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 on her walls.
God and the prophet-Alla 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 the 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, sheath'd 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 his work is done on the levell'd plain;
Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

XXIV.

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,
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 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
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 immortality saves.

There is not a banne. 'n Moslem war
Will lure the Delhis haif 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
Yainly 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.

"Yesternight

"Oh God! when died she?
Nor weep I for her spirit's flight:
None of my pure race shall be
Slaves to Mahomet 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 neighboring porch
Of a long defended church,
Where the last and desperate few
Would the failing fight renew,

The sharp shot dashed 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,
Unanell'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 late 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.

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 shrines 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 the torch the train

"Tis fired!

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!

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 carth 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 filed,
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 bullfrog's note, from out the marsh,
Deepmouth'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:
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!

ΤΟ

January 22, 1816.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following poem is grounded on a circumatance mentioned in Gibbon's "Antiquities of the House of Brunswick."-I am aware, that in modern imes the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of Doetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical.

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of an attendant, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisini, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty; if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of justice of a parent."Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 470, new edition.

I.

IT is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows

Seem sweet in every whisper'd word: And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear.

Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

II.

But it is not to list to the waterfall
That Parisina leaves her hall,

And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light
That the lady walks in the shadow of night
And if she sits in Este's bower,

'Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower-
She listens-but not for the nightingale-
Though her ear expects as soft a tale.
There glides a step through the foliage thick,
And her cheek grows pale-and her heart beats
quick.

There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves
And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves:
A moment more-and they shall meet-
'Tis past-her lover's at her feet

III.

And what unto them is the world beside,
With all its change of time and tide?
Its living things-its earth and sky-
Are nothing to their mind and eye.
And heedless as the dead are they
Of aught around, above, beneath;
As if all else had passed away,
They only for each other breathe.