Don Juan 08-101 ~ 105
Don Juan 08-101
Canto the Eighth
CI
Johnson said: "Juan, we've no time to lose;
The child's a pretty child -- a very pretty --
I never saw such eyes -- but hark! now choose
Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity; --
Hark! how the roar increases! -- no excuse
Will serve when there is plunder in a city; --
I should be loth to march without you, but,
By God! we'll be too late for the first cut."
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Don Juan 08-102
Canto the Eighth
CII
But Juan was immovable; until
Johnson, who really loved him in his way,
Pick'd out amongst his followers with some skill
Such as he thought the least given up to prey;
And swearing if the infant came to ill
That they should all be shot on the next day;
But if she were deliver'd safe and sound,
They should at least have fifty rubles round,
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Don Juan 08-103
Canto the Eighth
CIII
And all allowances besides of plunder
In fair proportion with their comrades; -- then
Juan consented to march on through thunder,
Which thinn'd at every step their ranks of men:
And yet the rest rush'd eagerly -- no wonder,
For they were heated by the hope of gain,
A thing which happens everywhere each day --
No hero trusteth wholly to half pay.
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Don Juan 08-104
Canto the Eighth
CIV
And such is victory, and such is man!
At least nine tenths of what we call so; -- God
May have another name for half we scan
As human beings, or his ways are odd.
But to our subject: a brave Tartar khan --
Or "sultan," as the author (to whose nod
In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call
This chieftain -- somehow would not yield at all:
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Don Juan 08-105
Canto the Eighth
CV
But flank'd by five brave sons (such is polygamy,
That she spawns warriors by the score, where none
Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy),
He never would believe the city won
While courage clung but to a single twig. -- Am I
Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son?
Neither -- but a good, plain, old, temperate man,
Who fought with his five children in the van.
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824)
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