The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 70

At least _he feels it_, and some say he _sees_, Because he runs before it like a pig; Or, if that simple sentence should displease, Say, that he scuds before it like a brig, A schooner, or--but it is time to ease This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.

The next shall ring a peal to shake all people, Like a bob-major from a village steeple.

Lx.x.xVI.

Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night, The hum of armies gathering rank on rank!

Lo! dusky ma.s.ses steal in dubious sight Along the leaguered wall and bristling bank Of the armed river, while with straggling light The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank, Which curl in various wreaths:--how soon the smoke Of h.e.l.l shall pall them in a deeper cloak!

Lx.x.xVII.

Here pause we for the present--as even then That awful pause, dividing Life from Death, Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,-- Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!

A moment--and all will be Life again!

The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith, Hurrah! and Allah! and one moment more-- The death-cry drowning in the Battle's roar.[hz][411]

FOOTNOTES:

{302}[364] ["These [the seventh and eighth] Cantos contain a full detail (like the storm in Canto Second) of the siege and a.s.sault of Ismael, with much of sarcasm on those butchers in large business, your mercenary soldiery.... With these things and these fellows it is necessary, in the present clash of philosophy and tyranny, to throw away the scabbard. I know it is against fearful odds; but the battle must be fought; and it will be eventually for the good of mankind, whatever it may be for the individual who risks himself."--Letter to Moore, August 8, 1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 101.]

[365] --[Byron attributes this phrase to Orator Henley (_Letters_, 1898, i. 227); and to Bayes in the Duke of Buckingham's play, _The Rehearsal_ (_Letters_, 1901, v. 80).]

[hh] _Of Fenelon, of Calvin and of Christ_.--[MS. erased.]

[366] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza vii. line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 103, note 2.]

[hi] _Picking a pebble on the sh.o.r.e of Truth_.--[MS. erased.]

[367] ["Sir Isaac Newton, a little before he died, said, 'I don't know what I may seem to the world; but, as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea sh.o.r.e, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier sh.e.l.l than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.'"--Spence, _Anecdotes_ (quoting Chevalier Ramsay), 1858, p. 40.]

{304}[hj] _From fools who dread to know the truth of Life_.--[MS.

erased.]

[368] [Compare "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog,"

lines 7, sq., _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 280.]

[369] [Aleksandr Vasilievitch Suvoroff (1729-1800) opened his attack on Ismail, November 30, 1790. His forces, including Kossacks, exceeded 27,000 men.--_Essai sur l'Histoire Ancienne et Moderne de la Nouvelle Russie_, par le Marquis Gabriel de Castelnau, 1827, ii. 201.]

[370] ["Ismael est situe sur la rive gauche du bras gauche (i.e. the ilia) du Danube."--_Ibid._.]

{305}[371] [----"a peu pres a quatre-vingts verstes de la mer: elle a pres de trois milles toises de tour."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 201.]

[372] ["On a compris dans ces fortifications un faubourg moldave, situe a la gauche de la ville, sur une hauteur qui la domine: l'ouvrage a ete termine par un Grec. Pour donner une idee des talens de cet ingenieur, il suffira de dire qu'il fit placer les palissades perpendiculairement sur le parapet, de maniere qu'elles favorisaient les a.s.siegeans, et arretaient le feu des a.s.sieges."--_Ibid._, p. 202.]

[373] ["Le rempart en terre est prodigieus.e.m.e.nt eleve a cause de l'immense profondeur du fosse; il est cependant absolument rasant: il n'y a ni ouvrage avance, ni chemin couvert."--_Ibid._, p. 202.]

[374] [Casemate is a work made under the rampart, like a cellar or cave, with loopholes to place guns in it, and is bomb proof.--_Milit. Dict._]

[375] [When the breastwork of a battery is only of such height that the guns may fire over it without being obliged to make embrasures, the guns are said to fire in barbet.--_Ibid._]

{306}[376] ["Un bastion de pierres, ouvert par une gorge tres-etroite, et dont les murailles son fort epaisses, a une batterie casematee et une a barbette; il defend la rive du Danube. Du cote droit de la ville est un cavalier de quarante pieds d'elevation a pic, garni de vingt-deux pieces de canon, et qui defend la partie gauche."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 202.]

[377] ["Du cote du fleuve, la ville est absolument ouverte; les Turcs ne croyaient pas que les Russes p.u.s.s.ent jamais avoir une flotille dans le Danube."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]

[378] [Meknop [supposed to be a corruption of McNab], etc., in line three, are real names: Strongenoff stands for Strogonof, Tschitsshakoff for Tchitchagof, and, perhaps, Chokenoff for Tchoglokof.]

{307}[hk] ---- _these discords of d.a.m.nation_.--[MS. erased.]

[379] ["La premiere attaque etait composee de trois colonnes, commandees par les lieutenans-generaux Paul Potiemkin, Serge Lwow, les generaux-majors Maurice Lascy, Theodore Meknop.... Trois autres colonnes ... avaient pour chefs le comte de Samolow, les generaux elie de Bezborodko, Michel Koutousow; les brigadiers Orlow, Platow, Ribaupierre.... La troisieme attaque par eau n'avait que deux colonnes, sous les ordres des generaux-majors Ribas et a.r.s.eniew, des brigadiers Markoff et Tchepega," etc.--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 207.

Compare--

"Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky, And all the others that end in-offsky.

And Kutousoff he cut them off," etc.

Southey's _March to Moscow_, 1813.]

[380] [Count Boris Petrowitch Scheremetov, Russian general, died 1819; Prince Alexis Borisovitch Kourakin (1759-1829), and Count Alexis Iwanowitch Moussine-Pouschkine (1744-1817) were distinguished statesmen; Chrematoff is, perhaps, a rhyming double of Scherematoff, and Koklophti "a match-piece" to Koclobski.]

{308}[381] [Captain Smith, in the song--

"A Captain bold, in Halifax, That dwelt in country quarters, Seduc'd a maid who hang'd herself One Monday in her garters."

See George Colman's farce, _Love Laughs at Locksmiths_, 1818, p. 31.]

{309}[382] [Compare--

"While to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men, That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds."

_Hamlet_, act iv. sc. 4, lines 56-59.]

[hl] _The Conquest seemed not difficult_----.--[MS. erased.]

[383] ["On s'etait propose deux buts egalement avantageux, par la construction de deux batteries sur l'ile qui avoisine Ismael: le premier, de bombarder la place, d'en abattre les princ.i.p.aux edifices avec du canon de quarante-huit, effet d'autant plus probable, que la ville etant batie en amphitheatre, presque aucun coup ne serait perdu."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 203.]

[384] ["Le second objet etait de profiter de ce moment d'alarme pour que la flottille, agissant en meme temps, put detruire celle des Turcs. Un troisieme motif, et vraisemblablement le plus plausible, etait de jeter la consternation parmi les Turcs, et de les engager a capituler."--_Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie_, ii. 203.]

{310}[hm]

_Unless they are as game as bull-dogs or even tarriers_.

or, _A thing which sometimes hath occurred to warriors_, _Unless they happened to be as game as tarriers_.-- [MS. A. Alternative reading.]

_Unless they are Game as bull-dogs or even terriers_.--[MS. B.]

(Byron erased the reading of MS. B. and superscribed the reading of the text.)

[385] ["Une habitude blamable, celle de mepriser son ennemi, fut la cause."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]

[386] [" ... du defaut de perfection dans la construction des batteries; on voulait agir promptement, et on negligea de donner aux ouvrages la solidite qu'ils exigaient."--_Ibid._, p. 203.]