One cry from the destroyed and the destroyer
Rose, and a cloud of desolation wrapped
The unforeseen event, till the north wind
Sprung from the sea, lifting the heavy veil
Of battle-smoke-then victory-victory!
For, as we thought, three frigates from Algiers
Bore down from Naxos to our aid, but soon 500
The abhorred cross glimmered behind, before,
Among, around us; and that fatal sign

Dried with its beams the strength in Moslem hearts,

As the sun drinks the dew.-What more? We fled!

Our noonday path over the sanguine foam Was beaconed,—and the glare struck the sun pale,

By our consuming transports: the fierce light Made all the shadows of our sails blood-red, And every countenance blank. Some ships lay feeding

The ravening fire, even to the water's level; 510 Some were blown up; some, settling heavily, Sunk; and the shrieks of our companions

died

Upon the wind, that bore us fast and far, Even after they were dead. Nine thousand perished!

We met the vultures legioned in the air Stemming the torrent of the tainted wind; They, screaming from their cloudy mountainpeaks,

Stooped through the sulphurous battle-smoke and perched

Each on the weltering carcase that we loved,
Like its ill angel or its damnèd soul
Riding upon the bosom of the sea.

We saw the dog-fish hastening to their feast.

520

Joy waked the voiceless people of the sea,'
And ravening Famine left his ocean cave
To dwell with War, with us, and with Despair.
We met night three hours to the west of
Patmos,

And with night, tempest

MAHMUD.

Cease!

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.

Your Sublime Highness,

That Christian hound the Muscovite Ambas

sador

Has left the city.—If the rebel fleet

Had anchored in the port, had victory

530

Crowned the Greek legions in the Hippodrome,
Panic were tamer.-Obedience and Mutiny,
Like giants in contention planet-struck,
Stand gazing on each other.-There is peace
In Stamboul.—

MAHMUD.

Is the grave not calmer still?

Its ruins shall be mine.

HASSAN.

Fear not the Russian : The tiger leagues not with the stag at bay Against the hunter.-Cunning, base, and cruel, He crouches, watching till the spoil be won, And must be paid for his reserve in blood. 540

1 Compare the Persæ of Æschylus, verses 578-80:-γναπτόμενοι δ ̓ ἁλὶ δεινᾷ, φεῦ

σκύλλονται πρὸς ἀναυδων, ἐὴ,
παίδων τᾶς ἀμιάντου, ὀά.—ED.

After the war is fought, yield the sleek Russian That which thou canst not keep, his deserved portion

Of blood, which shall not flow through streets and fields,

Rivers and seas, like that which we may win, But stagnate in the veins of Christian slaves!

Enter second Messenger.

SECOND MESSENGER.

Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens,
Navarin, Artas, Monembasia,

Corinth and Thebes are carried by assault,
And every Islamite who made his dogs
Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves

550

Passed at the edge of the sword: the lust of blood,

Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death;

But like a fiery plague breaks out anew

In deeds which make the Christian cause look

pale

In its own light. The garrison of Patras
Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope
But from the Briton: at once slave and tyrant
His wishes still are weaker than his fears,
Or he would sell what faith may yet remain
From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway;
And if you buy him not, your treasury 561
Is empty even of promises-his own coin.
The freedman of a western poet chief
Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels,
And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont:
The agèd Ali sits in Yanina

A crownless metaphor of empire:

His name, that shadow of his withered might,

570

Holds our besieging army like a spell
In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny;
He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth
Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors
The ruins of the city where he reigned
Childless and sceptreless. The Greek has reaped
The costly harvest his own blood matured,
Not the sower, Ali-who has bought a truce
From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads
Of Indian gold.

Enter a third Messenger.

MAHMUD.

What more?

THIRD MESSENGER.

The Christian tribes

Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness
Are in revolt;-Damascus, Hems, Aleppo 580
Tremble ;-the Arab menaces Medina,

The Ethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,
And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,
Who denies homage, claims investiture
As price of tardy aid. Persia demands
The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians
Refuse their living tribute.1 Crete and Cyprus,
Like mountain-twins that from each other's
veins

Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake spasm,
Shake in the general fever. Through the city,
Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek;
And prophesyings horrible and new

592

Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still. A Dervise, learned in the Koran, preaches

1 Virgins sent annually to replenish the Sultan's seraglio.-ED.

600

That it is written how the sins of Islam
Must raise up a destroyer even now.
The Greeks expect a Saviour from the west,
Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,
But in the omnipresence of that spirit
In which all live and are. Ominous signs
Are blazoned broadly on the noon-day sky:
One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;
It has rained blood; and monstrous births
declare

The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.
The army encamped upon the Cydaris,
Was roused last night by the alarm of battle,
And saw two hosts conflicting in the air,
The shadows doubtless of the unborn time
Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet 610
The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm
Which swept the phantoms from among the stars.
At the third watch the spirit of the plague
Was heard abroad flapping among the tents;
Those who relieved watch found the sentinels
dead.

The last news from the camp is, that a thousand
Have sickened, and——

Enter a fourth Messenger.

MAHMUD.

And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow

Of some untimely rumour, speak!

FOURTH MESSENGER.

One comes

620

Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood: He stood, he says, upon Chelonites' Promontory, which o'erlooks the isles that groan Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendour of the moon,