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 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,
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 for;
And since the day, when in the strait 9
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 he is ever known:
Others a gaudier garb may show,
To tempt the spoil of the greedy foc;
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, 't is there!
There is not a standard on that shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
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
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.

« 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.

«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

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 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.

ΧΧΙΧ.

Brief breathing-time! the turhan'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-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,
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 shrines of offerings rich,
And from each other's rude hands wrest
The silver vessels saints had blest.

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 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.

Note 7. Page 198, line 3.

There is a light cloud by the moon.

I have been told that the idea expressed from lines 598 to 603 have 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 182-3-4 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.

Note 8. Page 198, line 48.

The horse-tails are pluck'd from the ground, and the sword. The horse-tail, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard.

Note 9. Page 199, line 45.

And since the day, when in the strait.

In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and the Turks.

Note 10. Page 201, line 68.

The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry.

I believe I have taken a poetical licence 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.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's « Antiquities of the House of Brunswick.»-I am aware that in modern times the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. 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 Parisina, 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 that last act of the justice of a parent.»-Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. 3, p. 470, new edition.

PARISINA.

I.

Ir 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,

T is 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 feel.

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 pass'd away,

They only for each other breathe: Their very sighs are full of joy

So deep, that, did it not decay, That happy madness would destroy

The hearts which feel its fiery sway:
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem
In that tumultuous tender dream?·
Who that have felt that passion's power,
Or paused, or fear'd in such an hour,

Or thought how brief such moments last?
But yet-they are already past!
Alas! we must awake before

We know such vision comes no more.

IV.

With many a lingering look they leave
The spot of guilty gladness past;
And though they hope, and vow, they grieve,
As if that parting were the last.
The frequent sigh-the long embrace-

The lip that there would cling for ever,
While gleams on Parisina's face

The Heaven she fears will not forgive her, As if each calmly conscious star Beheld her frailty from afarThe frequent sigh, the long embrace, Yet binds them to their trysting-place. But it must come, and they must part In fearful heaviness of heart, With all the deep and shuddering chill Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

V.

And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed,
To covet there another's bride;
But she must lay her conscious head
A husband's trusting heart beside.
But fever'd in her sleep she seems,
And red her cheek with troubled dreams,
And mutters she in her unrest
A name she dare not breathe by day,
And clasps her lord unto the breast
Which pants for one away:
And he to that embrace awakes,
And, happy in the thought, mistakes
That dreaming sigh, and warm caress,
For such as he was wont to bless;
And could in very fondness weep
O'er her who loves him even in sleep.

VI.

He clasp'd her sleeping to his heart, And listen'd to each broken word; He hears-Why doth Prince Azo start,

As if the Archangel's voice he heard? And well he may-a deeper doom Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb, When he shall wake to sleep no more, And stand the eternal throne before. And well he may-his earthly peace Upon that sound is doom'd to cease. That sleeping whisper of a name Bespeaks her guilt and Azo's shame.

And whose that name? that o'er his pillow
Sounds fearful as the breaking billow,
Which rolls the plank upon the shore,
And dashes on the pointed rock

The wretch who sinks to rise no more;-
So came upon his soul the shock.
And whose that name? 't is Hugo's,-his-
In sooth he had not deem'd of this!-
'Tis Hugo's,-he, the child of one
He loved his own all-evil son-
The offspring of his wayward youth,
When he betray'd Bianca's truth,
The maid whose folly could confide
In him who made her not his bride.

VII.

He pluck'd his poniard in its sheath,
But sheathed it ere the point was bare-
Howe'er unworthy now to breathe,

He could not slay a thing so fairAt least, not smiling-sleeping thereNay, more: he did not wake her then, But gazed upon her with a glance Which, had she roused her from her trance, Had frozen her sense to sleep again— And o'er his brow the burning lamp Gleam'd on the dew-drops big and damp. She spake no more-but still she slumber'dWhile, in his thought, her days are number'd.

VIII.

And with the morn he sought, and found,

In many a tale from those around,
The proof of all he fear'd to know,
Their present guilt, his future woe;
The long-conniving damsels seek

To save themselves, and would transfer
The guilt-the shame-the doom to her :
Concealment is no more-they speak
All circumstance which may compel
Full credence to the tale they tell;
And Azo's tortured heart and ear
Have nothing more to feel or hear.

IX.

He was not one who brook'd delay:
Within the chamber of his state,
The chief of Este's ancient sway

Upon his throne of judgment sate;
His nobles and his guards are there,-
Before him is the sinful pair;
Both young-and one how passing fair!
With swordless belt, and fetter'd hand,
Oh, Christ! that thus a son should stand
Before a father's face!

Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire,
And hear the sentence of his ire,
The tale of his disgrace!
And yet he seems not overcome,
Although, as yet, his voice be dumb.

X.

And still, and pale, and silently

Did Parisina wait her doom; How changed since last her speaking eye Glanced gladness round the glittering room!