And with loud laughter for their tyrant reap
A harvest sown with other hopes, the while,
Far overhead, ships from Propontis keep
A killing rain of fire-when the waves smile
As sudden earthquakes light many a volcano isle.
Thus, sudden, unexpected feast was spread
For the carrion fowls of Heaven.-I saw the sight-
I moved-lived-as o'er the heaps of dead,
Whose stony eyes glared in the morning light
I trod; to me there came no thought of flight,
But with loud cries of scorn which those heard
That dreaded death, felt in his veins the might
Of virtuous shame return, the crowd I stirred,
And desperation's hope in many hearts recurred.
And band of brothers, gathering round me, made,
Although unarmed, a sted fast front, and still
Retreating, with stern looks beneath the shade
Of gathered eyebrows, did the victors fill
Wiin doubt even in success; deliberate will
Inspired our growing troop; not overthrown,
It gained the shelter of a grassy hill,
And ever still our comrades were hewn down,
And their defenceless limbs beneath our footsteps strown
Immoveable we stood-in joy I found,
Beside me then, firm as a giant pine
Among the mountain vapours driven around,
The old man whom I loved--his eyes divine
With a mild look of courage answered mine,
And my young friend was near, and ardently
His hand grasped mine a moment-now the line
Of war extended to our rallying cry,
As myriads flocked in love and brotherhood to die.
For ever while the sun was climbing Heaven
The horseman hewed our unarmed myriads down
Safely, tho', when by thirst of carnage driven
Too near, those slaves were swiftly overthrown
By hundreds leaping on them:-flesh and bone
Soon made our ghastly ramparts; then the shaft
Of the artillery from the sea was thrown
More fast and fiery, and the conquerors laugh'd
In pride to hear the wind our screams of torment waft.
For on one side alone the hill gave shelter,
So vast that phalanx of unconquered men,
And there the living in the blood did welter
Of the dead and dying, which in that green glen,
Like stifled torrents, made a plashy fen
Under the feet-thus was the butchery waged
While the sun clombe Heaven's eastern steep-but when It 'gan to sink, a fiercer combat raged,
For in more doubtful strife the armies were engaged.
Within a cave upon the hill were found
A bundle of rude pikes, the instrument
Of those who war but on their native ground
For natural rights; a shout of joyance sent
Even from our hearts the wide air pierced and rent,
As those few arms the bravest and the best
Seized, and each sixth, thus armed, did now present
A line which covered and sustained the rest,
A confident phalanx, which the foes on every side invest
That onset turned the foes to flight almost,
But soon they saw their present strength, and knew
That coming night would to our resolute host
Bring victory; so, dismounting close, they drew
Their glittering files, and then the combat grew
Unequal, but most horrible :-and ever
Our myriads, whom the swift bolt overthrew,
Or the red sword, failed like a mountain river
Which rushes forth in foam to sink in sands for ever.
Sorrow and shame, to see with their own kind
Our human brethren mix, like beasts of blood
To mutual ruin armed by one behind,
Who sits and scoffs!-That friend so mild and good,
Who like its shadow near my youth had stood,
Was stabbed!-my old preserver's hoary hair,
With the flesh clinging to its roots, was strewed
Under my feet!-I lost all sense or care,
And like the rest I grew desperate and unaware.
The battle became ghastlier-in the midst
I paused, and saw, how ugly and how fell,
O Hate! thou art, even when thy life thou shedd'st
For love. The ground in many a little dell
Was broken, up and down whose steeps befell
Alternate victory and defeat, and there
The combatants with rage most horrible
Strove, and their eyes started with cracking stare,
And impotent their tongues they lolled into the air.
Flaccid and foamy, like a mad dog's hanging:
Want, and Moon-madness, and the pest's swift Bane
When its shafts smite-while yet its bow is twanging-
Have each their mark and sign-some ghastly stain;
And this was thine, O War; of hate and pain
Thou loathed slave. I saw all shapes of death,
And ministered to many, o'er the plain,
While carnage in the sun-beam's warmth did seethe,
Till twilight o'er the east wove her serenest wreath.
The few who yet survived, resolute and firm,
Around me fought. At the decline of day,
Winding above the mountain's snowy term,
New banners shone; they quivered in the ray
Of the sun's unseen orb-ere night the array
Of fresh troops hemmed us in-of those brave bands
I soon survived alone-and now I lay
Vanquished and faint, the grasp of bloody hands
I felt, and saw on high the glare of falling brands
When on my foes a sudden terror came,
And they fled, scattering.-Lo! with reinless speed
A black Tartarian horse of giant frame
Comes trampling over the dead; the living bleed
Beneath the hoofs of that tremendous steed,
On which, like to an Angel, robed ip white,
Sate one waving a sword;-the hosts recede
And fly, as thro' their ranks with awful might
Sweeps in the shadow of eve that Phantom swift and bright;
And its path made a solitude.-I rose,
And marked its coming: it relaxed its course
As it approached me, and the wind, that flows
Thro' night, bore accents to mine ear whose force
Might create smiles in death.-The Tartar horse
Paused, and I saw the shape its might which swayed,
And heard her musical pants, like the sweet source
Of waters in the desert, as she said,
"Mount with me, Laon, now!"-I rapidly obeyed.
· Then “Away! away!" she cried, and stretched her sword
As 'twere a scourge over the courser's head,
And lightly shook the reins.-We spake no word,
But like the vapour of the tempest fled
Over the plain; her dark hair was dispread,
Like the pine's locks upon the lingering blast;
Over mine eyes its shadowy strings is spread
Fitfully, and the hills and streams fled fast,
As o'er their glimmering forms the steed's broad shadow past;
And his hoofs ground the rocks to fire and dust.
His strong sides made the torrents rise in spray
And turbulence, as if a whirlwind's gust
Surrounded us ;-and still away! away!
Thro' the desert night we sped, while she alway
Gazed on a mountain which we neared, whose crest,
Crowned with a marble ruin, in the ray
Of the obscure stars gleamed ;-its rugged breast
The steed strained up, and then his impulse did arrest.
A rocky hill which overhung the Ocean:-
From that lone ruin, when the steed that panted
Paused, might be heard the nurmur of the motion
Of waters, as in spots for ever haunted
By the choicest winds of Heaven, which are enchanted
To music by the wand of Solitude,
That wizard wild, and the far tents implanted
Upon the plain, be seen by those who stood
Thence marking the dark shore of Ocean's curved flood,
One moment these were heard and seen-another
Past; and the two, who stood beneath that night,
Each only heard, or saw, or felt, the other.
As from the lofty steed she did alight,
Cythna, (for, from the eyes whose deepest light
Of love and sadness made my lips feel pale
With influence strange of mournfullest delight,
My own sweet Cythna looked,) with joy did qual,,
And felt her strength in tears of human weakness fail.
And for a space in my embrace she rested,
Her head on my unquiet heart reposing,
While my faint arms her languid frame invested :
At length she looked on me, and, half unclosing
Her tremulous lips, said,
The battle, as I stood before the King
In bonds. I burst them then, and, swiftly choosing
The time, did seize a Tartar's sword, and spring
Upon his horse, and swift as on the whirlwind's wing,
"Have thou and I been borne beyond pursuer,
And we are here."--Then, turning to the steed,
She pressed the white moon on his front with pure
And rose-like lips, and many a fragrant weed
From the green ruin plucked, that he might feed
But I to a stone seat that Maiden led,
And, kissing her fair eyes, said, "Thou hast need
Of rest," and I heaped up the courser's bed
In a green mossy nook, with mountain flowers dispread,
Within that ruin, (where a shattered portal
Looks to the eastern stars, abandoned now
By man, to be the home of things immortal,
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