At which Dudù looked strange, and Juan silly,
But go they must at once, and will I, nill I.
119
And here I leave them at their preparation
For the imperial presence, wherein whether
Gulbeyaz showed them both commiseration
Or got rid of the parties altogether,
Like other angry ladies of her nation,
Are things the turning of a hair or feather
May settle, but far be’t from me to anticipate
In what way feminine caprice may dissipate.
120
I leave them for the present with good wishes,
Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange
Another part of history, for the dishes
Of this our banquet we must sometimes change,
And trusting Juan may escape the fishes,
Although his situation now seems strange
And scarce secure. As such digressions are fair,
The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.
Canto VII
1
Oh Love! Oh Glory! what are ye who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight?
There’s not a meteor in the polar sky
Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.
Chill and chained to cold earth, we lift on high
Our eyes in search of either lovely light.
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.
2
And such as they are, such my present tale is,
A nondescript and ever varying rhyme,
A versified aurora borealis,
Which flashes o’er a waste and icy clime.
When we know what all are, we must bewail us,
But ne’ertheless I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things, for I wish to know
What after all are all things – but a show?
3
They accuse me – me – the present writer of
The present poem of – I know not what –
A tendency to underrate and scoff
At human power and virtue and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than has been said in Dante’s
Verse and by Solomon and by Cervantes,
4
By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato,
By Tillotson and Wesley and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
’Tis not their fault nor mine if this be so.
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato
Nor even Diogenes. We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.
5
Socrates said our only knowledge was
‘To know that nothing could be known’, a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton (that proverb of the mind) alas,
Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,
That he himself felt only ‘like a youth
Picking up shells by the great ocean – Truth.’
6
Ecclesiastes said that all is vanity;
Most modern preachers say the same or show it
By their examples of true Christianity.
In short all know or very soon may know it;
And in this scene of all-confessed inanity,
By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet,
Must I restrain me through the fear of strife
From holding up the nothingness of life?
7
Dogs or men (for I flatter you in saying
That ye are dogs – your betters far), ye may
Read or read not what I am now essaying
To show ye what ye are in every way.
As little as the moon stops for the baying
Of wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray
From out her skies. Then howl your idle wrath,
While she still silvers o’er your gloomy path!
8
‘Fierce loves and faithless wars’ – I am not sure
If this be the right reading–’tis no matter.
The fact’s about the same, I am secure.
I sing them both and am about to batter
A town which did a famous siege endure,
And was beleaguered both by land and water
Suvar off or anglice Suwarrow,
Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow.
9
The fortress is called Ismail and is placed
Upon the Danube’s left branch and left bank,
With buildings in the oriental taste,
But still a fortress of the foremost rank,
Or was at least, unless ’tis since defaced,
Which with your conquerors is a common prank.
It stands some eighty versts from the high sea
And measures round of toises thousands three.
10
Within the extent of this fortification
A borough is comprised along the height
Upon the left, which from its loftier station
Commands the city, and upon its site
A Greek had raised around this elevation
A quantity of palisades upright,
So placed as to impede the fire of those
Who held the place and to assist the foe’s.
11
This circumstance may serve to give a notion
Of the high talents of this new Vauban.
But the town ditch below was deep as ocean,
The rampart higher than you’d wish to hang.
But then there was a great want of precaution
(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang),
Nor work advanced, nor covered way was there
To hint at least ‘here is no thoroughfare.’
12
But a stone bastion with a narrow gorge
And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet,
Two batteries, cap-à-pie as our St George,
Casemated one, and t’other a barbette,
Of Danube’s bank took formidable charge;
While two and twenty cannon duly set
Rose over the town’s right side in bristling tier,
Forty feet high upon a cavalier.
13
But from the river the town’s open quite,
Because the Turks could never be persuaded
A Russian vessel e’er would heave in sight
And such their creed was, till they were invaded,
When it grew rather late to set things right.
But as the Danube could not well be waded,
They looked upon the Muscovite flotilla
And only shouted, ‘Allah!’ and ‘Bis Millah!’
14
The Russians now were ready to attack.
But oh, ye goddesses of war and glory!
How shall I spell the name of each Cossack –
Who were immortal, could one tell their story?
Alas, what to their memory can lack?
Achilles’ self was not more grim and gory
Than thousands of this new and polished nation,
Whose names want nothing but – pronunciation.
15
Still I’ll record a few, if but to increase
Our euphony. There were Strongenoff and Strokonoff,
Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece,
And Tschitsshakoff and Roguenoff and Chokenoff
And others of twelve consonants apiece.
And more might be found out, if I could poke enough
Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet),
It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpe
t
16
And cannot tune those discords of narration,
Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme.
Yet there were several worth commemoration,
As ere was virgin of a nuptial chime,
Soft words too fitted for the peroration
Of Londonderry, drawling against time,
Ending in ischskin, ousckin, iffskchy, ouski,
Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski,
17
Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin,
All proper men of weapons, as e’er scoffed high
Against a foe or ran a sabre through skin.
Little cared they for Mahomet or mufti,
Unless to make their kettle drums a new skin
Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear
And no more handy substitute been near.
18
Then there were foreigners of much renown,
Of various nations and all volunteers,
Not fighting for their country or its crown,
But wishing to be one day brigadiers,
Also to have the sacking of a town,
A pleasant thing to young men at their years.
’Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,
Sixteen called Thomson and nineteen named Smith.
19
Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson – all the rest
Had been called Jemmy, after the great bard.
I don’t know whether they had arms or crest,
But such a godfather’s as good a card.
Three of the Smiths were Peters, but the best
Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward,
Was he, since so renowned ‘in country quarters
At Halifax’, but now he served the Tartars.
20
The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills;
But when I’ve added that the elder Jack Smith
Was born in Cumberland among the hills
And that his father was an honest blacksmith,
I’ve said all I know of a name that fills
Three lines of the dispatch in taking Schmacksmith,
A village of Moldavia’s waste, wherein
He fell, immortal in a bulletin.
21
I wonder (although Mars no doubt’s a god I
Praise) if a man’s name in a bulletin
May make up for a bullet in his body?
I hope this little question is no sin,
Because, though I am but a simple noddy,
I think one Shakespeare puts the same thought in
The mouth of some one in his plays so doting,
Which many people pass for wits by quoting.
22
Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young and gay,
But I’m too great a patriot to record
Their Gallic names upon a glorious day.
I’d rather tell ten lies than say a word
Of truth. Such truths are treason; they betray
Their country, and as traitors are abhorred
Who name the French in English, save to show
How peace should make John Bull the Frenchman’s foe.
23
The Russians, having built two batteries on
An isle near Ismail, had two ends in view.
The first was to bombard it and knock down
The public buildings and the private too,
No matter what poor souls might be undone.
The city’s shape suggested this, ’tis true;
Formed like an amphitheatre, each dwelling
Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.
24
The second object was to profit by
The moment of the general consternation,
To attack the Turk’s flotilla, which lay nigh
Extremely tranquil, anchored at its station.
But a third motive was as probably
To frighten them into capitulation,
A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors,
Unless they are game as bulldogs and fox terriers.
25
A habit rather blameable, which is
That of despising those we combat with,
Common in many cases, was in this
The cause of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith,
One of the valourous Smiths whom we shall miss
Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to pith;
But ’tis a name so spread o’er Sir and Madam
That one would think the first who bore it Adam.
26
The Russian batteries were incomplete,
Because they were constructed in a hurry.
Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet
And throws a cloud o’er Longman and John Murray,
When the sale of new books is not so fleet
As they who print them think is necessary,
May likewise put off for a time what story
Sometimes calls murder, and at others glory.
27
Whether it was their engineer’s stupidity,
Their haste or waste I neither know nor care,
Or some contractor’s personal cupidity,
Saving his soul by cheating in the ware
Of homicide, but there was no solidity
In the new batteries erected there.
They either missed or they were never missed
And added greatly to the missing list.
28
A sad miscalculation about distance
Made all their naval matters incorrect.
Three fireships lost their amiable existence
Before they reached a spot to take effect.
The match was lit too soon, and no assistance
Could remedy this lubberly defect.
They blew up in the middle of the river,
While, though ’twas dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.
29
At seven they rose, however, and surveyed
The Russ flotilla getting under way.
’Twas nine, when still advancing undismayed,
Within a cable’s length their vessels lay
Off Ismail and commenced a cannonade,
Which was returned with interest, I may say,
And by a fire of musketry and grape
And shells and shot of every size and shape.
30
For six hours bore they without intermission
The Turkish fire and aided by their own
Land batteries worked their guns with great precision.
At length they found mere cannonade alone
By no means would produce the town’s submission,
And made a signal to retreat at one.
One bark blew up, a second near the works
Running aground was taken by the Turks.
31
The Moslem too had lost both ships and men.
But when they saw the enemy retire,
Their delhis manned some boats and sailed again
And galled the Russians with a heavy fire
And tried to make a landing on the main;
But here the effect fell short of their desire.
Count Damas drove them back into the water
Pell-mell and with a whole gazette of slaughter.
32
‘If ’ (says the historian here) ‘I could report
All that the Russians did upon this day,
I think that several volumes would fall short,
And I should still have many things to say’;
And so he says no more, but pays his court
To some distinguished strangers in that fray:
The Prince de Ligne and Langeron and Damas,
Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.
33
This being the case may show us what fame is.
For out o
f these three preux chevaliers, how
Many of common readers give a guess
That such existed? And they may live now
For aught we know. Renown’s all hit or miss;
There’s fortune even in fame, we must allow.
’Tis true, the memoirs of the Prince de Ligne
Have half withdrawn from him oblivion’s screen.
34
But here are men who fought in gallant actions
As gallantly as ever heroes fought,
But buried in the heap of such transactions
Their names are rarely found nor often sought.
Thus even good Fame may suffer sad contractions
And is extinguished sooner than she ought.
Of all our modern battles, I will bet
You can’t repeat nine names from each Gazette.
35
In short, this last attack, though rich in glory,
Showed that somewhere somehow there was a fault;
And Admiral Ribas (known in Russian story)
Most strongly recommended an assault,
In which he was opposed by young and hoary,
Which made a long debate. But I must halt,
For if I wrote down every warrior’s speech,
I doubt few readers e’er would mount the breach.
36
There was a man, if that he was a man,
Not that his manhood could be called in question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span
Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when all worn and wan,
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted
As e’er was locust on the land it blasted.
37
This was Potemkin, a great thing in days
When homicide and harlotry made great.
If stars and titles could entail long praise,
His glory might half equal his estate.
This fellow, being six foot high, could raise
A kind of phantasy proportionate
In the then sovereign of the Russian people,
Who measured men as you would do a steeple.
38
While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent
A courier to the Prince, and he succeeded
In ordering matters after his own bent.
I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,
But shortly he had cause to be content.
In the meantime, the batteries proceeded,
And fourscore cannon on the Danube’s border
Were briskly fired and answered in due order.
39
But on the thirteenth, when already part
Of the troops were embarked, the siege to raise,
A courier on the spur inspired new heart
Into all panters for newspaper praise,
As well as dilettanti in war’s art,
By his dispatches couched in pithy phrase
Announcing the appointment of that lover of
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