Canto VIII

O blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds!These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:And so they are; yet thus is Glory’s dreamUnriddled, and as my true Muse expoundsAt present such things, since they are her theme,So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars.

All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the menTo wield them in their terrible array.The army, like a lion from his den,March’d forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,—A human Hydra, issuing from its fenTo breathe destruction on its winding way,Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vainImmediately in others grew again.

History can only take things in the gross;But could we know them in detail, perchanceIn balancing the profit and the loss,War’s merit it by no means might enhance,To waste so much gold for a little dross,As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.The drying up a single tear has moreOf honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

And why?—because it brings self-approbation;Whereas the other, after all its glare,Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,A higher title, or a loftier station,Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,Yet, in the end, except in Freedom’s battles,Are nothing but a child of Murder’s rattles.

And such they are—and such they will be found:Not so Leonidas and Washington,Whose every battle-field is holy ground,Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!While the mere victor’s may appal or stunThe servile and the vain, such names will beA watchword till the future shall be free.

The night was dark, and the thick mist allow’dNought to be seen save the artillery’s flame,Which arch’d the horizon like a fiery cloud,And in the Danube’s waters shone the same—A mirror’d hell! the volleying roar, and loudLong booming of each peal on peal, o’ercameThe ear far more than thunder; for Heaven’s flashesSpare, or smite rarely—man’s make millions ashes!

The column order’d on the assault scarce pass’dBeyond the Russian batteries a few toises,When up the bristling Moslem rose at last,Answering the Christian thunders with like voices:Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced,Which rock’d as ’twere beneath the mighty noises;While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, whenThe restless Titan hiccups in his den.

And one enormous shout of ‘Allah!’ roseIn the same moment, loud as even the roarOf war’s most mortal engines, to their foesHurling defiance: city, stream, and shoreResounded ‘Allah!’ and the clouds which closeWith thick’ning canopy the conflict o’er,Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! throughAll sounds it pierceth ‘Allah! Allah! Hu!’

The columns were in movement one and all,But of the portion which attack’d by water,Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter,As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.‘Carnage’ (so Wordsworth tells you) ‘is God’s daughter:’If he speak truth, she is Christ’s sister, andJust now behaved as in the Holy Land.

The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee;Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball betweenHis cap and head, which proves the head to beAristocratic as was ever seen,Because it then received no injuryMore than the cap; in fact, the ball could meanNo harm unto a right legitimate head:‘Ashes to ashes’—why not lead to lead?

Also the General Markow, Brigadier,Insisting on removal of the princeAmidst some groaning thousands dying near,—All common fellows, who might writhe and wince,And shriek for water into a deaf ear,—The General Markow, who could thus evinceHis sympathy for rank, by the same token,To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,And thirty thousand muskets flung their pillsLike hail, to make a bloody diuretic.Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills;Thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick,Like the death-watch, within our ears the illsPast, present, and to come;—but all may yieldTo the true portrait of one battle-field.

There the still varying pangs, which multiplyUntil their very number makes men hardBy the infinities of agony,Which meet the gaze whate’er it may regard—The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eyeTurn’d back within its socket,—these rewardYour rank and file by thousands, while the restMay win perhaps a riband at the breast!

Yet I love glory;—glory ’s a great thing:—Think what it is to be in your old ageMaintain’d at the expense of your good king:A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,And heroes are but made for bards to sing,Which is still better; thus in verse to wageYour wars eternally, besides enjoyingHalf-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying.

The troops, already disembark’d, push’d onTo take a battery on the right; the others,Who landed lower down, their landing done,Had set to work as briskly as their brothers:Being grenadiers, they mounted one by one,Cheerful as children climb the breasts of mothers,O’er the entrenchment and the palisade,Quite orderly, as if upon parade.

And this was admirable; for so hotThe fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded,Besides its lava, with all sorts of shotAnd shells or hells, it could not more have goaded.Of officers a third fell on the spot,A thing which victory by no means bodedTo gentlemen engaged in the assault:Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault.

But here I leave the general concern,To track our hero on his path of fame:He must his laurels separately earn;For fifty thousand heroes, name by name,Though all deserving equally to turnA couplet, or an elegy to claim,Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory,And what is worse still, a much longer story:

And therefore we must give the greater numberTo the Gazette—which doubtless fairly dealtBy the deceased, who lie in famous slumberIn ditches, fields, or wheresoe’er they feltTheir clay for the last time their souls encumber;—Thrice happy he whose name has been well speltIn the despatch: I knew a man whose lossWas printed Grove, although his name was Grose.

Juan and Johnson join’d a certain corps,And fought away with might and main, not knowingThe way which they had never trod before,And still less guessing where they might be going;But on they march’d, dead bodies trampling o’er,Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing,But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win,To their two selves, one whole bright bulletin.

Thus on they wallow’d in the bloody mireOf dead and dying thousands,—sometimes gainingA yard or two of ground, which brought them nigherTo some odd angle for which all were straining;At other times, repulsed by the close fire,Which really pour’d as if all hell were rainingInstead of heaven, they stumbled backwards o’erA wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore.

Though ’twas Don Juan’s first of fields, and thoughThe nightly muster and the silent marchIn the chill dark, when courage does not glowSo much as under a triumphal arch,Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throwA glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch,Which stiffen’d heaven) as if he wish’d for day;—Yet for all this he did not run away.

Indeed he could not. But what if he had?There have been and are heroes who begunWith something not much better, or as bad:Frederic the Great from Molwitz deign’d to run,For the first and last time; for, like a pad,Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after oneWarm bout are broken into their new tricks,And fight like fiends for pay or politics.

He was what Erin calls, in her sublimeOld Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic(The antiquarians who can settle time,Which settles all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic,Swear that Pat’s language sprung from the same climeWith Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunicOf Dido’s alphabet; and this is rationalAs any other notion, and not national);—

But Juan was quite ‘a broth of a boy,’A thing of impulse and a child of song;Now swimming in the sentiment of joy,Or the sensation (if that phrase seem wrong),And afterward, if he must needs destroy,In such good company as always throngTo battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure,No less delighted to employ his leisure;

But always without malice: if he warr’dOr loved, it was with what we call ‘the bestIntentions,’ which form all mankind’s trump card,To be produced when brought up to the test.The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer—wardOff each attack, when people are in questOf their designs, by saying they meant well;’Tis pity ‘that such meaning should pave hell.’

I almost lately have begun to doubtWhether hell’s pavement—if it be so paved—Must not have latterly been quite worn out,Not by the numbers good intent hath saved,But by the mass who go below withoutThose ancient good intentions, which once shavedAnd smooth’d the brimstone of that street of hellWhich bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft dividesWarrior from warrior in their grim career,Like chastest wives from constant husbands’ sidesJust at the close of the first bridal year,By one of those odd turns of Fortune’s tides,Was on a sudden rather puzzled here,When, after a good deal of heavy firing,He found himself alone, and friends retiring.

I don’t know how the thing occurr’d—it mightBe that the greater part were kill’d or wounded,And that the rest had faced unto the rightAbout; a circumstance which has confoundedCaesar himself, who, in the very sightOf his whole army, which so much aboundedIn courage, was obliged to snatch a shield,And rally back his Romans to the field.

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and wasNo Caesar, but a fine young lad, who foughtHe knew not why, arriving at this pass,Stopp’d for a minute, as perhaps he oughtFor a much longer time; then, like an ass(Start not, kind reader; since great Homer thoughtThis simile enough for Ajax, JuanPerhaps may find it better than a new one)—

Then, like an ass, he went upon his way,And, what was stranger, never look’d behind;But seeing, flashing forward, like the dayOver the hills, a fire enough to blindThose who dislike to look upon a fray,He stumbled on, to try if he could findA path, to add his own slight arm and forcesTo corps, the greater part of which were corses.

Perceiving then no more the commandantOf his own corps, nor even the corps, which hadQuite disappear’d—the gods know how! (I can’tAccount for every thing which may look badIn history; but we at least may grantIt was not marvellous that a mere lad,In search of glory, should look on before,Nor care a pinch of snuff about his corps):—

Perceiving nor commander nor commanded,And left at large, like a young heir, to makeHis way to—where he knew not—single handed;As travellers follow over bog and brakeAn ‘ignis fatuus;’ or as sailors strandedUnto the nearest hut themselves betake;So Juan, following honour and his nose,Rush’d where the thickest fire announced most foes.

He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared,For he was dizzy, busy, and his veinsFill’d as with lightning—for his spirit sharedThe hour, as is the case with lively brains;And where the hottest fire was seen and heard,And the loud cannon peal’d his hoarsest strains,He rush’d, while earth and air were sadly shakenBy thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!

And as he rush’d along, it came to pass heFell in with what was late the second column,Under the orders of the General Lascy,But now reduced, as is a bulky volumeInto an elegant extract (much less massy)Of heroism, and took his place with solemnAir ’midst the rest, who kept their valiant facesAnd levell’d weapons still against the glacis.

Just at this crisis up came Johnson too,Who had ‘retreated,’ as the phrase is whenMen run away much rather than go throughDestruction’s jaws into the devil’s den;But Johnson was a clever fellow, whoKnew when and how ‘to cut and come again,’And never ran away, except when runningWas nothing but a valorous kind of cunning.

And so, when all his corps were dead or dying,Except Don Juan, a mere novice, whoseMore virgin valour never dreamt of flyingFrom ignorance of danger, which induesIts votaries, like innocence relyingOn its own strength, with careless nerves and thews,—Johnson retired a little, just to rallyThose who catch cold in ‘shadows of Death’s valley.’

And there, a little shelter’d from the shot,Which rain’d from bastion, battery, parapet,Rampart, wall, casement, house,—for there was notIn this extensive city, sore besetBy Christian soldiery, a single spotWhich did not combat like the devil, as yet,He found a number of Chasseurs, all scatter’dBy the resistance of the chase they batter’d.

And these he call’d on; and, what ’s strange, they cameUnto his call, unlike ‘the spirits fromThe vasty deep,’ to whom you may exclaim,Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home.Their reasons were uncertainty, or shameAt shrinking from a bullet or a bomb,And that odd impulse, which in wars or creedsMakes men, like cattle, follow him who leads.

By Jove! he was a noble fellow, Johnson,And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles,Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soonWe shall not see his likeness: he could kill hisMan quite as quietly as blows the monsoonHer steady breath (which some months the same still is):Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle,And could be very busy without bustle;

And therefore, when he ran away, he did soUpon reflection, knowing that behindHe would find others who would fain be rid soOf idle apprehensions, which like windTrouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids soOft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind,But when they light upon immediate death,Retire a little, merely to take breath.

But Johnson only ran off, to returnWith many other warriors, as we said,Unto that rather somewhat misty bourn,Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread.To Jack howe’er this gave but slight concern:His soul (like galvanism upon the dead)Acted upon the living as on wire,And led them back into the heaviest fire.

Egad! they found the second time what theyThe first time thought quite terrible enoughTo fly from, malgré all which people sayOf glory, and all that immortal stuffWhich fills a regiment (besides their pay,That daily shilling which makes warriors tough)—They found on their return the self-same welcome,Which made some think, and others know, a hell come.

They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail,Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle,Proving that trite old truth, that life ’s as frailAs any other boon for which men stickle.The Turkish batteries thrash’d them like a flail,Or a good boxer, into a sad picklePutting the very bravest, who were knock’dUpon the head, before their guns were cock’d.

The Turks, behind the traverses and flanksOf the next bastion, fired away like devils,And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks:However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levelsTowns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks,So order’d it, amidst these sulphury revels,That Johnson and some few who had not scamper’d,Reach’d the interior talus of the rampart.

First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen,Came mounting quickly up, for it was nowAll neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin,Flame was shower’d forth above, as well ’s below,So that you scarce could say who best had chosen,The gentlemen that were the first to showTheir martial faces on the parapet,Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.

But those who scaled, found out that their advanceWas favour’d by an accident or blunder:The Greek or Turkish Cohorn’s ignoranceHad palisado’d in a way you’d wonderTo see in forts of Netherlands or France(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)—Right in the middle of the parapetJust named, these palisades were primly set:

So that on either side some nine or tenPaces were left, whereon you could contriveTo march; a great convenience to our men,At least to all those who were left alive,Who thus could form a line and fight again;And that which farther aided them to striveWas, that they could kick down the palisades,Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.

Among the first,—I will not say the first,For such precedence upon such occasionsWill oftentimes make deadly quarrels burstOut between friends as well as allied nations:The Briton must be bold who really durstPut to such trial John Bull’s partial patience,As say that Wellington at WaterlooWas beaten—though the Prussians say so too;—

And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau,And God knows who besides in ‘au’ and ‘ow,’Had not come up in time to cast an aweInto the hearts of those who fought till nowAs tigers combat with an empty craw,The Duke of Wellington had ceased to showHis orders, also to receive his pensions,Which are the heaviest that our history mentions.

But never mind;—‘God save the king!’ and kings!For if he don’t, I doubt if men will longer—I think I hear a little bird, who singsThe people by and by will be the stronger:The veriest jade will wince whose harness wringsSo much into the raw as quite to wrong herBeyond the rules of posting,—and the mobAt last fall sick of imitating Job.

At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then,Like David, flings smooth pebbles ’gainst a giant;At last it takes to weapons such as menSnatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant.Then comes ‘the tug of war;’—’twill come again,I rather doubt; and I would fain say ‘fie on ’t,’If I had not perceived that revolutionAlone can save the earth from hell’s pollution.

But to continue:—I say not the first,But of the first, our little friend Don JuanWalk’d o’er the walls of Ismail, as if nursedAmidst such scenes—though this was quite a new oneTo him, and I should hope to most. The thirstOf glory, which so pierces through and through one,Pervaded him—although a generous creature,As warm in heart as feminine in feature.

And here he was—who upon woman’s breast,Even from a child, felt like a child; howe’erThe man in all the rest might be confest,To him it was Elysium to be there;And he could even withstand that awkward testWhich Rousseau points out to the dubious fair,‘Observe your lover when he leaves your arms;’But Juan never left them, while they had charms,

Unless compell’d by fate, or wave, or wind,Or near relations, who are much the same.But here he was!—where each tie that can bindHumanity must yield to steel and flame:And he whose very body was all mind,Flung here by fate or circumstance, which tameThe loftiest, hurried by the time and place,Dash’d on like a spurr’d blood-horse in a race.

So was his blood stirr’d while he found resistance,As is the hunter’s at the five-bar gate,Or double post and rail, where the existenceOf Britain’s youth depends upon their weight,The lightest being the safest: at a distanceHe hated cruelty, as all men hateBlood, until heated—and even then his ownAt times would curdle o’er some heavy groan.

The General Lascy, who had been hard press’d,Seeing arrive an aid so opportuneAs were some hundred youngsters all abreast,Who came as if just dropp’d down from the moon,To Juan, who was nearest him, address’dHis thanks, and hopes to take the city soon,Not reckoning him to be a ‘base Bezonian’(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian.

Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knewAs much of German as of Sanscrit, andIn answer made an inclination toThe general who held him in command;For seeing one with ribands, black and blue,Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand,Addressing him in tones which seem’d to thank,He recognised an officer of rank.

Short speeches pass between two men who speakNo common language; and besides, in timeOf war and taking towns, when many a shriekRings o’er the dialogue, and many a crimeIs perpetrated ere a word can breakUpon the ear, and sounds of horror chimeIn like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,There cannot be much conversation there.

And therefore all we have related inTwo long octaves, pass’d in a little minute;But in the same small minute, every sinContrived to get itself comprised within it.The very cannon, deafen’d by the din,Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet,As soon as thunder, ’midst the general noiseOf human nature’s agonising voice!

The town was enter’d. Oh eternity!—‘God made the country and man made the town,’So Cowper says—and I begin to beOf his opinion, when I see cast downRome, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Nineveh,All walls men know, and many never known;And pondering on the present and the past,To deem the woods shall be our home at last

Of all men, saving Sylla the man-slayer,Who passes for in life and death most lucky,Of the great names which in our faces stare,The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;For killing nothing but a bear or buck, heEnjoy’d the lonely, vigorous, harmless daysOf his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

Crime came not near him—she is not the childOf solitude; Health shrank not from him—forHer home is in the rarely trodden wild,Where if men seek her not, and death be moreTheir choice than life, forgive them, as beguiledBy habit to what their own hearts abhor—In cities caged. The present case in point ICite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;

And what ’s still stranger, left behind a nameFor which men vainly decimate the throng,Not only famous, but of that good fame,Without which glory ’s but a tavern song—Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame,Which hate nor envy e’er could tinge with wrong;An active hermit, even in age the childOf Nature, or the man of Ross run wild.

’Tis true he shrank from men even of his nation,When they built up unto his darling trees,—He moved some hundred miles off, for a stationWhere there were fewer houses and more ease;The inconvenience of civilisationIs, that you neither can be pleased nor please;But where he met the individual man,He show’d himself as kind as mortal can.

He was not all alone: around him grewA sylvan tribe of children of the chase,Whose young, unwaken’d world was ever new,Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a traceOn her unwrinkled brow, nor could you viewA frown on Nature’s or on human face;The free-born forest found and kept them free,And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,Beyond the dwarfing city’s pale abortions,Because their thoughts had never been the preyOf care or gain: the green woods were their portions;No sinking spirits told them they grew grey,No fashion made them apes of her distortions;Simple they were, not savage; and their rifles,Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers,And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers,With the free foresters divide no spoil;Serene, not sullen, were the solitudesOf this unsighing people of the woods.

So much for Nature:—by way of variety,Now back to thy great joys, Civilisation!And the sweet consequence of large society,War, pestilence, the despot’s desolation,The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety,The millions slain by soldiers for their ration,The scenes like Catherine’s boudoir at threescore,With Ismail’s storm to soften it the more.

The town was enter’d: first one column madeIts sanguinary way good—then another;The reeking bayonet and the flashing bladeClash’d ’gainst the scimitar, and babe and motherWith distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:Still closer sulphury clouds began to smotherThe breath of morn and man, where foot by footThe madden’d Turks their city still dispute.

Koutousow, he who afterward beat back(With some assistance from the frost and snow)Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,It happen’d was himself beat back just now;He was a jolly fellow, and could crackHis jest alike in face of friend or foe,Though life, and death, and victory were at stake;But here it seem’d his jokes had ceased to take:

For having thrown himself into a ditch,Follow’d in haste by various grenadiers,Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich,He climb’d to where the parapet appears;But there his project reach’d its utmost pitch(’Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre’sWas much regretted), for the Moslem menThrew them all down into the ditch again.

And had it not been for some stray troops landingThey knew not where, being carried by the streamTo some spot, where they lost their understanding,And wander’d up and down as in a dream,Until they reach’d, as daybreak was expanding,That which a portal to their eyes did seem,—The great and gay Koutousow might have lainWhere three parts of his column yet remain.

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops,After the taking of the ‘Cavalier,’Just as Koutousow’s most ‘forlorn’ of ‘hopes’Took like chameleons some slight tinge of fear,Open’d the gate call’d ‘Kilia,’ to the groupsOf baffled heroes, who stood shyly near,Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud,Now thaw’d into a marsh of human blood.

The Kozacks, or, if so you please, Cossacques(I don’t much pique myself upon orthography,So that I do not grossly err in facts,Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography)—Having been used to serve on horses’ backs,And no great dilettanti in topographyOf fortresses, but fighting where it pleasesTheir chiefs to order,—were all cut to pieces.

Their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder’dUpon them, ne’ertheless had reach’d the rampart,And naturally thought they could have plunder’dThe city, without being farther hamper’d;But as it happens to brave men, they blunder’d—The Turks at first pretended to have scamper’d,Only to draw them ’twixt two bastion corners,From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.

Then being taken by the tail—a takingFatal to bishops as to soldiers—theseCossacques were all cut off as day was breaking,And found their lives were let at a short lease—But perish’d without shivering or shaking,Leaving as ladders their heap’d carcasses,O’er which Lieutenant-Colonel YesouskoiMarch’d with the brave battalion of Polouzki:—

This valiant man kill’d all the Turks he met,But could not eat them, being in his turnSlain by some Mussulmans, who would not yet,Without resistance, see their city burn.The walls were won, but ’twas an even betWhich of the armies would have cause to mourn:’Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,For one would not retreat, nor t’ other flinch.

Another column also suffer’d much:—And here we may remark with the historian,You should but give few cartridges to suchTroops as are meant to march with greatest glory on:When matters must be carried by the touchOf the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on,They sometimes, with a hankering for existence,Keep merely firing at a foolish distance.

A junction of the General Meknop’s men(Without the General, who had fallen some timeBefore, being badly seconded just then)Was made at length with those who dared to climbThe death-disgorging rampart once again;And though the Turk’s resistance was sublime,They took the bastion, which the SeraskierDefended at a price extremely dear.

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers,Among the foremost, offer’d him good quarter,A word which little suits with Seraskiers,Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar.He died, deserving well his country’s tears,A savage sort of military martyr.An English naval officer, who wish’dTo make him prisoner, was also dish’d:

For all the answer to his propositionWas from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;On which the rest, without more intermission,Began to lay about with steel and lead—The pious metals most in requisitionOn such occasions: not a single headWas spared;—three thousand Moslems perish’d here,And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.

The city ’s taken—only part by part—And death is drunk with gore: there’s not a streetWhere fights not to the last some desperate heartFor those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.Here War forgot his own destructive artIn more destroying Nature; and the heatOf carnage, like the Nile’s sun-sodden slime,Engender’d monstrous shapes of every crime.

A Russian officer, in martial treadOver a heap of bodies, felt his heelSeized fast, as if ’twere by the serpent’s headWhose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel:In vain he kick’d, and swore, and writhed, and bled,And howl’d for help as wolves do for a meal—The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,As do the subtle snakes described of old.

A dying Moslem, who had felt the footOf a foe o’er him, snatch’d at it, and bitThe very tendon which is most acute(That which some ancient Muse or modern witNamed after thee, Achilles), and quite through ’tHe made the teeth meet, nor relinquish’d itEven with his life—for (but they lie) ’tis saidTo the live leg still clung the sever’d head.

However this may be, ’tis pretty sureThe Russian officer for life was lamed,For the Turk’s teeth stuck faster than a skewer,And left him ’midst the invalid and maim’d:The regimental surgeon could not cureHis patient, and perhaps was to be blamedMore than the head of the inveterate foe,Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.

But then the fact ’s a fact—and ’tis the partOf a true poet to escape from fictionWhene’er he can; for there is little artIn leaving verse more free from the restrictionOf truth than prose, unless to suit the martFor what is sometimes called poetic diction,And that outrageous appetite for liesWhich Satan angles with for souls, like flies.

The city ’s taken, but not render’d!—No!There’s not a Moslem that hath yielded sword:The blood may gush out, as the Danube’s flowRolls by the city wall; but deed nor wordAcknowledge aught of dread of death or foe:In vain the yell of victory is roar’dBy the advancing Muscovite—the groanOf the last foe is echoed by his own.

The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves,And human lives are lavish’d everywhere,As the year closing whirls the scarlet leavesWhen the stripp’d forest bows to the bleak air,And groans; and thus the peopled city grieves,Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare;But still it falls in vast and awful splinters,As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.

It is an awful topic—but ’tis notMy cue for any time to be terrific:For checker’d as is seen our human lotWith good, and bad, and worse, alike prolificOf melancholy merriment, to quoteToo much of one sort would be soporific;—Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,I sketch your world exactly as it goes.

And one good action in the midst of crimesIs ‘quite refreshing,’ in the affected phraseOf these ambrosial, Pharisaic times,With all their pretty milk-and-water ways,And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes,A little scorch’d at present with the blazeOf conquest and its consequences, whichMake epic poesy so rare and rich.

Upon a taken bastion, where there layThousands of slaughter’d men, a yet warm groupOf murder’d women, who had found their wayTo this vain refuge, made the good heart droopAnd shudder;—while, as beautiful as May,A female child of ten years tried to stoopAnd hide her little palpitating breastAmidst the bodies lull’d in bloody rest.

Two villainous Cossacques pursued the childWith flashing eyes and weapons: match’d with them,The rudest brute that roams Siberia’s wildHas feelings pure and polish’d as a gem,—The bear is civilised, the wolf is mild;And whom for this at last must we condemn?Their natures? or their sovereigns, who employAll arts to teach their subjects to destroy?

Their sabres glitter’d o’er her little head,Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright,Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead:When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight,I shall not say exactly what he said,Because it might not solace ‘ears polite;’But what he did, was to lay on their backs,The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques.

One’s hip he slash’d, and split the other’s shoulder,And drove them with their brutal yells to seekIf there might be chirurgeons who could solderThe wounds they richly merited, and shriekTheir baffled rage and pain; while waxing colderAs he turn’d o’er each pale and gory cheek,Don Juan raised his little captive fromThe heap a moment more had made her tomb.

And she was chill as they, and on her faceA slender streak of blood announced how nearHer fate had been to that of all her race;For the same blow which laid her mother hereHad scarr’d her brow, and left its crimson trace,As the last link with all she had held dear;But else unhurt, she open’d her large eyes,And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.

Just at this instant, while their eyes were fix’dUpon each other, with dilated glance,In Juan’s look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix’dWith joy to save, and dread of some mischanceUnto his protege; while hers, transfix’dWith infant terrors, glared as from a trance,A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,Like to a lighted alabaster vase;—

Up came John Johnson (I will not say ‘Jack,’For that were vulgar, cold, and commonplaceOn great occasions, such as an attackOn cities, as hath been the present case):Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back,Exclaiming;—‘Juan! Juan! On, boy! braceYour arm, and I’ll bet Moscow to a dollarThat you and I will win St. George’s collar.

‘The Seraskier is knock’d upon the head,But the stone bastion still remains, whereinThe old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead,Smoking his pipe quite calmly ’midst the dinOf our artillery and his own: ’tis saidOur kill’d, already piled up to the chin,Lie round the battery; but still it batters,And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.

‘Then up with me!’—But Juan answer’d, ‘LookUpon this child—I saved her—must not leaveHer life to chance; but point me out some nookOf safety, where she less may shrink and grieve,And I am with you.’—Whereon Johnson tookA glance around—and shrugg’d—and twitch’d his sleeveAnd black silk neckcloth—and replied, ‘You’re right;Poor thing! what ’s to be done? I’m puzzled quite.’

Said Juan: ‘Whatsoever is to beDone, I’ll not quit her till she seems secureOf present life a good deal more than we.’Quoth Johnson: ‘Neither will I quite ensure;But at the least you may die gloriously.’Juan replied: ‘At least I will endureWhate’er is to be borne—but not resignThis child, who is parentless, and therefore mine.’

Johnson said: ‘Juan, we’ve no time to lose;The child ’s a pretty child—a very pretty—I never saw such eyes—but hark! now chooseBetween your fame and feelings, pride and pity;—Hark! how the roar increases!—no excuseWill serve when there is plunder in a city;—I should be loth to march without you, but,By God! we’ll be too late for the first cut.’

But Juan was immovable; untilJohnson, who really loved him in his way,Pick’d out amongst his followers with some skillSuch as he thought the least given up to prey;And swearing if the infant came to illThat they should all be shot on the next day;But if she were deliver’d safe and sound,They should at least have fifty rubles round,

And all allowances besides of plunderIn fair proportion with their comrades;—thenJuan consented to march on through thunder,Which thinn’d at every step their ranks of men:And yet the rest rush’d eagerly—no wonder,For they were heated by the hope of gain,A thing which happens everywhere each day—No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.

And such is victory, and such is man!At least nine tenths of what we call so;—GodMay have another name for half we scanAs human beings, or his ways are odd.But to our subject: a brave Tartar khan—Or ‘sultan,’ as the author (to whose nodIn prose I bend my humble verse) doth callThis chieftain—somehow would not yield at all:

But flank’d by five brave sons (such is polygamy,That she spawns warriors by the score, where noneAre prosecuted for that false crime bigamy),He never would believe the city wonWhile courage clung but to a single twig.—Am IDescribing Priam’s, Peleus’, or Jove’s son?Neither—but a good, plain, old, temperate man,Who fought with his five children in the van.

To take him was the point. The truly brave,When they behold the brave oppress’d with odds,Are touch’d with a desire to shield and save;—A mixture of wild beasts and demigodsAre they—now furious as the sweeping wave,Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nodsThe rugged tree unto the summer wind,Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

But he would not be taken, and repliedTo all the propositions of surrenderBy mowing Christians down on every side,As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.His five brave boys no less the foe defied;Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender,As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.

And spite of Johnson and of Juan, whoExpended all their Eastern phraseologyIn begging him, for God’s sake, just to showSo much less fight as might form an apologyFor them in saving such a desperate foe—He hew’d away, like doctors of theologyWhen they dispute with sceptics; and with cursesStruck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.

Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, bothJuan and Johnson; whereupon they fell,The first with sighs, the second with an oath,Upon his angry sultanship, pell-mell,And all around were grown exceeding wrothAt such a pertinacious infidel,And pour’d upon him and his sons like rain,Which they resisted like a sandy plain

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perish’d—His second son was levell’d by a shot;His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherish’dOf all the five, on bayonets met his lot;The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourish’d,Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not,Because deform’d, yet died all game and bottom,To save a sire who blush’d that he begot him.

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar,As great a scorner of the NazareneAs ever Mahomet pick’d out for a martyr,Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green,Who make the beds of those who won’t take quarterOn earth, in Paradise; and when once seen,Those houris, like all other pretty creatures,Do just whate’er they please, by dint of features.

And what they pleased to do with the young khanIn heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess;But doubtless they prefer a fine young manTo tough old heroes, and can do no less;And that ’s the cause no doubt why, if we scanA field of battle’s ghastly wilderness,For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body,You’ll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody.

Your houris also have a natural pleasureIn lopping off your lately married men,Before the bridal hours have danced their measureAnd the sad, second moon grows dim again,Or dull repentance hath had dreary leisureTo wish him back a bachelor now and then.And thus your houri (it may be) disputesOf these brief blossoms the immediate fruits.

Thus the young khan, with houris in his sight,Thought not upon the charms of four young brides,But bravely rush’d on his first heavenly night.In short, howe’er our better faith derides,These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight,As though there were one heaven and none besides,—Whereas, if all be true we hear of heavenAnd hell, there must at least be six or seven.

So fully flash’d the phantom on his eyes,That when the very lance was in his heart,He shouted ‘Allah!’ and saw ParadiseWith all its veil of mystery drawn apart,And bright eternity without disguiseOn his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart:—With prophets, houris, angels, saints, descriedIn one voluptuous blaze,—and then he died,

But with a heavenly rapture on his face.The good old khan, who long had ceased to seeHouris, or aught except his florid raceWho grew like cedars round him gloriously—When he beheld his latest hero graceThe earth, which he became like a fell’d tree,Paused for a moment, from the fight, and castA glance on that slain son, his first and last.

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,Stopp’d as if once more willing to concedeQuarter, in case he bade them not ‘aroynt!’As he before had done. He did not heedTheir pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint,And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed,As he look’d down upon his children gone,And felt—though done with life—he was alone

But ’twas a transient tremor;—with a springUpon the Russian steel his breast he flung,As carelessly as hurls the moth her wingAgainst the light wherein she dies: he clungCloser, that all the deadlier they might wring,Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young;And throwing back a dim look on his sons,In one wide wound pour’d forth his soul at once.

’Tis strange enough—the rough, tough soldiers, whoSpared neither sex nor age in their careerOf carnage, when this old man was pierced through,And lay before them with his children near,Touch’d by the heroism of him they slew,Were melted for a moment: though no tearFlow’d from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife,They honour’d such determined scorn of life.

But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,Where the chief pacha calmly held his post:Some twenty times he made the Russ retire,And baffled the assaults of all their host;At length he condescended to inquireIf yet the city’s rest were won or lost;And being told the latter, sent a beyTo answer Ribas’ summons to give way.

In the mean time, cross-legg’d, with great sang-froid,Among the scorching ruins he sat smokingTobacco on a little carpet;—TroySaw nothing like the scene around:—yet lookingWith martial stoicism, nought seem’d to annoyHis stern philosophy; but gently strokingHis beard, he puff’d his pipe’s ambrosial gales,As if he had three lives, as well as tails.

The town was taken—whether he might yieldHimself or bastion, little matter’d now:His stubborn valour was no future shield.Ismail ’s no more! The crescent’s silver bowSunk, and the crimson cross glared o’er the field,But red with no redeeming gore: the glowOf burning streets, like moonlight on the water,Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses;All that the body perpetrates of bad;All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses;All that the devil would do if run stark mad;All that defies the worst which pen expresses;All by which hell is peopled, or as sadAs hell—mere mortals who their power abuse—Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

If here and there some transient trait of pityWas shown, and some more noble heart broke throughIts bloody bond, and saved perhaps some prettyChild, or an aged, helpless man or two—What ’s this in one annihilated city,Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew?Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris!Just ponder what a pious pastime war is.

Think how the joys of reading a GazetteAre purchased by all agonies and crimes:Or if these do not move you, don’t forgetSuch doom may be your own in aftertimes.Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt,Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes.Read your own hearts and Ireland’s present story,Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley’s glory.

But still there is unto a patriot nation,Which loves so well its country and its king,A subject of sublimest exultation—Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing!Howe’er the mighty locust, Desolation,Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling,Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne—Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone.

But let me put an end unto my theme:There was an end of Ismail—hapless town!Far flash’d her burning towers o’er Danube’s stream,And redly ran his blushing waters down.The horrid war-whoop and the shriller screamRose still; but fainter were the thunders grown:Of forty thousand who had mann’d the wall,Some hundreds breathed—the rest were silent all!

In one thing ne’ertheless ’tis fit to praiseThe Russian army upon this occasion,A virtue much in fashion now-a-days,And therefore worthy of commemoration:The topic ’s tender, so shall be my phrase—Perhaps the season’s chill, and their long stationIn winter’s depth, or want of rest and victual,Had made them chaste;—they ravish’d very little.

Much did they slay, more plunder, and no lessMight here and there occur some violationIn the other line;—but not to such excessAs when the French, that dissipated nation,Take towns by storm: no causes can I guess,Except cold weather and commiseration;But all the ladies, save some twenty score,Were almost as much virgins as before.

Some odd mistakes, too, happen’d in the dark,Which show’d a want of lanterns, or of taste—Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could markTheir friends from foes,—besides such things from hasteOccur, though rarely, when there is a sparkOf light to save the venerably chaste:But six old damsels, each of seventy years,Were all deflower’d by different grenadiers.

But on the whole their continence was great;So that some disappointment there ensuedTo those who had felt the inconvenient stateOf ‘single blessedness,’ and thought it good(Since it was not their fault, but only fate,To bear these crosses) for each waning prudeTo make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding,Without the expense and the suspense of bedding.

Some voices of the buxom middle-agedWere also heard to wonder in the din(Widows of forty were these birds long caged)‘Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!’But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged,There was small leisure for superfluous sin;But whether they escaped or no, lies hidIn darkness—I can only hope they did.

Suwarrow now was conqueror—a matchFor Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatchBlazed, and the cannon’s roar was scarce allay’d,With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch;And here exactly follows what he said:—‘Glory to God and to the Empress!’ (PowersEternal! such names mingled!) ‘Ismail ’s ours.’

Methinks these are the most tremendous words,Since ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel,’ and ‘Upharsin,’Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords.Heaven help me! I’m but little of a parson:What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord’s,Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce onThe fate of nations;—but this Russ so wittyCould rhyme, like Nero, o’er a burning city.

He wrote this Polar melody, and set it,Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans,Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it—For I will teach, if possible, the stonesTo rise against earth’s tyrants. Never let itBe said that we still truckle unto thrones;—But ye—our children’s children! think how weShow’d what things were before the world was free!

That hour is not for us, but ’tis for you:And as, in the great joy of your millennium,You hardly will believe such things were trueAs now occur, I thought that I would pen you ’em;But may their very memory perish too!—Yet if perchance remember’d, still disdain you ’emMore than you scorn the savages of yore,Who painted their bare limbs, but not with gore.

And when you hear historians talk of thrones,And those that sate upon them, let it beAs we now gaze upon the mammoth’s bones,‘And wonder what old world such things could see,Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones,The pleasant riddles of futurity—Guessing at what shall happily be hid,As the real purpose of a pyramid.

Reader! I have kept my word,—at least so farAs the first Canto promised. You have nowHad sketches of love, tempest, travel, war—All very accurate, you must allow,And epic, if plain truth should prove no bar;For I have drawn much less with a long bowThan my forerunners. Carelessly I sing,But Phoebus lends me now and then a string,

With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle.What farther hath befallen or may befallThe hero of this grand poetic riddle,I by and by may tell you, if at all:But now I choose to break off in the middle,Worn out with battering Ismail’s stubborn wall,While Juan is sent off with the despatch,For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.

This special honour was conferr’d, becauseHe had behaved with courage and humanity—Which last men like, when they have time to pauseFrom their ferocities produced by vanity.His little captive gain’d him some applauseFor saving her amidst the wild insanityOf carnage,—and I think he was more glad in herSafety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.

The Moslem orphan went with her protector,For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; allHer friends, like the sad family of Hector,Had perish’d in the field or by the wall:Her very place of birth was but a spectreOf what it had been; there the Muezzin’s calTo prayer was heard no more!—and Juan wept,And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.