Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus watches
To colour up his rays from your despatches.

LXXXII.

Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte !

Oh, ye less grand long lists of killed and wounded! Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty,

When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!
Oh, 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.

When I call "fading" martial immortality,
I mean, that every age and every year,
And almost every day, in sad reality,

Some sucking hero is compelled 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, rank, ribands, 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,

i. As in a General's letter when well whacked
Whatever deeds be done I will relate 'em,

With some small variations in the text

Of killed and wounded who will not be missed.-[MS. erased.] ii. Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot.-[MS. erased.]

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 leaguered wall and bristling bank
Of the armed river, while with straggling light

The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank, Which curl in various 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, Hurrah! and Allah! and one moment more

i.

The death-cry drowning in the Battle's roar. 1

i. The desperate death-cry and the Battle's roar.— r.—[MS. erased.] 1. End of Canto 7. 1822.-[MS.]

CANTO THE EIGHTH.

I.

Oн, 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'oeil 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!”

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,1

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

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

I. ["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?