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,

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In midnight call to wonted prayer;
It rose, that chaunted mournful strain,

Like some lone spirit's o'er the plain :

'Twas musical, but sadly sweet,

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Such as when winds and harp-strings meet,

And take a long unmeasured tone,

To mortal minstrelsy unknown.

It seemed to those within the wall

A cry prophetic of their fall:

It struck even the besieger's ear
With something ominous and drear,

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An undefined and sudden thrill,

Which makes the heart a moment still,

Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed

Of that strange sense it's silence framed;

Such as a sudden passing-bell

Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.

XII.

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The tent of Alp was on the shore;

The sound was hushed, the prayer was o'er;

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The watch was set, the night-round made,

- 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 betrayed;
He stood alone amidst his band,
Without a trusted heart or hand:

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They followed him, for he was brave,

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And great the spoil he got and gave;

They crouched 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.

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They envied even the faithless fame

He earned 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; -

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Nor all the false and fatal zeal

The convert of revenge can feel.

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He ruled them-man may rule the worst,

His head grows fevered, and his pulse
The quick successive throbs convulse;
In vain from side to side he throws
His form, in courtship of repose;
Or if he dozed, a sound, a start
Awoke him with a sunken heart.

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The turban on his hot brow pressed,

The mail weighed lead-like on his breast,

He could not rest, he could not stay
Within his tent to wait for day,

But walked him forth along the sand,

Where thousand sleepers strewed the strand.
What pillowed them? and why should he
More wakeful than the humblest be?
Since more their peril, worse their toil,
And yet they fearless dream of spoil;
While he alone, where thousands passed
A night of sleep, perchance their last,

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In sickly vigil wandered on,

And envied all he gazed upon.

XIV.

He felt his soul become more light
Beneath the freshness of the night.
Cool was the silent sky, though calm,
And bathed his brow with airy balm:
Behind, the camp-before him lay,
In many a winding creek and bay,
Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow
Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow,
High and eternal, such as shone

Through thousand summers brightly gone,

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