Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still! And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride: And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, LXXIII THE STORMING OF CORINTH THE SIGNAL THE night is past, and shines the sun Hark to the trump, and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn, The horsetails are plucked from the ground, and the sword From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word. Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain, That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape, Alp at their head; his right arm is bare, So is the blade of his scimitar; The khan and the pachas are all at their post; A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls. Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale; THE ASSAULT As the spring-tides, with heavy plash, Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Till white and thundering down they go, 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, Hand to hand, and foot to foot: For quarter or for victory, Mingle there with the volleying thunder, If with them, or for their foes; If they must mourn, or may rejoice In that annihilating voice, 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. From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, That splash in the blood of the slippery street; Desperate groups, of twelve or ten, Make a pause, and turn again— Fiercely stand, or fighting fall. There stood an old man-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, Still he combated unwounded, For thousands of years were inhumed on the shore; |