Seite:Marsh Wolfe of the knoll.djvu/29

33

TUNIS-THE-WHTTE.

Of a large ransom what the chance,
And thus he chose — an eighth of all
By law doth to the pacha fall.

But who shall paint the captives' woe —
Anguish that words are vain to show !
Wouldst thou thy curious fancy teach,
The means are not beyond thy reach.
Nor need imperial Catharine rise
To aid the artist's hard emprise.
A Christian land doth furnish forth
The spectacle to the whole earth,
With truth more awful to the soul
Than to the ear the thunder-roll.
When to the skies the dreadful blast
The frigate's blazing fragments cast,
Shadowing to Hackert's wondering sight
The horrors of the Tchesmian fight.*

  * To enable Hackert to paint more truthfully the great naval victory
won by the Russian fleet over the Turkish at Tchesme in 1770, Admiral
Orloff, by order of the empress, blew up a Russian frigate off Leghorn.