DLTK's Poems
The Destruction of
Sennacherib
by Lord Byron
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 withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread
his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he
passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And
their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there
lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled
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.
