by Byron
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!
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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.
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Lightly and brightly breaks away
The Morning from her mantle grey,
And the Noon will look on a sultry day.
Hark to the trump, and the drum,
And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
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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 horsetails1 are pluck’d from the ground, and the sword
From its sheath: and they form, and but wait for the word.
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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,
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Aged or young, in the 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 mane;
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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;
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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;
665
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!
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‘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;
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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,
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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,
685
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:
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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,
695
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;
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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,
705
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,
710
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
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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;
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(We have heard the hearers say,)
Even unto Piraeus’ 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,
725
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;
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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,
735
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,
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In a semicircle lay;
Still he combated unwounded,
Though retreating, unsurrounded.
Many a scar of former fight
Lurk’d beneath his corslet bright;
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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,
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Outnumber’d his thin hairs of silver grey.
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,
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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;
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And since the day, when in the strait1
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,
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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;
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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
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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:
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Others a gaudier garb may show,
To tempt 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, –
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Alp is but known by the white arm bare;
Look through the thick of the fight, ’tis there!
There is not a standard on that shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
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Will lure the Delhis 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
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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,
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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,
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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?’
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‘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
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Before his words, as with a blow.
‘Oh God! when died she?’ – ‘Yesternight –
Nor weep I for her spirit’s flight:
None of my pure race shall be
Slaves to Mahomet and thee -
820
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,
825
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,
830
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
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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:
840
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,
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Nor on his lips one dying sob;
Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath
Heralded his way to death:
Ere his very thought could pray,
Unaneled he pass’d away,
850
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:
855
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,
860
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.
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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,
870
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;
875
There they yet may breathe awhile,
Shelter’d by the massy pile.
XXIX
Brief breathing-time! the turban’d host,
With adding ranks and raging boast,
Press onwards with such strength and heat,
880
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;
885
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;
890
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,
895
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 —
900
It bends – it falls – and all is o’er;
Lost Corinth may resist no more!
XXX
Darkly, sternly, and all alone,
Minotti stood o’er the altar stone:
Madonna’s face upon him shone,
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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
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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:
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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
920
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
925
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 cofhn’d row;
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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
935
In masses by the fleshless dead:
Here, throughout the siege, had been
The Christian’s chiefest magazine;
To these a late form’d train now led,
Minotti’s last and stern resource
940
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,
945
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 offering rich, ’
And from each other’s rude hands wrest
950
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;
955
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,
960
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;
965
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 —
970
’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,