No More Learning

I. [338]

Many a vanished year and age,[ob]
And Tempest's breath, and Battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,
A fortress formed to Freedom's hands. [oc]
The Whirlwind's wrath, the Earthquake's shock, 50
Have left untouched her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill,
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side,
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,[339]
Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 60
Arise from out the Earth which drank
The stream of Slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine Ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:
Or could the bones of all the slain,[od]
Who perished there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise
More mountain-like, through those clear skies[oe]
Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis,
Which seems the very clouds to kiss. 70

II.

On dun Cithaeron's ridge appears
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears;
And downward to the Isthmian plain,
From shore to shore of either main,[of]
The tent is pitched, the Crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;
And the dusk Spahi's bands[340] advance
Beneath each bearded Pacha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach[og]
The turbaned cohorts throng the beach; 80
And there the Arab's camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd,[341]
The sabre round his loins to gird;
And there the volleying thunders pour,
Till waves grow smoother to the roar.
The trench is dug, the cannon's breath
Wings the far hissing globe of death;[342]
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball; 90
And from that wall the foe replies,
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,
With fares that answer fast and well
The summons of the Infidel.

III.

But near and nearest to the wall
Of those who wish and work its fall,
With deeper skill in War's black art,
Than Othman's sons, and high of heart
As any Chief that ever stood
Triumphant in the fields of blood; 100
From post to post, and deed to deed,
Fast spurring on his reeking steed,
Where sallying ranks the trench assail,
And make the foremost Moslem quail;
Or where the battery, guarded well,
Remains as yet impregnable,
Alighting cheerly to inspire
The soldier slackening in his fire;
The first and freshest of the host
Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast, 110
To guide the follower o'er the field,
To point the tube, the lance to wield,
Or whirl around the bickering blade;--
Was Alp, the Adrian renegade! [343]

IV.

From Venice--once a race of worth
His gentle Sires--he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore,[oh]
Against his countrymen he bore
The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow. 120
Through many a change had Corinth passed
With Greece to Venice' rule at last;
And here, before her walls, with those
To Greece and Venice equal foes,
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs.
To him had Venice ceased to be
Her ancient civic boast--"the Free;" 130
And in the palace of St. Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed
A charge against him uneffaced:[344]
He fled in time, and saved his life,
To waste his future years in strife,[oi]
That taught his land how great her loss
In him who triumphed o'er the Cross,
'Gainst which he reared the Crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die. 140

V.
Coumourgi[345]--he whose closing scene
Adorned the triumph of Eugene,
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain,
The last and mightiest of the slain,
He sank, regretting not to die,
But cursed the Christian's victory--
Coumourgi--can his glory cease,
That latest conqueror of Greece,
Till Christian hands to Greece restore
The freedom Venice gave of yore? 150
A hundred years have rolled away
Since he refixed the Moslem's sway;
And now he led the Mussulman,
And gave the guidance of the van
To Alp, who well repaid the trust
By cities levelled with the dust;
And proved, by many a deed of death,
How firm his heart in novel faith.

VI.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot
Against them poured the ceaseless shot, 160
With unabating fury sent
From battery to battlement;
And thunder-like the pealing din[oj]
Rose from each heated culverin;
And here and there some crackling dome
Was fired before the exploding bomb;
And as the fabric sank beneath
The shattering shell's volcanic breath,
In red and wreathing columns flashed
The flame, as loud the ruin crashed, 170
Or into countless meteors driven,
Its earth-stars melted into heaven;[ok]
Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun,
Impervious to the hidden sun,
With volumed smoke that slowly grew[ol]
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

VII.

But not for vengeance, long delayed,
Alone, did Alp, the renegade,
The Moslem warriors sternly teach
His skill to pierce the promised breach: 180
Within these walls a Maid was pent
His hope would win, without consent
Of that inexorable Sire,
Whose heart refused him in its ire,
When Alp, beneath his Christian name,
Her virgin hand aspired to claim.
In happier mood, and earlier time,
While unimpeached for traitorous crime,
Gayest in Gondola or Hall,
He glittered through the Carnival; 190
And tuned the softest serenade
That e'er on Adria's waters played
At midnight to Italian maid. [om]

VIII.

And many deemed her heart was won;
For sought by numbers, given to none,
Had young Francesca's hand remained
Still by the Church's bonds unchained:
And when the Adriatic bore
Lanciotto to the Paynim shore,
Her wonted smiles were seen to fail, 200
And pensive waxed the maid and pale;
More constant at confessional,
More rare at masque and festival;
Or seen at such, with downcast eyes,
Which conquered hearts they ceased to prize:
With listless look she seems to gaze:
With humbler care her form arrays;
Her voice less lively in the song;
Her step, though light, less fleet among
The pairs, on whom the Morning's glance 210
Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

IX.

Sent by the State to guard the land,
(Which, wrested from the Moslem's hand,[346]
While Sobieski tamed his pride
By Buda's wall and Danube's side,[on]
The chiefs of Venice wrung away
From Patra to Euboea's bay,)
Minotti held in Corinth's towers[oo]
The Doge's delegated powers,
While yet the pitying eye of Peace 220
Smiled o'er her long forgotten Greece:
And ere that faithless truce was broke
Which freed her from the unchristian yoke,
With him his gentle daughter came;
Nor there, since Menelaus' dame
Forsook her lord and land, to prove
What woes await on lawless love,
Had fairer form adorned the shore
Than she, the matchless stranger, bore. [op]

X.

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn; 230
And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn,
O'er the disjointed mass shall vault
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are ranked--the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"[347]
Who hold the thought of death in scorn,
And win their way with falchion's force,
Or pave the path with many a corse,
O'er which the following brave may rise, 240
Their stepping-stone--the last who dies! [oq]

XI.

'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown[348]
The cold, round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,[or][349]
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away, 250
And mix with their eternal ray?