CANTO THE EIGHTH.

I.

Он, 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.

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.

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 saved, 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 allowed
Nought 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- 1
A mirrored 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 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 't were beneath the mighty noises;

1. ["La nuit était obscure; un brouillard épais ne nous permettait de distinguer autre chose que le feu de notre artillerie, dont l'horizon était embrasé de tous côtés: ce feu, partant du milieu du Danube, se réfléchissait sur les eaux, et offrait un coup d'œil très-singulier."—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 209.]

While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when
The restless Titan hiccups in his den ;1

VIII.

And one enormous shout of " Allah!" 2 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!" 3

IX.

The columns were in movement one and all,
But of the portion which attacked by water,
Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,*

Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter, As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.

66

'Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is God's daughter: "5

1. A peine eut-on parcouru l'espace de quelques toises au-delà des batteries, que les Turcs, qui n'avaient point tiré pendant toute la nuit s'apperçevant de nos mouvemens, commencèrent de leur côté un feu très-vif, qui embrasa le reste de l'horizon: mais ce fut bien autre chose lorsque, avancés davantage, le feu de la mousqueterie commença dans toute l'étendue du rempart que nous appercevions. Ce fut alors que la place parut à nos yeux comme un volcan dont le feu sortait de toutes parts."-Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 209.]

2. [Un cri universel d'allah, qui se répétait tout autour de la ville, vint encore rendre plus extraordinaire cet instant, dont il est impossible de se faire une idée."—Ibid., p. 209.]

3. Allah Hu! is properly the war-cry of the Mussulmans, and they dwell on the last syllable, which gives it a wild and peculiar effect.

[See The Giaour, line 734, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 120, note 1; see, too, Siege of Corinth, line 713, ibid., p. 481.]

4. [Toutes les colonnes étaient en mouvement; celles qui attaquaient par eau commandées par le général Arséniew, essuyèrent un feu épouvantable, et perdirent avant le jour un tiers de leurs officiers."-Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 209.]

5.

*

"But Thy most dreaded instrument,

In working out a pure intent,

* To wit, the Deity's: this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms.-What would have been said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage?

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

X.

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 received 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

i. The Duc de Richelieu

-.-[MS. erased.]

Is Man-arrayed for mutual slaughter,—
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter!"

Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode (January 18, 1816),

stanza xii. lines 20, 23.

[Wordsworth omitted the lines in the last edition of his poems, which was revised by his own hand.]

1. ["Le Prince de Ligne fut blessé au genou; le Duc de Richelieu eut une balle entre le fond de son bonnet et sa tête."-Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 210.

For the gallantry of Prince Charles de Ligne (died September 14, 1792) eldest son of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735-1814), see The Prince de Ligne, 1899, ii. 46.

Armand Emanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, born 1767, a grandson of Louis François Duc de Richelieu, the Marshal of France (16961780), served under Catherine II., and afterwards under the Czar Paul. On the restoration of Louis XVIII. he entered the King's household; and after the battle of Waterloo took office as President of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs. His Journal de mon Voyage en Allemagne, which was then unpublished, was placed at the disposal of. the Marquis de Castelnau (see Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, 1827, i. 241). It has been printed in full by the Société Impériale d'Histoire de Russie, 1886, tom. liv. pp. 111-198. See for further mention of the manuscript, Le Duc de Richelieu, par Raoul de Cisternes, 1898, Preface, P. 3, note I. He died May 17, 1822, two months before Cantos VI., VII., VIII. were completed.]

His sympathy for rank, by the same token,
To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.1

XII.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,
And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills
Like hail, to make a bloody Diuretic.2

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

Turned 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
Maintained 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.

XV.

The troops, already disembarked, pushed on
To take a battery on the right: the others,

1. ["Le brigadier Markow, insistant pour qu'on emportât le prince blessé, reçut un coup de fusil qui lui fracassa le pied."-Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 210.]

2. Trois cents bouches à feu vomissaient sans interruption, et trente mille fusils alimentaient sans reláche une grêle de balles."-Ibid., p. 210.]