This is no bull, although it sounds so for
'Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.
A third's all pallid aspect offer'd more
the traits of sleeping sorrow, and betray'd
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore
Beloved and deplored while slowly stray'd
As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges
the black bough tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes.

A fourth as marble, statue-like and still
Lay in a breathless, hush'd, and stony sleep
White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep
Or Lot's wife done in salt, or what you will
My similes are gather'd in a heap
So pick and choose perhaps you 'll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.

And lo! a fifth appears and what is she?
A lady of a 'certain age,' which means
Certainly aged what her years might be
I know not, never counting past their teens
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see
As ere that awful period intervenes
Which lays both men and women on the shelf
To meditate upon their sins and self.

But all this time how slept, or dream'd, Dudu?
With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover
And scorn to add a syllable untrue
But ere the middle watch was hardly over
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue
And phantoms hover'd, or might seem to hover
To those who like their company, about
the apartment, on a sudden she scream'd out

And that so loudly, that upstarted all
the Oda, in a general commotion
Matron and maids, and those whom you may call
Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean
One on the other, throughout the whole hall
All trembling, wondering, without the least notion
More than I have myself of what could make
the calm Dudu so turbulently wake.

But wide awake she was, and round her bed
With floating draperies and with flying hair
With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread
And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare
And bright as any meteor ever bred
By the North Pole, they sought her cause of care
For she seem'd agitated, flush'd, and frighten'd
Her eye dilated and her colour heighten'd.

But what was strange and a strong proof how great
A blessing is sound sleep Juanna lay
As fast as ever husband by his mate
In holy matrimony snores away.
Not all the clamour broke her happy state
Of slumber, ere they shook her, so they say
At least, and then she, too, unclosed her eyes
And yawn'd a good deal with discreet surprise.

And now commenced a strict investigation
Which, as all spoke at once and more than once
Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce
To answer in a very clear oration.
Dudu had never pass'd for wanting sense
But, being 'no orator as Brutus is,'
Could not at first expound what was amiss.

At length she said, that in a slumber sound
She dream'd a dream, of walking in a wood
A 'wood obscure,' like that where Dante found
Himself in at the age when all grow good
Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crown'd
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude
And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits
And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots

And in the midst a golden apple grew
A most prodigious pippin, but it hung
Rather too high and distant that she threw
Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung
Stones and whatever she could pick up, to
Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung
To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight
But always at a most provoking height

That on a sudden, when she least had hope
It fell down of its own accord before
Her feet that her first movement was to stoop
And pick it up, and bite it to the core
That just as her young lip began to ope
Upon the golden fruit the vision bore
A bee flew out and stung her to the heart
And so she awoke with a great scream and start.

All this she told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams.
I 've known some odd ones which seem'd really plann'd
Prophetically, or that which one deems
A 'strange coincidence,' to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days.

the damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm
Began, as is the consequence of fear
To scold a little at the false alarm
That broke for nothing on their sleeping car.
the matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm
Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear
And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sigh'd
And said that she was sorry she had cried.

'I 've heard of stories of a cock and bull
But visions of an apple and a bee
To take us from our natural rest, and pull
the whole Oda from their beds at half-past three
Would make us think the moon is at its full.
You surely are unwell, child! we must see
To-morrow, what his Highness's physician
Will say to this hysteric of a vision.

'And poor Juanna, too the child's first night
Within these walls to be broke in upon
With such a clamour! I had thought it right
That the young stranger should not lie alone
And, as the quietest of all, she might
With you, Dudu, a good night's rest have known
But now I must transfer her to the charge
Of Lolah though her couch is not so large.'

Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition
But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own
Resulting from the scolding or the vision
Implored that present pardon might be shown
For this first fault, and that on no condition
She added in a soft and piteous tone
Juanna should be taken from her, and
Her future dreams should all be kept in hand.

She promised never more to have a dream
At least to dream so loudly as just now
She wonder'd at herself how she could scream
'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow
A fond hallucination, and a theme
For laughter but she felt her spirits low
And begg'd they would excuse her she 'd get over
This weakness in a few hours, and recover.

And here Juanna kindly interposed
And said she felt herself extremely well
Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed
When all around rang like a tocsin bell
She did not find herself the least disposed
To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell
Apart from one who had no sin to show
Save that of dreaming once 'mal-a-propos.'

As thus Juanna spoke, Dudu turn'd round
And hid her face within Juanna's breast
Her neck alone was seen, but that was found
the colour of a budding rose's crest.
I can't tell why she blush'd, nor can expound
the mystery of this rupture of their rest
All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late.

And so good night to them, or, if you will
Good morrow for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill
And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.

With the first ray, or rather grey of morn
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness and pale
As passion rises, with its bosom worn
Array'd herself with mantle, gem, and veil.
the nightingale that sings with the deep thorn
Which fable places in her breast of wail
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.

And that 's the moral of this composition
If people would but see its real drift
But that they will not do without suspicion
Because all gentle readers have the gift
Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision
While gentle writers also love to lift
their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural
the numbers are too great for them to flatter all.

Rose the sultana from a bed of splendour
Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried
Aloud because his feelings were too tender
To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side
So beautiful that art could little mend her
Though pale with conflicts between love and pride
So agitated was she with her error
She did not even look into the mirror.

Also arose about the self-same time
Perhaps a little later, her great lord
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime
And of a wife by whom he was abhorr'd
A thing of much less import in that clime
At least to those of incomes which afford
the filling up their whole connubial cargo
Than where two wives are under an embargo.

He did not think much on the matter, nor
Indeed on any other as a man
He liked to have a handsome paramour
At hand, as one may like to have a fan
And therefore of Circassians had good store
As an amusement after the Divan
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty
Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty.

And now he rose and after due ablutions
Exacted by the customs of the East
And prayers and other pious evolutions
He drank six cups of coffee at the least
And then withdrew to hear about the Russians
Whose victories had recently increased
In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores

But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander!
Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend
Thine ear, if it should reach and now rhymes wander
Almost as far as Petersburgh and lend
A dreadful impulse to each loud meander
Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend
their roar even with the Baltic's so you be
Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for me.

To call men love-begotten or proclaim
their mothers as the antipodes of Timon
That hater of mankind, would be a shame
A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on
But people's ancestors are history's game
And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on
All generations, I should like to know
What pedigree the best would have to show?

Had Catherine and the sultan understood
their own true interests, which kings rarely know
Until 'tis taught by lessons rather rude
there was a way to end their strife, although
Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good
Without the aid of prince or plenipo
She to dismiss her guards and he his haram
And for their other matters, meet and share 'em.

But as it was, his Highness had to hold
His daily council upon ways and means
How to encounter with this martial scold
This modern Amazon and queen of queans
And the perplexity could not be told
Of all the pillars of the state, which leans
Sometimes a little heavy on the backs
Of those who cannot lay on a new tax.

Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone
Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place
For love or breakfast private, pleasing, lone
And rich with all contrivances which grace
Those gay recesses many a precious stone
Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase
Of porcelain held in the fetter'd flowers
Those captive soothers of a captive's hours.

Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble
Vied with each other on this costly spot
And singing birds without were heard to warble
And the stain'd glass which lighted this fair grot
Varied each ray but all descriptions garble
the true effect, and so we had better not
Be too minute an outline is the best
A lively reader's fancy does the rest.

And here she summon'd Baba, and required
Don Juan at his hands, and information
Of what had pass'd since all the slaves retired
And whether he had occupied their station
If matters had been managed as desired
And his disguise with due consideration
Kept up and above all, the where and how
He had pass'd the night, was what she wish'd to know.

Baba, with some embarrassment, replied
To this long catechism of questions, ask'd
More easily than answer'd, that he had tried
His best to obey in what he had been task'd
But there seem'd something that he wish'd to hide
Which hesitation more betray'd than mask'd
He scratch'd his ear, the infallible resource
To which embarrass'd people have recourse.

Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience
Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed
She liked quick answers in all conversations
And when she saw him stumbling like a steed
In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones
And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed
Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle
And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle.

When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew
To bode him no great good, he deprecated
Her anger, and beseech'd she 'd hear him through
He could not help the thing which he related
then out it came at length, that to Dudu
Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated
But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on
the holy camel's hump, besides the Koran.

the chief dame of the Oda, upon whom
the discipline of the whole haram bore
As soon as they re-enter'd their own room
For Baba's function stopt short at the door
Had settled all nor could he then presume
the aforesaid Baba just then to do more
Without exciting such suspicion as
Might make the matter still worse than it was.

He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure
Juan had not betray'd himself in fact
'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure
Because a foolish or imprudent act
Would not alone have made him insecure
But ended in his being found out and sack'd
And thrown into the sea. Thus Baba spoke
Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no joke.

This he discreetly kept in the background
And talk'd away and might have talk'd till now
For any further answer that he found
So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow
Her cheek turn'd ashes, ears rung, brain whirl'd round
As if she had received a sudden blow
And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly
O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily.

Although she was not of the fainting sort
Baba thought she would faint, but there he err'd
It was but a convulsion, which though short
Can never be described we all have heard
And some of us have felt thus 'all amort,'
When things beyond the common have occurr'd
Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony
What she could ne'er express then how should I?

She stood a moment as a Pythones
Stands on her tripod, agonised, and full
Of inspiration gather'd from distress
When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull
the heart asunder then, as more or lees
their speed abated or their strength grew dull
She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees
And bow'd her throbbing head o'er trembling knees.

Her face declined and was unseen her hair
Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow
Sweeping the marble underneath her chair
Or rather sofa for it was all pillow
A low soft ottoman, and black despair
Stirr'd up and down her bosom like a billow
Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check
Its farther course, but must receive its wreck.

Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping
Conceal'd her features better than a veil
And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping
White, waxen, and as alabaster pale
Would that I were a painter! to be grouping
All that a poet drags into detail
O that my words were colours! but their tints
May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints.

Baba, who knew by experience when to talk
And when to hold his tongue, now held it till
This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk
Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will.
At length she rose up, and began to walk
Slowly along the room, but silent still
And her brow clear'd, but not her troubled eye
the wind was down, but still the sea ran high.

She stopp'd, and raised her head to speak but paused
And then moved on again with rapid pace
then slacken'd it, which is the march most caused
By deep emotion you may sometimes trace
A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed
By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased
By all the demons of all passions, show'd
their work even by the way in which he trode.

Gulbeyaz stopp'd and beckon'd Baba 'Slave!
Bring the two slaves!' she said in a low tone
But one which Baba did not like to brave
And yet he shudder'd, and seem'd rather prone
To prove reluctant, and begg'd leave to crave
Though he well knew the meaning to be shown
What slaves her highness wish'd to indicate
For fear of any error, like the late.

'the Georgian and her paramour,' replied
the imperial bride and added, 'Let the boat
Be ready by the secret portal's side
You know the rest.' the words stuck in her throat
Despite her injured love and fiery pride
And of this Baba willingly took note
And begg'd by every hair of Mahomet's beard
She would revoke the order he had heard.

'To hear is to obey,' he said 'but still
Sultana, think upon the consequence
It is not that I shall not all fulfil
Your orders, even in their severest sense
But such precipitation may end ill
Even at your own imperative expense
I do not mean destruction and exposure
In case of any premature disclosure

'But your own feelings. Even should all the rest
Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide
Already many a once love-beaten breast
Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide
You love this boyish, new, seraglio guest
And if this violent remedy be tried
Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you
That killing him is not the way to cure you.'

'What dost thou know of love or feeling? Wretch!
Begone!' she cried, with kindling eyes 'and do
My bidding!' Baba vanish'd, for to stretch
His own remonstrance further he well knew
Might end in acting as his own 'Jack Ketch'
And though he wish'd extremely to get through
This awkward business without harm to others
He still preferr'd his own neck to another's.

Away he went then upon his commission
Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase
Against all women of whate'er condition
Especially sultanas and their ways
their obstinacy, pride, and indecision
their never knowing their own mind two days
the trouble that they gave, their immorality
Which made him daily bless his own neutrality.

And then he call'd his brethren to his aid
And sent one on a summons to the pair
That they must instantly be well array'd
And above all be comb'd even to a hair
And brought before the empress, who had made
Inquiries after them with kindest care
At which Dudu look'd strange, and Juan silly
But go they must at once, and will I nill I.

And here I leave them at their preparation
For the imperial presence, wherein whether
Gulbeyaz show'd them both commiseration
Or got rid of the parties altogether
Like other angry ladies of her nation
Are things the turning of a hair or feather
May settle but far be 't from me to anticipate
In what way feminine caprice may dissipate.

I leave them for the present with good wishes
Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange
Another part of history for the dishes
Of this our banquet we must sometimes change
And trusting Juan may escape the fishes
Although his situation now seems strange
And scarce secure, as such digressions are fair
the Muse will take a little touch at warfare.

O Love! O Glory! what are ye who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight?
there 's not a meteor in the polar sky
Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.
Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high
Our eyes in search of either lovely light
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

And such as they are, such my present tale is
A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme
A versified Aurora Borealis
Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.
When we know what all are, we must bewail us
But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things for I wish to know
What, after all, are all things but a show?

they accuse me Me the present writer of
the present poem of I know not what
A tendency to under-rate and scoff
At human power and virtue, and all that
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than hath been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
'T is not their fault, nor mine, if this be so
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato
Nor even Diogenes. We live and die
But which is best, you know no more than I.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was
'To know that nothing could be known' a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton that proverb of the mind, alas!
Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent
That he himself felt only 'like a youth
Picking up shells by the great ocean Truth.'

Ecclesiastes said, 'that all is vanity'
Most modern preachers say the same, or show it
By their examples of true Christianity
In short, all know, or very soon may know it
And in this scene of all-confess'd inanity
By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet
Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife
From holding up the nothingness of life?

Dogs, or men! for I flatter you in saying
That ye are dogs your betters far ye may
Read, or read not, what I am now essaying
To show ye what ye are in every way.
As little as the moon stops for the baying
Of wolves, will the bright muse withdraw one ray
From out her skies then howl your idle wrath!
While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path.

'Fierce loves and faithless wars' I am not sure
If this be the right reading 't is no matter
the fact 's about the same, I am secure
I sing them both, and am about to batter
A town which did a famous siege endure
And was beleaguer'd both by land and water
By Souvaroff, or Anglice Suwarrow
Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow.

the fortress is call'd Ismail, and is placed
Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank
With buildings in the Oriental taste
But still a fortress of the foremost rank
Or was at least, unless 't is since defaced
Which with your conquerors is a common prank
It stands some eighty versts from the high sea
And measures round of toises thousands three.

Within the extent of this fortification
A borough is comprised along the height
Upon the left, which from its loftier station
Commands the city, and upon its site
A Greek had raised around this elevation
A quantity of palisades upright
So placed as to impede the fire of those
Who held the place, and to assist the foe's.

This circumstance may serve to give a notion
Of the high talents of this new Vauban
But the town ditch below was deep as ocean
the rampart higher than you 'd wish to hang
But then there was a great want of precaution
Prithee, excuse this engineering slang
Nor work advanced, nor cover'd way was there
To hint at least 'Here is no thoroughfare.'

But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge
And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet
Two batteries, cap-a-pie, as our St. George
Case-mated one, and t' other 'a barbette,'
Of Danube's bank took formidable charge
While two and twenty cannon duly set
Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier
Forty feet high, upon a cavalier.

But from the river the town 's open quite
Because the Turks could never be persuaded
A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight
And such their creed was, till they were invaded
When it grew rather late to set things right.
But as the Danube could not well be waded
they look'd upon the Muscovite flotilla
And only shouted, 'Allah!' and 'Bis Millah!'

the Russians now were ready to attack
But oh, ye goddesses of war and glory!
How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque
Who were immortal, could one tell their story?
Alas! what to their memory can lack?
Achilles' self was not more grim and gory
Than thousands of this new and polish'd nation
Whose names want nothing but pronunciation.

Still I 'll record a few, if but to increase
Our euphony there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff
Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arsniew of modern Greece
And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff
And others of twelve consonants apiece
And more might be found out, if I could poke enough
Into gazettes but Fame capricious strumpet
It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet

And cannot tune those discords of narration
Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme
Yet there were several worth commemoration
As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime
Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration
Of Londonderry drawling against time
Ending in 'ischskin,' 'ousckin,' 'iffskchy,' 'ouski
Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski

Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin
All proper men of weapons, as e'er scoff'd high
Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin
Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti
Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin
Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear
And no more handy substitute been near.

then there were foreigners of much renown
Of various nations, and all volunteers
Not fighting for their country or its crown
But wishing to be one day brigadiers
Also to have the sacking of a town
A pleasant thing to young men at their years.
'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith
Sixteen call'd Thomson, and nineteen named Smith.

Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson all the rest
Had been call'd 'Jemmy,' after the great bard
I don't know whether they had arms or crest
But such a godfather 's as good a card.
Three of the Smiths were Peters but the best
Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward
Was he, since so renown'd 'in country quarters
At Halifax' but now he served the Tartars.

the rest were jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills
But when I 've added that the elder jack Smith
Was born in Cumberland among the hills
And that his father was an honest blacksmith
I 've said all I know of a name that fills
Three lines of the despatch in taking 'Schmacksmith,'
A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein
He fell, immortal in a bulletin.

I wonder although Mars no doubt 's a god
Praise if a man's name in a bulletin
May make up for a bullet in his body?
I hope this little question is no sin
Because, though I am but a simple noddy
I think one Shakspeare puts the same thought in
the mouth of some one in his plays so doting
Which many people pass for wits by quoting.

then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young, and gay
But I 'm too great a patriot to record
their Gallic names upon a glorious day
I 'd rather tell ten lies than say a word
Of truth such truths are treason they betray
their country and as traitors are abhorr'd
Who name the French in English, save to show
How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe.

the Russians, having built two batteries on
An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view
the first was to bombard it, and knock down
the public buildings and the private too
No matter what poor souls might be undone.
the city's shape suggested this, 't is true
Form'd like an amphitheatre, each dwelling
Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.

the second object was to profit by
the moment of the general consternation
To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay nigh
Extremely tranquil, anchor'd at its station
But a third motive was as probably
To frighten them into capitulation
A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors
Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers.

A habit rather blamable, which is
That of despising those we combat with
Common in many cases, was in this
the cause of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith
One of the valorous 'Smiths' whom we shall miss
Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to 'pith'
But 't is a name so spread o'er 'Sir' and 'Madam,'
That one would think the first who bore it 'Adam.'

the Russian batteries were incomplete
Because they were constructed in a hurry
Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet
And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John Murray
When the sale of new books is not so fleet
As they who print them think is necessary
May likewise put off for a time what story
Sometimes calls 'murder,' and at others 'glory.'

Whether it was their engineer's stupidity
their haste, or waste, I neither know nor care
Or some contractor's personal cupidity
Saving his soul by cheating in the ware
Of homicide, but there was no solidity
In the new batteries erected there
they either miss'd, or they were never miss'd
And added greatly to the missing list.

A sad miscalculation about distance
Made all their naval matters incorrect
Three fireships lost their amiable existence
Before they reach'd a spot to take effect
the match was lit too soon, and no assistance
Could remedy this lubberly defect
they blew up in the middle of the river
While, though 't was dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.

At seven they rose, however, and survey'd
the Russ flotilla getting under way
'T was nine, when still advancing undismay'd
Within a cable's length their vessels lay
Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade
Which was return'd with interest, I may say
And by a fire of musketry and grape
And shells and shot of every size and shape.

For six hours bore they without intermission
the Turkish fire, and aided by their own
Land batteries, work'd their guns with great precision
At length they found mere cannonade alone
By no means would produce the town's submission
And made a signal to retreat at one.
One bark blew up, a second near the works
Running aground, was taken by the Turks.

the Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men
But when they saw the enemy retire
their Delhis mann'd some boats, and sail'd again
And gall'd the Russians with a heavy fire
And tried to make a landing on the main
But here the effect fell short of their desire
Count Damas drove them back into the water
Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter.

'If' says the historian here 'I could report
All that the Russians did upon this day
I think that several volumes would fall short
And I should still have many things to say'
And so he says no more but pays his court
To some distinguish'd strangers in that fray
the Prince de Ligne, and Langeron, and Damas
Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.

This being the case, may show us what Fame is
For out of these three 'preux Chevaliers,' how
Many of common readers give a guess
That such existed? and they may live now
For aught we know. Renown 's all hit or miss
there 's fortune even in fame, we must allow.
'T is true the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne
Have half withdrawn from him oblivion's screen.

But here are men who fought in gallant actions
As gallantly as ever heroes fought
But buried in the heap of such transactions
their names are rarely found, nor often sought.
Thus even good fame may suffer sad contractions
And is extinguish'd sooner than she ought
Of all our modern battles, I will bet
You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette.

In short, this last attack, though rich in glory
Show'd that somewhere, somehow, there was a fault
And Admiral Ribas known in Russian story
Most strongly recommended an assault
In which he was opposed by young and hoary
Which made a long debate but I must halt
For if I wrote down every warrior's speech
I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach.

there was a man, if that he was a man
Not that his manhood could be call'd in question
For had he not been Hercules, his span
Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
the soil of the green province he had wasted
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.

This was Potemkin a great thing in days
When homicide and harlotry made great
If stars and titles could entail long praise
His glory might half equal his estate.
This fellow, being six foot high, could raise
A kind of phantasy proportionate
In the then sovereign of the Russian people
Who measured men as you would do a steeple.

While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent
A courier to the prince, and he succeeded
In ordering matters after his own bent
I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded
But shortly he had cause to be content.
In the mean time, the batteries proceeded
And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border
Were briskly fired and answer'd in due order.

But on the thirteenth, when already part
Of the troops were embark'd, the siege to raise
A courier on the spur inspired new heart
Into all panters for newspaper praise
As well as dilettanti in war's art
By his despatches couch'd in pithy phrase
Announcing the appointment of that lover of
Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff.

the letter of the prince to the same marshal
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause
Been one to which a good heart could be partial
Defence of freedom, country, or of laws
But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all
With its proud brow, it merits slight applause
Save for its style, which said, all in a trice
'You will take Ismail at whatever price.'

'Let there be light! said God, and there was light!'
'Let there be blood!' says man, and there 's a seal
the fiat of this spoil'd child of the Night
For Day ne'er saw his merits could decree
More evil in an hour, than thirty bright
Summers could renovate, though they should be
Lovely as those which ripen'd Eden's fruit
For war cuts up not only branch, but root.

Our friends the Turks, who with loud 'Allahs' now
Began to signalise the Russ retreat
Were damnably mistaken few are slow
In thinking that their enemy is beat
Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though
I never think about it in a heat
But here I say the Turks were much mistaken
Who hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their bacon.

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew
In sight two horsemen, who were deem'd Cossacques
For some time, till they came in nearer view.
they had but little baggage at their backs
For there were but three shirts between the two
But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks
Till, in approaching, were at length descried
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.

'Great joy to London now!' says some great fool
When London had a grand illumination
Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull
Is of all dreams the first hallucination
So that the streets of colour'd lamps are full
That Sage said john surrenders at discretion
His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense
To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense.

'T is strange that he should farther 'damn his eyes,'
For they are damn'd that once all-famous oath
Is to the devil now no farther prize
Since John has lately lost the use of both.
Debt he calls wealth, and taxes Paradise
And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth
Which stare him in the face, he won't examine
Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine.

But to the tale great joy unto the camp!
To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque
O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp
Presaging a most luminous attack
Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp
Which leads beholders on a boggy walk
He flitted to and fro a dancing light
Which all who saw it follow'd, wrong or right.

But certes matters took a different face
there was enthusiasm and much applause
the fleet and camp saluted with great grace
And all presaged good fortune to their cause.
Within a cannon-shot length of the place
they drew, constructed ladders, repair'd flaws
In former works, made new, prepared fascines
And all kinds of benevolent machines.

'T is thus the spirit of a single mind
Makes that of multitudes take one direction
As roll the waters to the breathing wind
Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection
Or as a little dog will lead the blind
Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection
By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual
Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.

the whole camp rung with joy you would have thought
That they were going to a marriage feast
This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught
Since there is discord after both at least
there was not now a luggage boy but sought
Danger and spoil with ardour much increased
And why? because a little odd old man
Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van.

But so it was and every preparation
Was made with all alacrity the first
Detachment of three columns took its station
And waited but the signal's voice to burst
Upon the foe the second's ordination
Was also in three columns, with a thirst
For glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter
the third, in columns two, attack'd by water.

New batteries were erected, and was held
A general council, in which unanimity
That stranger to most councils, here prevail'd
As sometimes happens in a great extremity
And every difficulty being dispell'd
Glory began to dawn with due sublimity
While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it
Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet

It is an actual fact, that he, commander
In chief, in proper person deign'd to drill
the awkward squad, and could afford to squander
His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil
Just as you 'd break a sucking salamander
To swallow flame, and never take it ill
He show'd them how to mount a ladder which
Was not like Jacob's or to cross a ditch.

Also he dress'd up, for the nonce, fascines
Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks
And made them charge with bayonet these machines
By way of lesson against actual Turks
And when well practised in these mimic scenes
He judged them proper to assail the works
At which your wise men sneer'd in phrases witty
He made no answer but he took the city.

Most things were in this posture on the eve
Of the assault, and all the camp was in
A stern repose which you would scarce conceive
Yet men resolved to dash through thick and thin
Are very silent when they once believe
That all is settled there was little din
For some were thinking of their home and friends
And others of themselves and latter ends.

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert
Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering
For the man was, we safely may assert
A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering
Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt
Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering
Now Mars, now Momus and when bent to storm
A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.

the day before the assault, while upon drill
For this great conqueror play'd the corporal
Some Cossacques, hovering like hawks round a hill
Had met a party towards the twilight's fall
One of whom spoke their tongue or well or ill
'T was much that he was understood at all
But whether from his voice, or speech, or manner
they found that he had fought beneath their banner.

Whereon immediately at his request
they brought him and his comrades to head-quarters
their dress was Moslem, but you might have guess'd
That these were merely masquerading Tartars
And that beneath each Turkish-fashion'd vest
Lurk'd Christianity which sometimes barters
Her inward grace for outward show, and makes
It difficult to shun some strange mistakes.

Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt
Before a company of Calmucks, drilling
Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert
And lecturing on the noble art of killing
For deeming human clay but common dirt
This great philosopher was thus instilling
His maxims, which to martial comprehension
Proved death in battle equal to a pension

Suwarrow, when he saw this company
Of Cossacques and their prey, turn'd round and cast
Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye
'Whence come ye?' 'From Constantinople last
Captives just now escaped,' was the reply.
'What are ye?' 'What you see us.' Briefly pass'd
This dialogue for he who answer'd knew
To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.

'Your names?' 'Mine 's Johnson, and my comrade 's Juan
the other two are women, and the third
Is neither man nor woman.' the chief threw on
the party a slight glance, then said, 'I have heard
Your name before, the second is a new one
To bring the other three here was absurd
But let that pass I think I have heard your name
In the Nikolaiew regiment?' 'the same.'

'You served at Widdin?' 'Yes.' 'You led the attack?'
'I did.' 'What next?' 'I really hardly know.'
'You were the first i' the breach?' 'I was not slack
At least to follow those who might be so.'
'What follow'd?' 'A shot laid me on my back
And I became a prisoner to the foe.'
'You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded
Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded.

'Where will you serve?' 'Where'er you please.' 'I know
You like to be the hope of the forlorn
And doubtless would be foremost on the foe
After the hardships you 've already borne.
And this young fellow say what can he do?
He with the beardless chin and garments torn?'
'Why, general, if he hath no greater fault
In war than love, he had better lead the assault.'

'He shall if that he dare.' Here Juan bow'd
Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow
Continued 'Your old regiment's allow'd
By special providence, to lead to-morrow
Or it may be to-night, the assault I have vow'd
To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow
Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk
Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque.

'So now, my lads, for glory!' Here he turn'd
And drill'd away in the most classic Russian
Until each high, heroic bosom burn'd
For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion
A preacher had held forth who nobly spurn'd
All earthly goods save tithes and bade them push on
To slay the Pagans who resisted, battering
the armies of the Christian Empress Catherine.

Johnson, who knew by this long colloquy
Himself a favourite, ventured to address
Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high
In his resumed amusement. 'I confess
My debt in being thus allow'd to die
Among the foremost but if you 'd express
Explicitly our several posts, my friend
And self would know what duty to attend.'

'Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you
Will join your former regiment, which should be
Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to
Here he call'd up a Polish orderly
His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew
the stranger stripling may remain with me
He 's a fine boy. the women may be sent
To the other baggage, or to the sick tent.'

But here a sort of scene began to ensue
the ladies, who by no means had been bred
To be disposed of in a way so new
Although their haram education led
Doubtless to that of doctrines the most true
Passive obedience, now raised up the head
With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung
their arms, as hens their wings about their young

O'er the promoted couple of brave men
Who were thus honour'd by the greatest chief
That ever peopled hell with heroes slain
Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.
O, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!
O, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf
Of thine imaginary deathless tree
Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.

Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears
And not much sympathy for blood, survey'd
the women with their hair about their ears
And natural agonies, with a slight shade
Of feeling for however habit sears
Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade
Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow
Will touch even heroes and such was Suwarrow.

He said, and in the kindest Calmuck tone
'Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean
By bringing women here? they shall be shown
All the attention possible, and seen
In safety to the waggons, where alone
In fact they can be safe. You should have been
Aware this kind of baggage never thrives
Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives.'

'May it please your excellency,' thus replied
Our British friend, 'these are the wives of others
And not our own. I am too qualified
By service with my military brothers
To break the rules by bringing one's own bride
Into a camp I know that nought so bothers
the hearts of the heroic on a charge
As leaving a small family at large.

'But these are but two Turkish ladies, who
With their attendant aided our escape
And afterwards accompanied us through
A thousand perils in this dubious shape.
To me this kind of life is not so new
To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape.
I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely
Request that they may both be used genteelly.'

Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes
Look'd on as if in doubt if they could trust
their own protectors nor was their surprise
Less than their grief and truly not less just
To see an old man, rather wild than wise
In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust
Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean
More fear'd than all the sultans ever seen.

For every thing seem'd resting on his nod
As they could read in all eyes. Now to them
Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god
To see the sultan, rich in many a gem
Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad
That royal bird, whose tail 's a diadem
With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt
How power could condescend to do without.

John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay
Though little versed in feelings oriental
Suggested some slight comfort in his way
Don Juan, who was much more sentimental
Swore they should see him by the dawn of day
Or that the Russian army should repent all
And, strange to say, they found some consolation
In this for females like exaggeration.

And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses
they parted for the present these to await
According to the artillery's hits or misses
What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate
Uncertainty is one of many blisses
A mortgage on Humanity's estate
While their beloved friends began to arm
To burn a town which never did them harm.

Suwarrow, who but saw things in the gross
Being much too gross to see them in detail
Who calculated life as so much dross
And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail
And cared as little for his army's loss
So that their efforts should at length prevail
As wife and friends did for the boils of job
What was 't to him to hear two women sob?

Nothing. the work of glory still went on
In preparations for a cannonade
As terrible as that of Ilion
If Homer had found mortars ready made
But now, instead of slaying Priam's son
We only can but talk of escalade
Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets
Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.

O, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm
All cars, though long all ages, though so short
By merely wielding with poetic arm
Arms to which men will never more resort
Unless gunpowder should be found to harm
Much less than is the hope of every court
Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy
But they will not find Liberty a Troy

O, thou eternal Homer! I have now
To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain
With deadlier engines and a speedier blow
Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign
And yet, like all men else, I must allow
To vie with thee would be about as vain
As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood
But still we moderns equal you in blood

If not in poetry, at least in fact
And fact is truth, the grand desideratum!
Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act
there should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum.
But now the town is going to be attack'd
Great deeds are doing how shall I relate 'em?
Souls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches
To colour up his rays from your despatches.

O, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!
O, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wounded!
Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty
When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!
O, Caesar's Commentaries! now impart, ye
Shadows of glory! lest I be confounded
A portion of your fading twilight hues
So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse.

When I call 'fading' martial immortality
I mean, that every age and every year
And almost every day, in sad reality
Some sucking hero is compell'd to rear
Who, when we come to sum up the totality
Of deeds to human happiness most dear
Turns out to be a butcher in great business
Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness.

Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet
Are things immortal to immortal man
As purple to the Babylonian harlot
An uniform to boys is like a fan
To women there is scarce a crimson varlet
But deems himself the first in Glory's van.
But Glory's glory and if you would find
What that is ask the pig who sees the wind!

At least he feels it, and some say he sees
Because he runs before it like a pig
Or, if that simple sentence should displease
Say, that he scuds before it like a brig
A schooner, or but it is time to ease
This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.
the next shall ring a peal to shake all people
Like a bob-major from a village steeple.

Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night
the hum of armies gathering rank on rank!
Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight
Along the leaguer'd wall and bristling bank
Of the arm'd river, while with straggling light
the stars peep through the vapours dim and dank
Which curl in curious wreaths how soon the smoke
Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!

Here pause we for the present as even then
That awful pause, dividing life from death
Struck for an instant on the hearts of men
Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!
A moment and all will be life again!
the march! the charge! the shouts of either faith!
Hurra! and Allah! and one moment more
the death-cry drowning in the battle's roar.

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 dream
Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds
At 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 men
To 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 fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain
Immediately in others grew again.

History can only take things in the gross
But could we know them in detail, perchance
In 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 more
Of 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 stun
the servile and the vain, such names will be
A watchword till the future shall be free.

the night was dark, and the thick mist allow'd
Nought 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 loud
Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame
the ear far more than thunder for Heaven's flashes
Spare, or smite rarely man's make millions ashes!

the column order'd on the assault scarce pass'd
Beyond 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 't were beneath the mighty noises
While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when
the restless Titan hiccups in his den.

And one enormous shout of 'Allah!' rose
In the same moment, loud as even the roar
Of war's most mortal engines, to their foes
Hurling defiance city, stream, and shore
Resounded 'Allah!' and the clouds which close
With thick'ning canopy the conflict o'er
Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through
All 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, and
Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.

the Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee
Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball between
His cap and head, which proves the head to be
Aristocratic as was ever seen
Because it then received no injury
More than the cap in fact, the ball could mean
No harm unto a right legitimate head
'Ashes to ashes' why not lead to lead?

Also the General Markow, Brigadier
Insisting on removal of the prince
Amidst 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 evince
His 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 pills
Like 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 ills
Past, present, and to come but all may yield
To the true portrait of one battle-field.

there the still varying pangs, which multiply
Until their very number makes men hard
By the infinities of agony
Which meet the gaze whate'er it may regard
the groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turn'd back within its socket, these reward
Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest
May 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 age
Maintain'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 wage
Your wars eternally, besides enjoying
Half-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying.

the troops, already disembark'd, push'd on
To 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 hot
the fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded
Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot
And shells or hells, it could not more have goaded.
Of officers a third fell on the spot
A thing which victory by no means boded
To 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 turn
A 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 number
To the Gazette which doubtless fairly dealt
By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber
In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt
their clay for the last time their souls encumber
Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt
In the despatch I knew a man whose loss
Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose.

Juan and Johnson join'd a certain corps
And fought away with might and main, not knowing
the 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 mire
Of dead and dying thousands, sometimes gaining
A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher
To 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 raining
Instead of heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er
A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore.

Though 't was Don Juan's first of fields, and though
the nightly muster and the silent march
In the chill dark, when courage does not glow
So much as under a triumphal arch
Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw
A 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 begun
With 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 one
Warm bout are broken into their new tricks
And fight like fiends for pay or politics.

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime
Old 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 clime
With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic
Of Dido's alphabet and this is rational
As 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 throng
To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure
No less delighted to employ his leisure

But always without malice if he warr'd
Or loved, it was with what we call 'the best
Intentions,' which form all mankind's trump card
To be produced when brought up to the test.
the statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer ward
Off each attack, when people are in quest
Of their designs, by saying they meant well
'T is pity 'that such meaning should pave hell.'

I almost lately have begun to doubt
Whether 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 without
Those ancient good intentions, which once shaved
And smooth'd the brimstone of that street of hell
Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides
Warrior from warrior in their grim career
Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides
Just 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 might
Be that the greater part were kill'd or wounded
And that the rest had faced unto the right
About a circumstance which has confounded
Caesar himself, who, in the very sight
Of his whole army, which so much abounded
In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield
And rally back his Romans to the field.

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was
No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who fought
He knew not why, arriving at this pass
Stopp'd for a minute, as perhaps he ought
For a much longer time then, like an as
Start not, kind reader since great Homer thought
This simile enough for Ajax, Juan
Perhaps 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 day
Over the hills, a fire enough to blind
Those who dislike to look upon a fray
He stumbled on, to try if he could find
A path, to add his own slight arm and forces
To corps, the greater part of which were corses.

Perceiving then no more the commandant
Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had
Quite disappear'd the gods know howl I can't
Account for every thing which may look bad
In history but we at least may grant
It 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 make
His way to where he knew not single handed
As travellers follow over bog and brake
An 'ignis fatuus' or as sailors stranded
Unto 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 veins
Fill'd as with lightning for his spirit shared
the 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 shaken
By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!

And as he rush'd along, it came to pass he
Fell in with what was late the second column
Under the orders of the General Lascy
But now reduced, as is a bulky volume
Into an elegant extract much less massy
Of heroism, and took his place with solemn
Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces
And levell'd weapons still against the glacis.

Just at this crisis up came Johnson too
Who had 'retreated,' as the phrase is when
Men run away much rather than go through
Destruction's jaws into the devil's den
But Johnson was a clever fellow, who
Knew when and how 'to cut and come again,'
And never ran away, except when running
Was nothing but a valorous kind of cunning.

And so, when all his corps were dead or dying
Except Don Juan, a mere novice, whose
More virgin valour never dreamt of flying
From ignorance of danger, which indues
Its votaries, like innocence relying
On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews
Johnson retired a little, just to rally
Those 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 not
In this extensive city, sore beset
By Christian soldiery, a single spot
Which did not combat like the devil, as yet
He found a number of Chasseurs, all scatter'd
By the resistance of the chase they batter'd.

And these he call'd on and, what 's strange, they came
Unto his call, unlike 'the spirits from
the vasty deep,' to whom you may exclaim
Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home.
their reasons were uncertainty, or shame
At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb
And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds
Makes 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 soon
We shall not see his likeness he could kill his
Man quite as quietly as blows the monsoon
Her 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 so
Upon reflection, knowing that behind
He would find others who would fain be rid so
Of idle apprehensions, which like wind
Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so
Oft 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 return
With 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 they
the first time thought quite terrible enough
To fly from, malgre all which people say
Of glory, and all that immortal stuff
Which 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 frail
As any other boon for which men stickle.
the Turkish batteries thrash'd them like a flail
Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle
Putting the very bravest, who were knock'd
Upon the head, before their guns were cock'd.

the Turks, behind the traverses and flanks
Of the next bastion, fired away like devils
And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks
However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels
Towns, 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 now
All 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 show
their martial faces on the parapet
Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.

But those who scaled, found out that their advance
Was favour'd by an accident or blunder
the Greek or Turkish Cohorn's ignorance
Had palisado'd in a way you 'd wonder
To see in forts of Netherlands or France
Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under
Right in the middle of the parapet
Just named, these palisades were primly set

So that on either side some nine or ten
Paces were left, whereon you could contrive
To 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 strive
Was, 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 occasions
Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst
Out between friends as well as allied nations
the Briton must be bold who really durst
Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience
As say that Wellington at Waterloo
Was 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 awe
Into the hearts of those who fought till now
As tigers combat with an empty craw
the Duke of Wellington had ceased to show
His 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 sings
the people by and by will be the stronger
the veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings
So much into the raw as quite to wrong her
Beyond the rules of posting, and the mob
At 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 men
Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant.
then comes 'the tug of war' 't will come again
I rather doubt and I would fain say 'fie on 't,'
If I had not perceived that revolution
Alone can save the earth from hell's pollution.

But to continue I say not the first
But of the first, our little friend Don Juan
Walk'd o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed
Amidst such scenes though this was quite a new one
To him, and I should hope to most. the thirst
Of 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'er
the man in all the rest might be confest
To him it was Elysium to be there
And he could even withstand that awkward test
Which 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 bind
Humanity must yield to steel and flame
And he whose very body was all mind
Flung here by fate or circumstance, which tame
the 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 existence
Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight
the lightest being the safest at a distance
He hated cruelty, as all men hate
Blood, until heated and even then his own
At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan.

the General Lascy, who had been hard press'd
Seeing arrive an aid so opportune
As were some hundred youngsters all abreast
Who came as if just dropp'd down from the moon
To Juan, who was nearest him, address'd
His 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, knew
As much of German as of Sanscrit, and
In answer made an inclination to
the 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 speak
No common language and besides, in time
Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek
Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime
Is perpetrated ere a word can break
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime
In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer
there cannot be much conversation there.

And therefore all we have related in
Two long octaves, pass'd in a little minute
But in the same small minute, every sin
Contrived 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 noise
Of 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 be
Of his opinion, when I see cast down
Rome, 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, he
Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

Crime came not near him she is not the child
Of solitude Health shrank not from him for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild
Where if men seek her not, and death be more
their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled
By habit to what their own hearts abhor
In cities caged. the present case in point I
Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety

And what 's still stranger, left behind a name
For 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 child
Of Nature, or the man of Ross run wild.

'T is 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 station
Where there were fewer houses and more ease
the inconvenience of civilisation
Is, 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 grew
A sylvan tribe of children of the chase
Whose young, unwaken'd world was ever new
Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view
A 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 prey
Of 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 solitudes
Of 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 made
Its sanguinary way good then another
the reeking bayonet and the flashing blade
Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother
With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid
Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother
the breath of morn and man, where foot by foot
the 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 crack
His 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's
Was much regretted, for the Moslem men
Threw them all down into the ditch again.

And had it not been for some stray troops landing
they knew not where, being carried by the stream
To 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 lain
Where 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 groups
Of 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 topography
Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases
their chiefs to order, were all cut to pieces.

their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder'd
Upon them, ne'ertheless had reach'd the rampart
And naturally thought they could have plunder'd
the 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 taking
Fatal to bishops as to soldiers these
Cossacques 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 Yesouskoi
March'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 turn
Slain by some Mussulmans, who would not yet
Without resistance, see their city burn.
the walls were won, but 't was an even bet
Which of the armies would have cause to mourn
'T was 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 such
Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on
When matters must be carried by the touch
Of 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 time
Before, being badly seconded just then
Was made at length with those who dared to climb
the death-disgorging rampart once again
And though the Turk's resistance was sublime
they took the bastion, which the Seraskier
Defended 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'd
To make him prisoner, was also dish'd

For all the answer to his proposition
Was 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 requisition
On such occasions not a single head
Was 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 street
Where fights not to the last some desperate heart
For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.
Here War forgot his own destructive art
In more destroying Nature and the heat
Of carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime
Engender'd monstrous shapes of every crime.

A Russian officer, in martial tread
Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel
Seized fast, as if 't were by the serpent's head
Whose 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 foot
Of a foe o'er him, snatch'd at it, and bit
the very tendon which is most acute
That which some ancient Muse or modern wit
Named after thee, Achilles, and quite through 't
He made the teeth meet, nor relinquish'd it
Even with his life for but they lie 't is said
To the live leg still clung the sever'd head.

However this may be, 't is pretty sure
the 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 cure
His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed
More 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 't is the part
Of a true poet to escape from fiction
Whene'er he can for there is little art
In leaving verse more free from the restriction
Of truth than prose, unless to suit the mart
For what is sometimes called poetic diction
And that outrageous appetite for lies
Which 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 flow
Rolls by the city wall but deed nor word
Acknowledge aught of dread of death or foe
In vain the yell of victory is roar'd
By the advancing Muscovite the groan
Of 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 leaves
When 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 't is not
My cue for any time to be terrific
For checker'd as is seen our human lot
With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific
Of melancholy merriment, to quote
Too 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 crimes
Is 'quite refreshing,' in the affected phrase
Of 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 blaze
Of conquest and its consequences, which
Make epic poesy so rare and rich.

Upon a taken bastion, where there lay
Thousands of slaughter'd men, a yet warm group
Of murder'd women, who had found their way
To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop
And shudder while, as beautiful as May
A female child of ten years tried to stoop
And hide her little palpitating breast
Amidst the bodies lull'd in bloody rest.

Two villainous Cossacques pursued the child
With flashing eyes and weapons match'd with them
the rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild
Has 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 employ
All 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 seek
If there might be chirurgeons who could solder
the wounds they richly merited, and shriek
their baffled rage and pain while waxing colder
As he turn'd o'er each pale and gory cheek
Don Juan raised his little captive from
the heap a moment more had made her tomb.

And she was chill as they, and on her face
A slender streak of blood announced how near
Her fate had been to that of all her race
For the same blow which laid her mother here
Had 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'd
Upon each other, with dilated glance
In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix'd
With joy to save, and dread of some mischance
Unto his protege while hers, transfix'd
With 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 commonplace
On great occasions, such as an attack
On cities, as hath been the present case
Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back
Exclaiming 'Juan! Juan! On, boy! brace
Your arm, and I 'll bet Moscow to a dollar
That you and I will win St. George's collar.

'the Seraskier is knock'd upon the head
But the stone bastion still remains, wherein
the old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead
Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din
Of our artillery and his own 't is said
Our 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, 'Look
Upon this child I saved her must not leave
Her life to chance but point me out some nook
Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve
And I am with you.' Whereon Johnson took
A glance around and shrugg'd and twitch'd his sleeve
And black silk neckcloth and replied, 'You 're right
Poor thing! what 's to be done? I 'm puzzled quite.'

Said Juan 'Whatsoever is to be
Done, I 'll not quit her till she seems secure
Of 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 endure
Whate'er is to be borne but not resign
This 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 choose
Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity
Hark! how the roar increases! no excuse
Will 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 until
Johnson, who really loved him in his way
Pick'd out amongst his followers with some skill
Such as he thought the least given up to prey
And swearing if the infant came to ill
That 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 plunder
In fair proportion with their comrades then
Juan 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 God
May have another name for half we scan
As human beings, or his ways are odd.
But to our subject a brave Tartar khan
Or 'sultan,' as the author to whose nod
In prose I bend my humble verse doth call
This 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 none
Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy
He never would believe the city won
While courage clung but to a single twig. Am I
Describing 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 demigods
Are they now furious as the sweeping wave
Now moved with pity even as sometimes nods
the rugged tree unto the summer wind
Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

But he would not be taken, and replied
To all the propositions of surrender
By 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, who
Expended all their Eastern phraseology
In begging him, for God's sake, just to show
So much less fight as might form an apology
For them in saving such a desperate foe
He hew'd away, like doctors of theology
When they dispute with sceptics and with curses
Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.

Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both
Juan 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 wroth
At 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'd
Of 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 Nazarene
As 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 quarter
On 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 khan
In heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess
But doubtless they prefer a fine young man
To tough old heroes, and can do no less
And that 's the cause no doubt why, if we scan
A 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 pleasure
In lopping off your lately married men
Before the bridal hours have danced their measure
And the sad, second moon grows dim again
Or dull repentance hath had dreary leisure
To wish him back a bachelor now and then.
And thus your houri it may be disputes
Of 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 heaven
And 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 Paradise
With all its veil of mystery drawn apart
And bright eternity without disguise
On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart
With prophets, houris, angels, saints, descried
In one voluptuous blaze, and then he died

But with a heavenly rapture on his face.
the good old khan, who long had ceased to see
Houris, or aught except his florid race
Who grew like cedars round him gloriously
When he beheld his latest hero grace
the earth, which he became like a fell'd tree
Paused for a moment, from the fight, and cast
A 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 concede
Quarter, in case he bade them not 'aroynt!'
As he before had done. He did not heed
their 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 't was a transient tremor with a spring
Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung
As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing
Against the light wherein she dies he clung
Closer, 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.

'T is strange enough the rough, tough soldiers, who
Spared neither sex nor age in their career
Of 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 tear
Flow'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 inquire
If yet the city's rest were won or lost
And being told the latter, sent a bey
To answer Ribas' summons to give way.

In the mean time, cross-legg'd, with great sang-froid
Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking
Tobacco on a little carpet Troy
Saw nothing like the scene around yet looking
With martial stoicism, nought seem'd to annoy
His stern philosophy but gently stroking
His 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 yield
Himself or bastion, little matter'd now
His stubborn valour was no future shield.
Ismail 's no more! the crescent's silver bow
Sunk, and the crimson cross glared o'er the field
But red with no redeeming gore the glow
Of 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 sad
As hell mere mortals who their power abuse
Was here as heretofore and since let loose.

If here and there some transient trait of pity
Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through
Its bloody bond, and saved perhaps some pretty
Child, 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 Gazette
Are purchased by all agonies and crimes
Or if these do not move you, don't forget
Such 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 scream
Rose 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 't is fit to praise
the 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 station
In 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 less
Might here and there occur some violation
In the other line but not to such excess
As 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 mark
their friends from foes, besides such things from haste
Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark
Of 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 ensued
To those who had felt the inconvenient state
Of 'single blessedness,' and thought it good
Since it was not their fault, but only fate
To bear these crosses for each waning prude
To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding
Without the expense and the suspense of bedding.

Some voices of the buxom middle-aged
Were 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 hid
In darkness I can only hope they did.

Suwarrow now was conqueror a match
For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.
While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch
Blazed, 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!' Powers
Eternal! 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 on
the fate of nations but this Russ so witty
Could 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 stones
To rise against earth's tyrants. Never let it
Be said that we still truckle unto thrones
But ye our children's children! think how we
Show'd what things were before the world was free!

That hour is not for us, but 't is for you
And as, in the great joy of your millennium
You hardly will believe such things were true
As 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 'em
More 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 be
As 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 far
As the first Canto promised. You have now
Had 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 bow
Than 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 befall
the 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, because
He had behaved with courage and humanity
Which last men like, when they have time to pause
From their ferocities produced by vanity.
His little captive gain'd him some applause
For saving her amidst the wild insanity
Of carnage, and I think he was more glad in her
Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.

the Moslem orphan went with her protector
For she was homeless, houseless, helpless all
Her 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 spectre
Of what it had been there the Muezzin's cal
To prayer was heard no more! and Juan wept
And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.

O, Wellington! or 'Villainton' for Fame
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways
France could not even conquer your great name
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same
You have obtain'd great pensions and much praise
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay
Humanity would rise, and thunder 'Nay!'

I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinet's affair in fact, 't was shabby
And like some other things won't do to tell
Upon your tomb in Westminster's old abbey.
Upon the rest 't is not worth while to dwell
Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby
But though your years as man tend fast to zero
In fact your grace is still but a young hero.

Though Britain owes and pays you too so much
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more
You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch
A prop not quite so certain as before
the Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor
I wish your bards would sing it rather better.

You are 'the best of cut-throats' do not start
the phrase is Shakspeare's, and not misapplied
War 's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art
Unless her cause by right be sanctified.
If you have acted once a generous part
the world, not the world's masters, will decide
And I shall be delighted to learn who
Save you and yours, have gain'd by Waterloo?

I am no flatterer you 've supp'd full of flattery
they say you like it too 't is no great wonder.
He whose whole life has been assault and battery
At last may get a little tired of thunder
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder
Call'd 'Saviour of the Nations' not yet saved
And 'Europe's Liberator' still enslaved.

I 've done. Now go and dine from off the plate
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils
And send the sentinel before your gate
A slice or two from your luxurious meals
He fought, but has not fed so well of late.
Some hunger, too, they say the people feels
there is no doubt that you deserve your ration
But pray give back a little to the nation.

I don't mean to reflect a man so great as
You, my lord duke! is far above reflection
the high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus
With modern history has but small connection
Though as an Irishman you love potatoes
You need not take them under your direction
And half a million for your Sabine farm
Is rather dear! I 'm sure I mean no harm.

Great men have always scorn'd great recompenses
Epaminondas saved his thebes, and died
Not leaving even his funeral expenses
George Washington had thanks and nought beside
Except the all-cloudless glory which few men's is
To free his country Pitt too had his pride
And as a high-soul'd minister of state is
Renown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis.

Never had mortal man such opportunity
Except Napoleon, or abused it more
You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity
Of tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore
And now what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?
Now that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er?
Go! hear it in your famish'd country's cries!
Behold the world! and curse your victories!

As these new cantos touch on warlike feats
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe
Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes
But which 't is time to teach the hireling tribe
Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts
Must be recited, and without a bribe.
You did great things but not being great in mind
Have left undone the greatest and mankind.

Death laughs Go ponder o'er the skeleton
With which men image out the unknown thing
That hides the past world, like to a set sun
Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring
Death laughs at all you weep for look upon
This hourly dread of all! whose threaten'd sting
Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath
Mark how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

Mark how it laughs and scorns at all you are!
And yet was what you are from ear to ear
It laughs not there is now no fleshy bar
So call'd the Antic long hath ceased to hear
But still he smiles and whether near or far
He strips from man that mantle far more dear
Than even the tailor's, his incarnate skin
White, black, or copper the dead bones will grin.

And thus Death laughs, it is sad merriment
But still it is so and with such example
Why should not Life be equally content
With his superior, in a smile to trample
Upon the nothings which are daily spent
Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample
Than the eternal deluge, which devours
Suns as rays worlds like atoms years like hours?

'To be, or not to be? that is the question,'
Says Shakspeare, who just now is much in fashion.
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion
Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion
But would much rather have a sound digestion
Than Buonaparte's cancer could I dash on
Through fifty victories to shame or fame
Without a stomach what were a good name?

'O dura ilia messorum!' 'Oh
Ye rigid guts of reapers!' I translate
For the great benefit of those who know
What indigestion is that inward fate
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.
A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate
Let this one toil for bread that rack for rent
He who sleeps best may be the most content.

'To be, or not to be?' Ere I decide
I should be glad to know that which is being?
'T is true we speculate both far and wide
And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing
For my part, I 'll enlist on neither side
Until I see both sides for once agreeing.
For me, I sometimes think that life is death
Rather than life a mere affair of breath.

'Que scais-je?' was the motto of Montaigne
As also of the first academicians
That all is dubious which man may attain
Was one of their most favourite positions.
there 's no such thing as certainty, that 's plain
As any of Mortality's conditions
So little do we know what we 're about in
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float
Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?
Your wise men don't know much of navigation
And swimming long in the abyss of thought
Is apt to tire a calm and shallow station
Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers
Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.

'But heaven,' as Cassio says, 'is above all
No more of this, then, let us pray!' We have
Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall
Which tumbled all mankind into the grave
Besides fish, beasts, and birds. 'the sparrow's fall
Is special providence,' though how it gave
Offence, we know not probably it perch'd
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly search'd.

O, ye immortal gods! what is theogony?
O, thou too, mortal man! what is philanthropy?
O, world! which was and is, what is cosmogony?
Some people have accused me of misanthropy
And yet I know no more than the mahogany
That forms this desk, of what they mean lykanthropy
I comprehend, for without transformation
Men become wolves on any slight occasion.

But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind
Like Moses, or Melancthon, who have ne'er
Done anything exceedingly unkind
And though I could not now and then forbear
Following the bent of body or of mind
Have always had a tendency to spare
Why do they call me misanthrope? Because
they hate me, not I them. and here we 'll pause.

'T is time we should proceed with our good poem
For I maintain that it is really good
Not only in the body but the proem
However little both are understood
Just now, but by and by the Truth will show 'em
Herself in her sublimest attitude
And till she doth, I fain must be content
To share her beauty and her banishment.

Our hero and, I trust, kind reader, yours
Was left upon his way to the chief city
Of the immortal Peter's polish'd boors
Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.
I know its mighty empire now allures
Much flattery even Voltaire's, and that 's a pity.
For me, I deem an absolute autocrat
Not a barbarian, but much worse than that.

And I will war, at least in words and should
My chance so happen deeds, with all who war
With Thought and of Thought's foes by far most rude
Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.
I know not who may conquer if I could
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar
To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every depotism in every nation.

It is not that I adulate the people
Without me, there are demagogues enough
And infidels, to pull down every steeple
And set up in their stead some proper stuff.
Whether they may sow scepticism to reap hell
As is the Christian dogma rather rough
I do not know I wish men to be free
As much from mobs as kings from you as me.

the consequence is, being of no party
I shall offend all parties never mind!
My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty
Than if I sought to sail before the wind.
He who has nought to gain can have small art he
Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind
May still expatiate freely, as will I
Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry.

That 's an appropriate simile, that jackal
I 've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl
By night, as do that mercenary pack all
Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl
And scent the prey their masters would attack all.
However, the poor jackals are less foul
As being the brave lions' keen providers
Than human insects, catering for spiders.

Raise but an arm! 't will brush their web away
And without that, their poison and their claws
Are useless. Mind, good people! what I say
Or rather peoples go on without pause!
the web of these tarantulas each day
Increases, till you shall make common cause
None, save the Spanish fly and Attic bee
As yet are strongly stinging to be free.

Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter
Was left upon his way with the despatch
Where blood was talk'd of as we would of water
And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch
O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter
Fair Catherine's pastime who look'd on the match
Between these nations as a main of cocks
Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.

And there in a kibitka he roll'd on
A cursed sort of carriage without springs
Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone
Pondering on glory, chivalry, and kings
And orders, and on all that he had done
And wishing that post-horses had the wings
Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises
Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is.

At every jolt and they were many still
He turn'd his eyes upon his little charge
As if he wish'd that she should fare less ill
Than he, in these sad highways left at large
To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill
Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge
On her canals, where God takes sea and land
Fishery and farm, both into his own hand.

At least he pays no rent, and has best right
To be the first of what we used to call
'Gentlemen farmer' a race worn out quite
Since lately there have been no rents at all
And 'gentlemen' are in a piteous plight
And 'farmers' can't raise Ceres from her fall
She fell with Buonaparte What strange thoughts
Arise, when we see emperors fall with oats!

But Juan turn'd his eyes on the sweet child
Whom he had saved from slaughter what a trophy
O! ye who build up monuments, defiled
With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive sophy
Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild
And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee
To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!
Because he could no more digest his dinner

O ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect
That one life saved, especially if young
Or pretty, is a thing to recollect
Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung
From the manure of human clay, though deck'd
With all the praises ever said or sung
Though hymn'd by every harp, unless within
Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din.

O! ye great authors luminous, voluminous!
Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes!
Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us!
Whether you 're paid by government in bribes
To prove the public debt is not consuming us
Or, roughly treading on the 'courtier's kibes'
With clownish heel, your popular circulation
Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation

O, ye great authors! 'Apropos des bottes,'
I have forgotten what I meant to say
As sometimes have been greater sages' lots
'T was something calculated to allay
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots
Certes it would have been but thrown away
And that 's one comfort for my lost advice
Although no doubt it was beyond all price.

But let it go it will one day be found
With other relics of 'a former world,'
When this world shall be former, underground
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisp'd, and curl'd
Baked, fried, or burnt, turn'd inside-out, or drown'd
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurl'd
First out of, and then back again to chaos
the superstratum which will overlay us.

So Cuvier says and then shall come again
Unto the new creation, rising out
From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain
Of things destroy'd and left in airy doubt
Like to the notions we now entertain
Of Titans, giants, fellows of about
Some hundred feet in height, not to say miles
And mammoths, and your winged crocodiles.