641 Short speeches pass between two men who speak Is perpetrated ere a word can break Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime LXII. Crime came not near him-she is not the child Where if men seek her not, and death be more And what's still stranger, left behind a name- Without which glory's but a tavern song- 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. He was not all alone: around him grew In, like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer, The free-born forest found and kept them free, There cannot be much conversation there. And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. LXVIII. So much for nature:-by way of variety, The millions slain by soldiers for their ration, LXIX. The town was enter'd: first one column made Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother LXX. Koutousow, he who afterwards beat back It happen'd was himself beat back just now. His jest alike in face of friend or foe, Though life, and death, and victory were at stake- LXXI. For, having thrown himself into a ditch, He climb'd to where the parapet appears; And, had it not been for some stray troops, landing LXXIII. LXXV. Their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder'd Then being taken by the tail-a taking Fatal to bishops as to soldiers-these Leaving as ladders their heap'd carcasses, This valiant man kill'd all the Turks he met, The walls were won, but 't was an even bet Which of the armies would have cause to mourn "I was blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t' other flinch. LXXVIII. Another column also suffer'd much: And here we may remark with the historian, Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on: Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on, LXXIX. 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 And, though the Turk's resistance was sublime, And, scrambling round the rampart, these same troops, Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers, hopes» Took, like cameleons, some slight tinge of fear, The Cozaks, or if so you please, Cossacks (I don't much pique myself upon orthography, So that I do not grossly err in facts, Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography)-- Among the foremost, offer'd him good quarter, A word which little suits with Seraskiers, LXXXII. 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. LXXXIII. A Russian officer, in martial tread Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel. A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot 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. LXXXV. 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, 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 LXXXVI. 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 go. In leaving verse more free from the restriction Of truth than prose, unless to suit the mart For what is sometimes call'd poetic diction, LXXXVII. The city's taken, but not render'd!-No! There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword: The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves, As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters. LXXXIX. It is an awful topic-but 't is not My cue for any time to be terrific : For chequer'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. XC. And one good action in the midst of crimes With all their pretty milk-and-water ways,— XCI. Upon a taken bastion, where there lay Thousands of slaughter'd men, a yet warm group A female child of ten years tried to stoop XCII. Two villanous Cossacks 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 civilized, 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? XCIII. Their sabres glitter'd o'er her little head, Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright, Because it might not solace «ears polite;» One's hip he slash'd, and split the other's shoulder, 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 With infant terrors, glared as from a trance, XCVII Up came John Johnson-(I will not say «Jack, » For that were vulgar, cold, and common-place 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 and I will win Saint George's collar.8 you XCVIII. 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. XCIX. « Then up with me!»-But Juan answer'd, « Look A glance around-and shrugg'd-and twitch'd his sleeve To take him was the point. The truly brave, But he would not be taken, and replied And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who CIX. | Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both And all around were grown exceeding wroth And pour'd upon him and his sons like rain, CX. That drinks and still is dry. At last they perish'd:His second son was levell'd by a shot; Ilis 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. CXI. The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar, 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. CXII. And what they pleased to do with the young Khan To tough old heroes, and can do no less; Your houris also have a natural pleasure In lopping off your lately married men To wish him back a bachelor now and then. CXIV. 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. CXV. So fully flash'd the phantom on his eyes, That when the very lance was in his heart, ile 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: CXVI. 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 gloriouslyWhen 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. CXVII. The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point, But 't was a transient tremor :-with a spring Against the light wherein she dies: he clung Were melted for a moment; though no tear Flow'd from their blood-shot eyes, all red with strife, They honour'd such determined scorn of life. СХХ. But the stone bastion still kept up its fire, Where the chief Pacha calmly held his post: CXXI. 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 Ilis beard, he puffd his pipe's ambrosial gales, As if he had three lives as well as tails. CXXII. The town was taken-whether he might yield CXXIII. All that the mind would shrink from of excesses; |