CONSTANTINE PALAEOLOGUS.

By John Collings Squire

For seven hundred years

We gripped a weakening blade,

Keeping the gateway of the West

With none to give us aid.

Till at the last they broke

What Constantine had built,

And by the shattered wall the blood

Of Constantine was spilt.

Do men remember still

The manner of my death,

How after all those failing years

I at the last kept faith?