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, 5
Have left untouch'd her hoary rock,

The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,
The land-mark 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,

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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-capt Acropolis

Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

II.

On dun Citharon'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 pasha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach

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The turban'd cohorts throng the beach;

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And there the Arab's camel kneels,

And there his steed the Tartar wheels;

The Turcoman hath left his herd,'

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;

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Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;
And from that wall the foe replies,

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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

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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 ;

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Or where the battery, guarded well,

Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire
The soldier slackening in his fire ;

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The first and freshest of the host

Which Stamboul's sultan there can boast,

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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;

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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,

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And here, before her walls, with those

To Greece and Venice equal foes,

He stood a foe, with all the zeal

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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;"

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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
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 curst the Christian's victory-
Coumourgi-can his glory cease,
That latest conqueror of Greece,

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