from Canto VIII

21

Though ‘twas Don Juan’s first of fields, and though
     The nightly muster and the silent march
In the chill dark, when courage does not glow
     So much as under a triumphal arch,
Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw
     A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch,
Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day;—
Yet for all this he did not run away.

22

Indeed he could not. But what if he had?
     There have been and are heroes who begun
With something not much better or as bad:
    Frederick the Great from Molwitz deigned to run,
For the first and last time; for, like a pad,
     Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one
Warm bout are broken into their new tricks,
And fight like fiends for pay or politics.

23

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime
    Old Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic;—
(The Antiquarians who can settle Time,
    Which settles all things, Roman, Greek or Runic,
Swear that Pat’s language sprung from the same clime
    With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic
Of Dido’s alphabet; and this is rational
As any other notion, and not national);—

24

But Juan was quite “a broth of a boy,”
     A thing of impulse and a child of song;
Now swimming in the sentiment of joy,
     Or the sensation (if that phrase seem wrong)
And afterwards, if he must needs destroy,
     In such good company as always throng
To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure,
No less delighted to employ his leisure.

25

But always without malice; if he warr’d
     Or loved, it was with what we call “the best
Intentions,” which form all mankind’s trump card,
     To be produced when brought up to the test.
The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer—ward
     Off each attack, when people are in quest
Of their designs, by saying they meant well;
‘Tis pity “that such meaning should pave Hell.”

26

I almost lately have begun to doubt
     Whether Hell’s pavement—if it be so paved—
Must not have latterly been quite worn out,
     Not by the numbers Good Intent hath saved,
But by the mass who go below without
    Those antient good intentions, which once shaved
And smoothed the brimstone of that street of Hell
Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.

27

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides
     Warrior from warrior in their grim career,
Like chastest wives from constant husbands’ sides
     Just at the close of the first bridal year,
By one of those odd turns of Fortune’s tides,
     Was on a sudden rather puzzled here,
When, after a good deal of heavy firing,
He found himself alone, and friends retiring.

28

I don’t know how the thing occurred—it might
     Be that the greater part were killed or wounded,
And that the rest had faced unto the right
     About; a circumstance which has confounded
Caesar himself, who in the very sight
     Of his whole army, which so much abounded
In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield
And rally back his Romans to the field.

29

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was
     No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who fought
He knew not why, arriving at this pass,
     Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought
For a much longer time; then, like an ass—
     (Start not, kind reader, since great Homer thought
This simile enough for Ajax, Juan
Perhaps may find it better than a new one):—

30

Then, like an ass, he went upon his way,
     And, what was stranger, never looked behind;
But seeing, flashing forward, like the day
     Over the hills, a fire enough to blind
Those who dislike to look upon a fray,
     He stumbled on, to try if he could find
A path to add his own slight arm and forces
To corps, the greater part of which were corses.