Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight;

As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down

From the shadowy wall where their images frown;

Fearfully flitting to and fro,

As the gusts on the tapestry come and go.

"If not for love of me be given

Thus much, then, for the love of heaven

Again I say that turban tear

From off thy faithless brow, and swear
Thine injured country's sons to spare,
Or thou art lost; and never shalt see -
Not earth
- that 's past — but heaven or me.

If this thou dost accord, albeit

A heavy doom 't is thine to meet,
That doom shall half absolve thy sin,
And mercy's gate may receive thee within:
But pause one moment more, and take
The curse of Him thou didst forsake;
And look once more to heaven, and see
Its love forever shut from thee.
There is a light cloud by the moon
'T is passing, and will pass full soon
If, by the time its vapory sail
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,
Thy heart within thee is not changed,
Then God and man are both avenged;
Dark will thy doom be, darker still
Thine immortality of ill."

Alp look'd to heaven, and saw on high
The sign she spake of in the sky;

But his heart was swollen, and turn'd aside
By deep interminable pride.

This first false passion of his breast

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 earnestly,
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 — 't is 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.

THE ASSAULT.

(SIEGE OF CORINTH, Stanzas 22-27.)

LIGHTLY and brightly breaks away

The Morning from her mantle gray,

And the Noon will look on a sultry day.

Hark to the trump, and the drum,

And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they 're borne,
And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum,
And the clash, and the shout, "They come ! they come!"
The horsetails are pluck'd from the ground, and the
sword

From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word.
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 - Alla 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!

*

The rampart is won, and the spoil begun,
And all but the after carnage done.
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 corslet 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.
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 forever."

"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 driven

Far from thee, and undefiled."

Grimly then Minotti smiled,

As he saw Alp staggering bow
Before his words, as with a blow.