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 the inspirers! Call them Mars, Bellona, what you will-they mean but wars.
All was prepared-the fire, the sword, the men To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,A human Hydra, issuing from his fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain, Immediately in others grew again.
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.
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.
And such they are-and such they will be found. Not so Leonidas and Washington, Whose every battle-field is holy ground, [done. Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds un- How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound! While the mere victors may appal or stun The servile and the vain, such names will be A watchword till the future shall be free.
. VI. The night was dark, and the thick mist allow'd Nought to be seen, save the artillery's flame, Which arch'd the horizon like a fiery cloud,
And in the Danube's waters shone the same, A mirror'd hell! The volleying roar, and loud Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame The ear far more than thunder; for Heaven's flashes Spare, or smite rarely-Man's make millions ashes!
The column order'd on the assault scarce pass'd Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises, When up the bristling Moslem rose at last,
Answering the Christian thunders with like voices Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced, Which rock'd as 'twere beneath the mighty noises; While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when The restless Titan hiccups in his den.
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 thickening canopy the conflict o'er, Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through All sounds it pierceth, "Allah! Allah! Hu!" IX.
The columns were in movement, one and all: But, of the portion which attack'd by water, Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall, [ter, Though led by Arseniew, that great son of slaugh- As brave as ever faced both boom and ball.
Carnage (so Wordsworth tells you) is God's daughter: "
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.
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 ?
Also the General Markow, Brigadier, Insisting on removal of the prince, Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,- All common fellows, who might writhe and wince. And shriek for water into a deaf ear,-
The General Markow, who could thus evince His sympathy for rank, by the same token, To teach him greater, had his own leg broken. XII.
Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic, And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills Like hail, to make a bloody diuretic.
Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills; Thy plagues, thy famines, thy physicians, yet tick Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills Past, present, and to come;-but all may yield To the true portrait of one battle-field.
There the still varying pangs, which multiply Until their very number makes men hard By the infinities of agony,
Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard- The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turn'd back within its socket,-these reward Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest May win, perhaps, a ribband at the breast!
Yet I love glory; glory's a great thing; Think what it s to be, in your old age, Maintain'd at the expense of your good king! A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, And heroes are but made for bards to sing,
Which is still better; thus in verse to wage Your wars eternally, besides, enjoying Half-pay for life, makes mankind worth destroying. XV.
The troops, already disembark'd, push'd 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.
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:
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 stiffen'd heaven) as if he wish'd for day ;- Yet for all this he did not run away.
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: Frederic the Great from Molwitz deign'd 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.
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, Romans, 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
Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault. As any other notion, and not national ;)-4
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;-The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer-ward 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.
But always without malice. If he warr'd Or loved, it was with what we call "the best Intentions," which form all mankind's trump card, To be produced when brought up to the test.
Off each attack when people are in quest Of their designs, by saying they meant well; 'Tis pity" that such meaning should pave hell."s XXVI.
I almost lately have begun to doubt
Whether hell's pavement-if it be so pavedMust not have latterly been quite worn out,
Not by the numbers good intent hath saved, But by the mass who go below without
Those ancient good intentions, which once shaved And smooth'd the brimstone of that street of hell Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.
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.
I don't know how the thing occurr'd-it might Be that the greater part were kill'd or wounded, And that the rest had faced unto the right
About; a circumstance which has confounded Cæsar 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.
Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was No Cæsar, but a fine young lad, who fought, He knew not why, arriving at this pass,
Stopp'd for a minute, as perhaps he ought For a much longer time; then, like an ass- (Startnot, kind reader; since great Homer thought This simile enough for Ajax, Juan
Perhaps may find it better than a new one :)—
Then, like an ass, he went upon his way, And, what was stranger, never look'd 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.
Perceiving then no more the commandant
Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had Quite disappear'd-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 :)-
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 honor and his nose,
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 Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle, [still is ;)
Rush'd where the thickest fire announced most foes. And could be very busy without bustle:
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
And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau, And God knows who besides in "au" and ow,” 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. 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 by 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.
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 [pliant; Snatch when despair makes human hearts less 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. LII.
But to continue:-I say not the first,
But of the first, our little friend Don Juan Walk'd o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed fone Amid such scenes-though this was quite a new 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.
So was his blood stirr'd 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
Was beaten, though the Prussians say so too;- At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan.
LVI. The General Lascy, who had been hard press'd, Seeing arrive an aid so opportune As were some hundred youngsters all abreast, Who came as if just dropp'd down from the moon, To Juan, who was nearest him, address'd
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.
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 seem'd to thank, He recognized an officer of rank.
Short speeches pass between two men who speak No common language; and besides, in time Of war and taking towns, when many a crime Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a shriek Is perpetrated ere a word can break
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime In, like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, There cannot be much conversation there. [prayer, LIX.
And therefore all we have related in
Two long octaves, pass'd in a little minute; But in the same small minute, every sin
Contrived to get itself comprised within it. The very cannon, deafen'd 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!
The town was enter'd. 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.
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, backwoodsman of Kentucky, Was happiest among mortals any where;
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he Enjoy'd the lonely, vigorous, harmless days Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.
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 abhorIn cities caged. The present case in point I Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;
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.
'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 show'd himself as kind as mortal can
He was not all alone: around him grew A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, Whose young, unwaken'd 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.
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 por No sinking spirits told them they grew gray; [tions 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.
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 splendor which encum With the free foresters divide no spoil; [bers Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes Of this unsighing people of the woods.
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 threescore, With Ismail's storm to soften it the more.
The town was enter'd: first one column made Its sanguinary way good-then another; The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, 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 madden'd Turks their city still dispute.
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