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.
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 various 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,
Hurrah! and Allah! and one moment more—
The death-cry drowning in the Battle’s roar.644645
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,
Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars.
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.
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.
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—646
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 Muslim 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;647
VIII
And one enormous shout of “Allah!”648 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!”649
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,650
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:”651
If he speak truth, she is Christ’s sister, and
Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.
X
The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee;
Count Chapeau-Bras,652—too, had a ball between
His cap and head,653 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?
XI
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.654
XII
Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,
And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills
Like hail, to make a bloody Diuretic.655
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
