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 Christian's chiefest magazine; To these a late form'd train now led, Minotti's last and stern resource Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.
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 offering 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.
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
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 downThe 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 earth 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 fled, 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 bull-frog's note, from out the marsh, Deep-mouth'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, (1) 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!
(1) I believe I have taken a poetical license 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.
« 前へ次へ » |