Away he went then upon his commission, | And such as they are, such my present tale is
Growling and grumbling in good Turkish 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,
Against all women, of whate'er condition,
Especially Sultanas and their ways;
Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision,
Their never knowing their own mind two
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 arrayed,
And, above all, be combed even to a hair,
And brought before the Empress, who had
made
But, ne'er the less, 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 rongh
Good God! I wonder what they would be at
I say no more than has been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon, and by Cervantes.
Enquiries after them with kindest care:
At which Dudù look'd strange, and Juan silly;
But go they must at once, and Will I-By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault
And here I leave them at their preparation
For the imperial presence, wherein whether
Gulbeyaz showed 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
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.
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato:
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau
Who knew this life was not worth a potato
'Tis 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 1
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 discoverie
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, o
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?
On Love! Oh Glory! what are ye? who fly Dogs, or Men! (for I flatter you in saying
Around us ever, rarely to alight;
There's not a meteor in the Polar-sky
Of such transcendant and more fleeting
flight.
Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift on
Our eyes in search of either lovely light;
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.
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
Fierce loves and faithless wars' ”—I am|They look'd upon the Muscovite flotilla, And only shouted, "Alla!" and "Bis Millah!"
If this be the right reading-'tis no matter;
The fact's about the same, I am secure;—
Ising 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 Suvaroff, or anglicè Suwarrow,
Who loved blood as an Alderman loves
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin, "Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti, All proper men of weapons,as e'er scoff'd high Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti, Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin: Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin Out of their hides, if parchment had grown
But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge;
And walls as thick as most sculls born as yet;
wo batteries, cap-à-pée, 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,
Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson;-all the
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
At Halifax;" but now he served the Tartars.
To attack theTurk'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.
Was he, since so renown'd "in country-A habit rather blameable, 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 valourous "Smiths" whom we
shall miss
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 dispatch 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 I
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 Shakespear puts the same
thought in
The mouth of some one in his plays so
doating,
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, 'tis true;
Form'd like an amphitheatre, each dwelling
Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.
The second object was to profit by
Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to "pith;"
But 'tis 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 engineers' stupidity,
Their haste, or waste, I neither know nor
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 fire-ships 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 'twas dawn, the Turks slept
At seven they rose, however, and surveyed
The Russ-flotilla getting under way;
'Twas nine, when still advancing undi
mayed,
The moment of the general consternation, Within a cable's length their vessels lay
As gallantly as ever heroes fought,
Bat buried in the heap of such transactions -
Their names are rarely found, nor often The letter of the Prince to the same Marshal
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause
|