their phalanx marshalled on the plain,

Whose bulwarks were not then in vain.