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THAT WEAPON OF HER WEAKNESS SHE CAN WIELD, TO SAVE, SUBDUE,-AT ONCE HER SPEAR AND SHIELD:

Evans to

"The cold round moon shines deeply down!")

Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining,

IN WOMAN'S EYE THE UNANSWERABLE TEAR!

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66 OH, TOO CONVINCING, DANGEROUSLY DEAR,

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

A NIGHT SCENE IN GREECE.

IS 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,

AVOID IT-VIRTUE EBBS AND WISDOM ERRS, TOO FONDLY GAZING ON THAT GRIEF OF HERS!"-LORD BYRON.

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"BUT LOVE ITSELF COULD NEVER PANT FOR ALL THAT BEAUTY SIGHS TO GRANT,-(BYRON)

BY THOSE THAT DEEPEST FEEL, IS ILL EXPREST (BYRON)

A NIGHT SCENE IN GREECE.

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Nor wished 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 murmured meekly as the brook.

The winds were pillowed on the waves;
The banners drooped 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 neighed oft and shrill,
And echo answered 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.

[From "The Siege of Corinth," stanza xi. "What can be finer than this
night-piece?" asks Jeffrey; and he adds that the poem as a whole is "a
magnificent composition. Its opposite pictures are perhaps too violently
contrasted, and, in some parts, too harshly coloured; but they are in
general exquisitely designed, and executed with the utmost spirit and
energy."]
* The Moslem army encamped before Corinth.

THE INDISTINCTNESS OF THE SUFFERING BREAST."-BYRON.

WITH HALF THE FERVOUR HATE BESTOWS UPON THE LAST EMBRACE OF FOES."-LORD BYRON.

"IF SOLITUDE SUCCEED TO GRIEF, RELEASE FROM PAIN IS SLIGHT RELIEF;-(LORD BYRON)

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NO WORDS SUFFICE THE SECRET SOUL TO SHOW,-(BYRON)

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

A BATTLE-PIECE.

[Corinth was besieged by the Turks, under the Grand Vizier, in 1715,
and carried by storm, after a fearful slaughter.]

HE night is past, and shines the sun
As if that morn were a jocund one.

Lightly and brightly breaks away
The morning from her mantle gray,
And the noon will look on a sultry day.
Hark to the trump and the drum,

And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're
borne,

And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's
hum,

And the clash, and the shout, "They come !
they come!"

The horsetails are plucked from the ground,

and the sword

From its sheath; and they form, and but wait
for the word.

Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman,
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,
Aged or young, in the Christian shape;
While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass;
Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.
The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;
Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;
White is the foam of their champ on the bit;
The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;

FOR TRUTH DENIES ALL ELOQUENCE TO WOE."-BYRON.

THE VACANT BOSOM'S WILDERNESS MIGHT THANK THE PANG THAT MADE IT LESS."-BYRON.

66 THE IMMORTAL LIGHTS THAT LIVE ALONG THE SKY."-BYRON.

A BATTLE-PIECE.

The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,
And crush the wall they have crumbled before:
Forms in his phalanx each Janizar;

The khan and the pachas are all at their post;
The vizier himself at the head of the host,

When the culverin's signal is fired, then on;
Leave not in Corinth a living one-

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"WHO WOULD BE DOOMED TO GAZE UPON A SKY WITHOUT A CLOUD OR SUN?"-LORD BYRON.

THESE PAGOD THINGS OF SABRE SWAY, WITH FRONTS OF BRASS AND FEET OF CLAY."-BYRON.

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["The horsetails are plucked from the ground, and the sword from its sheath."]

A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,
A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.
God and the prophet-Alla Hu!

Up to the skies with that wild halloo !
"There the breach lies for passage, the ladder
to scale;

And your hands on your sabres, and how should
ye fail?

HIS EARLY DREAMS OF GOOD OUTSTRIPPED THE TRUTH."-BYRON.

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"THE KEENEST PANGS THE WRETCHED FIND ARE RAPTURE TO THE DREARY VOID,-(BYRON)

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"IS HUMAN LOVE THE GROWTH OF HUMAN WILL?"-BYRON.

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON.

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!

As the wolves that headlong go
On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,
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,
Shivered by the shot, that tore

The ground whereon they moved no more;
Even as they fell, in files they lay,

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.

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,
From the cliffs invading dash

Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow,
Till white and thundering down they go,
Like the avalanche's snow

On the Alpine vales below;

THE MIGHT, THE MAJESTY OF LOVeliness!"-LORD BYRON.

THE LEAFLESS DESERT OF THE MIND, THE WASTE OF FEELINGS UNEMPLOYED."-LORD BYRON.

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