But morn is up and a fresh warfare stirs
Throughout the camp of the beleaguerers.
Their globes of fire (the dread artillery lent
By GREECE to conquering MAHADI) are spent;
And now the scorpion's shaft, the quarry sent
From high balistas and the shielded throng
Of soldiers swinging the huge ram along,
All speak the impatient Islamite's intent
To try, at length, if tower and battlement
And bastioned wall be not less hard to win,
Less tough to break down than the hearts within.
First he, in impatience and in toil is
The burning AZIM--oh! could he but see
The impostor once alive within his grasp,
Not the gaunt lion's hug nor boa's clasp
Could match thy gripe of vengeance or keep pace
With the fell heartiness of Hate's embrace!
Loud rings the ponderous ram against the walls;
Now shake the ramparts, now a buttress falls,
But, still no breach--"Once more one mighty swing
"Of all your beams, together thundering!"
There--the wall shakes--the shouting troops exult,
"Quick, quick discharge your weightiest catapult
"Right on that spot and NEKSHEB is our own!"
'Tis done--the battlements come crashing down,
And the huge wall by that stroke riven in two
Yawning like some old crater rent anew,
Shows the dim, desolate city smoking thro'.
But strange! no sign of life--naught living seen
Above, below--what can this stillness mean?
A minute's pause suspends all hearts and eyes--
"In thro' the breach," impetuous AZIM cries;
But the cool CALIPH fearful of some wile
In this blank stillness checks the troops awhile.
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