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(From The Siege of Corinth)
MANY a vanished year and age, | |
| And tempest’s breath, and battle’s rage, | |
| Have swept o’er Corinth; yet she stands | |
| A fortress formed to Freedom’s hands. | |
| The whirlwind’s wrath, the earthquake’s shock, | 5 |
| Have left untouched her hoary rock, | |
| The keystone of a land which still, | |
| Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill, | |
| The landmark to the double tide | |
| That purpling rolls on either side, | 10 |
| As if their waters chafed to meet, | |
| Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet. | |
| But could the blood before her shed | |
| Since first Timoleon’s brother bled, | |
| Or baffled Persia’s despot fled, | 15 |
| Arise from out the earth which drank | |
| The stream of slaughter as it sank, | |
| That sanguine ocean would o’erflow | |
| Her isthmus idly spread below: | |
| Or could the bones of all the slain | 20 |
| Who perished there be piled again, | |
| That rival pyramid would rise | |
| More mountain-like through those clear skies, | |
| Than yon tower-capped Acropolis, | |
| Which seems the very clouds to kiss. | 25 |
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