.

Stripped to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,
More feared than all the Sultans ever seen.

LXXIV.

For everything seemed resting on his nod,
As they could read in all eyes. Now to them,
Who were accustomed, 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.

LXXV.

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.

LXXVI.

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.

LXXVII.

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 widowed 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?

i. Entailed upon Humanity's estate.—[MS. erased.]

LXXVIII.

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.

LXXIX.

Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm
All ears, 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 :-

LXXX.

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 about as vain
As for a brook to cope with Ocean's flood,-
But still we moderns equal you in blood :i

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 attacked;

Great deeds are doing-how shall I relate 'em?

i. As a brook's stream to cope with Ocean's flood shed
But still we moderns equal you in bloodshed.-[MS, erased.]

Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus watches
To colour up his rays from your despatches.

LXXXII.

Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte !

Oh, ye less grand long lists of killed 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-
So beautiful, so fleeting-to the Muse.

LXXXIII.

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 compelled 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, 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!

LXXXV.

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,

i. As in a General's letter when well whacked
Whatever deeds be done I will relate 'em,

With some small variations in the text

Of killed and wounded who will not be missed.—[MS. erased.] ii. Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot.-[MS. erased.]

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.

LXXXVI.

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 leaguered wall and bristling bank
Of the armed river, while with straggling light

The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank, Which curl in various wreaths :-how soon the smoke Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak !

LXXXVII.

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, Hurrah! and Allah! and one moment moreThe death-cry drowning in the Battle's roar.. 1

i. The desperate death-cry and the Battle's roar.-[MS. erased.] 1. End of Canto 7. 1822.-[MS.]

CANTO THE EIGHTH.

I.

Oн, 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.

II.

All was prepared-the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array,—

The army, like a lion from his den,

Marched 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.

III.

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.