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.
117
The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,
Stopped as if once more willing to concede
Quarter, in case he bade them not ‘aroint’
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.
118
But ‘twas 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.
119
’Tis 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.
120
But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,
Where the chief Pasha 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.
121
In the meantime, cross-legged with great sang-froid
Among the scorching ruins he sate 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.
122
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.
123
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.
124
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 agèd, helpless man or two,
What’s this in one annihilated city,
Where thousand loves and ties and duties grow?
Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris!
Just ponder what a pious pastime war is.
125
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.
126
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.
127
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.
128
In one thing ne’ertheless ‘tis fit to praise
The Russian army upon this occasion,
A virtue much in fashion nowadays
And therefore worthy of commemoration.
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.
129
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,
But all the ladies, save some twenty score,
Were almost as much virgins as before.
130
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.
131
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.
132
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.
133
Suwarrow now was conqueror, a match
For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.
While mosques and streets be
neath his eyes like thatch
Blazed, and the cannon’s roar was scarce allayed,
With bloody hands he wrote his first dispatch,
And here exactly follows what he said:
‘Glory to God and to the Empress’ (Powers
Eternal, such names mingled!) ‘Ismail’s ours.’
134
Methinks these are the most tremendous words
Since Menè, Menè, 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 shorthand 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.
135
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.
136
That hour is not for us, but’tis 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.
137
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.
138
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,
139
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 dispatch,
For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.
140
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.
141
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.
Canto IX
1
Oh Wellington! (Or ‘Vilainton’, for Fame
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!’
2
I don’t think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinet’s affair; in fact’twas shabby
And like some other things won’t do to tell
Upon your tomb in Westminster’s old abbey.
Upon the rest’tis not worth while to dwell,
Such tales being for the tea hours of some tabby,
But though your years as man tend fast to zero,
In fact your Grace is still but a young hero.
3
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).
4
You are ‘the best of cutthroats’. 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?
5
I am no flatterer. You’ve supped full of flattery.
They say you like it too;’tis 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.
6
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.
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.
7
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 connexion.
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.
8
Great men have always scorned great recompenses.
Epaminondas saved his Thebes and died,
Not leaving even his funeral expenses.
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.
9
Never had mortal man such opportunity,
Except Napoleon, or abused it more.
<
br /> 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!
10
As these new cantos touch on warlike feats,
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe
Truths that you will not read in the gazettes,
But which (’tis 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.
11
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!
12
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,
White, black, or copper – the dead bones will grin.
13
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?
14
‘To be or not to be! That is the question,’
Says Shakespeare, who just now is much in fashion.
I’m neither Alexander nor Hephaestion,
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?
15
Oh dura ilia messorum! ‘Oh
Ye rigid guts of reapers!’ I translate
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.
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