This valiant man kill’d all the Turks he met, But could not eat them, being in his turn Slain by some Mussulmans, who would not yet, Without resistance, see their city burn. The walls were won, but ’twas an even bet Which of the armies would have cause to mourn: ’Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t’ other flinch. Another column also suffer’d much:— And here we may remark with the historian, You should but give few cartridges to such Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on: When matters must be carried by the touch Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on, They sometimes, with a hankering for existence, Keep merely firing at a foolish distance. A junction of the General Meknop’s men (Without the General, who had fallen some time Before, being badly seconded just then) Was made at length with those who dared to climb The death-disgorging rampart once again; And though the Turk’s resistance was sublime, They took the bastion, which the Seraskier Defended at a price extremely dear. Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers, Among the foremost, offer’d him good quarter, A word which little suits with Seraskiers, Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar. He died, deserving well his country’s tears, A savage sort of military martyr. An English naval officer, who wish’d To make him prisoner, was also dish’d: For all the answer to his proposition Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead; On which the rest, without more intermission, Began to lay about with steel and lead— The pious metals most in requisition On such occasions: not a single head Was spared;—three thousand Moslems perish’d here, And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier. The city ’s taken—only part by part— And death is drunk with gore: there’s not a street Where fights not to the last some desperate heart For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat. Here War forgot his own destructive art In more destroying Nature; and the heat Of carnage, like the Nile’s sun-sodden slime, Engender’d monstrous shapes of every crime. A Russian officer, in martial tread Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel Seized fast, as if ’twere by the serpent’s head Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel: In vain he kick’d, and swore, and writhed, and bled, And howl’d for help as wolves do for a meal— The teeth still kept their gratifying hold, As do the subtle snakes described of old. A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot Of a foe o’er him, snatch’d at it, and bit The very tendon which is most acute (That which some ancient Muse or modern wit Named after thee, Achilles), and quite through ’t He made the teeth meet, nor relinquish’d it Even with his life—for (but they lie) ’tis said To the live leg still clung the sever’d head.