If there might be chirurgeons who could solder
The wounds they richly merited,709 and shriek
Their baffled rage and pain; while waxing colder
As he turned o’er each pale and gory cheek,
Don Juan raised his little captive from
The heap a moment more had made her tomb.
XCV
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 scarred her brow, and left its crimson trace,
As the last link with all she had held dear;710
But else unhurt, she opened her large eyes,
And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.
XCVI
Just at this instant, while their eyes were fixed
Upon each other, with dilated glance,
In Juan’s look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mixed
With joy to save, and dread of some mischance
Unto his protégée; while hers, transfixed
With infant terrors, glared as from a trance,
A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,
Like to a lighted alabaster vase:—711
XCVII
Up came John Johnson (I will not say “Jack,”
For that were vulgar, cold, and common-place
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.712
XCVIII
“The Seraskier is knocked 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 killed, already piled up to the chin,
Lie round the battery; but still it batters,
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.
XCIX
“Then up with me!”—But Juan answered, “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 shrugged—and twitched his sleeve
And black silk neckcloth—and replied, “You’re right;
Poor thing! what’s to be done? I’m puzzled quite.”
C
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 insure;
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.”
CI
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 loath to march without you, but,
By God! we’ll be too late for the first cut.”
CII
But Juan was immovable; until
Johnson, who really loved him in his way,
Picked 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 delivered safe and sound,
They should at least have fifty rubles round,
CIII
And all allowances besides of plunder
In fair proportion with their comrades;—then
Juan consented to march on through thunder,
Which thinned at every step their ranks of men:
And yet the rest rushed 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.
CIV
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:
CV
But flanked 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.713
CVI
To take him was the point.—The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,
Are touched with a desire to shield and save;—
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
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.
CVII
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.714
His five brave boys no less the foe defied;
Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender
As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,715
Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.
CVIII
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 hewed away, like Doctors of Theology
When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses
Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.
CIX
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 poured upon him and his sons like rain,
Which they resisted like a sandy plain
CX
That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished—
His second son was levelled by a shot;
His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherished
Of all the
