POETRY.

GREEK FIRE.

A BYZANTINE BALLAD;

The City of Constantine drew in her breath, For the realm of the. Ctesars lay sick unto death, And the panther of Islam stalked round the last home Of the beauty of Greece and the order of Rome.

She was Christendom's City, a bulwark and stay, 'When the laurels of Italy withered away, Though Persian and Scythian wove a twin mesh And Attila's arrows bit deep in her flesh.

The Goth came to scourge her; she drave the Goth forth, And the ravening Avar, the wolf of the North.

Of the Vandal she left but the name. From her spear .The lion of Persia shrank growling in fear.

Her ports were the merchants' desire ; her, abode The renown of artificers : porphyry glowed Round halls where in honour her law-givers trod : And she builded her dome to the Wisdom of God.

But the wind of the desert, the Arab simoon, Blew dust and eclipse o'er her brilliance at noon. From Nile to Ataxes the Caliph commands; Where Christ cast out devils the wicked one stands.

The Sepulchre holy, Damascus the gray, The edge of the scimitar sheared them away. The walls of Cyrene girt silence; outworn Alexandria crouched, of her battlements shorn.

And heretic Syria bows to the blast, With light-hearted Antioch, saddened at last. The bow of Armenia breaks ; nor avail The steel-coated horsemen, the chargers in mail.

Vain, vain iron Taurus, Isauria stout: The Seven Lamps waned and went flickering out. And with paradise beckoning, hell in his soul, The Arab gazed long on the city, his goal.

To him the soft gardens and slopes of the West Looked green as a banner his prophet had blessed, And white in the sunshine, beyond the blue strait, The City stood shining, the Guard of the Gate.

There, bronze and fair marble flashed light, far and nigh, The gold of her palaces gleamed to the sky; And, glory of glories, Justinian's dome Swelled high o'er the younger, more beautiful Rome.

The Saracen tents cover valley and steep, Like sea-birds that whiten green isles of the deep. Their engines are mighty; their horses neigh war; The dust of their trampling rolls thick and afar.

Tall ships of the South, and beaked galleys are there To knot round the City the net of despair ; But dire is the vengeance the L-xd bath to wreak Who hath kindled his fire in the brain of the Greek.

For the Greeks besought Christ in the day of their loss Where the dome of the Wisdom still lifted the cross That Michael, his angel, might stand in the path, And cast on the robber the bolts of his wrath.

And the Lord of the lightning, whose spirits are flame, Gave ear to his own in the hour of their shame, And pitied his people and sent their desire The sword of His angels, unquenchable fire.

In sleep ere the dawning the Basileus dreamed . There was One that stood nigh him. Light sparkled and - streamed From a rod in the radiant Messenger's band That turned where the tents of the Saracen stand. And flame irresistible out of it gashed, And heat unendurable out of it rushed. The Saracen camp was a roaring and smoke; The sun rose on Asia and—Caesar awoke.

To him as be brooded and wonderment clings The Count of the Palace a fugitive brings, ICallinikos, fled from the Caliph to bear Strange tidings and secret, would Caesar but heat', " Lo, weapons I bring you the City to stay, And make of the Moslem a mocking and prey, To slay as storms slay, as the thunderbolt dire, With torrents of quenchless and ravenous fire."

a * * "Unchain us the harbour. No more shall we wait, Now speak, and with tongues of fierce fire, in the gate.. No axe for their engines, no steel for their fleet, But a wrath of red burning and horror of heat."

Like reed-beds afire on the dry autumn days Or the crackling of thorns in a forest ablaze, So the hosts of the Children of Hagar consume In a smoking destruction and rushing of doom.

Winged shapes as of dragons shot o'er them and felt. Bolts smote them from Heaven, with hissings of hell. Fire runs in the dust and is rained on the flood Where the tubes of our galleys pour death unwithstood.

The adders of anguish bite seaman and slave. They leap from the flame to seek death in the wave. The warrior plucks at his armour : in vain He shrieks to his Prophet in frenzy of pain.

Their warships are beacons—each mast a mad spire. Their lances are torches, their engines a pyre. And riderless.horses snort, sweating, wild-eyed, And turbans stream floating, gay weeds on the tide.

For the Wisdom we honour doth marvellous things With the arrows of thought that the subtle Greek wings,. Whose weapon of fear was a river of light, A golden amazement in radiant flight.

And the right band of cunning, the daring of brain That upheld us of old were a buckler again, When the scrolls of the ages, the Faith of the meek, Were saved for the West by the fire of the Greek.

W. P. REEVES..