The poetical works of Lord Byron Volume 5

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1873 Excerpt: ... eyes, before they close, the doom Of this proud city, and I leave my curse On her and hers for, ever! Yes, the hours Are silently engendering of the day, When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark, Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield, Unto a bastard Attila, without Shedding so much blood in her last defence, As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her, Shall pour in sacrifice.--She shall be bought And sold, and be an appanage to those Who shall despise her!46--She shall stoop to bo A province for an empire, petty town In lien of capital, with slaves for senates, Beggars for nobles,47 panders for a people! Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces, 48 The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for liis; When thy patricians beg their bitter bread In narrow streets, and in their shameful need Make their nobility a plea for pity; Then, when the few who still retain a wreck Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice gerent, Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign, Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung From an adulteress boastful of her guilt With some large gondolier or foreign soldier, Shall bear about their bastardy in trinmph To the third spurious generation;--when Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being, Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors, Despised by cowards for greater cowardice, And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices As in the monstrous grasp of their conception Defy all codes to image or to name them; Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom, All thine inheritance shall be her shame Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown A wider proverb for worse prostit...