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.
Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night, The hum of armies gathering rank on rank! Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight Along the leaguer’d wall and bristling bank Of the arm’d river, while with straggling light The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank, Which curl in curious wreaths:—how soon the smoke Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!
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! Hurra! and Allah! and—one moment more, The death-cry drowning in the battle’s roar.
O blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds! These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem, Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds: And so they are; yet thus is Glory’s dream Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds At present such things, since they are her theme, So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars, Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars.
All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the men To wield them in their terrible array. The army, like a lion from his den, March’d forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,— A human Hydra, issuing from its fen To breathe destruction on its winding way, Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain Immediately in others grew again.
History can only take things in the gross; But could we know them in detail, perchance In balancing the profit and the loss, War’s merit it by no means might enhance, To waste so much gold for a little dross, As hath been done, mere conquest to advance. The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
And why?—because it brings self-approbation; Whereas the other, after all its glare, Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation, Which (it may be) has not much left to spare, A higher title, or a loftier station, Though they may make Corruption gape or stare, Yet, in the end, except in Freedom’s battles, Are nothing but a child of Murder’s rattles.