The Destruction of Sennacherib

by Lord Byron, first published in 1815

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!


One of my all-time favorite poems. What imagery! Can you close your eyes and see vividly the Angel of Death? Feel the breeze off the ocean and the heat of the wind? What movement; it just gallops off the page with a fast reading. Actually, the poetic meter it’s written in, called an anapest, literally sounds like a horse galloping. Say the lines in this style: two short unstressed syllables followed by a longer stressed syllable. Like this:

The AsSYRian came DOWN like the WOLF on the FOLD

Or,

1-2-3!-1-2-3!-1-2-3!-1-2-3!

As an interesting little aside, Mark Twain was also enamoured with this work of Byron’s, referencing it often in his works and newspaper writings.