The first success to Lara's numbers clung:
But that vain victory hath ruin'd all;
They form no longer to their leader's call:
In blind confusion on the foe they press,
And think to snatch is to secure success.
The lust of booty, and the thirst of hate,
Lure on the broken brigands to their fate:
In vain he doth whate'er a chief may do,
To check the headlong fury of that crew;
In vain their stubborn ardour he would tame,
The hand that kindles cannot quench the flame;
The wary for alone hath turn'd their mood,
And shown their rashness to that erring brood:
The feign'd retreat, the nightly ambuscade,
The daily harass, and the fight delay'd,
The long privation of the hoped supply,
The tentless rest beneath the humid sky,
The stubborn wall that mocks the leaguer's art,
And palls the patience of his baffled heart,
Of these they had not deem'd: the battle-day
They could encounter as a veteran may,
But more preferr'd the fury of the strife,
And present death to hourly suffering life;
And famine wrings, and fever sweeps away
His numbers melting fast from their array;
Intemperate triumph fades to discontent,
And Lara's soul alone seems still unbent:
But few remain to aid his voice and hand,
And thousands dwindled to a scanty band:
Desperate, though few, the last and best

main'd

His blade is bared-in him there is an air
As deep, but far too tranquil for despair;
A something of indifference more than then
Becomes the bravest, if they feel for men.
He turn'd his eye on Kaled, ever near,
And still too faithful to betray one fear;
Perchance 'twas but the moon's dim twilight
threw

Along his aspect an unwonted hue

Of mournful paleness, whose deep tint express'd
The truth, and not the terror of his breast.
This Lara mark'd, and laid his hand on his ;
It trembled not in such an hour as this;
His lip was silent, scarcely beat his heart;
His eye alone proclaim'd, 'We will not part!
Thy band may perish, or thy friends may flee;
Farewell to life, but not adieu to thee!'

The word hath pass'd his lips, and onward
driven,
[riven;
Pours the link'd band through ranks asunder
Well has each steed obey'd the armed heel,
re-And flash the scimitars, and rings the steel;

To mourn the discipline they late disdain'd.
One hope survives, the frontier is not far,
And thence they may escape from native war,
And bear within them to the neighbouring state
An exile's sorrows, or an outlaw's hate:
Hard is the task their fatherland to quit,
But harder still to perish or submit.

XII.

It is resolved-they march-consenting Night

Guides with her star their dim and torchless
flight:

Already they perceive its tranquil beam
Sleep on the surface of the barrier stream;
Already they descry-Is yon the bank?
Away! 'tis lined with many a hostile rank.
Return or fly !-What glitters in the rear?
'Tis Otho's banner-the pursuer's spear!
Are those the shepherds' fires upon the height?
Alas! they blaze too widely for the flight:
Cut off from hope, and compass'd in the toil,
Less blood, perchance, hath bought a richer
spoil!

XIII.

A moment's pause-'tis but to breathe their
band,

Or shall they onward press, or here withstand?
It matters little-if they charge the foes
Who by the border-stream their march oppose,

Outnumber'd, not outbraved, they still oppose
Despair to daring, and a front to foes;
And blood is mingled with the dashing stream,
Which runs all redly till the morning beam.

Perceives not Lara that his anxious page
Beguiles his charger from the combat's rage:
Meantime his followers charge, and charge
again;

Too mix'd the slayers now to heed the slain !

XVI.

Day glimmers on the dying and the dead,
The cloven cuirass, and the helmless head;
The war-horse masterless is on the earth,
And that last gasp hath burst his bloody girth;
And near, yet quivering with what life remain'd,
The heel that urged him, and the hand that
rein'd;

And some too near that rolling torrent lie,

Whose waters mock the lip of those that die;
That panting thirst which scorches in the breath
Of those that die the soldier's fiery death,
In vain impels the burning mouth to crave
One drop the last-to cool it for the grave;
With feeble and convulsive effort swept
Their limbs along the crimson'd turf have crept;
The faint remains of life such struggles waste,
But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste;
They feel its freshness, and almost partake-
Why pause?-No further thirst have they to

slake

It is unquench'd, and yet they feel it not;
It was an agony,-but now forgot!

XVII.

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene,
Where but for him that strife had never been,
A breathing but devoted warrior lay:
'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away.
His follower once, and now his only guide,
Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side,
And with his scarf would stanch the tides that

rush

With each convulsion in a blacker gush;
And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,
In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow;
He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain,
And merely adds another throb to pain.
He clasps the hand that pang which would

suage,

sees,

And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page,
Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor
[knees;
Save that damp brow which rests upon his
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though

dim,

Or that 'twas chance, or some remember'd scene
That raised his arm to point where such had been,
Scarce Kaled seem'd to know, but turn'd away,
As if his heart abhorr'd that coming day,

And shrunk his glance before that morning light
as-yet sense seem'd left, though better were its loss;
To look on Lara's brow-where all grew night.
For when one near display'd the absolving cross,
Of which his parting soul might own the need,
And proffer'd to his touch the holy bead,
He look'd upon it with an eye profane,
And smiled-Heaven pardon! if 'twere with dis-
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew
From Lara's face his fix'd despairing view,
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,
As if such but disturb'd the expiring man,
Nor seem'd to know his life but then began,
That life of Immortality, secure

Held all the light that shone on earth for him.

XVIII.

The foe arrives, who long had search'd the field,
Their triumph nought till Lara too should yield;
They would remove him, but they see twere

vain,

And he regards them with a calm disdain,
That rose to reconcile him with his fate,
And that escape to death from living hate:
And Otho comes, and leaping from his steed,
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed,

dain:

To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

XX.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew,
And dull the film along his dim eye grew :

His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head But all unknown his glory or his guilt,

droop'd o'er

The weak yet still untiring knee that bore;
He press'd the hand he held upon his heart-
It beats no more, but Kaled will not part
With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain,
For that faint throb which answers not again.

These only told that somewhere blood was spilt;
And Ezzelin, who might have spoken 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,*

'It beats!'-Away, thou dreamer! he is gone-When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn,

It once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

XXI.

He gazed, as if not yet had pass'd away
The haughty spirit of that humble clay;
And those around have roused him from his

trance,

But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;
And when, in raising him from where he bore
Within his arms the form that felt no more,
He saw the head his breast would still sustain
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain,
He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear
The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,
But strove to stand and gaze, but reel'd and fell,
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well.

Than that he lov'd! Oh! never yet beneath
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe!
That trying moment hath at once reveal'd
The secret long and yet but half conceal'd;
In baring to revive that lifeless breast,

Its grief seem'd ended, but the sex confess'd;
And life return'd, and Kaled felt no shame-
What now to her was Womanhood or Fame?

XXII.

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep;
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd, nor marble deck'd

the mound;

And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief,
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief.
Vain was all question ask'd her of the past,
And vain e'en menace-silent to the last;
She told nor whence nor why she left behind
Her all for one who seem'd but little kind.

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 burthen 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's course,
Who reach'd the river, bounded from his horse,
Heaved up the bank and dash'd it from the shore,
And lifting thence the burthen which he bore,
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,

Why did she love him? Curious fool!-be still-And instant spurr'd him into panting speed.

Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness: the stern
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern;
And when they love, your smilers guess not how
Beats the strong heart though less the lips avow.
They were not common links that form'd the

chain

That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain;
But that wild tale she brook'd not to unfold,
And seal'd is now each lip that could have told.

XXIII.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,
They found the scatter'd dints of many a scar,
Which were not planted there in recent war :
Where'er had pass'd his summer years of life,
It seems they vanish'd in a land of strife;

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:

See Notes at the end of the volume,

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 stanch'd 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.

*

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.

IN the year since Jesus died for men,†
Eighteen hundred years and ten,

Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, 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 throughthe country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus 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 different: that by sea has more sameness; but the yoyage being always within sight of land, and oiten very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poros, &c., and the coast of the Continent.

These lines to Section I. were omitted by Byron in the first editions of this poem.