I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;

I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;

But I detest all fiction even in song,

And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.

Her reason being weak, her passions strong,

She thought that her Lord's heart (even could she claim it)

Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine

Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

IX.

I am not, like Cassio, "an arithmetician,"

But by "the bookish theoric"[333] it appears,

If 't is summed up with feminine precision,

That, adding to the account his Highness' years,

The fair Sultana erred from inanition;

For, were the Sultan just to all his dears,

She could but claim the fifteen-hundredth part

Of what should be monopoly--the heart.

X.

It is observed that ladies are litigious

Upon all legal objects of possession,

And not the least so when they are religious,

Which doubles what they think of the transgression:

With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,

As the tribunals show through many a session,

When they suspect that any one goes shares

In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.

XI.

Now, if this holds good in a Christian land,

The heathen also, though with lesser latitude,[gf]

Are apt to carry things with a high hand,

And take, what Kings call "an imposing attitude;"

And for their rights connubial make a stand,

When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude;

And as four wives must have quadruple claims,

The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.

XII.

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)

The favourite; but what's favour amongst four?

Polygamy may well be held in dread,

Not only as a sin, but as a bore:

Most wise men with one moderate woman wed,[gg]

Will scarcely find philosophy for more;

And all (except Mahometans) forbear

To make the nuptial couch a "Bed of Ware."[334]

XIII.

His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,--[gh]

So styled according to the usual forms

Of every monarch, till they are consigned

To those sad hungry Jacobins the worms,

Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,--

His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,

Expecting all the welcome of a lover

(A "Highland welcome"[335] all the wide world over).

XIV.

Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er

Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that,

May look like what it is--neither here nor there,[gi]

They are put on as easily as a hat,

Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear,

Trimmed either heads or hearts to decorate,

Which form an ornament, but no more part

Of heads, than their caresses of the heart.

XV.

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind

Of gentle feminine delight, and shown

More in the eyelids than the eyes, resigned

Rather to hide what pleases most unknown,

Are the best tokens (to a modest mind)[gj]

Of Love, when seated on his loveliest throne,

A sincere woman's breast,--for over-_warm_

Or over-_cold_ annihilates the charm.

XVI.

For over-warmth, if false, is worse than truth;

If true, 't is no great lease of its own fire;

For no one, save in very early youth,

Would like (I think) to trust all to desire,

Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth,

And apt to be transferred to the first buyer

At a sad discount: while your over chilly

Women, on t' other hand, seem somewhat silly.

XVII.

That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,

For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,

Who fain would have a mutual flame confessed,

And see a sentimental passion glow,

Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest,

In his monastic concubine of snow;--[336]

In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is

Horatian, "_Medio tu tutissimus ibis_."[337]

XVIII.

The "tu" 's _too_ much,--but let it stand,--the verse

Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme,

And not the pink of old hexameters;

But, after all, there's neither tune nor time

In the last line, which cannot well be worse,[gk]

And was thrust in to close the octave's chime:

I own no prosody can ever rate it

As a rule, but _Truth_ may, if you translate it.

XIX.

If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part,

I know not--it succeeded, and success

Is much in most things, not less in the heart

Than other articles of female dress.

Self-love in Man, too, beats all female art;[gl]

They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less:

And no one virtue yet, except starvation,

Could stop that worst of vices--propagation.

XX.

We leave this royal couple to repose:

A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep,

Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes:

Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep

As any man's clay mixture undergoes.

Our least of sorrows are such as we _weep_;

'T is the vile daily drop on drop which wears

The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.[gm]

XXI.

A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill

To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted

At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,

A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted,

A bad old woman making a worse will,[338]

Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted[gn]

As certain;--these are paltry things, and yet

I've rarely seen the man they did not fret.

XXII.

I'm a philosopher; confound them all![go]

Bills, beasts, and men, and--no! not womankind![gp]

With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,

And then my Stoicism leaves nought behind

Which it can either pain or evil call,

And I can give my whole soul up to mind;

Though what _is_ soul, or mind, their birth or growth,

Is more than I know--the deuce take them both![gq]

XXIII.

So now all things are damned one feels at ease,

As after reading Athanasius' curse,

Which doth your true believer so much please:

I doubt if any now could make it worse

O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,

'T is so sententious, positive, and terse,

And decorates the Book of Common Prayer,

As doth a rainbow the just clearing air.

XXIV.

Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or

At least one of them!--Oh, the heavy night,

When wicked wives, who love some bachelor,[gr]

Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light

Of the grey morning, and look vainly for

Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite--

To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake

Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake![gs]

XXV.

These are beneath the canopy of heaven,

Also beneath the canopy of beds

Four-posted and silk-curtained, which are given

For rich men and their brides to lay their heads

Upon, in sheets white as what bards call "driven

Snow,"[339] Well! 't is all hap-hazard when one weds.

Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been

Perhaps as wretched if a _peasants quean_.

XXVI.

Don Juan in his feminine disguise,[340]

With all the damsels in their long array,

Had bowed themselves before th' imperial eyes,

And at the usual signal ta'en their way

Back to their chambers, those long galleries

In the seraglio, where the ladies lay

Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there

Beating for Love, as the caged bird's for air.

XXVII.

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse

The Tyrant's[341] wish, "that Mankind only had

One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce:"

My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,[gt]

And much more tender on the whole than fierce;

It being (not _now_, but only while a lad)

That Womankind had but one rosy mouth,[gu]

To kiss them all at once from North to South.

XXVIII.

Oh, enviable Briareus! with thy hands

And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied

In such proportion!--But my Muse withstands

The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,

Or travelling in Patagonian lands;

So let us back to Lilliput, and guide

Our hero through the labyrinth of Love

In which we left him several lines above.

XXIX.

He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,[342]

At the given signal joined to their array;

And though he certainly ran many risks,

Yet he could not at times keep, by the way,

(Although the consequences of such frisks

Are worse than the worst damages men pay

In moral England, where the thing's a tax,)

From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.

XXX.

Still he forgot not his disguise:--along

The galleries from room to room they walked,

A virgin-like and edifying throng,

By eunuchs flanked; while at their head there stalked

A dame who kept up discipline among

The female ranks, so that none stirred or talked,

Without her sanction on their she-parades:

Her title was "the Mother of the Maids."

XXXI.

Whether she was a "Mother," I know not,

Or whether they were "Maids" who called her Mother;

But this is her Seraglio title, got

I know not how, but good as any other;

So Cantemir[343] can tell you, or De Tott:[344]

Her office was to keep aloof or smother

All bad propensities in fifteen hundred

Young women, and correct them when they blundered.

XXXII.

A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made

More easy by the absence of all men--

Except his Majesty,--who, with her aid,

And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then

A slight example, just to cast a shade

Along the rest, contrived to keep this den

Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,

Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent.

XXXIII.

And what is that? Devotion, doubtless--how

Could you ask such a question?--but we will

Continue. As I said, this goodly row

Of ladies of all countries at the will[345]

Of one good man, with stately march and slow,

Like water-lilies floating down a rill--

Or rather lake--for _rills_ do _not_ run _slowly_,--

Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.

XXXIV.

But when they reached their own apartments, there,

Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,

Waves at spring-tide, or women anywhere

When freed from bonds (which are of no great use

After all), or like Irish at a fair,

Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce

Established between them and bondage, they

Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile, and play.

XXXV.

Their talk, of course, ran most on the new comer;

Her shape, her hair, her air, her everything:

Some thought her dress did not so much become her,

Or wondered at her ears without a ring;

Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,

Others contended they were but in spring;

Some thought her rather masculine in height,

While others wished that she had been so quite.

XXXVI.

But no one doubted on the whole, that she

Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,

And fresh, and "beautiful exceedingly,"[346]

Who with the brightest Georgians[347] might compare:

They wondered how Gulbeyaz, too, could be

So silly as to buy slaves who might share

(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)

Her Throne and Power, and everything beside.

XXXVII.

But what was strangest in this virgin crew,

Although her beauty was enough to vex,

After the first investigating view,

They all found out as few, or fewer, specks

In the fair form of their companion new,

Than is the custom of the gentle sex,

When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,

In a new face "the ugliest creature breathing."

XXXVIII.

And yet they had their little jealousies,

Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,

Whether there are such things as sympathies

Without our knowledge or our approbation,

Although they could not see through his disguise,

All felt a soft kind of concatenation,

Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what

You please--we will not quarrel about that:

XXXIX.

But certain 't is they all felt for their new

Companion something newer still, as 't were

A sentimental friendship through and through,

Extremely pure, which made them all concur

In wishing her their sister, save a few

Who wished they had a brother just like her,

Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,

They would prefer to Padisha[348] or Pacha.

XL.

Of those who had most genius for this sort

Of sentimental friendship, there were three,

Lolah, Katinka,[349] and Dudù--in short

(To save description), fair as fair can be

Were they, according to the best report,

Though differing in stature and degree,

And clime and time, and country and complexion--

They all alike admired their new connection.

XLI.

Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;

Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,

With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,

And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread,

But rather skim the earth; while Dudù's form

Looked more adapted to be put to bed,

Being somewhat large, and languishing, and lazy,

Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy.

XLII.

A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudù,

Yet very fit to "murder sleep"[350] in those

Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendent hue,

Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose:

Few angles were there in her form, 't is true,

Thinner she might have been, and yet scarce lose;

Yet, after all, 't would puzzle to say where

It would not spoil some separate charm to _pare_.

XLIII.

She was not violently lively, but

Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;

Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,

They put beholders in a tender taking;

She looked (this simile's quite new) just cut

From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,

The mortal and the marble still at strife,

And timidly expanding into Life.

XLIV.

Lolah demanded the new damsel's name--

"Juanna."--Well, a pretty name enough.

Katinka asked her also whence she came--

"From Spain."--"But where _is_ Spain?"--"Don't ask such stuff,

Nor show your Georgian ignorance--for shame!"

Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough,

To poor Katinka: "Spain's an island near

Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier."

XLV.

Dudù said nothing, but sat down beside

Juanna, playing with her veil or hair;

And, looking at her steadfastly, she sighed,

As if she pitied her for being there,

A pretty stranger without friend or guide,

And all abashed, too, at the general stare

Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places,

With kind remarks upon their mien and faces.

XLVI.

But here the Mother of the Maids drew near,

With "Ladies, it is time to go to rest.

I'm puzzled what to do with _you_, my dear!"

She added to Juanna, their new guest:

"Your coming has been unexpected here,

And every couch is occupied; you had best

Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early

We will have all things settled for you fairly."

XLVII.

Here Lolah interposed--"Mamma, you know

You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear

That anybody should disturb you so;

I'll take Juanna; we're a slenderer pair

Than you would make the half of;--don't say no;

And I of your young charge will take due care."

But here Katinka interfered, and said,

"She also had compassion and a bed."

XLVIII.

"Besides, I hate to sleep alone," quoth she.

The matron frowned: "Why so?"--"For fear of ghosts,"

Replied Katinka; "I am sure I see

A phantom upon each of the four posts;

And then I have the worst dreams that can be,

Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts."

The dame replied, "Between your dreams and you,

I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few.

XLIX.

"You, Lolah, must continue still to lie

Alone, for reasons which don't matter; you

The same, Katinka, until by and by:

And I shall place Juanna with Dudù,

Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy,

And will not toss and chatter the night through.

What say you, child?"--Dudù said nothing, as

Her talents were of the more silent class;

L.

But she rose up, and kissed the matron's brow

Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks,

Katinka too; and with a gentle bow

(Curt'sies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks)

She took Juanna by the hand to show

Their place of rest, and left to both their piques,

The others pouting at the matron's preference

Of Dudù, though they held their tongues from deference.

LI.

It was a spacious chamber (Oda is

The Turkish title), and ranged round the wall

Were couches, toilets--and much more than this

I might describe, as I have seen it all,

But it suffices--little was amiss;

'T was on the whole a nobly furnished hall,

With all things ladies want, save one or two,

And even those were nearer than they knew.

LII.

Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,

Not very dashing, but extremely winning,

With the most regulated charms of feature,

Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning

Against proportion--the wild strokes of nature

Which they hit off at once in the beginning,

Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,

And pleasing, or unpleasing, still are like.

LIII.

But she was a soft landscape of mild earth,

Where all was harmony, and calm, and quiet,

Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,

Which, if not happiness, is much more nigh it

Than are your mighty passions and so forth,

Which, some call "the Sublime:" I wish they'd try it:

I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,

And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

LIV.

But she was pensive more than melancholy,

And serious more than pensive, and serene,

It may be, more than either--not unholy

Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.

The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly

Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen,

That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;

She never thought about herself at all.

LV.

And therefore was she kind and gentle as

The Age of Gold (when gold was yet unknown,

By which its nomenclature came to pass;[gv]

Thus most appropriately has been shown

"Lucus à _non_ lucendo," _not_ what _was_,

But what _was not_; a sort of style that's grown

Extremely common in this age, whose metal

The Devil may decompose, but never settle:[gw]

LVI.

I think it may be of "Corinthian Brass,"[351]

Which was a mixture of all metals, but

The brazen uppermost). Kind reader! pass

This long parenthesis: I could not shut

It sooner for the soul of me, and class

My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put

A kind construction upon them and me:

But _that_ you won't--then don't--I am not less free.

LVII.

'T is time we should return to plain narration,

And thus my narrative proceeds:--Dudù,

With every kindness short of ostentation,

Showed Juan, or Juanna, through and through

This labyrinth of females, and each station

Described--what's strange--in words extremely few:

I have but one simile, and that's a blunder,

For wordless woman, which is _silent_ thunder.[gx]

LVIII.

And next she gave her (I say _her_, because

The gender still was epicene, at least

In outward show, which is a saving clause)

An outline of the customs of the East,

With all their chaste integrity of laws,

By which the more a Harem is increased,

The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties

Of any supernumerary beauties.

LIX.

And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:

Dudú was fond of kissing--which I'm sure

That nobody can ever take amiss,

Because 't is pleasant, so that it be pure,

And between females means no more than this--

That they have nothing better near, or newer.

"Kiss" rhymes to "bliss" in fact as well as verse--

I wish it never led to something worse.

LX.

In perfect innocence she then unmade

Her toilet, which cost little, for she was

A child of Nature, carelessly arrayed:

If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,

'T was like the fawn, which, in the lake displayed,

Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,

When first she starts, and then returns to peep,

Admiring this new native of the deep.

LXI.

And one by one her articles of dress

Were laid aside; but not before she offered

Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess

Of modesty declined the assistance proffered:

Which passed well off--as she could do no less;

Though by this _politesse_ she rather suffered,

Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins,

Which surely were invented for our sins,--

LXII.

Making a woman like a porcupine,

Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread,

Oh ye! whose fate it is, as once 't was mine,

In early youth, to turn a lady's maid;--

I did my very boyish best to shine

In tricking her out for a masquerade:

The pins were placed sufficiently, but not

Stuck all exactly in the proper spot.

LXIII.

But these are foolish things to all the wise,

And I love Wisdom more than she loves me;

My tendency is to philosophise

On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;

But still the spouseless virgin _Knowledge_ flies.

What are we? and whence came we? what shall be

Our _ultimate_ existence? what's our present?

Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

LXIV.

There was deep silence in the chamber: dim

And distant from each other burned the lights,

And slumber hovered o'er each lovely limb

Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,

They should have walked there in their sprightliest trim,

By way of change from their sepulchral sites,

And shown themselves as ghosts of better taste

Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.

LXV.

Many and beautiful lay those around,

Like flowers of different hue, and clime, and root,

In some exotic garden sometimes found,

With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot.

One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,

And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit

Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath,

And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.

LXVI.

One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,

And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd

Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;

And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud

The moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm,

As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,

Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night

All bashfully to struggle into light.

LXVII.

This is no bull, although it sounds so; for

'T was night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.

A third's all pallid aspect offered more

The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betrayed

Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore

Belovéd and deplored; while slowly strayed

(As night-dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges

The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes.

LXVIII.

A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,

Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep;

White, cold, and pure, as looks a frozen rill,

Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,

Or Lot's wife done in salt,--or what you will;--

My similes are gathered in a heap,

So pick and choose--perhaps you'll be content

With a carved lady on a monument.

LXIX.

And lo! a fifth appears;--and what is she?

A lady of a "certain age,"[352] which means

Certainly agéd--what her years might be

I know not, never counting past their teens;

But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,

As ere that awful period intervenes

Which lays both men and women on the shelf,

To meditate upon their sins and self.

LXX.

But all this time how slept, or dreamed, Dudú?

With strict inquiry I could ne'er discover,

And scorn to add a syllable untrue;

But ere the middle watch was hardly over,

Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,

And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover,

To those who like their company, about

The apartment, on a sudden she screamed out:

LXXI.

And that so loudly, that upstarted all

The Oda, in a general commotion:

Matron and maids, and those whom you may call

Neither, came crowding like the waves of Ocean,

One on the other, throughout the whole hall,

All trembling, wondering, without the least notion

More than I have myself of what could make

The calm Dudù so turbulently wake.

LXXII.

But wide awake she was, and round her bed,

With floating draperies and with flying hair,

With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread,

And bosoms, arms, and ankles glancing bare,

And bright as any meteor ever bred

By the North Pole,--they sought her cause of care,

For she seemed agitated, flushed, and frightened,

Her eye dilated, and her colour heightened.

LXXIII.

But what is strange--and a strong proof how great

A blessing is sound sleep--Juanna lay

As fast as ever husband by his mate

In holy matrimony snores away.

Not all the clamour broke her happy state

Of slumber, ere they shook her,--so they say

At least,--and then she, too, unclosed her eyes,

And yawned a good deal with discreet surprise.[gy]

LXXIV.

And now commenced a strict investigation,

Which, as all spoke at once, and more than once

Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,

Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce

To answer in a very clear oration.

Dudú had never passed for wanting sense,

But being "no orator as Brutus is,"[353]

Could not at first expound what was amiss.

LXXV.

At length she said, that in a slumber sound

She dreamed a dream, of walking in a wood--

A "wood obscure," like that where Dante found[354]

Himself in at the age when all grow good;[gz]

Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crowned

Run much less risk of lovers turning rude;

And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits,

And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;

LXXVI.

And in the midst a golden apple grew,--

A most prodigious pippin--but it hung

Rather too high and distant; that she threw

Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung

Stones and whatever she could pick up, to

Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung

To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,

But always at a most provoking height;[ha]

LXXVII.

That on a sudden, when she least had hope,

It fell down of its own accord before

Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop

And pick it up, and bite it to the core;

That just as her young lip began to ope[hb]

Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,

A bee flew out, and stung her to the heart,

And so--she woke with a great scream and start.

LXXVIII.

All this she told with some confusion and

Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams

Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand

To expound their vain and visionary gleams.

I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned

Prophetically, or that which one deems

A "strange coincidence," to use a phrase

By which such things are settled now-a-days.[355]

LXXIX.

The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,

Began, as is the consequence of fear,

To scold a little at the false alarm

That broke for nothing on their sleeping ear.

The matron, too, was wroth to leave her warm

Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,

And chafed at poor Dudù, who only sighed,

And said, that she was sorry she had cried.

LXXX.

"I've heard of stories of a cock and bull;

But visions of an apple and a bee,

To take us from our natural rest, and pull

The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,

Would make us think the moon is at its full.

You surely are unwell, child! we must see,

To-morrow, what his Highness's physician

Will say to this hysteric of a vision.

LXXXI.

"And poor Juanna, too, the child's first night

Within these walls, to be broke in upon

With such a clamour--I had thought it right

That the young stranger should not lie alone,

And, as the quietest of all, she might

With you, Dudù, a good night's rest have known:

But now I must transfer her to the charge

Of Lolah--though her couch is not so large."

LXXXII.

Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition;

But poor Dudù, with large drops in her own,

Resulting from the scolding or the vision,

Implored that present pardon might be shown

For this first fault, and that on no condition

(She added in a soft and piteous tone)

Juanna should be taken from her, and

Her future dreams should be all kept in hand.

LXXXIII.

She promised never more to have a dream,

At least to dream so loudly as just now;

She wondered at herself how she could scream--

'T was foolish, nervous, as she must allow,

A fond hallucination, and a theme

For laughter--but she felt her spirits low,

And begged they would excuse her; she'd get over

This weakness in a few hours, and recover.

LXXXIV.

And here Juanna kindly interposed,

And said she felt herself extremely well

Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed,

When all around rang like a tocsin bell;

She did not find herself the least disposed

To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell

Apart from one who had no sin to show,

Save that of dreaming once "mal-à-propos."

LXXXV.

As thus Juanna spoke, Dudù turned round

And hid her face within Juanna's breast:

Her neck alone was seen, but that was found

The colour of a budding rose's crest.[hc]

I can't tell why she blushed, nor can expound

The mystery of this rupture of their test;

All that I know is, that the facts I state

Are true as Truth has ever been of late,

LXXXVI.

And so good night to them,--or, if you will,

Good morrow--for the cock had crown, and light

Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,

And the mosque crescent struggled into sight

Of the long caravan, which in the chill

Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height

That stretches to the stony belt, which girds

Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.[356]

LXXXVII.

With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,

Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale

As Passion rises, with its bosom worn,

Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, and veil.

The Nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,

Which fable places in her breast of wail,

Is lighter far of heart and voice than those

Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.

LXXXVIII.

And that's the moral of this composition,

If people would but see its real drift;--

But _that_ they will not do without suspicion,

Because all gentle readers have the gift

Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision:

While gentle writers also love to lift

Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural,

The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.

LXXXIX.

Rose the Sultana from a bed of splendour,

Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried[357]

Aloud because his feelings were too tender

To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,--

So beautiful that Art could little mend her,

Though pale with conflicts between Love and Pride;--

So agitated was she with her error,

She did not even look into the mirror.

XC.

Also arose about the self-same time,

Perhaps a little later, her great Lord,

Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,

And of a wife by whom he was abhorred;

A thing of much less import in that clime--

At least to those of incomes which afford

The filling up their whole connubial cargo--

Than where two wives are under an embargo.

XCI.

He did not think much on the matter, nor

Indeed on any other: as a man

He liked to have a handsome paramour

At hand, as one may like to have a fan,

And therefore of Circassians had good store,

As an amusement after the Divan;

Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,

Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty.

XCII.

And now he rose; and after due ablutions

Exacted by the customs of the East,

And prayers and other pious evolutions,

He drank six cups of coffee at the least,

And then withdrew to hear about the Russians,

Whose victories had recently increased

In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still adores,

As greatest of all sovereigns and w----s.

XCIII.

But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander![hd][358]

Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend

Thine ear, if it should reach--and now rhymes wander

Almost as far as Petersburgh, and lend

A dreadful impulse to each loud meander

Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend

Their roar even with the Baltic's--so you be

Your father's son, 't is quite enough for me.

XCIV.

To call men love-begotten, or proclaim[he]

Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon,

That hater of Mankind, would be a shame,

A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on:

But people's ancestors are History's game;[hf]

And if one Lady's slip could leave a crime on

All generations, I should like to know

What pedigree the best would have to show?[359]

XCV.

Had Catherine and the Sultan understood

Their own true interests, which Kings rarely know,

Until 't is taught by lessons rather rude,

There was a way to end their strife, although

Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good,

Without the aid of Prince or Plenipo:

She to dismiss her guards and he his Harem,

And for their other matters, meet and share 'em.

XCVI.

But as it was, his Highness had to hold

His daily council upon ways and means

How to encounter with this martial scold,

This modern Amazon and Queen of queans;

And the perplexity could not be told

Of all the pillars of the State, which leans

Sometimes a little heavy on the backs

Of those who cannot lay on a new tax.

XCVII.

Meantime Gulbeyaz when her King was gone,

Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place

For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone,

And rich with all contrivances which grace

Those gay recesses:--many a precious stone

Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase

Of porcelain held in the fettered flowers,

Those captive soothers of a captive's hours.

XCVIII.

Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble,

Vied with each other on this costly spot;

And singing birds without were heard to warble;

And the stained glass which lighted this fair grot

Varied each ray;--but all descriptions garble

The true effect,[360] and so we had better not

Be too minute; an outline is the best,--

A lively reader's fancy does the rest.

XCIX.

And here she summoned Baba, and required

Don Juan at his hands, and information

Of what had passed since all the slaves retired,

And whether he had occupied their station:

If matters had been managed as desired,

And his disguise with due consideration

Kept up; and above all, the where and how

He had passed the night, was what she wished to know.

C.

Baba, with some embarrassment, replied

To this long catechism of questions, asked

More easily than answered,--that he had tried

His best to obey in what he had been tasked;

But there seemed something that he wished to hide,

Which Hesitation more betrayed than masked;

He scratched his ear, the infallible resource

To which embarrassed people have recourse.

CI.

Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience,

Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed;

She liked quick answers in all conversations;

And when she saw him stumbling like a steed

In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones;

And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed,

Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle,

And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle.

CII.

When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew

To bode him no great good, he deprecated

Her anger, and beseeched she'd hear him through--

He could not help the thing which he related:

Then out it came at length, that to Dudù

Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated;

But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on

The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran.

CIII.

The chief dame of the Oda,[361] upon whom

The discipline of the whole Harem bore,

As soon as they re-entered their own room,

For Baba's function stopped short at the door,

Had settled all; nor could he then presume

(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more,

Without exciting such suspicion as

Might make the matter still worse than it was.

CIV.

He hoped, indeed he thought, he could be sure,

Juan had not betrayed himself; in fact

'T was certain that his conduct had been pure,

Because a foolish or imprudent act

Would not alone have made him insecure,

But ended in his being found out and _sacked,_

And thrown into the sea.--Thus Baba spoke

Of all save Dudù's dream, which was no joke.

CV.

This he discreetly kept in the back ground,

And talked away--and might have talked till now,

For any further answer that he found,

So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow:

Her cheek turned ashes, ears rung, brain whirled round,

As if she had received a sudden blow,

And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly

O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily.

CVI.

Although she was not of the fainting sort,

Baba thought she would faint, but there he erred--

It was but a convulsion, which though short

Can never be described; we all have heard,[hg]

And some of us have felt thus "_all amort_"[362]

When things beyond the common have occurred;--

Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony

What she could ne'er express--then how should I?

CVII.

She stood a moment as a Pythoness

Stands on her tripod, agonized, and full

Of inspiration gathered from distress,

When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull

The heart asunder;--then, as more or less

Their speed abated or their strength grew dull,

She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees,

And bowed her throbbing head o'er trembling knees.

CVIII.

Her face declined and was unseen; her hair

Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow,

Sweeping the marble underneath her chair,

Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow,

A low, soft ottoman), and black Despair

Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow,

Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check

Its farther course, but must receive its wreck.

CIX.

Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping

Concealed her features better than a veil;

And one hand o'er the ottoman lay drooping,

White, waxen, and as alabaster pale:

Would that I were a painter! to be grouping

All that a poet drags into detail!

Oh that my words were colours! but their tints

May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints.

CX.

Baba, who knew by experience when to talk

And when to hold his tongue, now held it till

This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk

Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will.

At length she rose up, and began to walk

Slowly along the room, but silent still,

And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye;

The wind was down, but still the sea ran high.

CXI.

She stopped, and raised her head to speak--but paused

And then moved on again with rapid pace;

Then slackened it, which is the march most caused

By deep emotion:--you may sometimes trace

A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed

By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased

By all the demons of all passions, showed

Their work even by the way in which he trode[363].

CXII.

Gulbeyaz stopped and beckoned Baba:--"Slave!

Bring the two slaves!" she said in a low tone,

But one which Baba did not like to brave,

And yet he shuddered, and seemed rather prone

To prove reluctant, and begged leave to crave

(Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown

What slaves her Highness wished to indicate,

For fear of any error, like the late.

CXIII.

"The Georgian and her paramour," replied

The Imperial Bride--and added, "Let the boat

Be ready by the secret portal's side:

You know the rest." The words stuck in her throat,

Despite her injured love and fiery pride;

And of this Baba willingly took note,

And begged by every hair of Mahomet's beard,

She would revoke the order he had heard.

CXIV.

"To hear is to obey," he said; "but still,

Sultana, think upon the consequence:

It is not that I shall not all fulfil

Your orders, even in their severest sense;

But such precipitation may end ill,

Even at your own imperative expense:

I do not mean destruction and exposure,

In case of any premature disclosure;

CXV.

"But your own feelings. Even should all the rest

Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide

Already many a once love-beaten breast

Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide--

You love this boyish, new, Seraglio guest,

And if this violent remedy be tried--

Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you,

That killing him is not the way to cure you."

CXVI.

"What dost thou know of Love or feeling?--Wretch!

Begone!" she cried, with kindling eyes--"and do

My bidding!" Baba vanished, for to stretch

His own remonstrance further he well knew

Might end in acting as his own "Jack Ketch;"

And though he wished extremely to get through

This awkward business without harm to others,

He still preferred his own neck to another's.

CXVII.

Away he went then upon his commission,

Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase

Against all women of whate'er condition,

Especially Sultanas and their ways;

Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision,

Their never knowing their own mind two days,

The trouble that they gave, their immorality,

Which made him daily bless his own neutrality.

CXVIII.

And then he called his brethren to his aid,

And sent one on a summons to the pair,

That they must instantly be well arrayed,

And above all be combed even to a hair,

And brought before the Empress, who had made

Inquiries after them with kindest care:

At which Dudù looked strange, and Juan silly;

But go they must at once, and will I--nill I.

CXIX.

And here I leave them at their preparation

For the imperial presence, wherein whether

Gulbeyaz showed them both commiseration,

Or got rid of the parties altogether,

Like other angry ladies of her nation,--

Are things the turning of a hair or feather

May settle; but far be 't from me to anticipate

In what way feminine caprice may dissipate.

CXX.

I leave them for the present with good wishes,

Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange

Another part of History; for the dishes

Of this our banquet we must sometimes change;

And trusting Juan may escape the fishes,

(Although his situation now seems strange,

And scarce secure),--as such digressions _are_ fair,

The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.

End of Canto 6th.

FOOTNOTES:

{268}[328] [Two MSS. (A, B) are extant, A in Byron's handwriting, B a

transcription by Mrs. Shelley. The variants are marked respectively _MS.

A., MS. B._

Motto: "Thinkest thou that because thou art virtuous there shall be no

more cakes and ale? Aye! and ginger shall be hot in the mouth

too."--_Twelfth Night, or What You Will_, Shakespeare, act ii. sc. 3,

lines 109-112.--[_MS. B._]

This motto, in an amended form, which was prefixed to the First Canto in

1833, appears on the title-page of the first edition of Cantos VI.,

VII., VIII., published by John Hunt in 1823.]

[329] [See Shakespeare, _Julius Cæsar_, act iv. sc. 3, lines 216, 217.]

[330] [Jacob Behmen (or Boehm) stands for "mystic." Byron twice compares

him with Wordsworth (see _Letters_, 1899, iii. 239, 1900, iv. 238).]

{269}[gb]

_Man with his head reflects (as Spurzheim tells),_

_But Woman with the heart--or something else_.

or, _Man's pensive part is (now and then) the head,_

_Woman's the heart or anything instead_.--

[MS. A. Alternative reading.]

[gc] _Like to a Comet's tail_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gd]

_O'erbalance all the Cæsar's victories_.--[MS. A.]

_Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories_.--[MS. B.]

_In the Shelley copy "o'erbalance" has been erased and "outbalance"

inserted in Byron's handwriting. The lines must have been intended to

run thus_--

_'T is not his conquests keep his name in fashion_

_But Actium lost; for Cleopatra's eyes_

_Outbalance all the Cæsar's victories_.

[ge] _I wish that they had been eighteen_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

{270}[331] [To Mary Chaworth. Compare "Our union would have healed feuds

... it would have joined lands broad and rich; it would have joined at

least _one_ heart."--_Detached Thoughts_, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v.

441.]

[332] [Cato gave up his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius; but, on

the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was censured

by Cæsar, who observed that Cato had an eye to the main chance. "It was

the wealth of Hortensius. He lent the young man his wife, that he might

make her a rich widow."--Langhorne's Plutarch, 1838, pp. 539, 547.]

{271}[333] [_Othello_, act i. sc. i, lines 19-24.]

[gf]---- _though with greater latitude_.--[MS. A.]

{272}[gg] ---- _with one foolish woman wed_.--[MS. B.]

[334] [The famous _bed_, measuring twelve feet square, to which an

allusion is made by Shakespeare in _Twelfth Night_, act iii. sc. 2, line

44, was formerly preserved at the Saracen's Head at Ware, in

Hertfordshire. The bed was removed from Ware to the Rye House in 1869.]

[gh]

_His Highness the sublimest of mankind,_

_The greatest, wisest, bravest, [and the] best,_

_Proved by his edicts somewhat blind,_

_Who saw his virtues as they saw the rest_--

_His Highness quite connubially inclined_

_Had deigned that night to be Gulbeyaz' guest_.--[MS. A.]

[335] See Waverley [chap. xx.]

[gi] _May look like what I need not mention here_--[MS. A.]

{273}[gj] _Are better signs if such things can be signed_.--[MS. A.]

[336] [For St. Francis of Assisi, and the "seven great balls of snow,"

of which "the greatest" was "his wife," see _The Golden Legend_, 1900,

v. 221, _vide ante_, p. 32, note 1.]

[337] [The words _medio_, etc., are to be found in Ovid., _Metam._, lib.

ii. line 137; the doctrine, _Virtus est medium vitiorum_, in Horace,

_Epist_., lib. i, ep. xviii. line 9.]

[gk]

_In the damned line ('t is worth, at least, a curse)_

_Which I have examined too close_.--[MS. erased.]

{274}[gl] _Self-love that whetstone of Don Cupid's art_.--[MS. A.]

[gm]---- _with love despairs._--[MS. A. erased.]

[338] [Lady Noel's will was proved February 22, 1812. She left to the

trustees a portrait of Byron ... with directions that it was not to be

shown to his daughter Ada till she attained the age of twenty-one; but

that if her mother was still living, it was not to be so delivered

without Lady Byron's consent.--_Letters_, 1901, vi. 42, note 1.]

[gn] _Which diddles you_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[go] _I'm a philosopher; G--d damn them all_.--[MS. B.]

[gp] _Bills, women, wives, dogs, horses and mankind_.--[MS. B. erased.]

{275}[gq] _Is more than I know, and, so, damn them both_.--[MS. A.

erased.]

[gr]

_When we lie down--wife, spouse, or bachelor_

_By what we love not, to sigh for the light_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gs] _By their infernal bedfellow_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[339] [The comparison of Queen Caroline to snow may be traced to an

article in the _Times_ of August 23, 1820: "The Queen may now, we

believe, be considered as triumphing! For the first three years at least

of her Majesty's painful peregrinations, she stands before her husband's

admiring subjects 'as white as unsunned snows.'" Political bards and

lampoonists of the king's party thanked the _Times_ for "giving them

that word."]

{276}[340] [According to Gronow (_Reminiscences_, 1889, i. 62), a

practical joke of Dan Mackinnon's (_vide ante_, p. 69, _footnote_) gave

Byron a hint for this scene in the harem: "Lord Wellington was curious

about visiting a convent near Lisbon, and the lady abbess made no

difficulty. Mackinnon hearing this contrived to get clandestinely within

the sacred walls ... at all events, when Lord Wellington arrived Dan

Mackinnon was to be seen among the nuns, dressed out in their sacred

costume, with his whiskers shaved; and, as he possessed good features,

he was declared to be one of the best-looking among those chaste dames.

It was supposed that this adventure, which was known to Lord Byron,

suggested a similar episode in _Don Juan_."]

[341] [Caligula--_vide_ Suetonius, _De XII. Cæs_., C. _Cæs_. Calig.,

cap, xxx., "Infensus turbæ faventi adversus studium exclamavit: 'Utinam

populus Romanus unam cervicem haberet!'"]

[gt] _My wish were general but no worse_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[gu] _That Womankind had only one--say heart_.--[MS. A. erased.]

{277}[342] The ladies of the Seraglio.

[343] [Demetrius Cantemir, hospodar of Moldavia. His work, the _History

of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire_, was translated into

English by N. Tyndal, 1734. He died in 1723.]

[344] [Baron de Tott, in his _Memoirs concerning the State of the

Turkish Empire_ (1786, i. 72), gives the title of this functionary as

_Kiaya Kadun_, i.e. Mistress or Governess of the Ladies.]

{278}[345] [The repetition of the same rhyme-word was noted in

_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, July, 1823, vol. xiv. p. 90.]

{279}[346]

["I guess, 't was frightful there to see

A lady so richly clad as she--

Beautiful exceedingly."

_Christabel_, Part I. lines 66-68.]

[347] "It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and

Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of

beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry

of the features, and the expression of the countenance: the men are

formed for action, the women for love."--Gibbon, [_Decline and Fall,

etc._, 1825, iii 126.]

{280}[348] Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior.

[349] [Katinka was the name of the youngest sister of Theresa, the "Maid

of Athens."--See letter to H. Drury, May 3, 1810, _Letters_, 1898, i.

269, note 1; and _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 15, note 1.

It is probable that the originals of Katinka and Dudù were two

Circassians who were presented for sale to Nicolas Ernest Kleeman (see

his _Voyage de Vienne, etc._, 1780, pp. 142, 143) at Kaffa, in the

Crimea. Of the first he writes, "Elle me baisa la main, et par l'ordre

de son maître, elle se promena en long et en large, pour me faire

remarquer sa taille mince et aisée. Elle avoit un joli petit pied....

Quand elle a en ôté son voile elle a présenté à mes yeux une beauté

très-attrayante; ses cheveux étoient blonds argentés; elle avoit de

grands yeux bleux, le nez un peu long, et les lèvres appétissantes. Sa

figure étoit régulière, son teint blanc, délicat, les joues couvertes

d'un charmant vermilion.... La seconde étoit un peu petite, assez

grasse, et avoit les cheveux roux, l'air sensuel et revenant." Kleeman

pretended to offer terms, took notes, and retired. But the Circassians

are before us still.]

{281}[350] [_Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 2, line 36.]

{284}[gv] _By which no doubt its Baptism came to pass_.--[MS. A.

erased.]

[gw] _The Devil in Hell might melt but never settle_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[351] [Hence the title of the satire, _The Age of Bronze_.]

[gx] _For Woman's silence startles more than thunder_.--[MS. A. erased.]

{287}[352] [Compare _Beppo_, stanza xxii. line 2, _Poetical Works_,

1901, iv. 166, note 1.]

[gy] _With no less true and feminine surprise_.--[MS. A. erased.]

{289}[353] [_Julius Cæsar_, act iii. sc. II, line 216.]

[354]

["Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura," etc.

_Inferno_, Canto I, lines I, 2.]

[gz]

_Himself in an age when men grow good,_

_As Life's best half is done_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[ha] _But out of reach--a most provoking sight_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[hb] _That ere her unreluctant lips could ope_.--[MS. A.]

{290}[355] [One of the advocates employed for Queen Caroline in the

House of Lords spoke of some of the most puzzling passages in the

history of her intercourse with Bergami, as amounting to "odd instances

of strange coincidence."--Ed. 1833, xvi. 160.]

{291}[hc] _At least as red as the Flamingo's breast_.--[MS. A. erased.]

{292}[356] [Byron used Kaff for Caucasus, _vide ante_, _English Bards,

etc._, line 1022, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 378, note 3. But there may

be some allusion to the fabulous Kaff, "anciently imagined by the

Asiatics to surround the world, to bind the horizon on all sides." There

was a proverb "From Kaf to Kaf," _i.e._ "the wide world through." See,

too, D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque Orientale_, 1697, art. "Caf."]

[357] [See L.A. Seneca, _De Irâ_, lib. ii. cap. 25.]

{294}[hd]

_Oh thou her lawful grandson Alexander_

_Let not this quality offend_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[358] [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, lines 434, sq., _Poetical Works_,

1901, v. 563, note 1.]

{294}[he] _To call a man a whoreson_----.--[MS. A. erased.]

[hf] _But a man's grandmother is deemed fair game_.--[MS. A.]

[359] [It is probable that Byron knew that there was a "hint of

illegitimacy" in his own pedigree. John Byron of Clayton, grandfather of

Richard the second Lord Byron, was born, out of wedlock, to Elizabeth,

daughter of William Costerden, of Blakesley, in Lancashire, widow to

George Halgh of Halgh (_sic_), and second wife of Sir John Byron of

Clayton, "little Sir John with the great beard." He succeeded to

Newstead and the Lancashire estates, not as heir-at-law, but by deed of

gift. (See letter to Murray, October 20, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 99,

note 2.)]

{295}[360] [Aubry de la Motraye, in describing the interior of the Grand

Signior's palace, into which he gained admission as the assistant of a

watchmaker who was employed to regulate the clocks, says that the eunuch

who received them at the entrance of the harem, conducted them into a

hall: "Cette salle est incrustee de porcelaines fines; et le lambris

doré et azuré qui orne le fond d'une coupole qui regne au-dessus, est

des plus riches.... Une fontaine artificielle et jaillissante, dont le

bassin est d'un prétieux marbre verd qui m'a paru serpentin ou jaspe,

s'élevoit directement au milieu, sous le dôme.... Je me trouvai la tête

si pleine de _Sophas_ de prétieux plafonds, de meubles superbes, en un

mot, d'une si grande confusion de matériaux magnifiques, ... qu'il

seroit difficile d'en donner une idée claire."--_Voyages_, 1727, i. 220,

222.]

{296}[361] ["Il n'ya point de Religieuses ... point de novices, plus

soumises à la volonté de leur abbesse que ces filles [les Odaliques] le

sont à leurs maitresses."--A. de la Motraye, _Voyages,_ 1727, i. 338.]

{297}[hg]

---- _though seen not heard_

_For it is silent_.--[MS. A. erased.]

[362] ["How fares my Kate? What! sweeting, all amort?"--_Taming of the

Shrew,_ act iv. sc. 3, line 36. "Amort" is said to be a corruption of _à

la mort_. Byron must have had in mind his silent ecstasy of grief when

the Countess Guiccioli endeavoured to break the announcement of

Allegra's death (April, 1822). "'I understand,' said he; 'it is enough;

say no more.' A mortal paleness spread itself over his face, his

strength failed him, and he sunk into a seat. His look was fixed, and

the expression such that I began to fear for his reason; he did not shed

a tear" (_Life,_ p. 368).]

{299}[363] ["His guilty soul, at enmity with gods and men, could find no

rest; so violently was his mind torn and distracted by a consciousness

of guilt. Accordingly his countenance was pale, his eyes ghastly, his

pace one while quick, another slow [citus modo, modo tardus incessus];

indeed, in all his looks there was an air of distraction."--Sallust,

_Catilina_, cap. xv. sf.]

CANTO THE SEVENTH.[364]

I.

O LOVE! O Glory! what are ye who fly

Around us ever, rarely to alight?

There's not a meteor in the polar sky

Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.

Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift on high

Our eyes in search of either lovely light;

A thousand and a thousand colours they

Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

II.

And such as they are, such my present tale is,

A nondescript and ever-varying rhyme,

A versified Aurora Borealis,

Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.

When we know what all are, we must bewail us,

But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime

To laugh at _all_ things--for I wish to know

_What_, after _all_, are _all_ things--but a _show_?

III.

They accuse me--_Me_--the present writer of

The present poem--of--I know not what--

A tendency to under-rate and scoff

At human power and virtue, and all that;[365]

And this they say in language rather rough.

Good God! I wonder what they would be at!

I say no more than hath been said in Danté's

Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

IV.

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,

By Fénélon, by Luther, and by Plato;[hh]

By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,

Who knew this life was not worth a potato.

'T is not their fault, nor mine, if this be so,--

For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,

Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die,

But which is best, _you_ know no more than I.

V.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was[366]

"To know that nothing could be known;" a pleasant

Science enough, which levels to an ass

Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.

Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas!

Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,

That he himself felt only "like a youth

Picking up shells by the great ocean--Truth."[hi][367]

VI.

Ecclesiastes said, "that all is vanity"--

Most modern preachers say the same, or show it

By their examples of true Christianity:

In short, all know, or very soon may know it;

And in this scene of all-confessed inanity,

By Saint, by Sage, by Preacher, and by Poet,

Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife,

From holding up the nothingness of Life?[hj]

VII.

Dogs, or men!--for I flatter you[368] in saying

That ye are dogs--your betters far--ye may

Read, or read not, what I am now essaying

To show ye what ye are in every way.

As little as the moon stops for the baying

Of wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray

From out her skies--then howl your idle wrath!

While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path.

VIII.

"Fierce loves and faithless wars"--I am not sure

If this be the right reading--'t is no matter;

The fact's about the same, I am secure;

I sing them both, and am about to batter

A town which did a famous siege endure,

And was beleaguered both by land and water

By Souvaroff,[369] or Anglicè Suwarrow,

Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow.

IX.

The fortress is called Ismail, and is placed

Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank,[370]

With buildings in the Oriental taste,

But still a fortress of the foremost rank,

Or was at least, unless 't is since defaced,

Which with your conquerors is a common prank:

It stands some eighty versts from the high sea,

And measures round of toises thousands three.[371]

X.

Within the extent of this fortification

A borough is comprised along the height

Upon the left, which from its loftier station

Commands the city, and upon its site

A Greek had raised around this elevation

A quantity of palisades _upright_,

So placed as to _impede_ the fire of those

Who held the place, and to _assist_ the foe's.[372]

XI.

This circumstance may serve to give a notion

Of the high talents of this new Vauban:

But the town ditch below was deep as Ocean,

The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang:

But then there was a great want of precaution

(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang),

Nor work advanced, nor covered way was there,[373]

To hint, at least, "Here is no thoroughfare."

XII.

But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge,

And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet;

Two batteries, cap-à-pie, as our St. George,

Casemated[374] one, and t' other "a barbette,"[375]

Of Danube's bank took formidable charge;

While two-and-twenty cannon duly set

Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier,

Forty feet high, upon a cavalier.[376]

XIII.

But from the river the town's open quite,

Because the Turks could never be persuaded

A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight;[377]

And such their creed was till they were invaded,

When it grew rather late to set things right:

But as the Danube could not well be waded,

They looked upon the Muscovite flotilla,

And only shouted, "Allah!" and "Bis Millah!"

XIV.

The Russians now were ready to attack;

But oh, ye goddesses of War and Glory!

How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque

Who were immortal, could one tell their story?

Alas! what to their memory can lack?

Achilles' self was not more grim and gory

Than thousands of this new and polished nation,

Whose names want nothing but--pronunciation.

XV.

Still I'll record a few, if but to increase

Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff,

Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arséniew of modern Greece,

And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,[378]

And others of twelve consonants apiece;

And more might be found out, if I could poke enough

Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet),

It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet,

XVI.

And cannot tune those discords of narration,[hk]

Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme;

Yet there were several worth commemoration,

As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime;

Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration

Of Londonderry drawling against time,

Ending in "ischskin," "ousckin," "iffskchy," "ouski,"

Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski,[379]

XVII.

Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti,

Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin,

All proper men of weapons, as e'er scoffed high[380]

Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin:

Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti,

Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin

Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear,

And no more handy substitute been near.

XVIII.

Then there were foreigners of much renown,

Of various nations, and all volunteers;

Not fighting for their country or its crown,

But wishing to be one day brigadiers;

Also to have the sacking of a town;--

A pleasant thing to young men at their years.

'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,

Sixteen called Thomson, and nineteen named Smith.

XIX.

Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson;--all the rest

Had been called _"Jemmy,"_ after the great bard;

I don't know whether they had arms or crest,

But such a godfather's as good a card.

Three of the Smiths were Peters; but the best

Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward,

Was _he_, since so renowned "in country quarters

At Halifax;"[381] but now he served the Tartars.

XX.

The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills,

But when I've added that the elder Jack Smith

Was born in Cumberland among the hills,

And that his father was an honest blacksmith,

I've said all _I_ know of a name that fills

Three lines of the despatch in taking "Schmacksmith,"

A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein

He fell, immortal in a bulletin.

XXI.

I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a god I

Praise) if a man's name in a _bulletin_

May make up for a _bullet in_ his body?

I hope this little question is no sin,

Because, though I am but a simple noddy,

I think one Shakespeare puts the same thought in

The mouth of some one in his plays so doting,

Which many people pass for wits by quoting.[382]

XXII.

Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young, and gay;

But I'm too great a patriot to record

Their Gallic names upon a glorious day;

I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word

Of truth;--such truths are treason; they betray

Their country; and as traitors are abhorred,

Who name the French in English, save to show

How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe.

XXIII.

The Russians, having built two batteries on

An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view;

The first was to bombard it, and knock down

The public buildings and the private too,

No matter what poor souls might be undone:[hl]

The city's shape suggested this, 't is true,

Formed like an amphitheatre--each dwelling

Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.[383]

XXIV.

The second object was to profit by

The moment of the general consternation,

To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay nigh

Extremely tranquil, anchored at its station:

But a third motive was as probably

To frighten them into capitulation;[384]

A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors,

Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers.[hm]

XXV.

A habit rather blameable, which is

That of despising those we combat with,

Common in many cases, was in this

The cause[385] of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith--

One of the valorous "Smiths" whom we shall miss

Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to "pith;"

But 't is a name so spread o'er "Sir" and "Madam,"

That one would think the _first_ who bore it _"Adam."_

XXVI.

The Russian batteries were incomplete,

Because they were constructed in a hurry;[386]

Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet,

And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John Murray,

When the sale of new books is not so fleet

As they who print them think is necessary,

May likewise put off for a time what story

Sometimes calls "Murder," and at others "Glory."

XXVII.

Whether it was their engineer's stupidity,

Their haste or waste, I neither know nor care,

Or some contractor's personal cupidity,

Saving his soul by cheating in the ware

Of homicide, but there was no solidity

In the new batteries erected there;

They either missed, or they were never missed,

And added greatly to the missing list.

XXVIII.

A sad miscalculation about distance

Made all their naval matters incorrect;

Three fireships lost their amiable existence

Before they reached a spot to take effect;

The match was lit too soon, and no assistance

Could remedy this lubberly defect;

They blew up in the middle of the river,

While, though 't was dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.[387]

XXIX.

At seven they rose, however, and surveyed

The Russ flotilla getting under way;

'T was nine, when still advancing undismayed,

Within a cable's length their vessels lay

Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade,

Which was returned with interest, I may say,

And by a fire of musketry and grape,

And shells and shot of every size and shape.[388]

XXX.

For six hours bore they without intermission

The Turkish fire, and, aided by their own

Land batteries, worked their guns with great precision;

At length they found mere cannonade alone

By no means would produce the town's submission,

And made a signal to retreat at one.

One bark blew up, a second near the works

Running aground, was taken by the Turks.[389]

XXXI.

The Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men;

But when they saw the enemy retire,

Their Delhis[390] manned some boats, and sailed again,

And galled the Russians with a heavy fire,

And tried to make a landing on the main;

But here the effect fell short of their desire:

Count Damas drove them back into the water

Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter.[391]

XXXII.

"If" (says the historian here) "I could report

All that the Russians did upon this day,

I think that several volumes would fall short,

And I should still have many things to say;"[392]

And so he says no more--but pays his court

To some distinguished strangers in that fray;

The Prince de Ligne, and Langeron, and Damas,

Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.[393]

XXXIII.

This being the case, may show us what Fame _is_:

For out of these three "_preux Chevaliers_," how

Many of common readers give a guess

That such existed? (and they may live now

For aught we know.) Renown's all hit or miss;

There's fortune even in Fame, we must allow.

'T is true, the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne[394]

Have half withdrawn from _him_ Oblivion's screen.

XXXIV.

But here are men who fought in gallant actions

As gallantly as ever heroes fought,

But buried in the heap of such transactions

Their names are rarely found, nor often sought.

Thus even good fame may suffer sad contractions,

And is extinguished sooner than she ought:

Of all our modern battles, I will bet

You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette.

XXXV.

In short, this last attack, though rich in glory,

Showed that _somewhere, somehow_, there was a fault,

And Admiral Ribas[395] (known in Russian story)

Most strongly recommended an assault;

In which he was opposed by young and hoary,

Which made a long debate; but I must halt,

For if I wrote down every warrior's speech,

I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach.

XXXVI.

There was a man, if that he was a man,

Not that his manhood could be called in question,

For had he not been Hercules, his span

Had been as short in youth as indigestion

Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,

He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on

The soil of the green province he had wasted,

As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.

XXXVII.

This was Potemkin[396]--a great thing in days

When homicide and harlotry made great;

If stars and titles could entail long praise,

His glory might half equal his estate.

This fellow, being six foot high, could raise

A kind of phantasy proportionate

In the then Sovereign of the Russian people,

Who measured men as you would do a steeple.

XXXVIII.

While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent

A courier to the Prince, and he succeeded

In ordering matters after his own bent;

I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,

But shortly he had cause to be content.

In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,

And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border

Were briskly fired and answered in due order.[397]

XXXIX.

But on the thirteenth, when already part

Of the troops were embarked, the siege to raise,

A courier on the spur inspired new heart

Into all panters for newspaper praise,[hn]

As well as dilettanti in War's art,

By his despatches (couched in pithy phrase)

Announcing the appointment of that lover of

Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff.[398]

XL.

The letter of the Prince to the same Marshal

Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause

Been one to which a good heart could be partial--

Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;

But as it was mere lust of Power to o'er-arch all

With its proud brow, it merits slight applause,

Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,

"You will take Ismail at whatever price."[399]

XLI.

"Let there be Light! said God, and there was Light!"

"Let there be Blood!" says man, and there's a sea!

The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night

(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree

More evil in an hour, than thirty bright

Summers could renovate, though they should be

Lovely as those which ripened Eden's fruit;

For War cuts up not only branch, but root.

XLII.

Our friends, the Turks, who with loud "Allahs" now

Began to signalise the Russ retreat,[400]

Were damnably mistaken; few are slow

In thinking that their enemy is beat,[401]

(Or _beaten_, if you insist on grammar, though

I never think about it in a heat,)

But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,

Who hating hogs, yet wished to save their bacon.

XLIII.

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew

In sight two horsemen, who were deemed Cossacques

For some time, till they came in nearer view:

They had but little baggage at their backs,

For there were but _three_ shirts between the two;

But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,

Till, in approaching, were at length descried

In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.[402]

XLIV.

"Great joy to London now!" says some great fool,

When London had a grand illumination,

Which to that bottle-conjuror, John Bull,

Is of all dreams the first hallucination;

So that the streets of coloured lamps are full,

That sage (said John) surrenders at discretion[ho]

His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,

To gratify, like a huge moth, this _one_ sense.

XLV.

'T is strange that he should further "Damn his eyes,"

For they are damned; that once all-famous oath

Is to the Devil now no further prize,

Since John has lately lost the use of both.

Debt he calls Wealth, and taxes Paradise;

And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth,

Which stare him in the face, he won't examine,

Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine.

XLVI.

But to the tale;--great joy unto the camp!

To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque,

O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp,

Presaging a most luminous attack;

Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,

Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,

He flitted to and fro a dancing light,

Which all who saw it followed, wrong or right.

XLVII.

But, certes, matters took a different face;

There was enthusiasm and much applause,

The fleet and camp saluted with great grace,

And all presaged good fortune to their cause.

Within a cannot-shot length of the place

They drew, constructed ladders, repaired flaws

In former works, made new, prepared fascines,

And all kinds of benevolent machines.

XLVIII.

'T is thus the spirit of a single mind

Makes that of multitudes take one direction,

As roll the waters to the breathing wind,

Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection;

Or as a little dog will lead the blind,

Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection

By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual;

Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.

XLIX.

The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought

That they were going to a marriage feast

(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,

Since there is discord after both at least):

There was not now a luggage boy but sought

Danger and spoil with ardour much increased;

And why? because a little--odd--old man,

Stripped to his shirt, was come to lead the van.

L.

But so it was; and every preparation

Was made with all alacrity: the first

Detachment of three columns took its station,

And waited but the signal's voice to burst

Upon the foe: the second's ordination

Was also in three columns, with a thirst

For Glory gaping o'er a sea of Slaughter:

The third, in columns two, attacked by water.[403]

LI.

New batteries were erected, and was held

A general council, in which Unanimity,

That stranger to most councils, here prevailed,[404]

As sometimes happens in a great extremity;[hp]

And every difficulty being dispelled,

Glory began to dawn with due sublimity,[hq]

While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,

Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.[405]

LII.

It is an actual fact, that he, commander

In chief, in proper person deigned to drill

The awkward squad, and could afford to squander

His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil;

Just as you'd break a sucking salamander

To swallow flame, and never take it ill:[hr]

He showed them how to mount a ladder (which

Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch.[406]

LIII.

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;[407]

And when well practised in these mimic scenes,

He judged them proper to assail the works,--

(At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty),[hs]

He made no answer--but he took the city.

LIV.

Most things were in this posture on the eve

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.[ht]

LV.

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,

Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering;

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.[408]

LVI.

The day before the assault, while upon drill--

For this great conqueror played the corporal--

Some Cossacques, hovering like hawks round a hill,

Had met a party towards the Twilight's fall,

One of whom spoke their tongue--or well or ill,

'T was much that he was understood at all;

But whether from his voice, or speech, or manner,

They found that he had fought beneath their banner.

LVII.

Whereon immediately at his request

They brought him and his comrades to head-quarters;

Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guessed

That these were merely masquerading Tartars,

And that beneath each Turkish-fashioned vest

Lurked Christianity--which sometimes barters

Her inward grace for outward show, and makes

It difficult to shun some strange mistakes.

LVIII.

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,[409] which to martial comprehension

Proved death in battle equal to a pension;--

LIX.

Suwarrow, when he saw this company

Of Cossacques and their prey, turned round and cast

Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:--

"Whence come ye?"--"From Constantinople last,

Captives just now escaped," was the reply.

"What are ye?"--"What you see us." Briefly passed

This dialogue; for he who answered knew

To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.

LX.

"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."

LXI.

"You served at Widdin?"--"Yes."--"You led the attack?"

"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 followed?"--"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.

LXII.

"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"--

LXIII.

"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[410]

Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque.

LXIV.

"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 Catherine.

LXV.

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."

LXVI.

"Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you

Will join your former regiment, which should be

Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to"--

(Here he called up a Polish orderly)

"His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew:

The stranger stripling may remain with me;

He's a fine boy. The women may be sent

To the other baggage, or to the sick tent."

LXVII.

But here a sort of scene began to ensue:

The ladies,--who by no means had been bred

To be disposed of in a way so new,

Although their Harem education led,

Doubtless, to that of doctrines the most true,

Passive obedience,--now raised up the head

With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung

Their arms, as hens their wings about their young,

LXVIII.

O'er the promoted couple of brave men

Who were thus honoured by the greatest Chief

That ever peopled Hell with heroes slain,

Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.

Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!

Oh, glorious Laurel! since for one sole leaf

Of thine imaginary deathless tree,

Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.[hu]

LXIX.

Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears,

And not much sympathy for blood, surveyed

The women with their hair about their ears

And natural agonies, with a slight shade

Of feeling: for however Habit sears

Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade

Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow

Will touch even heroes--and such was Suwarrow.

LXX.

He said,--and in the kindest Calmuck tone,--

"Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean

By bringing women here? They shall be shown

All the attention possible, and seen

In safety to the waggons, where alone

In fact they can be safe. You should have been

Aware this kind of baggage never thrives;

Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives"--

LXXI.

"May it please your Excellency," thus replied

Our British friend, "these are the wives of others,

And not our own. I am too qualified

By service with my military brothers

To break the rules by bringing one's own bride

Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers

The hearts of the heroic on a charge,

As leaving a small family at large.

LXXII.

"But these are but two Turkish ladies, who

With their attendant aided our escape,

And afterwards accompanied us through

A thousand perils in this dubious shape.

To me this kind of life is not so new;

To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape:

I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely,

Request that they may both be used genteelly."

LXXIII.

Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,

Looked on as if in doubt if they could trust

Their own protectors; nor was their surprise

Less than their grief (and truly not less just)

To see an old man, rather wild than wise

In aspect, plainly clad, besmeared with dust,

Stripped to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,

More feared than all the Sultans ever seen.

LXXIV.

For everything seemed resting on his nod,

As they could read in all eyes. Now to them,

Who were accustomed, as a sort of god,

To see the Sultan, rich in many a gem,

Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad

(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,)

With all the pomp of Power, it was a doubt

How Power could condescend to do without.

LXXV.

John Johnson, 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.

And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses,

They parted for the present--these to await,

According to the artillery's hits or misses,

What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate--

(Uncertainty is one of many blisses,

A mortgage on Humanity's estate;)[hv]

While their belovéd friends began to arm,

To burn a town which never did them harm.

LXXVII.

Suwarrow,--who but saw things in the gross.

Being much too gross to see them in detail,

Who calculated life as so much dross,

And as the wind a widowed 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?

LXXVIII.

Nothing.--The work of Glory still went on

In preparations for a cannonade

As terrible as that of Ilion,

If Homer had found mortars ready made;

But now, instead of slaying Priam's son,

We only can but talk of escalade,

Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets--

Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.

LXXIX.

Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm

All ears, though long; all ages, though so short,

By merely wielding with poetic arm

Arms to which men will never more resort,

Unless gunpowder should be found to harm

Much less than is the hope of every court,

Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;

But they will not find Liberty a Troy:--

LXXX.

Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now

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 blood:[hw]

LXXXI.

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 attacked;

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

Souls of immortal Generals! Phoebus watches

To colour up his rays from your despatches.[hx]

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;[hy]

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 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--

The death-cry drowning in the Battle's roar.[hz][411]

FOOTNOTES:

{302}[364] ["These [the seventh and eighth] Cantos contain a full detail

(like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and assault of Ismael,

with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary

soldiery.... With these things and these fellows it is necessary, in the

present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I

know it is against fearful odds; but the battle must be fought; and it

will be eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it may be for the

individual who risks himself."--Letter to Moore, August 8, 1822,

_Letters_, 1901, vi. 101.]

[365] [Byron attributes this phrase to Orator Henley (_Letters_, 1898,

i. 227); and to Bayes in the Duke of Buckingham's play, _The Rehearsal_

(_Letters_, 1901, v. 80).]

[hh] _Of Fenelon, of Calvin and of Christ_.--[MS. erased.]

[366] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza vii. line 1, _Poetical

Works_, 1899, ii. 103, note 2.]

[hi] _Picking a pebble on the shore of Truth_.--[MS. erased.]

[367] ["Sir Isaac Newton, a little before he died, said, 'I don't know

what I may seem to the world; but, as to myself, I seem to have been

only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting myself in now

and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary

whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before

me.'"--Spence, _Anecdotes_ (quoting Chevalier Ramsay), 1858, p. 40.]

{304}[hj] _From fools who dread to know the truth of Life_.--[MS.

erased.]

[368] [Compare "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog,"

lines 7, sq., _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 280.]

[369] [Aleksandr Vasilievitch Suvóroff (1729-1800) opened his attack on

Ismail, November 30, 1790. His forces, including Kossacks, exceeded

27,000 men.--_Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la Nouvelle

Russie_, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, 1827, ii. 201.]

[370] ["Ismaël est situé sur la rive gauche du bras gauche (i.e. the

ilia) du Danube."--_Ibid._.]

{305}[371] [----"à peu près à quatre-vingts verstes de la mer: elle a

près de trois milles toises de tour."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_,

ii. 201.]

[372] ["On a compris dans ces fortifications un faubourg moldave, situé

à la gauche de la ville, sur une hauteur qui la domine: l'ouvrage a été

terminé par un Grec. Pour donner une idée des talens de cet ingénieur,

il suffira de dire qu'il fit placer les palissades perpendiculairement

sur le parapet, de manière qu'elles favorisaient les assiégeans, et

arrêtaient le feu des assiégés."--_Ibid._, p. 202.]

[373] ["Le rempart en terre est prodigieusement élevé à cause de

l'immense profondeur du fossé; il est cependant absolument rasant: il

n'y a ni ouvrage avancé, ni chemin couvert."--_Ibid._, p. 202.]

[374] [Casemate is a work made under the rampart, like a cellar or cave,

with loopholes to place guns in it, and is bomb proof.--_Milit. Dict._]

[375] [When the breastwork of a battery is only of such height that the

guns may fire over it without being obliged to make embrasures, the guns

are said to fire in barbet.--_Ibid._]

{306}[376] ["Un bastion de pierres, ouvert par une gorge très-étroite,

et dont les murailles son fort épaisses, a une batterie casematée et une

à barbette; il défend la rive du Danube. Du côté droit de la ville est

un cavalier de quarante pieds d'élévation à pic, garni de vingt-deux

pièces de canon, et qui défend la partie gauche."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle

Russie_, ii. 202.]

[377] ["Du côté du fleuve, la ville est absolument ouverte; les Turcs ne

croyaient pas que les Russes pussent jamais avoir une flotille dans le

Danube."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]

[378] [Meknop [supposed to be a corruption of McNab], etc., in line

three, are real names: Strongenoff stands for Strogonof, Tschitsshakoff

for Tchitchagof, and, perhaps, Chokenoff for Tchoglokof.]

{307}[hk] ---- _these discords of damnation_.--[MS. erased.]

[379] ["La première attaque était composée de trois colonnes, commandées

par les lieutenans-generaux Paul Potiemkin, Serge Lwow, les

généraux-majors Maurice Lascy, Théodore Meknop.... Trois autres colonnes

... avaient pour chefs le comte de Samoïlow, les généraux Êlie de

Bezborodko, Michel Koutousow; les brigadiers Orlow, Platow,

Ribaupierre.... La troisième attaque par eau n'avait que deux colonnes,

sous les ordres des généraux-majors Ribas et Arséniew, des brigadiers

Markoff et Tchépéga," etc.--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 207.

Compare--

"Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky,

And all the others that end in-offsky.

* * * * *

And Kutousoff he cut them off," etc.

Southey's _March to Moscow_, 1813.]

[380] [Count Boris Petrowitch Scheremetov, Russian general, died 1819;

Prince Alexis Borisovitch Kourakin (1759-1829), and Count Alexis

Iwanowitch Moussine-Pouschkine (1744-1817) were distinguished statesmen;

Chrematoff is, perhaps, a rhyming double of Scherematoff, and Koklophti

"a match-piece" to Koclobski.]

{308}[381] [Captain Smith, in the song--

"A Captain bold, in Halifax,

That dwelt in country quarters,

Seduc'd a maid who hang'd herself

One Monday in her garters."

See George Colman's farce, _Love Laughs at Locksmiths_, 1818, p. 31.]

{309}[382] [Compare--

"While to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds."

_Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 4, lines 56-59.]

[hl] _The Conquest seemed not difficult_----.--[MS. erased.]

[383] ["On s'était proposé deux buts également avantageux, par la

construction de deux batteries sur l'île qui avoisine Ismaël: le

premier, de bombarder la place, d'en abattre les principaux édifices

avec du canon de quarante-huit, effet d'autant plus probable, que la

ville étant bâtie en amphithéâtre, presque aucun coup ne serait

perdu."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 203.]

[384] ["Le second objet était de profiter de ce moment d'alarme pour que

la flottille, agissant en même temps, put détruire celle des Turcs. Un

troisième motif, et vraisemblablement le plus plausible, était de jeter

la consternation parmi les Turcs, et de les engager à

capituler."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 203.]

{310}[hm]

_Unless they are as game as bull-dogs or even tarriers_.

or, _A thing which sometimes hath occurred to warriors_,

_Unless they happened to be as game as tarriers_.--

[MS. A. Alternative reading.]

_Unless they are Game as bull-dogs or even terriers_.--[MS. B.]

(Byron erased the reading of MS. B. and superscribed the reading of the

text.)

[385] ["Une habitude blâmable, celle de mépriser son ennemi, fut la

cause."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]

[386] [" ... du défaut de perfection dans la construction des batteries;

on voulait agir promptement, et on négligea de donner aux ouvrages la

solidité qu'ils exigaient."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]

{311}[387] ["Le même esprit fit manquer l'effet de trois brûlots; on

calcula mal la distance; on se pressa d'allumer la méche, ils brûlèrent

au milieu du fleuve, et quoiqu'il fût six heures du matin, les Turcs,

encore couchés, n'en prirent aucun ombrage."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle

Russie_, ii. 203.]

[388] ["1^er^ Dec. 1790. La flottille russe s'avança vers les sept

heures; il en était neuf lorsqu'elle se trouva à cinquante toises de la

ville [d'Ismaël]: elle souffrit, avec une constance calme, un feu de

mitraille et de mousqueterie...."--_Ibid._, p. 204.]

[389] [" ... près de six heures ... les batteries de terre secondaient

la flottille; mais on reconnut alors que les canonnades ne suffiraient

pas pour réduire la place, on fit la retraite à une heure. Un lançon

sauta pendant l'action, un autre dériva par la force du courant, et fut

pris par l'ennemi."'--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 204.]

{312}[390] [For Delhis, see _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii., note 1.]

[391] ["Les Turcs perdirent beaucoup de monde et plusieurs vaisseaux. A

peine la retraite des Russes fut-elle remarquée, que les plus braves

d'entre les ennemis se jetèrent dans de petites barques et essayèrent

une descente: le Comte de Damas les mit en fuite, et leur tua plusieurs

officiers et grand nombre de soldats."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_,

p. 204.]

[392] ["On ne tarirait pas si on voulait rapporter tout ce que les

Russes firent de mémorable dans cette journée; pour conter les hauts

faits d'armes, pour particulariser toutes les actions d'éclat, il

faudrait composer des volumes."--_Ibid._, p. 204.]

[393] ["Parmi les étrangers, le prince de Ligne se distingua de manière

à mériter l'estime générale; de vrais chevaliers français, attirés par

l'amour de la gloire, se montrèrent dignes d'elle: les plus marquans

étaient le jeune Duc de Richelieu, les Comtes de Langeron et de

Damas."--_Ibid._, p. 204.

Andrault, Comte de Langeron, born at Paris, January 13, 1763, on the

outbreak of the Revolution (1790) took service in the Russian Army. He

fought against the Swedes in 1790, and the Turks in 1791, and, after

serving as a volunteer in the army of the Duke of Brunswick (1792-93),

returned to Russia, and was raised to the rank of general in 1799. He

commanded a division of the Russian Army in the German campaign of 1813,

and entered Paris with Blücher, March 30, 1814. He was afterwards

Governor of Odessa and of New Russia; and, a second time, fought against

the Turks in 1828. He died at St. Petersburg, July 4, 1831. Joseph

Elizabeth Roger, Comte de Damas d'Antigny, born at Paris, September 4,

1765, owed his commission in the Russian Army to the influence of the

Prince de Ligne. He fought against the Turks in 1787-88, and was

distinguished for bravery and daring. At the Restoration in 1814 he

re-entered the French Army, was made Governor of Lyons; shared the

temporary exile of Louis XVIII. at Ghent in 1815, and, in the following

year, as commandant of a division, took part in repressing the

revolutionary disturbances in the central and southern departments of

France. He died at Cirey, September 3, 1823.--_La Grande Encyclopédie_.]

{313}[394] [Charles Joseph, Prince de Ligne, was born at Brussels, May

12, 1735. In 1782 he visited St. Petersburg as envoy of the Emperor

Joseph II., won Catherine's favour, and was appointed Field Marshal in

the Russian Army. In 1788 he was sent to assist Potemkin at the siege of

Ochakof. His _Mélanges Militaires, etc._, were first published in 1795.

He died in November, 1814.

Josef de Ribas (1737-c. 1797).]

[395] ["L'Amiral de Ribas ... déclara, en plein conseil, que ce n'était

qu'en donnant l'assaut qu'on obtiendrait la place: cet avis parut hardi;

on lui opposa mille raisons, auxquelles il répondit par de meilleures."

--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii, 205.]

{314}[396] [Prince (Gregor Alexandrovitch) Potemkin, born 1736, died

October 15, 1791. "He alighted from his carriage in the midst of the

highway, threw himself on the grass, and died under a tree" (_Life of

Catherine II_., by W. Tooke, 1880, iii. 324). His character has been

drawn by Louis Philippe, Comte de Ségur, who, writes Tooke (_ibid_., p.

326), "lived a long time in habits of intimacy with him, and was so

obliging as to delineate it at our solicitation." "In his person were

collected the most opposite defects and advantages of every kind. He was

avaricious and ostentatious, ... haughty and obliging, politic and

confiding, licentious and superstitious, bold and timid, ambitious and

indiscreet; lavish of his bounties to his relations, his mistresses, and

his favourites, yet frequently paying neither his household nor his

creditors. His consequence always depended on a woman, and he was always

unfaithful to her. Nothing could equal the activity of his mind, nor the

indolence of his body. No dangers could appal his courage; no

difficulties force him to abandon his projects. But the success of an

enterprise always brought on disgust.... Everything with him was

desultory; business, pleasure, temper, carriage. His presence was a

restraint on every company. He was morose to all that stood in awe of

him, and caressed all such as accosted him with familiarity.... None had

read less than he; few people were better informed.... One while he

formed the project of becoming Duke of Courland; at another he thought

of bestowing on himself the crown of Poland. He frequently gave

intimations of an intention to make himself a bishop, or even a simple

monk. He built a superb palace, and wanted to sell it before it was

finished. In his youth he had pleased her [Catherine] by the ardour of

his passion, by his valour, and by his masculine beauty.... Become the

rival of Orloff, he performed for his sovereign whatever the most

romantic passion could inspire. He put out his eye, to free it from a

blemish which diminished his beauty. Banished by his rival, he ran to

meet death in battle, and returned with glory."]

{315}[397] ["Ce projet, remis à un autre jour, éprouva encore les plus

grandes difficultés; son courage les surmonta: il ne s'agíssait que de

déterminer le Prince Potiemkin; il y réussit. Tandis qu'il se démenait

pour l'exécution de projet agréé, on construisait de nouvelles

batteries; on comptait, le 12 décembre, quatre-vingts pièces de canon

sur le bord du Danube, et cette journée se passa en vives

canonnades."--_Histoire de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 205.]

[hn] _Into all aspirants for martial praise_.--[MS. erased.]

[398] ["Le 13^e^, une partie des troupes était embarquée; on allait

lever le siège: un courrier arrive.... Ce courrier annonce, de la part

du prince, que le maréchal Souwarow va prendre le commandement des

forces réunies sous Ismaël."--_Ibid._, p. 205.]

{316}[399] ["La lettre du Prince Potiemkin à Souwarow est très courte;

elle peint le caractere de ces deux personnages. La voici dans toute sa

teneur: _'Vous prendrez Ismaël à quel frix que ce soit!'_"--_Hist, de la

Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 205.]

[400] ["[Le courrier] est témoin des cris de joie du Turc, qui se

croyait à la fin de ses maux."-_Ibid_., p. 205.]

[401] ["Beat," as in "dead-beat," is occasionally used for

"beaten."--See _N.E.D._, art. "Beat," 10.]

[402] ["Le 16^e^, on voit venir de loin deux hommes courant à toute

bride: on les prit pour des Kozaks; l'un était Souwarow, et l'autre son

guide, portant un paquet gros comme le poing, et renfermant le bagage du

général."-_Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 205.

M. de Castelnau in his description of the arrival of Suvóroff on the

field of battle (_Hist, de la_ N.R., 1827, ii. pp, 205, 206) summarizes

the Journal of the Duc de Richelieu. The original passage runs as

follows:--

"L'arrivée du comte Souvorow produisit un grand effet parmi les

troupes.... La manière d'être plus que simple, puis-qu'il logeait sous

une canonnière, et qu'il n'avait pas même de chaises dans sa tente, son

affabilité, sa bonhomie lui conciliaient l'affection de tous les

individus de son armée. Cet homme singulier qui ressemble plus à un chef

de cosaques ou de Tartares, qu'au général d'une armée européenne, est

doué d'une intrépidité et d'une hardiesse peu communes.... La manière de

vivre, de s'habiller et de parler du comte Souvorow, est aussi

singulière que ses opinions militaires.... Il mangeait dans sa tente

assis par terre autour d'une natte sur laquelle il prenait le plus

détestable repas. L'après-midi, un semblable repas lui servait de

souper, il s'endormait ensuite pendant quelques heures, passait une

partie de la nuit à chanter, et a la pointe du jour il sortait presque

nu et se roulait sur l'herbe assurant que cet exercice lui était

necessaire pour le préserver des rhumatismes.... Sa manière de

s'exprimer dans toutes les langues est aussi singulière que toute sa

façon d'être, ses phrases sont incohérentes, et s'il n'est pas insensé,

il dit et fait du moins tout ce qu'il faut pour le paraître; mais il est

heureux et cette qualité dont le Cardinal Mazarin faisait tant de cas,

est, à bon droit, fort estimée de l'Impératrice et du Prince Potemkin

... Le moment de l'arrivée du Comte Souvorow fut annoncé par une

décharge générale des batteries ou camp et de la flotte."--_Journal de mon

Voyage en Allemagne_. _Soc, Imp. d'Hist de Russie_, 1886, tom. liv. pp.

168, 169.]

{317}[ho] _That sage John Bull_----.--[MS.]

_That fool John Bull_----.--[MS. erased.]

{319}[403] ["La première attaque était composée de trois colonnes ...

Trois autres colonnes, destinées a la seconde attaque, avaient pour

chefs, etc.... La troisième attaque par eau n'avait que deux

colonnes."--_Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 207.]

[404] ["On construisit de nouvelles batteries le 18^e^.... On tint un

conseil de guerre, on y examina les plans pour l'assaut proposés par M.

de Ribas, ils réunirent tous les souffrages."--_Ibid._, p. 208.]

[hp] _For once by some odd sort of magnanimity._--[MS. erased.]

[hq] _Bellona shook her spear with much sublimity._--[MS. erased.]

[405] Fact: Suwaroff did this in person.

[hr]---- _and neither swerve nor spill._--[MS. erased.]

[406] ["Le 19^e^ et le 20^e^, Souwarow exerçailes soldats; il leur

montra comment il fallait s'y prendre pour escalader; il enseigna aux

recrues la manière de donner le coup de baïonnette."--_Ibid_., p. 208.]

{320}[407] ["Pour ces exercices d'un nouveau genre, il se servit de

fascines disposées de manière a représenter un Turc."-_Hist, de la

Nauvelle Russie_, ii. 208.]

[hs]

_At which your wise men laughed, but all their Wit is_

_Lost, for his repartee was taking cities._--[MS. erased.]

[ht]

_For some were thinking of their wives and families,_

_And others of themselves_ (_as poet Samuel is_).

--[MS. Alternative reading.]

_And others of themselves_ (_as my friend Samuel is_).

--[MS. erased.]

[408] [For a detailed account of Suvóroff's personal characteristics,

see _The Life of Field-Marshal Souvaroff_, by L.M.P. Tranchant de

Laverne, 1814, pp. 267-291; and _Suvóroff_, by Lieut.-Colonel Spalding,

1890, pp. 222-229.

Byron's epithet "buffoon" (line 5) may, perhaps, be traced to the

following anecdote recorded by Tranchant de Laverne (p. 281): "During

the first war of Poland ... he published, in the order of the day, that

at the first crowing of the cock the troops would march to attack the

enemy, and caused the spy to send word that the Russians would be upon

them some time after midnight. But about eight o'clock Souvarof ran

through the camp, imitating the crowing of a cock.... The enemy,

completely surprised, lost a great number of men."

For his "praying" (line 6), _vide ibid._, pp. 272, 273: "He made a short

prayer after each meal, and again when going to bed. He usually

performed his devotions before an image of St. Nicholas, the patron

saint of Russia."

"Half-dirt" (line 5) is, however, a calumny (_ibid_. p. 272): "It was

his custom to rise at the earliest dawn; several buckets of cold water

were thrown over his naked body."

The same writer (p. 268) repudiates the charges of excessive barbarity

and cruelty brought against Suvóroff by C.F.P. Masson, in his _Mémoires

Secrets sur la Russie_ (_vide_, e.g., ed. 1800, i. 311): "Souvorow ne

scroit que le plus ridicule bouffon, s'il n'étoit pas montré le plus

barbare guerrier. C'est un monstre, qui renferme dans le corps d'un

singe l'âme d'un chien de boucher. Attila, son compatriote, et don't il

descend, peut-être ne fut ni si heureux, ni si féroce."

Suvóroff did not regard himself as "half-demon." "Your pencil," he

reminded the artist Müller, "will delineate the features of my face.

These are visible: but my inner man is hidden. I must tell you that I

have shed rivers of blood. I tremble, but I love my neighbour. In my

whole life I have made no one unhappy; not an insect hath perished by my

hand. I was little; I was big. In fortune's ebb and flow, relying on

God, I stood immovable--even as now." (_Suvóroff_, 1890, p. 228,

note.)]

{322}[409] [See, for instance, _The Storm_, in "Souvarof's Catechism,"

Appendix (pp. 299-305) to the _Life, etc._, by Tranchant de Laverne,

1814: "Break down the fence.... Fly over the walls! Stab them on the

ramparts!... Fire down the streets! Fire briskly!... Kill every enemy in

the streets! Let the cavalry hack them!" etc.]

{323}[410] [The "tusk" of the plough is the coulter or share. Compare

"Dens vomeris" (Virg., _Georg._, i. 22).]

{324}[hu]

_Of thine imaginary deathless bough_

_The unebbing sea of blood and tears must flow_.--[MS. erased.]

{326}[hv] _Entailed upon Humanity's estate_.--[MS. erased.]

{327}[hw]

_As a brook's stream to cope with Ocean's flood shed_

_But still we moderns equal you in bloodshed_.--[MS. erased.]

{328}[hx]

_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.]

[hy] _Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot_.--[MS. erased.]

{329}[hz] _The desperate death-cry and the Battle's roar_.--[MS.

erased.]

[411] End of Canto 7. 1822.--[MS.]

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 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--[412]

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;

While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when

The restless Titan hiccups in his den;[413]

VIII.

And one enormous shout of "Allah!"[414] 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!"[415]

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,[416]

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:"[417]

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,[ia]--too, had a ball between

His cap and head,[418] 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

His sympathy for rank, by the same token,

To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.[419]

XII.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,

And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills

Like hail, to make a bloody Diuretic.[420]

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,

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 intrenchment and the palisade,[421]

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 engaged 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 deceased, 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.[422]

XIX.

Juan and Johnson joined 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 marched, 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.

XX.

Thus on they wallowed in the bloody mire

Of dead and dying thousands,--sometimes gaining

A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher

To some odd angle for which all were straining;

At other times, repulsed by the close fire,

Which really poured as if all Hell were raining

Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er

A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore.

XXI.

Though 't was Don Juan's first of fields, and though

The nightly muster and the silent march

In the chill dark, when Courage does not glow

So much as under a triumphal arch,

Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw

A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch,

Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day;--

Yet for all this he did not run away.

XXII.

Indeed he could not. But what if he had?

There _have been_ and _are_ heroes who begun

With something not much better, or as bad:

Frederick the Great from Molwitz[423] deigned to run,

For the first and last time; for, like a pad,

Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one

Warm bout are broken in to their new tricks,

And fight like fiends for pay or politics.

XXIII.

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime

Old Erse or Irish, or it may be _Punic_;--

(The antiquarians[424]--who can settle Time,

Which settles all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic--

Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime

With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic

Of Dido's alphabet--and this is rational

As any other notion, and not national;)--

XXIV.

But Juan was quite "a broth of a boy,"

A thing of impulse and a child of song;

Now swimming in the sentiment of joy,

Or the _sensation_ (if that phrase seem wrong),

And afterward, if he must needs destroy,

In such good company as always throng

To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure,

No less delighted to employ his leisure;

XXV.

But always without malice: if he warred

Or loved, it was with what we call "the best

Intentions," which form all Mankind's _trump card_,

To be produced when brought up to the test.

The statesman--hero--harlot--lawyer--ward

Off each attack, when people are in quest

Of their designs, by saying they _meant well_;

'T is pity "that such meaning should pave Hell."[425]

XXVI.

I almost lately have begun to doubt

Whether Hell's pavement--if it be so _paved_--

Must not have latterly been quite worn out,

Not by the numbers good intent hath saved,

But by the mass who go below without

Those ancient good intentions, which once shaved

And smoothed the brimstone of that street of Hell

Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.[ib]

XXVII.

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides

Warrior from warrior in their grim career,

Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides

Just at the close of the first bridal year,

By one of those odd turns of Fortune's tides,

Was on a sudden rather puzzled here,

When, after a good deal of heavy firing,

He found himself alone, and friends retiring.

XXVIII.

I don't know how the thing occurred--it might

Be that the greater part were killed or wounded,

And that the rest had faced unto the right

About; a circumstance which has confounded

Cæsar himself, who, in the very sight

Of his whole army, which so much abounded

In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield,

And rally back his Romans to the field.[426]

XXIX.

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was

No Cæsar, but a fine young lad, who fought

He knew not why, arriving at this pass,

Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought

For a much longer time; then, like an ass

(Start not, kind reader, since great Homer[427] thought

This simile enough for Ajax, Juan

Perhaps may find it better than a new one);

XXX.

Then, like an ass, he went upon his way,

And, what was stranger, never looked behind;

But seeing, flashing forward, like the day

Over the hills, a fire enough to blind

Those who dislike to look upon a fray,

He stumbled on, to try if he could find

A path, to add his own slight arm and forces

To corps, the greater part of which were corses.

XXXI.

Perceiving then no more the commandant

Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had

Quite disappeared--the gods know how! (I can't

Account for everything which may look bad

In history; but we at least may grant

It was not marvellous that a mere lad,

In search of Glory, should look on before,

Nor care a pinch of snuff about his corps:)--[ic]

XXXII.

Perceiving nor commander nor commanded,

And left at large, like a young heir, to make

His way to--where he knew not--single handed;

As travellers follow over bog and brake

An "ignis fatuus;" or as sailors stranded

Unto the nearest hut themselves betake;

So Juan, following Honour and his nose,

Rushed where the thickest fire announced most foes.[428]

XXXIII.

He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared,

For he was dizzy, busy, and his veins

Filled as with lightning--for his spirit shared

The hour, as is the case with lively brains;

And where the hottest fire was seen and heard,

And the loud cannon pealed his hoarsest strains,

He rushed, while earth and air were sadly shaken

By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon![id][429]

XXXIV.

And as he rushed along, it came to pass he

Fell in with what was late the second column,

Under the orders of the General Lascy,

But now reduced, as is a bulky volume

Into an elegant extract (much less massy)

Of heroism, and took his place with solemn

Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces

And levelled weapons still against the Glacis.[ie]

XXXV.

Just at this crisis up came Johnson too,

Who had "retreated," as the phrase is when

Men run away much rather than go through

Destruction's jaws into the Devil's den;

But Johnson was a clever fellow, who

Knew when and how "to cut and come again,"

And never ran away, except when running

Was nothing but a valorous kind of cunning.

XXXVI.

And so, when all his corps were dead or dying,

Except Don Juan, a mere novice, whose

More virgin valour never dreamt of flying,

From ignorance of danger, which indues

Its votaries, like Innocence relying

On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews,--

Johnson retired a little, just to rally

Those who catch cold in "shadows of Death's valley."

XXXVII.