And here he was—who upon woman’s breast, Even from a child, felt like a child; howe’er The man in all the rest might be confest, To him it was Elysium to be there; And he could even withstand that awkward test Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair, ‘Observe your lover when he leaves your arms;’ But Juan never left them, while they had charms, Unless compell’d by fate, or wave, or wind, Or near relations, who are much the same. But here he was!—where each tie that can bind Humanity must yield to steel and flame: And he whose very body was all mind, Flung here by fate or circumstance, which tame The loftiest, hurried by the time and place, Dash’d on like a spurr’d blood-horse in a race. So was his blood stirr’d while he found resistance, As is the hunter’s at the five-bar gate, Or double post and rail, where the existence Of Britain’s youth depends upon their weight, The lightest being the safest: at a distance He hated cruelty, as all men hate Blood, until heated—and even then his own At times would curdle o’er some heavy groan. The General Lascy, who had been hard press’d, Seeing arrive an aid so opportune As were some hundred youngsters all abreast, Who came as if just dropp’d down from the moon, To Juan, who was nearest him, address’d His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon, Not reckoning him to be a ‘base Bezonian’ (As Pistol calls it), but a young Livonian. Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew As much of German as of Sanscrit, and In answer made an inclination to The general who held him in command; For seeing one with ribands, black and blue, Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand, Addressing him in tones which seem’d to thank, He recognised an officer of rank. Short speeches pass between two men who speak No common language; and besides, in time Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek Rings o’er the dialogue, and many a crime Is perpetrated ere a word can break Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime In like church-bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer, There cannot be much conversation there. And therefore all we have related in Two long octaves, pass’d in a little minute; But in the same small minute, every sin Contrived to get itself comprised within it. The very cannon, deafen’d by the din, Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet, As soon as thunder, ’midst the general noise Of human nature’s agonising voice! The town was enter’d. Oh eternity!— ‘God made the country and man made the town,’ So Cowper says—and I begin to be Of his opinion, when I see cast down Rome, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Nineveh, All walls men know, and many never known; And pondering on the present and the past, To deem the woods shall be our home at last