There was a man, if that he was a man, Not that his manhood could be call’d in question, For had he not been Hercules, his span Had been as short in youth as indigestion Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan, He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on The soil of the green province he had wasted, As e’er was locust on the land it blasted. This was Potemkin—a great thing in days When homicide and harlotry made great; If stars and titles could entail long praise, His glory might half equal his estate. This fellow, being six foot high, could raise A kind of phantasy proportionate In the then sovereign of the Russian people, Who measured men as you would do a steeple. While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent A courier to the prince, and he succeeded In ordering matters after his own bent; I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded, But shortly he had cause to be content. In the mean time, the batteries proceeded, And fourscore cannon on the Danube’s border Were briskly fired and answer’d in due order. But on the thirteenth, when already part Of the troops were embark’d, the siege to raise, A courier on the spur inspired new heart Into all panters for newspaper praise, As well as dilettanti in war’s art, By his despatches couch’d in pithy phrase; Announcing the appointment of that lover of Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff. The letter of the prince to the same marshal Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause Been one to which a good heart could be partial— Defence of freedom, country, or of laws; But as it was mere lust of power to o’er-arch all With its proud brow, it merits slight applause, Save for its style, which said, all in a trice, ‘You will take Ismail at whatever price.’ ‘Let there be light! said God, and there was light!’ ‘Let there be blood!’ says man, and there’s a seal The fiat of this spoil’d child of the Night (For Day ne’er saw his merits) could decree More evil in an hour, than thirty bright Summers could renovate, though they should be Lovely as those which ripen’d Eden’s fruit; For war cuts up not only branch, but root. Our friends the Turks, who with loud ‘Allahs’ now Began to signalise the Russ retreat, Were damnably mistaken; few are slow In thinking that their enemy is beat (Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though I never think about it in a heat), But here I say the Turks were much mistaken, Who hating hogs, yet wish’d to save their bacon. For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew In sight two horsemen, who were deem’d Cossacques For some time, till they came in nearer view. They had but little baggage at their backs, For there were but three shirts between the two; But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks, Till, in approaching, were at length descried In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.