Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 645 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, While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass. 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; 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. 650 655 660 665 God and the prophet-Alla Hu! Up to the skies with that wild halloo ! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale; 670 "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 uttered 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! 675 XXIII. As the wolves, that headlong go On the stately buffalo, Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar, 680 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, Thus the first were backward bent; Many a bosom, sheathed in brass, Strewed the earth like broken glass, 685 Shivered by the shot, that tore The ground whereon they moved no more: Even as they fell, in files they lay, 690 Like the mower's grass at the close of day, When his work is done on the levelled plain; Such was the fall of the foremost slain. XXIV. As the spring-tides, with heavy plash; Charge of the Moslem multitude. In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell, Heaped, 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, 705 Mingle there with the volleying thunder, 710 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, But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, 715 720 And all but the after carnage done. 725 Shriller shrieks now mingling come From within the plundered dome : Hark to the haste of flying feet, That splash in the blood of the slippery street; 730 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. 735 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, Many a scar of former fight Lurked beneath his corslet bright; Many an Othman mother wept Sons that were unborn, when dipped 740 745 750 |