பதிப்பு : மனோன்மணியம் - நாடகம்
Yet pile up walls, out-topping Babylon,
361
Manned foot by foot with sleepless sentinels,
And to and fro will pass,
Free as the air thro keyholes, Love and Treason.
444
Be elsewhere told the horrors of that siege,
The desperate sally, slaughter, and repulse; Repelled in turn the foe,
With Titan ladders scaling cloud - capt bulwarks,
448
Hurled back and buried under rocks heaved down By wrathful hands from scatheless battlements. With words of holy charm,
Soothing despair and leaving resignation,
Mild thro' the city moved Argiope,
452
Pale with a sorrow too divine for fear;
And when, at morn and eve,
She bowed her meek head to her father's blessing,
456
Omartes felt as if the righteous gods
Could doom no altars at whose foot she prayed. Only, when all alone,
Stole from her lips a murmur like complaint,
460
Shaped in these words, 'Wert thou, then, but a dream? Or shall I see thee in the Happy Fields ?
Now came with stony eye
The livid vanquisher of cities. Famine;
464
And moved to pity now, the Persian sent
Heralds with proffered peace on terms that seem Gentle to Asian kings,
And unendurable to Europe's Freemen;
468
I from thy city will withdraw ray hosts,
And leave thy people to their chiefs and laws, Taking from all thy realm
Nought save the river, which I make my border,
472
