THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. BY LORD BYRON.
Reading edition
Lord Byron was born in London in 1788. His first volume of verses, entitled “Hours of Idleness,” was printed in 1807. “Manfred” and “The Lament of Tasso” were written in 1817. From 1818 to his death Byron was occupied on “Don Juan.” In 1823 he went to Greece, and with advice and money aided in the Greek struggle for independence. He died in Greece in 1824.
“And it came to pass, that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred four score and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.”—II. Kings, xix., 35.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither’d and strown.
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d; And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved—and forever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock beating surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!