Think how the joys of reading a Gazette Are purchased by all agonies and crimes: Or if these do not move you, don’t forget Such doom may be your own in aftertimes. Meantime the Taxes, Castlereagh, and Debt, Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes. Read your own hearts and Ireland’s present story, Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley’s glory. But still there is unto a patriot nation, Which loves so well its country and its king, A subject of sublimest exultation— Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing! Howe’er the mighty locust, Desolation, Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling, Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne— Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone. But let me put an end unto my theme: There was an end of Ismail—hapless town! Far flash’d her burning towers o’er Danube’s stream, And redly ran his blushing waters down. The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream Rose still; but fainter were the thunders grown: Of forty thousand who had mann’d the wall, Some hundreds breathed—the rest were silent all! In one thing ne’ertheless ’tis fit to praise The Russian army upon this occasion, A virtue much in fashion now-a-days, And therefore worthy of commemoration: The topic ’s tender, so shall be my phrase— Perhaps the season’s chill, and their long station In winter’s depth, or want of rest and victual, Had made them chaste;—they ravish’d very little. Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less Might here and there occur some violation In the other line;—but not to such excess As when the French, that dissipated nation, Take towns by storm: no causes can I guess, Except cold weather and commiseration; But all the ladies, save some twenty score, Were almost as much virgins as before. Some odd mistakes, too, happen’d in the dark, Which show’d a want of lanterns, or of taste— Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark Their friends from foes,—besides such things from haste Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark Of light to save the venerably chaste: But six old damsels, each of seventy years, Were all deflower’d by different grenadiers. But on the whole their continence was great; So that some disappointment there ensued To those who had felt the inconvenient state Of ‘single blessedness,’ and thought it good (Since it was not their fault, but only fate, To bear these crosses) for each waning prude To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding, Without the expense and the suspense of bedding. Some voices of the buxom middle-aged Were also heard to wonder in the din (Widows of forty were these birds long caged) ‘Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!’ But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged, There was small leisure for superfluous sin; But whether they escaped or no, lies hid In darkness—I can only hope they did.