from Canto VII

41

“Let there be light! said God, and there was light!”
     “Let there be blood!” says man, and there’s a sea!
The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night
     (For Day ne’er saw his merits) could decree
More evil in an hour, than thirty bright
     Summers could renovate, though they should be
Lovely as those which ripened Eden’s fruit,
For war cuts up not only branch, but root.

42

Our friends the Turks, who with loud “Alla’s” now
    Began to signalize the Russ retreat,
Were damnably mistaken; few are slow
     In thinking that their enemy is beat,
(Or beaten if you insist on grammar, though
     I never think about it in a heat)
But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,
Who hating hogs, yet wished to save their bacon.

43

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew
     In sight two horsemen, who were deemed cossacques
For some time, till they came in nearer view.
     They had but little baggage at their backs,
For there were but three shirts between the two;
     But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,
Till, in approaching, were at length descried
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.

44

“Great joy to London now!” says some great fool,
     When London had a grand illumination,
Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull,
     Is of all dreams the first hallucination;
So that the streets of coloured lamps are full,
     That Sage (said John) surrenders at discretion
His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,
To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense.

45

‘Tis strange that he should further “damn his eyes,”
     For they are damned; that once all famous oath
Is to the devil now no further prize,
     Since John has lately lost the use of both.
Debt he calls wealth, and taxes, Paradise;
     And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth,
Which stare him in the face, he won’t examine,
Or swears that Ceres hath begotten famine.

46

But to the tale;—great joy unto the camp!
    To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque,
O’er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp,
     Presaging a most luminous attack,
Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,
    Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,
He flitted to and fro a dancing Light,
Which all who saw it followed, wrong or right.

47

But certes matters took a different face;
     There was enthusiasm and much applause,
The fleet and camp saluted with great grace,
     And all presaged Good Fortune to their cause.
Within a cannon-shot length of the place
     They drew, constructed ladders, repaired flaws
In former works, made new, prepared fascines,
And all kinds of benevolent machines.

48

‘Tis thus the spirit of a single mind
     Makes that of multitudes take one direction,
As roll the waters to the breathing wind,
     Or roams the herd beneath the bull’s protection;
Or as a little dog will lead the blind,
    Or a bell-wether form the flock’s connection
By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual;
Such is the sway of your great men o’er little.

49

The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought
     That they were going to a marriage feast:
(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,
     Since there is discord after both at least.)
There was not now a luggage boy but sought
    Danger and spoil with ardour much encreased;
And why? because a little—odd—old man,
Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van.

50

But so it was; and every preparation
     Was made with all alacrity: the first
Detachment of three columns took its station,
     And waited but the signal’s voice to burst
Upon the foe: the second’s ordination
     Was also in three columns, with a thirst
For Glory gaping o’er a sea of slaughter:
The third, in columns two, attacked by water.