But here I leave the general concern To track our Hero on his path of Fame: He must his laurels separately earn-- For fifty thousand heroes, name by name, Though all deserving equally to turn A couplet, or an elegy to claim, Would form a lengthy lexicon of Glory, And, what is worse still, a much longer story: XVIII. And therefore we must give the greater number To the Gazette--which doubtless fairly dealt By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt Their clay for the last time their souls encumber;-- Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss Was printed _Grove_, although his name was Grose.[422] XIX. Juan and Johnson joined a certain corps, And fought away with might and main, not knowing The way which they had never trod before, And still less guessing where they might be going; But on they marched, dead bodies trampling o'er, Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing, But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win, To their _two_ selves, _one_ whole bright bulletin. XX. Thus on they wallowed in the bloody mire Of dead and dying thousands,--sometimes gaining A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher To some odd angle for which all were straining; At other times, repulsed by the close fire, Which really poured as if all Hell were raining Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore. XXI. Though 't was Don Juan's first of fields, and though The nightly muster and the silent march In the chill dark, when Courage does not glow So much as under a triumphal arch, Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch, Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day;-- Yet for all this he did not run away. XXII. Indeed he could not. But what if he had? There _have been_ and _are_ heroes who begun With something not much better, or as bad: Frederick the Great from Molwitz[423] deigned to run, For the first and last time; for, like a pad, Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one Warm bout are broken in to their new tricks, And fight like fiends for pay or politics. XXIII. He was what Erin calls, in her sublime Old Erse or Irish, or it may be _Punic_;-- (The antiquarians[424]--who can settle Time, Which settles all things, Roman, Greek, or Runic-- Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic Of Dido's alphabet--and this is rational As any other notion, and not national;)-- XXIV.