Don Juan: Canto The Eighth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABACDD EFEFGFHH IJIJIJKE LMLMLMII NONONONN PNPNPNQQ MNMNMNQQ MNMNMNRR STSTSTMM UVUWUVOO XNXNXNYY ZA2ZA2ZB2MM MNMNMNII C2MC2MC2MII JD2JD2JD2RR MIMIMJJJ E2NRNE2NOO QQQQQQZZ| The town was taken whether he might yield | A |
| Himself or bastion little matter'd now | B |
| His stubborn valour was no future shield | A |
| Ismail's no more The Crescent's silver bow | B |
| Sunk and the crimson Cross glar'd o'er the field | A |
| But red with no redeeming gore the glow | C |
| Of burning streets like moonlight on the water | D |
| Was imag'd back in blood the sea of slaughter | D |
| - | |
| All that the mind would shrink from of excesses | E |
| All that the body perpetrates of bad | F |
| All that we read hear dream of man's distresses | E |
| All that the Devil would do if run stark mad | F |
| All that defies the worst which pen expresses | G |
| All by which Hell is peopl'd or as sad | F |
| As Hell mere mortals who their power abuse | H |
| Was here as heretofore and since let loose | H |
| - | |
| If here and there some transient trait of pity | I |
| Was shown and some more noble heart broke through | J |
| Its bloody bond and sav'd perhaps some pretty | I |
| Child or an aged helpless man or two | J |
| What's this in one annihilated city | I |
| Where thousand loves and ties and duties grew | J |
| Cockneys of London Muscadins of Paris | K |
| Just ponder what a pious pastime war is | E |
| - | |
| Think how the joys of reading a Gazette | L |
| Are purchas'd by all agonies and crimes | M |
| Or if these do not move you don't forget | L |
| Such doom may be your own in aftertimes | M |
| Meantime the taxes Castlereagh and debt | L |
| Are hints as good as sermons or as rhymes | M |
| Read your own hearts and Ireland's present story | I |
| Then feed her famine fat with Wellesley's glory | I |
| - | |
| But still there is unto a patriot nation | N |
| Which loves so well its country and its King | O |
| A subject of sublimest exultation | N |
| Bear it ye Muses on your brightest wing | O |
| Howe'er the mighty locust Desolation | N |
| Strip your green fields and to your harvests cling | O |
| Gaunt famine never shall approach the throne | N |
| Though Ireland starve great George weighs twenty stone | N |
| - | |
| But let me put an end unto my theme | P |
| There was an end of Ismail hapless town | N |
| Far flash'd her burning towers o'er Danube's stream | P |
| And redly ran his blushing waters down | N |
| The horrid war whoop and the shriller scream | P |
| Rose still but fainter were the thunders grown | N |
| Of forty thousand who had mann'd the wall | Q |
| Some hundreds breath'd the rest were silent all | Q |
| - | |
| In one thing ne'ertheless 'tis fit to praise | M |
| The Russian army upon this occasion | N |
| A virtue much in fashion now a days | M |
| And therefore worthy of commemoration | N |
| The topic's tender so shall be my phrase | M |
| Perhaps the season's chill and their long station | N |
| In Winter's depth or want of rest and victual | Q |
| Had made them chaste they ravish'd very little | Q |
| - | |
| Much did they slay more plunder and no less | M |
| Might here and there occur some violation | N |
| In the other line but not to such excess | M |
| As when the French that dissipated nation | N |
| Take towns by storm no causes can I guess | M |
| Except cold weather and commiseration | N |
| But all the ladies save some twenty score | R |
| Were almost as much virgins as before | R |
| - | |
| Some odd mistakes too happen'd in the dark | S |
| Which show'd a want of lanterns or of taste | T |
| Indeed the smoke was such they scarce could mark | S |
| Their friends from foes besides such things from haste | T |
| Occur though rarely when there is a spark | S |
| Of light to save the venerably chaste | T |
| But six old damsels each of seventy years | M |
| Were all deflower'd by different grenadiers | M |
| - | |
| But on the whole their continence was great | U |
| So that some disappointment there ensu'd | V |
| To those who had felt the inconvenient state | U |
| Of single blessedness and thought it good | W |
| Since it was not their fault but only fate | U |
| To bear these crosses for each waning prude | V |
| To make a Roman sort of Sabine wedding | O |
| Without the expense and the suspense of bedding | O |
| - | |
| Some voices of the buxom middle ag'd | X |
| Were also heard to wonder in the din | N |
| Widows of forty were these birds long cag'd | X |
| Wherefore the ravishing did not begin | N |
| But while the thirst for gore and plunder rag'd | X |
| There was small leisure for superfluous sin | N |
| But whether they escap'd or no lies hid | Y |
| In darkness I can only hope they did | Y |
| - | |
| Suwarrow now was conqueror a match | Z |
| For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade | A2 |
| While mosques and streets beneath his eyes like thatch | Z |
| Blaz'd and the cannon's roar was scarce allay'd | A2 |
| With bloody hands he wrote his first despatch | Z |
| And here exactly follows what he said | B2 |
| Glory to God and to the Empress Powers | M |
| Eternal such names mingled Ismail's ours | M |
| - | |
| Methinks these are the most tremendous words | M |
| Since MENE MENE TEKEL and UPHARSIN | N |
| Which hands or pens have ever trac'd of swords | M |
| Heaven help me I'm but little of a parson | N |
| What Daniel read was short hand of the Lord's | M |
| Severe sublime the prophet wrote no farce on | N |
| The fate of nations but this Russ so witty | I |
| Could rhyme like Nero o'er a burning city | I |
| - | |
| He wrote this Polar melody and set it | C2 |
| Duly accompanied by shrieks and groans | M |
| Which few will sing I trust but none forget it | C2 |
| For I will teach if possible the stones | M |
| To rise against Earth's tyrants Never let it | C2 |
| Be said that we still truckle unto thrones | M |
| But ye our children's children think how we | I |
| Show'd what things were before the World was free | I |
| - | |
| That hour is not for us but 'tis for you | J |
| And as in the great joy of your millennium | D2 |
| You hardly will believe such things were true | J |
| As now occur I thought that I would pen you 'em | D2 |
| But may their very memory perish too | J |
| Yet if perchance remember'd still disdain you 'em | D2 |
| More than you scorn the savages of yore | R |
| Who painted their bare limbs but not with gore | R |
| - | |
| And when you hear historians talk of thrones | M |
| And those that sate upon them let it be | I |
| As we now gaze upon the mammoth's bones | M |
| And wonder what old world such things could see | I |
| Or hieroglyphics on Egyptian stones | M |
| The pleasant riddles of futurity | J |
| Guessing at what shall happily be hid | J |
| As the real purpose of a pyramid | J |
| - | |
| Reader I have kept my word at least so far | E2 |
| As the first Canto promised You have now | N |
| Had sketches of love tempest travel war | R |
| All very accurate you must allow | N |
| And Epic if plain truth should prove no bar | E2 |
| For I have drawn much less with a long bow | N |
| Than my forerunners Carelessly I sing | O |
| But Phoebus lends me now and then a string | O |
| - | |
| With which I still can harp and carp and fiddle | Q |
| What further hath befallen or may befall | Q |
| The hero of this grand poetic riddle | Q |
| I by and by may tell you if at all | Q |
| But now I choose to break off in the middle | Q |
| Worn out with battering Ismail's stubborn wall | Q |
| While Juan is sent off with the despatch | Z |
| For which all Petersburgh is on the watch | Z |
George Gordon Byron
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Don Juan: Canto The Eighth is a poem by George Gordon Byron. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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