XXVI.

It was a sad and solemn task, to hold Their midnight-watch on that beleaguer’d wall! As the sea-wave beneath the bastions roll’d, A sound of fate was in its rise and fall; The heavy clouds were as an empire’s pall, The giant shadows of each tower and fane Lay like the grave’s; a low mysterious call Breathed in the wind, and, from the tented plain, A voice of omens rose with each wild martial strain.