Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/202

162 In slaughter'd folds, the keepers lost in sleep,

His hungry fangs a lion thus may steep;

'Mid the sad flock, at dead of night he prowls,

With murder glutted, and in carnage rolls

Insatiate still, through teeming herds he roams;

In seas of gore, the lordly tyrant foams.

Nor less the other's deadly vengeance came,

But falls on feeble crowds without a name;

His wound unconscious Fadus scarce can feel,

Yet wakeful Rhæsus sees the threatening steel;

His coward breast behind a jar he hides,

And, vainly, in the weak defence confides;

Full in his heart, the falchion search'd his veins,

The reeking weapon bears alternate stains;

Through wine and blood, commingling as they flow,

One feeble spirit seeks the shades below.

Now where Messapus dwelt they bend their way,

Whose fires emit a faint and trembling ray;

There, unconfin'd, behold each grazing steed,

Unwatch'd, unheeded, on the herbage feed:

Brave Nisus here arrests his comrade's arm,

Too flush'd with carnage, and with conquest warm:

"Hence let us haste, the dangerous path is pass'd;