Page:Cheskian Anthology.pdf/38



Upwards press they to the mountain-summit,

And with fearful shouts, which hills and vallies

With re-echoing voices loud repeated;

On the walls the christian hosts are gather'd,

And God's mother fills their souls with valor;

So they draw their arrows to their shoulder—

So they wave aloft their swords—the tatars

Must give way—the tatars must be vanquish'd.

what rage possess'd the savage tatars;

From his eyes the Khan roll’d clouds of darkness—

In three legions he his troops divided—

In three legions, lo! they storm'd the mountain;

Twenty christians fell beneath the tatar-—

All the twenty fell their posts maintaining,

And beneath the walls their bodies weltered.

Then the tatars storm'd the walls—loud shouting,

As if thunder-storms were shaking heaven:

So they rush'd upon the christians' ramparts,

‘From the walls they hurl'd their brew defenders,

Crush'd them even like worms, and left them scatter'd

On the open field—and long and bloody,