LXXXVII.

The city's taken, but not rendered!--No! There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword: The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow Rolls by the city wall; but deed nor word Acknowledge aught of dread of Death or foe: In vain the yell of victory is roared By the advancing Muscovite--the groan Of the last foe is echoed by his own.

LXXXVIII.

The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves, And human lives are lavished everywhere, As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves[ik] When the stripped forest bows to the bleak air, And groans; and thus the peopled city grieves, Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare; But still it falls in vast and awful splinters, As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.