from Canto VII

51

New batteries were erected, and was held
     A general council, in which Unanimity,
That stranger to most councils, here prevailed,
     As sometimes happens in a great extremity;
And every difficulty being dispelled,
     Glory began to dawn with due Sublimity,
While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,
Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.

52

It is an actual fact, that he, Commander
     In chief, in proper person deigned to drill
The awkward squad, and could afford to squander
    His time, a corporal’s duty to fulfil;
Just as you’d break a sucking salamander
     To swallow flame, and never take it ill;
He showed them how to mount a ladder (which
Was not like Jacob’s) or to cross a ditch.

53

Also he dressed up, for the nonce, fascines
    Like men with turbans, scymitars and dirks,
And made them charge with bayonet these machines
     By way of lesson against actual Turks;
And when well practised in these mimic scenes,
     He judged them proper to assail the works;
At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty:
He made no answer; but he took the city.

54

Most things were in this posture on the eve
     Of the assault, and all the camp was in
A stern repose; which you would scarce conceive;
     Yet men, resolved to dash through thick and thin,
Are very silent when they once believe
     That all is settled:—there was little din,
For some were thinking of their home and friends,
And others of themselves and latter ends.

55

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,
    Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering;
For the man was, we safely may assert,
     A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering;
Hero, buffoon, half-demon and half-dirt,
    Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering;
Now Mars, now Momus; and when bent to storm
A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.

56

The day before the assault, while upon drill,
     For this great Conqueror played the corporal,
Some Cossacques hovering like hawks round a hill,
     Had met a party towards the twilight’s fall,
One of whom spoke their tongue or well or ill,
     ‘Twas much that he was understood at all;
But, whether from his voice, or speech, or manner,
They found that he had fought beneath their banner.

57

Whereon immediately at his request
     They brought him and his comrades to head quarters;
Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guessed
     That these were merely masquerading Tartars,
And that beneath each Turkish-fashioned vest
    Lurked Christianity; which sometimes barters
Her inward grace for outward show, and makes
It difficult to shun some strange mistakes.

58

Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt
    Before a company of Calmucks, drilling,
Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert,
     And lecturing on the noble art of killing,—
For deeming human clay but common dirt,
     This great philosopher was thus instilling
His maxims, which to martial comprehension
Proved death in battle equal to a pension,—

59

Suwarrow, when he saw this company
     Of Cossacques and their prey, turned round and cast
Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:—
     “Whence come ye?”—”From Constantinople last,
Captives just now escaped,” was the reply.
     “What are ye?”—”What you see us.” Briefly past
This dialogue; for he who answered knew
To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.

60

“Your names?”—”Mine’s Johnson, and my comrade’s Juan,
     The other two are women, and the third
Is neither man nor woman.” The Chief threw on
     The party a slight glance, then said: “I have heard
Your name before, the second is a new one;
     To bring the other three here was absurd;
But let that pass;—I think I have heard your name
In the Nikolaiew regiment?”—”The same.”