LXIV.
"T is true he shrank from men even of his nation, When they built up unto his darling trees,-- He moved some hundred miles off, for a station Where there were fewer houses and more ease; The inconvenience of civilisation Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please; But where he met the individual man, He showed himself as kind as mortal can.
LXV.
He was not all alone: around him grew A sylvan tribe of children of the chase, Whose young, unwakened world was ever new, Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view A frown on Nature"s or on human face; The free-born forest found and kept them free, And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.
LXVI.
And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they, Beyond the dwarfing city"s pale abortions, Because their thoughts had never been the prey Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions; No sinking spirits told them they grew grey, No fashion made them apes of her distortions; Simple they were, not savage--and their rifles, Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.
LXVII.
Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers, And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil; Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers; Corruption could not make their hearts her soil; The l.u.s.t which stings, the splendour which enc.u.mbers, With the free foresters divide no spoil; Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes Of this unsighing people of the woods.
LXVIII.
So much for Nature:--by way of variety, Now back to thy great joys, Civilisation!
And the sweet consequence of large society, War--pestilence--the despot"s desolation, The kingly scourge, the l.u.s.t of notoriety, The millions slain by soldiers for their ration, The scenes like Catherine"s boudoir at threescore,[444]
With Ismail"s storm to soften it the more.
LXIX.
The town was entered: first one column made Its sanguinary way good--then another; The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade Clashed "gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:-- Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot The maddened Turks their city still dispute.
LXX.
Koutousow,[445] he who afterwards beat back (With some a.s.sistance from the frost and snow) Napoleon on his bold and b.l.o.o.d.y track, It happened was himself beat back just now: He was a jolly fellow, and could crack His jest alike in face of friend or foe, Though Life, and Death, and Victory were at stake;[446]
But here it seemed his jokes had ceased to take:
LXXI.
For having thrown himself into a ditch, Followed in haste by various grenadiers, Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich, He climbed to where the parapet appears; But there his project reached 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.[447]
LXXII.
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 wandered up and down as in a dream, Until they reached, 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.[448]
LXXIII.
And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops, After the taking of the "Cavalier,"[449]
Just as Koutousow"s most "forlorn" of "hopes"
Took, like chameleons, some slight tinge of fear, Opened the gate called "Kilia," to the groups[450]
Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thawed into a marsh of human blood.
LXXIV.
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.[451]
LXXV.
Their column, though the Turkish batteries thundered Upon them, ne"ertheless had reached the rampart,[452]
And naturally thought they could have plundered The city, without being farther hampered; But as it happens to brave men, they blundered-- The Turks at first pretended to have scampered, Only to draw them "twixt two bastion corners,[453]
From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.
LXXVI.
Then being taken by the tail--a taking Fatal to bishops as to soldiers--these[ih]
Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking, And found their lives were let at a short lease--But perished without shivering or shaking, Leaving as ladders their heaped carca.s.ses, O"er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi Marched with the brave battalion of Polouzki:--[454]
LXXVII.
This valiant man killed all the Turks he met, But could not eat them, being in his turn Slain by some Mussulmans,[455] who would not yet, Without resistance, see their city burn.
The walls were won, but "t was an even bet Which of the armies would have cause to mourn: "T was blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor "t other flinch.
LXXVIII.
Another column also suffered 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.[456]
LXXIX.
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.[457]
Lx.x.x.
Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers, Among the foremost, offered 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 wished To make him prisoner, was also dished:
Lx.x.xI.
For all the answer to his proposition Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;[458]
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 perished here, And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.[459]
Lx.x.xII.
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.[460]
Here War forgot his own destructive art In more destroying Nature; and the heat Of Carnage, like the Nile"s sun-sodden slime, Engendered monstrous shapes of every crime.
Lx.x.xIII.
A Russian officer, in martial tread Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel Seized fast, as if "t were by the serpent"s head Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel; In vain he kicked, and swore, and writhed, and bled, And howled for help as wolves do for a meal-- The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, As do the subtle snakes described of old.[ii]
Lx.x.xIV.
A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot Of a foe o"er him, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 relinquished it Even with his life--for (but they lie) "t is said To the live leg still clung the severed head.
Lx.x.xV.