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DUKE 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS. 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTOS VI.— VII.— AND VIII. 
 
 " Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more 
 Cakes and Ale ?" — " Yes, by St. Anne ; and Ginger shall be hot i'the 
 mouth too!" — Twelfth Night, or What you Will. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 LONDON, 1823 
 
 PRINTED FOR JOHN HUNT, 
 
 38.TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, AND 
 22, OLD BOND STREET. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY C. H. REYNELL, BROAD STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 CANTOS VI.— VIL— AND VIII. 
 
 The details of the Siege of Ismail in two of the 
 following Cantos (i.e. the 7th and 8th) are taken from 
 a French work entitled " Histoire de la Nouvelle 
 Russie." Some of the incidents attributed to Don 
 Juan really occurred, particularly the circumstance of 
 his saving the infant, which was the actual case of the 
 late Due de Richelieu, then a young volunteer in the 
 Russian service, and afterwards the founder and be- 
 nefactor of Odessa, where his name and memory can 
 never cease to be regarded with reverence. In the 
 course of these cantos, a stanza or two will be found 
 relative to the late Marquis of Londonderry, but 
 written some time before his decease. Had that per- 
 son's Oligarchy died with him, they would have been 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 suppressed ; as it is, I am aware of nothing in the 
 manner of his death or of his life to prevent the free 
 expression of the opinions of all whom his whole ex- 
 istence was consumed in endeavouring to enslave. 
 That he was an amiable man in private life, may or 
 may not be true ; but with this the Public have no- 
 thing to do j and as to lamenting his death, it will be 
 time enough when Ireland has ceased to mourn for 
 his birth. As a Minister, I, for one of millions, looked 
 upon him as the most despotic in intention and the 
 weakest in intellect that ever tyrannized over a 
 country. It is the first time indeed since the Normans, 
 that England has been insulted by a Minister (at least) 
 who could not speak English, and that Parliament 
 permitted itself to be dictated to in the language of 
 Mrs. Malaprop. 
 
 Of the manner of his death little need be said, ex- 
 cept that if a poor radical, such as Waddington or 
 Watson, had cut his throat, he would have been 
 buried in a cross-road, with the usual appurtenances 
 of the stake and mallet. But the Minister was an 
 elegant Lunatic — a sentimental Suicide — he merely 
 cut the " carotid artery" (blessings on their learning) 
 and lo ! the Pageant, and the Abbey ! and " the Syl- 
 lables of Dolour yelled forth" by the Newspapers — 
 
PREFACE. v 
 
 and the harangue of the Coroner in an eulogy over 
 the bleeding body of the deceased — (an Anthony 
 worthy of such a Caesar) — and the nauseous and atro- 
 cious cant of a degraded Crew of Conspirators against 
 all that is sincere or honourable. In his death he was 
 necessarily one of two things by the law — a felon or a 
 madman — and in either case no great subject for pa- 
 negyric. # In his life he was — what all the world 
 knows, and half of it will feel for years to come, un- 
 less his death prove a " moral lesson" to the surviving 
 Sejanif of Europe. It may at least serve as some 
 consolation to the Nations, that their Oppressors are 
 not happy, and in some instances judge so justly of 
 their own actions as to anticipate the sentence of man- 
 kind. — Let us hear no more of this man; and let Ire- 
 land remove the Ashes of her Grattan from the Sanc- 
 tuary of Westminster. Shall the Patriot of Humanity 
 repose by the Werther of Politics ! ! ! 
 
 * I say by the law of the land — the laws of Humanity judge more 
 gently ; but as the legitimates have always the law in their mouths, 
 let them here make the most of it. 
 
 f From this number must be excepted Canning : Canning is a 
 genius, almost an universal one, an orator, a wit, a poet, a statesman ; 
 and no man of talent can long pursue the path of his late pre- 
 decessor Lord C. If ever man saved his country, Canning can; but 
 will he ? I, for one, hope so. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 With regard to the objections which have been made 
 on another score to the already published Cantos of 
 this poem, I shall content myself with two quotations 
 from Voltaire : — 
 
 " La pudeur s'est enfuite des coeurs, et s'est refugiee 
 sur les livres." 
 
 " Plus les moeurs sont depraves, plus les expressions, 
 deviennent mesurees ; on croit regagner en langage ce 
 qu'on a perdu en vertu." 
 
 This is the real fact, as applicable to the degraded 
 and hypocritical mass which leavens the present Eng- 
 lish generation, and is the only answer they deserve. 
 The hackneyed and lavished title of Blasphemer — 
 which, with radical, liberal, jacobin, reformer, &c. are 
 the changes which the hirelings are daily ringing in the 
 ears of those who will listen — should be welcome to all 
 who recollect on whom it was originally bestowed. 
 Socrates and Jesus Christ were put to death publicly 
 as Blasphemers, and so have been and may be many who 
 dare to oppose the most notorious abuses of the name 
 of God and ,the mind of man. But Persecution is not 
 refutation, nor even triumph : the " wretched Infidel," 
 as he is called, is probably happier in his prison than 
 the proudest of his Assailants. With his opinions I 
 have nothing to do — they may be right or wrong — but 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 he has suffered for them, and that very Suffering for 
 conscience-sake will make more proselytes to Deism 
 than the example of heterodox* Prelates to Chris- 
 tianity, suicide Statesmen to oppression, or over-pen- 
 sioned Homicides to the impious Alliance which in- 
 sults the world with the name of " Holy !" I have no 
 wish to trample on the dishonoured or the dead ; but it 
 would be well if the adherents to the Classes from 
 whence those persons sprung should abate a little of 
 the Cant which is the crying sin of this double-dealing 
 
 and false-speaking time of selfish Spoilers, and 
 
 but enough for the present. 
 
 * When Lord Sandwich said " he did not know the difference be- 
 tween Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy" — Warburton the bishop replied, 
 " Orthodoxy, my Lord, is my doxy, and Heterodoxy is another 
 man's doxy." — A Prelate of the present day has discovered, it seems, 
 a third kind of doxy, which has not greatly exalted in the eyes of the 
 elect that which Bentham calls " Church-of-Englandism." 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTO VI. 
 
 I. 
 
 " There is a tide in the affairs of men 
 
 " Which taken at the flood" — you know the rest, 
 
 And most of us have found it, now and then ; 
 
 At least we think so, though but few have guess'd 
 
 The moment, till too late to come again. 
 But no doubt every thing is for the best — 
 
 Of which the surest sign is in the end : 
 
 When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. 
 
^ DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 II. 
 
 There is a tide in the affairs of women 
 
 " Which taken at the flood leads" — God knows where : 
 Those navigators must be able seamen 
 
 Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair ; 
 Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen 
 
 With its strange whirls and eddies can compare : — 
 Men with their heads reflect on this and that — 
 But women with their hearts or heaven knows what ! 
 
 HI. 
 
 And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she, 
 Young, beautiful, and daring — who would risk 
 
 A throne, the world, the universe, to be 
 Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk 
 
 The stars from out the sky, than not be free 
 As are the billows when the breeze is brisk — 
 
 Though such a she's a devil (if that there be one) 
 
 Yet she would make full many a Manichean. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. «5 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset 
 By commonest Ambition, that when Passion 
 
 O'erthrows the same, we readily forget, 
 
 Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one. 
 
 If Anthony be well remembered yet, 
 
 'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion ; 
 
 But Actium, lost for Cleopatra's eyes, 
 
 Outbalance all the Ceesar's victories. 
 
 V. 
 
 He died at fifty for a queen of forty ; 
 
 I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty, 
 For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport — I 
 
 Remember when, though I had no great plenty 
 Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I 
 
 Gave what I had — a heart : — as the world went, I 
 Gave what was worth a world ; for worlds could never 
 Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever. 
 
4 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 VI. 
 
 'Twas the boy's " mite," and like the " widow's" may 
 Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now ; 
 
 But whether such things do or do not weigh, 
 All who have loved, or love, will still allow 
 
 Life has nought like it. God is love, they say, 
 And Love's a God, or was before the brow 
 
 Of Earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears 
 
 Of — but Chronology best knows the years. 
 
 VII. 
 
 We left our hero and third heroine in 
 
 A kind of state more awkward than uncommon, 
 
 For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin 
 For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman : 
 
 Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin, 
 
 And don't agree at all with the wise Roman, 
 
 Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious, 
 
 Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. O 
 
 VIII. 
 
 I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong ; 
 
 I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it ; 
 But I detest all fiction even in song, 
 
 And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it. 
 Her reason being weak, her passions strong, 
 
 She thought that her lord's heart (even could she 
 claim it) 
 Was scarce enough ; for he had fifty-nine 
 Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine. 
 
 IX. 
 
 I am not, like Cassio, " an arithmetician," 
 But by " the bookish theoric" it appears, 
 
 If 'tis summed up with feminine precision, 
 
 That, adding to the account his Highness' years, 
 
 The fair Sultana erred from inanition ; 
 For were the Sultan just to all his dears, 
 
 She could but claim the fifteenth hundred part 
 
 Of what should be monopoly — the heart. 
 
6 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 X. 
 
 It is observed that ladies are litigious 
 
 Upon all legal objects of possession, 
 And not the least so when they are religious, 
 
 Which doubles what they think of the transgression. 
 With suits and prosecutions they besiege us, 
 
 As the tribunals show through many a session, 
 When they suspect that any one goes shares 
 In that to which the law makes them sole heirs. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Now if this holds good in a Christian land, 
 The heathen also, though with lesser latitude, 
 
 Are apt to carry things with a high hand, 
 
 And take, what kings call " an imposing attitude ;" 
 
 And for their rights connubial make a stand, 
 When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude ; 
 
 And as four wives must have quadruple claims, 
 
 The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said) 
 
 The favourite ; but what's favour amongst four ? 
 
 Polygamy may well be held in dread, 
 Not only as a sin, but as a bore : — 
 
 Most wise men with one moderate woman wed, 
 Will scarcely find philosophy for more ; 
 
 And all (except Mahometans) forbear 
 
 To make the nuptial couch a " Bed of Ware." 
 
 XIII. 
 
 His Highness, the sublimest of mankind, — 
 So styled according to the usual forms 
 
 Of every monarch, till they are consigned 
 To those sad hungry jacobins the worms, 
 
 Who on the very loftiest kings have dined, — 
 His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms, 
 
 Expecting all the welcome of a lover, 
 
 (A " Highland welcome" all the wide world over.) 
 
o DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Now here we should distinguish ; for howe'er 
 Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that, 
 
 May look like what is — neither here nor there, 
 They are put on as easily as a hat, 
 
 Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear, 
 Trimmed either heads or hearts to decorate, 
 
 Which form an ornament, but no more part 
 
 Of heads, than their caresses of the heart. 
 
 XV. 
 
 A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind 
 
 Of o-entle feminine delight, and shown 
 More in the eyelids than the eyes, resigned 
 
 Rather to hide what pleases most unknown, 
 Are the best tokens (to a modest mind) 
 
 Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne, 
 A sincere woman's breast, — for over warm 
 Or over cold annihilates the charm. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 For over warmth, if false, is worse than truth ; 
 
 If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire ; 
 For no one, save in very early youth, 
 
 Would like (I think) to trust all to desire, 
 Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth, 
 
 And apt to be transferred to the first buyer 
 At a sad discount : while your over chilly 
 Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste, 
 For so it seems to lovers swift or slow, 
 
 Who fain would have a mutual flame confest, 
 And see a sentimental passion glow, 
 
 Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest, 
 In his Monastic Concubine of Snow ; — 
 
 In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is 
 
 Horatian, " Medio tu tutissimus ibis." 
 
10 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The " tu" 's too much, — but let it stand — the verse 
 Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme, 
 
 And not the pink of old Hexameters ; 
 
 But, after all, there's neither tune nor time 
 
 In the last line, which cannot well be worse, 
 And was thrust in to close the octave's chime : 
 
 I own no prosody can ever rate it 
 
 As a rule, but Truth may, if you translate it. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part, 
 
 I know not — it succeeded, and success 
 
 Is much in most things, not less in the heart 
 Than other articles of female dress. 
 
 Self-love in man too beats all female art ; 
 They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less : 
 
 And no one virtue yet, except Starvation, 
 
 Could stop that worst of vices — Propagation. 
 
Canto VI. 
 
 DON JUAN. 
 
 1J 
 
 XX. 
 
 We leave this royal couple to repose ; 
 
 A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep, 
 Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes ; 
 
 Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep 
 As any man's clay mixture undergoes. 
 
 Our least of sorrows are such as we weep ; 
 'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears 
 The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill 
 
 To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted 
 
 At a per-centage ; a child cross, dog ill, 
 
 A favourite horse fallen lame j ust as he's mounted ; 
 
 A bad old woman making a worse will, 
 
 Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted 
 
 As certain ; — these are paltry things, and yet 
 
 I've rarely seen the man they did not fret. 
 
12 DON JUAN Canto VI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 I'm a philosopher ; confound them all ! 
 
 Bills, beasts, and men, and — no ! not Womankind ! 
 With one good hearty curse I vent my gall, 
 
 And then my Stoicism leaves nought behind 
 Which it can either pain or evil call. 
 
 And I can give my whole soul up to mind ; 
 Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth, 
 Is more than I know — the deuce take them both. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 So now all things are d — n'd, one feels at ease, 
 As after reading Athanasius' curse, 
 
 Which doth your true believer so much please : 
 I doubt if any now could make it worse 
 
 O'er his worst enemy when at his knees, 
 Tis so sententious, positive, and terse, 
 
 And decorates the book of Common Prayer, 
 
 As doth a Rainbow the just clearing air. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 13 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or 
 At least one of them — Oh the heavy night ! 
 
 When wicked wives who love some bachelor 
 Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light 
 
 Of the grey morning, and look vainly for 
 Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite, 
 
 To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake 
 
 Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 These are beneath the canopy of heaven, 
 
 Also beneath the canopy of beds 
 Four-posted and silk curtained, which are given 
 
 For rich men and their brides to lay their heads 
 Upon, in sheets white as what bards call " driven 
 
 " Snow." Well ! 'tis all hap-hazard when one weds. 
 Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been 
 Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean. 
 
14 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Don Juan in his feminine disguise, 
 With all the damsels in their long array, 
 
 Had bowed themselves before the imperial eyes, 
 And at the usual signal ta'en their way 
 
 Back to their chambers, those long galleries 
 In the Seraglio, where the ladies lay 
 
 Their delicate limbs ; a thousand bosoms there 
 
 Beating for love as the caged birds for air. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse 
 The tyrant's wish, " that mankind only had 
 
 " One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce :" 
 My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad, 
 
 And much more tender on the whole than fierce ; 
 It being (not now, but only while a lad) 
 
 That Womankind had but one rosy mouth, 
 
 To kiss them all at once from North to South. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 15 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Oh enviable Briareus ! with thy hands 
 
 And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied 
 
 In such proportion ! — But my Muse withstands 
 The giant thought of being a Titan's bride, 
 
 Or travelling in Patagonian lands ; 
 So let us back to Lilliput, and guide 
 
 Our hero through the labyrinth of love 
 
 In which we left him several lines above. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 He went forth with the lovely Odalisques, 
 At the given signal joined to their array ; 
 
 And though he certainly ran many risks, 
 Yet he could not at times keep, by the way, 
 
 (Although the consequences of such frisks 
 Are worse than the worst damages men pay 
 
 In moral England, where the thing's a tax) 
 
 From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs. 
 
16 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Still he forgot not his disguise : — along 
 
 The galleries from room to room they walked, 
 
 A virgin-like and edifying throng, 
 
 By eunuchs flanked ; while at their head there stalked 
 
 A dame who kept up discipline among 
 
 The female ranks, so that none stirred or talked 
 
 Without her sanction on their she-parades : 
 
 Her title was " the Mother of the Maids." 
 
 XXXL 
 
 Whether she was a " mother," I know not, 
 
 Or whether they were "maids" who called her mother; 
 
 But this is her seraglio title, got 
 
 I know not how, but good as any other ; 
 
 So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott : 
 Her office was, to keep aloof or smother 
 
 All bad propensities in fifteen hundred 
 
 Young women, and correct them when they blundered. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 17 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 A goodly sinecure, no doubt ! but made 
 
 More easy by the absence of all men 
 Except his Majesty, who, with her aid, 
 
 And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then 
 A slight example, just to cast a shade 
 
 Along the rest, contrived to keep this den 
 Of beauties cool as an Italian convent, 
 Where all the passions have, alas ! but one vent. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And what is that ? Devotion, doubtless — how 
 Could you ask such a question? — but we will 
 
 Continue. As I said, this goodly row 
 Of ladies of all countries at the will 
 
 Of one good man, with stately march and slow, 
 Like water-lilies floating down a rill 
 
 Or rather lake — for rills do not run slowly, — 
 
 Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy. 
 
18 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 But when they reached their own apartments, there, 
 Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose, 
 
 Waves at spring-tide, or women any where 
 
 When freed from bonds (which are of no great use 
 
 After all) or like Irish at a fair, 
 
 Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce 
 
 Established between them and bondage, they 
 
 Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile and play. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Their talk of course ran most on the new comer, 
 Her shape, her hair, her air, her every thing : 
 
 Some thought her dress did not so much become her, 
 Or wondered at her ears without a ring ; 
 
 Some said her years were getting nigh their summer, 
 Others contended they were but in spring ; 
 
 Some thought her rather masculine in height, 
 
 While others wished that she had been so quite. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 19 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But no one doubted on the whole, that she 
 Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair, 
 
 And fresh, and " beautiful exceedingly," 
 
 Who with the brightest Georgians might compare : 
 
 They wondered how Gulbeyaz too could be 
 So silly as to buy slaves who might share 
 
 (If that his Highness wearied of his bride) 
 
 Her throne and power and every thing beside. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 But what was strangest in this virgin crew, 
 Although her beauty was enough to vex, 
 
 After the first investigating view, 
 
 They all found out as few, or fewer, specks 
 
 In the fair form of their companion new, 
 Than is the custom of the gentle sex, 
 
 When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen, 
 
 In a new face " the ugliest creature breathing." 
 
20 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And yet they had their little jealousies 
 Like all the rest; but upon this occasion, 
 
 Whether there are such things as sympathies 
 Without our knowledge or our approbation, 
 
 Although they could not see through his disguise, 
 All felt a soft kind of concatenation, 
 
 Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what 
 
 You please — we will not quarrel about that : 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But certain 'tis they all felt for their new 
 Companion something newer still, as 'twere 
 
 A sentimental friendship through and through, 
 Extremely pure, which made them all concur 
 
 In wishing her their sister, save a few 
 
 Who wished they had a brother, just like her, 
 
 Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia, 
 
 They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 21 
 
 XL. 
 
 Of those who had most genius for this sort 
 Of sentimental friendship, there were three, 
 
 Lolah, Katinka, and Dudu ; in short, 
 (To save description) fair as fair can be 
 
 Were they, according to the best report, 
 Though differing in stature and degree, 
 
 And clime and time, and country and complexion ; 
 
 They all alike admired their new connexion. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Lolah was dusk as India and as warm ; 
 
 Katinka was a Georgian, white and red, 
 With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm, 
 
 And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread, 
 But rather skim the earth ; while Dudu's form 
 
 Looked more adapted to be put to bed, 
 Being somewhat large and languishing and lazy, 
 Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy. 
 
22 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudu, 
 Yet very fit to " murder sleep " in those 
 
 Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendant hue, 
 Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose : 
 
 Few angles were there in her form 'tis true, 
 
 Thinner she might have been and yet scarce lose ; 
 
 Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say where 
 
 It would not spoil some separate charm to pare. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 She was not violently lively, but 
 
 Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking ; 
 Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut, 
 
 They put beholders in a tender taking ; 
 She looked (this simile's quite new) just cut 
 
 From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking, 
 The Mortal and the Marble still at strife, 
 And timidly expanding into life. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 23 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Lolah demanded the new damsel's name — 
 " Juanna." — Well, a pretty name enough. 
 
 Katinka asked her also whence she came — 
 
 " From Spain." — " But where is Spain ?" — " Don't 
 ask such stuff, 
 
 " Nor show your Georgian ignorance — for shame !" 
 Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough, 
 
 To poor Katinka : " Spain's an island near 
 
 Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier." 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Dudu said nothing, but sat down beside 
 
 Juanna, playing with her veil or hair ; 
 And looking at her steadfastly, she sighed, 
 
 As if she pitied her for being there, 
 A pretty stranger without friend or guide, 
 
 And all abashed too at the general stare 
 Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places, 
 
 With kind remarks upon their mien and faces. 
 
 t 
 
 c 
 
24 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 But here the Mother of the Maids drew near, 
 With, " Ladies, it is time to go to rest. 
 
 " I'm puzzled what to do with you, my dear," 
 She added to Juanna, their new guest : 
 
 " Your coming has been unexpected here, 
 
 "And every couch is occupied ; you had best 
 
 " Partake of mine ; but by to-morrow early 
 
 " We will have all things settled for you fairly." 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Here Lolah interposed — " Mamma, you know 
 " You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear 
 
 " That any body should disturb you so ; 
 " I'll take Juanna ; we're a slenderer pair 
 
 " Than you would make the half of; — don't say no ; 
 " And I of your young charge will take due care." 
 
 But here Katinka interfered and said, 
 
 " She also had compassion and a bed." 
 

 Canto VI. DON JUAN. 25 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 " Besides, I hate to sleep alone," quoth she. 
 
 The Matron frowned : " Why so ?"— " For fear of 
 ghosts," 
 Replied Katinka; " I am sure I see 
 
 " A phantom upon each of the four posts ; 
 " And then I have the worst dreams that can be, 
 
 " Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts/' 
 The Dame replied, " Between your dreams and you, 
 ** I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 " You, Lolah, must continue still to lie 
 
 " Alone, for reasons which don't matter ; you 
 
 ' The same, Katinka, until by and bye ; 
 " And I shall place Juanna with Dudu, 
 
 " Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy, 
 
 " And will not toss and chatter the night through. 
 
 " What say you, child ?" — Dudu said nothing, as 
 
 Her talents were of the more silent class ; 
 
26 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 L. 
 
 But she rose up, and kissed the Matron's brow 
 Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks, 
 
 Katinka too ; and with a gentle bow 
 
 (Curtsies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks) 
 
 She took Juanna by the hand to show 
 
 Their place of rest, and left to both their piques, 
 The others pouting at the Matron's preference 
 Of Dudu, though they held their tongues from deference. 
 
 LI. 
 
 It was a spacious chamber (Oda is 
 
 The Turkish title) and ranged round the wall 
 
 Were couches, toilets — and much more than this 
 I might describe, as I have seen it all, 
 
 But it suffices — little was amiss ; 
 
 'Twas on the whole a nobly furnished hall, 
 
 With all things ladies want, save one or two, 
 
 And even those were nearer than they knew. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 27 
 
 LII. 
 
 Dudu, as has been said, was a sweet creature, 
 Not very dashing, but extremely winning, 
 
 With the most regulated charms of feature, 
 
 Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning 
 
 A gainst proportion — the wild strokes of nature 
 Which they hit off at once in the beginning, 
 
 Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike, 
 
 And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like. 
 
 LIII. v 
 
 But she was a soft Landscape of mild Earth, 
 Where all was harmony and calm and quiet, 
 
 Luxuriant, budding ; cheerful without mirth, 
 Which if not happiness, is much more nigh it 
 
 Than are your mighty passions and so forth, 
 
 Which some call " the sublime :" I wish they'd try it: 
 
 I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women, 
 
 And pity lovers rather more than seamen. 
 
28 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 But she was pensive more than melancholy, 
 And serious more than pensive, and serene, 
 
 It may be, more than either — not unholy 
 
 Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been. 
 
 The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly 
 Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen, 
 
 That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall ; 
 
 She never thought about herself at all. 
 
 LV. 
 
 And therefore was she kind and gentle as 
 
 The Age* of Gold (when Gold was yet unknown, 
 
 By which its nomenclature came to pass ; 
 Thus most appropriately has been shown 
 
 " Lucus a non Lucendo," not what was, 
 
 But what was not ; a sort of style that's grown 
 
 Extremely common in this age, whose metal 
 
 The Devil may decompose but never settle ; 
 

 Canto VI. DON JUAN. 29 
 
 LVI. 
 
 I think it may be of " Corinthian Brass," 
 Which was a Mixture of all Metals, but 
 
 The Brazen uppermost.) Kind reader ! pass 
 This long parenthesis : I could not shut 
 
 It sooner for the soul of me, and class 
 
 My faults even with your own ! which meaneth, Put 
 
 A kind construction upon them and me : 
 
 But that you won't — then don't — I am not less free. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 'Tis time we should return to plain narration, 
 And thus my narrative proceeds : — Dudu, 
 
 With every kindness short of ostentation, 
 
 Shewed Juan, or Juanna, through and through 
 
 This labyrinth of females, and each station 
 
 Described — what's strange — in words extremely few : 
 
 I have but one simile, and that's a blunder, 
 
 For wordless woman, which is silent Thunder. 
 
30 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 And next she gave her ( I say her, because 
 The Gender still was Epicene, at least 
 
 In outward show, which is a saving clause) 
 An outline of the Customs of the East, 
 
 With all their chaste integrity of laws, 
 By which the more a Harem is encreased, 
 
 The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties 
 
 Of any supernumerary beauties. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss : 
 Dudii was fond of kissing — which I'm sure 
 
 That nobody can ever take amiss, 
 
 Because 'tis pleasant, so that it be pure, 
 
 And between females means no more than this — 
 That they have nothing better near, or newer. 
 
 '* Kiss " rhymes to " bliss " in fact as well as verse — 
 
 I wish it never led to something worse. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 31 
 
 LX. 
 
 In perfect Innocence she then unmade 
 Her toilet, which cost little, for she was 
 
 A Child of Nature, carelessly arrayed : 
 If fond of a chance ogle at her glass, 
 
 'Twas like the Fawn which, in the lake displayed, 
 Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass, 
 
 When first she starts, and then returns to peep, 
 
 Admiring this new Native of the deep. 
 
 LXI. 
 
 And one by one her articles of dress 
 
 Were laid aside ; but not before she offered 
 
 Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess 
 
 Of Modesty declined the assistance proffered : 
 
 Which past well off — as she could do no less ; 
 Though by this politesse she rather suffered, 
 
 Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins, 
 
 Which surely were invented for our sins, — 
 
32 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 . LXIL 
 
 Making a woman like a porcupine, 
 
 Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread, 
 Oh ye ! whose fate it is, as once 'twas mine, 
 
 In early youth, to turn a lady's maid ; — 
 I did my very boyish best to shine 
 
 In tricking her out for a masquerade : 
 The pins were placed sufficiently, but not 
 Stuck all exactly in the proper spot. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 But these are foolish things to all the wise, 
 And I love wisdom more than she loves me ; 
 
 My tendency is to philosophize 
 
 On most things, from a tyrant to a tree ; 
 
 But still the spouseless Virgin Knowledge flies. 
 What are we ? and whence came we ? what shall be 
 
 Oar ultimate existence? what's our present? 
 
 Are questions answerless, and yet incessant. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 33 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 There was deep silence in the chamber : dim 
 And distant from each other burned the lights. 
 
 And Slumber hovered o'er each lovely limb 
 Of the fair occupants : if there be sprites, 
 
 They should have walked there in their spriteliest trim, 
 By way of change from their sepulchral sites, 
 
 And shown themselves as Ghosts of better taste 
 
 Than haunting some old Ruin or wild Waste. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 Many and beautiful lay those around, 
 
 Like flowers of different hue and clime and root, 
 
 In some exotic garden sometimes found, 
 
 With cost and care and warmth induced to shoot. 
 
 One with her auburn tresses lightly bound, 
 And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit 
 
 Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath 
 
 And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath. 
 
34 DON JUAN. Cakto VI. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm, 
 And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd 
 
 Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm ; 
 
 And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud 
 
 The Moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm, 
 As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud, 
 
 Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night 
 All bashfully to struggle into light. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 This is no bull, although it sounds so ; for 
 'Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said. 
 
 A third's all pallid aspect offered more 
 
 The traits of sleeping Sorrow, and betrayed 
 
 Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore 
 Beloved and deplored ; while slowly strayed 
 
 (As Night Dew, on a Cypress glittering, tinges 
 
 The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark 
 fringes. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 35 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 A fourth as marble, statue-like and still, 
 
 Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep ; 
 
 White, cold and pure, as looks a frozen rill, 
 Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep, 
 
 Or Lot's wife done in salt, — or what you will ; — 
 My similes are gathered in a heap, 
 
 So pick and chuse — perhaps you'll be content 
 
 With a carved lady on a monument. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 And lo ! a fifth appears ; — and what is she ? 
 
 A lady of " a certain age," which means 
 Certainly aged — what her years might be 
 
 I know not, never counting past their teens ; 
 But there she slept, not quite so fair to see, 
 
 As ere that awful period intervenes 
 Which lays both men and women on the shelf, 
 To meditate upon their sir 7 and self. 
 
36 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 But all this time how slept, or dreamed, Dudil ? 
 
 With strict enquiry I could ne'er discover, 
 And scorn to add a syllable untrue ; 
 
 But ere the middle watch was hardly over, 
 Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue, 
 
 And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover 
 To those who like their company, about 
 The apartment, on a sudden she screamed out : 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 And that so loudly, that upstarted all 
 
 The Oda, in a general commotion : 
 Matrons and maids, and those whom you may call 
 
 Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean, 
 One on the other, throughout the whole hall, 
 
 All trembling, wondering, without the least notion, 
 More than I have myself, of what could make 
 The calm Dudil so turbulently wake. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 37 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 But wide awake she was, and round her bed, 
 With floating draperies and with flying hair, 
 
 With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread, 
 And bosoms, arms, and ancles glancing bare, 
 
 And bright as any meteor ever bred 
 
 By the North Pole, — they sought her cause of care, 
 
 For she seemed agitated, flushed and frightened, 
 
 Her eye dilated and her colour heightened. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 But what is strange — and a strong proof how great 
 A blessing is sound sleep — Juanna lay 
 
 As fast as ever husband by his mate 
 In holy matrimony snores away. 
 
 Not all the clamour broke her happy state 
 Of slumber, ere they shook her, — so they say 
 
 At least, — and then she too unclosed her eyes, 
 
 And yawned a good deal with discreet surprize. 
 
38 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 And now commenced a strict investigation, 
 
 Which, as all spoke at once, and more than once 
 
 Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration, 
 Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce 
 
 To answer in a very clear oration. 
 
 Dudu had never passed for wanting sense, 
 
 But being " no orator as Brutus is," 
 
 Could not at first expound what was amiss. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 At length she said, that in a slumber sound, 
 She dreamed a dream, of walking in a wood — 
 
 A " wood obscure " like that where Dante found* 
 Himself in at the age when all grow good ; 
 
 Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crowned, 
 Run much less risk of lovers turning rude ; 
 
 And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits, 
 
 And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots ; 
 
 * " Nel' mezzo del' Camnvin 'di nostra vita 
 " Mi ritrovai per una Selva oscura," &c. &c. &c. 
 
Canto VI. 
 
 DON JUAN. 39 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 And in the midst a golden apple grew, — 
 A most prodigious pippin — but it hung 
 
 Rather too high and distant ; that she threw 
 Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung 
 
 Stones and whatever she could pick up, to 
 
 Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung 
 
 To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight, 
 
 But always at a most provoking height; — 
 
 Lxxvn. 
 
 That on a sudden, when she least had hope, 
 It fell down of its own accord, before 
 
 Her feet ; that her first movement was to stoop 
 And pick it up, and bite it to the core ; 
 
 That just as her young lip began to ope 
 Upon the golden fruit the vision bore, 
 
 A bee flew out and stung her to the heart, 
 
 And so — she woke with a great scream and start. 
 
 D 
 
40 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 All this she told with some confusion and 
 Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams 
 
 Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand 
 To expound their vain and visionary gleams. 
 
 I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned 
 Prophetically, or that which one deems 
 
 " A strange coincidence," to use a phrase 
 
 By which such things are settled now-a-days. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm, 
 
 Began, as is the consequence of fear, 
 To scold a little at the false alarm 
 
 That broke for nothing on their sleeping ear. 
 The matron too was wroth to leave her warm 
 
 Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear, 
 And chafed at poor Dudu, who only sighed,. 
 And said, that she was sorry she had cried. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 41 
 
 LXXX. 
 " I've heard of stories of a cock and bull ; 
 
 " But visions of an apple and a bee, 
 " To take us from our natural rest, and pull 
 
 " The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three, 
 " Would make us think the moon is at its full. 
 
 " You surely are unwell, child ! we must see, 
 " To-morrow what his Highness's physician 
 " Will say to this hysteric of a vision. 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 " And poor Juanna too ! the child's first night 
 " Within these walls, to be broke in upon 
 
 " With such a clamour — I had thought it right 
 " That the young stranger should not lie alone. 
 
 " And as the quietest of all, she might 
 
 " With you, Dudu, a good night's rest have known 
 
 " But now I must transfer her to the charge 
 
 " Of Lolah — though her couch is not so large." 
 
42 DON JUAN. Canto VI 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition; 
 
 But poor Dudu, with large drops in her own, 
 Resulting from the scolding or the vision, 
 
 Implored that present pardon might be shown 
 For this first fault, and that on no condition 
 
 (She added in a soft and piteous tone) 
 Juanna should be taken from her, and 
 Her future dreams should all be kept in hand. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 
 She promised never more to have a dream, 
 At least to dream so loudly as just now ; 
 
 She wondered at herself how she could scream — 
 'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow, 
 
 A fond hallucination, and a theme 
 ' For laughter — but she felt her spirits low, 
 
 And begged they would excuse her ; she'd get over 
 
 This weakness in a few hours, and recover. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 43 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 And here Juanna kindly interposed, 
 
 And said she felt herself extremely well 
 Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed 
 
 When all around rang like a tocsin bell : 
 She did not find herself the least disposed 
 
 To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell 
 Apart from one who had no sin to show 
 Save that of dreaming once " mal-a-propos." 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 As thus Juanna spoke, Dudu turned round 
 And hid her face within Juanna's breast ; 
 
 Her neck alone was seen, but that was found 
 The colour of a budding rose's crest. 
 
 I can't tell why she blushed, nor can expound 
 The mystery of this rupture of their rest ; 
 
 All that I know is, that the facts I state 
 
 Are true as truth has ever been of late. 
 
44 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VI. 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 And so good night to them, — or, if you will, 
 
 Good morrow — for the cock had crown, and light 
 
 Began to clothe each Asiatic hill, 
 
 And the mosque crescent struggled into sight 
 
 Of the long caravan, which in the chill 
 
 Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height 
 
 That stretches to the stony belt, which girds 
 
 Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 With the first ray, or rather grey of morn, 
 
 Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness ; and pale 
 As Passion rises, with its bosom worn, 
 
 Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, and veil. 
 The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn, 
 
 Which Fable places in her breast of Wail, 
 Is lighter far of heart and voice than those 
 Whose headlong passions form their proper woes. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 45 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 And that's the moral of this composition, 
 If people would but see its real drift ; — 
 
 But that they will not do without suspicion, 
 Because all gentle readers have the gift 
 
 Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision ; 
 While gentle writers also love to lift 
 
 Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural, 
 
 The numbers are too great for them to flatter all. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 Rose the Sultana from a bed of splendour, 
 Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried 
 
 Aloud because his feelings were too tender 
 To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side, — 
 
 So beautiful that art could little mend her, 
 Though pale with conflicts between love and pride : — 
 
 So agitated was she with her error, 
 
 She did not even look into the mirror. 
 
46 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 xc. 
 
 Also arose about the self-same time, 
 
 Perhaps a little later, her great lord, 
 Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime, 
 
 And of a wife by whom he was abhorred ; 
 A thing of much less import in that clime — 
 
 At least to those of incomes which afford 
 The filling up their whole connubial cargo — 
 Than where two wives are under an embargo. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 He did not think much on the matter, nor 
 
 Indeed on any other : as a man 
 He liked to have a handsome paramour 
 
 At hand, as one may like to have a fan, 
 And therefore of Circassians had good store, 
 
 As an amusement after the Divan ; 
 Though an unusual fit of love, or duty, 
 Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 47 
 
 XCII. 
 And now he rose ; and after due ablutions 
 
 Exacted by the customs of the East, 
 And prayers and other pious evolutions, 
 
 He drank six cups of coffee at the least, 
 And then withdrew to hear about the Russians, 
 
 Whose victories had recently increased 
 In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores 
 As greatest of all sovereigns and w s. 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander ! 
 
 Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend 
 Thine ear, if it should reach, — and now rhymes wander 
 
 Almost as far as Petersburgh, and lend 
 A dreadful impulse to each loud meander 
 
 Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend 
 Their roar even with the Baltic's — so you be 
 Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for me. 
 
48 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto V7. 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 To call men love-begotten, or proclaim 
 Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon, 
 
 That hater of mankind, would be a shame, 
 A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on : 
 
 But people's ancestors are history's game ; 
 And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on 
 
 All generations, I should like to know 
 
 What pedigree the best would have to show ? 
 
 xcv. 
 
 Had Catherine and the Sultan understood 
 
 Their own true interests, which kings rarely know. 
 
 Until 'tis taught by lessons rather rude, 
 
 There was a way to end their strife, although 
 
 Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good, 
 Without the aid of Prince or Plenipo : 
 
 She to dismiss her guards and he his harem, 
 
 And for their other matters, meet and share 'em. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 49 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 But as it was, his Highness had to hold 
 His daily council upon ways and means, 
 
 How to encounter with this martial scold, 
 This modern Amazon and Queen of Queans ; 
 
 And the perplexity could not be told 
 
 Of all the Pillars of the state, which leans 
 
 Sometimes a little heavy on the backs 
 
 Of those who cannot lay on a new tax. 
 
 XCVII. 
 
 Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone, 
 Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place 
 
 For love or breakfast ; private, pleasing, lone, 
 And rich with all contrivances which grace 
 
 Those gay recesses : — many a precious stone 
 Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase 
 
 Of porcelain held in the fettered flowers, 
 
 Those captive soothers of a captive's hours. 
 
50 DON JUAN. . Canto VI. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble, 
 Vied with each other on this costly spot ; 
 
 And singing birds without were heard to warble ; 
 And the stained glass which lighted this fair grot 
 
 Varied each ray ; — but all descriptions garble 
 The true effect, and so we had better not 
 
 Be too minute ; an outline is the best, 
 
 A lively reader's fancy does the rest. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 And here she summoned Baba, and required 
 Don Juan at his hands, and information 
 
 Of what had past since all the slaves retired, 
 And whether he had occupied their station ; 
 
 If matters had been managed as desired, 
 And his disguise with due consideration 
 
 Kept up ; and above all, the where and how 
 
 He had passed the night, was what she wished to know. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 51 
 
 c. 
 
 Baba, with some embarrassment, replied 
 To this long catechism of questions asked 
 
 More easily than answered, — that he had tried 
 His best to obey in what he had been tasked ; 
 
 But there seemed something that he wished to hide, 
 Which hesitation more betrayed than masqued ; — 
 
 He scratched his ear, the infallible resource 
 
 To which embarrassed people have recourse. 
 
 CI. 
 
 Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience, 
 Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed ; 
 
 She liked quick answers in all conversations ; 
 And when she saw him stumbling like a steed 
 
 In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones ; 
 And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed, 
 
 Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle, 
 
 And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle. 
 
52 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 CII. 
 
 When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew 
 To bode him no great good, he deprecated 
 
 Her anger, and beseech'd she'd hear him through — 
 He could not help the thing which he related : 
 
 Then out it came at length, that to Dudu 
 
 Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated ; 
 
 But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on 
 
 The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran. 
 
 cm. 
 
 The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom 
 The discipline of the whole harem bore, 
 
 As soon as they re-entered their own room, 
 For Baba's function stopt short at the door, 
 
 Had settled all ; nor could he then presume 
 (The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more, 
 
 Without exciting such suspicion as 
 
 Might make the matter still worse than it was. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 53 
 
 CIV. 
 
 He hoped, indeed he thought he could be sure 
 Juan had not betrayed himself ; in fact 
 
 'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure, 
 Because a foolish or imprudent act 
 
 Would not alone have made him insecure, 
 But ended in his being found out, and sacked, 
 
 And thrown into the sea. — Thus Baba spoke 
 
 Of all save Dudu's dream, which was no joke. 
 
 CV. 
 
 This he discreetly kept in the back ground, 
 
 And talked away, and might have talked till now, 
 
 For any further answer that he found, 
 
 So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow ; 
 
 Her cheek turned ashes, ears rung, brain whirled round 
 As if she had received a sudden blow, 
 
 And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly 
 
 O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily. 
 
54 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 CVI. 
 
 Although she was not of the fainting sort, 
 
 Baba thought she would faint, but there he erred ; — 
 
 It was but a convulsion, which though short 
 Can never be described ; we all have heard, 
 
 And some of us have felt thus " all amort" 
 When things beyond the common have occurred ; — 
 
 Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony 
 
 What she could ne'er express — then how should I ? 
 
 CVII. 
 
 She stood a moment as a Pythoness 
 Stands on her tripod, agonized, and full 
 
 Of Inspiration gathered from Distress, 
 
 When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull 
 
 The heart asunder ; — then, as more or less 
 
 Their speed abated or their strength grew dull, 
 
 She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees, 
 
 And bowed her throbbing head o'er trembling knees. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 55 
 
 CVIII. 
 
 Her face declined and was unseen ; her hair 
 Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow, 
 
 Sweeping the marble underneath her chair, 
 Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow, 
 
 A low, soft Ottoman) and black Despair 
 
 Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow, 
 
 Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check 
 
 Its farther course, but must receive its wreck. 
 
 C1X. 
 Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping 
 
 Concealed her features better than a veil ; 
 And one hand o'er the Ottoman lay drooping, 
 
 White, waxen, and as alabaster pale : 
 Would that I were a painter ! to be grouping 
 
 All that a poet drags into detail ! 
 Oh that my words were colours ! but their tints 
 May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints. 
 
56 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 ex. 
 
 Baba, who knew by experience when to talk 
 And when to hold its tongue, now held it till 
 
 This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk 
 Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will. 
 
 At length she rose up, and began to walk 
 Slowly along the room, but silent still, 
 
 And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye ; 
 
 The Wind was down, but still the Sea ran high. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 She stopt, and raised her head to speak — but paused, 
 And then moved on again with rapid pace; 
 
 Then slackened it, which is the march most caused 
 By deep Emotion : — you may sometimes trace 
 
 A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed 
 By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased 
 
 By all the Demons of all Passions, showed 
 
 Their work even by the way in which he trode. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 57 
 
 CXII. 
 
 Gulbeyaz stopped and beckoned Baba : — " Slave ! 
 
 " Bring the two slaves !" she said in a low tone, 
 But one which Baba did not like to brave, 
 
 And yet he shuddered, and seemed rather prone 
 To prove reluctant, and begged leave to crave 
 
 (Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown 
 What slaves her Highness wished to indicate, 
 For fear of any error, like the late. 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 " The Georgian and her paramour," replied 
 
 The Imperial Bride — and added, " Let the boat 
 
 " Be ready by the secret portal's side : 
 
 " You know the rest." The words stuck in her throat, 
 
 Despite her injured love and fiery pride 5 
 And of this Baba willingly took note, 
 
 And begged by every hair of Mahomet's beard 
 
 She would revoke the order he had heard. 
 
58 DON JUAN. Canto VI. 
 
 CXIV. 
 
 " To hear is to obey," he said ; " but still, 
 
 " Sultana, think upon the consequence : 
 " It is not that I shall not all fulfil 
 
 " Your orders, even in their severest sense ; 
 " But such precipitation may end ill, 
 
 " Even at your own imperative expense : 
 " I do not mean destruction and exposure 
 
 '* In case of any premature disclosure ; 
 
 CXV. 
 
 " But your own feelings. Even should all the rest 
 " Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide 
 
 " Already many a once love-beaten breast 
 " Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide — 
 
 " You love this boyish, new, Seraglio guest, 
 " And if this violent remedy be tried — 
 
 " Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you, 
 
 " That killing him is not the way to cure you." 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 59 
 
 CXVI. 
 
 w What dost thou know of love or feeling ? — wretch ! 
 
 " Begone !" she cried, with kindling eyes — " And do 
 " My bidding !" Baba vanished, for to stretch 
 
 His own remonstrance further he well knew 
 Might end in acting as his own " Jack Ketch ;" 
 
 And though he wished extremely to get through 
 This awkward business without harm to others, 
 He still preferred his own neck to another's. 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 Away he went then upon his commission, 
 
 Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase 
 
 Against all women of whate'er condition, 
 Especially Sultanas and their ways ; 
 
 Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision, 
 
 Their never knowing their own mind two days, 
 
 The trouble that they gave, their Immorality, 
 
 Which made him daily bless his own Neutrality. 
 
60 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VI. 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 And then he called his Brethren to his aid, 
 And sent one on a summons to the pair, 
 
 That they must instantly be well arrayed, 
 And above all be combed even to a hair, 
 
 And brought before the Empress, who had made 
 Enquiries after them with kindest care : 
 
 At which Dudu looked strange, and Juan silly ; 
 
 But go they must at once, and Will I — Nill I. 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 And here I leave them at their preparation 
 For the Imperial presence, wherein whether 
 
 Gulbeyaz shewed 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. 
 
Canto VI. DON JUAN. 61 
 
 cxx. 
 
 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. 
 
 END OF CANTO VI. 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTO VII. 
 
 I. 
 
 Oh Love ! O Glory ! what are ye ? who fly 
 
 Around us ever, rarely to alight ; 
 There's not a meteor in the Polar sky 
 
 Of such transcendant 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. 
 
66 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 II. 
 
 And such as they are, such my present tale is, 
 A'foon-descript 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'er the less, 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 ? 
 
 III. 
 
 They accuse me — Me — the present writer of 
 The present poem — of — I know not what, — 
 
 A tendency to under-rate 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 ; 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 67 
 
 IV. 
 
 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. 
 
 V. 
 
 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." 
 
68 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 VI. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 69 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " 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 beleaguer'd both by land and water 
 
 By Suvaroff, or anglice Suwarrow, 
 
 Who loved blood as an Alderman loves marrow. 
 
 IX. 
 
 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, 
 
 W T hich with your conquerors is a common prank : 
 
 It stands some eighty versts from the high sea, 
 
 And measures round of toises thousands three. 
 
70 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 X. 
 
 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 scite 
 
 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. 
 
 XI. 
 
 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." 
 
Canto. VII. DON JUAN. 7] 
 
 XII. 
 
 But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge, 
 
 And walls as thick as most sculls born as yet ; 
 
 Two batteries, cap-a-pee, as our St. George, 
 Case-mated 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 cavaliere. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 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, " Alia !" and " Bis Millah!" 
 
 F 
 
72 UON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 4 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Russians now were ready to attack ; 
 
 But oh, ye Goddesses of war and glory ! 
 How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque 
 
 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. 
 
 r 
 
 XV. 
 
 Still I'll record a few, if but to encrease 
 
 Our euphony — there was Strongenoff, and StrokonofF, 
 Meknop, Serge Lwdw, Arseniew of modern Greece, 
 
 And TschitsshakofF, and RoguenofF, and ChokenofF, 
 And others of twelve consonants a-piece ; 
 
 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 trumpet, 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 73 
 
 XVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 xvii: 
 
 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. 
 
74 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 # 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 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 lie, since so renowned " in country quarters 
 
 At Halifax;" but now he served the Tartars. 
 
Canto VTI DON JUAN. 75 
 
 XX. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 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 Shakespear puts the same thought in 
 The mouth of some one in his plays so doating, 
 Which many people pass for wits by quoting. 
 
76 DON JUAN. Canto VII- 
 
 XXII. 
 
 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 shew 
 How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 77 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 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 Bull-dogs and Fox-terriers. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 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." 
 
78 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The Russian batteries were incomplete, 
 Because they were constructed in a hurry 5 
 
 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." 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VII. 
 
 DON JUAN. 79 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 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 musquetry and grape 
 And shells and shot of every size and shape. 
 
80 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 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 
 *ell mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 81 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " 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. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 This being the Case, may show us what fame is : 
 
 For out of 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. 
 
82 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 In short, this last attack, though rich in glory, 
 
 Shewed 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 83 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
34 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 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 mean time, the batteries proceeded, 
 
 And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border 
 
 Were briskly fired and answered in due order. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 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 praise j 
 
 Announcing the appointment of that lover of 
 
 Battles, to the command, Field Marshal Souvaroff, 
 
Cakto VII. DON JUAN. 85 
 
 XL. 
 
 The letter of the Prince to the same Marshal 
 Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause 
 
 Been one to which a good heart could be partial, 
 Defence of freedom, country, or of laws ; 
 
 But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all 
 With its proud brow, it merits slight applause, 
 
 Save for its style, which said, all in a trice, 
 
 " You will take Ismail at whatever price." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 " Let there be light ! said God, and there was light i |J 
 " Let there be blood !" says man, and there's a sea ! 
 The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night 
 
 (For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree 
 More evil in an hour, than thirty bright 
 
 Summers could renovate, though they should be 
 Lovely as those which ripened Eden's fruit, 
 For war cuts up not only branch, but root. 
 
8C DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Our friends the Turks, who with loud " Alla's" now 
 
 Began to signalize the Russ retreat, 
 Were damnably mistaken; few are slow 
 
 In thinking that their enemy is beat, 
 (Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though 
 
 I never think about it in a heat) 
 But here I say the Turks were much mistaken, 
 Who hating hogs, yet wished to save their bacon. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew 
 
 In sight two horsemen, who were deemed cossacques 
 
 For some time, till they came in nearer view. 
 They had but little baggage at their backs, 
 
 For there were but three shirts between the two ; 
 But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks, 
 
 Till, in approaching, were at length descried 
 
 In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 87 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 " Great joy to London now!" says some great fool, 
 When London had a grand illumination, 
 
 Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull, 
 Is of all dreams the first hallucination ; 
 
 So that the streets of coloured lamps are full, 
 That Sage {said John) surrenders at discretion 
 
 His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense, 
 
 To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 Tis strange that he should further " damn his eyes," 
 For they are damned ; that once all famous oath 
 
 Is to the devil now no further prize, 
 
 Since John has lately lost the use of both. 
 
 Debt he calls wealth, and taxes, Paradise ; 
 And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth, 
 
 Which stare him in the face, he wont examine, 
 
 Or swears that Ceres hath begotten famine. 
 
 G 
 
88 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 XLVL 
 
 But to the tale ; — great joy unto the camp ! 
 
 To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque, 
 O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp, 
 
 Presaging a most luminous attack, 
 Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp, 
 
 Which leads beholders on a boggy walk, 
 He flitted to and fro a dancing Light, 
 Which all who saw it followed, wrong or right. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 But certes matters took a different face ; 
 
 There was enthusiasm and much applause, 
 The fleet and camp saluted with great grace, 
 
 And all presaged Good Fortune to their cause. 
 Within a cannon-shot length of the place 
 
 They drew, constructed ladders, repaired flaws 
 In former works, made new, prepared fascines, 
 And all kinds of benevolent machines. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 89 
 
 XLVIII. 
 'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind 
 
 Makes that of multitudes take one direction, 
 As roll the waters to the breathing wind, 
 
 Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection ; 
 Or as a little dog will lead the blind, 
 
 Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection 
 By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual ; 
 Such is the sway of your great men o'er little. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 The whole camp rung with joy ; you would have thought 
 That they were going to a marriage feast : 
 
 (This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught, 
 Since there is discord after both at least.) 
 
 There was not now a luggage boy but sought 
 Danger and spoil with ardour much encreased ; 
 
 And why ? because a little — odd — old man, 
 
 Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van. 
 
90 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 L. 
 
 But so it was ; and every preparation 
 
 Was made with all alacrity : the first 
 Detachment of three columns took its station, 
 
 And waited but the signal's voice to burst 
 Upon the foe : the second's ordination 
 
 Was also in three columns, with a thirst 
 For Glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter : 
 The third, in columns two, attacked by water. 
 
 LI. 
 
 New batteries were erected, and was held 
 A general council, in which Unanimity, 
 
 That stranger to most councils, here prevailed, 
 As sometimes happens in a great extremity ; 
 
 And every difficulty being dispelled, 
 
 Glory began to dawn with due Sublimity, 
 
 While SouvarofF, determined to obtain it, 
 
 Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.* 
 
 * Fact : Souvaroff did this in person. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 91 
 
 LII. 
 
 It is an actual fact, that he, Commander 
 In chief, in proper person deigned to drill 
 
 The awkward squad, and could afford to squander 
 His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil ; 
 
 Just as you'd break a sucking salamander 
 To swallow flame, and never take it ill ; 
 
 He showed them how to mount a ladder (which 
 
 Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Also he dressed up, for the nonce, fascines 
 Like men with turbans, scymitars and dirks, 
 
 And made them charge with bayonet these machines 
 By way of lesson against actual Turks ; 
 
 And when well practised in these mimic scenes, 
 He judged them proper to assail the works ; 
 
 At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty : 
 
 He made no answer ; but he took the city. 
 
92 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VII. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Most things were in this posture on the eve 
 Of the assault, and all the camp was in 
 
 A stern repose ; which you would scarce conceive ; 
 Yet men, resolved to dash through thick and thin, 
 
 Are very silent when they once believe 
 That all is settled : — there was little din, 
 
 For some were thinking of their home and friends, 
 
 And others of themselves and latter ends. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert, 
 
 Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering ; 
 For the man was, we safely may assert, 
 
 A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering ; 
 Hero, buffoon, half-demon and half-dirt, 
 
 Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering ; 
 Now Mars, now Momus ; and when bent to storm 
 A fortress, Harlequin in uniform. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 93 
 
 LVI. 
 
 The day before the assault, while upon drill, 
 For this great Conqueror played the corporal, 
 
 Some Cossacques hovering like hawks round a hill, 
 Had met a party towards the twilight's fall, 
 
 One of whom spoke their tongue or well or ill, 
 'Twas much that he was understood at all ; 
 
 But, whether from his voice, or speech, or manner, 
 
 They found that he had fought beneath their banner. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Whereon immediately at his request 
 
 They brought him and his comrades to head quarters ; 
 Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guessed 
 
 That these were merely masquerading Tartars, 
 And that beneath each Turkish-fashioned vest 
 
 Lurked Christianity ; which sometimes barters 
 Her inward grace for outward show, and makes 
 It difficult to shun some strange mistakes. 
 
94 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt 
 Before a company of Calmucks, drilling, 
 
 Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert, 
 And lecturing on the noble art of killing, — 
 
 For deeming human clay but common dirt, 
 This great philosopher was thus instilling 
 
 His maxims, which to martial comprehension 
 
 Proved death in battle equal to a pension, — 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Suwarrow, when he saw this company 
 
 Of Cossacques and their prey, turned round and cast 
 Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye : — 
 
 " Whence come ye ?" — " From Constantinople last, 
 " Captives just now escaped," was the reply. 
 
 " What are ye ?" — " What you see us." Briefly past 
 This dialogue ; for he who answered knew 
 To whom he spoke, and made his words but few. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 95 
 
 LX. 
 
 " Your names ?" — " Mine's Johnson, and my comrade's 
 Juan, 
 
 " The other two are women, and the third 
 " Is neither man nor woman." The Chief threw on 
 
 The party a slight glance, then said : " I have heard 
 " Your name before, the second is a new one ; 
 
 " To bring the other three here was absurd ; 
 " But let that pass ; — I think I have heard your name 
 " In the Nikolaiew regiment ?" — " The same." 
 
 LXI. 
 
 " You served at Widin?"— " Yes."—" You led the 
 
 attack?" 
 " I did."—" What next?"—" I really hardly know." 
 ' You were the first i' the breach ?" — " I was not slack 
 
 " At least to follow those who might be so." 
 " What followed ?" — " A shot laid me on my back, 
 
 " And I became a prisoner to the foe." — 
 " You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded 
 " Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded. 
 
96 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 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 bowed 
 Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow 
 
 Continued : " Your old regiment's allowed, 
 " By special providence, to lead to-morrow, 
 
 " Or it may be, to-night, the assault ; I have vowed 
 " To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow 
 
 " Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk 
 
 Y Be unimpeded by the proudest Mosque. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 97 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 " So now, my lads, for Glory !" — Here he turned 
 And drilled away in the most classic Russian, 
 
 Until each high, heroic bosom burned 
 
 For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion 
 
 A preacher had held forth (who nobly spurned 
 
 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 allowed to die 
 
 " Among the foremost ; but if you'd express 
 
 " Explicitly our several posts, my friend 
 
 " And self would know what duty to attend." 
 
98 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 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 called 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 haream 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, 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 99 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 O'er the promoted couple of brave men 
 
 Who were thus honoured 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, surveyed 
 
 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. 
 
100 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 101 
 
 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 step : 
 
 " 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, 
 Looked 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, besmeared with dust, 
 
 Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean, 
 
 More feared than all the Sultans ever seen. 
 
102 DON JUAN, Canto VII. 
 
 ... 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 For every thing seemed resting on his nod, 
 As they could read in all eyes. Now to them 
 
 Who were accustomed, 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 103 
 
 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 beloved 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 widowed 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 ? 
 
 H 
 
J04 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VTI. 
 
 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 escalade, 
 Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bul- 
 lets; 
 Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 Oh, thou eternal Homer ! who couldst charm 
 All ears, though long ; all ages, though so short, 
 
 By merely wielding with poetic arm, 
 
 Arms to which men will never more resort, 
 
 Unless gun-powder 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 : — 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 105 
 
 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 attacked, 
 
 Great deeds are doing — how shall I relate 'em ; 
 
 Souls of immortal generals ! Phoebus watches 
 
 To colour up his rays from your despatches. 
 
1 06 DON JUAN. 
 
 .CANfO VII. 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 Oh ! ye great bulletins of Bonaparte ! 
 
 Oh ! ye less grand long lists of killed 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 compelled 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. 
 
Canto VII. DON JUAN. 107 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 * 
 
 Medals, ranks, ribbons, 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. 
 
108 DON JUAN. Canto VII. 
 
 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 leaguered wall and bristling bank 
 
 Of the armed 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. 
 
 END OF CANTO VII. 
 
DON JUAN 
 
 CANTO VIII. 
 
DON JUAN. 
 
 CANTO VIII. 
 
 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, 
 JBellona, what you will — they mean but wars. 
 
112 T)ON JUAN. Canto VIII 
 
 ft 
 
 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, 
 
 Marched 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. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 113 
 
 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. * 
 
114 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The night was dark, and the thick mist allowed 
 Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame, 
 
 Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud, 
 And in the Danube's waters shone the same — 
 
 A mirrored 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 ordered on the assault scarce passed 
 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 rocked as 'twere beneath the mighty noises ; 
 
 While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when 
 
 The restless Titan hiccups in his den. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 1 ] 5 
 
 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 !" Q) 
 
 IX. 
 
 The columns were in movement one and all, 
 But of the portion which attacked 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 :" ( 2 ) 
 
 If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and 
 
 Just now behaved as in the Holy Land. 
 
116 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 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 ? 
 
 XL 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VITI. DON JUAN. 1 1 7 
 
 XII. 
 
 Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic, 
 And thirty thousand musquets 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 
 Turned back within its socket, — these reward 
 
 Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest 
 
 May win perhaps a ribbon at the breast ! 
 
1 1 8 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Yet I love Glory ; — glory's a great thing ; — 
 
 Think what it is to be in your old age 
 Maintained at the expense of your good king : 
 
 A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, 
 And heroes are but made for bards to sing, 
 
 Which is still better; thus in verse to wage 
 Your wars eternally, besides enjoying 
 Half -pay for life, make mankind worth destroying. 
 
 • 
 XV. 
 
 The troops, already disembarked, pushed on 
 To take a battery on the right ; the others, 
 
 Who landed lower down, their landing done, 
 Had set to work as briskly as their brothers : 
 
 Being grenadiers they mounted one by one, 
 
 Cheerful as children climb the breasts of mothers, 
 
 O'er the entrenchment and the palisade, 
 
 Quite orderly, as if upon parade. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 119 
 
 XVI. 
 
 And this was admirable ; for so hot 
 
 The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded, 
 
 Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot 
 
 And shells or hells, it could not more have goaded. 
 
 Of officers a third fell on the spot, 
 
 A thing which victory by no means boded 
 
 To gentlemen engaged in the assault : 
 
 Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 But here I leave the general concern, 
 To track our hero on his path of fame : 
 
 He must his laurels separately earn ; 
 
 For fifty thousand heroes, name by name, 
 
 Though all deserving equally to turn 
 A couplet, or an elegy to claim, 
 
 Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory, 
 
 And what is worse still, a much longer story : 
 
 i 
 
120 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 And therefore we must give the greater number 
 To the Gazette — which doubtless fairly dealt 
 
 By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber 
 In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt 
 
 Their clay for the last time their souls encumber ; — 
 Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt 
 
 In the despatch : I knew a man whose loss 
 
 Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose. ( 3 ) 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Juan and Johnson joined a certain corps, 
 
 And fought away with might and main, not knowing 
 
 The way which they had never trod before, 
 
 And still less guessing where they might be going ; 
 
 But on they marched, dead bodies trampling o'er, 
 Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing, 
 
 But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win, 
 
 To their two selves, one whole bright bulletin. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 121 
 
 XX. 
 
 Thus on they wallowed in the bloody mire 
 
 Of dead and dying thousands, — sometimes gaining 
 
 A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher 
 To some odd angle for which all were straining ; 
 
 At other times, repulsed by the close fire, 
 
 Which really poured as if all Hell were raining, 
 
 Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er 
 
 A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Though 'twas Don Juan's first of fields, and though 
 The nightly muster and the silent march 
 
 In the chill dark, when courage does not glow 
 So much as under a triumphal arch, 
 
 Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw 
 A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch, 
 
 Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day ; — 
 
 Yet for all this he did not run away. 
 
122 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Indeed he could not. But what if he had? 
 
 There have been and are heroes who begun 
 With something not much better or as bad : 
 
 Frederick the Great from Molwitz deigned to run, 
 For the first and last time ; for, like a pad, 
 
 Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one 
 Warm bout are broken into their new tricks, 
 And fight like fiends for pay or politics. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 He was what Erin calls, in her sublime 
 Old Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic; — 
 
 (The Antiquarians who can settle Time, 
 Which settles all things, Roman, Greek or Runic, 
 
 Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime 
 With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic 
 
 Of Dido's alphabet; and this is rational 
 
 As any other notion, and not national;) — ( 4 ) 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 123 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 But Juan was quite " a broth of a boy," 
 A thing of impulse and a child of song ; 
 
 Now swimming in the sentiment of joy, 
 
 Or the sensatio?i (if that phrase seem wrong) 
 
 And afterwards, if he must needs destroy, 
 In such good company as always throng 
 
 To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure, 
 
 No less delighted to employ his leisure. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But always without malice ; if he warr'd 
 
 Or loved, it was with what we call ,e the best 
 
 " Intentions," which form all mankind's trump card, 
 To be produced when brought up to the test. 
 
 The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer — ward 
 Off each attack, when people are in quest 
 
 Of their designs, by saying they meant well; 
 
 'Tis pity " that such meaning should pave Hell." (&) 
 
124 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 I almost lately have begun to doubt 
 Whether Hell's pavement — if it be so paved — 
 
 Must not have latterly been quite worn out, 
 Not by the numbers Good Intent hath saved, 
 
 But by the mass who go below without 
 Those antient good intentions, which once shaved 
 
 And smoothed the brimstone of that street of Hell 
 
 Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides 
 Warrior from warrior in their grim career, 
 
 Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides 
 Just at the close of the first bridal year, 
 
 By one of those odd turns of Fortune's tides, 
 Was on a sudden rather puzzled here, 
 
 When, after a good deal of heavy firing, 
 
 He found himself alone, and friends retiring. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 125 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 I don't know how the thing occurred — it might 
 Be that the greater part were killed or wounded, 
 
 And that the rest had faced unto the right 
 About ; a circumstance which has confounded 
 
 Caesar himself, who in the very sight 
 
 Of his whole army, which so much abounded 
 
 In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield 
 
 And rally back his Romans to the field. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was 
 No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who fought 
 
 He knew not why, arriving at this pass, 
 Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought 
 
 For a much longer time ; then, like an ass — 
 (Start not, kind reader, since great Homer thought 
 
 This simile enough for Ajax, Juan 
 
 Perhaps may find it better than a new one) : — 
 
126 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Then, like an ass, he went upon his way, 
 
 And, what was stranger, never looked behind ; 
 
 But seeing, flashing forward, like the day 
 Over the hills, a fire enough to blind 
 
 Those who dislike to look upon a fray, 
 He stumbled on, to try if he could find 
 
 A path to add his own slight arm and forces 
 
 To corps, the greater part of which were corses. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Perceiving then no more the commandant 
 
 Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had 
 
 Quite disappeared — the Gods know how ! (I can't 
 Account for every thing which may look bad 
 
 In history ; but we at least may grant 
 It was not marvellous that a mere lad, 
 
 In search of glory, should look on before, 
 
 Nor care a pinch of snuff about his corps : — ) 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 
 
 127 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Perceiving nor commander nor commanded, 
 And left at large, like a young heir, to make 
 
 His way to — where he knew not — single handed ; 
 As travellers follow over bog and brake 
 
 An " Ignis fatuus ;" or as sailors stranded 
 Unto the nearest hut themselves betake; 
 
 So Juan, following honour and his nose, 
 
 Rushed where the thickest fire announced most foes. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared, 
 For he was dizzy, busy, and his veins 
 
 Filled as with lightning — for his Spirit shared 
 The hour, as is the case with lively brains ; 
 
 And where the hottest fire was seen and heard, 
 And the loud cannon pealed his hoarsest strains, 
 
 He rushed, while Earth and Air were sadly shaken 
 
 By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon ! ( 6 ) 
 
128 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 And as he rushed along, it came to pass he 
 Fell in with what was late the second column, 
 
 Under the orders of the General Lascy, 
 But now reduced, as is a bulky volume 
 
 Into an elegant extract (much less massy) 
 Of heroism, and took his place with solemn 
 
 Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces 
 
 And levelled weapons still against the glacis. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Just at this crisis up came Johnson too, 
 
 Who had " retreated," as the phrase is when 
 
 Men run away much rather than go through 
 Destruction's jaws into the devil's den ; 
 
 But Johnson was a clever fellow, who 
 Knew when and how " to cut and come again," 
 
 And never ran away, except when running 
 
 Was nothing but a valourous kind of cunning. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 129 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 And so, when all his corps were dead or dying, 
 Except Don Juan, — a mere novice, whose 
 
 More virgin valour never dreamt of flying, 
 From ignorance of danger, which indues 
 
 Its votaries, like Innocence relying 
 
 On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews, — 
 
 Johnson retired a little, just to rally 
 
 Those who catch cold in " shadows of Death's valley." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 And there, a little sheltered from the shot, 
 Which rained from bastion, battery, parapet, 
 
 Rampart, wall, casement, house — for there was not 
 In this extensive city, sore beset 
 
 By Christian soldiery, a single spot 
 
 Which did not combat like the devil, as yet, — 
 
 He found a number of Chasseurs, all scattered 
 
 By the resistance of the chase they battered. 
 
130 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And these he called on ; and, what's strange, they came 
 Unto his call, unlike " the Spirits from 
 
 •' The vasty deep," to whom you may exclaim, 
 Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home. 
 
 Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame 
 At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb, 
 
 And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds 
 
 Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 By Jove ! he was a noble fellow, Johnson, 
 And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles 
 
 Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon 
 We shall not see his likeness : he could kill his 
 
 Man quite as quietly as blows the Monsoon 
 Her steady breath (which some months the same still is): 
 
 Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle, 
 
 And could be very busy without bustle ; 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 131 
 
 XL. 
 
 And therefore, when he ran away, he did so 
 
 Upon reflection, knowing that behind 
 He would find others who would fain be rid so 
 
 Of idle apprehensions, which like wind 
 Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so 
 
 Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind, 
 But when they light upon immediate death, 
 Retire a little, merely to take breath. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 But Johnson only ran off, to return 
 
 With many other warriors, as we said, 
 Unto that rather somewhat misty bourn, 
 
 Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread. 
 To Jack howe'er this gave but slight concern : 
 
 His soul (like Galvanism upon the dead) 
 Acted upon the living as on wire, 
 And led them back into the heaviest fire. 
 
132 DON JUAN. Canto VIII- 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Egad ! they found the second time what they 
 The first time thought quite terrible enough 
 
 To fly from, malgre all which people say 
 Of glory, and all that immortal stuff 
 
 Which fills a regiment (besides their pay, 
 
 That daily shilling which makes warriors tough) — 
 
 They found on their return the self-same welcome, 
 
 Which made some think, and others know, a Hell come. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail, 
 Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle, 
 
 Proving that trite old truth, that life's as frail 
 As any other boon for which men stickle. 
 
 The Turkish batteries thrashed them like a flail 
 Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle, 
 
 Putting the very bravest, who were knocked 
 
 Upon the head, before their guns were cocked. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 133 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 The Turks behind the traverses and flanks 
 Of the next bastion, fired away like devils, 
 
 And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks : 
 However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels 
 
 Towns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks, 
 So ordered it, amidst these sulphury revels, 
 
 That Johnson and some few who had not scampered, 
 
 Reached the interior talus of the rampart. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen 
 Came mounting quickly up, for it was now 
 
 All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin, 
 
 Flame was showered forth above as well's below, 
 
 So that you scarce could say who best had chosen, 
 The gentlemen that were the first to show 
 
 Their martial faces on the parapet, 
 
 Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet. 
 
134 
 
 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 XLVI. 
 
 But those who scaled, found out that their advance 
 Was favoured by an accident or blunder. 
 
 The Greek or Turkish Cohom's ignorance 
 Had palisadoed in a way you'd wonder 
 
 To see in forts of Netherlands or France — 
 
 (Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under) — 
 
 Right in the middle of the parapet 
 
 Just named, these palisades were primly set: 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 So that on either side some nine or ten 
 
 Paces were left, whereon you could contrive 
 
 To march ; a great convenience to our men, 
 At least to all those who were left alive, 
 
 Who thus could form a line and fight again ; 
 And that which further aided them to strive 
 
 Was, that they could kick down the palisades, 
 
 Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades. ^ 7 ) 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 135 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Among the first, — I will not say the first, 
 For such precedence upon such occasions 
 
 Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst 
 Out between friends as well as allied nations : 
 
 The Briton must be bold who really durst 
 
 Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience, 
 
 As say that Wellington at Waterloo 
 
 Was beaten, — though the Prussians say so too ; — 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 And that if Bliicher, Bulow, Gneisenau, 
 
 And God knows who besides in " au" and " ou," 
 
 Had not come up in time to cast an awe 
 Into the hearts of those who fought till now 
 
 As tigers combat with an empty craw, 
 
 The Duke of Wellington had ceased to show 
 
 His orders, also to receive his pensions, 
 
 Which are the heaviest that our history mentions. 
 
136 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 L. 
 
 But never mind ; — " God save the king !" and kings ! 
 
 For if he don't, I doubt if men will longer — 
 I think I hear a little bird, who sings 
 
 The people by and bye will be the stronger : 
 The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings 
 
 So much into the raw as quite to wrong her 
 Beyond the rules of posting, — and the Mob 
 At last fall sick of imitating Job : 
 
 LI. 
 
 At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then, 
 
 Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a giant; 
 
 At last it takes to weapons such as men 
 
 Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant. 
 
 Then comes " the tug of war ;" — 'twill come again, 
 I rather doubt ; and I would fain say " fie on't," 
 
 If I had not perceived that Revolution 
 
 Alone can save the Earth from Hell's pollution. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 137 
 
 LII. 
 
 But to continue ; — I say not the first, 
 
 But of the first, our little friend Don Juan 
 
 Walked o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nurst 
 
 Amidst such scenes—- though this was quite anew one 
 
 To him, and I should hope to most. The thirst 
 
 Of Glory, which so pierces through and through one, 
 
 Pervaded him — although a generous creature, 
 
 As warm in heart as feminine in feature. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 And here he was — who upon Woman's breast, 
 Even from a child, felt like a child ; howe'er 
 
 The man in all the rest might be confest, 
 To him it was Elysium to be there ; 
 
 And he could even withstand that awkward test 
 Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair, 
 
 " Observe your lover when he leaves your arms ;" 
 
 But Juan never left them, while they had charms, 
 
138 DON JUAN. 
 
 Canto VIII. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Unless compelled by fate, or wave, or wind, 
 Or near relations, who are much the same. 
 
 But here he was ! — where each tie that can bind 
 Humanity must yield to steel and flame : 
 
 And he whose very body was all Mind, 
 
 Flung here by Fate, or Circumstance, which tame 
 
 The loftiest, hurried by the time and place, 
 
 Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race. 
 
 LV. 
 
 So was his blood stirred while he found resistance, 
 As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate, 
 
 Or double post and rail, where the existence 
 Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight, 
 
 The lightest being the safest : at a distance 
 He hated cruelty, as all men hate 
 
 Blood, until heated — and even there his own 
 
 At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 139 
 
 LVI. 
 
 The General Lascy, who had been hard prest, 
 
 Seeing arrive an aid so opportune 
 As were some hundred youngsters all abreast, 
 
 Who came as if just dropped down from the moon, 
 To Juan, who was nearest him, addressed 
 
 His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon, 
 Not reckoning him to be a " base Bezonian," 
 (As Pistol calls it) but a young Livonian. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew 
 As much of German as of Sanscrit, and 
 
 In answer made an inclination to 
 
 The General who held him in command ; 
 
 For seeing one with ribbons, black and blue, 
 Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand, 
 
 Addressing him in tones which seemed to thank, 
 
 He recognized an officer of rank. 
 
140 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Short speeches pass between two men who speak 
 No common language ; and besides, in time 
 
 Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek 
 Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime 
 
 Is perpetrated ere a word can break 
 
 Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime 
 
 In like church bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer, 
 
 There cannot be much conversation there. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 And therefore all we have related in 
 
 Two long octaves, passed in a little minute ; 
 
 But in the same small minute, every sin 
 Contrived to get itself comprised within it. 
 
 The very cannon, deafened by the din, 
 
 Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet, 
 
 As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise 
 
 Of human Nature's agonizing voice ! 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 141 
 
 LX. 
 
 The town was entered. Oh Eternity ! — 
 
 " God made the country, and man made the town," 
 So Cowper says — and I begin to be 
 
 Of his opinion, when I see cast down 
 Rome, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Nineveh, 
 
 All walls men know, and many never known ; 
 And pondering on the present and the past, 
 To deem the woods shall be our home at last : — 
 
 LXI. 
 
 Of all men, saving Sylla the Man-slayer, 
 
 Who passes for in life and death most lucky, 
 
 Of the great names which in our faces stare, 
 
 The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky, 
 
 Was happiest amongst mortals any where ; 
 For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he 
 
 Enjoyed the lonely, vigorous, harmless days 
 
 Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze. 
 
142 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Crime came not near him — she is not the child 
 Of Solitude ; health shrank not from him — for 
 
 Her home is in the rarely-trodden wild, 
 
 Where if men seek her not, and death be more 
 
 Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled 
 By habit to what their own hearts abhor — 
 
 In cities caged. The present case in point I 
 
 Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety ; 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 And what's still stranger, left behind a name 
 For which men vainly decimate the throng, 
 
 Not only famous, but of that good fame, 
 
 Without which Glory's but a tavern song — 
 
 Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame, 
 
 Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong ; 
 
 An active hermit, even in age the child 
 
 Of Nature, or the Man of Ross run wild. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 143 
 
 LXIV. 
 
 Tis true he shrank from men even of his nation, 
 When they built up unto his darling trees, — 
 
 He moved some hundred miles off, for a station 
 Where there were fewer houses and more ease ; 
 
 The inconvenience of civilization 
 
 Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please ; 
 
 But where he met the individual man 
 
 He shewed himself as kind as mortal can. 
 
 LXV. 
 
 He was not all alone : around him grew 
 
 A sylvan tribe of children of the chace, , 
 
 Whose young, unwakened world was ever new, 
 Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace 
 
 On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view 
 A frown on Nature's or on human face ; — 
 
 The free-born forest found and kept them free, 
 
 And fresh as is a torrent or a tree. 
 
144 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 And tall and strong and swift of foot were they, 
 Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions, 
 
 Because their thoughts had never been the prey 
 Of care or gain : the green woods were their portions ; 
 
 No sinking Spirits told them they grew grey, 
 No Fashion made them apes of her distortions ; 
 
 Simple they were, not savage ; and their rifles, 
 
 Though very true, were not yet used for trifles. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers, 
 And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil ; 
 
 Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers ; 
 Corruption could not make their hearts her soil ; 
 
 The Lust which stings, the Splendour which encumbers, 
 With the free foresters divide no spoil ; 
 
 Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes 
 
 Of this unsighing people of the woods. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 145 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 So much for Nature : — by way of variety, 
 Now back to thy great joys, Civilization ! 
 
 And the sweet consequence of large society, 
 War, Pestilence, the despot's desolation, 
 
 The kingly scourge, the Lust of Notoriety, 
 The millions slain by soldiers for their ration, 
 
 The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at three-score, 
 
 With Ismail's storm to soften it the more. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 The town was entered : first one column made 
 Its sanguinary way good — then another ; 
 
 The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade 
 
 Clashed 'gainst the scymitar, and babe and mother 
 
 With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid; — 
 Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother 
 
 The breath of Morn and Man, where foot by foot 
 
 The maddened Turks their city still dispute. 
 
146 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 Koutousow, he who afterwards beat back 
 
 (With some assistance from the frost and snow) 
 
 Napoleon on his bold and bloody track, 
 
 It happened was himself beat back just now : 
 
 He was a jolly fellow, and could crack 
 His jest alike in face of friend or foe, 
 
 Though life, and death, and victory were at stake, 
 
 But here it seemed his jokes had ceased to take : 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 For having thrown himself into a ditch, 
 Followed in haste by various grenadiers, 
 
 Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich, 
 He climbed to where the parapet appears ; 
 
 But there his project reached its utmost pitch ; 
 ('Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre's 
 
 Was much regretted) for the Moslem Men 
 
 Threw them all down into the ditch again. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 147 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 And had it not been for some stray troops, landing 
 They knew not where, being carried by the stream 
 
 To some spot, where they lost their understanding, 
 And wandered up and down as in a dream, 
 
 Until they reached, as day-break was expanding, 
 That which a portal to their eyes did seem, — 
 
 The great and gay Koutousow might have lain 
 
 Where three parts of his column yet remain. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops, 
 
 After the taking of the " Cavalier," 
 Just as Koutousow's most " Forlorn" of " Hopes" 
 
 Took like camelions some slight tinge of fear, 
 Opened the gate called " Kilia" to the groups 
 
 Of baffled heroes who stood shyly near, 
 Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, 
 Now thawed into a marsh of human blood. 
 
148 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LXXIV. 
 
 The Kozaks, or if so you please, Cossacques — 
 (I don't much pique myself upon orthography, 
 
 So that I do not grossly err in facts, 
 
 Statistics, tactics, politics and geography) — 
 
 Having been used to serve on horses' backs, 
 And no great dilettanti in topography 
 
 Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases 
 
 Their chiefs to order, — were all cut to pieces. 
 
 LXXV. 
 
 Their column, though the Turkish batteries thundered 
 Upon them, ne'ertheless had reached the rampart, 
 
 And naturally thought they could have plundered 
 The city, without being further hamper'd ; 
 
 But as it happens to brave men, they blundered — 
 The Turks at first pretended to have scampered, 
 
 Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion corners, 
 
 From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 149 
 
 LXXVI. 
 
 Then being taken by the tail — a taking 
 
 Fatal to bishops as to soldiers — these 
 Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking, 
 
 And found their lives were let at a short lease — 
 But perished without shivering or shaking, 
 
 Leaving as ladders their heaped carcases, 
 O'er which Lieutenant Colonel Yesouskoi 
 Marched with the brave battalion of Polouzki : — 
 
 LXXVII. 
 
 This valiant man killed all the Turks he met, 
 But could not eat them, being in his turn 
 
 Slain by some Mussulmans, who would not yet, 
 Without resistance, see their city burn. 
 
 The walls were won, but 'twas an even bet 
 
 Which of the armies would have cause to mourn :- 
 
 'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, 
 
 For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch. 
 
 V 
 
150 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 LXXVIII. 
 
 Another column also suffered much : — 
 
 And here we may remark with the Historian, 
 
 You should but give few cartridges to such 
 
 Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on : 
 
 When matters must be carried by the touch 
 
 Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on, 
 
 They sometimes, with a hankering for existence, 
 
 Keep merely firing at a foolish distance. 
 
 LXXIX. 
 
 A junction of the General Meknop's men 
 
 (Without the General, who had fallen some time 
 
 Before, being badly seconded just then) 
 
 Was made at length with those who dared to climb 
 
 The death-disgorging rampart once again ; 
 
 And though the Turk's resistance was sublime, 
 
 They took the bastion, which the Seraskier 
 
 Defended at a price extremely dear. 
 
Canto VTIT. DON JUAN. 151 
 
 LXXX. 
 
 Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers 
 
 Among the foremost, offered him good quarter, 
 
 A word which little suits with Seraskiers, 
 Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar. 
 
 He died, deserving well his country's tears, 
 A savage sort of military martyr. 
 
 An English naval officer, who wished 
 
 To make him prisoner, was also dished : 
 
 LXXXI. 
 
 For all the answer to his proposition 
 
 Was from a pistol shot that laid him dead ; 
 
 On which the rest, without more intermission, 
 Began to lay about with steel and lead — 
 
 The pious metals most in requisition 
 On such occasions : not a single head 
 
 Was spared, — three thousand Moslems perished here. 
 
 And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier. 
 
152 DON JUAN. Canto VIII- 
 
 LXXXII. 
 
 The city's taken — only part by part — 
 
 And Death is drunk with gore : there's not a street 
 Where fights not to the last some desperate heart 
 
 For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat. 
 Here War forgot his own destructive Art 
 
 In more destroying Nature ; and the heat 
 Of Carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden Slime, 
 Engendered monstrous shapes of every Crime. 
 
 LXXXIII. 
 A Russian officer, in martial tread 
 
 Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel 
 Seized fast, as if 'twere by the serpent's head 
 
 Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel : 
 In vain he kicked, and swore, and writhed, and bled, 
 
 And howled for help as wolves do for a meal — 
 The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, 
 As do the subtle snakes described of old. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 153 
 
 LXXXIV. 
 
 A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot 
 Of a foe o'er him, snatched at it, and bit 
 
 The very tendon, which is most acute — 
 
 (That which some ancient Muse or Modern Wit 
 
 Named after thee, Achilles) and quite through't 
 He made the teeth meet, nor relinquished it 
 
 Even with his life — for (but they lie) 'tis said 
 
 To the live leg still clung the severed head. 
 
 LXXXV. 
 
 However this may be, 'tis pretty sure 
 The Russian officer for life was lamed, 
 
 For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer, 
 And left him 'midst the invalid and maimed : 
 
 The regimental surgedn could not cure 
 His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed 
 
 More than the head of the inveterate foe, 
 
 Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go. 
 
154 DON JUAN. Cakto VIII 
 
 LXXXVI. 
 
 But then the fact's a fact — and 'tis the part 
 
 Of a true poet to escape from fiction 
 Whene'er he can ; for there is little art 
 
 In leaving verse more free from the restriction 
 Of truth than prose, unless to suit the mart 
 
 For what is sometimes called poetic diction, 
 And that outrageous appetite for lies 
 Which Satan angles with, for souls, like flies. 
 
 LXXXVII. 
 
 The City's taken, but not rendered ! — No ! 
 
 There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword : 
 The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow 
 
 Rolls by the city wall ; but deed nor word 
 Acknowledge aught of dread of death or foe : 
 
 In vain the yell of victory is roared 
 By the advancing Muscovite — the groan 
 Of the last foe is echoed by his own 
 
Canto VIIT. DON JUAN. 1 55 
 
 LXXXVIII. 
 
 The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves, 
 And human lives are lavished every where, 
 
 As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves 
 When the stript forest bows to the bleak air, 
 
 And groans ; and thus the peopled City grieves, 
 Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare ; 
 
 But still it falls with vast and awful splinters, 
 
 As Oaks blown down with all their thousand winters. 
 
 LXXXIX. 
 
 It is an awful topic — but 'tis not 
 
 My cue for any time to be terrific : 
 For checquered as is seen our human lot 
 
 With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific 
 Of melancholy merriment, to quote 
 
 Too much of one sort would be soporific ; — 
 Without, or with, oiFence to friends or foes, 
 1 sketch your world exactly as it goes. 
 
156 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 xc. 
 
 And one good action in the midst of crimes 
 Is " quite refreshing," in the affected phrase 
 
 Of these ambrosial,- Pharisaic times, 
 
 With all their pretty milk-and-water ways, 
 
 And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes, 
 A little scorched at present with the blaze 
 
 Of conquest and its consequences, which 
 
 Make Epic poesy so rare and rich. 
 
 XCI. 
 
 Upon a taken bastion where there lay 
 
 Thousands of slaughtered men, a yet warm group 
 Of murdered women, who had found their way 
 
 To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop 
 And shudder ; — while, as beautiful as May, 
 
 A female child of ten years tried to stoop 
 And hide her little palpitating breast 
 Amidst the bodies lulled in bloody rest. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 157 
 
 XCII. 
 
 Two villainous Cossacques pursued the child 
 
 With flashing eyes and weapons : matched with them 
 
 The rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild 
 Has feelings pure and polished as a gem, — 
 
 The bear is civilized, the wolf is mild : 
 
 And whom for this at last must we condemn? 
 
 Their natures ? or their sovereigns, who employ 
 
 .All arts to teach their subjects to destroy? 
 
 XCIII. 
 
 Their sabres glittered o'er her little head, 
 
 Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright, 
 
 Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead : 
 When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight, 
 
 I shall not say exactly what he said, 
 
 Because it might not solace " ears polite ;" 
 
 But what he did, was to lay on their backs, 
 
 The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques. 
 
158 DON JUAN. Canto VIII- 
 
 XCIV. 
 
 One's hip he slashed, and split the other's shoulder, 
 And drove them with their brutal yells to seek 
 
 If there might be chirurgeons who could solder 
 The wounds they richly merited, and shriek 
 
 Their baffled rage and pain ; while waxing colder 
 As he turned o'er each pale and gory cheek, 
 
 Don Juan raised his little captive from 
 
 The heap a moment more had made her tomb. 
 
 xcv. 
 
 And she was chill as they, and on her face 
 A slender streak of blood announced how near 
 
 Her fate had been to that of all her race ; 
 
 For the same blow which laid her Mother here, 
 
 Had scarred her brow, and left its crimson trace 
 As the last link with all she had held dear ; 
 
 But else unhurt, she opened her large eyes, 
 
 And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 159 
 
 XCVI. 
 
 Just at this instant, while their eyes were fixed 
 
 Upon each other, with dilated glance, 
 In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mixed 
 
 With joy to save, and dread of some mischance 
 Unto his protegee ; while her's, transfixed 
 
 With infant terrors, glared as from a trance, 
 A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face, 
 Like to alighted alabaster vase ; — 
 
 XCVII. 
 Up came John Johnson : (I will not say " Jack," 
 
 For that were vulgar, cold, and common place 
 On great occasions, such as an attack 
 
 On cities, as hath been the present case :) 
 Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back, 
 
 Exclaiming : — " Juan ! Juan ! On, boy ! brace 
 " Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar, 
 " That you and I will win St. George's collar.(«) 
 
160 DON JUAN. Canto V1H. 
 
 XCVIII. 
 
 " The Seraskier is knocked upon the head, 
 " But the stone bastion still remains, wherein 
 
 " The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead, 
 " Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din 
 
 " Of our artillery and his own : 'tis said 
 " Our killed, already piled up to the chin, 
 
 " Lie round the battery ; but still it batters, 
 
 " And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters. 
 
 XCIX. 
 
 " Then up with me !" — But Juan answered, " Look 
 " Upon this child — I saved her — must not leave 
 
 " Her life to chance ; but point me out some nook 
 " Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve, 
 
 " And I am with you." — Whereon Johnson took 
 A glance around — and shrugged — and twitched his 
 sleeve 
 
 And black silk neckcloth — and replied, " You're right; 
 
 " Poor thing! what's to be done? I'm puzzled quite." 
 
Can ro VIII. DON JUAN. 161 
 
 c. 
 
 Said Juan — " Whatsoever is to be 
 
 " Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure 
 " Of present life a good deal more than we." — 
 
 Quoth Johnson — " Neither will I quite ensure ; 
 " But at the least you may die gloriously." — 
 
 Juan replied — " At least I will endure 
 " Whate'er is to be borne — but not resign 
 '* This child, who is parentless and therefore mine." 
 
 CI. 
 
 Johnson said — *' Juan, we've no time to lose ; 
 
 " The child's a pretty child— a very pretty — 
 " I never saw such eyes — but hark ! now choose 
 
 " Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity ; — 
 " Hark ! how the roar increases ! — no excuse 
 
 " Will serve when there is plunder in a city ; — 
 " I should be loth to march without you, but, 
 " By God ! we'll be too late for the first cut." 
 
162 DON JUAN. Cakto-VIII. 
 
 on. 
 
 But Juan was immoveable ; until 
 
 Johnson, who really loved him in his way, 
 
 Picked out amongst his followers with some skill 
 Such as he thought the least given up to prey ; 
 
 And swearing if the infant came to ill 
 
 That they should all be shot on the next day ; 
 
 But, if she were delivered safe, and sound, 
 They should at least have fifty roubles round ; 
 
 CIII. 
 
 And all allowances besides of plunder 
 
 In fair proportion with their comrades ; — then 
 
 Juan consented to march on through thunder, 
 Which thinned at every step their ranks of men : 
 
 And yet the rest rushed eagerly — no wonder, 
 For they were heated by the hope of gain, 
 
 A thing which happens every where each day — • 
 
 No Hero trusteth wholly to half-pay. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 1G3 
 
 CIV. 
 
 And such is victory, and such is man ! 
 
 At least nine-tenths of what we call so ; — God 
 May have another name for half we scan 
 
 As human beings, or his ways are odd. 
 But to our subject: a brave Tartar Khan, — 
 
 Or " Sultan" as the author (to whose nod 
 In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call 
 This chieftain — somehow would not yield at all : 
 
 CV. 
 
 But flanked hy five brave sons (such is Polygamy, 
 That she spawns warriors by the score, where none 
 
 Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy) 
 He never would believe the city won 
 
 While courage clung but to a single twig. — Am I 
 Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son ? 
 
 Neither, — but a good, plain, old, temperate man, 
 
 Who fought with his five children in the van. 
 
164 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CVI. 
 
 To take him was the point. The truly brave, 
 
 When they behold the brave oppressed with odds, 
 
 Are touched with a desire to shield and save ; — 
 A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods 
 
 Are they — now furious as the sweeping wave, 
 Now moved with pity : even as sometimes nods 
 
 The rugged tree unto the summer wind, 
 
 Compassion breathes along the savage mind. 
 
 CVII. 
 
 But he would not be taken, and replied 
 
 To all the propositions of surrender 
 By mowing Christians down on every side, 
 
 As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender. 
 His five brave boys no less the foe defied ; 
 
 Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender, 
 As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience, 
 Apt to wear out on trifling provocations. 
 
CamtoVIII. DON JUAN. 165 
 
 CVIII. 
 And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who 
 
 Expended all their Eastern phraseology 
 In begging him, for God's sake, just to show 
 
 So much less fight as might form an apology 
 For them in saving such a desperate foe — 
 
 He hewed away, like doctors of theology 
 When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses 
 Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses. 
 
 CIX. 
 
 Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both 
 Juan and Johnson ; whereupon they fell, 
 
 The first with sighs, the second with an oath, 
 Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell, 
 
 And all around were grown exceeding wroth 
 At such a pertinacious Infidel, 
 
 And poured upon him and his sons like rain, 
 
 Which they resisted like a sandy plain 
 
166 DON JUAN. Canto VIIL 
 
 ex. 
 
 That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished — 
 His second son was levelled by a shot ; 
 
 His third was sabred ; and the fourth, most cherished 
 Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot ; 
 
 The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished, 
 Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not, 
 
 Because deformed, yet died all game and bottom, 
 
 To save a sire who blushed that he begot him. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar, 
 
 As great a scorner of the Nazarene 
 As ever Mahomet picked out for a martyr, 
 
 Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green, 
 Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter 
 
 On Earth, in Paradise; and when once seen, 
 Those Houris, like all other pretty creatures, 
 Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. v 167 
 
 CXII. 
 
 And what they pleased to do with the young Khan 
 In heaven, I know not, nor pretend to guess ; 
 
 But doubtless they prefer a fine young man 
 To tough old heroes, and can do no less ; 
 
 And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan 
 A field of battle's ghastly wilderness, 
 
 For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body, 
 
 You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody. 
 
 CXIII. 
 
 Your Houris also have a natural pleasure 
 In lopping off your lately married men, 
 
 Before the bridal Hours have danced their measure, 
 And the sad, second moon grows dim again, 
 
 Or dull Repentance hath had dreary leisure 
 To wish him back a bachelor now and then. 
 
 And thus your Houri (it may be) disputes 
 
 Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits. 
 
 M 
 
168 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXIV. 
 
 Thus the young Khan, with Houris in his sight, 
 
 Thought not upon the charms of four young brides, 
 
 But bravely rushed on his first heavenly night. 
 In short, howe'er our better Faith derides, 
 
 These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight, 
 As though there were one Heaven and none besides — 
 
 Whereas, if all be true we hear of Heaven 
 
 And Hell, there must at least be six or seven. 
 
 cxv. 
 
 So fully flashed the phantom on his eyes, 
 That when the very lance was in his heart, 
 
 He shouted " Allah !" and saw Paradise 
 With all its veil of mystery drawn apart, 
 
 And bright Eternity without disguise 
 
 On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart ; — 
 
 With Prophets, Houris, Angels, Saints, descried 
 
 In one voluptuous blaze, — and then he died : 
 
Canto VITI. DON JUAN. 169 
 
 CXVI. 
 
 But, with a heavenly rapture on his face, 
 
 The good old Khan, who long had ceased to see 
 
 Houris, or aught except his florid race 
 
 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. 
 
 CXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
170 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXVIII. 
 
 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. 
 
 CXIX. 
 
 '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 blood-shot eyes, all red with strife, 
 
 They honoured such determined scorn of life. 
 
Canto VIIL DON JUAN. 171 
 
 cxx. 
 
 But the stone bastion still kept up its fire, 
 Where the chief Pacha 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 enquire 
 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. 
 
 CXI. 
 
 In the mean time, cross-legged, with great sang froid, 
 Among the scorching ruins he sat 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. 
 
172 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 CXXIII. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 173 
 
 CXXIV. 
 
 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 grow ? 
 
 Cockneys of London ! Muscadins of Paris ! 
 
 Just ponder what a pious pastime war is : 
 
 cxxv. 
 
 Think how the joys of reading a Gazette 
 
 V 
 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. 
 
174 D0N JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXXVI. 
 
 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. 
 
 CXXVII. 
 
 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 ! 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 175 
 
 CXXVIII. 
 
 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 ravished very little. 
 
 CXXIX. 
 
 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. 
 
176 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 cxxx. 
 
 Some odd mistakes too happened in the dark, 
 Which showed a want of lanthorns, 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. 
 
 CXXXI. 
 
 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. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 177 
 
 CXXXII. 
 
 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. 
 
 CXXXIII. 
 
 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 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 our's."( 9 ) 
 
178 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXXXIV. 
 
 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. 
 
 cxxxv. 
 
 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 ! 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 179 
 
 CXXXVI. 
 
 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, butwof with gore. 
 
 CXXXVII. 
 
 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. 
 
 V 
 
180 DON JUAN. Canto VIII. 
 
 CXXXVIII. 
 
 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, 
 
 CXXXIX. 
 
 With which I still can harp,' and carp, and fiddle. 
 
 What further hath befallen or may befal 
 The hero of this grand poetic riddle, 
 
 I by and bye 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. 
 
Canto VIII. DON JUAN. 181 
 
 CXL. 
 
 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. 
 
 CXLI. 
 
 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. 
 
 END OF CANTO VIII. 
 
NOTES TO CANTO VIII. 
 
 Note 1, page 115, line 8. 
 
 " Allah ! Allah ! Hu !" 
 
 Allah Hu ! is properly the war cry of the Mussulmans, 
 and they dwell long on the last syllable, which gives it a 
 very wild and peculiar effect. 
 
 Note 2, page 115, line 14. 
 " Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) " is God's daughter." 
 " But thy* most dreaded instrument 
 " In working out a pure intent, 
 " Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter ; 
 " Yea, Carnage is thy daughter !" 
 
 Wordsworth's Thanksgiving Ode. 
 
 Note 3, page 120, line 8. 
 
 Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose. 
 
 A fact : see the Waterloo Gazettes. I recollect re- 
 marking at the time to a friend : — " There is fame! a man 
 is killed, his name is Grose, and they print it Grove." I 
 was at college with the deceased, who was a very amiable 
 and clever man, and his society in great request for his wit, 
 gaiety, and " chansons a boire." 
 
 * To wit, the Deity's : this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for Murder 
 as ever wasfound out by Garter King at Arms. — What would have been 
 said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage? 
 
 N 
 
184 NOTES TO CANTO VIII. 
 
 r 
 
 Note 4, page 122, line 16. 
 
 And this is rational 
 As any other notion, and not national. 
 
 See Major Vallencey and Sir Lawrence Parsons. 
 
 Note 5, -page 123, line 16. 
 
 'Tis pity " that such meanings should pave Hell." 
 
 The Portuguese proverb says, that " Hell is paved with 
 good intentions." 
 
 Note 6, page 127, line 16. 
 Thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon ! 
 Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this Friar. 
 
 Note 7, page 134, line 16. 
 
 Palisades, 
 Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades. 
 
 They were but two feet high above the level. 
 
 Note 8, page 159, line 16. 
 St. Georges collar. 
 The Russian military order. 
 
 Note 9, page 177, line 16. 
 
 " Glory to God and to the Empress .'" (Powers 
 Eternal ! such names mingled !) " Ismail's ovr's /" 
 
 In the original Russian — 
 
 '.' Slava bogu ! slava vain ! 
 " Krepost Vzala, y la tam." — 
 
 A kind of couplet ; for he was a poet. 
 

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