XXVI.
It was a sad and solemn task, to hold
Their midnight-watch on that beleaguer’d wall!
As the sea-wave beneath the bastions roll’d,
A sound of fate was in its rise and fall;
The heavy clouds were as an empire’s pall,
The giant shadows of each tower and fane
Lay like the grave’s; a low mysterious call
Breathed in the wind, and, from the tented plain,
A voice of omens rose with each wild martial strain.