Don Juan 08-066 ~ 070

Don Juan 08-066
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXVI
And tall, and strong, and swift of foot were they,
    Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,
Because their thoughts had never been the prey
    Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions;
No sinking spirits told them they grew grey,
    No fashion made them apes of her distortions;
Simple they were, not savage; and their rifles,
Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

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Don Juan 08-067
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXVII
Motion was in their days, rest in their slumbers,
    And cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;
Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;
    Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;
The lust which stings, the splendour which encumbers,
    With the free foresters divide no spoil;
Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes
Of this unsighing people of the woods.

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Don Juan 08-068
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXVIII
So much for Nature: -- by way of variety,
    Now back to thy great joys, Civilisation!
And the sweet consequence of large society,
    War, pestilence, the despot's desolation,
The kingly scourge, the lust of notoriety,
    The millions slain by soldiers for their ration,
The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at threescore,
With Ismail's storm to soften it the more.

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Don Juan 08-069
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXIX
The town was enter'd: first one column made
    Its sanguinary way good -- then another;
The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade
    Clash'd 'gainst the scimitar, and babe and mother
With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid:
    Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother
The breath of morn and man, where foot by foot
The madden'd Turks their city still dispute.

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Don Juan 08-070
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXX
Koutousow, he who afterward beat back
    (With some assistance from the frost and snow)
Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,
    It happen'd was himself beat back just now;
He was a jolly fellow, and could crack
    His jest alike in face of friend or foe,
Though life, and death, and victory were at stake;
But here it seem'd his jokes had ceased to take:

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 
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