LXXII. « But these are but two Turkish ladies, who To them, poor things! it is an awkward step; Meantime, these two poor girls, with swimming eyes, In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust, For every thing seem'd resting on his nod, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem), John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay Don Juan, who was much more sentimental, LXXVI. LXXIX. Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm Arms to which men will never more resort, Oh! 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 abont as vain As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood; But still we moderns equal you in blood— LXXXI. 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 dispatches. LXXXII. Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte! Oh, 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! Oh, Cæsar's Commentaries! now impart ye, Shadows of glory! (lest I be confounded) A portion of your fading twilight hues, I mean, that every age and every year, And almost every day, in sad reality, And then, with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses, When I call « fading» martial immortality, A mortgage on Humanity's estate)While their beloved friends began to arm, To burn a town which never did them harm. LXXVH. Suwarrow, who hut saw things in the gross- And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail, (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? LXXVIH. Nothing. The work of glory still went on If Homer had found mortars ready made; Bombs,drums, guns,bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets, 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. LXXXIV. Medals, ranks, riband lace, embroidery, scarlet, An uniform to boys is like a fan At least he feels it, and some say he sees, This Canto, cre my Muse perceives fatigue. The next shall ring a peal to shake all people, Like a bob-major from a village-steeple. V. And such they are-and such they will be found. 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 night was dark, and the thick mist allow'd And in the Danube's waters shone the same, 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! VII. 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. VIII. And one enormous shout of « Allah!» rose Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore Resounded « Allah!» and the clouds, which close With thickening canopy the conflict o'er, Vibrate to the Eternal Name. Hark! through All sounds it pierceth, « Allah! Allah! Hu!» IX. The columns were in movement, one and all: « Carnage (so Wordsworth tells you) is God's daughter:» If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and X. The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee; Count Chapeau-Bras too had a ball between Ilis 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? XI. Also the General Markow, Brigadier, Insisting on removal of the prince, The General Markow, who could thus evince XIX. 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. XX. 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. ΧΧΙ. Though it was Don Juan's first of fields, and though 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. XXII. 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: Frederick 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. XXIII. 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 Runie, 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 But Juan was quite « a broth of a boy,» In such good company as always throng C 1 XXVI. 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. XXVII. 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. XXVIII. I don't know how the thing occurr'd—it might About; a circumstance which has confounded Cæsar 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. XXIX. Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was Stopp'd for a minute, as perhaps he ought (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, 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 Perceiving then no more the commandant Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had It was not marvellous that a mere lad, Perceiving nor commander nor commanded, 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. XXXIII. He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared, 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! 6 XXXIV. And, as he rush'd along, it came to pass he But now reduced, as is a bulky volume, 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. XXXV. 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 So, when all his corps were dead or dying, 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.» XXXVII. 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, And these he call'd on; and, what 's strange, they came Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home. At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb, ΧΧΧΙΧ. 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. XL. And therefore, when he ran away, he did so He would find others who would fain be rid so XLI. But Johnson only ran off to return With many other warriors, as we said, Unto that rather some what 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. XLII. Egad! they found the second time what they Of glory, and all that immortal stuff 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. XLIII. They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail, Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle, The Turks, behind the traverses and flanks 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. XLV. First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen, All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin, Flame was shower'd forth above as well 's below, Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet. But those who scaled found out that their advance Just named, these palisades were primly set: XLVII. So that on either side some nine or ten Paces were left, whereon you could contrive Among the first,-I will not say the first, Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience, Was beaten, though the Prussians say so too;— XLIX. And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau, And God knows who besides in « au» and « ou,» 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. L. 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. LI. At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then, Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant 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. |