“ 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. ”
 Lord Byron, Don Juan (1819). copy citation

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“An English naval officer, who wish'd To make him prisoner, was also dish'd: 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. 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. 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.” source