Brief breathing-time! the turbaned host,

With added ranks and raging boast,

Press onwards with such strength and heat,

Their numbers balk their own retreat;

For narrow the way that led to the spot

Where still the Christians yielded not;

And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try

Through the massy column to turn and fly;

They perforce must do or die. 930

They die; but ere their eyes could close,

Avengers o'er their bodies rose;

Fresh and furious, fast they fill

The ranks unthinned, though slaughtered still;

And faint the weary Christians wax

Before the still renewed attacks:

And now the Othmans gain the gate;

Still resists its iron weight,

And still, all deadly aimed and hot,

From every crevice comes the shot; 940

From every shattered window pour

The volleys of the sulphurous shower:

But the portal wavering grows and weak—

The iron yields, the hinges creak—

It bends—it falls—and all is o'er;

Lost Corinth may resist no more!