LXX. He said, and in the kindest Calmuck tone, 66 Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean By bringing women here? They shall be shown All the attention possible, and seen In safety to the waggons, where alone In fact they can be safe. You should have been Aware this kind of baggage never thrives: Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives." LXXI. "May it please your excellency," thus replied Our British friend, "these are the wives of others, And not our own. I am too qualified By service with my military brothers To break the rules by bringing one's own bride LXXII. "But these are but two Turkish ladies, who To them, poor things, it is an awkward scrape LXXIII. Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes, In aspect, plainly clad, besmear'd with dust, LXXIV. For every thing seem'd resting on his nod, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,) With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power could condescend to do without. LXXV. John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay, Don Juan, who was much more sentimental, Or that the Russian army should repent all: And, strange to say, they found some consolation In this for females like exaggeration. LXXVI. And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses, A mortgage on Humanity's estate)- LXXVII. Suwarrow,-who but saw things in the gross, And as the wind a widow'd nation's wail, (So that their efforts should at length prevail) As wife and friends did for the boils of Job,What was't to him to hear two women sob? LXXVIII. Nothing. The work of glory still went on As terrible as that of Ilion, If Homer had found mortars ready made; But now, instead of slaying Priam's son, We only can but talk of escalade, [bullets; Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets. LXXIX. Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm All ears, though long; all ages, though so short, By merely wielding with poetic arm Arms to which men will never more resort, LXXX. Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain, With deadlier engines and a speedier blow, Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign; And yet, like all men else, I must allow, To vie with thee would be about as vain As for a brook to cope with ocean's flood; But still we moderns equal you in blood; LXXXI. If not in poetry, at least in fact; And fact is truth, the grand desideratum ! Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act, There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum. But now the town is going to be attack'd; Great deeds are doing-how shall I relate 'em? Souls of immortal generals! Phœbus watches To colour up his rays from your despatches. LXXXII. Oh, ye great bulletins of Bonaparte ! Oh, ye less grand long lists of kill'd and wounded! Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty, When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded! Oh, Cæsar's Commentaries! now impart, ye LXXXIII. When I call" fading" martial immortality, Some sucking hero is compell'd to rear, LXXXIV. Medals, rank, ribands, lace, embroidery, scarlet, As purple to the Babylonian harlot : An uniform to boys is like a fan To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet |