450
THE SIEGE OF CORINTH.
Whether we lay in the cave or the shed,
Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed;
Whether we couched in our rough capote,[1] 10
On the rougher plank of our gliding boat,
Or stretched on the beach, or our saddles spread,
As a pillow beneath the resting head,
Fresh we woke upon the morrow:
All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,
Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds;—
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church, 20
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;
Yet through the wide world might ye search,
Nor find a mother crew nor blither.
Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed;
Whether we couched in our rough capote,[1] 10
On the rougher plank of our gliding boat,
Or stretched on the beach, or our saddles spread,
As a pillow beneath the resting head,
Fresh we woke upon the morrow:
All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,
Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds;—
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church, 20
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;
Yet through the wide world might ye search,
Nor find a mother crew nor blither.
But some are dead, and some are gone,
And some are scattered and alone,
And some are rebels on the hills[2]
That look along Epirus' valleys,
Where Freedom still at moments rallies,
And pays in blood Oppression's ills;
And some are in a far countree, 30
And some all restlessly at home;
But never more, oh! never, we
Shall meet to revel and to roam.
And some are scattered and alone,
And some are rebels on the hills[2]
That look along Epirus' valleys,
Where Freedom still at moments rallies,
And pays in blood Oppression's ills;
And some are in a far countree, 30
And some all restlessly at home;
But never more, oh! never, we
Shall meet to revel and to roam.
- ↑ [For "capote," compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lii. line 7, and Byron's note (24.B.), Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 132, 181. Compare, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, November 12, 1809 (Letters, 1899, i. 253): "Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war. . . . I wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst."]
- ↑ The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnauts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble.
