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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Don Juan: Canto The Seventh</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O Love! O Glory! what are ye who fly<br>Around us ever, rarely to alight?<br>There's not a meteor in the polar sky<br>Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.<br>Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high<br>Our eyes in search of either lovely light;<br>A thousand and a thousand colours they<br>Assume, then leave us on our freezing way. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And such as they are, such my present tale is,<br>A non-descript and ever-varying rhyme,<br>A versified Aurora Borealis,<br>Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.<br>When we know what all are, we must bewail us,<br>But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime<br>To laugh at all things- for I wish to know<br>What, after all, are all things- but a show? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">They accuse me--Me--the present writer of<br>The present poem--of--I know not what--<br>A tendency to under-rate and scoff<br>At human power and virtue, and all that;<br>And this they say in language rather rough.<br>Good God! I wonder what they would be at!<br>I say no more than hath been said in Dante's<br>Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,<br>By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato;<br>By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,<br>Who knew this life was not worth a potato.<br>'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so-<br>For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,<br>Nor even Diogenes.--We live and die,<br>But which is best, you know no more than I. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Socrates said, our only knowledge was<br>'To know that nothing could be known;' a pleasant<br>Science enough, which levels to an ass<br>Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.<br>Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas!<br>Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,<br>That he himself felt only 'like a youth<br>Picking up shells by the great ocean--Truth.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ecclesiastes said, 'that all is vanity'--<br>Most modern preachers say the same, or show it<br>By their examples of true Christianity:<br>In short, all know, or very soon may know it;<br>And in this scene of all-confess'd inanity,<br>By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet,<br>Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife,<br>From holding up the nothingness of life? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Dogs, or men!--for I flatter you in saying<br>That ye are dogs--your betters far--ye may<br>Read, or read not, what I am now essaying<br>To show ye what ye are in every way.<br>As little as the moon stops for the baying<br>Of wolves, will the bright muse withdraw one ray<br>From out her skies- then howl your idle wrath!<br>While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Fierce loves and faithless wars'--I am not sure<br>If this be the right reading--'tis no matter;<br>The fact's about the same, I am secure;<br>I sing them both, and am about to batter<br>A town which did a famous siege endure,<br>And was beleaguer'd both by land and water<br>By Souvaroff, or Anglice Suwarrow,<br>Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The fortress is call'd Ismail, and is placed<br>Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank,<br>With buildings in the Oriental taste,<br>But still a fortress of the foremost rank,<br>Or was at least, unless 'tis since defaced,<br>Which with your conquerors is a common prank:<br>It stands some eighty versts from the high sea,<br>And measures round of toises thousands three. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Within the extent of this fortification<br>A borough is comprised along the height<br>Upon the left, which from its loftier station<br>Commands the city, and upon its site<br>A Greek had raised around this elevation<br>A quantity of palisades upright,<br>So placed as to impede the fire of those<br>Who held the place, and to assist the foe's. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This circumstance may serve to give a notion<br>Of the high talents of this new Vauban:<br>But the town ditch below was deep as ocean,<br>The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang:<br>But then there was a great want of precaution<br>(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang),<br>Nor work advanced, nor cover'd way was there,<br>To hint at least 'Here is no thoroughfare.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge,<br>And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet;<br>Two batteries, cap-a-pie, as our St. George,<br>Case-mated one, and t' other 'a barbette,'<br>Of Danube's bank took formidable charge;<br>While two and twenty cannon duly set<br>Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier,<br>Forty feet high, upon a cavalier. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But from the river the town 's open quite,<br>Because the Turks could never be persuaded<br>A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight;<br>And such their creed was, till they were invaded,<br>When it grew rather late to set things right.<br>But as the Danube could not well be waded,<br>They look'd upon the Muscovite flotilla,<br>And only shouted, 'Allah!' and 'Bis Millah!' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Russians now were ready to attack:<br>But oh, ye goddesses of war and glory!<br>How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque<br>Who were immortal, could one tell their story?<br>Alas! what to their memory can lack?<br>Achilles' self was not more grim and gory<br>Than thousands of this new and polish'd nation,<br>Whose names want nothing but- pronunciation. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Still I 'll record a few, if but to increase<br>Our euphony: there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff,<br>Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arsniew of modern Greece,<br>And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,<br>And others of twelve consonants apiece;<br>And more might be found out, if I could poke enough<br>Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet),<br>It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet, </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And cannot tune those discords of narration,<br>Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme;<br>Yet there were several worth commemoration,<br>As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime;<br>Soft words, too, fitted for the peroration<br>Of Londonderry drawling against time,<br>Ending in 'ischskin,' 'ousckin,' 'iffskchy,' 'ouski:<br>Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski, </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti,<br>Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin,<br>All proper men of weapons, as e'er scoff'd high<br>Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin:<br>Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti,<br>Unless to make their kettle-drums a new skin<br>Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear,<br>And no more handy substitute been near. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then there were foreigners of much renown,<br>Of various nations, and all volunteers;<br>Not fighting for their country or its crown,<br>But wishing to be one day brigadiers;<br>Also to have the sacking of a town,--<br>A pleasant thing to young men at their years.<br>'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,<br>Sixteen call'd Thomson, and nineteen named Smith. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson; all the rest<br>Had been call'd 'Jemmy,' after the great bard;<br>I don't know whether they had arms or crest,<br>But such a godfather's as good a card.<br>Three of the Smiths were Peters; but the best<br>Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward,<br>Was he, since so renown'd 'in country quarters<br>At Halifax;' but now he served the Tartars. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The rest were jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills;<br>But when I've added that the elder jack Smith<br>Was born in Cumberland among the hills,<br>And that his father was an honest blacksmith,<br>I've said all I know of a name that fills<br>Three lines of the despatch in taking 'Schmacksmith,'<br>A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein<br>He fell, immortal in a bulletin. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a god<br>Praise) if a man's name in a bulletin<br>May make up for a bullet in his body?<br>I hope this little question is no sin,<br>Because, though I am but a simple noddy,<br>I think one Shakspeare puts the same thought in<br>The mouth of some one in his plays so doting,<br>Which many people pass for wits by quoting. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young, and gay:<br>But I'm too great a patriot to record<br>Their Gallic names upon a glorious day;<br>I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word<br>Of truth;--such truths are treason; they betray<br>Their country; and as traitors are abhorr'd<br>Who name the French in English, save to show<br>How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Russians, having built two batteries on<br>An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view;<br>The first was to bombard it, and knock down<br>The public buildings and the private too,<br>No matter what poor souls might be undone.<br>The city's shape suggested this, 't is true;<br>Form'd like an amphitheatre, each dwelling<br>Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The second object was to profit by<br>The moment of the general consternation,<br>To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay nigh<br>Extremely tranquil, anchor'd at its station:<br>But a third motive was as probably<br>To frighten them into capitulation;<br>A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors,<br>Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A habit rather blamable, which is<br>That of despising those we combat with,<br>Common in many cases, was in this<br>The cause of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith;<br>One of the valorous 'Smiths' whom we shall miss<br>Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to 'pith;'<br>But 'tis a name so spread o'er 'Sir' and 'Madam,'<br>That one would think the first who bore it 'Adam.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Russian batteries were incomplete,<br>Because they were constructed in a hurry;<br>Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet,<br>And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John Murray,<br>When the sale of new books is not so fleet<br>As they who print them think is necessary,<br>May likewise put off for a time what story<br>Sometimes calls 'murder,' and at others 'glory.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Whether it was their engineer's stupidity,<br>Their haste, or waste, I neither know nor care,<br>Or some contractor's personal cupidity,<br>Saving his soul by cheating in the ware<br>Of homicide, but there was no solidity<br>In the new batteries erected there;<br>They either miss'd, or they were never miss'd,<br>And added greatly to the missing list. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A sad miscalculation about distance<br>Made all their naval matters incorrect;<br>Three fireships lost their amiable existence<br>Before they reach'd a spot to take effect:<br>The match was lit too soon, and no assistance<br>Could remedy this lubberly defect;<br>They blew up in the middle of the river,<br>While, though 't was dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At seven they rose, however, and survey'd<br>The Russ flotilla getting under way;<br>'Twas nine, when still advancing undismay'd,<br>Within a cable's length their vessels lay<br>Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade,<br>Which was return'd with interest, I may say,<br>And by a fire of musketry and grape,<br>And shells and shot of every size and shape. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For six hours bore they without intermission<br>The Turkish fire, and aided by their own<br>Land batteries, work'd their guns with great precision:<br>At length they found mere cannonade alone<br>By no means would produce the town's submission,<br>And made a signal to retreat at one.<br>One bark blew up, a second near the works<br>Running aground, was taken by the Turks. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Moslem, too, had lost both ships and men;<br>But when they saw the enemy retire,<br>Their Delhis mann'd some boats, and sail'd again,<br>And gall'd the Russians with a heavy fire,<br>And tried to make a landing on the main;<br>But here the effect fell short of their desire:<br>Count Damas drove them back into the water<br>Pell-mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'If' (says the historian here) 'I could report<br>All that the Russians did upon this day,<br>I think that several volumes would fall short,<br>And I should still have many things to say;'<br>And so he says no more--but pays his court<br>To some distinguish'd strangers in that fray;<br>The Prince de Ligne, and Langeron, and Damas,<br>Names great as any that the roll of Fame has. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This being the case, may show us what Fame is:<br>For out of these three 'preux Chevaliers,' how<br>Many of common readers give a guess<br>That such existed? (and they may live now<br>For aught we know.) Renown 's all hit or miss;<br>There's fortune even in fame, we must allow.<br>'Tis true the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne<br>Have half withdrawn from him oblivion's screen. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But here are men who fought in gallant actions<br>As gallantly as ever heroes fought,<br>But buried in the heap of such transactions<br>Their names are rarely found, nor often sought.<br>Thus even good fame may suffer sad contractions,<br>And is extinguish'd sooner than she ought:<br>Of all our modern battles, I will bet<br>You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In short, this last attack, though rich in glory,<br>Show'd that somewhere, somehow, there was a fault,<br>And Admiral Ribas (known in Russian story)<br>Most strongly recommended an assault;<br>In which he was opposed by young and hoary,<br>Which made a long debate; but I must halt,<br>For if I wrote down every warrior's speech,<br>I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There was a man, if that he was a man,<br>Not that his manhood could be call'd in question,<br>For had he not been Hercules, his span<br>Had been as short in youth as indigestion<br>Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,<br>He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on<br>The soil of the green province he had wasted,<br>As e'er was locust on the land it blasted. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This was Potemkin--a great thing in days<br>When homicide and harlotry made great;<br>If stars and titles could entail long praise,<br>His glory might half equal his estate.<br>This fellow, being six foot high, could raise<br>A kind of phantasy proportionate<br>In the then sovereign of the Russian people,<br>Who measured men as you would do a steeple. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent<br>A courier to the prince, and he succeeded<br>In ordering matters after his own bent;<br>I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,<br>But shortly he had cause to be content.<br>In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,<br>And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border<br>Were briskly fired and answer'd in due order. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But on the thirteenth, when already part<br>Of the troops were embark'd, the siege to raise,<br>A courier on the spur inspired new heart<br>Into all panters for newspaper praise,<br>As well as dilettanti in war's art,<br>By his despatches couch'd in pithy phrase;<br>Announcing the appointment of that lover of<br>Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The letter of the prince to the same marshal<br>Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause<br>Been one to which a good heart could be partial--<br>Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;<br>But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all<br>With its proud brow, it merits slight applause,<br>Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,<br>'You will take Ismail at whatever price.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Let there be light! said God, and there was light!'<br>'Let there be blood!' says man, and there's a seal<br>The fiat of this spoil'd child of the Night<br>(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree<br>More evil in an hour, than thirty bright<br>Summers could renovate, though they should be<br>Lovely as those which ripen'd Eden's fruit;<br>For war cuts up not only branch, but root. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Our friends the Turks, who with loud 'Allahs' now<br>Began to signalise the Russ retreat,<br>Were damnably mistaken; few are slow<br>In thinking that their enemy is beat<br>(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though<br>I never think about it in a heat),<br>But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,<br>Who hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their bacon. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew<br>In sight two horsemen, who were deem'd Cossacques<br>For some time, till they came in nearer view.<br>They had but little baggage at their backs,<br>For there were but three shirts between the two;<br>But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,<br>Till, in approaching, were at length descried<br>In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Great joy to London now!' says some great fool,<br>When London had a grand illumination,<br>Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull,<br>Is of all dreams the first hallucination;<br>So that the streets of colour'd lamps are full,<br>That Sage (said john) surrenders at discretion<br>His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,<br>To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'T is strange that he should farther 'damn his eyes,'<br>For they are damn'd; that once all-famous oath<br>Is to the devil now no farther prize,<br>Since John has lately lost the use of both.<br>Debt he calls wealth, and taxes Paradise;<br>And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth,<br>Which stare him in the face, he won't examine,<br>Or swears that Ceres hath begotten Famine. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But to the tale:--great joy unto the camp!<br>To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque,<br>O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp,<br>Presaging a most luminous attack;<br>Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,<br>Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,<br>He flitted to and fro a dancing light,<br>Which all who saw it follow'd, wrong or right. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But certes matters took a different face;<br>There was enthusiasm and much applause,<br>The fleet and camp saluted with great grace,<br>And all presaged good fortune to their cause.<br>Within a cannon-shot length of the place<br>They drew, constructed ladders, repair'd flaws<br>In former works, made new, prepared fascines,<br>And all kinds of benevolent machines. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind<br>Makes that of multitudes take one direction,<br>As roll the waters to the breathing wind,<br>Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection;<br>Or as a little dog will lead the blind,<br>Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection<br>By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual;<br>Such is the sway of your great men o'er little. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought<br>That they were going to a marriage feast<br>(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,<br>Since there is discord after both at least):<br>There was not now a luggage boy but sought<br>Danger and spoil with ardour much increased;<br>And why? because a little--odd--old man,<br>Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But so it was; and every preparation<br>Was made with all alacrity: the first<br>Detachment of three columns took its station,<br>And waited but the signal's voice to burst<br>Upon the foe: the second's ordination<br>Was also in three columns, with a thirst<br>For glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter:<br>The third, in columns two, attack'd by water. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">New batteries were erected, and was held<br>A general council, in which unanimity,<br>That stranger to most councils, here prevail'd,<br>As sometimes happens in a great extremity;<br>And every difficulty being dispell'd,<br>Glory began to dawn with due sublimity,<br>While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,<br>Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">It is an actual fact, that he, commander<br>In chief, in proper person deign'd to drill<br>The awkward squad, and could afford to squander<br>His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil:<br>Just as you 'd break a sucking salamander<br>To swallow flame, and never take it ill:<br>He show'd them how to mount a ladder (which<br>Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Also he dress'd up, for the nonce, fascines<br>Like men with turbans, scimitars, and dirks,<br>And made them charge with bayonet these machines,<br>By way of lesson against actual Turks:<br>And when well practised in these mimic scenes,<br>He judged them proper to assail the works;<br>At which your wise men sneer'd in phrases witty:<br>He made no answer; but he took the city. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Most things were in this posture on the eve<br>Of the assault, and all the camp was in<br>A stern repose; which you would scarce conceive;<br>Yet men resolved to dash through thick and thin<br>Are very silent when they once believe<br>That all is settled:--there was little din,<br>For some were thinking of their home and friends,<br>And others of themselves and latter ends. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,<br>Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering;<br>For the man was, we safely may assert,<br>A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering;<br>Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt,<br>Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering;<br>Now Mars, now Momus; and when bent to storm<br>A fortress, Harlequin in uniform. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The day before the assault, while upon drill--<br>For this great conqueror play'd the corporal--<br>Some Cossacques, hovering like hawks round a hill,<br>Had met a party towards the twilight's fall,<br>One of whom spoke their tongue--or well or ill,<br>'Twas much that he was understood at all;<br>But whether from his voice, or speech, or manner,<br>They found that he had fought beneath their banner. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Whereon immediately at his request<br>They brought him and his comrades to head-quarters;<br>Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guess'd<br>That these were merely masquerading Tartars,<br>And that beneath each Turkish-fashion'd vest<br>Lurk'd Christianity; which sometimes barters<br>Her inward grace for outward show, and makes<br>It difficult to shun some strange mistakes. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt<br>Before a company of Calmucks, drilling,<br>Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert,<br>And lecturing on the noble art of killing,--<br>For deeming human clay but common dirt,<br>This great philosopher was thus instilling<br>His maxims, which to martial comprehension<br>Proved death in battle equal to a pension;-- </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suwarrow, when he saw this company<br>Of Cossacques and their prey, turn'd round and cast<br>Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:-<br>'Whence come ye?'--'From Constantinople last,<br>Captives just now escaped,' was the reply.<br>'What are ye?'--'What you see us.' Briefly pass'd<br>This dialogue; for he who answer'd knew<br>To whom he spoke, and made his words but few. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Your names?'--'Mine's Johnson, and my comrade's Juan;<br>The other two are women, and the third<br>Is neither man nor woman.' The chief threw on<br>The party a slight glance, then said, 'I have heard<br>Your name before, the second is a new one:<br>To bring the other three here was absurd:<br>But let that pass:--I think I have heard your name<br>In the Nikolaiew regiment?'--'The same.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'You served at Widdin?'--'Yes.'--'You led the attack?'<br>'I did.'--'What next?'--'I really hardly know.'<br>'You were the first i'the breach?'--'I was not slack<br>At least to follow those who might be so.'<br>'What follow'd?'--'A shot laid me on my back,<br>And I became a prisoner to the foe.'<br>'You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded<br>Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Where will you serve?'--'Where'er you please.'--'I know<br>You like to be the hope of the forlorn,<br>And doubtless would be foremost on the foe<br>After the hardships you've already borne.<br>And this young fellow--say what can he do?<br>He with the beardless chin and garments torn?'<br>'Why, general, if he hath no greater fault<br>In war than love, he had better lead the assault.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'He shall if that he dare.' Here Juan bow'd<br>Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow<br>Continued: 'Your old regiment's allow'd,<br>By special providence, to lead to-morrow,<br>Or it may be to-night, the assault: I have vow'd<br>To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow<br>Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk<br>Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'So now, my lads, for glory!'--Here he turn'd<br>And drill'd away in the most classic Russian,<br>Until each high, heroic bosom burn'd<br>For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion<br>A preacher had held forth (who nobly spurn'd<br>All earthly goods save tithes) and bade them push on<br>To slay the Pagans who resisted, battering<br>The armies of the Christian Empress Catherine. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Johnson, who knew by this long colloquy<br>Himself a favourite, ventured to address<br>Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high<br>In his resumed amusement. 'I confess<br>My debt in being thus allow'd to die<br>Among the foremost; but if you'd express<br>Explicitly our several posts, my friend<br>And self would know what duty to attend.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you<br>Will join your former regiment, which should be<br>Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to<br>(Here he call'd up a Polish orderly)<br>His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew:<br>The stranger stripling may remain with me;<br>He's a fine boy. The women may be sent<br>To the other baggage, or to the sick tent.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But here a sort of scene began to ensue:<br>The ladies,--who by no means had been bred<br>To be disposed of in a way so new,<br>Although their haram education led<br>Doubtless to that of doctrines the most true,<br>Passive obedience,--now raised up the head,<br>With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung<br>Their arms, as hens their wings about their young, </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O'er the promoted couple of brave men<br>Who were thus honour'd by the greatest chief<br>That ever peopled hell with heroes slain,<br>Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.<br>Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!<br>Oh, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf<br>Of thine imaginary deathless tree,<br>Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears,<br>And not much sympathy for blood, survey'd<br>The women with their hair about their ears<br>And natural agonies, with a slight shade<br>Of feeling: for however habit sears<br>Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade<br>Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow<br>Will touch even heroes- and such was Suwarrow. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">He said,--and in the kindest Calmuck tone,--<br>'Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean<br>By bringing women here? They shall be shown<br>All the attention possible, and seen<br>In safety to the waggons, where alone<br>In fact they can be safe. You should have been<br>Aware this kind of baggage never thrives:<br>Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'May it please your excellency,' thus replied<br>Our British friend, 'these are the wives of others,<br>And not our own. I am too qualified<br>By service with my military brothers<br>To break the rules by bringing one's own bride<br>Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers<br>The hearts of the heroic on a charge,<br>As leaving a small family at large. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'But these are but two Turkish ladies, who<br>With their attendant aided our escape,<br>And afterwards accompanied us through<br>A thousand perils in this dubious shape.<br>To me this kind of life is not so new;<br>To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape.<br>I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely,<br>Request that they may both be used genteelly.' </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,<br>Look'd on as if in doubt if they could trust<br>Their own protectors; nor was their surprise<br>Less than their grief (and truly not less just)<br>To see an old man, rather wild than wise<br>In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust,<br>Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,<br>More fear'd than all the sultans ever seen. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For every thing seem'd resting on his nod,<br>As they could read in all eyes. Now to them,<br>Who were accustom'd, as a sort of god,<br>To see the sultan, rich in many a gem,<br>Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad<br>(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem),<br>With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt<br>How power could condescend to do without. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay,<br>Though little versed in feelings oriental,<br>Suggested some slight comfort in his way:<br>Don Juan, who was much more sentimental,<br>Swore they should see him by the dawn of day,<br>Or that the Russian army should repent all:<br>And, strange to say, they found some consolation<br>In this--for females like exaggeration. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses,<br>They parted for the present--these to await,<br>According to the artillery's hits or misses,<br>What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate<br>(Uncertainty is one of many blisses,<br>A mortgage on Humanity's estate)--<br>While their beloved friends began to arm,<br>To burn a town which never did them harm. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Suwarrow,--who but saw things in the gross,<br>Being much too gross to see them in detail,<br>Who calculated life as so much dross,<br>And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail,<br>And cared as little for his army's loss<br>(So that their efforts should at length prevail)<br>As wife and friends did for the boils of job,--<br>What was't to him to hear two women sob? </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Nothing.--The work of glory still went on<br>In preparations for a cannonade<br>As terrible as that of Ilion,<br>If Homer had found mortars ready made;<br>But now, instead of slaying Priam's son,<br>We only can but talk of escalade,<br>Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets,--<br>Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm<br>All cars, though long; all ages, though so short,<br>By merely wielding with poetic arm<br>Arms to which men will never more resort,<br>Unless gunpowder should be found to harm<br>Much less than is the hope of every court,<br>Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;<br>But they will not find Liberty a Troy:-- </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now<br>To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain,<br>With deadlier engines and a speedier blow,<br>Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign;<br>And yet, like all men else, I must allow,<br>To vie with thee would be about as vain<br>As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood;<br>But still we moderns equal you in blood; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">If not in poetry, at least in fact;<br>And fact is truth, the grand desideratum!<br>Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act,<br>There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum.<br>But now the town is going to be attack'd;<br>Great deeds are doing- how shall I relate 'em?<br>Souls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches<br>To colour up his rays from your despatches. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!<br>Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wounded!<br>Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty,<br>When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!<br>Oh, Caesar's Commentaries! now impart, ye<br>Shadows of glory! (lest I be confounded)<br>A portion of your fading twilight hues,<br>So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">When I call 'fading' martial immortality,<br>I mean, that every age and every year,<br>And almost every day, in sad reality,<br>Some sucking hero is compell'd to rear,<br>Who, when we come to sum up the totality<br>Of deeds to human happiness most dear,<br>Turns out to be a butcher in great business,<br>Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet,<br>Are things immortal to immortal man,<br>As purple to the Babylonian harlot:<br>An uniform to boys is like a fan<br>To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet<br>But deems himself the first in Glory's van.<br>But Glory's glory; and if you would find<br>What that is--ask the pig who sees the wind! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At least he feels it, and some say he sees,<br>Because he runs before it like a pig;<br>Or, if that simple sentence should displease,<br>Say, that he scuds before it like a brig,<br>A schooner, or--but it is time to ease<br>This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.<br>The next shall ring a peal to shake all people,<br>Like a bob-major from a village steeple. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night,<br>The hum of armies gathering rank on rank!<br>Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight<br>Along the leaguer'd wall and bristling bank<br>Of the arm'd river, while with straggling light<br>The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank,<br>Which curl in curious wreaths:--how soon the smoke<br>Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=396076" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here pause we for the present--as even then<br>That awful pause, dividing life from death,<br>Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,<br>Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!<br>A moment--and all will be life again!<br>The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith!<br>Hurra! and Allah! and- one moment more,<br>The death-cry drowning in the battle's roar.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a></strong></div>

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