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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,
Heap'd by the host of the infidel;

Hand to hand, and foot to foot;
Nothing there, save death, was mute.
But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,
And all but the after carnage done.
Shriller shrieks now mingling come
From within the plunder'd 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.
The turbaned host,

With adding ranks and raging boast,
Press onwards with such strength and heat,
Their numbers baulk their own retreat;
For narrow the way that led to the spot
Where still the Christians yielded not;
And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try
Through the massy column to turn and fly;
They perforce must do or die.

They die; but ere their eyes could close,
Avengers o'er their bodies rose ;

Fresh and furious, fast they fill

The ranks unthinned, though slaughtered still;

And faint the weary Christians wax

Before the still renewed attacks:
And now the Othmans gain the gate;
Still resists its iron weight,

And still, all deadly aimed and hot,
From every crevice comes the shot;
From every shattered window pour
The volleys of the sulphurous shower;

But the portal wavering grows and weak-
The iron yields, the hinges creak—
It bends-it falls-and all is o'er ;
Lost Corinth may resist no more!
Darkly, sternly, and all alone
Minotti stood;

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone
Contained the dead of ages gone;
Here, throughout the siege, had been
The Christians' chiefest magazine ;
To these a late-formed train now led,
Minotti's last and stern resource
Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.
So near they came, the nearest stretched
To grasp the spoils he almost reach'd,
When old Minotti's hand

Touched with the torch the train

"Tis fired!

Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain,
The turbaned victor's, the Christian band,
All that of living or dead remain,
Hurled on high with the shivered fane,

In one wild roar expired!

The shattered town-the walls thrown down-
The waves a moment backward bent-

The hills that shake, although unrent,
As if an earthquake passed-

The thousand shapeless things all driven,
In cloud and flame athwart the heaven,
By that tremendous blast-
Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er
On that too long afflicted shore :
All the living things that heard
That deadly earth-shock disappeared:
The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead;
The wolves yelled on the caverned hill,
Where echo rolled in thunder still;
The jackal's troop, in gathered cry,
Bayed from afar complainingly ;
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,

And mounted nearer to the sun,

The clouds beneath him seemed so dun;
Their smoke assailed his startled beak,
And made him higher soar and shriek-
Thus was Corinth lost and won!

BYRON.

THE FIELD OF WATERLOO.

STOP! for thy tread is on an empire's dust,
An earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!
Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?
Nor column trophied for triumphal show?
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so.
As the ground was before, thus let it be.
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gain'd by thee,
Thou first and last of fields, king-making Victory?

There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men :
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again;
And all went merry as a marriage-bell,

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance; let joy be unconfined!

No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet-
But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before.

Arm! arm! it is, it is, the cannon's opening roar!

Within a window'd niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear:
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,
Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier,

And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell!

Ah! then and there, was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet, such awful morn could rise.

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning-star;
While thronged the citizens, with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! they come, they come !"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering!" rose ; The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills

Have heard and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring, which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years;

And Evan's, Donald's, fame rings in each clansman's ears.

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving-if aught inanimate e'er grieves-
Over the unreturning brave; alas!

Ere evening to be trodden, like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure; when this fiery mass

Of living valour, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;
Last eve in beauty's circle proudly gay;

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife;
The morn, the marshalling in arms-the day,
Battle's magnificently-stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent,
The earth is covered thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.

THE GRAVE OF KÖRNER.

REST, bard! rest, soldier! By the father's hand
Here shall the child of after years be led,
With his wreath-offering silently to stand
In the hushed presence of the glorious dead,
Soldier and bard! for thou thy path hast trod
With freedom and with God.

The oak waved proudly o'er thy burial-rite,

BYRON.

On thy crown'd bier to slumber warriors bore thee; And, with true hearts, thy brethren of the fight Wept as they vail'd their drooping banners o'er thee. And the deep guns, with rolling peel, gave token That lyre and sword were broken.

Thou hast a hero's tomb; a lowlier bed

Is hers, the gentle girl, beside thee lying,
The gentle girl, that bow'd her fair young head,
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying.
Brother! true friend! the tender and the brave!
She pined to share thy grave.

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