CXXV 
Think how the joys of reading a Gazette 
Are purchas'd by all agonies and crimes: 
Or if these do not move you, don't forget 
Such doom may be your own in aftertimes. 
Meantime the taxes, Castlereagh, and debt, 
Are hints as good as sermons, or as rhymes. 
Read your own hearts and Ireland's present story, 
Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley's glory. 

CXXVI 
But still there is unto a patriot nation, 
Which loves so well its country and its King, 
A subject of sublimest exultation-- 
Bear it, ye Muses, on your brightest wing! 
Howe'er the mighty locust, Desolation, 
Strip your green fields, and to your harvests cling, 
Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne-- 
Though Ireland starve, great George weighs twenty stone. 

CXXVII 
But let me put an end unto my theme: 
There was an end of Ismail--hapless town! 
Far flash'd her burning towers o'er Danube's stream, 
And redly ran his blushing waters down. 
The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream 
Rose still; but fainter were the thunders grown: 
Of forty thousand who had mann'd the wall, 
Some hundreds breath'd--the rest were silent all! 

CXXVIII 
In one thing ne'ertheless 'tis fit to praise 
The Russian army upon this occasion, 
A virtue much in fashion now-a-days, 
And therefore worthy of commemoration: 
The topic's tender, so shall be my phrase: 
Perhaps the season's chill, and their long station 
In Winter's depth, or want of rest and victual, 
Had made them chaste--they ravish'd very little. 

CXXIX 
Much did they slay, more plunder, and no less 
Might here and there occur some violation 
In the other line; but not to such excess 
As when the French, that dissipated nation, 
Take towns by storm: no causes can I guess, 
Except cold weather and commiseration; 
But all the ladies, save some twenty score, 
Were almost as much virgins as before. 

CXXX 
Some odd mistakes, too, happen'd in the dark, 
Which show'd a want of lanterns, or of taste-- 
Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark 
Their friends from foes--besides such things from haste 
Occur, though rarely, when there is a spark 
Of light to save the venerably chaste: 
But six old damsels, each of seventy years, 
Were all deflower'd by different grenadiers. 

CXXXI 
But on the whole their continence was great; 
So that some disappointment there ensu'd 
To those who had felt the inconvenient state 
Of "single blessedness," and thought it good 
(Since it was not their fault, but only fate, 
To bear these crosses) for each waning prude 
To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding, 
Without the expense and the suspense of bedding. 

CXXXII 
Some voices of the buxom middle-ag'd 
Were also heard to wonder in the din 
(Widows of forty were these birds long cag'd) 
"Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!" 
But while the thirst for gore and plunder rag'd, 
There was small leisure for superfluous sin; 
But whether they escap'd or no, lies hid 
In darkness--I can only hope they did. 

CXXXIII 
Suwarrow now was conqueror--a match 
For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade. 
While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch 
Blaz'd, and the cannon's roar was scarce allay'd, 
With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch; 
And here exactly follows what he said: 
"Glory to God and to the Empress!" ( Powers 
Eternal!! such names mingled! ) "Ismail's ours." 

CXXXIV 
Methinks these are the most tremendous words, 
Since "MENE, MENE, TEKEL," and "UPHARSIN," 
Which hands or pens have ever trac'd of swords. 
Heaven help me! I'm but little of a parson: 
What Daniel read was short-hand of the Lord's, 
Severe, sublime; the prophet wrote no farce on 
The fate of nations; but this Russ so witty 
Could rhyme, like Nero, o'er a burning city. 

CXXXV 
He wrote this Polar melody, and set it, 
Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans, 
Which few will sing, I trust, but none forget it-- 
For I will teach, if possible, the stones 
To rise against Earth's tyrants. Never let it 
Be said that we still truckle unto thrones; 
But ye--our children's children! think how we 
Show'd what things were before the World was free! 

CXXXVI 
That hour is not for us, but 'tis for you: 
And as, in the great joy of your millennium, 
You hardly will believe such things were true 
As now occur, I thought that I would pen you 'em; 
But may their very memory perish too! 
Yet if perchance remember'd, still disdain you 'em 
More than you scorn the savages of yore, 
Who painted their bare limbs, but not with gore. 

CXXXVII 
And when you hear historians talk of thrones 
And those that sate upon them, let it be 
As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones, 
And wonder what old world such things could see, 
Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones, 
The pleasant riddles of futurity-- 
Guessing at what shall happily be hid, 
As the real purpose of a pyramid. 

CXXXVIII 
Reader! I have kept my word--at least so far 
As the first Canto promised. You have now 
Had sketches of love, tempest, travel, war-- 
All very accurate, you must allow, 
And Epic, if plain truth should prove no bar; 
For I have drawn much less with a long bow 
Than my forerunners. Carelessly I sing, 
But Phoebus lends me now and then a string. 

CXXXIX 
With which I still can harp, and carp, and fiddle. 
What further hath befallen or may befall 
The hero of this grand poetic riddle, 
I by and by may tell you, if at all: 
But now I choose to break off in the middle, 
Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall, 
While Juan is sent off with the despatch, 
For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.