SECOND MESSENGER: 
Nauplia, Tripolizza, Mothon, Athens,
Navarin, Artas, Monembasia,
Corinth, and Thebes are carried by assault,
And every Islamite who made his dogs
Fat with the flesh of Galilean slaves 550
Passed at the edge of the sword:  the lust of blood,
Which made our warriors drunk, is quenched in death;
But like a fiery plague breaks out anew
In deeds which make the Christian cause look pale
In its own light.  The garrison of Patras 555
Has store but for ten days, nor is there hope
But from the Briton:  at once slave and tyrant,
His wishes still are weaker than his fears,
Or he would sell what faith may yet remain
From the oaths broke in Genoa and in Norway; 560
And if you buy him not, your treasury
Is empty even of promises—­his own coin. 
The freedman of a western poet-chief
Holds Attica with seven thousand rebels,
And has beat back the Pacha of Negropont:  565
The aged Ali sits in Yanina
A crownless metaphor of empire: 
His name, that shadow of his withered might,
Holds our besieging army like a spell
In prey to famine, pest, and mutiny; 570
He, bastioned in his citadel, looks forth
Joyless upon the sapphire lake that mirrors
The ruins of the city where he reigned
Childless and sceptreless.  The Greek has reaped
The costly harvest his own blood matured, 575
Not the sower, Ali—­who has bought a truce
From Ypsilanti with ten camel-loads
Of Indian gold.

NOTE: 
563 freedman edition 1822; freeman editions 1839.

[ENTER A THIRD MESSENGER.]

MAHMUD: 
What more?

THIRD MESSENGER: 
The Christian tribes
Of Lebanon and the Syrian wilderness
Are in revolt;—­Damascus, Hems, Aleppo 580
Tremble;—­the Arab menaces Medina,
The Aethiop has intrenched himself in Sennaar,
And keeps the Egyptian rebel well employed,
Who denies homage, claims investiture
As price of tardy aid.  Persia demands 585
The cities on the Tigris, and the Georgians
Refuse their living tribute.  Crete and Cyprus,
Like mountain-twins that from each other’s veins
Catch the volcano-fire and earthquake-spasm,
Shake in the general fever.  Through the city, 590
Like birds before a storm, the Santons shriek,
And prophesyings horrible and new
Are heard among the crowd:  that sea of men
Sleeps on the wrecks it made, breathless and still. 
A Dervise, learned in the Koran, preaches 595
That it is written how the sins of Islam
Must raise up a destroyer even now. 
The Greeks expect a Saviour from the West,
Who shall not come, men say, in clouds and glory,