Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorr'd)
Gigantic gentlemen, yet had a touch
Of sentiment; and he she most adored
Was the lamented Lanskoi, who was such
A lover as had cost her many a tear,
And yet but made a middling grenadier.
O thou 'teterrima causa' of all 'belli'-
Thou gate of life and death—thou nondescript!
Whence is our exit and our entrance,—well I
May pause in pondering how all souls are dipt
In thy perennial fountain:—how man fell I
Know not, since knowledge saw her branches stript
