The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry. George Gordon Byron

have something for both at the end of the race.

4

      "So now for the earth to take my chance,"

      Then up to the earth sprung he;

      And making a jump from Moscow to France,

      He stepped across the sea,

      And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,30

      No very great way from a Bishop's abode.38

5

      But first as he flew, I forgot to say,

      That he hovered a moment upon his way,

      To look upon Leipsic plain;

      And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,

      And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

      That he perched on a mountain of slain;

      And he gazed with delight from its growing height,

      Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,

      Nor his work done half as well:40

      For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,

      That it blushed like the waves of Hell!

      Then loudly, and wildly, and long laughed he:

      "Methinks they have little need here of me!"

6

      Long he looked down on the hosts of each clime,

      While the warriors hand to hand were —

      Gaul – Austrian and Muscovite heroes sublime,

      And – (Muse of Fitzgerald arise with a rhyme!)

      A quantity of Landwehr!39

      Gladness was there,50

      For the men of all might and the monarchs of earth,

      There met for the wolf and the worm to make mirth,

      And a feast for the fowls of the Air!

7

      But he turned aside and looked from the ridge

      Of hills along the river,

      And the best thing he saw was a broken bridge,40

      Which a Corporal chose to shiver;

      Though an Emperor's taste was displeased with his haste,

      The Devil he thought it clever;

      And he laughed again in a lighter strain,60

      O'er the torrent swoln and rainy,

      When he saw "on a fiery steed" Prince Pon,

      In taking care of Number One—

      Get drowned with a great many!

8

      But the softest note that soothed his ear

      Was the sound of a widow sighing;

      And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,

      Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear

      Of a maid by her lover lying —

      As round her fell her long fair hair,70

      And she looked to Heaven with that frenzied air

      Which seemed to ask if a God were there!

      And stretched by the wall of a ruined hut,

      With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,

      A child of Famine dying:

      And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,

      And the fall of the vainly flying!

9

      Then he gazed on a town by besiegers taken,

      Nor cared he who were winning;

      But he saw an old maid, for years forsaken,80

      Get up and leave her spinning;

      And she looked in her glass, and to one that did pass,

      She said – "pray are the rapes beginning?"41

10

      But the Devil has reached our cliffs so white,

      And what did he there, I pray?

      If his eyes were good, he but saw by night

      What we see every day;

      But he made a tour and kept a journal

      Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal,

      And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,90

      Who bid pretty well – but they cheated him, though!

11

      The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,

      Its coachman and his coat;

      So instead of a pistol he cocked his tail,

      And seized him by the throat;

      "Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here?

      'T is a new barouche, and an ancient peer!"42

12

      So he sat him on his box again,

      And bade him have no fear,

      But be true to his club, and staunch to his rein,100

      His brothel and his beer;

      "Next to seeing a Lord at the Council board,

      I would rather see him here."

13

      Satan hired a horse and gig

      With promises to pay;

      And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig,

      To redeem as he came away:

      And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig,

      And drove off at the close of day.

14

      The first place he stopped at – he heard the Psalm110

      That rung from a Methodist Chapel:

      "'T is the best sound I've heard," quoth he, "since my palm

      Presented Eve her apple!

      When Faith is all, 't is an excellent sign,

      That the Works and Workmen both are mine."

15

      He passed Tommy Tyrwhitt,43 that standing jest,

      To princely wit a Martyr:

      But the last joke of all was by far the best,

      When he sailed away with "the Garter"!

      "And" – quoth Satan – "this Embassy's worthy my sight,120

      Should I see nothing else to amuse me to night.

      With no one to bear it, but Thomas à Tyrwhitt,

      This ribband belongs to an 'Order of Merit'!"

16

      He stopped at an Inn and stepped within

      The Bar and read the "Times;"

      And never such a treat, as – the epistle of one "Vetus,"44

      Had he found save in downright crimes:

      "Though I doubt if this drivelling encomiast of War

      Ever saw a field fought, or felt a scar,

      Yet his fame shall go farther than he can guess,130

      For