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.

'Tis this that ever wakes my strain,
And oft, too oft, implores again
The few who may endure my lay,"
To follow me so far away.

Stranger, wilt thou follow now,

And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?

And Tempest's breath, and Battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,

40

A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.iv.
The Whirlwind's wrath, the Earthquake's shock, 50
Have left untouched her hoary rock,

The keystone of a land, which still,

Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,

The landmark to the double tide

That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.

i. But those winged days --[MS.]
ii. The kindly few who love my lay.—[MS.]

iii. Many a year, and many an age.—[MS. G. Copy.]
iv. A marvel from her Moslem bands.—[MS. G.]

1. [Compare Kingsley's Last Buccaneer

"If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main-
To the pleasant isle of Avès, to look at it once again."]

2. [The MS. is dated Jy (January) 31, 1815. Lady Byron's copy is dated November 2, 1815.]

But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,1
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,"
Who perished there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise

More mountain-like, through those clear skies"

Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis,

Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

II.

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,ü.
The tent is pitched, the Crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;
And the dusk Spahi's bands advance
Beneath each bearded Pacha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach iv.
The turbaned cohorts throng the beach;

i. Or could the dead be raised again.—[MS. G. erased.]
ii. through yon clear skies

Than that tower-capt Acropolis.-[MS. G.]

iii. Stretched on the edge- --[MS. G. erased.]

iv. The turbaned crowd of dusky hue

Whose march Morea's fields may rue.—[MS. G. erased.]

60

70

80

1. [Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards put him to death for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth. Warton says that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Akenside had the same design (Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., 1806, ii. 83).]

2. [Turkish holders of military fiefs.]

And there the Arab's camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd,1
The sabre round his loins to gird;
And there the volleying thunders pour,
Till waves grow smoother to the roar.
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath
Wings the far hissing globe of death;
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;
And from that wall the foe replies,
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,

With fires that answer fast and well

The summons of the Infidel.

2

90

III.

But near and nearest to the wall
Of those who wish and work its fall,
With deeper skill in War's black art,
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart
As any Chief that ever stood
Triumphant in the fields of blood;
From post to post, and deed to deed,
Fast spurring on his reeking steed,
Where sallying ranks the trench assail,
And make the foremost Moslem quail;
Or where the battery, guarded well,
Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire

The soldier slackening in his fire;

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1. The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal : they dwell in tents.

2. [Compare The Giaour, line 639 (vide ante, p. 116)—

"The deathshot hissing from afar."]

The first and freshest of the host
Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast,
To guide the follower o'er the field,
To point the tube, the lance to wield,
Or whirl around the bickering blade ;-
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade !1

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IV.

From Venice-once a race of worth
His gentle Sires-he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore,
Against his countrymen he bore

The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow.

Through many a change had Corinth passed

With Greece to Venice' rule at last;

And here, before her walls, with those
To Greece and Venice equal foes,
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
To him had Venice ceased to be
Her ancient civic boast-"the Free;"

i. But now an exile —.—【MS. G.]

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130

1. [Professor Kölbing admits that he is unable to say how "Byron met with the name of Alp." I am indebted to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, for the suggestion that the name is derived from Mohammed (Lhaz-ed-Dyn-Abou-Choudja), surnamed Alp-Arslan (Arsslan), or "Brave Lion," the second of the Seljuk dynasty, in the eleventh century. "He conquered Armenia and Georgia .. but was assassinated by Yussuf Cothuol, Governor of Berzem, and was buried at Merw, in Khorassan." His epitaph moralizes his fate: "O vous qui avez vu la grandeur d'Alparslan élevée jusq'au ciel, regardez le voici maintenant en poussière."-Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire de l'Empire Othoman, i. 13-15. (See, too, Gibbon, Decline and Fall, 1826, iv. 104.)]

And in the palace of St. Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed
A charge against him uneffaced: 1
He fled in time, and saved his life,
To waste his future years in strife,"
That taught his land how great her loss
In him who triumphed o'er the Cross,
'Gainst which he reared the Crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die.

V.

Coumourgi 2-he whose closing scene
Adorned the triumph of Eugene,
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain,
The last and mightiest of the slain,
He sank, regretting not to die,
But cursed the Christian's victory-
Coumourgi-can his glory cease,

i. To waste its future .—[MS. G.]

140

1. ["The Lions' Mouths, under the arcade at the summit of the Giants' Stairs, which gaped widely to receive anonymous charges, were no doubt far more often employed as vehicles of private malice than of zeal for the public welfare."-Sketches from Venetian History, 1832, ii. 380.]

2. Ali Coumourgi [Damad Ali or Ali Cumurgi (i.e. son of the charcoal-burner)], the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day [August 16, 1716]. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners, and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs! a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a greater, and at his expense."

[For his letter to Prince Eugene, "Eh bien! la guerre va décider entre nous," etc., and for an account of his death, see Hammer. Purgstall, Historie de l'Empire Othoman, xiii. 300, 312.]