ir leader's look and blow: 1020
Now girt with numbers, now almost alone,
He foils their ranks, or re-unites his own;
Himself he spared not--once they seemed to fly--
Now was the time, he waved his hand on high,
And shook--Why sudden droops that plumed crest?
The shaft is sped--the arrow's in his breast!
That fatal gesture left the unguarded side,
And Death has stricken down yon arm of pride.
The word of triumph fainted from his tongue;
That hand, so raised, how droopingly it hung! 1030
But yet the sword instinctively retains,
Though from its fellow shrink the falling reins;
These Kaled snatches: dizzy with the blow,
And senseless bending o'er his saddle-bow,
Perceives not Lara that his anxious page
Beguiles his charger from the combat's rage:
Meantime his followers charge, and charge again;
Too mixed the slayers now to heed the slain!

XVI.

Day glimmers on the dying and the dead,
The cloven cuirass, and the helmless head; 1040
The war-horse masterless is on the earth,[kt][284]
And that last gasp hath burst his bloody girth;
And near, yet quivering with what life remained,
The heel that urged him and the hand that reined;
And some too near that rolling torrent lie,[ku]
Whose waters mock the lip of those that die;
That panting thirst which scorches in the breath
Of those that die the soldier's fiery death,
In vain impels the burning mouth to crave
One drop--the last--to cool it for the grave; 1050
With feeble and convulsive effort swept,
Their limbs along the crimsoned turf have crept;
The faint remains of life such struggles waste,
But yet they reach the stream, and bend to taste:
They feel its freshness, and almost partake--
Why pause? No further thirst have they to slake--
It is unquenched, and yet they feel it not;
It was an agony--but now forgot!

XVII.

Beneath a lime, remoter from the scene,
Where but for him that strife had never been, 1060
A breathing but devoted warrior lay:
'Twas Lara bleeding fast from life away.
His follower once, and now his only guide,
Kneels Kaled watchful o'er his welling side,
And with his scarf would staunch the tides that rush,
With each conv