the local particulars to which he alludes in the above note; and this gives a very striking air of reality to the whole. The opening stanza describes, in few but powerful words, the situation of the famed city; Many a vanished year and age, And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, The keystone of a land, which still, That purpling rolls on either side, Arise from out the earth which drank That rival pyramid would rise More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Than yon tower-capt Acropolis, Which seems the very clouds to kiss. Among the Moslem warriors assembled before the walls of Corinth, and then carrying on a fierce attack upon it, none was more renowned than the hero of the poem, Alp, the Adrian renegade: From Venice-once a race of worth His gentle sires-he drew his birth; The arms they taught to bear; and now Through many a change had Corinth passed the Free;' And in the palace of St. Mark Coumourgi-he whose closing scene By cities levelled with the dust; The siege is carried on briskly under the direction of the Vizier and Alp, who has another motive besides his thirst for vengeance to take Corinth. He loves Francesca, the daughter of Minotti, who has been appointed by the Venetian state to defend Corinth; and the maiden is now in the fortress with her father: But not for vengeance, long delayed, Whose heart refused him in its ire, When Alp, beneath his Christian name, He glittered through the carnival; And many deemed her heart was won; More rare at masque and festival; Which conquered hearts they ceased to prize: |