There were dead above, and the dead below
Lay cold in many a coffin'd row;

You might see them piled in sable state,
By a pale light through a gloomy grate;
But War had enter'd their dark caves,
And stored along the vaulted graves
Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread
In masses by the fleshless dead:
Here, throughout the siege, had been
The Christians' chiefest magazine;
To these a late form'd train now led,
Minotti's last and stern resource

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935

Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.

940

XXXII.

The foe came on, and few remain

To strive, and those must strive in vain:
For lack of further lives, to slake

To the high altar on they go;

Oh, but it made a glorious show!
On its table still behold

The cup of consecrated gold;

Massy and deep, a glittering prize,

Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes:

That morn it held the holy wine,

Converted by Christ to his blood so divine,

9:5

Which his worshippers drank at the break of day,
To shrive their souls ere they join'd in the fray. 960
Still a few drops within it lay;

And round the sacred table glow
Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row,

From the purest metal cast;

A spoil the richest, and the last,

XXXIII.

So near they came, the nearest stretch'd

Το

grasp the spoil he almost reach'd,

When old Minotti's hand

965

Touch'd with the torch the train

'Tis fired!

970

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,

The turban'd victors, the Christian band,

All that of living or dead remain,

Hurl'd on high with the shiver'd fane,

In one wild roar expired!

975

The shatter'd town-the walls thrown down-
The waves a moment backward bent-

The hills that shake, although unrent,

As if an earthquake pass'd

The thousand shapeless things all driven
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,

By that tremendous blast—
Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er
On that too long afflicted shore :

Up to the sky like rockets go
All that mingled there below:
Many a tall and goodly man,

980

985

Scorch'd and shrivell'd to a span,

When he fell to earth again

Like a cinder strew'd the plain:

990

Down the ashes shower like rain;

Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles

With a thousand circling wrinkles;

Some fell on the shore, but, far away,
Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay;

Christian or Moslem, which be they?
Let their mothers see and say!
When in cradled rest they lay,
And each nursing mother smiled
On the sweet sleep of her child,
Little deem'd she such a day

Would rend those tender limbs away.

995

1000

That deadly earth shock disappear'd:

The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,

And howling left the unburied dead;

1015

The camels from their keepers broke;

The distant steer forsook the yoke—

The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,
And burst his girth, and tore his rein;

The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh,
Deep-mouth'd arose, and doubly harsh;
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill
Where echo roll'd in thunder still;
The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry, (10)
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound:

1020

1025

With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,

And mounted nearer to the sun,

;

The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak,
And made him higher soar and shriek-

Thus was Corinth lost and won!

1030