There stood an old man--his hairs were white, But his veteran arm was full of might: So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray, The dead before him, on that day, In a semicircle lay; Still he combated unwounded, Though retreating, unsurrounded. Many a scar of former fight Lurked beneath his corselet bright; But of every wound his body bore, Each and all had been ta'en before: Though aged, he was so iron of limb, Few of our youth could cope with him, And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay, Outnumbered his thin hairs of silver grey. From right to left his sabre swept; Many an Othman mother wept Sons that were unborn, when dipped His weapon first in Moslem gore, Ere his years could count a score. Of all he might have been the sire Who fell that day beneath his ire: For, sonless left long years ago, His wrath made many a childless foe; And since the day, when in the strait His only boy had met his fate, His parent's iron hand did doom More than a human hecatomb. If shades by carnage be appeased, Patroclus' spirit less was pleased Than his, Minotti's son, who died Where Asia's bounds and ours divide. Buried he lay, where thousands before For thousands of years were inhumed on the shore; What of them is left, to tell Where they lie, and how they fell? Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves; But they live in the verse that immortally saves. THE MAGAZINE Darkly, sternly, and all alone, Minotti stood o'er the altar-stone: Madonna's face upon him shone, Painted in heavenly hues above, With eyes of light and looks of love; And placed upon that holy shrine To fix our thoughts on things divine, When pictured there, we kneeling see Her, and the boy-God on her knee, Smiling sweetly on each prayer To heaven, as if to waft it there. Still she smiled; even now she smiles, Though slaughter streams along her aisles: Minotti lifted his aged eye, And made the sign of a cross with a sigh, Then seized a torch which blazed thereby; And still he stood, while with steel and flame Inward and onward the Mussulman came. The vaults beneath the mosaic stone Contained the dead of ages gone; Their names were on the graven floor, But now illegible with gore; The carvËd crests, and curious hues The varied marble's veins diffuse, Were smeared, and slippery, stained, and strown With broken swords and helms o'erthrown: There were dead above, and the dead below Lay cold in many a coffined row; You might see them piled in sable state, By a pale light through a gloomy grate; But War had entered their dark caves, And stored along the vaulted graves Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread In masses by the fleshless dead: Here, throughout the siege, had been The Christians' chiefest magazine; To these a late formed train now led, Minotti's last and stern resource Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.