The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point, Stopp’d as if once more willing to concede Quarter, in case he bade them not ‘aroynt!’ As he before had done. He did not heed Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint, And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed, As he look’d down upon his children gone, And felt—though done with life—he was alone But ’twas a transient tremor;—with a spring Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung, As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing Against the light wherein she dies: he clung Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring, Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young; And throwing back a dim look on his sons, In one wide wound pour’d forth his soul at once. ’Tis strange enough—the rough, tough soldiers, who Spared neither sex nor age in their career Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through, And lay before them with his children near, Touch’d by the heroism of him they slew, Were melted for a moment: though no tear Flow’d from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife, They honour’d such determined scorn of life. But the stone bastion still kept up its fire, Where the chief pacha calmly held his post: Some twenty times he made the Russ retire, And baffled the assaults of all their host; At length he condescended to inquire If yet the city’s rest were won or lost; And being told the latter, sent a bey To answer Ribas’ summons to give way. In the mean time, cross-legg’d, with great sang-froid, Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking Tobacco on a little carpet;—Troy Saw nothing like the scene around:—yet looking With martial stoicism, nought seem’d to annoy His stern philosophy; but gently stroking His beard, he puff’d his pipe’s ambrosial gales, As if he had three lives, as well as tails. The town was taken—whether he might yield Himself or bastion, little matter’d now: His stubborn valour was no future shield. Ismail ’s no more! The crescent’s silver bow Sunk, and the crimson cross glared o’er the field, But red with no redeeming gore: the glow Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water, Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter. All that the mind would shrink from of excesses; All that the body perpetrates of bad; All that we read, hear, dream, of man’s distresses; All that the devil would do if run stark mad; All that defies the worst which pen expresses; All by which hell is peopled, or as sad As hell—mere mortals who their power abuse— Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose. If here and there some transient trait of pity Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through Its bloody bond, and saved perhaps some pretty Child, or an aged, helpless man or two— What ’s this in one annihilated city, Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grew? Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris! Just ponder what a pious pastime war is.