Don Juan 07-36 ~ 40
  

Don Juan 07-36
Canto the Seventh
 
     XXXVI

There was a man, if that he was a man,
     Not that his manhood could be call'd in question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span
     Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,
     He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted,
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.


Don Juan 07-37
Canto the Seventh
 
     XXXVII

This was Potemkin -- a great thing in days
     When homicide and harlotry made great;
If stars and titles could entail long praise,
     His glory might half equal his estate.
This fellow, being six foot high, could raise
     A kind of phantasy proportionate
In the then sovereign of the Russian people,
Who measured men as you would do a steeple.


Don Juan 07-38
Canto the Seventh
 
     XXXVIII

While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent
     A courier to the prince, and he succeeded
In ordering matters after his own bent;
     I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,
But shortly he had cause to be content.
     In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,
And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border
Were briskly fired and answer'd in due order.


Don Juan 07-39
Canto the Seventh
 
     XXXIX

But on the thirteenth, when already part
     Of the troops were embark'd, the siege to raise,
A courier on the spur inspired new heart
     Into all panters for newspaper praise,
As well as dilettanti in war's art,
     By his despatches couch'd in pithy phrase;
Announcing the appointment of that lover of
Battles to the command, Field-Marshal Souvaroff.


Don Juan 07-40
Canto the Seventh
 
     XL

The letter of the prince to the same marshal
     Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause
Been one to which a good heart could be partial --
     Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;
But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all
     With its proud brow, it merits slight applause,
Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,
"You will take Ismail at whatever price."
 
 
George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 
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