第70章

The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade Clash'd '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 madden'd Turks their city still dispute.

Koutousow, he who afterward beat back (With some assistance from the frost and snow)

Napoleon on his bold and bloody track, It happen'd 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;

But here it seem'd his jokes had ceased to take:

For having thrown himself into a ditch, Follow'd in haste by various grenadiers, Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich, He climb'd to where the parapet appears;

But there his project reach'd 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.

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 wander'd up and down as in a dream, Until they reach'd, 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.

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops, After the taking of the 'Cavalier,'

Just as Koutousow's most 'forlorn' of 'hopes'

Took like chameleons some slight tinge of fear, Open'd the gate call'd 'Kilia,' to the groups Of baffled heroes, who stood shyly near, Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud, Now thaw'd into a marsh of human blood.

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.

Their column, though the Turkish batteries thunder'd Upon them, ne'ertheless had reach'd the rampart, And naturally thought they could have plunder'd The city, without being farther hamper'd;

But as it happens to brave men, they blunder'd-The Turks at first pretended to have scamper'd, Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion corners, From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.

Then being taken by the tail- a taking Fatal to bishops as to soldiers- these Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking, And found their lives were let at a short lease-But perish'd without shivering or shaking, Leaving as ladders their heap'd carcasses, O'er which Lieutenant-Colonel Yesouskoi March'd with the brave battalion of Polouzki:-This valiant man kill'd all the Turks he met, But could not eat them, being in his turn Slain by some Mussulmans, 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.

Another column also suffer'd 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.

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.

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers, Among the foremost, offer'd 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 wish'd To make him prisoner, was also dish'd:

For all the answer to his proposition Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;

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 perish'd here, And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.

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.

Here War forgot his own destructive art In more destroying Nature; and the heat Of carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime, Engender'd monstrous shapes of every crime.

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 kick'd, and swore, and writhed, and bled, And howl'd for help as wolves do for a meal-The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, As do the subtle snakes described of old.

A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot Of a foe o'er him, snatch'd 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 relinquish'd it Even with his life- for (but they lie) 't is said To the live leg still clung the sever'd head.

However this may be, 't is pretty sure The Russian officer for life was lamed, For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer, And left him 'midst the invalid and maim'd:

The regimental surgeon could not cure His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed More than the head of the inveterate foe, Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.