Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, In one wild roar expired! The shatter'd town-the walls thrown down- The thousand shapeless things all driven Proclaim'd the desperate conflict o'er Down the ashes shower like rain; Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles With a thousand circling wrinkles; Some fell on the shore, but, far away, Scatter'd o'er the isthmus lay; 7 [Strike out from "Up to the sky,” &c. to “All blacken'd there and reeking lay." Despicable stuff. --GIFFORD.] Christian or Moslem, which be they? 8 All blacken'd there and reeking lay. And mounted nearer to the sun, 8 [Omit the next six lines.-GIfford.] 9 I believe I have taken a poetical licence to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies. 1 [Leave out this couplet.-GIFFORD.] The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun; 2 [The "Siege of Corinth," though written, perhaps, with too visible an effort, and not very well harmonised in all its parts, cannot but be regarded as a magnificent composition. There is less misanthropy in it than in any of the rest; and the interest is made up of alternate representations of soft and solemn scenes and emotions, and of the tumult, and terrors, and intoxication of war. These 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.JEFFREY.] |