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Like the avalanche's snow

On the Alpine vales below;

Thus at length, outbreathed and worn,
Corinth's sons were downward borne
By the long and oft renewed

Charge of the Moslem multitude.

In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell,
Heaped by the host of the Infidel,

Hand to hand, and foot to foot:
Nothing there, save Death, was mute;1
Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry
For quarter, or for victory,

Mingle there with the volleying thunder,
Which makes the distant cities wonder
How the sounding battle goes,

If with them, or for their foes;

If they must mourn, or may rejoice

In that annihilating voice,

750

Which pierces the deep hills through and through

With an echo dread and new:

You might have heard it, on that day,

O'er Salamis and Megara;

(We have heard the hearers say,)"

Even unto Piræus' bay.

XXV.

760

From the point of encountering blades to the hilt,

Sabres and swords with blood were gilt ;

i. I have heard --[MS. G.]

2

1. [Compare The Deformed Transformed, Part I. sc. 2 ("Song of the Soldiers")

"Our shout shall grow gladder,

And death only be mute."]

2. [Compare Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2, line 55

"If he do bleed,

I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal.”]

770

But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,
And all but the after carnage done.
Shriller shrieks now mingling come
From within the plundered dome:
Hark to the haste of flying feet,

That splash in the blood of the slippery street;
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.

780

There stood an old man 1-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
Lurked 2 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,
And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay,
Outnumbered his thin hairs 3 of silver grey.
From right to left his sabre swept :
Many an Othman mother wept

Sons that were unborn, when dipped

1. ["There stood a man," etc.-GIFFORD.]

2. [" Lurked"-a bad word-say "was hid."-GIFFORD.] 3. ["Outnumbered his hairs," etc.-GIFFORD.]

4.["Sons that were unborn, when he dipped."-Gifford.]

790

His weapon first in Moslem gore,
Ere his years could count a score.

Of all he might have been the sire1
Who fell that day beneath his ire:
For, sonless left long years ago,

His wrath made many a childless foe;
And since the day, when in the strait2
His only boy had met his fate,
His parent's iron hand did doom
More than a human hecatomb.3
If shades by carnage be appeased,
Patroclus' spirit less was pleased
Than his, Minotti's son, who died
Where Asia's bounds and ours divide.

Buried he lay, where thousands before

800

810

For thousands of years were inhumed on the shore;
What of them is left, to tell

Where they lie, and how they fell?

Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves;
But they live in the verse that immortally saves.

XXVI.

Hark to the Allah shout! 5 a band

Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand; 820

1. [Bravo!-this is better than King Priam's fifty sons.GIFFORD.]

2. In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.

3. [There can be no such thing; but the whole of this is poor, and spun out.-GIFFORD. The solecism, if such it be, was

repeated in Marino Faliero, act iii. sc. 1, line 38.]

4. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxix. lines 5-8 (Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 125)—

"Dark Sappho ! could not Verse immortal save? ...

If life eternal may await the lyre."]

5. ["Hark to the Alla Hu!" etc.-GIFFORD.]

Their leader's nervous arm is bare,

Swifter to smite, and never to spare-
Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them on;
Thus in the fight is he ever known :
Others a gaudier garb may show,
To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe;
Many a hand's on a richer hilt,

But none on a steel more ruddily gilt;
Many a loftier turban may wear,—

Alp is but known by the white arm bare;

830

Look through the thick of the fight, 'tis there!
There is not a standard on that shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
Will lure the Delhis half so far;
It glances like a falling star!
Where'er that mighty arm is seen,
The bravest be, or late have been;1
There the craven cries for quarter
Vainly to the vengeful Tartar;
Or the hero, silent lying,

Scorns to yield a groan in dying;
Mustering his last feeble blow
'Gainst the nearest levelled foe,

Though faint beneath the mutual wound,
Grappling on the gory ground.

840

XXVII.

Still the old man stood erect,
And Alp's career a moment checked.
"Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take,
For thine own, thy daughter's sake."

I. [Gifford has erased lines 839-847.]

850

"Never, Renegado, never!

Though the life of thy gift would last for ever." ↳

"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.

"Oh God! when died she?"-" Yesternight—

Nor weep I for her spirit's flight:

None of my pure race shall be

Slaves to Mahomet and thee

Come on!"-That challenge is in vain-
Alp's already with the slain!

While Minotti's words were wreaking
More revenge in bitter speaking

860

Than his falchion's point had found,
Had the time allowed to wound,

From within the neighbouring porch
Of a long defended church,
Where the last and desperate few
Would the failing fight renew,

The sharp shot dashed Alp to the ground;
Ere an eye could view the wound

That crashed through the brain of the infidel,
Round he spun, and down he fell;

i. Though the life of thy giving would last for ever.

870

[MS. G. Copy.] ii. Where's Francesca ?—my promised bride!—[MS. G. Copy.]

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