The Siege Of Corinth

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

TO

JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ.,

THIS POEM IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND.

January 22, 1816.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The grand army of the Turks, (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country, [1] thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley; but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish army, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed; which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war.” — History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 151.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.

I.

Many a vanish’d year and age,
And tempest’s breath, and battle’s rage,
Have swept o’er Corinth; yet she stands
A fortress form’d to Freedom’s hands.
The whirlwind’s wrath, the earthquake’s shock
Have left untouch’d 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.
But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon’s brother bled,
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 perish’d 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 Cithæron’s ridge appears
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears,
And downward to the Isthmian plain,
From shore to shore of either main,
The tent is pitch’d, 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
The turban’d cohorts throng the beach;
And there the Arab’s camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd, [2] 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.

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;
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!

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 pass’d
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;”
And in the palace of St Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the “Lion’s mouth” had placed
A charge against him uneffaced:
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 triumph’d o’er the Cross,
‘Gainst which he rear’d the Crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die.

V.

Coumourgi — he whose closing scene [3] Adorn’d 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,
That latest conqueror of Greece,
Till Christian hands to Greece restore
The freedom Venice gave of yore?
A hundred years have roll’d away
Since he refix’d the Moslem’s sway,
And now he led the Mussulman,
And gave the guidance of the van
To Alp, who well repaid the trust
By cities levell’d with the dust;
And proved, by many a deed of death,
How firm his heart in novel faith.

VI.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot
Against them pour’d the ceaseless shot,
With unabating fury sent,
From battery to battlement;
And thunder-like the pealing din
Rose from each heated culverin;
And here and there some crackling dome
Was fired before the exploding bomb;
And as the fabric sank beneath
The shattering shell’s volcanic breath,
In red and wreathing columns flash’d
The flame as loud the ruin crash’d,
Or into countless meteors driven,
Its earth-stars melted into heaven;
Whose clouds that day grew doubly d[un?] Impervious to the hidden sun,
With volumed smoke that slowly grew
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

VII.

But not for vengeance, long delay’d,
Alone, did Alp, the renegade,
The Moslem warriors sternly teach
His skill to pierce the promised breach:
Within those walls a maid was pent
His hope would win, without consent
Of that inexorable sire,
Whose heart refused him in its ire,
When Alp, beneath his Christian name,
Her virgin hand aspired to claim.
In happier mood, and earlier time,
While unimpeach’d for traitorous crime,
Gayest in gondola or hall,
He glitter’d through the Carnival;
And tuned the softest serenade
That e’er on Adria’s waters play’d
At midnight to Italian maid.

VIII.

And many deem’d her heart was won;
For sought by numbers, given to none,
Had young Francesca’s hand remain’d
Still by the church’s bond unchain’d:
And when the Adriatic bore
Lanciotto to the Paynim shore,
Her wonted smiles were seen to fail,
And pensive wax’d the maid and pale;
More constant at confessional,
More rare at masque and festival;
Or seen at such with downcast eyes,
Which conquer’d hearts they ceased to prize!
With listless look she seems to gaze;
With humbler care her form arrays;
Her voice less lively in the song;
Her step, though light, less fleet among
The pairs, on whom the Morning’s glance
Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

IX.

Sent by the state to guard the land,
(Which, wrested from the Moslem’s hand,
While Sobieski tamed his pride
By Buda’s wall and Danube’s side,
The chiefs of Venice wrung away
From Patra to Eubœa’s bay,)
Minotti held in Corinth’s towers
The Doge’s delegated powers,
While yet the pitying eye of Peace
Smiled o’er her long-forgotten Greece:
And ere that faithless truce was broke
Which freed her from the unchristian yoke,
With him his gentle daughter came;
Nor there, since Menelaus’ dame
Forsook her lord and land, to prove
What woes await on lawless love,
Had fairer form adorn’d the shore
Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.

X.

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn,
And, with to-morrow’s earliest dawn,
O’er the disjointed mass shall vault
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are rank’d; the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed “forlorn,”
Who hold the thought of death in scorn,
And win their way with falchion’s force,
Or pave the path with many a corse,
O’er which the following brave may rise,
Their stepping-stone — the last who dies!

XI.

‘Tis midnight: on the mountains brown
The cold, round moon shines deeply down:
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turn’d to earth without repining,
Nor wish’d for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?
The waves on either shore lay there,
Calm, clear, and azure as the air;
And scarce their foam the pebbles shook,
But murmur’d meekly as the brook.
The winds were pillow’d on the waves;
The banners droop’d along their staves,
And, as they fell around them furling,
Above them shone the crescent curling;
And that deep silence was unbroke,
Save where the watch his signal spoke,
Save where the steed neigh’d oft and shrill,
And echo answer’d from the hill,
And the wide hum of that wild host,
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast,
As rose the Muezzin’s voice in air
In midnight call to wonted prayer;
It rose, that chanted mournful strain,
Like some lone spirit’s o’er the plain:
‘Twas musical, but sadly sweet,
Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,
And take a long-unmeasured tone,
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.
It seem’d to those within the wall
A cry prophetic of their fall:
It struck even the besieger’s ear
An undefined and sudden thrill,
Which makes the heart a moment still,
Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed
Of that strange sense its silence framed:
Such as a sudden passing-bell
Wakes though but for a stranger’s knell.

XII.

The tent of Alp was on the shore;
The sound was hush’d, the prayer was o’er;
The watch was set, the night-round made,
All mandates issued and obey’d:
‘Tis but another anxious night,
His pains the morrow may requite
With all revenge and love can pay,
In guerdon for their long delay.
Few hours remain, and he hath need
Of rest, to nerve for many a deed
Of slaughter; but within his soul
The thoughts like troubled waters roll.
He stood alone among the host;
Not his the loud fanatic boast
To plant the Crescent o’er the Cross
Or risk a life with little loss,
Secure in Paradise to be
By Houris loved immortally:
Nor his, what burning patriots feel,
The stern exaltedness of zeal,
Profuse of blood, untired in toil,
When battling on the parent soil.
He stood alone — a renegade
Against the country he betray’d.
He stood alone amidst his band,
Without a trusted heart or hand:
They follow’d him, for he was brave,
And great the spoil he got and gave;
They crouch’d to him, for he had skill
To warp and wield the vulgar will:
But still his Christian origin
With them was little less than sin.
They envied even the faithless fame
He earn’d beneath a Moslem name:
Since he, their mightiest chief had been
In youth, a bitter Nazarene.
They did not know how pride can stoop,
When baffled feelings withering droop;
They did not know how hate can burn
In hearts once changed from soft to stern;
Nor all the false and fatal zeal
The convert of revenge can feel.
He ruled them — man may rule the worst
By ever daring to be first:
So lions o’er the jackal sway;
The jackal points, he fells the prey,
Then on the vulgar yelling press,
To gorge the relics of success.

XIII.

His head grows fever’d, and his pulse
The quick successive throbs convulse;
In vain from side to side he throws
His form, in courtship of repose;
Or if he dozed, a sound, a start
Awoke him with a sunken heart.
The turban on his hot brow press’d,
The mail weigh’d lead-like on his breast,
Though oft and long beneath its weight
Upon his eyes had slumber sate,
Without or couch or canopy,
Except a rougher field and sky
Than now might yield a warrior’s bed,
Than now along the heaven was spread.
He could not rest, he could not stay
Within his tent to wait for day,
But walk’d him forth along the sand,
Where thousand sleepers strew’d the strand.
What pillow’d them? and why should he
More wakeful than the humblest be?
Since more their peril, worse their toil,
And yet they fearless dream of spoil;
While he alone, where thousands pass’d
A night of sleep, perchance their last,
In sickly vigil wander’d on,
And envied all he gazed upon.

XIV.

He felt his soul become more light
Beneath the freshness of the night.
Cool was the silent sky, though calm,
And bathed his brow with airy balm:
Behind, the camp — before him lay,
In many a winding creek and bay,
Lepanto’s gulf; and on the brow
Of Delphi’s hill, unshaken snow,
High and eternal, such as shone
Through thousand summers brightly gone.
Along the gulf, the mount, the clime;
It will not melt, like man, to time;
Tyrant and slave are swept away,
Less form’d to wear the before the ray;
But that white veil, the lightest, frailest,
Which on the mighty mount thou hailest,
Shines o’er its craggy battlement;
In form a peak, in height a cloud,
In texture like a hovering shroud,
Thus high by parting Freedom spread,
As from her fond abode she fled,
And linger’d on the spot, where long
Her prophet spirit spake in song.
Oh! still her step at moments falters
O’er wither’d fields, and ruined altars,
And fain would wake, in souls too broken,
By pointing to each glorious token.
But vain her voice, till better days
Dawn in those yet remember’d rays,
Which shone upon the Persian flying,
And saw the Spartan smile in dying.

XV.

Not mindless of these mighty times
Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes;
And through this night, as on he wander’d,
And o’er the past and present ponder’d,
And thought upon the glorious dead
Who there in better cause had bled,
He felt how faint and feebly dim
The fame that could accrue to him,
Who cheer’d the band, and waved the sword
A traitor in a turban’d horde;
And led them to the lawless siege,
Whose best success were sacrilege.
Not so had those his fancy number’d,
The chiefs whose dust around him slumber’d;
Their phalanx marshall’d on the plain,
Whose bulwarks were not then in vain.
They fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seem’d sighing:
The waters murmur’d of their name;
The woods were peopled with their fame;
The silent pillar, lone and gray,
Claim’d kindred with their sacred clay;
Their spirits wrapt the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o’er the mountain,
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Roll’d mingling with their fame for ever.
Despite of every yoke she bears,
That land is glory’s still, and theirs!
When man would do a deed of worth
He points to Greece, and turns to tread,
So sanction’d, on the tyrant’s head:
He looks to her, and rushes on
Where life is lost, or freedom won.

XVI.

Still by the shore Alp mutely mused,
And woo’d the freshness night diffused.
There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea, [3] Which changeless rolls eternally;
So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood,
Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood;
And the powerless moon beholds them flow,
Heedless if she come or go:
Calm or high, in main or bay,
On their course she hath no sway.
The rock unworn its base doth bare,
And looks o’er the surf, but it comes not there;
And the fringe of the foam may be seen below,
On the line that it left long ages ago:
A smooth short space of yellow sand
Between it and the greener land.

He wander’d on, along the beach,
Till within the range of a carbine’s reach
Of the leaguer’d wall; but they saw him not,
Or how could he ‘scape from the hostile shot,
Did traitors lurk in the Christian’s hold?
Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts wax’d cold,
I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall
There flash’d no fire, and there hiss’d no ball,
Though he stood beneath the bastion’s frown,
That flank’d the sea-ward gate of the town;
Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell
The sullen words of the sentinel,
As his measured step on the stone below
Clank’d, as he paced it to and fro;
And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall
Hold o’er the dead their carnival,
Gorging and growling o’er carcass and limb!
They were too busy to bark at him!
From a Tartar’s skull they had stripp’d the flesh,
As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh;
And their white tusks crunch’d o’er the whiter skull, [4] As it slipped through their jaws, when their edge grew dull,
As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead,
When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed;
So well had they broken a lingering fast
With those who had fall’n for that night’s repast.
And Alp knew, by the turbans that roll’d on the sand,
The foremost of these were the best of his band:
Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear,
And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair, [5] All the rest was shaven and bare.
The scalps were in the wild-dog’s maw,
The hair was tangled round his jaw.
But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf,
There sat a vulture flapping a wolf,
Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away,
Scared by the dogs, from the human prey;
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay,
Pick’d by the birds, on the sands of the bay.

XVII.

Alp turn’d him from the sickening sight:
Never had shaken his nerves in fight;
Be he better could brook to behold the dying,
Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,
Scorch’d with death-thirst, and writing in vain,
Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.
There is something of pride in the perilous hour,
Whate’er be the shape in which death may lour;
For Fame is there to say who bleeds,
And Honour’s eye on daring deeds!
But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O’er the weltering field of the tombless dead,
And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;
All regarding man as their prey,
All rejoicing in his decay.

XVIII.

There is a temple in ruin stands,
Fashion’d by long-forgotten hands;
Two or three columns, and many a stone,
Marble and granite, with grass o’ergrown!
Out upon Time! it will leave no more
Of the things to come than the things before!
But enough of the past for the future to grieve
O’er that which hath been, and o’er that which must be!
What we have seen, our sons shall see;
Remnants of things that have pass’d away,
Fragments of stone, rear’d by creatures of clay!

XIX.

He sate him down at a pillar’s base,
And pass’d his hand athwart his face;
Like one in dreary musing mood,
Declining was his attitude;
His head was drooping on his breast,
Fever’d, throbbing, and opprest;
And o’er his brow, so downward bent,
Oft his beating fingers went,
Hurriedly, as you may see
Your own run over the ivory key,
Ere the measured tone is taken,
By the chords you would awaken.
There he sate all heavily,
As he heard the night-wind sigh.
Was it the wind, through some hollow stone, [6] Sent that soft and tender moan?
He lifted his head, and he look’d on the sea,
But it was unrippled as glass may be;
He look’d on the long grass — it waved not a blade;
How was that gentle sound convey’d?
He look’d to the banners — each flag lay still,
So did the leaves on Cithæron’s hill,
And he felt not a breath come over his cheek;
What did that sudden sound bespeak?
He turn’d to the left — is he sure of sight?
There sate a lady, youthful and bright!

XX.

He started up with more of fear
Than if an armed foe were near.
“God of my fathers! what is here?
Who art thou, and wherefore sent
So near a hostile armament?”
His trembling hands refused to sign
The cross he deem’d no more divine:
He had resumed it in that hour,
But conscience wrung away the power.
He gazed — he saw: he knew the face
Of beauty, and the form of grace;
It was Francesca by his side,
The maid who might have been his bride!

The rose was yet upon her cheek,
But mellow’d with a tenderer streak:
Where was the play of her soft lips fled?
Gone was the smile that enliven’d their red.
The ocean’s calm within their view,
Beside her eye had less of blue;
But like that cold wave it stood still,
And its glance, though clear, was chill.
Around her form a thin robe twining,
Nought conceal’d her bosom shining;
Through the parting of her hair,
Floating darkly downward there,
Her rounded arm shew’d white and bare:
And ere yet she made reply,
Once she raised her hand on high;
It was so wan and transparent of hue,
You might have seen the moon shine through.

XXI.

“I come from my rest to him I love best,
That I may be happy, and he may be blest.
I have pass’d the guards, the gate, the wall;
Sought thee in safety through foes and all.
‘Tis said the lion will turn and flee
From a maid in the pride of her purity;
And the Power on high, that can shield the good
Thus from the tyrant of the wood,
Hath extended its mercy to guard me as well
From the hands of the leaguering infidel.
I come — and if I come in vain,
Never, oh never, we meet again!
Thou hast done a fearful deed
In falling away from thy fathers’ creed:
But dash that turban to earth, and sign
The sign of the cross, and for ever be mine;
Wring the black drop from thy heart,
And to-morrow unites us no more to part.”

“And where should our bridal-couch be spread?
In the midst of the dying and the dead?
For to-morrow we give to the slaughter and flame
The sons and shrines of the Christian name.
None, save thou and thine, I’ve sworn,
Shall be left upon the morn:
But thee will I bear to a lovely spot,
Where our hands shall be join’d, and our sorrow forgot.
There thou yet shall be my bride,
When once again I’ve quell’d the pride
Of Venice: and her hated race
Have felt the arm they would debase
Scourge, with a whip of scorpions, those
Whom vice and envy made my foes.”

Upon his hand she laid her own —
Light was the touch, but it thrill’d to the bone,
And shot a chillness to his heart,
Which fix’d him beyond the power to start.
Though slight was that grasp so mortal cold,
He could not lose him from its hold:
But never did clasp of one so dear
Strike on the pulse with such feeling of fear,
As those thin fingers, long and white,
Froze through his blood by their touch that night.
The feverish glow of his brow was gone,
And his heart sank so still that it felt like stone,
As he look’d on the face, and beheld its hue,
So deeply changed from what he knew:
Fair but faint — without the ray
Of mind, that made each feature play
Like sparkling waves on a sunny day;
And her motionless lips lay still as death,
And her words came forth without her breath,
And there rose not a heave o’er her bosom’s swell,
And there seem’d not a pulse in her veins to dwell.
Though her eye shone out, yet the lids were fix’d,
And the glance that it gave was wild and unmix’d
With aught of change, as the eyes may seem
Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream:
Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare,
Stirr’d by the breath of the wintry air,
So seen by the dying lamp’s fitful light,
Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight;
As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down
From the shadowy wall where their images frown;
Fearfully flitting to and fro,
As the gusts on the tapestry come and go.
“If not for the love of me be given
Thus much, then, for the love of Heaven, —
Again I say — that turban tear
From off thy faithless brow, and swear
Thine injured country’s sons to spare,
Or thou art lost; and never shalt see —
Not earth — that’s past — but heaven or me.
If this thou dost accord, albeit
A heavy doom ’tis thine to me,
That doom shall half absolve thy sin,
And mercy’s gate may receive within;
But pause one moment more, and take
The curse of Him thou didst forsake;
And look once more to heaven, and see
Its love for ever shut from thee.
There is a light cloud by the moon — [7] ‘Tis passing, and will pass full soon —
If, by the time its vapoury sail
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,
Thy heart within thee is not changed,
Then God and man are both avenged;
Dark will thy doom be, darker still
Thine immortality of ill.”

Alp look’d to heaven, and saw on high
The sign she spake of in the sky;
But his heart was swoll’n, and turn’d aside,
By deep interminable pride.
This first false passion of his breast
Roll’d like a torrent o’er the rest.
He sue for mercy! He dismay’d
By wild words of a timid maid!
He, wrong’d by Venice, vow to save
Her sons, devoted to the grave!
No — though that cloud were thunder’s worst,
And charged to crush him — let it burst!
He look’d upon it earnestly,
Without an accent of reply;
He watch’d it passing: it is flown:
Full on his eye the clear moon shone.
And thus he spake — “Whate’er my fate,
I am no changeling — ’tis too late:
The reed in storms may bow and quiver,
Then rise again; the tree must shiver.
What Venice made me, I must be,
Her foe in all, save love to thee:
But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!”
He turn’d, but she is gone!
Nothing is there but the column stone.
Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air?
He saw not — he knew not — but nothing is there.

XXII.

The night is past, and shines the sun
As if that morn were a jocund one.
Lightly and brightly breaks away
The Morning from her mantle gray,
And the Noon will look on a sultry day.
Hark to the trump, and the drum,
And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they’re borne,
And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude’s hum,
And the clash and the shout, “They come, they come!”
The horsetails are pluck’d 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, skirt the plain,
That the fugitive may flee in vain,
When he breaks from the town; and none escape,
Aged or young in Christian shape;
While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,
Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.
The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;
Curved is each neck, and flowing each main;
White is the foam of their champ on the bit:
The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;
The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,
And crush the wall they have crumbled before:
Forms in his phalanx each Janizar;
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:
The vizier himself at the head of the host.
When the culverin’s signal is fired, then on;
Leave not in Corinth a living one —
A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,
A hearth in her mansions, a stone in her walls.
God and the prophet — Allah Hu!
Up to the skies with that wild halloo!

“There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale
And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?
He who first downs with the red cross may crave
His heart’s dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!”
Thus utter’d Coumourgi, the dauntless vizier;
The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear,
And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire: —
Silence — hark to the signal — fire!

XXIII.

As the wolves, that headlong go
On the stately buffalo,
Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,
And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,
He tramples on earth, or tosses on high
The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die;
Thus against the wall they went,
Thus the first were backward bent;
Many a bosom, sheathed in brass,
Strew’d the earth like broken glass,
Shiver’d by the shot, that tore
The ground whereon they moved no more:
Even as they fell, in files they lay,
Like the mower’s grass at the close of day,
When is work is done on the levell’d plain;
Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

XXIV.

As the spring-tides, with heavy splash,
From the cliffs invading dash
Huge fragments, sapp’d 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-renew’d
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;
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,
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.

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
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.

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,
In a semicircle lay;
Still he combated unwounded,
Though retreating, unsurrounded.
Many a scar of former fight
Lurk’d 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,
Outnumber’d his thin hairs of silver gray.
From right to left his sabre swept:
Many an Othman mother wept
Sons that were unborn, when dipp’d
His weapon first in Moslem gore,
Ere his years could count a score.
Of all he might have been the sire
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 strait [8] His only boy had met his fate,
His parent’s iron hand did doom
More than a human hecatomb.
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
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! a band
Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand:
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 them 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;
Look through the thick of the fight, ’tis there!
There is not a standard on the shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
Will lure the Delis half so far;
It glances like a falling star!
Where’er that mighty arm is seen,
The bravest be, or late have been;
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 levell’d foe,
Though faint beneath the mutual wound,
Grappling on the gory ground.

XXVII.

Still the old man stood erect,
And Alp’s career a moment check’d.
“Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take,
For thine own, thy daughter’s sake.”

“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.

“O God! when died she?” — “Yesternight —
Nor weep I for her spirit’s flight:
None of my pure race shall be
Slaves to Mohammed 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
Than his falchion’s point had found,
Had the time allow’d 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 dash’d Alp to the ground;
Ere an eye could view the wound
That crash’d through the brain of the infidel,
Round he spun, and down he fell;
A flash like fire within his eyes
Blazed, as he bent no more to rise,
And then eternal darkness sunk
Through all the palpitating trunk;
Nought of life left, save a quivering
Where his limbs were slightly shivering:
They turn’d him on his back; his breast
And brow were stain’d with gore and dust,
And through his lips the life-blood oozed,
From its deep veins lately loosed;
But in his pulse there was no throb,
Nor on his lips one dying sob;
Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath
Heralded his way to death:
Ere his very thought could pray,
Unanel’d he pass’d away,
Without a hope from mercy’s aid, —
To the last — a Renegade.

XXVIII.

Fearfully the yell arose
Of his followers, and his foes;
These in joy, in fury those:
Then again in conflict mixing,
Clashing swords, and spears transfixing,
Interchanged the blow and thrust,
Hurling warriors in the dust.
Street by street, and foot by foot,
Still Minotti dares dispute
The latest portion of the land
Left beneath his high command;
With him, aiding heart and hand,
The remnant of his gallant band.
Still the church is tenable,
Whence issued the fated ball
That half avenged the city’s fall,
When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell:
Thither bending sternly back,
They leave before a bloody track;
And, with their faces to the foe,
Dealing wounds with every blow,
The chief, and his retreating train,
Join to those within the fane;
There they yet may breathe awhile,
Shelter’d by the massy pile.

XXIX.

Brief breathing-time! the turban’d host,
With added ranks and raging boast,
Press onwards with such strength and heat,
Their numbers balk 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 unthinn’d, though slaughter’d still:
And faint the weary Christians wax
Before the still renew’d attacks:
And now the Othmans gain the gate;
Still resists its iron weight,
And still, all deadly aim’d and hot,
From every crevice comes the shot;
From every shatter’d window pour
The volleys of the sulphurous shower:
But the portal wavering grows and weak —
The iron yields, the hinges creak —
It bends — and falls — and all is o’er;
Lost Corinth may resist no more!

XXX.

Dark, sternly, and all alone,
Minotti stood o’er the altar stone:
Madonna’s face upon him shone,
Painted in heavenly hues above,
With eyes of light and looks of love;
And placed upon that holy shrine
To fix our thoughts on things divine,
When pictured there we kneeling see
Her, and the boy-God on her knee,
Smiling sweetly on each prayer
To heaven, as if to waft it there.
Still she smiled; even now she smiles,
Though slaughter streams along her aisles:
Minotti lifted his aged eye,
And made the sign of a cross with a sigh,
Then seized a torch which blazed thereby;
And still he stood, while, with steel and flame,
Inward and onward the Mussulman came.

XXXI.

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone
Contain’d the dead of ages gone:
Their names were on the graven floor,
But now illegible with gore;
The carved crests, and curious hues
The varied marble’s veins diffuse,
Were smear’d, and slippery — stain’d, and strown
With broken swords, and helms o’erthrown:
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,
Against the foe’s o’erwhelming force.

XXXII.

The foe came on, and few remain
To strive, and those must strive in vain:
For lack of further lives, to slake
The thirst of vengeance now awake,
With barbarous blows they gash the dead,
And lop the already lifeless head,
And fell the statues from their niche,
And spoil the shrine of offerings rich,
And from each other’s rude hands wrest
The silver vessels saints had bless’d.
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,
Which His worshippers drank at the break of day
To shrive their souls ere they join’d in the fray,
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
To grasp the spoil he almost reach’d
When old Minotti’s hand
Touch’d with a torch the train —
‘Tis fired!
Spire, vaults, and 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!
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,
Scorch’d and shrivell’d to a span,
When he fell to earth again
Like a cinder strew’d the plain:
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.
Not the matrons that them bore
Could discern their offspring more;
That one moment left no trace
More of human form or face
Save a scatter’d scalp or bone:
And down came blazing rafters, strown
Around, and many a falling stone,
Deeply dinted in the clay,
All blacken’d there and reeking lay.
All the living things that heard
That deadly earth-shock disappear’d.
The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead;
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, [8] Bay’d from afar complainingly,
With mix’d and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound:
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!

(1) Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and, in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different; that by sea has more sameness; but the voyage being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, &c. and the coast of the continent.

(2) of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in
[sic. Transcriber’s note: this is all that appears of Byron’s note in the edition from which I am rendering this electronic text.]

(3) The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean.

(4) This spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorous in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse’s Travels. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

(5) This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superstition that Mohammed will draw them into paradise by it.

(6) I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr Coleridge, called “Christabel.” It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited: and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

(7) I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it: but it is not original — at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-184 of the English version of “Vathek” (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.

(8) I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies.