Part 42

For having thrown himself into a ditch, Follow’d in haste by various grenadiers, Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich, He climb’d to where the parapet appears; But there his project reach’d 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.

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 wander’d up and down as in a dream, Until they reach’d, as daybreak 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.

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops, After the taking of the ‘Cavalier,’ Just as Koutousow’s most ‘forlorn’ of ‘hopes’ Took like chameleons some slight tinge of fear, Open’d the gate call’d ‘Kilia,’ to the groups Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thaw’d into a marsh of human blood.

The Kozacks, 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.

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.