THE

SIEGE OF CORINTH.

1.

MANY a vanished year and age,

And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,

Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands

A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock, 5

Have left untouched her hoary rock,

The keystone of a land, which still,

Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,

VOL. V.

B

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,

10

15

20

Who perished there, be piled again,

That rival pyramid would rise

More mountain-like, through those clear skies,

Than yon tower-capt Acropolis

Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

23

On dun Citharon'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 pitched, 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

30

The turbaned cohorts throng the beach;

35

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.

B2

40

The trench is dug, the cannon's breath

Wings the far hissing globe of death;
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,