The town was taken—whether he might yield Himself or bastion, little matter’d 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.
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.
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 aged, 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.
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 aftertimes. 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.
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.
But let me put an end unto my theme: There was an end of Ismail—hapless town! Far flash’d 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 mann’d the wall, Some hundreds breathed—the rest were silent all!
In one thing ne’ertheless ’tis fit to praise The Russian army upon this occasion, A virtue much in fashion now-a-days, 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 ravish’d very little.
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.
Some odd mistakes, too, happen’d in the dark, Which show’d 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 deflower’d by different grenadiers.
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.
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.
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 allay’d, 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.’
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.
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 Show’d what things were before the world was free!
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 remember’d, still disdain you ’em More than you scorn the savages of yore, Who painted their bare limbs, but not with gore.
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.
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,
With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle. What farther 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.
This special honour was conferr’d, 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 gain’d 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.
The Moslem orphan went with her protector, For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all Her friends, like the sad family of Hector, Had perish’d 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 cal To prayer was heard no more!—and Juan wept, And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.
[Illustration]
CANTO THE NINTH.
O, Wellington! (or ‘Villainton’—for Fame Sounds the heroic syllables both ways; France could not even conquer your great name, But punn’d it down to this facetious phrase— Beating or beaten she will laugh the same), You have obtain’d great pensions and much praise: Glory like yours should any dare gainsay, Humanity would rise, and thunder ‘Nay!’
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.
Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much, Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more: You have repair’d 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).
You are ‘the best of cut-throats:’—do not start; The phrase is Shakspeare’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 gain’d by Waterloo?
I am no flatterer—you’ve supp’d 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, Call’d ‘Saviour of the Nations’—not yet saved, And ‘Europe’s Liberator’—still enslaved.