Are heard among the crowd: that sea of men
Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still.
A Dervise, learnèd in the Koran, preaches

That it is written how the sins of Islam
Must raise up a destroyer even now.

The Greeks expect a Saviour from the west, Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,

But in the omnipresence of that spirit
In which all live and are. Ominous signs
Are blazoned broadly on the noonday sky:
One saw a red cross stamped upon the sun;
It has rained blood; and monstrous births de-
clare

The secret wrath of Nature and her Lord.
The army encamped upon the Cydaris
Was roused last night by the alarm of battle,
And saw two hosts conflicting in the air,
The shadows doubtless of the unborn time
Cast on the mirror of the night. While yet
The fight hung balanced, there arose a storm
Which swept the phantoms from among the

stars.

At the third watch the spirit of the plague
Was heard abroad flapping among the tents;
Those who relieved watch found the sentinels

dead.

The last news from the camp is, that a thousand Have sickened, and —

Enter a fourth Messenger.

MAHMUD

And thou, pale ghost, dim shadow

Of some untimely rumour, speak!

FOURTH MESSENGER

One comes

Fainting with toil, covered with foam and blood; He stood, he says, upon Chelonites' Promontory, which overlooks the isles that

groan

Under the Briton's frown, and all their waters Then trembling in the splendour of the moon, When as the wandering clouds unveiled or hid Her boundless light, he saw two adverse fleets

Stalk through the night in the horizon's

glimmer,

Mingling fierce thunders and sulphureous

gleams,

And smoke which strangled every infant wind That soothed the silver clouds through the deep air.

At length the battle slept, but the Sirocco Awoke, and drove his flock of thunder-clouds Over the sea-horizon, blotting out

All objects- save that in the faint moonglimpse

He saw, or dreamed he saw, the Turkish admiral And two the loftiest of our ships of war,

With the bright image of that Queen of Heaven Who hid, perhaps, her face for grief, reversed; And the abhorred cross

Enter an Attendant.

ATTENDANT

Your Sublime Highness,

The Jew, who

We

MAHMUD

Could not come more seasonably : Bid him attend. I'll hear no more! too long gaze on danger through the mist of fear, And multiply upon our shattered hopes The images of ruin. Come what will! To-morrow and to-morrow are as lamps Set in our path to light us to the edge Through rough and smooth, nor can we suffer aught

Which he inflicts not in whose hand we are.

SEMICHORUS I.

[Exeunt.

Would I were the winged cloud

Of a tempest swift and loud!

I would scorn

The smile of morn

And the wave where the moonrise is born!

I would leave

The spirits of eve

A shroud for the corpse of the day to weave From other threads than mine!

Bask in the deep blue noon divine

Who would?

Not I.

SEMICHORUS II.

Whither to fly?

SEMICHORUS I.

Where the rocks that gird th' Ægean
Echo to the battle pæan

Of the free

I would flee

A tempestuous herald of victory!
My golden rain

For the Grecian slain

Should mingle in tears with the bloody main,
And my solemn thunder knell

Should ring to the world the passing bell
Of tyranny!

SEMICHORUS II.

Ah, king! wilt thou chain

The rack and the rain?

Wilt thou fetter the lightning and hurricane?