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Where'er had pass'd his summer years of life,
It seems they vanish'd in a land of strife;
But all unknown his glory or his guilt,
These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,
Return'd no more-that night appear'd his last.

XXIV.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale)
A Serf that cross'd the intervening vale,
When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,
And nearly veil'd in mist her waning horn;
A Serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood,
And hew the bough that bought his children's food,
Pass'd by the river that divides the plain
Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain :
He heard a tramp-a horse and horseman broke
From out the wood-before him was a cloak
Wrapt round some burden at his saddle-bow;
Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow.
Roused by the sudden sight at such a time,
And some foreboding that it might be crime,
Himself unheeded watch'd the stranger' course,
Who reach'd the river, bounded from his horse,
And lifting thence the burden which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dashed it from the shore,
Then paused, and look'd, and turn'd, and seem'd to
watch,

And still another hurried glance would snatch,
And follow with his step the stream that flow'd,
As if even yet too much its surface show'd:
At once he started, stoop'd, around him strown
The winter floods had scatter'd heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather'd there,
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the Serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean;
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter'd starlike on the vest,
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:
It rose again but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappear'd: the horseman gazed,
Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised;

Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant spurr'd him into panting speed.
His face was mask'd-the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escaped the observer's dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,
Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.
If thus he perish'd, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscover'd limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell,
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.

XXV.

And Kaled-Lara-Ezzelin, are gone,
Alike without their monumental stone!
The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean
From lingering where her chieftain's blood had been
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire,
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall:
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit ;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand-
This could not last-she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold-her truth too dearly proved.

NOTE TO LARA.

THE event in section xxiv. Canto II. was sug- he replied, that he saw two men on foot, who came gested by the description of the death or rather down the street, and looked diligently about, to burial of the Duke of Gandia. observe whether any person was passing. That The most interesting and particular account of seeing no one, they returned, and a short time afthis mysterious event is given by Burchard, and is terwards two others came, and looked around in the in substance as follows: "On the eighth day of same manner as the former: no person still appearJune, the Cardinal of Valenza, and the Duke of ing, they gave a sign to their companions, when a Gandia, sons of the Pope, supped with their mother, man came, mounted on a white horse, having beVanozza, near the church of S. Pietro ad vincula; hind him a dead body, the head and arms of which several other persons being present at the entertain- hung on one side, and the feet on the other side of ment. A late hour approaching, and the cardinal the horse; the two persons on foot supporting the having reminded his brother, that it was time to body, to prevent its falling. They thus proceeded return to the apostolic palace, they mounted their towards that part where the filth of the city is usuhorses or mules, with only a few attendants, and ally discharged into the river, and turning the horse, proceeded together as far as the palace of the Car- with his tail towards the water, the two persons dinal Ascanio Sforza, when the duke informed the took the dead body by the arms and feet, and with cardinal, that before he returned home, he had to all their strength flung it into the river. The perpay a visit of pleasure. Dismissing therefore all son on horseback then asked if they had thrown it his attendants except his staffiero, or footman, and in, to which they replied, Signor, si (yes, Sir.) He a person in a mask, who had paid him a visit whilst then looked towards the river, and seeing a mantle at supper, and who, during the space of a month or floating on the stream, he inquired what it was that thereabouts, previous to this time, had called upon appeared black, to which they answered, it was a him almost daily, at the apostolic palace, he took mantle; and one of them threy stones upon it, in this person behind him on his mule, and proceeded consequence of which it sunk. The attendants of to the street of the Jews, where he quitted his ser- the pontiff then inquired from Giorgio, why he had vant, directing him to remain there until a certain not revealed this to the governor of the city; to hour; when, if he did not return, he might repair which he replied, that he had seen in his time a to the palace. The duke then seated the person in hundred dead bodies thrown into the river at the the mask behind him, and rode, I know not whither; same place, without any inquiry being made respectout in that night he was assassinated, and thrown ing them, and that he had not therefore, considerinto the river. The servant, after having been ed it as a matter of any importance. The fisherdismissed, was also assaulted and mortally wound- men and seamen were then collected, and ordered ed; and although he was attended with great care, to search the river, where, on the following eveyet such was his situation, that he could give no in-ning, they found the body of the duke, with his telligible account of what had befallen his master. habit entire, and thirty ducats in his purse. He In the morning, the duke not having returned to was pierced with nine wounds, one of which was in the palace, his servants began to be alarmed; and his throat, the others in his head, body, and limbs. one of them informed the pontiff of the evening No sooner was the pontiff informed of the death of excursion of his sons, and that the duke had not his son, and that he had been thrown, like filth, yet made his appearance. This gave the pope no into the river, than, giving way to his grief, he small anxiety; but he conjectured that the duke shut himself up in a chamber, and wept bitterly. had been attracted by some courtesan to pass the The Cardinal of Segovia, and other attendants on night with her, and not choosing to quit the house the pope, went to the door, and after many hours in open day, had waited till the following evening spent in persuasions and exhortations, prevailed to return home. When, however, the evening ar-upon him to admit them. From the evening of rived, and he found himself disappointed in his ex- Wednesday, till the following Saturday, the pope pectations, he became deeply afflicted, and began to took no food; nor did he sleep from Thursday mornmake inquiries from different persons, whom he or- ing till the same hour on the ensuing day. At dered to attend him for that purpose. Among length, however, giving way to the entreaties of his these was a man named Giorgio Schiavoni, who, attendants, he began to restrain his sorrow, and to having discharged some timber from a bark in the consider the injury which his own health might susriver, had remained on board the vessel to watch it, tain, by the further indulgence of his grief."-Rosand being interrogated whether he had seen any coe's Leo Tenth, vol. i. page 265.

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ADVERTISEMENT.

THE grand army of the Turks, (in 1715,) under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country, thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it was impossible to hold out against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed; which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Antonio Bembo, proveditor extraordinary, were made prisoners of war."-History of the Turks, vol. iii. p. 151.

1.

MANY a vanish'd year and age,

And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands A fortress form'd to Freedom's hand.

• Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerabie place in the Moren, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and in the course of Journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Kathraus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very differens: that by sea has more sameness, but the voyage being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the blands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, &c., and the coast of the continent.

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock,
Have left untouch'd her hoary rock,
The key-stone 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 Timolean's brother bled,
Or baffled Persian's despot fled,
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,
Who perish'd there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise
More mountain-like, through those clear skies,
Than yon tower-capt Acropolis,
Which seems the very clouds to kiss.

II.

On dun Citharon's ridge appears
The gleam of twice ten thousand spears;
And downward to the Isthmian plain,
From shore to shore of either main,
The tent is pitch'd, the crescent shines
Along the Moslem's leaguering lines;
And the dusk Spahi's bands advance
Beneath each bearded pacha's glance;
And far and wide as eye can reach
The turban'd cohorts throng the beach;
And there the Arab's camel kneels,
And there his steed the Tartar wheels;
The Turcoman hath left his herd,1
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;
Fast whirl the fragments from the wall,
Which crumbles with the ponderous ball;
And from that wall the foe replies,
O'er dusty plain and smoky skies,
With fires 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;
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,
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 !

IV.

From Venice-once a race of worth
His gentle sires-he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore,
Against his countrymen he bore

The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow.
Through many a change had Corinth pass'd
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;"
And in the palace of St. Mark
Unnamed accusers in the dark
Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed
A charge against him uneffaced;
He fled in time, and saved his life,
To waste his future years in strife,
That taught his land how great her loss
In him who triumph'd o'er the Cross,
'Gainst which he rear'd the Crescent high,
And battled to avenge or die.

V.

Coumourgi 2-he whose closing scene
Adorn'd the triumph of Eugene,
When on Carlowitz' bloody plain
The last and mightiest of the slain,
He sank, regretting not to die,
But curst 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?
A hundred years have roll'd away
Since he refused 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 levell'd 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 pour'd the ceaseless shot,
With unabating fury sent

From battery to battlement;
And thunder-like the pealing din
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 flash'd
The flame, as loud the ruin crash'd,
Or into countless meteors driven,
Its earth-stars melted into heaven;
Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun,
Impervious to the hidden sun,
With volumed smoke that slowly grew
To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

VII.

But not for vengeance, long delay'd,
Alone, did Alp, the renegade,
The Moslem warriors sternly teach
His skill to pierce the promised breach:
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 unimpeach'd for traitorous crime,
Gayest in gondola or hall,

He glitter'd through the Carnival ;
And tuned the softest serenade
That e'er on Adria's waters play'd
At midnight to Italian maid.

VIII.

And many deem'd her heart was won.
For sought by numbers, given to none,
Had young Francesca's hand remain'd
Still by the church's bonds unchain'd:
And when the Adriatic bore
Lanciotto to the Paynim shore,
Her wonted smiles were seen to fail,
And pensive wax'd the maid and pale;
More constant at confessional,
More rare at masque and festival;
Or seen at such, with downcast eyes,
Which conquer'd 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 Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

IX.

Sent by the state to guard the land, (Which wrested from the Moslem's hand, While Sobieski tamed his pride By Buda's wall and Danube's side, The chiefs of Venice wrung away From Patra to Eubœa's bay,) Minotti held in Corinth's towers The Doge's delegated powers, While yet the pitying eye of Peace Smiled o'er her long-forgotten Greece: And ere that faithless truce was broke f 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 adorn'd the shore Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.

X.

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn;
And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn,
O'er the disjointed mass shall vault
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are rank'd; the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"
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,
Their stepping-stone-the last who dies!

XI.

'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown
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,
Bo wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turn'd to earth without repining,
Nor wish'd for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray?
The waves on either shore lay there
Calm, clear, and azure as the air;
And scarce their foam the pebbles shook,
But murmur'd meekly as the brook.
The winds were pillow'd on the waves;
The banners droop'd along their staves,
And, as they fell around them furling,
Above them shone the crescent curling;
And that deep silence was unbroke,
Save where the watch his signal spoke,
Save where the steed neigh'd oft and shrill,
And echo answer'd from the hill,
And the wide hum of that wild host
Rustled like leaves from coast to coast,
As rose the Muezzin's voice in air
In midnight call to wonted prayer;
It rose, that chanted mournful strain,
Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain :
'Twas musical, but sadly sweet,

Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,

And take a long unmeasured tone,
To mortal minstrelsy unknown.
It seem'd to those within the wall
A cry prophetic of their fall:
It struck even the besieger's ear
With something ominous and drear,
An undefined and sudden thrill,
Which makes the heart a moment still,
Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed
Of that strange sense its silence framed;
Such as a sudden passing-bell
Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.

XII.

The tent of Alp was on the shore;
The sound was hush'd, the prayer was o'er;
The watch was set, the night-round made,
All mandates issued and obey'd:
"Tis but another anxious night,
His pains the morrow may requité
With all revenge and love can pay,
In guerdon of their long delay.
Few hours remain, and he hath need
Of rest, to nerve for many a deed
Of slaughter; but within his soul
The thoughts like troubled waters roll
He stood alone among the host;
Not his the loud fanatic boast
To plant the crescent o'er the cross,
Or risk a life with little loss,
Secure in paradise to be
By Houris loved immortally:
Nor his, what burning patriots feel,
The stern exaltedness of zeal,
Profuse of blood, untired in toil,
When battling on the parent soil.
He stood alone-a renegade
Against the country he betray'd;
He stood alone amidst his band,
Without a trusted heart or hand;
They follow'd him, for he was brave,
And great the spoil he got and gave;
They crouch'd to him, for he had skill
To warp and wield the vulgar will;
But still his Christian origin
With them was little less than sin.
They envied even the faithless fame
He earn'd beneath a Moslem name;
Since he, their mightiest chief had been
In youth a bitter Nazarene.

They did not know how pride can stoop,
When baffled feelings withering droop;
They did not know how hate can burn
In hearts once changed from soft to stern;
Nor all the false and fatal zeal
The convert of revenge can feel.
He ruled them-man may rule the worst,
By ever daring to be first:

So lions o'er the jackal sway;
The jackal points, he fells the prey,
Then on the vulgar yelling press,
To gorge the relics of success.

XIII.

His head grows fever'd, and his pulse The quick successive throbs convulse: In vain from side to side he throws His form, in courtship of repose

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