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,
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 leaguer'd wall and bristling bank
Of the arm'd river, while with straggling light

The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank, Which curl in curious 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! Hurra! and Allah! and-one moment more→

The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar.

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Don Juan.

CANTO THE EIGHTH.

I.

OH! 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 prepar'd-the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array:

The army, like a lion from his den,

March'd 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.

IV.

And why? Because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,

A higher title, or a loftier station,

Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,

Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles,

Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.

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V.

And such they are-and such they will be found;
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground,

Which breathes of nations sav'd, not worlds undone.
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 watchword till the future shall be free.

VI.

The night was dark, and the thick mist allow'd
Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame,
Which arch'd the horizon like a fiery cloud,

And in the Danube's waters shone the same-
A mirror'd hell! The volleying roar, and loud
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 embrac'd,
Which rock'd as 'twere beneath the mighty noises;
While the whole rampart blaz'd like Etna, when
The restless Titan hiccups in his den.

VIII.

And one enormous shout of "Allah!" rose
In the same moment, loud as even the roar
Of war's most mortal engines, to their foes
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!"

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IX.

The columns were in movement one and'all,

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But of the portion which attack'd by water,

Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,

Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter,

As brave as ever fac'd both bomb and ball.

[ter:"

"Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is God's daugh

If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and
Just now behav'd as in the Holy Land.
P

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The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee;
Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball between
His cap and head, which proves the head to be
Aristocratic as was ever seen,

Because it then receiv'd 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,

Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,

All common fellows, who might writhe and wince,

And shriek for water into a deaf ear,

The General Markow, who could thus evince
His sympathy for rank, by the same token,
To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.

XII.

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.

XIII.

There the still-varying pangs, which multiply
Until their very number makes men hard
By the infinities of agony,

Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard—
The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turn'd back within its socket,-these reward
Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest
May win perhaps a riband at the breast!

XIV.

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.

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XV.

The troops, already disembark'd, push'd on
To take a battery on the right; the others,
Who landed lower down, their landing done,

Had set to work as briskly as their brothers:
Being grenadiers, they mounted, one by one,
Cheerful as children climb the breasts of mothers,
O'er the entrenchment and the palisade,
Quite orderly, as if upon parade.

XVI.

And this was admirable; for so hot

The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded,

Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot,

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

Of officers a third fell on the spot,

A thing which victory by no means boded

To gentlemen engag'd in the assault :

Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault.

XVII.

But here I leave the general concern,
To track our hero on his path of fame:
He must his laurels separately earn;

For fifty thousand heroes, name by name,
Though all deserving equally to turn
A couplet, or an elegy to claim,

Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory,
And, what is worse still, a much longer story:

XVIII.

And therefore we must give the greater number
To the Gazette-which doubtless fairly dealt
By the deceas'd, who lie in famous slumber

In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt
Their clay for the last time their souls encumber ;-
Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt

In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss
Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose.

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.

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