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With all the care defenceless beauty claims;
So well could Conrad tame their fiercest mood,
And check the very hands with gore imbrued.
But who is she? whom Conrad's arms convey
From reeking pile and combat's wreck-away-830
Who but the love of him he dooms to bleed?
The Haram queen
but still the slave of Seyd!

VI.

Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare,
Few words to reassure the trembling fair;
For in that pause compassion snatched from war,
The foe before retiring, fast and far,

With wonder saw their footsteps unpursued,
First slowlier fled then rallied- then withstood.
This Seyd perceives, then first perceives how few,
Compared with his, the Corsair's roving crew, 840
And blushes o'er his error, as he eyes

The ruin wrought by panic and surprise.
Alla il Alla! Vengeance swells the cry-
Shame mounts to rage that must atone or die!
And flame for flame and blood for blood must tell,
The tide of triumph ebbs that flowed too well
When wrath returns to renovated strife,
And those who fought for conquest strike for life.
Conrad beheld the danger

he beheld

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850

His followers faint by freshening foes repelled:

"One effort

They form

one- to break the circling host!" unite-charge-waver

all is lost!

Within a narrower ring compressed, beset,

Hopeless, not heartless, strive and struggle yet Ah! now they fight in firmest file no more,

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But each strikes singly, silently, and home,
And sinks outwearied rather than o'ercome,

His last faint quittance rendering with his breath, 860
Till the blade glimmers in the grasp of death!

VII.

But first, ere came the rallying host to blows,
And rank to rank, and hand to hand oppose,
Gulnare and all her Haram handmaids freed,
Safe in the dome of one who held their creed,
By Conrad's mandate safely were bestowed,
And dried those tears for life and fame that flowed:
Arid when that dark-eyed lady, young Gulnare,
Recalled those thoughts late wandering in despair,
Much did she marvel o'er the courtesy
That smoothed his accents; softened in his eye:
'Twas strange-that robber thus with gore bedewed,
Seemed gentler then than Seyd in fondest mood.

870

The Pacha wooed as if he deemed the slave Must seem delighted with the heart he gave; The Corsair vowed protection, soothed affright, As if his homage were a woman's right.

"The wish is wrong

vain:

nay worse for female

"Yet much I long to view that chief again; "If but to thank for, what my fear forgot, 880 "The life my loving lord remembered not!"

VIII.

And him she saw, where thickest carnage spread,
But gathered breathing from the happier dead;
Far from his band, and battling with a host
That deem right dearly won the field he lost,
Felled-bleeding- baffled of the death he sought,
And snatched to expiate all the ills he wrought;
Preserved to linger and to live in vain,
While Vengeance pondered o'er new plans of pain,
And staunched the blood she saves to shed

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But drop by drop, for Seyd's unglutted eye
Would doom him ever dying

ne'er to die!

Can this be he? triumphant late she saw,

890

When his red hand's wild gesture waved, a law!

"Tis he indeed disarmed but undeprest,

His sole regret the life he still possest;

His wounds too slight, though taken with that will, Which would have kissed the hand that then

could kill.

Oh were there none, of all the many given,
To send his soul-he scarcely asked to heaven? goo
Must he alone of all retain his breath,

Who more than all had striv'n and struck for

death?

He deeply felt

what mortal hearts must feel,

When thus reversed on faithless fortune's wheel, For crimes committed, and the victor's threat

Of lingering tortures to repay the debt

He deeply, darkly felt; but evil pride

That led to perpetrate

now serves to hide.

Still in his stern and self-collected mien

A conqueror's more than captive's air is seen, 910 Though faint with wasting toil and stiffening wound,

But few that saw so calmly gazed around:
Though the far shouting of the distant crowd,
Their tremors o'er, rose insolently loud,
The better warriors who beheld him near,
Insulted not the foe who taught them fear,
And the grim guards that to his durance led,
In silence eyed him with a secret dread.

IX.

The Leech was sent but not in mercy

there

To note how much the life yet left could bear; 920
He found enough to load with heaviest chain,
And promise feeling for the wrench of pain:
yea to-morrow's evening sun

To-morrow

Will sinking see impalement's pangs begun, And rising with the wonted blush of morn Behold how well or ill those pangs are borne. Of torments this the longest and the worst, Which adds all other agony to thirst,

That day by day death still forbears to slake, While famished vultures flit around the stake. 930

"Oh! water

water!"

smiling Hate denies

The victim's prayer for if he drinks he dies.

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This was his doom:

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the Leech, the guard

were gone,

And left proud Conrad fettered and alone.

X.

"Twere vain to paint to what his feelings grew It even were doubtful if their victim knew. There is a war, a chaos of the mind,

When all its clements convulsed combined
Lie dark and jarring with perturbed force,
And gnashing with impenitent Remorse;

940

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