The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron
Quick answer: The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron, explained: anapaestic metre, biblical story and imagery in the most famous galloping poem in English.
Ask anyone to name a poem that gallops and this is the one they reach for. Byron published 'The Destruction of Sennacherib' in 1815 in his Hebrew Melodies, retelling the Old Testament account of the Assyrian army that besieged Jerusalem under King Sennacherib and was annihilated overnight when the Angel of Death passed over the camp. Byron compresses the whole catastrophe into twenty-four lines.
The poem is a masterclass in a single technical decision, sustained anapaestic rhythm, and in what one committed metre can do: the verse moves like the cavalry it describes, and when the army stops forever, the rhythm keeps riding over the corpses, which is precisely the horror.
What the poem says
The opening simile is one of the most famous in English: the Assyrian comes down 'like the wolf on the fold', his cohorts gleaming in purple and gold, his spears like stars on the sea of Galilee. The second stanza pivots on a pair of leaf similes: the host at sunset is like summer foliage, green and dense; by dawn it is like autumn leaves, withered and strewn. Between those two lines, everything has already happened.
The middle stanzas show how. The Angel of Death spreads his wings on the blast and breathes in the faces of the sleeping soldiers; eyes grow cold, hearts heave once and go still. Byron then walks the field in close-up: the horse with distended nostril and cold foam, the rider pale and dissolving, the silent tents, the unlifted lances, the unblown trumpet. The final stanza cuts to the widows of Ashur wailing and the idols broken in the temple of Baal, and closes with the Gentile's might melting 'like snow' before the glance of the Lord.
How it works: the anapaest as war-horse
Every line runs four anapaests, two light syllables then a stress, da-da-DUM four times, rhymed in emphatic couplets. It is the metre of hoofbeats, and Byron holds it with almost no substitution for six stanzas. That relentlessness is the meaning: the rhythm of the attacking army continues unbroken even while the stanzas report total death, so the form itself feels like fate riding on.
The imagery works by controlled colour and temperature: purple and gold cooling to the grey of autumn leaves, cold foam, pale rider, and by the discipline of the before-and-after simile pair, which does the work of a battle scene without one. Anyone entering a contest judged partly on language and sound could study this poem for an evening with profit; at Writory we see monthly how far deliberate sound patterning lifts a poem's score.
Why it lasts
It lasts because it is unforgettable to the ear, full stop. Teachers use it to demonstrate anapaestic metre because no clearer example exists. It also carries a quieter distinction: the destroying army is described with real magnificence and the destruction with real pity, wailing widows, a dying horse, so the poem's sympathies are stranger and more humane than its triumphant source. Byron, typically, admires the doomed.
What today's poet can steal
Steal the total commitment to one metre. Choose a rhythm that physically resembles your subject, gallop, tide, heartbeat, march, and hold it without apology; half-committed metre reads as accident, committed metre reads as force. Steal also the paired simile pivot: one image for before, the same category of image for after, and let the gap between them replace the event itself.
What poets can take from this
- Scan the first two lines and feel the four anapaests; then keep scanning until the pattern is in your body.
- Study the green-leaf and autumn-leaf pair: the entire massacre happens between two similes.
- Notice how the close-ups (horse, rider, tent, lance) replace any actual battle narration.
- Try writing quatrains of anapaestic tetrameter about something that moves fast.
- Watch the colour scheme cool from purple and gold to grey and white as life leaves the scene.
Try it yourself
Write a poem in strict anapaestic tetrameter about an unstoppable arrival, a storm, a flood, an army, a piece of news, and convey the aftermath using only a before-and-after pair of similes.
Questions
What is the metre of The Destruction of Sennacherib?
Anapaestic tetrameter: four anapaests per line (two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one), rhymed in couplets. It is the standard classroom example of galloping anapaestic rhythm.
What story is The Destruction of Sennacherib based on?
It retells the biblical account, in 2 Kings 19 and Isaiah 37, of the Assyrian king Sennacherib's army besieging Jerusalem and being destroyed overnight by the Angel of the Lord.
What is the famous first line of the poem?
The poem opens with the Assyrian coming down like the wolf on the fold, one of the most quoted similes in English poetry, immediately establishing both the predatory attack and the galloping metre.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
Enter a Writory poetry contest
Enter the September contest and have your own poem read and scored. That first entry makes you a Writorian.