CHAPTER XIX.
Must we then sheathe our still victorious sword;
Turn back our forward step, which ever trod
O'er foemen's necks the onward path of glory;
Unclasp the mail, which with a solemn vow,
In God's own house, we hung upon our shoulders--
That vow, as unaccomplish'd as the promise
Which village nurses make to still their children,
And after think no more of? THE CRUSADE, A TRAGEDY.
The Archbishop of Tyre was an emissary well chosen to communicate
to Richard tidings, which from another voice the lion-hearted
King would not have brooked to hear without the most unbounded
explosions of resentment. Even this sagacious and reverend
prelate found difficulty in inducing him to listen to news which
destroyed all his hopes of gaining back the Holy Sepulchre by
force of arms, and acquiring the renown which the universal all-hail of Christendom was ready to confer
upon him as the Champion
of the Cross.
But, by the Archbishop's report, it appeared that Saladin was
assembling all the force of his hundred tribes, and that the
monarchs of Europe, already disgusted from various motives with
the expedition, which had proved so hazardous, and was daily
growing more so, had resolved to abandon their purpose.
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