[273] [_Vide infra_, line 816. The raven turns into a vulture a few lines further on. Compare-- "The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, The hair was tangled round his jaw: But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, There sat a vulture flapping a wolf." _Siege of Corinth_, lines 471-474, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iv. 468.] [274] {232}[Compare-- "Her eyes were eloquent, her words would pose, Although she told him, in good modern Greek, With an Ionian accent, low and sweet, That he was faint, and must not talk but eat. "Now Juan could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear." _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cl. line 5 to stanza cli. line 4.] [275] {233}["By noon the battle (of Poltáva) was over.... Charles had been induced to return to the camp and rally the remainder of the army. In spite of his wounded foot, he had to ride, lying on the neck of his horse.... The retreat (down the Vórskla to the Dniéper) began towards evening.... On the afternoon of July 11 the Swedes arrived at the little town of Perevolótchna, at the mouth of the Vórskla, where there was a ferry across the Dniéper ... the king, Mazeppa, and about 1000 men crossed the Dniéper.... The king, with the Russian cavalry in hot pursuit, rode as fast as he could to the Bug, where half his escourt was captured, and he barely escaped. Thence he went to Bender, on the Dniester, and for five years remained the guest of Turkey."--_Peter the Great_, by Eugene Schuyler, 1884, ii. 149-151.] THE PROPHECY OF DANTE. "'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, And coming events cast their shadows before." Campbell, [_Lochiel's Warning_]. INTRODUCTION TO _THE PROPHECY OF DANTE_. The _Prophecy of Dante_ was written at Ravenna, during the month of June, 1819, "to gratify" the Countess Guiccioli. Before she left Venice in April she had received a promise from Byron to visit her at Ravenna. "Dante's tomb, the classical pinewood," and so forth, had afforded a pretext for the invitation to be given and accepted, and, at length, when she was, as she imagined, "at the point of death," he arrived, better late than never, "on the Festival of the _Corpus Domini_" which fell that year on the tenth of June (see her communication to Moore, _Life_, p. 399). Horses and books were left behind at Venice, but he could occupy his enforced leisure by "writing something on the subject of Dante" (_ibid_., p. 402). A heightened interest born of fuller knowledge, in Italian literature and Italian politics, lent zest to this labour of love, and, time and place conspiring, he composed "the best thing he ever wrote" (Letter to Murray, March 23, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 422), his _Vision_ (or _Prophecy_) _of Dante_.