Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  LXII

  “Where will you serve?” — “Where’er you please.” — “I know

  You like to be the hope of the forlorn,

  And doubtless would be foremost on the foe

  After the hardships you’ve already borne.

  And this young fellow — say what can he do?

  He with the beardless chin and garments torn?”

  “Why, general, if he hath no greater fault

  In war than love, he had better lead the assault.”

  LXIII

  “He shall if that he dare.” Here Juan bow’d

  Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow

  Continued: “Your old regiment’s allow’d,

  By special providence, to lead to-morrow,

  Or it may be to-night, the assault: I have vow’d

  To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow

  Shall pass o’er what was Ismail, and its tusk

  Be unimpeded by the proudest mosque.

  LXIV

  “So now, my lads, for glory!” — Here he turn’d

  And drill’d away in the most classic Russian,

  Until each high, heroic bosom burn’d

  For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion

  A preacher had held forth (who nobly spurn’d

  All earthly goods save tithes) and bade them push on

  To slay the Pagans who resisted, battering

  The armies of the Christian Empress Catherine.

  LXV

  Johnson, who knew by this long colloquy

  Himself a favourite, ventured to address

  Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high

  In his resumed amusement. “I confess

  My debt in being thus allow’d to die

  Among the foremost; but if you’d express

  Explicitly our several posts, my friend

  And self would know what duty to attend.”

  LXVI

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

  Will join your former regiment, which should be

  Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to

  (Here he call’d up a Polish orderly)

  His post, I mean the regiment Nikolaiew:

  The stranger stripling may remain with me;

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

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

  LXVII

  But here a sort of scene began to ensue:

  The ladies, — who by no means had been bred

  To be disposed of in a way so new,

  Although their haram education led

  Doubtless to that of doctrines the most true,

  Passive obedience, — now raised up the head,

  With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung

  Their arms, as hens their wings about their young,

  LXVIII

  O’er the promoted couple of brave men

  Who were thus honour’d by the greatest chief

  That ever peopled hell with heroes slain,

  Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.

  Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!

  Oh, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf

  Of thine imaginary deathless tree,

  Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.

  LXIX

  Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears,

  And not much sympathy for blood, survey’d

  The women with their hair about their ears

  And natural agonies, with a slight shade

  Of feeling: for however habit sears

  Men’s hearts against whole millions, when their trade

  Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow

  Will touch even heroes — and such was Suwarrow.

  LXX

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

  ”Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean

  By bringing women here? They shall be shown

  All the attention possible, and seen

  In safety to the waggons, where alone

  In fact they can be safe. You should have been

  Aware this kind of baggage never thrives:

  Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives.”

  LXXI

  “May it please your excellency,” thus replied

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

  And not our own. I am too qualified

  By service with my military brothers

  To break the rules by bringing one’s own bride

  Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers

  The hearts of the heroic on a charge,

  As leaving a small family at large.

  LXXII

  “But these are but two Turkish ladies, who

  With their attendant aided our escape,

  And afterwards accompanied us through

  A thousand perils in this dubious shape.

  To me this kind of life is not so new;

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

  I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely,

  Request that they may both be used genteelly.”

  LXXIII

  Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,

  Look’d on as if in doubt if they could trust

  Their own protectors; nor was their surprise

  Less than their grief (and truly not less just)

  To see an old man, rather wild than wise

  In aspect, plainly clad, besmear’d with dust,

  Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,

  More fear’d than all the sultans ever seen.

  LXXIV

  For every thing seem’d resting on his nod,

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

  Who were accustom’d, as a sort of god,

  To see the sultan, rich in many a gem,

  Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad

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

  With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt

  How power could condescend to do without.

  LXXV

  John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay,

  Though little versed in feelings oriental,

  Suggested some slight comfort in his way:

  Don Juan, who was much more sentimental,

  Swore they should see him by the dawn of day,

  Or that the Russian army should repent all:

  And, strange to say, they found some consolation

  In this — for females like exaggeration.

  LXXVI

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

  They parted for the present — these to await,

  According to the artillery”s hits or misses,

  What sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate

  (Uncertainty is one of many blisses,

  A mortgage on Humanity”s estate) —

  While their belovéd friends began to arm,

  To burn a town which never did them harm.

  LXXVII

  Suwarrow, — who but saw things in the gross,

  Being much too gross to see them in detail,

  Who calculated life as so much dross,

  And as the wind a widow’d nation’s wail,

  And cared as little for his army’s loss

  (So that their efforts should at length prevail)

  As wife and friends did for the boils of job, —

  What was ‘t to him to hear two women sob?

  LXXVIII

  Nothing. — The work of glory still went on

  In preparations for a cannonade

  As terrible as that of Ilion,

  If Homer had found mortars ready made;

  But now, instead of slaying Priam’s son,

  We only can but talk of es
calade,

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

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

  LXXIX

  Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm

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

  By merely wielding with poetic arm

  Arms to which men will never more resort,

  Unless gunpowder should be found to harm

  Much less than is the hope of every court,

  Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;

  But they will not find Liberty a Troy: —

  LXXX

  Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now

  To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain,

  With deadlier engines and a speedier blow,

  Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign;

  And yet, like all men else, I must allow,

  To vie with thee would be about as vain

  As for a brook to cope with ocean’s flood;

  But still we moderns equal you in blood;

  LXXXI

  If not in poetry, at least in fact;

  And fact is truth, the grand desideratum!

  Of which, howe’er the Muse describes each act,

  There should be ne’ertheless a slight substratum.

  But now the town is going to be attack’d;

  Great deeds are doing — how shall I relate ‘em?

  Souls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches

  To colour up his rays from your despatches.

  LXXXII

  Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!

  Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill’d and wounded!

  Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty,

  When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!

  Oh, Caesar’s Commentaries! now impart, ye

  Shadows of glory! (lest I be confounded)

  A portion of your fading twilight hues,

  So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse.

  LXXXIII

  When I call “fading” martial immortality,

  I mean, that every age and every year,

  And almost every day, in sad reality,

  Some sucking hero is compell’d to rear,

  Who, when we come to sum up the totality

  Of deeds to human happiness most dear,

  Turns out to be a butcher in great business,

  Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness.

  LXXXIV

  Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet,

  Are things immortal to immortal man,

  As purple to the Babylonian harlot:

  An uniform to boys is like a fan

  To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet

  But deems himself the first in Glory’s van.

  But Glory’s glory; and if you would find

  What that is — ask the pig who sees the wind!

  LXXXV

  At least he feels it, and some say he sees,

  Because he runs before it like a pig;

  Or, if that simple sentence should displease,

  Say, that he scuds before it like a brig,

  A schooner, or — but it is time to ease

  This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.

  The next shall ring a peal to shake all people,

  Like a bob-major from a village steeple.

  LXXXVI

  Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night,

  The hum of armies gathering rank on rank!

  Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight

  Along the leaguer’d wall and bristling bank

  Of the arm’d river, while with straggling light

  The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank,

  Which curl in curious wreaths: — how soon the smoke

  Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!

  LXXXVII

  Here pause we for the present — as even then

  That awful pause, dividing life from death,

  Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,

  Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!

  A moment — and all will be life again!

  The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith!

  Hurra! and Allah! and — one moment more,

  The death-cry drowning in the battle’s roar.

  DON JUAN: CANTO THE EIGHTH

  I

  Oh blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds!

  These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,

  Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:

  And so they are; yet thus is Glory’s dream

  Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds

  At present such things, since they are her theme,

  So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,

  Bellona, what you will — they mean but wars.

  II

  All was prepared — the fire, the sword, the men

  To wield them in their terrible array.

  The army, like a lion from his den,

  March’d forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, —

  A human Hydra, issuing from its fen

  To breathe destruction on its winding way,

  Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain

  Immediately in others grew again.

  III

  History can only take things in the gross;

  But could we know them in detail, perchance

  In balancing the profit and the loss,

  War’s merit it by no means might enhance,

  To waste so much gold for a little dross,

  As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.

  The drying up a single tear has more

  Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

  IV

  And why? — because it brings self-approbation;

  Whereas the other, after all its glare,

  Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,

  Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,

  A higher title, or a loftier station,

  Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,

  Yet, in the end, except in Freedom’s battles,

  Are nothing but a child of Murder’s rattles.

  V

  And such they are — and such they will be found:

  Not so Leonidas and Washington,

  Whose every battle-field is holy ground,

  Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.

  How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!

  While the mere victor’s may appal or stun

  The servile and the vain, such names will be

  A watchword till the future shall be free.

  VI

  The night was dark, and the thick mist allow’d

  Nought to be seen save the artillery’s flame,

  Which arch’d the horizon like a fiery cloud,

  And in the Danube’s waters shone the same —

  A mirror’d hell! the volleying roar, and loud

  Long booming of each peal on peal, o’ercame

  The ear far more than thunder; for Heaven’s flashes

  Spare, or smite rarely — man’s make millions ashes!

  VII

  The column order’d on the assault scarce pass’d

  Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises,

  When up the bristling Moslem rose at last,

  Answering the Christian thunders with like voices:

  Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced,

  Which rock’d as ‘t were beneath the mighty noises;

  While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when

  The restless Titan hiccups in his den.

  VIII

  And one enormous shout of “Allah!” rose

  In the same moment, loud as even the
roar

  Of war’s most mortal engines, to their foes

  Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore

  Resounded “Allah!” and the clouds which close

  With thick’ning canopy the conflict o’er,

  Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through

  All sounds it pierceth “Allah! Allah Hu!”

  IX

  The columns were in movement one and all,

  But of the portion which attack’d by water,

  Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,

  Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaughter,

  As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.

  ”Carnage” (so Wordsworth tells you) “is God’s daughter:”

  If he speak truth, she is Christ’s sister, and

  Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.

  X

  The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee;

  Count Chapeau-Bras, too, had a ball between

  His cap and head, which proves the head to be

  Aristocratic as was ever seen,

  Because it then received no injury

  More than the cap; in fact, the ball could mean

  No harm unto a right legitimate head:

  “Ashes to ashes” — why not lead to lead?

  XI

  Also the General Markow, Brigadier,

  Insisting on removal of the Prince

  Amidst some groaning thousands dying near, —

  All common fellows, who might writhe and wince,

  And shriek for water into a deaf ear, —

  The General Markow, who could thus evince

  His sympathy for rank, by the same token,

  To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.

  XII

  Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,

  And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills

  Like hail, to make a bloody diuretic.

  Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills;

  Thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick,

  Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills

  Past, present, and to come; — but all may yield

  To the true portrait of one battle-field;

  XIII

  There the still varying pangs, which multiply

  Until their very number makes men hard

  By the infinities of agony,

  Which meet the gaze whate’er it may regard —

  The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye

  Turn’d back within its socket, — these reward

  Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest

  May win perhaps a riband at the breast!

  XIV

  Yet I love glory; — glory’s a great thing: —

  Think what it is to be in your old age

  Maintain’d at the expense of your good king:

  A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,

  And heroes are but made for bards to sing,