Part 43

‘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 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.

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.

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 hew’d away, like doctors of theology When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.

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 pour’d upon him and his sons like rain, Which they resisted like a sandy plain

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perish’d— His second son was levell’d by a shot; His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherish’d Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot; The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourish’d, Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not, Because deform’d, yet died all game and bottom, To save a sire who blush’d that he begot him.

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar, As great a scorner of the Nazarene As ever Mahomet pick’d 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.

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.

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.

Thus the young khan, with houris in his sight, Thought not upon the charms of four young brides, But bravely rush’d 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.

So fully flash’d 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,

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 fell’d tree, Paused for a moment, from the fight, and cast A glance on that slain son, his first and last.

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point, Stopp’d as if once more willing to concede Quarter, in case he bade them not ‘aroynt!’ 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 look’d down upon his children gone, And felt—though done with life—he was alone

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 pour’d forth his soul at once.

’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, Touch’d by the heroism of him they slew, Were melted for a moment: though no tear Flow’d from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife, They honour’d such determined scorn of life.

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 inquire 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.

In the mean time, cross-legg’d, 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 seem’d to annoy His stern philosophy; but gently stroking His beard, he puff’d his pipe’s ambrosial gales, As if he had three lives, as well as tails.

The town was taken—whether he might yield Himself or bastion, little matter’d now: His stubborn valour was no future shield. Ismail ’s no more! The crescent’s silver bow Sunk, and the crimson cross glared o’er the field, But red with no redeeming gore: the glow Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water, Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses; All that the body perpetrates of bad; All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses; All that the devil would do if run stark mad; All that defies the worst which pen expresses; All by which hell is peopled, or as sad As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse— Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

If here and there some transient trait of pity Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through Its bloody bond, and saved perhaps some pretty Child, or an aged, helpless man or two— What ’s this in one annihilated city, Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew? Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris! Just ponder what a pious pastime war is.

Think how the joys of reading a Gazette Are purchased by all agonies and crimes: Or if these do not move you, don’t forget Such doom may be your own in aftertimes. Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt, Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes. Read your own hearts and Ireland’s present story, Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley’s glory.

But still there is unto a patriot nation, Which loves so well its country and its king, A subject of sublimest exultation— Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing! Howe’er the mighty locust, Desolation, Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling, Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne— Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone.