His head grows fevered, and his pulse The quick successive throbs convulse; In vain from side to side he throws His form, in courtship of repose;[ox] Or if he dozed, a sound, a start Awoke him with a sunken heart. The turban on his hot brow pressed, The mail weighed lead-like on his breast, Though oft and long beneath its weight 340 Upon his eyes had slumber sate, Without or couch or canopy, Except a rougher field and sky[oy] Than now might yield a warrior's bed, Than now along the heaven was spread. He could not rest, he could not stay Within his tent to wait for day,[oz] But walked him forth along the sand, Where thousand sleepers strewed the strand. What pillowed them? and why should he 350 More wakeful than the humblest be, Since more their peril, worse their toil? And yet they fearless dream of spoil; While he alone, where thousands passed A night of sleep, perchance their last, In sickly vigil wandered on, And envied all he gazed upon. XIV. He felt his soul become more light Beneath the freshness of the night. Cool was the silent sky, though calm, 360 And bathed his brow with airy balm: Behind, the camp--before him lay, In many a winding creek and bay, Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow,[pa] High and eternal, such as shone Through thousand summers brightly gone, Along the gulf, the mount, the clime; It will not melt, like man, to time: Tyrant and slave are swept away, 370 Less formed to wear before the ray; But that white veil, the lightest, frailest,[352] Which on the mighty mount thou hailest, While tower and tree are torn and rent, Shines o'er its craggy battlement; In form a peak, in height a cloud, In texture like a hovering shroud, Thus high by parting Freedom spread, As from her fond abode she fled, And lingered on the spot, where long 380 Her prophet spirit spake in song.[pb] Oh! still her step at moments falters O'er withered fields, and ruined altars, And fain would wake, in souls too broken, By pointing to each glorious token: But vain her voice, till better days Dawn in those yet remembered rays, Which shone upon the Persian flying, And saw the Spartan smile in dying. XV.