Byron's Don Juan :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more Cakes and Ale?”—
“Yes, by St. Anne; and Ginger shall be hot
i' the mouth too!”
Shakespeare Twelfth Night, or What you Will

Canto VI

1

“There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood”—you know the rest,
And most of us have found it, now and then;
At least we think so, though but few have guess'd
The moment, till too late to come again.
But no doubt every thing is for the best—
Of which the surest sign is in the end:
When things are at the worst they sometimes mend.

2

There is a tide in the affairs of women
“Which taken at the flood leads”—God knows where
Those navigators must be able seamen
Whose charts lay down its currents to a hair;
Not all the reveries of Jacob Behmen
With its strange whirls and eddies can compare:—
Men with their heads reflect on this and that—
But women with their hearts or heaven knows what!

3

And yet a headlong, headstrong, downright she,
Young, beautiful, and daring—who would risk
A throne, the world, the universe, to be
Beloved in her own way, and rather whisk
The stars from out the sky, than not be free
As are the billows when the breeze is brisk—
Though such a she's a devil (if that there be one)
Yet she would make full many a Manichean.

4

Thrones, worlds, et cetera, are so oft upset
By commonest Ambition, that when Passion
O'erthrows the same, we readily forget,
Or at the least forgive, the loving rash one.
If Anthony be well remembered yet,
'Tis not his conquests keep his name in fashion,
But Actium lost, for Cleopatra's eyes
Outbalance all the Caesar's victories.

5

He died at fifty for a queen of forty;
I wish their years had been fifteen and twenty,
For then wealth, kingdoms, worlds are but a sport—I
Remember when, though I had no great plenty
Of worlds to lose, yet still, to pay my court, I
Gave what I had—a heart:—as the world went, I
Gave what was worth a world; for worlds could never
Restore me those pure feelings, gone for ever.

6

'Twas the boy's “mite,” and like the “widow's” may
Perhaps be weighed hereafter, if not now;
But whether such things do or do not weigh,
All who have loved, or love, will still allow
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say,
And Love's a God, or was before the brow
Of Earth was wrinkled by the sins and tears
Of—but Chronology best knows the years.

7

We left our hero and third heroine in
A kind of state more awkward than uncommon,
For gentlemen must sometimes risk their skin
For that sad tempter, a forbidden woman:
Sultans too much abhor this sort of sin,
And don't agree at all with the wise Roman,
Heroic, stoic Cato, the sententious,
Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius.

8

I know Gulbeyaz was extremely wrong;
I own it, I deplore it, I condemn it;
But I detest all fiction even in song,
And so must tell the truth, howe'er you blame it.
Her reason being weak, her passions strong,
She thought that her lord's heart (even could she claim it)
Was scarce enough; for he had fifty-nine
Years, and a fifteen-hundredth concubine.

9

I am not, like Cassio, “an arithmetician,”
But by “the bookish theoric” it appears,
If 'tis summed up with feminine precision,
That, adding to the account his Highness' years,
The fair Sultana erred from inanition;
For were the Sultan just to all his dears,
She could but claim the fifteenth hundred part
Of what should be monopoly—the heart.

10

It is observed that ladies are litigious
Upon all legal objects of possession,
And not the least so when they are religious,
Which doubles what they think of the transgression.
With suits and prosecutions they besiege us,
As the tribunals show through many a session,
When they suspect that any one goes shares
In that to which the law makes them sole heirs.

11

Now if this holds good in a Christian land,
The heathen also, though with lesser latitude,
Are apt to carry things with a high hand,
And take, what kings call “an imposing attitude”;
And for their rights connubial make a stand,
When their liege husbands treat them with ingratitude;
And as four wives must have quadruple claims,
The Tigris hath its jealousies like Thames.

12

Gulbeyaz was the fourth, and (as I said)
The favourite; but what's favour amongst four?
Polygamy may well be held in dread,
Not only as a sin, but as a bore:—
Most wise men with one moderate woman wed,
Will scarcely find philosophy for more;
And all (except Mahometans) forbear
To make the nuptial couch a “Bed of Ware.”

13

His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,—
So styled according to the usual forms
Of every monarch, till they are consigned
To those sad hungry jacobins the worms,
Who on the very loftiest kings have dined,—
His Highness gazed upon Gulbeyaz' charms,
Expecting all the welcome of a lover,
(A “Highland welcome” all the wide world over).

14

Now here we should distinguish; for howe'er
Kisses, sweet words, embraces, and all that,
May look like what is—neither here nor there,
They are put on as easily as a hat,
Or rather bonnet, which the fair sex wear,
Trimmed either heads or hearts to decorate,
Which form an ornament, but no more part
Of heads, than their caresses of the heart.

15

A slight blush, a soft tremor, a calm kind
Of gentle feminine delight, and shown
More in the eyelids than the eyes, resigned
Rather to hide what pleases most unknown,
Are the best tokens (to a modest mind)
Of love, when seated on his loveliest throne,
A sincere woman's breast,—for over warm
Or over cold annihilates the charm.

16

For over warmth, if false, is worse than truth;
If true, 'tis no great lease of its own fire;
For no one, save in very early youth,
Would like (I think) to trust all to desire,
Which is but a precarious bond, in sooth,
And apt to be transferred to the first buyer
At a sad discount: while your over chilly
Women, on t'other hand, seem somewhat silly.

17

That is, we cannot pardon their bad taste,
For so it seems to lovers swift or slow,
Who fain would have a mutual flame confest,
And see a sentimental passion glow,
Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest,
In his Monastic Concubine of Snow;—
In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is
Horatian, “Medio tu tutissimus ibis.”

18

The “tu” 's too much,—but let it stand—the verse
Requires it, that's to say, the English rhyme,
And not the pink of old Hexameters;
But, after all, there's neither tune nor time
In the last line, which cannot well be worse,
And was thrust in to close the octave's chime:

I own no prosody can ever rate it
As a rule, but Truth may, if you translate it.

19

If fair Gulbeyaz overdid her part,
I know not—it succeeded, and success
Is much in most things, not less in the heart
Than other articles of female dress.
Self-love in man too beats all female art;
They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less:
And no one virtue yet, except Starvation,
Could stop that worst of vices—Propagation.

20

We leave this royal couple to repose;
A bed is not a throne, and they may sleep,
Whate'er their dreams be, if of joys or woes;
Yet disappointed joys are woes as deep
As any man's clay mixture undergoes.
Our least of sorrows are such as we weep;
'Tis the vile daily drop on drop which wears
The soul out (like the stone) with petty cares.

21

A scolding wife, a sullen son, a bill
To pay, unpaid, protested, or discounted
At a per-centage; a child cross, dog ill,
A favourite horse fallen lame just as he's mounted;
A bad old woman making a worse will,
Which leaves you minus of the cash you counted
As certain;—these are paltry things, and yet
I've rarely seen the man they did not fret.

22

I'm a philosopher; confound them all!
Bills, beasts, and men, and—no! not Womankind!
With one good hearty curse I vent my gall,
And then my Stoicism leaves nought behind
Which it can either pain or evil call,
And I can give my whole soul up to mind;
Though what is soul or mind, their birth or growth,
Is more than I know—the deuce take them both.

23

So now all things are damn'd, one feels at ease,
As after reading Athanasius' curse,
Which doth your true believer so much please:
I doubt if any now could make it worse
O'er his worst enemy when at his knees,
'Tis so sententious, positive, and terse,
And decorates the book of Common Prayer,
As doth a Rainbow the just clearing air.

24

Gulbeyaz and her lord were sleeping, or
At least one of them—Oh the heavy night!
When wicked wives who love some bachelor
Lie down in dudgeon to sigh for the light
Of the grey morning, and look vainly for
Its twinkle through the lattice dusky quite,
To toss, to tumble, doze, revive, and quake
Lest their too lawful bed-fellow should wake.

25

These are beneath the canopy of heaven,
Also beneath the canopy of beds
Four-posted and silk curtained, which are given
For rich men and their brides to lay their heads
Upon, in sheets white as what bards call “driven
Snow.” Well! 'tis all hap-hazard when one weds.
Gulbeyaz was an empress, but had been
Perhaps as wretched if a peasant's quean.

26

Don Juan in his feminine disguise,
With all the damsels in their long array,
Had bowed themselves before the imperial eyes,
And at the usual signal ta'en their way
Back to their chambers, those long galleries
In the Seraglio, where the ladies lay
Their delicate limbs; a thousand bosoms there
Beating for love as the caged birds for air.

27

I love the sex, and sometimes would reverse
The tyrant's wish, “that mankind only had
One neck, which he with one fell stroke might pierce”:
My wish is quite as wide, but not so bad,
And much more tender on the whole than fierce;
It being (not now, but only while a lad)
That Womankind had but one rosy mouth,
To kiss them all at once from North to South.

28

Oh enviable Briareus! with thy hands
And heads, if thou hadst all things multiplied
In such proportion!—But my Muse withstands
The giant thought of being a Titan's bride,
Or travelling in Patagonian lands;
So let us back to Lilliput, and guide
Our hero through the labyrinth of love
In which we left him several lines above.

29

He went forth with the lovely Odalisques,
At the given signal joined to their array;
And though he certainly ran many risks,
Yet he could not at times keep, by the way,
(Although the consequences of such frisks
Are worse than the worst damages men pay
In moral England, where the thing's a tax)
From ogling all their charms from breasts to backs.

30

Still he forgot not his disguise:—along
The galleries from room to room they walked,
A virgin-like and edifying throng,
By eunuchs flanked; while at their head there stalked
A dame who kept up discipline among
The female ranks, so that none stirred or talked
Without her sanction on their she-parades:
Her title was “the Mother of the Maids.”

31

Whether she was a “mother,” I know not,
Or whether they were “maids” who called her mother;
But this is her seraglio title, got
I know not how, but good as any other;
So Cantemir can tell you, or De Tott:
Her office was, to keep aloof or smother
All bad propensities in fifteen hundred
Young women, and correct them when they blundered.

32

A goodly sinecure, no doubt! but made
More easy by the absence of all men
Except his Majesty, who, with her aid,
And guards, and bolts, and walls, and now and then
A slight example, just to cast a shade
Along the rest, contrived to keep this den
Of beauties cool as an Italian convent,
Where all the passions have, alas! but one vent.

33

And what is that? Devotion, doubtless—how
Could you ask such a question?—but we will
Continue. As I said, this goodly row
Of ladies of all countries at the will
Of one good man, with stately march and slow,
Like water-lilies floating down a rill
Or rather lake—for rills do not run slowly,—
Paced on most maiden-like and melancholy.

34

But when they reached their own apartments, there,
Like birds, or boys, or bedlamites broke loose,
Waves at spring-tide, or women any where
When freed from bonds (which are of no great use
After all) or like Irish at a fair,
Their guards being gone, and as it were a truce
Established between them and bondage, they
Began to sing, dance, chatter, smile and play.

35

Their talk of course ran most on the new comer,
Her shape, her hair, her air, her every thing:
Some thought her dress did not so much become her,
Or wondered at her ears without a ring;
Some said her years were getting nigh their summer,
Others contended they were but in spring;
Some thought her rather masculine in height,
While others wished that she had been so quite.

36

But no one doubted on the whole, that she
Was what her dress bespoke, a damsel fair,
And fresh, and “beautiful exceedingly,”
Who with the brightest Georgians might compare:
They wondered how Gulbeyaz too could be
So silly as to buy slaves who might share
(If that his Highness wearied of his bride)
Her throne and power and every thing beside.

37

But what was strangest in this virgin crew,
Although her beauty was enough to vex,
After the first investigating view,
They all found out as few, or fewer, specks
In the fair form of their companion new,
Than is the custom of the gentle sex,
When they survey, with Christian eyes or Heathen,
In a new face “the ugliest creature breathing.”

38

And yet they had their little jealousies
Like all the rest; but upon this occasion,
Whether there are such things as sympathies
Without our knowledge or our approbation,
Although they could not see through his disguise,
All felt a soft kind of concatenation,
Like Magnetism, or Devilism, or what
You please—we will not quarrel about that:

39

But certain 'tis they all felt for their new
Companion something newer still, as 'twere
A sentimental friendship through and through,
Extremely pure, which made them all concur
In wishing her their sister, save a few
Who wished they had a brother, just like her,
Whom, if they were at home in sweet Circassia,
They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha.

40

Of those who had most genius for this sort
Of sentimental friendship, there were three,
Lolah, Katinka, and Dudù; in short,
(To save description) fair as fair can be
Were they, according to the best report,
Though differing in stature and degree,
And clime and time, and country and complexion;
They all alike admired their new connexion.

41

Lolah was dusk as India and as warm;
Katinka was a Georgian, white and red,
With great blue eyes, a lovely hand and arm,
And feet so small they scarce seemed made to tread,
But rather skim the earth; while Dudù's form
Looked more adapted to be put to bed,
Being somewhat large and languishing and lazy,
Yet of a beauty that would drive you crazy.

42

A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudù,
Yet very fit to “murder sleep” in those
Who gazed upon her cheek's transcendant hue,
Her Attic forehead, and her Phidian nose:
Few angles were there in her form 'tis true,
Thinner she might have been and yet scarce lose;
Yet, after all, 'twould puzzle to say where
It would not spoil some separate charm to pare.

43

She was not violently lively, but
Stole on your spirit like a May-day breaking;
Her eyes were not too sparkling, yet, half-shut,
They put beholders in a tender taking;
She looked (this simile's quite new) just cut
From marble, like Pygmalion's statue waking,
The Mortal and the Marble still at strife,
And timidly expanding into life.

44

Lolah demanded the new damsel's name—
“Juanna.”—Well, a pretty name enough.
Katinka asked her also whence she came—
“From Spain.”—“But where is Spain?”—“Don't ask such stuff,
Nor show your Georgian ignorance—for shame!”
Said Lolah, with an accent rather rough,
To poor Katinka: “Spain's an island near
Morocco, betwixt Egypt and Tangier.”

45

Dudù said nothing, but sat down beside
Juanna, playing with her veil or hair;
And looking at her steadfastly, she sighed,
As if she pitied her for being there,
A pretty stranger without friend or guide,
And all abashed too at the general stare
Which welcomes hapless strangers in all places,
With kind remarks upon their mien and faces.

46

But here the Mother of the Maids drew near,
With, “Ladies, it is time to go to rest.
I'm puzzled what to do with you, my dear,”
She added to Juanna, their new guest:
“Your coming has been unexpected here,
And every couch is occupied; you had best
Partake of mine; but by to-morrow early
We will have all things settled for you fairly.”

47

Here Lolah interposed—“Mamma, you know
You don't sleep soundly, and I cannot bear
That any body should disturb you so;
I'll take Juanna; we're a slenderer pair
Than you would make the half of;—don't say no;
And I of your young charge will take due care.”
But here Katinka interfered and said,
“She also had compassion and a bed.”

48

“Besides, I hate to sleep alone,” quoth she.
The Matron frowned: “Why so?”—“For fear of ghosts,”
Replied Katinka; “I am sure I see
A phantom upon each of the four posts;
And then I have the worst dreams that can be,
Of Guebres, Giaours, and Ginns, and Gouls in hosts.”
The Dame replied, “Between your dreams and you,
I fear Juanna's dreams would be but few.

49

“You, Lolah, must continue still to lie
Alone, for reasons which don't matter; you
The same, Katinka, until by and bye;
And I shall place Juanna with Dudù,
Who's quiet, inoffensive, silent, shy,
And will not toss and chatter the night through.
What say you, child?”—Dudù said nothing, as
Her talents were of the more silent class;

50

But she rose up, and kissed the Matron's brow
Between the eyes, and Lolah on both cheeks,
Katinka too; and with a gentle bow
(Curtsies are neither used by Turks nor Greeks)
She took Juanna by the hand to show
Their place of rest, and left to both their piques,
The others pouting at the Matron's preference
Of Dudù, though they held their tongues from deference.

51

It was a spacious chamber (Oda is
The Turkish title) and ranged round the wall
Were couches, toilets—and much more than this
I might describe, as I have seen it all,
But it suffices—little was amiss;
'Twas on the whole a nobly furnished hall,
With all things ladies want, save one or two,
And even those were nearer than they knew.

52

Dudù, as has been said, was a sweet creature,
Not very dashing, but extremely winning,
With the most regulated charms of feature,
Which painters cannot catch like faces sinning
Against proportion—the wild strokes of nature
Which they hit off at once in the beginning,
Full of expression, right or wrong, that strike,
And pleasing or unpleasing, still are like.

53

But she was a soft Landscape of mild Earth,
Where all was harmony and calm and quiet,
Luxuriant, budding; cheerful without mirth,
Which if not happiness, is much more nigh it
Than are your mighty passions and so forth,
Which some call “the sublime”: I wish they'd try it:
I've seen your stormy seas and stormy women,
And pity lovers rather more than seamen.

54

But she was pensive more than melancholy,
And serious more than pensive, and serene,
It may be, more than either—not unholy
Her thoughts, at least till now, appear to have been.
The strangest thing was, beauteous, she was wholly
Unconscious, albeit turned of quick seventeen,
That she was fair, or dark, or short, or tall;
She never thought about herself at all.

55

And therefore was she kind and gentle as
The Age of Gold (when Gold was yet unknown,
By which its nomenclature came to pass;
Thus most appropriately has been shown
“Lucus a non Lucendo,” not what was,
But what was not; a sort of style that's grown
Extremely common in this age, whose metal
The Devil may decompose but never settle;

56

I think it may be of “Corinthian Brass,”
Which was a Mixture of all Metals, but
The Brazen uppermost.) Kind reader! pass
This long parenthesis: I could not shut
It sooner for the soul of me, and class
My faults even with your own! which meaneth, Put
A kind construction upon them and me:
But that you won't—then don't—I am not less free.

57

'Tis time we should return to plain narration,
And thus my narrative proceeds:—Dudù,
With every kindness short of ostentation,
Shewed Juan, or Juanna, through and through
This labyrinth of females, and each station
Described—what's strange—in words extremely few
I have but one simile, and that's a blunder,
For wordless woman, which is silent Thunder.

58

And next she gave her (I say her, because
The Gender still was Epicene, at least
In outward show, which is a saving clause)
An outline of the Customs of the East,
With all their chaste integrity of laws,
By which the more a Harem is encreased,
The stricter doubtless grow the vestal duties
Of any supernumerary beauties.

59

And then she gave Juanna a chaste kiss:
Dudù was fond of kissing—which I'm sure
That nobody can ever take amiss,
Because 'tis pleasant, so that it be pure,
And between females means no more than this—
That they have nothing better near, or newer.
“Kiss rhymes to “bliss” in fact as well as verse—
I wish it never led to something worse.

60

In perfect Innocence she then unmade
Her toilet, which cost little, for she was
A Child of Nature, carelessly arrayed:
If fond of a chance ogle at her glass,
'Twas like the Fawn which, in the lake displayed,
Beholds her own shy, shadowy image pass,
When first she starts, and then returns to peep,
Admiring this new Native of the deep.

61

And one by one her articles of dress
Were laid aside; but not before she offered
Her aid to fair Juanna, whose excess
Of Modesty declined the assistance proffered:
Which past well off—as she could do no less;
Though by this politesse she rather suffered,
Pricking her fingers with those cursed pins,
Which surely were invented for our sins,—

62

Making a woman like a porcupine,
Not to be rashly touched. But still more dread,
Oh ye! whose fate it is, as once 'twas mine,
In early youth, to turn a lady's maid;—
I did my very boyish best to shine
In tricking her out for a masquerade:
The pins were placed sufficiently, but not
Stuck all exactly in the proper spot.

63

But these are foolish things to all the wise,
And I love wisdom more than she loves me;
My tendency is to philosophize
On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;
But still the spouseless Virgin Knowledge flies.
What are we? and whence came we? what shall be
Our ultimate existence? what's our present?
Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

64

There was deep silence in the chamber: dim
And distant from each other burned the lights,
And Slumber hovered o'er each lovely limb
Of the fair occupants: if there be sprites,
They should have walked there in their spriteliest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And shown themselves as Ghosts of better taste
Than haunting some old Ruin or wild Waste.

65

Many and beautiful lay those around,
Like flowers of different hue and clime and root,
In some exotic garden sometimes found,
With cost and care and warmth induced to shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,
And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath
And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.

66

One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,
And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm;
And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud
The Moon breaks, half unveiled each further charm,
As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.

67

This is no bull, although it sounds so; for
'Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath been said.
A third's all pallid aspect offered more
The traits of sleeping Sorrow, and betrayed
Through the heaved breast the dream of some far shore
Beloved and deplored; while slowly strayed
(As Night Dew, on a Cypress glittering, tinges
The black bough) tear-drops through her eyes' dark fringes.

68

A fourth as marble, statue-like and still,
Lay in a breathless, hushed, and stony sleep;
White, cold and pure, as looks a frozen rill,
Or the snow minaret on an Alpine steep,
Or Lot's wife done in salt,—or what you will;—
My similes are gathered in a heap,
So pick and chuse—perhaps you'll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.

69

And lo! a fifth appears;—and what is she?
A lady of “a certain age,” which means
Certainly aged—what her years might be
I know not, never counting past their teens;
But there she slept, not quite so fair to see,
As ere that awful period intervenes
Which lays both men and women on the shelf,
To meditate upon their sins and self.

70

But all this time how slept, or dreamed, Dudù?
With strict enquiry I could ne'er discover,
And scorn to add a syllable untrue;
But ere the middle watch was hardly over,
Just when the fading lamps waned dim and blue,
And phantoms hovered, or might seem to hover
To those who like their company, about
The apartment, on a sudden she screamed out:

71

And that so loudly, that upstarted all
The Oda, in a general commotion:
Matrons and maids, and those whom you may call
Neither, came crowding like the waves of ocean,
One on the other, throughout the whole hall,
All trembling, wondering, without the least notion,
More than I have myself, of what could make
The calm Dudù so turbulently wake.

72

But wide awake she was, and round her bed,
With floating draperies and with flying hair,
With eager eyes, and light but hurried tread,
And bosoms, arms, and ancles glancing bare,
And bright as any meteor ever bred
By the North Pole,—they sought her cause of care,
For she seemed agitated, flushed and frightened,
Her eye dilated and her colour heightened.

73

But what is strange—and a strong proof how great
A blessing is sound sleep—Juanna lay
As fast as ever husband by his mate
In holy matrimony snores away.
Not all the clamour broke her happy state
Of slumber, ere they shook her,—so they say
At least,—and then she too unclosed her eyes,
And yawned a good deal with discreet surprize.

74

And now commenced a strict investigation,
Which, as all spoke at once, and more than once
Conjecturing, wondering, asking a narration,
Alike might puzzle either wit or dunce
To answer in a very clear oration.
Dudù had never passed for wanting sense,
But being “no orator as Brutus is,”
Could not at first expound what was amiss.

75

At length she said, that in a slumber sound,
She dreamed a dream, of walking in a wood—
A “wood obscure” like that where Dante found
Himself in at the age when all grow good;
Life's half-way house, where dames with virtue crowned,
Run much less risk of lovers turning rude;
And that this wood was full of pleasant fruits,
And trees of goodly growth and spreading roots;

76

And in the midst a golden apple grew,—
A most prodigious pippin—but it hung
Rather too high and distant; that she threw
Her glances on it, and then, longing, flung
Stones and whatever she could pick up, to
Bring down the fruit, which still perversely clung
To its own bough, and dangled yet in sight,
But always at a most provoking height;—

77

That on a sudden, when she least had hope,
It fell down of its own accord, before
Her feet; that her first movement was to stoop
And pick it up, and bite it to the core;
That just as her young lip began to ope
Upon the golden fruit the vision bore,
A bee flew out and stung her to the heart,
And so—she woke with a great scream and start.

78

All this she told with some confusion and
Dismay, the usual consequence of dreams
Of the unpleasant kind, with none at hand
To expound their vain and visionary gleams.
I've known some odd ones which seemed really planned
Prophetically, or that which one deems
“A strange coincidence,” to use a phrase
By which such things are settled now-a-days.

79

The damsels, who had thoughts of some great harm,
Began, as is the consequence of fear,
To scold a little at the false alarm
That broke for nothing on their sleeping ear.
The matron too was wroth to leave her warm
Bed for the dream she had been obliged to hear,
And chafed at poor Dudù, who only sighed,
And said, that she was sorry she had cried.

80

“I've heard of stories of a cock and bull;
But visions of an apple and a bee,
To take us from our natural rest, and pull
The whole Oda from their beds at half-past three,
Would make us think the moon is at its full.
You surely are unwell, child! we must see,
To-morrow what his Highness's physician
Will say to this hysteric of a vision.

81

“And poor Juanna too! the child's first night
Within these walls, to be broke in upon
With such a clamour—I had thought it right
That the young stranger should not lie alone,
And as the quietest of all, she might
With you, Dudù, a good night's rest have known.
But now I must transfer her to the charge
Of Lolah—though her couch is not so large.”

82

Lolah's eyes sparkled at the proposition;
But poor Dudù, with large drops in her own,
Resulting from the scolding or the vision,
Implored that present pardon might be shown
For this first fault, and that on no condition
(She added in a soft and piteous tone)
Juanna should be taken from her, and
Her future dreams should all be kept in hand.

83

She promised never more to have a dream,
At least to dream so loudly as just now;
She wondered at herself how she could scream—
'Twas foolish, nervous, as she must allow,
A fond hallucination, and a theme
For laughter—but she felt her spirits low,
And begged they would excuse her; she'd get over
This weakness in a few hours, and recover.

84

And here Juanna kindly interposed,
And said she felt herself extremely well
Where she then was, as her sound sleep disclosed
When all around rang like a tocsin bell:
She did not find herself the least disposed
To quit her gentle partner, and to dwell
Apart from one who had no sin to show
Save that of dreaming once “mal-à-propos.”

85

As thus Juanna spoke, Dudù turned round
And hid her face within Juanna's breast;
Her neck alone was seen, but that was found
The colour of a budding rose's crest.
I can't tell why she blushed, nor can expound
The mystery of this rupture of their rest;
All that I know is, that the facts I state
Are true as truth has ever been of late.

86

And so good night to them,—or, if you will,
Good morrow—for the cock had crown, and light
Began to clothe each Asiatic hill,
And the mosque crescent struggled into sight
Of the long caravan, which in the chill
Of dewy dawn wound slowly round each height
That stretches to the stony belt, which girds
Asia, where Kaff looks down upon the Kurds.

87

With the first ray, or rather grey of morn,
Gulbeyaz rose from restlessness; and pale
As Passion rises, with its bosom worn,
Arrayed herself with mantle, gem, and veil.
The nightingale that sings with the deep thorn,
Which Fable places in her breast of Wail,
Is lighter far of heart and voice than those
Whose headlong passions form their proper woes.

88

And that's the moral of this composition,
If people would but see its real drift;—
But that they will not do without suspicion,
Because all gentle readers have the gift
Of closing 'gainst the light their orbs of vision;
While gentle writers also love to lift
Their voices 'gainst each other, which is natural,
The numbers are too great for them to flatter all.

89

Rose the Sultana from a bed of splendour,
Softer than the soft Sybarite's, who cried
Aloud because his feelings were too tender
To brook a ruffled rose-leaf by his side,—
So beautiful that art could little mend her,
Though pale with conflicts between love and pride:—
So agitated was she with her error,
She did not even look into the mirror.

90

Also arose about the self-same time,
Perhaps a little later, her great lord,
Master of thirty kingdoms so sublime,
And of a wife by whom he was abhorred;
A thing of much less import in that clime—
At least to those of incomes which afford
The filling up their whole connubial cargo—
Than where two wives are under an embargo.

91

He did not think much on the matter, nor
Indeed on any other: as a man
He liked to have a handsome paramour
At hand, as one may like to have a fan,
And therefore of Circassians had good store,
As an amusement after the Divan;
Though an unusual fit of love, or duty,
Had made him lately bask in his bride's beauty.

92

And now he rose; and after due ablutions
Exacted by the customs of the East,
And prayers and other pious evolutions,
He drank six cups of coffee at the least,
And then withdrew to hear about the Russians,
Whose victories had recently increased
In Catherine's reign, whom glory still adores
As greatest of all sovereigns and w---s.

93

But oh, thou grand legitimate Alexander!
Her son's son, let not this last phrase offend
Thine ear, if it should reach,—and now rhymes wander
Almost as far as Petersburgh, and lend
A dreadful impulse to each loud meander
Of murmuring Liberty's wide waves, which blend
Their roar even with the Baltic's—so you be
Your father's son, 'tis quite enough for me.

94

To call men love-begotten, or proclaim
Their mothers as the antipodes of Timon,
That hater of mankind, would be a shame,
A libel, or whate'er you please to rhyme on:
But people's ancestors are history's game;
And if one lady's slip could leave a crime on
All generations, I should like to know
What pedigree the best would have to show?

95

Had Catherine and the Sultan understood
Their own true interests, which kings rarely know,
Until 'tis taught by lessons rather rude,
There was a way to end their strife, although
Perhaps precarious, had they but thought good,
Without the aid of Prince or Plenipo:
She to dismiss her guards and he his harem,
And for their other matters, meet and share 'em.

96

But as it was, his Highness had to hold
His daily council upon ways and means,
How to encounter with this martial scold,
This modern Amazon and Queen of Queans;
And the perplexity could not be told
Of all the Pillars of the state, which leans
Sometimes a little heavy on the backs
Of those who cannot lay on a new tax.

97

Meantime Gulbeyaz, when her king was gone,
Retired into her boudoir, a sweet place
For love or breakfast; private, pleasing, lone,
And rich with all contrivances which grace
Those gay recesses:—many a precious stone
Sparkled along its roof, and many a vase
Of porcelain held in the fettered flowers,
Those captive soothers of a captive's hours.

98

Mother of pearl, and porphyry, and marble,
Vied with each other on this costly spot;
And singing birds without were heard to warble;
And the stained glass which lighted this fair grot
Varied each ray;—but all descriptions garble
The true effect, and so we had better not
Be too minute; an outline is the best,
A lively reader's fancy does the rest.

99

And here she summoned Baba, and required
Don Juan at his hands, and information
Of what had past since all the slaves retired,
And whether he had occupied their station;
If matters had been managed as desired,
And his disguise with due consideration
Kept up; and above all, the where and how
He had passed the night, was what she wished to know.

100

Baba, with some embarrassment, replied
To this long catechism of questions asked
More easily than answered,—that he had tried
His best to obey in what he had been tasked;
But there seemed something that he wished to hide,
Which hesitation more betrayed than masqued;—
He scratched his ear, the infallible resource
To which embarrassed people have recourse.

101

Gulbeyaz was no model of true patience,
Nor much disposed to wait in word or deed;
She liked quick answers in all conversations;
And when she saw him stumbling like a steed
In his replies, she puzzled him for fresh ones;
And as his speech grew still more broken-kneed,
Her cheek began to flush, her eyes to sparkle,
And her proud brow's blue veins to swell and darkle.

102

When Baba saw these symptoms, which he knew
To bode him no great good, he deprecated
Her anger, and beseech'd she'd hear him through—
He could not help the thing which he related:
Then out it came at length, that to Dudù
Juan was given in charge, as hath been stated;
But not by Baba's fault, he said, and swore on
The holy camel's hump, besides the Koran.

103

The chief dame of the Oda, upon whom
The discipline of the whole harem bore,
As soon as they re-entered their own room,
For Baba's function stopt short at the door,
Had settled all; nor could he then presume
(The aforesaid Baba) just then to do more,
Without exciting such suspicion as
Might make the matter still worse than it was.

104

He hoped, indeed he thought he could be sure
Juan had not betrayed himself; in fact
'Twas certain that his conduct had been pure,
Because a foolish or imprudent act
Would not alone have made him insecure,
But ended in his being found out, and sacked,
And thrown into the sea.—Thus Baba spoke
Of all save Dudù's dream, which was no joke.

105

This he discreetly kept in the back ground,
And talked away, and might have talked till now,
For any further answer that he found,
So deep an anguish wrung Gulbeyaz' brow;
Her cheek turned ashes, ears rung, brain whirled round
As if she had received a sudden blow,
And the heart's dew of pain sprang fast and chilly
O'er her fair front, like Morning's on a lily.

106

Although she was not of the fainting sort,
Baba thought she would faint, but there he erred;—
It was but a convulsion, which though short
Can never be described; we all have heard,
And some of us have felt thus “all amort,”
When things beyond the common have occurred;—
Gulbeyaz proved in that brief agony
What she could ne'er express—then how should I?

107

She stood a moment as a Pythoness
Stands on her tripod, agonized, and full
Of Inspiration gathered from Distress,
When all the heart-strings like wild horses pull
The heart asunder;—then, as more or less
Their speed abated or their strength grew dull,
She sunk down on her seat by slow degrees,
And bowed her throbbing head o'er trembling knees.

108

Her face declined and was unseen; her hair
Fell in long tresses like the weeping willow,
Sweeping the marble underneath her chair,
Or rather sofa (for it was all pillow,
A low, soft Ottoman) and black Despair
Stirred up and down her bosom like a billow,
Which rushes to some shore whose shingles check
Its farther course, but must receive its wreck.

109

Her head hung down, and her long hair in stooping
Concealed her features better than a veil;
And one hand o'er the Ottoman lay drooping,
White, waxen, and as alabaster pale:
Would that I were a painter! to be grouping
All that a poet drags into detail!
Oh that my words were colours! but their tints
May serve perhaps as outlines or slight hints.

110

Baba, who knew by experience when to talk
And when to hold its tongue, now held it till
This passion might blow o'er, nor dared to balk
Gulbeyaz' taciturn or speaking will.
At length she rose up, and began to walk
Slowly along the room, but silent still,
And her brow cleared, but not her troubled eye;
The Wind was down, but still the Sea ran high.

111

She stopt, and raised her head to speak—but paused,
And then moved on again with rapid pace;
Then slackened it, which is the march most caused
By deep Emotion:—you may sometimes trace
A feeling in each footstep, as disclosed
By Sallust in his Catiline, who, chased
By all the Demons of all Passions, showed
Their work even by the way in which he trode.

112

Gulbeyaz stopped and beckoned Baba:—“Slave!
Bring the two slaves!” she said in a low tone,
But one which Baba did not like to brave,
And yet he shuddered, and seemed rather prone
To prove reluctant, and begged leave to crave
(Though he well knew the meaning) to be shown
What slaves her Highness wished to indicate,
For fear of any error, like the late.

113

“The Georgian and her paramour,” replied
The Imperial Bride—and added, “Let the boat
Be ready by the secret portal's side:
You know the rest.” The words stuck in her throat,
Despite her injured love and fiery pride;
And of this Baba willingly took note,
And begged by every hair of Mahomet's beard
She would revoke the order he had heard.

114

“To hear is to obey,” he said; “but still,
Sultana, think upon the consequence:
It is not that I shall not all fulfil
Your orders, even in their severest sense;
But such precipitation may end ill,
Even at your own imperative expense:
I do not mean destruction and exposure
In case of any premature disclosure;

115

“But your own feelings. Even should all the rest
Be hidden by the rolling waves, which hide
Already many a once love-beaten breast
Deep in the caverns of the deadly tide—
You love this boyish, new, Seraglio guest,
And if this violent remedy be tried—
Excuse my freedom, when I here assure you,
That killing him is not the way to cure you.”

116

“What dost thou know of love or feeling?—wretch!
Begone!” she cried, with kindling eyes—“And do
My bidding!” Baba vanished, for to stretch
His own remonstrance further he well knew
Might end in acting as his own “Jack Ketch”;
And though he wished extremely to get through
This awkward business without harm to others,
He still preferred his own neck to another's.

117

Away he went then upon his commission,
Growling and grumbling in good Turkish phrase
Against all women of whate'er condition,
Especially Sultanas and their ways;
Their obstinacy, pride, and indecision,
Their never knowing their own mind two days,
The trouble that they gave, their Immorality,
Which made him daily bless his own Neutrality.

118

And then he called his Brethren to his aid,
And sent one on a summons to the pair,
That they must instantly be well arrayed,
And above all be combed even to a hair,
And brought before the Empress, who had made
Enquiries after them with kindest care:
At which Dudù looked strange, and Juan silly;
But go they must at once, and Will I—Nill I.

119

And here I leave them at their preparation
For the Imperial presence, wherein whether
Gulbeyaz shewed them both commiseration,
Or got rid of the parties altogether,
Like other angry ladies of her nation,—
Are things the turning of a hair or feather
May settle; but far be't from me to anticipate
In what way feminine Caprice may dissipate.

120

I leave them for the present with good wishes,
Though doubts of their well doing, to arrange
Another part of History, for the dishes
Of this our banquet we must sometimes change,
And trusting Juan may escape the fishes,
Although his situation now seems strange,
And scarce secure: as such digressions are fair,
The Muse will take a little touch at warfare.

Canto VII

1

Oh Love! O Glory! what are ye? who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight;
There's not a meteor in the Polar sky
Of such transcendant and more fleeting flight.
Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift on high
Our eyes in search of either lovely light;
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

2

And such as they are, such my present tale is,
A non-descript and ever varying rhyme,
A versified Aurora Borealis,
Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.
When we know what all are, we must bewail us,
But, ne'er the less, I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things—for I wish to know
What after all, are all things—but a Show?

3

They accuse me—Me—the present writer of
The present poem—of—I know not what,—
A tendency to under-rate and scoff
At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.
Good God! I wonder what they would be at!
I say no more than has been said in Dante's
Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

4

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,
By Fenelon, by Luther, and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.
'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so—
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes—We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.

5

Socrates said, our only knowledge was
“To know that nothing could be known”; a pleasant
Science enough, which levels to an ass
Each Man of Wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton (that Proverb of the Mind) alas!
Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,
That he himself felt only “like a youth
Picking up shells by the great Ocean—Truth.”

6

Ecclesiastes said, that all is Vanity—
Most modern preachers say the same, or show it
By their examples of true Christianity;
In short, all know, or very soon may know it;
And in this scene of all-confessed inanity,
By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet,
Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife,
From holding up the Nothingness of life?

7

Dogs, or Men! (for I flatter you in saying
That ye are dogs—your betters far) ye may
Read, or read not, what I am now essaying
To show ye what ye are in every way.
As little as the Moon stops for the baying
Of Wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray
From out her skies—then howl your idle wrath!
While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path.

8

“Fierce loves and faithless wars”—I am not sure
If this be the right reading—'tis no matter;
The fact's about the same, I am secure;
I sing them both, and am about to batter
A town which did a famous siege endure,
And was beleaguer'd both by land and water
By Suvaroff, or anglicè Suwarrow,
Who loved blood as an Alderman loves marrow.

9

The Fortress is called Ismail, and is placed
Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank,
With buildings in the Oriental taste,
But still a fortress of the foremost rank,

Or was at least, unless 'tis since defaced,
Which with your conquerors is a common prank:
It stands some eighty versts from the high sea,
And measures round of toises thousands three.

10

Within the extent of this fortification
A Borough is comprised along the height
Upon the left, which from its loftier station
Commands the city, and upon its site
A Greek had raised around this elevation
A quantity of palisades upright,
So placed as to impede the fire of those
Who held the place, and to assist the foe's.

11

This circumstance may serve to give a notion
Of the high talents of this new Vauban:
But the town ditch below was deep as ocean,
The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang:
But then there was a great want of precaution,
(Prithee, excuse this engineering slang)
Nor work advanced, nor covered way was there,
To hint at least “Here is no thoroughfare.”

12

But a stone bastion, with a narrow gorge,
And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet;
Two batteries, cap-à-pie, as our St. George,
Case-mated one, and t'other “a barbette,”
Of Danube's bank took formidable charge;
While two and twenty cannon duly set
Rose over the town's right side, in bristling tier,
Forty feet high, upon a cavaliere.

13

But from the river the town's open quite,
Because the Turks could never be persuaded
A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight;
And such their creed was, till they were invaded,
When it grew rather late to set things right.
But as the Danube could not well be waded,
They looked upon the Muscovite flotilla,
And only shouted, “Alla!” and “Bis Millah!”

14

The Russians now were ready to attack;
But oh, ye Goddesses of war and glory!
How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque
Who were immortal, could one tell their story?
Alas! what to their memory can lack?
Achilles' self was not more grim and gory
Than thousands of this new and polished nation,
Whose names want nothing but—pronunciation.

15

Still I'll record a few, if but to encrease
Our euphony—there was Strongenoff, and Strokonoff,
Meknop, Serge Lwow, Arseniew of modern Greece,
And Tschitsshakoff, and Roguenoff, and Chokenoff,
And others of twelve consonants a-piece;
And more might be found out, if I could poke enough
Into gazettes; but Fame (capricious strumpet)
It seems, has got an ear as well as trumpet,

16

And cannot tune those discords of narration,
Which may be names at Moscow, into rhyme;
Yet there were several worth commemoration,
As ere was virgin of a nuptial chime;
Soft words too fitted for the peroration
Of Londonderry, drawling against time,
Ending in “ischskin,” “ousckin,” “iffskchy,” “ouski,”
Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski.

17

Scherematoff and Chrematoff, Koklophti
Koclobski, Kourakin, and Mouskin Pouskin,
All proper men of weapons, as e'er scoffed high
Against a foe, or ran a sabre through skin:
Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti,
Unless to make their kettle drums a new skin
Out of their hides, if parchment had grown dear,
And no more handy substitute been near.

18

Then there were foreigners of much renown,
Of various nations, and all volunteers;
Not fighting for their country or its crown,
But wishing to be one day brigadiers;
Also to have the sacking of a town;
A pleasant thing to young men at their years.
'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,
Sixteen called Thomson, and nineteen named Smith.

19

Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson;—all the rest
Had been called “Jemmy,” after the great bard;
I don't know whether they had arms or crest,
But such a godfather's as good a card.
Three of the Smiths were Peters; but the best
Amongst them all, hard blows to inflict or ward,
Was he, since so renowned “in country quarters
At Halifax”; but now he served the Tartars.

20

The rest were Jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills;
But when I've added that the elder Jack Smith
Was born in Cumberland among the hills,
And that his father was an honest blacksmith,
I've said all I know of a name that fills
Three lines of the dispatch in taking “Schmacksmith,”
A village of Moldavia's waste, wherein
He fell, immortal in a bulletin.

21

I wonder (although Mars no doubt's a God I
Praise) if a man's name in a bulletin
May make up for a bullet in his body?
I hope this little question is no sin,
Because, though I am but a simple noddy,
I think one Shakespear puts the same thought in
The mouth of some one in his plays so doating,
Which many people pass for wits by quoting.

22

Then there were Frenchmen, gallant, young and gay:
But I'm too great a patriot to record
Their Gallic names upon a glorious day;
I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word
Of truth;—such truths are treason; they betray
Their country; and as traitors are abhorred
Who name the French in English, save to shew
How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe.

23

The Russians, having built two batteries on
An Isle near Ismail, had two ends in view;
The first was to bombard it, and knock down
The public buildings, and the private too,
No matter what poor souls might be undone.
The City's shape suggested this, 'tis true;
Formed like an amphitheatre, each dwelling
Presented a fine mark to throw a shell in.

24

The second object was to profit by
The moment of the general consternation,
To attack the Turk's flotilla, which lay nigh
Extremely tranquil, anchored at its station:
But a third motive was as probably
To frighten them into capitulation;
A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors,
Unless they are game as Bull-dogs and Fox-terriers.

25

A habit rather blameable, which is
That of despising those we combat with,
Common in many cases, was in this
The cause of killing Tchitchitzkoff and Smith;
One of the valourous “Smiths” whom we shall miss
Out of those nineteen who late rhymed to “pith”;
But 'tis a name so spread o'er “Sir” and “Madam,”
That one would think the first who bore it “Adam.”

26

The Russian batteries were incomplete,
Because they were constructed in a hurry;
Thus the same cause which makes a verse want feet,
And throws a cloud o'er Longman and John Murray,
When the sale of new books is not so fleet
As they who print them think is necessary,
May likewise put off for a time what story
Sometimes calls “murder,” and at others “glory.”

27

Whether it was their engineer's stupidity,
Their haste, or waste, I neither know nor care,
Or some contractor's personal cupidity,
Saving his soul by cheating in the ware
Of homicide, but there was no solidity
In the new batteries erected there;
They either missed, or they were never missed,
And added greatly to the missing list.

28

A sad miscalculation about distance
Made all their naval matters incorrect;
Three fireships lost their amiable existence
Before they reached a spot to take effect:
The match was lit too soon, and no assistance
Could remedy this lubberly defect;
They blew up in the middle of the river,
While, though 'twas dawn, the Turks slept fast as ever.

29

At seven they rose, however, and surveyed
The Russ flotilla getting under way;
'Twas nine, when still advancing undismayed,
Within a cable's length their vessels lay
Off Ismail, and commenced a cannonade,
Which was returned with interest, I may say,
And by a fire of musquetry and grape
And shells and shot of every size and shape.

30

For six hours bore they without intermission
The Turkish fire, and aided by their own
Land batteries, worked their guns with great precision;
At length they found mere cannonade alone
By no means would produce the town's submission,
And made a signal to retreat at one.
One bark blew up, a second near the works
Running aground, was taken by the Turks.

31

The Moslem too had lost both ships and men;
But when they saw the enemy retire,
Their Delhis manned some boats, and sailed again
And galled the Russians with a heavy fire,
And tried to make a landing on the main;
But here the effect fell short of their desire:
Count Damas drove them back into the water
Pell mell, and with a whole gazette of slaughter.

32

“If” (says the historian here) “I could report
All that the Russians did upon this day,
I think that several volumes would fall short,
And I should still have many things to say”;
And so he says no more—but pays his court
To some distinguished strangers in that fray;
The Prince de Ligne, and Langeron, and Damas,
Names great as any that the roll of Fame has.

33

This being the case, may show us what fame is:
For out of these three “preux Chevaliers,” how
Many of common readers give a guess
That such existed? (and they may live now
For aught we know). Renown's all hit or miss;
There's Fortune even in Fame, we must allow.
'Tis true, the Memoirs of the Prince de Ligne
Have half withdrawn from him oblivion's screen.

34

But here are men who fought in gallant actions
As gallantly as ever heroes fought,
But buried in the heap of such transactions
Their names are rarely found, nor often sought.
Thus even good Fame may suffer sad contractions,
And is extinguished sooner than she ought:
Of all our modern battles, I will bet
You can't repeat nine names from each Gazette.

35

In short, this last attack, though rich in glory,
Shewed that somewhere, somehow, there was a fault,
And Admiral Ribas (known in Russian story)
Most strongly recommended an assault;
In which he was opposed by young and hoary,
Which made a long debate; but I must halt,
For if I wrote down every warrior's speech,
I doubt few readers e'er would mount the breach.

36

There was a man, if that he was a man,
Not that his manhood could be called in question,
For had he not been Hercules, his span
Had been as short in youth as indigestion
Made his last illness, when, all worn and wan,
He died beneath a tree, as much unblest on
The soil of the green province he had wasted,
As e'er was locust on the land it blasted.

37

This was Potemkin—a great thing in days
When homicide and harlotry made great;
If stars and titles could entail long praise,
His glory might half equal his estate.
This fellow, being six foot high, could raise
A kind of phantasy proportionate
In the then Sovereign of the Russian people,
Who measured men as you would do a steeple.

38

While things were in abeyance, Ribas sent
A courier to the Prince, and he succeeded
In ordering matters after his own bent;
I cannot tell the way in which he pleaded,
But shortly he had cause to be content.
In the mean time, the batteries proceeded,
And fourscore cannon on the Danube's border
Were briskly fired and answered in due order.

39

But on the thirteenth, when already part
Of the troops were embarked, the siege to raise,
A courier on the spur inspired new heart
Into all panters for newspaper praise,
As well as dilettanti in war's art,
By his dispatches couched in pithy phrase;
Announcing the appointment of that lover of
Battles, to the command, Field Marshal Souvaroff.

40

The letter of the Prince to the same Marshal
Was worthy of a Spartan, had the cause
Been one to which a good heart could be partial,
Defence of freedom, country, or of laws;
But as it was mere lust of power to o'er-arch all
With its proud brow, it merits slight applause,
Save for its style, which said, all in a trice,
“You will take Ismail at whatever price.”

41

“Let there be light! said God, and there was light!”
“Let there be blood!” says man, and there's a sea!
The fiat of this spoiled child of the Night
(For Day ne'er saw his merits) could decree
More evil in an hour, than thirty bright
Summers could renovate, though they should be
Lovely as those which ripened Eden's fruit,
For war cuts up not only branch, but root.

42

Our friends the Turks, who with loud “Alla's” now
Began to signalize the Russ retreat,
Were damnably mistaken; few are slow
In thinking that their enemy is beat,
(Or beaten if you insist on grammar, though
I never think about it in a heat)
But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,
Who hating hogs, yet wished to save their bacon.

43

For, on the sixteenth, at full gallop, drew
In sight two horsemen, who were deemed cossacques
For some time, till they came in nearer view.
They had but little baggage at their backs,
For there were but three shirts between the two;
But on they rode upon two Ukraine hacks,
Till, in approaching, were at length descried
In this plain pair, Suwarrow and his guide.

44

“Great joy to London now!” says some great fool,
When London had a grand illumination,
Which to that bottle-conjurer, John Bull,
Is of all dreams the first hallucination;
So that the streets of coloured lamps are full,
That Sage (said John) surrenders at discretion
His purse, his soul, his sense, and even his nonsense,
To gratify, like a huge moth, this one sense.

45

'Tis strange that he should further “damn his eyes,”
For they are damned; that once all famous oath
Is to the devil now no further prize,
Since John has lately lost the use of both.
Debt he calls wealth, and taxes, Paradise;
And Famine, with her gaunt and bony growth,
Which stare him in the face, he won't examine,
Or swears that Ceres hath begotten famine.

46

But to the tale;—great joy unto the camp!
To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque,
O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp,
Presaging a most luminous attack,
Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp,
Which leads beholders on a boggy walk,
He flitted to and fro a dancing Light,
Which all who saw it followed, wrong or right.

47

But certes matters took a different face;
There was enthusiasm and much applause,
The fleet and camp saluted with great grace,
And all presaged Good Fortune to their cause.
Within a cannon-shot length of the place
They drew, constructed ladders, repaired flaws
In former works, made new, prepared fascines,
And all kinds of benevolent machines.

48

'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind
Makes that of multitudes take one direction,
As roll the waters to the breathing wind,
Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection;
Or as a little dog will lead the blind,
Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection
By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual;
Such is the sway of your great men o'er little.

49

The whole camp rung with joy; you would have thought
That they were going to a marriage feast:
(This metaphor, I think, holds good as aught,
Since there is discord after both at least.)
There was not now a luggage boy but sought
Danger and spoil with ardour much encreased;
And why? because a little—odd—old man,
Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van.

50

But so it was; and every preparation
Was made with all alacrity: the first
Detachment of three columns took its station,
And waited but the signal's voice to burst
Upon the foe: the second's ordination
Was also in three columns, with a thirst
For Glory gaping o'er a sea of slaughter:
The third, in columns two, attacked by water.

51

New batteries were erected, and was held
A general council, in which Unanimity,
That stranger to most councils, here prevailed,
As sometimes happens in a great extremity;
And every difficulty being dispelled,
Glory began to dawn with due Sublimity,
While Souvaroff, determined to obtain it,
Was teaching his recruits to use the bayonet.

52

It is an actual fact, that he, Commander
In chief, in proper person deigned to drill
The awkward squad, and could afford to squander
His time, a corporal's duty to fulfil;
Just as you'd break a sucking salamander
To swallow flame, and never take it ill;
He showed them how to mount a ladder (which
Was not like Jacob's) or to cross a ditch.

53

Also he dressed up, for the nonce, fascines
Like men with turbans, scymitars and dirks,
And made them charge with bayonet these machines
By way of lesson against actual Turks;
And when well practised in these mimic scenes,
He judged them proper to assail the works;
At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty:
He made no answer; but he took the city.

54

Most things were in this posture on the eve
Of the assault, and all the camp was in
A stern repose; which you would scarce conceive;
Yet men, resolved to dash through thick and thin,
Are very silent when they once believe
That all is settled:—there was little din,
For some were thinking of their home and friends,
And others of themselves and latter ends.

55

Suwarrow chiefly was on the alert,
Surveying, drilling, ordering, jesting, pondering;
For the man was, we safely may assert,
A thing to wonder at beyond most wondering;
Hero, buffoon, half-demon and half-dirt,
Praying, instructing, desolating, plundering;
Now Mars, now Momus; and when bent to storm
A fortress, Harlequin in uniform.

56

The day before the assault, while upon drill,
For this great Conqueror played the corporal,
Some Cossacques hovering like hawks round a hill,
Had met a party towards the twilight's fall,
One of whom spoke their tongue or well or ill,
'Twas much that he was understood at all;
But, whether from his voice, or speech, or manner,
They found that he had fought beneath their banner.

57

Whereon immediately at his request
They brought him and his comrades to head quarters;
Their dress was Moslem, but you might have guessed
That these were merely masquerading Tartars,
And that beneath each Turkish-fashioned vest
Lurked Christianity; which sometimes barters
Her inward grace for outward show, and makes
It difficult to shun some strange mistakes.

58

Suwarrow, who was standing in his shirt
Before a company of Calmucks, drilling,
Exclaiming, fooling, swearing at the inert,
And lecturing on the noble art of killing,—
For deeming human clay but common dirt,
This great philosopher was thus instilling
His maxims, which to martial comprehension
Proved death in battle equal to a pension,—

59

Suwarrow, when he saw this company
Of Cossacques and their prey, turned round and cast
Upon them his slow brow and piercing eye:—
“Whence come ye?”—“From Constantinople last,
Captives just now escaped,” was the reply.
“What are ye?”—“What you see us.” Briefly past
This dialogue; for he who answered knew
To whom he spoke, and made his words but few.

60

“Your names?”—“Mine's Johnson, and my comrade's Juan,
The other two are women, and the third
Is neither man nor woman.” The Chief threw on
The party a slight glance, then said: “I have heard
Your name before, the second is a new one;
To bring the other three here was absurd;
But let that pass;—I think I have heard your name
In the Nikolaiew regiment?”—“The same.”

61

“You served at Widin?”—“Yes.”—“You led the attack?”
“I did.”—“What next?”—“I really hardly know.”
“You were the first i' the breach?”—“I was not slack
At least to follow those who might be so.”
“What followed?”—“A shot laid me on my back,
And I became a prisoner to the foe.”—
“You shall have vengeance, for the town surrounded
Is twice as strong as that where you were wounded.

62

“Where will you serve?”—“Where'er you please.”—“I know
You like to be the hope of the forlorn,
And doubtless would be foremost on the foe
After the hardships you've already borne.
And this young fellow? say what can he do?
He with the beardless chin and garments torn?”
“Why, General, if he hath no greater fault
In war than love, he had better lead the assault.”

63

“He shall if that he dare.” Here Juan bowed
Low as the compliment deserved. Suwarrow
Continued: “Your old regiment's allowed,
By special providence, to lead to-morrow,
Or it may be, to-night, the assault; I have vowed
To several saints, that shortly plough or harrow
Shall pass o'er what was Ismail, and its tusk
Be unimpeded by the proudest Mosque.

64

“So now, my lads, for Glory!”—Here he turned
And drilled away in the most classic Russian,
Until each high, heroic bosom burned
For cash and conquest, as if from a cushion
A preacher had held forth (who nobly spurned
All earthly goods save tithes) and bade them push on
To slay the Pagans, who resisted battering
The armies of the Christian Empress Catherine.

100

65

Johnson, who knew by this long colloquy
Himself a favourite, ventured to address
Suwarrow, though engaged with accents high
In his resumed amusement. “I confess
My debt in being thus allowed to die
Among the foremost; but if you'd express
Explicitly our several posts, my friend
And self would know what duty to attend.”

66

“Right! I was busy, and forgot. Why, you
Will join your former regiment, which should be
Now under arms. Ho! Katskoff, take him to—”
(Here he called up a Polish orderly)
“His post I mean, the regiment Nikolaiew.
The stranger stripling may remain with me;
He's a fine boy. The women may be sent
To the other baggage, or to the sick tent.”

101

67

But here a sort of scene began to ensue;
The ladies,—who by no means had been bred
To be disposed of in a way so new,
Although their haram education led
Doubtless to that of doctrines the most true,
Passive obedience,—now raised up the head,
With flashing eyes and starting tears, and flung
Their arms, as hens their wings about their young,

68

O'er the promoted couple of brave men
Who were thus honoured by the greatest Chief
That ever peopled hell with heroes slain,
Or plunged a province or a realm in grief.
Oh, foolish mortals! Always taught in vain!
Oh, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf
Of thine imaginary deathless tree,
Of blood and tears must flow the unebbing sea.

102

69

Suwarrow, who had small regard for tears,
And not much sympathy for blood, surveyed
The women with their hair about their ears
And natural agonies, with a slight shade
Of feeling; for however habit sears
Men's hearts against whole millions, when their trade
Is butchery, sometimes a single sorrow
Will touch even Heroes, and such was Suwarrow.

70

He said,—and in the kindest Calmuck tone,—
“Why, Johnson, what the devil do you mean
By bringing women here? They shall be shown
All the attention possible, and seen
In safety to the waggons, where alone
In fact they can be safe. You should have been
Aware this kind of baggage never thrives;
Save wed a year, I hate recruits with wives.”

103

71

“May it please your Excellency,” thus replied
Our British friend, “these are the wives of others,
And not our own. I am too qualified
By service with my military brothers,
To break the rules by bringing one's own bride
Into a camp: I know that nought so bothers
The hearts of the heroic on a charge,
As leaving a small family at large.

72

“But these are but two Turkish ladies, who
With their attendant aided our escape,
And afterwards accompanied us through
A thousand perils in this dubious shape.
To me this kind of life is not so new;
To them, poor things, it is an awkward step:
I therefore, if you wish me to fight freely,
Request that they may both be used genteelly.”

104

73

Meantime these two poor girls, with swimming eyes,
Looked on as if in doubt if they could trust
Their own protectors;—nor was their surprise
Less than their grief (and truly not less just)
To see an old man, rather wild than wise
In aspect, plainly clad, besmeared with dust,
Stript to his waistcoat, and that not too clean,
More feared than all the Sultans ever seen.

74

For every thing seemed resting on his nod,
As they could read in all eyes. Now to them
Who were accustomed, as a sort of God,
To see the Sultan, rich in many a gem,
Like an Imperial Peacock stalk abroad,
(That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem)
With all the Pomp of Power, it was a doubt
How Power could condescend to do without.

105

75

John Johnson, seeing their extreme dismay,
Though little versed in feelings Oriental,
Suggested some slight comfort in his way:
Don Juan, who was much more sentimental,
Swore they should see him by the dawn of day,
Or that the Russian army should repent all:
And, strange to say, they found some consolation
In this, for females like exaggeration.

76

And then with tears, and sighs, and some slight kisses,
They parted for the present, these to await,
According to the artillery's hits or misses,
What Sages call Chance, Providence, or Fate—
Uncertainty is one of many blisses,
A mortgage on Humanity's estate—
While their beloved friends began to arm,
To burn a town which never did them harm.

77

Suwarrow,—who but saw things in the gross,
Being much too gross to see them in detail,
Who calculated life as so much dross,
And as the wind a widowed nation's wail,
And cared as little for his army's loss
(So that their efforts should at length prevail)
As wife and friends did for the boils of Job,—
What was't to him, to hear two women sob?

106

78

Nothing.—The work of Glory still went on
In preparations for a cannonade
As terrible as that of Ilion,
If Homer had found mortars ready made;
But now, instead of slaying Priam's son,
We only can but talk of escalade,
Bombs, drums, guns, bastions, batteries, bayonets, bullets;
Hard words, which stick in the soft Muses' gullets.

79

Oh, thou eternal Homer! who couldst charm
All ears, though long; all ages, though so short,
By merely wielding with poetic arm,
Arms to which men will never more resort,
Unless gun-powder should be found to harm
Much less than is the hope of every Court,
Which now is leagued young Freedom to annoy;
But they will not find Liberty a Troy:—

80

Oh, thou eternal Homer! I have now
To paint a siege, wherein more men were slain,
With deadlier engines and a speedier blow,
Than in thy Greek gazette of that campaign;
And yet, like all men else, I must allow,
To vie with thee would be about as vain
As for a brook to cope with Ocean's flood;
But still we Moderns equal you in blood;

107

81

If not in poetry, at least in fact,
And fact is truth, the grand desideratum!
Of which, howe'er the Muse describes each act,
There should be ne'ertheless a slight substratum.
But now the town is going to be attacked,
Great deeds are doing—how shall I relate 'em;
Souls of immortal generals! Phoebus watches
To colour up his rays from your despatches.

108

82

Oh! ye great bulletins of Bonaparte!
Oh! ye less grand long lists of killed and wounded!
Shade of Leonidas, who fought so hearty,
When my poor Greece was once, as now, surrounded!
Oh, Caesar's Commentaries! now impart ye,
Shadows of glory! (lest I be confounded)
A portion of your fading twilight hues,
So beautiful, so fleeting, to the Muse.

83

When I call “fading” martial immortality,
I mean, that every age and every year,
And almost every day, in sad reality,
Some sucking hero is compelled to rear,
Who, when we come to sum up the totality
Of deeds to human happiness most dear,
Turns out to be a butcher in great business,
Afflicting young folks with a sort of dizziness.

84

Medals, ranks, ribbons, lace, embroidery, scarlet,
Are things immortal to immortal man,
As purple to the Babylonian harlot:
An uniform to boys, is like a fan
To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet
But deems himself the first in Glory's van.
But Glory's Glory; and if you would find
What that is—ask the pig who sees the wind!

109

85

At least he feels it, and some say he sees,
Because he runs before it like a pig;
Or, if that simple sentence should displease,
Say that he scuds before it like a brig,
A schooner, or—but it is time to ease
This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue.
The next shall ring a peal to shake all people,
Like a bob-major from a village steeple.

110

86

Hark! through the silence of the cold, dull night,
The hum of armies gathering rank on rank!
Lo! dusky masses steal in dubious sight
Along the leaguered wall and bristling bank
Of the armed river, while with straggling light
The stars peep through the vapours dim and dank,
Which curl in curious wreaths—How soon the smoke
Of Hell shall pall them in a deeper cloak!

111

87

Here pause we for the present—as even then
That awful pause, dividing life from death,
Struck for an instant on the hearts of men,
Thousands of whom were drawing their last breath!
A moment! and all will be life again!
The march! the charge! the shouts of either faith!
Hurra! and Allah! and, one moment more,
The Death-cry drowning in the battle's roar.

112

Canto VIII

1

Oh blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds!
These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,
Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:
And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream
Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds
At present such things, since they are her theme,
So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,
Bellona, what you will—they mean but wars.

113

2

All was prepared—the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
Marched forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay,—
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain
Immediately in others grew again.

3

History can only take things in the gross;
But could we know them in detail, perchance
In balancing the profit and the loss,
War's merit it by no means might enhance,
To waste so much gold for a little dross,
As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

114

4

And why? because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,
A higher title, or a loftier station,
Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,
Yet, in the end, except in freedom's battles,
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.

5

And such they are—and such they will be found.
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground,
Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!
While the mere victor's may appal or stun
The servile and the vain, such names will be
A watchword till the future shall be free.

115

6

The night was dark, and the thick mist allowed
Nought to be seen save the artillery's flame,
Which arched the horizon like a fiery cloud,
And in the Danube's waters shone the same—
A mirrored Hell! The volleying roar, and loud
Long booming of each peal on peal, o'ercame
The ear far more than thunder; for Heaven's flashes
Spare, or smite rarely—Man's make millions ashes!

7

The column ordered on the assault scarce passed
Beyond the Russian batteries a few toises,
When up the bristling Moslem rose at last,
Answering the Christian thunders with like voices;
Then one vast fire, air, earth and stream embraced,
Which rocked as 'twere beneath the mighty noises;
While the whole rampart blazed like Etna, when
The restless Titan hiccups in his den.

116

8

And one enormous shout of “Allah!” rose
In the same moment, loud as even the roar
Of War's most mortal engines, to their foes
Hurling defiance: city, stream, and shore,
Resounded “Allah!” and the clouds which close
With thick'ning canopy the conflict o'er,
Vibrate to the Eternal name. Hark! through
All sounds it pierceth, “Allah! Allah! Hu!”

9

The columns were in movement one and all,
But of the portion which attacked by water,
Thicker than leaves the lives began to fall,
Though led by Arseniew, that great son of Slaughter,
As brave as ever faced both bomb and ball.
“Carnage” (so Wordsworth tells you) “is God's daughter”:
If he speak truth, she is Christ's sister, and
Just now behaved as in the Holy Land.

10

The Prince de Ligne was wounded in the knee:
Count Chapeau-Bras too had a ball between
His cap and head, which proves the head to be
Aristocratic as was ever seen,

117

Because it then received no injury
More than the cap; in fact the ball could mean
No harm unto a right legitimate head:
“Ashes to ashes”—why not lead to lead?

11

Also the General Markow, Brigadier,
Insisting on removal of the Prince
Amidst some groaning thousands dying near,—
All common fellows, who might writhe, and wince,
And shriek for water into a deaf ear,—
The General Markow, who could thus evince
His sympathy for rank, by the same token,
To teach him greater, had his own leg broken.

12

Three hundred cannon threw up their emetic,
And thirty thousand musquets flung their pills
Like hail, to make a bloody diuretic.
Mortality! thou hast thy monthly bills;
Thy Plagues, thy Famines, thy Physicians, yet tick,
Like the death-watch, within our ears the ills
Past, present, and to come;—but all may yield
To the true portrait of one battle-field.

118

13

There the still varying pangs, which multiply
Until their very number makes men hard
By the infinities of agony,
Which meet the gaze, whate'er it may regard—
The groan, the roll in dust, the all-white eye
Turned back within its socket,—these reward
Your rank and file by thousands, while the rest
May win perhaps a ribbon at the breast!

14

Yet I love Glory;—glory's a great thing;—
Think what it is to be in your old age
Maintained at the expense of your good king:
A moderate pension shakes full many a sage,
And heroes are but made for bards to sing,
Which is still better; thus in verse to wage
Your wars eternally, besides enjoying
Half-pay for life, make mankind worth destroying.

119

15

The troops, already disembarked, pushed on
To take a battery on the right; the others,
Who landed lower down, their landing done,
Had set to work as briskly as their brothers:
Being grenadiers they mounted one by one,
Cheerful as children climb the breasts of mothers,
O'er the entrenchment and the palisade,
Quite orderly, as if upon parade.

16

And this was admirable; for so hot
The fire was, that were red Vesuvius loaded,
Besides its lava, with all sorts of shot
And shells or hells, it could not more have goaded.
Of officers a third fell on the spot,
A thing which victory by no means boded
To gentlemen engaged in the assault:
Hounds, when the huntsman tumbles, are at fault.

120

17

But here I leave the general concern,
To track our hero on his path of fame:
He must his laurels separately earn;
For fifty thousand heroes, name by name,
Though all deserving equally to turn
A couplet, or an elegy to claim,
Would form a lengthy lexicon of glory,
And what is worse still, a much longer story:

18

And therefore we must give the greater number
To the Gazette—which doubtless fairly dealt
By the deceased, who lie in famous slumber
In ditches, fields, or wheresoe'er they felt
Their clay for the last time their souls encumber;—
Thrice happy he whose name has been well spelt
In the despatch: I knew a man whose loss
Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose.

19

Juan and Johnson joined a certain corps,
And fought away with might and main, not knowing
The way which they had never trod before,
And still less guessing where they might be going;
But on they marched, dead bodies trampling o'er,
Firing, and thrusting, slashing, sweating, glowing,

121

But fighting thoughtlessly enough to win,
To their two selves, one whole bright bulletin.

20

Thus on they wallowed in the bloody mire
Of dead and dying thousands,—sometimes gaining
A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher
To some odd angle for which all were straining;
At other times, repulsed by the close fire,
Which really poured as if all Hell were raining,
Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er
A wounded comrade, sprawling in his gore.

21

Though 'twas Don Juan's first of fields, and though
The nightly muster and the silent march
In the chill dark, when courage does not glow
So much as under a triumphal arch,
Perhaps might make him shiver, yawn, or throw
A glance on the dull clouds (as thick as starch,
Which stiffened Heaven) as if he wished for day;—
Yet for all this he did not run away.

122

22

Indeed he could not. But what if he had?
There have been and are heroes who begun
With something not much better or as bad:
Frederick the Great from Molwitz deigned to run,
For the first and last time; for, like a pad,
Or hawk, or bride, most mortals after one
Warm bout are broken into their new tricks,
And fight like fiends for pay or politics.

23

He was what Erin calls, in her sublime
Old Erse or Irish, or it may be Punic;—
(The Antiquarians who can settle Time,
Which settles all things, Roman, Greek or Runic,
Swear that Pat's language sprung from the same clime
With Hannibal, and wears the Tyrian tunic
Of Dido's alphabet; and this is rational
As any other notion, and not national);—

123

24

But Juan was quite “a broth of a boy,”
A thing of impulse and a child of song;
Now swimming in the sentiment of joy,
Or the sensation (if that phrase seem wrong)
And afterwards, if he must needs destroy,
In such good company as always throng
To battles, sieges, and that kind of pleasure,
No less delighted to employ his leisure.

25

But always without malice; if he warr'd
Or loved, it was with what we call “the best
Intentions,” which form all mankind's trump card,
To be produced when brought up to the test.
The statesman, hero, harlot, lawyer—ward
Off each attack, when people are in quest
Of their designs, by saying they meant well;
'Tis pity “that such meaning should pave Hell.”

124

26

I almost lately have begun to doubt
Whether Hell's pavement—if it be so paved—
Must not have latterly been quite worn out,
Not by the numbers Good Intent hath saved,
But by the mass who go below without
Those antient good intentions, which once shaved
And smoothed the brimstone of that street of Hell
Which bears the greatest likeness to Pall Mall.

125

27

Juan, by some strange chance, which oft divides
Warrior from warrior in their grim career,
Like chastest wives from constant husbands' sides
Just at the close of the first bridal year,
By one of those odd turns of Fortune's tides,
Was on a sudden rather puzzled here,
When, after a good deal of heavy firing,
He found himself alone, and friends retiring.

28

I don't know how the thing occurred—it might
Be that the greater part were killed or wounded,
And that the rest had faced unto the right
About; a circumstance which has confounded
Caesar himself, who in the very sight
Of his whole army, which so much abounded
In courage, was obliged to snatch a shield
And rally back his Romans to the field.

126

29

Juan, who had no shield to snatch, and was
No Caesar, but a fine young lad, who fought
He knew not why, arriving at this pass,
Stopped for a minute, as perhaps he ought
For a much longer time; then, like an ass—
(Start not, kind reader, since great Homer thought
This simile enough for Ajax, Juan
Perhaps may find it better than a new one):—

30

Then, like an ass, he went upon his way,
And, what was stranger, never looked behind;
But seeing, flashing forward, like the day
Over the hills, a fire enough to blind
Those who dislike to look upon a fray,
He stumbled on, to try if he could find
A path to add his own slight arm and forces
To corps, the greater part of which were corses.

127

31

Perceiving then no more the commandant
Of his own corps, nor even the corps, which had
Quite disappeared—the Gods know how! (I can't
Account for every thing which may look bad
In history; but we at least may grant
It was not marvellous that a mere lad,
In search of glory, should look on before,
Nor care a pinch of snuff about his corps):—

32

Perceiving nor commander nor commanded,
And left at large, like a young heir, to make
His way to—where he knew not—single handed;
As travellers follow over bog and brake
An “Ignis fatuus”; or as sailors stranded
Unto the nearest hut themselves betake;
So Juan, following honour and his nose,
Rushed where the thickest fire announced most foes.

129

33

He knew not where he was, nor greatly cared,
For he was dizzy, busy, and his veins
Filled as with lightning—for his Spirit shared
The hour, as is the case with lively brains;
And where the hottest fire was seen and heard,
And the loud cannon pealed his hoarsest strains,
He rushed, while Earth and Air were sadly shaken
By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!

130

34

And as he rushed along, it came to pass he
Fell in with what was late the second column,
Under the orders of the General Lascy,
But now reduced, as is a bulky volume
Into an elegant extract (much less massy)
Of heroism, and took his place with solemn
Air 'midst the rest, who kept their valiant faces
And levelled weapons still against the glacis.

35

Just at this crisis up came Johnson too,
Who had “retreated,” as the phrase is when
Men run away much rather than go through
Destruction's jaws into the devil's den;
But Johnson was a clever fellow, who
Knew when and how “to cut and come again,”
And never ran away, except when running
Was nothing but a valourous kind of cunning.

131

36

And so, when all his corps were dead or dying,
Except Don Juan,—a mere novice, whose
More virgin valour never dreamt of flying,
From ignorance of danger, which indues
Its votaries, like Innocence relying
On its own strength, with careless nerves and thews,—
Johnson retired a little, just to rally
Those who catch cold in “shadows of Death's valley.”

37

And there, a little sheltered from the shot,
Which rained from bastion, battery, parapet,
Rampart, wall, casement, house—for there was not
In this extensive city, sore beset
By Christian soldiery, a single spot
Which did not combat like the devil, as yet,—
He found a number of Chasseurs, all scattered
By the resistance of the chase they battered.

132

38

And these he called on; and, what's strange, they came
Unto his call, unlike “the Spirits from
The vasty deep,” to whom you may exclaim,
Says Hotspur, long ere they will leave their home.
Their reasons were uncertainty, or shame
At shrinking from a bullet or a bomb,
And that odd impulse, which in wars or creeds
Makes men, like cattle, follow him who leads.

39

By Jove! he was a noble fellow, Johnson,
And though his name, than Ajax or Achilles
Sounds less harmonious, underneath the sun soon
We shall not see his likeness: he could kill his
Man quite as quietly as blows the Monsoon
Her steady breath (which some months the same still is):
Seldom he varied feature, hue, or muscle,
And could be very busy without bustle;

133

40

And therefore, when he ran away, he did so
Upon reflection, knowing that behind
He would find others who would fain be rid so
Of idle apprehensions, which like wind
Trouble heroic stomachs. Though their lids so
Oft are soon closed, all heroes are not blind,
But when they light upon immediate death,
Retire a little, merely to take breath.

41

But Johnson only ran off, to return
With many other warriors, as we said,
Unto that rather somewhat misty bourn,
Which Hamlet tells us is a pass of dread.
To Jack howe'er this gave but slight concern:
His soul (like Galvanism upon the dead)
Acted upon the living as on wire,
And led them back into the heaviest fire.

134

42

Egad! they found the second time what they
The first time thought quite terrible enough
To fly from, malgré all which people say
Of glory, and all that immortal stuff
Which fills a regiment (besides their pay,
That daily shilling which makes warriors tough)—
They found on their return the self-same welcome,
Which made some think, and others know, a Hell come.

43

They fell as thick as harvests beneath hail,
Grass before scythes, or corn below the sickle,
Proving that trite old truth, that life's as frail
As any other boon for which men stickle.
The Turkish batteries thrashed them like a flail
Or a good boxer, into a sad pickle,
Putting the very bravest, who were knocked
Upon the head, before their guns were cocked.

44

The Turks behind the traverses and flanks
Of the next bastion, fired away like devils,
And swept, as gales sweep foam away, whole ranks:
However, Heaven knows how, the Fate who levels

135

Towns, nations, worlds, in her revolving pranks,
So ordered it, amidst these sulphury revels,
That Johnson and some few who had not scampered,
Reached the interior talus of the rampart.

45

First one or two, then five, six, and a dozen
Came mounting quickly up, for it was now
All neck or nothing, as, like pitch or rosin,
Flame was showered forth above as well's below,
So that you scarce could say who best had chosen,
The gentlemen that were the first to show
Their martial faces on the parapet,
Or those who thought it brave to wait as yet.

136

46

But those who scaled, found out that their advance
Was favoured by an accident or blunder.
The Greek or Turkish Cohorn's ignorance
Had palisadoed in a way you'd wonder
To see in forts of Netherlands or France—
(Though these to our Gibraltar must knock under)—
Right in the middle of the parapet
Just named, these palisades were primly set:

47

So that on either side some nine or ten
Paces were left, whereon you could contrive
To march; a great convenience to our men,
At least to all those who were left alive,
Who thus could form a line and fight again;
And that which further aided them to strive
Was, that they could kick down the palisades,
Which scarcely rose much higher than grass blades.

48

Among the first,—I will not say the first,
For such precedence upon such occasions
Will oftentimes make deadly quarrels burst
Out between friends as well as allied nations:
The Briton must be bold who really durst
Put to such trial John Bull's partial patience,
As say that Wellington at Waterloo
Was beaten,—though the Prussians say so too;—

137

49

And that if Blücher, Bulow, Gneisenau,
And God knows who besides in “au” and “ou,”
Had not come up in time to cast an awe
Into the hearts of those who fought till now
As tigers combat with an empty craw,
The Duke of Wellington had ceased to show
His orders, also to receive his pensions,
Which are the heaviest that our history mentions.

50

But never mind;—“God save the king!” and kings!
For if he don't, I doubt if men will longer—
I think I hear a little bird, who sings
The people by and bye will be the stronger:
The veriest jade will wince whose harness wrings
So much into the raw as quite to wrong her
Beyond the rules of posting,—and the Mob
At last fall sick of imitating Job:

138

51

At first it grumbles, then it swears, and then,
Like David, flings smooth pebbles 'gainst a giant;
At last it takes to weapons such as men
Snatch when despair makes human hearts less pliant.
Then comes “the tug of war”;—'twill come again,
I rather doubt; and I would fain say “fie on't,”
If I had not perceived that Revolution
Alone can save the Earth from Hell's pollution.

52

But to continue;—I say not the first,
But of the first, our little friend Don Juan
Walked o'er the walls of Ismail, as if nurst
Amidst such scenes—though this was quite a new one
To him, and I should hope to most. The thirst
Of Glory, which so pierces through and through one,
Pervaded him—although a generous creature,
As warm in heart as feminine in feature.

139

53

And here he was—who upon Woman's breast,
Even from a child, felt like a child; howe'er
The man in all the rest might be confest,
To him it was Elysium to be there;
And he could even withstand that awkward test
Which Rousseau points out to the dubious fair,
“Observe your lover when he leaves your arms”;
But Juan never left them, while they had charms,

54

Unless compelled by fate, or wave, or wind,
Or near relations, who are much the same.
But here he was!—where each tie that can bind
Humanity must yield to steel and flame:
And he whose very body was all Mind,
Flung here by Fate, or Circumstance, which tame
The loftiest, hurried by the time and place,
Dashed on like a spurred blood-horse in a race.

140

55

So was his blood stirred while he found resistance,
As is the hunter's at the five-bar gate,
Or double post and rail, where the existence
Of Britain's youth depends upon their weight,
The lightest being the safest: at a distance
He hated cruelty, as all men hate
Blood, until heated—and even there his own
At times would curdle o'er some heavy groan.

56

The General Lascy, who had been hard prest,
Seeing arrive an aid so opportune
As were some hundred youngsters all abreast,
Who came as if just dropped down from the moon,
To Juan, who was nearest him, addressed
His thanks, and hopes to take the city soon,
Not reckoning him to be a “base Bezonian,”
(As Pistol calls it) but a young Livonian.

141

57

Juan, to whom he spoke in German, knew
As much of German as of Sanscrit, and
In answer made an inclination to
The General who held him in command;
For seeing one with ribbons, black and blue,
Stars, medals, and a bloody sword in hand,
Addressing him in tones which seemed to thank,
He recognized an officer of rank.

58

Short speeches pass between two men who speak
No common language; and besides, in time
Of war and taking towns, when many a shriek
Rings o'er the dialogue, and many a crime
Is perpetrated ere a word can break
Upon the ear, and sounds of horror chime
In like church bells, with sigh, howl, groan, yell, prayer,
There cannot be much conversation there.

142

59

And therefore all we have related in
Two long octaves, passed in a little minute;
But in the same small minute, every sin
Contrived to get itself comprised within it.
The very cannon, deafened by the din,
Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet,
As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise
Of human Nature's agonizing voice!

60

The town was entered. Oh Eternity!—
“God made the country, and man made the town,”
So Cowper says—and I begin to be
Of his opinion, when I see cast down
Rome, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Nineveh,
All walls men know, and many never known;
And pondering on the present and the past,
To deem the woods shall be our home at last:—

143

61

Of all men, saving Sylla the Man-slayer,
Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
Of the great names which in our faces stare,
The General Boon, back-woodsman of Kentucky,
Was happiest amongst mortals any where;
For killing nothing but a bear or buck, he
Enjoyed the lonely vigorous, harmless days
Of his old age in wilds of deepest maze.

62

Crime came not near him—she is not the child
Of Solitude; health shrank not from him—for
Her home is in the rarely-trodden wild,
Where if men seek her not, and death be more
Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguiled
By habit to what their own hearts abhor—
In cities caged. The present case in point I
Cite is, that Boon lived hunting up to ninety;

144

63

And what's still stranger, left behind a name
For which men vainly decimate the throng,
Not only famous, but of that good fame,
Without which Glory's but a tavern song—
Simple, serene, the antipodes of shame,
Which hate nor envy e'er could tinge with wrong;
An active hermit, even in age the child
Of Nature, or the Man of Ross run wild.

64

'Tis true he shrank from men even of his nation,
When they built up unto his darling trees,—
He moved some hundred miles off, for a station
Where there were fewer houses and more ease;
The inconvenience of civilization
Is, that you neither can be pleased nor please;
But where he met the individual man
He shewed himself as kind as mortal can.

145

65

He was not all alone: around him grew
A sylvan tribe of children of the chace,
Whose young, unwakened world was ever new,
Nor sword nor sorrow yet had left a trace
On her unwrinkled brow, nor could you view
A frown on Nature's or on human face;—
The free-born forest found and kept them free,
And fresh as is a torrent or a tree.

66

And tall and strong and swift of foot were they,
Beyond the dwarfing city's pale abortions,
Because their thoughts had never been the prey
Of care or gain: the green woods were their portions;
No sinking Spirits told them they grew grey,
No Fashion made them apes of her distortions;
Simple they were, not savage; and their rifles,
Though very true, were not yet used for trifles.

67

Motion was in their days, Rest in their slumbers,
And Cheerfulness the handmaid of their toil;
Nor yet too many nor too few their numbers;
Corruption could not make their hearts her soil;
The Lust which stings, the Splendour which encumbers,
With the free foresters divide no spoil;
Serene, not sullen, were the solitudes
Of this unsighing people of the woods.

146

68

So much for Nature:—by way of variety,
Now back to thy great joys, Civilization!
And the sweet consequence of large society,
War, Pestilence, the despot's desolation,
The kingly scourge, the Lust of Notoriety,
The millions slain by soldiers for their ration,
The scenes like Catherine's boudoir at three-score,
With Ismail's storm to soften it the more.

69

The town was entered: first one column made
Its sanguinary way good—then another;
The reeking bayonet and the flashing blade
Clashed 'gainst the scymitar, and babe and mother
With distant shrieks were heard Heaven to upbraid;—
Still closer sulphury clouds began to smother
The breath of Morn and Man, where foot by foot
The maddened Turks their city still dispute.

147

70

Koutousow, he who afterwards beat back
(With some assistance from the frost and snow)
Napoleon on his bold and bloody track,
It happened was himself beat back just now:
He was a jolly fellow, and could crack
His jest alike in face of friend or foe,
Though life, and death, and victory were at stake,
But here it seemed his jokes had ceased to take:

71

For having thrown himself into a ditch,
Followed in haste by various grenadiers,
Whose blood the puddle greatly did enrich,
He climbed to where the parapet appears;
But there his project reached its utmost pitch;
('Mongst other deaths the General Ribaupierre's
Was much regretted) for the Moslem Men
Threw them all down into the ditch again.

148

72

And had it not been for some stray troops, landing
They knew not where, being carried by the stream
To some spot, where they lost their understanding,
And wandered up and down as in a dream,
Until they reached, as day-break was expanding,
That which a portal to their eyes did seem,—
The great and gay Koutousow might have lain
Where three parts of his column yet remain.

73

And scrambling round the rampart, these same troops,
After the taking of the “Cavalier,”
Just as Koutousow's most “Forlorn” of “Hopes”
Took like camelions some slight tinge of fear,
Opened the gate called “Kilia” to the groups
Of baffled heroes who stood shyly near,
Sliding knee-deep in lately frozen mud,
Now thawed into a marsh of human blood.

149

74

The Kozaks, or if so you please, Cossacques—
(I don't much pique myself upon orthography,
So that I do not grossly err in facts,
Statistics, tactics, politics and geography)—
Having been used to serve on horses' backs,
And no great dilettanti in topography
Of fortresses, but fighting where it pleases
Their chiefs to order,—were all cut to pieces.

75

Their column, though the Turkish batteries thundered
Upon them, ne'ertheless had reached the rampart,
And naturally thought they could have plundered
The city, without being further hamper'd;
But as it happens to brave men, they blundered—
The Turks at first pretended to have scampered,
Only to draw them 'twixt two bastion corners,
From whence they sallied on those Christian scorners.

150

76

Then being taken by the tail—a taking
Fatal to bishops as to soldiers—these
Cossacques were all cut off as day was breaking,
And found their lives were let at a short lease—
But perished without shivering or shaking,
Leaving as ladders their heaped carcases,
O'er which Lieutenant Colonel Yesouskoi
Marched with the brave battalion of Polouzki:—

77

This valiant man killed all the Turks he met,
But could not eat them, being in his turn
Slain by some Mussulmans, who would not yet,
Without resistance, see their city burn.
The walls were won, but 'twas an even bet
Which of the armies would have cause to mourn:
'Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,
For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch.

151

78

Another column also suffered much:—
And here we may remark with the Historian,
You should but give few cartridges to such
Troops as are meant to march with greatest glory on:
When matters must be carried by the touch
Of the bright bayonet, and they all should hurry on,
They sometimes, with a hankering for existence,
Keep merely firing at a foolish distance.

79

A junction of the General Meknop's men
(Without the General, who had fallen some time
Before, being badly seconded just then)
Was made at length with those who dared to climb
The death-disgorging rampart once again;
And though the Turk's resistance was sublime,
They took the bastion, which the Seraskier
Defended at a price extremely dear.

152

80

Juan and Johnson, and some volunteers
Among the foremost, offered him good quarter,
A word which little suits with Seraskiers,
Or at least suited not this valiant Tartar.
He died, deserving well his country's tears,
A savage sort of military martyr.
An English naval officer, who wished
To make him prisoner, was also dished:

81

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 perished here,
And sixteen bayonets pierced the Seraskier.

82

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,
Engendered monstrous shapes of every Crime.

153

83

A Russian officer, in martial tread
Over a heap of bodies, felt his heel
Seized fast, as if 'twere by the serpent's head
Whose fangs Eve taught her human seed to feel:
In vain he kicked, and swore, and writhed, and bled,
And howled for help as wolves do for a meal—
The teeth still kept their gratifying hold,
As do the subtle snakes described of old.

84

A dying Moslem, who had felt the foot
Of a foe o'er him, snatched at it, and bit
The very tendon, which is most acute—
(That which some ancient Muse or Modern Wit
Named after thee, Achilles) and quite through't
He made the teeth meet, nor relinquished it
Even with his life—for (but they lie) 'tis said
To the live leg still clung the severed head.

154

85

However this may be, 'tis pretty sure
The Russian officer for life was lamed,
For the Turk's teeth stuck faster than a skewer,
And left him 'midst the invalid and maimed:
The regimental surgeon could not cure
His patient, and perhaps was to be blamed
More than the head of the inveterate foe,
Which was cut off, and scarce even then let go.

86

But then the fact's a fact—and 'tis the part
Of a true poet to escape from fiction
Whene'er he can; for there is little art
In leaving verse more free from the restriction
Of truth than prose, unless to suit the mart
For what is sometimes called poetic diction,
And that outrageous appetite for lies
Which Satan angles with, for souls, like flies.

155

87

The City's taken, but not rendered!—No!
There's not a Moslem that hath yielded sword:
The blood may gush out, as the Danube's flow
Rolls by the city wall; but deed nor word
Acknowledge aught of dread of death or foe:
In vain the yell of victory is roared
By the advancing Muscovite—the groan
Of the last foe is echoed by his own.

88

The bayonet pierces and the sabre cleaves,
And human lives are lavished every where,
As the year closing whirls the scarlet leaves
When the stript forest bows to the bleak air,
And groans; and thus the peopled City grieves,
Shorn of its best and loveliest, and left bare;
But still it falls with vast and awful splinters,
As Oaks blown down with all their thousand winters.

156

89

It is an awful topic—but 'tis not
My cue for any time to be terrific:
For checquered as is seen our human lot
With good, and bad, and worse, alike prolific
Of melancholy merriment, to quote
Too much of one sort would be soporific;—
Without, or with, offence to friends or foes,
I sketch your world exactly as it goes.

90

And one good action in the midst of crimes
Is “quite refreshing,” in the affected phrase
Of these ambrosial, Pharisaic times,
With all their pretty milk-and-water ways,
And may serve therefore to bedew these rhymes,
A little scorched at present with the blaze
Of conquest and its consequences, which
Make Epic poesy so rare and rich.

157

91

Upon a taken bastion where there lay
Thousands of slaughtered men, a yet warm group
Of murdered women, who had found their way
To this vain refuge, made the good heart droop
And shudder;—while, as beautiful as May,
A female child of ten years tried to stoop
And hide her little palpitating breast
Amidst the bodies lulled in bloody rest.

92

Two villainous Cossacques pursued the child
With flashing eyes and weapons: matched with them
The rudest brute that roams Siberia's wild
Has feelings pure and polished as a gem,—
The bear is civilized, the wolf is mild:
And whom for this at last must we condemn?
Their natures? or their sovereigns, who employ
All arts to teach their subjects to destroy?

158

93

Their sabres glittered o'er her little head,
Whence her fair hair rose twining with affright,
Her hidden face was plunged amidst the dead:
When Juan caught a glimpse of this sad sight,
I shall not say exactly what he said,
Because it might not solace “ears polite”;
But what he did, was to lay on their backs,
The readiest way of reasoning with Cossacques.

94

One's hip he slashed, and split the other's shoulder,
And drove them with their brutal yells to seek
If there might be chirurgeons who could solder
The wounds they richly merited, and shriek
Their baffled rage and pain; while waxing colder
As he turned o'er each pale and gory cheek,
Don Juan raised his little captive from
The heap a moment more had made her tomb.

159

95

And she was chill as they, and on her face
A slender streak of blood announced how near
Her fate had been to that of all her race;
For the same blow which laid her Mother here,
Had scarred her brow, and left its crimson trace
As the last link with all she had held dear;
But else unhurt, she opened her large eyes,
And gazed on Juan with a wild surprise.

96

Just at this instant, while their eyes were fixed
Upon each other, with dilated glance,
In Juan's look, pain, pleasure, hope, fear, mixed
With joy to save, and dread of some mischance
Unto his protégée; while her's, transfixed
With infant terrors, glared as from a trance,
A pure, transparent, pale, yet radiant face,
Like to a lighted alabaster vase;—

160

97

Up came John Johnson: (I will not say “Jack,”
For that were vulgar, cold, and common place
On great occasions, such as an attack
On cities, as hath been the present case):
Up Johnson came, with hundreds at his back,
Exclaiming:—“Juan! Juan! On, boy! brace
Your arm, and I'll bet Moscow to a dollar,
That you and I will win St. George's collar.

98

“The Seraskier is knocked upon the head,
But the stone bastion still remains, wherein
The old Pacha sits among some hundreds dead,
Smoking his pipe quite calmly 'midst the din
Of our artillery and his own: 'tis said
Our killed, already piled up to the chin,
Lie round the battery; but still it batters,
And grape in volleys, like a vineyard, scatters.

161

99

“Then up with me!”—But Juan answered, “Look
Upon this child—I saved her—must not leave
Her life to chance; but point me out some nook
Of safety, where she less may shrink and grieve,
And I am with you.”—Whereon Johnson took
A glance around—and shrugged—and twitched his sleeve
And black silk neckcloth—and replied, “You're right;
Poor thing! what's to be done? I'm puzzled quite.”

100

Said Juan—“Whatsoever is to be
Done, I'll not quit her till she seems secure
Of present life a good deal more than we.”—
Quoth Johnson—“Neither will I quite ensure;
But at the least you may die gloriously.”—
Juan replied—“At least I will endure
Whate'er is to be borne—but not resign
This child, who is parentless and therefore mine.”

162

101

Johnson said—“Juan, we've no time to lose;
The child's a pretty child—a very pretty—
I never saw such eyes—but hark! now choose
Between your fame and feelings, pride and pity;—
Hark! how the roar increases!—no excuse
Will serve when there is plunder in a city;—
I should be loth to march without you, but,
By God! we'll be too late for the first cut.”

102

But Juan was immoveable; until
Johnson, who really loved him in his way,
Picked out amongst his followers with some skill
Such as he thought the least given up to prey;
And swearing if the infant came to ill
That they should all be shot on the next day;
But, if she were delivered safe, and sound,
They should at least have fifty roubles round;

163

103

And all allowances besides of plunder
In fair proportion with their comrades;—then
Juan consented to march on through thunder,
Which thinned at every step their ranks of men:
And yet the rest rushed eagerly—no wonder,
For they were heated by the hope of gain,
A thing which happens every where each day—
No Hero trusteth wholly to half-pay.

104

And such is victory, and such is man!
At least nine-tenths of what we call so;—God
May have another name for half we scan
As human beings, or his ways are odd.
But to our subject: a brave Tartar Khan,—
Or “Sultan,” as the author (to whose nod
In prose I bend my humble verse) doth call
This chieftain—somehow would not yield at all:

164

105

But flanked by five brave sons (such is Polygamy,
That she spawns warriors by the score, where none
Are prosecuted for that false crime bigamy)
He never would believe the city won
While courage clung but to a single twig.—Am I
Describing Priam's, Peleus', or Jove's son?
Neither,—but a good, plain, old, temperate man,
Who fought with his five children in the van.

106

To take him was the point. The truly brave,
When they behold the brave oppressed with odds,
Are touched with a desire to shield and save;—
A mixture of wild beasts and demi-gods
Are they—now furious as the sweeping wave,
Now moved with pity: even as sometimes nods
The rugged tree unto the summer wind,
Compassion breathes along the savage mind.

165

107

But he would not be taken, and replied
To all the propositions of surrender
By mowing Christians down on every side,
As obstinate as Swedish Charles at Bender.
His five brave boys no less the foe defied;
Whereon the Russian pathos grew less tender,
As being a virtue, like terrestrial patience,
Apt to wear out on trifling provocations.

108

And spite of Johnson and of Juan, who
Expended all their Eastern phraseology
In begging him, for God's sake, just to show
So much less fight as might form an apology
For them in saving such a desperate foe—
He hewed away, like doctors of theology
When they dispute with sceptics; and with curses
Struck at his friends, as babies beat their nurses.

166

109

Nay, he had wounded, though but slightly, both
Juan and Johnson; whereupon they fell,
The first with sighs, the second with an oath,
Upon his angry Sultanship, pell-mell,
And all around were grown exceeding wroth
At such a pertinacious Infidel,
And poured upon him and his sons like rain,
Which they resisted like a sandy plain

110

That drinks and still is dry. At last they perished—
His second son was levelled by a shot;
His third was sabred; and the fourth, most cherished
Of all the five, on bayonets met his lot;
The fifth, who, by a Christian mother nourished,
Had been neglected, ill-used, and what not,
Because deformed, yet died all game and bottom,
To save a sire who blushed that he begot him.

167

111

The eldest was a true and tameless Tartar,
As great a scorner of the Nazarene
As ever Mahomet picked out for a martyr,
Who only saw the black-eyed girls in green,
Who make the beds of those who won't take quarter
On Earth, in Paradise; and when once seen,
Those Houris, like all other pretty creatures,
Do just whate'er they please, by dint of features.

112

And what they pleased to do with the young Khan
In heaven, I know not, nor pretend to guess;
But doubtless they prefer a fine young man
To tough old heroes, and can do no less;
And that's the cause no doubt why, if we scan
A field of battle's ghastly wilderness,
For one rough, weather-beaten, veteran body,
You'll find ten thousand handsome coxcombs bloody.

168

113

Your Houris also have a natural pleasure
In lopping off your lately married men,
Before the bridal Hours have danced their measure,
And the sad, second moon grows dim again,
Or dull Repentance hath had dreary leisure
To wish him back a bachelor now and then.
And thus your Houri (it may be) disputes
Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits.

114

Thus the young Khan, with Houris in his sight,
Thought not upon the charms of four young brides,
But bravely rushed on his first heavenly night.
In short, howe'er our better Faith derides,
These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight,
As though there were one Heaven and none besides—
Whereas, if all be true we hear of Heaven
And Hell, there must at least be six or seven.

169

115

So fully flashed the phantom on his eyes,
That when the very lance was in his heart,
He shouted “Allah!” and saw Paradise
With all its veil of mystery drawn apart,
And bright Eternity without disguise
On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart;—
With Prophets, Houris, Angels, Saints, descried
In one voluptuous blaze,—and then he died:

116

But, with a heavenly rapture on his face,
The good old Khan, who long had ceased to see
Houris, or aught except his florid race
Who grew like Cedars round him gloriously—
When he beheld his latest hero grace
The earth, which he became like a felled tree,
Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast
A glance on that slain son, his first and last.

170

117

The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point,
Stopped as if once more willing to concede
Quarter, in case he bade them not “aroint!”
As he before had done. He did not heed
Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint,
And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed,
As he looked down upon his children gone,
And felt—though done with life—he was alone.

118

But 'twas a transient tremor;—with a spring
Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung,
As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing
Against the light wherein she dies: he clung
Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring,
Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young;
And throwing back a dim look on his sons,
In one wide wound poured forth his soul at once.

171

119

'Tis strange enough—the rough, tough soldiers, who
Spared neither sex nor age in their career
Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through,
And lay before them with his children near,
Touched by the heroism of him they slew,
Were melted for a moment; though no tear
Flowed from their blood-shot eyes, all red with strife,
They honoured such determined scorn of life.

120

But the stone bastion still kept up its fire,
Where the chief Pacha calmly held his post:
Some twenty times he made the Russ retire,
And baffled the assaults of all their host;
At length he condescended to enquire
If yet the city's rest were won or lost;
And being told the latter, sent a Bey
To answer Ribas' summons to give way.

172

121

In the mean time, cross-legged, with great sang froid,
Among the scorching ruins he sat smoking
Tobacco on a little carpet;—Troy
Saw nothing like the scene around;—yet looking
With martial stoicism, nought seemed to annoy
His stern philosophy; but gently stroking
His beard, he puffed his pipe's ambrosial gales,
As if he had three lives as well as tails.

122

The town was taken—whether he might yield
Himself or bastion, little mattered now;
His stubborn valour was no future shield.
Ismail's no more! The crescent's silver bow
Sunk, and the crimson cross glared o'er the field,
But red with no redeeming gore: the glow
Of burning streets, like moonlight on the water,
Was imaged back in blood, the sea of slaughter.

173

123

All that the mind would shrink from of excesses;
All that the body perpetrates of bad;
All that we read, hear, dream of man's distresses;
All that the Devil would do if run stark mad;
All that defies the worst which pen expresses;
All by which Hell is peopled, or as sad
As Hell—mere mortals who their power abuse,—
Was here (as heretofore and since) let loose.

174

124

If here and there some transient trait of pity
Was shown, and some more noble heart broke through
Its bloody bond, and saved perhaps some pretty
Child, or an aged, helpless man or two—
What's this in one annihilated city,
Where thousand loves, and ties, and duties grow?
Cockneys of London! Muscadins of Paris!
Just ponder what a pious pastime war is:

125

Think how the joys of reading a Gazette
Are purchased by all agonies and crimes:
Or if these do not move you, don't forget
Such doom may be your own in after times.
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.

175

126

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.

127

But let me put an end unto my theme:
There was an end of Ismail—hapless town!
Far flashed 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 manned the wall,
Some hundreds breathed—the rest were silent all!

176

128

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 ravished very little.

129

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.

177

130

Some odd mistakes too happened in the dark,
Which showed a want of lanthorns, 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 deflowered by different Grenadiers.

131

But on the whole their continence was great;
So that some disappointment there ensued
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.

178

132

Some voices of the buxom middle-aged
Were also heard to wonder in the din
(Widows of forty were these birds long caged)
“Wherefore the ravishing did not begin!”
But while the thirst for gore and plunder raged,
There was small leisure for superfluous sin;
But whether they escaped or no, lies hid
In darkness—I can only hope they did.

133

Suwarrow now was conqueror—a match
For Timour or for Zinghis in his trade.
While mosques and streets, beneath his eyes, like thatch
Blazed, and the cannon's roar was scarce allayed,
With bloody hands he wrote his first dispatch;
And here exactly follows what he said:—
“Glory to God and to the Empress!” (Powers
Eternal!! such names mingled!) “Ismail's our's.”

179

134

Methinks these are the most tremendous words,
Since “Menè, Menè, Tekel,” and “Upharsin,”
Which hands or pens have ever traced 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.

135

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
Showed what things were before the world was free!

180

136

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 remembered, still disdain you 'em
More than you scorn the savages of yore,
Who painted their bare limbs, but not with gore.

137

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.

181

138

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,

139

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 bye 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 dispatch,
For which all Petersburgh is on the watch.

182

140

This special honour was conferred, because
He had behaved with courage and humanity;—
Which last, men like, when they have time to pause
From their ferocities produced by vanity.
His little captive gained him some applause
For saving her amidst the wild insanity
Of carnage,—and I think he was more glad in her
Safety, than his new order of St. Vladimir.

141

The Moslem orphan went with her protector,
For she was homeless, houseless, helpless; all
Her friends, like the sad family of Hector,
Had perished in the field or by the wall:
Her very place of birth was but a spectre
Of what it had been; there the Muezzin's call
To prayer was heard no more!—And Juan wept,
And made a vow to shield her, which he kept.

183

Canto IX

1

Oh, Wellington! (or “Vilainton”—for Fame
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punned it down to this facetious phrase—
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same)—
You have obtained great pensions and much praise;
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,
Humanity would rise, and thunder “Nay!”

184

2

I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinêt's affair—in fact 'twas shabby,
And like some other things won't do to tell
Upon your tomb in Westminster's old abbey.
Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to dwell,
Such tales being for the tea hours of some tabby;
But though your years as man tend fast to zero,
In fact your Grace is still but a young Hero.

3

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more:
You have repaired Legitimacy's crutch,—
A prop not quite so certain as before:
The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor—
(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).

4

You are “the best of cut-throats”:—do not start;
The phrase is Shakspeare's, and not misapplied:—
War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,
Unless her cause by Right be sanctified.
If you have acted once a generous part,
The World, not the World's masters, will decide,
And I shall be delighted to learn who,
Save you and yours, have gained by Waterloo?

185

5

I am no flatterer—you've supped full of flattery:
They say you like it too—'tis no great wonder:
He whose whole life has been assault and battery,
At last may get a little tired of thunder;
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire, he
May like being praised for every lucky blunder;
Called “Saviour of the Nations”—not yet saved,
And Europe's Liberator—still enslaved.

6

I've done. Now go and dine from off the plate
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils,
And send the sentinel before your gate
A slice or two from your luxurious meals:
He fought, but has not fed so well of late.
Some hunger too they say the people feels:—
There is no doubt that you deserve your ration,
But pray give back a little to the nation.

186

7

I don't mean to reflect—a man so great as
You, my Lord Duke! is far above reflection.
The high Roman fashion too of Cincinnatus,
With modern history has but small connection:
Though as an Irishman you love potatoes,
You need not take them under your direction;
And half a million for your Sabine farm
Is rather dear!—I'm sure I mean no harm.

8

Great men have always scorned great recompenses:
Epaminondas saved his Thebes, and died,
Not leaving even his funeral expenses:
George Washington had thanks and nought beside,
Except the all-cloudless Glory (which few men's is)
To free his country: Pitt too had his pride,
And, as a high-soul'd Minister of State, is
Renowned for ruining Great Britain gratis.

187

9

Never had mortal Man such opportunity,
Except Napoleon, or abused it more:
You might have freed fall'n Europe from the Unity
Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore:
And now—What is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye?
Now—that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er?
Go, hear it in your famished Country's cries!
Behold the World! and curse your victories!

10

As these new Cantos touch on warlike feats,
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe
Truths that you will not read in the Gazettes,
But which, 'tis time to teach the hireling tribe
Who fatten on their Country's gore and debts,
Must be recited, and—without a bribe.
You did great things; but not being great in mind,
Have left undone the greatest—and mankind.

188

11

Death laughs—Go ponder o'er the skeleton
With which men image out the unknown thing
That hides the past world, like to a set sun
Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring,—
Death laughs at all you weep for:—look upon
This hourly dread of all, whose threatened sting
Turns life to terror, even though in its sheath!
Mark! how its lipless mouth grins without breath!

12

Mark! how it laughs and scorns at all you are!
And yet was what you are: from ear to ear
It laughs not—there is now no fleshy bar
So called; the Antic long hath ceased to hear,
But still he smiles; and whether near or far
He strips from man that mantle (far more dear
Than even the tailor's) his incarnate skin,
White, black, or copper—the dead bones will grin.

189

13

And thus Death laughs,—it is sad merriment,
But still it is so; and with such example
Why should not Life be equally content,
With his Superior, in a smile to trample
Upon the nothings which are daily spent
Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample
Than the eternal deluge, which devours
Suns as rays—worlds like atoms—years like hours?

14

“To be or not to be! that is the question,”
Says Shakespeare, who just now is much in fashion.
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion,
Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion;
But would much rather have a sound digestion,
Than Buonaparte's cancer:—could I dash on
Through fifty victories to shame or fame,
Without a stomach—what were a good name?

190

15

“Oh dura ilia messorum!”—“Oh
Ye rigid guts of reapers!”—I translate
For the great benefit of those who know
What Indigestion is—that inward fate
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow.
A peasant's sweat is worth his Lord's estate:
Let this one toil for bread—that rack for rent,
He who sleeps best, may be the most content.

16

“To be or not to be?”—Ere I decide,
I should be glad to know that which is being?
'Tis true we speculate both far and wide,
And deem, because we see, we are all-seeing:
For my part, I'll enlist on neither side,
Until I see both sides for once agreeing.
For me, I sometimes think that Life is Death,
Rather than Life a mere affair of breath.

191

17

“Que sçais-je?” was the motto of Montaigne,
As also of the first Academicians:
That all is dubious which Man may attain,
Was one of their most favourite positions.
There's no such thing as certainty, that's plain
As any of Mortality's Conditions:
So little do we know what we're about in
This world, I doubt if doubt itself be doubting.

18

It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float,
Like Pyrrho, on a sea of speculation;
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat?
Your wise men don't know much of navigation;
And swimming long in the abyss of thought
Is apt to tire: a calm and shallow station
Well nigh the shore, where one stoops down and gathers
Some pretty shell, is best for moderate bathers.

192

19

“But Heaven,” as Cassio says, “is above all,—
No more of this then,—let us pray!” We have
Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall,
Which tumbled all mankind into the grave,
Besides fish, beasts, and birds. “The Sparrow's fall
Is special providence,” though how it gave
Offence, we know not; probably it perched
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly searched.

20

Oh, ye immortal Gods! what is Theogony?
Oh, thou too mortal Man! what is Philanthropy?
Oh, World! which was and is, what is Cosmogony?
Some people have accused me of Misanthropy;
And yet I know no more than the mahogany
That forms this desk, of what they mean;—Lykanthropy
I comprehend, for without transformation
Men become wolves on any slight occasion.

193

21

But I, the mildest, meekest of mankind,
Like Moses, or Melancthon, who have ne'er
Done any thing exceedingly unkind,—
And (though I could not now and then forbear
Following the bent of body or of mind)
Have always had a tendency to spare,—
Why do they call me misanthrope? Because
They hate me, not I them:—And here we'll pause.

22

'Tis time we should proceed with our good poem,
For I maintain that it is really good,
Not only in the body, but the proem,
However little both are understood
Just now,—but by and by the Truth will show 'em
Herself in her sublimest attitude:
And till she doth, I fain must be content
To share her Beauty and her Banishment.

194

23

Our Hero (and, I trust, kind reader! your's)—
Was left upon his way to the chief City
Of the immortal Peter's polished boors,
Who still have shown themselves more brave than witty.
I know its mighty Empire now allures
Much flattery—even Voltaire's, and that's a pity.
For me, I deem an absolute Autocrat
Not a Barbarian, but much worse than that.

24

And I will war, at least in words (and—should
My chance so happen—deeds) with all who war
With Thought;—and of Thought's foes by far most rude,
Tyrants and Sycophants have been and are.
I know not who may conquer: if I could
Have such a prescience, it should be no bar
To this my plain, sworn, downright detestation
Of every despotism in every nation.

195

25

It is not that I adulate the people:
Without me, there are Demagogues enough,
And Infidels, to pull down every steeple
And set up in their stead some proper stuff.
Whether they may sow Scepticism to reap Hell,
As is the Christian dogma rather rough,
I do not know;—I wish men to be free
As much from mobs as kings—from you as me.

26

The consequence is, being of no party,
I shall offend all parties:—never mind!
My words, at least, are more sincere and hearty
Than if I sought to sail before the wind.
He who has nought to gain can have small art: he
Who neither wishes to be bound nor bind,
May still expatiate freely, as will I,
Nor give my voice to Slavery's Jackall cry.

196

27

That's an appropriate simile, that Jackall;—
I've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl
By night, as do that mercenary pack all,
Power's base purveyors, who for pickings prowl,
And scent the prey their masters would attack all.
However, the poor Jackalls are less foul
(As being the brave Lions' keen providers)
Than human Insects, catering for Spiders.

28

Raise but an arm! 'twill brush their web away,
And without that, their poison and their claws
Are useless. Mind, good People! what I say—
(Or rather Peoples)—go on without pause!
The web of these Tarantulas each day
Increases, till you shall make common cause:
None, save the Spanish Fly and Attic Bee,
As yet are strongly stinging to be free.

197

29

Don Juan, who had shone in the late slaughter,
Was left upon his way with the dispatch,
Where Blood was talked of as we would of Water;
And carcases that lay as thick as thatch
O'er silenced cities, merely served to flatter
Fair Catherine's pastime,—who looked on the match
Between these nations as a main of cocks,
Wherein she liked her own to stand like rocks.

30

And there in a kibitka he rolled on,
(A cursed sort of carriage without springs,
Which on rough roads leaves scarcely a whole bone)
Pondering on glory, chivalry, and kings,
And orders, and on all that he had done—
And wishing that post horses had the wings
Of Pegasus—or, at the least, post chaises
Had feathers, when a traveller on deep ways is.

198

31

At every jolt—and they were many—still
He turned his eyes upon his little charge,
As if he wished that she should fare less ill
Than he, in these sad highways left at large
To ruts, and flints, and lovely Nature's skill,
Who is no paviour, nor admits a barge
On her canals, where God takes sea and land,
Fishery and farm, both into his own hand.

32

At least he pays no rent, and has best right
To be the first of what we used to call
“Gentlemen Farmers”—a race worn out quite,
Since lately there have been no rents at all,
And “gentlemen” are in a piteous plight,
And “farmers” can't raise Ceres from her fall.
She fell with Buonaparte:—What strange thoughts
Arise, when we see Emperors fall with oats!

199

33

But Juan turned his eyes on the sweet child
Whom he had saved from slaughter—what a trophy!
Oh! ye who build up monuments, defiled
With gore, like Nadir Shah, that costive Sophy,
Who, after leaving Hindostan a wild,
And scarce to the Mogul a cup of coffee
To soothe his woes withal, was slain—the sinner!
Because he could no more digest his dinner;—

34

Oh ye! or we! or he! or she! reflect,
That one life saved, especially if young
Or pretty, is a thing to recollect
Far sweeter than the greenest laurels sprung
From the manure of human clay, though decked
With all the praises ever said or sung:
Though hymned by every harp, unless within
Your Heart joins Chorus, Fame is but a din.

200

35

Oh, ye great Authors luminous, voluminous!
Ye twice ten hundred thousand daily scribes,
Whose pamphlets, volumes, newspapers illumine us!
Whether you're paid by Government in bribes,
To prove the public debt is not consuming us—
Or, roughly treading on the “Courtier's kibes”
With clownish heel, your popular circulation
Feeds you by printing half the realm's Starvation;—

36

Oh, ye great Authors!—“Apropos des bottes”—
I have forgotten what I meant to say,
As sometimes have been greater Sages' lots;—
'Twas something calculated to allay
All wrath in barracks, palaces, or cots:
Certes it would have been but thrown away,
And that's one comfort for my lost advice,
Although no doubt it was beyond all price.

201

37

But let it go:—it will one day be found
With other relics of “a former world,”
When this world shall be former, underground,
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,
Baked, fried, or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled
First out of and then back again to Chaos,
The Superstratum which will overlay us.

38

So Cuvier says;—and then shall come again
Unto the new Creation, rising out
From our old crash, some mystic, ancient strain
Of things destroyed and left in airy doubt:
Like to the notions we now entertain
Of Titans, Giants, fellows of about
Some hundred feet in height, not to say miles,
And Mammoths, and your winged Crocodiles.

202

39

Think if then George the Fourth should be dug up!
How the new worldlings of the then new East
Will wonder where such animals could sup!
(For they themselves will be but of the least:
Even worlds miscarry, when too oft they pup,
And every new Creation hath decreased
In size, from overworking the material—
Men are but maggots of some huge Earth's burial.)

40

How will—to these young people, just thrust out
From some fresh Paradise, and set to plough,
And dig, and sweat, and turn themselves about,
And plant, and reap, and spin, and grind, and sow,
Till all the Arts at length are brought about,
Especially of war and taxing,—how,
I say, will these great relics, when they see 'em,
Look like the monsters of a new Museum?

203

41

But I am apt to grow too metaphysical:
“The time is out of joint,”—and so am I;
I quite forget this poem's merely quizzical,
And deviate into matters rather dry.
I ne'er decide what I shall say, and this I call
Much too poetical. Men should know why
They write, and for what end; but, note or text,
I never know the word which will come next.

42

So on I ramble, now and then narrating,
Now pondering:—it is time we should narrate:
I left Don Juan with his horses baiting—
Now we'll get o'er the ground at a great rate.
I shall not be particular in stating
His journey, we've so many tours of late:
Suppose him then at Petersburgh; suppose
That pleasant capital of painted Snows;

204

43

Suppose him in a handsome uniform;
A scarlet coat, black facings, a long plume,
Waving, like sails new shivered in a storm,
Over a cocked hat in a crowded room,
And brilliant breeches, bright as a Cairn Gorme,
Of yellow cassimere we may presume,
White stockings drawn, uncurdled as new milk,
O'er limbs whose symmetry set off the silk:

44

Suppose him sword by side, and hat in hand,
Made up by Youth, Fame, and an Army tailor—
That great Enchanter, at whose rod's command
Beauty springs forth, and Nature's self turns paler,
Seeing how Art can make her work more grand,
(When she don't pin men's limbs in like a jailor)—
Behold him placed as if upon a pillar! He
Seems Love turned a Lieutenant of Artillery!

205

45

His Bandage slipped down into a cravat;
His Wings subdued to epaulettes; his Quiver
Shrunk to a scabbard, with his Arrows at
His side as a small sword, but sharp as ever;
His Bow converted into a cocked hat;
But still so like, that Psyche were more clever
Than some wives (who make blunders no less stupid)
If She had not mistaken him for Cupid.

46

The courtiers stared, the ladies whispered, and
The Empress smiled; the reigning favourite frowned—
I quite forget which of them was in hand
Just then, as they are rather numerous found,
Who took by turns that difficult command
Since first her Majesty was singly crowned:
But they were mostly nervous six-foot fellows,
All fit to make a Patagonian jealous.

206

47

Juan was none of these, but slight and slim,
Blushing and beardless; and yet ne'ertheless
There was a something in his turn of limb,
And still more in his eye, which seemed to express
That though he looked one of the Seraphim,
There lurked a Man beneath the Spirit's dress.
Besides, the Empress sometimes liked a boy,
And had just buried the fair faced Lanskoi.

48

No wonder then that Yermoloff, or Momonoff,
Or Scherbatoff, or any other off
Or on, might dread her Majesty had not room enough
Within her bosom (which was not too tough)
For a new flame; a thought to cast of gloom enough
Along the aspect whether smooth or rough
Of him who, in the language of his station,
Then held that “high official situation.”

207

49

Oh, gentle ladies! should you seek to know
The import of this diplomatic phrase,
Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess show
His parts of speech; and in the strange displays
Of that odd string of words, all in a row,
Which none divine, and every one obeys,
Perhaps you may pick out some queer no-meaning,
Of that weak wordy harvest the sole gleaning.

50

I think I can explain myself without
That sad inexplicable beast of prey—
That Sphinx, whose words would ever be a doubt,
Did not his deeds unriddle them each day—
That monstrous Hieroglyphic—that long Spout
Of blood and water, leaden Castlereagh!
And here I must an anecdote relate,
But luckily of no great length or weight.

208

51

An English lady asked of an Italian,
What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing some Women set a value on,
Which hovers oft about some married Beauties,
Called “Cavalier Servente”?—a Pygmalion
Whose statues warm (I fear, alas! too true 'tis)
Beneath his Art. The dame, pressed to disclose them,
Said—“Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.”

52

And thus I supplicate your supposition,
And mildest, Matron-like interpretation
Of the Imperial Favourite's Condition.
'Twas a high place, the highest in the nation
In fact, if not in rank; and the suspicion
Of any one's attaining to his station,
No doubt gave pain, where each new pair of shoulders,
If rather broad, made stocks rise and their holders.

209

53

Juan, I said, was a most beauteous Boy,
And had retained his boyish look beyond
The usual hirsute seasons which destroy,
With beards and whiskers and the like, the fond
Parisian aspect which upset old Troy
And founded Doctors' Commons:—I have conned
The history of divorces, which, though chequered,
Calls Ilion's the first damages on record.

54

And Catherine, who loved all things (save her lord,
Who was gone to his place) and passed for much,
Admiring those (by dainty dames abhorred)
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.

210

55

Oh, 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
Of her first fruit; but how he falls and rises
Since, Thou hast settled beyond all surmises.

56

Some call thee “the worst Cause of war,” but I
Maintain thou art the best: for after all
From thee we come, to thee we go, and why
To get at thee not batter down a wall,
Or waste a world? Since no one can deny
Thou dost replenish worlds both great and small:
With, or without thee, all things at a stand
Are, or would be, thou Sea of Life's dry Land!

211

57

Catherine, who was the grand Epitome
Of that great Cause of war, or peace, or what
You please (it causes all the things which be,
So you may take your choice of this or that)—
Catherine, I say, was very glad to see
The handsome herald, on whose plumage sat
Victory; and, pausing as she saw him kneel
With his dispatch, forgot to break the seal.

58

Then recollecting the whole Empress, nor
Forgetting quite the woman (which composed
At least three parts of this great whole) she tore
The letter open with an air which posed
The Court, that watched each look her visage wore,
Until a royal smile at length disclosed
Fair weather for the day. Though rather spacious,
Her face was noble, her eyes fine, mouth gracious.

212

59

Great joy was her's, or rather joys; the first
Was a ta'en city—thirty thousand slain.
Glory and triumph o'er her aspect burst,
As an East Indian Sunrise on the main.
These quenched a moment her Ambition's thirst—
So Arab Deserts drink in Summer's rain:
In vain!—As fall the dews on quenchless sands,
Blood only serves to wash Ambition's hands!

60

Her next amusement was more fanciful;
She smiled at mad Suwarrow's rhymes, who threw
Into a Russian couplet rather dull
The whole gazette of thousands whom he slew.
Her third was feminine enough to annul
The shudder which runs naturally through
Our veins, when things called Sovereigns think it best
To kill, and Generals turn it into jest.

213

61

The two first feelings ran their course complete,
And lighted first her eye and then her mouth:
The whole Court looked immediately most sweet,
Like flowers well watered after a long drouth:—
But when on the Lieutenant at her feet
Her Majesty, who liked to gaze on youth
Almost as much as on a new dispatch,
Glanced mildly, all the world was on the watch.

62

Though somewhat large, exuberant, and truculent,
When wroth; while pleased, she was as fine a figure
As those who like things rosy, ripe, and succulent,
Would wish to look on, while they are in vigour.
She could repay each amatory look you lent
With interest, and in turn was wont with rigour
To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount
At sight, nor would permit you to discount.

214

63

With her the latter, though at times convenient,
Was not so necessary; for they tell
That she was handsome, and though fierce looked lenient,
And always used her favourites too well.
If once beyond her boudoir's precincts in ye went,
Your “Fortune” was in a fair way “to swell
A Man,” as Giles says; for though she would widow all
Nations, she liked Man as an individual.

64

What a strange thing is man! and what a stranger
Is woman! What a whirlwind is her head,
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her! Whether wed,
Or widow, maid, or mother, she can change her
Mind like the wind; whatever she has said
Or done, is light to what she'll say or do;—
The oldest thing on record, and yet new!

215

65

Oh Catherine! (for of all interjections
To thee both oh! and ah! belong of right
In love and war) how odd are the connections
Of human thoughts, which jostle in their flight!
Just now your's were cut out in different sections:
First Ismail's capture caught your fancy quite;
Next of new knights, the fresh and glorious hatch;
And thirdly, he who brought you the dispatch!

66

Shakspeare talks of “the Herald Mercury
New lighted on a Heaven-kissing hill”;
And some such visions crossed her Majesty,
While her young Herald knelt before her still.
'Tis very true the hill seemed rather high
For a Lieutenant to climb up; but skill
Smoothed even the Simplon's steep, and by God's blessing,
With Youth and Health all kisses are “heaven-kissing.”

216

67

Her Majesty looked down, the Youth looked up—
And so they fell in love:—She with his face,
His grace, his God-knows-what: for Cupid's cup
With the first draught intoxicates apace,
A quintessential laudanum or “black drop,”
Which makes one drunk at once, without the base
Expedient of full bumpers; for the eye
In love drinks all life's fountains (save tears) dry.

68

He, on the other hand, if not in love,
Fell into that no less imperious passion,
Self-love—which, when some sort of Thing above
Ourselves, a singer, dancer, much in fashion,
Or dutchess, princess, Empress, “deigns to prove,”
('Tis Pope's phrase) a great longing, tho' a rash one,
For one especial person out of many,
Makes us believe ourselves as good as any.

217

69

Besides, he was of that delighted age
Which makes all female ages equal—when
We don't much care with whom we may engage
As bold as Daniel in the Lion's den,
So that we can our native Sun assuage
In the next Ocean, which may flow just then,
To make a twilight in, just as Sol's heat is
Quenched in the lap of the salt Sea, or Thetis.

70

And Catherine (we must say thus much for Catherine)
Though bold and bloody, was the kind of thing
Whose temporary passion was quite flattering,
Because each lover looked a sort of king,
Made up upon an amatory pattern,
A royal husband in all save the ring—
Which, being the damn'dest part of matrimony,
Seemed taking out the sting to leave the honey.

218

71

And when you add to this, her womanhood
In its meridian, her blue eyes, or grey—
(The last, if they have soul, are quite as good,
Or better, as the best examples say:
Napoleon's, Mary's (Queen of Scotland) should
Lend to that colour a transcendant ray;
And Pallas also sanctions the same hue,
Too wise to look through Optics black or blue)—

72

Her sweet smile, and her then majestic figure,
Her plumpness, her imperial condescension,
Her preference of a boy to men much bigger,
(Fellows whom Messalina's self would pension)
Her prime of life, just now in juicy vigour,
With other extras, which we need not mention,—
All these, or any one of these, explain
Enough to make a stripling very vain.

219

73

And that's enough, for love is vanity,
Selfish in its beginning as its end,
Except where 'tis a mere Insanity,
A Maddening Spirit which would strive to blend
Itself with Beauty's frail Inanity,
On which the passion's self seems to depend:
And hence some heathenish philosophers
Make Love the Main Spring of the Universe.

74

Besides Platonic love, besides the love
Of God, the love of Sentiment, the loving
Of faithful pairs—(I needs must rhyme with dove,
That good old steam-boat which keeps verses moving
'Gainst Reason—Reason ne'er was hand-and-glove
With rhyme, but always leant less to improving
The sound than sense)—besides all these pretences
To Love, there are those things which Words name Senses;—

220

75

Those movements, those improvements in our bodies
Which make all bodies anxious to get out
Of their own sand-pits to mix with a Goddess,
For such all Women are at first no doubt.
How beautiful that moment! and how odd is
That fever which precedes the languid rout
Of our Sensations! What a curious way
The whole thing is of clothing souls in clay!

76

The noblest kind of Love is Love Platonical,
To end or to begin with; the next grand
Is that which may be christened Love Canonical,
Because the clergy take the thing in hand;
The third sort to be noted in our Chronicle
As flourishing in every Christian land,
Is, when chaste Matrons to their other ties
Add what may be called Marriage in Disguise.

221

77

Well, we won't analyze—our story must
Tell for itself: the Sovereign was smitten,
Juan much flattered by her love, or lust;—
I cannot stop to alter words once written,
And the two are so mixed with human dust,
That he who names one, both perchance may hit on:
But in such matters Russia's mighty Empress
Behaved no better than a common Sempstress.

78

The whole Court melted into one wide whisper,
And all lips were applied unto all ears!
The elder ladies' wrinkles curled much crisper
As they beheld; the younger cast some leers
On one another, and each lovely lisper
Smiled as she talked the matter o'er; but tears
Of rivalship rose in each clouded eye
Of all the standing army who stood by.

222

79

All the Ambassadors of all the Powers
Inquired, Who was this very new young man,
Who promised to be great in some few hours?
Which is full soon (though life is but a span).
Already they beheld the silver showers
Of rubles rain, as fast as specie can,
Upon his cabinet, besides the presents
Of several ribbons and some thousand peasants.

80

Catherine was generous,—all such ladies are:
Love, that great opener of the heart and all
The ways that lead there, be they near or far,
Above, below, by turnpikes great or small,—
Love—(though she had a cursed taste for war,
And was not the best wife, unless we call
Such Clytemnestra; though perhaps 'tis better
That one should die, than two drag on the fetter)—

81

Love had made Catherine make each lover's fortune;
Unlike our own half-chaste Elizabeth,
Whose avarice all disbursements did importune,
If History, the grand liar, ever saith
The truth; and though Grief her old age might shorten,
Because she put a favourite to death,
Her vile, ambiguous method of flirtation,
And Stinginess, disgrace her Sex and Station.

223

82

But when the levee rose, and all was bustle
In the dissolving Circle, all the nations'
Ambassadors began as 'twere to hustle
Round the young man with their congratulations.
Also the softer silks were heard to rustle
Of gentle dames, among whose recreations
It is to speculate on handsome faces,
Especially when such lead to high places.

83

Juan, who found himself, he knew not how,
A general object of attention, made
His answers with a very graceful bow
As if born for the Ministerial trade.
Though modest, on his unembarrassed brow
Nature had written “gentleman.” He said
Little, but to the purpose; and his manner
Flung hovering Graces o'er him like a banner.

224

84

An order from her Majesty consigned
Our young Lieutenant to the genial care
Of those in office: all the World looked kind
(As it will look sometimes with the first stare,
Which Youth would not act ill to keep in mind)
As also did Miss Protasoff then there,
Named from her mystic office “l'Eprouveuse,”
A term inexplicable to the Muse.

85

With her then, as in humble duty bound,
Juan retired,—and so will I, until
My Pegasus shall tire of touching ground.
We have just lit on a “Heaven-kissing hill,”
So lofty that I feel my brain turn round,
And all my fancies whirling like a mill;
Which is a signal to my nerves and brain,
To take a quiet ride in some green lane.

225

Canto X

1

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation—
'Tis said (for I'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation)—
A mode of proving that the earth turned round
In a most natural whirl called “Gravitation”;
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple.

226

2

Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,
If this be true; for we must deem the mode
In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose
Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,
A thing to counterbalance human woes;
For ever since immortal man hath glowed
With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon
Steam-engines will conduct him to the Moon.

3

And wherefore this exordium?—Why, just now,
In taking up this paltry sheet of paper,
My bosom underwent a glorious glow,
And my internal Spirit cut a caper:
And though so much inferior, as I know,
To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour,
Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye,
I wish to do as much by Poesy.

227

4

In the Wind's Eye I have sailed, and sail; but for
The stars, I own my telescope is dim;
But at the least I have shunned the common shore,
And leaving land far out of sight, would skim
The Ocean of Eternity: the roar
Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim,
But still sea-worthy skiff; and she may float
Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat.

5

We left our hero, Juan, in the bloom
Of favouritism, but not yet in the blush;—
And far be it from my Muses to presume
(For I have more than one Muse at a push)
To follow him beyond the drawing-room:
It is enough that Fortune found him flush
Of youth, and vigour, beauty, and those things
Which for an instant clip Enjoyment's wings.

228

6

But soon they grow again and leave their nest.
“Oh!” saith the Psalmist, “that I had a dove's
Pinions to flee away, and be at rest!”
And who, that recollects young years and loves,—
Though hoary now, and with a withering breast,
And palsied Fancy, which no longer roves
Beyond its dimmed eye's sphere,—but would much rather
Sigh like his son, than cough like his grandfather?

7

But sighs subside, and tears (even widows') shrink,
Like Arno in the summer, to a shallow,
So narrow as to shame their wintry brink,
Which threatens inundations deep and yellow!
Such difference doth a few months make. You'd think
Grief a rich field which never would lie fallow;
No more it doth,—its ploughs but change their boys,
Who furrow some new soil to sow for joys.

229

8

But coughs will come when sighs depart—and now
And then before sighs cease; for oft the one
Will bring the other, ere the lake-like brow
Is ruffled by a wrinkle, or the Sun
Of life reach ten o'clock: and while a glow,
Hectic and brief as summer's day nigh done,
O'erspreads the cheek which seems too pure for clay,
Thousands blaze, love, hope, die—how happy they!—

9

But Juan was not meant to die so soon.
We left him in the focus of such Glory
As may be won by favour of the Moon
Or ladies' fancies—rather transitory
Perhaps; but who would scorn the month of June,
Because December, with his breath so hoary,
Must come? Much rather should he court the ray,
To hoard up warmth against a wintry day.

230

10

Besides, he had some qualities which fix
Middle-aged ladies even more than young:
The former know what's what; while new-fledged chicks
Know little more of Love than what is sung
In rhymes, or dreamt (for Fancy will play tricks)
In visions of those skies from whence Love sprung.
Some reckon women by their Suns or Years,
I rather think the Moon should date the dears.

11

And why? Because She's changeable and chaste.
I know no other reason, whatsoe'er
Suspicious people, who find fault in haste,
May choose to tax me with; which is not fair,
Nor flattering to “their temper or their taste,”
As my friend Jeffrey writes with such an air:
However, I forgive him, and I trust
He will forgive himself;—if not, I must.

231

12

Old enemies who have become new friends
Should so continue—'tis a point of honour;
And I know nothing which could make amends
For a return to hatred: I would shun her
Like garlic, howsoever she extends
Her hundred arms and legs, and fain outrun her.
Old flames, new wives, become our bitterest foes—
Converted foes should scorn to join with those.

13

This were the worst desertion:—renegadoes,
Even shuffling Southey, that incarnate lie,
Would scarcely join again the “reformadoes,”
Whom he forsook to fill the Laureate's sty:
And honest men, from Iceland to Barbadoes,
Whether in Caledon or Italy,
Should not veer round with every breath, nor seize,
To pain, the moment when you cease to please.

232

14

The lawyer and the critic but behold
The baser sides of literature and life,
And nought remains unseen, but much untold,
By those who scour those double vales of strife.
While common men grow ignorantly old,
The lawyer's brief is like the surgeon's knife,
Dissecting the whole inside of a question,
And with it all the process of digestion.

15

A legal broom's a moral chimney-sweeper,
And that's the reason he himself's so dirty:
The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper
Than can be hid by altering his shirt; he
Retains the sable stains of the dark creeper,
At least some twenty-nine do out of thirty,
In all their habits:—Not so you, I own;
As Caesar wore his robe you wear your gown.

16

And all our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe,
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below)
Are over. Here's a health to “Auld Lang Syne”!
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face,—but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it from my soul.

233

17

And when I use the phrase of “Auld Lang Syne”!
'Tis not addressed to you—the more's the pity
For me, for I would rather take my wine
With you, than aught (save Scott) in your proud city.
But somehow,—it may seem a schoolboy's whine,
And yet I seek not to be grand nor witty,—
But I am half a Scot by birth, and bred
A whole one, and my heart flies to my head,—

18

As “Auld Lang Syne” brings Scotland, one and all,
Scotch plaids, Scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams,
The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's Brig's black wall,
All my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams
Of what I then dreamt, clothed in their own pall,
Like Banquo's offspring;—floating past me seems
My childhood in this childishness of mine:
I care not—'tis a glimpse of “Auld Lang Syne.”

234

19

And though, as you remember, in a fit
Of wrath and rhyme, when juvenile and curly,
I railed at Scots to shew my wrath and wit,
Which must be owned was sensitive and surly,
Yet 'tis in vain such sallies to permit,
They cannot quench young feelings fresh and early:
I “scotched, not killed,” the Scotchman in my blood,
And love the land of “mountain and of flood.”

20

Don Juan, who was real or ideal,—
For both are much the same, since what men think
Exists when the once thinkers are less real
Than what they thought, for mind can never sink,
And 'gainst the body makes a strong appeal;
And yet 'tis very puzzling on the brink
Of what is called Eternity, to stare,
And know no more of what is here than there:—

235

21

Don Juan grew a very polished Russian—
How we won't mention, why we need not say:
Few youthful minds can stand the strong concussion
Of any slight temptation in their way:
But his just now were spread as is a cushion
Smoothed for a monarch's seat of honour: gay
Damsels, and dances, revels, ready money,
Made ice seem Paradise, and winter sunny.

22

The favour of the Empress was agreeable;
And though the duty waxed a little hard,
Young people at his time of life should be able
To come off handsomely in that regard.
He now was growing up like a green tree, able
For love, war, or ambition, which reward
Their luckier votaries, till old Age's tedium
Make some prefer the circulating medium.

236

23

About this time, as might have been anticipated,
Seduced by youth and dangerous examples,
Don Juan grew, I fear, a little dissipated;
Which is a sad thing, and not only tramples
On our fresh feelings, but—as being participated
With all kinds of incorrigible samples
Of frail humanity—must make us selfish,
And shut our souls up in us like a shell-fish.

24

This we pass over. We will also pass
The usual progress of intrigues between
Unequal matches, such as are, alas!
A young Lieutenant's with a not old Queen,
But one who is not so youthful as she was
In all the royalty of sweet seventeen.
Sovereigns may sway materials, but not matter,
And wrinkles (the d---d democrats) won't flatter.

237

25

And Death, the sovereign's Sovereign, though the great
Gracchus of all mortality, who levels
With his Agrarian laws, the high estate
Of him who feasts, and fights, and roars, and revels,
To one small grass-grown patch (which must await
Corruption for its crop) with the poor devils
Who never had a foot of land till now—
Death's a reformer, all men must allow.

26

He lived (not Death, but Juan) in a hurry
Of waste, and haste, and glare, and gloss, and glitter,
In this gay clime of bear-skins black and furry—
Which (though I hate to say a thing that's bitter)
Peep out sometimes, when things are in a flurry,
Through all the “purple and fine linen,” fitter
For Babylon's than Russia's royal harlot—
And neutralize her outward show of Scarlet.

238

27

And this same state we won't describe: we could
Perhaps from hearsay, or from recollection;
But getting nigh grim Dante's “obscure wood,”
That horrid equinox, that hateful section
Of human years, that half-way house, that rude
Hut, whence wise travellers drive with circumspection
Life's sad post-horses o'er the dreary frontier
Of age, and looking back to youth, give one tear;—

28

I won't describe—that is, if I can help
Description; and I won't reflect—that is,
If I can stave off thought, which, as a whelp
Clings to its teat, sticks to me through the abyss
Of this odd labyrinth; or as the kelp
Holds by the rock; or as a lover's kiss
Drains its first draught of lips:—but, as I said,
I won't philosophize, and will be read.

239

29

Juan, instead of courting courts, was courted,
A thing which happens rarely: this he owed
Much to his youth, and much to his reported
Valour; much also to the blood he showed,
Like a race-horse; much to each dress he sported,
Which set the beauty off in which he glowed,
As purple clouds befringe the sun; but most
He owed to an old woman and his post.

30

He wrote to Spain:—and all his near relations,
Perceiving he was in a handsome way
Of getting on himself, and finding stations
For cousins also, answered the same day.
Several prepared themselves for emigrations;
And, eating ices, were o'erheard to say,
That with the addition of a slight pelisse,
Madrid's and Moscow's climes were of a-piece.

240

31

His Mother, Donna Inez, finding too
That in the lieu of drawing on his banker,
Where his assets were waxing rather few,
He had brought his spending to a handsome anchor,—
Replied, “that she was glad to see him through
Those pleasures after which wild youth will hanker;
As the sole sign of man's being in his senses
Is, learning to reduce his past expenses.

32

“She also recommended him to God,
And no less to God's Son, as well as Mother;
Warned him against Greek-worship, which looks odd
In Catholic eyes; but told him too to smother
Outward dislike, which don't look well abroad:
Informed him that he had a little brother
Born in a second wedlock; and above
All, praised the Empress's maternal love.

241

33

“She could not too much give her approbation
Unto an Empress, who preferred young men
Whose age, and, what was better still, whose nation
And climate, stopped all scandal (now and then):—
At home it might have given her some vexation;
But where thermometers sunk down to ten,
Or five, or one, or zero, she could never
Believe that virtue thawed before the river.”

34

Oh for a forty-parson-power to chaunt
Thy praise, Hypocrisy! Oh for a hymn
Loud as the Virtues thou dost loudly vaunt,
Not practise! Oh for trumps of cherubim!
Or the ear-trumpet of my good old aunt,
Who, though her spectacles at last grew dim,
Drew quiet consolation through its hint,
When she no more could read the pious print.

242

35

She was no hypocrite at least, poor soul,
But went to heaven in as sincere a way
As any body on the Elected Roll,
Which portions out upon the judgment day
Heaven's freeholds, in a sort of doomsday scroll,
Such as the conqueror William did repay
His knights with, lotting others' properties
Into some sixty thousand new knights' fees.

36

I can't complain, whose ancestors are there,
Erneis, Radulphus—eight-and-forty manors
(If that my memory doth not greatly err)
Were their reward for following Billy's banners;
And though I can't help thinking 'twas scarce fair
To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners;
Yet as they founded churches with the produce,
You'll deem, no doubt, they put it to a good use.

243

37

The gentle Juan flourished, though at times
He felt like other plants called Sensitive,
Which shrink from touch, as monarchs do from rhymes,
Save such as Southey can afford to give.
Perhaps he longed, in bitter frosts, for climes
In which the Neva's ice would cease to live
Before May-day: perhaps, despite his duty,
In royalty's vast arms he sighed for beauty:

38

Perhaps—but, sans perhaps, we need not seek
For causes young or old: the canker-worm
Will feed upon the fairest, freshest cheek,
As well as further drain the withered form:
Care, like a house-keeper, brings every week
His bills in, and however we may storm,
They must be paid: though six days smoothly run,
The seventh will bring blue devils or a dun.

244

39

I don't know how it was, but he grew sick:
The Empress was alarmed, and her physician
(The same who physicked Peter) found the tick
Of his fierce pulse betoken a condition
Which augured of the dead, however quick
Itself, and showed a feverish disposition;
At which the whole court was extremely troubled,
The Sovereign shocked, and all his medicines doubled.

40

Low were the whispers, manifold the rumours:
Some said he had been poisoned by Potemkin;
Others talked learnedly of certain tumours,
Exhaustion, or disorders of the same kin;
Some said 'twas a concoction of the humours,
Which with the blood too readily will claim kin;
Others again were ready to maintain,
“'Twas only the fatigue of last campaign.”

41

But here is one prescription out of many:
“Sodae-Sulphat. 3vj. 3ss. Mannae optim.
Aq. fervent. F. 3iss. 3ij. tinct. Sennae
Haustus.” (And here the surgeon came and cupped him)
“R. Pulv. Com. gr. iij. Ipecacuanhae”
(With more beside, if Juan had not stopped 'em).
“Bolus Potassae Sulphuret. sumendus,
Et Haustus ter in die capiendus.”

245

42

This is the way physicians mend or end us,
Secundum artem: but although we sneer
In health—when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer:
While that “hiatus maxime deflendus,”
To be filled up by spade or mattock, 's near,
Instead of gliding graciously down Lethe,
We tease mild Baillie, or soft Abernethy.

43

Juan demurred at this first notice to
Quit; and though Death had threatened an ejection,
His youth and constitution bore him through,
And sent the doctors in a new direction.
But still his state was delicate: the hue
Of health but flickered with a faint reflection
Along his wasted cheek, and seemed to gravel
The Faculty—who said that he must travel.

246

44

The climate was too cold they said for him,
Meridian-born, to bloom in. This opinion
Made the chaste Catherine look a little grim,
Who did not like at first to lose her minion:
But when she saw his dazzling eye wax dim,
And drooping like an eagle's with clipt pinion,
She then resolved to send him on a mission,
But in a style becoming his condition.

45

There was just then a kind of a discussion,
A sort of treaty or negociation
Between the British cabinet and Russian,
Maintained with all the due prevarication
With which great states such things are apt to push on;
Something about the Baltic's navigation,
Hides, train-oil, tallow, and the rights of Thetis,
Which Britons deem their “uti possidetis.”

247

46

So Catherine, who had a handsome way
Of fitting out her favourites, conferred
This secret charge on Juan, to display
At once her royal splendour, and reward
His services. He kissed hands the next day,
Received instructions how to play his card,
Was laden with all kinds of gifts and honours,
Which showed what great discernment was the donor's.

47

But she was lucky, and luck's all. Your Queens
Are generally prosperous in reigning;
Which puzzles us to know what Fortune means.
But to continue: though her years were waning,
Her climacteric teased her like her teens;
And though her dignity brooked no complaining,
So much did Juan's setting off distress her,
She could not find at first a fit successor.

248

48

But Time the comforter will come at last;
And four-and-twenty hours, and twice that number
Of candidates requesting to be placed,
Made Catherine taste next night a quiet slumber:—
Not that she meant to fix again in haste,
Nor did she find the quantity encumber,
But always choosing with deliberation,
Kept the place open for their emulation.

49

While this high post of honour's in abeyance,
For one or two days, reader, we request
You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance
Which wafted him from Petersburgh: the best
Barouche, which had the glory to display once
The fair Czarina's Autocratic crest,
(When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris)
Was given to her favourite, and now bore his.

249

50

A bull-dog, and a bull-finch, and an ermine,
All private favourites of Don Juan; for
(Let deeper sages the true cause determine)
He had a kind of inclination, or
Weakness, for what most people deem mere vermin—
Live animals: an old maid of threescore
For cats and birds more penchant ne'er displayed,
Although he was not old, nor even a maid;—

51

The animals aforesaid occupied
Their station: there were valets, secretaries,
In other vehicles; but at his side
Sat little Leila, who survived the parries
He made 'gainst Cossaque sabres, in the wide
Slaughter of Ismail. Though my wild Muse varies
Her note, she don't forget the infant girl
Whom he preserved—a pure and living pearl.

250

52

Poor little thing! She was as fair as docile,
And with that gentle, serious character,
As rare in living beings as a fossile
Man, 'midst thy mouldy Mammoths, “grand Cuvier!”
Ill fitted with her ignorance to jostle
With this o'erwhelming world, where all must err:
But she was yet but ten years old, and therefore
Was tranquil, though she knew not why or wherefore.

53

Don Juan loved her, and she loved him, as
Nor brother, father, sister, daughter love.
I cannot tell exactly what it was;
He was not yet quite old enough to prove
Parental feelings, and the other class,
Called brotherly affection could not move
His bosom,—for he never had a sister:
Ah! if he had, how much he would have missed her!

251

54

And still less was it sensual; for besides
That he was not an ancient debauchee,
(Who like sour fruit, to stir their veins' salt tides,
As Acids rouse a dormant Alkali)
Although ('twill happen as our planet guides)
His youth was not the chastest that might be,
There was the purest platonism at bottom
Of all his feelings—only he forgot 'em.

55

Just now there was no peril of temptation;
He loved the infant orphan he had saved,
As Patriots (now and then) may love a nation;
His pride too felt that she was not enslaved,
Owing to him;—as also her salvation
Through his means and the church's might be paved.
But one thing's odd, which here must be inserted,
The little Turk refused to be converted.

252

56

'Twas strange enough she should retain the impression
Thro' such a scene of change, and dread, and slaughter;
But though three bishops told her the transgression,
She showed a great dislike to holy water:
She also had no passion for confession;
Perhaps she had nothing to confess:—no matter;
Whate'er the cause, the church made little of it—
She still held out that Mahomet was a prophet.

57

In fact, the only Christian she could bear
Was Juan, whom she seemed to have selected
In place of what her home and friends once were.
He naturally loved what he protected:
And thus they formed a rather curious pair;
A guardian green in years, a ward connected
In neither clime, time, blood, with her defender;
And yet this want of ties made their's more tender.

253

58

They journeyed on through Poland and through Warsaw,
Famous for mines of salt and yokes of iron:
Through Courland also, which that famous farce saw
Which gave her dukes the graceless name of “Biron.”
'Tis the same landscape which the modern Mars saw
Who marched to Moscow, led by Fame, the Syren!
To lose by one month's frost some twenty years
Of conquest, and his guard of grenadiers.

254

59

Let not this seem an anti-climax:—“Oh!
My Guard! my Old Guard!” exclaimed that God of Clay.—
Think of the Thunderer's falling down below
Carotid-artery-cutting Castlereagh!—
Alas! that glory should be chilled by snow!
But should we wish to warm us on our way
Through Poland, there is Kosciusko's name
Might scatter fire through ice, like Hecla's flame.

60

From Poland they came on through Prussia Proper,
And Koningsberg the capital, whose vaunt,
Besides some veins of iron, lead, or copper,
Has lately been the great Professor Kant.
Juan, who cared not a tobacco-stopper
About philosophy, pursued his jaunt
To Germany, whose somewhat tardy millions
Have princes who spur more than their postillions.

255

61

And thence through Berlin, Dresden, and the like,
Until he reached the castellated Rhine:—
Ye glorious Gothic scenes! how much ye strike
All phantasies, not even excepting mine:
A grey wall, a green ruin, rusty pike,
Make my soul pass the equinoctial line
Between the present and past worlds, and hover
Upon their airy confine, half-seas-over.

62

But Juan posted on through Manheim, Bonn,
Which Drachenfels frowns over like a spectre
Of the good feudal times for ever gone,
On which I have not time just now to lecture.
From thence he was drawn onwards to Cologne,
A city which presents to the inspector
Eleven thousand Maidenheads of bone,
The greatest number Flesh hath ever known.

256

63

From thence to Holland's Hague and Helvoetsluys,
That water land of Dutchmen and of ditches,
Where juniper expresses its best juice,
The poor man's sparkling substitute for riches.
Senates and sages have condemned its use—
But to deny the mob a cordial which is
Too often all the clothing, meat, or fuel
Good government has left them, seems but cruel.

64

Here he embarked, and with a flowing sail
Went bounding for the island of the free,
Towards which the impatient wind blew half a gale:
High dashed the spray, the bows dipped in the sea,
And sea-sick passengers turned somewhat pale;
But Juan, seasoned as he well might be
By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs
Which passed, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs.

257

65

At length they rose, like a white wall along
The blue sea's border; and Don Juan felt—
What even young strangers feel a little strong
At the first sight of Albion's chalky belt—
A kind of pride that he should be among
Those haughty shop-keepers, who sternly dealt
Their goods and edicts out from pole to pole,
And made the very billows pay them toll.

66

I have no great cause to love that spot of earth,
Which holds what might have been the noblest nation;
But though I owe it little but my birth,
I feel a mixed regret and veneration
For its decaying fame and former worth.
Seven years (the usual term of transportation)
Of absence lay one's old resentments level,
When a man's country's going to the devil.

258

67

Alas! could She but fully, truly, know
How her great name is now throughout abhorred;
How eager all the earth is for the blow
Which shall lay bare her bosom to the sword;
How all the nations deem her their worst foe,
That worse than worst of foes, the once adored
False friend, who held out freedom to mankind,
And now would chain them, to the very mind;—

68

Would she be proud, or boast herself the free,
Who is but first of slaves? The nations are
In prison,—but the jailor, what is he?
No less a victim to the bolt and bar.
Is the poor privilege to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? He's as far
From the enjoyment of the earth and air
Who watches o'er the chain, as they who wear.

259

69

Don Juan now saw Albion's earliest beauties,—
Thy cliffs, dear Dover! harbour, and hotel;
Thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties;
Thy waiters running mucks at every bell;
Thy packets, all whose passengers are booties
To those who upon land or water dwell;
And last, not least, to strangers uninstructed,
Thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted.

70

Juan, though careless, young, and magnifique,
And rich in rubles, diamonds, cash, and credit,
Who did not limit much his bills per week,
Yet stared at this a little, though he paid it,—
(His Maggior Duomo, a smart, subtle Greek,
Before him summed the awful scroll and read it):
But doubtless as the air, though seldom sunny,
Is free, the respiration's worth the money.

260

71

On with the horses! Off to Canterbury!
Tramp, tramp, o'er pebble, and splash, splash, thro' puddle;
Hurrah! how swiftly speeds the post so merry!
Not like slow Germany, wherein they muddle
Along the road, as if they went to bury
Their fare; and also pause besides, to fuddle
With “schnapps”—sad dogs! whom “Hundsfot” or “Ferflucter”
Affect no more than lightning a conductor.

72

Now there is nothing gives a man such spirits,
Leavening his blood as Cayenne doth a curry,
As going at full speed—no matter where its
Direction be, so 'tis but in a hurry,
And merely for the sake of its own merits:
For the less cause there is for all this flurry,
The greater is the pleasure in arriving
At the great end of travel—which is driving.

261

73

They saw at Canterbury the Cathedral;
Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone,
Were pointed out as usual by the Bedral,
In the same quaint, uninterested tone:—
There's Glory again for you, gentle reader! All
Ends in a rusty casque, and dubious bone,
Half-solved into those sodas or magnesias,
Which form that bitter draught, the human species.

74

The effect on Juan was of course sublime:
He breathed a thousand Cressys, as he saw
The casque, which never stooped, except to Time.
Even the bold Churchman's tomb excited awe,
Who died in the then great attempt to climb
O'er kings, who now at least must talk of law,
Before they butcher. Little Leila gazed,
And asked why such a structure had been raised:

262

75

And being told it was “God's house,” she said
He was well lodged, but only wondered how
He suffered Infidels in his homestead,
The cruel Nazarenes, who had laid low
His holy temples in the lands which bred
The True Believers;—and her infant brow
Was bent with grief that Mahomet should resign
A mosque so noble, flung like pearls to swine.

76

On, on! through meadows, managed like a garden,
A Paradise of hops and high production:
For after years of travel by a Bard in
Countries of greater heat but lesser suction,
A green field is a sight which makes him pardon
The absence of that more sublime construction,
Which mixes up vines, olives, precipīces,
Glaciers, volcanos, oranges, and ices.

263

77

And when I think upon a pot of beer—
But I won't weep!—and so drive on, postillions!
As the smart boys spurred fast in their career,
Juan admired these highways of free millions;
A country in all senses the most dear
To foreigner or native, save some silly ones,
Who “kick against the pricks” just at this juncture,
And for their pains get only a fresh puncture.

78

What a delightful thing's a turnpike road!
So smooth, so level, such a mode of shaving
The earth, as scarce the eagle in the broad
Air can accomplish, with his wide wings waving.
Had such been cut in Phaeton's time, the God
Had told his son to satisfy his craving
With the York mail;—but onward as we roll,
“Surgit amari aliquid”—the toll!

264

79

Alas! how deeply painful is all payment!
Take lives, take wives, take aught except men's purses.
As Machiavel shows those in purple raiment,
Such is the shortest way to general curses.
They hate a murderer much less than a claimant
On that sweet ore which every body nurses:—
Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,
But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket.

80

So said the Florentine: ye Monarchs, hearken
To your instructor. Juan now was borne,
Just as the day began to wane and darken,
O'er the high hill which looks with pride or scorn
Toward the great city:—ye who have a spark in
Your veins of Cockney spirit, smile or mourn,
According as you take things well or ill—
Bold Britons, we are now on Shooter's Hill!

265

81

The sun went down, the smoke rose up, as from
A half-unquenched volcano, o'er a space
Which well beseemed the “Devil's drawing-room,”
As some have qualified that wondrous place.
But Juan felt, though not approaching home,
As one who, though he were not of the race,
Revered the soil, of those true sons the mother,
Who butchered half the earth, and bullied t'other.

82

A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping,
Dirty and dusky, but as wide as eye
Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping
In sight, then lost amidst the forestry
Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping
On tiptoe, through their sea-coal canopy;
A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown
On a fool's head—and there is London Town!

266

83

But Juan saw not this: each wreath of smoke
Appeared to him but as the magic vapour
Of some alchymic furnace, from whence broke
The wealth of worlds (a wealth of tax and paper):
The gloomy clouds, which o'er it as a yoke
Are bowed, and put the sun out like a taper,
Were nothing but the natural atmosphere,
Extremely wholesome, though but rarely clear.

84

He paused—and so will I; as doth a crew
Before they give their broadside. By and bye,
My gentle countrymen, we will renew
Our old acquaintance: and at least I'll try
To tell you truths you will not take as true,
Because they are so:—a male Mrs. Fry,
With a soft besom will I sweep your halls,
And brush a web or two from off the walls.

85

Oh, Mrs. Fry! Why go to Newgate? Why
Preach to poor rogues? And wherefore not begin
With Carlton, or with other houses? Try
Your hand at hardened and imperial sin.
To mend the people's an absurdity,
A jargon, a mere philanthropic din,

267

Unless you make their betters better:—Fie!
I thought you had more religion, Mrs. Fry.

86

Teach them the decencies of good threescore;
Cure them of tours, Hussar and Highland dresses;
Tell them that youth once gone returns no more;
That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses;
Tell them Sir William Curtis is a bore,
Too dull even for the dullest of excesses—
The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal,
A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all;—

87

Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late
On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated,
To set up vain pretences of being great,
'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated,
The worthiest kings have ever loved least state;
And tell them—but you won't, and I have prated
Just now enough; but by and bye I'll prattle
Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle.

268

Canto XI

1

When Bishop Berkeley said “there was no matter,”
And proved it—'twas no matter what he said:
They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,
Too subtle for the airiest human head;
And yet who can believe it! I would shatter
Gladly all matters, down to stone or lead,
Or adamant, to find the World a spirit,
And wear my head, denying that I wear it.

269

2

What a sublime discovery 'twas to make the
Universe universal Egotism!
That all's ideal—all ourselves: I'll stake the
World (be it what you will) that that's no Schism.
Oh, Doubt!—if thou be'st Doubt, for which some take thee,
But which I doubt extremely—thou sole prism
Of the Truth's rays, spoil not my draught of spirit!
Heaven's brandy,—though our brain can hardly bear it.

3

For ever and anon comes Indigestion,
(Not the most “dainty Ariel”) and perplexes
Our soarings with another sort of question:
And that which after all my spirit vexes,
Is, that I find no spot where man can rest eye on,
Without confusion of the sorts and sexes,
Of being, stars, and this unriddled wonder,
The World, which at the worst's a glorious blunder—

270

4

If it be Chance; or if it be according
To the Old Text, still better:—lest it should
Turn out so, we'll say nothing 'gainst the wording,
As several people think such hazards rude:
They're right; our days are too brief for affording
Space to dispute what no one ever could
Decide, and every body one day will
Know very clearly—or at least lie still.

5

And therefore will I leave off metaphysical
Discussion, which is neither here nor there:
If I agree that what is, is; then this I call
Being quite perspicuous and extremely fair.
The truth is, I've grown lately rather phthisical:
I don't know what the reason is—the air
Perhaps; but as I suffer from the shocks
Of illness, I grow much more orthodox.

271

6

The first attack at once proved the Divinity;
(But that I never doubted, nor the Devil);
The next, the Virgin's mystical virginity;
The third, the usual Origin of Evil;
The fourth at once established the whole Trinity
On so uncontrovertible a level,
That I devoutly wished the three were four,
On purpose to believe so much the more.

7

To our theme:—The man who has stood on the Acropolis,
And looked down over Attica; or he
Who has sailed where picturesque Constantinople is,
Or seen Tombuctoo, or hath taken tea
In small-eyed China's crockery-ware metropolis,
Or sat amidst the bricks of Nineveh,
May not think much of London's first appearance—
But ask him what he thinks of it a year hence?

272

8

Don Juan had got out on Shooter's Hill;
Sunset the time, the place the same declivity
Which looks along that vale of good and ill
Where London streets ferment in full activity;
While every thing around was calm and still,
Except the creak of wheels, which on their pivot he
Heard,—and that bee-like, bubbling, busy hum
Of cities, that boils over with their scum:—

9

I say, Don Juan, wrapt in contemplation,
Walked on behind his carriage, o'er the summit,
And lost in wonder of so great a nation,
Gave way to't, since he could not overcome it.
“And here,” he cried, “is Freedom's chosen station;
Here peals the people's voice, nor can entomb it
Racks, prisons, inquisitions; resurrection
Awaits it, each new meeting or election.

273

10

“Here are chaste wives, pure lives; here people pay
But what they please; and if that things be dear,
'Tis only that they love to throw away
Their cash, to show how much they have a-year.
Here laws are all inviolate; none lay
Traps for the traveller; every highway's clear:
Here”—he was interrupted by a knife,
With “Damn your eyes! your money or your life!”

11

These freeborn sounds proceeded from four pads,
In ambush laid, who had perceived him loiter
Behind his carriage; and, like handy lads,
Had seized the lucky hour to reconnoitre,
In which the heedless gentleman who gads
Upon the road, unless he prove a fighter,
May find himself within that Isle of riches
Exposed to lose his life as well as breeches.

274

12

Juan, who did not understand a word
Of English, save their shibboleth, “God damn!”
And even that he had so rarely heard,
He sometimes thought 'twas only their “Salam,”
Or “God be with you!”—and 'tis not absurd
To think so; for half English as I am
(To my misfortune) never can I say
I heard them wish “God with you,” save that way;—

13

Juan yet quickly understood their gesture,
And being somewhat choleric and sudden,
Drew forth a pocket-pistol from his vesture,
And fired it into one assailant's pudding—
Who fell, as rolls an ox o'er in his pasture,
And roared out, as he writhed his native mud in,
Unto his nearest follower or henchman,
“Oh Jack! I'm floored by that 'ere bloody Frenchman!”

275

14

On which Jack and his train set off at speed,
And Juan's suite, late scattered at a distance,
Came up, all marvelling at such a deed,
And offering, as usual, late assistance.
Juan, who saw the Moon's late minion bleed
As if his veins would pour out his existence,
Stood calling out for bandages and lint,
And wished he had been less hasty with his flint.

15

“Perhaps,” thought he, “it is the country's Wont
To welcome foreigners in this way: now
I recollect some innkeepers who don't
Differ, except in robbing with a bow,
In lieu of a bare blade and brazen front.
But what is to be done? I can't allow
The fellow to lie groaning on the road:
So take him up; I'll help you with the load.”

276

16

But ere they could perform this pious duty,
The dying man cried, “Hold! I've got my gruel!
Oh! for a glass of max! We've miss'd our booty—
Let me die where I am!” And as the fuel
Of life shrunk in his heart, and thick and sooty
The drops fell from his death-wound, and he drew ill
His breath,—he from his swelling throat untied
A kerchief, crying “Give Sal that!”—and died.

17

The cravat stained with bloody drops fell down
Before Don Juan's feet: he could not tell
Exactly why it was before him thrown,
Nor what the meaning of the man's farewell.
Poor Tom was once a kiddy upon town,
A thorough varmint, and a real swell,
Full flash, all fancy, until fairly diddled,
His pockets first, and then his body riddled.

277

18

Don Juan, having done the best he could
In all the circumstances of the case,
As soon as “Crowner's 'quest” allowed, pursued
His travels to the capital apace;—
Esteeming it a little hard he should
In twelve hours' time, and very little space,
Have been obliged to slay a freeborn native
In self-defence:—this made him meditative.

19

He from the world had cut off a great man,
Who in his time had made heroic bustle.
Who in a row like Tom could lead the van,
Booze in the ken, or at the spellken hustle?
Who queer a flat? Who (spite of Bow-street's ban)
On the high toby-spice so flash the muzzle?
Who on a lark, with black-eyed Sal (his blowing)
So prime, so swell, so nutty, and so knowing?

20

But Tom's no more—and so no more of Tom.
Heroes must die; and by God's blessing 'tis
Not long before the most of them go home.—
Hail! Thamis, hail! Upon thy verge it is
That Juan's chariot, rolling like a drum
In thunder, holds the way it can't well miss,
Through Kennington and all the other “tons,”
Which make us wish ourselves in town at once;—

278

21

Through Groves, so called as being void of trees,
(Like lucus from no light); through prospects named
Mount Pleasant, as containing nought to please,
Nor much to climb; through little boxes framed
Of bricks, to let the dust in at your ease,
With “To be let,” upon their doors proclaimed;
Through “Rows” most modestly called “Paradise,”
Which Eve might quit without much sacrifice;—

22

Through coaches, drays, choked turnpikes, and a whirl
Of wheels, and roar of voices and confusion;
Here taverns wooing to a pint of “purl,”
There mails fast flying off like a delusion;
There barber's blocks with periwigs in curl
In windows; here the lamplighter's infusion
Slowly distilled into the glimmering glass,
(For in those days we had not got to gas):—

279

23

Through this, and much, and more, is the approach
Of travellers to mighty Babylon:
Whether they come by horse, or chaise, or coach,
With slight exceptions, all the ways seem one.
I could say more, but do not choose to encroach
Upon the guide-book's privilege. The Sun
Had set some time, and night was on the ridge
Of twilight, as the party crossed the bridge.

24

That's rather fine, the gentle sound of Thamis—
Who vindicates a moment too his stream—
Though hardly heard through multifarious “damme's.”
The lamps of Westminster's more regular gleam,
The breadth of pavement, and yon shrine where Fame is
A spectral resident—whose pallid beam
In shape of moonshine hovers o'er the pile—
Make this a sacred part of Albion's Isle.

280

25

The Druid's groves are gone—so much the better:
Stone-Henge is not—but what the devil is it?—
But Bedlam still exists with its sage fetter,
That madmen may not bite you on a visit;
The Bench too seats or suits full many a debtor;
The Mansion House too (though some people quiz it)
To me appears a stiff yet grand erection;
But then the Abbey's worth the whole collection.

26

The line of lights too up to Charing Cross,
Pall Mall, and so forth, have a coruscation
Like gold as in comparison to dross,
Matched with the Continent's illumination,
Whose cities Night by no means deigns to gloss:
The French were not yet a lamp-lighting nation,
And when they grew so—on their new-found lanthorn,
Instead of wicks, they made a wicked man turn.

281

27

A row of gentlemen along the streets
Suspended, may illuminate mankind,
As also bonfires made of country seats;
But the old way is best for the purblind:
The other looks like phosphorus on sheets,
A sort of Ignis-fatuus to the mind,
Which, though 'tis certain to perplex and frighten,
Must burn more mildly ere it can enlighten.

28

But London's so well lit, that if Diogenes
Could recommence to hunt his honest man,
And found him not amidst the various progenies
Of this enormous city's spreading spawn,
'Twere not for want of lamps to aid his dodging his
Yet undiscovered treasure. What I can,
I've done to find the same throughout life's journey,
But see the world is only one attorney.

282

29

Over the stones still rattling, up Pall Mall,
Through crowds and carriages, but waxing thinner
As thundered knockers broke the long-sealed spell
Of doors 'gainst duns, and to an early dinner
Admitted a small party as night fell,—
Don Juan, our young diplomatic sinner,
Pursued his path, and drove past some Hotels,
St. James's Palace, and St. James's “Hells.”

30

They reached the hotel: forth streamed from the front door
A tide of well-clad waiters, and around
The mob stood, and as usual, several score
Of those pedestrian Paphians, who abound
In decent London when the daylight's o'er;
Commodious but immoral, they are found
Useful, like Malthus, in promoting marriage:—
But Juan now is stepping from his carriage

283

31

Into one of the sweetest of hotels,
Especially for foreigners—and mostly
For those whom favour or whom fortune swells,
And cannot find a bill's small items costly.
There many an envoy either dwelt or dwells,
(The den of many a diplomatic lost lie)
Until to some conspicuous square they pass,
And blazon o'er the door their names in brass.

32

Juan, whose was a delicate commission,
Private, though publicly important, bore
No title to point out with due precision
The exact affair on which he was sent o'er.
'Twas merely known that on a secret mission
A foreigner of rank had graced our shore,
Young, handsome, and accomplished, who was said
(In whispers) to have turned his Sovereign's head.

284

33

Some rumour also of some strange adventures
Had gone before him, and his wars and loves;
And as romantic heads are pretty painters,
And, above all, an Englishwoman's roves
Into the excursive, breaking the indentures
Of sober reason, wheresoe'er it moves,
He found himself extremely in the fashion,
Which serves our thinking people for a passion.

34

I don't mean that they are passionless, but quite
The contrary; but then 'tis in the head;
Yet as the consequences are as bright
As if they acted with the heart instead,
What after all can signify the site
Of ladies' lucubrations? So they lead
In safety to the place for which you start,
What matters if the road be head or heart?

285

35

Juan presented in the proper place,
To proper placemen, every Russ credential;
And was received with all the due grimace,
By those who govern in the mood potential;
Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face,
Thought (what in state affairs is most essential)
That they as easily might do the youngster,
As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster.

36

They erred, as aged men will do; but by
And by we'll talk of that; and if we don't,
'Twill be because our notion is not high
Of politicians and their double front,
Who live by lies, yet dare not boldly lie:
Now what I love in women is, they won't
Or can't do otherwise than lie, but do it
So well, the very truth seems falsehood to it.

286

37

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade; and I defy
Historians, heroes, lawyers, priests to put
A fact without some leaven of a lie.
The very shadow of true Truth would shut
Up annals, revelations, poesy,
And prophecy—except it should be dated
Some years before the incidents related.

38

Praised be all liars and all lies! Who now
Can tax my mild Muse with misanthropy?
She rings the world's “Te Deum,” and her brow
Blushes for those who will not:—but to sigh
Is idle; let us like most others bow,
Kiss hands, feet, any part of Majesty,
After the good example of “Green Erin,”
Whose Shamrock now seems rather worse for wearing.

287

39

Don Juan was presented, and his dress
And mien excited general admiration—
I don't know which was most admired or less:
One monstrous diamond drew much observation,
Which Catherine in a moment of “ivresse”
(In love or brandy's fervent fermentation)
Bestowed upon him, as the public learned;
And, to say truth, it had been fairly earned.

40

Besides the Ministers and underlings,
Who must be courteous to the accredited
Diplomatists of rather wavering kings,
Until their royal riddle's fully read,
The very clerks,—those somewhat dirty springs
Of office, or the House of Office, fed
By foul corruption into streams,—even they
Were hardly rude enough to earn their pay.

288

41

And insolence no doubt is what they are
Employed for, since it is their daily labour,
In the dear offices of peace or war;
And should you doubt, pray ask of your next neighbour,
When for a passport, or some other bar
To freedom, he applied (a grief and a bore)
If he found not this spawn of tax-born riches,
Like lap-dogs, the least civil sons of b---s.

42

But Juan was received with much “empressement”:—
These phrases of refinement I must borrow
From our next neighbour's land, where, like a chessman,
There is a move set down for joy or sorrow
Not only in mere talking, but the press. Man
In islands is, it seems, downright and thorough,
More than on continents—as if the sea
(See Billingsgate) made even the tongue more free.

289

43

And yet the British “Damme”'s rather Attic:
Your Continental oaths are but incontinent,
And turn on things which no Aristocratic
Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent
This subject quote; as it would be schismatic
In politesse, and have a sound affronting in't:—
But “Damme”'s quite ethereal, though too daring—
Platonic blasphemy, the soul of swearing.

290

44

For downright rudeness, ye may stay at home;
For true or false politeness (and scarce that
Now) you may cross the blue deep and white foam—
The first the emblem (rarely though) of what
You leave behind—the next of much you come
To meet. However, 'tis no time to chat
On general topics: poems must confine
Themselves to Unity, like this of mine.

45

In the Great World,—which being interpreted
Meaneth the West or worst end of a city,
And about twice two thousand people bred
By no means to be very wise or witty,
But to sit up while others lie in bed,
And look down on the universe with pity,—
Juan, as an inveterate Patrician,
Was well received by persons of condition.

292

46

He was a bachelor, which is a matter
Of import both to Virgin and to Bride;
The former's hymeneal hopes to flatter;
And (should she not hold fast by love or pride)
'Tis also of some moment to the latter:
A rib's a thorn in a wed Gallant's side,
Requires decorum, and is apt to double
The horrid sin—and what's still worse, the trouble.

47

But Juan was a bachelor—of arts,
And parts, and hearts: he danced and sung, and had
An air as sentimental as Mozart's
Softest of melodies; and could be sad
Or cheerful, without any “flaws or starts,”
Just at the proper time; and though a lad,
Had seen the world—which is a curious sight,
And very much unlike what people write.

293

48

Fair virgins blushed upon him; wedded dames
Bloomed also in less transitory hues;
For both commodities dwell by the Thames,
The painting and the painted; youth, ceruse,
Against his heart preferred their usual claims,
Such as no gentleman can quite refuse;
Daughters admired his dress, and pious mothers
Enquired his income, and if he had brothers.

49

The milliners who furnish “drapery Misses”
Throughout the season, upon speculation
Of payment ere the honeymoon's last kisses
Have waned into a crescent's coruscation,
Thought such an opportunity as this is,
Of a rich foreigner's initiation,
Not to be overlooked,—and gave such credit,
That future bridegrooms swore, and sighed, and paid it.

294

50

The Blues, that tender tribe, who sigh o'er sonnets,
And with the pages of the last Review
Line the interior of their heads or bonnets,
Advanced in all their azure's highest hue:
They talked bad French of Spanish, and upon its
Late authors asked him for a hint or two;
And which was softest, Russian or Castilian?
And whether in his travels he saw Ilion?

51

Juan, who was a little superficial,
And not in literature a great Drawcansir,
Examined by this learned and especial
Jury of matrons, scarce knew what to answer:
His duties warlike, loving, or official,
His steady application as a dancer,
Had kept him from the brink of Hippocrene,
Which now he found was blue instead of green.

52

However, he replied at hazard, with
A modest confidence and calm assurance,
Which lent his learned lucubrations pith,
And passed for arguments of good endurance.
That prodigy, Miss Araminta Smith,
(Who at sixteen translated “Hercules Furens”
Into as furious English) with her best look,
Set down his sayings in her common-place book.

295

53

Juan knew several languages—as well
He might—and brought them up with skill, in time
To save his fame with each accomplished belle,
Who still regretted that he did not rhyme.
There wanted but this requisite to swell
His qualities (with them) into sublime:
Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish,
Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish.

54

However, he did pretty well, and was
Admitted as an aspirant to all
The Coteries; and, as in Banquo's glass,
At great assemblies or in parties small,
He saw ten thousand living authors pass,
That being about their average numeral;
Also the eighty “greatest living poets,”
As every paltry magazine can show it's.

296

55

In twice five years the “greatest living poet,”
Like to the champion in the fisty ring,
Is called on to support his claim, or show it,
Although 'tis an imaginary thing.
Even I—albeit I'm sure I did not know it,
Nor sought of foolscap subjects to be king,—
Was reckoned, a considerable time,
The grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.

56

But Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain:
“La Belle Alliance” of dunces down at zero,
Now that the Lion's fall'n, may rise again:
But I will fall at least as fell my hero;
Nor reign at all, or as a monarch reign;
Or to some lonely isle of Jailors go,
With turncoat Southey for my turnkey Lowe.

297

57

Sir Walter reigned before me; Moore and Campbell
Before and after; but now grown more holy,
The Muses upon Sion's hill must ramble,
With poets almost clergymen, or wholly;
And Pegasus hath a psalmodic amble
Beneath the very Reverend Rowley Powley,
Who shoes the glorious animal with stilts,
A modern Ancient Pistol—by the hilts!

58

Still he excels that artificial hard
Labourer in the same vineyard, though the vine
Yields him but vinegar for his reward,—
That neutralised dull Dorus of the Nine;
That swarthy Sporus, neither man nor bard;
That ox of verse, who ploughs for every line:—
Cambyses' roaring Romans beat at least
The howling Hebrews of Cybele's priest.—

298

59

Then there's my gentle Euphues; who, they say,
Sets up for being a sort of moral me;
He'll find it rather difficult some day
To turn out both, or either, it may be.
Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway;
And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three;
And that deep-mouthed Boeotian, “Savage Landor,”
Has taken for a swan rogue Southey's gander.

60

John Keats, who was killed off by one critique,
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible,—without Greek
Contrived to talk about the Gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! His was an untoward fate:—
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an Article.

299

61

The list grows long of live and dead pretenders
To that which none will gain—or none will know
The Conqueror at least; who, ere time renders
His last award, will have the long grass grow
Above his burnt-out brain, and sapless cinders.
If I might augur, I should rate but low
Their chances;—they're too numerous, like the thirty
Mock tyrants, when Rome's annals waxed but dirty.

62

This is the literary lower Empire,
Where the Praetorian bands take up the matter;—
A “dreadful trade,” like his who “gathers samphire,”
The insolent soldiery to soothe and flatter,
With the same feelings as you'd coax a vampire.
Now, were I once at home, and in good satire,
I'd try conclusions with those Janizaries,
And show them what an intellectual war is.

300

63

I think I know a trick or two, would turn
Their flanks;—but it is hardly worth my while
With such small gear to give myself concern:
Indeed I've not the necessary bile;
My natural temper's really aught but stern,
And even my Muse's worst reproof's a smile;
And then she drops a brief and modern curtsy,
And glides away, assured she never hurts ye.

64

My Juan, whom I left in deadly peril
Amongst live poets and blue ladies, past
With some small profit through that field so sterile.
Being tired in time, and neither least nor last
Left it before he had been treated very ill;
And henceforth found himself more gaily classed
Amongst the higher spirits of the day,
The sun's true son, no vapour, but a ray.

301

65

His morns he passed in business—which dissected,
Was like all business, a laborious nothing,
That leads to lassitude, the most infected
And Centaur-Nessus garb of mortal clothing,
And on our sophas makes us lie dejected,
And talk in tender horrors of our loathing
All kinds of toil, save for our country's good—
Which grows no better, though 'tis time it should.

66

His afternoons he passed in visits, luncheons,
Lounging, and boxing; and the twilight hour
In riding round those vegetable puncheons
Called “Parks,” where there is neither fruit nor flower
Enough to gratify a bee's slight munchings;
But after all it is the only “bower,”
(In Moore's phrase) where the fashionable fair
Can form a slight acquaintance with fresh air.

302

67

Then dress, then dinner, then awakes the world!
Then glare the lamps, then whirl the wheels, then roar
Through street and square fast flashing chariots, hurled
Like harnessed meteors; then along the floor
Chalk mimics painting; then festoons are twirled;
Then roll the brazen thunders of the door,
Which opens to the thousand happy few
An earthly Paradise of “Or Molu.”

68

There stands the noble Hostess, nor shall sink
With the three-thousandth curtsey; there the Waltz,
The only dance which teaches girls to think,
Makes one in love even with its very faults.
Saloon, room, hall o'erflow beyond their brink,
And long the latest of arrivals halts,
'Midst royal dukes and dames condemned to climb,
And gain an inch of staircase at a time.

303

69

Thrice happy he, who, after a survey
Of the good company, can win a corner,
A door that's in, or boudoir out of the way,
Where he may fix himself, like small “Jack Horner,”
And let the Babel round run as it may,
And look on as a mourner, or a scorner,
Or an approver, or a mere spectator,
Yawning a little as the night grows later.

70

But this won't do, save by and by; and he
Who, like Don Juan, takes an active share,
Must steer with care through all that glittering sea
Of gems and plumes, and pearls and silks, to where
He deems it is his proper place to be;
Dissolving in the waltz to some soft air,
Or proudlier prancing with mercurial skill
Where Science marshals forth her own quadrille.

304

71

Or, if he dance not, but hath higher views
Upon an heiress or his neighbour's bride,
Let him take care that that which he pursues
Is not at once too palpably descried.
Full many an eager gentleman oft rues
His haste: impatience is a blundering guide
Amongst a people famous for reflection,
Who like to play the fool with circumspection.

72

But, if you can contrive, get next at supper;
Or, if forestalled, get opposite and ogle:—
Oh, ye ambrosial moments! always upper
In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle,
Which sits for ever upon Memory's crupper,
The ghost of vanished pleasures once in vogue! Ill
Can tender souls relate the rise and fall
Of hopes and fears which shake a single ball.

305

73

But these precautionary hints can touch
Only the common run, who must pursue,
And watch, and ward; whose plans a word too much
Or little overturns; and not the few
Or many (for the number's sometimes such)
Whom a good mien, especially if new,
Or fame, or name, for wit, war, sense, or nonsense,
Permits whate'er they please, or did not long since.

74

Our hero, as a hero, young and handsome,
Noble, rich, celebrated, and a stranger,
Like other slaves of course must pay his ransom
Before he can escape from so much danger
As will environ a conspicuous man. Some
Talk about poetry, and “rack and manger,”
And ugliness, disease, as toil and trouble,—
I wish they knew the life of a young noble.

306

75

They are young, but know not youth—it is anticipated;
Handsome but wasted, rich without a sou;
Their vigour in a thousand arms is dissipated;
Their cash comes from, their wealth goes to a Jew;
Both senates see their nightly votes participated
Between the tyrant's and the tribunes' crew;
And having voted, dined, drank, gamed, and whored,
The family vault receives another lord.

76

“Where is the world,” cries Young, “at eighty? Where
The world in which a man was born?” Alas!
Where is the world of eight years past? 'Twas there—
I look for it—'tis gone, a Globe of Glass!
Cracked, shivered, vanished, scarcely gazed on, ere
A silent change dissolves the glittering mass.
Statesmen, chiefs, orators, queens, patriots, kings,
And dandies, all are gone on the wind's wings.

307

77

Where is Napoleon the Grand? God knows:
Where little Castlereagh? The devil can tell:
Where Grattan, Curran, Sheridan, all those
Who bound the bar or senate in their spell?
Where is the unhappy Queen, with all her woes?
And where the Daughter, whom the Isles loved well?
Where are those martyred Saints the Five per Cents?
And where—oh where the devil are the Rents!

78

Where's Brummell? Dished. Where's Long Pole Wellesley? Diddled.
Where's Whitbread? Romilly? Where's George the Third?
Where is his will? (That's not so soon unriddled.)
And where is “Fum” the Fourth, our “royal bird”?
Gone down it seems to Scotland, to be fiddled
Unto by Sawney's violin, we have heard:
“Caw me, caw thee”—for six months hath been hatching
This scene of royal itch and loyal scratching.

308

79

Where is Lord This? And where my Lady That?
The Honourable Mistresses and Misses?
Some laid aside like an old opera hat,
Married, unmarried, and remarried: (this is
An evolution oft performed of late).
Where are the Dublin shouts—and London hisses?
Where are the Grenvilles? Turned as usual. Where
My friends the Whigs? Exactly where they were.

80

Where are the Lady Carolines and Franceses?
Divorced or doing thereanent. Ye annals
So brilliant, where the list of routs and dances is,—
Thou Morning Post, sole record of the pannels
Broken in carriages, and all the phantasies
Of fashion,—say what streams now fill those channels?
Some die, some fly, some languish on the Continent,
Because the times have hardly left them one tenant.

81

Some who once set their caps at cautious Dukes,
Have taken up at length with younger brothers:
Some heiresses have bit at sharpers' hooks;
Some maids have been made wives, some merely mothers;
Others have lost their fresh and fairy looks:
In short, the list of alterations bothers:

309

There's little strange in this, but something strange is
The unusual quickness of these common changes.

82

Talk not of seventy years as age! in seven
I have seen more changes, down from monarchs to
The humblest individual under heaven,
Than might suffice a moderate century through.
I knew that nought was lasting, but now even
Change grows too changeable, without being new:
Nought's permanent among the human race,
Except the Whigs not getting into place.

83

I have seen Napoleon, who seemed quite a Jupiter,
Shrink to a Saturn. I have seen a Duke
(No matter which) turn politician stupider,
If that can well be, than his wooden look.
But it is time that I should hoist my “blue Peter,”
And sail for a new theme:—I have seen—and shook
To see it—the King hissed, and then carest;
But don't pretend to settle which was best.

310

84

I have seen the landholders without a rap—
I have seen Johanna Southcote—I have seen
The House of Commons turned to a tax-trap—
I have seen that sad affair of the late Queen—
I have seen crowns worn instead of a fool's-cap—
I have seen a Congress doing all that's mean—
I have seen some nations like o'erloaded asses
Kick off their burthens—meaning the high classes.

85

I have seen small poets, and great prosers, and
Interminable—not eternal—speakers—
I have seen the Funds at war with house and land—
I've seen the Country Gentlemen turn squeakers—
I've seen the people ridden o'er like sand
By slaves on horseback—I have seen malt liquors
Exchanged for “thin potations” by John Bull—
I have seen John half detect himself a fool.—

86

But “Carpe diem,” Juan, “Carpe, carpe!”
To-morrow sees another race as gay
And transient, and devoured by the same harpy.
“Life's a poor player,”—then “play out the play,
Ye villains!” and above all keep a sharp eye
Much less on what you do than what you say:
Be hypocritical, be cautious, be
Not what you seem, but always what you see.

311

87

But how shall I relate in other Cantos
Of what befell our hero in the land,
Which 'tis the common cry and lie to vaunt as
A moral country? But I hold my hand—
For I disdain to write an Atalantis;
But 'tis as well at once to understand,
You are not a moral people, and you know it
Without the aid of too sincere a poet.

88

What Juan saw and underwent, shall be
My topic, with of course the due restriction
Which is required by proper courtesy;
And recollect the work is only fiction,
And that I sing of neither mine nor me,
Though every scribe, in some slight turn of diction,
Will hint allusions never meant. Ne'er doubt
This—when I speak, I don't hint, but speak out.

312

89

Whether he married with the third or fourth
Offspring of some sage, husband-hunting Countess,
Or whether with some virgin of more worth
(I mean in Fortune's matrimonial bounties)
He took to regularly peopling Earth,
Of which your lawful awful wedlock fount is,—
Or whether he was taken in for damages,
For being too excursive in his homages,—

90

Is yet within the unread events of time.
Thus far, go forth, thou Lay! which I will back
Against the same given quantity of rhyme,
For being as much the subject of attack
As ever yet was any work sublime,
By those who love to say that white is black.
So much the better!—I may stand alone,
But would not change my free thoughts for a throne.

315

Canto XII

1

Of all the barbarous Middle Ages, that
Which is the most barbarous is the middle age
Of man; it is—I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and sage,
And don't know justly what we would be at,—
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were,—

316

2

Too old for youth,—too young, at thirty-five,
To herd with boys, or hoard with good threescore,—
I wonder people should be left alive;
But since they are, that epoch is a bore:
Love lingers still, although 'twere late to wive;
And as for other love, the illusion's o'er;
And money, that most pure imagination,
Gleams only through the dawn of its creation.

3

Oh Gold! Why call we misers miserable?
Theirs is the pleasure that can never pall;
Theirs is the best bower-anchor, the chain cable
Which hold fast other pleasures great and small.
Ye who but see the saving man at table,
And scorn his temperate board, as none at all,
And wonder how the wealthy can be sparing,
Know not what visions spring from each cheese-paring.

317

4

Love or lust makes man sick, and wine much sicker;
Ambition rends, and gaming gains a loss;
But making money, slowly first, then quicker,
And adding still a little through each cross
(Which will come over things) beats love or liquor,
The gamester's counter, or the statesman's dross.
Oh Gold! I still prefer thee unto paper,
Which makes bank credit like a bark of vapour.

318

5

Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign
O'er Congress, whether royalist or liberal?
Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain?
(That make old Europe's journals squeak and gibber all.)
Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain
Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?
The shade of Bonaparte's noble daring?—
Jew Rothschild, and his fellow Christian Baring.

6

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,
Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan
Is not a merely speculative hit,
But seats a nation or upsets a throne.
Republics also get involved a bit;
Columbia's stock hath holders not unknown
On 'Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,
Must get itself discounted by a Jew.

319

7

Why call the miser miserable? as
I said before: the frugal life is his,
Which in a saint or cynic ever was
The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss
Canonization for the self-same cause,
And wherefore blame gaunt Wealth's austerities?
Because, you'll say, nought calls for such a trial;—
Then there's more merit in his self-denial.

8

He is your only poet;—passion, pure
And sparkling on from heap to heap, displays
Possess'd, the ore, of which mere hopes allure
Nations athwart the deep: the golden rays
Flash up in ingots from the mine obscure;
On him the diamond pours its brilliant blaze,
While the mild emerald's beam shades down the dyes
Of other stones, to soothe the miser's eyes.

320

9

The lands on either side are his: the ship
From Ceylon, Inde, or far Cathay, unloads
For him the fragrant produce of each trip;
Beneath his cars of Ceres groan the roads,
And the vine blushes like Aurora's lip;
His very cellars might be kings' abodes;
While he, despising every sensual call,
Commands—the intellectual lord of all.

10

Perhaps he hath great projects in his mind,
To build a college, or to found a race,
A hospital, a church,—and leave behind
Some dome surmounted by his meagre face:
Perhaps he fain would liberate mankind
Even with the very ore which makes them base:
Perhaps he would be wealthiest of his nation,
Or revel in the joys of calculation.

321

11

But whether all, or each, or none of these
May be the hoarder's principle of action,
The fool will call such mania a disease:—
What is his own?—Go look at each transaction,
Wars, revels, loves—do these bring men more ease
Than the mere plodding through each “vulgar fraction”?
Or do they benefit mankind? Lean Miser!
Let spendthrifts' heirs enquire of yours—who's wiser?

12

How beauteous are rouleaus! how charming chests,
Containing ingots, bags of dollars, coins
(Not of old Victors, all whose heads and crests
Weigh not the thin ore where their visage shines,
But) of fine unclipt gold, where dully rests
Some likeness, which the glittering cirque confines,
Of modern, reigning, sterling, stupid stamp:—
Yes! ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

322

13

“Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,”—“for Love
Is Heaven, and Heaven is Love”:—so sings the bard;
Which it were rather difficult to prove,
(A thing with poetry in general hard).
Perhaps there may be something in “the grove,”
At least it rhymes to “Love”; but I'm prepared
To doubt (no less than Landlords of their rental)
If “courts” and “camps” be quite so sentimental.

14

But if Love don't, Cash does, and Cash alone:
Cash rules the grove, and fells it too besides;
Without cash, camps were thin, and courts were none;
Without cash, Malthus tells you, “take no brides.”
So Cash rules Love the ruler, on his own
High ground, as Virgin Cynthia sways the tides;
And as for “Heaven being Love,” why not say honey
Is wax? Heaven is not Love, 'tis Matrimony.

323

15

Is not all love prohibited whatever,
Excepting marriage? which is love no doubt
After a sort; but somehow people never
With the same thought the two words have helped out:
Love may exist with marriage, and should ever,
And marriage also may exist without;
But love sans banns is both a sin and shame,
And ought to go by quite another name.

16

Now, if the “court” and “camp” and “grove” be not
Recruited all with constant married men,
Who never coveted their neighbour's lot,
I say that line's a lapsus of the pen;—
Strange too in my “buon camerado” Scott,
So celebrated for his morals, when
My Jeffrey held him up as an example
To me;—of which these morals are a sample.

324

17

Well, if I don't succeed, I have succeeded,
And that's enough; succeeded in my youth,
The only time when much success is needed:
And my success produced what I in sooth
Cared most about; it need not now be pleaded—
Whate'er it was, 'twas mine: I've paid, in truth,
Of late, the penalty of such success,
But have not learned to wish it any less.

18

That suit in Chancery,—which some persons plead
In an appeal to the unborn, whom they,
In the faith of their procreative creed,
Baptize Posterity, or future clay,—
To me seems but a dubious kind of reed
To lean on for support in any way;
Since odds are that Posterity will know
No more of them, than they of her, I trow.

19

Why, I'm Posterity—and so are you;
And whom do we remember? Not a hundred.
Were every memory written down all true,
The tenth or twentieth name would be but blundered:
Even Plutarch's lives have but picked out a few,
And 'gainst those few your annalists have thundered;

325

And Mitford in the nineteenth century
Gives, with Greek truth, the good old Greek the lie.

20

Good People all, of every degree,
Ye gentle readers and ungentle writers,
In this twelfth Canto 'tis my wish to be
As serious as if I had for inditers
Malthus and Wilberforce:—the last set free
The Negroes, and is worth a million fighters;
While Wellington has but enslaved the whites,
And Malthus does the thing 'gainst which he writes.

21

I'm serious—so are all men upon paper;
And why should I not form my speculation,
And hold up to the sun my little taper?
Mankind just now seem wrapt in meditation
On Constitutions and Steam-boats of vapour;
While sages write against all procreation,
Unless a man can calculate his means
Of feeding brats the moment his wife weans.

326

22

That's noble! That's romantic! For my part,
I think that “Philo-genitiveness” is—
(Now here's a word quite after my own heart,
Though there's a shorter a good deal than this,
If that politeness set it not apart,
But I'm resolved to say nought that's amiss)—
I say, methinks that “Philo-genitiveness”
Might meet from men a little more forgiveness.

23

And now to business. Oh, my gentle Juan!
Thou art in London—in that pleasant place
Where every kind of mischief's daily brewing
Which can await warm youth in its wild race.
'Tis true that thy career is not a new one;
Thou are no novice in the headlong chase
Of early life; but this is a new land
Which foreigners can never understand.

327

24

What with a small diversity of climate,
Of hot or cold, mercurial or sedate,
I could send forth my mandate like a primate
Upon the rest of Europe's social state;
But thou art the most difficult to rhyme at,
Great Britain, which the Muse may penetrate:
All countries have their “Lions,” but in thee
There is but one superb menagerie.

25

But I am sick of politics. Begin,
“Paulo Majora.” Juan, undecided
Amongst the paths of being “taken in,”
Above the ice had like a skaiter glided:
When tired of play, he flirted without sin
With some of those fair creatures who have prided
Themselves on innocent tantalization,
And hate all vice except its reputation.

328

26

But these are few, and in the end they make
Some devilish escapade or stir, which shows
That even the purest people may mistake
Their way through Virtue's primrose paths of snows;
And then men stare, as if a new ass spake
To Balaam, and from tongue to ear o'erflows
Quick silver Small Talk, ending (if you note it)
With the kind world's Amen!—“Who would have thought it?”

27

The little Leila, with her orient eyes
And taciturn Asiatic disposition,
(Which saw all Western things with small surprise,
To the surprise of people of condition,
Who think that novelties are butterflies
To be pursued as food for inanition)
Her charming figure and romantic history
Became a kind of fashionable mystery.

329

28

The women much divided—as is usual
Amongst the sex in little things or great.
Think not, fair creatures, that I mean to abuse you all—
I have always liked you better than I state:
Since I've grown moral, still I must accuse you all
Of being apt to talk at a great rate;
And now there was a general sensation
Amongst you, about Leila's education.

29

In one point only were you settled—and
You had reason;—'twas that a young Child of Grace,
As beautiful as her own native land,
And far away, the last bud of her race,
Howe'er our friend Don Juan might command
Himself for five, four, three, or two years' space,
Would be much better taught beneath the eye
Of Peeresses whose follies had run dry.

330

30

So first there was a generous emulation,
And then there was a general competition
To undertake the orphan's education.
As Juan was a person of condition,
It had been an affront on this occasion
To talk of a subscription or petition;
But sixteen dowagers, ten unwed she sages,
Whose tale belongs to “Hallam's Middle Ages,”

31

And one or two sad, separate wives, without
A fruit to bloom upon their withering bough,
Begged to bring up the little girl, and “out,”—
For that's the phrase that settles all things now,
Meaning a virgin's first blush at a rout,
And all her points as thorough-bred to show:
And I assure you, that like virgin honey
Tastes their first season (mostly if they have money).

331

32

How all the needy honourable misters,
Each out-at-elbow peer, or desperate dandy
The watchful mothers and the careful sisters
(Who, by the by, when clever, are more handy
At making matches, where “'tis gold that glisters,”
Than their he relatives) like flies o'er candy
Buzz round “the Fortune” with their busy battery,
To turn her head with waltzing and with flattery!

33

Each aunt, each cousin hath her speculation;
Nay, married dames will now and then discover
Such pure disinterestedness of passion,
I've known them court an heiress for their lover.
“Tantaene!” Such the virtues of high station!
Even in the hopeful Isle, whose outlet's “Dover”:
While the poor rich wretch, object of these cares,
Has cause to wish her sire had had male heirs.

332

34

Some are soon bagged, but some reject three dozen.
'Tis fine to see them scattering refusals
And wild dismay o'er every angry cousin
(Friends of the party) who begin accusals,
Such as—“Unless Miss (Blank) meant to have chosen
Poor Frederick, why did she accord perusals
To his billets? Why waltz with him? Why, I pray,
Look yes last night and yet say no to-day?

35

“Why?—Why?—Besides, Fred. really was attached;
'Twas not her fortune—he has enough without:
The time will come she'll wish that she had snatched
So good an opportunity, no doubt:—
But the old marchioness some plan has hatched,
As I'll tell Aurea at to-morrow's rout:
And after all poor Frederick may do better—
Pray did you see her answer to his letter?”

333

36

Smart uniforms and sparkling coronets
Are spurned in turn, until her turn arrives,
After male loss of time, and hearts, and bets
Upon the sweepstakes for substantial wives:
And when at last the pretty creature gets
Some gentleman who fights, or writes, or drives,
It soothes the awkward squad of the rejected,
To find how very badly she selected.

37

For sometimes they accept some long pursuer,
Worn out with importunity; or fall
(But here perhaps the instances are fewer)
To the lot of him who scarce pursued at all.
A hazy widower turned of forty's sure
(If 'tis not vain examples to recall)
To draw a high prize: now, howe'er he got her, I
See nought more strange in this than t'other lottery.

334

38

I, for my part—(one “modern instance” more,
“True 'tis a pity, pity 'tis, 'tis true”)
Was chosen from out an amatory score,
Albeit my years were less discreet than few;
But though I also had reformed before
Those became one who soon were to be two,
I'll not gainsay the generous public's voice,
That the young lady made a monstrous choice.

39

Oh, pardon me digression—or at least
Peruse! 'Tis always with a moral end
That I dissert, like Grace before a feast:
For like an aged aunt, or tiresome friend,
A rigid guardian, or a zealous priest,
My Muse by exhortation means to mend
All people, at all times and in most places;
Which puts my Pegasus to these grave paces.

335

40

But now I'm going to be immoral; now
I mean to show things really as they are,
Not as they ought to be: for I avow,
That till we see what's what in fact, we're far
From much improvement with that virtuous plough
Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar
Upon the black loam long manured by Vice,
Only to keep its corn at the old price.

41

But first of little Leila we'll dispose;
For like a day-dawn she was young and pure,
Or, like the old comparison of snows,
Which are more pure than pleasant to be sure.
Like many people every body knows,
Don Juan was delighted to secure
A goodly guardian for his infant charge,
Who might not profit much by being at large.

336

42

Besides, he had found out that he was no tutor:
(I wish that others would find out the same)
And rather wished in such things to stand neuter,
For silly wards will bring their guardians blame:
So when he saw each ancient dame a suitor
To make his little wild Asiatic tame,
Consulting “the Society for Vice
Suppression,” Lady Pinchbeck was his choice.

43

Olden she was—but had been very young;
Virtuous she was—and had been, I believe:
Although the world has such an evil tongue
That—but my chaster ear will not receive
An echo of a syllable that's wrong:
In fact, there's nothing makes me so much grieve
As that abominable tittle tattle,
Which is the cud eschewed by human cattle.

44

Moreover I've remarked (and I was once
A slight observer in a modest way)
And so may every one except a dunce,
That ladies in their youth a little gay,
Besides their knowledge of the world, and sense
Of the sad consequence of going astray,
Are wiser in their warnings 'gainst the woe
Which the mere passionless can never know.

337

45

While the harsh Prude indemnifies her virtue
By railing at the unknown and envied passion,
Seeking far less to save you than to hurt you,
Or what's still worse, to put you out of fashion,—
The kinder veteran with calm words will court you,
Entreating you to pause before you dash on;
Expounding and illustrating the riddle
Of Epic Love's beginning, end, and middle.

46

Now whether it be thus, or that they are stricter,
As better knowing why they should be so,
I think you'll find from many a family picture,
That daughters of such mothers as may know
The world by experience rather than by lecture,
Turn out much better for the Smithfield Show
Of vestals brought into the marriage mart,
Than those bred up by prudes without a heart.

338

47

I said that Lady Pinchbeck had been talked about—
As who has not, if female, young, and pretty?
But now no more the ghost of Scandal stalked about;
She merely was deemed amiable and witty,
And several of her best bon-mots were hawked about;
Then she was given to charity and pity,
And passed (at least the latter years of life)
For being a most exemplary wife.

48

High in high circles, gentle in her own,
She was the mild reprover of the young
Whenever—which means every day—they'd shown
An awkward inclination to go wrong.
The quantity of good she did's unknown,
Or at the least would lengthen out my song:—
In brief, the little orphan of the East
Had raised an interest in her which encreased.

49

Juan too was a sort of favourite with her,
Because she thought him a good heart at bottom,
A little spoiled, but not so altogether;
Which was a wonder, if you think who got him,
And how he had been tossed, he scarce knew whither:
Though this might ruin others, it did not him,
At least entirely, for he had seen too many
Changes in youth, to be surprised at any.

339

50

And these vicissitudes tell best in youth;
For when they happen at a riper age,
People are apt to blame the Fates, forsooth,
And wonder Providence is not more sage.
Adversity is the first path to truth:
He who hath proved war, storm, or woman's rage,
Whether his winters be eighteen or eighty,
Hath won the experience which is deemed so weighty.

51

How far it profits is another matter.—
Our hero gladly saw his little charge
Safe with a lady, whose last grown-up daughter
Being long married, and thus set at large,
Had left all the accomplishments she taught her
To be transmitted, like the Lord Mayor's barge,
To the next comer; or—as it will tell
More Muse-like—say like Cytherea's shell.

340

52

I call such things transmission; for there is
A floating balance of accomplishment
Which forms a pedigree from Miss to Miss,
According as their minds or backs are bent.
Some waltz; some draw; some fathom the abyss
Of metaphysics; others are content
With music; the most moderate shine as wits,
While others have a genius turned for fits.

53

But whether fits, or wits, or harpsichords,
Theology, Fine Arts, or finer stays
May be the baits for gentlemen or lords,
With regular descent, in these our days
The last year to the new transfers its hoards;
New vestals claim men's eyes with the same praise
Of “elegant” et cetera, in fresh batches—
All matchless creatures and yet bent on matches.

341

54

But now I will begin my poem.—'Tis
Perhaps a little strange, if not quite new,
That from the first of Cantos up to this
I've not begun what we have to go through.
These first twelve books are merely flourishes,
Preludios, trying just a string or two
Upon my lyre, or making the pegs sure;
And when so, you shall have the overture.

55

My Muses do not care a pinch of rosin
About what's called success, or not succeeding:
Such thoughts are quite below the strain they have chosen;
'Tis a “great moral lesson” they are reading.
I thought, at setting off, about two dozen
Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading,
If that my Pegasus should not be foundered,
I think to canter gently through a hundred.

342

56

Don Juan saw that microcosm on stilts,
Yclept the Great World; for it is the least,
Although the highest: but as swords have hilts
By which their power of mischief is encreased,
When man in battle or in quarrel tilts,
Thus the low world, north, south, or west, or east,
Must still obey the high—which is their handle,
Their moon, their sun, their gas, their farthing candle.

57

He had many friends who had many wives, and was
Well looked upon by both, to that extent
Of friendship which you may accept or pass,
It does nor good nor harm; being merely meant
To keep the wheels going of the higher class,
And draw them nightly when a ticket's sent:
And what with masquerades, and fêtes, and balls,
For the first season such a life scarce palls.

58

A young unmarried man, with a good name
And fortune, has an awkward part to play;
For good society is but a game,
“The royal game of Goose,” as I may say,
Where every body has some separate aim,
An end to answer, or a plan to lay—
The single ladies wishing to be double,
The married ones to save the virgins trouble.

343

59

I don't mean this as general, but particular
Examples may be found of such pursuits:
Though several also keep their perpendicular
Like poplars, with good principles for roots;
Yet many have a method more reticular—
“Fishers for men,” like Sirens with soft lutes;
For talk six times with the same single lady,
And you may get the wedding dresses ready.

60

Perhaps you'll have a letter from the mother,
To say her daughter's feelings are trepanned;
Perhaps you'll have a visit from the brother,
All strut and stays and whiskers, to demand
What “your intentions are”?—One way or other
It seems the virgin's heart expects your hand;
And between pity for her case and yours,
You'll add to Matrimony's list of cures.

344

61

I've known a dozen weddings made even thus,
And some of them high names: I have also known
Young men who—though they hated to discuss
Pretensions which they never dreamed to have shown—
Yet neither frightened by a female fuss,
Nor by mustachios moved, were let alone,
And lived, as did the broken-hearted fair,
In happier plight than if they formed a pair.

62

There's also nightly, to the uninitiated,
A peril—not indeed like love or marriage,
But not the less for this to be depreciated:
It is—I meant and mean not to disparage
The show of virtue even in the vitiated—
It adds an outward grace unto their carriage—
But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot,
“Couleur de rose,” who's neither white nor scarlet.

345

63

Such is your cold coquette, who can't say “No,”
And won't say “Yes,” and keeps you on and off-ing,
On a lee shore, till it begins to blow—
Then sees your heart wrecked with an inward scoffing.
This works a world of sentimental woe,
And sends new Werters yearly to their coffin;
But yet is merely innocent flirtation,
Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

64

“Ye Gods, I grow a talker!” Let us prate.
The next of perils, though I place it sternest,
Is when, without regard to “Church or State,”
A wife makes or takes love in upright earnest.
Abroad, such things decide few women's fate—
(Such, early traveller! is the truth thou learnest)—
But in Old England when a young bride errs,
Poor thing! Eve's was a trifling case to her's.

346

65

For 'tis a low, newspaper, humdrum, law-suit
Country, where a young couple of the same ages
Can't form a friendship but the world o'erawes it.
Then there's the vulgar trick of those d---d damages!
A verdict—grievous foe to those who cause it!—
Forms a sad climax to romantic homages;
Besides those soothing speeches of the pleaders,
And evidences which regale all readers!

66

But they who blunder thus are raw beginners;
A little genial sprinkling of hypocrisy
Has saved the fame of thousand splendid sinners,
The loveliest Oligarchs of our Gynocrasy;
You may see such at all the balls and dinners,
Among the proudest of our Aristocracy,
So gentle, charming, charitable, chaste—
And all by having tact as well as taste.

67

Juan, who did not stand in the predicament
Of a mere novice, had one safeguard more;
For he was sick—no, 'twas not the word sick I meant—
But he had seen so much good love before,
That he was not in heart so very weak;—I meant
But thus much, and no sneer against the shore
Of white cliffs, white necks, blue eyes, bluer stockings,
Tithes, taxes, duns, and doors with double knockings.

347

68

But coming young from lands and scenes romantic,
Where lives not law-suits must be risked for Passion,
And Passion's self must have a spice of frantic,
Into a country where 'tis half a fashion,
Seemed to him half commercial, half pedantic,
Howe'er he might esteem this moral nation;
Besides (alas! his taste—forgive and pity!)
At first he did not think the women pretty.

69

I say at first—for he found out at last,
But by degrees, that they were fairer far
Than the more glowing dames whose lot is cast
Beneath the influence of the Eastern star.
A further proof we should not judge in haste;
Yet inexperience could not be his bar
To taste:—the truth is, if men would confess,
That novelties please less than they impress.

348

70

Though travelled, I have never had the luck to
Trace up those shuffling negroes, Nile or Niger,
To that impracticable place Timbuctoo,
Where Geography finds no one to oblige her
With such a chart as may be safely stuck to—
For Europe ploughs in Afric like “bos piger”;
But if I had been at Timbuctoo, there
No doubt I should be told that black is fair.

71

It is. I will not swear that black is white;
But I suspect in fact that white is black,
And the whole matter rests upon eye-sight.
Ask a blind man, the best judge. You'll attack
Perhaps this new position—but I'm right;
Or if I'm wrong, I'll not be ta'en aback:—
He hath no morn nor night, but all is dark
Within; and what sees't thou? A dubious spark.

349

72

But I'm relapsing into metaphysics,
That labyrinth, whose clue is of the same
Construction as your cures for hectic phthisics,
Those bright moths fluttering round a dying flame:
And this reflection brings me to plain physics,
And to the beauties of a foreign dame,
Compared with those of our pure pearls of price,
Those Polar summers, all sun, and some ice.

73

Or say they are like virtuous mermaids, whose
Beginnings are fair faces, ends mere fishes;—
Not that there's not a quantity of those
Who have a due respect for their own wishes.
Like Russians rushing from hot baths to snows
Are they, at bottom virtuous even when vicious:
They warm into a scrape, but keep of course,
As a reserve, a plunge into remorse.

350

74

But this has nought to do with their outsides.
I said that Juan did not think them pretty
At the first blush; for a fair Briton hides
Half her attractions—probably from pity—
And rather calmly into the heart glides,
Than storms it as a foe would take a city;
But once there (if you doubt this, prithee try)
She keeps it for you like a true ally.

75

She cannot step as does an Arab barb,
Or Andalusian girl from mass returning,
Nor wear as gracefully as Gauls her garb,
Nor in her eye Ausonia's glance is burning;
Her voice, though sweet, is not so fit to warb-
le those bravuras (which I still am learning
To like, though I have been seven years in Italy,
And have, or had, an ear that served me prettily);—

351

76

She cannot do these things, nor one or two
Others, in that off-hand and dashing style
Which takes so much—to give the devil his due,—
Nor is she quite so ready with her smile,
Nor settles all things in one interview,
(A thing approved as saving time and toil);—
But though the soil may give you time and trouble,
Well cultivated, it will render double.

77

And if in fact she takes to a “grande passion,”
It is a very serious thing indeed:
Nine times in ten 'tis but caprice or fashion,
Coquetry, or a wish to take the lead,
The pride of a mere child with a new sash on,
Or wish to make a rival's bosom bleed;
But the tenth instance will be a Tornado,
For there's no saying what they will or may do.

352

78

The reason's obvious: if there's an eclât,
They lose their caste at once, as do the Parias;
And when the delicacies of the law
Have filled their papers with their comments various,
Society, that china without flaw,
(The hypocrite!) will banish them like Marius,
To sit amidst the ruins of their guilt:
For Fame's a Carthage not so soon rebuilt.

79

Perhaps this is as it should be;—it is
A comment on the Gospel's “Sin no more,
And be thy sins forgiven”:—but upon this
I leave the saints to settle their own score.
Abroad, though doubtless they do much amiss,
An erring woman finds an opener door
For her return to Virtue—as they call
That Lady who should be at home to all.

80

For me, I leave the matter where I find it,
Knowing that such uneasy Virtue leads
People some ten times less in fact to mind it,
And care but for discoveries and not deeds.
And as for Chastity, you'll never bind it
By all the laws the strictest lawyer pleads,

353

But aggravate the crime you have not prevented,
By rendering desperate those who had else repented.

81

But Juan was no casuist, nor had pondered
Upon the moral lessons of mankind:
Besides, he had not seen of several hundred
A lady altogether to his mind.
A little “blâsé”—'tis not to be wondered
At, that his heart had got a tougher rind:
And though not vainer from his past success,
No doubt his sensibilities were less.

82

He also had been busy seeing sights—
The Parliament and all the other houses;
Had sate beneath the gallery at nights,
To hear debates whose thunder roused (not rouses)
The world to gaze upon those northern lights
Which flashed as far as where the musk-bull browses:
He had also stood at times behind the throne—
But Grey was not arrived, and Chatham gone.

354

83

He saw however at the closing session,
That noble sight, when really free the nation,
A king in constitutional possession
Of such a throne as is the proudest station,
Though despots know it not—till the progression
Of freedom shall complete their education.
'Tis not mere splendour makes the show august
To eye or heart—it is the people's trust.

84

There too he saw (whate'er he may be now)
A Prince, the prince of princes, at the time
With fascination in his very bow,
And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though royalty was written on his brow,
He had then the grace too, rare in every clime,
Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,
A finished gentleman from top to toe.

355

85

And Juan was received, as hath been said,
Into the best society: and there
Occurred what often happens, I'm afraid,
However disciplined and debonnaire:—
The talent and good humour he displayed,
Besides the marked distinction of his air,
Exposed him, as was natural, to temptation,
Even though himself avoided the occasion.

86

But what, and where, with whom, and when, and why,
Is not to be put hastily together;
And as my object is morality
(Whatever people say) I don't know whether
I'll leave a single reader's eyelid dry,
But harrow up his feelings till they wither,
And hew out a huge monument of pathos,
As Philip's son proposed to do with Athos.

356

87

Here the twelfth Canto of our introduction
Ends. When the body of the book's begun,
You'll find it of a different construction
From what some people say 'twill be when done:
The plan at present's simply in concoction.
I can't oblige you, reader! to read on;
That's your affair, not mine: a real spirit
Should neither court neglect nor dread to bear it.

88

And if my thunderbolt not always rattles,
Remember, reader! you have had before
The worst of tempests and the best of battles
That e'er were brewed from elements or gore,
Besides the most sublime of—Heaven knows what else—
An Usurer could scarce expect much more—
But my best Canto, save one on Astronomy,
Will turn upon “Political Economy.”

357

89

That is your present theme for popularity:
Now that the Public Hedge hath scarce a stake,
It grows an act of patriotic charity
To show the people the best way to break.
My plan (but I, if but for singularity,
Reserve it) will be very sure to take.
Mean time read all the National-Debt sinkers,
And tell me what you think of your great thinkers.

358

Canto XIII

1

I now mean to be serious;—it is time,
Since laughter now-a-days is deemed too serious.
A jest at Vice by Virtue's called a crime,
And critically held as deleterious:
Besides, the sad's a source of the sublime,
Although when long a little apt to weary us;
And therefore shall my lay soar high and solemn
As an old temple dwindled to a column.

359

2

The Lady Adeline Amundeville
('Tis an old Norman name, and to be found
In pedigrees by those who wander still
Along the last fields of that Gothic ground)—
Was high-born, wealthy by her father's will,
And beauteous, even where beauties most abound,
In Britain—which of course true patriots find
The goodliest soil of Body and of Mind.

3

I'll not gainsay them; it is not my cue;
I leave them to their taste, no doubt the best:
An eye's an eye, and whether black or blue,
Is no great matter, so 'tis in request:
'Tis nonsense to dispute about a hue—
The kindest may be taken as a test.
The fair sex should be always fair, and no man,
Till thirty, should perceive there's a plain woman.

360

4

And after that serene and somewhat dull
Epoch, that awkward corner turned for days
More quiet, when our Moon's no more at full,
We may presume to criticise or praise;
Because indifference begins to lull
Our passions, and we walk in Wisdom's ways;
Also because the figure and the face
Hint, that 'tis time to give the younger place.

5

I know that some would fain postpone this era,
Reluctant as all placemen to resign
Their post; but their's is merely a chimera,
For they have passed life's equinoctial line:
But then they have their claret and madeira
To irrigate the dryness of decline;
And County Meetings and the Parliament,
And debt, and what not, for their solace sent.

6

And is there not Religion, and Reform,
Peace, War, the taxes, and what's called the “Nation”?
The struggle to be Pilots in a storm?
The landed and the monied speculation?
The joys of mutual hate, to keep them warm,
Instead of love, that mere hallucination?

361

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.

7

Rough Johnson, the great moralist, professed,
Right honestly, “he liked an honest hater”—
The only truth that yet has been confest
Within these latest thousand years or later.
Perhaps the fine old fellow spoke in jest:—
For my part, I am but a mere spectator,
And gaze where'er the palace or the hovel is,
Much in the mode of Goethe's Mephistopheles;

8

But neither love nor hate in much excess;
Though 'twas not once so. If I sneer sometimes,
It is because I cannot well do less,
And now and then it also suits my rhymes.
I should be very willing to redress
Men's wrongs, and rather check than punish crimes,
Had not Cervantes in that too true tale
Of Quixote, shown how all such efforts fail.

363

9

Of all tales 'tis the saddest—and more sad,
Because it makes us smile: his hero's right,
And still pursues the right;—to curb the bad,
His only object, and 'gainst odds to fight,
His guerdon: 'tis his virtue makes him mad!
But his adventures form a sorry sight;—
A sorrier still is the great moral taught
By that real Epic unto all who have thought.

10

Redressing injury, revenging wrong,
To aid the damsel and destroy the caitiff;
Opposing singly the united strong,
From foreign yoke to free the helpless native;—
Alas! Must noblest views, like an old song,
Be for mere Fancy's sport a theme creative?
A jest, a riddle, Fame through thin and thick sought?
And Socrates himself but Wisdom's Quixote?

364

11

Cervantes smiled Spain's Chivalry away;
A single laugh demolished the right arm
Of his own country;—seldom since that day
Has Spain had heroes. While Romance could charm,
The world gave ground before her bright array;
And therefore have his volumes done such harm,
That all their glory, as a composition,
Was dearly purchased by his land's perdition.

12

I'm “at my old Lunes”—digression, and forget
The Lady Adeline Amundeville;
The fair most fatal Juan ever met,
Although she was not evil, nor meant ill;
But Destiny and Passion spread the net,
(Fate is a good excuse for our own will)
And caught them;—what do they not catch, methinks?
But I'm not Oedipus, and life's a Sphinx.

365

13

I tell the tale as it is told, nor dare
To venture a solution: “Davus sum!”
And now I will proceed upon the pair.
Sweet Adeline, amidst the gay world's hum,
Was the Queen-Bee, the glass of all that's fair;
Whose charms made all men speak, and women dumb.
The last's a miracle, and such was reckoned,
And since that time there has not been a second.

14

Chaste was she, to detraction's desperation,
And wedded unto one she had loved well;
A man known in the councils of the nation,
Cool, and quite English; imperturbable,
Though apt to act with fire upon occasion;
Proud of himself and her, the world could tell
Nought against either, and both seemed secure—
She in her virtue, he in his hauteur.

15

It chanced some diplomatical relations,
Arising out of business, often brought
Himself and Juan in their mutual stations
Into close contact. Though reserved, nor caught
By specious seeming, Juan's youth, and patience,
And talent, on his haughty spirit wrought,
And formed a basis of esteem, which ends
In making men what Courtesy calls friends.

366

16

And thus Lord Henry, who was cautious as
Reserve and pride could make him, and full slow
In judging men—when once his judgment was
Determined, right or wrong, on friend or foe,
Had all the pertinacity pride has,
Which knows no ebb to its imperious flow,
And loves or hates, disdaining to be guided,
Because its own good pleasure hath decided.

17

His friendships therefore, and no less aversions,
Though oft well founded, which confirmed but more
His prepossessions, like the laws of Persians
And Medes, would ne'er revoke what went before.
His feelings had not those strange fits, like tertians,
Of common likings, which make some deplore
What they should laugh at—the mere ague still
Of Men's regard, the fever or the chill.

18

“'Tis not in mortals to command success;
But do you more, Sempronius—don't deserve it”;
And take my word, you won't have any less:
Be wary, watch the time, and always serve it;
Give gently way, when there's too great a press;
And for your conscience, only learn to nerve it,—
For, like a racer or a boxer training,
'Twill make, if proved, vast efforts without paining.

367

19

Lord Henry also liked to be superior,
As most men do, the little or the great;
The very lowest find out an inferior,
At least they think so, to exert their state
Upon: for there are very few things wearier
Than solitary Pride's oppressive weight,
Which mortals generously would divide,
By bidding others carry while they ride.

20

In birth, in rank, in fortune likewise equal,
O'er Juan he could no distinction claim;
In years he had the advantage of time's sequel;
And, as he thought, in country much the same—
Because bold Britons have a tongue and free quill,
At which all modern nations vainly aim;
And the Lord Henry was a great debater,
So that few members kept the House up later.

368

21

These were advantages: and then he thought—
It was his foible, but by no means sinister—
That few or none more than himself had caught
Court mysteries, having been himself a minister:
He liked to teach that which he had been taught,
And greatly shone whenever there had been a stir;
And reconciled all qualities which grace man,
Always a Patriot, and sometimes a Placeman.

22

He liked the gentle Spaniard for his gravity;
He almost honoured him for his docility,
Because, though young, he acquiesced with suavity,
Or contradicted but with proud humility.
He knew the world, and would not see depravity
In faults which sometimes show the soil's fertility,
If that the weeds o'erlive not the first crop,—
For then they are very difficult to stop.

23

And then he talked with him about Madrid,
Constantinople, and such distant places;
Where people always did as they were bid,
Or did what they should not with foreign graces.
Of coursers also spake they: Henry rid
Well, like most Englishmen, and loved the races;
And Juan, like a true-born Andalusian,
Could back a horse, as despots ride a Russian.

369

24

And thus acquaintance grew, at noble routs,
And diplomatic dinners, or at other—
For Juan stood well both with Ins and Outs,
As in Freemasonry a higher brother.
Upon his talent Henry had no doubts,
His manner showed him sprung from a high mother;
And all men like to show their hospitality
To him whose breeding marches with his quality.

25

At Blank-Blank Square;—for we will break no squares
By naming streets: since men are so censorious,
And apt to sow an author's wheat with tares,
Reaping allusions private and inglorious,
Where none were dreamt of, unto love's affairs,
Which were, or are, or are to be notorious,
That therefore do I previously declare,
Lord Henry's mansion was in Blank-Blank Square.

370

26

Also there bin another pious reason
For making squares and streets anonymous;
Which is, that there is scarce a single season
Which doth not shake some very splendid house
With some slight heart-quake of domestic treason—
A topic Scandal doth delight to rouse:
Such I might stumble over unawares,
Unless I knew the very chastest Squares.

27

'Tis true, I might have chosen Piccadilly,
A place where peccadillos are unknown;
But I have motives, whether wise or silly,
For letting that pure sanctuary alone.
Therefore I name not square, street, place, until I
Find one where nothing naughty can be shown,
A vestal shrine of innocence of heart:
Such are—but I have lost the London Chart.

28

At Henry's mansion then, in Blank-Blank Square,
Was Juan a recherché, welcome guest,
As many other noble Scions were;
And some who had but talent for their crest;
Or wealth, which is a passport every where;
Or even mere fashion, which indeed's the best

371

Recommendation;—and to be well drest
Will very often supersede the rest.

29

And since “there's safety in a multitude
Of counsellors,” as Solomon has said,
Or some one for him, in some sage, grave mood;—
Indeed we see the daily proof displayed
In Senates, at the Bar, in wordy feud,
Where'er collective wisdom can parade,
Which is the only cause that we can guess
Of Britain's present wealth and happiness;—

30

But as “there's safety grafted in the number
Of Counsellors” for men,—thus for the sex
A large acquaintance lets not Virtue slumber;
Or should it shake, the choice will more perplex—
Variety itself will more encumber.
'Midst many rocks we guard more against wrecks;
And thus with women: howsoe'er it shock some's
Self-love, there's safety in a crowd of coxcombs.

372

31

But Adeline had not the least occasion
For such a shield, which leaves but little merit
To virtue proper, or good education.
Her chief resource was in her own high spirit,
Which judged mankind at their due estimation;
And for coquetry, she disdained to wear it:
Secure of admiration, its impression
Was faint, as of an every-day possession.

32

To all she was polite without parade;
To some she showed attention of that kind
Which flatters, but is flattery conveyed
In such a sort as cannot leave behind
A trace unworthy either wife or maid;—
A gentle, genial courtesy of mind,
To those who were or passed for meritorious,
Just to console sad Glory for being glorious;

373

33

Which is in all respects, save now and then,
A dull and desolate appendage. Gaze
Upon the Shades of those distinguished men,
Who were or are the puppet-shows of praise,
The praise of persecution. Gaze again
On the most favoured; and amidst the blaze
Of sunset halos o'er the laurel-browed,
What can ye recognize?—A gilded cloud.

34

There also was of course in Adeline
That calm Patrician polish in the address,
Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line
Of any thing which Nature would express;
Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine,—
At least his manner suffers not to guess
That any thing he views can greatly please.
Perhaps we have borrowed this from the Chinese—

374

35

Perhaps from Horace: his “Nil admirari”
Was what he called the “Art of Happiness”;
An art on which the artists greatly vary,
And have not yet attained to much success.
However, 'tis expedient to be wary:
Indifference certes don't produce distress;
And rash Enthusiasm in good society
Were nothing but a moral Inebriety.

36

But Adeline was not indifferent: for
(Now for a common place!) beneath the snow,
As a Volcano holds the lava more
Within—et caetera. Shall I go on?—No!
I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor:
So let the often used volcano go.
Poor thing! How frequently, by me and others,
It hath been stirred up till its smoke quite smothers.

375

37

I'll have another figure in a trice:—
What say you to a bottle of champagne?
Frozen into a very vinous ice,
Which leaves few drops of that immortal rain,
Yet in the very centre, past all price,
About a liquid glassful will remain;
And this is stronger than the strongest grape
Could e'er express in its expanded shape:

38

'Tis the whole spirit brought to a quintessence;
And thus the chilliest aspects may concentre
A hidden nectar under a cold presence.
And such are many—though I only meant her,
From whom I now deduce these moral lessons,
On which the Muse has always sought to enter:—
And your cold people are beyond all price,
When once you have broken their confounded ice.

376

39

But after all they are a North-West Passage
Unto the glowing India of the soul;
And as the good ships sent upon that message
Have not exactly ascertained the Pole
(Though Parry's efforts look a lucky presage)
Thus gentlemen may run upon a shoal;
For if the Pole's not open, but all frost,
(A chance still) 'tis a voyage or vessel lost.

40

And young beginners may as well commence
With quiet cruizing o'er the ocean woman;
While those who are not beginners, should have sense
Enough to make for port, ere Time shall summon
With his grey signal flag: and the past tense,
The dreary “Fuimus” of all things human,
Must be declined, while life's thin thread's spun out
Between the gaping heir and gnawing gout.

377

41

But Heaven must be diverted: its diversion
Is sometimes truculent—but never mind:
The world upon the whole is worth the assertion
(If but for comfort) that all things are kind:
And that same devilish doctrine of the Persian,
Of the two Principles, but leaves behind
As many doubts as any other doctrine
Has ever puzzled Faith withal, or yoked her in.

42

The English winter—ending in July,
To recommence in August—now was done.
'Tis the postillion's Paradise: wheels fly;
On roads, East, South, North, West, there is a run.
But for post horses who finds sympathy?
Man's pity's for himself, or for his son,
Always premising that said son at college
Has not contracted much more debt than knowledge.

378

43

The London winter's ended in July—
Sometimes a little later. I don't err
In this: whatever other blunders lie
Upon my shoulders, here I must aver
My Muse a glass of Weatherology;
For Parliament is our Barometer:
Let Radicals its other acts attack,
Its sessions form our only almanack.

44

When its quicksilver's down at zero,—lo!
Coach, chariot, luggage, baggage, equipage!
Wheels whirl from Carlton palace to Soho,
And happiest they who horses can engage;
The turnpikes glow with dust; and Rotten Row
Sleeps from the chivalry of this bright age;
And tradesmen, with long bills and longer faces,
Sigh—as the postboys fasten on the traces.

379

45

They and their bills, “Arcadians both,” are left
To the Greek Kalends of another session.
Alas! to them of ready cash bereft,
What hope remains? Of hope the full possession,
Or generous draft, conceded as a gift,
At a long date—till they can get a fresh one,—
Hawked about at a discount, small or large;—
Also the solace of an overcharge.

46

But these are trifles. Downward flies my Lord
Nodding beside my Lady in his carriage.
Away! away! “Fresh horses!” are the word,
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage;
The obsequious landlord hath the change restored;
The postboys have no reason to disparage
Their fee; but ere the watered wheels may hiss hence,
The ostler pleads for a small reminiscence.

380

47

'Tis granted; and the valet mounts the dickey—
That gentleman of lords and gentlemen;
Also my lady's gentlewoman, tricky,
Tricked out, but modest more than poet's pen
Can paint, “Cosi Viaggino i Ricchi”!
(Excuse a foreign slipslop now and then,
If but to show I've travell'd; and what's travel,
Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?)

48

The London winter and the country summer
Were well nigh over. 'Tis perhaps a pity,
When Nature wears the gown that doth become her,
To lose those best months in a sweaty city,
And wait until the nightingale grows dumber,
Listening debates not very wise or witty,
Ere Patriots their true country can remember;—
But there's no shooting (save grouse) till September.

381

49

I've done with my tirade. The world was gone;
The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made,
Were vanished to be what they call alone,—
That is, with thirty servants for parade,
As many guests or more; before whom groan
As many covers, duly, daily laid.
Let none accuse Old England's hospitality—
Its quantity is but condensed to quality.

50

Lord Henry and the Lady Adeline
Departed, like the rest of their compeers,
The peerage, to a mansion very fine;
The Gothic Babel of a thousand years.
None than themselves could boast a longer line,
Where Time through heroes and through beauties steers;
And oaks, as olden as their pedigree,
Told of their sires, a tomb in every tree.

382

51

A paragraph in every paper told
Of their departure: such is modern fame:
'Tis pity that it takes no further hold
Than an advertisement, or much the same;
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.
The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim—
“Departure, for his country seat, to-day,
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.

52

“We understand the splendid host intends
To entertain, this autumn, a select
And numerous party of his noble friends;
Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct,
The Duke of D--- the shooting season spends,
With many more by rank and fashion decked;
Also a foreigner of high condition,
The Envoy of the secret Russian Mission.”

383

53

And thus we see—who doubts the Morning Post?
(Whose articles are like the “Thirty Nine,”
Which those most swear to who believe them most)—
Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordained to shine,
Decked by the rays reflected from his host,
With those who, Pope says, “greatly daring dine.”
'Tis odd, but true,—last war the News abounded
More with these dinners than the killed or wounded;—

54

As thus: “On Thursday there was a grand dinner;
Present, Lords A. B. C.”—Earls, dukes, by name
Announced with no less pomp than victory's winner:
Then underneath, and in the very same
Column: Date, “Falmouth. There has lately been here
The Slap-Dash Regiment, so well known to fame;
Whose loss in the late action we regret:
The vacancies are filled up—see Gazette.”

384

55

To Norman Abbey whirled the noble pair,—
An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion, of a rich and rare
Mixed Gothic, such as Artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
Withal: it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferred a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind.

56

It stood embosom'd in a happy valley,
Crown'd by high woodlands, where the Druid oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally
His host, with broad arms 'gainst the thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
The dappled foresters—as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird.

385

57

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften'd way did take
In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.

58

Its outlet dash'd into a steep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes—like an infant made
Quiet—sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay'd
Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw.

386

59

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile,
(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart
In a grand Arch, which once screened many an aisle.
These last had disappear'd—a loss to Art:
The first yet frowned superbly o'er the soil,
And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,
Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march,
In gazing on that venerable Arch.

60

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,
Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone;
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,
But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,
When each house was a fortalice—as tell
The annals of full many a line undone,—
The gallant Cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.

387

61

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
The Virgin Mother of the God-born child,
With her son in her blessed arms, look'd round,
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd;
She made the earth below seem holy ground.
This may be superstition, weak or wild,
But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine.

62

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,
Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings,
Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter,
Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings,
Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,
The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings
The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire
Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

388

63

But in the noontide of the Moon, and when
The wind is winged from one point of heaven,
There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then
Is musical—a dying accent driven
Through the huge Arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given
Back to the Night wind by the waterfall,
And harmonized by the old choral wall:

64

Others, that some original shape, or form
Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power
(Though less than that of Memnon's statue, warm
In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fixed hour)
To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm.
Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower:
The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such
The fact:—I've heard it,—once perhaps too much.

389

65

Amidst the court a Gothic fountain play'd,
Symmetrical, but deck'd with carvings quaint—
Strange faces, like to men in masquerade,
And here perhaps a monster, there a Saint:
The spring gush'd through grim mouths, of granite made,
And sparkled into basins, where it spent
Its little torrent in a thousand bubbles,
Like man's vain glory, and his vainer troubles.

66

The mansion's self was vast and venerable,
With more of the monastic than has been
Elsewhere preserved: the cloisters still were stable,
The cells too and refectory, I ween:
An exquisite small chapel had been able,
Still unimpair'd, to decorate the scene;
The rest had been reform'd, replaced, or sunk,
And spoke more of the baron than the monk.

390

67

Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, join'd
By no quite lawful marriage of the Arts,
Might shock a Connoisseur; but when combined,
Form'd a whole which, irregular in parts,
Yet left a grand impression on the mind,
At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts.
We gaze upon a Giant for his stature,
Nor judge at first if all be true to Nature.

68

Steel Barons, molten the next generation
To silken rows of gay and garter'd Earls,
Glanced from the walls in goodly preservation;
And Lady Marys blooming into girls,
With fair long locks, had also kept their station:
And Countesses mature in robes and pearls:
Also some beauties of Sir Peter Lely,
Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely.

391

69

Judges in very formidable ermine
Were there, with brows that did not much invite
The accused to think their Lordships would determine
His cause by leaning much from might to right:
Bishops, who had not left a single sermon;
Attornies-General, awful to the sight,
As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us)
Of the “Star Chamber” than of “Habeas Corpus.”

70

Generals, some all in armour, of the old
And iron time, ere Lead had ta'en the lead;
Others in wigs of Marlborough's martial fold,
Huger than twelve of our degenerate breed:
Lordlings with staves of white, or keys of gold:
Nimrods, whose canvas scarce contain'd the steed;
And here and there some stern high Patriot stood,
Who could not get the place for which he sued.

392

71

But ever and anon, to soothe your vision,
Fatigued with these hereditary glories,
There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian,
Or wilder groupe of savage Salvatore's:
Here danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone
In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted
His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

72

Here sweetly spread a landscape of Lorraine;
There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain
Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic Anchorite:—
But lo! a Teniers woos, and not in vain,
Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:
His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish
Or Dutch with thirst—What ho! a flask of Rhenish.

393

73

Oh, reader! If that thou canst read,—and know,
'Tis not enough to spell, or even to read,
To constitute a reader; there must go
Virtues of which both you and I have need.
Firstly, begin with the beginning—(though
That clause is hard); and secondly, proceed;
Thirdly, commence not with the end—or, sinning
In this sort, end at least with the beginning.

74

But, reader, thou hast patient been of late,
While I, without remorse of rhyme, or fear,
Have built and laid out ground at such a rate,
Dan Phoebus takes me for an auctioneer.
That Poets were so from their earliest date,
By Homer's “Catalogue of Ships,” is clear;
But a mere modern must be moderate—
I spare you then the furniture and plate.

394

75

The mellow Autumn came, and with it came
The promised party, to enjoy its sweets.
The corn is cut, the manor full of game;
The pointer ranges, and the sportsman beats
In russet jacket:—lynx-like is his aim,
Full grows his bag, and wonderful his feats.
Ah, nutbrown Partridges! Ah, brilliant Pheasants!
And ah, ye Poachers!—'Tis no sport for peasants.

76

An English autumn, though it hath no vines,
Blushing with Bacchant coronals along
The paths, o'er which the far festoon entwines
The red grape in the sunny lands of song,
Hath yet a purchased choice of choicest wines;
The Claret light, and the Madeira strong.
If Britain mourn her bleakness, we can tell her
The very best of vineyards is the cellar.

395

77

Then, if she hath not that serene decline,
Which makes the Southern Autumn's day appear
As if 'twould to a second spring resign
The season, rather than to winter drear,—
Of in-door comforts still she hath a mine,—
The sea-coal fires, the earliest of the year;
Without doors too she may compete in mellow,
As what is lost in green is gained in yellow.

78

And for the effeminate villeggiatura—
Rife with more horns than hounds—she hath the chase,
So animated that it might allure a
Saint from his beads to join the jocund race;
Even Nimrod's self might leave the plains of Dura,
And wear the Melton jacket for a space:—
If she hath no wild boars, she hath a tame
Preserve of Bores, who ought to be made game.

396

79

The noble guests, assembled at the Abbey,
Consisted of—we give the sex the pas—
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke; the Countess Crabbey;
The ladies Scilly, Busey;—Miss Eclât,
Miss Bombazeen, Miss Mackstay, Miss O'Tabbey,
And Mrs. Rabbi, the rich banker's squaw;
Also the Honourable Mrs. Sleep,
Who look'd a white lamb, yet was a black sheep:

80

With other Countesses of Blank—but rank;
At once the “lie” and the “élite” of crowds;
Who pass like water filtered in a tank,
All purged and pious from their native clouds;
Or paper turned to money by the Bank:
No matter how or why, the passport shrouds
The “passée” and the passed; for good society
Is no less famed for tolerance than piety:

81

That is, up to a certain point; which point
Forms the most difficult in punctuation.
Appearances appear to form the joint
On which it hinges in a higher station;
And so that no explosion cry “Aroint
Thee, Witch!” or each Medea has her Jason;
Or (to the point with Horace and with Pulci)
“Omne tulit punctum, quae miscuit utile dulci.”

397

82

I can't exactly trace their rule of right,
Which hath a little leaning to a lottery.
I've seen a virtuous woman put down quite
By the mere combination of a Coterie;
Also a So-So Matron boldly fight
Her way back to the world by dint of plottery,
And shine the very Siria of the spheres,
Escaping with a few slight, scarless sneers.

83

I have seen more than I'll say:—but we will see
How our villeggiatura will get on.
The party might consist of thirty-three
Of highest caste—the Brahmins of the ton.
I have named a few, not foremost in degree,
But ta'en at hazard as the rhyme may run.
By way of sprinkling, scatter'd amongst these,
There also were some Irish absentees.

398

84

There was Parolles too, the legal bully,
Who limits all his battles to the bar
And senate: when invited elsewhere, truly,
He shows more appetite for words than war.
There was the young bard Rackrhyme, who had newly
Come out and glimmer'd as a six-weeks' star.
There was Lord Pyrrho too, the great freethinker;
And Sir John Pottledeep, the mighty drinker.

85

There was the Duke of Dash, who was a—duke,
“Aye, every inch a” duke; there were twelve peers
Like Charlemagne's—and all such peers in look
And intellect, that neither eyes nor ears
For commoners had ever them mistook.
There were the six Miss Rawbolds—pretty dears!
All song and sentiment; whose hearts were set
Less on a convent than a coronet.

86

There were four Honourable Misters, whose
Honour was more before their names than after;
There was the preux Chevalier de la Ruse,
Whom France and Fortune lately deign'd to waft here,
Whose chiefly harmless talent was to amuse;
But the clubs found it rather serious laughter,

399

Because—such was his magic power to please—
The dice seem'd charm'd too with his repartees.

87

There was Dick Dubious the metaphysician,
Who loved philosophy and a good dinner;
Angle, the soi-disant mathematician;
Sir Henry Silvercup, the great race-winner.
There was the Reverend Rodomont Precisian,
Who did not hate so much the sin as sinner;
And Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet,
Good at all things, but better at a bet.

88

There was Jack Jargon the gigantic guardsman;
And General Fireface, famous in the field,
A great tactician, and no less a swordsman,
Who ate, last war, more Yankees than he kill'd.
There was the waggish Welch Judge, Jefferies Hardsman,
In his grave office so completely skill'd,
That when a culprit came for condemnation,
He had his Judge's joke for consolation.

400

89

Good company's a chess-board—there are kings,
Queens, bishops, knights, rooks, pawns; the world's a game;
Save that the puppets pull at their own strings;
Methinks gay Punch hath something of the same.
My Muse, the butterfly hath but her wings,
Not stings, and flits through ether without aim,
Alighting rarely:—were she but a hornet,
Perhaps there might be vices which would mourn it.

90

I had forgotten—but must not forget—
An Orator, the latest of the session,
Who had deliver'd well a very set
Smooth speech, his first and maidenly transgression
Upon debate: the papers echoed yet
With this debût, which made a strong impression,
And rank'd with what is every day display'd—
“The best first speech that ever yet was made.”

401

91

Proud of his “Hear hims!” proud too of his vote
And lost virginity of oratory,
Proud of his learning (just enough to quote)
He revel'd in his Ciceronian glory:
With memory excellent to get by rote,
With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story,
Graced with some merit and with more effrontery,
“His Country's pride,” he came down to the country.

92

These also were two wits by acclamation,
Longbow from Ireland, Strongbow from the Tweed,
Both lawyers and both men of education;
But Strongbow's wit was of more polish'd breed:
Longbow was rich in an imagination,
As beautiful and bounding as a steed,
But sometimes stumbling over a potatoe,—
While Strongbow's best things might have come from Cato.

402

93

Strongbow was like a new-tuned harpsichord;
But Longbow wild as an Aeolian harp,
With which the winds of heaven can claim accord,
And make a music, whether flat or sharp.
Of Strongbow's talk you would not change a word;
At Longbow's phrases you might sometimes carp:
Both wits—one born so, and the other bred,
This by his heart—his rival by his head.

94

If all these seem an heterogeneous mass
To be assembled at a country seat,
Yet think, a specimen of every class
Is better than an humdrum tête-à-tête.
The days of Comedy are gone, alas!
When Congreve's fool could vie with Moliere's bête:
Society is smooth'd to that excess,
That manners hardly differ more than dress.

95

Our ridicules are kept in the back-ground—
Ridiculous enough, but also dull;
Professions too are no more to be found
Professional; and there is nought to cull
Of folly's fruit: for, though your fools abound,
They're barren and not worth the pains to pull.
Society is now one polish'd horde,
Form'd of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.

403

96

But from being farmers, we turn gleaners, gleaning
The scanty but right-well thrashed ears of truth;
And, gentle reader! when you gather meaning,
You may be Boaz, and I—modest Ruth.
Further I'd quote, but Scripture intervening,
Forbids. A great impression in my youth
Was made by Mrs. Adams, where she cries
“That Scriptures out of church are blasphemies.”

97

But what we can we glean in this vile age
Of chaff, although our gleanings be not grist.
I must not quite omit the talking sage,
Kit-Cat, the famous conversationist,
Who, in his common-place book, had a page
Prepared each morn for evenings. “List, oh list!”—
“Alas, poor Ghost!”—What unexpected woes
Await those who have studied their bon mots!

404

98

Firstly, they must allure the conversation
By many windings to their clever clinch;
And secondly, must let slip no occasion,
Nor bate (abate) their hearers of an inch,
But take an ell—and make a great sensation,
If possible: and thirdly, never flinch
When some smart talker puts them to the test,
But seize the last word, which no doubt's the best.

99

Lord Henry and his Lady were the hosts;
The party we have touch'd on were the guests:
Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts
To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts.
I will not dwell upon ragoûts or roasts,
Albeit all human history attests,
That happiness for Man—the hungry sinner!—
Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.

405

100

Witness the lands which “flow'd with milk and honey,”
Held out unto the hungry Israelites:
To this we have added since, the love of money,
The only sort of pleasure which requites.
Youth fades, and leaves our days no longer sunny;
We tire of Mistresses and Parasites;
But oh, Ambrosial Cash! Ah! who would lose thee?
When we no more can use, or even abuse thee!

101

The gentlemen got up betimes to shoot,
Or hunt: the young, because they liked the sport—
The first thing boys like, after play and fruit:
The middle-aged, to make the day more short;
For ennui is a growth of English root,
Though nameless in our language:—we retort
The fact for words, and let the French translate
That awful yawn which sleep can not abate.

406

102

The elderly walked through the library,
And tumbled books, or criticised the pictures,
Or sauntered through the gardens piteously,
And made upon the hot-house several strictures,
Or rode a nag, which trotted not too high,
Or on the morning papers read their lectures,
Or on the watch their longing eyes would fix,
Longing at sixty for the hour of six.

103

But none were “gêné”: the great hour of union
Was rung by dinner's knell; till then all were
Masters of their own time—or in communion,
Or solitary, as they chose to bear
The hours, which how to pass is but to few known.
Each rose up at his own, and had to spare
What time he chose for dress, and broke his fast
When, where, and how he chose for that repast.

104

The ladies—some rouged, some a little pale—
Met the morn as they might. If fine, they rode,
Or walked; if foul, they read, or told a tale,
Sung, or rehearsed the last dance from abroad;
Discussed the fashion which might next prevail,
And settled bonnets by the newest code,
Or cramm'd twelve sheets into one little letter,
To make each correspondent a new debtor.

407

105

For some had absent lovers, all had friends.
The earth has nothing like a She epistle,
And hardly heaven—because it never ends.
I love the mystery of a female missal,
Which, like a creed, ne'er says all it intends,
But full of cunning as Ulysses' whistle,
When he allured poor Dolon:—you had better
Take care what you reply to such a letter.

106

Then there were billiards; cards too, but no dice;—
Save in the Clubs no man of honour plays;—
Boats when 'twas water, skaiting when 'twas ice,
And the hard frost destroy'd the scenting days:
And angling too, that solitary vice,
Whatever Isaac Walton sings or says:
The quaint, old, cruel coxcomb, in his gullet
Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it.

408

107

With evening came the banquet and the wine;
The conversazione; the duet,
Attuned by voices more or less divine,
(My heart or head aches with the memory yet).
The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would shine;
But the two youngest loved more to be set
Down to the harp—because to music's charms
They added graceful necks, white hands and arms.

108

Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days,
For then the gentlemen were rather tired)
Display'd some sylph-like figures in its maze:
Then there was small-talk ready when required;
Flirtation—but decorous; the mere praise
Of charms that should or should not be admired.
The hunters fought their fox-hunt o'er again,
And then retreated soberly—at ten.

109

The politicians, in a nook apart,
Discuss'd the world, and settled all the spheres;
The wits watched every loop-hole for their art,
To introduce a bon mot head and ears:
Small is the rest of those who would be smart,
A moment's good thing may have cost them years
Before they find an hour to introduce it,
And then, even then, some bore may make them lose it.

409

110

But all was gentle and aristocratic
In this our party; polish'd, smooth and cold,
As Phidian forms cut out of marble Attic.
There now are no 'Squire Westerns as of old;
And our Sophias are not so emphatic,
But fair as then, or fairer to behold.
We have no accomplish'd blackguards, like Tom Jones,
But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.

111

They separated at an early hour;
That is, ere midnight—which is London's noon:
But in the country ladies seek their bower
A little earlier than the waning Moon.
Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower—
May the rose call back its true colours soon!
Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters,
And lower the price of rouge—at least some winters.

410

Canto XIV

1

If from great Nature's or our own abyss
Of thought, we could but snatch a certainty,
Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss—
But then 'twould spoil much good philosophy.
One system eats another up, and this
Much as old Saturn ate his progeny;
For when his pious consort gave him stones
In lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

411

2

But System doth reverse the Titan's breakfast,
And eats her parents, albeit the digestion
Is difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,
After due search, your faith to any question?
Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fast
You bind yourself, and call some mode the best one.
Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;
And yet what are your other evidences?

3

For me, I know nought; nothing I deny,
Admit, reject, contemn; and what know you,
Except perhaps that you were born to die?
And both may after all turn out untrue.
An age may come, Font of Eternity,
When nothing shall be either old or new.
Death, so call'd, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

412

4

A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very Suicide that pays his debt
At once without instalments (an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.

5

'Tis round him, near him, here, there, every where;
And there's a courage which grows out of fear,
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
The worst to know it:—when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o'er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawns,—you can't gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it.

413

6

'Tis true, you don't—but, pale and struck with terror,
Retire: but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self confession,
The lurking bias, be it truth or error,
To the unknown; a secret prepossession,
To plunge with all your fears—but where? You know not,
And that's the reason why you do—or do not.

7

But what's this to the purpose? you will say.
Gent. Reader, nothing; a mere speculation,
For which my sole excuse is—'tis my way,
Sometimes with and sometimes without occasion
I write what's uppermost, without delay;
This narrative is not meant for narration,
But a mere airy and fantastic basis,
To build up common things with common places.

414

8

You know, or don't know, that great Bacon saith,
“Fling up a straw, 'twill show the way the wind blows”;
And such a straw, borne on by human breath,
Is Poesy, according as the mind glows;
A paper kite, which flies 'twixt life and death,
A shadow which the onward Soul behind throws:
And mine's a bubble not blown up for praise,
But just to play with, as an infant plays.

9

The world is all before me, or behind;
For I have seen a portion of that same,
And quite enough for me to keep in mind;—
Of passions too, I have proved enough to blame,
To the great pleasure of our friends, mankind,
Who like to mix some slight alloy with fame:
For I was rather famous in my time,
Until I fairly knock'd it up with rhyme.

10

I have brought this world about my ears, and eke
The other; that's to say, the Clergy—who
Upon my head have bid their thunders break
In pious libels by no means a few.
And yet I can't help scribbling once a week,
Tiring old readers, nor discovering new.

415

In youth I wrote, because my mind was full,
And now because I feel it growing dull.

11

But “why then publish?”—There are no rewards
Of fame or profit, when the world grows weary.
I ask in turn,—why do you play at cards?
Why drink? Why read?—To make some hour less dreary.
It occupies me to turn back regards
On what I've seen or ponder'd, sad or cheery;
And what I write I cast upon the stream,
To swim or sink—I have had at least my dream.

12

I think that were I certain of success,
I hardly could compose another line:
So long I've battled either more or less,
That no defeat can drive me from the Nine.
This feeling 'tis not easy to express,
And yet 'tis not affected, I opine.
In play, there are two pleasures for your choosing—
The one is winning, and the other losing.

416

13

Besides, my Muse by no means deals in fiction:
She gathers a repertory of facts,
Of course with some reserve and slight restriction,
But mostly sings of human things and acts—
And that's one cause she meets with contradiction;
For too much truth, at first sight, ne'er attracts;
And were her object only what's call'd glory,
With more ease too she'd tell a different story.

14

Love, war, a tempest—surely there's variety;
Also a seasoning slight of lucubration;
A bird's-eye view too of that wild, Society;
A slight glance thrown on men of every station.
If you have nought else, here's at least satiety
Both in performance and in preparation;
And though these lines should only line portmanteaus,
Trade will be all the better for these Cantos.

15

The portion of this world which I at present
Have taken up to fill the following sermon,
Is one of which there's no description recent:
The reason why, is easy to determine:
Although it seems both prominent and pleasant,
There is a sameness in its gems and ermine,
A dull and family likeness through all ages,
Of no great promise for poetic pages.

417

16

With much to excite, there's little to exalt;
Nothing that speaks to all men and all times;
A sort of varnish over every fault;
A kind of common-place, even in their crimes:
Factitious passions, wit without much salt,
A want of that true nature which sublimes
Whate'er it shows with truth; a smooth monotony
Of character, in those at least who have got any.

17

Sometimes indeed, like soldiers off parade,
They break their ranks and gladly leave the drill;
But then the roll-call draws them back afraid,
And they must be or seem what they were: still
Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;
But when of the first sight you have had your fill,
It palls—at least it did so upon me,
This Paradise of Pleasure and Ennui.

418

18

When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,
Drest, voted, shone, and, may be, something more;
With dandies dined; heard senators declaiming;
Seen beauties brought to market by the score;
Sad rakes to sadder husbands chastely taming;
There's little left but to be bored or bore.
Witness those “ci-devant jeunes hommes” who stem
The stream, nor leave the world which leaveth them.

19

'Tis said—indeed a general complaint—
That no one has succeeded in describing
The Monde, exactly as they ought to paint.
Some say, that Authors only snatch, by bribing
The porter, some slight scandals strange and quaint,
To furnish matter for their moral gibing;
And that their books have but one style in common—
My lady's prattle, filter'd through her woman.

20

But this can't well be true, just now; for writers
Are grown of the Beau Monde a part potential:
I've seen them balance even the scale with fighters,
Especially when young, for that's essential.
Why do their sketches fail them as inditers
Of what they deem themselves most consequential—
The real portrait of the highest tribe?
'Tis that, in fact, there's little to describe.

419

21

“Haud ignara loquor”: these are Nugae, “quarum
Pars parva fui,” but still Art and part.
Now I could much more easily sketch a harem,
A battle, wreck, or history of the heart,
Than these things; and besides, I wish to spare 'em,
For reasons which I choose to keep apart.
“Vetabo Cereris sacrum qui vulgaret”—
Which means that vulgar people must not share it.

22

And therefore what I throw off is ideal—
Lower'd, leaven'd, like a history of Freemasons;
Which bears the same relation to the real,
As Captain Parry's voyage may do to Jason's.
The grand Arcanum's not for men to see all;
My music has some mystic diapasons;
And there is much which could not be appreciated
In any manner by the uninitiated.

420

23

Alas! Worlds fall—and Woman, since she fell'd
The World (as, since that history, less polite
Than true, hath been a creed so strictly held)
Has not yet given up the practice quite.
Poor Thing of Usages! Coerc'd, compell'd,
Victim when wrong, and martyr oft when right,
Condemn'd to child-bed, as men for their sins
Have shaving too entailed upon their chins,—

24

A daily plague, which in the aggregate
May average on the whole with parturition.
But as to women, who can penetrate
The real sufferings of their she condition?
Man's very sympathy with their estate
Has much of selfishness and more suspicion.
Their love, their virtue, beauty, education,
But form good housekeepers, to breed a nation.

421

25

All this were very well and can't be better;
But even this is difficult, Heaven knows!
So many troubles from her birth beset her,
Such small distinction between friends and foes,
The gilding wears so soon from off her fetter,
That—but ask any woman if she'd choose
(Take her at thirty, that is) to have been
Female or male? a school-boy or a Queen?

26

“Petticoat Influence” is a great reproach,
Which even those who obey would fain be thought
To fly from, as from hungry pikes a roach;
But, since beneath it upon earth we are brought
By various joltings of life's hackney coach,
I for one venerate a petticoat—
A garment of a mystical sublimity,
No matter whether russet, silk, or dimity.

422

27

Much I respect, and much I have adored,
In my young days, that chaste and goodly veil,
Which holds a treasure, like a Miser's hoard,
And more attracts by all it doth conceal—
A golden scabbard on a Damasque sword,
A loving letter with a mystic seal,
A cure for grief—for what can ever rankle
Before a petticoat and peeping ancle?

28

And when upon a silent, sullen day,
With a Sirocco, for example, blowing,
When even the sea looks dim with all its spray,
And sulkily the river's ripple's flowing,
And the sky shows that very ancient gray,
The sober, sad antithesis to glowing,—
'Tis pleasant, if then any thing is pleasant,
To catch a glimpse even of a pretty peasant.

423

29

We left our heroes and our heroines
In that fair clime which don't depend on climate,
Quite independent of the Zodiac's signs,
Though certainly more difficult to rhyme at,
Because the sun and stars, and aught that shines,
Mountains, and all we can be most sublime at,
Are there oft dull and dreary as a dun—
Whether a sky's or tradesman's, is all one.

30

And in-door life is less poetical;
And out of door hath showers, and mists, and sleet,
With which I could not brew a pastoral
But be it as it may, a bard must meet
All difficulties, whether great or small,
To spoil his undertaking or complete,
And work away like spirit upon matter,
Embarrass'd somewhat both with fire and water.

424

31

Juan—in this respect at least like saints—
Was all things unto people of all sorts,
And lived contentedly, without complaints,
In camps, in ships, in cottages, or courts—
Born with that happy soul which seldom faints,
And mingling modestly in toils or sports.
He likewise could be most things to all women,
Without the coxcombry of certain She Men.

32

A fox-hunt to a foreigner is strange;
'Tis also subject to the double danger
Of tumbling first, and having in exchange
Some pleasant jesting at the awkward stranger:
But Juan had been early taught to range
The wilds, as doth an Arab turn'd Avenger,
So that his horse, or charger, hunter, hack,
Knew that he had a rider on his back.

33

And now in this new field, with some applause,
He clear'd hedge, ditch, and double post, and rail,
And never craned, and made but few “faux pas,”
And only fretted when the scent 'gan fail.
He broke, 'tis true, some statutes of the laws
Of hunting—for the sagest youth is frail;
Rode o'er the hounds, it may be, now and then,
And once o'er several Country Gentlemen.

425

34

But on the whole, to general admiration
He acquitted both himself and horse: the 'squires
Marvell'd at merit of another nation;
The boors cried “Dang it! who'd have thought it?”—Sires,
The Nestors of the sporting generation
Swore praises, and recall'd their former fires;
The Huntsman's self relented to a grin,
And rated him almost a whipper-in.

35

Such were his trophies;—not of spear and shield,
But leaps, and bursts, and sometimes fox's brushes;
Yet I must own,—although in this I yield
To patriot sympathy a Briton's blushes,—
He thought at heart like courtly Chesterfield,
Who, after a long chase o'er hills, dales, bushes,
And what not, though he rode beyond all price,
Ask'd next day, “If men ever hunted twice?”

426

36

He also had a quality uncommon
To early risers after a long chase,
Who wake in winter ere the cock can summon
December's drowsy day to his dull race,—
A quality agreeable to woman,
When her soft, liquid words run on apace,
Who likes a listener, whether Saint or Sinner,—
He did not fall asleep just after dinner.

37

But, light and airy, stood on the alert,
And shone in the best part of dialogue,
By humouring always what they might assert,
And listening to the topics most in vogue;
Now grave, now gay, but never dull or pert;
And smiling but in secret—cunning rogue!
He ne'er presumed to make an error clearer;—
In short, there never was a better hearer.

427

38

And then he danced;—all foreigners excel
The serious Angles in the eloquence
Of pantomime;—he danced, I say, right well,
With emphasis, and also with good sense—
A thing in footing indispensable:
He danced without theatrical pretence,
Not like a ballet-master in the van
Of his drill'd nymphs, but like a gentleman.

39

Chaste were his steps, each kept within due bound,
And elegance was sprinkled o'er his figure;
Like swift Camilla, he scarce skimm'd the ground,
And rather held in than put forth his vigour;
And then he had an ear for music's sound,
Which might defy a Crotchet Critic's rigour.
Such classic pas—sans flaws—set off our hero,
He glanced like a personified Bolero;

428

40

Or, like a flying Hour before Aurora,
In Guido's famous fresco, which alone
Is worth a tour to Rome, although no more a
Remnant were there of the old world's sole throne.
The “tout ensemble” of his movements wore a
Grace of the soft Ideal, seldom shown,
And ne'er to be described; for to the dolour
Of bards and prosers, words are void of colour.

41

No marvel then he was a favourite;
A full-grown Cupid, very much admired;
A little spoilt, but by no means so quite;
At least he kept his vanity retired.
Such was his tact, he could alike delight
The chaste, and those who are not so much inspired.
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke, who loved “tracasserie,”
Began to treat him with some small “agaçerie.”

42

She was a fine and somewhat full-blown blonde,
Desirable, distinguish'd, celebrated
For several winters in the grand, grand Monde.
I'd rather not say what might be related
Of her exploits, for this were ticklish ground;
Besides there might be falsehood in what's stated:
Her late performance had been a dead set
At Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

429

43

This noble personage began to look
A little black upon this new flirtation;
But such small licences must lovers brook,
Mere freedoms of the female corporation.
Woe to the man who ventures a rebuke!
'Twill but precipitate a situation
Extremely disagreeable, but common
To calculators when they count on woman.

44

The circle smil'd, then whisper'd, and then sneer'd;
The misses bridled, and the matrons frown'd;
Some hoped things might not turn out as they fear'd;
Some would not deem such women could be found;
Some ne'er believed one half of what they heard;
Some look'd perplex'd, and others look'd profound;
And several pitied with sincere regret
Poor Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

430

45

But what is odd, none ever named the Duke,
Who, one might think, was something in the affair.
True, he was absent, and 'twas rumour'd, took
But small concern about the when, or where,
Or what his consort did: if he could brook
Her gaieties, none had a right to stare:
Theirs was that best of unions, past all doubt,
Which never meets, and therefore can't fall out.

46

But, oh that I should ever pen so sad a line!
Fired with an abstract love of virtue, she,
My Dian of the Ephesians, Lady Adeline,
Began to think the Duchess' conduct free;
Regretting much that she had chosen so bad a line,
And waxing chiller in her courtesy,
Looked grave and pale to see her friend's fragility,
For which most friends reserve their sensibility.

47

There's nought in this bad world like sympathy:
'Tis so becoming to the soul and face;
Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh,
And robes sweet Friendship in a Brussels lace.
Without a friend, what were humanity,
To hunt our errors up with a good grace?
Consoling us with—“Would you had thought twice!
Ah! if you had but follow'd my advice!”

431

48

Oh, Job! you had two friends: one's quite enough,
Especially when we are ill at ease;
They are but bad pilots when the weather's rough,
Doctors less famous for their cures than fees.
Let no man grumble when his friends fall off,
As they will do like leaves at the first breeze:
When your affairs come round, one way or t'other,
Go to the coffee-house, and take another.

49

But this is not my maxim: had it been,
Some heart-aches had been spared me; yet I care not—
I would not be a tortoise in his screen
Of stubborn shell, which waves and weather wear not.
'Tis better on the whole to have felt and seen
That which humanity may bear, or bear not:
'Twill teach discernment to the sensitive,
And not to pour their ocean in a sieve.

432

50

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,”
Utter'd by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, 'stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last,
And solace your slight lapse 'gainst “bonos mores,”
With a long memorandum of old stories.

51

The Lady Adeline's serene severity
Was not confined to feeling for her friend,
Whose fame she rather doubted with posterity,
Unless her habits should begin to mend;
But Juan also shared in her austerity,
But mix'd with pity, pure as e'er was penn'd:
His inexperience moved her gentle ruth,
And (as her junior by six weeks) his youth.

52

These forty days' advantage of her years—
And her's were those which can face calculation,
Boldly referring to the list of peers
And noble births, nor dread the enumeration—
Gave her a right to have maternal fears
For a young gentleman's fit education,

433

Though she was far from that leap year, whose leap,
In female dates, strikes Time all of a heap.

53

This may be fixed at somewhere before thirty—
Say seven-and-twenty; for I never knew
The strictest in chronology and virtue
Advance beyond, while they could pass for new.
Oh, Time! Why dost not pause? Thy scythe, so dirty
With rust, should surely cease to hack and hew.
Reset it; shave more smoothly, also slower,
If but to keep thy credit as a mower.

54

But Adeline was far from that ripe age,
Whose ripeness is but bitter at the best:
'Twas rather her experience made her sage,
For she had seen the world, and stood its test,
As I have said in—I forget what page;
My Muse despises reference, as you have guess'd
By this time;—but strike six from seven-and-twenty,
And you will find her sum of years in plenty.

434

55

At sixteen she came out; presented, vaunted,
She put all coronets into commotion:
At seventeen too the world was still enchanted
With the new Venus of their brilliant ocean:
At eighteen, though below her feet still panted
A hecatomb of suitors with devotion,
She had consented to create again
That Adam, called “the Happiest of Men.”

56

Since then she had sparkled through three glowing winters,
Admired, adored; but also so correct,
That she had puzzled all the acutest hinters,
Without the apparel of being circumspect:
They could not even glean the slightest splinters
From off the marble, which had no defect.
She had also snatch'd a moment since her marriage
To bear a son and heir—and one miscarriage.

435

57

Fondly the wheeling fire-flies flew around her
Those little glitterers of the London night;
But none of these possess'd a sting to wound her—
She was a pitch beyond a coxcomb's flight.
Perhaps she wish'd an aspirant profounder;
But whatsoe'er she wished, she acted right;
And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify
A Woman, so she's good, what does it signify?

58

I hate a motive like a lingering bottle,
Which with the landlord makes too long a stand,
Leaving all claretless the unmoistened throttle,
Especially with politics on hand;
I hate it, as I hate a drove of cattle,
Who whirl the dust as Simooms whirl the sand;
I hate it, as I hate an argument,
A Laureate's ode, or servile Peer's “Content.”

436

59

'Tis sad to hack into the roots of things,
They are so much intertwisted with the earth:
So that the branch a goodly verdure flings,
I reck not if an acorn gave it birth.
To trace all actions to their secret springs
Would make indeed some melancholy mirth;
But this is not at present my concern,
And I refer you to wise Oxenstiern.

60

With the kind view of saving an eclât,
Both to the Duchess and diplomatist,
The Lady Adeline, as soon's she saw
That Juan was unlikely to resist—
(For foreigners don't know that a faux pas
In England ranks quite on a different list
From those of other lands unblest with Juries,
Whose verdict for such sin a certain cure is);—

437

61

The Lady Adeline resolved to take
Such measures as she thought might best impede
The further progress of this sad mistake.
She thought with some simplicity indeed;
But innocence is bold even at the stake,
And simple in the world, and doth not need
Nor use those palisades by dames erected,
Whose virtue lies in never being detected.

62

It was not that she fear'd the very worst:
His Grace was an enduring, married man,
And was not likely all at once to burst
Into a scene, and swell the clients' clan
Of Doctors' Commons; but she dreaded first
The magic of her Grace's talisman,
And next a quarrel (as he seemed to fret)
With Lord Augustus Fitz-Plantagenet.

438

63

Her Grace too pass'd for being an Intrigante,
And somewhat méchante in her amorous sphere;
One of those pretty, precious plagues, which haunt
A lover with caprices soft and dear,
That like to make a quarrel, when they can't
Find one, each day of the delightful year;
Bewitching, torturing, as they freeze or glow,
And—what is worst of all—won't let you go;

64

The sort of thing to turn a young man's head,
Or make a Werter of him in the end.
No wonder then a purer soul should dread
This sort of chaste liaison for a friend;
It were much better to be wed or dead,
Than wear a heart a woman loves to rend.
'Tis best to pause, and think, ere you rush on,
If that a “bonne fortune” be really “bonne.”

65

And first, in the o'erflowing of her heart,
Which really knew or thought it knew no guile,
She called her husband now and then apart,
And bade him counsel Juan. With a smile
Lord Henry heard her plans of artless art
To wean Don Juan from the Siren's wile;
And answer'd, like a Statesman or a Prophet,
In such guise that she could make nothing of it.

439

66

Firstly, he said, “he never interfered
In any body's business but the king's”:
Next, that “he never judged from what appear'd,
Without strong reason, of those sorts of things”:
Thirdly, that “Juan had more brain than beard,
And was not to be held in leading strings”;
And fourthly, what need hardly be said twice,
“That good but rarely came from good advice.”

67

And, therefore, doubtless to approve the truth
Of the last axiom, he advised his spouse
To leave the parties to themselves, forsooth,
At least as far as bienséance allows:
That time would temper Juan's faults of youth;
That young men rarely made monastic vows;
That opposition only more attaches—
But here a messenger brought in dispatches:

440

68

And being of the Council called “the Privy,”
Lord Henry walk'd into his Cabinet,
To furnish matter for some future Livy
To tell how he reduced the nation's debt;
And if their full contents I do not give ye,
It is because I do not know them yet,
But I shall add them in a brief appendix,
To come between mine epic and its index.

69

But ere he went, he added a slight hint,
Another gentle common-place or two,
Such as are coined in conversation's mint,
And pass, for want of better, though not new:
Then broke his packet, to see what was in't,
And having casually glanced it through,
Retired; and, as he went out, calmly kissed her,
Less like a young wife than an aged sister.

70

He was a cold, good, honourable man,
Proud of his birth, and proud of every thing;
A goodly spirit for a state divan,
A figure fit to walk before a king;
Tall, stately, form'd to lead the courtly van
On birth-days, glorious with a star and string;
The very model of a Chamberlain—
And such I mean to make him when I reign.

441

71

But there was something wanting on the whole—
I don't know what, and therefore cannot tell—
Which pretty women—the sweet souls!—call Soul.
Certes it was not body; he was well
Proportion'd, as a poplar or a pole,
A handsome man, that human miracle;
And in each circumstance of love or war
Had still preserved his perpendicular.

72

Still there was something wanting, as I've said—
That undefinable “Je ne sçais quoi,”
Which, for what I know, may of yore have led
To Homer's Iliad, since it drew to Troy
The Greek Eve, Helen, from the Spartan's bed;
Though on the whole, no doubt, the Dardan boy
Was much inferior to King Menelaus;—
But thus it is some women will betray us.

442

73

There is an awkward thing which much perplexes,
Unless like wise Tiresias we had proved
By turns the difference of the several sexes:
Neither can show quite how they would be loved.
The sensual for a short time but connects us—
The sentimental boasts to be unmoved;
But both together form a kind of centaur,
Upon whose back 'tis better not to venture.

74

A something all-sufficient for the heart
Is that for which the Sex are always seeking;
But how to fill up that same vacant part?
There lies the rub—and this they are but weak in.
Frail mariners afloat without a chart,
They run before the wind through high seas breaking;
And when they have made the shore through ev'ry shock,
'Tis odd, or odds, it may turn out a rock.

75

There is a flower called “Love in Idleness,”
For which see Shakspeare's ever blooming garden;—
I will not make his great description less,
And beg his British Godship's humble pardon,
If in my extremity of rhyme's distress,
I touch a single leaf where he is warden;—
But though the flower is different, with the French
Or Swiss Rousseau, cry “Voilà la Pervenche!”

443

76

Eureka! I have found it! What I mean
To say is, not that Love is Idleness,
But that in Love such Idleness has been
An accessary, as I have cause to guess.
Hard labour's an indifferent go-between;
Your men of business are not apt to express
Much passion, since the merchant-ship, the Argo,
Convey'd Medea as her Supercargo.

77

“Beatus ille procul!” from “negotiis,”
Saith Horace; the great little poet's wrong;
His other maxim, “Noscitur a sociis,”
Is much more to the purpose of his song;
Though even that were sometimes too ferocious,
Unless good company he kept too long;
But, in his teeth, whate'er their state or station,
Thrice happy they who have an occupation!

444

78

Adam exchanged his Paradise for ploughing,
Eve made up millinery with fig leaves—
The earliest knowledge from the tree so knowing,
As far as I know, that the Church receives:
And since that time it need not cost much showing,
That many of the ills o'er which man grieves,
And still more women, spring from not employing
Some hours to make the remnant worth enjoying.

79

And hence high life is oft a dreary void,
A rack of pleasures, where we must invent
A something wherewithal to be annoy'd.
Bards may sing what they please about Content;
Contented, when translated, means but cloyed;
And hence arise the woes of sentiment,
Blue devils, and Blue-stockings, and Romances
Reduced to practice and perform'd like dances.

80

I do declare, upon an affidavit,
Romances I ne'er read like those I have seen;
Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,
Would some believe that such a tale had been:
But such intent I never had, nor have it;
Some truths are better kept behind a screen,
Especially when they would look like lies;
I therefore deal in generalities.

445

81

“An oyster may be cross'd in Love,”—and why?
Because he mopeth idly in his shell,
And heaves a lonely subterraqueous sigh,
Much as a monk may do within his cell:
And à propos of monks, their piety
With sloth hath found it difficult to dwell;
Those vegetables of the Catholic creed
Are apt exceedingly to run to seed.

82

Oh, Wilberforce! thou man of black renown,
Whose merit none enough can sing or say,
Thou hast struck one immense Colossus down,
Thou moral Washington of Africa!
But there's another little thing, I own,
Which you should perpetrate some summer's day,
And set the other half of earth to rights:
You have freed the blacks—now pray shut up the whites.

446

83

Shut up the bald-coot bully Alexander;
Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal;
Teach them that “sauce for goose is sauce for gander,”
And ask them how they like to be in thrall?
Shut up each high heroic Salamander,
Who eats fire gratis (since the pay's but small);
Shut up—no, not the King, but the Pavilion,
Or else 'twill cost us all another million.

84

Shut up the world at large, let Bedlam out;
And you will be perhaps surprised to find
All things pursue exactly the same route,
As now with those of soi-disant sound mind.
This I could prove beyond a single doubt,
Were there a jot of sense among mankind;
But till that point d'appui is found, alas!
Like Archimedes, I leave earth as 'twas.

85

Our gentle Adeline had one defect—
Her heart was vacant, though a splendid mansion;
Her conduct had been perfectly correct,
As she had seen nought claiming its expansion.
A wavering spirit may be easier wreck'd,
Because 'tis frailer, doubtless, than a stanch one;
But when the latter works its own undoing,
Its inner crash is like an Earthquake's ruin.

447

86

She loved her lord, or thought so; but that love
Cost her an effort, which is a sad toil,
The stone of Sysiphus, if once we move
Our feelings 'gainst the nature of the soil.
She had nothing to complain of, or reprove,
No bickerings, no connubial turmoil:
Their union was a model to behold,
Serene, and noble,—conjugal, but cold.

87

There was no great disparity of years,
Though much in temper; but they never clash'd:
They moved like stars united in their spheres,
Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep.

448

88

Now when she once had ta'en an interest
In any thing, however she might flatter
Herself that her intentions were the best—
Intense intentions are a dangerous matter:
Impressions were much stronger than she guess'd,
And gather'd as they run like growing water
Upon her mind; the more so, as her breast
Was not at first too readily impress'd.

89

But when it was, she had that lurking demon
Of double nature, and thus doubly named—
Firmness yclept in heroes, kings, and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,
Whene'er their triumph pales, or star is tamed:—
And 'twill perplex the casuists in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.

449

90

Had Bonaparte won at Waterloo,
It had been firmness; now 'tis pertinacity:
Must the event decide between the two?
I leave it to your people of sagacity
To draw the line between the false and true,
If such can e'er be drawn by man's capacity:
My business is with Lady Adeline,
Who in her way too was a heroine.

91

She knew not her own heart; then how should I?
I think not she was then in love with Juan:
If so, she would have had the strength to fly
The wild sensation, unto her a new one:
She merely felt a common sympathy
(I will not say it was a false or true one)
In him, because she thought he was in danger—
Her husband's friend, her own, young, and a stranger.

450

92

She was, or thought she was, his friend—and this
Without the farce of friendship, or romance
Of Platonism, which leads so oft amiss
Ladies who have studied friendship but in France,
Or Germany, where people purely kiss.
To thus much Adeline would not advance;
But of such friendship as man's may to man be,
She was as capable as woman can be.

451

93

No doubt the secret influence of the sex
Will there, as also in the ties of blood,
An innocent predominance annex,
And tune the concord to a finer mood.
If free from passion, which all friendship checks,
And your true feelings fully understood,
No friend like to a woman earth discovers,
So that you have not been nor will be lovers.

94

Love bears within its breast the very germ
Of change; and how should this be otherwise?
That violent things more quickly find a term
Is shown through nature's whole analogies;
And how should the most fierce of all be firm?
Would you have endless lightning in the skies?
Methinks Love's very title says enough:
How should “the tender Passion” e'er be tough?

452

95

Alas! by all experience, seldom yet
(I merely quote what I have heard from many)
Had lovers not some reason to regret
The passion which made Solomon a Zany.
I've also seen some wives (not to forget
The marriage state, the best or worst of any)
Who were the very paragons of wives,
Yet made the misery of at least two lives.

96

I've also seen some female friends ('tis odd,
But true—as, if expedient, I could prove)
That faithful were through thick and thin, abroad,
At home, far more than ever yet was Love—
Who did not quit me when Oppression trod
Upon me; whom no scandal could remove;
Who fought, and fight, in absence too, my battles,
Despite the snake Society's loud rattles.

453

97

Whether Don Juan and chaste Adeline
Grew friends in this or any other sense,
Will be discuss'd hereafter, I opine:
At present I am glad of a pretence
To leave them hovering, as the effect is fine,
And keeps the atrocious reader in suspense;
The surest way for ladies and for books
To bait their tender or their tenter hooks.

98

Whether they rode, or walk'd, or studied Spanish
To read Don Quixote in the original,
A pleasure before which all others vanish;
Whether their talk was of the kind call'd “small,”
Or serious, are the topics I must banish
To the next Canto; where perhaps I shall
Say something to the purpose, and display
Considerable talent in my way.

454

99

Above all, I beg all men to forbear
Anticipating aught about the matter:
They'll only make mistakes about the fair,
And Juan too, especially the latter.
And I shall take a much more serious air
Than I have yet done, in this Epic Satire.
It is not clear that Adeline and Juan
Will fall; but if they do, 'twill be their ruin.

100

But great things spring from little:—Would you think,
That in our youth, as dangerous a passion
As e'er brought man and woman to the brink
Of ruin, rose from such a slight occasion,
As few would ever dream could form the link
Of such a sentimental situation?
You'll never guess, I'll bet you millions, milliards—
It all sprung from a harmless game at billiards.

455

101

'Tis strange—but true; for Truth is always strange,
Stranger than Fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their soul's Antipodes.

102

What “Antres vast and desarts idle,” then
Would be discover'd in the human soul!
What Icebergs in the hearts of mighty men,
With Self-love in the centre as their Pole!
What Anthropophagi in nine of ten
Of those who hold the kingdoms in controul!
Were things but only call'd by their right name,
Caesar himself would be ashamed of Fame.

456

Canto XV

1

Ah!—What should follow slips from my reflection:
Whatever follows ne'ertheless may be
As àpropos of hope or retrospection,
As though the lurking thought had follow'd free.
All present life is but an Interjection,
An “Oh!” or “Ah!” of joy or misery,
Or a “Ha! ha!” or “Bah!”—a yawn, or “Pooh!”
Of which perhaps the latter is most true.

457

2

But, more or less, the whole's a syncopé
Or a singultus—emblems of Emotion,
The grand Antithesis to great Ennui,
Wherewith we break our bubbles on the ocean,
That Watery Outline of Eternity,
Or miniature at least, as is my notion,
Which ministers unto the soul's delight,
In seeing matters which are out of sight.

3

But all are better than the sigh supprest,
Corroding in the cavern of the heart,
Making the countenance a masque of rest,
And turning human nature to an art.
Few men dare show their thoughts of worst or best;
Dissimulation always sets apart
A corner for herself; and therefore Fiction
Is that which passes with least contradiction.

4

Ah! who can tell? Or rather, who can not
Remember, without telling, passion's errors?
The drainer of oblivion, even the sot,
Hath got blue devils for his morning mirrors:
What though on Lethe's stream he seem to float,
He cannot sink his tremors or his terrors;
The ruby glass that shakes within his hand,
Leaves a sad sediment of Time's worst sand.

458

5

And as for Love—Oh, Love!—We will proceed.
The Lady Adeline Amundeville,
A pretty name as one would wish to read,
Must perch harmonious on my tuneful quill.
There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears:
Their Earth is but an echo of the spheres.

6

The Lady Adeline, right honourable,
And honour'd, ran a risk of growing less so;
For few of the soft sex are very stable
In their resolves—alas! that I should say so!
They differ as wine differs from its label,
When once decanted;—I presume to guess so,
But will not swear: yet both upon occasion,
Till old, may undergo adulteration.

7

But Adeline was of the purest vintage,
The unmingled essence of the grape; and yet
Bright as a new Napoleon from its mintage,
Or glorious as a diamond richly set;
A page where Time should hesitate to print age,
And for which Nature might forego her debt—
Sole creditor whose process doth involve in't
The luck of finding every body solvent.

459

8

Oh, Death! thou dunnest of all duns! thou daily
Knockest at doors, at first with modest tap,
Like a meek tradesman when approaching palely
Some splendid debtor he would take by sap:
But oft denied, as patience 'gins to fail, he
Advances with exasperated rap,
And (if let in) insists, in terms unhandsome,
On ready money or a draft on Ransom.

9

Whate'er thou takest, spare awhile poor Beauty!
She is so rare, and thou hast so much prey.
What though she now and then may slip from duty,
The more's the reason why you ought to stay.
Gaunt Gourmand! with whole nations for your booty,
You should be civil in a modest way:
Suppress then some slight feminine diseases,
And take as many heroes as Heaven pleases.

460

10

Fair Adeline, the more ingenuous
Where she was interested (as was said)
Because she was not apt, like some of us,
To like too readily, or too high bred
To show it—(points we need not now discuss)—
Would give up artlessly both heart and head
Unto such feelings as seem'd innocent,
For objects worthy of the sentiment.

11

Some parts of Juan's history, which Rumour,
That live Gazette, had scatter'd to disfigure,
She had heard; but women hear with more good humour
Such aberrations than we men of rigour.
Besides, his conduct, since in England, grew more
Strict, and his mind assumed a manlier vigour;
Because he had, like Alcibiades,
The art of living in all climes with ease.

461

12

His manner was perhaps the more seductive,
Because he ne'er seem'd anxious to seduce;
Nothing affected, studied, or constructive
Of coxcombry or conquest: no abuse
Of his attractions marr'd the fair perspective,
To indicate a Cupidon broke loose,
And seem to say, “resist us if you can”—
Which makes a dandy while it spoils a man.

13

They are wrong—that's not the way to set about it;
As, if they told the truth, could well be shown.
But right or wrong, Don Juan was without it;
In fact, his manner was his own alone:
Sincere he was—at least you could not doubt it,
In listening merely to his voice's tone.
The Devil hath not in all his quiver's choice
An arrow for the heart like a sweet voice.

462

14

By Nature soft, his whole address held off
Suspicion: though not timid, his regard
Was such as rather seem'd to keep aloof,
To shield himself, than put you on your guard:
Perhaps 'twas hardly quite assured enough,
But Modesty's at times its own reward,
Like Virtue; and the absence of pretension
Will go much further than there's need to mention.

15

Serene, accomplish'd, cheerful but not loud;
Insinuating without insinuation;
Observant of the foibles of the crowd,
Yet ne'er betraying this in conversation;
Proud with the proud, yet courteously proud,
So as to make them feel he knew his station
And theirs:—without a struggle for priority,
He neither brook'd nor claim'd superiority.

463

16

That is, with men: with women he was what
They pleased to make or take him for; and their
Imagination's quite enough for that:
So that the outline's tolerably fair,
They fill the canvass up—and “verbum sat.”
If once their phantasies be brought to bear
Upon an object, whether sad or playful,
They can transfigure brighter than a Raphael.

17

Adeline, no deep judge of character,
Was apt to add a colouring from her own.
'Tis thus the good will amiably err,
And eke the wise, as has been often shown.
Experience is the chief philosopher,
But saddest when his science is well known:
And persecuted sages teach the schools
Their folly in forgetting there are fools.

464

18

Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon?
Great Socrates? And thou Diviner still,
Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken,
And thy pure creed made sanction of all ill?
Redeeming worlds to be by bigots shaken,
How was thy toil rewarded? We might fill
Volumes with similar sad illustrations,
But leave them to the conscience of the nations.

19

I perch upon an humbler promontory,
Amidst life's infinite variety:
With no great care for what is nicknamed glory,
But speculating as I cast mine eye
On what may suit or may not suit my story,
And never straining hard to versify,
I rattle on exactly as I'd talk
With any body in a ride or walk.

465

20

I don't know that there may be much ability
Shown in this sort of desultory rhyme;
But there's a conversational facility,
Which may round off an hour upon a time.
Of this I'm sure at least, there's no servility
In mine irregularity of chime,
Which rings what's uppermost of new or hoary,
Just as I feel the “Improvvisatore.”

21

“Omnia vult belle Matho dicere—dic aliquando
Et bene, dic neutrum, dic aliquando male.”
The first is rather more than mortal can do;
The second may be sadly done or gaily;
The third is still more difficult to stand to;
The fourth we hear, and see, and say too, daily:
The whole together is what I could wish
To serve in this conundrum of a dish.

466

22

A modest hope—but modesty's my forte,
And pride my feeble:—let us ramble on.
I meant to make this poem very short,
But now I can't tell where it may not run.
No doubt, if I had wish'd to pay my court
To critics, or to hail the setting sun
Of tyranny of all kinds, my concision
Were more;—but I was born for opposition.

23

But then 'tis mostly on the weaker side:
So that I verily believe if they
Who now are basking in their full-blown pride,
Were shaken down, and “dogs had had their day,”
Though at the first I might perchance deride
Their tumble, I should turn the other way,
And wax an Ultra-royalist in loyalty,
Because I hate even democratic royalty.

467

24

I think I should have made a decent spouse,
If I had never proved the soft condition;
I think I should have made monastic vows,
But for my own peculiar superstition:
'Gainst rhyme I never should have knock'd my brows,
Nor broken my own head, nor that of Priscian,
Nor worn the motley mantle of a poet,
If some one had not told me to forego it.

25

But “laissez aller”—knights and dames I sing,
Such as the times may furnish. 'Tis a flight
Which seems at first to need no lofty wing,
Plumed by Longinus or the Stagyrite:
The difficulty lies in colouring
(Keeping the due proportions still in sight)
With Nature manners which are artificial,
And rend'ring general that which is especial.

468

26

The difference is, that in the days of old
Men made the manners; manners now make men—
Pinned like a flock, and fleeced too in their fold,
At least nine, and a ninth beside of ten.
Now this at all events must render cold
Your writers, who must either draw again
Days better drawn before, or else assume
The present, with their common-place costume.

27

We'll do our best to make the best on't:—March!
March, my Muse! If you cannot fly, yet flutter;
And when you may not be sublime, be arch,
Or starch, as are the edicts statesmen utter.
We surely shall find something worth research:
Columbus found a new world in a cutter,
Or brigantine, or pink, of no great tonnage,
While yet America was in her non-age.

28

When Adeline, in all her growing sense
Of Juan's merits and his situation,
Felt on the whole an interest intense—
Partly perhaps because a fresh sensation,
Or that he had an air of innocence,
Which is for innocence a sad temptation,—
As women hate half measures, on the whole,
She 'gan to ponder how to save his soul.

469

29

She had a good opinion of advice,
Like all who give and eke receive it gratis,
For which small thanks are still the market price,
Even where the article at highest rate is.
She thought upon the subject twice or thrice,
And morally decided, the best state is
For morals, marriage; and this question carried,
She seriously advised him to get married.

30

Juan replied, with all becoming deference,
He had a predilection for that tie;
But that at present, with immediate reference
To his own circumstances, there might lie
Some difficulties, as in his own preference,
Or that of her to whom he might apply;
That still he'd wed with such or such a lady,
If that they were not married all already.

470

31

Next to the making matches for herself,
And daughters, brothers, sisters, kith or kin,
Arranging them like books on the same shelf,
There's nothing women love to dabble in
More (like a stock-holder in growing pelf)
Than match-making in general: 'tis no sin
Certes, but a preventative, and therefore
That is, no doubt, the only reason wherefore.

32

But never yet (except of course a miss
Unwed, or mistress never to be wed,
Or wed already, who object to this
Was there chaste dame who had not in her head
Some drama of the marriage unities,
Observed as strictly both at board and bed,
As those of Aristotle, though sometimes
They turn out melodrames or pantomimes.

33

They generally have some only son,
Some heir to a large property, some friend
Of an old family, some gay Sir John,
Or grave Lord George, with whom perhaps might end
A line, and leave posterity undone,
Unless a marriage was applied to mend

471

The prospect and their morals: and besides,
They have at hand a blooming glut of brides.

34

From these they will be careful to select,
For this an heiress, and for that a beauty;
For one a songstress who hath no defect,
For t'other one who promises much duty;
For this a lady no one can reject,
Whose sole accomplishments were quite a booty;
A second for her excellent connexions;
A third, because there can be no objections.

35

When Rapp the Harmonist embargoed marriage
In his harmonious settlement—(which flourishes
Strangely enough as yet without miscarriage,
Because it breeds no more mouths than it nourishes,
Without those sad expenses which disparage
What Nature naturally most encourages)—
Why call'd he “Harmony” a state sans wedlock?
Now here I have got the preacher at a dead lock.

472

36

Because he either meant to sneer at harmony
Or marriage, by divorcing them thus oddly.
But whether reverend Rapp learn'd this in Germany
Or no, 'tis said his sect is rich and godly,
Pious and pure, beyond what I can term any
Of ours, although they propagate more broadly.
My objection's to his title, not his ritual,
Although I wonder how it grew habitual.

37

But Rapp is the reverse of zealous matrons,
Who favour, malgré Malthus, generation—
Professors of that genial art, and patrons
Of all the modest part of propagation,
Which after all at such a desperate rate runs,
That half its produce tends to emigration,
That sad result of passions and potatoes—
Two weeds which pose our economic Catos.

38

Had Adeline read Malthus? I can't tell;
I wish she had: his book's the eleventh commandment,
Which says, “thou shalt not marry,” unless well:
This he (as far as I can understand) meant:
'Tis not my purpose on his views to dwell,
Nor canvass what “so eminent a hand” meant;
But certes it conducts to lives ascetic,
Or turning marriage into arithmetic.

473

39

But Adeline, who probably presumed
That Juan had enough of maintenance,
Or separate maintenance, in case 'twas doom'd—
As on the whole it is an even chance
That bridegrooms, after they are fairly groom'd,
May retrograde a little in the dance
Of marriage—(which might form a painter's fame,
Like Holbein's “Dance of Death”—but 'tis the same);—

40

But Adeline determined Juan's wedding
In her own mind, and that's enough for woman.
But then, with whom? There was the sage Miss Reading,
Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman, and Miss Knowman,
And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding.
She deemed his merits something more than common:
All these were unobjectionable matches,
And might go on, if well wound up, like watches.

474

41

There was Miss Millpond, smooth as summer's sea,
That usual paragon, an only daughter,
Who seem'd the cream of equanimity,
Till skimm'd—and then there was some milk and water,
With a slight shade of Blue too it might be,
Beneath the surface; but what did it matter?
Love's riotous, but marriage should have quiet,
And being consumptive, live on a milk diet.

42

And then there was the Miss Audacia Shoestring,
A dashing demoiselle of good estate,
Whose heart was fix'd upon a star or bluestring;
But whether English Dukes grew rare of late,
Or that she had not harp'd upon the true string,
By which such sirens can attract our great,
She took up with some foreign younger brother,
A Russ or Turk—the one's as good as t'other.

475

43

And then there was—but why should I go on,
Unless the ladies should go off?—there was
Indeed a certain fair and fairy one,
Of the best class, and better than her class,—
Aurora Raby, a young star who shone
O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass,
A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,
A Rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded;

44

Rich, noble, but an orphan; left an only
Child to the care of guardians good and kind;
But still her aspect had an air so lonely!
Blood is not water; and where shall we find
Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie
By death, when we are left, alas! behind,
To feel, in friendless palaces, a home
Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb?

476

45

Early in years, and yet more infantine
In figure, she had something of sublime
In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine.
All youth—but with an aspect beyond time;
Radiant and grave—as pitying man's decline;
Mournful—but mournful of another's crime,
She look'd as if she sat by Eden's door,
And grieved for those who could return no more.

46

She was a Catholic too, sincere, austere,
As far as her own gentle heart allow'd,
And deem'd that fallen worship far more dear
Perhaps because 'twas fallen: her sires were proud
Of deeds and days when they had fill'd the ear
Of nations, and had never bent or bow'd
To novel power; and as she was the last,
She held their old faith and old feelings fast.

47

She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew
As seeking not to know it; silent, lone,
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,
And kept her heart serene within its zone.

477

There was awe in the homage which she drew;
Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne
Apart from the surrounding world, and strong
In its own strength—most strange in one so young!

48

Now it so happen'd, in the catalogue
Of Adeline, Aurora was omitted,
Although her birth and wealth had given her vogue
Beyond the charmers we have already cited;
Her beauty also seem'd to form no clog
Against her being mention'd as well fitted,
By many virtues, to be worth the trouble
Of single gentlemen who would be double.

49

And this omission, like that of the bust
Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius,
Made Juan wonder, as no doubt he must.
This he express'd half smiling and half serious;
When Adeline replied with some disgust,
And with an air, to say the least, imperious,
She marvell'd “what he saw in such a baby
As that prim, silent, cold Aurora Raby?”

478

50

Juan rejoined—“She was a Catholic,
And therefore fittest, as of his persuasion;
Since he was sure his mother would fall sick,
And the Pope thunder excommunication,
If—” But here Adeline, who seem'd to pique
Herself extremely on the inoculation
Of others with her own opinions, stated—
As usual—the same reason which she late did.

51

And wherefore not? A reasonable reason,
If good, is none the worse for repetition;
If bad, the best way's certainly to teaze on
And amplify: you lose much by concision,
Whereas insisting in or out of season
Convinces all men, even a politician;
Or—what is just the same—it wearies out.
So the end's gain'd, what signifies the route?

52

Why Adeline had this slight prejudice—
For prejudice it was—against a creature
As pure as sanctity itself from vice,
With all the added charm of form and feature,
For me appears a question far too nice,
Since Adeline was liberal by Nature;
But Nature's Nature, and has more caprices
Than I have time, or will, to take to pieces.

479

53

Perhaps she did not like the quiet way
With which Aurora on those baubles look'd,
Which charm most people in their earlier day:
For there are few things by mankind less brook'd,
And womankind too, if we so may say,
Than finding thus their genius stand rebuked,
Like “Anthony's by Caesar,” by the few
Who look upon them as they ought to do.

54

It was not envy—Adeline had none;
Her place was far beyond it, and her mind.
It was not scorn—which could not light on one
Whose greatest fault was leaving few to find.
It was not jealousy, I think: but shun
Following the “Ignes Fatui” of mankind.
It was not—but 'tis easier far, alas!
To say what it was not, than what it was.

480

55

Little Aurora deem'd she was the theme
Of such discussion. She was there a guest,
A beauteous ripple of the brilliant stream
Of rank and youth, though purer than the rest,
Which flow'd on for a moment in the beam
Time sheds a moment o'er each sparkling crest.
Had she known this, she would have calmly smiled—
She had so much, or little, of the child.

56

The dashing and proud air of Adeline
Imposed not upon her: she saw her blaze
Much as she would have seen a glowworm shine,
Then turn'd unto the stars for loftier rays.
Juan was something she could not divine,
Being no Sibyl in the new world's ways;
Yet she was nothing dazzled by the meteor,
Because she did not pin her faith on feature.

57

His fame too,—for he had that kind of fame
Which sometimes plays the deuce with womankind,
A heterogeneous mass of glorious blame,
Half virtues and whole vices being combined;
Faults which attract because they are not tame;
Follies trick'd out so brightly that they blind:—
These seals upon her wax made no impression,
Such was her coldness or her self-possession.

481

58

Juan knew nought of such a character—
High, yet resembling not his lost Haidée;
Yet each was radiant in her proper sphere:
The Island girl, bred up by the lone sea,
More warm, as lovely, and not less sincere,
Was Nature's all: Aurora could not be
Nor would be thus;—the difference in them
Was such as lies between a flower and gem.

59

Having wound up with this sublime comparison,
Methinks we may proceed upon our narrative,
And, as my friend Scott says, “I sound my Warison”;
Scott, the superlative of my comparative—
Scott, who can paint your Christian knight or Saracen,
Serf, Lord, Man, with such skill as none would share it, if
There had not been one Shakespeare and Voltaire,
Of one or both of whom he seems the heir.

482

60

I say, in my slight way I may proceed
To play upon the surface of Humanity.
I write the world, nor care if the world read,
At least for this I cannot spare its vanity.
My Muse hath bred, and still perhaps may breed
More foes by this same scroll: when I began it, I
Thought that it might turn out so—now I know it,
But still I am, or was, a pretty poet.

61

The conference or congress (for it ended
As congresses of late do) of the Lady
Adeline and Don Juan rather blended
Some acids with the sweets—for she was heady;
But, ere the matter could be marr'd or mended,
The silvery bell rung, not for “dinner ready,”
But for that hour, called half-hour, given to dress,
Though ladies' robes seem scant enough for less.

62

Great things were now to be achieved at table,
With massy plate for armour, knives and forks
For weapons; but what Muse since Homer's able
(His feasts are not the worst part of his works)
To draw up in array a single day-bill
Of modern dinners? where more mystery lurks
In soups or sauces, or a sole ragoût,
Than witches, b---ches, or physicians brew.

483

63

There was a goodly “soupe à la bonne femme,”
Though God knows whence it came from; there was too
A turbot for relief of those who cram,
Relieved with dindon à la Périgueux;
There also was—the sinner that I am!
How shall I get this gourmand stanza through?—
Soupe à la Beauveau, whose relief was Dory,
Relieved itself by pork, for greater glory.

64

But I must crowd all into one grand mess
Or mass; for should I stretch into detail,
My Muse would run much more into excess,
Than when some squeamish people deem her frail.
But though a “bonne vivante,” I must confess
Her stomach's not her peccant part: this tale
However doth require some slight refection,
Just to relieve her spirits from dejection.

484

65

Fowls à la Condé, slices eke of salmon,
With sauces Genevoises, and haunch of venison;
Wines too which might again have slain young Ammon—
A man like whom I hope we shan't see many soon;
They also set a glazed Westphalian ham on,
Whereon Apicius would bestow his benison;
And then there was Champagne with foaming whirls,
As white as Cleopatra's melted pearls.

66

Then there was God knows what “à l'Allemande,”
“A l'Espagnole,” “timballe,” and “Salpicon”—
With things I can't withstand or understand,
Though swallow'd with much zest upon the whole;
And “entremets” to piddle with at hand,
Gently to lull down the subsiding soul;
While great Lucullus' Robe triumphal muffles—
(There's Fame)—young Partridge' fillets, deck'd with truffles.

485

67

What are the fillets on the victor's brow
To these? They are rags or dust. Where is the arch
Which nodded to the nation's spoils below?
Where the triumphal chariots' haughty march?
Gone to where victories must like dinners go.
Further I shall not follow the research:
But oh! ye modern heroes with your cartridges,
When will your names lend lustre even to partridges?

486

68

Those truffles too are no bad accessaries,
Follow'd by “Petits puits d'Amour”—a dish
Of which perhaps the cookery rather varies,
So every one may dress it to his wish,
According to the best of dictionaries,
Which encyclopedize both flesh and fish;
But even sans “confitures,” it no less true is,
There's pretty picking in those “petits puits.”

69

The mind is lost in mighty contemplation
Of intellect expended on two courses;
And indigestion's grand multiplication
Requires arithmetic beyond my forces.
Who would suppose, from Adam's simple ration,
That cookery could have call'd forth such resources,
As form a science and a nomenclature
From out the commonest demands of nature?

487

70

The glasses jingled, and the palates tingled;
The diners of celebrity dined well;
The ladies with more moderation mingled
In the feast, pecking less than I can tell;
Also the younger men too; for a springald
Can't like ripe age in gourmandise excel,
But thinks less of good eating than the whisper
(When seated next him) of some pretty lisper.

71

Alas! I must leave undescribed the gibier,
The salmi, the consommé, the purée,
All which I use to make my rhymes run glibber
Than could roast beef in our rough John Bull way:
I must not introduce even a spare rib here,
“Bubble and squeak” would spoil my liquid lay;
But I have dined, and must forego, alas!
The chaste description even of a “Bécasse,”

488

72

And fruits, and ice, and all that art refines
From nature for the service of the goût,—
Taste or the gout,—pronounce it as inclines
Your stomach! Ere you dine, the French will do;
But after, there are sometimes certain signs
Which prove plain English truer of the two.
Hast ever had the gout? I have not had it—
But I may have, and you too, Reader, dread it.

73

The simple olives, best allies of wine,
Must I pass over in my bill of fare?
I must, although a favourite “plat” of mine
In Spain, and Lucca, Athens, every where:
On them and bread 'twas oft my luck to dine,
The grass my table-cloth, in open air,
On Sunium or Hymettus, like Diogenes,
Of whom half my philosophy the progeny is.

74

Amidst this tumult of fish, flesh, and fowl,
And vegetables, all in masquerade,
The guests were placed according to their roll,
But various as the various meats display'd:
Don Juan sat next an “à l'Espagnole”—
No damsel, but a dish, as hath been said;
But so far like a lady, that 'twas drest
Superbly, and contained a world of zest,

489

75

By some odd chance too he was placed between
Aurora and the Lady Adeline—
A situation difficult, I ween,
For man therein, with eyes and heart, to dine.
Also the conference which we have seen
Was not such as to encourage him to shine;
For Adeline, addressing few words to him,
With two transcendant eyes seemed to look through him.

76

I sometimes almost think that eyes have ears:
This much is sure, that, out of earshot, things
Are somehow echoed to the pretty dears,
Of which I can't tell whence their knowledge springs;
Like that same mystic music of the spheres,
Which no one hears so loudly though it rings.
'Tis wonderful how oft the sex have heard
Long dialogues which pass'd without a word!

490

77

Aurora sat with that indifference
Which piques a preux Chevalier—as it ought:
Of all offences that's the worst offence,
Which seems to hint you are not worth a thought.
Now Juan, though no coxcomb in pretence,
Was not exactly pleased to be so caught:
Like a good ship entangled among ice,
And after so much excellent advice.

78

To his gay nothings, nothing was replied,
Or something which was nothing, as urbanity
Required. Aurora scarcely look'd aside,
Nor even smiled enough for any vanity.
The devil was in the girl! Could it be pride?
Or modesty, or absence, or inanity?
Heaven knows! But Adeline's malicious eyes
Sparkled with her successful prophecies,

491

79

And look'd as much as if to say, “I said it”;—
A kind of triumph I'll not recommend,
Because it sometimes, as I've seen or read it,
Both in the case of lover and of friend,
Will pique a gentleman, for his own credit,
To bring what was a jest to a serious end:
For all men prophesy what is or was,
And hate those who won't let them come to pass.

80

Juan was drawn thus into some attentions,
Slight but select, and just enough to express,
To females of perspicuous comprehensions,
That he would rather make them more than less.
Aurora at the last (so history mentions,
Though probably much less a fact than guess)
So far relax'd her thoughts from their sweet prison,
As once or twice to smile, if not to listen.

492

81

From answering, she began to question: this
With her was rare; and Adeline, who as yet
Thought her predictions went not much amiss,
Began to dread she'd thaw to a coquette—
So very difficult, they say, it is
To keep extremes from meeting, when once set
In motion; but she here too much refined—
Aurora's spirit was not of that kind.

82

But Juan had a sort of winning way,
A proud humility, if such there be,
Which show'd such deference to what females say,
As if each charming word were a decree.
His tact too temper'd him from grave to gay,
And taught him when to be reserved or free:
He had the art of drawing people out,
Without their seeing what he was about.

493

83

Aurora, who in her indifference
Confounded him in common with the crowd
Of flutterers, though she deem'd he had more sense
Than whispering foplings, or than witlings loud,—
Commenced (from such slight things will great commence)
To feel that flattery which attracts the proud
Rather by deference than compliment,
And wins even by a delicate dissent.

84

And then he had good looks;—that point was carried
Nem. con. amongst the women, which I grieve
To say leads oft to crim. con. with the married—
A case which to the Juries we may leave,
Since with digressions we too long have tarried.
Now though we know of old that looks deceive,
And always have done, somehow these good looks
Make more impression than the best of books.

494

85

Aurora, who look'd more on books than faces,
Was very young, although so very sage,
Admiring more Minerva than the Graces,
Especially upon a printed page.
But Virtue's self, with all her tightest laces,
Has not the natural stays of strict old age;
And Socrates, that model of all duty,
Own'd to a penchant, though discreet, for beauty.

86

And girls of sixteen are thus far Socratic,
But innocently so, as Socrates:
And really, if the Sage sublime and Attic
At seventy years had phantasies like these,
Which Plato in his dialogues dramatic
Has shown, I know not why they should displease
In virgins—always in a modest way,
Observe; for that with me's a “sine quâ.”

87

Also observe, that like the great Lord Coke,
(See Littleton) whene'er I have expressed
Opinions two, which at first sight may look
Twin opposites, the second is the best.
Perhaps I have a third too in a nook,
Or none at all—which seems a sorry jest;
But if a writer should be quite consistent,
How could he possibly show things existent?

495

88

If people contradict themselves, can I
Help contradicting them, and every body,
Even my veracious self?—But that's a lie;
I never did so, never will—how should I?
He who doubts all things, nothing can deny;
Truth's fountains may be clear—her streams are muddy,
And cut through such canals of contradiction,
That she must often navigate o'er fiction.

89

Apologue, fable, poesy, and parable,
Are false, but may be render'd also true
By those who sow them in a land that's arable.
'Tis wonderful what fable will not do!
'Tis said it makes reality more bearable:
But what's reality? Who has its clue?
Philosophy? No; she too much rejects.
Religion? Yes; but which of all her sects?

496

90

Some millions must be wrong, that's pretty clear:
Perhaps it may turn out that all were right.
God help us! Since we have need on our career
To keep our holy beacons always bright,
'Tis time that some new Prophet should appear,
Or old indulge man with a second sight.
Opinions wear out in some thousand years,
Without a small refreshment from the spheres.

91

But here again, why will I thus entangle
Myself with metaphysics? None can hate
So much as I do any kind of wrangle;
And yet, such is my folly, or my fate,
I always knock my head against some angle
About the present, past, or future state:
Yet I wish well to Trojan and to Tyrian,
For I was bred a moderate Presbyterian.

497

92

But though I am a temperate Theologian,
And also meek as a Metaphysician,
Impartial between Tyrian and Trojan,
As Eldon on a lunatic commission,—
In politics my duty is to show John
Bull something of the lower world's condition.
It makes my blood boil like the springs of Hecla,
To see men let these scoundrel Sovereigns break law.

93

But politics, and policy, and piety,
Are topics which I sometimes introduce,
Not only for the sake of their variety,
But as subservient to a moral use;
Because my business is to dress society,
And stuff with sage that very verdant goose.
And now, that we may furnish with some matter all
Tastes, we are going to try the supernatural.

498

94

And now I will give up all argument;
And positively henceforth no temptation
Shall “fool me to the top up of my bent”;—
Yes, I'll begin a thorough reformation.
Indeed I never knew what people meant
By deeming that my Muse's conversation
Was dangerous;—I think she is as harmless
As some who labour more and yet may charm less.

95

Grim reader! did you ever see a ghost?
No; but you have heard—I understand—be dumb!
And don't regret the time you may have lost,
For you have got that pleasure still to come:
And do not think I mean to sneer at most
Of these things, or by ridicule benumb
That source of the sublime and the mysterious:—
For certain reasons, my belief is serious.

499

96

Serious? You laugh:—you may; that will I not;
My smiles must be sincere or not at all.
I say I do believe a haunted spot
Exists—and where? That shall I not recall,
Because I'd rather it should be forgot,
“Shadows the soul of Richard” may appal.
In short, upon that subject I've some qualms very
Like those of the Philosopher of Malmsbury.

97

The night (I sing by night—sometimes an owl,
And now and then a nightingale)—is dim,
And the loud shriek of sage Minerva's fowl
Rattles around me her discordant hymn:
Old portraits from old walls upon me scowl—
I wish to heaven they would not look so grim;
The dying embers dwindle in the grate—
I think too that I have sate up too late:

500

98

And therefore, though 'tis by no means my way
To rhyme at noon—when I have other things
To think of, if I ever think,—I say
I feel some chilly midnight shudderings,
And prudently postpone, until mid-day,
Treating a topic which alas but brings
Shadows;—but you must be in my condition
Before you learn to call this superstition.

99

Between two worlds life hovers like a star,
'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge:
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge,
Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of Empires heave but like some passing waves.

501

Canto XVI

1

The antique Persians taught three useful things,
To draw the bow, to ride, and speak the truth.
This was the mode of Cyrus, best of kings—
A mode adopted since by modern youth.
Bows have they, generally with two strings;
Horses they ride without remorse or ruth;
At speaking truth perhaps they are less clever,
But draw the long bow better now than ever.

502

2

The cause of this effect, or this defect,—
“For this effect defective comes by cause,”—
Is what I have not leisure to inspect;
But this I must say in my own applause,
Of all the Muses that I recollect,
Whate'er may be her follies or her flaws
In some things, mine's beyond all contradiction
The most sincere that ever dealt in fiction.

3

And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats
From any thing, this Epic will contain
A wilderness of the most rare conceits,
Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
'Tis true there be some bitters with the sweets,
Yet mixed so slightly that you can't complain,
But wonder they so few are, since my tale is
“De rebus cunctis et quibûsdam aliis.”

4

But of all truths which she has told, the most
True is that which she is about to tell.
I said it was a story of a ghost—
What then? I only know it so befell.
Have you explored the limits of the coast,
Where all the dwellers of the earth must dwell?
'Tis time to strike such puny doubters dumb as
The sceptics who would not believe Columbus.

503

5

Some people would impose now with authority,
Turpin's or Monmouth Geoffry's Chronicle;
Men whose historical superiority
Is always greatest at a miracle.
But Saint Augustine has the great priority,
Who bids all men believe the impossible,
Because 'tis so. Who nibble, scribble, quibble, he
Quiets at once with “quia impossibile.”

6

And therefore, mortals, cavil not at all;
Believe:—if 'tis improbable, you must;
And if it is impossible, you shall:
'Tis always best to take things upon trust.
I do not speak profanely, to recall
Those holier mysteries, which the wise and just
Receive as gospel, and which grow more rooted,
As all truths must, the more they are disputed.

504

7

I merely mean to say what Johnson said,
That in the course of some six thousand years,
All nations have believed that from the dead
A visitant at intervals appears;
And what is strangest upon this strange head,
Is, that whatever bar the reason rears
'Gainst such belief, there's something stronger still
In its behalf, let those deny who will.

8

The dinner and the soirée too were done,
The supper too discussed, the dames admired,
The banqueteers had dropped off one by one—
The song was silent, and the dance expired:
The last thin petticoats were vanished, gone
Like fleecy clouds into the sky retired,
And nothing brighter gleamed through the saloon
Than dying tapers—and the peeping moon.

9

The evaporation of a joyous day
Is like the last glass of champagne, without
The foam which made its virgin bumper gay;
Or like a system coupled with a doubt;
Or like a soda bottle when its spray
Has sparkled and let half its spirit out;
Or like a billow left by storms behind,
Without the animation of the wind;

505

10

Or like an opiate which brings troubled rest,
Or none; or like—like nothing that I know
Except itself;—such is the human breast;
A thing, of which similitudes can show
No real likeness,—like the old Tyrian vest
Dyed purple, none at present can tell how,
If from a shell-fish or from cochineal.
So perish every tyrant's robe piece-meal!

11

But next to dressing for a rout or ball,
Undressing is a woe; our robe de chambre
May sit like that of Nessus and recall
Thoughts quite as yellow, but less clear than amber.
Titus exclaimed, “I've lost a day!” Of all
The nights and days most people can remember,
(I have had of both, some not to be disdained)
I wish they'd state how many they have gained.

506

12

And Juan, on retiring for the night,
Felt restless, and perplexed, and compromised;
He thought Aurora Raby's eyes more bright
Than Adeline (such is advice) advised;
If he had known exactly his own plight,
He probably would have philosophised;
A great resource to all, and ne'er denied
Till wanted; therefore Juan only sighed.

13

He sighed;—the next resource is the full moon,
Where all sighs are deposited; and now
It happened luckily, the chaste orb shone
As clear as such a climate will allow;
And Juan's mind was in the proper tone
To hail her with the apostrophe—“Oh, Thou!”
Of amatory egotism the Tuism,
Which further to explain would be a truism.

14

But lover, poet, or astronomer,
Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold,
Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her:
Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold
Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err);
Deep secrets to her rolling light are told;
The ocean's tides and mortal's brains she sways,
And also hearts, if there be truth in lays.

507

15

Juan felt somewhat pensive, and disposed
For contemplation rather than his pillow:
The Gothic chamber, where he was enclosed,
Let in the rippling sound of the lake's billow,
With all the mystery by midnight caused;
Below his window waved (of course) a willow;
And he stood gazing out on the cascade
That flashed and after darkened in the shade.

16

Upon his table or his toilet,—which
Of these is not exactly ascertained—
(I state this, for I am cautious to a pitch
Of nicety, where a fact is to be gained)
A lamp burned high, while he leant from a niche,
Where many a gothic ornament remained,
In chiselled stone and painted glass, and all
That time has left our fathers of their Hall.

508

17

Then, as the night was clear though cold, he threw
His chamber door wide open—and went forth
Into a gallery, of a sombre hue,
Long, furnished with old pictures of great worth,
Of knights and dames heroic and chaste too,
As doubtless should be people of high birth.
But by dim lights the portraits of the dead
Have something ghastly, desolate, and dread.

18

The forms of the grim knight and pictured saint
Look living in the moon; and as you turn
Backward and forward to the echoes faint
Of your own footsteps—voices from the urn
Appear to wake, and shadows wild and quaint
Start from the frames which fence their aspects stern,
As if to ask how you can dare to keep
A vigil there, where all but death should sleep.

509

19

And the pale smile of Beauties in the grave,
The charms of other days, in starlight gleams
Glimmer on high; their buried locks still wave
Along the canvas; their eyes glance like dreams
On ours, or spars within some dusky cave,
But death is imaged in their shadowy beams.
A picture is the past; even ere its frame
Be gilt, who sate hath ceased to be the same.

20

As Juan mused on mutability,
Or on his mistress—terms synonimous—
No sound except the echo of his sigh
Or step ran sadly through that antique house,
When suddenly he heard, or thought so, nigh,
A supernatural agent—or a mouse,
Whose little nibbling rustle will embarrass
Most people as it plays along the arras.

510

21

It was no mouse, but lo! a monk, arrayed
In cowl and beads and dusky garb, appeared,
Now in the moonlight, and now lapsed in shade,
With steps that trod as heavy, yet unheard;
His garments only a slight murmur made;
He moved as shadowy as the sisters weird,
But slowly; and as he passed Juan by,
Glanced, without pausing, on him a bright eye.

22

Juan was petrified; he had heard a hint
Of such a spirit in these halls of old,
But thought, like most men, there was nothing in't
Beyond the rumour which such spots unfold,
Coined from surviving superstition's mint,
Which passes ghosts in currency like gold,
But rarely seen, like gold compared with paper.
And did he see this? or was it a vapour?

23

Once, twice, thrice passed, repassed—the thing of air,
Or earth beneath, or heaven, or t'other place;
And Juan gazed upon it with a stare,
Yet could not speak or move; but, on its base
As stands a statue, stood: he felt his hair
Twine like a knot of snakes around his face;

511

He taxed his tongue for words, which were not granted,
To ask the reverend person what he wanted.

24

The third time, after a still longer pause,
The shadow passed away—but where? the hall
Was long, and thus far there was no great cause
To think his vanishing unnatural:
Doors there were many, through which, by the laws
Of physics, bodies whether short or tall
Might come or go; but Juan could not state
Through which the spectre seemed to evaporate.

25

He stood—how long he knew not, but it seemed
An age,—expectant, powerless, with his eyes
Strained on the spot where first the figure gleamed;
Then by degrees recalled his energies,
And would have passed the whole off as a dream,
But could not wake; he was, he did surmise,
Waking already, and returned at length
Back to his chamber, shorn of half his strength.

512

26

All there was as he left it: still his taper
Burnt, and not blue, as modest tapers use,
Receiving sprites with sympathetic vapour;
He rubbed his eyes, and they did not refuse
Their office; he took up an old newspaper;
The paper was right easy to peruse;
He read an article the king attacking,
And a long eulogy of “Patent Blacking.”

27

This savoured of this world; but his hand shook—
He shut his door, and after having read
A paragraph, I think about Horne Tooke,
Undrest, and rather slowly went to bed.
There couched all snugly on his pillow's nook,
With what he had seen his phantasy he fed,
And though it was no opiate, slumber crept
Upon him by degrees, and so he slept.

28

He woke betimes; and, as may be supposed,
Pondered upon his visitant or vision,
And whether it ought not to be disclosed,
At risk of being quizzed for superstition.
The more he thought, the more his mind was posed;
In the mean time, his valet, whose precision
Was great, because his master brooked no less,
Knocked to inform him it was time to dress.

513

29

He dressed; and like young people, he was wont
To take some trouble with his toilet, but
This morning rather spent less time upon't;
Aside his very mirror soon was put;
His curls fell negligently o'er his front,
His clothes were not curbed to their usual cut,
His very neckcloth's Gordian knot was tied
Almost an hair's breadth too much on one side.

30

And when he walked down into the saloon,
He sate him pensive o'er a dish of tea,
Which he perhaps had not discovered soon,
Had it not happened scalding hot to be,
Which made him have recourse unto his spoon;
So much distrait he was, that all could see
That something was the matter—Adeline
The first—but what she could not well divine.

514

31

She looked, and saw him pale, and turned as pale
Herself; then hastily looked down, and muttered
Something, but what's not stated in my tale.
Lord Henry said, his muffin was ill buttered;
The Duchess of Fitz-Fulke played with her veil,
And looked at Juan hard, but nothing uttered.
Aurora Raby, with her large dark eyes,
Surveyed him with a kind of calm surprise.

32

But seeing him all cold and silent still,
And every body wondering more or less,
Fair Adeline enquired, “If he were ill?”
He started, and said, “Yes—no—rather—yes.”
The family physician had great skill,
And being present, now began to express
His readiness to feel his pulse and tell
The cause, but Juan said, “He was quite well.”

33

“Quite well; yes; no.”—These answers were mysterious,
And yet his looks appeared to sanction both,
However they might savour of delirious;
Something like illness of a sudden growth
Weighed on his spirit, though by no means serious.
But for the rest, as he himself seemed loth
To state the case, it might be ta'en for granted
It was not the physician that he wanted.

515

34

Lord Henry, who had now discussed his chocolate,
Also the muffin whereof he complained,
Said, Juan had not got his usual look elate,
At which he marvelled, since it had not rained;
Then asked her Grace what news were of the Duke of late?
Her Grace replied, his Grace was rather pained
With some slight, light, hereditary twinges
Of gout, which rusts aristocratic hinges.

35

Then Henry turned to Juan and addressed
A few words of condolence on his state:
“You look,” quoth he, “as if you had had your rest
Broke in upon by the Black Friar of late.”
“What Friar?” said Juan; and he did his best
To put the question with an air sedate,
Or careless; but the effort was not valid
To hinder him from growing still more pallid.

516

36

“Oh! have you never heard of the Black Friar?
The spirit of these walls?”—“In truth not I.”
“Why Fame—but Fame you know's sometimes a liar—
Tells an odd story, of which by the bye:
Whether with time the spectre has grown shyer,
Or that our sires had a more gifted eye
For such sights, though the tale is half believed,
The Friar of late has not been oft perceived.

37

“The last time was—” “I pray,” said Adeline,—
(Who watched the changes of Don Juan's brow,
And from its context thought she could divine
Connections stronger than he chose to avow
With this same legend)—“if you but design
To jest, you'll choose some other theme just now,
Because the present tale has oft been told,
And is not much improved by growing old.”

517

38

“Jest!” quoth Milor, “Why, Adeline, you know
That we ourselves—'twas in the Honey Moon—
Saw—” “Well, no matter, 'twas so long ago;
But, come, I'll set your story to a tune.”
Graceful as Dian when she draws her bow,
She seized her harp, whose strings were kindled soon
As touched, and plaintively began to play
The air of “'Twas a Friar of Orders Grey.”

39

“But add the words,” cried Henry, “which you made;
For Adeline is half a poetess,”
Turning round to the rest, he smiling said.
Of course the others could not but express
In courtesy their wish to see displayed
By one three talents, for there were no less—
The voice, the words, the harper's skill, at once
Could hardly be united by a dunce.

518

40

After some fascinating hesitation,—
The charming of these charmers, who seem bound,
I can't tell why, to this dissimulation,—
Fair Adeline, with eyes fixed on the ground
At first, then kindling into animation,
Added her sweet voice to the lyric sound,
And sang with much simplicity,—a merit
Not the less precious, that we seldom hear it.

1

Beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
Who sitteth by Norman stone,
For he mutters his prayer in the midnight air,
And his mass of the days that are gone.
When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville,
Made Norman Church his prey,
And expelled the friars, one friar still
Would not be driven away.

2

Though he came in his might, with King Henry's right,
To turn church lands to lay,
With sword in hand, and torch to light
Their walls, if they said nay,
A monk remained, unchased, unchained,
And he did not seem formed of clay,
For he's seen in the porch, and he's seen in the church,
Though he is not seen by day.

519

3

And whether for good, or whether for ill,
It is not mine to say;
But still to the house of Amundeville
He abideth night and day.
By the marriage bed of their lords, 'tis said,
He flits on the bridal eve;
And 'tis held as faith, to their bed of death,
He comes—but not to grieve.

4

When an heir is born, he is heard to mourn,
And when aught is to befall
That ancient line, in the pale moonshine
He walks from hall to hall.
His form you may trace, but not his face,
'Tis shadowed by his cowl;
But his eyes may be seen from the folds between,
And they seem of a parted soul.

520

5

But beware! beware! of the Black Friar,
He still retains his sway,
For he is yet the church's heir
Who ever may be the lay.
Amundeville is lord by day,
But the monk is lord by night.
Nor wine nor wassail could raise a vassal
To question that friar's right.

6

Say nought to him as he walks the hall,
And he'll say nought to you;
He sweeps along in his dusky pall,
As o'er the grass the dew.
Then Grammercy! for the Black Friar;
Heaven sain him! fair or foul,
And whatsoe'er may be his prayer,
Let ours be for his soul.

521

41

The lady's voice ceased, and the thrilling wires
Died from the touch that kindled them to sound;
And the pause followed, which when song expires,
Pervades a moment those who listen round;
And then of course the circle much admires,
Nor less applauds as in politeness bound,
The tones, the feeling, and the execution,
To the performer's diffident confusion.

42

Fair Adeline, though in a careless way,
As if she rated such accomplishment
As the mere pastime of an idle day,
Pursued an instant for her own content,
Would now and then as 'twere without display,
Yet with display in fact, at times relent
To such performances with haughty smile,
To show she could, if it were worth her while.

522

43

Now this (but we will whisper it aside)
Was—pardon the pedantic illustration—
Trampling on Plato's pride with greater pride,
As did the Cynic on some like occasion;
Deeming the sage would be much mortified,
Or thrown into a philosophic passion,
For a spoilt carpet—but the “Attic Bee”
Was much consoled by his own repartee.

44

Thus Adeline would throw into the shade,
(By doing easily whene'er she chose,
What dilettanti do with vast parade)
Their sort of half profession: for it grows
To something like this when too oft displayed,
And that it is so, every body knows,
Who have heard Miss That or This, or Lady T'other,
Show off—to please their company or mother.

523

45

Oh! the long evenings of duets and trios!
The admirations and the speculations;
The “Mamma Mia's!” and the “Amor Mio's!”
The “Tanti palpiti's” on such occasions:
The “Lasciami's,” and quavering “Addio's!”
Amongst our own most musical of nations;
With “Tu mi chamas's” from Portingale,
To soothe our ears, lest Italy should fail.

46

In Babylon's bravuras—as the home
Heart-ballads of Green Erin or Grey Highlands,
That brings Lochaber back to eyes that roam
O'er far Atlantic continents or islands,
The calentures of music which o'ercome
All mountaineers with dreams that they are nigh lands,
No more to be beheld but in such visions,—
Was Adeline well versed, as compositions.

524

47

She also had a twilight tinge of “Blue,”
Could write rhymes, and compose more than she wrote;
Made epigrams occasionally too
Upon her friends, as every body ought.
But still from that sublimer azure hue,
So much the present dye, she was remote,
Was weak enough to deem Pope a great poet,
And what was worse, was not ashamed to show it.

48

Aurora—since we are touching upon taste,
Which now-a-days is the thermometer
By whose degrees all characters are classed—
Was more Shakespearian, if I do not err.
The worlds beyond this world's perplexing waste
Had more of her existence, for in her
There was a depth of feeling to embrace
Thoughts, boundless, deep, but silent too as Space.

525

49

Not so her gracious, graceful, graceless Grace,
The full grown Hebe of Fitz-Fulke, whose mind,
If she had any, was upon her face,
And that was of a fascinating kind.
A little turn for mischief you might trace
Also thereon,—but that's not much; we find
Few females without some such gentle leaven,
For fear we should suppose us quite in heaven.

50

I have not heard she was at all poetic,
Though once she was seen reading the “Bath Guide,”
And “Hayley's Triumphs,” which she deemed pathetic,
Because, she said, her temper had been tried
So much, the bard had really been prophetic
Of what she had gone through with,—since a bride.
But of all verse, what most insured her praise
Were sonnets to herself, or “Bouts rimés.”

526

51

'Twere difficult to say what was the object
Of Adeline, in bringing this same lay
To bear on what appeared to her the subject
Of Juan's nervous feelings on that day.
Perhaps she merely had the simple project
To laugh him out of his supposed dismay;
Perhaps she might wish to confirm him in it,
Though why I cannot say—at least this minute.

52

But so far the immediate effect
Was to restore him to his self propriety,
A thing quite necessary to the elect,
Who wish to take the tone of their society:
In which you cannot be too circumspect,
Whether the mode be persiflage or piety,
But wear the newest mantle of hypocrisy,
On pain of much displeasing the Gynocrasy.

53

And therefore Juan now began to rally
His spirits, and without more explanation,
To jest upon such themes in many a sally.
Her Grace too also seized the same occasion,
With various similar remarks to tally,
But wished for a still more detailed narration

527

Of this same mystic Friar's curious doings,
About the present family's deaths and wooings.

54

Of these few could say more than has been said;
They passed as such things do, for superstition
With some, while others, who had more in dread
The theme, half credited the strange tradition;
And much was talked on all sides on that head;
But Juan, when cross-questioned on the vision,
Which some supposed (though he had not avowed it)
Had stirred him, answered in a way to cloud it.

55

And then, the mid-day having worn to one,
The company prepared to separate;
Some to their several pastimes, or to none,
Some wondering 'twas so early, some so late.
There was a goodly match too, to be run
Between some greyhounds on my Lord's estate,
And a young race-horse of old pedigree,
Matched for the spring, whom several went to see.

528

56

There was a picture dealer who had brought
A special Titian, warranted original,
So precious that it was not to be bought,
Though princes the possessor were besieging all.
The king himself had cheapened it, but thought
The Civil List (he deigns to accept, obliging all
His subjects by his gracious acceptation)
Too scanty, in these times of low taxation.

57

But as Lord Henry was a connoisseur,—
The friend of artists, if not arts,—the owner,
With motives the most classical and pure,
So that he would have been the very donor,
Rather than seller, had his wants been fewer,
So much he deemed his patronage an honour,
Had brought the Capo d'opera, not for sale,
But for his judgment,—never known to fail.

529

58

There was a modern Goth, I mean a Gothic
Bricklayer of Babel, called an architect,
Brought to survey these grey walls, which though so thick,
Might have from time acquired some slight defect;
Who, after rummaging the Abbey through thick
And thin, produced a plan whereby to erect
New buildings of correctest conformation,
And throw down old, which he called restoration.

59

The cost would be a trifle—an “old song”
Set to some thousands ('tis the usual burthen
Of that same tune, when people hum it long)—
The price would speedily repay its worth in
An edifice no less sublime than strong,
By which Lord Henry's good taste would go forth in
Its glory, through all ages shining sunny,
For Gothic daring shown in English money.

530

60

There were two lawyers busy on a mortgage
Lord Henry wished to raise for a new purchase;
Also a lawsuit upon tenures burgage,
And one on tithes, which sure are Discord's torches,
Kindling Religion till she throws down her gage,
“Untying” squires “to fight against the churches”;
There was a prize ox, a prize pig, and ploughman,
For Henry was a sort of Sabine showman.

61

There were two poachers caught in a steel trap
Ready for jail, their place of convalescence;
There was a country girl in a close cap
And scarlet cloak (I hate the sight to see, since—
Since—since—in youth, I had the sad mishap—
But luckily I have paid few parish fees since)
That scarlet cloak, alas! unclosed with Rigour,
Presents the problem of a double figure.

531

62

A reel within a bottle is a mystery,
One can't tell how it e'er got in or out,
Therefore the present piece of natural history,
I leave to those who are fond of solving doubt,
And merely state, though not for the consistory,
Lord Henry was a justice, and that Scout
The constable, beneath a warrant's banner,
Had bagged this poacher upon Nature's manor.

63

Now Justices of Peace must judge all pieces
Of mischief of all kinds, and keep the game
And morals of the country from caprices
Of those who have not a licence for the same;
And of all things, excepting tithes and leases,
Perhaps these are most difficult to tame:
Preserving partridges and pretty wenches
Are puzzles to the most precautious benches.

532

64

The present culprit was extremely pale,
Pale as if painted so; her cheek being red
By nature, as in higher dames less hale
'Tis white, at least when they just rise from bed.
Perhaps she was ashamed of seeming frail,
Poor soul! for she was country born and bred,
And knew no better in her immorality
Than to wax white—for blushes are for quality.

65

Her black, bright, downcast, yet espiegle eye,
Had gathered a large tear into its corner,
Which the poor thing at times essayed to dry,
For she was not a sentimental mourner,
Parading all her sensibility,
Nor insolent enough to scorn the scorner,
But stood in trembling, patient tribulation,
To be called up for her examination.

533

66

Of course these groups were scattered here and there,
Not nigh the gay saloon of ladies gent.
The lawyers in the study; and in air
The prize pig, ploughman, poachers; the men sent
From town, viz. architect and dealer, were
Both busy (as a general in his tent
Writing dispatches) in their several stations,
Exulting in their brilliant lucubrations.

67

But this poor girl was left in the great hall,
While Scout, the parish guardian of the frail,
Discussed (he hated beer yclept the “small”)
A mighty mug of moral double ale:
She waited until Justice could recall
Its kind attentions to their proper pale,
To name a thing in nomenclature rather
Perplexing for most virgins—a child's father.

534

68

You see here was enough of occupation
For the Lord Henry, linked with dogs and horses.
There was much bustle too and preparation
Below stairs on the score of second courses,
Because, as suits their rank and situation,
Those who in counties have great land resources,
Have “public days,” when all men may carouse,
Though not exactly what's called “open house.”

69

But once a week or fortnight, uninvited
(Thus we translate a general invitation)
All country gentlemen, esquired or knighted,
May drop in without cards, and take their station
At the full board, and sit alike delighted
With fashionable wines and conversation;
And as the Isthmus of the grand connection,
Talk o'er themselves, the past and next election.

70

Lord Henry was a great electioneerer,
Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit.
But county contests cost him rather dearer,
Because the neighbouring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit
Had English influence, in the self-same sphere here;
His son, the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit,

535

Was member for the “other Interest” (meaning
The same self-interest, with a different leaning).

71

Courteous and cautious therefore in his county,
He was all things to all men, and dispensed
To some civility, to others bounty,
And promises to all—which last commenced
To gather to a somewhat large amount, he
Not calculating how much they condensed;
But what with keeping some, and breaking others,
His word had the same value as another's.

72

A friend to freedom and freeholders—yet
No less a friend to government—he held,
That he exactly the just medium hit
'Twixt place and patriotism—albeit compelled,
Such was his Sovereign's pleasure (though unfit,
He added modestly, when rebels railed)
To hold some sinecures he wished abolished,
But that with them all law would be demolished.

536

73

He was “free to confess”—(whence comes this phrase?
Is't English? No—'tis only parliamentary)
That innovation's spirit now-a-days
Had made more progress than for the last century.
He would not tread a factious path to praise,
Though for the public weal disposed to venture high;
As for his place, he could but say this of it,
That the fatigue was greater than the profit.

74

Heaven, and his friends, knew that a private life
Had ever been his sole and whole ambition;
But could he quit his king in times of strife
Which threatened the whole country with perdition?
When demagogues would with a butcher's knife
Cut through and through (oh! damnable incision!)
The Gordian or the Geordi-an knot, whose strings
Have tied together Commons, Lords, and Kings.

75

Sooner “come place into the civil list
And champion him to the utmost”—he would keep it,
Till duly disappointed or dismissed:
Profit he cared not for, let others reap it;

537

But should the day come when place ceased to exist,
The country would have far more cause to weep it;
For how could it go on? Explain who can!
He gloried in the name of Englishman.

76

He was as independent—aye, much more—
Than those who were not paid for independence,
As common soldiers, or a common—Shore,
Have in their several arts or parts ascendence
O'er the irregulars in lust or gore,
Who do not give professional attendance.
Thus on the mob all statesmen are as eager
To prove their pride, as footmen to a beggar.

538

77

All this (save the last stanza) Henry said,
And thought. I say no more—I've said too much;
For all of us have either heard or read—
Off—or upon the hustings—some slight such
Hints from the independent heart or head
Of the official candidate. I'll touch
No more on this—the dinner bell hath rung,
And grace is said; the grace I should have sung—

78

But I'm too late, and therefore must make play.
'Twas a great banquet, such as Albion old
Was wont to boast—as if a glutton's tray
Were something very glorious to behold.
But 'twas a public feast and public day,—
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer,
And every body out of their own sphere.

79

The squires familiarly formal, and
My lords and ladies proudly condescending;
The very servants puzzling how to hand
Their plates—without it might be too much bending

539

From their high places by the sideboard's stand—
Yet like their masters fearful of offending.
For any deviation from the graces
Might cost both men and master too—their places.

80

There were some hunters bold, and coursers keen,
Whose hounds ne'er erred, nor greyhounds deigned to lurch;
Some deadly shots too, Septembrizers, seen
Earliest to rise, and last to quit the search
Of the poor partridge through his stubble screen.
There were some massy members of the church,
Takers of tithes, and makers of good matches,
And several who sung fewer psalms than catches.

81

There were some country wags too,—and, alas!
Some exiles from the town, who had been driven
To gaze, instead of pavement, upon grass,
And rise at nine in lieu of long eleven.
And lo! upon that day it came to pass,
I sate next that o'erwhelming son of heaven,
The very powerful Parson, Peter Pith,
The loudest wit I e'er was deafened with.

540

82

I knew him in his livelier London days,
A brilliant diner out, though but a curate;
And not a joke he cut but earned its praise,
Until preferment, coming at a sure rate,
(Oh, Providence! how wondrous are thy ways,
Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?)
Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln,
A fat fen vicarage, and nought to think on.

83

His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;
But both were thrown away amongst the fens;
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.
No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
Imbibed the gay bon mot, or happy hoax:
The poor priest was reduced to common sense,
Or to coarse efforts very loud and long,
To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng.

541

84

There is a difference, says the song, “between
A beggar and a queen,” or was (of late
The latter worse used of the two we've seen—
But we'll say nothing of affairs of state)
A difference “'twixt a bishop and a dean,”
A difference between crockery ware and plate,
As between English beef and Spartan broth—
And yet great heroes have been bred by both.

85

But of all nature's discrepancies, none
Upon the whole is greater than the difference
Beheld between the country and the town,
Of which the latter merits every preference
From those who have few resources of their own,
And only think, or act, or feel with reference
To some small plan of interest or ambition—
Both which are limited to no condition.

542

86

But “en avant!” The light loves languish o'er
Long banquets and too many guests, although
A slight repast makes people love much more,
Bacchus and Ceres being, as we know,
Even from our grammar upwards, friends of yore
With vivifying Venus, who doth owe
To these the invention of champagne and truffles:
Temperance delights her, but long fasting ruffles.

87

Dully past o'er the dinner of the day;
And Juan took his place, he knew not where,
Confused, in the confusion, and distrait,
And sitting as if nailed upon his chair;
Though knives and forks clanged round as in a fray,
He seemed unconscious of all passing there,
Till some one, with a groan, exprest a wish
(Unheeded twice) to have a fin of fish.

88

On which, at the third asking of the banns,
He started; and perceiving smiles around
Broadening to grins, he coloured more than once,
And hastily—as nothing can confound
A wise man more than laughter from a dunce—
Inflicted on the dish a deadly wound,

543

And with such hurry, that ere he could curb it,
He had paid his neighbour's prayer with half a turbot.

89

This was no bad mistake, as it occurred,
The supplicator being an amateur;
But others, who were left with scarce a third,
Were angry—as they well might, to be sure.
They wondered how a young man so absurd
Lord Henry at his table should endure;
And this, and his not knowing how much oats
Had fallen last market, cost his host three votes.

90

They little knew, or might have sympathised,
That he the night before had seen a ghost;
A prologue which but slightly harmonised
With the substantial company engrossed
By Matter, and so much materialised,
That one scarce knew at what to marvel most
Of two things—how (the question rather odd is)
Such bodies could have souls, or souls such bodies.

544

91

But what confused him more than smile or stare
From all the 'squires and 'squiresses around,
Who wondered at the abstraction of his air,
Especially as he had been renowned
For some vivacity among the fair,
Even in the country circle's narrow bound—
(For little things upon my Lord's estate
Were good small-talk for others still less great)—

92

Was, that he caught Aurora's eye on his,
And something like a smile upon her cheek.
Now this he really rather took amiss:
In those who rarely smile, their smiles bespeak
A strong external motive; and in this
Smile of Aurora's there was nought to pique
Or hope, or love, with any of the wiles
Which some pretend to trace in ladies' smiles.

545

93

'Twas a mere quiet smile of contemplation,
Indicative of some surprise and pity;
And Juan grew carnation with vexation,
Which was not very wise and still less witty,
Since he had gained at least her observation,
A most important outwork of the city—
As Juan should have known, had not his senses
By last night's ghost been driven from their defences.

94

But what was bad, she did not blush in turn,
Nor seem embarrassed—quite the contrary;
Her aspect was as usual, still—not stern—
And she withdrew, but cast not down, her eye,
Yet grew a little pale—with what? concern?
I know not; but her colour ne'er was high—
Though sometimes faintly flushed—and always clear,
As deep seas in a Sunny Atmosphere.

546

95

But Adeline was occupied by fame
This day; and watching, witching, condescending
To the consumers of fish, fowl and game,
And dignity with courtesy so blending,
As all must blend whose part it is to aim
(Especially as the sixth year is ending)
At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's
Safe conduct through the rocks of re-elections.

96

Though this was most expedient on the whole,
And usual—Juan, when he cast a glance
On Adeline while playing her grand role,
Which she went through as though it were a dance,
(Betraying only now and then her soul
By a look scarce perceptibly askance
Of weariness or scorn) began to feel
Some doubt how much of Adeline was real;

547

97

So well she acted, all and every part
By turns—with that vivacious versatility,
Which many people take for want of heart.
They err—'tis merely what is called mobility,
A thing of temperament and not of art,
Though seeming so, from its supposed facility;
And false—though true; for surely they're sincerest,
Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest.

98

This makes your actors, artists, and romancers,
Heroes sometimes, though seldom—sages never;
But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers,
Little that's great, but much of what is clever;
Most orators, but very few financiers,
Though all Exchequer Chancellors endeavour,
Of late years, to dispense with Cocker's rigours,
And grow quite figurative with their figures.

548

99

The poets of arithmetic are they
Who, though they prove not two and two to be
Five, as they might do in a modest way,
Have plainly made it out that four are three,
Judging by what they take, and what they pay.
The Sinking Fund's unfathomable sea,
That most unliquidating liquid, leaves
The debt unsunk, yet sinks all it receives.

100

While Adeline dispensed her airs and graces,
The fair Fitz-Fulke seemed very much at ease;
Though too well bred to quiz men to their faces,
Her laughing blue eyes with a glance could seize
The ridicules of people in all places—
That honey of your fashionable bees—
And store it up for mischievous enjoyment;
And this at present was her kind employment.

549

101

However, the day closed, as days must close;
The evening also waned—and coffee came.
Each carriage was announced, and ladies rose,
And curtseying off, as curtsies country dame,
Retired: with most unfashionable bows
Their docile esquires also did the same,
Delighted with the dinner and their host,
But with the Lady Adeline the most.

550

102

Some praised her beauty; others her great grace;
The warmth of her politeness, whose sincerity
Was obvious in each feature of her face,
Whose traits were radiant with the rays of verity.
Yes; she was truly worthy her high place!
No one could envy her deserved prosperity;
And then her dress—what beautiful simplicity
Draperied her form with curious felicity!

103

Meanwhile sweet Adeline deserved their praises,
By an impartial indemnification
For all her past exertion and soft phrases,
In a most edifying conversation,
Which turned upon their late guests' miens and faces,
And families, even to the last relation;
Their hideous wives, their horrid selves and dresses,
And truculent distortion of their tresses.

552

104

True, she said little—'twas the rest that broke
Forth into universal epigram;
But then 'twas to the purpose what she spoke:
Like Addison's “faint praise,” so wont to damn,
Her own but served to set off every joke,
As music chimes in with a melodrame.
How sweet the task to shield an absent friend!
I ask but this of mine, to—not defend.

105

There were but two exceptions to this keen
Skirmish of wits o'er the departed; one,
Aurora, with her pure and placid mien;
And Juan too, in general behind none
In gay remark on what he had heard or seen,
Sate silent now, his usual spirits gone:
In vain he heard the others rail or rally,
He would not join them in a single sally.

553

106

'Tis true he saw Aurora look as though
She approved his silence; she perhaps mistook
Its motive for that charity we owe
But seldom pay the absent, nor would look
Further; it might or it might not be so.
But Juan, sitting silent in his nook,
Observing little in his reverie,
Yet saw this much, which he was glad to see.

107

The ghost at least had done him this much good,
In making him as silent as a ghost,
If in the circumstances which ensued
He gained esteem where it was worth the most.
And certainly Aurora had renewed
In him some feelings he had lately lost
Or hardened; feelings which, perhaps ideal,
Are so divine, that I must deem them real:—

554

108

The love of higher things and better days;
The unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance
Of what is called the world, and the world's ways;
The moments when we gather from a glance
More joy than from all future pride or praise,
Which kindle manhood, but can ne'er entrance
The heart in an existence of its own,
Of which another's bosom is the zone.

109

Who would not sigh Αι αι ταν Κυθερειαν!
That hath a memory, or that had a heart?
Alas! her star must wane like that of Dian;
Ray fades on ray, as years on years depart.
Anacreon only had the soul to tie an
Unwithering myrtle round the unblunted dart
Of Eros; but though thou hast played us many tricks,
Still we respect thee, “Alma Venus Genetrix”!

555

110

And full of sentiments, sublime as billows
Heaving between this world and worlds beyond,
Don Juan, when the midnight hour of pillows
Arrived, retired to his; but to despond
Rather than rest. Instead of poppies, willows
Waved o'er his couch; he meditated, fond
Of those sweet bitter thoughts which banish sleep,
And make the worldling sneer, the youngling weep.

111

The night was as before: he was undrest,
Saving his night gown, which is an undress;
Completely “sans culotte,” and without vest;
In short, he hardly could be clothed with less;
But apprehensive of his spectral guest,
He sate, with feelings awkward to express,
(By those who have not had such visitations)
Expectant of the ghost's fresh operations.

556

112

And not in vain he listened—Hush! what's that?
I see—I see—Ah, no!—'tis not—yet 'tis—
Ye powers! it is the—the—the—Pooh! the cat!
The devil may take that stealthy pace of his!
So like a spiritual pit-a-pat,
Or tiptoe of an amatory Miss,
Gliding the first time to a rendezvous,
And dreading the chaste echoes of her shoe.

113

Again—what is't? The wind? No, no,—this time
It is the sable Friar as before,
With awful footsteps regular as rhyme,
Or (as rhymes may be in these days) much more.
Again, through shadows of the night sublime,
When deep sleep fell on men, and the world wore
The starry darkness round her like a girdle
Spangled with gems—the monk made his blood curdle.

114

A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glass,
Which sets the teeth on edge; and a slight clatter
Like showers which on the midnight gusts will pass,
Sounding like very supernatural water,
Came over Juan's ear, which throbbed, alas!
For immaterialism's a serious matter;
So that even those whose faith is the most great
In souls immortal, shun them tête-à-tête.

557

115

Were his eyes open?—Yes! and his mouth too.
Surprise has this effect—to make one dumb,
Yet leave the gate which Eloquence slips through
As wide as if a long speech were to come.
Nigh and more nigh the awful echoes drew,
Tremendous to a mortal tympanum:
His eyes were open, and (as was before
Stated) his mouth. What opened next?—the door.

116

It opened with a most infernal creak,
Like that of Hell. “Lasciate ogni speranza
Voi che entrate!” The hinge seemed to speak,
Dreadful as Dante's rhima, or this stanza;
Or—but all words upon such themes are weak;
A single shade's sufficient to entrance a
Hero—for what is substance to a Spirit?
Or how is't matter trembles to come near it?

558

117

The door flew wide, not swiftly—but, as fly
The sea-gulls, with a steady, sober flight—
And then swung back; nor close—but stood awry,
Half letting in long shadows on the light,
Which still in Juan's candlesticks burned high,
For he had two, both tolerably bright,
And in the door-way, darkening Darkness, stood
The sable Friar in his solemn hood.

118

Don Juan shook, as erst he had been shaken
The night before; but being sick of shaking,
He first inclined to think he had been mistaken,
And then to be ashamed of such mistaking;
His own internal ghost began to awaken
Within him, and to quell his corporal quaking—
Hinting that soul and body on the whole
Were odds against a disembodied soul.

559

119

And then his dread grew wrath, and his wrath fierce;
And he arose, advanced—the shade retreated;
But Juan, eager now the truth to pierce,
Followed, his veins no longer cold, but heated,
Resolved to thrust the mystery carte and tierce,
At whatsoever risk of being defeated:
The ghost stopped, menaced, then retired, until
He reached the ancient wall, then stood stone still.

120

Juan put forth one arm—Eternal Powers!
It touched no soul, nor body, but the wall,
On which the moonbeams fell in silvery showers
Checquered with all the tracery of the hall;
He shuddered, as no doubt the bravest cowers
When he can't tell what 'tis that doth appal.
How odd, a single hobgoblin's non-entity
Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity!

560

121

But still the shade remained; the blue eyes glared,
And rather variably for stony death;
Yet one thing rather good the grave had spared,
The ghost had a remarkably sweet breath.
A straggling curl showed he had been fair-haired;
A red lip, with two rows of pearls beneath,
Gleamed forth, as through the casement's ivy shroud
The moon peeped, just escaped from a grey cloud.

122

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious, thrust
His other arm forth—Wonder upon wonder!
It pressed upon a hard but glowing bust,
Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.
He found, as people on most trials must,
That he had made at first a silly blunder,
And that in his confusion he had caught
Only the wall, instead of what he sought.

561

123

The ghost, if ghost it were, seemed a sweet soul
As ever lurked beneath a holy hood:
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole
Forth into something much like flesh and blood;
Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl,
And they revealed—alas! that ere they should!
In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk,
The phantom of her frolic Grace—Fitz-Fulke!

562

Canto XVII

1

The world is full of orphans: firstly, those
Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase;
But many a lonely tree the loftier grows
Than others crowded in the Forest's maze—
The next are such as are not doomed to lose
Their tender parents, in their budding days,
But, merely, their parental tenderness,
Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less.

563

2

The next are “only Children,” as they are styled,
Who grow up Children only, since the old saw
Pronounces that an “only” 's a spoilt child—
But not to go too far, I hold it law,
That where their education, harsh or mild,
Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe,
The sufferers—be't in heart or intellect—
Whate'er the cause, are orphans in effect.

3

But to return unto the stricter rule—
As far as words make rules—our common notion
Of orphans paints at once a parish school,
A half-starved babe, a wreck upon Life's ocean,
A human (what the Italians nickname) “Mule!”
A theme for Pity or some worse emotion;
Yet, if examined, it might be admitted
The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied.

564

4

Too soon they are parents to themselves: for what
Are Tutors, Guardians, and so forth, compared
With Nature's genial Genitors? so that
A child of Chancery, that Star-Chamber ward,
(I'll take the likeness I can first come at),
Is like—a duckling by Dame Partlett reared,
And frights—especially if 'tis a daughter,
The old Hen—by running headlong to the water.

5

There is a common-place book argument,
Which glibly glides from every vulgar tongue;
When any dare a new light to present,
“If you are right, then everybody's wrong!”
Suppose the converse of this precedent
So often urged, so loudly and so long;
“If you are wrong, then everybody's right!”
Was ever everybody yet so quite?

6

Therefore I would solicit free discussion
Upon all points—no matter what, or whose—
Because as Ages upon Ages push on,
The last is apt the former to accuse

565

Of pillowing its head on a pin-cushion,
Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse:
What was a paradox becomes a truth or
A something like it—as bear witness Luther!

7

The Sacraments have been reduced to two,
And Witches unto none, though somewhat late
Since burning agéd women (save a few—
Not witches only b---ches—who create
Mischief in families, as some know or knew,
Should still be singed, but slightly, let me state),
Has been declared an act of inurbanity,
Malgré Sir Matthew Hales's great humanity.

8

Great Galileo was debarred the Sun,
Because he fixed it; and, to stop his talking,
How Earth could round the solar orbit run,
Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking:
The man was well-nigh dead, ere men begun
To think his skull had not some need of caulking;
But now, it seems, he's right—his notion just:
No doubt a consolation to his dust.

566

9

Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each, was deemed a Bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages:
This they must bear with and, perhaps, much more;
The wise man's sure when he no more can share it, he
Will have a firm Post Obit on posterity.

10

If such doom waits each intellectual Giant,
We little people in our lesser way,
To Life's small rubs should surely be more pliant,
And so for one will I—as well I may—
Would that I were less bilious—but, oh, fie on't!
Just as I make my mind up every day,
To be a “totus, teres,” Stoic, Sage,
The wind shifts and I fly into a rage.

567

11

Temperate I am—yet never had a temper;
Modest I am—yet with some slight assurance;
Changeable too—yet somehow “Idem semper”:
Patient—but not enamoured of endurance;
Cheerful—but, sometimes, rather apt to whimper:
Mild—but at times a sort of “Hercules furens”:
So that I almost think that the same skin
For one without—has two or three within.

12

Our Hero was, in Canto the Sixteenth,
Left in a tender moonlight situation,
Such as enables Man to show his strength
Moral or physical: on this occasion
Whether his virtue triumphed—or, at length,
His vice—for he was of a kindling nation—
Is more than I shall venture to describe;—
Unless some Beauty with a kiss should bribe.

568

13

I leave the thing a problem, like all things:—
The morning came—and breakfast, tea and toast,
Of which most men partake, but no one sings.
The company whose birth, wealth, worth, have cost
My trembling Lyre already several strings,
Assembled with our hostess, and mine host;
The guests dropped in—the last but one, Her Grace,
The latest, Juan, with his virgin face.

14

Which best is to encounter—Ghost, or none,
'Twere difficult to say—but Juan looked
As if he had combated with more than one,
Being wan and worn, with eyes that hardly brooked
The light, that through the Gothic windows shone:
Her Grace, too, had a sort of air rebuked—
Seemed pale and shivered, as if she had kept
A vigil, or dreamt rather more than slept.

[_]

Beneath this stanza Byron wrote the number “15” but nothing more.