Their martial faces on the parapet,
Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.
XLVI
But those who scaled, found out that their advance
Was favoured by an accident or blunder:
The Greek or Turkish Cohorn’s674 ignorance
Had pallisadoed in a way you’d wonder
To see in forts of Netherlands or France—
(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)—
Right in the middle of the parapet
Just named, these palisades were primly set:675
XLVII
So that on either side some nine or ten
Paces were left, whereon you could contrive
To march; a great convenience to our men,
At least to all those who were left alive,
Who thus could form a line and fight again;
And that which farther aided them to strive
Was, that they could kick down the palisades,
Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.676
XLVIII
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
Was beaten—though the Prussians say so too;—
XLIX
And that if Blucher, Bulow, Gneisenau,
And God knows who besides in “au” and “ow,”
Had not come up in time to cast an awe677
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.
LI
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
Snatch when Despair makes human hearts less pliant.
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
Walked o’er the walls of Ismail, as if nursed
Amidst such scenes—though this was quite a new one
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.678
LIII
And here he was—who upon Woman’s breast,
Even from a child, felt like a child; howe’er
The Man in all the rest might be confessed,
To him it was Elysium to be there;
And he could even withstand that awkward test
Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair,
“Observe your lover when he leaves your arms;”
But Juan never left them—while they had charms,
LIV
Unless compelled by Fate, or wave, or wind,
Or near relations—who are much the same.
But here he was!—where each tie that can bind
Humanity must yield to steel and flame:
And he whose very body was all mind,
Flung here by Fate or Circumstance, which tame
The loftiest, hurried by the time and place,
Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race.
LV
So was his blood stirred 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 then his own
At times would curdle o’er some heavy groan.
LVI
The General Lascy, who had been hard pressed,
Seeing arrive an aid so opportune
As were some hundred youngsters all abreast,
Who came as if just dropped down from the moon
To Juan, who was nearest him, addressed
His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon,
Not reckoning him to be a “base Bezonian”679
(As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian.680
LVII
Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew
As much of German as of Sanskrit, 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 seemed to thank,
He recognised an officer of rank.
LVIII
Short speeches pass between two men who speak
No common language; and besides, in time
Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek
Rings o’er the dialogue, and many a crime
Is perpetrated ere a word can break
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime
In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,
There cannot be much conversation there.
LIX
And therefore all we have related in
Two long octaves, passed in a little minute;
But in the same small minute, every sin
Contrived to get itself comprised within it.
The very cannon, deafened 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!
LX
The town was entered. Oh Eternity!—
“God made the country, and man made the town,”
So Cowper says681—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:—
LXI
Of all men, saving Sylla,682 the man-slayer,
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,683
Was happiest amongst mortals anywhere;
For killing nothing but a bear or buck,
