And there, a little sheltered from the shot,

Which rained from bastion, battery, parapet,

Rampart, wall, casement, house--for there was not

In this extensive city, sore beset

By Christian soldiery, a single spot

Which did not combat like the Devil, as yet,--

He found a number of Chasseurs, all scattered

By the resistance of the chase they battered.

XXXVIII.

And these he called on; and, what 's strange, they came

Unto his call, unlike "the spirits from

The vasty deep," to whom you may exclaim,

Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home:--[430]

Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame

At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb,

And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds[if]

Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads.

XXXIX.

By Jove! he was a noble fellow, Johnson,

And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles,

Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon

We shall not see his likeness: he could kill his

Man quite as quietly as blows the Monsoon

Her steady breath (which some months the same _still_ is):

Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle,

And could be very busy without bustle;

XL.

And therefore, when he ran away, he did so

Upon reflection, knowing that behind

He would find others who would fain be rid so

Of idle apprehensions, which like wind

Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so

Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind,

But when they light upon immediate death,

Retire a little, merely to take breath.

XLI.

But Johnson only ran off, to return

With many other warriors, as we said,

Unto that rather somewhat misty bourne,

Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread.[431]

To Jack, howe'er, this gave but slight concern:

His soul (like galvanism upon the dead)

Acted upon the living as on wire,

And led them back into the heaviest fire.

XLII.

Egad! they found the second time what they

The first time thought quite terrible enough

To fly from, malgré all which people say

Of Glory, and all that immortal stuff

Which fills a regiment (besides their pay,

That daily shilling which makes warriors tough)--

They found on their return the self-same welcome,

Which made some _think_, and others _know_, a _hell_ come.

XLIII.

They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail,

Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle,

Proving that trite old truth, that Life's as frail

As any other boon for which men stickle.

The Turkish batteries thrashed them like a flail,

Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle

Putting the very bravest, who were knocked

Upon the head before their guns were cocked.

XLIV.

The Turks behind the traverses and flanks

Of the next bastion, fired away like devils,

And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks:

However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels

Towns--nations--worlds, in her revolving pranks,

So ordered it, amidst these sulphury revels,

That Johnson, and some few who had not scampered,

Reached the interior "talus"[432] of the rampart.[433]

XLV.

First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen

Came mounting quickly up, for it was now

All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin,

Flame was showered forth above, as well 's below,

So that you scarce could say who best had chosen,

The gentlemen that were the first to show

Their martial faces on the parapet,

Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.

XLVI.

But those who scaled, found out that their advance

Was favoured by an accident or blunder:

The Greek or Turkish Cohorn's[434] ignorance

Had pallisadoed in a way you'd wonder

To see in forts of Netherlands or France--

(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)--

Right in the middle of the parapet

Just named, these palisades were primly set:[435]

XLVII.

So that on either side some nine or ten

Paces were left, whereon you could contrive

To march; a great convenience to our men,

At least to all those who were left alive,

Who thus could form a line and fight again;

And that which farther aided them to strive

Was, that they could kick down the palisades,

Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.[436]

XLVIII.

Among the first,--I will not say _the first_,

For such precedence upon such occasions

Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst

Out between friends as well as allied nations:

The Briton must be bold who really durst

Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience,

As say that Wellington at Waterloo

Was beaten,--though the Prussians say so too;--

XLIX.

And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau,

And God knows who besides in "au" and "ow,"

Had not come up in time to cast an awe[437]

Into the hearts of those who fought till now

As tigers combat with an empty craw,

The Duke of Wellington had ceased to show

His Orders--also to receive his pensions,

Which are the heaviest that our history mentions.

L.

But never mind;--"God save the King!" and _Kings!_

For if _he_ don't, I doubt if _men_ will longer--

I think I hear a little bird, who sings

The people by and by will be the stronger:

The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings

So much into the raw as quite to wrong her

Beyond the rules of posting,--and the mob

At last fall sick of imitating Job.

LI.

At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then,

Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a Giant;

At last it takes to weapons such as men

Snatch when Despair makes human hearts less pliant.

Then comes "the tug of war;"--'t will come again,

I rather doubt; and I would fain say "fie on 't,"

If I had not perceived that Revolution

Alone can save the earth from Hell's pollution.

LII.

But to continue:--I say not _the_ first,

But of the first, our little friend Don Juan

Walked o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed

Amidst such scenes--though this was quite a new one

To him, and I should hope to _most_. The thirst

Of Glory, which so pierces through and through one,

Pervaded him--although a generous creature,

As warm in heart as feminine in feature.[ig]

LIII.

And here he was--who upon Woman's breast,

Even from a child, felt like a child; howe'er

The Man in all the rest might be confessed,

To him it was Elysium to be there;

And he could even withstand that awkward test

Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair,

"Observe your lover when he _leaves_ your arms;"

But Juan never _left_ them--while they had charms,

LIV.

Unless compelled by Fate, or wave, or wind,

Or near relations--who are much the same.

But _here_ he was!--where each tie that can bind

Humanity must yield to steel and flame:

And _he_ whose very body was all mind,

Flung here by Fate or Circumstance, which tame

The loftiest, hurried by the time and place,

Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race.

LV.

So was his blood stirred while he found resistance,

As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate,

Or double post and rail, where the existence

Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight--

The lightest being the safest: at a distance

He hated cruelty, as all men hate

Blood, until heated--and even then his own

At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan.

LVI.

The General Lascy, who had been hard pressed,

Seeing arrive an aid so opportune

As were some hundred youngsters all abreast,

Who came as if just dropped down from the moon

To Juan, who was nearest him, addressed

His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon,

Not reckoning him to be a "base Bezonian"[438]

(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian.[439]

LVII.

Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew

As much of German as of Sanscrit, and

In answer made an inclination to

The General who held him in command;

For seeing one with ribands, black and blue,

Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand,

Addressing him in tones which seemed to thank,

He recognised an officer of rank.

LVIII.

Short speeches pass between two men who speak

No common language; and besides, in time

Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek

Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime

Is perpetrated ere a word can break

Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime

In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,

There cannot be much conversation there.

LIX.

And therefore all we have related in

Two long octaves, passed in a little minute;

But in the same small minute, every sin

Contrived to get itself comprised within it.

The very cannon, deafened by the din,

Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet,

As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise

Of Human Nature's agonizing voice!

LX.

The town was entered. Oh Eternity!--

"God made the country, and man made the town,"

So Cowper says[440]--and I begin to be

Of his opinion, when I see cast down

Rome--Babylon-Tyre-Carthage--Nineveh--

All walls men know, and many never known;

And pondering on the present and the past,

To deem the woods shall be our home at last:--

LXI.

Of all men, saving Sylla,[441] the man-slayer,

Who passes for in life and death most lucky,

Of the great names which in our faces stare,

The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,[442]

Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;

For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he

Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days

Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

LXII.

Crime came not near him--she is not the child

Of solitude; Health shrank not from him--for

Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,

Where if men seek her not, and death be more

Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled

By habit to what their own hearts abhor--

In cities caged. The present case in point I

Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;

LXIII.

And, what's still stranger, left behind a name

For which men vainly decimate the throng,

Not only famous, but of that _good_ fame,

Without which Glory's but a tavern song--

Simple, serene, the _antipodes_ of Shame,

Which Hate nor Envy e'er could tinge with wrong;

An active hermit, even in age the child

Of Nature--or the Man of Ross[443] run wild.

LXIV.

'T is true he shrank from men even of his nation,

When they built up unto his darling trees,--

He moved some hundred miles off, for a station

Where there were fewer houses and more ease;

The inconvenience of civilisation

Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please;

But where he met the individual man,

He showed himself as kind as mortal can.

LXV.

He was not all alone: around him grew

A sylvan tribe of children of the chase,

Whose young, unwakened world was ever new,

Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace

On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view

A frown on Nature's or on human face;

The free-born forest found and kept them free,

And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

LXVI.

And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,

Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,

Because their thoughts had never been the prey

Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions;

No sinking spirits told them they grew grey,

No fashion made them apes of her distortions;

Simple they were, not savage--and their rifles,

Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

LXVII.

Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers,

And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;

Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;

Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;

The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers,

With the free foresters divide no spoil;

Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes

Of this unsighing people of the woods.

LXVIII.

So much for Nature:--by way of variety,

Now back to thy great joys, Civilisation!

And the sweet consequence of large society,

War--pestilence--the despot's desolation,

The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety,

The millions slain by soldiers for their ration,

The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at threescore,[444]

With Ismail's storm to soften it the more.

LXIX.

The town was entered: first one column made

Its sanguinary way good--then another;

The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade

Clashed 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother

With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:--

Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother

The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot

The maddened Turks their city still dispute.

LXX.

Koutousow,[445] he who afterwards beat back

(With some assistance from the frost and snow)

Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,

It happened was himself beat back just now:

He was a jolly fellow, and could crack

His jest alike in face of friend or foe,

Though Life, and Death, and Victory were at stake;[446]

But here it seemed his jokes had ceased to take:

LXXI.

For having thrown himself into a ditch,

Followed in haste by various grenadiers,

Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich,

He climbed to where the parapet appears;

But there his project reached its utmost pitch

('Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre's

Was much regretted), for the Moslem men

Threw them all down into the ditch again.[447]

LXXII.

And had it not been for some stray troops landing

They knew not where, being carried by the stream

To some spot, where they lost their understanding,

And wandered up and down as in a dream,

Until they reached, as daybreak was expanding,

That which a portal to their eyes did seem,--

The great and gay Koutousow might have lain

Where three parts of his column yet remain.[448]

LXXIII.

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops,

After the taking of the "Cavalier,"[449]

Just as Koutousow's most "forlorn" of "hopes"

Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear,

Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups[450]

Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near,

Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud,

Now thawed into a marsh of human blood.

LXXIV.

The Kozacks, or, if so you please, Cossacques--

(I don't much pique myself upon orthography,

So that I do not grossly err in facts,

Statistics, tactics, politics, and geography)--

Having been used to serve on horses' backs,

And no great dilettanti in topography

Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases

Their chiefs to order,--were all cut to pieces.[451]

LXXV.

Their column, though the Turkish batteries thundered

Upon them, ne'ertheless had reached the rampart,[452]

And naturally thought they could have plundered

The city, without being farther hampered;

But as it happens to brave men, they blundered--

The Turks at first pretended to have scampered,

Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion corners,[453]

From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.

LXXVI.

Then being taken by the tail--a taking

Fatal to bishops as to soldiers--these[ih]

Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking,

And found their lives were let at a short lease--

But perished without shivering or shaking,

Leaving as ladders their heaped carcasses,

O'er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi

Marched with the brave battalion of Polouzki:--[454]

LXXVII.

This valiant man killed all the Turks he met,

But could not eat them, being in his turn

Slain by some Mussulmans,[455] who would not yet,

Without resistance, see their city burn.

The walls were won, but 't was an even bet

Which of the armies would have cause to mourn:

'T was blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,

For one would not retreat, nor 't other flinch.

LXXVIII.

Another column also suffered much:--

And here we may remark with the historian,

You should but give few cartridges to such

Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on:

When matters must be carried by the touch

Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on;

They sometimes, with a hankering for existence,

Keep merely firing at a foolish distance.[456]

LXXIX.

A junction of the General Meknop's men

(Without the General, who had fallen some time

Before, being badly seconded just then)

Was made at length with those who dared to climb

The death-disgorging rampart once again;

And, though the Turk's resistance was sublime,

They took the bastion, which the Seraskier

Defended at a price extremely dear.[457]

LXXX.

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers,

Among the foremost, offered him good quarter,

A word which little suits with Seraskiers,

Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar.

He died, deserving well his country's tears,

A savage sort of military martyr:

An English naval officer, who wished

To make him prisoner, was also dished:

LXXXI.

For all the answer to his proposition

Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;[458]

On which the rest, without more intermission,

Began to lay about with steel and lead--

The pious metals most in requisition

On such occasions: not a single head

Was spared;--three thousand Moslems perished here,

And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.[459]

LXXXII.

The city's taken--only part by part--

And Death is drunk with gore: there's not a street

Where fights not to the last some desperate heart

For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.[460]

Here War forgot his own destructive art

In more destroying Nature; and the heat

Of Carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime,

Engendered monstrous shapes of every crime.

LXXXIII.

A Russian officer, in martial tread

Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel

Seized fast, as if 't were by the serpent's head

Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel;

In vain he kicked, and swore, and writhed, and bled,

And howled for help as wolves do for a meal--

The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,

As do the subtle snakes described of old.[ii]

LXXXIV.

A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot

Of a foe o'er him, snatched at it, and bit

The very tendon which is most acute--

(That which some ancient Muse or modern wit

Named after thee, Achilles!) and quite through 't

He made the teeth meet, nor relinquished it

Even with his life--for (but they lie) 't is said

To the live leg still clung the severed head.

LXXXV.

However this may be, 't is pretty sure

The Russian officer for life was lamed,

For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer,

And left him 'midst the invalid and maimed:

The regimental surgeon could not cure

His patient, and, perhaps, was to be blamed

More than the head of the inveterate foe,

Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.

LXXXVI.

But then the fact's a fact--and 't is the part

Of a true poet to escape from fiction

Whene'er he can; for there is little art

in leaving verse more free from the restriction

Of Truth than prose, unless to suit the mart

For what is sometimes called poetic diction,

And that outrageous appetite for lies

Which Satan angles with for souls, like flies.[ij]

LXXXVII.

The city's taken, but not rendered!--No!

There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword:

The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow

Rolls by the city wall; but deed nor word

Acknowledge aught of dread of Death or foe:

In vain the yell of victory is roared

By the advancing Muscovite--the groan

Of the last foe is echoed by his own.

LXXXVIII.

The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves,

And human lives are lavished everywhere,

As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves[ik]

When the stripped forest bows to the bleak air,

And groans; and thus the peopled city grieves,

Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare;

But still it falls in vast and awful splinters,

As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.

LXXXIX.

It is an awful topic--but 't is not

My cue for any time to be terrific:

For checkered as is seen our human lot

With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific

Of melancholy merriment, to quote

Too much of one sort would be soporific;--

Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,

I sketch your world exactly as it goes.

XC.

And one good action in the midst of crimes

Is "quite refreshing," in the affected phrase[461]

Of these ambrosial, Pharisaic times,

With all their pretty milk-and-water ways,

And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes,

A little scorched at present with the blaze

Of conquest and its consequences, which

Make Epic poesy so rare and rich.

XCI.

Upon a taken bastion, where there lay

Thousands of slaughtered men, a yet warm group

Of murdered women, who had found their way

To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop

And shudder;--while, as beautiful as May,

A female child of ten years tried to stoop

And hide her little palpitating breast

Amidst the bodies lulled in bloody rest.[462]

XCII.

Two villanous Cossacques pursued the child

With flashing eyes and weapons: matched with _them_,

The rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild

Has feelings pure and polished as a gem,--

The bear is civilised, the wolf is mild;

And whom for this at last must we condemn?

Their natures? or their sovereigns, who employ

All arts to teach their subjects to destroy?

XCIII.

Their sabres glittered o'er her little head,

Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright,

Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead:

When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight,

I shall not say exactly what he _said_,

Because it might not solace "ears polite;"[463]

But what he _did_, was to lay on their backs,

The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques.

XCIV.

One's hip he slashed, and split the other's shoulder,

And drove them with their brutal yells to seek

If there might be chirurgeons who could solder

The wounds they richly merited,[464] and shriek

Their baffled rage and pain; while waxing colder

As he turned o'er each pale and gory cheek,

Don Juan raised his little captive from

The heap a moment more had made her tomb.

XCV.

And she was chill as they, and on her face

A slender streak of blood announced how near

Her fate had been to that of all her race;

For the same blow which laid her mother here

Had scarred her brow, and left its crimson trace,

As the last link with all she had held dear;[465]

But else unhurt, she opened her large eyes,

And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.

XCVI.

Just at this instant, while their eyes were fixed

Upon each other, with dilated glance,

In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mixed

With joy to save, and dread of some mischance

Unto his protégée; while hers, transfixed

With infant terrors, glared as from a trance,

A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,

Like to a lighted alabaster vase:--[466]

XCVII.

Up came John Johnson (I will not say _"Jack,"_

For that were vulgar, cold, and common-place

On great occasions, such as an attack

On cities, as hath been the present case):

Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back,

Exclaiming--"Juan! Juan! On, boy! brace

Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar,

That you and I will win St. George's collar.[467]

XCVIII.

"The Seraskier is knocked upon the head,

But the stone bastion still remains, wherein

The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead,

Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din

Of our artillery and his own: 't is said

Our killed, already piled up to the chin,

Lie round the battery; but still it batters,

And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.

XCIX.

"Then up with me!"--But Juan answered, "Look

Upon this child--I saved her--must not leave

Her life to chance; but point me out some nook

Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve,

And I am with you."--Whereon Johnson took

A glance around--and shrugged--and twitched his sleeve

And black silk neckcloth--and replied, "You're right;

Poor thing! what's to be done? I'm puzzled quite."

C.

Said Juan--"Whatsoever is to be

Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure

Of present life a good deal more than we."--

Quoth Johnson--"_Neither_ will I quite insure;

But at the least _you_ may die gloriously."--

Juan replied--" At least I will endure

Whate'er is to be borne--but not resign

This child, who is parentless, and therefore mine."

CI.

Johnson said--"Juan, we've no time to lose;

The child's a pretty child--a very pretty--

I never saw such eyes--but hark! now choose

Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity:--

Hark! how the roar increases!--no excuse

Will serve when there is plunder in a city;--

I should be loath to march without you, but,

By God! we'll be too late for the first cut."

CII.

But Juan was immovable; until

Johnson, who really loved him in his way,

Picked out amongst his followers with some skill

Such as he thought the least given up to prey,

And, swearing, if the infant came to ill

That they should all be shot on the next day,--

But if she were delivered safe and sound,

They should at least have fifty rubles round,

CIII.

And all allowances besides of plunder

In fair proportion with their comrades;--then

Juan consented to march on through thunder,

Which thinned at every step their ranks of men:

And yet the rest rushed eagerly--no wonder,

For they were heated by the hope of gain,

A thing which happens everywhere each day--

No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.

CIV.

And such is Victory, and such is Man!

At least nine tenths of what we call so:--God

May have another name for half we scan

As human beings, or his ways are odd.

But to our subject: a brave Tartar Khan--

Or "Sultan," as the author (to whose nod

In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call

This chieftain--somehow would not yield at all:

CV.

But flanked by _five_ brave sons (such is polygamy,

That she spawns warriors by the score, where none

Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy),

He never would believe the city won

While Courage clung but to a single twig.--Am I

Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son?

Neither--but a good, plain, old, temperate man,

Who fought with his five children in the van.[468]

CVI.

To _take_ him was the point.--The truly brave,

When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,

Are touched with a desire to shield and save;--

A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods

Are they--now furious as the sweeping wave,

Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods

The rugged tree unto the summer wind,

Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

CVII.

But he would _not_ be _taken_, and replied

To all the propositions of surrender

By mowing Christians down on every side,

As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.[469]

His five brave boys no less the foe defied;

Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender

As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,[il]

Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.

CVIII.

And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who

Expended all their Eastern phraseology

In begging him, for God's sake, just to show

So much less fight as might form an apology

For _them_ in saving such a desperate foe--

He hewed away, like Doctors of Theology

When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses

Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.

CIX.

Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both

Juan and Johnson; whereupon they fell,

The first with sighs, the second with an oath,

Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell,

And all around were grown exceeding wroth

At such a pertinacious infidel,

And poured upon him and his sons like rain,

Which they resisted like a sandy plain

CX.

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished--

His second son was levelled by a shot;

His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherished

Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot;

The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished,

Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not,

Because deformed, yet died all game and bottom,[im]

To save a Sire who blushed that he begot him.

CXI.

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar,

As great a scorner of the Nazarene

As ever Mahomet picked out for a martyr,

Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green,

Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter

On earth, in Paradise; and when once seen,

Those houris, like all other pretty creatures,

Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features.

CXII.

And what they pleased to do with the young Khan

In Heaven I know not, nor pretend to guess;

But doubtless they prefer a fine young man

To tough old heroes, and can do no less;[in]

And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan

A field of battle's ghastly wilderness,

For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body,

You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody.

CXIII.

Your houris also have a natural pleasure

In lopping off your lately married men,

Before the bridal hours have danced their measure

And the sad, second moon grows dim again,

Or dull Repentance hath had dreary leisure

To wish him back a bachelor now and then:

And thus your Houri (it may be) disputes

Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits.

CXIV.

Thus the young Khan, with Houris in his sight,

Thought not upon the charms of four young brides,

But bravely rushed on his first heavenly night.

In short, howe'er _our_ better faith derides,

These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight,

As though there were one Heaven and none besides--

Whereas, if all be true we hear of Heaven

And Hell, there must at least be six or seven.

CXV.

So fully flashed the phantom on his eyes,

That when the very lance was in his heart,

He shouted "Allah!" and saw Paradise

With all its veil of mystery drawn apart,

And bright Eternity without disguise

On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart:--

With Prophets--Houris--Angels--Saints, descried

In one voluptuous blaze,--and then he died,--[io]

CXVI.

But with a heavenly rapture on his face.

The good old Khan, who long had ceased to see

Houris, or aught except his florid race,

Who grew like cedars round him gloriously--

When he beheld his latest hero grace

The earth, which he became like a felled tree,

Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast

A glance on that slain son, his first and last.

CXVII.

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,

Stopped as if once more willing to concede

Quarter, in case he bade them not "aroynt!"

As he before had done. He did not heed

Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint,

And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed,

As he looked down upon his children gone,

And felt--though done with life--he was alone.[470]

CXVIII.

But 't was a transient tremor:--with a spring

Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung,

As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing

Against the light wherein she dies: he clung

Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring,

Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young;

And throwing back a dim look on his sons,

In one wide wound poured forth his soul at once.

CXIX.

'T is strange enough--the rough, tough soldiers, who

Spared neither sex nor age in their career

Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through,

And lay before them with his children near,

Touched by the heroism of him they slew,

Were melted for a moment; though no tear

Flowed from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife,

They honoured such determined scorn of Life.

CXX.

But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,

Where the chief Pacha calmly held his post:

Some twenty times he made the Russ retire,

And baffled the assaults of all their host;

At length he condescended to inquire

If yet the city's rest were won or lost;

And being told the latter, sent a Bey

To answer Ribas' summons to give way.[471]

CXXI.

In the mean time, cross-legged, with great sang-froid,

Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking

Tobacco on a little carpet;--Troy

Saw nothing like the scene around;--yet looking

With martial Stoicism, nought seemed to annoy

His stern philosophy; but gently stroking

His beard, he puffed his pipe's ambrosial gales,

As if he had three lives, as well as tails.[472]

CXXII.

The town was taken--whether he might yield

Himself or bastion, little mattered now:

His stubborn valour was no future shield.

Ismail's no more! The Crescent's silver bow

Sunk, and the crimson Cross glared o'er the field,

But red with no _redeeming_ gore: the glow

Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water,

Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.[ip]

CXXIII.

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses--

All that the body perpetrates of bad;

All that we read--hear--dream, of man's distresses--

All that the Devil would do if run stark mad;

All that defies the worst which pen expresses,--

All by which Hell is peopled, or as sad

As Hell--mere mortals who their power abuse--

Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

CXXIV.

If here and there some transient trait of pity

Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through

Its bloody bond, and saved, perhaps, some pretty

Child, or an agéd, helpless man or two--

What's this in one annihilated city,

Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew?

Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris!

Just ponder what a pious pastime War is.[iq]

CXXV.

Think how the joys of reading a Gazette

Are purchased by all agonies and crimes:

Or if these do not move you, don't forget

Such doom may be your own in after-times.

Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt,

Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes.

Read your own hearts and Ireland's present story,

Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley's glory.

CXXVI.

But still there is unto a patriot nation,

Which loves so well its country and its King,

A subject of sublimest exultation--

Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing!

Howe'er the mighty locust, Desolation,

Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling,

Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne--

Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone.[473]

CXXVII.

But let me put an end unto my theme:

There was an end of Ismail--hapless town!

Far flashed her burning towers o'er Danube's stream,

And redly ran his blushing waters down.

The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream

Rose still; but fainter were the thunders grown:

Of forty thousand who had manned the wall,

Some hundreds breathed--the rest were silent all![474]

CXXVIII.

In one thing ne'ertheless 't is fit to praise

The Russian army upon this occasion,

A virtue much in fashion now-a-days,

And therefore worthy of commemoration:[ir]

The topic's tender, so shall be my phrase--

Perhaps the season's chill, and their long station

In Winter's depth, or want of rest and victual,

Had made them chaste;--they ravished very little.

CXXIX.

Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less

Might here and there occur some violation

In the other line;--but not to such excess

As when the French, that dissipated nation,

Take towns by storm: no causes can I guess,

Except cold weather and commiseration;[is]

But all the ladies, save some twenty score,

Were almost as much virgins as before.

CXXX.

Some odd mistakes, too, happened in the dark,

Which showed a want of lanterns, or of taste--

Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark

Their friends from foes,--besides such things from haste

Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark

Of light to save the venerably chaste:

But six old damsels, each of seventy years,

Were all deflowered by different grenadiers.

CXXXI.

But on the whole their continence was great;

So that some disappointment there ensued

To those who had felt the inconvenient state

Of "single blessedness," and thought it good

(Since it was not their fault, but only fate,

To bear these crosses) for each waning prude

To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding,

Without the expense and the suspense of bedding.

CXXII.

Some voices of the buxom middle-aged

Were also heard to wonder in the din

(Widows of forty were these birds long caged)

"Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!"

But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged,

There was small leisure for superfluous sin;

But whether they escaped or no, lies hid

In darkness--I can only hope they did.

CXXXIII.

Suwarrow now was conqueror--a match

For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.

While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch

Blazed, and the cannon's roar was scarce allayed,

With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch;

And here exactly follows what he said:--

"Glory to _God_ and to the Empress!" (_Powers

Eternal! such names mingled!_) "Ismail's ours."[475]

CXXXIV.

Methinks these are the most tremendous words,

Since "MENE, MENE, TEKEL," and "UPHARSIN,"

Which hands or pens have ever traced of swords.

Heaven help me! I'm but little of a parson:

What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's,

Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on

The fate of nations;--but this Russ so witty

Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning city.

CXXXV.

He wrote this Polar melody, and set it,

Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans,

Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it--

For I will teach, if possible, the stones

To rise against Earth's tyrants. Never let it

Be said that we still truckle unto thrones;--

But ye--our children's children! think how we

Showed _what things were_ before the World was free!

CXXXVI.

That hour is not for us, but 't is for you:

And as, in the great joy of your Millennium,

You hardly will believe such things were true

As now occur, I thought that I would pen you 'em;

But may their very memory perish too!--

Yet if perchance remembered, still disdain you 'em

More than you scorn the savages of yore,

Who _painted_ their _bare_ limbs, but _not_ with gore.

CXXXVII.

And when you hear historians talk of thrones,

And those that sate upon them, let it be

As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones,

And wonder what old world such things could see,

Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones,

The pleasant riddles of futurity--

Guessing at what shall happily be hid,

As the real purpose of a pyramid.

CXXXVIII.

Reader! I have kept my word,--at least so far

As the first Canto promised. You have now

Had sketches of Love--Tempest--Travel--War,--

All very accurate, you must allow,

And _Epic_, if plain truth should prove no bar;

For I have drawn much less with a long bow

Than my forerunners. Carelessly I sing,

But Phoebus lends me now and then a string,

CXXXIX.

With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle.

What further hath befallen or may befall

The hero of this grand poetic riddle,

I by and by may tell you, if at all:

But now I choose to break off in the middle,

Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall,

While Juan is sent off with the despatch,

For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.

CXL.

This special honour was conferred, because

He had behaved with courage and humanity--

Which last men like, when they have time to pause

From their ferocities produced by vanity.

His little captive gained him some applause

For saving her amidst the wild insanity

Of carnage,--and I think he was more glad in her

Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.

CXLI.

The Moslem orphan went with her protector,

For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all

Her friends, like the sad family of Hector,

Had perished in the field or by the wall:

Her very place of birth was but a spectre

Of what it had been; there the Muezzin's call

To prayer was heard no more!--and Juan wept,

And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.

FOOTNOTES:

{331}[412] ["La nuit était obscure; un brouillard épais ne nous

permettait de distinguer autre chose que le feu de notre artillerie,

dont l'horizon était embrasé de tous côtés: ce feu, partant du milieu du

Danube, se réfléchissait sur les eaux, et offrait un coup d'oeil

très-singulier."-_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 209.]

{332}[413] ["À peine eut-on parcouru l'espace de quelques toises au-delà

des batteries, que les Turcs, qui n'avaient point tiré pendant toute la

nuit s'apperçevant de nos mouvemens, commencèrent de leur côté un feu

très-vif, qui embrasa le reste de l'horizon: mais ce fut bien autre

chose lorsque, avancés davantage, le feu de la mousqueterie commença

dans toute l'étendue du rempart que nous appercevions. Ce fut alors que

la place parut à nos yeux comme un volcan dont le feu sortait de toutes

parts."-_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 209.]

[414] ["Un cri universel d'_allah_, qui se répétait tout autour de la

ville, vint encore rendre plus extraordinaire cet instant, dont il est

impossible de se faire une idée."--_Ibid._, p. 209.]

[415] Allah Hu! is properly the war-cry of the Mussulmans, and they

dwell on the last syllable, which gives it a wild and peculiar effect.

[See _The Giaour_, line 734, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 120, note 1;

see, too, _Siege of Corinth_, line 713, ibid., p. 481.]

[416] ["Toutes les colonnes étaient en mouvement; celles qui attaquaient

par eau commandées par le général Arséniew, essuyèrent un feu

épouvantable, et perdirent avant le jour un tiers de leurs

officiers."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 209.]

[417]

"But _Thy_[*] most dreaded instrument,

In working out a pure intent,

Is Man--arrayed for mutual slaughter,--

Yea, _Carnage is thy daughter!_"

Wordsworth's _Thanksgiving Ode_ (January 18, 1816), stanza xii. lines

20, 23.

[*]To wit, the Deity's: this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder

as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms.--What would have been

said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage?

[Wordsworth omitted the lines in the last edition of his poems, which

was revised by his own hand.]

{333}[ia] _The Duc de Richelieu_----.--[MS. erased.]

[418] ["Le Prince de Ligne fut blessé au genou; le Duc de Richelieu eut

une balle entre le fond de son bonnet et sa tête."--_Hist. de la

Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210.

For the gallantry of Prince Charles de Ligne (died September 14, 1792)

eldest son of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735-1814), see _The

Prince de Ligne_, 1899, ii. 46.

Armand Emanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, born 1767, a grandson of

Louis François Duc de Richelieu, the Marshal of France (1696-1780),

served under Catherine II., and afterwards under the Czar Paul. On the

restoration of Louis XVIII. he entered the King's household; and after

the battle of Waterloo took office as President of the Council and

Minister for Foreign Affairs. His _Journal de mon Voyage en Allemagne_,

which was then unpublished, was placed at the disposal of the Marquis de

Castelnau (see _Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, 1827, i. 241). It has been

printed in full by the _Société Impériale d'Histoire de Russie_, 1886,

tom. liv. pp. 111-198. See for further mention of the manuscript, _Le

Duc de Richelieu_, par Raoul de Cisternes, 1898, Preface, p. 3, note 1.

He died May 17, 1822, two months before Cantos VI., VII., VIII. were

completed.]

{334}[419] ["Le brigadier Markow, insistant pour qu'on emportât le

prince blessé, reçut un coup de fusil qui lui fracassa le pied."--_Hist.

de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210.]

[420] ["Trois cents bouches à feu vomissaient sans interruption, et

trente mille fusils alimentaient sans reláche une grêle de

balles."--_Ibid._, p. 210.]

{335}[421] ["Les troupes, déja débarquées, se portèrent á droite pour

s'emparer d'une batterie; et celles débarquées plus bas, principalement

composées des grenadiers de Fanagorie, escaladaient le retranchement et

la palissade."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210.]

[422] A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. I recollect remarking at the

time to a friend:--"_There_ is _fame!_ a man is killed, his name is

Grose, and they print it Grove." I was at college with the deceased, who

was a very amiable and clever man, and his society in great request for

his wit, gaiety, and "Chansons à boire."

[In the _London Gazette Extraordinary_ of June 22, 1815, Captain Grove,

1st Guards, is among the list of killed. In the supplement to the

_London Gazette_, published July 3, 1815, the mistake was corrected, and

the entry runs, "1st Guards, 3d Batt. Lieut. Edward Grose, (Captain)." I

am indebted to the courtesy of the Registrar of the University of

Cambridge for the information that Edward Grose matriculated at St.

John's College as a pensioner, December 7, 1805. Thanks to the

"misprint" in the _Gazette_, and to Byron, he is "a name for

ever."--_Vir nullâ non donatus lauru!_]

{337}[423] [At the Battle of Mollwitz, April 10, 1741, "the king

vanishes for sixteen hours into the regions of Myth 'into Fairyland,'

... of the king's flight ... the king himself, who alone could have told

us fully, maintained always rigorous silence, and nowhere drops the

least hint. So that the small fact has come down to us involved in a

great bulk of fabulous cobwebs, mostly of an ill-natured character, set

a-going by Voltaire, Valori, and others."--Carlyle's _Frederick the

Great_, 1862, iii. 314, 322, sq.]

[424] See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence Parsons.

[Charles Vallancey (1721-1812), general in the Royal Engineers,

published an "Essay on the Celtic Language," etc., in 1782. "The

language [the Iberno-Celtic]," he writes (p. 4), "we are now going to

explain, had such an affinity with the Punic, that it may be said to

have been, in a great degree, the language of Hanibal (_sic_), Hamilcar,

and of Asdrubal." Sir Laurence Parsons (1758-1841), second Earl of

Rosse, represented the University of Dublin 1782-90, and afterwards

King's County, in the Irish House of Commons. He was an opponent of the

Union. In a pamphlet entitled _Defence of the Antient History of

Ireland_, published in 1795, he maintains (p. 158) "that the

Carthaginian and the Irish language being originally the same, either

the Carthaginians must have been descended from the Irish, or the Irish

from the Carthaginians."]

{338}[425] The Portuguese proverb says that "hell is paved with good

intentions."--[See _Vision of Judgment_, stanza xxxvii. line 8,

_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 499, note 2.]

[ib] _At least the sharp faints of that "burning marle."_--[MS. erased.]

{339}[426] ["The Nervii marched to the number of sixty thousand, and

fell upon Cæsar, as he was fortifying his camp, and had not the least

notion of so sudden an attack. They first routed his cavalry, and then

surrounded the twelfth and the seventh legions, and killed all the

officers. Had not Cæsar snatched a buckler from one of his own men,

forced his way through the combatants before him, and rushed upon the

barbarians; or had not the tenth legion, seeing his danger, ran from the

heights where they were posted, and mowed down the enemy's ranks, not

one Roman would have survived the battle."--Plutarch, _Cæsar_,

Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 502.]

[427]

["As near a field of corn, a stubborn ass ...

E'en so great Ajax son of Telamon."

_The Iliad_, Lord Derby's translation, bk. xi. lines 639, 645.]

{339}[ic] _Nor care a single damn about his corps_.--[MS. erased.]

[428] ["N'apercevant plus le commandant du corps dont je faisais partie,

et ignorant où je devais porter mes pas, je crus reconnaître le lieu où

le rempart était situé; on y faisait un feu assez vif, que je jugeai

être celui ... du général-major de Lascy."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle

Russie_, ii. 210. The speaker is the Duc de Richelieu. See, for

original, his _Journal de mon Voyage, etc., Soc. Imp. d'Hist. de

Russie_, tom. liv. p. 179]

[id]

_For he was dizzy, busy, and his blood_

_Lightening along his veins, and where he heard_

_The liveliest fire, and saw the fiercest flood_

_Of Friar Bacon's mild discovery, shared_

_By Turks and Christians equally, he could_

_No longer now resist the attraction of gunpowder_

_But flew to where the merry orchestra played louder_.--[MS. erased.]

[429] Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar. [N.B.

Though Friar Bacon seems to have discovered gunpowder, he had the

_humanity_ not to record his discovery in intelligible language.]

{341}[ie]

---- _whose short breath, and long faces_

_Kept always pushing onwards to the Glacis_.--[MS. erased.]

{342}[430] [_I Henry IV._, act iii. sc. 1, line 53.]

[if] _And that mechanic impulse_----.--[MS. erased.]

[431] [_Hamlet_, act iii, sc. 1, lines 79, 80.]

{343}[432] ["_Talus:_ the slope or inclination of a wall, whereby,

reclining at the top so as to fall within its base, the thickness is

gradually lessened according to the height."--_Milit. Dict._]

[433] ["Appelant ceux des chasseurs qui étaient autour de moi en assez

grand nombre, je m'avançai et reconnus ne m'être point trompé dans mon

calcul; c'était en effet cette colonne qui à l'instant parvenait au

sommet du rempart. Les Turcs de derrière les travers et les flancs des

bastions voisins fasaient sur elle un feu très-vif de canon et de

mousqueterie. Je gravis, avec les gens qui m'avaient suivi, le talus

intérieur du rempart."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 210.]

{344}[434] [Baron Menno van Coehoorn (circ. 1641-1704), a Dutch military

engineer, the contemporary and rival of Vauban, invented a mortar which

bore his name. He was the author of a celebrated work on fortification,

published in 1692.]

[435] ["Ce fut dans cet instant que je reconnus combien l'ignorance du

constructeur des palissades était importante pour nous; car, comme elles

étaient placées au milieu du parapet," etc.--_Hist. de la Nouvelle

Russie_, ii. 211.]

[436] They were but two feet above the level.--[MS.]

["Il y avait de chaque côté neuf à dix pieds sur lesquels on pouvait

marcher; et les soldats, après être montés, avaient pu se ranger

commodément sur l'espace extérieur et enjamber ensuite les palissades,

qui ne s'élevaient que d'à-peu-près deux pieds au-dessus du niveau de la

terre."--_Ibid._, p. 211.]

{345}[437] [Friederich Wilhelm, Baron von Bülow (1755-1816), was in

command of the 4th corps of the Prussian Army at Waterloo. August

Wilhelm Antonius Neidhart von Gneisenau (1760-1831) was chief of staff,

and after Blücher was disabled by a fall at Ligny, assumed temporary

command, June 16-17, 1815. He headed the triumphant pursuit of the

French on the night of the battle. For Blücher's official account of the

battles of Ligny and Waterloo (subscribed by Gneisenau), see W.H.

Maxwell's _Life of the Duke of Wellington_, 1841, iii. 566-571; and for

Wellington's acknowledgment of Blücher's "cordial and timely

assistance," see _Dispatches_, 1847, viii. 150. See, too, _The Life of

Wellington_, by the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart., 1899, ii. 88,

_et passim_.]

{346}[ig]

---- _as feminine of feature_.--[MS.]

_Led him on--although he was the gentlest creature_,

_As kind in heart as feminine of feature_.--[MS. erased.]

{347}[438] [Pistol's "_Bezonian_" is a corruption of _bisognoso_--a

rogue, needy fellow. Byron, quoting from memory, confuses two passages.

In _2 Henry VI._, act iv. sc. 1, line 134, Suffolk says, "Great men oft

die of vile bezonians;" in _2 Henry IV._, act v. sc. 3, line 112, Pistol

says, "Under which King, Besonian? speak or die."]

[439] ["Le Général Lascy, voyant arriver un corps, si à-propos à son

secours, s'avança vers l'officier qui l'avait conduit, et, le prenant

pour un Livonien, lui fit, en allemand, les complimens les plus

flatteurs; le jeune militaire (le Duc de Richelieu) qui parlait

parfaitement cette langue, y répondit avec sa modestie

ordinaire."-_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 211.]

{348}[440] [_The Task_, bk. i. line 749. It was pointed out to Cowper

that the same thought had been expressed by Isaac Hawkins Browne, in

_The Fire-side, a Pastoral Soliloquy_, lines 15, 16 (_Poems_, ed. 1768,

p. 125)--

"I have said it at home, I have said it abroad,

That the town is Man's world, but that this is of God."

There is a parallel passage in M.T. Varro, _Rerum Rusticarum_, lib. iii.

I. 4, "Nee minim, quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humami aedificavit

urbes."--See _The Task, etc._, ed. by H.T. Griffith, 1896, ii. 234.]

[441] [Sulla spoke of himself as the "fortunate," and in the

twenty-second book of his Commentaries, finished only two days before

his death, "he tells us that the Chaldeans had predicted, that after a

life of glory he would depart in the height of his prosperity." He was

fortunate, too, with regard to his funeral, for, at first, a brisk wind

blew which fanned the pile into flame, and it was not till the fire had

begun to die out that the rain, which had been expected throughout the

day, began to fall in torrents.--Langhorne's _Plutarch_, 1838, pp. 334,

335. See, too, _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, stanza vii. _Poetical

Works_, 1900, in. 308, note I.]

[442] [Daniel Boone (1735-1820) was the grandson of an English settler,

George Boone, of Exeter. His great work in life was the conquest of

Kentucky. Following in the steps of another pioneer, John Finley, he

left his home in North Carolina in May, 1769, and, after numerous

adventures, effected a settlement on the Kentucky river. He constructed

a fort, which he named Boonesborough, and carried on a protracted

campaign with varying but final success against the Indians. When

Kentucky was admitted into the Union, February 4, 1791, he failed to

make good his title to his property at Boonesborough, and withdrew to

Mount Pleasant, beyond the Ohio. Thence, in 1795, he removed to

Missouri, then a Spanish possession. Napoleon wrested Missouri from the

Spaniards, only to sell the territory to the United States, with the

result that in 1810 he was confirmed in the possession of 850 out of the

8000 acres which he had acquired in 1795. "Boone was then seventy-five

years of age, hale and strong. The charm of the hunter's life clung to

him to the last, and in his eighty-second year he went on a hunting

excursion to the mouth of the Kansas river."--Appleton's _Encyclopedia,

etc_., art. "Boone." His fine and gracious nature reveals itself in his

autobiography (_The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boon, Formerly a

Hunter; Containing a Narrative of the Wars of Kentucky_; Imlay's _North

America_, 1793, ii. 52-54). "One day," he writes (pp. 330, _sq_.), "I

undertook a tour through the country, and the diversity and beauties of

nature ... expelled every gloomy and vexatious thought. Just at the

close of day the gentle gales retired, and left the place to the

disposal of a profound calm. Not a breeze shook the most tremulous leaf.

I had gained the summit of a commanding ridge, and, looking round with

astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts

below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio, that rolled

in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucky with

inconceivable grandeur. ... All things were still. I kindled a fire near

a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loins of a buck, which a

few hours before I had killed.... No populous city, with all the

varieties of commerce and stately structures, could afford so much

pleasure to my mind as the beauties of nature I found here." (See, too,

_The Kentucky Pioneers_, by John Brown, _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_,

1887, vol. lxxv. pp. 48-71.)]

{350}[443] [For John Kyrle, "the Man of Ross" (1635-1724), see Pope's

_Moral Essays_, epist. iii. lines 249-284. See, too, _Letters of S.T.

Coleridge_, 1895 (letter to R. Southey, July 13, 1794), i. 77.]

{351}[444] [Byron seems to have derived his knowledge of Catherine's

_vie intime_ from the _Mémoires Secrets sur la Russie_, of C.F.P.

Masson, which were published in Amsterdam in 1800, and translated into

English in the same year.]

[445] [Michailo Smolenskoi Koutousof (1743-1813), who was raised to

eminence through the influence of Potemkin, was in command of the

Austro-Russian Army at Austerlitz. During the retreat from Moscow he

repulsed Napoleon at Malo-yaroslavetz, and pursued the French to Kalisz.

Tolstoi introduces Koutousof in his novel, _War and Peace_, and dwells

on his fatalism.]

{352}[446] ["Parmi les colonnes, une de celles qui souffrirent le plus

était commandée par le général Koutouzow (aujourd'hui Prince de

Smolensko). Ce brave militaire réunit l'intrépidité à un grand nombre de

connaissances acquises; il marche au feu avec la même gaîeté qu'il va à

une fête; il sait commander avec autant de sang froid qu'il déploie

d'esprit et d'amabilité dans le commerce habituel de la vie."--_Hist. de

la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 212.]

[447] ["Ce brave Koutouzow se jeta dans le fossé, fut suivi des siens,

et ne pénétra jusqu'au haut du parapet qu'après avoir éprouvé des

difficultés incroyables. (Le brigadier de Ribaupierre perdit la vie dans

cette occasion: il avail fixé l'estime générale, et sa mort occasionna

beaucoup de regrets.) Les Turcs accoururent en grand nombre; cette

multitude repoussa deux fois le général jusqu'au fossé."--_Ibid._, p.

212.]

[448] ["Quelques troupes russes, emportées par le courant, n'ayant pu

débarquer sur le terrain qu'on leur avait prescrit," etc.--_Ibid._, p.

213.]

[449] ["A 'Cavalier' is an elevation of earth, situated ordinarily in

the gorge of a bastion, bordered with a parapet, and cut into more or

fewer embrasures, according to its capacity."--_Milit. Dict._]

{353}[450] [" ... longèrent le rempart, après la prise du cavalier, et

ouvrirent la porte dite _de Kilia_ aux soldats du général

Koutouzow."--_Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 213.]

[451] ["Il était réservé aux Kozaks de combler de leurs corps la partie

du fossé où ils combattaient; leur colonne avail été divisée entre MM.

Platow et d'Orlow ..."--_Ibid._, p. 213.]

[452] [" ... la première partie, devant se joindre à la gauche du

général Arséniew, fut foudroyée par le feu des batteries, et parvint

néanmoins au haut du rempart."--_Ibid._, p. 213.]

[453] ["Les Turcs la laissèrent un peu s'avancer, dans la ville, et

firent deux sorties par les angles saillans des bastions."--_Ibid._, p.

213.]

[ih] _Fatal to warriors as to women--these_.--[MS.]

{354}[454] ["Alors, se trouvant prise en queue, elle fut écrasée;

cependant le Lieutenant-colonel Yesouskoï, qui commandait la réserve

composée d'un bataillon du régiment de Polozk, traversa le fossé sur les

cadavres des Kozaks ..."--_Hist. de la Nouvell Russia_, ii. 212.]

[455] [" ... et extermina tous les Turcs qu'il eut en tête: ce brave

homme fut tué pendant l'action."--_Ibid._, p. 213.]

[456] ["L'autre partie des Kozaks, qu' Orlow commandait, souffrit de la

manière la plus cruelle: elle attaqua à maintes reprises, fut souvent

repoussée, et perdit les deux tiers de son monde (c'est ici le lieu de

placer une observation, que nous prenons dans les mémoires qui nous

guident; elle fait remarquer combien il est raal vu de donner beaucoup

de cartouches aux soldats qui doivent emporter un poste de vive force,

et par conséquent où la baïonnette doit principalement agir; ils pensent

ne devoir se servir de cette derniere arme, que lorsque les cartouches

sont epuisées: dans cette persuasion, ils retardent leur marche, et

restent plus long-temps exposés au canon et à la mitraille de

l'ennemi)."--_Ibid._, p. 214.]

{355}[457] ["La jonction de la colonne de Meknop--(le général fut nial

secondé et tué)--ne put s'effectuer avec celle qui l'avoisinait, ... ces

colonnes attaquèrent un bastion, et éprouvèrent une résistance

opiniâtre; raais bientôt des cris de victoire se font entendre de toutes

parts, et le bastion est emporté: le séraskier défendait cette

partie."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 214.]

[458] [" ... un officier de marine Anglais veut le faire prisonnier, et

reçoit un coup de pistolet qui l'étend roide mort."--_Ibid._, p. 214.]

[459] ["Les Russes passent trois mille Turcs au fil de l'épée; seize

baïonnettes percent à la fois le séraskier."--_Ibid._, p. 214.]

[460] ["La ville est emportée; l'image de la mort et de la désolation se

représente de tous les côtés le soldat furieux n'écoute plus la voix de

ses officiers, il ne respire que le carnage; altéré de sang, tout est

indifférent pour lui."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 214.]

{356}[ii] _As do the subtle snake's denounced of old_.--[MS.]

{357}[ij] _Which most of all doth man characterise_.--[MS. Alternative

reading.]

[ik] _As Autumn winds disperse the yellow leaves_.--[MS. erased.]

[461] [See _The Blues_, ecl. i. line 25, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv.

574, note 3.]

{358}[462] ["Je sauvai la vie à une fille de dix ans, don't l'innocence

et la candeur formaient un contraste bien frappant avec la rage de tout

ce qui m'environnait. En arrivant sur le bastion où commença le carnage,

j'aperçus un groupe de quatre femmes égorgées, entre lesquelles cet

enfant, d'une figure charmante, cherchait un asile contre la fureur de

deux Kozaks qui étaient sur le point de la massacrer,"--Duc de

Richelieu. (See _Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 217.)]

[463] ["Who never mentions Hell to ears polite."--Pope, _Moral Essays_,

ep. iv, line 150.]

{359}[464] ["Ce spectacle m'attira bientôt, et je n'hésitai pas, comme

on peut le croire, à prendre entre mes bras cette infortunée, que les

barbares voulaient y poursuivre encore. J'eus bien de la peine à me

retenir et à ne pas percer ces misérables du sabre que je tenais

suspendu sur leur tête:--je me contentai cependant de les éloigner, non

sans leur prodiguer les coups et les injures qu'ils méritaient...."--Duc

de Richelieu, _vide Hist, de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 217.]

[465] [" ... J'eus le plaisir d'apercevoir que ma petite prisonnière

n'avait d'autre mal qu'une coupure legere que lui avail faite au visage

le même fer qui avail percé sa mére."--Duc de Richelieu, _ibid_.

The Turks clamoured for the child, and Richelieu was forced to give way.

But in the original the story ends unhappily.

"Je fus obligé de céder á leurs instances et á celles de l'officier qui

parlementait avec eux; ... ce ne fut pas sans de grandes difficultés et

sans une promesse expresse de la parl de cet officier [Colonel Ribas] de

me la faire rendre aussitôt que les Tures auraient mis bas les armes. Je

me séparai donc de cet enfant qui m'était déjà devenu très-cher, et même

a présent, je ne puis penser á ce moment sans amertume, puisque malgré

toutes les recherches et les peines que je me donnai pour la retrouver,

il me fut impossible d'y réussir, el je n'ai que trop sujet de craindre

qu'elle n'ait péri malheureusement."--_Société Impériale d'Histoire de

Russie_, tom. liv. p. 185.]

{360}[466] [Sir Walter Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816, vol.

xvi. p. 177) says that a "brother-poet" compared Byron's features to the

sculpture of a beautiful alabaster vase, only seen to perfection when

lighted up from within. Byron alludes to this comparison in his

_Detached Thoughts_, October 15, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 408. It may

be noted that Lorenzo Bartolini, the Italian sculptor who took a bust of

Byron at Pisa, in the spring of 1822, had been employed by Napoleon, in

1814, to design marble vases for a terrace at Elba, which were to be

illuminated at night "from within."]

[467] A Russian military order.

{362}[468] ["Le sultan périt dans l'action en brave homme, digne d'un

meilleur destin; ce fut lui qui rallia les Turcs lorsque l'ennemi

pénétra dans la place ... ce sultan, d'une valeur éprouvée, surpassait

en générosité les plus civilisés de sa nation; cinq de ses fils

combattaient à ses côtés, il les encourageait par son exemple."--_Hist.

de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 215.]

[469] ["When Charles XII. reached Bender, August 1, 1709, he refused, in

the first instance, to cross the river Dniester, and on yielding to the

representations of the Turks, he declined to enter the town, but decided

on remaining encamped on an island, in spite of the assurances of the

inhabitants that it was occasionally flooded." But, perhaps, Byron had

in mind Voltaire's remarks on Charles's _Opiniâtreté_. (See _Histoire de

Charles XII._, 1772, p. 377. See, too, _Charles XII._, by Oscar

Browning, 1899, pp. 231-234.)]

[il]---- _like celestial patience_.--[MS. erased.]

[im] _Because a hunchback_----.--[MS. erased.]

{364}[in] _In battle to old age and ugliness_.--[MS. erased.]

{365}[io] _In one immortal glance, and then he died_.--[MS. erased]

[470] ["Tous cinq furent tous tués sous ces yeux: il ne cessa point de

se battre, répondit par des coups de sabre aux propositions de se

rendre, et ne fut atteint du coup mortel qu'après avoir abattu de sa

main beaucoup de Kozaks des plus acharnée à sa prise; le reste de sa

troupe fut massacré."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 215.]

{366}[471] ["Quoique les Russes fussent répandus dans la ville, le

bastion de pierre résistait encore; il était défendu par un vicillard,

pacha à trois queues, et commandant les forces réunies à Ismaël. On lui

proposa une capitulation; il demanda si le reste de la ville était

conquis; sur cette réponse, il autorisa quelques-uns de ces officiers à

capituler avec M. de Ribas."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 215.]

[472] ["Pendant ce colloque, il resta étendu sur des tapis placés sur

les ruines de la forteresse, fumant sa pipe avec la même tranquillité et

la même indifférence que s'il eût été étranger à tout ce qui se

passait."--_Ibid._, p. 215.]

{367}[ip]

_Of burning cities, those full moons of slaughter_

_Was imaged back in blood instead of water_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[iq] _Would_ you _do less_, "pro focis et pro aris"?--[MS. erased.]

{368}[473] [Compare--

"Spread--spread for Vitellius, the royal repast,

Till the gluttonous despot be stuffed to the gorge!"

_The Irish Avatar_, stanza 20, _Poetical Works_, 1891, iv. 559.]

[474] ["On égorgea indistinctement, on saccagea la place; et la rage du

vainqueur ... se répandit comme un torrent furieux qui a renversé les

digues qui le rétenaient: personne obtint de grâce, et _trente huit

mille huit cent soixante_ Turcs périrent dans cette journée de

sang."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 216.]

[ir]---- _of my peroration_.--[MS. erased.]

{369}[is]

---- _the cause I cannot guess_--

_I hardly think it was commiseration_.--[MS. erased.]

{370}[475] In the original Russian--

"Slava bogu! slava vam!

Krépost vzata i ya tam;"

a kind of couplet; for he was a poet.

[J.H. Castéra (_Vie de Catherine II._, 1797, ii. 374) relates this

incident in connection with the fall of Turtukey (or Tutrakaw) in

Bulgaria, giving the words in French, "Gloire à Dieu! Louange à

Catherine! Toutoukai est pris. Souwaroff y est entré." W. Tooke (_Life

of Catherine II._, 1800, iii. 278). Castéra's translator, gives the

original Russian with an English version. But according to Spalding

(_Suvóroff_, 1890, pp. 42, 43), the words, which were written on a scrap

of paper, and addressed to Soltikoff, ran thus: "Your Excellency, we

have conquered. Glory to God! Glory to you! Alexander Suvóroff." When

Ismail was taken he wrote to Potemkin, "The Russian standard floats

above the walls of Ismail," and to the Empress, "Proud Ismail lies at

your Majesty's feet." The tenour of the poetical message on the fall of

Tutrakaw recalls the triumphant piety of the Emperor William I. of

Germany. See, too, for "mad Suwarrow's rhymes," Canto IX. stanza lx.

lines 1-4.]

CANTO THE NINTH.

I.[476]

Oh, Wellington! (or "Villainton"[477]--for Fame[it]

Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;

France could not even conquer your great name,

But punned it down to this facetious phrase--

Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,)

You have obtained great pensions and much praise:

Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,

Humanity would rise, and thunder "Nay!"[478]

II.

I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well

In Marinèt's affair[479]--in fact, 't was shabby,

And like some other things won't do to tell

Upon your tomb in Westminster's old Abbey.

Upon the rest 't is not worth while to dwell,

Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby;[480]

But though your years as _man_ tend fast to zero,

In fact your Grace is still but a _young Hero_.

III.

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,

Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more:

You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch,

A prop not quite so certain as before:

The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,

Have seen, and felt, how strongly you _restore_;

And Waterloo has made the world your debtor

(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).

IV.

You are "the best of cut-throats:"[481]--do not start;

The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied:--

War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,

Unless her cause by right be sanctified.

If you have acted _once_ a generous part,

The World, not the World's masters, will decide,

And I shall be delighted to learn who,

Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?

V.

I am no flatterer--you've supped full of flattery:[482]

They say you like it too--'t is no great wonder.

He whose whole life has been assault and battery,

At last may get a little tired of thunder;

And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he

May like being praised for every lucky blunder,

Called "Saviour of the Nations"--not yet saved,--

And "Europe's Liberator"--still enslaved.[483]

VI.

I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate

Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,

And send the sentinel before your gate

A slice or two from your luxurious meals:[484]

He fought, but has not fed so well of late.

Some hunger, too, they say the people feels:--

There is no doubt that you deserve your ration,

But pray give back a little to the nation.

VII.

I don't mean to reflect--a man so great as

You, my lord Duke! is far above reflection:

The high Roman fashion, too, of Cincinnatus,

With modern history has but small connection:

Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,

You need not take them under your direction;

And half a million for your Sabine farm

Is rather dear!--I'm sure I mean no harm.

VIII.

Great men have always scorned great recompenses:

Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,

Not leaving even his funeral expenses:[485]

George Washington had thanks, and nought beside,

Except the all-cloudless glory (which few men's is)

To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,

And as a high-souled Minister of state is

Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis.[486]

IX.

Never had mortal man such opportunity,

Except Napoleon, or abused it more:

You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity

Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore:

And _now_--what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?

_Now_--that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er?

Go! hear it in your famished country's cries!

Behold the World! and curse your victories!

X.

As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,

To _you_ the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe[iu]

Truths, that you will not read in the Gazettes,

But which 't is time to teach the hireling tribe

Who fatten on their country's gore, and debts,

Must be recited--and without a bribe.

You _did great_ things, but not being _great_ in mind,

Have left _undone_ the _greatest_--and mankind.

XI.

Death laughs--Go ponder o'er the skeleton

With which men image out the unknown thing

That hides the past world, like to a set sun

Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring--

Death laughs at all you weep for!--look upon

This hourly dread of all! whose _threatened sting_

Turns Life to terror, even though in its sheath:

Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

XII.

Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!

And yet _was_ what you are; from _ear_ to _ear_

It _laughs not_--there is now no fleshy bar

So called; the Antic long hath ceased to _hear_,

But still he _smiles_; and whether near or far,

He strips from man that mantle (far more dear

Than even the tailor's), his incarnate skin,[iv]

White, black, or copper--the dead bones will grin.

XIII.

And thus Death laughs,--it is sad merriment,

But still it _is_ so; and with such example

Why should not Life be equally content

With his Superior, in a smile to trample

Upon the nothings which are daily spent

Like bubbles on an Ocean much less ample

Than the Eternal Deluge, which devours

Suns as rays--worlds like atoms--years like hours?

XIV.

"To be, or not to be? _that_ is the question,"

Says Shakespeare,[487] who just now is much in fashion.

I am neither Alexander nor Hephæstion,

Nor ever had for _abstract_ fame much passion;

But would much rather have a sound digestion

Than Buonaparte's cancer:--could I dash on

Through fifty victories to shame or fame--

Without a stomach what were a good name?

XV.

_"O dura ilia messorum!"_[488]--"Oh

Ye rigid guts of reapers!" I translate[iw]

For the great benefit of those who know

What indigestion is--that inward fate

Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.

A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate:

Let _this_ one toil for bread--_that_ rack for rent,

He who sleeps best may be the most content.

XVI.

"To be, or not to be?"--Ere I decide,

I should be glad to know that which _is being_.

'T is true we speculate both far and wide,

And deem, because we _see_, we are _all-seeing_:

For my part, I'll enlist on neither side,

Until I see both sides for once agreeing.

For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,

Rather than Life a mere affair of breath.

XVII.

_"Que scais-je"_[489] was the motto of Montaigne,

As also of the first academicians:

That all is dubious which man may attain,

Was one of their most favourite positions.

There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain

As any of Mortality's conditions;

So little do we know what we're about in

This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

XVIII.

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,

Like Pyrrho,[490] on a sea of speculation;

But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?

Your wise men don't know much of navigation;

And swimming long in the abyss of thought

Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station

Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers

Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.

XIX.

"But Heaven," as Cassio says, "is above all--[491]

No more of this, then, let us pray!" We have

Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall,

Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,

Besides fish, beasts, and birds. "The sparrow's fall

Is special providence,"[492] though how _it_ gave

Offence, we know not; probably it perched

Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched.

XX.

Oh! ye immortal Gods! what is Theogony?

Oh! thou, too, mortal man! what is Philanthropy?

Oh! World, which was and is, what is Cosmogony?

Some people have accused me of Misanthropy;

And yet I know no more than the mahogany

That forms this desk, of what they mean;--_Lykanthropy_[493]

I comprehend, for without transformation

Men become wolves on any slight occasion.

XXI.

But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind,

Like Moses, or Melancthon,[494] who have ne'er[ix]

Done anything exceedingly unkind,--

And (though I could not now and then forbear

Following the bent of body or of mind)

Have always had a tendency to spare,--

Why do they call me Misanthrope? Because

_They hate me, not I them:_--and here we'll pause.

XXII.

'T is time we should proceed with our good poem,--

For I maintain that it is really good,

Not only in the body but the proem,

However little both are understood

Just now,--but by and by the Truth will show 'em

Herself in her sublimest attitude:

And till she doth, I fain must be content

To share her beauty and her banishment.

XXIII.

Our hero (and, I trust, kind reader! yours)

Was left upon his way to the chief city

Of the immortal Peter's polished boors,

Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.

I know its mighty Empire now allures

Much flattery--even Voltaire's,[495] and that's a pity.

For me, I deem an absolute autocrat

_Not_ a barbarian, but much worse than that.

XXIV.

And I will war, at least in words (and--should

My chance so happen--deeds), with all who war

With Thought;--and of Thought's foes by far most rude,

Tyrants and sycophants have been and are.

I know not who may conquer: if I could

Have such a prescience, it should be no bar

To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation

Of every despotism in every nation.[iy]

XXV.

It is not that I adulate the people:

Without _me_, there are demagogues enough,[496]

And infidels, to pull down every steeple,

And set up in their stead some proper stuff.

Whether they may sow scepticism to reap Hell,

As is the Christian dogma rather rough,

I do not know;--I wish men to be free

As much from mobs as kings--from you as me.

XXVI.

The consequence is, being of no party,

I shall offend all parties:--never mind!

My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty

Than if I sought to sail before the wind.

He who has nought to gain can have small art: he

Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,

May still expatiate freely, as will I,

Nor give my voice to slavery's jackal cry.[iz]

XXVII.

_That's_ an appropriate simile, _that jackal;_--

I've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl[497]

By night, as do that mercenary pack all,

Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl,

And scent the prey their masters would attack all.

However, the poor jackals are less foul

(As being the brave lions' keen providers)

Than human insects, catering for spiders.[ja]

XXVIII.

Raise but an arm! 't will brush their web away,

And without _that_, their poison and their claws

Are useless. Mind, good people! what I say--

(Or rather Peoples)--_go on_ without pause!

The web of these Tarantulas each day

Increases, till you shall make common cause:

None, save the Spanish Fly and Attic Bee,

As yet are strongly stinging to be free.[jb]

XXIX.

Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter,

Was left upon his way with the despatch,

Where blood was talked of as we would of water;

And carcasses that lay as thick as thatch

O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter

Fair Catherine's pastime--who looked on the match

Between these nations as a main of cocks,

Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.

XXX.

And there in a _kibitka_ he rolled on,

(A cursed sort of carriage without springs,

Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone,)

Pondering on Glory, Chivalry, and Kings,

And Orders, and on all that he had done--

And wishing that post-horses had the wings

Of Pegasus, or at the least post-chaises

Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is.

XXXI.

At every jolt--and they were many--still

He turned his eyes upon his little charge,

As if he wished that she should fare less ill

Than he, in these sad highways left at large

To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill,

Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge

On _her_ canals, where God takes sea and land,

Fishery and farm, both into his own hand.

XXXII.

At least he pays no rent, and has best right

To be the first of what we used to call

"Gentlemen farmers"--a race worn out quite,

Since lately there have been no rents at all,

And "gentlemen" are in a piteous plight,

And "farmers" can't raise Ceres from her fall:

She fell with Buonaparte,[498]--What strange thoughts

Arise, when we see Emperors fall with oats!

XXXIII.

But Juan turned his eyes on the sweet child

Whom he had saved from slaughter--what a trophy

Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled

With gore, like Nadir Shah,[499] that costive Sophy,

Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild,

And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee

To soothe his woes withal, was slain, the sinner!

Because he could no more digest his dinner;--[jc][500]

XXXIV.

Oh ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect,

That _one_ life saved, especially if young

Or pretty, is a thing to recollect

Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung

From the manure of human clay, though decked

With all the praises ever said or sung:

Though hymned by every harp, unless within

Your heart joins chorus, Fame is but a din.

XXXV.

Oh! ye great authors luminous, voluminous!

Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes!

Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers, illumine us!

Whether you're paid by government in bribes,

To prove the public debt is not consuming us--

Or, roughly treading on the "courtier's kibes"

With clownish heel[501] your popular circulation

Feeds you by printing half the realm's starvation;--

XXXVI.

Oh, ye great authors!--_A propos des bottes,_--

I have forgotten what I meant to say,

As sometimes have been greater sages' lots;--

'T was something calculated to allay

All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:

Certes it would have been but thrown away,

And that's one comfort for my lost advice,

Although no doubt it was beyond all price.

XXXVII.

But let it go:--it will one day be found

With other relics of "a former World,"

When this World shall be _former,_ underground,

Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,

Baked, fried, or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,

Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled

First out of, and then back again to chaos--

The superstratum which will overlay us.[jd]

XXXVIII.

So Cuvier says:[502]--and then shall come again

Unto the new creation, rising out

From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain

Of things destroyed and left in airy doubt;

Like to the notions we now entertain

Of Titans, giants, fellows of about

Some hundred feet in height, _not_ to say _miles,_

And mammoths, and your winged crocodiles.

XXXIX.

Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up![503]

How the new worldlings of the then new East

Will wonder where such animals could sup!

(For they themselves will be but of the least:

Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup,

And every new creation hath decreased

In size, from overworking the material--

Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.)

XL.

_How_ will--to these young people, just thrust out

From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough,

And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about,

And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow,

Till all the arts at length are brought about,

Especially of War and taxing,--_how_,

I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em,

Look like the monsters of a new Museum!

XLI.

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical:

"The time is out of joint,"[504]--and so am I;

I quite forget this poem's merely quizzical,

And deviate into matters rather dry.

I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I call[je]

Much too poetical: men should know why

They write, and for what end; but, note or text,

I never know the word which will come next.

XLII.

So on I ramble, now and then narrating,

Now pondering:--it is time we should narrate.

I left Don Juan with his horses baiting--

Now we'll get o'er the ground at a great rate:

I shall not be particular in stating

His journey, we've so many tours of late:

Suppose him then at Petersburgh; suppose

That pleasant capital of painted snows;[505]

XLIII.

Suppose him in a handsome uniform--

A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume,

Waving, like sails new shivered in a storm,

Over a cocked hat in a crowded room,

And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme,

Of yellow casimire we may presume,

White stockings drawn uncurdled as new milk

O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk;[jf]

XLIV.

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand,

Made up by Youth, Fame, and an army tailor--

That great enchanter, at whose rod's command

Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler,

Seeing how Art can make her work more grand

(When she don't pin men's limbs in like a gaoler),--

Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He[jg]

Seems Love turned a Lieutenant of Artillery![506]

XLV.

His bandage slipped down into a cravat--

His wings subdued to epaulettes--his quiver

Shrunk to a scabbard, with his arrows at

His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever--

His bow converted into a cocked hat--

But still so like, that Psyche were more clever

Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid),

If she had not mistaken him for Cupid.

XLVI.

The courtiers stared, the ladies whispered, and

The Empress smiled: the reigning favourite frowned--[jh]

I quite forget which of them was in hand

Just then, as they are rather numerous found,[507]

Who took, by turns, that difficult command

Since first her Majesty was singly crowned:[508]

But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows,

All fit to make a Patagonian jealous.

XLVII.

Juan was none of these, but slight and slim,

Blushing and beardless; and, yet, ne'ertheless,

There was a something in his turn of limb,

And still more in his eye, which seemed to express,

That, though he looked one of the Seraphim,

There lurked a man beneath the Spirit's dress.

Besides, the Empress sometimes liked a boy,

And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoi.[ji][509]

XLVIII.

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff,[510]

Or Scherbatoff, or any other _off_

Or _on_, might dread her Majesty had not room enough

Within her bosom (which was not too tough),

For a new flame; a thought to cast of gloom enough

Along the aspect, whether smooth or rough,

Of him who, in the language of his station,

Then held that "high official situation."

XLIX.

O gentle ladies! should you seek to know

The import of this diplomatic phrase,

Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess[511] show

His parts of speech, and in the strange displays

Of that odd string of words, all in a row,

Which none divine, and every one obeys,

Perhaps you may pick out some queer _no_ meaning,--

Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning.

L.

I think I can explain myself without

That sad inexplicable beast of prey--

That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt,

Did not his deeds unriddle them each day--

That monstrous hieroglyphic--that long spout

Of blood and water--leaden Castlereagh!

And here I must an anecdote relate,

But luckily of no great length or weight.

LI.

An English lady asked of an Italian,

What were the actual and official duties

Of the strange thing some women set a value on,

Which hovers oft about some married beauties,

Called "Cavalier Servente?"[512]--a Pygmalion

Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 't is)

Beneath his art:[jj]--the dame, pressed to disclose them,

Said--"Lady, I beseech you to _suppose them_."

LII.

And thus I supplicate your supposition,

And mildest, matron-like interpretation,

Of the imperial favourite's condition.

'T was a high place, the highest in the nation

In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion

Of any one's attaining to his station,

No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,

If rather broad, made stocks rise--and their holders.

LIII.

Juan, I said, was a most beauteous boy,

And had retained his boyish look beyond

The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,

With beards and whiskers, and the like, the fond

_Parisian_ aspect, which upset old Troy

And founded Doctors' Commons:[jk]--I have conned

The history of divorces, which, though chequered,

Calls Ilion's the first damages on record.

LIV.

And Catherine, who loved all things (save her Lord,

Who was gone to his place), and passed for much,

Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorred)

Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch

Of sentiment: and he she most adored

Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such

A lover as had cost her many a tear,

And yet but made a middling grenadier.

LV.

Oh thou "_teterrima causa_" of all "_belli_"--[513]

Thou gate of Life and Death--thou nondescript!

Whence is our exit and our entrance,--well I

May pause in pondering how all souls are dipped

In thy perennial fountain:--how man _fell_ I

Know not, since Knowledge saw her branches stripped

Of her first fruit; but how he _falls_ and rises

Since,--_thou_ hast settled beyond all surmises.

LVI.

Some call thee "the _worst_ cause of War," but I

Maintain thou art the _best_:--for after all,

From thee we come, to thee we go, and why

To get at thee not batter down a wall,

Or waste a World? since no one can deny

Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:

With--or without thee--all things at a stand[jl]

Are, or would be, thou sea of Life's dry land![jm]

LVII.

Catherine, who was the grand Epitome

Of that great cause of War, or Peace, or what

You please (it causes all the things which be,

So you may take your choice of this or that)--

Catherine, I say, was very glad to see

The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat[514]

Victory; and, pausing as she saw him kneel

With his despatch, forgot to break the seal.

LVIII.

Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor

Forgetting quite the Woman (which composed

At least three parts of this great whole), she tore

The letter open with an air which posed

The Court, that watched each look her visage wore,

Until a royal smile at length disclosed

Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,

Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.[515]

LIX.

Great joy was hers, or rather joys: the first

Was a ta'en city, thirty thousand slain:

Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst,

As an East Indian sunrise on the main:--

These quenched a moment her Ambition's thirst--

So Arab deserts drink in Summer's rain:

In vain!--As fall the dews on quenchless sands,

Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!

LX.

Her next amusement was more fanciful;

She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw

Into a Russian couplet rather dull

The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew:

Her third was feminine enough to annul

The shudder which runs naturally through

Our veins, when things called Sovereigns think it best

To kill, and Generals turn it into jest.

LXI.

The two first feelings ran their course complete,

And lighted first her eye, and then her mouth:

The whole court looked immediately most sweet,

Like flowers well watered after a long drouth:--

But when on the Lieutenant at her feet

Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on youth

Almost as much as on a new despatch,

Glanced mildly,--all the world was on the watch.

LXII.

Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent,

When _wroth_--while _pleased_, she was as fine a figure

As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent,

Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.

She could repay each amatory look you lent

With interest, and, in turn, was wont with rigour

To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount

At sight, nor would permit you to discount.

LXIII.

With her the latter, though at times convenient,

Was not so necessary; for they tell

That she was handsome, and though fierce _looked_ lenient,

And always used her favourites too well.

If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went,

Your "fortune" was in a fair way "to swell

A man" (as Giles says);[516] for though she would widow all

Nations, she liked Man as an individual.

LXIV.

What a strange thing is Man! and what a stranger

Is Woman! What a whirlwind is her head,

And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger

Is all the rest about her! Whether wed,

Or widow--maid--or mother, she can change her

Mind like the wind: whatever she has said

Or done, is light to what she'll say or do;--

The oldest thing on record, and yet new!

LXV.

Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections,

To thee both _oh!_ and _ah!_ belong, of right,

In Love and War) how odd are the connections

Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!

Just now _yours_ were cut out in different sections:

_First_ Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite;

_Next_ of new knights, the fresh and glorious batch:

And _thirdly_ he who brought you the despatch!

LXVI.

Shakespeare talks of "the herald Mercury

New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:"[517]

And some such visions crossed her Majesty,

While her young herald knelt before her still.

'T is very true the hill seemed rather high,

For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill

Smoothed even the Simplon's steep, and by God's blessing,

With Youth and Health all kisses are "Heaven-kissing."

LXVII.

Her Majesty looked down, the youth looked up--

And so they fell in love;--she with his face,

His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid's cup

With the first draught intoxicates apace,

A quintessential laudanum or "Black Drop,"

Which makes one drunk at once, without the base

Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye

In love drinks all Life's fountains (save tears) dry.

LXVIII.

He, on the other hand, if not in love,

Fell into that no less imperious passion,

Self-love--which, when some sort of thing above

Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,

Or Duchess--Princess--Empress, "deigns to prove"[518]

('T is Pope's phrase) a great longing, though a rash one,

For one especial person out of many,

Make us believe ourselves as good as any.

LXIX.

Besides, he was of that delighted age

Which makes all female ages equal--when

We don't much care with whom we may engage,

As bold as Daniel in the lions' den,

So that we can our native sun assuage

In the next ocean, which may flow just then--

To make a _twilight_ in, just as Sol's heat is

Quenched in the lap of the salt sea, or Thetis.

LXX.

And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine),

Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing

Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,

Because each lover looked a sort of King,

Made up upon an amatory pattern,

A royal husband in all save the _ring_--[jn]

Which, (being the damnedest part of matrimony,)

Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey:

LXXI.

And when you add to this, her Womanhood

In its meridian, her blue eyes[519] or gray--

(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,

Or better, as the best examples say:

Napoleon's, Mary's[520] (Queen of Scotland), should

Lend to that colour a transcendent ray;

And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,

Too wise to look through optics black or blue)--

LXXII.

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,[jo]

Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,

Her preference of a boy to men much bigger

(Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension),

Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,

With other _extras_, which we need not mention,--

All these, or any one of these, explain

Enough to make a stripling very vain.

LXXIII.

And that's enough, for Love is vanity,

Selfish in its beginning as its end,[jp]

Except where 't is a mere insanity,

A maddening spirit which would strive to blend

Itself with Beauty's frail inanity,

On which the Passion's self seems to depend;

And hence some heathenish philosophers

Make Love the main-spring of the Universe.

LXXIV.

Besides Platonic love, besides the love

Of God, the love of sentiment, the loving

Of faithful pairs--(I needs must rhyme with dove,

That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving

'Gainst reason--Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove

With rhyme, but always leant less to improving

The sound than sense)--besides all these pretences

To Love, there are those things which words name senses;

LXXV.

Those movements, those improvements in our bodies

Which make all bodies anxious to get out

Of their own sand-pits, to mix with a goddess,

For such all women are at first no doubt.[jq]

How beautiful that moment! and how odd is

That fever which precedes the languid rout

Of our sensations! What a curious way

The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay![jr]

LXXVI.[521]

The noblest kind of love is love Platonical,

To end or to begin with; the next grand

Is that which may be christened love canonical,

Because the clergy take the thing in hand;

The third sort to be noted in our chronicle

As flourishing in every Christian land,

Is when chaste matrons to their other ties

Add what may be called _marriage in disguise_.

LXXVII.

Well, we won't analyse--our story must

Tell for itself: the Sovereign was smitten,

Juan much flattered by her love, or lust;--

I cannot stop to alter words once written,

And the _two_ are so mixed with human dust,

That he who _names one_, both perchance may hit on:

But in such matters Russia's mighty Empress

Behaved no better than a common sempstress.

LXXVIII.

The whole court melted into one wide whisper,

And all lips were applied unto all ears!

The elder ladies' wrinkles curled much crisper

As they beheld; the younger cast some leers

On one another, and each lovely lisper

Smiled as she talked the matter o'er; but tears

Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye

Of all the standing army who stood by.

LXXIX.

All the ambassadors of all the powers

Inquired, Who was this very new young man,

Who promised to be great in some few hours?

Which is full soon (though Life is but a span).

Already they beheld the silver showers

Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,

Upon his cabinet, besides the presents

Of several ribands, and some thousand peasants.[522]

LXXX.

Catherine was generous,--all such ladies are:

Love--that great opener of the heart and all

The ways that lead there, be they near or far,

Above, below, by turnpikes great or small,--

Love--(though she had a cursed taste for War,

And was not the best wife unless we call

Such Clytemnestra, though perhaps 't is better

That one should die--than two drag on the fetter)--

LXXXI.

Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune,

Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth,

Whose avarice all disbursements did importune,

If History, the grand liar, ever saith

The truth; and though grief her old age might shorten,

Because she put a favourite to death,

Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,

And stinginess, disgrace her sex and station.

LXXXII.

But when the levée rose, and all was bustle

In the dissolving circle, all the nations'

Ambassadors began as 't were to hustle

Round the young man with their congratulations.

Also the softer silks were heard to rustle

Of gentle dames, among whose recreations

It is to speculate on handsome faces,

Especially when such lead to high places.

LXXXIII.

Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,

A general object of attention, made

His answers with a very graceful bow,

As if born for the ministerial trade.

Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow

Nature had written "Gentleman!" He said

Little, but to the purpose; and his manner

Flung hovering graces o'er him like a banner.

LXXXIV.

An order from her Majesty consigned

Our young Lieutenant to the genial care

Of those in office: all the world looked kind,

(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,

Which Youth would not act ill to keep in mind,)

As also did Miss Protasoff[523] then there,[js]

Named from her mystic office "l'Eprouveuse,"

A term inexplicable to the Muse.

LXXXV.

With _her_ then, as in humble duty bound,

Juan retired,--and so will I, until

My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.

We have just lit on a "heaven-kissing hill,"

So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,

And all my fancies whirling like a mill;

Which is a signal to my nerves and brain,

To take a quiet ride in some green lane.[524]

FOOTNOTES:

{373}[476] [Stanzas i.-viii., which are headed "_Don Juan_, Canto III.,

July 10, 1819," are in the handwriting of (?) the Countess Guiccioli.

Stanzas ix., x., which were written on the same sheet of paper, are in

Byron's handwriting. The original MS. opens with stanza xi., "Death

laughs," etc. (See letter to Moore, July 12, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi.

96.)]

[477]

["Faut qu' lord Villain-ton ait tout pris;

N'y a plus d' argent dans c' gueux de Paris."

De Béranger, "Complainte d'une de ces Demoiselles a l'Occasion des

Affaires du Temps (Février, 1816)," _Chansons_, 1821, ii. 17.

Compare a retaliatory epigram which appeared in a contemporary

newspaper--

"These French _petit-maîtres_ who the spectacle throng,

Say of Wellington's dress _qu'il fait vilain ton!_

But, at Waterloo, Wellington made the French stare

When their army he dressed _à la mode Angleterre!_"]

[it] _Oh Wellington_ (_or "Vilainton"_)----.--[MS. B.]

[478] Query, _Ney?_--Printer's Devil. [Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen,

"the bravest of the brave" (see _Ode from the French_, stanza i.

_Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 431), born January 10, 1769, was arrested

August 5, and shot December 7, 1815.]

[479] [The story of the attempted assassination (February 11, 1818) of

the Duke of Wellington, which is dismissed by Alison in a few words

(_Hist. of Europe_ (1815-1852), 1853, i. 577, 578), occupies many pages

of the _Supplementary Despatches_ (1865, xii. 271-546). Byron probably

drew his own conclusions as to the Kinnaird-Marinet incident, from the

_Letter to the Duke of Wellington on the Arrest of M. Marinet_, by Lord

Kinnaird, 1818. The story, which is full of interest, may be briefly

recounted. On January 30, 1818, Lord Kinnaird informed Sir George Murray

(Chief of the Staff of the Army of Occupation) that a person, whose name

he withheld, had revealed to him the existence of a plot to assassinate

the Duke of Wellington. At 12.30 a.m., February 11, 1818, the Duke, on

returning to his Hotel, was fired at by an unknown person; and then, but

not till then, he wrote to urge Lord Clancarty to advise the Prince

Regent to take steps to persuade or force Kinnaird to disclose the name

of his informant. A Mr. G.W. Chad, of the Consular Service, was

empowered to proceed to Brussels, and to seek an interview with

Kinnaird. He carried with him, among other documents, a letter from the

Duke to Lord Clancarty, dated February 12, 1818. A postscript contained

this intimation: "It may be proper to mention to you that the French

Government are disposed to go every length in the way of negotiation

with the person mentioned by Lord Kinnaird, or others, to discover the

plot."

Kinnaird absolutely declined to give up the name of his informant, but,

acting on the strength of the postscript, which had been read but not

shown to him, started for Paris with "the great unknown." Some days

after their arrival, and while Kinnaird was a guest of the Duke, the man

was arrested, and discovered to be one Nicholle or Marinet, who had been

appointed _receveur_ under the restored government of Louis XVIII., but

during the _Cent jours_ had fled to Belgium, retaining the funds he had

amassed during his term of office. Kinnaird regarded this action of the

French Government as a breach of faith, and in a "Memorial" to the

French Chamber of Peers, and his _Letter_, maintained that the Duke's

postscript implied a promise of a safe conduct for Marinet to and from

Paris to Brussels. The Duke, on the other hand, was equally positive

(see his letter to Lord Liverpool, May 30, 1818) "that he never intended

to have any negotiations with anybody." Kinnaird was a "dog with a bad

name." He had been accused (see his _Letter to the Earl of Liverpool_,

1816, p. 16) of "the promulgation of dangerous opinions," and of

intimacy "with persons suspected." The Duke speaks of him as "the friend

of Revolutionists"! It is evident that he held the dangerous doctrine

that a promise to a rogue _is_ a promise, and that the authorities took

a different view of the ethics of the situation. It is clear, too, that

the Duke's postscript was ambiguous, but that it did not warrant the

assumption that if Marinet went to Paris he should be protected. The air

was full of plots. The great Duke despised and was inclined to ignore

the pistol or the dagger of the assassin; but he believed that "mischief

was afoot," and that "great personages" might or might not be

responsible. He was beset by difficulties at every turn, and would have

been more than mortal if he had put too favourable a construction on the

scruples, or condoned the imprudence of a "friend of Revolutionists."]

{374}[480] [The reference may be to the Duke of Wellington's intimacy

with Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster. Byron had "passed that way"

himself (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 251, note i, 323, etc.), and could

hardly attack the Duke on _that_ score.]

[481] ["Thou art the best o' the cut-throats." _Macbeth_, act iii.

sc. 4, line 17.]

[482] ["I have supped full of horrors." _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 5, line 13.]

[483] _Vide_ speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo.

{376}[484] ["I at this time got a post, being for fatigue, with four

others. We were sent to break biscuit, and make a mess for Lord

Wellington's hounds. I was very hungry, and thought it a good job at the

time, as we got our own fill, while we broke the biscuit,--a thing I had

not got for some days. When thus engaged, the Prodigal Son was never

once out of my mind; and I sighed, as I fed the dogs, over my humble

situation and my ruined hopes."--_Journal of a Soldier of the 71st

Regiment_, 1806 to 1815 (Edinburgh, 1822), pp. 132, 133.]

[485] ["We are assured that Epaminondas died so poor that the Thebans

buried him at the public charge; for at his death nothing was found in

his house but an iron spit."--Plutarch's _Fabius Maximus_, Langhorne's

translation, 1838, p. 140. See, too, Cornelius Nepos, _Epam_., cap. iii.

"Paupertatem adeo facilè perpessus est, ut de Republica nihil præter

gloriam ceperit."]

[486] [For Pitt's refusal to accept £100,000 from the merchants of

London towards the payment of his debts, or £30,000 from the King's

Privy Purse, see _Pitt_, by Lord Rosebery, 1891. p. 231.]

{377}[iu] _To_ you _this_ one _unflattering Muse inscribes_.--[MS.

erased.]

{377}[iv]

_He strips from man his mantle (which is dear_

_Though beautiful in youth) his carnal skin_.--[MS. erased.]

[487] [_Hamlet_, act iii. sc. i, line 56.]

[488] ["O dura messorum ilia!" etc.-Hor., _Epod._ iii. 4.]

[iw] _Ye iron guts_----.--[MS. erased.]

{379}[489] ["Ce n'est qu'à l'édition de 1635 qu'on voit paraître la

devise que Montaigne avait adoptée, le _que sais-je_? avec l'emblème des

balances. ... Ce _que sais-je_ que Pascal a si sévèrement analysé se lit

au chapitre douze du livre ii; il caractérise parfaitement la

philosophie de Montaigne; il est la conséquence de cette maxime qu'il

avait inscrite en grec sur les solives de sa librairie: 'Il n'est point

de raisonnement au quel on n'oppose un raissonnement

contraire.'"--_Oeuvres de ... Montaigne_, 1837, "Notice

Bibliographique," p. xvii.]

[490] [Concerning the Pyrrhonists or Sceptics and their master Pyrrho,

who held that Truth was incomprehensible (_inprensibilis_), and that you

may not affirm of aught that it be rather this or that, or neither this

nor that (οὐ μᾶλλον οὕτως ἔχει τόδε ἢ ἐκείνως ἢ οὐδετέρως), [Greek: (ou)

ma~llon ou(/tôs e)/chei to/de ê)\ e)kei/nôs ê)\ ou)dete/rôs),] see Aul.

Gellii _Noct. Attic._, lib. xi. cap. v.]

[491] See _Othello_, [act ii. sc. 3, lines 206, 207: "Well, God's above

all, and there be souls must be saved; and there be souls must not be

saved--Let's have no more of this."]

{380}[492] [_Hamlet_, act v. sc. 2, lines 94, 98, 102.]

[493] [For "Lycanthropy," see "The Soldier's Story" in the _Satyricôn_

of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 62; see, too, _Letters on Demonology, etc._,

by Sir W. Scott, 1830, pp. 211, 212.]

[494] [In respect of suavity and forbearance Melancthon was the

counterpart of Luther. John Arrowsmith (1602-1657), in his _Tractica

Sacra_, describes him as "Vir in quo cum pietate doctrina, et cum

utrâque candor certavit."]

[ix] _Like Moses or like Cobbett who have ne'er._

Moses and Cobbet proclaim themselves the "meekest of men." See their

writings.--[MS.]

_Like Moses who was "very meek" had ne'er_.--[MS. erased.]

{381}[495] [See his "Correspondance avec L'Impératrice de Russie,"

_Oeuvres Complètes_ de Voltaire, 1836, x. 393-477. M. Waliszewski, in

his _Story of a Throne_, 1895, i. 224, has gathered a handful of these

flowers of speech: "She is the chief person in the world.... She is the

fire and life of nations.... She is a saint.... She is above all

saints.... She is equal to the mother of God.... She is the divinity of

the North.--_Te Catherinam laudamus, te Dominam confitemur, etc.,

etc._"]

[iy] _Of everything that ever cursed a nation._--[_MS. erased._]

[496] ["It is still more difficult to say which form of government is

the _worst_--all are so bad. As for democracy, it is the worst of the

whole; for what is (_in fact_) democracy?--an Aristocracy of

Blackguards."--See "My Dictionary" (May 1, 1821), _Letters_, 1901, v.

405, 406.]

{382}[iz] _Though priests and slaves may join the servile cry_.--[_MS.

erased._]

[497] In Greece I never saw or heard these animals; but among the ruins

of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds.

[See _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 6, _Poetical Works_,

1899, ii. 441; and _Siege of Corinth_, line 329, ibid., 1900, iii. 462,

note 1.]

[ja] _Whereas the others hunt for rascal spiders._--[_MS. erased._]

[jb] _Which still are strongly fluttering to be free_.--[_MS. erased._]

{383}[498] [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, line 576, sq., _Poetical

Works_, 1901, v. 570.]

{384}[499] [Nadir Shah, or Thamas Kouli Khan, born November, 1688,

invaded India, 1739-40, was assassinated June 19, 1747.]

[jc]

---- _went mad and was_

_Killed because what he swallowed would not pass_.--[MS. erased.]

[500] He was killed in a conspiracy, after his temper had been

exasperated by his extreme costivity to a degree of insanity.

[To such a height had his madness (attributed to _melancholia_ produced

by dropsy) attained, that he actually ordered the Afghan chiefs to rise

suddenly upon the Persian guard, and seize the ... chief nobles; but the

project being discovered, the intended victims conspired in turn, and a

body of them, including Nadir's guard, and the chief of his own tribe of

Afshar, entered his tent at midnight, and, after a moment's involuntary

pause--when challenged by the deep voice at which they had so often

trembled--rushed upon the king, who being brought to the ground by a

sabre-stroke, begged for life, and attempted to rise, but soon expired

beneath the repeated blows of the conspirators.--_The Indian Empire_, by

R. Montgomery Martin (1857), i. 172.]

[501] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxvii. line 5, _Poetical

Works_, 1899, ii. 64, note 3.]

{385}[jd] _Or the substrata_----.--[MS.]

[502] [Compare Preface to _Cain_, _Poetical Works_, 1901, V. 210, note

1.]

[503] [_Vide ante,_ Canto VIII. stanza cxxvi. line 9, p. 368.]

{386}[504] [_Hamlet_, act i. sc. 5, line 189.]

[je] _I never know what's next to come_----.--[MS. erased.]

[505] [It is possible that the phrase "painted snows" was suggested by

Tooke's description of the winter-garden of the Taurida Palace: "The

genial warmth, ... the voluptuous silence that reigns in this enchanting

garden, lull the fancy into sweet romantic dreams: we think ourselves in

the groves of Italy, while torpid nature, through the windows of this

pavilion, announces the severity of a northern winter" (_The Life,

etc._, 1800, iii. 48).]

{387}[jf] _O'er limits which mightily_----:--[MS. erased.]

[jg]---- _in Youth and Glory's pillory_.--[MS. erased.]

[506] [In his _Notes sur le Don Juanisme_ (_Mercure de France_, 1898,

xxvi. 66), M. Bruchard says that this phrase defines and summarizes the

Byronic Don Juan.]

[jh]

_The Empress smiled while all the Orloff frowned_--

_A numerous family, to whose heart or hand_

_Mild Catherine owed the chance of being crowned,_.--[MS. erased.]

{388}[507] [C.F.P. Masson, in his _Mémoires Secrets, etc._, 1880, i.

150-178, gives a list of twelve favourites, and in this Canto, Don Juan

takes upon himself the characteristics of at least three, Lanskoï,

Zoritch (or Zovitch), and Plato Zoubof. For example (p. 167), "Zoritch

... est le seul étranger qu'elle ait osé créer son favori pendant son

regne. C'étoit un _Servien_ échappé du bagne de Constantinople où il

étoit prisonnier: il parut, pour la première fois, en habit de hussard à

la cour. Il éblouit tout le monde par sa beauté, et les vielles dames en

parlent encore comme d'un Adonis." M. Waliszewski, in his _Romance of an

Empress_ (1894), devotes a chapter to "Private Life and Favouritism"

(ii. 234-286), in which he graphically describes the election and

inauguration of the _Vremienchtchik_, "the man of the moment," paramour

regnant, and consort of the Empress _pro hac vice_: "'We may observe in

Russia a sort of interregnum in affairs, caused by the displacement of

one favourite and the installation of his successor.' ... The

interregnums are, however, of very short duration. Only one lasts for

several months, between the death of Lanskoï (1784) and the succession

of Iermolof.... There is no lack of candidates. The place is good....

Sometimes, too, on the height by the throne, reached at a bound, these

spoilt children of fate grow giddy.... It is over in an instant, at an

evening reception it is noticed that the Empress has gazed attentively

at some obscure lieutenant, presented but just before ... next day it is

reported that he has been appointed aide-de-camp to her Majesty. What

that means is well known. Next day he finds himself in the special suite

of rooms.... The rooms are already vacated, and everything is prepared

for the new-comer. All imaginable comfort and luxury ... await him; and,

on opening a drawer, he finds a hundred thousand roubles [about

£20,000], the usual first gift, a foretaste of Pactolus. That evening,

before the assembled court, the Empress appears, leaning familiarly on

his arm, and on the stroke of ten, as she retires, the new favourite

follows her" (_ibid._, pp. 246-249).]

[508] [After the death or murder of her husband, Peter III., Catherine

Alexievna (1729-1796) (born Sophia Augusta), daughter of the Prince of

Anhalt Zerbst, was solemnly crowned (September, 1762) Empress of all the

Russias.]

{389}[ji] _And almost died for the scarce-fledged Lanskoi_.--[MS.

erased.]

[509] He was the grande passion of the grande Catherine. See her Lives

under the head of "Lanskoi."

[Lanskoi was a youth of as fine and interesting a figure as the

imagination can paint. Of all Catherine's favourites, he was the man

whom she loved the most. In 1784 he was attacked with a fever, and

perished in the arms of her Majesty. When he was no more, Catherine gave

herself up to the most poignant grief, and remained three months without

going out of her palace of Tzarsko-selo. She afterwards raised a superb

monument to his memory. (See _Life of Catherine II._, by W. Tooke, 1800,

iii. 88, 89.)]

[510] [Ten months after the death of Lanskoi, the Empress consoled

herself with Iermolof, described, by Bezborodky, as "a modest refined

young man, who cultivates the society of serious people." In less than a

year this excellent youth is, in turn, displaced by Dmitrief Mamonof.

His _petit nom_ was _Red Coat_, and, for a time, he is a "priceless

creature." "He has," says Catherine, "two superb black eyes, with

eyebrows outlined as one rarely sees; about the middle height, noble in

manner, easy in demeanour." But Mamonof suffered from "scruples of

conscience," and, after a while, with Catherine's consent and blessing,

was happily married to the Princess Shtcherbatof, a maid of honour, and

not, as Byron supposed, a rival "man of the moment."--See _The Story of

a Throne_, by K. Waliszewski, 1895, ii. 135, sq.]

[511] This was written long before the suicide of that person. [For "his

parts of speech" compare--

" ... that long mandarin

C-stle-r-agh (whom Fum calls the Confucius of Prose)

Was rehearsing a speech upon Europe's repose

To the deep double bass of the fat Idol's nose."

Moore's _Fum and Hum, The Two Birds of Royalty_.]

{390}[512] [Compare _Beppo_, stanza xvii. line 8, _Poetical Works_,

1901, iv. 165. See, too, letter to Hoppner, December 31, 1819,

_Letters_, 1900, iv. 393.]

[jj]

_Beneath his chisel_--

or, _Beneath his touches_----.--[MS. erased.]

{391}[jk] ---- _and bound fair Helen in a bond_.--[MS. erased.]

[513] Hor., _Sat._, lib. i. sat. iii. lines 107, 108.

[jl] _That Riddle which all read, none understand_.--[MS. erased.]

[jm]---- _thou Sea which lavest Life's sand_.--[MS. erased.]

{392}[514] ["Fortune and victory sit on thy helm."--_Richard III._, act

v, sc. 3, line 79.]

[515] ["Catherine had been handsome in her youth, and she preserved a

gracefulness and majesty to the last period of her life. She was of a

moderate stature, but well proportioned; and as she carried her head

very high, she appeared rather tall. She had an open front, an aquiline

nose, an agreeable mouth, and her chin, though long, was not mis-shapen.

Her hair was auburn, her eyebrows black and rather thick, and her blue

eyes had a gentleness which was often affected, but oftener still a

mixture of pride. Her physiognomy was not deficient in expression; but

this expression never discovered what was passing in the soul of

Catherine, or rather it served her the better to disguise it."--_Life of

Catherine II._, by W. Tooke, iii. 381 (translated from _Vie de Catherine

II._ (J.H. Castéra), 1797, ii. 450).]

{393}[516] ["His fortune swells him: 'Tis rank, he's married."--_Sir

Giles Overreach_, in Massinger's _New Way to pay Old Debts_, act v. sc.

1.]

{394}[517] [_Hamlet_, act iii. sc. iv. lines 58, 59.]

{395}[518]

["Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove;

No! make me mistress to the man I love."

Pope, _Eloisa to Abelard_, lines 87, 88.]

[jn]

_O'er whom an Empress her Crown-jewels scattering_

_Was wed with something better than a ring_.--[MS. erased.]

[519] ["Several persons who lived at the court affirm that Catherine had

very blue eyes, and not brown, as M. Rulhières has stated."--_Life of

Catherine II._, by W. Tooke, 1800, iii. 382.]

{396}[520] [The historic Catherine (_æt._ 62) was past her meridian in

the spring of 1791.]

[jo] _Her figure, and her vigour, and her rigour_.--[MS. erased.]

[jp] _In its sincere beginning, or dull end_.--[MS. erased.]

{397}[jq] _For such all women are just_ then, _no doubt_.--[MS.]

[jr]

_Of such sensations, in the drowsy drear_

After--_which shadows the, say_--second _year_.--[MS.]

_Of that sad heavy, drowsy, doubly drear_

After, _which shadows the first--say, year_.--[MS. erased.]

[521] [Stanza lxxvi. is not in the MS.]

{398}[522] A Russian estate is always valued by the number of the slaves

upon it.

{399}[523] [The "Protassova" (born 1744) was a cousin of the Orlofs. She

survived Catherine by many years, and was, writes M. Waliszewski (_The

Story of a Throne_, 1895, ii. 193), "present at the Congress of Vienna,

covered with diamonds like a reliquary, and claiming precedence of every

one." She is named _l'éprouveuse_ in a note to the _Mémoires Secrets_,

1800, i. 148.]

[js] _And not be dazzled by its early glare_.--[MS. erased.]

[524] End of Canto 9^th^, Augt. Sept., 1822. B.

CANTO THE TENTH.

I.

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found

In that slight startle from his contemplation--

'T is _said_ (for I'll not answer above ground

For any sage's creed or calculation)--

A mode of proving that the Earth turned round

In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation;"

And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,[jt]

Since Adam--with a fall--or with an apple.[ju][525]

II.

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,

If this be true; for we must deem the mode

In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose

Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,[jv]

A thing to counterbalance human woes:[526]

For ever since immortal man hath glowed

With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon

Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon.

III.

And wherefore this exordium?--Why, just now,

In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,

My bosom underwent a glorious glow,

And my internal spirit cut a caper:

And though so much inferior, as I know,

To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour,

Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye,

I wish to do as much by Poesy.

IV.

In the wind's eye I have sailed, and sail; but for

The stars, I own my telescope is dim;

But at the least I have shunned the common shore,

And leaving land far out of sight, would skim

The Ocean of Eternity:[527] the roar

Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,

But _still_ sea-worthy skiff; and she may float

Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.

V.

We left our hero, Juan, in the _bloom_

Of favouritism, but not yet in the _blush;--_

And far be it from my _Muses_ to presume

(For I have more than one Muse at a push),

To follow him beyond the drawing-room:

It is enough that Fortune found him flush

Of Youth, and Vigour, Beauty, and those things

Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's wings.

VI.

But soon they grow again and leave their nest.

"Oh!" saith the Psalmist, "that I had a dove's

Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!"

And who that recollects young years and loves,--

Though hoary now, and with a withering breast,

And palsied Fancy, which no longer roves

Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere,--but would much rather

Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?

VII.

But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,

Like Arno[528] in the summer, to a shallow,

So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,

Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!

Such difference doth a few months make. You'd think

Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow;

No more it doth--its ploughs but change their boys,

Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.

VIII.

But coughs will come when sighs depart--and now

And then before sighs cease; for oft the one

Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow

Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the Sun

Of Life reached ten o'clock: and while a glow,

Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done,

O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay,

Thousands blaze, love, hope, die,--how happy they!--

IX.

But Juan was not meant to die so soon:--

We left him in the focus of such glory

As may be won by favour of the moon

Or ladies' fancies--rather transitory

Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,

Because December, with his breath so hoary,

Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,

To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.

X.

Besides, he had some qualities which fix

Middle-aged ladies even more than young:

The former know what's what; while new-fledged chicks

Know little more of Love than what is sung

In rhymes, or dreamt (for Fancy will play tricks)

In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung.

Some reckon women by their suns or years,

I rather think the Moon should date the dears.

XI.

And why? because she's changeable and chaste:

I know no other reason, whatsoe'er

Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,[jw]

May choose to tax me with; which is not fair,

Nor flattering to "their temper or their taste,"

As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air:[529]

However, I forgive him, and I trust

He will forgive himself;--if not, I must.

XII.

Old enemies who have become new friends

Should so continue--'t is a point of honour;

And I know nothing which could make amends

For a return to Hatred: I would shun her

Like garlic, howsoever she extends

Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.

Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes--

Converted foes should scorn to join with those.

XIII.

This were the worst desertion:--renegadoes,

Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,[jx]

Would scarcely join again the "reformadoes,"[530]

Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's sty;

And honest men from Iceland to Barbadoes,

Whether in Caledon or Italy,

Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize

To pain, the moment when you cease to please.

XIV.

The lawyer and the critic but behold

The baser sides of literature and life,

And nought remains unseen, but much untold,

By those who scour those double vales of strife.

While common men grow ignorantly old,

The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,

Dissecting the whole inside of a question,

And with it all the process of digestion.

XV.[531]

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper,

And that's the reason he himself's so dirty;

The endless soot[532] bestows a tint far deeper

Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he

Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper,

At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty,

In all their habits;--not so _you_, I own;

As Cæsar wore his robe you wear your gown.[533]

XVI.

And all our little feuds, at least all _mine_,

Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe

(As far as rhyme and criticism combine

To make such puppets of us things below),

Are over: Here's a health to "Auld Lang Syne!"

I do not know you, and may never know

Your face--but you have acted on the whole

Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

XVII.

And when I use the phrase of "Auld Lang Syne!"

'T is not addressed to you--the more's the pity

For me, for I would rather take my wine

With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city:

But somehow--it may seem a schoolboy's whine,

And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,

But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred

A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,--[534]

XVIII.

As "Auld Lang Syne" brings Scotland, one and all,[535]

Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,

The Dee--the Don--Balgounie's brig's _black wall_--[536]

All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams

Of what I _then dreamt_, clothed in their own pall,--

Like Banquo's offspring--floating past me seems

My childhood, in this childishness of mine:--

I care not--'t is a glimpse of "_Auld Lang Syne_."

XIX.

And though, as you remember, in a fit

Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,

I railed at Scots to show my wrath and wit,

Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,

Yet 't is in vain such sallies to permit,

They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:

I "_scotched_ not killed" the Scotchman in my blood,

And love the land of "mountain and of flood."[537]

XX.

Don Juan, who was real, or ideal,--

For both are much the same, since what men think

Exists when the once thinkers are less real

Than what they thought, for Mind can never sink,

And 'gainst the Body makes a strong appeal;

And yet 't is very puzzling on the brink

Of what is called Eternity to stare,

And know no more of what is _here_, than _there_;--

XXI.

Don Juan grew a very polished Russian--

_How_ we won't mention, _why_ we need not say:

Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion

Of any slight temptation in their way;

But _his_ just now were spread as is a cushion

Smoothed for a Monarch's seat of honour: gay

Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money,

Made ice seem Paradise, and winter sunny.

XXII.

The favour of the Empress was agreeable;

And though the duty waxed a little hard,

Young people at his time of life should be able

To come off handsomely in that regard.

He was now growing up like a green tree, able

For Love, War, or Ambition, which reward

Their luckier votaries, till old Age's tedium

Make some prefer the circulating medium.

XXIII.

About this time, as might have been anticipated,

Seduced by Youth and dangerous examples,

Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated;

Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples

On our fresh feelings, but--as being participated

With all kinds of incorrigible samples

Of frail humanity--must make us selfish,

And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish.

XXIV.

This we pass over. We will also pass

The usual progress of intrigues between

Unequal matches, such as are, alas!

A young Lieutenant's with a _not old_ Queen,

But one who is not so youthful as she was

In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.[jy]

Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter,

And wrinkles, the d----d democrats! won't flatter.

XXV.

And Death, the Sovereign's Sovereign, though the great

Gracchus of all mortality, who levels,

With his _Agrarian_ laws,[538] the high estate

Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels,

To one small grass-grown patch (which must await

Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils

Who never had a foot of land till now,--

Death's a reformer--all men must allow.

XXVI.