And there, a little shelter’d from the shot, Which rain’d from bastion, battery, parapet, Rampart, wall, casement, house,—for there was not In this extensive city, sore beset By Christian soldiery, a single spot Which did not combat like the devil, as yet, He found a number of Chasseurs, all scatter’d By the resistance of the chase they batter’d. And these he call’d on; and, what ’s strange, they came Unto his call, unlike ‘the spirits from The vasty deep,’ to whom you may exclaim, Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home. Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb, And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads. By Jove! he was a noble fellow, Johnson, And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles, Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon We shall not see his likeness: he could kill his Man quite as quietly as blows the monsoon Her steady breath (which some months the same still is): Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle, And could be very busy without bustle; And therefore, when he ran away, he did so Upon reflection, knowing that behind He would find others who would fain be rid so Of idle apprehensions, which like wind Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind, But when they light upon immediate death, Retire a little, merely to take breath. But Johnson only ran off, to return With many other warriors, as we said, Unto that rather somewhat misty bourn, Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread. To Jack howe’er this gave but slight concern: His soul (like galvanism upon the dead) Acted upon the living as on wire, And led them back into the heaviest fire. Egad! they found the second time what they The first time thought quite terrible enough To fly from, malgré all which people say Of glory, and all that immortal stuff Which fills a regiment (besides their pay, That daily shilling which makes warriors tough)— They found on their return the self-same welcome, Which made some think, and others know, a hell come. They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail, Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle, Proving that trite old truth, that life ’s as frail As any other boon for which men stickle. The Turkish batteries thrash’d them like a flail, Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle Putting the very bravest, who were knock’d Upon the head, before their guns were cock’d. The Turks, behind the traverses and flanks Of the next bastion, fired away like devils, And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks: However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels Towns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks, So order’d it, amidst these sulphury revels, That Johnson and some few who had not scamper’d, Reach’d the interior talus of the rampart.