Don Juan 08-081 ~ 085

Don Juan 08-081
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXXXI
For all the answer to his proposition
     Was from a pistol-shot that laid him dead;
On which the rest, without more intermission,
     Began to lay about with steel and lead --
The pious metals most in requisition
     On such occasions: not a single head
Was spared; -- three thousand Moslems perish'd here,
And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.

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Don Juan 08-082
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXXXII
The city's taken -- only part by part --
     And death is drunk with gore: there's not a street
Where fights not to the last some desperate heart
     For those for whom it soon shall cease to beat.
Here War forgot his own destructive art
     In more destroying Nature; and the heat
Of carnage, like the Nile's sun-sodden slime,
Engender'd monstrous shapes of every crime.

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Don Juan 08-083
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXXXIII
A Russian officer, in martial tread
     Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel
Seized fast, as if 't were by the serpent's head
     Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel:
In vain he kick'd, and swore, and writhed, and bled,
     And howl'd for help as wolves do for a meal --
The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,
As do the subtle snakes described of old.

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Don Juan 08-084
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXXXIV
A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot
     Of a foe o'er him, snatch'd at it, and bit
The very tendon which is most acute
     (That which some ancient Muse or modern wit
Named after thee, Achilles), and quite through 't
     He made the teeth meet, nor relinquish'd it
Even with his life -- for (but they lie) 't is said
To the live leg still clung the sever'd head.

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Don Juan 08-085
Canto the Eighth
 
     LXXXV
However this may be, 't is pretty sure
     The Russian officer for life was lamed,
For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer,
     And left him 'midst the invalid and maim'd:
The regimental surgeon could not cure
     His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed
More than the head of the inveterate foe,
Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.


George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron (1788-1824) 
ByronLong