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 comprehension, Proved death in battle equal to a pension;LIX.

Suwarrow, when he saw this company

Of Cossacks and their prey, turn'd round and cast Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:- [last, "Whence come ye?"-" From Constantineple Captives just now escaped," was the reply. [past "What are ye?"-" What you see us." Briefly This dialogue; for he who answer'd knew To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.

LX.

"Your names?"-"Mine's Johnson, and my com rade'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 Your nanie before, the second is a new one; [heard To bring the other three here was absurd; But let that pass;-I think I've heard your name In the Nikolaiew regiment?"-"The same."—

LXXV.
Johu Jonnson, 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.

LXXXII.

Oh, ye great bulletins of Buonaparte!

Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wour dec Shade of Leonidas! who fought so hearty, [rous ded When my poor Greece was once, as now SNIOh, 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.

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 bloodLXXXI.

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 attack'd;

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

3ouls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches To color up his rays from your despatches.

I mean, that every age and every year, And almost every day, in sad reality,

Some sucking hero is compell'd 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, ranks, ribbands, 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,
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 nigh
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 vapors dim and dank
Which curl in curious wreaths-How soon the smoki
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.

CANTO VIII.

I. On 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 the 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,

March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,A human Hydra, issuing from his 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 sich they are-and such they will be found.
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground, [done.
Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds un-
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!
While the mere victors 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'ercamo
The ear far more than thunder; for Heaven's flashes
Spare, cr smite rarely-Man's make millions ashes!

Also the General Markow, Brigadier,
Insisting on removal of the prince,
Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,-
All common fellows, who might writhe and win te
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 pilis
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 ribband at the breast!