Don Juan
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.
Their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder’d
Upon them, ne’ertheless had reach’d the rampart,
And naturally thought they could have plunder’d
The city, without being farther hamper’d;
But as it happens to brave men, they blunder’d—
The Turks at first pretended to have scamper’d,
Only to draw them ’twixt two bastion corners,
From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.
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 perish’d without shivering or shaking,
Leaving as ladders their heap’d carcasses,
O’er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi
March’d with the brave battalion of Polouzki:—
This valiant man kill’d 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.
Another column also suffer’d 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.
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.
Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers,
Among the foremost, offer’d 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 wish’d
To make him prisoner, was also dish’d:
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 perish’d here,
And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.
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,
Engender’d monstrous shapes of every crime.
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 kick’d, and swore, and writhed, and bled,
And howl’d for help as wolves do for a meal—
The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,
As do the subtle snakes described of old.
A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot
Of a foe o’er him, snatch’d 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 relinquish’d it
Even with his life—for (but they lie) ’tis said
To the live leg still clung the sever’d head.
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 maim’d:
The regimental surgeon 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.
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.
The city ’s taken, but not render’d!—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 roar’d
By the advancing Muscovite—the groan
Of the last foe is echoed by his own.
The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves,
And human lives are lavish’d everywhere,
As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves
When the stripp’d 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 in vast and awful splinters,
As oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.
It is an awful topic—but ’tis not
My cue for any time to be terrific:
For checker’d 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, offence to friends or foes,
I sketch your world exactly as it goes.
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 scorch’d at present with the blaze
Of conquest and its consequences, which
Make epic poesy so rare and rich.
Upon a taken bastion, where there lay
Thousands of slaughter’d men, a yet warm group
Of murder’d 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 lull’d in bloody rest.
Two villainous Cossacques pursued the child
With flashing eyes and weapons: match’d with them,
The rudest brute that roams Siberia’s wild
Has feelings pure and polish’d as a gem,—
The bear is civilised, 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?
Their sabres glitter’d 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.
One’s hip he slash’d, 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 turn’d o’er each pale and gory cheek,
Don Juan raised his little captive from
The heap a moment more had made her tomb.
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 scarr’d her brow, and left its crimson trace,
As the last link with all she had held dear;
But else unhurt, she open’d her large eyes,
And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.
Just at this instant, while their eyes were fix’d
Upon each other, with dilated glance,
In Juan’s look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mix’d
With joy to save, and dread of some mischance
Unto his protege; while hers, transfix’d
With infant terrors, glared as from a trance,
A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,
Like to a lighted alabaster vase;—
Up came John Johnson (I will not say ‘Jack,’
For that were vulgar, cold, and commonplace
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.
‘The Seraskier is knock’d 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 kill’d, already piled up to the chin,
Lie round the battery; but still it batters,
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.
‘Then up with me!’—But Juan answer’d, ‘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 shrugg’d—and twitch’d his sleeve
And black silk neckcloth—and replied, ‘You’re right;
Poor thing! what ’s to be done? I’m puzzled quite.’
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.’
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.’
But Juan was immovable; until
Johnson, who really loved him in his way,
Pick’d 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 deliver’d safe and sound,
They should at least have fifty rubles round,
And all allowances besides of plunder
In fair proportion with their comrades;—then
Juan consented to march on through thunder,
Which thinn’d at every step their ranks of men:
And yet the rest rush’d eagerly—no wonder,
For they were heated by the hope of gain,
A thing which happens everywhere each day—
No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.
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:
But flank’d by 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.
To take him was the point. The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppress’d with odds,
Are touch’d with a desire to shield and save;—
A mixture of wild beasts and demigods