The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 72

{327}[hw]

_As a brook's stream to cope with Ocean's flood shed_ _But still we moderns equal you in bloodshed_.--[MS. erased.]

{328}[hx]

_As in a General's letter when well whacked_ _Whatever deeds be done I will relate 'em,_ _With some small variations in the text_ _Of killed and wounded who will not be missed_.--[MS. erased.]

[hy] _Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot_.--[MS. erased.]

{329}[hz] _The desperate death-cry and the Battle's roar_.--[MS.

erased.]

[411] End of Canto 7. 1822.--[MS.]

CANTO THE EIGHTH.

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 t.i.tle, 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--[412]

A mirrored h.e.l.l! 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 a.s.sault scarce pa.s.sed Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises, When up the bristling Moslem rose at last, Answering the Christian thunders with like voices: Then one vast fire, air, earth, and stream embraced, Which rocked as 't were beneath the mighty noises; While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when The restless t.i.tan hiccups in his den;[413]

VIII.

And one enormous shout of "Allah!"[414] rose In the same moment, loud as even the roar Of War's most mortal engines, to their foes Hurling defiance: city, stream, and sh.o.r.e 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!"[415]

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,[416]

Though led by a.r.s.eniew, that great son of slaughter, As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.

"Carnage" (so Wordsworth tells you) "is G.o.d's daughter:"[417]

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,[ia]--too, had a ball between His cap and head,[418] 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.[419]

XII.

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic, And thirty thousand muskets flung their pills Like hail, to make a b.l.o.o.d.y Diuretic.[420]

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 roll in dust, the all-_white_ eye Turned back within its socket,--these reward Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest May win perhaps a riband at the breast!

XIV.

Yet I love Glory;--Glory's a great thing:-- Think what it is to be in your old age Maintained at the expense of your good King: A moderate pension shakes full many a sage, And Heroes are but made for bards to sing, Which is still better--thus, in verse, to wage Your wars eternally, besides enjoying Half-pay for life, make Mankind worth destroying.

XV.

The troops, already disembarked, pushed on To take a battery on the right: the others, Who landed lower down, their landing done, Had set to work as briskly as their brothers: Being grenadiers, they mounted one by one, Cheerful as children climb the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of mothers, O'er the intrenchment and the palisade,[421]

Quite orderly, as if upon parade.

XVI.

And this was admirable: for so hot The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded, Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot And sh.e.l.ls or h.e.l.ls, it could not more have goaded.

Of officers a third fell on the spot, A thing which Victory by no means boded To gentlemen engaged in the a.s.sault: Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault.

XVII.

But here I leave the general concern To track our Hero on his path of Fame: He must his laurels separately earn-- For fifty thousand heroes, name by name, Though all deserving equally to turn A couplet, or an elegy to claim, Would form a lengthy lexicon of Glory, And, what is worse still, a much longer story:

XVIII.