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New batteries were erected; and was held | Some Cossacques, hovering like hawks
A general council, in which Unanimity,
round a hill,
That stranger to most councils,here prevail'd, Had met a party towards the twilight's fall,
As sometimes happens in a great extremity; One of whom spoke their tongue, or well
And, every difficulty being dispell'd,
or ill-
Glory began to dawn with due sublimity, Twas much that he was understood at all;
While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it, But whether from his voice, or speech, or
Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.

It is an actual fact, that he, Commander-
la-Chief, in proper person deign'd to drill
The awkward squad, and could afford to
squander

His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil;
last 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 dressed 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.

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-fashioned

vest

Lurk'd Christianity; who 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 compre-
hension,

Mest things were in this posture on the eve Proved death in battle equal to a pension,-
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.

Sawarrow chiefly was on the alert,
Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pon-
dering:

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-

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 Constanti-
nople last,

Captives just now escaped," was the reply. "What are ye?"-"What you see us." Briefly past

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 Widin?"-"Yes."-"You | "Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you led the attack?" Will join your former regiment, which

"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 bowed Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow Continued: "Your old regiment's allowed, By special providence, to lead to-morrow, Or it may be to-night, the assault: I have vowed

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
turned,
And drilled away in the most classic Russian,
Until each high, heroic bosom burned
For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion
A preacher had held forth (who nobly
spurned

All earthly goods save tithes) and bade
them push on
To slay the Pagans, who resisted, battering
The armies of the Christian Empress Ca-

therine.

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 allowed to die
Among the foremost; but if you'd express
Explicitly our several posts, my friend
And self would know what duty to attend."|

should be

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Into a camp; I know that nought so bothers | Who calculated life as so much dross,

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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?

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Hurra! and Allah! and—one moment more

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undone.

The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar. 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 watch-word till the future shall be free

The night was dark, and the thick mist | Also the General Markow, Brigadier,
Insisting on removal of the Prince
Amidst some groaning thousands dying

allowed Nught to be seen save the artillery's flame, Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud,

And in the Danube's waters shone the same, Amirror'd Hell! The volleying roar, and loud

near,

All common fellows, who might writhe and
wince,

And shriek for water into a deaf ear,-
| The General Markow,who could thus evince

Lang booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame | His sympathy for rank, by the same token,
The ear far more than thunder; for Hea- To teach him greater, had his own leg
ven's flashes
Spare, or smite rarely-Man's make millions
ashes!

The column ordered on the assault, scarce
passed

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 rocked as 'twere beneath the mighty
noises ;
While the whole rampart blazed like Etna,

when

The restless Titan hiccups in his den.

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 mul-
tiply

Until their very number makes men hard
By the infinities of agony,
Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may
regard -

And one enormous shout of "Allah!" rose
la the same moment, lond as even the roar | The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Of War's most mortal engines, to their foes Turn'd back within its socket, these reward
Harling defiance : city, stream, and shore | Your rank and file by thousands, while the
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;
Bat of the portion which attacked by

water,

Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall, Though led by Arseniew, that great son of Slaughter,

A brave as ever faced both bomb and ball. "Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is

rest

May win perhaps a ribbon 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.

God's daughter: "The troops already disembark'd push'd on If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, andTo take a battery on the right; the others, Just now behaved as in the Holy Land. Who landed lower down, their landing done,

The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the

knee;

Cont Chapean-Bras too had a ball between

His

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O'er the entrenchment and the palisade,

cap and head, which proves the head | Quite orderly, as if upon parade.

to be

Aristocratic as was ever seen,

Beranse it then received no injury

And this was admirable; for so hot

More than the cap; in fact the ball could The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded,

mean

No harm unto a right legitimate head :

Ashes to ashes"-why not, lead to lead?

|

Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot

And shells or hells, it could not more have goaded.

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